Southern Jewish Life, New Orleans, May 2019

Southern Jewish Life NEW ORLEANS EDITION

“ETERNAL, UNDIVIDED” ALABAMA RECOGNITION OF JERUSALEM SALUTING MACY HART NEW RABBI AT BETH ISRAEL REPAIRING THE PLANET IN MERIDIAN SUMMER TRAVEL SECTION

May/June 2019 Volume 29 Issue 5

Southern Jewish Life 3747 West Esplanade Ave., 3rd Floor Metairie, LA 70002 Celebrating Israel’s 71st Birthday in Mobile on May 5. Photo courtesy John Webster

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May 2019 • Southern Jewish Life

shalom y’all After the shooting at Tree of Life in Pittsburgh, there were vigils around the country where people of all races and faiths showed solidarity.

After 50 Muslims were murdered in New Zealand, interfaith events were held at mosques, and after the Poway shooting, synagogues around the country held Shabbat services in solidarity.

And of course, there were the memorable demonstrations of solidarity with the Christian community after the Easter day bombings in Sri Lanka — if by memorable one means remembering that those vigils never happened.

Why not?

Even with the official death toll being reduced to just over 250, that is still five times New Zealand, and four times Pittburgh, New Zealand and Poway combined.

Over the last couple of weeks, we have looked around the region for Christian solidarity events similar to those for the Jewish and Muslim communities, but came up empty.

Are attacks on Christians that insignificant? Or does it have something to do with bias about who was targeted and who is doing the targeting?

After Pittsburgh and New Zealand, there was endless analysis of why the perpetrators felt they could act, and how the current culture and climate embolden white nationalism.

After Sri Lanka, initial media reports spoke of the country’s recent history of Buddhist violence, and please don’t speculate that it was Islamic terrorism.

Once it became more apparent that Islamists were responsible and the media were forced to report that, much of the coverage focused instead on fears of an anti-Muslim backlash. Precious little attention has been given to the question of why Islamists would attack Christians in churches in a place like Sri Lanka.

And let’s not forget the largely-ignored massive Islamist targeting of Christians in Nigeria or the current-day slave trade in Libya.

Closer to home, after the school shooting near Denver, unlike previous incidents there has been very little talk about the shooters. Had they been wearing MAGA hats, there

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>> Commentary

MESSAGES

Maccabi USA leader praises Birmingham Games I have had the honor of attending many Maccabi competitions around the world. From Israel would be an stream of commentary.

ButMaccabi on socialgames media they were hostile to Christo Australia to endless South America, Europe and the JCC around the United States tiansCanada, and hated President Trump, and seeing one ofhow them was born female butto now identifies as male. and I have logged many miles sports can be a vehicle help build Jewish Can’t pinespecially the right-wing template on them, so let’s move on. identity, in our young.

We’re repeatedly warned of the dangers of extremism from the right, that it has been the I felt honored to come to Birmingham for the first time and fell in love with not just the city most lethal and headline-grabbing (this issue’s exhibit: Arkansas Tech), and it has. But there has but the people. You have taken Southern hospitality to a new level with your kind and caring been a largely unreported rash of anti-Jewish assaults in New York, largely by people of color. approach to the JCC Maccabi Games.

When that is brought up, it is explained that they are upset over growing gentrification and Led byJews the Sokol and behind Helds, your identify as being it. hard-working volunteers were wonderful. They partnered with your outstanding Betzyexcuse Lynch,for tobeating make theup2017 JCC Maccabi games a huge hit.

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I want to take opportunityextremists as executive of are Maccabi USA to say thank youThey on behalf Despite thethis perceptions, ondirector the right not rising exponentially. generof everyone involved.weeds in our national garden, mostly known, on the fringe and generally ally are well-rooted shunned. just more aware ofWorld them now.

I had justWe’re returned from the 20th Maccabiah games in Israel with a U.S. delegation of But it is the Jew-hatred cover the anti-Zionism umbrella that is spreadover 1100, whonoxious joined 10,000 Jewishtaking athletes fromunder 80 countries.

Back in July the eyes of the entire ing much wider, on the left. from theThis Newpast Yorkmonth Times to the1000 college campus, Jewish world wereespecially on Jerusalem and theAnd Maccabiah. with athletes and even in the halls Congress, formerly seen asyou beyond thethe pale arepoint. now mainstreamed. coaches fromofaround the many world things being in Birmingham, became focal When David Duke says it, he’s a nut nobody takes seriously. When it is said on campus, those Everyone theaccused Jewish community the dissenting communityvoices at large, including a wonderful who criticizefrom it are of trying to and silence and stifle free expression. police to be commended. games will goisolated. down inMuslims history as being seminal Withforce, risingare anti-Semitism, manyThese Jews say they feel have to adeal with Islammoment the Jewish community as we build to the future by such happen, wonderful ophobia.for Perhaps people feel compelled, when Pittsburgh orproviding New Zealand to Jewish remind memories. these small minorities in our society that they are not alone. Perhaps Christians are so secure in their majority here that expressions of solidarity Jed Margolis after something like Sri Lanka are unnecessary.

Executive Director, Maccabi USA But simple humanity should demand otherwise. supremacists would like to seePublisher/Editor pushed back Lawrence Brook, On Charlottesville into a corner and made to feel lesser. We stand with and pray for the family of Heather Heyer, Editor’s Note: This reaction to the events in who was there standing up to the face of this Charlottesville, written by Jeremy Newman, hate.

Master of the Alpha Epsilon Pi Theta Colony at Auburn University, was shared by AEPi National, which called it “very eloquent” and praised “our brothers at AEPi Theta Colony at Auburn University and… the leadership they display on their campus.”

White supremacy has been a cancer on our country since its beginning, threatening its hopes, its values, and its better angels.

The events that took place in Charlottesville represented the worst of this nation. Those who marched onto the streets with tiki torches and swastikas did so to provoke violence and fear. Those who marched onto the streets did so to profess an ideology that harkens back to a bleaker, more wretched time in our history.

A time when men and women of many creeds, races, and religions were far from equal and far from safe in our own borders. A time where Americans lived under a constant cloud of racism, anti-Semitism and pervasive hate. The events that took place in Charlottesville served as a reminder of how painfully relevant these issues are today.

We recognize the essence of the American narrative as a two-century old struggle to rid ourselves of such corners, and allow those in them the seat at the table that they so deserve.

It is the struggle to fulfill the promise of the Declaration of Independence, that “all men are created equal… endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights.” We know our work is far from finished, but we know we will not move backwards.

When men and women, fully armed, take to the streets in droves with swastikas and other symbols of hate, it is a reminder of how relevant the issues of racism and anti-Semitism are today. It is a wake-up call to the work that needs to be done to ensure a better, more welcoming country. But it should not come without a reflection on how far we’ve come.

America was born a slave nation. A century into our history we engaged in a war in part to ensure we would not continue as one. We found ourselves confronted by the issue of civil rights, and embarked on a mission to ensure the fair treatment of all peoples no matter their skin color. Although we’ve made great strides, it is a missionNationally we’re still grappling Fundedwith by: today.

Saturdays 9:30am America was also born an immigrant L.E. Phillips sundays 1pm country.

As early as the pilgrims, many

Auburn’s Alpha Epsilon Pi stands with the Jewish community of Charlottesville, and with the Jewish people around the country and around the world. We also stand with the minorities who are targeted by the hate that was on display in Charlottesville. We stand with the minorities of whom these white 4

May 2019 • Southern Jewish Life

Foundation groupsFamily and families found in the country the opportunity to plant stakes, chase their future, and be themselves. Few were met with open

May 2019 April

Southern Jewish Life PUBLISHER/EDITOR Lawrence M. Brook editor@sjlmag.com ASSOCIATE PUBLISHER/ADVERTISING Lee J. Green lee@sjlmag.com V.P. SALES/MARKETING, NEW ORLEANS Jeff Pizzo jeff@sjlmag.com CREATIVE DIRECTOR Ginger Brook ginger@sjlmag.com SOCIAL/WEB Emily Baldwein connect@sjlmag.com PHOTOGRAPHER-AT-LARGE Rabbi Barry C. Altmark deepsouthrabbi.com CONTRIBUTING WRITERS Rivka Epstein, Louis Crawford, Tally Werthan, Stuart Derroff, Belle Freitag, Ted Gelber, E. Walter Katz, Doug Brook brookwrite.com BIRMINGHAM OFFICE P.O. Box 130052, Birmingham, AL 35213 14 Office Park Circle #104 Birmingham, AL 35223 205/870.7889 NEW ORLEANS OFFICE 3747 West Esplanade, 3rd Floor Metairie, LA 70002 504/432-2561 TOLL-FREE 866/446.5894 FAX 866/392.7750 ADVERTISING Advertising inquiries to 205/870.7889 for Lee Green, lee@sjlmag.com; Jeff Pizzo, jeff@sjlmag.com; or Annetta Dolowitz, annetta@sjlmag.com Media kit, rates available upon request SUBSCRIPTIONS It has always been our goal to provide a large-community quality publication to all communities of the South.

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agenda interesting bits & can’t miss events

During the National Council of Jewish Women Washington Institute, 16 members of the New Orleans Section met face-to-face with Representative Cedric Richmond, pictured here, and aides from the offices of Senators Cassidy and Kennedy and Representative Steve Scalise. New Orleans also received a national award from NCJW, story on page 20

Joshua Pernick to become rabbi of Beth Israel in Metairie This summer, Rabbi Joshua Pernick will become the new rabbi at Metairie’s Beth Israel. He will succeed Rabbi Gabe Greenberg at New Orleans’ modern Orthodox congregation after being ordained this coming month at Yeshivat Chovevei Torah.

The congregation will celebrate Greenberg’s five years in Metairie at the May 18 service, which starts at 9 a.m. A luncheon will follow.

A native of Nanuet, N.Y., Pernick is the son of Rabbi Daniel Pernick, who has served Beth Am Temple, a Reform congregation, since 1985.

His oldest sister, Sarah, is married to Rabbi Joel Dinin, a 2015 graduate of YCT who now serves a congregation in Milwaukee.

Pernick studied sociology at Brandeis University. While there, he went from working at the Conservative movement’s Camp Ramah in Nyack, N.Y., to a semester in Ghana, where there was one other Jewish participant.

Peppered with questions from people interested in learning about Judaism, he realized how much he needed to learn, sending him down this path.

After graduating from Brandeis, he decided to do non-profit work, working with Americorps in Charleston, S.C., where he is considered an “adopted native.” Desiring greater interaction with youth, he swapped to working with pre-schoolers. He taught preschool at Addlestone Hebrew Academy in Charleston, then at the Boston Jewish Community Day School while working on a master’s in Jewish day school education at Brandeis.

He spent time at the Pardes Institute of Jewish Studies, then taught for a year at Atlanta Jewish Academy before entering YCT. He served as student rabbi of Shaarey Tphiloh in Portland, Maine from 2016 to 2018, receiving a grant from the Crown Foundation, in partner-

ship with YCT, to create an expanded community role with Portland’s Jewish Community Alliance.

He interned with Rabbi Adam Scheier at Congregation Shaar Hashomayim in Montreal in 2017-18, and this past year has been with the Durham Orthodox Kehillah in North Carolina.

He also is a curriculum consultant to the Global Day of Jewish Learning.

Shortly after his early February interview in New Orleans, Pernick went to Dubai to meet with the Jewish community there, on a trip with the Jewish Gulf Alliance, part of the Bronfman Center at New York University. He said the community in the United Arab Emirates is the first new Jewish community in the Arab world in 500 years.

The trip included Shabbat services, where he did the Haftorah and gave a d’var Torah.

Pernick also is in the Fellowship for Rabbinic Entrepreneurs, developed by M2: The Institute for Experiential Jewish Education and the Hillel Office of Innovation. The fellowship is for rabbinical students of all denominations who look to build the communities where they will serve, learning the skills “to design, develop, and scale new Jewish communities,” building “new models of Jewish life” and helping “shape the rabbinate of tomorrow.”

In a year of unusual turnover, Beth Israel is one of three congregations in the New Orleans area that will welcome new rabbis this summer.

May 2019 • Southern Jewish Life

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May 2019 • Southern Jewish Life

agenda Several high-profile incidents mark 2018 anti-Semitism rise in region ADL notes doubling of assaults nationally On April 30, the Anti-Defamation League released its annual Audit of Anti-Semitic Incidents, showing “near-historic levels of anti-Semitism in 2018, including a doubling of anti-Semitic assaults and the single deadliest attack against the Jewish community in American history.”

The audit reported 1,879 attacks against Jews and Jewish institutions across the country in 2018, the third-highest year on record since ADL started tracking such data in the 1970s. That was down 5 percent from 2017, but the 2017 numbers were boosted by over 300 bomb threats to Jewish Community Centers and schools, which turned out to be the work of a disturbed teen in Israel.

While the overall number declined from 2017, the 2018 figure is still 48 percent higher than the total for 2016 and 99 percent higher than in 2015.

Last year included the white supremacist shooting at a Pittsburgh synagogue, which claimed 11 lives. The audit identified 59 people who were victims of anti-Semitic assaults in 2018, up from 21 in 2017.

In Alabama, there were nine reported incidents, as many as the previous three years combined. Mississippi had no reports, down from one last year, while Louisiana had 12, up from 10 last year. Florida had 76, down from last year’s 98. Arkansas stayed steady at three, while Tennessee went up to 10, from nine last year. Georgia had 30, down from 58.

The report noted an overall spike in the last three months of the year.

The Atlanta ADL office said their four states — Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina and Tennessee — reported 13 incidents in the two months following the Pittsburgh shooting, double the previous two months.

A new interactive site, the Hate, Extremism, Anti-Semitism and Terrorism map, lists the anti-Semitic events and other hate incidents. Many of the incidents are white supremacist groups distributing flyers.

Anti-Semitic vandalism incidents in Alabama were at middle schools in Grand Bay and Mountain Brook, and at the University of Alabama at Huntsville and the University of South Alabama.

In Birmingham, a landlord told a Jewish tenant she would be “thrown on the streets like they did in the Holocaust.” Also in Birmingham, a group of men on the street called a Jewish man a “Jewish rat” and accused him of stealing land for Israel. There was also reported harassment of Jewish campers in Huntsville.

There were four gatherings of League of the South and the National Socialist Movement, in Wetumpka and Berry, and a “flash demonstration” on the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma.

This publication also made the list, with a Facebook direct message from someone in Huntsville expressing support of BDS and boycotting “all known jewish businesses nationwide,” calling Jews traitors and stating “IsraHell = No Right to Exist.”

In Louisiana, the most visible incident was anti-Semitic graffiti that was spray-painted on Northshore Jewish Congregation. There were also seven headstones vandalized at a Jewish cemetery in Baton Rouge, and vandalism at a Jewish cemetery in Shreveport.

Also in Shreveport, the Daily Stormer Book Club distributed flyers accusing Jews of wanting to confiscate guns.

There was anti-Semitic harassment of Jewish students in Westwego, Baton Rouge and New Orleans, and in December a Jewish woman’s apartment was vandalized with swastikas during Chanukah.

A Jewish club’s bulletin board was defaced to read “Jewish Cult” in New Orleans, and flyers for a white supremacist event in New Orleans featured a swastika.

The only listed incidents in Mississippi were white supremacist flyers in Purvis and Ocean Springs.

agenda Along the Florida panhandle, an individual was called a “cheap Jew” at the beach in Pensacola.

In Arkansas, swastika graffiti was discovered at a high school in Danville, Ark., and in August, a bluegrass musician used Jewish stereotypes during his concert in Little Rock.

Last year “showed us that anti-Semitism is very real and present in Louisiana,” said Aaron Ahlquist, ADL South Central Regional Director in New Orleans. “The tragedies of 2018 impact us all, and we will remain vigilant and stand together against anti-Semitism and all forms of hate.

In the face of the what we have experienced, we call upon our leaders to take an active role in calling out and addressing the rising anti-Semitism in our society, and work to put an end to hate.”

“Anti-Semitism is a grave concern across the nation and here at home,” said Atlanta’s ADL Southeast Regional Director Allison Padilla-Goodman. “Whether it be in K-12 schools, on campus or in communities it is disturbing to see the slow normalization of anti-Semitism and its impact here in the Southeast. This is why our on-the-ground programming and advocacy work is so essential to help fight hate before it truly sinks its teeth into a community.”

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Hadassah Southern met in Birmingham for their Spring Board meeting in April. Chapters from New Orleans, Baton Rouge, Birmingham, Montgomery, Huntsville, Memphis, Nashville, Knoxville and Chattanooga gathered for training and a business meeting.

Marla Kameny of Baton Rouge is the Hadassah Southern president.

Large Katz-Phillips class named The largest class in 35 years was announced for the coming Katz-Phillips Leadership Development Program. An initiative of the Jewish Federation of Greater New Orleans, the program was formerly known as Lemann-Stern and has been in existence since 1960.

The class meets monthly during its first year and September to December the second year, with graduation in January. Sessions deal with Jewish American history, social action, leadership, and more. Graduates of the program have served on the boards of every Jewish agency, synagogue and organization in the community.

Members of the Class of 2019 to 212 are Josh and Casey Denson, Mitch Frank, Harris Golden and Ashley Barriere, Eric and Jillian Greenberg, Nicole Harvey, Adam Kancher and McKensie Kirchner, Andy and Paige Katz, Dana Keren, Stefan Kostolitz, Ben and Megan Lowenburg, Chandler and Chelsea Nutik, Sarah Schatzmann, Derek Shanman and Elise Henry, David Shepard, Sami Slovy, Aran Toshav and Rebecca Friedman, Brian Weimer, Joshua and Julia Zuckerman, Max and Lorenza Zwain.

May 2019 • Southern Jewish Life

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agenda The Joint Summer Services Schedule for New Orleans Reform congregations has been released. Touro Synagogue will host services in June, 6 p.m. Fridays, 9 a.m. Torah study on Saturdays, followed by a 10:30 a.m. service. In July, Gates of Prayer will host, with services at 8 p.m. Fridays, Torah study at 9:15 a.m. Saturdays, followed by 10:30 a.m. services. Temple Sinai and new Rabbi Daniel Sherman will host in August, 6:15 p.m. Fridays, Torah study at 9 a.m. Saturdays, and services at 10:15 a.m. The June 7 Shabbat at Touro will be a camp farewell Shabbat, everyone wearing white and singing camp songs, with a fried chicken dinner.

The Oscar Tolmas L’dor V’dor Reception will be on May 30 at 6 p.m. at the L’dor V’dor lobby on the third floor of the Goldring/Woldenberg Jewish Community Campus. The 2019 Cohen-Jacobs Emerging Leader Award will be presented to Maxwell Zwain. Reservations are requested

by May 24.

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The National Council of Jewish Women’s New Orleans Section will have its annual Closing Event on May 21 at 6 p.m. at Filmore in the Oaks Restaurant. Barbara Greenberg will be presented the Harold Salmon Award for her commitment to the Section. Barbara Kaplinsky will give remarks as outgoing president, and Susan Hess will be installed as president.

On June 14, Touro Synagogue will host a Broadway event, “The Story of the Jews: The Musical,” with Cantor Kevin Margolius and Jason Gaines sharing the story of the Jewish people through Broadway music. The story begins in the Garden of Eden and continues all the way to the Shtetl, the New World and Israel. The program follows the 6 p.m.

Shabbat service.

Beth Israel in Metairie will have its annual Caribbean Lag B’Omer BBQ, May 23 at 5:30 p.m.

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Jewish Community Day School in Metairie will have its sixth grade graduation on May 23 at 6 p.m.

Slater Torah Academy in Metairie will have its graduation on May 29 at 7 p.m. The preschool will have its end-of-the-year event and graduation on May 31 at 10:30 a.m., with this year’s art showcase, “Israel — You Have It All.” The Sisterhood at Gates of Prayer in Metairie will have Bubbles and Bonbons on Broadway, its closing meeting and installation, June 1 at 5 p.m. at the home of Diana Mann. There will be a concert of Broadway and cabaret music by Tory May, heavy appetizers, open champagne and sparkling wine, with a wine bar. Admission is $18.

The Temple Sinai Brotherhood will have its annual Bingo event on May 18 from 5 to 7 p.m., with raffles, fried chicken and crawfish. Tickets are available online, or are $35 at the door for adults, $20 for ages 12 and under.

PJ Library is hosting a swimming party on May 26 at the Goldring/ Woldenberg Jewish Community Campus, from 10 a.m. to noon. The free program is geared for ages 3 to 8, but all ages are welcome.

Temple Sinai in New Orleans will have a book discussion on “The Tattooist of Auschwitz,” the story of Jewish prisoner Lale Sokolov.

The discussion will be on May 15 at 7:15 p.m., or May 22 at noon.

AIPAC will hold its New Orleans Premier Event, featuring Bret Stephens, associate editor and columnist with the New York Times, on June 2, with a reception at 5 p.m. and the main program at 6 p.m. The location is to be determined, and a formal invitation will be sent soon.

The couvert is $36, and reservations are required. continued on page 37

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May 2019 • Southern Jewish Life

community

Alabama recognizes Jerusalem as “eternal undivided capital” of Israel On April 23, Alabama Governor Kay Ivey signed an historic resolution declaring that Alabama not only celebrates last year’s move of the U.S. embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, but that Alabama takes the unprecedented step of recognizing Jerusalem “as the eternal undivided capital of Israel.”

In a statement, the Alabama-Israel Task Force noted that while Israel recognizes Jerusalem as its “eternal undivided capital, and many of Israel’s closest friends and allies refer to Jerusalem often in the same way, this is the first formal recognition that does so.”

The resolution builds on Alabama’s history of being in the forefront of supporting Israel. In 1943, the Alabama Legislature was the first U.S. body calling for the establishment of a Jewish state, five years before Israel’s independence.

The bill was introduced in the Senate on April 3 by Sens. Arthur Orr and Jabo Waggoner, and adopted that day on a voice vote. Orr also spearheaded the anti-BDS bill passed by the Legislature in 2016.

On April 16, the resolution was reported from the Rules Committee, and Rep. Mike Jones called for adoption, which was done on a voice vote.

Rep. Victor Gaston also led the House effort.

John Buhler, AITF co-chair, said the timing was “especially meaningful,” as the resolution passed just before Passover and Easter, and it was signed by the governor during the intermediate days of Passover. It is also two weeks before Israel Independence Day and the first anniversary of the U.S. embassy move to Jerusalem.

Buhler said the Alabama effort started with the embassy move last May, then after a resolution in neighboring Florida. In January, the chief financial officer of Florida, Jimmy Patronis, suggested to Governor Ron DeSantis and other state officials that Florida follow the president’s lead, resulting in a January resolution from the governor and the state cabinet declaring Florida’s recognition of Jerusalem as “the capital of the State of Israel,” encouraging “all Floridians to stand by the Israeli people and honor our lifelong friendship.”

Orr heard about Florida’s resolution on the radio, and contacted Buhler to discuss Alabama going a step further and adding the terms “eternal” and “undivided” to an Alabama recognition.

Buhler said those terms echo the words of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the U.S. embassy dedication. “Eternal” notes the Biblical significance of Jerusalem, and “undivided” expresses the idea that the city should never be divided again.

The name Jerusalem itself connotes unity, as that is a meaning of the term “shalem” in Hebrew — wholeness or completeness.

The resolution states that Jerusalem has never been the capital of any other sovereign nation, until the establishment of Israel in 1948. In 1949, the city was divided when Jordan took the eastern part of the city, including the Old City and all of its holy sites, which were then made inaccessible to Jews. Israel established the western part of Jerusalem as its capital, with the national government functions taking place there.

After reunification in the 1967 Six Day War, the resolution states, “the barriers dividing the city were demolished, the gates of the Old City were opened to people of all faiths, and East Jerusalem was reunified with West Jerusalem, making whole again the nation’s historic capital.”

Because of the political situation with the Arab nations claiming Jerusalem as the capital of a future Palestinian state, almost the entire world refused to accept even pre-1967 western Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and considered Tel Aviv to be Israel’s capital. It is the only instance where a sovereign nation’s declared capital has not been accepted by other countries.

In 1995, the U.S. Congress overwhelmingly passed a bipartisan act to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and move the embassy there.

A provision allowed the president to postpone the move for six months

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community OFFICE OF INCLUSION AND DIVERSITY

THIS IS AUBURN. “This wonderful country of ours allows us to gather together, to be Jewish and be free… I’m grateful I can be Jewish and a basketball coach in the SEC.”

— Auburn Head Basketball Coach Bruce Pearl, at the 2017 JCC Maccabi Games Opening Ceremony

at a time due to strategic considerations, and that was done while there was optimism that the Palestinians were willing to negotiate a peace deal.

On Dec. 6, 2017, the Trump administration announced that the waiver would not be renewed, and the embassy would be moved on May 14, 2018, Israel’s 70th anniversary.

The Alabama resolution concludes that “we do unequivocally recognize Jerusalem as the eternal undivided capital of Israel, and do fully affirm and celebrate the move of the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem.”

Copies of the resolution are being sent not only to Israeli authorities, the president and Alabama’s Congressional delegation, but also to all other U.S. governors. Buhler said the resolution was written to be easily adapted by other states.

Buhler said some will celebrate the historic resolution while others may belittle or mock it. Regardless, he said, “may the testimony from Alabama burn brightly, and Israel know she is neither isolated or alone.”

Touro plans farewell for Rabbi Berk

WE ARE COMMUNITY. Hillel, Auburn University’s Jewish student organization, was the recipient of the 2015 AU Student Involvement Award for Overcoming Adversity. diversity@auburn.edu www.auburn.edu/diversity

Rabbi Alexis Berk receives honorary doctorate from Loyola

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May 2019 • Southern Jewish Life

Touro Synagogue in New Orleans is planning a weekend of events as the Berk family departs for San Diego. Rabbi Alexis Berk, who has led the congregation for 11 years, will become the senior rabbi at Temple Solel in Cardiff by the Sea, in San Diego, Calif.

This month, she has given a “Sermon Series in Three Expressions,” three “profound human communications” and the gift of those expressions. Those are “I’m sorry,” “thank you” and “I love you.”

The final Shabbat service will be on May 31 at 6 p.m., with special music, blessings from Rabbi Todd Silverman and Cantor Kevin Margolius and a presentation from incoming Touro President Lisa Herman. A dinner celebration will follow, with “Snapshots of Sacred Memories” and toasts.

On June 1 at 6 p.m., there will be a farewell barbecue, dance party and Havdalah. The event is for Bar Mitzvah age and older. Dining will be in the courtyard, with dancing to Berk’s 1980s playlist in the Grant Meyer Garden Pavilion. Havdalah will begin at 8:30 p.m.

Touro President Teri Hunter said Berk’s leadership “has ensured that Touro Synagogue continued to glow as an exciting, relevant, and multi-faceted manifestation of modern Judaism.”

On May 11, Berk was one of four to receive honorary doctorates at Loyola University’s graduation ceremony at the Superdome. Maria Caldaza, interim provost and vice president for academic affairs, said the doctorates are awarded to “eminent individuals whose lives of achievement and service exemplify the philosophy of Jesuit education.”

She noted that Berk is the first female senior rabbi at the historic congregation, and is an “ardent and active voice for justice” and presented her with the doctorate “for your life of faith that pursues justice.”

community

Celebrating the Maestro of the Southern Jewish Experience In a career going back to the 1960s, Macy Hart has been the face of the Southern Jewish experience.

On April 6, his numerous roles toward that end were celebrated in a tribute event coordinated by the Goldring/Woldenberg Institute of Southern Jewish Life in Jackson. Hart founded the Institute in 2000, stepping down as executive director last year.

Over 250 crowded the Mississippi Museum of Art on April 6 for the tribute and sometimes-roast, including individuals from numerous — and often overlapping — phases of Hart’s career.

Hart was purposely kept in the dark about the event’s details, from the speakers to the Southern style menu that ended with banana pudding, the presence of his ubiquitous popcorn machine with designer popcorn bags that carried his likeness, and a performance by his favorite local band.

It being Mississippi, seersucker was encouraged.

Hart commented that he was figuring there might be three tables of 10 at the event, a comment nobody took seriously.

Over the years, his back story became part of the pitch for his endeavors. As part of the only Jewish family in Winona, Miss., Hart was schlepped 160 miles round-trip each weekend for religious school. Being involved with the Southern Federation of Temple Youth and then the National Federation of Temple Youth was a way to meet Jewish peers from around the region and country — which he did with a passion that drove him to the national presidency of NFTY in 1967.

During those years there was a major push to establish a Jewish sum-

With Macy Hart at the April 6 gala were Michele Schipper, Jackson; Joel Ashner, Memphis; Patti Micklin, Louisville, Col.; Rachel Reagler Schulman, Highland Park, Ill. mer camp in Mississippi so Jewish youth from small communities could experience an entirely-Jewish atmosphere. After the camp’s first summer in 1970, Hart became the camp director.

As small community synagogues closed down or downsized, the camp

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community became a repository for religious items and historical artifacts, leading to the establishment of the Museum of the Southern Jewish Experience in 1986.

Israeli Journalist Ze’ev Chafets, who met Hart at a NFTY camp in 1964 in New York, was on that initial “barnstorming” tour in 1986 and immortalized the early parts of Hart’s vision in his book, “Members of the Tribe: On The Road in Jewish America.”

Hart felt a need to go beyond the camp fences and assist the small communities, preserving the history and providing services. That led him to form the Institute in 1999. The Institute now covers 13 states with a range of rabbinic, educational, cultural and historical services.

Current Institute Chair Rachel Reagler Schulman said everyone has a Macy story, but a common thread is how he brings together people who want to serve and be part of something bigger than themselves. “After he told us about his dreams, we wanted to be part of them.”

Rabbi Harry Danziger, rabbi emeritus of Temple Israel in Memphis, led Havdalah, comparing the implements to Hart and comparing the transition between Shabbat and the rest of the week to Hart’s transition from one role to another.

He said the candle represents Hart’ vision, and the flame his “passion for making his vision a reality.” The varied spices represent the “vast number of people and communities” to which Hart has brought “a new vigor, a new sweetness.”

Wine, being a symbol of joy, stands for sharing “in the joy of saying to Macy and Susan, you have brought the sweetness of Judaism into the lives of so many.”

Many of the Institute’s lay and professional leaders are Hart’s former campers or counselors.

Among them is Michele Schipper, now chief executive officer of the Institute, who said she was hired as a teen to babysit the Hart children.

“I’ve blocked a lot of that… it was the hardest job I’ve ever had.”

The Hart children, Leah Hart Tennen, Micah Hart and Hannah Hart Martin, long since grown, got in their share of jabs during the evening with a plea to those assembled, “please, give this man something to do!”

They marveled at his vision of standardizing Jewish education, wondering why he did not take on something easier, “like the two-state solution or Electoral College reform?”

They also spoke of Jacobs Camp, where they grew up, as “cult-like, but a benevolent cult.”

Stuart Rockoff, former historian at the Institute, said when he first met Hart in Waco while interviewing for the position, Hart did 90 percent of the talking. “I got the charts, the maps, the stories,” he said. But most important, he got to understand the vision.

Calling Hart an “incredible recruiter and booster,” Rockoff, who now heads the Mississippi Humanities Council, said Hart is “the personifica-

Leah Hart Tennen, Micah Hart and Hannah Hart Martin speak about their father’s legacy — and the need to keep him busy 12

May 2019 • Southern Jewish Life

community NED MARSHALL DESIGN

tion of the best of the South.”

Gary Zola, head of the American Jewish Archives in Cincinnati, was a keynote speaker, saying it was a “professional and personal pleasure” to attend and represent Hebrew Union College, because of Hart’s role in “preserving the noble heritage of American Judaism, particularly in the American South.”

He saluted the Harts “for decades of service, not only to the Jewish South, but the strengthening of Reform Judaism throughout the nation.”

Saying Hart was “arguably one of the 10 best known sons of the Jewish South,” Zola provided documentation of when they met. Zola was on a 1968 NFTY trip to HUC, and the national president greeted each of them with a handshake and a Southern-accented “Hi, I’m Macy B.” He then showed where both of them were in the group photo from that event.

A year after that photo, Susan Hart recalled, she and Macy met at a sorority house party at the University of Texas. The following summer, he was camp administrator for the opening year of Jacobs Camp. She was a counselor, and they married the following year.

“Macy and Jacobs Camp began a love affair that lasted 30 years,” she said. Their children grew up there, and camp supporter Lou Ginsberg of Hattiesburg became “a second mom to them.”

After the museum opened, the three children had their Bar and Bat Mitzvahs there.

After 30 years, she said, “Macy was ready for a new challenge,” and started the Institute.

In 48 years “there has never been a dull moment,” she concluded.

Micah Hart recalled being on a stage 20 years ago for the Institute’s launch. “We knew it would

get this big, because historically speaking, Macy gets what he wants.”

Toward the end of the program, Schipper said Hart “does get two minutes” to respond.

Saying it was difficult to think of what to say, he thanked those who “allowed me to work toward the dreams and those visions of what this world can be like,” and to “delve into areas where others had not been before.”

He felt it important to ensure Jewish education for all youth, no matter the size of their community, so they will continue to be involved, and that it needs to be a grassroots effort. “We can’t be sideline sitters. It is part of our ethic to be part of the change.”

As part of the evening, the Susan and Macy B. Hart Fund for the ISJL was announced.

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Holocaust denial controversy rages at Arkansas Tech Supremacists crashing Holocaust remembrance march part of fallout over scholarship naming About a dozen white nationalists crashed a Holocaust March of Remembrance in Russellville, Ark., on May 5, part of the ongoing fallout over a controversy where a scholarship named after an alleged Holocaust denier was announced at Arkansas Tech University.

Members of the ShieldWall Network held Nazi flags, and posters which included phrases like “The Holocaust Never Happened But Should Have.”

On Dec. 10, the university announced the establishment of the Michael Arthur Link and May Reid Kewen History Scholarship, in memory of Link, who died in 2016 after teaching at Arkansas Tech for 51 years. In his will, he left $190,901 to the university to establish the scholarship in his name and in the name of his mother.

On April 18, the Anti-Defamation League released an open letter to the president of the university, Robin Bowen, citing evidence that Link had “anti-Semitic passages in his written work,” and “repeatedly espoused Holocaust denial and anti-Semitism to his students and in his writing.”

The letter followed several months of behind-the-scenes discussions.

According to the letter, signed by ADL CEO and National Director Jonathan Greenblatt, “The administration of Arkansas Tech has had months to remedy its honoring of Dr. Link at the request of ADL and concerned faculty members, but it has done nothing.”

The letter was co-signed by more than 40 national and international scholars in the field of Jewish studies, including Deborah Lipstadt of Emory University, the world’s foremost expert on Holocaust denial.

In a statement, the university administration said they took the ADL’s concerns “seriously” and spoke to former students and faculty colleagues of Link. “Through our process, we did not find evidence supporting the ADL claims.”

The ADL’s recommendations to the university were to change the name of the scholarship, perhaps to just Link’s mother’s name, have the recipients agree to take a Judaic or Holocaust class at some point before graduating, and delete a comment from the web page of university’s press release about Link’s death.

The comment came from a former student, Billy Roper, who leads the white nationalist ShieldWall Network. Roper praised Link for giving him an A on a controversial paper “about the origins of Marxism” but “as an aside counseled me to be cautious because no other faculty member would have accepted it due its political perspective and conclusions.”

On April 18, that page had been taken down.

On his supremacist and anti-Semitic website, Roper headlined his first piece about the controversy, “Rest In Peace, Dr. Link, You gave the Jews a twist again!”

Raising concerns Sarah Stein, an assistant professor of English at Arkansas Tech, raised concerns to the dean last December after becoming aware of Link’s history through a colleague’s off-handed comment about a scholarship being named for a Holocaust denier.

She spoke to many former students and “found a pattern that he would question the numbers around the Holocaust, or deny the Holocaust happened” in class presentations.

After speaking to the dean, she spoke to University President Robin Bowen in January and February. She was told the university would not be 14

May 2019 • Southern Jewish Life

community taking any further action.

The ADL letter cited a controversy over a graduate class Link taught in 2005, on Modern European Intellectual History, where there was an emphasis on the Holocaust. Link distributed a list of eight or nine Holocaust-related books for students to select as a way to explore different approaches to Holocaust history. Several books were non-scholarly conspiracy theory works that Link presented “as though they were legitimate historical works.”

One, “Debunking the Genocide Myth,” was published by Noontide Press, founded by Willis Carto, who founded the Holocaust-denial thinktank Institute for Historical Review. That book claims the Holocaust is a Zionist Jewish Communist invention, and that there were no death camps.

Another book on the list, “Made in Russia,” was published by the IHR’s press arm, and emphasized a Jewish conspiracy to cheat Germans out of reparations through fabricated atrocities.

Link also listed Norman Finkelstein’s “The Holocaust Industry,” which argues that the American Jewish establishment exploits the memory of the Holocaust for political and financial gain.

Some students, horrified by the reading list,

dropped the class, while others remained. After complaints, Link was suspended from teaching for a semester and barred from teaching graduate courses for 10 years.

After the controversy went public, the author of the 2005 memo about the controversy, a Jewish professor, James Moses, issued a letter defending the university, if not Link.

Moses said that when Link was confronted in 2005, he said he was not attempting to deny the Holocaust, but “to offer the widest possible range of views on the event.” Moses said the department was not satisfied and removed the Holocaust from his courses. He said Link “became an object of close scrutiny by me and the administration from that point until his death ten years later.”

Noting his office was 20 feet from Link’s, Moses said he was “hyper-vigilant in trying to ‘catch’ the professor in espousing or manifesting any anti-Semitism or Holocaust denial, either in his classroom, in the hallway conversations which frequently occur, his office conversations, Students protested the scholarship on April 30 in any context whatsoever… I never heard anypermission of the estate.” thing along those lines.”

Moses said the money for the scholarships While he does not defend Link and said he favors removing Link’s name from the scholar- “can be a force for good.”

He said portrayals of Arkansas Tech as “havship, “the university cannot do that without the

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May 2019 • Southern Jewish Life

ing harbored a known and habitual Holocaust denier for decades” are “simply untrue. I protest the trying of this matter in the court of public opinion absent any input of evidence from the university, and without regard to other relevant available facts.”

Not Just 2005 In addition to the 2005 reading list, the ADL cited Link’s written work.

They had “leaders of the Jewish Federation of Arkansas, and international and national scholars in the field of Holocaust Studies” look at the evidence. “All have found it credible and convincing, and all agree that Dr. Link presented hate-filled, non-factual, anti-Semitic misinformation to his students as though it offered a historically-valid point of view,” the letter said. The conclusions were reiterated in a letter to Bowen in early April.

Link’s book, “The Social Philosophy of Reinhold Niebuhr: An Historical Introduction,” detailed Niebuhr’s changing philosophy in the face of Nazism. While he explores topics like fascism, Link completely ignores what was arguably the biggest factor in Niebuhr’s philosophical development — reaction to the Holocaust and the imperative to protect the Jewish people.

In the book, Link also uses Jewish stereotypes to imply that the Germans Arkansas Tech were justified in dealing with a subverofficials say they sive group in their midst.

Moses said perhaps 120 copies of the have no intention book were printed, it was never used in a classroom and was “trashed by of changing the reviewers” in the Journal of American name of the History.

Link’s 1966 doctoral dissertation at scholarship Mississippi State, “American Periodicals and the Palestine Triangle, April 1936 to February 1947” purports to trace the development of American news coverage of pre-state Israel.

He referred to a 1929 conflict at the “Wailing Wall” which he described as a “Jewish shrine” but also as “Muslim property and part of the wall of the chief Moslem sanctuary in Jerusalem and the third most holy spot to the Sunni sect.”

He also referred to large waves of immigration to Palestine by Jews of Germany, Poland and Rumania in the 1930s, who were looking to escape “restrictions” and “sporadic attacks upon individual Jews.”

He also stated that “it might be foolish to believe that the (Nazi) party’s ‘elite’ believed much of the anti-Semitic material they propagated, they acted as if they did.”

Stein emphasized that Link’s record of Holocaust denial “wasn’t one incident in 2005.”

Protests Erupt On April 30, dozens of students held a protest at Hindsman Bell Tower, criticizing the university’s stance on the scholarship’s name.

Despite a call to action, Roper and his group were no-shows that day, but one self-described “white nationalist survivalist” showed up with a T-shirt that said “Death to All Christ Killers.”

Roper’s site identified the white nationalist as Central and Western Arkansas Regional ShieldWall Network Coordinator Julian Calfy, who told reporters his shirt referred to Jews, including current ones.

96-year-old Beryl Wolfson of Lamar, Ark., showed up to bear witness.

A New Orleans native, Wolfson was in the 935th Field Artillery Battalion heading to Berlin when they stumbled, totally unprepared, upon the Dachau concentration camp.

community In a 2012 interview, he related that there were dozens of boxcars near the gate to Dachau. Prisoners from Buchenwald had been loaded on the trains and shipped to Dachau, and were left to die in the trains. Thousands of bodies were in there.

On May 1, the faculty senate voted unanimously to ask Bowen to approach Link’s estate and request permission to remove his name from the scholarship.

“Those students and professors are doing what is right and standing up against anti-Semitism,” Stein said at the May 5 event.

The May 5 remembrance march was an annual event coordinated by Chaim B’Derech, a “non-proselytizing” messianic congregation in Russellville.

Stein spoke about the need for remembrance and the evil of Holocaust denial, while the protestors heckled her constantly from across the street.

She addressed the controversy, saying “Holocaust denial is a type of misinformation that we must not permit to enter our regular discourse, our classrooms, our universities.”

Wolfson also spoke, as did Jason Dowd, grandson Holocaust survivors and a member of the Holocaust Education Committee.

On his site, Roper characterized the march as “a small but rabid group of Jews and Shabbos Goy held an anti-Christian Holocaust Remembrance March” and claimed there was a “decree that no Christian symbols were allowed.”

Roper also characterized Wolfson as a “very sad war veteran, obviously now realizing that he fought on the wrong side but having gone too far to admit his lies.”

His group chanted “six million more” and “filthy vermin,” and used an Israeli flag to shine shoes.

Russellville Mayor Richard Harris was at the march to present proclamations from the city and from Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson; he was also heckled by the supremacists.

Marianne Tettlebaum, executive director of the Jewish Federation of Arkansas, said as the last Holocaust survivors age and pass away, remembering the “human capacity for hatred and cruelty” becomes more important. “In light of this urgency, the persistence of Holocaust denial is as dangerous as it is tragic, especially at an institution like Arkansas Tech that educated so many of the people who now teach in the area schools.”

She is “saddened” by how Stein has been treated for speaking out.

The university has reiterated that it has no plans to change the name of the scholarship.

Aaron Ahlquist, regional ADL director, said “We are deeply disappointed that the University has refused to change its position after being shown they had honored a Holocaust denier.”

May 2019 • Southern Jewish Life

17

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• May 2019 • Southern Jewish Life

The Hebrew term “tikkun olam,” which is used to describe social action in Judaism, can be translated as “repairing the planet.”

With the inspiration and activism of 14-year-old Jeannie Null, Meridian teens and “close friends” William Lamar and Jake Davidson — Baptist and Jewish respectively — undertook a fundraising campaign to renovate and transform the closed Planet Playground into a place that would be accessible to all, including Jeannie, who is in a wheelchair.

Last fall, the teens raised over $150,000 toward the project, which had a $320,000 goal for phase one. But their efforts had the effect of over $400,000 in fulfilling the local component of matching grants, in addition to city and county funding, allowing the project to go forward.

In late April, the major Tikkun Olam project has almost been completed, with the opening of Jeannie’s Place at Planet Playground. Project coordinator Julia Norman said there were still a few minor items and landscaping to be done, along with one remaining piece of equipment that is on the way, but the weekend of April 20, the playground was starting to be used again.

The entire project began with a school fundraiser that had an unfortunate ending. The fundraiser at Jeannie’s elementary school included a pizza party and a ride in a Hummer for students who sold a certain amount. At the last minute, the reward was switched to a Hummer ride to Planet Playground, which meant Jeannie could not participate.

Her mother, Julie, started a movement for an all-inclusive playground, and Jeannie quickly became a vocal advocate and the face of the effort, culminating in the establishment of Jeannie’s Place at Planet Playground and her being named the youngest-ever Citizen of the Year by the Meridian Star.

Before she was born, Jeannie had a stroke in-utero. The Nulls knew there was something wrong when she did not develop the same way as her older brother, Jonah. The stroke was diagnosed at the age of 18 months.

When she turned four, she started having seizures, starting an odyssey of medical appointments. When she was 6, she started a series of brain surgeries in Birmingham to deal with her epilepsy. After the first surgery was unsuccessful, the second removed the part of her brain causing the seizures. Though the right side of her body was paralyzed as

community a result, she likely would not have survived otherwise.

Six weeks later, a staph infection developed in her skull, almost killing her. After recovering from that, another surgery removed two-thirds of her skull. After a very cautious six months, she had her fifth surgery to install a prosthetic skull with titanium screws.

Seizure-free, Jeannie started to excel and is finishing the ninth grade.

William commented that Jeannie is “always just so upbeat and happy.”

After the school fundraiser incident, Julie started researching inclusive playgrounds, and found there was one in Richland. After getting advice from organizers there on how to proceed, she started working to get Meridian officials on board, with City Councilman George Thomas taking the lead.

Planet Playground had fallen into disrepair and had been closed, so the idea began to redo Planet Playground but make it ADA-compliant.

In 2017, Play By Design unveiled plans for the playground, but then came the issue of funding.

Progress was slow, but in 2018 things started picking up. “That’s when Jake and William stepped in and started doing their fundraising,” Norman said.

Though both play football, the bulk of their fundraising took place during the fall as they solicited local businesses and individuals, despite having no previous fundraising experience.

William had decided to build park benches for his Eagle Scout project. But he saw the condition of Planet Playground and decided to think bigger.

Jason Null, Jeannie’s father, had coached William in baseball, so the pieces started falling into place.

Meanwhile, last May Jake had volunteered for Camp Dream Street at the Henry S. Jacobs Camp in Utica. Founded in 1975, the camp is a five-day chance for children with disabilities to have a summer camp experience and just be children. Much of the staff are volunteers from the region’s National Federation of Temple Youth chapters.

Inspired by his time staffing Dream Street, he joined William’s effort as they both recalled the fun times they had at Planet Playground while growing up.

By further coincidence, Jason Null works for Southern Pipe, which is Jake’s family’s business.

Organizers had been cutting elements from the playground design from a lack of funds, but the teens kept raising funds to keep those items.

Now, Norman said, “we believe it is the largest inclusive playground in the state,” and possibly neighboring states.

The playground “is for everybody,” Norman said, and is designed so children of all abilities can play together. It is designed not just for wheelchairs, but for those with sensory disorders and other conditions.

A key component that Jeannie wanted was a merry-go-round that could accommodate her wheelchair, one that loads at ground level. There is also a “liberty swing” that the entire wheelchair fits on, the first of its kind in Mississippi and only the 16th in the country. In the play fort, ramps are wide enough for two children in wheelchairs to pass each other going opposite directions.

The play surface is a composite that is soft yet sturdy enough for those with wheelchairs or walkers. There will also be a “parachute shade” to keep the equipment from getting too hot in the summer.

In February, work began on the playground, with over 2,000 volunteers braving a very rainy season to work on the project. Local restaurants pitched in on volunteer days, and some churches had early services at the park on Sunday mornings before build days.

Marveling at the number of volunteers, Jason Null said “we’ve got a great community around here.”

An official dedication has not been set as of press time, as they are waiting for the arrival of one last major element — a slide that does not

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19

community generate static, so children with cochlear implants can use it.

Only a few places around the world make those slides, and this one has been delayed in shipment from Germany.

Jason Null said he can’t explain how excited his family is, and for the ability of all children “to play together.”

After the playground is finished, they hope to have regular fundraising events for maintenance and upkeep, because “we’re in Mississippi” and

the weather will require it.

The goal was to have the playground ready so that five years after being shut out of a school activity, Jeannie could have her 15th birthday party at Jeannie’s Place at Planet Playground.

Jason Null said without the efforts of William and Jake, he doesn’t think the project “would have happened any time soon.”

William will head off to Mississippi State this fall, while Jake will attend the University of Georgia.

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Educator Brad Cohen and entertainers The Bible Players will headline this year’s Goldring/ Woldenberg Institute of Southern Jewish Life Education Conference, held June 23 to 25 at the Hilton Hotel in Jackson.

Each year, the conference brings together representatives from every one of the Institute’s dozens of partner schools throughout the South. The annual event draws more than 150 attendees to network, compare best practices and strengthen teaching skills. They also receive updated materials for the Institute’s standardized curriculum. The Institute recommends that all religious school teachers consider attending the conference, while rabbis, congregation presidents and parents are also encouraged to attend.

Cohen is director of education at Baltimore Hebrew Congregation in Maryland. He holds a master’s degree in Jewish Education from He-

May 2019 • Southern Jewish Life

At the National Council of Jewish Women’s Washington Institute in April, the Honorable Miriam Waltzer, advocacy committee chair, accepted the Social Change Champion Award for the New Orleans Section, for effectively building a coalition around voter registration, education and mobilization. Engaging New Voices and Voters registered 3,500 new voters.

Additionally, NCJW worked with The Voice of the Experienced to help restore the voting rights of previously incarcerated individuals in Louisiana. Pictured above are Waltzer, President Barbara Kaplinsky, NCJW Voter Mobilization Chair Sylvia Finger and Louisiana SPA Maddie Fireman. Right, U.S. Rep. Elaine Luria of Virginia met with incoming Section president Susan Hess, national CEO Nancy Kaufman and Barbara Kaplinsky. Luria’s mother was president of NCJW in Birmingham, and her aunt is New Orleans member Amanda Herman.

community Ala. Legislators criticized for Holocaust allusions in bills banning abortion Alabama legislators are being criticized for bringing the Holocaust into their bills that are being considered in the current regular legislative session.

Sen. Greg Albritton and Rep. Terri Collins both filed bills in their respective chambers, which if passed would make performing an abortion a felony except in cases necessary “to prevent a serious health risk to the unborn child’s mother.”

The bill also states that the mother would not be “criminally culpable or civilly liable for receiving the abortion.”

The Anti-Defamation League’s Southeast regional office in Atlanta sent a letter on April 10 to Rep. Paul Lee, chair of the House Health Committee, saying the bill “contains language that is offensive to the Jewish community and infringes on Alabamians’ religious freedom.” The letter was signed by Regional Director Allison Padilla-Goodman.

The identical Senate Bill 211 and House Bill 314 state that “It is estimated that 6,000,000 Jewish people were murdered in German concentration camps during World War II,” and goes on to list the millions executed

by Joseph Stalin’s regime in Soviet gulags, the Chinese “Great Leap Forward,” the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia during the 1970s and the Rwandan genocide in 1994. “All of these are widely acknowledged to have been crimes against humanity,” the bill says.

“By comparison, more than 50 million babies have been aborted in the United States since the Roe decision in 1973, more than three times the number who were killed in German death camps, Chinese purges, Stalin’s gulags, Cambodian killing fields, and the Rwandan genocide combined.”

The bills also reference the Nuremberg War Crimes Trials of Nazi perpetrators. Using the Declaration of Independence’s declaration that “all men are created equal,” the bill states that idea “was at least one of the bases for the anti-slavery movement, the women’s suffrage movement, the Nuremberg war crimes trials, and the American civil rights movement.”

The ADL said comparing “a constitutionally protected right” to the Holocaust “is deeply offensive,” as it “belittles the memory of the six million Jews who were murdered at the hands of the Nazis and misappropriates a profoundly impactful historical event for political purposes.”

The ADL is against invoking the Holocaust in public policy debates.

Dan Puckett, chair of the Alabama Holocaust Commission, said the language in the bill should be removed. Having it there “is totally unnecessary… if you remove that whole clause, it’s not changing the nature of the bill whatsoever.”

Rabbi Hara Person, the incoming chief executive of Reform movement’s Central Conference of American Rabbis, said the comparison is “shocking.”

Equating the Holocaust and abortion “is a really offensive concept that shows a real lack of understanding of Jewish history and women’s lives today,” she said.

Person said liberal groups know abortion “is a very difficult choice for a woman to make. Women don’t make it capriciously… there are a lot of very personal reasons.”

While the Alabama Holocaust Commission does not get into political issues, the ADL letter also expressed opposition to the bill on “personal and religious freedom” grounds.

In the April 10 letter, Padilla-Goodman said that while the bill “comports with certain religions,” other faiths permit abortion “in the cases of rape, incest, and human trafficking, as well as serious physical and mental health conditions.” The bill could thereby violate Alabama’s Religious Freedom Amendment by denying the right to terminate a pregnancy in line with “her sincerely held religious belief.”

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community Person said “If the legislators truly care about life, she said, they would focus on reproductive health and greater access to health care.”

Birmingham attorney A. Eric Johnston authored the bills. He is director of the Alabama Pro-Life Coalition, and also authored the 2014 “foreign law” amendment to the state constitution, which was seen by many as an “anti-Sharia” law.

Johnston told CBS News that “Nobody has a corner on being offended just because their people were killed… It’s offensive to say that (this bill) is offensive.”

It is not uncommon for opponents of abortion to refer to the procedure as “America’s Holocaust.”

The Senate bill is co-sponsored by 11 of the 35 members; the House bill has 67 co-sponsors out of 105 members.

In Mississippi, a new law is set to take effect on July 1 that would ban most abortions once a fetal heartbeat is detectable, around six weeks into pregnancy. There are exceptions for when a woman’s life is endangered, but not for cases of rape or incest.

A 2018 Mississippi bill that banned abortions after 15 weeks was struck down by U.S. District Judge Carlton Reeves, who will hear a challenge to the new law in May. The challenge to the law was on behalf of the state’s only clinic that performs abortions.

In Alabama, there are currently just three such clinics.

On April 22, Tennessee passed a bill that bans abortion, except when necessary to prevent death or “substantial and irreversible impairment of major bodily function.” Amendments to add provisions for cases of rape or incest, or for pregnancy in minors, failed.

Arkansas has similar restrictions set to take effect in three months.

On April 23, the Louisiana House of Representatives passed a bill that would amend the Louisiana Constitution to say there is no right to an abortion, and would bar public funding for the procedure. If it passes the Senate, it will be on the Nov. 16 ballot for statewide approval.

A six-week bill is also being considered in Louisiana.

A privacy clause in Florida’s constitution has kept many of the restrictions from neighboring states from being considered; currently the only bill being discussed is on parental consent to abortions for minors.

Many legislatures are passing these laws knowing they will be challenged, in the hopes of getting the U.S. Supreme Court to revisit Roe v.

Wade, the 1973 decision that said states can not restrict abortion up to the point when a fetus is viable outside the womb.

As these new bills are not currently enforceable, the idea is that should the Supreme Court overturn Roe v. Wade and the decision on abortion reverts back to individual states, these bills would already be on the record establishing state policy.

The weekend of April 5, B’nai Israel in Monroe held its second annual congregational Kallah at the Wesley Center in Woodworth, La. Another Kallah is scheduled for next January.

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May 2019 • Southern Jewish Life

Birmingham’s Emanu-El to honor Jessica Roskin for 20 years as cantor Receives doctorate from HUC for 25 years of service As the Year of Engagement comes to a conclusion at Birmingham’s Temple Emanu-El, the congregation’s sole clergy member for the year is being honored locally and nationally.

Next month, Cantor Jessica Roskin will be honored for 20 years of service and dedication to Emanu-El, and on May 1 she was honored by Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion with a doctorate of music.

Andrew Rehfeld, president of HUC-JIR, presented Roskin with the doctorate, honoris causa, at graduation ceremonies held at Congregation Emanu-El of the City of New York. The doctorate recognizes Roskin’s 25 years of distinguished professional service as an alumna of HUC-JIR. The graduation speaker was Madeleine Albright, former U.S. Secretary of State and chair of the Albright Stonebridge Group. She was presented with an honorary doctorate of humane letters.

Rehfeld stated Roskin was honored for “dedicated service to the Jewish People and the larger world by fostering learning, community, social justice, and continuity of our heritage.”

A South Florida native, Roskin received her Bachelor’s degree in music and religious studies from Indiana University in 1985 and was ordained and received her Master’s degree in sacred music from HUC-JIR in 1994.

She was cantor at Anshe Emeth Memorial Temple in New Brunswick, N.J., before becoming cantor at Emanu-El in 1999.

Emanu-El will mark her 20 years in Birmingham at the June 7 Shabbat service. The congregation’s annual meeting will be at 5 p.m., followed by the 5:45 p.m. service and a dinner following. The evening will have an Israeli flair, including music by the Klezmer Trio and cuisine by Eli’s Jerusalem Grill.

This year, Roskin was the over 600-family congregation’s only clergy member. After Rabbi Jonathan Miller retired in the summer of 2017, Rabbi Douglas Kohn served as interim rabbi for one year as the search process began. In the summer of 2018, Associate Rabbi Laila Haas left Emanu-El and recently became the new Adult Director of Learning and Growth at the Center for the Advancement of Jewish Education in Miami. Emanu-El elected for a student rabbi to visit twice monthly for 2018-19, but was informed just before the High Holy Days that the previously-selected student was unavailable.

With lay leaders, Roskin coordinated the Year of Engagement, with congregants and guests leading sermons and delivering sermons throughout the year.

Rabbi Adam Wright will join Emanu-El as senior rabbi this summer.

May 2019 • Southern Jewish Life

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May 2019 • Southern Jewish Life

Michael Cohen to become history advisor as MSJE plans 2020 opening Tulane’s Michael Cohen will serve as senior historical advisor to the Museum of the Southern Jewish Experience as it researches, designs and installs its exhibits, ahead of its planned 2020 opening in downtown New Orleans.

Cohen chairs Tulane’s Department of Jewish Studies, where he holds a Sizeler Professorship.

“We’re delighted to be working with Michael on this exciting project,” said Museum Executive Director Kenneth Hoffman. “Michael has been advising us on a volunteer basis for two years; now he will take a more active role in Work progresses at the Museum helping us develop our exhibits. As of the Southern Jewish we strive to tell a complex and ofExperience site ten-overlooked story, Michael will guide our historical thinking and serve as our connection to scholars and historians across the country.”

Cohen graduated from Brown University and received his doctorate at Brandeis University. He is the author of “Cotton Capitalists: American Jewish Entrepreneurship in the Reconstruction Era,” and “The Birth of Conservative Judaism: Solomon Schechter’s Disciples and the Creation of an American Religious Movement,” as well as several articles.

Cohen lectures widely throughout the country and across the globe.

He chairs the Association for Jewish Studies’ Directors Group, where he is also the division chair for Modern Jewish History in the Americas.

He serves on the executive committee of the Academic Council of the American Jewish Historical Society and is an academic advisory board member for the Pearlstine/Lipov Center for Southern Jewish Culture at the College of Charleston.

Cohen is also a board member of the Southern Jewish Historical Society, and he has served as a scholar-in-residence for the American Jewish Archives “Travels in American Jewish History” program.

“I am thrilled to formalize my relationship with the Museum of the Southern Jewish Experience,” Cohen said. “Southern Jewish history is an important story that needs to be told, and I am excited to partner with the museum to share that story.”

The museum is also working with world-renown exhibit designers Gallagher and Associates, who helped create the exhibits at The National WWII Museum, The National Museum of American Jewish History, and at scores of institutions across the country and around the world.

The museum will have a broad overview of Southern Jewish history in 13 states, highlight a unique collection of artifacts, and provide opportunities for all visitors — Jewish and non-Jewish alike — to gain an expanded understanding of what it means to be a Southerner, a Jew, and ultimately, an American.

The Museum already has a strong relationship with Tulane University.

Board members Jay Tanenbaum and Rusty Palmer, as well as Kenneth Hoffman, are alumni, and board member Morris Mintz has a long history of support for the university.

The museum has established an active internship program that provides Tulane students opportunities to gain real-world experience in the museum field.

community Marcus starts new 7th-inning wave tradition at Birmingham Barons games

by Lee J. Green Allstate Insurance’s slogan is “you’re in good hands.” Thanks to Allstate insurance agent Nathan Marcus, hands at the Birmingham Barons games are waving to Children’s Hospital of Alabama patients, families and employees during the 7th inning stretch.

Marcus and his wife, Julie, came up with the “Seventh Inning Wave” as a way to raise awareness of and unity with Children’s Hospital, which can be seen just beyond right field at Regions Park.

“You can see and feel the response,” said Marcus. “The people The Marcuses at Regions Field, who participate feel good about it with Children’s in the background and the (patients and employees) feel good about it. It’s still early, but the Barons said this is already their new tradition.”

Marcus got the idea when he was watching a segment on ESPN’s Gameday a couple of years ago, about how the Iowa Hawkeyes do a wave during their game to Children’s Hospital of Iowa, which overlooks their stadium.

He contacted the Barons staff and there was some interest. Allstate also loved the idea and agreed to sponsor the 7th inning this year.

Fans wave with the flashlights on their phones during the 7th inning break of Barons games. Patients and families at Children’s Hospital are in the process of receiving flashlights so they can “wave back.”

The Marcuses’ daughter, Rachel, recently started working as a nurse at Children’s. “That makes it even more special. It is so cool to share this with my wife and daughter. Rachel said she has talked to people in the stands and at Children’s. They just love it. This is truly a double mitzvah.”

Marcus said that all employees at his Vestavia and Mountain Brook offices are committed to community involvement. Everyone must do a day of service to support an organization or cause of their choosing. His offices also run a big holiday toy donation campaign for those in need and Marcus is also the president of the Sunrise Rotary Chapter.

“I know this makes me want to get even more involved helping Children’s Hospital. I hope those who come to the Barons games feel that connection and want to help too,” he said.

Emily Hornak, the director of cause marketing and corporate partnerships at Children’s, said “we love the fans in the stands waving at the kids, and we believe that raises awareness of Children’s of Alabama — not just to the fans who are at the game but also the people they go and tell. The enthusiasm for Children’s of Alabama is able to spread even beyond that moment in time when folks stand and wave at kids in the hospital.”

Birmingham Barons Corporate Sales Manager Don Leo said he felt like the idea was a home run from the start. Home plate faces Children’s Hospital, which is about four blocks from Regions Field.

“The Seventh Inning Stretch is part of the tradition of baseball. Having the Seventh Inning Wave as a part of it really makes it a special part of our tradition,” said Leo. On April 10, the first home game of the season, “everything went off without a hitch and it has just taken off from there.”

Marcus said that Allstate has donated $20,000 to Children’s Hospital as well. He added that they hope to grow and expand the Seventh Inning Wave. “It’s like they said in the baseball movie Field of Dreams — ‘if you build it, they will come’,” he said.

May 2019 • Southern Jewish Life

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May 2019 • Southern Jewish Life

A campaign has begun to establish the first Fisher House in Louisiana, on the site of the New Orleans VA Hospital.

Fisher Houses are places where military and veterans’ families can stay at no cost while a loved one is receiving medical treatment. Since the program began in 1990, over 80 houses have been constructed around the country, serving almost 370,000 families.

The Fisher House Foundation was founded

by Jewish real estate developer and philanthropist Zachary Fisher, who died in 1999.

Born to a Jewish family in Brooklyn, N.Y., and the son of a bricklayer immigrant from Russia, Fisher began working in construction at the age of 16. Shortly thereafter, he and his brothers Martin and Larry formed Fisher Brothers, which has grown into an industry-leading residential and commercial real estate development firm.

From the earliest days of his construction career, Fisher was a strong supporter of the U.S. Armed Forces. Although prevented from active service in World War II due to a leg injury, he drew on his building skills initially to assist the U.S. Coastal Service in the construction of coastal fortifications. Eventually, his efforts on behalf of the war effort and the armed forces became a primary focus.

In 1978, he founded the Intrepid Museum Foundation to save the historic and battle-scarred aircraft carrier USS Intrepid from the scrap yard. Four years of his direct involvement with the Foundation resulted in the opening of the Intrepid Sea-Air-Space Museum in New York City, which is now the world’s largest naval museum.

The Fishers began the Fisher House program after Pauline Trost, the wife of then Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Carlisle Trost, outlined a need for temporary lodging facilities for the families of hospitalized military personnel.

During this time, veterans and service members’ families were sleeping in their cars near their loved ones during treatment as lodging was either unavailable or unaffordable to them.

After contributing $20 million to construction of comfort homes, the Foundation was established to partner with local non-profits to build more houses.

Ken Fisher, chairman and CEO of the Fisher House Foundation, recently announced that ground will be broken in late 2019 for the first Fisher House in Louisiana. The flagship New Orleans VA Hospital was approved for the house by the Department of Defense, the Veterans Administration and the Fisher House Foundation.

It will be sited at the entrance to the VA Hospital on South Galvez Street.

The planned Fisher House of Southern Louisiana will be approximately 14,000 square feet, with 16 suites and shared eating, cooking and communal spaces. On March 21, Governor John Bel Edwards unveiled the design for the house.

Friends of the Fisher House of Southern Louisiana was formed to raise the money from the region needed to match the Fisher House Foundation’s grant of $3.25 million toward building the house, and Brian Hennessy is president of the local group. The Fisher House Foundation will manage the construction of the house, and once construction is complete, the house will be given to the Veterans Administration to be operated, maintained and staffed.

Marjorie Kraus, a board member for Friends of Fisher House, urges members of the Jewish community to participate, whether to honor a Jewish veteran or active duty member, or in honor of the American soldiers who liberated the concentration camps. “Many in our community have told me that their generation would not have been born without the efforts of American soldiers who saved their parents’ lives,” she said.

In the region, Fisher Houses are already located at Eglin Air Force Hospital in the Florida panhandle, and Keesler Medical Center in Mississippi.

For more information: fisherhouselouisiana. org.

summer travel an annual SJL special section

One small step for vacation…

Celebrate the 50th anniversary of the moon landing at the Space and Rocket Center This summer, the world will look back half a century to one of humankind’s greatest achievements — landing men on the moon and bringing them safely home. To celebrate Neil Armstrong’s “small step for man” and Huntsville’s giant role in making it happen, the U.S. Space and Rocket Center is hosting a car show, a Guinness World Record rocket launch, a Rocket City Summer Fest Moon Landing Concert and more.

It was the Huntsville-designed Saturn V rocket that carried Commander Armstrong, Lunar Rover Pilot Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin and Command Module Pilot Michael Collins on their historic journey in July 1969. Those who lived in the former cotton town turned Rocket City in the 1960s knew the earth-shaking power of the F-1 engines that would lift those three astronauts off the ground. The frequent testing of those engines at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center are Huntsville-history lore.

As the official visitor center for Marshall Space Flight Center, the Rocket Center commemorates that exciting time every day with its world-class collection that includes the National Historic Landmark Saturn V Rocket as well as the only vertical Saturn V replica in existence. It is awe-inspiring to gaze up at the 363-foot-tall rocket and imagine sitting atop that giant machine and traveling to a place no human had been before.

While those treasures and many more are part of any visit to the Rocket Center, this summer is packed with other special events and things to see, including the world premiere of “Apollo: When We Went to the Moon.”

The Rocket Center’s education and curatorial staff worked with Australian-based exhibit company Flying Fish to produce this look at the contentious days of the space race with the Soviet Union and the possibilities that come from today’s more collaborative spirit.

The new INTUITIVE Planetarium is a cutting-edge addition to the Rocket Center, with special Apollo 11 programming planned for the summer, along with regular movies and live planetarium shows. Huntsville-based Intuitive Research and Technology partnered with the Rocket Center on the planetarium, which offers the most advanced planetarium technology in the country.

Daily lunar landing re-enactments are also part of a Rocket Center experience, but the week of July 13 to 20 is when the Apollo 11 celebration will truly take off. The week begins with a Celebration Car Show July 13, featuring cars from the Apollo era. That night, the Space Camp Hall of Fame dinner takes place, honoring this year’s class of exceptional alumni who are the explorers of today.

July 16 will be a blast — literally. At 8:32 a.m., 50 years to the minute from when the Apollo 11 mission lifted off, the Rocket Center will set a Guinness World Record by launching 5,000 model rockets from its Space Camp Rocket Launch facility. Guinness-approved judges will be on hand to

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summer travel

document this feat of rocket power and sheer fun.

Also on July 16, the Rocket Center is coordinating a Global Rocket Launch to encourage people all over the world to launch a rocket — any kind, anywhere — in honor of the Apollo 11 mission. This is a great way for Scout troops, science centers and individuals to take part in a global celebration of that world-changing event. Sign up at rocketcenter.com/ globalrocketlaunch to be counted as part of that celebration.

A sold-out Apollo 11 Homecoming Dinner is set for the evening of July 16, and there’s a concert planned for July 20 in the shadow of the Saturn V replica. It will be a time for dancing under the moon rocket, just like it’s 1969.

Private groups are also getting into the act by renting the facility with an eye on the anniversary. On April 16, Awareness Ministries, which explores the Jewish roots of Christianity and works with the local Jewish community to advocate for Israel, held a Christian-style Passover Seder underneath the horizontal Saturn V rocket in the Davidson Center for Space Exploration.

The Seder routinely draws around 1,000 participants, and this year was also a benefit for Space Camp scholarships.

For more on the Rocket Center’s 50th Anniversary of Apollo 11 celebrations, visit rocketcenter.com/Apollo50. There will also be many events planned citywide. Visit the Huntsville/Madison County Convention and Visitors Bureau’s website for a full list of activities.

Vulcan Birthday Bash to reveal Thunder on the Mountain enhancements Vulcan Park and Museum will celebrate the birthday of Birmingham’s 115-year-old Iron Man on June 2, and the birthday of the United States on July 4.

Vulcan’s Birthday Bash promises to be the biggest one yet, according to Vulcan Park and Museum Marketing Director LaShana Sorrell.

“Vulcan Park and Museum has become the gateway for educating visitors of all ages on the region’s rich history, while inspiring youth to make a difference in our community’s future,” said Sorrell. “Birthday Bash is a fun event for the whole family, and we have added many new things for everyone to enjoy this year.”

UAB Callahan Eye Hospital will be the new presenting sponsor for Birthday Bash. The Talladega Super Speedway will have a few cars onsite and the Birmingham Legion professional soccer team will be there as well.

The World Games 2021 will feature an interactive section complete with a rock-climbing wall, sumo wrestling mat and interactive mobile unit.

The Birmingham Zoo will bring out some animals and Get Rhythm will return with its drum circle. Magic Town Clowns will coordinate face painting and balloon animal activities.

Game Stop will provide interactive gaming in the Museum and paid admission to the 1 p.m. Birthday Bash includes the opportunity to tour the Museum.

Attendees can enjoy free cupcakes from Dreamcakes Bakery while they last, and the first 300 kids receive goodie bags.

Sorrell said they will make a major announcement at the Birthday Bash about Thunder on the Mountain, Vulcan Park and Museum’s Independence Day fireworks celebration on July 4. The details will be revealed then, but she did say this year’s Thunder on the Mountain will be the biggest one to-date.

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May 2019 • Southern Jewish Life

Henderson Park Inn a secluded romantic getaway in Destin A corner of heaven, the Henderson Park Inn provides the ultimate sanctuary for rest, relaxation and romance. This 37-room adults-only beachfront bed and breakfast sits along a mile of undisturbed Gulf of Mexico coastline in Destin, Fla. As the only beachfront hotel in Destin, it’s easy to see why the Henderson Park Inn has become a nationally recognized destination for honeymoons, anniversaries and couples’ getaways.

The Inn’s setting is spectacular, situated directly on the beach, allowing each room a view of the Gulf of Mexico. Guests can take advantage of the location of Henderson Park Inn next to the beachside State Preserve by lounging on inclusive beach chairs with umbrellas, enjoying a picnic on the beach with a complimentary gourmet boxed lunch, or bicycling down Scenic 98 and the charming seaside neighborhood of Crystal Beach. At this adults-only property, the beach exudes a private and quiet ambiance.

The Inn has earned the reputation as one of the finest lodgings in Florida and was voted the No. 2 Most Romantic hotel in North America. Guestrooms are elegant private sanctuaries and evoke a feeling of relaxation and serenity. Special amenities include wine, grapes, flowers and chocolates upon arrival, all which make an overnight stay quite a treat. All this — and the Inn is right on the beach.

After a peaceful night sleeping to the sound of the waves, guests are treated to breakfast like no other at the on-site Beach Walk Cafe, the most awarded and only fine-dining experience directly on the Gulf. For dining in the evening, the only meal not included in the cost of the stay, the restaurant features a more intimate casual atmosphere with dining available inside with a cozy fireplace and magnificent views of the coast, or outside on the verandas of the Inn overlooking the emerald water of the Gulf. They even offer a rose-petaled “Toes in the Sand Dining” experience for the ulti-

mate romantic evening!

Looking for more activities than relaxing at the beach? The Inn’s guests have access to all the amenities next door at the Inn’s sister property, The Henderson, a Salamander Beach and Spa Resort. Home to two beautiful swimming pools, couples will love spending time at the Adults Only Pool, which features a luxury cabana with poolside beverage service. Or keep up with your workout routine at The Henderson’s excellent fitness center.

In addition to the standard weights and machines, the fitness center offers a variety of daily classes to enjoy, with everything from indoor cycling to yoga, and unique yoga on the beach programs. For the ultimate in relaxation, Henderson Park Inn guests can book spa services including couples’ massages, facials, manicures, pedicures, mineral scrubs, and much more.

There are a variety of activities and events going on year-round in Destin.

The Destin Commons features shopping, dining, and entertainment. In the heart of Destin, you will find weekly events and a large variety of activities at HarborWalk Village. The Harbor is also the hub for all charter fishing, and dolphin and sunset cruise options. Are you ready to test your luck at deep sea fishing in the “World’s Luckiest Fishing Village?”

Few resorts offer more than a mile of the world’s most beautiful, secluded beaches and the ultimate romantic experience. The comments from honeymooners and couples celebrating anniversaries and other special events are glowing. Henderson Park knows romance and provides a relaxing atmosphere that everything else just seems to disappear. Whatever you left behind, when visiting the Inn, it’s sure to be forgotten in this romantic atmosphere. For more information, visit hendersonparkinn.com.

Change how they see the world.

A 3-week program in Germany and Poland for undergraduate and graduate students.

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Warsaw Academy The National WWII Museum Study Abroad Program

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May 2019 • Southern Jewish Life

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summer travel

Studying the consequences National World War II Museum Warsaw Academy trip helps college students understand atrocities

by Lee J. Green Thirty college students will get to travel to Germany and Poland, as well as “back in time,” as part of The National World War II Museum’s Warsaw Academy, June 15 to July 6.

World-renowned historian Alexandra Richie, a presidential counselor at the museum, who is a university professor at Collegium Civitas in Warsaw, will lead the three-week learning program that offers college credit.

“It is a tremendous privilege to work with The National WWII Museum to take students to Germany and Poland so they can see the consequences of Hitler’s Third Reich; how it was finally defeated and why the allies won,” said Richie. “We visit dozens of places, many of them off of the beaten path, so that the students will see and get World War II history, Cold War history and understand where Europe is heading today.”

She added that, “this program also places an emphasis on museum studies and how we study, interpret and remember this controversial, often-difficult history today.”

Richie’s partnership with museum began in 2014 when she was a featured speaker for the museum’s International Conference on World War II. She also leads one of the museum’s most popular and sought-out adult educational travel experiences — The Rise and Fall of Hitler’s Germany.

Sarah Kirksey, educational travel operations manager at the museum, said the Warsaw Academy provides “a unique and interactive program that brings the students face-to-face with the reality of the Jewish ghettos, the Holocaust and the brutality of the Eastern front by visiting the heart of Poland where these atrocities took place.”

The Academy begins in Berlin, as participants visit sites where Nazism overtook Germany’s political and social life. The program then turns to Poland, a country stuck between two brutal dictators with expansionist policies.

Kirksey said though historical archives have documented the places visited as part of the Warsaw Academy, there are a number of tour stops that were not as commonly taught to American students in school.

The historical places the students are going to see, visit and learn about with Richie include Seelow Heights, the Warsaw Ghetto and Ghetto Uprising, Wannsee Conference, Potsdam Conference, the POLIN Museum, Ringelblum Archives, Auschwitz-Birkenau, Westerplatte and the Warsaw Zoo. College students can earn six credit hours from Collegium Civitas and take advantage of internship opportunities at POLIN Museum, the Warsaw Uprising Museum and the Witold Pilecki Center for Totalitarian Studies.

Students can apply for Warsaw Academy scholarships through June 1.

For more information, visit www.nationalww2museum.org.

Gray Line launches new Houmas tour Gray Line New Orleans’ new tour launching June 1 offers up a sweet slice of home sweet Houmas.

Voted Best Historic Mansion by USA Today, the Houmas House Plantation and Gardens tour allows visitors a five-hour immersive experience into the life of a wealthy sugar baron in the 1800s.

Located just outside of New Orleans in Darrow, the 38-acre Houmas House Plantation and Gardens features indigenous Louisiana plant life; courtyards with dramatic water features and colorful Koi ponds.

The unique architectural features include twin Garconierre, very rare among plantation homes, and the restored Belvedere that crowns the house.

The three-story helix staircase follows the corresponding curvature of the adjacent wall and the mansion’s faux marble exterior is painted in rich ochre.

Those taking the tour can purchase lunch at the on-premises restaurant and enjoy a drink at the famed Turtle Bar along with browsing the gift shop, 30

May 2019 • Southern Jewish Life

summer travel

May 2019 • Southern Jewish Life

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summer travel

while The Inn at Houmas House also offers overnight cottage stay packages.

When it opens this fall, Gray Line will also offer an additional option to tour the nearby River Road Steamboat Museum.

Anticipated to launch on its maiden voyage this summer, the Riverboat City of New Orleans

will be able to carry as many as 1,000 passengers down the mighty Mississippi River.

The new steamboat is 189 feet long and 55 feet wide, larger than its sister vessel, the Steamboat Natchez. The Riverboat City of New Orleans will feature a full kitchen and bar for tours as well as hosting special celebrations.

Plan your summer at Edgewater Beach Resort With its landmark architecture and distinctive landscaping, Edgewater Beach Condominium has long been a vacation destination for its magnificent touch of the French Riviera on the world-class beaches of northwest Florida’s Emerald Coast.

These Destin, Florida condos feature stunning views of the Gulf of Mexico, both from the spacious living area and an impressive master bedroom. The dramatic, sweeping architecture of the landmark building makes each vantage point unique and spectacular.

The one, two and three-bedroom rental condos each have a private balcony or terrace overlooking manicured gardens, two shimmering pools and the Gulf of Mexico.

The complex is located close to shopping, restaurants, golf courses, water sports, fishing and other beach amenities in Miramar Beach, Destin and Sandestin, much of it within walking distance. The Silver Sands Premium Outlets are very close by, and there is even more to explore in neighboring Fort Walton Beach, Panama City, Panama City Beach, Navarre, Gulf Breeze, Pen-

sacola and the Villages of Scenic Highway 30-A. From a few days to a few months, Edgewater Beach Condominium vacations are America’s Best Beachfront Resort Values, with fully-equipped kitchens, full-size washer and dryer, free WiFi and other entertainment options, and complimentary beach chairs and umbrellas.

There is a putting green, basketball and shuffleboard, a children’s playground, fitness center and a seasonal poolside Tiki Bar and Grill.

Rentals are available by the day or week, and by the month in fall and winter.

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May 2019 • Southern Jewish Life

by Lee J. Green Alabama Splash Adventure has been on quite a ride since the Dan Koch and his mother, Pat, took ownership in 2014.

Last summer, the Birmingham area amusement park’s attendance grew 33 percent. For 2019, the park offers three new attractions, more shows, and cabanas along with a new name — Alabama Adventure and Splash Adventure.

“When we got here there were no land rides,” said Dan Koch. “We now have 10, with more planned for the future. With the name change and new signage, we wanted to make sure that people know we’re so much more than just a water park.”

One of those new land attractions for the 2019 season, which opens May 18, will be the Galleon.

This 33-passenger swinging ship goes more than 40 feet in the air at its apex.

At the end of last season, Alabama Adventure and Splash Adventure added the FreeFall water slide, which plunges riders downward from a height of almost eight stories.

The Twister water slide features three 360-degree turns before finishing its run under the FreeFall. “We call ourselves a family park with thrilling elements,” said Koch. “These new attractions will for sure appeal to those who love thrills and adventure.”

In addition to the new attractions, the park features dive shows several times every day but Tuesday, as well as mascot shows everyday. In that area, they also added giant Big Chess, Jenga and cornhole games.

Parents can see the dive shows from Splash Island, a water amusement area for younger kids with plenty of space for adults to lounge while their kids play.

“We’ve also added some cabanas, and they can be reserved online,” said Koch. “There are also a few new food and beverage items for this season.”

As in previous seasons, parking, sodas, non-alcoholic beverages and sunscreen remain free.

He said that Alabama Adventure and Splash Adventure also noticed an increase in the number of visitors coming from further away. To accommodate, they are now doing “next day” tickets.

Someone can show his or her one-day pass receipt and buy a ticket for the next day for only $20.

Pat Koch, who is 87 years young and is affectionately referred to as “The General,” is there at the park just about every day to offer warm hospitality.

“We have some great new things this year, but what I am most excited about seeing everyone again,” she said. “Our visitors to the park and our employees are like a part of our family. We want the park to be a destination and a home for everyone.”

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Section dogtags were distributed in blue and green for members to wear when volunteering, and different NCJW programs were highlighted in the room.

During the dinner, Spencer Racca channeled Frank Sinatra, after which the Victory Belles and Victory Trio entertained.

Top: Marjorie Bissinger leads the blessing before dinner. Below, Women of Valor Julanne Isaacson and Anne Levy. Right, Sarah Covert, Lilli Geltman, Rollie Rabin and Dana Keren.

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May 2019 • Southern Jewish Life

Petition seeks to thwart zoning change to stop sale of Knesseth Israel building An online petition drive seeks to thwart the rezoning and sale of Birmingham’s Knesseth Israel building, while the congregation’s leadership says the independent drive does not represent the congregation’s position.

There will be a Mountain Brook zoning commission meeting on June 3 at 5:30 p.m. to discuss rezoning the KI property to a commercial designation so the property’s sale can go through and a medical clinic can open in that location.

The rezoning is seen as the final step for the state’s only Modern Orthodox congregation to complete a process that has been in the works for seven years, as it has struggled financially in its new building.

Once the building is sold, the congregation plans to move across the street into the rabbi’s home, which the congregation owns free and clear, with the basement and first floor being used for congregational activities, and the upstairs would be the living quarters for the rabbi.

Gabriel and Sarah Rezonzew began the petition drive to “save” the building, saying they are new members who love the synagogue. “This is one of the most accepting, non-judgmental places of worship we have found, and we are honored to be a part of this wonderful community,” she said.

As of May 5, there were 110 signatures on the petition, which is addressed to Mountain Brook Mayor Stewart Welch III, city council members and Temple Emanu-El. Rezonzew stated there were dozens of nearby families concerned that the rezoning would negatively affect their property values, and that moving out of the building “could also bring about the demise of the congregation.”

In a statement to members on May 3, however, the KI board said that they support owner Fred Friedman’s “prerogative to sell the building,” which has been on the market since 2016.

Two years ago, there was an understanding “that he would maintain our lease and help subsidize us in the building until he was able to sell it, at which time we would be prepared to leave — a point we reaffirmed at last year’s congregational meeting. We are grateful for this arrangement, and for all the ways in which he has helped sustain our congregation.”

In 2004, the congregation started a rebuilding project at its location on Montevallo Road, but issues with that property caused them to start looking elsewhere. They voted in December 2005 to move to Overton Road, dedicating the new building in 2007.

The congregation, then with 100 member families, raised $5.4 million for the new facility. The real estate collapse of 2008 hampered the sale of the Montevallo Road property, which ultimately brought in far less than was anticipated. That, combined with other factors, led to an announcement in the summer of 2012 that there was $3 million still owed to the bank on what had become an $8 million project.

Around that time, Beth Israel in Gulfport and Beth Israel in Metairie built new buildings to replace facilities made unusable by Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath. Both projects were far smaller than Knesseth Israel, though the Metairie congregation has twice the membership.

After negotiations with the bank, in 2012 the KI property was put on the market for $5.5 million. After a year on the market, the “for sale” sign came down as Jimmy Filler, and Fred and Brenda Friedman, bought the property, which became the Fred and Brenda Friedman Center for Jewish Life.

Knesseth Israel would remain in the building, which was also made available for other community groups. Temple Beth-El used it as an alternate religious school location, and when Collat Jewish Family Services started its CARES program in 2015, it was housed there.

In 2016, the property went back onto the market, as KI’s then-president Ken Ehrenberg stated the building had become “a financial burden to its

community owner.” For the congregation, the expenses of being in such a large facility were also unsustainable, and moving into the rabbi’s house would also help balance the congregation’s budget.

Some in the community wanted other local Jewish institutions to consider purchasing the building. Temple Beth-El did a study, but the 500-family congregation decided the facility did not meet its needs.

With the uncertainty over how long it would take for the building to sell, Beth-El stopped using it as a satellite religious school location, and the CJFS CARES program moved out last year.

After a couple of sales fell through, in July 2018 the congregation held a meeting at which it was announced that there was a potential buyer and the sale was expected to close that October, but the process has been delayed pending the zoning approval.

Day School enhances STEAM program Thanks to a recent significant gift, Birmingham’s N. E. Miles Jewish Day School has enhanced its emphasis on STEAM education.

Each day, students in the Lower and Upper School classes work on projects that fall under the Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Mathematics umbrella.

From placing first in the state championship in the Wonder League Robotics competition two years in a row, to earning first place in the Sixth graders Edith Kaplan, Aviva Goldberg, McWane Science Cenand Samuel White mapped out the 7 days ter’s Celebrate Science of creation using Ozobots. The students competition, the Day programmed different commands that School strives to implerepresented each of the days and they ment STEAM initiatives described each day in Hebrew. across their curriculum, while aiming to spark an interest and lifelong love of the arts and sciences in children from an early age. STEAM projects are integrated into the regular curriculum, including in Judaics.

With the recent gift, the school added a 3-D printer, new student biological field microscopes with slides, electric potters wheels, forensic DNA evidence kits, Arduino Robotics, and a greenhouse.

Recently, the eighth grade students submitted their final entry in this year’s Wonder League Robotics competition. The students collaborated creatively and used both science and technology to create codes to answer the challenges of the competition.

The Day School’s third and fourth grade students came back from spring break to a STEAM unit about Earth Day and ecology, including exploration of food chains, classification of organisms, and photosynthesis.

To further their studies, they looked at the larger problem with plastics (engineering) and simulated experiments with plants (technology). They completed the unit with lab reports (science writing) including graphs (math) and a food web and poster (art) to celebrate the interconnections of all life on Earth.

The third and fourth graders also just completed a model city that incorporated geometry, design, problem solving and teamwork skills to ensure they had a successful city.

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community Avodah celebrating Partners in Justice at June 2 jazz brunch

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May 2019 • Southern Jewish Life

Avodah will celebrate three “Extraordinary Social Justice Leaders” at its annual Partners in Justice Jazz Brunch, June 2 at 11 a.m. at Gates of Prayer in Metairie.

This year’s Partners for the agency are Melanie Bronfin, Judge Miriam Waltzer and Norris Henderson.

Along with Chicago, New York and Washington, New Orleans is one of four sites in the U.S. where Avodah recruits young Jewish adults ages 21 to 26 from across the country to spend a year living together and being placed at local non-profit agencies, building a supportive, pluralistic community that promotes social activ- Melanie Bronfin ism and Jewish life. There is also a Justice Fellowship program that debuted in Kansas City this year.

The Corps Members are paired with non-profits that fight poverty, providing these organizations with an additional staffer to help with the organization’s goals, and also strengthens connections between the Jewish community and social service groups.

Bronfin is the executive director of the Louisiana Policy Institute for Children, which is a Judge Miriam Waltzer non-partisan, nonprofit that is a source of data, research and information for policymakers, stakeholders and the public at large on issues related to young children in Louisiana. Since 2012, she has been at the forefront of policy and advocacy around the implementation of the Early Childhood Education Act, which mandated an overhaul of the entire early care and education system in Louisiana, including child care, Head Start and Pre-K programs statewide, and the over 60,000 young children served by Norris Henderson them.

Henderson is the founder and executive director of Voice of the Experienced, VOTE. Having been wrongfully incarcerated for 27 years, Henderson uses his firsthand experiences of the racism and brutality of the criminal justice system to address the needs of communities of color across Louisiana and beyond. He is a former Soros Justice Fellow, and has made a fundamental impact on public policy and discourse about police accountability, public defense for poor and working-class people, and reforming of the notorious Orleans Parish Prison.

Since his release in 2003, Henderson has applied his 27 years of selftaught legal expertise and community organizing skills to a number of leadership positions, including co-director of Safe Streets/Strong Communities, and community outreach coordinator of the Louisiana Justice Coalition.

Waltzer was the first female judge to be elected to the New Orleans Parish Criminal District Court and the second woman elected to the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals. As a Jewish girl in Nazi Germany, Waltzer survived the Holocaust hidden in a convent. After coming to the United States, she married civil rights attorney Bruce Waltzer, and pursued a career in justice, earning a law degree from Loyola University, where she was one of just five women in her law-school class.

First elected to the criminal district court in 1982, she moved to the court of appeals in 1992. In her lifelong work as a judge, she provided

community >> Avodah

continued from page 36

opinions and dissents that protected the welfare of youth victims, forced male judges to honor federal child support requirements and conducted a statewide survey on the treatment of women in the courts, revealing widespread discrimination against female lawyers and expert witnesses.

She retired in 2002 and relocated to Dallas during Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

In 2018, she received the prestigious NCJW President’s award for leading a coalition that registered more than 2,600 new voters. According to a Loyola biography, Waltzer said her proudest achievement was winning freedom for a family of Russian Jews who had been denied permission to emigrate.

This year, New Orleans Avodah had 11 Corps members, working for groups such as CrescentCare, the Promise of Justice Initiative, HousingNOLA, the Fair Housing Action Center, Communities in Schools, Voice of the Experienced and the YMCA. Megan Plotka of Huntsville remained in New Orleans after studying at Tulane, and has been a Media Fellow at the New Orleans Video Access Center during her year with Avodah.

Other members hail from Los Angeles, Chicago, Philadelphia, Atlanta, New York, Cleveland and London. Since the group opened in 2008, a large percentage of Avodah alumni have stayed in the New Orleans area after their year is completed.

Tickets to the brunch are $60, or a suggested donation of $36 for young professionals. Program listings range from $100 to $5,000. Amy Gainsburgh-Haspel and John Haspel are honorary co-chairs.

>> Agenda

continued from page 8

The next Old Fashioned Judaism at Beth Shalom in Baton Rouge is May 25 at 7:30 p.m. The event is hosted in private homes, contact the congregation for details.

JNOLA will have its Wet Hot Lag B’Omer party on May 23 at 6:30 p.m. at Wrong Iron on the Greenway. There will be a fire pit, smores and brews, and 1980s attire.

Beth Shalom in Baton Rouge will celebrate Israel at 71 with a family-friendly Yom Ha’Atzmaut and Camp Shabbat, May 25 from 4 to 6 p.m.

>> Rear Pew Mirror

continued from page 38

any future Israeli presence on the moon.

This would require diverting funds from other worldly needs that could have profound impact on the civilian population. “Our people might not eat for a while, but they are willing to make this sacrifice for the greater good,” said senior Hamas official Abu bin Dhabi, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Regardless, many Israelis and Jews worldwide take Beresheet as a symbol of hope for a more peaceful future where they can relax with the gentle, quiet debates that further moon missions will bring. Which systems must be shut down for Shabbat? Which way on the moon does one face when praying — lunar east or toward Earth? And, can there be a manned mission at all if it has less than a minyan?

Doug Brook is floating in a most peculiar way, and the stars look very different today. To read past columns, visit http://brookwrite.com/. For exclusive online content, like facebook.com/rearpewmirror.

May 2019 • Southern Jewish Life

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rear pew mirror • doug brook

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Israel recently became the fourth, and by far the smallest, nation to land a craft on the moon. It landed at a far greater velocity than planned, but it got there.

The cause of the Beresheet lander’s overly exuberant final approach is still under investigation. Early indications are that the lander’s programming was impacted when its computer’s central intelligence agent was distracted by how consistently the worldwide media was mispronouncing its name.

However, some scientists are investigating the impact of potential chronometer confusion. After all, in its final days of approaching and then orbiting its target, Beresheet was so close to the moon that there was no way for it to tell a full moon from Rosh Chodesh. Given such confusion about time, it’s possible the lander’s engine briefly cut out on final approach because it thought Shabbat was starting.

Still others speculate whether there was a fundamental programming issue, with some lines of code being read from left to right and others from right to left.

Nonetheless, the Israel Space Agency declared the Beresheet mission a success, insofar as it made Israel only the seventh nation to reach the moon, after the United States, Russia, China, India, Frank Sinatra, and Alice Kramden in the shocking series finale of “The Honeymooners.”

On the heels of this success, the Israel Space Agency has already announced plans for another mission. Beresheet 2, also known as Shemot, doesn’t have a schedule yet, but then again neither does a certain Jewnion reporter’s next physical.

It’s oddly appropriate that Beresheet missed out on one key mission aspect, but was a necessary lead-in to its successors. After all, Beresheet’s biblical namesake is the only one of the Five Books of Moses that never even mentions Moses, but you need it first to get to the other four.

Beresheet 2 faces some of the same goals and obstacles as its predecessor. The new lander will carry on the original mission of helping to answer some cosmic, Talmudic questions. For example, if the moon is made of cheese after all, is it kosher cheese?

This question has serious implications for future manned moon missions, such as whether future missions can bring any food that’s fleishig.

Even if the moon isn’t made of cheese, Beresheet made there’s still debate about whether Israeastronauts would require separate quite an impact, lilanders for dairy and meat. If separate landers are required, there’s question as and not just on to whether oxygen supplies are suffithe lunar surface cient for the time they must wait in between using one lander and the other.

In one gesture toward simplification, no missions will be scheduled during Passover.

More delicate is the political landscape that Beresheet 2 is inheriting.

Immediately upon the landing of the remaining pieces of Beresheet, the United Nations sanctioned Israel, condemning what it deemed excessive force in Beresheet’s accidentally aggressive landing and for what it deemed an attempt to illegally occupy an alien territory.

In response to Israel’s attempted moon landing, Hamas quickly declared a rapid extension of its own well-publicized rocket program. They intend to mount their own lunar expedition to capitalize on recent discoveries of evidence of water on the moon. Hamas intends to mine the water and build a dam so there is a lunar sea into which they can drive continued on previous page

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May 2019 • Southern Jewish Life

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May 2019 • Southern Jewish Life