Massachusetts Jewish Ledger • September 24, 2021 • 18 Tishrei 5782

Friday, September 24, 2021 18 Tishri 5782 Vol. 22 | No. 8 | ©2021 majewishledger.com

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MASSACHUSETTS JEWISH LEDGER

| SEPTEMBER 24, 2021

majewishledger.com

INSIDE

this week

MASSACHUSETTS JEWISH LEDGER | SINCE 1929 |

SEPTEMBER 24, 2021 | 18 TISHRI 5782

4 Briefs

7 Bulletin Board

8 Around Mass

9

Never Mind ....................................5 Burlington resolution to make Vermont first state to support BDS is withdrawn after little support

Milestones

10

So-called World Conference.............................................................................5 20 years later, a look back at the 2001 Durban Conference

Jewish Federation of Central Mass.

17 Synagogue Directory

20 What’s Happening

22

Horror Story...................................14 Anti-Israel content found on Philadelphia libraries’ social media posts

Obituaries

In Memoriam................................ 23 Ed Asner’s Yiddishkeit

Brightest Stars................................8 JPost’s 50 Most Influential Jews includes Massachusetts’ Winnie Sandler Grinspoon of HGF and Covid Warrior Rochelle Walensky

ON THE COVER: Johannes Felbermeyer’s photograph, “Artworks in storage at the Central Collecting Point,” Munich, [ca. 1945-1949].

(Courtesy of the Jewish Museum) depicts dozens of stacked up paintings that were stolen from Jews by the Nazis during World War II. Several such pieces of art stolen from Austrian-Jewish art collector Richard Neumann have been returned to his descendants and are on display at the Worcester Art Museum until January of 2022.

PAGE 12 majewishledger.com

Gary M. Gaffin

Accounting services for all size businesses Gaffin & Associates, LLC 313 Park Ave. Worcester, MA 01609 T: 508-797-4826 F: 508-797-4866 gary@gaffinassociatesllc.com

A Reminder From

Shabbat Shalom

A Reminder From

WORCESTER Metropolitan Area

SPRINGFIELD Metropolitan Area

CANDLE LIGHTING

HAVDALAH

September 24 6:23

September 25 7:20

October 1

6:10

October 2

October 8

5:58

October 9

CANDLE LIGHTING

HAVDALAH

September 24

6:26

7:08

October 1

6:13

Octover 2 7:11

6:56

October 8

6:02

October 9 6:59

MASSACHUSETTS JEWISH LEDGER

September 23 7:23

| SEPTEMBER 24, 2021

2471 Albany Ave., West Hartford, Conn.

860.236.1965 thecrownmarket.com

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MASS BRIEFS Tombstone of Ruth Bader Ginsburg unveiled (JNS) The tombstone of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the first Jewish woman to serve on the U.S. Supreme Court, was unveiled days before the first anniversary of her death on Sept. 18. The grave marker was revealed over the weekend at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia. It features the U.S. Supreme Court seal, which has a single star beneath an eagle’s claws to symbolize the U.S. Constitution’s creation of “one Supreme Court.” Below Ginsburg’s name, she is remembered as an associate justice who served on the Supreme Court from 1993 until her death in 2020 at the age of 87 from complications of pancreatic cancer.

The Brooklyn, N.Y.-born justice shares the tombstone with her husband, Martin, who died in 2010 and is buried alongside her in the couple’s section of the historic cemetery, near former President John F. Kennedy and nine Supreme Court justices, including three who served with Ginsburg: Chief Justice William Rehnquist, and Associate Justices Harry Blackmun and John Paul Stevens.

It is customary for the unveiling of the tombstone to take place on the one-year anniversary of the death, also known as the first yahrzeit, as per Jewish tradition.

Ginsburg was the first woman and the first Jewish person to lie in repose inside the National Statuary Hall at the U.S. Capitol building before her burial. Earlier this year, she was honored in New York with two statues.

UN ambassadors mark anniversary of Abraham Accords (JNS) Ambassadors to the United Nations representing Israel, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, and Morocco marked one year since the signing of the Abraham Accords at a ceremony on Monday in New York.

“The Abraham Accords are the best representation of practicing tolerance and living in peace with our neighbors,” said Israeli Ambassador to the United Nations Gilad Erdan. Erdan was the first dignitary to address the audience gathered at the Museum of Jewish Heritage in Lower Manhattan, which included about 70 ambassadors. “I strongly believe that as others in the region see the fruits of our partnerships and feel this transformation, they will join our circle of peace,” he said.

Also speaking at the event were the UAE Ambassador to the United Nations Lana Nusseibeh, Bahrain Ambassador to the United Nations Jamal Al Rowaiei and Moroccan Ambassador to the United Nations Omar Hilale. They stressed the growing ties between their countries and Israel. Joining them on stage was U.S. Ambassador to the 4

United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield.

“The normalization agreements we’re commemorating today have demonstrated real progress toward a more peaceful region,” she said. “But perhaps what is most remarkable is that in the past year we have gone from ink on a page to concrete improvements between countries.” America, she said, is committed to building and expanding upon these agreements.

Warsaw Jewish community buries remains of unidentified Holocaust victim (JNS) Warsaw’s Jewish community buried the remains of an unidentified Holocaust victim on Tuesday, Sept. 14, found in a building that was once part of the Warsaw Ghetto. “We are here as the family for a person we don’t know,” said Poland’s Chief Rabbi Michael Schudrich, according to the AP. The bones were wrapped in a white cloth and carried on a wooden cart to the grave in Warsaw’s Jewish Cemetery.

Leslaw Piszewski, chairman of the Jewish Community in Warsaw, said according to the report, “after nearly 80 years, this unknown person got his dignity back. This is very important. This is the only thing that we can do for the unknown victim.” The human bones were found in a basement, thought to have resulted from a Jew hiding from German forces that destroyed the area during the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising in 1943.

Israel’s cyber company NSO developed tool to break into iPhones (JNS) The Israeli cyber-surveillance company NSO Group developed a tool to break into Apple iPhones using novel ways to hack the phone since at least February, according to the Internet security watchdog Citizen Lab. The watchdog said that while analyzing the phone of a Saudi activist infected with NSO Group’s Pegasus spyware, it found infiltration into iMessage. This could occur without the targeted person clicking anything for the spyware to work.

Apple released a software update last week to fix the hole in its security system.

“After identifying the vulnerability used by this exploit for iMessage, Apple rapidly developed and deployed a fix in iOS 14.8 to protect our users,” said Ivan Krstić, head of Apple Security Engineering and Architecture, reported Reuters. He said, “attacks like the ones described are highly sophisticated, cost millions of dollars to develop, often have a short shelf life, and are used to target specific individuals.” The Apple security official added that “while that means they are not a threat to the overwhelming majority of our users, we continue to work tirelessly to defend all our customers, and we are constantly adding new protections for their devices and data.”

MASSACHUSETTS JEWISH LEDGER

| SEPTEMBER 24, 2021

Report: Iran a month away from creating nuclear bomb (JNS) Iran may be within a month of attaining its first nuclear weapon, according to a report issued by the Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS) on Monday, Sept. 13. According to the report, which was based on data recently published by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), one month is the “worst-case breakout estimate,” and the Islamic Republic would be able to produce a “significant quantity” of weapons-grade uranium within three months after that.

ISIS, founded in 1993 by former IAEA nuclear inspector David Albright, who still heads the organization, “is a non-profit, nonpartisan institution dedicated to informing the public about science and policy issues affecting international security,” according to its website.

As of Aug. 30, Iran had produced 10 kilograms of uranium enriched to near 60 percent, according to ISIS. Forty kilograms of 60 percent enriched uranium is roughly sufficient to produce one nuclear device, according to the report. The report also notes that the pace at which Iran can enrich uranium has accelerated. The report is based on data from the IAEA’s quarterly safeguards report for Sept. 7, the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency’s first update on Iran’s uranium enrichment program since June 24.

Referring to Tehran’s recent decision to allow the IAEA to service monitoring equipment at the country’s nuclear facilities, the institute said the decision “appears to be intended to ward off a resolution” at the IAEA Board of Governors meeting (Sept. 13-17).

Such a resolution, according to the report, “is long overdue because of Iran’s other major, long-standing incomplete declarations, safeguards violations, and other types of noncooperation that the IAEA reports have detailed.”

Al-Qaeda chief warns ‘Jerusalem will not be Judaized’ (Israel Hayom via JNS) In a video marking 20 years since the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks, Al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri attacked Arab countries for “collaborating” with the United States, calling them “Zionist Arabs.” Al-Zawahiri also vowed that “Jerusalem will not be Judaized.” The video was posted to the website of the U.S. NGO SITE Intelligence Group. Al-Zawahiri named Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates as the chief “collaborators.” Al-Zawahiri took command of the terrorist organization following the assassination of its longtime leader Osama bin Laden in 2011. Rumors of al-Zawahiri’s death has circulated for years, and the assessment in the West is that this video is not proof he is still alive, as he makes no mention it of the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan.

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UP FRONT

MASSACHUSETTS JEWISH LEDGER | SINCE 1929 |

SEPTEMBER 24, 2021 | 18 TISHRI 5782

FESTIVAL OF HATE

20 years ago, the UN Durban Conference aimed to combat racism. Instead, it came to epitomize antisemitism.

BY RON KAMPEAS

(JTA) — Some of the Jewish organizational officials flying into the coastal city of Durban, South Africa, on the last week of August 2001 were excited. They believed the U.N.’s anti-racism conference there would be an opportunity to exchange notes on a cause that the Jewish world had worked on for decades.

Others, steeped in how the United Nations and its affiliates functioned, were wary of some of the players, who were known for tirelessly steering every international conference to complaints about Israel. Still others who had been tracking preparations for the gathering knew that Iran, Israel’s implacable enemy, was planning to take over the proceedings.

But no one was prepared for what it became — a carnival of antisemitic expression that drove Jewish participants to tears each night and had them fearing for their physical safety.

“It was worse than I had imagined,” recalled Irwin Cotler, a longtime Jewish human rights lawyer in Canada who would go on to be his nation’s justice minister.

“Because it was a festival of hate.”

As is conventional at U.N. forums, the governmental conference, which ran Sept.

2-9, was preceded by the nongovernmental organization conference Aug. 27-Sept. 2.

Both would be overshadowed by the 9/11 terrorist attacks. But the NGO conference, say the Jewish participants who attended, was a template for the next 20 years of anti-Israel rhetoric, codifying the argument now increasingly prevalent on the left that Israel is an apartheid state deserving of isolation. It was also an eye opener for many in terms of how criticism of Israel, however legitimate, can be co-opted by an antisemitic agenda. The failure of the human rights organizations present to come to the defense of the Jewish participants, who walked out to jeers and threats, created a rift that persists until today.

This week, Durban IV is slated to take place in New York City. To date, however, majewishledger.com

DURBAN UN

(SHUTTERSTOCK)

more than a dozen countries, including Australia, Austria, Bulgaria, Canada, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Israel, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Slovenia, Slovakia, the United Kingdom and the United States have announced that they will boycott this year’s international conference, which which has been dubbed “the festival of Jew-hate.”

Just what did take place at the inaugural conference in 2001? The Jewish Telegraphic Agency spoke to nine Jewish officials who were there, including Cotler, who was then a member of the Canadian parliament.

The others are: — Stacy Burdett, then the associate government relations director at the Anti-

Defamation League; — Rabbi Abraham Cooper, associate dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center; — Felice Gaer, director of the American Jewish Committee’s Jacob Blaustein Institute for the Advancement of Human Rights; — Richard Heideman, then the president of B’nai B’rith International; — Phyllis Heideman, his wife, who had attended a number of U.N. conferences as a delegate of B’nai B’rith; — David Killion, then the chief of staff to Rep. Tom Lantos, D-Calif., the only Holocaust survivor ever elected to Congress, who headed the U.S. delegation to the CONTINUED ON PAGE 18

MASSACHUSETTS JEWISH LEDGER

BDS resolution withdrawn at Burlington City Council meeting

BY FAYGIE HOLT

(JNS) After more than two hours of public comments, the Burlington City Council meeting in Vermont ended on Monday night, Sept. 13, with a vote to withdraw a resolution that would have made it the first city in the United States to support the BDS movement and efforts to boycott Israel.

“Last night’s vote was an incredible win for those opposed to BDS,” said Yoram Samets, chair of the antisemitism task group of the Jewish Communities of Vermont.

“We found out about this resolution two weeks ago. When we jumped into this challenge, we knew that seven city council members supported the resolution, and we were uncertain where the mayor would stand.”

“The past two weeks,” he added, “have created a fear that many Jews have never experienced.”

On withdrawing the resolution from the agenda, council member Ali Dieng, who sponsored it, said it went through a process that included approval from the city’s Racial, Equity, Inclusion and Belonging Committee and was supported by at least 27 local organizations. But on Monday, he said he welcomed more discussion, and after hearing the feedback and opposition, the resolution was “not yet ready” for passage.

The resolution said, in part, that Burlington “expresses solidarity with the Palestinian people … and endorses the Palestinian-led Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement.”

It also blames the violence between Israel and the Hamas terror organization that runs the Gaza Strip—and with its proxies launched more than 4,000 rockets at civilian population centers in the Jewish state in May—squarely on Israel’s shoulders.

According to council member Karen Paul, the city received 2,000 emails from throughout Vermont and across CONTINUED ON PAGE 21

| SEPTEMBER 24, 2021

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Two Massachusetts women ranked ‘Top Jews’ by Jerusalem Post

very year, The Jerusalem Post, Israel’s oldest English language newspaper, ranks the 50 most influential Jews in the world.

While this past year has been dominated by the coronavirus pandemic, the Post strived to create a list showcasing the diversity of the Jewish nation and highlighting people from all walks of life – politics, diplomacy, science, and art.

Two women from Massachusetts made the list this year: CDC Director Rochelle P. Walensky of Newton is ranked third, while Winnie Sandler Grinspoon, president of the Harold Grinspoon Foundation was ranked 34th.

According to the JPost, Walensky is “one of the most well-known faces in America’s fight against the COVID-19 pandemic. As the country’s director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) she has taken to the nightly news, Twitter and Facebook to inform the public about the challenges posed by the virus and the steps the US is taking to control it.”

Winnie Sandler Grinspoon, daughterin-law of philanthropist Harold Grinspoon, was selected for “continuing the pioneering philanthropic work of her father-inlaw to ensure that the foundation will continue to be a major presence in Jewish education for many years to come.” The article lists several HGF programs that Sandler Grinspoon continues to lead, like PJ Library, which distributes free Jewish-themed books, music and resources each month to more than half a million Jewish children around the world -- and its Israeli counterpart, Sifriyat Pijama.

According to an article in the online magazine Tablet, Harold Grinspoon got the idea for PJ Library when he saw Winnie give out Jewish books as afikomen prizes to his grandchildren at the Seder table one Passover. Other HGF programs cited include JCamp180, which provides consulting services in board development, strategic planning, fundraising, and outreach technology to volunteer boards of affiliated camps; and Life & Legacy, which assists communities across North America, through partnerships with Jewish Federations and foundations, to promote legacy giving to build endowments that will provide financial stability to Jewish communities and agencies in the future.

Ranked No. 1 on the list are the men that put together Israel’s first change government in more than a decade, overturning former prime minister

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THE FULL JERUSALEM POST LIST:

WINNIE SANDLER GRINSPOON

ROCHELLE WALENSKY Benjamin Netanyahu: Prime Minister Naftali Bennett and Foreign Minister Yair Lapid.

“The most obvious change is, of course, in the name and face at the helm,” writes Jerusalem Post Diplomatic Correspondent Lahav Harkov. “But there’s also a change in attitude.” \ The full JPost list, shown at right, includes Olympic gold medalists, tech pioneers and some of the most passionate philanthropists of the Jewish world.

MASSACHUSETTS JEWISH LEDGER

1. Naftali Bennett & Yair Lapid 2. Antony Blinken 3. Rochelle P. Walensky 4. Albert Bourla 5. Avril Haines 6. Isaac Herzog 7. Ronald Lauder 8. Eynat Guez 9. Michael Ellis & Lucy Frazer 10. Benjamin Netanyahu 11. Sylvan Adams 12. Gideon Sa’ar & Benny Gantz 13. Ayelet Shaked, Yifat Shasha-Biton & Tamar Zandberg 14. Aviv Kochavi & David Barnea 15. Nicola Mendelsohn & Adi Soffer Teeni 16. Ronald Klain 17. Wendy Sherman 18. Avigdor Liberman 19. Esther Hayut 20. Jan Koum 21. David Friedman, Steve Mnuchin, Jared Kushner & Yossi Cohen 22. Douglass Emhoff 23. Ariel Zwang 24. Stacey H. Schusterman 25. Roman Abramovich 26. Houda Nonoo 27. Deborah Lipstadt 28. Larry Ellison 29. Sara Blakely & Tory Burch 30. Tamara Cofman Wittes 31. Joshua Harris & Marc Rowan 32. Amira Ahronoviz 33. Betsy Berns Korn & Howard Kohr 34. Winnie Sandler Grinspoon 35. Anthony Pratt 36. Yael Eckstein & Shari Dollinger 37. Shuki Hershcovich 38. Yifat Oron 39. Susan Solomon 40. Mayim Bialik 41. Russell F. Robinson 42. Felicia Herman 43. Dan Gilbert 44. Avraham Duvdevani 45. Sarit Zehavi 46. Yael Vizel 47. Artem Dolgopyat & Linoy Ashram 48. Julia Haart 49. Shalev Hulio 50. Delphine Horvilleur

NAFTALI BENNETT AND YAIR LAPID

PHILANTHROPIST RONALD LAUDER

DEPUTY SEC. OF STATE WENDY SHERMAN

WHATSAPP CO-FOUNDER JAN KOUM

FIRST GENTLEMAN DOUGLAS EMHOFF

HOLOCAUST HISTORIAN DEBORAH LIPSTADT

ACTRESS MAYIM BIALIK

OLYMPIC CHAMPIONS LINOY ASHRAM AND ARTEM DOLGOPYAT

| SEPTEMBER 24, 2021

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BULLETIN BOARD JEWISH HEALTHCARE CENTER HOME RUN 5K/FAMILY FUN DAY ON SEPT. 26 WORCESTER – Jewish Healthcare Center’s 18th Annual Home Run 5K/Family Fun Day by Patrick Motors will take place at the Jewish Healthcare Center, 629 Salisbury St., on Sunday, Sept. 26 at 10 a.m.

The community is invited to Run/ Walk with their dogs and the entire family; complete 3.2 miles of running or walking and enter to win great prizes. There will be a Bouncy House and kids activities and a free Bagel Breakfast and Hot Dog Lunch for registered runners and walkers. The first 100 registered runners will receive t-shirts.

Registration is $25 through Sept. 25 and $20 on race day. Please arrive between 9:30-9:45 to register.

Proceeds from this event provide much needed services and programs for Jewish Healthcare Center’s residents and patients.

JHC is one of New England’s most respected healthcare facilities, providing Long-Term Care, Alzheimer Care, Short-Term Rehab, Hospice, HomeCare, PrivateCare, JHC LifeCare Management, and Assisted Living at Eisenberg Assisted Living Residence.

Please contact Jody Fredman with any questions jfredman@jhccenter.org or (508) 798-8653. To Register go to the following Link: https://raceroster.com/50560 TEMPLE ISRAEL GREENFIELD PRESENTS: REAL TEEN THEATER! GREENFIELD – Have fun coming together to create theater! Improvise an entire script, rehearse and perform it together.

Theater artist and educator Sara Berliner will lead a small group of teens in a devised theater workshop jumping off from Jewish folklore and stories, culminating in a performance.

Any teens, Jewish or not, ages 12-18, are welcome to participate The group will meet on Sunday mornings from Oct. 3 – Nov. 7, (except Oct. 10) from 10:30-12 noon. Class sessions will be hybrid, some on zoom and some in person TBD. The final performance will be in person if health mandates allow, and will take place Nov. 14.

The theater program is free to Temple Israel members with a $20 participation fee for non-Temple Israel members, with no one turned away for lack of funds. For more information or to register, call (413) 773-5884.

COMMUNITY TO HONOR 96-YEAR-OLD HOLOCAUST SURVIVOR BOSTON – In October, 1942, as young Israel ‘Izzy’ Arbeiter’s father was dragged away by Nazi death camp guards in Poland, he promised his father that he would not let the world forget what happened to six majewishledger.com

million European Jews and millions of other innocent Holocaust victims. For 75 years Izzy has kept that promise, turning it into action, speaking to groups of all ages on three continents about the roots of antiSemitism and prejudice – always with the theme “Never again.”

May the New Year be filled with blessings, On Oct. 6, Izzy of Newton, now 96, will health, happiness, and sweet moments be honored at the New England Friends of for you and your family.

March of the Living (NEF MOTL) Second Annual Tribute Event ‘Voices from the Past… Lessons for the Future.’ The theme of the event is “A promise kept: Honoring the David Peskin, Southern New England President enduring impact of Israel ‘Izzy’ Arbeiter.”

He will receive the Stephan Ross Excellence Eric Berg, Southern New England Campaign Chair in Holocaust Education Award, named for New England Holocaust Memorial Founder, Sara Hefez, Executive Director Stephan Ross. Lifelong friends after arriving Dar Nadler, Israel Emissary in Boston following World War II, both men dedicated their lives to ensure critical lessons of the Holocaust would never be forgotten.

The International March of the Living jnf.org is an annual educational program that 800.JNF.0099 brings over 10,000 high schoolers from 50 countries to Poland and Israel to study the history of the Holocaust and learn about roots of anti-Semitism and prejudice.

Through its fundraising campaign, NEF MOTL provides scholarships to high school juniors and seniors who wish to participate and is committed to a $2,000 scholarship for every qualified teen to be part of this life changing heritage experience.

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ISRAEL “IZZY” ARBEITER the rise in anti-Semitism and demonization of Israel on college campuses, now is the time to instill the lessons of the Holocaust in our youth,” said Irv Kempner, chair of NEF MOTL and the son of Holocaust survivors.

“Educating, encouraging and empowering the next generation of Jewish leaders to fight anti-Semitism and strengthen their sense of Jewish identity is the goal of MOTL.” This event is free and open to the public.

To attend the virtual, free tribute event, visit website wizevents.com/nemotl2021.

Advance registration is requested. For questions or more information, email tribute@motlnewengland.org.

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| SEPTEMBER 24, 2021

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Around Massachusetts

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Fun on the farm

Fun in the sun with YAD

Little ones enjoyed fresh air and sunshine at the PJ Library of Central MA Summer meet-up at Tougas Farm. The kids got the chance to “drive” tractors and feed the goats.

It was a beautiful day outdoors for YAD – Young Adult Division - Newcomer Picnic at Dean Park in Shrewsbury.

What could be more fun than a giant Jenga game to bring young adults together? New friends also bonded over a bagel feast and friendly games of corn hole.

MASSACHUSETTS JEWISH LEDGER

| SEPTEMBER 24, 2021

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Nora Gorenstein steps in as interim director of Jewish Federation of Western Mass.

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PRINGFIELD – Nora Gorenstein has been named interim executive director of the Jewish Federation of Western Mass. She has served the Federation as development officer since July of 2019.

“I’ve actually been working on a lot of these big picture questions for the Federation in my capacity as development officer. I was asked by our board chair, Lara Curtis, if I would be interested in stepping up to this role, because I had already been working very closely with our board members and with donors and community members on what we were looking at doing this year. I was just very excited, thankful, and appreciative of the confidence that the board was willing to place in me in this interim role. It’s been an exciting few weeks.”

“I recently chaired Federation’s Women’s Philanthropy and had the NORA GORENSTEIN opportunity to work with Nora for two years on Women’s Philanthropy programs and also on fundraising before she took on this directorial position,” said Curtis. “She has excellent and solid judgement and managerial skills, she’s creative, and she has so much to offer in her new position. Her ability to demonstrate tactful diplomacy consistently is also very impressive, and also critical when working with the many people and organizations under the umbrella of Federation. So much of the feedback from community members on Nora’s work has been commendable, which does not surprise me at all. We are very fortunate to have Nora Gorenstein at the helm of our organization.”

A native of the Washington, D.C. area, Gorenstein received her BA in English and Education and her master’s degree in English Literature from Brandeis University. She has worked in education, locally at Lubavitcher Yeshiva Academy and Heritage Academy as well as at local religious schools. Prior to coming to the Jewish Federation, she worked for the Harold Grinspoon Foundation working with PJ Library and also on engagement programs and the North American Grinspoon Awards for Excellence in Jewish Education. She and her husband Eric live in Springfield with their two daughters, Sofia and Jackie.

One of the most important tasks that Gorenstein and the Federation board are working on is implementing some of the information they have gathered from the demographic study that was overseen by The Maurice and Marilyn Cohen Center for Modern Jewish Studies (CMJS) / Steinhardt Social Research Institute (SSRI) at Brandeis University.

“Right now, I think it is very clear to me, having completed the community study – which we did between 2019 and 2020 – that this is the right time for us to start moving forward with that information,” Gorenstein said. “It’s not the moment to begin a strategic planning process because we’re still in the midst of a lot of transition, but it’s the perfect time for us to really access what we’ve been doing and try to start putting some pieces that we learned in the community study into place.

“We’re really embarking on an assessment process, thinking about what the community needs. What I’m really excited about from the community study is that it showed us some more of the specifics about our community demographics and some of the areas of our local community population that might not already be a part of this type of planning process. Now it’s a question of how we connect with that aspect of our population and the people who previously haven’t been heard and make sure we are listening to everyone’s voices.”

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Rabbi Debra Kolodny is new executive director of LGA

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ORTHAMPTON – The Lander-Grinspoon Academy (LGA) has named Rabbi Debra Kolodny as its new executive director. Rabbi Kolodny brings twenty years of executive non-profit leadership to the position, having served as the executive director for two national Jewish organizations, ALEPH: Alliance for Jewish Renewal and Nehirim. They also served two local non-profits in Portland, Ore. gon and served in both a rabbinic and executive capacity in two congregations.

“The Board of Directors is absolutely thrilled to have Debra as the next executive director of LGA, said LGA Board Chair Lisa Newman. “Given the importance of outreach, enrollment and financial sustainability, as well as growing partnerships with congregations and other Jewish institutions, Debra’s expertise in coalition and

RABBI DEBRA KOLODNY institution building, Jewish education, program expansion, fundraising and strategic planning will be especially beneficial to the mission and growth of the school.”

“I am delighted to be joining such an impressive institution and to be working with such an amazing Principal, faculty, Board and group of families,” said Rabbi Kolodny. “I am excited to help grow the school so that even more area families can take advantage of LGA’s remarkable general and Judaic academics, sophisticated music, art and performance programming, outdoor education at Abundance Farm and focus on tikkun olam (civic engagement and world repair). “But we all know that a school is not just its content. A school is also about culture and character.

To serve in LGA’s pluralistic environment where students learn together in heart centered joy is an honor. To join a school where Jews of all religious, cultural and racial backgrounds, including those in interfaith and/or LGBTQIA+ families are not just welcomed, but celebrated, is kind of a dream come true. What could be better than helping cultivate our next generation with wisdom, knowledge, care and compassionate responsibility for one another and the earth?”

Rabbi Kolodny is a native of Far Rockaway, NYC and attended undergraduate college at Cornell. They attended Law School in Philadelphi and lived in Washington D.C. for 26 years. Rabbi Kolody comes to Northampton with their wife, Brio Howard, and their 13-year-old Border Collie/St. Bernard, Cinnamon.

MASSACHUSETTS JEWISH LEDGER

| SEPTEMBER 24, 2021

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News and Jewish Community Update

THE YEAR AHEAD

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t’s cliché to say that a lot has changed over the past year and half. We’ve all had our fill of articles and news stories talking about the anxieties, challenges, and difficulties families and institutions have faced through the pandemic, and we all are eager for good news, and so I am happy that we have good news to report. Our Jewish community, and Central Massachusetts in general continues to grow and develop in many positive ways.

One very bright point is population growth.

Over the past five years we have welcomed 611 STEVEN SCHIMMEL, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR new Jewish households into our Federation’s catchment area. This is a growing community and one that has attracted new families through the pandemic. So, for these new families, and others who have been here much longer, here is a short list of some of what we have and what we should be proud of. We have a great JCC, and a variety of synagogues representing all denominations of Jewish life, we have PJ Library, and Chaverim, and programs that assist and protect those in need at any age- Rachel’s Table for those who are hungry, and other assistance for those who simply need

transportation. We have a strong college group at Clark Hillel, a very active YAD program, and leadership training program so that all our communal organizations have the piece-of-mind knowing that a new cadre of Jewish leaders will be available to serve in leadership positions. We have the Jewish Healthcare Center where the elderly can age in dignity with other Jews, and we have religious, cultural, and artistic outlets so that you can approach your Judaism in a way that suits you. We also have several community-wide events throughout the year that bring together congregants from all our area’s synagogues- a hallmark of our unity. And having this united community, where everyone is celebrating and working collectively is perhaps the most important factor for the success of Jewish life in Central MA- and that is primarily what Jewish Federation is here to do. Yes, we run an annual fundraising campaign and those dollars go to all the very important activities and institutions listed above and much more, but without a united community we wouldn’t achieve nearly as much, newcomers wouldn’t choose us, our congregations would fight and fail, and we would go unnoticed in the secular world. So, this coming year let’s build on our strength and do even better. Let’s get every Jewish household in our area to be involved and to be a part of the community.

jewishcentralmass.org

STAY CONNECTED YAD (YOUNG ADULT DIVISION) September

Sukkot Celebration: Pizza in the Hut, Sunday, September 26th, 2:30 pm October

Fall Hike, Date TBA Mega Maze, Date TBA Outdoor Shabbat Lunch, Date TBA November

Outdoor Shabbat Lunch, Date TBA December

Virtual Hanukkah Party and Latke Making, Saturday, December 4th, 6:30 pm Virtual Stitch ‘n Bitch, Date TBA Virtual Chinese and a Movie, December 25th Keep up with ongoing events via YAD Private Facebook Group

PJ LIBRARY & PJ OUR WAY PJ/PJOW Pumpkin Painting, Sunday, October 3rd, 2:30-4:00 pm, Davidian Farms, Northborough

PJ Library at the Jewish Healthcare Center 5K Road Race, Sunday, September 26th, 10:00 am PJ/PJOW Field trip to the Worcester Community Fridge, Sunday, November 7, 2:30 pm

PLEASE BE OUR PARTNER. Give to the Annual Campaign, support Jewish life, prepare for the future.

CHAVERIM Fall Hike, Date TBA

COMMUNITY JFCM Annual Meeting, Tuesday, October 5 at 7:30 pm.

For safe,united,and vibrant community.

2022 Annual Campaign

www.jfcm.org 508-756-1543

Being held virtually this year.

Please keep in touch with all ongoing events by visiting our Facebook pages or contacting Mindy Hall, mhall@jfcm.org *Note, events subject to change based on current CDC and state recommendations for in-person vs. virtual.

CHAVERIM’S CAFE CHAVEROT TAKE A COFFEE BREAK TOGETHER

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MASSACHUSETTS JEWISH LEDGER

| SEPTEMBER 24, 2021

majewishledger.com

News and Jewish Community Update

jewishcentralmass.org

“Legacy giving allows everyone to be a philanthropist, to acknowledge the impact local organizations and programs have had on their life and make it possible for future generations to have a similar experience.

We are sothankful that to date 18,000 donors across North America have stepped up and made a legacy commitment to one or more valued organizations. Imagine if each of you reached out to one other person, shared why you left a legacy and encouraged your friend or family member to join you. We would double our numbers and the Jewish future would be twice as bright.”

Arlene D. Schiff, National Director of the LIFE & LEGACY program.

The Jewish Federation of Central Mass would like to honor our local community members who have committed to leaving a legacy gift as part of our LIFE & LEGACY program.

We are proud to present the list of LIFE & LEGACY donors as of September 9, 2021.

Myra & Jay Aframe Susan & Howard Alfred Abbe Allexenberg Michael Allexenberg Benita Amsden William Amsden Anonymous (67) A. Averbach Brad Avergon Cynthia Avergon Robert Bachrach Mike & Anita Z”L Backer Robin Baer Bernard Bailin Z”L Elizabeth & Joel Baker Margot Barnet Jacqueline Bechek Cara Berg Powers Jordan Berg Powers Mark Birnbaum & Meg Hoey Patricia Bizzell Rabbi & Mrs. Yakov Blotner Robert & Stacey Blumberg Lydia Borenstein Morton & Lorraine Z”L Brond David Bunker Deborah Bunker Barbara Callahan Eric Capellari Reva Capellari Robert & Shari Cashman Ethel K. Chaifetz Mark & Julie Chapleau Alberta Chase Lori Chastanet Paul Chastanet Michelle V. Cochran Alysa & Mitch Cohen Janice & David Cohen Jonathan Cohen Lisa Cohen Rabbi Valerie Cohen Alan Cooper David Coyne Jonah Cuker Douglas Cutler Melvin Cutler Herbert K. Daroff majewishledger.com

Judy & Stu Deane Evelyn Dolinsky Robyn Lori Bernstein Donati EJ Dotts Howard Drobner & Maxine Garbo Shelley Dubin & Dennis Lindenberg Victoria Dubrovsky Ruth Rubin Rabbis Joe & Lisa Eiduson Donna & Joel Elfman Gary Englander Marlene Farbman Saul Feingold Deborah Fins Edith Fisher Everett Fox Joshua Franklin Jody Fredman Jason & Laurie Fromer Stuart Glass Norman Glick Z”L Lillian Glixman Z”L Steven Goldstein & Sharon Brown Goldstein Jennifer & Sam Goodman Larry & Cora Gordon Harvey & Patti Gould Carole & Mark Grayson Jeffrey Greenberg Joel N. Greenberg Barbara Greenberg Z”L Minna & Ira Gregerman Jamie Grossman Rabbi Rachel Gurevitz Gary Gurwitz Rabbi Debra Hachen & Peter Weinrobe Mindy Hall Steven & Debra Heims Family Peter Herman and Stefanie Bradie Sarah & Neil Herzig Ilene S. Hoffman Emily Holdstein James Holdstein Joshua Honig Bernard Z”L & Beverly Hurwitz Martha Hurwitz Col. Irving Yarock Post 32 Jewish

War Veterans Benjamin Joseph Cynthia Kalish Frank W. Kanserstein Cheryl & Gary Kasof Carol Goodman Kaufman Joel M. Kaufman, MD Eli & Iris Kraus Elliot Krefetz Sharon Krefetz Anna M. Krendel Steve Krintzman Nancy B. Leavitt Phillip Leavitt Van Leichter & Marcy Supovitz Dana Levenson Steven B. Levine Z”L Vincent Librandi Howard & Thelma Lockwood Z”L Judith Luber-Narod Benjamin and Cara Lyons Robert Mack Gordon Manning & Karen Rothman Kim & Mike Manning Gregory Manousos & Amy Rosenberg Judith K. Markowitz Stacey & Stephen Marmor Deborah Martin Toni & Glenn Meltzer The Michelson Family Errol Mortimer Alan Moss Jeffrey Narod Barbara Newman Stephanie Oakan Allison & David Orenstein Marcy Ostrow Matthew Ostrow Sondra Padow Glenn & Pamela Penna Marlene Persky Marlene & David Persky George and Becky Pins Elizabeth Raphaelson Jonathan Rappaport Ghodrat & Lida Refah Mary Jane Rein

Toby Richmond Z”L Harriet & Jordan Z”L Robbins Barry Robins Suzanne Robins Emily & Martin Rosenbaum Martha Rosenblatt Rachel and Myron Rosenblum Barbara Rossman David & Sandra Roth Bernie Rotman Benita Rotman Ida Rotman Z”L Hope Rubin Ruth Rubin Anonymous Adam Sachs Jonathan & Anne Sadick Victor Saffrin Larry & Eileen Samberg Yael Savage Roberta Schaefer Steven Schimmel Paul & Zelda Schwartz Benson & Norma Shapiro Mark & Debra Shear Rachel & Philip Sher Eva Sherman Z”L Carl P. Sherr Dan Shertzer Allan Shriber Judy Shriber Debra L. Shrier Richard Shrier Fred Shuster Marcy Shuster Edward & Merna Siff Jonathan & Lisa Sigel The Sigel Family Foundation Bonnie & Richard Silver Ronald J. Silver Richard P. Silverman Carol Sleeper Michael & Carol Sleeper Bradford A. Smith Lauren P. Smith Michael & Susan Smith Morris Snieder Z”L Elaine Solomon

MASSACHUSETTS JEWISH LEDGER

Paula Sommer Denise Sosnoff Steven Sosnoff Morty Sreiberg Dotty & Jerry Starr Howard & Carolyn Stempler Alan & Nina Stoll Mari & Allen Storm Andrea Sullivan Rabbi Michael Swarttz Lisa Thurlow Laura & Richard Traiger Dr. Sheila Trugman Wayne Ushman Patricia & Leonard Vairo Brenda Verduin-Dean Bruce & Ellen Wahle Mark Waxler Brian Weiner William Weinstein Ellen Weiss Matthew Weiss Irving & Selma White Michael & Beth Whitman Steven and Kimberly Willens David Wilner Wendy Wilsker Steve & Lori Winer Steve & Judy Wolfe Marilyn Wolpert Sharon & Alan Yaffe Jody & Alan Yoffie Allen Young Joyce Zakim Pamela Zinn

Please Join us for the Jewish Federation of Central MA

Annual Meeting

and welcome new board President Ben Lyons, & new board members.

-meeting scheduled to be held virtually-

Tuesday, October 5 at 7:30PM Please RSVP to director@jfcm.org for meeting link.

| SEPTEMBER 24, 2021

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What happened to all the art that Nazis looted?

This Jewish Museum exhibit tells the story of several masterworks

BY CHLOE SARIB

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reat works of art often become so present in our everyday lives — the “Mona Lisa” on a mug, “The Starry Night” on a sweater, Basquiat in Beyoncé and Jay-Z’s Tiffany campaign — that it’s easy to forget how fragile the originals are. These images that populate our collective conscious-ness all started as a single destructible canvas. But most museums don’t highlight the life these artworks have had as physical objects — often be-cause that history is wrapped up in colonialism and theft.

At the new Jewish Museum exhibition “Afterlives: Recovering the Lost Stories of Looted Art,” which opened last month in New York, this over-looked aspect of a painting’s history becomes the focus.

“It is often difficult to understand the ‘biography’ of an artwork simply by looking at it, and even more difficult to uncover the lives and experiences of the people behind it,” reads the text on the first wall visitors encounter, displayed beside Franz Marc’s “The Large Blue Horses.”

The gallery is organized around how the artwork it features — including works by Chagall and Pissarro (both Jewish), Matisse, Picasso, Bonnard, Klee and more — came to hang there. All the pieces displayed have one quality in common: They were either directly affected or inspired by the looting and destruction of the Nazis.

“The vast and systemic pillaging of artworks during World War II, and the eventual rescue and return of many, is one of the most dramatic stories of twentiethcentury art… Artworks that withstood the immense tragedy of the war survived against extraordinary odds,” the text continues.

“Many exist today as a result of great personal risk and ingenuity.”

One of the most striking instances of bravery the exhibit recounts is that of Rose Valland, a curator at the Jeu de Paume, which housed the work of the Impressionists.

During the collaborationist Vichy regime, the Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg, or ERR, took over the museum build-ing.

The ERR, “one of the largest Nazi artlooting task forces operating throughout occupied Europe,” used the space to store masterpieces it had taken.

Valland, who had worked at the Jeu de Paume before the war, stayed on during the Occupation and collaborated with the French Resistance to track what the Nazis did with the stolen paintings.

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MASSACHUSETTS JEWISH LEDGER

Johannes Felbermeyer, “Artworks in storage at the Central Collecting Point, Munich, [ca. 1945-1949].”

(Jewish Museum) “At great personal risk,” including sneaking into the Nazi office at night to photograph important documents, “she recorded incoming and outgoing shipments and made detailed maps of the extensive network of Nazi transportation and storage facilities.” Pieces by Jewish or modernist art-ists were often labeled “degenerate” and slated for destruction. Valland was unable to save many of them and referred to the room where they were housed as the “Room of the Martyrs.”

In the exhibit, Valland’s story is overlaid on a 1942 photograph of this room. Some of the works in it — by Andre Dérain and Claude Monet, among others — are believed to have been destroyed. But three of the paintings that survived are on the adjacent wall: “Bather and Rocks” by Paul Cezanne, “Group of Characters” by Pablo Picasso, and “Composi-tion” by Fédor Löwenstein.

They last hung together in the Room of the Martyrs, awaiting their fate like many of the Jews of Europe.

Some Impressionist paintings on display at the Jewish Museum, like Ma-tisse’s “Girl in Yellow and Blue with Guitar,” spent the Holocaust in the personal collections of highranking Nazi officials — Hermann Goering in this case.

Others — like Marc Chagall’s “Purim,” a study for a commissioned St. Petersburg mural he never painted — were confiscated, labeled “degenera-te” for their Jewish authors and content. But that didn’t stop the Nazis from selling them to fund the war effort. The exhibit calls out these finan-cial incentives that spurred the Nazis to steal | SEPTEMBER 24, 2021

from Jewish collectors: It was as much about seizing Jewish wealth as about any ideological be-liefs. Germany was in debt when the Nazis came to power, and even “de-generate” art was often sold on the international market “to raise funds for the Nazi war machine” if they thought it would fetch a good price. So, the Nazis weren’t even principled in their anti-Jewishness; they were happy to profit off of works by Jewish artists and were often motivated by simple greed.

“Purim,” painted in 1916-17, contains “folkloric imagery and vivid colors drawn from Chagall’s memories of his childhood in a Jewish enclave in the Russian empire.”

Seeing a depiction of a holiday that celebrates Jews surviving persecution in this World War II context is poignant.

The exhibit includes documents from the collection points, in Munich and Offenbach, where the Allies traced the paths of stolen work, stored them when recovered, and eventually tried to “reverse the flow” by sending them back where they belonged.

Staring at a map of how far some confiscated Jewish literature had traveled is intimidating in the sheer scope of this staggering pre-internet task.

“Afterlives” also features art by Jews who faced persecution directly — pieces made at the camps themselves or while in hiding. The haunting, delicate drawings of Jacob Barosin, who made them while fleeing to France and ultimately to the U.S., were moving. And the presence of “Bat-tle on a Bridge,” a looted painting so revered by the Nazis that Hitler had earmarked it for his future personal Fuhrermuseum in Austria, was chilling. Its inventory number, 2207, is still visible on the back of the can-vas.

But what is most captivating about the exhibit was how it helps the visitor imagine what Jewish cultural life was like before the Nazis came to power. I often have the impression that accounts of the Holocaust concentrate more on the horrors of the camps and less and on the individual lives and communities they destroyed.

Here, I learned about Jewish gallerist Paul Rosenberg, whose impressive gallery the Nazis co-opted — after seizing his valuable art, of course — for the “Institute of the Study on the Jewish Question,” an antisemitic propaganda machine. I learned about his son Alexander, who, while liberating a train with the Free French Forces thought to be full of passengers, recovered

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some of his father’s art against all odds. I saw August Sander’s “Persecuted Jews” portrait series from late-’30s Germany, and looked into the faces of people forced to leave their homes. And I saw a huge collection of orphaned Judaica and ritual objects from Danzig (now Gdansk), Poland, where the Jewish com-munity shipped two tons of their treasures to New York for safekeeping in 1939. If no safe free Jews remained in Danzig 15 years later, these items would be entrusted to the museum. None did.

The exhibit also includes the work of four contemporary artists grappling with the contents of “Afterlives” and the era it evokes. Maria Eichhorn pulls from the art restitution work of Hannah Arendt. Hadar Gad uses her painstaking process to paint the disassembly of Danzig’s Great Synagogue. Lisa Oppenheim collages the only existing archival photograph of a lost still-life painting with Google Maps images of the clouds above the house where its Jewish owners lived. And Dor Guez, a Palestinian North African artist from Israel, created an installation from objects belonging to his paternal grandparents, who escaped concentration camps in Nazi-occupied Tunisia. They previously ran a theater company, and a manu-script written by his grandfather in his Tunisian Judeo-Arabic dialect was damaged in transit. Guez blew up the unfamiliar handwriting and ink blots into abstracted prints that hang on the wall.

In Guez’s words, “the words are engulfed in abstract spots, and these become a metaphor for the harmonious conjunction between two Semitic languages, between one mother tongue and another, and between homeland and a new country.”

I’ll let the exhibit’s curators sum up how I felt as I left: “Many of the artists, collectors, and descendants who owned these items are gone, and as the war recedes in time it can become even harder to grasp the traumatic events they endured. Yet through these works, and the histories that at-tend them, new connections to the past can be forged.”

“Afterlives: Recovering the Lost Stories of Looted Art” is on view at the Jewish Museum in Manhattan through Jan. 9, 2022.

Chloe Sarbib is associate editor of arts and culture at Alma, where this ar-ticle originally appeared.

Worcester Art Museum showcases art stolen from prolific Viennese collector during World War II

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Franz Marc, “The Large Blue Horses” (Jewish Museum)

The Room of the Martyrs, in the Archives du Ministère de l’Europe et des Affaires étrangère – La Courneuve (Jewish Museum) Henri Matisse, “Girl in Yellow and Blue with Guitar” (Jewish Museum)

Dor Guez, “Letters from the Greater Maghreb” and “Belly of the Boat”, and collages by Lisa Oppenheim.

Installation view

by Steven Paneccasio.

(Jewish Museum)

By Stacey Dresner

ORCESTER – Several pieces of art looted by the Nazis during World War II are now on display in an exhibit at the Worcester Art Museum.

“What the Nazis Stole from Richard Neumann (and the search to get it back)” arrived in Central Massachusetts in April; the exhibit will be on display until Jan. 16, 2022.

Richard Neumann was an Austrian-Jew, born in Vienna to a wealthy family that owned textile mills throughout the country. He received his PhD in Philosophy from the University of Heidelberg but went on to serve as the president of his family’s textile business.

He was a lover of art, who by his 40s had collected more than 200 works, mostly Baroque art of the early 1700s. He lost much of that art after the Nazis occupied Austria, through forced sales and an inability to get export licenses. Neumann and his wife escaped from Nazi-occupied Vienna in 1938 and was able to send some of his art ahead of him to Paris. Forced to flee again in 1942, he sold what was left of his collection – for below market prices -- and booked passage on a boat to Cuba. The Neumanns lived for several years in Cuba where Richard worked in the textile mill industry. He moved to New York in the 1950s.

While he attempted lawsuits to have his art returned to him, none of his efforts were successful. Neumann died in 1959.

For more than 50 years, members of his family have tried to reassemble his art collection. Two of the pieces on display at the Worcester Art Museum, “Monks at Mealtime” by Alessandro Magnasco (1667-1749) and Neri di Bicci’s ‘Madonna With Child’ (mid-1400s) were put up for sale at Sothby’s in recent years and were reacquired by Neumann’s family.

In all, 14 pieces of art that have been returned to Neumann’s descendants make up the exhibit at the Worcester Art Museum. They include 13 Old Master paintings and sculptures, including works by artists of the Italian Renaissance including Alessandro Magnasco, Giovanni Battista Pittoni, Alessandro Longhi, Alessandro Algardi and Giuseppe Sanmartino.

The exhibit also documents his escape from Vienna and Paris during the war, his passion for art, and the family’s 50-year effort to reassemble his collection.

The Jewish Federation of Central Mass. is a major sponsor of the Richard Neumann exhibit. The Federation sponsored a Zoom lecture on the Richard Neumann and his art last spring.

“I look at it through the lens of Holocaust remembrance and the lessons that are associated with that,” said Steven Schimmel, executive director of the Jewish Federation of Central Mass.

“What I’m impressed by about the exhibit itself is that it helps to tell the story of the Holocaust in a personal way,” Schimmel continued.

“It provides insight into the fact that the victims of the Holocaust were not only real people, but in some cases, very prominent leaders in their CONTINUED ON PAGE 16

Marc Chagall, “Purim” (Jewish Museum) majewishledger.com

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| SEPTEMBER 24, 2021

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THE FREE LIBRARY OF PHILADELPHIA. (TUPUNGATO/SHUTTERSTOCK)

Philadelphia librarians under fire, accused of indoctrinating children with anti-Israel material

BY DMITRIY SHAPIRO

(JNS) A public library system in Philadelphia is promising to make operational changes after drawing criticism for what some community members are considering an effort to indoctrinate children and parents against Israel through books, videos and resource links that show a biased proPalestinian agenda.

The issues were first discovered by members of the Jewish community, who contacted the Philadelphia Chapter of the Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) to express their concerns. ZOA Philadelphia’s executive director, Steve Feldman, a former reporter for The Jewish Exponent, looked into the concerns and said that he was disturbed by what he found on the website of the Free Library of Philadelphia—the country’s 13th-largest system of public libraries.

He found out that the 55 branches of the library system had individual Facebook pages where librarians would often post book suggestions and readings for children and their caretakers.

“I started looking, and I kept finding more and more disturbing content that was first of all directed at young people—children, middle-school age or maybe even younger frankly—and that it was all of an antiJewish, anti-Zionist nature,” said Feldman.

“There seemed to be a campaign going on to indoctrinate young Philadelphians, or whoever else uses the websites in the library or the branches of the library, to indoctrinate

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young people and their parents to be antiZionist, anti-Jewish, anti-Israel.”

The concerning posts first began during the 11-day conflict between Israel and the Hamas terror group that runs the Gaza Strip in May, when a children’s librarian at the FLP’s Lillian Marrero branch posted a video on its official Facebook page of her reading the illustrated children’s book, Baba, What Does My Name Mean? A Journey to Palestine

by Rifk Ebeid, as an act of solidarity with the Palestinian people.

The librarian, Kayla Hoskinson, in a series of videos she calls “Storytime with Kayla,” introduces the books she is about to read.

Hoskinson tells viewers of a video posted on May 18 that that week’s program is going to be more of a discussion and review, as well as a sharing of additional resources on the subject.

Hoskinson says that it is important to bring attention to the book because “we all see that the children in our lives do see and hear what is happening in the world, including the violence committed by Israel.”

“I’m sharing it because the struggle for liberation and total freedom is interconnected across cultures and communities. So when children, young people, see and hear about what’s happening to Palestinian people today, and for many decades, they will probably see and notice that Zionism looks a lot like racism,” she said. “And it’s important as the adults in their lives to name it and say it out

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| SEPTEMBER 24, 2021

loud. We should be highlighting and showing that support for the Palestinian struggle is global and rooted especially with support among black and brown people. And as we’re seeing right now, people across the world are rising up to reject Israel’s attempt to erase Palestinian people.”

In the book, a girl asks her father what her name means and then goes on an imaginary adventure through the various cities of Israel, which in the book are given Arabic names.

Hoskinson shows a picture from the book that omits the current nation of Israel, making the whole territory—not just the Gaza Strip and West Bank—Palestinian territory and calls Jerusalem by its Arab name, Al-Quds, which Hoskinson said is what she will call the city for the video.

After the library received complaints, the video was removed from the branch’s Facebook page.

The book’s official Instagram page calls Israel an apartheid state and accuses it of committing genocide and ethnic cleansing.

‘Libraries are not neutral’ On June 18, Hoskinson is featured in another Facebook video where she reads from a book of poetry geared at older children, Everything Comes Next: Collected and New Poems by Naomi Shihab Nye, the Poetry Foundation’s 2019-21 Young People’s Poet Laureate. Hoskinson describes Nye’s father in one of the poems as longing for his “lost homeland.”

“I wouldn’t necessarily call it lost. That’s what it feels like. It was stolen,” she said when introducing a poem.

Hoskinson, along with adult and teen librarian Erin Hoopes, co-wrote a blog post on June 21 that was posted on the homepage of the library, as well as linked to posts on the library’s main Facebook page and the Facebook pages of some of its branches.

The post contains a list of three books

by Palestinian authors with its stated aim of helping children make sense of what they hear on the news and develop empathy for young people throughout the world. A link at the end of the blog forwards readers to a more thorough catalogue of books, all from the Palestinian perspective and aimed at children.

A keyword at the bottom of the blog post was “Black Lives Matter,” allowing the blog post to appear in a Black Lives Matter keyword search of the library’s website.

A repost on the Lillian Marrero Facebook page included a link to additional resources for parents and children to learn about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, with each link associated with a pro-Palestinian perspective.

On her personal Twitter account, Hoskinson complains numerous times about the lack of action from libraries in supporting the Palestinian cause, interspersed with other radical causes, including keeping police and police-related imagery from libraries.

“Thinking a lot about that refrain we hear so often—‘libraries are not neutral’—and the near total silence about Palestine in library spaces. Didn’t we all pivot together to build

up anti-racist programming in 2020? And yet … ,” Hoskinson wrote in a pinned tweet.

She follows that tweet, saying that she commended the Free Library materials management team that “immediately recognized the dearth of Palestinian voices in our children’s collection and are already buying new books to fill it.”

“I think there is a deliberate effort to delegitimize Jewish self-determination and even dehumanize the Jewish people to young Philadelphians, particularly of other minority groups,” said Feldman. “Out of all of the conflicts in the world, all the situations in the world, why have there been multiple programs and activities focusing on Israel and the Palestinian Arabs, and not, for example, what’s going on in China, Cuba, North Korea, Venezuela or any places where there actually are human-rights violations?”

Hoskinson posted another, less offensive video on July 26, reading another children’s illustrated book by Nye, Sitti’s Secrets, about a girl visiting her Palestinian grandmother from America. Hoskinson again says that she believes it’s imperative for parents, caregivers and educators to use picture books as a tool to instill empathy and a sense of justice in young people before saying that her first video was deleted from the branch’s Facebook page because of outside complaints and directing viewers where to find that book.

Hoskinson speaks in a calm, child-friendly voice, like a teacher reading to a class of children.

“The librarian in a couple of those videos comes off like a female Mr. Rogers, which intensifies the impact of the propaganda

A SCREENSHOT OF LIBRARIAN KA

(SCREEN

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that she is delivering,” said Feldman. “Why isn’t she the following week promoting a book about Zionism or about Israel or about the Jewish longing to return to [the Jewish] homeland? About what it’s like to be a young person with rockets, thousands and thousands of rockets fired at you frequently?

Nothing like that is there. So it indicates that there is a deliberate, one-sided campaign, and it’s all based on lies.”

Hoskinson and possibly Hoopes, whose name appears as “Eel Hoopes,” both were signatories to an open letter of solidarity with Palestinian liberation from the children’s book industry, which accused Israelis of “lynching” Palestinians with the participation of Israeli police, genocide, ethnic cleansing, stealing land and targeting children.

Library staff are employees of the city of Philadelphia with the city providing $46.3 million of the library’s operating budget in Fiscal Year 2019-20 and another $7.8 million coming from state grant funds.

“You’re also talking about a government agency, and you’re talking about an institution that people, I would say, let their guard down about,” he said. “You know, who would think that a public library would be trying to indoctrinate young people to hate another people? It would be the furthest thing that anybody would think of. A library is regarded as a safe space—maybe one of the safest spaces. If you’re going to sit your kid down in front of a website to watch videos, who would suspect anything untoward at the library?”

According to Feldman, ZOA reached out to library leadership and were assured that the

AYLA HOSKINSON’S STORYTIME.

NSHOT)

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posts had been approved by supervisors.

Susan Tuchman, an attorney who is also director at the ZOA Center for Law and Justice, said that she followed up on Feldman’s email to the library’s interim director, Leslie Walker, making it known that the issue not only concerns the local ZOA chapter but the national organization.

“You had staff members propagandizing on the library’s webpages and promoting their personal agendas, which we said was not just anti-Israel, it crossed the line into antisemitism,” said Tuchman.

She said that ZOA urged the library staff to remove the offending posts, instructed the staff not to use library resources to express their personal political opinions and admonished staff members who engaged in that kind of behavior.

According to Tuchman, the library said that it would be auditing its social-media posts, which with all its branches was going to be time-consuming; update its blog guidelines and social-media policy; and meet with members of the Jewish community to help guide the library in the future.

“It is frightening to learn that a respected, neutral group at the Free Library is putting out anti-Israel lies and propaganda that [former PLO head] Yasser Arafat would be proud of. It’s just unbelievable. I’ve watched these videos—just incredible lies about Israel,” said Mort Klein, ZOA’s national president and a resident of Philadelphia, adding that Hoskinson’s narrations are worse than the books themselves. “I mean, the Free Library would never allow propaganda lies against blacks or gays or Muslims. Why do they allow it against the Jewish state?”

‘We were glad that they reached out to us’ Robin Schatz, director of government affairs of at the Jewish Federation of Greater Philadelphia, was contacted a few weeks ago about the situation by library board chair Folasade Olanipekun-Lewis. OlanipekunLewis was referred to Schatz by a member of the community.

Schatz said that she had met OlanipekunLewis before, when Olanipekun-Lewis worked for the city of Philadelphia, though they didn’t know each other well.

Schatz said that the library asked for input from the Jewish community because they “realized that there had been some missteps, and they wanted to gain a better understanding of what the issues were.”

Schatz said that she found the May 18 video disturbing.

“Some of it bothered me a lot, and some of it I thought was not too terrible,” she said.

“Because in one of the videos, it was clear bias, based on misinformation; I thought to some extent it was revisionist history.”

A meeting was held on Aug. 19 between Schatz, Olanipekun-Lewis, Walker and Philadelphia Jewish Community Relations Council director Laura Frank.

Schatz said that the library leaders agreed to hold another meeting at the end of August to include the federation and ZOA to further

THE COVER OF “BABA, WHAT DOES MY NAME MEAN? A JOURNEY TO PALESTINE” BY RIFK EBEID

discuss the issue. The meeting was scheduled for the afternoon of Aug. 31.

They also discussed future programming collaborations between various groups of Jews in the community, including collaborating with other groups that may not have a working relationship or understanding of the Jewish community.

According to Schatz, the library has over the years hosted programs with Jewish or Israeli authors.

“Our position is that we were glad that they reached out to us. We’re happy to work with them,” she said. “We are big believers in education as they are, and I think it’s going to be the start of a really nice collaboration with the library.”

In a statement to JNS, the Free Library outlined the steps that it is undertaking to make corrections, which were similar as to what was told to Tuchman.

This includes auditing the social-media accounts of its neighborhood libraries, which so far includes it removing two videos with language that is not endorsed by FLP. With 75 accounts associated with the library, a full audit will take time, according to the statement.

The library has also convened its website and communications teams to update its blog and social-media guidelines, and its supervisors have been charged with addressing and reinforcing those guidelines with staff to prevent the production of

MASSACHUSETTS JEWISH LEDGER

inflammatory programs and content produced in the name of the library. Finally, representatives will meet with partners and leaders in the Jewish community to discuss and help guide the library on culturally sensitive issues and concerns.

“The language used in social-media posts is not endorsed by the Free Library of Philadelphia, and the posts have been taken down,” Olanipekun-Lewis said in a statement on Aug. 19. “We are reviewing the guidelines for our content so that we can continue to give our employees platforms to share resources and voices from many cultures and perspectives grounded in our programs and collections, while ensuring it does not denigrate any members of the Free Library community or become an outlet for individual political or personal views. We will also be meeting with leaders in the Jewish community to discuss their concerns.”

FLP public-relations manager Kaitlyn Foti Kalosy said the library would not comment on whether the posts would lead to repercussions for library staff.

An email to Hoskinson offering her an opportunity to comment did not receive a response.

| SEPTEMBER 24, 2021

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Worcester Art Museum CONTINUED FROM PAGE 13

communities. The story of the Neumanns is told through this art which helps to bring a light and personality to Holocaust remembrance.

“I think anything that can be done to help tell the story of those who were affected by the rise of Naziism and the terrors of that time is important, but when you are able to do it in a creative way like this, there is something more visceral about it.”

As part of its sponsorship, Richard Neumann Federation members will be able Photo: lootedart. to visit the exhibit free of charge in the month of October.

Also providing support for the exhibit is the Strassler Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies at Clark University.

“The tragedy of the Holocaust is so vast and complicated, and the restitution of these artworks may not seem like the most compelling aspect from the tragic angle, in the context of all the last lives, but I think it’s still very important to understand that a major part of the Nazi project had an economic dimension, a cultural dimension,” explained Mary Jane Rein, executive director of the Strassler Center. “Taking these artworks and basically forcing Jewish collectors to sell them, or to leave them behind, is a very important aspect of the economic dimension of the Holocaust and I think that it demands our attention. The fact that so much material still remains in museums is deeply shameful. While it may not be tragic in terms relative to the massive loss of life that the Jewish community experienced during the Holocaust, it’s still something that is a part of the Nazi project that deserves our attention and really deserves our outrage. And I think that museums that hold on to these materials should be really ashamed of it. So, I’m very proud of the fact that the Strasser center is partnering with the Worcester Art Museum and bringing attention to this subject… I hope that the museum is successful in showing the public the importance of this effort to bring artwork back to its rightful owners.”

For more information, email information@worcesterart.org or call (508) 799-4406.

The Richard Neumann exhibit at the Worcester Art Museum includes this painting, Neri di Bicci’s “Madonna with Child,” 1400s, oil on panel.(Courtesy the Selldorff Family)

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MASSACHUSETTS JEWISH LEDGER

| SEPTEMBER 24, 2021

majewishledger.com

SYNAGOGUE DIRECTORY Western and Central Massachusetts

AMHERST

Jewish Community of Amherst Reconstructionist Rabbi Benjamin Weiner (413) 256-0160 info@jcamherst.org www.jcamherst.org 742 Main St., Amherst, MA 01002

ATHOL

Temple Israel Unaffiliated/Egalitarian Reb Sarah Noyovitz (978) 249-9481 templeisraelathol@gmail.com 107 Walnut Street Athol, MA 01331

BENNINGTON, VT

Congregation Beth El Reconstructionist Rabbi Micah Becker Klein (802) 442-9645 cbevtoffice@gmail.com www.cbevermont.org 225 North St., Bennington, VT 05201

CLINTON

Congregation Shaarei Zedeck Conservative Lay Leadership - Elena Feinberg (978) 501-2744 sherryesq@yahoo.com www.shaareizedeck.org 104 Water St., Clinton, MA 01510

FLORENCE

Beit Ahavah, The Reform Synagogue of Greater Northampton Reform Rabbi Riqi Kosovske (413) 587-3770 info@beitahavah.org www.beitahavah.org 130 Pine St. Florence, MA 01062

GREENFIELD

Temple Israel of Greenfield Unaffiliated Rabbi Andrea Cohen-Kiener (413) 773-5884 office@templeisraelgreenfield.org www.templeisraelgreenfield.org 27 Pierce St. Greenfield, MA 01301

HOLYOKE

Congregation Rodphey Sholom Orthodox Rabbi Tuvia Helfen Religious Leader (413) 534-5262 djs1818@aol.com 1800 Northampton St., Holyoke, MA 01040 Congregation Sons of Zion Conservative Rabbi Saul Perlmutter (413) 534-3369 office@sonsofzionholyoke.org www.sonsofzionholyoke.org 378 Maple St. Holyoke, MA 01040

LEOMINSTER

Congregation Agudat Achim Conservative Rabbi Eve Eichenholtz (978) 534-6121 office@agudat-achim.org www.agudat-achim.org 268 Washington St., Leominster, MA 01453

LONGMEADOW

WESTBOROUGH

Beth Tikvah Synagogue Independent Rabbi Michael Swarttz (508) 616-9037 president@bethtikvahsynagogue.org www.bethtikvahsynagogue.org 45 Oak St., Westborough, MA 01581

NORTHAMPTON

Congregation B’nai Israel Conservative Rabbi Justin David (413) 584-3593 office@CBINorthampton.org www.CBINorthampton.org 253 Prospect St. Northampton, MA 01060

Congregation B’nai Shalom Reform Rabbi Rachel Gurevitz/ Rabbi-Educator Joseph Eiduson (508) 366-7191 info@cbnaishalom.org www.cbnaishalom.org 117 East Main St., PO Box 1019, Westborough, MA 01581

PITTSFIELD

Temple Anshe Amunim Reform Rabbi Liz P.G. Hirsch (413) 442-5910 rabbiliz@ansheamunim.org www.ansheamunim.org 26 Broad St., Pittsfield, MA 01201

SPRINGFIELD

WORCESTER

Temple Beth El Conservative Rabbi Amy Walk Katz (413) 733-4149 office@tbesprinfield.org www.tbespringfield.org 979 Dickinson St., Springfield, MA 01108

Congregation B’nai Torah Orthodox Rabbi Shlomo Yaffe Rabbi Yakov Wolff (413) 567-0036 office@bnaitorahma.org rabbi@bnaitorahma.org www.bnaitorahma.org 2 Eunice Drive Longmeadow, MA 01106 Neighborhood Minyan 124 Sumner Avenue Springfield, MA 01108

WESTFIELD

Sinai Temple Reform Rabbi Jeremy Master (413) 736-3619 rblanchettegage@sinai-temple.org www.sinai-temple.org 1100 Dickinson St., Springfield, MA 01108

Congregation Ahavas Achim Unaffiliated Rabbi Dawn Rose (413) 642-1797 ahavasachiminquiry@gmail.com www.congregationahavasachim.org Ferst Interfaith Center, Westfield State University PO Box 334, 577 Western Avenue, Westfield, MA 01086 Find us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AhavasAchimWestfield/

Central Mass Chabad Rabbi Mendel Fogelman, Rabbi Chaim Fishman, Rabbi Michael Phillips, Cantor Eli Abramowitz (508) 752-0904 rabbi@centralmasschabad.com www.centralmasschabad.com 22 Newton Avenue, Worcester, MA 01602 Congregation Beth Israel Conservative Rabbi Aviva Fellman (508) 756-6204 receptionist@bethisraelworc.org www.bethisraelworc.org 15 Jamesbury Drive Worcester, MA 01609 Congregation Shaarai Torah West Orthodox Rabbi Yakov Blotner (508) 791-0013 Brotman156@aol.com www.shaaraitorah.org 835 Pleasant St. Worcester, MA 01602 Temple Emanuel Sinai Reform Rabbi Valerie Cohen (508) 755-1257 amayou@emanuelsinai.org www.emanuelsinai.org 661 Salisbury St., Worcester, MA 01609

To join our synagogue directory, contact Howard Meyerowitz at (860) 231-2424 x3035 or howardm@jewishledger.com majewishledger.com

MASSACHUSETTS JEWISH LEDGER

| SEPTEMBER 24, 2021

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Festival of hate CONTINUED FROM PAGE 5

governmental conference; — Eduardo Kohn, the B’nai B’rith International director of Latin American Affairs; — A top Jewish organizational official at the time who is now in a job where she is not permitted to speak on the record.

There was a “little bit of naivete” heading into the conference Cotler: “In 1997, when it was first announced that there was going to be a world conference against racism in South Africa in 2001, I greeted it with anticipation, if not excitement, because this was going to be the first world conference against racism in the 21st century, and I felt that it would give underrepresented groups a voice and a presence. Second, it was going to be the first international human rights conference of the 21st century. Human rights had emerged as a new secular religion of our times, and this conference would be as timely as it would be significant. And third thing is, it was taking place in Durban, South Africa. I not only had a longtime involvement in the anti-apartheid movement but actually had been arrested.”

Burdett: “I was born in 1964, so for Americans of my age, it was like the antisemitism was over, right? So there was this aspect of, in preparing for Durban, my focus was trying to make sure ADL got a good spot for doing events on our anti-racism trainings. So there was a little bit of naivete going into it.”

Richard Heideman: “In 1985, there was a U.N. conference to assess and appraise the status of women that was held in Nairobi, Kenya. Phyllis was designated as a delegate

by B’nai B’rith International, which is the oldest Jewish organization with standing at the U.N. When we arrived in Nairobi we found at the NGO forum and at the U.N. conference itself terrible hatred toward Israel and the Jewish people.”

The 1975 U.N. General Assembly resolution equating Zionism with racism permeated the Nairobi conference. In 1991, years of Jewish organizational advocacy and U.S. diplomacy brought about the revocation of the resolution, fueling hope that Israel would not be a focus at Durban.

Gaer: “We had a secretary-general who, for the first time in the history of the U.N., actually used the word ‘Holocaust,’ who was married to the niece of one of the great Holocaust-era heroes. [Kofi Annan, who was instrumental in the establishment of International Holocaust Remembrance Day, was married to Nane Lagergren, whose uncle was Raoul Wallenberg, the Swedish diplomat whose actions saved thousands of Hungarian Jews.] And we had expectations that a world conference on racism could not only address 18

the scourge of racism, which we have seen in such ugly ways in the former Yugoslavia, the Bosnia conflict and in Rwanda, but that could also address race issues in individual countries. Those of us who were engaged in Jewish organizations also felt this was an opportunity in which we could talk about combating antisemitism as one of a whole variety of forms of intolerance and racial discrimination and racism that needed to be eradicated.”

Iran and a striking image set the stage In retrospect, there were signs that there were actors intent on making Israel a focus of the conference. The main conference was preceded in late 2000 and early 2001 by regional conferences. The final regional conference, for Asian countries, took place in Tehran in February 2001. Iran refused to allow Israelis and Jewish organizations to attend.

The Simon Wiesenthal Center, another Jewish organization accredited at the United Nations, asked the U.N. human rights commissioner — Mary Robinson, the former president of Ireland who was organizing the conference — to move the venue to another Asian country. Robinson declined but pledged that she would make the Iranians allow Jewish and Israeli representatives to attend.

Cooper: “Mary Robinson promised us up the wazoo, ‘You guys have every right to attend the meeting in Tehran.’ But we didn’t get the right to go until after the last planes from Paris and New York left for Tehran so that it would be impossible for us to reach there. And that’s where a lot of the stuff was cooked.”

Whereas Jewish and Israeli delegates could influence summary statements at regional preparatory conferences in Africa, Latin America and Europe, Iran’s maneuver meant that the Asian summary document amounted to an indictment of Israel. It accused Israel of “ethnic cleansing,” of implementing “a new kind of Apartheid” and “a crime against humanity,” and said Zionism was “based on race superiority.”

Much of the Iran-influenced document became a template for the NGO declaration at the Durban conference.

Cotler: “There was a six-point indictment of Israel at the regional conference in Tehran, one of the most scurrilous indictments of Israel since the end of the Second World War.” The Second Intifada had been underway for almost a year by the time the conference started, and one of its most striking images, caught on video, persisted: The Sept. 30, 2000 killing of Muhammad al-Durrah, a 12-year-old Palestinian caught in the crossfire during a battle between Israeli

MASSACHUSETTS JEWISH LEDGER

| SEPTEMBER 24, 2021

and Palestinian forces. Images of al-Durrah proliferated at the conference, including on T-shirts. “Killed on September 30 2000, for being Palestinian,” a T-shirt said on one side. On the other side it read “Occupation = Colonialism = Racism. End Israeli apartheid.”

Richard Heideman: “What we faced was phenomenal in terms of the visible expression of hatred, not just placards but photographs, and talking about Jews and Israelis as murderers.”

Burdett: “There was an NGO kind of infrastructure managing this [on the South African end], a South African NGO that received large grants from the U.N. [SANGOCO, a coalition of South African NGOs]. And even before Durban started they did a mission for NGOs for the West Bank, so there was a lot of writing on the wall.”

“I saw grown men crying, weeping.”

Not long after they landed, the conferencegoers noticed a ubiquitous flyer with a picture of Adolf Hitler. “WHAT IF I HAD WON?’ it asked. “The good things: There would be no Israel and no Palestinian’s [sic] bloodshed. The bad things: I wouldn’t have allowed the making of the new Beetle. THE REST IS YOUR GUESS.” The Arab Lawyers Union also distributed pamphlets filled with caricatures of hooknosed Jews depicted as Nazis spearing Palestinian children, dripping blood from their fangs, with missiles bulging from their eyes or with pots of money nearby. Copies of “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion,” a notorious antisemitic text, were available.

Calls to the organizers to remove the materials went unheeded.

The confrontational imagery was reflected in personal encounters. Protesters surrounded Jewish students who set up a stand near the press tent and screamed at them.

Kohn: “We couldn’t speak out in the meetings because in the moment we started speaking — any Jewish delegation — the shouts of ‘You kill the Palestinians, you’re like the Nazis you’re a racist, apartheid’ and whatever — it made us impossible to speak out.”

Cooper: “The Lawyers Guild from Egypt did political cartoons that literally would have belonged in Der Sturmer. Our attempts to get them removed were basically laughed at. So we called a press conference.

At that press conference, before we started, a phalanx of Iranian women in black rush the press conference and try to push over the shtender [podium] and try to kill the press conference. They were eventually physically removed. So the physical intimidation was there.”

Kohn: “There was a Uruguayan minister

[Education Minister Antonio Mercader] who came up to me and said it was risky, we need protection. I mean it was unbelievable. We were at a U.N. conference.”

On Friday, Aug. 31, the Jewish delegation learned that South African unions were staging a massive pro-Palestinian demonstration at the conference grounds, the Kingsmead Cricket Stadium. Security officials warned Jewish participants to stay away.

Cooper: “I was approached by the chief of police of Durban and told the following: ‘Rabbi, please, I’m asking you, do not try to go from here to the Jewish community center today.’ ‘Why not? It’s like 2 1/2 blocks away.’

He said, ‘We cannot guarantee your safety.’

And just then when we looked out — we went up higher [in the stadium] — 20,000 people have been brought in by train by the trade unions in order to do Israel apartheid protests, in which the famous picture of the banner ‘Hitler was right’ was hoisted. They were giving out free copies of the ‘Protocols of Zion.’”

Burdett: “We had put out an SMS to everyone’s cellphone, ‘Do not go near that demonstration’ because our information is that it’s going to be heavily laced with and motivated by antisemitism and that we should not be visible. They were carrying signs and wearing T-shirts that said ‘Apartheid Israel.’ Someone had gone to the townships and just distributed T-shirts to people who just could use a shirt to wear.

And so that street demonstration was just filled with people wearing freshly minted anti-Israel T-shirts. And so the effort to make Israel such a prominent issue at this conference was very organized.”

Cooper: “The one lifeline for the Jewish groups was the Jewish community center of Durban. That was the place we came at night to lick our wounds, where I saw grown men crying, weeping. It was that bad.”

The walkout On the evening of Saturday, Sept. 1, the conference-goers convened to work out the final text of the NGO declaration. It was a chaotic scene, but the steering committee achieved a modicum of order by allowing each group to propose an amendment that defined the discrimination they suffer. That prompted the Jewish delegation to propose an amendment that pushed back against the conference’s anti-Zionism and referenced the spike in worldwide antisemitism after the start of the Second Intifada.

It said: “We are concerned with the prevalence of anti-Zionism and attempts to delegitimize the State of Israel through wildly inaccurate charges of genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity, ethnic cleansing and apartheid, as a virulent contemporary form of antisemitism, leading majewishledger.com

THEN-IRANIAN PRESIDENT MAHMOUD AHMADINEJAD CALLED ISRAEL “RACIST” AT THE 2009 DURBAN CONFERENCE. HE IS PICTURED HERE WITH ALI REZA, THE HEAD OF IRAN’S MISSION TO THE UNITED NATIONS IN GENEVA. (SALVATORE DI NOLFI/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES)

to the firebombing of synagogues, armed assaults against Jews, incitement to killing and the murder of innocent Jews for their support for the existence of the State of Israel, the assertion of the right to selfdetermination of the Jewish people and the attempts through the State of Israel to preserve their cultural and religious identity.”

The conference overwhelmingly rejected the amendment, with only delegations from Central Europe and the Roma joining the Jewish delegation in favoring its inclusion.

That was a breaking point. The entire Jewish delegation rose to leave, and the crowd erupted in shouts and threats.

Kohn: “While we were walking we received very, very, very rude insults, antisemitic insults and the threats of being attacked, I mean attacked physically, attacks that were averted by the guards of the conference, I mean, if we didn’t have the protection of the guards …”

The repercussions The George W. Bush administration sent a delegation to the government portion of the conference led by Rep. Tom Lantos, D-Calif., the ranking member on the U.S. House of Representatives International Relations Committee. (Lantos died in 2008.)

At the behest of the Bush administration, Lantos led a walkout from the conference on Sept. 3. In an influential account of the majewishledger.com

Durban conferences published in 2002 in the journal of Tufts University’s Fletcher School of International Affairs, Lantos laid out the reasons for the walkout, chief among them Mary Robinson’s insistence on including in the governmental declaration mention of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict — the only such conflict singled out for mention.

He also cited the NGO conference debacle leading into the governmental conference as a spur. In three hard-hitting paragraphs Lantos, who had saintly status among Jewish groups, forever changed how those groups related to human rights NGOs. “NGOs can’t always be counted on to promote liberal values,” the lawmaker wrote. “The leaders of the great Western human rights NGOs like Human Rights Watch, the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights, and Amnesty International participated in the NGO Forum in Durban.

Shockingly, they did almost nothing to denounce the activities of the radicals in their midst. They made no statements protesting the debasement of human rights mechanisms and terms taking place in front of their eyes and they offered no support to the principled position that the Bush administration took against the singling out of Israel and Jews for attack and criticism at the conference.”

The NGOs objected to the Fletcher journal in a letter, saying they had spoken out in a press conference and that Lantos ignored the accomplishments of the

conference: Elevating the international discussion about the legacies of slavery, and shining a light on oppressed communities that had not been receiving attention, including the Roma and the Dalit. But the tone was set.

Killion: “Tom Lantos was a very tactical and strategic guy. I mean, he was upset at their behavior. And calling it out, making it public, he would have hoped that it would, you know, be a productive thing to drop this bomb, and unsteady them and create some thought and maybe some change.”

Former Jewish organizational leader: “Tom Lantos, a lot of what he said was spot-on. But the characterizations of the NGOs was actually wrong. Your head was in

the conference you saw, and it might have taken a couple of hours to hear what’s going on in the other places. But then [Lantos’ account] becomes the narrative and the history, and at that time and over the past two decades, where the Jewish community should have doubled down on community relations, they walked away. Lesson learned in terms of who writes the narrative: Lantos wrote a narrative that trashed some of the partners the Jewish community should have been spending the last 20 years working with. And I think that’s an unfortunate piece.”

Burdett: “It was a watershed moment CONTINUED ON PAGE 21

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MASSACHUSETTS JEWISH LEDGER

| SEPTEMBER 24, 2021

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WHAT’S HAPPENING THURSDAY, SEPT. 23 LONGMEADOW - LYA celebrates Sukkot in with Pasta in LYA’s New Big Hut: a pasta and meat sauce dinner in LYA’s brand new Sukkah followed by Sukkot activities sponsored through a grant from the Harold Grinspoon Foundation; 5 p.m., 1148 Converse St., Reservations requested, but not required: (413) 567-8665 or info@lya.org; $6/child; $9/adult; $34/family rate; no charge for Sukkot activities. Proceeds of the dinner will benefit LYA Israel Experience 2022..

Rehearsal for new and prospective members, 6-8 p.m., at Congregation B’nai Shalom, 117 East Main St., (planned for indoors with singers masked but Covid safety may move that to an outdoor space, cars in the parking lot or remotely on Zoom- - all must provide proof of vaccination to attend rehearsals; ShirJoyMA@gmail.com

WORCESTER – Jewish Heritage Day with the Woo Sox at Polar Park, 6:35 p.m., *previously purchased tickets can be used for this game or another home game; contact ticket office at (508) 500-8888 or ticketoffice@woosox.com

SUNDAY, SEPT. 26

SUNDAY, OCT 10

AMHERST – Sukkot with PJ Library and Camp Laurelwood at the Yiddish Book Center, with stories, some Yiddish, sukkah building and crafts, 10-11:30 a.m., 1021 West St., ebarber@jewishwesternmass.org

WESTBOROUGH – Shir Joy Chorus Open Rehearsal for new and prospective members, 6-8 p.m., at Congregation B’nai Shalom, 117 East Main St., (planned for indoors with singers masked but Covid safety may move that to an outdoor space, cars in the parking lot or remotely on Zoom- - all must provide proof of vaccination to attend rehearsals; ShirJoyMA@gmail.com

WORCESTER - 18th Jewish Healthcare Center’s Annual Home Run 5K/Family Fun Day by Patrick Motors, 10 a.m. at the Jewish Healthcare Center; run/walk 3.2 miles, enter to win prizes, enjoy Bouncy House and Fun Kids Activities; with free bagel breakfast and hot dog lunch for registered runners and walkers; T-Shirts for the first 100 registered runners; Contact: Jody Fredman, jfredman@jhccenter.org or (508) 798-8653. $15 through Sept. 25/$20 Race Day. Free for walkers and staff.

Worcester – YAD (Young Adult Division) Pizza in the Hut for Sukkot, 2 p.m., RSVP for address: mhall@jfcm.org

SUNDAY, OCT. 3 NORTHAMPTON – PJ Pals on the Farm – volunteering on Abundance Farm for ages 3-5, 10 – 11 a.m., 11 Olive St., $5/per family, includes a bulb to plant at home; ameltzer@ landergrinspoon.org NORTHBOROUGH – PJ/PJOW Pumpkin Painting at Davidian Farms in Northborough, 2:30 – 4 p.m., mhall@jfcm.org

THE PJ LIBRARY AND CAMP LAURELWOOD WILL VISIT THE YIDDISH BOOK CENTER ON SEPT. 26

TUESDAY, OCT. 5 WORCESTER – Virtual annual meeting of the Jewish Federation of Central Mass., welcoming new board members and new board president Ben Lyons; detailing the Federation’s initiatives and projects over the past year; and meeting new Israeli Shaliach Aviv, 7:30 p.m., RSVP to director@jfcm.org for meeting link

SPRINGFIELD – CHEERS Block Party at the Springfield JCC, a celebration of the JCC’s Kehillah (Special Needs) department, with food tricks, a DJ, games and activities for all, 3-6 p.m., 1160 Dickinson St., bcox@ springfieldJCC.org $30/adults; $10/kids ages 4-12; Free/kids ages 0-3

SEPT. 23 – NOV. 10

SUNDAY, OCT. 17 ASHFIELD – PJ Library at Double Edge Theatre for children and families with backstage tour, stilt walking and visiting farm animals, 10 a.m. – 12 noon, 948 Conway Road, ebarber@jewishwesternmass.org

TUESDAY, NOV 2 SPRINGFIELD – Author event with Jenna Blum discussing her new memoir Woodrow on the Bench: Life Lessons from a Wise Old Dog, 6:30-7:30 p.m., Springfield JCC, 1160m Dickinson St., arts@springfieldjcc.org Free for JCC members; $10/general public

JENNA BLUM WILL BE THE GUEST AT THE SPRINGFIELD JCC’S AUTHOR’S TALK ON TUESDAY, NOV. 2

Around Massachusetts The Jewish Healthcare Center Receives New “Thank You” Forever Stamp

W

ORCESTER -- The JHC recently received the U.S. Postal Service’s New “Thank You” Forever stamp, which celebrates healthcare heroes in Worcester and across the state. The stamp includes the words “Thank You” highlighted in gold foil on a background that features four different fall colors. The cursive script and floral design are the work of artist Dana Tanamachi.

SUNDAY, NOV. 7 WORCESTER - PJ/PJOW Field Trip to the Worcester Fridge on Brooks Street, for families with children 5 - 12 years old, 2:30 p.m., mhall@jfcm.org

WEDNESDAY, NOV. 10 SPRINGFIELD – Author event with Mark Oppenheimer, discussing his new book, Squirrel Hill: The Tree of Life Synagogue and the Soul of a Neighborhood, 7-8 p.m., arts@ springfieldjcc.org Free for JCC members; $10/general public JHC STAFF WELCOMES THE ARRIVAL OF THE “THANK YOU” FOREVER STAMP THAT CELEBRATES WORCESTER HEALTHCARE WORKERS.

WESTBOROUGH – Shir Joy Chorus Open 20

MASSACHUSETTS JEWISH LEDGER

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Festival of hate CONTINUED FROM PAGE 19

that had two different parts of the Jewish community with two divergent takeaways and responses. And that divergence still animates a divide on how the Jewish community responds to antisemitism in progressive movements. A big group of people saw Durban as a warning that antisemitism never goes away, we can’t rely on others. And then a second group of people saw Durban as a warning that we have a lot of work to do to reestablish antisemitism as a human rights violation, that we have a real challenge with how to situate Jews in the civil rights and racial justice movement, because a majority of Jews still today consider that movement their moral and ideological home.

So Durban forced these tough questions that we’re dealing with 20 years later.”

The NGO declaration, finalized after the Jewish delegates left, called Israel a “racist nation,” pushed for reinstating the equation of Zionism with racism and accused Israel of genocide. Robinson, the U.N. human rights commissioner, decried the language and

refused to formally hand the voluminous final declaration to the governments as their conference began, which was unprecedented.

Cooper: ”The final document that was voted on after we left was so bad that Mary Robinson herself rejected it and never gave it over to the U.N. countries. It sank Mary Robinson.” [Robinson had hoped to become the first female U.N. secretary-general, but those ambitions were scuttled largely because of the Durban debacle.]

The final document created a narrative about Israel that has now been mainstreamed on the left.

Cooper: “The resurrection of ‘Zionism is racism,’ everything we’re struggling with today, that script was written and finalized under the supervision of 3,600 NGOs. There’s no BDS [the movement to boycott, divest from and sanction Israel] movement without the building blocks of demonization of Israel in the global scheme of things at Durban. The narrative we’re all struggling

with today was written back then.”

Cotler: “The indictment of Israel as an apartheid state was born in Durban. It was triggered in Durban. Durban became the tipping point for the demonological antisemitism that we see today, where Israel is blamed for all the evils of the world, that Israel and the Jewish people are the enemy of good, the embodiment of all those evils.

My wife always says I came back from Durban transformed.”

Burdett: “This was an anti-Israel message that had no guardrails. It went right to Jewish control, and there were no guardrails.”

Gaer: “The Durban conference was definitely a turning point for many, particularly for a certain generation of Jewish leaders. And also because it was the most visible display of antisemitic behavior … trying to normalize this kind of behavior has made it something that you have to address, speak out about.”

Then came 9/11 Former Jewish organizational leader: “There were some headlines on the ninth, Sept. 9, 2001. And it had to do with the guy who paid for one of the worst posters, ‘What if I had won,’ and it’s a picture of Hitler. Basically it was someone who worked for bin Laden, and I’d never heard of bin Laden before Sept. 9.” [Yousuf Deedat, who printed the flyers, told newspapers that the bin Laden family was a major donor to his organization, the Islamic Propagation Center.]

Cotler: “I arrived in Montreal on September the 10th that evening, and woke up in the morning to 9/11. I spoke to a colleague and she said to me 9/11 was now the Kristallnacht of terror and Durban was the ‘Mein Kampf.’ Those of us who were at Durban would have understood that statement because it was the blueprint, the tipping point, the trigger for the oldnew global antisemitism that we’re now

BDS Resolution CONTINUED FROM PAGE 5

the country, and only 10 or 11 of those were “supportive” of the resolution. “The rest were opposed overwhelmingly,” she said, “more so than any other resolution I have ever seen. … BDS is not about finding common ground, it just isn’t. That’s why President Biden, President Obama, 50 governors and our own delegation are opposed to this.”

However, she was among those voting against withdrawing the resolution because that means it can be reintroduced in the near future, putting the city right back in the “firestorm of controversy. … As hard as it is, I’d rather we have the debate tonight and just vote, and just hope we would be able to move on from there.”

Council member William “Chip” Mason, who also opposed withdrawing the measure, acknowledged that when he walked into the building “I was legitimately concerned that violence would erupt. … I was scared for people in this room. … I want to acknowledge the very real fear. I looked out in the room—people were crying; people were shaking their heads make this stop.”

On this issue, ‘we are all one’ The vote to withdraw the resolution came hours after Burlington Mayor Miro Weinberger expressed his opposition to the measure, which Jewish groups claimed was anti-Israel and would lead to an increase in antisemitism.

Even before the meeting began, as people filled up the chambers and the balcony overlooking the room, shouts of

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“Free, free Palestine” and “From the river to the sea Palestine will be free” rang out from the audience as people held up Palestinian flags and posters.

Opponents held their own placards opposing the resolution, some of which read, “BDS delegitimizes Israel,” “Burlington, we are better than this. Vote NO,” and “BDS = hate.”

One after another, people came to the microphone to speak for two minutes about their concerns and feelings. Opponents of the measure, including many Jews in Vermont, said the resolution was one-sided and demonized Israel, and would endanger the Jewish community there.

“It’s hard for me to believe that we are even discussing this resolution that will create so much division,” Rabbi Yitzchak Raskin, director of Chabad of Burlington, told the city council. “I kind of want to beg you, the Jewish community here in Burlington is over 100 years; [we have] strong roots, and I know a majority of them oppose this resolution.”

He added that it is often hard to get the different synagogues in town to agree on anything, but on this issue, “we are all one.”

Wearing a well-worn Israel Defense Forces T-shirt, Spencer Karofsky, a student at the University of Vermont, said he was reluctant to speak but was doing so “out of fear” because “I am terrified that I will be attacked on account of my religious and ancestral identify if I do not. When pro-BDS activists marched into this meeting, I felt an emotion I have felt never on account of my religion: fear.”

“I am Jewish and a proud Jew, an unapologetic Jew,” he said, noting that when other BDS measures were passed, “disgusting rises in antisemitic incidents occur.”

Karofsky told JNS “that angry pro-BDS activists screaming slogans that indirectly call for the destruction of Israel—the one safe space for Jews—was the first time in my life that I have ever felt unsafe on account of my religion. I was shaking when I wrote and delivered my speech, as many of the proBDS activists were fellow UVM students.”

He said it’s a 30-minute walk from city hall to his dorm room, and he was concerned about possible retribution: “I sprinted the entire time, plus looked behind my back at least a dozen times to make sure that no person or car was following me.”

Another speaker, Jason, noted that he is open to learning about both sides of the issue; however, “BDS calls for an end to Israel. ‘From the river to the sea’ means an end to Israel,’ ” he said. “The BDS movement goes beyond the protection for Palestinians—it calls for death to Israel. I don’t know you can have a conversation with someone when the opening salvo is you need to die.”

“There is pain on both sides. There is injustice on both sides. But,” the Burlington resident said, “we need to have that conversation, and to start, we need to recognize each other’s right to exist.”

‘It appears that they were heard’ MASSACHUSETTS JEWISH LEDGER

While most of the speakers were local, the evening’s final one was not.

David Feldman, a member of the Neturei Karta, a virulently anti-Zionist group, wore a scarf with the word “Palestine” on it and an ID card that had appeared to have a Palestinian flag and Arabic writing, as he claimed the “occupation is totally wrong” on religious and moral basis.

He received applause primarily from the Palestinian supporters in the crowd.

More than 2,000 people contacted council members directly, and more than 1,000 signed on to a letter organized by Jewish Communities of Vermont with support from AJC New England, ADL New England, the Israeli American Council, StandWithUs, and other organizations and synagogues in the region, opposing the resolution, according to the American Jewish Committee.

This outpouring of opposition to BDS took place despite the hearing having been scheduled during the 10 days between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, also known as “The Days of Awe.” AJC New England director Robert Leikind said “this resolution was based on carefully curated information, deprived of context and designed to create a false and deceptive portrait of Israel and its supporters. Such tactics feed polarization, defeat prospects for peace and inspire hate.

Thousands of people appealed to members of the City Council to reject this morally troubling BDS resolution. It appears that they were heard.”

| SEPTEMBER 24, 2021

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OBITUARIES ALBERT Karen Joy Albert, 62 of Newton, has died.

She was the wife of Jason Albert. Raised in West Hartford, Conn., she was the daughter of Henrietta Lee Levins of Sarasota, Fla., and the late Marvin Allen Levins. She was also predeceased by her brother, Myles Scott Levins. In addition to her husband and mother, she is survived by her stepsons, Justin Albert of Newton, Mass., and Julian Albert of Cambridge, Mass.

BARBER Ellen (Brown) Barber, 91, of Yarmouthport, and formerly of Worcester, died Friday, Aug. 13. She was predeceased by her husband of 43 years, Saul Barber. Born in Chatham, N.Y., she was the daughter of the late Jules and Netty Brown. She graduated from Keuka College in 1951 and earned her M.Ed. from Cornell University in 1954.

She was a Ford Foundation Fellowship recipient. She taught elementary school for more than 20 years, including 16 years at Moravian Academy in Bethlehem, Pa. She is survived by three children, Lisa (Rod) Beittel of West Boylston, Lowell Barber of South Orange, N.J., and David Barber (Thammarat) of Surrey, British Columbia, Canada; two grandchildren, Natalie Beittel (Kyle Peckham) and Nathan Beittel; a greatgranddaughter, Joni Peckham; a sisterin-law, June Brown of Baltimore, Md.; and many nieces and nephews. She was predeceased by a brother, Donald Brown; and a sister and brother-in-law Shirley and Murray Rosen. Memorial donations may be made to JESPY House, 102 Prospect St., South Orange, NJ 07079; or Planned Parenthood Federation of America, Inc., Attn: Online Services, P.O. Box 97166, Washington, D.C. 20090-7166.

MILES FUNERAL HOME BOWDAN Elizabeth Bowdan of South Hadley, died Sept. 12. She was the wife of Newton Bowdan. Born in Hull, England in 1939, she studied the violin, becoming the youngest person to play in the Hull Philharmonic at age 12. The only woman in the honors biology undergraduate program at Durham, she was invited to be a T.A. and earn her Masters degree (on balostema flumenium, a bug that swims underwater) at Mount Holyoke. She was awarded her PhD in Insect Neurophysiology at UMass while studying the locomotion of water-striders with Gordon Weiss, then moved on to work with Vincent Dethier on taste and odor reception in house-flies and, eventually, tobacco hornworm caterpillars. She retired in order to spend more time gardening and playing the violin. She played the violin with the Pioneer Valley Symphony, Valley Light Opera, and many quartets. In addition to her husband of 60 years, she is survived by a daughter, Janet Bowdan and son-in-law 22

Blair Barondes; step-granddaughters Anna and Leah; a grandson, Noah; and her family in England, two sisters, Ruth and Judith (Stuart); niece Sarah (Luke); cousins Millie Hutcheson (Dave) and Roz Peters; and great-niece Amelia. Memorial contributions may be sent to Lander-Grinspoon Academy, PVS, NCMC (the Elizabeth Bowdan Scholarship Fund), your local Food Bank or a nature conservation group of your choice.

ASCHER-ZIMMERMAN FUNERAL HOLME FINBERG Dr. Robert Finberg, 71, of Northborough, Chair Emeritus and Distinguished Professor of Medicine at the University of Massachusetts Medical School died suddenly Aug. 30. He is survived by his wife of 50 years, Dr. Joyce Fingeroth. Born in Baltimore, Md., he was the son of Dr. Laurence Finberg and Harriet Levinson Finberg, and grew up in Tarrytown, New York. He obtained his undergraduate degree from the University of Chicago and medical degree (with AOA honors) from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine. He completed his internal medicine residency at the New York University School of Medicine and an Infectious Disease Fellowship at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. Dr. Finberg completed his post-doctoral training in the laboratory of Dr. Benacerraf at Harvard, where he made seminal discoveries in the biology of HLA-based immune cell recognition of viruses. His career as a physician, infectious disease researcher, and teacher spanned four decades. He was an internationally renowned physicianscientist and chair of the Department of Medicine at UMass Medical School for 21 years. With more than 300 publications and 40 years of continuous NIH funding, his research contributed enormously to the understanding of viral receptors and entry to host responses and he was widely recognized as an expert on influenza and Sars-CoV2. He was awarded research grants from the Department of Defense, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, and other agencies. He played a pivotal role in developing, testing, and implementing novel therapies for patients with influenza and SARS-CoV-2 infection.

He helped to lead clinical trials for SARSCoV-2 therapeutics and vaccines. He was also an ardent public health advocate and served on multiple state and federal committees to help stop the spread of COVID-19. He served as a member of the Board of Trustees for UMass Memorial Health from 2012 until March 2021. Before joining UMass in 1999, he was professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and chief of infectious disease at the DanaFarber Cancer Institute. In addition to his wife, he is survived by three daughters, Johanna, Sara, and Leah Fine; three

MASSACHUSETTS JEWISH LEDGER

| SEPTEMBER 24, 2021

grandchildren, Orly, Nate, and Leo; a sister, Jeanne Finberg; a brother, James Finberg; and many members of his extended family.

Memorial contributions may be made to the Dr. Robert Finberg Fund, UMass Medical School Foundation, Office of Advancement, 333 South St., Shrewsbury, MA, 01545.

MILES FUNERAL HOLME HENDELMAN Judith Claire (Towsinski) Hendelman , 86, of Worcester, died peacefully at UMass Memorial Hospital on Aug. 24. She was the widow of Harold Hendelman. She was employed at the Catholic Free Press for many years, and was also a supporter of Abby’s House. She is survived by a sister, Fay Boyer and her husband, Stuart; and three nephews, Andrew, Michael Todd, and David Boyer. In addition to her late husband, she was predeceased by her daughter, Sarita.

Memorial contributions may be made to the Jewish Healthcare 629 Salisbury St., Worcester 01609; Shaarai Torah Synagogue West, 835 Pleasant St., Worcester; or Abby’s House, 52 High Street Basement Level, Worcester, MA 01609.

RICHARD PERLMAN OF MILES FUNERAL HOME

RESNIC Harold Resnic, 88, of Longmeadow, died peacefully on Wednesday, Aug. 25, 2021, at home surrounded by his family. He is survived by his wife of 56 years, Sally Ann (Reback) Resnic. Born in Holyoke, he was the son of the late Sam and Theresa “Babe” (Hendel) Resnic. He was a graduate of Williston Academy, Brown University, Cornell University (MBA), and Western New England Law School (JD). He practiced law in Springfield for more than 40 years.

In addition to his wife, he is survived by two sons, Steven Resnic of Arlington, Va., and David Resnic and his wife, Amy, of Sudbury; a brother, Burton Resnic and his wife, Margie, of Holyoke; two grandchildren, Abby and Ben; and many nieces and nephews. Memorial contributions may be made to Dana-Farber Cancer Institute at 450 Brookline Ave., Boston, MA 02215; or a charity of the donor’s choice.

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MORE THAN 100 HEADSTONES SMASHED AT JEWISH CEMETERY IN ARGENTINA (JTA) – More than 100 headstones were smashed at a Jewish cemetery in Argentina that had seen similar damage in 2009.

The vandalism at the Tablada Cemetery in the Buenos Aires area was discovered on Sunday, the Jewish news site Visavis reported. The headstones were between the cemetery’s older section and the new one, which also contains the remains of dozens of victims from the 1994 terrorist bombing at the AMIA Jewish community center in Buenos Aires.

AMIA, the umbrella of Argentine Jewish communities, condemned the vandalism and lamented the “neglect and lack of control” by law enforcement around the cemetery in La Matanza, an eastern district of the Argentine capital. Police are investigating, AMIA said in a statement. It did not say whether there are indications of the vandalism being an antisemitic hate crime. There are no suspects.

In 2009, unidentified individuals defaced more than 60 headstones, including victims of the 1994 bombing. That vandalism also happened shortly before Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, which this year began on Monday evening. AMIA did call that vandalism antisemitic.

THE JEWISH CEMETERY OF LA TABLADA IN BUENOS AIRES, ARGENTINA, PICTURED IN 2013.

(WIKIMEDIA COMMONS/DARIO ALPERN)

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Yiddish Book Center shares Oral History videos of the late Ed Asner

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MHERST - The Yiddish Book Center’s Christa Whitney had the special opportunity to sit down with Ed Asner for an interview as part of the Center’s Wexler Oral History Project back in 2018. The interview is part of the Yiddish Book Center’s growing digital collection of over 1,000 interviews about Yiddish language and culture.

In the 2018 interview, Asner reveals his humble beginnings growing up in his father’s junkyard, attending kheyder four afternoons a week while his friends were out playing ball. He reflects on his complicated Jewish identity, how his bar mitzvah kicked off his acting career, and his love of Yiddish. In addition to the video highlights, and you can also watch the full interview, search the transcript, and browse the photos donated along with the interview.

From the Forests of Eyshishok to A Junkyard in Kansas City: Ed Asner’s Father’s Immigration Story “My father...so much I want to tell about him. He was orphaned...at the age of twelve, my dad was in the forests of Lithuania chopping shingles...he got to Kansas City somewhere around 1900. Settled in the West Bottoms of Kansas City, Kansas, which housed the packing houses, the railyards, the stockyards, all that, in Kansas City, and started a junkyard.”

Watch the video: youtube.com/watch?v=P78yS6La6gU Ed Asner On Growing Up Working in a Junkyard Across from the Packing Houses in Kansas City “Hot Kansas summers...spent my first seven years there...Well, you’re always aware of anti-Semitism: ‘He Jewed me down, he Jewed me down.’ But I call that gentle discrimination. It’s nothing fervid like other towns, other intensities. Much lower heat. So, you did what you could. You said you were a Jew and you kind of apologized for it when you said it, but you still finished your task.”

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“It Probably Turned Me into an Actor”: Ed Asner’s Bar Mitzvah Story “The day of my bar mitzvah came...and I started my haftorah. And my hands were clasped behind my back and my dad came along at one point and he brushed them, slapped them aside and said, “Kik nisht git [Doesn’t look good].”...in the middle of my performance. Then, I went on and I got into a very high tenor and—reciting very fast. And either my uncle came along or my dad and said, “Tsu shnel, tsu shnel [Too fast, too fast].”...having failed my first performance, I was determined to make better.

I guess I’m still trying.”

Watch the video: youtube.com/watch?v=t5CFEjSLusw Ed Asner’s Parents’ Reactions to His Acting “At one point, when I called home and said, ‘I’ve dropped out of school and I’ll be coming home but I’m gonna stay here and do this play first’—and my father sent, through my sister, who was on the line -- saying, ‘Well, tell him that if he didn’t make it as a success as a student, he’s not gonna make it as a success as an actor.’ And so, my simple response was, ‘I’ll be the judge of that.’”

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Watch the video: youtube.com/watch?v=Y6uhDuGAAyI Ed Asner on His Love of Yiddish “[Yiddish] can never die...I’m sure it will continue to thrive...I think it’s a wonderfully interesting language.”

Explore the full 80-minute oral history interview (recorded 2018 in Tarzana, California) with searchable transcript and time-coded index, along with some great photos: yiddishbookcenter.org/collections/oral-histories/interviews/wohfi-0001041/ed-asner-2018

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