Jewish News Nov 9, 2015 by United Jewish Federation of Tidewater

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CRC’S Israel Today

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Beyond the Start-up Nation November 18, 7:30 pm Josh Kram, Executive Director, Middle East Commercial Center, U.S. Chamber of Commerce

Continued commitment at Men’s Major

37 JFS Volunteer of the Year

The Israel Apartheid Lie March 2, 2016, 7:30 pm Olga Meshoe, co-founder DEISI, Attorney, Human Rights Activist

The roots of media bias against Israel May 11, 2016, 7:30 pm Matti Friedman, former Associated Press journalist and editor

39 Global Day of Jewish Learning, Sunday, Nov. 15, 2 pm

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letter

Published 22 times a year by United Jewish Federation of Tidewater.

Open letter to Tidewater Jewish community

n 1979, as chairman of the UJFT allocation committee, I was appointed to the “Federation’s seat” on the board of the incipient Beth Sholom Home. My dear friend Morty Goldmeier, of blessed memory, was chairman of the board, ably supported by two other stalwarts, Jack Barr and Larry Brenner. I remember well the lively meetings held under exposed beams as the building underwent construction. The dedication ceremony of the Beth Sholom Home of Eastern Virginia was held outdoors on a blistering August day in 1980 (so hot the asphalt was melting under our feet!). Last month, after 42 days in hospitals and desperately in need of rehabilitation, I instinctively opted to be transferred to The Lee A and Helen G Gifford Rehabilitation Pavilion at Beth Sholom. Some questioned my decision in the light of much newer and much closer to home facilities to which I could have gone. It never entered my mind to choose anywhere else than Beth Sholom; for me it was like coming home after 36 years. When I arrived I was so weak I could barely lift a leg out of the bed. In the course of medical and physical care, occupational and physical therapy, and good food, within five days I gave up my wheelchair for a walker and within 10 days I was washing and dressing myself—as well as using my walker to go outdoors for some sunshine and fresh air. After two weeks I was discharged to home, a week or two earlier than expected. I don’t know what contributed more to my regaining strength and confidence, the occupational and physical therapists (kiddingly dubbed by me as “physical terrorists”), or the unfailing attention and kindness of the entire staff. From the thoroughly attentive care of the physicians of the EVMS Glennan Center for Geriatrics and Gerontology to the professional work of the nurses, to the remarkably dedicated Certified Nursing Assistants (CNAs) who cheerfully (yes, “cheerfully”) attended to my every need, it

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was clear that I (and every other rehab patient) mattered to them. I marveled at the way staff, enroute to other duties, would stop and provide assistance whenever called upon. Hardly a day went by when a member of my family did not join our table in the dining room for breakfast, lunch, or dinner. Here too, the wait staff was welcoming and helpful. Finally, although not supported by scientific data, there is no question that a rehab facility serving lox and bagels (with cream cheese and onion) contributed immensely to my healing. I, and my family will always remember my rehab visit to Beth Sholom with gratitude and esteem.

Letter. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Briefs. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Torah Thought . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 Terror in Israel. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 First Person: Liz Dovrat on terror in Israel. . . . . . . . . 8 Election 2016:. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 GOP bogyman Sidney Blumenthal and Clinton. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 Larry David as Bernie Sanders. . . . . . . . . 13 Salute to Tidewater Jewish Military Connections. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 Men’s Major. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29 CRC’s 5th annual Israel Today forum. . . 30 Moral dementia at Stanford and Berkeley. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33

Quotable No Starbucks in Israel? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Marlee Matlin on Spring Awakening. . . . Book Review. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . JFS Volunteer of the Year. . . . . . . . . . . . . JCPA annual conference. . . . . . . . . . . . . . Foreign affairs expert meets with area leaders . . . . . . . . . . . . What’s Happening . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Calendar. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Who Knew?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Mazel Tov. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Obituaries. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Nosher. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . INSIDE— Salute to Tidewater Jewish Military Connections

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Contents

The appearance of advertising in the Jewish News does not constitute a kashrut, political, product or service endorsement. The articles and letters appearing herein are not necessarily the opinion of this newspaper. © 2015 Jewish News. All rights reserved.

Candle lighting

“If one memory stands out among the rest, it was waking every day with utmost pride to see our flag flowing in the breeze of the early morning, a site which very much still moves me to this day.” —page 25

Friday, November 13/Kislev 1 Light candles at 4:38 pm Friday, November 20/Kislev 8 Light candles at 4:34 pm Friday, November 27/Kislev 15 Light candles at 4:31 pm Friday, December 4/Kislev 22 Light candles at 4:30 pm Friday, December 11/Kislev 29 Light candles at 4:30 pm Friday, December 18/Tevet 6 Light candles at 4:32 pm

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Briefs In first, Israeli cocktail bar makes world’s top 50 list A leading publication on alcohol for the first time ranked an Israeli pub on its list of the world’s 50 best bars. Imperial Craft Cocktail Bar in Tel Aviv was No. 17 on the list published last month by Drinks International, the Israeli daily Haaretz reported. The same establishment, situated on Hayarkon Street near the U.S. Embassy in the central part of the city, was ranked last year by Drinks International as the best bar in Africa and the Middle East, but was only No. 56 on the worldwide list. This year, Imperial Craft retained its regional title and completed the most significant advance of all the establishments ranked. The two non-Western bars that ranked above Imperial Craft were in Tokyo and Singapore. The Israeli bar was one of three Middle East bars in the top 50 along with Zuma Dubai (No. 44) and Cyprus’ Lost & Found (48). Bar Shira, an owner of Imperial Craft, recalled in an interview for Haaretz attending Drinks International’s ceremony on Oct. 9 in London, in which organizers read out bars listed in ascending order of excellence. “We reckoned we’d get ranked 36, so when No. 30 came around and Imperial’s name wasn’t read out yet we were totally psyched,” Shira said. “At No. 25 we were nearing cardiac arrest.” (JTA) JDate and JSwipe couple up after legal spat Just months after a public battle over the trademark of the letter “J,” the Jewish dating services JDate and JSwipe have kissed and coupled up. Spark Networks, owner of JDate and several other non-Jewish dating sites, announced on Oct. 14 that it had bought Smooch Labs, the company behind the mobile dating app JSwipe. The purchase price will be announced when Spark Networks releases its fourth quarter finances. JDate, an older and larger website, sued its fledgling competitor last November, claiming that it had a trademark on the letter “J” among dating sites and a patent on technology that helps users find matches. JSwipe’s founder, David Yarus, launched

an unsuccessful Indiegogo crowdsourcing campaign to try to raise money to pay for over $300,000 in legal fees. Yarus’ tune had changed in the Spark Networks news release announcing the sale. “In talking with the new management team at Spark it was clear that we share the same mission and our combined know-how will help us better serve the Jewish community into the future,” he said. “Everyone at Smooch Labs is excited to join the Spark team.” The news release hinted that Spark Networks will add paid premium services to the JSwipe app, which is currently free. JDate boasts over 750,000 users, while the news release hints that JSwipe’s user base has surpassed 450,000. JSwipe is modeled on the dating app Tinder, which is popular among millennials and was one of the first so-called “swiping apps,” which allow users to use a quick swipe motion to choose between photos of users. (JTA)

Study: Haredi Orthodox will make up half of UK’s Jews by 2031 Haredi Orthodox Jews will soon account for half of the British Jewish population, according to a study of the kingdom’s Jewish communities. Accelerating birth rates among the strictly observant religious Jewish communities mean they are expected “to constitute a majority of the British Jewish population before the 21st century is over,” a report from the Institute for Jewish Policy Research says, The Independent reported. If high haredi birth rates continue, half of all Jewish children and around 30 percent of young Jewish adults living in the United Kingdom will be haredi by 2031, according to the report, which was published Oct. 15. The report says Orthodox Jewish leaders should take note of the population boom. “The demographic dynamic of this community is conducive to the outbreak of social unrest,” it states, warning of an urgent need for job opportunities. Without these, “the probability [is] that youth will engage in antisocial activities, experience high levels of disillusionment, or abandon the strictly Orthodox lifestyle altogether.” The report’s authors, Daniel Staetsky

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and Jonathan Boyd, warn that the haredi community should incorporate “sound employment and professional training opportunities” into the strictly Orthodox lifestyle “for its very preservation.” The Orthodox charity Interlink Foundation said the report was flawed and understated the size of the haredi community, according to a report in The Jewish Chronicle. Its findings confirm that while mainstream Judaism in Britain is in decline, the haredi community is expanding. Using 2011 census data and other surveys, the report’s authors say the Orthodox community is increasing by nearly 5 percent a year while the wider, non-haredi Jewish population is decreasing by 0.3 percent. Haredi birth rates are six to seven children per couple, more than three times the average UK national rate. (JTA)

Abbas relative has heart surgery in Tel Aviv hospital The brother-in-law of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas had heart surgery at a Tel Aviv hospital. The surgery for the brother of Abbas’ wife at the private Assuta Medical Center last month was deemed successful, Israeli media reported. The patient reportedly was recovering and was being guarded by security officers. Abbas’ wife underwent surgery at the same hospital in June. Family members of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, including his mother-inlaw, daughter and granddaughter, have received medical treatment in Israeli hospitals. (JTA) Unexploded WWII bomb closes Berlin Jewish Museum Berlin’s Jewish Museum was closed for a day after the discovery of an unexploded bomb from World War II. Some 11,000 people also were evacuated from their homes near the museum as specialists worked Sunday, Oct. 25 to defuse the 550-pound American bomb, the German daily Tagesspiegel reported. The efforts were completed that night. The bomb was discovered at a nearby construction site. (JTA)

Muslim family hangs Israeli flag in their Miami store window A Muslim family in southern Florida has hung an Israeli flag in the window of their tailor shop. The family, originally from Turkey, told NBC Miami that they hung the flag in the shop window in Surfside, an oceanside community of about 4,100, to show their support for Israel, particularly during the current wave of violence. “Actually, the Muslim people want peace and unfortunately, the only country in the Middle East that wants peace is Israel, and that’s why I want to support them,” Duran Agba said, according to NBC Miami. The shop is located in a Jewish neighborhood and reportedly is the only one sporting an Israeli flag. Agba said he would fly the flag of any country working toward peace. “Let’s say the Palestinians wanted to have peace in their homeland and the Israelis were attacking them the whole time, I would hang the Palestinian flag,” Agba said. (JTA) J.K. Rowling defends decision to oppose cultural boycott of Israel J.K. Rowling has defended her decision to oppose a cultural boycott of Israel in a post on her Twitter account. The Harry Potter author was criticized by a number of her fans on social media after she was announced as one of the 150 British artists who signed an open letter, published by The Guardian last month, espousing the value of cultural engagement with the Jewish state over a cultural boycott. Rowling addressed “a number of readers asking for more information about why I am not joining a cultural boycott of Israel,” stating that she had “never heard of a cultural boycott ending a bloody and prolonged conflict.” Rowling argued on Twitter that the impact of a cultural boycott would be felt predominantly by ordinary Israelis and not by the Israeli administration who would be able to affect change, writing that she has “deplored most of Mr Netanyahu’s actions in office,” referring to Israel’s prime minister. (JTA)

Torah Thought

Torah Portion: Vayetze (Genesis 28:10-32:3)

ith the blessing and urging of both father Isaac and mother Rebekah, Jacob leaves home. Indeed, he flees. There are two reasons for his hasty departure: Esau’s wrath and the need for a proper bride. The complex and conflicting dynamics in the household of Abraham’s son Isaac—remember Abrahams’s own dilemmas—were due in part to Isaac’s weakness and Rebekah’s dominance. Isaac, the survivor of the traumatic and near-death experience with Abraham on Mt. Moriah, came to rely upon his wife’s strengths that are reminiscent of those of both domineering and threatened mother Sarah. Just as Isaac displaced and replaced his older brother Ishmael, inheriting Abraham’s spiritual legacy, so did Jacob receive the blessing of the first-born intended for his a bit older twin Esau. Sarah made sure that Ishmael, Hagar’s son, would be cast aside while Rebekah did the same to her son Esau. However, the preferences of these mothers supported by a divine agenda ultimately saving and blessing all, endangered their favorite sons. Isaac was almost sacrificed on the altar by his father’s faithin-transition, while Jacob’s life was put at risk along with enduring 20 trying years of exile. Jacob’s father-in-law, Laban, taught him that he would not only benefit from the deception he played on Esau and Isaac,

but himself become a victim of deception. Of course, the ultimate painful deception Jacob would in time come to experience was at the hands of his own sons when concocting beloved Joseph’s death by an animal. We moderns complain about our own fractured and puzzling lives! It was God’s promise to protect Jacob at his fateful journey’s onset in the famous dream of the ladder touching heaven and earth that surely inspired Jacob to persevere. In a sense, we all touch heaven and earth in our lofty strivings and earthly struggles, gratefully moved forward as well as constructively challenged by a wise and life-affirming tradition bidding us to turn the earth into heaven, violence into vision, hurts into healing, and blemishes into blessings. The sacred purpose is to hopefully survive and thrive in the built-in tension between the two poles of the human drama.

We moderns complain about our own fractured and puzzling lives.

My Mother Like Jacob our father my mother Chasia (“God spares”) found a stone for lack of a pillow as she too experienced flight in a night of terror, pursued by Edomites – Germans who begrudged the survival of Jacob’s descendants. But unlike Jacob, she would not return home to vanquished Poland. yet the angels that promised to sustain her were, no doubt, the ones from his ladder who guided her safely to the ancestral homeland.

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Israel

At Rabin rally, calls to pursue peace and defend democracy his life, his dream, can inspire us.” The addresses that did focus on social TEL AVIV (JTA)—Some 100,000 people solidarity and respect for democracy in turn joined together in central Tel Aviv on made little mention of the peace process. Saturday, Oct. 31 to pay tribute to slain Israeli President Reuven Rivlin thanked Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, but they Israelis for their resilience and —having were divided over what exactly they were himself received death threats —declared that leaders fighting extremism are rallying for. not afraid. But in praising Israeli The demonstration, which Like democracy, he also obscured the marked the 20th anniversary distinction between Israel and of Rabin’s assassination by a a true its West Bank settlements. Jewish extremist incensed by “Even in the midst of the his government’s efforts to statesman, he was current bloodshed, even reach a peace accord with in the face of the heinous the Palestinians, was called willing to exhaust terrorism which does not “Remembering the murder, every opening, distinguish between Tel Aviv fighting for democracy” -- a and Gush Etzion, Beersheva nod to the slaying’s universal every possibility and Kochav HaShachar, lesson of respecting the rule Israel’s democracy has not of law and the country’s elected for peace ceased to realize its strength and leaders, no matter their politics. resilience,” Rivlin said, naming a But some of the event’s speakers pair of Israeli cities and a pair of setwere interested in a different cause. The top-billed speaker, former U.S. President tlements. “And for this we are today filled Bill Clinton, devoted much of his address with pride.” Even the signs in the crowd were split. to praising Rabin’s dedication to the peace process, and he concluded with a call to Some stated “It is forbidden to raise a hand against democracy.” But others, sponsored finish Rabin’s work. “The next step will be determined by by Peace Now and Israel’s left-wing parties, whether you decide that Yitzhak Rabin carried slogans like “Rabin understood: was right,” Clinton said. “That you have to two states,” or a sign with Rabin’s face and share the future with your neighbors, that the word “leadership” on one side, and you have to give their children a chance, Netanyahu’s face and the word “cowardice” that you have to stand for peace, that the on the other. Tal Segev, 15, a member of the Scouts risks of peace are not as severe as the risks youth group holding a Peace Now sign, of walking away from it.” President Barack Obama struck the said he came to the rally “to emphasize same chord in a video address, where that the message won’t be forgotten, the he lauded Rabin for relentlessly pursu- message of peace.” But Eliad Avreki, 35, one of the few ing peace. The Obama speech sounded like a thinly veiled jab at Prime Minister men in the crowd wearing a kippah, said Benjamin Netanyahu, who recently told the rally was “not a matter of right or left.” lawmakers that Israel would not withdraw The focus, he said, should be on promoting from territory in the foreseeable future and civil dialogue to prevent extremist acts. A coordinator for the religious Zionist, would “live forever by the sword.” “Yitzhak Rabin understood the dangers pro-settlement youth group Bnei Akiva, Israel faces, but he also said the Palestinians Avreki said he went to anti-peace process are not to be ruled over forever by force,” rallies before Rabin’s assassination, but Obama said. “Like a true statesman, he was sobbed when he heard about his death. “I opposed his path,” Avreki told JTA. willing to exhaust every opening, every possibility for peace. In these difficult days, “But I opposed his death even more.” by Ben Sales

Ruth’s will said a lot about her. What does your will say about you? As a “pink lady” Ruth Goodman accumulated more hours than any other volunteer at the Norfolk hospital where she greeted visitors. Before she died in 1995, Ruth

arranged for a bequest to the Hampton Roads Community Foundation to give good health to the community she and her husband Victor loved. This year 17 students are studying to become physicians, pharmacists and other medical professionals thanks to scholarships generated by Ruth’s generosity. Many more Goodman Scholars will follow every year forever. Writee your prescription for a better future by ordering a free bequest guide. Learn how easy it is to leave a gift for charity. Call 757-622-7951 or visit leaveabequest.org.

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wave of terror in Israel 2,000 rally in Rome in solidarity with Israel ROME (JTA)—An estimated 2,000 people demonstrated in solidarity with Israel in front of the Israeli Embassy in Rome. The Sunday, Oct. 18 rally, organized by the local Jewish community with the support of the Union of Italian Jewish Communities and other groups, included representatives from both wings of the political spectrum. “In the media there is a constant misinformation about what is happening in Israel,” Israel’s ambassador to Italy, Naor Gilon, said at the event. “But we will win because our country is strong and determined.”

Fabrizio Cicchitto, president of the Foreign and Community Affairs Commission of the Italian Chamber of Deputies, also participated in the rally. Also in Rome, Pope Francis called on Israelis and Palestinians to “say no to hate.” “In this moment there is a need for much courage and much fortitude to say no to hate and vendetta and make gestures of peace,” the pope said after Mass in St. Peter’s Square, which is attended by tens of thousands of people.

Jerusalem grand mufti: Temple Mount never had a Jewish temple JERUSALEM (JTA)—The grand mufti of Jerusalem said in an interview with an Israeli television station that there has never been a Jewish temple on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. There has been a mosque on the site “since the creation of the world,” Sheik Muhammad Ahmad Hussein, who is in charge of the Al-Aqsa mosque on what Muslims call the Noble Sanctuary, said last month in an interview in Arabic with Israel’s Channel 2. The mosque was built in the eighth century. Hussein, who has served as mufti since 2006, has called for suicide bombings

against Israelis, the Times of Israel reported. Muslim sources have corroborated historical sources in recording that two Jewish temples have stood atop the site. The current wave of Palestinian violence against Israelis has stemmed from assertions by Arab leaders that Israel is changing the status quo on the Temple Mount banning non-Muslim prayer. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel has affirmed repeatedly that his country is committed to the status quo. Netanyahu announced that Israel has agreed to a Jordanian proposal to post 24-hour surveillance cameras at the site.

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wave of terror in Israel First Person

by Liz Dovrat

s hard as it is to believe, living in the north right along the border with Lebanon/ Hezbollah might be one of the safest places in Israel right now. The current “wave of terror” has not really affected my day-to-day life. There have been no attacks in my area, I don’t use public transport (many of the attacks happened on buses or at bus stops) or go to crowded public places like the local shuk. My husband and I work at educational institutions, which are gated and guarded all year. The only noticeable difference in my life is the guards at my college now check IDs of all who enter and the college has issued several emails with information about emergency protocol and where to buy pepper spray. I dread checking the news, since it feels like whenever I check there is another attack, even if I check every hour. How is this wave of terror affecting the rest of the country? First of all, all you read in newspapers and see on TV is about the terrorist wave. For many people living in cities and not kibbutzim in the far north or south, there is fear of being out in public, especially in Jerusalem. According to news surveys, more people are fearful of being victims of terrorist attacks now than in previous security situations. Parks and playgrounds are empty due to this fear, even though the weather is perfect for being outside. More citizens carry pepper spray, knives, or other types of self-defense weapons. There have been calls for citizens to arm themselves. Every day there are various protests about the situation, in both Arab villages and Jewish cities. An intense hatred towards all Arabs has boiled over to new levels, with a mass fear and hysteria against Arabs. Many service companies, such as the telephone company, receive numerous requests not to send Arab technicians to homes. People eye construction sites warily, since the majority of construction workers in Israel come from the Arab sector. There have even been incidents of lynch mobs forming against innocent, peace abiding Arabs or Arab-looking men,

Wave of terror which have resulted in the death of an innocent refugee from Eritrea. So, how is this different than previous waves of terror or Intifadas? People around the world might look at the news of the new “wave of terror” in Israel as the continuation of previous conflicts. They’ll read the causality score card (mostly Palestinians killed, a few Israelis injured), roll their eyes and think “Israel had it coming for keeping the Palestinians from having their own state” and then move on. Unfortunately, this interpretation ignores some very fundamental differences to previous Israeli-Palestinian conflicts. This round of terror is from the streets, unorganized and i nd iv idu a l ly-i n it iated. The weapons of choice are not rockets, bombs or guns, but rocks and knives. It is not run by a central terrorist group forming terrorist cells and planning attacks. It is inflamed and encouraged by Palestinian political and religious leaders, Palestinian and Arab news and especially social media. At least according to the reports in the Israeli news, Palestinian social media is full of instructional videos on how to stab Israelis and other pro-terrorist propaganda. The message the Palestinian public is receiving is one of blatant all-out hatred towards Jews and hero worship for those who commit these terrorist attacks. Even more importantly, the core motivation of this wave of terror isn’t the never ending despair felt by Palestinians due to the continual cycle of poverty caused by the lack of progress towards a two-state

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solution and the increasing amounts of Jewish settlements in the terrorists. This conflict is based on the Palestinian belief that Israel will soon implement new policies towards the Temple Mount and Al-Aqsa Mosque denying Muslims access to the Al-Aqsa Mosque, while allowing Jews to pray on the Temple Mount. For a bit of background, since the unification of Jerusalem in 1967 in the Six Day War, the status quo for the Temple Mount and Al-Aqsa Mosque has been one of full religious access for Muslims, with occasional restrictions on age due to security situations. Jews have been allowed in small numbers to tour the Temple Mount area, but never allowed to come near to or enter Al-Aqsa Mosque and NEVER allowed to openly pray. There is no intention by the Israeli government to change these policies, despite pressure by Jewish far-right religious groups. Netanyahu, since the beginning of this conflict, has denied access to the Temple Mount to all Knesset members, both Jewish and Arab, to prevent further escalation and has never fully denied access to the Muslim public, only occasionally to men been the ages of 18-40 for security reasons. From what I can understand, the firm belief of the Palestinians that Israel wants to take over the Temple Mount and Al-Asqa Mosque is completely unfounded and false. Yet this has motivated dozens of young boys and young adults, mainly from East Jerusalem, to pick up their knives and go to battle. The reality of this situation has fallen on

When

respected news

companies, such as

CNN and the BBC,

report on Israeli police killing a Palestinian

without mentioning that he was in the middle of committing a stabbing attack, I feel that Israel stands alone.

Liz Dovrat

deaf ears on the international community. The flagrant biased reporting of the situation in the international news media is unbelievable and unjustifiable. When respected news companies, such as CNN and the BBC, report on Israeli police killing a Palestinian without mentioning that he was in the middle of committing a stabbing attack, I feel that Israel stands alone. It feels like the world is in complete denial of the situation and can’t admit that their star victim may also been to blame. I know and understand that Israel is not perfect either in her handling of every terrorist attack, but the one-sided international media is unacceptable. I hope that the Jewish community in America can work together with Israel to publicize Israel’s side of the story and demand a more fair and even-handed reporting from the major news sources and just relations and support from the international leadership and community. I also hope that soon the news will be full of reports about the upcoming rain and other more mundane stories so that life can return to normal for the country. —Liz Dovrat is an American-Israeli living with her Israeli-born husband Lior in Kibbutz Manara, a kibbutz in the northern tip of Israel on the border with Lebanon. She works as an English teacher at Tel Hai Academic College. Dovrat spent most of her childhood summers in Virginia Beach, where her parents, Noel and Barbara Dudley now reside.

wave of terror in Israel Meet the Islamic Movement, Netanyahu’s newest public enemy by Ben Sales

TEL AVIV (JTA)—In assigning blame for the recent wave of violence in Israel, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has turned to the usual suspects—Hamas and the Palestinian Authority. But he has also accused a lesser-known group that operates within Israel’s borders: the Islamic Movement, a religious political group and social service organization. Netanyahu has seized on the inflammatory rhetoric of the movement’s northern branch, which claims the Al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem is “in danger” and has funded protest groups that harass Jewish visitors to the site. Netanyahu has blamed the movement’s rhetoric for inciting the attacks and is seeking to formally ban its activity. Here’s what the movement does, what it believes about the Temple Mount and why it might be difficult to ban. What is the Islamic Movement? The Islamic Movement is a political organization, religious outreach group and social service provider rolled into one. Formed in the 1970s, the movement’s overarching goal is to make Israeli Muslims more religious and owes much of its popularity to providing services often lacking in Israel’s Arab communities. Today the group runs

kindergartens, colleges, health clinics, mosques and even a sports league—sometimes under the same roof. “Their popularity stems from the fact that they had, in every place, changed the face of the local village or town,” says Eli Rekhess, the Crown Chair in Middle East Studies at Northwestern University. “It’s this combination that underlies the Islamic Movement’s formula.” The movement split two decades ago. One faction, known as the southern branch, began fielding candidates for Israel’s Knesset in 1996 and now is part of the Joint List, an alliance of several ArabIsraeli political parties. Three of the Joint List’s 13 current Knesset members are part of the movement. The more hardline northern branch rejects any legitimization of Israel’s government and has called on its adherents to boycott elections. The branches now operate essentially as two separate organizations. The ‘Al-Aqsa is in danger’ conference The movement’s northern branch is in Netanyahu’s sights now for its aggressive advocacy for Islamic control over the Temple Mount, the Jerusalem shrine known to Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary. The branch’s leader, Raed Salah, has called

on his followers to “redeem” the mount, which houses the Al-Aqsa mosque, from purported Israeli aggression. Every year, Salah hosts a conference titled “Al-Aqsa is in danger,” and has promoted the idea—hotly disputed by Israeli officials—that Israel seeks to change the status quo at the site. The movement also funds a group called the Mourabitoun, whose protests against Jewish visitors at the Temple Mount have occasionally turned violent. On Sept. 9, Israel banned the group from the mount, sparking the riots that preceded the current wave of attacks. Salah has accused Netanyahu of declaring war on the mosque. An offshoot of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood Netanyahu also sees the group as something of an Islamist fifth column within Israel. The movement, according to Haifa University’s Nohad Ali, is an ideological offshoot of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood, as is Hamas, the militant group that controls Gaza and is considered a terrorist organization by the United States. Though they all share the same principles and operate similarly—Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood also operate educational and social service programs in addition to their political activities—the

Islamic Movement has no organizational relation to the others. Rekhess says remaining separate gives the movement a niche within Israel. And Ali says keeping its distance from Hamas helps the movement avoid prosecution. There’s not much Netanyahu can do to ban it. Salah has served prison time for assaulting an Israeli police officer and is appealing a conviction for incitement, but several experts say Netanyahu will be hard-pressed to outlaw the whole group for incitement to violence. Its official pronouncements are too ambiguous to qualify as illegal, they say. “They don’t call for violence,” Ali says. “They know that use of violence will cause the destruction of the movement. I’m not saying they’re angels or that they oppose violence, [but] they’re using vague concepts.” Outlawing the group could also spark a broad backlash in Israel’s Arab sector. Knesset member Talab Abu Arar, a member of the movement’s southern branch, said he could view any ban on the group as an attack on Arab-Israelis as a whole. “The Islamic Movement includes most of the Arab public in Israel,” Abu Arar says. “Outlawing it, you could say, is outlawing the entire public from the land.”

20,000 Israelis sue Facebook for ignoring Palestinian incitement NEW YORK (JTA)—A class-action lawsuit against Facebook is accusing the social media platform of ignoring widespread Palestinian posts calling for violence against Jews. In the suit filed Monday, Oct. 26 in New York State Supreme Court in Brooklyn, the 20,000 Israeli plaintiffs claim the Facebook posts have inspired many recent terror attacks and that “Facebook’s algorithms and platform connects inciters to terrorists who are further encouraged to perpetrate stabbings and other violence attacks against Israelis.” According to a news release issued by the plaintiffs, many recent assailants “were motivated to commit their heinous crimes by incitement to murder they read on Facebook—demagogues and leaders

exhorting their followers to ‘slaughter the Jews,’ and offering instruction as to the best manner to do so, including even anatomical charts showing the best places to stab a human being.” The suit alleges that Facebook has a “legal and moral obligation” to block much of this content but that it chooses not to. The plaintiffs are seeking an injunction against Facebook requiring the social network to “immediately remove all pages, groups and posts containing incitement to murder Jews; to actively monitor its website for such incitement that all incitement is immediately removed prior to being disseminated to masses of terrorists and would-be terrorists; and to cease serving as matchmaker between terrorists, terrorist organizations, and those who incite others

to commit terrorism.” The complaint does not seek monetary damages against Facebook. The lead plaintiff, Richard Lankin, 76, shot and stabbed by Palestinian terrorists while riding on a crowded Jerusalem bus on Oct. 13, died on Oct. 27. Two other Israelis were killed and more than 20 were wounded in the attack. Three attorneys—Robert Tolchin of New York; Nitsana Darshan-Leitner, the director of the Shurat HaDin-Israel Law Center, and Asher Perlin of Fort Lauderdale, Florida —filed the suit. In a news release issued by her organization, Darshan-Leitner said, “Facebook wields tremendous power and this publicly traded company needs to utilize it in a way that ensures that Palestinian extremists

who are calling to stab Israelis and glorifying the terrorist that do, are not permitted to do it on its platform.” An article published by The Associated Press said that social media, particularly Twitter and Facebook, is the “number one source of news among young Palestinians.” Some 3.7 million Palestinians follow the Quds News Network, believed to be affiliated with Islamic Jihad, on the social media platform and 4.2 million follow the Shehab News Network, which is believed to be affiliated with Hamas, AP reported. The audiences of Palestinian Facebook groups “dwarf those of more traditional news sources,” according to the AP.

jewishnewsva.org | November 9, 2015 | Jewish News | 9

wave of terror in Israel Who was Haj Amin al-Husseini? by Ben Sales

TEL AVIV (JTA)—When Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu blamed Haj Amin al-Husseini, the mufti of Jerusalem prior to the establishment of Israel, for inspiring Hitler to exterminate the Jews of Europe, he meant to show the long history of Palestinian anti-Semitism. Regardless of his intent, Netanyahu was hit with a tsunami of backlash from historians and politicians who accused him of distorting history. Yad Vashem, the Anti-Defamation League and the German government have all criticized the historical accuracy of the prime minister’s claim, with Chancellor Angela Merkel’s spokesman even reiterating German responsibility for the genocide. Netanyahu walked back the statement on Wednesday, Oct. 21, saying he had “no intention to absolve Hitler of responsibility for his diabolical destruction of European Jewry.” Here’s who the mufti was, how he felt about a Jewish state, and what really happened between him and Hitler. A hard-line Palestinian nationalist Born in Jerusalem near the turn of the 20th century, Husseini came from a prominent Palestinian family. In 1921, Palestine’s

British rulers installed him as the grand mufti of Jerusalem, a religious leadership position. Husseini was an advocate for Arab nationalism, and in 1936 he joined with other Palestinian leaders in revolt against the British. The revolt lasted until 1939, claimed thousands of lives, including hundreds of Jews, and led the British to seek an exit from the territory. In 1937, the British removed Husseini from his position, prompting him to flee to Lebanon. During World War II, Husseini supported an anti-British rebellion in Iraq and became the rebels’ envoy to Germany and Italy. When the rebellion was suppressed, he fled to Italy and continued his contacts with the Axis powers from there, famously meeting with Adolf Hitler in November 1941. He continued to support the Nazis in various ways throughout the war. After the war, Husseini escaped to Beirut, his influence diminished. He died there in 1974. Husseini opposed Zionism Husseini opposed any accommodation of a Jewish national home in what would become Israel. He opposed the 1939 British White Paper, despite its ban on Jewish immigration to Palestine, because it set too

long a timeline for an Arab state. And he opposed the 1947 United Nations partition plan that sought to create neighboring Jewish and Palestinian states. Husseini also backed violence against Jews. In 1920, he organized an anti-British demonstration in Jerusalem that grew violent and was subsequently convicted of incitement. Support for Hitler’s Final Solution The source of Netanyahu’s claim that Husseini bears responsibility for the Holocaust stems from his famous meeting with Hitler on Nov. 28, 1941. Husseini at the time was seeking German support for Arab independence from colonial rule, and records of the meeting attributed to a British archive show that Husseini focused his requests on a formal Nazi declaration of support for “the independence and unity of Palestine, Syria, and Iraq” under Arab rule. According to the British record, Husseini told Hitler, “The Arabs were Germany’s natural friends because they had the same enemies as had Germany, namely the English, the Jews, and the Communists.” He also thanked Hitler for supporting “the elimination of the Jewish national home.” Contrary to Netanyahu’s assertion,

US ambassador to Israel: Israeli actions not excessive

he United States ambassador to Israel, Daniel Shapiro, said Washington does not view Israel’s recent actions to curb Palestinian violence as excessive and supports Israel right to defend its citizens. Shapiro made the statement during an interview last month on Israel Radio about indignation by Israeli officials at what they viewed as a suggestion by a State Department spokesman that Israel was using excessive force against Palestinians. “The United States does not view Israeli actions as excessive,” Shapiro said. “We recognize the Israeli government’s right and responsibility to defend its citizens.” Asked whether the United States considered the shooting of knife-wielding persons intent on stabbing passers-by to be

excessive, Shapiro said: “We have always supported and continue to support Israel’s right to defend itself. There is no justification, there is no excuse whatsoever for these outrageous attacks. They present a difficult situation to deal with.” On Oct. 14, State Department spokesman John Kirby said that although Israel “has a right and responsibility to protect” its citizens, “we’ve certainly seen some reports of what many would consider excessive use of force.” Shapiro added that the United States “never suggested Israel changed the status quo” at the Temple Mount—a claim that seems to be fueling some Palestinian violence toward Israelis in the recent spate of attacks.

10 | Jewish News | November 9, 2015 | jewishnewsva.org

In answer to a reporter’s question, Kirby said that the status quo on the Temple Mount, a site holy to both Jews and Muslims, “has not been observed, which has led to a lot of the violence.” Shortly thereafter, Kirby walked back that statement, tweeting: “I did not intend to suggest that status quo at Temple Mount/Haram Al-Sharif has been broken.” Kirby’s statement on excessive force prompted Gilad Erdan, Israel’s interior security minister, to accuse the State Department of “hypocrisy” and demand that President Barack Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry distance themselves from Kirby’s words and “clarify the U.S. position.” (JTA)

nowhere in the record is there a suggestion that Husseini told Hitler to exterminate Europe’s Jews. The record does report that Hitler announced his intentions, noting that he planned to “ask one European nation after the other to solve its Jewish problem.” “To say Hitler was influenced by the mufti is far from the truth,” says Hebrew University professor Moshe Maoz. “He didn’t need the mufti to perform the extermination.” Husseini is a father of Palestinian nationalism According to Maoz, Palestinians today see Husseini as one of their national fathers. But their admiration is mitigated, he says, because Husseini was so strongly proNazi and was ineffective in advancing the Palestinian cause. His stature among Palestinians, Maoz says pales to that of Yasser Arafat, whose memory enjoys near universal reverence. But Palestinians tend not to criticize Husseini in public, Maoz says, because they want to display unity. “Not a few Palestinians think he wasn’t so positive,” Maoz says. “He was very stubborn. But those who oppose him don’t emphasize it out of solidarity.”

Smith resolution to help protect Jewish communities in Europe WASHINGTON—Following the recent upswing in violent anti-Semitic attacks in several European nations, the U.S. House of Representatives unanimously passed legislation urging the United States and European governments to take key steps to help keep Jewish communities safe on Tuesday, Nov. 3. The legislation was introduced by Helsinki Commission Chairman Rep. Chris Smith (NJ-04). “The number of violent anti-Semitic attacks has increased from 100 to 400 percent in some European countries since 2013,” said Rep. Smith, who co-chairs the Bipartisan Taskforce for Combating Anti-Semitism. “The murders in Paris, Copenhagen, and elsewhere reminded us that there are those who are motivated by anti-Semitism and have the will to kill.”

Global surges of anti-Semitism Conn. high school soccer fans use ‘Dreidel Song’ as taunt

ans at a high school soccer game in Connecticut are accused of using “The Dreidel Song” as an anti-Semitic taunt directed at an opposing team. Fans of the South Windsor boys’ varsity soccer team chanted verses from the Hanukkah tune during a game last month against Hall High School in West Hartford, a town with a large Jewish population. No other chants were heard the rest of the game, according to reports. Hall won the game. South Windsor High School administrators met with students who chanted the song during the game, the district’s

superintendent of schools, Kate Carter, said in a statement, the Hartford Courant reported. The incident occurred on Oct. 14. “We take this situation seriously and are committed to using this unfortunate incident as a catalyst for meaningful conversations and teachable moments,” the statement said. Carter said the school would work with the Anti-Defamation League to provide programming for the students. A video of the chanting was captured on a cellphone. The video was aired on NBC Connecticut. (JTA)

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Athens Jewish cemetery vandalized, neo-Nazi group claims responsibility ATHENS, Greece (JTA)—The main Jewish cemetery in Athens was vandalized with swastikas and anti-Jewish graffiti. “F*** Jews” and a Nazi swastika was sprayed on one of the cemetery walls on Wednesday, Oct. 21. A swastika and the German word “Raus,” meaning “get out,” along with the tag C-18 was sprayed on the cemetery gate pillar. C-18 refers to Combat 18 Hellas, a small neo-Nazi group operating in Greece. The group posted pictures on its website and claimed responsibility for what it called the “beautiful artistic intervention at the Jewish cemetery.” The Jewish community of Athens in a statement condemned the vandalism perpetrated by “cowardly Nazis” and called on

Greek authorities to find and prosecute the perpetrators. Greek society must condemn the attack, the statement said, because “tolerance of these phenomena affects the whole society.” The cemetery, in a neighborhood on the outskirts of Athens, serves the current Jewish community. There is an ancient Jewish cemetery in the heart of Athens. Jewish cemeteries and Holocaust memorials in Greece have seen a spate of vandalism incidents in the past year. A recent Anti-Defamation League survey showed that Greece has Europe’s highest rate of anti-Semitic attitudes, with 69 percent of Greeks espousing anti-Semitic views. That is nearly twice the rate of the next highest country, France, with 37 percent.

Pope Francis: Attacks on Israel are anti-Semitic

ope Francis said that attacks both on Jews and the State of Israel are anti-Semitic. “To attack Jews is anti-Semitism, but an outright attack on the State of Israel is also anti-Semitism,” the pope said in a private meeting at the Vatican with Jewish leaders on Oct. 28, according to a statement from the World Jewish Congress. “There may be political disagreements between governments and on political issues, but the State of Israel has every right to exist in safety and prosperity.” WJC President Ronald Lauder praised the pope’s comments, saying the relationship between Jews and Catholics had never

been stronger. “Pope Francis does not simply make declarations,” Lauder said. “He inspires people with his warmth and his compassion. His clear and unequivocal support for the Jewish people is critical to us.” Also on Oct. 28, Francis also met publicly with nearly 150 delegates and members of the World Jewish Congress’ governing board. The meeting marked the 50th anniversary of Nostra Aetate, a landmark declaration that rejected the charge of Jewish responsibility for the killing of Jesus and helped transform the relationship between Judaism and Catholicism.

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Election 2016

How GOP bogeyman Sidney Blumenthal advised Clinton on Israel by Ron Kampeas

(JTA)—Sidney Blumenthal’s name came up 49 times in a hearing convened Oct. 22 by the special congressional committee investigating the deadly 2012 attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya. Why? Well, the star witness was Hillary Rodham Clinton—the secretary of state at the time of the attack, whom Blumenthal has advised for years. Republicans on the committee alleged that when it came to Libya, Clinton relied on her old (and liberal) adviser for counsel to the exclusion of the professionals who worked for her at the State Department. (Vox has gone into great detail on how Blumenthal earned his status as a bogeyman to the GOP.) Democrats—with more evidence— ought to portray the hearing, the eighth on Benghazi, as part of a GOP crusade

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aimed at derailing Clinton’s Democratic presidential campaign. Still, it’s clear that Clinton listened to, and at times solicited, advice from Blumenthal on a range of issues, domestic and foreign. His name features in 384 of the thousands of emails released from Clinton’s private server. One of the turns the congressional investigation has taken is to examine why Clinton conducted government business on private email accounts. Based on my review of the “Sidney letters,” here are five takeaways about the kind of input Blumenthal gave Clinton on Israel and what she made of it. Keep in mind: Clinton’s emails clearly show that she was given her Israel advice from a broad range of sources, most of them sympathetic to the Jewish state. 1. Clinton takes Blumenthal seriously and likes his anti-Israel son’s work. “A very smart piece—as usual,” she told Blumenthal, referring to a November 2010 blog post by his son, journalist Max Blumenthal, on the rise of the far right in the Netherlands. In the post, Max Blumenthal attempted to connect extreme right-wingers in Europe and Israel, and dismissed protestations by Israelis he encountered that their country does not welcome the Islamaphobia espoused by Dutch politician Geert Wilders. In August 2010, Clinton asked Sidney Blumenthal to resend his son’s latest article on the U.S. right wing because an earlier email cut off. She then asked her assistant to print out the article, presumably so she could read it at her leisure. “It stopped abruptly and I can’t pull up the rest, so I’m anxiously awaiting for [sic] the rest,” she wrote. “Pls congratulate Max for another impressive piece. He’s so good.” Blumenthal forwarded Clinton many of his son’s writings on the region, including several excoriations of Israel’s deadly raid of the Turkish flotilla that attempted to break Israel’s blockade of the Gaza Strip in 2010.

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2. Blumenthal stands well to the right of his son on Israel. Blumenthal forwarded to Clinton writings by liberal Israel commentator Peter Beinart. He also advised her prior to her speech to AIPAC in March 2010 to praise the Israel lobby but to favorably mention J Street, a left-wing Israel advocacy group, as well. This, he suggested, would remind AIPAC “that it does not have a monopoly over American Jewish opinion.” Blumenthal described as “objectionable” far-left intellectual Noam Chomsky’s views on Israel. Chomsky, while hypercritical, is more moderate than Max Blumenthal on the subject. In May 2010, when Israel initially refused Chomsky entry to the country, Blumenthal wrote: “His political views may be ridiculous or objectionable, though he is the greatest linguistic scholar in the world, but barring him for his political opinions has created a needless PR disaster.” Clinton asked an assistant to print three copies of Sidney Blumenthal’s email. What if any pressure she brought to bear on Israel is unknown. But within days, Israel reversed its position and asked Chomsky to come back. He declined.

as believing that he “defeated” her and others especially engaged her. “Are you up? Can I call?” she replied to Blumenthal at 7 am on June 1.

3. Blumenthal is highly attuned to Netanyahu’s slights of the Clintons. Blumenthal forwarded an analysis from the Israeli newspaper Haaretz in March 2010 that depicted Netanyahu as “isolated and weaker” after his run-ins with Clinton that month. In July, he sent over a blog post from Tablet lambasting Netanyahu after the revelation of a 2001 video in which the once and future Israeli prime minister bragged to terror victims that “America is a thing you can move very easily” and called President Bill Clinton “radically pro-Palestinian.” “Circulated in Israeli and US Jewish publications,” Blumenthal told Hillary Clinton. “Note Bibi’s private reference to Bill.” An analysis that Blumenthal sent Clinton from the Israeli newspaper Maariv, from May 27, 2010, depicting Netanyahu

5. Clinton may like and trust Blumenthal, but she doesn’t always agree with him, or share his pessimism about the prospect of Israeli-Palestinian reconciliation, absent pressure on Israel. In August 2010, he sent her an Op-Ed from the Financial Times titled “A poisoned process holds little hope” and asked her to read especially the last paragraph, which said: “The outlines of a deal are clear, in the (Bill) Clinton parameters of 2000 and Arab Peace Initiative of 2002, endorsed by 22 Arab and 57 Muslim countries (as well as Hamas, as part of the 2007 Mecca accord). There has to be an end to the occupation, and the US and Quartet cannot just allude to this; they must demand it.” Clinton replied: “Well, this may be a case of no good options, but I still believe it is better to be caught trying. Stay tuned….

4. Blumenthal’s personal political concerns can trump his dislike of Netanyahu. In March 2010, Blumenthal shared with Clinton an article he disliked from The New Republic, calling the magazine “a preferred outlet for the highest level of Likud/ neocon propaganda.” But his aim in forwarding the analysis by Yossi Klein Halevi of the crisis in U.S.Israel relations was not so much to show his disagreement, but to use it as evidence against his bete noir—David Axelrod, then-political adviser to President Barack Obama. Axelrod had needlessly angered the Israelis with his attack tactics, Blumenthal argued, writing: “I’d make [Deputy Secretary of State James] Steinberg to [sic] tell [National Security Adviser Tom] Donilon they need to rein in Axelrod. Axelrod has enough to do fixing the domestic messes he’s made.” Axelrod, notably, blocked Clinton’s bid to hire Blumenthal at the State Department.

Election 2016

Larry David is spot-on as Bernie Sanders on SNL by Ben Sales

(JTA)—“What’s the deal with emails, anyway?” Sounds like a line on a Seinfeld episode (or Modern Seinfeld, anyway). But last month we heard it on the Saturday Night Live spoof of the first Democratic debate. The speaker was Bernie Sanders’ doppelganger, Seinfeld creator Larry David. David is a Jewish curmudgeon who also plays a Jewish curmudgeon on his HBO show, Curb Your Enthusiasm. So when Sanders, another Jewish curmudgeon, decided to run for president, it was clearly the role David was born to play. Slap half a white toupee on his bald spot and David becomes a dead ringer for Sanders, bouncy hand motions and all. He won laughs on SNL by playing Sanders straight, but couldn’t resist throwing in a couple of Seinfeldisms, spewing outrage at the most

insignificant of daily annoyances. “On the middle class, they control Washington…and why do they chain all their pens to the desk? Who’s trying to steal a pen from a bank? Makes no sense!” And here’s David/Sanders on email: “I forgot my password the other day, so they say, ‘We’ll email you a new one.’ But I can’t get into my email to get the password! I mean, talk about a ball-buster!” But David seemed most like himself—at least his “Curb” character—at the beginning, when he channeled his “life-is-great-but-Istill-complain” attitude. Asked how he’s doing, the Sanders impersonator said, “I’m good. I’m hungry, but I’m good.” So although pundits are saying the real-life Sanders may not have won the debate, we’d have to say that overall, David’s SNL performance was “pretttay, pretttay good.”

Ben Carson: Rabbis agree gun control, Holocaust linked Republican presidential hopeful Ben Carson defended his use of Holocaust imagery in the gun control debate, saying even some rabbis backed his assertions. Appearing Sunday, Oct. 25 on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Carson reiterated his claim that gun control in Germany that began in the late 1930s was a factor enabling the Nazis to perpetrate genocide against the Jews. “(I)n the last several weeks, I’ve heard from many people in the Jewish community, including rabbis, who said, ‘You’re spot on. You are exactly right,’” Carson said on the news program after host Chuck Todd observed that “the minute you talk about the Holocaust, people stop listening.” “And I think, you know, some of the people in your business quite frankly who like to try to stir things up and try to make this into a big, horrible thing,” Carson told Todd. Carson said it is “generally agreed that it’s much more difficult to dominate people who are armed than people who are not armed. You know, some people will try to take that and, you know, make it into an anti-Jewish thing, which is foolishness.” He had made his previous remarks in an interview on CNN. “I think the likelihood of Hitler being able to accomplish his goals would have been greatly diminished if the people had been armed,” Carson said on Oct. 8, echoing his claims in his latest book that gun control has historically been a predicate for tyranny. (JTA)

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Jewishnewsva.org | Salute to the Military | November 9, 2015 | Jewish News | 17

MILITARY Want a family member’s military record? by Marilyn Goldman

tart by writing to the National Personnel

Records

Military

Personnel Records. All requests

require a written signature by mail or fax. For information call 314-8010800 or e-mail http//vetrecs.archives. gov. Phone calls and e-mails are best used once you have a request number. You need to be the next of kin, know the veteran’s social security number, date and place of birth and have a valid reason for the request. After 62 years, records are transferred to the National Archives in St. Louis. Some very early records before 1917, are stored at Textual Archives Division, in Washington D.C. 20408. On July 12, 1973, a devastating fire destroyed the major portion of military personnel records for the period of 1912 through 1959, and the records of Air Force personnel from Hubbard to Z through 1963. Fortunately, alternate sources have been developed in recent years, which contain information to reconstruct the service data lost in the fire, although some of it may be missing. There’s usually no charge for copies, but depending on the number of pages, it can cost $25 to $70. On a personal note, I was able to retrieve my father’s World War 1 record after previously being told it was lost in the fire. It arrived showing some pages with burned edges, but incredibly, most of it was saved.

The picture of loss by Marilyn Goldman

n early morning flight from Norfolk brought me to Washington D.C., and now my cousin and I were in the National Museum of American Jewish Military History, a little known repository of military service sponsored by the Jewish War Veterans. We waited for a prearranged appointment in a dimly lit foyer, shorn of decoration; a somber place with no mistaking its purpose, when abruptly the elevator doors opened and a woman appeared holding a picture in her hand. “I’m Pamela Elbe, archives’ manager,” she said, offering me the picture—stripped of its decorative gold frame, but with the citation attached. I took it, shaken by the young familiar face that stared at me and long ago memories spiraled through my head of all that had been lost.

or many decades, Louis’ picture hung in a place of honor at the Jewish Community Center in Shenandoah, Pa., a small coal-mining town, where about 100 Jewish families resided, including my own. As the use of anthracite declined, residents began a migration that eventually would leave the town a shell of its former self. The entire Jewish community moved elsewhere; the synagogue and center were sold, its artifacts auctioned and only the cemetery atop the mountain left to attest to the town’s once thriving Jewish community. During those chaotic years the picture vanished. My grandparents were the first of our family to arrive on American shores in the early 1890s, when they immigrated to the United States from Borznav, Russia. They made their way to the town of Girardville in Pennsylvania’s coal region, the only Jewish family in an all-Irish community, where my father and his eight siblings were born and raised. From a dry goods store connected to their home, they garnered a living, subsidized by my grandfather peddling wares and the older children helping out. It was a hard life, but one that offered

18 | Jewish News | November 9, 2015 | Salute to the Military | jewishnewsva.org

opportunities which my grandparents previously might only have imagined. Without fear of pogroms or forced into ghettos reserved only for Jews, they lived well among strangers and showered love upon their adopted country. An American flag graced the store’s window and a picture of the president of the United States was displayed on the mantelpiece inside their home. In the future, their children and grandchildren would honor their patriotism, but not without consequences. When the United States declared war on Germany in 1917, my father and his older brother enlisted in the Army and separately were deployed overseas to fight the Germans. In the midst of war, while crossing a dirt road in a French village, they bumped into one another. That remarkable encounter lasted only a few minutes, not enough to exchange more than a few words, when they had to proceed on. They did not meet again until after the conflict was over and they were safely at home. Growing up we rarely heard my father talk about the war, except for that incident. When we asked him about his other experiences, his response was, “I hid behind the coal stove.” It was good for a laugh, although we knew it was untrue. After my parents married and made their home in Shenandoah, he became actively engaged in veteran’s affairs. Eventually, he would become commander of the region’s Veterans of Foreign Wars. President Woodrow Wilson famously remarked those veterans had fought the

war that would end future wars. On November 11, each year at 11am—the hour the Armistice was signed—sirens sounded throughout the nation in remembrance, veterans marched in parades wearing service caps and poppies in their lapels. Within a brief 20-plus years, the poppies and marching bands would disappear. Veterans Day would supplant Armistice Day and the World War 1 veterans would see their sons and daughters, neighbors and friends sent off to fight a larger, more deadly, Second World War. Growing up in Shenandoah, we were surrounded by our relatives, the Kline families; one lived next door, the other around the corner. My brother, Melvin Wall, and cousin, Louis Kline, the only child of Harry and Margaret Kline, had been born two days apart and were inseparable friends. Each morning I waited for Louis’ whistle achieved by putting two fingers in his mouth and blowing a long piercing tone, accompanied by a “Hey Melvie, hey Mergie,” his nicknames for us. We called him Louie. Upon hearing his

MILITARY signal I opened the door for him to pick up Mel for school; it was a ritual I took seriously. As the little sister four years younger, I was tolerated by my brother and slightly more accepted as an equal by my cousin. The three of us were always together on Saturday nights, when our parents worked late because the stores were open, and friends gathered at our house for games and playing records. I loved it, but I’m not so sure the boys felt the same way since they had to babysit me. The years of growing up melded into deeper relationships in which we became closer as one family; going back and forth between our homes, school activities, religious events and holidays. Both boys were liked, my brother very popular, outgoing and involved, where Louis, a handsome teen, was sweet-natured and caring—all normally desirable attributes—but later we would have cause to dwell on. Then our next-door relatives moved away. Not long after, Louis’ parents were presented with a business opportunity in Bangor, Maine and they too, moved. In retrospect it seems there had been little time to adjust to the departures, when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor and the country was plunged into war. Like most Americans, our lives were changed forever. My brother completed his freshman year at the University of Pennsylvania and at 18, entered the Army. Upon completion of his medical residency, my father’s brother, 26-year-old Dr. Norman Wall, was dispatched by the Army to North Africa, where he and other American troops built and supplied medical emergency field hospitals. He would later be ordered to Eritrea to become the Army’s youngest commanding officer of a base hospital. My aunt Lillian Wall, a patriotic young social worker, also wanted to join the war effort, after her husband was called up for the Army. With a degree in sociology from the University of Alabama, she wasn’t content to remain in her county supervisory job and yearned to get into the thick of things. There were many bureaucratic options she might have chosen, such as working for the War Department in Washington, like her sister, Fanny, or volunteering for any number of industries fueling the war effort. But only the WAC, the military service for

women, appealed to her. She went through rigorous basic training and then was sent to Fort Belvoir, Va. to enter Officers Candidate School. On the day of her graduation from OCS, an Army truck struck her as she got out of her jeep. She died instantly. A few days later, my father and I went to the Girardville train station to meet the train bringing her body home to her family. When it slowed to a stop, three soldiers, comprising the Honor Guard, stepped off. But the coffin never appeared. Panic ensued. Phone calls and telegrams from the stationmaster discovered that the railcar carrying her body had been coupled to another train, and no one was certain where it went. Much later that night her casket was recovered and brought to Girardville, where my grandparents, already in a state of shock, had been dealt another blow. In late May 1944, I was waiting for my father, who usually took a walk before dinner, especially when the weather was pleasant after the long winter. He opened

Postcard from Lillian Wall to her father.

the door, didn’t ask me about my day, or sit down to chat, but stood clearing his throat. “I have something to tell you,” he said, just barely audible. I felt like my heart had stopped; his unusual actions told me it was bad news. I was afraid to hear it. At the time of Lillian’s death, my brother was at a port of embarkation about to leave for overseas and he was allowed a 48-hour emergency pass. We hadn’t heard from him since. Other family members were scattered across Europe, the

Mediterranean and the Pacific war zones. It was one of them, I was sure. My father moved closer, then sat down putting his arm around my shoulders and began, his voice breaking, “I had a call from Harry Kline this morning. Louis was killed on Biak Island saving three wounded soldiers in a terrible battle. He was shot by a Japanese sniper.” Barely able to speak, he got out the words, “He was a hero…only nineteen.” continued on page 20

The National Museum of American Jewish Military History

If You Go The National Museum of American Jewish Military History is located on DuPont Circle 1811 R Street NW, Washington, D.C. (202) 265-6280. Call before arriving. Hours are erratic, closed on Saturdays, open by appointment only on Sundays. Closed on Federal and Jewish holidays. Tours require an appointment. Get there early if you have an appointment, the only parking available is on the street. You may want to take the Metro Red Line to DuPont Circle Q Street exit, a few blocks away, or park at one of the nearby cafes, have a snack and walk. While the museum is small in size there is much to see. Among its permanent collection, you’ll find compelling documents, photographs and artifacts commemorating the service of Jews in every facet of America’s military history. At a cost of $750,000, the museum’s newest exhibit is a digital table, which depicts 350 years of Jews defending their country. Choose your area of interest from Asser Levy’s being granted the right to bear arms to help protect New Amsterdam in 1657, to the 55 Jewish men and women killed in Iraq and Afghanistan. It is all about the country’s involvement in conflicts, world events and individual stories of Jewish participants. The Jewish Welfare Board, Jewish War Veterans and the museum estimate that around 10,000 Jews fought in the Civil

War, 225,000 in World War 1 and 550,000 in World War 11. Most of the museum’s membership stems from World War 11 veterans. To remain viable the museum is offering 20,000 Jewish soldiers now on active duty free membership. The museum is an affiliate of the national Jewish War Veterans, which shares its space.

Jewishnewsva.org | Salute to the Military | November 9, 2015 | Jewish News | 19

MILITARY continued from page 19

Fifteen months later, the war ended on August 14, 1945. Another two years would pass before the Army sent Louis’ remains to Shenandoah for burial. He had been awarded the Silver Star posthumously, the third highest award for valor under fierce enemy fire. The military Honor Guard carried his coffin into the small synagogue for the service. Later at the graveside, rifles were fired on command and taps sounded over the hushed mourners as his body was lowered into the ground. The flag that draped his coffin was presented to his heartbroken mother by a member of the honor guard. Before leaving for Maine, Harry Kline handed my father a goldframed picture of Louis in uniform with a request that it be displayed at the Jewish Community Center.

till standing in the museum’s lobby holding the picture, I finished telling Elbe the story. The archivist suggested we take the elevator to the second floor to see the displays. We took the elevator where the doors opened upon the Captain Joshua Goldberg Memorial Chapel and viewed the Hall of Heroes, photographs of Congressional Medal of Honor recipients and artifacts from America’s wars. Gazing at the impressive collection of Jewish American history, it occurred to me Louis’ picture would be returned to the archive’s file rather than put on display. Like so many brave Americans, who had sacrificed their lives for their country, he would then be forgotten. I asked Elbe why a Silver Star Medal recipient, who saved the lives of three wounded soldiers at the cost of his own life, would not be honored somewhere in the museum? “Our small size and the prevalence of wars doesn’t allow for many more exhibits,” Elbe offered. “It’s just about filled with the permanent collection and Congressional Medal recipients.” Then she added, “It might be displayed for a special exhibit, but we’ve just about finished with World War II, and now we’re working on other projects.” The museum has since mounted an exhibition covering 350 years of American Jews in the military, presented in digital format and text, which has been incorporated into its permanent collection.

Our visit nearly complete, I was reluctant to part with the picture and about to ask if I could take it with me when my cousin, Sharon Wall, interrupted. It was she who found the picture on a chance Internet search of the museum’s site. We contacted the museum, which told us the granddaughter of a former Shenandoah resident had come across it in the basement of her grandparents’ house, mixed in with some old papers. Affixed to it was the written citation. The woman did not know anything about Louis, other than the information on the citation and was told that he had no living relatives. She subsequently brought it to the museum, which now has legal ownership. Sensing what I was about to do and knowing I had little chance of retrieving it, Sharon turned to Elbe and requested a copy of the picture. After what seemed a long wait, the archivist returned and gave me a reproduction of the picture that was nearly as perfect as the original. I thanked Elbe profusely. She said the museum is interested in pictures, diaries and artifacts dealing with wartime experiences, and they would be pleased to have them from our family. Sharon and I said goodbye to her and went out into the sunlit day, a welcome contrast from the darkness of the museum. At the steps, I paused unable to make the transition from the past into the present. I turned at the sound of a familiar whistle, loud and clear as it had been those many decades ago outside my house. “Did you hear that?” I asked Sharon. She looked at me quizzically, “Hear what?” “Never mind,” I said. “It was probably my imagination.” I placed the picture carefully under my arm, as we walked away from the museum. Dedicated to the memory of those in my family who served their country with honor in time of war: Abe Wolowitz, France, World War I; Jake Wolowitz, France World War I; Melvin Wall, European Theatre, World War II; Dr. Norman Wall, North African Theatre, World War II; Lillian Wall, WAC, World War II, Louis Kline, Pacific Theatre, World War II posthumously awarded the Silver Star. And my husband Daniel Goldman, Army Air Corps, European Theatre, World War II, whom I met four years after the end of World War II.

20 | Jewish News | November 9, 2015 | Salute to the Military | jewishnewsva.org

First Person

Naval Station’s Commodore Levy Chapel has new rabbi by Rabbi Gershon Litt

idewater is honored to have many wonderful military and military support personnel. The largest concentration of military personnel in the area is at Naval Station Norfolk, which can have as many as 75,000 civilian and military employees and contractors associated with it at any given period of time with all its various commands. We, in the Jewish community, have the unique opportunity of welcoming in the Jewish members of our armed forces and the civilian support staff associated with these various commands. The Commodore Uriah P. Levy Chapel, located at Naval Station Norfolk, is the oldest land-based Jewish chapel on a naval station in North America. The chapel has serviced the Jewish needs of military and civilian personnel since 1959. Recently, the Naval Station decided they wanted a rabbi to take over the chapel and offered me a contract, which will be in addition to my other jobs in the Tidewater community including severing as the Hillel directors at both William and Mary and Christopher Newport University, as the executive director of the Norfolk Kollel, and as the rabbi of Adath Jeshurun Synagogue in Newport News. My role at the Naval base chapel will be primarily to reach out to Jewish military personnel stationed on the base, as well as area Jewish civilians associated with the military. I will facilitate Shabbat and holiday services, offer chaplaincy services to those in need, connect military personnel with community resources, teach classes, and facilitate life cycle events for those stationed locally. If you would like to offer support for these programs, please contact me at rabbilitt@norfolkkollel.com.

Rabbi Gershon Litt

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MILITARY Tending to President Kennedy and his family aboard the USS Joseph P. Kennedy Jr. by Jim EIlberg

n September of 1962, while serving as the senior Supply Officer aboard USS Blandy (DD 943) out of Newport Rhode Island, I was detailed to the destroyer USS Joseph P Kennedy Jr. for the duration of the America Cup Races being held that year off Narragansett Bay. The Kennedy, named for the President’s eldest brother killed in World Was II, had only a very junior Supply Officer aboard and CRUDESLANT (Cruiser Destroyer Force Atlantic) wanted to give him an assist because President John F. Kennedy, his family and many of his White House staff, would be observing the races each day from the destroyer Kennedy. As a Lieutenant, it was my job to oversee the Field Food Service Team’s efforts to keep the press corps well-fed during the daily sail and attend to any other of their needs. The Team was composed of four very accomplished chief commissary men, so my job was far from demanding.

USS Joseph P. Kennedy Jr.

Each morning the press came aboard between 0800 and 0900 and shortly thereafter, the President and his party were piped aboard. They pretty much confined themselves to the forward part of the ship, the C.O.’s quarters and Wardroom, which had been reconfigured for their use. That is, all except for the President’s children, Caroline almost five years old, and JohnJohn almost two years old, who seemed to have the run of the ship; particularly Caroline who kept the Secret Service folks challenged as she scampered around the 01 deck at will. Lunch was served on the 01 level each noon and was well attended. I suspected that Press Secretary Pierre Salinger dined with the Presidential Party up forward and then came aft for a second luncheon. He was a hearty eater. Mrs. Jacqueline Kennedy came back to speak with everyone on several occasions and I had the good fortune to speak with her more than once. Initially she told me, in her very

breathless and beguiling voice, just how much she and the President enjoyed the Navy Mess at the White House. She could not have been nicer. Robert Pierpoint, who recently passed away and was one of the several correspondents on board, would ask me each day what I thought the sea state was and how many knots of wind speed we were experiencing. I made an educated guess and that’s what went into the evening papers that day. It didn’t matter that I was a Supply Officer and never ventured onto the bridge that week. You must remember this was prior to cellphones and email. So each day as the race was concluding about 3 pm, the reporters tapped out their stories on their typewriters, placed them in watertight bags with floatation devices attached and then dropped them from the fantail into the ocean. Each of the major news services had a speedboat tailing us and they would retrieve the bags with boathooks and immediately head for shore at breakneck speed so the stories could be entered into that night’s newscasts and the daily newspapers. Well, one evening that week, as my wife and I were just finishing our dinner, I received a call from the Supply Corps Lieutenant who was an assistant to the Navy Attache who held the rank of a Line Captain. It seemed that Caroline was having a group of her friends on board the following day for the sail and she had been very impressed with the

Jim EIlberg

Boatswain’s piping aboard of her dad each day. She thought it would be a marvelous idea if she could give each of her friends a boatswain’s pipe as a keepsake of their visit. Obviously, the Attache needed them immediately. Where does one get eight boatswains’ pipes at 8 in the evening? Thankfully, I knew one of the congregants at the Touro Synagogue in Newport who owned a local Army/Navy store. Fortunately, he was at home that night and also fortunately he had at least a dozen pipes in stock. He was flattered to be asked to furnish eight for the President’s daughter. He agreed to meet me downtown at his store within the hour. He didn’t even give me an invoice and I never knew the price. Just before 10 pm, I rolled up to the gates at Hammersmith Farm where the Kennedys were staying. I turned over the valuables to the Supply Corps Lieutenant, and he never asked where I had located them or how much they cost. Sometime later I wrote a very appreciative letter to the shop owner for his kindness. I never did find out if anyone reimbursed him. The ship’s boatswains spent much of the following day giving instruction to Caroline and her friends. And at the conclusion of the races, each of us who had assisted with the Presidential visit was given a PT109 tie clasp as a memento. I still have mine.

Jewishnewsva.org | Salute to the Military | November 9, 2015 | Jewish News | 21

MILITARY

Colonel Ed Shames: World War II Hero by Jay Klebanoff

t is safe to say the bottle of cognac Colonel Ed Shames opened in celebration of his son’s bar mitzvah at Norfolk’s B’nai Israel synagogue in 1961 was unlike any bottle opened for a b’nai mitzvah in Hampton Roads. Shames’ bottle came straight from Adolph Ed Shames Hitler’s collection. Edward Shames, featured in Ian Gardner’s book, Airborne, The Combat Story of Ed Shames of Easy Company, and portrayed in the HBO mini-series, Band of Brothers, was born in Virginia Beach in 1922. Starting on D-Day in 1944, Ed parachuted behind enemy lines, fought his way through France, Holland, Belgium and Germany—surviving the frozen siege of Bastogne—witnessed first-hand the horrors of Dachau and ultimately savored victory over Germany from the opulence of Hitler’s mountaintop villa in Bavaria. Who could blame the young Army Platoon Commander for helping himself to the Fuhrer’s monogrammed bottle of cognac? The bottle he saved to open when son, Steven, became a bar mitzvah 16 years later. Ed Shames was born to be a soldier. A patriot and a proud Jew, Shames volunteered for the 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment at the age of 19 following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor; signing up at Fort Monroe in Hampton. The 506th was a new tactical invention at the time, a precursor to the modern day Delta Force. Shames quickly proved to be an exceptional leader, rising through the ranks and receiving the first battlefield commission in the entire 101st Airborne Division following the D-Day invasion. It is clear from Gardner’s book that Shames possessed incredible bravery, intelligence, poise under fire and a love for his fellow soldiers that has carried throughout his long

and interesting life. At the age of 94, Shames is still feisty, sharp and proud to travel the country representing the members of Easy Company, 506th Regiment—his “Band of Brothers.” In advance of the Lee and Bernard Jaffe Family Jewish Book Festival at the Simon Family JCC, I sat with him to ask about his community, his faith, his heroism and his newfound fame. Of his childhood, Shames says, “Things were tough at that time for Jewish boys. There were times when you had to fight your way through. One thing people learned about me…they never called me ‘dirty Jew’ twice. I was a tough SOB; not mean, just tough.” Shames grew up fast. His parents, David and Sadie, raised four children in an orthodox household, sending them to B’nai Israel for Hebrew school when B’nai was still downtown. Unfortunately, David Shames passed away at the age of 42 in 1927, when Shames was just five years old. The family then pulled together to work alongside their mother at Shames Provisions on Virginia Beach Boulevard. Shames learned to be independent, resourceful and determined from those challenging early days, traits that fared him well when he enlisted in the 506th in 1942. “I was determined to make it through training, and we had the toughest training of any regiment in the military. I wanted to get through it and learn everything I could. Also because I was a Jew, I didn’t want to wash out, and lots of guys did. Heck, they had 7,000 volunteers they had to whittle down to 2,500 soldiers. They wanted to discharge me after I hurt my knee on my first parachute jump. I wouldn’t let them. After walking 149 miles from our training base at Camp Toccoa to Ft. Benning in full gear over three and one-half days, there was no way.” Shames had a specific goal in mind. “In high school we had a Jewish fraternity

22 | Jewish News | November 9, 2015 | Salute to the Military | jewishnewsva.org

that met at the 20th Street Shul. We were walking past Shulman’s Men Shop and I saw an officer’s uniform in the window. I said to my friends, “I’m going to wear that uniform one day.” One of the things Shames is most proud of is the battlefield commission he received after proving his mettle during the D-Day invasion. Shames was promoted to 2nd Lieutenant and placed in charge of a platoon. Later, on leave in England, he purchased an officer uniform similar to the one he set his sights on at Shulman’s. Shames remembers, “that uniform went with me to Bastogne.” At various times during Shames’ early military experience, he dealt with blatant anti-Semitism. While training in England prior to D-Day, Shames was tasked with organizing a trip to a local Passover seder. “We had 18 men from the regiment sign up and this officer made a disparaging remark about Jews. I could have received a general courtmartial for what I told him.” Shames proved to be an excellent leader and took great pride in the survival rate for his men. “My platoon returned more men from battle than any other platoon in the entire division—that’s over 500 platoons.” After surviving the bitterly cold and brutal siege of Bastogne and Battle of the Bulge, Shames endured the shock of being an early liberator of Dachau, an experience he refuses to discuss. Shames also experienced summiting Kehlstein Mountain in Bavaria—home of Hitler’s mountain retreat known as “Eagle’s Nest.”—and taking a bottle of monogrammed cognac back to Virginia Beach, to be opened at his son’s Bar Mitzvah. “My buddy Lee Kantor finished that bottle and I threw it out. Do you know it would be worth $15,000 today.” After the war, Shames worked in a

capacity for “The Company” that he doesn’t discuss. He has traveled extensively in Israel and the Middle East and he served both his country and his Jewish roots admirably. Today, Shames is looking towards celebrating the 70th anniversary of his Temple Beth El wedding to Ida Aframe on January 27, 1946. “She and I went to school together. Before heading to England I visited her where she was working as a hospital volunteer. She gave me a goodbye kiss on the cheek and that made an impression on me. At the time, Ida was engaged to a Naval officer from New York named Joseph. I got to her just in time after the war. You know, to this day, she won’t tell me his last name.” After a third successful career in insurance, Shames was ready to settle into a well-deserved retirement. HBO’s Band of Brothers and Airborne author, Ian Gardner, had a different idea. After nearly six decades of relative quiet regarding Shames’ World War II exploits, the HBO miniseries and Gardner’s meticulously researched book thrust Shames into the war hero spotlight. Shames has received numerous well-deserved honorariums and is a soughtafter speaker, having just returned from an engagement in Minneapolis before heading to Washington, DC for another talk. In his 90’s, Shames is more popular than ever and still fit and sharp-minded. Although Shames bristles and waves his hand at the hero reference, he truly was heroic—keeping his wits about him when it would have been easy not to, and using his courage, smarts, and doggedness to help take the battle to the German Army while placing his platoon in position to succeed. When asked about his exploits and his late-in-life fame, Colonel Shames simply states, “I did my job.”

MILITARY

Worthy of admiration and pride Airborne: The Combat Story of Ed Shames of Easy Company Ian Gardner Osprey Publishing, 2015 295 pages, $25.95 ISBN: 978-1-4728-0485-3

olonel Ed Shames, US Army (retired), turns 93 as this review is being written, is in pretty good health and mentally sharp as ever. When your reviewer first met Ed, I told him Hal Sacks I had reviewed co-author Gardner’s earlier book featuring Ed’s exploits in WWII, Tonight We Die As Men ( Jewish News, 2010). “Yeah, I know,” he said. “Did you ever read the book at all?” I had, but that wasn’t a great start and made me certain to read Airborne from cover to cover, very carefully. The 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment (referred to as the 506PIR) was officially activated on July 20, 1942 and the 20-year‑old Ed Shames began his journey in late August of that year. He knew he was part of a somewhat select group of volunteers, but may not have

Ed Shames

known that he and they would be subjected to one of the most grueling training regimes undertaken by a WWII American military unit. To daily calisthenics, drill and physical training was added a torturous obstacle course, 20-mile marches and steep, rocky, mountain trails to climb. The entire saga of the creation of what was to become an iconic unit of the war in Europe takes place in the first 50 or so pages of the book, but it is there that Ed Shames distinguishes himself from the other raw recruits and is elevated to operations sergeant for Major Wolverton, Battalion Commander. [There is a glossary of terms at the end of the book, but the author gives too much credit to today’s readers, 70 years after the fact, assuming we might recall that the WWII regiment generally consisted of three battalions of 400 to 1,000 men; the battalion might have two or more companies of up to 250 men; each company would be made up of two or more platoons of up to 50 men, and the platoon of two or more squads of 8–24 men.] Within a year, the 506th had graduated from jump school and were officially part of the 101st Airborne Division under Major General Bill Lee and in September of 1943 were ferried to England aboard His Majesty’s Troop Ship Samaria, taking up residence in Ramsbury, England while continuing to train and prepare for the inevitable invasion of Europe. Tonight We Die As Men gave us a pretty good idea of Ed Shames’ heroic role in the invasion of France and his battlefield promotion to Lieutenant. Airborne sets the record straight as far as the inaccuracies of the entertaining Stephen Ambrose book, Band of Brothers, and the HBO miniseries. It is understandable that some of the surviving veterans were upset by the composite version of E Company. Ed Shames’ extraordinary ability to recall details of battles fought so long ago, coupled with Ian Gardner’s impeccable research provide a definitive version of the 506’s participation in the invasion of the Netherlands, the Battle of the Bulge, and

less well known engagements, enough to satisfy the most assiduous history buff. If there is any criticism in that regard, it is that the general reader may at times get lost in the detailed enumeration of units, locations, and participants. But that is secondary as our admiration for and pride in the accomplishments of Ed Shames is paramount and anyone wishing to get the true story from the horse’s mouth will relish the action in Airborne. The addition of some maps would assist us in following the flow of battle across Europe. When Ed Shames was fighting his way across the continent, I was in Jr. High School moving pins in maps on the wall as we kept watch

on the daily progress of our armies. —Hal Sacks is a retired Jewish communal worker who has reviewed books for Jewish News for more than 30 years.

Wall, Einhorn & Chernitzer, P.C. is excited to announce we are relocating effective October 27, 2015. Please update our contact info to: Suntrust Building 150 W. Main St., Suite 1200

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Jewishnewsva.org | Salute to the Military | November 9, 2015 | Jewish News | 23

MILITARY Veterans’ Day 2015 by Hal Sacks

promised the Jewish News an article on Veterans’ Day long before I had my recent nine weeks in and out of hospitals and, finally, rehab at Beth Sholom. But somehow I never got around to it. So here are my thoughts on Veterans Day—today. I may have mentioned in a previous article that my memories of what was originally called “Armistice Day,” are very clear. In elementary school, in the 1930s, we learned that at the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month of 1918 the “Guns of August” fell silent. We stood by our desks (five rows of seven desks screwed to the floor) as the teacher opened the outsized classroom windows despite the November chill. She wanted us to hear the saluting batteries from an armory in a nearby neighborhood. We stood in silence, much the same as they do today in Israel on Yom Ha’Atzmaut. The first modern slaughter of millions was over and memorialized. Today, on 11/11 we will observe, not celebrate, Veterans’ Day. It will be a solemn occasion at the Jewish War Veterans’ Memorial on the grounds of the Sandler

The 6th Annual Veterans Day Service

Reba and Sam Sandler Family Campus of the Tidewater Jewish Community

Family Campus as we remember the Jewish veterans who passed during the last 12 months. They were: Melvin Barr, US Army Air Corp WWII Murray Halpern, US Navy WWII Sidney Finkelstein, US Army Air Corp WWII Leon Saunders, US Army WWII Harry Norkin, US Army WWII Joe Fleischmann, US Army WWII Herman Muni Eisenberg, US Navy WWII Stanley Willner, US Navy David Benson Kruger, US Army WWII Duane Aikman, US Navy Alan Hirsch, US Army Herbert Bregman, US Army Air Corp WWII Dr. Charles Mansbach, US Navy Morton Goldmeier, US Air Force WWII Charles “Chick” Kaufman, US Army WWII Leonard “Myron” Diamondstein, US Army

Wednesday, Nov. 11, 9 am The service will be held outside at the Jewish War Monument and will be followed by a light breakfast after the showing of the film, Beneath the Helmet: From High School to the Home Front. RSVP to Dani Crumpler at dcrumpler@ujft.org or 757-965-6131. Honor a veteran in your family! Monument pavers are still available. Contact Crumpler for more information.

With the reader’s forbearance, I’m going to write about some veterans I met during my recent medical sojourns. First was a Chief Boiler Tender, U.S.Navy (retired). Junius was 16 when Pearl Harbor was attacked. He lived in Newport News and, after school one day, took the ferry to Norfolk and tried to enlist. At his age he needed his father’s permission. His Dad wouldn’t give it until he turned 17, after which he growled, “I signed but don’t let me hear you complaining about the Navy.” When Junius came home from boot camp, where he had trained in mud and dust and was miserable, he was asked by Dad how he liked

24 | Jewish News | November 9, 2015 | Salute to the Military | jewishnewsva.org

Navy now. He replied, “I love it.” Junius served in the Pacific, the Atlantic and north of the Arctic Circle. He served in two destroyers and in a small aircraft carrier (more about them later). Coincidentally, his two destroyers were of the Fletcher and Gearing classes and were sister ships of three destroyers I served in. Now 91, Junius’s memory of on the service is still crystal clear. How Reba and Sam Sandler Family Campus I thank him for his service! of the Tidewater Jewish Community Next was Sherry. Sherry was an Operations Specialist (what Wednesday, November 11, 2015 we dubbed a “radarman striker”) 9:00 A.M. and served aboard an ammunition ship. Sherry was living in 5000 Corporate Woods Drive New Jersey when her husband Virginia Beach, VA 23462 passed away at an early age. Not sure where to go or what to do, she remembered her Navy Days in no record of one surviving even a single Tidewater as a happy time and returned torpedo hit. But the crews loved them. here to live. Sherry was my night nurse They carried 20 fighters and 12 torpedo during some of my worst times in the planes but had little armament. Clyde’s hospital. Thoroughly professional, but battle station was as “first loader” for a touchingly caring, she came to assist me “quad” 40mm gun mount. Savo Island even when she was assigned to other was one of six in the squadron and there patients. It was a sailor-to-sailor thing. I were three squadrons. The main Japanese thank her for her service to our country force, two battleships, eight cruisers and 12 destroyers, attacked Clyde’s squadron (and to me). Then there was Donald who enlisted thinking it was a main American force. in the U.S. Marine Corps as a 17-year-old Vastly outgunned, and with two carrishortly after President Truman ordered ers sunk, the remaining escort carriers the integration of the Armed Services. and their aircraft put up an incredible His mother was more than happy to sign fight, sinking one cruiser and damaging permission because Donald was always in others; the Japanese force retreated. Clyde trouble and she couldn’t control him. He is 89 and losing his vision, but we are fought in Korea at Inchon and in the cam- very thankful for his service. If you are paigns following, rising to rank of “buck” wondering if today’s seemingly spoiled Sergeant. He’s 80 years old and looks 65. 18-year-olds could do what he did, let me He still says the Marine Corps “saved his assure you I believe they could. May it life.” Thank you for your service, Donald. never be needed! The community knows that I am proud Finally, I met Clyde. He was an 18-year-old Boiler Tender Seaman aboard of my service but I need to make clear how the USS Savo Island (CVE 78) during the thankful I am to those who went before World War II battle for Leyte Gulf—argu- me as well as those young people today, ably the most famous battle in the history serving lengthy deployments under arduof the United States Navy. The Savo Island ous conditions. So when you thank them was a smallish escort carrier affectionately for their service, thank them from the known as a “Kaiser coffin.” Turned out in heart and, if time permits, talk to them. five days, they were basically merchant They will make a remarkable addition to hulls with a flight deck attached. There is the history our veterans have created.

The 6th Annual VETERANS DAY SERVICE

MILITARY Dedicated to the Young Men under my Command by Philip S. Rovner (Formerly) 1Lt, 1/30th, First Calvary Division

uring the last week of August 1970, I returned from a 12-month tour as an artillery commander in Vietnam. The trip home on a commercial military transport gave little time for reflection, as we were mostly, and quite simply, happy to be going home. I was initially in a bit of transitional shock when Philip S. Rovner we landed at Fort Dix, N.J., (which was also an Army training center) to find myself in the midst of a company of new recruits who had just arrived, easily defined by their new military stature. Overcoming this, I out-processed and was placed on a plane where I landed on a Friday afternoon at Hartsfield Atlanta airport where another dose of reality awaited me. The Army had given us all new uniforms and boots. Yet as I walked through the concourse that day I realized that all persons were moving to the other side of the concourse so as to avoid all contact with me. And while it could have been they moved out of respect for a returning soldier, I did not sense this to be the case. Sadly, this may have reflected the general attitude of many Americans at the time. In the weeks that followed and as life resumed some sense of normalcy, I began to reflect on my experiences, to reconstruct what I had seen and felt and smelled. With a keen desire to make up for

lost time, there was not much opportunity to ponder until one day I realized the significance of my service. Over the course of a year I had commanded more than 200 men and had not lost a single one to death or serious injury. I realized that at age 24 I most likely had experienced one of the greatest, if not the greatest, successes of my life. To this day I wonder whether it was fate, skill, luck or what. As the years have played across my memory, I acknowledge that it was some miraculous combination of interactions which accorded me this little known personal sense of accomplishment. Our battery fired tens of thousands of rounds of high explosive and white phosphorous ordinance. We moved our 50-person split artillery battery which supported three (3) 155 howitzers including a full complement of fire direction, mess and medical 13 times without incident. How did it all come to pass? Two years out of college and after having become a commissioned officer through Artillery Officer Candidate School (OCS), I found myself with orders to Vietnam at the very young age of 23. Even though I had successfully completed OCS, I was now to be tested with command responsibility, the responsibility for lives other than my own. In 1969 relatively few of us knew the location of Vietnam on a world map and fewer understood why we were

Over

the course

of a year I had

commanded more

than 200 men and had not lost a single one to death or serious injury.

sending our young men to fight on yet another foreign battle field. Coming from a family who had served in World War II, I welcomed this opportunity to serve, albeit with some trepidation and the concern of my family and close friends. The month I rotated to Vietnam, I was promoted to 1st Lieutenant and was given command of an artillery battery of 1/30th, First Calvary Division, which was the first combat division to be fully Airmobile in that all our moves and resupply were accomplished via an array of helicopters, most particularly the Boeing CH-47 Chinook and the Sikorsky CH-54 (Sky Crane). Connecting and disengaging the helicopters

We salute and thank all Jewish Americans and their families for their great service and immense sacrifice, which has kept our country strong!

Dr. Gary Moss

was a particularly dangerous task as we had to be mindful of static electricity and be sure to balance the load properly. We handled and transported tons of ammunition and explosive powder along with all our other supplies, foodstuffs and water. Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve come to believe that we fared so extraordinarily well due to our training and our discipline committed to performance under the most challenging of circumstances. And if one memory stands out among the rest, it was waking every day with utmost pride to see our flag flowing in the breeze of the early morning, a site which very much still moves me to this day.

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Dr. Craig Koenig

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MILITARY Temple Israel’s Military Appreciation Shabbat typical for civilians, Jewish and Gentile, Commodore Levy Chapel at Norfolk Naval to walk up to those in the military and to Station. One of the high points of my entire career in Norfolk was sharing the thank them for their service. hile in many ways, we in the pulpit at the Levy Chapel with I am confident that the other conHampton Roads Jewish community Jonathan, who had returned gregational rabbis of Tidewater are representative of American Jews in As to participate in the redediwould agree that: As rabbi general, there are some areas in which our cation of the Commodore of an area congregation distinctive profile is evident. We are in a rabbi of an Levy chapel, in memory (Temple Israel), it has been small minority of American Jewish comof Chaplain Sobel. my privilege to serve in a munities to be highly involved in the U.S. area congregation, Jonathan enchanted part of the country where Armed Forces. This little-paralleled local the entire congregamany Jewish soldiers in experience gives us the opportunity to it has been my tion with “Jewish sea our land, sea and air rethink a topic about which, I am sorry to stories.” services are stationed. admit, the majority of American Jews—at privilege to serve in For more than a Some are away from least those of a certain generation—harbor decade, our congrehome for the first time, some unworthy anti-military attitudes. a part of the country gation has partnered and suddenly realize Many of the senior leaders of Jewish with Cantor Aaron what they are missing, communities around the country came of where many Jewish Sachnoff and the including the Jewish age during the era of anti-Vietnam War Jewish chapel for the environment that nuragitation. Unlike their own parents, vetersoldiers in our land, Second Day of Rosh tured them. Often, these ans of World War II, when 550,000 Jews Hashanah. An entire service personnel have served, some lying about their age so that been overseas for years, sea and air services generation of Temple they could be accepted into the army, this Israelites smiles and starts and hunger for contact humming on hearing the with the Jewish community. are stationed. . opening phrase of Cantor Whether enlisted ranks or offiSpectacular contemporary home with private back yard on the Lynnhaven River. Sachnoff’s rendition of the holicers, a good percentage of the Dramatic two story foyer and great room. Relax in over 5000 square feet including day prayer “hayom t’amtzenu.” Jews whose service brings them to huge master with fireplace and bay window overlooking trees. Potential in law suite. In 2013, our congregation inaugurated Norfolk find their way to our congregation, Extensive decking Convenient to all of Hampton Roads. LA K EwithShot Mtub. IT H and it is truly an honor to be their Jewish a Military Appreciation Shabbat. Our first Ready for you to enjoy! speaker was Rep. Scott Rigell, and we were home away from home. This all brick home I have had the personal honor of being treated to an inspiring message. Last year, overlooking serene the civilian rabbi to three of our Jewish we moved the service to the Shabbat just Lake Smith is bright navy chaplains, Rabbis Moe Kaprow, Seth prior to Veteran’s Day, and went in house and up-to-date. Phillips and Karen Soria, during their for our speaker with Nathan Brauner, New roof and windows. Tidewater assignments. They have enriched recently retired as a Lt. Colonel in the U.S. Custom neighborhood our congregation. To cite only one example Air Force, discussing his mission in Iraq, convenient to all of for each of the many that come to mind, training the post-Saddam Hussein Iraqi Hampton Roads. Rabbi Kaprow filled in for me during my Air Force pilots. We agreed that, however period of mourning for my mother, officiat- nice it was to host dignitaries and elected ing on short notice at a bat mitzvah; Rabbi officials, we would henceforth spotlight our 5113 Crystal Point Drive Phillips spoke powerfully from the pulpit own members who were serving or had 5113 Crystal Point Drive $539,900 after his return from six months in the served in the military, because the authenMediterranean as the DESRON 2 chaplain, ticity and power of their message was not and Rabbi Soria enriched our services both to be missed. For this year, on Saturday, Nov. 7, we with her beautiful voice and keen theological creativity. Even rabbis need a rabbi, and turned to a military spouse, Miriam Blake, when those three rabbis needed a rabbi, it to offer her unique perspective on life as a was my good fortune to be able to serve. Jew in a military family. Janet Frenck, GRI Please remember to reach out to the “How goodly is my portion!” 757-439-4039 members of the military whenever you see I am not the first Rabbi Panitz to 757-439-4039 Howard Hanna William E Wood them and thank them for their service. have served in Tidewater—a half decade GRI Janet Frenck, 1321 Laskin Road,CRB, Virginia Beach, VA, 23451 janetfrenck@williamewood.com They are there for you. You be there for before my arrival in town, my brother janetfrenck@howardhanna.com William E. Wood & Associates Jonathan was the base chaplain at the them, too. 1321 Laskin Road • Virginia Beach by Rabbi Michael Panitz

generation tried to avoid military service. Again, unlike our Israeli cousins, for whom military service in Tzahal is an expectation, a duty embraced, and a badge of honor, very few American Jewish parents expect their children to put on the uniform of service to our country. The result is that a Jew in active duty can be a very lonely man, religiously. Moreover, for quite a few years now, the number of Jewish military chaplains serving in the various branches of the Armed Forces has been well under the recommended number. The repute of the military has ascended since the Vietnam Era, among American Jews as well as among Americans in general. Even in the 1970’s, some American Jews recognized that one could disagree with the American involvement in that war, while nonetheless respecting the men and women who served. But since the First Gulf War and especially since 9-11, it is far more

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26 | Jewish News | November 9, 2015 | Salute to the Military | jewishnewsva.org

MILITARY IHOP® thanks Veterans and Active Duty Military on Veteran’s Day Wednesday, Nov. 11, 7 am–7 pm

IHOP® restaurants will again honor the 22 million Veterans currently living in the United States and more than 1.3 million Armed Forces members currently serving in the military by offering them a free stack of Red, White and Blue pancakes on Veteran’s Day.

Participating IHOP restaurants will serve a stack of Red, White and Blue pancakes—buttermilk pancakes crowned with glazed strawberries, blueberry compote and whipped topping—free for Veterans and Active Duty

Military on Veteran’s Day. Veterans and Active Duty Military simply show proof of military service to receive their free pancakes. Proof includes: US Uniformed Services ID Card, US Uniformed Services Retired ID Card,

Current Leave and Earnings Statement (LES), veterans organization card (i.e. American Legion, VFW, etc.), photograph in U.S. military uniform, wearing uniform, DD214, military dog tags, and citation or commendation.

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nization in America, Jewish War Veterans brings together men and women with joint ties of a common heritage as Jews and a common experience as active duty or past members of the U.S. Armed Forces.

of Christmas characters, carolers, sweet treats, shops, games, activities &crafts!

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In Tidewater, the group’s meetings feature special guest speakers.

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Each Memorial Day, the group makes certain that flags are placed on the graves of Jewish U.S.

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Veterans. Jewishnewsva.org | Salute to the Military | November 9, 2015 | Jewish News | 27

Providing compassionate end-of-life care enables families to be in the moment and enjoy time together.

Ev e ry ye ar i n th e Ti dewate r Jewi sh c o m m un i t y…

It takes a village. Our Village. Our rehabilitation team works with patients to regain strength, confidence and quality of life.

Life can be unpredictable, but the excellent care at Beth Sholom Village is not. In our third and final special report, learn the many ways we are serving the community. •

Hospice Care: Our sister agency, Freda H. Gordon Hospice and Palliative Care of Tidewater (HPCT), provides compassionate end-of-life care for our patients and their families. Being informed and educated about what options are available is very comforting for all involved. HPCT is a valuable source of relief in a difficult time so you can focus on embracing every moment.

•

Rehabilitation: The Lee H. and Helen Gifford Rehabilitation Pavilion serves skilled nursing residents and assisted living residents. Our short stay rehab patients typically come to us after a knee or hip replacement and while here, regain strength and mobility before returning home. Our tenured team, which includes physical, occupational and speech therapists, strives to achieve the highest quality of rehabilitation possible.

•

Alzheimer’s and Dementia Care: Alzheimer’s is the most well-known form of dementia, a general term for memory loss and other intellectual disabilities serious enough to interfere with daily life.

We provide safety, comfort and excellent medical care to dementia patients who can no longer care for themselves.

•

It is a privilege to serve the talented residents at Beth Sholom Village in our stable, caring environment.

•

Our Sholom Unit at The Berger-Goldrich skilled nursing facility tends to residents with severe Alzheimer’s and dementia who can no longer care for themselves. The unit is designed and staffed to provide safety, comfort, security and high quality medical treatment with appropriate activities to encourage involvement in daily life.

•

The Memory Enhancement Unit at The Terrace Assisted Living has a homelike yet secure area for residents with Alzheimer’s and dementia. It features a quiet and sunny environment with activities that include music as well as arts and crafts.

Health and Wellness Center: The Rose Frances and Bernard Glasser Health and Wellness Center promotes a safe and healthy lifestyle for residents, staff and the community. In collaboration with a doctor, the Center’s nurse practitioner works as primary care provider to treat both chronic and acute illnesses. The Center also offers regular checkups, flu shots and INR checks and conducts new hire drug screening for local employers.

(757) 420-2512

28 | Jewish News | November 9, 2015 | Salute to the Military | jewishnewsva.org

www.bethsholomvillage.com

Continued commitment at Men’s Major “People can never attain fulfillment, or sense of meaning, unless it is shared, unless it pertains to other human beings,” Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel by Harry Graber, executive vice president, United Jewish Federation of Tidewater

hey enter the room quietly and unadorned in their everyday attire. They are met warmly by their hosts, Steve and Art Sandler and quickly begin looking around for friends to greet and with whom to share the latest news of a business triumph, a special family achievement or news of a most recent wonderful occurrence. They catch the eyes of men they may have not seen in months or possibly since this same meeting 12 months ago. They

greet these people warmly as well, because while their lives may not intersect often they often intersect when they are called together to stand as one for the Tidewater Jewish community, the protection of Israel and the health and welfare of Jews around the world. Known as the Men’s Major, it is one event among many in support of the 2016 Annual Campaign and at its conclusion it will generate approximately one third of the annual campaign. The event is also characterized by an activity that is locally called a “caucus.” It is a simple anticipated event most welcomed by the attendees

Art Sandler, Steve Rosen, and Steve Sandler.

John Strelitz and Marc Jacobson.

because after a case for Jewish needs is presented, almost everybody takes the opportunity to speak and ultimately announce their 2016 annual campaign gift to the group. For 13 years as United Jewish Federation of Tidewater’s executive vice president, I have been consistently amazed by the atmosphere and open discussion of the group and their heartfelt statements. It is a safe place characterized by mutual respect and common commitment. The conversation often includes personal inspiration for understanding the importance of Tzedakah and the debt owed to

Kevin Lefcoe and David Brand.

Chip and Gerald Friedman.

family, community and peoplehood when announcing their gift. At its conclusion, while gratitude is expressed by the hosts, it is the informal and warm goodbyes that represent a mutual feeling of a job well done. However, there is also a recognition of the importance of the job that remains to be done; day after day, month after month and year after year. It is the historical transmitted duty and assumed honor of building vibrant and sacred Jewish communities. “The road to the sacred leads through the secular,” Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel.

Lawrence Fleder, Marc Jacobson, and Karen Jaffe, Annual Campaign chair.

Lawrence Fleder and Adam Foleck.

Harry Graber and Steve Rosen, special guest. jewishnewsva.org | November 9, 2015 | Jewish News | 29

CRC’s 5th annual Israel Today offers vibrant ideas and bold perspectives from three experts under 40 All events are free, open to the community and held at the Reba and Sam Sandler Family Campus in Virginia Beach by Gary Grune

he Community Relations Council of the United Jewish Federation of Tidewater is joining with community partners, including all area synagogues and Jewish agencies, along with local chapters of Jewish organizations and Tidewater Israel advocates, to offer an amazing line-up of visiting experts for their fifth annual Israel Today series. With an eye towards the impact of young global leaders in their fields, the visiting experts who are all under the age of 40, are sure to leave the Tidewater community better educated and more energized and engaged in the conversation surrounding Israel. CRC’s fifth annual series is changing its format from lecture presentation to ‘talk show’ style. Each event will have an ‘anchor’ and will start with an interview on stage (think Today Show with comfortable chairs and a coffee table) conducted by a local Tidewater Jewish ‘celebrity’ with the first event ‘anchored’ by Danny Rubin of Rubin Communications. Following the discussion, as in past years, attendees will be able to get their questions answered directly, by the visiting expert. The CRC will announce the other two anchors as the events get closer—each will bring their own style and personality to the stage, and are sure to add to the Israel Today conversation.

Beyond the Start-up Nation November 18, 7:30 pm Josh Kram, U.S. Chamber of Commerce Does building a strong commercial relationship between the U.S. and Israel really matter? Does Israel’s reputation as the breeding ground for innovation and entrepreneurial success impact their relationships in the region? “Yes,” says the first Israel Today visiting expert, Josh Kram. The director of the Middle East Commercial Center for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce (the largest business organization in the world), the Chamber’s

30 | Jewish News | November 9, 2015 | jewishnewsva.org

director for Turkey and Middle East Affairs and the Chamber’s director of U.S.-Israel Business Initiative, Kram spends his days working to move forward the U.S. business inter- Josh Kram ests in that region. While in Tidewater, Kram will focus on the Israel piece of his work, offering his perspective on the impact and potential impact of the Israel Business Initiative office. Headquartered at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in Washington, D.C., Kram meets regularly with senior Israeli government officials as well as top U.S. officials who cover Israel and the broader Middle East including members of Congress, administration officials, senior representatives in the departments of commerce, energy, state, and defense, and members of the Embassy of Israel and Israeli consulates throughout the United States. “As American and Israeli companies work together to invent, develop and bring to market cutting-edge ideas and products, the relationship serves as a growth engine for both of our economies—creating jobs and new products with the potential to transform industries,” Kram says. Though he says, this is “not unique to Israel. The U.S. has similar overarching strategic economic dialogue partners like China, India, Mexico, and Turkey, and they have proven to be important tools to forging closer economic bonds.” Prior to his work with the U.S. Chamber, Kram was the Government Affairs representative for the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC), the world’s largest Jewish humanitarian assistance organization, and one of the UJFT’s recipient agencies. In Washington, D.C. Kram helped expand JDC’s existing governmental outreach by raising the organization’s profile and deepening relationships with public officials.

Before joining the JDC, Kram worked with global advocacy organizations, political candidates, think tanks, Jewish communal organizations, and founded a Washington-based consulting firm. His experience includes working with the Council on Foreign Relations and its’ Senior Middle East Fellow Dan Senor where the extensive research Kram conducted, led to collaboration and acknowledgement in Senor and Saul Singer’s New York Times Bestseller, Startup Nation: The Story of Israel’s Economic Miracle. Kram also served as national director of Jewish Outreach and foreign policy advisor to Hillary Clinton’s 2008 Presidential Campaign just after his work with the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. “While U.S.-Israel politics and security are among the most closely watched topics in Washington and around the world, the focus doesn’t extend as frequently to the economic and commercial relationship between our two countries,” says Kram. “And this is an aspect of our alliance that should not only be celebrated but should increasingly be a priority.” The community can be assured that after hearing Kram they will have a better perspective on the history and the future of the economic relations between Israel and the United States. and the impact it could have in the Middle East.

The Israel Apartheid Lie March 2, 2016, 7:30 pm Olga Meshoe, co-founder DEISI “We know what Apartheid was because we still suffer from the scars of it and my parents were directly impacted,” says Olga Meshoe, a Christian native of South Africa, an attorney, a conOlga Meshoe sultant focused on broad-based black economic empowerment,

and co-founder of DEISI—Defend Embrace Invest Support Israel. “How in the world, seeing what we see, knowing what we know and being educated as to the truth, can we say Israel is an apartheid state?” According to an article by a Jewish South African online blogger (Howard Feldman) posted by The Times of Israel, Meshoe is full of “dynamism, eloquence, energy and power.” Feldman’s article, “Israel’s Warrior,” describes Meshoe, as “…super smart, an attorney, having recently ended a stint with one of the country’s leading law firms in the Banking and Finance division. She is deeply passionate about, well everything, including transformation and is a fervent Zionist (and she is a serious coffee drinker). She is not beyond criticism of Israel when she feels she needs to be, but has little tolerance for the hypocrisy so evident around her.” Meshoe is very adamant about what South Africa could learn from Israel in regards to its technological and agricultural achievements and strongly believes that real transformation in South Africa can come about through working with Israel. To quote Feldman again,” Meshoe is someone who gave hope to the South African Jewish community when they needed it most (during the Israeli Gaza conflict in 2014). A true friend and ally is someone who is there for you in your darkest hour, and Olga is that friend to the global Jewish Community and especially to the Jewish State of Israel.” Meshoe also is a role model for women, old and young, in South Africa. She is a director and trustee of numerous companies and trusts focused on community work, youth development and empowerment of young people as advocates for truth. She is also the leader of Vessels of Honour, a youth arts organization that is aimed at giving young people of South Africa who are gifted in the areas of music, drama and dance a platform to showcase their talents and opportunities be trained and mentored. Meshoe’s support for Israel isn’t new as she has a world renowned mentor in that field. Her father is Reverend Kenneth Meshoe of the ACDP (African Christian Democratic Party), a South African political party that holds three seats in Parliament. Rev. Meshoe and his daughter co-founded, DEISI (pronounced daisy, as in “pushing up the…”). This incredible young adult is currently traveling the globe, using her voice to

empower others to speak out against the claims on university campuses of Israel as an apartheid state.

The roots of media bias against Israel May 11, 2016, 7:30 pm Matti Friedman, former Associated Press journalist and editor “Like many Jews who grew up in the 20th century in friendly Western cities, I dismissed such ideas as the feverish memories of my grandparents…I was foolish to have done so.” In this quote f rom M att i Matti Friedman Friedman’s article in Tablet Magazine, he is referring to his grandparents’ experiences with anti-Semitism. Today, anti-Semitism is more subtle and more difficult to spot. It wasn’t until Friedman reported on the conflict in Gaza during the summer of 2014 that he understood the reality of the impact the media can have on the perception of Israelis and the impression the media leaves on citizens around the globe. Friedman saw firsthand, from the frontlines, that the conflict was not properly being reported in the media. The media had an agenda, with a story to tell before there was news to report. That summer of 2014 was the straw the broke the camel’s back, but it wasn’t the first or last time Friedman witnessed exaggerated journalism regarding Israel. During his tenure, Friedman experienced ongoing omissions and inflations of “the Israel story.” He discovered that, “the AP (Associated Press) had more staffers covering the “Israel story” than in China, or India, or all 50-odd countries in sub-Saharan Africa combined.” He now dedicates himself to exposing the anti-Israel media bias he saw as a former member of the Associated Press. Learn the truth behind the media coverage of Israel during Freidman’s visit to Tidewater. It will likely change the way you look at news coverage forever. For more information and to RSVP for each event, visit www.JewishVA.org/ CRCIsraelToday, email crc@ujft.org or call 965-6107.

The fifth annual Israel Today Forum is presented by the Community Relations Council of the United Jewish Federation of Tidewater and the following Community Partners: Simon Family Foundation Beth Sholom Village B’nai Israel Congregation Chabad Lubavitch of Tidewater Congregation Beth Chaverim Congregation Beth El Freda H. Gordon Hospice & Palliative Care of Tidewater Hebrew Academy of Tidewater Jewish Family Service of Tidewater Kehillat Bet Hamidrash Norfolk-Virginia Beach Chapter of Hadassah Norfolk-Virginia Beach Chapter of ORT America ODU Hillel Ohef Sholom Temple Simon Family JCC Temple Emanuel Temple Israel Tidewater Jewish Foundation UJFT Business and Legal Society UJFT Holocaust Commission UJFT Maimonides Society UJFT Men’s Campaign UJFT Women’s Cabinet UJFT Young Adult Division Patricia & Avraham Ashkenazi Ann & Bobby Copeland Family Barbara & Noel Dudley Lois & Barry Einhorn Lori & Michael Glasser Kathy & Jerry Kantor Betsy & Ed Karotkin The Lefcoe Family Arnold Leon Rose & Kurt Rosenbach Annabel & Hal Sacks Miriam & Bob Seeherman Bite Restaurant & Catering Hampton Roads Chamber of Commerce Rubin Communications Group The Spindel Agency

jewishnewsva.org | November 9, 2015 | Jewish News | 31

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SERVING THE COASTAL VIRGINIA COMMUNITY ON THE MAGNIFICENT 22-ACRE SANDLER FAMILY CAMPUS 32 | Jewish News | November 9, 2015 | jewishnewsva.org

K-5 OPEN HOUSE December 4, 8:30 am RSVP 424-4327

Opinion

Moral dementia at Stanford and Berkeley by Richard L. Cravatts, PhD

n a display of moral narcissism that British columnist Melanie Phillips has characterized as a “dialogue of the demented,” Stanford students staged a public protest on October 19 to once again denounce Israel and, presumably, to honor the slain homicidal Palestinians who have so far claimed the lives of 11 Israelis in a recent spate of violence in Jerusalem and parts of Judea and Samaria. The protest, organized by the vitriolic Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), followed in style and substance an equally debased display of moral self-righteousness at Berkeley, where a similar gathering on October 13 saw protesters enthusiastically chanting “long live the intifada” and “we support the intifada,” in other words, extolling the current homicidal rampage in Israel in which youthful terrorists have used knives, guns, stones, and vehicles to randomly murder Jewish civilians. In fact, the use of that word “intifada” is a grotesque and murderous reference to the Second Intifada that began in 2000, during which Arab terrorists murdered some 1,000 Israelis and wounded more than 14,000 others. Students for Justice in Palestine was founded by Berkeley professor Hatem Bazian, who in 2004 called for an intifada in the United States, and has become a disruptive, corrosive presence on many campuses with its disruptive, mendacious anti-Israel activism. The Stanford chapter, like others, has as its stated mission to work “toward justice and the recognition of universal rights for all current and displaced residents of historic Palestine,” meaning only the Palestinians at the expense of, and to the detriment of, Israelis. This notion of “justice” has only one beneficiary in a zero sum game where justice is achieved, not by having two states living side by side in peace, but through the creation of a new Palestinian state in the place of Israel. “We stand in solidarity with the Palestinian people’s struggle for self-determination, justice, and equality,” the mission statement continues, intentionally ignoring the current existence of a sovereign Jewish state and allowing that self-determination

is only acceptable for Palestinian Arabs and not, it seems, for Jews. In reality, the pro-Palestinian SJP seem to care very little about the actual self-determination and state building of the hapless Palestinians. As is frequently the case when speaking about the Israeli/ Arab conflict, the discussion often glosses over the real problems of Palestinian culture, politics, and society (including its cult of death and martyrdom), and targets all criticism on the perceived defects of Israel, Zionism, and Jewish power. All of the blame for the conflict is placed on the so-called occupation, the “apartheid wall,” the oppression and militarism of the Zionist regime, and the brutal humiliation and collective punishment Israel is said to mete out on a daily basis upon the wholly innocent Palestinians. The chronic truculence of the Palestinians in having rejected opportunities for statehood on multiple occasions, of course, is never mentioned, and other causes that have led to Palestinian suffering are pointed to. One of the placards at the Stanford rally, for instance, read “Settler colonialism has killed 7 Israelis and 32 Palestinians this month,” naively assigning blame for the recent carnage, not where it belongs—with the homicidal young teenagers and others who barbarically murdered or tried to murder Jewish parents in front of their children, or riding on buses, or standing on street corners—but with the disingenuous and factually defective charge of “settler colonialism.” That pro-Palestinian student activists, those who purport to be motivated by a desire to bring “justice” to the Middle East and who, presumably, care about all human lives, could publicly call for the renewed slaughter of Jews in the name of Palestinian self-determination demonstrates quite clearly how ideologically debased the human rights movement has become. Activists on the Stanford and Berkeley campuses, who never have to face a physical threat more serious than getting jostled while waiting in line for a latte at Starbucks, are quick to denounce Israel’s very real existential threats and the necessity of the Jewish state to take counter

measures to thwart terrorism against its civilian population. And quick to label the killing of terrorists by the IDF as “extra-judicial” killings, these well-meaning, but morally-blind individuals see no contradiction in their calls for the renewed murder of Jews for their own sanctimonious cause. At Berkeley, protestors were shouting out the oft-heard slogan, “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.” That phrase suggests the same situation that a rekindled Intifada would help bring about, namely, that if the fictive nation of “Palestine” is “liberated,” is free, there will be, of course, no Israel between the Jordan River and Mediterranean—and no Jews. Those students who lend their moral support to terrorism, and who continually see the existence of “grievance-based violence” as a justifiable tool of the oppressed, have helped introduce a sick moral relativism into discussions about radical Islam and Palestinianism, not to mention Israel’s

Richard L. Cravatts right to protect its citizens from being slaughtered. That those students purporting to care about attaining social justice for the downtrodden are willing to let another group of people be murdered as part of that well-meaning campaign demonstrates quite clearly that a moral dementia has enveloped the anti-Israel crowd in a way that is both frightening and tragic, and we should see it for what it really is. —Richard L. Cravatts, president of Scholars for Peace in the Middle East, is the author of Genocidal Liberalism: The University’s Jihad Against Israel & Jews.

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Why you won’t find Starbucks in Israel by Ben Sales

( JTA)—In Israel, American stores dot shopping malls and McDonald’s branches proliferate. But one chain you won’t see is Starbucks. Starbucks has franchises around the world, but its brief experiment with Israeli stores lasted just two years, from 2001 to 2003. Maybe, as some have suggested, Starbucks pulled out of Tel Aviv to appease an anti-Israel market in the Arab world. Or maybe pumpkin spice lattes didn’t catch on in a country with no discernible fall season. Or maybe Starbucks just couldn’t hold its own against Israel’s superior brew. Israel beats the States when it comes to my favorite beverage. Plenty of visitors to Israel rightly extol its falafel and hummus; many also rave about its citrus and dairy products. But they should also praise its coffee. Geographically and culturally, Israel sits at the nexus between East and West. Its immigrant populations hail from Yemen

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and Germany, Uzbekistan and the United States, and its food is a mashup of these influences. In Tel Aviv, street food vendors sell shwarma, which originates in the Middle East, sandwiched in a French baguette. In Israel, Italian cafe offerings like espresso and macchiato coexist with strong, flavorful Turkish coffee made simply by brewing coffee grinds in hot water and letting them settle into “mud” at the bottom of the cup. It’s rare to see a standard American filter coffee—in my experience it tastes like weakly flavored hot water. Rarer still is America’s culture of coffee to go. Rather than walk with their coffee in a paper cup, Israelis, especially Tel Aviv residents, are notorious for sitting down with their ceramic espresso cup and not budging for hours—taking the time to catch up, talk politics, grow their start-up or, in my case, write an article. So prevalent is Tel Aviv’s cafe culture that Yediot Acharonot, a leading Israeli paper, investigated why so many of the city’s residents seem to laze at cafes instead of working. But in certain ways, Israel’s coffee culture had a long way to go. The average Israeli drinks 0.4 cups of coffee per day, according to an article in the Atlantic—a relatively low figure. It’s far below the Netherlands’ 2.4 cups a day, and less than half the one cup per person average in the U.S. And according to the Israeli website CoffeeShop.co.il, most of the coffee consumed in Israel is instant, dosed out in freeze-dried pebbles or powder. But there’s hope for Israeli cafe enthusiasts. CoffeeShop.co.il wrote that the 18-to-30 age bracket is more likely to order espresso-based brews. And the past couple of years have seen the rapid spread of discount coffee chains that sell everything on the menu—from cappuccino to croissants to sandwiches—for 5 shekels, or about $1.25. At first, these chains opened hole-inthe-wall shops where baristas behind a cramped counter served coffee to go in American-style paper cups. That’s changed, however. At many of those cafes now, customers get their espresso in paper cups—but in another example of Israel’s East meets West culture, they sit down at one of the cafe’s outdoor tables chatting the day away. Just as a good Tel Avivi should.

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Is it really a shock that one-third of Americans wouldn’t hide Jews? by Julie Wiener

(JTA)—Is the glass one-third empty or two-thirds full? A poll commissioned by distributors of the Holocaust film Return to the Hiding Place asked 1,000 Americans a question many Jews have pondered: “If you were living during World War II, would you have risked the imprisonment and death of yourself and your family to hide Jews?” The results, as reported in The Hollywood Reporter (and other publications that cited the Hollywood Reporter), were presented in a remarkably negative way: emphasizing the one-third of respondents who said “no” rather than the two-thirds majority who answered “yes.” This strikes me as odd. In most poll coverage, it’s the majority that leads the news, not the minority. And in this case, what the majority said is noteworthy: They would risk their lives and those of their families to save Jews. I find this impressive, even adjusted for the fact that saying you would do something heroic is a lot easier than actually doing something heroic. Had even onethird of Poles or Germans been willing to harbor Jews, Hitler’s Final Solution might have been stopped. By focusing on the one-third who would not hide Jews, the coverage implies surprise that a significant minority is unwilling to take a serious risk (not to mention assume a huge and potentially costly responsibility) to rescue a stranger. Given how few countries and their citizens are willing to take in large numbers of Syrian refugees or impoverished immigrants, a relatively low-risk proposition, why is it surprising that many people are reluctant to take a step that could cost them everything? Maybe I’m too skeptical of human nature, but I’m more impressed that a whopping two-thirds claim they would take that risk.

The slant of the coverage is not the only thing odd about this poll, which the Hollywood Reporter says the Barna Research firm conducted for the 2013 film’s distributors as part of a publicity campaign for its digital release. The poll appears nowhere on the official film website, nor does the film’s Twitter handle mention it. Why launch a publicity campaign you don’t even publicize yourself? I emailed Spencer Productions, the company distributing the DVD, to confirm that it did in fact commission the poll and to request a copy (the poll, not the DVD). They have not yet responded. In any event, the poll of 1,000 American adults, as described in the Hollywood Reporter, had some intriguing findings beyond the two-thirds to onethird headline. The question read as follows: “Think back to World War II when Jews in Europe were forced into concentration camps and many were killed by the Nazis. If you were living in this time period, would you have risked the possible imprisonment and death of yourself and your family to hide Jews?” Males were more likely than females to say yes, married people more likely than singles to say yes, and homosexuals more likely than heterosexuals to say yes. Also more likely to say yes were religious people compared to the irreligious and Southerners compared to Northeasterners. The pollsters did not compare Jews to non-Jews because the sample size was too small to be statistically accurate. Since my efforts to track down the poll have been unsuccessful, it’s not clear to me how significant the differences were between these various demographics. But it’s fair to say that if you’re seeking a safe haven, the best bet based on this poll is to knock on the door of a married Southern homosexual man.

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ARTS and culture

Marlee Matlin reveling in unique Spring Awakening revival by Curt Schleier

Marlee Matlin

( JTA)—When the rock musical Spring Awakening premiered on Broadway, it was a critical darling and financial success. It won almost every major award possible, including eight Tonys, four Drama Desk Awards and even a Grammy. So perhaps it’s not so surprising that it’s been revived on Broadway, even if it’s only been six years since it ended its successful run. Certainly more startling, though, is that the current production of Spring Awakening features a cast of deaf actors signing their lines—and songs. Even one of the show’s most high-profile stars, Marlee Matlin, concedes that people might consider the idea—deaf actors performing a musical—a bit strange. “It’s almost ironic,” she says through her longtime interpreter, Jack Jason. She was on the phone with JTA en route from an interview in Brooklyn to her temporary Manhattan digs rented for the duration of the play, which runs through January. “You’re talking about something that doesn’t happen every day,” she says. “People who haven’t seen the show have to wonder, how is this going to work? The answer: very well. Each deaf actor is accompanied by a hearing one, who sings or speaks what is being signed—in essence, two actors play each main role. While that may sound awkward, it takes audience members just a few minutes to become oriented, in part because the show, a production of the Deaf West Theater, is so creatively staged.

Set in Germany in the late 19th century, the “awakening” in Spring Awakening is a sexual one. A group of adolescents must deal with feelings they don’t understand and their repressed parents do not explain. The musical has a rousing score by Steven Sater and Duncan Sheik that particularly comes to life when the young actors sing as an ensemble. When that happens, the deaf actors become like dancers; through their fast-paced use of American Sign Language, their hands combine the precision of the Rockettes with the artistry of ballerinas. Although, like Matlin, a few of the deaf actors have some hearing, “It is not about hearing the music,” she says. In fact, several of the actors who have minimal hearing decided—whether for aesthetic reasons or just to make a statement—not to wear hearing aids during the performance. “They’re just great actors who incorporate the rhythm into their acting,” says Matlin, who is making her Broadway debut. “It takes a great deal of rehearsal time working with the choreographer to make all this work. You [see] deaf actors on stage signing to music they can’t hear.” The counterintuitive performance adds a moving and affecting layer to the show it didn’t have in its original production. Matlin says people stop her after every performance to comment on how awe-inspiring this version is. Matlin, along with actress Camryn Manheim—who, like Matlin, is Jewish— play several adult female roles in the play. While Matlin herself doesn’t sing, she says the “most difficult part was learning my lines in conjunction with the music.” It was a process with which she was vaguely familiar. “I didn’t listen to music [when I appeared] on Dancing With the Stars, she says. “I just used an internal metronome and went with it.” That was in 2008; she was the sixth celebrity eliminated that season. “Going with it” is something she’s been doing for a long time. Matlin, 50, was born in a Chicago suburb, the only deaf person in her family. She started to lose her hearing at 18 months. “I have no idea why and probably never

will,” she says. Her family belonged to B’nai Shalom, the Jewish Temple for the Deaf, in nearby Skokie, which was run by a hearing rabbi whose goal was to bring the deaf and hearing Jewish communities together. “It started out with deaf and their hearing family members going to temple together, but it attracted a great number of hearing people” as well, she says. For Matlin, it provided not only a link to other deaf people, but to her religion. “It gave me a community to belong to. We’d go to temple Friday nights and I’d learn about my religion and learn about my faith,” she says. “I always looked forward to the community. I got bat mitzvahed there.” Matlin signed the English parts of the service but learned her Torah portion phonetically and read it in Hebrew. Matlin wasn’t the only one who did that, and she concedes some of what the deaf children read was unintelligible to members of the congregation. “But it didn’t matter,” she says, “because they were reading from the Torah and that’s what it was all about.” The experience at the temple encouraged her in other ways, she maintains. “It gave me the drive, it gave me the foundation to believe in myself, despite what other people say,” Matlin says. Her family was also a pillar of strength. At 7, when she said she wanted to be an actress, they enrolled her in a program at the Chicago-based International Center on Deafness and the Arts. “They loved the idea that I could dream—that I could dream big and wanted to be an actor,” she says. There Matlin immediately pursued and landed the role of Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz. She continued to appear in the center’s productions for about nine years, until she was 16. Another Jewish actor, Henry Winkler, also provided critical encouragement. He saw one of her performances and went backstage afterward. “I told him I wanted to be in Hollywood. He said, ‘believe in yourself,’” she recalls. “He encouraged me over the years, and I took his advice to heart because it was

coming from this very famous person. A lot of other people didn’t believe in me.” In fact, they became so close that Matlin stayed with the Winklers for two years when she went out to Hollywood in her late teens. His mentorship helped her land the role of Sarah Norman in Children of a Lesser God. Her nuanced performance as a custodian at a school for the deaf who becomes romantically involved with a hearing teacher (played by William Hurt) garnered her, at age 21, both an Academy Award and Golden Globe Award for best actress— along with a smattering of criticism. One prominent commentator claimed that she didn’t deserve the Oscar because she was deaf and wasn’t really acting. Another said she won it out of pity. They were “dead wrong,” Matlin says. And she went on to prove it. She has starred in several TV series—including Reasonable Doubts and The L Word—and had recurring roles in The West Wing, Blues Clues and Desperate Housewives, among others. Matlin has also guest starred in everything from Seinfeld to Law & Order: SVU, the latter earning her a Primetime Emmy nomination. While her professional life was relatively ripple-free, her personal life hit rough water early on. In her 2009 autobiography, I’ll Scream Later, she writes of her tumultuous off-screen romantic relationship with Hurt, which was was punctuated by episodes of domestic violence. She also went through a period of drug abuse and went to the Betty Ford clinic for treatment. Fortunately, her personal life turned a corner. She married Los Angeles-area police officer Kevin Grandalski in 1993 in a ceremony that was held at Winkler’s home. Together they have four children aged 12 to 19. As to her Broadway debut, Matlin is loving it. “Everything that’s happening is so great; the many messages, the communications from fans,” she says. “It’s a wonderful experience.”

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Book Review Sisterhood across high barriers An Improbable Friendship: The Remarkable Lives of Ruth Dayan and Raymonda Tawil and Their 40-Year Mission to Build Understanding Between Their Peoples Anthony David Arcade Publishing, 2015 312 pages

s we observe the tide of rising rage and violence in Israel, especially against a backdrop of enmity going back more than a century, it’s difficult to imagine a Ellen close friendship between Rabbi Jaffe-Gill any Palestinian Arab and Israeli Jew. Yet that’s exactly what the first wife of General Moshe Dayan and a Palestinian woman who became part of Yasser Arafat’s extended family forged after the Six-Day War. Ruth Dayan recruited Anthony David, a Jerusalem-based historian, to tell the story

of her efforts and those of Raymonda Tawil vast landholdings in northern Palestine. to promote their vision of an Israel in which Each maintained nostalgia for the Palestine Jews and Arabs could live side-by-side in of her youth, and each grew up accustomed peace. The resulting narrative offers a riv- to meeting and forming friendships with eting window not only into a cross-cultural people different from her. Both women relationship, but into the lives of Arabs married young and became mothers early and Jews in Israel before it was a state on, but neither let the bonds of marriage, motherhood, or culand into the machture dictate their inations of Israeli An Improbable Friendship is travels or activities; and Palestinian they were feminists, leadership from the the featured book for the avowed or not, and time Israel attained Simon Family JCC’s Global usually ahead of nationhood. Day of Jewish Learning, their time. Separated by ethwith author Anthony David Dayan and nicity as well as by Tawil meet halfway generation—Dayan on Sunday, Nov. 15, 2 pm through the narratoday is an energetic tive, in 1970, when 98, Tawil in her mid-70s—the two women formed an alli- Dayan brings toys to a children’s ward ance that was improbable, but also possibly in the West Bank city of Nablus and inevitable. Both were born in pre-State Tawil, then a Nablus resident, challenges Israel, into lives of privilege: Dayan’s par- her because of Moshe Dayan’s perceived ents were lawyers, and she spent much of excesses in the West Bank since 1967. her childhood in London; Tawil’s father was Dayan informs Tawil that when she marfrom an elite Arab Christian family with ried Moshe, he was a farmer, not a general, and that in any case, she doesn’t share his values. She then goes home to Tel Aviv, and when the general orders her to stop visiting Arabs, Ruth announces that she wants a divorce. For years, she had watched Moshe Dayan cheat on her, play mind games with their children, and live life in a way that was far from that of the selfless hero Jews worldwide adored. But while she never stopped loving her husband, she couldn’t stay married to a man who tried to keep her from living her own life. Ruth Dayan became a frequent visitor to Raymonda Tawil’s salons in Nablus, which for many years attracted literati, journalists, peace activists, Jewish and Arab feminists, and everyone from Israeli generals to Palestinian mothers trying to get their children out of Israeli jails. In 1978, the two women planted a “peace forest” at Neve Shalom, the village in central Israel established as a place where Jews and Arabs would, and still do, live together in peace. The second half of the book outlines Dayan’s worldwide travels on behalf of her business, Maskit, which she established in 1954; she put to work thousands of women in Third World areas creating textiles, clothing, and rugs. Meanwhile, Tawil walks a tightrope between her Palestinian

36 | Jewish News | November 9, 2015 | jewishnewsva.org

nationalism and her longing for peace, especially after her youngest child marries the much-older Yasser Arafat. She is often in trouble with Israeli authorities before she places herself in self-imposed exile in Malta. Both women still decry the barriers that separate thoughtful, empathetic Arabs and Jews while extremists on each side speak for each group. Which leads to a caveat: Readers who can’t countenance any criticism of Israeli policies concerning its Arab populations won’t like this book. David clearly portrays the Israeli presence in the West Bank as a military occupation (as does Ruth Dayan), and he describes a number of Palestinian writers and academics whom Israeli authorities killed as terrorists as anything but. As mentioned before, Moshe Dayan comes off badly, and David tends to present Israeli politicians and military leaders as sympathetic only when they show leniency and empathy to Palestinians —which some do. As women of privilege, Dayan and Tawil could have lived lives detached from their peoples’ turmoil, with plenty of creature comforts and protection from harm. We tend to like our heroes born into modest circumstances, coming up from poverty to glory, but there’s something rather refreshing and inspiring about the story of two women who decided to use their access to people of power to improve the lot of thousands other than themselves and to try to bring about a more just and peaceful society. —Rabbi Ellen Jaffe-Gill is rabbi of Tidewater Chavurah, the editor of The Jewish Woman’s Book of Wisdom, and author of two other books.

it’s a wrap JFS volunteer provides shoulder to cry on JFS honors Staci Katz as the 2015 Max Japha Volunteer of the Year

ach year, Jewish Family Service of Tidewater honors a volunteer with the Max Japha award to recognize their outstanding volunteer commitment to the agency. Max Japha was extremely active in the Jewish community during the 1970s. He volunteered at the JCC and in his synagogue, and was a regular Meals on Wheels driver to clients much younger than he was. Japha had been chosen as JFS’ first Volunteer Staci Katz with Jody Laibstain. of the Year, but two months before he was to be presented with the award. He passed away while visiting Israel. JFS then named the award in his memory. At JFS’ annual Volunteer Appreciation Luncheon on Wednesday, Oct. 14, JFS recognized Staci Katz as its Volunteer of the Year. Katz began volunteering with JFS in the Food Pantry about two years ago. What makes Katz a special volunteer is not that she works at the Food Pantry at least once or twice a week. It’s not that she goes to the Food Bank of Southeastern Virginia several times a month to shop for the pantry. It’s not that she brings her children to the Food Pantry to help and to show them the value of giving back. What makes Katz special is the way she treats each

and every visitor that comes to the pantry. Jody Laibstain, JFS volunteer coordinator, says, “Staci treats each pantry shopper with so much respect, always making them feel comfortable at a time in their lives that can be very unsettling. She is always ready to listen to a client’s story and provide a shoulder for them to cry on. “Staci is constantly looking for resources to help a pantry visitor get back on their feet. We at JFS—and especially the clients we serve—are extremely fortunate to have Staci as a volunteer,” says Laibstain. At the luncheon, Laibstain also recognized Aurora Livingston, a volunteer with the JFS Knitting for Others Club. Livingston is the Knitting for Others group’s ‘human knitting machine.’ While at home dealing with health issues, Livingston likes to keep her fingers moving. She is always knitting hats and scarves for the nursing home residents and for the JFS Helping Hearts program. Because of Livingston’s dedication to JFS, more than 200 Helping Hearts clients will receive knitted gifts during the holiday season. Jewish Family Service is a constituent agency of United Jewish Federation of Tidewater.

Let There Be Water author informs and inspires Book Festival audience

eth M. Siegel shared his passion for averting a water crisis in this country and around the world with community members on Sunday, Nov. 1 at the Simon Family JCC. Siegel, the keynote speaker for the Lee and Bernard Jaffe* Family Jewish Book Festival, recently released Let There Be Water: Israel’s Solution for a Water-Starved World. The book is an account of how Israel developed its sophisticated approach to water. As Siegel warned listeners, a water crisis is coming to the United States (as it already has in some states). “We need to stop taking our water future for granted, and start learning from what Israel did right,” he said. *of blessed memory

“Our Goal is Justice” theme of JCPA’s annual conference “Justice” was the common thread to the sessions, discussions, and policies adopted at the October 2015 Town Hall of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs. Over the course of three days, delegates to the annual national gathering from across the country discussed and debated how the Jewish community should address threats to Jews in Europe and around the world, including the current spate of terror in Israel. Other issues on the agenda included the Syrian refugee crisis, race relations, criminal justice, early childhood education, family and medical leave. “During the Jewish Community Town Hall, in addressing many of the key issues of our time, JCPA was at its best and most relevant. We delved into contemporary issues and reached consensus positions that will lead our community towards action. We were informed, we discussed, and we debated, over three days. We then took concrete steps to create policy in our shared pursuit of justice,” says Susan W. Turnbull, JCPA board chair. With regard to anti-Semitism, the JCPA adopted a policy calling for guidelines “regarding the line between criticism of Israel’s policies and anti-Semitism, and when that line is crossed— strongly informed by the European Union Monitoring Centre definition of anti-Semitism.” The Town Hall, formerly known as the Plenum, adopted a resolution on criminal justice reform that urges a shift from punitive prohibitionist policies and toward sensible regulatory policies that advance public safety and health. The stance calls for reformation of marijuana laws which are disproportionately enforced against minorities, causing significant fiscal and social costs including the deepening of racial division. Other policy statements addressed the need for early childhood programs as a way to combat poverty and a call for advocacy work on paid sick leave. After a session on Syrian refugees, the body voted in favor of a resolution framing concrete steps to address the burgeoning crisis. The JCPA also marked the 100th anniversary of the Armenian genocide calling for Congress and the Administration to do the same. The keynote address was delivered by Rabbi Steve Gutow, who after a decade, steps down next month as JCPA’s president. In his final speech as president, Gutow said, “It is OK to criticize Israel, as long as it is done with civility.” The next JCPA national Town Hall will be held in Cleveland in May 2016. JCPA, the public affairs arm of the organized Jewish community, serves as the national coordinating and advisory body for the 16 national and 125 local agencies comprising the field of Jewish community relations. The United Jewish Federation of Tidewater’s Community Relations Council is one of the JCPA’s 125 local member agencies. For more information on the Town Hall or CRC’s work, contact Robin Mancoll, UJFT CRC director, at RMancoll@ujft.org or 965-6120. Interested in learning more about the work of the JCPA or further details about their Town Hall? Email JCPA Town Hall attendees Megan Zuckerman (CRC chair), Karen Fine ( JCPA Frank Family Fellow), or Robin Mancoll (CRC director) at crc@ujft.org.

Al Benas listens to Seth Siegel at a donor reception prior to the community event.

jewishnewsva.org | November 9, 2015 | Jewish News | 37

it’s a wrap Russia in the Middle East: Tidewater welcomes expert commentary by Samantha Golden

group of community members met with Dr. Steven J. Rosen for a luncheon and discussion on “Israel’s New Neighbor: Russia in Syria” on Thursday, Oct. 8. The gathering took place at the downtown Norfolk office of Kaufman and Canoles with captivated businessmen and women from the Tidewater Jewish community. David Calliott, a member of UJFT Business & Legal Society’s steering committee, introduced Rosen, who is the senior strategic adviser of ELNET (European Leadership Network), the director of the Washington Project’s Middle East Forum and the former director of Foreign Policy Issues at the American Israel Affairs Committee. Rosen discussed the security concerns to Israel and the West from Russia’s new

involvement in the Middle East. Rosen identified Russia’s involvement in Syria as one of the most significant political issues in the world, yet he emphasized that it is hardly the only challenge facing the Middle East and Israel today. Nearly a third of his discussion focused on the resurgence of terror attacks in Israel and the Palestinian Authority’s recent dismissal of the Oslo Accords. The remaining third of the presentation was dedicated to the migration crisis in Europe and the larger regional conflict between Shi’ite and Sunni Muslims. “The principle threat is not ISIS. The principle threat is the Shi’ite war against the Sunnis,” says Rosen. The luncheon presentation offered a somber and critical perspective on Russia’s power plays, the nuclear deal with Iran, the

Syrian Civil War, the greater Shi’ite-Sunni divide, the European migrant situation and the terror attacks in Israel. Despite this collage of violence and instability, Rosen put forward a cautiously optimistic outlook for Israel. He affirmed that the realignment and rebalancing of actors in the Middle East is concerning to Israel and to the U.S., to say the least, but it also presents Israel with an opportunity to strengthen itself and prepare for the future. “The price of having a state of our own is eternal vigilance,” says Rosen. “In some ways, Israel is stronger than it’s ever been.” Todd Waldman, a Business & Legal Society steering committee member, says, “Rosen provided facts and background that properly placed the threats facing Israel. “I found the discussion afterwards to

be of equal value,” says Waldman. “Community leaders were able to use our informal discussion to share information.”

Dr. Steven J. Rosen

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Learn more at our K-12 Open House on Sunday, Nov. 15, from 2-4 p.m. or schedule your tour today at 757.480.1495. For more information or to schedule a tour, call 757.480.1495 or visit www.NorfolkCollegiate.org. Lower School campus (Grades K-5), 5429 Tidewater Dr., Norfolk | Middle & Upper School campus (Grades 6-12), 7336 Granby St., Norfolk NC_Jewish NewsAd_NOV 2015.indd 1

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10/27/2015 5:26:38 PM

what’s happening Closing Day at the Book Festival is Global Day of Jewish Learning

Annual Book Festival Holocaust luncheon features a sentimental story

Sunday, Nov. 15, 2 pm, Sandler Family Campus

Thursday, Nov. 12, noon, Simon Family JCC

he conclusion of the Lee and Bernard Jaffe* Family Jewish Book Festival coincides this year with the 6th annual Global Day of Jewish Learning. In 2010, The Global Day was created to celebrate the completion of Rabbi Steinsaltz’s 40 years of work to translate the Talmud. Since then, this project has grown to involve communities in more than 40 countries worldwide. From Australia to Asia and all around the globe, The Global Day brings Jewish people together “to celebrate our shared Jewish text through community-based learning… empowering individuals through increased Jewish knowledge, and creating meaningful shared experiences.” This year’s theme is “Love: Devotion, Desire and Deception,” and two authors visiting the JCC will present their events in the context of the Global Day. These events are free, and so is babysitting, for those who attend.

Anthony David will be on hand with his book, An Improbable Friendship: The Remarkable Lives of Israeli Ruth Dayan and Palastinian Raymonda Tawil and Their FortyYear Peace Mission, Anthony David along with breakout groups lead by area rabbis. David is an award-winning Israeli biographer and historian who has written eight books. Based on personal interviews, diaries, and journals drawn from the lives of two prominent women on either side of the ongoing conflict, the story of the women’s friendship finds hope for the possibility for peace and reconciliation.

arah Wildman will present Paper Love: Searching for the Girl my Grandfather Left Behind at the Lee and Bernard Jaffe*Family Jewish Book Festival’s annual Holocaust luncheon. This journalist details her search to shed light on a mysterious woman who was her grandfather’s lover in prewar Vienna. “Ignore anyone who tells you there is nothing more to be said about the Holocaust, and no new ways of telling the tragedy,” says The Story of the Jewish author Simon Schama. “Sarah Wildman’s gripping, tender, beautifully painful book gets to the heart of the matter through matters of the heart. And along with the pathos and pain, there is profound and honest thoughtfulness too.”

This debut novelist worked closely with the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington to piece together a story through research. Ayelet Waldman, author of Love and Treasure, says “Sarah Wildman uses the story of a single, fascinating but utterly normal woman to illuminate the tragedy of millions murdered during the Holocaust. Though the themes are universal—family, memory, myth— what makes this remarkable book shine is the way Wildman brings to life a person lost to history, making us care desperately both for her and for her vanished world.” This event is presented in partnership with the Holocaust Commission of the UJFT. Call 321-2338 to reserve a space and for information on boxed lunches for sale.

Young adults can simultaneously hear about Love and Miss Communication, when Elyssa Friedland’s heroine Evie tosses away her computer and promises herself a break from the Elyssa Friedland online world. Evie may find love and a new direction when she least expects it, but she also learns that just because you unplug your phone doesn’t mean you can also unplug from life. *of blessed memory The Simon Family JCC is a constituent agency of United Jewish Federation of Tidewater.

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what’s happening Tidewater Chavurah plans service and class

Danny Kline President

Shabbat service: Friday, Nov. 13, 7 pm Class: Sunday, Nov. 22, 2–4 pm

Andy Kline CEO

idewater Chavurah, Hampton Roads’ “congregation without walls,” will hold its next Shabbat service, led by Rabbi Ellen Jaffe-Gill, at the home of Hal and Elaine in the Great Neck Meadows area of Virginia Beach. The rabbi will speak about “The Fraught Sibling Relationship.” An oneg Shabbat will follow the service. Rabbi Jaffe-Gill will lead a class on “Jewish Time” at her home, 4661 Priscilla Lane in Virginia Beach. She will explain the structure and lunar aspects of the Hebrew calendar, along with the cycles of

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the Jewish week, month, and year, some familiar and others less well known. Other topics include the Torah reading cycle and helpful websites for finding Hebrew dates. Each participant will be given a Jewish calendar to work with and take home. Both events are open to the community. For more information and the street address for the Nov. 13 service, email dlqt@cox.net or carita@verizon.net, or call 468-2675 or 499-3660. For more about Tidewater Chavurah, visit www.tidewaterchavurah.org.

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with Virginia Symphony Orchestra

the story comes to life “In my dream version of America, every state has at least one Nutcracker this good.” — Alastair Macaulay, The New York Times

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Richmond Ballet Norfolk Nutcracker Ad for Jewish News 10 x 5.375” RUN DATE: Replacement for 11/9/15 and 11/23/15

40 | Jewish News | November 9, 2015 | jewishnewsva.org

The Whitfield Foundation

what’s happening CRC partners with Hampton Roads Chamber of Commerce Wednesday, Nov. 18, 11:30 am, Reba and Sam Sandler Family Campus

he newest partner in the Community Relations Council of the United Jewish Federation of Tidewater’s annual Israel Today series is the Hampton Roads Chamber of Commerce. A panel of experts will discuss “Israel’s Success Story: A Model For Hampton Roads Business Leaders” at a Hampton Roads Chamber of Commerce Leadership Lunch for the first event. Despite its small size, lack of natural resources, and constant attacks by neighbors, Israel is an economic powerhouse. The Jewish state’s achievements, based on cutting-edge technology and innovation, have turned it into a model for businesses in the United States. Three visiting experts will focus on what Hampton Roads business leaders can learn from the Israeli success story and opportunities that exist

businesses (which translate to jobs and tax revenue for the state) and innovation through the most creative channels. Robbins always has exciting new plans to share about the Virginia-Israel commercial relationships and perhaps some opportunities. Closing out the panel is local (Israeli) Lea Bogatch-Genossar, vice president of Zim Integrated Shipping Services Ltd., with a portfolio that includes Canada, Caribbean, Central America and Trades. The first woman in ZIM’s history to hold a top executive position, BogatchGenossar will share a local perspective as an Israeli business leader operating in Hampton Roads. Established in 1945, Zim is one of the largest, leading carriers in the global container shipping industry. The Israeli-based company chose Norfolk for

Joshua M. Kram Executive Director, Middle East Commercial Center Director of U.S.—Israel Business Initiative U.S. Chamber of Commerce

Lea Bogatch-Genossar Vice President Zim Integrated Shipping Services Ltd. Canada, Caribbean, Central America and Trades

Ralph Robbins Executive Director Virginia Israel Advisory Board Office of the Governor

for the region. Sharing the value of the U.S.-Israel economic relationship from a national standpoint will be Josh Kram, the director of the Middle East Commercial Center for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce (the largest business organization in the world), the Chamber’s director for Turkey and Middle East Affairs and the Chamber’s director of U.S.-Israel Business Initiative. Offering a Virginia perspective, Ralph Robbins, executive director of the Virginia Israel Advisory Board (VIAB), out of the Office of the Governor, will speak about success stories that VIAB has had in the Commonwealth, bringing Israeli

a wealth management advisor and senior portfolio advisor at Jones Zittrain Wealth Management Group of Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith Incorporated, says, “this new partnership will open a new conversation about the ‘Start-up Nation’ and how we might emulate Israel’s success locally.” Zittrain also views the new partnership as an opportunity to network with business leaders from across Hampton Roads, as the Nov. 18 lunch is expected to fill to capacity at 150 people. Also looking forward to the partnership is Pricilla Monti, the Chamber’s vice president of programs. “The Hampton Roads Chamber of Commerce is honored to partner with United Jewish Federation of Tidewater’s Community Relations Council for the Israel Today series as we recognize the value of the global marketplace. Chamber members and the entire business

community are always looking for innovative ways to reach new audiences for their products and services,” she says. “The old adage ‘Success begets Success’ is in force here as we explore the Israeli model for thriving businesses.” A supervised Kosher lunch included with the cost to attend ($40 for Chamber members and $45 for non-members), payable to the Hampton Roads Chamber of Commerce at the time of RSVP (required). Visit www. events.hamptonroadschamber.com or contact Anne Baumler at 757-664-2518 or abaumler@ hrccva.com for more information. Sponsorship opportunities are still available. For more information about the CRC, Israel Today and other local Jewish community initiatives, contact Robin Mancoll, director, UJFT Community Relations Council at RMancoll@ ujft.org or 757-965-6120.

Danny Rubin, Vice President, Rubin Communications; Author, Blogger, News to Live By™

their North American office headquarters, thanks to the work of the Virginia Israel Advisory Board. Danny Rubin, vice president of Rubin Communications Group, a public relations firm in Virginia Beach, will lead the discussion. Rubin is an active member of the Hampton Roads Jewish community and serves on its Young Adult Division Cabinet. He is also a member of tHRive, the young professional division of the Hampton Roads Chamber of Commerce. Excited to share the stories of Israel’s economic success with the Tidewater business community, Greg Zittrain, co-chair of UJFT’s Business and Legal Society and

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Join Tidewater, united with 400 other communities worldwide, as we celebrate the

6th Annual GLOBAL DAY of JEWISH LEARNING as part of the Lee and Bernard Jaffe* Family Jewish Book Festival

Sunday, November 15 ∙ 2–4pm at the Simon Family JCC

FOR ADULTS An Improbable Friendship: The Remarkable Lives of Israeli Ruth Dayan and Palestinian Raymonda Tawil and Their Forty-Year Peace Mission By Anthony David Breakout discussion groups led by some of the area Rabbis will focus on the Global Day of Jewish Learning theme of Love: Devotion, Desire and Deception.

FOR YOUNG ADULTS Love and Miss Communication By Elyssa Friedland Crushed by the romantic and professional blows, and overwhelmed by the social media rat race that has little compassion for life’s downward spirals, the heroine Evie tosses her computer into the Central Park Reservoir and vows to remain offline until her 35th birthday.

Presented in partnership with the Board of Rabbis & Cantors of Hampton Roads. Babysitting available during both events.

For the full line-up of the Lee and Bernard Jaffe* Family Jewish Book Festival, at the Simon Family JCC November 1-15, please visit www.SimonFamilyJCC.org. (*of blessed memory)

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Calendar through November 15, Sunday Lee and Bernard Jaffe* Family Jewish Book Festival continues. See page 39. November 11, Wednesday The 6th Annual Veterans Day Service. Sandler Family Campus. 9 am. RSVP to dcrumpler@ujft.org or 757-965-6131. See page 24. November 12, Thursday Annual Holocaust Book Festival luncheon. 12 pm. Call 321-2338 to reserve a space and for information on boxed lunches for sale. See page 39. November 15, Sunday Global Day of Jewish Learning at the Simon Family JCC. Last day of the Lee and Bernard Jaffe* Family Jewish Book Festival. Join Tidewater, along with 350 other communities around the world, to celebrate the 6th annual Global Day of Jewish Learning. Two authors, one for adults and one for young adults, will share their books in the spirit of this year’s theme, Love: Devotion, Desire and Deception. Free events and free babysitting while attending. 2–4 pm. See page 39. Brith Sholom dinner and entertainment at Beth Sholom Village. Menu will include brisket, chicken, kugel, salad, green vegetables, sugar free apple and peach pies, chocolate brownies, coffee, tea and soft drinks. $10 for members and $20 for guests. Enjoy the music of a local three-piece Klezmer band following dinner.5:30 pm. Reservations and payment must be received by Tuesday, Nov. 10. November 17, Tuesday Maimonides Society presents an engaging educational event with local experts in the legal and medical communities, featuring Jeffrey Brooke, attorney with Poole Mahoney PC and Dr. Adam Foleck, dentist, the Foleck Center. Whether an experienced physician with a successful practice or just starting a healthcare career, don’t miss the chance to prepare for the business challenges in medicine. 7:30 pm. Reba and Sam Sandler Family Campus. Light kosher refreshments will be served. RSVP to sgolden@ujft.org. November 18, Wednesday J.C.C. Seniors Club board meeting at 10:30 am; lunch at 12 noon, general meeting, 12:45 pm. A paramedic from EMS, Barry Kirschner will teach how to perform the new way of CPR. Kirschner is a volunteer for the Emergency Medical Service for Virginia Beach and the son of Marilyn and Bob Kirschner, who are members of the J.C.C. Seniors Club. CRC presents Josh Kram. Building strong commercial relations between the U.S. and Israel is an ongoing effort, but does it really matter? Josh Kram, who directs the premiere organization advancing U.S.-Israel programs and relation-building initiatives, says yes. He kicks off the CRC’s 5th annual Israel Today series, 7:30 pm. Call 757‑965‑6107 or email crc@ujft.org. For more information on the CRC’s Israel Today series, visit www.JewishVa.org/CRCIsraelToday. See page 30. CRC partners with Hampton Roads Chamber of Commerce featuring Josh Kram, Ralph Robbins, Lea Bogatch-Genossar and Danny Rubin. Contact Anne Baumler at 757‑664‑2518 or abaumler@hrccva.com or Robin Mancoll, director, UJFT Community Relations Council at RMancoll@ujft.org or 757-965-6120.for more information. See page 41. November 19, Thursday Ride the Tide! With UJFT’s Business & Legal Society. 11:30 am. Join this unique and educational experience, picking up the Tide (optional but encouraged, arrive by 11:30am) at the Newtown Road station, ride to the office of S.L. Nusbaum in Norfolk, and discuss plans for the Tide’s expansion to the Oceanfront with Deputy City Manager of Virginia Beach, David Hansen. Kosher lunch will be served. Lunch/presentation starts at S.L. Nusbaum at 12 pm. RSVP to sgolden@ujft.org. December 4, Friday Hebrew Academy of Tidewater, K–5 OPEN HOUSE. 8:30 am. RSVP to 424-4327.

Send submissions for calendar to news@ujft.org. Be sure to note “calendar” in the subject. Include date, event name, sponsor, address, time, cost and phone.

Who Knew? Portuguese Jews: Inventors of Fish & Chips! by Abby Sher

(Jewniverse via JTA)—Jews are definitely experts in the art of fried, oily foods. Latkes and sufganiyot, even a hefty knish, prove that in the first crunchy bite. But could a Jew be behind the opening of the first fish and chips shop back in 1860? According to Claudia Roden, author of the iconic The Book of Jewish Food, the battered fried fish “was a legacy of the Portuguese Marranos (crypto-Jews) who came to England in the 16th century, many of them via Holland.” It’s an oily descendant of the traditional Spanish dish pescado frito. The Jewish refugees had to act like Christians, at least outwardly, so they fried fish on Fridays. Then, behind closed doors, they ate it cold on Shabbos. The fried potato chip (aka French fries) came on the scene in Belgium, and by the middle of the 19th century, street vendors were selling fried fish with “shaved” potatoes on the side (wrapped in newspaper). In 1860, a Jewish man named Joseph Malin decided to make it official. He opened the doors to the first fish and chip shop on Cleveland Street in London. And the rest, as they say, is fishtory. —Abby Sher is a writer and performer living in Brooklyn.

Morgan Freeman visits Western Wall JERUSALEM ( JTA)—American actor Morgan Freeman visited the Western Wall. Freeman, who played God in the movie Bruce Almighty, was in Israel to film episodes of the new National Geographic series The Story of God, which is scheduled to air next year. Freeman is the executive producer. He visited the Western Wall on Sunday, Oct. 25, where he met with Rabbi Shmuel Rabinowitz, the rabbi of the Western Wall. Prior to his arrival in Israel, he filmed scenes at the Giza Pyramids in Cairo, Egypt. Meanwhile, actor Sean Penn announced that he would make his first visit to

Mazel Tov to Israel as a guest of the humanitarian organization IsraAid. Penn will arrive in Israel in November to participate in the group’s conference on the reconstruction of Haiti.

First person

My son the mentor, author and role model by Joel Rubin

Jon Stewart opening sanctuary for abused farm animals Jon Stewart is opening a sanctuary for abused farm animals in New Jersey. The former host of The Daily Show and his wife, Tracey, made the announcement last month at a fundraiser for Farm Sanctuary, which provides shelter to animals rescued from factory farms, Agence France-Press reported. “I’m a little uncomfortable,” Stewart said at the New York event. “I’ve spent the last 20 years immersed in the world of Washington politics and the media landscape, so I don’t know how to deal necessarily with people who have empathy.” The sanctuary and educational center will be created on a farm purchased by the family. Stewart frequently raised the topic of animal welfare on his show. Tracey Stewart, a longtime animal advocate, recently published Do Unto Animals, a book that contains animal rescue stories. (JTA)

Jamie Chung-Bryan Greenberg wedding ceremony incorporates Jewish traditions Actress Jamie Chung and actor-musician Bryan Greenberg married in a ceremony that incorporated “personal vows and Jewish traditions,” according to Martha Stewart Weddings. The wedding took place at a resort in Santa Barbara, California, on Saturday, Oct. 31 several media outlets reported. Chung, 32, and Greenberg, 37, began dating in 2012 and became engaged in 2013. In recognition of Halloween, the weekend-long celebration kicked off with a Friday night costume party. (JTA)

Danny Rubin is no stranger to the readers of this publication. His picture has graced many a page in the Jewish News because of his volunteer work for the Simon Family JCC, United Jewish Federation of Tidewater’s YAD, Temple Israel, Beth Sholom Home and other agencies over his 31 years. But on Thursday, Oct. 29, 300 people attending a dinner in a fancy Chicago hotel got to know Danny as a budding young professional in his field. That evening the Plank Center for Leadership in Public Relations, based at the University of Alabama, honored Danny for his work as a mentor to his fellow millennials. Through his blog, www.newstoliveby.net, and career coaching, my oldest has been teaching the value of good writing skills to make connections and land jobs. The other Plank Center honorees represented some of the leading public relations firms in the country, including Edelman and Hill & Knowlton, as well as the communications departments of companies like Chevron. It was heady company, both for Danny and his father, yours truly, who had the distinct honor of introducing him. (If you would like to see his speech and mine, go to http://plankcenter.ua.edu). The timing of the event was propitious. Earlier that week, Amazon began offering Danny’s (first) book, Wait! How do I Write this E-mail? for sale. It’s more than 200 pages of suggested templates for engaging e-mails that will help their writers make a positive impression on employers or others in positions of authority. At the dinner, every one of the PR “machers” who perused it were eager to buy it for their staffs or

Joel and Danny Rubin

their young adult children. Indeed it would make a great graduation gift, in my humble opinion. How did the Plank Center find Danny? Through a great email of course, sent benignly to a professor at DePaul University, simply in search of some help on a blog post. That teacher, Ron Culp, just happens to chair the Plank Center board and immediately recognized Danny as a mentor on the rise. He nominated Danny to be an honoree, and before we knew it, father and son were on an all expenses paid trip to the Windy City. I have two great kids, Molly in DC who is an account manager at a web and app design firm, and Danny, who has worked with me at Rubin Communications Group since June of 2013. Both are married and have given Sara Jo and me two grandchildren, and a thousand reasons to kvell. Well now thanks to the Plank Center, make that a thousand and one.

Mazel Tov submissions should be emailed to news@ujft.org with Mazel Tov in the subject line. Achievements, B’nai Mitzvot, births, engagements and weddings are appropriate simchas to announce. Photos must be at least 300k. Include a daytime phone for questions. There is no fee.

jewishnewsva.org | November 9, 2015 | Jewish News | 43

obituaries Tavia Gordon Norfolk—Tavia F. Gordon of Norfolk, Va. died at age 86 on Friday, October 30, 2015. He was born of February 13, 1929 in Norfolk. He was the third of five children of Mollie and Isaac Gordon of blessed memory. Tavia co-founded Gordon Paper Company along with his brother Daniel. He is also survived by his brother Allen Gordon, son Steven Gordon and his wife Randi and three grandchildren, Eliana, Evan, and Marah Gordon. He also had two sisters of blessed memory, Sara Rita Schutz and Edith Lindsey. Tavia was predeceased by his wife of 56 years, Freda Gordon of blessed memory. Tavia was a passionate Jewish philanthropist. He was a past president of the United Jewish Federation of Tidewater, a former Israel Bond Campaign Chairman, and a trustee of Congregation Beth El. Along with his family he was a lifelong

supporter of the Hebrew Academy of Tidewater and the Beth Sholom Home of Eastern Virginia. He was instrumental in the formation of the Freda H. Gordon Hospice and Palliative Care of Tidewater. Funeral services were held at Congregation Beth El Temple. Burial followed at Forest Lawn Cemetery. H.D. Oliver Funeral Apts. The family requests contributions to the Tavia and Freda Memorial Fund at congregation Beth El or to the Hebrew Academy of Tidewater. Carl Janow Virginia Beach—Carl Janow passed away on Monday, October 26, 2015, at his residence. He was born August 14, 1923 in Rhinebeck, N. Y. to Rebecca Gazen and Morris Janow. Carl graduated from Clarkson University School of Technology in Potsdam, N.Y. with a degree in electrical engineering. He was a radio airman during World War II and received an honorable discharge from the Army/Air Corps. He met his wife, Irene Katz, at a dance in Newport News and they were married in March 1952 in Norfolk, Va. Soon after, they moved to Falls Church, Va. and began their family. Carl worked at NASA Headquarters as an electrical/ aeronautical engineer and worked on many of the Apollo projects. The Janows raised their family in Falls Church and were active in the Jewish Community. Carl was a member of Congregation Beth El in Norfolk. In addition to his parents, Carl was predeceased by his sisters, Rosie Gazer and Esther Bernstein and a brother Gordon Janow. Carl is survived by his wife of 63 years, Irene Katz Janow, his daughters Marcia Kay (Bruce) of Bethesda, Md. and Leora Drory (Nathan) of Virginia Beach, five (five) grandchildren, Jennifer, Sara, Erika, Danit and Aaron, a sister-in-law Linda Janow and many nieces and nephews. A graveside service was held in Forest Lawn Cemetery conducted by Rabbi Jeffrey Arnowitz. Donations to Hebrew Academy of Tidewater, Multiple Sclerosis and/ or Congregation Beth El. H. D. Oliver

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Funeral Apts. Online condolences may be offered at hdoliver.com.

Norman Loeb; daughter, Arielle Salasky and her husband, Aaron Slawsky; son, Stephen Salasky; mother, Juliette Pearce; aunt, Yvonne Mcbride; sisters, Edna Mendelsohn, and Jacqueline Furman and her husband, Dr. Randall Furman; nieces, Erica Gerstin, Brittney Hopper, Marissa Furman and Amanda Furman. Her father, Walter Lee Pearce, predeceases her. A private family burial was held at Forest Lawn Cemetery with Rabbi Jeffrey Arnowitz officiating. Donations to Children’s Hospital of The King’s Daughters, P.O. Box 2156, Norfolk, VA, or online at https://www.chkd.org/Support-Us/Donate/ or call 757-668-7070. The family wishes to mourn privately and desires any condolences be made through hdoliver.com at this time.

Irene Levin Virginia Beach—Irene Helen Stein Levin died Thursday, October 29, 2015 at the age of 89. She was predeceased by her husband, Bernard H. Levin. She is survived by her four children, Judith L. Miller and her husband, Robert of Christiansburg, Va., Sharon L. Murphy of Sterling, Va., Leonard N. Levin of Wakefield, Mass. and Robert J. Levin of Portsmouth, Va., a grandson, Andrew L. Miller and his significant other, Tammy Thomas of Statesville, N.C. She is also survived by Beth Kennedy of Sterling, Va. who was like another daughter to her and supported our family with her help. She was also predeceased by her sister, Evelyn S. Goodman, her brother-in-law, Edward Goodman and a nephew, Howard Goodman. Her niece, Marsha GoodmanHinnerschnitz survives her. Irene was a long-time member of Jewish War Veterans Post 453 Auxiliary, where she served as president for several years. She was also a member of Gomley Chesed Congregation and its Sisterhood. Donations can be made to the Sentara Hospice House, 3760 Sentara Way, Virginia Beach, VA 23452 or Jewish Family Service, 260 Grayson St., Virginia Beach, VA 23462. Burial will be in Harrisburg, Pa. She will be greatly missed by all of her family and friends.

Melvin Losick Virginia Beach—Mel Losick passed away with his family by his side on October 15, 2015. He was a member of Virginia Beach EMS since 1970. He was a retired critical care paramedic and an adjunct instructor at TCC. He began Armel Enterprises, Inc. in 1970. He leaves behind his wife of 53 years, Arlene; his children Heath (Beverley) and Sheryl (Leonard); his five grandchildren and great grandson. There was a celebration of his life at the West Neck Clubhouse. Donations to Virginia Beach Rescue Squad Foundation for Education, 740 Virginia Beach Blvd, Virginia Beach, VA 23451.

Ava Loeb Norfolk—Ava Jean Loeb, 57, passed away peacefully on October 21, 2015, following a courageous and private battle with cancer. Born June 13, 1958, in Bethesda, Md., Ava graduated from Kellam High School, and earned a Bachelor of Science degree in education from Old Dominion University. Ava taught elementary school for 18 years with the Virginia Beach City Public Schools. During retirement, Ava volunteered for the CHKD East Beach and Horizon Circles and was a proud member of the Garden Club of Norfolk and Algonquin Garden Club. Ava is survived by her husband, Dr.

Abraham Mandel Abraham Mandel, 96, passed away on Oct. 3, 2015. He was the son of the late Rae and Joseph Mandel. Abraham moved with his family to Norfolk, Va. in 1938 where he met and married his wife of 73 years, Sylvia Levinson. He was preceded in death by his wife and only child, Marilyn M. Cohn. He is survived by his sister, Irene Blum of Virginia Beach and several nieces and nephews. A graveside service was held in Forest Lawn Cemetery. Condolences may be shared with the family at www.altmeyerfh. com.

obituaries Holocaust trauma psychiatrist Henry Krystal Dr. Henry Krystal, a concentration camp survivor and Holocaust trauma expert, has died. Krystal, a psychiatrist whose research focused on former concentration camp inmates, passed away Oct. 8 at his home in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, from complications caused by Parkinson’s disease, The New York Times reported. He was 90. Krystal was best known for his research and understanding of post-traumatic stress disorder. As a professor of psychiatry at Michigan State University College of Osteopathic Medicine, Krystal found that the major symptoms in victims of trauma were frequently overlooked. Because trauma victims most commonly complained of physical problems like headaches, they missed treatment for underlying psychological issues like depression, leaving them vulnerable to self

medication and substance abuse. His research led to pioneering approaches to treating post-traumatic stress disorder involving biofeedback and cognitive psychotherapy, according to the Times. His findings were published in works he authored, including Integration and Self-Healing, Psychic Traumatization and Drug Addiction: Aspects of Ego Function. Krystal’s research was drawn from interviews with over 2,000 Holocaust survivors, examining the responses of victims of the Hiroshima atomic bomb and by drawing on his own experiences as a concentration camp survivor. One of Krystal’s studies, which he carried out in 1965 at the State University of New York Health Science Center at Brooklyn, led to the concept of “survivor guilt.” Krystal was born in Sosnowiec, Poland, in 1925.

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The Nosher

Michael Solomonov’s Turkish Coffee Ice Cream by Shannon Sarna

(The Nosher via JTA)—I have long been a fan of chef Michael Solomonov, the Philadelphia-based, James Beard Awardwinning chef and restaurant entrepreneur who is probably best known for his Israeli restaurant Zahav. In what is part memoir and part cookbook, Solomonov and his business partner and co-author Steven Cook, share beautiful recipes and personal stories of Israeli cuisine in the new cookbook Zahav: A World of Israeli Cooking. The cookbook has a little something for everyone. For those who like to understand the origins of dishes, it provides interesting and e a s y-to -underst a nd history. For those who are food-porn addicts, the photos grab you immediately, with brightly hued spices, Israeli landscapes and often amusing photos of Solomonov cooking. And for those who are all about the food (like me), you will be bookmarking recipe after

recipe for your to-make list. Some highlights include Solomonov’s tips for making the perfect hummus, and how to dress up hummus with everything from fava beans to mushrooms to lamb; an entire chapter on preparing rice, including crispy Persian rice; several variations of chicken soup, including a Yemenite version; and even a “chat” with spice expert Lior Lev Sercasz of La Boite in New York City. But one of my favorite recipes was a coffee-flavored ice cream. Not just any coffee-flavored ice cream—this one is made with fine Turkish coffee and cardamom. Solomonov shares this recipe for you to try out in your own kitchen. • • • This recipe is excerpted from Zahav: A World of Israeli Cooking, ©2015 by Michael Solomonov and Steven Cook. Reproduced by permission of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. All rights reserved. —Shannon Sarna is the editor of the Nosher.

Michael Solomonov’s Turkish Coffee Ice Cream For me, the best ice cream is coffee ice cream. It is a perfect balance of bitter and sweet. Our version uses Turkish-style coffee and a bit of cardamom to add Arabic flavor. Because the coffee is so finely ground, we don’t strain it all out before we freeze it, which gives the finished ice cream a nice speckled look and texture. Yield: 1 quart Ingredients 2 cups heavy cream ²⁄ 3 cup milk ¼ cup ground Turkish coffee 5 cardamom pods 6 large egg yolks ¾ cup sugar Directions Combine the cream, milk, coffee, and cardamom in a medium saucepan over medium-high heat and bring to a boil. Remove the saucepan from the heat and let the mixture steep for 10 minutes. Combine the egg yolks and sugar in a large heatproof bowl set over a pot of simmering water. (The bottom of the bowl shouldn’t touch the water.) Whisk until the sugar is dissolved and the mixture falls from the whisk in ribbons when you lift it out of the bowl, about 2 minutes. Add the cream mixture and stir with a rubber spatula, scraping the sides to prevent coagulation, until the mixture reaches 180 degrees Fahrenheit. Strain out some of the coffee grounds, pour into a container, cover, and refrigerate overnight. Churn in an ice cream maker according to the manufacturer’s instructions.

Congressman Whitman meets with community leaders

ongressman Rob Whitman, 1st District, met with members of the Jewish community at the Sandler family Campus on Friday, Oct. 30. Among the many topics discussed were the Iran Nuclear deal, Israel, the U.S. budget, election of Paul Ryan as Speaker of the House and the 2016 election.

Strelitz Early Childhood Education Center

Strelitz preschoolers have fun doing large muscle activities in the Sandler Family Campus Gymnasium. The children love tumbling and using the scooters, hula-hoops and balls. Rain or shine, the children are always able to get their wiggles out before going home each afternoon. Ron Kramer, Jon Crockford, Congressman Rob Whitman and Arnold Leon.

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