The Dayton Jewish Observer, July 2023

Jewish War Veterans Post #587 celebrates 75 years

Four veterans of World War II — which ended 78 years ago this September — attended Jewish War Veterans Dayton Post #587's 75th Anniversary Brunch, held May 28 at Temple Beth Or.

The oldest among them was Robert Kahn, 99, who escaped Nazi Germany following Kristallnacht. After his arrival in the United States, he fought with the U.S. Army Air Forces in the South Pacific.

Al and Lou Levin, 97, are among the oldest known living twins in the United States to serve in World War II. They were in the Army together and were with the more than 60,000 soldiers and Marines to storm ashore at Okinawa beginning on April 1, 1945. The Levins served in Okinawa for a year

and a half.

The Ohio Department of Veterans Services has produced a five-minute video profiling the Levin brothers, which it posted at its website and Facebook page this spring.

Dr. Mort Levine, 95, served with the U.S. Navy in New York at the very end of World War II.

The Jewish War Veterans, founded in 1896, is the oldest continuing veteran service organization in the United States.

Dayton's Post #587 was established April 11, 1948. Dayton Mayor Edward Breen attended the ceremony. Post #587's first commander was J.L. Cunix. At the time, Dayton's Jewish Federation, then called

the Jewish Community Council, documented that more than 400 Jewish Daytonians had served in World War II.

Post #587's current commander, Steve Markman, is also a past JWV Ohio department commander. — Marshall Weiss

Al (L) and Lou Levin, 97, among the oldest known living twins to serve in World War II, at JWV's 75th Anniversary Brunch.

World War II veterans Bob Kahn (L), 99, and Dr. Mort Levine, 95, at the brunch.

(L to R): Featured speaker David Tillotson III, director of the National Museum of the U.S. Air Force; Dayton newcomers Wayne and Sue Myers; Jewish Federation CEO Cathy Gardner; Helen and Post #587 Commander Steve Markman; and Columbus Post #122 Commander Steve Seeskin.

(L to R): Mike Goldstein, Bobbi Mugford, Leslie and Bob Buerki.

Photos: Marshall Weiss

Journeys to Judaism

By Marshall Weiss, The

Observer

Israeli American Ofir Ravin, 27, beams from the front row of Beth Abraham Synagogue's main sanctuary as her husband, Ryan Lechich, 25, is called for an aliyah to the Torah for the first time.

On this Shabbat morning, June 17, Ryan carefully intones the blessings before and after the Torah reading. He then receives several blessings from Rabbi Aubrey Glazer, who prepared Ryan for his conversion.

Earlier that week, Ryan had met with a bet din (court of Jewish law) comprising three rabbis, and immersed in the Miami Valley Mikvah. He is now a Jew.

Ryan is one of dozens of people in the Miami Valley who have recently converted to Judaism or are studying toward conversion. Rabbis at three area congregations say they've noticed an increase in conversion students and conversions to Judaism since the Covid pandemic has receded.

"It's a large influx of people — and younger people — which I find to be really fascinating," says Temple Israel Senior Rabbi Karen BodneyHalasz. "I don't know if any of them would say it has to do with Covid. It's hard for me not to think that Covid gave them more time to think in trying to decide what is meaningful, with everyone realigning what's important to them. There's been a lot of reflection."

She says more than 40 people are on Temple Israel's roster of those asking about conversion,

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going through conversion, or who have converted over the last five or six years.

"Of the 40 I have, 13 have completed conversion," Bodney-Halasz says. She estimates that over the coming year, eight to 10 more conversion students will complete the process. Before Covid hit, Temple Israel would facilitate four or five conversions a year.

Temple Israel Rabbi/Educator Tina Sobo adds that because some whole families have gone through the conversion process, she had three children join her third-to-fifth-grade religious school class after the High Holidays last fall.

"I've never had that happen before," Sobo says.

Temple Beth Or Senior Rabbi Judy Chessin says she has "lots of conversions on the docket."

She agrees with Bodney-Halasz that she hasn't heard anyone say it's because of Covid, but "in a post-lockdown society, people are searching for meaning, rootedness, and healing."

"There's always been a group of people en

Continued on Page Four

Though The Observer has presented some stories about people who have become Jews over the years, I've shied away from these articles for two reasons. First, is the value that once someone becomes a Jew, that person is in. In Jewish tradition, we are not to "other" those who weren't always Jewish. It's an individual's choice whether to talk about the journey. One's beliefs about God are personal and private whether one is born a Jew or becomes a Jew. Some people are more comfortable than others about sharing their beliefs. The other reason is because Judaism does not proselytize. We don't seek out non-Jews to become Jewish. We don't aspire for everyone else to become Jewish. For those who aren't Jewish, there are many paths to God. And not all Jews believe in God, either. One conversion student I interviewed for the story above remarked how fortunate I am to meet so many new and soon-to-be-new Jews and hear their stories. I'm very fortunate indeed. Thanks go to the area rabbis who guided me for this piece.

Marshall Weiss

Israeli American Ofir Ravin, 27, with her husband, Ryan Lechich, 25. Ryan completed his conversion to Judaism in June.

Since the Covid pandemic has receded, some area congregations have seen an uptick in conversions.

Photos: Marshall Weiss

Journeys to Judaism

Continued from Page Three route" to conversion, Chessin says.

"I got a lot of calls in the last year or two. There seems to be an increase. I have a group, I call them ABD, All But Dipped. These are people who have been around for a while, and that's my biggest group: people who were saying, OK, now is the time."

Chessin's group comprises women from their early 20s through their 40s. Each, she says, would like to hold her formal conversion at the mikvah on a Rosh Chodesh, the start of a Jewish month. Her group meets as a collective.

"I think they need community, and they need bravery," Chessin says. "They need someone to go into cold places with. And so this was the first time I ever put a group together, and they really seem to like it, that they have each other."

Those in the conversion process or who have recently converted to Judaism at Temple Beth Or preferred not to be interviewed by The Observer.

"There's kind of an insecurity too," Chessin says. "Am I valid? Should I be talking about it, or should I just find my place quietly for the moment?"

'Tickling in the back of my brain'

Kit Brewer, 23, of Germantown, received their bachelor's degree in individualized studies from Miami University in January. Their thesis was on gender, learning theory, and visual media. Kit has worked as a substitute teacher for Valley View Local Schools and has taught religious school at Temple Israel.

"I didn't ever really meet Jewish people until I went to college," Kit says. "But as I got there and I was meeting Jewish people, it started tickling in the back of my brain."

The household Kit grew up in was not religious. Prior to Judaism, Kit was a practicing pagan for about a decade.

By Kit's last semester in college last August, they called Temple Israel.

"I asked, 'I'm not Jewish. Am I able to come in and attend a service?' And they said, 'Absolutely.' So that next Friday, I walk in and immediately get adopted

by a bunch that have been going for 30-plus years. And I've been there pretty much every week since."

Bodney-Halasz guided Kit through the conversion process.

"She knew exactly how to hook me," Kit says. "The first book she gave me was a big collection of essays about Jewish perspectives on sexuality and sex. I didn't feel that I had to change anything about myself to approach Reform Judaism."

In February, after about nine months of study, Kit emerged from the mikvah as a Jew.

"I'm a bit of an overachiever. It was a bit on a fast track. I was reading a lot. Just tearing through stuff. She would send me home with a stack of books and I'd be done with it in a couple of weeks."

Kit is now considering entering the rabbinate.

Perspectives and discussions

Angela Montjar, 44, says it was the darkness of trauma that drew her to Judaism on her journey of more than two decades.

"I've been through not nice things in my life," the Springfield resident says. She was also drawn to understand how the horror of the Holocaust could happen and was curious about mysticism surrounding death and resurgence.

"I had a nervous breakdown when I was about 19 — and after that, things never really

jelled for me," Angela says. "So anytime that I was feeling particularly hurtful or didn't know what was going on, it was not Christian God, it was Jewish God. I needed Jewish God because it meant more to me. And it was more comfortable to me."

Around that time, she had a Jewish boyfriend. She learned a lot from him, she says, particularly about Kabalah.

After reading Daniel Mendelsohn's The Lost: A Search for Six of Six Million last year, Angela decided to start researching Judaism again.

She appreciated how inclusive the language was at Temple Sholom's website and contacted Rabbi Cary Kozberg.

Angela decided to visit the Springfield congregation on Purim in 2022, "because it's such a happy kind of holiday."

Once she spoke to the rabbi, she started coming regularly. She now studies with him toward her conversion.

"One of the things I like so much about Judaism is that you have all these different perspectives and then you talk about them. We have discussions about the parsha (Torah portion), what we read, what we're singing, we're talking about prayers."

Angela notices that some Jews she encounters are uncomfortable talking about God. She and Kozberg have talked about this.

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"The center of why God is not discussed, I think, is because God is so personal," she says. "It's a personal definition existing within us, and we don't want to try and force that on anybody else."

She's also asked the rabbi about Judaism's perspectives on mental health.

"That was kind of important to me. He essentially said you can't just deny science."

'The more I learned, the more I couldn't stop'

Mariah Strickland, 32, of Kettering, says she was always interested in Jewish religion and culture.

"I read book after book, listened to Jewish cultural music, visited historically important Jewish places, and tried to consume as much Jewish culture as I could," she notes.

What stopped her from becoming Jewish earlier in her life? She didn't know that a person could convert to Judaism.

Mariah says she was intimidated, too.

"Once I realized that conversion was possible, I started to learn more about that path for myself."

Her current journey began in 2009, when she was diagnosed with stage 4 uterine leiomyosarcoma.

"I've definitely always been someone who had a strong belief in God but didn't really find a particular religion or niche that I felt encapsulated everything I felt. I was looking into, if God is good, why is there evil? Why do people suffer? What happens after we pass?"

Mariah's best friend from middle and high school — who converted when she married a

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The Dayton Jewish Observer

Kit Brewer, 23, became a Jew in February. They're considering a career in the rabbinate.

Angela Montjar, 44, began studying for conversion last year at Temple Sholom in Springfield.

Photos: Marshall Weiss

Conservative Jew — suggested she consider Judaism. "I hear from a lot of converts that there's just this moment of alignment or feeling of coming home or clicking into place," Mariah says. "And it definitely felt that way."

Last fall, she signed up for the Introduction to Judaism course, offered each year by the Synagogue Forum of Greater Dayton.

"And the more I learned, the more I couldn't stop. I started going to Temple Israel. I've been craving to be around people that have this idea of, there's more than just the day-to-day in our lives, and that we're all going in the same place, holding very similar beliefs. And that's been really comforting in kind of answering or at least being able to sit with the unknowns."

Mariah studies for her conversion with BodneyHalasz. "It would be best if we took the whole year at least to kind of go through the whole cycle of holidays. But with my situation, it would kind of depend on how things go. I will definitely look to convert before my health gets too bad. Because if I get to a point where I can't walk, or if I'm hospital-bound, I don't think having my mikvah is going to be very possible at that time.

"But I'm still in the process of learning, so much that I don't feel like I'm ready anytime soon. I'm trying to absorb as much as I can."

'I just felt like I was at home'

Alexandria King, 26, grew up in Trotwood. She is a direct support professional in a group home, assisting individuals with developmental disabilities.

"I've been working at the same house for almost seven years now, and I've been helping the same four guys," Alexandria says.

"Growing up, I was raised as a Christian. My mom was more religious than my dad. I'd probably describe my dad as agnostic. He's one of the people who just tries to be a good person," she says.

"I went to a lot of churches growing up, but that changed when my mom passed away back in 2006 when I was 9 years old."

A year before Alexandria was born, her parents lost a child, a daughter, before the child's first birthday.

It fell to Alexandria's father to raise the four remain-

ing children himself.

"I'm sure it was a big struggle for him. I can only imagine. He doesn't reach out a lot. He's my role model."

Alexandria says she struggled with her religion for years ever since her mom died.

"How can there be a God if something like this happens? How would a loving God let something like this happen? It's a struggle with, if God would let something like this happen, why should I worship him?"

For a while, she was an atheist. What pushed her toward Judaism, Alexandria says, was the time she spent on TikTok.

"The algorithm had, for some reason, pushed me toward a lot of Jewish creators. They would talk about their religion and aspects of the religion. And I thought, that makes sense."

Alexandria made an appointment with Temple Israel's Rabbi Karen Bodney-Halasz earlier this year.

"Specifically on their website it says we are open to the LGBT community. That meant a lot to me. Because being in the LGBT community, you become a bit wary of even a lot of the more so-called accepting religious institutions. You get that 'love the sinner, hate the sin' mentality."

Alexandria had come out first as bisexual and then as transgender in high school.

"I went to Rabbi Karen and she was just super welcoming. She seemed very excited to work with me. When people want to put that effort in for you, you have to put the same effort in, if not more."

The next week, she attended her first temple service. "I just felt like I was at home. That's the best way I can describe it. During the kiddush, I just felt this burst of energy in me. And everything just felt right. And I felt at home. Like I was where I belonged. And every time since that I've been in temple, I've just felt the same feeling of belonging, of being home."

She notes a shared history of trauma in the LGBTQ and Jewish communities.

"The Nazis killed queer men alongside Jewish men. The LGBTQ community went through the AIDS crisis. A lot of people in the LGBTQ community have been Jewish, like Harvey Milk. That was another reason why I was drawn into the Jewish community: because I was very aware of the overlap. And I felt that joining a community that had overlap — and having my voice in there — would help make both of our voices stronger."

Alexandria is now in the process with Bodney-Halasz of learning to live as a Jew, "trying to integrate myself into the culture, doing what feels right for me."

Newish to Jewish

The first holiday service Alexandria attended was Purim. For her first Passover experience, she participated in Temple Israel's Newish To Jewish hands-on learning program.

Bodney-Halasz and longtime congregant Tom Bainbridge — who converted to Judaism years ago — came up with Newish to Jewish last summer as a post-conversion program. Tom is its chair.

"We did our first program in November, a Chanukah program," Tom says. "Chanukah, in general, can be a difficult time if you're in a family with a mixed religion. Trying to celebrate Chanukah when Christmas is so pervasive in our culture, it can be overwhelming. We wanted to help support people for that time of year."

Participants also learned how to make

latkes. Along with the discussions at the Passover program, they made charoset for the Seder plate.

"We also include some mentors at the programs, some longstanding members — some of them Jews by choice — to answer questions and help in the discussion part of it."

Newish to Jewish is open to the entire community. The next program will be held in conjunction with the fast day of Tisha B'Av, at 7 p.m., Thursday, July 27.

Co-chairing Newish to Jewish is Nick Schmall, who converted through Temple Israel in August 2021. He's a physics professor at Clark State College in Springfield.

Forming a relationship with God

"I grew up in a really religious household," Nick, 46, says. "Both my parents were Catholic, but my mom was primarily the inspiration. I always enjoyed

Continued on Page Six

Mariah Strickland, 32, says her conversion process has been 'all consuming.'

Conversion student Alexandria King, 26, braids her first challah, a rainbow challah, for Temple Israel's Pride Shabbat.

Nick Schmall, 46, who converted in August 2021, now cochairs Temple Israel's Newish to Jewish program.

Journeys to Judaism

Continued from Page Five being religious when I was young. It was always a central part of my life."

He says atheism played a big part in shaping his life and the "religious ideals" that led him to Judaism. He began exploring Judaism a year after college, in 2001 in Toledo. He bounced back and forth between Judaism and Catholicism and then was an atheist from his late 20s through his mid 30s.

"Even though I had renounced God, I still thought a lot about religion," he says. He continued reading about religion and attended Jewish and Catholic worship services.

"I attended them because they had a meditative quality, something I needed after my father died in 2013," he says. "During that time, I came to realize that I had a very narrow idea of God." He came to appreciate what he describes as the "life affirming, positive idea that Judaism has of God."

He decided to convert to Judaism in 2018, but hesitated. "I was worried about antisemitism increasing around that time, especially with the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting and the fact that the FBI stopped a potential shooting at Temple Shomer Emunim in late 2018." Shomer Emunim is the temple in Toledo where Nick would attend services.

"Ultimately, I had to make the decision that if I had an affinity for the Jewish people and their faith, that I couldn't let fear dictate my life decisions."

Nick formally entered the conversion process in fall 2019 at Temple Shomer Emunim while still living in Toledo. He had to put it on hold when Covid hit.

"That was kind of a kick in the teeth," Nick says. "I had to wait 20 years and then to wait even more. And then when we moved, I started the conversion process pretty much all over again with Rabbi Karen down here. It's a religion that centers on my relationship with God. I enjoy the intimacy of that relationship to God, that the responsibility of forming a relationship with God is with me and only me."

He adds that reading Maimonides was especially eye-opening. "God is somewhat mysterious. You have to wrestle with the idea of God. That's what Israel means. It embraces uncertainty, which is what I like. There's no definite reality of God. You have to essentially come to terms with that and figure it out."

Nick says his wife, an agnostic, is incredibly supportive. "We've chit chatted about religion, but a conversion was not for her."

Reactions of family and friends

Mariah Strickland says her husband is also supportive of her journey, "but it's not something that he particularly feels the need to parse out for himself yet."

She says her parents, who live in New York state, are supportive but not entirely understanding.

"I think I didn't fully appreciate how Christian-leaning most of the world is. And even though I haven't necessarily walked that path for many years, I think there's a difference between 'we just don't talk about it,' versus 'I am actively choosing another path that I believe very strongly in.' They ask a lot of good questions."

Her in-laws, Mariah says, struggle more to understand why she chose to become a Jew. They live here

in Ohio. They're of the mind-set that one who does not accept Jesus as their savior will burn eternally in Hell, Mariah says. By that measure, they're concerned for their son, too. And they've said all of this to Mariah directly. Her husband, she says, has her back.

"Even though he hasn't found exactly what he believes, he believes that people should be able to choose what is right for them," Mariah says. "And there's been a big adjustment in terms of seeing my sense of purpose and my sense of happiness and enjoyment of life. And so, he supports me very much with his family.

"We've been together for over 10 years now. I think it's to the point where I'm enough in the family where I can advocate for myself. And I also feel like that's an important part of learning to become Jewish: it seems very un-Jewish to hide your Jewishness."

When Alexandria King told her father she was converting to Judaism, she says, he was more surprised than anything else, "just because I had spent so much time being someone without faith."

"A lot of people don't notice the differences between Christian culture and Jewish culture until they've experienced both. One of the ideas that I had to break away from — even when I was identifying as atheist or agnostic — was the idea that you have to proselytize. And it's a problem with a lot of atheist circles. Because they grew up as Christians, they are so used to proselytizing and trying to 'convert.'"

Judaism is not a proselytizing belief system; Jews don't seek others to become Jewish.

"It's something I had to break away from because for me, my religion is very personal. And I had to get to that space before I could even move forward with any religion."

Alexandria shares that her fiancé, who is also transgender, is now considering becoming a Jew.

"If he doesn't want to go on the same path I'm on, that's perfectly fine, because if we're both happy and we're both spiritually contented, that's all that matters," she said.

Angela Montjar says her dad, who lives in Arizona, is very supportive of her conversion process. "He’s said some very nice things that I never thought my dad would ever say to me. So it was kind of a way for us to get emotionally closer."

Her mother lives in St. Paris. "My mom finally came to a service," Angela says. "She came for Shavuot because I made blintzes. I was like, 'You have to come. I slaved over these blintzes.' But mostly her concerns were safety. We lock the doors. We have guards. But now that she’s actually been to a service, I think she understands a little bit more.

"And she keeps saying, ‘Everyone was so nice to me.’ She wasn’t sure what to expect. My mom was raised Lutheran. I was raised Lutheran. My dad was Catholic. My dad is now Episcopalian. She doesn’t have different ideas of God. I think it’s strange to her to see that there are so many similarities. More than she probably thought there would be."

'Almost afraid to go to a synagogue'

One couple on an extended journey that culminated with their Jewish conversions is Cory and Sharon Lemmon of Covington. Cory is 82, Sharon respectfully declines to share her age. They studied for conversion with Temple Israel's Rabbi Tina Sobo and became Jews on May 31, 2022. They've been married for 15 years. Cory says their families didn't have a lot to say

Cory and Sharon Lemmon, shown here at Temple Israel's Jewish Cultural Festival, became Jews on May 31, 2022.

Marshall Weiss

DAYTON

about it. "We've been doing this for so long," he says, about coming closer and closer to living a Jewish life.

"I went through a lot of churches myself," says Cory, who was even a pastor for six years at Harris Creek Church of the Brethren in Bradford. He resigned after his first wife, Mary, died. He then started attending "Messianic" churches in the area in his attempt to learn more about Judaism, albeit within an evangelical Christian overlay.

Followers of “Messianic Judaism” — actually an evangelical Christian subgroup — believe that Jesus is the messiah. Some "Messianic" adherents have Jewish lineage, others are Christians who seek to connect with what they perceive as the Jewish roots of Christianity. But "Messianic Judaism" is not a Jewish movement.

At one of these congregations, Cory met Sharon. Eventually, they began to question the validity of the Christian Bible. They started exploring services and programs at various synagogues and temples across the Miami Valley, beginning with Anshe Emeth in Piqua, near where they live.

They decided to live as Noahides, non-Jews who follow the Seven Noahide Laws, which all people are obligated to observe, according to Jewish tradition. Myjewishlearning.com notes that somewhere between hundreds and thousands of former Christians have become Noahides in the modern world.

This was the journey that led them to become Jews. They felt like they knew they were Jewish. They were ready to make it formal.

"I had a really strong pull toward the Jews," Cory says. "I want to be named among my brothers and sisters. There are so many things that we had to relearn. But the main thing is the people. We definitely feel part of the family. I was just almost afraid to go to a synagogue. I didn't know what was there. And that's a shame. I just wish I had been a little bit quicker at getting it all together."

Bashert in Israel

Ryan Lechich grew up in Connecticut in a Roman Catholic family. He wanted to join the military, so he went to Nor-

wich University in Vermont, a small, private military college.

After a six-month hiatus at home because of the Covid pandemic, he took advantage of an opportunity to study for a year on a fellowship in Israel. At the end, he would receive a master's degree in counterterrorism and government.

There, he also met his bashert, his intended, Israeli American Ofir Ravin, who served as a lone soldier in the Israel Defense Forces.

Ofir grew up in Maryland and had been in Israel for almost six years at that point.

They were both studying at the Interdisciplinary Center Herzliya, now Reichman University. It turned out they lived two doors down from each other.

"We traveled a lot," Ryan says. "We went to Masada, Jerusalem."

Ryan and Ofir were out for a run on the Herzliya beach one evening at the beginning of Israel's 11-day conflict with Hamas in May 2021. Rockets started coming in from Gaza.

"She pushed me down. And I'm looking up and all I see are explosions. Hundreds of rockets. They were right above us. The sky was just blazing with explosions. And even though those are intercepts, the shrapnel is still coming down. We had to decide to stay in this field or just run, because it wasn't going to stop. It was going on all night. We ran back to the dorms. People were running and it was like Armageddon."

While they lived in Herzliya, Ofir helped Ryan find out that his maternal grandmother had fled Germany in 1938 because she had Jewish lineage.

"I didn't know a lot about her background. We didn't know who her dad was or anything like that," Ryan says. "Ofir started asking questions about my family and their history. We found out that she was on a refugee ship from Germany, and that she was listed as "Hebrew" on the Ellis Island manifest. And then we found out that her dad was probably Jewish, almost certainly."

Ryan and Ofir moved to Kettering when Ryan, on active duty with the Air Force, was assigned to a research position at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. Last summer, he proposed. Ofir said yes.

He began studying for conversion with Rabbi Aubrey Glazer at Beth Abraham Synagogue at the beginning of this year.

"We had a civil marriage but now we want to have a religious marriage," Ryan says.

Ofir says the process has exposed her to a lot more Judaism, too.

"Growing up in a very secular family, and also being in the IDF for a long time, I started getting prejudiced to Judaism as a religion," she says. "And I tried to even stay away from it. And through the rabbi and Elyssa (his wife), I've come to appreciate it a lot more."

Ryan Lechich lights a candle on the Dayton Yom Hashoah Candelabra as Hannah Dritz watches, April 23.

Peter Wine

In the 1920s, scores of Arnovitz family members left Poland and immigrated to the United States. They came to the Dayton area to create a new home and found success as merchants. Decades later, Matt Arnovitz and his aunt Beverly Saeks feel an emotional connection to their parents, grandparents, cousins and dozens of other family members who have found their eternal home at Beth Abraham’s cemetery.

“I have so much history here,” said Beverly. “This cemetery is just so peaceful. I take great pride in how beautiful it looks.”

“My family helped build the synagogue and community,” said Matt. “It’s up to us and our generation to take care of the cemetery for the future.”

For Elaine Arnovitz, whose parents Fred and Ruth Scheuer are also buried at Beth Abraham’s cemetery, she believes “It’s a mitzvah when we work together for the benefit of our community.”

Jewish Cemeteries of Greater Dayton is an endowment organization created to maintain our three Jewish cemeteries in perpetuity. Please join us as we strive to maintain the sanctity, care, and integrity of these sacred burial grounds.

Jury finds Pittsburgh synagogue shooter guilty on all counts

By Ron Kampeas, JTA

PITTSBURGH — The gunman who committed the worst antisemitic attack in U.S. history is guilty of all charges he faced, according to the verdict delivered by a federal jury on the morning of June 16.

Robert Bowers, who killed 11 worshippers at a Pittsburgh synagogue on Oct. 27, 2018, was charged on 63 counts in total. Those include 22 capital charges — two for each of his victims: 11 charges of the federal crime of “obstruction of the free exercise of religious beliefs resulting in death,” and 11 charges of the federal crime of “willfully causing bodily injury because of actual or perceived religion resulting in death,” which is a hate crime.

The sentencing phase of the trial is set to begin June 26, during which the jury of seven women and five men will consider whether to give the defendant the death penalty. Defense lawyers told the court they were prepared to argue a mental health defense, and would bring witnesses to the stand.

The verdict is a milestone in one of the most significant court proceedings in American Jewish history. It provides a determination of legal accountability in a tragedy that has reshaped American Jews’ sense of security in Pittsburgh and beyond in the nearly five years since it occurred.

The trial opened with jury selection in April, and lawyers delivered their opening statements on May 30, beginning 11 days of harrowing testimony from survivors of the shooting and first responders who described the attack and its aftermath.

On June 16, families of the victims and survivors packed the courtroom and an overflow room where they were able to monitor the proceedings over video. Staff from the 10.27 Healing Partnership, a counseling service housed at the local JCC, were on hand to assist them.

The victims of the attack were Joyce Fienberg, Richard Gottfried, Rose Mallinger, Jerry Rabinowitz, Cecil Rosenthal, David Rosenthal, Bernice Simon, Sylvan Simon, Daniel Stein, Melvin Wax and Irving Younger. They worshipped at three congregations housed in the building at the time: Tree of Life, Dor Hadash and New Light.

Before the jury entered the courtroom, the defendant strode in, wearing a dark blue sweater over a collared blue shirt and looking around the room. Once the jury was seated, he rose to face them for a moment, whispered to one of his lawyers, Elisa Long, and then sat down. He appeared to be taking notes throughout the reading of the verdict.

Judge Robert Colville asked those in attendance not to react during the verdict, and they complied. Maggie Feinstein, the director of the 10.27 Healing Partnership, gave out blue stress balls to family members. Margaret Gottfried, the widow of Richard Gottfried, took a deep breath when Bowers was pronounced guilty of the crime of murdering her husband. Ellen Leger, whose husband, Daniel, was shot and wounded, put her arm around him after the verdict was read.

During the trial, the trauma of the shooting was evident when survivors spoke in the courtroom. Andrea

Wedner, one of two worshippers who were shot and survived, asked not to be on the stand during the playback of her 911 call. Leger, the other shooting victim who survived, and the Tree of Life rabbi, Jeffrey Myers, became emotional as each recounted reciting the Shema, the Torah verse and central Jewish prayer that Jews have traditionally recited at times of mortal peril.

The defense team never contested that its client committed the shooting, electing to call no witnesses and present no evidence at the trial. Their sole argument, articulated by Elisa Long in her brief closing statement June 15, was to rebut the capital charge that Bowers was guilty of “obstruction of the free exercise of religious beliefs resulting in death.” The defense attorneys, headed by a prominent death row lawyer, Judy Clarke, are expected to argue that their client suffered from epilepsy, schizophrenia and other mental illnesses in their effort to keep him from being sentenced to death.

Long said Bowers was under the delusion that Jews were facilitating the entry of immigrants into the United States to commit genocide, and that his goal was to prevent them from doing so, not to keep Jews from worshipping. But she did not contest the hate crime charge. There is no question, she said, that “his statements that day reflected animosity and hatred toward Jews.”

Prosecutors anticipated that the defense would argue that the gunman did not intend to obstruct worship. Government attorneys concluded each survivors’ testimony with some form of the same question: “Did the defendant prevent you from praying?”

At times, the testimony doubled as a kind of crash course on American Jewish worship, with witnesses explaining the differences between Reconstructionist and Conservative Judaism as well as the use of ritual objects, like a prayer shawl or ritual fringes.

Prosecutors used visuals to make the point that the attack interrupted an exercise of religion: prayer books were stained with blood, a kipah was split in two by gunfire. Bernice Simon used a prayer shawl to stanch the wound that killed her husband, Sylvan, before she was killed.

Another theme pervading the proceedings was the political polarization that has beset the United States in recent years. Ahead of the shooting, the gunman posted hateful messages and signaled his intent to commit the attack on Gab, a social media site that is a redoubt of far-right extremists. The site’s founder, Andrew Torba, testified in the trial, as did Mark Hetfield, the CEO of the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, the Jewish refugee aid group. The gunman chose to attack the Tree of Life building because Dor Hadash partnered with HIAS on its National Refugee Shabbat the previous week.

The non-death penalty charges the defendant faced are related to the injuries suffered by Wedner and Leger as well as police personnel who engaged with Bowers when they raided the synagogue, in addition to gun charges. The shooter was an avid collector of guns.

‘If we don’t take care of our cemeteries, who will?’

— Matt Arnovitz

Mourners visit the memorial outside the Tree of Life Synagogue, Oct. 31, 2018 in Pittsburgh, four days after 11 Jewish worshippers were killed during services there.

Jeff Swensen/Getty Images

Biden plan to combat antisemitism demands reforms across the executive branch and beyond

By Ron Kampeas, JTA

WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden unveiled a multifaceted and broad strategy to combat antisemitism in the United States that reaches from basketball courts to farming communities, from college campuses to police departments.

“We must say clearly and forcefully that antisemitism and all forms of hate and violence have no place in America,” Biden said in a prerecorded video. “Silence is complicity.”

The 60-page document and its list of more than 100 recommendations stretches across the government, requiring reforms in virtually every sector of the executive branch within a year. It was formulated after consultations with over a thousand experts, and covers a range of tactics, from increased security funding to a range of educational efforts.

The plan has been in the works since December, and the White House has consulted with large Jewish organizations throughout the process. The finished document embraces proposals that large Jewish organizations have long advocated, as well as initiatives that pleasantly surprised Jewish organizational leaders, most of whom praised it upon its release.

Among the proposals that Jewish leaders have called for were recommendations to streamline reporting of hate crimes across local, state and federal law enforcement agencies, which will enable the government to accurately assess the breadth of hate crimes. The proposal also recommends that Congress double the funds available to nonprofits for security measures, from $180 million to $360 million.

One proposal that, if enacted, could be particularly far-reaching — and controversial — is a call for Congress to pass “fundamental reforms” to a provision that shields social media platforms from liability for the content users post on their sites. The plan says social media companies should have a “zero tolerance policy for hate speech on their platforms.”

In addition, the plan calls for action in partnership with a range of government agencies and private entities. It says the government will work with professional sports leagues to educate fans about antisemitism and hold athletes accountable for it, following instances of antisemitic speech by figures such as NBA star Kyrie Irving or NFL player DeSean Jackson.

The government will also partner with rural museums and libraries to educate their visitors about Jewish

heritage and antisemitism. And the plan includes actions to be taken by a number of cabinet departments, from the Department of Veterans Affairs to the USDA.

“It’s really producing a whole-of-government approach that stretches from what you might consider the obvious things like more (security) grants and more resources for the Justice Department and the FBI,” said Nathan Diament, the Washington director of the Orthodox Union. “But it stretches all the way across things that the Department of Labor and the Small Business Administration can do with regard to educating about antisemitism, that the National Endowment of the Humanities and the President’s Council on Sports and Fitness can do with regard to the institutions that they deal with.”

An array of Jewish organizations from the left to the center-right echoed those sentiments in welcoming the plan with enthusiasm, marking a change from recent weeks in which they had been split over how the plan should define antisemitism.

Still, a handful of right-wing groups blasted the strategy, saying that its chosen definition of antisemitism diluted the term.

Despite the relatively united front, there are elements of the strategy that may stoke broader controversy: Among a broad array of partner groups named in the plan is the Council on AmericanIslamic Relations, whose harsh criticism of Israel has led to relations with centrist Jewish organizations that are fraught at best. The call to place limits on social media platforms may also upset free speech advocates.

Biden recalled, as he often does, that he decided to run for president after

President Donald Trump equivocated while condemning the neo-Nazis who organized a deadly march in Charlottesville, Va. in 2017.

“Repeated episodes of hate — including numerous attacks on Jewish Americans — have since followed Charlottesville, shaking our moral conscience as Americans and challenging the values for which we stand as a Nation,” Biden wrote in an introduction to the report.

The administration launched the initiative last December, after years during which Jewish groups and the FBI reported sharp spikes in antisemitic incidents. The strategy was originally planned for release at its Jewish American Heritage Month celebration May 16, but was delayed, in part because of last-minute internal squabbling over whether it would accept a definition of antisemitism that some on the left said chilled free speech on Israel. Some rightwing groups were deeply critical of the new strategy for not accepting that definition to the exclusion of others.

Rabbi Levi Shemtov, the executive vice president of American Friends of Lubavitch (Chabad), praised the breadth

of the plan, and said the delay seemed to produce results.

“The White House has taken this very seriously. The phrase that something is still being worked on can often be a euphemism for a lack of concern,” he said. “In this case, it seems to have resulted in an even more comprehensive and hopefully more effective result.”

Some of the initiatives in the plan focus less on directly confronting antisemitism and more on promoting tolerance of and education about Jews. The Biden Administration will seek to ensure accommodations for Jewish religious observance, the accompanying fact sheet said, and “the Department of Agriculture will work to ensure equal access to all USDA feeding programs for USDA customers with religious dietary needs, including kosher and halal dietary needs.”

Jonathan Greenblatt, the Anti-Defamation League CEO who was closely consulted on the strategy, said promoting inclusion was as critical as fighting antisemitism. “Is FEMA giving kosher provisions after disasters going to solve antisemitism?” he said in an interview. Continued on Page 10

The plan calls for action in partnership with a range of government agencies and private entities.

Second Gentleman Douglas Emhoff speaks about the Biden administration's antisemitism strategy at the State Department, May 25

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“No, but…it’s an acknowledgement of the plurality of communities and the need to treat Jewish people like you would any other minority community, and I think I’m very pleased to see that.”

In the months since Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff, who is Jewish, convened a roundtable to launch the initiative, the Biden administration has pivoted from focusing on the threat of antisemitism from the far-right to also highlighting its manifestation in other spheres — including amid anti-Israel activism on campuses and the targeting of visibly religious Jews in the northeast. Those factors were evident in the strategy.

“Some traditionally observant Jews, especially traditional Orthodox Jews, are victimized while walking down the street,” the strategy said in its introduction. “Jewish students and educators are targeted for derision and exclusion on college campuses, often because of their real or perceived views about the State of Israel.”

The proposal that may provoke controversy beyond American Jewry is the Biden Administration’s calls to reform the tech sector, which echo bipartisan recommendations to change Section 230, a provision of U.S. law that grants platforms immunity from being liable for the content users post. Free speech advocates and the companies themselves say that if the government were to police online speech, it would veer into censorship.

“Tech companies have a critical role to play and for that reason the strategy contains 10 separate calls to tech companies to establish a zero-tolerance policy for hate speech on their platforms, to ensure that their algorithms do not pass along hate speech and extreme content to users and to listen more closely to Jewish groups to better understand how antisemitism manifests itself on their platforms,” Elizabeth Sherwood-Randall, Biden’s top Homeland Security adviser, said during a 30-minute briefing on the strategy May 25. “The president has also called on Congress to remove the special immunity for online platforms and to impose stronger transparency requirements in order to ensure that tech companies are removing content that violates their terms of service.”

In the weeks before the rollout, a debate raged online and behind the scenes amid Jewish organizations and activists about how the plan would define antisemitism. Centrist and right-wing groups pushed for the plan to embrace the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition. Among its examples of anti-Jewish bigotry are those focusing on when Israel criticism is antisemitic, including when

“double standards” applied to Israel are antisemitic.

Advocates on the left say those clauses turn legitimate criticism of Israel into hate speech; instead, they pushed to include references to the Nexus Document, a definition authored by academics that recognizes IHRA but seeks to complement it by further elucidating how anti-Israel expression may be antisemitic in some instances, and not in others. Others sought to include the Jerusalem Declaration on Antisemitism, which rejects IHRA’s Israel-related examples.

In the end, the strategy said the U.S. government recognizes the IHRA definition as the “most prominent” and “appreciates the Nexus Document and notes other such efforts.”

A number of the centrist groups pressed for exclusive reference to IHRA, including the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations and the Simon Wiesenthal Center. Those groups praised the strategy and focused only on its embrace of IHRA. So did the Israeli ambassador to Washington, Michael Herzog.

“I would like to congratulate the Biden administration for publishing the first ever national strategy to combat antisemitism,” Herzog wrote on Twitter. “Thank you, @POTUS, for prioritizing the need to confront antisemitism in all its forms. We welcome the reembracing of @TheIHRA definition which is the gold standard definition of antisemitism.”

Some center-right groups like B’nai Brith International, StandWithUs, and the World Jewish Congress praised the strategy while expressing regret at the inclusion of Nexus. Rightwing groups, such as the Republican Jewish Coalition and Christians United for Israel condemned the rollout.

RJC said Biden “blew it” by not exclusively using the IHRA definition. The Brandeis Center, which defends proIsrael groups and students on campus, said the “substance doesn’t measure up.”

Groups on the left, however, broadly praised the strategy. “We call on our Jewish communities to seize this historic moment and build on this new strategy to ensure that the fight for Jewish safety is a fight for a better and safer America for all,” said a statement from six leftleaning groups spearheaded by Jews For Racial & Economic Justice.

Greenblatt said it was predictable that groups on the left would take the win and that groups on the right would grumble — but that it was also beside the point. IHRA, he said, was now U.S. policy.

“This document elevates and advances IHRA as the way that U.S. policy will be formulated going forward and across all of the agencies,” Greenblatt said. “That is a win.”

'This document elevates and advances IHRA as the way that U.S. policy will be formulated going forward and across all of the agencies.'

— UPCOMING EVENTS —

WEDNESDAYS

12:30-3:30PM

THURSDAYS

FRIDAY, JULY 21

5:30-8PM Shabbat Pool Party

FRIDAY, JULY 28

Last day of Camp Shalom

Save The Date

WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 16

5:30-7:30PM

Shabbat Pool Party

Friday, July 21, 5:30 to 8PM

Camp Shalom families and PJ families are invited to a fun evening of swimming and a kosher Shabbat dinner.

RSVP by July 18 at jewishdayton.org/events $18/family.

Five Seasons Family Sports Club, 4242 Clyo Road, Centerville, 45440

2023

$2,500+ STUDIO EXECUTIVE

Sam Levin Foundation

Bernard Rabinowitz

$1,000+ DIRECTOR

Gayle and Irvin Moscowitz

$500+ SCREENWRITER

Renate Frydman

Michael and Rochelle Goldstein Cultural Arts

Fund

The Gruenberg Family

Douglas Hauer and Jack Gilad

Robert and Vicky Heuman

Michael Jaffe and Judy Schwartzman

Barbara Mendelson

Cantor Andrea Raizen

Stephen Renas

The Rubi Girls

Sue Spiegel and Lisa Hanauer

$250+ ACTOR

Theodore Arnovitz Film Festival Fund

Michael and Patty Caruso

Enrique and Ruth Ellenbogen

Marni Flagel

Friends of the Community

Michael Herrlein

Linda and Steve Horenstein

Susan and David Joffe

Joseph and Marsha Johnston

Ed and Marcia Kress

Ann R. Laderman

Judy Lipton

Julie Liss-Katz and Marc Katz

David London and Kim Dinsmore

Dr. and Mrs. Donald Marger

Norman and Mary Rita Weissman

Joan and Peter H. Wells, in Memory of Rebecca Linville

$100+

SUPPORTING ACTOR

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Jack and Maryann Bernstein

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Stanley and Connie Blum

Dayton Optometric Center

Libby and Ken Elbaum

Tara and Adam Feiner

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Paula Gessiness and Jay Holland

Debby and Bob Goldenberg

Lynn and David Goldenberg

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2023 FILM FESTIVAL COMMITTEE MEMBERS

Judy Schwartzman – Chair

Elliot Ratzman – Vice Chair

Jack Bernstein

Connie Blum

Mike Caruso

Alan Chesen

Enrique Ellenbogen

Ruth Ellenbogen

Renate Frydman

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Michael Goldstein

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Meredith Levinson

Dave London

Gayle Moscowitz

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Andrea Raizen

Steve Renas

Marci Vandersluis

July 2023

The Catalyst

A transformational fellowship to inspire volunteerism in partnership with Jewish Federations of North America (JFNA) and Repair the World. The Jewish Federation of Greater Dayton was chosen to join a pilot cohort of 12 Federations. JFGD's project was aimed to involve a younger audience in volunteering through collaboration among YAD and all the Federation’s agencies.

A participant about Tikun Olam (repairing the world): "Hunger is a real problem. I will not talk about statistics; I just know we are making someone’s day just a little better.”

A participant about Nedivut (generosity): "Giving is fun and it definitely makes you feel good."

• 87 volunteers helped make this project a success.

• The project was a collaboration between YAD, JCC, JCRC, PJ Library and JFS*.

• Almost 300 outreach bags were created for isolated seniors, Care House, and FLOC (For Love of Children).

Volunteering +

tag = FUN We make volunteering fun

*Young Adults Division, Jewish Community Center, Jewish Community Relations Council, Jewish Family Services

Volunteering + Pizza = FUN

Volunteering + Scene 75 = FUN

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JEWISH FEDERATION of GREATER DAYTON & ITS AGENCIES

Legacies, Tributes, & Memorials

LINDA RUCHMAN MEMORIAL FUND

In memory of Harriet L. Crell Marshall and Judy Ruchman

HARRIS ABRAHAMS DJCC

CHILDREN’S THEATRE FUND

In honor of Chava Gilbert’s Bat Mitzvah

Jamie Pavlofsky

HOLOCAUST

PROGRAMMING FUND

In memory of Lawrence Kahn, who will never be forgotten

Robert B. Kahn

JOAN AND PETER WELLS AND REBECCA LINVILLE FAMILY, CHILDREN AND YOUTH FUND

In honor of the wedding of Jennifer Wells

Michael and Rochelle Goldstein

EARLY CHILDHOOD FUND

In memory of Audrey MacKenzie

Joyce and Jim Anderson

WEDNESDAY AUGUST 16

5:30 TO 7:30PM

WEDNESDAYS, 12:30–3:30PM

LESSONS TAUGHT BY:

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PLACE: CJCE

COST: Free

THURSDAYS, 3-6PM

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SCAN QR CODE HERE TO SEE THE TABLE IN ACTION

Classes

Beth Jacob Classes: Sundays, 10 a.m. in person & Wednesdays, 6 p.m. on Zoom: Beginners Hebrew w. Rabbi Agar. $100. Tuesdays, 7 p.m.: Torah Tuesdays on Zoom w. Rabbi Agar. Thursdays, 7 p.m.: Thursdays of Thought-Jewish Law on Zoom w. Rabbi Agar. 7020 N. Main St, Harrison Twp. bethjacobcong.org. Call to register, 937274-2149.

Temple Beth Or Classes: Sundays, 12:30 p.m.: Adult Hebrew. Thurs., July 13, 7 p.m.: Chai Mitzvah on Zoom. 5275 Marshall Rd., Wash. Twp. 937-435-3400.

Temple Israel Classes:

Tues., July 18 & 25, noon: Talmud Study in person. Wednesdays, 10 a.m.: Social Justice Commentary w. Rabbi Bodney-Halasz at home of Cathy Lieberman. Saturdays, 9:15 a.m.: Virtual Torah Study. Sat., July 8, 9:15 a.m.: Hybrid Torah Study. 130 Riverside Dr., Dayton. tidayton.org. 937496-0050.

Family

Temple Israel Prayer & Play: Sat., July 15, noon. Infants2nd grade. Contact Rabbi

Sobo, educator@tidayton.org. At Sycamore Trails.

Children & Teens

JCC Camp Shalom: Through July 28: 1st-7th grade. Contact Meryl Hattenbach, mhattenbach@jfgd.net or Marc Jacob, mjacob@jfgd.net. At Temple Beth Or, 5275 Marshall Rd., Wash. Twp.

JCC Camp Shalom & PJ Families Shabbat Pool Party: Fri., July 21, 5:30 p.m. $18 family. W. kosher Shabbat dinner. RSVP by July 18 at jewishdayton.org/events or 937-610-1555. At Five Seasons Family Sports Club, 4242 Clyo Rd., Centerville.

Chabad Camp Gan Israel: July 24-Aug. 11. Register at chabaddayton.com. 2001 Far Hills Ave., Oakwood. 937-6430770.

Adults

JCC Open Mah Jongg: Thursdays, 3-6 p.m. Free. Boonshoft CJCE, 525 Versailles Dr., Centerville. 937610-1555.

Temple Israel Living with Loss: Fri., July 14, 11 a.m. 130 Riverside Dr., Dayton. 937-496-0050.

Hadassah Sundae FunDay: Sun., July 16, 2 p.m. $10, includes sundae bar & 50/50 purse raffle. Email hadassahdayton@gmail.com. At One Lincoln Park, 590 Isaac Prugh Way, Kettering.

Temple Beth Or Exploration of the Jewish Short Story: Wed., July 26, 7 p.m. On Zoom. Register at templebethor.com or 937-435-3400.

Tisha B'Av

Beth Abraham & Beth Jacob

Tisha B’Av Services: Weds., July 26, 8:30 p.m. & Thurs., July 27, 8:30 a.m. At Beth Abraham Synagogue, 305 Sugar Camp Cir., Oakwood. 937-293-9520.

Temple Israel Newish to Jewish Tisha B’Av Program: Thurs., July 27, 7 p.m. At home of Marcia Cox. 937-4960050.

515 WAYNE AVE. DAYTON, OH | WHEATPENNYDAYTON.COM

We must stand up to Christian nationalism

By Elliot Ratzman

“In the scriptures, it says that children are a reward, they're a heritage, they're a blessing,” is how Ohio Rep. Melanie Miller explained her opposition to abortion. “They are not a burden, but they are a gift from God.” We have come to expect such anodyne sentiments misconstruing reproductive care as “anti-child” and “anti-family.”

However, last summer, The New York Times podcast, The Daily, interviewed an anti-abortion activist and pastor, Jeff Durbin, whose organization was committed to introducing legislation to charge women who received abortions — and the doctors who performed them — with homicide, possibly incurring the death penalty.

“It’s a command of God to rescue those who are being led to the slaughter,” he explained. “That’s in Proverbs Chapter 24. So that’s not a request or a suggestion.”

In many cases, anti-abortion and anti-LGBTQ extremists, who assert that life begins at conception, or that gender is binary and immutable, cite “Old Testament” passages to justify their positions.

Infuriating. Ohio's Jews must oppose this both as citizens committed to democratic pluralism, but also, clearly, publicly, and forcefully, as Jews.

After the Dobbs decision, we hear that anti-abortion extremists, nearly all Christian, who along with seeking a nationwide abortion ban, even of mifepristone, are also targeting legal birth control. We see the storm brewing here in Ohio in the attempt to thwart the reproductive freedom referendum.

It is not just abortion access that is under threat; at Pride parades and events all over the country, we have, for decades, seen messaging by anti-gay activists citing Leviticus or referencing Sodom and Gomorrah.

Organized hate to gay, lesbian, and transgender people continually refers to our Scriptures for support.

We are living in times when legislation against reproductive rights and gender-affirming care is being organized by the Christian right, imposing a fringe religious agenda on Jewish bodies, and citing “Old Testament” texts to add insult to injury.

Let’s connect the dots.

Crusades against abortion rights and transphobia are grounded in a Christian “supremacist” logic laced with antisemitic tropes. While the majority of mainstream Christians support repro-

ductive freedoms and are supportive of LGBTQ issues, the activist core of the religious right is, in essence, Christian nationalist. They reject the separation of church and state, recast the American project as the story of a “Christian nation,” and demonize liberal opponents with religiously tinged dog-whistles, framing them as harming children and killing babies — a new sort of blood libel.

Anti-abortion and anti-LGBTQ extremists explicitly seek a theocracy, a rule by alleged “laws of God.” Christian theocracy has a long bloody history, and Jews and other perceived heretics, eccentrics, and misfits do not fare well under such regimes.

Even the Catholic right, while not strictly Christian nationalists, insist, absurdly, that their narrow views on reproduction, contraception, and gender are grounded in “universal reason” accessible to all, rendering all others, including the vast majority of American Jews, “irrational.”

Christian nationalism also seeks to expand mass incarceration, criminalizing healthcare providers, parents, and those who seek abortion. In the name of “protecting children,” Christian right bills contain heavy penalties for families who seek proper reproductive and gender-affirming care. The claims that children are being murdered and mutilated by doctors draw on age-old Christian superstitions and antisemitic conspiracies.

Within the conversations of the Christian nationalist right, Jews are already being divided into “good” and “bad”— Soros and liberal Jews are demonized. Liberal Jews are scapegoated and their spaces are under threat as was the case with Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life murders.

By contrast, the Christian right is more than happy to embrace Jewish conservatives, the Ben Shapiros, Marc Levins, and Josh Mandels, who will buck Jewish values on social issues, and whose stated positions on abortion and gender-affirming care are indistinguishable from the Christian right.

As Jewish ethicist Michal Raucher points out, “Unless you support a person’s right to bodily autonomy, then you are supporting a system wherein someone else determines what you or anyone else can do with their bodies.”

At Bend the Arc: Jewish Action, we agree and insist that bodily autonomy is a Jewish value. This extends to trans people’s gender-affirming care.

Some Jews believe that making common cause with White Evangelicals

is “good for the Jews,” either through their desire for public funding of religious schools or in Christian support of the State of Israel. On June 8, AIPAC tweeted that it “mourns the passing” of Pat Robertson, one of the architects of the modern religious right. Commentators have insisted that, on Israel, American Jews will have to forego their social liberalism for this unholy alliance.

Other Jews may perceive the burden will fall primarily on poorer women, women of color, the disenfranchised, those who cannot access health care, or afford arrangements in states where abortion or gender-affirming care is legal. While this is true, it is our Jewish obligation to stand with those most vulnerable, both on principle and out of a larger sense of self-interest. Jewish history is familiar with the costs of social exclusion.

Our role as Jews, as an organized Jewish community, should not be to stand with the wicked and the powerful out of misplaced self-interest, but those populations at risk—women, people of color, LGBTQ—who are the targets of Christian nationalists and their anti-abortion, anti-“woke” legislative agenda.

True security for Jews means living in a pluralistic society, not one guided by toxic extremists who would use the state to deny us rights and freedoms.

There is plenty to do. In the short term, gathering petitions for Ohio’s Right to Reproductive Freedom amendment, mobilizing the vote for August, and opposing anti-trans and anti“woke” legislation.

In the medium term, we must join in coalition with others—African Americans, the LGBTQ community, liberal Christians—to contain the threat of Christian nationalism.

While disrupting pernicious legislation is crucial, while standing in coalitions is incumbent on us, we also need to turn to our Christian nationalist neighbors in dialogue and discussion.

By doing the hard work of engagement, we will get to the heart of these retrograde hostilities to social pluralism, religious freedom, and misunderstandings of the Hebrew Bible, and to accompany their journey out of hate toward mutual understanding and democratic pluralism.

Whether the efforts of the coalitions for reproductive freedom succeed or fail in their efforts this August and November, Jews must be central to the organized resistance to Christian nationalism in Ohio in the coming years.

Elliot Ratzman is a professor in the religion department at Earlham College in Richmond, Ind. He is part of the leadership team of Bend the Arc: Jewish Action — Ohio.

By Rabbi Rachel Isaacs

When you walk into the back door at my home away from home, Beth Israel Congregation of Waterville, Maine, you’re greeted with a faint scent of kosher matzah ball soup mixed with the slightest hint of mildew from a 70-yearold building that can’t quite manage its moisture anymore.

On your left, you’ll see the kitchen, the heart and soul of our congregation. It is often where the most invaluable Torah is taught and learned. That happened a few years ago, when my wife, Mel, was joined one snowy Saturday night by our rabbinical intern.

“Mel,” the intern asked, “do you always need to make this many sandwiches for the food pantry?”

“No,” she replied. “Demand has gone up over the past few years, but we always need to make double at the end of the month.”

“Why?” the intern asked. Mel stood there somewhat stunned by a question that should not have felt like a Talmudic riddle. How could he not know?

“Most of the clients we serve, some of whom are members of our own congregation,” she explained, “rely on WIC and EBT, government benefits that are issued at the beginning of each month and that often run out by the end, especially in families with children.”

“Oh, OK. I didn’t know that,” he said with a humility that endeared him so deeply to all of us at Beth Israel.

He didn’t understand the significance of the double portion at the end of the month, but before I came to Waterville, I didn’t either. I knew nothing about communities like Waterville. And what I thought I knew was not only wrong, but actually, in retrospect, was harmful and offensive. And if I did think about class differences when I lived in Brooklyn, I rarely thought about it in connection to the Jewish community.

But my ignorance and that of my student should not surprise us. How many of us really talk honestly about class? Class isn’t just about money. It’s a messy alchemy of financial wealth, social connections, political and cultural power, the opportunities people encounter in their lifetime, and the communal regard they receive. To put it more concretely, someone can have the money — through personal resources or scholarships — to attend a Jewish

Continued on Page 23

It is our Jewish obligation to stand with those most vulnerable, both on principle, and out of a larger sense of self-interest.

As a rabbi in a small town, I understand the class divide — and how to close it.

Dave London

The National Museum of the U.S. Air Force honored Dave London of Beavercreek as its 2022 Museum Volunteer of the Year for his dedication and excellence in serving the museum and the Air Force.

Dave received the honor at the museum's 41st Annual Volunteer Appreciation Banquet. The museum’s exhibits division nominated Dave, who has contributed more than 1,200 hours maintaining, updating, and creating exhibits, with "remarkable attention to detail."

Among the museum volunteers who received special recognition at the banquet was Steve Markman, who received the President’s Volunteer Service Award, which honors those who have completed 4,000 hours or more of volunteer service.

Courtney Cummings will play the role of Baroness Elsa Schrader in Miami Valley Symphony Orchestra and Dayton Playhouse's production of The Sound of Music, July 21-23 at the Arbogast Performing Arts Center in Troy.

Send your Mazel Tov announcements to mweiss@jfgd.net.

Volunteering at JCC's Camp Shalom this summer are two shluchim (emissaries) from Israel: Itay Cohen, 22, (L) from Haifa, who recently completed his IDF service; and Harel Ben Yosef, 24, of Kiryat Ata, a city in Israel's Haifa district. Their stay here is coordinated by the JCC Association and the Jewish Agency for Israel.

Brennan, the grandson of Robert Kahn and the late Gertrude Kahn of Kettering, has reached a remarkable milestone in his life. He recently graduated with a bachelor of science degree in business administration, specializing in management and marketing, from the prestigious University of South Carolina. Brennan's career is flourishing as a digital marketing consultant at PureCars, a highly regarded firm located in Atlanta.

The bride-to-be, Kara Chambers, holds a special place in the hearts of her family, including her grandparents Gary Winisky and the late Audrey Winisky of Lavonia, Mich. Kara's educational journey has been commendable, culminating in the attainment of a bachelor of science degree in business management from Kennesaw State University and a bachelor of science degree in actuarial science from Georgia State University. Currently, she excels as a senior strategic sourcing analyst at AXIS Capital, a renowned company based in Alpharetta, Ga.

Brennan and Kara, a couple radiating with joy and eager anticipation, are delighted to share their plans for a Summer 2024 wedding. As their love story continues to unfold, their families eagerly await the union of their beloved children. Congratulations to Brennan Kahn and Kara Chambers on their engagement! May their journey towards matrimony be filled with everlasting love, boundless happiness, and treasured memories.

On May 13, Jennifer Wells of Noblesville, Ind. married Jose Ramos at Longboat Beach, Fla. Bridesmaids were her nieces, Madeline Linville, Lauren Linville, Gabby Linville and Erika Ramos, daughter of the groom. Officiating was her cousin, Rachel Kirkpatrick. Jennifer's parents are Joan and Peter Wells. Her sister was Rebecca Michelle Linville of blessed memory. Jose's groomsmen were his three sons.

Dr. Ronald Kahn (Mary) of Centerville, and Diane Kahn (Dennis Hager) of Charleston, S.C., along with Michelle and Reed Chambers of White, Ga., are thrilled to announce the engagement of their children, Brennan Kahn and Kara Chambers.

Jonathan Shtilman, shown here with Rabbi Karen Bodney-Halasz, was confirmed at Temple Israel on Erev Shavuot, May 25.

Brennan Kahn and Kara Chambers

The speakers for Beth Jacob Congregation's Third Annual Jewish Women Inspiring Jewish Women Luncheon on June 4 (L to R): Michele Serotkin, Linda Blum, Susan Gruenberg, Ann Berger, Jenny Caplan, and Chaya Vidal.

Devorah and Rabbi Nochum Mangel honor their children at Chabad's 30th Anniversary Dinner, June 4. (L to R): Chaya, Rikki, Lazer, Schneur, and Sara. Not pictured: Mendel Mangel.

Rabbi Levi and Rochel Simon honor their children at Chabad's 30th Anniversary Dinner, June 4. (L to R): Shmuel, Moshe, Yoel, Chaya, Yisroel, and Menachem.

CONGREGATIONS

Beth Abraham Synagogue

Conservative

Rabbi Aubrey L. Glazer

Cantor/Dir. of Ed. & Programming Andrea Raizen

Fridays, 5 p.m.

Saturdays, 9:30 a.m.

305 Sugar Camp Circle, Oakwood. 937-293-9520. bethabrahamdayton.org

Beth Jacob Congregation

Traditional

Rabbi Leibel Agar

Saturdays, 9:30 a.m. Evening minyans upon request.

7020 N. Main St., Dayton. 937-274-2149. bethjacobcong.org

Temple Anshe Emeth

Reform

320 Caldwell St., Piqua.

Fri., July 14, 7:30 p.m. led by Steve Wyke and Mary 'Mahira' Rogers. Contact Steve Shuchat, 937-7262116, ansheemeth@gmail.com. ansheemeth.org

Temple Beth Or Reform

Rabbi Judy Chessin

Asst. Rabbi/Educator Ben Azriel

Fridays, 6:30 p.m. 5275 Marshall Rd., Wash. Twp. 937-435-3400. templebethor.com

Temple Beth Sholom

Reform

Rabbi Haviva Horvitz

610 Gladys Dr., Middletown. 513-422-8313. templebethsholom.net

Temple Israel Reform

Senior Rabbi Karen BodneyHalasz. Rabbi/Educator Tina Sobo

Fri., July 7, 6 p.m.

Fridays, July 14, 21, 28, 6:30 p.m. Sat., July 8, 10:30 a.m. 130 Riverside Dr., Dayton. 937-496-0050. tidayton.org

Temple Sholom

Reform

Rabbi Cary Kozberg 2424 N. Limestone St., Springfield. 937-399-1231. templesholomoh.com

ADDITIONAL SERVICES

Chabad of Greater Dayton

Rabbi Nochum Mangel

Associate Rabbi Shmuel Klatzkin

Youth & Prog. Dir. Rabbi Levi Simon. Beginner educational service Saturdays, 9:30 a.m. 2001 Far Hills Ave. 937-643-0770. chabaddayton.com

Yellow Springs Havurah Independent

Antioch College Rockford Chapel. Contact Len Kramer, 937-5724840 or len2654@gmail.com.

RELIGION

Overdue or overdone? Two scholars hope to secure the legacy of Jewish Renewal

By Andrew Silow-Carroll, JTA

Rabbi Arthur Green gave the commencement address May 18 at the Jewish Theological Seminary, the Conservative flagship where he was ordained 56 years earlier.

His talk was mostly a response to political turmoil in Israel, but he also urged the graduates to pioneer a “new Judaism.”

“I had the good fortune, as a young seeker, to run into the Jewish mystical tradition, especially the writings of the early Chasidic masters,” said Green, who taught Jewish mysticism and Chasidic theology at Brandeis, the University of Pennsylvania, and Hebrew College. “I have been working for half a century to articulate what could simply be called a Judaism for adults living in freedom. I am now near the end of my creative course. But you young people are just at the beginning of yours. We need you to enroll — however you can — in the task of the generations, that of re-creating Judaism.”

That is the language of Jewish Renewal, with which Green, 82, is deeply identified. Renewal isn’t a denomination, really, but a movement that was born in and reflects the 1960s and 1970s counterculture. Baby boomer Jews disillusioned with the large suburban synagogues that they considered soulless embraced Jewish practice that was spiritual, egalitarian, environmentally conscious, and largely lay-led.

Renewal’s signature institution was the havurah — intimate prayer, study, and social fellowships. Its soundtrack comprised the liturgical

July Tammuz/Av

Shabbat Candle Lightings

July 7: 8:49 p.m.

July 14: 8:46 p.m.

July 21: 8:42 p.m.

July 28: 8:36 p.m.

melodies composed by the hippy-ish, “neoChasidic” Orthodox rabbi, Shlomo Carlebach. And its rebbe — to the degree that an egalitarian movement had a central figure — was Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi (1924-2014), a refugee from Hitler’s Europe and former Lubavitcher Chasid whose Judaism channeled the spiritual “New Age” of the 1970s.

These ideas and approaches may be familiar to you even if you’ve never heard of Renewal. Rare is the synagogue that doesn’t try to offer a more intimate spiritual experience for its worshippers, to shrink the distance between pulpit and pew, to incorporate new Jewish music and, in non-Orthodox and a number of Modern Orthodox synagogues, to increase the participation of women in prayer and study.

Those prayer shawls with rainbow stripes?

That was a Schachter-Shalomi innovation.

it as one of the most influential if not defining Jewish movements of the last 50 years.

If the Jewish Renewal movement revitalized synagogue life in the last century, could it also be blamed for its struggles in this one?

How a counterculture movement came to be absorbed by the mainstream is the subject of a paper in a new collection, The Future of Judaism in America, edited by Jerome Chanes and Mark Silk. Chanes is the co-author, with Shaul Magid, of the chapter on Renewal that claims

Torah Portions

July 1: Chukat-Balak (Num. 19:1-25:9)

July 8: Pinchas (Num. 25:10-30:1)

July 15: Matot-Masei (Num. 30:2-36:13)

July 22: Devarim (Deut. 1:1-3:22)

July 29: Vaetchanan (Deut. 3:23-7:11)

“While Jewish Renewal has never boasted a large number of members, its influence on the larger American Jewish community has been significant, in terms of its liturgical experimentation, its revisions of ritual and its overall metaphysics,” they write. “It has also served as an ongoing conduit of information and inspiration from its own past — the havurah movement, radical politics, feminism — to the next generation.”

I came to the paper after giving a lecture at my own synagogue on The Crisis of the American Synagogue. I spoke of declining affiliation rates,

plunging enrollment in supplementary schools, the shrinking number of non-Orthodox synagogues. Most of my adult life has been spent in synagogues, havurot, and institutions heavily influenced by Renewal. If the Jewish Renewal movement revitalized synagogue life in the last century, could it also be blamed for its struggles in this one?

Magid, a fellow in Jewish studies at Dartmouth College, and Chanes, an adjunct professor of Jewish Studies at Baruch College, presented their chapter at a conference dedicated to the release of the book, held May 23-24 at Trinity College in Hartford, Conn.

Magid made the claim — considered bold, at this small gathering of Jewish historians — that the “three most important Jewish figures in 20th century America Judaism” were Mordecai Kaplan, Menachem Mendel Schneerson, and Shachter-Shalomi.

Kaplan, the founder of Reconstructionist Judaism, downplayed the supernatural element of Judaism and instead called it a “civilization” defined by its people and culture.

Schneerson, the Lubavitcher Rebbe, turned an insular Orthodox sect into an outreach movement that promotes ritual practice among secular Jews.

Schachter-Shalomi combined their visions and imagined a Judaism, said Magid, that “is no longer used as a tool for Jewish survival, but rather as a

Fast of the 17th of Tammuz

July 6

Commemorating numerous calamities that fell on the Jewish people on this day, this fast is observed from dawn until dusk. Among the calamities were the breach of the walls of Jerusalem by the Babylonians in 586 B.C.E. and by the Romans in 70 C.E. Marks the beginning of the Three Weeks, a period of mourning for the destruction of the First and Second Temples in Jerusalem, culminating on the Ninth of Av.

Tisha B’Av

Ninth Day of Av • July 27

The day of fasting to mark the destruction of the First and Second Temples, the loss of Jewish sovereignty, and numerous other tragedies said to have fallen on this day. The Book of Eicha (Lamentations) is read.

Rabbi Arthur Green delivers the commencement address at Jewish Theological Seminary in Manhattan, May 18.

project for Jews to become part of the global community, to contribute to the global community.”

Environmental awareness became a hallmark of Renewal, as did absorbing influences from other religions, especially Eastern ones. “He really did take Schneerson’s teaching about bringing Judaism to the streets and expanded it further to bring Judaism to the mosque, to bring Judaism to the monastery, to create another way of being Jewish which was not afraid of the world.”

In an interview with Magid before the conference, I asked if he and Chanes might be exaggerating Renewal’s influence.

“I’m sure there will be people who will claim that case, but I don’t think so, no,” he said. Magid acknowledges that few people regard themselves as direct disciples of Schachter-Shalomi, and yet, like Kaplan, his influence is felt widely and deeply. “Each one of them had a futuristic vision,” he said. “They were able to cultivate a way of thinking about Judaism that was before their time and that eventually came into being in many ways.”

One of those skeptical of Schachter-Shalomi’s influence is Jonathan Sarna, professor of Jewish history at Brandeis, who gave the keynote talk at the conference. In his response to the panel on Renewal, Sarna doubted Schachter-Shalomi was as influential as Carlebach, the Conservative theologian Abraham Joshua Heschel, or the Modern Orthodox philosopher Joseph Soloveitchik. “I don’t think we should delude ourselves into thinking that every innovator is a new Moses,” Sarna said.

Benjamin Steiner, a visiting assistant professor in religion at Trinity, also wondered if Renewal had spread “everywhere in the country, or only in large urban areas with critical masses of educated Jewish students.”

Listening to Magid’s response to such caveats, I thought of the quote often attributed to music producer Brian Eno: “The first Velvet Underground album only sold 10,000 copies, but everyone who bought it formed a band.”

Renewal’s influence spread beyond its founding havurot

because many of their principals went on to important positions in academia and Jewish organizations, including Green, Rabbi Everett Gendler, Sharon Strassfeld, John Ruskay, and Rabbi Arthur Waskow.

Small but influential Gen X and millennial institutions also bear Renewal’s fingerprints: the Jewish Emergent Network of independent congregations; New York’s Romemu and B’nai Jeshurun synagogues; egalitarian, traditional-style yeshivas like Hadar. Bayit, with a number of principals associated with ALEPH: the Alliance for Jewish Renewal, is an online artist’s collective and publisher of Jewish books, including a

past 50 years. In her chapter, she credits the “active partnership” of women in revitalizing American Judaism: Women’s religious expressions, she writes, “create social contexts and are distinguished by a communal dynamic, quite unlike the isolated, personalized Jewish experience, which some have claimed defines contemporary Jewishness.”

I came away convinced that Renewal has had an outsized influence on Jewish life, especially for baby boomers like me. But I also wondered if its outward-facing, syncretic Judaism failed to instill a sense of obligation to Jewish forms, institutions, and peoplehood — unlike, by contrast, Orthodoxy in all of its booming present-day manifestations.

I asked Magid in what ways Renewal might have fallen short.

forthcoming Shabbat prayer book.

One of its contributors, Rabbi Rachel Barenblat, who was ordained by ALEPH, has argued that the influence of Renewal is felt even within Orthodoxy.

“If you look at the Open Orthodoxy movement, if you look at the ordination of women as maharats (by Yeshivat Maharat, a women’s seminary), the future of women as rabbinic leaders in Orthodoxy is already here,” she said on an episode of the Judaism Unbound podcast. “It’s not everywhere, but someday it will be.”

Magid and Chanes similarly claim a number of leading Jewish feminists as products of Renewal — they mention Paula Hyman, Eva Fogelman, and Judith Plaskow — although some in the audience at Trinity insisted they gave Renewal too much credit for a movement by and for women.

In her essay in the Chanes/ Silk book, Sylvia Barack Fishman of Brandeis University offers a counter-narrative of Jewish innovation over the

“Part of its failure is that it is very, very anchored to a certain kind of American counterculture that no longer exists. It hasn’t really moved into a 2.0 phase,” he said. “There are students and staff members that are still very tied to (Schachter-Shalomi’s) vision, and then there’s a younger generation, Gen Z, who have read some of his work and they’re influenced by it, but they really are thinking much more about, well, how does this translate into a post-countercultural America?”

Magid also feels the ideas of Renewal will become more important as American Jews’ attachment to Israel wanes, and the living memory of the Holocaust recedes.

If Rabbi Green’s speech at the JTS graduation was any indication, then the ideals of Jewish Renewal still hold their appeal.

“We need a new Judaism in America…where we also have the fresh air needed to create it,” he said. “How do we move forward…in articulating a Jewish theology for today that is both intellectually honest and spiritually rewarding?”

The audience of future Jewish leaders and teachers leapt to its feet.

Andrew Silow-Carroll is editor at large of the New York Jewish Week and managing editor for ideas for JTA.

Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi (L), one of the founders of the Jewish Renewal movement, with his friend Ram Dass, the spiritual teacher and writer born Richard Albert.

Joan Halifax/Wikimedia Commons

With Totally Kosher, Chanie Apfelbaum aims for a wider audience

By Rachel Ringler, New York Jewish

Week

Chanie Apfelbaum’s newest cookbook, Totally Kosher, is filled with inventive, flavor-packed recipes, like Miso Matzah Ball Soup, Berbere Brisket, and Pad Chai, a shrimp-free version of the Thai staple.

But while the book is designed for kosher-keeping observant Jews like herself, Apfelbaum — who boasts 101,000 followers on Instagram and runs the popular Jewish lifestyle blog Busy in Brooklyn — had a larger audience in mind. Her first book, Millennial Kosher, published in 2018, is now in its sixth printing. With her second effort, however, Apfelbaum said she wanted to reach a larger demographic. “I wanted to reach people that don’t necessarily know what kosher is.”

That’s how Apfelbaum, 42, ended up publishing Totally Kosher with Clarkson Potter, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group and publisher of cookbooks by culinary megastars like Ina Garten and Alison Roman. When Raquel Pelzel, the editorial director of cookbooks at Clarkson Potter approached Apfelbaum in 2019 about writing a cookbook — pitched as a “celebration of kosher,” as Apfelbaum recalls it — she immediately said yes.

“I was so excited,” Apfelbaum said.

“We hadn’t published a kosher cookbook in a really long time and, with Instagram and social media, there is obviously a massive kosher community,” Pelzel said. “To not publish a kosher cookbook seemed like a huge omission and a hole on our list.”

Photo or no photo?

Apfelbaum’s decision to go with a mainstream publisher meant the book would appear in “regular” bookstores — and not just Judaica stores — but the change meant some new challenges. One hurdle was the publisher’s decision to feature a large, color photo of Apfelbaum on the book’s rear cover — a decision that could be considered controversial in the Haredi Orthodox world, where many publishers refrain from showing photos of women in the interest of modesty. Apfelbaum’s photo does not appear anywhere in Millennial Kosher, published by Artscroll/Shaar Press, which serves the Haredi market.

“If my photo is on the back of the book, maybe the Judaica stores really won’t take it,” Apfelbaum recalled, thinking when she was sent a mockup of the cover. “I called friends in the publishing industry. I called Judaica shops and asked if my photo is on the back cover, are you going to carry the book?” The answers, Apfelbaum said, were mixed.

And yet, she didn’t back down or ask for a change in the cover. “I was like — you know what? I’m doing this for my daughters, I’m doing this for the women out there,” she said. “There is nothing wrong with having a photo of a Jewish woman on the back of the book. I’m just doing it, and I stand behind it.”

Fortunately, validation came quickly. “When I walk down the street in my neighborhood (Crown Heights), I pass Hamafitz Judaica and they have two books in the window — one of the front cover of my book, depicting my corned beef ramen, and one of the back.”

Apfelbaum’s mother, Devorah Halberstam, a prominent member of Crown Heights’ Chabad community, couldn’t be prouder. Her first-born son, Ari Halberstam, was killed in 1994 when a Lebaneseborn man shot at a van filled with Chabad-Lubavitch students, killing Ari and wounding three others. In the

aftermath, Halberstam fought tirelessly to have his murder formally classified as a terrorist attack, which eventually happened in 2005. She was also a founder of the Jewish Children’s Museum, which was dedicated to the memory of her son.

Of all people, Halberstam understands the power of a photo. “At Ari’s yahrzeit (anniversary of his death), I tweet things out,” Halberstam said, noting that her son died 29 years ago. “I got 85,000 responses because I put his picture up there. Pictures make you stop. They make you pause.”

Photos, she added, “personalize everything. A story is not a story without pictures. It makes it real. It comes to life.”

Apfelbaum agrees, feeling that her decision to include photos of herself, her boys in their tzitzit (ritual prayer fringes), and her children around a table, is “a huge step in the Orthodox world.”

“I’m doing this because I think this is something that has to change,” she said. “Jewish women should be celebrated just like men.”

Apfelbaum’s culinary journey began in 2002 when she was 22 and newly married. Her mother had been the chef in the Halberstam home, and Apfelbaum was raised on what she calls “brown food” — matzah ball soup, gefilte fish, potato kugel. She came to her marriage skilled as a web designer but not knowing how to boil an egg. Her Syrian/Argentinian/ Jewish mother-in-law introduced her to ingredients like rosewater and dishes like empanadas, piquing Apfelbaum’s interest.

“When I started cooking, I was always very artistic and looking for ways to put color in my food and plate it nicely,” said Apfelbaum. “I would make my mom’s recipes. But when I started hosting friends and putting out a spread, with menus and plated meals, I remember thinking, ‘Wow, this is beautiful. Such a beautiful way to express my artistic side.’”

When Apfelbaum left her web design job after the birth of her third child in 2010, she poured her creative juices into her nascent cooking and photography skills, and her family encouraged her to start her own blog.

In 2011, she launched Busy in Brooklyn — at the time she was raising three children under 5, running a home, and teaching Hebrew while taking knitting and crochet classes.

Her first post, in January of that year, was of sautéed chicken cutlets topped with canned dark sweet cherries. Later that year, she gave her first cooking class for the teachers at her children’s school.

In 2013, she enrolled in a program at the Center for Kosher Culinary Arts (now closed). “I started to seek out different cultural dishes and put my kosher Jewish spin on it,” she said. She also took a photography class.

The following year, her recipe for Drunken Hasselback Salami — a whole salami sliced, coated in a sauce of jam, brandy and mustard, then baked until crispy — went viral. Later that year, she was featured on the front page of the Wall Street Journal for her creative spins on the traditional Ashkenazi Chanukah treat, latkes. In 2015, she made the first of many out-of-town food demonstrations, traveling to Montréal to prepare harissa chicken sliders with preserved lemon carrot slaw and a marble halvah mousse.

These recipes, among others, made it into Millennial Kosher. And although Apfelbaum swore she would never write another cookbook because of all the work involved, that call in 2019 from Clarkson Potter made

her rethink her decision. Apfelbaum’s global recipes — such as Nachos Bassar, nachos with hummus, Israeli salad and pickles — and how she “bounces off of trends that are happening in social media, in restaurants,” as Pelzel describes her, are what drew the mainstream publisher to Apfelbaum

“From the first time I met Chanie, I understood why she was the obvious choice to make kosher cool,” Apfelbaum’s mentor and fellow cookbook author Adeena Sussman said. “She’s wildly passionate about her food and her Judaism, and makes no apologies for either.”

“Add to that her natural warmth, sense of humor and willingness to share the ups and downs of life with her followers, and you’ve truly got a recipe for success,” Sussman added.

'So much more than recipes'

And there have been plenty of ups and downs: After signing her book contract in 2019, Apfelbaum became a single mom due to divorce. She was also hospitalized with Covid (as was one of her kids) and lost her sense of smell and taste, at a time when nobody knew that this was a side effect of the virus.

Fortunately, Apfelbaum has since regained her sense of taste and smell, and she remains very busy in Brooklyn — and elsewhere. In July, she leads a food tour in Italy where her group will make gelato, hunt for truffles, and taste olive oil. She has just come out with a line of her own spices called TK (as in Totally Kosher) Spices. Her first two products are the Yemenite spice mix, hawaijj — one for savory foods and one for coffee, which has a sweet profile. With Totally Kosher now in its third printing, she looks to finally hire an assistant and find work space outside of her home.

“There were many times I said I don’t have the emotional bandwidth and strength to do this book — I wanted to give up,” Apfelbaum said. “My friends believed in me and pushed me and made it happen. When I look at this book, I see so much more than recipes. It was really a journey for me.”

Brooklyn-based food writer Chanie Apfelbaum hopes to reach a broad audience with her second cookbook, Totally Kosher.

Animals tell tales

The Power of Stories Series

Every day, the renowned medieval scholar Maimonides visited Egypt’s sultan, whom he served as a court physician. During the long donkey ride, Maimonides voiced his thoughts aloud and the donkey would listen and reflect.

“You must accept the truth from whatever source it comes,” the rabbi might say.

may originate in Genesis 1, when God creates nefesh chaya, living animals. God then says, “Let us make man in our image, according to our likeness.”

In our image may refer to the animals.” writes Dennis Prager, author of The Rational Bible

“This man is physiologically both animal-like and man-like.”

In Genesis 2, God permanently distinguishes humans from animals by breathing into the man nishmat chayim, a transcendent living soul.

enterprising merchants set up along travel routes and supplied returning Diaspora Jews with all their needs. Fearing the returnees would reclaim their ancestral lands, locals claimed the mushrooming Jewish population would openly revolt.

ward than that.”

Said Chananya, “It is enough for us that we entered this nation in peace and came out in peace.”

Tabletop lesson. Plodding wearily, a skinny lion met a fat dog who mocked him.

head, it sees its face reflected in the water. Thinking it’s another horse, it stomps, hoping to scare the other away and preserve the water for itself. But the horse’s fear is groundless — the river can water more than one horse.

Or, “The purpose of the Law is to develop self-discipline so we might keep distant from either extreme.” Or, “Silence is a fence around wisdom.”

Upon his return, in between his rabbinic duties, he would treat his own patients and write late into the night.

Exhausted, Maimonides wondered if riding a horse would save time. Sure enough, with a speedy horse, the rabbi’s travels were shorter, and he had more hours for his work at home.

But his donkey missed hearing the rabbi’s wisdom, and the rabbi soon discovered he no longer had time for just thinking.

Originating in oral tradition, Jewish stories and texts involving animals have spanned its nearly 4,000-year history. Biblical and Yiddish narratives. Parables, proverbs, and riddles. Chasidic tales and fox fables. Even legal texts and prayers.

Animals are liberally peppered throughout Jewish literary works.

Why animals? The answer

However, humans still retain their kinship and singular fascination with animals, the only other animate elements of Creation.

We can see ourselves in the personalities and actions of animals. That makes them ideal characters for myriad literary genres.

“Animals can bring silliness and incongruity to a story,” notes children’s author Mary Gibbs, “making it more enjoyable,” and communicating important life lessons and big ideas in memorable ways. “But,” she continues, “they also add a degree of emotional distance for the reader, which is important when the story message is personal, painful or powerful.”

Animal characters can even provide a voice to those who are not free to speak.

Because they have universal appeal — across ages, cultures, social rankings, time, and place — animal tales allow everyone to join in the conversation.

Peaceful pursuit. When Emperor Hadrian decreed the rebuilding of Jerusalem’s Temple,

Literature to share

The Rabbi and His Donkey by Susan Tarcov. Every day, the great Rabbi Moses ben Maimon traveled to visit the Sultan in Cairo, according to his diary. While riding his donkey, he would think aloud, and the donkey listened and learned. But the journey was long—would a horse be better? Fittingly illustrated in the ancient arabesque style of the region, this children’s picture book shares some of Maimonides’ ideas as well as a lesson he learns from his donkey.

The Other Family Doctor by Karen Fine. Despite an allergy to cats, Karen Fine always knew she wanted to be a vet. Inspired by her grandfather, Oupa, a compassionate doctor who paid house calls to his human patients, Fine keeps the importance of understanding her patients’ stories — both animal and human — at the forefront of her care. Woven throughout the memoir are tales of her own pets, the animals she has treated, and the lessons they have taught her.

They advised the emperor to order the Jews to change either the Temple location or its dimensions, “and they will recant on their own!”

But the Jewish population grew mutinous, so the sages turned to Rabbi Yehoshua ben Chananya, who spoke to the people.

"A lion was devouring prey and a bone got stuck in its throat. It said, ‘I will give a reward to anyone who removes it.’ An Egyptian heron put its long beak into the mouth of the lion and extracted the bone.

"It then said to the lion, ‘Give me my reward.’ The lion responded, 'Tell others, "I went into the mouth of the lion in peace and I came out in peace"' — and there is no greater re-

“Where are you going? Why are you so thin? It would be easy for you to be among men, to guard and carry and serve. Then you could eat to your heart’s content, even as I, their servant, am fat and no wanderer. Even when they bind me with ropes, meat and bread are my food.

Answered the lion; “Your pride is the pride of one sated with food, therefore you don’t discern between your honor and your disgrace. Shall I be like you, bound with chains? Better for me to be without a ruler and skinny than to be bound to the table of others.”

Horse sense. A fellow once went to Reb Meir of Premishlan for advice about a competitor who was robbing him of his livelihood.

“Have you noticed that when a horse goes to the river to drink, it strikes its hoof against the bank?” the rebbe began. “When the horse bends its

“You are like this horse. You imagine that the river of God’s bounty cannot sustain both you and another, so you’re stomping your hooves to scare away an imagined competitor. You cannot guarantee your own success; all you can do is maximize your chances. Run your business as wisely as you can and know that whatever comes to you is decreed in heaven. Your only true competition is the reflection of self you see in the river.”

Rabbi's advice. Living in a crowded, busy, noisy hut with his expanding family, a despairing man turned to the rabbi for help.

“Bring in the chickens,” the rabbi counseled. On another day, “Bring in the goat.” Then, “Bring in a cow.”

Now along with the more crowding, bustle, and clamor, there were clucking birds, an uncontrollable goat, and a trampling cow.

“Rabbi! It’s worse than a nightmare!”

“Send the animals out,” he counseled. That night, the man and his family slept soundly in the roomy, peaceful, quiet little hut. It could always be worse.

June 16–September 10, 2023

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D.C.’s new Jewish museum highlights Jews who shaped nation’s capital Arts&Culture

By Ron Kampeas, JTA

WASHINGTON — Washington, D.C.’s new Jewish museum features at least two notorious women from history.

One is Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the first Jewish woman to serve as a Supreme Court justice, who was dubbed “Notorious RBG” late in her life by a cluster of fans. When the Capital Jewish Museum opened in June, it launched with Ginsburg at its center when a traveling exhibit on her life had its final stop here.

The other is the 19th-century figure Eugenia Levy Phillips, whom the museum characterizes as “notorious” without irony.

“One of D.C.’s most notorious Confederate sympathizers, Eugenia Levy Phillips (1819-1902) came to town in 1853 with her congressman husband, Philip Phillips (1807-1884) of Alabama,” one of the exhibits says. “Eugenia, a spy, delivered Union military plans and maps to Confederate President Jefferson Davis.”

Another description of Levy Phillips in the museum is more straightforward: “SPIED for the CONFEDERACY,” it says below her photo.

The late justice and spy are two of an assemblage of notable Jews throughout history who grace the Capital Jewish Museum, which opened June 9 in northwest Washington’s Judiciary Square neighborhood, which was a local center of Jewish life more than a century ago. Showcasing the warts-and-all history of Jews in and around the nation’s capital — both prominent officials and ordinary denizens of the city — is the point of the museum, its directors say.

A Talmudic approach

“Jews are a Talmudic people, we like to argue, we like to look at different sides of a story,” Ivy Barsky, the museum’s interim executive director, said at a tour for members of the media. Sarah Leavitt, the museum curator, involved the Jewish idea of makhloket l’shem shamayim, Hebrew for “an argument for the sake of heaven” — in other words, for sacred purposes.

“We’re telling the story in this museum in a Jewish way,” Leavitt said. “So that it’s not just that we might not agree, but actually the disagreement is important and preserving those disagreements is important.”

Barsky, who was previously the CEO of the National Museum of American Jewish History in Philadelphia, said that in

relating the local history of Washington’s Jews, the new museum fills a gap. Unlike many of the country’s other longstanding Jewish communities, Washington attracted Jews not because it was a port but because it was the center of government. Like the district’s broader community, Jews in the area have been prone to transitioning in and out of the city.

“Lots of our stories start in other places, with folks who end up in D.C.,” Barsky said. “This is a unique community, especially because the local business is the federal government.”

Jews have been in Washington since it was established in 1790, and the area now includes some 300,000 Jews, according to a 2017 study. The museum chronicles that community’s expansion from the capital to the Maryland and the Virginia suburbs, driven at times by Jews joining “White flight” — when White residents left newly integrated neighborhoods — and other times by restrictions that barred Jews from certain areas.

Larger historical events have also at times played a role: The Jewish population in the city grew in the 1930s and 1940s because of the expansion of government during President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s New Deal and World War II.

An exhibition asks visitors “Who are you?” and

features a diverse range of Washington Jews, past and present, as well as others with quirky biographies, including Tom King, a CIA spy who became a comic book writer.

The changing fortunes of American Jewry are embedded in the date the museum opened, June 9: On that date in 1876, Ulysses Grant was the first president to attend synagogue services, when he helped dedicate the new building of the Adas Israel congregation. Fourteen years earlier, as a Union general, he infamously expelled the Jews of Paducah, Ky., accusing them of being war speculators. President Abraham Lincoln rescinded the order, which has been described as “the most sweeping anti-Jewish regulation in all of American history,”

Esther Safran Foer, the museum’s president and the former executive director of the city’s historic Sixth & I Synagogue, said Grant’s presence in 1876 at the Adas Israel building was emblematic of the upward trajectory of American Jewry. “He sat here for more than three hours in the heat, no air conditioning, and he even made a generous personal contribution,” she said.

The museum’s core is the 1876 building that Grant helped dedicate. It has since been physically moved in its entirety three times in order to preserve it, most recently in 2019 as part of the initiative to build the museum, which began in 2017. The museum’s upper floor reproduces the sanctuary, with the original pews. Its walls, however, are renovated: they display an audiovisual chronicle of the area’s Jews.

The museum’s permanent exhibition aims to traverse that history in other engaging ways as well. The same section that highlights Levy Phillips’ adventures (including her diary’s account of her arrest — “I am not in the least surprised Sir” she told the agent who had come to take her away) also mentions Rabbi Jacob Frankel, who was commissioned by Lincoln during the Civil War as the first Jewish military chaplain.

A photo of Jews and African Americans joined in a bid to desegregate a local amusement park in the early 1960s gets equal billing with one of Sam Eig, a Jewish developer who in 1942 advertised the new Maryland suburb he built as “ideally located and sensibly restricted,” a euphemism for not allowing Black people to buy property.

Interactive exhibits include a Seder table that encourages guests to debate immigration, Israel and civil rights. Parts of the museum’s exhibition recounts Jewish debates over pivotal issues such as those and others, including abortion.

Ginsburg is the museum’s first main attraction, and it makes clear she was a role model. The special exhibition on her life and career includes a glamorous photo of the two Jewish women who coined the "Notorious RBG” nickname, Shana Knizhnik and Irin Carmon. Visitors can go into a closet and don duplicates of Ginsburg’s judicial robes.

One of the first events is on July 12, when museum goers will join in fashioning the special "I Dissent” collars that Ginsburg would famously wear over her robes when she was ready to dissent from the bench.

Jonathan Edelman, the museum’s collections curator, described one prized collection — items he persuaded disability rights advocate Judy Heumann to donate before she died in March.

“Judy’s is a Washington story,” he said. “She came to this city first as an outsider as a protester protesting for disability rights. And then she came back to the city as an insider working within the government to make change both in D.C. government and in the federal government.”

'We're telling the story in this museum in a Jewish way.'

The interior of an 1876 synagogue that is the core of the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington D.C.

Ron Sachs/Consolidated News Photos

An exhibit on Ruth Bader Ginsburg at the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington D.C.

Ron Sachs/Consolidated News Photos

Class divide

Continued from Page 16

summer camp. But class is also knowing which brands everyone else is wearing, knowing where to access those in-fashion clothes, and being able to own them.

The trickiness of class is what brought one of my Maine rabbinic colleagues to warn me about sending the kids in my congregation to major Jewish summer camps. “Even if you can get them the scholarship, Rachel,” she said, “the teasing they might endure might not make it worth it.”

Why don't we talk about class? The topic is tender because class is inextricably linked with our dignity. In Hebrew, the word for dignity is kavod and it shares the same root with kaved, heavy. Dignity is about how much leverage we have — in creating a world that gives us what we need and brings us into spaces with the promise of fullness, respect, and agency. And the inequitable distribution of this kavod impacts the ability of the American Jewish establishment to sustain functional, holy communities.

For many small-town rabbis like myself who travel back and forth between large cities and our small-town synagogues, the disparity in services, luxuries, and opportunities we witness between urban communities and our home shuls is striking and often painful.

Synagogues like ours are struggle to pay their heating bills so that their pipes don’t freeze. Our congregants often cannot make their rent or pay college application fees, and our boards struggle mightily to raise

the funds for paltry part-time rabbinic salaries. These heroic small-town lay leaders work the equivalent of unpaid, full-time jobs so that every member of their congregation can have a human hand to hold when life gets real — during times of transcendent joy and deep distress.

Over the past 50 years, wealth and social power have been increasingly concentrated in 12 metro areas to the exclusion of large swaths of our nation. The organization I lead, the Center for Small Town Jewish Life at Colby College, estimates that one in eight American Jews lives outside one of these areas. At the same time, we must also see that class disparities exist within every locale. And so, as we plan programs and craft policies as an American Jewish community, I would challenge all of us to ask ourselves and our institutions questions we usually don’t ask.

Who is included or excluded by the price of this event or membership?

What services should every member of a Jewish community be able to access, regardless of price? Who will provide it? Who will pay those who are providing those services, and will they be paid a fair wage?

How do we work to address the pain and shame caused by unacknowledged class differences within our community?

Not all of these questions have simple answers, but we have to start addressing them. There are three steps we should take as an American Jewish community to make our community more economically equitable now.

First, even though livestreaming has been a blessing and increased accessibility and

access in ways that cannot be overstated or taken for granted, we still need to reiterate — in all of our communities — that it doesn’t replace the importance of physical presence. For most of us, to be human is to be embodied, and we cannot let physical presence and contact become a luxury good.

Second, every state in America should have at bare minimum one full-time, at-large, pluralistically oriented rabbi with an endowed salary that serves the entire Jewish community of that state, regardless of ability to donate or pay.

Third, we need to find ways to make sure that everyone has a seat at the table, so that every Jew’s soul is fed. We cannot afford to lose anyone. The eternal faith of the people Israel is a covenant that should not be contingent on one’s class — it is up to all of us to make sure every member of our people is spiritually sated, held by community, known and called by name. We need a new American Jewish budget that fulfills the basic birthright of every Jew in this nation — to be served and held as a worthy member of our people.

Recently I turned to Central Synagogue in New York to support the work of the Center for Small Town Jewish Life. They answered the call immediately, partnering with us not only financially, but as thought partners in building community and capacity through Central’s The Neighborhood online community and my organization’s programs. Two other Manhattan synagogues — Rodeph Sholom and Park Avenue Synagogue — came in alongside them, eager to help us spread the story of

small-town Jewish life and advance our mission. They are funding our National Impact program, Makom, that trains small-town lay leaders and Jewish communal professionals in order to make small-town Jewish life sustainable. They are also supporting our Shaliach Tzibur program that trains small-town Jews to lead rituals and services when no clergy are present.

But there is so much more to be done on a strategic, national scale to ensure we touch and serve every member of the American Jewish community with dignity. We will need to continue this work together, large and small Jewish congregations serving the entirety of our people with dignity.

Rabbi Rachel Isaacs is executive director of the Center for Small Town Jewish Life at Colby College in Waterville, Maine.

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