January 19, 2012

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Wise Temple 92nd Street Y returns with Walter Isaacson

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Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. speaks in Cincinnati, Jan. 21

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Miss World Japan searches for missing Jewish grandfather

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Dr. Gary Zola receives King Legacy Award Dr. Gary P. Zola, executive director of the Jacob Rader Marcus Center of the American Jewish Archives and professor of the American Jewish Experience at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, was awarded the 2012 King Legacy Award on Jan. 16. The award—presented annually by the Martin Luther King, Jr. Coalition and the Freedom Center—is given to persons whose lives reflect the characteristics and attributes of Martin Luther King, Jr. and to those who have made significant and tangible contributions in the areas of race relations, justice and human rights.

The honor was bestowed during the King Legacy Awards Breakfast at the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center and was co-chaired

by Homa Yavar, of The Martin Luther King, Jr. Coalition of Greater Cincinnati and Verneida Britton, volunteer at the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center. Courtis Fuller of WLWT News 5 served as master of ceremonies.

The King Legacy Awards Breakfast honored three community and three youth leaders who embody the spirit of King and endeavor to keep his legacy alive.

Guests were welcomed by Freedom Center president and CEO Kim Robinson and Edith Thrower, president of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Coalition of Greater Cincinnati.

“This award recognizes the many years of civil and human rights leadership that Dr. Zola has provided our community,” noted Robinson. “Dr. Zola has been a true champion of freedom for all people. His life

Dr. Gary P. Zola marches with other members of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Coalition in 2010.

exemplifies the dream of Dr. King that everyone should be judged by the ‘content of their character and not by the color of their skin.’”

Following the breakfast, Dr. Zola and several community organizers led the annual MLK Coalition March beginning at the Freedom Center’s Harriet Tubman Theater.

Marchers proceeded to Fountain Square for an interfaith prayer service with local religious leaders. The march then continued to Music Hall for the annual MLK Day program, which focused on the 50th anniver-

sary of the Freedom Riders.

Dr. Zola is a past president of the Cincinnati Chapter of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Coalition and has been a frequent speaker on issues of faith and freedom at the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center.

“Dr. Zola is an inspiration and a role model for living out Dr. King’s legacy,” said Shakila Ahmad of the Islamic Center of Greater Cincinnati. “He has been a dear friend to the Muslim community— and a staunch advocate for inter-

faith relations and community understanding across our region.”

“Rabbi Gary Zola epitomizes the very DNA of Doctor King and richly deserves this award,” added Rev. Damon Lynch, Jr., pastor of the New Jerusalem Baptist Church.

“He has done much for the cause of human rights and justice.”

Zola serves on the Advisory Council of the American Jewish Committee Cincinnati Chapter and on the Board of Directors of Cincinnati’s ZOLA on page 19

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Wise Temple 92nd Street Y returns with Walter Isaacson The 92nd Street Y returns on Tuesday, Jan. 24, at 8 p.m. with Walter Isaacson discussing Steve Jobs, and with Rick Stengel moderating, live via satellite. Walter Isaacson, author of a new biography of Steve Jobs, will discuss the significance of Jobs’ contributions to the business world and explains his drive as it revolutionized six industries: personal computers, animated movies, music, phones, tablet computing and digital publishing. Jobs stands as the ultimate icon of inventiveness and applied imagination, and he built a company where leaps of imagination were combined with remarkable feats of engineering. Isaacson looks at Jobs for important lessons about innovation, character, lead-

ership and values.

Walter Isaacson, CEO of the Aspen Institute, has been chairman of CNN and managing editor of Time magazine. He is the author of “Benjamin Franklin: An American Life” and “Kissinger: A Biography” and the coauthor of “The Wise Men: Six Friends and the World They Made.” He was appointed by President Obama to be the chairman of the Broadcasting Board of Governors, which runs Voice of America, Radio Free Europe and the other international broadcasts of the U.S. government. Rick Stengel is an American editor, journalist and author and is Time magazine’s 16th managing editor. While best known for his work for Time, he

has written a number of books including a collaboration with Nelson Mandela on Mandela’s autobiography.

The 92nd Street Y Live series originates and is broadcast live via satellite from New York’s prestigious Jewish cultural center, the 92nd Street Y. The broadcasts are fed into the Wohl Chapel or Social Hall at Wise Center, equipped with a large screen and digital video technology. Also, the Cincinnati audience at Wise Temple is able to ask questions directly to the guest speakers.

The event is open to the Greater Cincinnati public. There is a small fee and tickets are available at the door at 7:30 p.m. at Wise Center.

Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. speaks in Cincinnati, Jan. 21 Israeli Ambassador to the United States Michael Oren will speak at a public event on Jan. 21, at 8 p.m. at the Mayerson Jewish Community Center (JCC). The ambassador will speak about U.S.-Israel relations and current events affecting both countries.

Time will be allowed for questions following his address.

During his visit to Cincinnati, the ambassador will visit Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center (CCHMC) to learn more about the hospital’s Israeli Exchange Program. The program—a collaboration of CCHMC and multiple hospitals and universities in Israel—improves patient care, offers training and education to Israeli physicians and scientists and increases research capabilities.

Michelle Kohn, regional manager for Israel in Cincinnati Children’s Global Health Center, said, “The Israel Exchange Program is a model for bringing to life our mission of improving child health around the world, and we are thrilled the ambassador will be visiting Cincinnati Children’s and are grateful for his interest in learning more about the work of this program.”

The Jewish Community Relations Council, in its role of working with non-Jewish religious groups to promote tolerance and understanding, has also arranged for Ambassador Oren to speak at New Jerusalem Baptist Church, in Carthage. “We are blessed to have the ambassador attend our service,” said New Jerusalem’s pastor Rev. Damon Lynch, Jr. “We are looking forward to a beneficial experience for all.”

Cincinnati businessman Gary

Michael Oren, the Israeli Ambassador to the U.S.

Heiman, a dual American and Israeli citizen who served in the Israel Defense Forces with Ambassador Oren, commented, “We are honored to have Ambassador Oren visit Cincinnati.

We are particularly happy that Ambassador Oren made the time and effort to come to Cincinnati to speak and interact with many parts of our city: Children’s Hospital; the Jewish community; and churches, leaders and other members of the Cincinnati community. This is a testament to the strong and growing relationship between Cincinnati and the State of Israel.”

A graduate of Princeton and Columbia Universities, Ambassador Oren has received fellowships from the U.S. Departments of State and Defense and from the British and Canadian governments. Formerly, he was the Lady Davis Fellow of Hebrew University, a Moshe Dayan Fellow at Tel-Aviv University and the

Distinguished Fellow at the Shalem Center in Jerusalem. He has been a visiting professor at Harvard, Yale and Georgetown Universities.

Raised in New Jersey, where he was an activist in Zionist youth movements and a gold medal winning athlete in the Maccabiah Games, Ambassador Oren moved to Israel in the 1970s. He served as an officer in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), in the paratroopers in the Lebanon War, as a liaison with the U.S. Sixth Fleet during the Gulf War and as an IDF spokesman during the Second Lebanon War and the Gaza operation in January 2009. He acted as an Israeli Emissary to Jewish refuseniks (individuals who were denied permission by authorities to emigrate abroad) in the Soviet Union, as an advisor to Israel’s delegation to the United Nations and as the government’s director of Inter-Religious Affairs.

Ambassador Oren has written extensively for The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times and The New Republic, where he was a contributing editor. His two most recent books, “Six Days of War: June 1967 and the Making of the Modern Middle East” and “Power, Faith, and Fantasy: America in the Middle East, 1776 to the Present,” were both New York Times bestsellers. They won the Los Angeles Times’ History Book of the Year prize, a National Council of the Humanities Award and the National Jewish Book Award.

The ambassador’s speech on Jan. 21 is free and open to the entire community. However, for reasons of security, all attendees must register for the event by Jan. 19 and must check in at the door.

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portrays a 58-year-old professor obsessively in love with his young wife, Naomi.

Closing night of the film festival, Thursday, Feb. 16 at 7 p.m., is “Nicky’s Family,” winner of Best Documentary UK Jewish Film Festival 2011. “Nicky’s Family” is an unforgettable, moving film. Also that night, preceding “Nicky’s Family,” is the short, “Three Promises.” The Center for Holocaust and Humanity Education is a partner in this film presentation.

“When someone takes the time to put on these films in a communal setting, where people see the films together, they can discuss them, and think through the ideas presented— and that makes all the difference,” said Larry Thomas, WVXU-FM film critic.

‘Group’ Speed Dating for JYPs, Feb. 11

Find your Valentine during this ‘group’ speed dating event.

and for many it will be a lot less awkward. At the end of all the rounds, participants will complete a form with the names of those they’d like to get to know better, at which time, Access will swoop in and play Cupid! We have already gotten a great response and are looking forward to helping lots of people find their heart’s desire!”

The event is free with advance reservations. The evening will begin with cocktails and appetizers and guests will have a chance to hear from Stephanie and Jack Rubin, the first couple to meet at an Access event and get married, as well as Bree and Michael Bergman who met at one of Access’ first speed dating events and got married this past October.

They will talk about how they knew when they had found the

“one” and offer some helpful advice to speed daters before they begin “making the rounds.”

“As anyone who’s single knows, meeting someone you like, let alone someone you want to go out with again, is a very difficult task,” explained Bree Bergman.

“Thankfully, I decided to open myself up to trying something new and that’s how I met my husband, Michael! It was Access’ Speed Dating event that enabled us to find each other, because in all honestly, I don’t think we would have met each other any other way,” she shared. “We will always be grateful to Access and The Mayerson Foundation for that.”

While Access is not intended to be a “singles program,” numerous committed relationships and marriages have occurred over the

years as a result. In addition to speed dating events, Jewish young professionals have ample opportunities to meet one another at the more than 50 events, programs and parties that Access hosts every year. Josh Rothstein and Lindsay Benjamin have been together for two years. “The first Access event I ever attended was a JGourmet cooking class,” said Lindsay, a Cleveland native. “I love to cook and was interested in meeting other Jewish Young Adults in Cincinnati. I had heard great things about Access, so I convinced my sister to come along and I ended up meeting my boyfriend that night! I am in love and am so happy I made the choice to attend that event, otherwise I might never have met Josh!”

Rachel Plowden, Access’ program coordinator, is usually very busy working behind the scenes to insure that each event flows smoothly and that everyone is having a great time. As with everyone who is new to Access, she went out of her way to make David Kohn feel welcome when he moved to Cincinnati a little more than a year ago. It didn’t take long for them to become good friends. “Even though I wasn’t looking for it, a relationship developed between us and he eventually went from being my good friend to being my boyfriend,” explained Rachel. “I never would have guessed that I would find someone through Access myself, but am very happy it happened!”

For anyone coming from out of town, Access has secured a special rate for event participants just across the river at the Comfort Suites in Newport, Ky. This event is strictly limited to Jewish men and women between the ages of 21-35, and advance reservations are mandatory. Space is limited and will be allotted on a first come first served basis.

The American Israelite “LET THERE BE LIGHT” THE OLDEST ENGLISH-JEWISH WEEKLY IN AMERICA - EST. JULY 15, 1854

VOL. 158 • NO. 26 THURSDAY, JANUARY 19, 2012 24 TEVET 5772 SHABBAT BEGINS FRIDAY 5:27 PM SHABBAT ENDS SATURDAY 6:28 PM THE AMERICAN ISRAELITE CO., PUBLISHERS 18 WEST NINTH STREET, SUITE 2 CINCINNATI, OHIO 45202-2037 Phone: (513) 621-3145 Fax: (513) 621-3744 publisher@americanisraelite.com editor@americanisraelite.com production@americanisraelite.com RABBI ISSAC M. WISE Founder, Editor, Publisher, 1854-1900 LEO WISE Editor & Publisher, 1900-1928 RABBI JONAH B. WISE Editor & Publisher, 1928-1930 HENRY C. SEGAL Editor & Publisher, 1930-1985 PHYLLIS R. SINGER Editor & General Manager, 1985-1999 MILLARD H. MACK Publisher Emeritus NETANEL (TED) DEUTSCH Editor & Publisher BARBARA L. MORGENSTERN Senior Writer YEHOSHUA MIZRACHI RITA TONGPITUK Assistant Editors ALEXIA KADISH Copy Editor JANET STEINBERG Travel Editor SONDRA KATKIN Dining Editor MARIANNA BETTMAN NATE BLOOM IRIS PASTOR RABBI A. JAMES RUDIN ZELL SCHULMAN RABBI AVI SHAFRAN PHYLLIS R. SINGER Contributing Columnists LEV LOKSHIN JANE KARLSBERG Staff Photographers JOSEPH D. STANGE Production Manager MICHAEL MAZER Sales ERIN WYENANDT Office Manager e Oldest Eng Th

ewish N h-J ew lis

Feb. 14th is fast approaching!

For many it’s a day filled with fun and romance. However, for many others who are still searching for Mr. or Ms. Right, it can be a painful reminder that they still haven’t found their special Valentine. But now, for any Jewish young professional hoping to be hit by Cupid’s arrow, Access will be hosting its Fourth Annual Regional Jewish Speed Dating event, where some of the most eligible Jewish young professionals, ages 21-35, from Cincinnati, Columbus, Dayton, Indianapolis, Louisville and Lexington will convene in Cincinnati for a chance to fast track more than 40 first dates in one evening on Saturday, Feb. 11 at 8 p.m. in a private room at McCormick and Schmicks, downtown.

“Each Valentine’s Day weekend, nearly 100 participants from all over the region take part in this event. Over the years it has resulted in numerous matches, many of which turn into serious relationships, and even marriage, like it did for Bree and Michael Bergman, our very first Speed Dating couple to tie the knot!” said Pam Saeks, director of Jewish Giving for The Mayerson Foundation. “However, there are always some who feel reluctant to take part because they are shy, worry they won’t know what to say or that they’ll appear foolish when they’re put on the spot” she added.

“That’s why this year, we’re trying something different.

“It’s our own invention called ‘Group’ Speed Dating, a brand new twist that takes the traditional method to a whole new level.

Based on their responses to a brief questionnaire, we’ll put together groups of four girls and four guys.

When the bell rings, guy groups will rotate to girl groups every six minutes,” she explained. “That way there won’t be pressure on any one person. It’s simple and fun

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Audiences will be spell-bound as they watch the original Israeli version of “The Debt,” showing Wednesday, Feb. 8 at 1 p.m., and Monday, Feb. 13 at 7 p.m.

“La Rafle” (The Roundup) shows on Thursday, Feb. 9 at 7 p.m. and Tuesday, Feb. 14 at 1 p.m. “La Rafle” has been hailed as “an important step in France’s acknowledgment of its complicity in the crimes of the Occupation,” wrote The Guardian. Following the Feb. 9 screening of the film, Fran Greenberg, a French Holocaust survivor, will describe her personal experience.

“Naomi,” winner of the Warsaw Jewish Film Festival, November 2011 Official Selection Award, shows at the JCC on Saturday, Feb. 11 at 8 p.m. The Israeli/French film

Est. 1854

the short, “Seltzer Works,” an official selection of the Hot Docs Documentary Film Festival in 2010.

“Blood Relation,” an Israeli documentary, on Monday, Feb. 6, at 7 p.m., is the winner of Amnesty International Best Human Rights Film Award and will be followed by a facilitated discussion with Yair Cohen, Cincinnati Shaliach. Also that evening, enjoy the short film “Tasnim,” named Best Fiction Film at the International Women’s Film Festival in Israel, August 2010.

“Melting Away,” 2011 Israeli Film Academy nominee, will be shown on Tuesday, Feb. 7 at 7 p.m., and also on Sunday, Feb. 12 at 2 p.m. This Israeli drama follows the story of parents who discover their child is a cross-dresser.

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Saturday, Feb. 4, is opening night of the 2012 Cincinnati Jewish and Israeli Film Festival at the Mayerson JCC. This year’s film festival runs Saturday evening, Feb. 4, through Thursday evening, Feb. 16, with seven feature length and three short films.

A festive Opening Night reception at the J with Mexican treats at 8 p.m. on Feb. 4 kicks off the celebrated Israeli comedy, “Salsa Tel Aviv.” Named Best Comedy of the 2011 Jewish Omaha Film Festival, “Salsa Tel Aviv” is a light-hearted story about a Mexican salsa dancer, a poor single mom who leaves her young son with her mom and flies to Israel dressed as a nun in order to sneak in. During the long flight, a strange, amusing friendship develops. Preceding “Salsa Tel Aviv” is

r in Am ape er sp i

Jewish & Israeli Film Festival opens at the JCC

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Birthright for Jewish moms “It’s like a Birthright for Moms.” That’s how the national Jewish Women’s Renaissance Project (JWRP) promotes its nineday Israel trip geared to Jewish moms of children up to 18 years old. Unlike the classic “Birthright” program, participants in the JWRP trips do pay for airfare to Israel.

But once in Israel, all hotel, tour and event costs are covered. Even travel costs can be reduced through subsidies provided by the local JWRP affiliate, Sarah’s Place.

Last summer 20 Cincinnati women traveled to Israel on the JWRP “Transform and Grow” (TAG) Israel trip. Feedback was so positive that Sarah’s Place secured 30 spots for a trip this June.

“JWRP and Sarah’s Place provided us a Jewish-mom’s journey of a lifetime,” commented one participant.

City leaders for the upcoming trip will be Aviva Minster, Haviva Randolph and Yehudis Polsky. In addition, two of the moms who

participated in last summer’s trip, Heidi Weisman and Amy Frankel, hope to be returning in “madrichah”—team leader— capacities.

So far, 2,000 women have traveled to Israel on the JWRP TAG trips. It is anticipated that this year alone, 1,000 more will be participating. Cincinnati women will team up with moms from Denver, Indianapolis, Montreal, Toronto and even a group from South Africa.

JLI examines sustainable business practices in Cincinnati The Goldstein Family Learning Academy and the Jewish Learning Institute will present the new course, “Money Matters: Jewish Business Ethic.” This six-session series will commence during the week of Jan. 26.

Rabbi Yisroel Mangel of Chabad Jewish Center will conduct the six course sessions at Chabad Jewish Center on Thursday mornings 9:30 –11 a.m. and Monday evenings 7:30 – 9 p.m. The sessions will also be offered on Thursday afternoons, 12–1 p.m. at Wood and Lamping, LLP., downtown.

“The recent failures in the financial industry have drastically changed the way we think aboutbusiness,” explained Rabbi Mangel.

“At JLI, we deeply believe that business should be a force for good,

and that’s why we’re presenting students with timeless Talmudic insights into real-world ethical dilemmas.”

Spanning a wide range of intriguing subjects, Money Matters discusses the personal ethics of bankruptcy and freeloading, asking questions such as: After purchasing a ticket for a ball game, can you move to an unoccupied, higherpriced seat? If you ever have the money are you morally obliged to repay discharged debt? Questions regarding topics in social ethics such as living wages, insider trading, CEO compensation, and collective bargaining are also addressed.

“Markets need morals, and morals are not made by markets.

They are made by schools, the media, custom, tradition, religious

Adath’s Mazel Tots “Mazel Tots is so much fun for my family. It is a place for my husband and me to socialize with friends while exposing our children to Jewish music and culture.

I feel we are creating memories for our children that will last forever,” commented Holly Wolfson.

The Youth and Family department at Adath Israel is growing!

One of the largest and most enthusiastic groups at the synagogue is the revamped and newly named Mazel Tots group. This group of young families with children, ages newborn to kindergarten, meets once a month on Sundays from 9:30 –10:45 a.m. The program includes breakfast, a lively music session led by Mitch Cohen and a special craft led by different parent volunteers.

Over the last few months, Mazel Tots has grown so fast that a much larger room for the music session is now required! At a recent event over 40 kids and about 25 parents attended.

Following a half-hour long breakfast, the families come together in a circle to sing and dance to Jewish and Hebrew songs. Song sheets are available

for parents to follow along. The young children enjoy singing along and bopping to the songs and the guitar. They even get a chance to play some instruments of their own. Once the singing and dancing concludes, everyone heads into the craft room for a Jewish themed project. This year, the group has decorated stuffed Torahs for Simchat Torah, designed Shabbat placemats laminated with contact paper and created dreidel art from foam cutouts for Hanukkah. When they finish their craft the toddlers and babies play together with the toys in the babysitting room. It is a casual and lively event.

Through Mazel Tots, Marcie Oliff, a mother of three, says that her family has made new friends and that it has been a great introduction to Sunday School for her oldest child, now in the second grade. “We have experienced the growth of the program over the past few years and we are very pleased with how it began and what it has become. The relaxed atmosphere is very welcoming and provides a positive experience for children of all ages involved.”

leaders, moral role models and the influence of people,” said the British Chief Rabbi Lord Sacks.

“Jewish ethics has a long past and a massive resource of wisdom. That is why courses such as JLI’s Money Matters: Jewish Business Ethics are so important.”

Plus, if you are a legal professional you'll want to know that this course is accredited to offer CLE professional credits.

Like all JLI programs, Money Matters is designed to appeal to people at all levels of Jewish knowledge, including those without any prior experience or background in Jewish learning. All JLI courses are open to the public, and attendees need not be affiliated with a particular synagogue, temple or other house of worship.

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Miss World Japan searches for missing Jewish grandfather Former Miss World Japan, Elza Sasaki, will arrive in Ohio on Wednesday, Jan. 18, in an effort to search for her grandfather, Thomas Snell, whose hometown is Hamilton, Ohio. Elza’s family has been searching for Snell for 60 years, and has contacted the Jewish community in an effort to find him—or at least members of his family.

In 1950, Snell was a 22-yearold U.S. Air Force Technical Sgt., stationed in Okinawa, Japan.

While there, he met an 18-yearold Japanese woman, Chiyoko Inafuku, who worked as a waitress at the Kadena Air Base. During the year they were together, Snell brought clothes, tableware and other gifts to her home when her pregnancy with their child forced her to quit her job. Inafuku, now 78, describes Snell as a “caring boyfriend” and said she was greatly shocked when he disappeared suddenly in 1951.

Despite her initial inquiries and letters to Snell, Inafuku, who

Courtesy of JCC

Tom Snell

spoke only broken English, gave up her search to devote time to raising their daughter, Tammy. “I had to raise a child and simply had no time for that,” she said. She also speculates whether he had gone on to fight in the 1950-53 Korean War and was killed.

Tammy, now 59, was named after

Courtesy of JCC

Elza Sasaki

her father’s nickname, “Tommie.”

When Tammy was 10 months old, Inafuku went back to work at the base for another four decades until she reached the mandatory retirement age of 60. Tammy took up the search for her father in

1972 when she became a member of Japan’s women’s basketball team, thinking that international fame at the Munich Olympics would help her find him.

However, the IOC decided that women’s basketball would not become an Olympic sport until the 1976 Montreal Olympics, thereby dashing her dream. She quit basketball after the decision. “It really brought me down. I thought I could not do it another four years,” she said.

Tammy’s daughter, Elza Sasaki, 23, grew up with dreams of becoming a super model and worked toward her goal by entering beauty pageants. In December 2009, she represented Japan in the Miss World contest, finishing among the Top 16 contestants. For her, the Miss World pageant was her vehicle toward gaining international fame and generating media exposure to help her find her grandfather. “I want to thank him for the good things I inherited from him,” said Elza.

Now Elza is coming to Ohio to search for Thomas Snell – and she needs your help.

Here is the information Elza has about his background and last known whereabouts: Thomas “Tommy” or “Tommie” Snell was born (circa 1928) and raised in Hamilton, Ohio, of Jewish ethnicity.

He was a Technical Sergeant in the U.S. Air Force, stationed in Okinawa on Kadena Air Base, from 1950 to 1951.

He had relationship and a child with Chiyoko Inafuku, a waitress at the base.

Snell may have served in the Korean War between 1951 and 1953.

Interview arrangements may be made by contacting: Yasmine Yoshida, researcher, Duo Creative Communications of San Francisco.

For complete background, see the Japan Times, Sept. 24, 2009, article, “Miss World Looks for U.S. Granddad.”

Iran Divestment: Questions of impact and motivation

By Jacob Kamaras Jointmedia News Service With the Iranian nuclear threat increasingly in the limelight, Massachusetts fully divested its pension funds from Iran before the New Year. But what are the implications beyond Massachusetts?

President Barack Obama recent-

ly signed into law economic sanctions on Iran’s central bank as part of the National Defense Authorization Act, but did so while expressing misgivings, citing “serious reservations with certain provisions” of the legislation that he said could infringe on his “constitutional authority to conduct foreign relations by directing the executive to

take certain positions in negotiations or discussions with foreign governments,” according to reports.

Obama waited until New Year’s weekend to sign the sanctions— which were passed by the U.S. Senate 100-0 on Dec. 2—and added that he would treat them as “non-binding” if they interfere with his constitutional authority. The

President is also able to waive the sanctions if he determines that such a move is in the national security interest of the U.S. Contrasted with indecision in the White House, the Massachusetts Pension Reserves Investment Management Board announced on Jan. 3 that it finalized the divestment of all its holdings in companies with major ties to Iran’s energy industry on Dec. 30, 2011, becoming “among the first state pension funds to fully divest,” said Treasurer Steven Grossman, former president of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC).

Citing the fact that there were 17 companies on Massachusetts’s divestment list several years ago but only six companies in question after the latest external audit commissioned by the state, Grossman said that he credits Iran divestment legislation around the U.S. “for having changed the behavior of some international energy companies.”

“I think there are quite a number of international oil companies and energy companies that have concluded that doing business in Iran and with Iran was too risky, and there’s documentation for companies having decided ‘We’re not going to do this anymore,’ because the headline risk and the business risk make it an untenable proposition,” Grossman told JointMedia News Service.

While state divestment is “an important adjunct to the type of federal action that’s taking place with regard to sanctions, via Congress and the executive branch,” however, it is also a local indication of how weak national governmental policy is on Iran, said Ilan Berman,

vice president of the Washington, DC-based American Foreign Policy Council.

“Divestment obviously can’t be the tip of the spear when it comes to putting economic pressure on Iran,” Berman told JointMedia News Service. “Over the last six years or so, it has been a grassroots reaction from concerned citizens who are worried about Iran and worried that the U.S. government isn’t doing enough to take matters into their own hands. So it is, I think, properly seen as a reflection of the U.S. government not doing enough.”

Some reports had Massachusetts as the first state to fully divest its pension funds from Iran, but Grossman wasn’t ready to take that credit. He said that Florida and Georgia have made similar divestitures, and that other states were close to full divestment before the end of 2012. Therefore, he “did not want to claim that we were third [in the country to fully divest] because there may be one or two others that did what we did pretty much around the same time.”

Berman agreed, saying that the record on which states have actually fully divested is “fairly muddled.” Nonetheless, Massachusetts has set a leadership example.

The finalization of total divestment in Massachusetts fulfilled the mandate of an existing state law designed to put pressure on Iran, and Grossman said he hopes “every state in the country will do this as quickly as possible, because I think that anything we do collectively puts more pressure on the international oil and gas industry to seriously question how much they want to do business in Iran.”

NATIONAL • 7

THURSDAY, JANUARY 19, 2012

Jewish Republicans watch nervously as favorites savage one another

By Ron Kampeas Jewish Telegraphic Agency

Courtesy of Steve Petteway, Collection of the Supreme Court of the United States

Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr., administers the Constitutional Oath to Elena Kagan in the Justices’ Conference Room on Saturday, August 7, 2010.

Jewish groups welcome Supreme Court’s ‘ministerial exception’ ruling

By Ron Kampeas Jewish Telegraphic Agency WASHINGTON (JTA) — Two groups each known for their internal divisions on religion-state issues found themselves in a degree of accord this week: the justices of the United State Supreme Court and the organized Jewish community.

In a decision issued Wednesday, the Supreme Court unanimously upheld the right of religious institutions to use “ministerial exception” to bypass employee discrimination protections and fire staff, but stopped short of setting parameters for the exception.

Some civil libertarians had argued that courts should have the right to intervene in matters pertaining to the employment of clergy, a stance that even some of their usual allies in the Jewish community rejected.

“There’s wall-to-wall belief in the religious community that that’s a clear violation of what the framers intended,” said Rabbi David Saperstein, director of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, which praised the court’s ruling. “There’s nothing more fundamental than choosing your own clergy.”

Americans United for Separation of Church and State was among those who blasted the decision. “Blatant discrimination is a social evil we have worked hard to eradicate in the United States,” said the Rev. Barry W. Lynn, its executive director. “I’m afraid the court’s ruling today will make it harder to combat.”

The court’s ruling could limit legal recourse for members of the

clergy in their dealings with employers. Even before the ruling, rabbinical associations were already advising rabbis to write employment protections into their contracts, an official of one such rabbinical group said.

“They never really had protections, but this seals it,” the official said.

Jewish groups had closely watched Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church and School v. the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, a case in which a teacher alleged that a Michigan religious school had violated the Americans With Disabilities Act in firing her.

The school claimed that Cheryl Perich, who suffers from narcolepsy, was exempt from protection as a minister. Perich and the EEOC countered that most of her work involved secular teaching.

It was the first time that the Supreme Court considered ministerial exception, a doctrine that had been shaped by lower courts.

Its decision has the effect for now of making its application the law of the land.

The court unanimously held that Perich fell under the “ministerial exception” rule not because of the amount of time she devoted to religious teaching — 45 minutes a day — as a lower court had ruled, but because she had been ordained as a minister by the church in 2000.

Chief Justice John Roberts, writing the opinion, said the issue “is not one that can be resolved by a stopwatch,” according to the Associated Press. Roberts added that the court would not “adopt a rigid formula for deciding when an employee qualifies as a minister.”

WASHINGTON (JTA) — As the Republican primary fight moves from New Hampshire to South Carolina, Newt Gingrich is stepping up his attacks on Mitt Romney and some prominent Jewish Republicans — who have a rich, mutually admiring history with both men — are wondering what happens next.

Gingrich and a pro-Gingrich SuperPAC — reportedly funded to the tune of $5 million by Sheldon Adelson, one of the most generous U.S. Jewish philanthropists — are taking aim at what, for the GOP, is an unusual target: Romney’s past as a venture capitalist.

“You have to ask the question, is capitalism really about the ability of a handful of rich people to manipulate the lives of thousands of people and then walk off with the money?”

Gingrich said Monday in New Hampshire, the day before its first in the nation primary.

Gingrich’s salvo was picked up by the other candidates and campaigns. For example, after tales flooded the news media of Romney’s liquidation of companies during his career as a venture capitalist, Griffin Perry — son of Texas Gov. Rick Perry — tweeted on Tuesday: “Mitt Romney knows how to lead ... Lead people straight out the door with a pink slip.”

Jewish Republicans watched

Courtesy of Gage Skidmore via Creative Commons

Newt: Newt Gingrich speaking to supporters at a town hall in Derry, N.H., along with his wife, Callista, Jan. 8, 2012.

the to and fro with a degree of discomfiture.

“This disproves the idea that Republican Jews move in lockstep,” Noam Neusner, a former domestic policy adviser to President George W. Bush, told JTA. Romney and Gingrich both have deep ties in the Jewish Republican community. Romney’s funders include Mel Sembler, the Florida shopping center magnate, and Fred Zeidman, a Texas lawyer.

Gingrich has a long and abiding friendship with Adelson, the Las Vegas casino magnate.

Both candidates have made Israel a central plank of their antiObama rhetoric. Romney, the for-

mer Massachusetts governor, says Israel would be the first country he visits as president, in contrast to Obama’s failure to do so during his term. Gingrich has explicitly said he would strike Iran should it acquire a nuclear weapon and has said he would move the U.S. embassy in Israel to Jerusalem on his first day in office.

While the two candidates might share views on the Middle East, their personal tensions have boiled over in recent weeks. Some observers are expressing amazement at the latest turn in the feud — not just because it has Gingrich and REPUBLICANS on page 20

8 • NATIONAL

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In New Jersey, pro-Israel stalwart Alabama’s secret Jewish weapon celebrates grid title Rothman faces primary battle

By Jessica Leader Jewish Telegraphic Agency

By Zach Silberman Jewish Telegraphic Agency WASHINGTON (JTA/WASHINGTON JEWISH WEEK) — Rep. Steve Rothman is accustomed to being re-elected to his northern New Jersey congressional district by wide margins.

This year, however, the proIsrael stalwart faces what could be a tough, redistricting-induced primary battle against a fellow eightterm Democrat, Rep. Bill Pascrell, who also has a history of winning re-election handily.

Among many pro-Israel activists, the stakes are seen as high. Rothman is regarded as a key — and outspoken — proIsrael voice on Capitol Hill.

“There are less than a handful of congressmen who bring the kind of passion, intensity and commitment to America’s security and Israel’s security that Steve Rothman does,” said a congressional aide whose boss previously served with Rothman on the House Appropriations Committee.

“He has a laser beam-like focus on defeating the enemies of Israel, and he’s definitely not shy about

Courtesy of Rep. Steve Rothman

Rep. Steve Rothman, center, is flanked by the director of the U.S. Missile Defense Agency, Lt.-Gen. Patrick O’Reilly, left, and O'Reilly’s counterpart at the Israel Missile Defense Organization, Arieh Herzog, in a visit to the congressman’s Washington office, March 30, 2011.

holding the State Department accountable.”

The race between Rothman and Pascrell is the result of the new congressional map adopted at the end of 2011by New Jersey’s redistricting commission.

Rothman is not the only highprofile Jewish lawmaker facing a

redistricting-fueled primary fight.

In California, the decennial redrawing of congressional districts has yielded a faceoff between Democratic Reps. Howard Berman and Brad Sherman, both leaders on Israel issues.

ROTHMAN on page 22

NEW YORK (JTA) — After the University of Alabama won the Bowl Championship Series football crown by dominating topranked Louisiana State University, much of the attention and credit has gone to Crimson Tide coach Nick Saban.

But what about Robert Levin?

Pediatrician by day, Levin has been Alabama’s band announcer — better known as the “Voice of the Million Dollar Band” — for 21 seasons. So he’s been around for three national titles — that’s one more than Saban, although the coach has only been at ‘Bama for five seasons.

The doctor told JTA that he’s nowhere near jaded from all the winning.

“My wife was sitting with me [Monday] night, and we just kept looking at each other saying how much fun we were having,” Levin told JTA, referring to the 21-0 victory over LSU. “We just feel so fortunate.”

Levin said the gig came about through sheer coincidence, when he met the band director at a party.

“I did my imitation of a public address announcer for her, having no experience, and she thought it was good,” he recalled. “She asked if I would want to do a game for them, which I did, and after that I became the permanent announcer.”

Levin says the job has become an integral part of his life. And the doctor cum announcer has plenty of company among Alabama Jews with ties to Crimson Tide football.

Radio announcer Eli Gold is the official “Voice of the Crimson Tide.” Jon Solomon covers the team for the Birmingham News.

And Mike Slive is the commissioner of the Southeast Conference, home to the last six college football champions — Alabama has won two of the last three national titles.

Slive also is a member of Levin’s synagogue in Birmingham and a close friend.

“Although he is considered the most powerful man in collegiate athletics, Mike is really just a nice Jewish guy,” Levin said.

The pervasiveness of Alabama football has been deep seated in the state’s Jewish community for generations.

ALABAMA on page 19

INTERNATIONAL • 9

THURSDAY, JANUARY 19, 2012

International Briefs Brazil approves Jewish studies agreement with Israel RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil (JTA) — Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff approved an agreement to allow students, teachers and researchers in Brazil to teach and research the Holocaust, anti-Semitism and other Jewish-related subjects.

Under the agreement, Hebrewlanguage and Jewish themes such as the Holocaust, anti-Semitism, racism, xenophobia and intolerance will be part of curricula in some schools, universities and other educational institutions in Brazil.

As part of an inter-country exchange, Portuguese will be taught in academic circles in Israel. Several scholarships will support the exchange.

The agreement is the result of a longtime effort by Osias Wurman, Israel’s honorary consul in Rio and ex-president of the Rio de Janeiro State Jewish Federation.

“Teaching the Holocaust in Brazilian schools is key in a moment when revisionist waves grow, notably from the Iranian government, which try to wipe the memory for future generations,” Wurman told JTA. “We must shed light on the past in order to clear the future.”

In Budapest, corruption probe amplifies calls for reform of communal institutions

By Ruth Ellen Gruber Jewish Telegraphic Agency BUDAPEST (JTA) — A whistle-blowing rabbi and a reformminded lay leader are at the forefront of new efforts to shake up Hungary’s entrenched Jewish establishment.

Late last year, Rabbi Zoltan Radnoti reportedly alerted authorities to complaints of embezzlement and tax fraud in the operation of Budapest’s main Jewish cemetery on Kozma Street. This led to a police investigation and an unprecedented raid on Dec. 1 on both the cemetery and the Jewish community offices that house the burial society, as well as a public airing of the scandal in the mainstream media.

“Many people in the Jewish community administration attacked me for airing internal affairs to the outside,” Radnoti, 40, told JTA. “I was told that I draw a salary from the Budapest Jewish Community, so I was disloyal to my employers.”

But, he added, “You have to fight for the truth no matter what.

I think this could become the beginning of the cleaning-up of Jewish communal affairs.”

Joining Radnoti is Andras Heisler, a former president of the Federation of Jewish Communities in Hungary, or Mazsihisz, the official umbrella of the Neolog community, a moderate reformist

Return to shtetl gives texture to reporter’s family history

By Alex Weisler Jewish Telegraphic Agency LVIV, Ukraine (JTA) — The more I thought about it, the more it began to seem like a reasonable choice: I would roam around Europe for six months, visiting Jewish museums, talking to youth groups and covering various community happenings. I would travel from vibrant London to the post-Communist countries of the Eastern Bloc. But I would decisively avoid any intersection with my own family’s past.

Like many American Jews, my family history is deeply tangled in the tragedies of Jewish Europe.

But I wasn’t going to engage with history on anything but an abstract level, through the detached eyes of a reporter.

That changed when I decided to pay a visit to western Ukraine. My family is from a shtetl called Shatsk, tucked into the far northwest corner of Ukraine’s Volynia province and a stone’s throw from

the country’s borders with Belarus and Poland. In 1941, the young men of the village — including my grandfather and great-uncle — fled in the dead of night, convinced that the Germans would treat the village much as they did during World War I, when only men were targeted — for conscription.

This time around, the logic was that if the men were gone, what would the advancing soldiers want with a town full of women, children and the elderly? It was a miscalculation, and more than 1,000 Jews in the Shatsk area were shot into a mass grave by Black Lake, now part of one of Ukraine’s national parks.

For me and my family, Shatsk has always seemed like an impossibly exotic travel destination. I found it hard to believe that, as the Ukrainian census informed me, about 6,000 people lived there. Or that it had a nightclub called Sinatra and several ATMs. RETURN on page 22

Courtesy of Szabolcs Panyi

Gusztav Zoltay, left, the director of the Federation of Hungarian Jewish Communities, and Peter Feldmajer, its president, at the founding of the new Hungarian Jewish Congress.

movement to which the vast majority of affiliated Hungarian Jews belong. The Jewish community in Budapest, home to 90 percent of the country’s Jews, is the largest member of Mazsihisz.

Mazsihisz officially represents the interests of Hungarian Jewry to the government and is responsible for the annual distribution of millions of dollars of government grants and Holocaust compensation funds to Jewish organizations.

Critics have long called for a reform of its financial and admin-

istrative operations, accusing the organization of being undemocratic, unrepresentative, monopolistic and opaque.

Managing director Gusztav Zoltai, 76, has been in office for two decades and has come under particularly sharp criticism for his leadership style and firm grip on power.

“Zoltai manages to hold on to power by switching people in key positions who are somehow dependent on him,” Janos Gado, an editor at the Jewish magazine

Szombat, told JTA. Gado and others say that many, if not most, of those who elect communal leaders are financially dependent on Zoltai and the other office-holders they are electing.

Zoltai, who along with current Mazsihisz President Peter Feldmajer declined to be interviewed, was elected managing director in 1991, when the organization was first established to replace the communist-era Jewish body. A child survivor of the Holocaust who lost most of his family in World War II, he had worked previously as the stage manager of a theater.

Last spring, in a case reported in the Hungarian media, Radnoti and Heisler charged that the election of Jewish community officials had been manipulated to prevent changes in the top leadership — and specifically to prevent Heisler from becoming a delegate to the general assembly, the body that elects the top officials, including Zoltai.

Heisler had resigned as Mazsihisz president in 2005 following his attempts to overhaul the organization were thwarted and his calls for Zoltai’s resignation were rebuffed. But in December, with Radnoti’s support, he was elected to the Mazsihisz board, and now he is confident that, with allies like Radnoti, he can make a renewed push for reform.

10 • INTERNATIONAL / ISRAEL

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Ukrainian historian makes career in Jewish heritage travel

By Alex Weisler Jewish Telegraphic Agency LVIV, Ukraine (JTA) — Alex Dunai is not Jewish. But over 15 years of leading Jewish tourists searching for their roots in Ukraine, he’s built up a serviceable knowledge of Yiddish — though sometimes he has to make things up.

“I make up sayings — you have highway roads, we have ‘oy vey’ roads,” Dunai said. “If it’s something funny and unusual, that’s always Yiddish. It’s an amazing language, one-of-a-kind.”

A burly man with an easy laugh, Dunai lives in Lviv, Ukraine’s fourth largest city. Over the years, the 43-year-old has built a profitable career as a researcher and tour guide, escorting Jews through Ukrainian shtetls in their search for information about departed relatives. He has provided services to Yad Vashem, Israel’s national Holocaust museum, and the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C. In 2006, his reputation was cemented by Daniel Mendelsohn, author of the best-seller “The Lost,” a memoir of his attempts to ascertain the fate of six relatives killed in western Ukraine during the Holocaust. Mendelsohn, who relied extensively on Dunai for research and other assistance, refers to him in the book as his

Courtesy of Alex Weisler

Alex Dunai, second from right, has become a leading purveyor of Jewish heritage tourism in Ukraine.

“right-hand man.”

“He has a rigorous historical background; he has the smooth savvy; he knows how to work with archivists, and is especially good at knowing how to avoid time-wasting distractions,” Mendelsohn wrote in an email.

“More than anything, perhaps, he’s incredibly canny about how to deal with local people.”

Along with Jonathan Safran Foer’s “Everything is Illuminated,” Mendelsohn’s book helped put a spotlight on the growing phenomenon of Ukrainian heritage tourism, the lucrative industry of American Jews trekking back to the old country to explore their roots.

For visiting Jews, Dunai has

become a sought-after resource.

Since the fall of the Iron Curtain, he said, the traffic has been staggering.

“The 20th century was an intense period of looking into the future,” he said. “And now, people are saying, ‘OK, we’re looking at the future, we’re flying to the moon, but we don’t know what our grandparents did, what was our background? Let’s look also into the past.’ ” He got his start in guiding after graduating from the state university in Lviv with a degree in history.

For a time Dunai worked for the government in a capacity he would not specify.

HISTORIAN on page 21

Setting a fundraising ‘precedent’ in Israel

By Rachel Marder Jointmedia News Service The little country that could became the start-up nation and a global leader in technology, agriculture and academia in 63 short, productive years. Israel has a blossoming economy and more startups than all of Europe.

In that case, why do Israel’s non-profits, on average, rely on donations from abroad for some 62 percent of their budgets? Two years ago that figure was 70 percent and five years ago it was 80 percent, according to a Hebrew University study. As the world’s economies have taken a turn for the worse in the last few years, foreign donations have declined and an opportunity has opened for Israelis to fill in the fundraising gap.

“There is no modern democratic society in the world today where the numbers [of foreign donations are so high],” says Arik Rosenblum, the director of Takdim, the Ramat Hasharon Community Foundation, which launched last May. “Everywhere in the world the logic is [that] 99.9 percent of the donations raised for

the local non-profits come from the residents and citizens of the country. Israel’s different.”

Israel has a long legacy of fundraising among American Jews, from Golda Meir to United Jewish Appeal to the IDF. Jews care about Jews and the Jewish state, so Americans are a natural target audience. But Rosenblum says it’s time for Israelis to take on greater fiscal responsibility for societal needs, and Israelis are seeing a need to maintain a strong stake in their changing and growing communities. That’s why he started the apolitical Takdim foundation (“precedent” in English), in partnership with the Ramat Hasharon municipality, a suburb of Tel Aviv, to work with Israelis on giving for the sake of “mutual responsibility” and tikkun olam (“repairing the world”).

Recruiting donors requires a cultural shift, Rosenblum says, as Israelis are not used to fundraising very much domestically. Even with roughly 24 percent of the population living below the poverty line, Rosenblum says, potential philanthropists are out there.

Rosenblum says many Israelis in Tel Aviv suburb communities

like Ramat Hasharon, Ra’anana and Herzeliya are in good shape to become philanthropists. He estimates that roughly 100 major donors exist in Israel—those families like the Ofers and Arisons that give generously for building hospitals, for instance—but research also shows tens of thousands of people who don’t give substantial gifts are capable of doing so.

The Israeli corporations and individuals that already make donations do so with very little tax incentive from the government. Takdim aims to tap in to this spirit of community caring and foster an even greater desire to take responsibility for the future of one’s community.

And with a name like “precedent,” Rosenblum says he intends to be innovative in his approach.

Adopting a model based on the U.S.-based Jewish federation structure, Takdim already has 70 lay leaders who will actively participate on committees, contribute funds for projects, and help identify areas in which Takdim can contribute and fundraise among fellow citizens. Rosenblum says a division to focus on women’s issues is also in the works.

Seeds of change in Israel

By Jeffrey Barken Jointmedia News Service ZICHRON YA’AKOV, Israel—Rare plants enthusiast Moshe Weiss often contrasts Israel’s agricultural perspective with Hawaii’s strict policies that keep non-indigenous plants from infiltrating a fragile ecosystem.

“If you’re surrounded by water, then it’s worth worrying what seeds come off a boat. They can disturb everything,” he says.

While giving a tour in Zichron Ya’akov of his eclectic private garden, a small plot that showcases exotic plant varieties gathered from all over the world, Weiss noted Israel’s peculiar geographic location amid Asia, Europe and Africa—which makes the country an inevitable crossroads for diverse plant species.

“When you’re stuck between three continents what can you do to prevent foreign plants from spreading? The worst has already happened,” Weiss says. He has minimal concern that an introduced crop will turn out to be an invasive pest, and sees a promising future experimenting with newly imported plant varieties.

Israel’s location led to its long history as a destination of ancient trade routes. The Zionist movement of the late 19th century brought an influx of new nonnative plant species to the region.

One goal of the early pioneer movement was to enrich Israel’s agriculture with every possible plant species. After the founding of the state, the ministry of agriculture actively explored and screened crops for development funding.

Resourceful Israeli farmers capitalized on new plant species.

One celebrated story recalls Yanni Avidov, who in 1955 managed to smuggle 75,000 date saplings out of Iraq, a country with no diplomatic ties to the Jewish state. The smuggled trees thrived, and today are a major Israeli export crop.

Thanks in part to success stories like that of Avidov, modern Israeli agriculture is built on the notion that farmers can grow anything, as long as they have the will.

To be competitive as a produce exporter, therefore, Israelis carefully plan their growing seasons to provide specific products precisely at times when other countries experience shortages. In this way Israel fills multiple market niches.

Israelis optimize their plantings to accommodate an ever-changing demand schedule. They implement “smart agriculture,” the systematic simulation of different growing conditions that can either encourage an early harvest, or postpone a crop’s maturation.

Israel’s most commonly exported fruits and vegetables

include peppers, tomatoes, eggplants, zucchini, spice herbs, kakis, oranges, grapefruit, avocado, pomegranate, bananas, grapefruits, passion fruits, guavas, and mangos. Data presented by Israel’s Fruit Grower Organization details a record crop in 2011, over 690,000 tons of fruit, according to the Israel National News.

Weiss recalls when fruits now common in Israel, like mangos and avocadoes, were a rare treat. Their successful cultivation in Israel raises a question: what is considered rare in a country that believes it can grow anything? Weiss answers by enumerating all fruits derived from tropical, sub-tropical or extremely cold climates.

When Weiss first began seeking rare plants for his garden, he realized Israel had received numerous waves of “aliyah” (immigration) from every corner of the world. These people had brought their favorite fruits and vegetables with them and they planted their rare seeds in isolated locations. For the new hobbyist, there is no need to smuggle any more. All one needs to find and cultivate rare plants in Israel is some knowledge of botany, and a sense of where to search for specimens.

Additionally, the Internet has heightened the global dialogue about plants. On account of its innovative methods, many countries consult Israel in order to attain creative answers to agricultural challenges. Through email and Skype, Weiss is at the forefront of this conversation. He is in contact with specialists, research centers, hobbyists and seed companies all over the world and helps facilitate the exchange of plant materials.

By this 21st-century trade route, Weiss has acquired the beautiful Pacay tree, a species native to Peru. Nicknamed the Marshmallow of the Andes, for its deliciously refreshing vanilla ice cream-flavored fruit, the tree has acclimated well to Israel’s dry climate. It grows beside another South American crop, the Brazilian Cherry, or Pitanga, a bushy plant that bears small red fruit with a sweet and sour flavor.

Asked whether these plants belong in Israel, Weiss replies by pointing to a small red berry hidden between the leaves on a green bush. “Try this,” he says, pointing to another South American plant known as Bunchosia Argentea. “It tastes like peanut butter!” The question, in fact, is irrelevant.

Weiss feels that there is no harming the local ecosystem. “People here have been trading plants for 7,000 years.” In his private garden, he is at liberty to experiment on a small scale and he is encouraged to report his findings.

SOCIAL LIFE • 11

THURSDAY, JANUARY 19, 2012

LOREN LONG VISITS ROCKWERN ACADEMY

ANNOUNCEMENTS

Roger Daniel and Abby Flacks

ENGAGEMENTS endy and Ken Flacks of Cincinnati are pleased to announce the engagement of their daughter, Abby to Roger Daniel, son of Alan and Hedy Daniel of Milwaukee.

Abby is the granddaughter of Florence and the late Albert Sterman of Cincinnati and the late Ruth and William Flacks of Florida.

Roger is the grandson of the late Ann and Albert Deshur of Milwaukee and Charlotte and the late Mark Daniel of New York.

W The drawing Loren Long made for Rockwern.

Loren Long in front of the students’ projects based on research of Americans in “Of Thee I Sing.”

Loren Long speaking about the book, “Of Thee I Sing.”

MARTA HEWETT GALLERY finely crafted contemporary art

Abby is a 1999 graduate of Indian Hill High School and a 2003 graduate of Indiana University with a major in communications and minors in business and history. She currently lives in Chicago and works for Edelman Public Relations.

Roger is a 1997 graduate of Nicolet High School in Milwaukee and 2001 graduate of University of Wisconsin with a degree in biology. Roger currently works in multi-family real estate in Chicago.

A July wedding in Cincinnati is planned.

1310 Pendleton Street Cincinnati, OH 45202 (513) 281-2780 Tue–Fri: 10–5, Sat: 11–3 Free Parking Available

Loren Long sharing a page about Jackie Robinson

OPENING FINAL FRIDAY, JANUARY 27TH

NEW GLASS SCULPTURE

BY KERRICK JOHNSON JOIN US FROM 6PM - 10PM EXHIBIT CONTINUES THRU MARCH 24TH See this exhibit online at Answering students’ questions.

www.martahewett.com

Kerrick Johnson, Impel, 21"h x 14"w x 6"d, blown glass/diamond cut

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BEN-GURION SOCIETY KICK-OFF EVENT The Jewish Federation of Cincinnati’s Ben-Gurion Society kicked off the 2012 giving season with an event at the Cincinnati Art Galleries on October 27. Over 50 guests attended, enjoying jazz music, an open bar and hors d’oeuvres while viewing the work of renowned Cincinnati artist Tom Bacher, famous for his large-scale paintings that literally glow in the dark!

More than just a giving society, BGS is a group of young adults who get together to socialize, learn and become part of a movement of people who give back to the Jewish community at home, in Israel, and around the world.

EVENT PHOTOS

Whether they are from a Bar Mitzvah, Company Meeting, School Field Trip, or Your Congregation’s Annual Picnic.

Basically, anything you’d like to share with our readers.

Submit your photos by sending them on a CD to: Danny Cohn and Rebecca Hoffheimer

THE AMERICAN ISRAELITE, 18 W. 9th St., Suite 2, Cincinnati, OH 45202 CD should contain only hi-res photos and a Word .doc containing captions for each photo and a short synopsis of the event, including date/place/reason/etc.

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The American Israelite

Amy Fisher and Erica Messer

THURSDAY, JANUARY 19, 2012

CINCINNATI JEWISH LIFE • 13

Sarah Weiss; Bret Caller, president, Jewish Federation of Cincinnati; Ariella Cohen

Ben Schneider, Micah Max, Jessica Goldberg

Jared Zollett, Jessica Goldberg

Eric Greenberg, Michelle Rothzeid, Randy Moss

14 • DINING OUT

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Classy comfort, captivating culinary allure at Stone Creek

By Sondra Katkin Dining Editor The sumptuous surroundings of the upscale restaurant Mesh now belong to the Stone Creek Dining Company in West Chester.

Originally designed for Pam and Paul Sturkey, former Cincinnati restaurant royalty, it is indeed a palatial restaurant with tall, stately columns supporting an attractive porticoed entryway. This edifice is no artifice; it may lead you in, but it does not lead you on. The message I heard at their Montgomery location from Tom Cunningham, partner and executive committee chairman, and echoed by Justin Weiner, manager in West Chester, was about pleasing their diners, making sure they receive great food and good value.

I’m sure that’s the key to the success of this new restaurant. The previous owners commented that in this economy people wanted more casual dining, and Stone Creek fulfills that niche with a high level of dining and hospitality expertise. It is an “Open Table” diners’ choice, and all the customer comments I heard were very positive.

If you can dine divinely and have a superlative ambience, all the better. Entering the restaurant, you notice a spacious room with a high ceiling — an unobtrusive canopy caressing tall windowed walls — with choices of round or square tables and upholstered chairs that wouldn’t be out of place in an elegant living room. Further in, there is a cozy, almost cocooned, more gently lighted area with upholstered booths and padded seats.

This bony diner with back issues revels in that type of comfort.

Many have described Stone Creek as romantic. It would be easy to have an intimate dinner here. The restaurant group’s founder, Mike Cunningham, known for his design skills, has probably added his expert touch since there are many attractive similarities between the two restaurants.

As I began tasting their ahi tuna appetizer, my host, manager Justin Weiner explained, “What we try to do on a daily basis is give an above and beyond experience to our diners.” And he did! The gorgeous looking rosy rectangles of sesame seared tuna were so bright, sweet and fresh, they were gone too fast.

I would consider ordering them as an entree, and no, I would not share. The dipping sauces enhance the fun fish which seems to float above the napa slaw. A friend told me she appreciates “simple preparations of food that are so fresh, they jump off the plate.” Wait until she tastes this. The pickled ginger on the side was a lovely design accent. Its curly texture was a nice contrast to the tuna’s shape, and its rosy color added to the pinkness of the presentation. The strong flavor of the ginger was ameliorated by its

(Clockwise) Vibrant bar area; Entrancing entryway at Stone Creek Dining Company; Delightfully decorated dining room with adjacent wall of wine; Magnificent carrot cake; Ahi tuna, deliciously pretty in pink; Glowing and perfectly prepared mahi mahi.

pickled, sweet maceration and added an extra level of savoriness.

If you choose to begin your meal with soup, the French onion with wild mushrooms will warm you.

With its intense onion-beef flavor, the earthiness of the mushrooms contributes an extra heartiness. The melt-in-your-mouth blanket of cheese seals all the wonderful tastes and further contributes to its irresistibility. Another selection in this category attracted my attention, the baked goat cheese with Italian caponata on focaccia crostini. You can get full simply by reading that description out loud, simultaneously sounding like you’re reciting an Italian aria. I am anxious to try this next time because I love goat cheese and don’t feel as guilty eating it as I would a heavier cheese like brie.

And it’s so tangy. Then there is the caponata and that means an eggplant vegetable combination. If you put eggplant in something (for us aficionados), it’s got to be even better. And to cap it all off, they don’t use slim crackers or crusty slices of Italian bread (that’s not bad either), they serve it on focaccia, surely the

most flavorful sandwich addition to recent dining experiences.

A good variety of salads, pastas, sandwiches and sides are available at Stone Creek so a guest may choose a lighter meal if she/he wishes. The applewood chicken salad is a guest favorite with grilled chicken, egg, spiced pecans, dried cranberries and cranberry poppy seed dressing. They have a “from scratch” kitchen and all the dressings are made in house. The spicy Chicago beef with giardinera pepper mix, served on a toasted roll, will satisfy seekers of specially savory sandwiches. For a lighter dish, the penne Florentine with chicken, spinach, roasted red peppers, pine nuts, olives and tomato caponata (yum!) will fill the bill.

Their most popular entrees include short ribs, New York strip, floro salmon and blackened mahi mahi. Diners, including me, are indulgent in praising and satisfying their appetite for this mahi mahi masterpiece. Crowned with guacamole, bejeweled with shiny black bean salsa, and sauced with glistening cilantro aioli, the moist

fish is in perfect harmony with its artfully presented ingredients.

What a photogenic pleasure!

For dessert, Weiner unveiled what surely must be their most potent weapon for the unsuspecting calorie counter — homemade carrot cake. Egads, this square must have measured close to eight inches high. Four people could have a slice from this palisade of future penance. I confess, I only ate part of it but it was because I took it home and gave away three fourths of it before I tasted it. That was good planning since with the first moist, heady bite I knew I had to eat every last drop. This is carrot cake to carouse with, to compromise your diet with, to carol about.

And of course the cream cheese icing and filling add extra decadence, smoothly sealing the layers in their proper place before they are devoured. This is not for the faint of heart or stomach. Beware! It seems superfluous to mention other desserts but there are two whose description merits including. Other reviewers have exclaimed over the cranberry, golden raisin bread pud-

ding. Its description — dense custard soaked bread with rich whiskey sauce, vanilla ice cream and whipped cream — explains its popularity. I would also like to try the Stone Creek apple strudel. It’s hard to find the real, old fashioned pastry with hand stretched, flaky, layered dough. I must return soon.

The restaurant’s bar is large with several flat screens and shares the elegance and comfort characteristics found in the main dining area. Many craft beers and drafts are available as well as an excellent selection of wines and cocktails. Happy hour discounts include half priced selections that vary by the day. There are two rooms available for private parties and plenty of off street parking.

They are open Monday through Thursday from 11 a.m. to 10 p.m., Friday and Saturday from 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. and on Sundays from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m.

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DINING OUT • 15

THURSDAY, JANUARY 19, 2012

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16 • OPINION

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At the end of the day, this does not hurt the secular, the religious, or the ultra-religious.

It hurts Judaism, because anyone opening up a newspaper across the globe and seeing what is happening makes no fine distinctions.

We are all just Jews, just Jews engaged in baseless hatred and misunderstanding.

We’re hurting Judaism.

But my prayer was not answered. What could be a greater sacrilege than those photos? Could my grandparents, Auschwitz survivors, ever, ever imagine that Jews would put these stars on themselves in their own country? Never.

The Haredi, ultra-Orthodox, population claims that it is “a target of persecution” in the Israeli town of Beit Shemesh, and that it is a victim of discrimination. The secularists and national-religious claim that they are targets of ultraOrthodox hatred and disrespect.

No one is backing down, and the rhetoric is becoming harsher.

Prime Minister Netanyahu even

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T EST Y OUR T ORAH KNOWLEDGE THIS WEEK’S PORTION: VA’EIRA (EXODUS 6:2—9:35) 1. What was the first of the Ten Plagues? a) Blood b) Frogs c) Lice 2. What body of water was struck with the plague of blood? (Why?) a) Mediterranean b) Nile c) Suez Canal 3. What was Pharaoh's reaction to Moshe's staff turning to a snake then back to a staff?

B—8:10 A—7:22—8:3. The Egyptians accomplished this by sorcery or with the power of demons. The leaders of the country were steeped in magic.

(Rashi, Ramban)

I saw the recent photos of ultraOrthodox Jews sending their children to a demonstration wearing yellow stars. We all saw those photos. I opened the New York Times with a silent prayer: “God, please don’t let one of those photos appear in these pages.”

suggested creating two separate cities for different types of Jews, our own self-made apartheid.

What is happening to us? At the end of the day, this does not hurt the secular, the religious, or the ultra-religious. It hurts Judaism, because anyone opening up a newspaper across the globe and seeing what is happening makes no fine distinctions. We are all just Jews, just Jews engaged in baseless hatred and misunderstanding.

We’re hurting Judaism.

Rabbi Meir of Rothenburg (1215-1293) was one of the great medieval community leaders and scholars in Germany. He had a fascinating life and told the story of his people’s suffering through responsa literature, legal questions he received and answered. Rabbi Meir, in protest to laws instituted

by King Rudolph I that imperiled Jewish political freedoms, left Germany with his family and followers. He was imprisoned in what is France today and held for ransom. He begged his community not to pay that ransom, fearing that it would lead to future kidnappings. As a result, he died in prison seven years later. Fourteen years after his death, his body was ransomed, and a wealthy Jew who is now buried beside him bought his body back for a Jewish burial.

Rabbi Meir was never in the land of Israel, but he knew suffering intimately. He gave his life— literally—on behalf of the Jewish people. And although he had never visited Israel, he believed that on Israel’s holy soil, every transgression gets magnified. The king’s palace is a reference to God, of course. We are on holy soil without realizing that holy soil must be nurtured more carefully. A sin there somehow is amplified beyond what it would be elsewhere. We know that’s true in the media attention that Israel receives. We’re under the microscope. If you hold yourself up to a high standard, people will be watching.

And what are they seeing now?

They are seeing the long-term bruises of a dysfunctional system that allowed a segment of the population to benefit from the taxes, welfare and army service of others while not having to make an identifiable contribution beyond narrow sectarian, internal interests. Is it a wonder that we have what looks like a civil war that we cannot afford? Does anyone need to fight Israel from the outside when this is what we are doing to ourselves on the inside? It is internal combustion of the highest order, and without ringing alarms we are unquestionably going to implode— unless the government takes drastic measures soon.

We need to pray, and get a hold of this madness before we are engulfed by it. Our very heart is being split in two. How can we allow it?

a) He said he would let Bnei Yisroel go b) Accused Moshe of sorcery c) Ignored the incident 4. Which plague left behind “piles and piles?” a) Lice b) Frogs c) Hail 5. Did the Egyptians try to duplicate any of the plagues? a) Yes b) No

because it was their only source of water (albeit a good one). Therefore G-d struck the Nile first; then the plague spread to all the waters in Egypt.

C—6:3.

By Dr. Erica Brown Guest Editorial Jointmedia News Service

Written by Rabbi Dov Aaron Wise

ANSWERS A—7:15-25. G-d “went to war” against the Egyptians. His first tactic was to disrupt their water supply. (Rashi, commentary to 8:17) B—7:17. The Egyptians worshiped the Nile

A civil war no one wants

JEWISH LIFE • 17

THURSDAY, JANUARY 19, 2012

Sedra of the Week

by Rabbi Shlomo Riskin Efrat, Israel — “And Egypt shall know that I am G-d when I stretch My hand over Egypt: and I shall take the Children of Israel out from among them” (Exodus 7:5).

The portion of Va’era opens at a time of grave despair. At the conclusion of last week’s reading, Moses had accepted G-d’s call and assumed the vocation of taking the Hebrews out of Egyptian bondage.

His visit to Pharaoh, however, turned into a disaster. Not only does the Egyptian despot refuse to allow the Hebrews a three-day respite for a sacrificial celebration in the desert, he even increases their work-load by making them find their own straw for making bricks.

Moses tearfully remonstrates with G-d: “As soon as I came to Pharaoh to speak in your name, he made things worse…” (Exodus 5:22).

What follows is G-d’s promise that Pharaoh will send them out with a strong arm. Furthermore, Gd introduces Himself as the G-d of history and freedom, and proceeds to delineate the four (or five) redemptions – or stages of redemption – which will occur in Egypt.

But the Hebrews, frustrated and skeptical, refuse to listen to Moses’ optimistic recounting of the forthcoming redemption. Moses takes his cue from them, likewise questioning: “If indeed the children of Israel don’t listen to me, how can I expect Pharaoh to listen to me?”

(Exodus 6:12). G-d chooses not to respond to Moses’ logical reaction.

In what appears to be a new beginning to the Book of Exodus, the text re-introduces us to Moses by presenting – for the first time – his lineage going back to Jacob, and then delineating the first seven (out of 10) plagues. Why the 10-plague plethora of body-blows to Egyptian society which only seems to harden Pharaoh’s heart even more? Why not simply end the Egyptian servitude immediately?

Rashi provides a very clear explanation: G-d wanted to teach the Hebrews the greatness of G-d, and the strength of His will to abolish slavery. G-d was not ready to redeem Israel until they had also repented, until they were truly worthy of redemption. “…. Such is the way of the Holy One Blessed be He: He brings punishment on the nations of the idolaters in order that

SHABBAT SHALOM: PARSHAT VA’ERA EXODUS 6:2–9:35

G-d’s name in this Biblical verse is Y-H-V-H, the G-d of history, love and redemption. The G-d of history must work with the nations of the world, and especially with His covenantal nation, Israel. Egypt must be brought to its knees, Israel must repent before G-d and truly desire freedom; only then will they be redeemed.

And so G-d “hardened Pharaoh’s heart” until Israel repented!

Israel may hear and revere (Gd)…” (Exodus 7:3, Rashi ad loc).

G-d’s name in this Biblical verse is Y-H-V-H, the G-d of history, love and redemption. The G-d of history must work with the nations of the world, and especially with His covenantal nation, Israel. Egypt must be brought to its knees, Israel must repent before Gd and truly desire freedom; only then will they be redeemed. And so G-d “hardened Pharaoh’s heart” until Israel repented!

The Seforno (on Exodus 9:16) justifies the lengthy process of the plagues not so much for the sake of Israel’s repentance, but rather for the sake of the Egyptians’ repentance: “Since G-d desires the repentance of the wicked and not their death, as it is written, ‘As I live, says G-d, I do not desire the death of the wicked, but rather that the wicked repent of their ways and live’ (Ezekiel 33:11). And so G-d declares that he will greatly increase His signs and His wonders in order for Egypt to repent as He made known to them His greatness and His loving kindness with His signs and His wonders . . .” (ibid Seforno ad loc).

To be sure, the Seforno also mentions that the plagues brought the Israelites to repentance; however he emphasizes the fact that Egypt was a lesson to the world; that no human ought to be enslaved and no human might enslave others! And the Seforno goes on to explain that G-d hardened Pharaoh’s heart after the fifth plague in order that the totalitarian autocrat would release the Hebrews not because of the devas-

tation of the plagues, but because he had truly repented.

This is why our Biblical portion concludes with the seventh plague, the plague of hail (barad). During the other plagues, Pharaoh seemed to relent for a brief period of time, but only because it appeared as if the strength and power of the Lord, G-d of Israel was greater than the strength and power of the g-ds of Egypt or at least of the Egyptian magicians (ibid 8:18). The struggle seems to be the power of G-d versus the power of the idols.

Only after the seventh plague does Pharaoh declare to Moses and Aaron, “I have sinned this time; the Lord is righteous and my nation are sinners” (Exodus 9:27). Only at this point does Pharaoh realize that it is a moral struggle; a religious struggle, and not a power struggle.

It is not might pitted against might, but rather might pitted against right; the Lord G-d of love, redemption and freedom for all against the Pharaonic g-ds of force and enslavement of all the weaker vessels.

And this is why the exodus from Egyptian bondage has been the clarion call for every oppressed people seeking freedom; from the American Revolution against England to the black struggle against white supremacy in the United States to the cry of the Soviet Jews behind the Iron Curtain, “Let us live as Jews or let us leave as Jews.”

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18 • JEWZ IN THE NEWZ

JEWZ

IN THE

By Nate Bloom Contributing Columnist THE DIM SUN Last week, the Brit tabloid, “The Sun,” had a “shocking” item which claimed that singer Katy Perry’s father, Keith Hudson, a California-based evangelical minister, had said nasty things about Hollywood Jews and their wealth during a sermon delivered to a Cleveland church. The Cleveland Jewish News spoke to the pastor of that church and he said that Hudson’s statements were “inappropriate” and “awkwardly put,” but what Hudson meant was that church members “could be as blessed with riches as many Jews are.” The pastor said the Sun put the comments completely in the wrong context.

Moreover, Hudson issued an apology after the Sun item appeared.

The Cleveland church has the reputation of being fervently proIsrael and a Cleveland rabbi said, “The truth of the matter is that the pastor of this church and apparently the members of this church are very supportive and very caring about Jews and about Israel.

That’s the story that we ought to be telling. Not the stupidity of misspoken and nasty and hurtful statements…. That should make the headlines, not this stupidity.”

By coincidence, last week a reader asked me if Jason Trawick, singer Britney Spears’ manager and fiancée, was Jewish. He pointed out that in 2009, humorist ANDY BOROWITZ, 54, writing for “The New Yorker,” reposted a recent “Sun” item that claimed that Spears was wearing a Star of David and was going to convert to Trawick’s Jewish faith.

Borowitz used this item as the preface to a satirical, fictional piece about Spears’ possible conversion.

Long story short: Borowitz didn’t care if the “Sun” item was true or not — it was a set-up for his humor. In 2007, in the midst of a mental breakdown, Spears did wear a Star of David while briefly dating a Jewish guy. By 2009, she was no longer wearing a Star of David, but had a new boyfriend, Jason Trawick. It’s now obvious to me that the Sun dug out the 2007 story and “wedded” it to the new boyfriend and, as a result, Trawick is now described as Jewish all over the Internet. My research has conclusively shown, however, that Trawick is not Jewish by faith or ancestry and his parents are prac-

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NEWZ

FROM THE PAGES

ticing Methodists.

100 Y EARS A GO

MIGHT AS WELL TOUR The Van Halen rock band, whose members are all in their 50s (except for the son of lead guitarist Eddie Van Halen) are hitting the road in February for a grueling, months-long tour. The dramatic decline in the sale of recordings has made concerts the only way for big bands to make “real gelt.” A new Van Halen single has just been released and their first CD in 28 years will appear in February. Singing lead vocals on the tour, CD, and single is original frontman DAVID LEE ROTH, 57. I doubt he and the Van Halen brothers love each other anymore than they did when they first split-up decades ago. But their 2007 reunion tour made mega-millions and most Van Halen fans are of the age when they can afford pricey concert tickets. (Van Halen will start their tour at the KFC Yum! Center, in Louisville, on Saturday evening, Feb.18. Seats cost $50 to $165. VIP ticket packages are much higher.)

Among the newly-elected officers of the University Club are Murray Seasongood, First Vice President and Harry Levy, Third Vice President.

Dr. William Ravine, superintendent of the Jewish Convalescent Home on Glenway Avenue, has been appointed Chief Medical Inspector for the Public Schools.

The position has just been created, and pays $1,800 a year. Dr. Ravine will devote all his time to the office.

During the blinding snow storm of Thursday night of last week, a street car at Eighth and Walnut Streets ran into and demolished a carriage occupied by Mr. and Mrs. Louis M. Prince, of Reading Road, Avondale. Mr. Prince sustained injuries about the body, while his wife suffered fracture of two ribs.

The driver received a severe scalp wound. Mr. and Mrs. Prince were taken home in a taxicab.

The Jewish Farmers who have settled in the neighborhood of New Richmond held a special service to offer a prayer for the recovery of Dr. Gotthard Deutsch. The customary psalms were read and a fervent prayer offered, followed by an old, quaint, and almost forgotten Jewish practice. They changed Dr. Deutsch’s name to “Chayim,” signifying “life.” This custom is based upon an old superstition that the change of name would mislead the angel of death and prevent him from being able to identify his intended victim, who would thus escape. The prayers, however, were none the less fervent and heartfelt, as Dr. Deutsch is looked upon by this little colony as a father whose advice is always followed, and who, together with two associates, decide all disputes that may arise among the colonists, their decree being accepted as final. — January 18, 1912

ANOTHER ALTE KAKA ROCKER For me, a “cool model” of an older rocker is found in the person of HANDSOME DICK MANITOBA, who will turn 58 on Jan. 29. Born RICHARD BLUM, he has always been the lead singer of the seminal, mostly Jewish, ‘70s punk rock band “The Dictators.” The band plays an occasional gig, but it was never popular enough to make much money from its current concerts.

Still, Handsome Dick has landed on his feet, with friends like Jimmy Fallon, who had him on his show last week. Dick’s Manhattan club (“Manitoba’s”) has long been a favorite of celebs like Fallon and Dick’s eclectic rock Sirius radio show is a fave of aficionados. Dick even managed to look cool on TV sporting his usual outfit: a Yankee cap and a real big Star of David.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK “He’s so down to earth, he was so funny — he’s absolutely everything he appears to be in interviews.” So said Chelsea Gill, 23, recent college grad and aspiring Chicago actress, who posted a video of a song she wrote about her favorite actor, JASON SEGAL, to Youtube. He loved the song and invited her and her twin sister to be his guests at a Chicago film awards show.

Thursday, Jan 14th.

Mr. Moss, who was retired, was active in numerous civic activities in Milford.

He is survived by his wife, Mrs. Dora Krieger Moss; a daughter, Mrs. S. Kashman, of Hartford and one son, Dr. Harold K. Moss, 897 Clinton Springs Avenue, Cincinnati. — January 21, 1937

50 Y EARS A GO Mrs. Norman M. Statman and children, Alan Joel and Betsy Sue, have left for Germany to join Captain Statman, where he is now stationed with the US Air Force until September 1962. The Statman family resides at Hagrainger Strausse 39, Landshut, Germany.

Dr. and Mrs. Burt Schear and Mr. and Mrs. Irvin J. Zipperstein, of Dayton, OH., have just returned after a trip to Israel, London, Paris and Rome.

Dr. and Mrs. Samuel Ackerman, 1106 Sunnyslope Drive, announce the forthcoming Bar Mitzvah of their son, Martin Lewis, Saturday, Jan. 27, at 9 a.m. at the Feinberg Synagogue. Friends and relatives are invited to worship with the family and to attend the Kiddush which follows.

The Board of Ohav Shalom reelected Louis J. Tessel to his second term as president.

During his first term almost 500 affiliated families were members of the congregation.

Elected also: Jacob Hoodin, first vice president; Max Mitman, second vice president; Louis Skurow, treasurer; Sam T. Sloan, financial secretary; Louis Feldman, recording secretary; Morris Kizner, Gabbai; Gilbert Skurow, Abe Rosen, Charles Litwack, Sam Metz and Philip Cohen, trustees. — January 18, 1962

75 Y EARS A GO

25 Y EARS A GO

Mr. and Mrs. Louis Levenson, of Redway Avenue, accompanied by their daughters, Mrs. Irven Levenson and Mrs. Jack Itkoff, and her daughter, Tulane, left last week for two months at Miami Beach, Fla. The marriage of Miss Hilda Grossman, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Minor Grossman, of Hyde Park, and Mr. Joseph Schwartz, son of Mr. and Mrs. M. Schwartz, of Walnut Hills, took place Sunday, Jan 10th, at the Hotel Gibson. Rabbi Samuel Wohl officiated. Before the ceremony the mother of the bride sang “I Love You Truly.” The bride had her only attendant, her sister, Mrs. William Goldberg. The groom had as his best man, Mr. Julius Fialco. Following a wedding dinner the bride and groom left for an extended journey in the East.

Isaac Moss, 67, Milford, Conn., passed away suddenly

Glen Manor Home for Jewish Aged held its annual meeting on Jan. 11. Arthur Hoffheimer was installed as the new president.

He has served as president of Camp Livingston and Losantiville Country Club, as well as on the Boards of Big Brothers, Rockdale and Valley Temples. He resides in Mt. Adams with his wife Minette and is the father of four sons.

Hoffheimer is chairman of the Board of the Buckeye Products Company.

Working out at the Jewish Community Center, delivering Meals on Wheels and hiking with relatives in California aren’t unusual activities. That is, unless you’re 90 years old.

Bert Menachof, who turned 90 last month, does all that and more.

He volunteers for the Jewish National Fund, helps with the Senior Adults’ games at the JCC

and is a shining example to scores of relatives.

About 150 of these relatives and friends from around the country gathered to pay tribute to Menachof at his birthday party on Dec. 14 at the Carousel Inn. Celia S. Singer of Glen Manor Home for the Jewish Aged passed away Jan. 16. She was 90.

A member of Wise Temple, Mrs. Singer was a teacher and director of education at the temple for 42 years. She received an honorary master of Hebrew letters degree from Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in recognition of her pioneering work in the professionalizing of Jewish education.

Mrs. Singer is survived by two sons, Daniel Singer of Jerusalem, Israel, and David Singer of Los Angeles; a sister, Freda Rubin; and five grandchildren, Jonathan, Joseph, Jeremy, Rachel and Michael Singer.

She was the wife of the late M. Myer Singer and the sister of the late Julius Meyer and Rebekah Silverman. — January 22, 1987

10 Y EARS A GO B’nai B’rith of Greater Cincinnati delivered 72 trays of baked goods and snacks to 52 police and fire stations in the Cincinnati area Dec. 25 during the fourth annual Police/Firefighters Appreciation Day. “The program, ‘Police Specialist David H. Massel Police/Firefighters Appreciation Day’ takes place every Christmas Day to show our appreciation for a job well done all year by our very professional police and firefighters,” said Harvey Chyette, program co-chair. “This year we especially honored their heroic efforts to protect the people in our community as we remembered the victims of terror, especially their fellow police and firefighters.”

Marx Hot Bagels provided bagels and other products.

Meijer’s Supermarket lent its support, and Rebecca Massel, mother of David, in whose memory the program is named, assisted in the preparation of the trays.”

Isadore Goldenberg, 81, passed away Dec. 27, 2001. Mr. Goldenberg was born on May 3, 1920, in Cincinnati, OH. He was the fourth of four boys of the late Max and Esther (Berger) Goldenberg. He is survived by his wife of 56 years, Mrs. Carolyn Cohen Goldenberg. Also surviving Mr. Goldenberg is his son and daughter-in-law, Dr. Marc and Dr. Nancy Goldenberg of Gladwyn (Philadelphia), PA., and their children Jack and Alice Goldenberg. He also leaves his daughter, Ms. Nancy Goldenberg, also of Philadelphia, PA. — January 17, 2002

THURSDAY, JANUARY 19, 2012

CLASSIFIEDS • 19

COMMUNITY DIRECTORY COMMUNITY ORGANIZATIONS Access (513) 373-0300 • jypaccess.org Big Brothers/Big Sisters Assoc.

(513) 761-3200 • bigbrobigsis.org Camp Ashreinu (513) 702-1513 Camp at the J (513) 722-7258 • mayersonjcc.org Camp Livingston (513) 793-5554 • camplivingston.com Cedar Village (513) 754-3100 • cedarvillage.org Chevra Kadisha (513) 396-6426 Cincinnati Community Mikveh 513-351-0609 • cincinnatimikveh.org Fusion Family (513) 703-3343 • fusionnati.org Halom House (513) 791-2912 • halomhouse.com Hillel Jewish Student Center (513) 221-6728 • hillelcincinnati.org Jewish Cemeteries of Greater Cincinnati 513-961-0178 • jcemcin.org Jewish Community Center (513) 761-7500 • mayersonjcc.org Jewish Community Relations Council (513) 985-1501 Jewish Family Service (513) 469-1188 • jfscinti.org Jewish Federation of Cincinnati (513) 985-1500 • shalomcincy.org Jewish Foundation (513) 514-1200 Jewish Information Network (513) 985-1514 Jewish Vocational Service (513) 985-0515 • jvscinti.org Kesher (513) 766-3348 Plum Street Temple Historic Preservation Fund (513) 793-2556 Shalom Family (513) 703-3343 • myshalomfamily.org The Center for Holocaust & Humanity Education (513) 487-3055 • holocaustandhumanity.org Vaad Hoier (513) 731-4671 Workum Fund (513) 899-1836 • workum.org YPs at the JCC (513) 761-7500 • mayersonjcc.org

CONGREGATIONS Adath Israel Congregation (513) 793-1800 • adath-israel.org Beit Chaverim (513) 984-3393 Beth Israel Congregation (513) 868-2049 • bethisraelcongregation.net Congregation Beth Adam (513) 985-0400 • bethadam.org Congregation B’nai Tikvah (513) 759-5356 • bnai-tikvah.org Congregation B’nai Tzedek (513) 984-3393 • bnaitzedek.us Congregation Ohav Shalom (513) 489-3399 • ohavshalom.org

Congregation Ohr Chadash (513) 252-7267 • ohrchadashcincinnati.com Congregation Sha’arei Torah shaareitorahcincy.org Congregation Zichron Eliezer 513-631-4900 • czecincinnati.org Golf Manor Synagogue (513) 531-6654 • golfmanorsynagogue.org Isaac M. Wise Temple (513) 793-2556 • wisetemple.org Kehilas B’nai Israel (513) 761-0769 Northern Hills Synagogue (513) 931-6038 • nhs-cba.org Rockdale Temple (513) 891-9900 • rockdaletemple.org Temple Beth Shalom (513) 422-8313 • tbsohio.org Temple Sholom (513) 791-1330 • templesholom.net The Valley Temple (513) 761-3555 • valleytemple.com

EDUCATION Chai Tots Early Childhood Center (513) 234.0600 • chaitots.com Chabad Blue Ash (513) 793-5200 • chabadba.com Cincinnati Hebrew Day School (513) 351-7777 • chds.shul.net HUC-JIR (513) 221-1875 • huc.edu JCC Early Childhood School (513) 793-2122 • mayersonjcc.org Kehilla - School for Creative Jewish Education (513) 489-3399 • kehilla-cincy.com Mercaz High School (513) 792-5082 x104 • mercazhs.org Kulanu (Reform Jewish High School) 513-262-8849 • kulanucincy.org Regional Institute Torah & Secular Studies (513) 631-0083 Rockwern Academy (513) 984-3770 • rockwernacademy.org

ORGANIZATIONS American Jewish Committee (513) 621-4020 • ajc.org American Friends of Magen David Adom (513) 521-1197 • afmda.org B’nai B’rith (513) 984-1999 Hadassah (513) 821-6157 • cincinnati.hadassah.org Jewish Discovery Center (513) 234.0777 • jdiscovery.com Jewish National Fund (513) 794-1300 • jnf.org Jewish War Veterans (513) 204-5594 • jwv.org NA’AMAT (513) 984-3805 • naamat.org National Council of Jewish Women (513) 891-9583 • ncjw.org State of Israel Bonds (513) 793-4440 • israelbonds.com Women’s American ORT (513) 985-1512 • ortamerica.org.org

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ZOLA from page 1 Jewish Community Relations Council. In 2OO4, Zola served as the chair of the National Commission for Commemorating the 350th Anniversary of American Jewish History, which was organized to help our nation mark the 35Oth anniversary of Jewish communal life in North America (1654-2OO4). Zola also served on the Academic Advisory Council of the national Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Commission, and is a past president of the Greater Cincinnati Board of Rabbis. Last spring, President Obama appointed Dr. Zola to the Commission for the Preservation of America’s Heritage Abroad.

“This honor pays just tribute to the prominent role that Dr. Zola plays in fostering a community of tolerance and care for all in Cincinnati,” said Rabbi David Ellenson, president of Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion. “His work at the American Jewish Archives and the ALABAMA from page 8 “My great-grandparents used to have a picture of Paul ‘Bear’ Bryant next to a picture of Menachem Mendel Schneerson,” said Eliot Safier, a teacher in New York with Alabama roots, referring to the legendary Alabama coach and the late leader of the Lubavitch movement. “My mom told me that they were shomer Shabbat except when Alabama played on Saturday.”

Levin also grew up as a Crimson Tide aficionado.

Dr. Gary P. Zola

programs he has fostered there as well as the many good deeds he performs in the greater Cincinnati community fulfill the goals of achieving mutual care and respect among all citizens of every race and creed that are the hallmarks of the legacy Dr. King bequeathed the entire world.”

Alabama “has always been my team,” he said. “As a little boy, [watching games] is what we did on Saturdays. I always loved them.”

Dr. Jeremy Royal, another member of Birmingham’s Jewish community, feels an exceptional pride when it comes to Alabama’s star players. Since winning a prestigious high school football trophy in 1995, Royal has the right to attend the Heisman Trophy weekend in New York. In December he attended in support of Crimson Tide running back Trent Richardson, a Heisman finalist.

Courtesy of Dr. Robert Levin

Dr. Robert Levin and his wife, Faye, are all smiles following Alabama’s victory in the BCS championship game, Jan. 9, 2012.

20 • FIRST PERSON / A&E

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Things to do—Underscoring the Zabava performs at importance of Jewish ritual, helping the JCC, Jan. 29 to save the Jews from extinction Incidentally Iris

by Iris Ruth Pastor It’s a new year—in the secular calendar anyway. So what better time to re-dedicate myself to improving and enhancing my life?

I, too, am lumped with the masses of humanity who use January 1st of each year to put my yearnings, desires and goals into action mode.

Who am I kidding? No matter what

do: Underscoring the Importance of Jewish Ritual and Helping to Save the Jewish People from Extinction.” It’s a tall and daunting title and a lofty goal, but it’s actually based on simple actions.

Here’s a few things I have come up with: START AN ISRAEL TRIP SAVINGS FUND Take your child or grandchild with you to the bank when you open the account and make the first deposit. Let them see the account grow by keeping a graph in a noticeable pace and giving family members periodic updates.

As Anna Sokolow said in 2003, “I certainly didn’t expect to be affected so deeply, but the minute the plane landed, I was overwhelmed with an indescribable feeling about being there. I didn’t have any kind of strong Zionist

When kids get in a hopeless funk, remind them of the blue stripes above and below the Star of David— a replica of the tallit (Jewish prayer shawl) signifying the hope, faith and prayers of generations of Jews who longed for a return to their homeland.

And their dream came true. time of year it is, I’m not going to hot yoga class (or any yoga class for that matter) five times a week.

I’m not going to shake less salt on every morsel that I shove in my mouth and I’m not going to lose the 10 pounds I have been trying to lose for a decade or two. Nor enhance my beauty routine. Nor improve my untimely schedule of returning calls, etc. etc. etc.

So I’m veering away from the mundane resolutions to more exalted and lofty goals. Who knows? Maybe I will have more luck in the execution of glorious endeavors rather than tired, trite ones. As a mother of five and a grandmother of four, this new year I am inspired to try and live more Jewishly and to impart that effort to my family. The girth of my hips and the sodium in my system will just have to remain in status quo mode for now, along with my tired, dated and wholly inadequate beauty regimen.

I’ve named my list “Things to

background, but going there changed my point of view. Israel is now one of the deepest things in my life.”

READ ABOUT AND GOOGLE: JEWS IN THE WILD WEST Here’s a few starter hints: Sol Star, Wyatt Earp’s wife Josie, the author Harriet Rochlin and Deadwood, South Dakota.

DISPLAY THE ISRAELI FLAG When kids get in a hopeless funk, remind them of the blue stripes above and below the Star of David—a replica of the tallit (Jewish prayer shawl) signifying the hope, faith and prayers of generations of Jews who longed for a return to their homeland. And their dream came true.

CHECK OUT The Tablet, this site is touted as a new read on Jewish life. The website focuses on arts and culture, life and religion, news and politics. It’s

a virtual storehouse of noteworthy information on everything Jewish – including the kitsch, the lofty, the high minded and the brash.

The Jewish Daily Forward.

Starting as a daily Yiddish newspaper for the newly arrived immigrant, the Forward evolved into a weekly paper, printed in English.

Committed to serving as a trusted guide to the massive varieties of the Jewish experience, the Forward reminds me of a more sophisticated and upgraded USA Today, but for Jews.

PRACTICE TIKKUN OLAM (REPAIRING THE WORLD) Take your kids with you when you visit the shut-in, make a shiva call, deliver a welcome-to-theneighborhood gift to the new family down the street. “A Jew’s identity is rooted in community,” noted Rabbi Sharon Kleinbaum in 1997.

DISPLAY FAMILY MEMORABILIA: Ancestor’s passports, citizenship papers, ketubahs and marriage licenses, Bar and Bat Mitzvah pictures of grandparents, great grandparents, etc. “But what parent can tell when some such fragmentary gift of knowledge of someone will enrich her children’s lives? Or how a small seed of information passed from one generation to another may generate a new science, a new industry—a seed which neither the giver nor the receiver can truly evaluate at the time?” Helena Rubinstein, 1966 FERGEDDAHABOUT IT! Forget the calories, the cholesterol and the triglycerides.

Assemble the brood and head for the nearest deli. Indulge in a hot pastrami sandwich on rye, a big fat dill pickle, followed by a hefty chunk of halvah. (No explanation needed on the connection between Jewish food and love.)

In this new year, may we gently and consistently emphasize our differences and our uniqueness as Jews to both our children and grandchildren. By doing so, we empower them to joyfully follow the faith. We pass on the gift of our heritage and tradition while also affirming the blessings of living in a society where we are valued, assimilated and free to co-exist in peace and harmony with our neighbors and friends of other faiths.

May this continue to be so in the new year of 2012.

Keep Coping, Iris Ruth Pastor

Community dance and song ensemble Zabava will perform at the JCC on Jan. 29, at 2 p.m.

Zabava is a dance and song group based on different folklore and cultures. This is their premiere performance.

The group is led and choreographed by Shota Ebanoidze, a Russian refugee from Tbilisi, Georgia. He is a famous international choreographer, and won several international dance contest awards.

Zabava will show off their many different dance styles, including Georgian, Jewish, Moldavian, Russian, Ossetian and Gypsy. The songs will be sung in Yiddish with translations.

Zabava is a group of amateur singers and dancers from the area.

They are teachers, bio-engineers, and doctors, all volunteers who work full time jobs. All customs and scenery are made from scratch using their own funds.

REPUBLICANS from page 7

about Obama’s unreadiness; this year, Gingrich and others seized on an image that the Obama campaign has already peddled, of Romney as remote from working men and women.

“What he’s doing is a little vicious and I think it’s sort of gone beyond the line,” Zeidman said in an interview. “It sounds horrible coming out of Newt’s mouth.”

Gingrich’s campaign declined comment.

Gingrich is known to be furious because of what he saw as the personal nature of attacks by a SuperPAC affiliated with Romney that helped push him back to fourth place in Iowa last week, after polls had shown him leading in the first caucus state. Those ads, by Restore Our Future, accused Gingrich of attacking the federally owned housing giant Freddie Mac after he took $1.6 million to lobby for it.

Gingrich says he was paid as a historian, not a lobbyist.

SuperPACs are political action committees formed after a Supreme Court ruling that allowed third parties to spend unlimited funds in a campaign. They are banned from directly consulting with a campaign.

Democrats barely contained their glee at the chance to exploit Gingrich’s line of attack. Randy Johnson, who had suffered from a downsizing engineered by Romney in 1992, is the Democrats’ point man in targeting the candidate for his career at Bain Capital. Johnson told the liberal TalkingPointsMemo website on Tuesday that Gingrich’s attacks on Romney — as opposed to those by Democrats — had produced a burst of invitations to appear on national media.

Some Jewish conservatives wondered whether Gingrich’s tack amounted to a kind of self-immolation.

“Any Republican nominee will be painted by Obama as these candidates are painting Romney now,” Seth Mandel wrote on the Commentary website. “The desire to resist being hammered by their own words in a general election alone should be enough to convince these candidates to avoid attacking Romney from the left.”

other GOP candidates taking aim at Romney’s business career, but also because the pro-Gingrich antiRomney SuperPAC attacks are essentially being funded by Adelson.

But a source close to the casino mogul, a leading funder of Jewish conservative causes, said his $5 million donation last week to the SuperPAC did not necessarily signal agreement with the thrust of its anti-Romney campaign.

“It’s not about the other candidates in the race, it’s about a friend assisting a friend,” said the source.

Zeidman said none of Romney’s Jewish backers held it against Adelson for supporting Gingrich. Yes, Adelson has a longstanding friendship with the former speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives — but also, Zeidman said, because Gingrich deserved some degree of Jewish backing.

“I’m glad that Newt’s got support, because he was there when we needed him,” Zeidman said, referring to Gingrich’s role in the 1990s pushing back against the Clinton administration-led Oslo peace process and pressure on Benjamin Netanyahu during his firt term as prime minister. “He was phenomenal on Israel when he needed him the worst.”

But Gingrich’s current line of attack — and by extension Adelson’s bankrolling of it — has some wondering if the candidate and his patron will end up helping the person they most want to see defeated in 2012: the president.

The latest Gingrich line of attack on Romney recalled Hillary Rodham Clinton’s famous 3 A.M. call ad during the 2008 Democratic primaries, which questioned whether then-candidate Barack Obama had the necessary experience to handle international crises.

That attack, like Gingrich’s new focus on Romney’s business practices, marked a turn in the campaign: Instead of merely attacking a rival for not being true enough to a party’s colors, a candidate feeds into the opposing party’s narrative.

In 2008, Clinton exploited fears that had been stoked by the GOP

AUTOS • 21

THURSDAY, JANUARY 19, 2012

2012 Audi TT—it finds you anyway You’re not the type who has to go looking for extra attention—it finds you anyway. That’s why you’re drawn to the 2012 Audi TT. If the iconic design draws envious looks, so be it. You have better things to think about. Like the way your TT intimately connects you to the road or the way it makes your pulse race every time you carve through the apex of a mountain road.

Stir the senses. Go beyond sheet metal and find soul. That’s what your TT was born to do. And nothing is more electrifying than one look at the TT. Every line comes at you with purpose. The dramatic profile is unmistakable, and the highgloss black Audi Singleframe® grille, pronounced wheel arches and air inlets work in concert to highlight the highly assertive design.

And with distinctive LED daytime running light technology announcing your arrival, there will be no doubt who is showing up.

The first thing you’ll notice is an interior design like no other. As you look around you’ll also discover how it closely follows the distinctive design ethos of Audi. A driver-oriented cockpit welcomes you as you enter. Luxurious standard leather and Alcantara® seating surfaces offer bolstering in all the right places.

While metallic inlays give it a modern, clean feel, a multifunctional sport steering wheel helps keep you in full command. This is luxury with more than enough character.

Sometimes you want to think in terms of SPF as much as RPM. Top

HISTORIAN from page 10 In 1994, an American genealogy group specializing in Galicia contacted him for help with research. Those requests led to shtetl excursions, and soon Dunai was spending much of his time driving foreigners to small villages in his father’s old Lada.

Eventually, he was so busy he had to decide whether to drop the side gig or devote himself full time to his new occupation. In retrospect, it was an easy choice.

“The more I was doing the research for other people in genealogy, the more I was uncovering for myself how much knowledge is missing about all this,” Dunai said.

“People here are not aware about how different this world was before the war. It became so fascinating to me that I really decided I will take a risk. I don’t regret it.”

Dunai’s client load fluctuates, though he said he tends to lead more excursions in the summer and to focus more on research in the colder months. The work can sometimes be emotionally taxing.

“Sometimes people tell me stories that they wouldn’t tell others,” he said. “On the first trips, I was drained completely. I couldn’t

2012 Audi TT Roadster

down, with the sun flooding the cabin, you find the easy charms of the TT Roadster with the touch of a button. Better yet, you don’t have to worry about the RPMs either, because the sports car heritage of the TT Roadster delivers them too.

Take on the open road with joyful abandon. Because in here, you can always act on your impulses. Rain or shine.

Just as arresting as the exterior styling, the TT Roadster interior offers sophistication with more than a dollop of sports car panache and luxury. The available high-touch baseball optic leather seating surtalk, I couldn’t do anything. I would come back and just lay on my bed speechless, and just be drained emotionally.”

It’s an image at odds with the Dunai of today, a gregarious, heavyset man with an easy sense of humor and speech peppered with excited exclamations and bits of wisdom.

“There are more good people than bad,” he explained at one point, “but the bad are better organized.”

Though Dunai enjoys guiding his clients, he said he’s growing too old for such frequent travel and may soon transition his work into a company providing tours of the Lviv area with “really intellectual and really deep” excursions focusing on places connected to literature and famous Ukrainians.

But he said he’ll probably never fully give up guiding. He thrives on its spontaneity.

“I couldn’t be a bus driver, going on the same route. I enjoy that every time it’s interesting and unusual and diverse,” he said.

“This really became my whole life. This is not just work for me.

Even if I could earn a living somehow in a different way, I would do it for free.”

faces offer superior support, and elevate the cabin’s distinctiveness.

Sure, there are numbers to time it. With 360 hp pumping through a 2.5 TFSI® five-cylinder and streamlined styling, the TT RS Coupe achieves 0–60 in 4.1 seconds.1 That’s a blistering number, of course, but it’s a bit of a narrow view of what this sports car delivers. In terms of pure engine output, it promises to take no prisoners with a riveting exhaust note that plays when you hit the throttle. Its lightweight design enables more than straight line speed, and some serious stopping power. And

poised for acceleration, you might think its upper limit is the last few feet of the exosphere. But assuming you stay road-bound, the only limits you might encounter are the ones mandated by law.

With all this power, you need the ability to decelerate quickly and in control. With the TT RS, you can count on 14.6” oversized, ventilated front rotors to help give you incredible stopping power, while Audi S magnetic ride and sport suspension tuned specifically for the TT RS help give you confidence, even on the sharpest turns or during the fastest stops.

In today’s world of constant connectivity, you expect to be able to maintain it anywhere. That’s why we integrated the available highly advanced Audi Navigation plus system. It not only helps find the best route to your destination, but also helps you skirt traffic and find a place to eat along the way.

And when you need to make a call, you can count on the available BLUETOOTH® mobile phone connectivity to make it happen with ease. Of course, you need to be entertained along the way, so we’ve included SiriusXM Satellite Radio to get you from coast to coast without skipping a beat.

Your safety is not just another selling point for us. It’s our highest priority. And to prove it, we went ahead and included the most advanced safety features available, starting with the innovative ASF® aluminum space frame that not only helps improve handling with its lightweight design but also helps provide incredible protection in the event of a collision. Then there are our sophisticated driver control systems that help you avoid trouble before it can start. And of course we provide a comprehensive airbag system to help protect you if the unthinkable becomes inevitable. All this, so you can enjoy your TT in total confidence.

Finally Audi boasts the ability to customize and personalize your Audi TT with numerous packages and options, to truly make it your own. This all starts with an affordable MSRP of $38,300.

22 • OBITUARIES D EATH N OTICES RUDOLPH, Anne W,. age 89, died January 9, 2012;14 Tevet, 5772.

GREENBERG, Frieda, age 88, died January 10, 2012; 16 Tevet, 5772.

MOSROW, Sylvia Newburger, age 86, died January 11, 2012; 16 Tevet, 5772.

LIPSICH, H. David, age 91, died January 12, 2012;17 Tevet, 5772.

ROSENFIELD, Catherine R., age 89, died January 14, 2012; 19 Tevet, 5772.

PESKIN, Martin E., age 84, January 14, 2012; 19 Tevet, 5772.

FRISCH, Herbert, age 93, died January 15, 2012; 20 Tevet, 5772.

GALLOP, Paula “Peppi,” age 88, died January 15, 2012; 21 Tevet, 5772.

SIMON, Jill R., age 49, died January 15, 2012; 20 Tevet, 5772.

LEVIN, Mary W., age 73, died January 16, 2012; 21 Tevet, 5772.

O BITUARIES CHALIFF, James S. James “Jimmy” Chaliff, age 82, of Cincinnati, Ohio, passed away on December 30, 2011 – the 4th day of Tevet, 5772.

Born in Cincinnati to the late Irwin and Ida Chaliff on March 31, 1929, Jimmy grew up on Prospect Place in the Avondale neighborhood. He attended South Avondale Elementary and graduated from Hughes High School in 1947.

Jimmy was well known in the Cincinnati community as a standout athlete; he lettered in football, basketball and baseball at Hughes. Following high school, he was recruited to play minor league baseball in Muncie, Ind. for a Cincinnati Reds affiliate.

Jimmy’s commitment to professional baseball was short-lived however, as, according to an

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often told story, he left training camp in Muncie so that he could spend more time with his thengirlfriend, Marian Berman.

Marian and Jimmy attended different high schools, but met and fell in love in a summer school math class. Jimmy, who would have rather been outside on a beautiful day playing ball, was motivated to attend his summer math class so that he could see Marian.

The couple married in 1952, and had a beautiful and loving marriage for 59 years. They raised three children—Jeff, Sandy and David—in Dayton. After their children were grown, Jimmy and Marian moved back to Cincinnati in 1997 and were welcomed by their many lifelong Cincinnati friends.

Jimmy enjoyed a successful sales career, with the majority of it spent as an independent sales representative for multiple furniture manufacturers, traveling throughout the Midwest. He was popular with his customers as he was naturally a very lovable person, always smiling and always quick to deliver a joke or one of his famous “one-liners.”

Jimmy was known for his quick wit and sense of humor. He took great pleasure in his ability to get others to smile and laugh, whether it was a friend, a family member or a complete stranger. He particularly enjoyed being able to elicit a smile from someone who had a real “farkrimpter punim.”

Although Jimmy’s career as an athlete had ended, he remained an avid sports fan. He loved the Reds, especially during the ‘70s and was a season ticket holder for many years. There were times when he became frustrated with the Reds, and his favorite lament would be, “I wouldn’t watch them if they were playing in my own backyard!”

He was also a season ticket holder for UC football and basketball, as well as a supporter of all his beloved racehorses, many of whom had more of an interest in eating than racing.

Survivors include Marian Chaliff, his beloved wife of 59 years; sons, Jeffrey and David;

daughter, Sandy (Phil) Rappoport, of Oakton, Va.; cherished grandsons, Max and Alex Rappoport; brother, Howard Chaliff of Atlanta, Ga., and aunt, Sonia Simkin of Cincinnati.

Interment was Sunday, January 1 at United Jewish Cemetery in Montgomery, with Rabbi Irvin M. Wise officiating.

Memorial contributions may be made to Adath Israel Congregation, the Alzheimer’s Association or the charity of your choice.

ENGEL, Selma (Fruchtman) Selma (Fruchtman) Engel of Belmont, Mass., formerly of Peabody, Mass., Cincinnati and Dayton, Ohio and Brooklyn, N.Y., passed away January 10, 2012, at the age of 88. She was predeceased by her husband, Benjamin Engel, her parents, Saul William and Rae (Brand) Fruchtman, and her brother, Philip Fruman.

Mrs. Engel is survived by her children, David (Edith) Engel of Belmont, Mass. and Judith Engel of New York, N.Y., her grandchildren, R. William (Lauren Cullen) Engel of Santa Monica, Calif., and Jonathan (Lennea Bower) Engel, of Washington, D.C., and her sister, Muriel King, of East Rockaway, N.Y. Mrs. Engel was a homemaker, and in Cincinnati, was a salesperson of fine jewelry and furniture.

She had also been a social worker.

Memorial observances were private. Contributions in her memory may be made to Hallmark Health Hospice, 178 Savin Street, Suite #300, Malden, Mass. 02148, or to the Combined Jewish Philanthropies, 126 High Street, Boston, Mass. 02110.

GLYNN, Norman S. Norman S. Glynn, age 81, a life-long salesman and business owner, formerly of Pittsburg, Penn., later of Delray Beach, Fla., passed away on January 10, 2012.

Mr. Glynn was the cherished husband of 52 years to Toby (Haber) Glynn, devoted father of Pamela (Andrew) Harris of Cincinnati, Michael (Nancy) Glynn of Pittsburgh, Penn. and Gary (Susan) Glynn of Cincinnati. “Norm,” as he was lovingly known, adored his six grandchildren—Trevor, Abby and Lindsey Harris, Alexandra Glynn, and Lauren and Joshua Glynn. He was the brother of Charles Glynn and the late Stanley Glynn and is also survived by nieces and nephews.

Norm loved people and had a true zest for life. Contributions may be made to American Cancer Society, 320 Bilmar Drive, Pittsburgh, Penn. 15205 or JDRF—Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, 960 Penn Avenue, Suite 1000, Pittsburg, Penn. 15222.

ROTHMAN from page 8 The new map for New Jersey, which is losing a congressional seat, put Rothman’s residence and a fifth of his constituents into a more conservative district, a large majority of which is currently represented by Republican Scott Garrett.

Meanwhile, the largest portions of Rothman’s and Pascrell’s constituencies were shoehorned together into another district.

Hoping to avoid an internecine primary battle, some Democrats reportedly urged Rothman, 59, to challenge Garrett. But it would have been an uphill battle for Rothman.

Instead, Rothman and Pascrell, 74, have declared their intentions to run for the same seat. Rothman currently represents 54 percent of the RETURN from page 9 But somehow, you can drive to Shatsk — and you don’t even need a souped-up DeLorean. After just four hours on roads whose quality varied from poor to middling to dear-G-d-is-this-a-road, my mother, our guide and I had traded the comparatively cosmopolitan Lviv — which was feverishly preparing for the 2012 European soccer championship — for the dusty roads of Shatsk, which lay dormant in the absence of summer’s rush of tourists.

The next day and a half was an emotional whirlwind.

A middle-aged Ukrainian couple — Tatiana and Stepan — let us into their home, which had been built in 1935 by my grandfather’s cousin and left unchanged in the decades since. We got the chance to step inside the tavern — now a branch of the Ukrainian national treasury — that my great-uncle ran and that elderly Shatsk residents assured us had been the social hotspot for the village.

We washed our faces in Black Lake and said the Shema. At the local Jewish cemetery, just four graves were legible and upright — and our family had connections to two of them.

There were the sharp, shooting pains of tragedy. I nearly buckled over and threw up when I realized that the slope the memorial to Shatsk’s murdered Jews sat on was not a landscaping feature but the mass grave itself. As lucky and honored as I was to be able to say the Mourner’s Kaddish and place a few stones on the memorial, there are some truths that even ritual can’t dull.

But there were also moments of triumph, like when we connected with the half-sister of my cousins who came to Brighton Beach in 1991. As we sat down to dinner with her and her family, swapped photographs and compared facial features (we all share the same eyes, it would seem), my mother and I felt blessed.

We had spent two days walking over what felt like hallowed

new district’s constituents, while Pascrell represents 43 percent.

“I decided that I wanted to continue to represent the people who I was born and raised with and who I have lived with most of my life,” Rothman said.

The media-savvy, bespectacled congressman previously served as mayor of Englewood, a city with a sizable Jewish population located in the district he is now contesting.

“I will be reminding my constituents not only of my strong support for Israel, but my great success in helping tens of thousands of constituents every year with their problems and bringing home to the district more than $2 billion in federal funding for a variety of essential local projects,” Rothman said. ground — wondering if it was appropriate to take part in the regular rituals of travel, like toasting to our trip at a Shatsk bar, smiling in a photo or even admitting we were having a good time.

For 22 years, I had wondered what Shatsk meant for me. Was it a living, breathing place? Or just the graveyard of my family’s past? Was it some hell my family had escaped from? Or the bucolic paradise they spent decades in America pining after?

I’m aware of the challenges that come with heritage tourism. I spent 36 hours in Shatsk. Who is to say I’ve learned anything substantive about a place to which I parachute in, hunt around for some information and snap a few photos? How can I be sure that my newfound connection to Ukraine and my long-lost relatives is something more than fetishizing the past and longing for an idealized Shatsk that may have never existed?

But if heritage tourism is an imperfect science, it’s an important one. As a Jew in New York, it’s easy to lose sight of history — to view the past as a neat arc that started at Ellis Island, paused on a stoop in Brooklyn and triumphantly culminated in the green pastures of Westchester County or Long Island. If we consider the Old Country at all, it’s of a sanitized variety: Pop “Fiddler on the Roof” in the DVD player, rinse and repeat.

From visiting Shatsk, I know that my cousin Luba was tall and pretty with a good head for business. My great-uncle Chaim’s tavern was more popular than his competitor’s. For decades, the citizens of Shatsk have debated whether or not there’s some stockpile of gold hidden in the tavern’s basement.

My history has nuance now.

Far more meaningful than the hazy memory of my 2002 bar mitzvah, my journey to the past, I’m convinced, has made me an adult in the eyes of Judaism and G-d.

Like Dorothy landing in Oz, my trip to Shatsk allowed me to finally view my family tree in Technicolor.

I’m a better man for it.

AI

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