P I T TS B U R G H
August 25, 2017 | 3 Elul 5777
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Candlelighting 7:45 p.m. | Havdalah 8:43 p.m. | Vol. 60, No. 34 | pittsburghjewishchronicle.org
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Local scholar’s Mideast views challenged by Israel mission
NOTEWORTHY LOCAL More than medals
By Toby Tabachnick | Senior Staff Writer
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Pittsburgh’s crop of athletes in the JCC Maccabi Games enjoy the camaraderie. Page 4 NATIONAL Unfortunate expert The Jewish mayor whose U-Va. town was in the national spotlight knows plenty about anti-Semitism. Page 10
Four stolpersteine in the Berlin-Mitte neighborhood
Stumbling stones connect families, memorialize those murdered by Nazis
LOCAL Diversity training
Federation’s CRC joins conversation on the educational needs of minority populations. Page 6
Photo by Lauren Bairnsfather
By Toby Tabachnick | Senior Staff Writer
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teve Jaron and Betram Polak were separated by decades and circumstance. Jaron, a lifelong Pittsburgher born in 1979, could never have met Polak — the first cousin of Jaron’s grandmother — who lived his short life in the Netherlands and was murdered by the Nazis at Auschwitz in 1942. Yet, on April 29, 2011, Jaron found himself in the Dutch town of Tilburg, alongside relatives from throughout the United States, Israel and the Netherlands standing in front of the last place Polak voluntarily lived at a ceremony commemorating his life with the laying of a stolpersteine, or “stumbling stone.” “The stones are a good way to commemorate family members lost in the Holocaust,” said Jaron, who has been documenting his own family’s genealogy for years. There are more than 61,000 stolpersteine in more than 610 locations in Germany,
as well as in Austria, Hungary, the Netherlands, Belgium, the Czech Republic, Norway and Ukraine. The stones are concrete cubes which measure about 4x4 inches, bearing brass plates inscribed with the name and life dates of those slaughtered by the Nazis or, in some cases, those who survived. The stolpersteine are a project of German artist Gunter Demnig, who has been creating and laying the stones since the early 1990s. Demnig, on his website, cites the Talmudic saying that “a person is only forgotten when his or her name is forgotten.” Installed on the sidewalks in front of the buildings where the victims last lived, each stolpersteine begins with the phrase, “Here lived.” Also included is the individual’s birth year, date of arrest if applicable, the name of the camp in which he or she was detained, the year in which he or she was deported
elen Blier, an educator from the Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, has returned from a mission to Israel with a deeper understanding of the complexities of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but remains “no less convinced that the military occupation of Palestine is horrifying and results in the deep suffering of so many.” The trip, which was for leaders and scholars of divinity schools from across the country, was organized and funded by Interfaith Partners for Peace, a program that is incubated and supported by the Israel Action Network. The IAN is a project of the Jewish Federations of North America in partnership with the Jewish Council for Public Affairs. Air fare, hotels, meals and security for eight full days of touring Israel were provided to the 26 divinity school educators from mainline Christian seminaries. Participants were required to pay just a “goodwill token fee” of $500, according to Blier. Blier is the director of continuing education at the PTS, a graduate theological school of the Presbyterian Church (USA) located in East Liberty. As continuing education director, Blier has provided opportunities for interfaith dialogue at the PTS. One such event in 2016 featured Rabbi Jamie Gibson of Temple Sinai and Liddy Barlow, executive minister of the Christian Associates of Southwest Pennsylvania, following a trip they took to Israel together two years ago — along with 13 other interfaith pairs from across the country. That trip was also sponsored by Interfaith Partners for Peace. While the PTS is a school of the Presbyterian Church (USA), Blier is Catholic. The relationship between some segments of the Presbyterian Church and some Jewish
Please see Stones, page 16
Please see Mission, page 15
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