August 30, 2012 Edition of The Reporter

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Jewish Federation of Northeastern Pennsylvania AUGUST 30, 2012

VOLUME X, NUMBER 17

Israel chatter on Iran is about sending a message to Washington

By Ron Kampeas WASHINGTON (JTA) – How much noise does Israel’s leadership have to make to get the Obama administration to say what it wants to hear about Iran? It’s a question now preoccupying Israel, along with its corollary: How much noise is too much and risks precipitating a crisis between Jerusalem and its closest ally?

Some Israeli analysts say that pronounced signals from their country’s leadership in recent days that it is readying for a strike against Iran are less an immediate call to arms than a call for an unequivocal commitment from the Obama administration to take the lead in such an attack or to come to Israel’s aid if it goes first.

The signals have included: An interview in Ha’aretz with a top Israeli official, whom is widely believed to be

Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak, who argued that Israel risks more in the short term by not striking than it does by striking; The appointment to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Cabinet of Avi Dichter, a former head of Israel’s internal security service, the Shin Bet, to bring the home front up to speed; A series of notices to the Israeli public, including a call to update gas mask equipment and a listing of Tel Aviv underground parking lots that could double as bomb shelters.

A series of public statements by Israel’s ambassador to Washington, Michael Oren, suggesting that an Israeli strike would reap sufficient rewards to justify it.

A key Israeli fear is that a nuclear Iran would provide an umbrella to hostile forces consolidating their hold along Israel’s bor-

ders in Lebanon and the Gaza Strip, and possibly in Syria and Egypt as those nations undergo turmoil that threatens to disrupt decades of peace on their borders.

“The idea of these non-state actors on Israel’s borders which may be controlled by a nuclear Iran is a serious threat, the kind of which Israel has not encountered before,” Asher Susser, a senior fellow at the Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern Studies at Tel Aviv University, said in a conference call organized by the Israel Policy Forum on August 16.

Still, Obama administration officials are not yet publicly buying the rhetoric. “I don’t believe they’ve made a decision as to whether or not they will go in and attack Iran at this time,” Defense Secretary Leon Panetta told reporters on August 15. “With regards to the issue of where we’re at from

a diplomatic point of view, the reality is that we still think there is room to continue to negotiate.”

Gen. Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the military Joint Chiefs of Staff, said an Israeli strike would have limited effect. “I may not know about all of their capabilities, but I think that it’s a fair characterization to say that they could delay, but not destroy, Iran’s nuclear capabilities,” Dempsey said at the same briefing.

Obama administration officials over the last several months have lobbied Israel intensely to tamp down talk of a strike, and to wait out a U.S. strategy of exhausting economic and diplomatic pressure as a means of getting Iran to stand down from its suspected nuclear weapons program.

Meanwhile, a number of Israeli figures See “Iran” on page 3

Struggling to maintain normalcy near the troubled Sinai border

By Ben Sales KEREM SHALOM BORDER CROSSING, Israel (JTA) – Drivers who reach the end of Israeli Route 232 purportedly face a choice: A sign points them either northwest, toward the Rafah border crossing between Egypt and the Gaza Strip, or southeast, toward the Nitzana border crossing between Egypt and Israel. But the intersection – located at the meeting point of Israel, Gaza and Egypt – is really a dead end; drivers cannot proceed in either direction. Rafah has been under Egyptian control since Israel’s disengagement from Gaza in 2005. And a year ago,

Israel closed off the road that runs to Nitzana, along the country’s southern border.

What drivers do meet at the end of the route is a simple red and white roadblock. To the left is the beginning of Israel’s security fence on the border of the Sinai Desert that is set to be completed this year. To the right is Israel’s Kerem Shalom border crossing with Gaza, which is closed to civilians. Next to that is a concrete wall separating Gaza and Israel. Litter dots the immediate area.

The Israeli army has stepped up security in the area since Egypt’s revolution began last year, and Israel issued a travel warning

Israeli soldiers patrolled the IsraelEgypt border a day after a terrorist attack on August 18, 2011, left eight Israelis, several Palestinian gunmen and three Egyptian soldiers dead. (File photo by Nati Shohat/ Flash90/JTA)

this month regarding the Sinai. On August 5, terrorists killed 16 Egyptian soldiers and crossed into Israel down the road from the Kerem Shalom crossing, where they were killed by Israeli security forces.

But across the street from the concrete wall, one woman sits smiling in a purple food truck. Bold letters on the side of the truck advertise: “To soldiers with love, from the loving Tami Mommy.”

Tami Muyal, 62, has been operating the truck for 12 years, including the past three and a half years in this location. “There’s no way a soldier gets to me and leaves hungry or thirsty,” she said.

From 6:30 am to 4 pm, Muyal offers soldiers anything from popsicles to baguette sandwiches at a discount or even for free, depending on how much cash they have on hand. She knows many of them by name. “I had a dream to open a rest stop for soldiers,” said Muyal, formerly a bookkeeper. “It’s a challenge, not like sitting in an office.

There’s sand, dust, heat, and it’s great.”

Muyal has moved her truck around Israel’s South, at one time stationing it in Gush Katif, Israel’s former settlement bloc in Gaza. “A sniper could hit me right here,”

An Egyptian flag flies from an army outpost on the Egyptian side of the border with Israel near the moshav of Kadesh Barnea.

(File photo by Dina Kraft)

Federation Scranton Hebrew Day School to hold annual on Facebook See “Sinai” on page 4

Rosh Hashanah “Sweet Sensations” bake sale The Women’s League of the Scranton Hebrew Day School is conducting its annual Rosh Hashanah “Sweet Sensations” bake sale. Many holiday specialties will be available, such as sweet noodle

kugel, butternut squash kugel, apple cranberry kugel, soups, dessert cakes, pies and more.

For a full list of products or to place an order, call the day school office at 346-1576,

ext. 2. The deadline to place an order is Wednesday, September 5. Quantities will be limited. All proceeds will benefit the school’s scholarship fund. Jodi Herber is bake sale chairwoman.

INSIDE THIS ISSUE Campaign Chai-lights

Prep. for Rosh Hashanah

Sephardic heritage

The Jewish Federation of Northeastern Pennsylvania now has a page on Facebook to let community members know about upcoming events and keep connected.

Candle lighting August 31.........................................7:18 pm September 7....................................7:07 pm September 14..................................6:55 pm

The Jewish Agency for Israel and A look at the High Holidays in Jewish Preserving Ladino books and PLUS its programs are supported by cinema; a holiday menu inspired by documents for future generations; Opinion...........................................................2 Federation’s Annual Campaign. “simanim.”

Crypto-Jewish-themed artwork.

Jewish Community Center News............6 Story on page 5 Stories on pages 6-7 Stories on page 12 D’var Torah...................................................8

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THE REPORTER ■ AUGUST 30, 2012

a matter of opinion Leadership means taking the reins – and sharing them

By Jennifer Laszlo Mizrahi (JTA) – Philanthropist Charles Bronfman once told me, “Leaders lead. That’s what they do.” Years later, I was sitting with his professional partner for philanthropic impact, Jeffrey Solomon. “Leaders lead,” Solomon said. “That’s what they do.”

Like an old married couple who finish each other’s sentences, these two are so intertwined in their thinking and doing that at times it’s as if their minds are locked together, even when the conversations are years apart.

But what does it mean to be a leader in the Jewish community today? Who can hold those reins?

John Ruskay, the devoted leader of the UJA-Federation of New York, talks about his goal of “creating [an] inspired community that can sear the soul and engage people.” It’s a lofty goal, and he’s more than doing his share to make it happen. But it’s easier said than done, and the community needs a lot more leaders to say “heineini,” here I am.

Ruskay obviously isn’t alone and can’t do it alone, and lay leaders hold vital keys.

And as major figures such as Abe Foxman and Malcolm Hoenlein, who have devoted decades of service to the Jewish community, are approaching retirement age, we need to think about who will fill their shoes.

So what’s the secret sauce of being a successful Jewish leader? The willingness to fail and the willingness to work as a team.

People can achieve massive breakthrough results only when they work together and share risks.

Of course, risk is scary. Sadly, there is still a lot of lip service in the Jewish community regarding performance metrics and change. Still, too many of us ultimately get

cold feet. Lay leaders, afraid that their ideas will get shot down or their fund-raising solicitations will be rejected, too often sit on the sidelines. Responsibilities once held proudly by lay leaders are being dumped on CEOs like worn-out overcoats. CEOs in turn fear backlashes from their boards and donors, and sometimes set leadership expectations too low. Employees all too often ask “how has it always been done” as opposed to “what is the right thing to be doing today.”

The forthcoming book “Reimagining Leadership in Jewish Organizations: Ten Practical Lessons to Help You Implement Change and Achieve Your Goals,” by the Jewish Agency for Israel’s Misha Galperin, is a thought-provoking and worthy read. The best chapter is a groundbreaking section about mistakes in which Galperin openly outlines his own personal mistakes.

But the author also points out that “we’re losing about half the Jews in any major city in North America to join what we have to offer. That’s a hefty percent when we’re a pretty small people to begin with. And although organizations like Federations and others are well aware of this loss and many have known about it for years, few are coming up with any strategy to tackle this number. There’s no coordinated plan or sharing of best practices. We look at this number and shrug. That’s a mistake. It’s a mistake of ineptitude.”

Sometimes the mistake is that programs we offer aren’t good enough. All too often it is that we don’t make interfaith families, gay couples, people with disabilities and others feel welcomed and supported. At times, however, it is also because people are looking for charismatic leaders to carry the burdens of leadership for the rest of us.

We wait for someone else to take the reins, denying ourselves and our community our talents. Meanwhile, some leaders find that all too comfortable, building organizations based on cultures of personality rather than of performance.

I know that one of my biggest failures in leading a Jewish organization (and there were many) was that I allowed myself to put too much on my own shoulders. The cost to my family was brutal. But just as large was the cost to those who didn’t get a chance to stretch their own leadership wings more broadly.

At times I failed to find the right people to do the right things. At other times I had the right people, but failed to give them the right powers and responsibilities so they could feel the joy of making the difference. The magic times were when I let others on the staff and board shine their brightest.

As Galperin writes, “One of the leadership myths that gets most in the way of focus and delegation is the messianic-like notion that as a leader, you can solve all problems and that you have to solve them all. You are the only one. You can do it best. No one else can even come close. You have saving powers. When leaders say that they are so swamped they’re not getting anything done, they may be suffering from the messiah complex. They haven’t really wrestled with what is essential and what is nonessential.

They get caught up in what is urgent and forget what is important, in best-selling author Stephen Covey’s terms, under the guise that they have to be everything and do everything.”

He adds, “We want to say yes all the time. We feel that we are betraying others and ourselves when we say no.”

Let’s face it, leadership is hard work.

And we can’t get caught up in our own

myths. Leadership needs to be decentralized and held in more hands. As Brenda Gevertz, executive director of the Jewish Communal Service Association of North America, points out, the tools and support needed from donors/investors/lay leaders/ the community overall include “assistance with marketing; lay leader participation and buy-in for professional development; understanding that there is a correlation between pay scale and talent.”

Of course, the list doesn’t end there. Ironically, some of the best times for leaders to grow are the time they are away from their jobs. Our tradition teaches, “More than Jews have kept the Shabbat; it is the Shabbat that has kept the Jews.” Many Jewish professionals thank Shabbat for a time when they don’t have to go to fund-raising or committee meetings, and can experience for themselves the magic of a Jewish experience with their families. It revitalizes us.

Terry Meyerhoff Rubenstein, a mentor to numerous Jewish leaders, including myself, points out that “most good leaders struggle with work-life balance, male and female.

There are few philanthropic emergencies, yet many people in the field act like they are curing cancer. Passion for the cause is important, but the reality is when all is said and done, no one is going to wish that they had attended one more meeting; they will wish that they had spent more time with those that they love.”

Of course, for most Jewish professionals and lay leaders, those they love expand far beyond the boundaries of their home and onto their staffs, board, donors and the entire Jewish family.

Jennifer Laszlo Mizrahi, the founder and past president of The Israel Project, is the founder and president of Laszlo Strategies.

Shine a light on hateful white power music “ The Reporter” (USPS #482) is published bi-weekly by the Jewish Federation of Northeastern Pennsylvania, 601 Jefferson Ave., Scranton, PA 18510.

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By Mark Pitcavage (JTA) – Much has been written and said of late about the underground white supremacist subculture in which Wisconsin shooter Wade Page immersed himself, and his own involvement with white power music. But one aspect of that subculture has not been given the attention it deserves. In that subculture, there also is a powerful undercurrent of antisemitism. The antisemitism is unmistakable in band names such as Jew Slaughter, Final Solution and Ethnic Cleansing. The latter boasts of albums called “Piles of Dead Jews” and “Hitler was Right.”

Another longstanding white supremacist band, Bully Boys, has recorded songs called “Fire Up the Ovens” and “Six Million More.” In the first one, the group sings about leaving “no stone unturned until the last Jew burns.” And in “Six Million More,” the group sings: “They’re on the media night and day looking for our sympathy / Yeah the Holocaust, the crystal night don’t mean a thing to me / No, the world can’t take much more of this Zionist intervention / The only fool proof plan is mass extermination.”

These bands and others like them are part of a thriving subculture; some white supremacists drive for hundreds of miles to attend their concerts. Their fans gather together, many sporting shaved heads and covered with tattoos. The men pump their fists in the air and dance raucously in front of a stage festooned with Nazi flags and racist skinhead symbols, while others, including a few women, watch around the perimeter.

Onstage, the music is deafening, urging white people “to stand up and fight.”

Apart from the concerts, which rarely attract crowds of more than a couple hundred, the music reaches others who purchase or download it from the Internet. Since white power music arrived in the United States in the late 1970s, it has become a pillar of the subculture permeating the white supremacist movement.

The music comes in many flavors. The oldest is a racist form of Oi!, associated with the original skinhead subculture in Great Britain. Also popular is hatecore, a white supremacist version of hardcore punk. A white supremacist form of death metal music, known as National Socialist Black Metal Music, or NSBM, has become popular. There are other small subgenres of hate music – even a few white power hiphop artists, though most white supremacists dislike hip hop.

At any given time, about 100 to 150 white power bands are active in the United States.

The bands’ own names defiantly express feelings of hate or violence: examples other than those mentioned previously include Aggravated Assault, Angry Aryans, Attack, Definite Hate, Force Fed Hate, Fueled by Hate and Hate Crime. Most of these bands are the white supremacist equivalents of garage bands – nobody is getting rich from the music. Behind them are small record labels or distributors that specialize in white power music such as Label 56, Tightrope Records, Final Stand Records and others.

Many bands are associated with racist skinhead groups such as Volksfront, the Vinlanders Social Club or, especially, the Hammerskins, who dominate much of the white power music scene. Many bands are Hammerskins-affiliated, while the group itself organizes hate music concerts, including Hammerfest, its largest annual event.

White power music conveys many messages. Obviously it conveys hatred: antagonism toward Jews, immigrants, nonwhites, Muslims, gays and left-wingers. But songs can convey other messages, too. Some white power songs may glorify heroes or martyrs of the white supremacist movement. Some are essentially self-promotional, praising a group or leader.

Songs that urge or celebrate generic violence also are common, emerging from a subculture in which violence is easily

condoned. A number of songs attempt to convey some sense of commonality, to strengthen the sense that listeners are in a movement with shared ideas, goals – or perceived enemies such as Jews.

What are the effects of white power music? It’s often hard to know exactly how music of any kind may affect someone.

Music is universally acknowledged as powerful, yet its effects are often indirect. Hate music does sometimes create direct effects.

Incidents of hate crimes being committed by people who had just been at a hate music event have been reported. More indirectly, hate music certainly contributes to the shared ideas and notions of the white supremacist movement, including its willing acceptance of violence.

Not only was Wade Page, the white supremacist responsible for the massacre at a Sikh temple in Wisconsin, part of this subculture, he also was a performer. A racist skinhead himself, he played in two white power music bands, End Apathy and Definite Hate, affiliated with the Hammerskins.

The recent tragedy should be a wake-up call for all of us, including the Jewish community. It is important for us to be concerned about this subculture that celebrates hateful music, hateful lyrics, and messages of hate and antisemitism. Our concerns should be heightened by the reminder we have just received that this hate does sometimes lead to violence and murder, including occasions when Jewish individuals and Jewish institutions have been targeted.

For example, in 1999 white supremacist Buford Furrow went after children at the Los Angeles JCC. Three years ago, another white supremacist, James von Brunn, targeted the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC, murdering a museum guard. In April 2011, two white supremacists assaulted and seriously injured See “Music” on page 6

AUGUST 30, 2012 ■

THE REPORTER

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community news Jewish Home to sponsor care giver dementia training As a community service, the Jewish Home of Eastern Pennsylvania will hold a free training series for those caring for someone diagnosed with dementia. The sessions will be open to the public and will be led by the Alzheimer’s

Association-Greater Pennsylvania Chapter.

The first session will be held on Thursday, August 30, followed by a second one on Thursday, September 5. The sessions will be held from noon-4 pm in the

Friedman auditorium. Reservations are requested as space will be limited.

To reserve a spot, contact Lynn Klemick at 344-6177, ext. 109. A light lunch will be provided at no charge.

Rabbi Stuart Saposh to conduct High Holiday services at Temple Israel Temple Israel of Scranton has announced that Rabbi Stuart Saposh, from Teaneck, NJ, will join the Temple Israel community to conduct services for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur in September.

Born and raised in Brooklyn, NY, he is a product of Jewish day schools, Camp Ramah and a Conservative synagogue community. Ordained at the Jewish Theological Seminary, Saposh has served as the head of school of three

Congregation B’nai Harim to present local authors

Local authors Sally Weiner Grotta and Daniel Grotta will give a presentation about creating settings for their stories on Sunday, September 30, at 11 am, at Congregation B’nai Harim.

Both authors have set their recent pieces in the village of Black Bear, PA. Weiner Grotta’s newest novel, “Jo Joe,” is a mystery about a mixed race Jewish woman. A short reading will be given by the author.

Following the reading, Grotta, author of the novella “Honor,” will answer questions about the life of a writer

Iran

Continued from page 1

understands that as much as the Iranian regime does not want war, it’s not an existential threat,” he said. “What is an existential threat are the sanctions. And the more attention that is diverted from the existential threat of the sanctions, the less the regime needs to address them.”

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have lashed out against Netanyahu and Barak, saying that the government’s ratcheting up of the rhetoric could backfire.

“It’s clear to us that we can’t do it alone,” Israeli President Shimon Peres said in remarks on Israel’s Channel Two that were seen as a rare rebuke to the government from the largely ceremonial office. “It’s clear to us we have to proceed together with America.”

Several Likud Knesset members told the media that Peres was speaking out of turn. Shaul Mofaz, the leader of the opposition Kadima Party, was more blunt in his assessment of the risks of confronting the U.S. In a blistering Knesset speech, he accused Netanyahu of trying to weigh in on the U.S. elections, undercutting Obama in favor of Mitt Romney, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee.

Meir Javedanfar, an Iran-born Israeli analyst, said that Netanyahu’s talk of war diminished the real results that U.S.-led sanctions were having on the Iranian theocracy’s viability. “I don’t think that the ruling echelon in Israel

and the current e-publishing revolution.

A brunch will be served prior to the program. Pre-registration is requested by calling 646-0100. The cost for the brunch and program will be $13.

Copies of “Honor” will be available for purchase with 10 percent of sales donated to B’nai Harim. Free pre-release e-book copies of “Jo Joe” will be distributed to attendees.

For directions or more information, visit www. bnaiharimpoconos.org or call 646-0100.

Solomon Schechter Day Schools in New York and New Jersey. He has served previously as a High Holiday rabbi in Conservative congregations in Forest Hills, NY, and Fort Lee, Closter and Clark, NJ, providing “a meaningful, spiritual and engaging experience for all who attended,” according to a TI representative.

Saposh presently serves as head of school at the Solomon Schecter Day School of Raritan Valley in East Brunswick, NJ. He resides in Teaneck with his wife, Linda Holof-Saposh. Together they are the parents of three children and grandparents of four grandchildren.

“The Temple Israel community is excited to have Rabbi Saposh join us to initiate what promises to be an exciting, challenging and forward-moving year for Temple Israel and its members,” said a TI representative.

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THE REPORTER ■ AUGUST 30, 2012

CBH holds musical program with Susan Spannagel and friends

Congregation B’nai Harim hosted its eighth annual summer concert, chaired by Norma Levine, on July 22.

Susan Spannagel and her friends’ program included musical selections from Broadway, Jewish music, folk, opera, jazz and the movies. The musicians played a variety of instruments, such as Spannagel on Irish harp and guitar. Peter Begley performed a nostalgic version

of “Jerusalem of Gold” on the stick and Gabrielle Truncali played a mournful “Avinu Malkeinu” on the cello as she accompanied Kimberly Varano.

Patrons enjoyed a pre-concert brunch at the home of Barbara and Richard Feman featuring a range of dishes from smoked white fish to pastries and more. The patrons then joined the other guests at the temple, where the musical performances were held.

At right: Susan Spannagel, Kimberly Varano, Gabrielle Truncali and Renard Cohen performed at Congregation B’nai Harim.

Seventy years ago: Telegram alerts world of Nazi Holocaust

By Rachel Hirshfeld Originally published by World Jewish Congress on August 8, 2012 Seventy years ago, on August 8, 1942, the World Jewish Congress representative in Geneva, Gerhart M. Riegner, sent a telegram to British and American diplomats providing them with reliable information about Hitler’s plans to annihilate millions of European Jews. The telegram was the first authoritative word that the Nazis actually had a coordinated extermination plan.

A few days before, Riegner had received a phone call from a friend at the Federation of Jewish Communities in Switzerland with news that a German industrialist had told him of a plan being discussed by Hitler to exterminate the Jews of Europe. The cable he then sent to British and American

diplomats in Switzerland read as follows: “Received alarming report about plan being discussed and considered in Führer headquarters to exterminate at one fell swoop all Jews in German-controlled countries comprising three and a half to four million after deportation and concentration in the east thus solving Jewish question once and for all stop campaign planned for autumn methods being discussed including hydrocyanic acid.”

Riegner urged the U.S. vice consul in Geneva to inform the administration in Washington of the plan and to transmit the contents of the telegram to Stephen Wise, president of the World Jewish Congress and a personal friend of U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

However, Wise received Riegner’s

Jewish Federation of NEPA

alarming message only three weeks later, on August 28, 1942. The WJC president immediately relayed it to the U.S. authorities, but the telegram was largely met with disbelief, despite pre-existing evidence for mass executions. The U.S. State Department considered it “a wild rumor, fueled by Jewish anxieties,” while the British Foreign Office refused to forward the telegram for the time being and called for the allegations to be investigated first.

It was only on November 25, 1942, that the State Department contacted Wise, confirming Riegner’s report and granting Wise permission to release the news about the Holocaust to the world. It took a further 14 months until, in January 1944, Roosevelt created the War Refugee Board whose aim was to try to save Jews. “Since my first telegram, 18 months had passed during which time the inexorable massacre continued and millions of Jews were sacrificed,” Riegner wrote in his memoirs.

For the rest of his life, Riegner was haunted by the knowledge that many of the six million Jews killed in Nazi concentration camps could have been saved if the United

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Congregation B’nai Harim is looking for a Religious School teacher for the 2012-2013 school year.

Religious School classes are held two Saturdays a month. Each session is 3 hours in length and includes Hebrew and Judaic studies. We are a one-room school house with children from age 8 1/2 and up and also have a teacher assistant who works with the beginners.

We are a 35 minute drive from Scranton, located on Sullivan Road, off Rte. 940 in Pocono Pines, PA. For additional information, please contact the temple and leave a message at 570-646-0100 or Barbara Kapitansky, Religious School Director at 570-646-4668.

she said, pointing beneath her brown, curly hair at a slightly wrinkled forehead.

Muyal doesn’t feel safe where she is on the Egyptian border, either. She says the border crossing has seemed abandoned, save for increased Israeli army traffic, since trouble began in the Sinai last year. She lives in the area, where she raised four children. “I ask myself, ‘What am I doing here?’” she said.

“The situation is scary. I don’t think anything is clear. I’m here alone. Where would I go?”

Born in Tunisia, Muyal moved to Israel with her family when she was 10, in 1960.

Since then, she has lived in this area, and for the past 40 years in the nearby town of Yesha. Despite the frequent threats of violence, Muyal declares confident faith in the Israeli army – “an army I’m proud of.”

While Muyal has inserted herself in the middle of the army’s activities, the nearby Kibbutz Kerem Shalom less than than three miles away is striving to continue a normal routine despite the unrest across the border.

The area was the site of the 2006 kidnapping of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit by Hamas, the terrorist organization that governs Gaza.

States and Britain had acted promptly on his warning dispatched from Switzerland.

“Never did I feel so strongly the sense of abandonment, powerlessness and loneliness as when I sent messages of disaster and horror to the free world, and no one believed me,” Riegner recalled in his memoirs. “We discussed it for five or six hours, walking along the lake shore. Did we have to take it seriously? Was it conceivable to kill millions of people? Was it credible?” Riegner agonized. He decided it was.

Riegner went on to serve as secretarygeneral of the World Jewish Congress from 1965-83. French President François Mitterand decorated him with the Legion of Honor in 1987. He was closely involved with the often-difficult process of improving relations with the Roman Catholic Church, and was present at the signing of the basic accord normalizing relations between the Holy See and Israel in 1993. Riegner was also active at the United Nations, especially in the campaign to rescind the 1975 General Assembly vote that equated Zionism with racism. The resolution was finally annulled in 1991.

Continued from page 1 Now the concrete wall that divides Gaza and Israel surrounds two-thirds of the kibbutz.

Bright murals cover parts of the wall, but most of it remains gray.

“When you live here, you don’t see it,” Ofer Kissin, who heads the kibbutz’s security, said of the wall. “We’ve returned to routine life. It takes time, but we’re used to situations like this.”

Kissin said that five families had recently joined the kibbutz, bringing its total to 30.

The collective nature of the kibbutz helps residents weather the attacks, Kissin says, but the true source of the community’s secure feeling comes from the military presence nearby. “The army takes care of us,” he said. “Kids run around here at night.” Kissin declined to give specifics on the Israel Defense Forces’ presence around Kerem Shalom, nor did the IDF provide details on its operations there.

Muyal also says the IDF allows her to stay calm even while working at the intersection of two tense borders. “The soldiers are brave, they love the land, nothing scares them,” Muyal said. “I’m not ready to give in.”

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UJA Campaign Chai-lights

The Jewish Agenc y for Israel UJAhas announced that community members’ 2013 UJA Campaign gifts do “a world of good,” as 32 percent (or $279,800) of the 2012 UJACampaign ($880,500) was allocated to Israel and overseas Jewish assistance.

The Jewish Agency for Israel The Jewish Agency for Israel’s role in the development of the state of Israel has become “the consummate achievement” of 20th century Jewry. According to the Jewish Agency, it pursues this mission by: Forging connections to Israel through a sequence of Israel experiences for teens and young adults, from Birthright’s short visits to Israel to Masa’s live and learn experiences from five months to a year.

Facilitating aliyah for those who choose to make Israel their home.

Engaging young Jews from Israel and around the world in social activism, “infusing” them with Jewish purpose and connecting them to one another while addressing the needs of vulnerable populations in Israel.

Reconnecting Jews from the former Soviet Union to their Jewish roots, from which they were forcibly separated by more than 70 years of communist rule.

Rescuing Jews from countries of distress and re-settling them in Israel.

Serving as first responder to crises in Israel and around the Jewish world.

In more than 500 Jewish communities around the world since 1929, the Jewish Agency has worked with its partners to create Jewish history.

In the 21st century, the Jewish Agency continues to cover: The cost of aliyah from anywhere in the Jewish world where Jews are in peril and vulnerable.

Aid, assistance and support to the victims

assist battered women.

Hundreds of Partnership 2000 projects

A child took part in the weekly Kabbalat Shabbat ceremony at the Athens Jewish Kindergarten. In February, the Jewish Agency for Israel's Board of Governors voted to grant about $1 million over two years to help Greece's Jewish communal institutions continue operating during the country's financial crisis. (Photo by Gavin Rabinowitz) of terrorism and their families.

Long-term immigrant absorption into Israeli society (especially from Argentina, the former Soviet Union, France, Hungary, the Netherlands and Ethiopia), including the provision of subsidized housing, interest-free loan assistance, job hunting, job retraining (if necessary) and free medical care and financial assistance (for those who come to Israel destitute).

The construction and maintenance of youth aliyah centers for the education, training and absorption into Israeli society

of disadvantaged children who come from throughout the Jewish world.

Housing needs for the Jewish poor and elderly.

Financial support for hundreds of educational institutions.

Financial support for the educational institutions, kibbutzim and programs of the Reform, Conservative and Orthodox movements in Israel.

The establishment of day care centers and regional colleges throughout the country.

The funding of numerous agencies that

spread across the length and breadth of Israel.

Actual costs A five-month Hebrew language class for a new immigrant – $120.

One month of preschool for an at-risk Ethiopian Israeli child – $365.

One year of after-school activities for one Israeli child – $850.

One year college scholarship for an Ethiopian Israeli – $2,750.

A year’s rent and basic expenses for one new immigrant family – $5,000.

One dropout prevention program for 15 at-risk immigrant teenagers – $7,500.

Victims of terrorism The president of Iran has proclaimed to the world his intention to “wipe Israel off the map.” Fully 50 percent of world Jewry now lives in Israel, so unlike the rest of the world, Israel knows this threat to be true and is preparing to act.

Furthermore, a recent Palestinian poll confirms that almost 70 percent of Palestinians will not be satisfied with a separate state on the West Bank and Gaza until Israel becomes Islamic.

The Palestinian Authority continues to incite hatred of Jews, Israel and Zionism in its media, schools and summer camps; it names tournaments, hosts rallies and builds monuments to Palestinian “martyrs” whose “claim to fame” was their having slaughtered innocent men, women and children at Passover seders, in discotheques, in day cares, in nurseries and on buses and more in the name of Allah.

“Such is the currency of their realm,” noted a UJA representative. “Such is the See “Campaign” on page 6

Sign up today!

The Jewish Federation is proud to give a helping hand to the businesses, business professionals, and non-profit organizations of NEPA during these difficult economic times by creating the NEPA Jewish Federation Business & Trade Alliance.

It will allow people from Lackawanna, Luzerne, Monroe, Wayne and Pike counties 24/7 access to: . Exchange Business Leads . Promote your Business . Develop Critical Business Skills and Solutions

. Post Job Opportunities and Receive Resumes . Increase Search Engine Optimization . Socialize and Network with Other Successful Business people

Sign up for membership at http://JewishNepaBTA.org If you have not yet registered your business on our new Alliance web site, please contact Mark Silverberg at 570-961-2300 (ext. 1) or mark.silverberg@jewishnepa.org with your contact person, business name, business phone number, business e-mail address, and regular business postal address to ensure further Business and Trade Alliance communications and event invitations.

Take Center Stage!

Sponsorship Opportunities Available. Capture the leading role and benefits as an Event Sponsor.

For more information, please call Mark Silverberg at 570-961-2300 (ext. 1).

NEPA Jewish Federation Business & Trade Alliance

NEPAJFedBTA

NEPA Jewish Federation Business & Trade Alliance in Groups

ÊVisit the Jewish Federation of Northeastern Pennsylvania on the web at www.jewishnepa.org or on Facebook

6

THE REPORTER ■ AUGUST 30, 2012

prepare for rosh hashanah

The High Holidays in Jewish cinema

By Joel Rosenberg JointMedia News Service – JNS.org When cinema was still in its youth, Hollywood built a story around the High Holidays. Its tale was a measure of Jewry’s ties to tradition, but also a gentle sign of its loss.

In “The Jazz Singer” (1927), America’s first feature-length sound film, Jakie Rabinowitz is a cantor’s son whose father expects him to follow tradition and stand by his side in the synagogue to chant Kol Nidre, the prayer that opens the Yom Kippur service.

But as the eve of the holiday approaches, the father is told that 12-year-old Jakie is singing in a saloon. The cantor angrily fetches him home and gives him a thrashing. Jakie vows to leave home for good. As

Campaign

sword under which Israel lives.”

While UJA/Federation funds do not support Israel’s defensive war against such terrorists, a portion of these funds are directed to the surviving victims of terrorism and their families (as well as to integrate and absorb Jews from “lands of distress”).

The funds are allocated by the Jewish Agency for: Direct aid to victims of terror and their families (including relief for the survivors of terrorist attacks, as well as their physical, psychological, financial and other immediate needs); Upgraded protection for Israeli school children (keeping children safe by providing

Music

a Jewish man in Southern California, and last December, white supremacist Danny Lee Warner reportedly told his wife that he was setting out to kill as many Jews as possible. Fortunately, in the Warner case, he was apprehended before he could carry out his plan.

What can be done about this subcul-

the father chants Kol Nidre at shul, the son takes to the streets and embarks on a life singing jazz.

Years later, his career on the rise, his name now changed to Jack Robin (played here by the great Al Jolson, whose life had inspired the story), he visits his parents on his papa’s 60th birthday, announces he’ll soon be starring on Broadway and hopes to make peace with his folks. Jack’s mama welcomes him back eagerly, but the father orders him to leave.

Soon after, the cantor grows ill and hovers between life and death. Jack’s mother appears at the Broadway rehearsals and begs him to sing Kol Nidre in place of his father.

But Yom Kippur is also the show’s opening night. The film constructs a virtual morality play around this dilemma.

armored school buses and vans for school children, emergency alert systems, intercoms, security guards, bullet-proof windows, security gates and playground enclosures for kindergartens, preschools, daycare centers, community centers and for regular, afterschool and summer programs); Upgraded facilities for medical emergencies resulting from acts of terrorism (trauma emergency kits, upgrading equipment for existing ambulances, improved trauma capabilities at regional hospital emergency rooms and training new personnel to use new medical equipment); Funding basic social service budgets (healthcare, social services and the resettlement of Continued from page 2 ture of hate and the violence it seems to beget? One solution is to shine a light on the hateful lyrics and music, as ADL does, so that more people will speak out and reject their disturbing and sometimes violent message.

Mark Pitcavage is director of investigative research of the Anti-Defamation League.

I won’t tell you the outcome, except to say that the film would be incomplete without a Jolson version of Kol Nidre. Or at least it sounds like Kol Nidre – but in Jolson’s handling, the Aramaic-language lines are radically abridged and repeated, over and over, in a reverie of improvisation.

In effect, Kol Nidre as jazz. The film here subtly portrays the passing of tradition into a creatively eroded form – symbolic of what New World Jews have done with the old.

In 1937, Jews in Poland did a film version of S. Ansky’s acclaimed Yiddish play “The Dybbuk.” In the film, two Chasidic Jews, Sender and Nisn, are longtime friends who meet up only infrequently during holiday pilgrimages to the rebbe of Miropolye. One such time, they pledge their yet-unborn

5,000 Argentinian immigrants) that have been slashed by billions of dollars as Israeli government funds are diverted to defense; Upgraded security equipment for volunteers (including bullet-proof vests, gas masks, sealed rooms, loud speaker systems, flash lights and patrol cars for increased numbers of mostly volunteers in the Civil Guard).

Children’s services The Jewish Agency: Enables 260,000 children to attend hundreds of summer camps, keeping them off the streets and out of harm’s way.

Creates an after-school program for 42,000 children in dozens of Israel’s most vulnerable communities (including Jerusalem, Netanya, Hadera and Afula).

Provides hot meals to 27,000 of these children as growing numbers face poverty at home.

Strengthens Israel’s ability to deal with

children in marriage. Soon after, Nisn is drowned and Sender, preoccupied with money, forgets his promise to his friend.

Years later, an impoverished scholar named named Khonen makes his way to Brinitz, Sender’s town, where, as a Sabbath guest at Sender’s, he instantly falls in love with Sender’s daughter Leah, who loves him in return. The father, unaware that Khonen is the son of his long-departed friend, is determined to betroth Leah to the richest suitor he can find. Desperate to win Leah’s hand, Khonen immerses himself in kabbalistic magic so he can conjure up barrels of gold. Intensely ascetic, Khonen grows ever more unbalanced, and when Leah’s engagement to a rich man’s son is See “Cinema” on page 16

Continued from page 5 trauma and stress that afflicts terror victims and their families.

Assisting the vulnerable The Jewish Agency has also helped Israel’s authorities to respond to other needs of vulnerable populations by providing: Sealed rooms in old age homes and institutions for children and adults with special needs, and customized gas masks for autistic and other Israelis who cannot use standard-issue equipment.

Training of caregivers in such facilities on rapid response systems.

Emergency information tailored for immigrants, the elderly and the disabled.

“Together, through your gifts to our 2013 Annual UJA/Federation Campaign, the Jewish Federation of Northeastern Pennsylvania sends a message to all Israelis,” said a UJA representative. “We are with you in your hour of need. We are one family. You will not be forgotten.”

Newly arrived Jewish immigrants from Ethiopia attended a rehearsal for a Passover seder at the absorption center in Mevasseret Zion on April 14, 2011. (File photo by Kobi Gideon/Flash 90)

SAVE THE DATE - MISSION TO HARRISBURG TUESDAY OCTOBER 16, 2012 MEETINGS WITH STATE REPRESENTATIVES TOUR OF THE CAPITAL BUILDING AND MEETING WITH THE NEW ISRAELI CONSULATE-GENERAL Yaron Sideman

Consul General of Israel to the Mid-Atlantic Region

Elad Strohmayer

Deputy Consul General of Israel to the Mid-Atlantic Region

FOR DETAILS AND TO MAKE YOUR RESERVATION CONTACT DASSY at 570-961-2300 x2 or Dassy.ganz@jewishnepa.org

AUGUST 30, 2012 ■

THE REPORTER

7

prepare for rosh hashanah

Menu inspired by “ simanim ” brings meaning to Rosh Hashanah meal

By Jamie Geller (JTA) – So this is where it all comes together – all the thought, all the planning, the testing. And the tasting, the tasting and the tasting. (That’s the best part.)

A simanim-inspired menu brings added challenges, but also adds a level of meaning to your Rosh Hashanah meal.

Simanim – literally it means signs or indicators – are meant to point the way to improved circumstances. For the past few years, I have been using the opportunity as a Rosh Hashanah conversation starter with my kids during our cooking and prep time together. My guests, my kids, my guests’ kids – everybody loves identifying which simanim are on the table openly or “hidden” as an ingredient. Our discussion takes on a special yontif energy that only comes with Rosh Hashanah.

In the coming year, may all of your meals be cooked to perfection – nothing burns, nothing is soggy or falls apart. May it be a year of culinary delights and taste-bud adventures! And may you and your loved ones eat in good health, happiness, sweetness and peace.

Gefilte Fish Cakes with Horseradish Sauce Prep time: 10 minutes Cook time: 20 minutes, plus 30 minutes chill time minimum Ready time: 30 minutes Servings: 8 1 loaf frozen gefilte fish, defrosted (22 ounces) or 1 jar (24 ounces), drained ½ cup diced red bell pepper 1 small red onion, diced 2 celery stalks, diced 1½ cups light mayonnaise, divided 4 Tbsp. chopped dill ½ tsp. kosher salt ¼ tsp. freshly ground black pepper 1 egg 1 cup coarsely crushed matzah Canola oil for frying 1 lemon, juiced 4 Tbsp. prepared horseradish In a large bowl combine gefilte fish, peppers, onions, celery, ½ cup mayonnaise, dill, salt, pepper, egg and matzah, and stir well to combine. Using slightly wet hands, scoop ¼ cup and form into patties. Place on a sheet pan and refrigerate for 30 minutes before frying.

Heat oil in a large saute pan over medium high heat. Fry patties in batches for 3 to 4 minutes per side or until golden brown. (Can be kept warm in the oven at 250°.)

In a small bowl, combine remaining 1 cup mayonnaise, lemon juice and horseradish; stir. To serve, plate 2 cakes on a small plate and garnish with a tablespoon of horseradish sauce.

Brisket in Wine Sauce Nothing compares to the rich flavor of brisket, plus this recipe couldn’t be simpler to prepare; a guaranteed crowd-pleaser.

Prep time: 9 minutes Cook time: 3 hours Ready time: 3 hours, 9 minutes Servings: 8 1 (2½-pound) beef brisket, thick-cut 1 Tbsp. paprika ½ tsp. basil 1 tsp. salt 1 tsp. pepper 3 medium onions, sliced 2 cloves garlic, peeled, halved 1½ cups ketchup

1½ cups dry red wine 1½ cups water Preheat oven to 325°. Rinse brisket. Place in roasting pan. Rub paprika, basil, salt and pepper into meat. Scatter onions and garlic over meat.

In a medium bowl, mix ketchup, wine and water. Pour over brisket. Cover pan tightly with aluminum foil, tenting so that the foil does not touch the meat. Bake, covered, at 325° for 3 hours, or until a digital instant-read thermometer inserted into the center of the brisket reads 190° for well done.

Let stand 5-10 minutes before slicing diagonally, against the grain. Serve warm; pass pan juices in a sauce boat.

Honey Chicken A tasty and economical way to feed a crowd during the holidays, this chicken dish is sweet but never cloying.

Despite its name, this chicken is not too sweet. The olive oil, soy sauce, garlic and pepper temper the honey perfectly.

Prep time: 5 minutes Ready time: 5 minutes Servings: 4 1 chicken, about 3½ pounds, cut into 8 pieces ¾ cup honey

¼ cup soy sauce ¼ cup olive oil 1 Tbsp. garlic powder 1 tsp. black pepper Preheat oven to 375°. Lightly grease a 9-by-13-inch pan with nonstick cooking spray. Rinse chicken, pat dry and place in prepared pan. In a small bowl, mix together honey, soy sauce, olive oil, garlic powder and pepper and pour over chicken. Bake, uncovered, at 375° for 1 hour until slightly browned.

Spicy Sauteed Leeks and Spinach Prep time: 20 minutes Cook time: 30 minutes Ready time: 50 minutes Servings: 10 6 leeks, white and light green parts only, cut into ¼-inch rounds, then halved 4 Tbsp. olive oil 10 cloves garlic, minced 2 tsp. crushed red pepper ½ cup white wine 1 bag baby spinach (20 ounces) See “Menu” on page 18

Grandma’s purse was never full.

– But it was never too empty for giving.

There weren’t any credit cards back then. And with grandpa making $12.50 a week, there wasn’t much cash.

But somehow, there was always enough to help another Jew who had less.

And when there were no organized charities to help Jews in need, she and Grandpa worked to organize them - the kind of charities the Jewish Federation helps support today; services to children and families in need; care for our poor and our elderly; and Hebrew schools and educational services and programs for our youth.

Your grandparents may not be here anymore, but the need for help still is. For daycare for kids of single Jewish parents to hot meals and transportation for the elderly.

Yet in spite of some very generous gifts to Federation, the average pledge is barely more than the price of a dinner out for two.

So this year, when the Federation volunteer calls, please open your checkbook the way your grandmother would open her purse.

She can’t do it for you.

Now it’s your turn.

Mark Silverberg, Executive Director Jewish Federation of Northeastern Pennsylvania 601 Jefferson Avenue Scranton, PA 18510 570-961-2300 570-346-6147 (fax)

ÊVisit the Jewish Federation of Northeastern Pennsylvania on the web at www.jewishnepa.org or on Facebook

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THE REPORTER ■ AUGUST 30, 2012

d’var torah ABINGTON TORAH CENTER

Rabbi Dovid Saks President: Richard Rutta Jewish Heritage Connection 108 North Abington Rd., Clarks Summit, PA 18411 570-346-1321 • Website: www.jewishheritageconnection.org Sunday morning services at 8:30 am Call for other scheduled services throughout the week.

BETH SHALOM CONGREGATION

Rabbi Yisroel Brotsky 1025 Vine St., Scranton, PA 18510, (corner of Vine & Clay Ave.) 570-346-0502 • fax: 570-346-8800 Weekday – Shacharit: Sun 8 am; Mon, Thurs. & Rosh Chodesh, 6:30 am; Tue, Wed & Fri, 6:45 am; Sat & Holidays, 8:45 am.

Mincha during the week is approx. 10 minutes before sunset, followed by Maariv.

BICHOR CHOLEM CONGREGATION/ CHABAD OF THE ABINGTONS Rabbi Benny Rapoport President: Richard I. Schwartz 749 Northern Blvd., Clarks Summit, PA 18411 570-587-3300 • Website: www.JewishNEPA.com Saturday morning Shabbat Service 9:30 am.

Call or visit us online for our bi-weekly schedule

CHABAD LUBAVITCH OF THE POCONOS Rabbi Mendel Bendet 570-420-8655 • Website: www.chabadpoconos.com Please contact us for schedules and locations.

CONGREGATION BETH ISRAEL Affiliation: Union for Reform Judaism Rabbi Allan L. Smith President: Henry M. Skier Contact Person: Len London (570) 698-9651 615 Court Street, Honesdale, PA 18431 570-253-2222 • fax: 570-226-1105

CONGREGATION B’NAI HARIM

Affiliation: Union for Reform Judaism Rabbi Peg Kershenbaum President: Phyllis Miller P.O. Box 757 Sullivan Rd., Pocono Pines, PA 18350 (located at RT 940 and Pocono Crest Rd at Sullivan Trail 570-646-0100 • Website: www.bnaiharimpoconos.org Shabbat Morning Services, 10 am – noon; every other Saturday Potluck Shabbat Dinner with blessings and program of varying topics, one Friday every month – call for schedule.

JEWISH FELLOWSHIP OF HEMLOCK FARMS

President: Steve Natt Forest Drive 1516 Hemlock Farms, Lords Valley, PA 18428 570-775-7497 • E-Mail: jfhf@enter.net Friday evening Shabbat service 7:30 pm, Saturday morning Shabbat Service 9:30 am.

MACHZIKEH HADAS SYNAGOGUE Rabbi Mordechai Fine President: Dr. Shaya Barax 600 Monroe Ave., Scranton, PA 18510 570-342-6271

OHEV ZEDEK CONGREGATION

Rabbi Mordechai Fine 1432 Mulberry St, Scranton, PA 18510 Contact person: Michael Mellner - 570-343-3183

TEMPLE HESED

Union of Reform Judaism Rabbi Daniel J. Swartz President: Eric Weinberg 1 Knox Street, Scranton, PA 18505, (off Lake Scranton Rd.) 570-344-7201 Friday evening Shabbat, 8 pm; Saturday morning Shabbat, 11:15 am

TEMPLE ISRAEL OF DUNMORE

President: Isadore Steckel 515 East Drinker St., Dunmore, PA 18512 Saturday morning Shabbat 7:30 am; also services for Yizkor

TEMPLE ISRAEL OF THE POCONOS

Affiliation: United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism Rabbi Baruch Melman President: Suzanne Tremper Contact person: Art Glantz 570-424-7876 711 Wallace St., Stroudsburg, PA, 18360 (one block off Rte. 191 (5th Street) at Avenue A) 570-421-8781 • Website: www.templeisraelofthepoconos.org E-Mail: tipoc@ptd.net Friday evening Shabbat, 8pm; Saturday morning Shabbat, 9 am

TEMPLE ISRAEL OF SCRANTON

Affiliation: United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism President: Michael Mardo 918 East Gibson St., Scranton, PA, 18510 (located at the corner of Gibson & Monroe Sts.) 570-342-0350 Fax: 570-342-7250 • E-Mail: tiscran@epix.net Sunday, 8 am; Mon & Thurs, 7:15 am; Tue, Wed & Fri, 7:25 am; Rosh Hodesh & Chagim weekdays, 7 am; Shabbat Morning Service, 8:45 am; evening services: Sun – Thurs, 5:45 pm; Friday Shabbat and Saturday Havdalah services, call for times.

Family values

by RABBI RACHEL ESSERMAN, EXECUTIVE EDITOR, THE REPORTER GROUP Ki Tetze, Deuteronomy 21:10-25:19 Many religious feminists approach the Bible with mixed feelings. While our the biblical text contains inspired and holy words, it is also a product of its time, a period that did not offer women the same rights and opportunities as men. This is never more clear than in this week’s parasha, Ki Tetze.

One excellent example opens the portion: verses 21:1014 contains a law about the appropriate behavior after a woman is taken captive by the Israelites during a war. The verse speaks solely from the viewpoint of the man since it is an Israelite soldier who “desires” the woman and wants her to be his wife. The captive is not offered any option as to whether or not she wants to leave her homeland or if she wants to marry the man who chooses her, whose bed and house she must now share. The text does offer some consideration to the captive’s feelings: she is given a month to mourn for her family. Even more important, if the man later decides that he no longer wants her as a wife, he is not allowed to sell her as a slave. The verse says he must “let her go where she wants,” although it’s difficult to imagine her life in a foreign land with – unless her former husband decides otherwise – only the clothes on her back.

Another difficult example focuses on a husband who, after his wedding night, decides he hates his wife. (Deuteronomy 22:13-18) If he tries to lie about her – declaring she was not a virgin – her parents can defend her by showing the elders of the city a garment from her wedding night.

The man’s punishment for lying is to be fined 100 shekels, which he must give to his wife’s father. He also is never allowed to divorce her. While it’s admirable that a method exists for a woman to prove her innocence, one could suggest that this outcome leaves something to be desired. Who would want to remain married to a man who was willing to have her stoned –a very painful death – rather than simply divorce her? One could suggest she would be better off with that divorce and the 100 shekels given to her father.

Yes, the damage to her reputation might make it difficult, if not impossible, to marry again, but surely the fine and enforced marriage won’t change the fact her husband hates

her and wishes her dead. What a horrendous way to spend the rest of her life.

What happens if the woman in this case is discovered not to be virgin? Then her punishment is to be stoned by the men of her city. The biblical verses (22:20-21) declare this must be done because she was been a “whore in her father’s house” and her evil needs to be “removed from their midst.” Nowhere does it ask about the person who took her virginity. Did the woman relinquish it up willingly?

Was she raped or molested by a stranger or a member of her family? Was she engaged when it happened or did this occurr before the marriage was arranged? The text offers her no opportunity to explain what happened. No consideration is given to the fact that she might have been too scared, embarrassed or naive to mention that she was no longer a virgin. The idea that her virginity is worth more than her life is a disturbing one.

The text does mention what happens if a woman is forced to have sex (22:23-29): If she is betrothed, then the action to be taken depends on where the sexual act occurred. If it happened in a city and she did “not cry out,” then the man and the woman are both stoned. The text never explicitly says what would happen if she does “cry out,” but one can assume that she wouldn’t be punished.

If the sexual act occurred in the countryside, only the man is stoned. In this case, the assumption is that even if the woman screamed, no one would have heard her. And what of the woman who is not yet engaged? If a man has sex with her, then he must give her father 50 shekels and can never divorce her. The woman is not offered the option of not marrying him, or asked if she wants to remain bound to him for the rest of her life.

Several of these laws did originally protect women, since without a husband or children to support them, women in ancients times had few ways to provide for themselves.

The only societal safety net was being part of a family unit.

While many of these laws are no longer enforced (stoning, at least, no longer occurs), remnants of this type of protective thought still exist in traditional Judaism, particularly the laws concerning marriage and divorce. Although it’s admirable to want to protect women, it might be far better to empower them to care and provide for themselves and their children.

Friends of The Reporter Dear Friend of The Reporter, Each year at this time the Jewish Federation of Northeastern Pennsylvania calls upon members of our community to assist in defraying the expense of issuing our regional Jewish newspaper, The Reporter.

The newspaper is delivered twice of month (except for December and July which are single issue months) to each and every identifiable Jewish home in Northeastern Pennsylvania.

columns that cover everything from food to entertainment.

The Federation assumes the financial responsibility for funding the enterprise at a cost of $26,400 per year and asks only that we undertake a small letter writing mail campaign to our recipients in the hope of raising $10,000 from our readership to alleviate a share of that responsibility.

We would be grateful if you would care enough to take the time to make a donation for our efforts in bringing The Reporter to your door.

As the primary Jewish newspaper of our region, we have tried to produce a quality publication for you that offers our readership something on everythingfrom opinions and columns on controversial issues that affect our people and our times, to publicity for the events of our affiliated agencies and organizations to life cycle events, teen columns, personality profiles, letters to the editor, the Jewish community calendar and other

As always, your comments, opinions and suggestions are always welcome.

With best wishes, Mark Silverberg, Executive Director Jewish Federation of NE Pennsylvania 601 Jefferson Avenue Scranton, PA 18510

I WILL SUPPORT CONTINUATION OF OUR EXPANDED FEDERATION REPORTER BY CONTRIBUTING $36

$54

$100

OTHER AMT $

Name (s) (as you wish to appear on our list of “FRIENDS”) _______________________________________________________________________________________________ Address:________________________________________________________________________________________ Phone:_________________________________________________________________________________________ __Check here if you prefer your name not to be published Please write and send tax deductible checks to Jewish Federation, 601 Jefferson Avenue, Scranton, PA 18510

AUGUST 30, 2012 ■

THE REPORTER

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THE REPORTER ■ AUGUST 30, 2012

2013 UJA Jeff Rubel 2013 UJA Campaign Co-Chairman

Don Douglass, Esq. 2013 UJA Campaign Co-Chairman

A Message from our 2013 UJA Campaign Co-Chairmen Dear Friends: Once again, we are embarking on one of the noblest challenges in Jewish life – that of raising the necessary funds to continue actively building and strengthening our Jewish communities.

Hundreds of dedicated volunteers and generous supporters across Northeastern PA will join us this year to make a difference.

Your commitment to Jewish survival and your support during our 2013 UJA Campaign will help insure a quality Jewish life here, in Israel and for Jews in 57 countries throughout the world.

We want to share with you some 2011-2012 Campaign statistics that were provided to us recently from our National Federation office. There are sixty (60) Federations our size in the U.S., and our Campaign is ranked eighth (8th) – no small achievement given our aging population and the state of our economy.

In addition, our "Israel and Overseas allocation" (taken as a percentage of our gross annual Campaign) is one of the highest in the country – 32%.

It's because of our historical generosity to Jewish causes – local, regional, national and international – that we are in a position to offer such a wide variety of social, cultural, educational and recreational programs and services to our communities that simply don't exist in any Federation our size in this country.

The funds raised during our annual UJA Campaign have allowed us, for the first time in a decade, to increase our allocations to our educational, cultural, recreational and social service agencies that serve the Jewish communities of Northeastern PA. For your generosity, we are most grateful, and we hope you will continue to share your good fortune with our "family."

If we've achieved more than other Federations our size, it's because we've always understood our responsibilities to our communities, to our People, and to Israel - none of which could have been done without our Annual UJA Campaign.

Please be part of this noble enterprise and respond generously to our 2013 UJA Campaign solicitors when you are asked to do so this year.

It's not how much you contribute that matters as much as your act of giving and your recognition that you are "part of our Jewish family."

Your commitment will help write the next memorable chapter in Jewish history – a history that has always reflected the caring of one Jew for another.

Thank you, Jeff Rubel, Co-Chairman Don Douglass, Esq., Co-Chairman 2013 UJA Campaign 2013 UJA Campaign

Super Sunday

Make the call! Answer the call!

Federation is committed to securing the future of the Jewish communities of Northeastern Pennsylvania and to rescuing the imperiled, caring for the vulnerable, supporting Israel and world Jewry, and insuring a strong Jewish presence here and around the world for our posterity. This is done through advocacy, education, scholarships, subsidies, grants, allocations, planning and special programs that assist Jews of all ages and affiliations engage in Jewish life.

By your gift, you help children, teens, adults, and the elderly here in Northeastern Pennsylvania and throughout the world.

DO A MITZVAH! VOLUNTEER FOR SUPER SUNDAY! UJA Super Sunday Sunday, October 14, 2012 Nivert Metal Supply (Throop, PA) 8:30 am - 1:30 pm (Breakfast at 8:30 am sharp)

Answer the call

UJA Super Week Monday-Tuesday, October 15-16, 2012 Scranton JCC 6 pm - 9 pm

Please keep the trust.

Answer the call on Super Sunday & Super Week.

Your gift will save lives.

Volunteers are asked to contact the Federation at 570-961-2300 (ext. 4) or e-mail Mark Silverberg at mark.silverberg@jewishnepa.org for further details.

Campaign Opening Event Northeastern Pennsylvania Premiere "Unmasked: Judeophobia And The Threat To Civilization"

F

Sponsored by the Jewish Federation of Northeastern Pennsylvania Sunday evening, September 9, 2012 Doors open 6:30 pm | Film begins promptly at 7 pm Scranton Jewish Community Center | 601 Jefferson Avenue, Scranton Post-screening discussion with Special Guest: Film Director Gloria Greenfield ggreenfield@docemetproductions.com There is no admission charge for the program

rom the creators of "The Case for Israel: Democracy's Outpost" (2009) comes a meticulous examination of rising anti-Jewish ideology. The current political assault against the state of Israel is a war against the Jewish people and their right to self-determination. Jews are facing a threat much greater than a military threat in the battlefield or a traditional terror threat in urban centers. They are facing the possible uprooting of the very idea that there should be a nation state of the Jewish people.

Filmmaker Gloria Greenfield travels from Israel to Europe to North America, covering this phenomenon from all angles, including Christian and Islamic polemics against Jews, the proliferation of anti-Israeli bias in academia and cultural institutions, misinformation campaigns and state-sanctioned denials of Israel's right to exist.

The film examines this concerted antisemitic campaign that is catching on in many parts of the world – among academics and intellectuals and in major American and European publications. The growing international assault by mainstream and radical groups is also an assault against democratic values, making this a matter of serious concern for free countries everywhere.

Wide-ranging interviews include such eloquent and respected voices as commentator Alan Dershowitz, Senator Joe Lieberman, former U.N. Ambassador John Bolton, human rights activist Natan Sharansky, British attorney Anthony Julius, Wall Street Journal columnist Bret Stephens and Israeli Deputy Prime Minister Moshe Ya'alon, among many others.

"Unmasked: Judeophobia And The Threat To Civilization" is a call to action and urgent reminder that antisemitism is a menace not only to Jews, but to the human condition itself.

No admission charge – Reservations requested Dessert reception to follow Please join us for our 2013 UJA Campaign Opening Event.

For reservations, please call Rae Magliocchi at 570-961-2300 (ext. 4)

UJA Major Gifts Grand Brunch Stephen Flatow

"The Jewish Experience in Coping with Tragedy" Sunday, September 23, 2012 | 10:30 am | Home of Michael & Kathleen Karnoff 145 Carbondale Rd., Waverly, PA 18471

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RSVP by no later than Wednesday, September 19, 2012

tephen Flatow is an attorney whose 20-year-old daughter Alisa died as a result of injuries sustained during a terrorist attack in Israel in April of 1995. She was a student studying abroad.

Acting under U.S. law, Flatow and his family sued the Islamic Republic of Iran as the sponsor of the terrorist attack which took Alisa's life. In March 1998, he obtained a damage award against the Government of Iran – an award based upon Iran's own budget allocation for funding "resistance" (terrorism) abroad.

A father of five, his message is one of unity of the Jewish people, continuity and Jewish identity. Flatow has been involved in Jewish communal affairs for many years. He is a former member of the Boards of Trustees of the Nanuet Hebrew Center in Nanuet, New York; Congregation Ahawas Achim B'nai Jacob & David in West Orange, New Jersey; and the Joseph Kushner Hebrew Academy in West Caldwell, New Jersey. He is a founder and immediate past president of Congregation Ohr Torah in West Orange and a member of the Board of Trustees of Bat Torah Academy in Suffern, New York.

Flatow and his wife were honored as "Parents of the Year" by the Parents Council of the Joseph Kushner Hebrew Academy in 1994.

We would be honored if you and your family would join us.

Minimum Gift – $1,500 as an individual gift or as a gift from either spouse Under dietary supervision

NOW, IT’S OUR TURN for ourselves, for our c

AUGUST 30, 2012 ■

Campaign Pocono UJA Campaign 2013 Pocono UJA Opening Event Sunday, September 23, 2012 | Temple Israel of the Poconos 711 Wallace St., Stroudsburg, PA

Stephen Flatow

"The Jewish Experience in Coping with Tragedy"

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he Jewish Federation of Northeastern Pennsylvania cordially invites you to attend our 10th annual Pocono UJA Campaign Opening Event with our special guest Stephen Flatow.

Hors d'oeuvres: 5:30 pm She was a 2006 grant Program: 7 pmrecipient for her anthracite cabaret - ‘Black Diamonds for a Blues Lady’ performed in a workshop at MaryDessert Reception: 8 North pm East Theatre and The Anthracite wood University and The Cover charge: $10 per person Heritage Museum.

Free parking available

A gift to our 2013 UJA Campaign would be appreciated.

RSVP to 570-961-2300 (ext. 4) by no later than Wednesday, September 19, 2012.

All are welcome.

THE REPORTER

2013 UJA Campaign Calendar Campaign Opening Event

"Unmasked Judeophobia: A Threat to Civilization" Sunday, September 9, 2012 Scranton Jewish Community Center 601 Jefferson Ave., Scranton, PA Film showing: 7 pm Open to the Jewish community at no charge Dessert Reception to follow

Major Gifts Brunch

($1,500 minimum gift from either spouse) Stephen Flatow "The Jewish Experience in Coping with Tragedy" Sunday, September 23, 2012 10:30 am Home of Michael & Kathleen Karnoff 145 Carbondale Rd., Waverly, PA 18471

10th Annual Pocono UJA Campaign Opening Event Stephen Flatow "The Jewish Experience in Coping with Tragedy" Sunday, September 23, 2012 Temple Israel of the Poconos 711 Wallace St., Stroudsburg, PA Hors d'oeuvres: 5:30 pm Program: 7 pm Dessert Reception: 8 pm Cover charge: $10 per person A gift to our 2013 UJA Campaign would be appreciated RSVP to 570-961-2300 (ext. 4)

Super Sunday

Sunday, October 14, 2012 8:30 am - 1:30 pm Nivert Metal Supply (Throop, PA)

Super Week

Monday, October 15 – Tuesday, October 16, 2012 6 pm - 9 pm Scranton JCC

2013 Women's UJA Campaign Event

Barbara Dexter – harpist Thursday, October 18, 2012 – Jewish Home of Eastern Pennsylvania (Scranton, PA) 7 pm Sunday, October 21, 2012 – Jewish Fellowship of Hemlock Farms (Lords Valley, PA) 2 pm Admission: $5.00

NON-SOliCiTATiON DAyS 2012 - 2013 JEWiSh hOly DAyS

2013 Women’s Campaign Events Thursday, October 18, 2012 | 7 pm | Jewish Home of Eastern Pennsylvania | 1101 Vine St., Scranton, PA 18510 Sunday, October 21, 2012 | 2 pm | Jewish Fellowship of Hemlock Farms | 1516 Hemlock Farms, Lords Valley, PA 18428

BARBARA DEXTER Renowned Harpist

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renowned harpist, Barbara Dexter has been sharing her musical talents since the age of 7. She has entertained audiences at large social events and participated in numerous choral and musical productions. She has established an ensemble of harpists called Serenity that promotes the healing effects of music at nursing homes, schools and churches.

Currently, she plays at St. Joseph's Center (Scranton) for the severely mentally and physically challenged, and has personally seen the benefits of the healing power of music on these precious souls. Prior to her work at St. Joseph's Center, she was part of Pastoral Services at Scranton's Community Medical Center (CMC) where she played her harp at bedsides in the ICU-CCU, Neonatal ICU, Hospice and the Behavior Unit.

The Jewish Federation of Northeastern Pennsylvania is proud to have Barbara Dexter entertain our guests at our 2013 Women's UJA Campaign events, at which time she will share not only her harp music but some of her personal experiences on the healing power of its sound.

Admission: $5.00 per person

An RSVP to 570-961-2300 (ext. 4) would be appreciated

N. Let’s make it count….. children, for Israel, forever.

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(The Holy Days end one hour after sundown.)

Rosh hashanah (Jewish New Year. Begins ten (10) days of penitence.)

Sunday, September 16, 2012 – Rosh Hashanah starts at sundown Monday, September 17, 2012 – first day of Rosh Hashanah Tuesday, September 18, 2012 – second day of Rosh Hashanah yom Kippur (Day of Atonement. The most solemn of the Holy Days devoted to prayer and fasting.)

Tuesday, September 25, 2012 – Yom Kippur starts at sundown Wednesday, September 26, 2012 – Yom Kippur Sukkot (Feast of Tabernacles. Jews are commanded to dwell in temporary shelters as their ancestors the Israelites did in the desert after the Exodus from Egypt.)

Sunday, September 30, 2012 – Sukkot starts at sundown Monday, October 1, 2012 - first day of Sukkot Tuesday, October 2, 2012 – second day of Sukkot Shemini Atzeret (Conclusion of Sukkot) Sunday, October 7, 2012 – Shemini Atzeret starts at sundown Monday, October 8, 2012 – Shemini Atzeret Simchat Torah (Celebrates the conclusion of the year-long cycle of reading the Torah – the Five Books of Moses – and renewing the cycle) Monday, October 8, 2012 – Simchat Torah starts at sundown Tuesday, October 9, 2012 – Simchat Torah Passover (The Festival of Freedom, recounting the deliverance from slavery.

This is an eight (8) day observance and includes special dietary rules. The first two and last two days are observed as Holy Days.)

Monday, March 25, 2013 – Passover starts at sundown Tuesday, March 26, 2013 – first opening day of Passover Wednesday, March 27, 2013 - second opening day of Passover Monday, April 1, 2013 – first closing day of Passover Tuesday, April 2, 2013 – second closing day of Passover Shavuot (Commemorates the giving of the Ten Commandments to the Jewish people on Mount Sinai.)

Tuesday, May 14, 2013 – Shavuot starts at sundown Wednesday, May 15, 2013 – first day of Shavuot Thursday, May 16, 2013 – second day of Shavuot

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THE REPORTER ■ AUGUST 30, 2012

Researching and preserving Sephardic heritage

Rushing to preserve Ladino legacies

By Charlotte Anthony NEW YORK (JTA) – Isaac Azose, whose family came from Turkey knew he had a treasure in his hands – a nearly century-old booklet for Ladino-speaking Jews immigrating to the United States that featured English, Ladino and Yiddish expressions to help them acculturate into their new communities. So he became one of many people in Seattle to share a Ladino artifact with Devin Naar, an assistant professor in Jewish studies at the University of Washington who is trying to uncover, collect, preserve and digitize the rich heritage of Sephardi Jews.

While small collections of Ladino books and documents can be found at the Library of Congress, the American Sephardi Federation and Yeshiva University, Naar says his project, the Seattle Sephardic Treasures, is the first community-based initiative to gather Ladino source materials in one place. “More than 10,000 Yiddish books are readily accessible and digitized through the Yiddish Book Center in Amherst, MA, but no equivalent exists for Ladino and virtually no original Ladino books can be accessed online,” said Naar, whose effort is part of the larger Sephardic Studies Initiative of the University of Washington’s Stroum Jewish Studies Program.

Ladino, also known as Judeo-Spanish, was the language of Sephardi Jews whose ancestors were expelled from Spain in 1492 and then settled throughout the Mediterranean basin of the Ottoman Empire. It’s Ashkenazi counterpart, Yiddish, continues to survive through Yiddish-speaking haredi Orthodox communities and some secular advocates of the language. Ladino, however, has faced a steep decline in the past century. While Yiddish has more than three million speakers worldwide, UNESCO estimates that fewer than 150,000 people still speak Ladino.

Gloria Ascher, co-director of Judaic Studies at Tufts University, offers several reasons for the language’s precipitous dropoff: 90 percent of Ladino speakers, particularly in places such as Bulgaria and Greece, were murdered during the Holocaust; with the rise of Zionism, Hebrew is emphasized as the central Jewish language; and Ladino-speaking See “Preserve” on page 16

For Crypto-Jews of New Mexico, art is a window into secret life

By Edmon J. Rodman LOS ANGELES (JTA) – Artist Anita Rodriguez’s “aha” moment came after reading “To the End of the Earth: A History of the Crypto-Jews of New Mexico.” The 2005 book by New Mexico’s former state historian, Stanley Hordes, tells the story of the Southwest’s Converso settlers and the elements of their Sephardic heritage – among them lighting candles on Friday night and refraining from eating pork – that were passed down over 500 years.

It suddenly dawned on Rodriguez, a Catholic from Taos whose family has lived in New Mexico for 10 generations, that her neighbors may have been reticent to talk about religion because of secret family histories. “Growing up in Taos, I quickly learned that it was taboo to ask people about their religion,” she told JTA. Rodriguez is one of several artists who exhibited CryptoJewish-themed paintings and folk art at the conference of the Society for Crypto-Judaic Studies that was held

July 22-24 in Albuquerque. Among the featured speakers scheduled were historian David Gitlitz, author of “Secrecy and Deceit: The Religion of Crypto-Jews,” and Santa Fe educator Isabelle Medina Sandoval, author of “Hidden Shabbat: The Secret Lives of Crypto-Jews.”

“Artwork makes people want to know more about their own identity,” said Dolores Sloan, president of the society, which helped obtain grants to bring artists to the conference.

The gathering, which was to include a genealogy workshop, was part of a continuing effort to reveal the stories of those who may have had a hidden Jewish past. A recent genetic survey published in the Journal of Human Genetics revealed new DNA evidence that Spanish Americans of the Southwest likely had Jews in their family trees. The Crypto-Jews of New Mexico are said to be descendants of Sephardic Jews who were forced to convert during the Spanish Inquisition.

A nicho by Anita Rodriguez with the doors closed, showing a Christmas scene. (Photo by Anita Rodriguez)

A nicho by Anita Rodriguez with the doors open, showing a Chanukah scene. (Photo by Anita Rodriguez)

See “Secret” on page 19

Style A

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AUGUST 30, 2012 ■

THE REPORTER

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THE REPORTER ■ AUGUST 30, 2012

Book review

The quest for the lady in gold

By Rabbi Rachel Esserman How important is the title of any particular work of art?

Does it matter if someone – other than the artist – decides to change a painting’s name? In “The Lady in Gold: The Extraordinary Tale of Gustav Klimt’s Masterpiece, Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer” (Alfred A. Knopf), Anne-Marie O’Connor shows how something as simple as a name change can represent a world view – in this case, one that pretended the Jewish art patrons of early 20th century Vienna never existed.

The painting in question has had two names throughout the decades. Its creator, Gustav Klimt, called it “Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer.” When, during World War II, Nazi art historians displayed the painting and others Klimt had created, they sought to remove their Jewish connection by pretending that Bloch-Bauer and the other Jewish women Klimt had painted were Aryans. The “Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer” became “Portrait of a Lady With Gold Background.” Other works were given equally generic titles, erasing the names and identities of the women who once inspired the artist to greatness.

Although the discussion of the “Portrait of Adele BlochBauer” forms its central core, “The Lady in Gold” covers a wide time period. O’Connor first looks at Vienna at the turn of the 20th century before analyzing the pre-World War II decades. The story then follows the extended Bloch-Bauer family through World War II and the postwar period. The author manages to juggle a complex narrative with a large cast of characters before focusing on the most exciting part of her story: whether or not the Bloch-Bauer heirs will be able to recover artwork stolen by the Nazis.

O’Connor sets the tone for her work by examining early 20th century Vienna in order for readers to understand how the Jewish Bloch-Bauers felt about their enchanted city. She notes that Vienna was “a city of contradictions. It was one of Europe’s richest cities, yet its immigrants were among the poorest. The construction of opulent new palaces did little to hide a severe housing shortage. Vienna doctors were creating modern medicine – pioneering surgeries; discovering germs, the polio virus, and blood types – yet incurable syphilis spread unchecked. Sigmund Freud was illuminating hidden drives of sex and aggression at a time

NO GIFT TOUCHES MORE LIVES

of his assets had been stolen by of xenophobia and antisemitism the Nazis. After the war, Vienna so crude that some believed Jews made it very difficult for Jewish murdered children to leaven their heirs to claim artwork and/or matzoh with blood. Famed for its move the art out of Vienna. Adele’s gaiety, ‘the sacred city of musipicture had become a symbol of cians’ had the highest suicide rate the city and local authorities rein Europe.” The author believes fused to return it to Ferdinand’s Jews had been living in Vienna heirs. However, the family, at since pre-Christian Roman times least some of its members, wanted (although the earliest Jewish relic the paintings back; one fervent dates to about the third century). attorney, Randel Schoenberg, As Vienna turned from a pagan to fought against the odds to get the a Christian city, Jews were either painting returned. tolerated or vilified, but never acThe law case is too complex cepted into general society. to discuss in a short review, but During the 19th century, the the crux of the argument is based condition of the Jewish Viennese on the differing wishes of Adele changed for the better, due to and Ferdinand. Before Adele died their service – financial and other in 1925, she requested that her – to the city. However, as the 20th husband leave the Klimt paintcentury approached, these Jews ings to the Austrian Gallery in found themselves in the minority Vienna. However, Ferdinand’s as Eastern European Jews fled will split his estate between three to Austria to escape persecution. relatives. Austria claimed Adele’s The Austrian Bloch-Bauers were wish should be followed. Schoenamong the richest families, many berg noted that since the painting of whom became patrons of the arts. This group was more ac- The cover of “The Lady in Gold” by Anne-Marie belonged to Ferdinand, legally his cepting of experimental, radical O’Connor features Gustav Klimt’s painting will trumped any requests made by his wife. Readers are left to artists, including Klimt, whose “Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer.” ponder how Adele’s feelings about avant-garde work was declared degenerate by the more conservative art establishment. Austria might have changed if she lived to see its citizens Klimt found inspiration in the beautiful Jewish women of embrace the Nazis.

“The Lady In Gold” reads like melodrama and Vienna. A womanizer who fathered several illegitimate children, the artist is thought to have seduced many of his O’Connor’s breathless prose keeps the pages turning models. Although the Bloch-Bauer family members debate quickly. The author manages to create suspense even for whether or not she was ever his mistress, it’s clear that those who know how the court case ends. Readers may wonder if she’s accurately projecting the thoughts of Adele Bloch-Bauer was one of Klimt’s muses.

Life changed greatly for the Jews of Vienna once Ger- those long deceased, but her notes show that most of that many annexed Austria. Those lucky and wealthy enough material comes from letters and interviews. “The Lady in to escape early had their businesses, houses and estates Gold” highlights not only the importance of a name, but plundered. Adele’s husband, Ferdinand, managed to survive the complex relationship between Vienna and its Jewish the war in Switzerland, but by the time of his death, most population.

Be A Mensch!

BE A SUPER SUNDAY/SUPER WEEK VOLUNTEER SUPER WEEK OCTOBER 15-16, 2012

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Many volunteers are needed to assist with SUPER SUNDAY and SUPER WEEK. With your help, we can strengthen and preserve Jewish life in Northeastern Pennsylvania, Israel, and more than 59 countries around the world.

Chair, Jim Ellenbogen Jewish Federation of Northeastern Pennsylvania 601 Jefferson Avenue Scranton, PA 18510 570/961-2300 • FAX: 570/346-6147 • WEB: www.jewishnepa.org • E-MAIL: rae.magliocchi@jewishnepa.org Ready to be a Mensch? Tear off and return the attached registration card today.

You can count on me to be a SUPER VOLUNTEER! Name _______________________________________________________________________________________________________ Address ____________________________________________________________________________________________________ City ________________________________________________________________________________ State ________ Zip________ Home Phone ______________________________________________________________________ Work Phone ________________ I am available during the daytime hours: day______ time________ All shifts include an orientation, training session, and refreshments.

I would appreciate child care__ I would appreciate transportation__ MAIL TO: Jewish Federation of Northeastern Pennsylvania, 601 Jefferson Avenue, Scranto, PA 18510 or call 961-2300 To be a part of the SUPER TEAM, please respond before Wednesday, October 10, 2012.

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The best time for me is (prioritize order) SUPER SUNDAY OCT. 14, 2012 ___ 8:30AM - 1:00PM (breakfast) SUPER WEEK, 5:30 - 9:00 PM each night (includes dinner, dietary laws observed) ___Monday, October 15, 2012 ___Tuesday, October 16, 2012

AUGUST 30, 2012 ■

THE REPORTER

Jewish filmmaker puts lens on Jewish African tribes

By Rina Bassist PRETORIA, South Africa (JTA) – Filmmaker Laurence Gavron is on a journey to document lost Jewish tribes in Africa. The French-born Gavron, who has made Senegal her home since 1989, says she was immediately taken by the project, which she says combines her passion for Africa with the mystery of rediscovering Judaism.

The film, titled “Black Jews, Juifs noir en Afrique,” focuses on a dozen African tribes – in Nigeria, Ghana, Cameroon and other countries – each with a Jewish story. Some claim to be descendants of the Bible’s 10 Lost Tribes. Others believe that their ancestors were Jews who emigrated from Judea to Yemen looking for gold.

Rabbinical authorities have not accepted any of the groups as Jewish under halachah, Jewish law, although all the tribes strive to be recognized as such at some level or another.

Edith Bruder, who has been studying these Jewish groups for more than a decade and wrote the book “The black Jews of Africa, history, identity, religion,” turned to Gavron for the film, which is expected to be released in the coming months. “In sub-Saharan Africa, you can find ‘Judaic’ tribes in Ghana, Nigeria, Mali, Uganda, Cameroon, South Africa, Zimbabwe and even in Sao Tome and other countries. There are many of them,” Bruder said. “It is really a vast subject.”

The two women are documenting Sabbath celebrations in remote African villages, Ghanaian Jews practicing circumcision and Jewish-African traditional marriage ceremonies. They have even been deep into the forests filming black Jews preparing their “kosher” meals – in their own tradition, the way the Torah explains it simply – not mixing the meat of the veal with its mother’s cow milk. Filming a Shabbat service in Ghana was a moving experience, Gavron says. “At the end, [I was] really very touched and almost started crying,” she said.

The French connection between Bruder and Gavron seems almost predestined: Gavron with her fascination for Africa and for her Jewish roots, and Bruder’s researching of “Jewish-related subjects” for most of her academic career. Their producer, too, is French:

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Anne Schushman of Scuch Productions. equal number of male and female candi“I am very interested in Jewish people, dates. And although she did not win the being one, and in blacks, living in Africa election, the experience convinced her and having become Senegalese,” Gavron to remain politically active – and she said. “So black Jews is something that was believes the results would be different more than perfect for me.” the next time around.

In the introduction to her documentary Senegal has undergone significant project, Gavron writes, “Who has the changes in the past three years, most reright to proclaim himself a Jew? Who cently choosing Macky Sall as president can assert his connection to Judaism? over incumbent Abdoulaye Wade, who Are these black Jews really a part of the was criticized for his grandiose living Jewish people? And if not, why do they style. That, along with the new laws wish to be included?” Her own connecdesigned to promote gender equality, tion to Judaism – a sense of peoplehood may well play in Gavron’s favor in the and culture – has mostly been background Laurence Gavron, a next elections. music, she says, and making the film has As to her “home party,” Gavron is the French-born filmmaker “rekindled” those feelings. perfect match for what Tekki is striving whose film “Black Jews, Gavron, who keeps busy making films, to achieve, says El Hadrji Sarr, a Tekki Juifs noir en Afrique” tells leader who supported Gavron’s candidacy. writing detective stories, organizing cultural evenings, making video clips and the story of African tribes “Laurence is a Senegalese in every means curating photo expositions, among other that claim to have Jewish and ways, even though she is white,” he pursuits, recently made history in her ad- ancestry. (Photo courtesy said. “She has a natural place within our opted homeland. In July, she became the of Laurence Gavron) electoral list.” first woman toubab – Senegalese naturalized white Gavron has long split her time among France, Africa person – to be on an electoral list for parliament. With and Israel. Although a Senegal citizen who makes her a victory, she would have become the first Jewish permanent home in Dakar, she says that when she visits member of Senegal’s parliament.

Paris, she suddenly feels that is home again, as if she never Gavron, 57, hadn’t given much thought to political left the place. Israel, meanwhile, remains her spiritual involvement in the Muslim-dominated country until homeland, she says. just a few months ago. At a cocktail party in Dakar, the Her first visit to Senegal, a former French colony in Senegalese capital, she began speaking to Mamadou western Africa, came in 1987 for an international film Lamine Diallo, who heads Tekki, a left-wing party. “I festival. She continued to go back and forth before making told him how much I share with him the values defended it her permanent home in 1989. Widowed for several years by his party: transparency, citizenship activism and by then, Gavron says she decided it was time for a real ethics,” she said. “He immediately asked me if I cared change. She became a Senegalese citizen in 2007. to join as a candidate for the upcoming elections.”

The night before she left Paris for the permanent move The offer “enchanted me,” Gavron said. “I felt it to Dakar, Gavron says she was inexplicably drawn to visit was a wonderful way to repay this country, which the Jewish quarter of Paris. “I curiously found myself has embraced me without any restraint or hesita- walking toward the Marais,” she recalls, where she bought tion. It is my way to pay my gratitude back to the a mezuzah.

“Being Jewish is important for me, even though I do Senegalese people.”

Gavron was able to run only because the Senegalese not practice Judaism every day,” she said. “I am attached parliament adopted an equal gender representation act to my Jewish identity and to the cultural elements which two years ago, obliging political parties to present an differentiate me from others.”

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Perpetual Annual Campaign Endowment

Your gift to the Annual Campaign DOES A WORLD OF GOOD. Endowing your gift allows you to be there for the Jewish community of NEPA forever.

A Perpetual Annual Campaign Endowment (PACE) is a permanent fund that endows your Jewish community Annual Campaign gift as a lasting legacy. A PACE fund will continue to make an annual gift in perpetuity on your behalf.

To determine the amount you need to endow your entire campaign gift, multiply your current annual gift by 20.

You can fund your PACE by adding the JEWISH FEDERATION OF NORTHEASTERN PENNSYLVANIA to your will, or by making the Federation a beneficiary of your IRA. All contributions to establish a PACE are tax deductible.

Let your name be remembered as a blessing.

Endowments can be created through a variety of vehicles, some of which do not necessitate funding during your lifetime yet still provide your estate with considerable tax benefits.

They also enable you to perpetuate your commitment to the Annual Campaign in a way that best achieves your own personal financial and estate planning goals.

EXAMPLES OF WAYS TO FUND YOUR PACE GIFT ARE: * outright contribution of cash, appreciated securities or other long-term * capital gain property such as real estate * charitable remainder trust * gift of life insurance * charitable lead trust * gift of IRA or pension plan assets * grant from your foundation * reserved life estate in your residence * bequest Using appreciated property, such as securities or real estate, affords you the opportunity to eliminate the income tax on the long-term capital gain, will in some instances generate a full income tax charitable deduction and will remove those assets from your estate for estate tax purposes.

For more information contact Mark Silverberg at jfednepa@epix.net or call 570-961-2300.

ÊVisit the Jewish Federation of Northeastern Pennsylvania on the web at www.jewishnepa.org or on Facebook

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THE REPORTER â– AUGUST 30, 2012

Preserve

immigrant parents encourage their children to speak the native language of their new countries, such as English.

After New York and Los Angeles, Seattle has the third largest Sephardi community in the United States. According to a 2000 study by the Jewish Federation of Seattle, there are 2,700 Sephardi households in the community’s total 22,490 Jewish households.

Naar started collecting materials at Ezra Bessaroth, a Sephardi synagogue, at the annual Purim bazaar in March. He already has gathered dozens of documents, including a rare Ladino textbook published in Salonika, Greece, in 1929. He even found a set of letters from the 1930s written by a 9-yearold girl from the Island of Rhodes to her family members in Seattle. “She was able to correspond her way and her family’s way off the island of Rhodes to evade Nazi persecution and to find safety in the U.S,� Naar said. “The entire story is preserved in the set of letters. It’s really an amazing story.�

Cinema

announced, he calls on Satan for help, then keels over and dies. When Leah is later about to be married, she becomes possessed by her dead lover’s spirit. Her father then takes her to Miropolye, where he petitions the rebbe to exorcise the wayward soul.

The film, one of the last great cultural products of Polish Jewry, is a rich portrait of pre-modern Jewish life and custom. Unlike the play, it opens with an impassioned table

The value of the objects should not be underestimated, says Noam Pianko, chairman of the Stroum Jewish Studies Program. “It’s the stories and the past of the Sephardic Jewish community of Seattle, so it has tremendous communal value,� he said. “These documents are important on a scholarly level as well. They tell an untold and yet incredibly important story of the Sephardic Jewish experience in America.�

Many of the documents, he says, have been buried in basements or closets and breathe an authenticity that can never be captured in academic works. “I want to make the materials available in their original form so you can see the handwriting, the coffee stains and the lived lives of the owners,� Naar said.

Naar hopes to use his effort as a pilot program to be replicated with Sephardi communities elsewhere in the United States. “Ladino source materials, although in smaller

sermon by the rebbe in the youthful days of the fathers-tobe. The sermon deals with the Yom Kippur ministrations of the high priest in ancient times – if an impure thought were to enter his mind in the Holy of Holies, “the entire world would be destroyed.� The rebbe compares this to the precarious journey of some unfortunate souls, who pass through several lifetimes (these Jews believed in reincarnation) in striving toward their source, the Throne of

T H S L’S T !

Hesed, Hallah and Honey Continuing a Sisterhood Rosh Hashana f‚ndraising tƒadition star„ed

by Roseann Smith Alperin (O.B.M.), we begin 5773 in her memor™.

Your Choice Only $20

• Proceeds benefit Youth Religious Education •

Choose one of two gifts, your choice—only $20 • A gi bag with a Kosher Challah (plain or raisin), apples, a container of honey, candy, and tÂ&#x;o Yom Tov candles. • A large flowering plant—Mums. Last year the mum were huge and beautif‚l. This is the ideal gi for someone who cannot accept outside food items.

To order: Make checks payable to “Temple Hesed Sisterhood�.

Specif™ plain or raisin Challah or the flowering mum.

Mail to: Carol Leventhal, 125 Welsh Hill Road, Clarks Summit, PA 18411.

For more inforÂśation, call Carol at 570-587-2931 or email jeff@gƒaphicsar„.net.

We are delivering the Šesh Challah gi bags and the beautif‚l mums on Erev Rosh Hashanah: Sunday, Sept. 16, 2012.

DELIVERIES WILL BE MADE TO ANY ADDRESS IN SCRANTON OR THE ABINGTONS

All Orders Must Be In By Sept. 7, 2012 Volunteers Needed!

To assemble gift bags at 10:00 a.m., Friday, Sept. 14, 2012 at the Leventhal residence located at 125 Welsh Hill Road in Clarks Summit.

To make deliveries on Sunday morning, Sept. 16, 2012.

Call Carol or Jeff at 570-587-2931 to volunteer.

Hesed, Hallah and Honey Order Form Last Day to Order is 9/7/2012 To: Name _______________________________________________ Address _____________________________________________ ___________________________ Phone ___________________

Challah Plain Raisin Flowering Mum QTY _____$20 Each

To: Name _______________________________________________ Address _____________________________________________ ___________________________ Phone ___________________

Challah Plain Raisin Flowering Mum QTY _____$20 Each

To: Name _______________________________________________ Address _____________________________________________ ___________________________ Phone ___________________

Challah Plain Raisin Flowering Mum QTY _____$20 Each

Your Information: Name _______________________________________________ Address _____________________________________________ ___________________________ Phone ___________________ Total Order: QTY_____ Dollar Amount _____ (QTY x $20)

Continued from page 12 amounts to begin with, are not easily accessible and there’s been no project until now to make Ladino materials widely accessible over the Internet,� he said.

Unlike Yiddish documents, which have been catalogued through the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research in New York and other archives, Ladino documents have no such home.

Lyudmila Sholokhova, the head librarian at the YIVO Institute, says there is no clear estimate of how many Ladino books still exist. However, there are an estimated 600 Ladino works at Yeshiva University, 200 more at YIVO, 200 at the Library of Congress and about 170 at the National Sephardic Library.

There is a level of interest in preserving the language.

Ladino Komunita, an online Ladino forum started by Rachel Bortnick in 1999, tries to unite the Ladino-speaking community. The forum now has 1,400 people from more than 42 countries.

Continued from page 6 Glory – only to be cast down, just as they reach celestial heights. As this point in the rebbe’s sermon, Sender and Nisn inopportunely try to inform him of their pact.

When, a generation later, Khonen fantasizes union with his beloved Leah, he refers to it as “the Holy of Holies.�

In retrospect, the rebbe’s sermon becomes a prophecy of Khonen’s disastrous fall. But “The Dybbuk� never ceases to exalt the lovers’ bond, though the rebbe and his court try their best to undo it. The holiest moment of Yom Kippur, though fraught with catastrophe, remains a symbol for the resistance of these lovers to a world enslaved by money and class.

A third film, Barry Levinson’s “Liberty Heights� (1999), is a nostalgic comedy about growing up Jewish in 1950s Baltimore. It both opens and closes on Rosh Hashanah, when the Kurtzman family customarily attend synagogue.

Nate Kurtzman (Joe Mantegna) has his own New Year custom of exiting early from shul to stroll to the nearby Cadillac showroom, where the coming year’s models are on display. Each year, Nate trades in his Caddy for a spiffy new one, which he can afford – not from fading profits of the burlesque house he owns, but because of his thriving illegal numbers racket. Nate is otherwise a solid citizen, a devoted husband and father, who has raised himself up from humble origins, and had often, in his youth, proven himself a scrappy street fighter against neighborhood antisemites. Most of the film deals with the adventures of Nate’s sons, Van and Ben (Adrien Brody and Ben Foster) and their relations with Gentile girls – Van’s pursuit of a beautiful, old-money debutante named Dubbie, whom he met at a party; and Ben’s friendship with Sylvia, a black classmate.

Levinson’s framing the story inside the Jewish New Year and Nate’s Cadillac ritual is important. The Kurtzmans are nominally observant Jews – perhaps even Orthodox, but in a laid-back, assimilated way. Though Nate’s wife shows remnants of clannishness, the Kurtzmans are open to the winds of change. While both the New Year and the “new car year� are equally important to Nate, their overlap seems a portrait of the tradition’s loosening grip since the days of “The Jazz Singer.�

Even “The Dybbuk,� flawless as its command of premodern tradition had been, was the creation of Jewish moderns: playwright Ansky had been a secularist and socialist revolutionary, folklorist and humanitarian activist.

The film’s creators were immersed in avant-garde theater and Expressionist idioms, and director Miha Waszyski was a gay man who had left behind his Orthodox background and pretended he knew no Yiddish. But what unites these three films is not just their deep awareness (hidden in “The Dybbuk�) of the secular world, but also their willingness to invoke tradition as a yardstick. The High Holidays might be a site of fading cultural memory, but the theme still strikes a responsive chord among film-goers, Jewish and Gentile alike.

Joel Rosenberg teaches film and Judaic studies at Tufts University. His articles on the cinema of Jewish experience have appeared in various journals and collections, and he has recently completed a book, “Crisis in Disguise: Some Cinema of Jewish Experience from the Era of Catastrophe (1914-47).�

Check enclosed, made payable to: Temple Hesed Sisterhood

Mail order to: Carol Leventhal 125 Welch Hill Road Clarks Summit PA 18411

A scene from “The Dybbuk.� (Photo courtesy of the National Center for Jewish Film, www.jewishfilm.org)

AUGUST 30, 2012 ■

THE REPORTER

17

18

THE REPORTER ■ AUGUST 30, 2012

New Season of

Films!

September 2012

• Non-Feature Films • A Film Unfinished, a harrowing look at the devious art of a propaganda film made by the Third Reich, is a rich and well-researched investigation into the filmic history of the Warsaw Ghetto. As A Film Unfinished aims to set the record straight, it furthers a political resistance that Jews undertook during the war. In other words, this documentary is a tribute, a correction of history to honor those who died, witnessed, or survived atrocities prior to their move to Treblinka, Warsaw’s affiliate death camp.

Blessed is the Match - In 1944, 22- year Hannah Senesh parachuted into Nazi- occupied Europe with a small group of Jewish volunteers from Palestine. Theirs was the only military rescue mission for Jews that occurred in World War II. Budapest to Gettyburg - The past and present collide as a world-renowned historian confronts a history he has refused to studyhis own. Gabor Boritt is an expert on Abraham Lincoln and the American Civil War. But it took his son’s urging to get him to return to his native Hungary and learn about the Jewish experience there from the time of his childhood until, together with his family, he escaped to the United States.

Constantine’s Sword, is a 2007 historical documentary film on the relationship between the Catholic Church and Jews. Directed and produced by Oscar-nominated filmmaker Oren Jacoby, the film is inspired by former priest James P. Carroll’s 2001 book Constantine’s Sword.

Inside Hana’s Suitcase - A real-life Japanese schoolteacher, who appears throughout the film, sparked this entire story by gathering artifacts for a Holocaust educational center she was developing along with a group of girls and boys called The Small Wings. After applying to receive Holocaust artifacts, a large box arrives with a handful of artifacts, including a battered brown suitcase labeled with Hana Brady’s name. The teacher and her students begin searching for the story behind the suitcase. What they discover will surprise you. They wind up unlocking--and showing us in the film--a whole series of deeply moving memories and other related artifacts and photos. Finally, Hana’s surviving brother George travels to Japan to meet the Japanese students.

I Have Never Forgotten You: The Life and Legacy of Simon Wiesenthal - Wiesenthal, a Holocaust survivor who lost 89 family members, helped track down over 1,100 Nazi war criminals and spent six decades fighting anti-Semitism and prejudice against all people.

Jews and Baseball: An American Love Story - This excellent documentary, narrated by Dustin Hoffman, portrays the contributions of Jewish major leaguers and the special meaning that baseball has had in the lives of American Jews. Jews and Baseball: An American Love Story was shown at the Opening Event for the 2012 UJA Campaign.

The Case for Israel: Democracy’s Outpost - Famed attorney, Alan Dershowitz, presents a vigorous case for Israel- for its basic right to exist, to protect its citizens from terrorism and to defend its borders from hostile enemies.

The Life and Times of Hank Greenberg - As baseball’s first Jewish star, Hammering Hank Greenberg’s career contains all the makings of a true American success story.

• Feature Films • Matter of Size - Winner of numerous international awards, this Israeli comedy is a hilarious and heart-warming tale about four overweight guys who learn to love themselves through the Japanese sport of sumo wrestling. (not rated) A Woman Called Golda - Ingrid Bergman plays Golda Meir, the Russian born, Wisconsin raised woman who became Israel’s prime minister in the 1960’s and early 1970’s.

Crossing Delancey - This is a warm comedy taking place in New York City. Isabella Grossman desires to rise above her family’s Lower East Side community but her grandmother has other matchmaking plans.

Frisco Kid - It’s 1850 and new rabbi Avram Belinski sets out from Philadelphia toward San Francisco. Cowpoke bandit Tom Lillard hasn’t seen a rabbi before but he knows when one needs a heap of help. Getting this tenderfoot to Frisco in one piece will cause a heap of trouble- with the law, Native Americans and a bunch of killers.

Good - In an attempt to establish its credibility, the new Nazi government is seeking out experts to endorse its policies and they come across Johnnie Halder’s novel of a husband who aids his terminally ill wife in an assisted suicide. Because of this the Nazis flatter Johnnie arranging for high paying and prestigious positions. Never evil, Johnnie Halder is an Everyman who goes along, accepts what he is told without question until he is an unwitting accomplice to the Nazi killing machine.

Hidden In Silence - Przemysl, Poland, WWII. Germany emerges victorious over the Russians, and the city comes under Nazi control.

The Jewish are sent to the ghettos. While some stand silent, Catholic teenager Stefania Podgorska chooses the role of a savior and sneaks 13 Jews into her attic. Every day, she risks detection--and immediate execution--by smuggling food and water to the silent group living above her. And when two German nurses are assigned to her living quarters, the chances of discovery become dangerously high. This is the true story of a young woman’s selfless commitment and unwavering resolve in the face of war.

Menu

Continued from page 7 Heat oil in a large saute pan over medium low heat.

Add leaks, cover and cook for 25 minutes, stirring occasionally. Stir in garlic and red pepper flakes. Add wine and spinach, and increase heat to medium. Cover and cook 4 minutes more, tossing occasionally, until spinach is wilted.

Carrot Apple Mini Cupcakes with Nondairy Cream Cheese Icing This recipe makes 10 mini cupcakes, which makes for the perfect little sweet treat at the end of the meal. But if this is all you are serving for dessert, you may want to double this recipe so each guest can enjoy two mini cupcakes.

Prep time: 12 minutes Cook time: 18 minutes Ready time: 30 minutes Servings: 10 ½ cup plus 1 Tbsp. all-purpose flour ½ tsp. ground cinnamon ¼ tsp. baking soda ¼ tsp. kosher salt 4 Tbsp. margarine 3 Tbsp. brown sugar 2 Tbsp. granulated sugar 1 egg ¼ tsp. vanilla extract ¾ cup grated carrot Carrot Apple Mini Cupcakes ¾ cup grated apple make the perfect little sweet Icing: treat at the end of the Rosh 1 package non-dairy Hashanah meal. cream cheese, softened (8-ounce package) 2 Tbsp. honey 2 Tbsp. confectioner’s sugar Preheat oven to 375°. Line a mini cupcake baking sheet with 10 cupcake liners or lightly grease with baking spray.

In a small bowl, combine flour, cinnamon, baking soda and salt and whisk to combine.

In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, combine margarine and sugars, and beat until light and fluffy. Add egg and vanilla, and mix until combined. Add carrot and apple, and mix until moistened. Add flour mixture and mix just until combined.

Distribute batter evenly to make 10 mini cupcakes. Bake 15-18 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Let cool 10 minutes and then remove from pan to a wire rack to cool completely.

For the icing: Whisk together non-dairy cream cheese, honey and sugar until smooth. Frost the top of each cupcake with a heaping tablespoon.

Jamie Geller was “The Bride Who Knew Nothing” until she found her niche as the kosher cook next door. She is the author of the “Quick and Kosher” cookbook series, creator of the Joy of Kosher with Jamie Geller magazine and host of the “Quick and Kosher “cooking show online at youtube.com/joyofkosher and on-air on JLTV. Her recipes can also be found on www.joyofkosher.com.

Noodle (PAL version- can only be played on computer NOT regular DVD players) - At thirty-seven, Miri is a twice-widowed, El Al flight attendant. Her well regulated existence is suddenly turned upside down by an abandoned Chinese boy whose migrant-worker mother has been deported from Israel. The film is a touching comic-drama in which two human beings- as different from each other as Tel Aviv is from Beijing- accompany each other on a remarkable journey, one that takes them both back to a meaningful life.

Nora’s Will - When his ex-wife Nora dies right before Passover, Jose is forced to stay with her body until she can be properly put to rest. He soon realizes that he is part of Nora’s plan to bring her family back together for one last Passover feast, leading Jose to reexamine their relationship. (not rated) Operation Thunderbolt - The true story of the Entebbe hijacking and rescue. “Operation Thunderbolt,” was filmed in Israel with the full cooperation of the Israeli government, and is an exciting re-creation of the events of those tense days. We see the full scope of the story, from the original hijacking to the passengers’ captivity in Uganda to the agonized debates at the highest levels of the Israeli government over a diplomatic vs. a military solution. “Operation Thunderbolt” is the thrilling and true story of how one small country refused to let their people be killed by terrorists and took action to prevent it. People who claim that Israel is a “terrorist state” should see the film and be reminded who the real terrorists are.

Playing for Time - An outstanding cast brings life to this Fania Fenelon autobiography about a Jewish cabaret singer and other Jewish prisoners whose lives were spared at Auschwitz in exchange for performing for their captors.

Rashevski’s Tango - Just about every dilemma of modern Jewish identity gets an airing in this packed tale of a clan of more or less secularized Belgian Jews thrown into spiritual crisis by the death of the matriarch who has held all doubts and family warfare in check. (not rated) Sarah’s Key - Julia Jarmond, an American journalist is commissioned to write an article about the notorious Vel d’Hiv round up, which took place in Paris, in 1942. She stumbles upon a family secret which will link her forever to the destiny of a young Jewish girl, Sarah.

The Angel Levine - Things couldn’t get worse for Jewish tailor Morris Mishkin (Zero Mostel). His shop has gone up in flames, his daughter has married outside the faith and, worse yet, his wife is slowly dying. But just when he decides to give up on God, a mysterious man (Harry Belafonte) appears, claiming to be his Jewish guardian angel! Doubtful that the stranger is Jewish, never mind an angel, Mishkin must overcome his skepticism if he wants one last chance at redemption.

The Boy in the Striped Pajamas - Set during World War II, this is the story of Bruno, an innocent and naïve eight-year old boy who meets a boy while romping in the woods. A surprising friendship develops.

The Couple - Based on the true story of a Jewish Hungarian’s desperate attempts to save his family from the Nazi death camps. Mr. Krauzenberg (Martin Landau) is forced to hand over his vast wealth to the Nazis for the safe passage of his family out of occupied Europe, only to find his two remaining servants are left trapped in a web of deceit and danger. Their only hope for survival relies on the courage of Krauzenberg.

The Debt - Academy Award winner Helen Mirren and two-time Academy Award nominee Tom Wilkinson star in The Debt. In 1966, three Mossad agents were assigned to track down a feared Nazi war criminal hiding in East Berlin, a mission accomplished at great risk and personal cost… or was it?

Wallenberg: A Hero’s Story - Wallenberg: A Hero’s Story is an incredibly riveting, Emmy award-winning, fact-based story about a hero who helped over 100,000 Hungarian Jews escape from the Nazis during the Holocaust.

Ushpizin - A fable set in the Orthodox Jewish world in Jerusalem, Ushpizin tells the story of a poor childless couple, Moshe and Malli, whose belief in the goodness of the Almighty follows a roller coaster of situations and emotions but leads to the ultimate happiness, the birth of their son.

Notice to our Pocono Readers 911 Emergency Management Services has been updating mailing addresses in Monroe County and Lehman Townships in Pike County. Please don't forget to notify the Federation so you will continue to receive The Reporter.

Thanks, Mark Silverberg, Executive Director Jewish Federation of Northeastern Pennsylvania

AUGUST 30, 2012 ■

THE REPORTER

19

NEWS IN bRIEF From JTA

More than 150,000 Holocaust restitution claims submitted

More than 150,000 applications have been submitted for restitution of Jewish owned property lost during the Holocaust. The number was reported by Project HEART – the Holocaust Era Asset Restitution Taskforce, which seeks to help individuals with restitution for property that was confiscated, looted, or forcibly sold during the Holocaust. It is a nonprofit initiative of the Government of Israel in cooperation with the Jewish Agency for Israel and numerous other groups. “Many Jewish Holocaust survivors had property confiscated, looted or forcibly sold by the Nazis or their collaborators during the Holocaust era and most have received no compensation for their lost assets,” Bobby Brown, executive director of Project HEART, said in a statement. Project HEART formed in February 2011. By December that year, due to the overwhelming response of Holocaust survivors and their heirs, Israel’s government decided to extend the deadline for submitting questionnaires regarding their eligibility to gain restitution or compensation for the property they or their relatives lost during the World War II era. “The issue of identifying Jewish property is still a central challenge even 70 years after World War II,” Leah Nass, Israel’s deputy minister of senior citizens, said in a statement.

Bill would ban entrance of hostile foreign gov’t officials

Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ) has sponsored a bill designed to ban entry into the country by officials of any foreign government complicit in violating the rights of imprisoned Americans. Nicknamed Jacob’s Law, the bill was written in honor of Jacob Ostreicher, a haredi Orthodox Jew from Brooklyn who has been in prison in Bolivia since June 2011 for allegedly doing business with people in Bolivia who are wanted there for links to drug trafficking and money laundering. Ostreicher invested millions in a rice-growing venture in eastern Bolivia. The Justice for Imprisoned Americans Overseas Act, its official name, “is in direct response to several reports about U.S. citizens being held in foreign prisons around the world while their fundamental due process and human rights are being flagrantly violated,” Smith said in a statement to JTA. Ostreicher continues to maintain his innocence.

Smith visited him in prison in June and also met with Bolivian officials on behalf of the father of five and grandfather of 11. According to Smith, Ostreicher is imprisoned on the premise of guilty until proven innocent and has not been shown any evidence against him.

Jacob’s Law has five cosponsors, including one Democrat and four Republicans.

African Christian Democratic Party will fight South African decision on West Bank labeling

The African Christian Democratic Party said it would fight the South African government’s decision to adopt a regulation that prevents the labeling of goods from the West Bank as being produced in Israel. Meanwhile, South Africa’s ambassador to Israel was summoned to a meeting on Aug. 23 with the deputy director general for Africa at the Israeli Foreign Affairs Ministry, Avi Granot, to clarify the new regulation. The Rev. Kenneth Meshoe, head of the opposition African Christian Democratic Party, told JTA on Aug. 23 that the people of Israel must know that the battle has only started, and that he will fight this matter “until justice is done. We are upset and outraged over the government’s decision. We fail to understand why this decision was taken without consulting the Jewish community of South Africa, so that a compromise could be found,” Meshoe said, adding that three weeks ago he requested a meeting with South African President Jacob Zuma on the issue, which never took place. “My intention is to follow up on this fight, and if needed I will take it to a court of law. I do not believe that this notice will withstand legal scrutiny. The South African government will be embarrassed once the court declares this notice illegal,’’ Meshoe said. The party organized at the end of June unprecedented pro-Israel demonstrations, against the proposed regulation, both in Pretoria in front of the Trade Ministry’s offices, and in Cape Town at the gates of the Parliament. Close to 3,000 people participated. How the goods will be labeled remains unclear. While the original proposal by the Trade and Industry Ministry said the products should be labeled as being manufactured in the “Occupied Palestinian Territories,’’ the Ministerial Council’s decision on Aug. 22 refers to a new label which reads “Israeli Occupied Territories.’’ Israel Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon on Aug. 22 reacted to the decision by calling South Africa “an apartheid state.” “South Africa’s apartheid is directed at the moment against Israel and also against her own miners,” he said, referring to the killing the week of Aug. 16 by police of 34 miners demonstrating over wages. “Instead of embracing a decision on the labeling of Israeli products, South Africa’s government should take courageous decisions on behalf of the 34 innocent miners, who simply demanded an improvement of their working conditions.’’ Yigal Palmor, an Israel Foreign Ministry spokesman, issued a statement condemning the measures taken by the South African government, calling it “without precedent. It constitutes a blatant discrimination based on national and political distinction. This kind of discrimination has not been imposed – and rightly so – in any other case of national, territorial or ethnic conflict. Israel and South Africa have political differences, and that is legitimate. What is totally unacceptable is the use of tools which, by essence, discriminate and single out, fostering a general boycott.

Such exclusion and discrimination bring to mind ideas of racist nature which the government of South Africa, more than any other, should have wholly rejected.’’

in the region. And we have encouraged that lines of communication stay open, in keeping with peace treaty obligations, and that they make full use of the mechanisms that are available for transparency, for confidence building, and we will continue to do so.” Nuland also said that the U.S. is speaking to the Israelis. “They want to see security in Sinai enhanced and they want to see it enhanced in a manner that is also respectful of treaty obligations,” Nuland said. The movement of military hardware into the Sinai comes after a deadly attack earlier in August on Egyptian border guards that left 16 dead. Part of the assault included an attempt to breach the border with Israel. Israel reportedly had warned Egypt about the attack before it happened. Following the attack, Israel agreed to the movement of additional Egyptian troops into the region to control the terrorists. Under the 1979 peace treaty between Egypt and Israel, Israel agreed to withdraw its troops and citizens from the Sinai and return it to Egypt in return for normalized relations and a restriction on the number of Egyptian troops allowed to enter the Sinai, particularly near the border with Israel. Israel has called on Egypt to control the terrorists in the Sinai.

Abbas denies Jerusalem’s Jewish heritage

Jerusalem’s identity is Arab, and the city’s Muslim and Christian holy sites must be protected from Israeli threats, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas said. Abbas also said that Israeli authorities want to build a Jewish temple on the site of the al-Aksa mosque and Dome of the Rock, in a statement issued on Aug. 21 on the anniversary of an attempted arson of the Al-Aksa Mosque in 1969 by an Australian Christian, who was later found to be clinically insane. “Their ultimate goal is to rob Muslims and Christians of their holy shrines, destroy the Al Aksa mosque and build the alleged Jewish temple,” he said. He also said that Israeli excavation work in Jerusalem, and in the Western Wall tunnels beneath the mosque, “will not undermine the fact that the city will forever be Arabic, Islamic and Christian.” Abbas concluded that “there will be no peace or stability before our beloved city and eternal capital is liberated from occupation and settlement.” The Orthodox Union slammed Abbas’ denial of Jewish heritage in Jerusalem. Nathan Diament, the O.U.’s executive director for Public Policy, said in a statement: “President Abbas’ statement is only the latest in which he and other Palestinian leaders have outrageously denied the millennia-old connection of the Jewish people to Jerusalem and the Temple Mount. The existence of our two holy Temples is not ‘alleged’ – it is fact. Just as it is fact that Jerusalem has served as the capital of Israel and the Jewish people since the times of King David; just as it is fact that only under modern Israeli sovereignty have Jerusalem’s holy sites been protected and open to access by people of all faiths; and just as it is fact that Jerusalem must and will remain a united city, and the capital of Israel and the Jewish people eternally.”

Secret

After reading Hordes’ book and researching Jewish life, Rodriguez began painting Southwestern- and Mexican-influenced scenes of the secret Jewish lives that she imagined her neighbors’ ancestors had practiced.

Among the works she brought to the conference was a large pink, turquoise and royal blue painting influenced by Mexican Day of the Dead art, depicting a Jewish wedding scene in which the groom, bride and wedding party are all ghostly skeletons. Another one, titled “Hora,” shows skeletons dancing around a Jewish bride on a raised chair.

In another work she calls “nichos,” a takeoff on a traditional Latin American form of folk art, Rodriguez uses painted wooden boxes created from kiln-dried wood. Painted in a folk art style with brightly colored acrylic paint, the boxes, which have two hinged doors, reveal what she sees as the duality of the Crypto-Jewish life. For example, on one nicho, a Christmas Eve scene is shown with people streaming in to the village church.

Open the box’s doors and painted on the inside is a skeletal Jewish family seated at a table with a lit menorah.

Continued from page 12 Rodriguez says that when she shows her work in New Mexico, some people have whispered in her ear things like, “I need to talk, but can’t meet you downtown.” One person, the artist says, told her that after seeing her work he spent a night sneaking through a graveyard looking for signs of Crypto-Jewish heritage on his ancestor’s headstones.

In researching her own family history, Rodriguez discovered that the name Rodriguez appears frequently on lists of surnames of families forced to convert.

She hasn’t taken the low-cost genetic test now available that could cast light on her ethnic heritage.

Diana Bryer, another New Mexico artist who exhibited at the conference – her work depicts secret Sephardic symbols like sixpointed roses and families holding secret seders – says she has had moments of recognition, too. “One person came over to me and said, ‘I think I have Jewish roots. There are things in here that my family did,’” said Bryer, who comes from an Ashkenazi Jewish background. “People have feelings, and those feelings should be acknowledged.”

Tuvalu government to de-register Iranian-linked ships

The Tuvalu government has agreed to de-register any Iranian-linked vessel following pressure from the United States, New Zealand and Australia. The Tuvalu Ship Registry issued a statement late the week of Aug. 17 saying it has been notified by its government to de-register the National Iranian Tanker Company’s vessels that carry the South Pacific island government’s flag. The work has begun and is expected “to be completed in the shortest time practicable.” The owners of a ship are masked when that ship carries the flag of a different country. Rep. Howard L. Berman (D-CA), in a statement to JTA, wrote, “This reversal by Tuvalu effectively stops these Iranian tankers from operating, denying the Iranian regime oil revenues it desperately is seeking to fund its nuclear weapons program and support of terrorism.” In July, Tuvalu had issued a public statement that it would not comply with an international request to de-register these vessels, according to Berman. Tuvalu is the fourth government to cancel Iranian ship registrations. Cyprus, Malta and Tanzania no longer will register Iranian-linked vessels.

U.S. State Department warns Egypt on peace treaty

The U.S. State Department called on Egypt to fulfill its obligations under its peace treaty with Israel and deal strongly with security threats in the Sinai. It also asked that Egypt make sure that “lines of communication stay open.” In answer to a question about reports that Egypt would move tanks and aircraft into the Sinai for the first time since 1973, U.S. State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland told reporters that “without getting into our private diplomacy with one country or the other, I would make the general point that as the Egyptians work hard now to defeat terror and turn back other security threats in the Sinai, we’ve been supportive of those efforts. We have encouraged them in those efforts, not only to enhance security in Egypt but also to enhance security for neighbors, security

A crypto-Jewish secret wedding by Anita Rodriguez. (Photo by Anita Rodriguez)

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THE REPORTER ■ AUGUST 30, 2012

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“ A serious and sometimes terrifying analysis of how antisemitism, often masked Selection Selection Selection Selection Free Thinking Atlanta Jewish Calgary Jewish Mobile Jewish as anti-Zionism, has permeated modern life and discourse worldwide.”

Film Festival Film Festival Film Festival Film Festival —The Jerusalem Post

SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 9, 2012 DOORS OPEN AT 6:30 PM. FILM BEGINS PROMPTLY AT 7:00 PM SCRANTON JEWISH COMMUNITY CENTER 601 JEFFERSON AVENUE

THE PUBLIC IS INVITED AT NO CHARGE. POST-SCREENING DISCUSSION WITH FILM DIRECTOR/PRODUCER GLORIA GREENFIELD DESSERT RECEPTION TO FOLLOW For reservations, call Rae Magliocchi at 570-961-2300, ext 4

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