The Dayton Jewish Observer, May 2023

Panels from Beth Abraham Synagogue's Israel Independence Day window by A. Raymond Katz.

Photos: Mike Jaffe

Former longtime JCC Early Childhood Director Audrey MacKenzie

Beth Jacob 3rd Women Inspiring Women

Beth Jacob Congregation's Third Annual Jewish Women Inspiring Women luncheon will be held at 11 a.m., Sunday, June 4. The event presents women from across the Jewish community sharing their stories of empowerment, strength, and courage. This year's speakers are

Ann Berger, Linda Blum, Jenny Caplan, Susan Gruenberg, Michele Serotkin, and Chaya Vidal. The cost to attend the luncheon is $18. Beth Jacob is located at 7020 N. Main St., Harrison Township. RSVP by May 25 to bethjacob1@aol. com or 937-274-2149.

Klezmer concerts May 7-8

Israeli singer/ songwriter for Israel at 75 celebration April 30

Dayton's Flying Klezmerians and Aaron Kula and Chaim Rubinov of the Boca Raton-based Klezmer Company Jazz Orchestra will team up to perform two concerts, May 7 and 8.

The JCC will present their performance of Jubano Jazz — a blend of Latin rhythms and klezmer tunes — at 2 p.m., Sunday, May 7 at Cline Elementary School, 99 Virginia Ave., Washington Township. Tickets are $10 adults, $5 children (15 and under).

PJ Our Way and PJ Library will host Klez4Kids, an outdoor concert at 6 p.m., Monday, May 8 at Wright Memorial Public Library, 1776 Far Hills Ave., Oakwood. Dayton Jewish Observer Editor Marshall Weiss will narrate the PJ Library children's book Mendel's Accordion as part of the program, which is free and open to the community.

Register for both concerts at jewishdayton.org/events.

Strug keynotes Presidents Dinner

Gold medal-winning Olympic gymnast Kerri Strug will keynote the Jewish Federation’s Presidents Dinner at 6 p.m., Sunday, May 21 at the Boonshoft CJCE, 525 Versailles Dr., Centerville. Tickets are $100 each, $50 per young adult (ages 35 and under). Kashrut will be observed. Participants will be asked to make their pledges to the 2023 Jewish Federation Annual Campaign. RSVP by May 15 to jewishdayton.org/events.

Kerri Strug

Rami Feinstein

American Israeli singer and songwriter Rami Feinstein will perform at the community Yom Ha'atzmaut celebration of Israel at 75, Sunday, April 30, 2-5 p.m. at the Boonshoft Center for Jewish Culture and Education, 525 Versailles Dr., Centerville.

Kosher Israeli food by Rochel Simon will be available for purchase at the event, which will showcase Israeli innovation and culture. The JCC presents the celebration in partnership with Beth Abraham Synagogue, Beth Jacob Congregation, Dayton Sister Cities, Dayton Hadassah, Hillel Academy, Jewish War Veterans Post #587, Temple Beth Or, and Temple Israel.

Admission is free. For more information, go to jewishdayton.org or call 937-610-1555.

The Flying Klezmerians

Chaim Rubinov (L) and Aaron Kula

12-year-old's head and heart are with her parents in Ukraine

By Marshall Weiss The Observer

Like so many middle schoolers, 12-year-old Polina hangs out with her friends, riding bikes after school and on the weekends.

She and her friends constantly check on their chats to find out the latest news among their classmates.

Unlike her friends, she keeps up with assignments from two schools: Magsig Middle School in Centerville, where she is enrolled as a seventh grader, and online for her school in Ukraine on evenings and weekends.

Polina is determined that when the war in Ukraine ends, she will return and pick up her studies seamlessly, without falling behind.

She arrived in Centerville last August accompanied by her mother, who then returned to Ukraine, where her husband fights in the army and her parents and his parents live. It was a harrowing journey of three months across five countries to get Polina out of a war zone.

Polina lives with her aunt and uncle, Maryna and Michael Braginsky, and their six children.

"I hope I'm coming back to Suma so soon. I hope so," she says of her family's hometown.

She hasn't seen her dad, Maryna's older brother, since March 2022 — and that was for 15 minutes. He is now stationed in Slovyansk, near Bakhmut.

"My grandmother misses my dad so much, like me," Polina

says. She follows the news from Ukraine every day.

"I need to know everything that's happening in my country because I miss my country. I want to go back there so soon. I hope I'm going this summer to Ukraine, but I don't think the war will be finished."

It's a painful realization for Polina to accept.

"At first, she wouldn't make friends with even my kids — her cousins — she wouldn't make friends at school," says her aunt, Maryna. "She knows a Ukrainian-speaking girl, so she was friends with her, and that's it. She didn't care about schoolwork because she was expecting that she wakes up the next

Bark Mitzvah Boy

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morning and the war is over. As the time goes by, at some point she realized that it's taking longer than she thought. So she started making friends and her school grades improved, and she started to go in to (worship) services with us, and to attend religious community functions."

Polina says her best friend at Magsig is a girl from Japan. "She's been here two years."

To cope with the constant stress about her parents and the war, the youngster plays volleyball, listens to Ukrainian pop music, and talks with her cousin, Maryna's daughter Elizabeth, who is in eighth

Continued on Page Four

As this issue goes to press, we don't know when Ukraine will launch its anticipated advance on the Russian army. But the news from Maryna Braginsky (see above story) is that right now, her family in Ukraine is safe. Her parents have the food and medicines they need at their home in Suma. "They do bomb that city," Maryna says. "They just don't get as far as they used to." Her younger brother, also in the Ukrainian army, married a woman with the army's medical personnel in December. "He says that she really kept him sane, because he lost his friend, dying in his arms," Maryna says. "He lost another friend, shot somewhere, so he traveled just to see him in the morgue."

On the cover: The main panel of this Beth Abraham window depicts laborers and scholars blending their efforts in harmony and fellowship, rewarded by the vision of Jerusalem restored, fulfilling the vision of Isaiah, "For out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem."

Marshall Weiss

Marshall Weiss

Maryna Braginsky with her niece, Polina, now a seventh-grader at Magsig Middle School in Centerville. Polina arrived from Ukraine last August.

S

Editor and Publisher Marshall Weiss mweiss@jfgd.net

937-610-1555

Contributors Rabbi Aubrey L. Glazer Candace R. Kwiatek

Ukraine

Continued from Page Three

grade at Magsig.

"She knows everything about it, but doesn't tell everybody," Polina says of her cousin.

Polina is in contact with her dad almost every day. "I talk with him more when I can, but it's war. And I have to adjust."

Her mother continues her work in a grocery store in Suma.

"We are not talking every day, but we're trying," Polina says, "because she comes home at seven or eight, and she goes to work at 5 a.m. in the morning."

Her mother helps her with Ukrainian school assignments.

"She doesn't want to miss the grade," Maryna says of her niece. "That's why they agreed, the Ukrainian school, that she will do some assignments. Not every day, but some assignments, so she has grades going there. And now, they are approaching final exams in May. I don't know how they will arrange that."

As her first school year wraps up at Magsig, Polina describes her situation as "actually good."

"My grades are good because my English is just a little bit better. I'm so glad my English is much better right now. Teachers can understand me. I love this school. It's a good school. It's good teachers. They help me with everything."

An only child, she's also had to adjust to a family dynamic of six other children in a household.

"And her parents worked constantly, so Polina was home by herself after school," Maryna explains, which is the norm in Ukraine. "People in Ukraine have much less flexibility with working hours and do not have a system of afterschool care."

"Yeah, I did whatever I wanted," Polina says of her life in Suma. "Here, I always have my aunt staying home. At first, it was uncomfortable for me because somebody's always home. And there are so many kids."

She sleeps in the girls' bedroom, with her three female cousins.

Along with the American fast food she's come to enjoy, Polina says she loves her aunt's cooking.

"She can cook Ukrainian food and I'm so happy about it, because I can eat this food, what I was eating in my home," Polina says. "I love borsht

(beet soup) so much."

Polina says that since she arrived at the Braginsky home, she has all but stopped eating pork, because the family keeps kosher.

"Right now, I'm so fine with this," Polina says. "If I eat pork, it's at a restaurant and not very often."

Polina was raised as a Christian, her mother's faith.

"We did have that adjustment about dietary restrictions," says Maryna, who keeps a traditional Jewish home.

"In August, she would make herself a sandwich with turkey and the cheese on top. And everybody just faints. And of course, there is an issue of dress code. We try to maintain modesty. And that is a huge and big struggle."

When Polina first attended services with the Braginskys at Chabad, Rabbi Nochum Mangel gave her a Siddur (prayer book) with a Russian translation.

"Rabbi Mangel said, 'Well, we couldn't find it in Ukrainian, but this will do.' And it did," Maryna says.

"I was trying some singing," Polina adds. "Rabbi Mangel was so nice to me."

Through the Uniting for Ukraine program of the U.S. government, Polina is able to stay in the United States for two years, until May 2024.

"Our concern is, what if the war is not over until after May 2024?" Maryna says. "We know for sure that this program has absolutely no mechanisms of extending her legal time in the U.S.; Homeland Security said they do not have anything in place yet.

"It was super hard to get her here. We fought through lawyers and senators and congressmen. We are preparing already to research the options. It would be easier if she was going to transfer to high school next year, because we can apply for a student visa. But they don't do it for middle school-age kids."

Polina says her plans for the summer include "lots and lots of swimming," riding bikes, and to join a volleyball team when she turns 13 in August.

Except for the littlest one, Polina's cousins will go to Camp Livingston overnight Jewish camp this summer.

"We offered to take her also," Maryna says. "But she said no, she didn't want to. It's too many new places for her to handle in such a short period of time."

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The Dayton Jewish Observer, Vol. 27, No. 9. The Dayton Jewish Observer is published monthly by the Jewish Federation of Greater Dayton, a nonprofit corporation, 525 Versailles Dr., Dayton, OH 45459.

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The Dayton Jewish Observer

Maryna Braginsky’s older brother, Igor, Polina's father

Polina and her mother, Yulia, of Suma, Ukraine, in Centerville, August 2022.

Former longtime JCC Early Childhood director Audrey MacKenzie dies at 68

Audrey MacKenzie, who worked in the Jewish Community Center Early Childhood program for 20 years — 17 of them as its director — died April 5 following a prolonged battle with cancer. She was 68.

A Chicago native, Audrey came to the JCC with 24 years of early childhood experience, including four as director of a local KinderCare Learning Center and 12 as a KinderCare district manager.

"You're fortunate if you find something to do in your life that is your calling," she said in a 2005 Observer interview. "And I always felt that being involved with children in some way has been my life calling."

It was community members Gina Kahn and Phyllis Royce who approached Audrey about working for the JCC when the Boonshoft Center for Jewish Culture and Education was being built in 2002.

At the time, Audrey was leading part-time Mommy & Me classes at the Kettering Recreation Center. Gina and Phyllis were in the class with their 2-year-old boys.

"They said, 'this center is opening up and you have got to go and apply for a job to become a teacher," Audrey recalled.

After three years as the JCC's lead 4-year-old teacher at the Boonshoft CJCE, the Jewish Federation asked Audrey to interview for the JCC's early

childhood director position.

The JCC operates under the auspices of the Federation.

"Her passion for her role at the JCC in 2021 was just the same as when I first met her," said JCC Senior Director Marc Jacob, who was the JCC's program director in 2005 and its director from 2006 to 2008. He returned to Dayton's JCC two years ago.

"As she was retiring last fall, I asked what she loved about her job. She looked at me, smiled, and said there was only one reason she stayed for so many years: the children," Marc remembered. "She knew every

one of them and their families. She loved to see them learn and grow. She took great pleasure when former students returned to visit her or when she saw them at community events.

"We'll continue to provide the excellent early childhood experience she gave to all as we honor all she achieved in her time with us."

Former JCC preschool teacher Danna Kaplan recalled Audrey as "a force to be reckoned with and the backbone of the school. She ruled with her heart. Anyone who truly knew her knew that."

— Marshall Weiss

JCC Early Childhood Director Audrey MacKenzie with preschooler Einav Salman at the Boonshoft CJCE in 2005.

Beth Abraham Sisterhood Women of Valor luncheon honors spiritual leaders

For this year's Women of Valor luncheon, Beth Abraham Synagogue Sisterhood will celebrate women who provide spiritual leadership to local Jewish congregations and make unique contributions across the Jewish and general community.

The honorees are Rabbi Karen Bodney-Halasz, Temple Israel; Rabbi Judy Chessin, Temple Beth Or; Courtney Cummings, Temple Israel; Cantor Andrea Raizen, Beth Abraham Synagogue; Mary ‘Mahira’ Rogers, Temple Beth Or; and Rabbi Tina Sobo, Temple Israel.

The annual fundraiser will be held at 11:30 a.m., Wednesday, May 10 at Beth Abraham Synagogue, 305 Sugar Camp Cir., Oakwood.

A portion of the proceeds will be given to organizations that support Jewish women in spiritual roles. Participants are asked to bring donations of rain ponchos and umbrellas for Montgomery County's Women in Reentry Initiative.

RSVP by May 1 to Beth Abraham Synagogue, at 937-293-9520.

After 12 successful years, Hillel Academy

Jewish day school co-principals to retire

When Hillel Academy hired husband and wife Dan and Kathy Mecoli in 2011 as its co-principals in the hopes that they could turn the Jewish day school around, Dan and Kathy agreed they'd try it for three years.

Twelve years later, they've more than doubled its enrollment to about full capacity, have brought a project-based learning approach to the school, and successfully integrated Judaics across the secular curriculum.

At the end of March, they announced they'll retire at the end of this school year.

"When we accepted the leadership

Hillel anniversary celebration, part two

Part two of Hillel Academy's 60th anniversary celebration will be held virtually, at 4 p.m., Sunday, May 7 featuring Broadway News Executive Editor Ruthie Fierberg and Grammy-nominated performer Alexandra Silber discussing Jewish identity in the arts. The event will also honor Sandy Sloane-Brenner for her years of service to Hillel. Admission is free, donations are accepted. Register at jewishdayton.org/events.

of Hillel Academy, we could not have imagined how sweet and rewarding our time here would become," Dan and Kathy wrote in a letter to the school community. "Working at Hillel has been one of the most rewarding experiences of our careers. We've had the privilege of watching our students grow and thrive, and are proud of all that we have accomplished together with you. That shared commitment to academic excellence, Jewish values, and social responsibility produced beautiful threads woven deeply into the fabric of our work with children. We are confident that those threads will continue to intertwine — strengthening and sustaining Hillel Academy for generations to come."

Hillel President Andy Schwartz said the Mecolis provided the school with "outstanding academic leadership that has fostered individual growth in an atmosphere of Jewish values."

He also credited them with empowering older students to guide and teach younger students in prayer and academic subjects, "learning leadership skills that they take with them on their next educational paths."

Schwartz also announced that while

the day school conducts a national search for a new head of school, parttime Hillel teacher Anna Smith will serve as interim head of school for the 2023-24 academic year.

Smith received her doctorate in educational leadership from Northeastern University and a graduate certificate in Jewish education leadership from Hebrew College. She has taught at Hillel since 2019.

Schwartz said that Hillel will soon have details about an event to honor the Mecolis. — Marshall Weiss

Saturday, May 13

Hillel Co-Principals Dan and Kathy Mecoli

Dayton Metro Library hosts Americans and the Holocaust exhibit

The traveling version of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum's Americans and the Holocaust exhibition will be on display at the Dayton Metro Library Main Library from May 18 to June 21. Dayton Metro Library is one of 50 academic and public libraries selected to host the exhibit for its initial tour.

What did Americans know and what more could have been done are the overarching questions explored in the exhibit, which opened at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in 2018 to mark the museum’s 25th anniversary. Museum staff and curators collaborated with Ken Burns, Lynn Novick, and Sarah Botstein for their 2022 PBS documentary, The U.S. and the Holocaust

In conjunction with the exhibit, Dayton-area Holocaust survivor Ira Segalewitz will share his story at 2 p.m., Sunday, May 21 in the Main Library's Eichelberger Forum and Atrium. Volunteer docents will lead 25-minute guided tours of Americans and the Holocaust at 1 p.m. on Thursdays, May 18 and 25, with drop-in tours available on Saturday, May 20 from 1 to 2 p.m. and 3:30 to 4:30 p.m. Registration is requested for all tours and programs.

In June, Dayton Metro Library will host four programs at the Main Library connected to the exhibit, including a panel discussion about immigration, part of a conference for Holocaust educators, a JCC Film Fest screening, and a talk about local history connected to Americans and the Holocaust

The Main Library is located at 215 E. Third St. For more information and to register for these events, go to daytonmetrolibrary.org.

Chabad 30th anniversary gala honors children of Mangels and Simons

Chabad of Greater Dayton's 30th anniversary gala will honor the children of its founders and directors, Devorah and Rabbi Nochum Mangel; and the children of Chabad's longtime youth and program directors, Rochel and Rabbi Levi Simon.

The dinner will be held at 6 p.m., Sunday, June 4 at Chabad, 2001 Far Hills Ave., Oakwood.

The Mangels arrived in Dayton as shluchim (emissaries) of the Chabad-Lubavitch movement in the summer of 1993. Through programming and wor-

ship services, the Chasidic Jewish outreach and educational organization aims to "foster and bolster Jewish knowledge and identity, thereby ensuring Jewish continuity."

The Simons came to Dayton in 2004. Rochel Simon also provides Judaic education at the JCC Early Childhood program. Levi Simon is also the director of Judaics at Hillel Academy Jewish day school.

The cost to attend the gala is $100. RSVP at chabaddayton.com or 937-643-0770.

Devorah and Rabbi Nochum Mangel's children (L to R): Schneur, Rikki, Mendel, Sara, Chaya, and Lazer.

Rochel and Rabbi Levi Simon's children (L to R): Shmuel, Chaya, Moshe, Yoel, Yisroel, and Menachem.

THE REGION

Jewish artifact of late

Daytonian's

youth

restored by Holocaust & Humanity Center

Survivor's little prayer shawl to be exhibited as part of Cincinnati museum's permanent collection

The day 15-year-old David Hochstein boarded a train fleeing from Nazi Germany in 1939, his father's last words to him were, "Never forget that you are a Jew."

Corner

DAYTON OH 45419

BETH

SPEAKERS

ANN BERGER

Senior Business Development Director and Community Volunteer

Beth Abraham Synagogue

SUNDAY, JUNE 4, 2023

11:00 AM - 1:00 PM

LINDA BLUM

Northmont Board of Education President

Beth Jacob Congregation

JENNY CAPLAN

Chair of Judaic Studies at University of Cincinnati

SUSAN GRUENBERG

Community Volunteer Temple Israel

MICHELE SEROTKIN

Intervention Specialist for Special Needs Children

Family Member of Beth Jacob

OPEN TO THE ENTIRE COMMUNITY

Please join us as we hear stories of empowerment, strength and courage as women from around our community share what it means to be a part of the Jewish people and those who’ve impacted their lives.

Please RSVP by May 25th

Beth Jacob Synagogue

7020 N. Main Street Dayton, OH 45415

937-274-2149

bethjacob1@aol.com

CHAYA VIDAL

Fellow in Synagogue Administration

Beth Abraham Synagogue

DINE & CELEBRATE

Share in sisterhood as we enjoy a wonderful luncheon to pair with the incredible voices of our community.

Lunch - $18.00

He never saw his parents again. Hochstein honored his father's words, continuing to wear his tallit katan (little prayer shawl) on that Kindertransport rescue mission to London, and during the six years he lived there.

His tallit katan — which has been restored by the Nancy & David Wolf Holocaust & Humanity Center at Union Terminal in Cincinnati — is now part of its permanent collection. It formally goes on exhibit there beginning Sunday, May 7.

At 11 a.m. that day, Cheryl Hecht, daughter of the late David Hochstein, will share her father's story in the Reakirt Auditorium at Union Terminal.

According to Curator Cori Silbernagel, the center raised the funds to preserve the tallit katan on Giving Tuesday in 2021 because it was in poor condition and couldn't be shared with a wide audience.

"The tallit katan has undergone conservation treatment that stabilized the fragile fabric," Silbernagel explained. "The tallit katan can be displayed for the very first time."

In traditional Judaism, boys from the age of 3 and men wear the tallit katan over or under their garments as a reminder of God, and to follow the mitzvot (commandments).

Kindertransport brought 10,000 Jewish children to live with families in England. Hochstein learned the fur trade as a teenager there; relatives in London secured him a six-year apprenticeship with the London Fur Company.

From 1950 to 1988, Hochstein operated a fur business in Dayton and then in Oakwood. He died in 2018.

— Marshall Weiss

Above: David Hochstein's tallit katan from his teenage years, now restored for the permanent collection of the Nancy & David Wolf Holocaust & Humanity Center in Cincinnati.

Right: Hochstein at age 19 in London, 1944.

The Nancy & David Wolf Holocaust & Humanity Center

Class of 2023

BMB

Does your son or daughter graduate

high school this year?

The Observer is happy to offer you a FREE announcement, including a photo, in our June graduation issue.

To receive a form for this free announcement, contact Marshall Weiss at mweiss@jfgd.net.

Forms received after May 9 will be held for the July issue of The Observer

JWV to place flags at graves for Memorial Day

Jewish War Veterans Post 587 invites volunteers to help place American flags at the graves of Jewish veterans in advance of Memorial Day. JWV will place flags at Beth Jacob Cemetery at 10 a.m., Friday, May 19, and at the Temple Beth Or section of David’s Cemetery, Beth Abraham Cemetery, and Temple Israel’s Riverview Cemetery at 10 a.m., Sunday, May 21.

Other veteran and civic groups will place flags at other cemeteries. JWV places a metal flag holder beside each Jewish veteran’s grave. The holders help JWV to quickly find veterans’ graves.

To have a flag holder placed at the grave of a Jewish veteran in time for Memorial Day, call Post Commander Steve Markman at 937-886-9566.

ADL report: 3,697 antisemitic incidents in 2022, another all-time high

Ohio numbers increase 22% to 61 reported incidents last year;

36% increase nationally

By Courtney Byrnes Cleveland Jewish News

The Anti-Defamation League’s annual Audit of Antisemitic Incidents showed reported antisemitic incidents had reached an all-time high across the United States in 2022, including large increases in Ohio.

The ADL began tracking incidents of assault, harassment and vandalism against Jews across the country in 1979. It recorded a high of 3,697 incidents in 2022 – an increase of 36% from 2021, Kelly Fishman, education director and interim regional director at the ADL Cleveland office said.

The ADL Cleveland office oversees Ohio, Kentucky, West Virginia and western Pennsylvania.

“In the region that we cover, Ohio saw some of the largest increases in the region,” Fishman said. “And so, I think it’s

alarming – that rise of antisemitic incidents. It really needs to serve as a wake-up call to people that growing antisemitism is signaling an increase in bigotry overall. It really does tear at the fabric and threaten the security of our communities.”

Similar to the national data, the region saw a 37% increase with 107 incidents reported in 2022, compared to 78 in 2021.

In Ohio, there were 61 antisemitic incidents reported, representing a 22% increase from the 50 reported in the previous year.

A further breakdown into the types of reported incidents reveals Ohio saw harassment increase by 16% and vandalism by 80%, while across the U.S. there was a 26% increase in antisemitic assaults, a 29% increase in harassment and a 51% increase in vandalism.

“(Ohio) really unfortunately surpassed the national percentage in vandalism,” Fishman said.

While there were 111 antisemitic assaults across the United

States in 2022, she said there were no assaults reported to the ADL for the region overseen by ADL Cleveland.

A news release of the audit relayed several of the antisemitic incidents in Ohio in 2022. One such incident involved harassment at a Cleveland synagogue that received a message via an online contact form with violent antisemitic threats and support of Nazism.

Another incident involved a private security guard for a Jewish school in Columbus who made threats on social media about shooting people at the school.

Additionally, an individual in Kent received an anonymous text that read “Jewish Trash” and was followed by a swastika.

Incidents of vandalism included three people breaking windows, setting off fire extinguishers and using spray

paint on various signs and the pool deck of the Shaw Jewish Community Center in Akron. Also, graffiti consisting of a Celtic Cross and “1488” symbols adopted by neo-Nazis appeared in Columbus, the release stated.

The ADL report showed incidents of White supremacist propaganda distribution and events were also at an all-time high, with 6,751 incidents across the country –an increase of 38% from last year.

“We always say that antisemitism is that canary in the coal mine,” Fishman said. “So, then when we see the rise in antisemitism, we’re also seeing that rise in White supremacist propaganda. And so, I think that those two things really go hand-in-hand.”

She added there has been an increase in participation in groups like White Lives Matter and Goyim Defense League

over the last couple of years, which has an impact on the number of reported antisemitic incidents.

Right-wing extremist and White supremacist groups were behind 945 incidents nationally – nearly twice as many as in 2021.

There were 26 such incidents in the ADL Cleveland region, according to the news release.

The data gathered from the annual audit allows the ADL to track extremist propaganda and incidents in order to connect with those who are impacted, provide education to others and promote allyship, Fishman said.

“I’ve said to students before, sometimes it’s really hard when you’re the first one to stand up,” said Fishman, who has served as the ADL's education director since June.

“It’s scary because you’re afraid that you will be a target, but I think that when one of us stands up, other people then feel empowered to stand up beside them, and that’s so important."

Magen David Adom has been saving lives since 1930, some 18 years before Israel became a state. We take immense pride in being Israel’s national emergency medical service and in supplying the blood and medical care for the soldiers who have ensured Israel’s existence. Join us in celebrating Israel’s 75th year of independence on Yom HaAtzma’ut.

Support Magen David Adom by donating today at afmda.org/give. Or for further information about giving opportunities, contact 847-509-9802 or dcohen@afmda.org.

afmda.org/give

Israel is celebrating 75 years. Magen David Adom has been there for all of them.

ADL Interim Regional Director Kelly Fishman

With generations of his family buried at Beth Jacob’s cemetery, Erv Pavlofsky feels a strong connection to the place that holds his family’s history. “It’s more than just my parents. I look around and see my grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins. I’m never sad when I’m there. It’s a very respectful place.”

After a recent visit to the cemetery, Erv noted that being surrounded by multiple generations of relatives is a reminder of how he will always be connected to Dayton. “Even though I’m no longer living in Dayton, it’s always important that I take the time to visit the cemetery. As I’ve gotten older, it’s taken on a more significant meaning in my life. It’s my connection to where I’m from.This is where my family is.”

Erv contributed to the Jewish Cemeteries of Greater Dayton campaign to secure an everlasting future for the generations that came before him. “I can’t expect anyone else to care for my family. It’s my responsibility. I look around at all the family names and I’m filled with good memories. It’s simply comforting to be with them.”

Please join us as we strive to maintain the sanctity, care and integrity of these sacred burial grounds.

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

Mayhem at Jewish Federations conference in Tel Aviv as protesters, panelists fight over judiciary & immigration

By Ben Sales, JTA

TEL AVIV — A panel at a major American Jewish conference here descended into pandemonium as protesters in the audience shouted down a leading far-right politician.

Panelists also sniped at each other over the government’s controversial attempt to overhaul Israel’s judiciary and its threat to tighten immigration rules.

Security personnel forcibly ejected multiple protesters from the event, which took an unplanned five-minute break to calm the tensions in the room. It was the first reprimand of protesters at the conference whose organizers had made clear they supported any that did not interfere with the proceedings.

“We wanted very much to include anyone who wanted to be here, to learn and to be part of the conversation. It’s unfortunate it was disrupted so we couldn’t engage in the kind of learning we had hoped for,” Jewish Federations of North America Board Chair Julie Platt said after the interrupted panel. “It was more than we expected.”

The drama at the event surrounded Simcha Rothman, an Orthodox lawmaker who is one of the architects of and a vocal advocate for the government’s proposal to sap power from the Supreme Court. Protests against him on April 24 began before his speaking engagement and followed him through-

his remarks. Rothman was the most prominent advocate for the judicial overhaul to speak at the General Assembly, a conference in Tel Aviv organized by the Jewish Federations of North America. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was scheduled to speak at the conference’s opening on April 23 but backed out hours earlier in the face of protests.

The events of April 24 came about 12 hours after hundreds of protesters demonstrated outside the General Assembly’s opening event. Inside the conference kickoff, addressing the protesters, Platt said, “We see you, we hear you and we are inspired by your love

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‘The cemetery is where I feel tied to my family.’

— Erv Pavlofsky

A panel featuring Simcha Rothman, an Israeli lawmaker and architect of the divisive judicial reforms proposed by Israel's right-wing government, descended into chaos April 24 at JFNA's conference in Tel Aviv.

out

of Israel.”

Rothman opted to come, and met opposition in the conference’s halls almost immediately. While sitting with a reporter in he gathering’s breakfast area, a small gaggle of protesters arrived at his table and started chanting “shame” in Hebrew. One protester offered Rothman a bracelet bearing the word “democracy,” which has become the anti-government protests’ one-word slogan, and another yelled, “Rothman, go to hell.”

The protests intensified at the morning panel, which centered on proposals to change Israel’s Law of Return affording automatic citizenship to Jews, their children and grandchildren.

Every time Rothman spoke, a group of protesters standing in a kind of informal ring around the room shouted him down with chants of “shame” and “liar,” in both Hebrew and English. Protesters on one side of the room held Israeli flags — another mainstay of the street protests — as well as an LGBTQ rainbow pride flag.

Multiple protesters were dragged out of the event by security — at least one of whom came back in and continued protesting. One yelled, “Rothman is destroying Israel, destroying our future! My kids! My kids!”

Rothman repeatedly had to pause his remarks and shot back at the protesters throughout his comments.

“What we see here is exactly the problem we need to address, a person that shouts ‘democracy’ while trying to shut up other people,” Rothman said after a protester shouted, “You’re an enemy of the Jewish people!” Rothman later said, “Some people are looking for consensus only when they’re in the opposition.”

The shouting was not limited to protesters in the audience. Rothman’s co-panelists were Yohanan Plesner, the president of the Israel Democracy Institute think tank, and Alex Rif, founder of the One Million Lobby, which advocates for Russian-speaking Israelis. Plesner objected in strong terms both to Rothman’s views on the Law of Return and to the judicial overhaul.

“The government came in with an agenda to fundamentally alter the fragile arrangements that existed for 75 years,” he said. “Somehow this balance was kept because the Supreme Court played a balancing role, and the Knesset and government respected that role.”

Rothman at one point suggested that Plesner join the protests and criticized him personally.

“The person that is the head of the Israeli Democratic Institution basically praises the idea that an undemocratic organization in Israel, powered in Israel, unelected…will make a decision

that as we see are very tense,” Rothman said, referring to the Supreme Court. “Not the democratic body politic of the State of Israel, God forbid.”

Plesner responded by saying, “You’re misrepresenting what I said. Every democracy has an independent court that protects rights.”

Rothman responded, “They lied to you, they lied to the public in the U.S., they lied to the public in Israel.”

The panel’s stated topic, the Law of Return, also led to sharp disagreement. Rothman is in favor of making the law more restrictive by canceling the provision allowing the grandchild of a Jew to gain citizenship.

The clause has allowed for a significant proportion of Israel’s Russian speakers to immigrate.

Rothman said the idea of canceling the clause “is not new, it’s not (originally) from this government, it’s to deal with the problem that arose…in the 90s,” when large numbers of Jews immigrated from the former Soviet Union. Because he said the change would mostly affect immigrants from Eastern Europe, he suggested it shouldn’t be as concerning to American Jews and added, “Sadly, some people are trying to make this issue a split between American Jewry and Israeli Jewry in an unjustified way. We need to have this conversation and find a solution.”

Rif responded by accusing Rothman of telling Russian-speaking Israelis, ”You’re here by mistake.” She called on Israel to ease immigration for Jews from Russia and Belarus.

In an explicit allusion to last century’s American Jewish activism on behalf of Soviet Jewry, which employed the slogan “Let my people go,” she brandished a sign onstage reading “Let my people in.”

Both Rif and Plesner drew cheers from the audience when they spoke.

“When you change the law of Return, you close the door for them forever for the Jewish people,” she said of Russian speakers already living in Israel. “You’re telling them, ‘We don’t want you here.’ Now, they’re living here for 30 years feeling second-class.”

Following particularly intense protests and onstage argument, Jewish Federations personnel called for a fiveminute break. Protests against Rothman continued following the break, though the panel’s discussion continued. After the break, Plesner offered an olive branch of sorts to Rothman.

“I want to say, to Simcha Rothman’s credit, that he is a staunch ideologue. I disagree, almost, with everything he says, but he’s a staunch ideologue,” Plesner said. “Before the elections he said exactly what he’s going to promote. We sat together, and he said so.”

A security guard removes a protester at JFNA's conference in Tel Aviv, April 24.

Ben Sales

of 2023

We honor our learners, thank our teachers, our Makor Committee, and celebrate our graduates.

Tensions at Memorial Day ceremonies in Israel as Netanyahu urges unity

Teachers

Scott Beckerman

Deb Char

Rabbi Judy Chessin

Jude Cohen

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Mary Rogers

Esther Weiss

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Makor Committee

Stephanie Kirtland

Carrie Siegel

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Summer Pachman

By Ben Sales, JTA

TEL AVIV — In an unusual politicization of Israel’s Memorial Day on April 25, several senior Israeli government officials faced protests at ceremonies commemorating fallen soldiers.

The tensions unfolded as an Israeli was wounded in a shooting in the West Bank, and after five people were wounded in a car ramming April 24 at Jerusalem’s Mahane Yehuda market.

The observances of the day, which is treated with solemnity and reverence in Israel, came days before the government intends to resume advancing legislation that would sap the Supreme Court of much of its power.

The proposed reforms have caused upheaval and massive street protests in Israel, and both Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and opposition leaders had called for a pause on demonstrations out of respect for the day.

Despite those calls, several ministers in Netanyahu’s government faced opposition and ridicule as they appeared at official memorial events. The farright national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, addressed a ceremony in the southern city of Beersheva despite requests from bereaved families for him to refrain. Ben-Gvir was not enlisted in Israel’s mandatory military service due to his extremist activities.

Ben-Gvir ascended the stage at the event without coming into contact with the crowd, which was separated by barricades, according to the Times of Israel. Attendees shouted at him and at each other as he spoke, and engaged in scuffles after the event. One woman had

an open water bottle thrown at her.

“I apologize to the fallen that we did not succeed in defending their honor,” said Ei Ben Shem, the head of a memorial organization, according to the Israeli news site Ynet. “Minister Ben-Gvir did not act intelligently. He caused blows and a rift between bereaved families... Never have bereaved families raised a hand against each other.”

On the evening of April 24, at a perennially controversial joint memorial service, 15,000 Israelis and Palestinians commemorated their fallen, amid rightwing protests. Palestinian participants had initially been barred by Defense Minister Yoav Gallant before the Supreme Court ruled that they must be allowed to attend.

Another minister, Gila Gamliel, was prevented from entering a Druze memorial ceremony, while other colleagues of hers were heckled at other ceremonies. Amid the clashes, Netanyahu urged unity in his address.

“This year, more than ever, on the Memorial Day for the brave of our nation, we will remember that we are brothers: Jews, Druze, Muslims, Bedouin, Christians and Circassians,” Netanyahu said at an official state ceremony, according to the Times of Israel. “Brothers in service, brothers in arms, brothers in blood.”

In a separate speech, he called on Israelis to “deepen our hold on our homeland.”

Former Defense Minister Benny Gantz, a Netanyahu opponent, tweeted that this was his “saddest Memorial Day."

Temple Beth Or congratulates all of our “Smarties” in the Class

A man holds an Israeli flag with signatures from the Israeli Declaration of Independence during a silent protest against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at a state memorial ceremony for victims of terror, in Mount Herzl military cemetery, Jerusalem, April 25.

Erik Marmor/Flash90

May 2023

The JCC of Greater Dayton in partnership with Beth Abraham Synagogue, Beth Jacob Congregation, Dayton Sister Cities, Hadassah, Hillel Academy, Jewish War Veterans, Temple Beth Or, and Temple Israel.

This program is proudly supported by the Israel Engagement Fund: A JCC Association of North America Program Accelerator, and the Dayton Sister City Committee.

UPCOMING EVENTS

Connect with us! Check out our events. For more information, see our calendar at jewishdayton.org

Thursdays, All May, 3-6 PM Open Mah Jongg

Sunday, May 7, 2-4 PM JCC and Klezmatics Jubano Jazz Concert

Monday, May 8, 6-7 PM Klez4Kids

Sunday, May 21, 5-8 PM JFGD Presidents Dinner

Wednesday, May 31, 5-6:30 PM Camp Shalom Open House

The Catalyst

The Jewish Federation of Greater Dayton was chosen along with 10 other Federations from across the country to participate in a pilot called “The Catalyst: A transformational fellowship to inspire volunteerism supported by partnership between JFNA and Repair the World.” The Young Adult Division (YAD) of the Jewish Federation, in collaboration with Federation’s agencies, implemented the project to make our world a little better place. YAD adopted a new strategy “We make volunteering fun,” combining real acts of service with fun activities afterwards.

Jewish Dayton gives back to the Dayton community by creating care bags for those in need.

May 2023

JEWISH FEDERATION of GREATER DAYTON & ITS AGENCIES

SUNDAY, MAY 7, FROM 2-4PM

Cline Elementary School Auditorium

99 Virginia Ave., Washington Township 45458

Jubano Jazz CONCERT

KLEZMER COMPANY JAZZ ORCHESTRA

Accordionist and arranger Aaron Kula and Trumpeter/Arranger Chaim Rubinov will fly in from Florida for performances with Dayton’s own Flying Klezmerians for a mix of Latin rhythms and Klezmer melodies.

OPEN TO ALL $10 ADULT $5 CHILD (15 & UNDER)

REGISTER AT JEWISHDAYTON.ORG.

JUNE 5 – JULY 28

Camp Shalom is planning a summer full of excitement!

MONDAY, MAY 8

6-7PM

The

Based on the PJ Library children’s book Mendel’s Accordion, come and enjoy the music and dance with the whole family!

Register at jewishdayton.org/events.

Klez4

Kids

WRIGHT MEMORIAL LIBRARY | 1776 FAR HILLS AVE., OAKWOOD

SPOTS ARE FILLING UP QUICKLY. REGISTER YOUR CAMPER TODAY!

We are off ering a variety of specialty camps including tennis, golf, magic, art and theatre. We have field trips planned to fun destinations throughout the Miami Valley. And we’ll celebrate Israel’s 75th birthday! See jewishdayton.org for more information. Register at app.campdoc.com/register/ jccgreaterdayton.

Do you know someone 16 or older who is looking for a meaningful, challenging and FUN summer work experience?

CAMP SHALOM IS HIRING SUMMER STAFF! Interested candidates should contact Meryl Hattenbach at mhattenbach@jfgd.net or 937-401-1550 for instructions on how to apply.

Flying Klezmerians and the Klezmer Company Jazz Orchestra, with narrator Marshall Weiss, present Klez4Kids.

WOMENS SEDER

On behalf of the JCC Women’s Seder Committee, we thank everyone in attendance for making our community event such a special evening!

JEWISH FEDERATION of GREATER DAYTON & ITS AGENCIES

JEWISH FEDERATION of GREATER DAYTON & ITS AGENCIES

Legacies, Tributes, & Memorials

LINDA RUCHMAN

MEMORIAL FUND

In Memory of Helen Ross

Marshall and Judy Ruchman

I n Honor of Ralph E. Heyman’s Special Birthday

Marshall Ruchman

In Memory of Beverly Kantor

In Memory of Susan Jacobs-Davis

Leslie Duberstein Glenn and Family

HOLOCAUST PROGRAMMING FUND

In Memory of Rick Fishman

Cathy Gardner

David and Susan Jo e

JOE BETTMAN

MEMORIAL TZADIK AWARD

In Memory of Helen Ross

In Memory of Richard Potasky

In Memory of Jean Walther

Todd and Jean Bettman

In Honor of Susan Gruenberg’s Award

Elaine Bettman

Todd and Jean Bettman THURSDAYS, 3-6PM

I n Memory of Susan Jacobs-Davis

Judy Lipton

CANTOR DJCC FUND

“This isn’t your grandmas’ game!”

Experiments in Jewish sovereignty have self-destructed after 75 years. Can Israel defy history again?

By Mijal Bitton and Masua Sagiv

We now mark Yom Ha'atzmaut, our beloved Israel’s 75th birthday — the day on the Hebrew calendar when David Ben-Gurion proclaimed “the natural right of the Jewish people to be masters of their own fate” by establishing a Jewish state in the land of Israel. Together with countless Jews around the world, we express our gratitude to be alive at this moment in history when the Jewish people have sovereignty and a nation to call their own.

But on this anniversary, Yom Ha'atzmaut’s special prayers and festive afternoon barbecues fail to capture the fraught feelings many of us are experiencing. Jews across the globe in all our different peculiarities and particularities — from all political orientations, religious and secular, progressive and conservative, for and against the judicial overhaul being proposed by the current government — are reeling.

The past few months of terrible turmoil in Israel surrounding the judicial overhaul proposal have shown us how fragile our singular and precious Jewish state is. While Israel’s history is replete with instances when external forces threatened its people, this moment is unique in revealing internal threats to its democracy and social cohesion. We have seen toxic hatred rising among Israeli Jews, with fears of a civil war at an all-time high.

How, then, are we supposed to celebrate Israel on its 75th birthday?

The answer to this question lies at the heart of Jewish history and reveals that now is the moment for a new Zionist revolution led by both Israeli and Diaspora Jews.

Zionism was never just about establishing a Jewish state. It was about defying Jewish history. In 1948, when Ben-Gurion and his fellow Zionist leaders declared Israeli independence, it was nothing less than a radical assault on diasporic Jewish history. It defied the thousands of years of Jews being a minority in other countries, subject to the whims and caprice of other rulers. It defied the image of the weak and defenseless Jew. It even defied Jewish tradition itself, which for centuries was understood by many of its adherents to demand passivity by Jews as they waited for divine deliverance.

For two millennia, Jewish existence was one of vulnerability and victimhood — most often either hiding who we are or suffering for it. The Zionism of 1948 defied diasporic Jewish history by giving Jews power, self-determination, and sovereignty to respond to external threats and establish a Jewish state.

Understandably, most of the work of early Zionism was focused on mere survival — establishing a state, providing safe refuge to the millions of Jews fleeing inhospitable lands, and contending with enemy countries sworn to destroy the new nation.

It succeeded beyond any of the wildest imaginations of its founders. The first 75 years of Israel, in which it has become a powerful and thriving state, are a testament to the success of Zionism in defying diasporic Jewish history.

But the next 75 years of Zionism present and impose on us a different task: To be Zionists today means we must defy a different chapter of Jewish history — one that might be called sovereign Jewish

Historians and educators have pointed out a critically important pattern in the history of Jewish selfrule. There are two pre-modern eras in which the Jewish nation enjoyed sovereignty in the land of Israel: at the end of the 11th century B.C.E. with the Davidic Kingdom and the first Temple in Jerusalem, and in 140 B.C.E. when the Hasmonean dynasty reestablished Jewish independence in Judea.

But as each approached their 75th year of existence, each started to disintegrate because of internal strife and infighting. The Davidic reign over a united Israel effectively ended when it was split into the two competing kingdoms of Judea and Israel. The Hasmonean kingdom began to fall apart due to infighting between the sons of Alexander and Shlomtzion, the rulers of Judea in the first century BCE.

Sovereign Jewish history tells us that at around the 75th year, experiments in Jewish self-determination faced the most dangerous threat of all: self-destruction. On its 75th birthday, Israel and its supporters face the internal tensions of sovereignty: What does it mean for Israel to be both a Jewish and democratic state and a home to all its citizens? How can Israel be both at home in the Middle East while modeled on Western democracies? How should its leaders balance majority Jewish culture with minority rights?

The concerns of the old Zionism certainly still exist: how to pursue peace even as Jewish vulnerability and safety continue to be threatened. But they take on a new character in this day and age, forcing us to ask

how we can manage and embrace conflicting visions of Jewishness and Israeliness while nurturing social solidarity and cooperation across deep and painful divides.

This Yom Ha'atzmaut comes at a moment of rupture. But the current crisis in Israel represents an opportunity – a moment for our generation to ensure this rupture defies the pattern of sovereign Jewish history.

The generations before us proved that we can rewrite diasporic history, turning a tale of vulnerability and weakness into one of strength and power.

Our generation and those that follow must likewise defy sovereign Jewish history and prove that we can protect our Jewish state from the internal threats it faces. Our generation’s task is to overcome our divisions and not let fraternal hatred destroy our shared home.

On this 75th birthday, then, let us learn from our past and look forward toward a new future. Let us continue to celebrate the incredible success by writing a new chapter in the magnificent story of Israel and Zionism.

David Ben-Gurion, who would become Israel's first prime minister, reads the Declaration of Independence, May 14, 1948 at the Tel Aviv Museum of Art, during the ceremony founding the State of Israel. history.

Mijal Bitton is the rosh kehillah of the Downtown Minyan in New York, scholar in residence at the Shalom Hartman Institute, and a sociologist of American Jews.

Masua Sagiv is the Koret Visiting Assistant Professor of Jewish Law and Israel Studies at UC Berkeley School of Law, scholar in residence for the Shalom Hartman Institute, and a scholar of Israeli law and society. Distributed by JTA.

Photo by Zoltan Kluger/GPO via Getty Images

Chava Dorothy Gilbert will be called to the Torah as a Bat Mitzvah at Temple Beth Or on May 27. Chava is the daughter of Dr. Heath Gilbert and Rachel Haug Gilbert, big sister to Zeke and Livy, younger sister of Avi, and granddaughter of Sue and Ron Nelson and Gary Haug, as well as Vera Warner, Shirlee and Ron Gilbert, all three of blessed memory. After completing her primary school education at Hillel Academy, Chava is now in seventh grade at Watts Middle School in Centerville. Her hobbies include performing in the JCC Children's Theatre productions, baking and cooking, entertaining, and all things sports. In fact, she will be competing in the Maccabi Games in Ft. Lauderdale this summer playing basketball. We are so proud of Chava!

Those at Temple Israel's Friday night Shabbat service on March 31 heard two classically-trained vocalists on the bima. Dayton Opera's Tenor Artist-In-Residence Carl Rosenthal joined Temple Israel Music Director Courtney Cummings Carl opened the service with Hinei Mah Tov, Lecha Dodi, and Shalom Aleichem. He also presented a "musical sermon" with three Yiddish songs: Rozhinkes mit Mandlen, Oyfn Pripetshik, and Tumbalalaika. Carl and Courtney concluded services with an Adon Olam duet. Courtney said Dayton Philharmonic Orchestra Artistic Director Neal Gittleman and Dayton Opera Artistic Director Kathleen Clawson connected Carl to Temple Israel. "Other artists-inresidence with the Dayton Opera this year have visited churches during their tenure here, and they both thought it would be great if Carl could join us at temple," Courtney said.

Linda Kahn, CEO of Ohlmann Group marketing and advertising agency, has announced the donation of its office building at 1605 N. Main St. to Omega Community Development Corporation. "We care deeply about the Northwest Dayton neighborhood, which Ohlmann Group has called home for 56 years," Linda noted. She added that her agency has evolved to a hybrid working environment. Ohlmann Group has relocated to the 130 Building on West Second

Street in Downtown Dayton.

Ryan T. Shannon graduates cum laude with a bachelor of science in education in middle childhood education from Wright State University. After 10 incredible years working in the banking industry, Ryan will pursue his ultimate dream of teaching middlelevel students. Ryan will hold licensure to teach grades four to nine in social studies and language arts. This journey was possible with the love and support of friends and family, especially his wife, Melanie, and sons, Philip and Myles.

At Temple Anshe Emeth's community open house April

16 to commemorate the 100th anniversary of its building on Caldwell Street, Piqua Mayor Cindy Pearson presented the temple's president, Steve Shuchat, with a proclamation in honor of the milestone. Temple Anshe Emeth was established in Piqua in 1858.

After 43 years in the jewelry business, Larry Jaffe now readies to close Jaffe Jewelers in Oakwood. Larry started in his family business, Mayors Jewelers, and was in partnership with Robert Gross (Jaffe & Gross) from 1979 until Robert's passing in 2005.

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

‘Within our hearts, the Jewish soul sings.’

Carl Rosenthal and Courtney Cummings on the bima at Temple Israel

Piqua Mayor Cindy Pearson with Temple Anshe Emeth President Steve Shuchat

Ryan T. Shannon

Classes

Beth Abraham Classes: Mon., May 8, 15 22, 29, noon: Lifelong Learning w. Rabbi Glazer. 305 Sugar Camp Cir., Oakwood. 937-293-9520.

Beth Jacob Classes: Sundays, 2 p.m.: Conversion Class on Zoom w. Rabbi Agar. Tuesdays, 7 p.m.: Torah Tuesdays on Zoom w. Rabbi Agar. Thursdays, 7 p.m.: Thursdays of Thought on Zoom w. Rabbi Agar. 7020 N. Main St., Harrison Twp. bethjacob1@aol.com. 937-274-2149.

Chabad Classes: Wednesdays, 7 p.m.: Talmud Class in person. Thursdays, noon: Lunch & Learn on Zoom. Fridays, 9:30 a.m.: Women’s Class in person. 2001 Far Hills Ave., Oakwood. Register at chabaddayton.com. 937-6430770.

Temple Beth Or Classes:

Sundays, 12:30 p.m.: Adult Hebrew Wed., May 3, 10 a.m.: Apocryphal Study on Zoom. Thurs., May 11, 7 p.m.: Chai Mitzvah. 5275 Marshall Rd., Wash. Twp. 937-435-3400.

Temple Israel Classes: Wed., May 3, 17, 24, 31, 10 a.m.: Social Justice Commentary w. Rabbi Bodney-Halasz at home of Cathy Lieberman. Saturdays, 9:15 a.m.: Virtual Torah Study Sat., May 13, 9:15 a.m.

Hybrid Virtual Torah Study on Zoom. 130 Riverside Dr., Dayton. tidayton.org. 937-4960050.

Family

JCC Camp Shalom Parent

Orientation: Tues., May 16, 6:30 p.m. Via Zoom w. Meryl Hattenbach. Register at jewishdayton.org/events or 937-6101555.

JCC Camp Shalom Open House: Wed., May 31, 5 p.m. At Temple Beth Or, 5275 Marshall Rd., Wash., Twp. Call 937-610-1555.

Children & Teens

Temple Israel Prayer & Play: Fri., May 12, 5:30 p.m. Infants2nd grade. Contact Rabbi Sobo, educator@tidayton.org. 130 Riverside Dr., Dayton.

Chabad CKids: Sun., May 21, 4 p.m.: Shavuot on the Lawn. Free. Ages 5-11. Optional dinner following. RSVP to chabaddayton.com/ckids. 2001 Far Hills Ave., Oakwood. 937-6430770.

Men

Chabad Bagels, Lox & Tefillin: Sun., May 7, 9:30 a.m. 937-643-0770. 2001 Far Hills Ave., Oakwood.

Women

Chabad Women’s Circle Shavuot-Themed Dinner &

Babka Bake: Tues., May 23, 6 p.m. $36. Adults only. RSVP to dlmdayton@gmail.com. 2001 Far Hills Ave., Oakwood.

Adults

JCC Open Mah Jongg: Thursdays, 3-5 p.m. Boonshoft CJCE, 525 Versailles Dr., Centerville. 937-610-1555.

Exhibit

Americans and the Holocaust Exhibit: May 18-June 21. Free. Dayton Metro Library, 215 E. Third St., Dayton. 937463-2665. daytonmetrolibrary. org.

Shavuot

Beth Abraham Taste of Tikun Leil Shavuot: Thurs., May 25. 6 p.m.: Dairy meal (RSVP). 6:45 p.m.: Learning w. Cantor Raizen & Rabbi Glazer. 305 Sugar Camp Cir., Oakwood. 937-293-9520.

Temple Israel Shavuot: Thurs, May 25, 6 p.m. 130 Riverside Dr., Dayton. 937-4960050.

Beth Jacob Shavuot Lunch & Learn: Fri., May 26, 12:30 p.m. BBQ & dessert at the home of Anita & Rabbi Agar. RSVP 937-274-2149.

Chabad Ten Commandments & Dairy Dinner: Fri., May 26, 5:30 p.m. 2001 Far Hills Ave., Oakwood. Register at chabad-

dayton.com. 937-643-0770.

Community

Temple Beth Or Art on the Lot: Sun., Apr. 30, 11:20 a.m Free. Contact Ruth Schumacher, ruth.schumacher@wright. edu. 5275 Marshall Rd., Wash. Twp. 937-435-3400.

Israel @ 75 Yom Ha'atzmaut Celebration: Sun., Apr. 30, 2-5 p.m. Free admission. Kosher Israeli food available for purchase. Entertainment by Rami Feinstein. Boonshoft CJCE, 525 Versailles Dr., Centerville. RSVP to jewishdayton. org/events or call 937-6101555.

JCC's Klezmatics Jubano Jazz Concert: Sun., May 7, 2 p.m. $10 adults, $5 children 15 & under. RSVP to jewishdayton.org. Cline Elementary, 99 Virginia Ave., Centerville.

Hillel Academy 60th Anniversary Celebration Pt. 2 Virtual Event: Sun., May 7, 4 p.m.: Free. Jewish Identity in the Arts w. Ruthie Fierberg & Alexandra Silber. Register at jewishdayton.org/events or call 937-6101555.

PJ Library Klez4Kids: Mon., May 8, 6 p.m. Free. Flying Klezmerians & Klezmer Company Jazz Orch. RSVP by May 8 to jewishdayton.org/events or 937-610-1555. Wright Memo-

rial Public Library, 1776 Far Hills Ave., Oakwood.

Chabad Lag B’Omer BBQ & Outing: Tues., May 9, 5:30 p.m. $18 adults, $7 children 5-12. RSVP to chabaddayton. com/rsvp. Hummel Airport Works Flying Field, 10491 Carlisle Pike (Rt 123), Germantown. 937-643-0770.

Beth Abraham Women of Valor Luncheon: Wed., May 10, 11:30 a.m. $72. 305 Sugar Camp Cir., Oakwood. RSVP by May 1, 937-293-9520.

Survivor Ira Segalewitz: in conjunction w. Americans and the Holocaust Exhibit. Sun., May 21, 2 p.m. Free. Dayton Metro Library Main, 215 E. Third St., Dayton. 937-4632665. RSVPs requested to daytonmetrolibrary.org.

Jewish Federation Presidents Dinner: Sun., May 21, 5 p.m.: $50-$100. W. Kerri Strug. RSVP to jewishdayton.org/ events or 937-610-1555. Boonshoft CJCE, 525 Versailles Dr., Centerville.

Temple Beth Or Exploration of the Jewish Short Story: Wed., May, 24, 7 p.m. Register at templebethor.com or 937435-3400. 5275 Marshall Rd., Wash. Twp.

CONGREGATIONS

Beth Abraham Synagogue

Conservative

Rabbi Aubrey L. Glazer

Cantor/Dir. of Ed. & Programming

Andrea Raizen

Fridays, 5 p.m.

Saturdays, 9:30 a.m.

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

Beth Jacob Congregation

Traditional

Rabbi Leibel Agar

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

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

Temple Anshe Emeth

Reform

320 Caldwell St., Piqua.

Fri., May 5, 7:30 p.m. led by Jese Shell. Contact Steve Shuchat, 937-726-2116, 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., May 5, 6 p.m.

Fridays, May 12, 19, 26, 6:30 p.m. Sat., May 13, 10:30 a.m. 130 Riverside Dr., Dayton. 937-496-0050. tidayton.org

Temple Sholom Reform

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

ADDITIONAL SERVICES

Chabad of Greater Dayton

Rabbi Nochum Mangel

Associate Rabbi Shmuel Klatzkin Youth & Prog. Dir. Rabbi Levi

Simon. Beginner educational service Saturdays, 9:30 a.m. 2001 Far Hills Ave. 937-643-0770. chabaddayton.com

Yellow Springs Havurah

Independent

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

RELIGION

Weeping a ‘Tractate of Tears’ on the tablet of the heart as a (re)discovering of Torah from Passover to Feast of Weeks

By Rabbi Aubrey L. Glazer

Beth

Abraham Synagogue

"I cry, cry, cry Cry all day I cry all night I cry all day"

— Cry all day (Schmilco, 2016)

"...crying before compiling a holy book as insights into Torah are rivers & first one has to make rivers of tears"

— Reb Nachman of Bratzlav, Likutay Moharan #262

Perspectives

Always be on the alert for Kleenex— as one of my seeker friends once told me, that's the marker of a good, and safe place for true prayer. But if we are honest, it is rare that we let our tears flow in prayer, nevermind in life—why? From the salt water at the Seder table commemorated as Passover (Pesach) to the tears spilled over the death of Rabbi Akiva’s students commemorated during the Counting of the Wheat Sheafs (Sefirat haOmer) to the Revelation at Sinai commemorated during the Feast of Weeks (Shavuot), there is a river leading us back to the ocean of tears from whence we all emerged.

I trace one such river of tears in a remarkable Americana singer-songwriter from Wilco, named Jeff Tweedy who is a Jew by choice. His journey through tears to embrace Torah is one that can inspire us all.

Many recall the early sounds of Wilco’s precursor band, Uncle Tupelo, as they struggled through the challenges of gigging in the Windy City — that’s when Tweedy first met his Jewish partner, Sue Miller, when she was booking acts in music clubs in Chicago, and then in 1989, starting her own club, Lounge Ax. From those

Candle Lightings

Shabbat, May 5: 8:17 p.m.

Shabbat, May 12: 8:23 p.m.

Shabbat, May 19: 8:30 p.m.

Erev Shavuot, May 25: 8:35 p.m.

Shabbat, 2nd Eve Shavuot, May 26: 8:36 p.m.

first gigs where Uncle Tupelo performed, Tweedy and Miller began dating in 1991, culminating in marriage four years later. But Tweedy’s true colors were more at home in the bowling alley of his hometown in Belleville, Ill., where his mother held their first baby shower. One of the strangest gifts they received included “a powder-blue leather Precious Moments Bible: New Testament.” Many tears were shed that paved the way to their older son, Spencer, eventually reaching bar mitzvah age. Tweedy apparently sang Forever Young at Spencer’s bar mitzvah, carrying forward Bob Dylan’s ethos of rewriting the Priestly Benediction from Num. 6: 24-26 as a common blessing recited over children. More tears were shed...

As their next son, Sammy, eventually reached bar mitzvah age, this liminal moment then inspired the father, Tweedy, to dive deeper into the wellsprings of Judaism. “When it was Sammy’s turn to start Hebrew school,” Tweedy recounts, “and he began begging to get out of it, I offered to help him by studying with him, and decided I was going to convert. He was bar mitzvahed, and I had a conversion ceremony. It was more involved than I thought it would be on a number of levels, including a level that required a mohel, a storage closet, and a sharp object.” And then even more tears were shed...

So where do all these tears flow on this journey for Tweedy and seekers like him? Tweedy’s inspiration reflects this journey in many key lyrical moments.

Firstly, taking leave of his birth religion is a departure not just for him but also from his professed allegiance to his sav-

Torah Portions

May 6: Emor (Lev. 21:1-24:23)

May 13: Behar-Bechukotai (Lev. 25:1-27:34)

May 20: Bamidbar (Num. 1:1-4:20)

ior, so there were tears being shed as felt in Jesus, Etc. (Yankee Hotel Foxtrot 2001):

“Jesus, don't cry

You can rely on me honey

You can combine anything you want I'll be around

You were right about the stars

Each one is a setting sun

Tall buildings shake

Voices escape singing sad sad songs

Tuned to chords

strung down your cheeks

Bitter melodies turning your orbit around…”

Then there is already an orbit returning to God and away from his former connection to Jesus that dissolves into something more:

“Our love is all of God's money

Everyone is a burning sun

Tall buildings shake

Voices escape singing sad sad songs

Tuned to chords strung down your cheeks

Bitter melodies turning your orbit around…”

Secondly, Tweedy transforms these tears as a weeping patriot in Ashes of American Flags (Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, 2001):

“I'm down on my hands and knees

Every time a doorbell rings

I shake like a toothache

When I hear myself sing

All my lies are only wishes I know I would die if I could come back new”

Thirdly, Tweedy transforms his tears in a deeply personal self-reflection through the rearview mirror in Cry all day (Schmilco, 2016):

“I had a hole in my heart I had accompanied me

Lag B’Omer

33rd Day of Omer

May 9 • 18 Iyar

The 33rd day of the Omer breaks up the seven weeks of semi-mourning between Passover and Shavuot. It marks the end of a plague among Rabbi Akiva’s students and a victory of Bar-Kokhba’s soldiers over the Romans

2,000 years ago. Celebrated with picnics and sports.

It kept me holding from rolling

Someone in the something like me

Something like me

You don't wanna be I cry, cry, cry

Cry all day I cry all night I cry all day”

Finally, most recently, Tweedy transforms the tears of relationships in this semiconfessional lyric leading to the possibility of self-transforming teshuva (return) in Tired of taking it out on you (Cruel Country, 2022):

“Freeze my warmth away

Tear the tears out of your quiet face

I can't take the way I am with you

Or recreate things we used to do

I'm tired of taking it out on you”

Tears have many emotions they carry with them, interwoven within, shedding outwards, oscillating from weeping to rejoicing. It is those tears tied to so many of our life stories that will catalyze new Torah to stream forth and renew it constantly.

And so, as we continue the journey that began upon being liberated from our personal Egypts on Passover into the encounter with Revelation of Torah at Sinai on the Feast of Weeks, perhaps that recording of that journey in the tablets of our hearts is the “tractate of tears” Reb Nachman of Bratzlav alluded to when he taught: “When some new book is written or printed, the crying that created the book ‘and my drink— musachti— I mixed with tears’ ricochets like masechet, my tractate of tears spills into your scroll...”

— Likutay Moharan #262

Shavuot

Festival of Weeks, Giving of the Torah

May 26-27 • 6-7 Sivan

Marks the end of the counting of the Omer, a 49-day period that begins on the second night of Passover, and recalls the giving of the Torah at Sinai. In Israel, it falls at the end of the spring harvest. An allnight study session called a tikun, originally a mystical practice, is held at some synagogues.

Rabbi Aubrey L. Glazer

This Blintz recipe survived the Holocaust

By June Hersh, The

Nosher

Blintzes are one of Shavuot’s most popular dishes. Long associated with Ashkenazi cooking, the light and airy hug of the blintz pancake envelopes pillowy fillings such as whipped farmer’s cheese or fruit compote.

For Florence Tabrys, a Holocaust survivor, blintzes were a lifeline to her former life near Radom, Poland. I spoke to Florence when writing my first book, Recipes Remembered, a Celebration of Survival, a compendium of stories and recipes I gathered from Holocaust survivors.

I learned that as a child, Florence and her sister were separated from their parents in 1942 and sent to work in a munitions factory.

They were eventually moved to BergenBelsen, where they remained until liberated by the British army. Florence never saw her parents again, but the memories of her childhood’s favorite foods sustained her throughout the years.

Her sweet and creamy cheese blintzes became a family tradition; she would prepare them in large batches and freeze them so they would always be at the ready.

Topping blintzes is always a game of chance. For those who grew up in Poland, most likely it was whatever was on hand from yesterday’s breakfast or Sabbath lunch.

Hanna Wechsler, a survivor of Auschwitz, described her mother’s naleshniki as a cross between a thin crêpe and a traditional blintz. She remembers her mother filling them with strawberry preserves, chopped nuts, and a touch of sugar, then topping them with a strawberry sauce.

Hanna described her experience in Auschwitz to me in the most poignant way. Her mother would sneak out of the barracks and bring back food that had been stolen from the camp’s kitchen to sustain Hanna.

She said, “My mother gave birth to me every day we lived in Auschwitz, because without her I would not have survived.”

As an homage to these remarkable women, I present Florence Tabrys’ creamy cheese blintzes topped with Hanna Wechsler’s strawberry sauce. Enjoy them on Shavuot and all year long. And remember, the thread that weaves Jewish food is vital but fragile, and needs to be lovingly maintained.

Note: The strawberry sauce will keep for one to two weeks in the fridge. You can also follow the same preparation using frozen blueberries or raspberries.

For the blintz batter:

6 large eggs

½ cup warm water

R&C Firearms Training

½ cup whole milk

1 cup all-purpose flour

For the blintz filling:

1 (4 oz.) package cream cheese, softened at room temperature

1 cup (7.5 oz.) package farmers’ cheese

1 tsp. melted butter

¾ tsp. ground cinnamon

½ cup sugar

1 egg, beaten butter for frying

For the strawberry sauce:

1 (16 oz.) bag frozen strawberries

3 Tbsp. sugar

¼ cup water

1 tsp. cornstarch juice and grated peel of half a lemon

To make the strawberry sauce, in a medium saucepan, cook the strawberries, sugar, water, and cornstarch over medium-low heat, until the berries are very soft, about 15 minutes. Puree the berries and stir in the lemon juice and grated peel. Serve hot or cold over blintzes.

Prepare the blintz batter by whisking together all the ingredients. The batter should be thinner than a pancake batter, and a golden color.

Refrigerate the batter while you prepare the filling.

For the filling, combine all the filling ingredients and gently blend until smooth.

Heat a pat of butter in an 8-inch nonstick skillet. Ladle about a quarter cup of batter into the center of the pan and quickly swirl the pan in a circular motion to evenly distribute the batter. Fry for one minute and then flip the blintz over. Cook for just a few seconds on the flip side and remove to a waiting paper towel.

Cover with a second paper towel to prevent the blintz from drying out. Wipe the pan clean of the residual butter, add a fresh pat, and follow the same process until you have used all the batter.

When cool to the touch, begin filling the blintzes. A large tablespoonful plopped right in the middle of the blintz should do it.

Fold the blintz by bringing the two ends to the middle, and then fold the two sides into the middle, creating an oblong little package.

Their irregular shape lets people know they are homemade, so don’t fret if they don’t look perfect. (You can freeze the prepared blintzes and fry them at a later time.)

Fry the filled blintzes. Heat several pats of butter in the same skillet and fry them for several minutes or until golden brown.

Tiny windows

The Power of Stories Series

Rabbi Joseph Potasnik tells the extraordinary story of days-old twins, one born with a serious heart condition and not expected to live. As the tiny infant’s health began to fail, a nurse petitioned for putting the siblings together in the same incubator, and the two babies were placed side by side. When they were next observed, the healthy boy’s arm was around his sick sister, embracing her in a hug. Soon thereafter her heart began to stabilize, and today the twins are healthy and strong. There is unfathomable power in a child’s hug.

Throughout the ages, chil-

dren have been desired for family and cultural continuity, viewed as sources of identity and pride, valued for their labor and economic contributions to family and society, even cherished as blessings and priceless treasures.

As social and cultural conditions have become more complex, potential parents are hesitating, concerned about mental health issues, bullying, violence, and rising rates of drug and alcohol use. The rise of individualistic culture has further led to children being regarded as inconveniences, burdens, too expensive, and not worth the effort.

Recent Pew Research polling responses indicate that 44 percent of non-parents under 50 are unlikely to have any children at all.

The Torah approaches the topic of children with the

The Tower of Life: How Yaffa Eliach Rebuilt Her Town in Stories and Photographs by Chana Stiefel. The Polish shtetl of Eishyshok was a bustling place filled with the joys of family and friends, work and play, and endless celebrations captured on film. Until the summer when the Germans invaded and erased the entire town. This richly illustrated and captivating story traces the life of Yaffa Eliach who, clutching a few family photographs, escaped and eventually became the designer of the Tower of Faces in the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum. Highly recommended for middle grades and above.

revolutionary notion that child rearing is a mitzvah, a commandment, a moral good.

“Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth,” is the first commandment, the “great mitzvah,” through which all the other mitzvot can be performed, generation after generation, the rabbinic treatise Sefer Hachinuch observes.

The purpose of having and raising children is to civilize the world through the commandments and to work toward making it a place where God can dwell among us.

Thus, this commandment is understood in Jewish tradition to include not only childbearing, but raising and caring for children, adopting and fostering, mentoring and teaching, inspiring other Jews to deepen their Jewish commitment, and

Shayna, a Novel by Miriam Ruth Black. In 1919, Ukrainian Cossacks went on a rampage, ravaging shtetls and murdering Jews. Having lost nearly everything, 17-year-old Shayna Rifkin set out on a perilous journey across Europe with her 4-year-old nephew, her fiancé and his mother, hoping to reach the safety of America. Set in a little-known era of Jewish history, this epic tale is inspired by her father’s story of strength, courage, responsibility, survival, and above all, family. And they remain true to themselves. A National Jewish Book Award winner, this historical novel is highly recommended as an individual read and a book club selection.

supporting those who engage in these activities.

Endlessly valuable and infinitely necessary, each child is an entire world, Maimonides teaches. On a grand scale, every one has a singular mission to accomplish toward completing the grand purpose of creation and hastening the final redemption.

But more immediate in our daily lives is the ability of every child to reflect and express a unique portion of God’s glory, helping us to grasp God’s greatness. The most pure forms created in God’s image, children are filled with deep spiritual connection, awe, and wonder, and often reveal what adults have forgotten or do not see.

Godly deeds. When a group of scholars visited the rabbi of Viedislav, he asked his 5-yearold son, Simcha Bunem, to prepare an innovative interpretation of the laws of hospitality to share with the guests. After dinner, Simcha invited the scholars into another room of the house where he had neatly prepared for each guest a bed with pillows and quilts.

“And where is the novelty in your interpretation?” one of the rabbis asked. “With respect,” Simcha answered, “A new set of words would interest only your minds, but in this way I offer you a chance to rest your bodies as well.”

Holding hands. One summer day, two children were busily constructing an elaborate sandcastle on the beach, accented with towers, gates, bridges, and even a moat.

They had nearly completed their project when a big wave came along and plowed into it, reducing all their hard work to a heap of wet sand.

But instead of bursting into tears, they ran up the shore away from the water, laughing and holding hands, and then sat down to build another castle.

God's image. Even though only 51/2 years old, Lior was an important and vibrant member of his synagogue community. Wearing his child-size tallit (prayer shawl), he would check on his beloved regulars sitting in their usual spots, join enthusiastically in prayer, and help open the ark. He would then walk through the entire congregation, shaking everyone’s hand and greeting them by name, starting a wave of smiles that flowed from one end of the room to the other. “Can you imagine what his bar mitzvah is going to be like?” his mother heard someone whisper. A very special soul who personifies “in God’s image," Lior is a child with Down’s syndrome. A listening heart. As Shiraz knitted on a Tehran rooftop, a gust of wind blew her ball of wool down into one of her neighbor’s courtyards. When she went to retrieve it, the disheveled elderly woman there asked her to do a few chores in return.

“Of course!” Shiraz replied. Giving Shiraz a heavy hammer, the woman told her to smash everything in the squalid kitchen. Instead, Shiraz cleaned and tidied, and put on a pot of soup.

In the overgrown garden, Shiraz was given some heavy shears and told to cut down all the plants. Instead, she trimmed and weeded and unblocked the natural spring.

The old woman instructed Shiraz to cut short her tangled silver hair, but Shiraz brushed out the tangles, braided it, and pinned it up.

The old woman smiled and returned the wool. Shiraz returned home thinking, "People don’t always know how to ask for what they need.”

Rabbi Meir said, “Each (child) is like a tiny window through which we can obtain a glimpse of godliness."

Arts&Culture

From ‘how to’ to ‘why bother?’

Michael

Strassfeld

writes new guide to being Jewish

By Andrew Silow-Carroll, JTA

“What the son wishes to forget the grandson wishes to remember.” That’s known as Hansen’s Law, named for the historian Marcus Lee Hansen, who observed that while the children of immigrants tend to run away from their ethnicity in order to join the mainstream, the third generation often wants to learn the “old ways” of their grandparents.

In 1973, The Jewish Catalog turned Hansen’s Law into a “do-it-yourself kit” for young Jews who wanted to practice the traditions of their grandparents but weren’t exactly sure how. Co-edited by Michael Strassfeld, Sharon Strassfeld and the late Richard Siegel, it went on to sell 300,000 copies and remains in print today.

Fifty years later, Rabbi Michael Strassfeld has written a new book that he calls a “bookend” to The Jewish Catalog. ”If the first book is a Jewish “how to,” the latest is, he says, a “why bother?”

Judaism Disrupted: A Spiritual Manifesto for the 21st Century asserts that an open society and egalitarian ethics leave most Jews skeptical of the rituals and beliefs of Jewish tradition.

In the face of this resistance, he argues that the purpose of Judaism is not obedience to Torah and its rituals for their own sake or mere “continuity,” but to “encourage and remind us to strive to live a life of compassion, loving relationships, and devotion to our ideals.”

Strassfeld, 73, grew up in an Orthodox home in Boston and got his master’s degree in Jewish studies at Brandeis University. Coming to doubt the “faith claims” of Orthodoxy, he became a regular at nearby Havurat Shalom, an “intentional community” that pioneered the havurah movement’s liberal, hands-on approach to traditional practice.

He earned rabbinical ordination from the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College when he was 41 and went on to serve as the rabbi of Congregation Ansche Chesed on the Upper West Side and later the Society for the Advancement of Judaism, the Manhattan flagship of Reconstructionist Judaism.

“To be disrupted is to experience a break with the past and simultaneously reconnect in a new way to that past,” writes Strassfeld, who retired from the pulpit in 2015.

We spoke about why people might find Jewish ritual empty, how he thinks Jewish practices can enrich their lives,

and what could be the key to unlocking the central idea of Judaism.

Let's start with the 50th anniversary of the Jewish Catalog. What connects the new book with the work you did back then on the Catalog, which was a do-it-yourself guide for Jews who were trying to reclaim the stuff they either did or didn’t learn in Hebrew school?

I see them as bookends. Basically, I keep on writing the same book over and over again. (Laughs) Except no, I’m different and the world is different. I’m always trying to make Judaism accessible to people. In the Catalog I was providing the resources on how to live a Jewish life when the resources weren’t easily accessible.

The new book is less about “how to” than “why bother?” That’s the challenge. I think a lot of people take pride in being Jewish, but it’s a small part of their identity because it doesn’t feel relevant. I want to say to people like that that Judaism is about living a life with meaning and purpose. It’s not about doing what I call the “Jewishly Jewish” things, like keeping kosher and going to synagogue. Judaism is wisdom and practices to live life with meaning and purpose. The purpose of Judaism isn’t to be a good Jew, despite all the surveys that give you 10 points for, you know, lighting Shabbat candles. It’s about being a good person.

So that brings up your relationship to the commandments and mitzvot, the traditional acts and behaviors that an Orthodox Jew or a committed Conservative Jew feels commanded to do, from prayer to keeping kosher to observing the Sabbath and the holidays. They might argue that doing Continued on Page 24

Beth Abraham, Dayton’s only Conservative synagogue, is enthusiastically egalitarian and is affiliated with the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism. For a complete schedule of our programs, go to bethabrahamdayton.org.

Women of Valor Honorees

Please join Beth Abraham Synagogue Sisterhood as we honor six women who provide spiritual leadership in our area congregations in addition to their contributions throughout our community.

A portion of the proceeds will be given to organizations which support Jewish women in spiritual leadership roles.

Monday, May 1

Rabbi Michael Strassfeld

'Judaism is about living a life with meaning and purpose.'

Rabbi Karen Bodney-Halasz, Temple Israel

Rabbi Judy Chessin, Temple Beth Or

Courtney Cummings, Temple Israel

Rabbi Tina Sobo, Temple Israel

Cantor Andrea Raizen, Beth Abraham

Mary ‘Mahira’ Rogers, Temple Beth Or

food and drinks

Jewish food and drink favorites from local restaurants, Temple Israel bakers, Ghostlight Bakery, and Dayton Beer Company

music and entertainment

Miami Valley Symphony Orchestra, The Flying Klezmerians, Shimmy Cats, Dayton Metro Barbershop Chorus, and more music from some local favorites

culture and traditions

Explore “Diversity in Judaism” with chances to learn from regional experts and rabbis

win big

Win thousands of dollars in boutique items, dining certificates, wine, bourbon, and more Purchase tickets on Temple Israel’s website

11am to 7pm

Strassfeld

Continued from Page 23

these things is what makes you Jewish, but you’re arguing something different. If someone doesn’t feel bound by these obligations, why do them at all?

I don’t have the faith or beliefs that underlie such an attitude (of obligation). Halacha, or Jewish law, is not in reality law. It’s really unlike American law where you know that if you’re violating it, you could be prosecuted. What I’m trying to do in the book is reframe rituals as an awareness practice, that is, bringing awareness to various aspects of our lives. So it could be paying attention to food, or cultivating attitudes of gratitude, or generosity, or satisfaction.

My broad understanding of the festival cycle, for example, is that you can focus on those attitudes all year long, but the festivals provide a period of time once in the year to really focus on, in the case of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, for example, saying sorry and repairing relationships.

Passover is just behind us. Probably no holiday asks its practitioners to do so much stuff in preparation, from cleaning the house of every trace of unleavened food to hosting, in many homes, two different catered seminars on Jewish history. Describe how Passover cultivates awareness, especially of the idea of freedom, which plays an important part thematically in your book.

The Sefat Emet (a 19th-century Chasidic master) says Torah is all about one thing: freedom. But there’s a variety of obstacles in the way. There are temptations. There’s the inner issues that you struggle with, and the bad things that are out of your control. The Sefat Emet says the 613 commandments are 613 etzot, or advice, that teach us how to live a life of freedom. The focus of Passover is trying to free yourself from the chains of the things that hold you back from being the person that you could be, not getting caught up in materiality or envy, free from unnecessary anxieties — all these things that distract us or keep us from being who we could be.

The Passover Seder is one of the great rituals of Judaism. We’re trying to do a very ambitious thing by saying, not, like, “let’s remember when our ancestors were freed from Egypt,” but rather that we were slaves in Egypt and we went free. And at the Seder we actually ingest that. We experience the bitterness by eating maror, the bitter herb. We experience the freedom by drinking wine. We don’t want it just to be an intellectual exercise.

Unfortunately the Seder has become rote. But Passover is about this huge theme of freedom that is central to Judaism.

I think some people bristle against ritual because they find it empty. But you’re saying there’s another way to approach rituals which is to think of them as tools or instruments that can help you focus on core principles — you actually list 11 — which include finding holiness everywhere, caring for the planet, and engaging in social justice, to name a few. But that invites the criticism, which I think was also leveled at the Catalog, that Judaism shouldn’t be instrumental, because if you treat it as a means to an end that’s self-serving and individualistic.

Certainly rituals are tools, but tools in the best sense of the word. They help us pay attention to things in our lives and things in the world that need repair. And people use them not to get ahead in the world, but because they want to be a somewhat better person. I talk a lot these days about having a brief morning practice, and in the book I write about the mezuzah. For most Jews it’s become wallpaper, but what if you take the moment that you leave in the morning, and there’s a transition from home to the outside and to work perhaps, and take a moment at the doorpost to spiritually frame your day? What are the major principles that you want to keep in your mind when you know you’re gonna be stuck in traffic or a difficult meeting? And a lot of traditional rituals are instrumental. Saying a blessing before you eat is a gratitude practice.

But why do I need a particular Jewish ritual or practice to help me feel gratitude or order my day? Aren’t there other traditions I can use to accomplish the same things?

Anybody who is a pluralist, which I am, knows that the Jewish way is not the only way. If I grew up in India or Indonesia and my parents were locals I probably wouldn’t be a rabbi and writing these books.

But a partial answer to your question is that Judaism is one of the oldest wisdom traditions in the world, and that there has been a 3,000-year conversation by the Jewish people about what it means to live in this tradition and to live in the world. And so I think there’s a lot of wisdom there.

So much in Jewish tradition says boundaries are good, and that it’s important to draw distinctions between what’s Jewish behavior and what’s not Jewish behavior, between the holy and the mundane, and that making those distinctions is a value in itself. But you argue strongly in an early chapter that that kind of binary thinking is not Judaism as you see it.

Underlying the book is the notion that Rabbinic Judaism carried the Jewish people for 2,000 years or so. But we’re living in a very different context, and the binaContinued on Page 26

Opening NIGHT

PERSIAN LESSONS PLAZA THEATRE

JUNE 1

Reception 6:30PM | Film 7:15PM

Occupied France, 1942. Gilles is arrested by SS soldiers alongside other Jews and sent to a camp in Germany. He narrowly avoids sudden execution by swearing to the guards that he is not Jewish, but Persian. This lie temporarily saves him, but Gilles gets assigned a shocking mission. Can he devise a strategy to endure under these conditions? A satisfying thriller of resistance, resilience, and courage in the face of evil. Loosely inspired by a short story from German writer Wolfgang Kohlhaase, Persian Letters is an award-winning film that will inspire discussion about ingenuity, memory, and survival.

2023 LINE UP

To purchase tickets or a festival pass, visit jewishdayton.org. All ticket and festival pass purchases will be through Eventive. For more information or assistance, contact 937-610-1555.

Shirley Mae Brook Klausner passed away on March 30 in Atlanta at the age of 97. She is survived by her three adult children: Taree Klausner of Berkeley, Calif., Richard Klausner of Bridgton, Maine, and Debra Klausner of Atlanta. She has three grandchildren: Nate Klausner, Lauren Foehl, Cydnee Jones Klausner, and three great-grandchildren: Isaac Klausner, Carter Foehl and Ethan Foehl. She is also survived by her sister Lois Unger of Dayton, as well as eight nieces and nephews: Shelley Sherman, deceased, of Dayton, Suzie Katz of Dayton, Philip Unger of New York, Amelia Ramer of Reston, Va., William Rudner of Columbus, Sharon Dillon of West Bloomfield, Mich., Gary Klausner of Akron, Gail Weintraub of Cleveland. Shirley was married to Joseph Klausner, a physician, for 62 years. They met at Ohio State University, where Shirley graduated with a degree in occupational therapy. After graduation, the couple moved to Dayton, where they resided, raised a loving family, and had fulfilling careers. They enjoyed art, tennis, golf, bridge, the symphony, and theatre. They were members of Temple Israel and had many friends. Shirley had a variety of roles in her life. In addition to being a loving partner to Joe and mother to her three children, she was an occupational therapist, an adoption specialist, and a substitute elementary art teacher. In her 40s, she returned to college and received a master's in counseling at Wright State University. She worked at the Eastway Mental Health Clinic before opening up her private practice as a psychologist in Dayton, which she had for many years. The couple retired to Marco Island and then Naples, Fla., where they built

a full life. Shirley lived the last 12 years at Huntcliff Summit, an Independent Living Community in Atlanta, where she enjoyed many activities, the company of friends, caring staff, and in the end, the companionship of compassionate and loving caregivers. Throughout her life she was gracious, smart, accepting, athletic, and beautiful with a fun sense of humor. She met life’s challenges with dignity and grace. Shirley Klausner was an inspiration to many and will be deeply missed. Contributions can be made in honor of Shirley’s memory to the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, Washington D.C.; the Jewish Family and Career Services Aviv Older Adult Services, Atlanta; or the charity of your choice.

Herman Charles Knoll, M.D. passed away peacefully at his home on April 2 at age 97.

Herman “Charlie” Knoll was born March 12, 1926 in Lodi, Ohio to parents Celia and Adolph Knoll, both European immigrants. He served in World War II as a first lieutenant in Italy. After the army, he attended The Ohio State University, where he met his wife, Joan. The G.I. Bill and his wife enabled him to complete his undergraduate and medical degrees at Ohio State. He was inducted into AOA medical honors fraternity. Charlie came to Dayton in 1956 to complete his internal medicine residency at the Dayton VA hospital, where he served as chief resident. He started his own internal medicine practice in Dayton in 1960 and practiced through 2012. In the 1990s, his son, Aaron, and daughter, Elaine, joined him in practice. He was on staff at St. Elizabeth Hospital, Good Samaritan Hospital, and the Dayton Heart Hospital. He was active in teaching medical residents and won teaching awards. He was active in the Montgomery County Medical

Society, and served on the admissions committee of Wright State University College of Medicine. His favorite activities were seeing patients, watching the Browns and Buckeyes football, Cleveland Indians baseball, and working in his garden. His springtime ritual was to start vegetable plants for his patients. He was an excellent physician and taught us all to be kind to others. He was a father figure to many. He is survived by his wife of 70 years, Joan; and son, Aaron Knoll, M.D.; daughter-inlaw, Karen Knoll; daughter, Elaine Gaglione, M.D.; and son-in-law, John Gaglione; grandchildren Elizabeth and Alexandra Knoll, and Claire and Sarah Gaglione, as well as nieces and nephews. The Knoll family thanks his caregivers, Douglas, Sabrina, Leticia, Reva, Ari, Renita, Dianna, Roxane and Dot. Interment was at Riverview Cemetery. Contributions may be made in his memory to Dayton MetroParks/Wegerzyn Gardens (metropark.org/donate) or the Humane Society of Greater Dayton.

Audrey L. MacKenzie, 68 of Kettering, passed away peacefully on April 5 surrounded by friends and family. Audrey was born on Oct. 16, 1954 to Sam and Rosalle Goldstein in Chicago. Audrey will be greatly missed by her two sons, Christopher (wife Cassia) and David (wife Kandice), brothers Mark (wife Lisa) and Alan, granddaughters Isabella and Madelyn, grandsons Ellis and Leroy, her dog Luci, and countless other family and friends. She was preceded in death by her parents, Sam and Rosalle, and her brother, Barry. Audrey grew up in Chicago. Her favorite Cub was Ron Santo. She graduated from Northern Illinois University with a degree in early childhood education, moved to Dayton, and began her career caring for children. Audrey had a beautiful smile and infectious

laughter, always quick to smile and laugh. She was an amazing mother, teaching her boys how to love, what it means to be a great parent, and that Clausen’s are the best pickles. She made the best turkey gravy, loved Fleetwood

Strassfeld

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ries, the dualities — too often they lead to hierarchy, so that, for example, men matter more than women in Jewish life. And we’ve tried to change that. We are living in an open society where we want to be more inclusive, not less inclusive. We don’t want to live in ghettos. Now, the ultra-Orthodox say, “No, we realize the danger of trying to live like that. We don’t think there’s anything of value in that modern world. And it’s all to be rejected.” And it would be foolish not to admit that in this very open world the Jews, as a minority, could kind of disappear. But I think that Judaism has so much value and wisdom and practices to offer to people that Judaism will continue to be part of the fabric of this world — the way, for example, we have given Shabbat as a concept to the world.

You know, in the first 11 chapters of the Torah, there are no Jews. So clearly, Jews and Judaism are not essential for the world to exist. And that’s a good, humbling message.

OK, but one could argue that while Jews aren’t necessary for the world to exist, Judaism is necessary for Jews to exist. And you write in your book, “If the Jewish people is to be a people, we need to have a commonly held tradition.” I think the pushback to the kind of openness and permeability you describe is that Jews can be so open and so permeable that they just fall through the holes.

It certainly is a possibility. And it’s also a possibility that the only Jews who will be around will be ultra-Orthodox Jews.

But if Judaism can only survive by being separatist, then I question whether it’s really worthwhile. That becomes a distorted vision of Judaism, and withdrawing is not what it’s meant to be. I think we’re meant to be in the world.

Your book is called Judaism Disrupted. What is disruptive about the Judaism that you’re proposing?

I meant it in two ways. First,

Mac and tie-dye, and her favorite drink was a vanilla vodka martini with a splash of Kahlúa. Her love for children will be her legacy. Please donate to the Dayton JCC in her name. May her memory be for a blessing.

Judaism is being disrupted by this very different world we’re living in. The contents of the ocean we swim in is very different than in the Middle Ages. But I’m also using it to say that Judaism is meant to disrupt our lives in a positive way, which is to say, “Wake up, pay attention.” You are here to live a life of meaning and purpose, and to continue as co-creators with God of the universe. You’re here to make the world better, to be kind and compassionate to people, to work on yourself. In my mind it is a shofar, “Wake up, sleepers, from your sleep!” Judaism Disrupted says you have to pay attention to issues like food, and justice, and teshuva (repentance).

You were ordained as a Reconstructionist rabbi. Do you think your book falls neatly into any of our current denominational categories?

(Reconstructionist founder) Rabbi Mordecai Kaplan’s notion of Judaism as an evolving religious civilization is the one that I feel closest to. But I feel that the denominational structure isn’t particularly useful anymore. There’s basically two categories, Orthodox and the various kinds of liberal Judaism, within a spectrum. The modern world is so fundamentally different in its relationship to Jews and Judaism that what we’re seeing is a variety of attempts to figure out how to respond. And that will then become the Judaism for the next millennium.

It’s time for a lot of experimentation. I think that’s required and out of that will come a new Minhag America, to use Isaac Mayer Wise’s phrase for the emerging custom of American Jews (Wise was a Reform rabbi in the late 19th century). And we don’t need to have everybody doing it one way. As long as people feel committed to Judaism, the Jewish tradition, even if they’re doing it very differently than the Jews of the past, they will be writing themselves into the conversation.

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

Israel's Declaration of Independence • 5 Iyar 5708, May 14, 1948

ERETZ-ISRAEL [(Hebrew) - the Land of Israel] was the birthplace of the Jewish people. Here their spiritual, religious and political identity was shaped. Here they first attained to statehood, created cultural values of national and universal significance and gave to the world the eternal Book of Books.

After being forcibly exiled from their land, the people kept faith with it throughout their Dispersion and never ceased to pray and hope for their return to it and for the restoration in it of their political freedom.

Impelled by this historic and traditional attachment, Jews strove in every successive generation to re-establish themselves in their ancient homeland. In recent decades they returned in their masses. Pioneers, ma'pilim [(Hebrew) - immigrants coming to Eretz-Israel in defiance of restrictive legislation] and defenders, they made deserts bloom, revived the Hebrew language, built villages and towns, and created a thriving community controlling its own economy and culture, loving peace but knowing how to defend itself, bringing the blessings of progress to all the country's inhabitants, and aspiring towards independent nationhood.

In the year 5657 (1897), at the summons of the spiritual father of the Jewish State, Theodore Herzl, the First Zionist Congress convened and proclaimed the right of the Jewish people to national rebirth in its own country.

This right was recognized in the Balfour Declaration of the 2nd November, 1917, and re-affirmed in the Mandate of the League of Nations which, in particular, gave international sanction to the historic connection between the Jewish people and Eretz-Israel and to the right of the Jewish people to rebuild its National Home.

The catastrophe which recently befell the Jewish people - the massacre of millions of Jews in Europe - was another clear demonstration of the urgency of solving the problem of its homelessness by re-establishing in Eretz-Israel the Jewish State, which would open the gates of the homeland wide to every Jew and confer upon the Jewish people the status of a fully privileged member of the comity of nations.

Survivors of the Nazi holocaust in Europe, as well as Jews from other parts of the world, continued to migrate to Eretz-Israel, undaunted by difficulties, restrictions and dangers, and never ceased to assert their right to a life of dignity, freedom and honest toil in their national homeland.

In the Second World War, the Jewish community of this country contributed its full share to the struggle of the freedom- and peace-loving nations against the forces of Nazi wickedness and, by the blood of its soldiers and its war effort, gained the right to be reckoned among the peoples who founded the United Nations.

On the 29th November, 1947, the United Nations General Assembly passed a resolution calling for the establishment of a Jewish State in Eretz-Israel; the General Assembly required the inhabitants of Eretz-Israel to take such steps as were necessary on their part for the implementation of that resolution. This recognition by the United Nations of the right of the Jewish people to establish their State is irrevocable.

This right is the natural right of the Jewish people to be masters of their own fate, like all other nations, in their own sovereign State.

ACCORDINGLY WE, MEMBERS OF THE PEOPLE'S COUNCIL, REPRESENTATIVES OF THE JEWISH COMMUNITY OF ERETZ-ISRAEL AND OF THE ZIONIST MOVEMENT, ARE HERE ASSEMBLED ON THE DAY OF THE TERMINATION OF THE BRITISH MANDATE OVER ERETZ-ISRAEL AND, BY VIRTUE OF OUR NATURAL AND HISTORIC RIGHT AND ON THE STRENGTH OF THE RESOLUTION OF THE UNITED NATIONS GENERAL ASSEMBLY, HEREBY DECLARE THE ESTABLISHMENT OF A

JEWISH STATE IN ERETZ-ISRAEL, TO BE KNOWN AS THE STATE OF ISRAEL.

WE DECLARE that, with effect from the moment of the termination of the Mandate being tonight, the eve of Sabbath, the 6th Iyar, 5708 (15th May, 1948), until the establishment of the elected, regular authorities of the State in accordance with the Constitution which shall be adopted by the Elected Constituent Assembly not later than the 1st October 1948, the People's Council shall act as a Provisional Council of State, and its executive organ, the People's Administration, shall be the Provisional Government of the Jewish State, to be called "Israel".

THE STATE OF ISRAEL will be open for Jewish immigration and for the Ingathering of the Exiles; it will foster the development of the country for the benefit of all its inhabitants; it will be based on freedom, justice and peace as envisaged by the prophets of Israel; it will ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion, race or sex; it will guarantee freedom of religion, conscience, language, education and culture; it will safeguard the Holy Places of all religions; and it will be faithful to the principles of the Charter of the United Nations.

THE STATE OF ISRAEL is prepared to cooperate with the agencies and representatives of the United Nations in implementing the resolution of the General Assembly of the 29th November, 1947, and will take steps to bring about the economic union of the whole of Eretz-Israel.

WE APPEAL to the United Nations to assist the Jewish people in the building-up of its State and to receive the State of Israel into the comity of nations.

WE APPEAL - in the very midst of the onslaught launched against us now for months - to the Arab inhabitants of the State of Israel to preserve peace and participate in the upbuilding of the State on the basis of full and equal citizenship and due representation in all its provisional and permanent institutions.

WE EXTEND our hand to all neighboring states and their peoples in an offer of peace and good neighborliness, and appeal to them to establish bonds of cooperation and mutual help with the sovereign Jewish people settled in its own land. The State of Israel is prepared to do its share in a common effort for the advancement of the entire Middle East.

WE APPEAL to the Jewish people throughout the Diaspora to rally round the Jews of Eretz-Israel in the tasks of immigration and upbuilding and to stand by them in the great struggle for the realization of the age-old dream - the redemption of Israel.

PLACING OUR TRUST IN THE "ROCK OF ISRAEL," WE AFFIX OUR SIGNATURES TO THIS PROCLAMATION AT THIS SESSION OF THE PROVISIONAL COUNCIL OF STATE, ON THE SOIL OF THE HOMELAND, IN THE CITY OF TEL-AVIV, ON THIS SABBATH EVE, THE 5TH DAY OF IYAR, 5708 (14TH MAY, 1948).

David Ben-Gurion

David Zvi Pinkas

Aharon Zisling

Moshe Kolodny

Eliezer Kaplan

Abraham Katznelson

Felix Rosenblueth

David Remez

Berl Repetur

Mordekhai Shattner

Ben Zion Sternberg

Bekhor Shitreet

Moshe Shapira

Moshe Shertok

Rachel Cohen

Rabbi Kalman Kahana

Saadia Kobashi

Rabbi Yitzchak Meir Levin

Meir David Loewenstein

Zvi Luria

Golda Myerson

Nachum Nir

Zvi Segal

Rabbi Yehuda Leib Hacohen Fishman

Daniel Auster

Mordekhai Bentov

Yitzchak Ben Zvi

Eliyahu Berligne

Fritz Bernstein

Rabbi Wolf Gold

Meir Grabovsky

Yitzchak Gruenbaum

Dr. Abraham Granovsky

Eliyahu Dobkin

Meir Wilner-Kovner

Zerach Wahrhaftig

Herzl Vardi

PRESIDEN TS DINNER 2023

KERRI STRUG is an Olympic Gold Medalist who ear ned nationwide 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta. After injuring her ankle on her first vault attempt, Kerri needed to land her second and final vault in order to seal the victory over Russia for the team combined gymnastics gold medal. With millions of people watching, and two torn ligaments in her leg, Kerri got the job done with a solid landing before collapsing to her hands and knees. She was carried to the award ceremony where she received her first gold medal. It was the first time the U.S. Gymnastics Team won gold.

Kerri received her Bachelor’s Degree in Communications and a Master’s Degree in Social Psychology at Stanford University. She currently works for the United States Juvenile Justice Department and for merly worked at the White House in Student Correspondence. Kerri is the mother of two young children.

Kerri will talk about her career and touch on the role Judaism has played in her life Kerri was inducted into the National Jewish Sports Hall of Fame in 2008. She is one of only three gymnasts to receive this honor.

DATE: Sunday, May 21

DATE: Sunday, May 21

TIME: 6PM

TIME: 5PM

LOCATION: Boonshoft CJCE

LOCATION: Boonshoft CJCE

525 Versailles Dr, Centerville 45459

525 Versailles Dr., Centerville 45459

For more information and to RSVP, go to jewishdayton.org.