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Southeastern Virginia | Vol. 56 No. 17 | 14 Sivan 5778 | May 28, 2018
U.S. Embassy now in Jerusalem —page 6
10 Ohef Sholom Temple holds book burial
11 Lag B’Omer fires up a good time
30 One Night: A delicious fundraising evening
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Health Care 33 in the Jewish community Supplement to Jewish News May 28, 2018
Harry Graber’s retirement celebration Thursday, June 14
Please join fellow community members in honoring
Harry Graber
United Jewish Federation of Tidewater Executive Vice President On his retirement after 30 years of service to the Tidewater Jewish community
Free and open to the community Kosher hors d’oeuvres, cocktail reception, RSVPs Required: contact Tammy Mujica and a special program at 757.965.6124 or tmujica@ujft.org Thursday, June 14, 2018 at 6:00pm Reba and Sam Sandler Family Campus 5000 Corporate Woods Drive Virginia Beach, VA
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upfront
Published 21 times a year by United Jewish Federation of Tidewater.
House panel approves bills on anti-Semitism envoy, combating genocide
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WASHINGTON (JTA)—The U.S. House of Representatives
Combat Anti-Semitism are critical in the leadership role of the
Foreign Affairs Committee approved two bills that have wide
United States in guiding a rules-based international order that
Jewish organizational backing, one to enhance the role of the
promotes peace, security and opportunity for all people,” said
anti-Semitism monitor and the other, named for Elie Wiesel, to
the letter sent May 17 and spearheaded by Sens. Rob Portman,
make combating genocide a U.S. policy.
R-Ohio and Martin Heinrich, D-N.M.
Both bills were approved Thursday, May 17 with bipartisan support.
The Anti-Defamation League thanked the senators for the
Act” was authored by Rep. Chris Smith, R-N.J., who helped
without an anti-Semitism envoy since January of last year,” CEO Jonathan Greenblatt said in a statement.
author the 2004 law that created the position of the anti-Semi-
Also approved by the House Foreign Affairs Committee
tism monitor. It would elevate the position to ambassador level
was the “Elie Wiesel Genocide and Atrocities Prevention Act,”
and require the president to nominate someone for the position
authored by Rep. Ann Wagner, R-Mo., and Rep. Joe Crowley,
within 90 days of its passage.
D-N.Y.
Lawmakers and Jewish communal organizations have
It would make it U.S. policy to prevent genocide and would
chafed at the Trump administration’s failure to name someone
establish a Mass Atrocities Task Force at the State Department
to the anti-Semitism monitor post since Donald Trump became
to coordinate government-wide efforts to prevent genocide. The American Jewish Committee thanked Wagner and
“Elevating the position will give the envoy greater standing
Crowley in a tweet after the vote for their “leadership in
at home and also abroad, to confront foreign leaders about
advancing U.S. efforts to prevent genocide.” Wiesel, the noted
anti-Semitic incidents when they occur,” said the National
Holocaust memoirist and a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, died
Coalition Supporting Eurasian Jewry in a statement released
in 2016.
after the vote.
The bills now go to the full House. Both bills have com-
Separately a bipartisan slate of 41 Senators wrote Trump urging him to name a special envoy to combat anti-Semitism.
panion bills in the Senate, enhancing the likelihood of their becoming law.
“The Special Envoy position and the Office to Monitor and
Cover: Jerusalem–May 14 2018: Street sign on a road towards a new U.S. embassy in Jerusalem, adorned with American and Israeli flags.
Up Front. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
YAD’s momME . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
Briefs. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
One Night. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
US embassy in Israel. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
What’s Happening . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
Election 2018 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
Calendar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
Ohef Sholom holds book burial. . . . 10
Mazel Tov . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
Lag B’Omer at JCC . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
Who Knew?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
Lucie Waldman awarded Stein Scholarship . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
Obituaries. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36 Mother’s Day at BSV. . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
Quotable
United Jewish Federation of Tidewater John Strelitz, President Alvin Wall, Treasurer Stephanie Calliott, Secretary Harry Graber, Executive Vice-President www.jewishVA.org The appearance of advertising in the Jewish News does not constitute a kashrut, political, product or service endorsement. The articles and letters appearing herein are not necessarily the opinion of this newspaper. © 2018 Jewish News. All rights reserved. Subscription: $18 per year
president, citing a perceived spike in anti-Semitism worldwide.
Health Care in the Jewish community. . . . . . . . . . . . 13
Terri Denison, Editor Germaine Clair, Art Director Sandy Goldberg, Account Executive Marilyn Cerase, Subscription Manager Reba Karp, Editor Emeritus
letter. “Our government has been hamstrung in its response
The “Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Anti-Semitism
Contents
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briefs Haim Saban sells Power Rangers franchise to Hasbro for $522 million Israeli-American media mogul Haim Saban has sold the rights to his popular Power Rangers franchise to Hasbro Inc. in a $522 million deal. The cash-and-stock arrangement with the world’s largest toymaker also includes the rights to several other brands including My Pet Monster, Popples, Julius Jr., Luna Petunia and Treehouse Detectives, Hasbro announced in a statement. “Twenty-five years after launching Power Rangers, I believe the future for this brand has never been greater,” said Saban, the founder of Saban Brands and creator of Power Rangers. Power Rangers is one of the longest running live-action children’s series in television history with nearly 900 episodes produced to date. The series, currently in its 25th season, and feature films follow the adventures of a group of ordinary teens who morph into superheroes and save the world from evil. Saban’s Power Rangers airs in 150 markets around the world and is translated into numerous languages. Born in Egypt, Saban grew up in Tel Aviv. He immigrated to the U.S. in 1983, where he worked as a cartoon music composer. He discovered Power Rangers, which was first a show in Japan, while in a hotel room during a business trip. He immediately bought the rights to the show, but shopped the idea to American executives for years before Fox bought it. Since the show’s debut in 1993, Mighty Morphin Power Rangers has netted billions of dollars in TV profits and merchandise. Saban is a well-known philanthropist in Los Angeles and his name appears on several projects, including a research clinic at the Children’s Hospital of Los Angeles. Saban, 73, has also poured millions into Democratic politics over the years. He also donates to causes related to Israel, including the annual Saban Forum on Israel, which brings together political leaders from the U.S. and Israel to debate topics related to the Jewish state, and the IsraeliAmerican Council, which aims to boost the Israeli and Jewish identity—and political clout—of Israelis living in the U.S. (JTA)
New law allows Israel’s prime minister and defense minister to declare war Israel’s parliament passed a law that would allow the prime minister and defense minister to declare war. The amendment to the country’s Basic Law transfers authority from the government to the smaller Security Cabinet to launch military operations and declare war. It passed in a 62-41 vote. Military operations can be authorized by the prime minister and defense minister alone in “extreme conditions,” though it does not define what they are. The law says it can be invoked “if the issue is necessary due to urgency.” Prime ministers of Israel previously had to ask the approval of the full Cabinet to go to war. (JTA) deliveries to Hobby Lobby were labeled tile samples, but were ancient artifacts The United States returned some 3,800 ancient artifacts to Iraq that had been smuggled to the U.S. retailer Hobby Lobby through the United Arab Emirates and Israel. The packages containing cuneiform tablets, cylinder seals, and clay bullae, as well as other artifacts, were labeled as tile samples. Most of the artifacts originated in the ancient city of Irisagrig and date back to 2100–1600 BCE. They were intercepted by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement on their way to three addresses in Oklahoma City, where Hobby Lobby is headquartered. The company agreed last year to forfeit the artifacts and pay $3 million to settle a civil lawsuit brought by the U.S. government. The objects will be turned over to Iraq’s Ministry of Culture and to museums and universities for study and exhibition, Iraq’s ambassador to the United States, Fareed Yasseen, reportedly said. Hobby Lobby’s president, Steve Green, last year opened a Bible museum in Washington with 40,000 biblical artifacts. In a statement several months ago, the company said it had been acquiring artifacts “consistent with the company’s
4 | Jewish News | May 28, 2018 | jewishnewsva.org
mission and passion for the Bible,” with the goal of preserving them for future generations and sharing them with public institutions and museums. (JTA)
Mueller probes whether Trump sought election help from Israeli firm U.S. special counsel Robert Mueller has sent investigators to Israel to probe the activities of an Israeli-run social media firm that may have led a social media manipulation effort to help Donald Trump get elected. The co-founder of the firm, identified as Joel Zamel, who was born in Australia, met in New York three months before the 2016 election with Donald Trump Jr., as well as with Lebanese-American businessman George Nader representing the crown princes of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, who he said wanted to help get his father elected, the New York Times reported. The Aug. 3, 2016, meeting was arranged by Erik Prince, the founder and former head of private military contractor Blackwater, who also attended the meeting. It is illegal for foreign governments or individuals to be involved in American elections. The Israel Police and Zamel are cooperating with the investigation, according to the Times. After Trump was elected, Nader reportedly paid Zamel a large sum of money, reportedly up to $2 million, because among other reasons given, a company linked to Zamel provided Nader with an elaborate presentation about the significance of social media campaigning to Trump’s victory. Zamel told the Times that his client never carried out any campaign on Trump’s behalf. “Neither Joel Zamel, nor any of his related entities, had any involvement whatsoever in the U.S. election campaign,” the lawyer, Marc L. Mukasey, said. A company connected to Zamel, PsyGroup, had been working on a proposal for a covert multimillion-dollar online manipulation campaign to help elect Trump, the Times reported citing three people involved and a fourth briefed on
the effort. The plan involved using thousands of fake social media accounts to promote Trump’s candidacy. The company, whose motto is “shape reality,” consulted an American law firm, and was told that it would be illegal if any non-Americans were involved in the campaign, according to the report. Companies connected to Zamel also have ties to Russia, according to the Times. After Trump’s inauguration, Zamel and Nader visited the White House, where they met with White House advisor Jared Kushner and then-chief of staff Steve Bannon. (JTA)
The Impossible Burger is now kosher Those who keep kosher and have been craving a cheeseburger should rejoice— the Impossible Burger, a meatless patty that has made waves for how similar it tastes to real beef, is now certified kosher and pareve. The Orthodox Union, the United States’ largest kosher certification agency, has given the burgers its stamp of approval, its producer Impossible Foods announced. The kicker: since the burgers are made without animal products, they can be eaten with either milk or meat—including cheese—without violating Jewish law. Impossible burgers are different from traditional veggie burgers because they are made directly from proteins and other ingredients including wheat protein, potato protein and coconut oil. The key ingredient, according to the company, is a protein called heme that gives the burgers their meaty taste and texture. They are known for “bleeding” just like a normal burger— and tasting awfully close to one as well. The product has been a resounding success, and its parent company has raised hundreds of millions of dollars of investments. “Getting kosher certification is an important milestone,” said Patrick O. Brown, Impossible Foods CEO and founder. “We want the Impossible Burger to be ubiquitous, and that means it must be affordable and accessible to everyone—including people who have food restrictions for religious reasons.” (JTA)
Nation Elena Kagan: Imagine if a travel ban targeted Israelis WASHINGTON (JTA)—Supreme Court Justice Elana Kagan asked the lawyer defending the president’s travel ban to imagine the same ban if it applied to Israelis. In her hypothetical challenge during oral arguments on President Donald Trump’s ban on travel from several Muslim majority countries, Kagan asked if a similar ban on Israelis by an anti-Semitic president would be constitutional. What if “a vehement anti-Semite (who) says all kinds of denigrating comments about Jews” during his campaign is elected president and then issues a travel ban on Israelis, Kagan, who is Jewish, asked Noel Francisco, the solicitor general who was defending the ban, in hearings last month. Francisco said it could be legal. “If his Cabinet were to actually come to him and say, ‘Mr. President, there is honestly a national security risk here and you have to act,’ I think then that the president would be allowed to follow that advice even if in his private heart of hearts he also harbored animus,” he said. Opponents of the ban say it is discriminatory because of comments Trump made as a candidate and then as president indicating he was targeting the countries because of what he perceieved as a broader Muslim threat. The Trump administration contends that the ban is too narrow to be considered discriminatory. There have been several iterations of the ban; currently, Muslim majority countries on the list include Syria, Libya, Iran, Yemen, and Somalia. A number of Jewish groups, including HIAS, the lead immigration advocacy group in the Jewish community, the AntiDefamation League, and the National Council of Jewish Women, have joined briefs challenging the ban. The Zionist Organization of America has filed an amicus brief in support of the ban. Kagan elicited laughter when she described her hypothetical. “This is an out-of-the-box kind of president in my hypothetical,” she said.
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Israel At US embassy dedication, a day for marking history and praising Trump Sam Sokol
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JERUSALEM (JTA)—Israeli leaders and citizens responded with euphoria as the Trump administration moved the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem on Monday, May 14, designating a pre-existing consular building as the official U.S. diplomatic mission to the Jewish State. Hundreds of revelers, many wearing Trump’s signature red baseball caps commemorating the move, sat on bleachers outside the new embassy in Jerusalem’s Arnona neighborhood as an honor guard of U.S. Marines paraded the national colors and Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin and First Daughter Ivanka Trump unveiled the building’s seal carved into an outer wall. The crowd, which included both Chief Rabbis, the IDF Chief of Staff, the mayor of Jerusalem and the head of the Jewish Agency, stood and applauded for at least half a minute after U.S. Ambassador to Israel David Friedman welcomed them, in a booming voice, “to the dedication and opening of the United States Embassy in Jerusalem, Israel.” Inevitably, perhaps, the images of pageantry vied with darker news out of Gaza, where at least 50 Palestinians died during violent clashes with the Israeli military along the border. The West Bank and East Jerusalem were mostly quiet that day; outside the new embassy, dozens of demonstrators, including several Arab members of Knesset, held up signs calling Jerusalem the capital of Palestine. Fourteen protesters were arrested following skirmishes with police. At the ceremony itself, meanwhile, local politicians vied with each other to see who could offer the most expansive plaudits as their constituents posted memes on social media describing the president in almost messianic terms. Addressing the dedication ceremony via video, President Donald Trump asserted that “for many years we failed to acknowledge the obvious, the plain reality that Israel’s capital is Jerusalem.” He bragged that “on my direction, the United States finally and officially recognized Jerusalem
as the true capital of Israel.” Likely responding to Palestinian assertions that such recognition hampers efforts at a negotiated settlement to the conflict, Trump asserted that the United States was “committed to facilitating a lasting peace agreement” and to the maintenance of the status quo on the Temple Mount. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu thanked his American counterpart effusively, saying that Israel had “no better friends in the world” and that “by recognizing history” Trump had “made history.” “Thank you, President Trump for having the courage to keep your promises,” he continued. “Thank you for making the alliance between Israel and America stronger than ever.” Despite the violence accompanying the embassy move, Trump adviser and sonin-law Jared Kushner told attendees at the ceremony that “previously unimaginable alliances are emerging” and that the U.S. would support a peace agreement in which “both sides can get more than they give.” Earlier this month, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain welcomed Trump’s decision to pull the U.S. out of the Iran nuclear deal and reimpose sanctions on Tehran. Kushner also laid the blame for the fighting in Gaza squarely on the Palestinians, stating that “those provoking violence are part of the problem and not part of the solution.” Likewise, Netanyahu, who juxtaposed Trump’s Embassy decision with the Balfour Declaration promising British support for a Jewish homeland, called the day a “great day for peace.” “The truth and peace are interconnected. A peace built on lies will crash on the rocks of Middle Eastern realities and the truth is that Jerusalem will always be the capital of the Jewish state,” he said. “May the truth advance a lasting peace between us and our neighbors.” Both administration figures and Israeli politicians heaped praise on the president in response to the embassy move. At a reception organized by the Orthodox
Israel
U.S. Ambassador to Israel David Friedman with Congressman Scott Taylor at the opening of the U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem.
Union at Jerusalem’s Waldorf Astoria hotel, former Sen. Joseph Lieberman, I-Conn., one of the architects of the 1995 Jerusalem Embassy Act, told JTA that it had been “very frustrating and disappointing every time a president of the United States suspended the implementation of that act” and that he was “thrilled” by Trump’s decision. The Jerusalem Embassy Act recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and called for the relocation of the embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, but Trump’s predecessors declined to implement it, citing foreign policy concerns. Asked if he believed that Trump’s involvement would turn Israel into a partisan issue, Lieberman replied that his bill had been bi-partisan and “support for Jerusalem as the capital of Israel is broadly supported by members of both parties.” Others present were unrestrained in their praise. U.S. Ambassador to Israel David Friedman extolled the president’s “courage, vision, strength and moral clarity.” The O.U.’s Mark Bane called Trump “God’s messenger on this important day.” Citing his decision to pull out of the Iran nuclear deal, Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked called Trump the “the [Winston] Churchill of the 21st century.” This rhetoric was off-putting to some attendees, who decried what they saw as excessive. While there was no question that the embassy move was significant, “the focus needs to be on the essence and not about Trump,” opposition MK Pnina Tamano-Shata of Yesh Atid told JTA. “To compare him to Churchill or to Balfour is a little exaggerated. The state of Israel and the people of Israel know that
“It was an honor to be in the Holy City on such a historic day. Seventy years coming, President Trump finally took the common sense step in officially recognizing and placing our nation’s embassy in what has been the Jewish capitol for 3,000 years. With Guatemala and Paraguay following, I predict many more countries will do the same. I am very grateful and will never forget this profound experience in my life.” —Congressman Scott Taylor
our capital is Jerusalem and the transfer of the Embassy is [correct] but let’s take things in proportion. I am for our nation celebrating but we also need to be careful that we don’t excessively praise in an exaggerated sense of euphoria…and not to raise up a man in an exaggerated way,” she said. Asked about how Israeli leaders were addressing Trump, Dan Shapiro, who served as U.S. ambassador to Israel under President Barack Obama, told JTA that it was understandable that they were engaging in “hyperbole” because “it’s become accepted in international circles that the way to gain favor with President Trump is to engage in excessive flattery.” Shapiro said he supported the embassy move but harbored reservations about how it was implemented. He explained that Israel was doing “everything possible to have the best possible relation with the president of the United States” and that this was “completely legitimate.” However, he cautioned, “it would be advisable to bear in mind the significant number of Americans deeply who are alienated from this president on other issues” and to work on “maintaining the historic bi-partisan nature of this relationship.” MK Ayman Odeh, an Arab Israeli who heads the Knesset’s Joint List, linked the killing of Gaza protesters—who were engaged in a six-week series of demonstrations to coincide with Israel’s 70th anniversary celebrations—to the embassy dedication. “The opening of the American embassy in Jerusalem and its grand ceremony is part of the same policy that has claimed the lives of dozens of Gazans,” Odeh said. “Today,
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there is nothing to celebrate. The opening of the embassy is yet another provocative step that signals the destruction of the notion of peace. The Netanyahu-Trump alliance continues to deepen the conflict.” Meanwhile, in East Jerusalem, the mood was subdued. Near the Damascus Gate, tourists and Arab shoppers mingled, watched by dozens of police officers clad in body armor and carrying automatic weapons. Local residents, while unhappy with the American decision, seemed apathetic in the face of a reality they couldn’t change. Inside the Old City’s Arab market, a
man who identified himself only as Yassir sat in his dress shop, watching news footage from Gaza. “Trump is playing with fire,” he said. “There could be war all over. The people of Gaza don’t care if they die.” Asked why there wasn’t any significant unrest in East Jerusalem, Yassir replied resignedly that it was “very difficult living directly with the Israelis” and that any young man who went out in the street would end up with a police record that would follow him for life. “It’s different in Gaza, the authorities support the protests,” he said.
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Election 2018 The anti-Semite running for Senate in California opens up to a Jewish newspaper Rob Gloster
SAN FRANCISCO (J. the Jewish News of Northern California via JTA)—Patrick Little is more than an hour into an anti-Jewish tirade that doubles as the centerpiece of his campaign to unseat U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein when he issues a blunt warning. “The longer the Jews try to hold onto power in a country where the public’s waking up to them…the harsher the reprisal is,” the Albany, California resident and former U.S. Marine says. “It’s Jewish behavior that gets people angry at Jews. What you call anti-Semitism is caused by Jewish behavior.” Little, 33, calls himself a white nationalist. He rejects the labels of white supremacist and neo-Nazi, saying the latter would just play right into the hands of the Jewish media. During the interview, he rattles off some familiar anti-Semitic tropes: that the Holocaust is a hoax, that Israel played a major role in the 9/11 terrorist bombings, that Jews controlled the African slave trade before the Civil War, that “Jews kill Christians—they do it a lot historically.” He adds a few more contemporary charges, such as that President Donald Trump is being held hostage by Jews and that media organizations including Fox News are mouthpieces for Israel. He says one of his major goals as a senator from California would be to re-route all U.S. aid now going to Israel to Hezbollah, and make it a crime—punishable by the death penalty—if any politician ever suggests aid be restored to Israel. “The Jews have controlled this country for a very long time,” he said loudly during a 75-minute interview May 9 at a Berkeley restaurant. “We’re an occupied government. This is a Zionist-occupied government, we do whatever the hell Israel wants.” Little certainly is not the first person to spew such virulent anti-Semitism. But what sets him apart is that on April 24, a SurveyUSA poll had him placing second in the Senate race, gathering
more than twice as much support as any other Republican. If that turns out to be a correct predictor and he places second among the nearly three dozen candidates competing in the June 5 primary, he would face Feinstein in November’s general election. Feinstein, a five-term Democrat, has represented California in the Senate since 1992, after serving as mayor of San Francisco from 1978 to 1988. At 84, she is the oldest currently serving senator. The California Republican party has repudiated him and barred him from this month’s state convention in San Diego. Little walked out of that convention dragging an Israeli flag under his feet and spitting on it. “There’s no room for that kind of hate speech that that man uses,” Cynthia Bryant, executive director of the California Republican Party, told the Los Angeles Times. The state’s Republicans have largely given up on the U.S. Senate race, even though Feinstein has lost appeal among progressives, opening up the field to fringe players like Little. In the SurveyUSA poll of 520 adult voters around California, Feinstein was favored by 39 percent of respondents, Little got 18 percent. No other candidate reached double figures. Little led all candidates among voters who described themselves as Republicans, conservatives, and those who had not attended college, polling at 46 percent of Republican respondents. The SurveyUSA poll was sponsored by media outlets around the state, including KPIX-TV in San Francisco. Jay Leve, CEO of New Jersey-based SurveyUSA, says it was the third of four polls on the senatorial race. The last one will be released later this month. Even Little, who is self-financing his run for the Senate and whose campaign has been limited to online posts and messages, is not quite sure who told pollsters they would vote for him. “I can’t say that my Anglo-Saxonsounding name hurt me. There could have been people that were low information that just saw an Anglo-Saxon name,” he
Election 2018 says. “It’s very hard to gauge how word is spreading, but when things like Jewish power are taboo to speak about, these things spread behind closed doors.” Little’s strong showing in the SurveyUSA poll led several Bay Area Jewish organizations to issue a joint statement denouncing the candidate’s anti-Semitic diatribes. The statement was released by the Jewish Community Relations Council and Jewish federations in San Francisco and the East Bay. “This candidate’s views are deeply offensive and anathema to what is required to be a public servant in our cherished democracy,” says Abby Porth, the JCRC’s executive director. “We call on all of California’s citizenry to reaffirm our collective desire to be represented by those with a vision for equality, honesty, and a sense of shared social purpose.” Little, who says he attended the white nationalist march in Charlottesville, Virginia, in August 2017, sprinkles Hebrew and Yiddish into his interview with J., “because it shows that I know how Jews think.” But his sources for such knowledge have no credibility beyond an anti-Semitic fringe. He says his conversion from a supporter of Israel to a hater of Jews occurred in the past two years after reading books such as the Culture of Critique series by retired CSU-Long Beach psychology professor Kevin MacDonald and those by Holocaust denier David Irving, who famously squared off against—and lost to—Holocaust scholar Deborah Lipstadt in a 1996 libel suit. Like Little, MacDonald says Jews are holding America hostage and that anti-Semitism is a rational response to their effort to destroy whites European heritage. Little dismisses the Holocaust as fiction, saying the “internment camps that the Germans had for the Jews…were far more luxurious than the internment camps we had here in California for the Japanese during the war.” The Auschwitz concentration camp was a country club at which Jews lived in style, he says. “They had ice cream, swimming pools, orchestras, plays, they had soccer fields,
soccer teams. They even had a whorehouse!” he exclaims. “I mean, shit, I’d like to take a vacation at Auschwitz.” Little says Israel gives financial support to ISIS and al-Qaeda and is “America’s greatest enemy.” He says the Catholic Church has been “infiltrated” by Jews. He favors a quota system for Jews in U.S. government and the judiciary. Little repeatedly quotes George Lincoln Rockwell, founder of the American Nazi Party. “I’m not just saying this stuff because I just hate Jews or something,” Little says. “No, it’s because of what the Jews have done with that power. It’s not going too good for the goyim right now.” Little grew up in Maine in a family that he says was neither anti-Semitic nor anti-Israel. He lived in Germany for a year during high school, and attended American University for two years before completing an accounting degree at the University of North Florida. During his time in Florida, he briefly studied Hebrew while deciding which church to join. He enlisted in 2011 when he was 26, and was angered when a fellow Marine of Palestinian descent said the State of Israel didn’t have a right to exist. “I was like the most pro-Israel Marine in the corps, other than the Jews. I thought Israel was a shining example of benevolent nationalism,” he says. “I was extremely pro-Israel, and you know why? The television told me Israel was great, the conservative talking heads told me that Israel is great, the evangelical churches told me Israel was great.” When he returned to the U.S., he got into conversations with guys on websites who spewed anti-Israel and anti-Jewish venom. Little says he read MacDonald in order to repudiate that venom, but that instead the MacDonald books “awakened” him at about the same time that Trump was elected. He claims to have quit his job as a network engineer before launching his senatorial campaign as a Republican a year later. He says he is not anti-Semitic, because that would include Arabs. So is he OK with being labeled as anti-Jewish? “For the most part, yeah,” he says.
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Bob & Augusta Live Forever As philanthropists and volunteers, this Virginia Beach couple supported important causes in Hampton Roads. Although Bob Goodman passed away in 2006 and Augusta Goodman in 2017, they help others today because of the charitable bequest they entrusted to the Hampton Roads Community Foundation. Today, their four children carry on Bob and Augusta’s legacy through donor-advised funds that let them recommend grants to help nonprofits do their best work. Thanks to their generosity, Bob and Augusta will forever make life better in their home region. Learn how easy it is to leave your mark on the future by ordering a free bequest guide. Adding Charity to Your W or IRA ill
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it’s a wrap The value of burying books Chris Kraus
T
he ceremony began on a sunny spring morning beside a single dugout grave and a pile of dirt. On Sunday, April 15, 15 middle schoolers from Ohef Sholom Temple buried 1,000 worn-out prayer books in the Tree of Life section at Forest Lawn Cemetery in Norfolk. Everyone carried armfuls of books to the grave. Mr. Fence, also known as Jack Shanker, drove the heavy boxes on his flatbed trailer at the head of the car caravan from Ohef Sholom. Eli, the teaching assistant with the longest arms, stacked the books into every square inch of the concrete vault. When it was full, workers covered and lowered it into the grave. Several parents and grandparents, along with Mike Leonard of HD Oliver Funeral Home, and Norfolk’s gravedigging crew, added to the learning. The lesson was based on the Jewish custom of burying the genizah. “This Mitzvah is from our family to yours,” announced Richard and Harriet Siff at the end of the prayer service. “The majority of our Sixth grader Izzy, and her decomposition prayer that she wrote in one of the retired books. families reside here at Forest Lawn…. My mother, her sister…and my grandmother…cherished their prayer books, and that is why we are here today.” Several of the students also cherished the historic books. Some even asked to take a few home for archival purposes. One person went home with a prayer book from a congregation in Great Neck, N.Y. that her family attended many years ago. Genizah means “reserved” or “hidden” in Hebrew, and is traditionally a place where Jews store sacred documents when they fall out of use. There is a practical dimension to the Jewish custom, because storage space in a synagogue is often at a premium. The books were previously stored in 35 boxes cluttering the temple. Disposing the shovels while her eighth-grade classmates, Melissa, Brian, and Abby, boxes in the temple’s out- Maddie and Madricha Hannah, await their turn. door dumpster would have been a simple process and relatively cost-free. But following the custom of burying the genizah left a big impression on the hearts and minds of those present. Students wrote personal prayers inside the last few books before placing them into the grave. Everyone had a chance to drop a few shovels of dirt over the vault before leaving. The burial ended with all singing Nefesh Mountain’s rendition of L’Dor Vador.
Inspiring Philanthro py. Chan ging Lives .
L’dor vador nagid godlecha The light in us shines on and on L’dor vador nagid godlecha For time may pass but it’s never gone
www.leaveabequest.org (757) 622-7951 10 | Jewish News | May 28, 2018 | jewishnewsva.org
As the last car of the caravan pulled out of the cemetery, it began to rain, watering the seeds of Jewish learning.
Logan, a sixth-grade student, and Harriet Siff, a donor, place the final books in the grave, as teachers Lisa Cohn and Marnie Waldman conclude the worship service.
it’s a wrap Lag B’Omer’s fire lights up a fun celebration
T
he Tidewater Jewish community was fired up on Thursday, May 3 for its annual Lag B’Omer Bash. This year’s event, hosted by the Simon Family JCC, the Young Adult Division of the United Jewish Federation of Tidewater, and Chabad of Tidewater, attracted nearly 200 people for an evening of celebration and fun. Tidewater families of all ages roasted marshmallows over a traditional Lag B’Omer bon fire while dancing to Israeli music by DJ Silver. Other activities included hula-hoops, basketball, and three bounce houses. Kona Ice truck joined for the celebration along with a cotton candy machine, served by community member and volunteer, Malka Rudin. The bonfire was created with the help of community member and volunteer, Shawn Lemke. Chabad of Tidewater served a cookout of hamburgers, hotdogs, corn on the cob, and watermelon. Lag B’Omer is celebrated on the 33rd day of the counting of the Omer, which occurs on the 18th day of the Hebrew month of Iyar. This day marks the hillula (anniversary of the death) of Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai, and serves as a break in a mourning period that spans the 49 days between Passover and Shavuot. Lag B’Omer customs include the lighting of bonfires, pilgrimages to the tomb of Bar Yochai in the northern Israeli town of Meron, and various customs at the tomb itself. Next year’s bash which will take place on Thursday, May 23 at the Simon Family JCC.
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TIDEWATER Lucie Waldman awarded Stein Family College Scholarship from Tidewater Jewish Foundation
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he annual Stein Family College Scholarship of the Tidewater Jewish Foundation was awarded this month to Lucie Waldman, a soon-to-be graduate of Princess Anne High School in Virginia Beach. Lucie is the 10th recipient of the four-year scholarship provided to a Jewish student in Tidewater. Headed to Franklin and Marshall University in Pennsylvania to major in neuroscience, she will receive up to $10,000 per year. Lucie attended URJ Camp Harlem in Pennsylvania for five years. A couple of years ago on the drive back from camp, Lucie Waldman. she toured Franklin and Marshall. She says she liked the vibe of the school and felt that its strong pre-med program seemed “doable and not intimidating.” Since it is a small school, F&M allows for classes of 24 students. Lucie feels she will thrive there. “I’m excited to be with people that are more similar to me and get involved in more activities and take classes I’m passionate about. They have an active Hillel and I’m looking forward to being involved there.” In addition to camp, Lucie has participated in Jewish life through working as a teaching assistant at Ohef Sholom Temple for several years. Much of her experience was with one student who had some challenges. Lucie developed a one-on-one relationship with her, moved up with her through four years of Hebrew School, and then was given the honor of making a special presentation at her Bat Mitzvah. Lucie was also involved in Ohef Sholom Temple Youth group, wrote for her school newspaper, and was on the board of her school’s Psychology Club. This summer, Lucie will be a counselor at the URJ 6 Points Sci-Tech Academy. She was drawn to the camp because it integrates Judaism, science, and technology. Lucie says she was surprised to be
awarded the Stein Family Scholarship because she knows there were many exceptional applicants. She says that she was careful to research Arlene Stein so that she would understand what the scholarship was about. When she learned about her commitment to tikkun olam, repairing the world, Lucie felt that her own desire to help people through the field of medicine would be a good expression of that value. “Last summer, I attended Brandei s University’s Global Youth Summit on the Future of Medicine, and it was the most beneficial experience I ever had in high school. It was very taxing, but inspiring to see what the medical research field can do for the future. We learned about gene editing and CRISPR, which can cure disorders and save millions of lives,” she says. Lucie says she wants to help others through research and medicine and is grateful to have been selected to receive this prestigious honor from the Stein Family and TJF. The Stein Family College Scholarship was established in 2009 in memory of Arlene Stein who did not complete college because of financial hardship. Jerry Stein, her beloved husband, passed away in 2014. The Tidewater Jewish Foundation works closely with the Stein Family in administering this scholarship to a deserving Hampton Roads teen. Prior recipients of the scholarship include Morgan Conley (Brandeis University ’13), Eric Smith (University of Virginia ’14), Marissa Arager (George Mason University ’15), Avi Malkin (College of William and Mary ’16), Dinar Yusufov (James Madison University ’17), Amanda Gladstone (Virginia Tech ’18), Dana Cohen (Virginia Tech ’19), Brett Pomerantz (Virginia Tech ’20), and Sydney Levine (University of Virginia ’21).
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These five Israeli advances could transform cancer treatment Ben Hartman
C
ancer is the second-leading cause of death in the United States, responsible for 22.5 percent of American fatalities. Only heart disease is more deadly. In Israel, cancer is the No. 1 killer. That’s partly why Israel has become a research leader in the fight against the disease. Many of the world’s most effective cancer treatments have roots in Israeli research, sometimes going back decades. The work taking place in Israeli labs today may lead to lifesaving treatments years in the future. Here are five promising areas Israeli researchers are studying in their quest for better cancer detection and treatment. Together they provide a glimpse into the remarkable scope of cancer research being conducted by internationally renowned scientists across Israeli institutions. Mutant reeducation camp and the fight against ovarian cancer Mutant reeducation may sound like the plot of the next X-Men movie, but for a team of Israeli researchers it could be central to finding new treatments for ovarian cancer, an especially deadly disease because of the difficulties of early detection. This year, 22,440 women in America will be diagnosed with ovarian cancer and 14,080 will die from it, according to American Cancer Society estimates. In a program at Israel’s Weizmann Institute of Science financed in part by the Israel Cancer Research Fund, Dr. Varda Rotter is looking for ways to fight the disease on the molecular level using a protein known as the “king of tumor suppressors.” The protein, p53, stops the formation of tumors. But when p53 mutates, it makes cancer cells more malignant and boosts their resistance to drugs. Rotter and her team have identified a small number of molecules that are able to “reeducate” mutant p53 and restore it to its role scanning for damaged DNA and
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stopping the development of tumors. They are also looking for methods to reeducate the mutant p53 to fight and eradicate mutant cells. “We are trying to find a way to convert or reeducate the mutant p53 to its role as the ‘guardian of the genome,’” Rotter says. Rotter hopes her team’s research will result in methods that can be applied along with immunotherapy to give women with ovarian cancer a better chance of beating the disease. Restoring infertility? Hit the restart button. For many cancer patients, surviving is just the first part of the battle. They often face serious lifelong problems, such as infertility or the loss of healthy tissue that is highly difficult to regrow. “How do you replace damaged body parts?” asks Dr. Jacob Hanna of the Weizmann Institute. The key, Hanna and many others believe, lies in stem cells. Stem cells are early-stage cells that are capable of dividing into infinitely more cells and have the potential to become different cell types, such as bone, skin, or muscle. Stem cells can help repair damaged tissue. Hanna is using ICRF funding to research ways to take cells from healthy areas of the patient’s body and turn them back into induced embryonic stem cells— the equivalent of the first cells with which each human body begins. Because the stem cells in Hanna’s model would come directly from the patient’s DNA rather than from a donor, the tissue would not face rejection. Reverting the cells to their beginning state would be “like hitting the restart button of your computer,” Hanna says. The treatment would be unique. Currently the only proven stem-cell therapy in use is centered on transplanting bone marrow. There are no stem-cellbased treatments for replacing organs or tissue other than blood. But Hanna believes stem-cell treatments are going to continued on page 16
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jewishnewsva.org | May 28, 2018 | Health Care | Jewish News | 15
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become reality in the next 20 years, and restoring fertility to infertile cancer survivors could be one major benefit. “We want to make mature human cells in the Petri dish,” Hanna says. “If this is successful, it could be a major breakthrough for solving infertility problems in general, not only for women who underwent chemotherapy.” For example, scientists could make an unlimited supply of female eggs by growing stem cells in a dish and freezing them. “This could stop doctors from avoiding doing chemotherapy because they’re worried about damaging the patient’s fertility,” Hanna says. “It would allow them to give longer treatment or stronger regiments.” To fight brain cancer, think small. Very, very small. Glioblastoma, a particularly aggressive and deadly form of brain cancer, carries a very grim prognosis: Patients have a median survival time of about 15 months from the day of discovery. Tel Aviv University researcher Dr. Dan Peer is seeking ways to fight brain tumors using a targeted nanoparticle platform to transport drugs directly to the sites that
need treatment rather than a more general chemotherapy or surgery. Targeted treatments the size of a nanometer – a millionth of a millimeter—would minimize the effects on the rest of the body by targeting only the cancer cells and avoiding healthy cells nearby. The delivery vehicle would be RNA— ribonucleic acid, whose main role is to carry instructions from DNA. It is one of the three major biological macromolecules essential for all forms of life, along with DNA and proteins. By binding the RNA to a nanoparticle platform, researchers hope to bypass the hurdles that usually thwart drug delivery by specifically targeting the problem areas of the tumor. “The fact that nanomedicine can get around many of the obstacles that hinder drug delivery could mean a greater quality of life and life expectancy for patients suffering from highly deadly forms of cancer like glioblastoma,” Peer says. He and his colleagues are also using their ICRF research grant to examine ways to design drugs suited to a patient’s specific genetic profile and then develop appropriate nanoparticle delivery vehicles. By carrying the drugs specifically to the cancer cells and not to the healthy ones,
16 | Jewish News | Health Care | May 28, 2018 | jewishnewsva.org
Health Care the treatment will have fewer adverse effects and toxicities for the patient while maximizing the drugs’ therapeutic effect. Fighting carcinomas: Rehab for non-malignant cells We’ve all had moments in life that spark our survival instincts under stress. Humans aren’t the only ones that use chemical processes to survive stressful situations. To survive high fevers, for example, organisms as small as cells deploy the “heat-shock response”—activating proteins called chaperones that help cells maintain their structure and not melt down in the event of high temperatures. Tumors, too, use the heat-shock response to increase their odds of survival and grow ever-more malignant. For tumors to expand and metastasize, they “recruit” non-malignant cells in the tumor microenvironment and get them to work for them and help them evade the immune system. Dr. Ruth Scherz-Shouval of the Weizmann Institute is studying the tumor microenvironment to determine how the non-cancerous cells get reprogrammed to act against the body and support the tumor rather than defend the body against the tumorous growth. “The cells of the microenvironment don’t have the mutation that causes cancer cells to become cancer cells—yet they do things they are not supposed to do,” she says. “We are interested in understanding how this happens.” Scherz-Shouval compared treatment in the microenvironment to rehabilitating a nonviolent offender who can still be put on the right path—unlike a hardened felon (the tumorous cell) who is too far gone to save. Think rehab for non-malignant cells. The research is relevant to solid tumors and specifically to carcinomas—a cancer arising in skin tissue or the lining of internal organs. Scherz-Shouval has found a correlation between the heatshock response and poor patient survival in late-stage breast and lung cancer. She hopes her research, backed by the ICRF, will lead to a more generalized way to target cells in the microenvironment that will complement current cancer
treatments and give patients a better chance at recovery. Wanted: A better way to fight leukemia Israel has the fourth-highest per capita rate of leukemia deaths worldwide. In America, leukemia kills more than 24,000 people per year. Most leukemia treatments today focus on chemotherapy, steroid drugs, and stem-cell transplants. But Ben-Gurion University of the Negev researcher Roi Gazit is on the hunt for more effective, targeted treatments. “Immune therapies and stem-cells treatments offer great advantages but too many options to choose from,” Gazit says. “Our models will help to better specify which treatment may suit a specific type, and even sub-type, of the disease. Unfortunately, there is no one-size-fits-all treatment for leukemia. That’s why we need tailor-made models to fit the treatment to the disease.” Gazit is focusing on how to develop targeted treatment of cancer cells using hematopoietic stem cells—stem cells used in cancer treatment because of their ability to divide and form new and different kinds of blood cells. By examining how the leukemia develops, Gazit is exploring ways that hematopoietic stem cells may be deployed to arrest the leukemia. The research models his lab is using, part of a project supported by the Israel Cancer Research Fund, could help scientists develop more types of immunotherapy and more ways to use stem cells to combat leukemia. “With any new information we can gain better understanding, which translates into better treatment,” Gazit says. This article was sponsored by and produced in partnership with the Israel Cancer Research Fund, whose ongoing support of these and other Israeli scientists’ work goes a long way toward ensuring that their efforts will have important and lasting impact in the global fight against cancer. This article was produced by JTA’s native content team.
Health Care
A new study for cancer risk in Ashkenazi Jews aims to be a model for genetic testing Josefin Dolsten
NEW YORK (JTA)—A new study will provide free testing for three mutations that substantially increase the risk for developing breast, ovarian, and prostate cancer among people with Eastern European Jewish ancestry. The BRCA Founder Outreach Study (BFOR), which was launched in March, will test 4,000 men and women in four U.S. cities—New York, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, and Boston—for mutations in the BRCA gene that are more common among those with Ashkenazi Jewish ancestry. Those who test positive for one of the mutations will receive genetic counseling to figure out next steps. “We think it’s important because it will save lives,” Dr. Kenneth Offit, who is serving on the study’s executive committee, says. The BRCA gene is found in all humans, but mutations can cause it to function improperly and increase the risk of developing certain cancers: breast and ovarian in women, breast and prostate in men. Those with Ashkenazi Jewish roots are 10 times more likely to have a BRCA mutation than the general population, with one in 40 carrying a mutation in the gene. But the study’s goal extends beyond cancer or Ashkenazi Jews, says Offit, who serves as chief of the clinical genetics service at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center here. “We think it’s a model for the future of genetic testing in health care,” he says. What’s new about the way testing is conducted in the BFOR study, Offit says, is the fact that patients sign up online and can choose to receive their results from their primary care provider. The testing will be free for participants, and the study is open to anyone over 25 years old who has health insurance and at least one grandparent with Ashkenazi heritage. “This study is different because we’re making an effort to ensure that the testing is not done at a distance from your doctor.
We’re really reaching out to have doctors involved,” Offit says. In 1996, Offit discovered the most common BRCA gene mutation for Ashkenazi Jews, but he says the vast majority of people have not been tested for the mutation or the two others that are prevalent in the group. “In the [Ashkenazi] Jewish community, where these mutations are quite common, we think that probably 90 percent of people who could be tested have not been tested,” he says. Offit says some people are scared of finding out the results and view testing as too much of a hassle. In addition, insurance companies only cover testing for those with a family history of breast, ovarian, and prostate cancer, but up to 40 percent of those with the mutation do not have a family history of those types of cancer, according to Offit. An Israeli study published in 2014 recommended that all Ashkenazi women age 30 and over should be screened for BRCA mutations. Women with a BRCA mutation have a risk as high as 80 percent of developing breast cancer and as high as 40 percent of developing ovarian cancer. Men with a mutation have an increased risk of developing breast and prostate cancer. The BFOR study, which received funding from the Sharon Levine Corzine Foundation, the Breast Cancer Research Foundation and other donors, allows people to register on their smartphone or computer, receiving testing at a local laboratory. They can choose whether to receive the results from a primary care provider or a cancer specialist. Primary care providers will receive training about how to provide follow-up counseling if a patient tests positive. For those who test positive for a BRCA mutation, there are steps that can be taken to lower cancer risk, Offit says. Since ovarian cancer is almost always discovered at an advanced stage, it is recommended that women with a BRCA mutation have their ovaries surgically removed after they finish childbearing. In terms of reducing the risk of developing breast cancer, some women
choose to undergo a mastectomy, while others elect to get frequent breast screenings. Men should be screened regularly for prostate cancer, including by taking a test to measure the level of PSA, a protein that could indicate prostate cancer. Offit says doctors should use a lower cutoff for the level of PSA for men who have a BRCA mutation in order to perform a biopsy to check for cancer. Offit hopes to learn more about how people opt to receive the test results— whether through their primary care providers or a specialist—and how many primary care providers will feel comfortable giving the information to their patients. “Yes, we will be testing many individuals of Ashkenazi background and we will
save lives for sure because we know that,” he says, “but the research question is to improve the way we offer this information to the whole population.” Offit says similar testing could be offered for the general population for a wide variety of diseases. The executive committee consists of doctors from institutions in the four cities. Offit says he is hoping to launch a larger study later this year. For those who are not eligible to participate in the study, he recommends speaking to a doctor about risk factors. For those who do not have a family history of breast, ovarian, or prostate cancer, insurance does not cover testing for BRCA mutations. In those cases, Offit recommends regular screenings for breast and prostate cancer.
jewishnewsva.org | May 28, 2018 | Health Care | Jewish News | 17
Health Care
Top cancer doc turns his sights toward Israel with new post Ben Harris
D
r. Mark Israel has spent his entire career focused on cancer. He has worked in medical clinics, as a laboratory researcher and as director of the cancer center at Dartmouth’s medical school. But perhaps no position Dr. Israel has occupied in four decades in medicine offers as much influence and opportunity to help cancer patients as his new job: national executive director of the Israel Cancer Research Fund. The organization provides crucial funding for cancer research across more than 20 Israeli institutions. “Israel is the center of so much pioneering cancer research,” Dr. Israel says. “When I think about the science that’s transforming cancer care, so much of it
comes back to Israel. There’s no place I’d rather be.” The focus of Dr. Israel’s own research has been to understand the molecules driving the growth of cancerous tumors so that drugs to inhibit them can be developed. This work is painstaking. It can take years for researchers to identify a target, and then many more before targeted drugs are developed. Breakthroughs are rare, and when they do occur they are often the result of the work of many researchers toiling individually in labs across the world. In some key areas, those breakthroughs have come from Israeli researchers who have made an outsized contribution to the cancer fight. Two Israeli researchers— both funded in part by the Israel Cancer Research Fund—won a Nobel Prize for work that led to a breakthrough drug to
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treat multiple myeloma, a blood cancer. ICRF-funded Israeli research also contributed to the development of the miracle drug Gleevec, used to treat a particularly aggressive form of cancer called chronic myelogenous leukemia. The list goes on. Among the avenues of Israeli research Dr. Israel considers promising are immunotherapy, which seeks to harness the body’s own defense system to fight cancer, and growth regulation and signal
transduction, which attempts to identify how damaged genes drive tumor growth. The Israel Cancer Research Fund distributes about $4 million annually in grants. Dr. Israel will spend the bulk of his time at the organization fundraising to support Israeli research projects, and the remainder evaluating grant proposals and determining which scientists to support. “I see my role as providing the opportunity for people who want to make a
Health Care difference in impacting the cancer problem,” Dr. Israel says. A native of Newburgh, New York, who has been married to his childhood sweetheart for 48 years and is a father to three grown children, Dr. Israel never wanted to do anything other than practice medicine. Throughout his career, he continually sought to place himself in areas of medicine where he could have the greatest effect on people’s lives. After graduating from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Dr. Israel worked as a pediatric intern at Boston Children’s Hospital. Then he spent the next four decades focused on studying the ailments he saw in those hospitalized children. “While treating children with cancer in the clinic, I realized that even the brutal, toxic treatments in use were oftentimes ineffective,” Dr. Israel says. “I decided I could have a more substantial impact doing research that might provide an enhanced benefit for a much larger number of patients.” As a fellow in pediatric oncology at the National Institutes of Health, Israel developed a special interest in neuroblastoma, a type of tumor that affects nerve tissue and occurs almost exclusively in children. Dr. Israel eventually rose to become the director of Dartmouth Medical School’s Norris Cotton Cancer Center, where he was in charge of delivering comprehensive clinical care to more than 30,000 patients every year. The cancer center in New Hampshire has an annual research budget of approximately $50 million and is one of only 69 U.S. facilities designated by the National Cancer Institute as a comprehensive cancer center. In Dr. Israel’s 15 years there, the center grew to encompass 16
outreach centers across New England that brought advanced cancer care to rural communities and small regional hospitals. It also made significant advances in research capacity, particularly the development of a bioinformatics program -- an approach to research that mines enormous data sets to identify patterns useful to researchers. “I have known Mark for more than 20 years and have followed his many important contributions to science,” says Dr. John Mendelsohn, past president of the MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston. “Mark is a superb choice to lead ICRF. He is uniquely positioned to understand the science and to advance ICRF’s mission to discover new and more effective treatments in the battle against cancer.” In his new position in New York, Dr. Israel is not only raising money for some of the most promising cancer research being done in the Jewish state, but also providing a counterpoint to those who seek to isolate Israeli scientists as part of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement against Israel, known as BDS. “Today’s efforts by many in many countries to manipulate Israeli science and universities to force political change was abhorrent to me,” Dr. Israel says. “When thinking about my next job, I wanted to find something that would support Israeli science and Israeli scientists.” This article was sponsored by and produced in partnership with the Israel Cancer Research Fund, whose ongoing support of these and other Israeli scientists’ work goes a long way toward ensuring that their efforts will have important and lasting impact in the global fight against cancer. This article was produced by JTAs native content team.
Plans underway to reinstate Maimonides
T
he medical professionals’ division of United Jewish Federation of Tidewater’s Society of Professionals, known as Maimonides, is returning. This summer, the fall schedule for Maimonides will be rolled out.
To prevent a stroke,
BE FAST BALANCE Loss of balance, headache, dizziness
EYES Blurred vision
FACE One side of face is drooped
ARMS Arm or leg weakness
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TIME Time to call an ambulance immediately
Stroke is the leading cause of long-term disability in the U.S.—though the National Stroke Association says up to 80% of strokes are preventable. Bon Secours is bringing stroke patients the most advanced treatment options and resources available. Bon Secours DePaul Medical Center is the only Southside hospital to earn the highest level of certification as a Comprehensive Stroke Center. Bon Secours Mary Immaculate Hospital and Bon Secours Maryview Medical Center are recognized as Primary Stroke Centers for their excellence and outcomes. Bon Secours Health Center at Harbour View is the only Acute Stroke Ready facility in Northern Suffolk.
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To get involved or for more information, contact Dusty Heist-Levine at 757-965-6136 or dhlevine@ujft.org.
jewishnewsva.org | May 28, 2018 | Health Care | Jewish News | 19
Health Care
An eye doctor who moved to Israel is now making a difference in Africa Renee Ghert-Zand
RAANANA, Israel—In August 2014, Dr. Morris Hartstein went on a trip to Gondar, Ethiopia, where thousands of Ethiopians seeking to immigrate to Israel live and wait while Israel considers their eligibility to make aliyah. On his second day there, Hartstein showed up for the afternoon mincha service and saw more than 100 people waiting patiently. He thought they were there to pray. It turns out they were there to see him. “They heard there was an eye doctor present and they came hoping to get help,” Hartstein says. Hartstein had come from his home in this Tel Aviv suburb to volunteer at the Jewish aid compound in Gondar, bringing along his wife, Elisa, and their four children. But Hartstein, an ophthalmic, plastic and reconstructive surgeon, was not there in an official medical capacity and had only a penlight with which to check their eyes. With the help of an Israeli university student volunteer as translator, Hartstein managed to examine all of the Ethiopians, who claim Jewish ancestry and are known as Falash Mura. He found that half of the Ethiopians had ocular health problems, often stemming from constant unprotected exposure to harsh sunlight and unsanitary living conditions. The Ethiopians had dense cataracts, severe conjunctivitis, trachoma, and corneal scarring. Hartstein also saw children with crossed and lazy eyes in need of correction. “At that point, all I could do was send them to the local hospital,” says Hartstein, who works in Israel as director of oculoplastic surgery at Yitzhak Shamir Medical Center (formerly known as Assaf Harofeh Medical Center). “But it turned out that none of them followed through. They either couldn’t afford the 50-cent fee or didn’t know how to navigate the medical system.” Hartstein refused to leave things as they were. He and his family began making more frequent trips to Ethiopia, running periodic clinics during which
he sees up to 500 patients at a time. He brings with him hundreds of pairs of donated eyeglasses and large quantities of eye drops and medications. Flying back and forth to do volunteer work in Africa was the kind of thing Hartstein, 54, never could have foreseen being a part of his life in Israel, where he and his family moved more than a decade ago from St. Louis. The family initially spent a sabbatical year in Raanana, during which Hartstein, a tenured professor at St. Louis University, established ties with Assaf Harofeh hospital. The sabbatical extended to two years, and then the family decided to stay permanently in Israel. They formally made aliyah in 2009, getting help from Nefesh B’Nefesh, the agency that facilitates and encourages immigration to Israel from North America. For Americans already in Israel, the agency has a “guided aliyah” program that assists with bureaucratic hurdles and the acquisition of formal citizenship. Hartstein has always been a Zionist. He grew up Modern Orthodox in St. Louis, and both he and his wife had spent time in Israel. But the family had never seriously thought about immigrating until the sabbatical. Although Hartstein knows many American doctors who commute back to the U.S. for work, he decided that option wasn’t right for his family. Instead he stayed in Israel, doing reconstructive and medically indicated surgery at the hospital while also maintaining a private practice in Herzliya, where his work includes elective plastic surgery. “You can make a good living as a physician in Israel, especially if you have a surgical or procedural specialty you can do in private practice,” Hartstein says. “I like being invested in Israel and the medical community here. I like to stay in regular touch with my patients. I couldn’t do that if I were commuting.” Elisa Hartstein runs her own online company designing and selling clothing for breastfeeding women. Having learned Hebrew from a young age, Hartstein had no problem with
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the language, and he quickly mastered Hebrew medical terminology. But there were other challenges. Hartstein was accustomed to a certain way of doing things from his medical training at Harvard University and Bellevue Hospital at New York University, and from his work at St. Louis University Hospital. In Israel, the medical culture was different. “There is just a single secretary for my department, no one has a designated private office, and people just walk in on you when you are in the middle of something—even while examining a patient,” Hartstein says with a laugh. One surprise, he says, is that politics stops at the hospital door. Hartstein treats many Palestinian patients, including cases from Gaza. He and others work hard to secure funding and permits to get such patients into Israel for proper care. After one five-year-old Palestinian girl with a rare lymphatic malformation engulfing her right eye came with her grandmother to Hartstein for treatment, the girl’s father—who was not permitted to accompany her into Israel—did not hesitate to post a photo on social media of the yarmulke-wearing Hartstein with a sincere message of praise and thanks. In the summer of 2014, as the war in Gaza raged, Hartstein treated another young Gazan girl who had suffered severe burns from a house fire. The doctor and his staff restored her eyelids using skin grafts. “She and her family were in the hospital all summer. They couldn’t return home,” Hartstein says. “They were treated very well.” Hartstein says he is in regular contact with his Gaza patients and a Palestinian ophthalmologist there with whom he coordinates patient care. Meanwhile, the couple’s eldest child, Eliana, 18, recently completed high school and now serves in the Israeli army. She and her siblings—Dalia, Zack, and Jonah, now all teenagers—have gone back to Ethiopia several times to help out with their father’s clinics. Hartstein has deepened his connections
Politics stops at the hospital door.
to Ethiopia. He established a program in 2017 to bring Ethiopian medical residents to Israel for a month of training at his own hospital. On his trips to Ethiopia, Hartstein lectures and performs surgery at the Gondar hospital. “It turned out I needed an Ethiopian medical license, so I got that with the help of the Himalayan Cataract Project,” Hartstein says, referring to an organization that works to eradicate preventable and curable blindness in the developing world. He recently started a cataract surgery program in Gondar, where the chair of the eye department performs cataract surgery for $50 to $80 per patient. The funding comes from a group called the Struggle to Save Ethiopian Jewry. There have been 15 surgeries and the outcomes have been good, according to Hartstein. Overall, Hartstein says, the move to Israel was one of the smartest decisions he ever made. “We love living in Israel, and I enjoy practicing in a public Israeli hospital,” Hartstein says. “I wouldn’t have had such a wide range of patients in the U.S. as I have here, from Palestinians to famous rabbis to everyone in between. I am part of a vibrant and dynamic medical Israeli community, and I feel that I am really making an impact.” This article was sponsored by and produced in partnership with Nefesh B’Nefesh, which in cooperation with Israel’s Ministry of Aliyah, The Jewish Agency, KKL and JNF-USA is minimizing the professional, logistical and social obstacles of aliyah, and has brought over 50,000 olim from North America and the United Kingdom over the last 15 years. This article was produced by JTA’s native content team.
Health Care
NEW YORK, May 7, 2018—Researchers from Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (BGU) in Beer-Sheva, Israel have demonstrated for the first time the feasibility of a robotic system that plays Tic Tac Toe with rehabilitation patients to improve real-life task performance. The interdisciplinary research team designed a game with a robotic arm to simulate “3D Functional Activities of Daily Living”—actions people undertake daily, like drinking from a cup, that are often a focus of rehabilitation. Designing a social robot to help rehabilitate a patient is a new field. The research was published in Restorative Neurology and Neuroscience. “Playing Tic Tac Toe with a set of cups (instead of X’s and O’s) is one example of a game that can help rehabilitate an
Credit: Ben-Gurion University
First robotic system that plays Tic Tac Toe with patients to improve real-life task performance developed by Ben-Gurion University researchers
Researchers from Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (BGU) in Beer-Sheva, Israel have demonstrated for the first time the feasibility of a robotic system that plays Tic Tac Toe with rehabilitation patients to improve real-life task performance.
upper limb,” says Dr. Shelly Levy-Tzedek of BGU’s Department of Physical Therapy, and Zlotowski Center for Neuroscience. “A person can pick up and place many cups while enjoying a game and improving their performance of a daily task.”
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Health Care
These Jews are leading the fight for equal treatment of women in health care Abigail Pickus
B
y the time Starr Mirza went into cardiac arrest at age 22 and nearly died, she had spent a lifetime trying to convince doctors she was sick. “The doctors were always pulling my parents aside and saying, ‘She’s doing this for attention. There is nothing physically wrong with her. You need to send her to a psychiatrist,’” recalls Mirza, now 38, who lives in Silver Spring, Maryland. But despite seeing more than 100 doctors during her teenage years to treat extreme fatigue and regular fainting spells, it wasn’t until Mirza went into cardiac arrest in 2002 that her doctors finally did the tests necessary to determine her
Committed to
diagnosis. They discovered Mirza has Long QT syndrome, a genetic disorder that affects the heart’s rhythm and sometimes causes sudden death. “The electrical part of my heart was short-circuiting,” Mirza says. “But because I am female, I was just considered hysterical all these years.” She’s not alone. Recent studies have shown that female patients routinely are undertreated and forced to wait longer than males for appropriate medication— by doctors of both genders. Women also are likely to receive less aggressive medical treatment than men in their initial encounters with the health care system until they prove that they are as sick as male patients. That phenomenon was
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dubbed the “Yentl syndrome” by cardiologist Bernadine Healy in 1991 after the Isaac Bashevis Singer character, a young shtetl girl who pretends to be a boy so she can study in a yeshiva. The gender disparity extends to all sorts of areas. Women metabolize drugs differently than men and often present symptoms differently. Yet medical research, diagnostic tools and treatments usually are centered on male physiology—even in animal and cellular research subjects. As a result, women suffer greater risks from inadequate prevention strategies and medical treatment. For example, an advanced artificial heart that was designed to fit 86 percent of men’s chest cavities fit just 20 percent of women’s. The original prescribed dose
for the sleep aid Ambien turned out to have dangerous side effects for women; it had been tested exclusively on men. Women under age 55 experiencing a heart attack are seven times more likely to be misdiagnosed and sent home from the emergency room than males presenting with the same symptoms, according to research recently published in The New England Journal of Medicine. Hadassah, The Women’s Zionist Organization of America has made leveling the playing field for women a top priority. Two years ago, Hadassah launched the Coalition for Women’s Health Equity, so the nation’s most prominent women’s and health organizations could create a unified force to advocate for women’s health equity. Today, the 28-member coalition is
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Health Care focused on raising awareness and advocating for policies to address women’s health disparities. Coalition members helped push legislators in Congress to introduce the Preventing Maternal Deaths Act of 2017, a bill to help reduce the death rate among mothers during pregnancy, childbirth and postpartum. The United States ranks 50th globally for its infant mortality rate and is one of eight countries where the rate is climbing. During last year’s back and forth over the Affordable Care Act, the coalition pushed Senate leaders to oppose changes in the law, informally known as Obamacare, that would have limited access to preventive health services, disproportionately affecting women of color, women with disabilities, and low-income women. Earlier this month, Hadassah and the coalition hosted the 2nd Annual Women’s Health Empowerment Summit
bringing modern health in Washington, D.C., to care to the country in coincide with Women’s 1912. Originally founded Health Week—May to provide emergency 13–19. The May 16 concare to infants and mothference brought together United States’ ers in prestate Israel, women’s health experts global rank for Hadassah Hospitals’ and Washington officials infant mortality medical and research to discuss risks, research, centers have led to breakand legislative recomthroughs in treatments of mendations to promote such diseases as multiple women’s health equity. sclerosis, melanoma and Mirza was among the macular degeneration. speakers. In America, where the women’s orga“Hadassah is committed to pooling niation has more than 300,000 members, our organization’s wisdom, experience Hadassah has been focusing on education and resources in the fight against gender and grassroots advocacy—particularly disparities and inequities in all aspects of when it comes to equity in women’s medhealth,” says Ellen Hershkin, Hadassah’s ical research. national president. “We believe every Jill Lesser, president of woman deserves quality, affordable and WomenAgainstAlzheimer’s, one of the equitable health care, and we will conoriginal members of the Coalition for tinue to work alongside coalition members Women’s Health Equity, says it’s importand policymakers until we achieve that.” ant that the conversation about women’s Hadassah is well known in Israel for
50th
health issues not be limited to women’s reproductive parts—“bikini medicine”— such as breast cancer, ovarian cancer, and death during childbirth. Alzheimer’s, for example, is predominately a women’s disease: Nearly two-thirds of the 5.4 million Americans living with Alzheimer’s are women, according to WomenAgaintAlzheimer’s. Hershkin says Hadassah’s work in this area is just beginning. “Women’s health doesn’t advance itself,” Hershkin says. “We have to fight to advance it.” This article was sponsored by and produced in partnership with Hadassah, The Women’s Zionist Organization of America, Inc., which is celebrating the 100th year of Hadassah Medical Organization, the Henrietta Szold Hadassah-Hebrew University School of Nursing and the Hadassah Ophthalmology Department. This article was produced by JTA’s native content team.)
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jewishnewsva.org | May 28, 2018 | Health Care | Jewish News | 23
Health Care
Why you should fear skin cancer—and how to avoid it Michele Chabin
JERUSALEM—The dog days of summer are about to arrive, and by now we all know the drill: Cover up, slather on the sunscreen, or go back inside. With all the public awareness about the dangers of sun exposure, you’d think that skin cancer rates would be falling. They’re not. In fact, the number of people being diagnosed with melanoma, the deadliest form of skin cancer, has skyrocketed over the past three decades. And Jews are at higher risk than most. It seems we just can’t kick our sun worshipping. Maybe that’s because, as studies have shown, sun exposure can trigger the release of those pleasant-feeling endorphins, and tanning can be addictive. The statistics about skin cancer should be sobering. Most melanomas (and some 90 percent of non-melanoma skin cancers) are associated with exposure to the sun’s dangerous ultraviolet rays. Each year there are more new cases of skin cancer than all the new diagnoses of breast, lung, and colon cancer combined. One in every five Americans will develop skin cancer over the course of their lifetime, according to the Skin Cancer Foundation. The news is worse for Jews. Those who have a mutation in the BRCA2 gene—raising the risk of developing breast, ovarian, prostate, and pancreatic cancers—also are at increased risk of skin cancer. That’s because the proteins produced from the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes are involved in repairing damaged DNA, which helps keep cells from growing and dividing too fast, and mutations in these genes hinder DNA repair, allowing potentially damaging mutations to persist. As these defects accumulate, they can trigger cells to grow and divide uncontrollably and form cancerous tumors. While about one in 400 people in the general population carries the BRCA mutations, among Jews the rate is one in 40—making Jews 10 times more likely to develop a BRCA mutation-related cancer. Melanoma, while accounting for less than 1 percent of all skin cancer cases,
is responsible for the majority of skin cancer deaths – approximately 10,000 Americans every year. A person’s risk for melanoma doubles if they have had more than five sunburns, according to a 2001 study. Although those with fair skin or a family history of skin cancer due to gene mutations are at the highest risk for melanoma, anyone—including those with dark skin—can develop it. For patients whose melanoma is detected early on, the five-year survival rate is about 98 percent. But the survival rate falls precipitously if the disease has reached the lymph nodes (62 percent of patients after five years) or metastasizes and spreads to other organs (18 percent), according to the American Cancer Society. Here’s the good news: Skin cancer patients have greater reason for hope thanks to cutting-edge melanoma research being conducted in Israel and the United States. Just 10 years ago, Israel had one of the highest melanoma rates worldwide. But then came better education about the dangers of sun exposure and an effort to test thousands of women for BRCA mutations and alert them if they have heightened risk for the disease. That effort, funded in part by the Israel Cancer Research Fund, has helped bring Israel’s melanoma rate down to 18th in the world. Dr. Harriet Kluger, a medical oncologist and researcher at Yale University, says the first line of defense against getting skin cancer is reducing the amount of skin exposed to the sun. In addition, she says, everyone should visit a dermatologist at least once a year to ensure that any suspicious skin growths are evaluated promptly. On the research side, Israeli researched Dr. Gabi Gerlitz of Ariel University is investigating the inner workings of melanoma cells that migrate—metastasize—in the hopes of figuring out how to block this process. When patients have cancer, 90 percent of them die from the cancerous cells’ migration to vital organs, not from the primary tumor, Gerlitz notes. The question is, how do the cells migrate? Gerlitz and his team began by studying
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the DNA in the nuclei of migrating melanoma cells. They found that the DNA contracts when the cell starts to migrate, as if it were packing up tightly for a trip. “When we look at moving cells, we see fibers called cytoskeleton that help the cells migrate as well as to move and to reshape their nuclei,” Gerlitz says. “We were the first to study this process. Later, others saw it happening in leukemia, colon, and breast cancer cells, suggesting it’s quite a general phenomenon.” Once Gerlitz saw how the DNA contracts in order to migrate between other cells, he began to study how and when this contraction affects the gene. His research is being backed by the Israel Cancer Research Fund, which raises money in North America for cancer research across different Israeli institutions. “Once we understand fully what exactly is changing in the migrating cells, we can identify targets for treating cancer patients,” he says. “If we know that a specific gene is important for migration, we can try to interfere with it.” At Israel’s Bar-Ilan University, Dr. Cyrille Cohen, head of the tumor immunology and immunotherapy lab, is using an ICRF research grant to focus on cancer immunotherapy: how to stimulate and improve the body’s immune system to prevent or treat cancer. “The basic principle behind this field is that our immune system is able to recognize and kill cancer cells under certain circumstances,” Cohen explains. “We believe this happens all the time but that sometimes, due to external pressure— for example what we eat or what we’re exposed to, like sun or smoke – more cancer cells arise in the body. They acquire the means to tackle our natural defenses and the immune system fails to take care of them.” Cohen’s laboratory specializes in studying and genetically engineering the cancer response of T-cells—cells crucial to eradicating viruses and coordinating broad immune reactions. His team has developed ways to tweak the response of those cells to make them stronger when they are exposed to cancer cells.
This approach offers a personalized approach to fighting cancer. Using a handful of patients from a National Institutes of Health clinical trial, Cohen’s team used gene sequencing to identify the number and types of mutations in each of the patients’ cancers. Then, using a computer algorithm, they predicted which mutations would be targeted by T-cells, and they generated synthetic molecules that mimicked the mutations on the melanoma cells. After researchers singled out the T-cells specific to those patients’ mutations, scientists found that those T-cells were able to fight the tumors when injected back into the patients. Now Cohen’s research is aimed at improving the T-cell prediction process and better understanding the requirements for an efficient immune response against cancer. As a sign of the promise of Israeli research, the U.S.-based Cancer Research Institute—the world’s leading nonprofit dedicated to immunotherapy—is teaming up with the Israel Cancer Research Fund to jointly fund immunotherapy-related research in Israel. Israel is known for its medical innovation, but funding is hard to come by, says Jill O’Donnell-Tormey, CEO of the Cancer Research Institute. “CRI has always funded outstanding science globally. Partnering with ICRF helps ensure that we can couple CRI’s immunological expertise with ICRF’s longstanding relationships with Israeli institutions,” she says. “We hope our collaboration will attract the best scientific minds in Israel to focus on immunotherapy research.” Any successful research carried out in Israel, O’Donnell-Tormey says, “will ultimately impact the lives of cancer patients worldwide.” This article was sponsored by and produced in partnership with the Israel Cancer Research F und, which is committed to finding and funding breakthrough treatments and cures for all forms of cancer, leveraging the unique talent, expertise and benefits that Israel and its scientists have to offer. This article was produced by JTA’s native content team.)
Health Care
Israeli researchers discover Alzheimer’s trigger Ben-Gurion University
I
sraeli researchers have discovered that a specific protein is severely reduced in the brains of people with Alzheimer’s. Alzheimer’s is a neurodegenerative disease caused by brain cell death. Currently there is no cure, but according to researchers at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (BGU), it is now known what may trigger it. Dr. Debbie Toiber, of the BGU Department of Life Sciences, and her team discovered that a specific protein— irtuin-6 (SIRT6)—is severely reduced in the brains of Alzheimer’s patients. SIRT6 is critical to the repair of DNA, the deterioration of which “is the beginning of the chain that ends in neurodegenerative diseases in seniors,” she explains. Toiber and her team are examining DNA damage as the cause of aging and age-related diseases. DNA in each cell breaks down due to natural causes, such as metabolism and the usage of the DNA to produce proteins. She discovered that as a person ages, the amount of the SIRT6 protein in the brain declines. In fact, according to Toiber, “In Alzheimer’s patients, it is almost completely gone.” The blood-brain barrier prevents the ability to simply inject the protein into the brain to replenish its supply. Toiber is currently working on finding a way to increase the expression of the protein into the brain. When the DNA is damaged, Toiber says, it may lose important information. “If a cell feels it is too dangerous to continue with this damaged DNA, it may activate a self-destruct mechanism. If too many cells do this, the tissue with the dying cells will deteriorate, such as the brain.” DNA damage is inevitable on some level by simply living, with the environment causing additional damage. “We repair it and continue going on. But the repairs are not perfect and some DNA remains unrepaired. As you get older, unrepaired DNA accumulates.”
Toiber acknowledges that healthy habits like good diet and exercise might make a difference in DNA health. She points out that engaging in sports and even working past retirement can challenge the body in positive ways, preparing cells to react more readily and thus be more likely able to repair themselves. Even so, it’s not possible to avoid the
“You have to remember that half of everyone over the age of 95 will get Alzheimer’s.”
effects of aging entirely. “You have to remember that half of everyone over the age of 95 will get Alzheimer’s,” she says. “It is not something genetic or environmental. That may influence it a little bit, but when there is a 50-50 chance of getting Alzheimer’s, it demonstrates that it just happens over a lifetime.” “We should be focusing our research on how to maintain production of SIRT6 and improve the repair capacity of the DNA damage that leads to neurodegenerative diseases,” says Toiber. This may be the key to preventative and personalized health care. Together with supporters, AABGU is helping Ben-Gurion University of the Negev foster excellence in teaching, research and outreach to the communities of the Negev, sharing cutting-edge innovation from the desert for the world.
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Health Care
Seven things to do before you die E.J. Kessler
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here’s no shortage of Jewish rituals when it comes to death. From preburial practices to the custom of lighting memorial candles even decades on, Jewish tradition offers plenty of direction when it comes to death and mourning. But when it comes to planning for one own’s death, Jews are often as unprepared as anybody, leaving loved ones to sort out the mess even as they grapple with their own grief. It shouldn’t be that way, and it doesn’t have to. Here are seven things to think about and get in order before you die. 1. Buy a burial plot This sounds elementary, but many fail to do it, forcing family members to scramble at the worst possible time. Some Jews buy a plot through their synagogue
or make arrangements with a cemetery directly. For the indigent, the Hebrew Free Burial Association offers help with burial. Generations ago, Jews of Eastern European ancestry often belonged to the burial associations of their former hometowns’ fraternal associations, called landsmanschaften. Some contemporary Jews still own plots handed down from these mostly defunct organizations. 2. Make sure to have an up-to-date will If your first spouse died and you’ve remarried, do you have your current spouse’s name on the documents? Are all your children listed—or, at least, all the ones who you want to be listed? Is everything in order, legally and otherwise? Failure to pay attention to detail can be disastrous. After a man I know died recently, his daughter found his will, last updated in 1965, and called the witness
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listed to affirm its authenticity. That witness was her mother’s ex-best friend—whose husband, unbeknownst to the daughter, had an affair with the mother in the 1960s. The episode dredged up feelings that would have been better left buried. 3. Designate a power of attorney A will is just the beginning of estate planning. You should also designate someone to exercise your power of attorney should you become incapacitated. Many families set up trusts to shield income for the care and support of elderly or special-needs family members. In cases in which someone is suffering from Alzheimer’s disease or another form of dementia, a guardian may be appointed to manage dicey situations. Anne Moses, an Alabama elder lawyer, recalls one case in which a man with dementia impulsively married the lady down the hall in his nursing home. The guardian quickly sent the bride a letter informing her that she should not expect any financial support. She filed for divorce three weeks later. You can find an attorney and other useful resources on the website of the National Academy of Elder Lawyers. 4. Decide what you want to do about end-of-life care Put it in writing and talk to your loved ones about it. Do you want a Do Not Resuscitate order? To be intubated? Do you want to stay at home even if you’re totally incapacitated, or would you rather go to a facility so your loved ones don’t have the primary responsibility for your care? You can make your wishes known by writing out a health-care directive and appointing someone as your proxy to carry out those wishes. Many synagogues and Jewish community centers have created programs, such as “What Matters: Caring Conversations at the End of Life,” to help people discuss their wishes with loved ones. Advance directives, living wills, and proxy forms can be drawn up by a lawyer or created via online forms or services such as legalzoom.com. 5. Give away, sell, or trash your extraneous possessions
A lifetime of accumulating can leave a huge burden for your children to clear out once you’re gone. Now’s the time to clean house. Is your house filled with tchotchkes? Obsolescent gadgets, bills, and correspondence from the 1980s? Toys, baby sweaters, and art projects of beloved children now deep into middle age? Books, books, and more books? An over-abundance of things can degrade home values, so much so that an entire industry (think 1-800-JUNK) has sprung up to relieve people of the burden of cleaning out houses. Don’t leave your children with that burden. Clean house now. 6. Set up a process to give your loved ones access to your papers, accounts, and passwords If you don’t want them to have access now, put a plan in place for informing your kids or spouse about all your bank accounts, assets, life-insurance policies, and anything else they might need. Share your passwords, including to your email and other accounts. Adam Schoenfarber, social work team manager with MJHS Health System, advises older people to plan for the disposal of their digital presence by leaving instructions in the cloud and in hard copy. “If you die or are unable to manage your digital profile, who gets control of those resources?” Schoenfarber says. There are also the issues of how visible and public you want to be about your illness and how you would like people notified about your death. Some families will maintain your Facebook page as a memorial; others will opt for privacy. By leaving instructions, you can eliminate an unnecessary source of tension. 7. Talk to your loved ones about your funeral There are many details to consider, both logistical and religious. Which traditional Jewish burial customs are important to you? Do you want your loved ones to ensure that you have a ritual cleansing known as tahara? And what do you want to wear for eternity? Traditionally, Jews are buried in a simple shroud, but some
Health Care may wish to eschew this plain white garb for a dress or suit. Are there specific people you want to deliver eulogies? If it’s important to you that your loved ones sit shiva for you for all seven days, let them know. Many Jewish funeral homes offer pre-planning services so you can make these arrangements in advance. Whatever you decide, whether it’s about your funeral or your earthly possessions, don’t forget to communicate your
preferences to your loved ones. Then you can rest in peace. This article is part of a series sponsored by and developed in partnership with MJHS Health System and UJA-Federation of New York to raise awareness and facilitate conversations about end of life care in a Jewish context. This article was produced by MJL’s native content team.
Skipping breakfast disrupts “Clock Genes” that regulate body weight and glucose Tel Aviv—Irregular eating habits such as skipping breakfast are often associated with obesity, type 2 diabetes, hypertension and cardiovascular disease, but the precise impact of meal times on the body’s internal clock has been less clear. A new Tel Aviv University study now pinpoints the effect of breakfast on the expression of “clock genes” that regulate the post-meal glucose and insulin responses of both healthy individuals and diabetics. The importance of the body’s internal clock and the impact of meal times on the body were the subject of last year’s Nobel Prize for Medicine, awarded for the discovery of molecular mechanisms controlling our circadian rhythm. “Our study shows that breakfast consumption triggers the proper cyclic clock gene expression leading to improved glycaemic control,” Prof. Daniela Jakubowicz of TAU’s Sackler Faculty of Medicine says. “The circadian clock gene not only regulates the circadian changes of glucose metabolism, but also regulates our body weight, blood pressure, endothelial function, and atherosclerosis. “Proper meal timing—such as consuming breakfast before 9:30 am—could lead to an improvement of the entire metabolism of the body, facilitate weight loss, and delay complications associated with type 2 diabetes and other age-related disorders.” For the study, 18 healthy volunteers and 18 obese volunteers with diabetes
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took part in a test day featuring breakfast and lunch, and in a test day featuring only lunch. On both days, the researchers conducted blood tests on the participants to measure their postprandial clock gene expression, plasma glucose, insulin and intact glucagon-like peptide-1 (iGLP-1) and dipeptidyl peptidase IV (DPP-IV) plasma activity. “Our study showed that breakfast consumption triggers the proper cyclic clock gene expression leading to improved glycaemic control,” says Prof. Jakubowicz. “In both healthy individuals and in diabetics, breakfast consumption acutely improved the expression of specific clock genes linked to more efficient weight loss, and was associated with improved glucose and insulin levels after lunch.” In contrast, in test days featuring only lunch (when participants skipped breakfast), the clock genes related to weight loss were downregulated, leading to blood sugar spikes and poor insulin responses for the rest of the day, suggesting also that skipping breakfast leads to weight gain even without the incidence of overeating the rest of the day. “The fact that we can change the gene’s expression in just four hours is very impressive,” says Prof. Jakubowicz. The researchers are currently conducting a long-term study comparing the effect of different meal timing schedules on the body’s clock gene expression, glucose balance and weight loss over time.
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Trust Your Heart to Expert Hands For over 50 years, Sentara has cared for the community by providing local access to a world-class heart surgery program. We pride ourselves on offering innovative solutions, cutting-edge clinical trials and a highly-skilled team of surgeons, physicians, and clinicians. We understand that when it comes to heart surgery, nothing is more important than knowing you’re in expert hands. That’s why it’s reassuring to know that Sentara sits among the Top 50 Heart Programs in the nation as a result of the exceptional outcomes, outstanding service and expertise we deliver to our patients. Life is precious so when choosing a heart surgery program, choose the best. Trust in Sentara to get you back to life without missing a beat.
Sentara Heart Hospital • Sentara Virginia Beach General Hospital For more information about our heart surgery program, visit SentaraHeartSurgery.com. SentaraHeartSurgery.com 28 | Jewish News | Health Care | May 28, 2018 | jewishnewsva.org
it’s a wrap YAD’s momME time provides Tidewater moms with entryway to community and a much-needed break Stephanie Steerman
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he momME time program through the Young Adult Division of the United Jewish Federation of Tidewater, was launched in 2016 as a way to bring Tidewater moms together to bond, relax, and engage with the commuSara Murawski, Monique Werby, and Rebecca Levitt. nity; completely kid-free. From the start it has been a huge success. So far this year, YAD has hosted three events—all equally successfully— bringing in more than 50 moms during the quarterly program. momME time had a special guest in November when author Ali Katz led Liat Lautman and Erica Kaplan. a meditation session and discussed her Spring was all about celebrating new book, Hot Mess to Mindful Mom. Israel’s 70th birthday. YAD moms got Sessions like these are helpful in managsummer-ready by making a Dead Sea ing all of the roles and responsibilities that Lavender Body Scrub. Each mom commoms often take on. bined the various ingredients to create In January, momME time hosted a an exfoliating scrub straight from Israel’s Tikkun Olam event with the help of the Dead Sea. Helen G. Gifford Foundation. The moms None of this would be possible withmade glass mosaic Shabbat candle holdout the incredible Tidewater community ers as part of the Gary Rosenthal, Hiddur and generous UJFT donors. momME time Mitzvah Project. Each mom made two has given moms an opportunity to concandle holders; one to keep and one to be nect, get involved, and give back—all donated to a family in California that lost while taking a break from their traditional all of their belongings in last year’s wild mommy roles and outside jobs. The profires. The holders were both inspiring and gram will continue hosting events and beautiful, and gave the moms an opportuhopes to see even more moms get involved nity to take some time for themselves, as this year. well as give to those enduring hardship.
REGISTRATION NOW OPEN! Kids Connection is the Simon Family JCC’s Before & After School ENRICHMENT program for children pre-K through sixth grade. Our program includes: • Homework ASSISTANCE with a counselor and daily completion report • Promethean Smartboard® to help with ENHANCED learning • Art, SCIENCE, music, and cooking activities • TRANSPORTATION provided to and from select schools • Open from 6:00am – 6:00pm
For more information or to register, email JParker@SimonFamilyJCC.org or call 757.321.2306 jewishnewsva.org | May 28, 2018 | Jewish News | 29
it’s a wrap
One Night raises funds, delights diners
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similarities or differences, to go to camp he Simon Family JCC held its signatogether while forging friendships. I love ture fundraising event, One Night, that JCamp is a place for (my son) Evan, on Tuesday, April 24. Hosted by Baker’s but what I love more is that JCamp is a Crust Artisan Kitchen, 132 guests gathplace for all kids.” ered for a night of outstanding Israeli John Strelitz, president of the United cuisine, community, and philanthropy. Jewish Federation of Tidewater and Simon This year’s guest chef, sponsored by the Family JCC, announced that this year’s Culinary Institute of Virginia, College One Night event raised $30,000–$35,000 of Culinary Arts of ECPI University, was to support the Yachad program and other James Beard 2017 Outstanding Chef, children’s programming at the Simon Michael Solomonov. Throughout the eveFamily JCC. ning, Solomonov mingled and entertained One Night was a remarkable experience guests while delighting palates with a for all involved, and it raised important culinary journey of Israeli cuisines with funds that will impact hundreds of famifour main courses and wine pairings. lies and thousands of children during the Along with the amazing food and summer and coming year at the Simon entertainment, the star of the evening Family JCC. was the Simon Family JCC and its unique program, Yachad. A program of the JCC summer camp ( JCamp), Yachad integrates children with special needs into the full JCamp experience, providing specially trained counselors to support the children at camp. Robin Bailey, a JCamp parent, shared her experience with the program: “Simon Family JCC offers the only camp in the area with a program that allows all children the opportunity, regardless of their Chef Michael Solomonov introducing his first main course.
Shari Friedman, Ron Dozoretz, and Renee Strelitz.
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Greg and Ashley Zittrain.
Mark Dreyfus, Barbara Larar, Chef Michael Solomonov, Andy and Amy Gladstein.
Jack Lane, Gina Lane, Jerry Davis, Corrie Lentz, Chef Michael Solomonov, and Alicia Pahl-Cornelius.
Laura Miller, Chef Michael Solomonov, and Jerry Miller.
Louis and Caroline Snyder.
Stacie and L.T. Caplan.
it’s a wrap
Jasmine Amitay, Shikma Rubin, Monique Werby, Chef Michael Solomonov, Stephanie Steerman, and Jenny Sachs. Student chefs from the Culinary Institute of Virginia with Chef Michael Solomonov.
Chef Michael Solomonov with John Stein and Mark Dreyfus, lead sponsors, wearing gifted and customized aprons by North End Bag Co.
Shawn and Ashley Lemke.
Jodi Klebanoff, Chef Michael Solomonov, and Jay Klebanoff.
Michelle Fenely, Emily Donkle, Claire Laibstain, Chef Michael Solomonov, and Robyn Bailey.
Deborah Meltsner, Britt Simon, and Jerry Meltsner.
Adam Foleck, Chef Michael Solomonov, and Kristy Foleck.
JCamp Fundraising Photo “A Place for Evan.”
One Night Committee: Martha Mednick Glasser, Shelly Simon, Sandra Porter-Leon, Stephanie Steerman, Chef Michael Solomonov, Jodi Klebanoff, and Alicia Friedman. jewishnewsva.org | May 28, 2018 | Jewish News | 31
LIGHTS, CAMP, ACTION!
Space is limited, register for JCamp today!
JUN 18 THROUGH AUG 10 Traditional summer day camp with weekly TV-themed activities, including:
#JCampTV at the Simon Family JCC TV
Field Trips to iFly, Jump, & MORE! − Overnight add-on nights (optional) − Daily Swim lessons & Free Swim � Age-driven programs, events, & activities � Counselor-in-training opportunities Yachad special needs program
Register online now at CampJCC.org or call 757.321.2338 5000 Corporate Woods Dr., Virginia Beach, VA 23462
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See website for details
what’s happening Host homes needed for Shlichim
Thursday, June 14, 6 pm, Sandler Family Campus
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Camp begins next month, and as in past years, preparations are underway for this summer’s visiting Israeli Shlichim. Noya Arazi and Eilon Katzav arrive in Tidewater on June 12 to infuse JCamp with Israeli culture. They each bring a wealth of talents to enrich campers’ experiences, including dance, art, athletics, and more. Noya Arazi is from Rehovot, a small town near Tel Aviv. Growing up in a traditional home where she loved celebrating Shabbat and Jewish holidays, Noya is the youngest of five children and says she enjoys being an aunt to her nieces and nephews. During school, Noya participated in theater and says she is especially attracted to musicals because they combine music and drama. Noya looks forward to sharing her appreciation of the arts with campers by leading sessions in theater and dance. Eilon Katzav is from Holon where he lives with his parents and two sisters. Prior to his recent service with the Israeli Defense Forces, Eilon studied physics and chemistry in high school. He also competed with his school’s volleyball team and took part in Boy Scouts for many years. Eilon says he is excited to bring Israeli culture to Tidewater through song, dance, and
Community set to honor Harry Graber
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Eilon Katzav
Shabbat traditions. What makes the Shlichim experience so unique is that each counselor lives with local families, sharing their Israeli culture. Reciprocally, the hosting of Shlichim is an exciting opportunity to share familial and local traditions. If your family is interested in hosting either Noya or Eilon, contact Tammy Muijica at TMujica@UJFT.org or 757-9656124. A list of dietary needs will also be made available. Dates needed for host families: Weeks 1 and 2: June 12–June 23 Weeks 3 and 4: June 24–July 7 Weeks 5 and 6: July 8–July 21 Weeks 7 and 8: July 22–August 4 Week 9: August 5–August 10
Tidewater Chavurah’s Second Friday Shabbat service
fter serving as United Jewish Federation of Tidewater’s executive vice president for 15 years, Harry Graber is set to retire on June 30. In addition to his service at UJFT, Graber was Jewish Family Service’s executive director for 15 years – for a combined total of working 30 years as a Jewish communal professional in Tidewater. The community will honor Graber with a festive reception and fun and reflective program for his life-long commitment to Jewish life in Tidewater, as well as around the world. The event will be an opportunity to show appreciation to Graber for his leadership, compassion, and devotion to the Tidewater Jewish community. “Through his tireless efforts, Harry has assisted countless organizations and people in our community,” says Betty Ann Levin, JFS executive director and incoming UJFT executive vice president. “Whether it was the programs he helped established, such as the Personal Affairs Management Program at JFS, the connections he made and continued with communities in the Former Soviet Union and in Israel, or the expansion of UJFT’s programs and fundraising, Harry has been at the helm of long-lasting and positive change.” John Strelitz, UJFT president, says, “The
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For event information and address, email carita@verizon.net or dlqt@cox.net or call 4993660 or 468-2675. Go to www.tidewaterchavurah.org for upcoming events.
Current Events with JCC Seniors Thursdays, 10:30 am–12 pm, Simon Family JCC
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his group of JCC Seniors discusses all aspects of current events, from local to international news.
Contact Bernice Greenberg at 757-497-0229 for further information.
Harry Graber Retirement committee has been meeting and working for months on the details of the evening. We hope as many community members as possible attend to help us honor Harry and wish him well in his much-deserved retirement.” The event, which includes kosher hors d’oeuvres, a cocktail reception, and a special program, is free and open to the community. RSVPs are required to Tammy Mujica at 757-965-6124 or tmujica@ujft.org.
HAT graduation
Friday, June 8, 7 pm “congregation without walls,” Tidewater Chavurah’s events are held in members’ homes or at other locations. Their second Friday of the month Shabbat service will be at the home of Hal and Elaine in the Great Neck Meadows area of Virginia Beach. Rabbi Ellen Jaffe-Gill will lead the service with prayers and joyful songs. An Oneg will follow.
Harry Graber.
Tuesday, June 15, 1 pm Reba and Sam Sandler Family Campus
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oin the Hebrew Academy of Tidewater’s board of directors, faculty, and staff in celebrating the graduating class of 2018. Business attire is requested. The ceremony will be followed by a desert reception. RSVP to 757-424-4327 or LBridges@hebrewacademy.net.
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Scholarship for Beth El members
he J. Samuel Goldback Scholarship Grants Selection Committee is accepting applications for the coming academic year. Scholarship grants of $500 to $4,000 are available to the children/dependents of Congregation Beth El members only. Grants are awarded based on the applicant’s
academic achievement, promise, and financial need. Application instructions and forms may be obtained by contacting Congregation Beth El at 757-625-7821. Applications are due no later than 5 pm on Thursday, June 21, 2018.
jewishnewsva.org | May 28, 2018 | Jewish News | 33
what’s happening
Calendar
Holly Berger Markhoff art at Stravitz Galleries
through May 31, Thursday United Jewish Federation of Tidewater’s Holocaust Commission’s Elie Wiesel student art show. Simon Family JCC.
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contemporary mixed media artist, Holly Berger Markhoff’s paintings are currently on exhibit at Richard Stravitz Sculpture & Fine Art Galleries in Virginia Beach. Influenced by the elongated figures of Modigliani and the gilding of Klimt, her painting incorporates sculptural elements and a variety of mixed media. Acrylic, enamel, and metallic paints are built up between Holly Berger Markhoff. layers of acrylic gloss, creating a glass like coating and translucence. In addition to patrons’ homes and corporate collections, Markhoff’s art may be found in Richmond’s Weinstein Jewish Community Center and Beth Ahabah Museum and Archives. A native of New York City, Markhoff resides in Richmond, Va.
Kim Brundage Photography
Through June
June 3, Sunday Brith Sholom Annual Memorial Service. General members meeting at 11 am, preceded by a board meeting at 10 am. Deluxe brunch follows. $3 per member; $5 at the door; $10 for guests. Free for guest exploring membership. Contact LeeAnne Mallory at 757-461-1150 or email Brith.Sholom1@hrcoxmail.com. June 17, Sunday Brith Sholom Luau Night. Dinner and Music Affair at 5:30 pm at Beth Sholom Village. Paul Zimmerman will sing some Hawaiian tunes, along with some oldies but goodies. Cost is $10 per member and $20 per guest. Contact LeeAnne Mallory at 757-461-1150 or email Brith. Sholom1@hrcoxmail.com for information. Send submissions for calendar to news@ujft.org. Be sure to note “calendar” in the subject. Include date, event name, sponsor, address, time, cost and phone.
Stravitz Sculpture & Fine Art Galleries is located at 1217 Laskin Road in Virginia Beach. Call 757-305-9411 or go to www.stravitzartgallery.com for more information.
WHO KNEW? Marvelous Mrs. Maisel renewed for third season before second season premieres The second season of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel will not air until later this year, but the show has already been given the green light for a third season. Variety reported that the show’s creator appealed to Amazon Studios executives while accepting a Peabody Award at the awards show in New York City. “You’re going to give it to us because we’re bringing home the fancy thing, right?” Amy Sherman-Palladino said. Amazon then confirmed to Variety that the show would get a third season.
The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel tells the story of a Jewish housewife in 1950s New York who becomes a standup comedian. It is set in the very Jewish milieu of Manhattan’s Upper West Side and is full of Jewish references. The show, which stars Rachel Brosnahan, garnered acclaim last year and won two Golden Globes in January for best comedy series and best lead comedy actress. It seen as a prime contender at the upcoming Emmy Awards in the fall. (JTA)
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Achievement Rabbi Dr. Israel Zoberman’s article on Israel’s 70th Anniversary, which was published in the Virginian-Pilot, was inserted into the Congressional Record by Congressman Scott Taylor. Dr. Zoberman is the founding rabbi of Congregation Beth Chaverim and Honorary Senior Rabbi Scholar at Eastern Shore Chapel Episcopal Church. Mazel Tov submissions should be emailed to news@ujft.org with Mazel Tov in the subject line. Achievements, B’nai Mitzvot, births, engagements and weddings are appropriate simchas to announce. Photos must be at least 300k. Include a daytime phone for questions. There is no fee.
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Jake Gyllenhaal will play Leonard Bernstein in biopic
ake Gyllenhaal will star in and co-produce a film about the late Jewish classical music icon Leonard Bernstein. The screenplay by Michael Mitnick will be based on the biography Leonard Bernstein by Humphrey Murton, Variety reported. Cary Joji Fukunaga, who has helmed films such as Beasts of No Nation and Jane Eyre, will direct. “Like many people, Leonard Bernstein found his way into my life and heart through West Side Story when I was a kid,” Gyllenhaal, who is Jewish, says. “But as I got older and started to learn about the scope of his work, I began to understand the extent of his unparalleled contribution and the debt of gratitude modern American culture owes him. As a man, Bernstein was a fascinating figure—full of genius and contradiction—and it will be an incredible honor to tell his story with a talent and friend like Cary.” The project is being developed by Nine
Stories, a production company run by Gyllenhaal and Riva Marker. According to Variety, it will be split into five “movements,” like a symphony. “Bernstein’s artistic passions changed the way generations understood and appreciated music,” Fukunaga says. “It’s been wonderful collaborating with Michael and Jake on Bernstein’s story as we endeavor to capture both the iconic person and artist. Jake is the perfect partner to help bring this story to life and to play this legend.” Bernstein, the son of Ukrainian immigrants, was the first Jewish conductor to lead a major American orchestra, the New York Philharmonic. For the centennial of his birth this year, the Library of Congress released a trove of his personal documents, and the National Museum of Jewish American History opened a Bernstein exhibit. He died in 1990 at 72. (JTA)
Employment Oppor tunity
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Cultural Arts Manager
Fern Leibowitz purchases Either Ore Hilltop native New Yorker, Fern Leibowitz always was attracted to jewelry. While working as a CPA in New York City where she had contacts with wholesale jewelers, that attraction continue to grow. In Virginia Beach, Leibowitz followed her jewelry passion and went to work at Either Ore Jewelers. After working at the store for 13 years, she purchased it, transitioning from employee to owner. “I realized I had a natural ability to sell jewelry because I love helping people, and every piece of jewelry has a story to tell,” she says. But there’s more to selling jewelry than just making the sale, so Leibowitz learned about repairs, measuring diamonds, and redesigning pieces. “My niche at the store became refashioning older pieces into something new. I became intrigued with custom work ever since I redesigned my own engagement ring and other jewelry pieces I owned.” Either Ore resets stones in a piece of jewelry with more modern style. Leibowitz
Lee Belote Originally published in The Virginian-Pilot
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Fern Leibowitz
says she listens to what the customer wants and does not try to sell inventory out of the case. That is her specialty. Plus, she has added affordable fashion jewelry for gifts, vegan handbags, and a large variety of gold and diamond jewelry. Leibowitz says she is “delighted with the current trend of resetting and custom-designing jewelry using large halo diamonds on rings.” Her personal mantra is “Do all the good you can, for all the people you can, in every way you can.”
Join Our Team! ADVERTISING ACCOUNT EXECUTIVE
Position Available Sales experience a must • Media sales, a plus • Flexible hours • Great earning potential
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United Jewish Federation of Tidewater/Simon Family JCC seeks a selfdirected, cultural arts enthusiast to manage various aspects of event planning, implementation, and development of Jewish and Israeli cultural arts programs/exhibits. Under the leadership of the program department director, the cultural arts manager coordinates long-range planning, strategic goal setting, supports development solicitations, donor cultivation, community relations, and sponsorships. This position also works with the marketing of cultural arts programming. Candidate must have hands-on experience with event planning, collaboration, coordination of volunteers, and exhibits. Requires a BA/BS from an accredited college or university; 5+ years of experience in special events, and implementation. Management in a cultural arts or Jewish communal agency environment, preferred. Experience in program development and budgets a must. Salary is competitive and commensurate with experience. Complete job description at www.jewishva.org
Submit cover letter, resume and salary requirements to: resumes@ujft.org The United Jewish Federation of Tidewater/ Marilyn & Marvin Simon Family Jewish Community Center is firmly committed to a policy of equal employment opportunity for all qualified persons without regard to race, color, religion, national origin, age, gender, sexual orientation, non-disqualifying disability or veteran status.
Equal Employment Opportunity
Marketing Employment Oppor tunities United Jewish Federation of Tidewater/Simon Family JCC seeks qualified individuals for these positions:
Senior Marketing Manager
Candidate should have proven managerial leadership and experience executing strategic marketing plans to create, implement, and oversee marketing campaigns (internal & external). This position provides direction to marketing staff, supports the agency’s strategic and operational marketing goals and objectives and provides oversight of daily production timelines. Position requires hands-on experience in the coordination and use of all creative, visual, graphic, and written materials required to meet objectives of marketing and communications.
Content Marketing Coordinator
Candidate should have an extensive content writing portfolio, with a well-versed knowledge of current consumer content marketing trends, and be an excellent communicator. This position requires a high level of creativity, extensive proofreading/copy editing experience; exemplary writing skills; ability to write in brand’s voice and tone; acute attention to detail and project management skills. Salary is competitive and commensurate with experience.
If you are an ambitious, high-energy, self-starter with good people skills, this might be the job for you!
For detail job descriptions, visit www.jewishva.org.
Submit cover letter, resume and salary requirements to: resumes@ujft.org.
Interested?
Contact Taffy Hunter, Human Resources director, at 757-965-6117, resumes@ujft.org or submit resume to
Jewish News
Attention: Human Resources 5000 Corporate Woods Drive Virginia Beach, 23462
Submit by mail to: Simon Family JCC / United Jewish Federation of Tidewater Attention: Human Resources 5000 Corporate Woods Drive Virginia Beach, 23462 The United Jewish Federation of Tidewater/Simon Family JCC is firmly committed to a policy of equal employment opportunity for all qualified persons without regard to race, color, religion, national origin, age, gender, sexual orientation, non-disqualifying disability, genetic information or military status.
Equal Employment Opportunity jewishnewsva.org | May 28, 2018 | Jewish News | 35
obituaries Ronald Steven Jacobson Virginia Beach—Ronald Steven Jacobson, 71, of the 200 block of 70th Street in Virginia Beach died May 11, 2018 in his home. Born in Newport News, Virginia, he was the son of the late Joe Jacobson and Margot Moritz Jacobson. Mr. Jacobson retired from the United States Coast Guard. Survivors include his wife of 44 years, Marilyn V. Jacobson, a daughter, Margo Jacobson of Virginia Beach, a son Jason Jacobson and his wife Michelle of Leesburg, Virginia, and his grandson Evan Jacobson. Mr. Jacobson is also survived by a sister Susan Karlip and her husband Elliott of Marietta, Georgia as well as many cousins, extended family, and friends. A graveside service was conducted at Forest Lawn Cemetery by Rabbi Jeffrey Arnowitz and Cantor Wendi Fried. Mr. Jacobson was a caring family man and a wonderful husband and father, he will be sorely missed. Memorial donations may be made to the S.P.C.A. or to a charity of choice. Lyla Rubin Longman Virginia Beach—Lyla Rubin Longman passed away unexpectedly May 10, 2018. She was born to Harry Rubin and Rebecca Rothstein Rubin in Norfolk, Va. She attended Taylor Elementary, Blair Jr., and Maury High School. She graduated from William and Mary with a bachelor’s degree in mathematics and teaching. She is survived by her husband, Dr. Bruce Longman. They were married
61 years after becoming high school sweethearts. She had five children, 15 grandchildren, three great grandchildren, nieces, nephews, friends, and all of the “family” that made their way under her tent throughout the years. She loved deeply and showed that love through acts of kindness and generosity that are beyond measure. She taught her children, grandchildren, and anyone else who might be watching, a quiet and selfless way to navigate this world in a meaningful way that makes a lasting impression on others. She looked for the good in others and found it. She gave her time, her love, her attention, and her support to her family, friends, and strangers alike. She had a remarkable 61 years of marriage, friendship, and total adoration with her husband, Bruce, raising five children, running his dental practice, and managing all of the details of their life together. They traveled together throughout the world, participated as members in Brith Sholom and Ohef Sholom Temple, and enjoyed socializing with friends and family. She is also survived by her children, Robert (Becky Beddard), Susan (Johnny Parker), Elana (Dov Frand), Amy (Mark Wolf), and Bari (Donald Eanes), and their children and grandchildren. A graveside service was held at Forest Lawn Cemetery. H.D. Oliver Funeral Apts. Online condolences may be offered to the family at hdoliver.com. Sydelle Roistacher Virginia Beach—Sydelle Roistacher
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(Gurspan) was born September 4, 1935 in New York, N.Y. to two loving parents, Herman and Rose (Entelis) Gurspan. An inspirational and beautiful person, Sydelle enjoyed life to the fullest. She had a tremendous work ethic, working as a bookkeeper, real estate agent, and insurance broker, all while raising two successful children, Randi and Ronnie. When trying times came her way, she persevered and continued to see all of life’s sweetest blessings with a positive outlook. Sydelle was always the life of the party with her incredible sense of humor. She never ceased to make others feel welcome and appreciated. She was sincere when she shared her wisdom, but always sprinkled it with a little humor and love, oftentimes making a moment of truth feel more like a moment to treasure. Sydelle loved her Chinese food, visiting grandkids in their college towns, and going shopping for anything and everything. But the only thing she loved more than life itself was her family that she shared it with. Sydelle accomplished many things in life, but her role as a wife, sister, mother, and grandmother was a remarkable testament to her character. Sydelle’s love knew no bounds – she cared deeply about others and encapsulated the very essence of the phrase “I love you.” Her wisdom, emotional strength, ability to forgive, charming personality, and positive attitude laid the foundation for her family for generations to come. But, the more incredible a person is, the harder it is to say goodbye. Her legacy will live on, but there will never again be another Sydelle Roistacher. Her soul was truly a gift from God. “Delly,” a nickname her friends and family called her, touched the lives of many people. Her family will continue to appreciate life and others by carrying on through her imparted wisdom. Sydelle rejoins her family, including her mother Rose and father Herman, her loving husband of 30 years Norman, her brother Theodore (Teddy) and others who left this Earth before her. Sydelle always knew that her legacy will endure and flourish through her family. Those who will carry on cherishing her memory include her daughter
Randi Strelitz, son-in-law EJ Strelitz, grandchildren Nathan, Jacob, and Jessica; her son Ronald Roistacher (Ronnie), daughter-in-law Bari Roistacher, grandson Noah; her partner Harold Bate, daughter-in-laws Beth and Jennifer, sonin-law Larry, and grandchildren Spencer, Justin, Trevor and Jordan.
Rabbi Aaron Panken remembered as joyful leader who embodied the ‘best of the Reform movement’ Josefin Dolsten
NEW YORK (JTA)—Rabbi Andrea Weiss, an associate professor of Bible at the New York campus of Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion and its incoming provost, remembers the joy that Rabbi Aaron Panken brought to his work. Weiss recalls how Panken would pop into his colleagues’ offices asking if they were having fun. “He had this very serious position as president of a very large institution, and he approached it with such joy and with kind of a boyish enthusiasm. He really loved his work,” she says. Friends and colleagues of Panken, the president of HUC who died Saturday, May 5 in a plane crash, remembers him as a strong leader who was passionate about Israel and, above all, loved what he did as the leader of the Reform movement’s flagship seminary and its campuses in New York, Jerusalem, Cincinnati, and Los Angeles. Jean Bloch Rosensaft, the school’s assistant vice president for communications and public affairs, says Panken embodied “the best of the Reform movement.” “The college was his whole life. He was a real product of the Reform movement, and he was proud of it,” Rosensaft says. Panken, who had led HUC since 2014, was killed while piloting a small aircraft near Wawayanda, New York, near the New Jersey border. A passenger, Frank Reiss, a flight instructor, was injured in the crash, whose cause is unclear pending investigation by the Federal
obituaries Aviation Administration and the National Transportation Safety Board. Panken was a licensed pilot. Prior to serving as HUC president, the native New Yorker held senior positions at the school, including vice president for strategic initiatives, dean of the New York campus, and dean of students. HUC held memorial services on all of its campuses and livestreamed his funeral. Rosensaft says Panken was passionate about Israel, working to improve ties between American Jews and the Jewish state, and strengthen Reform Judaism there. “This was the mission of his life, and he really lived it with every fiber of his being,” she says. Panken worked to expand the HUC rabbinical program in Israel and its Jerusalem campus and recently ordained its 100th graduate. “He was so full of pride and excitement about what these men and women are trying to achieve in Israel,” Marmur says. Panken started several Israel-related programs, including one that brings Israeli rabbinical students and graduates to visit the U.S. to learn more about Jewish life here. Another program, in partnership with the Foreign Affairs Ministry of Israel, strengthens ties between young Reform Jewish leaders and Israeli political and key cultural figures. He also created a program that brings Jewish, Christian, and Muslim schoolteachers in Israel to the HUC Jerusalem campus to learn about tolerance. “He was creating change and working toward positive change in Israeli society in order to strengthen Israel,” Rosensaft says.
Rabbi Joseph Skloot, an assistant professor of modern Jewish intellectual history at HUC, remembered how friendly Panken was on their first meeting, when Skloot was 18 and a counselor at the Union for Reform Judaism Eisner Camp. “Aaron had a gigantic heart and no artifice, and he was curious and engaged and wanted to get to know you,” Skloot says. Later, when Skloot attended the HUC rabbinical school, he was struck by Panken’s engaging teaching style and mastery of rabbinic literature. “His love of the Talmud and the rabbinic texts was unusual for someone who grew up in the Reform movement, where unlike in Orthodoxy where young people are trained in those texts from a very young age, we aren’t,” he says. Skloot says Panken was able to convey that passion for the Talmud to his students. “He was able to take students of different levels and backgrounds and show them the technical complexity, the inspirational wisdom at the heart of a basic sugya [passage] of the Talmud,” he says. Marmur, who worked with Panken for some 20 years, says Panken had a talent for making others excited about what was happening at HUC. “He was one of those rare people who could really get people on board and get them excited about a vision for this place. He was tireless,” Marmur says. Weiss says Panken was dedicated to supporting the HUC faculty. She recalls speaking to him about an idea for a project to have 100 religious leaders write letters about American core values to President Trump to be delivered on the
first 100 days of the new administration. The following day, he returned and wholeheartedly threw his support behind it. “He was the kind of person who really helped nurture people to be their best and helped people grow professionally,” Weiss says. Marmur also remembers Panken as “a very devoted friend and incredibly devoted family man.” Panken lived with his family in Scarsdale, New York, and was a member of the Westchester Reform Temple, where he had previously served as a rabbinic intern. He is survived by his wife, Lisa Messinger; his children; Eli and Samantha; his parents, Beverly and Peter; and his sister, Rabbi Melinda Panken of Congregation Shaari Emeth in Manalapan, New Jersey.
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it’s a wrap A Mother’s Day celebration at Beth Sholom
M
any mothers, grandmothers, and great grandmothers among the residents at the Berger-Goldrich Skilled Care Center and the Terrace Assisted Living facility, were honored by Beth Sholom Village on Mother’s Day with a special brunch. After guests ate, the new A’Bisl Theater at BSV put on a special show that included mother-inspired songs and jokes, told by several of the residents themselves. Marilyn and Stan Garfin.
Sylvia Russinsky and Carole Alperin.
Lilian Harman and Jessica Gulizia, activities assistant.
Families and guests enjoying brunch.
Madi Rossettini, Sara Jo and Joel Rubin, David Cardon and Cantor Elihu Flax.
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40 | Jewish News | May 28, 2018 | jewishnewsva.org