Southern Jewish Life, June 2020

Southern Jewish Life REFORM PIONEER: TEMPLE SINAI TURNS 150 COMMUNITIES IN TRANSITION

June/July 2020 Volume 30 Issue 6

Southern Jewish Life P.O. Box 130052 Birmingham, AL 35213

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June 2020 • Southern Jewish Life

shalom y’all As this issue wraps, a couple of congregations have started experimenting with in-person services and a slew of social distancing guidelines. Most others are waiting to see what things will look like toward the end of June before opening up.

Of course, summer is generally a slow time, with rabbis on vacation or visiting the summer camps (but not this year), so there isn’t as much of a demand to reopen. And though many churches have felt a lot of pressure to reopen, the Jewish community has not followed that trend — it’s not as if you have to show up to services for challah and wine, unlike Christians who take communion, for example.

But as the summer rolls to an end, there will be a huge elephant in the room, and that’s not even counting the Crimson Tide’s season.

High Holy Days.

For many congregations, Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur draw capacity crowds.

If everyone is still social distancing, if sanctuaries can be at maybe 25 percent capacity — rows of pews have less distancing space than restaurants, and you’re there a lot longer — what will the High Holy Days look like? How will larger congregations determine who can be there? Committees have already been formed to discuss the possibilities.

But that scenario is not universal in our area. Many smaller communities have plenty of room, even on the High Holy Days.

In recent years, we have usually gone to Pensacola for Rosh Hashanah, attending four congregations over the two days. But before that, we decided that rather than battle 700 people at our home congregation, we would pick a different small community each year, where anywhere from 20 to 50 would be there for Rosh Hashanah

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MESSAGES

commentary

Maccabi USA leader praises Birmingham Games

I have had the honor of attending many Maccabi competitions around the world. From Israel to Australia to South America, Europe and the JCC Maccabi games around the United States Susan Hess and Canada, I have logged many miles seeing how sports can be a vehicle to help build Jewish identity, especially in our young.

II felt thought nothing be dous being honored to comecould to Birmingham for the first time and fell in financial love withliquidity not just the citysupharder theYou coronavirus plied by your the Federal but the than people. have takenpanSouthern hospitality to a new level with kind andgovernment, caring demic.

Well, I was wrong! as well as our own ingenuity in approach to the JCC Maccabi Games.

Now we are facing what some pivoting from situations that don’t by the Sokol and Helds, your hard-working volunteers were wonderful. seeLed as the crumbling of our society work, to those They that partnered do. He toutwith your outstanding staff, led by Betzy Lynch, to make the 2017 JCC Maccabi games a huge and hit. from within, exposing the rotten ed our emotional resilience Icore want to take this opportunity as executive director of Maccabi USA to say thank you on behalf of racism we thought never stated that up until now we have of see everyone to again. involved.

Through that modern done a great job of “flattening the I had cellphone just returned from Israel” with a U.S. delegation of marvel, video, wethe can20th no World Maccabiah games incurve.

He mentioned that Payroll over 1100, 10,000 Jewish athletes from 80 countries.Protection Back in July theresults eyes ofhave the entire longer turnwho our joined backs and pretend Plan been Jewish and the Maccabiah. This past month with 1000 athletes we don’tworld knowwere whatonisJerusalem going on in magnitudes bigger for and us than coaches around the world being in Birmingham, you became focalby point. the Blackfrom community. othertheareas using local banks The video of George Floyd being to apply.

Everyone from the Jewish community and the community at large, including a wonderful murdered byare a white police officer These who shows main in thing Hecht urgedaisseminal that we conpolice force, to be commended. games willThe go down history as being such callous lack of humanity that he has his centrate on building something better at the moment for the Jewish community as we build to the future by providing such wonderful Jewish hand in his pocket while nonchalantly choking other side of the pandemic.

He spoke of the natmemories. the life out of a helpless human being is devas- ural advantages we have such as our amazing Jed Margolis tating. logistics infrastructure, and our growing tech Executive Maccabi Floyd is Director, only the latest in aUSA long list of Black industry which has a large number of Blacks men and women, including EMT Breonna Tay- and women involved compared to other places lor and jogger Ahmaud Arbery among count- in the country.would like to see pushed back supremacists Onothers Charlottesville less caught up in this toxic culture of into Hea thinks healthcare system well cornerthat and our made to feel lesser.

We is stand systemic racism. And these are just the ones we placed forpray thefor future, with of ourHeather long-standing with and the family Heyer, Editor’s Note: This reaction to the events in know about! involvement instanding infectious research. who was there updisease to the face of thisHe Charlottesville, Jeremy Newman, In the Torah written we are by instructed not to stand also believes we will have a surge in entreprehate.

Master of the the Alpha Epsilon Pi neighbor Theta Colony idly by while blood of our is shed. neurship.

We recognize the essence of the American at Auburn University, was shared bystill AEPi It is exhausting that in 2020 we are fighting Our region’s potential for coming out of the narrative as a two-century old struggle to rid National, which called it “very eloquent” and this battle, but that does not mean we can give pandemic stronger than before is reflected in ourselves of such corners, and allow those in praised “our brothers at AEPi Theta Colony at up.

Hecht’s belief that, as in Katrina, we are at an them the seat at the table that they so deserve.

Auburn University and… the leadership they NO! We Jews know the consequences of re- “anthropological break point” and that “this It is the struggle to fulfill the promise of the display on their campus. ” maining silent. We must find a way to change changes everything.”

Declaration of Independence, that “all men are this dreadful culture.

Another positive initiative is the hundreds of created equal… endowed by their Creator with religious congregations including our socially White has been a cancer on We supremacy Must Join with Others certain unalienable rights.” We know our work active synagogues, and non-profits and citizen our country since itsour beginning, We Must Press Elected threatening Officials is far from finished, but we know we will not organizations across our state that are working its hopes, its values, We Must Voteand its better angels. move backwards. on “Reimagining Louisiana” after the pandemThe events that Commit took placefor inthe Charlottesville We Must Long Haul men and women, fullylaunched armed, take ic. When This effort, which recently with a represented theSave worstOur of this nation. Those We Must Democracy to the streets in droves with swastikas andTouro 1,000-person Zoom call co-chaired by who marched onto the streets with tiki torches We are really facing a perfect storm. At the Synagogue’s other symbols of hate, it isBauman, a reminder how Rabbi Katie willofcontinand swastikas did so to provoke violence and same time as this racial madness is occurring, relevant the issues of racism and anti-Semitism ue with a “10,000 Conversions Campaign” defear.still Those who onto did we must paymarched attention to the the streets coronavirus are today.

It is a wake-up call to the work that signed to give citizens a voice in the recovery. so to profess an ideology that harkens back to spreading among us. needs to be to ensure aand better, I really likedone his optimism, I ammore going with a bleaker, more wretched timethat in our Governor Edwards has said thehistory. state may it! welcoming country.

But it should not come After what has transpired lately, we could all A time when men IIand of many proceed to Phase of women re-opening, andcreeds, we are do without a reflection on how far we’ve come. with a dose of positive thinking. races, and were far from and has far grateful forreligions that, even though Newequal Orleans To all members America was bornofa our slaveJewish nation.community, A century from safe in our own borders.

A time where opted out for now. stay and healthy.

We need and every into safe our history we engaged in aeach war in part Americans lived under a constant cloud of At the last Jewish Federation of Greater New one of you to continue your good work to make to ensure we would not continue as one. We racism, anti-Semitism and pervasive The Orleans Task Force meeting, among hate. the guests us evenourselves stronger confronted and better than ever. found by the issue of civil events that took place in Charlottesville served was Michael Hecht, CEO of GNO, Inc., the main rights, and embarked on a mission to ensure as a reminder of how painfully relevant these economic development arm for our region. He Hess is president of the Greater Newtheir OrtheSusan fair treatment of all peoples no matter issues told usare thattoday. the economic stagnation of the area leans Section of the National Council of Jewish skin color. Although we’ve made great strides, Epsilon Pi stands with the hasAuburn’s been lessAlpha than feared because of the tremenWomen. it is a mission we’re still grappling with today.

Jewish community of Charlottesville, and America was also born an immigrant with the Jewish people around the country country. As early as the pilgrims, many and around the world. We also stand with the groups and families found in the country the minorities who are targeted by the hate that opportunity toWeekly plant stakes, chase theirEmail future, was on display in Charlottesville.

We stand The South’s Most Comprehensive Jewish News themselves.

Few were met with open with the minorities of whom white sendand To these Subscribe, an be email to subscribe@sjlmag.com

The State of Affairs in Louisiana

This Week In Southern Jewish Life

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January June 2020

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 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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commentary

An Open Letter from the New Orleans Jewish Community Editor’s Note: The following letter, released on June 11, was signed by the Jewish agencies, congregations and organizations in Greater New Orleans. On June 29, the Jewish Federation of Greater New Orleans will hold “Shema: A Virtual Listening Session with Local African-American Leadership,” details to be announced.

We will condemn race-based hate and bigotry against Black and Brown members of our society whenever and wherever we see it, even and especially when we find it within our own community.

• support meaningful public policy that addresses the myriad of issues that plague minority communities, including the wide healthcare To Our African-American Brothers and economic disparities that have become so and Sisters in Greater New Orleans, apparent during the COVID-19 pandemic. We Our shared history holds within it moments will advocate in particular for much needed of powerful partnership between our communi- policing reform measures, and will seek to be ties, and it also holds moments of estrangement strong coalition partners in the public sphere. and points of pain. In full awareness of that Our shared prophetic tradition instructs us complicated history, and for those members of to do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with our community whose overlapping identities — God and with one another. We will harken to Black and Jewish — connect us to each other, we this and other prophetic voices that call us to write this letter to express our solidarity at this reject complicity, inaction, and indifference difficult time. and to put our values into practice with every We abhor the recent murder of George Floyd step and with every breath. We vow to do our

by Minneapolis police officers and detest the best to make eternal the moments of powerful officers’ delayed arrests. We abhor the recent partnership that our communities have formed murders of Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, at critical times throughout the history of our and so many others. country to fight bigotry, racism, and hate.

We mourn alongside you the Black and With heartfelt empathy for the pain of this Brown lives lost to racially motivated violence moment, with high hopes for the chance to and despise the institutionalized racism that has build a better tomorrow, and in solidarity, continually shielded those responsible.

We see you, we hear you, we love you, and we The Jewish Community of Greater New Orleans: stand with you in the conviction that Black lives matter. We will strive to be allies with you as our Jewish Federation of Greater New Orleans: country faces this moment of reckoning, much Goldring Family Foundation Center for too long in coming.

Jewish-Multicultural Affairs The watchword of our faith is Shema or lis- Jewish Federation of Greater New Orleans: ten. In that spirit, we commit to listening with Jewish Community Relations Council open hearts, in the coming days, months, and ADL South Central years, to the voices, truths, and feelings of our Avodah African-American neighbors. Furthermore, our Congregation Anshe Sfard of New Orleans Torah teaches that we must not stand idly by the Beth Israel blood of our neighbor, and so we also commit Congregation Gates of Prayer to acting, intentionally and swiftly, to create real Hadassah New Orleans and lasting change in our local community and Israel Bonds (Southeast Region) our nation that will dismantle the systems of JCRS - Jewish Children’s Regional Service white supremacy that surround us all as Amer- New Orleans JCC / Goldring Woldenberg JCC icans.

— Metairie Jewish Community Day School Specifically, we commit to: The Jewish Endowment Foundation of • seek a deeper understanding of our histoLouisiana ry and how generations of African-American Jewish Family Service of Greater New Orleans trauma directly relate to the struggles of the Limmud New Orleans present day. We will attempt to fully understand Moishe House New Orleans the discrepancy between who we say we are as a NCJW Greater New Orleans Section nation and who we truly are as regards civil and Northshore Jewish Congregation human rights.

Shir Chadash Conservative Congregation • be more courageous in our efforts to prevent Temple Sinai — New Orleans and respond to future acts of racial and other Touro Synagogue discrimination emanating from any source. Tulane Hillel

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commentary Jimmy Filler

Passing the Torch of Jewish Leadership to a New Generation

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I was born in 1943, in the midst of the Holocaust. I feel blessed to have been born and raised here in the U.S., in Birmingham, where I still live today, but much of my family in Europe perished before the war ended; I have strong memories of my family mourning the loss of cousins. I also recall, as a child, the founding of the State of Israel in 1948, and the lifelong passion it instilled in me to do everything I could to honor the memory of family members lost, by supporting the Jewish state. I’ve been at it ever since.

This passion sprung from my family’s deep involvement in Jewish communal life. Birmingham has always had a tight, close-knit Jewish community, and from my earliest recollections, my parents were involved in volunteering at every level. At my bar mitzvah in 1956, they gifted me my first-ever Israel Bond. It was their way of telling me that I had a direct stake in our Jewish homeland, and that this was something to be developed and nurtured over time. It was a lesson I took to heart.

Fast-forward to 1972: As a young man, I was invited to chair a local Israel Bonds event in Birmingham, and I enthusiastically accepted.

It was my first involvement with Israel Bonds, helping to bring Birmingham’s Jewish community together through investment in the Jewish state. Today — nearly 50 years later — I still regularly chair these events. A lot has happened along the way, but, over the past five decades, my commitment to this cause has never wavered, only strengthened.

Starting from that first meeting and right up to the present, my role has been to help create interest in investing in Israel Bonds by building new relationships and developing ties between the local Jewish community, other communal organizations, nonprofits, businesses, government leaders, and anyone who — as I do — sees the value of a strong, thriving Jewish state. As I’ve crisscrossed Alabama over the years making this case, I’ve drawn on my own and my family’s experiences, and these lessons have resonated with others.

Take, for example, the story of a meeting I had with a representative in charge of a local investment fund. I sat across from him, making the case that Israel Bonds are investments that paid you back, with interest, and that they are also a principled way to show support for, and solidarity with, Israel and its people.

He was skeptical, asking me, “Why should I invest in Israel Bonds, rather than any other bonds?” I told him to consider his own commu-

nity and customer base — so many of whom were Jewish, and strong supporters of Israel — and consider the value they would see in such an investment.

He was eager to get started in investing, and the fund administrators evenPhoto by Rabbi Barry Altmark tually became longtime investors in Israel Bonds.

Stories like these have multiplied over time, and investments from around Birmingham, and then statewide, began to add up. Today, the State of Alabama holds millions of dollars in Israel bonds. Over my 50 years of service, I’ve seen sales of Israel Bonds rise exponentially, and I’m proud to have played a prominent part in that achievement. A few years ago, my wife and I were honored at a joint Israel Bonds-Jewish Federation event, where we were presented with a lifetime achievement award for our tireless devotion to the Bonds organization. For me, the award validated a lifetime of service and dedication, and inspired me to ensure that this vital work continues.

On that front, however, I’m sometimes discouraged. After a long and storied commitment to Israel Bonds, I’m ready to pass the torch to a new generation of Jewish leadership, who can continue generating support for the Jewish state in and around Birmingham. But, I’ve been troubled to see statistics of declining involvement among young people in vital communal initiatives like this one. Thus far, I’ve been unable to find a successor who can pick up where I’m prepared to leave off, yet I remain hopeful that I can find that person, and I’m determined to do so.

“L’dor v’dor” or “from generation to generation,” is a key tenet in the Jewish tradition, and one we must strive to live by. For me, and for Birmingham’s Jewish community, that means tapping into new leadership to continue the vital work of helping to encourage investment in Israel through Israel Bonds. It’s been the honor of a lifetime for me to fulfill that role for the past five decades, and now I’m prepared to pass the torch “from generation to generation.” I look forward to seeing who accepts the responsibility.

Jimmy Filler is a long-time supporter of Development Corporation for Israel/Israel Bonds and a voluntary Israel Bonds lay leader.

agenda interesting bits & can’t attend events

Not how they envisioned the last part of their time in the South: The 2018-2020 Education Fellows at the Goldring/ Woldenberg Institute of Southern Jewish Life in Jackson — Joshua Altshuler, Carrie Bohn, Mackenzie Haun and Becca Leaman — came to the office on May 20 to clear their desks, after two months of programming remotely. Five new Fellows are joining the Institute and, once restrictions are lifted and congregations have in-person events again, will travel to congregations in the 13-state region that use the ISJL curriculum and lead educational weekends.

Swastikas among graffiti painted outside New Orleans Jewish cemetery As Tropical Storm Cristobal brought tropical wind and rain to New Orleans, an ill wind of a different kind hit New Orleans with the discovery of swastikas and other graffiti painted on the street outside the Joseph Street Cemetery.

Established in 1850, the Joseph Street Cemetery is the third oldest Jewish cemetery in New Orleans and belongs to Gates of Prayer in Metairie. It is located about three blocks from the Uptown Jewish Community Center.

Three swastikas, which were discovered on June 5, covered paint markings from the Sewer and Water Board, and were part of a larger display of graffiti that included items that were not antisemitic.

According to the Anti-Defamation League and the New Orleans Police Department, the graffiti seemed to be the work of an individual seeking attention and does not represent a threat to the Jewish community. The swastikas were painted “backwards,” making it unlikely there was a neo-Nazi motive.

Still, “the use of symbols of hate outside of a Jewish cemetery are unacceptable and offensive,” Aaron Ahlquist, ADL regional director, said. “In this time of deep reflection on the leg-

acy of hate, we condemn the use of antisemitic hate imagery to create fear and division.”

Gates of Prayer Rabbi David Gerber said the Nazi imagery is “painful” and “brings up a sense of fear” in the Jewish community, though they also don’t believe it was indicative of a threat or a movement in the area.

The NOPD and Jefferson Parish Police Department were increasing patrols around Jewish institutions as a precaution. The cemetery was inspected and there were no signs of damage.

The Jewish Federation of Greater New Orleans is working with the national Federation movement to explore retaining a full-time community security professional based in New Orleans, starting next year. The Federation has a security committee, co-chaired by Aaron Ahlquist and Roselle Ungar, that has been actively working on several community-wide initiatives.

The graffiti was painted over by residents in the area, and Gerber said he was amazed at how many people in New Orleans own pressure washers and volunteered to erase the vandalism.

“The most impactful message from this ordeal is the community of pressure washers who are at the ready — individuals and families who

recognize that these symbols are incompatible with the values of their neighborhood,” Gerber said. “The symbols will be washed away. The knowledge that we live in a community of caring and kindhearted people will remain.”

June 2020 • Southern Jewish Life

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agenda With COVID uncertainty, Mobile tests virtual Jewish Film Festival concept With COVID making it difficult to plan events, the Mobile Jewish Film Festival is exploring alternate arrangements, with a trial run this month.

Many festivals around the country have gone virtual, and the Mobile committee will test how that works with a screening of “Love in Suspenders” on June 24.

The free screening, sponsored by the festival and the Mobile Area Jewish Federation, is also in thanks to the community for its past support.

The Federation will distribute a link to the film on June 24.

The 2019 Israeli comedy depicts Tami, a 64-year-old widow, who accidentally hits 70-year-old widower Beno with her car. To make sure he doesn’t sue her, she invites him to her apartment, where despite vastly different personalities, they fall for each other. Their children, on the other hand, are more skeptical.

The Mobile Jewish Film Festival is held every January in multiple venues around the area.

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The teen summer journey cancelled, Etgar 36 offers alternative small-group visits to Alabama Etgar 36, the Atlanta-based group that does Jewish civil rights tours throughout the year and a summer nation-wide trip for Jewish teens, is introducing “socially distanced” one- and two-day civil rights trips to Montgomery, Selma and Birmingham to learn of a time when “we were separated from each other for very different reasons.”

Rather than taking a bus, the trip will be a caravan of individual cars for individuals, families or groups, led by an Etgar 36 guide. Social distancing will be practiced, and masks are required for program times. To facilitate distancing while having a cohesive group, trips are limited to 20 participants.

Each trip goes to Montgomery, then there are optional add-ons for either Selma or Birmingham.

The Montgomery trip includes the Rosa Parks Museum, Equal Justice Initiative Museum and the Lynching Memorial. In Selma, there will be a session about Bloody Sunday and a walk over the Edmund Pettus Bridge.

In Birmingham, the group will meet Bishop Calvin Woods Sr., and visit the 16th Street Baptist Church.

Dates are available from July to September. Registration is at etgar.org.

CJFS adds to COVID services Thanks to a grant from the Greatest Needs Fund of the Birmingham Jewish Federation’s COVID Relief Campaign, Collat Jewish Family Services is offering financial assistance to Jewish community members who are facing financial insecurity because of job loss, caring for family or other issues.

Confidential assistance is available to members of the Birmingham Jewish community who need help with rent or mortgage payments, utilities, prescription costs or other needs.

To help dementia caregivers cope with stress, the CJFS CARES respite program is now offering its free Virtual Support Group twice weekly — at 1:30 p.m. on Mondays and 7:30 p.m. Thursdays. The group is led by CJFS professional staff. To register and receive zoom link, contact Pam Leonard, CJFS CARES Program Director.

For those suffering from anxiety, depression or simply under unusual stress, virtual counseling is available from CJFS for people of every age, religion and income level. Services are offered on a sliding scale and may be covered by Medicare and/or insurance.

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June 2020 • Southern Jewish Life

agenda Museum of the Southern Jewish Experience delays opening until 2021 Leaders with the Museum of the Southern Jewish Experience have decided to push back opening plans to early 2021 “due to construction delays and a drastically slowed tourism economy from the effects of COVID-19.” Also cited were interruptions in supply chains, restrictions on travel, and a general sense of the unknown.

The museum had been set to open in New Orleans this fall, but Museum Chairman Jay Tanenbaum said “We feel this will allow us to give the Museum of the South- Curator Anna Tucker visited the ern Jewish Experience the Solomon Group to examine some of the robust welcome that we’ve exhibit furnishings been planning for.” Delaying the opening will give business and tourism time to recover in New Orleans and ensure the safety of all staff and visitors.

The 9,000-square-foot museum will be housed at 818 Howard Avenue, a building that is currently under renovation and is located within blocks of several other major New Orleans museums.

The new incarnation of a museum that closed at the Henry S. Jacobs Camp in Utica, Miss., in 2012, the museum will explore the many ways Jews in the American South influenced and were influenced by the distinct cultural heritage of their communities, covering 13 states and more than 300 years of history, including Colonial, Civil War, World War II and the Civil Rights Movement.

The museum is accepting artifacts, including photos from couples who met at Jewish summer camp. The museum is also looking for photographs of synagogue stained glass windows throughout the region, which stretches from Virginia to Texas.

Fundraising is also continuing for the museum.

The museum will have a Zoom program on June 16, to share stories of Southern Jewish life and show artifacts from the museum’s collection.

Contact the museum for the 10 a.m. Zoom link.

Alabama Heritage features Heschel, King The cover of the new issue of Alabama Heritage magazine has a familiar Jewish figure on the cover — Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, one of the great Jewish thinkers of the 20th century.

Heschel, who fled Europe during the Nazi regime, developed a close friendship with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and that friendship is explored in “The Rabbi and Dr. King.”

The Mobile Area Jewish Federation will present a Zoom session on July 12 at 3 p.m. with Frye Gaillard, author of the piece.

The piece details how the seventh-generation rabbi wrote extensively about the Hebrew prophets, and King quoted extensively from the prophets and was spoken of by Heschel in prophetic terms. Heschel marched with King in Selma and was a key figure in King coming out against the Vietnam War. King was supposed to be at Heschel’s Seder in 1968 but was assassinated in Memphis.

Gaillard is writer in residence at the University of South Alabama.

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Though services are still not in person, the three Reform congregations in New Orleans are doing their traditional Summer Union Services. Unlike other years, the times will remain consistent each month — 6 p.m. on Fridays and 10:30 a.m. Saturdays. Gates of Prayer is hosting June services as Tory May ends her tenure as cantorial soloist. Temple Sinai will host in July, and Touro will lead August services. There are hopes that an in-person option can be added later this summer.

The premiere of the documentary “Unexpected Modernism: The Wiener Brothers Story” in Shreveport, which was moved to June from April due to the coronavirus outbreak, has been postponed again, until sometime this fall. The Wiener brothers, from Shreveport, became noted architects that transformed the region.

With the financial effects of the coronavirus pandemic on the Union for Reform Judaism, the structure of NFTY, the movement’s high school youth group, has been among the shakeups. The 19 NFTY regions are being grouped into four NFTY Areas, each overseen by one Area Manager. The NFTY Southern advisor position, which has been held by Sarah Tucker, has been eliminated, but she is becoming the full-time assistant director at the Henry S. Jacobs Camp in Utica, succeeding Joshua Posner. NFTY Southern, along with NFTY Southern Area, Southern Tropical and Texas-Oklahoma, will be under the direction of Rabbi Andrew Terkel, director of year-round programs at Greene Family Camp.

Among the expressions of community support received by Etz Chayim in Huntsville after the antisemitic vandalism on the first night of Passover, Harvest Point Methodist Church in Madison donated and installed new outside security cameras.

The Olga Lengyel Institute for Holocaust Studies has postponed this summer’s slate of satellite programs to next year. The five-day TOLI seminars are designed to provide a collaborative and safe environment in which teachers can explore the difficult subject of the Holocaust and other genocides. “Looking Toward the Future: Bringing Lessons of the Holocaust to the Gulf South” was scheduled for Baton Rouge, and “Reclaiming Our Humanity: Lessons of the Holocaust for Today” with visits from veterans of the Mississippi civil rights movement was to be held once again in Jackson. Registration will reopen for 2021 in the fall.

The Birmingham Holocaust Education Center will have its annual L’Chaim event online this year. The event, which will be on Aug. 23 at 2 p.m., will honor Susan and David Silverstein. Information on giving and sponsorship levels is available at bheclchaim.swell.gives.

Birmingham’s Temple Emanu-El will have Havdalah Nights via Zoom on June 20 at 7 p.m., a Havdalah service followed by the film “Walk on Water” and a discussion. The program is for ages 18 and up.

The 2004 film is about an Israeli intelligence agent who, following his wife’s suicide, is assigned to befriend the grandchildren of a Nazi war criminal.

Moishe House in New Orleans will hold virtual programs this month, including a Virtual Shabbat on June 26 at 7 p.m. and Mindfulness Monday Yoga with Julia Mattis, June 29 at 5:30 p.m.

Cantor Robert Wittner will lead his first service as cantor of Birmingham’s Temple Emanu-El on July 3 at 5:45 p.m. The congregation is currently holding services via webcast on its website, and on Facebook Live.

The Southern Jewish Historical Society is producing an on-line speaker series this summer, in co-sponsorship with the Breman Museum in Atlanta, the Savannah Jewish Federation and the Savannah continued on page 43

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June 2020 • Southern Jewish Life

Mississippi’s Chabad rabbi to lead Gulfport’s Beth Israel Rabbi Hall grew up at the formerly-Conservative congregation, becomes its first resident rabbi On May 31, Beth Israel in Gulfport voted to bring on its first resident rabbi — but in a step that is highly unusual for a Conservative congregation, the new rabbi is from Chabad.

In a 19-11 vote, the congregation brought on Rabbi Akiva and Hannah Hall from Chabad of Southern Mississippi. Another unusual dynamic is that Rabbi Hall is a native of Ocean Springs and grew up at Beth Israel, before he became involved with Chabad.

The Halls returned to the area in 2014 to set up Missisippi’s first — and still, only — Chabad presence, in Biloxi.

Beth Israel President Ryan Goldin said the Halls, who will officially start in September, “will be bringing their great knowledge of Judaism, as well as wonderful programs that Beth Israel has been lacking for a very long time.”

The Halls will be moving from Biloxi to a house across from Beth Israel that is owned by the congregation.

In the last couple of years, the congregation and Chabad have done an increasing number of joint programs, including the most recent Purim in NYC celebration and deli dinner on March 11, the last event before everything shut down due to coronavirus.

After the vote, the congregation notified the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism that it was dropping its affiliation. It had been the only Conservative congregation in a state where all other congregations are Reform, except historically-Orthodox Ahavath Rayim in Greenwood.

Hall said Chabad has had their dedicated group of 15 to 20, plus involvement from some members of Beth Israel, and “we’ve always encouraged” people who are involved in both.

Beth Israel holds Sunday School, and Chabad has held a Hebrew School on Wednesdays, with some overlap in students.

Among those attending both have been Goldin’s children. He explained, “being in a small Jewish community, I’m going to do all I can to make sure my kids get the best Jewish education they can,” including youth group and Jacobs Camp involvement.

Even before he became president, Goldin said he would have “casual conversations” with Hall about how the Gulf Coast Jewish community could “move to the next step” to encourage greater Jewish activity in the area.

“In order for us to move to the next step, we’ve always needed a fulltime rabbi,” Goldin said. “We couldn’t afford to have one.”

Goldin said Beth Israel’s membership had “dwindled to the point of barely holding on,” and he wants to make sure the synagogue will be around for his children to raise their kids in.

After a January joint adult Havdalah, Hall said he and a few board members from Beth Israel were talking about their struggles, including the expense of bringing in a rabbi, and how there isn’t much programming because there isn’t someone there to do it, and there hasn’t been growth no matter what they do. “It’s a very small community, we’ve had

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June 2020 • Southern Jewish Life

our struggles here too,” he said.

At one point, Hall said, “one of the members mentioned off the cuff, would there ever be a possibility of merging?”

Hall said he could see something like that “happening one day,” and soon he was invited to additional discussions and “it snowballed to where we are now.”

Goldin said Chabad would get nice crowds for their events and Beth Israel would also get nice crowds. “Why not put those crowds together,” he said.

Hall said Chabad’s mission is to be “whatever role they need to fill in a community,” and there is no default model. Along the coast, “the way we can serve our community would be through Beth Israel” and not having a separate Chabad group. He said this will be a “unique format” where “we would be working as Chabad shluchim, but doing it through strengthening Beth Israel.”

When word got out that this was under consideration, everything was already shut down because of shelter-at-home restrictions. Some congregants expressed frustration that there had not been any opportunities to have a trial run or discussions before the May 31 congregational meeting that was held over Zoom.

In a message on the Chabad website explaining their vision for Beth Israel before the meeting, they noted that “misunderstandings and rumors” had been circulating about what was happening. “The few changes that will result from this partnership will take place with utmost sensitivity, flexibility and dialogue. The intention will be only to grow and improve, not to change,” they wrote.

Hall urged anyone with concerns to ask him directly and not assume based on what others say.

In the month leading up to the meeting, Beth Israel announced 14 new members, mostly those who have been involved with Chabad. Goldin said the new members are “excited” about having Hall lead Beth Israel and “want to see Beth Israel prosper to new heights” and joined as a measure of confidence.

The biggest hurdle will be the initial changes in ritual, as there are some major differences between Conservative and Chabad practices. “We’d have to meet in the middle somehow,” Hall said.

Goldin said Beth Israel is not becoming a Chabad synagogue, but will “continue to be a place that’s welcoming to all regardless of denomination.”

Goldin said the style of services “will remain basically the same” but the congregation will identify as Traditional rather than Conservative. Because Hall is from the area and grew up at Beth Israel, “he already knows what the differences are” and it isn’t like someone from the Northeast is coming in with a different set of expectations and a lack of familiarity.

The Conservative movement has a wide latitude under its umbrella, from congregations that are close to Reform in its style of services to congregations that, aside from mixed seating, are very close to Orthodox.

The Conservative movement became egalitarian in the 1980s, though some congregations did not follow the change and referred to themselves as Traditional.

Hall said the prayer book currently used by Beth Israel is “99 percent the same as an Orthodox Ashkenazi” service. Also, “I’m absolutely fine with English in the service.” The only difference he envisions in the Friday night service is the presence of a mechitza, the seating separation between men and women.

At Beth Israel, Goldin said there would be a “low mechitza in the middle of the sanctuary” when Hall leads services, “although there will be mixed seating available in the social hall” behind the sanctuary.

Hall said the mechitza isn’t the style they would have at a Chabad congregation, but that is part of the compromise. He knows some will object to it entirely, and “I’m not judging them, I understand it 100 percent.”

Others pointed out that women would not be able to read from the

community Torah or have aliyahs. Hall noted that for a long time, the congregation has held services only on Friday nights, so the only time the Torah was read was the High Holy Days.

But his emphasis, he said, has not been services. Education and programming are his focus. “Beth Israel has been having services for 50 years, but there hasn’t been adult education, Torah discussions, because there hasn’t been someone there to do it.”

While Hall hopes they will add services, and there are The Halls at Purim in NYC, at Beth talks about expanding Shabbat Israel on March 11 morning services, “Jewish life shouldn’t center (just) on the services… there’s a lot to do.”

Mrs. Hall acknowledged that the “biggest hurdle” will be women’s roles in services, but “we’re going to be very focused on making it an inclusive experience for everyone in any way we can.”

One thing she plans to do immediately is start a monthly women’s program, something Beth Israel does not have, with educational and social opportunities.

She will also be the religious school director for the now-combined school, looking to attract new students and develop curriculum.

When the religious school starts back up under one banner, “we anticipate the largest enrollment in quite some time — this is by far the greatest reward,” Goldin said.

Mrs. Hall said they are already working on “creating this new entity together,” and the recent shutdown may prove to be advantageous for the transition. “They have been closed this whole time” since mid-March, and “we have been doing not much.”

With no in-person activities, “we can be working on how we can create a new Beth Israel, and then we can re-emerge” right before the High Holy Days.

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Jewish history on the Mississippi Coast Though the Jewish presence on the coast dates back to the 1850s, as evidenced by the historic cemetery in Biloxi, a formal Jewish presence was not established until after Keesler Air Force Base opened following World War II, bringing several Jewish families to the area.

A B’nai B’rith was established in 1953, taking over the cemetery that the city had been classified by the city as abandoned in 1916. Community members held Shabbat services at Keesler, then formed Beth Israel in 1958. Moody Grishman found the site for the original Beth Israel, a converted home in Biloxi that needed repairs following a fire. The building would be called the Jewish Community Center of Congregation Beth Israel. As the only congregation along the Mississippi coast, it became Conservative to accommodate a range of observance levels.

The building was enlarged in the 1960s, and in the 1990s the start of gambling along Mississippi’s Gulf Coast attracted additional Jewish families.

When Hurricane Katrina hit in 2005, the congregation had 65 families.

Storm surge heavily damaged the building, which was just two blocks from the coast. With the facility beyond repair, the congregation met at Beauvoir United Methodist Church until they could rebuild further inland, a dozen miles away in Gulfport. The new building was dedicated in 2009.

The Halls moved to Biloxi in 2014, two years after he was ordained, to start Chabad of Southern Mississippi. In February 2017, they acquired a building on Pass Road.

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It is a time of transition in Baton Rouge as B’nai Israel and Beth Shalom both are welcoming new rabbis on an interim basis, as the two congregations are meeting through a Joint Synagogue Exploratory Committee.

Discussions are focusing on what the future of Baton Rouge’s Jewish community should be — whether 75 years after Beth Shalom broke away from B’nai Israel, there should be a reunification, remain separate congregations but build on joint programming that has developed over the last couple of years, or continue as two distinct congregations.

With the future up in the air and the departure of both congregations’ rabbis, both congregations have brought in interim rabbis for the coming year, with an option to extend for a second year if needed.

That eliminates a potential stumbling block faced when two congregations that have established rabbis wind up merging and a decision has to be made as to who is retained.

B’nai Israel is bringing in Rabbi Batsheva Appel, who is returning to the Rabbi Teri Appleby (top) and region. In 2006, she became the director Rabbi Batsheva Appel of rabbinic services for the Goldring/ Woldenberg Institute of Southern Jewish Life in Jackson, serving numerous small communities that did not have a rabbi. That meant that even though she was in the area, she didn’t spend much time in Baton Rouge while at the Institute.

Rabbi Teri Appleby will be the interim rabbi at Beth Shalom.

“The two congregations are discussing whether or not it makes sense to

Rabbi Cantor Kaplan to serve Springhill Avenue Temple Rabbi Howard Kosovske is completing his two years as interim rabbi at Springhill Avenue Temple in Mobile. Originally the High Holy Days rabbi in 2018, he was asked to stay on for a few more months and spent part of each month in Mobile, but has not been able to be there since March due to coronavirus. He will become the part-time rabbi for a congregation in Lynn, Mass.

In his final monthly message to the congregation, he said interim rabbis are trained to be transition specialists, and when he arrived in Mobile, there were deep divisions in the congregation. Now, he said, “we are ready to move on as a united congregation.”

He will be succeeded by Rabbi Cantor John Kaplan, who will serve the congregation for one year as a search is launched for a full-time rabbi. Kaplan is rabbi of B’nai Israel in Jackson, Tenn., which he visits one weekend per month, and cantor emeritus for Temple Israel in Memphis, where he served from 1981 to 2014.

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June 2020 • Southern Jewish Life

community stay apart after 75 years,” Appleby said.

Appel said B’nai Israel is taking this year “to consider what works for them” and “to have those conversations.” Since “both congregations are working in the same vein,” the possibility of being the interim rabbi “was very much of interest.”

Being able to return to the South “is fantastic… I really enjoyed my work in the South, so coming back was a real plus.”

The Southern Jewish community “is really special and lively,” Appel said.

She will succeed Rabbi Jordan Goldson, who has been at B’nai Israel for 11 years. He will become the rabbi at Har Sinai Hebrew Congregation in Pennington, N.J. Rabbi Natan Trief has led Beth Shalom since 2016, coming in every other week from Atlanta, where his wife, Rabbi Samantha Shabman Trief, is at Temple Sinai.

A farewell weekend for Trief was planned for June 26. At press time, the plan was to have an Eaux-Neg Tailgate following the 6:30 p.m. service, having a socially distant Baton Rouge tailgate in the parking lot. The congregation had announced it would resume in-person services on June 12.

On June 20 at 6 p.m., there will be a virtual town hall and Havdalah where Trief will talk about his time in Baton Rouge.

Appleby comes to Beth Shalom from The South Street Temple in Lincoln, Neb. She said she is going from a place that is passionate about the Nebraska Cornhuskers to the land of the Bayou Bengals. She already has a stuffed tiger that is almost but not quite LSU colors.

A native of the San Francisco Bay area, Appleby graduated from Stanford with a degree in psychology, then became a lawyer, working as a criminal defense attorney with the Los Angeles Public Defenders Office.

Her journey to the rabbinate started with their two sons. After they moved to Los Angeles just before the younger son was born, “something happened in school” with the older son, who was then in first grade, that was a “wake-up call for us.”

“Kids don’t know they are Jewish unless you do something active about it,” she said, so they decided to “actively introduce Judaism to the home” so that when the kids eventually went to religious school, “they knew why we were there.”

She found congregational life to be “wonderful and rich,” started taking numerous classes, had an adult Bat Mitzvah in 1999 and went on her first trip to Israel that year.

After her adult Bat Mitzvah, she said to her rabbi that “this needs to be the beginning of something, not the end,” and she wanted to work in the Jewish world. The rabbi said that sounds like a path toward the rabbinate.

Fifteen months later, they spoke again, when the Los Angeles campus of Hebrew Union College said it would start ordaining rabbis there, and they were going to emphasize reaching out to women and “second career rabbis.”

All of a sudden, “it was a lot more do-able,” she said.

Many of her second-career classmates were lawyers, she said, as the studies were “the law without the adversary nature.”

As a public defender, due process and Constitutional protections were the highest priorities. “Judaism is about the due process of life — how do you walk through life, do it with due process, with justice and integrity,” she said.

She served congregations in California, Arizona and Nevada as a student and upon being ordained in 2007. As an interim rabbi, she “gets to know different parts of the country, different communities… it adds to

Wishing you well during these difficult times…

June 2020 • Southern Jewish Life

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the richness of my life.” She has led congregations in Toronto, Ontario; Fullerton, Calif.; and Calgary, Alberta. In 2016 she was interim rabbi for Mizpah Congregation in Chattanooga.

While interim rabbis “do all the regular rabbi things,” they are also trained in helping congregations in transition. “A lot of it is asking the right questions” and adapting to the congregation “as opposed to trying to impose my vision of the congregation on them.”

With coronavirus, “it is a much different hello” for a new rabbi. “The initial getting to meet people will have to be by Zoom calls and other social distancing.”

During the interview process, she went to Baton Rouge for a long weekend and met with leaders of both congregations. She will be working with Appel at B’nai Israel, and “it should be a very exciting time and challenging time,” one where creativity will be at a premium to overcome the restrictions imposed by the pandemic.

They plan to arrive in Baton Rouge around June 13 and look forward to “deep conversations and a sense of partnership.”

A Seattle native, Appel was in the corporate world when the rabbinate beckoned, starting off with being an active layperson before going to the New York campus of Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion.

At the Institute, she had many unique experiences, including officiating the first Confirmation at Beth Shalom in Auburn, and came up with liturgy for the dedication of a Mississippi River tugboat in Helena, Ark. After leaving the Institute in 2009, she became rabbi at KAM Isaiah Israel in Chicago, which had security far beyond that of a typical synagogue — because it was across the street from the Chicago home of President Barack Obama.

“Not many congregations have the road to their parking lot blocked off,” Appel said. Anyone coming to services was subject to being searched.

“For the most part, people were used to it,” and it wasn’t much of a hassle when the Obamas were elsewhere.

After four years in Chicago, Appel became the rabbi educator at Temple Emanu-El in Tucson, Ariz. In September 2017, she abruptly found herself as the senior rabbi when the congregation’s longtime senior rabbi was forced to step down.

Now, that congregation is discussing a merger with nearby Or Chadash, so Appel decided “the best thing for the congregations in term of helping them forge their new unified identity would be for me to step away.”

The new interim rabbi at Emanu-El will be Rabbi Scott Saulson of Atlanta, who was the last visiting rabbi at Beth Israel in Gadsden before it closed in 2008.

She looks forward to being the rabbinic presence at B’nai Israel for the coming year and helping them “go through the process of seeing who they are, who they might want to be, whether a transition to a merger makes sense for them.”

“It’s a little hard to know what the year will look like,” Appel said, noting that while the pandemic will make the year more challenging, in some ways it provides an opportunity.

When congregations are in transition, people are often hesitant about changing everything they know. “The virus has done a good job of changing everything we know,” she said. “A change has already happened, a transition has already occurred.” The key is what to do with the opportunity “that is held in that transition.”

The arrival of Appel and Appleby further solidifies the female hold on non-Orthodox congregations in Louisiana. With female rabbis leading both congregations in Baton Rouge, both congregations in Shreveport, the congregations in Monroe and Alexandria, and at Touro Synagogue in New Orleans and Shir Chadash in Metairie, the only non-Orthodox congregations in the state led full-time by male rabbis are Temple Sinai in New Orleans and Gates of Prayer in Metairie.

community For first time in 20 years Beth Shalom in Fort Walton Beach has resident rabbi Tennessee native Mitch Delcau will begin in July, has an outdoor emphasis For the first time in over two decades, Beth Shalom in Fort Walton Beach will welcome a resident rabbi as Rabbi Mitch Delcau makes the cross-country move to the panhandle this month.

Chad Hill, president of Beth Shalom, said there was an overwhelming sense in the congregation that it was time for a full-time rabbi, as they were “trying to attract new members, grow the religious school and most importantly find a way to have an impact on our community other than offering a weekly prayer service.”

The 73-family congregation has relied on student rabbis, but Hill said it “didn’t give our Temple the feel of permanence that the unaffiliated were looking for.” Congregational leadership embarked on fundraising to make it happen.

For Delcau, this will be an opportunity to return to the South. He grew up in Kingston Springs, about 20 miles west of Nashville. After graduating from Tennessee State University with a degree in civil engineering, he worked for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

While at Colorado State University working on a graduate degree in hydraulic river engineering, he became involved with the Hillel, which rekindled a childhood spark of becoming a rabbi. “This is the path I really needed to take,” he said.

Delcau was ordained at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in Cincinnati in 2008. Among his student pulpits was Mount Sinai in Texarkana.

Delcau said he is passionate about teaching Torah, partly because of ed-

ucators that have been close to him. His wife, Stacey, has a degree in Jewish education from HUC-JIR. His grandmother, Betty Hollender, taught religious school in New Rochelle, N.Y., for 40 years and was the author of a well-known series of books, “Bible Stories for Little Children,” which “was ‘the’ model for teaching Torah to young children for at least 4 generations” in the Reform movement.

A major focus for Delcau has been as an outdoors rabbi, emphasizing the spiritual aspects of nature in Judaism.

In Washington, he has been a ski instructor while also serving as rabbi, both on the slopes and at Beth Hatikvah in Bremerton.

Snow is exceedingly rare in Fort Walton, and “it’s going to be a different vibe. We’re looking forward to that.” He sees plenty of opportunities to use the beach and other outdoor outlets “to bring spiritual sustenance.”

Events like Havdalah in the sand will be on the horizon as Delcau

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June 2020 • Southern Jewish Life

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community works to “try and connect people where they are” to “bring God into their lives, helping them realize things they do that might seem mundane aren’t necessarily mundane.”

He says the biggest growing religious segment in America is “Spiritual But Not Religious,” and his role is “to create gateways for congregants to find meaning in their own spiritual moments.” That can take place in the synagogue or in many other locations.

In Washington, he formed Seattle Outdoor Spiritual Adventures, a Jewish non-profit that created a new model of engagement for Jews who found their identity outside the mainstream community.

A musician since elementary school, Delcau considers music as another way of sharing spiritual moments.

In an April note to the congregation, Hill said the only downside of having

ISJL Education Conference goes virtual Every June, representatives from congregations in 13 states convene in Jackson for the Goldring/Woldenberg Institute of Southern Jewish Life’s annual education conference.

Due to coronavirus, not this year.

Instead, the conference, which is a requirement for the synagogues that use the ISJL’s standardized curriculum, will be on Zoom for one day, not the usual three, and is open to anyone in the region.

There is no limit to the number of people from a community who can attend the June 28 event. While the conferences have been open to teachers, clergy, parents, board members and others, only rarely has one congregation sent more than a couple of representatives. This year is an opportunity for everyone to attend.

There is no fee for the conference, but there is a suggested donation of at least $50 to help cover costs. Registered participants will be sent Zoom links for the day, along with a packet of reference materials and a request to select a minyan and breakout session.

Sessions begin with a keynote at 9:30 a.m. The Study Hall at 11:30 a.m. includes three options on fitting the ISJL curriculum to local needs, learning what ISJL offers outside the curriculum, and best practices for engaging online learners. At 2 p.m. there is a program on safety, respect and equity in the Jewish community.

The experimental minyanim will be at 3:30 p.m., with Yogaleilu, prayer through joyful movement; Tea and Torah, finding comfort in Torah; and Birchot HaSecular, finding sacred meaning in secular texts. There will be an entertainment session at 6 p.m.

Registration is available at isjl.org.

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June 2020 • Southern Jewish Life

a resident rabbi was “that you will no longer be blessed by my singing voice leading a service,” but the board unanimously decided to take that risk.

Delcau was assistant rabbi and associate rabbi at Temple Emanuel of Denver, where he started an outdoor program and worked with young families and professionals. He then was rabbi of Temple Judea of Bucks County in Doylestown, Pa., where he led the Bucks County Rabbis Council for two years, and was a member of the Pastoral Care Advisory Committee and the Hospital Ethics Committee.

In 2014, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee invited him to the organization’s first Rabbinical Advocacy mission in 2014, and was active in lobbying against nuclear weaponry in the Middle East during the debate over the Iran deal.

Delcau was attracted to Fort Walton when he met with the congregational leadership, and saw in them a group of “builders” who are committed to the future, rather than “keepers” who just maintain what exists.

“They are very hard working leadership. They want to build their synagogue and develop it in an area where people are moving these days,” and he felt that he was meant to be there.

“Sometimes as rabbis we try to find a match that is spiritual, businesswise makes sense and in our soul we know we can work with,” he said.

“God has a plan. I am simply along for the ride.”

He sees Fort Walton as a very attractive destination for snowbirds and retirees, and having a strong congregation with a full-time rabbi will make it even more attractive as more people want to avoid the crowds of South Florida. In Miami, “the beaches aren’t as nice, and it is more expensive,” he said.

At Beth Shalom, “we’re going to do some great things,” and he figures there is a larger number of Jewish households — or second homes — along the Emerald Coast and down 30A than is generally known, and Beth Shalom will be “a place where they can share community.”

Reopening for In-Person Services

Beth Shalom announced on June 11 that it will resume services before Delcau’s arrival, as soon as lay leaders can be scheduled, and the sanctuary will be set up for social distancing. The maximum attendance will be less than 50, which usually is not a problem for the small congregation, but with the arrival of Delcau, initial weeks may be subject to capacity controls and advance signups.

His first service is anticipated to be July 3, with a formal welcome later in the year as restrictions ease.

Their daughter, Shirah, will have her Bat Mitzvah at Beth Shalom on June 27, with distancing and limited capacity, along with a Zoom feed.

Temple Sinai celebrates 150 years of Reform Judaism in New Orleans While Temple Sinai is the youngest of the three Reform congregations in New Orleans, it has the distinction of being the city’s first Reform congregation.

The congregation celebrated its 150th anniversary with the installation of Rabbi Daniel Sherman in January, and a March 7 gala that took place just before all in-person activities were suspended due to the coronavirus.

The first Jewish congregation outside the original 13 colonies was formed in New Orleans in 1827, Shangarai Chasset, Gates of Mercy, following Spanish customs. As German Jews arrived in larger numbers in the 1840s, they began shifting the congregation to Ashkanazi customs, which led some of the founding Sephardi members to break away and form Nefutzoth Yehudah, Dispersed of Judah, in the late 1840s. Some say the name was chosen to attract the attention of philanthropist Judah Touro; regardless, in 1850 he gave the congregation its first home. Gates of Mercy dedicated its own facility in 1851.

In Lafayette City, now the Garden District, a newer group of German arrivals established Shaare Tefillah, Gates of Prayer, in 1850. Their Jackson Avenue Shul was dedicated in 1867.

By the 1850s, the three congregations were modernizing in some ways while still maintaining Orthodoxy. Gates of Mercy had an organ and choir by its 1851 dedication. Second-generation members drifted from kashrut and Shabbat observance, and there were often clashes with more traditional members and rabbis.

Rabbi James Gutheim started at Gates of Mercy in 1850, then went The original Temple Sinai on Carondelet

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This 2017 photo by Temple Sinai Cantor Joel Colman was part of a series that won the Union for Reform Judaism’s Biennial photo contest. to Dispersed of Judah in 1853. He introduced also appropriate, as Gutheim made interfaith many reforms to the services and practices, then understanding a priority. when New Orleans fell to Union forces in 1862, Heller took the legacy of community involvehe fled to Montgomery rather than swear an ment and ran with it, leading Sinai from 1887 oath of allegiance to General Benjamin Butler. to 1929, guiding the congregation through a In 1865, he returned to Gates of Mercy, re- time that included the influx of more traditional laxing the rollbacks to tradition that Rabbi Ber- Eastern European Jews, and the rise of Zionism, nard Illowy had imposed over the previous four which challenged the Reform view of American years. identity as paramount. Heller was a rare ReWhen he left New Orleans to lead Temple form leader at the time who spoke in favor of Emanu-El in New York in 1868, disagreements Zionism, and of the potential contributions of once again broke out between traditionalists the new Eastern European arrivals as a way to and reformers, leading a group to start the for- reinvigorate Reform practice. mation of what would become Temple Sinai.

Heller was vice president of the Board of In June 1870, 37 people, including Isidore Education and named to the State Board of EdNewman and Leon Godchaux, held a meeting at ucation, and was president of the Anti-Lottery S.A. Seeskind clothier to establish a new congre- League, which took on the powerful organizagation using Reform principles. When Temple tion and managed to prevent the renewal of its Sinai was organized later that year, there were charter.

109 founding members, and a new building At Sinai’s 50th anniversary jubilee in 1922, near Tivoli Circle quickly went up.

Heller proposed building a larger facility for the In 1872, the new congregation was able to at- growing congregation, and in 1926 the current tract Gutheim back to New Orleans, and quick- site was purchased. The building was completed ly grew, attracting many members from the two in 1928. The original building on Carondelet congregations he had previously served. was demolished in 1977.

Those two congregations would combine in After the congregation was led by Rabbi Lou1878, adopting a much simpler name, Touro is Binstock, in 1936, Rabbi Julian Feibelman, a Synagogue. Gates of Mercy had already joined native of Jackson, took the pulpit at Sinai, conthe Reform movement, but in 1885 Touro tinuing the legacy of working in the communipulled out because of the far-left Pittsburgh ty. A passionate voice for civil rights, under his Platform, then rejoined in 1893. leadership Sinai became the first place in New As Gates of Prayer moved from German to Orleans to hold a large un-segregated event. In English services in the 1880s, it gradually re- 1949, the Inter-Racial Committee hosted a talk laxed traditional observances, and joined the by Ralph Bunche, former United Nations meReform movement in 1904. diator for Israel and the Arabs. As other venues Gutheim established the Conference of Rab- refused the IRC’s stipulation that the event have bis of Southern Congregations in 1885. He died an integrated audience, Sinai stepped in and the in 1886, and his successor at Sinai, Rabbi Max talk drew over 2,000 people. From that point, Heller, called him the “dean of Southern rab- Sinai was known as a place where integrated bis.” One of the speakers at his funeral was Rev. meetings could be held.

Benjamin Morgan Palmer of First Presbyterian Feibelman was president of numerous orgaChurch, which the New Orleans Times-Demo- nizations in the greater New Orleans commucrat said was unusual and unprecedented, but nity, lectured on world religions at Tulane, and 20

June 2020 • Southern Jewish Life

community was religious director for the National Conference of Christians and Jews region. He also edited the New Orleans Jewish Ledger during World War II and received the New Orleans Loving Cup Award in 1968, the year after he retired from Sinai.

During the 1960s, Temple Sinai was part of Project Understanding, interfaith events hosted at Sinai and numerous churches.

Rabbi Murray Blackman moved from the Virgin Islands to become rabbi at Sinai in 1970. An art expert, he also became very involved with the New Orleans Museum of Art, and after becoming Sinai’s emeritus in 1987, he was visiting rabbi for congregations around the world, including nearby Vicksburg and Shreveport.

In 1987, Rabbi Edward Paul Cohn took over what he said was “a major congregation in the history of our movement” and would serve until his retirement in 2016.

Cohn said Sinai “has witnessed every major movement of the denomination of Reform Judaism, which has addressed all the major aspects and emphases of religious life of Jews in America.”

Currently, Sinai has an emphasis on outreach to interfaith families and the LGBTQ community. Cohn said the interfaith component was in place long before his arrival, and not long after his arrival the marquee listing his sermon title for the week, “Adam and Steve,” stopped traffic on St. Charles Avenue.

Cohn also spearheaded the Holocaust memorial at Woldenberg Park, and was founding chair of the City Human Relations Committee.

Rabbi Daniel Sherman arrived in the summer of 2019.

As part of the March gala, past presidents gave brief recollections of their times leading the congregation.

Herbert Barton, who was executive director from 1963 to 2001 and Hebrew Rest executive secretary from 1967 to 2018, thanked Sinai “for 74 years of wonderful memories.”

His daughter, Barbara Greenberg, said “his duties included not only running the Temple and its business, and overseeing its facilities, but also directing the religious school, advising the youth group and writing and publishing the bulletin.”

Robert Wolf, who was president from 1973 to 1974, has been a member since 1951 and said it is “one of those things one has to do… It’s an awfully important part of the life of any Jew.” Harry Blumenthal recalled the hiring of Rabbi Myra Soifer as assistant rabbi after she was ordained in 1978. Not only was she Sinai’s first female rabbi, she was the first in the South, and at that point, one of only 10 in the country. She is now rabbi emerita at Temple Sinai in Reno, Nev., which she served from 1984 to 2009. Blumenthal said the historic hiring “was an interesting innovation and very well received by almost everybody.”

Additional changes came during the presidency of Julius Levy, from 1981 to 1983 — the debate on allowing yarmulkes, and whether the congregation should furnish them. He recalled that the final decision after a long discussion was “yes it’s okay to wear them, yes we will furnish them, but we’re going to put them in a covered container off to the side, out of the view of people.”

For Richard Buckman, who was president from 1985 to 1987, the most memorable event was the hiring of Cohn.

Bill Hess followed family tradition in serving as president from 1989 to 1991. His great-grandfather, Murray Stern, was a founding signatory and president of the congregation from 1902 to 06. One of Stern’s sons, Hess’ great uncle, Walter Stern, was president from 1918 to 1921.

Hess was Cohn’s second president, and under his administration the congregation transitioned to having a full time ordained cantor, currently Cantor Joel Colman, who has been at Sinai since 1999.

Colman remarked that a 1905 book with all the music at Temple Sinai that year had recently been found in an antiques shop. “Music has played an integral part of our liturgy… music will continue to be an import-

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community ant part of Temple Sinai, whether it’s the playing of our magnificent Skinner pipe organ in the sanctuary, the piano or the guitar.”

Mark Heller, who was president from 1999 to 2001, worked with Colman to establish Friday Night Live, “the wonderful musical Shabbat services written by Craig Taubman, which continue today as we know it as Band Shabbat.”

Heller also recalled the evening hosting Julian Bond to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Buncie speech.

Matt Greenbaum, president from 2001 to 2003, focused on the response to Sept. 11, citing Cohn’s “power of a big heart” and Colman’s approach to “how music can heal the injured soul.” He also noted that Barton “was the omnipresent executive director who had a pat on the back for everybody.”

During the presidency of Gene Fendler from 2003 to 2005, the push began to change the look of the sanctuary and the reception hall. In the sanctuary, the look had been that the clergy were on a stage, and the idea was to bring them closer to the congregation.

Saundra Levy noted that she was “the Katrina president,” serving from 2005 to 2007. After the community was in exile due to the flooding, “coming back home to Temple Sinai for the first High Holy Days in 2006 was an indelible memory for me.”

A capital campaign was launched in the aftermath of the storm. “We were building for the future of Temple Sinai,” she said. “We wanted to make sure we secured the future of Temple SInai by restoration and renovation of the spaces.”

Levy was succeeded by Ann Zivitz Kientz, whose mother, Betty Zivitz, had been Sinai’s first female president, from 1983 to 1985. Her most poignant memories, naturally, involve activities that demonstrate the ties of generation to generation — and the most exciting part of her term was organizing the congregation’s first Israel trip in 30 years.

The more recent presidents referred mainly to continuing the congregation’s legacy of social justice and its place in the greater New Orleans community. Jay Corenswet, whose grandfather was also a Sinai president and whose great-great-uncle was vice president when Sinai was established said he found the general community says “a lot of people can talk the talk, but Temple Sinai really walks the walk.”

Robert Brickman mentioned the pride in flipping through newspapers and seeing “all the time and energy members are putting into community efforts, from schools, to parks to the arts.”

Judge Robin Giarrusso said she feels “very strongly about this congregation’s commitment to social justice.”

While many leaders are multi-generational families, current president Tracey Dodd said she is not originally from New Orleans, but found Sinai to be “a large family” where “relationships matter.”

Clifford Kern, a past president who is the current executive director of Hebrew Rest, echoed that, saying Temple Sinai is “my house,” and activities large and small, even things like painting classrooms and assembling furniture create a sense of community.

Colman said they strive to have a place where the congregation’s children “feel at home. They feel safe, they are willing to learn and it is their sacred home too.”

Sherman said the congregation is proud to be “part of the greater New Orleans community. We are so proud of all that we have accomplished, and we are excited about that which is yet to come.”

community Jewish organizations get boost from GiveNOLA Day Reclassification ends Federation’s top recipient streak Though a reclassification ended the championship run of the Jewish Federation of Greater New Orleans, Jewish community institutions once again had a successful GiveNOLA Day on June 2, with 15 institutions raising over $236,000.

GiveNOLA Day is a 24-hour online fundraiser, coordinated by the Greater New Orleans Founda-tion.

For the last five years, the Federation ranked first in dollars raised among small organizations. This year, the classifications were changed, with small organizations having an annual budget under $100,000, a new medium category up to $750,000, and large organizations of over $750,000. The Federation is now considered large.

Still, the Federation placed fourth overall among the 834 organizations, raising $133,766 from 282 donors. For placing fourth among large nonprofits, the Federation earned a $1,000 bonus.

The Ogden Museum was once again first overall, with $406,260 from 104 donors. In all, the day raised $7,189,354 for 834 organizations through 68,674 donations. Last year, $5.91 million was raised from just over 50,000 donors.

Each organization received a proportional amount of Lagniappe funds, based on how much they raised. There were also “Rock Around The Clock” awards each hour among the three categories, where all organizations that received a donation that hour were eligible for a $500 bonus. While two Jewish groups won last year, none won this year.

There were 15 Jewish institutions that participated in GiveNOLA Day,

raising over $236,000. Last year, the 14 participating groups raised just under $200,000.

The Anti-Defamation League was 60th overall, with $23,991 from 98 donors, far ahead of last year’s $9,135 from 89 donors.

Jewish Community Day School raised $19,077 from 132 donors, down slightly from last year. Tulane Hillel raised $10.295 from 51 donors, down from over $16,000 last year.

Jewish Children’s Regional Service bumped up by $1,900, raising $8,134. The New Orleans Jew-ish Community Center raised $7,920 from 76 donors, up from last year’s $6,509.

Jewish Family Service also saw an increase, to $6,003. Gates of Prayer was the highest-drawing synagogue with $5,102 from 40 donors.

They did not participate last year.

Temple Sinai was relatively even with $4,131 this year, and the New Orleans Section of the National Council of Jewish Women beat last year by $800, raising $3,975. Avodah was down, with $3,477 from 31 donors, and newcomer Museum of the Southern Jewish Experience de-buted with $3,069 from 58 donors.

Northshore Jewish Congregation in Mandeville went from $1,028 last year to $2,596 this year. Shir Chadash, which did not participate last year, raised $2,421.

Hadassah New Orleans went from $614 last year to $1,829 this year.

Beth Israel raised $512, and Slater Torah Academy had $356.

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Ron Gubitz has been named the new executive director of Tulane Hillel, effective June 29.

A life-long educator, Gubitz has been in New Orleans since 2010. He graduated from Indiana University, then earned Master’s degrees at Lindenwood University and the Relay Graduate School of Education.

In 2002, he moved to St. Louis to work with Teach for America, then came to New Orleans to be principal of ReNEW Cultural Arts Academy.

In 2016, the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts asked him to design and implement coaching and support processes for school leaders around the country, through Turnaround Arts. He served as principal coach for Turnaround Arts, speaking at numerous conferences, including a 2014 Turnaround Arts talent show at the White House, hosted

by Michelle Obama.

He also co-founded and is on the board of Whetstone Education, an online coaching tool to streamline teacher coaching and evaluation. He also founded Hip Hop Congress, a non-profit that uses hip hop to empower young artists and individuals in their communities.

Gubitz also is a board member at Touro Synagogue, heading the Lifelong Learning committee. His experience in Jewish student life includes being a unit head at Goldman Union Camp, president of Alpha Epsilon Pi at Southern California, TYG advisor and president of the NFTY Ohio Valley region.

Mark Mintz, incoming chair of Tulane Hillel, said Gubitz was selected after a national search that “considered a broad range of Jewish leaders, educators and thinkers from both within and outside of the Hillel organization.”

Gubitz called leading Tulane Hillel “a beautiful opportunity” and will be working on how changes to campus life due to the coronavirus can be done in a way “that keeps that level of spirit and joy,” as Tulane plans to start the fall semester on time.

While Jewish Federation of Greater New Orleans CEO Arnie Fielkow called Gubitz “an incredible leader,” he added that he “has big shoes to fill” in succeeding Rabbi Yonah Schiller.

Schiller will become the chief research and development officer for the Jim Joseph Foundation, a San Francisco-based group that supports Jewish education for youth and young adults.

While leading Tulane Hillel for the last 11 years, Schiller created and served as senior project advisor to the Organizational Design Lab, an initiative that addresses institutional stagnation by questioning organizational assumptions, applying design thinking and other strategies to deliver transformational change for Hillels on more than 20 university campuses across the United States and Canada.

In 2017, Schiller was named one of the 50 most influential, accomplished and interesting American Jews by the Forward magazine.

During his time at Tulane Hillel, student participation has quintupled, with participation rates over 90 percent of Jewish students and over 60 percent of the entire Tulane student body. He also expanded partnerships with the university and community organizations.

Schiller and his team created Tulane Jewish Leaders, which has expanded from 20 students to 413, with over 100 projects and initiatives annually.

The Hillel building and Rimon restaurant remain closed due to the coronavirus restrictions.

community Socially distant but in person: What congregational reopening looks like While the Jewish Community Centers in New Orleans and Birmingham have reopened with a range of new procedures and restrictions, most synagogues haven’t followed suit.

What will a synagogue reopening look like? A couple of congregations in the region have taken the plunge, and though the doors are opening, it won’t be business as usual.

Admittedly, the summer is a time when congregational life slows down considerably. Rabbis take vacations or spend time at Jewish summer camps, which are closed this year. In New Orleans, the three Reform congregations rotate hosting joint services month to month, something that continues this year, though virtually.

For Conservative and Reform congregations, there isn’t as much pressure to resume in-person services because of Zoom or livestreaming — options that are unacceptable in Orthodox and Chabad settings, and for that reason those are the congregations leading the way to reopening. Those are also typically among the smaller congregations in a community, making social distancing easier.

Two congregations in the region — Beth Israel, an Orthodox congregation in Metairie, and

Beth Shalom, a Reform congregation in Baton Rouge, announced the resumption of in-person services, but with a slew of restrictions.

Beth Israel announced it will hold one service per week initially, with a maximum capacity of 24. Priority will be given to those who are saying Kaddish that week for one of the seven categories of relative for whom Kaddish is required.

After determining who will attend for that reason, remaining spaces will be filled by a lottery system, with a 3 p.m. deadline on Thursdays for that weekend.

As an Orthodox congregation, there are no virtual services on Shabbat. On Fridays, mincha will begin at 6:45 p.m. and be streamed, along with part of Kabbalat Shabbat. After the online portion is done, candles will be lit at Beth Israel and in-person services will continue.

In the announcement, Rabbi Joshua Pernick and President Hal Ungar said “If circumstances permit, we will eventually shift to Shabbat morning services with an online offering on Friday nights.”

No service will go more than two hours, and for those who desire a weekday minyan for a yahrzeit, that can be arranged on the patio,

playground or in the rabbi’s backyard, but not in the sanctuary.

For the services, attendance is restricted to ages 12 and up, and attendance for those age 65 and up is “discouraged” but not forbidden.

Social distancing of 8 feet will be enforced, and masks are also required. A supply of surgical masks has been ordered in case someone shows up without one, but one is not permitted to stay if refusing to wear one inside the building.

Gloves are optional.

There will be a temperature check, and anyone over 99.8 degrees will be barred. Someone testing positive for COVID or exposed to someone with COVID can not enter until after a 14day self-quarantine and a negative test result.

Anyone with symptoms at any point three days before the service will not be granted entry, and anyone visibly sick or believed to be sick in shul will be asked to leave.

Members will be asked to stay in their cars until it is time to enter the building with social distancing. An entrance line will form on the ramp for the temperature checks.

In the sanctuary, chairs have been rearranged to provide maximum seating at a distance of

June 2020 • Southern Jewish Life

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eight feet in all directions. The wall between the sanctuary and social hall is down, with chairs going back into that section. The bimah has also been moved up by three feet. The main sanctuary doors will be closed, congregants will enter by the social hall doors. There are a couple places with two seats, for family members sitting together. Otherwise, there are 14 seats on the men’s side, eight on the women’s.

Upon entering the building, one must go directly to the sanctuary and take the next available seat toward the front of the room.

Members who have their own books should bring them, otherwise they can check one out to use for the duration of the pandemic. Books may not be left for future use. Similarly, members are encouraged to bring their own tallis and take it home afterwards. For those without, there will be tallesim laid out individually that can be used, they will then be taken out of rotation and set aside for at least a week.

The kitchen, water fountains, board room, children’s room and office will be closed, miniature water bottles will be available and can be taken into the sanctuary. Tissue boxes and sanitizer will be available by the entrances to restrooms, with the tissues used to open the door, and paper towels for turning the sink on and off.

At the end of the service, members will exit in order, starting with the back row, and leave the building, no socializing in the lobby.

At Beth Shalom, there will be a guest speaker for the resumption of services. Rev. Gerard Robinson of McKowen Missionary Baptist Church will speak about Black Lives Matter at the 6:30 p.m. service on June 12.

Reservations are also needed for Torah study on June 13 at 9:30 a.m. and the Shabbat morning service at 10:30.

Reservations are required to attend the service, and must be submitted via an online form by June 11. Anyone approved for attendance must wear a mask, arrive 15 minutes before the service starts and go directly to assigned seats in the sanctuary. Preference for attendance is given to members. Anyone with symptoms must stay home.

In making a reservation, the number of people in a family group is required.

Babysitting is available only for ages 6 and under, and children not with the babysitter are required to stay with the family at all times, and not wander around. The library, patio and playground will be accessible, but adult supervision is required.

Everyone is encouraged to use their own prayerbooks and items such as kipot and tallesim, but for those who do not have their own, prayerbooks will be rotated in and out of use, and ritual items that are worn can be checked out for the duration of the restrictions.

For those whose reservations can not be accepted, Zoom information will be provided.

Rabbi Natan Trief will say his farewells to the congregation with a virtual event on June 20 at 6 p.m., and there will be an Eaux-Neg Tailgate following the 6:30 p.m. service on June 26, having a socially distant Baton Rouge tailgate in the parking lot.

Some groups had services or programs the last weekend of May, for Shavuot.

Chabad of Alabama held brief in-person Shavuot services. On May 29, there was a socially-distant reading of the Ten Commandments in the parking lot, followed by popsicles,with everyone in attendance assigned a space that they were not to leave during the 15-minute gathering.

Anshe Sfard in New Orleans, a small Orthodox congregation toward downtown, opened for Shavuot services, with seating only in marked seats, a face mask requirement, hand washing and a recommendation that anyone who feels unsafe or the slightest bit unwell should remain home.

Chabad in New Orleans also hosted outdoor Ten Commandments readings, with social distancing. Reservations were required to ensure proper spacing. Chabad in Metairie had a regular indoor minyan for ages 12 to 50. For those over 50, an outdoor Torah reading was held, and a

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Beth Israel in Metairie on Zoom children’s reading was held later in the day, in the parking lot.

Birmingham’s Temple Beth-El, on the other hand, had a Davening with Our Neighbors Shabbat service on May 15 at the Avalon Condominium parking lot, about a mile from Beth-El. The Highland Park Neighborhood Association had been holding social distancing concerts there on Friday nights, and asked Rabbi Stephen Slater and Sarah Metzger to do Shabbat services there, just down the block from Slater’s house.

After positive feedback from that event, Beth-El had an Open Air Kabbalat Shabbat on the terrace of the Zivitz home on May 29, with distancing, masks and limited attendance.

Most congregations are keeping their doors closed for now.

Citing the continued increase in cases in Jefferson County, Birmingham’s Knesseth Israel, the state’s only Orthodox congregation, said it will maintain its hiatus on services, and continue to have weekday programs and learning sessions on Zoom. Temple Emanu-El said it is suspending in-person events through June 30.

Dothan’s Temple Emanu-El will continue with virtual services, and tentatively is planning its in-person annual meeting for July 1 and first regular Shabbat service for Aug. 7, both of which would still be available via Zoom.

Huntsville’s B’nai Sholom has developed a safety committee to discuss reopening, which will not take place before June 30.

Mobile’s Springhill Avenue Temple continues with services led by Rabbi Howard Kosovske on Zoom.

Montgomery’s Agudath Israel-Etz Ahayem, one of the earliest congregations to institute strict social distancing measures, has “no current plans to resume services as normal.”

Tuscaloosa’s Temple Emanu-El will continue having virtual services and activities through the summer.

In Alexandria, Gemiluth Chassodim was looking at June 5 for reopening the building under Phase 2, so Rabbi Raina Siroty can broadcast the Zoom service from the sanctuary. Once the sanctuary is opened to the congregation, Zoom services will continue for those at risk or unable to attend.

B’nai Israel in Monroe will continue Zooming services for the near future.

Though services are still not in person, the three Reform congregations in New Orleans are doing their traditional Summer Union Services. Unlike other years, the times will remain consistent each month — 6 p.m. on Fridays and 10:30 a.m. Saturdays. Gates of Prayer is hosting June services as Tory May ends her tenure as cantorial soloist. Temple Sinai will host in July, and Touro will lead August services. There are hopes that an in-person option can be added later this summer.

Jackson’s Beth Israel will keep meeting virtually for at least the next month, and by June 28 plans an announcement on the prospects of in-person services the rest of the summer and for the High Holy Days.

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In the background, Levite JCC staff and volunteers prepare to distribute food boxes for those in need, an effort done every Thursday from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m.

A very different place: JCCs reopen with social distancing restrictions After being closed since mid-March, the two locations of the New Orleans Jewish Community Center opened on May 26, while Birmingham’s Levite Jewish Community Center opened its doors on June 1. For members visiting either institution, there will be huge differences and it will take some time to adjust to the new procedures and policies in effect to combat the spread of coronavirus.

New Orleans JCC Executive Director Leslie Fischman said “this is new for us and new for fitness centers all over the world.”

“We’ve been working on a ‘responsible reopening’ plan since the day we closed,” said Samantha Dubrinsky, LJCC Executive Director. “Implementing a careful, considered approach to reopening is one important way that we’re serving our members.”

While Alabama guidelines allowed for reopening in mid-May, the LJCC waited an extra couple of weeks. “A delay provided the time we needed to properly equip our team and adjust our structure and facilities,” Dubrinsky said. “On June 1, our members will return to a familiar place with an adjusted experience, designed with expert guidance from infectious disease specialists.”

For both institutions, the reopening was altered almost immediately.

On June 1, after numerous peaceful protests over the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis, riots broke out in downtown Birmingham after a group tried unsuccessfully to knock down the Confederate memorial. A week-long 7 p.m. to 6 a.m. curfew was implemented, altering the LJCC’s hours. The LJCC also shut early on June 4 after much of downtown closed early due to rumors of white supremacists planning to make their presence felt, no such rally took place.

In New Orleans, the JCCs had to close for almost two days as Tropical Storm Cristobal came ashore on June 7.

While there are many similarities between the two communities’ guidelines, there are some differences as well.

In both cities, many amenities will remain closed, including locker rooms. Everyone will have to reserve an activity in advance, and will be checked at the door. Because social distancing means capacity has been dramatically reduced, the JCCs will be open only to members, there will be no new memberships accepted for now, and in New Orleans, all visitors must be 18 or older.

Anyone who has a fever of 100.4 or higher, or feels sick in any way, should not go to a JCC building, nor should anyone considered to be high risk, as those who are asymptomatic can still spread the disease. All staff will undergo daily checks.

community Changes at the LJCC Because of limited capacity, members are asked to sign up online for time slots in advance.

Only those on the roster will be allowed into the building, and anyone using the facilities acknowledges reading the Member Code of Conduct. To help maintain capacity controls, a onetime wristband will be given, corresponding to the room or area being used, so staff can know who is supposed to be where.

Those coming to the LJCC should bring their own water bottle and towel, as water fountains, vending machines and towel service will not be available. Bring a Ziploc bag for keys, membership card, cell phone and other personal items so they are in an enclosed environment. Also, restrooms are now one-at-a-time, so members are advised to go before they arrive.

A cloth face covering is required to enter the building. It must be worn when going through the building, but is not necessary when exercising or swimming — though many medical professionals have said wearing one during a workout is still safer. At the entrance, there are markings for six-foot distancing, and an LJCC Safety Ambassador will be taking temperatures and asking screening questions from the CDC. Members will then use hand sanitizer before entering the building.

No cash, cards or paper forms will be handled at the desk. Forms can be filled out electronically from home.

Those visiting fitness areas will be given a mini spray bottle and microfiber cloth to wipe down all areas touched before leaving. The LJCC Safety Patrol will also check to be sure equipment is as clean as possible. There will be cleaning logs displayed throughout the building, indicating when the most recent cleaning took place.

The fitness equipment is now spread out in the Group Fitness Studio and basketball gym, in addition to the fitness floor, and the indoor track will not be available due to distancing requirements. State guidelines mandate using as few fitness items as possible, so “super sets” and circuits are not advised, and members are limited to the equipment and locations they reserved. Every 50 minutes, the fitness areas will be closed for a thorough cleaning, in anticipation of the next group of members.

Personal training will be in the basketball gym, and trainers have been taught how to guide while social distancing.

By state mandate, locker rooms are closed, so anyone using a pool needs to already be in a swimsuit upon arrival. Social distancing is also in force in the pools, which have capacity controls and must be reserved in advance. Only those with an outdoor pool wristband will be allowed at the outdoor pool. Lounge chairs June 2020 • Southern Jewish Life

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community have been spaced six feet apart and are not to be moved, as the new arrangement allows for the highest possible capacity. The outdoor pool will close for cleaning every two hours, including the outdoor furniture.

The fitness center doors, which have been closed for security reasons, are now the only exit from the building. Spray bottles and microfiber towels can be deposited at the exit, and members are required to hand sanitize when exiting.

There will be no lost-and-found for forgotten items.

Group fitness classes will remain virtual until further notice.

Changes at the New Orleans JCC To visit the New Orleans JCC Uptown or in Metairie, one must be a member age 18 or older, and make a reservation in advance on the JCC website, due to capacity restrictions. Gold members can book an hour of fitness center time per day, gold and silver members can book 30 minutes of lap swimming per day.

Because of state mandates, the locker rooms are closed, except for restrooms, so one should already be in swim or workout clothes on arrival. Bring a sweat towel and water bottle, as those

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June 2020 • Southern Jewish Life

will not be available at the JCC. Masks are required to enter and travel through the building, and are strongly encouraged when working out. There will be a temperature check at the entrance, and those with a fever of 100.4 degrees or higher will not be admitted, nor will anyone exhibiting other symptoms of coronavirus.

The New Orleans JCC has posted a warning and disclaimer that the pandemic is ongoing, and the JCC “in no way warrants that COVID-19 infection will not occur through participation in our programs or accessing our facilities.” Those using the New Orleans facilities must sign a waiver, which can be printed out at home and signed.

After signing in, one should go straight to the reserved area. Nine members are permitted at a time in the Uptown cardio room, 14 in the weight room. In Metairie, the numbers are 12 members in cardio, eight in the weight room.

Only every other cardio machine is available at present, and while there is no signage on every other piece of equipment in the weights area, members are asked to ensure that there is an empty machine between members.

In the fitness areas, there are stations to pick up sanitizer spray bottles so equipment can be

wiped down before and after use. Used bottles are then returned so the staff can properly prepare them for future use, and staff will do an additional cleaning after each use of equipment.

The Uptown personal training studio is limited to four members and four personal trainers, while in Metairie, the studio can handle just one member and trainer. The Uptown Pilates studio also is limited to one member and one trainer.

The lap pool Uptown has a maximum of six swimmers at a time, one per lane, and the Metairie pool has the same guidelines. The Uptown family pool, splash pad and indoor pool remain closed, along with the Kohlman Health Spa, the gym, group exercise studio, babysitting and library. The Uptown auditorium, Mind/Body studio, indoor cycling studio, older adult lounge and activity room, board room and youth activity center are all restricted, closed for general membership use.

In Metairie, the basketball court and indoor track remain closed, along with the outdoor splash pad, Bart Field, children’s game room, outdoor playgrounds and babysitting.

Fischman said “we are committed to keeping you as safe as possible,” and “we will continue learning as we go” and as governmental guidelines shift.

community Courthouse Swastika issue resurfaces in Birmingham Petition calls for removing symbols from 1929 Jefferson County building With the removal of the Confederate memorial that had stood in Birmingham’s Linn Park since 1905, some have turned their attention to an issue that has come up repeatedly over the years — the existence of swastikas as part of the decoration in the Jefferson County Courthouse, near the main entrance on the other side of the building from Linn Park.

The issue has come up every few years, generally not making a ripple.

This time, Nadav Raviv started a petition on change.org, saying the swastikas on the façade had bothered him and “I would love for these to be removed,” and “why not strike while the iron is hot.”

He added, “Whether the original intent was meant to be inflammatory or not, it’s a symbol of hate and murder and needs to be removed.”

At press time, over 300 had signed the petition.

The swastikas are on either side of the pillers on each side of the staircase leading to the building’s main entrance. There are two on the sides facing the stairs, and three on the other side, with one of them visible only from the building’s service driveways. Of the 10 swastikas, five are oriented in the same direction as the Nazi symbol while the other five are pointed in the other direction. All of them are horizontal, none are rotated at the 45 degrees used for the Nazi symbol.

Joseph Casper Baker III, an administrator on the I Believe In Birmingham Facebook page, one of the places where the issue is being discussed, said it “makes an appearance about once a year on average.”

Generally, reaction is split between those who see the swastika as a hate symbol in any context, and others who point out its use in several

religions and among the Navajo as a symbol of prosperity.

Part of the debate stems from how the swastika was a popular design element before the Nazis took it, especially in Art Deco construction. It is even incorporated into the floor at the memorial for President James Garfield in Cleveland, which was dedicated in 1890.

The courthouse was designed by Holabird and Root of Chicago, a firm that is also known for designing Soldier Field. The cornerstone was laid in 1929 and the courthouse was completed in 1932.

Al.com’s Jonathan Sobolewski did a video on the subject in 2017, pointing out that the swastika, prior to World War II, swastikas had been

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Sobolewski also noted that the 2017 bill aimed at preventing the reor Dining ing — Ou t — Cater moval of Confederate monuments also tdo made it illegal to alter historical ke Ou Ta buildings, including so removing the swastikas would likely n Fridays Fried Chicke Sushi andcourthouses, require a vote of the legislature or a court order. ays, 10am-7pm; ursdfor day n Mon Opethe In 2012, head of s-Th tourism Gainesville, Fla., was in Birmingham 10am-3pm andasSun for a conference and, he day laters described it, mocked the symbol by Fridays standing in front of it and doing a Nazi salute, posting the photo with a You! Order ToNaturally, Your Shipthe note saying it should beArea removed from building. the photo ? We Will Orleans the New Outside drew a slew of complaints that led to a disciplinary hearing.

The last major push to remove the swastikas came in 2015, when the local NAACP was pushing for the removal of two “Old South” murals in the courthouse lobby that depicted slaves picking cotton. Commissioner David Carrington also said he wanted to see the swastikas removed, and the issue was discussed by the commission.

The removal has never been a priority in the local Jewish community.

During the 2015 discussion, WIAT-TV interviewed Daniel Odrezin, who at the time was assistant executive director at the Birmingham Jewish Federation. He said the community appreciated the “sensitivity of the members of the commission” and would welcome the removal if people wanted it, but “it’s certainly not something that we at the BJF are going to call for.”

Odrezin will be chairing the newly-reconstituted Jewish Community Relations Committee.

In the petition, Raviv says “Whether the symbol is meant to signify Native American prosperity for most it is perceived as a symbol of hate. If it can be removed and make a difference in people’s lives why not remove them.”

More swastikas in the news

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Swastikas kept turning up in the news in recent weeks.

On June 13, swastikas and “SS” were painted on an overpass at Memorial Drive and Airport Boulevard in Huntsville, with the messages “Black Lives Don’t Matter” and “White Rights Matter,” among other slogans.

Huntsville was the site of two antisemitic vandalism incidents in April, with the spray-painting of Etz Chayim and Chabad of Huntsville during Passover.

On June 5, swastikas were discovered on the street in front of the Joseph Street Cemetery in New Orleans (see page 7). The historic cemetery belongs to Gates of Prayer in Metairie.

On June 2, a photo went viral of two Chicago students from Resurrection College Prep, sporting swastikas and blackface. One of the students, Megan Dimeo, was identified as an incoming first-year student at the University of Mississippi.

Resurrection issued a statement saying they were “deeply disturbed and saddened” by the “deeply offensive” behavior, they addressed it with the students and families “and have taken appropriate and necessary actions. We hope and pray that this becomes a moment of serious reflection for these students and a life lesson for all of our students as they seek to engage in their personal call from Christ to love all people.”

Ole Miss issued a letter reiterating their commitment to make everyone feel welcome on campus. Images and videos from incoming students are “offensive and disturbing,” the statement said.

“These abhorrent, ignorant and offensive acts have real costs and cause real harm to the creative environment necessary for learning, working

community and living on our campus. These acts threaten our inclusive climate, set back our efforts to make progress, lead people to associate these expressions with our entire university community and cause targeted groups to bear the weight of the fear and anger that follows these occurrences.”

A similar incident involving a Penn State student led to an online petition to expel the student, but many say state universities are limited in what they can do, because of free speech.

In early June, the first Diversity Council meeting was held for the Mountain Brook School System, to address how to better educate youth on differences. The council includes members of the clergy, the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute, Birmingham Holocaust Education Center, parents, students and educators, in consultation with the Anti-Defamation League.

The council resulted from fallout over a video showing students from Mountain Brook and other area schools drawing swastikas on the back of a fellow student, a video that went viral on a Mountain Brook Facebook group.

The Mountain Brook Board of Education issued a letter calling the video “inexcusable in every context,” and the discussions prompted by the video suggest “that dangerous ethnophobia may be more common among our community than we would like to admit. We simply cannot accept this.”

“Honoring diversity” was one of the system’s long-term goals, but it is now being fast-tracked. “There needs to be a comprehensive, wellthought-out plan that will incorporate cultural sensitivity and acceptance… and hopefully shift the paradigm toward love, acceptance and tolerance of differences.”

From Oxford, “The Rabbi Goes West” The Oxford Film Festival and the Jewish Federation of Oxford are presenting a virtual showing of “The Rabbi Goes West,” which can be viewed throughout Mississippi, Alabama and Tennessee, from June 19 to 26. There will also be a panel with filmmakers Amy Geller and Gerald Perry on June 21 at 8:30 p.m. to discuss the film.

The film focuses on a 34-year-old Chabad rabbi, Chaim Bruk, who moves from Brooklyn to Bozeman, Mont., and sets a goal to place a mezuzah on the door of every Jew in the state. The film also took place during the antisemitic threats toward the community of Whitefish.

Rentals are “pay what you can” from $3 to $10, and are available for 24 hours, with half the proceeds going to the filmmakers.

Limon opens at Uptown JCC

Rimon, the kosher restaurant that Chef Daniel Esses opened at Tulane Hillel, has a new outpost at the Uptown Jewish Community Center.

Limon, Hebrew for lemon, willl now accompany Tulane’s pomegranate and on June 16 took over the cafe space formerly held by Kvetchy’s Kitchen. The kosher-style Limon offers grab-and go-items prepared at Rimon, which is overseen by Rabbi Yonah Schiller. Dairy-based items are prepared on-site.

Hours and offerings will be expanded during the summer, and as the JCC opens the pool area during the phased reopenings. Summer items include frozen treats and an outdoor grill. The menu and online ordering are at www.limonuptownjcc.com.

Rimon, which has been closed due to the coronavirus shutdowns, will reopen in August with some changes and adjustments.

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“Riding with the Rabbi” films make online debut Plantation Films will have the Facebook Live debut of two of its made-in-Alabama films, “Riding with the Rabbi” and “Oy to the World” this month. The films are part of a Rabbi Trilogy that will eventually include “The Sukkah.”

Directed by Yvette Hochberg, the films were made in Montgomery, with a group of mostly local talent. Hochberg said the films attempt to show aspects of Jewish life in the South. They were made in association with the Jewish Federation of Central Alabama and Agudath Israel-Etz Ahayem in Montgomery.

“Riding with the Rabbi” will debut on June 18 at 7:30 p.m., with “Oy to the World” on June 25 at 7:30 p.m., through www.facebook.com/ymhochberg/. For those not on Facebook, the films will be available after the livestream on ridingwiththerabbi.com.

“Riding with the Rabbi” is a comedy about an unlikely friendship between Sam, a good old Southern Jewish “boy,” and Rabbi Stan, a misplaced mohel.

The film was recognized by the Pinnacle Film Awards with the Platinum Award for Best Narrative Short, while lead actor Jeff McKinney earned the Platinum Award for Best Actor. Hochberg, who also wrote the film, won the Gold Award for Best Female Director from the Los Angeles-based Independent Short Awards.

Hochberg said the film about two people of different backgrounds coming together in the middle “was an ecumenical effort between crew and cast — filmed in the Bible Belt, it’s a cooperation between Jews and Christians in making this film.”

The shooting at Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh occurred during the filming, and the film is dedicated to the victims and families. It has been screened at festivals, and a special showing in Montgomery for those who were involved in the production.

“Oy to the World,” which was completed in April, is the story of 10-year-old Sally, who wants a memorable Chanukah despite the efforts of her grandmother, Jessica, who wants to help her fit in. The film explores Jewish identity in the heart of the Bible Belt.

Hochberg said the film is especially significant to her as it was completed just after the death of her sister, who helped her find her spirituality, “just as Sally helps her Grandmother Jessica.”

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I am here to help families find the home of their dreams in the Birmingham area, or make downsizing an easy process

real estate/home an annual SJL special section

whether it’s this new Mountain Brook listing

(7 bedrooms, 7-1/2 baths, fabulous open feel - beautifully landscaped pool and yard, Mountain Brook Schools, list $2,150,000)

— or something a bit smaller

DSLD dives into custom pool building DSLD Land Management wants to help families enjoy their home outdoor environment.

The 37-year-old landscaping and hardscaping company dove into custom pool installation. Thus far, the Birmingham company’s partnership with Desjoyaux — which is based in France and is the largest in-ground pool builder in the world — has worked out swimmingly.

“Desjoyaux Pools approached our owner David (Sharp) late last summer about us becoming their exclusive installer for central Alabama and one of the first in the U.S. to be trained on their pool systems,” said DSLD Sales Director Hope Brown. “It’s a great partnership…and lets us provide the perfect outdoor oasis for families to enjoy.”

What makes the pools unique is that they have a pipeless filtration system, making them leak-free. They also use two-thirds less electricity per month than a typical pool.

The liners last longer than those on most other pools — in many cases up to 35 years. The forms employ all-recycled materials.

“These pools are very easy to maintain and they are very durable,” said Brown. “They can be in any shape and size. We also can do heated pools, saltwater pools and Jacuzzis.”

DSLD works with customers on the design, build and installation of their pool. They also can create softscape and hardscape elements to “bring the whole yard together.”

The company’s AquaScapes store on Highway 280 provides pool supplies in its showroom, where they also display and sell outdoor kitchens, fire places, fire pits, water gardens, fountains, statuary, plants, fish, fish food, water filters, chemicals, aquatic plants, pond supplies, yard art, wind chimes, statuary, aquatic pots and sculptures.

Sharp said DSLD’s experienced team is happy to work with customers on a wide variety of landscaping and hardscaping projects. “We have one of Alabama’s most credentialed professional staffs,” he said, including licensed and/or degreed designers, landscape artists, civil engineers, mechanical engineers, horticulturalists, turf grass specialists and aquatic gardens experts.

“They have a combined 350 years of experience and can handle any project big or small.”

Now with…

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Special Section articles by Lee J. Green June 2020 • Southern Jewish Life

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real estate/homes

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Yoni Menaker proudly served in the Israeli Defense Forces and has family members who served in the U.S. Navy.

It’s in that spirit that he started Blue Angels Roofing with his nephew, Alon Elezra, almost three years ago in Birmingham. It also defines their commitment to serving both their customer and their community.

“We are experienced in not just doing high-quality roof repairs and new installations, but also working with insurance companies and helping customers to understand their policies,” said Menaker.

“We’re on the customer’s side. We’ll do anything we can to help them get coverage and do the highest quality work.”

Blue Angels has much experience with all roofing services. They do new installations, roof replacements, maintenance and repairs.

Some of those projects have included the Chabad of Alabama roof and work for several rabbis along with other members of the Jewish community.

“We’re a part of the Jewish community and we also want to give back,” said Menaker, adding that they donated to the N.E. Miles Jewish Day School Gala and to many important causes in the Jewish community.

They also team up with Building Homes for Heroes to provide long-lasting, affordable roofing solutions for American veterans.

Elezra and Menaker are from Jerusalem. A few years after finishing his IDF commitment, Menaker was one of three founders of a start-up designed to quality-control all types of home service companies. Menaker handled the construction quality control side of the business. It was then that he learned about quality building, construction, inspection and workmanship.

He took an offer to manage the company’s office in Florida. Not long after, Menaker came to visit family in Birmingham and fell in love with the city, moving to the Magic City in 2014.

Elezra came from Jerusalem to Birmingham to attend the University of Alabama at Birmingham. His great uncle, Lewis Menaker, was on the faculty at UAB. While in school, he worked at Temple Emanu-El teaching Hebrew.

He was working as a CPA after he graduated, and then teamed up with Menaker to start Blue Angels. Elezra manages the office while Menaker leads field operations.

Elezra said they are always learning, so they can pass on their knowledge and recommendations to the customer.

“They should contact us first if they suspect there is some roof damage,” he said. “We can help them to decide whether it’s in need of a repair or replacement and if they should get the insurance involved.”

“In Alabama it is generally recommended to have your roof inspected if it is over 10 years old and a storm just passed. If you see many of your neighbors getting a new roof, it’s probably a sign that you have some storm damage as well.”

Menaker said strong storms could cause damage to roofs — damage caused by hail can’t be seen with the untrained eye, while wind damage sometime is easier to notice since you will see missing shingles.

They recommend working with a roofing company that is fully licensed from the Alabama Home Builders Licensure Board, licensed with manufacturers, and has workman’s compensation insurance.

“We also put extensive warranties on our work,” said Menaker. “We hire the most qualified employees and use high-quality materials.”

real estate/homes

J&R Home Services builds upon the family business Scott Keller learned the tools of the trade when he was young, helping out his father on home building, renovation and repair projects.

He knew from that point on he would eventually build toward a career that would have him following in his father’s footsteps.

“My dad built our first house when I was 5 years old,” said Keller. “It was something I grew up with and I knew it was something I ultimately wanted to make a living doing.”

He grew up north of Chicago and moved to the Birmingham area in 2006. Keller and his wife married in 2007. He started his own company — J&R Services, named for his son, Jake, and wife, Robin — in August 2018.

“I am a one-man crew, “ he said. “Clients know they can count on me to be the one giving them the initial consultation and doing the project from start to finish.”

Keller said since starting J&R Home Services, he has primarily focused on deck work, window repairs, painting, interior repairs/additions, custom shutter fabrication and installation as well as other structural work.

He said he enjoys educating customers on ways they can make their home more comfortable and energy efficient.

“It can be a matter of improving attic insulation and home ventilation,” said Keller. What can also help is putting in new weather stripping around the windows. “The wood around windows can rot and shrink over time.”

Although J&R Home Services focuses on home repair and renovation, Keller said having experience working on all sizes and types of jobs has prepared him for everything.

“I’ve built and worked on all types of homes,” he said. “I know how a structure is put together and also how important our homes are to us.”

Hiltz-Lauber believes in timeless style, quality Hiltz Lauber is a flooring and furniture showroom located in downtown Homewood, and they have recently opened Rugco, an outlet in the Lakeview area of Southside.

Hiltz Lauber carries hundreds of manufacturers, from low end to high end, and believes in quality service before, during and after each sale.

Hiltz Lauber is also known for its Visual Comfort gallery, located on the second floor of the Homewood store. Stop by and visit — you will always find something fun to look at, or just come to see the dogs.

Rugko is open Wednesday to Saturday, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. and by appointment. The Homewood location is open Monday to Friday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.

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Sikora sees strong real estate market ahead

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June 2020 • Southern Jewish Life

Bridget Sikora, a real estate agent with Birmingham’s Ray & Poyner, said she continues to see signs of strong market growth heading ahead.

“Mortgage rates are historically low and applications continue to rise,” said Sikora. “We’re seeing some pent-up demand for housing” coming out of the quarantine.

Sikora has lived in Mountain Brook for 19 years and brings more than 16 years of real estate experience. She has helped clients buy and sell homes across the area, but she’s especially connected with the Mtn. Brook, Crestline and Vestavia areas.

She said inventory is still low, though there has been an increase in the luxury home market inventory. Sikora recently listed a $2 million home in Mountain Brook.

“We’re happy to help sellers to stage their home for prospective buyers and to set a good list price,” said Sikora. “We’re also with buyers every step of the way to find them their ideal home in their ideal neighborhood,” She has done some Face Time showings and teleconference closings.

Sikora supplies buyers and sellers with masks, gloves and hand sanitizers.

“I’ve also gone ahead of time to turn on lights and open doors so prospective buyers can see everything without having to touch,” she said. “We can do virtual showings too.”

Ray & Poyner has photographs of every listing inside and out, including drone photos. “People like to visualize themselves living in the home,” added Sikora.

She said that 2019 was a strong year for her and Ray & Poyner, a boutique agency with just more than 50 agents. “We have a family-type atmosphere at Ray & Poyner. We help each other out to best help our clients,” she added.

Sikora is all about family and community involvement. Her husband, Steven, owns Red Wing Shoes in Birmingham and her oldest son, Jack, works in commercial real estate in Dallas. Her younger sons, Max and Austin, attend the University of Alabama.

She is a past president of Hadassah Birmingham and currently serves as vice president of fundraising for the organization. “I enjoy being involved in the Jewish community. It’s important to me to give back in any way I can.”

Vulcan Termite and Pest Control keeps homes safe from unwanted guests Vulcan Termite and Pest Control has been helping customers protect home, health and property since 1965.

“Throughout our history, we’ve employed the best people, practices and pesticides available,” said owner Fred Smith, noting that Vulcan’s team has more than 120 years of combined experience. “We use integrated pest management to keep homes free of pests inside and out.”

In the era of COVID-19, Smith said Vulcan continues to take heightened safety measures and precautions. Technicians wear masks, shoe covers and gloves inside of homes and several of their services can be performed outside.

Vulcan handles all types of pest control, but specializes in termite and mosquito control. “Termites can cause significant property damage to homes, so we recommend people get a full termite treatment at least once per year,” said Smith.

He also recommended people seal doors properly; use screens; don’t store firewood against the house. Also, look for leaks in water lines.

As temperatures and humidity increase in the Deep South, the number of mosquitos rises as well. “Mosquitos are drawn to areas of water,” said Smith.

“We recommend to customers to be mindful of checking their gutters. We enjoy educating our customers so they can take proactive measures to mitigate the chances of an infestation.”

Vulcan also will inspect one’s home at no cost to determine how to best protect against termite infestation.

Smith said they are also happy to do any residential or commercial jobs across all of central and north Alabama.

real estate/homes

Did You Miss Something?

Our last two issues were online only… if you haven’t seen them, you missed:

BHMDEX designs, builds outdoor spaces Blake Bassham wants to help families enjoy staycations, and safely have great outdoor experiences at their houses.

The owner of BHMDEX LLC brings many years of experience into the design and building of decks, playhouses, screened-in patios, pergolas, fences, hardscapes and even some interiors.

“I enjoy working with a client to come up with an outdoor home environment they will love being around every day,” said Bassham, who studied Industrial Design at Auburn University and worked for more than 20 years in design and construction before starting BHMDEX a couple of years ago.

Bassham said he consults with clients about the best possible solution for their new build or repair projects. He then develops 3-D computer renderings so that clients can see what the project will look like before it is built.

“We’ll handle every aspect of it for a client,” he said. “I know and have worked with some of the top painters, cabinet-makers and construction professionals. We’re the one call someone needs to make and we’ll coordinate the best team to make the project a success.”

As the name indicates, BHMDEX specializes in deck repairs, extensions and new builds. Bassham said they always use the best possible materials for a project.

“We’re known for over-engineering our projects. We take pride in building decks that last a long time,” he said.

A good deck should last at least 15 to 20 years, added Bassham. He said if a client already has a deck, he has vast experience in finding signs of deck wear that might not be visible to the common eye.

“I will always be honest with a client. Sometimes a deck might still be structurally sound and we can just make some minor repairs,” he said.

“Other times it is recommended that we do a full rebuild. I enjoy educating clients — giving them the pros and cons — before starting a project, as well as keeping them informed every step of the way.

Bassham said that a few recent, more unique projects they have done include a chicken/duck coop, an outdoor classroom and a “she shed.”

“If they can dream it up, we can design and build it,” he said.

Extensive coverage of the coronavirus shutdown and its effects on the community • Jewish UAB chaplain gives his perspective • Simcha by Zoom • Rabbi Erdheim blesses New Orleans from above • Michael Saag’s COVID battle • Passover vandalism in Huntsville • Enlisting Christian media in battle against antisemitism • Israeli Olympian wins B’ham half-marathon • Sara Lewis on campaigning during a pandemic • “Wandering Dixie” • Fires at New Iberia synagogue, Lafayette former synagogue • Student swastika video in Mountain Brook • La. Representative’s Nazi Germany comparison “misconstrued” • Summer without camp • New Orleans Take Home Meal Program • Mobile, masks and Yair Netanyahu • Reinventing school • New cantorial soloist at Gates of Prayer • Wittner new cantor at Birmingham’s Emanu-El • New curator at MSJE • Temple Sinai gala pics… and more!

Catch up! Visit issuu.com/sjlmag

June 2020 • Southern Jewish Life

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real estate/homes

While helping clients find homes, MacLean also helps animals Lisa MacLean loves her job as a RealtySouth real estate agent in Birmingham because of the people. And she does everything she can to make sure those clients are satisfied — as well as safe in the current situation.

“I am passionate about making people happy. I want to make sure they get everything they are looking for in a house… and to help prospective sellers with staging their homes,” said MacLean, who is an involved member of the area Jewish community.

She also donates a portion of her commission on every real estate sale to the Greater Birmingham Humane Society. “I love finding happy homes for people and pets,” said MacLean.

COVID-19 has posed challenges for real estate agents, buyers and sellers, but MacLean said she’s dedicated to keeping clients safe while making sure they are well-informed.

“We make sure the places that we show are clean. There are plenty of gloves, Purell and everyone wears a mask,” she said. MacLean has also opened all doors and prepared a house to be viewed by prospective buyers, then talked to them from outside the house while they tour the inside of the house.

On another property, she took a couple of hours to video everything in the house, then send it to the interested buyer. And she recently did a full virtual showing that will also be a full virtual closing this month for a client in Colorado who will be moving back home to the Forest Park area of Birmingham.

“RealtySouth is the first to do 100 percent virtual real estate sales and closings,” she said. “The technology makes this possible. This could be the future.”

She said it’s a sellers market. Inventory is low, but so are interest rates.

MacLean advises prospective buyers to get pre-approved and to be ready to make an offer when they find their perfect home.

“I’m with them every step of the way,” said MacLean. “And I also enjoy checking back in on them after they buy or sell their place. It’s not about sales, it’s about building relationships and friendships.”

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June 2020 • Southern Jewish Life

Park makes moving less stressful Park Moving and Storage, the official movers for the Zeta Beta Tau fraternity chapter at the University of Alabama, considers itself “old school.”

“We’re very focused on service. Making sure we go the extra mile to have happy customers is extremely important to us,” said Brian Henry, who coowns Park Moving with Kevin Barber. They have locations in Birmingham and Tuscaloosa, handling local, household, commercial, interstate as well as international moves.

“We pad everything. We wrap furniture up like presents,” said Henry, mentioning that the company moved Alabama’s largest private art collection. “We take great care of people and their belongings.”

Park Moving started in Tuscaloosa in 1963. Henry, who is from Tuscaloosa and went to school at Birmingham-Southern College, moved back to Tuscaloosa from Nashville and purchased the company in 2008.

They opened the Birmingham location in 2011, and then in 2015, Barber joined Henry as a partner. Henry and his family moved to Mountain Brook recently.

“We inherited a strong reputation with Park Moving, and we’ve built upon that legacy,” said Henry. “We’ve grown the company 500 percent in five years and we’re the highest-rated Alabama moving company on Google.”

He said they offer special rates to non-profits and have provided their resources and assistance to those in need.

Henry said they are also happy to offer advice to clients on how to best work with Park to make the move as hassle-free as possible.

“I recommend to everyone to purge anything you don’t need, and to let professionals who are insured, experienced to take care of your valuables,” he said. “For every client, we come out there first to look at their place and discuss a plan.”

In addition to serving several families in the Birmingham and Tuscaloosa Jewish communities this past year, they have recently been awarded a large contract with the U.S. military.

community Vandals defile Nashville Holocaust memorial with supremacist messages On June 13, vandals attached a sheet containing antisemitic and white supremacist messages on the Memorial Walls at the Holocaust memorial in Nashville.

The sheet, which was taped to the granite memorials at some point during the afternoon, read “Kikes Lie, Whites Die,” and referenced numbers 14 and 88. The number 14 represents the 14 words in a white supremacist motto, and 88 refers to the eighth letter of the alphabet, making it shorthand for “Heil Hitler.”

In a statement, Gordon Jewish Community Center Executive Director Leslie Sax and President Raymond Jacobs said the community “is deeply shocked and saddened” by the attack. The memorial is tucked away in a wooded area near the parking lot, but out of view of the main road.

They added, “we are working with local authorities in their investigation, and the Jewish community security network was immediately informed of this incident.”

Felicia Anchor, who chairs the Nashville Holocaust Memorial Committee, said the community “has been actively engaged in sincere efforts to combat injustice and intolerance” in recent days, and over Shabbat “the oldest hatred, the oldest menace to a discriminated minority threatened the security of the Nashville Jewish Community.”

She noted that the Memorial Walls are, for many, “the only place to recognize family members because their bodies were consumed in crematorium and they have no graves… With this vile act, their memory was devalued and dishonored.”

The memorial was established after Holocaust survivor Esther Loeb commented that unlike many other communities, Nashville did not have a Holocaust memorial. She spoke with Anchor, who was born to Holocaust survivors in the Bergen-Belsen displaced persons camp after the war.

Anchor, who moved to Nashville in 1972, had a “fundamental interest” in learning about the Holocaust, and got to know members of the survivor community in Nashville.

Anchor convened a committee, which spurred the Gordon JCC to donate land for the memorial. They wanted it to be an outdoor memorial, and turned to architect Manual Zeitlin, who donated his services in designing the master plan.

The focal point of the memorial is a sculpture by Alex Limor, son of survivors. He had picked up his father’s interest in metal sculpture, and used one of his father’s visions for the memorial — a sculpture of the Book of the Jewish People, but with the middle of it torn out.

It took about two years to raise the funds for construction, and it was

We work tirelessly to help kids get well because Hugh has a long list of stuff he wants to do.

WE DO WHAT WE DO BECAUSE CHILDREN HAVE DREAMS.

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June 2020 • Southern Jewish Life

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community dedicated in October 2006.

The memorial’s website gives brief biographies of most of the roughly 300 individuals memorialized on the walls, and there are 18 chairs facing the walls.

In recent weeks, there has been a rise in antisemitic graffiti. During Passover, the Conservative and Chabad congregations in Huntsville were tagged with swastikas and white supremacist messages. Last week, swastikas were found painted on the street in front of a Jewish cemetery in New Orleans, and on June 13 in Huntsville, racist graffiti was accompanied by swastikas on a busy overpass.

The Gordon JCC statement concluded, “At a time when our nation is confronting racism and anti-Semitic attacks are rising, our JCC community continues to stand united with those who condemn discrimination in all its forms.”

Anchor called on everyone to make “Never Again” the highest priority.

“Every one of us has a choice. We can be change agents to end injustice and intolerance… Or, we can tolerate living among those who poison us all with their hatred and desecrate that which is most dear to us.”

NCJW presenting webinars on antisemitism The National Council of Jewish Women’s Greater New Orleans Section will host “The Plague of Antisemitism,” four educational webinars over the next few months, featuring expert presenters from across the country.

“A Global Historical Examination of both Traditional and more current forms of antisemitism” will be on June 28 at 3 p.m., with Gil Troy, professor of History at McGill University and a 2015 visiting scholar at the Brookings Institution.

Troy is the author of nine books, including ones on the American presidency, the history of presidential campaigning and biographies of Ronald Reagan and Hillary Clinton. A columnist for the Jerusalem Post, he writes a column for the Daily Beast on forgotten history, putting current events in historical perspective.

“An Exploration of Blood Libels, Conspiracy Theories and Plagues” on July 26 at 3 p.m. will have an emphasis on COVID-19 and how it is affecting lives today. Ricki Hollander, a senior analyst at the Boston-based Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America, will speak.

On Aug. 30 at 3 p.m., Steven Pomerantz, the former assistant director of the FBI, will speak about the FBI and Department of Justice, and their experience with white supremacist groups. The program will include an overview of the current demographics of hate crimes against Jews from the extreme right and extreme left, as well as a look at intersectionality and the Boycott, Divest, Sanction movement against Israel.

Prior to being assistant director, Pomerantz served as director of counter-terrorism. In 2004, Pomerantz was asked by the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations to take the lead in heading up a team to establish the Secure Community Network.

The series concludes with Rabbi Ammiel Hirsch, senior rabbi of the Stephen Wise Free Synagogue in New York City, Oct. 4 at 3 p.m. He will address “Is Today’s Anti-Zionism the Latest Form of Antisemitism.”

This program will cover the history of Israel, including the First Zionist Congress, Balfour Declaration, the collapse of Ottoman Empire and the British Mandate, combined with a brief overview of modern Israel with emphasis on the standing of women in society, the treatment of minorities and the state of civil liberties.

Prior to his current position, Hirsch served as executive director of the Association of Reform Zionists of America/World Union for Progressive Judaism, North America.

Each program will feature a 45-minute presentation followed by a 15-minute moderated Q&A session. Advance registration is required through NCJW, or at ncjwneworleans.org.

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June 2020 • Southern Jewish Life

>> Agenda

continued from page 10

Jewish Educational Alliance. Events are at 9 a.m. Central and are free, but registration is required on the Breman Museum website, thebreman.org. On June 26, Mark Bauman, editor of Southern Jewish History, will speak on the origins of Reform Judaism in Charleston and Baltimore, and the spread of the movement across the country. On July 10, Marni Davis will speak about Jewish neighborhoods in Atlanta, and on July 24, Ann Woolner will trace the lives and events of the first Jews to settle in Savannah. Additional speakers for the fall will be announced later. The SJHS annual conference scheduled for October in Charleston has been cancelled.

The North Louisiana Jewish Federation will have its annual meeting on July 12 at 10 a.m. via Zoom, open to all Federation members.

Monika Singletary of Birmingham graduated from the William Davidson Graduate School of Jewish Education of the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York, with a master’s in Jewish education. Also receiving a master’s was Birmingham native Doug Brook of San Jose, Calif., who is also the writer for The Beholder’s Eye in the back of Southern Jewish Life magazine. At the commencement ceremony on May 21, which was held virtually, Rabbi Steven Glazer was honored on the 50th anniversary of his ordination. Glazer served Birmingham’s Temple Beth-El from 1977 to 1993.

Cantor Joel Colman was recognized by Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion’s Debbie Friedman School of Sacred Music with a Doctor of Music degree, honoris causa, marking the 25th anniversary of his ordination. The presentation had been scheduled for May 7 in New York, but could not take place due to coronavirus restrictions. He has been cantor of Temple Sinai in New Orleans for 21 years, and the congregation plans a celebration once in-person services can resume.

B’nai Zion in Shreveport will have a Pride Shabbat over Zoom, June 26 at 6 p.m.

The Birmingham Holocaust Education Center will hold “Jack Bass: Charmer, Comedian, Friend,” presented by Ann Mollengarden. Bass was imprisoned at Auschwitz III/ Buna, Auschwitz I, Dachau and Mühldorf.

The online event will be June 25 at 7 p.m. On July 23, Werner Knurr and Rachel Lopez will present “Archives At Home: The Dr. Werner Knurr Collection,” telling the story of his family’s escape from Nazi Germany to Montgomery, through a rare and unique collection of artifacts that have been donated to BHEC. The program will be at 7 p.m. Registration is at bhecinfo.org.

Nominations are being accepted for the Marion B. Steeg Award for Excellence in Jewish Education. The award highlights the value of Jewish education in its many varieties in the New Orleans community not limited to specific institutions or classroom teaching. In addition to classroom teachers, song leaders, camp educators, independent Jewish educators, and tutors are also eligible for the Steeg Award.

Nomination forms are due to Michelle Neal at the Jewish Federation of Greater New Orleans by June 30. The award is presented at a reception, and the honoree receives a gift of $1,000 toward future educational enrichment.

Birmingham’s Temple Emanu-El will have Havdalah on the Deck, July 4 at 7 p.m. Bring deck chairs and snacks, and after Havdalah there will be time to schmooze at the top of the parking deck until the 9 p.m.

Thunder on the Mountain fireworks show by Vulcan.

Jewish documentarian Jon Ossoff won a seven-way Democratic primary for U.S. Senate in Georgia outright, and will face Sen. David Perdue in November.

June 2020 • Southern Jewish Life

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Coming Soon…

Acropolis on Freret

4510 Freret St New Orleans, 504.309.0069 acropolisonfreret.com

Most Jewish publications publish some kind of annual Community Guidebook.

Grilled Salmon Over Israeli Couscous Pilaf topped with Mediterranean Salsa

Southern Jewish Life’s Guide is different.

SJL’s Guide is more than a listing of organizations, institutions and congregations… it is a portal to the history of the Jewish communities of the Deep South, and a guide to the present. And it will be mailed to every known Jewish household in the region.

It will also be made available throughout the year at select stores and institutions, for those looking for information about the region, and especially for newcomers and those who are contemplating a move to the region.

SJL’s Guide gives a history of each institution, and finds the often-overlooked sites and fascinating stories in communities throughout Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana and the Florida panhandle.

This is a first-ever keepsake edition that will be widely read and referred to…

Reserve your ad space today!

Deep South Lee Green, (205) 870-7889 New Orleans Jeff Pizzo, (504) 432-2561 44

June 2020 • Southern Jewish Life

For the Salmon Directions 1 pound salmon fillet (cut into two 8-oz. portions) Preheat grill to 450 degrees 1 tsp. sea salt Gently mix salsa ingredients in medium 1/4 tsp. black pepper bowl and set aside, allowing to marinate.

1 tbsp. olive oil Combine the stock, salt, cardamom, cin1 tbsp. fresh lemon juice namon and saffron in a small saucepan and bring to a simmer over medium heat.

For the Couscous 1-1/4 C. vegetable stock (original recipe calls Heat oil in a large saucepan over medium for chicken stock) heat. Add onion and sauté until translucent, 1/2 tsp. sea salt then add garlic and cook until fragrant. Next, 1/4 tsp. ground cardamom add the couscous and continue stirring just Pinch of ground cinnamon until toasted.

Generous pinch saffron threads Carefully add the stock mixture to the pan 1 tbsp. olive oil and stir to combine. Cover and simmer on 1/4 cup small diced yellow onion medium-low heat until all liquid has been ab1 cup Israeli couscous sorbed and the couscous is tender, about 10 1 clove garlic (minced) minutes.

2 tbsp. pine nuts (toasted) Coat the salmon with olive oil and lemon 1 tbsp. chopped parsley juice, then season with salt and pepper. Place For the Mediterranean Salsa salmon on preheated grill for around 4 to 1 cup diced roma tomatoes 4-1/2 minutes per side, or until the internal 1/2 cup diced cucumbers temperature at the thickest part of the salmon 1/4 cup thin sliced kalamata olives reads 140 degrees.

1/4 cup diced red onion Fluff the couscous while adding the parsley 1/4 cup diced feta cheese (crumbled is fine) and pine nuts, and serve warm.

1 tbsp. fresh squeezed lemon juice Place couscous in the center of a plate, top 1/2 tbsp. dried oregano with grilled salmon and finish with Mediterra1 tsp. sea salt nean salsa.

1/4 tsp. black pepper

Acropolis on Freret Acropolis, the much-loved Greek restaurant in Metairie, branched out last year with the opening of Acropolis on Freret last December in Uptown, only to see everything close in March due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Head Chef Rickey Quevreaux said they stayed open for takeout for about a week, then decided

to close and regroup, so that when it came time to reopen, they would “come out strong so when people can come out and dine, we will be ready for them and put our best foot forward.”

During the down time, Quevreaux wrote a new brunch menu and developed some new recipes, while others at Acropolis were working

community >> Editor’s Note

continued from page 3

(and in some communities, a decent percentage of them are non-Jewish friends taking advantage of a rare opportunity to see a Jewish service). A couple of the congregations we attended have since closed.

These communities generally were thrilled to see a couple extra folks show up and join them.

If social distancing will be the theme for this year’s High Holy Days, and one still wants to be at a service but not in a huge crowd, why not go to one of these small communities? Perhaps there could be a way to coordinate some of these smaller congregations, who could say “we can easily handle another 30 people with plenty of distancing,” and those who are interested can sign up. After all, it would be counterproductive for a congregation that usually has 30 in a building designed for 250 if a couple hundred people showed up.

And once the pandemic lifts and life gets more or less back to normal, why not hit the road and venture into a small congregation somewhere, on a holiday or a normal Shabbat?

One of the blessings of what we do with the magazine is that as our boys have been growing up, they have been to services at over 30 different congregations in the last decade, large and tiny, “from Chabad to ultra-Reform and everything in between.”

Every so often, we get an inquiry from a small congregation, asking us to let everyone know they still are around and welcome anyone who wants to attend and boost their numbers (the most recent, before everything shut down, was Beth-El in Anniston, which generally meets monthly).

The last few months have been unusual and have led to a major rethinking about many things in Jewish communal life. If the High Holidays have to be reimagined too, this is one meaningful way to do it.

Lawrence Brook, Publisher/Editor

>> Acropolis

>> Rear Pew Mirror

continued from page 46

Me: Neither is one of the candidates.

G: Then the people shouldn’t need any help with this one.

Me: Throughout the world, and throughout history including today, many people and religious denominations or institutions have done things claiming it’s in your name. Both great and terrible things. Who really speaks for you?

G: Me. Me: Okay, but what do you have to say about what’s happened throughout history?

G: It’s all in the past. What you leave there and learn from there is up to you.

Me: You won’t give us any guidance?

G: Almost several of you read from my guidance every weekend.

Me: How about an update? Something that speaks more directly to our times, in a way everyone can relate to.

G: You have that. You’ve been losing a lot in how you’ve translated it.

Me: Let’s look at it from the other direction. How does the Bible tell us what happened before the Bible starts? Will there ever be a prequel?

G: Maybe you’re the prequel.

Doug Brook might be sheltered, but is always in place. To read past columns, visit http://brookwrite.com/. For exclusive online content, follow facebook.com/rearpewmirror.

continued from page 44

on other things so they could get the word out when the time came.

Still, as the phased reopening has begun, they have been taking it slow since they started indoor dining on May 21. “When we could do inside dining at 25 percent (capacity) we have been doing that,” he said. “We’ve taken all the precautions inside in terms of sanitation, masks and gloves.”

The biggest new development has been the brunch, served on Saturdays and Sundays from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. The Mediterranean-inspired menu with a New Orleans twist “has been going really well,” and more dishes are being added. A Greek omelette is based on gyro meat, and a veggie omelette is also available. There is a crabless Acropolis Benedict, a lox and cream cheese dish with toast points, and a croissant sandwich with gyro meat. “We kept it simple because all the flavors meld together, it’s a beautiful, tasty sandwich,” Quevreaux said.

They also have tiganites, pancakes with fig cream cheese, drizzled with honey and walnuts. Another popular item is Loukomades and Ellinikos Kafes, Greek doughnuts and coffee. The doughnuts are drizzled with honey, dusted with cinnamon and sprinkled with chopped walnuts.

Quevreaux, who previously was sous chef at Metairie Country Club, is also planning to introduce some new specials to the weekday menus, which are traditional Greek cooking with the occasional Uptown touch.

Currently, they are open only for dinner.

Of course, the situation is far from normal for restaurants. Quevreaux said their typical mix is 20 percent takeout, 80 percent dine-in, currently it is running 50-50.

Acropolis on Freret is open evenings from Tuesday to Saturday, and brunch from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays.

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June 2020 • Southern Jewish Life

45

rear pew mirror • doug brook

Exclusive Interview: God

The Latest News… www.sjlmag.com

In the extraordinarily interesting times in which we live, there is extraordinary need for time spent not being livid. With that in mind, this column presents the most exclusive interview with the least controversial character in creation, whether you prefer the Creation story in Genesis chapter one or two.

Me: I’d thank you for being here with us today, but you’re always everywhere.

G: Sometimes I’m in some places more than others.

Me: Let’s cut right to the chase. Do you really exist?

G: Do you?

Me: I think so.

G: So do I. Me: You think that I exist or that you exist?

G: You’re talking to me, aren’t you? Is it any more likely that I’m imagining your half of this conversation than you’re imagining my half?

Me: Okay, okay. Why do you let bad things happen to good people?

G: Why do you?

Me: Why do you let good things happen to bad people?

G: Why do you let bad people happen?

Me: If people are created in Your image, how do you explain bad people?

G: People seem to assume that being created in my image is like making a Xerox copy. What if you’re created in my image? Imagine a very large three-dimensional jigsaw puzzle. Imagine that you’re a tiny dot on one of the many, many pieces within the vast puzzle that is my image.

Me: Whoa.

G: I know, right?

Me: What do you say about when people should return to in-person synagogue services?

G: I had almost nothing to do with what you call services today, and I gave everyone free will. All I can do is suggest that anyone gathering in person too soon, for minyan or more, can skip straight to the Mourner’s Kaddish.

Me: When do you think is too soon to have minyan?

G: Before 8 a.m.

Me: Okay, I have to ask. What is up with 2020? I mean, the year started with the government as it’s been lately, which was more than enough of a struggle. Then Coronavirus. Murder hornets lurking, waiting for their cue. Heightened racial discontent. Shelter-in-place lifting that’s leading to a second wave. Why have you let so many horsemen in at once?

G: There once was a man in a great flood, trapped on the roof of his house. The radio had warned to evacuate but he stayed, saying I will provide. A guy in a boat comes by, but the man refuses to get on board, saying I will provide. A helicopter comes, and the man refuses, saying I will provide. The man arrived in heaven and asked why I let him down.

I said I sent a warning, a boat, and a helicopter. What else did you need?

Me: But there you sent good things. 2020 is full of bad things.

G: Are all of them bad things? Are they solvable? People need to collectively learn to take a hint.

Me: Will you get involved in the 2020 election?

G: No. I’m not a politician.

We have it on the highest authority…

continued on previous page 46

June 2020 • Southern Jewish Life

June 2020 • Southern Jewish Life

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