Pittsburgh Jewish Chronicle 5-21-21

May 21, 2021 | 10 Sivan 5781

Candlelighting 8:18 p.m. | Havdalah 9:24 p.m. | Vol. 64, No. 21 | pittsburghjewishchronicle.org

Community reacts to Israel’s Operation Guardian of the Walls

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Separate rallies for Israel supporters, critics, held in Oakland on May 14

By David Rullo | Staff Writer

PZ cemetery neighbor plants a memory

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together because we’re under attack, but because we have a shared vision, a sense of being a nation and purpose,” said Poale Zedeck Rabbi Daniel Yolkut. “We come together with a dream — a dream of peace, a dream of security, a dream of redemption and a dream of shared values and purpose throughout the Jewish people.”

The gathering coincided with the 3,333th anniversary of the date the Torah was given to the Jewish people, noted Rabbi Yisroel Rosenfeld, head shaliach of Western Pennsylvania and rabbi of the Lubavitch Center of Pittsburgh. He and Yolkut were joined in the recitation of psalms by Young Israel of Pittsburgh’s Rabbi Shimon Silver, Rabbi Levi Langer, dean of the Kollel Jewish Learning Center, and Rabbi Yossi Rosenblum, CEO of Yeshiva Schools of Pittsburgh and rabbi of Congregation Kesser Torah. Rosenblum closed the event by reciting kaddish.

everal dozen Pittsburghers joined for a “Rally for Peace and Solidarity in Israel” in Oakland’s Schenley Plaza a few hours before the start of Shabbat last Friday, while across the street anti-Israel activists chanted a slogan synonymous with a call for the elimination of the Jewish state.

Those who came out to support Israel’s Operation Guardian of the Walls, roped off a section of Schenley Plaza with Israeli flags as they sat on blankets, sang songs, danced and ate challah.

Niv Loberant, a Taylor Allderdice senior who holds Israeli citizenship, felt it was important to attend the pro-Israel rally because of what she had seen on social media and in the news, she said.

“I was born and raised in Israel and I’ve been seeing a lot of misinformation being spread by the media,” she said. “People who aren’t doing research but seeing celebrities like Gigi Hadid posting pro-Palestinian stuff without doing research and then spreading misinformation, including antisemitic information. I think it’s important to support what I believe in. I support love and peace and don’t want to see people dying on either side.”

Across the street, in the shadow of the Cathedral of Learning on the corner of Forbes and Bigelow avenues, anti-Israel protestors chanted “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” and held signs reading “Stop funding apartheid.”

“From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” is a “call-to-arms for pro-Palestinian activists,” according to information on the American Jewish Committee’s website.

The slogan calls for the establishment of a state of Palestine “from the Jordan River to

Please see Israel, page 14

Please see Rallies, page 14

Page 2

LOCAL ‘He thought big’ KDKA’s Arthur Greenwald dies at 68 Page 4

 Jewish Pittsburghers wore blue and sported signs supporting Israel at the May 12 gathering.

LOCAL Showcasing Holocaust art

By David Rullo and Toby Tabachnick

J ‘We are the Tree of Life’ project inspired by Pittsburgh shooting Page 5

ulie Paris joined about 200 Jewish Pittsburghers to show her support for Israel at a May 12 gathering outside Hillel Academy in Squirrel Hill because “when one Jew is under attack, we’re all under attack,” she said.

“Millions of Israelis have spent the last 48 hours running into bomb shelters as Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorists shoot missiles indiscriminately throughout the country,” Paris told the Chronicle. “These missiles don’t discriminate. Jewish, Muslim, Bedouin, Christian, they don’t care. They want to kill as many people as possible.”

The May 12 event, “A Community Gathering to say Tehilim,” was organized by the Vaad Harabonim of Greater Pittsburgh and included the recitation of psalms and prayers for the safety and security of Israel and its citizens during Operation Guardian of the Walls.

“This is a day we are not just coming

Photo by David Rullo

keep your eye on PittsburghJewishChronicle LOCAL

A WWII reunion across continents

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Reform movement controversy

Headlines A tree grows in Gibsonia — LOCAL —

By Adam Reinherz | Staff Writer

C

arolyn Novak visits Congregation Poale Zedeck’s Memorial Park almost daily. Although her loved ones aren’t buried there, she finds it a place of comfort.

Almost eight years ago, Novak, her husband, Bob, and their dog, Sherman, began walking the grounds of the cemetery. Nearby Dickey Road in Gibsonia is a bit too busy with traffic for peaceful evening strolls, said Novak, 54, and the memorial park, with its quiet paths, diverse wildlife and foliage, offers a feeling of serenity.

A 200-year-old oak tree helped provide that sense of peacefulness. Measuring 18 feet in circumference and stretching almost 80 feet toward the sky, the tree was both protective and awe-inspiring.

“You could see the moonlight through it,” said Novak. “And we’ve stood under it when it rains.”

Eight months ago, just days before Rosh Hashana, a violent storm tore through the area. Debris was scattered throughout the cemetery, shrubbery was harmed, two headstones were toppled and portions of the path were inaccessible.

Novak was away the weekend of the storm but returned the following Monday. During a walk through the cemetery she ran into maintenance staff, who were at work on the old oak tree. Massive limbs had fallen, and, because of interior rotting, the tree needed to be felled.

Between the headstones, the mangled oak and the widespread ruin, the site was “just awful,” said Novak.

Joel Ungar, chair of Poale Zedeck’s cemetery committee, told the Chronicle at the time that six trees needed to be cleared, and that repairs would cost tens of

 A limb from the 200-year old oak tree after the September 2020 storm.

Photo

 The newly planted magnolia tree.

Photo courtesy of Carolyn Novak

courtesy of Joel Ungar

thousands of dollars, “and that doesn’t even include the stones.”

Ungar and Novak first met years earlier when Ungar noticed her and her dog ambling along the grounds. He asked if she walked there often, and Ungar was thrilled when she said she did so almost daily. Because of the distance between his home in Squirrel Hill and Gibsonia, he couldn’t check on the cemetery that often so he asked Novak to call him if anything was ever amiss.

“That’s how I met Joel, and so now I try to kind of keep an eye on things,” Novak said.

“If a headstone is knocked over or a tree is damaged or something like that, I take

pictures and send them to Joel. That’s how we’ve kept in touch.”

Novak knew Ungar had already seen the cemetery after the September 2020 storm, but reached out to him days later. She had been thinking about the old oak tree, about loss and about how to restore some beauty to the grounds — while honoring someone she loved.

A year prior, Novak’s father, John Kenawell, had unexpectedly died. Kenawell and his wife of 54 years, Linda, were at their cottage on Maple Island, near the Allegheny River, when the tragedy occurred.

“It was awful,” Novak said. “He couldn’t

swim. We don’t know what happened exactly, but he ended up drowning.”

Kenawell was buried at Jefferson Barracks National Cemetery in Missouri. In lieu of delivering a flower arrangement, a relative gave Novak some money and told her to plant a tree when the time was right, because unlike flowers which wither in days, once a tree is planted “you’ll always have it.”

Novak held onto the money for months.

She didn’t know whether to plant a tree on Maple Island or on her property in Gibsonia, or even what species to consider.

Please see Tree, page 15

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Headlines Nonagenarian camp liberator meets son of inmate — LOCAL —

By Adam Reinherz | Staff Writer

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ittsburgher Herbert Mandel, 97, recalls the day in 1945 when, as an Allied soldier in Germany, he happened upon three concentration camp prisoners near the Harz Mountains. That chance encounter led to the liberation of Langenstein-Zwieberge, an extermination camp — and the preservation of generations to come.

Seventy-six years later, Mandel virtually met the son of a Langenstein survivor.

In a recent interview with the Chronicle, Mandel described the day of the liberation in early April 1945. The Ruhr, western Germany’s industrial center, was collapsing, and to avoid a congestion of Allied soldiers on their way to securing a key victory in World War II, Mandel and other members of the 8th Armored Division 399th Armored Field Artillery Battalion - Battery C, broke off and headed toward the mountains.

Night arrived but the men kept walking.

Eventually they stopped, set up a position and began firing, but there was no fire in response. Instead, three men — inmates — approached. One had a missing finger and required medical attention.

The wounded inmate spoke Polish, as did Mandel’s sergeant. The inmate

on April 11, and confirmed the inmate’s claims — Langenstein-Zwieberge, a sub-camp of Buchenwald, was indeed hundreds of yards away.

At Langenstein, inmates were required to work approximately 15 hours a day and given “a small ration of dry bread and water” for sustenance, according to military records. “When prisoners became too weak to work they were generally executed by SS guards” and buried in a communal grave with “a new layer being added each day.”

At the time of the April 14, 1945, liberation, there were 1,100 male prisoners in Langenstein, with about 25 to 30 people dying each day and the average man  Herbert Mandel Photo courtesy of Rosanne Levine weighing just 60 pounds. explained there was a concentration camp Dysentery was rampant, the barracks hundreds of yards away. were infested with lice and most of the “We were in action, we were firing,” Mandel inmates were “stretcher cases,” according said. “We couldn’t abandon our mission so to the records. we radioed back to our headquarters.”

Last month, on the 76th anniversary of A reconnaissance group was dispatched liberation, Stuart Lesorgen, the son of one

of those 1,100 men — Wolf Lesorgen — posted a message on Facebook on behalf of his deceased father and the rest of his family thanking the liberators who “changed the lives of thousands of descendants of those liberated.”

Mandel’s daughter, Rosanne Levine, saw the post. She reached out to Lesorgen and told him that her father, a liberator, was still alive and offered to connect them.

Lesorgen was thrilled, Levine said.

One challenge, though, was timing.

Mandel is a Squirrel Hill resident, and Lesorgen lives in New Zealand. A 16-hour difference separates the two.

Further complicating matters was, of course, the pandemic. Since COVIDrestrictions took effect, Levine has had limited in-person contact with her father, who lives in Heritage Place, a UPMC Senior Community. But when UPMC staff discovered Lesorgen’s desire to connect with Mandel, they permitted Mandel, Levine and three other family members to sit together for a Zoom call with Lesorgen and others connected to the liberation of the camp.

Though separated by a generation and a lifetime of experience, on April 30, Mandel and Lesorgen shared personal histories for nearly two hours. Midway through their discussion, Noel March, of Bangor, Maine, Please see Liberator, page 15

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Headlines Fun-loving former KDKA producer Arthur Greenwald has died at 68 — LOCAL —

By Justin Vellucci | Special to the Chronicle

C

athy Fulton remembers Squirrel Hill’s Severn Street in the ‘50s and ‘60s. Bookended by Wilkins Avenue to the north and Northumberland Street to the south, the residential road was home to a group of rambunctious kids, tightknit friends who would spend all hours of the day exploring the neighborhood.

Among that group was Arthur Greenwald.

“Arthur wasn’t one of the kids on Severn who played kickball,” remembered Fulton, Greenwald’s younger sister. “Arthur was more — even as a kid — not athletic or a joiner. He was going to look at things and reorganize it.”

“He wasn’t that social,” she added, “but he was a force. People listened to him and he was funny.”

Greenwald, the innovative KDKA producer whose work in television touched both American coasts, died April 30 after a battle with kidney disease. He was 68.

Friends and family members recalled Greenwald’s many antics while a student at Linden Elementary School and Taylor Allderdice High School in Squirrel Hill. At Linden, in particular, he enjoyed making quips, often at the expense of his teachers.

“He got paddled a lot — that describes it better than any of my adjectives,” Fulton laughed.

While still in high school, Greenwald developed a rapport and fell under the tutelage of Fred Rogers of Mister

 Arthur Greenwald

4 MAY 21, 2021

PITTSBURGH JEWISH CHRONICLE

Rogers’ Neighborhood — then just a budding Pittsburgh personality — and created booklets for children anticipating medical treatment.

Greenwald attended Yale University, and afterward served numerous terms as the secretary of his graduating class. The aspiring television content-creator was then hired by KDKA, a CBS-affiliate TV station in Pittsburgh, where he worked initially on promotional spots.

Glenn Przyborski worked on many of those 35mm “movie camera” promos for KDKA between 1979 and 1996. One of the great, even legendary spots, he said, was shot after a Pirates game at Three Rivers Stadium and included the longest chorus line then captured on film — as well as some 2,500 extras.

“Arthur was a very driven guy — when a company hired Arthur Greenwald, they hired a full-time force,” Przyborski said.

“He always liked to make a point of doing something just because the other stations couldn’t do it. Arthur and I worked together to make the budgets work — they always got a super deal — but it was super visible here in Pittsburgh. So, we both won.”

Brad Crum preceded Greenwald as the creative services director at KDKA in the early 1980s.

“He was pretty new at the station and I was pretty new at the station,” Crum told the Chronicle. “But he was already known about town as an enfant terrible — a genius kind of guy.”

Crum, a self-described “advertising Please see Greenwald, page 15

Photo courtesy of family of Arthur Greenwald

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Headlines ‘We are the Tree of Life’ showcases art created during the Holocaust — LOCAL —

By Meg Pankiewicz | Special to the Chronicle

J

acqueline Gmach vividly remembers the horror she felt watching the news footage of the massacre at the Tree of Life building on Oct. 27, 2018. Seeing the events unfold from her San Diego home, her heart broke, she said, not only for the Pittsburgh community, but for Jews all across the world.

Gmach felt the need to respond in some way to that hate crime, the worst attack on Jews in the history of the United States. So she began teaching her 9-year-old granddaughter, Yvette, about the Holocaust and the fatal outcomes of unchecked hate.

After a few conversations, Yvette drew a picture of a tree with strong roots, butterflies and circles as leaves. She explained to her grandmother that the circles on the branches represented all people and the “good and bad in life.”

That drawing inspired Gmach to develop “We are the Tree of Life,” a project focusing on Holocaust education utilizing the arts to promote a message of hope and survival.

Literature, music, dance, poetry and drawings created by prisoners in the concentration camps and ghettos during World War

p Drawing by Yvette, Gmach’s grandaughter Image provided by Jacqueline Gmach

II, she said, show that beauty can survive, even through unspeakable horrors.

Concentration camp prisoners like Edith Eva Eger — a lifelong dancer — never lost hope. Eger was part of an April 20 online event hosted by the San Diego Center for Jewish Culture, the USC Shoah Foundation and the Holocaust Center of Pittsburgh to promote the We are the Tree of Life initiative. The event included the screening of a short video p Jacqueline Gmach

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Calendar Submit calendar items on the Chronicle’s website, pittsburghjewishchronicle.org. Submissions also will be included in print. Events will run in the print edition beginning one month prior to the date as space allows. The deadline for submissions is Friday, noon. q SUNDAYS, MAY 23, 30; JUNE 6, 13, 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. For more information, visit bethshalompgh.org. q MONDAY, MAY 24 Join Beth El Congregation of the South Hills for First Mondays with Rabbi Alex Greenbaum. This special pre-Memorial Day edition will feature guest Eric Lidji, director of the Rauh Jewish Archives. He will discuss the hidden Jewish neighborhoods of Pittsburgh. 12 p.m. Free. bethelcong.org q MONDAYS, MAY 24, 31 Join Temple Sinai for “Making Our Days Count with Rabbi Karyn Kedar (via Zoom).” Rabbi Kedar will discuss the period between Passover and Shavuot, called the Omer. She will teach seven spiritual principles for the seven weeks of the Omer: decide, discern, choose, hope, imagine, courage, pray. These principles can offer a path from enslavement to freedom, darkness to light, constriction to expanse. 7 p.m. templesinaipgh.org q MONDAYS, MAY 24; JUNE 7, 14 Throughout our history, Jews have never shrunk from a good argument and we have had plenty of them — from the moment we got out of Egypt until today. In the course Top Ten Disputes, Rabbi Danny Schiff will take a close look at the top 10 disputes of Jewish history. How did they start? What made them so contentious? And how were they ultimately resolved? Five sessions for $25. 9:30 a.m. For more information and to register, visitfoundation. jewishpgh.org/top-ten-disputes.

q MONDAYS, MAY 24, 31; JUNE 14, 21 Join Rabbi Jeremy Markiz in learning Masechet Rosh Hashanah, a tractate of the Talmud about the many new years that fill out the Jewish calendar at Monday Talmud study. 9:15 a.m. For more information, visit bethshalompgh.org. q TUESDAYS, MAY 25 Classrooms Without Borders continues its newest Israel seminar, “Bachazit” — On the Frontline.

The sessions highlight challenges facing Israel and the individuals or organizations that are grappling with issues including the integration of minority groups into the high-tech sector, the struggle for LGBTQ rights, programs that assist Israelis injured during their military service, the fight against racism in Israeli society and more. 2 p.m. classroomswithoutborders.org/frontline-israel The Westmoreland Jewish Community Council presents Marsha Wong and Malke Frank from the New Community Chevra Kadisha. They will be discussing Jewish burial customs. 7 p.m.

Free. RSVP to wjccwestmoreland@gmail.com or on the Westmoreland Jewish Community Council Facebook page. q TUESDAYS, MAY 25; JUNE 1

Join Classrooms Without Borders for a weekly book discussion of “When Time Stopped” by Ariana Neumann with Dr. Josh Andy. Neumann will join the discussion on June 1. Free. 4:30 p.m. classroomswithoutborders.org

Chabad of the South Hills presents “This Can Happen,” a new JLI class. Join them as they demystify the Jewish idea of a perfect world and discover a practical path for reaching it in our lifetime. Try the class for one week for free. For more information, go to chabadsh.com or call 412-344-2424. q THURSDAY, MAY 27 Classrooms Without Borders, in partnership with Rodef Shalom Congregation the Maltz Museum of Jewish Heritage and The Ghettos Fighters’ House, is excited to offer the opportunity to watch the film “Still Life in Lodz” and engage in a post-film discussion with the filmmaker Slawomir Grünberg. Free. 3 p.m. classroomswithoutborders.org/still-life-in-lodz Join the Tree of Life for Influential Jews in Jazz.

Lee Caplan will discuss notable Jewish jazz musicians and how their identity played a role in shaping their music. 7 p.m. treeoflifepgh.org

Join Moishe House Pittsburgh for a backyard Shabbat dinner. Enjoy Thai food and a bonfire.

Registration is capped at 10 people. Say Shabbat prayers at 8:30 before wrapping up at 9. facebook. com/moishehouse.pittsburgh q SUNDAY, MAY 30 Join Congregation Beth Shalom for an Epic Yard Sale. Skip from house to house for a fun day snapping up bargains. DVDs, toys, home décor, furnishings, jewelry, Judaica and more. Proceeds benefit the congregation’s youth department. 9 a.m.

Map out your route at BethShalomPGH.org/YardSale q THURSDAY, JUNE 10

q WEDNESDAY, MAY 26

Jim Busis joins American Jewish Press Association executive committee

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q WEDNESDAYS, MAY 26; JUNE 2

q FRIDAY, MAY 28

What is the point of Jewish living? What ideas, beliefs and practices are involved? Melton Course 1: Rhythms & Purposes of Jewish Living examines a variety of Jewish sources to discover the deeper meanings of Jewish holidays, lifecycle observances and Jewish practice. Cost: $300 per person, per year (25 sessions), includes all books and materials. For more information and to register, visit foundation.jewishpgh.org.

Are you curious about contemporary Israel beyond the headlines? Rabbi Danny Schiff hosts the series

im Busis, CEO and publisher of the Pittsburgh Jewish Chronicle, has been appointed to the executive committee of the American Jewish Press Association. His tenure will begin next month.

The AJPA, founded in 1944, is a nonprofit professional association for the Jewish press in North America. Its mission is “to enhance the status of American Jewish journalism and to provide a forum for the exchange of ideas and cooperative activities among the American

Israel in Depth about the realities of Israeli society in 2021. Six sessions for $30. 10:45 a.m. For more information and to register, visit foundation. jewishpgh.org/israel-in-depth.

Jewish press,” according to its website.

“For decades, the AJPA has played a critical role in supporting Jewish journalism in North America,” Busis said. “And at this point, as Jewish journalism faces its most serious challenge due to the COVID-19 pandemic, I’m very pleased to take on a larger role within the organization as it helps Jewish publications navigate their way through the crisis.” PJC

Join the Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh’s Young Adult Division for a drive-in movie at

Highmark Stadium’s West River Lot. Eat, drink and laugh from the safety of your car. $18 per person.

RSVP by May 26. 7 p.m. jewishpgh.org/celebration q FRIDAY, JUNE 11 Join the Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh’s Young Adult Division and One Table for their first inperson Game Night Shabbat event since the start of the pandemic. 6:30 p.m. jewishpgh.org/event q WEDNESDAY, JUNE 16 The Pittsburgh chapter of Hadassah and Hadassah Greater Detroit Wellness Wednesday presents A Delicious Therapeutic Experience with Julie Ohana, Culinary Art Therapist 11 a.m. Register by Monday, June 14. hadassahmidwest.org/GDWW2021. q THURSDAY, JUNE 17 Jews have never desisted from addressing tough problems. In this year’s CLE series, Rabbi Danny Schiff will dive into “Tense Topics of Jewish Law.” Each topic raises significant concerns in our contemporary lives. With CLE/CEU credit: $30/ session or $150 all sessions; without CLE/CEU credit: $25/session or $125 all sessions. 8:30 a.m.

For more information, including a complete list of topics, visit foundation.jewishpgh.org/continuinglegal-education. q THURSDAY, JUNE 24 Hadassah Chicago-North Shore invites you to a virtual summer concert, “Let Us Find Peace,” presented by Lori Ann Powrozek. 11:30 a.m.

Register by June 22 for this free online event at hadassahmidwest.org/CNSconcert.

Join the Jewish Association on Aging for Broadway Under the Stars Drive-In, a live, virtual concert by Mandy Gonzalez, Broadway star of “Hamilton” and “In the Heights.” Safe-distance parking. Bring your own lawn chairs. Drive-in style food, soft drinks and dessert served (dietary laws observed). 21 and older, BYOB (per PLCB). Drive in or view at home. Proceeds benefit the care and services provided by JAA to our community’s seniors. Lot opens at 6 p.m.; program begins at 7 p.m. jaapgh.org/events PJC

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Headlines Getting to know: Matt Abramson — LOCAL —

By Adam Reinherz | Staff Writer

L

ast year, Matt Abramson, recently recognized by Pittsburgh Business Times as one of its 30 Under 30 award recipients, did “the unthinkable,” he said: He moved across the river.

Abramson, now a resident of Mt. Lebanon, cited the pandemic as precipitating his move from downtown Pittsburgh. He and his wife, Anastasia, had been living in Chatham Tower Condominiums, but when the couple welcomed a daughter in March 2020, and the shutdown began, their space became less comfortable.

“We came home and our world was completely changed, and there was also COVID,” said Abramson, 28, who was raised in Point Breeze.

With both parents working from home and newborn daughter, Sofia, in tow, the young family headed south. Abramson now lives closer to a synagogue than ever before — Temple Emanuel of South Hills is just a short walk away from his new home — but Abramson nonetheless remains a member of Tree of Life in Squirrel Hill.

He and Anastasia were among those who joined Rothschild Doyno Collaborative for a series of conversations about the future of the Tree of Life building following the attack of Oct. 27, 2018.

“Especially right now, when we’re not using it for daily worship, we have to pause and say what do we want to do with that space,” said Abramson.

He credited those conversations with providing him and others the chance to imagine and articulate what they want the space to represent for the next generation. And if anyone should know the value of planning for the future, it’s Abramson. After all, he does it for a living.

As a senior consultant at Aspirant’s Strategy & Transformation Practice, Abramson helps healthcare clients, mostly pharmaceutical companies and hospitals, improve their

 Matt Abramson

Photo courtesy of Matt Abramson

“ I think after Oct. 27 you have to do that reset of yourself,” he said. “And I love that Tree of

”

Life gave me a place to do that..

— MATT ABRAMSON

business — not by helping them create more effective drugs, but by finding ways for clients to better execute organizational strategies and allow employees to achieve work-related goals, he said.

He was recognized by the Pittsburgh Business Times for both his paid work and his volunteer efforts.

Abramson has a lot of history at Tree of Life. He celebrated his 2005 bar mitzvah there and he currently serves as an ambassador of the congregation. Prior to the pandemic, he traveled on behalf of Tree of Life to North Shore Hebrew Academy, a modern Orthodox Yeshiva in Great Neck, Long Island, to speak to students and parents at an eighth-grade graduation. The experience helped him realize that although the attack occurred in Pittsburgh, the larger Jewish world felt victimized as well — a fact that had previously eluded him.

Abramson attended Community Day School. But after graduating from CDS, Pittsburgh Allderdice and the University of Pittsburgh, living in Oakland, Shadyside and then downtown Pittsburgh, he found himself “in and out of involvement with Jewish organizations,” he said.

Volunteering with Tree of Life reinforced his connection to Judaism.

“I think after Oct. 27 you have to do that reset of yourself,” he said. “And I love that Tree of Life gave me a place to do that.”

Abramson is eager to continue his professional climb, but said it’s also important for him to appreciate the present. Growing up, he never expected Pittsburgh would become the center of his life, or that he’d be excited about the area’s Jewish community, but adulthood can change one’s perspective, he said.

And he’s had a lot of changes recently — place of residence, family size, professional opportunities — but he is acutely aware of his life’s greatest asset.

“Being at home every day with my daughter,” he said. “There’s not a dollar value for that.” PJC Adam Reinherz can be reached at areinherz@ pittsburghjewishchronicle.org.

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MAY 21, 2021 7

Headlines On the other side of English — HISTORY —

By Eric Lidji | Special to the Chronicle

I

n a more formal era, the Jewish Criterion regularly published the titles of local rabbis’ upcoming Shabbat sermons each Friday, perhaps to encourage attendance.

Here are two sermon titles from Rabbi Zev Wolf Leiter, who led Congregation Machsikei Hadas for 50 years and created the Maimonides Institute: “The Significance of Elul in Wartime” (Aug. 8, 1942) and “Abraham and War” (March 25, 1944).

The scriptural references of Rabbi Leiter’s sermons are easy to guess. The former certainly dealt with the laws of war detailed in Deuteronomy, while the latter likely concerned the war between the kings in Genesis. But what Rabbi Leiter did with those verses is unknown. To my knowledge, he never collected his sermons in printed form.

Rabbi Leiter knew the results of war firsthand. He was a prodigy with a long rabbinic lineage who came to the United States in the early 1920s, following the upheavals in European Jewry during World War I. Upon his arrival here in 1923, the Criterion reported, “During the war Rabbi Leiter was very active in bringing relief to the suffering men and women of Austria and Poland.

Immediately after the cessation of arms he

was appointed by the Jewish communities of Holland to visit the war-stricken countries and bring over the poor and under-fed children of Austria to Holland; he was also organizer of the Society for the Support of Stricken Rabbis and Scholars in Europe.”

This and many other biographical sketches of Rabbi Leiter tend to focus on his accomplishments. He spoke 12 languages. He was an expert on the Jewish laws of divorce. His works were cited hundreds of times. He was one of the few scholars to have his commentaries included in a printed version of the Talmud. He advocated for a kosher kitchen at Montefiore Hospital. He commanded the respect of Dr. Solomon Freehof at Rodef Shalom and Rabbi Herman Hailperin at Tree of Life. He was generous and devout.

None of those articles, though, reckons with his scholarship. A writer who only knows English can only present the surfaces of a career written in Hebrew. To study how biography informs scholarship, you need to review works in their original language.

Such language barriers leave many stories untold. The thousands of pages of local Jewish archival material written in languages other than English are rarely investigated and rarely cited, and therefore the story of our community has been largely limited to the perspective of English speakers. Along the way, a lot of different types of Jews are overlooked. There are the secular socialist

p Rabbi Zev Wolf Leiter was one of the leading rabbis of Pittsburgh for decades, and yet few people today remember the details of his intellectual life.

Image provided by Rauh Jewish Archives

Jews who wrote in Yiddish, the Orthodox scholars who wrote in Hebrew, the early reformers who wrote in German, and of course the many life stories that contain snippets of Russian, Polish, Hungarian or Arabic.

Anytime those sources are used, even in

little drips, it reveals new worlds to explore.

In her new book “Defenders of the Faith: Studies in Nineteenth- and TwentiethCentury Orthodoxy and Reform,” Dr. Judith Bleich of Touro College cites a responsa from Rabbi Leiter’s 1932 collection “She’elot u-Teshuvot Bet David, Volume I.” While analyzing the religious challenges of Jewish military service, Rabbi Leiter wrote: “The obligation devolves upon every God-fearing individual (haredi) to labor on behalf of better world peace in order that innocent blood not be spilled… and that warfare cease.”

In a review of the book in a recent issue of Jewish Action, Rabbi Dr. Moshe Y. Miller paraphrased the translation and made its assertion even bolder: “[C]oncerned about the loss of life that war inevitably entails,” Rabbi Leiter “called upon every God-fearing Jew to engage in activism to bring about world peace and the cessation of all warfare.”

A single sentence, in two translations, provides much richer insights into the specific texture of Rabbi Leiter’s mind and heart than the articles based on his CV. It also makes you wonder what greater treasures might await a deeper dive into these sources. PJC

Eric Lidji is the director of the Rauh Jewish Archives at the Heinz History Center. He can be reached at rjarchives@heinzhistorycenter. org or 412-454-6406.

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Headlines Communitywide security system offers ‘peace of mind’ — LOCAL —

By Justin Vellucci | Special to the Chronicle

W

hen a shooter opened fire in the Tree of Life building on Oct. 27, 2018, Barb Wilson of Beth Samuel Jewish Center in Beaver County — more than 23 miles from the attack in Squirrel Hill — learned of the news through a text message from a friend. “‘Is that your synagogue? Are you okay?’” her friend asked.

“As soon as I became aware of it, I texted everybody in the [Beth Samuel Jewish Center] building, ‘Lock it down, lock it down,’” said Wilson, the congregation’s director of programming and operations. “We didn’t have a system in place like we do now.”

That system is the BluePoint Rapid Emergency Response System, a network

of strategically located alarm stations that notify police and other first responders in the case of an emergency.

The Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh started the project in March 2020, shortly before the outbreak of COVID-19 in the U.S., and had “phase one,” which included 16 Pittsburgh locations, up and running by October, said Shawn Brokos, director of community security for the Federation. The first phase focused on safeguarding Pittsburgh’s three Jewish day schools and early childhood learning centers, including those located in area synagogues like Congregation Beth Shalom and Rodef Shalom Congregation.

“We said, ‘We really need an excellent notification system here,’” Brokos told the Chronicle. “It’s out of the lessons learned from the Tree of Life shooting.”

In addition to contacting authorities, the systems are tied into the P.A. systems of each building in which Bluepoint is installed to

notify people inside of pending threats and updates, and include wider notifications to a range of Jewish leaders throughout the area’s Jewish community, according to Brokos.

Funding for the first phase of the BluePoint system was provided by an anonymous donation to the Federation, Brokos said. The Federation now is seeking funding for the second phase of the project, which will expand the number of locations where BluePoint is installed.

Brokos said organizations like the Jewish Association on Aging and Friendship Circle “could certainly benefit from having BluePoint installed.”

Wilson said she helped test the system, whose notifications and updates will shrink the distance between institutions in Squirrel Hill and those in surrounding areas, like Beth Samuel in Ambridge.

“We have the blue pull stations and it goes to the police with the highest possible importance,” Wilson told the Chronicle.

“One of the best features of BluePoint is that when something happens at any building, the directors of all of the buildings will be notified. It’s good peace of mind.”

That sentiment is shared widely among leaders of other community organizations that already have Bluepoint installed.

Avi Baran Munro, head of school at Community Day School in Squirrel Hill, said the new system is part of “an ongoing commitment to providing the safest possible learning environment for our staff, students and families.”

“We are especially grateful for the security expertise, vision, and partnership of the Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh in making this project possible and for Federation’s strategic investment in new technology that adds a critical layer of protection for our community at large,” she said. PJC Justin Vellucci is a freelance writer living in Pittsburgh.

Pittsburgh rabbis, Reform movement react to allegations of misconduct against NY rabbi — NATIONAL —

By David Rullo | Staff Writer

S

hockwaves echoed across the Reform movement when New York’s Central Synagogue announced on April 27, 2021, that it had hired law firm Morgan Lewis to investigate allegations of inappropriate behavior against its former senior rabbi Sheldon Zimmerman.

Three women, including one who was an underage teenager at the time of the alleged incidents, have accused Zimmerman of sexually predatory behavior in the 1970s and 1980s.

Zimmerman’s career extended to the highest levels of the Reform movement. He was senior rabbi at Central Synagogue from 1972-1985, and served as president of both the Central Conference of American Rabbis (1993-1995) and the Hebrew Union CollegeJewish Institute of Religion, the movement’s seminary (1996-2000).

Zimmerman’s purported victims had spoken with the CCAR in 2000, which led to his resignation from his leadership role at the seminary, according to a letter sent to Central Synagogue congregants by its current senior rabbi, Angela Buchdahl, and the synagogue’s senior leadership.

When the CCAR determined he had relationships that violated the organization’s rules, he was suspended from the CCAR for a minimum of two years.

The CCAR did not publicly provide details of the misconduct leading to his resignation, and Zimmerman later was allowed to serve as vice president of the Birthright Israel program, vice president of the United Jewish Communities’ Jewish Renaissance and Renewal, and rabbi at the Jewish Center of the Hamptons until he retired in 2017.

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p Sheldon Zimmerman

Screen shot from Vimeo via JTA

On April 30, 2021, the Union of Reform Judaism sent an email to its members outlining the steps it had taken to “confront unacceptable behavior and create internal structures to prevent misconduct and foster safe and equitable environments,” and announcing it also had hired attorneys to conduct an independent investigation of the accusations against Zimmerman and others.

In a May 6 statement to its members, CCAR President Lewis Kamrass and Chief Executive Officer Rabbi Hara Person said they were committed to transparency while acknowledging that the charges against Zimmerman, as well as the organization’s investigation of those charges, were “deeply troubling,” and that it also had retained attorneys to conduct an investigation.

“Investigations like this take time in order to be done thoroughly and accurately, and we will be careful not to presuppose the outcome,” said Person in an email to the

Chronicle, responding to whether the CCAR had protected a bad actor by not alerting members to Zimmerman’s alleged behavior.

“Rabbis who have been expelled or suspended as part of our rigorous ethics process cannot get placed with a congregation through the CCAR,” she said, adding that “during the pendency of suspension or censure with publication, their names and details of their adjudication are published on our public website.”

In a statement to its members, the Hebrew Union College said its board of governors and administration had engaged an independent organization to undertake a thorough review, and that it also had retained the law firm of Morgan Lewis to investigate complaints of sexual misconduct, harassment or discrimination based on sex.

Reform rabbis in Pittsburgh have begun to internalize and process what Zimmerman’s actions and the various investigations mean for their movement.

“This is about accountability but not yet justice,” said Rabbi Barbara Symons of Temple David. “I think putting this into place within all the Reform institutions is about taking steps toward justice, and I think that’s important — to take a look at the structures in place and amend them or start all over. The key is always about transparency and honesty.”

While Temple Sinai Rabbi Keren Gorban acknowledged that the Reform movement was experiencing a moment of reckoning, she said “It’s not different from any other major institution that’s been around for a long time.”

In her 2019 Yom Kippur sermon, titled “The One Where We Are Oppressors,” Gorban spoke about her own #MeToo experience, which occurred when she was 18 at a Reform Jewish overnight camp that employed faculty from

PITTSBURGH JEWISH CHRONICLE

Hebrew Union College.

Gorban said her negative experiences didn’t hurt her career significantly but that “more of these stories exist and have yet to be shared publicly.”

Rodef Shalom Rabbi Sharyn Henry said she supports the Women’s Rabbinic Network (WRN) — an organization of Reform female-identified rabbis — in its public statement calling for “accountability” and for the movement’s national arms to commit to reviewing past complaints.

“I believe that for too long the movement, and all of its arms, has been protecting the wrong people and that it’s time to hold perpetrators responsible and accountable,” Henry said.

In addition to sexual harassment and abuse, there are other issues relating to “discrimination, placement and gatekeeping” that will need to be addressed moving forward, Henry added.

Temple Emanuel of South Hills Rabbi Aaron Meyers said it’s time for the Reform movement to both reflect and listen to the voices of those affected. “Intense scrutiny of the systems, processes and individuals who aid, abet, and perpetrate physical and emotional abuse in the Reform movement, and all streams of Judaism, is long overdue,” he said. “This is also a time to center the voices of our amazing female colleagues — to stand with them, to listen to them and to learn from them.”

Members of the WRN have gathered to talk about these issues, share stories and support one another.

“The most important role we can play,” the WRN said in a written statement “is to continue standing by and for our survivors by ensuring that their needs are of primary importance as our community moves to address these issues.” PJC David Rullo can be reached at drullo@ pittsburghjewishchronicle.org.

MAY 21, 2021 9

Headlines Dozens of US rabbinical students sign letter calling for American Jews to hold Israel accountable for its human rights abuses — NATIONAL —

By Philissa Cramer | JTA

D

ozens of American rabbinical students have issued a public letter accusing Israel of apartheid and calling on American-Jewish communities to hold Israel accountable for the “violent suppression of human rights.”

The letter comes as Israel is engaged in an intense exchange of fire with Hamas, the militant group that controls the Gaza Strip, in which 12 Israelis and more than 200 Palestinians have died. Israel is facing fierce criticism from progressive politicians and activists for its airstrikes on Gaza in response to Hamas rockets. Alongside the bombing, Israel has been shaken by days of clashes between Arabs and Jews across the country.

The letter is unusual for its stark criticism of Israel and the Jewish community — a community that the signatories will represent upon ordination. Nearly 90 rabbinical students had signed by the end of last week, representing a significant portion of students who are enrolled now in the country’s non-Orthodox rabbinical schools. No students in Orthodox seminaries have signed.

“Our political advocacy too often puts forth a narrative of victimization, but supports violent suppression of human rights and enables apartheid in the Palestinian territories, and the threat of annexation,” the letter says. “How many Palestinians must lose their homes, their schools, their lives, for us to understand that today, in 2021, Israel’s choices come from a place of power and that Israel’s actions constitute an intentional removal of Palestinians?”

Frankie Sandmel, a rabbinical student at Hebrew College, a nondenominational school in suburban Boston, told JTA that the letter was intended as an act of caring, but also a call to change policy regarding Israel.

“We wanted it to be clear that we deeply care about all of the people who live in that region and that every single person is hurting and terrified,” Sandmel said. “And we’re able to hold that and also hold Israel accountable.”

The letter argues that while many American-Jewish institutions have been engaged in reckoning with racism and injustice in the past year, many have been silent on issues between Israel and Palestinians.

“Our institutions have been reflecting and asking, ‘How are we complicit with racial violence?’” the letter says. “And yet, so many of those same institutions are silent when abuse of power and racist violence erupts in

Israel and Palestine.”

The letter calls for education in the Jewish community, including “the messy truth” about Israel, and changes to how Jewish institutions fund Israeli causes and advocate for Israel politically.

“When we vote, we can vote for leaders who won’t continue paying lip service to peace while funding violence,” the letter says. “We can use our position as citizens of Israel’s biggest benefactor to push to regulate and redirect funds in equitable ways that promote a peaceful and just future.”

The letter does not mention Hamas or Israeli civilians. Sandmel said the students had decided to focus on Israel rather than violence and death on both sides because of American Jews’ unique stake in Israel.

“Why not call out Hamas?” Sandmel said.

“I can’t speak for the group. For myself, as an American Jew who has never lived in Gaza or the West Bank, I don’t feel like I have ground to stand on to try to influence how Palestinians respond to oppression. I do have the ability to speak to the American-Jewish community that I am hoping to lead, to look at the ways that we vote and the ways that we give tzedakah and the ways that we educate our communities.”

(Sandmel, who will be ordained next year, is a former intern at T’ruah, the rabbinic

human rights group that has been calling for greater scrutiny on how Americanphilanthropic giving reaches right-wing Jewish extremists in Israel.)

For years, many rabbis have seen Israel as a potential third rail for advocacy from the pulpit. The recent Pew Research Center study on American Jews says “several rabbis said they choose their words carefully and try not to unintentionally or unnecessarily alienate people in their congregations.”

“One of the concerns we have — and we hear this over and over again from rabbis and community leaders — people are afraid to discuss Israel,” Ethan Felson, then vice president of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, the umbrella body for Jewish policy groups and Jewish community relations councils, told JTA back in 2011. “People fear for their jobs, their professional lives if they have these conversations.”

The letter offers one sign that the dynamic may be shifting, or at least that many people who are on the verge of entering the rabbinate are less concerned about professional repercussions than about speaking their minds.

“To me, that so many people signed on without this process says both that this is something that this next wave of rabbis feels passionate and clear about and, God willing, that the landscape is changing such that it feels like it’s not as risky,” Sandmel said. PJC

This week in Israeli history — WORLD — Items provided by the Center for Israel Education (israeled.org), where you can find more details.

May 21, 1963 — Shazar is elected president

Zalman Shazar, a writer of the Declaration of Independence and a former Knesset member for Mapai, is elected Israel’s third president, succeeding Yitzhak Ben-Zvi, who died in office a month earlier.

May 22, 1970 — 12 are killed in school bus ambush

Palestinian terrorists attack an Israeli school bus with a bazooka and small arms about 500 yards from the Lebanese border, killing eight children and four adults. Israel shells four Lebanese villages in retaliation, killing 20 people.

May 23, 1969 — Arab politician Hanin Zoabi is born

Hanin Zoabi, a Balad member who serves in the Knesset from 2009 to 2019, is born in Nazareth. She is the first Arab woman to win a Knesset seat as part of a predominantly Arab party.

10 MAY 21, 2021

PITTSBURGH JEWISH CHRONICLE

May 24, 1948 — Battle for Latrun begins

Inexperienced Israeli soldiers attack the Jordanian-held hilltop fortress at Latrun to relieve the siege of Jerusalem. Using outdated tactics without air support, the assault fails, and about 75 Israelis are killed.

May 25, 2010 — Israeli Jazz Festival opens in NYC

Jazz artist John Zorn hosts opening night of New York’s first Israeli Jazz Festival.

The five-day festival celebrates the many Israelis who have risen to the top of the world jazz scene.

May 26, 1924 — US restricts Jewish Immigration

Congress passes the 1924 Immigration Act, which restricts immigration based on the makeup of the U.S. population in 1890. Most Jewish newcomers are blocked, leading more Jews to choose Palestine.

May 27, 1911 — Longtime Jerusalem Mayor Teddy Kollek is born

Teddy Kollek, Jerusalem’s mayor from 1965 to 1993, is born outside Budapest. Named after Theodor Herzl, he moves to Palestine with his family in 1934 to escape Nazism. PJC

PITTSBURGHJEWISHCHRONICLE.ORG

Headlines to a synagogue chanting antisemitic slogans.

Several individuals were arrested after rocks were thrown through the windows of multiple synagogues in different cities.

Last year, Germany made it illegal to publicly destroy or damage the flag of a foreign state with which they have diplomatic relations. It is also illegal to incite hate or call for violence against a group or individuals in a manner that could disturb the peace; the law covers, for example, racism, antisemitism and homophobia.

Calling the incidents “disgusting,” Aiman Mazyek, head of the Central Council of Muslims in Germany, said in a statement to the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung newspaper that “Anyone who attacks synagogues and Jews on the pretext of criticizing Israel has forfeited any right to solidarity.”

The Turkish-Islamic Union for Religious Affairs (DITIB) appealed to Muslims to stay away from the demonstrations, Deutsche Welle reported.

It remains to be seen whether suspects arrested in recent days will be charged with inciting antisemitism.

— WORLD — From JTA reports

Germany vows to crack down on antisemitism at Israel protests

Turkish Jews defend Erdoğan from antisemitism allegation by US State Department

The main organization representing Turkish Jews has criticized the U.S. State Department for accusing President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan of using antisemitic rhetoric.

The Jewish Confederation of Turkey said that it was “unfair and reprehensible to imply that President Erdoğan is antisemitic” in a tweet.

Reality TV star Erica Mena on Twitter: There’s ‘special place in hell’ for ‘These Jewish people’

Reality TV star Erica Mena tweeted “These Jewish people are really killing children” and added “A real special place in hell for them all.”

S All AROU D N N IE

State Department spokesperson Ned Price said in a statement that “the United States strongly condemns President Erdoğan’s recent anti-Semitic comments regarding the Jewish people and finds them reprehensible.”

A day earlier Erdoğan, who on multiple occasions has made statements widely deemed antisemitic, made a rambling speech in Ankara following a Cabinet meeting in which he used “Jews” and Israelis” interchangeably.

“They are murderers, these are murderers enough to kill 6-year-old babies,” he said, the Hurriyet newspaper reported. “They are murderers enough to make women crawl on the ground.”

Erdoğan, who said President Joe Biden has “bloody hands,” also claimed that “a Jewish prime minister” had told him on a state visit to Turkey that he enjoyed killings Palestinians, adding that “Attacks by Jews on the Al-Aqsa Mosque have turned into a powder keg.”

Erdoğan has often called Israel and Israelis “child killers,” and in 2014 called a protester against his internal policies “seed of Israel.”

But in the tweet defending Erdoğan, the Jewish Confederation of Turkey said it cannot concur with allegations that he is antisemitic.

“On the contrary, he has always been constructive, supportive & encouraging towards us,” the tweet said.

Turkey has about 15,000 Jews. PJC

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Following a spate of anti-Israel protests across Germany tied to the ongoing IsraelGaza violence, political leaders here have vowed to crack down on demonstrators who have used antisemitic rhetoric and have attacked Jewish institutions.

“Anyone who spreads antisemitic hatred will feel the full force of the law,” German Interior Minister Horst Seehofer said in a statement.

He added in an interview with the Bild am Sonntag tabloid: “We will not tolerate the burning of Israeli flags on German soil and attacks on Jewish facilities.”

Bundestag President Wolfgang Schäuble called for an increase in security for Jewish communities and institutions on the eve of the Shavuot holiday. Due to measures aimed to stem the coronavirus pandemic, most synagogues still only allow reduced attendance or remote observances.

Though most demonstrators in recent days reportedly were peaceful, some tried to burn Israeli flags, shouted anti-Jewish epithets and cheered the bombing of Tel Aviv.

The Deutsche Welle news agency reported that 180 people marched from the train station in the western city of Gelsenkirchen

“I’m so disgusted with Israel,” Mena wrote to her nearly 275,000 Twitter followers, apparently referencing the ongoing violence between Israel and Gaza.

Journalist John-Paul Pagano captured the tweet before she took it down.

Mena appeared as a dancer in music videos for several famous rappers before appearing on VH1’s “Love & Hip Hop: New York” and “Kourtney and Kim Take Miami,” a spinoff of the “Keeping Up With the Kardashians” show. Mena has nearly 5.5 million followers on Instagram.

After taking down her original tweet, she added one that called Israel “devils” that are carrying out a “genocide.”

“I don’t care what anyone has to say. If you think it’s okay to kill young innocent children and remove people from their homes, you can go to hell along with the devils of Israel that are taking part in a genocide right now as we speak,” she wrote.

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MAY 21, 2021 11

Opinion I cannot just put my anger aside until things are quiet Guest Columnist Donniel Hartman

I

am angry.

I am angry that Hamas, which wants me dead and my country dismantled, is able to attack again and again with impunity, at the time of their choosing, to inflict pain and suffering, and to shape the discourse between Israelis and the Palestinians, and now between Israeli Jews and Israeli Arabs.

When our cities are being attacked, Israelis killed, and our life upended, protocol requires that we concentrate on condemning the actions of our enemy and unite around our right to live and to be a free people in our home. I have accepted this protocol for most of my life. I remember as a tank commander, fighting in the 1982 Lebanon War, my anger at the protesters back home who were condemning the war.

“Not now,” I shouted, as if I felt their delegitimization undermining the resolve I needed in order stay alive and get through the day.

Part of me still accepts this protocol. It is important for me to reaffirm that I know that this latest attack has nothing to do with the Damascus Gate, Sheikh Jarrah, or the police entering the Dome of the Rock mosque. Hamas brilliantly manipulated these events to grab hold of the mantle of Palestinian leadership from the PA, at the time when their ability to do so through the ballot had been denied them, due to the yet again postponed Palestinian election.

It is important to reaffirm the validity of the Israeli narrative that Hamas, like Hezbollah

and Iran, will only be satisfied when the last Jew is either in the Mediterranean Sea or back in Europe “from where you came.” We are at war with an enemy devoid of basic moral standards, a terrorist organization for whom any suffering of their citizens is legitimate so long as some Jewish blood is spilled. For Hamas, victory is measured by the extent of pain they can extract, and not by any strategic advancement they achieve for their people.

The Israeli protocol demands that any criticism of Israel be postponed to tomorrow. I reject criticism that flattens the debate, and that blames Israel for Hamas’ actions. That said, we cannot allow protocol to stifle serious reflection and even self-criticism about the policies we enacted which, though they were not the cause of the missile attacks, nevertheless did contribute significantly to the effectiveness of Hamas’ move and to the violence between Israeli Jews and Israeli Arabs. History has shown us that when criticism is delayed until “tomorrow,” one often forgets, and one finds oneself aligned with the comforts of the status quo instead of one’s aspirations.

I am angry because we can do better.

We have accepted as a given that there is no peace partner, and consequently Hamas is no worse than the Palestinian Authority.

This has allowed us to prop up Hamas with funds, solidifying their hold on Gaza, while constantly delegitimizing the PA, and denying them any successes. The PA are kosher as our “collaborators” working behind the scenes to prevent attacks against Israel, but they are not our partners in advancing the cause and rights of Palestinians. The partnership between the one-statists who believe that Israel must hold onto all of Judaea and Samaria because it’s ours,

regardless of the circumstances, and those who in principle favor compromise but believe that peace is unachievable, has effectively handed the mantle of Palestinian leadership over to Hamas.

We have created a self-fulfilling prophecy in which any progress is impossible — for now, we truly do not have a peace partner.

We have become so enamored with our power that we have forgotten the rabbinic teaching that the truly powerful is the one who knows to control its use. We can stop Palestinians from sitting on the steps near Damascus Gate. We can enter the Dome of the Rock at will. We have an abundance of stun grenades at our disposal. We can even hide behind legal arguments that allow us to expel dozens of Palestinians from their homes in East Jerusalem and settle Jews in their stead.

We are, after all, the sovereign. We won the war and to the victor go the spoils. But what about the rabbinic teaching: Who is wise? He or she who is able to see what is to come.

The holy month of Ramadan is not the time to prove the extent of our control over Muslims, but to show our ability for self-control. It is certainly not the time to intervene with the worship and celebration unless under the most extreme conditions, conditions that were far from being met.

Since most Israelis believe that there is no peace partner, we have removed the peace process from our public and policy agendas.

But why have we removed all discourse about our moral responsibilities toward the Palestinians from these agendas?

“We offered and they said no,” is the accepted narrative, and consequently all suffering they may experience is their own responsibility.

Released from any responsibility, we are

exempt from blame. Criticism of Israel is either antisemitic (when done by others) or betrayal (when voiced by fellow Jews).

We stand dismayed at Israeli Arab protests, bemoaning the loss of a decade of coexistence work. We feel betrayed by them for siding with Hamas, our arch enemy. And yet we have done almost no real scalable and sustainable work of coexistence. Job creation that will help the Israeli economy — yes. Coexistence, genuine respect, understanding where they are coming from and how they experience reality — no. We are after all the victors, and as such we control the narrative. We have allowed Israeli Arabs to live in a lawless autonomous zone founded on neglect. So long as they do not pose a security risk to “us,” they can kill each other at will.

There are parts of the narrative we cannot control. The reality is that with enemies like Hamas and Hezbollah, peace is impossible.

But I am angry that we are not striving to be better: smarter, more just, more hopeful, more visionary. I am angry because over and over again we choose narratives that contribute to our moral mediocrity and elevate a bad and unsustainable status quo. I cannot put this anger aside until tomorrow.

Our destiny is to always have to pay a price for our existence. Our responsibility is to strive for greatness within this destiny. PJC

in the lower Galilee and for years have served as a beacon of coexistence, with Arabs and Jews living side by side in relative peace.

Much of that changed overnight as IsraeliArab extremists began protesting on May 10, threatening the lives of Jewish drivers on the roads connecting the villages in the region. The violence increased so much that residents were instructed not to drive on the main roads after 5 p.m. to ensure their safety.

On May 12, an Israeli Jew from a village in Misgav entered the nearby Arab village of Tamra, where he was brutally attacked by an extremist Israeli-Arab mob, suffering head injuries and a stab wound to his neck.

Fortunately, he was pulled from the car by an Israeli-Arab paramedic — a true hero who ultimately saved his life.

Meanwhile, the Federation-supported Educator’s Kibbutz well known to many Pittsburghers — Kibbutz Eshbal — had two fires intentionally set on its grounds on May 12. No one was injured, but the morale of the kibbutz members was damaged, especially because they have dedicated their lives and careers to fostering shared society between Jews and Arabs in the region. But while their morale was diminished, their educating spirit was not, and they are already back at work trying to create bridges between local Jews and Arabs.

As a resident of Misgav, I have the

opportunity to talk to many residents in the area, and one thing has been increasingly clear in the past few days: It is going to be very difficult to repair the damage done to what used to be a thriving shared society in the region.

Israeli Jews in the region feel like there has been a breach of trust, even if they know that perpetrators don’t represent everyone in the Israeli-Arab sector. While the mayors from Karmiel and Misgav and the surrounding Arab villages have condemned the violence, there is a sense that it may be too little too late and that it will be difficult to put the genie back into the bottle.

Of course, we won’t give up hope. We are a people sustained for thousands of years because we never gave up hope. And if we can’t learn to live together, the future of the country is bleak.

The Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh will continue to support shared society in the region, from the bilingual school for Jews and Arabs in Misgav, to Moona, a tech incubator for Jews and Arabs in the Arab village of Majd al-Krum, near Karmiel. We will continue to win the hearts and minds of Israeli Arabs and Jews one at a time. The stakes are too high not to try. PJC

Kim Salzman is the Israel and overseas director at the Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh. She lives in Misgav, Israel, with her husband and three children.

Rabbi Dr. Donniel Hartman is the president of the Shalom Hartman Institute and the author of “Putting God Second: How to Save Religion from Itself.” Together with Yossi Klein Halevi and Elana Stein Hain, he co-hosts the “For Heaven’s Sake” podcast. This piece was first published on The Times of Israel.

A shared society in conflict Guest Columnist Kim Salzman

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ISGAV, Israel — These are unprecedented and challenging times in Israel. Just after the country appeared to have conquered the coronavirus and a sense of euphoria prevailed, we now find ourselves on the brink of a war unlike any other Israel has faced in its 73 years.

Operation Guardian of the Walls against the terrorist organization Hamas is well underway; with more than 4,000 rockets fired at Israeli cities and towns, Israel is exercising its right to self-defense by attacking strategic targets in the Gaza Strip. Unlike previous operations against Hamas, including Operation Protective Edge in 2014, this round feels different — Hamas is firing more rockets and the Iron Dome missile defense system has been effective, but not foolproof. As of May 19, 12 innocent civilians were tragically killed by rocket fire, including a 5-year-old boy from Sderot.

What’s different about this conflict, however, isn’t about our enemy across the Green Line, but rather the enemy within. Extremist Israeli-Arabs have jumped on the Hamas bandwagon in the name of defending the Al-Aqsa Mosque and 12 MAY 21, 2021

have resorted to mob violence — burning synagogues and Jewish-owned cars and businesses in mixed cities around the country, blocking main roads, burning tires, throwing stones at cars driven by Jews and attempting to lynch innocent civilians. These Israeli-Arab extremists threaten to destroy the fragile coexistence between Jews and Arabs that took years and years to build, and it’s devastating to watch it unfold.

While most of the mob violence has been perpetrated by extremist Israeli-Arabs, earlier this week a mob of extremist Jewish hooligans, many of them from La Familia (fans of the Beitar Jerusalem soccer team known to be virulently anti-Arab), stopped an Arab driver at random in Bat Yam and brutally attacked him. This hateful attempted lynching of an Israeli-Arab

by Jews was universally condemned and shocked the conscience of Israelis across the political spectrum. The violence against Jews perpetrated by Israeli-Arabs, however, has received little public condemnation by Israeli-Arab leaders serving in the Knesset, particularly the Joint List party. Their silence has been deafening.

How is all of this affecting life in Pittsburgh’s Partnership2Gether region? While Karmiel and Misgav are not within rocket range of Gaza, our region has not been immune to the civil unrest that the rest of the country is witnessing. Karmiel and Misgav are located

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Opinion Israel in distress Guest Columnist Mark Frank

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ike so many others, I have watched the recent events in Israel and Gaza intently and with a great deal of sadness. Rockets hurtling toward Tel Aviv, Israeli and Palestinian deaths, and millions of lives placed on hold, paralyzed with fear.

After dozens of trips to Israel over the past 10 years, with the majority of my time spent in the northern mixed city of Akko (Akka to the Arab residents), I can’t help but view the troubling scenario through a slightly different lens than most observers. While I profess no particular expertise on the issues that gave rise to the conflict, I do have an intimate understanding of the relationship between Israel’s Arab and Jewish citizens — particularly in Akko, the mixed city that I consider my second home.

Along with my friend, Bill Strickland, in 2016 I founded the Northern Israel Center for Arts & Technology, known in Israel as the Akko Center for Arts & Technology (ACAT).

ACAT is a replication of Bill’s realized vision of Manchester Bidwell Corporation, an arts learning center for marginalized Pittsburgh public school children as well as a career development school for under/unemployed adults.

The positive outcomes of MBC have been so

well documented that community leaders from across the U.S. have come to Pittsburgh to learn how they could replicate the success. There are now 10 MBC replications in cities across the U.S., all with similar outcomes as MBC. It was important to me that the first international replication would be created in Israel, with a particular emphasis on instructing Israeli Arabs and Jews together in the same classrooms.

Here’s what we have found: When educating diverse populations — even cultures that seem at odds with one another — in a beautiful, art-filled, nurturing and respectful environment, individual differences become less important than the aspirations the students have for themselves.

After early reticence, the Arab and Jewish students inevitably begin to work cooperatively together. And individuals who have little familiarity — or even mistrust — of the others’ culture, sometimes become friends outside of class.

ACAT provides the raw materials for hope, an all-too-rare commodity for marginalized people. The results of the past five years have been a source of joy and pride for all of us and, most importantly, for the students.

The outcomes have been successful beyond our expectations.

And then May 10, 2021, happened.

Early in the evening, Naim Obeid, CEO of ACAT, called to tell me that traffic was at a halt throughout Akko because of the intensity of young Arabs’ protests. Later, the streets

surrounding his home, one block from Akko’s main thoroughfare, were on fire. The sounds of sirens and images of water cannons dispersing Arab youth were as frighting to Naim’s family as they were disheartening.

The next morning, traveling around the city on his motorcycle, Naim saw that our friend Uri Jeremias’ internationally regarded restaurant, Uri Buri, had been torched. Arab businesses were also vulnerable to the senseless destruction. Shattered windows. Scorched cars. My hotel of choice, a former Ottoman Empire building restored by a wonderful warm Arab family, was burned. The owner seemed broken, conceding to Naim that he did not have the strength to rebuild.

Our immediate reaction was: Could we have possibly been wrong? Were the successes of ACAT — helping people see each other as just people — an aberration, not replicable outside our four walls?

Then we both came to the same realization simultaneously: The premise upon which we built ACAT is not wrong. Rather, there are insufficient resources of the type that ACAT provides.

The poor in the Western Galilee, particularly the Arab communities, are faced with staggering challenges. Inadequate schools.

Inadequate distribution of resources. No hope. Little to lose.

The difficulties of Arab citizens of Israel are often a blind spot to Israel supporters of otherwise good faith.

Israel’s security is, of course, a priority.

And the plight of Palestinians is a concern for many. The conditions in which Israel’s Arabs, citizens of the State of Israel, live, with far too few exceptions, is not.

When individuals and communities live in darkness it is difficult for them to imagine the light and to have a sense of a larger community. Day-to-day survival is the overarching priority. And without hope and a sense of belonging to the larger public community, there can be no sense of inclusion.

At ACAT, diverse adults and teens experience a sense of belonging to the larger community. Students see that their fellow students from across town have similar problems, similar frustrations, a similar need to belong, and — to the extent they have them — similar dreams.

Exposure to beauty, and to people who care about the well-being of others, has proven in Pittsburgh, 10 U.S cities, and now Akko, Israel, to be transformational.

How many fewer teenagers would have been in the streets of Akko had programs such as ACAT touched more young lives?

While I am proud of what Naim, Bill and I built in Akko, it is really only common sense.

We all have the need to have a reason to look forward to a meaningful future.

We all want a part of a dream to embrace.

Those deprived of hope have little to lose. PJC Mark Frank is an attorney in Pittsburgh and the co-founder of ACAT.

There are more American Jews — and they’re staying Jewish Guest Columnist Leonard Saxe

T

he Pew Research Center last week released a report of its survey, Jewish Americans in 2020. The

new study of the size and character of U.S. Jewry coincidentally appeared just as Jews around the world prepared to celebrate Shabbat Bamidbar when we read the Book of Numbers’ description of the census of the Israelites in the desert. A scientific survey is not a census but does serve a similar function of providing a portrait of a community and highlighting its strengths and weaknesses.

Pew’s snapshot of the U.S. Jewish

— LETTERS — A peaceful future depends on democracy and equality

An article published online last week reported on opposing local rallies that addressed the recent outbreak of violence in Israel-Palestine (“Separate rallies for Israel, critics, held in Oakland on May 14”; see pg. 1, this issue). It’s common to assume that the Jewish community routinely supports Israel during these crises. However, your reporter noted that a Jewish group was among the protesters criticizing Israel.

In the same vein, Sen. Bernie Sanders, Democrat of Vermont, recently issued a strong statement on the conflict. Sen. Sanders, a Jewish American and a Democrat, expressed deep concern for Palestinian rights and Palestinian lives.

A few days earlier, a prominent Jewish journalist, Peter Beinart, expressed similar views in the New York Times. He spoke of the ongoing campaign by the Israeli government to push Palestinians out of their homes and villages to make way for Jewish settlers. This began with the formation of Israel in 1948 and continues to this day. A case in point is the recent attempt to evict Palestinians from their homes in East Jerusalem to allow Jewish expansion. That effort, done in the context of the hardships of life in Gaza and the occupied West Bank, ignited ongoing tensions and sparked the terror that is now happening on both sides of the Israel-Gaza border.

In the conflict’s first week, 10 Israeli civilians, including two children, died from Gazan missile strikes. Almost 200 Palestinians, including 92 women and children, died from Israeli bombs. The lives of these families have been changed forever.

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community indicates that it is growing in size and diversity, with its members finding different paths to express their cultural, ethnic and religious identities. Much of the discussion of the study will likely focus on how contemporary Jews differ from one another, but that framing misses a central finding. Contrary to the popular narrative of the “vanishing American Jew,” the U.S. Jewish population is actually expanding.

U.S. Jews exhibit a wide range of attitudes and practices, but they have not shed their Jewish identities.

Pew estimates there are currently 7.5 million American Jews, made up of 5.8 million adults and 1.7 million children, representing 2.4% of the overall U.S. population (roughly the same proportion Please see Saxe, page 20

That these writings by prominent American Jews should be remarkable is sad. The Jewish community is known for its progressive stances on systemic racism, immigration and asylum, voting rights, and the social safety net. “Black Lives Matter” signs stand on many of our lawns.

Faced with this seeming contradiction, some of my friends point to the special status of Israel. It’s a home for a people that experienced a horrific genocide. It must do whatever it takes to secure a peaceful future. I would argue, however, that this future is more likely if Israel-Palestine can come to embody what our community wants for our own country — a shared land of true democracy and equality.

Robert Kraftowitz Point Breeze We invite you to submit letters for publication. Letters must include name, address and daytime phone number; addresses and phone numbers will not be published. Letters may not exceed 500 words and may be edited for length and clarity; they cannot be returned. Mail, fax or email letters to:

Letters to the editor via email:

letters@pittsburghjewishchronicle.org

Address & Fax: Pittsburgh Jewish Chronicle 5915 Beacon St., 5th Flr., Pittsburgh, PA 15217

Fax 412-521-0154

Website address:

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pittsburghjewishchronicle.org

MAY 21, 2021 13

Headlines Israel: Continued from page 1

Moshe Luzer, 20, home from Temple University, came out to show his support for Israel because “there’s some crazy stuff going on and we just want to make sure they know that we’ve got their back,” he said.

His friend, Nathan Cohen, a student at the University of Pittsburgh, attended the event, he said, because “every Jew’s prayers matter.”

South Hills resident Charlene Tissenbaum also wanted to show her support for Israel and for her friends there who are in bomb shelters and are fearing for their safety, she said.

“We all know Hamas is a terrorist organization, and they’re sending a lot of terror to Israel,” she said. “We have to educate as many people as possible — especially the younger generation — of the history and explain how complicated the situation really is to understand all the factors.”

Regent Square resident Abby Schachter, a citizen of both the U.S. and Israel, said she was “grateful” to have stood side by side with Jews from across the denominational spectrum on May 12 to “pray to God for continued strength and success in defense of Israel and the wellbeing of every Israeli soul and citizen.”

At the same time, Schachter said that the U.S. bears some responsibility for the violence.

“I understand as clearly as the Hamas terrorists how the policies pursued by the current administration — cozening

and winking at Iran, the major state-supporter of Hamas and Islamic Jihad, as well as reopening the flow of millions of dollars in American taxpayer money to the Palestinians — has helped lay the table for this current outbreak of murderous violence,” she said. “When President [Joe] Biden finally got around to making a statement about the more than 1,500 rockets that have been fired all over Israel, his words were nothing but weak tea. Still worse, President Biden has done exactly nothing to curb or control the members of his own party who sit in Congress, on Twitter, and on every major news outlet denouncing, criticizing and attacking Israel.”

Stuart Pavilack, executive director of the Zionist Organization of America: Pittsburgh, said on May 12 that he was “sick with worry and fear over the senseless bombing of Israel

by Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad,” and that he stands with “Prime Minister [Benjamin] Netanyahu and Defense Minister [Benny] Gantz when they stated Israel is not preparing for a ceasefire. Israel must take as long as necessary and take out as much of the terrorist infrastructure as possible to protect its people.”

Stacie Stufflebeam, the mother of four sons who have served as lone soldiers in the IDF, acknowledged while “Israel isn’t perfect… she is our homeland, the only one we’ve got, and right now she needs the protection provided by the IDF and the support of all Jews around the world.

“As a mom of lone soldiers, I know that

this is what my kids, and all soldiers, train for,” she continued. “And while we can never really prepare ourselves for the reality of them putting that training into action, we know that when our soldiers, our kids, are called to action, they will defend our homeland. So we must defend her, too.”

The Jewish Community Relations Council of the Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh, in a prepared statement, said they “unequivocally stand in solidarity with Israel’s right to defend itself against terrorists, as any sovereign nation would.

“The violence is deeply personal for many members of our community who have friends, family, and loved ones living in Israel and fearing for their lives, including in our Partnership2Gether region of Karmiel and Misgav,” the statement continued. “These attacks are not in the pursuit of a better future for Palestinians; these indiscriminate attacks on civilians serve to traumatize, perpetuate terror, and advance the political agenda of Hamas, and innocent Israelis and Palestinians pay the price. Additionally, the recent violent attacks against Jews in some Arab Israeli communities and against Arab Israelis by fringe Jewish extremists, threaten the great work that has been accomplished in the past decades towards shared society. It is more crucial than ever to work towards an outcome that will ensure an end to the violence, an assurance of Israel’s security, and a path towards Palestinian self-determination.”

J Street, in a prepared statement said its

Rallies: Continued from page 1

the Mediterranean Sea, erasing the State of Israel and its people. It is also a rallying cry for terrorist groups and their sympathizers, from the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) to Hamas, which called for Israel’s destruction in its original governing charter in 1988.”

The anti-Israel rally in Oakland was sponsored by the Pittsburgh chapter of the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR), Jewish Voice for Peace-Pittsburgh, the Thomas Merton Center, Trans YOUniting and the Pittsburgh chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America.

A mix of students, families, some men and women wearing kippahs, women in hijabs, a few apparent Antifa protesters donning the now-familiar all-black uniform and masks, and others swelled the crowd to more than 250 people.

The anti-Israel rally, lasting close to 90 minutes, featured speakers from the sponsoring organizations as well as the Pittsburgh Palestine Solidarity Coalition, BDS Pittsburgh and the U.S. Campaign for Palestinian Rights.

Between each speech, the crowd chanted “From the river to the sea,” “Resistance is justified, when people are occupied” and “Gaza, Gaza, don’t you cry, Palestine will never die.”

Wasi Mohamed, former executive director of the Islamic Center of Pittsburgh, who 14 MAY 21, 2021

p Anti-Israel activists gathered in Oakland on May 14.

stood in solidarity with Pittsburgh’s Jews following the antisemitic massacre at the Tree of Life building in 2018, was the final speaker at the anti-Israel rally. He called for unity, emphasizing the link between white supremacy, antisemitisim and Islamophobia.

“Understand that racism, sexism, religious bigotry, LGBTQIA hate and other prejudices are intersectional,” he said. “We must also recognize how these systems of oppression inform our foreign policy and always have.”

Mohamed told the Chronicle that Israeli police raiding the Al-Aqsa Mosque during Ramadan was an escalation of an already tense relationship.

“I think it was gasoline on a fire,” he

Photo by David Rullo

said. “In Ramadan, when people couldn’t gather it escalated.”

Mohamed said he was not a Palestinian and that he was working to find a middle way in the conflict.

“I’m doing my best to build bridges through conversation,” he said. “My vision for the region is one where everybody has self-determination, everybody has safety. That requires the recognition of Jewish and Muslim and Palestinian self-determination.”

“This isn’t an anti-Jewish thing,” said Christine Mohamed, executive director of the Pittsburgh chapter of CAIR. “This is criticizing the Israeli government, not attacking the Judaic faith. I have many friends that are Jewish and

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members “unequivocally condemn indiscriminate rocket attacks by Hamas and other militant groups and support Israel’s need to defend its citizens. We have also repeatedly seen that there is no ultimate military solution possible to this crisis, and that these escalations and intensive Israeli strikes cause devastation for the people of Gaza without ending the long-term threat of more rocket attacks.

“We continue to urge the Biden administration to take urgent, proactive and decisive steps to help de-escalate this crisis and to secure an urgent ceasefire,” J Street’s statement continued. “The U.S. government can and must be heavily involved in bringing a halt to this violence, and in helping to address its persistent root causes, including the ongoing occupation and the eviction and dispossession of Palestinian families in East Jerusalem and the West Bank.”

Because it was organized quickly, Rosenfeld was unsure how many people would attend the May 12 event, but said “it’s important during difficult times for us to get together and pray for our brothers and sisters in Israel. They need all the support they can get spiritually and to remind ourselves, let’s work on this, all of us together. Getting together as one, we’ll be able to walk away united from all our challenges.” PJC David Rullo can be reached at drullo@pittsburghjewishchronicle.org. Toby Tabachnick can be reached at ttabachnick@ pittsburghjewishchronicle.org.

that’s why we tried to make sure there were Jewish voices here.”

Those Jewish voices included representatives from Jewish Voice for Peace, an anti-Zionist organization that supports BDS and calls for the end of Israel as a Jewish state.

JVP member Dani Klein told the Chronicle he was a citizen of Israel and was motivated to speak at the anti-Israel rally because people were dying “in a place I love. I have loved ones who are Israeli and Palestinian, Jewish, Muslim, Christian and atheist.”

“The rhetoric coming from Israeli politicians is extremely racist,” Klein continued. “There are videos on social media not being shared by the mainstream media of Jewish extremists attacking people.”

Klein said that he disagreed with the characterization that Hamas is responsible for all the violence in the region and that he believes “they are leveraging an appropriate response to a century of targeted oppression and violence against their people.”

Hamas has been designated by the U.S. government as a terrorist organization since 1997 and has been committing terror attacks against Israel for decades.

Rona Kaufman, one of the organizers of the pro-Israel gathering, said the message coming from across the street was unambiguous. “‘From the river to the sea’ feels very clear to me,” she said. PJC David Rullo can be reached at drullo@ pittsburghjewishchronicle.org.

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Headlines Tree: Continued from page 2

After the September storm, when Novak reached out to Ungar, she told him her story — about her father, about how much comfort that old oak had provided, and asked whether he would be amenable to her planting a new tree there.

Unger happily agreed. After finding an acceptable spot in the cemetery, they decided to plant a magnolia tree.

Liberator: Continued from page 3

was introduced. March’s father, Leonard Marchlewski, was a member of the 8th Armored Division and among those who liberated Langenstein.

On behalf of his family, and his deceased father, March thanked Mandel for his service and the liberation of Langenstein.

Mandel, overcome by emotion, then shared a story he had kept to himself for 75 years: When the fighting finally stopped, he recalled, the five batteries in the 8th Armored Division lined up. A commanding officer announced that each battery could take two of the healthier liberated inmates for kitchen

Greenwald: Continued from page 4

guy,” worked on the “Here’s To Pittsburgh” campaign. Greenwald participated by bringing Mr. Rogers into the fray.

“He was very dedicated to presenting the world to kids, as his mentor Fred Rogers did,” Crum said.

Greenwald later became the promotions director, then moved on to an executive producer tenure, producing high-quality, big-ratings shows like “Evening Magazine.”

Greenwald later worked with Crum when the latter was connected with CBS in California.

“Arthur thought big,” Crum said. “He drove a big car. He lived sort of a big life. And I liked hanging around him. He inspired me.

He always tried to outdo himself in everything he did — that was just him.”

Greenwald later directed and produced

Holocaust: Continued from page 5

showcasing some of the art created during the Holocaust, and featured Eger’s life as a dancer.

The screening was followed by a dialogue between Lauren Bairnsfather, director of the Holocaust Center of Pittsburgh, Dr. Stephen Smith, the executive director of the USC Shoah Foundation Institute, and Eger.

“Even though the program is in its early stages, we are excited to see it grow,” Bairnsfather, told the Chronicle following the event. There is a unique power in the arts that reaches people on an emotional level, she continued, and the We are the 15 MAY 21, 2021

“They don’t get real big, and they don’t have a real deep root system at all, which is good for a cemetery,” said Novak.

There was also a personal connection.

“My dad, when we lived in Hollidaysburg, had a big magnolia in front of his office,” said Novak, and, at one of his workspaces “the driveway was lined with magnolias. I thought, ‘Oh well, if we’re going to plant a flowering tree then that would be a great one.’”

Novak called a friend, Dave Hill, who runs Hill’s Tree Care & Nursery in Sarver. Hill picked out a magnolia and traveled to Poale

Zedeck’s cemetery with the small tree in tow two weeks ago. He met Novak, her husband and dog at the agreed upon space and began digging. Hill planted the tree and began filling the hole with mulch. He showed Novak how rainwater would enter the space and enable the magnolia to thrive for years to come.

As Hill finished his work, Novak placed a laminated card with a poem and information about her father at the tree’s base and quietly recited a prayer.

On a subsequent walk through the cemetery she passed the tree and noticed several

patrol duties. One evening, two of the “KPs” were completing their work when they saw a former Langenstein guard bicycling down the road. The KPs abandoned their tasks, ran out after the man and pulled him from the bike.

“He was a guard, their guard,” Mandel said. “They dragged him off and started beating him. And they beat him senseless.”

As the pummeling continued, members of the Allied battery gathered to watch.

A soldier then handed one of the KPs a pistol. The boy accepted it, raised it up and “finished off ” the former captor, said Mandel.

“I never mentioned that story to anyone but I think on this occasion you should know that there was retribution at least for one guard,” he continued. “The guards were cruel. They were from the SS, and they were cruel beyond

belief...I wonder how the Germans could be that cruel. How could they? A country where Jews had had freedom over long periods of time, a country which was rich in musical composition, literature, in science, universities that were world renowned. Incredible.”

In the years following World War II, Mandel did not speak much about his military experience, Levine said. Once, when she was in her 30s, she overheard a conversation between her father and her cousin.

At that point, nearly 50 years had passed since liberation.

“It took him all that time to talk about it,” she said.

Near the end of the April 30 Zoom call, Rev. Frances Metcalf, a UPMC chaplain who helped facilitate the call, spoke up.

special events for TV in the Boston area, then relocated to Los Angeles. There, he met Wendy Garen, who, after 12 years together, he married.

“Arthur was a deeply Pittsburgh person, he adored Pittsburgh,” Garen told the Chronicle. ”He buried his dog’s ashes in Homewood Cemetery — and I think I came to see Pittsburgh through his eyes.”

In Garen, Greenwald found someone with a shared love of rescue animals, particularly Dalmatians, who would adorn specially staged holiday cards from the couple. Garen remembers hearing Greenwald talk about a stray dog he saw while driving in the San Fernando Valley.

“He saw this dog was missing a paw, and he went back for, like, 10 days trying to catch him,” Garen recalled.

The dog, a chihuahua/miniature pinscher mix, later was adopted by Greenwald and Garen, had his leg cared for, and was dubbed

Little Guy Noir.

“Arthur was brilliant, extremely, extremely funny and irreverent,” Garen said. “He was deeply protective, just like the dogs, but also very soft-hearted.”

He was also a showman through and through. Greenwald “produced” his wedding with Garen, whose theme was “You Can’t Hurry Love” and featured the bride’s friends as “the Wendy Garen Dancers.”

“He thought big,” Garen said. “He was sort of the center of the room.”

When Greenwald was diagnosed with kidney disease and joined the kidney transplant waiting list, he also did it with style, launching a show-stopping website about the diagnosis and his plans: arthurkidney.com.

“He was an amazing man, and we had a really good 15 years,” Garen said.

Greenwald wasn’t an observant Jew but he had a good resume for the part. His parents attended Congregation Beth Shalom and

Greenwald studied at both Beth Shalom and the Hebrew Institute. After becoming a bar mitzvah, he studied five days a week through his senior year of high school at the College of Jewish Studies, according to his sister.

Greenwald never had children of his own, but Fulton stressed he was a fantastic uncle.

He shared his love of computers with his nephew Ben. His nephew Skyler became a comedy writer and producer, a chip off the block, Fulton said.

And when Fulton’s daughter Lizzie chose to attend Yale University as an undergrad, it seemed like Greenwald wore his “Yale uncle” hat for four straight years, Fulton said.

“Although he didn’t have kids,” she said, “he definitely imparted a lot to all of them, a lot of laughs — and everyone got something from him.” PJC

Tree of Life project “recognizes people who created incredible art during the Holocaust, and having an appreciation for what that must have taken to create beauty in those circumstances.”

She added, “It tells us we can overcome and that the human spirit is irrepressible.”

Some of the prisoners of the camps and ghettos found their humanity and selfworth in the arts, dancing secretly at night, drawing or painting pictures and playing music, said Gmach.

“Their talents, their works, are today a message of survival, hope and resiliency,” she added. In small and quiet moments, prisoners of the Third Reich clung to the joy of “creating” so that their spirits could stay alive.

In her mission to combat hate and spread hope and love through the arts, Gmach stresses the importance of educating young people about crimes against humanity. As founder and creative director of We are the Tree of Life, she urges educators to promote “acceptance” rather than just “tolerance.”

Born in Tunisia, Gmach moved to France as a young adult to study and became a teacher of physics and chemistry. Her pedagogical career spanned almost three decades. Now a resident of California, she has returned to her roots as an educator through her work on We are the Tree of Life. Passionate about her past, motivated by troubling current events and determined to make a difference, she envisions her initiative to be inclusive to all

people and that it will continue to grow, “just like the branches of a tree.”

It takes courage to “repair the world,” said Gmach. “To be courageous you have to act immediately and your reaction must be based upon love and compassion.”

A series of programs is now being offered in San Diego, and the Holocaust Center of Pittsburgh is in discussions with Gmach about “ways to spread education about art during the Holocaust and its enduring power through the ‘We are the Tree of Life film,’” — a 72-minute documentary set to be released in a few weeks, Bairnsfather said. PJC

PITTSBURGH JEWISH CHRONICLE

small American flags circling its trunk — Ungar had placed them there in honor of her father’s military service.

The magnolia tree, said Ungar, is a beautiful addition and further dignifies the memorial park.

“We lost a tree that was noticeable and aged and respected. It had been there for hundreds of years,” he said. “Now we have new growth there, at a place of respect.” PJC Adam Reinherz can be reached at areinherz@ pittsburghjewishchronicle.org.

“I grew up in a culturally Jewish family, and though I’m a priest in the Anglican Church now, I too had family members who died in Auschwitz,” she said. “So this is personal for me, too.”

Prior to attending seminary, Metcalf worked as a fundraiser in Washington D.C. securing money for what would become the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

She said that she and others clung to a mantra during that period — a sentiment espoused by the late Elie Wiesel.

“For the living and the dead, we must remember,” said Metcalf. “And that’s what this is about.” PJC Adam Reinherz can be reached at areinherz@ pittsburghjewishchronicle.org.

Justin Vellucci is a freelance writer living in Pittsburgh.

Meg Pankiewicz is a freelance writer living in Pittsburgh.

PITTSBURGHJEWISHCHRONICLE.ORG

Life & Culture Books: Falling short, going beyond original story too much to justify the distance from the principals. The incredible premise, so rich with possibility, felt forgotten, and the low status afforded the second family by their class and race seems to have been unintentionally reinforced. We just don’t hear all that much about them.

Silber is a gifted writer, and to write in the risky, house-of-cards way that she does is artistically courageous. But there’s something missing in “Secrets of Happiness,” which is a shame, because in those first 10 pages, it’s right there for the taking.

— LOCAL —

By Jesse Bernstein | Contributing Writer

Great premise falls short

T

Going beyond a reimagination

narrative, Silber needs to reassert the “why” for each new section. Why should the reader care about this peripheral character, especially if their section doesn’t appear to serve the main narrative?

Reading “Secrets of Happiness,” I found myself asking that far too often. The initial chapter, narrated by the family-franchising father’s legitimate son, Ethan, is rich with intrigue. Not one person in the first family knew about the second family! The second family in Queens is quite a bit poorer than the first family, and the mother in the second family is a Thai immigrant with shaky English. When the father dies and leaves behind some serious money, everyone in the first family aside from Ethan is hesitant to give any to the second family.

There’s enough there to sustain an entire novel. And the next section, which switches over to a son of the second family, Joe, introduces new drama in its recapitulation of what the reader thought they already knew. But in learning the stories of, say, Joe’s ex-girlfriend’s dead husband’s secret English lover, I found myself missing the

celebrations IN THE

“Wolf Lamb Bomb” Aviya Kushner Orison Books To embark on a reinterpretation of the Book of Isaiah, as Aviya Kushner does in her debut poetry collection “Wolf Lamb Bomb,” is a serious undertaking. Isaiah’s complex narrative structure, its centuries-old literary and liturgical value, the generations of writers that have picked it apart for meaning — it’s a lot to contend with it.

The PR material for Kushner’s book says that “Wolf Lamb Bomb” “revives and reimagines” the Book of Isaiah, a phrase that calls to mind a “spiritual sequel” or a production of “Hamlet” set in, like, a student government or something. I look askance at that phrasing not because it’s not a worthy goal, but because I don’t really think that’s what Kushner set out to accomplish, or what she ultimately did here.

Kushner, a columnist for The Forward, was a National Jewish Book Award finalist for “The Grammar of God: A Journey into the Words and Worlds of the Bible.”

Her five-part collection feels like a chevruta session with an especially humane and close reader. To read anything alongside her, one feels, would be a rare gift. Her insights into the tragedies and opportunities of war, God and love are rendered in her unfussy diction, and her yearning for greater understanding of the interplay

between sins and disasters of the past and dreams for the future are deeply affecting.

Kushner’s poems are linked by their engagement with the Book of Isaiah’s contradictory sense of inescapable failure and the possibilities of the future. “In the imagined life / the next step is always / a problem,” she writes in “Stubble”; and in “Two Love Songs To Denial,” she asks, “How can anyone expect the infinite ? from the finite?” And she asks with the experience of someone who’s been burned in the past by that misplaced expectation.

Kushner’s fluency with her source text is something to behold. She doesn’t stop with “swords into plowshares” and call it a day. Her engagement with the full text of the Book of Isaiah is certainly as a poet, but the scrutiny that Kushner brought, on a line-to-line level, is what distinguishes “Wolf Lamb Bomb” from work that simply “revives and reimagines.” It’s practically a commentary. PJC Jesse Bernstein is a writer for the Jewish Exponent, an affiliated publication.

SPECIAL OCCASIONS DESERVE SPECIAL ATTENTION The more you celebrate in life… the more there is in life to celebrate!

SEND YOUR SIMCHAS, MAZEL TOVS, and PHOTOS TO: announcements@pittsburghjewishchronicle.org

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“Secrets of Happiness,” by Joan Silber Courtesy of Counterpoint; “Wolf Lamb Bomb,” by Aviya Kushner Courtesy of Orison Books

“Secrets of Happiness” Joan Silber Counterpoint he deception that sets up the story of “Secrets of Happiness” is revealed on page 10. The premise — after 32 years of conventional marriage and a comfortable Upper West Side existence, a father reveals that he has a second family in Queens — is so juicy, so ripe for exploration, that one appreciates Joan Silber’s to-the-point-ness here.

But the focus falls away shortly afterward. Silber, a decorated novelist who won the 2018 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction, has a particular style that she returns to in “Secrets of Happiness,” shuffling through first-person-narrated perspectives to complicate the reader’s understanding of some part of the larger story.

In “Improvement,” Silber weaved her narrative with the perspectives of a man on Rikers Island, his girlfriend and German smugglers who spent a single night at the home of the girlfriend’s aunt decades before. In “The Size of the World,” Silber gave center stage to an engineer, a man who sold that engineer some screws and then that guy’s sister.

Writing her novels in this way, spinning off into the minds and stories of characters that don’t appear at first glance to elucidate anything about the story at hand, Silber is able to generate irony, to rhyme strange narrative rhymes and present new perspectives on her own characters. Tossed-off comments in one story become life-altering utterances in another; one person’s family heirloom is another’s junk. In exploring the fullness of conversations, linked objects and shared experiences, Silber is able to examine a story from every angle.

The risk in writing the way Silber does is that in those spins away from the main

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Life & Culture Pittsburgh native Charles Grodin, Jewish comic actor known for ‘The Heartbreak Kid’ and ‘Beethoven,’ dies at 86 — FILM —

By Gabe Friedman | JTA

C

harles Grodin, the deadpan Jewish comic actor who starred in such blockbuster films as “The Heartbreak Kid” and the children’s movie “Beethoven,” died Tuesday at his home in Wilton, Connecticut.

He was 86, and the cause was bone marrow cancer, according to reports.

Grodin was raised in an Orthodox Jewish household in Pittsburgh but became less observant in his adult years, although he and his second wife — in his words, “a nice Jewish girl from Kansas City” — observed holidays at home.

“In Hebrew school,” he told J. the Jewish News of Northern California in 2004, “we’d recite the Hebrew written on a blackboard. I annoyed the rabbi so much he threw me out of class. I was thrown out of class in high school as well, not for being rude, but for being persistent with my questions. That makes for a good talk show host. Persistence annoys the heck out of people.”

Following a series of supporting roles in late 1960s films such as “Rosemary’s Baby” and “Catch-22,” Grodin’s big break came with his lead role in “The Heartbreak Kid,”

an acclaimed black comedy about a Jewish sporting goods salesman who falls for a college girl played by Cybill Shepherd.

Critics praised the film as an early example of a mainstream exploration of Jewish identity, and some likened it to Philip Roth’s work.

Grodin would go on to feature in several other major comedies, notably Warren Beatty’s “Heaven Can Wait,” “Seems Like Old Times” (which like “The Heartbreak Kid” was penned by Jewish writer Neil Simon) and “Midnight Run” alongside Robert DeNiro. He also starred in the 1992 smash “Beethoven,” a family film about a lovable St. Bernard dog.

In 1995 and ’96, Grodin hosted an eponymous news talk show on CNBC and then became a political commentator on “60 Minutes II.” He also won an Emmy in 1978 for co-writing the “Paul Simon Special” variety show with Simon, Lorne Michaels, Chevy Chase and Lily Tomlin.

After a long hiatus from acting, he had a late career renaissance, playing a doctor on Louie C.K.’s “Louie” and a documentarian in Noah Baumbach’s 2014 film “While We’re Young.” He also played the defrauded Jewish investor Carl Shapiro in the 2016 “Madoff ” miniseries about the late Ponzi schemer.

Grodin added in the 2004 interview that

p Charles Grodin at a Paley Media Center event in New York City in 2013.

Photo by Adam Schartoff/Flickr

he tried to live “in a way my rabbi would be proud of me.”

“I try to live by religious principles, even if I don’t do the ritual,” he said. PJC

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MAY 21, 2021 17

Celebrations

Torah

B’nei Mitzvah

Celebrating Shavuot and the days that follow

Benjamin Andrew Seewald will celebrate becoming a bar mitzvah on May 22, 2021, at Beth El Congregation of the South Hills. Ben is the son of Stacey and Scott Seewald, the younger brother of Samantha and Daniel, and the grandson of Andrea and the late Robert Seewald and Rae and Lloyd Wruble.

Ben is in the eighth grade at Fort Couch Middle School and enjoys baseball, basketball, the performing arts and participating in Friendship Circle. He is excited to finally celebrate his bar mitzvah more than a year after it was originally scheduled.

Tsvi Hirsh Hoexter will celebrate his bar mitzvah on Parshat Nasso, May 22, 2021, at Congregation Kesser Torah. He is the son of Shua and Shoshana Hoexter; brother of Mendel, Leib, Sara and Rivka; and grandson of Andrea and Joseph Chester of Pittsburgh and Marcia and David Hoexter of Washington, D.C. Tsvi is a seventh-grader at Yeshiva School. He enjoys reading, playing basketball and violin, participating in the International Torah Competition, juggling, and traveling with family — especially to D.C., Virginia, California and Israel.

Abby Weinstein will become a bat mitzvah on May 22, 2021, at Rodef Shalom Congregation.

Abby is the daughter of Matt and Marcie Weinstein and the sister of Nate Weinstein.

She is a seventh-grader at the Winchester Thurston School where she particularly likes art and French and competes on the crosscountry and track and field teams. In her free time, she enjoys painting and sketching. Abby spends her summers at EKC and traveling with her family.

Engagement Juliet and Jonathan Krassenstein of Bradford Woods, Pennsylvania, are delighted to announce the engagement and coming marriage of their son, Samuel Cantor Krassenstein, to Ashley Marie Hill, daughter of Bruce and Angela Hill of Powell, Ohio. Sam is the grandson of Velma Krassenstein of Boca Raton, Florida, and the late Jerome Krassenstein, and of Jacqueline Boniface of Poland, Ohio, and the late Raymond Boniface. Ashley is the granddaughter of Ljuba and Mato Letica of Rochester, Michigan, and the late Joan and Robert King Hill of Beverly Hills, Michigan. Sam is a graduate of Bucknell University and obtained his dual Masters in Business Administration and Urban Planning at the University of Michigan. Sam serves as the deputy director of mobility innovation for the city of Detroit. Ashley is a graduate of the University of Michigan, where she also obtained her dual Masters in Business Administration and Public Health.

Ashley serves as a state assistant administrator in the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services, where she has been deeply immersed in Michigan’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Sam and Ashley live in the city of Detroit. Their wedding is planned for July 2021, at the longtime home of the Boniface family in Poland, Ohio. PJC

Rabbi Yossi Rosenblum Parshat Nasso | Numbers 4:21 - 7:89

W

hen the Holy Temple stood in Jerusalem, all Jews would come there for the three annual “pilgrimage festivals” (Passover, Shavuot and Sukkot). Unlike Passover and Sukkot, Shavuot only lasts one day, so another six days were added following Shavuot so that all the people could offer the sacrifices associated with the holiday. These days are called yemei tashlumin (days of fulfilment).

Since we are still in the midst of these days, it’s appropriate to discuss the unique quality of Shavuot over Passover, Sukkot and even Shabbat.

Passover and Sukkot involve activities that require preparation and involvement on the holiday itself. On Passover, we clean our homes of leavened products and conduct a seder commemorating the exodus from Egypt. On Sukkot, we obtain the four species (lulav, etrog, willow and myrtle) and dwell in a sukkah. Yet Shavuot is not associated with any specific act. True, the Torah commands us to count 49 days following Passover to Shavuot, so there is preparation. And there is a mitzvah of bringing first fruits to Jerusalem between Shavuot and Sukkot. However, the giving of the Torah goes beyond the mitzvot of counting 49 days and bringing first fruits. So what can we do to properly celebrate the holiday?

One answer is the custom, instituted by the rabbis, of reading Tikun Leil Shavuot — which contains sections of every Torah portion, as well as sections of the Oral Law and the Zohar. The Midrash relates that before the giving of the Torah, the children of Israel experienced such a deep and refreshing sleep that they had to be awakened to receive the tablets on Mount Sinai. To rectify this error, many Jews stay up all night learning Torah, either by reading the Tikun Leil Shavuot or attending various classes.

There is another aspect of Shavuot that requires understanding: If a person has a disturbing dream on Passover or Sukkot, Jewish law allows them to fast on the holiday if it will restore their emotional ability to enjoy the Yom Tov. Such a person can even fast on Shabbat. However, it is forbidden to fast on Shavuot. So what is it about the holiday that makes it stand apart in so many ways?

At Sinai, the Torah (Shemot 19:20) states:

“God descended upon the mountain.”

Chassidut interprets the statement to mean that God eliminated the barriers that previously separated the spiritual and material worlds. This enabled man to elevate physical matter (such as the parchment used to make tefillin and mezuzot, investing that parchment with sublime levels of holiness).

So, too, when a person makes a blessing over kosher food, he or she elevates its inherent holiness to its supernal source.

In this way, man fulfills the purpose of the giving of the Torah.

The point is, Shavuot does not just celebrate a one-time event; rather it originally forged an ongoing relationship between man and God, and annually empowers mankind to deepen that relationship by following the Torah. In essence, Shavuot applies to and encompasses all of man’s activities.

Choosing one way to celebrate Shavuot over another would miss this important point. Even disturbing dreams have, at their essence, a positive outcome — encouraging the person to come closer to God. For that reason, the proper way to celebrate Shavuot is to engage in acts that combine the holy and the mundane and show that they are, in essence, united.

There is one more way that Shavuot is special. According to our sages, the forces that are associated with negativity have no permission to accuse the Jewish people of any deficiency on Shavuot, much like Yom Kippur. However on Yom Kippur, we refrain from eating, drinking and other acts. In that sense, we are like angels. On Shavuot, we can enjoy these very deeds and obtain a taste of the way the world will be in the Messianic Era. To quote Maimonides, (Laws of Kings, Chapter 12:5) in that era, there will be neither famine nor war, envy nor competition, for good will flow in abundance and all the delights will be freely available as dust. The occupation of the entire world will be solely to know God. Therefore, the Jews will be great sages and know the hidden matters, grasping the knowledge of their Creator according to the full extent of human potential, as Isaiah 11:9 states: “The world will be filled with the knowledge of God as the waters cover the ocean bed.” May we see its fulfillment with the immediate revelation of Moshiach. PJC Rabbi Yossi Rosenblum is CEO of Yeshiva Schools of Pittsburgh and rabbi of Congregation Kesser Torah. This column is a service of the Vaad Harabanim of Greater Pittsburgh.

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Obituaries FELDMAN: Selma Feldman, age 91, passed peacefully at home on Friday, May 14, 2021.

Beloved wife of the late Mervin Feldman.

Loving mother of Wendy Lamfrom and the late Joni Feldman. Proud grandmother of Brian and Traci Lamfrom and great-grandchildren Averi and Caden. Born in Pittsburgh, she also resided in Boca Raton, Florida. She loved to travel and was an avid golfer. She cherished her family and enjoyed spending time with the ones she loved. She lived a full life and will be deeply missed. Graveside services and interment were held on May 19 at 1 p.m. at B’nai Israel Cemetery. Arrangements entrusted to Ralph Schugar Chapel, Inc., family owned and operated. schugar.com HABER: Harvey Paul Haber, on Saturday, May 8, 2021. Beloved husband of the late Rita Haber. Loving father of Edward (Sonya) Haber, Marc (Debbie) Haber and the late David (surviving spouse Dawn) Haber. Grandfather of Jeffrey Haber, Elisabeth (Jeff) Norus, Eric (Erin) Haber, Alyssa, Benjamin and Jason Haber. Great-grandfather of Lilliana, Aiden and Holden Haber. Brother-in-law and best friend of Saul Kaufman. Harvey had a love for bowling and all Pittsburgh sports. He will be missed by his loving family in whom he taught, “Don’t worry about what other people do, do what you think is right.” Graveside services and interment were held at Beth Shalom Cemetery.

Contributions may be made to Community Day School, 6424 Forward Avenue, Pittsburgh, PA 15217 or Susan G. Komen, Greater Pennsylvania, 133 South Braddock Avenue, Pittsburgh, PA 15218. Arrangements entrusted to Ralph Schugar Chapel, Inc., family owned and operated. schugar.com KRUPP: Gerald L. “Gerry” Krupp, on Wednesday, May 12, 2021. Beloved husband of Felice Oberman Krupp for 59 years; loving father of Heidi Krupp (Darren) Lisiten; devoted Papa of Caden Lisiten; brother of the late Alan and Jay Krupp; also survived by nieces, nephews, cousins and many friends. Gerry was a man of few words who was the ultimate gentleman.

He was a co-owner with his brothers of the Squirrel Hill deli Royal Kosher Products for many years. He was also employed by Yellow Cab Company for 40 years. He was a classical music lover, a Master Mason and a proud Korean War veteran who was seldom seen without his Korea Veteran ball cap. Gerry was often described as the kindest man you’d ever meet. His quiet, gentle manner belied the ferocious courage, strength, and bravery he exuded in combat in Korean, and how he loved and supported his family, the greatest love of his life. Graveside services and interment were held at Beth Shalom Cemetery. In loving memory of Gerry, contributions may be made to the Wounded Warrior Project, 600 River Avenue, Suite 400, Pittsburgh, PA 15212. Arrangements entrusted to Ralph Schugar Chapel, Inc., family owned and operated. schugar.com LEWIS: Carol Tobin Lewis, of Fox Chapel, passed away peacefully on May 15, 2021.

She will be missed dearly by her children, David and Linda Tobin of Pittsburgh, and Gregg and Ruth Tobin of Orange County, California. Carol will be forever loved by her grandchildren, Rachel Tobin (Ben), Zachariah and Joshua Tobin. Wife of the PITTSBURGHJEWISHCHRONICLE.ORG

late Sidney Tobin and late Samuel Lewis. Sister of Dr. Leonard (late Lynn) Goddy of Louisville, Kentucky.

Survived by loving nieces, nephews, cousins and friends.

Carol will be remembered for her love of family, generosity and kindness to others.

Graveside services and interment private.

Contributions may be made to Parda Family Personalized Medicine Fund at AGH-AHN Office of Development, 4818 Liberty Avenue, Pittsburgh, PA 15224. Arrangements entrusted to Ralph Schugar Chapel, Inc., family owned and operated. schugar.com LITMAN: Michael Arlen Litman, on Wednesday, May 19, 2021. Beloved husband of the late Vivian Muncaster Litman.

Beloved father of Dr. Teddi Ila Litman, Jody Kay Litman (Adam Greene) and Danielle Lee Litman (Colin Kelly). Son of the late Sally and Eugene Litman. Brother of Patricia (Dr. Richard) Katz and Katherine (Fred) Cohen. Grandfather of Vivian Fain and Caleb (Bucco) Litman Kelly. Also survived by many nieces and nephews. Michael was born in 1937 in Braddock, Pennsylvania. He attended Shady Side Academy and graduated in 1955 where he wrestled and received a scholarship to Bucknell University then onto the University of Miami Law School where he met his first wife and had his beautiful daughter, Teddi. In 1969, he married Vivian Muncaster and was blessed with two beautiful daughters, Jody and Danielle. He practiced criminal defense law at the Public Defender’s office and in private practice. Then, his father prevailed upon him to join him in his real estate business in North Versailles which he was very successful as a real estate developer. He had a passion for sports particularly the Pittsburgh Pirates. He often went to spring training in Florida where he could root for his beloved Pirates. He loved his family and they valued the time they were able to spend with him. He will be sorely missed by everyone he was in contact with. Graveside services and interment will be held on Friday, May 21, at 1 p.m. at Ahavath Achim Cemetery/ Forest Hills. Contributions may be made to the Polycystic Kidney Disease Foundation, PO Box 871847, Kansas City, MO 64187. Arrangements entrusted to Ralph Schugar Chapel, Inc., family owned and operated. schugar.com STRASSBURGER: Eugene (Gene) B. Strassburger III passed away on May 17, 2021, at home in Oakland, surrounded by family. He is survived by his beloved wife Phyllis Kitzerow, brother E.J. (Mona), sister Lanie, children David (Meredith), Ellen, and Zach (Kate), and grandchildren Scott, Julia, Maya, Sammy, and brand new grandbaby Elior. A funeral service will be performed at Rodef Shalom Congregation on Friday, May 21 at 1:30 p.m., with visitation beginning at noon. Gene was born Nov. 28, 1943, to Jane and Eugene Strassburger, Jr. He graduated from Linden Elementary, Shady Side Academy, Yale University (’64) and Harvard Law School (’67). He clerked for the Honorable Henry O’Brien on the Pennsylvania Supreme Court. Many will remember Gene for his meaningful and lengthy legal career. He served as a senior judge on Pennsylvania’s Superior Court for the last 10 years. Before that he served Please see Obituaries, page 20

Jewish Association on Aging gratefully acknowledges contributions from the following: A gift from …

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Anonymous . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Jack Masloff

Anne & Michael Levin . . . . . . . . . . . . Morris Shakespeare

Dr. Lawrence N. Adler. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Samuel H. Adler

Janice Mankin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Saul Fineberg

Phyllis Pearl Astrov . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Arnold Pearl

Beverly S. Marks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ruth Schenk

Sylvia & Norman Elias . . . . . . . . . . . . Robert N. Moldovan

Mr. & Mrs. Neil Rosenstein . . . . . . . . . .Norma Rosenstein

Sylvia Elias . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Samuel Molovan

Jerry & Ina Silver. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ethel Silver

Lessa Finegold . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Mildred Caplan

Robin Snyder . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Barney Snyder

Edward M. Goldston . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Stella Leedy

Iris Amper Walker. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Lillian Amper

Sheila & Keith Lawrence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Julius Moskovitz

Susan & Bruce Weiner . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Fannie Wolk

Mrs. Rachel Leff . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Rebecca Leff

Eileen Winkler . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Benjamin Horne

Rushie Leff . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Rebecca Leff

Ruth Yahr . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Barry Yahr

THIS WEEK’S YAHRZEITS — Sunday May 23: Edward Balter, Edith Rodney Berman, Lillian Cazen, Jacob Dickman, Ethel Sofer Frankel, Fannie Gordon, Morris Oberfield, Charles Zola Pollock, Leonard Robinson, Herman Shapiro, Isadore Thomashefsky Monday May 24: Rebecca Adler, Nellie Bricker, Allan Calman, Anne Stein Fisher, Samuel Hankin, Albert Jacobson, William Moldovan, Rose Rattner, Norma Rosenstein, Samuel Rotter, Martin Rubin, Blanche Sigel, Seward Wilson, Fannie Wolk Tuesday May 25: Sarah Lee Backal, Irving H. Cohen, Robert Cohen, Lena Davidson, David Friedman, Tillie Gordon, Marjorie Leff, Morris Hyman Leff, Fannye B. Mermelstein, Freda Oawster, Phillip Pattak, Samuel Schneirov, Florence Sherwin, Morris Thomashefsky Wednesday May 26: Lillian Amper, Beatrice K. Barnett, Dr. Milton Bilder, Meyer M. Braun, Belle Farber, Ida A. Friedman, Leonard Hyman Gettleman, I. Max Greenfield, Charles L. Jacobs, Stella Leedy, Stella Brown Lipschz Leedy, Carl Lipson, Ralph Leon Markowitz, Cele Monheim, Alta M. Orringer, Morris Shakespeare, Sarah Teplitz, Sara Weinberg, Barry Yahr Thursday May 27: Sybil B. Berkman, Florence Boodman, Herman Braunstein, Sherman B. Golomb, Michael David Levine, Louis Rider, Cecelia M. Schmidt, Libbie R. Seiavitch, Hilda Z. Silverman, Gertrude Simon, Irving Spolan, Sara Titlebaum, Abraham Weiner, Chava Wekselman Friday May 28: Jennie Bleier, Jacob Garber, Mayme Gerson, Morris B. Green, Lillian Handmacher, Leah Kramer, Helen Langer, Robert Langer, Samuel A. Lichter, Abe Mazer, Abraham Rothenstein, Morris A. Schwartz, Betty Silberblatt Saturday May 29: Gustave J. Bloch, Israel A. Brahm, Howard Finkel, Tillie L. Gallagher, Dr. Harold Saul Kaiser, Leroy A. Klater, Jack Masloff, Fannie Miller, David Reubin, Anshel Rosen, Sylvia Rosenblum, Minnie Schilit, Benjamin B. Sklar, Sidney Whitman

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A Notable Personality • Abe Beerman-Johnstown

The legacy left by Abe Beerman (1916-2007) will live on through generations of youth being taught the important lessons of man’s inhumanity to man. A product of Rodef Sholom Congregation’s early teachings in Tzedakah and in our Jewish homeland, Abe’s commitment to Israel through the UJA, annually and in perpetuity, may be second to none. This auto parts dealer turned investor turned philanthropist is one of the many reasons that leadership of Greater Johnstown refers to its Jewish community as an important one. And Abe, along with others, sensitized local financial institutions about the importance of Israel Bonds.

The Abe and Janet Beerman Fund has already sent over 20,000 students to the US Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC for a day of learning, and the Cambria, Somerset, Bedford, Indiana, Westmoreland, and Blair County areas are far better off for the Museum’s teachings. Essays written and exhibits created by the students are housed within the Holocaust Remembrance Room at Beth Sholom Congregation. The program is endowed in perpetuity, with 800 students attending each year. The Beerman Fund is a pillar to the Community Foundation for the Alleghenies, enhancing the Conemaugh Valley in many significant ways. Abe was inducted into the Cambria County Business Hall of Fame in 2006.

Abe and Janet Beerman are buried in the Rodef Sholom Cemetery in Johnstown.

For more information about JCBA cemeteries, to volunteer, to read our complete histories and/or to make a contribution, please visit our website at www.JCBApgh.org, email us at jcbapgh@gmail.com, or call the JCBA office at 412-553-6469 JCBA’s expanded vision is made possible by a generous grant from the Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh’s Jewish Community Foundation

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MAY 21, 2021 19

Obituaries Obituaries: Continued from page 19

on the Allegheny County Court of Common Pleas since 1978 in the Family Court and the Civil Court, including as administrative judge and calendar control judge. He was proud to call himself a feminist, and he devoted many hours to the Allegheny

Saxe: Continued from page 13

since 1990). This estimate represents a double-digit increase since 2013, when Pew estimated the total Jewish population at 6.7 million, and a nearly 40% increase in the population estimated in 1990 by National Jewish Population Survey.

The estimate reported by Pew is corroborated by my own work with colleagues at Brandeis University’s American Jewish Population Project. Using data synthesis techniques, which enable us to analyze individual data from hundreds of high quality surveys and nearly 1.5 million respondents, we estimate the 2020 U.S. Jewish population at 7.6 million. Our higher estimate is, in part, the result of our using more recent census data.

The total population measure is based on two threshold issues concerning respondents’ religious backgrounds and current religious identification. Pew, like most who study American Jewry, identified Jews by asking two kinds of questions: “What, if any, is your religion?” and, for those who are agnostic, atheist, or do not identify with a

County Bar Association’s Women in the Law Division and the LGBT Committee. He had also served on the board of directors of both PERSAD and the Women’s Center and Shelter of Pittsburgh, served as an advisor to the American Law Institute’s Project on the Law of Family Dissolution, and helped start the Court Appointed Special Advocates program in Allegheny County. At 29, he was one of the youngest attorneys to argue a case in front of the U.S. Supreme Court. In Pittsburgh Press v.

Pittsburgh Commission on Human Relations, he argued — and won — that gender-segregated want ads discriminate on the basis of sex. He also taught courses at the University of Pittsburgh Law School and Duquesne Law School and represented the City of Pittsburgh in important zoning and milk pricing cases.

Family and friends will remember Gene for his terrible jokes (“How many lawyers does it take to get an ounce of brains?”), softball games with the Fertile Octogenarians, managing

multiple fantasy sports teams, and his love of 1950s doowop. We will also remember his penchant for correct grammar, his dedication to teaching his children to play softball and golf, and his eagerness to solve whatever problems his loved ones might face. We will miss him deeply. Please send memorial donations to the Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank.

Arrangements entrusted to Ralph Schugar Chapel, Inc., family owned and operated. schugar.com PJC

religion, “Do you consider yourself Jewish in some other way?” All respondents were asked about their upbringing and their parents’ backgrounds. To be included in the Jewish population, they had to have a Jewish parent or had converted.

Based on those responses, Pew classified one group “Jews by religion” (JBRs) and the other “Jews not by religion” (JNRs). Nearly 75% of the adult Jewish population was identified as JBRs and the remainder JNRs. The share of the JNR population appears to be increasing, particularly among young Jews, although other research suggests that the proportion of the U.S. population who are JBRs has remained stable (1.9%).

The sociological approach used by Pew to identify who is Jewish is imperfect, but yields a conservative estimate of the total Jewish population. The approach excludes nearly three million individuals of Jewish background who don’t consider themselves Jewish; some identify with another religion, others with no religion.

Along with natural population growth, immigration, and wider access to Jewish education, intermarriage is having a net positive effect. Compared to earlier generations, more Jews appear to be retaining their Jewish identity when they marry a non-Jew, and an increasing number of intermarried couples are raising Jewish children. All of these factors contribute to the expanding Jewish population.

Undoubtedly, some will question Pew’s decisions about who should be counted as a Jew. Long before scientific survey research evolved, Jewish sages wrestled with the question of how to count Jews and assess our strength in numbers. Thus, last Shabbat, the Torah reading about the Biblical census was accompanied by a Haftarah reading from the Book of Hosea that teaches us that the “people of Israel shall be like the sands of the sea, which

cannot be measured or counted.”

Jewish tradition reconciles the difficulty of counting with the necessity of assessing the strength of the community by allowing indirect counts. Surveys provide communal organizations with a sense of the magnitude of their responsibility to the community and a yardstick with which to gauge the effectiveness of their efforts. The survey provides an objective way to assess the size of the community, Pew’s report should calm the fears of those who believed that Judaism in America would all but disappear. The study, buttressed by other data, affirms that Jewish identity remains important to the vast majority of an enlarged U.S. Jewish population.

Rather than vanishing, American Jews have constructed a multiplicity of ways to express their Jewishness. The challenge posed by the findings is how to provide a wide range of opportunities for the increasing number of individuals seeking meaningful connections within the Jewish world. PJC

Raising Jewish children

Pew’s estimate of the number of children is based on the report of an adult respondent. Children are counted as Jewish if they are part of the household of a Jewish parent and are being raised in some way Jewish. Of an estimated 2.4 million children living in Jewish households, 1.6 million were counted as Jewish. Most (75%) of these children are being raised exclusively Jewish by religion, and the remainder are being raised as Jewish in some other way.

Leonard Saxe, Ph.D, is the Klutznick Professor of Contemporary Jewish Studies and Social Policy at Brandeis University. This piece first appeared on The Times of Israel.

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Community Welcome to the carnival

Noticing some nosh

Friendship Circle of Pittsburgh held its Memorial Day Carnival at Schenley Park on May 2.

Friends of all abilities joined together for holiday fun and festivities.

p Haskel’s Delicatessen, a Jewish deli (non-kosher) on wheels, was spotted on Forbes Avenue in Squirrel Hill on May 12.

Photo by Jim Busis

p Chaya, left, Etti and Rivkee Rudolph create signs for the carnival.

Check this out

p Kieran Taylor, left, Nina Wolgelenter and Amelie Taylor stop for a quick hug.

p Micah, left, Nicole and Nico Watson enjoy the day.

Photos courtesy of Friendship Circle of Pittsburgh

It’s time to play the music

p Temple Emanuel of South Hills ECDC students admire some great artwork.

Photo courtesy of Temple Emanuel of South Hills

Israel, in our hearts and on our poster board

p First-grade girls at Yeshiva Schools of Pittsburgh celebrated receiving their first Chumashim with a musical performance about the life of Rabbi Akiva and his wife, Rochel. According to tradition, Rochel’s devotion enabled her husband to become one of history’s greatest Torah scholars.

Photo courtesy of Yeshiva Schools of Pittsburgh

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p Hillel Academy of Pittsburgh first-graders Nedavya Cohen-Pollack, left, Chaim Mandelbaum and Ahava Ackland display their report on the Israeli city of Tiberias.

PITTSBURGH JEWISH CHRONICLE

Photo courtesy of Hillel Academy of Pittsburgh

MAY 21, 2021 23

KOSHER MEATS

• All-natural, corn-fed beef — steaks, roasts, ground beef and more • Variety of deli meats and franks • All-natural poultry — whole chickens, breasts, wings and more Available at select Giant Eagle stores.

Visit GiantEagle.com for location information.

Alle Kosher 80% Lean Fresh Ground Beef

6

99 lb.

Price effective Thursday, May 20 through Wednesday, May 26, 2021

Available at 24 MAY 21, 2021

and

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