Jewish News - August 14, 2023 Issue

JEWISH NEWS UPFRONT

In the room when Israel’s President Herzog addressed Congress

Betty Ann Levin

On Wednesday, June 19, I had the honor of joining leadership from our Jewish community, as well as leadership from Jewish communities and organizations around the country to hear Israeli President Isaac Herzog address a joint session of the United States Congress.

I had the opportunity to sit in the gallery of the House of Representatives, the “people’s house,” and really let it all resonate prior to the entrance of many legislators. The history, the men and women who have represented our country, the speeches, the debates, and, yes, the violent desecration of the historic building all ran through my head.

It was somewhat uplifting to see our representatives and senators, from both parties, enter the House chamber, greet each other, and converse. In the 24-hour news cycle in which we now live, we often only see or hear about and from the extreme members of both major political parties. It was even more uplifting to see a strong, bipartisan welcome for President Herzog.

Only the second Israeli president to be invited to speak before a joint session, Herzog immediately reflected on the first president to do so – his father, President Chaim Herzog, who addressed Congress 35 years ago in honor of the State of Israel’s 40th year of independence.

History and emotion resonated throughout the address as Herzog recounted that in 1949, U.S. President Harry Truman met with the Chief Rabbi of the newly established State of Israel in the Oval Office at the White House. This was only a few years after each of them had pleaded and worked to rescue Europe’s Jews from being slaughtered by Nazis. That Chief Rabbi was Herzog’s grandfather, Rabbi Yitzhak Isaac HaLevi Herzog.

The reflection became even more emotional when Herzog recognized President Truman’s grandson, Clifton Truman Daniel, who was in the gallery.

It was clear throughout his speech that Herzog was tremendously honored to be invited to address Congress to celebrate the first 75 years of the State of Israel. It was also clear how much Herzog, speaking with love and strength on behalf of his beloved country, values democracy, Israel’s right to self-determination, and its alliance with the United States, Israel’s “closest partner and friend, which is mutually beneficial to the security and future of both of our countries.”

Herzog invoked Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, whose daughter Professor Susannah Heschel also attended the speech, who wrote “To be is to stand for” in reminding us that “the principles we defend make us what we are.”

Both the U.S. and Israel have political and other challenges, but we also share common values and principles. Herzog’s optimistic tone reminded us that “when the United States is strong, Israel is stronger. And when Israel is strong, the United States is more secure.”

He concluded by referencing the Israeli national anthem, “Hatikva…a song of hope. The late Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks wrote that in Judaism, hope is an active virtue, which requires a great deal of courage.”

Herzog’s strong, collaborative, and reflective remarks gave me hope for Israel today, her next 75 years, the U.S.-Israel relationship, our own country, and our community.

Betty Ann Levin is executive vice president/CEO of United Jewish Federation of Tidewater/Simon Family JCC.

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A rabbi is always a rabbi, even on vacation

When the United States is strong, Israel is stronger. And when Israel is strong, the United States is more secure.

Jewish groups condemn Trump’s comparison of indictment to Nazi persecution

Two major Jewish civil rights groups want Donald Trump to stop using Nazi analogies to decry his legal woes.

The former president’s first official comment after the unveiling of a federal indictment charging him with conspiracy to defraud the United States after he lost is the third time this year Trump has been indicted.

“The lawlessness of these persecutions of President Trump and his supporters is reminiscent of Nazi Germany in the 1930s, the former Soviet Union, and other authoritarian, dictatorial regimes,” his campaign said. Trump is the frontrunner for the Republican 2024 presidential nomination.

“Comparing this indictment to Nazi Germany in the 1930s is factually incorrect, completely inappropriate, and flat out offensive,” Jonathan Greenblatt, the AntiDefamation League CEO, said on Twitter. “As we have said time and again, such comparisons have no place in politics and are shameful.”

The American Jewish Committee in a statement advised Trump to chat with a Holocaust survivor.

“Here’s some advice. Please sit with a Holocaust survivor and let them share their story,” AJC said. “Just listen. Then show them the respect they deserve and honor the memory of the six million Jews slaughtered by the Nazis by never making a comparison like this again.”

Since launching his campaign, Trump has come under fire for socializing with a Holocaust denier as well as invoking Nazi analogies to lambaste his critics and law enforcement officials investigating his myriad scandals.

In 2017, after BuzzFeed published an unverified dossier containing allegations about him, Trump sent a tweet asking, “Are we living in Nazi Germany?” (JTA)

Jewish fencer becomes first US man to win sabre World Championship

Jewish fencer Eli Dershwitz made history Tuesday, July 25 at the World Fencing Championships in Milan, Italy, where he became the first American man to win an individual title in sabre.

The 27-year-old two-time Olympian and grandson of Holocaust survivors, defeated No. 1-ranked Sandro Bazadze 15-6 in the sabre final.

But Dershwitz’s semifinal victory was perhaps even more notable: Facing Áron Szilágyi, a three-time Olympic gold medalist and the reigning world champion, he came back from a 10-4 deficit to advance to the final round.

“I’ve been working most of my life for this moment, this tournament, and towards Paris 2024,” Dershwitz said, according to NBC Sports. “Hoping my third Olympic Games is the one.”

Dershwitz — who celebrated his bar mitzvah at the Conservative Temple Israel in Natick, Mass., and fenced at Harvard University — won two gold medals at the 2017

Maccabiah Games in Israel.

He represented the United States in the 2016 and 2020 Olympics but failed to medal in either appearance.

Prior to the 2016 Rio Games, Dershwitz told Hillel International that he considers himself a “proud member of the Jewish community.”

“I feel proud to be a Jewish-American Olympic athlete. The Jewish community has been very supportive throughout my journey to the Olympics,” he said.

Dershwitz joins a long list of Jewish fencers who have won the sabre title. Hungarian János Garay, who died at the Mauthausen concentration camp in May 1945, won the third world championship in 1925. Other winners include Hungarian Sándor Gombos (1926 and 1927), Hungarian Endre Kabos (1934 and 1935), who also died during the Holocaust, Russian Yakov Rylsky (1958, 1961 and 1963) and Russian Mark Rakita (1967). (JTA)

York, site of a medieval pogrom, gets its first rabbi in 800 years

For the first time in 800 years, the British city of York, whose Jewish population was decimated in a medieval pogrom, will be home to a rabbi.

Rabbi Elisheva Salamo arrived in York two weeks ago from California after decades of pulpit work in the United States, Switzerland, and South Africa. She will take a parttime pulpit at the York Liberal Jewish Community, which is affiliated with a denomination akin to the American Reform movement. The congregation was founded in 2014 and now has about 100 members.

Her hiring is a milestone for York, a city in northern England whose medieval Jewish community was wiped out in a pogrom in March 1190, on the Shabbat before Passover. Seeking protection from antisemitic rioters who intended to either forcibly convert the Jews to Christianity or kill them, York’s Jews sought refuge in a tower in the king’s castle.

Realizing they would not make it out of the tower alive as troops amassed outside, they chose to kill themselves rather than convert — a choice also made by other European Jewish communities facing antisemitic armies during the Crusades. Approximately 150 people are estimated to have died in the York pogrom. A century later, the Jews were expelled from England entirely; they were permitted to return only in 1656.

“Helping to rebuild what was once one of England’s most vibrant Jewish communities is an honor and a privilege,” Salamo told The Guardian.

Salamo was ordained at the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College and attended Reed College and Yale University, where she studied biology and cellular and molecular biology. According to her website, she is also an experienced equestrian.

She will join a community that has been led by volunteers in the nearly 10 years since it was founded. Salamo’s first formal role will be to lead High Holiday services in September. The community hopes to fundraise to hire her full time, according to the Jewish Chronicle. (JTA)

‘Maus’ evades a ban in Iowa

Anew Iowa state law forbidding instruction on sexual and gender identity prompted one school district to briefly order staff to remove Art Spiegelman’s Maus and hundreds of other books from its shelves.

But days later following national outrage, the district reversed course, issuing a trimmed-down list of 65 books for removal that contained neither Maus, nor several other Jewish-themed books on the first list.

The quick about-face in Urbandale Schools, a suburb of Des Moines, was the latest example of the confusing and often contradictory landscape for Jewish texts amid the growing nationwide “parents’ rights” movement targeting what its proponents say are inappropriate books in schools. In Iowa and other states, that movement has fueled legislation targeting educators who distribute content that could be interpreted as sexual.

“We have determined that there is ambiguity regarding the extent to which books that contain topics related to gender identity and sexual orientation need to be removed from libraries,” the district’s superintendent, Rosalie Daca, wrote in a memo to staff.

“As such, we will pause removing books that reference gender identity and sexual orientation until we receive guidance from the Iowa Department of Education.”

The memo followed one that, as reported in the Des Moines Register, instructed staff to comb their libraries for more than 300 books in potential violation of the law, including Maus, Judy Blume’s Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret, the Holocaust novel Sophie’s Choice and Jewish author Tony Kushner’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play for adults, Angels in America. That initial list prompted a passionate response from the literary free-expression advocacy group PEN America, which implored the district not to follow through with its removals.

Administrators blamed the state’s education department for issuing vague and unclear guidance for how to comply with the new law, which Iowa’s Republican governor, Kim Reynolds, signed in May and is scheduled to take effect in January 2024. The law states that it is “prohibiting instruction related to gender identity and sexual orientation in school districts” and forbids “any material with descriptions or visual depictions of a sex act.”

Maus contains a single panel of a nude mouse representing Spiegelman’s mother after she dies by suicide.

The same image previously provoked the ire of a Tennessee school board, which removed Maus from its district’s middle-school curriculum over the image last year and catapulted the book into the center of the nationwide book-ban debate.

Other Jewish books that have been rescued from district-wide book removals include The Fixer in South Carolina and Anne Frank’s Diary: The Graphic Adaptation in Texas, though other districts in Florida have permanently removed the Anne Frank adaptation as well as a Holocaust novel by Jodi Picoult and a picture book about Purim featuring a same-sex couple. (JTA)

Jewish Federations of North America respond to Israel’s judicial reform vote

In response to the Knesset’s vote earlier today (July 24, 2023) on the Reasonableness Law, Jewish Federations of North America issued the following statement:

“The Jewish Federations of North America are deeply pained over the growing polarization we have witnessed in Israeli society as a result of the judicial reform process. We are also extremely disappointed that the leaders of the coalition moved ahead with a major element of the reforms without a process of consensus, despite the serious disagreements across Israeli society and the efforts of President Herzog to arrive at a compromise.

“Our everlasting love for and commitment to the Jewish State and people of Israel transcend any policy or government action. It is clear that the work of building our Jewish State continues, and the Jewish Federation system renews and affirms its commitment to this work. We will continue to support the organizations and individuals who are helping to unite Israelis and to build the institutions of civil society that will allow the diverse populations of Israel and global Jewry to live together in peace and harmony and to resolve our differences respectfully.

“We urge the coalition leaders to suspend any further unilateral changes to the judicial reforms, and urge all parties to return to negotiations under the auspices of President Herzog.”

Julie Platt, chair, Board of Trustees

Eric Fingerhut, president & CEO Jewish Federations of North America

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FIRST PERSON

Protests in Israel – A family affair?

Liz Dovrat

On Saturday, July 29, I took my seven-year-old twin daughters to the large Gome Junction protest, the northernmost protest against the judicial reforms in Israel.

These protests have been occurring for 30 weeks in a row at junctions and in cities across Israel. Since the beginning, I have disagreed with the current government’s attempts to weaken Israel’s judicial branch. My American civics education, along with my Jewish upbringing in justice and Tikkun Olam, instilled a firm belief in democracy and the need for the balance of power in a functioning democracy. To be honest, I haven’t attended protests regularly, but this past week, with the passage of a basic law that removed the high court’s ability to strike down laws based on “reasonableness,” I felt the need to put my beliefs into action.

But why take seven-year-old children? As a parent, I believe it is my job to explain what is happening in the world to my children in an age-appropriate manner, whether it is where babies come from or why we cannot go to Lebanon (despite seeing the border from our kibbutz). I would rather my children hear about issues affecting our lives from my husband and myself, not only from the outside world. This has led to multiple explanations about why there are protests and protest signs around our kibbutz. It has even included a lesson about Israel’s multi-party election system in contrast to the USA’s two-party system, demonstrated with Lego figures (yes, I probably went too far down the rabbit hole with that one). I believe I need to expose my children to these concepts in ways they can comprehend, not just discuss them. I can also thank my neighbors for leading by example, because they have been actively involved in the protest movement from the beginning with similarly aged children. Watching my neighbors gave me the strength to act on my values.

So, what was the experience like for my daughters and myself? First, I will admit that I’m not a huge fan of crowds and panic at the thought of finding parking in a small, crowded location (this has prevented me from attending previous protests). Luckily, the protest organizers sent through WhatsApp a map of where to park and we easily found a spot. While walking to the protest, we saw people of all ages standing on all the corners and median of the junction. There were young parents who were wearing their babies, older adults sitting on stools, kids, college students, teenagers, and more. My daughters were handed noise

makers (which we hid the next morning) and bumper stickers. There was a children’s corner with face painting and markers to decorate flags. My daughters loved getting their faces painted with Israeli flags (this was probably the highlight for them). Along one side of the road, multiple tables were set up selling T-shirts with slogans like “Resist” and “Freedom in our Land.” I relented to my daughters’ requests for a T-shirt and purchased an oversized one for each.

The protest itself consisted of lots of noise, chanting, flag waving, periodic blocking of traffic (one lane each time for approximately 10 minutes), and three short speeches. The speech that touched me the most was delivered by our neighbor, Chen, a child psychologist. I think my daughters also were impacted by this speech, because it was given by someone they know well (he is the father of their friend and they have known him since they were babies). Chen explained that one of the first words children learn to say is “no,” which marks the beginning of a long process of developing independence. To help their children develop into emotionally healthy adults, parents must learn to negotiate with their children’s “no” – when to give in and when to explain why they disagree with them. The “no” turns to rebellion when children feel unheard, mistreated, and disrespected. Chen continued by comparing this process to the current protests against the government. The protesters feel their “no” to judicial reform is being purposefully ignored by the government, just like rebellious children whose “no” is not respected. Chen concluded by encouraging the crowd to continue rebelling until their voices are heard.

The protest ended after an hour or so and my daughters and I were ready to go home. The crowd was a little overwhelming for us and it was getting close to their bedtime. However, we agreed we would go together again the following week. As I tell my children regularly, I am lucky to be their mom and I’m lucky that I could share this experience with them. I hope it has made an impression on my daughters beyond getting their faces painted, but only time will tell. For myself, I felt that I was living my values and providing my children an opportunity to see how one can protest peacefully, respectfully, and powerfully.

Liz Dovrat is the daughter of Barbara Dudley, Jewish Community Relations Council chair. She has written previously for Jewish News on life in Israel with her family.

Liz Dovrat with her daughters at the protest.

UKRAINE

Hillel center in Odessa, Ukraine, damaged by Russian strike

Andrew Lapin

(JTA) — A Russian missile strike caused “significant damage” to Hillel International’s offices in Odessa, Ukraine last month, the organization said.

It was the second time a Hillel building in Ukraine was damaged by Russian fire since the start of the war last year. Its chapter in Kharkiv was destroyed by Russian shelling last year.

The international Jewish life organization, which operates on college campuses and supports young adult non-students in some places, including Ukraine, shared news of the damage on social media. It said the missile had destroyed the office’s door and windows, and that the ceiling collapsed, but that no one was in the building at the time.

“I do hope we will be able to restore programs as soon as possible,” Osik Akselrud, director of Hillel’s Central Asia and Southeastern Europe regions, said in a statement. Hillel also shared a brief video appearing to show a construction crane already present on the scene working to repair the damage.

One day before the bombing, Hillel Odessa shared photos of its recent Havdalah activity, a post-Shabbat celebration in which students imagined a “Jewish city of the future.”

Hillel Kharkiv — which last year mourned the death in combat of a Ukrainian Jew who had been active there — has continued offering active programming in the past year, and recently celebrated Lag b’Omer. Hillel operates several centers in Ukraine with the support of Jewish philanthropies including the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee and Schusterman Family Philanthropies. It also operates in eight Russian cities.

Ukraine president Volodomyr Zelensky, who is Jewish, has at times used the threat of damage to Ukrainian Jewish sites to rally world Jews to the war effort. But as at other times when Jewish sites have suffered damage, the most recent bombardment in Odessa appeared to be indiscriminate and damaged other Ukrainian historic sites.

One person was killed during the most recent strike in the city, which before the Holocaust was one of the largest Jewish population centers in the world.

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After pivotal judicial reform vote, US Jewish groups unleash their newfound voices on Israeli domestic policy

Ron Kampeas

WASHINGTON (JTA) — For months earlier this year, mainstream American Jewish groups waffled on how much to weigh in on Israel’s internal political debates, something many had studiously avoided in the past.

But that felt like a distant memory on Monday, July 24, after Israel’s parliament approved a law that its authors and critics — including many of those American Jewish groups — alike said would reshape the country.

Reactions poured in immediately, many of them deeply critical of what Israel’s right-wing

government had just done in signing off on a law that diminishes the power of the Supreme Court to review government decisions.

The American Jewish Committee had a statement ready to go as soon as the law passed expressing “profound disappointment” over the passage of the law which removes from the courts the right to judge laws against a standard of reasonableness.

“The new law was pushed through unilaterally by the governing coalition amid deepening divisions in Israeli society as evidenced by the hundreds of thousands of Israelis

who have taken to the streets,” the AJC said.

The AntiDefamation League soon followed. “This initiative and other judicial overhaul proposals could weaken Israeli democracy and harm Israel’s founding principles as laid out in the Declaration of Independence,” its statement said.

The Jewish Federations of North America said it was “extremely disappointed that the leaders of the coalition moved ahead with a major element of the reforms without a process of consensus, despite the serious disagreements across Israeli society and the efforts of President

The ADL, the AJC and the JFNA, like President Joe Biden did in a statement, urged the Israeli government and its opposition to continue to seek a compromise even in the wake of the passage of the momentous law. Groups to their left, including the Reform movement, urged American Jews to step up the pressure on Israel to make changes, and J Street said the Biden administration had a role in leveraging that pressure. The Conservative movement said that the passage of the law “represents a clear and present danger to the country’s independent judiciary, which may still come under further assault.”

The force of the pronouncements shows how much has changed since as recently as March when some of the same legacy organizations were struggling with how far to go in objecting as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appeared ready to ram a package of judicial legislation through with alacrity. A bid in March to come up with a statement uniting all the legacy Jewish groups nearly collapsed amidst last minute changes.

Speaking out forcefully against an Israeli government has never been a happy place for the legacy groups. For decades, their doctrine had been to let Israelis decide what’s best for them unless it directly impacted Diaspora Jewish communities. The yearslong battle over organized non-Orthodox worship at the Western Wall was one of the exceptions that proved the rule.

But in recent months, the reluctance to speak out changed, and not just because weakening the courts undermines the branch of Israeli government that has protected the non-Orthodox. American Jews, rattled by perceived antidemocratic tendencies at home, seem more attuned to the threat the same tendencies pose in Israel, according to a poll last month by the Jewish Electorate Institute. It showed pluralities

[Isaac] Herzog to arrive at a compromise.”

ISRAEL

of U.S. Jewish voters concerned about erosions of democracy in both countries.

“This is our fight too – and the vast majority of American Jews believe in a Jewish, democratic Israel that lives up to its founding values of equality, freedom, and justice for all,” said Amy Spitalnick, CEO of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, a national public policy group, in a statement on July 24.

The Israel Policy Forum, a group with deep roots in the American Jewish establishment that advocates for a two-state outcome to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, said the changes in the law risk alienating the Diaspora.

approved last month.

“What’s unreasonable to one is reasonable to another,” said Mort Klein, president of the Zionist Organization America, in a statement praising the new law. “This is an absurd basis and power the Supreme Court has arrogated to itself, which is nothing short of judicial tyranny and judicial dictatorship.”

The Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations maintains under its umbrella groups as diverse as ZOA and the Reform movement. It sounded alarm without weighing in on the specifics of the legislation.

“We must remember the dangers that discord and division can pose to the Jewish people,” the group said in a statement. “We call on Israel’s leaders to seek compromise and unity. Responsible political actors must ease tensions that have run dangerously high.”

“This move is particularly dismaying to many American Jews, who support Israeli democracy and will now have a more difficult time identifying with Israel and defending it from those who seek to demonize it, leaving Israel today more of a state exclusively for Israeli Jews and less of a state for Jews around the world,” it said.

Liberal American Jews, who have taken the lead in the past in protecting the rights of women and the LGBTQ community, have raised alarms about pledges by some of Netanyahu’s coalition partners to diminish the rights of both sectors.

“The Israeli LGBTQ community has been protesting these proposals for months because it is the Supreme Court that has helped to safeguard the civil rights of all Israelis, including the LGBTQ community,” said a fundraising appeal emailed after the vote from A Wider Bridge, a group that has advocated for Israel in the American LGBTQ community.

Not all U.S. Jewish groups expressed dismay. Some groups on the right praised the enactment into law of the “reasonableness” bill, the piece of the legislation

The American Israel Public Affairs Committee declined to comment on the legislation. Democratic Majority for Israel, a pro-Israel advocacy group within the Democratic Party that often reflects policies close to those of AIPAC, took a cautious approach.

“While we believe it was a serious mistake for this government to ignore the pleading of the majority of its citizens, as well as its president, and pass this bill without significant compromise, it was done democratically,” it said in a statement.

“As in any democracy, including the United States, governments are empowered to make decisions however disappointing or unwise we may believe them to be.”

Nathan Diament, who directs the Washington office of the Orthodox Union, told the New York Times that his community generally favored the legislation, but feared the repercussions of its passage.

“There are many people in the American Orthodox community whose view on the substance is sympathetic or supportive to the reforms,” he said, “but nonetheless are worried about the divisiveness that the process has caused.”

After synagogue gunman’s death sentence, Pittsburgh’s Jews feel relief, resilience — and gratitude

Ron Kampeas

PITTSBURGH (JTA) — The overriding feeling in this city now that the gunman convicted of murdering 11 Jews here in 2018 has been sentenced to death, is gratitude.

Not for the penalty itself, which was the preference of some but not all the victims’ families and which some local Jews openly opposed, and not even for the end of a trial, whose long delay protracted communal trauma.

Instead, the gratitude is for people — those who made the trial happen, those who supported the victims’ family members as they sat through weeks of painful testimony, and those who kept the singular Jewish community thriving even when so much had been lost.

Jeffrey Myers, the rabbi of the Tree of Life congregation, which was housed in the synagogue the gunman attacked, opened a press conference at the Jewish community center in the Squirrel Hill neighborhood with a prayer of thanks.

Dozens of family members and survivors of the attack joined him as he recited the Shehecheyanu prayer in Hebrew, then translated it for the media. The prayer, he said, thanks God, “who has kept us alive, sustained us, and enabled us to reach this stage.”

There was palpable relief. “The only thing positive about the sentencing of a criminal is that this long slog is over,” said Audrey Glickman, who hid in the synagogue on the day of the attack.

Myers, who during the trial recalled

praying as he waited for the gunman to kill him, thanked the Pittsburgh community, the prosecution, the first responders for what he said was the “embrace” they conferred on the Jewish community since the attack on Oct. 27, 2018.

Wednesday, August 2, he noted, was Tu B’Av, the Jewish calendar day marking rituals of courtship and love.

“I don’t believe in coincidences. It was meant to be today,” he said of the end of the trial. “Why today? Because today we received an immense embrace from the halls of justice around all of us, to say that our government does not condone antisemitism in the vile form that we witnessed, and that we were embraced by a system that supported and nurtured us and upheld us.”

Survivors and family members stepped up to the microphone, some with notes, some not, and expressed thanks to law enforcement, to the prosecutors, to others who rushed to their assistance after the attack and who nurtured them in the years since.

“I want to take the time to thank all of those people that were part of the jury, the court system, our local community here, the massive support structure and staff and police taking care of us,” said Howard Fienberg, whose mother Joyce was one of the 11 murdered. “And I especially want to thank the prosecution team for their steadfast focus on this capital crime as an antisemitic act as a frontal assault on the constitutional freedom of religion, and the freedom to be Jewish and practice Judaism in the United States.”

In the hall, the JCC maintained its suburban rhythms: Parents picked toddlers up from daycare and members headed to the gym. Outside the building, one of the most consequential trials in Jewish history barely resonated; the main topic of conversation in a diner nearby was the summer blockbuster Barbie, showing in the cinema across the street.

But inside at the press conference, survivor after survivor, family member after family member, expressed thanks in great detail: to the police, the FBI, prosecutors,

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the social workers, the restaurants that had fed the stunned and traumatized in the weeks after the killing and throughout the trial.

They also emphasized the importance of keeping the victims at the center of the story about what happened in Pittsburgh. In addition to Joyce Fienberg, the people who were killed were Richard Gottfried, Rose Mallinger, Jerry Rabinowitz, Cecil Rosenthal, David Rosenthal, Bernice Simon, Sylvan Simon, Daniel Stein, Melvin Wax, and Irving Younger.

It was a showing typical of a Jewish community that had always been tightknit and became more so in the wake of the attack. Squirrel Hill, in the eastern part of Pittsburgh, has been the center of the city’s Jewish life since the turn of the 20th century, when wealthy Jewish families began settling there. While Jewish communities in other cities moved neighborhoods or migrated to the suburbs in the ensuing century, Squirrel Hill remained the home of Pittsburgh’s Jews. The neighborhood is home to multiple Jewish day schools, kosher restaurants, and a Holocaust museum — as well as about 15,000 Jews from all denominations.

Members of the three congregations housed in the synagogue building — Tree of Life, New Light, and Dor Hadash — spoke to the press only after clearing it first with a public relations firm the community hired. Volunteers and staffers for the 10.27 Healing Partnership, an organization launched in the wake of the massacre, sat with the survivors and family members in interviews, ready to intervene, they explained to reporters, if a question was too triggering.

Howard Fienberg, whose mother was a Tree of Life member, said the three congregations were friendly but not deeply involved with one another before the attack. Now that they had been brought together by tragedy and its aftermath, he found meaning in their closeness.

“I didn’t understand what Reconstructionism was like,” Fienberg said about the Jewish movement with which Dor Hadash is affiliated. “They were those guys down the hall for years.”

Now he said, he was more inclined to see what brings Jews together, and not

what divides them. “There’s a reason that they were all in the same space,” he said. “And it wasn’t just happenstance. They’re all Jewish, right?”

The comments at the press conference were reflected in countless statements from community members and local organizations that expressed thanks, memorialized the victims, and committed to sustaining Jewish community.

“As this chapter comes to a close, we reflect on the strength and resilience of Pittsburgh’s Jewish community and the entire community,” the local Jewish federation said in its statement. “In the wake of the horrors of the worst antisemitic attack in U.S. history, our community neither retreated from participating in Jewish life nor suppressed our Jewishness. Instead, our community embraced our Jewish values — strengthening Jewish life, supporting those in need, and building a safer, more inclusive world.”

The divisions that do exist simmered beneath the surface on August 2. There had been differences among the families and the congregations about whether the death penalty was appropriate; a small contingent of local Jews who cited Jewish laws saying that the death penalty should be rare in the extreme organized. Of the nine families, the family of at least one of the victims, Jerry Rabinowitz, objected to the death penalty; seven other families were in favor of it.

Speakers at the press conference who did address the ultimate penalty were in favor of it.

“Even if he sits alive on death row for decades, he is separated from others,” said Glickman.

“Had he been sentenced to life in prison … he would have been afforded an increasing ability to communicate and play with others and the chance of working his way out of any high-security situation,” she added. “This has been a step in the right direction.”

The New Light congregation said in a statement that it “accepts the jury’s decision and believes that, as a society, we need to take a stand that this act requires the ultimate penalty under the law.” Notably, its rabbi, Jonathan Perlman, wrote to the U.S. attorney general to say he opposed the death penalty.

David Harris, a professor at the University of Pittsburgh law school, said differences about the death penalty persist but have not had an effect on the sense of mutual solidarity.

“There’s still a lot of really active conversations up to and including today that I’m having with people about, well, ‘I think he should get this,’ the death penalty or a life sentence,” Harris, who has walked

members of the community through the trial’s legal thicket as a service of the 10.27 Healing Partnership, said in an interview.

“But even though the community is not of one mind, we don’t have one universal opinion, we are united in supporting each other,” he said. “We are united in wanting this horrible thing to go right and be over and to say we did our best to support those who have been injured.”

Local Relationships Matter

As the Chief Executive Officer at the Peninsula Foodbank, she believes the Foodbank not only distributes food but is also the spokesperson for those who otherwise don’t have a voice.

“There are so many low income individuals who haven’t received any benefit from the recovering economy and those who because of their life circumstances need help every now and then. We are there to help ensure their voices are heard.”

“Since 2004, when I started with the Foodbank and got to know Payday Payroll, I have always felt that Payday has been involved and helped to build it’s business through positive support for others in the community, both non-profits and start up businesses. I particularly appreciate the generosity that Payday has shown to the nonprofits in our community.”

MEET: Karen Joyner

Barbie Jewish?

The complex Jewish history of the doll, explained

Shira Li Bartov

(JTA) — Long before the craze over the blockbuster Barbie movie, most people could conjure an image of the doll: She was the beauty standard and the popular girl, a perky, white, ever-smiling brand of Americana.

She was also the child of a hard-nosed Jewish businesswoman, Ruth Handler, whose family fled impoverishment and antisemitism in Poland. And some see the original Barbie as Jewish like Handler, a complex symbol of assimilation in the mid20th-century United States.

The doll’s latest revival comes in Greta Gerwig’s Barbie movie, written by Gerwig and Noah Baumbach and featuring a star-studded cast, including Margot Robbie as Barbie, Ryan Gosling as Ken, and Will

Ferrell as a fictional CEO of Mattel. But this in-crowd doll was born from an outsider. Here’s its Jewish history.

The origin story

Ruth Handler was born in 1916 in Denver, Colorado, the youngest of 10 children. Her father, Jacob Moskowitz (later changed to Mosko) had escaped conscription in the Russian army like many Jews at the turn of the century and landed in the United States in 1907. Her mother Ida, who was illiterate, arrived the next year in the steerage section of a steamboat. Jacob was a blacksmith and moved the family to Denver, where new railroads were being built.

Ida was sickly by the time she gave birth to Ruth, so the baby was sent to live with her older sister Sarah. It was

in Sarah’s Jewish community of Denver, when Ruth was 16 years old, that she met Izzy Handler at a Jewish youth dance, according to Robin Gerber, a biographer who wrote Barbie and Ruth: The Story of the World’s Most Famous Doll and the Woman Who Created Her. She fell in love immediately with Izzy, a penniless art student wearing a torn t-shirt.

At age 19, Ruth decided to drop out of the University of Denver and move to Los Angeles, where she found a job as a secretary at Paramount Studios. Izzy soon followed her.

“As they drove across the country, she asked him to change his name to Elliot,” said Gerber. “She had felt the antisemitism at that time, in the 1930s, and she really felt that they’d be better off with a more

Americanized name.”

The couple never renounced their Judaism. On the contrary, they eventually helped found Temple Isaiah in Los Angeles and became longtime contributors to the United Jewish Appeal. But Ruth was pragmatic, and she would not forget how police officers had stopped her car in Denver to make antisemitic remarks.

Against the pleadings of her family, who knew Elliot was poor, Ruth married him in 1938. She continued working at Paramount, while he enrolled at the Art Center College of Design and took a job designing light fixtures — but they quickly became collaborators. Elliot began making pieces from Lucite in their garage, such as bookends and ashtrays, and Ruth was thrilled to sell them. They were

ARTS & CULTURE

complementary business partners: Elliott was a quiet creative who shied away from ordering in a restaurant, while Ruth was vivacious and unafraid, a risk-taker who said her first sale felt like “taking a drug,” according to Gerber.

World War II challenged their business, as President Franklin Roosevelt restricted plastics to military use. Together with their friend Harold “Matt” Matson, the Handlers pivoted to making wooden picture frames and dollhouse furniture. They found success and named their company Mattel, a combination of Matt and Elliot’s names.

In 1946, Matson sold his share and Ruth Handler became the first president of Mattel. The company soon branched into toys, including a child-sized ukulele called the Uke-A-Doodle, a Jack-in-the-Box and toy guns. Since the design department was entirely male, many of its early toys targeted little boys.

One day, while watching her daughter Barbara — who would become Barbie’s namesake — Ruth had a new idea. She observed that Barbara and her friends were playing with paper dolls and pretending to be adult women. In the 1950s, the only dolls on the market were baby dolls, presuming that girls wanted to play at being mothers. But Barbara and her friends wanted to play being the dolls.

On a family trip to Switzerland in 1956, she spotted a curvaceous adult doll called Bild Lilli. This toy, based on a seductive comic strip character in the German tabloid Bild, was designed as a sexual gag gift for men. Ruth saw her as a blueprint for Barbie.

An adult female doll for children was so novel that Mattel’s designers and even Ruth’s husband dismissed the idea, saying that mothers would never buy their daughters a doll with breasts. Ruth kept pushing until the first Barbie, decked in a black-andwhite swimsuit and heels, debuted at New York’s Toy Fair in 1959.

Sure enough, plenty of mothers said the doll was too sexual — but their daughters loved it. Ruth communicated directly with children by bringing Mattel to television, making it the first toy company to advertise on Disney’s Mickey Mouse Club

“She completely shifted the way we buy toys,” said Gerber. “Up to that point, children only saw toys when their parents handed them a catalog. But when toys came

to ads on television, then kids were running to their parents and saying, ‘I want that thing on TV.’”

Mattel sold 350,000 Barbies in its first year. Striving to keep up with demand, the company released her boyfriend in 1961 and named him after the Handlers’ son, Kenneth.

Feminist? Sexist?

Assimilationist? Jewish?

Barbie’s rail-thin figure sparked backlash from feminists in the 1970s. “I am not a Barbie doll!” became a chant for marchers at the 1970 Women’s Strike for Equality in New York. Advocacy groups such as the South Shore Eating Disorders Collaborative have said that if Barbie were a real woman, her proportions would force her to walk on all fours and she would not have enough body fat to menstruate. Gloria Steinem said, “She was everything we didn’t want to be.”

Handler said that Barbie represented possibilities for women. Women could not open a credit card in their own name until

1974, but Barbie could buy any outfit to fit any career. Her fashion represented the future: Astronaut Barbie came out in 1965, four years before Neil Armstrong walked on the moon and 18 years before Sally Ride became the first American woman in space. Ken may be Barbie’s boyfriend, but in more than 60 years, she has not married or had children.

In Ruth’s memoir Dream Doll: The Ruth Handler Story, she wrote, “Barbie has always represented the fact that a woman has choices. Even in her early years Barbie did not have to settle for being only Ken’s girlfriend or an inveterate shopper. She had the clothes, for example, to launch a career as a nurse, a stewardess, a nightclub singer.”

But years before the feminist discussion, the question of how American Jews could or could not relate to Barbie said a lot about their place in the United States at the time. Handler created Barbie in 1959, when many Jews were wrestling with the concept of assimilation. Suddenly, like so many others, they were moving to suburban, white-picket

fence America — Barbie territory.

So, much like the iconic fashion of Ralph Lauren, a Jewish designer who changed his last name from Lifshitz, or the Christmas Carols of Irving Berlin, a Russian Jewish immigrant born Israel Beilin, Barbie would paradoxically become core to the American ideal that Jews were seen to assimilate into.

But was the original Barbie actually Jewish herself? Susan Shapiro, the best-selling author of Barbie: 60 Years of Inspiration, thinks so.

“I think Ruth just assumed that Barbie reflects her, in a certain way,” Shapiro told Kveller in 2019. “Barbie was supposed to be all-American, and I think Ruth really considered herself to be very assimilated in America. But she did face antisemitism at Paramount Pictures, and her family fled Europe because of antisemitism.”

The doll doesn’t fit the rubric of stereotypes about Ashkenazi appearance — after all, her first form copied a German sex doll that “looks very goyishe,” said Gerber.

206 85TH STREET #A

FIRST PERSON

A targeted civil rights tour

Elena Barr Baum

When I booked my flights for the 2018 Association of Holocaust Organizations conference held in Mobile, Ala., I did not think about extending my trip to visit the then brand-new National Memorial for Peace and Justice in Montgomery, a two-hour drive north. I vowed that I would make it back one day, and this summer I embarked on that journey.

In June, I joined The March Down Freedom’s Road with a group of educators, sponsored by Classrooms Without Borders, a wonderful educational organization based in Pittsburgh. The goal was to visit as many important civil rights sites as we could in a week, so the educators would take important firsthand experiences, insight, and new materials back to their classrooms and students.

As with my trip to Poland last summer, it was an honor to share the educational experiences with those who are dedicated to sharing REAL history’s lessons with tomorrow’s leaders. (Ironically, I was in Alabama during the last tense Virginia Beach School Board meeting that debated banning certain “explicit” books from school libraries, a battle that Holocaust Commission members and concerned citizens had been fighting for months. Luckily, after much community effort, the measure that would have removed The Diary of Anne Frank from libraries was defeated by one vote.)

Woolworth’s

We started at the intimate museum located in the former Woolworth’s department store in Greensboro, N.C., and examined some public art addressing the strides made in the civil rights movement there. We had the first of many discussions throughout the trip about historic markers. We always looked at who erected them and when, and what their true message, and audience, was intended to be. Sometimes it was history, and sometimes it was a combination of “spin” and intimidation, depending on the creator.

Next stop: Atlanta

We rose early for a 7 am departure. The parallels and contrasts to the era we were there to study, and the Freedom Rides of 1961, were obvious. Back then, racially mixed groups from “the North” risked their lives to ride buses through the segregated South, from Washington, DC to New Orleans, not knowing what awaited them along the way. As they disembarked at station after station to test

whether the new federal non-segregation laws were being enforced in Southern states, they were met with at best suspicion and derision, and at worst, murderous intent towards their peaceful, justice-seeking goals.

Meanwhile, our racially diverse group from “the North” boarded a well-appointed, air-conditioned bus, having stayed in the same hotel and eaten the same breakfast in the same dining room. Unlike Freedom Riders headed into the unknown, we all had our phones, so we could keep abreast of anything, from weather to restaurants (where all of us could be served) to historical documents and videos about the era offered to us by our traveling scholars.

In Atlanta at the National Center for Civil and Human Rights, we had a much different “museum experience” than we did in Greensboro. At the former smalltown Woolworth’s, our group was taken around by a local guide through each exhibit, culminating with our entry into “the lunch counter,” where in 1960, four North Carolina A&T State University students dared to sit down and ask to purchase cups of coffee. By contrast, in the three-story, state-of-the-art museum in Atlanta’s Centennial Park complex, tours were self-guided through the twofloor Civil Rights Era exhibit and the Human Rights exhibit into which it morphed, moving past the 50s and 60s into how the global concept of Human Rights grew out of that time. The museums have very different constituencies, donors, and budgets, so they look at the era from different angles.

That night we had a true Southern dinner at Mary Mac’s Tea House, the last of 46 “Tea Houses” opened by women after World War II in Atlanta, with Freedom Rider Charles Person. At 80 years old, Person told us in riveting and sharp detail about his nonviolence training, and of his fateful Freedom Ride in May, 1961. He was on the Trailways bus accompanying the famous Greyhound that was firebombed in Anniston, Ala. He was subsequently, with his fellow Freedom Riders, “stranded” in Birmingham when no drivers would take them to New Orleans. Almost killed by the mob there, he was saved by a photographer’s flash stunning his attacker, and then aided by a city bus driver who directed him “across the tracks,” where he called Reverend Abernathy for help.

These are the stories of which adventure films are made. His soft manner and gentle determination to teach youth not to hate reminded me of Holocaust survivor David Katz, who told those listening to him that he did not hate. Person said he has a standing invitation to the surviving men who beat him within an inch of his life to come meet with him now, and talk to him about that day, so they can all find closure. Not surprisingly, none have called.

Montgomery

Heading west into Alabama the next day, our first stop was Montgomery. Though it is the state capital, it seemed a ghost town. Perhaps it was the summer heat, but the streets were largely empty, of both cars and pedestrians. We walked from the fountain-centered traffic circle that used to be a slave auction site, up the main street past the first church that Martin Luther King Jr. pastored, to the Capitol building, perched majestically on a hill amid grounds designed by famed landscape architect Frederic Law Olmstead. Flanking the monumental staircase were two statues: one of Confederate President Jefferson Davis and one of Dr. J. Marion Sims, the so-called “Father of Modern Gynecology.” Sims made his reputation experimenting on enslaved black women without their consent or anesthesia. Honestly, it was hard to have respect for an institution that would choose these two people for its most honored spaces.

We later visited the More Up Campus, founded by African American artist and activist Michelle Browder, which housed her monumental sculpture honoring three of the women on whom Sims experimented, after their (first) names were discovered through research: Anarcha, Betsey, and Lucy. Were they honored at the state capital? No. But at least they were honored, by Browder, by us, and now by you, for learning their stories.

I could have spent a full day in the Legacy Museum: From Slavery to Incarceration, which opened in 2021. But the three hours I spent there were powerful and eyeopening. The varied exhibits were personal yet global at the same time, from the opening room that put you on an over-crowded slave ship in choppy Atlantic waters, reading the poetry of Maya Angelou, through what life was like as an African American through slavery, Reconstruction, Jim Crow, the Civil Rights era, the subsequent school-to

Nobody is free until everybody is free.

Fannie Lou Hamer

Jo Ann Bland and Elena Barr Baum.

prison-pipeline, and the continued fight for recognition and voice in American society. Photos are not allowed in the museum, and cell phone use is prohibited. Like many memorial museums, the experience feels almost holy for its quiet contemplation, as I often shook my head in pained disbelief, until the tears fell from my eyes at what my country had done to so many of its people.

This is the museum associated with the National Memorial for Peace and Justice, known to many as the Lynching Memorial, that I had waited five years to see. As our timed entry approached, so did ominous clouds. Unfortunately, my long-anticipated visit to this memorial, whose hanging blocks I had wanted to compare physically to the massive stones of the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe in the heart of Berlin, was pre-empted by a severe thunderstorm and tornado warning that closed the outdoor memorial for the day. We had to keep on our own March Down Freedom’s Road, so my visit there will have to wait.

Selma

In Selma we found another “ghost town,” and toured a hometown museum, this time the National Voting Rights Museum and Institute. Don’t let the grand name fool you. This organization, located in a small one-story building at the foot of the infamous Edmund Pettus Bridge, is operated by only a handful of dedicated employees. Yet there we saw original photos from the police photographer on Bloody Sunday, donated decades later. There we learned about the “Courageous 8,” all leaders of the Dallas County Voters League. These African American citizens (four of whom were women, who are often left out of the discussions and honors of the Movement), planned and organized for years to meet the moment, and inspired others not to back down.

I also learned that in 1901 the Alabama Constitution was re-written to keep blacks and poor whites from unifying, undermining their right to vote. These are things that will no doubt not be taught in schools in the current climate of “antiwokeness.” Except perhaps in some schools in Pittsburgh…

We stopped at a local sandwich shop for lunch, and while waiting for our orders, a couple at a table along the wall asked about our large, clearly tourist group. We struck up a conversation with James Moore and his wife and learned that he had marched as a teen on Bloody Sunday. We had literally stumbled across a “survivor!” He told us about his experiences during the aborted march that turned violent that day, and on the protected march days later all the way to Montgomery, while his wife chided him. “James, that story gets better every time you tell it!”

After lunch we heard from Jo Ann Bland, one of the youngest marchers that fateful day, who unlike James, often

meets with groups to share her story. Like listening to a Holocaust survivor, hearing from a witness to our country’s more sordid history is powerful and sobering. Bland shared the struggles of her life growing up black in Alabama in the 1950s and 60s, and the activism that led her to be arrested and jailed as a girl several times at sit-ins for voting rights even before the Selma to Montgomery march. She got into a lot of “good trouble.” Her message, like that of the few remaining Holocaust survivors still sharing their stories today: the fight for justice and freedom isn’t over.

This was clear when we visited a beautifully manicured Confederate cemetery, complete with hundreds of fresh Confederate flags, maintained by the Daughters of the Confederacy and like-minded groups, nestled in an African American neighborhood. We all felt indignant that it even existed, but as with some pogrom sites in Poland, we just took in the information, and were glad to leave the place.

While in Selma we took our own march across the Pettus bridge, which still carries the name of a slaveholding Confederate general. At its foot on the other side, 40 yards from where the late Congressman John Lewis received a concussion from the blow of a state trooper’s Billy club, we held a memorial service. As I did at sites of mass atrocities in Poland last summer, I said kaddish for the victims of the violence of the era.

Birmingham

In Birmingham (known at the time as “Bombingham” for the number of white supremacist and KKK explosions targeting black citizens), we heard a firsthand account from Rev. Carolyn McKinstry, a survivor of the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing, which killed four girls in 1963. She inspired us as we continued our journey to Memphis, including

the museum that encompasses the Lorraine Motel, where Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated on April 4, 1968. Like standing in a concentration camp or at Ground Zero in New York, the feeling of being in the place where innocents were slaughtered is other-worldly.

Learn and act

It is one thing to know about these sites, but it is another to be in them, to breathe the air and walk the ground where tragic history was made, and then make the connections to the history of our country as it is currently unfolding, particularly in the Southern states we were traversing. Hard won rights are being walked back as today’s freedom fighters continue to struggle for equality and representation.

In Alabama last month, the state legislature passed legislation in direct contradiction to a Supreme Court ruling to redistrict the state to give Black voters a majority in just a second of its nine Congressional districts, even though African Americans make up 40% of the state’s population. Is this democracy?

Scholar Michael Naragon summed up the trip’s purpose: “Now that you have learned something, you are obligated to do something with the history you have learned.”

The March continues. We must all dedicate ourselves to learning and teaching the true history of our country.

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William* and Carole

Bernstein EZRA Annuity

Abraham and Malka

Bornstein* Memorial Fund

Julian Colby* Memorial

Unrestricted Fund

Bessie Dozoretz*

Scholarship Fund

Ronald Dozoretz*

Scholarship Fund

Rosa K. Frieden* Memorial

Unrestricted Fund

Tavia and Freda Gordon*

Scholarship Fund

HAT Supporting

Unrestricted Fund

Hebrew Academy

Scholarship Fund

Development Restricted Fund

Reba and Samuel Sandler* Memorial Fund of HAT

Segaloff Family JFN/PEJE Fund

Sarah and Samuel Sonnenberg* Memorial Fund

Harold and Reva Sprung* Technology Endowment Fund

Celia Stern* Fund of HAT Teachers’ Endowment Fund

Solomon and Sylvia Yavner* Fund

GIFTS IN KIND

Allegra FootPrint Fund

Charles Barker Automotive – Nathan Drory

Poole Brooke Plumlee PC

Rashkind Family

Foundation

Remedy Intelligent Staffing

Audrey & Henry Rhone, Sr.

Lavette Ricks

Kelly & Jason Rippard

Nettie Rosenbaum

Eilene Rosenblum

Rebecca & Jeremy Ruberg

SJ Plastic Surgery

W. C. Goldberg & Company, PC

Ellen & Bill Wagner

Irina & Levi Washburn

Sharon & Mike Wasserberg

Harry & Miriam Weisberg*

Family Restricted fund

Williams Mullen

Foundation – Larry Siegel

Brooke & Matthew Wilson

Aly & Michael Yaary

Sharon Hurwitz

Sara & Zach Hutchings

Deneen Jones

Jessica Friend & Sukwon

Jung

Alene Jo & Ronald Kaufman

Dawn & Jack Kaye

Ekaterina & Michael

Kerzner

Morgan Stroyeck & Adam

Knop

Veronica & Ricarde Samonte

Chelsie Sedillo

Abigail Seeman

Isabel Seeman

Rebecca & Jason Silverstein

Zach Sissel

Michael Smith

Gay & Sal Spector

Jennie & Adam Tabakin

Anita & Louis Tonelson

Lisa & Adam Walker

Zena Herod Endowment Fund

The Lester & Barbara

Horwitz* Restricted Fund

Leola Banks Jaffe*

Unrestricted Fund of HAT

Barry* and Reatha Kantor

Scholarship Fund of HAT

Carl J & Juliet A. Katz*

Unrestricted Fund

Alene Jo Kaufman Endowment Fund

Children’s Museum of Virginia

Dick’s Sporting Goods

Golf Galaxy

Golf Headquarters

Tidewater Drive Storage Center LLC

Towne InsuranceBrad Moses

Virginia Aquarium & Marine Science Center

*of blessed memory

BETH SHOLOM VILLAGE

The past informs the future of Jewish senior care in Tidewater

Amy Weinstein

Much has changed since Beth Sholom Village opened its doors in 1980, but the tradition of caring has not. Among those changes: The name of the organization changed from Beth Sholom Home of Eastern Virginia, an assisted living community was added in 2004, and services were expanded to include a rehabilitation wing, hospice care, and more. The quest for creative ways to meet seniors’ needs has never wavered, and through every turning point in Beth Sholom Village’s history, the mission has been simple: to provide the highest quality healthcare services to area seniors in need.

For 43 years, Beth Sholom Village staff have honored older adults by providing fulfilling and purposeful living, ensuring the dignity of every person served. The financial support of individual donors and the community helped bridge the gap between medical assistance and the true cost of care, ensuring all residents received the highest levels of care with the respect and dignity they deserve.

It has been because of the community’s support that Beth Sholom has been so successful for so many decades. “We are grateful to our annual supporters and legacy donors, and to those who entrusted us with caring for their loved ones,” says David Abraham, president and CEO of BSV for more than 15 years. “There is no question – Beth Sholom Village is so strong today because of the innumerable people and organizations who have sustained us throughout our journey.”

the Richmond-based Beth Sholom facility. Goldmeier and his fellow board members were bold – setting and exceeding big goals for the community.

Beth Sholom’s history in Hampton Roads is both personal and professional. For example, on September 1, 1980, Mrs. Bessie Hurst of Portsmouth became the first resident to move into the Beth Sholom Home of Eastern Virginia. In 1998, the board of directors determined that a streamlined form of governance would be best to respond to the dramatic changes taking place in the healthcare industry and separated from the Richmond organization.

As today’s board of directors look towards the future, the group recognizes that the organization and the senior healthcare industry are again at major turning points.

“This is a defining moment in Beth Sholom Village’s history, and in the writing of our future story of how we serve Jewish seniors and the greater Hampton Roads community,” says Larry Siegel, BSV chairman of the board. “It is once again thanks to our community supporters that Beth Sholom Village was so well positioned to make this change seamlessly.”

The needs of those that Beth Sholom Village has served are shifting, and in response, and to continue to honor its mission, BSV is also changing. In response to national trends that challenge the viability of stand-alone skilled care nursing facilities, Beth Sholom Village sold its skilled nursing facility as well as its assisted living center in Virginia Beach’s College Park neighborhood to Green Tree Healthcare Management, LLC of Jackson, New Jersey, effective July 1.

community have been the bedrock of the organization, through industry changes, economic ups and downs, staffing challenges, capital campaigns, and more. The community has enabled BSV to provide exceptional care and support to seniors, ensuring their well-being and happiness during their golden years.

The first campaign for support for Beth Sholom Home’s construction in the late 1970s was led by the very first president of the board, Morton “Morty” Goldmeier. Stories have been told of Goldmeier going door to door raising funds for Beth Sholom, to bring a home for Jewish elders to Tidewater – then a branch of

As baby boomers age, the senior population is poised for dramatic growth. Demand for senior housing and services, already great, will grow dramatically in the future. Today’s seniors have more active lifestyles than previous generations. At Beth Sholom Village, the Board and executive leadership recognize this paradigm shift and are encouraging aging with vitality by working towards creating transformative communities that will redefine senior living in Hampton Roads.

As BSV reflects on the incredible journey of the last 43 years of caring for Jewish seniors in Hampton Roads, it is filled with deep gratitude and immense pride. The unwavering commitment and generosity of the

As BSV embarks on this new journey, it wants the community, its valued neighbors, friends, and partners, to be part of it so it can achieve even greater heights and continue making a positive impact in the lives of countless seniors throughout the region, for decades to come.

In the coming weeks and months, BSV will share more details about Beth Sholom Village’s new initiatives and projects. A transition committee has been meeting regularly and is hard at work creating the new vision for the future of Beth Sholom Village, as well as crafting and creating what services will be offered.

The transition committee, led by Lawrence Steingold, includes Abby Friedman, Jason Hoffman, Jay Kossman, Nancy Lowenberg, Arlene Owens, Sara Jo Rubin, Larry Siegel, and Bill Wagner. It is overseen by the board of directors for Beth Sholom Village.

Beth Sholom Village continues to operate as a non-profit organization and will continue to be a strong presence within the Tidewater Jewish community and the senior healthcare community. Beth Sholom Village will be a stronger organization in the long run, better able to meet the evolving demands of the marketplace while ensuring that all Jewish and non-Jewish seniors have options to meet their housing and healthcare needs for generations to come.

Visit www.bethsholomvillage.com for contact information for David Abraham and Beth Sholom Village staff.

Amy Weinstein is director of philanthropy and marketing at Beth Sholom Village.

Ribbon cutting for Beth Sholom Village, 1980.

Ground breaking for Aviva, 2023.

GUIDE TO JEWISH LIVING IN TIDEWATER

GUIDE TO JEWISH LIVING IN TIDEWATER

JEWISH HOLIDAYS 5784

Rosh Hashanah

September 15–17, 2023, Jewish New Year

Yom Kippur

September 24–25, 2023, Day of Atonement

Sukkot

September 29–October 6, 2023, Feast of Tabernacles

Shmini Atzeret

October 6–7, 2023, Eighth Day of Assembly

Simchat Torah

October 7–8, 2023, Celebration of the Torah

Hanukkah

December 7–15, 2023, Festival of Rededication, also Festival of Lights

Tu BiShvat

January 24–25, 2024, New Year for Trees

Purim

March 23–24, 2024, Story of Esther

Pesach

April 22–30, 2024, Passover Days of the Omer

April 23–June 11, 2024, Seven weeks from the second night of Pesach to the day before Shavuot

Lag BaOmer

May 25-26, 2024, 33rd day of counting the Omer

Shavuot

June 11–13, 2024, Festival of Weeks, commemorates the giving of the Torah at Mount Sinai

Tish’a B’Av

August 12–13, 2024, The Ninth of Av, commemorates destruction of the two Temples

Tu B’Av

August 18–19, 2024, Jewish holiday of love

MODERN HOLIDAYS 5784

Yom HaShoah

May 5-6, 2024, Holocaust Memorial Day

Yom HaZikaron

May 12–13, 2024, Israeli Memorial Day

Yom HaAtzma’ut

May 13-14, 2024, Israeli Independence Day

A LEADER IN INNOVATION AND EDUCATION

OPENING IN 2024

The new Clarke+Ervin Center for Innovation and Performing Arts will provide space for creative collaboration as students explore design thinking and the interconnected worlds of science, technology, engineering, arts and math.

// ESSENTIAL ARTS

Cape Henry students gain confidence and courage through self-expression and collaboration during the artistic process. New, professional performing arts spaces include a dance studio, orchestra room and the 450-seat Kramer Family Theater.

A global perspective is embedded into classrooms from PK-12. Cape Henry provides exciting opportunities for students through academic study, cultural immersion and service learning around the world, including at our satellite campus in Spain.

THINKING FOR THE FUTURE Cape Henry prepares students for the future through professional opportunities in STEAM fields and ultramodern classroom technology, including a 3D Anatomage Table and professional engineering equipment and software.

GLOBAL EXPERIENCES

GUIDE TO JEWISH LIVING IN TIDEWATER

COMMUNITY RESOURCES

UNITED JEWISH FEDERATION OF TIDEWATER/SIMON FAMILY JEWISH COMMUNITY CENTER

Reba and Sam Sandler Family Campus of the Tidewater Jewish Community 5000 Corporate Woods Drive, Suite 200 Virginia Beach, VA 23462 757-965-6100, JewishVA.org facebook.com/UJFTidewater vimeo.com/UJFT

Linkedin.com/company/ujft/ info@UJFT.org

Executive Vice President/CEO: Betty Ann Levin, BALevin@UJFT.org

United Jewish Federation of Tidewater nurtures a dynamic, committed, inclusive, and caring Jewish community that is guided by its values and mission to support and preserve Jewish life.

Nearly 1,200 generous community members donate each year to the UJFT Community Campaign. Hundreds more directly support other programs and services provided by UJFT and Simon Family JCC, including emergency campaigns and campaigns in support of arts and education.

Funds from the Community Campaign are distributed to trusted Jewish agencies and organizations locally, nationally, and internationally, through a prioritization and allocation process. This model of communal giving assists Jewish agencies and organizations in Tidewater, in Israel, and in Jewish communities around the globe. Additional emergency campaigns meet needs directly related to specific crises — both immediate and projected. UJFT cares for those in need, aids Jews in danger, enhances Jewish life, bolsters security, fights antisemitism, promotes Israel, and builds (infrastructure and society) for future generations.

Gifts of support to the UJFT Community Campaign provide funding for local and overseas service delivery partners who provide healthcare, social services, Jewish cultural and educational programs, and initiatives that improve human relations. As a result, UJFT, part of a network of Federations across North America under the auspices of the (national) Jewish Federations of North America, impacts Jewish lives around the world.

The Simon Family Jewish Community Center (JCC) on the Reba and Sam Sandler Family Campus serves the Jewish and broader Tidewater communities— providing programs and activities for all ages—from infants to senior adults. The Simon Family JCC offers a variety of health and wellness, cultural, and event-based activities and classes. It is a division of United Jewish Federation of Tidewater. Everyone is welcome, regardless of faith.

COMMUNITY CAMPAIGN

Chief Development Officer: Amy Zelenka 757-965-6139, AZelenka@UJFT.org

UJFT runs a highly-organized community fundraising campaign each year to help meet the needs of Jews locally and in Jewish communities around the world. More than 100 local Jewish volunteers help raise funds for the Campaign in partnership with a small staff of development professionals.

Campaigners strive to engage all community members in discussions about Jewish values and concerns. In addition, the Federation seeks to provide opportunities to show donors how their support impacts beneficiaries at home and abroad, through events and missions. The Community Campaign runs from July 1 through December 31 each year.

Super Sunday — held each September — is a community Phone-a-Thon designed to “kick-off” campaign season and bring together volunteer callers, eager to engage in meaningful “Jewish conversations” with community members during a half-day of

outreach, fundraising, and community-building.

At the end of each campaign year, UJFT’s board of directors reviews and approves the allocation of funds raised during the campaign, to local Jewish agencies and organizations, pursuant to the recommendations of the UJFT Finance Committee. Additional funds are earmarked for distribution to UJFT’s overseas service delivery partners – the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC); the Jewish Agency for Israel (JAFI); and World ORT. The allocation of overseas funds is based on recommendations from the UJFT Israel and Overseas committee.

Donations to the Community Campaign are welcome at any time and can be made securely online at JewishVA.org/Donation.

MEN’S DIVISION

JewishVA.org/mens-division

Chief Development Officer: Amy Zelenka 757-965-6139, AZelenka@UJFT.org

UJFT’s Men’s Division is dedicated to engaging the community in support of the Federation’s Community Campaign. The Men’s Division is comprised of more than 40 volunteers who serve the Tidewater Jewish community by soliciting gifts of support. These volunteers help ensure funding is available for Jewish education, health, and social welfare, the fight against antisemitism, enhanced security, emergency services, and crisis relief.

WOMEN’S DIVISION

JewishVA.org/womens-division facebook.com/JewishWomen757

Chief Development Officer: Amy Zelenka 757-965-6139, AZelenka@UJFT.org

UJFT’s Women’s Division is the women’s fundraising arm of the Federation’s Community Campaign, providing women in the local Jewish community with opportunities for empowerment, volunteerism, and philanthropy at all levels. At the helm of the Women’s Division is the Women’s Cabinet, which meets regularly to learn what’s happening in the Tidewater Jewish community and the Jewish world. They then put that knowledge to use, informing donors as they engage in conversations around philanthropic giving. Members of the Women’s Cabinet serve as ambassadors and role models for women of all ages in the community, taking the lead in volunteer fundraising for the Women’s Division of the UJFT Community Campaign and engaging other women in the Jewish community through events and activities throughout the year.

ARTS + IDEAS

Director: Hunter Thomas 757-965-6137, HThomas@UJFT.org

Leon Family Gallery

Exhibits at the Reba and Sam Sandler Family Campus feature artists from around the globe and from around Tidewater. Artists may depict subjects of interest to Jews and Israelis, local (Tidewater) themes, and more.

Lee & Bernard Jaffe Family Jewish Book Festival

The annual Lee & Bernard Jaffe Family Jewish Book Festival is a celebration of Jewish authors, books, and ideas which seeks to enrich Jewish culture by presenting themes that engage, educate, and inspire all people. Events typically take place annually in November with additional opportunities for engagement throughout the year.

Virginia Festival of Jewish Film, Presented by Alma & Howard Laderberg

Screened at various locations throughout Tidewater, the Virginia Festival of Jewish Film, presented by Alma & Howard Laderberg, offers a range of cinema experiences, from compelling documentaries to poignant comedies that engage and spark conversations.

As one of the longest-running Jewish film festivals in the country, the Festival engages diverse Tidewater communities, Jewish and non-Jewish alike, by presenting world-class films inspired by Jewish or Israeli stories, history, heritage, and values— and can be appreciated by people from all backgrounds.

Yom Ha’Atzmaut: Celebrating Israel’s Independence

Simon Family JCC and United Jewish Federation of Tidewater offer something for everyone each year for Yom Ha’Atzmaut, Israel’s Independence Day. These programs are open to the entire Tidewater community and celebrate Israel through education, authentic food, activities, and experiences.

BE A READER (BeAR)

JewishVA.org/BeAR BeAR

Coordinator: Robin Ford

757-321-2304, RFord@UJFT.org

The Be A Reader (BeAR) literacy program of the Jewish Community Relations Council of the United Jewish Federation of Tidewater was created more than 23 years ago as a community-wide effort to help at-risk, struggling readers acquire the skills and love for learning that lead to personal happiness and future success.

BeAR works with Title I elementary schools across the region and pairs a volunteer mentor with a student for an hour each week to read, work on spelling and vocabulary, and provide students with a sense of stability.

Since there is no shortage of children that require assistance, the program’s capacity is solely dependent on its number of volunteers. Volunteers are always needed to join the BeAR community to help children learn to read. Whether through volunteering, giving supplies, or donating, helping to make a difference in a child’s life offers its own rewards.

CAMP JCC

Director of Camp and Teen Engagement: Dave Flagler

757-452-3182, DFlagler@UJFT.org

Campjcc.org

Camp JCC provides children with an expansive and enriching day camp experience. This dynamic program allows every child to explore their interests and try new activities within a safe camp atmosphere. The programs are designed for rising kindergarteners through rising eighth graders. CIT opportunities are offered for 9th and 10th graders.

Summer camp runs mid-June through early August, with “Last Blast” camp sessions offered in the weeks between the end of regular camp and the start of public schools.

Camp JCC is more than just a summer program, with year-round opportunities for youth, including School Days Out, Winter and Spring Camps, middle school programming, and Kids Night Out, which takes place monthly, beginning in October.

CHILDREN AND FAMILY PROGRAMS

Camp JCC Program Manager: Sarah Cooper

757-321-2306, SCooper@UJFT.org

Children’s programs include soccer, self-defense, Israel Club, and yoga classes. School Days Out care is offered for Strelitz and Virginia Beach Public Schools for children K-5. Kids Night Out takes place 6 – 10 pm on the third Saturday of every month, November to May, for children ages 4 to 12 years.

HAL SACKS JEWISH NEWS ARCHIVES

JewishNewsVA.org

Editor: Terri Denison 757-965-6132, news@UJFT.org

Research, laugh, remember, and browse through the Hal Sacks Jewish News Archives, an online site to access past issues of the Jewish News since 1947.

THE HOLOCAUST COMMISSION

HolocaustCommission.org

facebook.com/holcommission

Director: Elka Mednick

757-965-6112, EMednick@UJFT.org

The Holocaust Commission works to contemporize the lessons of the Holocaust, assisting teachers, students, and all community members to understand the uniqueness and apply those lessons to the world today. The Commission offers programs, resources, and community events related to Holocaust education and remembrance.

GUIDE TO JEWISH LIVING IN TIDEWATER

Dedicated volunteers from the community guide and foster the Holocaust Commission’s work.

Among its many events and projects, the Holocaust Commission offers What We Carry, a multimedia program for schools, community, and military groups; a yearly community gathering for Yom Hashoah, the commemoration day of the Holocaust; the annual Elie Wiesel Writing and Visual Arts Competition for students; the Ruthi Sherman Kroskin and Esther Goldman Awards for Excellence in Holocaust Education, and Biennial Educators’ Conferences.

The Holocaust Commission recently published the anthology To Life: The Past is Present Holocaust Stories of Hampton Roads Survivors, Liberators, and Rescuers, available for purchase, which chronicles the lives of many survivors before, during, and after the Holocaust. Companion podcasts and lesson plans are being developed.

The Holocaust Commission’s website provides more information on how to participate in and support its various programs.

JEWISH COMMUNITY RELATIONS COUNCIL

JewishVA.org/JCRC

facebook.com/JCRCUJFT

Senior Director, JCRC: Robin Mancoll 757-965-6120, RMancoll@UJFT.org

The Jewish Community Relations Council of the United Jewish Federation of Tidewater champions a thriving Jewish community locally, in Israel, and around the world and leverages the strength of the diverse and vibrant Jewish community to promote a just and democratic society by leading, convening, educating, and advocating.

The JCRC addresses issues of vital concern based on Jewish values, consensus, and respect for diversity, and builds bridges within and beyond the Jewish community.

The JCRC offers numerous opportunities for engagement for the entire community throughout the year, including Virginia Jewish Advocacy Day and the popular series, Israel Today.

JEWISH NEWS

JewishNewsVA.org

facebook.com/JewishNewsVA

Editor: Terri Denison

757-965-6132, TDenison@UJFT.org

Published 20 times annually, Jewish News connects the Tidewater Jewish community with news of Jewish interest from local, national, and global spheres.

The Jewish News is delivered to thousands of mailboxes each month and reaches tens of thousands through its easy-to-navigate website. Electronic editions of Jewish News are available online.

KONIKOFF CENTER FOR LEARNING

JewishVA.org/KCL

Senior Director of Jewish Innovation: Sierra Lautman

757-965-6107, SLautman@UJFT.org

Tidewater’s hub for experiential Jewish education and engagement at United Jewish Federation of Tidewater and Simon Family JCC, the Konikoff Center for Learning offers high-impact, innovative learning experiences that cover an array of interests and age groups, including programs, classes, workshops, and symposia.

The Konikoff Center for Learning engages, educates, equips, and inspires individuals to deepen their Jewish knowledge and connection.

PJ LIBRARY IN TIDEWATER

Children and Family Program Coordinator: Nofar Trem 757-321-2334, NTrem@UJFT.org

Thanks to support from the Simon Family Foundation, the Harold Grinspoon Foundation, and the United Jewish Federation of Tidewater, PJ Library and PJ Our Way sends free Jewish children’s books to families each month, sharing stories that can help foster conversations about important values and traditions.

Additionally, engaging PJ Library programming takes place at the Reba and Sam Sandler Family Campus and in public spaces around Tidewater with the goal of helping Jewish families connect to one another and to Jewish traditions and values.

Families with kids ages six months through eight years old with Judaism as part of their lives—affiliated, unaffiliated, interfaith, or non-traditional—are welcome to sign up by visiting PJLibrary.org.

Children from ages nine to 12 can select a new free book each month by signing up for PJ Our Way.

SENIOR ADULT PROGRAMMING

Program Coordinator: Robin Ford 757-321-2304, RFord@UJFT.org

Celebrations and fun activities with friendly company are offered for adults of all backgrounds at the Simon Family JCC. With a multitude of opportunities throughout each week, the program’s mission is to encourage senior adults to participate in educational, cultural, spiritual, fitness, and social programs to increase health, well-being, and connection to other individuals and the Jewish community.

Whether it’s joining Seniors Club, a weekly card game, or a book club, there’s something for everyone.

Providing Care to Children and Adults for Over 60 years

We make it as easy as possible on the patient and referring physician by ACCEPTING MOST INSURANCES.

Lisa Deafenbaugh PA-C Kim Pham NP-C

Dr. Gary Moss Dr. Greg Pendell Dr. Craig Koenig Dr. Marguerite Lengkeek

If you are suffering from allergies or asthma, please contact us. We can help.

GUIDE TO JEWISH LIVING IN TIDEWATER

SHALOM BABY

JewishVa.org/ShalomBaby

Children and Family Program Coordinator: Nofar Trem

757-321-2334, NTrem@UJFT.org

Shalom Baby is an exciting gift bag delivery program made possible by a partnership between United Jewish Federation of Tidewater/Simon Family JCC and Strelitz Early Childhood Education Center and PJ Library in Tidewater. Whether this is a first or fourth child, birth or adoptive, Shalom Baby wants to help parents celebrate the arrival by showering them with fun and relaxing gifts and helpful resources for Jewish babies.

SHALOM TIDEWATER

JewishVA.org/ShalomTidewater

Contact: Amy Zelenka

757-965-6136, AZelenka@UJFT.org

The Tidewater Jewish community is a hub of activity-spanning five cities: Norfolk, Virginia Beach, Chesapeake, Portsmouth, and Suffolk. Shalom Tidewater offers a wealth of resources for newcomers to Jewish Tidewater to help everyone find their place – affiliated or unaffiliated, Jewish by birth, Jewish by choice, or interfaith.

SOCIETY OF JEWISH PROFESSIONALS

JewishVA.org/SOP

Program Director: Amy Zelenka

757-965-6139, AZelenka@UJFT.org

The UJFT Society of Jewish Professionals (SOP) is an affinity group within the

Jewish Federation, dedicated to educational, social, and philanthropic activities, and providing opportunities for its members to network, socialize, and become active through a financial commitment to the Community Campaign.

SOP offers unique programs for members, including speakers, virtual missions, and panel discussions on areas of interest to members of the business community. Members also serve as role models and provide funding for local and global Jewish communities.

SOP combines the once-separate Maimonides (medical professionals) and Business & Legal Societies, and includes other professionals as well, who share common Jewish and communal interests and enjoy the Society’s programming and benefits. Healthcare, business, legal, media, real estate, entrepreneur, and other professionals are invited.

SPORTS, RECREATION, AND AQUATICS

Athletics Director: Tom Edwards 757-321-2308; TEdwards@SimonFamilyJCC.org

A variety of aquatics, sports, recreation, athletics, and youth and adult athletic leagues such as basketball, tee ball, tennis, pickleball, and a swim team are offered at the Simon Family JCC. The JCC also offers children and adult swim lessons, lap lanes for fitness swimmers, and an outdoor water park. Also, an opportunity for local Jewish teens (ages 13-16) to join the Team Virginia Beach delegation of JCC Maccabi Games, which travels for competitive sport is offered each summer.

WELLNESS

Director: Tom Purcell 757-321-2310; TPurcell@UJFT.org

The JCC has an expansive Fitness Center, three indoor pools, an outdoor water

GUIDE TO JEWISH LIVING IN TIDEWATER

park, gymnasium, pickleball courts, and more, in a state-of-the-art facility. The JCC also offers dozens of free group exercise classes, including Spin, Pilates, Zumba, and Yoga. Members get discounts on Personal Training, on specialty classes and programs.

YOUNG ADULT DIVISION (YAD) AND YOUNG LEADERSHIP CAMPAIGN (YLC)

JewishVA.org/yad facebook.com/YAD

Young Leadership Manager: Open at time of printing

Contact: Amy Zelenka – Chief Development Officer 757-965-6139; AZelenka@ujft.org

The Young Adult Division of UJFT offers and promotes a variety of social, cultural, leadership, and philanthropic opportunities for young Jewish adults in the community.

Both YAD and YLC foster Jewish identity, involvement, and responsibility among young Jewish adults (ages 25 – 45) in Tidewater, to strengthen and enrich a vibrant Jewish community at home, in Israel, and around the world. YAD aims to cultivate relationships, build networks, and develop highly skilled leaders to ensure the next generation of Jewish community leaders. YLC seeks to engage young philanthropists and campaign advocates to educate and encourage their peers and others about the importance of Jewish community involvement and giving.

A recent addition to the “YLC universe” is the Nadiv Men’s Giving Circle. Now in its fifth year, Nadiv brings together young men to engage in active and lively discussions and activities surrounding individual and group philanthropic values – illustrating the importance of giving and strengthening the bonds of friendship and community among the group. A similar Giving Circle for women (Adira) is also beginning to form.

YAD hosts a wide variety of programs throughout the year, including regular happy hours, holiday parties, business networking, and Shabbat dinners. The newest program is YAD’s Pop-Up Shabbat dinner program hosted for and by members of the YAD community. Made possible by a generous grant from the Richard S. Glasser Foundation, Pop-Up Shabbats bring together young singles, couples, and even families to share in the joys of Shabbat and to strengthen the bonds of community.

YLC and YAD recruit promising young members of the Jewish community for participation in their flagship Hineni leadership development program, where together, cohorts of future leaders learn, network, develop leadership skills, and most importantly, create community. Hineni fellows are invited to participate in a week-long, exclusive mission to Israel, heavily subsidized by the Tom Hofheimer Fund, and known as the Tom Hofheimer Young Leadership Mission to Israel.

YOUTH PROGRAMMING

BBYO

Evan Gordon 757-510-3708, egordon@bbyo.org

BBYO involves Jewish teens in meaningful Jewish experiences, guiding them into leadership positions that will last a lifetime. Teens meet weekly on weekends, September through June, at the Simon Family JCC, and focus on community service and social action programs with their chapters, BBG (girls) and AZA (boys). The teens attend a variety of regional and national conventions.

CONGREGATIONS

B’NAI ISRAEL CONGREGATION

420 Spotswood Ave., Norfolk, VA 23517 757-627-7358, fax 757-627-8544 bnaiisrael.org, office@bnaiisrael.org

Rabbi Shlomo Eisenberg

ORTHODOX

B’nai Israel Congregation is an exciting, family-oriented, full-service Orthodox synagogue in the heart of a diverse and dynamic Jewish community in the Ghent neighborhood of Norfolk. It offers daily morning and evening prayer services. The synagogue houses the Norfolk Area Community Kollel, BINA High School for Girls, and the Norfolk Community Mikvah. It is affiliated with the Orthodox Union and the National Conference of Young Israel.

• Adult classes

• Children’s programming

www

• Teen programming

• Weekly Kiddushes

Southside Chapel • 5033 Rouse Drive Virginia Beach • 757 422-4000 Riverside Chapel • 7415 River Road Newport News • 757 245-1525

Maestas Chapel • 1801 Baltic Ave. Virginia Beach • 757 428-1112

Chris Sisler, Vice President, Member of Ohef Sholom Temple, Board member of the Berger-Goldrich Home at Beth Sholom Village, James E. Altmeyer, Jr., President, James E. Altmeyer, Sr., Owner

Chesapeake Chapel • 929 S. Battlefield Blvd. Chesapeake • 757 482-3311

GUIDE TO JEWISH LIVING IN TIDEWATER

BEACH COMMUNITY SHUL

3400 Holly Rd, Virginia Beach, VA 23451 757-938-0625, www.jewishvb.org

rabbi@jewishvb.org, info@jewishvb.org

Rabbi Meir Lessoff

The synagogue offers Judaism in a joyful, genuine, and creative manner, providing engaging activities and programs for all ages in a warm and friendly atmosphere.

For High Holiday services, the holidays will take place at the Oceanfront. Location and details will be posted on the website at the beginning of September. Reservations will be required, but there is no charge.

CHABAD LUBAVITCH OF TIDEWATER/ CHABAD HOUSE

Serving the entire Hampton Roads community since 1979

1920 Colley Avenue, Norfolk, VA 23517 757-616-0770, Fax 757-616-0772

www.chabadoftidewater.com

Rabbilevi@chabadoftidewater.com

Rabbi Aron and Rychel Margolin

Rabbi Levi and Rashi Brashevitzky

Established in 1979 under the direct guidance of The Lubavitch’s Rebbe, Chabad Lubavitch of Tidewater is dedicated to increasing the awareness, knowledge, and observance of Judaism in Chesapeake, Hampton, Norfolk, Portsmouth, Suffolk, and Virginia Beach by reaching out to all Jews, regardless of age, affiliation, or level of observance. Chabad participants experience the joy and celebration, the intimacy and compassion, the wisdom and knowledge that are inherent in Jewish life and learning. Chabad of Tidewater responds to both the material and spiritual needs of the Jewish community through classes, counseling, Shabbat and holiday celebrations, and innovative programming for children and adults.

• CTeen and CTeen U

• Women’s Rosh Chodesh Society

• JLI - Jewish Learning Institute

• Holiday guides

• Jewish Art Calendar

• Meaningful and uplifting Shabbat and Holiday services for Youth and Adults

COMMODORE URIAH P. LEVY CHAPEL

Corner of Maryland Ave. and Gilbert St., Naval Station Norfolk 757-444-7361

UNAFFILIATED

The Commodore Levy Chapel is the oldest land-based Jewish chapel on a Naval Station in North America. Established in 1942 and named for Commodore Uriah Philips Levy in 1959, the Commodore Levy Jewish Chapel celebrated 50 years of service to God and Country in 2009.

Access to worship services is available to Active Duty and Reserve Military, their dependents, military retirees, and Civil Service employees. Guests are allowed when accompanied by sponsors or by special permission from the Base Chaplain’s Office.

CONGREGATION BETH CHAVERIM

Temple.Office@bethchaverim.com

Cantorial Soloist: Jim Hibberd

President: Debbie Hibberd

REFORM

Founded in 1982, Beth Chaverim has been affiliated with the Union for Reform Judaism since 1984.

• Religious School • Services at Temple Emanuel and on Zoom

• Friday Night Services take place at 7 pm

CONGREGATION BETH EL

422 Shirley Avenue, Norfolk, VA 23517 757-625-7821, bethelnorfolk.com, noelle@bethelnorfolk.com

Rabbi Ron Koas

Rabbi Emeritus: Rabbi Arthur Ruberg

Executive Director: Pam Gladstone

Education Director: Sharon Serbin

The heart and soul of Congregation Beth El is its loving and welcoming congregation. The congregation boasts a diversified mix of members: families that reach back generations, recent additions to the area, active-duty military and Veterans from all services, LGBTQ, Hispanics, Asians, African Americans, interfaith couples, and more.

Beth El values both tradition and change. The congregation provides dynamic and fun educational programs for all ages, religious and cultural events, and participation in social action projects within the Jewish community and beyond. Beth El holds weekly morning and evening services on Zoom, as well as weekly Shabbat services every Friday evening and Saturday morning. Everyone is welcome to join the congregation for services and other events in person, on Zoom or livestream.

GUIDE TO JEWISH LIVING IN TIDEWATER

KEHILLAT BET HAMIDRASH/KEMPSVILLE CONSERVATIVE SYNAGOGUE (KBH)

952 Indian Lakes Blvd., Virginia Beach, VA 23464 757-495-8510, kbhsynagogue.org, kbhsynagogue@gmail.com https://www.kbhsynagogue.org/ facebook.com/kbhsynagogue

Cantor David Proser

CONSERVATIVE

Kempsville Conservative Synagogue (Kehillat Bet Hamidrash) is a place for traditional, yet egalitarian Jews to celebrate all things Jewish in a comfortable and inviting atmosphere. KBH was established in 1978 and is centrally located in Tidewater, not far from Town Center and the Sandler Family Campus in Virginia Beach. As a small congregation, members have the opportunity to play an active role in the life of the synagogue. The synagogue strives to provide opportunities for prayer, learning, socializing, celebrating life cycle events, and supporting its local and greater Jewish and general community. Kehillat Bet Hamidrash continues its ongoing relationship with its programming partner, Temple Israel, and looks forward to collaborative events with the area’s Masorti Congregations.

• Shabbat and Holiday services and celebrations

• Weekly Shabbat Kiddush luncheon

• Tikkun Olam projects

• Affiliated with USCJ - United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism

• Support of, and participation in, Jewish community events

• Services and programs are offered in-person and via Zoom. Contact the synagogue at kbhsynagogue@gmail.com for Zoom information.

OHEF SHOLOM TEMPLE

530 Raleigh Avenue, Norfolk, VA 23507 757-625-4295, fax 757-625-3762 ohefsholom.org, ed@ohefsholom.org

Rabbi Rosalin Mandelberg

Cantor Jennifer Rueben

Executive Director: Jennifer Levin-Tavares

Religious School Director: Alyson Morrissey

Music Director: Charles Woodward

Rabbi Emeritus: Rabbi Lawrence A. Forman

Founded in 1844, Ohef Sholom Temple is the largest and oldest Reform congregation in Tidewater. Shabbat Services take place Friday at 6:30 pm in-person and via Facebook Live and Saturday at 10:30 am via Facebook Live.

Ohef Sholom Temple is committed to welcoming all who are in search of a spiritual home, including interfaith families, LGBTQ+, singles, and empty nesters. A Union for Reform Judaism congregation, Ohef Sholom offers innovative worship and deep Torah learning, fosters meaningful relationships, and Tikkun Olam (bettering our world through social action). The congregation also has an extensive children’s and adult library, Holocaust collection, and Archives.

• Religious School for preschool through grade 10

• Programming for infants and toddlers, children, teens, families, and adults

• Intro to Judaism and Adult Hebrew Courses

• Diverse Adult Education opportunities

• Torah Study

• Dynamic, Musical Worship Services

• Social Justice and Social Action initiatives

• Extensive Library and Archives

• Judaica Shop

• Youth Group (NFTY partnership)

• Men’s Club

• Sisterhood

TEMPLE EMANUEL

424 25th Street, Virginia Beach, VA 23451

757-428-2591

Website: www.tevb.org, Email: office@tevb.org

Office Manager: Gail Gogan

Rabbi: Ari Oliszewski

Rabbi Email: rabbiari@tevb.org

CONSERVATIVE

Temple Emanuel is a thriving oceanfront Jewish community located in Virginia Beach. It is intimate, accepting, and open to all. Temple Emanuel embraces the many ways to express Jewishness and spirituality, welcoming people of all family situations, ethnicities, and sexual orientations. Located at the beach, the congregation offers a relaxed, informal atmosphere with creative worship services, as well as cultural programming for all. Religious School is free to synagogue members. Learn more about Temple Emanuel at www.tevb.org/about.

TEMPLE ISRAEL

7255 Granby St., Norfolk, VA 23505 757-489-4550, fax 757-489-3425

templeisraelva.org, TempleIsraelVA1954@gmail.com

Rabbi Michael Panitz

Executive Director: Nancy Tucker

CONSERVATIVE/MASORTI

Temple Israel is a vibrant, egalitarian, full-service synagogue that has served the local Jewish community for 70 years by meeting the spiritual, educational, life cycle, and social needs of its diverse membership.

Through the fulfillment of mitzvot, it provides opportunities for meaningful Jewish living for its members. Temple Israel maintains a full schedule of joint programs with the Kempsville Conservative Synagogue. Adult education is one of the hallmarks of Temple Israel, including ongoing studies on a variety of topics, as well as adult bar and bat mitzvah classes. Temple Israel enthusiastically embraces tikkun olam (repairing the world) and values every individual’s unique participation. With a perspective embracing both tradition and the challenges of today’s world, Temple Israel welcomes innovative ideas and new voices into its family. The congregation is moving forward with an ambitious program of making its facilities more fully accessible.

• Daily services are on Zoom; Shabbat and holiday worship services are in-person and live-streamed on YouTube

• Adult Clubs and Classes

• Library

• Gift Shop

TEMPLE LEV TIKVAH (HEART OF HOPE)

1593 Lynnhaven Parkway, Virginia Beach 757-617-0334 or 757-937-8393

jzobe@aol.com

Rabbi Israel Zoberman

President: David Yasemsky

REFORM

The newest Jewish congregation in Hampton Roads meets in The Church of the Holy Apostles in Virginia Beach. The church is the world’s only Episcopal and Roman Catholic congregation. Now, it is the only place in the world where Episcopalians, Roman Catholics, and Jews meet under one roof. Rabbi Dr. Israel Zoberman is the founder and spiritual leader.

GUIDE TO JEWISH LIVING IN TIDEWATER

TIDEWATER CHAVURAH

tidewaterchavurah.org

Rabbi Cantor Ellen Jaffe-Gill

Contact: Carol tidewaterchavurah1@gmail.com or 757-499-3660

REFORM TRADITION

Tidewater Chavurah, is a “synagogue without walls” involved in Jewish fellowship that meets and prays in the Virginia Beach/Hampton Roads area. Founded in 1998, Tidewater Chavurah welcomes singles, couples, and families in interfaith marriages, people of all ethnicities, gender identities, and sexual orientations while remaining a small, vibrant, and friendly group. The Hebrew term “Chavurah” means “fellowship”.

Tidewater Chavurah holds monthly Second Friday Shabbat and High Holiday services, using prayer books of the Reform movement. Rabbi Jaffe-Gill also leads holiday celebrations and facilitates Jewish-themed learning experiences.

EDUCATION

BINA MIDDLE AND HIGH SCHOOL

425 Washington Park, Norfolk, VA 23517 757-627-BINA (2462), fax 757-627-2461 binahighschool.com, aharpaz@binahighschool.com

Menaheles: Aviva Harpaz

Norfolk’s first and only Orthodox Jewish Middle and High School for young women, BINA opened in 2007. The BINA experience enables each student to develop her love for Hashem, His Torah and the Jewish people. In a supportive and challenging academic environment, students are given the skills to excel in both Judaic and General studies. BINA’s knowledgeable and professional faculty foster a love of learning and pride in achievement. A BINA student is taught to be proud of her heritage, concerned for her community, and prepared for her future.

CHRISTOPHER NEWPORT UNIVERSITY

One Avenue of the Arts

Newport News, VA 23606 CNU.edu

Bertram and Gladys Aaron Endowed Professor of Jewish Studies: Dr. Vered Sakal vered.sakal@cnu.edu, 757-594-7000

Christopher Newport University is dedicated to building a vibrant program in Jewish Studies.

Dr. Vered Sakal, an internationally renowned scholar of Jewish Studies, is leading the effort as the newly appointed Bertram and Gladys Aaron Endowed Professor of Jewish Studies. Sakal is passionate about teaching and bringing Jewish Studies to life in the classroom. Her interdisciplinary approach fosters students’ ability to connect to the material and makes her classes engaging and vibrant. Sakal, who grew up in Israel and is an ordained rabbi, also plans to cultivate strong ties with Virginia’s Jewish community.

Christopher Newport is a public university that champions small class sizes, dynamic faculty, and a tight-knit community focused on ensuring students are prepared to lead lives of significance.

CHRISTOPHER NEWPORT UNIVERSITY HILLEL

Under the direction of the United Jewish Community of the Virginia Peninsula Rabbinic Director: Rabbi Gershon Litt, Rabbilitt@cnuhillel.org, 757-559-1836

Christopher Newport University Hillel is open to all Jewish students and is the Jewish organization at Christopher Newport University. Hillel offers social, religious, cultural, and Israel-related events led by student leadership and professional staff.

GUIDE TO JEWISH LIVING IN TIDEWATER

CONGREGATION BETH EL’S PATRICIA SARAH ASHKENAZI RELIGIOUS SCHOOL

Director of Education: Sharon

J. Serbin

Email: sharonj@bethelnorfolk.com

Congregation Beth El’s Patricia Sarah Ashkenazi Religious School (PSARS) meets on Sundays, 9 am-12 pm at Congregation Beth El in Norfolk. The student body consists of classes from Pre-Kindergarten/Kindergarten through seventh grade. The curriculum includes Judaics, Hebrew, Israel studies, and mitzvot. Arts and crafts, holiday programs, creative drama, music, and more provide a well-rounded education. PSARS focuses on ‘experiencing’ education. Teachers make learning come alive in fun and engaging lessons. The school’s mission is to educate, nurture, guide, and encourage students to embrace the joy in Judaism.

Hebrew School meets Wednesdays, 5 - 6:30 pm at the Simon Family Jewish Community Center in Virginia Beach. Classes are for third - sixth graders. Hebrew School focuses on various aspects of Hebrew, including but not limited to, reading, writing, root words, brachot, and conversational modern Hebrew. Classes are divided into Kitah Aleph and Kitah Bet. The curriculum includes fun and engaging methods such as arts and crafts, rhythms and drumming, music, and educational games. Students develop a strong foundation of Hebrew and learn how it connects to Jewish culture.

New this year is the Bogrim Program. Open to eighth -12th graders, Bogrim meets once a month on Sundays in their own Moadon (club house room) at Congregation Beth El. The Bogrim Program will help these students grow as Jewish young adults through discussions, social actions, mitzvot (good deeds), and middot (values), while using creative drama, role playing and artistic expressions and going out into the community to do mitzvot to round out the curriculum. Students explore who they are individually as a young Jewish adult, who they are in the community, and what their responsibilities are in the world.

NORFOLK AREA COMMUNITY KOLLEL

420 Spotswood Avenue, Norfolk, VA 23517 757-655-1836, nack@norfolkkollel.com, norfolkkollel.com

Rosh Kollel: Rabbi Boruch Danziger

Executive Director: Rabbi Gershon Litt

Rabbi Yehuda Brickman

Rabbi Yakov Berkowitz

Rabbi Yedidya Kov

Norfolk Area Community Kollel offers Jewish classes and programming regardless of affiliation or practice. Their philosophy is Torah-based and centers on gaining spirituality through personal growth and rich Torah heritage. The Norfolk Kollel offers programs at college campuses and high schools, as well as lunch and learn programs and “one-on-one” study sessions. The Kollel can “tailor-make” a Jewish education program for specific needs. The motto of the Kollel is “Inspiration Through Education.”

OLD DOMINION UNIVERSITY

INSTITUTE FOR JEWISH STUDIES AND INTERFAITH UNDERSTANDING AT OLD DOMINION UNIVERSITY

2024 Batten Arts and Letters, Norfolk, VA 23529 757-683-6816, odu.edu/al/institutes/ijiu, amilliga@odu.edu facebook.com/IJIUatODU

Director: Amy Milligan, PhD

The Institute for Jewish Studies and Interfaith Understanding (IJIU) is an interdisciplinary academic program at Old Dominion University dedicated to creating strong, inclusive learning experiences that deepen understanding of Jewish thought, history, and culture. IJIU sponsors research, academic programs, engagement activities, and

collaboration with community partners to promote diverse Jewish perspectives about significant local and global issues, address antisemitic acts and other forms of hatred, and encourage dialogue between people of all faiths and beliefs.

HILLEL AT OLD DOMINION UNIVERSITY

757-559-1836, rabbilitt@oduhillel.org

Director: Rabbi Gershon Litt

Hillel is the home to the Jewish student community with social activities, educational events, and holiday celebrations on and off campus.

OHEF SHOLOM TEMPLE RELIGIOUS SCHOOL

530 Raleigh Avenue, Norfolk, VA 23507 757-625-4295, fax 757-625-3762 ohefsholom.org

Religious School Director: Alyson Morrissey, alyson@ohefsholom.org Alyson@ohefsholom.org, 757-625-4295, ext 114

Ohef Sholom Temple Religious School is committed to raising lifelong Jews whose identity is firmly grounded in Torah and Jewish texts and who are connected to Israel, Jewish history, culture, language, and traditions. The school strives to ensure that students find joy, pride, and meaning in becoming lifelong learners who will serve to strengthen Jewish life and the Jewish community by connecting directly to the clergy, staff, congregation, and each other.

The school meets most Sundays throughout the school year, 9:30 am - 12 pm and offers an engaging Jewish educational experience for students, Pre-K through 10th grade. The Institute for Southern Jewish Living’s curriculum will be introduced this year for Pre-K - sixth grade classes. The school will also utilize Moving Traditions, a curriculum aimed at B’nai Mitzvah aged learners and their parents, providing five sessions where families learn side-by-side as they prepare for their simcha. An electives-based model for 7th, 8th, and 9th graders allows students to choose various topics to explore, with a Jewish twist, such as theater, cooking, and journalism. Each grade level will also spend a trimester focused on their core curriculum. In 7th grade they will study comparative religions, in 8th grade the Holocaust, and in 9th grade, the Israel/Palestine conflict.

Students also have the opportunity to participate in art, cooking, music, and weekly t’filah. OST’s Religious School hosts family programming centered around the holidays throughout the year.

Hebrew School meets just before Religious School, 8:45 - 9:30 am. Students also meet one-on-one with their teacher for 20 minutes during the week over Zoom.

Hebrew School is for fourth through seventh graders. The Hebrew program is self-paced, recognizing that not all students learn at the same pace.

Ohef Sholom Temple offers assistance to those with disabilities and has a licensed special education professional on staff who is able to provide support for all students.

STRELITZ INTERNATIONAL ACADEMY

International Baccalaureate® World School

Early Years and Primary Years Programs, Infants–Grade 5

Reba and Sam Sandler Family Campus

5000 Corporate Woods Drive, Virginia Beach, VA 23462 757-424-4327, strelitzinternationalacademy.org

Facebook: Strelitz International Academy

Instagram: strelitzinternationalacademy

Head of School: Heather Moore, hmoore@strelitzacademy.org

Admissions Manager: Ally St. Pierre, astpierre@strelitzacademy.org

The Strelitz International Academy is the community’s progressive Jewish Day

GUIDE TO JEWISH LIVING IN TIDEWATER

School welcoming students ages six weeks through grade 5.

SIA is the only International Baccalaureate® World School for the Primary Years Program in the area.

SIA students are guided by four core Jewish values: Kehillah (community), Kavod (honor), Tikkun Olam (repairing the world), and Torah v’Lishman (love of learning).

Starting with the infant care program, Strelitz offers parents a nurturing and safe place to ensure the growth and development for their baby. The infant curriculum focuses on sensory activities and exploration, stories, songs, and floor time.

As an International Baccalaureate® World School, the Early Years students are seen as inquirers of the world around them. Students experience the joy of learning through hands-on activities and nurturing teachers. SIA students learn math and literacy skills and experience Jewish holidays and global learning through books, arts and crafts, songs, games, and creative play. Students also enjoy enrichment classes such as swimming, PE, music, and library time.

Primary Years (K–5) students are recognized for their strengths and benefit from small classes and individualized instruction when needed. Students thrive in a setting of a caring community of learners. The SIA curriculum includes Language Arts, Science, Mathematics, Social Studies, Jewish Culture, Hebrew, Music, Violin, Art, P.E., and more. Through its inquiry-led, transdisciplinary framework, the International Baccalaureate® Primary Years Program challenges students to think for themselves and take agency in their learning as they explore local and global issues and opportunities in real-life contexts. Graduates are ready to meet the challenges of today’s fast-paced world, as evidenced by their acceptance and seamless transitions into the top independent schools, International Baccalaureate Middle Years Program, and high school academies.

TALMUDICAL ACADEMY

Yeshivas Aish Kodesh

612 Colonial Ave., Norfolk, VA 23507 757-623-6070

www.yeshivasaishkodesh.com

dwilson@yeshivasaishkodesh.com

Executive Director: Rabbi Shmuel Katz

Judaic Principals: Rabbi Ezra Stettin and Rabbi Avrohom Weinreb

General Studies Principal: David Rowzie

Administrative Director: Debbie Wilson

Yeshivas Aish Kodesh is geared toward the student striving for excellence in Limudei Kodesh and General Studies. The school aims to facilitate the spiritual, personal, and academic growth of talmidim, with an eye toward producing well-rounded bnei Torah. Yeshivas Aish Kodesh meets these goals with a full, balanced schedule. The curriculum features Gemara shiurim in both Iyun and Bekius, as well as regular classes in Chumash, Navi, Halacha, and Tefillah. Yeshivas Aish Kodesh offers a General Studies program taught by state-certified instructors.

Yeshivas Aish Kodesh’s facilities feature a Beis Medrash, state-of-the-art classrooms, a well-stocked library, and a recreation/ workout room. The students can participate in varsity and junior varsity basketball, as well as intramural football. The students have regular opportunities to participate in pick-up basketball games, swimming, ice skating, and other activities.

Yeshivas Aish Kodesh views experiential learning as an integral part of the Yeshiva’s approach. Visiting and interacting with Gedolei Yisrael, an energetic Oneg Shabbos, a heartfelt kumzitz—ways in which the special ruach and warmth that characterizes Yeshivas Aish Kodesh are extended.

TORAS CHAIM OF VIRGINIA

3110 Sterling Point Drive, Portsmouth, VA 23703 757-686-2480

toraschaim.net office@toraschaim.net

General Studies Principal: Mrs. Andie Pollock

Toras Chaim provides Judaic and General Studies education for Tidewater’s Jewish children through eighth grade.

The school’s Early Childhood Center maintains a developmentally appropriate

DR. VERED SAKAL

Jewish Studies Expert, Rabbi and Captain!

Christopher Newport University proudly announces the appointment of Dr. Vered Sakal (PhD — Hebrew University of Jerusalem) as the Bertram and Gladys Aaron Endowed Professor of Jewish Studies. CNU, home of the Captains, is building a strong Jewish Studies program with Sakal at the helm.

Gladys and the late Bert’ Aaron for making this position possible for our students

GUIDE TO JEWISH LIVING IN TIDEWATER

environment, which fosters individuality, creativity, respect for others, and a love for Hashem. Toras Chaim is dedicated to the belief that Jewish children and their families can join together to create a nurturing environment that fosters a love for Hashem, His Torah, and Jewish heritage. This school is firmly committed to help each child achieve academic excellence, enthusiasm for learning, and the reinforcement of their Middos. Toras Chaim attempts to balance academics, emotional development, and social skills. The school’s academic program guides students toward learning how to ask the right questions, think analytically, and apply their knowledge to life. Students not only learn the subjects, they live their subjects. Whether celebrating a Jewish holiday or building an ecosystem, at Toras Chaim, learning comes alive.

Contact the school to learn why Toras Chaim is the ‘school with a smile.’

VIRGINIA WESLEYAN UNIVERSITY

5817 Wesleyan Drive, Virginia Beach, VA 23455

Eric Michael Mazur, PhD, Gloria & David Furman Professor of Judaic Studies, Religion, Law, & Politics Fellow, Robert Nusbaum Center (formerly the Center for the Study of Religious Freedom) emazur@vwu.edu, 757-455-3250

The Jewish studies minor at Virginia Wesleyan University provides students with the opportunity to enhance their chosen major with a course of study that includes traditional classes, independent study, and internships. Directed by Eric Mazur, Gloria & David Furman Professor of Judaic Studies, students enrolled in the minor enjoy the flexibility to develop their own course of study in a supportive intellectual environment.

Virginia Wesleyan University—a small liberal arts university on a 300-acre campus that is just minutes from the Atlantic Ocean and the Chesapeake Bay—inspires students to build meaningful lives through engagement in Coastal Virginia’s dynamic metropolitan region, the nation, and the world. The University has been named the #1 college in Virginia for LGBTQ+ students and has been recognized by the Princeton Review as one of the most environmentally responsible colleges. An inclusive community dedicated to scholarship and service grounded in the liberal arts and sciencess.

WILLIAM AND MARY HILLEL

Shenkman Jewish Center

PO Box 8795, Williamsburg, VA 23187

Director: Rabbi Gershon Litt, rabbilitt@wmhillel.org

757-559-1836

William and Mary Hillel is open to all Jewish students and is the Jewish organization at William and Mary. Hillel offers social, religious, cultural, and Israel-related events led by student leadership and professional staff. The Shenkman Jewish Center is the new home for W&M Hillel offering kosher meals, programs, and services.

TIDEWATER JEWISH FOUNDATION

Reba and Sam Sandler Family Campus

5000 Corporate Woods Drive, Suite 200 Virginia Beach, VA 23462, 757-965-6111

foundation.jewishva.org

President and CEO: Naomi Limor Sedek

Vice President and CFO: Randy Parrish

The vision at Tidewater Jewish Foundation (TJF) is to build and guide exponentially more resources to empower Jewish life in Tidewater and beyond. The agency works tirelessly to bring this vision to life by securing endowments that ensure the future of the

Jewish community. As philanthropic advisors, it is dedicated to connecting philanthropists with the causes they are most passionate about. With TJF’s help, anyone can become a philanthropist and align their giving with the issues that matter most to them.

A variety of endowments are housed at TJF that support different aspects of Jewish life. From synagogue life to summer camp experiences, building relationships with Israel, and Jewish educational opportunities, TJF maximizes the impact of legacy gifts, always keeping donor interests at the forefront.

Since TJF’s founding in 1984, it has distributed more than $200 million in grants to Jewish and secular charitable organizations. What began as a single endowment fund has now grown to more than $125 million in assets, managing nearly 1,000 active charitable funds on behalf of individual donor advisors, the Federation, and various local affiliate agencies and synagogues. TJF works closely with donors and their professional advisors to implement tax-advantaged charitable giving strategies, often involving multi-generational philanthropy.

One of TJF’s most successful initiatives is the LIFE & LEGACY program, which it brought to Tidewater. Through this program, TJF has helped secure the future of the Tidewater Jewish community with an estimated $21 million in future endowed commitments. LIFE & LEGACY has transformed the philanthropic culture in the community, underscoring TJF’s belief that everyone, regardless of age, wealth, or affiliation, can make a lasting financial impact for future generations. This program is a partnership with local synagogues and Jewish agencies and is funded by TJF, with ongoing training and support from the Harold Grinspoon Foundation.

The organization also has strong relationships with area congregations, agencies, and organizations. TJF continues to secure legacy gifts in partnership with its affiliated organizations through LIFE & LEGACY and the Jewish Future Pledge. The Jewish Future Pledge encourages community members to commit at least 50% of their charitable dollars in their estate to Jewish causes or to support the state of Israel.

In addition to these programs, TJF offers various other initiatives designed to allow donors to develop and grow their giving though different life stages, such as the B’nai Tzedek Youth Philanthropy Program, Feldman Family Medical & Health Professions Student Scholarship, One Happy Camper Program, Simon Family Passport to Israel, and Stein Family Scholarship.

TJF also provides services like donor-advised funds, fund matching for charitable life insurance, charitable bequests, charitable trusts, reserved life estates, and charitable IRA distributions and designations.

Tidewater Jewish Foundation believes that anyone can dedicate their life to giving. Get in touch with one of its philanthropic advisors to learn how they can help bring personal legacy dreams to reality.

SERVICES AND ORGANIZATIONS

AMERICAN ISRAEL PUBLIC AFFAIRS COMMITTEE (AIPAC)

AIPAC Southeast Regional Director: Alisha Tischler

786-390-4416, atischler@aipac.org

The mission of AIPAC—the American Israel Public Affairs Committee—is to strengthen and expand the U.S.-Israel relationship in ways that enhance the security of the United States and Israel. The national organization engages with and educates decision about the bonds that unite the two countries, and how it is in America’s best interest to strengthen those bonds and help ensure that the Jewish state remains safe, strong, and secure.

AIPAC’s mission is to encourage and persuade the U.S. government to enact specific policies that create a strong, enduring, and mutually beneficial relationship with its ally, Israel. For more than 60 years, AIPAC has worked to make a difference, building a better tomorrow for the United States and Israel.

GUIDE TO JEWISH LIVING IN TIDEWATER

AMERICAN JEWISH COMMITTEE (AJC)

Regional Office Director: Alan Ronkin 202-785-5475; washington@ajc.org; AJC.org Facebook.com/AJCGlobal Twitter.com/AJCGlobal

American Jewish Committee’s Washington regional office serves as the local gateway to AJC’s global Jewish advocacy network. It works to shape a brighter future by taking on the toughest challenges and pursuing the most transformative opportunities.

Through the organization’s unparalleled global network of offices, institutes, and international partnerships, AJC engages with leaders at the highest levels of government and civil society to counter antisemitism, open new doors for Israel, and advance democratic values.

Wherever the Jewish people need AJC, it is there. Join them. Together, it is possible to drive meaningful change today and for future generations.

ADL (ANTI-DEFAMATION LEAGUE)

Regional Office: ADL Washington, D.C.

Regional Director, Meredith R. Weisel 202-261-4610, mweisel@adl.org, adl.org

ADL is a leading anti-hate organization. Founded in 1913 in response to an escalating climate of antisemitism and bigotry, its timeless mission is to stop the defamation of the Jewish people and to secure justice and fair treatment to all. Today, ADL continues to fight all forms of hate with the same vigor and passion. ADL is the first call when acts of antisemitism occur. A global leader in exposing extremism, delivering anti-bias education and fighting hate online, ADL’s ultimate goal is a world in which no group or individual suffers from bias, discrimination, or hate.

ADL has emerged as one of the most formidable anti-hate organizations because of its ironclad commitment to protecting the rights of all people regardless of their race, religion, national origin, sexual orientation, gender identity, or level of ability. Since its inception, ADL has believed that America only would be safe for its Jewish people if it was safe for all its people—and that when it was truly safe for all its people, it also would be safe for its Jewish community.

ADL’s work has expanded to address antisemitism across the globe. ADL works to protect all marginalized groups from the devastating impacts of extremism, reduce bias in individuals through education and create an environment of laws and norms where all groups are treated fairly, and hate has no home.

Recognized as one of ADL’s most innovative and effective offices, the ADL Washington, D.C. regional office serves the District of Columbia, Maryland, North Carolina, and Virginia, carrying out the mandate “to stop the defamation of the Jewish people…and to secure justice and fair treatment to all.”

B’NAI B’RITH OF TIDEWATER

https://www.bnaibrith.org

President: Wayne Martin, 757-855-0227.

Founded in 1843, B’nai B’rith is dedicated to building a strong sense of Jewish identity and unity within the Jewish community..

BRITH SHOLOM CENTER OF VIRGINIA

Secretary: LeeAnne Mallory, 757-461-1150, Brith.sholom1@gmail.com

Brith Sholom Center of Virginia, Inc. is a nonpolitical organization which aims to foster and perpetuate the spirit, ideals, and traditions of Judaism. Membership is currently 250.

Applications for men and women 21 years and above are available for new membership. Activities include dinners, dances, trips, entertainment, and cultural events. Its

philanthropic endeavor is to support Jewish education and community organizations that provide services, plus international groups that assist needy causes.

Brith Sholom meetings currently take place on the first Sunday of each month (except July and August) at 11 am at the Sandler Family Campus in Virginia Beach.

FRIENDS OF THE IDF—VA CHAPTER (MidAtlantic Region)

www.fidf.org

Vice President, MidAtlantic Region: Jennifer Scher, jennifer.scher@fidf.org

Sr. Associate Director, MidAtlantic Region: Ronit Greenstein, ronit.greenstein@ fidf.org

Virginia Chapter Development Associate, Alex Haskel, alex.Haskel@fidf.org

Virginia Chapter President: Joel Nied

If ‘Virginia is for lovers,’ Friends of the IDF (FIDF) seeks to make ‘Virginia is for ISRAEL lovers!’ FIDF is a 501c3 not-for-profit corporation, established in 1981 by a group of Holocaust survivors. It is a non-political, non-military organization that provides for the well-being of the soldiers of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), veterans, and family members.

FIDF is committed to providing these soldiers with love, support, and care to ease the burden they carry on behalf of the Jewish community worldwide. IDF soldiers risk their lives day and night to maintain Israel’s security.

Follow FIDF via email and social media to remain in close contact with FIDF and bolster Israel’s courageous soldiers.

Temple Israel is an egalitarian, multicultural and multigenerational Conservative synagogue.

We offer in person Shabbat service each week, and daily minyan services on Zoom.

We have in person and virtual programs throughout the month, and you can participate in our “Mitzvah of the Month” helping organizations in need.

We are proud of our military families and offer affordable and flexible membership options for those who serve our country. Give us a call for more information.

Dr. Michael E. Panitz, Rabbi

Nancy J. Tucker, Executive Director

Tammy Conklin, Executive Assistant 7255 Granby Street Norfolk,

VA 23505

757-489-4550 www.templeisraelva.org

Forever Helping Others

GUIDE TO JEWISH LIVING IN TIDEWATER

LONE SOLDIER SUPPORT

Brings them a feeling of warmth and community through housing, Shabbat meals, flights home, a 24/7 call center, and more. DIGNITY—Provide financial relief to IDF soldiers whose families are in economic difficulty, gifting them with peace of mind so they can fully dedicate themselves to defending Israel.

EDUCATION

Gives at-risk teens a second chance through Project Overcome; provides soldiers without 12 years of education or their high school diploma opportunities through Formal Education; or scholarships for higher education through IMPACT!

While IDF soldiers are on the frontlines, FIDF strengthens their well-being by responding to their most urgent needs.

HADASSAH

hadassah.org

Bill Goldback’s legacy lives on through the arts.

Bill, who died in 2007, left a donation in his will for the performing arts in Hampton Roads.

The William A. Goldback Fund continues to support arts groups and other causes in our community.

Hadassah Southern Seaboard Region President: Sharon Goretsky, 757-5359633 sgoretsky@hadassah.org

In New York in 1912, the first group of Hadassah was chartered after its founder, Henrietta Szold, returned from Jerusalem. The second chapter of Hadassah was chartered in Norfolk, Va. One hundred and eleven years later, Hadassah’s Norfolk-Virginia Beach chapter is re-energizing and excited to serve all of Tidewater.

Hadassah is the largest Jewish women’s organization in the United States. With more than 300,000 members, associates, and supporters across the country, Hadassah brings Jewish women together to affect change and advocate on critical issues such as medical care and research, women’s empowerment, domestic advocacy in the United States, and the security of Israel.

Through the Hadassah Medical Organization’s (HMO) two hospitals, the world-renowned trauma center, and the leading research facility in Jerusalem, Hadassah supports the delivery of exemplary patient care to more than one million people every

year. HMO serves without regard to race, religion, or nationality and earned a Nobel Peace Prize Nomination in 2005 for building “bridges to peace” through equality in medical treatment.

HAMPTON ROADS BOARD OF RABBIS AND CANTORS

President: Cantor David Proser, kbhcantor@gmail.com

The Board was originally organized as the Board of Rabbis. About 20 years ago, it expanded its membership to include cantors. The Board provides an opportunity for local Jewish clergy to meet on a regular basis and to address, discuss, and answer the challenges facing the Jewish community of Tidewater.

HEBREW LADIES CHARITY SOCIETY

The Hebrew Ladies Charity Society (HLCS) was established in 1902 by nine local Jewish Women who banded together to help address the unmet needs of the community. In 1925, the Ladies Hebrew Charity Society and the Council of Jewish Women merged to avoid duplicating efforts. In 1946, they established the Jewish Family Welfare Bureau, which was renamed and incorporated in 1948 as Jewish Family Service of Tidewater (JFS). The HLCS representatives continue to hold one vote on the JFS board of directors.

JFS honors and remembers the ladies who helped settle Tidewater and has a fund established to provide food and financial assistance to local Jewish people in need.

Contributions in honor of the Hebrew Ladies Charity Society can be made to jfshamptonroads.org.

JEWISH MUSEUM AND CULTURAL CENTER

607 Effingham St. Portsmouth, VA 23704

Email: jmccportsmouth@gmail.com

757-391-9266, www.jewishmuseumportsmouth.org

Administrator: Barbara Rossen

The Jewish Museum and Cultural Center is housed in the beautifully restored Chevra T’helim Synagogue, the interior of which is a rare surviving example of Eastern European Jewish Orthodoxy. The Center offers lectures, exhibits, a summer music series, as well as school programs, adult programs, and tours.

JEWISH WAR VETERANS OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

Adam Goldberg, Post Commander

831-917-3996 jwv.post158.se.virginia@gmail.com

Follow at: facebook.com/JWVPost158VA/

Join at: jwv.org/membership/explore-membership/

The oldest active veterans organization in America, chartered in 1896 by an act of Congress, the Jewish War Veterans brings together citizens of the U.S.A. with joint ties of a common Jewish heritage and the experience of serving in the U.S. Armed Forces. It is the organization’s goal to apply experiences in the military as civilians to “be of greater service to our country, our community, and above all to our fellow veterans.”

JWV Post 158 works to instill the tenets of the National HQ’s mission within the local community by imparting true allegiance to the U.S.A. and love of country and flag, combating bigotry and darkness wherever originating and defending whomever it targets, preserving the spirit of comradeship to fellow veterans and their families, honoring the memory and shielding from neglect the graves of the community’s heroic dead,

GUIDE TO JEWISH LIVING IN TIDEWATER

and most importantly preserving memories and records of those men and women of the Jewish faith who “did us proud by bearing the brunt of battle in the patriotic service of our great country.”

NORFOLK MIKVAHS

425 Washington Park, Norfolk, VA 23517 757-353-1134, mikvahnorfolk@gmail .com

Mikvah Administrator: Esty Gruen

There are two (soon to be three) mikvahs located adjacent to B’nai Israel Congregation. Mikvah Taharas Chaya (left side entrance), inaugurated in 2022, is exclusively used by women observing Family Purity laws. It is also used by new brides to immerse before their wedding day.

The Norfolk community mikvah (right side entrance) is designated for men’s immersions, new vessels and conversions. Construction of an outdoor mikvah for immersing new vessels (keilim) is almost complete.

NATIONAL COUNCIL OF JEWISH WOMEN

Established nationally in 1893 and locally in 1905, NCJW is the oldest Jewish women’s organization in the U.S. The group’s educational and legislative efforts have helped bring about action in areas of concern to women and children. The local Endowment Fund functions as the Tidewater Council of Jewish Women under Jewish Family Service Foundation Philanthropic Fund Agreement. Donations may be made to the TCJW Fund through JFS, 5000 Corporate Woods Dr., Virginia Beach, VA 23462.

ORT AMERICA

Abbie Laderberg, 757-497-7238

Facebook.com/Tidewater ORT

ORT America supports vocational and technical training for Jews around the world. More than 300,000 students are enrolled in the ORT network of schools and training programs, which include comprehensive and vocational high schools, colleges, apprenticeship programs, and teacher training institutes. Like Tidewater ORT on Facebook.

SOCIAL SERVICES

AVIVA PEMBROKE, BETH SHOLOM VILLAGE

avivapembroke.com

757-424-7907 or 833-453-2595

Aviva Pembroke will be a new state-of-the-art senior living community, with an impressive list of luxurious amenities and ideal location in the heart of Virginia Beach. Created in partnership between Beth Sholom Village and Pembroke Square Associates, it will be a central part of the new vision for the reimagined Pembroke Mall, now known as Pembroke Square.

Aviva Pembroke will feature high end amenities and an affordable luxury lifestyle, and a variety of floor plans for residents. Apartments offered include a 1-bedroom 1-bath, 1-bedroom 1-bath with den, 2-bedroom 2-bath and a 3-bedroom 2-bath. All apartments within Aviva Pembroke will have an outside terrace, walk in closets, and top of the line appliances. With 121 independent living apartments, 20 assisted living apartments, and 12 memory support units, BSV and Pembroke Square Associates are building what the community has been waiting for.

This dynamic community will feature various spaces for entertaining and amenities to include a rooftop bar, indoor pool, fitness room, Wi-Fi throughout, and more. Residents will enjoy a pet-friendly environment, beautician services, health and wellness classes, chef-prepared meals with flexible dining options, as well as professional housekeeping services.

When completed, the Aviva Pembroke project will be a major step toward Beth Sholom Village’s goal of creating a new kind of continuing care retirement neighborhood, one that fosters active lifestyles and community relationships.

Located on the corner of Jeanne Street and Constitution Drive, residents will have access to all of the best dining, shopping and entertainment Virginia Beach has to offer. Aviva Pembroke is currently accepting fully refundable deposits and is expected to open in September 2024.

BETH SHOLOM VILLAGE

757-961-9027

bethsholomvillage.com

President and CEO: David Abraham

Marketing and Philanthropy Director: Amy Weinstein

For more than 40 years, Beth Sholom Village (BSV) has served as the only senior healthcare and residential community in Hampton Roads that embodied traditional Jewish values, customs and traditions. Offering skilled nursing care, rehabilitation and assisted living services, BSV was a community that observed all major Jewish holidays and traditions and proudly served residents and patients of all faiths.

Responding to the changing needs of today’s senior population and to better serve the Jewish seniors of Hampton Roads, BSV recently sold its College Park campus to Green Tree Healthcare, LLC. That campus is now known as Maimonides Health Center, and continues to uphold all of the same Jewish values and traditions as it did as Beth Sholom Village.

Beth Sholom Village is proud to continue its partnership with Senior Services of Southeast Virginia to provide meals through Meals on Wheels Program. BSV prepares and delivers more than 2,000 meals each week to the community.

Beth Sholom Village is continuing its legacy of caring for seniors, creating a community that focuses on enhancing the quality of life, and caring for the body, mind, and soul. In September of 2024, Aviva Pembroke, a premier senior living community created in partnership with Pembroke Realty Group, will open its doors in the heart of Pembroke Square in Virginia Beach. While Aviva Pembroke is currently being constructed, Beth Sholom Village is actively building the community for future residents and deposit holders through book clubs, seminars, wellness programs, and more.

Beth Sholom Village is transitioning towards the next generation of healthcare and senior communities in Hampton Roads, ensuring it can provide care and comfort for all who need it for the next 40 years and beyond. Beth Sholom Village will continue to be the leading resource for Jewish seniors in need of a helping hand, connections to care management, and eventually, a place to call home for the best of retirement. Announcements will be steadily forthcoming about new projects for Beth Sholom Village during this period of transition.

JEWISH FAMILY SERVICE OF TIDEWATER

Reba and Sam Sandler Family Campus

5000 Corporate Woods Drive, Suites 300 and 400, Virginia Beach, VA 23462

Chief Executive Officer: Kelly Burroughs

Administration: 757-321-2222

Counseling Services, Food and Financial Assistance: 757-459-4640

Personal Affairs Management/Guardian & Conservator Program: 757-938-9130

Embrace Care Management: 757-489-3111

jfshamptonroads.org

Jewish Family Service of Tidewater, Inc. is a social service agency providing a continuum of solutions to those in need throughout Tidewater, regardless of religion or financial status. The Hebrew Ladies Charity Society began this work in 1865, which continued through the 1900’s until Jewish Family Service was established in 1946 and incorporated as Jewish Family Service of Tidewater, Inc., in 1969.

The agency has earned a national reputation of responding to community needs

GUIDE TO JEWISH LIVING IN TIDEWATER

by the creation and expansion of programs for children, youth, families, older adults, persons with developmental disabilities, and persons who experience chronic mental illness.

JFS depends on the generosity of the Jewish and the broader Tidewater communities for support. Local funding sources include United Jewish Federation of Tidewater, Tidewater Jewish Foundation, United Way of South Hampton Roads, and many generous foundations and donors.

EMBRACE CARE MANAGEMENT PROGRAM

This program assists individuals and their families in assessing the medical, personal, and social service needs of older adults. By partnering with the client and their families or legal guardians, JFS helps design long-term care plans that allow elderly people to remain in their own homes for as long as possible. Care managers address the practical needs of daily living with older adults. Programs include kosher home delivered meals, friendly volunteer visitors, and transportation to medical appointments.

COUNSELING FOR ALL AGES/EMBRACE COUNSELING

JFS provides individual, couple, family, and group counseling services to people of all ages, regardless of affiliation. JFS offers grief counseling through the Dozoretz Center for Family Healing, a community resource center established to help people of all ages cope with the death of a loved one, family illness, relocation, divorce, separation, or remarriage.

The Jessica Glasser Children’s Therapeutic Pavilion at JFS offers an engaging playtherapy room, which provides a comforting place for children and teens to learn to cope with life issues. Therapists are highly trained, master’s level, Licensed Clinical Social Workers (LCSWs), many of whom hold special training in grief, child/teen issues, family stress, and gerontology.

JFS counseling services are covered by Medicare and Medicaid, and by many private health insurance companies. Services may be provided on a sliding scale fee basis to those without insurance who qualify.

FOOD AND FINANCIAL ASSISTANCE

In Virginia, more than 170,000 families live below the poverty level. Many of these families are unable to obtain nutritious food. To combat this growing problem, JFS partners with the Foodbank of Southeastern Virginia to operate a Community Food Pantry. Individuals and families, regardless of affiliation, can receive food assistance once a month. The Pantry is open on Tuesday mornings and by appointment. Hunger happens in Jewish households, too. For Jewish individuals in need of kosher food, JFS operates its Milk and Honey Food Program and is open by calling ahead.

Financial assistance is available for Jewish families coping with unplanned financial debt and obligation. Case managers help with budgeting, financial planning, and payment arrangements. This program is made possible by the generosity of the Pincus Paul Fund of the Jewish Family Service Foundation and the endowment fund of Hebrew Ladies Charity Society, along with the support of United Jewish Federation of Tidewater and generous donor contributions.

Individuals and families fund special projects, including holiday food baskets, Hanukkah gifts for children, grocery certificates, and assistance with utilities and rent.

JFS receives food from many generous donors throughout the community. Families or organizations interested in a food drive or bringing food or other household supplies to support the pantry, should contact JFS. Restocking of shelves is always needed and assistance with shopping is always appreciated.

PERSONAL AFFAIRS MANAGEMENT/GUARDIANSHIP & CONSERVATORSHIP

The Personal Affairs Management (PAM) Program at JFS safeguards the personal and financial affairs of vulnerable, incapacitated adults with physical, cognitive, and/or mental disabilities. Guardian and/or conservator services are provided based

on court order. The PAM Program has been recognized as a Model Program by the Governor’s Advisory Council on Aging and is approved as a Regional Public Guardian and Conservator Program by the Virginia Department for the Aging and Rehabilitative Services. On-call case management is available 24 hours a day to improve clients’ quality of life and manage personal and medical care.

SERVICES TO PERSONS WITH SPECIAL NEEDS

JFS offers a variety of services to support persons with special or differing needs and is grateful for funding for these services from United Jewish Federation of Tidewater, United Way of South Hampton Roads, and private donors who care about the social and emotional inclusion of persons with special needs.

CAMPS

CAMP JCC

Sandler Family Campus

5000 Corporate Woods Drive Virginia Beach. VA 23462 www.simonfamilyjcc.org

Director of Camp and Teen Engagement: Dave Flagler 757-452-3182, DFlagler@UJFT.org

Camp JCC at the Simon Family JCC provides children with an expansive and enriching day camp experience. This dynamic program allows every child to explore their interests and try new activities within a safe camp atmosphere.

The programs are designed for children entering kindergarten through eighth grade. CIT opportunities are offered for ninth and 10th graders. Summer camp runs mid-June through early August, with “Last Blast” camp sessions offered in the weeks between the end of regular camp and the start of the public-school year.

Camp JCC is more than just a summer program, offering Winter Break Camp and Spring Break Camp, “School Days Out” care, and other year-round opportunities for youth, including “Kids Night Out” which takes place monthly, beginning in October.

GAN ISRAEL

Chabad House 1920 Colley Avenue, Norfolk, VA 23517 www.ganizzy.org

Director: Rashi Brashevitzky 757-616-0770, rashibrashi@me.com

Camp Gan Israel (“Gan Izzy”) is part of the largest worldwide network of Jewish day camps.

At Gan Izzy, campers’ days are filled with games, crafts, field trips, sports, swimming, and more—all with a Jewish twist! Each day of Gan Izzy also includes prayers and a Jewish lesson delivered in a child friendly and relevant fashion. The Gan Izzy experience is filled with great spirit and a love for Jewish heritage. Campers have been known to wait all year long to return to Gan Izzy and start the fun all over again.

CAMP SABABA BEACHAWAY

Directors of Camp: Danny Mishkin and Lynn Lancaster 516-499-5349, info@sabababeachaway.org

Sababa Beachaway is a co-ed residential summer camp for rising fifth through 12th graders, located in Virginia Beach.

Sababa immerses campers in the magic and majesty of the beach, adds the right amount of spiritual practice, and provides a fun, non-competitive yet challenging camp experience.

GUIDE TO JEWISH LIVING IN TIDEWATER

The camp’s two-week sessions invite campers to escape the grind in order to ride the wave, catch the wind, explore the sea, and capture the moment. Whether on a surfboard, in a sailboat, or under the sea, Sababa campers learn exhilarating new skills, build lifelong relationships, grow a stronger sense of self, and stoke an innate spiritual flame.

YOUTH GROUPS

BBYO

Evan Gordon 757-510-3708, egordon@bbyo.org

BBYO involves Jewish teens in meaningful Jewish experiences, guiding them into leadership positions that will last a lifetime. Teens meet weekly, on weekends, from September through June at the Simon Family JCC, and focus on community service and social action programs with their chapters, BBG (girls) and AZA (boys). The teens attend a variety of regional and national conventions.

NFTY: THE REFORM JEWISH YOUTH MOVEMENT

Mid-Atlantic Region—NFTY-MAR

REFORM, nfty.org/mar, nftymar@urj.org

Reform Jewish teens from North Carolina, eastern West Virginia, Virginia, Maryland, Washington DC, and far-eastern Tennessee comprise NFTY-MAR. Members come together for learning, fun, worship, community service, and fellowship to help young Jewish adults build and strengthen lifetime ties with each other and Reform Judaism.

OHEF SHOLOM TEMPLE YOUTH (OSTY)

757-625-4295

OSTY Advisors: Robyn and Paul Weiner ostyadvisors@gmail.com

Ohef Sholom Temple Youth Group (OSTY) is for students in grades 8 – 12. JOSTY, Junior Ohef Sholom Temple Youth Group, is for sixth and seventh graders. Members participate in community service, regional and national conventions, religious, and other “just-for-fun” events. Members also develop leadership skills, build community with each other, and create lifelong memories. OSTY is affiliated with the Union for Reform Judaism’s NFTY (North American Federation of Temple Youth), the Reform Jewish Youth Movement.

B’NAI ISRAEL CEMETERY

2710 Cromwell Road Norfolk, Va .

office@bnaiisrael .org, 757-627-7358

FOREST LAWN CEMETERY

8100 Granby Street Norfolk, Va . 757-441-1752

GOMLEY CHESED CEMETERY

Shell Road near Frederick Blvd. and George Washington Highway Portsmouth, Va. 757-965-6130

HEBREW CEMETERY

Princess Anne Road and Tidewater Drive Norfolk, Va. 757 441-2576

MIKRO KODESH

2295-2355 Berkley Ave. Chesapeake, Va. 757-965-6100

PRINCESS ANNE MEMORIAL PARK

1110 North Great Neck Road Virginia Beach, Va. 757-481-1097

ROSEWOOD MEMORIAL PARK CEMETERY

631 N . Witchduck Road Virginia Beach, Va. 757-497-8925

WOODLAWN MEMORIAL GARDENS

6329 E. Virginia Beach Blvd. Norfolk, Va. 757-461-4054

WORKMEN’S CIRCLE

Railroad Avenue

Chesapeake, Va. 757-965-6100

Start your Child’s Legacy of Giving Today!

Now starting as early as birth, the B’nai Tzedek Youth Philanthropy Program encourages our youngest members of the community to get involved in tzedakah by establishing a fund for Jewish charitable giving.

AND—when you establish a new fund with at least $250, TJF will match your gift with another $250 for a starting balance of $500! When your child is bar or bat mitzvah age, they will have a fund from which they can grant 4% to a Jewish charity of their choice, empowering them to take ownership of their own philanthropy—a valuable lesson we know pays off!

When the fund reaches $5,000, your child will have a Donor-Advised Fund (DAF)—a lifelong resource they can use for tzedakah on their philanthropic journey.

New Gaga pit assures more game time

Originating in Israel, Gaga is a sport like dodgeball, played in a circular pit where players hit and roll the ball to eliminate opposing players.

The Simon Family JCC built its first Gaga pit nearly 10 years ago to entertain students and campers on the Sandler Family Campus.

Now, a newly renovated Gaga pit will be used for the sport, as well as serve as a convertible stage near The Marty Einhorn Pavilion.

“We are so delighted to have this new Gaga pit. Given the humidity and rain totals in our area over the summer, this renovation allows our campers to play in the shade and regardless of the conditions of the grass and soil,” says Dave Flagler, director of camp and teen engagement at UJFT/ Simon Family JCC.

“Previously, after rainstorms, campers would have to wait, sometimes for days, due to the drainage and the mud. This renovated Gaga pit has been a gamechanger, campers love it, and we are so grateful.” says Flagler.

The new structure was designed and constructed by Glenn Saucier, facility director at the Reba and Sam Sandler Family Campus.

The 36’ x 36’ platform deck is covered in all-season AstroTurf, eliminating the week-long disruption that often followed when rain created a muddy pit. The PVC walls that enclose the 26’ round pit are removable and can be used to form a backdrop around the perimeter of the deck.

A grant from Home Depot covered $2,200 in building materials.

Stephanie Peck

Summer through a Jewish lens

Lounging on the beach and ziplining through tropical forests aren’t the only ways to have fun and interesting summer days. For some in Jewish Tidewater, it’s incorporating something Jewish into a trip, camp, or activity. Here, we highlight a few such ‘Jewish Summers’ or ‘Jewish Moments.’ The stories are as diverse as the writers’ ages and offer all sorts of Jewish experiences to consider . . . if not this summer, perhaps next!

A change of plans in Israel

Ari Goldberg ]

Thanks to Tidewater Jewish Foundation, I studied during a gap year at Ruach Hanegev, located in the village of Retamim in the south of Israel.

Learning occurred early in the morning or late at night, but education through hiking was the best part. We visited Shiloh, Ben Gurion’s tomb, and the location where David fought Goliath. Each of these excursions took us through deserts, riverbanks, mountains, and countless springs. During our first hike, we learned about the founding of Israel and Ben Gurion’s hopes and dreams for this new country. The views and lessons were priceless, from navigation to Tanach and Navi.

We were encouraged to find our own museums and tiyuls (journeys) as well as to assimilate in the Israeli society. Perhaps that is what prompted me to take the next step – one that even I hadn’t seen coming.

When I came here, I did not want this land. I figured I would enjoy one year in Israel and then return to America and settle down. However, one class encouraged us to make Aliyah, and here I am, writing from Israel. I spent about six months working on Aliyah and, now I am close to enlisting in the IDF. This is a future I would never have dreamed of just one year ago, nor am I alone. A classmate finished Aliyah the same day as I did.

Making Aliyah does not mean feeling less loyal to my home country. I still preach the constitution and raise the American flag, as I always will. The camp leader agrees with my ideology, as do most of my teachers. While I can’t remember what brought me here, things happen and don’t go as planned. None of them would have been possible if not for Ruach Hanegev.

Summer camp: an experience of a lifetime

[ Ilana Tall ]

There are only a few experiences in life that can change one for the better, and summer camp to me is one of those experiences. After starting as a young camper, I’m now in my 11th summer at Capital Camps, working as the aquatics coordinator. To say that camp has made my life better is an understatement. The memories and relationships made here will last a lifetime. It’s brought me closer to Judaism and allowed me to bring my shared experiences to and from home in Virginia Beach.

From being a young camper going out of my comfort zone to make friends, to being a leader and role model for both staff and campers, it has been the experience of a lifetime. I’ve had an amazing summer and feel everything has come full circle. Watching the campers do all those things I did so many years ago has been truly inspirational.

I can’t wait to see our younger generations experience the magic of summer camp.

SYNAGOGUE IN FLORENCE OVERWHELMS

[ Andrea Helms ]

Finally. Alyson (Morrissey) and I have our first chunk of free time in Italy –on a record setting hot day.

After studying our map over savory gnocchi and chianti, we had a plan of attack. The place farthest away was the Florence synagogue. Fifteen minutes, we were told. To our tour guide, everything was 15 minutes away. When we spied Ruth’s Deli, however, we knew we were on the right track.

To say I was overwhelmed by the synagogue would be an understatement. From the cathedral-like grandeur of the facade and main sanctuary to the painted walls and old stained-glass windows, it took my breath away.

The upper floors house a museum, where we examined old Sephardic torah dressings, sedar plates, and other miscellaneous artifacts.

Florence’s Jews once held a position of prominence, with the Medici showing them much favor, treating them fairly and with respect. During the Holocaust, as the Nazis fled Florence, they planted explosives in various places around the synagogue. Fortunately, they were in quite a hurry; when detonated, many of the explosives failed to fire.

The Florence synagogue will stand proudly for many generations to come. A symbol of Jewish tenacity, perhaps?

Fun fact: we also learned that the locals generally agree that the best restaurants in Rome are in the Jewish Quarter.

Andrea Helms and Alyson Morrissey.

Trip to Israel filled with emotion [ Rabbi

Ron Koas

]

My visit to Israel in July was filled with joy, compassion, love, support, and thankfulness. I arrived on a Monday afternoon. The first thing I did was meet with my sister, Ganit, who is fighting cancer for the third time. It’s hard to believe that I participated in the funeral and shiva of my mother less than a year ago. My sister is a very strong young woman, a mensch like our mother. Ganit is and has always been a role model and rock for me. As soon as my plane landed, she texted me, “Welcome Home!” Home is many things at many different times in our lives. It is often stated that “Home is where the heart is.” Right now, Home is Ganit. It broke my heart leaving her. Thank you, Ganit for being such a great sister.

My best friend, Roi, said he would be on Kaplan Street in Tel Aviv participating in the rally against the Judicial Reform in Israel. I walked 45 minutes to meet him there. We spoke a lot about the future of the Jewish people in the State of Israel and how this will affect our lives as Jews in the diaspora. It was a powerful rally and a great discussion. As I marched in solidarity to support and defend the democracy of Israel, I felt connected to Jews around the world. This is not just the fight of Israelis; this is our fight as American Jews to be recognized by the State of Israel as Jews. We have a voice, and it needs to always be heard. It’s a small Jewish world, after all.

On Saturday night at the end of Shabbat, we had a Havdalah service in the streets with the rabbi and congregants of Beit Daniel, a Progressive Synagogue on the Yarkon River. After this, I thought and declared that we of Tidewater should have a community trip to Israel.

I understand now why more and more people in Israel are looking towards other religious alternatives. Often, they don’t know there are other religious options other than Orthodoxy, so they move to the other extreme, and become completely secular. We know this, and therefore we will keep evolving and moving forward. This is the path of Jewish survival. The Jewish people cannot connect to Judaism without change and involvement. Growth is change, and change is growth. Often growing includes growing pains.

It was nice to see my extended family and friends, but it was sad to see Israel as a divided country.

A rabbi is always a rabbi, even on vacation :)

L’Shana Haba’ah B’Yerushalayim “Next year in Jerusalem.”

MY EXPERIENCE AT CAMP SABABA [ Nathan Cooper ]

This summer I spent two weeks away at Sababa Beachaway, which like the name suggests, is a camp focused on ocean activities. My favorite part of the experience was getting my open-water

SCUBA certification. I can now dive anywhere in the world, but I can always take more classes here at the Lynnhaven Dive Center where we learned. Sababa also offered many different electives when we weren’t in the water, like ultimate frisbee and tennis.

After a busy week, we celebrated Shabbat together in a way that was both laid back and traditional at the same time. There are not many Jewish kids at my school, so it was very special to meet so many Jewish kids from all over the country, the world, and from lots of Jewish backgrounds. No matter where we were from, we became a close-knit community at Sababa.

Dolphins and surfing at Camp Sababa

Natashia Orloff ]

Iwent to Camp Sababa this summer.

The first thing I did was Ocean Discovery. We would go to the beach and play. One day I was walking back to shore and heard dolphin noises, so I turned around and there was a dolphin! The second thing I did was surfing. I started in beginner on the first day then moved up to intermediate, which was so much fun because we got to go farther out, but your instructor would still help you. There was also a talent show!

That’s why I had a great summer at Camp Sababa.

An impactful internship in Tel Aviv [ Matthew Gross ]

This summer in Tel Aviv was an unforgettable experience for me. I had the incredible opportunity to live in Sarona, a vibrant neighborhood near the bustling business district –surrounded by a diverse group of college students from various parts of the world. Our apartment was strategically located, just a 20-minute walk from the beautiful beach where we often gathered to unwind and enjoy the sunsets. Living with such a mixed group of individuals provided a unique cultural exchange, enabling us to form a tight-knit community, sharing our backgrounds and experiences while exploring the wonders of Israel together.

The company in Tel Aviv I interned for operated on an international scale. The internship was an eye-opening journey, teaching me valuable lessons in adapting to different cultures within a business setting and allowing me to develop both professionally and personally.

What made my time even more special were the people I met. I connected with fellow interns who shared similar mindsets and passions, resulting in friendships that will undoubtedly stay with me for a lifetime. Moreover, I had the privilege of engaging with Israelis who offered insights into their way of life, which differed significantly from the USA. This cross-cultural exchange broadened my perspectives and enriched my understanding of the world.

Matthew Gross at the Western Wall.

Natashia Orloff (left) and friend.

STEIN FAMILY REUNION REFLECTS EXPANDING FAMILY [ Lawrence Fleder ]

Born in Dvinsk, Russia (now Daugarpils, Latvia) during the 1860s, our great grandparents, Heshel (Harry) Stein and Ida (Sarah) Gelman, married and then immigrated to the United States, settling in Norfolk.

At the start of the 20th century, Norfolk was the economic hub of Hampton Roads, thus the families set their roots near downtown – mostly in the Ghent area – pursuing mercantile trades.

On Sunday, July 23, 163 years after Heshel and Ida Stein began their life together, a family reunion was organized by David Konikoff, Lisa Stein Delevie, Alice Laibstain Werner, and Linda Laibstain. About 100 relatives attended.

The Stein family branches include Robbins, Laibstain, Adler, and Fleder, with the next generation names being Konikoff, Wainger, Gamsey, Silverman, Karp, Ossen, Feldman, Fischer, Donn, Golding, and Cohen. Of course, there are more current generations with 29 new surnames and more added each year. In fact, the youngest to attend

the reunion was eight-month-old Samuel Kahn. The energy level was high with stories and anecdotes shared throughout the gathering before heading indoors to air conditioning and a delicious buffet dinner.

Project SEED at B’nai Israel The Jewish Quarter in Rome

Ellen Wagner

In early July, Bill and I visited the Jewish Quarter in Rome with Laura, a fabulous Jewish guide (Jews Travel Rome info@Jewstravelrome. com). It was fascinating to learn about the history of Roman Jews. Formerly known as the Jewish Ghetto, with its high walls and two gates, much of the area remains as it was in ancient times.

We visited The Jewish Museum, which had an extraordinary collection of Jewish artifacts and tapestries that were handmade from torah covers. Located above the museum, a daily minyan takes place in the Jewish Synagogue. The women are separated from the men and Jews of all persuasions, Orthodox, Conservative and Reform all worship together as Roman Jews. B’nai Mitzvahs and weddings are held regularly in the synagogue.

We sampled “Pizze,” Jewish Pizza – a combination of almond flour, nuts, raisins, and candied fruit – fried and dripping with honey. While delicious, it was very different from American pizza. We purchased pieces of chocolate and cherry cheesecake from The Little Bakery. The cake is covered with a browned crust to hide the cheese because the Jews were forbidden to have and eat cheese. Our guide was instrumental in getting us the cake as the ladies who run the bakery, speaking only Italian, are known to rush a customer in and out.

When in Rome, we highly suggest a visit to the Jewish Quarter to experience the sense of pride Roman Jews have.

Shoshana Fogel

With a few friends in July, I ran a Jewish day camp at B’nai Israel, through Project SEED. The children came to camp every morning with excitement in their eyes.

We took the campers on fun trips and did crafts and had weekly Brachos parties through which we taught the children about thanking Hashem for what they’re eating, parsha skits about the weekly Torah portion, and Kabbalas Shabbos get-togethers every Friday night, when we prayed, played games, told stories, and sang.

We also led weekly women’s events, giving them the chance to get to know each other through activities and food, creating a sense of camaraderie with women from different backgrounds. We got so much positive feedback on the difference we had made in the parents’ and children’s summers. In all my years of attending or working in day camps, this has probably been my most enjoyable, impactful, and unforgettable summer ever!

Summertime at Strelitz International Academy

Ally St. Pierre

Rainbows, rocket ships, and red, white, and blue spirit are just some of the themes that filled Strelitz International Academy’s classrooms this summer, keeping SIA’s summer session busy both inside and outside of the classroom.

To maintain excitement and engagement, a new theme was introduced each week. SIA’s creative educators planned daily lessons and activities that followed the weeks’ themes and put smiles on students’ faces.

The summer program began with Animal Kingdom week. Students in Jamie Jones’s and Erika Ferrell’s toddler class enjoyed fun crafts and sensory activities, boosting their fine motor skills using stampers and paintbrushes to create lions. The toddlers also used tweezers to “rescue” animals from hay. Despite a rainy first week, the students used their imagination and had a wonderful time.

During Under the Sea week, Rachel Helms’ and Lorena Smithson’s Early Years 2 class read The Rainbow Fish by Marcus Pfister. After reading the story, students constructed paper plate rainbow fish using sparkly paper for the shimmering scales. Plus, Helms and Smithson created a beach-themed sensory bin with sand, ocean animal figures, and tools to build sandcastles. The weather was perfect, and students and staff had a great time.

July’s first week’s theme was Red, White, and Blue. Although it was a shorter week due to the holiday, it was still filled with exciting activities. Toddlers in Katie Norman’s and Teresa Briscoe’s class turned into artists using dish washing brushes as painting instruments. With different brushes for each color, they created bright and colorful fireworks on colored construction paper.

And, of course, the Early Years students swam daily in the Simon Family JCC’s pool and enjoyed water play to cool off on the hot, sunny days.

The last few weeks of summer at SIA included more creative experiences and themes including a color run for Color Madness week . . . all with plenty of enthusiasm.

The Strelitz International Academy is the community’s Jewish Day School and International Baccalaureate® World School for infants through grade 5. For more information, contact Ally St. Pierre, admissions and marketing manager, at 757-424-4327, ext. 4188 or astpierre@ strelitzacademy.org.

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Early Years 2 student, Keren Shechter, uses shiny paper to create a paper plate rainbow fish.

Toddler 4 student, Everett Booth, holds a lion he “rescued” from the hay.

JFS Biennial Meeting: New leadership, awards, and farewells

Kelly Burroughs

This year marks 75 years of commitment by Jewish Family Service to serve the community. For more than three quarters of a century, thousands of people have received help from the family services agency. Part of the agency’s success is the legacy of its board of directors, generous donors, committed staff, community partnerships, and countless hours of work performed by community volunteers.

Awards and distinctions

On June 30, JFS held its 66th biennial meeting to install a new board president and celebrate the agency’s accomplishments with many recognitions.

Anne Kramer, board president, opened the meeting by inviting Rabbi Michael Panitz of Temple Israel to offer the invocation. A long-standing supporter of JFS, Temple Israel’s members provide food drives throughout the year for the agency’s food pantries, often helping to restock the empty shelves.

JFS also receives support from young people. Three outstanding teens – Molly Mancoll, Anna Sherman, and Ari Simon – who chose the JFS Food Pantry for their b’nai mitzvah projects of collecting nonperishable foods and hygiene products

to fill the JFS Food Pantry shelves, were recognized. “We are so thankful for the generosity of these young people and the support provided them by their parents

get all year, and they really look forward to an outing,” said Salomonsky.

The Distinguished Service Award was given to Dr. Barbara Parks in appreciation of her years of support to JFS and her service to the community. As a member of both the Home Care Services committee and the PAM program advisory board, Parks has helped shape the structure of medical care for the agency’s clients.

supervised.

Aikman began working at JFS in 1999, and immediately started learning about adult guardianship. “Many of the people here today owe their jobs to all of the policies and procedures that Marlene developed and taught,” said Salomonsky.

Clements joined the PAM department in 2000, having just received his counselor license. “Lloyd has been the backbone of our PAM Program for the last 23 years. He is a recognized expert in the field of guardianship and his dedication to JFS and our clients is unparalleled,” said Salomonsky.

and the community,” said Debbie Mayer, JFS clinical director.

Altmeyer Funeral Home was recognized with the Community Partner Award for their years of dedicated commitment to JFS and the community. Dorothy Salomonsky, PAM program director, spoke of the importance of the relationship JFS has with Altmeyer and its employees.

“Whether our client in their care was homeless or a millionaire, they treat every person and their family members with dignity and respect.” Not only does Altmeyer provide after life services for JFS clients, but they also host a holiday party every year in which 100 or more clients are treated to a holiday lunch.

“This is sometimes the only restaurant meal that our clients

“Dr. Parks is always available when JFS calls and provides advice, guidance, direction, and involvement when it is most critical. Our clients come to us suffering from the most extreme medical conditions, often with very contentious family situations. We are called upon to make life and death decisions for strangers we just met. She gives thoughtful insight and treats each one of our clients as she would her own patients,” said Salomonsky.

JFS also recognized several long-standing employees: Marlene Aikman, Lloyd Clements, Robert Lang, and Alla Gean. All have worked at JFS for decades, giving their time and service in dramatically impactful ways. Encompassing Tikkun Olam, they have left this community better than they found it, serving as mentors to those they

Lang has been JFS’s trusts and assets manager since 2004, after retiring from his job at UPS. Salomonsky said, “When our finance department needed a trusts and assets manager, we knew that Bob would be the person to build that department. His knowledge as an attorney has been invaluable to our program as he has intervened and advocated for our clients.”

Gean is the senior acculturation case manager for the older adult services department. She joined JFS in January 2001 as a part time case work assistant in the Soviet Jewish Resettlement program, a job that quickly became full time. As the case manager for elderly New Americans and

Ellen Rosenblum announces Scott Flax as the new JFS board president. Anne Kramer, immediate past president, hands him the gavel.

Kelly Burroughs and Dorothy Salomonsky present Dr. Barbara Parks with the Distinguished Service Award.

Scott Flax, new JFS board president, bangs the gavel for the first time to adjourn the Biennial Meeting.

IT’S A WRAP

Holocaust survivors, she works tirelessly to get all the resources and benefits that they are entitled to receive. “She is very detailed-oriented and works closely with physicians and other organizations to make sure her clients get appointments and the services they need,” said Debbie Mayer.

President’s remarks and new president installation

Anne Kramer began her two-year term as president in 2021. When installed, Kramer listed several goals for her term: to remain financially secure, to help break the stigma of mental health, to develop Care Management Services to care more fully for older and disabled adults, to continue to be good stewards of the generosity of JFS’ donors, and to increase community partnerships through events. In her remarks at the meeting, Kramer noted the successes JFS has had over the past two years, as well as in the 75 years of its incorporation, noting the agency has served thousands

of people, provided thousands of counseling hours, served hundreds of food pantry guests, and hundreds of families who received Hanukkah gifts.

Kramer emphasized the changes

department (now called Embrace Counseling), the retirement of several staff members and welcome of their replacements, the growth of the PAM department, and the closure of the private duty home care program. “The dedication of the staff and board of directors to make all of these transitions possible is noted best by the continued success of JFS in the community and the ability to provide care where it is needed most,” she said.

community with transparency and timely decisions.”

As Kramer welcomed Scott Flax as the new board president, she said, “You are lucky to be stepping into the role as board president. I hope two years from now you will feel as honored as I feel today to have been in this role.”

“As the incoming president, I believe it is important that we inform and educate our friends, family, neighbors, and community about all the amazing services that JFS offers,” said Flax. “I want to make sure that we emphasize our strengths and that we are prepared for the next 75 years of helping the community.”

JFS recently experienced and its focus to serve the community. Changes included the move of the clinical services

Ellen Rosenblum, immediate past president, recognized Kramer’s leadership saying that “Anne led by example and further enhanced our reputation in the

Flax thanked the board members past and present, JFS volunteers and staff, his wife, parents, and children for their support in this appointment and their commitment to his service of the community. “JFS is here to help. We are here to assist. We are here to comfort and aid all those in need throughout life’s many transitions,” he said.

Kelly Burroughs and Dorothy Salomonsky present Altmeyer Funeral Home with the Community Partner Award. Tracy Bradshaw accepted the award.

Pop-Up Shabbats bring community together

achieving those goals. Even for those who don’t observe Shabbat regularly, it’s safe to say that when candles are lit together, when the motzi and kiddish prayers are recited together, and that first bite of challah on Friday night is taken together, a visceral connection to each other and to the Jewish People takes place.

Pop-Up Shabbats encourage YAD-age (22ish to 42ish) members of the community – singles, couples, and families – to host or attend Shabbat dinners. With no charge to attend and expense reimbursements to hosts, the program is low-barrier, low pressure, and high in returns! UJFT sees great potential for program growth and thinks it will continue to yield greater and greater returns. Guests who attend these Pop-Ups can also host a Shabbat dinner, and UJFT is ready to assist.

synagogue. Everyone instantly was comfortable because we were celebrating Shabbat. I really enjoyed getting to know our hosts (the Mostofskys). Tehilla has the best smile… the best energy… and the best food! I must get that recipe for Lemon Ice Cream Pie! – Guest,

Dorianne Villani

It was so nice to share our Shabbat table with people we didn’t yet know. I feel like we all made new friends, as we broke bread together. One or two of the guys later joined Nadiv – the UJFT Young Men’s Giving Circle, so the Pop-Ups are truly getting people involved in Jewish community, even beyond the dinners. We truly enjoyed it. – Host,

Shikma Rubin

Amy Zelenka

This past spring, the Young Adult Division (YAD) of the United Jewish Federation rolled out a program that’s now rolling fast on its own. Since March, the Federation has offered four Shabbat dinners for young Jewish adults that are hosted by community members. Thanks to a generous grant from the Richard S. Glasser Family Foundation, the YAD Pop-Up Shabbat program has taken off and is building its own momentum. Three more Pop-Ups are planned (two in August in Norfolk’s Ghent section and one in October in Virginia Beach’s Little Neck neighborhood). Open spots are available for each. Visit www.Jewishva.org/popupshabbat to register as a guest or to host a Pop-Up.

The Pop-Up Shabbat program is designed to engage young Jewish adults from across the region in an activity that allows them to meet and get to know one another in a casual, no agenda, low pressure way. (If they end-up rekindling a bit of their Jewish souls in the process, who will protest?) Shabbat dinners seem to be a perfect vehicle for

Here’s what some of the hosts and guests say about their Pop-Up Shabbat experience:

We had a great time hosting when the program first started and met some fantastic new people! We’re looking forward to hosting again in August, we love sharing the beauty of Shabbat with others and the opportunity to learn from one another. We also appreciate programs like this that help us feel united with the wider Tidewater community. – Host, Gabriela

Kocerha

This was a unique opportunity to share Shabbat dinner with people I had never met before as well as those I knew quite well. And I loved that the group was such a mix of ages, geography, where they go to

It has been a wonderful experience to attend these Pop-Up Shabbats. They are real connectors – bringing young people together who might not otherwise have the chance to meet. It’s fantastic that the Glasser Family made this investment, so that UJFT could organize a program that brings the community closer through casual, shared experiences. The fact that these are uniquely Jewish experiences make them even more meaningful. – Guest,

Solomon Siegel

As a relatively new member of this community, I know how difficult it can be to meet people and make meaningful connections. My husband, Jake, and I think these Shabbat dinners are a great opportunity to bring Jewish young professionals together in an intimate yet relaxed setting. –

Host Jessica Glasser

To be part of an upcoming Pop-Up Shabbat (as a host or a guest), go to www.Jewishva. org/popupshabbat to sign up. For questions that the website does not address, contact Amy Zelenka at the Federation at 757-965-6139 or azelenka@ujft.org.

WHAT’S HAPPENING

Loads of merchandise at Ohef Sholom Temple Sisterhood’s Rummage Sale

Friday, August 18, 8:30 am – 1:50 pm • Sunday, August 20, 8:30 am – 1:50 pm Ohef Sholom

Temple

Gail Bachman

Ohef Sholom Temple Sisterhood has been working hard collecting merchandise for its Rummage Sale. Congregants and friends have donated wonderful things – from furniture to sporting equipment such as for golf and fishing – and it seems like everything in between. Jewelry, electronics, books, albums, DVDs, and CDs are also in the sale. Shoppers will be able to browse through yards and yards of costuming supplies and catering items, as well as an abundance of linens and bedding, office supplies, holiday items, and so much more. Check ohefsholom.org for pictures of some of the available merchandise as Sisterhood tries to entice shoppers. Sisterhood’s major fund-raising event, proceeds from the sale are used to support many congregational and community causes.

Ohef Sholom is located at 530 Raleigh Ave. in Norfolk.

End of Summer Shabbat to welcome new ShinShinim

Friday, August 25, 5 pm, Sandler

Family Campus

$8 child; $12 for adult; $36 for family

Nofar Trem

Get ready for an unforgettable celebration as PJ Library in Tidewater gears up for its highly anticipated End of Summer Shabbat and Pool Party. As summer draws to a close, this annual event promises to be a joyous occasion filled with warmth and camaraderie, as two new additions are welcomed to Tidewater’s Jewish community.

Set against the backdrop of the Simon Family JCC outdoor water park, the End of Summer Shabbat and Pool Party has become a beloved tradition for families. This year, the festivities take on an even more meaningful note with the arrival of two new ShinShinim, Maya Ostrov and Naomi Friedland.

Tidewater’s ShinShinim program, a partnership between United Jewish Federation of Tidewater and

Jewish Agency for Israel, brings two young Israeli emissaries to the community each year to foster cultural exchange and deepen the connection between Israel and the local community.

In addition to welcoming the ShinShinim, the End of Summer Shabbat offers a moment of reflection as attendees celebrate Shabbat together. After pool games for all ages, Rabbi Yoni Warren will lead family-friendly Shabbat blessings, which will be followed by a cook-out style dinner.

This event is not just a celebration of summer’s end, but a chance to strengthen the bonds that tie everyone together as a vibrant and diverse Jewish community.

To register, go to jewishva.org/pj. For more information, contact Nofar Trem at ntrem@ujft.org.

Belonging, Behaving, Believing: an overview of Judaism class

Wednesdays, August 23 and 30 and September 6, Home of Rabbi Jaffe-Gill, Free

Rabbi Ellen Jaffe-Gill of Tidewater Chavurah will present a basic Judaism class, “Belonging, Behaving, Believing,” on three Wednesday evenings. During these two-hour sessions, the class will offer an overview of Judaism, including holidays, lifecycle, history, and culture.

The class is open to the public. It will be held in-person at the home of Rabbi Jaffe-Gill (address provided at registration), with a Zoom option available.

For more information or to sign up for the class, email Rabbi Jaffe-Gill at rabbicantorejg@gmail.com.

Maya Ostrov and Naomi Friedland.

Fiddler Frenzy: Fiddler on the Roof comes to Tidewater with community events for all – October 4-29, Wells Theatre –

RSVP required

One of the largest waves in Jewish history of dispersal and migration was the flight of three million Jews from Tsarist and Revolutionary-Era Russia. Why did the Jewish people, so inured to discrimination, collectively decide to leave the Pale of Settlement?

In this two-session course, taught by Rabbi Michael Panitz, attendees will examine, first, the difficult history of the Jews of Russia and the newly-created Soviet Union, 1881-1924, and second, the history of Jewish emigration from that land to farflung destinations in North America, South America, Western Europe, South Africa, and even Israel.

incredible rendition.

• Discover how the musical sheds light on the Jewish community’s struggles, traditions, and resilience during a transformative era.

• Learn about the significance of the music, its cultural impact, and the emotions it evokes in both performers and audiences. Panelists will include Rabbi Michael Panitz (Temple Israel rabbi), Tom Quaintance (Virginia Stage Company artistic director), Jeff Ryder (Virginia Stage Company managing director), and others.

Hunter Thomas

Join United Jewish Federation of Tidewater and Virginia Stage Company as they celebrate their partnership production of Fiddler on The Roof. This classic musical kicks off Virginia Stage Company’s 45th season and 110th year of the Wells Theatre. Fiddler on the Roof, with its wonderful cast and lavish orchestra, tells the heartwarming story of fathers and daughters, husbands and wives, and the timeless traditions that define faith and family. Featuring the Broadway classics Tradition, If I Were a Rich Man, Sunrise, Sunset, Matchmaker, Matchmaker, and To Life, this new production will introduce a new generation to this uplifting tale.

To celebrate what will undoubtedly be an incredible production, UJFT is offering various opportunities for the community to engage with Fiddler on the Roof with a series of events.

VBGIGs: Globally Inspired Gatherings

Saturday, August 19, 9 am – 12 pm

Free and open to the community

ViBe Farmers Market

Fiddler on the Roof is based on the original stories of Sholem Aleichem, a survivor of the 1890s pogroms in what is now

Ukraine. Shop for local produce in the beautiful ViBe District while performers from Virginia Stage Company regale the market with a revue of some of the play’s most popular tunes to celebrate Ukrainian and Eastern European Jewish culture.

Fiddler: Miracle of Miracles

Wednesday, August 23, 1 pm

Cinema Café Kemps River

Free and open to the community; RSVP required

Fiddler: Miracle of Miracles is a documentary film that explores Fiddler’s creative roots in early 1960s New York, when “tradition” was on the wane as gender roles, sexuality, race relations, and religion were evolving.

Discover the untold stories and incredible challenges faced during the making of this iconic musical as it comes to life on the stage and screen, bringing to light the behind-the-scenes struggles and triumphs that made it a true miracle.

The History Behind Fiddler on the Roof: The Iron Cauldron and Leaving Mother Russia

Tuesday, September 5, and Thursday, September 7, 11 am – 12:30 pm Simon Family JCC Free and open to the community;

Fiddler on the Roof: Backstage and Beyond

Wednesday, September 13, 7:30 pm

Wells Theatre

Free and open to the community

This thought-provoking panel discussion goes beyond the curtains of the upcoming Norfolk production of Fiddler on the Roof. Participants will go on a journey through the historical context of the musical and explore how its timeless music has enriched Jewish culture.

• Gain insights into the creative process, the challenges of staging such an iconic show, and the vision behind this

These programs are supported by the Helen G. Gifford Foundation, S.L. Nusbaum Realty Co., and The Making Music Happen Community Grant Initiative, which is made possible by a generous grant from the Pertzik Fund for Arts and Culture at JCC Association of North America.

Tickets to Virginia Stage Company’s production of Fiddler on the Roof go on sale August 14. RSVP for UJFT’s community events and get tickets for the show at JewishVA.org/Fiddler. For more information about the production or to discuss group tickets for the show within the Jewish community, contact Hunter Thomas, director of Arts + Ideas at UJFT, at HThomas@UJFT.org.

Fiddler on The Roof, Chichester Festival Theatre, UK. Photo Credit: Chichester Festival Theatre. Courtesy of Roadside Attractions and Samuel Goldwyn Films.

Maria Karnilova, Tanya Everett, Zero Mostel, Julia Migenes, and Joanna Merlin backstage, opening night, Sept. 22, 1964. Photo credit: AP Photo. Courtesy of Roadside Attractions and Samuel Goldwyn Films.

CALENDAR

AUGUST 17, THURSDAY

Monthly Moon Circle. The Konikoff Center for Learning of the United Jewish Federation of Tidewater presents a tradition that spans thousands of years: a monthly holiday known as Rosh Chodesh, meaning “head of the month.” 6:45 pm. This is a time for self-reflection and rituals to help connect with this ancient legacy, learn from Jewish wisdom, and embrace the unique spiritual energy of each month. For more information and to register, visit JewishVA.org/KCL or contact Sierra Lautman at SLautman@UJFT.org.

AUGUST 23, WEDNESDAY

Fiddler: Miracle of Miracles. This documentary film explores Fiddler’s creative roots in early 1960s New York, when “tradition” was on the wane as gender roles, sexuality, race relations, and religion were evolving. 1 pm, Cinema Café Kemps River. Free and open to the community, registration required. Learn more at JewishVA.org/Fiddler. See page 50.

AUGUST 25, FRIDAY

End of Summer Family Shabbat and Pool Party at the Simon Family JCC’s outdoor waterpark begins at 5 pm. Kick the night off with Splash Fest Relay Races and games in the pool for all ages. Shabbat blessings and dinner start at 6 pm, which includes summer classics like chicken barbeque, pasta salad, and refreshing adult beverages, as well as a special welcome for Tidewater’s new Shinshinim, Maya and Naomi. $8 per child, $11 per adult, $30 maximum for a household. Children under 2 years old are free. For more information and to register, visit JewishVA.org/PJLibrary or contact Nofar Trem at NTrem@UJFT.org.

AUGUST 30, WEDNESDAY

35th Annual Strelitz International Golf Tournament at the Virginia Beach National Golf Club. Many levels of sponsorship opportunities are available—from $400 up to $10,500. SIA’s 35th Annual Golf Tournament welcomes all golfers and volunteers for a day of fun, golf, and an exciting awards reception with a delicious kosher buffet. Learn more at https://strelitzinternationalacademy.org/support-us/annual-golf-tournament/. To register as a sponsor, player, or volunteer, contact Carin Simon, director of advancement at Strelitz International Academy, at CSimon@StrelitzAcademy.org or 757-424-4327.

SEPTEMBER 10, SUNDAY

Super Sunday Community Campaign at the Marty Einhorn Pavilion. 10 am – 1 pm. For information, contact Amy Zelenka at azelenka@ujft.org or 757-965-6139.

Tzedakah Sunday Fun Day. Families are invited for an afternoon of fun with tzedakahthemed games and crafts at the Simon Family JCC. Babysitting sign-up will be available for parents who volunteer for the Super Sunday Community Campaign in the Marty Einhorn Pavilion between 12 and 1 pm. Free and open to the community. For more information and to register, visit JewishVA.org/children-family or contact Nofar Trem at Ntrem@ujft.org or 757-321-2334.

SEPTEMBER 13, WEDNESDAY

Fiddler on the Roof: Backstage and Beyond. A thought-provoking panel discussion that goes beyond the curtains of the upcoming Norfolk production of Fiddler on the Roof. Panelists include Rabbi Michael Panitz (Temple Israel), Tom Quaintance (Virginia Stage Company), Jeff Ryder (Virginia Stage Company), and others. Free and open to the community, registration required. 7:30 pm Wells Theatre. Part of a partnership between the United Jewish Federation of Tidewater and Virginia Stage Company in advance of VSC’s October production of Fiddler on the Roof. Find out more at JewishVA.org/Fiddler. See page 50.

SEPTEMBER 27-DECEMBER 6, WEDNESDAYS

Jewish Medical Ethics: A 21st Century Discussion (Online). A 10-Week Melton Course offered by the Konikoff Center for Learning at United Jewish Federation of Tidewater. 6:45 pm. Led by Harman Grossman, an attorney and long-time Melton teacher at Central Synagogue in New York, students will have the chance to explore the positive, negative, beneficial, and detrimental aspects of the new technologies in the medical field and the wisdom Judaism offers in encounters with them. From human cloning to surrogacy, modern medical advances can improve and prolong life, but also raise dilemmas – and Judaism has a lot to say about it. Early Registration is $235 before September 20 using code EARLYBIRD at checkout. Standard registration is $295. For more information and to register, visit JewishVA.org/Melton or contact Sierra Lautman at slautman@ujft. org or 757-965-6107.

C AREER O PPORTUNITY

The UJFT seeks an ambitious, energetic candidate for the position of Young Adult Division Associate, to support the development of a best-in-class Young Adult Division (22- 45-years-old) program; to actively engage this population in Jewish life and offer multiple entry points for involving them in Federation and the greater Tidewater Jewish community. Primary responsibility will be outreach and volunteer engagement, event planning, campaign operations and administrative tasks.

A Bachelor's degree is required (preferred degree in business, marketing, office administrative operations & logistics or related field from an accredited college or university), with a proven track record with program development and volunteer management. Ideally, 2-4 years of work experience in Jewish communal field; combo of education & experience considered.

Contact Taffy Hunter, Human Resources director, at 757-965-6117, resumes@ujft.org or submit resume to:

United Jewish Federation of Tidewater Attention: Human Resources 5000 Corporate Woods Drive Virginia Beach, 23462

Y OUN G A DU L T D IVIS ION A SSOCI A TE ( Y AD)

Judi H. Cytron

ST. LOUIS PARK, MINN. – Judi H. Cytron died on August 8, 2023.

Judi was born in St. Louis, Missouri and raised and nurtured by her grandparents, Rachel and Alex Silverstein. She attended the University of Missouri and was the owner and operator of The Elephant Trunk, a children’s gift and party store in her hometown.

She was predeceased by her beloved uncle, Joe Silverstein, and her younger sister, Susie Borden, both of St. Louis.

Judi is survived by her husband of 61 years Ashley L. Cytron; two sons, Andrew and wife Pam, and Todd and wife, Amy; niece Terri and husband Shane Shadrach; grandchildren Hanah, Dara, Samantha, Mia, and Max; and many caring family members, including grandnieces Olivia and Norah.

Judi was a dedicated volunteer at CHDK hospital of Norfolk, Virginia, creating many hundreds of scarves and caps for patients and infants. She had been a member of Norfolk’s Congregation Beth El, and a life member of Hadassah. Judi cultivated

a caring group of knitting circle friends, and together with Ashley were embraced by many neighbors in both their Virginia Beach homes, before recently relocating to Minnesota.

Contributions to a cancer research center or to a charity of the donor’s choice. A graveside service was held.

Mimi Sunshine Karesh ROCKVILLE, MD - Mimi Sunshine Karesh of the North End of Virginia Beach, Va., passed away Monday, August 7, 2023.

Beloved mother of Michael (Gayla Bassham) Karesh and Sara Karesh (David) Coxe. Devoted grandmother of Lena, Benton, and Judah Karesh and Sunny Coxe. She was predeceased by her parents, Irving and Judith Sunshine; her brother, Harry Sunshine; and her husband, Dr. Warren Karesh.

Mimi grew up in Columbia, S.C. She earned a pharmacy degree from the University of South Carolina and was a proud Gamecock. She and Warren moved to Virginia Beach, where they raised their two

children. They participated in a National Young Leadership mission to Israel in February 1974.

Mimi deeply believed in “l’dor vador” and gave generously to the causes she supported, in hope of creating a better world for generations to come. She served as president of Beth Sholom Home and as chair of United Jewish Federation of Tidewater’s Women’s Campaign, and was a board member of Hebrew Academy of Tidewater. Mimi was recognized for her leadership by the National Conference for Community and Justice.

The family requests donations to the Virginia Aquarium and Marine Science Center or the United Jewish Federation of Tidewater. Funeral services entrusted to Sagel Bloomfield Danzansky Goldberg, Rockville, Md. (sagelbloomfield.com).

Jeanne Marcus

PORTSMOUTH - Jeanne Mussman Marcus died on July 11, 2023, at age 91.

Funeral services were held on July 13, 2023.

Born in Brooklyn, New York, Jeanne and her parents moved to Portsmouth, Va., when she was four years old, to be near her mother’s siblings. Her parents opened a corner grocery store, and Jeanne felt lucky to grow up with a large group of local cousins. When she was seven years old, her brother, Bert, was born, and she became like a third parent to him.

Jeanne attended Portsmouth public schools, graduating from Wilson High School in 1948 and assembling a large group of lifelong friends along the way. In 1952, she graduated from the College of William and Mary with a degree in English and began her 35-year teaching career in Portsmouth. At a social event at the Norfolk JCC, Jeanne met Julius Marcus and they hit it off! After she and Julius married in 1954, they settled in Portsmouth and raised two daughters. Jeanne and Julius were married for 62 years until his death in 2017.

Influenced by a friend during her school years, Jeanne became both an avid reader and a passionate proponent of the value of reading. In fact, one of her favorite poems was Strickland Gillilan’s The Reading Mother, which ends with the lines, “Richer than I you can never be – I had a mother who read to me.” So important was this to Jeanne that she went on to earn a master’s degree as a

reading specialist. Over the years, she participated in several book clubs and even started a Jewish short story club.

In retirement, Jeanne finally had the leisure to indulge her innate creativity and interest in fine arts. She took classes in painting and glass blowing at the TCC Visual Arts Center and became a master gardener.

Almost by accident, Jeanne began growing roses and this became her primary activity in retirement; she nurtured dozens of rose bushes, all different varieties, and became an active member of the Tidewater Rose Society. She created the most gorgeous arrangements from her bountiful crop! Jeanne delivered these magnificent creations to anyone who “needed” one, such as a friend with a birthday or a neighbor in the hospital. The Van Wyck branch of the Norfolk Public Library was a frequent recipient of these lovely and deliciously fragrant bouquets.

Jeanne made her famous chicken soup for all the Jewish holiday meals and volunteered in the kitchen at Congregation Beth El. With her eye for design, she advised family and friends on their fashion and decorating choices and was apt to burst into just the right song for every occasion.

Jeanne’s mantra was that kindness is the most important quality. She never complained about her circumstances and often remarked, “It’s better to be known for your likes than your dislikes.” After a serious accident, her spirit was unbowed, and she continued to help and support others even as her body began to fail her.

Jeanne was predeceased by her parents, Jack and Kate Mussman, and her husband, Julius Marcus.

She will be remembered and loved forever by her brother Bert Mussman (Carol); her daughters Margie Marcus and Leslie Marcus Auerbach (Andrew); and her granddaughters, Rebecca and Katie.

Contributions to Congregation Beth El or a favorite charity. Online condolences at hdoliver.com.

Scott Andrew Miles

NORFOLK – Scott Andrew Miles unexpectedly passed away in his sleep on July 26, 2023, in Norfolk, Va.

He was born March 10, 1976, in Norfolk. He was predeceased by his grandparents Eugene and Fannie Miles and Joseph and Rosalie Krampf,

OBITUARIES

step-grandmother Bobbie Krampf, and his uncles Melvin Krampf and Bryan Miles.

He is survived by his children Coltrane and Molly, cherished former wife Melissa A., parents Richard (Dicky) and Miriam (Cookie) Miles, sisters Amy Bosher (Jason) and Melissa Miles (Ryan), nieces Saderiah Cooksey (Matt) and Haley Bosher, nephews Jason Bosher Jr., Hunter Bosher, and Luke Bosher, great nephew Rory Cooksey, former mother-in-law Suzanne, former sister-in-law Erin, aunts and uncles Harley and Jeanne Miles and Steve and Hilde Klein, cousins Jeff Krampf (Jodi), Susie Krampf, Michael Klein (Andrea), K. Scott Miles (Julie), Leigh-Catherine Miles (Matt), his good friends Chad, Chris, Brian, Michael, Justin V., and Nessim, his sweet, loving companion Natalie Nowatkowski, and many other extended family members.

Scott grew up in Virginia Beach, graduated from Kempsville High School, and later earned three degrees from Old Dominion University. He worked at Mass General in Boston and moved to Washington, D.C, attending Georgetown University, where he received the National Science Foundation Award and attained his PhD in Neuroscience. He started the company Secret Chord Laboratories because of his intense love for music. Scott ventured through life emotionally grounded and seemingly carefree with an evolving plan. He was artistic and musically exceptional. He was a devoted father who loved his children passionately.

He will be deeply missed by family, friends, and all who were touched by his unique and exuberant presence.

A graveside service was held at Forest Lawn Cemetery. Rabbi Michael Panitz officiated. Memorial donations to Temple Israel.

Janice B. Miller

NORFOLK – Janice B. Miller, 66, of Norfolk, Va., passed away peacefully on July 17, 2023.

She was born on Dec. 7, 1956 in Albany, N.Y. to Lawrence and Miriam Brin.

She was a proud graduate of SUNY Fredonia and Old Dominion University.

Janice enjoyed stamp collecting, puzzles, and writing whimsically decorated sticker letters to her family.

She is survived by her step-mom, Mary Brin, her children Alisha Miller (Jessie

Fisher) and Matthew Miller, several grandchildren, her brother RJ (Sandy) Brin, her longtime companion Michael Phillips, and her ex-husband C. Randall Miller.

A private celebration of her life was held by family and close friends at the Jewish People’s Cemetery in Albany, N.Y.

Saada Fizouatty Miller

NORFOLK — Saada Fizouatty Miller passed away on July 18, 2023 surrounded by her loving family in her home.

Saada was born on December 21, 1931 in Port Lyautey Kenitra French Morocco. She was predeceased by her husband James Miller, of blessed memory.

Left to remember her beauty and grace are her children: Janice Miller Utt and her husband, Leonard, and their children Jennifer and Jamie Shoemaker (Andrew and his wife Elena (Alexander), Matthiew, and Amanda), Gabrielle Music, and Joshua Utt and his wife Holly (Samuel, and Joseph).

Rose Miller Bennetch and her husband Benny, and their children James Bennetch and his wife Whitney (Waverly, Thatcher, and Foster), and Erica Bennetch Moore and her husband James, (Lillian, Magnolia, and Hunter).

Aaron David Miller and his children, Saada Miller and her husband Elijah (Issac) and Juliet Miller (Jacob, Elena, and Mia).

John Charles Miller, Sr. and his wife, Mary Ann, and their children Ruth Miller and her husband Jamie, Abram Miller and his wife Lindsay (Levi, Rudy, and Jake), Ben Miller and his wife Michaela (Esme), Claire Miller (Penny), and John Charles Miller, Jr.

Judy Miller Beedie and her husband Robert and their children Rachel Miller, Zachary Miller and his wife Sandra Pimentel (Josiah and Zaiomy), Rivka Beedie (Aiden), and Sara Beedie.

Daniel Lee Miller is the youngest of the six children.

Mom and Daniel enjoyed attending services every Saturday at Temple Israel where they developed many friendships.

The family’s heartfelt thanks goes to Rabbi Michael Panitz for his guidance, kind words, and attention.

The funeral services were held at H.D. Oliver Funeral Apts. A graveside service followed at Forest Lawn Cemetery led by Rabbi Michael Panitz.

Donations may be made to Temple

Israel to the Rabbi’s Discretionary Fund

Pearl “Cookie” Orlins

NORFOLK – Pearl, affectionately known as “Cookie” Orlins, 90, of The Talbot, died on July 12, 2023 in her home.

Born in Norfolk, Virginia, Cookie was the daughter of the late Benjamin Perlin and Sadie Friedman Perlin, both of blessed memory. She was also predeceased by her

loving husband, Sidney Orlins, her brother, Norman Perlin and sister, Helen Perlin Smith, all of blessed memory. After Sid passed away, Cookie was lucky to have two very special men in her life, Eddie Levitt and Stanley Glaser both of blessed memory.

Cookie was the co-owner of Richter Distributing Company with Sid, where she served as bookkeeper to the corporation for 34 years.

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Chris Sisler, Vice President, Member of Ohef Sholom Temple, Board member of the Berger-Goldrich Home at Beth Sholom Village, James E. Altmeyer, Jr., President, James E. Altmeyer, Sr., Owner

OBITUARIES

She was a member of Congregation Beth El in Norfolk, where she and Sid were married in 1953. Cookie attended the University of Florida where she met Sid, and Blackstone College where she was selected their beauty queen.

In her early years, she was an avid Canasta player. She loved traveling to Vegas and Atlantic City with Sid, where she enjoyed those one-armed bandits. Going out for lunch and dinners with family and friends always brought joy to mom.

Cookie is survived by her daughter, Randi Orlins Chernitzer and her friend, Ricky Hoffman both of Norfolk; and, son Scott Orlins, also of Norfolk, as well as her beloved grandson, Blake Chadwick of Orlando, Fla., whom she was his number one fan and the apple of her eye. Cookie is also survived by two nephews, Brian Charles “Chuckie” Perlin of Miami Fla., Ben Perlin of Westbrook, N. J., a niece, Sherry Smith Olstein of Falls Church, Va. as well as her cousin, Brenda Gordon of Newport News, and many dear friends, especially, Alan and Madeline Samuels, Gloria Ritemeyer, and Rita Wineapple Goldsticker.

A private graveside service took place at Forest Lawn Cemetery. The family requests donations to the SPCA of Norfolk or a favorite charity. Online condolences at www.hdoliver.com.

Gail Peck

GREENSBORO, Ga.. – Gail S. Peck, age 74, passed away on July 16, 2023, at her residence in Greensboro, Ga.

She was born in Richmond, Va. on November 24, 1948, to Paul Nathan Peck and Libby Silverman Peck, both of whom died tragically in 1949 when Gail was 11 months old. Gail grew up in Portsmouth, Va., with her paternal aunt and uncle, Lubah Peck Ruben and Howard Samuel Ruben, who raised Gail and her older brother Michael as their own.

Gail is survived by her brother Michael Ruben Peck (Susan) of Chester, Conn.; nephews Paul N. Peck (Barbara) and Jonathan “JP” Peck (Elizabeth); her sister, Elaine Ruben Schultz (Harold) of Virginia Beach; niece, Nancy Schultz Kocen (Larry), and nephew, Joey Schultz (Lauren), niece, Ellen Ruben Cooper (Charlie), nephew, David Ruben (Carolyn); as well as several great nieces and nephews, all of whom will

lovingly remember their Aunt Gail with whom they shared sports events (Hartford Whalers), drive-in movies, mini-golf, concerts, and numerous family events and celebrations.

Gail was predeceased by her brother, Shelly Ruben, sister-in-law Ruth Sue Ruben, and her nephew Alan Schultz. She also leaves her longtime friend Linda Cain.

Words cannot express the value of the love, care, and attention paid to Gail by Joey and Lauren Schultz over the last three years, which elevated the quality of her life until the end.

Gail was a graduate of Virginia Commonwealth University. She lived and worked for several years in Hartford, Conn., Charleston, S.C., Richmond and Virginia Beach, Va.

Burial arrangements were private. A memorial service will be held in Virginia Beach on a later date. Memorial donations to Jewish Family Service of Tidewater, 5000 Corporate Woods Drive, #400, Virginia Beach, VA. 23462.

Barbara Dianne Rosenblum

NORFOLK – Barbara Dianne Rosenblum passed away on July 24, 2023, in Norfolk, Virginia.

Deeply involved in her community, Barbara found fulfillment in devoting her time and efforts to causes close to her heart. Her volunteerism, optimism, and boundless energy touched the lives of many and left a lasting impact on those she encountered. Barbara was a cherished member of Congregation Beth El and a long-standing supporter of the arts and cultural organizations.

Barbara was preceded in death by her parents and her beloved husband, Dr. Fred Harris Rosenblum. Their love was an inspiration to all who knew them, especially their family.

She leaves behind a legacy of love and devotion in the hearts of her children: Dr. Richard Rosenblum and Gabrielle, Suzi Guardia and Luis, and the Honorable Michael Rosenblum and Nicole. Barbara’s sister, Susan George, and her sister-in-law, Eilene Rosenblum, also mourn her loss. She will be greatly missed by her seven grandchildren, as well as numerous other extended family and friends.

The graveside service took place at Forest Lawn Cemetery. Barbara’s wish was

for everyone to dress for the weather and not to wear black.

To leave a condolence, visit www. altmeyerfh.com.

Sarah Ruth Brenner Rubin

RICHMOND – Sarah Ruth Brenner Rubin, born November 12, 1927, passed away on July 30 while in residence at Beth Sholom Gardens in Henrico County, Virginia.

She was predeceased by her parents, Hyman and Dorothy Brenner, her brothers and sister Benjamin, David and Miriam (Schtampf), as well as her husband of 69 years, Milton Rubin.

She is survived by her children, Mark (Debbie Oswalt) and also daughter-in-law Susan Rubin, Joel (Sara Jo) and Deborah Pollack (Alan) as well as seven grandchildren – Rabbi Jake Rubin (Lindsay), Zachary Rubin, Danny Rubin (Shikma), Molly Nizhnikov (Joe), Joseph Pollack (Rachael), Ben Pollack, and Rabbi Michael Pollack (Sofie) - and 10 great grandchildren – Sophie, Jonah and Caleb Rubin; Lucy, Nora and Harris Nizhnikov; Niv and Shai Rubin; and Solomon and Milo Pollack. For a host of nieces and nephews, from Virginia and Florida to Delaware and Colorado, Sarah was their last surviving aunt. All their uncles died years ago.

Sarah grew up in Newport News, Va., above the family bakery, a formative institution for the entire Brenner clan, as was Adath Jeshurun Synagogue where Sarah, Milton and their children attended holiday and Sabbath services while visiting her hometown. The Rubins spent many days and nights collectively in the Christopher Shores neighborhood for memorable Passover seders and other meals that occasionally featured spirited competitions over who had baked the best dessert, “Richmond or Newport News.”

Yet it was in Richmond where Sarah, a graduate of Newport News High School, made her mark. She met Milton, an engineer with Allied Chemical and seven years her senior, while a student at Westhampton College of the University of Richmond where she was Phi Beta Kappa. Trained to be an educator, Sarah taught civics for two years in Hampton and then spent more than two decades instructing students at Richmond’s Beth El synagogue in Judaic studies and the Hebrew language.

At Beth El, Sarah and Milton were dependable “shul” goers, setting a sterling example for their children who have maintained their devotion to Judaism and passed it down to the next generations. While Milton was a “gabbai” at the temple, Sarah was a dedicated member of numerous committees and Sisterhood along with Hadassah and the Jewish Woman’s Club at the Jewish Community Center.

Sarah and Milton traveled widely, including to the Far East and Europe and most unusually, in their 80’s, to a Sandals resort where young couples celebrated the oldest husband and wife. Their principal focus was always their family, whether it was preparing lively seders and other meals at their home or taking the kids to state parks and other vacation destinations including New York for the World’s Fair. There was also an unforgettable journey in 2000 when Milton and Sarah took the family to Israel, where Ben and Molly had bar and bat mitzvah ceremonies, and everyone floated on the Jordan River.

Outside home, Sarah was outgoing, enjoying movies, chamber music concerts, local theater, bridge, and mah-jongg. She had a legion of longtime friends and was a prolific needle pointer, creating customized tallit bags for her husband, children, and grandchildren (which inspired other women to do the same), as well as framed Jewish scenes that hang proudly in their homes.

A graveside ceremony took place at Richmond Beth El Cemetery Chapel. Sarah was a faithful longtime member of the Beth El Cemetery Corporation, which makes her internment there even more poignant. Donations in her memory can be made to Beth El or a synagogue of your choice. Livestream was available at www. blileys.com.

Larry Arnold Weiner

RALIEGH, N.C. – Larry Arnold Weiner, age 82, of Raleigh, North Carolina, passed away on Saturday, July 15, 2023.

Larry was born in Savannah, Ga.

A graveside service was held at Bonaventure Cemetery in Thunderbolt, Georgia.

Memorial contributions can be made to Sha’arei Israel-Chabad of Raleigh; 7400 Falls of Neuse Road, Raleigh, NC, 27615.

Paul Reubens, Pee-wee Herman creator and son of a pilot in Israel’s war of independence

Andrew Silow-Carroll

(JTA) — I was just out of college when I got a freelance assignment from a small entertainment magazine to interview a rising comic named Pee-wee Herman.

Of course, that wasn’t his real name, but the man-child persona — one part Howdy Doody, one part third-grade nerd, who spoke as if he just took a hit off a helium balloon — was created by a comic and actor named Paul Reubens.

The publicist warned me that Reubens would be only talking to me as Pee-wee, but the voice at the other end of the call spoke in a flat, polite baritone. It was Reubens as Reubens, who had decided to drop the Pee-wee character, at least for our conversation.

I don’t remember what we talked about, but the conversation was disorienting: a peek behind the curtain at the real Wizard of Oz. And Pee-wee was sort of a wizard: in his brilliant Saturday morning “children’s” show, Pee-wee’s Playhouse, and in riotous films like Pee-wee’s Big Adventure and Big Top Pee-wee, the adult Reubens fully inhabited a child’s sensibility, simultaneously making his audience relive the innocence of being a kid and undermining it from an edgy adult distance.

Thirty years later I had another disorienting Pee-wee moment. I attended a screening of Nancy Spielberg’s 2014 documentary on American airmen who fought in Israel’s war of independence, Above and Beyond. Suddenly, there was Paul Reubens again, seated beside his mother and explaining how his father, Milton Rubenfeld, was an American pilot who volunteered in the fight for Israel. The film recounts how his father flew in a critical mission against the Iraqi army and was shot down over the Mediterranean (he survived).

“He was swaggering and macho, like Indiana Jones,” Reubens says. “He felt like it was his destiny.”

I hadn’t even considered until then that Reubens was Jewish. In Why Harry Met Sally: Subversive Jewishness, Anglo-Christian Power, and the Rhetoric of Modern Love (2017), one of the few books about Jewish comedy in which Reubens appears, Joshua Louis Moss groups him with a cohort of Jewish comics whose acts were “nearly completely devoid of references to either their Jewish background or Jewish culture more generally.”

Paul Reubens died Monday, July 25 at age 70; a publicist said he “privately fought cancer for years.” And even though his career was derailed by scandal — he was arrested for “exposing” himself at a porn theater in his hometown of Sarasota, Florida, in 1991 — it’s not a stretch to remember him as an heir to the masterful comics who mined Jewish comedy’s more anarchic vein. Like the Marx Brothers, Pee-wee — with a crewcut, a too-tight suit, a red bow tie and a hint of lipstick and rouge — was a costumed agent of chaos whenever he bumped against straight (in all senses of the word) characters. Like Jerry Lewis, his character seemed stuck in pre-adolescence, but with an adult libido. He could be as sexually

ambiguous as Milton Berle in one of his cross-dressing bits. And you could even connect him to Baby Snooks, the little-girl character created by Fanny Brice of Funny Girl fame.

Paul Rubenfeld was born Aug. 27, 1952, in Peekskill, New York, and grew up in Sarasota. Milton and his wife Judy (Rosen) owned a lamp store. Milton Rubenfeld had been a top fighter pilot who served in the Royal Air Force, and then the U.S. Army Air Force, during World War II. He became one of five Jewish pilots who flew in smuggled fighter planes and helped establish the Israeli Air Force.

“When I was a youngster, they seemed like fish stories to me,” Reubens recalled in the Spielberg documentary. “I didn’t have any real perspective on it until Ezer Weizman [an Israeli Air Force general and seventh president of Israel], I believe was the first book that actually mentioned my dad by name. And all of a sudden, all these stories I’d heard my whole life growing up were in this book. Once I actually knew he really did all those things, and then they weren’t things everyone else did, I just had a completely different view of [my father].”

After studying at Boston University and the California Institute for the Arts, Paul created the Pee-wee character in the late 1970s as a member of the Los Angeles improv troupe The Groundlings. HBO produced a successful special starring the character, and Pee-wee became a cult figure, appearing on talk shows and often confusing the hosts with his childlike delivery and pansexual (or perhaps pre-sexual) persona. (David Letterman had him on his show regularly but never seemed completely comfortable in his presence.)

His first feature film, Pee-wee’s Big Adventure (1985) was directed by Tim Burton (who would go on to direct Beetlejuice and one of the best of the Batman reboots) and was a financial and critical hit. A sequel, Big Top Pee-wee (1988), was less successful but had its moments.

From 1986 through 1990, Reubens starred in 45 episodes of the CBS Saturdaymorning children’s program Pee-wee’s Playhouse. It was both a children’s show and a send-up of a children’s show, featuring a recurring cast of characters that included a sea captain (Phil Hartman), a cowboy (Laurence Fishburne), a “mail lady” (S. Epatha Merkerson) and a talking chair. More than one critic noted Reubens’ debt to Soupy Sales, another Jewish comedian whose 1960s kids show also managed to appeal to children as well as adults who were in on the joke.

The indecent exposure arrest led to a media frenzy that made it impossible for Reubens to continue playing a children’s entertainer. He eventually emerged in a series of cameos and small roles in film and television shows – including a memorable term as a grotesquely inbred Hapsburg prince on 30 Rock, and as a drunken Pee-wee opposite Andy Samberg in a 2011 Saturday Night Live video.

In 2010, he revived the character that made him famous on Broadway in The Pee-wee Herman Show, and in 2016, he co-wrote and starred in the Netflix original film Pee-wee’s Big Holiday.

Reubens kept his health issues private. ““Please accept my apology for not going public with what I’ve been facing the last six years,” he said in a statement distributed by his publicist after his death. “I have loved you all so much and enjoyed making art for you.”

In a 1987 Rolling Stone interview, Reubens acknowledged those who said his act built on the Jewish comedians who came before him, including Eddie Cantor, the former vaudevillian who played a frenetic, wide-eyed innocent in a series of popular movie comedies of the 1930s.

“Jerry Lewis I saw when I was little,” he said. “Soupy Sales I probably saw when I was younger. I never knew who Eddie Cantor was until years later, when a lot of older people used to go [in an old Russian-Jewish furrier’s accent], ‘You’re like a young Eddie Cantor.’ I started to watch Eddie Cantor, and I could definitely see the resemblance. His movies are just incredible, very fantasy oriented and comedy oriented.”