Pittsburgh Jewish Chronicle 10-14-22

JAA plans urban senior village on Browns Hills Road property; will close Weinberg Village

PA Supreme Court Chief Justice Max Baer dies at 74

By David Rullo | Sta Writer

TheJewish Association on Aging announced on Oct. 10 plans to redevelop its property on Browns Hill Road in Squirrel Hill in a new partnership with Continental Real Estate Co.

The site currently hosts AHAVA Memory Center, Weinberg Village, and in separate buildings, The New Riverview and Weinberg Terrace. The Charles Morris Nursing and Rehabilitation Center was also housed on the property before closing in 2021.

The agency told residents and their families earlier this week that, as part of the redevelopment plans, Weinberg Village will close.

JAA Board Chair Lou Plung said that some job losses will accompany the shutdown, although the number of employees affected by the closure wasn’t available at press time.

The JAA will help its Weinberg Village residents find other housing options.

“During this period of replacement of Weinberg Village, we’re going to seek to have those residents in appropriate facilities, either ours, where we have space, or others, at their discretion,” Plung said.

The project is estimated to take threeand-a-half years to complete, at which time those former Weinberg Village residents will be offered the opportunity to move into the new facility.

“It is a temporary displacement,” Plung said.

Plung is excited about the future of the campus but understands how disruptive the transition will be.

“I’m going to be honest: It’s painful,” he said. “It’s painful for our professionals that are working there. It’s painful for the residents, for the families. I feel it. I know a lot of those residents and I feel bad, and yet we also know that if we don’t do something the building is going to deteriorate and we cannot continue to provide good services.”

AHAVA Memory Center and The New Riverview will both remain open during the redevelopment process. Weinberg Terrace, located on Bartlett Street in Squirrel Hill, will continue to operate as usual.

The goal of the redevelopment, Plung said, is to create an “urban senior village” on the site.

By Justin Vellucci | Special to the Chronicle

Thechief justice of the state Supreme Court has died.

Max Baer, who was just two months short of a December retirement, died unexpectedly on Sept. 30 at his home in Pittsburgh’s South Hills. He was 74.

“[Baer] loved helping children,” Pennsylvania Supreme Court Justice David Wecht said. “He had an acute, very strong interest in the welfare of children. And he really revolutionized child welfare and juvenile dependency in the state of Pennsylvania — he was constantly at work and constantly energetic.”

Baer, who was Jewish, grew up in Dormont, earned his bachelor’s degree from the University of Pittsburgh in 1971 and received a law degree from Duquesne University in 1975.

Baer served as a deputy in the state attorney general’s office from 1975 to 1980, then worked in private practice

Please see Justice, page 10

 Chief Justice Max Baer standing to be recognized on Sept. 7, 2022, at an event announcing the naming of the Thomas R. Kline School of Law of Duquesne University Photo courtesy of Duquesne University

Drone shot of the JAA campus

provided by the Jewish Association on

Local sportmen’s club reacts to neo-Nazi event held on property

children from the Yeshiva Schools of Pittsburgh there.

By David Rullo | Staff Writer

DanMaybury, the chairman of the Pitcairn Monroeville Sportsmen’s Club, is adamant that his orga nization knew nothing about an alleged neo-Nazi event held in the club social hall in late September.

“We were chartered in 1936. We’ve been around almost 86 years, and we have never, never, had a problem like this, ever in the history of the Pitcairn Monroeville Sportsmen’s Club,” Maybury said.

Located in North Versailles, Pennsylvania, the club was thrust into controversy when a member rented the hall claiming that it would be used for a funeral repast, Maybury said.

After learning that the hall was actu ally used for a neo-Nazi event, the club suspended the membership of the person who rented the space and contacted legal counsel, “not only to defend the club for what it is right now, but what we need to do in the future to prevent anything like this from ever happening again,” Maybury said.

Approximately 160 members of the club attended a meeting on Wednesday, Oct. 5, that addressed the white supremacist event. During the meeting, a petition was presented asking the directors to expel the individual responsible for the event.

“It was voted on unanimously by the nine directors,” Maybury said.

The expulsion must now go through a process outlined in the club’s bylaws.

The group is beginning a process of self-examination, Maybury said, to tighten some of its policies making

it impossible for a similar event to occur again.

“There’s some things coming forward, with changes to the club,” he said. “There’s going to be some oversight with hall rentals.”

Before the neo-Nazi event, Maybury said, a hall manager handled rentals without any board oversight. Maybury has recommended that the policy be changed.

The idea moving forward, Maybury said, will be “trust but verify.”

As board director, Maybury spent the last several days fielding more than 150 calls, emails and texts from members, he said. About a third of those calls were from Jewish members of

the club.

After the massacre at the Tree of Life building, Jewish membership swelled, Maybury said.

“Every one of them have had nothing but good things to say,” he said, adding that they appreciated a phone call from the club “because we’re transparent.”

David Wolf has been a club member for more than 20 years. He was unable to attend the meeting because it was held on Yom Kippur but sent an email to the club leadership.

In the email, he wrote of the welcoming community he found at the club and his memories of bringing

“Many of my friends and members of my community have joined on my recommendation,” he wrote.

Wolf said that as a former member of Tree of Life Congregation, he believes, Oct. 27, 2018, made real the atrocities that occurred during the Holocaust 75 years ago in his father’s lifetime and that, as an observant Jew, he values his Second Amendment rights.

“I am grateful to our members and their willingness to teach such a valuable skill,” he wrote.

White supremacist events, such as the one held at the Pitcairn Monroeville Sportsmen’s Club, occur several times a year throughout the state, according to Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh Security Director Shawn Brokos.

The events are advertised by word of mouth and through social media sites, she said, so the general public usually isn’t aware they are taking place.

“The location is not disclosed publicly; it’s only via word of mouth,” Brokos said, “so even if a member of our community learned about it, they’re not going to know the location.”

Brokos said that she is aware when rallies, like that held in North Versailles, take place, but generally doesn’t publicize them because she doesn’t want to give the groups attention.

For Maybury, the goal moving forward is clear.

“I’ll do everything in power to prevent this from ever happening again,” he said. PJC

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

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Journalist explains the perils and ethical dilemmas of DNA tests

By Adam Reinherz | Sta Writer

Yearsafter Hillel the Elder, René Descartes and Jean Valjean each famously articulated an existential search for self, journalist Libby Copeland told members of the Jewish Genealogy Society of Pittsburgh about a modern version of that quest.

Speaking by Zoom from New York, Copeland described her reporting on home genetic testing.

As a journalist who formerly covered technology and culture at The Washington Post, Copeland discovered numerous tales of people who swabbed their cheeks or spit in a tube, only to send the samples away without giving thought to the life-changing ramifications of unearthing genetic truths.

Copeland followed a particularly prominent case concerning Alice Collins Plebuch — a woman, who, thanks to a DNA test, discovered her father was unknowingly switched at birth.

Plebuch’s story — and the ethical implications raised by home genetic testing — became the seed for Copeland’s 2020 book “The Lost Family: How DNA Testing is Upending Who We Are.”

“The Lost Family” was inspired by questions surrounding a test’s aftermath and the effects genetic tests can have on intergenerational relationships, Copeland said.

Though her book explores the larger topic of home genetic testing, Copeland dedicated much of her Oct. 7 Zoom talk to sharing several specific discoveries.

Years ago, when many of these DNA tests were first offered to consumers, marketers made it seem like “you’re going to find out something and your life was going to be enhanced … Maybe you’d keep doing genealogical research,” she said, “but it was not going to change your life in any way that was fundamentally troubling or anything.”

What followed, however, was that customer service reps and company executives began hearing from test takers who questioned why their DNA results didn’t match their siblings’, or why a new group of paternal relatives suddenly appeared on

their family tree.

When early test takers began making these genetic discoveries, there wasn’t an appropriate infrastructure in place, Copeland said. The search for understanding spilled

But as beneficial as it is to locate a previously unknown serial killer, the larger point is that these tests have made an overwhelming number of people identifiable, regardless of personal reservations, Copeland explained.

Likewise, Copeland told the attendees that if any of them were to take a DNA test now, “we would already have in the system many cousins already there — including third cousins and closer,” Copeland said.

onto Facebook, where people started sharing similar tales. This led to therapists, genetic counselors and even journalists turning their attention to these cases.

What transpired with the DNA tests is no different than what occurs with other innovations, Copeland said: “You see this with technology over and over. You have this idea that it’s going to be one thing, and it turns into something completely different.”

DNA tests were initially designed as tools for unlocking the mysteries of one’s heritage; over time, however, these tests also became crime-solving tools. As evidenced by the case of the Golden State killer — where a series of 50-year-old murders were solved by genetic genealogy — the tests proved immensely valuable.

Imagine a scenario in which someone donated sperm in 1975 and decides today that, due to various complications, they don’t want to take a DNA test because they don’t want their adult biological children to find them. The reality, Copeland said, is that the choice to remain anonymous doesn’t really exist.

Because so many people — and potential relatives of that sperm donor — have tested at this point, there’s already a database of family members assembled. “That means that even if your DNA is not there, enough of your segments are represented by these third and fourth and second cousins, that your genetic child can go on and figure out your identity through these people,” Copeland said.

The reality is that these tests have become “ubiquitous to the point where it is opting in people who never made the choice to take a test,” Copeland said. And, to some extent, these tests are “eradicating our invisibility from a genetic point of view. I’m not saying that that is a bad thing or a good thing. But I think it’s a very complicated and interesting thing.”

Many people don’t realize the extent to which these tests have changed our understanding of self, she added: “I think we really need to be talking about it, looking at it and looking at what this means and where it’s going.”

PJC

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

Carlow University

In-Person

Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha, the

 Journalist Libby Copeland speaks with Jewish Genealogy Society of Pittsburgh member Steffi Biersdorff. Screenshot by Adam Reinherz

DNA tests were initially designed as tools for unlocking the mysteries of one’s heritage; over time, however, these tests also became crime-solving tools.

$2.4 million grant to fund Pitt research on overcoming social polarization

By Justin Vellucci | Special to the Chronicle

JenniferBrick Murtazashvili sees a world fragmented and polarized and wants to do something about it.

Now, the associate professor of public and international affairs at the University of Pittsburgh has a little help.

A team led by Pitt’s Center for Governance and Markets (CGM) at Pitt’s Graduate School of Public and International Affairs will examine the way societies manage and overcome polarization and social cleavages, thanks to a $2.4 million grant from the John Templeton Foundation.

The project, “Governing Deep Difference: Modus Vivendi, Polycentrism, and Institutional Diversity,” is co-led by Murtazashvili and Paul Dragos Aligică, KPMG professor of Governance at the University of Bucharest and a senior fellow at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University.

“We observe that there is a big disconnect between the ability of communities to over come deep difference and work together on certain issues and national level rhetoric that is increasingly divisive,” said Murtazashvili, who lives in Squirrel Hill and is a member of Congregation Beth Shalom. “Societies are more diverse than they have ever been, yet despite this, we are increasingly polarized. This project explores the conditions under which communities are able (or not able) to overcome deep divides.”

The three-year research project — which will study groups in Uzbekistan, Romania, Ukraine and Rust Belt communities in and

around Pittsburgh — confronts what Pitt calls governance issues: how increasing social diversity, pluralism of values, worldviews and ways of life created by contemporary social and technological changes are rede fining societies and communities, often fostering conflict.

“This work is so important in our context of ever-increasing interconnectedness of systems and people across the globe, coupled with deepening divides across so many facets of our society,” said Carissa Slotterback, dean of Pitt’s Graduate School of Public and International Affairs, in a prepared statement.

Rather than simply identifying sources of polarization, the project will explore the tools communities develop to

overcome deep differences under conditions of growing heterogeneity. To do this, it will develop and test a range of intellectual traditions investigating and articulating tolerance-based solutions to these challenges.

Uzbekistan was selected because it “has religious pluralism, including a long history of Jews living peacefully alongside Muslims,” Murtazashvili said. Ukraine, she added, “is one of the most religiously diverse countries in the world with large Muslim, Christian and Jewish populations.”

The CGM will work with a range of global research partners including those at the Kyiv School of Economics (Ukraine), the University of Bucharest (Romania) and Ergo Analytics (Uzbekistan).

“We’re pleased to support this project, which will explore some of the most funda mental challenges to free societies,” said Amy Proulx, director of Individual Freedom & Free Markets at the John Templeton Foundation. “Understanding how diverse communities are able to successfully navi gate their deep differences is a critical step in promoting human flourishing. The project also has important implications for our work related to pluralism, human rights, political freedoms such as religious liberty and free expression, and the institutions that protect those freedoms.”

The project “will bring together philos ophers and political theorists who write and think about pluralism and diver sity,” Murtazashvili said. “It will also bring together sociologists, economists and political scientists who will analyze public opinion data to understand sources of differences and attitudes. We suspect sources of polarization are different in each context. … In the U.S., we suspect that the sources of polarization are based on political identity rather than on racial or ethnic divides. This is a new phenomenon.”

“We will explore sources of deep division and polarization in each country, trying to understand the conditions under which communities can work together,” she added. “Under some conditions, it may simply not be possible to bridge divides, yet still live in peace. Sometimes differences are simply too deep. How can policymakers create governance arrangements that account for this?” PJC

Justin Vellucci is a freelance writer living in Pittsburgh.

p Jennifer Brick Murtazashvili

Photo by Aimee

Obidzinski/University of Pittsburgh

Andrea F. Siegel | Contributing Writer

Consider the etrog.

A citrus fruit with a lemony floral scent, it is one of the Four Species of Sukkot, taken in hand and shaken together in the central ritual of the ancient holiday.

The etrog can be viewed as a treasure that can nourish us, lift our spirits and contribute to our religious observance beyond Sukkot. Its advocates say it is full of flavor, aroma, symbolism, religious significance and therapeutic benefits.

But its yellow peel covers an interior that is mostly thick rind with a small center that is full of seeds. It is not juicy.

Even so, it’s a shame to spend $50 on a fruit that comes all the way from Israel, and toss it out after a week.

These days, traditional ways to use etrogim post-Sukkot take their place alongside new ones. Judaism teaches us not be wasteful. We can use etrogim from the Sukkot celebration.

The weeklong Sukkot holiday commemo rates God’s protection of the Israelites during their desert wanderings. It is also a harvest festival from later times when the people had settled in the land of Israel.

Sukkot are the booths (singular: sukkah) that scripture says the Israelites dwelled in the desert. In the land of Israel, they were the field dwellings used during the fall harvest. Sukkot is a season of joy, a holiday of grati tude. The Jewish Thanksgiving.

Israeli-born chef Michael Solomonov, known for his restaurants in Philadelphia and beyond, recalls the etrog and other three species — the lulav, comprising the date

WE

Equipped with only pencils and rubber bands, eighth graders compete to design and construct the strongest catapult. By following supply and time constraints, students embrace efficiency and creativity in the engineering process.

“HOW”

citrus, the floral, the bitter, the sour. And doing it without overwhelming the flavor.

The bitter and sour aspects of the etrog mean “you can go very heavy with the sweet. Things like dried fruit, dates in particular, go so well,” he says, noting, “It also goes well with savory food.”

The upshot: “I think it is extremely versa tile and extremely underused.”

Solomonov likes to slice an etrog into very thin wheels or half-moons and pickle the slices.

“If you were to take candied or pickled etrog stuffed inside of a date with toasted almond, and warm it up, you would have something incredibly special,” he says.

The etrog can be used to make a rice dish by “steaming rice in coconut milk with etrog zest and poppy seed, for example. That would be fantastic,” he says.

palm, the willow and the myrtle.

“I remember eating etrog jam after Sukkot,” he says. “We are a very big citrus family, and we like lemon a lot. I was always obsessed with this idea of making lemonade or water ice — Italian water ice — with the etrog, which is not a strength of the etrog.”

He describes making the culinary most of the etrog’s unique attributes — the fruity

Or create a dish of chicken liver with preserved etrog, pomegranate and dates. Preserved etrog would work well with raw fish, and it can be served as a garnish on gravlax, he says.

A dessert that would let the etrog shine: candied etrog slices atop vanilla cake, Solomonov says.

ENGINEER

How will you give your child the tools to engineer success?

An etrog doesn’t quite make a meal, but Sukkot’s ritual fruit is more than just a pretty fragrance

p Etrog flowers are aromatic.

Photo by Andrea Siegel

p Abram Herman makes his own etrog soda, using a carbonating device.

Photo by Abram Herman, The Sukkah Project®

on some of America’s most brutal and provocative cases. He presents his views on cases ranging from the JFK assassi nation to the O.J. Simpson case to JonBenet Ramsey’s murder. It’s the morning after George Floyd’s murder and, behind the camera, longstanding disagreements between the conser vative white interviewer and liberal Black cameraman threaten to boil over. Check web site for times and to purchase tickets. trustarts. org/production/83997/list_performances.

q SUNDAYS, OCT. 16-NOV. 20

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. 17 -NOV. 21

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

q WEDNESDAY, OCT. 19

Join the Squirrel Hill AARP for its October meeting. Christin Trembulak, owner of Senior Insurance Products, will present a brief review of Medicare 2024 and will be available to make private appointments. In addition, treasurer Steve O’Connor will have a presentation on alcohol and other addictions. Attendees are asked to bring new donations of school supplies which will be donated to children in the community. Refreshments. For more information, contact President Marcia Kramer, 412-656-5803. Free to all seniors (55-plus). 1 p.m. Rodef Shalom Congregation, Falk Library.

q WEDNESDAYS, OCT. 19-NOV. 25

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-portionclass-via-zoom11.html.

q WEDNESDAYS, OCT. 19-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 THURSDAYS, OCT. 20-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-socialjustice-the-heart-of-judaism-in-theoryand-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 TUESDAY, OCT. 25

Join the JCC of Greater Pittsburgh for Fitness and Wellness Day. This year’s focus is on programs that help keep adults healthy and fit and to showcase what local organizations are doing in their communities to promote health and fitness. Free. 9 a.m. 5738 Forbes Ave. No cost. Proof of vaccination required. For more information, visit jccpgh.org.

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-viewson-what-happens-after-we-die

q THURSDAY, OCT. 27

Join the Pittsburgh Jewish Community for a Commemorative Ceremony for Oct. 27, 2018, to reflect and support each other in memory of the antisemitic attack on our loved ones and community 4 p.m. Prospect Drive, Schenley Park. Visit 1027healingpartnership.org for updates and details on the ceremony, as well as Torah study and commemorative service events leading up to the ceremony PJC

Join the Chronicle Book Club!

The Pittsburgh 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 wi ll 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.

Em ail : 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

Pennsylvania Jewish Republicans, yes to

By Gabby Deutch | Jewish Insider

of the country’s deepest purple states, every vote counts in Pennsylvania, and candidates know it. Joe Biden beat Donald Trump by just over 1 percentage point in 2020, and four years earlier, Trump bested Hillary Clinton by less than a point.

in a state with the nation’s fifth-largest Jewish population — a total that represents 3% of the state’s electorate — every Jewish vote counts, too. In two key races in the state — an open Senate seat and the battle for the governor’s mansion — Jewish Republicans are straddling party lines, their loyalties tested. They appear to be unifying around Dr. Mehmet Oz, the prominent talk show host and the party’s Senate nominee. But they also appear to be leaving gubernatorial nominee Doug Mastriano behind, several Jewish Pennsylvanians told Jewish Insider.

“I think that Mastriano’s support in the Jewish Republican community isn’t zero, but it’s about as low as it — it’s pretty low,” said Jon Tucker, a Pittsburgh orthopedic surgeon who switched his party registration from Democrat to Republican in 2015. “Of all the people that I know, I mean, I probably only know one person who’s gonna vote for Mastriano, but he’s also an election denier and conspiracy theorist.”

Tucker, who went to medical school with Oz, was touching on some of the many controversies that have embroiled Mastriano’s campaign. The Pennsylvania state senator has come under fire for his presence at the Capitol grounds on Jan. 6, 2021, his support for elec tion fraud conspiracies and his association with Andrew Torba, the founder of Gab, a social-media platform preferred by antisem ites. Tucker called Mastriano’s association with Gab “a window into how he thinks, which is very rigidly right-wing, with not just Christian overtones, but religion before government and that’s antithetical to everything this country’s about.”

Mastriano’s critics have called him a “Christian nationalist,” a term he has not personally used. But he does speak often about Christianity and what he views as its important place in America, and the role of God in national affairs. At his campaign launch event last year, Mastriano appeared with a pastor dressed in a Jewish prayer shawl who blew the shofar. He also has a yearslong history of invoking the Holocaust when talking about his political opponents and poli cies with which he disagrees.

“No Jew can pull the lever for Doug Mastriano. I don’t know how any Jew could look themselves in the mirror and think that that’s a good vote,” said Steve Rosenberg, a self-described conservative who until recently was an executive at the Jewish Federation of Greater Philadelphia.

Mastriano is competing against Josh Shapiro, the state’s Democratic attorney general, who has made his Jewish identity central to his campaign and is banking on

the support of Republicans to defeat his GOP opponent. In recent weeks, he has rolled out endorsements from prominent Pennsylvania Republicans, including former U.S. Reps. Charlie Dent and Jim Greenwood, and from unions such as the Philadelphia Fraternal Order of Police, which usually supports Republicans. (It also endorsed Oz.) Shapiro’s supporters like to point out that he earned more votes in the state in 2020 than Biden did.

“I think you’re going to have Republicans voting for [Shapiro] because they can’t bring themselves to vote for Mastriano,” said Jill Zipin, the co-founder of a group called Democratic Jewish Outreach Pennsylvania that is campaigning for Shapiro and John Fetterman, the state’s Democratic lieutenant governor who is challenging Oz. Roughly 70% of U.S. Jews support the Democratic Party, polling has consistently shown.

“I think among some Republicans who find Mastriano repugnant, the same Republicans don’t attach that same level of repugnancy to Oz. They just view him more as, like, a Toomey, if you want to call it, Republican,” said Zipin, referring to Sen. Pat Toomey, the state’s Republican senator who is not seeking reelection this year and whose views skew more moderate than Mastriano’s.

Public-opinion polling in Pennsylvania shows Oz performing better than Mastriano, although both candidates are currently polling below their Democratic counterparts. According to FiveThirtyEight’s average of recent polls, Shapiro holds a 10-point lead over Mastriano. In the Senate race, Fetterman holds a six-point lead over Oz, but the margin between the two has narrowed in recent weeks. Both Oz and Mastriano have been endorsed by Trump.

Oz has “done two things” since the state’s May primary to shore up support, said Berwood Yost, director of the Center for Opinion Research at Franklin & Marshall College, which has conducted polling in both races. “One is consolidated Republican support. Our last poll showed far more Republicans supporting him now than did in August.” The other, Yost

added, is that Oz has “also made an effort to moderate his stance.”

In September, Oz said he would have voted to certify Pennsylvania’s electors in 2020, and that while he is “strongly pro-life,” he would support abortion in cases of rape, incest or to protect the life of the mother. Mastriano said

and

in 2019 that he supported a so-called “heart beat bill” that would ban abortion after a fetus’s heartbeat was detected, as early as six weeks, with no exceptions. When asked whether women who obtained an abortion at 10 weeks should be charged with murder, he said yes.

“Abortion is required [in Judaism] if it’s a threat to the life of a mother. It’s required. So a Jewish person that takes Jewish law seriously, halacha seriously, you really can’t vote for him. Jews believe all kinds of things on abortion, but certainly he’s well beyond the pale,” said Lou Weiss, a pro-Israel activist in Pittsburgh who usually votes Republican. This year he has a Josh Shapiro sign on his lawn. “I consider myself a conservative and a Republican, but there’s no way I can vote for [Mastriano]. I mean, just really off the charts, with the kind of stuff he’s saying.”

The Republican Jewish Coalition has declined to endorse Mastriano and, in July, the group’s executive director, Matt Brooks, said Mastriano’s campaign “unfortunately seems intent on sending a message of exclusion. Jewish voters expect candidates to condemn antisemitism whether it comes from the far left or the far right — and to shun those who espouse it.”

p Republican gubernatorial candidate Doug Mastriano speaks at an election-night party at The Orchards on May 17, 2022, in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania.

Photo by Getty Images

Orthodox Jewish groups join an evangelical Christian mailman’s Supreme Court case

Multiple Orthodox Jewish groups are filing friend of the court briefs on behalf of an evan gelical Christian postal worker who is taking his case to get Sundays off to the Supreme Court, JTA.org reported.

The case, Groff v. DeJoy, seeks to expand the standard the Supreme Court set in a 1977 ruling regarding what constituted “undue hardship” to an employer in providing reli gious accommodation.

Groff v. DeJoy involves a Pennsylvania mailman who sought accommoda tions after the U.S. Postal Service started Sunday deliveries on behalf of Amazon in 2013. At first, Gerald Groff was able to work around Sunday deliveries, but as demand for the service grew, USPS disciplined him for declining Sunday shifts. He quit and sued. (Louis DeJoy is the postmaster general.)

Lower courts have ruled in favor of the post office.

Now, Orthodox groups are filing amicus briefs in support of Groff. They see the case as a chance to overturn Trans World Airlines v. Hardison, the 1977 decision that ruled for the airline over a member of a Christian sect who sought Saturdays off, rejecting as “undue hardships” three possible accommodations posited by a lower court.

German synagogue reports shattered window during Yom Kippur services

A broken window interrupted the final moments of Yom Kippur services in Hanover, Germany, unsettling a Jewish community on edge because of prior attacks during the holiday, JTA.org reported.

It was unclear late Oct. 5 exactly what had happened at the Orthodox synagogue in the northern German city, officials there said.

Police are investigating and had learned that there are no video cameras in the vicinity, according to local media reports. No one was injured in the incident.

The chair of the synagogue said he believed someone had entered the synagogue grounds and thrown an object through the window. The synagogue’s rabbi said he believed that the broken window represented an assault on his community.

“I don’t want to play down what happened, but such criminal acts were often our historical companions,” Rabbi Shlomo Afanasev wrote on Twitter, where he posted videos of the broken window. “We will not be intimidated and will continue to build: our communities, our families, and Judaism in Germany.”

Jewish gun club sues NY governor to allow concealed weapons in synagogues

A group of Jewish gun owners filed a lawsuit against New York Gov. Kathy Hochul’s gun laws, saying they

Today in Israeli History

Oct. 17, 1880 — Ze’ev Jabotinsky is born

infringe on their religious freedom as well as their right to bear arms, New York Jewish Week reported.

The New York State Jewish Gun Club, a Rockland County-based firearms club, funded and put together the lawsuit, which was filed on Sept. 29 in the Southern District of New York. It specifically targets the section of the new gun laws that prohibits the carrying of concealed weapons in “sensitive locations,” including houses of worship.

“New York State has expressed that legal carry in New York is okay, but not for those who observe religious rituals and customs,” a NYS-JGC press release said. “This law specifically targets religious people, by threatening them with arrest and felony prosecution if they carry their firearm while engaging in religious observance.”

In July, Hochul signed the Concealed Carry Improvement Act into law in response to the June Supreme Court deci sion that struck down New York’s strict concealed carry laws. The CCIA law added multiple checks on gun ownership in New York State.

Novak Djokovic wins Tel Aviv tournament

Novak Djokovic won his third trophy of 2022 and the 89th of his career at the Aviv Watergen Open on Oct. 2, defeating Marin Cilic in straight sets, JNS.org reported.

Djokovic, 35, won 6-3, 6-4 to add the Israeli title to his successes in Rome and Wimbledon this season.

It was the Serbian’s 19th victory over Croatia’s Cilic in 21 encounters dating to 2008.

Due to his unwillingness to get immunized against the coronavirus, Djokovic was barred from the US Open and the entire North American hard court season.

Netanyahu faints during Yom Kippur Services, tested and released from hospital

Opposition leader and former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu fainted during Yom Kippur prayers and was treated and released from a Jerusalem hospital, The Jerusalem Post reported.

Sha’arei Zedek Medical Center performed multiple tests on Netanyahu and released him the next day after all results came back normal.

“The former prime minister began to feel unwell in the synagogue during prayers,” his office said in a statement.

“He underwent a series of tests at the scene that came back normal and is now feeling better. In order to be certain, Netanyahu went to the hospital independently.” PJC

— Compiled by Andy Gotlieb

Oct. 14, 1994 — Rabin, Peres win Nobel Prize

The Norwegian Nobel Committee announces that Israel’s Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres are sharing the Nobel Peace Prize with the PLO’s Yasser Arafat for achieving the Oslo Accords in 1993.

Oct. 15, 1894

— Prime Minister Sharett is born

Moshe Sharett, a signer of the De claration of Independence who is Israel’s first foreign minister and succeeds David BenGurion to become the second prime minister, is born Moshe Shertok in Kherson, Ukraine.

Oct. 16, 1986 — Terrorists capture flyer Ron Arad

Ron Arad, 28, an F-4 Phantom II navigator, is captured by Amal terrorists after bailing out over Lebanon. He is never seen in Israel again. He is believed to have been killed in 1988 or 1992.

Ze’ev Jabotinsky, the father of Revisionist Zionism, is born in Odesa, Ukraine. Pogroms in 1903 inspire his activism for Jewish self-defense and Zionism. He provides the intellectual foundation for Likud.

Oct. 18, 1988 — Court upholds ban on Kach

Israel’s Supreme Court upholds the Central Elections Committee’s ban on the Kahanist party Kach for the election for the 12th Knesset because of a prohibition on parties whose object is inciting or engaging in racism.

Oct. 19, 1948 — Navy fights first major battle

The Haganah, the Wedgewood and the Noga attack an Egyptian troop carrier near Ashkelon in the first major battle for the Israeli navy. The Egyptian ship suffers enough damage to require towing home.

Oct. 20, 1952 — Speaker Itzik is born

Dalia Itzik, who in 2006 becomes the first woman to serve as the Knesset speaker, is born in Jerusalem to immigrants from Iraq. She also serves as interim president from January to July 2007. PJC

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

WORLD —

Brian Schreiber President and CEO

Scott E. Seewald Chair of the Board

The JCC congratulates our Board Member, Dr. Elizabeth Miller

On being named one of this year’s Distinguished Daughters of Pennsylvania which recognizes outstanding women to be honored for their extraordinary service and contributions to the Commonwealth

p Yasser Arafat, Shimon Peres and Yitzhak Rabin receive the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo on Dec. 10, 1994.

By Ya’acov Sa’ar, Israeli Government Press Office

p The INS Haganah, a former military vessel used to smuggle Jewish immigrants into British-controlled Palestine, again serves as a warship in 1948.

“It’s a unique partnership and a unique way of redeveloping this, such that we will get state-of-the-art facilities that will be dedi cated to seniors exclusively,” he said.

The redevelopment is a continuation of a process that began when the Charles Morris Nursing and Rehabilitation center closed.

At that time, Plung said, the JAA board of directors committed to looking at new models to provide care for seniors.

“We searched wide and far,” Plung said. “We talked to potential partners all over the country. We talked to people in California, in Iowa, Massachusetts, Florida, Ohio, multiple people in the local area and throughout Pennsylvania.”

The board eventually settled on partnering with Continental Real Estate, a nationwide developer and builder of commercial real estate projects based in Ohio that has a large portfolio in Pittsburgh, including developments at The Waterfront, The North Shore and the Galleria of Mt. Lebanon, as well as senior communities in three states including Apple Blossom in Moon Township, Pennsylvania. The JAA hopes to sign a contract with the developer within the next 90 days.

Plung said that the JAA board had several goals in mind for the property when it was talking to prospective partners: The new concept had to retain its Jewish values; it had to retain an exclusive use for seniors; it had to show long-term sustainability; and the Pittsburgh Jewish community in Pittsburgh had to have a say in what goes on at the site.

Weinberg Village, he explained, has 37 residents, half the capacity of a building that was becoming outdated and would

have required a large investment to bring up to date and make attractive to potential residents. AHAVA houses approximately 30 residents. The campus has the capacity for up to 200 residents.

assisted living, or if there will be affordable housing options beyond those available at The New Riverview.

Working with an outside developer is creating opportunities, though, Plung said.

founder and CEO of Continental Real Estate Companies. “For decades, we’ve been dedi cated to the development of distinctive spaces in Pittsburgh, which include the North Shore and The Waterfront in Homestead. We have established an ongoing relationship with JAA and have a strong vision for the poten tial reinvention of this unique space, which will preserve the legacy JAA provides in this community.”

Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh President and CEO Jeff Finkelstein said the Federation enthusiastically supports the JAA’s plans to reimagine and reinvigorate the Browns Hill Road campus.

The age of Weinberg Village has become a detriment to attracting new residents, Plung said, noting that if seniors can’t find a unit at Weinberg Terrace on Bartlett Street in Squirrel Hill, they’ll often bypass the Browns Hill Road campus in favor of a different resi dence not part of the JAA.

The notion of an urban village, Plung said, is a new model with innovative ideas that will help make the site more attractive.

“We’re talking about creating a commu nity,” he said. “We think it’s going to be very special and very unique.”

And while the concept has yet to be too tightly defined, Plung said, more amenities and transportation opportunities will exist than what is currently available to the small Weinberg Village community.

The redevelopment plan is still in its conceptual stages, so many questions remain unanswered including if units will be dedi cated to independent living in addition to

“The possibilities are exciting,” he said. “And what we think we can offer the Jewish community, that the trustees of this project 30 years from now will look and say ‘this worked really well, how can we enhance it?’ The challenge for our board is that we realize the utility of what’s here doesn’t work anymore. Serving 67 people on all this land in a very limited use is not the best and highest use for Jewish seniors in this community. How do we improve upon that?”

Funding has not been finalized for the project. Plung said a plan is being developed.

“We realize there’s limited resources,” he said. “We’re trying to ascertain to what extent the community can invest, and to what extent we need to look at outside resources.”

“We are excited to be in discussions with the JAA about the opportunity to create a new senior village,” said Frank Kass,

“The hallmark of the Federation and our beneficiary agencies, including JAA, has been to make lasting and sustainable impact,” Finkelstein said. “That’s what this vision that JAA is presenting represents. It complements the substantial work that the Federation’s Older Adults Task Force has been doing to understand the future of care for older adults and their caregivers in Jewish Pittsburgh. The purpose and result of both efforts is to bring innovative solutions to serving our commu nity of older adults and expanding the service offerings we can provide.

“Our community will benefit from this work — by both Federation and JAA — for decades to come,” he added. “We are very excited for the future of care for older adults here.”

Plung, too, is looking forward to the future.

“We’re really excited,” he said. “It’s going to be something to serve our seniors for the next generation or more. It does call for some transition issues in terms of job losses and the movement of our residents, but it’s a great thing.” PJC

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

Justice:

Continued from page 1

as an attorney. He was elected a county Common Pleas judge in 1989 and became a Family Court Division administrative judge in 1993.

He was elected to Pennsylvania’s Supreme Court in 2003 and became chief justice last year.

“This is a tremendous loss for the court and all of Pennsylvania,” said Justice Debra Todd, who is set to become the court’s chief justice. “Pennsylvania has lost a jurist who served the court and the citizens of the commonwealth with distinction. Chief Justice Baer was an influential and intellec tual jurist whose unwavering focus was on administering fair and balanced justice.”

Wecht met Baer more than 25 years ago, when Baer was still working in the Common Pleas court. At the time, Wecht was courting a junior probation officer, and Baer put in a good word for him, Wecht recalled.

“Twenty-seven years and four adult kids later, it all worked out,” Wecht said. “He

gave a good reference for me. And we often chuckled about that story.”

Wecht said he was saddened by Baer’s sudden death.

“I was interacting face to face with Max Baer a lot,” Wecht told the Chronicle. “He was at the top of his game. He was happy … he was highly productive and a great leader for the court.”

Judge Kim Eaton, the administrative judge for Allegheny County’s Family Court Division, told the Tribune Review that Baer’s impact remains an integral part of that divi sion’s system. Initiatives put in place under Baer’s stewardship continue to shape court operations, she said.

“He’s one of those guys who would correct you when you called him by his title,” Eaton said. “He was a Pittsburgher; he was a yinzer.”

“I’m extremely saddened to learn that Chief Justice Baer passed away,” Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf said in a statement “He was a respected and esteemed jurist with decades of service to our courts and our common wealth. I am grateful for his contributions and leadership in the Supreme Court.”

Duquesne University President Ken

Gormley also eulogized Baer.

“Max Baer was a judge’s judge, a lawyer’s lawyer, an extremely proud husband, father and grandfather, and a warm, caring human being who believed in the sacred nature of public service and in the solemn responsi bility of all lawyers to use the legal profession to do good for others,” Gormley said in a statement. “His loss leaves a massive void in the Pittsburgh legal community, in the national community of jurists and in the Duquesne family that admired him so much.”

Ben Baer, one of Baer’s two sons, works in the legal field, too — as an attorney in private practice in Philadelphia.

“He said, ‘Be a teacher, anything but a lawyer,’” Ben Baer laughed. “But I followed in his footsteps, and he was supportive.”

“I’m not just saying this and I’m not exag gerating, [but] he was an even better father, grandfather and uncle,” Ben Baer, whose family helped found Beth El Congregation of the South Hills generations ago, told the Chronicle. “And he really was a fixture in a large, interconnected family with western Pennsylvania roots.”

Ben Baer said his father never missed

a Pitt football game, often bringing Ben and his brother Andy, who is now a lieutenant colonel in the Air Force and stationed in California.

“He was going to do more, seeing the world,” Ben Baer said. “He wanted to continue to write. He wanted to continue to teach. And he wanted to continue to work in the field of child welfare.”

Rabbi Mark Mahler, rabbi emeritus at Temple Emmanuel of South Hills, led an opening prayer at a memorial ceremony last week for Baer. Mahler — whose son Moshe is friends with Ben Baer — co-officiated with the chief justice at his son Ben’s wedding.

“He was a lovely guy,” Mahler told the Chronicle, “eminently approach able and engaging.”

Rabbi Alex Greenbaum of Beth El offici ated at a private family funeral last week.

“The chief justice was a mensch,” Greenbaum said. “He had a good Jewish heart, a good Jewish soul and raised a good Jewish family.” PJC

Justin Vellucci is a freelance writer living in Pittsburgh.

“It’s going to be something to serve our seniors for the next generation or more. It does call for some transition issues in terms of job losses and the movement of our residents, but it’s a great thing.”

–LOU PLUNG JAA BOARD CHAIR

The pregnancy-etrog connection

The etrog is called the fruit of the beau tiful tree. It is joined in the holiday ritual by the lulav, a cluster of plants: a palm branch, two boughs of willow and three boughs of myrtle.

In Rockville, Maryland, Riki Alkoby, co-owner of Oh Mama Grill, is known locally for her etrog jam.

“People are already asking me about it,” she says.

As sure as Sukkot follows Yom Kippur, etrogim will be handed to her and etrog jam will emerge from her kitchen.

“They say, ‘Oh wow, if you make it this year, let me know,’ because apparently if you give some to someone who is pregnant or wants to be pregnant, it helps them.”

The pregnancy-etrog connection is an old one. A look through online sources shows centuries of stories and anecdotes linking etrogim to pregnancy and easier childbirth — and that includes in modern times.

Did eating Alkoby’s etrog jam help women seeking to become pregnant? She says has received feedback that some women who ate it did become pregnant.

“If it works, you feel like you are doing something for someone else. Even if it does not work, you give them hope.”

Candied etrog and etrog soda

Recipes for etrog jams and for citrus fruit marmalades dot the Internet.

Food preservation dates back thousands of years. Cultures continually added methods suitable to preserve their foods, and food preservation was a necessity, notably to stay fed in cold winters.

Citrons — the etrog is a citron — are “traced to Southeast Asia and Chinese river valleys,” says Jon Greenberg, a teacher and biblical and Talmudic ethnobotanist in New Jersey, whose organization, Torah Flora,

specializes in plants and nature in the Torah and Jewish tradition.

Archaeologists have found evidence of the etrog outside Jerusalem, dating back 2,500 years ago, he says.

The archaeologists were excavating a palace garden in what is now Ramat Rachel and discovered etrog pollen in the walls. The layer of plaster dated from the time of the Jewish return from exile in Babylonia around 538 B.C.E.

Greenberg says the word “etrog, does not appear in the Bible. It is a Farsi, or Persian, word, which suggests the etrog was a foreign import.

Sugar, used to sweeten etrog jam, make homemade flavored vodka and brandy (often opened on Tu B’Shevat and Purim) and other etrog products, became available during the Renaissance. Native to Asia, sugar didn’t become widespread in the West until after the late 18th century. Even then, it was used more as a flavoring, Greenberg says. The home made jam at the time was sauce-like.

Only in modern times, when food stores began selling commercially processed foods — commercial kosher jams showed up on shelves the late 1800s — were such products widely available in the Jewish community, Greenberg says.

Abram Herman owns and operates The Sukkah Project®, a year-round family busi ness in Grand Junction, Colorado, that sells sukkahs and holiday-related items. Herman, who likes to cook, says he tinkered with etrog recipes, making changes to suit his taste.

Among his efforts, he makes candied etrogim. They taste a little lemony, he says — “like an etrog smells. It’s got these floral notes.”

He saves the syrup he pours off during the candy-making process. “You end up with complex simple syrup,” Herman says.

With it he makes etrog soda. It’s better when the syrup is added to water and a carbonation device is used to create the fizz, he says. But mixing the syrup and club soda is good, too

His other uses for the syrup: drizzled over

Outreach in Pennsylvania, and attendees “could see the effects of the stroke,” said Zipin.

ice cream, added to a fruit parfait, to sweeten iced tea and to add the etrog’s unique citrusfloral flavor to alcoholic drinks.

Shattered citron

An online search for etrog uses returns hits in the six figures.

Not all uses for etrogim are about eating or drinking it. There are numerous craft and aromatherapy uses. Health and medic inal benefits have been attributed to the etrog — which in the plant world is Citrus Medica — including aiding fertility and providing inflammation relief. It’s been used in perfume for centuries. Soaps and skincare products also are available.

Devorah Brous, a Los Angeles-area urban homesteader, herbalist and Jewish educator, says that using an etrog for the holiday and then throwing it out runs counter to bal tashchit, Judaism’s teaching that tells us not to be wasteful or destructive.

Brous, whose business is From Soil 2 Soul, says the etrog is a “symbol of bounty and wellness and abundance” — symbolic of produce gleaned during the harvest. And etrogim can be composted, feeding the land that feeds us.

In addition, she says, “there are many other things we could be doing with it if you think about the bounty and not the beauty.”

For religious use, the etrog must be unblemished and come from a tree that has not been grafted.

Brous cautions post-Sukkot etrog users to be mindful of pesticide use on etrogim because it can be heavy. She recommends that for botanical, skin care and herbal medicines, users should thoroughly scrub the fruit or use organic etrogim.

“My sense is that there is an enormous amount we have to learn about the medicinal properties of the etrog,” Brous says, listing a number of reported medicinal uses that include combating nausea and aiding the digestive tract.

She calls the fragrance of the etrog “refreshing,” and uses it alone and with other aromas.

Brous likes to make the most of the citrusfloral aroma of the etrog peel, which she combines with aromatic herbs and/or other citruses to create an air freshener.

Dried peel can be used in candlemaking, she says, noting that etrog peels can be steeped in water, the mixture strained and the liquid used to scent bathwater.

Rabbi Steven Suson, of Congregation Har Tzeon-Agudath Achim in Silver Spring, Maryland, says he has used an etrog yearround as part of the Havdalah ceremony that ends Shabbat and begins the week.

“We poke whole cloves in it,” he says. “It smells really delicious. We use it for the spices on Saturday night.”

Studding an etrog with cloves is a gener ations-old practice in some Jewish families.

When etrogim get old, they don’t rot. They get hard. Suson has saved a number of them without cloves. “Now they are like little rocks,” he said.

Sadly, a clove-studded etrog that Suson was using for Havdalah dropped and shattered. A replacement may be forth coming this year. PJC

Andrea F. Siegel writes for the Washington Jewish Week, an affiliated publication where this first appeared.

losing support. It’s been Oz accumulating support among Republicans,” Yost added.

“There will be A LOT of Shapiro/Oz ticket splitting votes,” Brooks tweeted last month. The RJC has gone all-in for Oz; in August, the group hosted an event in which Oz appeared next to Trump–appointed U.S. ambassador to Israel David Friedman. Earlier this week, the organization’s affiliated super PAC announced a $1.5 million television ad buy that will target Black voters in Pittsburgh and Philadelphia with an anti-Fetterman message. The adver tisements target Fetterman for a 2013 incident — for which he received significant criticism from Democrats in the Senate primary — in which he pulled out a shotgun to stop and detain an unarmed Black jogger. Fetterman was the mayor of Braddock, outside of Pittsburgh, at the time.

Fetterman has struggled in recent months since suffering a stroke in May, just before the general election campaign kicked off.

In July, he addressed Democratic Jewish

She saw him speak again about a week ago.

“He was much better than he was in July. He was able to use humor effectively, he was able to make his points effectively,” noted Zipin, who said he seems to be at “95%.”

Yost, the pollster, observed that Fetterman “just hasn’t been able to spend time doing rallies and meetings and all the kinds of things that he was doing before the stroke,” but suggested that his slowed-down campaigning has likely not led to Fetterman losing support.

“Most of the changes that we’ve seen in the race since August hasn’t been Fetterman

“Fetterman at this point is going to need Josh Shapiro to have enough of a margin over Mastriano that he can pull Fetterman over the finish line,” said Larry Ceisler, a Philadelphia Democrat who runs a public affairs firm.

For Jewish voters, Shapiro is a familiar figure, even to Republicans. Jeff Bartos, a prominent Pennsylvania Republican, is co-chairing Oz’s Senate campaign, but his wife Sheryl recently hosted a fundraiser for Shapiro. The Shapiros’ children and the Bartoses’ children both attend or have attended Jack M. Barrack Hebrew Academy in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, where

Shapiro also went as a child (when it was called Akiba Hebrew Academy) — a school that Mastriano recently attacked as “one of the most privileged schools in the nation.” Mastriano characterized Shapiro sending his children there as an example of “him having disdain for people like us.”

The comment prompted CNN anchor Jake Tapper, also an Akiba graduate, to criticize Mastriano. “I don’t think I have ever heard Mr. Mastriano describe any other Pennsylvania parochial schools in that way, elite, exclusive, privileged, full of disdain for fellow Americans.

Philadelphia has a ton of fancy prep schools, but Akiba Hebrew Academy was not one of them,” said Tapper.

“I don’t vote for a candidate because they are a Jew or not a Jew,” said Rosenberg, the former Philadelphia Federation professional.

“I got to know Josh at my time at the Jewish Federation, and Josh is going to be there for the Jewish community. He’s going to be there for the citizens of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.” PJC

p After being allowed to dry on a plate, Abram Herman’s freshly made sugarcovered pieces of candied etrog will be ready to store and eat.

Photo by Abram Herman, The Sukkah Project®

[Shapiro] because they can’t bring

Mastriano.”

ZIPIN

In search of belonging

Guest Columnist

Mark Shinar

Iwasrecently asked by a synagogue to publicly speak, which I thought was a genuinely interesting and lovely request. Shortly thereafter, however, I received an apologetic text that, in the end, I would not be needed. There was a mix-up and someone else had already been asked. It’s plausible, but it didn’t help the gremlins in my head that, given the current climate and discussions about belonging, plague me with anxieties and uncer tainties about my place and my voice.

In “Atlas of the Heart,” Brené Brown notes that “we have to belong to ourselves as much as we need to belong to others. Any belonging that asks us to betray ourselves is not true belonging.”

While I’ve chosen Orthodoxy as a life style, I haven’t had that same luxury of choice regarding sexuality. That’s mine to recon cile. I understand that my naturally human need to belong isn’t inherently everyone else’s problem. Not that they need my permission, but honestly, Yeshiva University can do what it wants. So can any institution for that matter, Orthodox or otherwise. They can have pride alliance clubs or not. They can invite gay speakers to share their experiences on what it

means to navigate a gauntlet that forces them to choose between religious belonging and self-actualization, or don’t. They can wrestle with ways in which people who aren’t in the box can still fit into the community or they can decide not to make it their fight. Given the complexities and nuances, Orthodoxy’s limita tions on this issue are understandable. Best to keep our expectations low.

I’m mostly stumped, however, by the confusing doublespeak. We can either talk about love, respect and safety, or we can talk about other Jewish values, but it doesn’t make sense to lump everything into one conclusive policy. While it may take a great deal of courage to be Orthodox and gay, it also takes a great deal of courage to be Orthodox and name what we’re talking about when we’re talking about gay people in the community, namely that they have a place as long as they don’t ask for one. The price we pay for love, respect, and safety is silence. It’s painful, but it’s honest, and knowing where we stand may help us figure out what to do next.

As committed as I am to Orthodoxy and to raising observant children, the events of the past few months have reminded me to locate myself within the community. The choice I made at 13 years old to embrace halachic Judaism allowed me to find and maintain structures that would, I had hoped, allow me to fit into a life that I desperately wanted. In some

ways, it worked. In others, as I now know, my hopes that religious observance would change me were naïve and unrealistic. I don’t know if anyone could have told me that, but even if they had, I wouldn’t have wanted to believe them. I find Orthodoxy beautiful and grounding. Navigating its community, however, is lonely and untethering, sending explicit and implicit signals that make it hard to self-regulate while figuring out if this kind of belonging is ulti mately sustainable.

Voice is a remarkable tool. When I was a student in YU, I didn’t have one, and even if I did, I wouldn’t have known how to use it. I think, on a certain level, we’re doing a better job than we ever have finding ways to give voice to our children. We’re not done, but we’ve progressed, especially as the conversations have become prevalent. But, I wonder, what’s to become of these empowered voices when they come back to the communities that claim to have loved them in their youth? Will they work there, teach there, live and thrive there as full-fledged members of the tribe who are not just in but also out?

While the holiday season inspires self-reflec tion and personal atonement, it also harnesses the power of communal belonging. Full absolu tion demands that we live honest and authentic lives, embracing our messy vulnerabilities and learning from our regrets. While the mandate is true for the individual, perhaps we can

Jews are still a part of the Polish story

Guest Columnist Steve Rabinowitz

expect the same from the community. To do that, we have to fall deep into our collective stories, while having the humility to know that none of us fully grasp the complexities of the picture, nor can we possibly own a singular, interpretative truth.

We’re all kind of hedging our bets here, and that’s extremely unsettling. When it comes to Jewish law, the lines will continue to be drawn. But it’s at that very point, that gray space where we toe the line for one reason or another, that we open up the possibility that we may not have it all figured out and if we’re going to err, perhaps it should be on the side of compassion and human dignity. However complex, all journeys are a series of first steps. They require a great deal of patience and the willingness to recognize that fitting in is not the same as belonging. It never really has been. PJC

Mark Shinar is an educational coach, consultant, speaker and author. He earned his BA from Yeshiva University with an English literature and theater degree and completed a master’s degree in private school administration from Columbia University Teachers’ College. He made aliyah in 2017 and is the founding prin cipal of an independent, bilingual school located in the center of Israel. Most recently, he was the head of school at Jewish National Fund-USA’s Alexander Muss High School in Israel. This first appeared on The Times of Israel.

KRAKOW

– Poland used to be the epicenter of European Judaism, home to more than three million Jews before the Holocaust. The Shoah decimated Polish Jewry; only 10% managed to survive, and many or most left for Israel. The post-war Communist regime trampled whatever else remained, persecuting believers of all faiths, out of a commitment to state atheism. When we as American Jews think of Poland, we too often think of it as a land of the past, a story whose end was tragic.

Poles have long acknowledged the Holocaust, but for many Poles and their government, as a Holocaust brought by the Nazis on the Polish people. And yes, they also admit, many Jews got caught up in it, too. But to them, these Poles, it was a holocaust of the Polish people, not of the Jews, per se.

Of course, revisionist as that is, it’s not exactly how we Jews — nor history — see it.

But that is not the whole tale. Not hardly. I had the chance this month to travel to Poland as a weeklong guest of the very gracious Polish Foreign Ministry, invited to the country as I was amid the extraordinary ongoing war in nearby Ukraine and the major refugee crisis that the conflict has sparked. What I saw felt almost miraculous.

A country largely remembered in the American Jewish imagination as hostile to Jews and all sorts of outsiders has become instead the

principal haven for Ukrainians fleeing the conflict zone. Poland has only 38 million people but has taken in many more than a million Ukrainian refugees these past six or seven months. A country often blasted as nativist might now have the single-largest share of asylum seekers among all the nations of the world. Polish society as a whole has mobilized to provide housing and basic services and to secure employment for these new arrivals. I was — and remain — completely awed by the common sense of purpose and the compassion that I saw on display all over the country. It’s nothing short of extraordinary.

There were no refugee camps, no tent cities along the border. These million or 2 million Ukrainian refugees have seemingly been entirely absorbed into Poland by the Polish people (and their government). And mostly into their personal homes. It is truly heroic, unbelievable.

Jews are part of this story, too.

Ten of us spent days in Warsaw, visited and explored Lodz and Auschwitz, and ended in Krakow.

We visited former ghettos and current univer sities, met with numerous think tanks, explored excellent and modern museums and toured two Nazi death camps. We saw historic synagogues and Jewish centers and met at length with the impressive chief rabbi of many years. We also freely spoke our minds and asked everything. And we ate. (We ate a lot.)

This historic city, Krakow, nestled in the bend of a river, with a castle perched atop the environs, has seen the return of a robust Jewish commu nity. The city’s Jewish Community Center hosts a full slate of programming, also becoming a seven-day-a-week distribution center for refu gees who need food and access to social services.

Yes, you read that right; Krakow has a thriving Jewish community center.

It’s but one tremendous example of the resur gence of Jewish life in Poland.

So far, 95,000 Ukrainians have received more than 150 tons of necessary supplies distributed in their JCC building. They also offer 400 free meals a day, including a lively weekly Friday night Shabbat dinner event for Jewish refugees my colleagues and I were fortunate enough to attend.

This JCC embodies the city’s incipient Jewish culture, which melds older Jewish residents, millennials reconnecting to roots concealed or lost under Nazism and Communism, and non-Jews eager to learn more about Judaism.

Among other things, the JCC has sent truck loads of supplies into Ukraine since the onset of war and together with a partner is delivering tons of food and supplies to isolated towns and villages close to the front line with Russia.

They set up a summer camp in Krakow to teach 60 Ukrainian kids Polish and English, as well as self-defense, computer skills and arts and crafts.

They are supporting a large distribution center in southern Poland that has distributed 400,000 items of clothing to 80,000 Ukrainian refugees.

They funded 12 full-time psychologists who provided 1,400 hours a month of therapy in five locations in Krakow.

And so much more.

European Jewry is often described as endan gered, but that was not what I saw in Poland. I witnessed a Jewish community whose horizons are limitless, benefiting from the support of both Polish officials and especially a broad civil society coalition, funded in large part by the (Tad) Taube Foundation and the Ronald S. Lauder

Foundation before it.

Poland has much to be proud of as a country, even as its ongoing failure to fully acknowledge its longtime antisemitism is more than disap pointing. (Never mind its very disappointing near-refusal to so much as seriously discuss WWII property restitution — the sole such country remaining.)

But in the past three decades, after two centu ries of domination by other powers — among them the imperial Russians, Nazis and then the Soviets — Poland has managed to build a market economy and a functioning democ racy. The narratives that we hear about this Eastern European powerhouse in the broader West are often wrong or incomplete. How is it that a country widely lambasted as xenophobic has become the world’s greatest safe harbor for refugees? How do you explain that a country sometimes admonished as a bastion of rightwing populism has become the tip of the spear in the fight for democracy against Russian aggres sion? Events (and my visit) show that we must engage more with Poland and appreciate it for the dynamic society it is.

As a Jewish-American, I am very pleased to say that Poland is not consigned to the past. It is a vibrant country of today and tomorrow, and one whose progress I will continue to track eagerly. PJC

Steve Rabinowitz is a media adviser to numerous Jewish organizations and a former Bill Clinton White House press aide. He last visited Poland in 2005 on the 60th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, on behalf of the European Jewish Congress and of Yad Vashem. This first appeared on The Times of Israel.

Chronicle poll results: Streaming synagogue services

Last week, the Chronicle asked its readers in an electronic poll the following ques tion: “Have you attended a virtual synagogue service streamed by a congre gation outside of Pittsburgh?” Of the 260 people who responded, 58% said yes and 42% said no. Comments were submitted by 66 people. A few follow.

So grateful for this modern technology.

We live in Melbourne, Australia. Over the High Holydays this year, we attended Zoom services in Melbourne and South Bend, Indiana.

The Central Synagogue of New York City is superb. Rabbis are inspiring and have incredible voices.

Great way to conveniently and comfort ably “attend” a service.

It is educational and enjoyable to be able to experience different approaches to Jewish liturgical practice through remote attendance!

A new normal

Guest Columnist Carol Silver Elliott

Yesterday,

I had an interview with a reporter from a national publication.

She and I spoke a couple of years ago, in the depths of the COVID pandemic, and she is working on a follow-up piece. We talked about where we are now, as an elder services provider, and about the difference between now and the dark days of 2020.

She asked me about lessons learned, about how we would function differently if we faced another pandemic; and she asked me, specifi cally, about whether we were “back to normal” or whether we were facing a “new normal.”

I have to admit, the phrase “new normal” gave me a bit of pause. I’ve heard it before, even used it before but, at this juncture, had to really stop and think about what it meant. We’d talked about “new normal” in the context of wearing PPE, about ongoing testing, about daily screening of staff and visitors, about so many things we had to get accustomed to, things we had to accept as part of our daily life. But today, many of those practices are decreasing or ending. Unlike many other places, we are still wearing masks and have ongoing testing, as needed, as well as vaccine clinics, but life is beginning to look like the life we used to know.

But what I do think are hallmarks of a “new normal” are the changes in the way many of us who work with older adults now see the world. There was a point in time, pre-March 2020, when we expected that knowledge and resources would be there when we needed them. After all, the CDC and the many govern ment agencies we deal with had always provided direction and answers. We know now that there

Virtually attended Central Synagogue in New York — for free! Superb rabbi, cantor, services and sermons.

I have been attending virtual synagogue services from New York City for more than three years. Several rabbis and cantors there are excellent.

Not an option on Shabbos or Yom Tov for Orthodox Jews.

Never attended streamed service and never will.

Several times, but only for b’nai mitzvot, etc. that we could not attend because of COVID.

Virtual services are going to be the end of the congregations that hold them. Why would someone pay thousands of dollars per year to belong when you can stream them at no or little cost?

My service of preference (daily, evening,

are times that we have to find our own answers; that we cannot rely on others for meaningful help. We know now that even the hint of a health issue elsewhere on the globe must result in action. There is no “it’s a million miles away” dismissal. Anything can travel and affect us. Anything, anywhere and anytime. There is no room for complacency or ignorance.

PPE? That one, too, is part of the change in the way we approach our work and I know that I, like many of my colleagues, will never again be without a three-month supply of PPE — just in case.

For me, though, the biggest element of the “new normal” is an even deeper understanding of the ageism that exists, the ageism that forced elders in residential settings into months and months of lockdown. Denying our elders their right to choose, denying them interaction with their families, denying them socialization, all under the guise of “safety” and “protection” is not something that I will ever accept again.

Regardless of age, each individual has rights and these cannot and should not be denied. Can we keep people safe even when faced with infectious disease? We can. And can we allow our elders the opportunity to choose, to decide on their own “dignity of risk?” We can and we must.

The “new normal” is starting to look and feel much like the “normal” we remember. But we approach this new normal with a heightened awareness, a broader perspective and a renewed commitment to standing up and standing firm for the wellbeing of our older adults. PJC

Carol Silver Elliott is president and CEO of The Jewish Home Family, which runs New Jersey’s Jewish Home at Rockleigh, Jewish Home Assisted Living, Jewish Home Foundation and Jewish Home at Home. She is past chair of LeadingAge and the Association of Jewish Aging Services. This first appeared on The Times of Israel.

and holidays) is the Park Avenue Synagogue in New York. I have also seen beautiful, meaningful services from Anshe Emet in

Chicago and Sinai Temple in Los Angeles. Temple Emanuel in the South Hills provides a lovely Havdalah service at the end of each Shabbat.

I like classes done online during the week. Jewish law doesn’t allow for listening to or broadcasting online services on Shabbat or Jewish holidays — that’s prohibited.

Streaming services are fantastic. This is the third year we have attended a virtual service.

Central Synagogue in NYC. High Holiday service was quite moving, and it took place in a beautiful synagogue with a wonderful choir and organ. PJC

Toby Tabachnick

Chronicle weekly poll question: How do you typically feel at the end of the fall holiday season? Go to pittsburghjewish chronicle.org to respond. PJC

LETTERS

Abbas’ call to negotiate is ingenuine Abbas’ calls for Israel to return to the negotiating table and for supporters of the two-state solution to engage with AIPAC ring hollow (“Mahmoud Abbas urges Palestinian Americans to engage with AIPAC,” online, Oct. 3). He has a long history of refusing to engage seriously in negotiations, feeling that only Israel needs to make concessions and that the signing of a peace treaty will not end the conflict. He has not prepared his people for life in a state co-existing with the nation-state of the Jews, preferring to incite his people to “violently resist the Occupation ( sic )” and richly rewarding murderers (and/or their families) for answering the call. His vision of two states is a Palestinian state from which all Jews have been banished and a Muslim-majority Israel populated by millions of Palestinian refugees — multi-generation descendants of Arabs who fled Arab-initiated violence against the Jews in the 1940s. They have been imbued with the idea that murdering Jews is a Muslim’s ticket into heaven. Jews would be second-class citizens, if they were tolerated at all in a Muslim-majority Israel.

Toby F. Block Atlanta, Georgia

Progressive congregations may be alienating those who don’t lean far left

Jeff Rubin is absolutely correct that over the past 10 years or so many Reform/progressive rabbis have created an atmosphere in their synagogues that makes Jews who do not share their far-left views feel unwelcome (“For the sin we have sinned by making people feel unwel come at synagogue,” Sept. 30).

To the exclusion of all others, preaching their belief in the antisemitic Black Lives Matter movement, the antisemitic critical race theory movement and those accepting of Judith Butler’s ferocious anti-Zionism, is it a shock that those Jews who do not drink from this far-left trough find their presence in these synagogues unwelcome? For many Jews, Chabad, which only asks, “are you Jewish?”, is a much more welcoming place to worship.

Richard Sherman Margate, Florida

‘Sondheim on Sondheim’ pays tribute to late Jewish theater legend

artistic temperament.

By Justin Vellucci | Special to the Chronicle

Anewproduction downtown show casing the works of Stephen Sondheim seeks to pay homage to the recently deceased composer and lyricist.

“Sondheim on Sondheim,” modeled after the Broadway show of the same name, opens at Highmark Theatre on Oct. 19 and runs through Oct. 23. Performances, which feature a group of 16 Point Park University students, take place Wednesday through Saturday at 7:30 p.m., and Saturday to Sunday at 2 p.m. General admission tickets cost $35.

Zeva Barzell, the director of Point Park’s musical theater program, directs and leads choreography. She is not new to Sondheim, having previously been involved with Point Park productions of “Into The Woods” and “The Frogs.”

“I think [Sondheim] is probably the greatest composer/lyricist of our time,” Barzell — who, like Sondheim, is Jewish — told the Chronicle.

“Sondheim’s work is extremely complex and layered and written for folks who’ve

been on the planet longer,” she added. “For students to have the wisdom and foresight to delve into this material, that’s impressive. I think people will be happily surprised by what they’re seeing.”

The show will feature songs from several Sondheim musicals, interspersed with film footage of Sondheim speaking to the audience.

Sondheim died in November 2021 at the age of 91. His debut came writing the lyrics to Leonard Bernstein’s score for “West Side Story” in 1957, when he was 27. He was born to Jewish parents in New York City but raised without any formal Jewish background, to the extent that he once said Bernstein had to explain to him how to pronounce the words “Yom Kippur.”

Sondheim’s other well-known musicals include “Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of

Fleet Street,” “Follies,” “A Little Night Music” and “Sunday in the Park With George.” Many of them were not smash hits immediately, as he avoided traditional Broadway formulas that would immediately draw audiences. Instead, he crafted musicals that dealt with subjects that had not received treatments on mainstream stages: loneliness, despair and the

The cast of “Sondheim on Sondheim” is assisted by a student crew, such as a stage manager and assistant stage manager, said James Cunningham, who serves as the show’s music director.

Cunningham is making his Sondheim musical debut with the show; he previ ously was involved only in shows for which Sondheim wrote lyrics, such as “West Side Story” and “Gypsy.”

“Sondheim on Sondheim” has been called a “revelatory revue full of wonderful moments” and a “funny, affectionate and revealing tribute” to one of musical theater’s greatest composers.

The performance on Saturday, Oct. 22 at 7:30 p.m. will be audio described; the performance on Thursday, Oct. 20 will be followed by a talkback.

Barzell said Sondheim’s death late last year sparked the idea for the “Sondheim on Sondheim” run at Point Park.

“We said, ‘We really need to do some thing to celebrate this man’s life,’” Barzell told the Chronicle. “And this is the culmination of that.” PJC

Justin Vellucci is a freelance writer living in Pittsburgh.

Sheeba Mason — Jackie’s daughter — to headline benefit at JCC

“I took his class, and the rest is history,” she laughed.

By Justin Vellucci | Special to the Chronicle

Isa sense of humor genetic? Sheeba Mason hopes so.

The comedian is the daughter of famed Jewish comic Jackie Mason and, though she was not close to her father, it’s evident a little bit of his schtick wore off on the quick-witted Jewish millennial.

“Anything I got from him was strictly genes — or watching him, like anyone else,” Mason told the Chronicle. “I love the way, when you do stand-up, you’re an exaggerated version of yourself. It’s me — but it’s more of me!”

Mason will soon make her Pittsburgh comedy debut.

She will be the headliner at a benefit event on Saturday, Oct. 22, at 7:30 p.m. at the Jewish Community Center in Squirrel Hill. Tickets are $30, with all proceeds benefitting Highmark Caring Place, a Pennsylvania-based organization that aids and supports grieving children.

Gene Perone — “Buddy Flip,” for those who have seen his comedy act live — is the emcee. It’s being held in memory of his son Taylor, a Squirrel Hill Jew who died about three years ago and left behind two daughters. He was just 40 years old.

“We wanted to do something in Taylor’s name,” Perone, who now lives in Penn

Hills, said. “We’re not ‘foundation people.’

But we thought maybe we could produce a show. The idea just came together — a show, Sheeba, the JCC — and it seemed serendipitous.”

Perone helped launch Sheeba Mason’s career. Mason came to New York City at age 18 as a lover of theater; after grabbing a part-time job at a comedy club, she met Perone, who took on the role of mentor.

Mason admits that she has drawn more comparisons to one famous female comedian than her namesake father.

“I’ve been told I’m like Joan Rivers — that’s what they say,” Mason said.

She’s also quick to note that she avoids politics in her act, instead relying on dishing about her life as a young Jew.

“I don’t believe in being preachy,” Mason said, “or in alienating half of the crowd.”

Mason also is humble about her origins. Her father was on the “Ed Sullivan Show” the day President John F. Kennedy was shot; because he thumbed his nose at the prospect of yielding to a presidential address, the elder Mason lost favor with some producers and retreated to Florida, where he met Sheeba Mason’s mother.

“So, really,” the younger Mason quipped, “I was born because of Lee Harvey Oswald.”

“She’s a good act; she’s a strong act,” Perone said of the younger Mason.

Perone also hopes Mason’s Pittsburgh debut draws a crowd looking for some classic Jewish humor.

“We’re hoping it all works out,” Perone told the Chronicle. “We hope we can continue this tradition next year in Taylor’s name.” PJC

MASON

Justin Vellucci is a freelance writer living in Pittsburgh.

p Stephen Sondheim in 2014

Photo by Poemsstories, CC BY-SA

via Wikimedia Commons

p Sheeba Mason

Photo courtesy of Gene Perone

“I love the way, when you do stand-up, you’re an exaggerated version of yourself. It’s me — but it’s more of me!”

Image courtesy of Point Park University

Culture

Adam Lowenstein on horror, George Romero and the quality of ‘otherness’

By Adam Reinherz | Staff Writer

InOctober 2018, film professor and author Adam Lowenstein’s worlds collided but not in a sci-fi way. It was much more horrific. Four years ago, Lowenstein — a professor of English and film studies at the University of Pittsburgh and a steering committee member of “Romero Lives” — marked the 50th anni versary of “Night of the Living Dead,” George A. Romero’s classic nightmare-inducing film. It was an exciting time for Lowenstein as he joined Pittsburghers in honoring the late film maker and the half-century since the release of “Night of the Living Dead.” He attended screenings and talks informing moviegoers and residents about Romero’s contribution to the region and the film’s cultural impact. He even wrote a piece for the Pittsburgh Jewish Chronicle calling “Night of the Living Dead” the “most famous and influential film our city has ever produced.”

For Lowenstein and other Romero lovers, October 2018 was spent fêting a film, its creator and the nightmares generated by both. But by the end of the month, the professor and the city understood horror anew. On Oct. 27, 11 Jews were murdered inside the Tree of Life building. Lowenstein

struggled to make sense of the violence and how his work as a professor related to it.

The conjuncture of “Romero Lives” and the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting “forced me to think harder and more urgently about what the stakes are in my teaching of the horror film,” the Jewish professor said.

Lowenstein had already spent nearly 20 years asking students and colleagues to probe a cinematic niche. He published two books and numerous articles exploring questions of realism and class in the films of Wes Craven and David Cronenberg. After October 2018, Lowenstein realized his scholarship needed to become less extrinsic.

The professor said he couldn’t help but look inward.

Horror films had long spoken to him — he screened “Night of the Living Dead” at his bar mitzvah party — but in light of the syna gogue shooting, Lowenstein reviewed essays he’d drafted, films that interested him and the courses he’d designed.

“All of a sudden, I saw that there is this thread running through them, which is other ness,” he said. That quality is intrinsic to the genre and key to understanding “these ques tions of social difference,” he explained.

Lowenstein realized that horror films had been misunderstood for too long. The ghoulish haunting pictures that lead to an abundance of nightlights, open doors and never saying “Candyman” five times in front of a mirror, weren’t generating an increase in violence or racism, he said, but instead offered a key to society’s problems.

“We tend to be afraid of different minority communities,” Lowenstein said. “We’re afraid of their difference. We’re afraid of their poten tial threat to the things we perceive as normal,

mainstream and accepted.” Horror films, he continued, “provide a vocabulary and an experience that lets us understand the voice of the other: what it feels like to be marginalized; what it feels like to be minoritized; what it feels like to be discriminated against.”

After October 2018, Lowenstein reckoned with his Jewishness like never before, he said. He reflected on his experience in the city, as a husband and as a father who sent his daughter to Tree of Life Congregation for Hebrew school. As time went on, he thought about the pandemic and the murder of George Floyd. He revised old writings and drafted new material, packaged the collection as “Horror Film and Otherness” and asked readers to see the genre not as something designed to prey on viewers’ fears but to offer cinephiles an instructional fount.

“Horror is precisely a place where we can learn because our defenses are down, and we’re not looking for a lesson — we’re not looking for a sort of lecture,” he said. “We’re going to experience something primal, something moving, something frightening.”

Since Lowenstein’s book was published by Columbia University Press months ago, he’s disseminated the horror-as-teacher message as best he can. He knows the genre isn’t beloved by all, and that some would rather get a root canal than watch a tooth extraction on screen.

Even still, “horror is one of the most tried and true genres that we have, and it’s because it speaks to so many foundational experiences in our lives,” Lowenstein said. “We all need horror in some kind of way. And you don’t have to be a horror fan to sort of see that.” PJC

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

Photo courtesy of Adam Lowenstein

Culture

Fun facts about potatoes

Linda Morel | Contributing Writer

Becausepotatoes are ubiquitous, people hardly notice them.

Mostly white in color and always bland in flavor, they fade into the culinary background. But where would soups, stews, casseroles, gratins, side dishes and French fries be without them?

Besides being a filling, comfort food, potatoes are quite complex. Not every potato is good for every recipe. And some potatoes may harm you.

Low in moisture and high in starch with rough skins, russet potatoes are ideal for baking, mashing, French fries and latkes.

Red bliss potatoes, new potatoes, fingerlings and most of the petit varieties have moister flesh and thinner skins. They hold their shape during cooking, so they are great for roasting, potato salads, gratins and simply boiling.

With their buttery color, Yukon Golds are the ultimate all-purpose potato. Fluffy and light, they’re not too crumbly, nor are they dense. Boil, mash and roast them. They are an asset in soups, stews and casseroles.

Although many people peel and discard potato skins, they contain more nutrients than the flesh inside. They are full of fiber, vitamin B and calcium. Since potatoes are a vegetable, actu ally an underground tuber, they are gluten-free.

On the safety front, potatoes retain more pesticides than most produce, so it’s best to buy organic. When potatoes are green, they have been exposed to light and have begun to produce chlorophyll. If this greening is pale and only skin deep, peel them to remove the green layers. But if the green color is dark and goes deeper into pota toes, they could be toxic and should not be eaten.

If your potatoes exhibit a few small sprouts, simply cut them out. But if the sprouts have formed an extensive network, the potatoes could be toxic so it’s best to discard them.

If after peeling potatoes, you see dark spots, don’t worry. This means the potatoes got bruised, but are perfectly healthy to eat. Scrape off the dark spots if they bother you.

There are at least 5,000 potato varieties and probably double that number of recipes calling for this versatile tuber. Believe it or not, potatoes are this country’s most consumed produce item. Americans eat nearly 50 pounds per person per year. That’s a lot of popularity for overlooked spuds.

Roasted fingerling potatoes | Pareve Serves 4-6

Equipment: 11-inch-by-17-inch baking pan and parchment paper

1½ pounds fingerling potatoes, on the small side ¼ teaspoon each: onion powder, garlic powder, curry powder and cumin

1 teaspoon thyme

1 teaspoon kosher salt

⅛ teaspoon balsamic vinegar 2 tablespoons olive oil

Preheat your oven to 375 F. Line the baking pan with parchment paper.

Rinse the potatoes under cold water, and drain them on paper towels. Cut them in half lengthwise. Move them to a plastic bag and reserve.

In a small bowl, place the spices, salt, balsamic vinegar and the olive oil. Whisk until well combined. Drizzle the mixture into the plastic bag over the potatoes. With one hand, close the plastic bag, and gently shake it until the potatoes are well coated.

Move the potatoes to the prepared pan. Arrange them cut side down. Roast them for 25-30 minutes, turning once or twice, until crisp. Serve immediately.

towels, or more if needed 2 pounds russet potatoes ½ cup olive oil, or more, if needed Kosher salt to taste

Arrange two layers of paper towels on two cookie sheets, about 4 paper towels per cookie sheet.

Rinse the potatoes under cold water, and pat them dry with paper towels. Scrape off the potato skins. Using a sharp knife, slice the potatoes as thinly as possible.

Pour some of the oil into each frying pan. You won’t need the entire ½ cup now. Heat it over a medium flame.

Arrange as many potato slices in each frying pan as will comfortably fit without overlapping. Sprinkle them with a generous amount of salt. When the bottom sides are golden, turn them over. Continue frying until both sides are light brown. Add more oil when needed.

Move the chips to the paper towels to drain, and continue frying until all potato slices are crisp. When the paper towels become saturated with oil, discard them and move the potato chips to a bowl or platter. Line the cookie sheets with fresh paper towels, when needed.

Serve immediately.

Creamy smashed potatoes | Pareve Serves 4-6

⅓ cup olive oil

5 garlic cloves, squeezed through a garlic press Kosher salt to taste

1 heaping tablespoon capers drained on paper towels

6 Yukon Gold potatoes

In a small saucepan, heat the oil over a medium-low flame. Sauté the garlic and sprinkle it with salt. When the garlic is fragrant, remove it from the flame. Reserve.

Peel the potatoes and cut them into quarters. Boil them until they are soft in the center. Drain them in a colander, and move them to a large mixing bowl. Drizzle the olive oil mixture over the potatoes.

With a fork or masher, gently smash the potatoes until lumpy and retaining some shape. (This is not a mashed potato recipe.) Add the capers, and gently mix them into the potatoes. Add more salt, if needed.

Serve immediately.

Italian boiled potatoes with garlic oil | Pareve Serves 4-6

¼ cup olive oil

4 garlic cloves, minced Kosher salt to taste

2 tablespoons chives, chopped 10 new potatoes, peeled

In a small saucepan, heat the olive oil over a medium-low flame. Add the garlic and salt. Sauté until the garlic is fragrant. Remove the pan from the heat, and add the chives. Stir briefly. Reserve.

Scrape the skin off the potatoes. Cut the potatoes into bite-sized pieces. Boil them until soft in the center. Drain them in a colander. Move them to a serving bowl. Drizzle the potatoes with the olive oil mixture, and gently stir to combine. Add more salt, if needed. Serve immediately. PJC

Linda Morel writes for the Jewish Exponent, an affiliated publication where this first appeared.

Hulu’s ‘The Patient’ gets at a dynamic rarely seen on TV: Orthodox-Reform tensions

to leave. Ezra and his bride stay but look uncomfortable.

By Linda Buchwald | JTA

Episode three of “The Patient,” the well-received psychological thriller series on Hulu about a serial killer who kidnaps his therapist, involves a flash back to an Orthodox wedding.

Ezra, son of the protagonist therapist Alan Strauss and Reform cantor Beth Strauss, is marrying an Orthodox woman named Chava. Guitar in hand, Beth sings “Dodi Li,” a traditional Jewish wedding song, knowing that women are not allowed to sing in the presence of men in this Orthodox commu nity. As she performs, some men get up

The moment gets at the tension that Ezra’s transition out of the Reform lifestyle of his upbringing and into Orthodoxy has wrought within the Strauss family. But the scene was not originally written this way.

Although the show’s creators Joel Fields and Joe Weisberg are both Jewish, they weren’t aware of the Orthodox prohibition against women singing in front of men and had first written the moment as a nice memory of a mother singing at her son’s wedding. The show’s consultant, Rabbi Menachem Hecht, a teacher at the Modern Orthodox YULA yeshiva high school in Los Angeles, informed the duo of the rule — which thrilled them because they said

it made the scene more interesting and complicated. The final product got across the viewpoints of both denominations in a

fair way, Hecht said.

“There’s definitely a way to run that scene where it just makes Orthodox Jews look anti-women and bigoted,” Hecht said. “The point wasn’t just to make them look bad. It was to show how there could be real tension here.”

The scene and the consultation behind it points to the level of Jewishness that Fields and Weisberg wove into the fabric of “The Patient,” which debuted on Aug. 30 and is still releasing weekly episodes on FX on Hulu through the finale on Oct. 25. The pair, who also created the acclaimed Cold War spy drama “The

p Yukon Gold potatoes

Photo courtesy of Pixabay

p Homemade potato chips

Photo courtesy of Pexels

p Laura Niemi as Beth Strauss and Steve Carell as Alan Strauss in “The Patient”

Photo by Suzanne Tenner/FX

Bar Mitzvah

Ian Benjamin Leaman will be called to the Torah as a bar mitzvah on Oct. 15, 2022, at 10 a.m. at Rodef Shalom Congregation. Ian is the son of Amy and Aaron Leaman and the grandson of Goldie and Joel Katz and Carol and Salem Leaman. Ian is a seventh-grader at Winchester Thurston where he enjoys science, math and basketball. He loves gaming, playing golf, building Legos, spending summers at Emma Kaufmann Camp and being with his family. He especially loves being with his cousins Haley and Matthew, and with the family dog, Teddy. For his bar mitzvah project, Ian is exploring ways to assist those affected by Hurricane Ian.

Engagement

Debbie and Alan Iszauk of Monroeville joyfully announce the engagement of their daughter, Jenna Ariel, to Michael Isaac Berger . Michael is the son of Gayl Berger of Cleveland, Ohio, and Alan Berger of Boca Raton, Florida. Jenna is a graduate of Ohio University and is a branch processing manager for Nations Lending. Michael is a graduate of Cleveland State University and is employed at Hercules LED. The couple resides in Mayfield Heights, Cleveland, with their dogs, Pixie and Hulk. A winter 2023 wedding is being planned. PJC

After the loss: Creativity and light

A time for keeping and a time for discarding; A time for ripping and a time for sewing, A time for silence and a time for speaking; A time for loving and a time for hating; A time for war and a time for peace.”

Itall seems a little bit bleak. With the changing of the seasons, we realize that our longer sunlit days will be replaced with colder moonlit nights. As we look at the beauty of nature, those limbs that were once covered with luscious green leaves then turned beautiful fall shades, will soon reach out bare as we contemplate the lifeless leaves that lay beneath our feet. As we celebrate the end of the most joyous and all-encompassing of Jewish holidays, no matter how good our lulav and etrog maintenance plan might have been, Sukkot will end with a browner palm frond, myrtles and willows that resemble sticks rather than leafy boughs, and an etrog that is on its way to shriveling.

(Ecclesiastes 3:1-8)

With each experience of life’s challenges, we know the opposite will follow. At times, when positive experiences come our way (e.g., birth, planting, embracing ...), they are followed by negative experiences (e.g., death, uprooting, shunning ...). And then, when negative expe riences come our way (e.g., slaying, tearing down, weeping), they are followed by posi tive experiences (e.g., healing, building up, laughing). I think I like it better when the negative is followed by the positive.

It seems to be getting a lot brighter out there. I am grateful that we have a tradition that takes us from the very depths of loss and uncertainty immediately into the promise of a

As it is with Torah, so it is with life. Just when we think it is all dark, a little light can shine through.

And then there is Torah. Moses, our teacher and leader, our redeemer and connector, our man of faithful navigation, is going to leave us before we get to the promised land:

“So Moses the servant of the ETERNAL died there, in the land of Moab, at the command of the ETERNAL. God buried him in the valley in the land of Moab, near Beth-peor; and no one knows his burial place to this day. Moses was a hundred and twenty years old when he died; his eyes were undimmed and his vigor unabated.” (Deuteronomy 34:5-7

I remember watching the last episode of M*A*S*H in the winter of 1983 and wishing that it would continue, that the characters’ stories would be ever alive and fresh with new adventures. Sure, the writers tried to keep them alive with “AfterMASH,” “Trapper John M.D.” and “W*A*L*T*E*R,” but even with the most successful of them (“Trapper John M.D.”), it just wasn’t the same. The motivation for these shows was good not just from a prof it-making perspective: Their creators wanted to follow the sad goodbye with a warm hello.

It seems like those writers were trying to live out the message of the scroll that we have been reading this week in celebration of Sukkot:

“A season is set for everything, a time for every experience under heaven:

A time for being born and a time for dying,

A time for planting and a time for uprooting the planted;

A time for slaying and a time for healing,

A time for tearing down and a time for building up;

A time for weeping and a time for laughing,

A time for wailing and a time for dancing;

A time for throwing stones and a time for gathering stones,

A time for embracing and a time for shunning embraces;

A time for seeking and a time for losing,

new beginning. For generations, as members of the Jewish community have participated in reading the very last words describing Moses’ death, the saddest of all words in the Torah, we have turned to the most optimistic of all words in the Torah:

“When God began to create heaven and earth — the earth being unformed and void, with darkness over the surface of the deep and a wind from God sweeping over the water — God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light. God saw that the light was good, and God separated the light from the darkness. God called the light Day and called the dark ness Night. And there was evening and there was morning, a first day.” (Genesis 1:1-5)

As it is with Torah, so it is with life. Just when we think it is all dark, a little light can shine through. Just think about how life has been over these long years of COVID as opposed to how life is now. Just think about how our own personal losses of those who were intimate parts of our lives were so hard at first, and then just a little easier at times even through the ebbs and flows of personal mourning. Just think of how it has been for community involvement in civic and religious life with its ups and downs in participa tion and quality.

The lesson is as clear as the sun on a beautiful spring day: Just as Moses’ death is followed by the most light-filled act of creation, so must we look beyond the dark times in our lives toward the light that we create with each other and with God. PJC

Rabbi Ron Symons is the senior director of Jewish Life and the director of the Center for Loving Kindness at the Jewish Community Center of Greater Pittsburgh. This column is a service of the Greater Pittsburgh Clergy Association.

Rabbi Ron Symons Parshat Sukkot VI Exodus 33:12-34:26

Miron Bisnowaty, formerly of Israel, on Tuesday, Oct. 4, 2022. Beloved

of Adam Bisnowaty and Dana Bisnowaty. Cherished brother of David Bisnowaty and Lila Hodorov. Graveside services and interment were held on Thursday, Oct. 6, 2022, at 1:30 p.m. at Beth Shalom Cemetery. Arrangements entrusted to Ralph Schugar Chapel, Inc., family owned and operated. schugar.com

PEARLMAN: Edith Pearlman, born Feb. 4, 1937, in Pittsburgh, passed away on Oct. 9, 2022. Edie was the beloved daughter of Mary and Oscar Pearlman, dear sister of Frances (David) Fall, the late David Perlman and late Rose Harris. Doting aunt of Alisa (Lee Schwebel) Fall, Melanie (Steve) Weisbord, Margo (Jon Fingeret) Fall, Bobby (Jan) Harris, late Fred Harris, Linda (Thomas) Athas, Daniel Harris and Shana (Sam) Buccigrossi. Great-aunt of Mauri Harris, Rachel Athas, Danni (Andrew) Valinsky, Teddy Irwin, Jesse Weisbord and Alex Weisbord, and a special friend of the late David Dinkin. Edie worked many years as an executive secretary in Pittsburgh, lived three years in Israel before working for the UJA as Woman’s Division Leader to Israel in New York City. Edie retired to West Palm Beach, Florida, before returning to Pittsburgh to be with family. She will be missed by many friends. Graveside services and interment were held at Beth Abraham Cemetery, 790 Stewart Avenue, Pittsburgh PA 15227. Donations may be made to the Jewish Community Center of Greater Pittsburgh, 5738 Forbes Avenue, Pittsburgh 15217; the Jewish Assistance Fund, PO Box 8197, Pittsburgh PA, 15217-0197; or a charity of the donor’s choice. Arrangements entrusted to Ralph Schugar Chapel, Inc., family owned and operated. schugar.com

RUBENSTEIN: Joanna Leigh Rubenstein, 51, died on Oct. 6, 2022. Joanna died comfortably at her home after a lifelong struggle with Rett syndrome. Rett syndrome is a rare neurologic and developmental disorder which expresses itself early in infancy and results in a severe loss of cognitive and physical functioning. She lived at 4835 Somerville Street in the Stanton Heights neighborhood of Pittsburgh. She was attended by her nurse and caregiver. Throughout Joanna’s life, she was dependent on others for her personal care. For 48 years that care was provided by specially trained professionals in three different facilities. In 1975, she was admitted to the Erie Infant Home & Hospital in Erie, Pennsylvania. In 1976, she moved to a group home on Negley Avenue in Pittsburgh operated by Horizon Homes. Through a consolidation and name change, Horizon Homes subsequently became Mainstay Life Services. Joanna remained a client of Horizon Homes/Mainstay for the next 46 years, spending her last years in the supervised living facility on Somerville Street. Joanna is survived by her father, Daniel F. Rubenstein, DMD, of Pittsburgh, her mother and stepfather, Kathleen and Rob Flory of Walpole, Maine, by her brother, sister-in-law, niece, and two nephews, Brian, Sally, Ryn, Will and Fritz Rubenstein of North Hampton, New Hampshire, a half-brother, Brendan Brown, of Pittsburgh, and numerous aunts, uncles, cousins and loving caregivers. Services were held at Ralph Schugar Chapel, Inc. Interment private. In lieu of flowers, donations to Mainstay Life Services are encouraged. schugar.com

SAMUELS: Charelle Samuels, PhD, born Oct. 9, 1940, in Houston, Pennsylvania, died Saturday, Oct. 8, 2022, one day shy of her 82nd birthday. Charelle is the daughter of Jeanne and Elmer Marple. Charelle earned her PhD in psychology at the University of Pittsburgh. She worked as a licensed psychologist and in private practice for almost 50 years. In addition to her private practice, she was a faculty member of the Masterson Institute of New York, an adjunct professor at Duquesne University, and conducted training seminars and workshops for mental health facilities and private organizations in Pittsburgh and the surrounding area. In November 2019, she was diagnosed with stage 4 ALK-positive lung cancer. Throughout her illness, she conducted support groups for people with ALK-positive lung cancer. In one of her support group talks, she said, “Feelings are important. They give meaning to what we experience. Don’t ignore your feelings.” She lived her life by these words. Outside of her work, her dogs and traveling, Charelle greatest joy was spending time with her family, including her husband, Barry, with whom she had a wonderful 60-year marriage; her daughter, Sayra, and Sayra’s daughters Sydne and Sammie; her son, John, and his sons, Ben and Jacob. Charelle had an unwavering, committed, and loving network of supportive friends in Pittsburgh, many of whom she had known for over 50 years. Charelle lived a full, happy life. She was loved by many and will be deeply missed.  Charelle’s family is grateful for Dr. Jessica Lin, an attending physician in the Center for Thoracic Cancers and Henri and Belinda Termeer Center for Targeted Therapies at Massachusetts General Hospital. Her immense clinical expertise, compassion, and guidance gave Charelle a fitting end full of love and dignity. Donations in Charelle’s honor can be made to the following organizations: ALK Positive (alkpositive.org ) and Therapy Dogs International (tdi-dog.org)

SCHWARTZ: Pearl Schwartz, on Wednesday, Oct. 5, 2022. Beloved wife of the late Wallace Schwartz. Beloved mother of Harvey Schwartz and Andrea Dobrushin. Sister of the late Edna Abrams Greenberg. Loving gram of Nanci Dobrushin and Jessica Dobrushin. Also great-grandmother of Wallace Santoro. Also survived by five nephews and three nieces. Graveside services and interment were held on Friday, Oct. 7, 2022, at Beth Shalom Cemetery. Contributions may be made to Animal Friends, 562 Camp Horne Rd, Pittsburgh, PA 15237. schugar.com PJC

Marlene Alpern

Karen and Allison Broudy

Phyllis Cohen

Donald Fingeret

Jack Greenberg

Allen A. Broudy

Judith Kochin Cohen

Ruth & David Fingeret

Bruce Goldberg Family Bessie Roth Edward M. Goldston Yitzchok Moshe Isaac Goldstein Sandford I. Hansell. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Abraham Hansell

Judith and Falk Kantor

Carole Kaufman

Jan & Edward Korenman

Sheila M. Lawrence

Cindy & Harold Lebenson

Sadye Kantor

Albert Hendel

Jacob Samuel Kuperstock

Sylvia & Julius Moskovitz

Marlene Harris

Harold & Cindy Lebenson

Sanford (Sandy) Mankin

Allen A. Broudy Janice E. Mankin

Mrs. Alvin S. Mundel Alvin S. Mundel

Sylvia Pearl Plevin

Mr. & Mrs. Neil Rosenstein

Harry Pearl

William Rosenstein

Andrea J. Sattler

Peter Shaffer

Michael Sattler Edris C. Weis

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

Sunday October 2: Simon J. Anathan, Paul Anolik, Ismor Davidson, Goldine Lapidus, Rebecca Lederman, Belle B. Maharam, Esther Mankin, Isadore Nadler, Esther Pomerantz Silverman, Anne S. Slesinger, Evelyn Ziff

Monday October 3: Jeanette Berkman, Meyer Bernstein, Ben Cohen, Blanche S. Cohen, Leona Yorkin Dym, Warren G. Friedlander, Clara Goldstein, Meyer Haltman, Toba Markovitz, Mildred S. Miller, Edith Murstein, Fannie Scheinholtz, Yetta E. Segal, Moses Weinerman

Tuesday October 4: Lucy Balter, Sara Jean Binakonsky, Harry Bricker, Beatrice Charapp, Tillie Cohen, Samuel Jacob Eliashof, Dr. Howard H. Freedman, Hyman Goldstein, Paul Harris, Hyman L. Leff, Samuel Minsky, Hazel Oswold, Rose M. Rabinovitz, Florence Ruben, Abraham Schrager, Rivka Silverman, Leopold Weiss

Wednesday October 5: Samuel Evelovitz, Dora Friedman, Frances Fromme, Morris Gordon, Ethel Hornstein Josephs, Phyllis K. Kart, Abram Hirsh Levine, Anna Mandel, Lena Moskowitz, Dora Rosenzweig, Abraham J. Rothstein, Bessie Rubinoff, Joseph Shire, Florence M. Supowitz, Saul David Taylor, Rebecca Weinberg

Thursday October 6: Isadore E. Binstock, Jack Citron, Mary Levinson Cohen, Sarah Silverblatt Epstein, Edward L. Klein, Esther Rogow Landau, Louise Comins Waxler, Dr. Alfred L. Weiss, Samuel J. Wise

Friday October 7: E. Louis Braunstein, Harry Cooperman, Dorothy Harris, Barney Holtzman, Sidney H. Lefkowitz, Lazor Lewis, Ida Linder, David S. Palkovitz, Rachel Povartzik, Celia Rakusin, Milton L. Rosenbaum, Florence Shrager, Rita Jo Skirble, Harry S. Smizik, Seymour Spiegel, William Stern

Saturday October 8: Joseph Adler, Shirley Barr, Jean Singer Caplan, Saul Eisner, Louis Friedman, Sam Goldberg, Yitzchok Moshe Issac Goldstein, Jack Greenberg, Sadye R. Kantor, Charles Leefer, Louis Levy, Violet C. Miller,Alexander Reich, Flora May Shadden, Bertha Ethel Shamberg, Andrew H. Shapiro, Adolph Weinberger, Esther H. Winkler, Ada Marie Wolfe

Jewish Association on Aging gratefully acknowledges contributions from the following:

THIS WEEK’S YAHRZEITS —

A gift from ... In memory of...

Anonymous Mildred S. Miller

The ancient Jewish practice of hakhel, an every-7-years gathering, gets a 21st-century revival

By Jackie Hajdenberg | JTA

Everyseven years, in ancient times, Jewish men, women and children would gather at the Temple on the first day of Sukkot to hear the king of Jerusalem read aloud from the Torah.

In 2022, there’s no king and no Temple, and more than half of all Jews live far from Jerusalem — but the ritual is still inspiring Jews around the world to gather together. In fact, the tradition, known as hakhel, appears to be seeing a resurgence of popular interest.

In Northampton, Massachusetts, Abundance Farm will host an outdoor festival with tree planting, music, pickles and cider to mark the end of the seven-year cycle of the shmita or agri cultural sabbatical year to which hakhel is tied.

At Mount Zion Temple, in St. Paul, Minnesota, community members will learn and share Torah verses that inspire them and move them to action.

Mitsui Collective, a Jewish communitybuilding organization, is hosting an online “in-gathering” in honor of hakhel. Other congregations and communities will host events online and in person that include Torah study, social activities and reflection on the next seven years of Jewish life.

In New York City, a hakhel event planned for outside of Chabad’s headquarters in Crown Heights is expected to crowd the streets there, while Chabad of Midtown will host a Sukkot event for young Jewish professionals in the spirit of the ancient practice.

“The biggest commemoration of it all is actu ally just primarily bringing people together and celebrating as Jews,” said Rabbi Levi Shmotkin, director of Chabad Young Professionals.

“Especially in our times now, it’s something that people are craving,” he added. “To have that feeling of community, of commitment, of unity, of togetherness, of being part of something greater than themselves.”

Hakhel — the imperative “Assemble!” in Hebrew — is the penultimate commandment outlined in the Torah. “Gather the people — men, women, children and the strangers in your communities — that they may hear and so learn to revere your God and to observe faithfully every word of this teaching,” Moses tells his followers. Historical records show that the gathering was practiced during the time of the Second Temple in Jerusalem. But after it was destroyed in 70 CE, sending the Jews scattering, hakhel collapsed as a practice, too.

The contemporary revival began in the late 19th century, when a Polish rabbi named Eliyahu David Rabinowitz-Teomim published an anonymous pamphlet with a proposal to observe an assembly “in renewal of hakhel.”

The founding of Israel in 1948 invigorated the practice of multiple laws specific to the land of the ancient Jews, including the commandment to leave fields fallow every seven years, and renewed attention to hakhel. In 1952, the conclusion of the first shmita year after Israel’s founding, parallel events were held in Jerusalem and New York City.

Still, hakhel has remained unknown to many American Jews, with the prominent exception of those affiliated with the Chabad-Lubavitch Orthodox movement. In the mid-20th century, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson of the Lubavitch Hasidic dynasty exhorted his followers to observe hakhel in a modern way, focused on the spirit of gathering and on the educa tion of children. Since then, it has become de rigueur in Chabad circles, and the movement says it is hosting more than 500 hakhel gather ings around the world this year — including a reenactment of the ancient rituals at a girls school in Montreal and an outing to an amusement park in Connecticut.

Rabbi Ethan Tucker, president and rosh yeshiva of Hadar, an egalitarian yeshiva in New York, says he has noticed more chatter about hakhel among other Jews in recent years. Whether that’s because social media has allowed proponents of the ritual to find each other more easily, or the widening practice of shmita in Israel has led to more awareness, or something else entirely is going on is anyone’s guess, he said.

But he said hakhel’s explicit inclusion of women and children makes it an attractive ritual for many Jews today.

“We live in a cultural moment where people are thinking a tremendous amount about inclusion, and about the ways in which communal institu tions can actually draw everyone in,” Tucker said.

“The notion that there’s a biblical and cultural precedent from within the tradition that already stands for that, I think, is very compelling,” he added.

Most hakhel gatherings are designed to channel the spirit of the commandment and to celebrate the conclusion of the agricultural cycle, including sometimes by discussing environmental issues including how to combat climate change.

But at least one group is also planning to carry out the most expansive interpretation of the hakhel commandment. Judaism Unbound, a group that aims to engage “disaffected but hopeful” American Jews, is hosting a recitation of the entire Torah — all 52 portions that are read in synagogues throughout the year — during an online event that starts at 5:30 a.m. Wednesday; the group estimates that the reading will take more than 15 hours.

In Jerusalem, there will be a hakhel event at the Western Wall plaza on the second day of Sukkot, where three new Torah scrolls will be dedicated. Expected to attend are Isaac Herzog, the current president of Israel whose grandfather, then the Ashkenazi chief rabbi, was present at the country’s first hakhel celebration, as well as many prominent rabbis, cantors and singers.

The observance of Simchat Torah, the upcoming holiday that marks the comple tion of the annual Torah reading cycle, is in some ways a tribute to what hakhel recalls. It’s typically celebrated with festive gatherings in which all members of the community engage with Torah scrolls; like hakhel, the holiday is famously child-friendly.

“It’s always fascinating how great ideas and memorable rituals don’t really ever die,” Tucker said. “They’re always ripe for a revival or they take on new forms.” PJC

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Life

Americans,” have spoken at length about their Jewish backgrounds — Fields as the son of a Reform rabbi and Weisberg as the son of Reform parents who attended a Conservative Synagogue.

In “The Patient,” Alan — played by the non-Jewish Steve Carell, a casting choice they were asked to defend on a press tour — is a widower, having lost his wife Beth (Laura Niemi) to cancer. She was a cantor at a Reform synagogue and their son Ezra (Andrew Leeds) turned to Orthodox Judaism in college, a path that his parents didn’t understand. A deranged new patient named Sam (Domhnall Gleeson) kidnaps Alan in an attempt to cure his own murderous impulses. Part of Alan’s work with Sam is getting him to understand other viewpoints — just because someone says something that Sam doesn’t like or perceives as rude, it doesn’t mean they deserve to die.

“I think on some level consciously and on some level unconsciously, we were dealing with general and specific themes of intol erance, and it seemed interesting to explore the challenges of differences that from the outside might seem relatively small but from the inside seem like a chasm,” Fields told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.

Fields and Weisberg don’t spend screen time educating the viewer on the intrica cies of Orthodox practice that show up in the series. In another scene, Ezra, his sister and their families are having dinner at Alan and Beth’s house. Beth serves her daughter’s children ice cream as Ezra’s children look on, unable to partake, eating food they brought in Tupperware. The entire scene is less than a minute long, so the audience needs to understand quickly what is happening.

“We are not believers in exposition. We don’t want to spell it out. We used to joke on ‘The Americans’ that ‘who could understand this? We barely understand this.’ Nobody’s going to understand it, but as long as they feel it, that’s what’s good,” Weisberg said.

Fields and Weisberg worked with the production design and set decorating team to ensure that all the details were right, such as paper plates for Ezra’s family, who could not eat on the dishes that are normally used to serve unkosher food.

Though Beth’s actions in that scene might seem cruel to some, they fit the character of a woman who devoted her life to Reform Judaism.

Reform Rabbi Robyn Frisch, of Temple Menorah Keneseth Chai in Philadelphia, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that when her son turned to Orthodox Judaism at age 16, she felt rejected at first.

“We raised our kids we thought with this meaningful Jewish life. He never said it straight out, but there clearly things we did that were not what he wanted,” Frisch said.

She said her work with interfaith couples as the director of the Rukin Rabbinic Fellowship for 18Doors — a national nonprofit organization that helps interfaith couples and families — helped her eventu ally accept her son’s choices. She added that she wants to start a nonprofit like 18Doors

for families with children who become Orthodox, to help them through the chal lenges and blessings of such a change.

“To be a Jew in America is to know a bunch of people who have gone through similar iterations of this sort of family dynamics,” Fields said.

In addition to the family divides, Judaism plays an important role in other aspects of the story. In one episode, Alan dreams of himself in the barracks of Auschwitz.

“It seemed obvious to us that a Jewish person locked in a guy’s basement facing death as Alan Strauss was would associate with that imagery,” said Weisberg. “We grew up with that imagery and that history really infused in our lives, in syna gogue, in Sunday school, in our regular schools, and at home. Anybody tries to kill me, I’m going there.”

As Alan tries to teach Sam about empathy, so that he can start thinking of his victims as people and consider what their families need, he talks about Jewish rituals associated with death, including the Mourner’s Kaddish. The episode released this Tuesday is titled “Kaddish,” for the prayer that holds significant meaning to Fields and Weisberg.

“I remember my dad telling me about the Kaddish when I was very young. It’s not like he sat down and explained prayers to me, but I remember him saying that it was a prayer that began as students giving thanks for their teachers, and then it became something that we said to give thanks for everybody, for those who meant something to us in life,” said Fields. “And it was a prayer of thanks, not a prayer of loss, and that always stuck with me.”

Fields and Weisberg recorded versions of the prayer for Carell, who had to recite it in its entirety in the show.

“I loved being able to assure him that he sounded great when he was saying it, because in any American congregation, it’s not like there’s the right way,” Weisberg said. “Every Jew is saying it differently and pronouncing all the words differently, so he sounded a lot like me and every body else I knew.”

When the pair first reached out to Hecht, he assumed that the main plot of the show revolved around Jewish themes.

“They put so much thought into it and so many resources into this Orthodox story, and I figured that was the show. And then when I finally saw the script I was like, ‘Wait, this isn’t the show at all, this is like a minute and a half of the show across the whole season,’” Hecht said. “I just thought this speaks to who these folks are who are putting this together and the degree to which they’re approaching this with a sense of respect and with seriousness and with rigor.”

Fields said it was a product of how deep their Jewish identities run.

“It’s been really meaningful to be able to tell a story that we hope is relatable to everybody, that we hope ultimately is about everyone’s common humanity and common experience, but is expressed through particular character dynamics that are just deep inside us culturally,” he said. “One doesn’t often get the chance to do that, so it means a lot.”

Friday night lights

and

p Abby Blank, center, helps students create tzedakah boxes during Rodef Shalom Congregation’s Rosh Hashanah Youth Program.

p Reuben Swartz blows the shofar alongside Rabbi Sharyn Henry and Rabbi Cantor Gershon Silins at Rodef Shalom Congregation on Rosh Hashanah morning.

Photo courtesy of Rodef Shalom Congregation

Pittsburgh hosted Lee Kikel at Chatham University

she told her father’s story

courtesy of Chabad at Pitt

Chabad at Pitt on Campus has spent the semester welcoming nearly 250 students for Shabbat dinner each Friday night at the organization’s new Oakland location.