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Center for Jewish Culture
UMass Dartmouth
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Welcome The UMass Dartmouth Center for Jewish Culture 5779 (2018-2019) season has been a very successful one, highlighted by a variety of thoughtful, stimulating programs that reflected and supported its mission which is to promote mutual understanding and interchange between Jewish and non-Jewish people of the SouthCoast Massachusetts region and beyond, and to enhance the region’s cultural life. The CJC’s activities serve not only the students, faculty and staff of UMass Dartmouth, but also the surrounding communities. About the editor Rabbi Jacqueline Satlow, Coordinator for Jewish Culture and Director of the Center for Religious and Spiritual Life at UMass Dartmouth, is a core member of the Judaic Studies and Religious Studies Programs on campus. She serves as Faculty Advisor for UMass Dartmouth Hillel and supervises its professional staff. Since she began in 2007, the CJC has sponsored more than 60 programs alone and in cooperation with over 20 campus and community organizations. In addition to her responsibilities in regard to Jewish Culture on Campus, she now coordinates campus clergy of many different faiths. Contact information UMass Dartmouth Center for Jewish Culture 285 Old Westport Road Dartmouth, MA 02747-2300 508.910.6551 jsatlow@umassd.edu www.umassd.edu/cjc/
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Highlights of 5779 (2018-2019) Thank you for your support for the Center for Jewish Culture during the 2018-2019 academic year. (5779 in the Jewish calendar). This past year was an active and dynamic one. We began our programming year after the Jewish holidays in the fall when Professor Chuck Freilich, a senior fellow at Harvard’s Belfer Center and former deputy Israeli national security adviser, presented an authoritative analysis of the cyberthreat and military, diplomatic, demographic, and societal challenges Israel faces today, along with recommendations for US and Israeli policy. National security has certainly been at the forefront of Israeli life for seven decades. Prof. Freilich is the author of several books including Israeli National Security: A New Strategy for an Era of Change (Oxford Press 2018). In November, we welcomed a panel of Israelis to campus to discuss “Inter-Religious Dialogue in Israel.” Peaceful, respectful diversity within community is incredibly difficult to create. The people who live in Israel come in all shapes, sizes, colors, backgrounds, religious and political outlooks. Learning to live together with peace, understanding and respect is part of an ongoing mission. Our panelists included Amir Cahaner, a secular Israeli, Amani Maslha Zoabi, a Muslim Arab-Israeli and Ayala Carmi, an Orthodox-Jewish Israeli. This past year was a tragic one with anti-Semitism on the rise and reports of violent hate crimes all too frequent. The only points of light in this darkness is seeing the wonderful people Rabbi Satlow (l) with who stand together to Tova Mirvis, Jan. 2019 condemn the hatred. I organized a campus wide vigil in response to the murder of 11 Jews in a Pittsburg synagogue in late October. Thank you to speakers Chancellor
Robert Johnson, Dr. Donna Lisker, Dr. Lisa Maya Knauer, Dr. Ilana Offenberger, Deacon Frank Lucca, Pastor Neil Damgaard, Matt Litchfield, and Nicole Williams. Thank you also to UMass Dartmouth students Christian Louis, Osama Maqsood, Shaya Prof. Chuck Freilich Weidmann and the UMass Dartmouth Gospel Choir. My own words are elsewhere in this newsletter. Also in this newsletter are my words in memory of the Muslims killed in the New Zealand massacre which our Muslim Student Association held on campus during the winter. There is not enough room to also include my prayers for the victims of the Easter attacks in Sri Lanka and other hate crimes. Speaking of points of light…. Hanukkah fell during the fall semester this year (rather than during vacation, which happens often). UMass Dartmouth Hillel and the Center for Jewish Culture cosponsored a successful holiday celebration. Latkes and sufganiyot were enjoyed by all. In January, we welcomed author Tova Mirvis to UMass Dartmouth. She is the author of The Book of Separation, a memoir, as well as three novels, Visible City, The Outside World, and The Ladies Auxiliary which was a national bestseller. I enjoyed reading The Ladies Auxiliary several years ago. The protagonist, Batsheva, is newly widowed and a convert to Judaism. She moves into the tightly knit Orthodox community of Memphis, TN. She is a bit of a free spirit and her passion for Jewish ritual is either a breath of fresh air, or quite shocking (depending how you look at it) to the Jews of Memphis. In the novel, Mirvis captures some of the beauty of observant Judaism while also capturing some of its frustrations. In The Book of Separation, Mirvis strikes a cord for me in many ways. First of all, while I am not from Memphis, other aspects of Mirvis’ Highlights continued on page 2
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Rabbi Satlow’s Invocation
biography echo my own. I wracked my brain trying to remember her from Columbia University before I realized we were not on campus at the same time. I also used to live in Newton, MA So many of the places and people she describes are very familiar to me. What Mirvis captures so beautifully in her work is that over time people grow and change religiously. There is no reason to think that the place we stand religiously at 20 is the same place we will stand at 40. In her case, she went from Modern Orthodoxy, to an attitude of Jewish exploration and change. Congratulations to Mirvis for writing in a deep and complex way about religion in general and Judaism in particular. UMass Dartmouth Hillel sponsored a successful Purim party. Our learning Seder, for Passover, was on the theme of “Remember the foreigner/stranger for you were once strangers in a strange land.” We worked with Navitas, an international student organization created to help students from all over the world come to universities in the US to learn academic skills and English. Students from all over the world, including China, Taiwan, Pakistan, India, and many other countries were our guests at the Passover Seder as they ate specially prepared kosher for Passover food and learned about Jewish Culture. Holocaust Memorial Day is observed for the approximately six million Jews who perished in the Holocaust as a result of the actions carried out by Nazi Germany and its collaborators. One lesson of the Holocaust is the importance of resistance. Our Yom Hashoah talk this year was about 3 people who resisted the Nazis. In 1940, Hans and Margret Rey, who became the authors of Curious George, fled their Paris home as the German army advanced. They began their
I am delighted to be here today to celebrate UMass Dartmouth commencement. To all of our graduating seniors, congratulations! Congratulations also to the families who nurtured you, the faculty who taught you, and the staff and administrators who assisted you in reaching this special day. Praise also to you, Eternal one, sovereign of all who has kept us alive, sustained us and brought us to this joyful day. Today, you are beginning the next stage of your lives. Your new lives will be full of both challenges and successes. Please have gratitude for those who have helped you to arrive here. They have taught you, recommended you, and supported you both economically and emotionally. Graduates, remember to thank those important people. They will appreciate your thanks, and recent psychological studies say that gratitude is healthy for all of us. In the recent blockbuster movie, The Avengers, we see Iron Man in his civilian role as Tony Stark. He is with his family on the shore of a picturesque lake. The moment is a perfect one. His gratitude for that moment helps give him the strength to save the world. We all need that strength now more than ever. So let’s be grateful for the good things in our lives. What about life’s challenges? You have already begun to address many of them. There is a beautiful story I’ve always loved recounted in last week’s NY Times. It is attributed to Rav Zusia who lived in the 18th century. Zusia had a dream. He died and was standing before God. He was worried. Had his life been successful enough? Was he as righteous as Abraham? Was he a leader like Moses? God then answers him in his dream. God did not expect him to be Abraham or Moses. God’s question…..were you the best Zusia you could be? Each of us competes only with our own best selves. Live your own best life. In my tradition, an apple dipped in honey symbolizes hopes for a sweet and healthy new year. That is what we all wish for you. That your life’s next stage be as sweet as an apple dipped in honey. Congratulations to the class of 2019!
UMass Dartmouth Hillel President Shaya Weidmann at our Hanukkah party, Dec. 2018 2
Israeli panelists discussing “Inter-Religious Dialogue in Israel” Nov. 2018
harrowing journey on bicycles, pedaling through Southern France. Raoul Wallenberg was a Swedish diplomat who was stationed in Budapest during World War II. He issued protective passports for Jews fleeing the Nazis and saved tens of thousands of lives. Wallenberg disappeared under mysterious circumstances in 1945. It is suspected that he died while in Russian custody.
Students, faculty, staff and community members at our learning Seder on the theme of “Welcome the Stranger”
I was happy to welcome author Louise Borden to UMass Dartmouth. She is a children’s book author and the writer of 31 books including The Journey of Curious George – The True Wartime Escape of Margret and H.A. Rey and His Name was Raoul Wallenberg. We learned something about resisting the Nazis while we discussed Holocaust education and the importance of remembering. And here is some long-awaited good news: UMass Dartmouth now has kosher food (star k) for sale in the commuter café on the 1st floor of the Campus Center. Thank you to Steve O’Reilly, who now runs our food service for Chartwell’s and Dr. Shannon Finning, our new Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs, who hired him. By the way, I have been asking for kosher food on campus for 10 years and have been told repeatedly that it is impossible. Then, Steve made it happen instantly.
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Archives of the Center for Jewish Culture Claire T. Carney Library Archives and Special Collections Thanks to Barbara Kaplan for donating records from her father, Dr. Herschel Heinz, who was the first licensed obstetrician/ gynecologist in New Bedford. The collection is mostly made up of small booklets in which he recorded the many babies he delivered at St. Luke’s Hospital between 1927 and 1967. In addition to this, Chancellor Professor Emeritus Mel Yoken continued to donate his professional and personal papers to the Archives and Special Collections, many of which will be cross-listed with the Archives of the Center for Jewish Culture. One file illustrates Professor Yoken’s keen interest in other people and their thoughts: the clippings of “The Poll Bearers,” a column he authored 1958-1960 for the UMass Amherst student newspaper, The Massachusetts Collegian. In it he asked several students each week their opinions on current issues or their taste in movies or music. Professor Yoken’s papers also include Yoken family records, correspondence, research files on French literature and literary figures, class syllabi and evaluations, and a collection of signed photographs of accomplished individuals and celebrities from the 1960s-1980s. Thanks to Susan Barnet for saving news items about the local Jewish community. They are added to a scrapbook in the Archives that was started in 1982. This
scrapbook was indexed several years ago and serves as a valuable compilation of news. Please check out the Online Finding Aids, or inventories, for the collections in the Archives of “The Poll Bearer” by Mel Yoken, the Center for The Massachusetts Collegian, Jewish Culture, December 1959 and the Digital Archives Collections, which are integrated with our library’s online public access catalog, Primo. Both are accessible from the Archives and Special Collections web page at lib.umassd.edu/Archives. And as always, I am open to donations of family, personal, business and organizational papers from the local Jewish communities in Fall River, New Bedford and Southeastern Massachusetts. Judy Farrar Claire T. Carney Library Archives and Special Collections, UMass Dartmouth jfarrar@umassd.edu or 508-999-8686
Dr. Herschel Heinz’s first record book of births, 1927
Thank you to our donors July 2018–May 2019
Patrons Fall River United Jewish Appeal, Inc. Jewish Federation of Greater New Bedford, Inc. Gilbert Shapiro
Sponsors Kenneth Lipman Tifereth Israel Congregation
Friends Judith Barry Janet Freedman Barbara Friedland Barbara Greene National Council of Jewish Women, New Bedford Barbara Kaplan Rex Monumental Works Inc.
Members Mark Glassman Barbara Gotlib Fred Levin Elliot Rosenfield Judith Sterns Marion Wilner
Dr. Herschel Heinz, 1960s portrait
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As always, thank you to the funders of the Ades, Rusitsky, and Goldstein funds.
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Center for Jewish Culture
Rabbi Satlow’s remarks at the vigil for the shooting at the Tree of Life Synagogue Thank you to all of you for standing with us this evening to mourn for the 11 Jews tragically murdered last Shabbat in Pittsburgh, PA. This was the worst event of anti-Semitism ever on US soil. We are also here to pray for healing for the 6 people, 4 of whom were police officers, who were injured in the attack. This was a terrible tragedy and we have to ask why. Why are there so many evil people in the world? Why is it so easy for one of those evil people to acquire an automatic rifle? Will there ever be an end to anti-Semitism? What is it about Jews that drives some people so crazy, and in such opposite and contradictory directions? Some say that Jews are evil capitalists and others say that Jews are evil socialists. Jews are accused of being both religious fanatics and godless atheists. Anti-Semitism of the Left and the Right has each seized on one piece of the equation. Right anti-Semitism despises universalism and loves nationalism. Left anti-Semitism despises nationalism and loves universalism. The Jews are attacked from both directions.
The UMass Dartmouth Gospel Choir helped us commemorate the tragedy at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburg.
According to the annual report of the Anti-Defamation League, anti-Semitic incidents surged 57 percent in 2017. This is the largest rise in a single year since the ADL began tracking such crimes in 1979. (Source: NY Times) A comment on President Trump’s suggestion that an armed security guard at Tree of Life Synagogue could have stopped this tragedy–most synagogues in Europe, especially in Paris, do have armed guards at the door. There is an outer door, then a courtyard with a guard, then an inner door.
You have to state your business at the outer door. Then you can come in, and show your ID. If your story seems reasonable, the guard buzzes open the inner door and you can enter. In Puerto Rico, you have to submit your documents at least 24 hours in advance. In Istanbul, the address of the synagogue is a secret. We sent an email to the president of the Istanbul synagogue and he was afraid to tell us the location! In this country, synagogue doors are open on Shabbat. When this evil terrorist entered, he was greeted by two friendly brothers who offered him a prayer book and said Shalom. What is happening to the land of the free and the home of the brave? Instead of spending money on helping the poor, on music, art, and education, the Jewish community will be forced to spend all available resources on security. Every building will have to be remodeled. Once someone enters the building, a security guard with a handgun is easily out gunned. So we will need courtyards, like in Athens and in Paris. And guards with…what type of gun would be sufficient?
Rabbi Satlow’s remarks in support of the UMassD Muslim Student Association after the attack in Christ Church, New Zealand Jews know all too well this pain because we have felt it before. We stand in grief with the devastated Muslim families of New Zealand. We weep over the incomprehensible loss of life. We cry out with shock, confusion and pain. We mourn together with righteous people everywhere over this senseless act of violence and destruction. It is customary in the Jewish tradition to connect our lives and what we are experiencing with the Jewish liturgical year. Beginning this evening, we celebrate a holiday, Purim, which is joyous and festive. But the day before the holiday is traditionally a one-day fast. Purim commemorates a time when the Jewish community was threatened and felt vulnerable. It was a time of desperation. One woman, Esther, found herself in a position to change the course of events and save her people from danger. The first response Esther had to the situation was one of 4
prayer, a fast. And this fast would be transformative for her in mustering the courage to approach authority, to express her voice, to transform oppression. Esther not only calls for a fast of the Jewish community, but she herself fasts with her friends. Not all of Esther’s friends were Jewish. They fast in solidarity with her and her people in their time of need. We still observe this fast - called the Fast of Esther - for one day on the day before Purim in commemoration of this story. This
year it takes place today. This year, I would like my fast to be like Esther’s, fasting for the safety of her people and like that of Esther’s friends who stood with her in solidarity. I stand with the Muslim community. I have been inspired when people of many religious traditions, (or none) stood with us in the Jewish community in a time of fear. Together we are stronger than hate. During these difficult days and nights, may God bring comfort, peace, hope, and light to broken hearts and a broken world. In this time of rising hatred, when terrorists attack people at prayer and a local cemetery is defaced with anti-Semitic graffiti, let’s refuse to give the haters a victory. The news reported that as people ran from the mosque in terror, there were neighbors who opened their doors to let people in and keep them safe. I want to be the person who opens my door. Thank you. Center News