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INSIDE
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Southeastern Virginia | Vol. 55 No. 06 | 20 Cheshvan 5776 | November 21, 2016
Women’s luncheon focuses on Jewish students
29 Flour Power at Great Big Challah Bake
30
—page 12
3rd Annual Mitzvah Day
32 Israeli Dancers Sunday, Dec. 11
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House bill extends criminal penalties to compliance with BDS, settlement boycotts WASHINGTON ( JTA)—Criminal pen-
use boycotts to pressure Israel into giving
would equate both types of boycotts as
alties for boycotting Israel would be
up territory.
equally harmful.
extended to companies complying with
The measure defines the “boycott of,
Similar efforts led in 2015 to anti-boy-
the BDS movement, including the boycott
divestment from and sanctions against
cott language, encompassing boycotts of
of West Bank settlements, under a bipar-
Israel” that would merit penalties as
settlements, to be included in trade bills.
tisan bill introduced in the U.S. House of
including those “that are politically moti-
In that case, however, the impact of
Representatives.
vated and are intended to penalize or
the language was limited: It required
Reps. Pete Roskam, R-Ill., and Juan
otherwise limit commercial relations spe-
U.S. trade negotiators to raise in their
Vargas, D-Calif., introduced the bill
cifically with Israel or persons doing
talks with their overseas counterparts
Monday, Nov. 14. The measure is a com-
business in Israel or in Israeli-controlled
U.S. objections to Israel-related boycotts.
panion to one introduced in the Senate
territories.”
When President Barack Obama signed the
in September by Sens. Rob Portman, R-Ohio,
and
Ben
Cardin,
D-Md.,
called the “Protecting Israel Against
“Israeli-controlled territories” encom-
bill in February of this year, his administration said it would continue to advocate
passes settlement boycotts. The bill further defines “politically
against boycotting Israel in its trade talks,
motivated” as meaning “actions to impede
but would not include the language coun-
The House bill amends language in
or constrain commerce with Israel that
seling against settlement boycotts.
bills passed in the 1970s to combat the
are intended to coerce political action or
Arab League boycott of Israel to encom-
impose policy positions on Israel.”
Discrimination Act.”
The legislation was sparked in part by the creation of a database by the
pass the modern Boycott, Divestment and
It could face First Amendment chal-
United Nations Human Rights Council of
Sanctions movement—and to include
lenges for seeking to link criminal
companies that do business with Israel’s
efforts that would boycott settlement
penalties attached to export violations
settlements. It extends existing penalties
goods.
to “politically motivated” actions that
for boycotting Israel to international organizations like the council.
Whereas the original anti-boycott laws
include aims as minimal as getting Israel
targeted companies cooperating with boy-
to rejoin peace talks with the Palestinians.
The bill also requires the Export-
cotts that were launched before Israel’s
Furthermore, some liberal pro-Israel
Import Bank, a government agency that
establishment as a means of squeezing its
groups, like J Street and Americans for
seeks to facilitate American trade over-
Jews, and then as a means of isolating the
Peace Now, have distinguished between
seas, to consider whether a company
new Jewish state, the new bill appears to
the boycott of settlement goods and the
applying for a loan adheres to the BDS
extend the definition to those who would
boycott of Israel, opposing actions that
movement.
Contents Up Front. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Briefs. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Torah Thought . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 Jewish News Archives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 Election 2016 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 Women’s Luncheon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 Special Business section. . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 Thanksgiving and the 2016 election . . . 27 Neta Levi sparks creativity . . . . . . . . . . 28 Great Big Challah Bake . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29 3rd Annual Mitzvah Day . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
Quotable OST teens meet BSV seniors . . . . . . . . . What’s Happening . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Calendar. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Who Knew?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Mazel Tov. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Obituaries. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . In Memoriam: Leonard Cohen. . . . . . .
Special Section—Business
31 32 34 35 35 36 38
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Reba and Sam Sandler Family Campus of the Tidewater Jewish Community 5000 Corporate Woods Drive, Suite 200 Virginia Beach, Virginia 23462-4370 voice 757.965.6100 • fax 757.965.6102 email news@ujft.org Terri Denison, Editor Germaine Clair, Art Director Hal Sacks, Book Review Editor Sandy Goldberg, Account Executive Mark Hecht, Account Executive Marilyn Cerase, Subscription Manager Reba Karp, Editor Emeritus Sherri Wisoff, Proofreader United Jewish Federation of Tidewater Jay Klebanoff, 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. © 2016 Jewish News. All rights reserved. Subscription: $18 year For subscription or change of address, JewishNewsVA call 757-965-6128 or email mcerase@ujft.org.
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Candle lighting Friday, November 25/24 Cheshvan Light candles at 4:32 pm
“Hallelujah is about the
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sacred anguish felt by
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King David as he
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contemplates the beauty of the forbidden Bathsheba.” —page 38
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Briefs New York Observer , owned by Trump’s Jewish son-in-law, ceases print edition The New York Observer, a weekly newspaper owned by President-elect Donald Trump’s Jewish son-in-law Jared Kushner, will cease publishing a print edition. The Nov. 9 edition was the last print edition, the Observer’s parent company, Observer Media, announced. The newspaper will continue to be available online as Observer.com. The decision to end the print edition and change its name “signals an end of an era when the Observer served as a fixture of Manhattan reporting and a training ground for scores of journalists now in senior positions in the media world,” The New York Times reported. Joseph Meyer, chairman and chief executive of Observer Media, told The New York Times that ceasing the print edition was a natural outgrowth of the paper’s shift toward a national audience. Meyer is Kushner’s brother-in-law. Meyer said that the media company reaches over 8 million people monthly. The Times reported that Observer.com received 5.6 million unique visitors in September, nearly twice its audience from the year before. In 2006, when Kushner was 25 and in law school, he purchased the newspaper, which printed for nearly 30 years. (JTA) Montana synagogue requests police protection after Nazi fliers appear A Missoula, Montana, synagogue requested a police patrol after American Nazi Party fliers accusing Jews of controlling the media were dropped in residential areas of the city. Har Shalom asked the Missoula Police for the extra patrol, the daily Billings Gazette reported. The synagogue said it was requesting the patrol as a precaution. Fliers began appearing around town within 24 hours of the election of Donald Trump as president of the United States, the Montana Human Rights Network told the newspaper. One of the fliers was titled “The Jewish Run Media,” which said that Jews brainwash the public through the media,
inducing them to vote for corrupt politicians. The flier requests a $5 donation for an American Nazi Party information kit. “The Jews’ purpose is to destroy us and our families from the inside out, slowly and gradually perverting us with their own special kind of poison,” according to the flier. A second flier demands “Free healthcare for the white working class” and directs readers to the American Nazi Party website. (JTA)
Swastikas drawn on dorm room doors in New York City Swastikas were drawn on the doors of at least four dorm rooms at a New York university. One of the suites vandalized at The New School in Manhattan was home to four Jewish students. One of the roommates tweeted a photo of her door. The student, Sam Lichtenstein, told the New York Daily News that she broke down in tears after she saw the swastika on her door. The New School president, David Van Zandt, denounced the graffiti in a tweet and later in a statement. “Our community standards are very strong and hate crimes are unacceptable at The New School. The New School is committed to tolerance, respect and diversity,” Van Zandt said in a statement hours after the graffiti was discovered. Van Zandt said in a statement that the New York City Police Department is “actively investigating” the incident and the university is “cooperating fully.” He said he ordered an increase of security on campus. (JTA) FBI: Criminal hate crimes against Jews rose by 9 percent in 2015 A rise in hate crimes against Muslims and Jews contributed to a 6.8 percent overall increase in 2015 incidents from the previous year, according to the FBI. Anti-Muslim hate crimes reported to police rose by some 67 percent, to 215 incidents, from the 154 in 2014, the official FBI data showed. It marks the second highest number of crimes against Muslims since the national statistics began being
4 | Jewish News | November 21, 2016 | jewishnewsva.org
reported in 1992. The highest number occurred in 2001, the year of the 9/11 attacks, with 481 incidents. The number of religiously motivated hate crimes was 1,244, some 21.3 percent of the total. Some 53.3 percent of the religiously motivated hate crimes, or 664 incidents, were directed at Jews, who make up less than 2 percent of the population. Crimes against Jews increased by about 9 percent from 2014. Over half of all hate crime, 3,310 incidents, or 56.6 percent, was committed on the basis of race, with 52.7 percent being anti-black. Also Monday, Nov. 14, the AntiDefamation League expressed “deep concern” over “ongoing reports” of anti-Semitic and other hate incidents in the wake of the 2016 election results. Its Center on Extremism has been monitoring the proliferation of racist and anti-Semitic graffiti and vandalism across the country, including the use of swastikas and other Nazi imagery including the name of President-elect Donald Trump, as well as reports of assaults and harassment, the ADL said in a statement. The ADL also established a mechanism in which the public can report anti-Semitic, racist or bigoted incidents, and encouraged social media users to promote the hashtag #ExposeHate. “Sadly, the contentious tone from the 2016 election has translated into a moment of ripeness for the haters to deface properties across the country with some of the most unsettling anti-Semitic and racist imagery,” said Jonathan Greenblatt, the group’s CEO. “We must not let this troubling trend of hate define our society, which means that the onus is on our community leaders, religious clergy, elected officials and others to remain vigilant, report incidents when they surface and make clear that this level of vitriol will not be tolerated.” (JTA)
Politico reassures staff spooked by hate mail, anti-Semitism The staff at Politico was reassured that their “personal safety is of the utmost importance” after receiving threatening letters, some of them anti-Semitic.
The magazine’s publisher and editor, John Harris and Carrie Budoff Brown, respectively, sent a note to the staff. “Over the last week, it’s been reported that some journalists and media executives have received threatening correspondence, both at their place of work and to their home,” they wrote. “Your personal safety is of the utmost importance to us, and we thought you should be aware that POLITICO has procedures in place designed to protect our employees.” The note was first reported in the Erik Wemple blog of The Washington Post. Brad Dayspring, Politico’s vice president of communications, told Wemple that several of his staff members have received threatening and anti-Semitic mail in the wake of President-elect Donald Trump’s campaign and election. He said the letters were in line with a letter recently received by New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman, who came home to find an orange envelope holding “three pages of anti-Semitism.” The letter to Politico staff also said: “We regularly monitor our building security, we partner with a security firm that screens our physical mail, and the HR and IT departments have processes in place to review inappropriate electronic communications that our employees receive. In addition to our own internal safety protocols, we have a security consultant with extensive contacts within local and federal government who advises us and assists on specific incidents.” An Anti-Defamation League report issued in October identified 2.6 million anti-Semitic tweets between August 2015 and July 2016 with an estimated reach of 10 billion impressions, which the task force believes “contributed to reinforcing and normalizing anti-Semitic language— particularly racial slurs and anti-Israel statements—on a massive scale.” Of those tweets, ADL focused its analysis on the ones directed at 50,000 journalists in the United States, finding 19,253 anti-Semitic tweets directed at them. Of those, a disproportionate number were directed at a small number of journalists. The top 10 most targeted journalists, who received 83 percent of the overtly anti-Semitic tweets, were Jewish. (JTA)
Torah Thought
A Jew is a Jew, whether Red or Blue
“Abraham was old, advanced in years. The LORD had blessed Abraham in all [things].—The Numerological equivalent of the word “all” is 52, [meaning] “son”. Inasmuch as Abraham had a son [Isaac], it was necessary to arrange for him to marry.”—Rashi, commentary to Genesis 24:1 “The [Rabbinic] schools of Hillel and Shammai debated each other for three years, the one saying, ‘We are correct” and the other saying, ‘We are correct’. But… they allowed their sons to marry the daughters of the members of the other School.”
O
ur Jewish community, like so many other Americans, has just endured the recent nasty, even vicious, presidential election, only to find ourselves no less deeply polarized, now that it has concluded. Both sides have offered brave words of unity, but the substantive difference in vision of America remains, so we remain deeply divided. Stepping back from this place and looking at it through the lenses of Torah and Jewish history—we can marvel at how “American” we have become, so that for the Blue Jew, the Blue Gentile seems closer than the Red Jew, and likewise, for our own Reds. (Piquant, that until just a few years ago, “Red” meant Communist, and now it means quite the opposite!). We Jews have had deep divisions in our past, but the emotional distance between right-wing and left-wing Jews in America has grown to the point where adherents of each camp scarcely even think of those who disagree with them as being in the same family. It is an ironic commentary
on how fully American we have grown, that we can identify primarily with our American political allies. This is a tragedy. We still have Holocaust survivors in our midst, and so how dare we forget that all Jews are Jews, first and foremost? There were communists and capitalists, Hasidim and atheists, Zionists and anti-Zionists, suffering and dying together, in the ghettos, and transports and the camps, only because they were Jews. Being Jewish means being a family. All families have their disagreements, and some of those are deep and enduring. But we recognize the sadness, the waste of our parents’ hopes for us, when our disagreements tear apart the family ties that ought to endure. In the Torah portion we turn to this Shabbat, in all synagogues, both progressive and traditionalist, Father Abraham attends to the problem of finding a suitable wife for his son Isaac. He was concerned that Isaac’s wife be the sort of person who could continue to nurture the spiritual revolution that he, Abraham, had passed along to his son. In those days, the social consensus being that love was a consequence of, not a precondition for, successful marriage, parents took the lead in finding their children’s life partners. That social reality—still familiar to us through the Jewish world of Fiddler on the Roof—also explains the rabbinic quotation about the rival schools of Hillel and Shammai. Those schools were the Blue and the Red of their day. Their disagreements were the stuff of legend. An adherent of one didn’t simply reach different conclusions from an adherent of the other. It was a deep divide between haves and have-nots, between the hard-boiled and the hopeful, between philosophical stances. The one called to move the fulcrum more in the direction of Justice; the other, in the direction of Mercy. Shammai said that a person whose balance of good and bad deeds was exactly 50-50 needed to go to Hell for at least an instant, to pay in pain a fraction of his guilt, and only
then be admitted to Heaven. Hillel said that the 50-50 man enjoyed a tip of the scale from God’s Attribute of Mercy, and could enter Heaven as he was. And yet, the rabbis report, these staunchly opposed camps never denied the underlying unity of the Jewish people—of their common identity. There’s a lesson there for our time! Imagine the following conversation: “Julie! Why are you calling so late? Is everything all right?” “Mom and Dad: I have great news! Max and I are engaged! We’re going to be married as soon as he graduates from law school! Beat.… Mom? Dad? Are you there? Did our connection drop?” “Oh, honey, we want to be happy for you.… But isn’t this the same Max who
belongs to College Republicans? Are you sure you can be happy with such a man?” “I can’t believe I’m hearing this. I thought you would be happy, or at least relieved, that he is Jewish.” Hillel and Shammai were not Pollyanna. They never denied the differences that divided them. But they also never forget that those differences did not completely define them. It’s time for us, as American Jews, to do the same. As Dr. Seuss might have put it: A Jew might be Red A Jew might be Blue Or slightly purple, instead; But let it always be said, A Jew is a Jew.
—Rabbi Michael Panitz, Temple Israel
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from the hal Sacks Jewish News Archives
M A
November 17, 2006 Former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and Palestinian
spokesperson,
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Hana
Ashrawi
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November 29, 1996 Thirty members of the Women’s Campaign Cabinet of the United Jewish Federation of Tidewater and the Jewish Community Federation of Richmond met in Williamsburg for a retreat to study, learn, laugh and cry.
November 21, 1986 Attended by 250 people, a black-tie UJF Major Donor Dinner Dance featured Senator Moynihan, who “stirs emotions—telling the audience the U.S. failure to move the embassy to Jerusalem—‘unconscionable.’” Arnold Leon, 1987 UJF General Campaign chairman, noted that so far,
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$1,500,000 had been raised, and that “Our pace is four weeks ahead of last year.”
November 1, 1966 Senator Harry F. Byrd sent a letter to Norman Berlin, president of the
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Jewish Community Council, congratulating the Council on winning the national William J. Shroder award, which is presented each year to the
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made the most outstanding contributions to local, regional, national and international welfare. He also included a copy of the Congressional Record containing his statement before the United States Senate.
November 1, 1956 Recognizing the difficulties that pre-high school children were having reaching the Jewish Community Center building at Spotswood Ave.,
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Election 2016
Jewish contingent in House grows from 19 to 22 WASHINGTON (JTA)—The Jewish contingent to the U.S. House of Representatives grew from 19 to 22 in the 2016 elections, doubling its Republican representation from one to two. Five Jews overall were newly elected to the House, while one Jewish congressman in Florida and in New York are retiring. The Senate Jewish contingent dropped from nine to eight. Three Democrats picked up seats from Republicans in an otherwise dismal night for their party, which saw the GOP sweep the White House and both chambers of Congress. Picking up seats for the Democrats were: • Josh Gottheimer, a former speech writer for President Bill Clinton and a Microsoft executive, who won a hard fought battle in New Jersey’s 5th District
against Scott Garrett, a longtime congressman who was exceptionally conservative for this northeastern district. The election was marred in its final days with the appearance of an unsigned anti-Semitic leaflet targeting Gottheimer. • Brad Schneider, who regained the seat he lost in 2014 from Bob Dold in Illinois’s 10th district, encompassing Chicago’s northern suburbs. Dold first won the seat in 2010, then lost it to Schneider in 2012. • Jacky Rosen, a software developer and synagogue president, who won in Nevada’s 3rd District, covering the Las Vegas suburbs. Joe Heck, the district’s incumbent Republican, lost in his bid to replace Democrat Harry Reid in the Senate. • Jamie Raskin, a Maryland state senator, who won the battle to replace Chris
Van Hollen in Maryland’s 8th District. The district includes the Maryland suburbs of Washington, D.C. Van Hollen, a Democrat, was elected to the Senate. • David Kustoff, a former U.S. attorney, who handily kept Tennessee’s 8th district Republican, replacing the retiring Stephen Fincher. Kustoff brings to two the Memphis Jewish delegation, joining Steve Cohen, a Democrat representing the 9th District, and the Republican Jewish delegation to Congress, joining Lee Zeldin, who was reelected in New York’s 9th District encompassing Long Island’s eastern reaches. • Another Jewish Republican scoring a victory was Eric Greitens, a former Navy SEAL who became the first Jewish governor of Missouri. Leaving Congress is Steve Israel, representing a New York district in suburban
Long Island, who is retiring, and Alan Grayson, who retired as a representative in Florida’s 9th District, in the south of the state, to run for the Democratic nomination to the Senate—he lost. The Democratic contingent in the Senate will drop by one with the retirement of Barbara Boxer of California. Two Jewish Democrats in Missouri and Wisconsin failed in their bids to replace Republican incumbents.
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Election 2016
Ruth’s
Israelis still lining up to visit Trump’s America Andrew Tobin
TEL AVIV (JTA)—Donald Trump’s surprising win may have spurred increased chatter among some Americans—Jews among them—about moving to Canada. But for Israelis, at least, the U.S. hasn’t lost its luster. Citizens of the Jewish state are as eager as ever to visit, and Trump’s election apparently hasn’t altered any of their travel plans. On Monday, Nov. 14, dozens of Israelis lined up outside the U.S. Embassy here to acquire American travel documents. While the embassy does not provide official numbers about applications, guards outside the building said some 600 to 700 people were coming from throughout the country every day—in other words, business as usual. About a dozen Israelis spoke to JTA as they left the embassy’s sprawling beachside compound, many clutching new passports or visas. Being familiar with Israel’s fragmented politics, they were not completely shocked by Trump’s divisive rise. Though some voiced concern about his experience and temperament, all agreed that the former reality TV star would likely do a better job than President Barack Obama had of protecting the interests of Israel and the Jews, which they did not seem to distinguish. “I think we’ve heard the real voice of what’s happening in the U.S.,” says Rachel Baram, a 39-year-old IsraeliAmerican manager at a web development company who was renewing her U.S. passport ahead of an upcoming business trip to Orlando, Florida. “After the shock, I’m kind of optimistic. I think Trump could get things done because he’s not an idealist. “I do think he’s kind of nuts, though,” she adds, half whispering. Baram says Trump appealed to so many Americans partly because the left pushed its agenda too hard under Obama—just as Israelis did in trying to make peace with the Palestinians. “It’s the same right-left issues we have here,” she says. “The left bullies people,
and it creates resentment. Then you get these reality TV politics. “But I’m not worried about American Jews, and I think the starting point for Israel is better than it was with Obama. At least he won’t focus just on the settlements.” Prior to the election, a survey found that Israelis would have preferred to see Hillary Clinton, a Democrat, in the White House over the Republican Trump, 43 to 34 percent—even though 38 percent thought Trump would be better for Israel compared to 33 percent who said Clinton. According to an Election Day poll, 70 percent of American Jews voted for Clinton while 25 percent cast their ballots for Trump. Yarin Cohen, a 21-year-old law student at Bar-Ilan University, had helped his friend get a tourist visa so they could attend a wedding together this winter in Brooklyn. He was surprised that American politics had become as “extreme” as Israel’s, but thought Trump would bring their governments closer. “As I see it, the relationship between Bibi [Netanyahu] and Trump is an improvement,” he says. “I don’t think it can get worse than it is right now.” Cohen did not think Trump, who railed against immigrants during the campaign, would make Israelis less welcome in the U.S. But he says he had heard from others who were concerned. “Maybe I’m a bit naïve,” he says. “A lot of people around me are talking about it. My mom said, ‘It’s good you’re getting a visa now. It could be harder once Trump is president.’” Haim Levy, a 26-year-old computer specialist at an American corporation in Israel, had just gotten a tourist visa to visit his family in Tampa, Florida. Levy says he understood why Americans had chosen Trump. “I don’t think Americans were
afraid—there wasn’t a big terror attack right before the election or something,” he says. “They’re just becoming more aware that radical Islam is very violent and we should try to stop it somehow.” Noting Trump’s Jewish daughter, Ivanka, and sonin-law, Jared Kushner, Levy says he thought the president-elect would keep the United States “safer for Jews than most countries in Europe” and protect Israel. Trump’s “America first” perspective isn’t so different from Netanyahu’s obsession with Israel’s security, he says. But Levy suggests that Trump could learn a little statesmanship from the Israeli prime minister. “Trump says a lot of things in the moment that he regrets a moment later,” he says. “Bibi always knows what he’s saying.” A 68-year-old retired secretary who was born in the Bronx—and still has the accent to prove it—had just renewed her U.S. passport along with her Israel-born daughter. The woman, who asked to be anonymous, says she goes back to the U.S. twice a year and has no concerns about the status of American Jews under Trump. “I just hope he doesn’t screw it up. I hope he doesn’t build that wall he promised on the border [with Mexico to keep out illegal immigrants],” the woman says. “It reminds me of the Berlin Wall.” Karen Kadosh, 15, from the northern city of Safed, had just acquired a tourist visa to spend a week as part of an exchange with a Manhattan Jewish school. The high-school freshman said she was waiting to see what Trump would do before reaching any conclusions. But her teachers told her not to bring up the subject with their American peers. “They said it’s a sensitive subject or something,” Kadosh says, shrugging.
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jewishnewsva.org | November 21, 2016 | Jewish News | 9
Election 2016
E
Actress Emmy Rossum is target of Trump supporters’ anti-Semitic threats
mmy Rossum claims she was harassed on Twitter by anti-Semitic supporters of President-elect Donald Trump. Rossum, who is Jewish and stars on the Showtime show Shameless, said that she has received messages saying “get ready for the trains” and threatening to send her “to the gas chambers.”
is
She tweeted an example of one anti-Semitic message, which included an image of the entrance to Auschwitz adorned with the Trump Tower logo. Rossum, 30, had said previously that the outcome of the presidential election felt “personal” to her because she is Jewish. (JTA)
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Meet the Jews in Donald Trump’s inner circle Josefin Dolsten
(JTA)—President-elect Donald Trump has a complicated history with Jews. On the one hand, his daughter Ivanka converted to Orthodox Judaism before marrying Jared Kushner, and he’s spoken fondly about having Jewish grandchildren. On the other, some of Trump’s supporters identify with anti-Semitic elements of the alt-right movement, and he’s a favorite of prominent white supremacist David Duke. Trump appointed Stephen Bannon—he former chairman of Breitbart News, a site with ties to the alt-right—as his chief strategist in a move that sparked swift criticism from the Anti-Defamation League. Still, Trump’s cadre of advisers is not short on Jews. While he may not officially appoint family members to his Cabinet because of federal anti-nepotism regulations, here’s a look at his Jewish advisers,
Jason Greenblatt Greenblatt has worked as a real-estate lawyer for Trump for 19 years, and he is one of two Jewish lawyers whom Trump has said he would appoint as his Israel advisers. An Orthodox Jew and Yeshiva University graduate, Greenblatt studied at a West Bank yeshiva in the mid-1980s and even did armed guard duty there. The father of six from Teaneck, N. J., does not have any political experience. Greenblatt has said he speaks with people involved in the Israeli government but has not spoken to any Palestinians since his yeshiva studies. He has cited the American Israel Public Affairs Committee as one of his main sources for staying informed about the Jewish state, and helped draft Trump’s speech at the lobbying group’s annual conference in March. Greenblatt, who has said he supports the two-state solution, has implied that Trump will take a more laissez-faire approach to peace building.
David Friedman Alongside Greenblatt, Trump named
Friedman, 57, as an Israel adviser. Friedman, a bankruptcy expert and partner at the Kasowitz law firm in New York, is the president-elect’s longtime attorney. The son of a Conservative rabbi with a family history of ties to Republican presidential candidates—his family hosted Ronald Reagan for a Shabbat lunch in 1984, the year he won re-election— Friedman lives in Woodmere, N. Y., and owns a house in Jerusalem’s Talbiyeh neighborhood, according to Haaretz. Friedman has expressed doubt about the future of the two-state solution, traditionally a pillar of bipartisan U.S. policy in the region. Friedman has also said that annexing the West Bank would not damage Israel’s status as a Jewish state.
Jared Kushner Kushner—the 35-year-old scion of one of New York’s most prominent real estate families and, since 2009, the husband of Trump’s daughter Ivanka—played a crucial role in the president-elect’s campaign, especially with regards to Israel. He worked on Trump’s speech to the AIPAC annual policy conference, and helped plan a trip to Israel for his father-in-law last year. (Trump canceled the trip after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu slammed his call to ban Muslim immigration to the United States.) Trump appears to be smitten with Kushner, often referring to his “fantastic” son-in-law when boasting of his pro-Israel credentials. Kushner, an Orthodox Jew who lives with his wife and their three children on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, may have become a household name during the campaign, but he’s no stranger to the limelight. In 2006, at 25, he bought the Observer newspaper. Two years later he became CEO of his father’s company, Kushner Properties, four years after his father was sent to jail for tax evasion, illegal campaign donations and witness tampering. In 2015, Fortune named Kushner to its 40 Under 40 list, its “annual ranking of the most influential young people in business.”
Election 2016 Ivanka Trump Trump’s daughter Ivanka, 35, who converted to Orthodox Judaism, has served as the polished, softer face of her father’s campaign. A successful businesswoman whose brand is centered around empowering working women, she stood by him when recordings were released that caught the president-elect bragging about sexually assaulting women. Ivanka has reportedly tried to have her father tone down or walk back some of his most inflammatory remarks, including having called Mexican immigrants rapists, according to New York magazine. She is the founder of the Ivanka Trump Collection, a fashion and lifestyle brand, and serves as executive vice president of development and acquisitions for the Trump Organization, her father’s company. Ivanka, who gave birth to her third child in March, belongs to the Upper East Side Orthodox synagogue Kehilath Jeshurun with Kushner and has described her family as “pretty observant.” She made Fortune’s 40 Under 40 list in 2014, a year before her husband did.
Boris Epshteyn Epshteyn, 34, is a Republican political strategist and staunch defender of Trump who has appeared as the president-elect’s surrogate on major TV networks over 100 times, The New York Times reported. A New York-based investment banker and finance attorney, Epshteyn worked as a communications aide for Sen. John McCain’s presidential campaign in 2008, focusing his efforts on the Arizona senator’s running mate, then-Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, whom Trump is reportedly considering for interior secretary, according to Politico. Epshteyn, a Moscow native, moved to the United States in 1993. A fluent Russian speaker who has moderated a panel encouraging investment in Moscow, he may serve as an asset for Trump in navigating relations with Russia—Trump has expressed his desire to improve ties with President Vladimir Putin. Then again, Epshteyn’s temper may make him less of an asset to Trump. TV hosts described him as “very combative”
and “abrasive,” and in 2014, Epshteyn was charged with misdemeanor assault after he was involved in a bar tussle.
Stephen Miller Miller, 30, has played a crucial role in Trump’s campaign, helping to warm up crowds at rallies and drafting speeches, including the president-elect’s acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention. Miller, who has described himself as “a practicing Jew,” joined the Trump campaign in January, quickly rising through the ranks to become “one of the most important people in the campaign,” as Trump’s campaign manager told The Wall Street Journal. Previously he worked for seven years as an aide to Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., helping the lawmaker draft materials to kill a bipartisan Senate immigration reform bill. Some of Sessions’ arguments contain similarities to Trump’s harsh and often controversial statements on the issue, such as calling for building a wall on the Mexican border and banning Muslim immigration to the country. Though Miller grew up in a liberal Jewish home in Southern California, he was drawn to conservative causes early. As a high school student he wrote a letter to the editor of a local paper in which he slammed his school for providing free condoms to students and for making announcements both in English and Spanish, among other things.
Steven Mnuchin Mnuchin, a former Goldman Sachs executive, worked as Trump’s national finance chairman during the campaign with the aim of raising more than $1 billion for the candidate. Trump and Mnuchin have been friends for 15 years, and prior to being in charge of Trump’s campaign finances, Mnuchin served as an adviser. Part of what The New York Times describes as one of Manhattan’s elite “most influential families,” Mnuchin and his father both got rich working at Goldman Sachs. The younger Mnuchin also co-founded the entertainment company RatPac-Dune Entertainment, which has worked on such Hollywood hits as Avatar and Black Swan.
Some saw Trump teaming up with Mnuchin as unusual, considering that the real-estate mogul had consistently bashed Goldman Sachs. Trump is now reportedly considering Mnuchin for the position of Treasury secretary, according to Politico.
Lewis Eisenberg Eisenberg, the private equity chief for Granite Capital International Group, serves as finance chairman for the Republican National Committee. He was one of a small group of Republican Jewish Coalition board members who did not flee from Trump’s candidacy, and was a major contributor to groups backing Trump’s election—only nine of 55 RJC board members gave to Trump. He worked to raise funds for the candidate. Eisenberg grew up in New Jersey, and he has been floated as a possible pick for commerce secretary in the Trump administration. He was the chairman of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey at
the time of the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center.
Michael Glassner Glassner was not new to Republican presidential campaigns when Trump appointed him last year to serve as his national political director. He worked as director of vice presidential operations for McCain’s 2008 campaign and ran Geogre W. Bush’s campaign in Iowa in 2000. He has also worked with Palin and Sen. Bob Dole, a former presidential candidate. Like many of Trump’s Jewish advisers, Glassner is outspoken in his support of Israel. Prior to joining the Trump campaign, he worked as the political director for AIPAC’s Southwest Regional. Glassner has praised the anti-establishment movement, and he told Jewish Insider that his experience with Palin and the fact that he lives in New Jersey, not Washington, D.C., made him a good fit for Trump’s political outsider message.
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jewishnewsva.org | November 21, 2016 | Jewish News | 11
New Emerald Lion (woman donors $25,000+) Martha Mednick-Glasser
The changing face of Jewish students brought to light during Women’s Luncheon Amy Zelenka UJFT women’s campaign director
T
he Women’s Cabinet held its annual Lion-Tikva-Chai luncheon to thank women donors giving at the $1,800 level and greater. Stephanie Calliott welcomed the women and gave a brief and positive campaign update, thanking the donors who had already made their commitments (and the campaign workers who’d made the ask) and reminded the women in the room that with 500 women donors still
out there, a great opportunity exists to see the best year ever. Past Chair Jodi Klebanoff welcomed 19 new milestone givers to the campaign (women who had reached the levels of Lion ($5,000+), Tikva ($3,600+); and Chai ($1,800+) since last year’s luncheon. (See box for a list of new milestone women donors in the 2017 campaign). Janet Mercadante, Cabinet vice chair, welcomed the newest Endowed Lions of Judah (women who have set up a Fund to ensure that their Lion-level gifts benefit
Marsha Chenman, Annabel Sachs, Connie Jacobson and Marian Ticatch.
Karen Lombart, Sofia Konikoff, Lori Kalfus,and Renee Strelitz. 12 | Jewish News | November 21, 2016 | jewishnewsva.org
the community in perpetuity). Mercadante also recalled Endowed Lions of blessed memory, reciting their names—allowing those in the room to honor the memory of an inspiring group of women leaders. Mercadante then introduced the guest speaker for the luncheon, Sheila Katz, Hillel International’s youngest vice president and its first vice president for social entrepreneurship. In her role with Hillel, Sheila Katz (who appears young enough to be a Hillel student) works to find creative new ways of engaging Jewish students on campus, especially those on the “periphery of Jewish life,” she says. “…Students who have little to no connection with their Judaism, but who arrive on campus ready to explore.” To attract these students, Hillel has had to invent and re-invent itself over the years. As a result, it’s become one of the largest and strongest student organizations in the country—often finding itself at the table (in the White House and elsewhere) in discussions on improving education, standards and student life. To achieve these results, Hillel realized some time ago that it needed to better understand who its students were, where they came from, and what were they seeking. It needed data—to measure, to analyze and to lead them to the kinds of programs and services it could provide. The data collected allowed Hillel to meet the needs of students on various campuses across America. And it began to show trends which indicated a changing face of today’s college students. In a powerful presentation of statistics and anecdotal stories, Katz described today’s Jewish students on campus. She talked about the challenges facing both students and the organization itself. Twenty percent of incoming Jewish college freshman today identify themselves as “Jews of color.” Twenty percent of all students come to campus with some declared “disability.” These can include physical disabilities, learning disabilities,
New Ruby Lions (women donors $10,000+) Stacy Brody Laura Gross Jeri Jo Halprin New Lions of Judah (women donors $5,000+l) Jennifer Crockford Alicia Friedman Nancy Jacobson Darryl Lefcoe Nancy Rosenblatt ew Tikva Society N (women donors $3,600+) Anonymous Donor Elyse Cardon Shelly Loeb New Chai Society (women donors $1,800+) Judi Anderson Terry Blevins Lynne Familant Linda Fox-Jarvis Lori Kalfus Ellen Sacks Ashley Zittrain ew Endowed Lions N of Judah (LOJEs) Stephanie Calliott Jodi Klebanoff Joyce Strelitz (of blessed memory)
mental, emotional or other disabilities. This is a national statistic, and Jewish students are included within it at the same rate. What does this mean for students? It means that when they come to campus, they are faced with a variety of challenges. Not only must they decide which classes to take and consider declaring a major… And not only are they bombarded with messages from anti-Israel and BDS movement organizations, cloaked in names like “Students for Justice in Palestine…” (Who doesn’t want Justice?)… Today’s students grapple with the decision about where they belong. Is it Hillel? Is it the Asian Student Union? Is it the African American Student group? Is it all three?
Hillel is continuously exploring and developing new programs to serve the changing needs of students. Realizing that not all students will come to Hillel for programs, Hillel has begun taking its programs “out of the House” and literally “meeting students where they’re at.” Hillel has become a leader in “Public Space Judaism,” with Israel programs taking place in Student Centers, and Sukkahs being built “on the quad” or on the drill field (in the case of Virginia Tech). Hillel is also engaging students in small groups and in one-on-one coffee dates. In fact, they are teaching students how to engage one another. Hillel is also bringing Jewish and non-Jewish students together to allow all who are interested to learn more about
Sheila Katz and Stephanie Calliott.
Leslie Shroyer, Faith Jacobson and Valerie White.
Ina Levy and Judy Nachman.
Judaism, Jewish life and Israel. The changing face of Jewish students on campus has meant changing the face of Hillel. Those organization changes are keeping Hillel relevant and resonant in students’ lives. Meanwhile, Hillel remains a safe space for students in an often confusing world; a resource for making the case for Israel; and most recently a place to learn how to engage with and dialogue with one another—not on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram…but rather in person, face-to-face, over a cup of coffee and a bagel. Katz closed her remarks with a thank you to the women in the room and to the Federations across the country who fund Hillel through annual allocations, and ensure that it remains strong into the future. A portion of every donation made to the UJFT’s Annual Campaign provides funds which directly help Hillel continue to make an impact on students’ lives at UVA, Virginia Tech, George Mason University, The College of William & Mary, and Old Dominion University. Photographs by Mark Robbins.
Clockwise from lower left: Karen Fine, Miriam Seeherman, Sandra Porter Leon, Susan Hirschbiel, Jodi Klebanoff, Shelly Simon, Linda Fox-Jarvis and Barbara Dudley.
Hilde Deutsch, Mona Flax, Jeri Jo Halprin, Joan Joffe, Charlene Cohen, Leslie Siegel and Wendy Konikoff.
Mimi Karesh, Marcia Moss, Ann Copeland, Marsha Chenman, Ina Levy, Karen Lombart, Judi Nachman and Judy Rosenblatt.
jewishnewsva.org | November 21, 2016 | Jewish News | 13
Ginsburg looking forward to Trump’s naming of a ninth justice
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WASHINGTON (JTA)—Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said she was looking forward to Donald Trump’s naming of a ninth justice to fill out the high court. Ginsburg, speaking Monday, Nov. 14 at the annual Jewish Federations of North America General Assembly, was asked what the immediate impact of a Trump presidency would be. “The most immediate, a vacancy will be filled,” she said. “Eight is not a good number. Perhaps the court will do some work.” Her welcoming of a Trump appointment could be seen as a peace offering to the president-elect with whom Ginsburg clashed over the summer, saying he was unfit for office and calling him a “faker” with no consistent polices other than self-regard. She later apologized. The Republican-led Senate has refused for nearly a year to consider President Barack Obama’s preferred nominee, Merrick Garland, who like Ginsburg and two of the other nine Justices is Jewish—a virtually unprecedented blocking in American history. Republican leaders have said they will not consider any Obama nominee. Ginsburg, 83, might have retired during the coming presidential term had Hillary Clinton, Trump’s Democratic rival, been elected. That’s less likely now as Trump’s replacement of Antonin Scalia, who died earlier this year, will maintain conservatives’ 5-4 majority, and any replacement of a liberal judge will enhance the majority. Ginsburg told the JFNA her Jewish
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg
upbringing helped inform her sympathies for the oppressed. She joked that her parents “got it right” when they settled on a Conservative shul after trying Reform and Orthodox congregations. She got whoops of applause when she said her granddaughter had visited Israel as part of the TaglitBirthright program for young Jews. She also appreciated her popularity among liberals who admire her outspokenness and have dubbed her “Notorious RBG.” Ginsburg called the moniker a natural one: Like the slain rapper Notorious BIG, “we’re both born and bred in Brooklyn.” Did she like seeing Notorious RBG gear, like T-shirts? she was asked. Yes. “Except the tattoos,” the associate justice said. “I don’t like those.”
Ginsburg,
83, might have
retired during the
coming presidential term had Hillary Clinton, Trump’s
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usiness success is not always measured in dollars and cents and awards. In fact, just in time for Thanksgiving, several articles in this section are testimony to that point. First, we highlight Lisa Stein Delevie and her philanthropic work with Grand Furniture. Delevie’s commitment to helping others through her family’s long established and thriving business is inspiring, and she hopes, contagious. Her article is on the adjacent page. Speaking of success, earlier this month, United Jewish Federation of Tidewater’s Society of Professionals held the first in its Conversations series of programs. Titled Local Stories of Success, the event offered insights and “fresh and differing perspectives.” The article is on page 25. While high profit margins and healthy bank accounts tend to reflect achievement, studies, such as the one reported on page 19, find that following one’s passion into a career, oftentimes is a brighter key to being successful, at least as far as intrinsic rewards are concerned. The study, conducted by Tel Aviv University, is an interesting read. Jewish Family Service and Simon Family JCC are teaming up this year to raise funds for Camp JCC’s Special Needs Camp. The day comes just after Black Friday and Cyber Monday as shopping for the holiday season really starts rocking. This article is on page 20. And, of course, there’s more, including an article on page 21 that highlights a new organization comprised of four Jewish innovation organizations. Finally, to quote Sheryl Sandberg, COO of Facebook and author of Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead, “Done is better than perfect.”
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Terri Denison Editor
Published 22 times a year by United Jewish Federation of Tidewater. Reba and Sam Sandler Family Campus of the Tidewater Jewish Community 5000 Corporate Woods Drive, Suite 200 Virginia Beach, Virginia 23462-4370 voice 757.965.6100 • fax 757.965.6102 email news@ujft.org Terri Denison, Editor Germaine Clair, Art Director Hal Sacks, Book Review Editor Sandy Goldberg, Account Executive Mark Hecht, Account Executive Marilyn Cerase, Subscription Manager Reba Karp, Editor Emeritus Sherri Wisoff, Proofreader Jay Klebanoff, 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. © 2016 Jewish News. All rights reserved. Subscription: $18 year For subscription or change of address, call 757-965-6128 or email mcerase@ujft.org.
About the cover: Lisa Stein Delevie at Grand Furniture. QR code generated on http://qrcode.littleidiot.be
Photograph by Steve Budman
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Business
A house is not a home, until you have a good night’s sleep Terri Denison
W
ithout a good night’s sleep, everything tends to be just a bit tougher. While physicians, teachers, employers and nearly all health experts stress the importance of sleep, not everyone has the good fortune to have a proper bed in which to get those necessary zzzzzzzzs. That’s where Lisa Stein Delevie comes in. A Norfolk native, Delevie returned to Tidewater in April 2015 from Florida where she raised her children. “After my father (Jerry Stein) passed away in October 2014, I wanted to follow in his footsteps in giving back to the community. My brother Craig—who now runs GrandBrands—asked me if I would head up his project to continue Dad’s legacy by involving Grand in helping the less fortunate in our area,” she says. Today, Delevie heads up two programs under the GrandBrands umbrella: Hope to Dream – Ashley Home Stores Chance to Dream Grand – Grand Furniture Through these programs, furniture, bedding and other essential items are donated to a variety of causes. For example, “We just donated furniture for the Food Bank’s volunteer lounge and we had employees commit to volunteer for their Mayflower Marathon Nov. 18–20,” she says. “We run our bedding program in partnership with four leading mattress manufacturers for charities such as ForKids, CHIP (Children’s Health Insurance Program), VetsHouse and Habitat for Heroes. “And, through the Coalition Wounded Warriors, we donate lift chairs for amputees,” she says. Delevie credits her parents with her inspiration to devote so much time and resources to philanthropy: “My parents were the salt of the earth. They never turned anyone away. “It’s not always money that makes a philanthropist. My mother (Arlene Stein) taught me that volunteering your time and effort is as important as giving money,” she notes. The Jewish community also has played a role in Delevie’s life’s journey. In addition to myriad volunteer positions, she most recently served on the board of directors of her temple in Boca Raton, Florida, and as a guardian ad litem in Palm Beach County, Florida.
“The Jewish community gave me a centered life growing up and taught me the values of giving back and being there for others. As an adult, the Jewish community continued to ground me and provide a way for me to teach my children values and to contribute to those less fortunate than myself,” she says. Combining the example of their parents and the Jewish community, in 2008, Jerry Stein and his children established the Arlene Stein College Scholarship in partnership with the Tidewater Jewish Foundation to provide Jewish young people financial assistance to be able to attend college. “My siblings, children and nieces and nephews continue to be inspired by the example of my parents and the Jewish values that they taught us. We give a $10,000 scholarship per student annually, equaling $40,000 over four years. We alternate Stein family members to be on
the selection committee (along with Tidewater Jewish Foundation members), so that all family members have the chance to participate and give back.” Never seeking publicity or recognition, one of Delevie’s favorite personal rewards, she says, is including and encouraging others to join her in helping others. “I’ve been blessed in that my enthusiasm and joy in giving to the less fortunate families and veterans in our area has inspired leading manufacturers to donate bedding sets to our community,” she says. “Similarly, our employees—we call them “ambassadors”—have taken the initiative and volunteered to ride along with me and the warehouse trucks to deliver the bedding. Seeing these families’ faces and hearing their gratitude is so beautiful. Your heart wants to break when you see how families live in our area, and to be able to give something back is so rewarding.”
Lisa Stein Delevie.
jewishnewsva.org | November 21, 2016 | Business | Jewish News | 17
Business Robert Kraft donates $6 million to build sports campus in Jerusalem JERUSALEM (JTA)—Robert Kraft, owner of the New England Patriots and a noted Jewish philanthropist, has donated $6 million to create the Kraft Family Sports Campus in Jerusalem. The contribution is to “advance Jerusalem as an international sports hub,” the office of Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat said in a statement in announcing the gift. It is part of the celebration of the 50th anniversary of the reunification of Jerusalem and the 20th Maccabiah Games, an Olympics-style event that will be hosted in Jerusalem in July. The campus in Emek Haarazim, in the northwest part of the Israeli capital, is scheduled to open in the summer. Established in collaboration with the Jerusalem Foundation and the Jerusalem Development CompanyMoriah, the campus will include soccer fields, a dual-use U.S. regulation football and soccer field, locker rooms and administrative offices, a central pedestrian thoroughfare, parking and an access road, with plans to add
of The Kraft Group, a holding company with assets in paper, packaging, real estate and sports teams. He has donated over $100 million to numerous institutions and organizations, many of them Jewish. Barkat said Kraft “has been an unwavering partner in the growth and development of Jerusalem.” “This gift, which helps celebrate the 50th anniversary of Jerusalem’s reunification, furthers Robert and his family’s commitment to the capital of Israel, and to enhancing sport and particularly football in Jerusalem,” the mayor said.
other facilities. “The Kraft Family Sports Campus allows me to invest in two things that I have always been very passionate about: My love of Israel and my support for youth athletics and team sports, especially American football,” Kraft said. He added that team sports “help unify those who might otherwise be divided by cultural differences” and are “proven to develop leadership.” The Kraft Family Field in Sacher Park in Jerusalem already plays host to American football. Kraft, 74, is the chairman and CEO
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18 | Jewish News | Business | November 21, 2016 | jewishnewsva.org
Business Follow your heart as you pursue your career A new Tel Aviv University study finds talent is less important than passion when it comes to professional success
Tel Aviv—More than half of working Americans feel disengaged from their jobs, according to Gallup’s latest State of the American Workplace poll. Unenthusiastic, uncommitted and uninvolved, male and female workers alike are now, more than ever before, unlikely to be “doing what they love” at work. Should you pursue your passion or strive toward a secure living? A new Tel Aviv University study published in the Journal of Applied Psychology finds that the two objectives are not mutually exclusive—in fact, each feeds the other. Young people with strong callings are more likely to take risks, persist and ultimately get jobs in their chosen fields, satisfying both their personal and professional career needs. The researchers also found that those who exhibit a passion for these interests in their teens are more likely to be successful later on, regardless of their inherent talent. The research was conducted by Dr. Daniel Heller of TAU’s Recanati School of Business, in collaboration with Dr. Shoshana Dobrow Riza of the London School of Economics.
The head vs. the heart “Given the economic reality today, people commonly face trade-offs as they make decisions that pit the two sides of careers—the ‘heart,’ or intrinsic side, and the ‘head,’ or extrinsic side—against one another,” says Heller. “We wanted to examine people who chose to follow more challenging career paths, such as those in the arts, and assess their chances of ‘making it.’” Heller and Riza surveyed some 450 high-school music students at two elite U.S. summer music programs over the course of 11 years (2001-2012) as they developed from adolescents to young adults to professional musicians. “We found that participants with stronger callings toward music in adolescence were likely to assess their musical
abilities more favorably and were more likely to pursue music professionally as adults regardless of actual musical ability,” says Heller. Even so, difficulties in pursuing their dreams were still evident. According to the study, participants who were involved in music professionally, even at a minimum, earned considerably less (a gap of $12,000 per year on average) than freelancers or amateurs who pursued their musical interests outside of work. But they also reported similar or greater satisfaction with their jobs and lives. For those with strong callings, personal rewards such as satisfaction may matter more than professional rewards such as income.
Weighing the options “If you experience a strong calling, you need to be cognizant of your relative preferences for intrinsic versus extrinsic rewards and potential trade-offs between the two, then decide accordingly,” says Heller. “However, we found that, in certain fields, one’s drive or passion afforded a competitive advantage over others, even when unrelated to objective ability or talent. “In general, society benefits from an excess of talented people competing for a limited number of positions in winnertake-all labor markets,” Heller continues. “Individuals who ‘win’ in this market are exemplary. Although individuals entering this type of market eventually ‘lose’
in extrinsic terms by definition, they still benefit from intrinsic rewards and garner subjective value and well-being, such as the satisfaction derived from attempting to fulfill their calling, even for a short time.” The researchers are currently examining the implications of career choice on overall wellbeing. American Friends of Tel Aviv University (www.aftau.org) supports Israel’s most influential, comprehensive, and sought-after center of higher learning, Tel Aviv University (english.tau.ac.il). TAU ranked #75 globally and #1 in Israel in a 2015 Reuters survey of the 100 most innovative universities.
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jewishnewsva.org | November 21, 2016 | Business | Jewish News | 19
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Help give children with special needs a “Mainstream Camp Experience” the community with a marvelous summer day camp through Camp JCC. The goal is to enable children with all abilities wenty-three years ago, one family to access and succeed in this fun-filled had a vision of a fully incluenvironment. It has provided a wonderful sive summer camp at the Jewish first-time experience for so many children Community Center in Norfolk. Today, over the past 23 years. The smiles and thanks to a joint program developed by laughter this program creates have been a Jewish Family Service of Tidewater (JFS) highlight of my summers and an amazing and the Simon Family JCC, and a genergift to so many lives.” ous gift from an anonymous donor, that Robyn Bailey, a camp dream is a reality for many parent says, “We are local families. Generous so thankful for Camp funding is also supplied JCC—they give my son by local, private donors. the opportunity to expeOver the past 23 years, rience camp and just be numerous children with Average number a typical kid for a week. of children with various emotional, develspecial needs at It also allows us to take a opmental, physical and Camp JCC each year break from the daily therbehavioral needs have apies and let him enjoy been able to laugh, play being a four-year-old— and enjoy their summer his excitement at drop-off days at Camp JCC. and smiles at the end of This unique program the day make it all worth it! My husband began with just one child who wanted to and I are so appreciative and grateful for experience a summer camp that would the program and all it has done for Evan.” provide fun-filled activities within a This year, JFS, the United Jewish Jewish environment. Each summer, this Federation of Tidewater, and the Simon program has traditionally supported an Family JCC are teaming up to raise average of 25 children with special needs funds for this camp program through such as autism, Down’s syndrome, cere#GivingTuesday on Tueday, Nov. 29. bral palsy, ADHD, depression, sensory #GivingTuesday is held annually on the integration disorder, Tourette’s syndrome Tuesday after Thanksgiving, and after the and others. Specially trained staff, widely recognized shopping events Black referred to as “shadows,” provide support Friday and Cyber Monday, as a kick-off to and accommodations to campers. These the holiday giving season. This year’s goal shadows are able to enhance a child’s is to raise $20,000 for the camp in order to camp experience by facilitating friendaccommodate additional children and to ships, providing behavioral and emotional expand the program based on needs. support, and/or assisting with appropriate To donate to this program on Giving accommodations. Michelle Fenley, LCSW Tuesday, visit www.jfshamptonroads.org/ at JFS and Special Needs camp director Giving-Tuesday any time on November 29. says, “The Simon Family JCC provides Amy Cobb
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Business Four Jewish innovation organizations consolidating
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our Jewish organizations will combine to form a single organization to be a central resource for Jewish innovation. UpStart, Bikkurim, Joshua Venture Group and U.S. based-programs of PresenTense announced this month that they will consolidate to form one entity. The new entity, to be called UpStart, will provide services and resources to entrepreneurs, intrapreneurs and communities. The organizations now provide support services for innovators and groups in the Jewish community seeking new ways of thinking. “Jewish life has evolved in incredibly positive ways due in part to the success of our organizations, our program alumni, and our visionary partners,” says Aaron Katler, CEO of UpStart, said in a
statement. “We come together now out of a shared commitment to build on that success and to expand our capacity to serve an evolving field. Our vision is to provide innovators and organizations at nearly every stage with the services and resources they need to succeed.” UpStart will work to create a more robust platform to empower innovators and institutions to take risks, to develop creative engagement strategies, and to maximize the potential of their community-changing ideas, the statement said. The organizations first worked together on The Collaboratory, the largest gathering of Jewish innovators in the United States. With support from the Lippman Kanfer Foundation for Living Torah, the executive directors of the organizations then gathered for a retreat two years ago to learn more about each
and collaborative activiother’s programs. UpStart ties, while at the same “The consolidation time resourcing more is a very positive will work to create programs, organizadevelopment for the tions, and leaders.” entire Jewish coma more robust platform D u r i n g munity,” said Jon the transition Woocher, senior to empower innovators and period, each fellow at the organization Lippman Kanfer institutions to take risks, to will continue Foundation for to operate its Living Torah. develop creative engagement own programs “These orgaand support the nizations did strategies, and to maximize cohorts that are their homework currently underto determine the the potential of their way. The UpStart h i g h e s t- i m p a c t board of directors opportunities for community-changing will be comprised of investing in Jewish representatives from innovation. As one ideas. each organization. (JTA) organization, they can develop more coordinated
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jewishnewsva.org | November 21, 2016 | Business | Jewish News | 21
Business Tel Aviv University among top 10 universities for venture capital-backed entrepreneurs TAU joins Stanford, UC Berkeley, and MIT on global VC database list Tel Aviv—Tel Aviv University ranked ninth in the master list of global universities producing the most venture capital-backed entrepreneurs, according to the 2016-2017 PitchBook Universities Report. TAU placed ahead of Ivy League universities Yale (#12), Princeton (#13), and Columbia (#18). TAU appears on the list for the third year in a row, powerfully reflecting the university’s continuing success in the
global business/investor community. The prestigious list is topped by Stanford, UC Berkeley, MIT, Harvard, the University of Pennsylvania and Cornell. TAU is the only non-US university to make the top 10. Its MBA program is ranked 12th in the world in terms of producing VC-backed entrepreneurs. According to PitchBook, entrepreneurs who got their start at TAU have raised capital in the
22 | Jewish News | Business | November 21, 2016 | jewishnewsva.org
amount of $5.1 billion. Shlomo Nimrodi, CEO of Ramot, Tel Aviv University’s Business Engagement Center, says, “This report is a testament to the successful strategy TAU’s leadership has been implementing in translating excellent research into practical innovation and entrepreneurship. It involves creating a support system to encourage promising innovations, interacting with multinational corporations from around the world, and
opening opportunities to the east, with strong and expanding relations with the emerging markets in both India and China. Located in the heart of Tel Aviv, the second largest technology sector in the world, TAU is the innovation hub of the “Start Up Nation.” With more than half the 30,000+ student body engaged in multi-disciplinary research, TAU is uniquely positioned as an incubator of groundbreaking ideas.
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Parve Nutella and other must-try new kosher foods Josefin Dolsten
SECAUCUS, N.J. (JTA)—At Kosherfest, the world’s largest kosher trade show, Yiddish and Hebrew is heard alongside English. Some 6,000 kosher-food insiders packed the massive hall, chatting, networking and tasting samples. The crowd skews male and Orthodox— in fact, it may be one of the only events where the men’s bathroom has a longer line than the women’s one. The annual two-day expo held last week at the Meadowlands Exposition Center here is a food mecca for those who observe Jewish dietary laws. Among the more than 325 exhibitors are vendors touting everything from the kosher staples—beef salami, latkes and Israeli wines—to new and unexpected foods, such as a line of Korean products. Here are some exciting and unique kosher products that are new to the market or will be hitting stores soon.
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product, comes with all the necessary ingredients—mini matzahs, chocolate and marshmallows. The pizza kit, however, contains just triangle-shaped matzah and sauce; moms and dads must provide the cheese and any other toppings. The kits are so appealingly designed that parents may be tempted to partake. “We think there’s going to be a lot of adults with kids that are going to be sneaking these items while their kids are off at school,” Sugarman says.
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Faux-crab cakes
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Passover s’mores and pizza kits
Manischewitz is launching a line of matzah-themed treats that will make Passover a bit more fun for kids—and maybe adults, too. Prior to Passover in April, the company will introduce two do-it-yourself food “kits”: matzah s’mores and matzah pizza. “This year at Manischewitz, it’s all about kids,” the company’s president and CEO, David Sugarman, says. “We sat around and thought about what fun items can we come up with for Passover that would get kids engaged in Passover.” The s’mores kit, which won Kosherfest’s award for best new kosher-for-Passover
Dyna Sea is a pro in the world of imitation shellfish—“surimi,” as it is called in Japanese—having been in business for nearly 20 years. The kosher food company even has Japanese consumers buying its products, according to owner Daniel Berlin. These imitation crab cakes, which won Kosherfest’s best new product award for frozen foods, are made with imported Alaskan pollock. Berlin said they taste very close to the real deal. “It has such a beautiful, rich, seafood flavor and a texture, a mouthfeel, that really simulates the real thing,” he says. And though this reporter has never had a real crab cake, she couldn’t help but go in for a second faux one.
Parve Nutella Kosher-keeping chocoholics know the pain of overly sweet parve chocolate spreads that lack the richness of Nutella— and never quite hit the spot. But this new Italian-produced
spread—tapped the best new product at Kosherfest—is a game changer. Parvella CEO Gabriele Zarrugh worked for two years to develop the spread, saying he was motivated by the desire to make a delicious kosher product that was accessible to those with dietary restrictions. Parvella is milk, dairy, egg, peanut and palm-oil free.
One Columbus Center 283 Constitution Drive, Suite 800 Virginia Beach, VA 23462 Phone: 757-777-3121, 800-342-5444 x121 Fax: 757-490-9239 jon@envisionwm.com www.envisionwm.com best new savory snack. Cohen’s inventive varieties accurately evoke their namesakes: The birthday cake flavor is topped with colorful sprinkles; there’s a kick of cinnamon on the crispy exterior of the cinnamon churro kettle flavor. Cohen uses coconut oil to cook the kernels both for its health benefits and flavor, she says. “It’s my passion; coming up with a new flavor makes me feel so good,” she says. “This [churro kettle] is my favorite one right now, although next week I’ll probably have a different flavor that I like.” continued on page 24
Birthday cake and churro-flavored kettle corn Highland Pop President Kimberly Cohen has a thing for popcorn. In 2012, she opened a small popcorn shop in suburban Chicago. Since then, Cohen has developed nearly 100 flavors of the addictive snack, which she is hoping to distribute nationally. Kosherfest deemed Highland Pop the
jewishnewsva.org | November 21, 2016 | Business | Jewish News | 23
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Marzipan rugelach from Israel The Marzipan shop in Jerusalem’s Mahane Yehuda market has been for decades nearly as much of a tourist destination as the Western Wall. Once you’re in the shuk, the bakery isn’t hard to locate. The rugelach’s sweet, chocolatey scent wafts its way through the market, enticing visitors to pay a visit and buy a pastry — or maybe 10. Now the rugelach is available for purchase in the U.S. The chief marketing officer for M Bakeries, its distributor in America, says the company was inspired to get on board after learning that Americans would bring home suitcases full of the pastry from Israel.
“[T]hey got so addicted to this particular rugelach that is considered the best in the world,” Milton Weinstock says. The rugelach, which is made according to a secret family recipe, is best served warm, says a person working the Marzipan booth. This reporter agrees: Fresh out of the oven, the chocolate filling and dough become irresistibly gooey.
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24 | Jewish News | Business | November 21, 2016 | jewishnewsva.org
Business Success stories inspire professionals at recent Society event Laine Mednick Rutherford
I
n September, the United Jewish Federation of Tidewater held an inaugural event for its new Society of Professionals affinity group, promising unique and stimulating programming, and opportunities to connect to other professionals in the area. At its second event, the Society demonstrated a strong commitment to fulfilling that promise. On Thursday morning, November 10, the group presented the first in its
Conversations series of programs. Titled Local Stories of Success, the event—sponsored by INSCO Insurance—included a panel discussion with David Konikoff of Konikoff Dentistry, Jerry Miller of the Miller Group, and Jody Wagner of Jody’s Popcorn. With Danny Rubin of Rubin Communications moderating, the trio provided insights into their career paths—past and present, and spoke about their involvement with and support of the Jewish community. More than 50 people of all ages and business affiliations attended, exceeding
Greg Zittrain, Shira Itzhak, Karen Lombart, and Stacey Neuman.
expectations and validating the effort Shira Itzhak and Julius Miller, volunteer co-chairs, put into planning the program. “Over the years, we recognized that there were very successful Jewish professionals in our community and thought it was a great opportunity to share their success stories,” says Itzhak. “We want up and coming Jewish professionals and community members to learn from these stories, so we can continue to grow,” she says. “These people [on stage] do not want to flaunt their success, but we want people to know the home grown Jewish professionals, in order to inspire others.” Feedback from the event has been outstanding, according to UJFT staff members who helped organize the morning breakfast and discussion. “I enjoyed the topics, and Danny did an excellent job moderating the event,” Neil Waranch writes in an email. “I think continuing to have guest speakers, young and old, gives everyone fresh and differing perspectives. We have extremely interesting and successful Federation members who have great stories to tell,” he writes. “I’m looking
forward to future events.” Scott Levin also praised the program. “This was an interesting and unique event,” Levin says. “It gave us a chance to learn more about people we know and the forces that drove them on their business ventures.” The UJFT Society of Professionals emerged from an awareness of shared interests and audiences among the members of the UJFT’s Business & Legal and Maimonides Societies. Along with presenting unique programming and providing networking opportunities to all Jewish professionals in the area, the Society also strives to connect its members to social action initiatives and resources necessary for the Tidewater Jewish community to thrive and grow. To see more photos from November 10, visit www.facebook.com/ UJFTSocietyofProfessionals/photos and click on the album Conversations: Local Stories of Success. Visit www.JewishVA.org/societyofprofessionals for further information about the Society. Photographs by Laine Mednick Rutherford
Danny Rubin, Jerry Miller, David Konikoff, and Jody Wagner.
Tami Arnowitz and Matt Baldwin.
Alyssa Muhlendorf and Sharon Debb.
Shikma Rubin, Raizy Cook, Morgan Bober, and Jonathan Rose.
jewishnewsva.org | November 21, 2016 | Business | Jewish News | 25
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As the Chief Executive Officer at the Peninsula Foodbank, she believes the Foodbank not only distributes food but is also the spokesperson for those who otherwise don’t have a voice. “There are so many low income individuals who haven’t received any benefit from the recovering economy and those who because of their life circumstances need help every now and then. We are there to help ensure their voices are heard.”
“Since 2004, when I started with the Foodbank and got to know Payday Payroll, I have always felt that Payday has been involved and helped to build it’s business through positive support for others in the community, both non-profits and start up businesses. I particularly appreciate the generosity that Payday has shown to the non-profits in our community.”
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Serving up shalom at a post-election Thanksgiving Edmon J. Rodman
LOS ANGELES (JTA)—It was just a few weeks ago, on the night of Nov. 8, that my family had all anxiously exchanged text messages as we watched the election results trickle in. State by state, my Hillary-loving family saw our hopes slipping away—and now, too soon, we are going to have to gather around the dining room table to celebrate Thanksgiving. Here’s the problem: We’re not much in the mood to give thanks. In a shocking upending of our dreams and expectations, our candidate had lost. We felt that the progressive, multicultural, multiracial and multilingual environment in which we lived was threatened. Since then, for my family members and me— not to mention liberals across the land—a kind of mourning had set in for a potential future lost. With a tableful of liberal Jews coming over for Thanksgiving, what could we do to lift everyone’s spirits? For Thanksgiving, should we serve hard-boiled eggs, like at a house of mourning? It certainly feels like I’m living in one. The loss wasn’t nearly as life-shaking as when my parents had died, but as on Tisha b’Av—when we chant a dirge called Eicha, or Lamentations, about the fall of Jerusalem—I had seen the fall of the ideas in which I dwelled. I felt like singing a sad song. A post-election Pew survey estimated that about 71 percent of the Jewish voters were with Hillary and 24 percent with Trump. That means there are probably a lot of Jewish families out there like mine—meaning that since that fateful Tuesday, we’ve been living in an emotional state of blue not shown on any electoral map. Families in which everyone voted for Trump won’t have a problem this year celebrating America’s bounty. But if your family is like mine, or is divided between the candidates, short of sprinkling marijuana into the stuffing—hey, now it’s legal in my state of California—how do you get the family in a more hopeful mood, or at
least a passably reconcilable one? For help, I put in an emergency call to an old friend, Rabbi Anne Brener, a psychotherapist and faculty member at the Academy of Jewish Religion, California, as well as the author of Mourning & Mitzvah. I knew that through her writings and workshops, she had become a spiritual leader who explored how to teach people to help themselves through periods of grief and mourning. One of her thoughts on Thanksgiving put my hopes in the freezer, along with the cranberries. “One possibility is that it could just be awful,” Brener said. But then: “The other is that there could be something salvific in it,” she said, giving my expectations a chance to thaw. “With the vulnerability that people are feeling, I think there’s an opportunity to really connect in a deeper way,” the rabbi said. Releasing a few percentage points from my election-induced anxiety, Brener suggested that people could use the Thanksgiving gathering as an opportunity to “really come together to appreciate what’s really fine about the unit of the family.” “It’s an opportunity to get back to what Thanksgiving is about,” she said, adding that it isn’t just the day before Black Friday. The key, Brener explained, is that we celebrate Thanksgiving “in a setting where one can feel loved, cared for and protected,” and “to name the things that bring a family together.” Having these “nehamot,”—places of community and caring—“is going to save us,” she said. “Thanksgiving is actually a perfect antidote because it really does give us a chance to be together and to be vulnerable together,” she said. Responding to both my own feeling of loss—along with the loss of so many people around us—Brener counseled that “there are losses that don’t follow into a category of mourning but have to be
treated just like mourning.” “In the Temple there was a special gate that opened up into the mourner’s path,” she said of an ancient Jewish place where mourners of all kinds sought solace. The people who walked this path “were not just people who had a death in their family,” she explained, but “people who were dealing with all kinds of things, including changes in community, financial changes and illnesses.” In connecting to Jews who lived thousands of years ago, I felt some solace. While their losses were of a different nature, they probably weren’t feeling that much different than I was.
Ground rules are essential. “Everybody has to listen, nobody can fix it for anybody,” she urged. “Nobody can confront anybody.” No interrupting? How would that work in any Jewish household, including mine? Brener insisted it was possible. She suggested we use a yad—a Torah pointer, whose end is in the form of a hand with an outstretched finger—rather than a stick to help turn the ritual into “something sacred.” The image was a pleasant one. But would this create peace at my Thanksgiving table? “Shalom is a word that also means ‘balance’ and ‘inclusivity,’ and taking into account everybody who is present,” the rabbi said. So if families are seek-
But what about Thanksgiving tables that are divided between mourners and those ready to shout “L’chaim!” and raise a glass? “It’s more complicated in families with a Trump supporter uncle,” Brener conceded. Still, if this describes your family— some are experiencing pain and others not—she suggested that we seek the opportunity to build compassion. That’s something I realized was a valuable exercise whether a family’s political views are united or divided. Specifically, Brener suggested a ritual, modeled after the Native American tradition of a talking stick, in which everyone is allowed to speak—“without being interrupted, comforted, or told they’re wrong” — but only if he or she is holding the stick.
ing some shalom on Thanksgiving, she explained, then the ritual is an opportunity to express hurt, as well as gratitude that there’s a place where they can be heard. Brener was right, I realized. Even in a loving yet opinionated, pro-Hillary family like mine, such a ritual may help us find meaning in our loss and help pave a path for us to move forward. After she and I said our goodbyes and I hung up the phone, I found a yad that one of my sons had been given as a bar mitzvah gift 14 years ago. Raising the yad, I imagined it lifting my family’s post-election gloom. With this new tradition in my pocket, I hope it will allow our Thanksgiving table—and yours—to become a place of shalom. —Edmon J. Rodman is a JTA columnist who writes on Jewish life from Los Angeles. Contact him at edmojace@gmail.com.
jewishnewsva.org | November 21, 2016 | Jewish News | 27
It’s a wrap
Neta Levi sparks creativity at Sandler Family Campus Sherri Wisoff
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he halls of the Sandler Family Campus were lined with tables covered in red and white checked tablecloths on Wednesday, Oct. 19. It was not in preparation for an elaborate Italian dinner, but for the kickoff of three events with Neta Levi, Israel Today’s Israeli mixed media artist. The Family Art Workshop was a frolicking drawing, cutting, tearing and gluing experience, in which families and individuals were able to create their own mixed media collages. Levi offered advice and expertise as young and old rolled up their sleeves applying paint, glue and fabric pieces to their canvases using a traditional paintbrush method or digging into the lovely, gooey paint with their hands. The buzz
of creativity and the laughter of community spirit filled the halls as 120 people enjoyed exploring their artistic talents together. Leslie Siegel, who attended with her daughter Megan Zuckerman and her granddaughter, Chloe, says, ”As a mixed media artist, I was truly inspired by Levi’s beautiful work that I saw in the Leon Family Art Gallery. I encourage more hands on events like this in the future. The children had a terrific time and they all came out with masterpieces!” With Levi’s joyful and inviting instructions, young people soon discovered their own passions. A HAT student, Ophir Newman, has now “acquired canvas and acrylic art supplies and is googling online painting classes to learn more,” says her mother, Michele Newman. Under Levi’s artistic guidance, the
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UJFT Women’s Cabinet created their Hebrew name or their American name in Hebrew, drawing and painting the letters with watercolors using an artistic meditative technique called “Zentangle,” to create beautiful letters with structured patterns. Reflecting on her experience of the workshop, Mara Bates says, “It allowed you to connect to your name, in a spiritual way beyond the actual concentration of doodling in the Sharon Debb, Dina Rahimzadeh, Chamie Haber and Lauren Truslow. lines.” of something you don’t get to do very Outside on the campus grounds in often—to color and not do errands!” the Sukkah, YAD’s momME time group Neta Levi’s visit was part of the Israel had a moment of their own unfettered Today series, presented by Charles Barker creativity. Levi helped them construct 3D Automotive. For more information, visit: pomegranate mobiles, symbols of abunJewishVA.org/IsraelToday or call 757-965dance, while their children were engaged 6107. The Israel Today series is presented by in the JCC babysitting service. Lauren the Community Relations Council of UJFT, Truslow, a YAD community member says, SimonFamily JCC and community partners. “it was so nice to just sit and be mindful
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It’s a wrap
Flour power and challahs galore bloom at 2016 Great Big Challah Bake Laine Mednick Rutherford
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n a show of sisterhood and community, 125 women joined together to learn, laugh, mix, knead and braid at Tidewater’s 2nd Annual Great Big Challah Bake on Wednesday, Nov. 2. Held in the Cardo at the Reba and Sam Sandler Family Campus, the goal of the women’s-only event was to offer the opportunity to learn and experience the mitzvah of making challah and share in the joy of the ritual. From varied backgrounds, the attendees were school-aged and seniors, religiously observant and secular,
Malka and Chama Rudin.
affiliated and unaffiliated, experienced challah makers and newbies. There were sisters, mothers, daughters and grandmothers. Lifelong Tidewater residents and women who’d just moved to town. “This was my first time making challah,” says Morgan Bober, echoing a statement made by many who lined up to learn and frequently laugh. “It was really fun and I’m surprised at how well mine turned out!” “The event sounded like a good way to engage in my Judaism and in the community,” Bober says. “It was that—and a lot more. I’m very happy I came.” The suggested donation for Challah Bake was $5 per person, which helped cover the cost of the kosher ingredients. The first 110 women who came were greeted with a commemorative Great Big Challah Bake UJFT white apron, a gift for registering and arriving early. No matter when they arrived, however, participants went home with at least two challahs, their plastic kneading bowl, instructions for baking their bread for Shabbat, and memories of a truly unique experience. Challah mavens—veteran makers and bakers—were positioned at each table to provide support as the ladies mixed the yeast, water, sugar, salt, oil and flour
Left to right: Shaina Lefkovitz, Shifra Chana Harpaz, Chava Harpaz, Minna Haber, Pesha Shereshevsky, Leah Goldberg, Yehudis Loiterman and Shana Goldfarb.
to make the dough. An “intermission” provided the opportunity for guests to share personal stories about the meaning of challah, and fun, interactive games—during Minna Haber and Shaina Lefkovitz. which time the dough rose. As the women returned to their tables and bowls, they punched down their dough to be able to manipulate it. They then pinched, rolled and braided the dough into exceptional looking loaves, under the tutelage of the volunteer helpers, if needed. By the evening’s end, approximately 300 eggs, 30 pounds of sugar, 150 pounds of flour, pounds of salt, and gallons of oil and water were used to make more than 250 challahs taken home to bake. Reports from those who went home and promptly popped their creations into the oven, and the shared photos of their masterpieces on social media, showed golden brown, soft and luscious looking bread. Tidewater’s 2016 2nd Annual Great Big Challah Bake was chaired by volunteers Jodi Schwartz and Shari Berman. The Hillel and Pollock families were sponShana Goldfarb and Ellya Suissa. sors, and Cater 613 provided light snacks during the intermission. The United Jewish Federation of Tidewater provided funding and organizational support. The Great Big Challah Bake is held in hundreds of communities and cities around the world each year; tens of thousands of women—and some men— participate. It’s a lead up to an even larger global observation, held this year, November 11–12, sponsored and promoted by The Shabbos Project, a South African-based non-profit. Locally, B’nai Israel Congregation hosted events for the observation, also known as the Shabbat Project. To see more photos from the event, visit www.facebook.com/UJFTidewater/photos and click on the album, Tidewater’s 2016 Anne Adler Abraham and Shira Itzhak. Great Big Challah Bake. jewishnewsva.org | November 21, 2016 | Jewish News | 29
It’s a wrap
IN THE MARVELOUS SOUNDS OF THE SEASON!
Beloff Photography
! e c Rejoi HOLIDAY POPS! DECEMBER 9 - 11
JoAnn Falletta conducts the most highly anticipated holiday show of the season—Seasonal songs and traditional carols delivered in full sound and spectacle by the Virginia Symphony, the Virginia Symphony Orchestra Chorus and special guests.
HOLIDAY BRASS DECEMBER 15 & 16
The bold sounds of the Virginia Symphony Brass section ring in the holidays with a blast! Resident Conductor Benjamin Rous guides us through a variety of musical styles.
HANDEL’S MESSIAH DECEMBER 15 -17
Robert Shoup conducts this distinguished performance. From Isaiah’s prophecies to the Hallelujah Chorus, you will be brought to your feet in the Messiah performance of the season.
3rd Annual Mitzvah Day shows off Tidewater Jewish community’s can-do attitude Laine M. Rutherford
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articipants at the Tidewater Jewish community’s 3rd Annual Mitzvah Day on Sunday, Oct. 30 demonstrated the benefits of a can-do attitude, working together to strengthen Jewish identity and improve life for those less fortunate. From teenagers who built sculptures (literally) out of cans, to families who donated heaps of new stuffed animals for sick children, the day was committed to fulfilling Judaism’s commandments (mitzvot) and sharing positivity with others. All members of the community were invited to the Reba and Sam Sandler Family Campus to take part in one, or all three, Mitzvah Day projects. Designed for multi-generational attendees, the projects were centered around the mitzvahs of comforting the sick (bikkur cholim), giving charity to others (tzedakah), and observing the Sabbath (Shabbat). A dedicated group of close to 200 people—of all ages—attended. Some who came competed on teen teams for a cash prize in a Mitzvah Day can sculpture contest—the cash prize was given to charity, and more than 2,500 cans were subsequently donated to the Jewish Family Service of Tidewater’s Foods Closets. Designs included a wheelchair icon with a peace sign wheel, a birthday cake, and a hamsa. Other Mitzvah Day volunteers decorated and constructed family friendly objects for a Shabbat box to take home— more than 50 boxes were completed.
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Partial support for these concerts has been provided by the Business Consortium for Arts Support, Newport News Arts Commission, Williamsburg Area Arts Commission, Virginia Beach Arts and Humanities Commission, and the Virginia Commission for the Arts. TIDEWATER COMMUNITY COLLEGE
PERFORMING ARTS CENTER
Jenefer Snyder and Chava Goldberg.
30 | Jewish News | November 21, 2016 | jewishnewsva.org
Participants created paper flowers and get well cards for patients at the Children’s Hospital of The King’s Daughters. More than 250 new toys were also donated. Cards and flowers will brighten the lives of patients undergoing reha- Brett Broudy, Bradlee Goldberg, Asher Baum, Mitchell Tall, Jared Berklee, Ben Diehl, Sam Zelenka, and Caleb Tall. bilitation at Beth Sholom Village. “It was really special and meaningful to be able to participate in Mitzvah Day,” says Raizy Cook, who attended with her husband and two small children. “To see a whole community come out to learn about the multifaceted Shabbat, volunteer to help others less fortunate, and cheer up children with warm letters and toys, all while learning about each mitzvah made me feel connected and proud to be part of our community,” Cook says. “The event was fun and creative and really was a great learning experience for the whole family.” Organizers of this year’s Mitzvah Day were graduates of the United Jewish Federation of Tidewater’s 2016 ATID leadership development program, designed and facilitated by Anna Goldenberg of TrueImpact Coaching. Representatives of area synagogues and agencies, ATID members volunteered as part of their goal Sarah Ipson, Ben Ipson and Helen Kaplan. to help others in the community work Nusbaum and Scott Levin. Teen volunbetter, together, as they’ve learned to do. teers who planned, designed and built Co-chairs of the overall event were the sculptures were from B’nai Israel Chava Goldberg and Jenefer Snyder. Congregation, BBYO chapters Debra BBG, Chairs of the three projects were Rabbi Kruger BBG, Old Dominion AZA, and Dr. Baruch Danziger, Barbara Fernandez, Israel Brown AZA, the winning group Debbie Hibberd, Andie Pollock, Todd whose members donated their $180 prize Waldman, and Debbie Wilson. Rabbis to children with disabilities. from the Norfolk Kollel also volunteered, To see more photos from the Tidewater providing explanations and insights into Jewish Community’s 3rd Annual Mitzvah the mitzvah of Shabbat and other tradiDay, visit www.facebook.com/UJFTidewater/ tional Jewish commandments. photos and click on the Mitzvah Day 2016 Judges for the teen can sculpture album. competition were Shira Itzhak, Andrew
From Generation to Generation Leslie Shroyer
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earning from one another, some area seniors and teens have found that they may have more in common than they first imagined. To enrich the lives of both teens and seniors by forming friendships, Ohef Sholom Temple applied for and received a two-year grant to fund a gap-bridging program for these two groups called Better Together. It is funded by a national foundation. The program’s goal is not just to brighten the lives of seniors who benefit from the additional socialization with teens. Researchers at Hebrew University of Jerusalem surveyed more than 1,400 teenagers and found that those with close relationships with seniors had fewer emotional problems, better social skills
and reduced tendencies toward violence and bullying. About a dozen seniors from Beth Sholom Village have now met twice with the same number of teen teaching assistants or Madrichim, from Ohef Sholom Temple. The first meeting, which took place with a Friday night Shabbat service and dessert at OST, was a big success. Teens and their families shared the service with BSV seniors, and were warmly welcomed by Rabbi Roz Mandleberg and temple congregants. Kristina Nash, a BSV employee who is not Jewish, attended the event and says the warmth she felt from being a part of the Shabbat service helped her better understand basic Jewish values. The second meeting was a lunch and learn “ice breaker” at BSV, where groups of mixed ages shared stories about where
they have lived and what accomplishments they are most proud of in their lives. “Residents talked about it for days after,” says Josh Bennett, BSV recreation therapy director. “The senior participants are eager for the next meeting!” “I thought it was great to learn their stories,” says Hailey Foer, a teen participant. “I thought it was wonderful,” says Sarah Friedman, another OST teen. “I’m getting to learn a lot from the past that I know nothing about.” The teens will certainly learn more in the months to come, with six more lunch and learns, each with their own theme, and a final luncheon (complete with a video yearbook documenting the get-togethers) with family members at the end of the year. Future topics will include sharing how
the news was communicated 50 years ago versus today’s age of social media. Teens will also teach seniors how to use the Internet, from learning to order photos on Shutterfly, to posting on Facebook, to emailing friends and even Facetiming. Along the way, they will also work together creating art projects, sharing games and photos and planting a garden. Paul Weiner, OSTY advisor, says, “From observing the first luncheon and talking to them after the event, teens enjoyed talking to the seniors and they are already looking forward to the next luncheon at Ohef Sholom Temple.”
jewishnewsva.org | November 21, 2016 | Jewish News | 31
what’s happening Israel Today
Chevra Cinema presents Yentl
Jill and Amnon Damti,
Sunday, Dec. 11, 2 pm Jewish Museum & Cultural Center
a deaf and hearing dance duo from Israel performs Two Worlds
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he Jewish Museum & Cultural Center’s Cheva Cinema film series will present Yentl, a 1983 American romantic musical drama film from United Artists (through MGM) directed, co-written, co-produced by and starring Barbra Streisand. The dramatic story incorporates humor and music to relate the odyssey of a Jewish girl in Poland who decides to dress and live like a man so that she can receive an education in Talmudic Law after her father dies. The film’s musical score and songs, composed by Michel Legrand, include the songs Papa, Can You Hear Me? and The Way He Makes Me Feel, both sung by Streisand. The film received the Academy Award for Best Original Score and the Golden Globe Awards for Best Motion Picture—Musical or Comedy and Best Director for Streisand, making her the first woman to have won Best Director at the Golden Globes. Yentl is considered one of the greatest musical films ever. It runs 136 minutes. $5 donation at the door. The Jewish Museum & Cultural Center is located at 607 Effingham Street in Portsmouth.
Sunday, Dec. 11, 6 pm Museum of Contemporary Art Sherri Wisoff
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n Israeli deaf and hearing dance duo from Israel, Jill and Amnon Damti will perform, Two Worlds, where the worlds of silence and sound are creatively meshed into a moving dance performance. The Damtis use pantomime, sign language and fluid movement to engage the audience in an interactive format—a dance narrative that challenges any preconceived notion of human limitations. Their message, “any- Jill and Amnon Damti. thing is possible” has grown out often performed with dolphins, made aliof their own unique love story. yah to Israel at age 23. A chance meeting The likelihood that this couple would inspired her to learn sign language and she meet, fall in love, marry, have two chiljoined his dance troupe. The rest of their dren, win international dance awards (Best love story is history. International Deaf Dancer), perform at the Amnon says he moves in coordinaWhite House, and travel the globe shartion with Jill without hearing by feeling ing their collaborative dance message, is “the vibrations of the base sounds and testimony to the very idea that “anything the beat…there are many signs we use is possible.” between us, and we constantly keep eye Deaf at birth, Amnon, at age five, and touch contact,” according to published walked with his Yemenite parents on foot reports. to Israel, where he was placed in a special International renown sign language boarding school for the deaf. After seeing interpreter Mindy Brown will interpret the Bolshoi perform on TV at age 10, he during their performance at the MOCA. knew wanted to dance. Parents also have the option to enroll kids At 15, he went to a high school in Tel in a Children’s Art Workshop to make “tunAviv where he discovered a unique dance nel art” while they enjoy Two Worlds. group comprised of deaf dancers, Moshe This performance marks the fourth Efratis Kol Demama (The Voice of Silence). event in the Israel Today series sponsored A quick study, he absorbed the techniques by Charles Barker Automotive presented of classic, jazz and modern dance. He soon by the Simon Family JCC, the Community became their star, struck out on his own Relations Council of UJFT and communiand formed the dance group, Chushihi (The ty partners. For more information or to Sixth Sense). purchase tickets for the event or the workA U.S. citizen, Jill Feingold, a professhop, visit www. JewishVA.org/IsraelToday. sional gymnast and water-ballet artist who
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Fighting Anti-Semitism with Legal Advocacy Tuesday, Dec. 6, 6–7 pm, Reba and Sam Sandler Family Campus
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he Society of Professionals and INSCO Insurance invite community members to attend the next event in the Conversations series, a private discussion with Kenneth L. Marcus, president and general counsel of the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law. Marcus, a former staff director at the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights and Assistant Secretary of Education
for Civil Rights, founded the Brandeis Center in 2011 to combat the resurgence of anti-Semitism in American higher education. (See page 33) Admission is $10 and includes heavy hors d’oeuvres and drinks. For more information or to RSVP, contact edougherty@ ujft.org.
Hebrew Academy of Tidewater Konikoff Center of Learning
K-5 Open House — Wednesday, Dec. 7, 8:30 am
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his event will include information sessions and the chance to meet current HAT faculty, students and parents. RSVP to Carin Simon, admissions director, Hebrew Academy of Tidewater and Strelitz Early Childhood Education Center, at 757-424-4327 or csimon@hebrewacademy.net.
what’s happening
Defining anti-Semitism
YAD Hands on Tidewater
Tuesday, Dec. 6, 7:30 pm Reba and Sam Sandler Family Campus, free Robin Mancoll
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uthor Kenneth L. Marcus will share details from his latest book, The Definition of Anti-Semitism, in which he elaborates on the link between anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism, and how this is impacting the critiques of Israel on university campuses at a Beyond the Book Festival event. Not expecting to dedicate so much time during his career to the battle against campus anti-Semitism, the American civil rights attorney left his law firm in 2001 to fight housing discrimination and then to head the civil rights branch of the U.S. Education Department. His work involved protecting the rights of racial and ethnic minorities, women and the disabled. However, during that time and then as director of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, Marcus discovered that anti-Semitism was surging on university campuses. Marcus soon realized that government and university leaders were ill-equipped to deal with the problem, and worked on new policies to address religious prejudice, including guidelines specific to the rise in anti-Semitism. In 2011, Marcus founded the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law to advance the civil and human rights of the Jewish people and promote justice for all, with a primary mandate to use legal tools to fight campus anti-Semitism. Today, he serves as the organization’s president and general counsel. Although a working definition of anti-Semitism and a connection between anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism exists, they are not consistently used. For example, the U.S. government applies its State Department definition of anti-Semitism to incidents that occur outside the United States, but not to those that apply domestically. Part of the problem, according to Marcus, is that anti-Semitism is not widely understood. Education, he says, should be the first step, but when education is insufficient, more forceful, concerted efforts, including the employment of law and
public policy are necessary, which is the specialty of the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law. Anti-Israel activity on American college Kenneth L. Marcus. campuses led by student groups promoting Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaigns against Israel to isolate the anti-Israel sentiment on university camJewish state, makes students feel uncompuses. fortable and unsafe. These activities also The Definition of Anti-Semitism will be contradict the theory that universities are available for purchase and signing after the meant to offer safe spaces for civil debate program. on the exchange of ideas and education among students and professors. This Beyond the Festival, Simon Family The BDS movement is not new; it only JCC Lee & Bernard Jaffe* Family Jewish extends age-old anti-Jewish hatred in new Book Festival event with author Kenneth settings. In The Definition of Anti-Semitism, Marcus, is free and open to the community Marcus traces BDS origins to 1933 and with RSVP (required), to crc@ujft.org or beyond as the Nazi boycott was one of the 965-6107. first steps in the planned extermination of *of blessed memory the Jewish people, providing a formal structure to justify Upcoming events in the CRC the attacks on and Simon Family JCC’s series: Jewish businesses. Similarly, Marcus Crossing the Line 2 affirms the BDS Wednesday, Jan. 18, 7:30 pm movement provides A documentary revealing the rise of anti-Israel activity a new rationalization and anti-Semitic rhetoric on North American univerin the politically sity campuses, Crossing the Line 2 demonstrates when correct terminology reasonable criticism of Israel ‘crosses the line’ into of today, for the anti-Semitism. It will be shown as part of the Simon anti-Jewish boycotts. Family JCC’s Virginia Festival of Jewish Film presented Marcus will offer by Alma* and Howard Laderberg. (Location TBA.) suggestions for college students to use Words to Action: Empowering Students in the fight against to Address Anti-Semitism on Campus on-campus racism, Sunday, Jan. 29, 1–4 pm as well as a better Reba and Sam Sandler Family Campus understanding of In partnership with BBYO, the Anti-Defamation the new forms of League will present this interactive workshop for anti-Semitism plaguhigh school students and their parents to empower ing the world. His and equip attendees with constructive and effective visit will kick off responses to combat anti-Semitism and anti-Israel bias the Community on campus. Relations Council and Simon Family For more information on the series, contact Wendy JCC’s three part Weissman, assistant CRC director at WWeissman@ujft. series focusing on org or 965-6107. anti-Semitism and *of blessed memory
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ant to put a smile on a teenager’s face this hol-
iday season? Young Adult Division of United Jewish Federation of Tidewater is collecting $5 and $10 gift cards for local teens in need. These gift cards will serve as holiday gifts for teens that need it most. Consider donating gift cards from Starbucks, Subway, Panera, the movies, Target or the mall so that teens will have the opportunity to just be teens. A donation box will be placed at the Simon Family JCC front desk until Monday, Dec. 5. For more information, call 757‑965-6138 or email jamitay@ujft.org.
Beth Sholom Village Annual Switch Day Sunday, Dec. 25 7 am–2 pm Spend time with residents and be part of a more than 30-year-tradition. Volunteer activities include: • Serving food • Reading books • Playing board games • And, more! Well-behaved animals are also welcome. A Switch Day social for residents and volunteers begins at 2 pm. Call or email Josh Bennett to reserve a spot at 757-420-2512 ext. 403 or jbennett@bethsholomvillage.com.
jewishnewsva.org | November 21, 2016 | Jewish News | 33
Calendar December 4, Sunday Brith Sholom Members Meeting & Brunch at Beth Sholom Village. Donna Harrington will speak on special phone systems for the hearing impaired. 11am. For more information about meetings or joining Brith Sholom, contact LeeAnne Mallory at 757-461-1150 or email at Brith. Sholom1@ gmail.com.
The professionals of Wall, Einhorn & Chernitzer, P.C. believe that the journey is just as important as the destination.
December 6, Tuesday Beyond the Jewish Book Festival event with founder and president of the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law, Kenneth Marcus, speaking on his book, The Definition of Anti-Semitism. Free and open to the community. Reba and Sam Sandler Family Campus, 7:30 pm. To RSVP (required) contact crc@ujft.org or 965-6107. See page 33.
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Fighting anti-Semitism with legal advocacy. The Society of Professionals. 6–7 pm. $10. RSVP at edougherty@ujft.org. See page 32. December 7, Wednesday Hebrew Academy of Tidewater Konikoff Center of Learning Open House. 8:30 am. 757-424-4327 or csimon@hebrewacademy.net. See page 32. December 11, Sunday Celebrated Israeli dancers, Jill & Amnon Damti as part of Israel Today. 6 pm at the Virginia Museum of Contemporary Art. See page 32. Purchase tickets (Tickets: $20, JCC members: $15) at www.JewishVA.org/IsraelToday or by calling 757.321.2304.
Wall, Einhorn & Chernitzer, P.C. is an independently owned and operated member firm of CPAmerica International
Chevra Cinema presents Yentl at the Jewish Museum & Cultural Center. 2 pm. $5. See page 32.
150 West Main Street l Norfolk, Virginia l 23510 l 757.625.4700 l www.wec-cpa.com
December 25, Sunday Switch Day at Beth Sholom Village. 7 am–2 pm. 757-420-2512 ext 403 or jbennett@ bethsholomvillage.com. See page 33. *of blessed memory
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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.
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WHO Knew? Wonder Woman Gal Gadot announces pregnancy on Twitter, Instagram
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sraeli actress Gal Gadot announced in a tweet that she and her husband are expecting their second child. Gadot, who will be playing Wonder Woman in DC Comics movies, posted a photo of herself and husband Yaron Varsano, an Israeli real estate developer, taking a selfie of the couple making a heart shape with their hands on her belly. The hashtag reads #mommyforthesecondtime. The couple have a five-year-old daughter. The post also appeared on Instagram. Her character will soon have a movie of her own. Taking place during the World War I era, the movie will introduce Wonder Woman’s alter ego, Diana Prince, and her origins on the Amazonian island of Themyscira. Wonder Woman is scheduled to open in theaters in June. The character was introduced in DC Comics movies several months ago in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. She is also scheduled to appear in the superhero film Justice League, which comes out in November 2017. (JTA)
Marketing Director Ruth Bader Ginsburg makes her opera debut
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upreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg appeared on stage in an opera performed at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C. Ginsburg, 83, performed Saturday, Nov. 12 with the Washington National Opera in The Daughter of the Regiment by Italian composer Gaetano Donizetti. She played the role of the Duchess of Krakenthorp. Some of her lines were rewritten to reflect the current political climate, according to reports. The Los Angeles Times reported that Ginsburg did the rewriting. The new lines referenced among other issues the “birther” campaign against President Barack Obama and her 2013 dissent against weakening the Voting Rights Act. Ginsburg, who reportedly is an opera fan, did not sing, and delivered her lines in English rather than French. She wore a floor-length green gown and sat in a huge chair that did not allow her feet to reach the floor, according to reports. (JTA)
mazel tov to Achievement Mandy Berkowitz has been recognized by Inside Business as a “Top 40 Under 40” business person in Hampton Roads. She is president and founder of The Image
Marketing Group, a marketing, advertising and communications firm. Mandy is the wife of Jeff Berkowitz and mother of Jack. Mandy is the daughter of Suzanne and Marshall Feldman.
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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The United Jewish Federation of Tidewater/Simon Family JCC seeks a candidate with proven managerial leadership and experience coordinating progressive marketing policies and programs. The Marketing Director is responsible for managing the development, and marketing initiatives that support the agency’s strategic and operational marketing, goals and objectives. This position requires a candidate with hands-on experience in the coordination and use of all creative, visual, graphic and written materials required to meet objectives of marketing and communications; including the use of formal and informal, traditional and non-traditional methods to reach all target audiences. Marketing Director oversees all public relations, advertising and promotional staff, agencies and activities.
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C A R E E R O P P O RT U N I T Y H O LO C AU S T CO M M I S S I O N PRO G R A M C O O R D I N ATO R The United Jewish Federation of Tidewater seeks candidates for the position of Holocaust Commission Program Coordinator. This part-time position (approximately 20 hours/week) is responsible for the administrative and program support of Holocaust Commission activities. A minimum of 1-2 years of administrative experience is required. Associate's Degree in business, Public Administration, Jewish Communal Service, or other related and appropriate field, preferred. Candidate must be proficient in using MS Office Suite; have an understanding of social media and its usage; excellent interpersonal and communication skills, both oral and written. Must be available for flexible working hours.
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obituaries Myron G. Eisenberg NEWPORT NEWS—Myron G. Eisenberg, Ph.D., was born in North Chicago, Ill. on May 21, 1944 and passed away suddenly on October 21, 2016. He retired in 2007 as chief of the psychology service, and chief of the education and research service at the Veterans Administration Medical Center in Hampton, Virginia. He had joint appointments at the associate professor level in the Eastern Virginia Medical School’s departments of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, and Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences in Norfolk. He served as chairman of the education committee for the United Jewish Community Center of the Virginia Peninsula for 15 years. Additionally, he served as editor of Rehabilitation Psychology, a journal of the American Psychological Association, for 10 years. He obtained his Ph.D. from Northwestern University and received postdoctoral training at the University of Toronto’s Clarke Institute. Dr. Eisenberg published extensively in the area of rehabilitation, held editorial board positions on several journals, and was a member of several national task forces charged with investigating various quality of life issues of importance to persons with chronic disabling conditions. In addition, he served as a grant reviewer for the Paralyzed Veterans of America’s Research and Technology Foundation. Dr. Eisenberg received recognition at the local, regional, and national levels acknowledging contributions he made to the rehabilitation of physically impaired
persons. A past president and Fellow of the American Psychological Association’s division of Rehabilitation Psychology, he was actively involved in heightening the public’s awareness of the importance of rehabilitation through the promotion of research. In addition, he was interested in the development of standards that would establish a more effective and consistent basis for evaluating the performance of individual rehabilitation service providers. Prior to moving to Hampton Roads, he spent 10 years working as a clinical psychologist at the Cleveland Veterans Affairs Hospital on the Spinal Cord Injury Unit. He was preceded in death by his parents Dora Berman Eisenberg and David Eisenberg of North Chicago, Ill. He is survived by his wife, Ellen, daughter, Toby, sister, Brenda Krit (Norman) of Deerfield, Ill., and brother, Theodore Eisenberg of Omar, Israel. A graveside service took place in The Jewish Cemetery of the Virginia Peninsula. Donations to the United Jewish Community of the Virginia Peninsula (UJCVP) Preschool fund. Beverly Gleischman Virginia Beach—Beverly Gleischman (Anderson) passed away on November 9, 2016 at the age of 87. Born in Norfolk on March 1, 1929, she was the daughter of the late John and Belle Anderson. She was a graduate of Maury High School and a resident of Norfolk, Encino, Calif. and Virginia Beach, and was a founding member of Temple Israel. She is survived by her three sons: Mark,
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Stewart and Jay; seven grandchildren: Max, Katherine, Samuel, Kelly, Jeffrey, Eleanor and Avery and one great-grandchild, Noah. Interment took place at Forest Lawn Cemetery. Donations to the American Cancer Society. Online condolences may be offered to the family at hdoliver.com. Elliott L. Roesen Norfolk—Elliott L. Roesen passed away November 10, 2017. A native of Norfolk, he was the son of the late David and Ida Roesen. He was a Veteran. He was a local caterer for many years providing joy and hospitality to many throughout the area. Mr. Roesen is survived by numerous cousins and other family members throughout Hampton Roads, as well as many dear friends who were privileged to have come to know and love him. Graveside services were held in Forest Lawn Cemetery. Donations may be made to any charity of donor’s choice. H.D. Oliver Funeral Apts. Norfolk. Joyce H. Strelitz Virginia Beach—Joyce Hofheimer Strelitz, Our Blithe Spirit—“Gila”—passed away peacefully without regret or fear at home on Saturday, November 5 in the presence of four generations of loving family. Joyce was born January 9, 1932 to Lee and Margie Hofheimer in Columbus, Ohio, and was predeceased by her brother, Tommy, in 1985. She married Leonard Strelitz in 1952, a pact that became a blessing to family, friends and community. Joyce and
Leonard, along with Buddy and Arlene Strelitz, transformed Haynes Furniture Company into a wonderful business that enhanced the lives of employees, vendors and customers. In 1965, Joyce and Leonard visited Israel and found their lives’ mission— service to, protection and strengthening of the Jewish people under siege in Israel and trapped in hostile Arab countries and Soviet Russia. A Renaissance woman, Joyce soon rose to the highest positions of leadership, also supporting local arts, education and healthcare, but remained humble, centered and down to earth. Joyce was too modest to tell her own story. A gifted artist, musician, playwrite, athlete, and intellect. Depression baby selling popcorn at her father’s Indianola movie theatre. Valedictorian of Bexley High School and Connecticut College for Women—if not for a mid-senior year proposal from Dad, while diligently keeping the box score, at the Dodger-Yankee World Series. Always first to finish the Sunday Times crossword (in ink!) A silver life bridge master. A die-hard St. Louis Cardinal fan. An always frustrated, etiquette-obsessed, but still hole-in-one golfer. Her most joyful moment was early this year—her last trip to Israel to celebrate her 84th birthday accompanied by her kids and toasted by dear friends. Most of all, she taught us how to live and how to die. Joyce is survived by her loving partner, Irving Hodies; her three children, Bonnie (David), Brian (Amy), and E.J. (Randi); along with her 10 wonderful grandchildren: Benjamin, Lauren, Genna, Sasha, Matthew,
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obituaries Talia, Ari, Nathan, Jacob and Jessica, and her newest great-grandchild, Eli. Joyce’s family will forever remember the tireless compassion of Dr. Barbara Parks. In her honor, please contribute to the Joyce and Leonard Strelitz Memorial Fund at the Tidewater Jewish Foundation or the charity of the donor’s choice. Funeral services were held at Ohef Sholom Temple, followed by interment in Forest Lawn. H.D. Oliver Funeral Apts. Online condolences may be made to the family at hdoliver.com.
was writing up until his last moments with his unique brand of humor.” An official statement Nov. 10 on Leonard Cohen’s Facebook page said there would be a funeral in Los Angeles in coming days. Mourners have laid flowers and lit candles at the doorstep of Cohen’s Montreal home, The Globe and Mail newspaper reported. Montreal Mayor Denis Coderre reportedly has pledged to find an appropriate way to honor “one of our greatest Montrealers.” (JTA)
Leonard Cohen buried in Montreal before announcement of his death
Bones unearthed during contested dig at former Jewish cemetery in Ukraine
inger-songwriter Leonard Cohen was buried in his hometown of Montreal hours before his death was made public. Cohen died Nov. 7 in Los Angeles and was buried Nov. 10 at his family’s plot in the Shaar Hashomayim cemetery, according to reports citing a statement from Congregation Shaar Hashomayim, an Orthodox synagogue in the Westmount neighborhood. “Leonard’s wish was to be laid to rest in a traditional Jewish rite beside his parents, grandparents and great-grandparents,” the statement said. He maintained “a lifelong spiritual, musical, and familial connection to the synagogue of his youth.” The Cohen family plot is located just through the front gates of the Jewish cemetery near the base of Mount Royal, The Toronto Star reported. The only evidence of Cohen’s burial is unsettled earth covered by fallen brown leaves in front of an unmarked gravestone, according to the newspaper. “Hineni, hineni, My Lord” and other lyrics to the song You Want It Darker from his latest album released in September were read during the traditional Jewish graveside funeral attended by family and close friends only, the French news agencyAFP reported. The announcement of his death was made Nov. 10 after the funeral. “My father passed away peacefully at his home in Los Angeles with the knowledge that he had completed what he felt was one of his greatest records,” Cohen’s son, Adam, wrote in a Facebook post. “He
LVIV, Ukraine (JTA)—City workers in a Ukraine city suspended their digging at a former Jewish cemetery amid controversy over the unearthing of human remains at the site. Pieces of skull and limbs were among the bones discovered this month at the Old Jewish Cemetery of Lviv, in western Ukraine, where diggers with heavy machinery excavated a 40-foot trench despite previous objections to the work by some local Jews. Officials said the dig, which went through without permission from local rabbinical authorities, was necessary to reinforce a damaged exterior wall. But Meylakh Sheykhet, Ukraine’s director of the Union of Councils for Jews in the Former Soviet Union, disputed the claim. Sheykhet, who complained to police about the dig, said he believed the work was part of a multi-phase commemoration project that he has fought in court, saying it would damage heritage sites and desecrate burial places needlessly in violation of the principles of halachah, Jewish Orthodox religious law. “This dig is as illegal as it is cynical; the city is desecrating Jewish graves it says it wants to commemorate,” said Sheykhet, who has collected pieces of bone throughout this week from the heaps of cemetery earth left exposed by the diggers at the site, which is adjacent to what used to be the Jewish hospital in Lviv. The city, along with the Center for Urban History of East Central Europe there, has announced plans to build a
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memorial park near the area where the work was taking place. The area is part of a larger Jewish burial place that today mostly lies under a main marketplace built during communist times. However, the center’s director, Sofia Dyak, told JTA that the dig was not part of any commemorative project but rather an effort to repair a wall she said was “collapsing.” She added the work is legal. “On Sunday, Rabbi Bald reburied bones that were found,” Dyak wrote in an email. “There are some new remains, and they will be reburied as well.” The plan to build a park near the cemetery is part of a larger commemorative project whose initial phase was unveiled in September with the inauguration of a memorial monument on a part of the former Golden Rose Synagogue complex. In 1939, Lviv was home to 110,000 Jews, a third of its total population. It now has 1,200 Jews. (JTA)
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in Memoriam
Leonard Cohen, whose Jewish-infused poetry and songs inspired generations York in the late 1960s—his song Chelsea
it as the basis for
Hotel is about his stay and that notorious
his own six-minute
(JTA)—Leonard Cohen, the Canadian
refuge for the inspired, the insane and
cover, reinterpret-
singer-songwriter whose Jewish-infused
the indigent—he began to put his words
ing on his guitar
work became a soundtrack for melan-
to music.
the arpeggios Cale
Ron Kampeas
Suzanne, about the devastating pla-
choly, has died. He was 82.
had used to accompany the song.
“It is with profound sorrow we report
tonic affair with a friend’s wife that was
that legendary poet, songwriter and
a factor in his leaving Montreal, was
Running longer
artist Leonard Cohen has passed away,”
recorded by Judy Collins and became a
than six minutes,
his Facebook page said late Thursday,
hit, launching his career.
Buckley’s
Nov. 10. “We have lost one of music’s most revered and prolific visionaries.”
version
Cohen sang in his limited bass and
became the go-to
wrote his songs so he could sing them.
song in the late
It did not give a cause of death but
They would have been dirges but for
1990s for extended TV show montages
expressed his love for the country—
said there would be a funeral in Los
their surprising lyrical turns and reckon-
depicting trauma and melancholy. Cale’s
Cohen toured for troops in the 1973
Angeles in coming days.
ing with joy in unexpected places.
version was used in Shrek in 2001, and
Yom Kippur War—but he also expressed
that did it: The song became inevitable.
sadness at the militarism he encoun-
Cohen, a Montreal native born in
In Bird on the Wire, one of his most
1934, was playing folk guitar by the time
covered songs, he recovers from a crip-
First We Take Manhattan, recorded in
tered there. Under pressure from the
he was 15, when he learned the resis-
pling guilt when he finds inspiration in
the late 1980s when Cohen was living
boycott Israel movement to cancel a
tance song The Partisan while working at
a beggar, and then in a prostitute: “And
much of his time in Europe, plumbs the
2009 concert, he instead donated its
a camp from an older friend.
a pretty woman, leaning in her darkened
anger of a modern Jew traveling through
proceeds—much needed by him—to a
door / She cried to me, ‘Hey why not ask
a postwar consumerist Europe that has
group that advances dialogue between
for more?’”
become adept at ignoring its Jewish
Palestinians and Jews.
“We sang together every morning, going through The People’s Song Book from cover to cover,” he recalled in his first
Cohen embraced Buddhism but never
Best Of compilation in 1975. “I developed
stopped saying he was Jewish. His music
the curious notion that the Nazis were
more often than not dealt directly not
overthrown by music.”
just with his faith but with his Jewish
As a student at McGill University, he
people’s story.
ghosts: I love your body and your spirit and your clothes But you see that line there moving through the station?
Tickets to the stadium at Ramat Gan sold out in minutes. His Israeli fans embraced him that September night, and he returned the love, sprinkling the concert with Hebrew and readings from
became part of Montreal’s burgeoning
His most famous song, covered hun-
alternative art scene, one bursting with
dreds of times, is Hallelujah—he has
one of those.
nervous energy at a time that tensions
said its unpublished verses are endless,
Cohen was droll, but also reverent:
In August he wrote an emotional
between Quebec’s French and English
but in its recorded version is about the
Each of his explanations of his songs on
letter to his former girlfriend and muse
speakers were coming to the fore.
sacred anguish felt by King David as he
1975’s Best Of is sardonic except for one,
Marianne Ihlen, who died in late July,
contemplates the beauty of the forbidden
for Who by Fire.
suggesting he, too, was ready to embrace
His
influences
included
Irving
Layton, the seminal Canadian Jewish
Bathsheba.
I told you, I told you, told you, I was
“This is based on a prayer recited on
scripture and ending it with the priestly blessing.
his death.
poet who taught at McGill and, like
Cohen’s version, released in 1984, did
the Day of Atonement,” was all he wrote.
Last month, in a profile of Cohen in
Cohen, grappled with the tensions
well in Europe (in a video on German
Cohen, in his 70s in the late 2000s,
The New Yorker, Bob Dylan compared
between the secular world and the temp-
TV he is backed by a children’s choir
again began to tour and record; a man-
his fellow singer-songwriter to Irving
tations of faith.
hiding behind a faux Greek set). John
ager had bilked him of much of his
Berlin—linking three iconic Jewish
Cohen began to publish poetry and
Cale recorded a piano-driven version
fortune. He released his final album, You
musicians in one poignant assessment.
then novels, and was noticed by the
for a Cohen tribute album in 1991. Jeff
Want It Darker, last month.
national Canadian press. Moving to New
Buckley heard that version and used
38 | Jewish News | November 21, 2016 | jewishnewsva.org
He often toured Israel, and he
Cohen is survived by a son and a daughter.
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