Pittsburgh Jewish Chronicle 8-4-23

JUSTICE

New Torah dedicated in honor of Joyce and Stephen Fienberg

Pittsburgh synagogue shooter Robert Bowers will be sentenced to die.

After deliberating for about 11 hours, a federal jury imposed the death penalty on the killer for each of the 22 capital offenses he faced.

The jury reached its verdict on day 36 of the trial and nearly five years after the shooter rampaged through the Tree of Life building on Shabbat with an AR-15 and slaughtered 11 members of the Pittsburgh Jewish

in U.S. history.

Bowers is only the fourth federal defendant in the history of the Western District of Pennsylvania to face the death penalty and the only one sentenced to die.

U.S. District Judge Robert Colville said he would formally sentence him on Thursday.

The jury rejected the 115 mitigating factors the defense team offered as reasons the convicted killer should be sentenced to life in prison rather than death.

For more than a month during the penalty phases of the trial, jurors heard and saw graphic details, including 911 calls and crime scene photos. They also heard from victims and victims’ family members who offered glimpses into how their lives had changed since the mass shooting on Oct. 27, 2018.

Those testifying included not only Pittsburgh Jewish community members, but also first responders injured during gun

Dueling doctors also took the stand. Defense expert witnesses claimed the shooter suffered from epilepsy, schizophrenia and had various brain injuries. That, combined with an early life of neglect and alleged abuse, they argued, should disqualify him from receiving the death penalty.

Prosecution expert witnesses argued that there was no proof that the shooter suffered from a mental illness. They said his meticulous planning and his measured reactions during the shooting proved that he was capable of planning the attack, understanding his actions and grasping their impact.

The government cited the shooter’s long history of antisemitism, arguing that his belief system was not the result of delusions

By David Rullo | Staff Writer

Aparade of hundreds marched down Murray Avenue in Squirrel Hill on Sunday to celebrate the Jewish community’s newest Torah.

The procession began on the corner of Murray Avenue and Beacon Street and made its way to Shaare Torah Congregation, where the scroll will be housed.

The Torah was sponsored by Anthony

p Anthony Fienberg and his son Adam embrace as Anthony carries the new Torah dedicated to his parents Joyce Fienberg and Dr. Stephen Fienberg.

Photo by Alexandra Wimley, Pittsburgh Union Progress

p Survivors and family members of victims gather at the podium for a press conference at the Jewish Community Center in Squirrel Hill on Aug. 2 after a jury decided that the Pittsburgh synagogue shooter will receive the death penalty for killing 11 people at the Tree of Life building on Oct. 27, 2018.

Photo by Alexandra Wimley/Pittsburgh Union Progress

Adobe Stock detshana

Headlines

Building community, helping neighbors, still central as Repair the World Pittsburgh turns 10

By Adam Reinherz | Staff Writer

Ten years in Pittsburgh have resulted in thousands of weeds pulled, liters of blood donated and items of clothing donated. As Repair the World Pittsburgh marks its 10th anniversary, those involved with the service organization looked back on its ability to build community and advance its members’ growth.

Jodi Salant moved to Pittsburgh in 2013 to participate in the organization’s first cohort. Through her work as a full-time fellow, Salant aided local nonprofits, including Catapult Greater Pittsburgh (formerly Circles Greater Pittsburgh), an organization committed to economic justice and equitability.

Ten years later, Salant, 32, is Catapult’s director of innovation and growth.

“Repair gave me professional connections and professional experience that led to my current role,” she said.

As much as Salant has grown during the past decade, Repair has too, she said.

The organization is a powerful vehicle for the Jewish community and Pittsburgh’s young Jews, Salant noted. Through its focus on empowering local service organizations, Repair is helping “build community in Pittsburgh.”

Jules Mallis, Repair’s executive director, credited Annie Dunn, a senior program associate at the organization, with bolstering those relationships.

Throughout the fall and spring, Dunn is responsible for “supporting 14 service partners by pairing 36 immersive service volunteers to complete direct service of five to 10 hours per week,” Mallis said.

Pairing individuals with local nonprofits — to help the latter fulfill their missions — is one means of boosting Pittsburgh. Bringing young people together is another. In honor of Lag Ba’Omer, a minor Jewish holiday typically celebrated with outdoor gatherings, RTW teamed up with Kesher Pittsburgh and PJ Library to host familyfriendly garden games and a bonfire at the Sheridan Avenue Orchard and Garden. Participants enjoyed pizza, roasted kosher vegan marshmallows and heard a story about the springtime holiday.

Michael Kirshenbaum, 33, said he often attends Repair gatherings.

Whether it’s different volunteer projects or gardening at the Sheridan Avenue Orchard, Repair events serve a vital need, he said.

“Repair is a good place to volunteer and connect with people of the community — Jews and non-Jews — to get together, and connect, and volunteer and achieve a greater goal at hand.”

Caleb LaBelle, 31, agreed, and said the

organization has been a space to enjoy Shabbat and holiday dinners, as well as a mechanism for volunteering.

“It’s fun to get out and see and talk to different people in the community that you may not see on a regular basis,” LaBelle said.

Weeks ago, LaBelle attended a Repairhosted clothing swap at Trace Brewing in Bloomfield. The program resulted in more than 1,200 items either swapped or donated to True T Pittsburgh, a community arts and wellness center dedicated to supporting Pittsburgh’s LGBTQ+ community.

Whatever the event, LaBelle said, Repair finds a way to bring its “values into a community setting.”

“Repair is a community-first organization that’s there for members across many different demographics, and there to help in the community in any way,” he said.

What’s also great about Repair, LaBelle continued, is that the organization is driven by Jewish roots.

Since its national founding in 2009 — Pittsburgh’s branch was launched four years later — Repair has worked to “make volunteer service a defining element of American Jewish life,” according to the organization. As a result, thousands of young adults have engaged in “meaningful service opportunities infused with Jewish values and learning that help make the world a better place.”

Sarah E. Scherk was drawn to that mission eight years ago. At the time, she was living in Southern California.

She decided to undertake a Repair fellowship in Pittsburgh in 2015 and has called the city home ever since.

“Repair the World brought me to Pittsburgh and forced me to focus on relationship-building,” Scherk said. “Through the volunteer work, event planning, networking and getting me out into the Jewish community, that’s how I started to build the relationships that made me want

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p Participants enjoy pizza and a Lag Ba'Omer program with Repair the World Pittsburgh. Photo courtesy of Repair the World Pittsburgh

p Volunteers undertake seed-starting and sign painting to benefit the Sheridan Avenue Orchard and Garden.

Photo courtesy of Repair the World Pittsburgh

This Holocaust survivor built a life in Pittsburgh. Now he’s turning 100

— LOCAL —

By Abigail Hakas | Staff Writer

Harry Drucker had just turned 16 when the Nazis invaded his small town of Iwonicz in Poland. When the soldiers came to his house, they gave him and his family a half-hour to leave. Drucker remembers taking whatever he could carry. “Not much,” he said.

At first glance, Drucker seems to live an unburdened life at Beacon Place in Squirrel Hill. He offered candy, posed for pictures and endured slight teasing for his tendency to not smile in photos.

His daughter, Jean Reznick, encouraged him to think of his great-granddaughter Lily, someone who always makes him smile. He apologized for his shaking hands, which worsened as he described some of the most horrific parts of his life in Europe.

After the soldiers forced him and his family out of their home, the Druckers walked an hour and a half to Rymanów, a nearby town. After a couple of months, the Nazis rounded them up in the center of town and loaded people onto trucks, whipping them. It was the last time he saw his mother, father and three sisters.

He and his brother were taken to work on a highway. One day, a truck came and the soldiers on board asked if there were any tailors. Drucker was taught to sew in Krosno after the Nazi invasion forced him to stop his schooling. When he raised his hand, he was taken from his brother.

“You could not say you don’t want to go, or something like that, because ‘I want to be with my brother,’” he said. “If you would have said that, [they] probably would have said, ‘Go over to your brother, you’ll be together forever.’”

He and a few dozen other tailors were forced to work on uniforms for high-ranking Nazis in Moderowka. Their numbers dwindled — only the best tailors being kept alive — and the rest were sent to a labor camp elsewhere.

Two women tried to escape and were caught. The Nazis made an example of them and shot them. Afterward, all of the tailors were beaten by a 6-foot-8-inch man.

“He looked like a murderer, and he was. He was shooting all the Jews he wanted to shoot,” he said.

While Drucker chatted with the Chronicle, he remained composed and matter-of-fact about the horrific events of the Holocaust. When asked if it is difficult for him to relive some of the worst moments of his life, he offered a glimpse into how he coped through the years he spent struggling to survive.

“During the day, when you’re busy, you’re OK,” he said, beginning to choke up. “But at night, when you can’t sleep, it’s always there.”

His daughter offered him a tissue to wipe his tears. He insisted he did not need it but

took it anyway. He gripped it in his fist and continued telling his story without stopping to dry his face.

When the Russian troops were coming, the Nazis took Drucker and the other tailors to Slovakia where they worked out of a truck with four sewing machines, constantly on the run from the Russian soldiers.

where he was hired by a Jewish tailor who made leather coats for the Russians.

Later, he stayed with his cousin, her son Leon and Leon’s father. When Leon’s father left to get food, someone turned him in to the Germans. They killed him just four weeks before the war ended.

Drucker met with another cousin and trav-

grocery store, to kill chickens. The shochet gave Drucker’s phone number to his future wife, and she gave him her number. He kept it in his pocket for a year — until someone else also gave him her number — because he “did not really like to call.”

When he finally called, the two clicked and got married just a few months later. They were

One night, they planned an escape and found the door to their room unlocked. The group escaped into the Carpathian Mountains and met with partisans. One night, the Germans ambushed them and bombarded them with artillery.

“When we got to the other side, and then down, I could feel blood in my throat,” Drucker said, reaching for his neck and pausing to keep from sobbing. “But I endured that.”

For about 10 days, they survived off of melting snow and berries. A farmer helped them cross the frontlines to where the Russian soldiers were, and, after recovering in a hospital, Drucker was faced with the war’s unimaginable damage.

“We started to try to go home, but there was no home anymore for Jewish people,” he said.

His journey took him back to Krosno

eled with him into the American sector of Germany, trading a bottle of whiskey for a ride hiding behind barrels on a Russian soldier’s truck. He stayed in Germany for almost four years, making money by selling anything and everything he could on the black market, before his aunt and uncle helped him get papers to come to America and to Pittsburgh.

But Drucker’s story does not begin and end in a labor camp, it does not end with him escaping into the mountains, nor does it end with his arrival in Pittsburgh. He built a life for himself here.

He got a job only a few days after arriving. He spent his working years as a tailor, putting in a decade at Kaufmann’s downtown before opening his own store, H. Drucker, on Murray Avenue in Squirrel Hill.

And he met his late wife, Esther. He knew a shochet who would go to Washington County, where Esther’s stepmother had a small

together until Esther passed away during the pandemic. They had two children, four grandchildren and three great-grandchildren. He glowed describing his family, remarking on how much he missed his great-granddaughter Lily, his only great-grandchild who lives in Pittsburgh, because she was away at the beach.

He was humble about his plans for his 100th birthday on Aug. 31, saying that “whatever comes, comes,” before his daughter piped in to say that there will be a party in his building with the residents and then a party with the family.

“We lived in the darkest days in human history, and I made it,” he said. “You survive, you work and build, get married and be with family. I was lucky to do everything, and life goes on. I am 100 almost. I never believed I’d make it the next hour, but I’m here.” PJC

Abigail Hakas can be reached at ahakas@ pittsburghjewishchronicle.org.

p Jean Reznick and her father, Harry Drucker

Photo by Abigail Hakas

“We lived in the darkest days in human history, and I made it. You survive, you work and build, get married and be with family.”

–HARRY DRUCKER

A chance meeting at a Jewish singles event led this couple on a mission to combat pain

— LOCAL —

By Justin Vellucci | Special to the Chronicle

Abreakthrough in treating chronic foot pain, as well as the roots of a new Pittsburgh business, started at a wineand-cheese singles event at a Rochester, New York, shul around 20 years ago.

Jeffrey, who came from Boston, was taking part in a plastic surgery residency at the University of Rochester’s medical school. Beth, a New York native, was a podiatrist in private practice. The two met at Temple Beth El, a Conservative synagogue in upstate New York.

Sparks didn’t necessarily fly. But, four years later, the two met again.

This time, it stuck.

The couple dated for several years, married in 2010 and moved to Pittsburgh two years later.

“After we got married, we were discussing work at dinner,” said Beth Gusenoff, who lives in Shadyside and attends services at Rodef Shalom Congregation in Oakland. “I had seen a patient with terrible pain from a lack of fat on the bottom of their feet from years of standing on hard surfaces. Meanwhile, Jeff was adding fat back to areas all over the body — except the feet — by transferring one’s own fat from areas of excess to areas of need.”

“I wish you could put fat in people’s feet,” Beth quipped.

The Gusenoffs started clinical trials through UPMC to do just that. They wanted to know if inserting fat into a person’s foot could alleviate chronic pain or address chronic plantar fasciitis, a common foot affliction. In short: It showed promise, and it improved patients’ quality of life.

“Patients came to see us from all over the world after having been treated by lots of doctors, with no pain relief,” Beth Gusenoff said. “It’s not a common thing to find a plastic surgeon and a podiatrist working together.”

Many patients came to the trials, which ran for roughly 10 years, with bags filled with a variety of their inserts and shoes.

“They’d MacGyver all these pads!” Beth

As they worked alongside patients in recovery, the Gusenoffs had an idea: an anatomically designed insole that made it feel like the patient was walking on air.

Then, PopSole was born.

Jeff Gusenoff said the concept is pretty simple: “It’s almost like bubble wrap for your feet.”

PopSole is adjustable, versatile and waterproof, the Gusenoffs said. Callous on your foot bothering you? Simply “pop out” the insole’s “bubble” near the location on your foot and you have less pressure, as well as an insole that won’t further irritate the skin.

PopSoles could be particularly effective, the Gusenoffs believe, for retired athletes whose repeated pressure on the forefoot and heel

could have led to high arches.

Danielle Hildebrand understands that angle. A senior physical therapist for eight years at UPMC Lemieux Sports Complex in Cranberry, she frequently sees athletes with sore feet. She also works with dancers from the Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre.

Hildebrand said she helped the Gusenoffs create an exercise plan for patients after having the fat injected into their feet.

“I think it’s definitely a good option for patients transitioning out of a bad injury … or someone with localized pain,” she said. “You can manipulate (a PopSole) — it’s very versatile.”

The Gusenoffs’ product is also very local. They run the company, BRG Innovations LLC, out of their Shadyside home and have developed, researched and manufactured the PopSole insole in Pittsburgh.

The adjustable bubbles make the product more accommodating than the insoles typically found in a pharmacy, the Gusenoffs said.

“Sometimes you go and you take something off the shelf,” Jeffrey Gusenoff said. “You get what you get and you can’t get upset. But with this, you can customize.”

“We are passionate about educating people, healing people and keeping people active, healthy and walking comfortably,” Beth Gusenoff said. PJC

Justin Vellucci is a freelance writer living in Pittsburgh.

Purple parking zones cause problems for Squirrel Hill business owners

— LOCAL

By David Rullo | Staff Writer

Murray Avenue Kosher owner Aryeh Markovic said that he was surprised to find the curbs painted purple near his store in Squirrel Hill. Milky Way manager Aaron Siebzener said the restaurant was given no advance notice, either.

“We just saw them one day,” Siebzener said. “They put up cameras outside and, boom, they were here.”

The smart loading zones are part of a pilot program launched earlier in Oakland and downtown neighborhoods. Bloomfield, Lawrenceville, the South Side Flats and the North Shore will soon be included as well.

According to the city’s website, Pittsburgh was awarded a $10,000 grant from Automotus to create more efficient and safer curbside loading zones. The program goals include:

• Aligning parking and loading policies with real-time data

• Decreasing emissions from unnecessary idling and circling

• Reducing parking-caused traffic by 20% and double-parking by 60%

• G enerating additional revenue from parking and loading

• Increasing parking turnover for restaurants and small businesses

• Improving safety for pedestrians, cyclists

and other curb users

• Increasing delivery efficiency and reducing dwell time

For Siebzener, increasing parking turnover is a non-issue. He hasn’t seen a car parked near the new lilac areas since they’ve been painted. He’s more concerned about the price of parking and the loss of spaces for vendors stopping to drop off products and customers who pop in to pick up food.

“That was a quick loading zone to just drop off or grab something,” he said. “I don’t think I’ve seen anyone park in the purple zone now. It’s pretty expensive from what I understand.”

The cost of pricing in the zones increase the longer a person is parked there. It is 7 cents for the first five minutes, 14 cents per minute for 5 to 15 minutes, 20 cents per minute for 15 to 30 minutes and 17 cents for each additional minute up to an hour, Monday through Saturday, 8 a.m. to 10 p.m.

According to Pittsburgh City Councilmember Barb Warwick, there is a 5 minute “grace period” before the clock starts. There are no charges on Sundays. The hope, she said, is that the zones will encourage “off-peak deliveries early in the morning or late at night by large trucks that take longer to unload and also tend to impede traffic flow.”

The price to park on non-purple Murray Avenue spots using the Park Mobile app is $2 an hour.

“It’s a ridiculous amount of money,” said Markovic of the new loading zone parking

costs. “This is just a money grab by the city.”

Despite various news reports, he said, no one from the city spoke with store employees about the program before it was implemented.

He expressed displeasure with the locations of the purple spots, saying they seemed to be mostly in front of Murray Avenue storefronts where people need to come in and out quickly.

Any aims of alleviating congestion werenot well planned, Markovic said.

“This is going to lead to a lot of doubleparking on Murray and more traffic congestion,” he said, opining that “it’s just another way that the city is trying to hurt businesses.”

The new parking situation also may force him to raise prices, he said, because delivery people won’t absorb the added cost of parking on the street, and he’ll have to pass those increases

Even if his customers can avoid the purple curbs, he said it will affect business further down Murray, by Milky Way.

“They’re going to get killed,” Markovic said. Chronicle calls to the City of Pittsburgh and Automotus were not returned. PJC

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

p Beth and Jeffrey Gusenoff

Photo courtesy of the Gusenoffs

p Sign on Murray Avenue regarding the new smart loading zones

Photo by David Rullo

“This is going to lead to a lot of double-parking on Murray and more traffic congestion...it’s just another way that the city is trying to hurt businesses.”

–ARYEH MARKOVIC

Headlines

Rabbi Chananel Shapiro named executive director — or ‘Menahel’ — of Pittsburgh Kollel

—

LOCAL —

By Adam Reinherz | Staff Writer

Afamiliar face is assuming new responsibilities at the Kollel Jewish Learning Center. Rabbi Chananel Shapiro, a scholar at the Kollel, was tapped to become “Menahel,” or executive director, of the organization. He succeeds outgoing Associate Rosh Kollel Rabbi Doniel Schon.

Shapiro, who came to Pittsburgh in 2018 after post-secondary yeshiva study in Lakewood, New Jersey, said he is honored to adopt the senior position and looks forward to working alongside Rosh Kollel Rabbi Levi Langer, other scholars and the community.

“This is an organization that is out there for people for any spiritual or physical need they may have. We are open, we are here for them and we are free,” Shapiro, 32, said.

The Kollel, which is on Beacon Street in Squirrel Hill, was established in 1977 by the late Rabbi Shaul Kagan as a center for Torah study. Along with hosting daily and Shabbat prayer services, the Kollel supports several full-time yungeleit (scholars) dedicated to studying and teaching biblical and rabbinic literature.

Community members, regardless of age or background, are encouraged to visit the center, meet with others and enjoy various learning initiatives, Shapiro said.

“We close at night for security reasons, but we are there most of the day. People can come in and study on their own, or we can set you up with someone to study with. We are here to help everybody,” he said.

Shapiro said his time as a scholar was marked by several meaningful accomplishments.

Along with receiving Yoreh Yoreh semicha — a level of rabbinic ordination signaling one’s ability to determine daily halachic matters, such as those concerning kashrut — in 2022, Shapiro pointed to the relationships he developed.

and giving over ideas both in Torah learning and when people would ask me questions or for support,” he said.

“I’ll be taking care of everything from finances to operations, including programming, events, building operations, which is all in complement to Rabbi Langer’s role of taking care of all Torah study and things occurring in the beis medrash (study hall),” he said.

Mordechai Milch, a fifth-generation Pittsburgher and longtime supporter of the Kollel, said that given its current leadership — and past efforts — the organization’s future is bright.

“The Kollel has never been more financially sound thanks to the backing it has from a number of individuals who have helped it grow,” Milch said. “Rabbi Schon is leaving it in good hands and in a good place. Alongside Rabbi Langer, Rabbi Shapiro will help the Kollel do what it does.”

Its mission was described to the Chronicle in 1976 by the Kollel’s founders: “It is our prayerful hope that we will cut across denominational lines to fashion a viable program of in-depth Jewish learning, to which everyone will be able to relate to according to his level of Jewish knowledge and observance.”

Milch said he’s excited to see Shapiro, and the organization, work alongside others to foster greater spiritual and intellectual enrichment.

Shapiro, a Squirrel Hill resident who is married and has three children, said the new role is a wonderful vehicle for him and his family to further ingrain themselves in the community.

“We love living in Pittsburgh,” he said. “It is a very open and welcoming community, and we have enjoyed every moment to date.” PJC

“I have enjoyed connecting to the community

As Menahel, Shapiro is excited to continue those engagements while adopting new responsibilities.

Federation’s foundation achieves new record

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

In 2022-2023, the Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh’s foundation brought in more than $30 million in new dollars for the first time.

The $31.5 million contributed to the foundation was part of the Federation’s $47.2 million total in financial resource development, according to Federation officials.

The Federation’s Jewish Community Foundation’s total assets as of June 30 reached $326 million, placing it among the 10 largest local foundations according to Pittsburgh Business Times research.

“This achievement demonstrates our community’s commitment to philanthropy,” said Ahmie Baum, chair of the Foundation.

“They recognize how the Federation can help them and their families express their Jewish values while being good stewards of their philanthropic dollars

and helping them make an impact in the areas that they are passionate about.”

The Federation’s annual Community Campaign is projected to reach $13.9 million. Additionally, a $900,000 block grant from the Jewish Healthcare Foundation will support local human service organizations.

Although no major changes to core partner funding appear in this year’s funding distributions, “the Federation will begin to dedicate funds to designated community priorities and will reserve some funding for emergency and timely needs that may not be anticipated now,” according to a news release.

“Jewish Federation’s strategic changes in the planning and impact areas will enable us to respond to what we heard from people across our community,” said Jane Rollman, chair of the Federation’s Elevate Planning Implementation Committee.

“These individuals wanted the Federation

to play more of a convening role, bringing people together to make progress on solving some of the fundamental root

www.pittsburghjewishchronicle.org

causes of challenges to Jewish life in Pittsburgh.” PJC

Toby Tabachnick

p Rabbi Chananel Shapiro Courtesy of Rabbi Chananel Shapiro

p Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh Courtesy of Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh

“This is an organization that is out there for people for any spiritual or physical need they may have. We are open, we are here for them and we are free.”

–RABBI CHANANEL SHAPIRO

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

q SUNDAY, AUG. 6

Rendezvous in Rodef Shalom’s Garden for a free live performance with The Boilermaker Jazz Band Join for drinks and hors d’oeuvres, as they bring the swinging sounds of the Jazz Age back to life. 6 p.m. Free. 4905 Fifth Ave. rodefshalom.org/garden.

q SUNDAYS, AUG. 6 – DEC. 3

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

q SUNDAYS, AUG. 6 – DEC. 17

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

q MONDAY, AUG. 7

Beth El Congregation of the South Hills presents First Monday with guest George Savarese. Savarese, a Mt. Lebanon High School teacher and former radio journalist, will present “The Seven Revolutions Changing Our Lives and the World,” an exploration of technology, climate change, economics, immigration, demographics, medial research and social issues. 11:30 a.m. $7. 1900 Cochran Rd. bethelcong.org.

q MONDAYS, AUG. 7 – DEC. 18

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

q WEDNESDAY, AUG. 9

Join the Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh to learn more about the upcoming Civil Rights Mission taking place Oct. 15-18, 2023. Learn more about the mission itinerary, recommended flights, pricing, and meet mission guide, Billy Planer. Noon. jewishpgh. org/event/civil-rights-mission-information-session.

Join members of the community for the annual Jewish Heritage Night as the Pittsburgh Pirates battle the Atlanta Braves. This year, an optional pre-game meal is available in the Picnic Park from 5:30-7 p.m. from Elegant Edge Catering. Each game ticket purchased will also include a limited edition Pittsburgh Pirates Hebrew T-shirt. 7:05 p.m. $16-44. PNC Park. jewishpgh.org/event/jewish-heritage-night.

q WEDNESDAYS, AUG. 9 – DEC. 20

Join AgeWell for an intergenerational family dynamics discussion group. Whether you have family harmony or strife, these discussions are going to be thought-provoking and helpful. Led by intergenerational specialist/presenter and educator Audree Schall. Third Wednesday of each month. Free. 12:30 p.m. South Hills JCC.

q WEDNESDAYS, AUG. 9– DEC. 27

Bring the parashah alive and make it personally relevant and meaningful with Rabbi Mark Goodman

in this weekly Parashah Discussion: Life & Text. 12:15 p.m. For more information, visit bethshalompgh. org/life-text.

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

q THURDAYS, AUG. 10 – AUG. 17

Be the best bridge player you can be at any level with lessons from the Pittsburgh Bridge Association 9 a.m. Rodef Shalom, 4905 Fifth Ave. Advance registration is requested at pittsburghbridge.org/classreg.htm.

q SUNDAY, AUG. 13

What better way to prepare for 5784 than to finally learn to read the Hebrew alphabet? Register to participate in Rodef Shalom Congregation’s threeweek, six-class intensive course to introduce you to the alef-bet and start you on the road to reading Hebrew. $36. 10 a.m. rodefshalom.org/alefbet.

q MONDAY, AUG. 21

Join the Zionist Organization of America: Pittsburgh for its Kandy Ehrenwerth Memorial Lecture

The guest speaker is Dan Pollak, ZOA’s director of legislative affairs, based in Washington, D.C. The title of the lecture is “Christian Senators and Representatives are our Best Allies — Religious Misconceptions and the Future.” 7 p.m. Free. Registrations required by emailing “Christian Senators & Representatives are Israel’s best Allies. False Impressions and the Future.”pittsburgh@zoa. org. Beth Shalom Ballroom, 5915 Beacon St.

q TUESDAY, AUG. 22

Join Rodef Shalom Librarian Sam Siskind for the congregation’s summer book club and discuss Omer Friedlander’s “The Man Who Sold Air in the Holy Land,” winner of the 2023 Association of Jewish Libraries Fiction Award. 6:30 p.m. Free. 4905 Fifth Ave. rodefshalom.org.

q WEDNESDAY, AUG. 23

Enjoy a tasty lunch while exploring meaningful messages from the month of Elul at Chabad of Squirrel Hill’s Ladies’ Lunch and Learn. 12 p.m. $18. 1700 Beechwood Blvd. chabadpgh.com.

q SUNDAY, SEPT. 10

Take part in Chabad of Squirrel Hill’s Women’s Mini Retreat, a pre-High Holiday program of inspiration, connection and rejuvenation. 11 a.m. $54. 1700 Beechwood Blvd. chabadpgh.com.

q MONDAY, SEPT. 18

Join the Holocaust Center of Pittsburgh First Person and Generations Speakers Series: A Talk by Holocaust Survivor Oscar Singer with his daughter Lee Fischbach. 6 p.m. Free. hcofpgh.org/events.

q WEDNESDAY, SEPT. 27

The Holocaust Center of Pittsburgh welcomes back to Pittsburgh Tony McAleer, the subject of the documentary “The Cure for Hate” and a reformed white nationalist, for an enlightening conversation on how conspiracy theories begin, take root and how we can stop them. 6 p.m. Free. Chatham University. Woodland Road. hcofpgh. org/events. PJC

Pa. election chief urges state to act soon to move 2024 primary, which conflicts with Passover

By Gabby Deutch | Jewish Insider

Election officials in the battleground state of Pennsylvania urged state legislators last week to move the date of the state’s 2024 presidential primary, which falls on the first day of Passover, “as soon as possible.” They fear that a delay in settling on a new date would make it difficult for local officials to ensure the elections run without a hitch.

Top legislators in both parties and Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro have thrown their support behind a measure that would move the state’s primary up from April 23. But the legislature has no plans to take up the bill until at least Sept. 18, when the General Assembly returns to session.

“I am deeply concerned we will not give county election officials the time they need to adjust thousands of polling locations to accommodate a new, earlier primary date,” Secretary of the Commonwealth Al Schmidt wrote in a letter to the top Democrats and Republicans in the state Senate and the State House last week. “With each passing day, it grows more challenging for county election officials to identify and reserve alternative polling locations where conflicts are identified for the current locations.” Schmidt wrote that he supports moving the primary forward, a position also taken by Shapiro.

“The governor supports moving the 2024 primary to ensure that observers of Passover have every opportunity to exercise their right to vote and looks forward to working with the General Assembly to change the date,” Manuel Bonder, Shapiro’s press secretary, said in a statement.

Senate President Pro Tempore Kim Ward,

a Western Pennsylvania Republican, said in a radio interview that she is “confident” the state will pass the legislation, which proposes moving the primary five weeks earlier. Her rationale for moving the primary, however, is not related to Passover. She wants to give the state more influence in the presidential nominating contest.

“A candidate cannot win the presidency without Pennsylvania. It always comes down to us in the end, yet we never have any say in the beginning,” she said. Ward’s spokesperson declined to comment further.

State Rep. Jared Solomon, a Jewish Democrat who represents Philadelphia, sponsored the legislation that will change the primary date. He said he doesn’t want to “have to choose between celebrating Passover and going to the polls,” he told Jewish Insider. “We don’t want to have any tension between our religious beliefs and our civic duty.”

Equally pertinent for Solomon is a desire — similar to Ward’s — to give Pennsylvania more of a say in the presidential race.

“I just have always wanted to bump it up so that we’re in the mix with other states, where more attention comes to Pennsylvania,” he said. The April date is already weeks earlier than the state’s June 2, 2020, primary in the last election cycle. All of Pennsylvania’s primary elections, ranging from local office to Congress to the presidency, fall on the same day, so candidates will also need to act faster to get their names on the ballot.

Maryland’s presidential primary was also scheduled for April 23, until the state legislature voted this year to change the date. In Maryland’s case, the new date of May 14 falls even later.

Jewish community activists in Pennsylvania have also urged the legislature to act.

“Even though voting by mail is much more common practice now, holding the primary

election on a religious holiday is not inclusive and in fact is a barrier to those who want to vote in person,” said Robin Schatz, director of government affairs at the Jewish Federation of Greater Philadelphia.

Seth Bluestein, a Philadelphia city

commissioner, said the date change would be “manageable” from the perspective of election administrators so long as it happens by early fall. PJC

This article was first published on Jewish Insider.

The Pittsburgh Jewish Chronicle invites you to join the Chronicle Book Club for its Aug. 27 discussion of “The Secret Chord,” by Geraldine Brooks.

From Amazon.com: “With more than two million copies of her novels sold, New York Times bestselling author Geraldine Brooks has achieved both popular and critical acclaim. Now, Brooks takes on one of literature’s richest and most enigmatic figures: a man who shimmers between history and legend. Peeling away the myth to bring [King] David to life in Second Iron Age Israel, Brooks traces the arc of his journey from obscurity to fame, from shepherd to soldier, from hero to traitor, from beloved king to murderous despot and into his remorseful and diminished dotage.”

Your Hosts:

Toby Tabachnick, editor of the Chronicle

David Rullo, Chronicle staff writer

How and When:

We will meet on Zoom on Sunday, August 27, at noon.

What To Do Buy: “The Secret Chord.” It is available

from online retailers, including Amazon and Barnes & Noble, and through the Carnegie Library system.

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

Happy reading! PJC

Toby Tabachnick

Suspect in Memphis Jewish school shooting was present when police shot and killed his father in 2003

By Jackie Hajdenberg | JTA

The man who was shot by police in Memphis, Tennessee, on Monday after allegedly bringing a gun into a Jewish school there was the son of a Jewish physician who himself was killed by Memphis police officers 20 years ago.

The man who tried to enter Margolin Hebrew Academy with a gun was Joel Bowman, a friend of the family who was a former classmate told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, confirming a report by a local Memphis TV station that cited family and friends in identifying Bowman. Bowman is hospitalized in critical condition.

The family friend told JTA that Bowman, who is 33, was a former student at Margolin Hebrew Academy, Memphis’ main Orthodox school located on the city’s east side. On Monday, Rep. Steve Cohen, a Jewish Democrat who represents Memphis in Congress, also said the gunman had attended the school.

According to his Facebook page, Bowman is the son of Dr. Anthony Bowman, a cardiologist trained at the University of Guadalajara in Mexico who died in May 2003 after being shot by police officers outside his house in Memphis. A death notice published in the local newspaper at the time encouraged donations in Anthony Bowman’s memory to be given to Margolin Hebrew Academy.

Now, Joel Bowman’s former classmates and community members are left processing what has happened to him.

“Genuinely to the core, I don’t think he would ever intentionally hurt someone,” Brittney Eshelman-Worch, who attended Margolin Hebrew Academy with Bowman, told a local news station. “He has struggled with mental health for a number of years.”

not “in good faith allege that the police officers’ conduct … was motivated by considerations of race, color, religion, ancestry or national origin,” a requirement of the statute under which she had pursued compensation, according to the ruling by a Tennessee court.

by the Jewish writer Tova Mirvis.

But faced with an aging population, the Orthodox community has sought to attract new families in recent years. Bowman had been one of only two boys in his Margolin Hebrew Academy class for a few years in elementary and high school, his former classmate told JTA, and he stayed in Memphis after many of his classmates left.

Public posts on Bowman’s Facebook page, where he had posted about basketball games and punk concerts during high school, offer little information about his life following his time in the school. He posted about Suicide Prevention Day in 2019 and in April of this year posted an image of Lucy, Maia and Rina Dee, Jews murdered in a shooting attack in the West Bank.

Twenty years ago, Joel Bowman’s mother, Susan, called 911 because her husband had begun behaving erratically and holding a handgun to his head, according to a legal complaint she filed the following year seeking compensation. She and Joel, then a minor, were in the “zone of danger” at the time and had experienced emotional distress, the complaint said.

Anthony Bowman’s death and that of another man at the hands of Memphis officers on the same day prompted the Memphis Police Department to pilot the use of nonlethal weapons such as Tasers, the local newspaper reported at the time.

Susan Bowman’s complaint was ultimately dismissed in 2010 because she could

By then, Joel Bowman had finished high school and received a scholarship to attend Lev HaTorah, a yeshiva in Israel, during the 2009-2010 academic year. The scholarship was named after Alisa Flatow, a Brandeis University student who was killed in a suicide bombing in Gaza in 1995.

An estimated 10,000 Jews live in the Memphis area, according to a 2006 analysis by the local Jewish federation. Many of them are affiliated with the city’s Orthodox community, which is unusually dense for a Southern city. The historic Baron Hirsch Synagogue boasts of being the largest Orthodox congregation in the United States, and the community has also been chronicled in bestselling novels

In the last week, Bowman’s public posts became more frequent. Only July 24, he posted that he was on the verge of launching a farm and flower business.

On Saturday, he posted a picture of his father’s grave, located in the Anshei Sphard Cemetery in Memphis. In an extended, disjointed post accompanying the picture, he wrote about having a “therapy breakthrough” and said, using a Hebrew term for God, that he had “yelled at Hashem” at the gravesite.

Addressing the universe, Bowman wrote, “Please allow me to keep my calm, to remember to breathe, and to REMEMBER WHO I COME FROM.”

Two days later, he sought to gain entry into his former school, shortly after making his last Facebook post: “Gots time on my hands... ‘Home’ Court Visit.” Within hours, he was critically wounded. PJC

Terror suspects arrested in India had photos of Mumbai Chabad center, police say

By Ben Sales | JTA

Law enforcement officers in Mumbai found photos of the city’s Chabad center among the possessions of two terror suspects, leading police to boost security at the building that was the site of a deadly attack in 2008.

The discovery of the photos was announced over the weekend by the AntiTerrorism Squad in the Indian state of Maharashtra, according to Indian press reports. The photos were found a phone belonging to the two suspects, who were arrested on July 18 and are accused of planning a terror attack in another location. According to the Times of India, they are members of Sufa, an Islamist terror group. Officials also reportedly discovered explosive powder among their possessions.

The Chabad center in Mumbai was the site

of a 2008 terror attack that killed six Israeli and American victims, including Rabbi Gavriel and Rivka Holtzberg, the Hasidic emissary couple who headed the Chabad. Their son Moshe famously survived because of the bravery of his Indian nanny Sandra Samuel, who moved to Israel with him after the attack.

The 2008 attack was part of a string of terror attacks in the area by the Islamist group Lashkar-e-Taiba that killed more than 160 people.

“We feel great, thank God,” Rabbi Israel Kozlovsky, who co-directs the Chabad center with his wife Chaya Kozlovsky, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. He said the center attracts some 10,000 visitors per year and has full-time security. The Kozlovsky family has been in Mumbai for 11 years.

“It’s clear that from moment to moment there are people who wish us ill,” he said. “When they catch them, that feels good. When they don’t catch them, that is the problem.”

Israeli officials have faced threats elsewhere in India. In 2021, a bomb exploded outside the Israeli embassy in New Delhi with no injuries. In 2012, an Israeli diplomat’s wife and her driver were injured when her car was bombed.

Chabad centers have also been the subjects of alleged terror surveillance elsewhere. Greek police in March announced that they had arrested two men they suspected of planning terror attacks on Jewish sites, including at the Chabad of Athens and a kosher restaurant it operates. In that case, police said they suspected the men of being part of a network based in Iran, which has in recent years accelerated its efforts to attack Jewish and Israeli targets abroad.

Kozlovsky is not worried that Sunday’s announcement will significantly deter people from visiting the Chabad in Mumbai.

“The reaction every Jew should have is that you expel darkness with light,” he said. “That’s what we always try to do, to increase our activity.” PJC

p Front view of the Nariman House a week after the 2008 attack

Photo by Nicholas (Nichalp), CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

An estimated 10,000 Jews live in the Memphis area, according to a 2006 analysis by the local Jewish federation. Many of them are affiliated with the city’s Orthodox community, which is unusually dense for a Southern city.

SYLVIE BAILS SOCCER

MILES BLUMAN BASKETBALL

JONNY BALK SOCCER

THOMAS LEVINE SOCCER SHIRA LEVY BASKETBALL

BEN PINKSTON SOCCER

ELI RABINOVICH HOCKEY

BRAYDEN LEWINTER HOCKEY

NATHAN SIMONOVSKY BASKETBALL BENJI SMUCKLER SOCCER

XANDER VELAZQUEZ SOCCER

KIMI SMUCKLER SOCCER

ZANE SCHACHTER BASKETBALL

NOAH CLINE BASKETBALL

PHINEAS HAMMER HOCKEY

ZACH COFFEY BASKETBALL

ELI COFFEY BASKETBALL

Jewish fencer first US man to win sabre world championship

Jewish fencer Eli Dershwitz made history on July 25 at the World Fencing Championships in Milan, Italy, where he became the first American man to win an individual title in sabre, JTA.org reported.

The 27-year-old two-time Olympian and grandson of Holocaust survivors defeated No. 1-ranked Sandro Bazadze 15-6 in the sabre final.

But Dershwitz’s semifinal victory was perhaps even more notable: Facing Áron Szilágyi, a three-time Olympic gold medalist and the reigning world champion, he came back from a 10-4 deficit to advance to the final round.

“I’ve been working most of my life for this moment, this tournament, and towards Paris 2024,” Dershwitz said, according to NBC Sports. “Hoping my third Olympic Games is the one.”

Dershwitz won two gold medals at the 2017 Maccabiah Games in Israel. He represented the United States in the 2016 and 2020 Olympics but failed to medal in either appearance.

American Anthropological Association votes to boycott Israeli academic institutions

An association for American anthropologists voted to formally boycott Israeli academic institutions, seven years after shutting down a similar vote, in a sign of the shifting tides of the Israel debate on American college campuses, JTA.org reported.

The American Anthropological Association, which represents thousands of anthropologists in academia and the professional space, announced on July 24 that its members voted to endorse a resolution that forbids the association from collaborating with Israeli academic institutions.

More than 70% of the association’s voters supported the boycott, though only 37% of its eligible members voted, the association said.

The boycott applies only to formal collaborations with the association itself, and it does not apply to individual Israeli academics, so its practical impact is likely to be limited. Still, the resolution is a notable symbol of Israel opposition in academia, not least because it reverses a similar vote seven years ago.

Pro-Israel groups quickly condemned the AAA vote. Tammi Rossman-Benjamin, director of the AMCHA Initiative, a pro-Israel campus advocacy group, called it “a dark day for higher education” and said the group’s “commitment to academic BDS is likely to spread throughout the university like wildfire and have rippling effects for years to come.”

Hillel in Odessa, Ukraine, damaged by Russian strike

A Russian missile strike caused “significant damage” to Hillel International’s offices in Odessa, Ukraine on July 23, the organization said, according to JTA.org.

It was the second time a Hillel building in Ukraine was damaged by Russian fire since the start of the war last year. Its chapter in Kharkiv was destroyed by Russian shelling last year.

Aug. 7, 1904 — Peace negotiator

Ralph Bunche is born

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

Aug. 4, 1888 — Writer Yitzhaq

Shami is born

Yitzhaq Shami, an early writer of modern Hebrew literature, is born to an Arabic-speaking father and a Ladinospeaking mother in Hebron. He fills his stories and poems with Arabs and Mizrahi Jews.

Aug. 5, 1953 — Special Forces

Unit 101 is formed

Unit 101, a briefly independent special forces section of the IDF, is launched with about 20 soldiers under the command of Ariel Sharon to provide a rapid response to terrorist attacks.

Aug. 6, 2015 —

Actress Orna Porat dies

Stage and screen actress Orna Porat dies at 91 in Tel Aviv.

Originally a German Christian, she moved to the Land of Israel with a Jewish British officer she met after World War II, became a star and converted.

Ralph Bunche is born in Detroit. He wins the 1950 Nobel Peace Prize for negotiating armistice deals between Israel and its neighbors in 1949 after his U.N. boss, Count Folke Bernadotte, is assassinated.

Aug. 8, 1924 — Cinema advocate Lia

The international Jewish life organization, which operates on college campuses and supports young adult non-students in some places, including Ukraine, shared news of the damage on social media on July 25. It said the missile had destroyed the office’s door and windows, and that the ceiling collapsed, but that no one was in the building at the time.

“I do hope we will be able to restore programs as soon as possible,” Osik Akselrud, director of Hillel’s Central Asia and Southeastern Europe regions, said in a statement.

Hillel also shared a brief video appearing to show a construction crane already present on the scene working to repair the damage.

ADL, major Jewish groups in 7 countries team up to fight antisemitism

Large Jewish organizations in seven countries outside of Israel have formed a task force to collaborate on fighting antisemitism, JTA.org reported.

The task force, nicknamed the “J7” and announced on July 25, includes representatives from the United States, France, the United Kingdom, Germany, Canada, Argentina and Australia.

According to multiple recent estimates, those countries have the largest populations of Jews outside of Israel, excluding Russia, which was not included in the task force.

Israel will also not have an official representative on the task force, though many, if not all of the participating groups, see combating anti-Zionism as part of their mandate.

“Antisemitism is rising around the world, especially in countries where there are large Jewish populations,” Jonathan Greenblatt, CEO of the Anti-Defamation League, which is one of the group’s members, said in a statement. “And threats to our communities are not contained by continents and borders.”

The task force’s activities will include consultations between the member organizations’ leaders, as well as the formation of working groups to address a range of issues, including tech policy, education, security and extremism, among others. The groups plan to meet at an ADL conference next year, in addition to holding virtual meetings.

Israeli expat boots Israeli ambassador from his Berlin café

An expat Israeli in Berlin ejected Israel’s ambassador to Germany from his on July 23 as a political statement amid Israel’s ongoing political crisis, JTA.org reported.

Avi Berg, owner of Café Dodo in Berlin, announced on Facebook that he had told Ambassador Ron Prosor he was “not welcome in my café” because he “represents Israel, and since he implements an invalid and manipulative policy, which claims that any criticism of Israel is anti-Semitic.”

That policy, wrote Berg, “claims that I and my peers are anti-Semitic.”

After being asked to leave, Prosor and his bodyguards left the café immediately, Berg reported. PJC

Compiled by Andy Gotlieb

p Lia Van Leer (right) attends the International Tourism Conference in Jerusalem in March 2011.

By

Moshe

Milner, Israeli Government Press Office

Van Leer is born Lia Van Leer is born in Beltsy, Romania (now Moldova). She and husband Wim Van Leer create the Israel Film Archive in 1960, and she launches the Jerusalem Film Festival in 1984.

Aug. 9, 2006 — Wider Lebanon offensive is approved

Israel’s Security Cabinet approves an expansion of targets in the Second Lebanon War to achieve five goals, including the return of two soldiers kidnapped by Hezbollah at the start of the war in July.

Aug. 10, 1920 — Treaty dissolves Ottoman Empire World War I’s victorious nations and the Ottoman Empire sign the Treaty of Sevres to break up the empire. The treaty incorporates the Balfour Declaration’s call for a Jewish national home in Palestine. PJC

p Orna Porat is shown in 1957, the year she converted to Judaism.

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Justice, not vengeance

On Aug. 2 — four years and eight months after a calculating and cowardly antisemite ripped 11 gaping holes in our communal heart — a federal jury sentenced him to the most severe punishment allowable by law: death.

The jurors came to their unanimous decision after being instructed by the court to weigh the aggravating factors in this case — those aspects that were most heinous — against the mitigating factors presented by the defense, such as the mental health of the defendant.

On Oct. 27, 2018, the killer stormed the Tree of Life building and shot everyone he saw. Most of his victims were elderly and some were mentally or physically disabled. He murdered 11 people, devout members of three congregations: Dor Hadash, New Light and Tree of Life.

Our community will never forget those whose lives were brutally and senselessly ended that day: Joyce Fienberg, Richard Gottfried, Rose Mallinger, Jerry Rabinowitz, Cecil Rosenthal, David Rosenthal, Bernice Simon, Sylvan Simon, Dan Stein, Mel Wax and Irving Younger.

The killer, who meticulously planned his attack for six months, shot congregants Daniel Leger and Andrea Wedner, causing injuries that have altered their lives permanently. He shot at the brave

first responders who rushed in to stop his murderous rampage, with Officers Michael Smidga, John Persin, Tyler Pashel, Dan Mead, Anthony Burke and Timothy Matson suffering serious injuries, some of which may never heal.

found that any such evidence was outweighed by the irreparable harm he inflicted on his victims, and by his lack of remorse.

He attacked those who had come to what should have been a safe space — a

was the minimum punishment required for the killer’s crimes, but that each death he caused deserved instead to be answered with the maximum allowable penalty — death.

There are compelling arguments both in favor of and against the death penalty in general, and Judaism has a nuanced take on the subject. While Jewish law “makes carrying out the death penalty difficult, exceptional and rare,” Rabbi Danny Schiff wrote in these pages in May, “the death penalty remains a possibility.”

In our federal court system, the death penalty is reserved for the worst of the worst. It is the ultimate punishment, handed down only for the most heinous and abhorrent crimes.

The killer caused acute and lingering psychological stress to those forced to run or hide from his wrath, fearing for their lives.

The evidence introduced at the trial — overwhelming and heart wrenching — proved beyond any reasonable doubt that the killer was motivated by rabid white supremacist animus and hatred for Jews and immigrants. The jury rejected the defense’s attempts to prove that the killer was mentally ill. And while he had a turbulent childhood, the jury

We remember the victims

sanctuary — and later boasted about it to the expert witnesses who examined him in preparation for trial. He told them he regretted he didn’t kill more people, and that he hated Jews even more now. He told them that he planned his attack with the hope that it would motivate others to do the same, lamenting the fact that he wasn’t honored with a parade.

He is, in short, a monster.

In its closing argument, the prosecution explained to the jury that a sentence of life in prison without the possibility of release

After two months of absorbing the evidence — some harrowing, some tedious — a jury representing a cross-section of our region found that the crimes the killer committed deserved the ultimate punishment.

His sentence is not about vengeance. It is about justice.

While we can’t expect this verdict to bring about closure for the loved ones of those who were killed and the survivors, we hope and pray that having the trial behind them will bring some sense of relief.

We thank the members of the jury for their attention, their dedication and their commitment throughout their many weeks of service. PJC

p Top row, from left: Joyce Fienberg, Richard Gottfried, Rose Mallinger, Jerry Rabinowitz, Cecil Rosenthal; Bottom row, from left: David Rosenthal, Bernice and Sylvan Simon, Daniel Stein, Mel Wax, Irving Younger. Government exhibit

While we can’t expect this verdict to bring about closure for the loved ones of those who were killed and the survivors, we hope and pray that having the trial behind them will bring some sense of relief.

Chronicle poll results: Israel’s democracy

Last week, the Chronicle asked its readers in an electronic poll the following question: “Are you concerned with the preservation of Israel’s democracy?” Of the 312 people who responded, 80% said, “Yes, very much so”; 10% said, “Yes, somewhat”; 9% said, “No”; and 1% said they didn’t know or had no opinion. Comments were submitted by 66 people. A few follow.

This is a precarious moment, never before experienced in Israel. Without the checks and balances of the judiciary on the power of the government, the road to preserving democracy is unclear.

The only concern I have is the opposition’s attempt to secure by mob rule what they could not achieve at the ballot box.

The current state of Israel is enough to make one weep. We do not need to wait for external enemies to destroy us — we are effectively doing it for them internally.

Are

clearly heading from a democracy to a theocracy. That scares the daylights out of me.

So few of us understand the issues involved. Many of the protesters have a peripheral understanding of why the right wants to weaken the court, and whether some of their proposals will change Israel’s democracy, weaken it, or do serious permanent damage to it.

It is despicable that a Jewish country built on the ashes of the Holocaust could allow democracy to be destroyed against its citizens’ wishes.

It was a fair and free election ...

Hundreds of thousands of protectors must have a valid objection.

it does not speak well for Israel that this one individual can alter the government to save his own skin. Israel would do well to have a constitution.

I think there’s somewhat of an overreaction happening. When the pendulum swings in the other direction, right-wing Israelis will be protesting. There’s no way to make everyone happy.

It is stunning and depressing to witness the Jewish state tumble toward fascism. Has nothing been learned from 20th-century history?

The contradiction between being a Jewish state and being a democratic state is coming to a head. PJC

—Compiled by Toby

Tabachnick

It hasn’t been a democracy for Palestinians for a very long time. Now everyone else will also know what it’s like to have no recourse for injustice.

I always thought of Israel as a place that I could go if the situation here — i.e., antisemitism — continues to get worse. Israel is

Jews must reject the ‘woke’ ideology that targets Israel

As reported in the Chronicle (“Summer Lee votes ‘no’ on resolution backing Israel,” July 28), the congressional Squad and a growing number of progressive representatives in Congress continue to display their unremitting enmity to the state of Israel. Not surprisingly, Squirrel Hill’s representative, Summer Lee, has joined these ranks.

Even a cursory examination of current and historical Middle East truths would obviate their simplistic conclusion that Israel is a racist and apartheid state. Admittedly, such an examination would require the use of critical thinking skills, skills that are seriously lacking when the topic involves Israel.

Of course, this failing applies to the woke movement in general. The wondrous woke invention of intersectionality allows the Palestinian Arabs to be classified as a preferred victim. Once that status is attained, they cannot be faulted for any otherwise unseemly action, such as launching missiles at civilians, car-rammings, stabbings, suicide bombings, or any other attempt to murder Jews.

If the Palestinian Arabs are the helpless victims and Israel the ruthless oppressor, what more need be said? By this twisted logic Israel can never act properly and the Palestinian Arabs can never act improperly. Israel will always be at fault. Palestinian Arabs will never be at fault.

Followers of woke ideology can speak freely about Israel, even while totally unencumbered by any knowledge of the subject. All one needs to know is that Israel is a racist state. Israel is an apartheid state. Israel is colonialist. Israel commits ethnic cleansing. Free use of these fashionable expressions of moral outrage offers the answer to every question.

Thus, someone like Summer Lee (who a year ago admitted she knew nothing about the Israel-Palestinian conflict) can freely accuse Israel of racism and apartheid. This is a shamelessly irresponsible approach, especially for a member of Congress. Her refusal to respond to repeated requests from the Chronicle (presumably for fear that she won’t be able to answer questions that might probe further than skin deep) is also disgraceful.

Curiously, this moral outrage is laser focused. Of the 193 member countries in the United Nations, the intersectional wrath is aimed only at Israel — the only Jewish nation. A cynic might tinker with the thought that there might just be a bit of Jew-hatred underlying this outrage.

The hypocrisy of these woke warlords is obnoxious. While these self-anointed paragons of moral virtue profess profound opposition to antisemitism, their reckless rhetoric only encourages Jew-hatred.

Let’s keep in mind the IHRA working definition of antisemitism and some of the examples that it includes, such as: (1) denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination, e.g., by claiming that the existence of a state of Israel is a racist endeavor and (2) applying double standards by requiring of it a behavior not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation.

As an American citizen, while I love my “homeland,” I have no right to impose my opinions.

I hope it’s not too late.

Netanyahu is a very corrupt politician and

Chronicle weekly poll question: Do you agree that the synagogue shooter should have received the death penalty? Go to pittsburghjewishchronicle.org to respond. PJC

It is time for Jews to face the reality that woke warlords are not our friends and politicians who endorse these views should not be supported.

Reuven Hoch Pittsburgh

Jews in America must support human rights actions in Israel

In our years as Israeli Jews in the U.S., we learned that for many American Jews, Israel is a source of pride that is at the core of their Jewish identity and sense of community. Alongside this sentiment, many American Jews have grown up with a deeply ingrained view of Israel as a haven, a sanctuary that would protect the Jewish Diaspora in the face of potential catastrophe. This historical perspective, rooted in the shadows of the Holocaust, has been passed down through generations, forming a strong emotional bond between American Jews and the state of Israel. Furthermore, common perceptions hold that criticizing Israel is synonymous with betraying our heritage and, worse yet, perpetuating antisemitism. Because of that and more, American Jews have traditionally supported Israel unconditionally while not interfering with Israel’s politics or internal affairs.

However, we American Jews and Israeli Americans are now confronting a rapidly changing reality (“Coalition passes 1st judicial overhaul law, limiting review of government decisions,” July 28). The Israel we once knew has undergone profound changes, and it is time to acknowledge the troubling direction taken by the current Israeli government, backed by a minority of the Israeli population. The vision of Israel as a just and democratic nation, respectful of human rights, has been diminishing for decades. However, recent trends of anti-democratic, racist, homophobic and misogynist governmental actions, mixed with corruption and criminality, are bringing this vision to the verge of extinction. These dangerous and unprecedented anti-democratic trends wreak havoc in Israel’s internal cohesiveness, defense forces, economy, and international alliances, and leave Israeli citizens (and of course, its non-citizens) without judicial routes to defend themselves against their government.

The anti-democratic trends that ravish Israel pose an immense threat for the people of Israel, jeopardize it as a potential haven for the Jewish Diaspora, and critically diverge from the shared values that made Israel a cornerstone of our identity and our children’s education.

To help defend the Israeli democracy and the values it was founded upon (and that most Israelis cherish), we — American Jews and Israeli Americans — must focus our support on pro-democratic, pro-human rights actions and organizations within Israel. Strategically supporting democracy in Israel — be it by protests, education, donations, or contacting our elected officials — is an act of genuine concern for the future of all sections of the Israeli society and the Jewish Diaspora. While not being physically there, it is the least we can do to help the democratic forces in Israel.

Fax 412-521-0154 Website address: pittsburghjewishchronicle.org

you concerned with the preservation of Israel’s democracy?

Neta Bar, Eitan Shelef and Tzahi Cohen-Karni Pittsburgh

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media platforms and in various public forums.

The government also noted that the defen dant had no remorse, something the defense argued he might gain if he were sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

In the end, the jury found the prosecution proved that the killer’s crimes satisfied five aggravating factors: that he caused injury, harm and loss to the victims named in each capital count, as well as to the family, friends and co-workers of those victims; that he expressed hatred and contempt toward members of the Jewish faith and his animus toward members of the Jewish faith played a role in the killings; that he targeted men and women participating in Jewish religious worship; that he demonstrated a lack of remorse; and, that he caused serious physical and emotional injury including maiming, disfigurement, permanent disability, severe psychological impacts and grievous economic hardships to individuals, including Daniel Leger and Andrea Wedner, both of whom were shot but survived.

Moreover, he otherwise injured those who had to run or hide from the attack, including Carol Black, Doris Dyen, Joseph Charny, Louis Fienberg, Audrey Glickman, Martin Gaynor, Jeffrey Myers, Jonathan Perlman, Deane Root, August Siriano, Judah Samet, Stephen Weiss and Barry Werber. Police officers Anthony Burke, Timothy Matson, D aniel Mead, John Persin and Michael Smidga all suffered physical injuries, the jury found, and he also caused harm to officers John Craig, Jeffrey Garris, Jeremy Hurley, Andrew Miller, Joshua Robey, Michael Saldutte and Clint Thimons.

The jury found the defense proved many mitigating factors, including those related to the shooter’s negative upbringing. But the jury did not find that the defense proved any mitigating factors related to the shooter’s mental health. They rejected unanimously that he had schizophrenia or that he suffered from delusional beliefs.

Other than hand-holding and small embraces, reaction to the verdict was muted.

Colville displayed the most emotion. He thanked the jury for its service.

“For your efforts,” he said, “we are all grateful.”

Colville noted that he has given that same speech to hundreds of juries throughout his career but never before has it had “as much sincerity.”

The defendant murdered Joyce Fienberg, Richard Gottfried, Rose Mallinger, Jerry Rabinowitz, Cecil and David Rosenthal, Bernice and Sylvan Simon, Daniel Stein, Melvin Wax and Irving Younger. They were members of Congregation Dor Hadash, New Light Congregation and Tree of Life*Or L’Simcha Congregation.

Following the verdict, U.S. Attorney Eric Olshan said that since Oct. 27, 2018, the government has tried to “seek justice” and hold the defendant accountable to the “fullest extent of the law.”

“Nothing has been the same, not for the families who lost beloved family members and not for those who survived but bear the scars, physical and emotional, every day of their lives,” Olshan said. “While today’s verdict may mean many things to people it cannot change what happened on Oct. 27, 2018. It cannot bring back any of the 11 victims. No verdict can set things right or restore what was lost that morning.

“This case at its core is about the victims,” he continued. “The ones who are no longer with us, and the ones who have so bravely and gracefully carried the trauma of that day, every day.”

The evidence offered at the trial, Olshan said, “proved that the defendant acted because of white supremacist, antisemitic and bigoted views that unfortunately are not original or unique to him. Sadly, they are too common. Our Constitution protects a person’s right to hold repugnant beliefs. But our Constitution also protects every person’s right to practice his or her faith. And when people who espouse white supremacist, antisemitic and bigoted views, pick up weapons and use them to kill or

to try to kill people because of their faith, our office and our partners in law enforcement will hold them accountable to the fullest extent of the law each and every time.”

The three congregations that were attacked issued statements thanking the jury and others involved with the trial process for their service. Dor Hadash also lamented the public discourse that fosters hate, noting that the victims were targeted “because they were Jews.”

“Our public discourse in this country has shifted to allow antisemitism and white supremacy into the mainstream,” Dor Hadash’s statement read. “Our elected officials and the media need to combat white supremacist lies that the ‘white race’ is in danger of being replaced and Jews are to blame. And easy access to guns allows hate-filled people to make their antisemitic beliefs deadly.

“Politicians, legislators, religious leaders, and others in positions of power must recognize that their rhetoric has power and renounce such bigotry and hatred. We must all learn to recognize antisemitism, which can surface in a wide range of speech and conduct, and call it out each and every time we see it.”

Leaders of New Light acknowledged that not all of its members agreed with the verdict of death, but said that, as a congregation, it agrees with “the Government’s position that no one may murder innocent individuals simply because of their religion.”

“We take this position not out of a desire to seek revenge or to ‘even the score,’” New Light’s statement read, “but because we believe that the shooter crossed a line. Too often in the past — and not just the recent past — governments and religious authorities

have looked away when murder and mayhem occurred against Jews. Too often in the past, these actions were sanctioned and championed by governmental authorities. Too often, erpetrators have been allowed to celebrate their depravity. Life in prison without parole would allow the shooter to celebrate his deed for many years. New Light Congregation accepts the jury’s decision and believes that, as a society, we need to take a stand that this act requires the ultimate penalty under the law.”

The president of Tree of Life, Alan Hausman, expressed gratitude for “all those who have helped our congregation these past four-plus years: the public afety department and law enforcement officers, our fellow Pittsburghers, and people of all faiths and backgrounds from across the country and around the world. While today’s decision is hard, it also marks the start of a new chapter at Tree of Life, and I find myself hopeful because of the love and support we still receive as we continue to heal and move forward.”

In a prepared statement, the Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh reflected on “the strength and resilience of Pittsburgh’s Jewish community and the entire community.”

“Although healing is not a linear process, together we have supported people in need of mental health services and ensured that we stay safe from harm. In the wake of the horrors of the worst antisemitic attack in U.S. history, our community neither retreated from participating in Jewish life nor suppressed our Jewishness. Instead, our community embraced our Jewish values — strengthening Jewish life, supporting those in need, and building a safer, more inclusive world.

“We will continue to help people through the long healing process and to honor those who were taken from us by remaining a proud, vibrant, visible, strong, and connected Jewish community, now and for generations to come.”

A sentencing hearing was scheduled for Aug. 2, for the 22 capital offenses as well as the 41 non-capital offenses for which the defendant was found guilty. PJC

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

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

This story is part of ongoing coverage of the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting trial by the Pittsburgh Jewish Chronicle and the Pittsburgh Union Progress in a collaboration supported by funding from the Pittsburgh Media Partnership.

day, every day.”

–ERIC OLSHAN

p Rabbi Jeffrey Myers enters the room for a press conference with survivors and family members of victims at the Jewish Community Center in Squirrel Hill on Aug. 2 after a jury decided that the Pittsburgh synagogue shooter gunman will receive the death penalty

Photo by Alexandra Wimley/Pittsburgh Union Progress

p Don Salvin comforts his wife Debi Salvin, the twin sister of Richard Gottfried, one of the victims of the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting, as they stand with other family members and survivors of the attack during a press conference at the Jewish Community Center in Squirrel Hill on Wednesday, Aug. 2, 2023

Photo by Alexandra Wimley/Pittsburgh Union Progress

p Survivors and family members of victims gather at the podium for a press conference at the Jewish Community Center in Squirrel Hill on Aug. 2 after a jury decided that the Pittsburgh synagogue shooter will receive the death penalty

Photo by Alexandra Wimley/Pittsburgh Union Progress

Headlines

Torah:

Continued from page 1

The parade, comprised of members of the Jewish community — young and old, and of all denominations — took approximately a half-hour to reach the synagogue as celebrants frequently stopped to break into dance and song. The newly completed Torah was held by various community members beneath a traditional chuppah.

In a wheelchair, Pittsburgh police Officer Daniel Mead took part in the procession and helped support the chuppah for part of the Torah’s journey.

Mead, one of the first to respond to the attack at the Tree of Life building, was shot in his attempt to stop the massacre. Joyce Fienberg was murdered that day along with 10 other congregants from three congregations. Pittsburgh police Officer Michael Smidga, another first responder who was wounded by the shooter, also attended the Torah dedication.

In remarks after the procession reached Shaare Torah, Anthony Fienberg said the day was significant to his family and that he was carrying on his parents’ legacy of kindness, generosity and love of Judaism.

“It is something that we believe is not only a gift to the generations to come, but proving that we still value the continuation of the most important aspects of Judaism, proving that irreplaceable link from generation to generation,” he said.

Stephen Fienberg was an internationally

Repair:

to stay in Pittsburgh.”

Continued from page 2

Following her initial involvement with Repair, Scherk, 30, returned as a service corps member last fall. Both opportunities have enabled her to watch the Pittsburgh branch and national organization evolve; and though she said she’s kept a “critical eye” on both, Scherk praised the Pittsburgh group — particularly because of its

acclaimed professor of statistics and social science at Carnegie Mellon University. He died in 2016 at age 74.

Shaare Torah Rabbi Yitzi Genack said that it was a privilege for his congregation to house the Torah.

“This occasion is about connecting to the past and looking with vision towards the future,” he said. “We are privileged to join Anthony and Magali [Fienberg] in dedicating this Torah scroll in memory of Anthony’s parents.”

The Torah was written in Israel, Anthony Fienberg said, and was brought to Paris, where he lives with his family, for his son’s bar mitzvah. He brought the scroll to Pittsburgh on June 27, and it was completed the morning of the dedication at the 10.27 Healing Partnership, “in memory of the 11 kedoshim, the holy souls, that we, unfortunately, lost almost five years ago.”

In addition to Joyce Fienberg, Richard Gottfried, Bernice and Sylvan Simon, Cecil and David Rosenthal, Dan Stein, Irving Younger, Dr. Jerry Rabinowitz, Melvin Wax and Rose Mallinger were murdered at the Tree of Life building.

Asked what he believed his parents would think of the procession, Anthony Fienberg replied, “I think they had a really good time.” PJC

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

This story is part of ongoing coverage of the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting trial by the Pittsburgh Jewish Chronicle and the Pittsburgh Union Progress in a collaboration supported by funding from the Pittsburgh Media Partnership.

“incredibly thoughtful and important work organizing service in the wake of the Tree of Life massacre.”

The service and action projects run by Repair annually — including blood drives, book-packing and public cleanups — not only “honor the passions and causes” of those murdered in the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting but allow the community to “confront the trauma” in a safe and meaningful way, she said.

In the weeks leading to last year’s commemoration of the attack, Dunn told

the Chronicle that Repair worked with the 10.27 Healing Partnership and those principally affected by the shooting to organize service opportunities honoring the “commitments, passions and service” that each of the 11 people who died expressed throughout their lifetimes.

Programs like these demonstrate Repair isn’t just a tool for bringing people to Pittsburgh but encourages them to stay, Scherk said.

It might not be as “prominent to the Jewish community as a synagogue, or the

Federation or the JCC,” but Repair is aiding countless people during some of the toughest times in Pittsburgh, she continued.

“Every year in late October, I know I will be engaging in service with Repair,” Scherk said. “That’s something I need. I need to do something to remember. And this is a very intentional and lovingly thought out way to do what matters and something good in the Jewish community.”

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

p A boy reaches up toward the new Torah dedicated to Joyce Fienberg, one of the 11 victims of the Tree of Life synagogue shooting, and her husband Dr. Stephen Fienberg, during a procession down Murray Avenue from Beacon Street to Shaare Torah Congregation in Squirrel Hill to celebrate the completion of the Torah on July 30.

p Men join arms, dance and sing during a procession to celebrate the completion of the new Torah. Photos by Alexandra Wimley, Pittsburgh Union Progress

p Anthony Fienberg laughs with other members of the community as he carries the new Torah dedicated to his parents Joyce Fienberg and Dr. Stephen Fienberg.

p Women dance and sing during a procession to celebrate the completion of the new Torah.

p Pittsburgh Police Officer Daniel Mead, center, who was wounded responding to Pittsburgh synagogue shooting, helps hold up the chuppah covering the new Torah dedicated to Joyce Fienberg and her husband Dr. Stephen Fienberg.

Life & Culture

Avi Loeb’s claims of finding possible alien technology are polarizing scientists

By Rich Tenorio | The Times of Israel

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — Sifting through spherules from the ocean floor isn’t your typical summer project, but for Harvard Prof. Avi Loeb, there’s nothing he’d rather be doing.

Spherules, he explains, are basically small metallic marbles. The Israeli theoretical physicist and former head of the Harvard astronomy department traveled a long way to find them — Papua New Guinea’s Manus Island, where he and a research team researched from June 14 to 28.

Loeb posits that they come from the first interstellar object detected by humanity, a meteor that exploded in the Earth’s atmosphere, above Papua New Guinea on January 8, 2014. What’s more, he suggests, this meteor might represent extraterrestrial technology.

“The first thing to do is figure out whether the material identity looks different from solar system material,” Loeb told The Times of Israel over Zoom. “It would be the first time humans put their hands on material from a large object coming from outside the solar system, the first meteor inferred to be from interstellar space. That’s a discovery by itself.”

“The next question,” he said, “is whether it’s technological in origin, droplets melted from a semiconductor or electric circuit.”

Loeb is no stranger to making daring claims, whether about this meteor or ‘Oumuamua, a mysterious pancake-shaped object detected passing through the solar system in 2017, which he deemed to also be interstellar and — potentially — a piece of alien technology.

“If we find a partner in interstellar space, it will change the future of humanity,” Loeb said. “It will change our aspirations for space, it will change the way we treat each other. It will just be the biggest impact science can have on society.”

Casually dressed in a red short-sleeve shirt, Loeb was in classic form during the interview, explaining methods and findings in relatable ways. He likened the spherules to Russian matryoshka dolls, noting that some contain smaller spherules within larger ones. When his team found the first spherule after nearly a week of trying, why was he confident of more? It was like ants in a kitchen: finding one implies many others, he said.

He learned about the 2014 meteor five years after it exploded, in 2019. His research assistant, then-Harvard student Amir Siraj, found it in an online catalog of 273 meteors from the Center for NearEarth Object Studies (CNEOS), part of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. The Jan. 8, 2014, meteor stood out for several reasons.

“This meteor moved too fast to be bound gravitationally to the sun,” Loeb said. “We extrapolated the speed to outside

the solar system. It was likely not bound, at 60 km/s [37 mps] relative to the Milky Way … 60 km/s implied it was faster than 95% of all stars in the vicinity of the sun.”

Then, Loeb said, “We were able to calculate the object was able to withstand much more stress than any other meteor in the catalog.”

From what he inferred about its speed and strength, he made another suggestion.

“It raised the possibility that it might be a spacecraft, professionally manufactured by an extraterrestrial civilization from an alloy tougher than iron meteors,” Loeb said. “It was not a philosophical question if there were any fragments left over.”

Loeb and Siraj submitted a research paper on the meteor. According to Loeb, the scientists refereeing their submission rejected it because the government data did not include error bars or uncertainties.

In 2022, U..S Space Command released a statement backing up Loeb’s claim that the meteor was interstellar with 99.999%

certainty. He felt vindicated enough to organize a team to plumb the seabed off Papua New Guinea for traces of the meteor.

Crypto mogul Charles Hoskinson serendipitously contributed $1.5 million, plus his private jet. Once in Papua New Guinea, the team used innovative technology. Their ship, the appropriately named Silver Star, featured a sled with molybdenum magnets on both sides to look for metallic particles on the seabed.

“The engineers were fantastic,” Loeb said. “It was a very big challenge finding these tiny droplets a half-meter [1.6 feet] in size across a region 10 square kilometers [roughly 4 square miles] in size provided by the Department of Defense as the location of the fireball.”

“As soon as the sled was on the [sea] floor, it collected mostly black powder, volcanic ash, the most abundant source of particles,” he said. “I was frustrated by the fact we could not see anything unusual.”

Six days went by. Loeb and the team

did not rest. They used mesh to filter out any volcanic ash, looking at what was left through a microscope. The result: a eureka moment.

“Jeff Winn, a geologist on the team, ran down the stairs to call me: ‘We just saw a spherule!’” Loeb recalled. “It was amazing, one of the metallic marbles, very distinctive from its background.”

An analysis determined that the spherule was largely iron — 84%. The team subsequently found around 360 such spherules.

They began collecting spherules to send to three separate locations for analysis — Harvard, the University of California at Berkeley and the Bruker Corporation in Germany. At Harvard, that analysis will be done by Loeb, colleagues in the Department of Earth and Planetary Science, and summer interns, including his daughter and newly-accepted first-year student, Lotem Loeb.

Researchers will use such factors as half-life, which “can be used to date the

Please see Loeb, page 22

p Avi Loeb on a scientific expedition off of the coast of Papua New Guinea in June to identify parts of a possible interstellar meteor that crashed in 2014. Photo courtesy of Avi Loeb

“I don’t [receive] any negativity coming from the general public, coming from the U.S. government,” Loeb reflected. “On the contrary, it’s all positive, all encouraging, all open-minded. Why is it so difficult for people in academia to be open-minded?”

Life & Culture

— FOOD — A savory salmon salad for summer

By Jessica Grann | Special to the Chronicle

This salmon salad tastes like something that you’d get at a gourmet bagel shop, and I can’t get enough of it. As of a few months ago, I had never eaten canned salmon. It was not something that I grew up with and, for some reason, I turned my nose up at it. I had no idea what I was missing! My husband picked up a few cans to have extra protein on hand and I kept making tuna salad instead. I am so happy that I decided to make a salmon salad one day. This has become my go-to recipe when a friend stops over for lunch or when I need something extra to serve on Shabbat. It’s so lemony and full of flavor. I use mayonnaise, but just enough to bind the ingredients together. Lemon juice and capers are two of my favorite things to add to any kind of fish, and they add bold flavor to this simple dish.

Lemon caper salmon salad

Makes 2 or 3 servings

Ingredients:

1 15-ounce can of salmon, drained

3 tablespoons mayonnaise

3 tablespoons fresh lemon juice

2 tablespoons capers

3 tablespoons finely diced shallots

3 tablespoons chopped dill

Salt and pepper to taste

Optional: 3 tablespoons sliced almonds

This recipe is easy and takes less than 5 minutes to prepare.

Drain the water from the can of salmon and transfer it to a mixing bowl. Use the back of

a fork to break up the pieces. There is often skin in canned salmon, but it disappears as you flake the fish chunks. You may see a few pin bones in the bowl. If you do, just pick those out before adding the rest of the ingredients.

If you don’t have shallots on hand, and you don’t have time to pick some up, you can use a sweeter white onion in a pinch. Add the shallots, mayonnaise, lemon juice, capers and dill to the bowl and mix well.

Add salt and pepper to taste.

Sometimes I add in sliced almonds for a little extra crunch. You can mix these in or sprinkle them over the top of the salmon salad. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and let it rest in the fridge for at least half an hour before serving. This allows the flavors to come together well.

This salad is really versatile. It can be served with a beautiful green salad, but it’s also amazing with a dense bread such as sprouted whole wheat. I like to toast a slice of bread and spread salmon salad over it. It’s also really nice with crackers.

You can add this to your table on Shabbat for seduah shlisheet.

Enjoy and bless your hands! PJC

Jessica Grann is a home chef living in Pittsburgh.

‘Oppenheimer,’ the prequel: Two other Jewish physicists who helped ignite the nuclear age

By Carl Litman Kurlander and Thomas Michael Kurlander | Special to the Chronicle

Christopher Nolan’s new movie

“Oppenheimer” shines an important spotlight on the dawn of the nuclear age and the brilliant Jewish American physicist often called “the father of the atomic bomb.” The film also makes clear that Hitler banning “Jewish physics” is what gave the Americans the advantage against Germany because of the exodus of brain power it caused. But what is largely left out of this three-hour film are two other brilliant Jewish minds without whose contributions none of this work would have been possible: Leo Szilard conceived of the idea of the “nuclear chain reaction” almost a decade before the Manhattan Project, and Lise Meitner, who used Albert Einstein’s E=mc2 to first explain “nuclear fission.”

To fully appreciate their story, one must go back to Germany in the 1920s, then the center of intellectual thought for physics, where Oppenheimer studied with Werner Heisenberg, who later led the German atomic research program. Meitner was already an accomplished scientist, the first woman to teach physics in Germany, and was working at Kaiser Wilhelm Institute under the direction of quantum physics pioneer Max Planck. Szilard, who came from Hungary, was a student at the University of Berlin where Einstein was his teacher. He was such an out- of-the-box thinker that he and

Einstein would together patent the Einstein/ Szilard refrigerator. General Electric found it impractical to produce, but Szilard would later use its motor when he and Enrico Fermi tested the first nuclear chain reaction at Stagg Field in Chicago.

Everything changed in 1933 when the Nazis came to power. Szilard and Meitner were scheduled to teach a spring class together and were doing experiments on splitting the atom. In his Szilard biography, “Genius in The Shadows”, author William Lanouette speculates that if Szilard and Meitner both had stayed in Germany, Hitler would have had the bomb before America. Instead, Szilard left and helped set up an organization to get other German Jewish scientists out of the country. Meitner stayed, dedicated to the teaching and research she had been doing for two decades with her colleague Otto Hahn. She felt reasonably safe in that she was a citizen of Vienna

and had been raised Christian — her parents, like many European Jews, converted to allow their children opportunities forbidden by antisemitic policies.

When the Third Reich demanded the resignations of anyone with Jewish blood, Max Planck went to the Fuhrer himself to argue that Meitner and Jewish chemist Fritz Haber were the “heart and soul” of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute. (Haber would be known for the Haber-Bosch process, which would revolutionize agriculture, and for developing chemical weapons in the First World War, which tragically the Nazis would use in WWII to kill millions of Jews.) In their meeting, Hitler told Planck that he was not against all Jews, just the ones who were communists. But as the Chancellor began ranting how all Jews were communists, Planck realized he was a madman. Meitner was forbidden to teach, but Hahn arranged for her to continue working

in the lab on their research under the radar — though he would use her Jewish heritage as a reason not to include her name on papers to “protect her.”

After he left Germany, Szilard spent most of his life living in hotels with two suitcases, one for his clothes and the other for his papers and lab equipment. Though he famously did most of his thinking in the bathtub, on Sept. 12, 1933, he stared at a traffic light while crossing a street in London and conceived of the idea of a nuclear chain reaction. Szilard realized this could be a source of energy unlike the world had ever seen, but also that it could bring to life the atomic bombs H.G. Wells described in his science fiction. He offered the patent to the British navy on the condition that it remained top secret, though the navy was skeptical it could be useful. Ironically, after Szilard got to the United States, neither G.E. nor Westinghouse could see practical applications for this new energy, and he ended up supporting himself on a contract using nuclear technology to irradiate pork.

When Hitler invaded Vienna in 1938, everyone realized it was not safe for Meitner to remain in Germany. She dramatically fled the Nazis and joined Nils Bohr in his lab in Copenhagen. Months later, Hahn sent her the results of the experiments he and his assistant Fritz Strassman were continuing, unable to understand why after bombarding uranium with neutrons, it was behaving like barium. On a walk in the woods with her nephew Otto Frisch, also a physicist expelled from

Please see Nuclear, page 18

p Lemon caper salmon salad

Photo by Jessica Grann

p Lise Meitner

p Leo Szilard Photos in public domain

Life & Culture

not use the atomic bomb since Hitler was already defeated.

1,953 Tisha b’Avs

Nazi Germany, Meitner realized neutrons were not being absorbed as Hahn assumed, but split into two smaller nuclei. She did calculations showing that such a reaction would release the equivalent of over 10,000 tons of dynamite.

Meitner would not get the public recognition for her discovery of fission, a term she and Frisch coined and were about to publish in a paper, but an article Hahn and Strassman wrote came out first without mentioning her contributions. Upon learning about fission, Szilard immediately saw its destructive potential, and visited his old professor Albert Einstein vacationing on Long Island to inform him of the dangers. Einstein confessed that he had not conceived of his ideas being used like this in his lifetime and agreed to sign a letter Szilard would author urging President Roosevelt to develop a U.S. atomic research program before the Nazis. That led to the Manhattan Project. There is no mention of Lise Meitner in “Oppenheimer,” though she would be nominated 48 times for the Nobel Prize by Planck, Einstein and other leading scientists. Instead, the prize would go to Otto Hahn, who would receive the news under house arrest in England where he and other German scientists were being investigated to determine how far the Nazi atomic program had gotten. Leo Szilard has a few lines in “Oppenheimer,” most notably when he tries to get Oppenheimer to sign a petition Szilard spearheaded asking President Truman to

After the war, it was reported Truman sat next to Lise Meitner at a Washington dinner, and said, “so, you’re the little lady who got us into all this.”

Though the media sometimes referred to her as the “mother of the atomic bomb,” Meitner refused to participate in weaponizing her scientific discovery, having seen the destruction of chemical weapons during World War I. In 1955, she co-signed a letter to the United Nations calling for a ban on nuclear weapons also signed by Albert Einstein, Edwin Teller and Robert Oppenheimer. That was the year another Jewish scientist, Dr. Jonas Salk, would be hailed as a hero for developing the first successful polio vaccine. Leo Szilard would become an early fellow at The Salk Institute where he would spend the rest of his life as a passionate advocate for peace and finding ways science could be used to help humanity.

Particularly in these times of rising antisemitism, it is important to remember how much Jewish minds contributed to the greatest scientific achievements of last century. PJC

This article was written by Carl Litman Kurlander and Thomas Michael Kurlander, based on a screenplay they are writing called “The Most Explosive Gal in the Universe” on Meitner and Szilard based on an idea told to them by their father, Dr. Donald Jay Kurlander. They were both born at the University of Chicago, just blocks away from the site of the Chicago Pile where the first successful nuclear chain reaction was conducted by Leo Szilard and Enrico Fermi.

This month the Jewish people observed the 1,953rd Tisha b’Av fast day since the destruction of the Second Temple. Tisha b’Av commemorates the day the Romans invaded Jerusalem and set fire to the Beis HaMikdash, the Temple. Each year, we mourn its destruction, as well as the fact the Messiah hasn’t come and the Temple hasn’t been rebuilt.

Until last week there had been 1,952 Tisha b’Avs since the destruction. Now it’s worse; it’s now 1,953 years and we still have no Temple.

Depressing, isn’t it? And does one more year really matter that much? No, and yes.

personal experience in which each individual reminds themself of the kind of person they aspire to be — someone focused on the important things in life who doesn’t allow their aspirations to be pulled down by the constant hubbub of the mundane concerns that preoccupy us. And that is relevant to us now. We become changed by experiencing Tisha b’Av and thinking about its meaning.

“Who will ascend upon God’s mount, and who will stand in His Holy place?” (Psalms 24:3). The two phrases convey two distinct points. When there was a Temple, each Jew would travel there thrice yearly for the festivals to recharge their spiritual batteries and to experience God’s presence. And then there were also those special people who took that experience back home with them and who lived it through the rest of the year as well. Those were the people who not only traveled to the Temple mount during the

First, what our intense yearly national mourning day really says about us is that we are a people who embody hope. We remember what we had and we hope for the future. We see a present in which our national spirit has been dimmed and we’ve lost our focus and we look to a better time ahead. And if it’s been so long and we still haven’t gotten the Beis HaMikdash, then that’s all the more reason to look ahead, because God has promised that He will never forget us and we can be all the more certain that He’s already preparing for the Messiah and the Temple. And then we’ll regain our national spirit: that of a nation dedicated to Godliness, whose every act reflects our mission.

And second, because Tisha b’Av is also a

festivals but also were transformed by the experience through the rest of the year.

So each year on Tisha b’Av, when we mourn over the Temple, we also remind ourselves who we are and what our real goals are. And if God still hasn’t seen fit to restore the Temple to us, then we’ll keep on hoping. And we’ll keep on thinking about our true aspirations, how we aspire to live a Godly life and one that reflects our essential nature as the people of the Beis HaMikdash. And we each become a better person by having thought about that. PJC

Rabbi Levi Langer is the dean of the Kollel Jewish Learning Center. This column is a service of the Vaad Harabanim of Greater Pittsburgh.

Cantor Levi Langer Parshat Eikev Deuteronomy 7:12 – 11:25

Obituaries

FORSCHER: Mia Forscher passed away peacefully on July 27, 2023. She is survived by her loving daughters Carri Fogel (Stew), Joan Forscher (Gerry Ramage), and Stefanie Behrend (Bernie); her grandchildren Ali, Janie, Mike, Amanda, Mark, Dan, Margot and Vanessa; and great-grandchildren Spencer, Alex, Harrison, Natalie, JJ, Gideon, Fox, Zoe, Max, Amy, Maya, Claire and Jacob. She will be missed by her sister-in-law Sylvia, and by many nieces, nephews and cousins around the world. Until the last few years of COVID isolation, she remembered and kept in touch with them all, as the beloved matriarch of the family. Mia lived in Squirrel Hill and then Oakland, before moving into Weinberg Terrace in 2018. She retired from the condo office of Howard Hanna Real Estate at age 89. Always friendly, kind, and perpetually optimistic, she welcomed into her large circle of friends many of her clients who were newcomers to Pittsburgh — which she relentlessly championed. Mia was born in 1922 in Heidelberg, Germany, to parents Max and Clara Weiner. In 1933, along with her parents and siblings Anne and Manfred, who all predeceased her, she fled the rising antisemitism in Germany, including the boycott of Jewish businesses which had cut the family’s income in half. After a brief stay in New York City, a resettlement agency found a job for Max at Kaufmann’s department store, and the family moved to Squirrel Hill, where Mia’s twin brother became a bar mitzvah at Beth Shalom. But longing to rejoin their large extended family in New York, after only a few years they left Pittsburgh for the German-Jewish Washington Heights neighborhood of Manhattan. There Mia joined a Zionist youth group, solidifying her lifelong love of Israel. After earning a sociology degree at Hunter College, she worked for HIAS, settling Holocaust refugees. Viennese immigrant Fred Forscher, her beloved husband of more than 50 years, passed away in 1996. In 1944, they got married while he was on leave from the U.S. Army. For a while they lived in Princeton, where Fred finished a bachelor’s degree in engineering that he’d started under the auspices of the Army, and then completed a master’s there. Later he earned his Ph.D. at Columbia in NYC. When Fred took a job at Westinghouse, Mia, now the mother of two daughters, reluctantly left all of her family and moved back to the Pittsburgh area. After a few years in the South Hills they settled in Squirrel Hill, where Mia had her third daughter and where her life as a volunteer, especially for Hadassah and Technion, took off. In Squirrel Hill Mia’s many lifelong friendships were established, as evidenced by the popularity of Fred and Mia’s annual New Year’s Day party. When her children started leaving the house, Mia earned an MA degree in counseling at Duquesne University, which she put to good use in her real estate career. As empty-nesters Mia and Fred traveled abroad, especially to Israel. And wherever in the world they went, they would encounter friends and relatives, often unexpectedly. In later years she enjoyed seeing family and old friends during reunions the City of Heidelberg hosted every few years for their former Jewish residents and their descendants. During her last visit to Heidelberg, she spoke on the TV news about the frightening resurgence of the language and symbols of hate in the U.S., that reminded her of what she’d witnessed during her childhood in Germany. Mia’s cheerful friendliness defined her life of almost 101 years, touching all who knew her, including her loving caregivers in her last few years. Services were held at Ralph Schugar Chapel, Inc. Interment Beth Shalom Cemetery. Donations in Mia’s memory may be made to JFCS Pittsburgh, 5743 Bartlett Street, Pittsburgh, PA 15217, or online at JFCSPGH.org, or to a charity of your choice. schugar.com

KAPLAN: Sara Itzhaki Kaplan, the wife of Carl Kaplan, who was born in Pittsburgh and lived in the district for 10 years, passed away in Tel Aviv, Israel, on May 29 after a long illness. The daughter of Eliahu and Esther Itzhaki, she is survived by brother Yedidia, sisters Zilpa, Alma, Iren and Rina, and her sister-in-law Mimi Meltzer of Rockville, Maryland. Sara served as the first spokesperson of the Israeli Knesset for over 20 years. She will be missed by everyone who knew her.

LENCHNER: Dr. Harold D. Lenchner, 86, of Mt. Lebanon, passed away peacefully on July 22, 2023, surrounded by his family. Born on Aug. 27, 1936, to Albert and Betty (Fogel) Lenchner in Pittsburgh. Harold was a graduate of the University of Pittsburgh school of dental medicine, and practiced dentistry at his private office in Greenfield as well as several regional Kane hospitals for over 60 years. A true Pittsburgher and diehard Steelers fan, Harold was a longtime season ticket holder and was in attendance during the Immaculate Reception. An active member of the Oakland Rotary, Harold was a Paul Harris fellow, and served as club president in 1991 and again in 2015. Harold enjoyed attending cultural events including the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, the Pittsburgh Broadway series, and the River City Brass Band. Harold is survived by his devoted wife of 54 years, Sheila (Deaktor) Lenchner, children, Aaron Lenchner and Lauren (Kevin) Brownstein, grandchildren, Aidan, Gavin, Sam and Catie, as well as many nieces and nephews. Arrangements were made at Laughlin Funeral Home, 222 Washington Rd., Pittsburgh, PA 15216. In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to The Rotary Foundation.

ROSENZWEIG: Martin Samuel Rosenzweig , affectionately known as Sam, 71, of Henderson, Nevada, a retired attorney, formerly of Pittsburgh, passed away suddenly in his sleep on July 19, 2023. Sam was born in McKeesport, Pennsylvania, on Feb. 18, 1952, to Ruth (née Moss) and Jacob Rosenzweig. He is preceded in death by his parents and survived by his loving and devoted wife of almost 48 years, Karen Rosenzweig (née Baseman); two beloved daughters, Shoshana Rosenzweig of Pasadena, California, and Mira Rosenzweig of Hackensack, New Jersey; brother, Edwin Rosenzweig (Shirley); two nieces, Heather Cohen and Rebecca Yaffe; and nephew, Seth Rosenzweig. A graduate of McKeesport High School and the University of Pittsburgh, Sam also received his law degree from the University of Pittsburgh. Sam worked his entire career in service at Laurel Legal Services, working his way from staff attorney to managing attorney of the Greensburg, Pennsylvania, office. He helped write Pennsylvania’s first draft of the “Lemon Law.”

Please see Obituaries, page 20

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Sunday August 6: Sadye Bowytz, Julius S Broida, Bernard S Davis, Irwin Sowie Fein, Lester A

Hamburg, Lois Hepps, Herman Hollander, Bessie Perr Miller, Esther Patkin, Theodore Somach, Gilbert Stein, Edward Stern, Rebecca Supowitz, Bella Weiner, Renee Weinstock

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Tuesday August 8: Liza Canter, Elizabeth Cohen, Leonard Ehrenreich, Dr Morris H Glick, Bertha Klein, Harry Lipser, Paul A Love, Harry H Marcus, Rhea Mark, Sophie Masloff, Gussie Sacks, Morris Schwartz, Herbert Sternlight, Rose Zweig

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Thursday August 10: Sarah Aronson, Irwin George Berman, Nathan Corn, Milton David Daniels, Abraham Herman, Ida Garber Hytovitz, William Kaplan, Samuel S Lewinter, Leon Loibman, Morris Middleman, Hazel Rose Newman, Samuel Simon, Harry Suttin, Merle Weitz, Leah Wekselman, Samuels Zionts

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Obituaries

Obituaries:

Continued from page 19

His specialty however was elder law. He devoted his career to helping others pro bono. Sam was also a devoted dog lover. Please consider donations in his memory to the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation or any humane society in your area. Services were held at 9:30 a.m. on Monday, July 24, 2023, at King David Memorial Chapel and Cemetery, 2697 E. Eldorado Lane, Las Vegas, NV 89120. King David Memorial Chapel handled the arrangements.

STEIN: Maxine Stein, age 94, formerly of McKeesport, Pennsylvania, passed away on Sunday, July 30, 2023, at Autumn Care of Statesville, North Carolina. Maxine was born Aug. 20, 1928, in Pittsburgh. She was the daughter of the late Martin Schulherr and Hattie Arnold Schulherr. She graduated from Taylor Allderdice High School in Pittsburgh, and was married to the late

Alan Stein. Those left to cherish the life and memory of Maxine include her son, David (Marci) Stein of Houston, Texas, and daughters, Joyce (Tim) Johnson of Statesville, North Carolina, and Mona (Saul) Legator of Evanston, Illinois. She is further survived by her seven grandchildren and two great-grandchildren. A graveside service was held on Thursday, Aug. 3, 2023, at 2 p.m., officiated by Rabbi Howie Stein, at Temple Cemetery, 731 Center Street, Versailles, PA 15132. Arrangements were handled by Strifflers of White Oak Cremation and Mortuary Services, Inc., 1100 Lincoln Way, White Oak, PA 15131 (Sue Striffler Galaski, supervisor, 412-678-6177). Those wishing to make memorials are asked to consider donations to Temple B’nai Israel Cemetery, Attn: Cemetery Committee, 2025 Cypress Drive, White Oak, PA 15131. To share a memory or condolence, please visit strifflerfuneralhomes.com. PJC

Paul Reubens, Pee-wee Herman creator and son of a pilot in Israel’s war of independence, is dead at 70

By Andrew Silow-Carroll | JTA

Iwas just out of college when I got a freelance assignment from a small entertainment magazine to interview a rising comic named Pee-wee Herman.

Of course that wasn’t his real name, but the man-child persona — one part Howdy Doody, one part third-grade nerd, who spoke as if he just took a hit off a helium balloon — created by a comic and actor named Paul Reubens.

The publicist warned me that Reubens would be only talking to me as Pee-wee, but the voice at the other end of the call spoke in a flat, polite baritone. It was Reubens as Reubens, who had decided to drop the Pee-wee character, at least

for our conversation.

I don’t remember what we talked about, but the conversation was disorienting: a peek behind the curtain at the real Wizard of Oz. And Pee-wee was sort of a wizard: In his brilliant Saturday morning “children’s” show, “Pee-wee’s Playhouse,” and in riotous films like “Pee-wee’s Big Adventure” and “Big Top Pee-wee,” the adult Reubens fully inhabited a child’s sensibility, simultaneously making his audience relive the innocence of being a kid and undermining it from an edgy adult distance.

Thirty years later I had another disorienting Pee-wee moment. I attended a screening of Nancy Spielberg’s 2014 documentary on American airmen who fought in Israel’s war of independence, “Above and Beyond.” Suddenly,

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there was Paul Reubens again, seated beside his mother and explaining how his father, Milton Rubenfeld, was an American pilot who volunteered in the fight for Israel. The film recounts how his father flew in a critical mission against the Iraqi army and was shot down over the Mediterranean (he survived).

“He was swaggering and macho, like Indiana Jones,” Reubens says. “He felt like it was his destiny.”

I hadn’t even considered until then that Reubens was Jewish.

Paul Reubens died Monday at age 70; a publicist said he “privately fought cancer for years.” And even though his career was derailed by scandal — he was arrested for “exposing” himself at a porn theater in his hometown of Sarasota, Florida, in 1991 — it’s not a stretch to remember him as an heir to the masterful comics who mined Jewish comedy’s more anarchic vein. Like the Marx Brothers, Pee-wee — with a crewcut, a too-tight suit, a red bow tie and a hint of lipstick and rouge — was a costumed agent of chaos whenever he bumped against straight (in all senses of the word) characters. Like Jerry Lewis, his character seemed stuck in pre-adolescence, but with an adult libido. He could be as sexually ambiguous as Milton Berle in one of his cross-dressing bits.

Paul Rubenfeld was born Aug. 27, 1952, in Peekskill, New York, and grew up in Sarasota. Milton and his wife Judy (Rosen) owned a lamp store. Milton Rubenfeld had been a top fighter pilot who served in the Royal Air Force, and then the U.S. Army Air Force, during World War II. He became one of five Jewish pilots who flew in smuggled fighter planes and helped establish the Israeli Air Force.

“When I was a youngster, they seemed like fish stories to me,” Reubens recalled in the Spielberg documentary. “I didn’t have any real perspective on it until Ezer Weizman [an Israeli Air Force general and seventh president of Israel], I believe was the first book that actually mentioned my dad by name. And all of a sudden all these stories I’d heard my whole life growing up were in this book. Once I actually knew he really did all those things, and then they weren’t things everyone else did, I just had a completely different view of [my father].”

After studying at Boston University and the California Institute for the Arts, Paul created the Pee-wee character in the late 1970s as a member of the Los Angeles improv troupe The Groundlings. HBO produced a successful special starring the character, and Pee-wee became a cult figure, appearing on talk shows and often confusing the hosts with his child-like delivery and pansexual (or perhaps

pre-sexual) persona. (David Letterman had him on his show regularly but never seemed completely comfortable in his presence.)

His first feature film, “Pee-wee’s Big Adventure” (1985) was directed by Tim Burton (who would go on to direct “Beetlejuice” and one of the best of the “Batman” reboots) and was a financial and critical hit. A sequel, “Big Top Pee-wee” (1988), was less successful but had its moments.

From 1986 through 1990, Reubens starred in 45 episodes of the CBS Saturday-morning children’s program “Pee-wee’s Playhouse.” It was both a children’s show and a send-up of a children’s show, featuring a recurring cast of characters that included a sea captain (Phil Hartman), a cowboy (Laurence Fishburne), a “mail lady” (S. Epatha Merkerson) and a talking chair. More than one critic noted Reubens’ debt to Soupy Sales, another Jewish comedian whose 1960s kids show also managed to appeal to children as well as adults who were in on the joke.

The indecent exposure arrest led to a media frenzy that made it impossible for Reubens to continue playing a children’s entertainer. He eventually emerged in a series of cameos and small roles in film and television shows –including a memorable term as a grotesquely inbred Hapsburg prince on “30 Rock,” and as a drunken Pee-wee opposite Andy Samberg in a 2011 “Saturday Night Live” video.

In 2010, he revived the character that made him famous on Broadway in “The Pee-wee Herman Show,” and in 2016, he co-wrote and starred in the Netflix original film “Pee-wee’s Big Holiday.”

Reubens kept his health issues private. “Please accept my apology for not going public with what I’ve been facing the last six years,” he said in a statement distributed by his publicist after his death. “I have loved you all so much and enjoyed making art for you.” PJC

p Paul Reubens at the 60th Academy Awards

Photo by Alan Light, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

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Life & Culture

age of the material,” Loeb said. “We can, for example, infer that the material is much older than material from the solar system. That’s one way to tell the difference.”

Meanwhile, he’s facing scrutiny from multiple sources.

The Times of London has quoted several Papua New Guinea officials as asking whether Loeb had the proper paperwork to come to their country and take samples from the seabed. One of them was Penua George Polon, Manus Province’s deputy administrator.

“We’ve been cheated,” the outlet quoted him as saying. “They came here, no one knew about it and now they’ve gone. What have they found? Does it have value? Do we have rights over it? If it’s scientific research, how are our scientific institutions going to benefit?”

When The Times of Israel asked Loeb about such statements, he responded in an email that the team has been liaising with officials from Papua New Guinea for eight months and has made a collaborative research agreement with one of the country’s scientific institutions — the University of Technology.

“The materials we retrieved are 35 milligrams of tiny dust particles, with no commercial value,” Loeb said. “The reports were triggered by officials who were not in the loop.”

Around the same time as his expedition, two scholars published a paper questioning whether the meteor came from outside the solar system — “On the Proposed Interstellar Origin of the USG 20140108 Fireball,” by Peter G. Brown, chair of planetary science at the University of

Western Ontario, and Jiří Borovička of the Astronomical Institute of the Czech Academy of Sciences.

“It concluded the government velocity measurements might be wrong, because their model for solar system rocks could not fit the data,” Loeb said. “They concluded that it was just a stony meteor, it could not be made of iron.”

He countered, “But at the time this paper was published, we have found the meteor’s spherules to be made mostly of iron. If your model does not fit the data, revise the model.”

Brown told The Times of Israel that the scientific community needs to see the original data on the meteor for

Loeb’s claim of interstellar origin to be validated. Even the 2022 statement from U.S. Space Command left him unconvinced.

“It’s a classic appeal to higher authority, ‘We have to accept what they say is correct,’” Brown said. “That’s not the way science works. For such an extraordinary claim, the data has to be available for independent analysis.”

Another expert, Matthew Genge, a senior lecturer in earth and planetary science at Imperial College London, voiced doubts about the spherules Loeb’s team found.

“Just because something happens in a certain place doesn’t mean everything

you find there is related to that event,” he said. “So that means you can’t use the location of an event as evidence of origin. It could be — but you can’t prove it.”

The composition of Loeb’s spherules includes iron and titanium, which makes Genge question interstellar origin. Were that the case, he said, these particles would have reacted to the oxygen in the atmosphere and made iron oxide.

“They don’t appear to be oxidized,” said Genge. “At present, they’re most likely artificial, they are terrestrial, made by us human beings from some process, either welding or the re-entry of a spacecraft.”

“I’m hoping I’m wrong,” he added. “It would be really cool if it was part of an alien spacecraft. I think the research group has an uphill struggle. It will be difficult for them to convince the scientific community that these are interstellar. We need really strong evidence.”

Loeb insists that’s what he’s working on. He continues to share his findings on Medium, noting on July 14 that the number of spherules has increased to 141, ready for analysis. He’s also awaiting the release of his next book, “Interstellar.” So is the public — it’s among the mostrequested upcoming releases for August.

“I don’t [receive] any negativity coming from the general public, coming from the U.S. government,” Loeb reflected. “On the contrary, it’s all positive, all encouraging, all open-minded. Why is it so difficult for people in academia to be open-minded?

“Science is not always about what we know. If there’s evidence, we should accept it and try to figure out what it means,” he said. PJC

p Spherules showing up on the microscope image of magnetic particles taken from the ocean floor along the most likely course of a possibly interstellar meteor that exploded off the coast of Papua New Guinea in 2014.

Photo courtesy of Avi Loeb

Community

Games with friends

Teens gathered at The Friendship Circle for a game night with board games and lawn games.

Sweet summer meet up

Beth

Shabbat in the Garden

Global Israel experience

After previously meeting online, 54 teens from Emma Kaufmann Camp, Warsaw and Karmiel-Misgav toured Israel together. Over one week, participants stayed with host families in Karmiel-Misgav, visited Safed, rafted on the Jordan River, went rappelling and hiked. The week ended in Haifa with a collective celebration of Shabbat.

p Omelets and games require a few cracked eggs.

p Cards with friends. Deal me in. Photos courtesy of The Friendship Circle of Pittsburgh

p Scoop after scoop of fun

Photo courtesy of Beth El

El members and friends enjoyed an informal summer social at Graeter’s Ice Cream Co. with Rabbis Alex and Amy Greenbaum.

p Spiritual leaders sing sacred songs. Photo courtesy of Rodef Shalom Congregation

Rodef Shalom Congregation hosted a Kabbalat Shabbat service in its Biblical Botanical Garden with Rabbi Sharyn Henry, Cantor Toby Glaser and Music Director Don Megahan on July 21.

p Worlds collide

p The sky’s the limit.

Photos courtesy of Jeremy Goldman

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