This holiday season rabbis are thinking about Israel — and say you should
By Adam Reinherz | Senior Sta Writer
As the holiday season approaches, rabbis are refining ideas, retooling speeches and preparing to engage more people in the pews. The backdrop, however, is that midway through the Days of Awe communities will mark one year since the Oct. 7 massacre by Hamas in Israel.
Both the attack and subsequent 12 months are weighing heavily on Temple Sinai’s Rabbi Daniel Fellman.
“I’m clearly thinking about what it means to be a Jew in America today and what it means to be a Jew in the world today,” he said.
“This last year has been brutally painful in too many ways to count. I suspect my words on the holidays will talk about Israel, very directly, antisemitism and anti-Zionism, but will also wrestle with what it means to be a Jew in the world today, what it means to be a Jew in America, and more intimately, what it means to be a Jew in Pittsburgh and in our Reform Jewish community. And, where are we headed?”
This won’t be the first time Fellman has raised those questions since Oct. 7.
“I’ve been having conversations with congregants all the way through,” he said.
Dor Hadash’s Rabbi Amy Bardack has thought and taught much about Israel during the past year, but won’t speak about the Jewish state or its war with Hamas from the pulpit this holiday season.
“I never incorporate Israel into sermons. I incorporate it into readings,” she said. “Everyone has a lot of thoughts about Jewish life post-Oct. 7, but that’s not something that any of us at Dor Hadash would directly address from the bimah.”
Throughout its nearly 60-year history, Dor Hadash has been primarily member-led. Bardack, the congregation’s first full-time rabbi, was hired in 2022.
During Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, she’ll speak only once. Other speeches will be delivered by lay leaders and will cover a range of topics.
Although none of the High Holiday addresses will involve Israel or the war, Bardack hasn’t shied from the subject.
“We provide lots of different sessions to talk about Israel,” she said. “We did classes on anti-Zionism and antisemitism. We engage in learning about Israel, just through other mechanisms like dialogue and education — everything that happens not on Shabbat.
“It’s not that we don’t talk about Israel,” she explained. “We just do it through other learning mechanisms.”
Rabbi Hindy Finman, senior director of Jewish life at the Jewish Community Center of Greater Pittsburgh, said her seasonal efforts are in response to conversations she’s had with community members as well as internal and external stakeholders.
By David Rullo | Senior Sta Writer
Are you concerned about ringing in 5785 given the rash of worrisome headlines over the last year?
Shawn Brokos, director of community security for the Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh, understands your concerns, and she and her team are working to create a safe High Holiday season for the entire Pittsburgh Jewish community.
“We are doing everything we can to ensure the safety and security of all of our locations,” Brokos said. “That means working with each of our organizations to make sure that they have appropriate security in place.”
In some cases, that security might be visible: additional police presence or armed guards. Other times, it won’t be as apparent.
Security will be a welcome presence as the number of antisemitic incidents continues to rise following Hamas’ invasion of Israel on Oct. 7. A partial list of attacks against the local Jewish community over the last year includes antisemitic graffiti at Chabad of Squirrel Hill, the Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh and private residences; a Jewish university student
Shawn Brokos, security director for the Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh
Photo by James Uncapher
Headlines
Quest for shared society in Israel involves Pittsburghers
By Adam Reinherz
Mohammad Darawshe has spent a lifetime promoting shared society in Israel. On Sept. 18, the Jewish-Arab relations expert told Pittsburghers that the path to bettering the Middle East stretches at least 6,000 miles.
Darawshe is a faculty member at the Shalom Hartman Institute and director of Planning, Equality and Shared Society at Givat Haviva Educational Center. Previous posts include co-director of the Abraham Fund Initiatives and elections campaign manager for the Democratic Arab Party and the United Arab List.
Spending the day in Pittsburgh is “part of a larger visit to the United States,” he said.
This semester, Darawshe is a visiting scholar at the Illinois Global Institute at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
“I’m a person that dances between academia and practice,” he said. “My job is to educate people, not to convince people, so expose them to my perspectives, engage in discussions, in dialogues and hopefully in partnerships.”
For nearly 40 years, Darawshe has worked to build sustainable ties between Jews and Arabs in Israel. Both during a conversation with the Chronicle and later Wednesday evening while speaking before more than 200 people at the Jewish Community Center of Greater Pittsburgh, Darawshe addressed the work’s fundamental tension.
“There’s this discourse about Israel, the question about whose state is it,” Darawshe said.
Darawshe is a resident of Iksal, a village in northern Israel.
“My family has lived in the same town for close to 800 years,” he said. “We have no reason to move.” So when it comes to discussing Israel, the question is, “Is it the state of the Jews, or is it the state of the Israelis? If it’s the state of the Jews,
he said: the Jewish citizens of Israel, the Jewish Diaspora and the Arab citizens of Israel.
In order for those constituents to achieve partnership and common interests, there must be conversation and education, he said.
“If I am to promote the Jewishness of the state of Israel, I need to engage in dialogue with all of the Jewish partners, not just the Israeli Jewish partners, but also the Diaspora Jewish partners. And if the Diaspora Jews want to engage with Israel, they should engage with all Israelis, not just with 79% of Israelis,” he said.
Of Israel’s 9.4 million citizens, approximately 21% are Arab, according to the CIA.
“Unfortunately, most Jews that I meet in America do not know the basics about Arab citizens. So part of education is, first of all, share the information,” Darawshe said.
Quest beyond the classroom
The academician and former politician began his educational quest decades ago at
experience “stimulating,” he said, and decided to make a career of it.
For nearly 60 years, that same program has brought together 300 Arab and Jewish children nearly every week. Through social contact, participants “see each other as human beings,” Darawshe said. Students at Givat Haviva learn that “we can eat from the same plate and not get poisoned. You can sleep in the same dormitories, and check your body in the morning and there are no new holes. No one stabbed you.”
The work of humanization can lead to coexistence, but the latter is not enough because “coexistence can be sustained with hierarchy,” he continued. It’s like the relationship between a horse and rider. Both enjoy the same view. Both drink from the same river. Both share the same sweat, but at the end of a wonderful time together “one goes to the barn and eats hay and one goes to the castle and eats steak.”
Creating a shared society requires respectful dialogue about equality, he said. “Otherwise,
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things will be swept beneath the rug and [conversants] will continue to produce antagonism.”
Darawshe admitted that not every moment is ripe for talking, but in the absence of dialogue an awareness of “mutual interests” must remain. For instance, imagine if a Jewish patient was sick in the hospital and an Arab doctor arrived to treat the ailment, he said. “The mutual interest there is obvious…The doctor wants their job and the patient wants the treatment. That’s what you create when you create a winwin relationship. That’s where you create interdependency. The question is, how can we learn from this experience?”
He pointed to Israel’s tech sector as
“Israeli society is not supplying enough people that study high-tech and study engineering,” he said. The “untapped brain power in Israeli society” largely rests in two areas: the Haredi and Arab populations. “The Haredi population, for their own reasons, say, ‘Don’t ask, please. We don’t want to study math,’ which makes them less relevant to the high-tech industry. Our community says, ‘Bring it on. We want to.’ And so we made it our job at Givat Haviva to identify those very good students in math in Arab schools.”
Investing in Arab students creates a beneficial pipeline, he explained.
The Israeli tech sector offers them “the best jobs, and Arab kids want those jobs because they pay three times the average wage. And who’s benefiting from this? Both the industry gets the brainpower and the Arab community gets the highly paying jobs.”
Change is underway, he continued. “Seven years ago, the percentage of Arab students in high-tech was 1%. Today, it’s 7%, but 20% of the engineering students in Israeli universities are Arab students. So the revolution is in the making.”
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Rabbi Hindy Finman and Mohammad Darawshe speak at the JCC on Sept. 18. Photo courtesy of Jewish Community Center of Greater Pittsburgh
Senate candidate David McCormick meets with Jewish community in Squirrel Hill
LOCAL —
By David Rullo | Pittsburgh Jewish Chronicle
Republican Senate hopeful David McCormick called Iran “the original sin” of the current conflicts in the Middle East.
Speaking before a crowd of more than 30 members of the Pittsburgh Jewish community at Bunny Bakes on Murray Avenue — a kosher bakery affiliated with The Friendship Circle — McCormick was critical of the nuclear deal cut by former President Barack Obama and the Islamic state in 2015, and of his political foe’s role in the agreement.
“Bob Casey was the deciding vote — the deciding vote — that gave Iran $100 billion of sanctioned moneys, which has underwritten terrorism,” he said. “It has been the source — one of the sources — of funding for Hamas.”
McCormick spoke of his support for Israel, his belief that the United States needs to stand by the Jewish state, his military background and his wife, Dina Powell McCormick, who he said helped secure the Abraham Accords while serving as White House deputy national security adviser in Donald Trump’s administration. The candidate outlined his background, which has included two tenures living in
5505 Forbes Avenue Pittsburgh PA 15217 TempleSinaiPGH.org
Registration required RSVP to DANIE OBERMAN Community Engagement Director Danie@TempleSinaiPGH.org (412) 421-9715 ext. 121
Weather permitting, services will be outside in the Bodek Rose Garden.
“This is not free speech. This is a violation of the policies of the university, a violation of the statutes within our city,” he said. “These kids are saying horrible antisemitic things, horrible anti-Israel things, horrible
McCormick told the friendly crowd of his
“The reason we went was because we had many friends who were talking about this,” he said. “But it was mostly to show solidarity with our friends there and here facing an existential crisis, who had just lived through
McCormick recounted touring the spots where Israelis were killed, watching the 47-minute film depicting Hamas’ horrific murders and visiting Rachel Goldberg-Polin and Jon Polin, whose son Hersh was held as a hostage at the time — he has since been
McCormick told of meeting an Oct. 7 survivor, who was shot but survived because
“You can’t come away from that without feeling heartbroken and believing we in America need to support Israel with eradicating
, page 19
Shanah Tovah!
Bring your TOTS to Temple Sinai tocelebrate the High Holy Days!
TOT SERVICES: A fun, active service led by Cantor David Reinwald and Rabbi Daniel Fellman with stories, singing, and dancing for families with children ages 0–5.
Erev Rosh HaShanah
Wednesday, Oct. 2, 5:15 PM
Kol Nidre
Friday, Oct. 11, 5:15 PM
Snacks & Fun start at 5 PM.
TOT PROGRAM: Join Danie Oberman and Alex Dolinger for singing, dancing, and fun holiday focused activities for children ages 0–5.
Rosh HaShanah
Thursday, Oct. 3, 8:15 AM
Yom Kippur
Saturday, Oct. 12, 8:15 AM
Snacks & Fun start at 8 AM.
Senate hopeful David McCormick met with members of Pittsburgh’s Jewish community at Bunny Bakes in Squirrel Hill.
Photo by David Rullo
Union calls for East End Food Co-op to divest from Israel
By David Rullo | Senior Staff Writer
If UE Local 667 has its way, customers won’t be able to purchase products from Israel at the East End Food Co-op.
The union, which represents workers at the food market on Meade Street in Point Breeze, is trying to force the co-op to divest from the Jewish state.
In social media posts, the union chapter said it voted in July to endorse the boycott, divest and sanction movement against Israel and that it was working to make the co-op an “apartheid free zone.” The posts also said the union was gathering signatures to present to the market’s
of identity or affiliation. It has declined requests to boycott Israeli products.
Board member Nico Demkin said that while the board doesn’t want to take a stance on any socio-political matter, there is a provision allowing co-op members to petition
than 1200 people and taking more than 250 people captive.
customers who have been unhappy seeing union members with anti-Israel signs or stickers.
The board, Demkin said, has no interest in altering its position, but that doesn’t mean the position won’t change if a new board is elected and its members decide to take the union’s suggestion.
The latest local salvo in the BDS war follows the union’s support of a failed petition for a referendum on November’s ballot that would have required the City of Pittsburgh to divest from Israel, and an earlier motion, introduced by Allegheny County Councilmember Bethany Hallam, for the county council to approve a cease-fire resolution.
While the union is attempting to force the board to divest from Israel, the board says it does not take an official stance on international conflicts and that its mission
In the meantime, StandWithUs MidAtlantic Regional Director Julie Paris is urging Israel supporters to participate in a “buy-cott,” purchasing products from the Jewish state. PJC
David Rullo can be reached at drullo@ pittsburghjewishchronicle.org.
Co-op Photo by David Rullo
Headlines
Rodef Shalom guest lecturer encourages attention to everyday burning bush moments
By Adam Reinherz | Senior Sta Writer
Moses’ encounter with the burning bush is considered a pretty pivotal moment in Jewish history. Rabbi Michael Zedek thinks the spiritual meetup is still occurring.
Speaking by phone from Leawood, Kansas, Zedek referenced the biblical narrative in which Moses approaches the burning bush and notices its absence of fiery consumption. God calls out to the shepherd, tells him to remove his footwear and informs the prophet that he will lead the Israelites from bondage to freedom. Moses responds with multiple questions yet ultimately accepts God’s vision.
Everyday life is filled with manifold burning bush opportunities, “if we pay attention,” Zedeck said.
Zedek is the author of “Taking Miracles Seriously: A Journey to Everyday Spirituality” and rabbi emeritus at both The Temple, B’nai Jehudah in Kansas City, Missouri, and Emanuel Congregation in Chicago.
He is slated to deliver the 2024 Ruth and Bernard Levaur Contemporary Lecture at Rodef Shalom Congregation on Sept. 29, at 7 p.m.
Before addressing the timeliness of his upcoming talk, Zedek returned to the burning bush concept and said the idea is akin to stanzas composed by Victorian poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning:
“Earth’s crammed with heaven, And every common bush afire with God, But only he who sees takes off his shoes; The rest sit round and pluck blackberries.”
Whether one happens upon a mundane bush or holy shrub is determined by the attention given, Zedek said.
There’s no better time to mind this message
than the High Holidays, he continued. Between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, “a lot of fine people make a lot of fine pledges and commitments,” however, when the period ends, there’s a lack of follow-through. As opposed to saying, “Oh, well, maybe another time,” a realization should arise that “at some point, all we have is this gift of a limited amount of time.”
For decades, Zedek, 78, has served as a spiritual guide. Whether in writing, sermonizing or simply speaking by phone, his manner reflects a commitment to Western traditions and humorous inquiry.
When asked his age, Zedek cited a quote sometimes attributed to the late baseball player Satchel Paige: “How old would you be if you didn’t know how old you were?”
When asked what he hopes listeners take from his upcoming talk, Zedek replied, “Gnothi seauton.”
The Greek maxim, meaning “Know thyself,” was inscribed on the Temple of Apollo in Delphi.
Zedek is comfortable talking about Jewish wisdom or classical literature — a fact, he said, that points to an earlier career path. “Before I became a rabbi,” he said, “I had a brief stint teaching English and writing.”
But canonical writings don’t only captivate his mind. Once Zedek gets going on dikduk (Hebrew grammar), it’s like scrolling TikTok — tough to stop.
“I happen to be intoxicated with the Hebrew language,” he said.
Several topics command Zedek’s attention, however, the rabbi is keen on articulating his ideas about the Five Books of Moses and their place within the world.
“I tend to think that the Torah is an effort to have a divine perspective on the human story,” he said. “And the human story is a record of falling short and getting up again, falling short and getting up again.”
With a backstory encompassing millennia of tradition, where does this leave a modern Jewish reader?
“We need to get up again,” he said.
On an individual level, the process requires a mental exercise ripe for the upcoming holiday season.
“I am much more than I ever thought I would be, and much less than I should be,” Zedek said.
Once that awareness is reached, both the Days of Awe and ordinary days become awesome, he continued. “Magic happens when I can embrace and accept that.” PJC
Adam Reinherz can be reached at areinherz@pittsburghjewishchronicle.org.
It has been a difficult year around the world and for our Jewish community here at home. May this Rosh Hashanah bring you peace, joy, and many blessings for a better year to come.
Barb Warwick and the District 5 City Council Team
Rabbi Michael Zedek Photos courtesy of Rabbi Michael Zedek
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 FRIDAY, SEPT. 27
OneTable Pittsburgh Field Manager Jordan Wright will host a Shabbat event at Dobra Teahouse as part of OneTable’s Permission to Unplug series. Food and tea will be provided, as well as crafting supplies and journals for intention-setting activities that align with the New Year. The goal of this event is to gather with other Pittsburgh Jewish young adults in a cozy space to celebrate Shabbat and have a few hours to disconnect and step away from the virtual world. 7-9 p.m. dinners.onetable.org/events.
q SATURDAY, SEPT. 28
Join Temple Sinai and Rodef Shalom Congregation for guest speaker Rabbi Michael Zedek, dessert, reception and service with Rabbi Daniel Fellman, Cantor David Reinwald, Rabbi Sharyn Henry, Cantor Toby Glaser and the Temple Sinai and Rodef Shalom combined choirs. 7:30 p.m. Rodef Shalom Congregation, 4905 Fifth Ave.
Everyone is invited to Temple Ohav Shalom for a Selichot Sound Bath. Prepare for the Jewish New Year with havdalah and a meditative soundscape featuring singing bowls and other healing instruments. To relax on the floor, bring your own mat, blanket and comfort items. Chairs and a limited number of mats will be provided. RSVP required. 8 p.m. 8400 Thompson Run Road, 15101. forms.gle/1ezybsvudP8dmjp26.
q SUNDAY, SEPT. 29
Bring your family for a pre-High Holiday challah bake, complete with crafts, storytelling and a
shofar-making workshop. 1 p.m. $10/child. Chabad of Squirrel Hill, 1700 Beechwood Blvd. chabadpgh.com/kidscooking.
Join Rodef Shalom Congregation for “Taking Miracles Seriously: A Journey to Everyday Spirituality,” the 2024 Ruth and Bernard Levaur Contemporary Lecture with guest speaker Rabbi Michael Zedek. This event is free and open to the public. Seating is limited and reservations are encouraged. Reception to follow. 7 p.m. 4905 Fifth Ave. rodefshalom.org/levaur.
Join the Jewish community for a “Bring Them Home Vigil” in support of the hostages still being held by Hamas. The vigil will start with calling the names of the IDF soldiers who were killed in the last week followed by one minute of silence. Noon. Corner of Murray Avenue and Darlington Road.
q MONDAY, SEPT. 30
Join Rodef Shalom Congregation for Wise Aging: High Holy Days. Consider and discuss “Asking for and Granting Forgiveness: How the Conversation Changes as We Grow Older.” This experience is designed for Jewish adults 55 and older. $18. 7 p.m. rodefshalom.org/wiseaging.
q MONDAYS, SEPT. 30–DEC. 30
Join Congregation Beth Shalom for a weekly Talmud study. 9:15 a.m. For more information, visit bethshalompgh.org.
Join Temple Sinai for an evening of mahjong every Monday (except holidays). Whether you are just starting out or have years of experience, you are sure to enjoy the camaraderie and good times as you make new friends or cherish moments with longtime pals. All are welcome. Winners will be awarded Giant Eagle gift cards. All players should have their
own 2024 mahjong cards. Contact Susan Cohen at susan_k_cohen@yahoo.com if you have questions. $5. templesinaipgh.org.
q WEDNESDAYS, OCT. 2–DEC. 18
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.
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.
q THURSDAY, OCT. 3
Join Chabad of Squirrel Hill’s Camp Gan Israel and Community Day School for Shofar in the Park with snacks, games and more. 4 p.m. CDS playground. 6424 Forward Ave. chabadpgh.com/shofar.
q MONDAY, OCT. 7
Join the Jewish community to mark the first anniversary of Hamas’ terrorist attack on Israel. Gather in front of the JCC to commemorate the lives lost, people injured and hostages taken. No registration necessary. Free and open to the community. 6:30 p.m. JCC Squirrel Hill, 5723 Darlington Road. jewishpgh.org/event/october-7 commemoration.
q WEDNESDAY, OCT. 9
Join the Squirrel Hill AARP for a lunch brunch. Noon. Ritters Diner. RSVP to Gerri Linder before Oct. 3 at (412) 421-5868.
Join food historian Dr. Ted Merwin and Pitt’s Jewish studies program for An Overstuffed History of the Jewish Deli, a talk about the history of America’s iconic Jewish delis. Free. 5:30 p.m. Cathedral of Learning, 4200 Fifth Ave. Room 501.
q WEDNESDAYS, OCT. 16; NOV. 20; DEC. 18
Join AgeWell for the Intergenerational Family Dynamics Discussion Group at JCC South Hills the third Wednesday of each month. Led by intergenerational specialist Audree Schall. The group is geared toward anyone who has children, grandchildren, a spouse, siblings or parents. Whether you have family harmony or strife, these discussions will be thought-provoking, with tools to help build strong relationships and family unity. Free. 12:30 p.m.
q SUNDAY, OCT. 20
Join Chabad of Squirrel Hill for a Family Sukkah Party. Shake the lulov, eat pizza and enjoy music and crafts. 5 p.m. 1700 Beechwood Blvd. chabadpgh.com/ sukkahparty.
Rodef Shalom Congregation’s Brotherhood presents the East Winds Symphonic Band in a free concert featuring a celebration of music from stage and screen. Cash donations to the JFCS Squirrel Hill Food Pantry are welcome. 7 p.m. 4905 Fifth Ave. rodefshalom.org/eastwinds.
q TUESDAY, OCT. 22
Fact or fake? With the plethora of AI, special interests, social media, websites and newsletters, how do you discern what is true and what are lies? Join Temple Sinai for Disinformation & the Election: A Panel Discussion sponsored by Women of Temple Sinai to discuss how groups circulate incorrect information about voting and elections with the intent to mislead and confuse voters and then spread that disinformation. Bring your dinner; water, lemonade and a sweet treat provided. Free and open to the public; registration required. 6 p.m. templesinaipgh.org/ programs-events. PJC
Happy, Healthy, New Year from your friends at The Branch
Headlines
Israeli Olympic athlete trades his bobsled for the bimah during the High Holidays
School, an Orthodox day school, before studying in Israel at Yeshivat Lev HaTorah.
WE STAND WITH ISRAEL
Jim and Maureen Busis and family
First bitten by the winter sports bug at age 3, Edelman started playing hockey as a goaltender, something he continued throughout high school and college. He was the first Sabbath-observant player at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and helped the school win two divisional championships in the Northeast Collegiate Hockey Association Division II league.
And while he enjoyed hockey, Edelman had his sights on representing Israel in the Olympics.
“The social change I wanted to effect was only possible by representing Israel, by representing Jews,” he said. “That was critically important to this whole mission, the Jewish component.”
Being Jewish, he said, is central to his identity and he is happy to contribute to the Jewish community, whether it’s as part of the Israeli Olympic team or leading services for a shul in the suburbs of Pittsburgh.
“I think that the Jewish community is so small that it’s critical we support each other, to be proud of who we are and to inspire pride,” he said.
Edelman first learned of skeleton a decade ago on television and thought the sport looked fun.
After being told he was a long shot competitor, he was able to secure a birth on the 2018 Olympic team, finishing 28th overall. In addition to the Olympics, Edelman won four Israeli national titles and medals in international competitions, becoming the most decorated Israeli sliding sport athlete.
It was his desire to again participate in a team sport that drove him to join Israel’s bobsled team.
Competing in two different winter sports in two different Olympics places Edelman in a select group of athletes.
“Once you’ve achieved Olympic-level, starting over from scratch at zero is not really what a lot of people would ever want to do,” he said.
Israel’s bobsled team, he said, has found ways to succeed without some of the usual mechanisms associated with Olympic teams.
“It’s a sad reality that we have no sponsors at the moment,” Edelman said. “We have very little
after observation,” he said. “It’s happened that way in aspects of my life with bobsled and skeleton. The prayer services are very much the same thing — being in synagogues for 20 years and paying close attention to exactly what was going on there.”
There’s no secret to leading services, he said. Rather, it has to do with heart and passion, and learning the correct tunes.
And, like readying for an Olympic sport, training is everything.
“It takes extensive practice,” Edelman noted, “but eventually practice makes perfect. Or at least, practice makes better.”
If you aren’t a sports fan and don’t attend The Carnegie Shul, but Edelman’s name still sounds familiar, that might be because of his brother Alex Edelman, who recently won the Emmy Award for Outstanding Writing for a Variety Special for his HBO Max show “Just For Us.” A.J. Edelman plays a prominent role in some of the stories his brother relates from their youth.
Edelman said he’s proud of his brother, but there’s no mistaking the true stars in the family.
“My mom and dad,” he said. “I think that’s the only way that it can be explained that the kids were able to strike out on their own and find what works for them. That’s entirely my mom and dad. They raised us very well and saw to it that we had the tools to succeed. They’re just amazing parents.”
Without losing focus on his training for the 2026 Olympic games in Italy, Edelman is excited to spend the High Holidays at the Carnegie Shul.
“Carnegie is home to me,” he said. “I feel very blessed that I have a home to come back to every year. It’s a constant for me. I’ve lived a life on the move. There’s not much constant.
“Carnegie is the one place I look forward to every year, going back to such a beautiful community,” he continued. “It’s a real opportunity to spend the most meaningful days of the year spiritually with people who really mean so much to me. It’s a unique and special blessing.” PJC
David Rullo can be reached at drullo@ pittsburghjewishchronicle.org.
p A.J. Edelman
Photo by Eric Schramm
Headlines
A
view of war
By Eric Lidji | Special to the Chronicle
Zionism in this region dates to the late 19th century, but only in the 1960s did locals begin regularly traveling to Israel for vacations, extended trips and settlement.
Working with the regional Israel Aliyah Centers in Cleveland and Philadelphia, the Pittsburgh Zionist District began holding aliyah forums as early as 1966, bringing national figures to town to discuss the opportunities and challenges of making aliyah.
The American Zionist Federation was established in 1970 to coordinate Zionist activities in the United States and to encourage Americans to spend more time in Israel, in addition to spending money. A slur tossed around at the time was “alimony Jews,” those who supported Israel financially but wouldn’t visit the country, let alone live there.
The American Zionist Federation of Pittsburgh also began in 1970 and became the local group most closely associated with aliyah. It regularly hosted informational sessions for locals interested in making aliyah for “any length of time” and even arranged an “Aliyah Month” in early 1974 with speakers, programs, and informational displays.
According to Israel Central Bureau of Statistics figures extrapolated by the Jewish Virtual Library, around 1,000 people made aliyah from the United States and Canada in 1968. Then, rates from North America soared: more than 6,400 in 1969, more than 7,100 in 1970, and more than 8,000 in 1971, which remains the highest annual total on record.
Determining local figures is tough. In an article in this newspaper in the early 1970s, Asher Calingold of the Israel Aliyah Center in Philadelphia estimated that more than 400 Pennsylvanians had made aliyah in the record-breaking year 1971. That would suggest that rates of aliyah from western Pennsylvania were in the low double digits.
Judging from anecdotal evidence in the archives, young people from Pittsburgh increasingly spent time at Israeli kibbutzim, schools, and youth programs starting in the mid-1960s, joining the small group of young families who made permanent aliyah during these years. And so, when the Yom Kippur War started in September 1973, Israel was home to a small but notable contingent of Pittsburghers.
Yom Kippur fell on Shabbat that year. This newspaper published a rare eightpage special issue the following Tuesday with news about the war and the local response.
The editor at the time, Al Bloom, maintained ongoing contact with the Pittsburghers living in Israel. He published their correspondence in a series called “Letters from the Yom Kippur War,” running from October through December 1973.
It is fascinating to see the war through the eyes of community leaders like Kitty Ruttenberg, Katharine Falk and Gloria Elbling. But with the benefit of hindsight, the most remarkable letters in this collection come from the Pittsburgh teenagers and 20-somethings who happened to be in Israel when the war started.
A few selections:
“Aba, I really feel like your daughter and
Starting in the mid-1960s, the Israel Aliyah Center posted regular advertisements in this newspaper encouraging locals to make aliyah.
Feb. 3, 1967, via the Pittsburgh Jewish Newspaper Project
that I have to carry out this task well. But let me tell you, please don’t worry but for the first time I’m scared.”
“Look — I’ve been pretty honest. Everyone keeps saying they don’t know what to write home. That if they tell their parents they are sleeping in shelters they’ll get hysterical. Look —there’s really no danger here. At this point the Syrians are much more concerned with survival than with their frogs (surface to surface missiles). But we want to be careful.”
“I do not want to come home. I feel safer here than at home at night in our house or even in a plane over the ocean. Also, in my heart I could not leave now. I can’t run out of something I don’t even feel worth running out on. It makes no sense to me. I could do nothing for them in the states if I leave now.”
The best part about working at a community archive is the ongoing relationship between paper and people. Every historic document is connected to someone you know.
Some of the young people who wrote these letters in late 1973 are now grandparents, still living in this community. Some can be seen attending the “Bring Them Home Now” vigils outside the Squirrel Hill Post Office on Sunday afternoons.
In these letters, you can feel young people struggling to capture a moment they know is historic. That’s the way history is taught — as a sequence of major events.
But history isn’t lived in moments. It is lived as a continuum. Each of us is perpetually being influenced, and each of us is also perpetually exerting an influence.
For anyone who lived through that period
Headlines
At antisemitism event, Trump says ‘the Jewish people would have a lot to do with the loss’ if he is defeated
By Ron Kampeas | JTA
WASHINGTON — Speaking at an antisemitism event on Sept. 19, Donald Trump doubled down on attacks on American Jews — those who do not vote for him.
He suggested that Jews would be to blame if he loses in November. He also said American Jews who vote for Democrats harm American interests, in an escalation of his standard rhetoric.
Trump made the comments at an event called “Fighting Antisemitism,” sponsored by the Israeli-American casino magnate Miriam Adelson, one of the biggest donors to his campaign. The room at the Hyatt Regency Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., was packed with dozens of supporters of the former president, including donors and Orthodox Jews who repeatedly cheered him.
Trump has for years made the claim that American Jews who mostly vote for Democrats are mentally ill, and this year, he has taken to saying that Jews who vote for Democrats need to “have their head examined.” He has also repeatedly said Israel will be destroyed if he loses the election, a prediction he repeated last Thursday. But in this speech, he also said Jews would be
at fault if he loses, citing the low percentage of Jewish voters who have historically supported him. He referenced a poll he said he saw showing that he could receive 40% of the Jewish vote — which itself would be a marked increase for him from 2016 and 2020.
“I will put it to you very simply and gently. I really haven’t been treated right, but you haven’t been treated right, because you’re putting yourself in great danger, and the United States hasn’t been treated right,” he said. “The Jewish people would have a lot to do with the loss if I’m at 40%. Think of it, that means 60% are voting for Kamala.”
The speech was one of two Trump gave to Jewish audiences in Washington on Thursday. He also spoke at the Israeli American Council’s conference following the “Fighting Antisemitism” event. He had also been scheduled to visit a kosher restaurant in a Hasidic Brooklyn neighborhood earlier in the day, but that campaign stop was canceled after the restaurant owner died.
travel ban? We didn’t take people from certain areas of the world because I didn’t want to have people ripping down and burning our shopping centers and killing people. We’re not taking them from infested countries.”
Some of the organizers were identified with UnXeptable, a group that organizes solidarity protests with Israelis who oppose the policies of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Trump’s laments about the majority of Jews who vote against him — and who are expected to vote for Vice President Kamala Harris — were a theme of the night.
“It’s craziness to say, I’m at 40%,” he said of the poll. “When I heard that number today, just came out today — when I heard that number today —I think it was insulting to our country. It was insulting to Israel.”
It also represented a shift that Trump explicitly said that American Jews who vote for Democrats harm American interests; he has previously said they don’t show sufficient loyalty to Israel.
Trump told both audiences Thursday night that he would “deport the foreign jihad sympathizers and Hamas supporters from our midst” and restore a ban on travel from several Muslim-majority countries that he instituted in 2017. The ban was opposed at the time by a broad range of Jewish groups.
“I will ban refugee resettlement from terror-infested areas like the Gaza Strip,” he
The IAC does not necessarily represent all Israeli Americans; while Trump was speaking, another group launched called AmericanIsraelis for Kamala.
“The initiative was formed to share the perspectives of Israeli Americans — who are deeply involved in and touched by what happens in Israel — with other Jewish voters to share why love for Israel motivates them to vote for Harris,” said the group’s announcement.
Democrats and a number of Jewish activists have said his rhetoric about Jewish Democrats is antisemitic, a claim that Halie Soifer, the head of the Jewish Democratic Council of America, repeated in response to his speech. The Jewish Council for Public Affairs also denounced the speech, as it had done the last time he gave a speech on antisemitism in August, when he said Jews who vote for Democrats are mentally unstable.
“Trump continues to label Jews who don’t support him as disloyal and crazy, to play into
p Republican presidential nominee, former U.S. President Donald Trump speaks before prominent Jewish donors at an event titled “Fighting Anti-Semitism in America” at the Hyatt Regency Capitol Hill, Washington D.C., Sept. 19, 2024.
Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
Your friends at Congregation Beth Shalom wish you & your family a May you be inscribed and sealed for a year of love, inspiration, and holiness Gemar Hatimah Tovah .
Headlines
Argentina posts 44% increase in reported antisemitic incidents in 2023, mostly after Oct. 7
Argentina experienced a 44% increase in reported antisemitic incidents in 2023, mostly after the Oct. 7 attack on Israel, according to a report issued Sept. 16 by the country’s Jewish umbrella organization, JTA reported.
The report makes Argentina the latest country to record a spike in antisemitism following the attack and the subsequent Israel-Hamas war in Gaza. Antisemitism watchdogs in the United States, Germany and elsewhere across Europe have all recorded steep rises.
According to DAIA, which unveiled the report at the Buenos Aires City Legislature, 57% of all antisemitic incidents last year took place in the three months after the attack.
What’s more, the organization found, Israel shot up as the cause of antisemitic incidents. In 2022, about 11% of antisemitic incidents in Argentina related to Israel. Last year, the proportion was 40%.
And the rate at which antisemitic incidents took place in person also rose. (Most incidents that DAIA recorded took place online.) In the nine months before the Oct. 7 attack, 72 in-person incidents were recorded. In the three months after, there were 150.
Among the in-person incidents that DAIA logged in its report were the word “Hamas” and a crossed-out Star of David that was drawn on a student’s desk and a building that hung a sign reading, “Zionists out of Palestine. This did not start on 7/10. Hitler fell short.”
Man who planned to shoot up NYC synagogue in 2022 pleads guilty
A man who attempted to commit a terror attack on a synagogue in New York in 2022 has pleaded guilty to one count of criminal possession of a weapon for the attempt, the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office announced Sept. 17, per JTA.
Christopher Brown, 23, had traveled to New York City after posting several antisemitic messages on social media. Brown was arrested at Penn Station on Nov. 18, 2022, along with Matthew Mahrer, with whom he had planned to carry out an attack on a synagogue and to whom he had paid $650 for assistance in the attempted attack. At Penn Station, MTA police recovered a knife, a swastika armband and a ski mask from his backpack.
Brown’s sentencing is scheduled for November, according to the district attorney, and he is expected to receive a 10-year prison sentence followed by five years of supervised release.
The attack had been thwarted in part thanks to a tip from the Community Security Initiative, a local Jewish security agency. The group discovered threatening posts on Twitter and brought that information to law enforcement.
“Christopher Brown has been held accountable for his plan to commit a violent, antisemitic terrorist attack,” District Attorney Alvin Bragg said in a statement. “Thankfully, we were able to intervene and prevent him from following through, which is the result of the close partnership we have with our law enforcement partners on the local and federal level. I want Manhattan’s Jewish community to know that we are remaining extremely vigilant against threats of violence during this time of rising
Today in Israeli History
Sept. 30, 1986 — Nuclear leaker
Sept. 27, 1955 — Egypt
announces Czech arms deal
Gamal Abdel Nasser says Czechoslovakia, Israel’s key arms supplier in 1948, will supply Egypt with Soviet weaponry, including tanks, MiG-15 fighters and heavy bombers. The deal influences Israel’s decision to attack in 1956.
Sept. 28, 1995 — Oslo II creates PA
Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat sign the IsraeliPalestinian Interim Agreement, known as Oslo II. Among other effects, it establishes the elected Palestinian Authority.
Sept. 29, 1947 — Arab Committee rejects U.N. partition plan
The Arab Higher Committee for Palestine rejects the U.N. Special Committee on Palestine’s partition plan, which calls for separate Jewish and Arab states and an international zone around Jerusalem.
The U.N. partition plan called for an international zone around Jerusalem and a smaller Jewish state than emerged after the War of Independence.
antisemitism, and our Terrorism and Hate Crimes Units are continuing to conduct proactive investigations to keep everyone safe.”
23andMe agrees to $30M settlement over data breach that targeted Jewish and Chinese users
The genetic testing company 23andMe has agreed to pay $30 million to American plaintiffs to settle a lawsuit over a data breach last year that specifically targeted customers of Ashkenazi Jewish and Chinese ancestry, JTA reported.
The breach, which occurred last October, affected more than 6.9 million customers and included users’ personal details such as their location, name and birthdate, as well as some information about their family trees. That data was shared on BreachForums, an online forum used by cybercriminals.
According to court documents, the data breach was revealed Oct. 6 after a hacker going by the pseudonym “Golem,” a reference to the Jewish mythical defender made of clay, published a link to a database labeled “ashkenazi DNA Data of Celebrities.” According to the lawsuit, the hacker referred to the list as “the most valuable data you’ll ever see,” though most of the names were not famous.
In total, 999,998 individuals with Ashkenazi heritage were included on the list, which also contained data from another 100,000 people with Chinese ancestry. “Golem” also claimed to possess the data of 350,000 users with Chinese heritage and offered to sell data from both sets of information for a fee.
According to the complaint, 23andMe did not disclose the full extent of the breach to its customers until December, when the company
stated that the hackers were able to access the large number of accounts by initially hacking a smaller number of accounts, and then gaining access to information from other accounts through the site’s “Family Tree” and “DNA Relatives” features.
American Jewish man sentenced to death in Congo for his involvement in a failed coup
An American Jew is facing the death penalty for his involvement in an attempted political coup in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in late May, JTA reported.
Benjamin Reuben Zalman-Polun — a Washington, D.C.-area native and father of three — was one of three Americans and 37 people total sentenced to death Sept. 13 in the DRC over an attempt in May. The failed coup was led by Christian Malanga, a onetime used car salesman and gold miner who sought to overthrow the country’s president, Félix Tshisekedi. Six people were killed in the coup attempt, parts of which were livestreamed, and Malanga was later shot and killed by the Congolese army while resisting arrest.
Zalman-Polun, who pled guilty to conspiracy to distribute marijuana in the United States a decade ago, was reportedly a gold mining business associate of Malanga’s. The other two Americans who were sentenced to death are Marcel Malanga, the son of Christian Malanga, and Tyler Thompson.
Zalman-Polun was at the presidential palace before coup leader Christian Malanga was shot dead, according to photos and videos taken that day. PJC
— Compiled by Jarrad Saffren
Mordechai Vanunu returns Mordechai Vanunu, a nuclear technician who in 1985 leaked details about Israel’s nuclear program in Dimona and escaped to Australia, is brought back to Israel to face trial on espionage charges, of which he is convicted in 1988.
Mordechai
(white shirt) is released from prison on April 21, 2004.
Avi Ohayon, Israeli Government Press
Oct. 1, 1981 — Aircraft to be sold to Saudi Arabia
President Ronald Reagan announces a plan to sell F-15 fighter jets and Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS) planes to Saudi Arabia. Israel adamantly opposes the sale, which Reagan says is not a threat to Israel.
Oct. 2, 1947 — Jewish Agency embraces partition plan
David Ben-Gurion, the chairman of the Executive of the Jewish Agency since 1935, formally accepts the U.N. Special Committee on Palestine’s plan to divide the British Mandate for Palestine into Jewish and Arab states.
Oct. 3, 2005 — Choreographer
Sarah Levy-Tanai dies
Sarah Levy-Tanai, a choreographer who incorporated Mizrahi and Ashkenazi elements and won the Israel Prize in art, music and dance in 1973, dies in her 90s. She founded the Inbal Dance Theater in 1949. PJC
UN, US tell federal court UNRWA staff immune from prosecution
benefit of the Hamas terrorist organization.
By JNS
The United Nations has argued in a U.S. federal court case that staffers who participated in the Oct. 7 Hamas-led massacre of some 1,200 people in southern Israel enjoy legal immunity, a position supported by the U.S. Department of Justice.
In a filing to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York in Manhattan, the world body claimed that “since the U.N. has not waived immunity in this instance, its subsidiary, UNRWA, continues to enjoy absolute immunity from prosecution, and the lawsuit should be dismissed,” Israel’s Channel 12 reported on Saturday night.
The federal lawsuit names as defendants UNRWA as well as seven of its commissioners-general, deputy commissioners-general and a director.
The lawsuit proves that UNRWA and its officials “actively participated in the diversion of funds earmarked to support the people of Gaza into channels that ensured those funds were used for terrorism,” Bijan Amini, one of the lead attorneys for the plaintiffs, told JNS in June.
The office of U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres said in response to the claim that “we are aware of press reports that a lawsuit has been filed in the United States against UNRWA and certain of its officials.”
“The U.N., including UNRWA, enjoys immunity from legal process, as do United
An internal U.N. probe concluded last month that nine UNRWA sta ers “likely or very likely” participated in the Oct. 7 massacre.
The Biden administration was said to have echoed the U.N.’s position on the suit filed by Oct. 7 victims, with the Department of Justice telling the court that “the plaintiff’s complaint does not present a legal basis for claiming that the United Nations waived its immunity.”
“Because the U.N. has not waived immunity in this case, its subsidiary, UNRWA, retains full immunity, and the lawsuit against UNRWA should be dismissed due to lack of subject matter jurisdiction,” the Department of Justice said.
Though the U.N., its agencies and officials enjoy immunity from “every form of legal process” under the Convention on the Privileges and Immunities of the United Nations, adopted in 1946, the world body has “the right and the duty” to waive this immunity in some instances.
An internal U.N. probe concluded last month that nine UNRWA staffers “likely or very likely” participated in the Oct. 7 massacre. The Israeli government insists that this is merely the tip of the iceberg.
More than 100 Oct. 7 terror victims participated in the lawsuit against UNRWA, which was filed three months ago and alleges that the scandal-plagued agency has led a long-standing money-laundering operation to the financial
Nations officials, including those serving with UNRWA,” his office continued, adding that “the United Nations will liaise with the United States authorities as necessary in this matter.”
In July, the Israeli Prime Minister’s Office slammed UNRWA after the Foreign Ministry published more evidence that the “aid agency” is employing hundreds of Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorists.
“Israel has told donor countries that hundreds more of UNRWA’s 13,000 local staff are active Hamas terrorists, including school teachers,” Prime Minister’s Office Public Diplomacy Directorate spokesman David Mencer told reporters on July 11.
“We have provided much evidence that UNRWA works hand-in-hand with Hamas,” Mencer added, referring to the Hamas server farm found under UNRWA’s Gaza headquarters, the UNRWA staffers who took part in the Oct. 7 massacre and the tunnels underneath UNRWA schools.
“UNRWA is useless at aid distribution. UNRWA is useless at education, except glorifying suicide bombers and encouraging Jew-killing, and Israel sees no role whatsoever for UNRWA in Gaza after this war ends,” he said. PJC
May you and your family be inscribed in the Book of Life for a year lled with health, happiness and peace.
Season of Hope
A year of challenges, a year of strength
No one could have predicted what would unfold in the past year. As we brought in 5784, the three-month long Pittsburgh synagogue shooting trial had recently concluded. The acute dangers of COVID were mostly behind us. And we were more than ready for a good, and peaceful, year.
Our optimism took a turn just a couple of weeks later, on Oct 7, when Hamas terrorists invaded Israel, committing unspeakable acts of barbarism, including sexual violence. Hamas murdered more than 1200 people that day and took more than 250 people hostage.
Israel’s fight to secure its borders and save the hostages, and the ensuing surge of antisemitism worldwide, made this a very difficult year for Jews everywhere, including in Pittsburgh.
In addition to our angst about the war and Israel’s future, we found ourselves again — still — worried for our own safety.
Since Oct. 7, our community has been targeted by antisemitic vandalism and repugnant rhetoric at campus rallies and online. Two
University of Pittsburgh students were physically assaulted by a man wearing a keffiyeh (although the attacker’s motives have not been determined), and a Jewish business was targeted by a hammer-wielding vandal on the anniver-
and resilience.
Immediately following Oct. 7, the Federation held rallies in support of Israel, drawing hundreds of attendees.
In November, more than 400 Pittsburghers
We are buoyed by what we have accomplished and our commitment to our people and to each other.
sary of Kristallnacht. Chabad of Squirrel Hill and the Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh were vandalized with anti-Israel slogans.
All this, on top of an antisemitic petition calling for a referendum on the November ballot for the City of Pittsburgh to boycott Israel, and continual campaigns to boycott or divest from the Jewish state coming from various antisemitic groups hiding behind masks and the anonymity of social media.
It’s been a lot, especially for a community still healing from the deep trauma of Oct. 27, 2018.
But it’s also been a year of strength, unity
This is Israeli resistance
Guest Columnist
I’m co-opting liberal language to call the retaliation against Hezbollah’s nearly yearlong attacks and preemptive strikes to prevent more imminent attacks the following: Israeli resistance. Because this is what resistance against a terrorist army actually looks like. But the world is, as usual, upside down.
Former CIA director Leon Panetta called Israel’s precision pager attack on Hezbollah terrorists “a form of terrorism” — you know, the operation in which only terrorists were targeted, in which only Hezbollah members (and the Iranian ambassador) were in possession of the exploding pagers.
French President Emmanuel Macron expressed solidarity with “Lebanese victims of this week’s events” — does he mean the air strike that took out Ibrahim Aqil, one of the masterminds of the 1983 Beirut barracks bombing that killed 58 French service members (as well as 241 American service members and six civilians)?
Much of the blame lies with the international media, which has hardly reported at all on Hezbollah’s attacks over the last 11 months.
Much of the world simply does not know about the Israeli children and parents and civilians (and yes, soldiers, whose lives are no less valuable) whom Hezbollah murdered with rockets.
They don’t know about the Israeli homes and schools that Hezbollah destroyed with their targeted anti-tank missiles, and about the Israeli towns Hezbollah has burned down with their suicide drones.
They have no idea that more than 60,000 Israeli civilians are still displaced from their homes because of the 8,500 rockets and suicide drones that Hezbollah has been shooting at us nonstop since the day after Hamas’ Oct. 7 massacre.
And the ones who do know don’t care, because the 60,000 displaced Israelis aren’t visibly suffering (thanks to the Israeli government setting them up in hotels and safer cities), so it doesn’t make for good TV.
So without all of that context, Hezbollah suddenly becomes the victim. Hezbollah suddenly becomes another “resistance movement” against “unprovoked Israeli aggression.”
Ignorance is no excuse, but it gives me hope that this narrative can be reversed
It would indeed be “a shame” if, as former President Donald Trump baselessly claimed during his debate with Vice President Kamala Harris, Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, were “eating the
dogs … the cats … the pets of the people that live there.”
Of course, that report — despite Trump’s insistence that he had seen “people saying it on television” — has no basis in reality. What does, unfortunately, is the truth that American xenophobia is alive and thriving. That xenophobia is a phenomenon that should resonate with Jews — who have long been among its victims — and strongly evoke our dismay and disgust. And it insults the spirit of one of the 613 commandments
traveled to the March for Israel in Washington, D.C. to call for the release of the hostages and to show support for the Jewish state.
Throughout the year, scores of Jewish Pittsburghers, led by David Dvir and Julie Paris, have gathered on a street corner in Squirrel Hill to mourn the soldiers killed defending Israel, remember the hostages and feel the power of community.
In August, the Federation brought together more than 100 community members who spent hours poring over more than 15,000 signatures — the vast majority of which were invalid
in a way that the Gaza one cannot. It’s up to us to do what the media won’t, and hold the media accountable when we can: We need to make sure social media gets the context loud and clear.
Keyboard warriors want to talk about resistance? This is Israeli resistance.
Blowing up the pagers exclusively of members of a terrorist army that has been shooting rockets at us for 11 months is Israeli resistance.
Assassinating a Hezbollah leader who had a $7 million American bounty on his head for orchestrating the 1983 Beirut bombings and was responsible for daily attacks on northern Israel is Israeli resistance.
Eliminating a room full of Hezbollah special forces who were literally in the middle of discussing plans to invade northern Israel Oct. 7-style (Operation “Conquer the Galilee”) — that is definitely Israeli resistance.
Everyone in the pro-Israel world knows that these attacks were very much provoked and very much deserved. But now, more than ever, we need to counter the other side’s narrative that says the opposite.
We need to acknowledge that yes, it’s a tragic consequence of war when Lebanese civilians get hurt or die in the crossfires. Lebanese civilians don’t deserve to die. But neither did the
— to prevent the antisemitic referendum from appearing on the November ballot.
Earlier this month, more than 300 Jewish Pittsburghers and their allies packed the Jewish Community Center of Greater Pittsburgh’s Levinson Hall, at an event organized by Karen Gal-Or and Marjorie Manne, to hear about the lives of six hostages shot multiple times at close range by Hamas terrorists.
These are just a few example of the many occasions our Jewish community came together over the last year to stand against hate.
As we head into 5785, our Jewish homeland continues to face existential threats while battling terrorists in Gaza and Lebanon. And we are not so naïve as to believe that the antisemitism intensifying around the world — and in our city — will magically dissipate.
But we have seen the strength of our community, its determination and its courage. We are buoyed by what we have accomplished and our commitment to our people and to each other.
And so we head into the new year with pride, and with hope.
L’shana tova PJC
1,200 Israelis who were murdered on Oct. 7, and there will be more Oct. 7s if Israel does not act against Hezbollah before it’s too late.
We need to educate people on the fact that, if you think about it for more than a second, Hezbollah can’t be a resistance movement — there’s nothing for them to resist. Israel withdrew fully from southern Lebanon in 2000, more than 24 years ago.
We need to make two things very clear: 1. the near-daily attacks Israel has been under for 11 months (yes, in violation of international law!) that have done untold damage to civilian life in northern Israel (that any other country would have responded to long ago); and 2. the extremely active threat to Israel that Hezbollah poses in the immediate future if they’re not dealt with as soon as possible.
Israel is finally resisting Hezbollah. Rightfully so. Let’s do whatever we can to make that the narrative. PJC
Rachel Lester served in the IDF spokesperson’s unit for four years, creating videos for the IDF’s millions of social media followers and running the international video department as creative director. She was called into reserves on Oct. 7 and stayed for six months. This first appeared on The Times of Israel.
we are required to observe as active members of the Jewish public: the mitzvah of loving the convert.
If any Americans should feel particular empathy for the maligned Haitians — the vast majority of whom are here, and working, legally — it’s Jews like me, whose parents arrived in the U.S. less than a century ago. Like most immigrants today, they sought freedom, safety and opportunity.
Roughly 3 in 10 American Jewish adults are first- or second-generation
immigrants, according to the Pew Research Center. Make it third and fourth generation, and you’ve covered most American members of the tribe.
Resentment of Jews was part of the rhetorical fabric of America for many decades: Men like Father Coughlin, Gerald L. K. Smith and Henry Ford all became powerful public figures in large part because of their avid antisemitism. We even had a
see Shafran, page 17
Rachel Lester
Chronicle poll results: High Holiday services
Last week, the Chronicle asked its readers in an electronic poll the following question: “Will you be attending High Holiday services this year?” Of the 308 people who responded, 60% said, “Yes, in person”; 10% said, “Yes, streaming”; 15% said, “Yes, both streaming and in person”; 10% said, “No”; and 5% said, “I haven’t decided yet.” Comments were submitted by 39 people. A few follow.
Whether attending services in person or online, the act of observing holidays is vital to the future of the Jewish people.
I will not be attending services because I do not want to hear increasingly liberal sermons, which seems to be the norm among Reform and Conservative congregations.
I appreciate being at a shul where the rabbi does not use the pulpit to advocate militant views about Israel, but for reflection and spiritual meaning.
I’m not happy with my rabbi now due to her “squishy” response to Oct 7. I may go to Chabad in the next town over.
Shafran: Continued from page 16
blood libel here. In 1928, a 4-year-old girl wandered into the woods near the village of Massena, in upstate New York, and rumors soon erupted that Jews had kidnapped and killed the girl in a ritual murder. (Surprise, surprise: They hadn’t.)
And don’t forget the great popularity of the German American Bund, a Nazi group. On Feb. 20, 1939, just as Hitler was completing construction of his sixth concentration camp, some 20,000 supporters of the group filled Madison Square Garden for a rally, complete with attendees holding posters with slogans like “Stop Jewish Domination of Christian America.” Speeches vilified “job-taking Jewish refugees.”
The parallels to the far-right libels of immigrants are chilling. In August, armed and masked neo-Nazis carrying flags bearing swastikas marched through downtown Springfield. A witness wrote that “Four guys who had assault rifles pointed their guns at
I love the High Holidays. They are so meaningful. Every year gets deeper.
Central Synagogue, online.
I’m unaffiliated so I have no “home” place to go. I may stream but I’m undecided.
In person is the only way that the power of the day comes through for me. During the pandemic shutdown I watched “Rosh Hashanah TV,” but it didn’t feel like a service. Neither did “Shabbat TV,” despite everyone’s best efforts.
Ever since the COVID pandemic, I have been less motivated to make the trek to shul. It used to feel like an excuse to mingle/ schmooze/network while communing with the Almighty ... now it all seems less appealing.
Yes, absolutely. It’s an important way to demonstrate solidarity. We are at our best together.
We’ll be attending in Israel.
I discontinued my synagogue membership years ago due to excessive membership fees.
I rarely attend. Part of the reason is my spouse is not Jewish and I do not feel welcomed by the Jewish community.
We Jews, whose immigrant forebears, strangers in a strange land, experienced pain and fear, need to recognize the similar pain and fears of others, including newer newcomers to America.
the cars and said, ‘Get the f— back to Africa,’ and marched down the street.”
The 431st commandment, “ahavat hager,” comes from Deuteronomy. In detailing it, the Sefer HaChinuch, or Book of Training, a major Jewish text written in 13th-century Spain, cites the Talmudic admonition to not remind a convert of his pre-Jewish past, “in order to not cause him pain in any way.” It adds that anyone who is lax about helping a convert or protecting his property, or is insufficiently respectful of him or her,
Murderers protected by foreign governments must be brought to justice
Your important Sept. 13 editorial pointed out, correctly, that the lack of an extradition treaty between Qatar and the United States does not have to be an obstacle to Qatar handing over senior Hamas terrorist Khaled Mashaal to the U.S. for prosecution (“US should seek Khaled Mashaal’s extradition”). Even countries that have such treaties often surrender criminal suspects outside the normal treaty channels in order to save time or expense; Mexico has done that so often that in the legal community the process is nicknamed “extradition, Mexican-style.” The question is whether the Biden administration is willing to put pressure on the Qataris to hand over Mashaal.
Unfortunately, the precedents are not encouraging. Ahlam Tamimi, one of the bombers of the Sbarro pizzeria in Jerusalem — in which three Americans were murdered — has been living openly in Jordan for many years. The Obama administration indicted her, but kept the indictment secret. The Trump administration revealed the indictment, but never demanded that the Jordanians hand her over — even though America and Jordan have an extradition treaty.
There are also dozens of Palestinian Arab terrorists who have murdered Americans and are living under the protection of the Palestinian Authority — some of them are even serving
This is our opportunity to speak with Hashem and pray for some peace and guidance.
We will be attending services in Youngstown, Ohio, at Temple Ohev Beth Sholom. This is our fifth shul since the closing of Tree of Life in Ellwood City. We jokingly call ourselves “the wandering Jews.”
The High Holiday services are interminable and boring.
I am in the choir at our synagogue, so I will be there for everything, but even if I wasn’t, I would be there. More than ever, we need to come together and pray to be forgiven and forgiving, and also to be inscribed in the Book of Life for another year. PJC
Compiled by Toby Tabachnick
Chronicle weekly poll question: Do you think that the war with Iran and its proxies will conclude in the coming year? Go to pittsburghjewishchronicle.org to respond. PJC
The anti-immigrant bandwagon is a large and, sadly, welcoming one. Immigration is rightly governed by rules, and border security is a legitimate and most important issue. But the Jewish attitude toward the foreignborn people who are among us, often after having risked their lives, ought to be one of mercy and concern, whether those immigrants are here legally or otherwise.
violates this commandment.
In addition to the mitzvah to love every fellow Jew, there is an additional one to love someone who was not born into the people, but chose to join it. The implication for our modern-day immigration discourse is clear.
As the Sefer HaChinuch continues: “We are to learn from this precious mitzvah to have mercy on any person who finds himself in a foreign place” and “not ignore him when we find him alone and far from those who can help him.”
We Jews, whose immigrant forebears, strangers in a strange land, experienced pain and fear, need to recognize the similar pain and fears of others, including newer newcomers to America.
And to reject libels lobbed at them, even if they concern only dogs and cats. PJC
Rabbi Avi Shafran is a columnist for Ami Magazine, writes widely in Jewish and general media and also serves as Agudath Israel of America’s director of public affairs. This story was originally published on the Forward. To get the Forward’s free email newsletters delivered to your inbox, go to forward.com/ newsletter-signup.
in the Palestinian security forces. Yet the U.S. government has never pressed the PA to hand them over for prosecution.
It’s tragic that many of our political leaders seem to care more about offending Jordan or the PA than prosecuting these killers of Americans. The American Jewish community needs to speak out loudly to demand that these murderers be brought to justice.
Moshe Phillips National chairman, Americans For A Safe Israel New York, New York
Headlines
Rabbis:
Continued from page 1
“I’ve just been listening to people and hearing how much trauma people are holding on to, how much fear, how much anxiety, how much it has fractured family members, and this lament and desire for something more,” she said.
Finman noted that some discussions have involved Oct. 7, while others have concerned Oct. 27, 2018, the date of the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting.
“Within all these conversations, there’s been this real cry for hope, and that people are really craving leadership that’s instilling a sense of hope,” she said.
In partnership with JCC colleagues and community members, Finman is aiming to deliver that sense of optimism.
“What are other ways that we can engage people — whether it’s conversations, or actions or fitness-related — that really instill a sense of hope and remind people that we live on a beautiful planet, that we have a beautiful world, we are existing, we’re alive and thriving? Yes, the election might be scary, but we have the right to vote and that’s amazing, and we still have all our freedoms, and we still have amazing resources, and we’re still a beautiful, holy kehila kedosha (sacred community),” she said.
The rabbi pointed to several programs designed to enable individuals to opt
into the holidays.
On Sept. 3, in honor of Rosh Chodesh Elul, educators and mental health professionals provided meditative wellness activities and Jewish learning to prepare the heart and mind.
On Sept. 18, the JCC welcomed Mohammad Darawshe, a member of the faculty of the Shalom Hartman Institute, to discuss what life is like being an Israeli Arab and how best to create a shared society.
Darawshe’s work prompts challenging questions, but they’re worthwhile, Finman said. “How do you actually love your neighbor when you know there’s a war going on?”
Temple Emanuel of South Hills’ Rabbi Aaron Meyer said he’s mindful of the “tension” generated by this year’s holidays.
Yom Kippur falls between Oct. 7 and Oct. 27, “and I think that many in our communities are feeling as they may have felt after Oct. 27, 2018: a draw to feeling the importance and necessity of Jewish community, while also feeling an uncertainty about being in Jewish spaces, based on the rise of antisemitic actions and rhetoric in this country,” he said.
Temple Emanuel, Meyers said, is approaching the holidays with sensitivity.
“We’re going to be adding to the liturgy of the service more contemporary pieces — be they poems or musical settings that will allow us to acknowledge the difficulties of both the one-year commemoration of Oct. 7 and what will now be the six-year commemoration of Oct. 27,” he said. “It’s a time of heightened
anxiety, not only with the commemoration of these significant anti-Jewish events, but also the anxieties people, regardless of political parties, feel headed into a presidential election while living in the swing state.”
Meyer hopes congregants give thought and commit to action this High Holiday season.
“There is a lot of emotion to balance and hold,” he said. “Being able to refocus and center our highest values feels even more important this year.”
Rabbi Chananel Shapiro, executive director and menahel of the Kollel Jewish Learning Center, is encouraging people to look to the shofar for guidance.
Beginning Rosh Chodesh Elul, the shofar is blown every weekday morning of the Jewish month, throughout services on Rosh Hashanah and again at the end of Yom Kippur.
Many people attribute the shofar’s blast to the start of a new year, but in biblical times the sound indicated a call to war. Nowadays, when the shofar is blown, it’s important to remember its various uses and intentions, Shapiro said.
On Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish people proclaim God’s kingship. The shofar is one mechanism for doing so; hopefully, when it’s blown, people will pay attention to its call and “the seriousness of the day,” the rabbi said. “If we listen to the shofar with more meaning maybe this will be the year Hashem says, ‘You don’t have to listen to the sound of battle as much.’”
Rabbi Moishe Mayir Vogel, executive
Security:
director of the Aleph Institute - N.E. Regional Headquarters, called the past year “quite a rotten one.”
Whether it was the Oct. 7 attack or resulting war, the past 12 months have been extremely challenging, he said.
Vogel spoke by phone from Harrisburg, where he attended a conference for 80 chaplains, and delivered a message about the upcoming holidays and the need to focus on joy.
Immediately after the mournful day of Tisha B’Av is Tu B’Av, a holiday “when weddings are made and Jewish houses are rebuilt,” he said. Similarly, of the three Jewish festivals — Passover, Shavuot and Sukkot — there’s no biblical imperative to be happy on Passover, there’s only one command to rejoice on Shavuot, but when it comes to Sukkot “we are told three times to be joyous.”
This message is essential, especially this year, Vogel continued.
“We have been through so much,” he said. “We have lost so many of our brothers and sisters, who have died fighting. Antisemitism has risen to a new level around the world, and here in the U.S. — where we thought it was all over. The new year is coming to tell us to be joyous. And we hope and pray that it will be a good and healthy year and all the negativity has passed.” PJC
Adam Reinherz can be reached at areinherz@pittsburghjewishchronicle.org.
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Continued from page 1
being grabbed during protests at the University of Pittsburgh; and several verbal assaults against members of the community in Squirrel Hill.
That doesn’t take into account the anti-Israel encampments at the University of Pittsburgh and anti-Israel protests at Carnegie Mellon University, each including antisemitic chants and signs.
“This year, more than previous years, we really are planning for the potential for some protest activities or disruptors,” Brokos said. “We don’t have any intelligence indicating that, but we have seen a pattern of activity at some of our events where do have protesters show up.”
Brokos said it’s prudent to hope for the best but plan for the worst.
“Some of the additional security measures are because we are planning for the worst, but that’s just what we have to do in the world of security,” she said.
Brokos said that the Federation recently sent an email to all of the municipal police departments with whom it works, providing them with scheduling information for the High Holidays to help them keep a close eye on Jewish organizations.
The Federation also will have conversations with the various congregations and Jewish institutions about the potential for protests and provide suggestions where appropriate.
are as secure as possible. Most have access control systems, cameras, the Blue Point Emergency Alert system, additional door locks and even film on windows and glass making them bullet resistant.
“There’s a series of target hardening efforts we’ve done at all of our places,” she said.
But she noted that security is a work in progress that continues to evolve.
“ Technology changes, security improves, we’re constantly assessing all of our organizations and trying to make as many enhancements as possible,” Brokos said.
One of the recent evolutions is Pittsburgh Mayor Ed Gainey’s interest in the community’s security plans.
Gainey has been on site immediately following several of the recent attacks on the Jewish community and has spoken with some of the victims.
“That’s the first time we’re briefing a public official on what our plans are,” Brokos said. “That shows a commitment from the City of Pittsburgh and public safety to make sure they are supporting us.”
Chabad of Squirrel Hill Rabbi Yisroel Altein, whose building was tagged with antisemitic graffiti earlier this year, said he is taking security more seriously than ever before.
“As part of the renovations we’ve just completed, we upgraded the system of how people are let into the building,” he said. Pittsburgh police, he said, have always kept a watchful eye on attendees and he expects nothing different this year.
“A lot of what we do is coordinate with the local police departments to provide additional off-duty police officers, additional patrols, maybe some marked units in some of the parking lots,” Brokos said.
Since Oct. 27, 2018, Brokos said, all the local Jewish buildings have hardened their security and worked to make sure their physical spaces
And despite what is happening around the world and in Pittsburgh, Altein is confident Chabad of Squirrel Hill “is going to be a safe space” to welcome a good and sweet new year. PJC
David Rullo can be reached at drullo@ pittsburghjewishchronicle.org.
Headlines
Darawshe:
Continued from page 2
The day after is now Darawshe said that creating a shared society means understanding that the current war will eventually end.
“I met with President Biden when he was in Israel, and we talked about the concept of the day after,” Darawshe said.
The two discussed a two-state solution, dividing Palestinians and Israelis.
“I tend to agree that that’s what’s needed between Israel and the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza, but I told him my day after is very different, because in my day after I will remain an Israeli citizen. I’m home. Palestine is not coming to my town,” Darawshe said. “The final status arrangement will probably be a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza. Palestine is not coming to me. And I’m not going to Palestine. I’m going to stay an Israeli citizen. My day after is with the same Israeli Jews I have today. They’re not going to change…and as such, we need to worry about our relations today, because they will affect our tomorrow.
“I need to worry about the relations between Jewish and Arab doctors in Israeli hospitals today, because if we poison that relationship, then we’re not going to have hospitals the day after,” he continued. “I need to worry about Jewish and Arab students in Israeli universities
McCormick:
Hamas’ attack and Israel’s response, he said, has been a test for America.
He accused Casey of failing the test by refusing to call for an end to the protests on college campuses and endorsing Rep. Summer Lee, an outspoken critic of Israel.
today, not to bring the escalation to extreme polarization, because otherwise I will not have Arab students in Jewish Israeli universities tomorrow.”
Pittsburghers can be a part of that constructive process, whether with Givat Haviva or any of the 160 organizations working toward shared society in Israel, Darawshe said. While no individual can bring peace to the Middle East, “we can bring small pieces,” he said. Without those efforts, “if this kind of work disappears, I think it’s easy to slide into a worst-case scenario.”
More than 200 people attended Darawshe’s JCC address.
Darawshe was “realistic,” Neubert said. Too often speakers “are too idealistic and that’s not helpful.”
“He was very upfront with what the problems were and had concrete ways of thinking about solutions,” Carol Neubert, also of Northampton, said.
Rabbi Hindy Finman, the JCC’s senior director of Jewish life, spent several hours with Darawshe Wednesday and credited Fara Marcus, the JCC’s chief development and marketing officer, with making Darawshe’s visit possible.
Marcus met Darawshe months ago in Israel while participating in a Martin Pear Israel Fellowship through the JCC Association of
McCormick said he would be a strong voice of support for the Jewish community.
“I don’t even understand completely the political calculations of it. I don’t care,” he said. “I know where we need to be on this.”
After speaking for about 15 minutes, McCormick took questions from those
Zionism:
Dartmouth College as examples of schools handling the protests correctly.
Universities, he noted, are the beneficiaries of enormous tax benefits, enabling them to make “billions of dollars on their endowments.” Their tax-free status, he said, should be subjected to a standard requiring them to root out antisemitism.
Ever since that initial encounter, “I knew
Darawshe said that creating a shared society means understanding that the current war will eventually end.
The same should apply to federal grants,
“All these universities are heavily subsidized by grants from the federal government for esearch. All the big universities — Penn State and the Ivy Leagues are beneficiaries,” he said. “The government has a huge amount of leverage with these universities.”
cCormick said he is a proponent of school choice. He noted that Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro recently vetoed a bill that would have provided the option to parents, but said there are things that can be done on a federal level.
“I’d be supportive of any bill that’s advocating and promoting and has efficacy of school choice,” he said. “It’s something we have to fight for.”
McCormick said he didn’t support the
it was important to bring Mohammad to our community,” Marcus said. “There are so many people who have never heard his perspective or seen Israel through his lens. I certainly didn’t until I went to his home and we cooked together, and then he took us to his place of work. It opened my eyes completely to what it will take to have a shared society in Israel.”
Finman said she was grateful to listen and learn from Darawshe.
The fact that he’s been doing this work for “so many years — and is not burnt out, hopeless and full of resentment, someone who’s been on all sides of the trauma and victimness of it all, but still gets out of bed every day — and is committed to doing this work, was the hope that I needed to hear heading into the High Holiday season,” she said.
Before exiting the JCC, Darawshe said he was optimistic about the path forward.
“The questions and the comments I got throughout the day indicate there’s hunger for more, they want to learn more. So I’m glad I contributed my little piece…This is a very welcoming community to the concept of shared society,” he said. “I leave here feeling that I have partners — partners in the business of making a better Israel.” PJC
Adam Reinherz can be reached at areinherz@pittsburghjewishchronicle.org.
possible merger between U.S. Steel and Nippon Steel Corporation for national security reasons. And, while he understands there are concerns about U.S. Steel leaving the region, he thinks the company might find other alternatives.
“ The key responsibility [of the government] is to protect the security of all of us,” he said. “That’s the only thing we can all agree government is responsible for, and to have the domestic steel industry in the hands of others would give me real pause.”
McCormick spent the remainder of his time at Bunny Bakes in private conversations with individuals in attendance. PJC
David Rullo can be reached at drullo@ pittsburghjewishchronicle.org.
Continued from page 9
from the Six Day War in 1967 through the Yom Kippur War in 1973, especially young people who were still developing their worldview, the tenor and the significance of that era hangs in the air like gunpowder.
Trump:
Continued from page 10
dangerous dual loyalty tropes, and to blame Jews for a potential electoral loss,” the liberalleaning public affairs group said.
Trump repeated and expanded his attacks on New York Sen. Chuck Schumer, the Democratic Senate majority leader and most senior Jewish elected official in U.S. history.
“Chuck Schumer is a Palestinian,” Trump said, the latest time he has used the identity as a pejorative. “What the hell happened to him?”
Appearing to make a joke, he added, “I saw him the other day, he was dressed in one of their robes, you know. That’ll be next.”
Trump said, as he has in the past, that Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel would not have happened if he were president. He also
The same process is silently happening today. Anyone born Jewish in the 21st century
repeated claims that Israel would be wiped out within two years if he is not elected. “Israel, in my opinion, within a period of two or three years, will cease to exist,” he said. “It’s going to be wiped out.”
He repeated that claim an hour or so later when he addressed the Israeli American Council’s conference elsewhere in the city.
“Israel will be faced with total annihilation,” he told the conference. “You have a big protector in me, you don’t have a big protector
has been developing a worldview amid a decade as intense and consequential for American Jews as any in the history of this country. However young people process these events today will inevitably define Jewish communal priorities in the mid-21st century. PJC
on the other side.”
Jews who vote for Democrats should “have their head examined,” he said to cheers. “Tel Aviv and Jerusalem will become unlivable war zones.”
Before the “Fighting Antisemitism” event, Trump met with Andrei Kozlov, an Israeli held hostage for months by Hamas who was rescued in an Israeli military operation in June, and brought him onstage during the event. Trump also met with families of hostages held
Trump repeated and expanded his attacks on New York Sen. Chuck Schumer, the Democratic Senate majority leader and most senior Jewish elected official in U.S. history.
Eric Lidji is the director of the Rauh Jewish Archives at the Heinz History Center. He can be reached at rjarchives@heinzhistorycenter. org or 412-454-6406.
by Hamas and killed by the terror group.
Also Thursday, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, Harris’ running mate, met with families of Israeli Americans still held hostage.
Trump also told the “Fighting Antisemitism” group, referring to Harris, that “Israel has to defeat her.” He added, “It’s the most important election in the history of Israel.”
Adelson introduced Trump at both events, held at hotels on opposite sides of Washington’s northwest quadrant. She urged audiences to thank Trump as a champion of Israel.
“You should already have made your mind on who to vote for, Donald J. Trump,” she told the “Fighting Antisemitism” gathering. “He is a true friend of the Jewish people.”
Trump echoed the line at the Israeli American conference. “If you want Israel to survive, you need Donald J. Trump as the 47th president of the United States.” PJC
p Mohammad Darawshe visits the JCC on Sept. 18. Photo by Adam Reinherz
Thank you.
As we enter the New Year, we want to thank the hundreds of volunteers and community leaders who have helped reimagine The Tree of Life over the past six years. We will be forever grateful to the individuals listed here among our founders and to everyone who has given of their time, talents or financial resources to support this community as we collectively pick up the pieces of our broken world and rebuild it as we believe it can be.
TREE OF LIFE CONGREGATION BOARD*
President: Sam Schachner
Laurie Eisenberg
Michael Eisenberg
Andrew Exler
Eric Friedlander
Robin Friedman
Carol Sikov Gross
Sara Guttman
Irwin Harris
Alan Hausman
Stacey Hausman
Moe Lebow
Dorian Levine
David Lilien
Andrew Mor
Sarah Pfeffer
Austin Shifrin
Ellen Sikov
Ben Simon z”l
Represented by Joanne Simon
Kara Spodek
Daniel Weiner
STEERING COMMITTEE
Chair: Jeffrey Letwin
Lauren Bairnsfather
Joel Coslov
Michael Eisenberg
Paula Garret
Carol Sikov Gross
Lynette Lederman
Michael Levin
David Levine
Rabbi Jeffrey Myers
Victor Rudkin
Sam Schachner
Barton Schachter
Suzanne Schreiber
Zachary Schwartz
Mel Solomon
CAMPAIGN CABINET
Co-Chairs: Ellen Stewart
Cohen and Jeffrey Cohen and
Linda and Jeffrey Solomon
Ben Garber
Jeffrey Letwin
Mike Lyons
Ramsey Lyons
Wendy Mars
Peter Mars
Lloyd Myers
Deborah Myers
INTERIM GOVERNANCE COMMITTEE
Chair: Michael Bernstein
Lauren Bairnsfather
Janet Cohen
Jeffrey Cohen
Ellen Stewart Cohen
Michael Eisenberg
Paula Garret
Carol Sikov Gross
Alan Hausman
Larry Lebowitz
Jeffrey Letwin
Robbie Markovitz
Rabbi Jeffrey Myers
Jo Recht
Diane Rosenthal
Barbara Shapira
Ben Simon z”l
Represented by Joanne Simon
Jeffrey Solomon
Linda Solomon
Mel Solomon
MEMORIAL WORKING GROUP
Jean Clickner
Janet Cohen
Stephen Cohen
Peg Durachko
Anthony Fienberg
Howard Fienberg
Jodi Kart
Amy Mallinger
Miri Rabinowitz
Jo Recht
Diane Rosenthal
Sam Schachner
Suzanne Schreiber
Marc Simon
Sharyn Stein
HOLOCAUST CENTER OF PITTSBURGH ADVISORY GROUP**
Chair: Barbara Shapira
Emmai Alaquiva
Debra L. Caplan
Amanda Finkenbinder
Marc Friedberg
Paul Guggenheimer
Lori Guttman
Roy “Jake” Jacobson
Alison Brown Karabin
Rachel Kranson
Larry Lebowitz
James Paharik
Melissa Marks
Laurie Moser
Manuel Reich
Harry Schneider
Harry Schneider
Ben Simon z”l
Ben Simon z”l
Represented by Joanne Simon
Represented by Joanne Simon
David Sufrin
David Sufrin
Hal Waldman
Hal Waldman
Roberta Weissburg
Roberta Weissburg
Yolanda Avram Willis z”l
Yolanda Avram Willis z”l
Represented by Martin Willis
Represented by Martin Willis
ARCHITECTURAL SELECTION COMMITTEE
ARCHITECTURAL SELECTION COMMITTEE
Chair: Paula Garret
Chair: Paula Garret
Alana Bernstein
Alana Bernstein
Jeffrey Letwin
Jeffrey Letwin
Carol Sikov Gross
Carol Sikov Gross
Ben Simon z”l
Ben Simon z”l
Represented by Joanne Simon
Represented by Joanne Simon
Linda Solomon
Linda Solomon
GIFTED ITEMS COMMITTEE
GIFTED ITEMS COMMITTEE
Co-Chairs: Rose Gerson, Ellen Sikov
Co-Chairs: Rose Gerson, Ellen Sikov
Honey Forman
Honey Forman
David Kalla
David Kalla
Anne Witchner Levin
Anne Witchner Levin
Dorian Levine
Dorian Levine
Lauren Mallinger
Lauren Mallinger
Molly Pascal
Molly Pascal
Andrea Schachner
Andrea Schachner
Ben Simon z”l Represented by Joanne Simon
Ben Simon z”l Represented by Joanne Simon
Kara Spodek
Kara Spodek
Kayla Spodek
Kayla Spodek
ADDITIONAL
WORKING GROUPS
ADDITIONAL WORKING GROUPS
Campaign Consultant Selection
Campaign Consultant Selection
Construction Working Group
Construction Working Group
Design Working Group
Design Working Group
Visioning Working Group
Visioning Working Group
Zoning/Land Use
Zoning/Land Use
ADDITIONAL LEADERSHIP
ADDITIONAL LEADERSHIP
Barb Feige
Barb Feige
Maggie Feinstein
Maggie Feinstein
Alan Gordon
Alan Gordon
Paul Hoback
Paul Hoback
Larry Lebow
Larry Lebow
Cliff Levine
Cliff Levine
Mike Levin
Mike Levin
Eric Lidji
Eric Lidji
Daniel Rothschild
Daniel Rothschild
Alex Speck
Alex Speck
Selina Shultz
Selina Shultz
Augie Siriano
Augie Siriano
Tom Woodrow
Tom Woodrow
*As of 2018-2019 **As of Summer 2021
*As of 2018-2019 **As of Summer 2021
Life & Culture
Glazed roast chicken with caramelized quince
By Jessica Grann | Special to the Chronicle
This roast chicken with caramelized quince fruit will look beautiful on your table — and it happens to taste absolutely divine. If you love country-style French cuisine, this is a perfect recipe for you.
If you’ve never had quince, it’s similar to an apple or a pear but not quite as sweet, and it has a faint citrus scent. I serve quince on Rosh Hashanah as part of our holiday tradition, and caramelized quince pairs beautifully with roast chicken and a side dish of wild rice.
Quince is best cooked in autumn, when it’s in season.
I glaze this chicken with jam for a bit of extra sweetness for a sweet new year, but you can roast the chicken plain without a glaze if you prefer.
Ingredients
Serves 4
1 whole chicken, 3-4 pounds
½ teaspoon coarse kosher salt
5 sprigs fresh thyme
1 small shallot, peeled
¾ cup chicken stock
1 cup dry white wine
1 medium-large onion, peeled and halved
3 large, fresh quince
¼ cup fresh lemon juice
2 tablespoons margarine or oil
⅓ cup of sugar
Optional: 1 cup of quince or apricot jam for glazing the chicken, plus 2 tablespoons of oil
Set the oven to 350 F and place the wire rack in the middle of the oven.
Pat the chicken dry with a paper towel and rub it inside and out with ½ teaspoon of kosher salt. Put the peeled shallot and fresh thyme sprigs inside the cavity of the chicken — you can tie the legs together with kitchen
string or use poultry lacers to keep the wings and legs tight to the body of the bird.
Place the bird into a roasting pan or a large casserole dish.
If you’re roasting chicken without a glaze, sprinkle it with a little extra salt and black pepper. To glaze the chicken, take 1 cup of quince or apricot jam mixed with 2 tablespoons of oil and glaze the bird with about half of the mixture using a pastry brush.
Put the two onion halves into the pan and pour the chicken stock into the bottom of the pan, but not over the chicken.
Roast the chicken for 35 minutes and prepare the quince while it’s cooking.
Squeeze ¼ cup of fresh lemon juice and put it into a wide shallow dish. I leave the skin on half of the fruit for color and texture. You can peel it all or leave the skin on entirely.
Core each quince and cut it lengthwise into 8 pieces as you would when cutting apples for pie. As you cut the quince, add them to the dish with the lemon juice, turning the pieces so that they are well coated.
Place a sauté pan over medium-low heat and melt 2 tablespoons of the most natural and buttery tasting margarine that you can get, then add the quince slices to the pan, turning them regularly for 8 minutes.
Raise the heat to medium, sprinkle ⅓ cup of sugar over the quince and fold the pieces over so that the sugar melts into the margarine.
Sauté for another 8-10 minutes or until
the quince starts to brown and the sauce is bubbling. The quince should not be entirely soft because you will add it to the pan of chicken to roast in the pan juices at the end. Set the quince aside.
After the chicken has roasted for 35 minutes, take it from the oven and add 1 cup of dry white wine to the dish.
Turn the oven up to 375 F and roast the chicken for another half-hour.
Take the chicken from the oven and add the quince around the chicken, gently mixing it with the juice in the bottom of the pan.
Brush the chicken with the remaining glaze, turn the oven up to 400 F and roast for an additional 15-20 minutes or until the internal temperature is a minimum of 170 F for food safety.
I love how the sugar in the glaze blackens the chicken skin; just watch it carefully near the end. Allow the chicken to rest and cool in the pan for at least 20 minutes before carving it, and season with salt or pepper to taste. Place the chicken, onion and quince on your platter and drizzle the quince with the remaining sauce from the pan. If you have extra thyme, it makes a nice garnish on the serving platter. Wishing all of you peace, security, good health and much success in the coming year. Enjoy and bless your hands! PJC
Jessica Grann is a home chef living in Pittsburgh.
p Glazed roast chicken with caramelized quince Photo by Jessica Grann
shana tova!
Exceptional-quality offerings for traditional holiday gatherings.
If you care at all about the people of Israel….
Sadly, the brutal Hamas attack on Oct 7th and its overwhelming support in Gaza and the West Bank affirms once again that the Palestinian Arabs remain unwilling to make peace with Israel. Peace partners don’t rape, massacre, murder and burn babies alive.
The tragic history is that the Palestinian Arabs have repeatedly rejected two-state solutions for almost a hundred years and the first Oct 7-like attack occurred in 1929. Those forcefully pushing for the creation of a Palestinian-Arab state are making a horrible mistake that will not lead to peace or security for anyone.
Compelling Israel to carve an unstable Arab state out of her strategic heartland means Israel becomes indefensible (US Joint Chiefs of Staff). Most Israelis would live within easy attacking distance of a hostile border. Jordan will become a second terrorist-soaked Lebanon and Jerusalem will be at the western border of the Iranian terrorist-controlled octopus. Iranian fighters and arms (including primitive dirty nuclear suitcase bombs) will be able to freely flood into the heart of Israel and Israel’s main airport, Ben Gurion, will become too dangerous to use.
Thank you for caring. WorriersForIsrael
Life & Culture
From local hives to exotic flavors: Where to find
the
best honey for Rosh Hashanah
Bumbleberry Farms
By
It’s a Rosh Hashanah tradition to dip apples into honey, representing the hope for a sweet, good year ahead. According to Chabad.org, there are a plethora of more complex reasons for the pairing: the bee’s ability to produce something kosher despite not being kosher itself, for example, is symbolic of the desire for our prayers to be accepted as pure.
Regardless of the reasons, western Pennsylvania is flush with local honey brands that offer a wide selection of honeys and honey-flavored treats so that you can begin the new year on a sweet and hopeful note.
Pittsburgh Honey
You don’t want to miss out on this Jewishowned honey business’s raw, hive-to-jar honey. The spicy, hot pepper-infused hot rod honey is sure to add an enjoyable kick to a meal, and the chunk honey offers an interesting compromise for those split between spending on a jar of honey and honeycomb. Each jar comes with a stalactite of honeycomb, offering the best of both worlds. Co-owner Adam Revson, who runs it with his wife, Alyssa Fine, estimates that 95% of the honey they sell comes from their own hives, and they have yards from Beaver all the way to Westmoreland County. Each yard produces different varietals, but they also source unique monoflorals like orchid and lilac honey from colonies run by private citizens. Pittsburgh Honey is sold at Squirrel Hill Market at 2130 Murray Ave. and can be ordered online at pittsburghhoney.square.site.
Raw, clover and even avocado blossom are just a few of the many products that Bumbleberry Farms produces out of its headquarters in Point Breeze. Aside from selling ward-winning honey, Bumbleberry Farms has a unique mission: to employ and empower members of the Deaf community. Deaf and hard-of-hearing teens can get job training, joining Bumbleberry’s Deaf or hard-of-hearing staff. Jon Mosholder, Bumbleberry’s owner and Deaf entrepreneur, recommends stirring their honey cream spreads into coffee or, of course, eating it with apples. Bumbleberry also offers honey drops, hard candies decorated with a honeybee design, to soothe sore throats or sweet tooths. All of Bumbleberry’s honey comes from Pennsylvania or other locations throughout the United States. Bumbleberry is an onlineonly store, so customers can order directly from bumbleberryfarms.com or they can find the products at several stores in Pittsburgh, including Whole Foods in East Liberty or Mechanic Coffee Company.
Hannah’s Honey
Every jar of honey that Hannah’s Honey sells is locally produced and unprocessed. The date of harvest is on the jar, so you know exactly when it was taken from the hive. There are hives in Fox Chapel, O’Hara, West Deer, Natrona Heights, Tarentum and Upper Burrell, and it’s all bottled at the location of the hive it came from, giving you the chance to try each hive’s unique flavor. Basically, it’s as homegrown as you can get. You can buy Hannah’s Honey’s products at the Bloomfield and Lawrenceville farmers markets or by reaching out through email at hannahshoney@gmail.com.
Bedillion Honey Farm
This family-owned business is offering an apple pie spice creamed honey to pair with apples. If creamed honey isn’t your cup of tea, Bedillion has everything from pure Japanese knotweed honey to lavender infused honey. The majority of its honey is sourced from around 1000 hives, almost all of them within an hour of Bedillion’s home farm in Hickory. Honeys that can’t be made in the region, such as orange blossom honey, are sourced from other beekeepers in the United States. Bedillion honey can be purchased at its on-farm store at 1179 Burgettstown Rd. or at bedillionhoneyfarm. com. The website has helpful suggestions for honey pairings. PJC
Abigail Hakas is a freelance writer living in Pittsburgh.
Abigail Hakas | Special to the Chronicle
p 2024 American Honey Queen Kaelyn Sumner, an educator for the American Beekeeping Federation, poses with Pittsburgh Honey in the Squirrel Hill Market. Photo by Abigail Hakas
Life & Culture
‘A Flight of Empowerment’ highlights work by Jewish women artists
By Emma Riva | Special to the Chronicle
Before “A Flight of Empowerment” opened at Songbird Artistry, artist Yafa Negrete saw a woman crying in front of one of her six drawings on view. The woman was Jacklyn Orefice, daughter of Songbird’s owner, Debbie Jacknin. Negrete was shocked and moved by the moment and approached her.
“She told me she was crying because she read my biography and what I had gone through to get here,” Negrete, who comes from a Syrian Jewish family in Mexico, said. Negrete wrote in her biography about her struggles with postpartum depression, generational trauma, and how difficult it was for her to leave her life and career in Mexico to come to Pittsburgh for her husband’s PhD program at Carnegie Mellon University. “Jacklyn asked me to look at my drawings and internalize that this moment was real, to realize how far I had come,” Negrete said. “I hugged her and thanked her because those are the unique moments that art is nourished by when two souls connect and find peace and know they are not alone.”
“Flight of Empowerment” is a group exhibition celebrating women artists of all faiths and backgrounds. But as Jacknin is Jewish, she specifically wanted to spotlight Negrete, as well as the Jewish themes in her own work. Jacknin is a mosaic and glass artist, and many of her pieces draw from Kabbalistic images and memories of
time she spent in Israel with her late husband.
“Larry, my husband, and I used to make the mosaics together,” she said. “During the last three years of his life, he stopped working and we traveled to Israel together.”
Jacknin especially remembers time she spent in Tzfat and the kindness and hospitality of strangers, even when her husband was having difficulty swallowing and walking. She was inspired to make mosaics of the tree of life, with two branches on either side and a single drop of red in the middle to represent human desire.
“We all have selfishness and imperfection in us,” Jacknin said.
“A Flight of Empowerment” shows one of Jacknin’s newer stained-glass pieces, “Eye Persist,” which features a hamsa and that same tree of life image around it. A mirror in the pupil at the hamsa’s center reflects back at the viewer. That and “She Persists,” which shows women underneath a blank space representing the glass
ceiling, were two of the first works Jacknin made on her own after her husband’s death.
Negrete and Jacknin met when Jacknin was teaching an art class at a Chabad house.
“I could tell Yafa was talented,” Jacknin said. “She wouldn’t just slap something on it. Her artistic ability meant she had to make something good.”
When Jacknin approached Negrete about showcasing her art in “Flight of Empowerment,” Negrete submitted six works about women who inspire her: a self-portrait; Renee French, a healthcare worker who died during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic; Tamara Steiman, a Brazilian music therapist; Monica Unkel, a documentarian of Mexican Jewish life; her ancestors from Mexico and Syria; and her young daughter, Liora.
Negrete’s self-portrait comes from a photo taken by one of her best friends.
“He captured the sensuality that lives inside me,” she said. “It was an exciting but also intimidating experience, but I liked the result. Even though my skin and my body have changed since then, I always try to feel as pretty as I felt in that session.”
Before painting the watercolor of Liora for “A Flight of Empowerment,” Negrete didn’t paint in color.
“My father was an architect and was very critical of me. He would always say things weren’t right,” she said. The soft, gestural marks in Liora’s hair were a result of Negrete painting with her eyes closed and working by feel.
“Working with watercolor at workshops with Debbie took me out of my comfort zone,” she said.
Negrete was so excited by working with color that she made a set of Rosh Hashanah cards in color, available for purchase at Songbird Artistry, with a portion of the proceeds going to Chabad of Squirrel Hill.
Jacknin hopes that “A Flight of Empowerment” which also features Ally Bartoszewicz, Elizabeth Myers Castonguay, Jen Gallagher, Kayla Kaminski, Kat Kirsch, Lacey Russell, Maria DeSimone Prascak, Stacey Pydyknowski, and Tori Solomon, will make people think about how far women have come and how far they still have to go.
“Just in the recent past, women couldn’t even vote, own property, or open their own credit cards,” she said.
The color portrait of Liora is the most striking piece in the show. Negrete gives her a sweet, knowing expression, her dark eyes are gentle and curious. There’s even a softness to the movement in the brushstrokes in her hair.
Negrete writes that Liora is non-verbal and on the autism spectrum, and the depth of emotion conveyed in the portrait is especially meaningful with this in mind. Her face conveys so much.
Songbird Artistry is a woman-owned, mothers-and-daughters business, and Jacknin loves hosting craft workshops and classes that bring women together, just as she and Negrete met at an art class.
“Liora has shown me that everything in life is possible,” Negrete said. “Since my family was just trying to survive through generations, mental health was secondary. Now, I am working hard with my psychologist for my kids to have a happier life.”
Negrete said she hopes “that people take away from this exhibition moments as beautiful as the one I experienced at the opening with Debbie’s daughter. I will always keep her words, her tears, and her hug in my heart.”
“Flight of Empowerment” runs through the end of the calendar year at 316 Penn Ave PJC
Emma Riva is a freelance writer living in Pittsburgh.
— ART —
p Artist Yafa Negrete at work in her studio Photo courtesy of Yafa Negrete
p Drawing by Yafa Negrete Image courtesy of Yafa Negrete
p Self-portrait Image courtesy of Yafa Negrete
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Life & Culture
Israel advocate Michael Rapaport brings his comedy to Pittsburgh Oct. 19
By Toby Tabachnick | Editor
Before Oct. 7, Michael Rapaport referred to himself as a “lox and bagels Jew” — proud of his heritage, though not very involved. But after Hamas’ deadly attack on Israel last year, the actor and comedian — known for supporting roles on several popular television shows including “Friends” and “My Name is Earl” — has emerged as an unflinching voice in support of Israel and the hostages still held in Gaza, and against antisemitism.
At a time when many other Jewish celebrities are silent when it comes to Israel’s fight for security and the hostages’ plight, Rapaport, through his social media posts, podcasts and speeches at pro-Israel rallies, has ardently embraced his role of Israel advocate.
Rapaport will be bringing his stand-up comedy show to Pittsburgh on Oct. 19, at the Carnegie of Homestead Music Hall at 8 p.m.
Becoming an outspoken proponent for Israel was a “no-brainer,” Rapaport told the Chronicle in a phone interview last week. When he first heard of Hamas’ “disgusting attempt at a genocide of the people of Israel,” he said, he had an “extremely visceral, incisive reaction.”
Before the Oct. 7 massacre, Rapaport had
made five trips. He has spent the year learning about antisemitism and anti-Zionism, he said, and is frustrated by the anti-Jewish rhetoric proliferating around the world.
“We’re in unprecedented times,” Rapaport said. “We’re at the 350th day since Oct. 7, and unless there’s some sort of miracle, we’re going to hit a year. I would love there to be some sort of miracle. I’m praying that there’s a miracle. I’m praying that there’s a miracle before Oct. 7, but I’m not making any plans.”
As devastated as he’s been since Hamas’ deadly invasion of Israel, he acknowledges that his feelings are “miniscule compared to so many people that are dealing with it firsthand, and my trips to Israel have brought me closer to that. And as a Jew, it goes without saying that I think we should all be activated. We should all be fully activated.”
Rapaport and his wife had planned to visit Israel for the first time in December 2023, but considered canceling the trip because of the war. But after the March for Israel in Washington, D.C. on Nov. 14 — at which Rapaport delivered a heartfelt speech — the couple said, “We have to go, and we must go as soon as possible,” he told the Chronicle. They arrived in Israel on Dec. 12. Rapaport met with hostage families and those in mourning. He visited Kibbutz Be’eri, the site of one of the worst massacres committed by Hamas on Oct. 7.
Rapaport, who has 2 million followers on Instagram, posted regularly about his meetings. He keeps returning to the Jewish state, he said, because “I want to be with my people. I want to be close to my people. I want to support Israel. I want to support Jews. I want to do everything I can to make sure that the hostages are not forgotten, that the IDF and all those affected are not forgotten, and supported.”
He is set to perform in Israel for the first time on Oct. 13 at the Jerusalem Theater, and then
on Oct. 14 in Tel Aviv’s Beit HaChayal. Just five days later, he will take the stage in Pittsburgh.
Asked how he thinks his visit to Israel immediately before his show here might influence his performance, Rapaport stressed that “it’s a comedy show.”
“I do the show to make people laugh and bring joy and have fun as a comedy show,” he said. “That being said, you know, I’ve bought some of the humanity and the comedy of my experiences as a Jewish man in the last year. And really, as a whole, it is a part of the show — certainly not the entire show — but it is a piece of the show.”
Including the topics of Israel and the war in the show “is hard,” he said, but “it is necessary.”
“I think I have a point of view that has a lot of depth, but also ends with humor,” Rapaport said. “And it is hard, it is tricky, and it is a balancing act, but that’s one of those fun things about being a comedian.”
Rapaport last performed in Pittsburgh in September 2023, at City Winery. He said there are a lot of things about the city he loves, including the Steelers, the architecture, the people — and the quirky 1979 sports comedy “The Fish That Saved Pittsburgh.”
“I’m looking forward to coming back,” he said. PJC
Toby Tabachnick can be reached at ttabachnick@pittsburghjewishchronicle.org.
Michael Rapaport
Photo courtesy of Michael Rapaport
Director-General
Old
By PJ Grisar | Forward
As far back as he can remember, Noah Rinsky dreamed of becoming an Old Jewish Man — but it wasn’t always a good dream.
Growing up in Colorado Springs, his parents would take him and his brother to an Orthodox shul on the High Holidays, where they saw elderly gents loudly blowing their nose during the Torah reading, cutting in line at kiddush and sneaking rugelach in their pockets for later.
“It was like looking at another species,” said Rinsky, 35, the mind behind the viral Old Jewish Men social media empire (he was wearing a rumpled OJM T-shirt with the Polo logo and the original name of that company’s founder, Ralph Lifshitz). “It was hard to imagine that you’d one day grow into this.”
But the early signs were there. Peers in elementary school told him that he dressed like an old man — though his mom was in charge of his wardrobe. When as a 20-something he lived on East Broadway with his brother — who was president of the Stanton Street Shul — he started hanging out with senior members of the congregation at kosher eateries like Colbeh in
Midtown. His wife now jokes that he hunches and is “built like a fruit peddler.”
In 2015, Rinsky began documenting Old Jewish Men, beginning with his own father and expanding to a cast of colorful shlubs who stage protests about the lack of public bathrooms and the price of pastrami.
@LittlesShoes littles_shoes
10 unexpected movies that capture the spirit of the High Holidays
example of giving voice to what one needs to change as part of the process of changing it.
By David Quintas and Rachel Olshin | Hey Alma
The High Holiday season is upon us.
Teshuvah — a central tenet of these holidays — literally translates to “return,” but what exactly this concept means has been heavily debated by rabbinic scholars for thousands of years. Some say it entails a public act of confession, while others describe it as an internal process of change. For some it’s necessarily interpersonal; for others, introspective. Navigating these competing conceptions can be a daunting task, especially for anxious Jews like us. So we turn where we always turn: the movies! As Nicole Kidman says “our heroes feel like the best parts of us”; watching figures onscreen navigate their own challenges can inspire recognition, change and evolution in ourselves as well. So, for those of you who are similarly cinematically inclined, here are some film recommendations to get you thinking about what teshuvah might mean for you.
Note: We’ve divided these selections into five pairs based on differing interpretations of teshuvah inspired by articles written by Rabbi Avi Bart and Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks z”l. We recommend referencing those pieces for a more comprehensive understanding of teshuvah.
Repenting for sin or wrongdoing
“Flight” (2012)
A central motif of the High Holiday liturgy is Vidui (confession): acknowledging what one has done, which requires amending. Naming wrongdoing aloud is a key step in the process. Robert Zemeckis’ “Flight” centers this phenomenon. Denzel Washington plays an alcoholic airline pilot who is being investigated for a crash landing which viewers know he completed under the influence. Throughout the film, the question of what will be revealed publicly and what he’ll own up to when it comes to his actions and his addiction is dangled in front of the viewer. Without giving the specifics away, the movie’s climax acts as an almost shocking moment of vulnerability and a powerful
“One child nation” (2019)
In this searching, searing documentary, director Nanfu Wang explores the repercussions of China’s former one-child policy, including those for her own family. In one powerful scene, Wang speaks with the midwife who helped birth her. Haunted by years of administering forced sterilizations and abortions on women who didn’t consent and in some cases were abducted, the midwife dedicated herself in retirement to helping couples struggling with infertility have children. Throughout this documentary, viewers are confronted with people full of regret, struggling with questions that are also a central part of the High Holiday season: How can we make up for harm we’ve caused in the past? And is it always possible?
Bettering oneself
“Bridesmaids” (2011)
When you think of this raunchy blockbuster, you probably don’t think of the Talmud. But in one of the core scenes of the film, down-onher-luck Annie (Kristen Wiig) has a passive -aggressive yet profound conversation with the wealthy, snobby Helen (Rose Burns) regarding people’s capacity to change. Their disagreement actually mirrors a debate Talmudic sages Rabbi Yochanan and Reish Lakish have on teshuvah.
Helen/Rabbi Yochanan argue that people change: One moment they’re sinners and the next they’re righteous. Annie/Reish Lakish argue that the human core remains the same, but people can grow into a more developed version of themselves. That’s the crux of this film, too, as Annie is forced to figure out who she is outside of her best friend Lilian (Maya Rudolph). She allows herself to move beyond her disappointments and keep working on who she wants to be. Melissa McCarthy’s uncouth character delivers a line summing this up (and a turn of phrase worthy of a High Holiday sermon): “You’re your problem, but you’re also your solution.”
’SHANA TOV
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Life & Culture
Movies:
Continued from page 31
“Groundhog Day” (1993)
According to Maimonides, the teshuvah process is complete when one is faced with the same situation in which they erred, and makes a different choice the second time around. Perhaps no movie better serves as the paradigm of this definition than “Groundhog Day.” The film follows Phil Conners (Bill Murray), a bitter, sardonic weatherman who finds himself trapped repeating the same day over and over again. Only when he leans into helping others — after cycling through many, many versions of hedonism and nihilism — is he freed from the time loop.
The fact that the film has spawned a minigenre of time loop movies (see: “Edge of Tomorrow,” “Palm Springs,” “The Map of Tiny Perfect Things,” et al) speaks to the resonance of the fantasy: What if you had the chance to redo your mistakes, to continually perfect your behavior? While outside of movies, such loops don’t occur, we will all eventually find ourselves facing similar choices to ones we regret making in the past. This season is one for reflecting on how we might adjust ourselves at such crossroads when living out whatever our personal version of “Groundhog Day” might be.
Returning to our past
“Moonlight” (2016)
“Let your head rest on my head, I got you,” says Juan (Mahershala Ali) when teaching
“Little” Chiron (Alex Hibbert) how to swim; this tender exchange is in heavy contrast to the harshness of their world. “Moonlight” follows Chiron, a young Black man growing up in Miami, on his journey from childhood to adulthood as he navigates his relationship to queer identity and masculinity. The film celebrates vulnerability while depicting the difficulty that Chiron has accepting it, as he seems to run away from moments of gentleness and love in his life. The first steps to teshuvah involve returning to the vulnerable moments in your year, sitting with them, and building from there — which Chiron ultimately takes on in a stunning and delicate ending.
“Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” (2004)
Reflecting is exhausting and sometimes harrowing, and that is why the central conceit of this film — a procedure to erase painful memories — is so enticing. After breaking up, Joel (Jim Carrey) and Clementine (Kate Winslet) both attempt to erase their relationship and any knowledge of the other from each of their minds. In doing so, they literally walk through past memories, retracing their steps to figure out what went wrong in the relationship. This film is sentimental and romantic without being heavy-handed, and asks big questions about how our pasts inescapably shape us. Like all of screenwriter Charlie Kaufman’s works, the answers are somewhat ambiguous, but in this bittersweet film, as in the teshuvah process, reckoning is the only way forward.
Connecting with something greater than yourself
“Arrival” (2016)
Extraterrestrial stories have long served as analogues for a spiritual search for meaning. In the former, the search is literal and in the latter its metaphysical, but both ask the same questions: Am I part of something bigger? Is anybody watching me? Is there something out there? In this adaptation of a Ted Chiang novella, a linguist played by Amy Adams grapples with how to communicate with an alien invasion but finds the answers have deeper implications about humanity’s ability to cooperate, about space and time and about accepting the story of our own lives.
“The Wedding Plan” / “Laavor et Hakir” (2016)
After her fiancé calls off their wedding only 22 days before the big day, Michal (Noa Koler) decides to keep the date, hoping that another love will present himself and marry her under the chuppah. While the concept sounds fizzy and light-hearted, the premise is not played for laughs. Michal lives in a society that tells her that what God wants from her is to be married. So, she takes God to task, requesting a personal Chanukah miracle: that husband. The film — while never questioning the existence of a Higher Power — ultimately posits that finding God in one’s life can be as hard as finding one’s bashert (soulmate). “The Wedding Plan” is a powerful story about the balance between the Jewish concepts of hishtadlus (what it means to make
our own destiny) and emunah (having faith that the universe will provide for us what we need).
Accepting yourself
“Real Women Have Curves” (2002) Before “Lady Bird” (a very worthy honorable mention for this list), there was “Real Women Have Curves,” a coming-of-age story about a young Mexican-American woman faced with the choice of going to New York for college or staying in East Los Angeles to help support her family. A then-17-year-old America Ferrera plays Ana in a vivacious and star-turning performance that includes struggling with a fraught relationship with her mother, her body and the way her mother controls her eating. Ultimately the film is about Ana discovering and learning to love herself, despite the conflicting demands surrounding her. As we navigate the self-scrutiny of teshuva, we too can learn to appreciate ourselves, even in the face of tension and insecurity.
“Inside Out” (2015)
In “Inside Out,” anthropomorphized feelings Joy (Amy Poehler) and Sadness (Phyllis Smith) struggle to find their role in their host Riley’s (Kaitlyn Dias) life, and in their pursuit of self-actualization find their strengths, limitations and validity. The “heady” tale somehow manages to capture the fun energy of the best adventure movies and the catharsis of a good cry. Ten long days of teshuvah can bring up all sorts of emotions, and this film reminds us that it’s okay to feel all of them. PJC
Life & Culture
Old Jewish Men:
Continued from page 30
What began as a pet project has since become a scene: OJM has over 600,000 followers between TikTok and Instagram and in recent years has become a lifestyle brand with a shmatta business. Stylist Mel Ottenberg has been seen sporting their merch and Larry David wore OJM-branded shorts on the farewell season of “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” signaling acceptance from luminaries of Old Jewish Men fashion and folkways.
On Sept. 17, Rinsky released the essential literature for his movement “The Old Jewish Men’s Guide to Eating, Sleeping & Futzing Around.”
Far from a dashed-off novelty book, Rinsky conducted extensive interviews with Jews — both old and young — about how to reach the stage in one’s life cycle where he may spend all day schmoozing, eating deli and voicing strong opinions about the spread at shul.
Illustrated by cartoonist Dick Carroll, the guide comes bundled with nifty recommendations for restaurants and jazz clubs in cities from New York to London and Tel Aviv. True to Rinsky’s initial impression of OJMs as another species, he tries to provide a comprehensive taxonomy of geriatric Hebrews — even if it may fall short in its minyan of 10 archetypes.
“There’s going to be people that don’t find their parents in this thing, including my own father,” said Rinsky. (He toyed with having him be something called “The Gentle
Jew,” a less obstreperous order, but decided it was too close to another archetype — “Possibly Gentile.”)
Rinsky knows that he is leaning into some less than positive stereotypes. He writes “Old Jewish Men’s hands are utterly useless, as if solely designed to turn the pages of the Talmud and damage fine machinery,” “Packing is like lying on your taxes — it’s gotta be done the right way,” and in a dictionary of terms defines the phrase “(Jewish) lightning.”
The OJMs featured may come off as slovenly, loud, transactional, riddled with ailments and inclined toward “ tuchuswatching,” but Rinksy doesn’t see much harm done. Instead, he views this good-natured ribbing as part of a great inheritance of Jewish self-deprecation. And, he’s not doing it for people who hate Jews.
“If you’re an antisemite, you’re probably not going to like the book,” Rinsky said.
But, if you aspire to reach the Zen that comes with claiming your table at Barney Greengrass with your bottle of Lipitor, the guide shows you how.
“I think that these guys kind of exude truth,” said Rinsky. “That’s the kind of ethos of what we’re doing — we’re giving it to you straight.” PJC
PJ Grisar is a Forward culture reporter. He can be reached at grisar@forward.com and @pjgrisar on Twitter. This story was originally published on the Forward. To get the Forward’s free email newsletters delivered to your inbox, go to forward.com/newsletter-signup.
SHANA TOVA HAVE A SWEET YEAR
As the new year begins, let us be inspired by the cycle of time to renew our commitment to resilience, unity, and the shared strength that binds us together.
Celebrations
Birth
Eva and Jesse Samakow joyfully announce the birth of their son, Silas Malcolm Samakow, born Aug. 19, 2024, in Denver, Colorado. Silas Malcolm is named in loving memory of his great-grandfather Malcolm Samakow. Proud grandparents are Debbi and Tom Samakow of Boca Raton, Florida, formerly from Squirrel Hill, and Asya Grey Adana and Aaron Adana of San Francisco, California. Silas’s great-grandparents are Jo Lyndon and Gery Grey of San Francisco, California, and Suzanne Matthews and the late Jim Matthews of Erie, Pennsylvania. Silas’ late great-grandparents are Gloria and Norman Wedner, and Marion and Malcolm Samakow, all of Squirrel Hill. PJC
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Cantor David Reinwald Parshat Nitzavim-Vayeilech Deuteronomy 29:9 – 31:30
very year, when we arrive at this portion, both in the regular Torah cycle and during its reading weeks later during Yom Kippur, I revel in the words of one particular paragraph: “Surely, this instruction which I enjoin upon you this day is not too baffling for you, nor is it beyond reach. It is not in the heavens, that you should say, ‘Who among us can go up to the heavens and get it for us and impart it to us, that we may observe it?’ Neither is it beyond the sea, that you should say ‘Who among us can cross to the other side of the sea and get it for us and impart it to us, that we may observe it?’ No, the thing is very close to you, in your mouth and in your heart to observe it.” (Deut. 30:11-14)
Every time I read these words, I am enwrapped in the beauty of the text and perfect encapsulation that precede the final words and teachings of Moses found in the next chapter of Deuteronomy. We now sense that Moses is leaving his very heart and soul with his people. While these words refer to the mitzvot, and Torah itself, the lesson here is simple — that in a moment of doubt, one has to trust one’s own intuition to know that the answer lies close within. This is an understanding that we all search for at times in our lives.
I believe that Moses also knew that the people would soon reminisce about the
key moments they had with him, and the words of the Torah reflect this here. They will glorify that he climbed nearly to the heavens to obtain the Torah at Sinai, and also that he led them to the other side of the sea. In Midrash Devarim Rabbah, the rabbis also are aware of Moses’ legacy and note that there will not be another Moses, and the people should not look far and wide for his replacement. There are times when they will have to answer their own call.
I connect with these words every time I read them because there is a timeless wisdom within them. As a student of the practice of Mussar, the practice of mindfulness on Jewish values, I find the definition of Mussar by Rabbi Elya Lopian (1876-1970) to fall in line with the idea that the Torah teaches in this portion. Lopian defined Mussar as “teaching the heart what the mind already understands.”
Sometimes in life, we know we need to do something — to move in a certain direction or take a difficult step — but it takes that extra moment for our heart and soul to be in line with our mind and mental state. Likewise, at the end of “The Wizard of Oz,” Glinda tells Dorothy: “You always had the power, my dear. You just had to learn it for yourself.” May you all go forward into this new year with moments of such enlightenment. L’shana tova PJC
Cantor David Reinwald is the cantor at Temple Sinai. This column is a service of the Greater Pittsburgh Jewish Clergy Association.
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Obituaries
DAVIDSON: Colleen Tighe Davidson, Ph.D. (Feb. 25, 1946 – Sept. 16, 2024), victim of Alzheimer’s disease; beloved wife of David Kinderlehrer; beloved mother of Sahara, Jane and Noah (deceased); beloved sister of Jill (James Metcalf), Reid (deceased) and Shawn (deceased) (Cindy Retherford); daughter of Earle and Janet Parrott Tighe (both deceased); grandmother of Daniel Parry; and beloved aunt to nieces and nephews. Colleen received her doctorate in American studies from the University of Minnesota in 1975 under Mary Turple, an early pioneer in the subject. She and David were married Friday, Feb. 13, 1981 — easy to find a judge. The family came to Pittsburgh in 1990. She loved Mozart, Bach, which she played on her harpsichord, Minnesota Native Bob Dylan, and culturing orchids. Indeed, she was exquisitely cultured and wore it lightly. Colleen loved the music at Temple Sinai. Services were held at Ralph Schugar Chapel. Interment Temple Sinai Memorial Park. Contributions may be made to Temple Sinai, 5505 Forbes Avenue, Pittsburgh, PA 15217. schugar.com
MEDGAUS: Jeannette Anolik Medgaus. On Sept. 11, 2024, Jeannette Anolik Medgaus, daughter of Irwin and Miriam Anolik, beloved wife of the late Morris (Maish) Medgaus, passed away three months shy of her 100th birthday. “Mom” to her children, Beverly Jones (Douglas), Carl Medgaus (Norma) and Daniel Medgaus; “Grandma,” “Bubbie J” and “Bubbie” to her grandchildren and great-grandchildren; Shanky to her cousins; “Aunt J” to her many nieces and nephews; and “Mom” to her former daughter-in-law Michele Babuscio (Dan) — she was deeply loved. After graduating from Schenley High School, she had a variety of secretarial jobs, ultimately working full-time at the University of Pittsburgh Medical School, and later as executive secretary to the dean of the University of Pittsburgh Dental School. She loved music — a love she passed along to her children; she played the piano and had a lovely soprano voice. Jeannette was also active in the community and served as vice president of a B’nai Brith chapter. She was a dedicated volunteer at both the Rodef Shalom Biblical Botanical Garden, the Hillman Cancer Center and Forbes Regional Hospital. Jeannette was also the last surviving member of the “Aaronians,” a group of married couples who met every month for more than 50 years for cards, drinks, food, laughs and vacations to Avon on the Lake and the Nevele Resort in upstate New York, where she and Maish won every dance contest. Lauded for her baking and cooking, she was known to some as “The Banana Bread Lady” who would not share her recipe. Jeannette was the proud Grandma and Bubbie to Lee Kweller, of blessed memory, Bari, Melanie, Connor, Lexy and Nathan Medgaus, Adria and Martin (Erika) Jones, and great-grandmother to Tony Stigler, Jayda Medgaus and Marcel Jones. Contributions may be made to United Cerebral Palsy (ucp.org) and The Jewish Association on Aging (jaapgh.org). Services were held at the Ralph Schugar Chapel, Inc. Interment Shaare Torah
ROTH: On Tuesday, Sept. 17, 2024, Lawrence “Bud” Roth, beloved husband of the late Eleanor Stein Roth; loving father of Ronald Roth and Roberta Lenarz; brother of Melvin Roth and the late Rita Aaron; proud grandfather of Michael, Andy and Lorrin, passed away. Services were held at Ralph Schugar Chapel. Interment Pliskover Cemetery. Contributions may be made to the Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh (givetochildrens.org/ ), with the designation for Juvenile Diabetes Clinic. schugar.com
SCHUMAN: Rabbi Burt E. Schuman was born in New York City in 1948 to William and Dorothy Schuman (z”l). He died in Pittsburgh after a short, but intense fight with chondrosarcoma. He is survived by his brother, Howard Schuman of London, cousin Ellen Karsh of New York, sister-of-the-heart Nancy Dubuar of Pittsburgh, beloved friends in many places, in the Jewish community, at Schenley Gardens and beyond. At age 42, Burt began the journey to become a rabbi. He called it “the perfect synthesis of all my experiences — Jewish studies, human relations, music, teaching, speech writing, Jewish communal service...and a dose of theater.” He served as a student rabbi in Grand Forks, North Dakota, and Monessen, Pennsylvania. After graduating in 1995, he began his rabbinical career at Temple Beth Israel in Altoona, Pennsylvania. He loved his congregation and they embraced him. In 2006 he moved to Warsaw, Poland, as the first progressive rabbi since the Holocaust. He returned to the U.S. in 2012 and settled in Pittsburgh. Graveside services were held at Homewood Cemetery. Memorial contributions to Persad Center (persadcenter.networkforgood.com) or Animal Friends in Pittsburgh (thinkingoutsidethecage.org), or to the animal rescue of your choice. Arrangements entrusted to Ralph Schugar Chapel, Inc. schugar.com
Please see Obituaries, page 36
Claryne
Claryne
Hyla
Robert & Judi Miller
Maxine & Larry Myer
Joan G Israel
Sandra Taxay Schanfarber
Joyce Weinstein Levinson .Dr Larry A Levinson
Contact the Development department at 412-586-2690 or development@jaapgh.org for more information. THIS WEEK’S YAHRZEITS —
Sunday September 29: Bertram B Biggard, Beckie C Cadison, Harold Benjamin Cramer, Harry Doltis, Louis Gordon, Jr , Murray F Hoffman, David Samuel Katz, Louise Mendelson, Emma Mersky, Lena Myer, Roy Ruttenberg, Harry Silberman, Belle Simon, Sylvia F Stern
Monday September 30: Robert Amper, Ida Bardin, Anna Bernstein, Joseph Morris Fisher, Rose E Litman, Morris Merwitzer, Manuel Howard Neft, Reah Ogun, Rose Orr, Frances Pasekoff, Tybie Poser, Saul Seegman, Abe Sieff, Himie Simon, Abe Siniakin, Lester H Strauss, Freda Weiss
Tuesday October 1: Annie Lazier Barovsky, Samuel Caplan, Alexander Cohen, Paula Cohen, Richard Crone, Fannie Dubin, Mathilda Horn, Lillian Koss, Lena Levine, Morris Marks, Evelyn Pearlstein, Sam Ruben, Sally Schaffler, Dr Stanley M Taxay, Edward Weinberger, Abraham Zwibel
Wednesday October 2: Maurice Robert Colker, Benjamin F Cooper, Irving Farbstein, Jack H Goldstone, Solomon Lehman, Max Levine, Jesse Levy, Beulah Lobl, Philip Seltzer, Minnie C Serrins, Isadore Simon, Sheldon N Topp, Herman Louis Turk
Thursday October 3: Anna Chinn, Anne Betty Frand, Louis Frischman, Henry Goldberg, Lena Roscow Goldberg, Sorali E Lubarsky, Marilyn Hope Manela, Jack N Pearlman, Sandor Shaer, Samuel Silverblatt, Karl Solomon, David Terner
Friday October 4: Morris Barnett, Jacob Borovetz, Jennie Cohen, Stella H Cohen, Harold Dunhoff, Melvin Gordon, Arlane Horewitz, Harry Hostein, Sylvan Joseph Israel, Aron Mayer, Abraham Volkin, Ida R Weiss, Gertrude Zubin
Saturday October 5: Julius Abrams, Minnie Berman, Edythe Gelman Buchman, Bella G Cohen, Sylvia Diamond, Harry Frieman, Charles B Goldstein, Nathan Lupovich, Stella Smith Madenberg, Harry Mittleman, Meyer Sachnoff, Louis Sadowsky, Nellie R Tobin, Agnes Venig, Leon Verk
D’Alessandro Funeral Home and Crematory Ltd.
“Always A Higher Standard”
Dustin A. D’Alessandro, Supervisor • Daniel T. D’Alessandro, Funeral Director 4522 Butler St. • Pittsburgh, PA 15201 (412) 682-6500 • www.dalessandroltd.com
Beth Jacob Cemetery – Duquesne
community emerged in Duquesne in the years after 1891, when Andrew Carnegie and later enlarged the Duquesne Steel Works. Founded in 1901, Beth Jacob Congregation used rented quarters until 1907, when it built its first shul. At the ceremony 1908, congregants marched from Conlin’s Hall to the new synagogue, Torahs in Attendees included Rabbi Aaron M. Ashinsky of Congregation Beth Jacob (Pittsand Rev. Dr. J. Leonard Levy of Rodef Shalom Congregation.
JCBA is committed to the proper care and maintenance of sacred grounds, and is devoted to the stewardship of Jewish cemeteries in Western Pennsylvania
Jacob Congregation opened a 2.5-acre cemetery in Mifflin Township in 1904, two miles town. The first burial was Edward Brown in 1904. The grounds have been dutifully kept longstanding chairman Allan Gross and his dedicated committee. This 200 grave hillside still active, is all that is left of the once thriving Duquesne Jewish community.
Agudath Achim – Beaver Falls
Agudath Achim – Hampton
Plots are available in the following JCBA cemeteries:
Shana Tova
Machsikei Hadas
New Chesed Shel Eme th Cemetery
Anshe Lubovitz
general population Duquesne doubled over the first two decades of the 20th century. Jacob was destroyed in a fire during Passover 1922. The congregation rebuilt. Dedicated with several hundred members in attendance, this was the shul’s Golden Era.
Beth Abraham
B’nai Israel- Steubenville
Holy Society – Uniontown
Johnstown Jewish Cemeteries
Kether Torah
New Castle Jewish Cemeteries
Poale Zedeck Memorial Park
eld of graves, established in 1913 in Shaler Township
Wishing you a Happy, Healthy New Year! From the
Rodef Shalom
Shaare Torah
Tiphereth Israel - Shaler
commercial district on First Street included many Jewish-owned businesses Sevthese businessmen and professionals organized an informal social group called “The Guys.” With their wives, they purchased a plot of land outside of Ligonier and built a lodge that each member’s family could use for a portion of the year. While most of the Jewish families in Duquesne lived in the city center, some lived in a newer section called Place.
Torath Chaim
Old Chesed Shel Emeth ran out of space, demonstrates sacred mission to bury the indigent. In addition, four separate burials of damaged prayer books and other sacred texts, a service provided to the community by the JCBA, were held in 2007, 2013, 2018, and 2021.
Workmen’s Circle #45
JCBA Board of Directors and Sta
population of Duquesne has been sharply declining since reaching a peak of more than people in 1930. The mills, and the downtown core, both central to Jewish Duquesne faint memories. Congregation Beth Jacob closed in 1977. synagogue was demolished in 2016 and congregational records are within the Rauh Jewish Archives at the Heinz History Center.
For more information please visit our website at www.jcbapgh.org, email us at o ce@jcbapgh.org or call the JCBA at 412-553-6469.
If you would like more information on free burial in Chesed Shel Emeth for those who are indigent, please contact us at the information provided below.
Jacob Cemetery was turned over to the JCBA in 2024. information, please visit our website at www.jcbapgh.org, office@jcba.org or call the JCBA at 412-553-6469.
Obituaries:
William Schwartz, on Tuesday, Sept. 17, 2024. Loving father of Jef Schwartz. Brother of the late Charles and Bernard Schwartz. Grandpa of Clarke Audrey Schwartz. Also survived by longtime companion, Gloria Shapiro. Bill was an avid Pirates fan. He was a dedicated Democrat. He always played the New York Times crossword puzzles and Scrabble. He loved his desserts. Graveside service and interment were held at Pliskover Cemetery. Contributions may be made to Beth El Congregation of the South Hills, 1900 Cochran Road, Pittsburgh, PA 15220. Arrangements entrusted to Ralph Schugar Chapel, Inc. schugar.com
Arthur Solin, age 94, passed away at Casey House in Rockville, Maryland, on Aug. 12, 2024. Beloved father to Sara, Hanna and David Solin, and cherished brother of Charles Gary Solin. He was born in Philadelphia on Feb. 12, 1930, attended public school in Philadelphia before receiving a scholarship to study art at the Philadelphia College of the Arts. He lived in New York City and worked for Time Life before moving to ittsburgh with his family. He had a love of the arts and a thirst for knowledge; he loved discussing current events, politics and history. He felt great affection for his friend Peggy Elkins, brother Gary, and dear cousin Arthur Simpson. Donations can be made to the Tree of Life Memorial.
For more information about JCBA cemeteries, to volunteer, to purchase plots, to read our complete histories and/or to make a contribution, please visit our website at www.JCBApgh.org, email us at O ice@ jcbapgh.org, or call the JCBA o ice at 412-553-6469.
For more information about JCBA cemeteries, to volunteer, to read our complete histories and/or to make a contribution, please visit our website at www.JCBApgh.org, email us at o ice@jcbapgh.org or call the JCBA o ice at 412-553-6469
JCBA’s expanded vision is made possible by a generous grant from the Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh’s Jewish Community Foundation
information about JCBA cemeteries, to volunteer, to read our complete histories and/or to make a contribution, visit our website at www.JCBApgh.org, email us at o ice@jcbapgh.org, or call the JCBA o ice at 412-553-6469
JCBA’s expanded vision is made possible by a generous grant from the Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh’s Jewish Community Foundation
WEISSBERG: Elaine Claire Weissberg, 70, passed away peacefully on Sept. 23, at Canterbury Place in Pittsburgh, surrounded by her loving friends and family. She died shortly after receiving a diagnosis of glioblastoma. Born on Nov. 14, 1953, in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, to Jerome and Betty Weissberg, Elaine lived a life filled with love, laughter, and adventure. Elaine is survived by her cherished daughter, Jenna Buchwach; her siblings, Martin Goldhaber (Sally), and Jeff Adberg (Lavinia Touchton); her nieces and nephews, Kate Goldhaber (Brian Wilhite), Louis Goldhaber (Amye), Zo Adberg and Nolan Adberg; and her great-nieces and -nephews, Ray and Stevie Goldhaber, and Elliot and Anderson Wilhite. Family meant everything to Elaine, and she was proud to be the glue that held everyone together. A proud graduate of Westmont Hilltop High School’s class of 1971, Elaine went on to earn both her bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the University of Pittsburgh. Most recently, she worked as a care manager at UPMC’s Community Care Behavioral Health Organization (CCBH), where she made sure that children and teens received the support they needed. Previously, she served as a child and adolescent therapist, known for her heart of gold, quick wit and infectious laugh that put both clients and parents at ease. Her colleagues could always count on her to listen, provide advice or crack a joke. Elaine approached life with an enthusiasm that brightened every room she entered. She was known for her love of food and cooking, especially her trademark method for making the perfect roasted vegetables. Her friends will remember her boundless energy, love for traveling and trying new things, and — above all — her ability to make the ordinary feel extraordinary. Whether it was a spontaneous walk, bike ride, or planning her next adventure, Elaine lived life to the fullest, always with a sweet smile and a giggle. Services were held at Rodef Shalom Congregation. Interment Homewood Cemetery. Donations may be made to Jewish Family & Community Services of Pittsburgh at jfcspgh. org or Head For The Cure Foundation at headforthecure.org. May her memory forever be a blessing. Arrangements entrusted to Ralph Schugar Chapel, Inc., schugar.com.
George Richard Yochum, Ph.D., age 75, of the Squirrel Hill section of Pittsburgh, on Wednesday, Sept. 18, 2024, passed away peacefully with his spouse, Carol, at his bedside. Son of the late Gilbert and Marion (Tice) Yochum; beloved and devoted spouse of 23 years of Carol Zisowitz; brother of Gilbert (Pat) Yochum, and daughter Heidi Wilcox; Barbara Krieger (partner Thomas Stockhausen), children Geoffrey Krieger and Michelle Latkovic, Jeff (Cindi) Yochum and children John and Brian Yochum, and the late Gail Portanova. Stepfather of Wendy (Avery) Katz and daughters Batia and Margalit Katz, Julie (Joe Moreau) Wiener and daughters Arielle and Sophie Moreau, Cordelia (John Brooks) Stearns and sons Ferris, Lowen, and Cormac Brooks, Clio Stearns (Miranda Balkin) and children Inanna Balkin and Holden Stearns. George Yochum, Ph.D. was a professor in the communication studies department at California University of Pennsylvania. Services and interment are private and family will sit shiva at the family residence. Contributions may be made to: Democratic National Committee, 430 South Capitol Street SE PO Box 96585 Washington, DC 20077-7242, democrats.org. Arrangements entrusted to Elmer L Herman Funeral Home (412) PJC www.pittsburghjewishchronicle.org
At this time when so many of our Jewish friends are confronted with antisemitism, we are thrilled to observe your continued efforts of Tikkun Olam — blessing your local communities as well as nations around the world. What an amazing fulfillment of prophecy!
“By Myself I swear, the L-RD declares: Because you have...not withheld your son, your favored one, I will bestow My blessing upon you and make your descendants as numberous as the stars of heaven and the sands on the seashore; and your descendants shall seize the gates of their foes. All the nations of the earth shall bless themselves by your descendants...” — Genesis 22:16-18
We are convinced that G-d is with you and will forever be your comfort, protector and strength. His Word through His Prophets shall continue to come to pass:
“In those days, ten men from nations of every tongue will take hold—they will take hold of every Jew by a corner of his cloak and say, ‘Let us go with you, for we have heard that G-d is with you.’” — Zechariah 8:23
Be assured that the future hope of the world will come through Jews of faith in the Abrahamic promise.
“And the many peoples shall go and say: ‘Come, Let us go up to the Mount of the L-RD, To the House of the G-d of Jacob; That He may instruct us in His ways, And that we may walk in His paths.’ For instruction shall come forth from Zion, The word of the L-RD from Jerusalem... And they shall beat their swords into plowshares And their spears into pruning hooks: Nation shall not take up Sword against nation; They shall never again know war.”— Isaiah 2:3-4
These promises of G-d are sure and steadfast and will not go un fulfilled.
We encourage you to cherish your everlasting promises and the role you will play in blessing all “nations of the world.” Please visit our website to review again the solid basis of these promises and your hope.
“Embrace Your Jewish Heritage”
“Israel’ s Land Rights: Biblical, Historic and Legal”
These non-proselytizing booklets are Free to download at: www.IsraelsDestiny.com
Or Email to receive Free booklets & videos by Postal Mail: IsraelsDestiny@gmail.com
Community
Mesivta Zal dedication
Yeshiva Schools of Pittsburgh dedicated Mesivta Zal in honor of Rabbi Ephraim and Miriam Rosenblum. The Sept. 15 program occurred at the Charles Morris Campus (formerly Saint Rosalia School).
Rabbi
of Congregation
A Challah for Hunger event at the Jewish Community Center of Greater Pittsburgh enabled Second Floor teens to make challahs and learn about food insecurity.
p
Blessing Bar
Seth Adelson
Beth Shalom and Rev. Canon Natalie Hall of Church of the Redeemer set up a “Blessing Bar” in the parklet at Murray Avenue and Darlington Road. The two spiritual leaders offered Jewish and Christian blessings to passersby on Sept. 20.
Photo courtesy of Chabad House on Campus
Hear us roar Community Day School runners competed at the East End XC - 2024 Schenley Invitational on Sept. 22.
