The Dayton Jewish Observer, July 2024

Book documents allyship Irish andinJewish Americans p. 21 David Moss designs Graceof After Meals comic book form p. 22

THE DAYTON Published by the Jewish Federation of Greater Dayton

July 2024 Sivan/Tammuz 5784 Vol. 28, No. 11

OBSERVER

The Miami Valley’s Jewish Monthly • daytonjewishobserver.org Marshall Weiss

Former Daytonians' reunion in Israel

'I found home'' home

6

Sarah Fox Klinger

Miriam & Rabbi Samuel Fox

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19 Beth Abraham Synagogue Cantor Andrea Raizen retires

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Beth Jacob Congregation held its 4th Annual Jewish Women Inspiring Jewish Women luncheon May 19 featuring speakers (L to R): Martha Moody Jacobs, Dr. Judith E. Woll, Candace R. Kwiatek, Lela Klein, Liz Muler Zuker, and Gayle Pavlofsky.

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THE DAYTON JEWISH OBSERVER • JULY 2024

DAYTON Mendy Fedotowsky

'I found home' As Beth Abraham's Cantor Andrea Raizen prepares to retire, she looks back on 17 years in Dayton.

By Marshall Weiss, The Observer Cantor Andrea Raizen's retirement from Beth Abraham Synagogue at the end of July marks the first time in a generation that no Dayton area Jewish congregation will employ an invested cantor. And due to financial constraints, Beth Abraham plans to only employ one full-time clergy member — its rabbi — moving forward.

Since her arrival in 2007 at Dayton's only Conservative Jewish congregation, the cantor — who grew up in Denver — has also served as its director of education and programming.

Beth Abraham will honor Raizen with the title of cantor emerita, a special event July 21, and the establishment of an endowment fund for Jewish education in her name.

She tells The Observer she'll be available to tutor bar and bat mitzvah students with the synagogue after she retires. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

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in other professions as well, where you don’t take that job and you’re there for 30 years. My last longest stint was seven years.

Why did you choose to stay here all these years?

I found home. And I think I knew it, actually, before I arrived. Because it was the first time that I made the decision that I was going to buy a house before I started.

When I was offered the position, I said I think The length of time you’ve been here, is that an this is where I’m going to finish up my career, unusual span of time for clergy these days with and I want to make an investment in the coma congregation? munity as well, and I had never bought a home These days. I noticed that amongst my colin my life. leagues, when you look at the placement lists I knew it would make me have to power from Cantors Assembly, they’re staying three through the tougher times. Because I knew that and five years and moving on. And I think, in about myself, that if I ran into things that were some cases, with rabbis too. I think it’s the same frustrating and I didn’t have that investment in the community, it was easy to say, OK, I’m going.

Beth Abraham Synagogue will honor Cantor But I knew from the first phone interview.

Andrea Raizen on her retirement with its Raizen There were several people on the other end. EvOur Voices celebration, 2 p.m., Sunday, July 21, erything just felt right. I hung up from that call, 305 Sugar Camp Cir., Oakwood. $18 adults, free I called my mother and said, "I just had the best for children. RSVP by July 8 to 937-293-9520 or Continued on Page Four bas@bethabrahamdayton.org.

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I've noticed that the one constant over the 17 years you’ve been here has been change.

It all began with moving into this building in Oakwood from Salem Avenue. I've worked with four rabbis here.

From the editor’s desk

Love those dog days of summer . . .

OMenachem c

It's kind of obvious but still mindblowing to contemplate that actions we take now reverberate for generations.

The story in this Observer about a reunion of former Daytonians who live in Israel (Page Six) started me down Marshall this Back to the Future path.

Weiss Choices these individuals, couples, and whole families made 30, 40, 50 years ago have changed the trajectory of the Jewish people.

And years before, it was choices their parents and leaders of our Jewish organizations made that nurtured them to engage with — and even love — Judaism and Israel.

It's not easy to tell if we're living in a golden age until it's behind us and we look back. Even then, it's not so easy.

This is a quiet time on the calendar but not for the professionals and layleaders who create programs for our Jewish schools, congregations, and organizations. May they yield a bountiful, enduring harvest.

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DAYTON Contributed

THE DAYTON

OBSERVER daytonjewishobserver.org Editor and Publisher Marshall Weiss mweiss@jfgd.net 937-610-1555 Contributors Rabbi Judy Chessin, Martin Gottlieb, Candace R. Kwiatek Advertising Sales Executive Patty Caruso, plhc69@gmail.com

The Dayton Jewish Chorale under the direction of Cantor Andrea Raizen (R) at the 2nd Annual Interfaith Community Concert, March 10 at Beavercreek High School.

Cantor Raizen

Continued from Page Three job interview I’ve ever had. I think this is where I’m going to end up."

And sure enough, all the pieces just fit together.

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What are some of the innovations, new programs, new ideas you’ve brought to Beth Abraham?

Something I had been carrying with me from two congregations ago, they had what was called the Purim family reading, which was this booklet that had the story in it, but it worked in chants from the Megillah.

My next congregation adopted it, and the same thing here. This year, we went back to that model again.

During the pandemic, it was Kabba-Locked-In Shabbat. It wasn’t that other places weren’t doing that.

But we kept that way past people being quarantined in their houses.

Everybody knew it’s Kabba-LockedIn time.

We’ve had Kabba-Latke Shabbat.

Havdalanukah. It’s always been a willingness to go above and beyond what they have hired me to do. I'm in the kitchen making Chinese dinner, making 100 egg rolls every year (in December). Shavuot’s my dinner to do. That’s my gift to the synagogue.

The Torah reading corps is still really strong. Many of those are my students.

The Zoom minyan (Monday through Thursday evenings) is healthy, alive and kicking. If you ask the people on that screen if we went back to in-person, would you be here, they will tell you they will not come.

They are there, and a few of the people on there are on because they did their 11 months (of mourning) and have stayed on for two more years after. They’re there all the time.

We have out-of-towners on there. We have this international minyan.

We do it hybrid every once in a while, when we have a board meeting, we go up and do it in there, but I bring my laptop. We still don’t do a full minyan when it’s just Zoom. We keep out Borchu. We don’t do Hatzi Kaddish. The exception is we will do Mourner’s Kaddish. I think that’s

been a comfort.

What parts of your job have you found the most rewarding? What brings you the most joy?

Being there with the bar and bat mitzvah kids when they finally go through that. Here, in a good year, we’ve had three or four kids become b’nai mitzvah. Sometimes we’d have a dry year and none at all.

Despite whatever the process was getting there, they always come through. I think that’s something I really do well. It was something I did even before I went to grad school to become an educator. Somebody pushed me: "You’ve got what it takes to teach bar and bat mitzvah to kids."

I did that when I had a whole different professional life.

And I feel like a proud parent. I sit there and I kvell. There are times when it’s amazing to me, especially the kids who have had to struggle, that I’ve gotten over the hump. That gives me great, great pleasure.

The other thing that I’m really proud of, more of a community thing, is the Dayton Jewish Chorale. It was my idea a few years before the launch with me, Courtney Cummings (Temple Israel), and Cantor Jenna Greenberg (formerly a Beth Abraham congregant). It’s from when the Federation offered innovation grants.

After Jenna got to town, it came together. It still exists, even though it’s not in the same way that it was when we were a full-time choir. It was an incredible community-building group. They’re still together, and they don’t want to give it up. They sang at the Jewish Cultural Festival.

And the chorale created the community Selichot service that’s been going on. So we’re going back to Beth Jacob this year for the Selichot service. Rabbi Agar has said, "Absolutely we’ll host this."

What have been some of your biggest challenges over the years?

Covid truly was a turning point.

Certainly, for educators and the quick pivot that had to be done. That we were able to do it not even knowing what the heck we were getting into.

We didn’t lose anybody from the

Administrative Assistant Samantha Daniel, sdaniel@jfgd.net 937-610-1555 Billing Sheila Myers, smyers@jfgd.net 937-610-1555 Proofreader Rachel Haug Gilbert, Steven H. Solomon Observer Advisor Martin Gottlieb Published by the Jewish Federation of Greater Dayton Mary Rita Weissman President Dan Sweeny President Elect Marni Flagel Secretary Neil Friedman Treasurer Ben Mazer VP Personnel Teddy Goldenberg VP Resource Dev. Dr. Heath Gilbert Immediate Past Pres.

Cathy Gardner CEO The Dayton Jewish Observer, Vol. 28, No. 11. The Dayton Jewish Observer is published monthly by the Jewish Federation of Greater Dayton, a nonprofit corporation, 525 Versailles Dr., Dayton, OH 45459.

Views expressed by columnists, in readers’ letters, and in opinion pieces do not necessarily reflect the opinion of staff or layleaders of The Dayton Jewish Observer or the Jewish Federation of Greater Dayton. Acceptance of advertising neither endorses advertisers nor guarantees kashrut.

The Dayton Jewish Observer Mission Statement To support, strengthen and champion the Dayton Jewish community by providing a forum and resource for Jewish community interests.

Goals • To encourage affiliation, involvement and communication.

• To provide announcements, news, opinions and analysis of local, national and international activities and issues affecting Jews and the Jewish community.

• To build community across institutional, organizational and denominational lines.

• To advance causes important to the strength of our Jewish community including support of Federation agencies, its annual campaign, synagogue affiliation, Jewish education and participation in Jewish and general community affairs.

• To provide an historic record of Dayton Jewish life.

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THE DAYTON JEWISH OBSERVER • JULY 2024

DAYTON school. And we then kept a whole school year after that. The 2021 school year, we kept entirely virtual.

And we actually picked up students. I had students online that I never met until we finally came back in person.

I had to revamp: how long can a kid sit? We split them up, Sandy Sloane-Brenner still stayed on. But that was such a tiring year for me. And I thought, maybe this is telling me that it’s getting to be time.

I don’t think that’s so unusual, because for a lot of teachers, that was about the time they were thinking, "I’m done."

And it was everything else that went with Covid through the synagogue. Because everything we did, we tried to keep going with the virtual. But we, I think, succeeded. We didn’t even lose a Purim shpiel. We had an online Purim shpiel, which I thought was one of the funniest ones we had ever put on. But it wasn’t just that. It was the whole Purim program with it. And I sat and watched it one day and saw how happy everyone was. They’re performing on screen.

We had a Chanukah thing online. I did a Sisterhood Sukkah program. I was sitting in my sukkah. It was Sunset in the Sukkah coming to you live from Cantor Raizen’s sukkah and had them doing scavenger hunts in their houses. So, it took every ounce of my creativity. And with the change in rabbis, more was put on me, and I was exhausted.

Do congregants approach the synagogue and Judaism differently than when you started here?

Yes and no. We were already on the older end of demographics when I got here. Now I look at the folks that come in and I’m as old or older than the "old people" are. The community that I interact the most with through services, that’s kind of the same, because

of the ages that they’re in. And they’re at a comfort level with the type of service that I came into and was happy to facilitate, being professionally trained as a cantor. I can do it in the proper nusach (musical prayer motif) and they appreciate this. We’ve just lost people like crazy. Going to the cemetery and seeing all your old friends. It hurts my heart so much how many dear friends I have lost. But it’s the reality.

It’s more about where American Judaism is right now. It’s been going on for a while. And I’ve said this for a long time: We are in that upheaval, that change that takes 10, 15 years to get through. Something different is going to come out on the other end. I have no idea what it’s going to be. I am not going to be a part of that. And it’s OK. I did my part. I was at the height of the family education programming wave.

What will you be up to now?

I’m staying in Dayton. What I want to do is nothing.

I so desire to wake up and say, "I don’t have to do anything today." This has been the kind of job that I could never turn off. I just want to clear my head to begin with, and just be able to do whatever I want to do.

I’m also the kind of person, I know I need structure.

And then I’m going to need to have routines. Some of it was about having put off not doing things that are in town because I’m so single-minded. I have never had a life-work balance.

I want to usher for the performing arts: the Philharmonic, which I rarely go to, the plays at the Schuster, the Victoria, Human Race, the PNC — that is huge on my list. I would like to sign up for the lifelong learning courses and take one class at a time. I want to get back to just reading any books. I get them at the main library. And I can volunteer at the library. I’ll be able to see family and take short trips.

Observer wins firstplace award from American Jewish Press Association

The American Jewish Press Association announced June 3 at its annual conference in Nashville that The Dayton Jewish Observer is the recipient of a first-place 2024 Simon Rockower Award for Excellence in Journalism.

An article by Editor and Publisher Marshall Weiss in September, Tipp City Board of Ed member regrets Nazi outburst, received the top honor for Excellence in News Reporting in the category of magazines and monthly newspapers.

A judge commented on the article that the "Reporter expertly utilized the news peg (BOE incident) as a microcosm for a broader examination of antisemitism in Ohio. (It) Also stood out for getting on-the-record interview/comments with principal parties in the BOE incident."

AJPA is the professional association of English language Jewish media in the United States and Canada.

The annual competition honors work published over the previous year.

The award brings the number of first-place Rockowers to 11 for The Observer since the Jewish Federation established the monthly publication in 1996, and the ninth for Weiss.

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THE DAYTON JEWISH OBSERVER • JULY 2024

PAGE 5

Former Daytonians living in Israel gather for reunion "It's great in Dayton but Israel is home," read a small hand-drawn banner taped to a refreshment table in the garden of Bracha and Yitzhak Zuriel's home in Jerusalem.

The Zuriels hosted a reunion for 40 former Daytonians — primarily baby boomers — on May 31. As far as Bracha knows, this is the first Dayton reunion in Israel since the 1980s.

"We made a WhatsApp group and people kept getting added. There are 44 people in that group," she says. "We included people who grew up in Dayton, people who made aliyah (immigrated to Israel) from Dayton, and also some of the people who were either shlichim (emissaries) or maybe because they were at the Air Force base and were involved in the community."

Bracha graduated from Fairview High School in 1973. She moved to Israel with her husband, Yitzhak, in 1976. They thought they'd stay for a year. A year became a lifetime.

For decades, she was the Jewish Federation of Greater Dayton's liaison in Israel and worked on proBracha Zuriel grams through the Jewish Agency such as Project Renewal and Partnership2Gether.

She says the impetus for this reunion was the 100th birthday in May of Rabbi Samuel Fox, who served as Beth Jacob Congregation's rabbi from 1955 until his retirement in 1995. The rabbi and his wife, Miriam, split their time between Boca Raton, Fla. and the settlement of Efrat in the West Bank's Gush Etzion cluster.

"I got a call from Francie Zusman Sina, who had spoken to Judy Fox Katz (a daughter of Miriam and

PAGE 6

Photos: Sarah Fox Klinger

At the Dayton reunion in Jerusalem, May 31 (L to R): Francie Zusman Sina, Judy Fox Katz, Rabbi Yigal Yaari.

Lynn Mayerson Berger and Shlomo Berger

from Montreal in 1998.

Sam). And because Rabbi Fox was coming and he In his comments at the reunion, Stan emphasized turned 100 — we all should look so good at 100, he's what he describes as Dayton's once impressive aliyah amazing — somebody said maybe we should have a rate and the Gem City's warm, close-knit Dayton reunion," Bracha says. connections among people.

Rabbi Stan Peerless, who lived in Dayton "We have been away from Dayton for 33 from 1979 to 1990, emceed the reunion. years, yet some of our closest friends are still He was vice principal and then principal from our 11 years there," he says. of Hillel Academy, Dayton's Jewish day The aliyah rate, Stan believes, "reflects a school, which in those days went through Zionism that characterized a number of com12th grade. munity institutions." In his role with Hillel Stan also served as rabbi of the now Academy, he says he interacted with memdefunct Orthodox synagogue Shomrei bers of all the Dayton-area synagogues.

Emunah. He and his family moved from "One of the beautiful things about Hillel Dayton to Jerusalem while he was a Jerusawas that although it was at the time an Orlem Fellow from 1990 to 1992. He, his wife, thodox school, it serviced the entire commuand all four of their daughters made aliyah Rabbi Stan Peerless

THE DAYTON JEWISH OBSERVER • JULY 2024

nity and we all worked together well," he says. "I have Stan says a unique element of Israeli resilience is become familiar with many schools over my years in that "we can go on with life without forgetting about Jewish education, and very few can compare to Hillel the significance of what is going on around us." at that time, both in this regard and vis-à-vis the qual"The olim (those who've made aliyah) who came ity of education." together reflected on one aspect of Israeli society that Daytonian Dr. Keren Lawner-Gold and her husis an important element of our strength: unity. The band, Jonny Gold, also live in Efrat, where she works olim from Dayton come from varied backgrounds but from home as a family physiare able to focus on and share common experiences cian specializing in ADHD. and values. This was a special quality of the Dayton Her mother and brother live in community, and perhaps an aspect of Israeli society Jerusalem. that resonates with us."

"I grew up in a very Zionist Bracha was struck at how everyone at the reunion Israel-oriented home," the 1985 raved about the Dayton Jewish community.

Hillel Academy graduate says. "I "You grow up with something, you take it for came to Hebrew University for granted, right? That's how it is. On Shabbat, I asked my year abroad during college. a bunch of friends who also grew up in various other From that time, I knew I wanted Miriam and Rabbi Samuel Fox places, 'Would you say this about your community? to make aliyah."

Would you get together with other people from your Keren made aliyah on her continue life, people sort of resume to the normal community and talk about what a great community it Dr. Keren Lawner-Gold own after finishing her residenthings they do. People were happy to see each other, is?' And some of them looked at me and said, 'Eh, no.' cy in family medicine at Lutheran General Hospital in and people met each other and remet each other at the It's something people should feel good about. Maybe Chicago. reunion. It wasn't so obvious that people knew each you've really got something special there in Dayton — "We each spoke about when we made aliyah and other. A lot of people didn't. But the general warm and hold onto it." what we are doing now," she says of the reunion. feeling about Dayton was very prevalent.

The former Daytonians played a trivia game drawn "Look, there are simchas (celebrations), there are Future reunions a possibility from the 2018 book Jewish Community of Dayton and weddings, bar mitzvahs, there are happy things in our Stan says he hopes the reunion will become a recurshared updates on children and grandlives, and in spite of the terrible shock and ring event. "The response was extremely positive." children, who continue to increase and 'People were sorrow about what happened," Bracha says.

"Everyone said, 'Oh, so are we going to make this multiply in Israel. Two of Keren and "Our children, our grandchildren are in the an annual event?'" Bracha says. "I'm sure we didn't happy to see Jonny's four children are in the army. army, are fighting along with everybody. So get to everyone. It's very possible we missed a lot of each other, and we're just learning to embrace both of those people. This morning, I woke up and thought of a few 'We try to carry on with life' more names. Because it's very age dependent: how people met each things on a constant basis.

Even in the midst of the Israel"At the beginning of the war, I have a you were in Dayton, how old you were, who did other and remet son who's in the reserves and he served for long Hamas war, Bracha, Stan, and Keren you know." say the vibe at the reunion was joyful. each other.' the first four-and-a-half months as a medic She also realizes there are people who made aliyah "We are all very affected by the war," in and out of Gaza. And he's going back long before she did whom she doesn't know.

Keren says. "We personally lost a neighbor who was in in the army next month again. We have a son-in-law Moving forward, Keren has agreed to be the keeper my son's class, Roi Wizer. He died heroically on Oct. who is a career officer. And we of the names for future reunions.

7 while saving the lives of many other soldiers who have a daughter who lives in "We are just one link in the were on the base with him. There are many others the Gaza envelope, so for the amazing history of the Jewish from Efrat and surrounding communities who were first two-and-a-half months, she people," Keren says. "Israel is our killed. was evacuated. And she came home as promised in the Torah. I "We try to carry on with life as much as possible be- with six kids to the hotel. And cannot imagine living anywhere cause this is what Jews do. We have experienced many her husband is in the army. She else. Going through the war has tragedies in our history, including the Holocaust. came with the six and she left strengthened our connection to However, we rebuild. It is the Jewish way." with seven. By chance, when she the land and to each other as a Bracha says Israelis are learning to navigate the went into labor, her husband was community."

— Marshall Weiss good moments — even through the inescapable horhome. We were on duty, making rors of the Hamas massacre, kidnappings, and war. lunches every day, making lunch To add your name and contact infor"In the first month or two, everybody was just in for my daughter-in-law, who's mation to the list for future reunions shock. There was a feeling of, OK, we're not going to home with three little kids, doing of Daytonians living in Israel, celebrate anything, we're not going to go out to eat. the laundry and taking care of contact Dr. Keren Lawner-Gold at At some point, if you live in a place where you can the kids."

Vardit Zerem-Ullman and Prof. Yaacov Zerem klawner@gmail.com.

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Ohio court bars Hebrew Union College from selling rare books amid financial woes

By Asaf Elia-Shalev, JTA Ohio’s attorney general has obtained a court order prohibiting the financially strapped Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion from selling off books from its Cincinnati library, which holds a significant collection of rare and precious items from throughout Jewish history.

Attorney General Dave Yost’s request for a temporary restraining order came in response to recent reporting in Cincy Jewfolk, a local outlet that published an in-depth article in April on the struggles of the educational institution, a seminary and university affiliated with Judaism’s Reform movement.

Cincy Jewfolk uncovered plans to sell rare books and reported that an administrator overseeing the library may have resigned after being pressured to carry out the plans.

The outlet also revealed that representatives of the auction house Sotheby’s had been hired to examine the library’s holdings.

The sale of library items would potentially undermine the intent of donors to the library in violation of Ohio law, Yost said in a press release.

“These sacred texts are invaluable artifacts — religious and cultural treasures,” Yost said. “Their sale would not only betray donor trust but also may violate legal restrictions placed on the gifts. We are committed to ensuring that these irreplaceable items remain available to the public and are cared for as their donors intended.”

Though Hebrew Union College, which also has campuses in New York, Los Angeles and Jerusalem, is phasing out its Cincinnati rabbinical school, it has said the campus would remain a hub for Jewish research. It has denied it has plans to sell rare books from the library’s collection.

“The rumors that we are planning to sell our rare books, and the subsequent legal and press attention, are based on incomplete and misleading information,” Andrew Rehfeld, the president of the institution, wrote in an email to the campus community after Yost’s announcement June 4, according to Cincy Jewfolk. “We have no plans to sell or ‘deaccession’ the collection and

Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images

Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost

no staff member has been asked to sell our books.”

The 14,000 rare texts held at the seminary’s Klau Library could be worth millions of dollars, according to the press release from Yost’s office.

The collection is among the most significant of all Jewish libraries in the world and includes Jewish textual artifacts and historical works of philosophy, history and liturgy in more than a dozen languages.

Librarians and administrators of Jewish educational institutions across the country are likely paying close attention to the situation because of concern for the collection and due to the possible implications of the involvement of legal authorities as Hebrew Union College contends with financial challenges that others also face.

At the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York, for example, administrators have sold real estate assets as well as library items in recent years amid declining enrollment.

In Los Angeles, American Jewish University sold its campus earlier this year and has yet to announce what will become of the university’s rare book collection.

A court hearing to evaluate the restraining order on Hebrew Union College has been set for July 12.

Hebrew Union College has denied it has plans to sell rare books from the library's collection.

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THE NATION

Beth Abraham, Dayton’s only Conservative synagogue, is enthusiastically egalitarian and is affiliated with the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism.

Mo. judge rejects interfaith suit, including rabbis, that challenged abortion ban

For a complete schedule of our programs, go to bethabrahamdayton.org.

Americans United for Separation of Church & State

Please join us as we celebrate

Cantor Andrea Raizen

(L to R) The Rev. Traci Blackmon, Maharat Rori Picker Neiss and Americans United for Separation of Church & State CEO Rachel Laser march to the Civil Courts building in St. Louis.

is not exclusively a religious belief.

By Jackie Hajdenberg, JTA “The Court does not accept PetitionA Missouri judge upheld the state’s ers’ argument that the determination abortion ban June 14, rejecting efforts that human life begins at conception by a group of 14 interfaith clergy, is strictly a religious one,” Sengheiser including rabbis, who sought to protect wrote. “While the determination that reproductive rights by suing the state life begins at conception may run counon religious freedom grounds. ter to some religious beliefs it is not The faith leaders, among them five itself necessarily a religious belief.” rabbis from multiple Jewish denominaIn a statement issued June 14, tions, filed their suit in January 2023.

Americans United for the Separation of They charged that lawmakers who Church and State, speaking on behalf of voted to ban nearly all abortions acted according to their personal religious be- the clergy members, said they “respectfully” disagreed with the judge’s deciliefs, violating the separation of church sion and would be discussing next steps and state enshrined in Missouri’s conwith the faith leaders. stitution.

“Missouri’s abortion ban is a direct The so-called “trigger bill” went into attack on the separation of church and effect after the Supreme Court removed state, religious freedom federal abortion protecJewish clergy and reproductive freetions in 2022 in Dobbs dom,” Americans United v. Jackson Women’s nationwide have said in their statement.

Health Organization. been fighting in “Missouri lawmakers In his decision June 14 upholding Missouri’s court for reproductive made clear that they were imposing their ban, St. Louis Circuit rights since the personal religious beliefs Court Judge Jason Senon all Missourians when gheiser argued that the Dobbs decision. they enacted these laws.” language of the state’s Jewish clergy nationwide — in abortion law is “similar” to the lanFlorida, Indiana and Kentucky as well guage of the state constitution, which as Missouri — have been fighting in also includes language like “Supreme court for reproductive rights since the Ruler of the Universe” and “Almighty Dobbs decision. Many have cited alGod.” leged religious freedom violations.

Sengheiser also noted that the bill An Indiana Court of Appeals ruled paraphrases language famously found in the Declaration of Independence stat- in April that the state’s religious liberty protections may extend to those seeking ing that “all men are created equal, that an abortion, but the case will likely go they are endowed by their Creator with to the state Supreme Court for a final certain unalienable Rights, that among ruling. these are Life…”

Sengheiser’s decision was made the The petitioners had argued in their day after the U.S. Supreme Court voted lawsuit that the bill established its own in favor of protecting federal access to religion. But Sengheiser wrote that the medication abortion. main argument of abortion opponents

THE DAYTON JEWISH OBSERVER • JULY 2024

in honor of her retirement Sunday, July 21 2 to 4 PM $18 Per Person Children - No Charge RSVP by July 8 937-293-9520 or bas@bethabrahamdayton.org

Shabbat Under The Stars Friday, July 26, 7:30 PM

Welcome Shabbat amid the beauty of nature.

This outdoor, spirited service takes place at one of our congregants’ homes and features our band. A dessert Oneg Shabbat follows.

Contact office for location.

305 Sugar Camp Circle Dayton, Ohio 45409 937•293•9520 www.bethabrahamdayton.org PAGE 9

OPINION

Threatening Jews is now acceptable — so long as you call them Zionists Screenshot/X

advocacy on trans rights, nak, the Jewish direcimmigration, racial justor of the Brooklyn tice and criminal justice Museum, along with reform speak up and call three museum board out this appropriation members. Red paint of anti-Zionism to mask and upside-down antisemitism. red triangles — a I’m not seeing my symbol lifted directly well-meaning friends from Hamas’ armed who rightfully speak up Al-Qassam brigade about the racism of Jewvideos, which use the The home of the Jewish director of the Brooklyn Museum, ish settlers destroying inverted red triangle emoji to mark Anne Pasternak, was vandalized the morning of June 12. aid convoys for Gaza, and violently expelling Israeli targets — is the boldness of those using Palestinians from their villages were splashed on their homes’ it, and their distinction bein the West Bank, also condemn facades and front doors. A sign tween Jews — a marginalized was hung across Pasternak’s group worthy of respect — and this festering hatred present in the pro-Palestinian movement. home labeling her a “WhiteZionists — worthy targets of To be clear, sometimes antiSupremacist Zionist.” violence.

Zionism is not antisemitic. But What all these events made “Zionists are not Jews and sometimes it is. clear: Among those protesting not humans,” read a sign from I recently saw a post on the war, a clear subset is using protesters outside the Nova Instagram about the author’s the word Zionist as a catchall exhibit. volunteer efforts to get her for Jew. The survivors of the Nova block in Brooklyn designated as The speed at which blatant at the exhibition? It’s OK to a landmark, in an effort to proantisemitic bigotry appears to retraumatize them, because tect elderly Black homeowners have become wrapped up in they’re Zionists, not Jews. from predatory landlords. In the package of opposing ZionIt’s fine to threaten subway sharing the many obstacles the ism is breathtaking. So is the passengers who are peacefully volunteers had overcome, my number of intelligent people, minding their own business, eye caught this line: “We have normally highly attuned to because if they’re wearing kipexperienced Zionism first hand injustice, who are ignoring it. ahs, they must be Zionists. and it has been terrifying and There have always been A Jewish museum director, taxing.” those who use these terms whose home was targeted with I quickly scanned the rest of interchangeably. What’s new a symbol used by a terrorist the post. Zionism popped up group to mark their victims?

It’s fine, we don’t need to worry again: “To be preserving Black Bedstuy in the face of Zionabout her safety, because she’s ism. At a time when our world a Zionist. (Pasternak’s friends Opaqueness puzzling and disturbing needs to be free of it!!” say she has a long history of As I write this, many of us are celebrating Israel’s recent There are innumerable defipro-Palestinian advocacy.) daring and brilliant rescue of four hostages. But others nitions of Zionism, but none What it boils down to: If we — particularly in the media — are gnashing their teeth, of them remotely encompasses call you a Zionist, you deserve accusing Israel of perfidy and intentional brutality. This, as efforts to alter a neighborhood the consequences — whether we are learning of how media outlets have been uncritically in Brooklyn. Gentrification and they’re public threats, an invaparroting Hamas’ false narrative and statistics. displacement are very real phesion of your private life, or Amidst my own personal joy, I’ve been thinking of The nomena that disproportionately pure harassment. And if that Observer's article in the June issue about Wittenberg Univeraffect Black and Brown people, behavior crosses the line from sity Associate Prof. Michael Anes. The interview revealed but they have nothing to do peaceful protest to aggressive his clear sympathies with the cause of our enemies. As one with Jewish self-determination. antisemitism, well, Zionists reads that interview, what is puzzling and disturbing is that The most likely scenario: deserve that too. not only does the professor self-identify as a Jew, but as an This person interacted with Worse still, these shifts have academic, he is supposedly a trained thinker. a Jewish landlord or Jewishbeen broadly accompanied by Yet from his comments, one gets the clear impression owned management company an utter lack of accountability that he has joined the teeth-gnashers, allowing his emotions from anyone who counts them- in their conservation battle. to eclipse any critical thinking. Moreover, what is more And while scummy landlords selves as pro-Palestine when it puzzling and disturbing is that he refused to have a deeper are the worst — I’ve lived in comes to disavowing this vile discussion regarding his position and opinions with The behavior. That silence tarnishes New York City for 13 years, I Observer. One would think that if he truly believed what he know — they come in all etha very just movement to libersays he believes, he would want to publicly make his case. ate Palestinians from decades of nicities and religions.

In the midst of this opaqueness, two things seem clear: These sentences were Israeli occupation.

• We Jews have had to deal with malshinim/slanderers straight-up, indisputable These events are obvious from among our own for centuries. Sadly, Jews betraying antisemitism, but the likes and bigotry. But I’m not seeing my their own is not a new phenomenon, but it does continue to “Congrats!” and “Good work progressive friends post about amaze and challenge us. sis!” cascaded onto the post, it online. I’m not seeing the • Advanced degrees are no guarantees against broken including from a journalist who non-Jewish authors, journalmoral compasses. works at The New York Times. ists, activists and lawyers that — Rabbi Cary Kozberg, Temple Sholom, Springfield The author had also tagged a I so deeply admire for their

By Nora Berman, The Forward It is now clear all manner of antisemitic sins can be indulged under the guise of opposing Zionism.

On June 10, Within Our Lifetime, a militant pro-Palestinian group that refuses to condemn Hamas’ Oct. 7 terror attack, led protests outside a Lower Manhattan exhibition about the massacre at the Nova Music Festival. They set off smoke bombs; a few carried Hamas and Hezbollah flags; others held signs saying “Long live Oct. 7th.”

On the subway that same night, in a filmed interaction that went viral, protesters leaving that demonstration asked any Zionists to identify themselves and leave the subway car, saying, “This is your chance to get out.” One man wearing a T-shirt with the Hezbollah flag on it harassed a passenger who was wearing a kipah, saying, “Yo we got a Zionist here I see your kipah.

You’re not really Jewish,” and “We’re gonna find you and you’ll face the consequences.”

Within 24 hours, vandals defaced the home of Anne Paster-

LETTER

So, what do you think?

PAGE 10

New York City Council member who had aided their group.

The protests outside the Nova exhibition and the vandalism of Brooklyn Museum executives’ homes were universally decried by politicians across the political spectrum, most notably by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who has not always pleased the Jewish community with her advocacy against arming Israel. (OcasioCortez, who encountered severe blowback from progressives and false accusations of being a paid shill for AIPAC after speaking out against antisemitism in a livestream June 8, is now seeing the consequences of calling out the moments when anti-Zionism is antisemitism.)

By not uniformly condemning these bad actors within the movement, supporters of Palestinian liberation are tanking their movement’s credibility, and giving ammunition to militant pro-Israel advocates who seek to discredit the entire project by dismissing it as antisemitic. How can anyone take a group like Within Our Lifetime seriously as a liberation movement, when people protesting within it say, “Zionists are not Jews and not human”? When it chooses to protest not outside the Israeli consulate, but at a memorial to victims of terror?

The collapse of Zionist as a useful or effective definition began long ago. In an op-ed for the Forward early this year, Lux Alptraum pointed out how the semantics of how the term is used can obscure shared values. “If two people can agree that they want peace and freedom for both Palestinians and Israelis,” she wrote, “does it matter if one of them identifies as Zionist and the other antiZionist?” Tamar Glezerman, the Israeli-American co-founder of Israelis for Peace whose aunt was murdered at Kibbutz Be’eri on Oct. 7, told The Guardian that the term “Zionist,” as it’s currently used, “could mean anything between someone who believes in two states coexisting peacefully to code for Jews who don’t deserve safety or life.”

The slipperiness of who a Zionist is has allowed for antisemitic rhetoric and violence to flourish. How far will it have to go until self-proclaimed allies of Jews call it out?

Nora Berman is the Forward’s deputy opinion editor.

Views expressed by columnists, in readers’ letters, and in opinion Send letters (350 words max.) to The Dayton Jewish Observer, pieces do not necessarily reflect the opinion of staff or layleaders of 525 Versailles Dr., Dayton, OH 45459 • MWeiss@jfgd.net The Dayton Jewish Observer or the Jewish Federation of Greater Dayton.

THE DAYTON JEWISH OBSERVER • JULY 2024

July2024 JEWISH FEDERATION of GREATER DAYTON & ITS AGENCIES

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WEDNESDAYS, 12:30 - 3:30PM Open Canasta

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SUNDAY, JULY 21, 10AM - 12PM PJ Under 3

FRIDAY, JULY 12, 5:30 - 7:30PM Shabbat Summer Splash

Connect with us! Check out our events.

For more information, check out our calendar at jewishdayton.org.

2024 ANNUAL MEETING

for the Jewish Federation of Greater Dayton & its Agencies

Save the Date!

Sunday, August 25 11:30AM – 1PM at the Boonshoft CJCE 525 Versailles Dr., Centerville, 45459

For more information, contact Alisa Thomas at athomas@jfgd.net

Jewish Community Center Jewish Federation Jewish Foundation Jewish Family Services ®

OF GREATER DAYTON OF GREATER DAYTON OF GREATER DAYTON OF GREATER DAYTON

THE DAYTON JEWISH OBSERVER • JULY 2024

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July2024 JEWISH FEDERATION of GREATER DAYTON & ITS AGENCIES

Shabbat Summer Splash

PJ Under 3 Sunday, July 21, 10AM – 12PM Owen’s Place Park 2260 Dayton Xenia Road, Beavercreek, 45434

Friday, July 12, 5:30 – 7:30PM Orchardly Park 343 Wonderly Avenue, Oakwood, 45419

Join PJ Library and JCC Early Childhood Education for a get-together for families with children ages 3 and under (older siblings welcome). Enjoy bagels, fruit, and coffee at the shelter, then head to the playground with your friends.

Join PJ Library and PJ Our Way as we celebrate summer fun at Orchardly Park! Enjoy a Kosher Shabbat meal, splash pad, sand box, the playground, and sports for the PJ Our Way kids.

No cost. RSVP at jewishdayton.org/events by July 18.

Questions? Contact Kate Elder at kelder@jfgd.net.

No cost. RSVP by July 10.

&

To register, visit jewishdayton.org/events Questions? Please contact Kate Elder at kelder@jfgd.net

BLAST Thursday, August 22, 6:30 – 9PM Levitt Pavilion 134 South Main Street, Dayton, 45402 Enjoy a hot summer night at the Levitt Pavillion with Cool Cool Cool.

The music is Funk, House and R & B. Concert starts at 7:00PM. Look for the Boomers signs or balloons!

Bring your own chairs, blankets, food, and drinks (NO GLASS).

No cost. Some food and drinks are available for purchase at the venue. Or carryout to support nearby restaurants!

RSVPs recommended to jewishdayton/events or contact Stacy Emoff at semoff@jfgd.net or 937-610-5513.

PAGE 12

THE DAYTON JEWISH OBSERVER • JULY 2024

S

Family Services Approved Provider #RCS032101

Politicization of LGBTQIA Youth & Providers in Ohio

July2024

May 10, 2024

8:45am-12pm

3.0 CEUs

Supporting Teens with Mental Health Issues & School-Related Challenges July 12, 2024

8:45am-12pm

3.0 CEUs

*Meets Ethics Requirement* JEWISH FEDERATION GREATER DAYTON & ITS AGENCIES School of boards, city gov’ts, and the state legislature

This training will explore the mental health crises among teenagers within the school setting. We will discuss common mental health diagnoses for this population, tips have enacted policies that impact gender diverse for addressing behavioral challenges, and how we as and queer youth—often by attacking the practice professionals can help support these youth when resources of health and human services providers. We’ll The Heuman Scholarship Awarded may be limited. review current status of these policies, what the The Jewish Foundation Greater Dayton pleased to Presenter: Rachelleof Kistner, M.Ed, PCC-S,is LSW is the Program future may hold, and how to take advocacy, legal, announceManager AbigailforZied hasprogram been named as Community this year’s the ESC with South & practice actions to preserve the right of social of the Heuman Scholarship.

Health. She has 20+ years of experience working workers and other health and human service recipientBehavioral with youth and families in various settings such as foster care, providers to provide care. We’ll also review how Abigail is a graduate of Kent State University, where she earned aprogramming.

Bachelor of Arts in juvenile corrections and school-based behavioral health professionals working with youth Psychology (with a child psychology concentration), and minored in Human Development must adapt their practice in light of these laws. & Family Sciences, Jewish Studies, and Religion Studies.

Mental Health Considerations Presenter: Danielle Smith is a social worker and the University this fall, where she will pursue a Executive Director of the National Association ofAbigail will attend Case Western Reserve Individuals Master of Social Work degree. After for graduation, Abigail plans to with work as a social worker, Social Workers-Ohio Chapter. with a focus on children. She enjoys working with children and wants to advocate for Developmental Disabilities

children and families who are struggling, in an effort to help them improve their lives.

August 9, 2024

Trauma Basics

8:45am-12pm

3.0 CEUs

While an undergraduate at Kent State, Abigail was an active member of Hillel, where she Topics include understanding mentalofhealth eventually served as president, served as the engagementcommon chair and president Achoti, a June 14, 2024 8:45am-12pm 3.0 CEUs diagnoses population providing strategies Jewish women’s organization,among and was athe member of Phi Mu and Sorority, Psi Chi International Psychology Honor Society, and the Multicultural and Diversity Committee. for assessment, intervention and support. Prevalence rates, Trauma. Everyone has it. Everyone reacts differently

common challenges faced by dually diagnosed clients, deto it. From big "T" trauma to little "t" trauma, Abigail is a lifelong member of Temple Israel. Her proud parents are Eric Zied and Dena escalation techniques, and ethical and cultural understanding the effects of trauma helps us to be Mason-Zied. considerations will also be addressed. better therapists, caseworkers, parents, & humans.

In our time together we will discuss how to define Mazel tov, Abigail!

Presenter: Carol Kimbrough, MSW, LISW-S, is the Mental trauma and, more importantly, how to address Health Services Mgr. at Mont. Co. Board of Developmental trauma within our own bodies and the bodies The of HeumanDisabilities ScholarshipServices is made (MCBDDS). possible through a fund established by Her undergraduate degree is those around us.

Bob and Vicky Heuman. SinceSvcs., its creation in 2006, the Heuman in Rehabilitation and she has worked as aScholarship therapist. has been awarded annually to an undergraduate or graduate student Presenter: Aaron Earlywine, LPC, is the CarePortal Presenter: Mark Cummings, BSW, LSW, is a mental health Regional Manager for the Greater Miami Valley who demonstrates both academic achievement and financial need. The experience providing support to persons scholarship therapist is open to with Jewish students who reside in the Dayton area. with Region. He is Social Resilience Model (SRM) certified, developmental disabilities and mental health needs, having a Cost of Poverty Experience (COPE) facilitator, and a worked with vulnerable populations in settings such as trauma-informed practitioner and trainer.

Dayton State Hospital and group homes.

Calling all social workers and counselors!

Clinical Supervision Challenges Join Jewish Family Services and its in the Modern World

REGISTRATION INFORMATION

September 13, 2024 8:45am-12pm 3.0 CEUs 2024 SUMMER SERIES VIRTUAL WORKSHOPS *Meets Supervision Requirement*

partners for a morning of online learning for 3 CEUs. Sessions will be held on the The 2024 workshop series offers a total of 15 CEUs, second Friday of every month through approved for licensed social workers and September. counselors. Registrants must log in by the official Clinical supervision has always been a challenging and starting time and Sponsored by: complete the entire course to complex dynamic within the mental health field. Modern n Supporting Teens with Mental Health receive a CEU certificate.

No exceptions. times and events (post-COVID, advancement of Family Family Services Approved Provider Jewish Family Graceworks Catholic Social Family Services Issues &ofSchool-Related Challenges #RCS032101 Services Services of Lutheran Services of the technology, explosion severe mental health issues Approved ProviderQuestions about topics? Services Association Greater Dayton July 12 • 8:45AM – NOON • 3.0 CEUs the Miami Valleythe workshop among the populace, etc.) have further complicated Family Services Approved Provider Contact Sabrina Chupp at schupp@fsadayton.org. g Teens with #RCS032101 Mental Health supervisory relationship and significantly increased ethical #RCS032101 Mental Health Considerations for chool-Related Challenges Please note that Sabrina can NOT assist you and legal risksIndividuals and liabilities.

This training will break down with 24 8:45am-12pm 3.0 CEUs with registration.

Politicization of LGBTQIA Youth Supporting Teens withissues Mental the etiology ofDevelopmental these to Health help you better understand Disabilities by: & Providers in Ohio Issues & School-Related Challenges the challenges, as well as suggest a variety of supervisory plore the mentalSponsored health crises among NO REFUNDS. Fees prepaid for a missed workshop August 9 • 8:45AM – NOON • 3.0 CEUs e school setting. We will discuss May 10, 2024 8:45am-12pm 3.0 CEUs July 12, 2024 8:45am-12pm 3.0 CEUs interventions and tools to meet the demand competently Familyto another Social Family Graceworks Jewish Family Jewish Family workshop in the same Graceworks Catholic Socialcan ealth diagnosesCatholic for this population, tips be applied and professionally.

Clinical Supervision Challenges in the This training *Meets Ethics Requirement* Services Services of the Services Lutheran Services of will explore the mental health crises among avioral challenges, and howof wethe as year by calling Services of Lutheran Services Jefferson Alcott at 937.223.7217 x1146. teenagers within the schoolModern setting. WeWorld will discuss elp support theseMiami youth when resources Miami Valley Association Dayton Association Greater Dayton Presenter: Joshua D. Francis, Ph.D., LPCC-S, LICDC-CS, is an Services Valley School boards, city gov’ts, andServices the state legislature Greater common mental health diagnoses for this13 population, tips– NOON • 3.0 CEUs September • 8:45AM Registration and payment are required prior to the have enacted policies that impact gender diverse Associate Professor in the Clinical Mental Health Counseling Family Services Approved Provider for addressing behavioral challenges, and how we as and queer youth—often by attacking the to practice Kistner, M.Ed, PCC-S, LSW is the Program #RCS032101 training, in order to receive your link the Zoom professionals can help support these youth when resources Program as well as Director of the Addictions Counseling of health and human services providers. We’ll C program with South Community may be limited. session.

The Monday prior to the training, you will Program in the College of Education and Human Services at he has 20+ years of experience workingreview current status of these policies, what the Presenter:Wright Rachelle Kistner, M.Ed, PCC-S, LSW is the Program an email with the link andlegal, details future hold, and how toZoom take advocacy, State University. ilies in various settings such as fosterreceive care, Politicization of may LGBTQIA Youth Supporting Teens with Mental Health Manager for the ESC program with South Community & practice actionsthe to preserve the right of social and school-based programming. about accessing training. & Providers in Ohio Issues & School-Related Challenges

2024 SUMMER SERIES VIRTUAL WORKSHOPS

Behavioral Health. She has 20+ years of experience working workers and other health and human service with youth and families in various settings such as foster care, providers to provide care. We’ll also review how 8:45am-12pm 3.0 CEUs July 12,corrections 2024 and 8:45am-12pm 3.0 CEUs juvenile school-based programming. behavioral health professionals working with youth Register online at cssmv.org/events • $35 per session or $140 for all 5 must adapt their practice in light of these laws.

May 10, 2024 Health Considerations r Individuals with This training will explore the mental health crises among *Meets Ethics Requirement* opmental Disabilities Mental Health Considerations Presenter: Danielle Smith is a social worker and the teenagers within the school setting. We will discuss Executive Director of the National Association of 024 8:45am-12pm 3.0 CEUs for Individuals with School boards, city gov’ts, and the 2024 state legislature THE DAYTON JEWISH OBSERVER • JULY mental health common diagnoses for this population, tips Social Workers-Ohio Chapter.

Developmental Disabilities have enacted policies that impact gender diverse erstanding common mental health

and queer youth—often the population and providing strategies by attacking the practice

for addressing behavioral challenges, and how we as August 9, 2024

8:45am-12pm

3.0 CEUs

PAGE 13

July2024 JEWISH FEDERATION of GREATER DAYTON & ITS AGENCIES

Museum Field Trips

JCC Adults in partnership with the Beth Abraham Synagogue Program Committee, Beth Jacob Programming Committee, Temple Beth Or Adult Education Committee, and Temple Israel Adult Education Committee invite you and your friends to explore museums in our area! (age 16 and over are welcome)

Tuesday, August 20

Tuesday, September 10

11AM – 3PM • Lunch & Tour

10:30AM – 1:30PM • Lunch & Tour

at the Nancy & David Wolf Holocaust & Humanity Center

at the National Museum of the United States Air Force

Union Terminal • 1301 Western Avenue, Cincinnati, 45203

1100 Spaatz Street, Fairborn, 45433

• Meet at Temple Beth Or at 10 AM or Beth Jacob Synagogue at 9:30 AM, or at the Holocaust & Humanity Center in Cincinnati at 11 AM. • 90-minute docent-led tour at the Nancy & David Wolf Holocaust & Humanity Center • Cost for the tour is $10 per person upon registration (includes a parking pass).

Carpools will be arranged. More event details to follow.

• Lunch after the tour at a nearby restaurant (TBD – cost on your own).

• Meet at The National Museum of the United States Air Force at 10:30 AM for a docent-led tour of Prejudice And Memory: A Holocaust Exhibit.

• Tour to be led by Exhibit Founder, Dr. Renate Frydman, PhD. • No cost for the exhibit tour, museum admission, or parking.

• Lunch after the tour at a nearby restaurant (TBD – cost on your own).

RSVP by Friday, August 16 to Stacy Emoff at semoff@jfgd.net or call 937-610-5513.

RSVP by September 5 to Stacy Emoff at semoff@jfgd.net or call 937-610-5513.

Jewish Community Center OF GREATER DAYTON

Look at Us shares works of artists and artisans with a Dayton connection.

At jewishdayton.org: works by Jewish artists from the collection of the Dayton Art Institute including Sol LeWitt, Roy Lichtenstein, and Alexander Liberman.

Works by local artists and artisans including Cathy Gardner, calligraphy; Elyssa Wortzman, fine arts; Gayle Moscowitz and Caryl Segalewitz, glass art; Stephen Goldberg, Mike Jaffe, and Sam Lauber (of blessed memory), photography; Marlene Pinsky, quilting; and Steve Markman (of blessed memory), Burt Saidel, and Scott Segalewitz, woodworking.

Wednesday, August 21 5:30 – 7PM at the Dayton Art Institute • 456 Belmonte Park North, Dayton, 45405 Featuring an exhibit of local artists and artisans and presentation by Dayton Jewish artist Hannah Kasper Levinson. Optional self-guided tour of museum and reception to follow presentation

Jewish Artists & Artisans in Dayton

No cost, RSVP by Friday August 16 to Stacy Emoff semoff@jfgd.net or 937-610-5513.

In partnership with Beth Abraham Synagogue, Beth Jacob Congregation, Temple Beth Or, and Temple Israel

Funding provided by an Innovation Grant of the Jewish Federation of Greater Dayton.

PAGE 14

THE DAYTON JEWISH OBSERVER • JULY 2024

MLB veteran Kevin Pillar enjoys late-career resurgence Classes John Cordes/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images

Kevin Pillar celebrating in the dugout after hitting a two-run home run against the New York Yankees, May 28 in Anaheim, Calif.

By Jacob Gurvis, JTA ANAHEIM, Calif. — In a home game against the Houston Astros on June 7, Kevin Pillar crushed the first pitch he saw 411 feet into the leftfield stands — giving the L.A. Angels their first and only run in a 7-1 loss.

But for Jewish fans, the most memorable plays of the game may have come in the first and fifth innings, when Pillar fielded two balls in center field off the bat of Astros third baseman Alex Bregman. Both ballplayers are Jewish.

Pillar, 35, says moments like that have begun meaning more to him, too. Now in his 12th season in a journeyman career

that has seen him play for nine teams, Pillar has gradually realized, in his words, that he has “become a little bit more of an idol, a folk hero for the Jewish community” eager to see Jews on the field.

“Being a Jewish baseball player, I never really thought anything about it,” said. "But now, you just understand there hasn’t really been a lot of Jewish baseball players to play in the major leagues, and it’s just been a cool thing to be able to tap into a different part of me that I didn’t really understand the importance and the value of.”

He said he appreciates “beContinued on Page 22

Beth Jacob Classes: w.

Rabbi Agar. Tuesdays, 7 p.m.: Torah Tuesdays on Zoom.

Thursdays, 7 p.m.: Thursdays of Thought on Zoom.

Call to register, 937-274-2149. bethjacobcong.org/beth-jacobhappenings.

Temple Beth Or Classes: Sundays, 12:30 p.m.: Adult Hebrew. Thurs., July 4, 7 p.m.: Chai Mitzvah in person & Zoom. templebethor.com/ events. 5275 Marshall Rd., Wash. Twp. 937-435-3400.

Temple Israel Classes: Tues., July 16, 23, 30, noon: Talmud Study in person & Zoom.

Wednesdays, 10 a.m.: Torah Queeries w. Rabbi BodneyHalasz, at Temple. Thurs., July 18, 3:30 p.m.: Living w.

Ambiguous Loss w. Rabbi Bodney-Halasz. Fri., July 12, 11 a.m.: Living w. Loss w.

Rabbi Bodney-Halasz. Saturdays, 9:15 a.m.: Virtual Torah Study on Zoom. Sat., July 13, 9:15: Torah Study in person.

For Torah Study Zoom info., email Fran Rickenbach at franwr@gmail.com. tidayton. org/calendar. 130 Riverside Dr., Dayton. RSVPs to office, 937-

CALENDAR 496-0050.

Children

Kate Elder, kelder@jfgd.net.

Owen’s Place Park, 2260 Dayton Xenia Rd., Beavercreek.

Chabad Camp Gan Israel: Mon., July 22–Fri., Aug. 9.

Register at cgidayton.com.

2001 Far Hills Ave., Oakwood.

937-643-0770.

PJ Library & PJ Our Way w.

Hillel Academy Shabbat in the Park: Fri, Aug. 2, 5:30 p.m. Free. Register at jewishdayton.org/events by July 31.

For info., contact Kate Elder, kelder@jfgd.net. Iron Horse Park, 6161 Millshire Dr., Centerville.

Family

Adults

JCC Camp Shalom: Through July 26. For rising grades 1-9.

Contact Suzzy Nandrasy, snandrasy@jfgd.net.

PJ Library & PJ Our Way Shabbat Summer Splash: Fri., July 12, 5:30 p.m. Free.

Kosher Shabbat meal, splash pad, & playground. Register

by July 8, jewishdayton.org/ events. For info., contact Kate Elder, kelder@jfgd.net. Orchardly Park, 343 Wonderly Ave., Oakwood.

Temple Israel Prayer & Play: Fri., July 19, 5:30 p.m.

Infants–2nd grade. At home of Rabbi Sobo. 937-496-0050.

PJ Library & JCC Early Childhood Education PJ Under 3: Sun., July 21, 10 a.m. Free.

Older siblings welcome. Register at jewishdayton.org/events

by July 18. For info., contact

JCC Canasta Lessons: Wednesdays, 12:30-3:30 p.m. Free. Boonshoft CJCE, 525 Versailles Dr., Centerville.

Contact Stacy Emoff, semoff@ jfgd.net.

Community

Beth Abraham 'Raizen' Our Voices: Sun., July 21, 2 p.m. Honoring Cantor Raizen on her retirement. $18, kids free. RSVP by July 8 to bas@ bethabrahamdayton.org or 937-293-9520. 305 Sugar Camp Cir., Oakwood.

Beth Abraham Shabbat Under the Stars: Fri., July 26, 7:30 p.m. RSVP by July 23, 937-293-9520.

Congratulations to Hillel Academy’s 2024 Graduates.

Principal Dr. Anna Smith, Simon Hakim, Shmuel Simon, Eden Atzmon, Adina Baumgarten, Judaics Dir. Rabbi Levi Simon.

Now accepting PreK-6 applications for the 2024-25 school year.

NEW FOR 2024-25 — HALF-DAY PRE-K daytonhillel.org • 937.277.8966 • asmith@daytonhillel.org THE DAYTON JEWISH OBSERVER • JULY 2024

PAGE 15

RELIGION

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.

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 5, 6 p.m. Fridays, July 19, 26, 6:30 p.m.

Saturday, July 13, 10:30 a.m.

130 Riverside Dr., Dayton.

937-496-0050. tidayton.org

Temple Sholom

Reform Rabbi Cary Kozberg Fridays, 6 p.m.

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.

1st & 3rd Saturday each month.

Contact Len Kramer, 937-5724840 or len2654@gmail.com.

What our flag stands for

By Rabbi Judy Chessin Temple Beth Or On June 14, 1777, our Stars and Stripes became the first national flag of the United States, when the Continental Congress passed the first Flag Act to establish an official standard for the new nation and show solidarity with the Continental Army.

count 56 stars! How can that be?

This flag was sewn in the Mauthausen concentration camp in Austria. During the spring of 1945, rumors began to spread throughout the camp that American forces might soon liberate Mauthausen!

The American flag sewed by Mauthausen prisoners freed by the Allies on So the Jewish prisoners May 5, 1945 is on display at The Museum of Tolerance, the educational arm of came up with a plan. They the Simon Wiesenthal Center. would greet their liberators Wiesenthal himself was one thal, a prisoner in Mauthausen with an American flag to of the very prisoners liberated then, would later comment, In 1960, our current United thank the soldiers for giving that day, May 5, 1945.

"The stars were for hope, States flag was adopted with them back their lives.

As the famous Nazi hunter justice, tolerance, friendship, 50 stars to represent the 50 The camp members gathlater said, "America for us was brotherly love, and understates and 13 stripes to honor ered every scrap of material the original colonies. The red wherever they could find them: standing. In the stripes, we saw a symbol of all we had lost. I barely weighed 90 pounds that the road to freedom!" color symbolizes valor, the sheets from the laundry, red day, and like so many othWhen the 11th Armored white symbolizes fabric from old ers, I was too weak to walk, Division, the Thunderbolt, arpurity, and the Nazi banners, the but seeing that American flag rived to liberate the camp, and blue represents blue-gray cloth rekindled something in each of its leader, Col. Richard Seibel, justice. from their ragged us. Every star on the flag stood jumped down from his tank, The flag was prison jackets. for something precious we the survivors presented him designed to be a For counthad lost; one for hope, one for with their gift — the American unifying symbol, less hours, they freedom, one for justice." flag. but nearly two worked secretly In a time of divisive partisan Col. Seibel took the flag, held and a half centuin the nighttime, rhetoric, we would do well to it up, and kissed it. With tears ries later, some sewing stitch after remember what our flag stands in his eyes, he thanked the people view it as stitch, with hope for, both at home survivors, recogprovocative. in their hearts and and abroad. nizing the extraorSome argue faith for the future.

Even if we dinary courage it that "right-wing But these were disagree with our took to make this extremists" have Jews from Poland, Rabbi Judy Chessin politicians or their flag, no matter co-opted the Lithuania, and platforms, our flag, while others Austria. How were how many stars. nation's success is Seibel tore down display the Stars and Stripes they supposed to know the built on our shared the Nazi flag and upside down in protest of number of stars and stripes on values and aspirainsignia waving governmental corruption and an American flag? tions. over Mauthausen the perceived erosion of civil While they got the 13 stripes As Americans, camp and, in its rights. correct, they mistakenly atlet's look at our flag and honor stead, flew this proud symIn contrast, a unique tached 56 stars. Perhaps they the sacrifices made for justice, bol of freedom for as long as American flag that Jews might believed there were 56 states?

American forces were stationed freedom, and hope. Let's renew doubly celebrate this season Or, as another theory has our pride in our country and there. was created at the Mauthausen it, since no one knew for sure, strive to be a nation that truly Fittingly, after the death of concentration camp. they put on as many stars as embodies the ideals representCol. Seibel, the flag went to the If you look closely at this would fit. ed by our flag.

Simon Wiesenthal Center, since Star-Spangled Banner, you will In any case, Simon WiesenMay the sight of Old Glory reignite the spirit of unity within us, and may each star Fast of the 17th symbolize hope, freedom, and of Tammuz justice for all.

July 23 Torah On Flag Day, 1917, President Commemorating numerous Portions Woodrow Wilson stated, "This calamities that fell on the Jewish flag, which we honor and unpeople on this day, this fast is June 6: Korach der which we serve, is the emobserved from dawn until dusk.

Shabbat (Num. 16:1-18:32; 28:9-15) blem of our unity, our power, Among the calamities were the Candle breach of the walls of Jerusalem our thought and purpose as a June 13: Chukat Lightings by the Babylonians in 586 B.C.E. nation. It has no other character (Num. 19:1-22:1) and by the Romans in 70 C.E. than that which we give it from July 5: 8:50 p.m.

June 20: Balak Marks the beginning of the Three generation to generation. The (Num. 22:2-25:9) July 12: 8:47 p.m.

Weeks, a period of mourning choices are ours."

Perspectives

May the sight of Old Glory reignite the spirit of unity within us.

July

Sivan/Tammuz

July 19: 8:43 p.m.

July 26: 8:37 p.m.

PAGE 16

Museum of Tolerance

June 27: Pinchas (Num. 25:10-30:1)

for the destruction of the First and Second Temples in Jerusalem, culminating on the Ninth of Av.

THE DAYTON JEWISH OBSERVER • JULY 2024

MAZEL TOV! GPO

Rabbi Samuel and Miriam Fox and the Fox family with Israeli President Isaac Herzog, May 20 in honor or the rabbi's 100th birthday.

To celebrate Rabbi Samuel Fox's 100th birthday, he and his wife of 72 years, Miriam, their children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren met with Israeli President Isaac Herzog May 20 at the Presidential Residence in Jerusalem.

Rabbi Samuel Fox served as Beth Jacob Congregation's rabbi from 1955 until his retirement in 1995. Born in Lokatch, Poland, May 28, 1924, Rabbi Fox's family immigrated to Milwaukee in 1929. The Fox family celebrated their patriarch's special birthday over Shabbat in Efrat. Rabbi Fox chanted the Haftarah and hosted a kiddush lunch with the same menu served at his bar mitzvah 87 years ago.

The celebration continued in Jerusalem, May 31 at the home of Bracha and Yitzhak Zuriel when the rabbi and rebbetzin joined a reunion of 40 former Daytonians who now live in Israel.

Stuart and Mimi Rose

After a four-year renovation, the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, D.C. reopens June 21 with a new exhibit drawn entirely from the collection of Stuart and Mimi Rose. Imprints in Time features 52 items from Stuart and Mimi's collection of books and manuscripts from the fields of science, religion, philosophy,

sponsored by Bain Consulting and will move to its Los Angeles office after previously working in Dallas. She is a 2015 Centerville High School graduate. Her undergraduate degree is from Vanderbilt University.

Her proud family includes parents Scott and Ann Liberman of Centerville, sister Deborah Liberman of Plainfield, Ind., and grandparents Marilyn and Harvey Liberman of Knoxville, Tenn., and Conrad Rennemann Jr. of Centerville.

Sarah Blum Routman, daughter of Connie and Stanley Blum, has been named program director of Rimon: the Minneapolis Jewish Arts Council, an initiative of the Minneapolis Jewish Federation.

Sarah, a published poet, photographer, author, and painter, served as executive regional director of BBYO for Minnesota and the Dakotas, Hillel director and leadership instructor at the University of Minnesota, and taught high school English and drama in Florida and Georgia before launching her own business as a speaker, consultant, and coach. She is a certified Laughter Ambassador and Laughter Yoga instructor. Her paintings and photography are part of a triple artist showcase at the Tychman Shapiro Gallery at the Sabes JCC in Minneapolis through July. Her book, Discover the Power of Laughter, coauthored with her twin sister, Rachael, comes out this summer.

literature, and history across University of Dayton AssisThis year's Dayton Business several centuries. tant Prof. of Religious Studies Journal 40 Under 40 honorees Works on exhibit include Abraham Rubin is a visitinclude Jessica Blimbaum, an Egyptian Book of the Dead ing research fellow at Goethe Goodwill Easterseals Miami from the first century B.C.E.; a University's Buber-Rosenzweig Valley director of data strategy; first edition of Nicolaus Coper- Institute in Frankfurt, Germany Martin Foster, Economy Linen nicus’ De revolutionibus (1543), this summer to complete work & Towel Service vice president; which first proposed the helioon his book, Conversion and and Dan Sweeny, Dayton Chilcentric view of our planetary Catastrophe in German-Jewish dren's Hospital's population system; a first edition of Galileo Émigre Autobiography, to be health director.

Galilei’s Dialogo, which depublished with University fended Copernicus’ view of the of Toronto Press.

Mark Gruenberg was solar system and was inscribed Abraham will also elected Temple Beth

by Galileo himself; a first trade conduct research Or's new president at edition of Winnie-the-Pooh, at the The Gerits June 17 board meetinscribed by author A. A. Milne man National ing. to his son; J.R.R. Tolkien’s page Library's German proofs, corrected in his hand, Exile Archive for his Hannah Dritz, daughfor The Lord of the Rings; an next book project, ter of Dr. Michele and advance press copy of Martin which focuses on Dr. Jay Dritz, was conLuther King Jr.’s I Have a Dream the postwar politics Hannah Dritz firmed at Temple Israel speech; and a section of the of Jewish-Christian on June 11.

Apollo 11 flight plan that Neil reconciliation in the life and Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin writings of Schalom Ben-ChoJudah Schwartz, had with them on the moon. rin, Margarete Susman, and son of Pam and “We wanted to recreate the Hans-Joachim Schoeps.

Andy Schwartz feeling of being in Stuart and and grandson of Mimi’s library for this exhibiJane Fischer, who arrived in Lois Spetter and tion,” noted Greg Prickman, Springfield three years ago Syd Gross, Allan Ben Lambert of Lansing, the Folger's librarian to serve as developSpetter and ClauMich., carries forward the and director of colment director of the dia Birch, gradumission of his late grandlections and exhibiClark County Hisated from Oakfather-in-law, Holocaust tions, who curated torical Society, has wood High School survivor Robert Kahn.

Imprints in Time. been promoted to the Magna Cum Laude Judah Schwartz Ben, who is married to Stuart served on position of executive with an honors diAliza Weiss, will run in the Folger’s board director. A native of ploma. Judah earned his Eagle the New York City Marathon for 10 years. He Philadelphia, Jane is Scout rank with Boy Scout Nov. 3 as a member of Team encouraged the Fola member of SpringTroop 320. He was also on Blue Card, which raises funds ger to add as much field Rotary and the Oakwood High School's Quiz and awareness for Holocaust space as possible to Greater Springfield Bowl Team, a member of the survivors living at or below display its sizeable Association of FundNational Honor Society, and the poverty level in the United Jane Fischer collection of early raising Professionals.

Spanish Honors Society. He'll States. Ben will run the maramodern European materials. attend Dickinson College. thon in memory of Bob, who In recognition of his advocaThe Charles F. Kettering Foundied at age 100 in April. "He cy and support of the renova- dation has appointed The Andrea Liberman believed we all had a part to tion project, the hall where Collaboratory founder received her MBA play to help make the world a the special exhibitions gallery Peter Benkendorf to its from the University better place," Ben noted. "There is located is named The Stuart first cohort of Ketterof Pennsylvania's are over 200,000 Holocaust and Mimi Rose Rare Book and ing Foundation Dayton Wharton School survivors alive today worldManuscript Exhibition Hall.

Democracy Fellows. The of Business. She wide and over 81% of them are “Stuart maintains that books fellowship is designed majored in marketin need of either ongoing or and manuscripts need to be to support "innovative ing and operations additional financial assistance seen and experienced in order leaders, changemakers and was a nonprofit to afford basic needs, such as to be enjoyed,” Folger Director and dreamers who are board fellow for adequate food and healthcare."

Andrea Liberman Michael Witmore explained in building movements for BalletX, president the show announcement. Iminclusive democracy in their of the Wharton Dance Studio, prints in Time will be on exhibit communities and in our wider and a member of the Jewish Send your Mazel Tov announcethrough Jan. 5. world."

Association of MBAs. She was ments to mweiss@jfgd.net.

THE DAYTON JEWISH OBSERVER • JULY 2024

PAGE 17

Hope Leigh

Jewish food maven Joan Nathan dishes all in autobiography

By Rachel Ringler, The Nosher Joan Nathan had just settled in for a conversation about her most recent book, My Life in Recipes, when the food writer became distracted.

A media personality was coming for lunch the next day, she said, but she realized she was missing two of the ingredients for the matzah balls she planned on serving.

She paused to search for what she needed while also musing about what substitutes she might use in their place.

A few days later, Nathan reported success: The luncheon was “lots of fun” and the matzah balls were delicious, she said, though she added, “They could have been cooked a tad bit more.” That forthright response is in line with the Joan Nathan readers have come to know from her 12 cookbooks.

In April, Nathan, 81, released her 436-page autobiography, My Life in Recipes. It looks back at her storied career, from her childhood in Providence, R.I., to the research and writing that has made her the undisputed doyenne of Jewish food writing. Not that Nathan says she has spent much time thinking about her broader impact.

“I guess I have made a big contribution to the Jewish

PAGE 18

world. I never thought about it,” she said. “I humanized Jewish food all over the world and I think I made it important for people to realize it is part of their lives.”

The stories in My Life in Recipes date back to before Nathan’s birth in 1943. Many of the recipes that accompany and enrich the memoir were passed down within her family, like the matzah balls (tweaked with the addition of nutmeg and freshly grated ginger); a sweetand-sour fish reminiscent of a dish her father enjoyed growing up in Augsburg, Germany; her German great-grandmother’s challah, made with mashed potatoes; and her mother’s coleslaw.

Nathan believes the coleslaw — made with orange juice and pickle juice — is a riff on a recipe that first appeared in a 1901 cookbook published by a Jewish woman to help recent immigrants, many of whom were Jewish, integrate into American life.

“Sometimes there are familial salads, secret salads, that you want to keep within the family. These are things I have learned and respected over

all these years that I have been writing,” Nathan said. “She (my mom) probably took it originally from The SettleJoan Nathan and her latest cookbook, her 12th. ment Cookbook and then she played lem, which she wrote with her around with it. That is how friend Judy Stacey Goldman. home cooks do it.”

During that same 30-month Other recipes in the new period, she had a defining meal book, such as kolo, an Ethiothat changed the trajectory of pian barley snack, were picked her life. She and Kollek were up from friends and from some invited to a local Arab village of the people in out-of-the-way to meet with the mukhtar, or places Nathan has met and bevillage head. Kollek didn’t friended over her want to go because he knew many years as a that the mukhtar wanted a new food writer. road built, one that would be In 1970, when very expensive. But they went she was 27 — fol- and by the end of the sumptulowing graduate ous repast at the mukhtar’s studies in French home, the village got a road literature at the and Nathan got a lifelong University of career.

Michigan and a stint working as a bilingual assistant Exploring the world in French and English at the through food United Nations — Nathan “That meal showed me how moved to Israel and eventufood can break down barriers ally became Jerusalem mayor and bring people together,” she Teddy Kollek’s foreign press writes. “I understood then that attaché. food is not ornamental — it is While in that position, she central, and worthy of study became intrigued by the good — and that I could explore the food served in people’s homes world through food.” in Jerusalem. That interest Following her return to the culminated in the first of her United States in 1974, Nathan cookbooks, The Flavor of Jerusamarried attorney Allan Gerson,

'Food can break down barriers and bring people together.'

whom she met in Israel. They moved to Boston, where she studied at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. While there, she wrote a paper, Food Traits: An Overlooked Component of Ethnic Identity, for a class on ethnicity and politics taught by Daniel Patrick Moynihan, who soon after was elected to the U.S. Senate, representing New York.

Nathan also wrote about ethnic food for a column in The Boston Globe. When she and her husband moved to Washington, D.C. in 1977, she found a niche at the Washington Post in focusing on Jewish food.

Mitchell Davis, a food consultant who spent 27 years at the James Beard Foundation, most recently as its chief strategy officer, recalls Nathan as among a handful of women who “had a tremendous passion and precision and capacity to understand and translate different food cultures around the world” and made a broad impact as a result.

“If Julia (Child) was the first, I put Joan in my mind along with Marcella Hazan for Italian food, Madhur Jaffrey for Indian and Paula Wolfert for Moroccan food,” he said. “Because of her persistence and precision, and finding the story and getting it right, she did for Jewish food what all of those people did for other cuisines.”

Nathan gets her stories by finding her way into people’s homes and kitchens and listening to them.

Food writer Leah Koenig, who is the author of seven cookbooks including the encyclopedic Jewish Cookbook, remembers a trip she took to Israel in 2010 with Nathan to explore what Koenig calls “the then-burgeoning food scene there.”

“I remember one day in the Jerusalem shuk where she literally followed her nose into the

THE DAYTON JEWISH OBSERVER • JULY 2024

kitchen where a man was preparing an interesting chickpea dish," Koenig said. "I watched in awe as she asked him question after question. Her genuine enthusiasm and curiosity were absolutely infectious and she walked away with a story, a recipe, a friend, and a source she could return to.”

Cookbook author Katja Goldman spent a couple of afternoons in her kitchen with Nathan about 30 years ago, once to shape challah with her and another time for a story about varieties of stuffed pasta, such as Italian tortellini and Chinese wontons.

Goldman showed Nathan how she made kreplach, an Eastern European meat-stuffed dumpling that is served in soup. “She had me show her how to do it, discussed the process and asked a lot of questions,” Goldman said.

Nathan gets people to open up to her and share their recipes by showing an interest in them. “When you want their recipe, you are acknowledging that you accept them as human beings,” Nathan said. “They will share with you. It’s being yourself with somebody and showing an interest. You have to get into their homes.”

In 1994, Nathan received a James Beard Award for Best American Cookbook for her fifth cookbook, Jewish Cooking in America, in which she documents, in her words, “how varied Jewish food can be.” Most of the recipes are attributed to the individuals who shared them with Nathan, with introductory notes about the roots of the recipe.

“She makes the point very early on in Jewish Cooking in America that Jews have always adapted to where they have gone and have taken advantage of local ingredients,” said Matt Sartwell, managing partner of Kitchen Arts and Letters, a Manhattan bookstore specializing in culinary themes.

In her chapter in the memoir titled My Holiday is Passover, she shares a recipe for gefilte fish made with American halibut, a saltwater fish, which is a change from the classic gefilte fish made with the whitefish and carp found in Eastern European lakes.

In a food world increasingly rife with controversy over the origins and cultural ties of particular foods, Nathan in some ways represents a throwback to a simpler time.

When podcast host Kara

Swisher recently asked Nathan if Israeli food was stolen from Arab cuisines — a charge often leveled against it —Nathan said she does not delve into food politics.

Yet she also offered an answer about hummus: “It’s not stolen,” Nathan said, adding that it was popular across the region. She credited American Jews who began traveling more regularly to Israel in the late 1960s with popularizing the chickpea spread in the United States.

She also said she was saddened by the friendships between Jewish or Israeli food writers and Arab food writers that were “destroyed” amid the current Israel-Hamas war.

She said she hoped to see a ceasefire, and offered a suggestion for a dish that could one day become associated with memorializing the Oct. 7 attack on Israel the same way that hamantashen are a symbol of survival on the Jewish holiday of Purim.

Mujaddara, a lentil-andbulgur dish that appears in My Life in Recipes, is fitting both because it is popular among Arabs and Jews in the Middle East, Nathan said, and because it is often eaten before Tisha B’Av, a Jewish holiday of mourning.

“Why would you have something happy to memorialize a tragedy?” Nathan asked. “But it tastes good…and it’s a humble dish. That’s what I would use.”

Nathan began My Life in Recipes, which she claims will be her last book — “I have written a dozen! That’s good!” — when the pandemic struck in 2020.

“My husband had just died, it was a time of reflection,” Nathan said. “I looked at the body of my work and I wanted to share it. It took a long time to get ready to write it because I had to go through all of my letters and my files. I had to contact people I hadn’t spoken to in 50 or 60 years.”

Nathan’s Rolodex is packed after decades of culinary exploration. But she believes forging more intimate relationships around food can be just as powerful as discovering previously unsung food traditions in far-flung places.

“It is so important for children to talk to their parents and their grandparents and find their past and their path to the future,” she said. “We need the connection. Otherwise we will all be the same. And we don’t want to all be the same.”

'Food is not ornamental — it is central, and worthy of study'

THE DAYTON JEWISH OBSERVER • JULY 2024

Gabriela Herman

Joan Nathan's Raspberry-Walnut Rugelach

By Joan Nathan, The Nosher When I was in Montreal at Hof Kelsten, a stellar Jewish bakery-deli, I tasted the best rugelach ever.

The cream cheese dough was shaped into small rectangular pockets, overflowing with strawberry jam and nuts. Although the chef would not share the recipe, he did tell me the ingredients, and I realized his pastry is very similar to my own, a simple American cream cheese butter dough so good that one reviewer in Montreal mistook Hof Kelsten’s version for a French mille-feuille pastry!

Many years before that, when watching a knish maker on the Lower East Side, I was struck by the way she cut her dough, using the side of her hand. I’ve done the same with my rugelach since then, to have a connection to the past.

Besides the dough, it is the high-quality jam and not too finely chopped toasted nuts — plus the old-fashioned cutting technique, which creates pockets in warm, jam-filled cookies — that make the recipe.

I also heat the oven to 400 degrees and then, as soon as I put the rugelach in, turn it down to 350 degrees, to help set the crust.

Here it is, with all the recipe’s deliciousness.

From My Life in Recipes: Food, Family, and Memories, 2024 by Joan Nathan. Excerpted by permission of Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Penguin Random House.

Prep Time: 15 minutes + 3 hours chill Cook Time: 30 minutes For the rugelach: 8 oz. cream cheese, at room temperature 1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature 2 Tbsp. granulated sugar 2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour pinch of salt 1 cup thick, good-quality raspberry or strawberry preserves ¾ cup walnuts, toasted and finely chopped (but leave some slightly larger chunks) 2 Tbsp. vanilla sugar, for sprinkling For the vanilla sugar: 4 cups sugar 1 vanilla bean pod To make vanilla sugar: Put about four cups of sugar in a bowl or a glass jar with a lid. Take a vanilla-bean pod and carefully cut down the length, flicking out the beans from the center of the vanilla.

Submerge the pods in the sugar, close the

jar, and let it infuse for at least a day.

Put the cream cheese, butter, and sugar in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. Cream until blended, about two minutes.

Scrape the sides of the bowl, then add the flour and salt and mix until a very soft dough is formed, about one more minute.

Scrape the dough onto a sheet of plastic or food-grade silicone, wrap it tightly, and refrigerate for two hours or overnight.

Line two baking sheets with parchment paper. Divide the dough into four balls, then pat each into a rough square.

Roll one piece into a rectangle about ⅛-inch thick (roughly 9 by 12 inches). Spoon a fourth of the jam onto the rectangle, then spread it almost to the edge, leaving about a half-inch border all around. Sprinkle on a fourth of the nuts.

Roll the dough up along the long side, like a jelly roll, tucking in the ends and positioning it seam side down.

Using the side of your hand like a knife, cut the roll into eight pieces (this causes the dough to crimp partially shut, whereas an actual knife would create a more spiraled appearance).

Place the slices on the prepared baking sheets, repeating with the remaining dough and filling. You should have 16 cookies per baking sheet. Refrigerate for at least one hour.

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees with two oven racks in the middle. Remove the rugelach from the refrigerator, and use your fingers to crimp the edges shut.

Any jam that oozes out will caramelize beautifully, so don’t worry too much about that.

Sprinkle the cookies generously with the vanilla sugar. Put the sheets into the oven, and immediately decrease the temperature to 350 degrees.

Bake for 15 minutes, then swap the baking sheets, rotate them back to front, and bake for about 15 minutes more, or until the rugelach are golden on top. Transfer them to racks to cool.

Notes Use this vanilla sugar whenever you want to make a pastry with vanilla, even if the recipe doesn’t call for it, or if you wish to sprinkle it on your rugelach. It needs to infuse for at least a day before use.

The rugelach dough needs to chill in the refrigerator for two hours or overnight.

The assembled rugelach need to chill in the refrigerator for at least one hour before baking.

PAGE 19

JEWISH FAMILY EDUCATION

Law or justice?

Judaism's Worldview Series

Two men appeared as disputants before Rabbi Heschel of Kraków, stated their claims, and left. As the rabbi deliberated, one man returned with a bag of gold coins and a request to decide the case in his favor, quickly leaving emptyhanded.

At dinner that evening, Rabbi Heschel took out the bag of coins and began

Candace R. Kwiatek counting them, holding them aloft, even passing them around for his puzzled guests to examine.

Suddenly the rabbi asked, “Can you distinguish any fault in these coins?”

Heads shook all around. He nodded.

“They were given to me today as a bribe. I simply wished to demonstrate to you that there is no intrinsic difference between ordinary coins and those given in bribery — except that the latter are given as bribes.”

“Corruption was not a problem at the beginning of history,” writes legal

expert Timothy Martin. In the ancient world, “offerings” were made to gods or leaders, not as bribes but as tributes in hopes of securing favors.

As civilizations arose, the rule of law became necessary for society to function as desired. Its development is evident as early as the third millennium B.C.E. in the literary references and artifacts of Ebla, Ur-Nammu, and Hammurabi.

The longest continuouslypracticed law codes, however, are those in the Torah. Initiated at Sinai in the second millennium B.C.E. and recorded in their current form on scrolls after the Babylonian Exile, a significant proportion of laws are still, directly or indirectly, observed today.

Among them is the biblical command, “You shall not take a shochad (offering, bribe, gift, or any form of benefit) which makes the clear-eyed blind and the words of the just crooked.”

With its 613 Commandments from the Torah alone, Judaism has often been called legalistic. However, focusing on individual laws misses their collective purpose: justice, one of Judaism’s foun-

dational values.

This is evident in the wording of the above bribery law that essentially says, “Don’t bribe because it upends justice.”

The interwoven nature of justice and biblical law is expressed in the Hebrew.

Tzedek is justice expressed as righteousness, that is, ethical behavior in relationships with others and the world in which we live.

Mishpat is the pursuit of justice through laws and legal processes. And din is overarching judgment of actions and their consequences, not their intentions. Have actions — righteous or otherwise — or legal processes been accomplished in a just manner? Have their consequences increased justice in the world…or not?

“Justice, justice you shall pursue,” the Torah implores us (Deut.

16:20). Pursue it through law, pursue it in word and action. Pursue justice justly.

Coins. Preparing to visit family in a distant village, a widow secretly hid her gold coins in clay pots, filling them to the brim with honey. Happy to watch over the pots, her neighbor borrowed a bit of honey one day and discovered the hidden treasure.

After removing the coins, she refilled the jars with honey. When the widow returned, she discovered her gold was missing. But with no evidence against her neighbor, the court dismissed her complaint.

Having overheard the unhappy tale, young David suggested that the women and jars be brought to Saul’s royal court. There, David broke the jars one by one until two coins were exposed, stuck to the inner side of a broken jar. Found guilty, the neighbor was sentenced to return the coins, replace the broken jars, and fill them to the brim with honey.

Lots. In 1478, the monarchs Ferdinand and Isabella established the Spanish Inquisition. The Pope appointed Tomás de Torquemada as its grand inquisitor in 1483.

Once, when the perpetrator of a severe crime in Seville couldn’t be identified, Torquemada accused the esteemed Rabbi Pinchas, expecting conviction to foment a backlash against the heretical

Jews. He put the rabbi on trial, but the jury concluded there was no evidence to convict.

Undeterred, the cunning inquisitor proposed a new public trial, “We’ll put this matter before God by drawing lots.

Inside this box,” he pointed, “are two scraps of paper, one labeled guilty and the other not guilty. If the rabbi draws out the one labeled guilty, he will be immediately executed. If he draws not guilty, he will be free to go.

Rabbi Pinchas remarked cynically, “How just.” He drew out a scrap and promptly swallowed it.

“Wha- ??” sputtered the inquisitor.

“Now we’ll never know!”

“On the contrary,” responded the rabbi. "If the remaining scrap says guilty, then clearly the one I ate must have said not guilty.”

He regarded Torquemada knowingly. Cornered, the inquisitor reluctantly removed the second scrap. “Guilty.”

Red-faced with rage, Torquemada had no choice but to let the rabbi go free.

Teens. In a Virginia courtroom, five teens pled guilty to unlawful entry and destruction of property for having vandalized a historic Black school with racist and antisemitic graffiti.

The judge noted the boys, three of whom were minorities, had no prior legal encounters, and “(n)one of them seemed to appreciate…the seriousness of what they had done.”

So she prepared an unusual sentence recommendation that included reading works by prominent Black, Jewish, and Afghan authors; visiting the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum; writing a research paper on hate speech and its effects on minority communities, and more.

After completion, their cases would be dismissed.

The judge expressed hope that the unusual sentences would be both educational for the boys and a step toward healing for the community.

Our days are filled with countless opportunities to bring tzedek (justice) into the world by how we speak, treat others, tackle problems, address social issues, formulate solutions, administer the law, and more, all guided by the Torah’s laws.

As Rabbi Tarfon taught: It is not your duty to finish the work, but neither are you at liberty to neglect it.”

'Justice, justice you shall pursue.'

Wright State Theatre and Dance Announces Its 2024–25 Season!

COLLEGE OF

LIBERAL ARTS

Learn more about the 2024–25 season and get tickets at wright.edu/boxoffice

PAGE 20

Our Town by Thornton Wilder Carrie: The Musical, inspired by the Stephen King novel The Apple Tree, with music

by Jerry Bock and Sheldon Harnick Much Ado About Nothing by Shakespeare Everybody, a modern adaptation of the morality play Everyman Alice by Heart by Steven Sater and Duncan Sheik Spring Dance Concert, with the Wright State Dance Ensemble and its partners

Literature to share Doña Gracia Saved Worlds by Bonni Goldberg. The complicated story of Jewish heroine Doña Gracia is beautifully captured with simple text and rich illustrations in this engaging book for primary ages.

Woven throughout are bits of Sephardic history, Jewish culture, and even geography alongside values of resilience, community, freedom, and making a positive difference.

Unstuff Your Life! Kick the Clutter Habit and Completely Organize Your Life for Good by Andrew J. Mellen. If you regularly lose your keys or phone, can’t open your closet doors without an avalanche, or dread opening your mushrooming email or photo apps, this book may be your solution. Read the chapters that address your needs or listen to the audio while you commute.

THE DAYTON JEWISH OBSERVER • JULY 2024

Arts&Culture

The Irish & the Jewish: natural allies

Book Review

By Martin Gottlieb Special To The Observer In mid 20th-century Chicago, there was a shoe store chain called O'Connor and Goldberg.

Adult Jews thought that was so funny: an only-in-America story. Younger Jews didn't really see anything noteworthy about the name until their elders explained.

Now comes a book about the connections between the Jews and Irish in this country at the turn of the 20th century and beyond. The book isn't about connections in the business world, though. It focuses on government, unions, and schools, perhaps because that's where the memoirs are, and that's where the media coverage was.

The author of Opening Doors: The Unlikely Alliance Between the Irish and the Jews in America (St. Martin's Press, July 30, 2024, 257 pages) is Hasia R. Diner, Hasia R. Diner a prolific author of books about both Jewish American and Irish American history.

A prepublication version of her book has this remarkable statement: “Hasia Diner is a professor of American Jewish history and former chair of the Irish studies program at New York University.”

The book's story is basically this: The Irish got here first, roughly speaking, near the middle of the 19th century.

When the Jews — the next major immigrant group — got here in big numbers later in the century, they came mainly to the places where the Irish had concentrated: the big cities, especially New York.

The Irish were still fighting to be accepted and respected by the preexisting Protestant majority. Anti-Catholic prejudice was rampant.

In that context, the Irish saw the Jews as natural allies in the battle against prejudice and against the Protestant power structure.

The Irish who were running Tammany Hall — the Democratic machine in New York that was largely abjured by the

Protestant establishment as corrupt — recruited Jews.

Being part of Tammany brought benefits for the struggling immigrants: connections that could lead to jobs or breaks from tough enforcement of city rules or even food or other forms of help when things got really rough.

Similarly, when the Irish were at the forefront of the early labor union movement as the industrial age matured, Jews were natural union members, especially in the clothing industry. The Irish not only organized them, but nurtured them as leaders.

As for the schools, at a certain stage, Irish American women were a huge presence among high school teachers. Many saw Jewish immigrant children — replete with language difficulties — as versions of themselves and their families a generation earlier.

Tight bonds developed.

When the Ku Klux Klan flourished in the 1920s, Catholics (largely Irish) were a more common target than Jews. That experience also fostered the feeling among the Irish that they were in the same boat as the Jews.

The story of cooperation is particularly striking in higher education. While the Ivy League schools and other old-line Protestant schools had quotas limiting Jews, the Catholic universities — Fordham, Loyola, DePaul — reached out to them and produced major numbers of Jewish professionals.

The author is struck by her inability to find any evidence of discrimination, prejudice, or hard feelings between the Catholics and Jews of the time — say, the 1930s — either among students or between students and faculty.

Of course, the Irish-Jewish connection wasn't always sweet. There was, perhaps

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But even in that case, author Diner notes, many leading Irish American figures came to the defense of Jews against him.

Of course, he was also increasingly pro-Hitler, which cost him much support among the Irish, as elsewhere.

Opening Doors fills a gap in the historical knowledge of most people. It's a story that needed to be told.

Unfortunately, it's not a great read. It sometimes seems to be a list of connections between specific Jews and specific Irish in specific tasks.

Names of people and organizations fly by in quantities that cannot possibly be remembered, however impressed one must be by the research.

But the abundance of names is necessary to make the point: The historical Irish-Jewish connection is not just a matter of a few cute O'Connor-and-Goldberg type anecdotes, but a broad-based phenomenon that deserves a spot in our understanding of Jewish American history.

Opening Doors fills a gap in the historical knowledge of most people.

It's a story that needed to be told.

THE DAYTON JEWISH OBSERVER • JULY 2024

Retired Dayton Daily News editorial writer Martin Gottlieb is advisor to The Dayton Jewish Observer.

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PAGE 21

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

I

n 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.

Preserving our Past Ensuring Our Future

OBITUARIES Morris Jacob Heider, age 77 of Boca Raton, Fla., passed away May 27 at Baptist Health Boca Raton Hospital. After graduating from The Ohio State University, Morris spent his early years as a metals dealer in Dayton; moving to Florida, he focused on recycling management with Hollywood Scrap Recycling. Most recently, he invested in land development with Creative Land Management. He was preceded in death by his parents, Samuel and Phyllis Heider. Morris is survived by his loving wife, Kathyn LeGrand-Heider; daughters, Molly Rae LeGrand Weiner and Kelly Rose LeGrand Weiner; and grandson, Wilder Edward Druckerman; sisters and brothers-in-law, Linda and Larry Richards, Sharon Heider; Mark and Nancy LeGrand, Stephen LeGrand and Sharon Ott, Monica and Dan Trudell. Interment was at Beth Jacob Cemetery.

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Lillian R. Winnegrad, 94, passed away peacefully on May 26. Lillian was preceded in death by her parents, Menashe and Esther Friedman; husbands Irving Winnegrad and Stuart Enfield; and sisters Sylvia Levitt, Molly Lesser, and Mary Friedman. She is survived by her children, Jim (Janice) Winnegrad and Ken (Lorrie) Winnegrad; grandchildren Melissa, Emily, Kenzi and Kody Winnegrad; and great-grandson Zane Manns.

Lillian was born in Dayton on Sept. 25, 1929. After graduating from Miami University, she returned to Dayton and began a career in education, teaching children ranging from grades K through three. She married Irving in 1954. Jim was born in 1956 and Ken in 1960. Her children were special to her, and she loved doing things as a family. After encouraging her children to join a theatre group, Lillian also became active on the Dayton Community Theatre board and acted in several shows. She became involved with the boys’ elementary school, serving as PTA president. She loved watching the

Continued from Page 15 ing able to give a Jewish kid that’s either from Southern California, Israel or another country, Canada, wherever, someone to look up to.”

Since he arrived at Angel Stadium at the beginning of May, he’s been setting quite an example. Pillar, who grew up in Los Angeles and played college baseball at nearby California State University, Dominguez Hills, was brought on to replace superstar Mike Trout, who is injured. In 25 games

L’dor V’dor.

From Generation To Generation.

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boys play baseball and softball.

After her boys, her No. 1 sports love was the Cincinnati Reds.

She loved to watch them on TV or listen on the radio. Later in life, she stayed busy by becoming a Diet Workshop coach, helping people to lose weight.

She loved being a BBG advisor and working with high school girls, many of whom knew her as “Aunt Lil." After Irv passed, she remarried in 1986 to Stuart Enfield. After retiring from teaching, she took a part-time position selling cruises. She and Stu did a lot of travelling, and they eventually became snowbirds in the Phoenix area.

Lil spent the final two years of her life very happily at Montage of Mason in Cincinnati.

Lil made friends wherever she went. Whether it was her neighbors, her fellow synagogue members, the theatre group, schools, Arizona or her assisted living facility these past two years, she always loved socializing. Interment was at Beth Jacob Cemetery.

Donations in her memory may be made to the charity of your choice. with the Angels, he’s sported a .381 batting average with six home runs and 22 RBI. For Angels fans, Pillar’s offensive outburst has been a bright spot in a so-far losing season.

His mother, Wendy, is Jewish, and his father, Mike, is Catholic. The Pillars celebrated both Chanukah and Christmas, he said, and he had a bar mitzvah largely out of respect for his grandparents, who were observant.

One Jewish connection from his childhood has endured: Pillar played in the same Little League as retired Jewish MLB catcher Ryan Lavarnway, and though the two never played together professionally, they’ve stayed in touch. Lavarnway said Pillar’s dedication speaks to his strength of character.

“For him to be so loud and proud about it now, it just speaks volumes,” Lavarnway said about Pillar’s Jewish identity. “The way that he’s done it has been exactly how you would want it. If you are a parent, and you want your kid to have a role model, Kevin Pillar is exactly who you would want it be. He’s someone that I have been proud to know, someone I’m proud to have come from the same area, and someone that I’m proud is another Jewish player in the league.”

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P R E S I D E NTS

D I NNER 2024

Thank you to our fantastic Presidents Dinner chairs Bruce and Debbie Feldman and many thanks to our wonderful community for making this evening such a success.