Pittsburgh Jewish Chronicle 7-9-21

July 9, 2021 | 29 Tamuz 5781

Candlelighting 8:34 p.m. | Havdalah 9:41 p.m. | Vol. 64, No. 28 | pittsburghjewishchronicle.org

Long anticipated: A successful start to summer camp 2021

NOTEWORTHY LOCAL A time capsule unearthed

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Oct. 27 survivors weigh in on rebuilding Tree of Life

By David Rullo | Staff Writer

A

tested for COVID-19 again, and on June 29, when Cantor learned that all the tests had come back negative, he was reassured that EKC could look forward to a more typical summer.

Even so, as an added precaution, no one will be allowed in or out of EKC. Because camp is functioning as “a bubble,” said Cantor, podding will be expanded and larger groups of campers can begin interacting with one another.

All three of Casey Drucker’s children are at EKC this summer. Drucker, a Fox Chapel resident, said that even before receiving news of the camp-wide negative tests, she was confident in EKC’s and the Jewish Community Center of Greater Pittsburgh’s ability to handle whatever challenges the pandemic posed.

“They did an amazing job making sure parents and kids were comfortable,” she said.

Likewise, leading up to the June 21 start of Camp Gan Israel of Pittsburgh, Rabbi Elchonon Friedman was constantly communicating with parents, medical professionals and staff about COVID-19 protocols. From

ndrea Wedner is looking forward to going back to the Tree of Life building after it has been rebuilt.

Her mother, Rose Mallinger, was one of 11 victims murdered on Oct. 27, 2018, while attending Shabbat services there. Wedner, who was by her side, was also shot that day, sustaining serious injuries. The Squirrel Hill resident, who is a lifelong member of Tree of Life Congregation, said that reopening the building will demonstrate “that we will not be driven out of our sacred space because of this horrible act of hate and violence.”

Wedner recently met the lead architect of the Tree of Life redesign project, Daniel Libeskind, on a Zoom call along with other survivors of the attack and the families of those murdered at the three congregations housed in building: Dor Hadash, New Light and Tree of Life. The architect had “some very insightful words,” said Wedner, although he did not share specific plans for the redesign.

Her mother, Wedner said, was dedicated to the congregation, and would have wanted the synagogue rebuilt at its current location on Wilkins and Shady avenues.

Audrey Glickman was also attending Shabbat services at Tree of Life at the time of the attack. She survived by hiding in an office filled with boxes and bags of clothes.

During the Zoom call, Libeskind allayed her concerns about the synagogue’s redesign, particularly “that we’re going to end up with a big, dark memorial that houses the Holocaust Center and has a pall of death around it,” Glickman said. But Libeskind, she found, “has the vision of openness and lightness and toward a positive future, which I was very glad to hear.”

Glickman said she has no qualms about returning to the building; she wanted to go back to the site immediately following the attack.

“The holiness of the building has not

Please see Camp, page 14

Please see TOL, page 14

Early 20th-century Rodef Shalom sermons discovered Page 2

LOCAL The art of Zentangle

 EKC staff give Summer 2021 a big thumbs up

A relaxing escape

Photo courtesy of Emma Curtis via Jewish Community Center of Greater Pittsburgh

Page 7

LOCAL Page turners

The Chronicle staff’s summer picks Page 8

By Adam Reinherz | Staff Writer

I

f a picture is worth a thousand words, then stop reading and just look at the photos (but please come back afterward).

Summer 2021 is underway and campers and staff are thrilled to be back outdoors in the settings they love.

Speaking from Morgantown, West Virginia, Emma Kaufmann Camp Director Aaron Cantor described the first week of camp as “phenomenal.”

“If you would have told me a few months ago that things would be going like they are right now in camp, I would have been like, ‘You’re lying,’” said Cantor. “I really could not have asked for a better start to this summer.”

EKC’s first session began on June 20, but families were asked to prepare even earlier, with campers required to quarantine 8-10 days before their arrival. Additionally, each camper and staff member had to take a PCR COVID-19 test 3-5 days prior to the start of camp and share the results with camp officials — only campers and staff who provided negative test results from a PCR test were permitted to enter EKC. Finally, five days after arrival, everyone got

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LOCAL ‘An Alternative History’

LOCAL Goldston Teen Philanthropy

RECIPE Cauliflower or mac and cheese

Headlines Rodef Shalom subterranean find points to the future of early 20th century Reform Judaism — LOCAL —

By David Rullo | Staff Writer

M

atthew Falcone noticed something unusual during the final walk-through of a recent sewer replacement project at Rodef Shalom Congregation.

Falcone, the congregation’ new president, spied a large steamer trunk, battered and covered in dust. Partially obscured by blankets, it sat on a subterranean floor of the synagogue, boxes piled around it.

When the large, early 20th-century trunk was opened, Falcone discovered it was filled to the brim with packages wrapped in brown paper.

“They were absolutely filthy, covered in what I’m assuming is a century’s worth of coal ash,” he said.

When several of the packages were taken from the dark basement to be examined in better light, Falcone was surprised to see they contained the sermons of Rabbi J. Leonard Levy, who served the congregation from 1901 until his death in 1917.

Each package was cataloged, marked by volume and series.

“Somebody had put a tremendous amount of thought and care into trying preserve them,” said Falcone. He also noticed something interesting about the trunk’s location in the sewer: It sat below the congregation’s ark and bimah.

“It’s fascinating to think that just when you assume you know every corner of the building and what’s there…this has been a total revelation,” Falcone said.

The trunk and its contents are now being studied by Rodef Shalom’s archivist, Martha Berg.

 Rabbi Levy’s sermons recently discovered in Rodef Shalom Photo courtesy of Matthew Falcone

To date, Berg has made her way through the first third of the large container. What she has found so far has been mostly duplicate copies of sermons. The archivist said she already had 399 of Levy’s sermons in her database; of all the newly found sermons, she added just one, bringing the total to the rounder 400.

As part of Levy’s contract, Berg explained, the congregation published pamphlets that contained all his sermons during his tenure at the synagogue.

“That was a normal thing, for rabbis to be published,” she explained.

Berg said she had been fascinated by the rabbi for years because of his progressive stance on social justice issues in the early part of the 20th century, and the fact that he was a pacifist.

“Like most rabbis, he would preach on current topics,” she said. That one newly discovered sermon was about women, written during a time when the rabbi was transitioning from a more traditional perspective on women’s roles toward women’s rights, “which later on, in the 19-teens, he was quite active in.

So, I think it’s significant.”

Cataloging what was stored in the chest might seem like a lot of work for a little reward, Berg said, but it helps to paint a more complete picture of the rabbi’s time at the synagogue.

“Rabbi Levy was really significant in Reform Judaism in the early 20th century,” she said. “He was probably one of the four or five best known rabbis at that time in the

U.S., and had an international reputation.

“Now,” Berg continued, “no one knows very much about him. I think that anything we can do to resuscitate his reputation and tell new stories about him is really valuable.”

Noting its proximity to the ark, Rabbi Aaron Bisno, the congregation’s senior rabbi, compared the find to the works kept at the Cairo Genizah — a repository of some 400,000 Jewish manuscript fragments and holy books that contained the name of God and therefore couldn’t be discarded under Jewish law.

He noted that Levy led the congregation through unsure times, and was “the rabbi who would move them from downtown to this property east of the city — it was a big gamble to move east,” Bisno said.

Bisno surmised that Levy and the congregation may have been mirroring the messaging of the early Reform movement, which was establishing the next iteration of Judaism.

“My definition of the Torah is that it’s the best efforts of the Jewish people at addressing and describing the human condition,” he said. “Arguably, their idea was the latest sermon is also part of Torah writ large, the newest interpretation.”

In addition to Levy’s stance on social issues, Bisno said, the congregation may have contributed in more subtle ways to the position of Reform Judaism in America: Rodef Shalom’s sanctuary faces north rather than toward Israel, as had been the tradition.

“In some ways, theologically, the early Reform movement was saying, ‘We are in the Promised Land, we’re no longer orienting ourselves toward Jerusalem. Our aspiration can be reached here,’” said Bisno. PJC David Rullo can be reached at drullo@ pittsburghjewishchronicle.org.

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JULY 9, 2021 3

Headlines ‘An Alternative History of Pittsburgh’ includes focus on Jewish life — LOCAL —

By Justin Vellucci | Special to the Chronicle

E

ven a pandemic couldn’t slow down Edward Simon.

While the world was quarantined during the COVID-19 crisis, the Washington, D.C.-area historian and author — who was born and bred in Pittsburgh, and graduated from Taylor Allderdice High School — penned a new book, and it’s a sparkling new take on everyone’s favorite Rust Belt metropolis. The book, titled “An Alternative History of Pittsburgh,” comes via Belt Publishing, a company Simon called “the New Yorker of the Rust Belt” that aims to challenge preconceived notions about America’s post-industrial hubs.

“The idea behind it was that it was going to be an alternative history in terms of the structure of the book,” Simon told the Chronicle. “What’s a little bit different, I hope, is that each story is written around these little vignettes — ‘flash non-fiction’ is what someone called it.”

In the book, Simon revisits some familiar Pittsburgh characters — Andy Warhol and Billy Strayhorn, for instance — but also more obscure topics like the attempted

 Ed Simon

Photo by Meg Finan

assassination of Henry Frick and The Mystery, Pittsburgh’s radical, Black nationalist newspaper. And, yes, there’s a chapter on the Whiskey Rebellion.

“The Alternative History of Pittsburgh” also delves into Jewish life in Southwestern

Pennsylvania. Simon is not Jewish — though he did serve as a Hillel chapter president while attending Washington and Jefferson College, and interned in 2005 at the Chronicle. But he said he was thrilled to look at the way many Jews, like the department store magnate Edgar Kaufmann, played a role in Pittsburgh’s growth, as well as important historical milestones like the Pittsburgh Renaissance.

There also is a vignette in the book on the Pittsburgh Platform, a 19th-century document that emerged from a gathering here of progressive rabbis, which greatly influenced the Reform Judaism movement in the United States.

“People who signed onto the Pittsburgh Platform didn’t know is was as liberal or radical as it ended up being,” Simon said.

“Judaism is sort of this religion of debate, not consensus … and I think the Platform speaks to that.”

“An Alternative History,” Simon said, also looks at the lives of German Jews living on Pittsburgh’s North Side — then still Allegheny City — in the 19th century, and how Jewish life migrated to the Hill District, the East End and Squirrel Hill as more Russian and Eastern European Jews entered the region.

“I’m interested in charting that history,” he

said. “It’s a celebration of the Jewish diversity of a place like Squirrel Hill.”

The book is receiving attention from the national media. Newsweek magazine hailed its structure as working “in a way that’s entirely new, by the hand of someone who is deeply familiar,” in an article on the best books to read this spring. Belt Publishing released the book in April.

“Simon shines a light on things often forgotten, and uncovers untold stories in the process,” reviewer Juliana Rose Pignataro wrote in the magazine.

Simon is no stranger to the big presses and publications of the United States. A staff writer for The Millions — an online magazine covering books, arts and culture — and a contributing editor for the History News Network, his essays have appeared in The Atlantic, The Washington Post, McSweeney’s and The New York Times, among many others.

Though he currently lives in northern Virginia, Simon said he associates deeply with the Steel City.

“For me,” he said, “there are few places I’ve found myself feeling as complete as when I’m up-street on Forbes and Murray.” PJC Justin Vellucci is a freelance writer living in Pittsburgh.

SPONSORED CONTENT

SAFEGUARDING YOUR DIGITAL ASSETS This is one in a series of articles about Elder Law by Michael H. Marks., Esq. Michael H. Marks is an elder law attorney with offices in Squirrel Hill and Monroeville.

Send questions to michael@marks-law.com or visit www.marks-law.com.

Almost everyone has some of their life in electronic form. Whether you do online or telephone banking, have a smart phone, post on social media, send emails or texts, or store photos online, you have digital assets. You own the information that is in electronic form.

Your devices - your smart phone, iPad, notepad, laptop, or desktop PC - even your Apple watch, “Ring” video doorbell and your car’s computer contain information about you.

Your online presence - your browser history, your health records, credit cards, investments, bill pays, shopping and purchases, licenses and registrations, etc., all contain information about you “in the cloud”.

Most people understand that we are being tracked by technology that monitors our data, by companies or even by the government. This data is used by companies to influence you. Though most Americans have well-founded concerns about their privacy, we routinely ignore the privacy policies given before agreeing to them.

We all experience information overload. People have an expectation that their private information will stay private and not be open to others. That is why we set up confidential usernames and passwords. We know that it’s not proper for someone else to log on to our account or to impersonate us in order to steal money or for any other purpose.

4 JULY 9, 2021

As an estate planning attorney, I can help you try to control what will happen to your electronic information and devices when you are gone or disabled.

Some issues are less consequential: Will your family be able to retrieve your family photos?

But most can have a significant impact on the distribution of your assets. Have you provided the legal authority to access your devices and accounts? Until recently, there have been federal laws in effect about electronic communication services and access to private information, but they were older, and not really adequate to address today’s concerns. They did not address the practical need to access electronic information by your estate Executor, or a power of attorney.

Then there are the companies themselves. Each has different rules and requirements. Asking Apple, or Google, or Facebook, or Amazon, for access is a unique drama each time. Each “custodian” of your information has a long “Terms of Service Agreement (“TOSA”) that you, the “user” agreed to without reading. Absent any other arrangements, the general rules of the Terms of Service Agreement apply and control. Google and Facebook provide online tools to allow you to specify the disclosure or nondisclosure of your digital assets.

Pennsylvania and most other states recently passed their own updated laws to address these concerns. Pennsylvania’s law is called the Revised Uniform Fiduciary Access to Digital Assets Act. Its rules and policies guide, authorize and limit both the company and your “designated recipient” about the release of such information.

Guess what? It’s complicated, and not completely clear! There are provisions about what a fiduciary can do without a court order or your consent,

and when your consent or a court order is needed. There are distinctions made between accessing just a “catalogue” or list of messages, communications or other stored digital assets, versus accessing the “content” itself, and specific requirements for requests in different situations.

What should you do? As part of your planning make a list or inventory of your digital assets.

Start with your hardware or devices – phones, computers, etc. Then list the online services, websites, applications, email providers, photo storage sites, etc. that you use. Decide what you want others to have access to after you are gone, and if there is anything that you want to have deleted such as private messages. If you don’t state it in your Will, Pennsylvania law applies.

Finally, have you provided access to your

passwords as part of your estate plan? The conventional wisdom is that the best solution is a secure “password manager” application.

You only have to remember one password, and it automatically does the rest, creating and supplying complex, even random, encrypted passwords for you, while protecting against intruders. Or, you may have a sealed letter or a USB drive in a safe deposit box, or in your sock drawer. Some people rely on an ordinary password-protected file, with various degrees of (probably inadequate) security. Make sure you provide access to your trusted beneficiaries and successors for your passwords.

At Marks Elder Law, we help people every day with issues like these. I invite your questions and feedback. Please let me know how I can help you and your family.

helping you plan for what matters the most

With the increasing costs of long-term care, having the help of a legal professional when planning for your family’s future can help you make better decisions that can result in keeping more of your money.

We help families understand the strategies, the benefits, and risks involved with elder law, disability and estate planning.

www.marks-law.com

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412-421-8944

Michael H. Marks, Esq. michael@marks-law.com member, national academy of elder law attorneys

4231 Murray Avenue Pittsburgh, PA 15217

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Headlines Goldston teens donate $3,000 to Holocaust Center — LOCAL —

By Justin Vellucci | Special to the Chronicle

A

bout a half-dozen high school students who took part this school year in the Samuel M. Goldston Teen Philanthropy Project recently decided to donate $3,000 of their own money to the Holocaust Center of Pittsburgh. Abby Rickin-Marks, a member of the Goldston project, said the decision to support the Holocaust Center was an easy one. “ T he Hol o c au st Center has become a vibrant place for Jews and non-Jews alike, all interested in learning about the Holocaust and genocide,” said RickinAbby Marks, who graduated Rickins-Marks Photo courtesy of from Fox Chapel Area Abby Rickins-Marks High School last month.

“With so many upcoming projects, including their new partnerships with Chatham University and Tree of Life, we thought it was our duty to give back to an organization that is making such tremendous change in the community.”

Lauren Bairnsfather, who heads the Holocaust Center of Pittsburgh, said she was touched by the donation.

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p Holocaust survivors Sam Gottesman, Harry Schneider and his wife, Patty Schneider, and Moshe Baran light memorial candles with the help of Lauren Bairnsfather, director of the Holocaust Center of Greater Pittsburgh, in 2018.

Photo courtesy of Community Day School

“Abby has been engaged with us and our expanded mission and she said that was important to the teens,” Bairnsfather said. “What a stamp of approval, what an endorsement, from the people we’re most trying to meet.

“This was really special,” she added.

“Every donation is meaningful, but when it comes from a group of teens interested in philanthropy and community building, that’s

really, really awesome.”

The Goldston project was created by Pittsburghers Edward and Linda Goldston in memory of their son, Sam, said Maria Carson, director of teen leadership for the Jewish Community Center of Greater Pittsburgh.

The Goldston family will match any donation the project’s teen members make.

“The purpose of this fund and project is to let Jewish teens learn about grant-making,

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grant-giving and philanthropy,” Carson said.

“They learn how to analyze charities and think about which charities they want to support — from a holistic lens.”

Carson said the larger goals of the project are for high school students to foster a deeper connection to their Jewish identity, develop skills to become leaders and changemakers, and grow relationships with the broader Jewish community.

Prior to this year, the Goldston Project involved b’nai mitzvah-aged students, but this year a new version of the program was piloted for students in grades 9-12.

Sharon Perelman, director of planned giving at the Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh, was influential in developing the program and manages the Goldston fund at the Federation, Carson said.

Rickin-Marks said she and others in the group walked away from the Goldston cohort this year with tremendous pride.

“In my personal opinion, few experiences have made me feel like a better member of the community,” Rickin-Marks said. “Working in a group toward a common goal, a goal meant to empower our local community, allowed me to continue my work in finding inequities in our community and, more specifically, the Jewish community.” PJC Justin Vellucci is a freelance writer living in Pittsburgh.

JULY 9, 2021 5

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 SUNDAY, JULY 11 Join Classrooms Without Borders for Remembering Elie Wiesel: The Man and His Writings, a special program commemorating the life and achievements of the internationally renowned author, professor, leader and activist for human rights throughout the world, Nobel laureate and Holocaust survivor. 9 p.m. classroomswithoutborders.org/ remembering-elie-wiesel

q MONDAY, JULY 12 Join Beth El Congregation on Zoom for First Mondays with Rabbi Alex Greenbaum. This month, learn about the Kehila Kedosha Janina (The Holy Community of Janina) located in the Lower East Side of Manhattan and discover the nearly 2,300-year-old history of the Romaniote Jews of Greece and their American descendants. 12 p.m. bethelcong.org.

Join Classrooms Without Borders for a virtual tour of Israel. Monthly tours with guide and scholar Rabbi Jonty Blackman via Zoom.

7 p.m. For more information and to register, visit classroomswithoutborders.org. q MONDAY, JULY 12-FRIDAY, JULY 16

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

Join the Holocaust Center of Pittsburgh for The Arts and Eyewitness Accounts of the Holocaust: A Workshop for Teachers. The fully remote, weeklong teacher training brings best practices of Holocaust education together with art and literature. The sessions are conducted by local and internationally recognized artists and educators. $100. 9 a.m. hcofpgh.org/events

q SUNDAY, JULY 11; WEDNESDAY, AUG. 6

q MONDAYS, JULY 12, 19

Join the Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh on Zoom to learn more about the Mega Mission 2022. The mission will take place in Israel June 13-21, 2022. This is your chance to hear the details and ask all your pressing questions. RSVP required to receive Zoom link. 7 p.m. jewishpgh.org/ event/21-mega-mission-2022-general-informationsession-7-11-2021

Chabad of the South Hills presents Kabbalah of the Aleph Bet, a ladies’ learning course. $18 suggested donation. RSVP to batya@chabadsh.com. 10 a.m. chabadsh.com

q SUNDAYS, JULY 11, 18, 25; AUG. 1

q MONDAYS, JULY 12, 19, 26; AUG. 2, 9 Join Congregation Beth Shalom for a weekly

Talmud study. 9:15 a.m. For more information, visit bethshalompgh.org.

botanical gardens. 5 p.m. facebook.com/ moishehouse.pittsburgh

q WEDNESDAY, JULY 14

q WEDNESDAY, JULY 21-AUGUST 19

Treat yourself to a relaxing paint night complete with wine and refreshments at Chabad of the South Hills’ Summer Ladies Night. No experience necessary. $15 ($20 after July 9). RSVP to batya@chabadsh.com. 7 p.m. chabadsh.com

Join New Light Congregation for a weekly examination of Maimonides’ Mishna Torah Book on Repentance led by Rabbi Jonathan Perlman.

Examine the journey of the soul, sin, forgiveness and the meaning of the High Holidays. 7 p.m. To register, email janet@newlightcongregation.org.

q THURSDAY, JULY 15 Volunteer and care for some neighborhood trees with Moishe House and Tree Pittsburgh. Dress to work outside in clothes you don’t mind getting dirty.

Masks are not required for vaccinated volunteers while outdoors; for unvaccinated volunteers, masks are required at all times. Bring enough water to stay hydrated as well as work gloves if you own them. RSVP before July 13. facebook.com/ moishehouse.pittsburgh q MONDAY, JULY 19 Join Moishe House for volunteer nights at the Sheridan Avenue Orchard and Garden run by Repair the World. All food grown is donated to East End Cooperative Ministries. Volunteers will help with weeding, trash cleanup and planting and caring for plants. 5:30 p.m. facebook.com/ moishehouse.pittsburgh q WEDNESDAY, JULY 21

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HUMMUS

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Join the Westmoreland Jewish Community Council and make a High Holiday trivet followed by a potluck picnic lunch at Twin Lakes Park, pavilion 5. There is no charge for the picnic but there is a fee to create the trivet. 10 a.m. trivet making; 12:30 p.m. picnic. wjccwestmoreland@gmail.com PJC

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Hang out at Frick Park dog park with Moishe House. Dogs can frolic in the off-leash area and humans can snack and dog watch. 5 p.m. facebook. com/moishehouse.pittsburgh

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Tikvah Hadassah welcomes author Linda Cohen, speaking about her book, Sarinka: A Sephardic Holocaust Journey. Register by July 20. $10. 1 p.m. hadassahmidwest.org/TikvahSarinka.

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Headlines Between agitation and calm is a Zentangle line — LOCAL —

By Adam Reinherz | Staff Writer

D

ays after the March 2020 shutdown began in Pennsylvania, Kesher Pittsburgh and the 10.27 Healing Partnership hosted a Zentangle Zoom room, where guests could explore Judaism through meditative doodling.

“The program was a way to help people learn a new skill that would support resilience through spiritual and creative practice,” said Kesher Pittsburgh’s Kohenet Keshira haLev Fife. By drawing structured patterns, or “tangling,” Zentangle “allowed us to connect and learn together while sheltering-in-place in those early days of the pandemic.”

Developed in 2003 by Rick Roberts and Maria Thomas, Zentangle bridges meditation and art. Practitioners combine dots, lines, simple curves, S-curves and orbs on small pieces of paper called “tiles,” which can then be arranged into mosaics.

Forest Hills resident Sue Schneider first learned about Zentangle in 2012 at a local library. Schneider enjoyed the creative exercise so much that she continued meeting with classmates at The Galleria of Mt. Lebanon. Before long, the group developed a following, outgrew its space at The Galleria and moved to the Mt. Lebanon Public Library. By that time, Schneider, whose background is in art education, was hooked.

In 2013, she traveled to Massachusetts, enrolled in a comprehensive seminar and became a certified Zentangle teacher.

For years, Schneider regularly taught in-person courses in Mt. Lebanon, Monroeville, Squirrel Hill and at the University of Pittsburgh’s Osher Lifelong Learning Institute. Once shutdowns began, Schneider moved her instruction online.

Now, more than 1,000 students regularly attend her free classes at meetup.com.

Highland Park resident Deborah Ganz Corsini began studying with Schneider in 2014 at the former Gilda’s Club Western Pennsylvania, months after her husband died of cancer.

“After he passed away I tried to reach out to the cancer support groups,” she said.

“I was kind of drawn to anything that was kind of artsy. I was looking for a safe place to connect with others.”

Corsini was immediately engaged by Schneider’s teaching style, and during that first lesson she followed Schneider’s guidance for almost two hours.

“Whatever you’re carrying when you come to class, put it out in the hall,” said Schneider. “You’re going to take a break, a rest, and you’re going to explore and make something that has never existed before in the world. And when you’re done with that time of concentration and focus, you can go back in the hall. Your bag and stuff is still there, but you are renewed and rested, and you can go on with the rest of your day.”

Corsini continued taking Schneider’s classes and was amazed at what she saw: men, suffering from cancer, who, despite no history of artistic practice, created incredible designs; women, unsure of their own prognoses, able PITTSBURGHJEWISHCHRONICLE.ORG

 Above and below: Leah Levinstein traded back and forth with her brother during their second visit at the hospital.

All images courtesy of Leah Levinstein

to detach and develop breathtaking pieces.

There’s a relaxing quality to Zentangle, said Corsini. “It’s a nice escape from the outside world of phones and technology.

And it can be done in minutes.”

Zentangling begins with a 3.5-inch square of museum grade cotton paper, according Zentangle creators Roberts and Thomas. After a border is designed, a sequence of simple pen strokes is used to make a pattern. A graphite

pencil or tortillon — a cylindrical drawing tool — is then used for shading. Finally, the piece is initialed and signed by its creator.

Carlisle resident Leah Levinstein said a completed work can take her as little as 15 minutes, or as long as a week, depending on shading. She began tangling six years ago after discovering a pattern online, then enrolling in a class at a local library. In 2015, she became a certified Zentangle teacher.

PITTSBURGH JEWISH CHRONICLE

“I really value the process, the meditative support, Zentangle gives me,” said Levinstein. “I love the concept of meditation, but I’ve struggled to do it traditionally.

Somehow, for me, the act of having something to do with my hands allows me to get to that place of deep relaxation.”

She has also seen Zentanlge’s positive impact on others. Months after she received her certification, her brother was hospitalized. He’d been experiencing paranoid delusions and was later diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder.

When Levinstein, who was living in Akron at the time, visited him in the hospital, she brought a Zentangle kit.

“I had never been to a psych ward — there are metal detectors — and I was concerned they wouldn’t let me bring it in because the pen was sharp,” she said.

Levinstein was permitted to enter with her tools. She walked down a long hallway before reaching a vacuous space, empty except for some tables, chairs and an ice machine.

“It was a hard place to be. It was scary,” she said.

Levinstein sat down with her brother, who was visibly upset and told her he thought the people there were poisoning him. She took out her pen, paper and pencil and asked if he wanted to try drawing. Step-by-step, the siblings worked through a piece. After 40 minutes, her brother’s agitation had eased.

“It was a really powerful moment,” said Levinstein. “It showed me how many applications and possibilities this method had to heal and to connect and to slow people’s brains down in a healthy way.”

Levinstein visited her brother a second time, and once again brought a Zentangle kit. This time, each sibling worked on a separate tile, occasionally swapping papers as they drew.

In 2017, Levinstein’s brother died by suicide. In the process of cleaning his room, their sibling, Sam, discovered a Zentangle kit and collections of small pieces left behind, including the drawings that he and Levinstein had worked on together.

“I have those two pieces and I framed them,” she said. “And I can’t remember which one was his and which one was mine.”

In the years since her brother’s death, Levinstein has observed, time and again, the benefits of tangling.

Once, while attending her daughter’s ballet recital, Levinstein’s 7-year-old son began experiencing symptoms related to his emotional dysregulation. She took him out to sit in the hall, but he continued screaming, she recalled, so she pulled a pen and paper from her bag and the parent and child drew together for 15 minutes.

“I watched the same thing happen to him which happened to my brother,” she said.

“He was able to move from a place of extreme agitation to a place of calm very quickly.”

Levinstein — who years after that incident led Kesher Pittsburgh’s Zentangle Zoom room — said the benefit of structured drawing went beyond calming her son during a period of distress.

In the end, she said, “he had something which he was very proud of.” PJC Adam Reinherz can be reached at areinherz@ pittsburghjewishchronicle.org.

JULY 9, 2021 7

Headlines Staff picks: Summer reading — BOOKS —

By Chronicle Staff

I

t’s summertime, and the livin’ is easy — most definitely easier than last summer, when we were all still basically confined to our homes, avoiding public places, and other people.

Now that most COVID restrictions have been lifted, we at the Chronicle are embracing our newfound freedom to gather with friends, dine at favorite eateries and enjoy live concerts.

But, of course, as always, we are still reading.

Something old, something new, something borrowed, something…true? Here are some of our picks this summer.

“Annihilation,” by Jeff VanderMeer (Fourth Estate, 2014) Jeff VanderMeer’s “Annihilation” is a dystopian story that blurs the lines between reality and imagination. In the novel, four women are sent on an expedition to Area X by government officials. Besides small chunks of knowledge from a past life, the women don’t know how they got to Area X, who they were before or what their mission is supposed to be; all they know is that they must surveil one another’s actions through journal entries.

The leader of the group has a special power: If she renders another team member unfit for the mission, she can use a psychological method to induce annihilation (self-destruction).

But what if one character is immune to her annihilation? Can she stop the team’s leader? What exactly is Area X and why are these four women there? The more questions answered, the more questions readers will have.

The book is told through the eyes of unreliable narrators, and readers are never sure whether the information they are given is accurate or a mirage resulting from a descent into madness. The story is a great read for anyone interested in dystopian literature or ecofeminism. “Annihilation” is the first book of three in the Southern Reach Trilogy.

— Sarah Abrams “The Language Hoax: Why the World Looks the Same in Any Language,”

by John H. McWhorter (Oxford University Press, 2014) This delightful little “manifesto” comes from my favorite linguist, John McWhorter, w h o, t h rou g h books and his podcast, makes the world of linguistics accessible to anyone.

Here McWhorter explains and critiques a fascinating and persistent theory, the

8 JULY 9, 2021

Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, which posits that every language structures the way its native speakers perceive the world, and indeed how they think. Benjamin Lee Whorf, an amateur linguist, first proposed his theory in the 1930s, but it shows remarkable longevity and hold on popular imagination.

The theory sounds appealing, and perhaps even intuitive. Unfortunately for its adherents — but fortunately for the rest of us — McWhorter demonstrates that it’s just not true.

Whorf and others had good intentions, wanting to show that certain indigenous tribes were not inferior to modern Western civilizations by discussing how their languages were, in certain aspects, more complicated than, for example, English.

However, taking a broad sweep of evidence from many languages and cultures, as well as many psychology experiments, McWhorter demonstrates there is no evidence that language determines perception or thought in any meaningful way. It is true that different cultures have different vocabulary depending on the material objects available to them (certain animals or plants, for example) and the social structures in their society (think of politeness terms in Japanese, for example). However, this is a far cry from determining how they think.

Most compelling, though, is that if one accepts the argument that some language speakers have more complex or subtle ways of thinking than, let’s say again for the sake of argument, English speakers, because their languages explicitly express more differences than does English, then one must assert the opposite for speakers of languages that are more stripped down than English.

For example, one would have to claim that speakers of Mandarin Chinese don’t think in as sophisticated a fashion as do English speakers, a claim that is not only offensive, but empirically false.

The book is an energetic romp through linguistics, psychology and anthropology.

— Jim Busis “The Premonition: A Pandemic Story,”

by Michael Lewis (W. W. Norton & Company, 2021) I’ve been hooked on Michael Lewis ever since 2004 when I read “Moneyball.”

Not only was he ahead of the curve (or maybe the slider?) in presaging baseball’s advanced-statistics era, somehow he even made numbers fun.

This time Lewis set out to find who was responsible for the United States’ botched response to the COVID-19 p a n d e m i c , e x p e c t i ng the breadcrumbs to lead directly to former President Donald Trump.

But while neither Trump nor his administration were blameless — far from it — in Lewis’ telling, during his deep dive into the actions that led to the death of thousands of Americans, he found a systemic failure in

government that was years, and administrations, in the making: Because of the gradual politicization of local and national health departments, officials acted as if “First, do no harm” applied to government leaders at the top of the food chain, and determined that the best way to accomplish that goal would be to do nothing at all, to tragic effect. Lewis tells the story through the eyes of multiple state and federal officials who saw it coming and tried to sound the alarm, their efforts resulting in little other than the derailment of their own promising careers.

Yes, reading “The Premonition” is a little like watching a car crash in slow motion, but as with “Moneyball,” Lewis manages to write a page turner nonetheless.

— Gabe Kahn “The Ministry for the Future,”

by Kim Stanley Robinson (Orbit, 2020) Kim St an le y R o bi n s on’s “ The Ministr y for the Future” is a sprawling, decades-spanning novel of speculative fiction. It’s a work of climate fiction that grounds itself thoroughly in hard science so that it feels overwhelmingly relevant; in fact, the opening chapter details a horrific heat wave that eerily and purposefully echoes those that have encompassed the country in the past couple weeks. The book slows near the end — the characters that give the story focus also end up bogging it down — but “The Ministry for the Future” is still an intelligent, optimistic and thoughtful look at the all-too-nonfictional climate crisis.

— James Musial “Hellstrip Gardening: Create a Paradise Between the Sidewalk and the Curb,”

by Evelyn J. Hadden (Timber Press, 2014) E a r l y on in the pandemic my plant c o l l e c t i on bloomed.

Beside my snake plant I placed a m i n i at u r e jade, then a bird of paradise and a Monstera, and then a vining philodendron to hang down over the big leaf philodendron that I had purchased months before I knew my den would become a 16-month-long office/personal substitute for Phipps Conservatory. As the pandemic continued, and my plant collection grew, I snatched up books like a Venus fly trap catches prey. I read Hilton Carter’s “Wild at Home” and “Wild Interiors,” Lauren Camilleri and Sophia Kaplan’s “Indoor Jungle,” Jen Stearns’ “The Inspired Houseplant” and Lisa Eldred Steinkopf ’s “Grow in the Dark.” With each book I better appreciated the importance of plant

PITTSBURGH JEWISH CHRONICLE

placement, lighting and drip trays — especially beneath the pilea and peperomia both situated beside my keyboard. Together, my plants and I weathered the seasons, but at points I wondered which of us living things was faring better. Winter 2021 was difficult. It was cold. There was little sunlight. I should have adjusted my watering routine.

Unfortunately, some of my plants — like a fiddle leaf fig and a ficus tree — didn’t make it. When warmer days arrived, I began a new text: Evelyn J. Hadden’s “Hellstrip Gardening” and took my “talents” east by about 50 feet. I’m still reading it and determining how best to “create a paradise” between sidewalk and curb. It’ll take work to convert that barren plot. Perhaps, I’ll begin by burying the fiddle leaf fig and ficus tree.

— Adam Reinherz “Turning to the Other,” by Donovan Johnson (Wipf & Stock Publishers, 2020); “This Isn’t Happening: Radiohead’s Kid A,” by Steven Hyden (Hachette Books, 2020); “Travels with My Aunt,” by Graham Greene, (Vintage Publishing, 1999, originally published in 1969) I view summer reading as a combat sport. There’s no leisurely trip through a book meant to be read at the beach; rather, I spend my time working through a minimum of three different tomes at once. Each book loosely fits into one of three categories: arts/entertainment, literature or Judaism. My goal is to complete at least 12 books by the time the first leaf falls.

As a proud member of Generation X, much of the music I listen to centers around grunge and college/ alternative rock.

Music critic Steven Hyden’s book, “This Isn’t Happening: Radiohead’s Kid A,” explores the cultural significance of one of the genre’s seminal works. Hyden is an interesting writer, albeit one that uses the pronoun “I” quite a bit and occasionally plays loose with the facts.

Donovan Johnson’s “Turning to the Other” examines Martin Buber’s most famous work, “I and Thou.” It looks more deeply at some of his extra-Jewish influences — including mystic Christianity, Hinduism and Buddhism — than I’ve seen in other works. It also places the writer and lecturer in relation to other philosophers, most prominently Max Scheler and Søren Kierkegaard.

Please see Books, page 21

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Headlines Dozens of Jewish groups plan Washington rally to raise awareness of antisemitism — NATIONAL —

By JNS Staff and Toby Tabachnick | Editor

D

ozens of national and local Jewish organizations are banning together for “No Fear: A Rally in Solidarity With the Jewish People,” to be held on July 11 in Washington, D.C., to raise awareness about growing antisemitism in person and online.

The rally will feature Rabbi Jeffrey Myers of the Tree of Life Congregation; Israeli actress and author Noa Tishby; and Elisha Wiesel, son of the late Holocaust survivor and Nobel laureate Elie Wiesel. Groups from Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore and other major metropolitan areas plan to attend the 1 p.m. event on the west side of Capitol Hill. Free busing is being provided from several East Coast cities.

Myers — whose congregation was one of three targeted in an antisemitic massacre here on Oct. 27, 2018 — lamented the fact that a rally against antisemitism is necessary in 21st-century America.

“How tragic that we have to have a rally for this,” he told the Chronicle. “In America of all places, aren’t we done with antisemitism and so forth? The answer is ‘no.’”

While Myers hesitated prior to accepting the invitation to speak at the rally — it’s a long drive, he said, and he will only be speaking for approximately five minutes — he recognized he had a responsibility to share words with those present, and to say “Dayenu.”

“I recognize that what happened at Tree of Life is a national symbol, a national horror, that this could happen in this day and age,” he said.

“This is not just about Jews.

This is about all minorities.”

When an “oppressive group goes after Jews,” Myers continued, history shows that other groups are also in danger, and that there is “moral decay in the country. We need to put our  Rabbi Hazzan Jeffrey Myers will speak at a rally voices out there and reach out against antisemitism in Washington, D.C. on July 11. in friendship to other maligned

Photo by Joshua Franzos groups to work together to end The perpetuation of antisemitism, as this infection.”

“As antisemitic attacks have become more well as other forms of racism and bigotry, “speaks to the failure of America to welcome frequent without commensurate responses immigrants,” Myers continued. “This goes from elected officials or other leaders, back to the earliest days. America never concern in the Jewish community and among our allies has reached a fever pitch,” welcomed immigrants.”

said Melissa Landa, director of Alliance for Israel, which is spearheading the rally. “In my role as the director of a grassroots organization, I am contacted by people all over the country sharing their experiences with antisemitism and their frustrations that not enough is being done. So I decided to do something about it and call for a rally.”

She added that the Sunday gathering “represents a broad coalition of organizations that oppose antisemitism — crossing religious, racial, political and denominational boundaries, bringing together all who want their voices to be heard in the nation’s capital.”

Among the co-sponsors are the Anti-Defamation League, American Jewish Committee, B’nai Brith International, Jewish National Fund, Hadassah, Israel Forever Foundation, the Jewish Federation of North America, StandWithUs, World Jewish Congress of North America, Birthright Israel and the Combat Antisemitism Movement.

The Orthodox Union, Rabbinical Assembly, United Synagogues of Conservative Judaism, Union for Reform Judaism and dozens of other organizations are also lending their support. PJC Toby Tabachnick can be reached at ttabachnick@pittsburghjewishchronicle.org.

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JULY 9, 2021 9

Headlines — WORLD — From JTA reports

Polish rallygoer who led chants about hanging ‘Zionists’ sentenced to 1 year in jail

Two ultranationalists in Poland were sentenced to prison in connection with a 2016 rally that featured chants about hanging “Zionists.”

One of the participants at the rally in Bialystok was given a 12-month term — an unusually stiff punishment for such an offense in Poland — by the Criminal Tribunal in Warsaw, Onet reported. The court imposed a six-month suspended sentence on the other rallygoer. The defendants were not named in the Polish media.

The defendant who received the harsher sentence had led chants about how “Zionists will hang from the trees instead of leaves” at the rally, which also featured anti-Muslim chants, the court said. The chants were considered racist incitement to violence.

The court also acquitted five others charged in connection with the rally organized by the ultranationalist group ONR. In recent years, disputes over World War II history and Holocaust restitution have soured relations between Israel and Poland, as well as Poland’s relations with Jewish groups and even the United States.

In 2018, Poland’s right-wing government passed controversial legislation that outlawed JC Oticonthe Man Looking Down_Eartique 4/27/21 blaming Polish nation for Nazi crimes,

triggering a diplomatic crisis with Israel, which protested the law as limiting free speech and Holocaust research on Polish complicity.

Demands by Jewish groups that Poland offer compensation for all Jewish-owned property that was confiscated after the Holocaust further strained relations, leading to the passing of a bill that makes most such claims inadmissible.

That issue has fueled anti-Jewish and anti-Israel rhetoric and actions in Poland in recent years.

Two Republican state lawmakers liken coronavirus protections to Nazi laws

Republican lawmakers in Washington state and Alaska likened coronavirus mandates to Nazi laws — a phenomenon that Holocaust remembrance and Jewish groups have said is offensive.

State Rep. Jim Walsh of Washington wore a yellow star in a speech to conservative activists in Lacey.

“It’s an echo from history,” Walsh wrote on a Facebook page where the event was recorded, The Seattle Times reported. “In the current context, we’re all Jews.”

Walsh later apologized on a conservative radio talk show.

“This gesture went too far,” he said on the Jason Rantz show on KTTH AM 770, adding, “It was inappropriate and offensive.

I’m terribly sorry that it happened and that I was a part of it.”

Washington does not require vaccinations, 9:49 Page 1 must verify that employees butAM employers

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are vaccinated before lifting mask mandates.

In Alaska, state Rep. Ron Gillham posted on Facebook a photo of Nazis being executed, the Anchorage Daily News reported.

“Members of the Media who lied and misled the German People were executed, right along with Medical Doctors and Nurses who participated in medical experiments using living people as guinea pigs,” Gillham wrote. “Those who forget the past are condemned to relive it.”

Gillham removed the post when the local media informed him that it was a photo of Nazis being executed in Ukraine in 1946.

The lawmaker told the media he removed the post only because the photo was inaccurate and that he was not advocating for executing media, but for accountability.

Alaska does not mandate vaccinations, although its government encourages them.

A number of Republicans across the country have drawn fire for likening coronavirus protections to the Nazi era. U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., apologized for making the comparison.

Speaking of Walsh, Dee Simon, the director of the Seattle-based Holocaust Center for Humanity, told The Seattle Times: “Our government is making an effort to protect their own citizens, not kill them.”

Yale student council approves statement accusing Israel of ‘genocide’ and ‘apartheid’

Yale’s student council approved a statement authored by a campus pro-Palestinian group accusing Israel of genocide, ethnic

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

July 9, 1959 — Wadi Salib riots begin

Riots break out in the Haifa neighborhood of Wadi Salib, largely populated by impoverished North African immigrants, after police shoot Yaakov Elkarif while trying to arrest him for being drunk and disorderly.

July 10, 1957 — Yiddish writer Sholem Asch dies

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Yiddish novelist and playwright Sholem Asch dies at age 76 in London. A native of Poland, he wrote about the Jewish connection to the Land of Israel and lived his last two years in Bat Yam near Tel Aviv.

July 11, 1927 — Jericho earthquake kills 300-plus

An earthquake kills 300 to 500 people and injures at least 700 others. The disaster is known as the Jericho earthquake of 1927, although later research locates the epicenter about 30 miles south by the Dead Sea.

July 12, 2006 — Second Lebanon war starts The last stop you’ll make in successful hearing aid use

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cleansing and apartheid.

Two campus Jewish groups condemned the statement as having “antisemitic overtones.”

The Yale College Council, the undergraduate student government, approved the statement first authored by Yalies 4 Palestine, in an 8-3 vote with four abstentions, the Forward reported. Yalies 4 Palestine released the statement during the Israel-Gaza conflict.

“As Yale students, we condemn the injustice, ethnic cleansing and genocide occurring in Palestine,” it said.

The statement also likened Israel’s actions during the conflict to police violence against Black Americans.

“Just as Israel’s military imposes the apartheid system against Palestinians, the US police enforces the system of white supremacy against Black Americans,” it said.

A number of left-leaning campus groups subsequently endorsed the statement.

A group of anti-Zionist Jewish students and alumni released their own statement endorsing the Yalies 4 Palestine statement.

The campus Hillel rallied against the resolution and, once it was adopted, condemned it as having “antisemitic overtones.”

“It characterizes the Jewish state as an agent of the world’s most reprehensible forces and guilty of the most unspeakable crimes — in other words, demonically,” the Forward quoted the Hillel response as saying. “This genealogy may be invisible to its authors and adherents because the outsized perfidy they ascribe to the Jewish state is formulated in distinctly contemporary terms — but is clear, terrifying, and familiar to us.” PJC

The monthlong Second Lebanon War begins when Hezbollah uses a

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bombardment of rockets and mortars as a diversion for a cross-border raid that kills three Israeli soldiers and abducts two others.

July 13, 1941 — Songwriter Ehud Manor is born

Is r a e l Prizew i n n i n g singer-songwriter Ehud Manor is born in Binyamina. Manor composes about 1,200 songs and translates 600 others into Hebrew. He also translates musicals and Shakespearean plays.

July 14, 1958 — Coup ousts Iraqi king

Iraqi army officers overthrow and kill King Faisal. The United Arab Republic, the EgyptSyria union, quickly signs a defense pact with the new Iraqi government, posing a new military threat to Israel.

July 15, 1965 — Rabin warns against diversion of Jordan River

The Israel Defense Forces’ chief of staff, Yitzhak Rabin, warns Lebanon and Syria they will face consequences if they move forward with an effort to divert the sources of the Jordan River via canal. PJC

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Headlines Arizona passes long-delayed Holocaust education bill after sidelining debate over antisemitism definitions — NATIONAL —

By Nicole Raz | Jewish News of Greater Phoenix via JTA

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hen Michael Beller set out three years ago to get a law passed in Arizona requiring Holocaust education in public schools, the response he got was clear: “People told me this would never happen.

They were like, ‘Not now, not ever. It will never happen in Arizona.’ And that was inside the Jewish community and out,” he said.

But on Wednesday, it happened.

After a rollercoaster ride in the State Legislature — including a debate over a controversial definition of antisemitism — the bill is now headed to Gov. Doug Ducey’s office.

With the Republican’s signature, Arizona’s public schools will be required to teach about the Holocaust and other genocides at least twice between seventh and 12th grades.

According to the Phoenix Holocaust Association and Arizona State University academics, Arizona will be the 16th state to require Holocaust education by statute.

“So many people from so many different parts of the state invested countless hours over the last few years to make sure that this happens,” said Beller, who co-founded Arizona Teaching the Holocaust for the sole purpose of mandating Holocaust education in Arizona.

Arizona House Rep. Alma Hernandez, the Jewish Democrat who introduced the bill, called the passage a “big win for our community.”

“I have never been prouder to be an elected official and a Jew in Arizona,” she said.

“Knowing that all Arizona students will learn about the Holocaust gives me hope and restores

should know about that,” he said. “If it happens once, it can happen again.”

The long-in-the-works bill had been on the verge of being derailed — ironically, by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s definition of antisemitism. The IHRA definition, which is legally non-binding but remains controversial for including some forms of anti-Israel speech among its examples of antisemitism, was a last-minute addition to the Holocaust education bill. Republican state Senator Paul Boyer had pushed for the inclusion; he wound up being one of only two dissenting Senate votes to the final version of the bill, which did not include the definition.

“Passing the bill without the IHRA definition would leave our legislative intent unfulfilled and vulnerable to exploitation,” Boyer said in April, adding that passage would “create a real possibility of seeing the Holocaust education curriculum corrupted in ways that could ironically boost contemporary antisemitism rather than combat it.”

In support of that idea, he pointed to California’s recent passage of its Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum. Jewish organizations had complained that p From left: Arizona Teaching the Holocaust co-founder Michael Beller, Alexander White, the first draft of California’s curricArizona State Rep. Alma Hernandez and Oskar Knoblauch. White and Knoblauch, both ulum ignored the American-Jewish Holocaust survivors, testified on behalf of legislation that would mandate Holocaust education in the state.

Photo courtesy of Michael Beller experience and included antisemitic language and anti-Israel sections. my faith in humanity because we must teach alongside Beller, Hernandez and other “One need look no further than the the past to ensure it never happens again.” groups to see it through. Its passage means unrelenting attempts to turn California’s Alexander White, a 97-year-old Holocaust “a great deal” to him.

Ethnic Studies curriculum into a vehicle survivor who lives in Scottsdale, testified in “The Holocaust is a prototype of man’s Please see Arizona, page 15 support of the bill and has been working inhumanity to man, and young people

Israel and South Korea sign COVID-19 vaccine pact — WORLD —

By JNS Staff

Photo by geargodz via iStock Photo

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srael and South Korea signed a COVID-19 vaccine supply agreement on Tuesday, allowing for more effective use of present and future inventories for both countries.

Under the deal, Israel will transfer about 700,000 doses of the Pfizer vaccine to South Korea by the end of July. South Korea has suffered a slow vaccine rollout due to global shortages and delivery delays.

In exchange, South Korea will deliver an identical quantity of vaccines to Israel from a future order in September and October.

Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett praised the agreement as a “win-win deal.”

“South Korea will receive vaccines from our existing stocks and we will receive vaccines from their future shipment. Thus, we are plugging the holes, and we will ensure that the State of Israel has a proper stock of vaccines,” he said in a statement.

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Israel faced the prospect of having to throw out hundreds of thousands of coronavirus vaccines if it couldn’t find a country

willing to buy them before they expired.

On June 18, the Palestinian Authority canceled a similar deal to the one between

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Israel and South Korea, claiming that the expiration date on the initial shipment was earlier than had been agreed upon.

Under the terms of the deal, Israel was to have supplied the P.A. with up to 1.4 million doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine in exchange for a resupply of the same number of doses from the P.A. later in the year, reported Reuters.

The agreement with South Korea will take effect “upon the completion of all processes,” including testing of the vaccines after their arrival, according to the official Israeli statement about the deal.

The agreement was led by the Health Ministry in cooperation with the Foreign Ministry, the National Security Council and the Prime Minister’s Office, with the knowledge of Pfizer, according to the statement.

Bennett spoke with Pfizer chairman and CEO Albert Bourla several times recently in order to facilitate the deal and in regard to the formation of future vaccines policy. PJC JULY 9, 2021 11

Opinion Ilhan Omar is a blight on the Democratic Party — EDITORIAL —

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e have had enough of the self-righteous, ill-informed and antisemitic rhetoric of Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.). Democratic leadership in Congress needs to take meaningful action in response to her relentless and wholly unsupported attacks on Israel and the Jewish people, similar to the decisive action Republicans took in response to the ravings of Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.).

Democrat inaction on Omar is inexcusable.

The history of Omar’s rants — complete with antisemitic tropes — is well known.

But in response, Democrats have been hesitant to do much at all. That soft-gloved approach hasn’t worked. More forceful action is needed.

She is unrelentingly critical of the State of Israel and supportive of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement. And she regularly issues remarkably uninformed statements and accusatory pronouncements against Israel, American Jews and Jewish members of Congress, only to walk them back and invite “dialogue” when challenged.

In her latest outburst, Omar lumped the United States, Israel, Hamas and the Taliban together, claiming each has committed atrocities and should be held accountable for their “crimes against humanity.” A group of Jewish House members criticized her for “equating the United States and Israel to Hamas and the Taliban.” Then, on CNN, Jake Tapper asked Omar if she understands why some of her Democratic House colleagues, “especially Jews,” find some of

her statements antisemitic. Her response was outrageous. She said: “I’ve welcomed, you know, anytime my colleagues have asked to have a conversation, to learn from them, for them to learn from me. I think it’s really important for these members to realize that they haven’t been partners in justice. They haven’t been, you know, equally engaging in seeking justice around the world.”

Is Omar really that ignorant?

Writing in Newsweek, David Harris of the American Jewish Committee pointed to a pattern that has followed similar offensive statements by Omar. “First, she (or someone on her behalf) insists she was misunderstood or her comments taken out of context. … Then, rather than debate the merits of the issue, she and her defenders resort to belittling anyone who would question her as a ‘right-winger,’ ‘racist,’

‘misogynist’ or ‘Islamophobe.’ Next, she offers vague assurances that she really wants to listen, learn and grow from any possible incidents, offering those who want to move on as swiftly as possible the hope that perhaps this won’t happen again — until, of course, it does.”

We say Dayenu. In 2019, Omar was to be censured by Congress for remarks suggesting Jews had dual loyalty to the United States and Israel. Instead, her colleagues blunted the criticism by approving a watered down resolution condemning “anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, racism and other forms of bigotry,” but carefully avoided any mention of Omar by name. That didn’t work.

We call on Democratic leadership to censure Omar for the bigoted, unrepentant antisemite she is, and to sanction her accordingly. PJC

The Surfside tragedy recalls South Florida’s long hold on the Jewish imagination and reality Guest Columnist Thane Rosenbaum

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ntil a 13-story building inexplicably collapsed in the middle of the night, placing the whereabouts and lives of 159 residents in doubt, few gave Surfside, Florida, very much thought before last month. The town was, after all, a South Florida misnomer. There’s no surfing.

The white caps on the Atlantic Ocean never provide enough tubular lift. The people of Surfside skew older. Nearly half its 6,000 residents are Jewish, and of those, many are Orthodox.

You can call Surfside sleepy, but even that wouldn’t describe it. Nothing truly special had ever happened there. Now, with a tragedy so titanic — and still unfolding — its name will become synonymous with misery.

To the casual observer, Surfside was a breakaway township from its more widely known neighbor, Miami Beach, just to its south. Those over the border on Miami Beach, and in Bal Harbour, the village to Surfside’s immediate north, for many decades had good reason to regard themselves as South Florida’s very own Old City of Jerusalem — a mixed enclave with a major Jewish quarter, and a bit more decadence.

Surfside didn’t have the Art Deco Jazz Age sparkle or swinger elegance that the Eden Roc and Fontainebleau hotels offered back in the 1950s into the ’70s. In Surfside, the Americana was the swankiest hotel. It once showcased a very young Jackson 5, long before any Billie Jean took notice of Michael.

A rare excitement, but the town’s residents didn’t beg for more. Surfside enjoyed the stillness — on land and sea.

I know about Surfside. I grew up on 74th Street on Miami Beach. The horrific spectacle that FEMA declared to be a national emergency site is on 87th Street. By the time the Champlain Towers was built in

12 JULY 9, 2021

1981, I had long decamped for college and then New York.

I frequently return to Miami Beach, but mostly in my imagination. Many of my novels have featured scenes with Miami Beach as the backdrop. My last one, “How Sweet It Is!,” selected by the City of Miami Beach as its Centennial Book, is a nostalgic return to 1972 — a valentine, I call it — when Miami Beach was, oddly, the center of the world.

During that summer, Miami Beach hosted both the Democratic and Republican nominating conventions. Unlike the infamous Democratic National Convention in Chicago in 1968, the Miami Beach police somehow avoided clubbing the heads of Vietnam War protesters.

Jackie Gleason, who no longer had his TV variety show — once filmed live on Miami Beach — was palling around with his buddy, Frank Sinatra, who had recently retired — for the first time. You could find them drinking in hotels along Collins Avenue, recapturing the easy camaraderie of their younger days at Toots Shor’s saloon near the Theater District in Manhattan.

The cavalcade of stars did not stop there.

Muhammad Ali sparred at Angelo Dundee’s 5th Street Gym and did speed work on the quicksand of the beach — in heavy sweat clothes. He was trying to reclaim the heavyweight championship forfeited when he conscientiously objected to fighting the Vietcong.

Meyer Lansky, the notorious Jewish gangster who two years later would be fictionalized in “The Godfather Part II,” had in 1972 just been extradited from Israel back to Miami Beach to stand trial for tax fraud. He would spend his days at Wolfie’s Restaurant on 21st Street surrounded by an aging crew of Jewish wise guys still smarting over Fidel Castro’s takeover of their Havana casinos in 1959.

All of them appear in “How Sweet It Is!” (yes, Gleason’s signature signoff), reimagined, of course — along with one more special guest. The Yiddish novelist Isaac Bashevis Singer, not long thereafter a recipient of the Nobel Prize for Literature, was spending the

winters in Surfside. While there he unsparingly fictionalized the Jews of Poland before the Holocaust, and those who survived and lived in New York thereafter, capturing their comical lives of heartbreak, betrayal and loss.

Ensconced just over the Miami Beach city line, situated right in between two Jewish enclaves populated with those who had fled or escaped one hardship or another, Singer made a canny choice for a writer with a gravitational pull for the shortcomings and desperate moral choices of humankind.

One wonders what he might have written about the Champlain Towers today, a short distance from his own apartment.

All the avenues of Surfside were named for American and British authors. (Just west of the Champlain are Carlyle, Dickens, Irving and Emerson avenues.) Eventually a street would be named for him. He must have enjoyed the irony that some of the hotels of Surfside once restricted Jews. One shamelessly boasted, “Always a view, never a Jew.” Singer strolled the sunbaked landscape in a white suit and impish teardrop fedora.

Always taking notes, he fiercely studied and measured the patterns of these transplanted Jews: melting snowbirds and Holocaust survivors looking to the sun to cure memories of more ashen, cloudier days; widows and divorcees looking for a male ticket back to the Northeast or out of loneliness; young families tired of the transit strikes and crime waves of New York; Hasidim who dressed in the sweltering Sunshine State as if still in Lublin; and vaudevillians wearing makeup suitable to the burlesque surroundings of Miami Beach.

All of them immortalized in Kodak color, or in the pages of “My Love Affair with Miami Beach,” a book of photos by Richard Nagler, for which Singer wrote the introduction in 1990. Imagine them as Singer once did: plotting affairs, swatting tennis balls, staring at stock tickers, clacking mah jongg tiles, gliding discs along shuffleboard courts and gesturing wildly about socialism.

“For me, a vacation in Miami Beach was a chance to be among my own people,” Singer wrote.

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He found them sitting on the Broadway medians and inside the cafeterias on the Upper West Side, too, of course. But the Jews from Miami Beach were somehow of a different species — and not only because they were more prone to skin cancer.

It was a Shangri-La of Jewish misadventure, a shtetl still trembling but without Cossacks, the Chosen People out of choices, the detour of a once wandering tribe — finally at rest in and around sleepy Surfside.

And now it is home to new waves of Jews, reflecting the area’s diversity: retirees, of course, but also younger and wealthier Jewish families, many drawn to a booming Chabad; a large cohort of Hispanic Jews with feet in North and Latin America; a smattering of Israelis; and more Sephardic Jews than the national average.

The residents of the Champlain Towers were asleep until a nightmare roused them.

In time, this beachside plot will become another reminder of senseless Jewish death in America — acts of hate, or negligence, or of God: the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire in Manhattan and the massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida; the Leo Frank lynching, The Temple bombing in Atlanta, the Crown Heights riots; and the antisemitic shootings at the Jewish Community Center of Los Angeles and Jewish Federation of Seattle, and then at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh and Chabad synagogue in Poway, California.

At times like these, disasters, whether unnatural or manmade, leave the same feelings of loss.

Miami Beach has served as a refuge for some, and as a playground for others.

An infinite coastline of condos always seemed to be rising from the sand. Today, unimaginably, we know that one can come crashing down. PJC Thane Rosenbaum is a novelist, the author of “How Sweet It Is!,” “The Golems of Gotham,” “Second Hand Smoke” and “Elijah Vislble,” among other works of fiction and nonfiction.

This piece first appeared on JTA. PITTSBURGHJEWISHCHRONICLE.ORG

Opinion My faith celebrates LGBTQ people.

Our nation should at least respect them.

Guest Columnist Rabbi Keren Gorban

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s a religious leader in western Pennsylvania, I am hoping that Sens.

Pat Toomey and Bob Casey can lead the way in finding common ground to ensure fairness and equality for all Americans. For decades, Congress has shirked its responsibility to protect the LGBTQ community — but with both parties now offering proposals to add nondiscrimination protections to the law, 2021 could finally be the year to change that. I’m looking to Sens. Toomey and Casey to join together to help hammer out the details of this crucial legislation.

For the past six years I‘ve served as associate rabbi at Temple Sinai in Squirrel Hill. We are a Reform Jewish congregation with a long tradition of being a spiritual and religious home for LGBTQ people and their families.

Our Pride Tribe — a group for LGBTQidentified congregants — offers a safe community in which to find support, share challenges and celebrate blessings. Thanks to their leadership, Temple Sinai holds an annual

Pride Shabbat service and has also hosted several Pride Seders, using the framework and rituals of Passover to celebrate Pride Month.

Since the Pride Tribe’s inception, Temple Sinai has been more intentional about celebrating the blessings that LGBTQ-identified folks bring to our community while also letting that identity be just one part of who they are.

Even in a congregation with longstanding values and practices that are inclusive, coming out is not always a seamless experience for our LGBTQ folks. Some of our transgender congregants, in particular, have voiced concerns about how they would be received by the wider congregation. I’m often reminded of a conversation with a gay friend, in high school, who confided in me his anxieties about coming out to his family. He just wanted to know that he belonged and was loved and respected, regardless of being gay. My goal is to ensure that each of my congregants, regardless of gender, gender expression or sexual orientation, feels loved, respected and that they belong.

The apprehension that some LGBTQ people have about being visible even in an inclusive community is understandable given what I hear about difficulties they’ve faced on the job or in other aspects of everyday life — even in a city as diverse as Pittsburgh.

I’ve also learned that discrimination has

profoundly damaging consequences for LGBTQ Americans nationwide. One in three, according to a 2020 survey, experienced discrimination — in public spaces, on the job, in schools and in their own neighborhoods — just in the previous year.

That number rises to 60% among transgender people, who experience exceptionally high levels of unemployment, poverty and homelessness. They are also stalked by violence, with a record 44 hate-motivated murders nationwide last year.

Black and Latino LGBTQ folks face greater poverty rates than communities of color generally. Less than half the states protect LGBTQ youth from bullying in school and even fewer offer nondiscrimination protections. Elders often find themselves having to re-closet themselves, with nearly half of same-sex couples reporting discrimination in seeking senior housing.

LGBTQ Pennsylvanians still enjoy no statewide nondiscrimination protections, and there is no law protecting youth from school bullying or harassment, either.

But there is now hope that Congress might finally act. For the first time, both Democrats and Republicans have put forward measures that add LGBTQ protections to our nation’s civil rights laws. The major disagreement

between the two parties involves balancing the urgent need to protect LGBTQ people with the religious freedoms we cherish.

The Jewish community has always appreciated the religious freedom at the core of American life. But, integral to our tradition is the rock-solid belief that religion can never be used as an excuse to negate people’s identities, to vilify them or to make them unequal under civil law.

Finding a path to balance competing values is what legislators do when committed to solving problems. Sens. Toomey and Casey can look to the 21 states — including our neighbors Maryland, New Jersey and New York — with laws that prohibit anti-LGBTQ discrimination without compromising religious freedoms.

Washington can follow suit, with senators reaching across the aisle to end the divisive pattern that pits religious liberties against the rights of LGBTQ Americans. Every major civil rights advance, from the 1964 Civil Rights Act to the Americans With Disabilities Act, has found the appropriate balance.

Sens. Toomey and Casey: A half million LGBTQ Pennsylvanians, their families and their friends are counting on you. PJC Rabbi Keren Gorban is associate rabbi at Temple Sinai.

The enduring message of the rescue at Entebbe Guest Columnist Daniel Mariaschin

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ast month, I participated in a conference for young adults on the current Jewish agenda, hosted by the Jewish community of Oporto, Portugal.

Three of the speakers were asked if they thought there could ever be another Holocaust.

The answers were uniformly “not likely,” the reasoning being that we are now living, after two millennia, in an era when there is not only a sovereign Jewish state, but one with the wherewithal to be a haven for those escaping oppression and the ability to project its military and other forces to save and protect those in danger.

The recent 45th anniversary of the rescue of Israeli hostages being held by terrorists at Entebbe, Uganda, is perhaps the best case in point.

That story began on June 27, 1976, when terrorists connected to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and Germany’s radical Revolutionary Cells organization hijacked, on a stopover in Athens, an Air France Airbus A300 flight from Tel Aviv to Paris. The terrorists demanded the plane fly to the airport in Entebbe, where demands were made for the release of 53 Palestinian prisoners being held in Israel and several other countries.

At Entebbe, 148 non-Jewish hostages were separated from the 94 Jewish passengers,

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The biblical injunction pidyon shvuyim, or redemption of those taken prisoner or hostage, was clearly on the minds of those who planned and carried out this historic mission. most of them Israeli nationals, and the Air France crew. The non-Jewish hostages were released within two days; the terrorists made clear the Jewish passengers would be killed if their demands were not met. The Ugandan government, led by its infamous leader Idi Amin, announced its support for the hijackers, punctuated with an appearance by Amin himself in the airport terminal hall in which the hostages were being held.

That set into motion an intricate rescue plan conceived by the Israel Defense Forces and the Mossad, which sent, on July 3 and 4, some 100 commandos over 2,500 miles, flying at night, to rescue those being held.

The 90-minute raid was successful, though Lt. Col. Yonatan Netanyahu, who led the raid on the ground, and three hostages, including Dora Bloch — a passenger who had been taken earlier to a local hospital and later killed — lost their lives in the operation. In the raid, seven terrorists were killed.

Without exaggeration, it was a glorious moment in Jewish history — one of those “where were you when you heard about…?” instances that you recall as if it were yesterday.

That day, I was at Boston’s Hatch Memorial Shell on the Charles River, on the first date with my wife-to-be, taking in the Boston Pops Orchestra celebrating America’s bicentennial. (It was an extraordinary month for Israel; Miss Israel, Rina Messinger, would be crowned Miss Universe at the competition being held in Hong Kong a week later.)

The message of the Entebbe rescue immediately resonated.

The separation of Jewish passengers from all others, coming 31 years after the Holocaust, recalled Nazi-like tactics still fresh in the minds of Jews, and especially survivors of that barbarity.

This was an era of airline hijackings and high-profile terrorist attacks, many of which

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were carried out in Europe. The message that Israel’s long arm could be projected anywhere to rescue not only Israelis but Jews in danger reset the counter-terrorism table.

The rescue also instilled pride in Israel among Jews worldwide. Even today, people still shake their heads in amazement that daunting logistical challenges were overcome in such a short period to allow the operation to take place. This came only three years after the Yom Kippur War, which, though Israel was ultimately victorious, had shaken the confidence of some after setbacks for the Jewish state in the early days of fighting in that conflict.

That said, the rescue at Entebbe should not have come to us as a complete surprise.

The biblical injunction pidyon shvuyim, or redemption of those taken prisoner or hostage, was clearly on the minds of those who planned and carried out this historic mission.

I can think of other Israeli-organized or led operations, perhaps somewhat less daring but equally essential, that redeemed Jews in peril: Operation Magic Carpet (also known as Operation on Eagles’ Wings), which airlifted more than 50,000 Jews, mainly from Yemen, to Israel in 1949; more than 120,000 Jews were airlifted from Iraq in Operation Ezra and Nehemiah; and 1991’s Operation Solomon, which in a 36-hour timeframe brought nearly 15,000 Ethiopian Jews to Israel.

For two millennia, Jews lived either at Please see Mariaschin, page 15

JULY 9, 2021 13

Headlines Camp: Continued from page 1

those conversations, as well as guidance from the state, Friedman — who serves as rabbi of Bnai Emunoh Chabad in Greenfield and director of Gan Israel — developed a pandemic plan, which includes parents completing daily COVID questionnaires.

Even with a reliable plan in place, months of shifting statewide regulations made preparing for summer 2021 challenging, said Friedman.

And, because Gan Israel is a day camp — as opposed to a “sealed” overnight environment — “every day kids are coming from different homes and going to different homes,” he said.

As part of Gan Israel’s pandemic plan, and in order to mitigate risk, campers are podded. Keeping small groups separate from one another ensures that in case of a COVID-positive test, the likelihood of spread decreases, Friedman said.

Rabbi Sam Weinberg, Hillel Academy of Pittsburgh’s principal, said that risk mitigation strategies have been discussed since the start of the pandemic, well before the June 28 start of Camp Hillel. Frequent conversations with Hillel Academy’s medical advisory team enabled students to safely enjoy in-person instruction during the past school year and will now allow campers to experience a “fun and adventurous summer,” said Weinberg.

“For our campers and staff, safety was the number one concern,” he said, “but we also

wanted to make sure that everyone could create memories that would last a lifetime.”

Rachael Speck, director of JCC Day Camps, agreed that the past 16 months offered valuable lessons when it came to preparing for this summer. Along with operating a full program last summer, during which there were no COVID-positive cases at camp, she said the JCC successfully ran its All Day at the J program throughout the school year, with only a few COVID-positive cases and no spread.

Prior to the start of its programming for summer 2021, the JCC “pressure tested” every aspect of camp. And although campers will be in close contact with fellow members of their cohort, “we are putting extra measures in place,” Speck said.

Along with masking and distancing, campers at James & Rachel Levinson Day Camp are grouped together in small cohorts.

Additionally, Speck said, “an adjusted daily schedule allows for extra time for hand sanitizing between activities.”

Point Breeze resident Rachel Firestone has two sons at J&R Day Camp, and she praised the JCC’s ability to deliver safe and meaningful summer experiences. Between the health questionnaires parents must complete each morning, and the daily temperature checks each camper receives prior to boarding the bus to camp, Firestone said she is assured the JCC is committed to keeping people safe.

“This is what we expect from the JCC,

p Josh Firestone enjoys the pool at J&R Day Camp.

and why in the community they are so trusted,” she said.

Families have placed a lot of confidence in summer camps this year, according to Gan Israel’s Friedman, and he said that the planning, protocols and current requirements to keep camp COVID-free are well worth the cost.

TOL: Continued from page 1

dissipated by what happened there,” she said.

Tree of Life member Judah Samet is a Holocaust survivor, and, because he arrived 10 minutes late for services on Oct. 27, a survivor of the attack at the building. Tree of Life is his “home and life,” he said.

“I wish I could have gone there the last two years.”

Still, he understands why some people may be hesitant to return to the building, but thinks it’s important to rebuild and allow those families who wish to attend services there again the opportunity to do so.

Joe Charny has been a member of Tree of Life for more than two decades and was in the building during the massacre. His attachment to the building runs deep and he believes the congregation ought to remain at the corner of Shady and Wilkins.

“That’s my building,” he said. “I was there when the thing happened. There’s no reason we can’t use that building. In fact, it’s what I think we should do. To go somewhere else makes no sense.”

Like Charny, many survivors and their families are adamant that the building should be rebuilt at its present site, but others aren’t so sure.

“There are some of us in our group… we’re from three different congregations, so there are different opinions among us,” said Glickman.

Barry Werber survived the shooting by hiding in a dark storage closet with Carol Black and Melvin Wax. He called 911 and remained in the pitch-black space after Wax stepped out and was shot and killed and the murderer made a cursory pass through the closet.

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 The Tree of Life building, following the massacre

Werber, a member of New Light Congregation, has only been back to the site once. He now worships with other New Light members at their current home in Congregation Beth Shalom At his only visit to the Tree of Life building following the attack, he walked through its halls with his wife, his psychiatrist and a security person, “simply for my own mental wellbeing — to remove any chains this guy had on me,” he said. “You know, any fears to walk in, and especially, to walk out of the building.”

Werber remembered a conversation he had recently with another survivor of the attack, who also took the emotional trip back to the building and said he returned to the site “not as a house of worship, but simply to be able to walk back in and out under his own steam,” Werber recounted.

Photo by Adam Reinherz

“That’s how I felt.”

Werber was also on the Zoom call with Libeskind, and said there were different opinions about the rebuild among the survivors and families.

“There’s an old saying: You have six Jews in a room, you get 12 ways to solve a problem,” he said. “That’s where we’re at. There’s the survivors’ group, the relatives’ group, the family group. Then you have three different synagogues…There’s a lot of chaff thrown in the air, and you wonder where it’s all going to land.”

Werber said he thinks it’s a great idea to rebuild the synagogue and that it makes sense for partners like the Holocaust Center of Pittsburgh and area universities to make use of the building.

However, he said, “I don’t think that I could view the place as a house of worship.”

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Photo courtesy of Rachel Firestone

“Being together with people again is just amazing to see,” he said. “People forget how amazing it is to be social. Getting it back is important.” PJC Adam Reinherz can be reached at areinherz@ pittsburghjewishchronicle.org.

Werber said the shooting has left him with mental scars. He no longer enters a building without checking the location of the exits, and he won’t sit with his back to a public door.

Regardless of how the site is rebuilt, to Werber it will always remain a memorial.

“They could flatten it, make it a parking lot and it will be that site,” Werber said. “I made that quite clear when I spoke with the architect.”

Rabbi Doris Dyen survived the massacre because she arrived at the Tree of Life building just after the shooting began and was cautioned to stay away. The Congregation Dor Hadash member said she thinks practically about the fate of the building.

“People are concerned that there will be a memorial of some kind, whether it’s on that premises or not,” Dyen said. “The word that keeps coming back is ‘respectful acknowledgement’ of what happened there.”

Glickman, of Tree of Life, has some other ideas of what they should do with the site.

“We should be putting in a daycare, something that points to the future, because that’s how we continue as a congregation,” she said.

Marc Simon’s parents, Sylvan and Bernice, were both murdered at Tree of Life, where they were members. Marc Simon said that while the rebuilding project is in its infancy, he hopes the congregation will flourish.

“As longtime members who were married there many years ago, that is what my parents would also desire,” Simon said. “In their rebuilding process, I am hopeful and very confident that Tree of Life will honor in a meaningful and dignified manner the lives and memories of our 11 beautiful and loving souls that were taken from us on Oct. 27, 2018.” PJC David Rullo can be reached at drullo@ pittsburghjewishchronicle.org.

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Headlines Arizona: Continued from page 11

for antisemitic propaganda. How long will it take for antisemitic predators to show up wishing to invert the memory of the Holocaust with their comparisons of Israel to the Nazis?” Boyer said.

During debate, even some supporters of the IHRA definition, such as Rep. Hernandez, opposed including it in the Holocaust education bill. “Proponents of the IHRA definition, of which I am one, should run separate legislation, as opposed to attempting to seize this bill,” she said at the time.

Boyer declined to comment on the bill’s passage. The state’s Senate Republican caucus plans to pass a separate Holocaust education mandate with the IHRA definition in the next legislative session, it said in a statement.

Mariaschin: Continued from page 13

the sufferance of potentates, autocrats or dictators, or in societies where they were tolerated minorities. Occasionally there were benevolent leaders who protected the Jewish minority, but pogroms, harsh discriminatory restrictions and other limits on basic freedoms consigned Jews to life on the edge.

For those fortunate to have immigrated to the U.S. or to some countries far from the horrors of World War II, the idea of being “protected” became less of an issue, but for millions of others, there was no place to

The Phoenix Holocaust Association, Christians United For Israel, the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Phoenix and Arizona Teaching the Holocaust all advocated for the passage of the Holocaust education bill without the IHRA language.

Those organizations say they intend to work on separate IHRA legislation down the road.

Last January, Hernandez introduced a separate bill focused on antisemitism that would have codified the IHRA definition into Arizona law to be used by state officials when investigating and tracking crime and discrimination. That bill started out with strong support, but it eventually tapered off and stalled in the Senate.

Paul Rockower, executive director of the JCRC of Greater Phoenix, said the amendment had jeopardized the Holocaust education bill and made “a nonpartisan issue partisan.”

“While we do support the use of the IHRA definition in a variety of contexts, we believe there are more appropriate avenues to address the public policy in Arizona statutes in the future without causing unnecessary risk to current Holocaust education initiatives,” Rockower said.

Boyer has been a driving force behind other controversial pro-Israel legislation in the Arizona statehouse. In 2016, he was the primary sponsor on a bill which observers called “the toughest anti-BDS legislation in the U.S.,” which prohibited any part of Arizona’s government from investing in or contracting with any company that boycotts Israel.

Though signed into law by the governor, the bill was later rejected by the courts; Boyer has since proposed an amended version.

In 2014, Boyer crafted a statewide resolution declaring that the West Bank was part of Israel.

Sheryl Bronkesh, president of the Phoenix Holocaust Association, worked alongside Hernandez, Beller and the JCRC on the education bill.

“I am so thrilled that at least some of the survivors who testify year after year could still be here,” she said. “In my mind, this bill’s in George Kalman’s memory and the memory of other survivors we’ve lost in the last year, and my parents.”

Kalman, a Holocaust survivor who closely followed the bill, died May 25, waiting for the education bill to pass.

Now that his work is done, Beller will wind down his organization, ATH. “I saw an opportunity to move the mark and make a meaningful impact,” he said. “So I’ll continue to look for that next thing where I can apply myself and hopefully unite stakeholders to make a meaningful difference in people’s lives.” PJC

turn. The rise of Hitler and the Holocaust that followed, when collaboration with the Nazis, apathy or indifference to their fate were the attitudes of the day, underscored the tragic powerlessness of Jewish communities in Europe. This, notwithstanding the tremendous courage of Jews who fought as partisans or who rescued other Jews from annihilation.

The re-establishment of the State of Israel changed that equation.

There is a photo that constantly stands out in my mind when asked the question, “Do you think it can happen again?” The photo shows Israeli F-15 fighter jets flying in formation over Auschwitz on Holocaust

Remembrance Day in 2003. The crew members were all children of or related to victims of the Holocaust.

One of the pilots involved in the flyover that day, Avi Maor, said, “I felt that I was in the skies with the strength of the IAF, the IDF and the entire State of Israel, and that down there were the relics of our people. It hit us when the flyby ended, and there was silence on the radio and in the cockpit. Each one of us was absorbed in thoughts about the sortie and its significance.”

Forty-five years on, the memory of those two overwhelmingly intense July days, when four Israeli Hercules transports emerged in darkness at Entebbe Airport to free nearly

100 captives who were being held and threatened simply because they were Israelis and Jews, needs to be conveyed to new generations as an object lesson in Zionism and the need for a Jewish state.

Our people should never again be placed in such danger. But just knowing that the “Entebbe principle” is there to be exercised should the need arise again is a comfort to us all. PJC

JHF partners in pilot ‘teaching nursing home’

T

he Jewish Healthcare Foundation, The John A. Hartford Foundation and the Henry L. Hillman Foundation have invested nearly $1 million to pilot a new program among skilled nursing facilities, local health systems, the University of Pittsburgh, the University of Pennsylvania and Pennsylvania State University.

The Pennsylvania Teaching Nursing Home project will rely on a “teaching nursing home” environment, where students, faculty and healthcare workers can collaborate on resident care at three teaching nursing home partnerships across the commonwealth. The pilot program will enable partners at the Pennsylvania State University, University of Pennsylvania and University of Pittsburgh nursing schools to blend bedside care and clinical expertise. The impetus for the program was the events of the pandemic, including the deaths of more than 184,000 residents and staff in long-term care facilities, according to JHF. “The pandemic has shown us the multiple ways we have failed to appropriately integrate nursing homes into the continuum of care and the continuum of nursing education,” said Terry Fulmer, president of The John A. Hartford Foundation, in a prepared statement.

The Pennsylvania Teaching Nursing Home project will draw on existing resources from The John A. Hartford Foundation’s Age-Friendly Health Systems initiative and

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of the internet, can now be revisited with these world class nursing schools,” said Fulmer in her statement.

Karen Wolk Feinstein, president and CEO of the JHF and Health Careers Futures agreed.

“Inspiring examples like Hebrew SeniorLife in Boston have demonstrated the positive impact on patients and staff in a teaching nursing home model,” she said.

“We believe this pilot could help p Healthcare worker gives support and love to a patient.

Photo by CarmenMurillo via iStock pave the way for better long-term care across the country.” the JHF’s Full Court Press Senior Residential David K. Roger, president of the Henry Living Team, while integrating lessons from L. Hillman Foundation, noted that the the Teaching Nursing Home project of the pandemic offered critical lessons.

1980s — originally supported by the Robert “The preceding fifteen months, while Wood Johnson Foundation. JHF represen- extraordinarily difficult for long-term care, tatives said that by reexamining a model yielded a number of natural experiments of care that proved successful in the 1980s, demonstrating that there are creative, innothe current iteration will allow researchers vative ideas in the field worthy of further to experiment and improve methods of review and study,” said Roger, in a prepared care, and will help students foster careers in statement. “This effort will provide a nursing homes and geriatrics. research and pilot platform for what we In launching the Pennsylvania Teaching believe will be helpful concepts to improve Nursing Home project, Health Careers quality of life in long-term care.”

Futures, an operating arm of the JHF, The Pennsylvania Teaching Nursing received grants totaling $974,110 from JHF, Home project began on July 1, and will run The John A. Hartford Foundation and the through 2023 in the eastern, central and Henry L. Hillman Foundation. western regions of Pennsylvania. PJC “This program, which has previously — Adam Reinherz shown positive results without the benefit PITTSBURGH JEWISH CHRONICLE

Daniel S. Mariaschin is the CEO of B’nai B’rith International. As the organization’s top executive officer, Mariaschin directs and supervises B’nai B’rith programs, activities and staff around the world. This piece first appeared on JNS.

Pittsburgh Jewish Chronicle Poetry Contest

O

ur readers are invited to submit poems to the Chronicle’s summer poetry contest. Winning entries will be published in our July 30 issue. The theme is “peace.”

Submissions will be accepted in two categories: teens and adults. Two winners in the adult category, and one winner in the teen category, will each receive a $54 gift card to Pinsker’s Books and Judaica, supplied by an anonymous donor. All submissions must be received no later than July 12.

Guidelines:

Poems must be submitted to newsdesk@ pittsburghjewishchronicle.org. Please type “Poetry Contest” in the subject line.

The poem must be in a Microsoft Word file. No pdfs or handwritten entries will be accepted.

• One submission per author • Must include the author’s name, address, phone number and email address • Must designate whether entry is intended for teen or adult category • Poem should reflect the theme of peace • Unpublished poems only PJC JULY 9, 2021 15

Life & Culture Macaroni — or cauliflower — and cheese makes a great dairy meal

By Jessica Grann | Special to the Chronicle

I

love a recipe that’s versatile, and this one is just perfect for the first nine days of the month of Av, when many Jews avoid eating meat, with the exception of Shabbat meals. The base recipe is for my traditional mac and cheese, but it also works for my low-carb cauliflower and cheese version.

I’m going to walk you through making a roux, which seems daunting to some, but shouldn’t be. It’s an important skill to know, and once you learn it, you will be able to prepare any cooked sauce or gravy.

The recipe amounts and cooking instructions are pretty much identical for both versions of the recipe — just choose your preference of pasta or cauliflower (photo is of the cauliflower version).

I often make macaroni and cheese when I have several kinds of cheese left over — I like to upcycle the best basic ingredients into something great to eat. Your choice of cheese will make a difference in the end result. Using all cheddar makes a thicker, more curdled sauce; American cheese makes a very smooth sauce. I start my base with a Mexican cheese blend. You can throw in a little gruyere or gouda for a sauce that leans toward a more sophisticated palate.

One note: This is not a diet-conscious

recipe; rather, it’s a twist on comfort food that both adults and kids will devour.

½ teaspoon salt ¼ teaspoon ground mustard ⅛ teaspoon ground black or cayenne pepper

Mac — or cauliflower — and cheese

Serves 12 as a side dish, or 4-6 as a main dish

Ingredients: 1 pound of small pasta like macaroni or shells, cooked and drained -or1 large head of cauliflower, finely chopped 3 tablespoons butter 3 tablespoons flour, corn starch or potato starch 2 cups whole milk 1 cup heavy cream 4 cups shredded cheese, your choice

Turn oven to 350 F and place the wire rack into the middle of the oven.

Finely chop one head of cauliflower, or boil the pasta al dente, according to the box instructions. Rinse with cold water after draining, and set aside.

Pour the milk and cream into a saucepan and heat over medium-low heat until it just begins to boil. Remove from heat immediately.

In a second saucepan, prepare the roux, which is equal parts fat to flour. This is the base for the cheese sauce:

Lightly grease a 9x13 inch baking dish.

Spread the pasta or the cauliflower evenly into the pan.

Pour the cheese sauce over the top, and using a spatula, fold the mixture into itself until evenly combined.

Bake for 40-45 minutes, until the cheese is bubbling and the top is golden brown.

The consistency changes a bit between the two recipes. The cauliflower’s sauce is a little thinner, but not wet. If you use pasta, the end result of the sauce will depend a bit on the consistency of the cheeses you use — some are firmer, some are creamier. Whichever way you make it, it’s going to be a hit. Enjoy! PJC Jessica Grann is a home chef living in Pittsburgh.

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Raw cauliflower: gresei vis iStock Photos; cooked cauliflower: Jessica Grann

Melt the butter over medium-low heat, then stir in the flour with a whisk.

And this is where the magic happens: Using a whisk, stir in the flour (or starch), and don’t stop until it’s combined and begins to thicken like a stiff batter.

Keep whisking for about a minute over the heat, allowing the flour to cook.

Pour the hot milk mixture, about a half cup at a time, into the roux — I actually just use a soup ladle at this point. Ladle the milk into the flour mixture eight times and stir until combined, then repeat.

After all of the milk is combined, remove the pan from heat and stir in the cheese.

(Congratulations! You now know the basic steps to create the base for any cooked sauce.)

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JULY 9, 2021 17

Celebrations

Torah

Engagement

The Jewish peace activist

Elyse and Marty Eichner joyfully announce the engagement of their son, Maxwell Ross, to Rachel Chiara Fix. Rachel is the daughter of Barbara and the late Milton Fix of Scarsdale, New York, formerly of Johannesburg, South Africa. Rachel is the founder of r. chiara, a fine jewelry company in New York City. She graduated from Indiana University. Max is a corporate associate at Kirkland & Ellis, a New York City law firm. He graduated from the University of Maryland and received a law degree from the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law. Rachel is the granddaughter of the late Berjulie and Hubert Press of Johannesburg, South Africa, as well as the late Filly and Harry Fix of Bloemfontein, South Africa. Max is the grandson of Claryne and the late Sanford Berman, of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, formerly of Steubenville, Ohio, as well as the late Sally and Sidney Eichner of Akron, Ohio. Max and Rachel live in Manhattan and their wedding is forthcoming.

Ilene and Arnold Greenman of New York City are pleased to announce the engagement of their daughter Elizabeth Leigh Forman Greenman to Alexander Michael Pattis, son of Ellen Olshansky and Richard Pattis of Irvine, California, formerly of Squirrel Hill.

Elizabeth’s grandparents are the late Murray and Anna Forman of Forest Hills, New York, and the late Albert and Adele Greenman of Brooklyn, New York. Alexander’s grandparents are the late Lillian and Jack Olshansky of San Francisco, California, and Muriel Pattis and the late Myrna and David Pattis of Chicago, Illinois. Elizabeth graduated from Syracuse University in New York and is working for GIII Apparel Calvin Klein. Alexander graduated from the University of Arizona in Arizona and is working for Riverside Ventures. An April wedding is planned in New York City. PJC

Ramah launches camp programming in Ohio Ramah in Canada,” said Rabbi Mitchell Cohen, national Ramah director, in a prepared statement.

This summer, Ramah Great Lakes will operate a family camp from Aug. 6-8, and a “Taste of Ramah” mini-camp from Aug. 8-11, for children entering third-through-sixth grades. Both programs will take  Camp Ramah will have an option in Cleveland, place at Camp Wise, the Mandel Ohio this summer.

Photo courtesy of Camp Ramah JCC of Cleveland.

“In every conversation I have his summer young Pittsburgh had with prospective parents, and with campers will have a Ramah option Jewish communal leaders in the area, the close to home — in Cleveland, Ohio, excitement about bringing the Ramah expejust a little more than a two-hour drive away. rience a little closer to home is palpable,” said The National Ramah Commission, the Nessa Geffen, summer director of Ramah camping arm of Conservative Judaism, is Great Lakes, in a prepared statement, adding set to launch new Ramah programming that the family camp reached capacity within in the eastern Great Lakes region, serving 48 hours of enrollment opening.

Detroit, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Buffalo and The Ramah Great Lakes project Rochester — all cities which are currently is supported by the National Ramah served by Camp Ramah in Canada, located Commission and Foundation for Jewish Camp. Financial assistance is available. More in Utterson, Ontario.

“The Ramah Great Lakes pilot project information can be found at campramah.org/ is part of our goal to establish a Ramah greatlakes or by contacting Geffen at nessa@ presence closer to home for thousands of campramah.org. PJC families, and to create a junior camp feeder for the outstanding teen programs at Camp — Toby Tabachnick

T

18 JULY 9, 2021

Rabbi Zalman Gurevitz Parshat Matot-Massei Numbers 30:2 - 36:13

T

his Shabbat, the first day of the Hebrew month of Av (July 10), marks the 3,294th yahrzeit of Aaron the Cohen. I know this because this week’s Torah portion tells us the date of Aaron’s passing.

This is the only time the Torah tells us the exact date of a person’s passing; even Moses did not received this honor.

A yahrzeit is the time to reflect on the person’s life to see what we can learn to improve our own lives. Aaron’s life provides a lesson for every single Jew; therefore the Torah tells us the date of his passing so each year we will get together and dedicate that

was Aaron able to make peace among adversaries, which would require pointing out they were doing something wrong, while continuing to be loved by them?

Aaron’s approach to a situation like this was to focus on what was right, not on what was wrong. He thus helped people realize the amazing potential lying within them, and that each one of us has a spark of Godliness, a neshama (soul) — we have the key to a treasure trove of diamonds and it’s up to us to use it. Aaron never mentioned or focused on the bad things that people did. Instead, he was able to elevate people and have them recognize their potential and what they could accomplish. That’s why he was truly loved by everyone. He was able to bring people together by having them realize

On the rare occasions that you come across someone who made a bad choice and is doing something bad, how can you love and be at peace with that person? day to remember his life and learn from it.

Unlike other great Jewish leaders, Aaron had a unique connection to every single Jew — to the extent that even young children were saddened by his passing. We are taught that Aaron not only loved peace, but he also pursued peace to ensure that all Jewish people were living peacefully with one another.

One of the unique gifts the Almighty gave to us is the gift of free choice. We can choose to do amazing things, but we also have the capacity to make very bad choices and do terrible things. If we didn’t have the ability to do really bad things, then we would not have the ability to do really good things.

On the rare occasions that you come across someone who made a bad choice and is doing something bad, how can you love and be at peace with that person?

Here’s a lesson we can take from Aaron’s life: Think of a person you love and ask yourself why you love them. Generally we love people who make us feel good and wanted.

That’s why I love my children — they make me feel needed 120% of every day. So, how

Chai

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they had so much more in common than what divided them.

Aristotle once said, “A friend to all is a friend to none.” While on the surface that seems true, it is not the case for someone who has a neshama.

We are now in a time of mourning through the Ninth of Av. We mourn the destruction of both the First and Second Temples, which stood in the holy city of Jerusalem. The great sages explained the Second Temple was destroyed because of baseless hatred among the Jewish people. And if we want the Temple to be rebuilt, we need to have baseless love. We will merit the coming of Moshiach who will usher in true world peace, not just for the Jewish people but for the entire world — a time when there will be no wars and no jealousy. A world full of goodness and kindness. PJC Rabbi Zalman Gurevitz is the rabbi at the Rohr Chabad Jewish Center in Morgantown, West Virginia. This column is a service of the Vaad Harabanim of Greater Pittsburgh.

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Obituaries BRODELL: Lawrence Brodell, of Boca Raton, Florida, formerly of Greensburg, Pennsylvania, passed away on Tuesday, June 22, at the age of 99. He was the beloved husband of the late Norma Davis Brodell for over 71 years. Larry was born in Brooklyn, New York, on March 31, 1922, son of the late Alexander and Frances Baron Brodell. He grew up in New York and attended Brooklyn Technical High School and received a degree in mechanical engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. Larry was a First Lieutenant in the U.S. Army Air Corps during World War II where he served as a flight control officer. He was associated with Davis Super Market from 1946 until 1978, serving as secretary-treasurer for many years. Larry was adored and cherished by his family: sister Ann (late Larry) Ward; children Linda (Jeffrey) Reisner and the late Joanne (Jack) Alpern; grandchildren Barbara Reisner (William Tompkins), Sharon Reisner Rude (Michael Rude), Julie Alpern, and David (Lisa) Alpern; great-grandchildren Owen Tompkins, Benjamin and Alexandra Rude, and Noa and Joshua Alpern; sisters-in-law Phyllis (late Robert) Davis, Ada (late Stanford) Davis, and Melva (late Mark) Weisberger; and many nieces, nephews and friends. He was a member of Congregation Emanu-el Israel in Greensburg, Pennsylvania. Graveside services and interment were held at Emanu-el Israel Cemeter y, Greensburg. Memorial

contributions may be sent to Congregation Emanu-el Israel, 222 North Main Street, Greensburg, PA 15601. Arrangements entrusted to Ralph Schugar Chapel, Inc., family owned and operated. schugar.com EDELSTEIN: Edelstein, Elliott, age 78, of Monroeville, Pennsylvania, died Wednesday June 30, 2021. A funny and loving man to all that knew him. He was most proud of his family: his wife Eileen Edelstein, sons Michael (Dawn) Edelstein, Larry Edelstein, and daughter Jeniffer (Larry) Feder. He was abundantly filled with joy and pride for his grandchildren, Max Edelstein and David and Mikayla Feder. His silly jokes and spunky personality will be greatly missed by all that knew him. The family held a small private memorial service to honor his life.

Contributions in his honor can be made to the American Cancer Society.

LAUFE: Symoine “Sy” Kamin Laufe, 95, of Chevy Chase, Mar yland, formerly of Pittsburgh, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, and San Antonio, Texas, passed peacefully on Saturday, June 26, 2021. She was the beloved wife of the late Leonard E. Laufe, MD, and beloved mother of Lucy E. Laufe and Jennifer Gerrard (Steve).

Grandmother of Elissa Staley Holub (Blake), Laura Gerrard and Rachel Gerrard. She was the daughter of Ella Perelstine Kamin and

Philip Kamin, MD, and sister of the late Judge Marion Kamin Finkelhor. Sy graduated from Allderdice High School and earned her undergraduate degree in biology from Wells College and then, while her husband was in medical school, an MS in biology from the University of Louisville. A lifelong learner, she was bat mitzvah at the age of 90. Sy’s life had many chapters, each one guided by her passion for young people, aging, leadership development and education. Before having children, Sy taught biology and basic science to student nurses.

After becoming a mother, Sy focused her efforts on community service. She cared passionately about Pittsburgh and the Jewish community, sitting on the boards of Anathan House, Y-IKC, and the Jewish Federation where she ultimately served as president of the Women’s Division. Sy was honored to be named the second female president of the board of Jewish Family & Children’s Services.

Sharing her love of learning with the Pittsburgh community she cherished, Sy was an interviewer for the inaugural “By Myself I’m a Book” project, documenting the city’s Jewish history through the life stories of its members. After moving to Chapel Hill, her community engagement and activism continued. At Judea Reform she served as the membership chair and as a member of the board. Returning to Pittsburgh following her husband’s passing, Sy served on the board of Riverview Apartments through her 80s and continued her work in the city she loved. Taking every opportunity to share in

community learning, Sy chaired the Lunch and Learn Program at Pittsburgh’s Rodef Shalom Congregation and piloted a project to research and document Judaica in the temple’s collection, even as she approached her 90s. The Jewish Federation honored her in an Eight over 80 Celebration for her lifetime of work. Her diversity of interests included art and flower arranging, which led to her serving on the board of the Arts and Crafts Center. Sy was always true to herself and never sat on a board or worked with an agency unless she believed in the mission and thought she could make a difference.

Stationed in Yokohama, Japan, with her husband during the Korean War, she had a deep appreciation for other cultures. She traveled the world and was truly a global citizen, sharing her stories from a lifetime of adventures across the world with family and friends when she herself was no longer able to visit new places. Sy’s intellectual curiosity and generous spirit were integral to her being. Her belief in making the world a better place was a motivational force in her life and leaves her family with many memories of her generosity they will always hold dear. Graveside services and interment were held at West View Cemetery of Rodef Shalom Congregation. Contributions can be made to Jewish Family and Community Services, Pittsburgh. Arrangements entrusted to Ralph Schugar Chapel, Inc., family owned and operated. schugar.com Please see Obituaries, page 20

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Money Can Buy Happiness 2200 Murray Avenue Pittsburgh, PA 15217 412-521-2732 www.paytaxeslater.com

This increased happiness can be achieved by supporting your favorite charities on a large or small scale.

have in mind! I encourage you to make your own list and think about ways to free up your time to do the stuff you want to do.

an experience after being unable to go anywhere during the pandemic. Better yet, make it an annual event.

Donate Time

Host a Family Vacation

Beware of False Economy — Treats are Okay

Simply doing something to help others—no money involved—can really improve your sense of happiness and belonging.

For over 25 years, my father-in-law has hosted an annual family vacation picking up the tab for the entire family. For a four-day weekend, the

I took my mom on several mini vacations. Can you think of a better way for me to spend my time and money? She was in her mid-nineties when my wife, Cindy, my daughter, Erica, and I took her to New York. A retired professor, my mom was as sharp as ever. One of the top attractions for my mom was to buy a silk scarf at Bloomingdales! She spoke of it many times and we were very aware that it was a priority for her! But when the saleswoman told Mom the scarf cost $100, she said that that was much too expensive. I pleaded with my mom to let me buy her the scarf. She would have none of it.

How do you balance desires with practicalities?

On the scale of the trip, buying the scarf was inconsequential. But for my mother, the financial outlay of $100 for a scarf crossed the line.

James Lange, CPA and Attorney

Money does buy happiness in that it protects from hardship. But if we are in the position to be able to afford more, can we be happier spending more?

I am not advocating for spending carelessly.

But, when the resources are there, are there ways to make your money “work for you” outside the investment realm?

Authors Elizabeth Dunn and Michael Norton published a well-researched book called Happy Money: The Science of Smarter Spending. They espouse five ways to spend money to increase happiness. Those ways are listed in the box to the right. I would say those five criteria make a pretty good start.

Donate to Charity — Spend Money on Others

Dunn and Norton make some great observations about charity. What’s most important is that you spend money on somebody else. They found a universal positive correlation between giving and happiness.

Purchasing and distributing 50,000 KN-95 masks to charities, family, friends, and clients was “worth” many times what I paid for them.

Five Ways to Spend Money to Increase Happiness 1. Buy experiences. (I suggest that you buy things that allow you to do what you want to do. For example, my e-bikes allow me to significantly enhance my bicycling experience and that makes me happy.)

2. Make it a treat. Don’t indulge in your favorite ice cream every day— it stops being a treat.

3. Buy time. Pay people to do what you don’t like doing.

4. Pay now, consume later. That paid-for vacation seems “free” by the time you take it.

5. Invest in others.

Buy Time

I belong to a business coaching group, and we did an interesting exercise. The coach told everyone to write down what they would do if they had an extra 1,000 hours of time per year. Answers included spend more time with family, travel, play more golf, write a book, join a gym, etc.

Then, he said, “Now figure out a way to free up those hours.” The way I free up time is to pay others to do stuff that I don’t want to do. Hint: delegating chores to your spouse is not what I

But for all these issues, keep in mind the person that dies with the most money is not the winner. entire family drives, or flies into a resort in the Poconos. All the children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren hang out together to play games, swim, go to the “beach,” kayak in the lake, play golf, laugh at the Comedy Club, and enjoy family activities. We eat all our meals together. It has fostered family ties in a way that none of us could have imagined.

This advice is consistent with multiple authors who say, “Buy experiences, not things.” Imagine how much your loved ones would appreciate such

In Conclusion

The suggestions above encompass many ideas that I fully embrace, and I encourage you to think about ways you can spend your money to buy more happiness.

We work with clients to develop Personal Financial Masterplans covering spending, saving, investing, gifting, estate planning, etc. Of course, we also tell you how much money you can afford to spend. If you have an interest, please call Edie at 412-521-2732.

The foregoing content from Lange Financial Group, LLC is for informational purposes only, subject to change, and should not be construed as investment or tax advice. Those seeking personalized guidance should seek a qualified professional.

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JULY 9, 2021 19

Obituaries Obituaries: Continued from page 19

SHERMAN: Arthur Sherman, of Ft. Lauderdale, formerly of Pittsburgh, on Thursday, July 1, 2021. Beloved father of Michael (Debra) Sherman, Cathy (late Allan) Steinitz and Lisa (Stuart) Persky.

Brother of the late Marilyn (Norman) Weizenbaum. Grandfather of Jennifer (Marco) Duran, Margeaux Sherman, Aaron Persky, Alexander Persky and Mardi Steinitz.

Great-grandfather of Rowan O’Connor.

Also survived by several cousins, nieces and nephews. Services and interment private. Contributions may be made to

Tidewell Hospice via tidewellfoundation. org or preschoolplace.com or a charity of the donor’s choice. Arrangements entrusted to Ralph Schugar Chapel, Inc., family owned and operated. schugar.com WEISS: Lee Weiss, PhD, professor emeritus at Carnegie Mellon University, the epitome of a scholar and a gentle man. Best-brother-evercould-be to Connie Sukernek and brother-in-law to Peter Sukernek; uncle to Jay and Kelly Sukernek; and great-uncle to John, Nick and Will Sukernek. Lee will be missed by loving

cousins (Schmee to some!) and his many friends and colleagues. Dr. Weiss was a founding member of Carnegie Mellon’s Robotics Institute. In the early years of the Institute his research focused on visual servo control of robots, flexible manufacturing systems, and micro-electro mechanical systems (MEMS). He then went on to pioneer numerous methodologies and systems for additive manufacturing. However, he always went back to his roots in bioengineering, and over the last 45 years he has sought to apply his diverse background to create technology-based solutions to address challenging problems in translational clinical medicine, including development of devices for interventional radiology, fetal heart monitoring,

cardiac pacing, angioplasty, MEMS-based drug delivery, and computer-aided surgery.

And, for the past 25 years until present, his research has focused on the biological foundations for and translational aspects of tissue engineering and regenerative medicine. He holds 37 issued U.S. patents, has 161 peer-reviewed publications, and founded several biomedical start-up companies. (From CMU’s home page.) Graveside service and interment were held on Friday, July 2, 2021, at Homewood Cemetery. If you would like to make a donation in Lee’s memory, please consider the JAA (jaapgh. org). Arrangements entrusted to Ralph Schugar Chapel, Inc., family owned and operated. schugar.com PJC

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

In memory of …

Anonymous . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Nathan Fishman Renée Batten . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Ella Herman Elaine Levine . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Eva Ruth Emas Harvey L. Rice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Rhea Marks Harvey L. Rice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Hanna Rice Judy & Joel Safier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Alice Safier Yetta Speiser . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Herbert Speiser Annette Alper. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Samuel Weiner Bonnie Blackman . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Mimi Lawrence Ellen Blum . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Patty Danovitz Hedy Caplan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Gertrude Mitchel Marilyn Friedlander . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Isadore J. Ficks Edward M. Goldston . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ted Brown Edward M. Goldston . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Rebecca Goldstein Edythe Greenberg . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Charles Greenberg Edythe Greenberg . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Louis Perr Sharon Greenfield . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Benjamin Olender Sharon Greenfield . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Bettie Olender Polak Mary Jatlow . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Nathan Glanz

A gift from …

In memory of …

Amy R. Kamin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Samuel Honig Ida Jean McCormley . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Jennie Herron Sanford Middleman. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Morris Middleman Howie & Shelley Miller . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Izzy Miller Arlene Murphy. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Joan Ratowsky Whitley Toby Perilman . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Gertrude Stalinsky Toby Perilman . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Harry Louik Toby Perilman . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Florence Perilman Toby Perilman . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Esther Bennett Shirley E. Preny . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Sophia Mallinger Shirley E. Preny . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Anna Krantz Shirley E. Preny . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Aaron Mallinger Marc Rice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Hannah Lillian Rice Paula S. Riemer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Ruth Feldman Richard, Mindy, & Logan Stadler . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Marilyn Elkin Bernard Shire. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Etta Borof Dr. Susan Snider and Family . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Wilma Shlakman Jules Spokane . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Eli Spokane

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Headlines Books: Continued from page 8

Despite being adapted into a 1972 film starring Maggie Smith, “Travels with My Aunt” is one of Graham Greene’s lesser-known works. Featuring a now familiar and oft-repeated plot, the novel is modern, enjoyable and comedic.

As I mentioned, I consider reading a sport.

If you’re interested, I will be following these three works with Bob Mould’s autobiography, “See A Little Light: The Trail of Rage and Melody”; another Graham Greene work, “The Power and the Glory”; and “Outpouring of the Soul, Rebbe Nachman’s path in Meditation.”

— David Rullo

“The Nimrod Flipout,” by Etgar Keret (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2006) I realize I am a bit late to the Etgar Keret party, but I’m happy I’ve arrived.

Actually, I first came across the Israeli fiction writer four years ago while listening to “The Writer’s Voice,” a New Yorker podcast featuring authors reading their stories published in the magazine. In 2017, Keret read “Fly Already,” a beautiful, tragic and bizarre tale about a father’s attempt to shield his young son from a suicidal man perched on the roof of a building, whom the son thinks is a superhero. It’s the kind of story that stays with you.

Last week, I came across a collection of Keret’s (very) short stories, “The Nimrod Flipout,” on my son-in-law’s bookshelf, and

he graciously lent it to me.

First published in Israel in 2002, it’s not the most current work by Keret (in fact, in 2019, he won Israel’s Sapir Prize for his story collection also titled “Fly Already”) but it’s wholly engaging — in a Kafka-meetsAesop kind of way.

Keret writes in the genre of magical realism. His stories are parables, allegories.

They are set in contemporary Israel but probe

ideas that stretch beyond time and place. In “Fatso,” the narrator’s girlfriend transforms into a hairy, uncouth man at night — but the two remain smitten with each other as the story turns into a tale of male bonding.

In “Pride and Joy,” a young boy’s mother and father physically shrink as he grows, a commentary on parental sacrifice. And in “Shriki,” a man gets rich and famous for his mundane invention of an olive-stuffed olive. When a TV interviewer asks the title character if he thinks people aspire to be like him, Shriki responds: “They don’t have to aspire…They already are like me.”

These 30 stories are hilarious, heartbreaking and surprising. There is no way to predict how any of them will end. I love that.

— Toby Tabachnick PJC

Former Pittsburgher missing in Surfside condo wreckage

P

ittsburgh native, Nicole DoranManashirov, and her husband, Dr. Ruslan Manashirov, are among those still missing after the collapse of the Champlain Towers South condominium building in Surfside, Florida, on June 24.

The couple was married in May in Ft. Lauderdale after having postponed their wedding three times because of the

pandemic, according to media reports. A photo on Chabad.org shows them beneath a huppah at their wedding.

Doran-Manashirov, a former resident of South Park, is a physician assistant in the emergency department at Aventura Hospital.

Her husband, whose family immigrated to Brooklyn from Azerbaijan, is a neurologist and family doctor in South Miami.

They recently moved into a unit on the seventh floor of Champlain Towers.

“They were so happy,” Valery Manashirova, brother of Dr. Ruslan Manashirov and a Brooklyn resident, told WABC-TV in New York. “It was a beautiful wedding and they were just starting their lives.”

Doran-Manashirov worked tirelessly during the coronavirus crisis,

according to friends.

“She worked indescribable hours during the pandemic,” her friend Wendy Kays told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. “She never backed out on her duties.”

As of press time, at least 28 were confirmed dead and 117 were unaccounted for. PJC — Toby Tabachnick

New Light seeks stained glass designs to honor 10/27 victims

N

ew Light Congregation has announced a “Call to Artists,” seeking submissions of designs for a stained glass door and window to be installed in the New Light Memorial Chapel, located at the congregation’s cemetery in Shaler Township. The stained glass will honor the three New Light congregants killed on Oct. 27, 2018.

The chapel, which is in the process of being built, will also house some of the congregation’s historical memorabilia.

Submitted designs should be inspired by any of the themes found in the Torah portion for the week of Oct. 27, 2018. That portion, Vayera (Genesis 21:1-22:24), “is read on Yom Kippur and is one of the most important sections” because Abraham takes Isaac to the mountain and nearly sacrifices him, but doesn’t, said Stephen Cohen, co-president of New Light.

Because the Torah portion can be

p New Light chapel

Photo provided by Stephen Cohen

interpreted in different ways, he said, New Light is looking for ideas from several different artists.

The congregation decided to hold the competition instead of commissioning a piece from just one artist because “hiring an artist means that we’re committing to one

Longtime executive director Hanna Steiner departs Riverview

T

he New Riverview’s board of directors announced the recent departure of its longtime executive director, Hanna Steiner.

No reason was given for her departure in a July 1 letter to residents from The New Riverview’s board of directors.

As the board conducts a search for Steiner’s replacement, Phyllis Cohen will remain in her role as Riverview’s associate director and director of resident services.

PITTSBURGHJEWISHCHRONICLE.ORG

“Phyllis remains integral to the leadership of The New Riverview, and has done an excellent job ensuring that everything remains ‘business as usual,’” the letter stated.

Jennifer McCay will serve as The New Riverview’s interim executive director. McCay has served the Jewish Association on Aging in various support and administrative roles for the past 25 years. PJC

person’s vision,” Cohen said. “We think that there is something to be gained by having a wide variety of ideas as to how we can best honor the individuals murdered.”

New Light — along with Tree of Life Congregation and Congregation Dor Hadash — was attacked in the Tree of Life

building on Oct. 27, 2018. Of the 11 people murdered that day, three were members of New Light: Dr. Richard Gottfried, Daniel Stein and Melvin Wax. The Congregation hopes to announce the selected design in time for the third commemoration of the massacre this fall, and the window and door will be installed next spring. A $2,500 prize is being offered for the winning entry.

“Monuments and memorials are ultimately for the living, and the stained glass window designs will help to inspire us to remember those we lost on such an important event in the history of our lives,” said Cohen. “We will never forget them.”

Interested artists must submit their designs by Sept. 3. More information can be found at newlightcongregation.org. PJC — Sarah Abrams

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JULY 9, 2021 21

191,600

2,797,500

0 to 100+years

Hours of summertime camp fun, learning and friendship planned for 2021

Calories burned by JCC members in

Ages of individuals served

65

Open to everyone

17,407

74,784

1,000+

Telephone check-in calls to isolated seniors since March 2020

Healthy lunches and snacks provided to children and senior adults since March 2020

Telephone check-in calls to isolated seniors since March 2020

470,616

300

Year-round

Hours of high-quality child care delivered to working families this past school year

Acres of outdoor activity space and 4-season rental facilities

And seasonal facilities remained open and operational since June 2020

209

6

3

10,187

Hours volunteered by teens through the 2021 annual J-Serve day of community service

Swimming Pools

Lounge Areas

Covid vaccines administered over the last 6 months

22 JULY 9, 2021

weekly group ex classes since January 2021

Gyms Dance Studios

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Community Drive-in Thursday Jewish Association on Aging hosted Broadway Under the Stars. The June 24 drive-in style event featured food, music and entertainment.

p Event Chair Lynette Lederman with her husband Stanley

p Karen Wolk Feinstein and Ilene Rinn enjoy a beautiful evening.

p Emcee Susan Koeppen interviews event chair Mitchell Pakler.

p Sylvia Booker watches her pre-recorded duet with Mandy Gonzalez.

Summer fun continues

Macher and Shaker

Campers at James and Rachel Levinson Day Camp enjoyed a week of outdoor activities.

Mayda Roth, Ro def Shalom Congregation’s director of development, has recertified as a Certified Fund Raising Executive (CFRE). Roth is among 7,200 professionals worldwide who hold the CFRE designation. CFRE recipients are awarded certification for a three-year period. To maintain certification status, certificants must demonstrate ongoing fundraising employment and fundraising results and continue with their professional education. Individuals granted the CFRE credential have met a series of standards set by CFRE International, which include tenure in the profession, education and demonstrated fundraising achievement. They have also passed a rigorous written examination testing the knowledge, skills and abilities required of a fundraising executive, and have agreed to uphold Accountability Standards and the Donor Bill of Rights.

Photos courtesy of Tinsy Labrie via Jewish Association on Aging

Photo courtesy of Mayda Roth

p Jewish crafting is about popsicle sticks, beading and lots of smiles. p This rock rocks.

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Photos courtesy of Emma Curtis via the Jewish Community Center of Greater Pittsburgh

PITTSBURGH JEWISH CHRONICLE

JULY 9, 2021 23

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