Pittsburgh Jewish Chronicle 10-7-22

Pittsburgh has several communal sukkahs available for public use

— but you may want to call first

Judah Samet, survivor of Holocaust and Pittsburgh synagogue shooting, has died at 84

By Adam Reinherz | Sta Writer

Astudy

of the Jewish holidays can reveal a megillah’s worth of customs, writings and requirements.

With Sukkot just days away, one idea worth considering is that according to the Shulchan Aruch, a 16th-century code of Jewish laws, it’s praiseworthy to eat exclusively in a sukkah.

Those looking to fulfill the rabbinic precept need not have their own booth. With several public sukkahs nearby, finding a hut has never been so easy.

Sukkahs are a common site in many neighborhoods around Pittsburgh, especially Squirrel Hill.

For individuals who don’t have a sukkah, there’s one at Chabad of Squirrel Hill, said co-director Rabbi Yisroel Altein: “Everyone is always welcome to open the gate in the back, and use the sukkah.”

Rabbi Ron Symons, of the Jewish Community Center of Greater Pittsburgh’s Center for Loving Kindness, offered a similar invitation: “We will have a sukkah outside of Levinson Hall on the patio. We welcome the community to come and use it at their discretion unless there’s a program already

happening in it.”

In Oakland, sukkahs will be erected on the campuses of the University of Pittsburgh and Carnegie Mellon University, as well as at Chabad at Pitt.

Sara Weinstein, co-director of Chabad House on Campus, said the holiday is a reminder of unity. To that end, on both the first night of Sukkot and Shabbat, Chabad and Hillel Jewish University Center are welcoming students for dinner.

The gatherings should enable “several hundred students” to enjoy the abodes, said Dan Marcus, executive director and CEO of Hillel JUC.

But apart from those two events, students and others on campus can frequent the sukkahs all week long, Marcus added.

Weinstein echoed the sentiment. Students and faculty should feel free to use the sukkahs on the campuses of Chatham University and Duquesne University School of Law, as well as the one at Chabad House in Shadyside, she said.

Robert Gleiberman, Congregation Beth Shalom’s executive director, said the Squirrel

By Justin Vellucci | Special to the Chronicle

Judah

Samet, a Holocaust survivor whose late arrival at synagogue one Shabbat saved him from the worst antisemitic attack in U.S. history, has died. A mainstay at daily minyan and Shabbat services at Tree of Life Congregation, Samet passed away on Sept. 27. He was 84.

“What a life he had,” wrote Larry Barasch, Samet’s nephew, in a Facebook post. “Grew up in Hungary, survived the Holocaust, became orphaned upon leaving the camps, moved to Israel and found his mother. Joined the Israeli Defense Forces as a paratrooper and radio man, fought side by side with General Moshe Dayan for Israeli independence. Emigrated to Canada, married Barbara Schiffman, and became a wellknown jeweler in Pittsburgh working for my grandfather, Irving Schiffman.”

Abraham Judah Samet was born into an Orthodox Jewish family on Feb. 5, 1938, in Hungary. In April 1944, the Gestapo forced the Samet family into a work yard and later took them to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in Germany, Samet said in an interview

Teens

Chabad of Monroeville

Sefer

New Lincoln Project ad targets Mastriano, references massacre at Tree of Life building

all of those states except Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, Galen said.

By David Rullo | Staff Writer

The PAC is targeting what it terms “soft Republicans,” whom they believe make up almost a quarter of the electorate.

The

ad starts with American and Israeli flags fluttering beneath a stormy sky. “Pennsylvania’s Jewish community faces a rising tide of antisemitism,” intones actor Peter Coyote in a voice that is both commanding and foreboding.

The new political spot, created by The Lincoln Project, then references the murder of 11 Pittsburgh Jewish community members killed at the Tree of Life building on Oct. 27, 2018.

“The gunman was radicalized on Gab,” Coyote says, while the screen displays antisemitic memes taken from the extremist social media platform. The ad goes on to link Pennsylvania gubernatorial candidate state Sen. Doug Mastriano and his political campaign to the site, calling out Mastriano’s relationship with Gab founder Andrew Torba and referencing ads the Mastriano campaign bought on the platform.

“Mastriano knows what he’s paying for,” Coyote states. “They’re not just Nazis, Klansmen, racists and crazies: They’re his base.”

The ad is running locally in Philadelphia and Harrisburg. It can be seen in the Pittsburgh market through ad buys on various cable stations and online.

The Lincoln Project, launched by former and current Republicans, is a political action committee formed in 2019 to prevent the reelection of Donald Trump and other Republicans running for reelection in the U.S. Senate.

The Lincoln Project co-founder and board member Reed Galen called Mastriano “an

incredibly dangerous person,” citing his involvement in the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol, his ties to white Christian nationalism and his refusal to speak with journalists.

Galen said that Mastriano is a “true believer” and a different breed of politician than typical cynical Republicans —like Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley, he said — who are willing to say anything to get elected and remain in power.

“He’s a true believer,” Galen said. “He really believes this stuff. I think the way you can typically tell the difference between a cynic and a true believer is that when the true believer is faced with a completely normal decision to moderate on something, they don’t. They double and triple down on the crazy.”

Gab, Galen said, is a cesspool of antisem itism, racism and conspiracy theories. It’s

also where many of Mastriano’s followers get their news, he conjectured.

“A guy who holds the cross up higher than he does the Constitution — this is a place he would go looking for help,” Galen said.

Earlier this year, it was revealed that the Mastriano campaign paid $5,000 to Gab for “consulting services,” received a $500 contribution from Torba and had all new Gab accounts automatically follow Mastriano’s Gab account. Mastriano eventually deleted his Gab page after a string of criticism from Democrats and Republicans alike.

In 2022, The Lincoln Project is focused on races it determined are most crucial to free and fair elections — governors’ races in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Arizona and Nevada and secretary of state races in

Galen said the goal isn’t to turn all of them against voting for Republican candidates, and that turning 6% is enough to win an election. Moreover, The Lincoln Project isn’t trying to make all of those voters cast ballots for Democratic candidates; rather, it hopes to create enough doubt that some voters will simply not vote in the races the PAC has targeted.

“That means that’s one vote from Mastriano toward Shapiro — but if you can’t, just skip the race altogether and that’s a vote away from Mastriano,” Galen said. “We saw that actually worked to help defeat Trump.”

The new political ad produced by The Lincoln Project has raised concerns about both Gab and Mastriano, but another ques tion remains: Is it appropriate to insert the shooting at the Tree of Life building into political advertising?

Maggie Feinstein, director of the 10.27 Healing Partnership, doesn’t appreciate the insertion of the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting into a political ad, nor is she a fan of giving a hate-mongering website like Gab free advertising.

“I wish everyone would stop doing that, desperately,” she said.

And while Feinstein couldn’t say defin itively that each survivor or victim’s family is triggered by seeing the Oct. 27 massacre referenced in a political commercial, she said it will affect some.

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Headlines

Temple Sinai adds three to its leadership team

By David Rullo | Staff Writer

Temple

Sinai is welcoming a few new faces this High Holiday season.

The Reform congregation on Forbes Avenue in Squirrel Hill recently hired Cantor Regina Heit as its education director; Danie Oberman as its community engage ment director; and Rayna Saltzman to fill the role of junior youth adviser. Heit’s and Oberman’s roles are full time; Saltzman will be working part time.

“It’s so joyful to be at Temple Sinai,” Heit said. “Everyone is so lovely and welcoming and so kind and helpful. It’s easy for me to be who I am, and that’s a person who is grateful every day.”

Ordained in 1981, Heit first served as a cantor and education director in Evansville, Indiana, before moving to a congregation in New City, New York. She next accepted the pulpit as senior cantor at Temple Emanuel in Denver.

During the last three decades, Heit has also worked as the director of programs within religious schools at synagogues.

“Now, I’m returning to what I call my happy place,” she said.

If Heit’s resume reveals a certain willing ness to travel, one might attribute that to her background.

The cantor’s father worked for the United States government and travel was part of the job. Heit was born in Japan, then moved to Hawaii before it was a state. She next spent time in Baltimore, then Alexandria, Virginia, before moving to Anchorage, Alaska, where her father served as the civilian personnel director for the United States Army for all of Alaska and the Pacific Theater.

The family next ventured to Sacramento, California, then moved back to Honolulu where Heit attended Punahou School, the same school attended by President Barack Obama.

Heit attended the University of Hawaii and finished her studies at the Hebrew Union College in New York.

Heit, who has been married to her husband Matthew for 43 years, also has deep Pittsburgh roots.

“My father was born and raised in Pittsburgh,” she noted, “and our grandson — which is the reason we moved here — will be the sixth generation of my family living in Pittsburgh. My father grew up in Squirrel Hill. He attended Poale Zedeck and graduated in the February 1936 class of Taylor Allderdice. He went to Gladstone Junior High. My grandson, please God, will graduate from Allderdice 103 years after his zayde, and he’s named after my father.”

Heit said her goal is to make learning a joyful and fun experience. The Jewish people, she said, are “amazing” and filled with faith and gratitude.

“My goal is to create a sense of gratitude for life for where we are and being Jewish,” she said. “If kids have a fun time, they’ll learn.”

For Oberman, the congregation’s new community engagement director and youth group adviser, finding Jewish Pittsburgh

roots mattered.

She moved to the city about a year ago for graduate school at the University of Pittsburgh, studying for her master’s in social work.

adult community that is hard to reach. She hopes to help create programs that will be inviting for them.

Oberman certainly has the verifiables to help program Jewish life at the synagogue.

through eighth grade.

The Dallas native moved to Pittsburgh in 2017 to attend college at the University of Pittsburgh. She works full-time at UPMC Shadyside Hospital. She, too, had a typical Reform Jewish background, attending Jewish day camp before working as a counselor, as well as attending BBYO events. And she was active at Hillel at Pitt.

Temple Sinai is in the initial stages of working with Hillel to build a bridge that will help identify graduating seniors staying in town who might be interested in attending the Reform synagogue, said congregation Executive Director Drew Barkley.

Saltzman said her immediate goal is to get to know the Sinai community.

“I was looking for a Jewish community and kind of stumbled into Sinai,” she said.

And while she’s a relatively new face to Temple Sinai members, Oberman has spent the last year paying her dues.

“I was already going to services and tutoring bar and bat mitzvah students and teaching in the religious school,” she said.

“Over the summer, I needed a part-time job, and they found some administrative work for me to do.”

Oberman, who grew up in a suburb outside of Chicago, said her role will take her to where the most need is.

“We’re letting the community guide what I’m doing,” she said. “We have some ideas, we know the communities not being reached and the demographics, but what that’s going to look like, we’re working on now. I’m creating a strategic plan and mission and vision.”

Temple Sinai, she noted, does a good job of programming for every demographic, but said Pittsburgh has a growing young

The 24-year-old spent time as the president of her youth group in high school, served as a youth trustee on her congregation’s board and attended Jewish day camp.

“I have a decent amount of family that are all social staffers, so when I got this job they jokingly welcomed me into the family business,” she said.

Before creating programs and social activ ities, Oberman plans to spend time getting to know the Temple Sinai community.

“It’s really exciting,” she said. “I’m going to start having one-on-ones with members of the community — tell me your story, tell me what you’re excited about, what’s going to work. I’ve been going to confirmation classes to meet some of the teens and build relation ships, but I am meeting a ton of people in the community I hadn’t already met.”

Tasked with helping to engage the next generation of Jewish community members, Saltzman will be serving as the junior youth group advisor, working with students in fifth

“It’s building relationships with both parents and children,” she said. “I want them to have fun and get to know each other, first and foremost. Once that is established, we can bring in some educational things.”

The new team, Barkley said, is part of Temple Sinai’s plans to engage with as many members of the Jewish commu nity as possible.

“They’re the connectors,” he said. “It has nothing to do with numbers. It has every thing to do with the quality of community and engagement and people living here and being part of this temple. It has nothing to do with us wanting to add 50 or 100 new house holds. It has everything to with the quality of life and making people comfortable being part of the community.”

The new staff, Barkley said, has brought a renewed sense of excitement to Temple Sinai.

“That’s because of the people, these people and the rabbis and both cantors,” he said. PJC

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

“My goal is to create a sense of gratitude for life for where we are and being Jewish.”

–CANTOR REGINA HEIT

p Rayna Saltzman is serving as Temple Sinai’s junior youth group adviser.

Photo provided by Temple Sinai

p Danie Oberman is Temple Sinai’s new community engagement director and high school youth group adviser.

Photo provided by Temple Sinai

p Cantor Regina Heit, seen here with her husband Matthew, is Temple Sinai’s new education director.

Photo provided by Regina Heit

“Guess What? Not all religionswere created equal”¹ - Doug Mastriano

Pittsburgh Jews Unite Against Extremism

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Bnot Sherut provide national service to Israel while teaching Pittsburgh youth about life in the Jewish state

By Adam Reinherz | Sta Writer

There are two new faces at Hillel Academy of Pittsburgh, as Israelis Halelle Gaon and Liad Raybi complete their year of national service by working at the Jewish day school and with local youth through Bnei Akiva of Pittsburgh.

Though it’s been just a few weeks since the two teens arrived in western Pennsylvania, Gaon, 19, and Raybi, 19, said they’ve taken to the area — particularly Mt. Washington — and the people here.

Neither the landscape nor the residents are particularly surprising, though. As a lead-up to their travels, Gaon and Raybi heard that Pittsburgh is a beautiful and “warm community.” But having the chance to meet so many people and see parts of the city during the last several days confirmed that description, Raybi explained.

“Everyone is trying to be so helpful,” Gaon said.

Whether it’s escorting the teens to different places or delivering cookies and other welcome gifts to their apartment in Squirrel Hill, the community has shown tremendous kindness, Gaon added.

“We are very appreciative,” Raybi said.

While living in Pittsburgh has confirmed some of what they heard about the city before they arrived, there are also plenty of surprises, the teens said — like people’s commitment to punctuality.

“You’re on time here,” Gaon said.

Raybi agreed: “In Israel, if you say 9, you really mean 9:30.”

Another shocker, according to the teens, is food.

While vegetables in the States don’t seem to be as tasty as those in Israel, the fruit here is “amazing,” Raybi said.

Promptness and produce aside, the Israelis’ biggest epiphany about Pittsburgh may be the diversity of the religious practices of local Jewish residents.

“There are lots of kinds of families here,” Raybi said.

In Sha’alvim, where both Gaon and Raybi grew up, “it’s all dati leumi (religious Zionist),” Gaon said.

Conversations with other Israelis who’d spent time here gave the teens some insight into Pittsburgh’s Jewish life, but actually observing the way many families interact is incredible, they said.

“It’s fun to see all the kids together. It’s very special. It wouldn’t work like this in Israel,” Gaon said. “There are so many streams of Jews,

and everyone has their own school there.”

Since Hillel Academy began the school year on Sept. 6, Gaon and Raybi have worked with students of all ages. The Israelis described meaningful engagements and efforts to promote Israel within the building.

A bulletin board stretching across a hallway includes both Hebrew and English words describing the teens, their families and hobbies, and Gaon and Raybi said they look forward to helping students and residents learn more about Israel as well as life in the Jewish state.

Whether by working on Yom Ha’Atzmautrelated activities with young leaders from the city’s Bnei Akiva youth group or introducing early childhood students to Israeli songs, Gaon and Raybi are excited to spend the year fulfilling the aims of Sherut Leumi — a program where participants provide national service instead of joining the Israel Defense Forces.

This is Gaon and Raybi’s second year in the program. Before coming to Pittsburgh, the former Sha’alvim residents spent a year aiding organizations in Israel. Gaon worked at Beit Issie Shapiro, a Ra’anana-based group that promotes inclusion while providing therapies and services for children and adults with disabilities. Raybi worked at Shalva, a Jerusalem-based organization that provides programming, therapy and training for people

with disabilities and their families.

“Sherut Leumi is an awesome program,” Gaon said. “There are so many ways to benefit the state — with kids, with older people, in an office — you could do a ton of meaningful things.”

Neither Gaon nor Raybi is certain what they’ll do upon returning to Israel next year. Until then, however, they are looking forward to developing new connections in Pittsburgh while fulfilling their national duties from afar.

“We serve our country,” Gaon said. “Just in a different program.”

PJC

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

 Bnot sherut Halelle Gaon and Liad Raybi Photo by Adam Reinherz

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q SUNDAYS, OCT. 9-NOV. 13

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

q MONDAYS, OCT. 10 -NOV. 14

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

q WEDNESDAY, OCT. 12

Chabad of the South Hills presents Seniors in the Sukkah. Enjoy holiday music, a special Sukkot program, delicious lunch, shake the lulav and etrog, raffles. $5

suggested donation. Noon. 1701 McFarland Road. Call 412-278-2658 to preregister. chabadsh.com.

Chabad of the South Hills presents a ladies’ event, Soup in the Sukkah, with a special guest speaker. 7:30 p.m. 1701 McFarland Road. chabadsh.com.

q WEDNESDAYS, OCT. 12-NOV. 16

Bring the parashah alive. Study the weekly Torah portion with Rabbi Mark Asher Goodman. 12:15 p.m. bethshalompgh. org/life-text.

Join Temple Sinai to study the weekly Torah portion in its hybrid class available on Zoom. Open to everyone. Noon. templesinaipgh.org/event/parashah/ weekly-torah-portion-class-via-zoom11.html.

q WEDNESDAYS, OCT. 12-MAY 24

Registration is now open for “Melton Core 1: Rhythms and Purposes of Jewish Living.” This 25-lesson course will take you through the year’s cycle — the life cycle traditions

and practices that bind us together. Explore not just what is and how is of Jewish living, but the why is that go with them. 7 p.m. $300 per person, per year (25 sessions), includes all books and materials. Virtual. foundation. jewishpgh.org/melton-core-1.

q THURSDAY, OCT. 13

Chabad of the South Hills presents a men’s event, Scotch in the Sukkah. 7:30 p.m. 1701 McFarland Road. chabadsh.com.

q THURSDAYS, OCT. 13-DEC. 15

Register now for the virtual course “Melton: Social Justice – The Heart of Judaism in Theory and Practice.” This 10-part Melton course highlights the Jewish call to action and provides a practical approach for achieving lasting change. Drawing from classic and modern texts, the course explores the communal connection that compels us to support the most vulnerable. 7 p.m. foundation.jewishpgh.org/ melton-social-justice-the-heart-of-judaismin-theory-and-practice.

q MONDAYS, OCT. 24-MAY 15

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

q TUESDAYS, OCT. 25-NOV. 15

Join Rabbi Danny Schiff for The Afterlife: Jewish Views on What Happens After We Die. In this Zoom course, learn Jewish approaches to the nature of the afterlife from ancient times to the present day. $45. 9:30 a.m. foundation.jewishpgh.org/ the-afterlife-jewish-views-on-what-happensafter-we-die. PJC

Join the Chronicle Book Club!

ThePittsburgh Jewish Chronicle invites you to join the Chronicle Book Club for its Nov. 12 discussion of “Nein, Nein, Nein!: One Man’s Tale of Depression, Psychic Torment, and a Bus Tour of the Holocaust,” by Jerry Stahl. From the Jewish Journal: “There’s a laugh on almost every page of ‘Nein, Nein, Nein,’ but for all his wit and somewhat skewed perspec tive, Stahl never loses sight of the gravity of the places he visits ... Stahl’s book shows the thought processes of a man feeling at his lowest soothing his ‘shpilkes’ by experiencing one of the most sobering, draining tours one can possibly imagine. For him, it’s cathartic, and readers might find it to be the same for them.”

The author will join us for part of the meeting.

Your Hosts Toby Tabachnick, editor of the Chronicle

David Rullo, Chronicle staff writer

How It Works

We will meet on Zoom on Sunday, Nov. 12, at noon. As you read the book, we invite you to share your favorite passages on a shared document you w ill receive when you register for the meeting.

What To Do

Buy : “Nein Nein Nein.” It is avail able from online retailers, including

Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

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

Happy reading! PJC

— Toby Tabachnick

Headlines

‘A shul should have more than one’: Chabad of Monroeville begins writing a new Sefer Torah

By David Rullo | Staff Writer

Somecongregations never write a Torah scroll. In less than half a decade, Chabad Jewish Center of Monroeville will have written two.

Ironically, it was because of the first that the second is being written.

Monroeville resident Mindy Norman attended the ceremony celebrating the completion of the Chabad center’s new Torah scroll in August 2021. She had started to attend outdoor services at the center during COVID-19 to say Kaddish for her husband, who died of unrelated causes.

The services, she said, brought her back to her childhood in upstate New York.

“I was bat mitzvahed 66 years ago. I grew up with a love of Judaism,” she said.

So moved by the community and the joy at the Torah completion ceremony, Norman began contemplating sponsoring the writing of another new Torah scroll for the Chabad center.

More than one Torah

Rabbi Mendy Schapiro, the spiritual leader of Chabad of Monroeville, recalled a conver sation with Norman at the ceremony during which she noted that the center now had one Torah, but often there was a need for a second, especially during the High Holidays.

“A shul should have more than one Torah,” he said.

When the rabbi stopped by her house several weeks later to drop off a challah before Shabbat, Norman told him she was donating a Torah in honor of her late husband.

“He was just speechless and said, ‘We’ll talk after Shabbat,’” she recalled.

Schapiro said Norman’s act of sponsoring a new Torah recalls the words of Pirkei Avot:

“One mitzvah brings on the next mitzvah.”

“She was inspired by the last Torah writing, and that brought on the next mitzvah, literally,” he said.

From beginning to end

Typically, when a congregation commis sions a new Torah scroll, Schapiro explained, they work with a scribe who has several scrolls partially finished. The process allows for a community to receive it rela tively quickly.

That was the process used by the Chabad center with its last scroll. This time, its leaders decided on a different approach.

“We said, ‘Let’s do the whole project from beginning to end,’” Schapiro said.

In December, the center reached out to a scribe who runs a network of scribes, including those in both America and Israel, and asked for samples of their work.

Schapiro said the approach allowed the community to be selective about the scroll, noting they received many beautiful samples.

Norman was one of those who examined the various selections.

“The rabbi showed me all the different scripts,” she said. “I was a part of the planning.”

After a little back and forth deciding which writing to use and the size of the actual scroll, they settled on a sofer, or scribe.

“He writes beautifully,” Schapiro said. “It’s a work of art — every one of them.”

As luck would have it, the scribe they selected was finishing a scroll for another community and was up for starting a new one in the middle of the month of Elul, which began Aug. 28.

On Sept. 16, the Chabad Jewish Center of Monroeville community gathered to commence writing the new scroll.

p Mindy Norman and Gerri Moldovan participate in writing a new Torah scroll for the Chabad Jewish Center of Monroeville with Rabbi David Lipschitz. Photo provided by Rabbi Mendy Schapiro

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Jewish woman to be knighted for helping Sephardic Jews gain Spanish citizenship

Doreen Alhadeff was the first American Jew granted Spanish citizenship under Spain’s 2015 law to repatriate Sephardic Jews from around the world. Now she is going to be knighted by Spain’s monarchy for helping others obtain that same citizenship, JTA reported.

Alhadeff, a 72-year-old real estate agent from Seattle, will be knighted under the order of Queen Isabella the Catholic in October, the Seattle Times reported.

Since earning Spanish citizenship in 2016, Alhadeff has helped guide people around the world, from Greece to Hong Kong, through the application process.

Alongside synagogue leadership and the Spanish Jewish community federation, or FCJE, she also helped members of Seattle’s Congregation Ezra Bessaroth, an Orthodox Sephardic congre gation that “holds fast to the traditions of the Island of Rhodes,” certify their heritage research.

The order under which Alhadeff will be knighted is named for Queen Isabella I of Castile — the same Queen Isabella who, along with her husband King Ferdinand II of Aragon, carried out the Spanish Inquisition and issued the Alhambra Decree, which expelled Jews from Spain.

Doreen Alhadeff was the first American Jew to receive Spanish citizenship under the country’s right of return law.

Brazilian Jews and Arabs hold hummus championship

Brazilian Jews, Christians and Muslims celebrated their peaceful coexistence in Latin America’s largest nation with a competition centered on one of the Middle East’s signature foods, JTA reported.

The Hebraica Jewish club in Sao Paulo orga nized and hosted an inaugural Abrahamic Hummus Championship on Sept. 21, timed to the United Nations’ International Day of Peace. Around 150 people attended the event, and yarmulkes shared the room with keffiyehs and other types of Arab scarves.

Ariel Krok, one of the event’s organizers, compared the contest to a “soccer-friendly match.” Brazil is home to nearly 10 million people of Arab descent, the largest such popula tion in the Americas, while more than 100,000 Jews call Brazil home, including around 60,000 in Sao Paulo.

Team Sahtein, composed of three Christian Arab women, was declared the winner by the technical jury. A popular jury of participants gave the title to a group of Christian Arab men. Both teams represented the Mount Lebanon club of Sao Paulo.

Kandinsky painting returned to Jewish family as Netherlands shifts approach to looted art

A Dutch committee charged with assessing and acting on claims about artwork stolen from Jews before and during the Holocaust has determined that a painting by Wassily Kandinsky should be returned to the family of

Today in Israeli History

— WORLD —

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

Oct. 7, 2009 — Crystallographer Yonath wins Nobel in chemistry

Crystallographer Ada Yonath, a Weizmann Institute faculty member, becomes the first woman from the Middle East to win a science Nobel Prize when she shares the chemistry award.

Oct. 8, 1576 — Jews are ousted

Ottoman Sultan Murad III orders 1,000 “rich and prosperous” Jews moved from Safed to Famagusta, Cyprus, to spur economic development on the island. The Ottomans move 500 more Jews from Safed to Cyprus a year later.

Oct. 9, 1917 — Spy Sarah Aaronsohn dies Sarah Aaronsohn, a leader of the Nili spy network for the British, dies eight days after being captured by Turkish authorities and four days after shooting herself to avoid further torture and interrogation.

Oct. 10, 1961 — Bones of Moshe Hess are brought to Israel

Moshe Hess, interred in Cologne in 1875, is reburied at Kibbutz Kinneret beside other fathers of socialist Zionism. His “Rome and Jerusalem” may have inspired Theodor Herzl’s “The Jewish State.”

Oct. 11, 1938 — Arab Congress rejects partition Arab leaders adopt the Resolutions of the Inter-Parliamentary Congress, rejecting Palestine’s partition, demanding an end to Jewish immigration but offering to let Jews already in Palestine remain.

Oct. 12, 1999 — Christian extremists are denied entry to Israel Israel refuses to let 26 Irish and Romanian tourists enter through the port of Haifa for being members of an extreme Christian cult. The approach of the year 2000 raises fears in Israel about doomsday cults.

Oct. 13, 2011 — La Scala hires Barenboim

Daniel Barenboim, a former musical director of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra who was born in Buenos Aires in 1942 and moved to Israel in 1952, is named the musical director of La Scala Opera House in Milan, Italy. PJC

the Jewish woman who likely owned it before the Holocaust, JTA reported.

The family of Johanna Margarethe SternLippmann, who was murdered in 1944 at Auschwitz, should regain possession of “Blick auf Murnau mit Kirche,” or “View of Murnau with Church,” an abstract work that the Dutch city of Eindhoven has owned since 1951 and has displayed at its art museum, according to the Dutch Restitutions Committee.

The decision reverses an earlier one, in 2018, in which the committee determined that there was not enough evidence to show that SternLippmann had possessed the painting after the Nazis assumed power to prove that she had given up ownership under duress.

In September, the Wassily Kandinsky painting “View of Murnau with Church” was returned to the descendants of a Jewish art collector who was murdered in the Holocaust.

Yom Kippur student absences could cost Michigan schools state funding

The holiest day of the Jewish calendar couldn’t come at a worse time for Michigan public schools this year, JTA reported

Yom Kippur fell on Oct. 5 — which is also the state’s “student count day,” the one day a year when the number of students who attend school determines how much that district will receive in state funds the following year.

By Michigan law, count day is on the first Wednesday of October, and superintendents typically go to great lengths to entice students to attend. Districts have coaxed students to attend on the days using raffles, basketball tickets

and zoo trips. This helps them ensure at least $9,150 in state funding per student, according to Chalkbeat Detroit.

Some public school districts in the state that enroll many Jewish students close their schools for Yom Kippur, allowing them to apply for waivers to move their count days; five districts have done so this year. But other districts with significant numbers of Jews are staying open, meaning that their student tallies could be depressed on the day that counts for state aid.

Mexican cops raid Lev Tahor compound, remove children

Mexican police raided the jungle compound of Jewish extremist sect Lev Tahor (“Pure Heart”) and removed minors from the site, JNS.org reported, citing the BBC

Two adult members of the group, described by former members as a cult, are under arrest on suspicion of human trafficking and severe sexual offenses, including rape.

Twenty-six persons were detained at the compound in Tapachula, in the far southeast state of Chiapas, including citizens of Israel, the United States, Canada and Guatemala. Some will be deported.

Lev Tahor “is known for extremist practices and imposing a strict regime on members,” the BBC report said, adding, “It advocates child marriage, inflicts harsh punishments for even minor transgressions and requires women and girls as young as three years old to completely cover up with robes.”

PJC

— Compiled by Andy Gotlieb

Federation urges Jewish organizations to apply for state security grants

LOCAL —

TheJewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh is encouraging local congregations and agencies to apply for Pennsylvania security grants.

The Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and Delinquency (PCCD) announced last week that it opened solicitation for the fiscal year 2022-2023 Fall Nonprofit Security Grant Fund Program, offering awards ranging from $5,000 to $150,000 (a match is required for awards exceeding $25,001) to nonprofit organizations at risk of “single bias hate crime incidents,” according to a Federation press release. A “single bias hate crime” is a hate crime aimed at one specific group of people, according to the FBI’s Hate Crime Statistics publication.

Funding requests will be accepted until Oct. 31 at 11:45 p.m. The forms can be found on PCCD’s website.

“From 2020 to 2022, the Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh has assisted local syna gogues and nonprofit organizations in getting 46 state grants totaling $2,530,078 and 13 federal grants totaling $1,395,743,” according to the press release. “This has resulted in considerable upgrades to security and training for active threat scenarios following the recent surge in attacks and antisemitism.”

The PCCD nonprofit security grant program was launched in late 2019. It has a projected goal of $5 million a year over five years, with the aim of funding security enhancements to nonprofits that could be the targets of bias crimes. Security enhancements include safety and security planning, equip ment, security-related technology, training and upgrades to existing structures.

“We have worked hard in the Jewish community to guide and encourage others to apply for these essential security funds,” said Shawn Brokos, the director of community security for the Federation.

“We learned, out of necessity, how important physical security is, and we readily share that knowledge and expertise with other faith-based communities. With the help of two grant writing consultants, the Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh has been able to maximize the benefits provided by these grants, and we want our other faith-based and community partners to be able to do the same.”

In 2022, 13 state grants brought $829,963 to the local Jewish community for security enhancements. The most recent awards include:

• $25,000 awarded to Beth Hamedrash

Hagodol-Beth Jacob Congregation

p Ottoman Sultan Murad III moved Jews from Safed to Cyprus.

p Daniel Baren boim leads a 2005 rehearsal of the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra, which brings together young Israeli, Palestinian and other Arab classical musicians each summer.

Hill congregation’s sukkah may be available for use, but people wishing to use it must take appropriate steps, including calling the synagogue first.

“Anyone wanting to use our sukkah would have to go through Michelle Vines here at our office. There are already many things planned.

Individuals will not be able to just come over

and use it,” he said.

Leslie Hoffman, executive director of Temple Emanuel of South Hills, offered a similar caveat regarding sukkah usage at the suburban synagogue.

People interested in using Temple Emanuel’s sukkah are welcome to join the Oct. 9 Erev Sukkot service in the sukkah.

Otherwise, Hoffman continued, “if they want to stop by on their own any afternoon — our preschool uses the space in the mornings and our religious school

uses it on Sunday mornings — I’d just ask that they send an email or call the office in advance to let us know.”

With proper planning, there are plenty of sukkahs available, several community professionals said.

What’s important to consider, said Beth Shalom’s Rabbi Seth Adelson, is that, apart from finding a sukkah, one should have a certain mindset about the dwelling. “The sukkah is a reminder of our fundamental vulnerability: that even after we have endured

the odyssey of the High Holidays, after we have pleaded for our lives and been cleansed of our sins, we need to be reminded that we are not invincible,” Adelson said. “Living in the sukkah for a week, without the creature comforts of our sturdy, climate-controlled homes, brings us all down a notch, so that we might focus on the truly essential aspects of our lives as we complete the holiday cycle.”

PJC

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

Continued from page 1

with the Holocaust Center of Pittsburgh. He survived internment at Bergen-Belsen and was riding a rail car to another work camp when it was liberated by American troops.

“We heard the rumbling of something, a military vehicle, which turned out to be a tank,” Samet said. “It came out of the woods, and we thought, ‘This is it.’ It was kind of funny, the turret was not aimed at us. It was aimed to the side. And when the turret opened, it was an American.”

Samet migrated to Israel, where he joined the IDF. He later moved to Canada, then to Pittsburgh, where he married Barbara Schiffman, whose family owned Schiffman’s Jewelers in downtown Pittsburgh.

Samet participated in minyan and services at Tree of Life for about 40 years.

Tree of Life’s Rabbi Hazzan Jeffrey Myers said the congregation is deeply mourning Samet’s passing.

“Judah leaves an unparalleled legacy to the world, of a man who survived not one, but two horrors committed by humanity against the Jews,” Myers said in a prepared statement. “He

Lincoln:

Continued from page 2

“I can promise you, there are individuals triggered by the ad,” she said. “It’s always a question of what is being gained in the name of this. I think that’s something people have to be asking — did this polit ical campaign have to put the Tree of Life in the center to be effective?”

taught us how to respond with controlled fervor, grace and strength. I will forever remember his smile, his humor and the twinkle in his eyes as he regularly shared his wisdom and deep Torah knowledge with us during Shabbat services. May his memory be for a blessing.”

“He was such a strong, solid guy — he was a fighter,” said Alan Hausman, president of Tree of Life. “There was the perception that he’d last forever. He was a one-of-a-kind person.

“He was incredibly learned; he knew all the Talmud and all the parsha and he’d always have a question to ask the rabbi,” Hausman added. “I really respected his knowledge.”

On Oct. 27, 2018, Samet arrived four minutes late to Shabbat morning services, thereby avoiding the mass shooting that killed 11 Jews worshipping at the three congregations housed in the building: Tree of Life, Dor Hadash and New Light. Samet had just pulled into a parking spot when someone told him there was gunfire inside the building. He later told reporters he looked the gunman in the eye while the gunman was being pursued by police. The gunman did not fire at him.

Samet told the New York Post earlier this year that he was hoping to testify against the accused murderer at trial.

“I want to testify because he has to pay for

Galen said he was aware the ad could potentially disturb survivors of the massacre. Because of that, he said The Lincoln Project communicated with the Tree of Life community and changed the tone of the spot based on the concerns of the community. He did not specify with whom he communicated.

“We don’t ever want to be in a position to exacerbate someone’s life long pain,” he said. “But I think that was a

what he did,” Samet said. “If I don’t testify, and nobody else testifies, he may walk. Justice delayed is justice denied. The man did a crime, and he should pay.”

Jury selection for the trial is set for April 24, 2023.

Samet embraced the spotlight that came with his being present at the time of the shooting, attending President Donald Trump’s State of the Union address in 2019 in Washington D.C.

Samet didn’t talk about the Holocaust for decades but, in recent years, became a sort of spokesperson for the Holocaust Center of Pittsburgh, according to Executive Director Lauren Bairnsfather.

“He was one of our busiest speakers,” Bairnsfather said. “At the Holocaust Center, he fit in that way.”

“He embraced a public role,” Bairnsfather added. “He had strong beliefs and he liked a good debate. Whenever I talked to Judah, I felt like I had to bring my A-game … he was a character.”

Audrey Glickman attended morning minyan with Samet for more than a decade. Glickman, who is politically left-leaning, often engaged in wars of words with Samet, who was more conservative.

“He was sweet and brilliant and stubborn and

clean attack on this guy. He has done these things. We didn’t make it up. He went and hired this guy and bought these ads. From our perspective, we’re always going to have the utmost respect for the members of the Tree of Life who lost their lives and their families. We want to find a balance between making sure we aren’t making their lives more difficult and getting our point across.”

The Chronicle did not receive a response

generous — maybe put brilliant first,” Glickman said. “He was a great guy. He always had a smile on his face … I loved arguing with him. I’m going to miss our sparring.

“His knowledge was encyclopedic,” Glickman added. “He knew his stuff, and it was amazing and he always had it at the tip of his tongue … He knew all the [Jewish] texts. He was well-edu cated. And it was always a pleasure to hear him chant haftorah — he was such a nice guy, such an entity. It’s a huge loss.”

Samet’s funeral was Sept. 29. He is interred at Beth Shalom Cemetery.

He is survived by family in the U.S. and in Israel: his daughter, Elizabeth, and son-in-law David Winitsky; his grandsons, Ezekiel and Alexander; two sisters, Henya and Miriam; and two brothers, Moshe and Itzik; five nephews, six nieces, and their combined 32 children; dozens of cousins and a legion of wonderful friends.

“He was small in stature,” added Hausman, the Tree of Life president. “But those are shoes that cannot be filled.” PJC

Justin Vellucci is a freelance writer living in Pittsburgh.

from the Mastriano campaign for this story but in a fundraising email to his supporters, Mastriano called the ads “vicious” and “dishonest,” saying that “not a word of these ads holds up to any scrutiny.”

The Lincoln Project commercial, titled “Tide,” is available to view at youtube.com/c/ TheLincolnProject. PJC

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

Monroeville:

Continued from page 7

The Israeli scribe sent the first section of the new scroll to the center with an outline of the first lines from Bereshit.

“It was probably about two-and-a-half verses,” Schapiro said. “He did an outline and rolled it up and shipped it to us. We requested the services of a local scribe, Rabbi David Lipschitz, who came to assist, because no one wants to make a mess in such a beautiful Torah. He came here; we had a ceremony. The next day, we rolled it up and sent it back to the scribe.”

The scribe will now write the rest of the

scroll, the rabbi explained, leaving letters at the end for the community to complete at another ceremony, Schapiro said.

Torah by design

The scroll will take approximately 10 months to complete, Schapiro said. The center expects to receive it by Tammuz or Av next year and use it during the High Holidays, 5784.

The new Sefer Torah will be slightly smaller than the one created last year — that was by design, Schapiro said.

“It will allow more people to lift the Torah,” he said. “Our community is made up of all different ages, from young to old. It’s really a

beautiful honor for people to hold the Torah with pride and for someone who’s elderly or a bar mitzvah boy, for them to feel like they can comfortably hold the Torah and feel that connection; that was one of the deciding factors going a little smaller.”

Torah by the numbers

Even the faithful, it seems, cannot escape inflation.

A new Torah scroll now costs upward of $60,000. But for Schapiro, other figures are more relevant to the Torah.

“A Torah scroll has 226 columns, 5,852 verses, 304,805 letters,” he said.

All are contributing factors to both the

cost and beauty of a Torah scroll, Schapiro noted.

Norman said that by dedicating the new scroll she’s paying respect both to the joy she found in Judaism as a child and to her husband.

“Chabad brought me back to my child hood,” Norman said. “The joy and positivity. It’s very positive, the whole Chasidic move ment. My husband grew up Orthodox. I felt that much of his integrity and humility was shaped by his Orthodox home and his Hebrew schooling.”

PJC

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

Headlines

No more horn but lots of gratitude: Israeli musician praises early Pittsburgh days

their next show.

By Adam Reinherz | Staff Writer

SallyMeth Ben Moshe sold her horn.

The professional musician, who recently retired from the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, said that 50 years after her father first bought the instrument from former Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra member Howard Hillyer, it was time to part ways.

“The French horn is an instrument that, if you let it go for a short period of time, it’s not a friend anymore … It’s kind of a fickle instrument,” Ben Moshe said. “You really have to work at it to keep it up.”

For half a century, the former Squirrel Hill resident did just that.

After receiving her first French horn at age 13, Ben Moshe played at Taylor Allderdice High School and Indiana University. A decade later, she accepted a job as second horn in the Jerusalem Symphony and, four years after that, she was hired to play low horn in the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra — where she stayed for 36 years.

The double-chai span enabled Ben Moshe — a self-described Rodef Shalom kid who grew up on Beechwood Boulevard in Squirrel Hill — to see the world. As a member of Israel Philharmonic, she visited Japan 11 times and Australia thrice.

There were trips to South America, Russia and Europe. London, Salzburg, Paris and Berlin were all memorable, Ben Moshe said, but perhaps no venue was more unforgettable than Auschwitz — the concen tration camp where 1 million Jews were killed between 1940 and 1945.

Israel Philharmonic visited the death camp during a tour of Hungary and Poland in November 1987.

As a lead-up to the Polish performances, which were Israel Philharmonic’s first in the country, conductor Zubin Mehta told JTA that the shows were intended to ignite emotion: “I also hope a few consciences in Poland will be pricked when they see what Polish culture would have been like if the Jews were still there.”

Before arriving in Auschwitz, Israel Philharmonic considered playing “Hatikvah.” After entering the concentration camp, however, the orchestra decided not to perform at all.

According to the Associated Press, Israel’s ambassador to Warsaw, Mordechai Palzur, said the orchestra’s silence would “reverberate not only through the Judean Hills and Jerusalem but all over the world.”

Thirty-five years later, that silence is still ringing.

Ben Moshe described the intensity of visiting Auschwitz on a frigid Friday in November: “It was an extremely emotional day,” she told the Chronicle. “It was miserably cold, just like it might have been

then, and here we are.”

While at the concentration camp, Israel Philharmonic participated in a brief ceremony. The group recited

the Kaddish, observed a moment of silence, laid wreaths and lit memorial candles. Quickly thereafter, the orchestra’s 100 members departed for

Israel Philharmonic doesn’t play on Shabbat, so to make it to the hotel in time for the Saturday night performance, everyone had to move, Ben Moshe said.

The group hurriedly traveled from Auschwitz by rail.

“It was absolutely surreal,” Ben Moshe said. “We were Jews on a train in Poland on a Friday night after having been at Auschwitz ... Somebody took out a flask and we passed it around.”

On Saturday night, Itzhak Perlman joined the orchestra in Warsaw to perform Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto.

Ben Moshe remembers the show and her feelings about the entire tour: “I personally hated every second of it. I wanted to get out of there,” she said. “I didn’t want to spend an extra nickel in that country ... it’s a Jewish graveyard.”

Many moments have marked Ben Moshe’s distinguished musical career, but well before playing with Perlman, Pinchas Zukerman or other 20th-century titans, she was a child pianist in Squirrel Hill.

Around age 6 she learned to play from Marie Maazel, mother of conductor Loren Maazel. Seven years later, Ben Moshe swapped piano for French horn after Allderdice band director Henry Dipasquale handed her the brass apparatus with a flared end.

“Mrs. Maazel never forgave me for changing instruments,” Ben Moshe said.

“She thought I was going to be a great pianist.”

Despite disappointing Maazel, the early lessons proved valuable. Both in Japan and Tel Aviv, Ben Moshe was called upon by the orchestra to play piano with Leonard Bernstein on “West Side Story Suite.”

“It was out of necessity. Someone took sick, and they needed someone to sit in the chair. They came to me and said, ‘Would you do it,” Ben Moshe recalled.

“It was quite an honor. The first half of the concert I played the piano; the second half I sat in the horn section and played Brahms symphony.”

Since retiring from Israel Philharmonic four years ago, Ben Moshe, 67, has returned to playing piano. In her Kfar Saba home, she still has a few instruments. The French horns she once owned are gone, but her gratitude for the instrument and the instruction she received remain.

“I just feel very grateful for the path that Pittsburgh put me on: the education that I got at Rodef Shalom, the educa tion that I got in high school and the exposure to all the things that I was exposed to,” she said. “I feel very blessed to grow up in Pittsburgh.”

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

p Israel Philharmonic Orchestra conductor Zubin Mehta joins Sally Meth Ben Moshe during a concert intermission to celebrate her 60th birthday.

Photo courtesy of Sally Meth Ben Moshe

“I feel very blessed to grow up in Pittsburgh.”

–SALLY METH BEN MOSHE

Risk, repentance and reward

Guest Columnist Jonathan Weinkle

Onemorning in my naval medics’ class, I walked into the classroom to find that my friend Tzion Bublil had written the following on the chalkboard: What is the only disease that is 100% fatal?

Life.

How easily we forget. Most of us conduct our lives as if we are operating on the oppo site assumption: Nothing bad will happen to us. Even if we are aware of the inherent dangers of being alive, we tend to think in absolutes: If I do this, everything will be fine. If I do the other thing, I will die. Or, flipped on their heads, if I fail to do the good thing, I’ll die, and if I avoid doing the bad thing, nothing bad will happen to me.

It’s a recipe for a crisis of faith, whether you are praying or getting a medical checkup. Risk and reward don’t operate that way, in the spiritual or the physical spheres. Believing that they do can only lead to disappointment.

I’m a person of stable faith, but I have lots of friends whose belief in God has run aground on the words of the Unetaneh Tokef prayer on the High Holidays. “On Rosh Hashanah it is written, and on Yom Kippur it is sealed, who shall live and who shall die ...” and so on until the last hopeful coda, “But repentance, prayer and righteous behavior maavirin the severe decree.” What maavirin means is a matter of debate, one artfully laid out by my longtime teacher Rabbi Larry Freedman this past weekend. Let us assume that it means that one can change their fate, even after it is sealed, by engaging in these behaviors. There is a moral order

to the destiny inscribed for us in the Book.

And yet the righteous die, and the wicked prosper, every year. And every time someone with wavering faith reads those words, and thinks about that reality, they become less convinced that the Judge is Just.

Over the past two-and-a-half years, we have, at times, elevated our pandemic miti gation strategies to an Unetaneh Tokef of public health policy, to similar effect. Every time a fully vaccinated person becomes crit ically ill or a person wearing an N95 mask while jogging outdoors alone contracts COVID anyway, resolve weakens and skepticism grows.

As we will read this coming Shabbat in Ecclesiastes, “There is nothing new under the sun.” The COVID-19 pandemic did not give birth to the phenomenon of misunderstanding and misusing the idea of risk. Think of all the times you have joked about the Guinness record holder for world’s oldest living person attributing their longevity to, well, Guinness (the beer that spawned the book). More tragically, think of James Fixx, the running guru who died of a heart attack in his 40s, the nonsmokers you know who succumbed to lung cancer, or the young adults who grew up having family meals and open conversations with their parents every night and still developed substance use disorders. It’s no wonder that well-funded accusers from the tobacco, chemical and anti-vaccine industries have found it so easy to sow doubt in the medical profession, to create the equivalent of science atheists.

Whether in prayer or public health, there is no room for absolute certainty.

Four years ago, one of my first posts to my blog (“Make The Wind Blow”) talked about how the first thing actually created in the Biblical Creation story was chaos,

and the whole rest of the Creation process has been an ongoing effort to create and maintain separation in that chaos. As I said at the time, that effort fails frequently and dramatically.

There are things that we can do to main tain the separation, reverse the slide back to chaos, or postpone the inevitable — some times. The great fallacy of Western medicine is that we are in control of the body; the great fallacy of pagan religion is that we are in control of God. Even as the Abrahamic faiths turned from the worship of many to the worship of one all-powerful God, they could not uproot the deep-seated belief that there was some way to game the Great One, whether according to the recipe of one’s own creed, or by following the latest science or pseudo-science.

Let’s acknowledge that the chaos is always going to be there. The science that describes the impact of changing any single risk factor is complex and dreadfully boring to read, so it’s no use trying to catch the public’s atten tion that way. And the impact of spiritual change and growth is one of the universe’s eternal mysteries, one we may be fortunate enough to understand after it’s already too late to keep us alive in this world.

This Rosh Hashanah I heard the words of Unetaneh Tokef differently. Not as a proclamation of a moral truth, but as a direct quotation of a question that God, and we, ask together, both in the chapel and in the clinic:

On Rosh Hashanah it is written, and on Yom Kippur it is sealed,

“How many shall pass on and how many shall be born?

“Who shall live and who shall die?

“Who shall come to a timely end and who to an untimely end?

“Who by fire, and who by water?”

And who shall I say is calling, as the

Against white Christian nationalism

Guest Columnist

Rabbi James Gibson

I,along with dozens of my fellow religious leaders throughout the Pittsburgh area, strongly oppose the movement known as “white Christian nationalism” and all those who advocate for it.

The principles of this movement are antithetical to our own religious faiths and our role as citizens under the U.S. Constitution.

It claims that our country was explic itly founded as a Christian nation. It “assumes that being Christian is the stan dard of American life, and everything else or everyone else is a deviation from that,” according to Brock Bahler, senior lecturer in religious studies at the University of Pittsburgh.

These sentiments are at odds with our country’s founding and subsequent

history. These beliefs have caused their supporters to spew hate and commit violence against Blacks, Jews, Muslims, Hindus and Christians who disagree with them.

White Christian nationalists have attacked minorities repeatedly in recent years. The accused murderer in the Pittsburgh synagogue massacre in October 2018 was motivated by these ideas.

The founding fathers were God-fearing and enlightened enough to understand the peril of religious intolerance and religious violence. It is not debatable that our nation’s founders refused to install a state religion to prevent government from enforcing religion on any of America’s citizens or residents.

White Christian nationalism is a direct threat to the physical safety and spiritual well-being of the vast majority of Pennsylvanians who do not believe as they do.

We will work tirelessly in interfaith and inter-racial coalition to defeat any candidate

for public office who promotes these views directly or indirectly. We will call out and defeat any attempt to hide behind “dog whistles” or “plausible deniability.” White Christian nationalism is a danger to the lives of Pennsylvanians and a clear threat to our democracy. We and our communities will oppose it and its adherents with all of our faith and strength. We have unwavering appreciation for religious freedom and our great commonwealth.

I am a proud representative of Pittsburgh Jews United Against Extremism, a grassroots group of concerned citizens.

If you would like to encourage your community to stand with us against extremism, here are some action items to consider:

1. Use your voice to educate your community about the dangers of extremism. Please feel free to use my words above in any communications.

2. Th e surest way to make sure that extremism doesn’t win is to persuade everyone to vote. We have partnered with

poet wrote. Or as Rabbi Dan Selsberg said when I heard him speak for the first time seven years ago, in two of the most impactful words I’ve ever heard from the pulpit, “Who knows?”

Some will pass on and some will be born, some will live and others die, and when they die some of those deaths will be in their season and some far too soon, some by fire and some by water. In my time in medicine my partners and I have lost people to drowning, mourned deaths by suicide among people in their 20s, welcomed count less babies and bid farewell to people as old as 104. But who will those people be this coming year? Who knows.

It’s easy to feel powerless in the face of chaos, but we are not. How much power do we have? Who knows. But it’s better than nothing. We have repentance, prayer, righteous action, seat belts, vaccines, strong relationships, home care for the elderly, cholesterol medicine, exercise, suboxone, compassion, defibrillators and emergency surgery, and we hope, no, pray, that it will be enough.

May it be the will of the Blessed Holy One that all of you reading this who have been inscribed in the book of “Who Knows?” be granted the power, all those powers I have listed and so many more, to do whatever it is we do to tip the scale in favor of at least one, and God willing many, more year together. There are no guarantees, there is chaos, but while we are here together there is hope. Let us make wise use of it.

PJC

Jonathan Weinkle MD, FAAP, FACP is a primary care physician in a community health center in Pittsburgh. He is an amateur singer-songwriter, teaches at both Chatham University and the University of Pittsburgh, and is the author of the book “Healing People, Not Patients.” healerswholisten.com.

The New PA Project, a nonpartisan Get Out The Vote organization that encourages civic participation in traditionally margin alized communities across Pennsylvania. Please consider working with them to plan community events or to coordinate efforts for door knocking or phone banking in your neighborhood.

3. P lease consider creating or encouraging groups of concerned citizens in your neighborhood to build an independent movement against extremism. We have a task force of volunteers ready to jump in and help you to adapt a plan in a timely manner. Please email pghjewsuniteagainstextremism@gmail.com for more information. PJC

Rabbi James Gibson is a senior rabbinic fellow of the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem, a rabbinic fellow of the Institute for Jewish Spirituality and emeritus rabbi of Temple Sinai, where he served as senior rabbi since 1988. He lives in Pittsburgh.

Chronicle poll results: New year’s resolutions

Lastweek, the Chronicle asked its readers in an electronic poll the following question: “Have you made any new year’s resolutions this High Holiday season?” Of the 124 people who responded, 48% said “no,” 31% said “yes” and 21% said “not yet.” Comments were submitted by 20 people. A few follow.

I associate the High Holidays with atonement rather than resolutions, and I did approach someone with whom I’d had a misunderstanding.

I resolved to love my wife even more, but I’m not sure that’s possible.

It helps to have a holiday to remind you to commit to something that you should do anyway.

A closer walk with God.

Hoping to always talk less, to listen more ... to be kinder and to, hopefully, make a positive difference.

My resolutions are more connected to study and prayer — refreshing my Hebrew and reading more of it during services — than when I make resolutions for the secular year.

I also reflect.

Resolutions at the new year are easily broken and most often are! Better to strive daily and pray.

The comparison of Rosh Hashanah to the customs of the secular new year is inappro priate. It’s not the same kind of new year.

Never do! Just aim to be the best I can be every day.

Berkeley develops Jewish-free zones

Guest Columnist Kenneth L. Marcus

Ifit wasn’t so frightening, one might be able to recognize the irony in the sight of campus progressives trying so hard to virtue signal that they fall victim to a deep moral shame.

Nine different law student groups at the University of California Berkeley’s School of Law, my own alma mater, have begun the new academic year by amending bylaws to ensure that they will never invite any speakers that support Israel or Zionism.

These are not groups that represent only a small percentage of the student population. They include Women of Berkeley Law, Asian Pacific American Law Students Association, Middle Eastern and North African Law Students Association, Law Students of African Descent and the Queer Caucus.

Berkeley Law’s Dean Erwin Chemerinsky, a progressive Zionist, has observed that he himself would be banned under this standard, as would 90% of his Jewish students.

It is now a century since Jewish-free zones first spread to the San Francisco Bay Area (“No Dogs. No Jews.”). Nevertheless, this move is frightening and unexpected, like a bang on the door in the night.

Berkeley law students are not the first to exclude Zionists. At the State University of New York at New Paltz, activists drove

two sexual assault victims out of a survivor group for being Zionists. At the University of Southern California, they drove Jewish student government vice president Rose Ritch out of office, threatening to “impeach [her] Zionist ass.” At Tufts University, they tried to oust student judiciary committee member Max Price from the student govern

integral aspect of the identity of many Jews. Its derogation is analogous, in this way, to other forms of hate and bigotry.

Some commentators defend these exclu sions on speech grounds, arguing that “groups also have a right to be selective, to set their own rules for membership.” They are wrong about this. As Dean Chemerinsky

Will be speaking out more about various matters of concern.

To forgive or not to forgive, that is the question ...

Hope conditions in this country take a turnaround.

Learn more. Speak less. PJC

Toby Tabachnick

Chronicle weekly poll question:

Have you attended a virtual synagogue service streamed by a congregation outside of Pittsburgh? Go to pittsburghjewishchron icle.org to respond. PJC

ment judiciary committee because of his support for Israel.

These exclusions reflect the changing face of campus antisemitism. The highest profile incidents are no longer just about toxic speech, which poisons the campus environment. Now anti-Zionist groups target Jewish Americans directly.

Anti-Zionism is flatly antisemitic. Using “Zionist” as a euphemism for “Jew” is nothing more than a confidence trick. Like other forms of Judeophobia, it is an ideology of hate, treating Israel as the “collective Jew” and smearing the Jewish state with defamations similar to those used for centuries to vilify individual Jews.

This ideology establishes a conspiratorial worldview, sometimes including replace ment theory, which has occasionally erupted in violence, including mass shootings. Moreover, Zionism is an

explains, the free speech arguments run in the other direction: Berkeley’s anti-Zionist bylaws limit the free speech of Zionist students.

Discriminatory conduct, including anti-Zionist exclusions, is not protected as free speech. While hate speech is often constitutionally protected, such conduct may violate a host of civil rights laws, such as Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. It is not always the case that student groups have the right to exclude members in ways that reflect hate and bigotry. In Christian Legal Society v. Martinez, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the right of another Bay Area University of California law school, Hastings College of the Law, to require student groups to accept all students regardless of status or beliefs. Specifically, the Court blessed Hastings’ decision to require Christian groups to

accept gay members.

Putting legal precedents aside, major universities generally require student groups to accept “all comers,” regardless of “status of beliefs.” They also adopt rules, aligned with federal and state law, prohibiting discrimination on the basis of various classifications such as race, ethnicity, heritage or religion. Those who adopt such rules may not exclude Jews from these protections.

The real issue here is discrimination, not speech. By adopting anti-Jewish bylaw provisions, these groups are restricting their successors from cooperating with pro-Israel speakers and groups. In this way, the exclusionary bylaws operate like racially restrictive covenants, precluding minority participation into perpetuity.

Universities should not have to be legally compelled to do what is obviously right. Anti-Zionist policies would still be monstrously immoral, even if they were not also unlawful. The students should be ashamed of themselves. As should grownups who stand quietly by or mutter meekly about free speech as university spaces go the way of the Nazis’ infamous call, judenfrei Jewish-free PJC

Kenneth L. Marcus is founder and chairman of the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law, which has repre sented Jewish students in the New Paltz, Tufts and USC cases discussed above. He served as the 11th assistant U.S. secretary of education for civil rights.

This article, which ran on JNS.com, was originally published by The Jewish Journal.

The highest profile incidents are no longer just about toxic speech, which poisons the campus environment. Now anti-Zionist groups target Jewish Americans directly.

Headlines

‘Just one more bite’ potato kugel

By Jessica Grann | Special to the Chronicle

Potato

kugel. It’s the quintessential Shabbat and holiday food — and a dish I have experimented with over many years and for which I have tried countless recipes.

I think it’s pretty rare these days for a food writer to develop original recipes. Most of us are just trying to improve upon old favorites — trying new techniques, ingre dients and even different cooking pots and baking pans. I’ve done the work for you on this one. Simply follow the recipe, and enjoy the fluffy, creamy result.

I have become a big fan of Yukon Gold potatoes lately, and I swear that this is the reason that I can’t have just one serving of this kugel. Perhaps it was my Midwestern upbringing, but I previously only used Idaho potatoes or red potatoes for cooking. I found that Yukon Gold potatoes make the creamiest soups and mashed potatoes as well.

I do have a little bit of bad news. I have tried to make many “healthy” versions of potato kugel (you can translate “healthy” as lower in oil). Don’t bother: Even taking away ¼ cup of oil, which seems inconse quential, will turn out an inferior result.

Some things just aren’t worth making low-fat. Just tuck this recipe away for special occasions, and enjoy an extra helping or to your heart’s content.

This recipe has a few extra steps, but they are worth the effort.

Ingredients:

4 pounds Yukon Gold potatoes, peeled, halved and placed in an ice bath

2 large onions; I use sweet onions, outer layer peeled and sliced into quarters

5 large eggs, lightly beaten

3 teaspoons sea salt

1 teaspoon coarse ground black pepper

1¾ cups neutral oil; I prefer avocado oil

I make this recipe on the salty side because the salt and oil are what turn the potato into magic in your mouth, but you can decrease the salt by 1 teaspoon if you’re really watching it.

Preheat your oven to 425 degrees and place the oven rack on the middle shelf.

To create an ice bath, add some ice cubes to a large bowl of cold water. This is the same

process you use to blanch vegetables so they stay bright and firm after cooking.

Peel the potatoes, slice them in half and place them into the ice bath.

Peel and cut the onion into quarters.

Gently whisk the eggs, salt and pepper together in a second large bowl.

I typically don’t have preferences for the material a baking dish is made of, but for this recipe, a 9-inch-by-13-inch rect angular Pyrex glass baking dish will give you the best results. Place one on top of an old cookie sheet to help contain any potential mess from oil splatter or leaking out into your oven.

Pour ¾ cup of oil into the baking dish.

Place the dish into the oven to warm for 15-20 minutes while you grate the potatoes and onions. (If I had to grate the vegeta bles by hand I would not even attempt to make this recipe. God bless the old-school grandmothers who have the time, love and patience to do so. I am so grateful for my food processor.)

There are typically two sides to the grating attachment. One is wider than the other and if you flip the attachment over you have a thinner hole that gives more of a shoestring cut — that is the one that you want to use if you have the option.

Grate the onions first, and place them into a strainer. You don’t need to press

the water out of them completely the way you would for latkes; you just want most of the excess water to drain off. A little water from the onions mixed in with the oil is what helps to make the crust brown so beautifully.

Grate the potatoes next. Depending on the size of your food processor, you may need to grate them in two batches. The output of 4 pounds of whole pota toes will be about 10 cups of shredded potatoes. You can discard any large pieces of potato or onion that won’t go through the grater.

Before mixing anything together, measure the last cup of oil and place it on a saucepan over medium-low heat to warm for about 5 minutes. It’s important that the oil is very hot but not burning. I suggest staying close to the stovetop at this time. You are working with hot oil in both the Pyrex pan and in the saucepan. You don’t need to be afraid; just be cautious when mixing and moving the pan in and out of the oven.

Mix the potatoes and onions well with the egg mixture.

Carefully take the saucepan of oil off of the heat and slowly pour over the potato mixture. The most amazing bubbling sizzle happens when you first pour the oil over the top. Scoop up the bottom and fold it over and over, until the oil is well incorporated.

Take the hot Pyrex dish from the oven and carefully pour the potato mixture into the dish, being careful not to get splashed with hot oil.

Using a spatula, press the mixture evenly across the pan. There will be oil that pools around the edges — let that stay as it is; you don’t want to mix it any more once it’s in the baking dish. Place into the oven and bake for 1 hour and 20 minutes or until golden brown. Some people prefer to bake the kugel until the top and edges start to blacken. If that’s your preference, check it at the 1 hour and 20-minute mark, and cook for another 10-15 minutes at the same temperature or until it reaches your desired color.

When you pull the kugel out of the oven, you will see the oil bubbling around the edges. There is no need to pour this off at this point; it will soak in when the kugel starts to cool.

Let cool for 15 minutes before serving.

This recipe can be made a day ahead and serves 12.

Enjoy and bless your hands! PJC

Jessica Grann is a home chef living in Pittsburgh.

p “Just one more bite” potato kugel

Photos by Jessica Grann

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Celebrations

Birth Announcement

Congratulations to Josh and Elizabeth Nydes on the recent birth of their daughter, Nell Jules Nydes. Joyous grandparents are Larry Nydes, Susan Nydes Bailey and Jack Bailey, Jeanie Oxenreiter, and Tom and Diana Pasternak, all of Mt. Lebanon. Josh, Elizabeth and Nell reside in New York City.

Engagement Announcement

William Braslawsce and Kristina Milbauer of Beaver, Pennsylvania, are happy to announce the engagement of their son David Zane Braslawsce to Jasmine Grace

Joshua. Jasmine is the daughter of Dr. Shoshana Joshua of Denver, Colorado, and Joseph Crowell of Bellingham, Oregon, and granddaughter of Natalie Joshua and the late Dr. John Joshua of Denver, Colorado. David is the grandson of the late Paul and late Aileen Braslawsce of East Liverpool, Ohio, and Patricia Ecceslton of East Liverpool, Ohio, and the late Donald Milbauer of Dallas, Texas. David graduated from Case Western Reserve University in 2018 and is now the Happiness Manager at Chabad.org. Jasmine graduates from Touro University in January of 2023 and plans to pursue her Master of Social Work in the fall. A January 2023 wedding is planned in Colorado. Theknot.com/jamineanddovid

Ben and Flynne Wecht of Regent Square are pleased to announce the engagement of their son, Dylan Nathan Wecht, to Alyssa Michelle Mursch, the daughter of William and Judy McDonough of Scranton, Pennsylvania, and of the late Michael Mursch. Dylan is the grandson of Cyril and Sigrid Wecht of Fox Chapel and of the late Stanley and Linda Bushkoff and Leslie Berrent of Squirrel Hill. Alyssa is the granddaughter of the late Emma and Reynold Morgan and of Lorraine Mursch and the late Earl Mursch. The couple, who met as classmates at Duquesne University School of Law, reside in Arlington, Virginia, with their dog, Wilson. Dylan is working as a public sector engagement specialist for Truckers Against Trafficking and Alyssa is a staff attorney for Maryland Legal Aid. A Pittsburgh wedding is being planned.

Wedding Announcement

On Oct. 1, 2022, Dr. Alexa Cooper Spokane and Evan McStay were married at The Carnegie Museum of Art and Natural History. The bride is the daughter of Dr. David Spokane and Sharon Spokane. Grandparents are Mel and Bette Spokane and Richard and Barbara Augustine. The groom’s mother is Kimberly McStay and grandparents are Benjamin and Annabell Frederick. Alexa attends Seton Hill University Center for Orthodontics and Evan is employed as a design technologist at Indeed. PJC

Torah

Making the sukkah personal

Jonathan

Iwasfirst introduced to the concept of making the sukkah personal when I visited my moshav family some 30 years ago. I had lived with the Naftalis, a family of Kurdistan immigrants, in Israel on Moshav Noga when I was on Young Judaea Year Course in 1981. Just before Sukkot, every small home on the moshav created a beautiful, roomy sukkah according to the Talmudic measurements — but there was a difference. Each sukkah was illustrated with photos and cartoon drawings depicting events of the former year. Some of the photos were of family trips and vaca tions, the birth of children and grandchildren, weddings and other smachot. One cartoon drew my attention. It was a cartoon version of my moshav father on top of a tractor holding a bag of money with a hole in it, bills floating through the air trailing the tractor. The caption read “Naim Melech Haminus” or “Naim, King of Debt.” I laughed at the idea of celebrating the good times along with teasing about the upsets of the year.

from his travels. For a beautiful sunset, he chose a quote from the Hallel prayer, “from the rising of the sun to the setting of the sun.” He hung a photo of his wife, Karen, sitting on a rock and inscribed on the photo the verse from Psalm 27: “He lifts me up on a rock.” He printed these photos on waterproof vinyl sheets with grommets for mounting with the help of a professional printer. For the past 29 years, we have collected these banners, which also feature our children growing up with Papa as he led them on many hikes with photo opportunities.

During the year, I am always on the lookout for decorations that will make my sukkah more beautiful. I have decorations that my mother used when she decorated the sukkahs of my youth (plastic fruit, Chinese lanterns, etc). I pick up souvenirs from my travels (hanging ornaments and posters). I am first in line whenever Christmas lights go on sale (I have Halloween lights too). The lights really illuminate the sukkah at night and make it very inviting. I would be remiss in not mentioning that all my daughters’ sukkah decorations that have survived get an honored place in the sukkah.

When my wife, Beth, and I visited the

• $150,000 awarded to Chabad Lubavitch of South Hills, Inc.

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“This grant provides our organization a mechanism to obtain these vital funds that otherwise they would not have access to,” said Jeffrey H. Finkelstein, the Federation’s president and CEO.

“We have been one of the stron gest advocates for these funds, and the need is great.”

PJC

Toby Tabachnick

DEUTERONOMY 16:15

The Naftali sukkah told the story of the whole year, the ups and downs, spread out on the canvas walls of the sukkah. It was part mini-museum and part art installation.

When we perform ritual mitzvot, many of us also practice the tradition of hiddur mitzvah. There are those who pay large sums of money for the most beautiful etrog. We cover the challah every Friday night with a lovely, needlepointed challah cover we bought in Israel. We keep hiddur mitzvah in mind when we purchase or make cases to cover the mezuzah parchment. The same Hebrew writing from the Sh’ma is written on every rolled-up parchment but the design of its case (the bayit) truly can be a work of art.

When it comes to the sukkah itself, many of my Lubavitch friends say it is not their custom to decorate it at all. Yet the Talmud teaches that we decorate the sukkah according to the principle of hiddur mitzvah: “One should display handmade carpets and tapestries, nuts, almonds, peaches, pomegranates, bunches of grapes, vines, [decanters of] oil, fine meal, wreaths of corn” (Talmud Betzah 30b). There are many posters, made in Israel, that illustrate the seven holy ushpizin (guests), the halachot described in Mishnah Sukkah, pictures of Jerusalem, the seven special fruits of Israel, and the prayer for the Kiddush in the sukkah.

My father-in-law, Harry Kissileff, recently wrote in the New Jersey Jewish Standard about his 29-year-old tradition of creating photos with Biblical quotations dedicated to the memory of his father who died on the first day of Sukkot and was a lover of the natural world. Harry chose quotations that describe nature and gathered photos that he has taken

Naftalis on Moshav Noga years ago, we were asked, as the only outsiders around, to be judges in a sukkah contest. We got the full tour of each sukkah on the moshav. The mayor exempted himself from the contest, although his would have won first prize. The Kurdish Jews took beautification seriously with Persian rugs and photographs. There were windows in some of the sukkahs with window treatments. There were some who installed televisions to keep up on the latest soccer games. Talk about dwelling in your sukkah!

Later as we grew our family, Beth and I would always be part of the neighborhood sukkah hop wherever we lived. We would sing songs, give out candy and teach a little Torah.

We are commanded to dwell in a sukkah and wave the bouquet of lulav and etrog on Sukkot. There is a halacha that says you should not eat in the sukkah when it is raining. You should enjoy the Yom Tov meal in your home. Even if it stops raining after you start your meal, you are to finish your meal in the house. The reason given is that you are not to cause yourself any discomfort during the holiday.

The whole purpose of “sukkah dwelling” is to obey the core mitzvah: “You shall be completely joyous” (Deuteronomy 16:15).

The verse is an intensification of the blessings we celebrate at the end of the year, which are also mentioned in the verse. Hiddur mitzvah is not only an opportunity to get creative — it is an obligation.

PJC

Rabbi Jonathan Perlman is spiritual leader of New Light Congregation. This column is a service of the Greater Pittsburgh Clergy Association.

The whole purpose of “sukkah dwelling” is to obey the core mitzvah: “You shall be completely joyous.”

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Sunday October 9: Joseph Bowytz, Freda K. Unikel Bregman, Leah Breman, Dora Brody, Sadie Colton, Bess R. Escott, Laura Fletcher, Helen Goldfeder, Leana M. Herman, Earl Latterman, Harold Martin Lewis, Ben Markowitz, Celia Miller, Mollie Osgood, Dr. Gerald L. Ostfield, Elizabeth L. Ostfield, MD, Israel Raphael, Clarence Rosenberg, Bessie Ruth Roth, Albert Solomon, Henry Ziskind

Monday October 10: Beatrice Ash, Jacob Bennett, Max M. Bergad, Morris R. Cohn, Max Dine, Harry Dorsey, Jacob Florman, Bess Hansell, Millie Kanowitz, Morris Kempler, Selma Krouse, Pvt. Isadore Levy, Ernest Mannheimer, Katie Levine Marcus, Anna Mazer, Bella Olinsky, Esther Simon, Max Staman, Anna Stein, Nathaniel Steinberg, Barbara Ruth Weisenberg, Louis Wesoky, Louis Aaron White, Milton Wirtzman

Tuesday October 11: Esther Aronovitz, Allan H. Barnett, Jack Bergad, Cecilia Weis Bluestone, Frances Sylvia Brown, Ann Colker, Annette Klee, Charles Kovacs, Bernard S. Labbie, Fannie Lieberman Lawrence, Sadie Moldovan, Joseph Moskovitz, Samuel H. Richman, Louis M. Sachs, Aaron Joel Schwartz

Wednesday October 12: Sylvia Auslander, Leo Berkowitz, Gilbert B. Cramer, Iris Cummings, Murray Feiler, Rose Fisher, Elinor Sarah Goldman, Jack Hirsch, Joseph Louis Hochman, Rose Isaacson, Sophia Korsunsky, Sam Nadler, David Nathaniel Racusin, Walter Jacob Robins, Myer Shapiro, Alexander Sharove, Ben Shrager\

Thursday October 13: Ida M. Breman, Sam Chizeck, Judith Kochin Cohen, Lillie Levy, Shirley Watchman Loefsky, Selma Luterman, Esther Mallinger, Rose L. Miller, Sarah Mormanstein, Lena Newberg, Sadye Breman Novick, Rose Cohen Rattner, Mollie Robins, Joseph Scott

Friday October 14: Allen A. Broudy, Fannie Sulkes Cohen, Shachny Grinberg, Jeanette Gross, Rebecca Herman, Anita Lois Hirsch, Meyer Jacobs, Pauline Klein, Paul G. Lazear, Joseph Robert Lipsich, Clara M. Oberfield, Harry Pearl, Melvin N. Rosenfield, William Sable, Tillie Scott, Jacob Soffer, Samuel Supowitz, Louis Zeiden

Saturday October 15: Harry Americus, Jacob Feigus, Ruth Klein Fischman, Harry Girson, Samuel W. Gould, Albert Halle, Samuel W. Jubelirer, Jacob Samuel Kuperstock, Jack H. Mar, Samuel Moskowitz, Nathan Osgood, Anna Paris, Eli J. Rose, Anna Rosenfeld, William Rosenstein, Bertram W. Roth, Cantor Harry P. Silversmith, Mary Cotler Weiner, Louis H. Zucker

BRANDEGEE: Robert C. Brandegee, on Wednesday, Sept. 28, 2022. Beloved husband of Ada S. Brandegee; loving father of Bear (Nir Kossovsky) Brandegee and Robert J. Brandegee, and daughter-in-law Ava D. DeMarco; brother of Sarah B. (Douglas S.) Brodie; and grand father of Natasha A. Kossovsky, Katelin A. Brandegee and Sierra N. Brandegee.

Rob grew up in Chatham New Jersey, and graduated in 1954 from Williams College with a Bachelor of Arts degree. While working as an ad man at a Westinghouse manufacturing magazine he met his future wife, Ada S. Joseph. They were married in 1963 and have spent nearly every day of their lives together.

That same year, Rob joined his wife’s Pittsburgh-based technical writing and consulting firm. Together they transformed Editorial Consulting Services, based on Ada’s technical writing and rainmaking prowess, into Brandegee Inc. This new communications consultancy combined their skills and put Rob’s creative genius into motion. Together they built a team known for projects such as the first White House Conference on Children in 1970, to technical projects for U.S. Steel, Westinghouse, Alcoa, Chatham College and numerous communications programs for government agencies. Rob and Ada were a formidable entrepreneurial team that successfully navi gated the company through growth and challenges for almost four decades.

When they sold the business in 2000, Rob launched a second career as an artist and furniture designer, crafting whim sical but functional “Logjam” furniture and sculptures made from logs from early American cabins. Throughout this time, Rob and Ada were also passionate and accomplished antique and folk art collec tors. Rob had a fascinating story about every amazing piece of art or furniture that crowded their description-defying condo on Pittsburgh’s South Side.

Rob was always ready to weigh in on the latest news, espouse his political views through his weekly prose, or show you a new design he had sketched for a coffee table. During their full and accomplished life together, Rob and Ada made countless life long friends. Their home hosted a constant stream of visitors, whether from across the country or just down the hall. Rob’s conta gious smile and friendly disposition is already sorely missed.

A small family-attended graveside service and interment were held on Friday, Sept. 30, 2022, at West View Cemetery of Rodef Shalom Congregation. Contributions to Rob’s favorite charity are welcome at tinyurl. com/rcbactblue. Arrangements entrusted to Ralph Schugar Chapel, Inc., family owned and operated. schugar.com.

CAPLAN: Mashel (Mace) Caplan was born on March 25, 1932, to Philip and Cernie Levin Caplan in Rochester, Pennsylvania. He died peacefully on Friday, Sept. 30.

Mace attended Geneva College in Beaver, Pennsylvania. He had many inter ests. He painted, he sang, he played several

instruments, enjoyed putting puzzles together and loved reading mysteries, espe cially by the author James Patterson.

Mace looked forward to one of his nieces (Linda, Karen and Bobbie) calling him every night at 7 p.m. and discussing the happenings of the day. He especially liked to discuss his beloved Pittsburgh Steelers and never missed watching a game. He was a caring, gentle man. Everyone who met him commented that he was so soft-spoken and sweet.

He was the brother of the late Dorothy Caplan Weinberg and her husband Mel Weinberg, Bernard Caplan and Reuben Caplan and his wife Fernie. Surviving are his sister-in-law Marilyn (Bernard) Caplan and seven nieces, four nephews and many greatnieces and -nephews.

Mace had wonderfully devoted care givers, Carla, Jer’Cara and Carol. The family is so thankful for their dedication and commitment. The family is also very grateful to the staff at The New Riverview.

He will be buried at Agudath Achim Cemetery in Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania, near his family. A graveside service will be held on Friday, Oct. 7, 2022.

In lieu of flowers, memorials may be made to the Jewish Association on Aging, 200 JHF Drive, Pittsburgh, PA  15217.

GILBERT: Dr. Sheldon Ian Gilbert, a dentist known as “Doc” to his many friends, passed away on Sept. 26, 2022, at the age of 86. He was the beloved son of the late Samuel and Rebecca (Marcus) Gilbert. Sheldon grew up in Beaver County and spent most of his life there. Dr. Gilbert attended the University of Pennsylvania and graduated from Geneva College before enrolling in the University of Pittsburgh School of Dentistry.  He served in the U.S. Army Dental Corps (captain). He was a Life Member of Alpha Omega Dental Fraternity and the Beaver Falls Elks Lodge. During his professional career, he practiced dentistry first in Beaver Falls and then in New Brighton. Dr. Gilbert will be remembered as a kind and gentle man with a terrific sense of humor. He is survived by his son John Gilbert, his daughter Rebecca Gilbert, and his best friend and former wife Dr. Shandel Spiro Gilbert — all Pittsburghers. He is also survived by his brother Herbert Gilbert (Marlene) of Boynton Beach, Florida, and his sister Joan Weissman (Jerry) of Columbus, Ohio, and many much-loved cousins, nieces and nephews. Hill and Kunselman Funeral Home, hillandkunselman.com, to leave condolences for the family.

MOSES: Anita Moses, on Tuesday, Sept. 27, 2022. Beloved wife of the late Samuel Moses. Beloved mother of Roberta Gerson and Lee Moses. Devoted grand mother of Rachael Singer (Jonathan Castino), Samuel (Jordana) Moses and Jacob (Jamie) Moses. Graveside services and interment were held at Tree of Life Sfard Cemetery on Sunday, Oct. 2, 2022. Contributions to her memory may be made to a charity of your choice. schugar.com

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

Anonymous Frieda Gelman Margolis

Anonymous Edward Dobrushin

Obituaries

Obituaries:

Continued

page 18

RAMO: Chava bas Rifka, Elaine Schipero Ramo, born April 26, 1921, in Newark, New Jersey, to parents George and Rebecca Kalafa Schipero, passed away in her sleep on Tuesday morning, Sept. 20, in Canton, Georgia. She was 96 years old. Being of small stature, growing up she was known by friends as “Shrimpy.” Sharing a birthday with Queen Elizabeth II, she was often called the “switched at birth queen” by her family. And, some of her great-grand children think of her as Queen Elizabeth II’s “twin sister.” Elaine lived in Newark, Roselle, and Brick, New Jersey; Chicago; and Big Canoe, Georgia.

Elaine was married to her husband of 49 years, Leon Ramo of Irvington, New Jersey, who predeceased her. She is survived by her children Renee Ramo (Arthur Goldberg) and Bruce Ramo (Jerelyn); her grandchildren Seth Moldovan, William Moldovan (Emily), Jaclyn Moldovan, Brandon Ramo (Stacie) and Devin Ramo (Christen); her great-grandchildren Jacob Moldovan, Ethan Moldovan, Ava Ramo, Madelyn Ramo, Isabelle Ramo, Daphne Macedonia, Taylor Ramo, Noah Moldovan, Bradley Ramo, Ethan Ramo and Grayson Ramo; her sister Paula Schipero Ascher; and numerous nieces and cousins.

Funeral services took place at Beth Israel Cemetery, Woodbridge, New Jersey, on Sunday, Oct. 2.

RUPERTO: Maxine Cooper Marcus Ruperto of Pittsburgh and graduate of Schenley High School, on Wednesday, Sept. 28, 2022. Beloved wife of the late Frank Ruperto and the late Irwin Marcus. Loving mother of Lauren (Steven) Dasta, Karen (Dave) Smith and Jeffrey (Tawnie) Marcus. Sister of the late Barbara Klein. Cherished Grammy of Sarah, Ashley, Jesse, Morgan, Adam and Brendan; Great-Grammy of Layla, Alyssa and Kate. Graveside services and inter ment were held at Shaare Torah Cemetery. Contributions may be made to Alzheimer’s Association: Greater Pittsburgh Chapter, 2835 E Carson St. Suite 200, Pittsburgh, PA 15203. Arrangements entrusted to Ralph Schugar Chapel, Inc., family owned and operated. schugar.com

SAMET: Abraham Judah Samet passed away on Tuesday, Sept. 27, 2022, in Pittsburgh after a remarkable life. Born in Hungary in 1938, he survived Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, was present at the founding of the State of Israel in 1948, and moved to the U.S. in 1962. He married Barbara Lee Schiffman (z”l) after just two dates, and had one daughter, Elizabeth Hope Samet. He owned Schiffman’s Jewelers, where he sold diamonds to the elite of Pittsburgh for 45 years; chanted Torah at Tree of Life Congregation for 40 years; and was a dynamic and impactful speaker to

hundreds of schools, colleges and churches about his Holocaust experiences for the last 15 years. He represented the Tree of Life Congregation at the 2019 State of Union address in Washington D.C., where the U.S. Congress sang him “Happy Birthday” on national television. He is survived by his large and loving family in the U.S. and in Israel: his daughter Elizabeth and son-in-law David Winitsky; the lights of his life, his grandsons Ezekiel and Alexander; two sisters (Henya and Miriam) and two brothers (Moshe and Itzik); five nephews, six nieces, and their combined 32 children; dozens of cousins and a legion of wonderful friends, all of whom are grateful to have known this extraordinary man. Services were held at Ralph Schugar Chapel, Inc. Interment at Beth Shalom Cemetery. In lieu of flowers, gifts may be made to the Tree of Life’s Rebuilding campaign at Tree of Life, PO Box 5273, Pittsburgh PA 15206 (treeoflifepgh.org/donate).

schugar.com

SIMON: Shirley (Solomon) Simon, age 94, of Monroeville, passed away on Sept. 15, 2022. She is survived by her chil dren, Steven, Arlene and Barbara Simon, as well as her grandchildren, Ashley and Rachel Simon. She is predeceased by her husband, Sylvan; their daughter-in-law, Carol Simon; her brother, Herbert Solomon; his wife, Sally, and many aunts, uncles and cousins both in the U.S. and U.K. Mrs. Simon grew up in Pittsburgh, graduated from Peabody High School and after a brief secretarial career, married Sylvan “Sonny” Simon with whom she spent 69 years until he passed in 2019. Shirley took pride in the warm home she created for her family and beloved dogs, Max and Harry. Her friends, family and community knew her as sweet and warm, always enthusiastic for fun and mischief, and they loved her dearly.

Starting a card club which lasted over 30 years, teaching a friend how to drive, playing mahjong and Scrabble, knitting beautiful blankets, and taking long walks with her children were just a few of the simple pleasures Shirley treasured.  She was also a gracious caregiver for immediate and extended family, and for others as well, having been a volunteer at Forbes Regional Health Center for over 25 years.  Her loving presence will remain in our hearts forever. Family and friends will gather at D’Alessandro Funeral Home & Crematory LTD., 4522 Butler St. Pgh., PA 15201 (Lawrenceville) on Wednesday, Oct. 12, 2022, from 11 a.m. until the time of service at 11:45.  A luncheon will follow.  In lieu of flowers, remembrance donations may be sent to Cure Alzheimer’s Fund.  dalessandroltd.com

In the rising of the sun and its going down, We Remember em. In the blowing of the wind and in the chill of winter, We Remember em.

In the opening of the buds and in the rebirth of spring. We Remember em.

In the blueness of the skies and in the warmth of summer, We Remember em.

In the rustling of the leaves and in the beauty of autumn. We Remember em.

In the beginning of the year and when it ends, We Remember em. When we are weary and in need of strength, We Remember em. When we are lost and sick of heart, We Remember em.

When we have joys and special celebrations we yearn to share, We Remember em.

So long as we live, they too shall live, for they are part of us. We Remember em.

For as long as we live, they too will live, for they are now a part of us as, We Remember em.

Lee & Lisa Oleinick

TOLCHIN: Ida Rebecca Tolchin, Jan. 10, 1930 – Sept. 26, 2022. Ida Tolchin (“Hikey” to her loved ones), beloved mother, grandmother, aunt, cousin and friend, died peacefully Sept. 26 at the Haven Senior Residence in the North Hills. A lifelong resident of Pittsburgh, Hikey grew up in the Hill District as part of a large and warmly supportive extended family. She was born in 1930, the eldest child of Bessie and Harry Popkin, and raised in a loving home with her late brother, Irving, in 1932. She graduated from the former Fifth Avenue High School in 1948 and had a career in retail as well as administrative and bookkeeping support in the social services field at agencies including Ursuline Support Services and the United Jewish Federation. But her main occupation throughout her life was inspiring and supporting her family. She married her first husband, Howard Friedman, in 1951 and her son Eric was born in 1952. Howard died in a tragic car accident in 1953 at which point she became a single parent, working to raise and support her son. She married Carl Tolchin in 1956. They had a long and happy life together until his death in 2011. Like many of her genera tion she grew up in modest circumstances

but was enriched by the love and support of a devoted extended family, including her son, daughterin-law, granddaughter, many cousins and other relatives. Throughout her life she took advantage of the rich and diverse cultural opportuni ties of Pittsburgh — theatre, symphony, opera, film — attending with close rela tives or friends. Hikey is survived by her son, Eric Tolchin (Mary Ann Bohrer), and her granddaughter Lily Tolchin — all from Squirrel Hill — her niece Debbie Popkin Rudoy (Paul Rudoy) of Mt. Lebanon, other devoted nieces, nephews, cousins and friends. In lieu of flowers those wishing to honor her memory are encouraged to donate to the charity of their choice.

WAIN: Leonard “Lenny” Wain died at home Sept. 15, 2022, surrounded by his adoring wife, four children and a circle of relatives and close friends. Born June 10, 1936, in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, Lenny was later adopted by Chicagoans Philip and Emma Wain.

The family relocated to California where Lenny graduated from Beverly Hills High School and Claremont Men’s College. A competitive swimmer, Lenny was California All State during high school and college. His favorite stroke was the butterfly.

To know Lenny was to love him. His vibrant personality and unique perspective of the world was magnetic, welcoming an eclectic array who enriched his life. His family was at the center of his universe. He was the dad who coached his children’s sports teams and chaperoned Girl Scout jamborees. He was an avid gardener who loved tending to his fruit trees. A voracious reader, he always had a great story to share. Long after he retired, following the stock market continued to be a passion.

Lenny loved sports, playing basket ball and tennis, and was forever proud of his temple league bowling trophies. In mid-life, he took up golf and could be found on the Scottsdale greens with his wife. If you enjoy talking profes sional sports, Lenny was your man discussing in detail stats from throughout the decades.

Lenny’s career evolved and morphed as the tides of his life flowed. His charm was the key factor in his success; beginning as a CPA and later in life as a stockbroker for several financial institutions.

Lenny is survived by his loving wife, Susan (Feola); his devoted children, Liz (Charlie Augello) Wain of Highland Park, Illinois, Matt Wain of Chandler, Arizona, Adam (Tracie) Wain of Phoenix, Arizona, and Zachary (Ashley) Wain of Scottsdale, Arizona; his beloved grandchildren, Lucy Ruderman (Cameron Baker), Isabelle,

Mason, Oliver and Livia Wain and Dylan Huth; and his sisters Patty Mandell, Dolly Carniol, Rosie (Gene) Blascyk and Janet (Jack) Introligator.

The family wishes to acknowledge all the care partners that were with him throughout his decline, especially Robyn, Nanci and Pam. A special thank you to Dr. Doug Lakin and his incredible team who were wonderful with Lenny for decades.

Memorial services were held on Sunday, Sept. 18, at Temple Kol Ami 15030 N 64th Street Scottsdale, AZ 85254.

As a young child, Lenny was placed into foster care. The vision of a social worker ultimately led to his fortunate adoption by a loving family. In lieu of flowers, please consider a gift to Child Crisis of Arizona to help other chil dren like Lenny find loving families.

ChildCrisisAZ.org PJC

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Community

Together we rise

Machers and Shakers

Rosh Hashanah dinner to remember

Boys & Girls Clubs of Western Pennsylvania hosted Together We Rise, an inclusive family event celebrating the tradition of challah bread baking. The evening included special guests, games and a raffle.

Boys & Girls Clubs of Western Pennsylvania partnered with Community Day School p Jewish communal betterment and the value of working with others toward a shared goal. Photo by David Knoll

Ari Goldberg received the 2022 William and Olga Stark Young Leadership Award from the Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh.

p The event enabled students to connect, receive succulents and learn more about Jewish life on campus.

Photo courtesy of Hillel JUC

Nearly 400 Jewish students reunited for Rosh Hashanah services and dinner at the O’Hara

p Special guest and Holocaust survivor Irene Szulman and her daughter Susan joined the celebration.

Photo courtesy of Chabad House on Campus

p Participants received decorated challahs to bake at home. Photos courtesy of Boys & Girls Clubs of Western Pennsylvania Photo by Kim Rullo

Pittsburgh Jewish Chronicle Staff Writer David Rullo spoke at AIA Pittsburgh’s PechaKucha Night. Rullo was one of several Pittsburgh creatives who shared ideas, works and thoughts in a 20×20 format: 20 images with 20 seconds spent per image.

KOSHER MEATS