Great Metro West 6-11-2020

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NEW JERSEY JEWISH NEWS

G R E AT E R M E T R O W E S T E D I T I O N A P U B L I C AT I O N O F T H E J E W I S H W E E K M E D I A G R O U P Vol. LXX IV No. 24 | June 11, 2020 | 19 S IVAN 5780

njj ew is hnews . c o m

A ‘super fund’ aims to keep Jewish nonprofit world afloat Covid stimulus leaves some immigrants empty handed State & Local 4

How three foundation execs launched an unprecedented effort to save them and possibly reshape Jewish life Incoming Rabbi Ari Isenberg, center, and members of Congregation B’nai Israel march in a June 7 demonstration in Millburn.

PHOTO BY SHIRA VICKAR-FOX

NJ Jewish community not sitting protests out Local synagogues and organizations respond to racial unrest, conflict with BLM movement Johanna Ginsberg NJJN Senior Writer

Livingston teens put down time to good use State & Local 21

State & Local 4 Opinion 15 Calendar/Community 18 LifeCycle 19 Touch of Torah 24 Exit Ramp 27

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houting “Say their names!” and “Black lives matter!” while holding a Congregation B’nai Israel banner, members of the Conservative synagogue in Millburn joined an estimated 1,000 people on a June 7 march from Millburn High School to nearby Taylor Park to protest violence against African Americans at the hands of police.

At nearby Congregation Beth El in South Orange, members have been symbolically “sitting shiva” for George Floyd, the Minneapolis man killed by a policeman who kneeled on Floyd’s neck for more than eight min-

utes, since just after his June 9 funeral until June 16, each participant taking a one-hour slot at the entrance to the synagogue.

“We want the comfort of our Jewish rituals to mourn this tragic loss publicly, and to acknowledge the loss of so many men and women of color who have died as a result of police brutality,” said Rabbi Jesse Olitzky of Beth El. Congregations around the area are finding ways to express their outrage at police violence directed at the black community. For some it means participating in local events and actions, and for others it’s about collaborating with community organizations or engaging members in learning and conversation. Many are reaching out to black organizations and churches they have already developed relationships with, or are taking the moment as an opportunity to begin forging them.

“After Tree of Life, so many reached out to us. It is upon us to do

Continued on page 10

Gary Rosenblatt Special to NJJN

T

uesday, March 3, was the day the AmericanJewish community began to confront the immediate threat of the deadly Between coronavirus. the Lines It was the last day of the annual AIPAC national policy conference in Washington, attended by more than 18,000 pro-Israel Americans from around the country. Mark Charendoff, president of the Maimonides Fund, was on his way home to New Jersey from the conference when he received a call from his daughter, a student at SAR High School in the Riverdale section of the Bronx. She told him that the father of a fellow student had tested positive for the virus the previous day, one of the first known cases in the region. The school, following the advice of state authorities, decided to close.

Realizing the growing severity of the situation, Charendoff and two colleagues who had become trusted friends, Lisa Eisen, co-president of the Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Foundation, and Barry Finestone, president and CEO of the Jim Joseph Foundation, initiated a series of intense discussions, agreeing on the need for swift and radical action.

Collectively, the three foundations — with Schusterman based in D.C. and Tulsa, Okla., Maimonides in New York, and Jim Joseph in San Francisco — operate on a national level and provide hundreds of millions of dollars a year in grants to a wide range of recipients.

Over the next few days, Charendoff, Eisen, and Finestone were bombarded with frantic calls from

Continued on page 8

NJ Jewish News ■ njjewishnews.com ■ June 11, 2020

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Strike out Schott

Former Major League Baseball star Kevin Youkilis joined fellow University of Cincinnati alumni in calling on the school to change the name of Marge Schott Stadium due to the former Cincinnati Reds owner’s racism and anti-Semitism.

Schott, who owned the Reds from 1984 to 1999, was banned from managKevin Youkilis in 2012 when he played ing the team in 1996 after she spoke admiringly of Adolf Hitler, saying that he “was for the Boston Red Sox. good in the beginning, but went too far.” She also once called two black Boston Red Sox outfielders “million-dollar niggers.”

Schott sold her controlling interest in the team in 1999 and died in 2004 at age 75.

In a recent tweet, Youkilis expressed his support for an effort to rename the stadium, noting that he had once been asked to donate to the school’s baseball program in exchange for having the stadium renamed Kevin Youkilis Field at Marge Schott Stadium, but his father told him not to let the family name share space with Schott’s.

“I will never let our family name be next to someone that was filled with such hatred towards our Jewish community,” Youkilis said his father told him.

The campaign to rename the stadium was launched June 6 by a University of Cincinnati baseball player, Jordan Ramey. More than 5,600 people had signed the Change.org petition as of Monday morning. — JTA BRAD WHITE/GETTY IMAGES

Coexistence in the Covid lab

Amid the Covid-19 pandemic, a silver lining is that researchers from diverse cultural backgrounds are coming together to work on the response — as JewishAmerican Jonathan Gootenberg and Palestinian-American Omar Abudayyeh can attest.

Gootenberg and Abudayyeh both work at the McGovern Institute for Brain Jonathan Gootenberg, left, and Omar Research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. They are collaborating Abudayyeh with the Broad Institute-based laboratory of MIT neuroscience professor Feng Zhang, which released a protocol of an at-home coronavirus test on May 8.

“I think it speaks to one of the many ways science can transcend cultural boundaries,” Gootenberg said in a Zoom call with members of the Zhang lab and The Times of Israel.

The duo, who both grew up in the United States, have worked together very closely over the last five years.

Their achievements include helping develop a viral detection technique called SHERLOCK, or specific high-sensitivity enzymatic reporter unlocking. It can use either a nasal swab or saliva sample in detecting whether a person has the coronavirus.

An early protocol of the test, named STOPCovid, recently received emergency-use FDA authorization.

Gootenberg said, “All around the world, you have people coming together, science coming together; there’s much more collaboration.” — The Times of Israel

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The boar ate my homework

One Israeli boy recently had what is perhaps the bestever excuse for not doing his homework: a wild boar ate it. Luckily for him, he also had video evidence to prove it and a dad who found the whole episode pretty hilarious.

Ido Kozikaro, an Israeli basketball player and contestant on TV show Survivor VIP, recently posted on Facebook a video showing a wild boar eating the contents of his son’s schoolbag to the delighted shrieks and exclamations of the boy and his friends.

All this took part near the entrance to the boy’s school in Haifa. It is not the first incident of wild boars leaving nature for Haifa’s more urbane environment — over the past months, the city’s residents have been spotting boars on roads, pedestrian crossings, backyard gardens, and even inside a blow-up pool.

The extensive spotting of wild boars in Haifa’s streets during the coronavirus lockdown may have had more to do with their birthing season than with the absence of humans walking about. — ISRAEL21c PIXABAY

Vol. LXXIV No. 24 June 11, 2020 19 Sivan 5780 EDITORIAL Gabe Kahn, Editor Shira Vickar-Fox, Managing Editor Lori Silberman Brauner, Deputy Managing Editor Johanna Ginsberg, Senior Staff Writer Jed Weisberger, Staff Writer Abby Meth Kanter, Editorial Adviser CONTRIBUTING WRITERS Michele Alperin, Jennifer Altmann, Max L. Kleinman, Martin J. Raffel, Merri Ukraincik, Stephen M. Flatow, Jonathan Tobin BUSINESS Nancy Greenblatt, Manager Sales/ Administration and Circulation Nancy Karpf, Senior Account Executive Steven Weisman, Account Executive Lauri Sirois, Classified Sales Supervisor/ Office Manager GRAPHIC DESIGN/DIGITAL/PRODUCTION Clarissa Hamilton, Janice Hwang, Dani Shetrit EXECUTIVE STAFF Rich Waloff, Publisher Andrew Silow-Carroll, Editor in Chief Gary Rosenblatt, Editor at Large Rob Goldblum, Managing Editor Ruth Rothseid, Sales Manager Thea Wieseltier, Director of Strategic Projects Dan Bocchino, Art Director Arielle Sheinwald, Operations Manager Gershon Fastow, Advertising Coordinator

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The Greater MetroWest edition of NJJN (USPS 275-540) is published weekly by the JWMW, LLC, at 1501 Broadway, Room 505, New York, NY 10036. © 2016, NJ Jewish News. All rights reserved. • Periodical postage is paid at Whippany, NJ, and additional offices. • Postmaster: Send address changes to New Jersey Jewish News, 1719 Route 10, Suite 307, Parsippany, NJ 07054-4515. NJJN was founded as The Jewish News on Jan. 3, 1947. Member, American Jewish Press Association; subscriber to JTA. TELEPHONES/E-MAIL: Main — phone: 973739-8110, fax: 973-887-4152, e-mail: editorial@njjewishnews.com, ■ Manuscripts, letters, documents, and photographs sent to New Jersey Jewish News become the physical property of this publication, which is not responsible for the return or loss of such material.

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State&Local

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Immigrants denied pandemic relief money Advocate calls ineligibility ‘punishment’ to those in need of aid Johanna Ginsberg NJJN Senior Writer

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ladys Arismendi is a fixture in the Orthodox Jewish community of West Orange. A familiar face and friend to many, for 23 years she has cleaned homes in West Orange and Livingston; she has worked for a popular local kosher caterer; and when she first arrived from Uruguay more than 20 years ago with her 2-year-old daughter, she also babysat for local families. Every Passover she has worked “like crazy” to make extra money — for unexpected expenses, to make ends meet, or to do something special during the summer.

She has paid her taxes from the start, using an Individual Tax Identification Number (ITIN), the system for undocumented immigrants, but was deemed ineligible to receive $1,200 from the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act (CARES Act)

Gladys Arismendi; her husband, Mike Cumberland; and her daughter, Paula.

PHOTO COURTESY GLADYS ARISMENDI

signed into law in March. And her husband, a natural-born United States citizen, was also denied the federal aid set aside for those who lost income as a result of the pandemic.

“The federal government has failed this population,” said Charlene Walker, executive director of Faith in New Jersey, a faith-based advocacy organization that focuses on racial, economic, and immigration justice issues.

She told NJJN that the CARES Act was passed after politicians had “surgically” removed the possibility of the aid going to immigrants. “Using the ITIN to pay taxes is the trigger” for denying payment, she said.

After receiving her Social Security number in 2019, the Jewish community helped Arismendi, 53, land a part-time job on the cleaning crew at Ahawas Achim B’nai Jacob & David in West Orange (AABJ&D). Every Shabbat morning, she would arrive at

Continued on page 12

With summer internships scrapped, Princeton Hillel helps students find a plan B Michele Alperin NJJN Contributing Writer

H

annah Slabodkin was set to spend this summer in the molecular biology laboratory at Princeton University collecting data on an enzyme involved in cancer metastasis for her senior thesis. Aleeza Schoenberg planned to use her creative writing skills to support the media efforts of Ankuri, an Indian nonprofit that provides employment, education, and job training to women. Hannah Bein, president of the University Glee Club and musical director of the all-female a cappella group Tiger Lilies, was exploring opportunities in arts management.

As their summer plans started evaporating due to the pandemic, a team of Princeton alumnae, students, and staff from Princeton Hillel’s Center for Jewish Life (CJL) developed an idea raised by alumna and parent Dina Brewer to put together an intern-matching program.

Due to the pandemic, Aleeza Schoenberg, a rising junior at Princeton University, switched from a service internship in India to creative work for a publishing company.

PHOTO BY YONI SCHOENBERG

Team member Ron Miasnik, a rising junior, entrepreneur, and computer science major, told NJJN that the plan was to reach out to professionals from the extended Princeton community and ask

if they would take on a Princeton student for a minimum two-week internship or mentoring opportunity, either paid or unpaid.

“It seemed like a tangible way we

could improve the pandemic experience of our students,” Miasnik said.

And an hour after sending out a survey to assess student interests and skills, they had 35 responses, which made clear, he said, that “this was an issue with real urgency.”

Immediately, parents and CJL trustees reached out to their networks for mentors. Mentors would benefit from the labors of a smart worker and, at the same time, contribute to a student’s career development by providing them with work experience and professional wisdom.

“We are placing students at the organizations that need it the most, where students can be big fish in a small pond,” Rabbi Ira Dounn, senior Jewish educator at CJL, told NJJN. “It is really meaningful to students to be able to contribute tremendously and actually do real work.”

Over 60 students — not all of whom

Continued on page 6

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State&Local Princeton

Continued from page 4 were Jewish or active in CJL — applied for a match. Approximately a third of the applicants had been matched as of the first week in June, another third had withdrawn, and Dounn expects the final 20 students to be placed soon.

“Once we had everyone’s interests and what they wanted in an internship, we could leverage our Rolodex, tap into our network, and find matches,” said Dounn.

Instead of laboratory work for her senior thesis, Hannah Slabodkin will be digitizing family tree sources and working on projects for the Buffalo Jewish Federation.

PHOTO BY LIVIA SLABODKIN

Ron Miasnik, a rising junior at Princeton University, helped organize the Center for Jewish Life’s intern match program.

PHOTO BY WILLIAM LIN

Normally the only internships offered by CJL are in partnership with the university’s Pace Center for Civic Engagement, but Dounn said the situation required that they adapt for the sake of the students.

“One of our many goals at the CJL is to give support to our students in the variety of ways they need it,” he said.

Slabodkin, a rising senior from Buffalo, N.Y., who is majoring in molecular biology, has started several internships set up by CJL. She’s working three paid projects, including several for the Buffalo Jewish Federation, such as planning a virtual reading of

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the play “Speak Truth to Power: Voices From Beyond the Dark” for the Holocaust Resource Center and working on a survey about communal needs for the Jewish Community Relations Council. In addition, she’s digitizing documents, photographs, and family records that Alice Roth — mother of CJL Executive Director Rabbi Julie Roth — has collected for a family tree.

Thanks to the program, Schoenberg, a rising junior and psychology major from Newton, Mass., will use her creativity to help market a line of books published by Language Lizard on American English idioms, illustrated

Hannah Bein landed an internship in marketing for the Jewish Community Foundation of Greater Mercer.

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“I’m really thankful to the CJL for pairing me and doing such a good job of fitting with my interests and strengths,” she said.

And Bein, a rising junior and history major from Riverside, Conn., applied for the CJL matching program when she realized that the Covid-19 crisis would stymie her hopes of finding an arts management internship. They matched her with Amy Zacks, director of philanthropy at the Jewish Community Foundation of Greater Mercer, for a four-week internship to help with communications and social media, including the launch of their Facebook page and the creation of blog posts.

“It is a great opportunity to learn about working at a nonprofit in general, fundraising, and what administrative and philanthropic work looks like,” she said.

Also important to Bein: working for an organization “whose mission I care about — building Jewish community.”

Bein is particularly grateful for the lifeline CJL tossed her.

“It wasn’t clear at that point what was going to come from that, but it definitely made me feel a lot better having someone look out for us.” ■

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Jewish Family Service of Central NJ Annual Meeting MONDAY, JUNE 15, 2020 | 7:30PM The meeting will take place this year via ZOOM†

THE PROGRAM WILL INCLUDE:

First Vice President:

Ruth B. Margolin

Vice Presidents:

The Installation of New Officers & Continuing Board Members

Jennifer Marshall Sofield Arielle Traub

Treasurer:

Mark Hauptman

Asst. Treasurer:

Gerri Rothfleisch

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Donald Shapiro

Incoming President: Fred Kessler, Esq.

HONORING ALL OF THE VOLUNTEER HEROES OF COVID-19* Tim Alliegro Marty Axelrad* Stephen and Bettye Barcan* Claude Baruch* and Maria Lichtenstein* Dennis* and Genie Berry* Dr. Jonathan Blau and Family Eugene Brotsky* David Brooks and Lexie Brooks Paula Brotman* Lorraine Ciuba* Ilda D’Onofrio* Pearl and Stan Ehrlich* Benzi Engel Barbara Fernandez* Lydia Fogelman*

Naomi Gelfand* Dr. Jerry Graff* Chaim Hagler Judy Hurok* Lisa Israel and Family Yonah Kadosh Henry Krauss* Daniel Krausz Dr. Nancy Lubarsky* and Donald Shapiro* Gary Lubisco* Lauretta Mack* Caroline Maraval Assia Moran* Susan Morreale* Gayle Nettler

Avi Pekarsky Glenn Pinke* Robin Plattman* Greta Polonitza* Lawrence Posner* Jennifer Reisman* Nancy Rich Lucila Robert The Roitman Family The Rotter Family The Sacher Family Emma and Chloe Sarrazin Maxine and Robert Schwartz and Family Susan Shulman* Linda Sprung*

Gary Strong Deborah Tiedrich Gail Toll Arielle Traub and Rabbi Ethan Prosnit Joseph Verga Wallis Family Anne Wargo Rayna Warner* Alric Warren* Lauren Weiss Wollack Family The Woog Family Sara Youner*

RECOGNITION OF STAFF WHO HAVE WORKED AT JFSCNJ 10-15 YEARS Tom Beck Executive Director

Jennifer Marshall Sofield Annual Meeting, Chair, Past JFS President

Howard Goldsmith Nominating Chair, Past JFS President

Jodi Zolkin Kiste Outgoing JFS President

Kindly RSVP to: info@jfscentralnj.org, or call 908-352-8375, to receive a ZOOM Invitation

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State&Local Between the Lines Continued from page 1

grantees fearful of the pandemic’s economic impact.

Consultations among the three funders’ execs soon led to the creation of the Jewish Community Response and Impact Fund (JCRIF), sometimes referred to as the Jewish super fund, which has grown to represent eight foundations and a pot of more than $90 million.

Recently, JCRIF finalized millions of dollars in initial grants to several nonprofits, including the Foundation for Jewish Camp, which partners with hundreds of day and overnight camps; Prizmah: Center for Jewish Day Schools; and Repair the World, a service and social justice group that plans to launch a national service initiative geared to include camp counselors who have been sidelined this summer by the extensive closures due to the coronavirus.

“This is just the beginning,” one funder noted. “Much more to come.”

As the largest collective Jewish response to the pandemic, JCRIF is being heralded as an exemplary example of communal tzedakah, committed to sustaining key elements of Jewish organizational life.

Based on interviews and conversations — most of them off the record — with more than a dozen funders, Jewish professionals, lay leaders, and close observers of the community, it seems clear that the JCRIF is a uniquely generous, selfless, and all-important attempt to stabilize

Repair the World, a social justice group, received some of the initial grants from the so-called Jewish super fund.

REPAIR THE WORLD/JTA

and advance the core infrastructure of Jewish life.

But it has also raised questions about who gets to determine the fate and composition of the American-Jewish ecosystem for years to come.

Some have expressed concern that these weighty decisions are being determined by a relative handful of wealthy “machers” and their professional staffs. Lila Corwin Berman, an American-Jewish history professor at Temple University whose specialty is philanthropy,

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believes the funders’ approach “privileges establishment groups and concentrates power in the foundations funding the initiative,” according to a JTA report.

How it came to be, what its leaders hope to accomplish — and how they are going about it — will have a major impact for decades.

‘We are with you’

The project took shape when Charendoff, Eisen, and Finestone committed their foundations to each contribute $15 million to a collective pool and make joint decisions on how the funds are spent.

Thousands of Jewish nonprofits — synagogues, schools, camps, JCCs, Hillels, human services organizations, and others — were faced with cutting back projects, laying off staff, pivoting to online programm ing, and confronting the very real prospect of shutting down, perhaps permanently.

“We recognized that the need for funds was great — more than any of us could provide — and that we needed to reach out to other foundations to join us,” Charendoff recalled. The goal was to come up with a creative, flexible triage approach to deal with the flood of requests for aid, fully aware that the needs far exceeded the funding available in the Jewish philanthropic world.

The idea of a collective pool marked a major change in Jewish philanthropy.

“Those of us in the foundation world coordinate with each other all the time. But we had never collaborated like this before — in the sense of pooling our collective resources as we are now” and making joint decisions, Finestone noted.

Those interviewed stressed a common commitment, in the face of the pandemic and financial crisis, to support key institutional networks that frame Jewish life, including schools, camps, and the religious movements.

“We’re each willing, for the greater good, to fund things we don’t normally fund,” said Finestone.

The Jewish Federations of North America (JFNA), which represents some 146 federations, has been a key partner of the funders’ group in this endeavor. Eric Fingerhut, president and CEO of JFNA, cited the group’s “selflessness” in putting aside their own foundations’ priorities — often concentrating on support for start-ups and youth engagement — to shore up the communal infrastructure.

“JCRIF’s help in sustaining core institutions in the community has been admirable and absolutely essential,” he observed.

Charendoff, Eisen, and Finestone drafted a statement to reassure their current grantees of continued support and to expand the effort by asking other Jewish foundations to sign on as well.

Within days several more major foundations signed on, each committed to contributing either $5 million or $10 million to the collective pool. They include the Aviv Foundation, the Mandel Foundation, The Glazer Foundation, the Wilf Family Foundation, and the Paul E. Singer Foundation.

The initial pool of $70 million has grown, at last count, to $91 million.

The foundation leaders grappled with the enormity of the challenge, including which groups should receive funds, and how those decisions should be determined and distributed.

“We have tried to approach this task with humility, knowing we can’t come close to meeting all the needs,” Eisen explained. “We sought advice from those in the field because it was important for us to be as inclusive as possible. In the end, this program is just one slice of the pie.”

From the outset the foundations chose to work in partnership with JFNA, which had launched its own major effort to seek government aid for qualifying organizations.

In addition, it should be noted, other major Jewish foundations stepped up with their own efforts. For example, The Harold Grinspoon Foundation launched a $10 million matching grant program for Jewish overnight camps.

Locally, Jewish Federation of Greater MetroWest NJ has “raised and given away almost $6 million in emergency support” to agencies and programs in New Jersey, Israel, and around the world, according to Jessica Mehlman, federation’s chief planning officer. The monies came from private donations and emergency reserves of the annual campaign.

Executive vice president and CEO Dov Ben-Shimon said federation is “committed to further investment of dollars and other resources to help our community recover and become stronger.”

A group experiment

While the JCRIF pot grew, its funders grappled with how best to distribute the dollars.

They recognized that it was impractical to receive proposals from hundreds, if not thousands, of individual organizations. And they knew that leaders in each segment of the nonprofit world — schools, camps, synagogues,

youth programs, social services, etc. — best understood the needs of their constituents. So the funders’ professional execs sought out key leaders in those fields to serve as advisers, advocates, and intermediaries.

Jeremy Fingerman, CEO of the Foundation for Jewish Camp, said he and his team work closely with JCRIF, “serving as a resource and advocate on both sides, providing the data and knowledge we have of the world of camps.” This allows the funders to make thoughtful decisions, he said.

The representatives of the funders decided early on that it would be most effective to offer interest-free loans to qualified beneficiaries, with up to four years for the recipients to pay back. The intent was to invest in “healthy institutions” that are being hit hard now but were fundamentally sound, one insider explained. “We want to help them weather the storm.”

They soon realized, though, that some vital institutions needed immediate help to survive. So JCRIF agreed to set aside about 20 percent of its funds for outright grants.

In practice, the funders make collective decisions on the loans; for the grants, they are “aligned” in their investigation but can make separate decisions about whether or not to fund, and for how much.

Felicia Herman, executive director of the Natan Fund, was chosen to direct the JCRIF grants program. Shira Hutt, JFNA’s chief of staff, is heading up the loans effort. Both counsel potential beneficiaries and screen applications for the funders to review and make decisions.

Several key foundation representatives said they favored proposals that focus on innovation, cost savings, and other efficiencies that could lead to a healthier, more engaged, and less duplicative institutional structure. Partnerships, shared services, and collaboration, if not actual mergers, are welcomed as signs of recognizing the reality of the moment.

Leaders of the religious denominations were pleased to be included in the process. Rabbi Rick Jacobs, president of the Reform movement, said that sitting together with the funders’ teams and a wide range of communal representatives has increased his appreciation of “klal Yisrael [Jewish togetherness], people sharing ideas and resources.”

He added, “the coronavirus is forcing us all to transform in a good way. If you can’t deliver something impactful, move along.”

While some critics of the Jewish establishment have called on the funders to seize this opportunity to reshape the Jewish environment, that is not the goal of JCRIF.

“We don’t necessarily want to see establishment organizations go away,” one key funder said. “We’re looking at the Jewish community in terms of assets rather than institutions. Assets like leadership, talent, and ideas. We’re asking ourselves, ‘How can we preserve our best assets?’”

“We’ll make some good and some bad decisions, no doubt,” another core

funder said, “but we’re doing the best we can and hope that others will step up and do their share as well. We’re living in a new reality, and we’re all in this together.” ■ Gary Rosenblatt is editor at large at The New York Jewish Week, NJJN’s sister publication. He can be reached at Gary@ jewishweek.org.

Congregation Israel of Springfield to hold virtual gala ON SUNDAY, June 14, Congregation Israel of Springfield will host its first-ever Virtual Gala Tribute to honor seven community leaders.

This event replaces the congregation’s annual dinner, which raises funds to cover operating costs and facilitate the religious, educational, and communal programming at Congregation Israel. Rabbi Chaim Marcus is the spiritual leader.

The evening will pay tribute to Guests of Honor Sharon and Avi Borenstein, recipients of the Rabbi Israel E. Turner Memorial Award, in recognition of their service to Congregation Israel. Since their arrival in Springfield over four decades ago, the Borensteins have served in numerous leadership positions; among them, Avi is a former president of the board and Sharon former president of Sisterhood. In addition, they conceptualized a myriad of programs and events that have become longstanding shul traditions.

Josh and Michal Geiger will

receive the Young Leadership Award. They came to Springfield to serve as youth directors and have remained community leaders with a focus on chesed and educational programming.

Danielle Pepper will be honored with the Aishet Chayil Award for numerous roles, including past president of Sisterhood and an integral member of the annual dinner and journal committee.

Howard Gluckman will be honored with the Edward Konigsberg Memorial Award in recognition of his years as a dedicated member of Congregation Israel’s daily minyanim and the expertise he lends as the shul’s financial secretary.

Finally, Avi Stern — long-time youth leader, Torah reader, and volunteer sukkah builder — will be honored with the Joseph Tammam Memorial Youth Community Service Scholarship Award.

To place a tribute ad, visit wizadjournal.com/cisannualdinnerjournal2020.

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9 NJ Jewish News ■ njjewishnews.com ■ June 11, 2020

State&Local

NJ Jewish News ■ njjewishnews.com ■ June 11, 2020

10

State&Local Protests

Continued from page 1 the same,” said Rabbi Doug Sagal of Congregation B’nai Israel in Rumson, referring to the 2018 shooting at the synagogue in Pittsburgh. He said he has been reaching out to African-American churches and organizations in the area, and was scheduled to speak at a June 8 rally in Rumson.

At Ahawas Achim B’nai Jacob & David in West Orange (AABJ&D), over 100 people participated in “Healing Together: Moving Forward in a Broken World,” a conversation featuring AABJ&D Rabbi Eliezer Zwickler, West Orange Mayor Robert Parisi, and Pastor Doug Adams of JOY Church of God in West Orange. “It is critical that we engage and connect with all of our neighbors,” said Zwickler. He wanted to make sure that Adams, who is black, and his congregation would not only feel the Orthodox synagogue’s empathy, but also “our desire to build a strong supportive connection.”

Some have gone to extraordinary lengths to participate.

Rabbi Daniel Geretz, who leads the Orthodox partnership minyan Ma’ayan in West Orange, encouraged members to attend a local rally on June 6, Shabbat.

Citing the principle that humans are created “b’tzelem Elokim,” in the Divine image, he told members in an email, “It is important for us to stand in solidarity with those choosing to publicly object to the violation of this tenet.” Geretz and several members walked about seven

Thousands march June 7 in a Montclair demonstration. miles round-trip together.

Two weeks ago, as news broke about Floyd’s death, Rabbi Michael Satz of Temple B’nai Or in Morristown broke Shabbat to attend a car parade/funeral cortege for Floyd in Morristown, and he even took to social media to encourage congregants to attend. “I felt that the Jewish community in Morristown had to be present,” Satz said.

Aaron Segal of West Orange, a rising senior at Ithaca College and co-president of the Hillel, grew up in Montclair attending Temple Ner Tamid in Bloomfield. He told NJJN that even though he’s not marching as part

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of a synagogue group, his Jewish values influenced his decision to protest. “I’m proud to be Jewish because of the morals that we learn to live by, one of them being ‘Love thy neighbor as thyself,’” he said. “If our neighbor has been dealt a bad hand for the past 400 years, we’re obviously not doing a good enough job treating them equally.”

Many congregations are providing recommended reading lists for their members about race in the U.S., and facilitating book and movie discussions. Reading material on the list includes Ta-Nehisi Coates’ essay in The Atlantic, “The Case for Reparations,” and “So You Want to Talk About Race,” by Ijeoma Oluo. Films include “Just Mercy” and the 2010 drama “American Son.” The Community Relations Committee of Jewish Federation of Greater MetroWest NJ is holding a series of webinars that begins on Tuesday, June 16, with a showing of “I Will Not Be Silent,” a documentary about Rabbi Joachim Prinz, followed by a panel discussion with local rabbis led by Rabbi Cliff Kulwin, recently retired from Temple B’nai Abraham in Livingston, Prinz’s pulpit.

The current crisis has also inspired some congregations and rabbis to try new things. B’nai Shalom in West Orange is starting a task force for sustained engagement with racial justice issues, and Rabbi Robert Wolkoff at Congregation B’nai Tikvah in North Brunswick posted a sermon on social media for the first time, writing, “When I saw the president unleashing uniformed police to use tear gas, pepper spray, concussion grenades, and raw physical violence to disperse peaceful protesters from a church, in order to stand on that sacred ground and raise a Bible in his hand for a perverse photo op — a photo op! — when I saw that, I had had enough. Mr. Trump, standing on sacred ground, with a Bible in your hand, you came into my wheelhouse, and I will do what little I can to make you pay the price.” The response — close to 1,500 shares within a few days — took him by surprise.

“The floodgates have opened on this thing,” Wolkoff told NJJN. But not every congregation is jumping in. For some, the anti-Israel sentiment embedded in the original platform of the Black Lives Matter movement is too much to overcome. Rabbi Elie Mischel, who leads the Synagogue of the Suburban Torah Center, an Orthodox congregation in Livingston, condemned racism and the murder of Floyd, but he took issue with the Black Lives Matter movement. “The Jewish community must

not remain silent about the anti-Semitism and antiIsrael bias of the Black Lives Matter movement, whose official platform calls Israel an ‘apartheid state’ that perpetrates ‘genocide’ against the Palestinian people.”

Rabbi David Levy, regional director of AJC New Jersey, noted that the language Mischel cited had been removed from the platform. In any case, he said, “We need to differentiate between saying ‘Black Lives Matter,’ or even using the hashtag, versus the organization, Movement for Black Lives, that in 2016 promulgated a platform with a paragraph disparaging Israel and supporting the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement, which AJC publicly condemned at the time.

“This is not an either/or, but a yes/and,” Levy told NJJN. “We can both say that Black Lives Matter and We Stand with Israel. “ Dov Ben-Shimon, federation executive vice president and CEO, offered a different perspective, saying in a video he posted to LinkedIn that just as the Jewish community gets to determine how to define and respond to anti-Semitism, “We have to respect and follow the lead of black organizers,” and that those most impacted by housing and zoning practices, differential policing practices, prosecutorial and sentencing decisions, among others, “should have our support in defining their response.”

Miriam Gardin of West Orange is torn. She attended one of the rallies in West Orange with her 9-year-old daughter, Thea, and carried a sign with both “Tzedek, tzedek tirdof,” Justice, justice, you shall pursue (Deuteronomy 16:20) and “#BLM.” “I wanted to be clear that we were there as Jews, and that quote is such a powerful rallying cry for Jews,” Gardin said. Even so, she added, “I struggle with the ‘#BLM’ part, because I want to support the movement and the main tenets that it stands for and what the people are demanding, [but] I have concerns with the antiIsrael/anti-Semitic stance of the official movement.”

Like Gardin, many clergy see collaboration as the only way forward. Some are working with local clergy councils, including Rabbi Inna Serebro-Litvak of Temple Shalom in Succasunna and Congregation Beth Hatikvah in Summit. And Beth Hatikvah Rabbi Hannah Orden is encouraging congregants to call town, county, and state government officials to ask them how they are increasing police accountability and decreasing

Berkeley Costello, 3, at Freedom Park in Randolph.

PHOTO COURTESY MERYL BALABAN

police violence.

Like Orden, other organizations are taking political action. Some are working with New Jersey Together, a multi-faith community organization in northern New

Jersey; and Reform congregations are working with the Reform Jewish Voice of New Jersey, an extension of the movement’s national advocacy arm, the Religious Action Center (RAC). On June 9 RAC released a letter signed by more than 800 Jewish clergy in the U.S., including more than 30 clergy from New Jersey, urging law enforcement not to interfere with peaceful protests.

And AJC New Jersey engaged in a discussion of the murder of George Floyd and the issue of combatting systemic racism with Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-Dist. 5) last week as part of its Garden State Against Hate series.

In addition to attending the June 7 march, B’nai Israel in Millburn put up a “tzedek, tzedek tirdof” banner outside the synagogue, and offered the signs to congregants to put on their lawns.

Said synagogue president Mariela Dybner, “We believe that to pursue justice, we must speak out when we see injustice and that our voices are better heard when we speak together.” ■ jginsberg@njjewishnews.com

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11 NJ Jewish News ■ njjewishnews.com ■ June 11, 2020

State&Local

NJ Jewish News ■ njjewishnews.com ■ June 11, 2020

12

State&Local Relief

Continued from page 4 7 a.m. to set up kiddush for the early minyan, laying out a small spread of potato chips, pretzels, egg salad, and herring, and cleaning up when it was done. She’d also set up and clean up the congregational kiddush and would prepare for seudah shlishit (the third meal on Shabbat) before leaving the synagogue by 2 p.m.

After 23 years in the United States, she is finally on her way to citizenship, and formally started a cleaning and catering business after receiving legal residency.

When the Covid-19 lockdown began in March, Arismendi lost her synagogue paycheck and an estimated 60 percent of her house cleaning income (including the pre-Passover cleaning), plus all of the catering work. Her husband, Mike Cumberton, who does maintenance for the Synagogue of the Suburban Torah Center in Livingston and Congregation Ohr Torah in West Orange, lost about 50 percent of his income.

But neither of them was entitled to a payout. Arismendi was deemed ineligible because she filed her taxes with an ITIN. And Cumberton was denied because he and Arismendi have filed their taxes jointly since marrying in 2017.

“It’s like a punishment from the government to him,” said Arismendi of her husband, in a telephone conversation with NJJN. “It’s like, ‘Don’t help any immigrants because you’re going to pay

the price.’”

According to the wording of the law, citizens married to undocumented immigrants who filed taxes separately are eligible for the $1,200; those who filed jointly are not. Had Cumberton filed separately, or if the couple had filed their 2019 tax returns using Arismendi’s new Social Security number before the CARES Act had passed, they would have received a check.

According to Sara Cullinane, director of Make the Road New Jersey, an advocacy organization for immigrant and working-class communities, there are approximately half a million undocumented immigrants in the state who did not receive aid under the CARES Act. Also, some 225,311 people in N.J. live in a household where undocumented immigrants filed taxes with an ITIN, including undocumented immigrants and their U.S. citizen spouses.

In response, Faith in New Jersey, formerly known as PICO New Jersey, set up a Covid relief fund to provide food and medicine to immigrants.

Eventually they hope they can also provide funds for rent, but they are not able to yet, according to Walker. The organization is also advocating for the state government to set up a fund so those banned from receiving federal funds through the CARES Act can get state aid.

Arismendi, who moved from West Orange to Montclair in 2015, considers herself lucky. “Do you know how many people out there are without documents and without any kind of connection,

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who have nothing to eat and no money for medication?” she asked.

“I would never have made it without the help of the Jewish community,” she said, her voice catching.

“They always were beside me. Always. Anything I needed, I knew I could talk to people,” she said, adding, “I have no family here, but I know I can count on them. I am not Jewish, but these are my people.

They have my back.”

Even her daughter, Paula, was helped. When Paula was old enough to work she got a job in the Kids Club at the JCC MetroWest in West Orange, earning money for clothes and books, while Arismendi put her through Montclair State University.

Now 25, Paula is the grade school administrator for Kids Club.

But the family’s worries aren’t over. Paula is a DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) recipient and could face deportation if the U.S. Supreme Court doesn’t uphold the lawfulness of the program in a case expected to be decided before the end of this month.

Faith in New Jersey has been lobbying politicians to have immigrants included in the next stimulus package, known as the Heroes Act, specifically to extend payments to those filing tax returns using an ITIN, as well as for their spouses who file jointly.

The House of Representatives passed the bill on May 15. New Jersey’s congressional representatives voted along party lines, with 10 Democratic representatives in favor of the Heroes Act and two Republican representatives opposed.

The bill was on the calendar for discussion in the Senate beginning June 1, but according to reports, the Heroes Act will not pass in its current form, and a vote is unlikely before July.

New Jersey’s two senators, Robert Menendez and Corey Booker, both Democrats, support the legislation. “The Covid-19 pandemic does not discriminate based on immigration status, and neither should the national relief response,” Menendez told NJJN in a statement prior to the bill’s arrival in the Senate. “All individuals who file taxes in the United States, including U.S. citizen spouses and children who live in mixed-status households, should be eligible for cash payments to help ensure that families are able to afford shelter and food during this crisis.”

Walker told NJJN she is not confident the correction will stand. “We are worried [the provisions designed to help immigrants] will be ripped out on the Senate side,” she said.

Rabbi Joel Abraham of Temple Sholom in Scotch Plains, who sits on Faith in New Jersey’s board of directors, believes a Jew’s responsibility extends beyond the Jewish community. To emphasize the proper treatment of non-citizens, he quoted Exodus 12:49, which reads, “There shall be one law for the citizen and for the stranger who dwells among you.”

“Judaism not only teaches us that we are responsible for the world around us,” he wrote in an email to NJJN, “but we are specifically commanded to treat those in our community who are not citizens as we would treat any citizen.” ■ jginsberg@njjewishnews.com

More Shoah education in NJ colleges is legacy of retired head of Holocaust commission Dedicated Larry Glaser displayed ‘constant enthusiasm’

Jed Weisberger NJJN Staff Writer

W

hat would the Rowan Center for the Study of Holocaust, Genocide, and Human Rights look like without the contributions of Larry Glaser, former executive director of the New Jersey Commission on Holocaust Education?

“It’s absolutely safe to say that we would not have this center at Rowan without Larry’s work,” Dr. Jennifer Rich, executive director of the center and an assistant professor at the Glassboro-based school, told NJJN. The center opened in 2015. “With Larry’s continued support, we were able to grow this into a robust center. Larry’s constant enthusiasm made him an exciting person to work with.”

Glaser, 72, who retired in December, started volunteering at the commission in 2007 before taking on the role of executive director in 2016. Besides his involvement with the Center for the Study of Holocaust, Genocide, and Human Rights and dozens of other centers in the state, Glaser also had a major part in the establishment of the Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies at Saint Peter’s University in Jersey City.

“Larry was wonderful to us, kind, knowledgeable,” said Eileen Poiani, special assistant to the president at Saint Peter’s. “He was always here when we needed him. As a Jesuit school, social justice was always in tune for us.”

Glaser worked intensely as part of a task force that planned the Saint Peter’s center, Poiani told NJJN. He brought speakers and programs to the school, with the center celebrating its official launch on Oct. 7, 2019, the 75th anniversary of the uprising at AuschwitzBirkenau. “He was just so helpful in so many ways.”

Glaser, who lives with his wife, Alice, in Moorestown, said that his proudest achievement during his tenure as executive director is expanding the commission’s work with the state’s colleges. New Jersey is one of 12 states with mandated Holocaust education in public schools, having required it as part of the K-12 curriculum since 1994. Glaser realized that there was a void to be filled on college campuses.

“Our K-12 program is well established, and I wanted to expand what Dr. Paul Winkler had established,” Glaser said, referring to his predecessor.

“Stockton has a great program for years, and Rutgers is certainly one of the leaders, but I saw an area to grow what we are doing, and I am very proud that it all worked out at both Rowan and Saint Peter’s.”

Expanding Holocaust education in college is particularly important, according to Poiani, because despite all efforts, some students leave high school without learning about the Shoah.

“We get a lot of kids who really don’t know much about the Holocaust,” said Poiani. “They may have been absent the days it was present in their schools, so we feel it is part of our students’ education. We have a very diverse group on our campus, and they need to

know about genocide.”

Glaser feels expanding what is offered on college campuses will enhance Holocaust knowledge for more than one generation.

“With the centers at Rowan and Saint Peter’s, we have two other colleges at which courses and centers are available, so we just made more students part of the game,” he said. “They graduate, get jobs, have kids, are educated about the Holocaust, and come back to one of those schools for a program featuring a topic on it. We didn’t have these [at] colleges before.”

In line with Glaser’s efforts, beginning this fall Rowan will offer its first-ever Master of Arts degree in Holocaust and genocide education, “designed to better equip those who are teaching the Holocaust in our schools,” Rich said.

Glaser is optimistic that his successor, Doug Cervi, will continue the commission’s upward trajectory. “I know Doug will do a great job and get a lot of people involved,” he said. “Doug comes from a long career of teaching and knows how to present our programs.”

Glaser earned a bachelor of science degree in eco-

nomics from the University of Pennsylvania, and a master of arts in Holocaust and genocide studies from Stockton University; he also served as an adjunct professor at Stockton from 2007-2015, researching, designing, and developing three undergraduate courses in the Holocaust and genocide studies minor.

Glaser is a member of the New Jersey State Education Committee for the Anti-Defamation League; a charter member of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum; and served on boards of The Holocaust Education Center of the Delaware Valley and the Catholic-Jewish Commission of Southern New Jersey.

Prior to his work with the commission, Glaser was an executive recruiter, placing sales personnel with national brand companies in various industries. Afterward he formed his own successful recruiting firm, which he retired from in 2008.

He and Alice have two grown children and three grandsons. ■ jweisberger@njjewishnews.com

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13 NJ Jewish News ■ njjewishnews.com ■ June 11, 2020

State&Local

Editorial

NJ Jewish News ■ njjewishnews.com ■ June 11, 2020

14

Standing up for Israel, and with the marchers

B

efore Black Lives Matter was the name of an organization, it was a slogan meant to identify a very specific problem: the disproportionate extrajudicial killing of and violence directed at people of color, mostly but not always by law enforcement. The term came to wide public attention in 2013, after the acquittal of vigilante George Zimmerman in the shooting death of African-American teen Trayvon Martin. Like “Never Again” or “MeToo,” “#BlackLivesMatter” is a pithy phrase meant to capture and expose the flagrant disregard of the rights and lives of a particular class of people.

On one level, the phrase addresses the painful statistic that black people are twice as likely to be killed by a police officer while unarmed, compared to a white individual. On ano t h e r, i t i s a b o u t ending the radical disparities of health and wealth that lead to what Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw, the founder and executive director of the African American Policy Forum, calls the “stealth victimization” of black bodies.

The protests happening around the country and the world in response to the killing of George Floyd by a police officer who knelt on his neck for over eight minutes are a broad, multiracial, multi-agenda declaration that black lives do matter.

But because Black Lives Matter is also the name of an organization — one that has taken some distressing stands against Israel — some have tried to discredit the protests as another manifestation of anti-Israel and anti-Semitic radicalism. The leader of one vo-

cal pro-Israel group has made this a mission. Not satisfied with recalling the official BLM platform that slandered Israel by saying it perpetrated “genocide” against Palestinians, the same leader has sought to deny the kinds of systemic discrimination faced by blacks in nearly all walks of life.

Others have written letters to the editor or tweets suggesting that if African Americans are to receive Jewish support in their calls to justice, they must first repudiate the BLM platform.

The energy of the current marches is drawn from the left, which has seen within its own ranks a troubling, faddish rise of anti-Israel sentiment. In progressive circles, there have been ugly and off-base comparisons between the plight of Palestinians and the struggles of black Americans.

Unfounded charges of complicity have been leveled against Israel because of exchange programs in which police here learn counterterrorism techniques from their Israeli counterparts.

The Jewish community needs to stand up to the people who spread these kinds of slanders, but also stand with the people who are demanding safety, dignity, and equality for people of color. Their demands are a call for justice, one that is familiar to Jews who just a few months earlier took to the streets demanding awareness of and protection for people and institutions singled out, attacked, and in some cases killed for no reason other than the fact of their Jewishness.

The biblical precept “Justice, justice, thou shalt pursue” is not conditional. ■

‘Justice,

justice thou

shalt pursue’ — full stop.

Letters to the Editor Ginsberg’s ‘gift’ to readers

N J J N S e n i o r Wr i t e r J o h a n n a Ginsberg’s articles and features are always informative, well-written, and enlightening. Her opinion piece, “Our silence equals consent” (June 4), was that and much more; it’s crucial to an understanding of the burning issue of racism in America today. That she moved out of her “objective” role as journalist and was willing to share her personal experiences and background is a gift to readers of NJJN. Ginsberg gives sad testimony to examples of racism, brutality, and vindictiveness that she witnessed from the inside as a criminal defense lawyer for the Legal Aid Society in Brooklyn. What she attests to is not only the racist, unjust, and injudicious use of force by members of a police department, but its reflection of the attitude of the government officials whose role it is to supervise and pay these “officers of the law.”

Were her observations only about her experiences nearly 30 years ago, it would be worth reading as background to understanding current issues being discussed widely following the tragic murder of George Floyd, plus Eric Garner, Sandra Bland, Tamir Rice, and so many others. The fact that her experiences reflect all too closely the news of the day uncovers the fact that the misdeeds of today are deeply seated and multi-generational in origin.

Importantly for us as Jewish readers of NJJN, Ginsberg reminds us implicitly that there’s no room for rationalizations and expressions of knee-jerk abhorrence of anti-Semitism, misplaced emphasis on the reprehensible acts of a small number of vandals and their disregard for property, and unrelated matters concerning Israel’s deeds and misdeeds, when the suffering of our fellow African Americans is highlighted.

As American Jews we must stand up against racism in our society as a whole and injustice, brutality, and insensitivity among a putrid minority of our “officers of the law.” We must call our elected officials to account for their leadership in this regard. Let us remember the biblical injunctions

to act with mercy, justice, and “choose life.”

Richard Hammerman Rabbi Emeritus, Congregation B’nai Israel Toms River

Police silence is the problem

I cannot relate to Johanna Ginsberg saying that “Our silence equals consent.” I would think that every reader of NJJN condemns police brutality and unequal justice. I don’t consent to police brutality and unequal treatment of the races, but I chose to keep my thoughts about these protests to myself.

It is the silence of the police that is the problem.

Yo u w o u l d t h i n k t h a t a f t e r events in Ferguson, Mo. — when an unarmed African-American teen was shot dead by police in 2014 — that they would be accountable for their actions. That they would assure that race is not a factor in their actions. That they can explain situations when they have to use force (yes, there are some appropriate situations). That they are determined to distinguish between proper and improper police behavior. Instead, the police unions have chosen to remain silent when they are pilloried in the media, such as The New York Times.

These protests are not just against police brutality. They are also aimed at us who have “white privilege.” In the protestors’ minds, it is not sufficient for you and I just to acknowledge our white privilege.

Mark Shufro Member, Congregation Agudath Israel Caldwell Send letters to the editor to editorial@ njjewishnews.com without attachments. Indicate “letter” in the subject line of the e-mail. Include your full name, place of residence, and daytime telephone number. If you are referring to an article in NJJN, please include the headline and edition and date of the paper in which it appeared.

Letters also can be mailed to Letters to the Editor, New Jersey Jewish News, 1719 Route 10, Parsippany, NJ 07054; or faxed to 973-887-5999.

NJJN reserves the right to edit letters for length, clarity, content, and accuracy.

Opinion

15

The times call for ‘spiritual audacity’ Peter Geffen Special to NJJN

P

olice officer Derek Chauvin allegedly murdered George Floyd, but I am responsible because of what Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel taught us 60 years ago: “In a free society, some are guilty, all are responsible.”

Once again history has caught up with us. We cannot escape.

Each of us must enter our own hearts and decide which side we are on. There is no longer a middle ground. Our country will not heal until we listen to our black and brown fellow citizens who have been left out of the progress and prosperity we acclaim as the birthright of our nation.

We m u s t l o o k i n t o o u r p r i vate and collective mirrors and confront what we h a v e d o n e . We have built our success at the expense of other human beings.

We have allowed black children to drink contaminated water so our corporations could save money for their shareholders.

We have filled our shelves with food beyond our needs while those same children go to bed hungry each night in city after city. We have instructed our police to stop and frisk our African-American fellow citizens just because their skin is dark. We have forced a generation of “successful” people of color to instruct their children to put their hands on the dashboard if stopped for a traffic violation for fear of death by shooting.

Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was once asked about endangering the lives of “innocent bystand-

ers” when he led a march that he knew would encounter violence, as in Selma, Ala. His answer was quite simple and direct: “The term is an oxymoron, for if you are a bystander, you cannot be innocent.”

Heschel, King’s friend and ally in the movement against the Vietnam War, understood the insidious nature of evil. “Indifference to evil is more insidious than evil itself; it is more universal, more contagious, more dangerous,” he wrote. “A silent justification, it makes possible an evil erupting as an exception becoming the rule and being in turn accepted.”

We have done exactly what Heschel predicted. Our silence, our not-so-well-meaning looking aside, has now allowed a pervasive evil to erupt around us and begin to consume us in its fire, both literally and figuratively. The irony of the timing of this moment cannot be more poignant.

Facing a virus engulfing the entire world, we are now confronting a disease far more contagious and deadly: racism.

And once again we are unprepared.

The masks we have been wearing for many years do not protect us from the truth. As Heschel said, 150 years after the Emancipation Proclamation, “It is time for the white man to strive for selfemancipation, to set himself free of bigotry, to stop being a slave to wholesale contempt, a passive recipient of slander.”

Heschel understood the insidious power of self-delusion. We all experience it. We all know we have done the right thing much of the time. We are basically good

Indifference

to evil is more

insidious than evil itself.

people. Why are we guilty of one or 100 acts of racially motivated injustice? Again, Heschel stops us in our tracks: “That equality is a good thing, a fine goal, may be generally accepted. What is lacking is a sense of the monstrosity of inequality.”

King understood this same morally compromised temptation: “History will have to record that the greatest tragedy of this period of social transition was not the strident clamor of the bad people, but the appalling silence of the good people.”

On April 9, 1968, Mickey Shur and I, two civil rights workers in our early 20s, marched through the streets of Atlanta behind the coffin of King. Earlier that morning we had been assigned to bring one of the mules for the muletrain that carried King’s body from the Ebenezer Baptist Church to Morehouse College and to his first burial site. We walked beside Heschel and then-presidential h o p e f u l R o b e r t F. K e n n e d y.

Stunned by King’s assassination and what it would mean for the future, I asked: “Rabbi Heschel, what are we to do now?” He kept walking and said simply: “You must teach the children, you must teach them a Judaism that can remake the world.”

Our job now, all of us of all religions and belief systems, is to prove to ourselves and our children that we can remake the world into a better reality, providing,

caring for, and sharing more equitably with all. The era of selfishness and greed must finally come to an end. We must allow a spirit of compassion and empathy to enter our hearts and fill our homes, our streets, our schools, our workplaces, our houses of worship, and our politics.

On June 16, 1963, Heschel sent a telegram to President John F. Kennedy in response to an invitation from JFK to attend a meeting of religious leaders at the White House to discuss the then-growing racial tensions in the country: “I look forward to privilege of being present at meeting tomorrow. Likelihood exists that Negro problem will be like the weather.

Everybody talks about it but nobody does anything about it.

Please demand of religious leaders personal involvement not just solemn declaration. We forfeit the right to worship God as long as we continue to humiliate Negroes.

Church synagogue have failed.

They must repent. Ask of religious leaders to call for national repentance and personal sacrifice.”

Heschel called on the president to declare a “state of moral emergency…. The hour calls for moral grandeur and spiritual audacity.” n Peter Geffen is founder and president of Kivunim, founder of The Abraham Joshua Heschel School, and former director of the Israel Experience Program for the CRB Foundation.

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16

Opinion

Defund the police?

Only if you’re willing to sacrifice Jewish security

Jonathan S. Tobin Special to NJJN

I

f your synagogue were under attack from a shooter, would you want a social worker to arrive in response to your 911 call or a squad of armed policemen?

You may think that when you’re in danger, a cop with a gun is your best chance of survival. But the murder of an AfricanAmerican man by a Minneapolis policeman and America’s history of racism have led some to demand revolutionary change, rather than merely justice for the perpetrators and better police training. And to them, you’re part of the problem.

In the course of the last two weeks, support for a movement to “defund the police” has spread across the nation. Protesters, liberal groups, and many in the media have embraced the notion that the answer to police violence is to get rid of the police.

The actual facts about police shootings don’t back up the notion that there is an epidemic of police murders of unarmed African-Americans caused by systemic racism. But the perception that this is true has become so deeply embedded in the national consciousness that an idea about disarming and even abolishing the police, which would have been dismissed as a crackpot notion not long ago, is now being seriously debated in the mainstream media, and even advocated by some community leaders and politicians.

Indeed, as part of his response to the furor over the murder of George Floyd, Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti announced that he was going to seek to cut the budget for the LA Police Department by $100 million to $150 million.

While some will cheer if this money is diverted to programs to benefit the African-American community, it may not sound like such a good idea to some of the city’s citizens who want more security, rather than less, after protests led to rioting and looting. Among them may be the LA Jews who were cleaning up the anti-Semitic and anti-Israel graffiti on one synagogue, as well

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as the owners of Jewish businesses that were attacked and looted.

In the wake of increased incidents of anti-Semitic violence in the last two years, including two murderous shooting attacks inside synagogues, American Jews have been rightly focused on providing greater security for their institutions. This has meant communities and Jewish organizations have been relying on greater cooperation with law-enforcement agencies and seeking a greater police presence at potential Jewish targets.

A report produced by the Secure Community Network, an initiative of the Jewish Federations of North America and the Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations created in response to this rising threat, recommended that synagogues hire police officers to guard them rather than security guards.

Sensible people know that we don’t have to choose between justice and preserving the rule of law.

But the push for more police protection for vulnerable Jewish targets has placed even liberal groups like the Anti-Defamation League on the wrong side of an argument in which some Jews are joining with other leftists to denounce the whole idea of the police. Indeed, a group calling itself Jews for Racial and Economic Justice is promoting a campaign to demand that the New York City Council shift funding from the police to social services. As an op-ed in The New York Times recently argued, what we need are more social workers and less police.

According to an article in The Forward, the impetus for this movement is the belief that Jews of color see police as a threat to their security, rather than as protection. But support for this notion seems more about intersectional ideology in which Jews are labeled as white, and therefore,

by definition, members of the oppressor class.

Part of this is the effort by BDS groups like Jewish Voice for Peace to promote the anti-Semitic blood libel that Israel is training American cops to kill blacks.

The radicals who seek to exploit a unique moment in history think that divisions about race, President Donald Trump, and the use of force to put down the rioting have all created an opportunity to get something more than just police reform.

Sensible people know that we don’t have to choose between justice and preserving the rule of law. And if anyone ought to know that, it is a Jewish community and other minority groups that depend on both in order to feel safe.

While the ideologues are successfully promoting the slogans about abolishing and defunding the police, polls show that both black and white Americans, including those who think the cops are prejudiced, want more police protection, not less.

Indeed, the problem in many poor urban areas with minority populations is that high crime rates and violence there are in part caused by neglect of these neighborhoods by law enforcement, rather than systemic racism and police violence.

The police are not perfect. Some can be bullies or corrupt. And as we saw in Minneapolis, some are capable of murder. But the overwhelming majority of officers are brave individuals who do a difficult and dangerous job with a far greater chance of suffering injury or death in the line of duty than their critics want to admit.

And if you’re in trouble, then they’re likely to be your best bet for survival — no matter your race or religion.

The impulse to demonize law enforcement or to treat all efforts to maintain public order — and to defend the safety and the property of citizens at risk from rioters — as illegitimate or evidence of fascist oppression is madness.

Fashionable liberal opinion has been hijacked by extremists who teach contempt for American ideals, and who see the country and our police as irredeemably racist. But it’s also particularly foolish for a community that has endured a surge of anti-Semitic attacks in the last year to join with those who wish to abolish or defund to the point of irrelevance the only group that can deter or adequately respond to such incidents. Any Jewish group that wants to defund the police isn’t just wrong. Those who succumb to this delusion will have on their hands the blood of future victims of violence that only the cops could stop. n Jonathan S. Tobin is editor in chief of JNS-Jewish News Syndicate (jns.org) and a columnist for the New York Post and National Review. Follow him on Twitter at: @jonathans_tobin.

17 NJ Jewish News ■ njjewishnews.com ■ June 11, 2020

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18

Calendar

Due to the outbreak of the coronavirus, most synagogues and organizations have cancelled all in-person activities for the rest of the spring. Some are offering online learning opportunities or plan to reschedule. Please email calendar@njjewishnews.com with online events open to the community.

Camp@Home Temple Sharey Tefilo-Israel (TSTI) will begin Camp@Home, for children in preschool through second grade, on Monday, June 15.

Camp counselors will guide families through a mini day-camp experience in the mornings, 9-11:15 or 9-9:30 a.m. (sing-along only). The 10-week camp will be broken into flexible one-week modules with regular programming and special activities.

Campers and counselors will begin the day virtually with a musical gathering; other activities include Lego Masters, American Sign Language, Animal Action, Wonder Wednesdays, Dance Party, and Mindful Movement and Breathing.

To register, go to bit.ly/TSTIcamp or email tsticamp@gmail.com.

TUESDAY, June 16 Battle of the Singers: Benny Friedman vs.

Mordechai Shapiro. Livestreamed event at 7 p.m. to benefit families serviced by Yachad,

an organization for individuals with disabilities, combat isolation during Covid-19. Cost is $18 per family. Go to yachad.org/concert.

THURSDAY, June 18

Long-term Planning for Individuals with Special Needs Webinar. Held at 10 a.m. and sponsored by Coordinated Care of MetroWest, a program of Jewish Family Service of MetroWest NJ that assists families, individuals, and caregivers who are overseeing the lifetime care of individuals with disabilities in planning for the future. To register, contact Ebony Steele at 973-765-9050 or esteele@jfsmetrowest.org or visit jfsmetrowest.org.

Jewish Relief Agency Day. A project of the Rabbinical College of America in Morristown, a food packing day will be held in the parking lot of Congregation Ohr Torah, West Orange, 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Participants may also volunteer to deliver packages. To register and receive safety procedures, go to tinyurl.com/y9jxfpj9.

MONDAY, June 22 “Restorative Chair Yoga.” Free Zoom program sponsored by Jewish Family Service of Central New Jersey, 8-9 p.m., and led by yoga instructor Alyssa Reiner, LSW, RYT200. RSVP to alreiner@jfscentralnj.org to receive the Zoom link.

TUESDAY, June 23

Annual Meeting. Held via Zoom by YM-YWHA

of Union County, Union, 7:30 p.m. For Zoom URL, email scohen@uniony.org.

The following national and international organizations are offering various online resources: American Jewish Committee will hold its Virtual Global Forum, its annual policy and advocacy conference, June 14-18. The full program will be available free of charge and can be accessed from any computer, tablet, or smartphone.

Issues to be highlighted include the rise of anti-Semitism and hate in the era of the coronavirus, the 2020 U.S. presidential election, Israel’s quest for peace and security, and the future of the transatlantic relationship.

For more information, visit ajc.org/virtualglobalforum2020.

Hadassah Magazine has launched its new reading initiative, “One Book, One Hadassah,” presenting author interviews, book reviews, and discussion guides for local book groups. For more information, visit hadassahmagazine.org/ books.

Jennifer Weiner ’s “Big Summer” is one of the books being discussed.

Community SHAVUOT TO GO — The West Orange/Livingston Chesed Committee provided more than 200 “Shavuot to Go” meals for the community. The packages included four holiday meals catered by Jerusalem Restaurant and Shimon Nissel/Shimtal Catering and were delivered locally by members of the teen volunteer group, Deliver Together. Shown with the assembled meals are, from far left, Josh Shapiro, Noam Nissel, Larry Rein, Shimon Nissel, Renee Glick, and Barbara Listhaus.

VIRTUAL RETREAT — Bnai Keshet in Montclair held its annual retreat virtually this year, May 22-24, attracting 225 people with a range of activities for congregants of all ages conceived by congregant Sarah Wolman.

“People felt emotional, connected after isolation,” congregant Melody Kimmel said.

B’nei mitzvah

Predeceased by her husband, Sidney, Mrs. Cooper is survived by her daughter, Natalie (Sidney) Rosenthal; her son, Neil; seven grandchildren; and nine greatgrandchildren.

Obituaries

Cynthia Mintz

LUCAS PANITCH, son of Amy and Michael Panitch of Livingston, June 6 via a Mincha Zoom service.

The family are members of Temple B’nai Abraham, Livingston.

Therese Izraeli

Therese (Terry) Izraeli (Goldberg) of Whippany died April 6, 2020.

Born in 1930 in Brussels, she and her sister and brother were all sheltered by righteous Christians for two years during the Nazi occupation. Her entire immediate family survived the Holocaust, and she moved to the United States in 1950.

Shortly after arriving in the United States, Mrs. Izraeli secured a job at Prudential Insurance in Newark, where she began her professional career. She and her husband, Herman, moved in 1960 to West Caldwell, where they raised their family and lived for almost 60 years.

She was very active in the sisterhood at Congregation Agudath Israel in Caldwell and Hadassah.

She raised funds for over 30 years and was named a Hadassah “Woman of the Year.”

Among her interests were traveling, folk dancing, and tennis.

Predeceased by her husband of 58 years and her siblings, Sonia and Charles, she is survived by her daughter, Ruth (Ben Watson); her son, Dan (Christa Horan); and four grandchildren.

Florence Cooper

Florence Cohn Cooper, 96, of West Orange died May 15, 2020. Born in Queens, she had resided in South Orange for many years and also had lived in Boca Raton, Fla.

Cynthia Mintz, 95, died May 29, 2020 in Somerset. Born and raised in Jersey City, she had lived in South Plainfield for many years before most recently moving to Cranford.

A homemaker, Mrs. Mintz was a past president of Temple Beth Israel and was involved with Jewish Federation. She enjoyed playing bridge and tennis.

Predeceased by her husband, Milton, in 1993, she is survived by her son, Howard (Bernetta); her daughter, Diane Mintz; a brother, Leonard Sandhaus; two grandchildren; and two great-grandchildren.

Graveside services were held with arrangements by Higgins Home for Funerals, Watchung.

Howard Alter

Howard Fred Alter, 93, of Middletown died May 24, 2020.

Born in Newark, he also had resided in Maplewood, Union, and Manchester.

Predeceased by his wife, Rita Leila Alter, in February 2019, Mr. Alter is survived by two sons, Larry Mitchell and Stuart Paul; and a niece, Roberta Ferrara, and her children and grandchildren.

Private services were held.

Anita Scherer-Kozlow

Anita Scherer-Kozlow (Diamond), 90, of Boynton Beach, Fla., died May 22, 2020. Born in Newark, she

Continued on next page

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LifeCycle Continued from previous page was a resident of West Orange before moving to Boynton Beach 22 years ago.

Predeceased by her husband, David Kozlow, she is survived by her son, Robert (Francine) Scherer; her daughter, Laurie Dvorkin-Diamond; two stepchildren, Howard (Lois) Kozlow and Karen Hipscher; and many grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

Stanley Marcus

Dr. Stanley S. Marcus, 83, of Monroe Township died June 4, 2020. Born in Brooklyn, he resided in Scotch Plains for 31 years before moving to Monroe in 2000.

Prior to retiring in 2000, Dr. Marcus was a physician at Associated Radiologist, Plainfield, for 25 years.

He traveled around the world and was an avid tennis and bridge player.

He is survived by his wife of 56 years, Ruth (Bronfman); his son, Daniel (Dawn) of Spring Hill, Fla.; his daughter, Amy of Plainfield; a brother, David of Metuchen; four grandchildren; and a great-grandson.

Private services were held with arrangements by Mount Sinai Memorial Chapels, East Brunswick. Memorial contributions may be made to NYU Gross School of Medicine, Stanley Shaw Marcus Scholarship Fund, Office of Development, One Park Ave., 17th Floor, New York, N.Y. 10016 (nyulangone.org/give/ fundraise).

Lillian Roberts

Lillian Roberts, 89, of Fair Lawn died May 23, 2020. Born in the Bronx, she resided in Fair Lawn for 60 years.

Mrs. Roberts worked for a number of years, focusing her time on raising her family.

J.L.

She graduated from Baruch College in New York City with a degree in accounting.

She enjoyed long walks, nature, and spending time with her grandchildren.

Predeceased by her husband of 66 years, Henry, last July, she is survived by her daughter, Judy (Murray Klayman) of Mendham; two sons, Paul (Jane Armstrong) of Sparta and Steven of New York City; and three grandchildren.

Services were held May 26 with arrangements by J.L. Apter Memorial Chapels of Dover.

Albert Shikiar

Albert (Tico) Shikiar, 85, of South Orange died June 4, 2020. He was born and raised in the Bronx.

After starting a Clara Berman career as a schoolteachClara Berman, 94, of Commack, N.Y., died er, Mr. Shikiar became May 28, 2020. Born in Zbarazh, Poland (now an agency manager Ukraine) in 1926, her family — her parents, at The Equitable Life five brothers, and a sister — all died in the Assurance Society, Holocaust. where he was one of the youngest agency When the Nazis liquidated the ghetto, managers at the time. After moving to South Clara’s family hid her on a bed with the quilt Orange, he started his own business, Shikiar covers, pillows, and furniture piled on top of Associates, a health insurance consulting firm her. She escaped to a barn in the woods outside to school districts and municipalities in New Zbarazh, where she and her cousin hid from Jersey. Afterward, he founded Access Care in the Germans and their dogs. The Russians later Livingston, where he marketed long-term-care liberated the town. insurance for MedAmerica before retiring at the She then traveled to Rome and met her hus- age of 80. band, Julius Berman, at a restaurant serving He attended Hunter College in New York displaced persons; she was a waitress and Julius City.

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Time for a mitzvah

Livingston teens stuck at home get creative with fund-raisers Shira Vickar-Fox NJJN Managing Editor

W

hen Molly Nelson was forced home to Livingston from her gap year in Israel due to the spread of the coronavirus, she spent a lot of time in her kitchen cooking and baking. Nelson is a 2019 graduate of The Frisch School in Paramus and was studying at the seminary Midreshet Lindenbaum in Jerusalem.

When back in New Jersey, “I kept seeing so many different people doing different projects to help raise money … and I thought, ‘I’m home and why not do something?’” she told NJJN. Nelson was baking challah frequently using her aunt’s recipe and it got rave reviews from her family, so she used the dough to develop a chocolate babka. She sold the loaves for $15 each for a pre-Shavuot fund-raiser and raised $280 for the Community FoodBank of New Jersey.

Nelson said she intentionally picked a recipe that was “something special that I can do that’s not such a simple dessert.”

Her project sent her parents, Melissa Feldman and Ariel Nelson, on a hunt to buy ingredients, including flour and yeast, two items that have been in short supply during the pandemic.

“Finding all the ingredients was a long process,” she said, but she learned how to use fresh blocks of yeast — sometimes the only kind available — perfected her chocolate filling and crumb topping, and managed to bake 18 loaves.

Nelson said she’ll continue her baking project and is considering donating to an organization in memory of her grandmother Eva Nelson, who died June 5.

Molly Nelson has been an “inspiration to our community,” said Daphna Ansel who, with her sister Olivia, have been tie-dying sweatshirts and masks to raise money for Friendship Circle, an organization which supports children with disabilities and their families. The Nelson and Ansel families are members of the Synagogue of the Suburban Torah Center in Livingston.

Molly Nelson with babka she baked to raise money for the Community FoodBank of New Jersey.

COURTESY MELISSA FELDMAN

Daphna also returned home in March from her seminary, Midreshet Moriah in Jerusalem.

She’s a 2019 graduate of Rae Kushner Yeshiva High School (RKYHS) in Livingston, where Olivia is a rising sophomore. Their parents are Michelle and Jacob Ansel.

Daphna bought a tie-dye kit in April as a birthday gift for Olivia and the sisters were impressed

with how well their sweatshirts turned out.

“This actually is really cool, I’d wear it out,” Daphna said about their first foray. She told NJJN they were looking for a way to be productive with their time and created “tie dye for charity” to raise money for an organization important to them.

“We both love Friendship Circle,” said Daphna. Daphna volunteered with the organization every Sunday during her four years of high school, and Olivia said the participants in Friendship Circle are “so fun to hang out with.”

The masks cost $5 each; a combination of mask and sweatshirt is $36. To date, they’ve sold 30 sweatshirts and 35 cotton masks and have raised nearly $400 for Friendship Circle.

“As many orders as we get we will continue selling,” Daphna said. ■ To order, direct message them on Instagram at tie.dye4charity or email Daphne132@gmail.com.

To purchase babka from Molly Nelson, email mollynelson123@gmail.com.

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Olivia Ansel, at left, and sister Daphna in masks and sweatshirts they tie-dye and sell to benefit Friendship Circle.

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21 NJ Jewish News ■ njjewishnews.com ■ June 11, 2020

State&Local

NJ Jewish News ■ njjewishnews.com ■ June 11, 2020

22

Update pages provided by Jewish Federation of Greater MetroWest NJ

Greater MetroWest UPDATE

For the latest information & happenings in the Jewish community, visit us at www.jfedgmw.org

A COMMUNITY STEPS UP “ The greatness of a community is most accurately measured by the compassionate actions of its members.”

— Coretta Scott King When our Greater MetroWest Jewish community looks back on the spring of 2020, we will certainly feel a great sense of loss and upheaval – the COVID-19 pandemic has taken the lives of treasured members of our community and has put us all in a state of worry as to what the future holds. But, at the same time, we will acknowledge with immense pride that our community came together in overwhelming support of one another.

This article is dedicated to all of those who have stepped up during this time of need.

STEPPING UP FINANCIALLY

“ In my mind, there is no better guarantor that we can face challenges, address multiple needs, and ensure the health and vitality of the Jewish community than a strong Federation. I think the power and impact of collective action is the only way we get things done properly and that’s why my family and I recognize the importance of financially supporting the UJA Campaign.”

– Mark Wilf, Chair of the Board, Jewish Federations of North America; Trustee, Jewish Federation of Greater MetroWest NJ

Instead of people pulling back on giving because of financial instability, the donors in Greater MetroWest NJ have done just the opposite. Since the onset of the coronavirus crisis, we’ve seen resounding support of the community’s UJA Annual Campaign, including nearly 1,200 new donors, nearly 1,000 donors who increased their gifts over last year, and more than 500 donors who gave additional gifts once the crisis hit. It also includes exceptionally large gifts from several generous families. This unprecedented generosity has put the 2020 Campaign ahead of projections for the fundraising year ending June 30.

Because of our donors, Federation has raised over $7.75 million to help the entire community weather this coronavirus storm.

“People have so many choices about where to give their philanthropic dollars,” said Campaign Chair Michael Goldberg.

“The fact that they’re choosing, during this crisis, to give to the UJA Annual Campaign reflects both their commitment to their Jewish community and their confidence in Federation.”

Federation cares for people in need, builds Jewish life, and saves the world, one person at a time, every day.

Building an inclusive community is a priority. Contact us and we will make every effort to meet your needs.

Follow us:

Update pages provided by Jewish Federation of Greater MetroWest NJ

23

For the latest information & happenings in the Jewish community, visit us at www.jfedgmw.org

STEPPING UP TO VOLUNTEER

“We delivered Passover packages to the seniors in our community. They were so appreciative; I know it meant the world to them knowing that Federation takes such good care of them, particularly in such dire times of need.”

– Greater MetroWest volunteer

Immediately as the pandemic broke out, many members of our community felt an urgency to help, and Federation connected them to the areas of greatest need. Here’s how more than 250 individuals of all ages have signed on to help their neighbors: • made weekly phone calls to more than 300 home-bound seniors to just check in; • packaged and delivered 120 Passover food packages for those in need and to healthcare workers at local hospitals; • shopped for and delivered food and other essentials to those who can’t get out themselves; • collected hundreds of phone chargers to donate to area hospitals, enabling quarantined patients to stay in touch with loved ones; • sewed and/or collected hand-made masks for clients of our partner agencies; • participated in one of three gratitude car parades to thank front-line heroes at our partner agencies; • responded to the need for volunteers at the Community Food Bank of New Jersey; and so much more.

In addition to hands-on support, in the past few months alone, Federation and our Jewish Community Foundation combined have provided over $3 million to those in need through our partner agencies here in NJ and abroad.

Mindy and Howard Diamond of

Short Hills say, “In wanting to turn a feeling of helplessness into empowerment, we reached out to Jewish Federation to answer our question: What can we do to help? And, as suspected, they did not disappoint. Armed with a plan to get funds to those who need it most, we felt comforted knowing that our contribution could make a difference to those less fortunate than us.”

STEPPING UP COMMUNALLY Our Greater MetroWest community has found ways to help the community stay connected, informed, and protected even while staying physically distant. In the past few months: • We have offered virtual ways to observe holidays and celebrate community • We have convened professionals in our Jewish community so they can learn from and support each other.

• We have worked with local, state, and federal legislators to advocate on behalf of the members of our Jewish community.

• We have offered support to overnight and day camps as they consider their options for serving our Greater MetroWest campers.

• We have guided synagogues and partner agencies through the process of acquiring Federal loan assistance and planning their reopening strategies.

At Jewish Federation, we are in awe of the volunteers, donors, front-line heroes, clergy, and educators who have answered the call for help from friends, neighbors, even strangers, revealing the true greatness of our community.

“While my heart breaks as I see so many in our Greater MetroWest Jewish community suffering at this time,” said Federation President Scott Krieger, “at the same time I’m inspired and energized by the response of support we’ve witnessed over the past few months. I’m so proud to be part of a community where people ask ‘How can I help?’ and then they step up with their time and their financial support. At a time when we all feel isolated, it’s so reassuring to know that none of us is in this alone.”

Federation cares for people in need, builds Jewish life, and saves the world, one person at a time, every day.

Building an inclusive community is a priority. Contact us and we will make every effort to meet your needs.

Follow us:

NJ Jewish News ■ njjewishnews.com ■ June 11, 2020

Greater MetroWest UPDATE

NJ Jewish News ■ njjewishnews.com ■ June 11, 2020

24

| SHABBAT CANDLELIGHTING | June 12: 8:11 p.m.

Our role as ambassadors to the world Beha’alotecha Numbers 8:1-12:16 Rabbi Shlomo Riskin

T

he Lord said to Moses, “Speak to Aaron and say to him, ‘When you set up the lamps, see that all seven light up the area in front of the lampstand.’” (Numbers 8:1-2) This week’s biblical portion of Beha’alotecha contains an important insight into the necessary qualities and major functions of our rabbis. Our Torah reading of last week, Naso, concluded with the various offerings of the princes of the tribes at the dedication of the desert sanctuary, forerunner of the Holy Temple in Jerusalem.

This week’s reading begins with the kindling of the menorah, the seven candlestick branches made of pure gold, each culminating in a golden flower with three branches emanating from either side of the central tree-like branch, and seven flames spreading warmth and enlightenment within the most sacred area and beyond. The operative verse that describes this magnificent accoutrement is “the candle is commandment, and Torah is light” (Proverbs 6:23).

Rashi, the classical biblical commentator, is apparently disturbed by the placement of the menorah in our portion; it seems to have belonged in the Book of Exodus, which describes the inner furnishings of the sanctuary, including the menorah (Exodus 25:31-40). Rashi therefore opens his interpretation of our portion with the words of the

Midrash (Tanhuma 5): Why this juxtaposition of the description of the lighting of the menorah with the offerings of the princes of the tribes? It is because when Aaron saw the dedication of the sanctuary, he became upset that he had not been included in the dedication offerings and ceremonies; neither he nor his tribe of Kohanim. The Holy One, Blessed be He, said to him, “By your life, your contribution is greater than theirs; you will kindle and clean the candlesticks.”

What was so special about kindling the menorah? It happened early in the morning, without audience or fanfare, and seemed like an almost janitorial duty of turning on the lights.

I would suggest that there were two central furnishings in the Holy of Holies, the inner sanctum of our sanctuary: the sacred ark, which housed the tablets of stone, and the menorah. The former, with the Torah in splendid seclusion behind the curtains, was meant for Israel alone, to form a “holy nation”; the latter, with its warmth and light spreading roundabout, was the Torah meant for the world, the word of the Lord which would emanate from Jerusalem to the nations.

The Midrash (Mekhilta de Rabbi Yishmael, Parshat Yitro, Parsha Aleph) teaches that the revelation at Sinai was given in a desert, a “parousia,” rather than on the Temple Mount in order to teach us that the Torah was not meant for the Jews alone, but rather for all of humanity. Just prior to the revelation, Israel is charged by God to be a “kingdom of Kohanim,” teachers to all of humanity (Seforno,

ad loc Exodus 19:6), purveyors of a God of love, compassion, morality, and peace. This is the true significance of the Kohen’s kindling of the menorah and spreading the message of Torah beyond the sanctuary to the world.

It is our duty to demonstrate to the world that we have righteous decrees and ordinances (Deuteronomy 4:8); and it is our laws, our unique lifestyle, which, now that we have our Jewish state, we must share with the world. (Deuteronomy 26:18-19). It is the Kohen Gadol in the days of the Messiah or the rabbis and Jewish educators today who must convey these righteous laws that will inspire the rest of the nations to accept our God of compassion and peace. They must be our ambassadors to the world; those who must bring the light and the warmth of Torah bring thereby blessing to all the families on earth (Genesis 12:1-3). They must kindle the menorah.

It is not by accident that the menorah is shaped like a tree, which grows and produces fruit; it is the “personification” of halacha, a progressing and moving teacher of morality and sensitivity. How we treat the stranger and would-be convert, how we deal with the hapless woman chained to a recalcitrant husband who won’t let her go, is the test of the justice of our laws and the fitness of our rabbis to be our decisors; our Torah must be righteous and compassionate. (See Maimonides, Mishneh Torah, Laws of Servants).

Rabbi Shlomo Riskin is chancellor of Ohr Torah Stone and chief rabbi of Efrat, Israel.

State&Local Bruriah students win in innovation competition TWO TEAMS OF students from Bruriah High School in Elizabeth won first place in two categories in the recent Innovation Day, a competition sponsored by the Center for Initiatives in Jewish Education (CIJE), an organization dedicated to enriching the quality of education in Jewish day schools.

Shoshi Cantor, Rebecca Siegel, and Naava Groner won in the Commercial Consumer Product category and Chana Bialik, Atarah Mandel, and Gavriella Linfield won in Healthcare.

Hundreds of students, teachers, and parents from across the United States convened online, the evening of May 26, to recognize the ingenuity, research, and perseverance of close to 1,000 student innovators from day schools across the country.

Students presented their capstone projects in several categories including the arts, as-

sistive technology, hardware prototyping, environment and sustainability, and more.

Their presentations included a logo, webpage, and video pitch.

Shoshi, Rebecca, and Naava engineered PRODUCT[tive] Retail Rack, which they described in their webpage as a “clothing rack that tracks consumer interest and catalogs it for retailers and designers.” Their invention qualified for a spot in CIJE Tank.

In November, they will pitch their idea to Amazon product developers who will consider it for an investment and development opportunity.

Chana, Atarah, and Gavriella won first place in the Healthcare category for the Cardiac A-vest, which saves lives by providing automatic chest compressions to the wearer. It also checks the victim’s pulse and will stop compressions and sound an alarm

when a pulse is detected.

Other N.J. winners were Daniel Brauner, Yakov Halstuch, and Zachary Jerome, sophomores at Torah Academy of Bergen County in Teaneck, who placed second in the Arts category for designing the NotSo-Grand Piano, an electronic device programmed with an Arduino microcontroller that uses inexpensive parts to create a compact instrument that has the feel of a real piano.

In addition, a team from The Frisch School in Paramus won first place in the Personal Consumer Products category.

Gabe Greenfield, Bayla Neugroschl, and Eytan Abramowitz designed an automatic soap dispenser with a built-in 20-second countdown.

The gallery of student innovations is available at thecije.org/innovation2020.

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27

Rosanne Skopp Special to NJJN

W

e recently celebrated our granddaughter’s graduation from Tulane University over Zoom.

There were certain advantages to the format. We didn’t have to shlep to New Orleans, a place where we’ve been many times. We didn’t have to take endless hikes to uncomfortable folding chairs, far from bathrooms and in the hot humid air, to hear tedious speeches, the words blending one into another.

I am not a fan of graduations, even for a cherished grandchild or loved ones, and I came very close to boycotting my own graduation from Rutgers University-Newark. It was only the nagging of my mother-in-law, who regarded skipping a graduation as worse than treason, that drew me to the ceremony next to thousands of others, each of us sweating in our caps and gowns.

My graduation from Weequahic High School, an event also marked by thousands of NJJN readers, was the last of the meaningful and moving graduations in my life. Weequahic did it in style.

The actual ceremony began a full semester earlier with a powerful and beautiful event called Torch Day, during which the symbolic torch was passed from our graduating class to our successors. Throughout high school we had awaited the moment when we would finally be seniors, 4A’s as they were called, and the Torch Day ceremony was moving, the music stirring, and the lighting dim.

Graduations, on the other hand, are, to me, onerous and sweaty. Virtual events, as we’ve experienced in the last several months, make demands on the participants and the execution requires creativity, but my granddaughter’s virtual ceremony was much better than a traditional graduation. All of the friends and family members who participated did so out of love, commitment, pride, and determination; it was not a chore. We loved it.

The ceremony was mercifully short and sweet, speeches lasted just a few minutes. There was no procession, no feeble attempts to try and find your graduate from the ocean of others identically attired, nor the calling out of each of their names.

And afterward there was the party, over Zoom, with only the closest friends and family invited. We were all asked to write brachot, blessings, for our granddaughter, and then do something creative that would be meaningful to her.

My husband, who has been known to discuss chemistry with her for hours, used all of the chemical elements in the periodic table to write his blessings.

For example, happiness started with hydrogen and strontium led to success. I wrote my granddaughter a promissory note that I will hand off ownership of a cast-iron statue of the Greek god Mercury, which sat in my uncle’s dental office until he retired, when she finishes dental school four years from now.

Her siblings, parents, aunts, uncles, cousins, and friends worked hard to craft blessings and create memories that will endure. One gift was a dwarf fruit tree, which she’ll take to school and nurture, a reminder that even in the midst of Covid-19, living continued.

There were emotional videos compiled from friends

around the world, and notes filled with wisdom folded into lovely origami creations.

The Zoom celebration was beautiful, and the traffic on the way home non-existent.

And now to a different kind of celebration, honoring our everyday heroes. All of us who are living new kinds of lives and carefully following the rules — six feet of separation, masks ever-ready, gloves and cleaning supplies abundant — are heroes too. Each of us has a fierce commitment to doing things right. Here comes my husband wiping down a can of peas with Lysol, before rinsing it and putting it into the pantry.

Here am I, at age 80, cooking more than ever, and doing a darn good job of it and cleaning endlessly. Our house has truly never been so immaculate.

And, of course, no guests are expected, at least none past our driveway, where we entertain our family, from a distance. They bring their own water and have no expectations of Savta-cooked meals. I’m cooking more than ever but not feeding our children and grandchildren. These are the times we live in.

Coping is a skill we all need for living in this new reality. Reality is living with the knowledge that pandemics don’t evaporate and that our job is to follow the rules, share our love, and pray for a return to normalcy. Sooner, rather than later.

And graduations, like minyans on laptops, brises without guests or bagels, and virtual b’nei mitzvah, are adaptations that we create because we treasure life, and our coping skills are thriving in new and truly remarkable ways. We are, each of us, amazing. ■ Rosanne Skopp is a frequent blogger for the Times of Israel. She lives in West Orange and Israel.

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