Jewish News, April 21, 2023

JTO CHANGES LEADERSHIP

After two decades, Linda Zell will pass the executive director baton to Janet Silva in July

Sarah Kader, face of ADL Arizona, is bringing the fight to all the ‘isms’

SHANNON LEVITT | STAFF WRITER

Antisemitic vandalism in Arizona remained worryingly high last year, with 53 reported antisemitic incidents across the state, nearly double the amount from 2018, 2019 and 2020 and roughly the same as 2021. That number comes from the Anti-Defamation League’s (ADL) annual audit of antisemitic incidents across the nation, which was released last month.

Oren Segal, vice president of ADL’s Center on Extremism, came to town soon after the report’s release and spoke about the methods his team uses to counter extremism and protect the community. Segal pointed to high-tech tools and key relationships with law enforcement and other agencies that he and his colleagues utilize daily to suss out and combat dangerous players.

But for anyone in Arizona unlucky enough to encounter antisemitism, it isn’t necessary to have Segal on speed dial. As he pointed out, there is one very important and very local resource for Arizonans: Sarah Kader.

In late October, Kader became ADL Arizona’s community manager — the person on the ground who can bring the agency’s resources to those who need them. After not having a local ADL presence for some time, Kader initially spent her time introducing herself and her role to Jewish, interfaith and minority advocacy organizations, Jewish individuals and local law enforcement.

“It’s important that they know I’m here to respond to antisemitic incidents, which unfortunately we get reports of regularly and in a wide

ISRAEL AT 75

Friends of Israel Defense Forces’ new VP of Western region plans to re-engage Arizona’s Jewish community

The sport taking the country — and the VOSJCC — by storm

On Monday through Saturday mornings, the indoor basketball courts at the Valley of the Sun Jewish Community Center (VOSJCC) in Scottsdale are transformed into four pickleball courts.

“The VOSJCC offers a drop-in pickleball league for members six days a week,” said Harriet Colan, office manager at the VOSJCC. She also handles the registration when the VOSJCC holds pickleball workshops and clinics throughout the year, which consistently sell out. Colan has been playing since the program arrived in 2015.

“It was unheard of at the time; I call it ‘tennis for old people.’” she said. “It allows an older demographic to continue to be physically challenged. It’s not as hard on your body and there’s no running about. The older the player, the better they are. They play more effectively and strategically.’”

Pickleball is a paddle sport invented in the 1960s that all ages and all skill levels can play. It can be played indoors or outside and takes place on a surface the size of a badminton court using a perforated plastic ball (like a Wiffle ball) and small paddles. The net is set at 34 inches high and each game is played to a score of 11 points.

According to the 2021 Sports & Fitness Industry Association’s Topline Participation Report, pickleball’s fiveyear average annual growth rate is 11%. If you take just the single year from 2019 to 2020, the growth is even more at 21.3%, putting the total number of players in America at an estimated 4.2 million.

SEE PICKLEBALL PAGE 3

Landscape lasagna

A method to build the soil in your garden and compost at the same time. See page 15.

1948 2023 YEARS

Event in Berlin marks one of Germany’s largest-ever gatherings for its ex-Soviet Jewish community

Israeli soccer star Manor Solomon is making waves as a rare Jew in the English Premier League

NBA star Domantas Sabonis’ wife says he is converting to Judaism

MALA BLOMQUIST | MANAGING EDITOR

Sara Schneider, left, and Rachel Scheinerman show off their silver medals won at the PPA Desert Ridge Open. COURTESY OF SARA SCHNEIDER

increased the visibility of other programs such as No Place For Hate, which works with educators and students across the country to promote respectful, inclusive and equitable school environments.

In February, after an act of vandalism of a Holocaust project at Desert Canyon Middle School in Scottsdale, the school district released a statement to the press that the school participated in No Place For Hate. That turned out not to be entirely accurate. The program had lapsed, but Kader said she was in contact with the school to get it back on track.

“We know education is a major part of the answer to these incidents,” Kader said. At times it seems education can’t get through fast enough, especially when famous and powerful people are determined to distract and misinform a gullible public.

In early October, before Kader officially started her job, Kanye West, who goes by Ye, made a string of comments reflecting a range of antisemitic tropes and conspiracy theories on Tucker Carlson’s Fox News show, Instagram and Twitter. Not long after, an antisemitic hate group hung a banner over a busy Los Angeles freeway saying “Kanye is right about the Jews” and words to that affect were printed on flyers spread across Arizona State University’s campus in Tempe.

“People ask why we should care about what Kanye West thinks and that’s fine if he’s not relevant to your life. But a lot of other people care — at least 30 million people who follow him on Twitter. They see what he says and that’s how it spreads and becomes part of the cultural zeitgeist, gets repeated and becomes a problem,” she said.

Kader is also well aware that Jews aren’t the only victims of hate, which is why ADL partners with many other organizations representing a plethora of minority groups. Kader and her colleagues are big believers that there is strength in coming together.

“These extremist groups aren’t just going after Jews, they’re going after Black and Asian people, LGBTQ people and others. Most people understand that when you fight one ‘ism,’ you need to fight all the ‘isms,’” she said.

To that end she offers ADL resources and support to many groups under attack,

pointing to ADL’s mission statement: “To stop the defamation of the Jewish people and to secure just and fair treatment for all.”

In his talk, Segal also outlined why ADL takes this seriously. He pointed to the relentless attacks on the LGBTQ community and said people sometimes ask him, “What does this have to do with the Jews?”

His answer was direct: “Because the same people who are targeting the LGBTQ community are blaming the Jews for creating the LGBTQ community. Bigots use age-old antisemitic tropes and combine them with hatred of other minority groups. As Jews, and as human beings, we don’t have the luxury to ignore this.”

Kader brings not only years of professional experience fighting for marginalized peoples’ rights, she also brings her family’s personal history. She is the granddaughter of Holocaust survivors, and thus “doesn’t have to connect the dots for anyone why this work is important,” she said.

Meanwhile, antisemitism, racism and “all the ‘isms’” continue to threaten the community, so what she really wants people in Arizona to know is that “I’m here to listen, to help, to offer resources and I will be responsive. The Jewish community is not alone,” she said. JN

For more information, visit arizona.adl.org. To report an incident, visit adl.org/report-incident.

In February, the Professional Pickleball Association (PPA) held the PPA Desert Ridge Open at the JW Marriott Desert Ridge in Phoenix. Several regular players from the VOSJCC participated: Joshua Perilstein, Katy Foster, Harold Yahr, Wendy Brown, Sara Schneider, Janice Dinner, Rachel Scheinerman and Larry Adriano. Colan had matching shirts made for all the players.

“The T-shirts made us feel like we were actually a team,” said Wendy Brown. She has been playing pickleball since she moved to Arizona seven years ago. She even took an all-inclusive pickleball trip to Cancún, Mexico, where she attended five days of pickleball clinics every morning. “That really improved my game.”

She plays Saturday mornings at the VOSJCC and also at Horizon Park in Scottsdale, which gives her the opportunity to practice certain shots and play with people who haven’t been playing as long as she has.

Pickleball shares the same ranking structure as tennis, starting at 1.0 for beginning players to 7.0 for world-class athletes. Brown says she’s probably a 3.5 but for the tournament, she signed up as a 3.0. She played mixed doubles age 60+

I’M CONVINCED WE CAN GROW THE PICKLEBALL PROGRAM AT THE JCC.

I’VE HEARD IT’S PROBABLY THE LARGEST ACTIVITY GROUP THERE. I DON’T KNOW THAT FOR A FACT, BUT IT’S GOT TO BE WITH ALL THE DIFFERENT PEOPLE THAT PLAY THERE.”

HAROLD YAHR

in the Desert Ridge Open with Harold Yahr. Even though she played tennis when she was younger, she never played competitively.

“I love the socialness of it,” she said, “I love that the games are quick. They’re 11 points and then you rotate with other people. I think that pickleball players are just very kind, friendly people and very warm and open.”

The social aspect was what first introduced Yahr to pickleball. He and his wife moved to Arizona in October 2021,

and he was trying to figure out how to meet people in his brand-new town. His good friend is Jay Jacobs, CEO of the VOSJCC, so he knew he would become a member.

Yahr played competitive racquetball for 40 years, had heard great things about pickleball and wanted to explore the sport.

“I sort of immersed myself and Harriet took me under her wing and said, ‘These are the rules; this is how you keep score.’ And from then on, I got into the group, made a lot of good friends and it’s a fun sport all around,” he said.

Yahr had not intended to play in tournaments when his friend in Philadelphia, Steve Berman, convinced him. Prior to the Desert Ridge Open, he played in a competition in Surprise with Berman, where the two men won a gold medal. Yahr’s cousin was going to come and play doubles with him in Phoenix, but when the tournament was delayed and she couldn’t change her plans, he picked Brown and Larry Adriano to be his partners.

“It was an awesome experience, and the environment was just incredible,” he said. “I didn’t do so well on that one SEE PICKLEBALL, PAGE 4

“IT’S IMPORTANT THAT THEY KNOW I’M HERE TO RESPOND TO ANTISEMITIC INCIDENTS, WHICH UNFORTUNATELY WE GET REPORTS OF REGULARLY AND IN A WIDE VARIETY OF MANIFESTATIONS.”

Grief group offers solace to the Jewish community

MALA BLOMQUIST | MANAGING EDITOR

The loss of a loved one is always a traumatic experience. According to the National Library of Medicine, the few studies that have compared responses to different types of losses have found that the death of a child is followed by a more intense grief than the death of a spouse or a parent.

Susan Charney, a licensed psychotherapist, has experienced this type of loss twice.

The first time was 40 years ago, when she lost a full-term baby and the second time was the death of her son Jeremy on April 9, 2022.

On the first and third Wednesday of each month via Zoom, Charney facilitates the “Finding Strength After the Loss of an Adult Child” support group through Temple Solel in Paradise Valley.

“We know that when people are in mourning, they can feel very alone,” said Rabbi Debbie Stiel, associate rabbi at Temple Solel. “This group provides a community of people who have shared in this heart-breaking experience of losing an adult child. From that common experience, they are able to support each other and share their thoughts and feelings.”

When Charney first returned to work at North Shore University Hospital in New York after the loss of the baby 40 years ago, a coworker asked her if there was anything she could do for her. “I said I need a group; I need to see that other people are struggling in the same way we are,” she said. “The next thing you know, she turns around to me and asks, ‘Would you be willing to run it?’” Charney was

currently in school for her master’s degree in social work, so she agreed to start the group.

In the early 1990s, after moving to Arizona with her husband, Steven, a doctor, and twin sons Jeremy and Darren, Charney started running support groups for divorcees and the recently widowed at Temple Solel. She also ran various support groups at Temple Chai’s Shalom Center in Phoenix.

Charney, along with a couple of others, also started the Arizona chapter of Jewish Alcoholics, Chemically Dependent Persons and Significant Others (JACS).

“That started like a tiny little nothing and it built up over time,” she said. One of the reasons for the group’s success, Charney believes, is it’s for the alcoholics and addicts, as well as their families and friends. JACS still meets weekly at the Valley of the Sun Jewish Community Center in Scottsdale.

After Jeremy’s death, Charney tried to find an online support group but quickly became disillusioned.

“The grief groups online, they’re terrible in the sense that they really need to be professionally run,” she said. “It’s such a sensitive subject and there are sensitive things that come out.” After witnessing some insensitive comments made to others, she decided not to return.

After that experience, Charney approached Temple Solel with the idea of facilitating a grief support group for those who had lost an adult child.

“Because of our son’s struggles, I had to make something better out of it,” she

people that play there.”

said. She wanted to form a Jewish support group hoping to connect people in the community and to make it relatable.

“You don’t want to start explaining why you eat matzah in March to somebody who has never seen it before,” she said. “You don’t want to explain your shtick because you really have to get down to the bottom wire — that’s why you’re there.”

“Susan provides gentle guidance and a therapeutic perspective for the attendees,” said Stiel. “Our Jewish tradition wisely teaches us the importance of having a community with whom to mourn, and we hope that this group will be helpful to many people who are feeling the absence of an adult child in their life.”

Charney offers suggestions for topics and makes sure to engage everyone. “I always tell everyone at the beginning of the session, ‘Everybody has something to say that’s important. So, if I ever cut you off, it’s not what you’re saying isn’t important; it’s because I want to give everyone a chance.’”

She also explained that she must measure out what needs to happen and what doesn’t throughout the hour-long sessions, allowing for 15 minutes at the end for comments and questions. She said that sometimes people “like to run away from it” and talk about movies or television shows, but then she guides the group back to the main topic.

She refrains from sharing too much of her own story because then she feels it becomes a burden for the group to make sure that she is OK but her experiences also allow her a unique perspective.

“I’m there to facilitate; I totally hear everything they’re saying — and I feel it, too,” said Charney. “The difference is because I am the therapist and I am running the group, I get to present topics that are very delicate — that aren’t for the world to see.”

Even though she is the facilitator and not a participant, she still gets something from the group.

“You always say, ‘Why did he die? He didn’t have a life yet,’ and all that,” said Charney. “Then when you do something like this, it’s like saying, ‘OK, I’m bringing him back in a different way,’ where it can make a difference. I’m doing something that he couldn’t do.” JN

For more information, visit templesolel.org or contact Susan Charney at 602-565-5666.

because it’s tournament play and much more competitive. But it was a cool environment. I got a courtside seat for Saturday and watched the pros — I was just enthralled.”

When he is not playing at the VOSJCC, Yahr also likes to play at Horizon Park. “I’m trying to increase my play at the parks because pickleball is really an outdoor game. It’s not meant to be played on a wooden basketball court,” he said.

He said that the VOSJCC has plans to resurface the existing outdoor tennis courts and reorient their direction, so the sun isn’t in players’ eyes. “I really want that to happen sooner than later. I’ve been adamant about it — almost to the point of being a total pest,” said Yahr. “I told Jay that I’m convinced we can grow the pickleball program at the JCC. I’ve heard it’s probably the largest activity group there. I don’t know that for a fact, but it’s got to be with all the different

The multi-generational aspect of the game is what Sara Schneider enjoys. “Sometimes I play with eighty year olds and other times with people younger than me,” she said. “You have the preschool moms that play after drop-off and the retired doctors who are in a different stage of life.”

She also likes the social and competitive components of pickleball and used to play and teach tennis. She also used to work at the VOSJCC as a development director and started as an adult sports director before the Scottsdale location opened in 2000. “It was supposed to be an interim job, but I loved it so much, I just stayed for a very long time,” she said.

When she became pregnant with her oldest son, who is now 15, she stopped working and became a volunteer, helping with the annual golf tournament and being on the board. She and her husband have four children, and she joked that

they should perfect their pickleball game for possible college scholarships.

She said that sometimes she plays up to three times a day. In addition to playing at the VOSJCC, she also plays at Horizon Park and then at home.

“We were one of those people during COVID-19 that bought an RV,” said Schneider. “So, when we were pouring the cement to park the RV on, we thought we should add some extra cement and make it a pickleball court. We don’t use it as often because it’s fun to go other places. But I teach lessons, nothing crazy, and play with friends and other couples. It’s fun.”

The Desert Ridge Open was the second tournament Schneider played in and she won a silver medal in Women’s Doubles Skill/Age 3.5: 35+ with Rachel Scheinerman. Her first tournament, in December of 2022, was the Talking Stick Resort Legacy Championships $25K Amateur Event at Bell Bank Park in Mesa,

where she played with Amy Kaplan and they won a gold medal.

Schneider said that Kaplan’s mom, who also plays at the VOSJCC, introduced her to Amy because she figured Schneider and her daughter would get along because they are both competitive players. Now, they’re good friends in addition to being teammates.

“We’ve really created kind of a community there, within the community,” Schneider says of the pickleball group. But she has a word of warning for those that haven’t picked up a paddle yet.

“The only problem is you’re going to love it so much you might not want to work anymore. You might not want to do anything other than play pickleball. So, it might get in the way of everything else in life,” she joked. JN

For more information, visit vosjcc.org/program/ pickleball/.

Susan Charney COURTESY OF SUSAN CHARNEY

Zionism and the Challenge of Power

May 14 @ 7:00 pm - 8:30 pm PT

Location: Temple Solel

Rabbi Dr. Donniel Hartman

Israel did not only establish the homeland of the Jewish people. It established the Jewish people as a people of power. This power, which enabled Israel’s survival, and was a primary source of attraction and identification with Israel, is increasingly becoming a source for criticism and at times alienation. For Zionism to play a central role in contemporary Jewish life we need to develop a new narrative of power. How do we understand power? Is it a value? What is its role in 21st century Jewish life?

Zeichick Family Lecture: Presented in loving memory of Gloria and Herb Zeichick

EVENT SCHEDULE:

5:45 p.m. - 6:45 p.m.

Member’s Dinner (by invitation only):

“Looking at Eretz Yisrael in the Scriptures: What can we Learn?”

7:00 p.m. - 8:30 p.m.

Lecture

8:30 p.m. - 9:00 p.m.

Dessert and Book Signing

JTO changes leadership after two decades

SHANNON LEVITT | STAFF WRITER

Linda Zell has been the face of the Jewish Tuition Organization (JTO) for the last two decades, but come July she will pass the executive director baton to Janet Silva to spend more time with family, travel and finally do some of the things she enjoys but hasn’t always had time for.

Zell can point to an impressive list of accomplishments during her years at JTO, including a large increase in fundraising and the number of students benefiting from it.

“When I took over, the JTO was raising around $100,000 per year; now we are at over $4 million annually and I’m very proud of that,” Zell told Jewish News. “More importantly, I feel so good about all the families and students we’ve been able to give the opportunity to go to a Jewish day school.”

“Linda’s management and fundraising accomplishments have been remarkable. Her efforts will live on in the lives of the children whose Jewish education she facilitated, and in the organization she developed,” said Fred Wabnik, JTO board president.

The JTO, a 501(c)(3) charitable organization, began in 1999 to ensure that every Jewish child could have a Jewish day school education in Arizona, regardless of financial situation. Over the years, it has awarded more than 6,800 scholarships to students at six partner schools: Desert Jewish Academy, Pardes Jewish Day School, Phoenix Hebrew Academy, Shearim Torah High School, Torah Day School of Phoenix and Yeshiva High School of Arizona.

With JTO’s status as a school tuition organization, it raises funds for more than 650 scholarships annually with the dollar-for-dollar Arizona private school tax credit.

“Now, I see students who I helped put through school, who have children of their own, and I am sure we’ll be enrolling them in Jewish day schools,” Zell said.

She managed to grow the organization’s reach mainly through word of mouth and networking during her tenure. In 2006, the Arizona Department of Revenue added a corporate tuition tax credit, which provided a new stream of funding.

“There’s a lot of expansion to be done on that front,” Zell said. She is confident that Silva is just the person to do that and whatever else it takes to move the JTO forward.

“I feel very confident that Janet is the

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right person,” she said.

Silva “zigzagged” her way to the JTO after moving to Greater Phoenix from New York six years ago. She initially started her own accounting business, Bolt Accounting Solutions, but she soon came to know the JTO as a participant when she enrolled her children at Pardes.

About a year and a half ago, she saw Zell’s ad for an administrative assistant and bookkeeper. She applied and was offered the job; she kept her accounting business, which she considered her side hustle.

JTO’s office at the Ina Levine Jewish Community Campus in Scottsdale was perfect because by this time both her daughters were attending Sonoran Sky Elementary School and “if I look out the window, I can see the solar panels for their school,” she told Jewish News. “Plus, I get to do something I love.”

When Zell first spoke of retiring, Silva asked if there was room for her to step up and do more at the JTO.

Zell hired Silva knowing she was someone that she could leave the JTO to, so Zell was more than amenable to the idea.

Silva has become attached to the organization both from working there and as a recipient. She knows the good it can do for families who need the help from personal experience, she said.

She didn’t have access to Hebrew and Torah learning as a kid and it was a gift to be able to give that to her own daughters.

“Whatever little role I can play in spreading that love of Torah and giving families the ability to educate their children the way they want, without finances being a hindrance, is wonderful,” she said.

Though her kids are in public school now, she still feels very connected to the Jewish community, which is deepened by her work at JTO.

“The beauty of this community is that it feels very small compared to New York and I feel those ties, that connection, just

by the role I play at JTO,” said Silva.

After discovering she would become Zell’s successor, she started meeting with every board member.

“I told them I want to leave no stone unturned and I want to ask all the questions about finding opportunities for additional funding and adding schools,” she said.

Silva has been going through all of the policies and bylaws of the organization as well as talking to all the schools, trying to ascertain both benefits and drawbacks. There are still questions to be asked, but she’s ready to do what it takes to benefit as many families as possible.

Already in her time at JTO, she’s used her finance background to cut costs, streamline and condense where possible, to save money so more money goes into scholarships, as opposed to overhead.

“By law, we’re supposed to give 90% in scholarships and in the past couple of years, that percentage is more like 96%,” she said.

Zell is excited about spending more time with her three children and seven grandchildren, but she’s content to know she’s leaving JTO in capable hands.

“It was a privilege and honor to be able to run this organization, and every day I went to work knowing I was helping another child,” she said. JN

For more information about Jewish Tuition Organization, visit jtophoenix.org.

Linda Zell, left, and Janet Silva COURTESY OF JEWISH TUITION ORGANIZATION

"NOW, I SEE STUDENTS WHO I HELPED PUT THROUGH SCHOOL, WHO HAVE CHILDREN OF THEIR OWN, AND I AM SURE WE’LL BE ENROLLING THEM IN JEWISH DAY SCHOOLS.”

LINDA ZELL

Camp Stein welcomes new director just in time for summer

SHANNON LEVITT | STAFF WRITER

Jewish summer camps are often lauded as places where young Jews develop Jewish identity and values more fully than they otherwise might, in addition to having fun and making lifelong friendships. That supposition rings true for Stefani Rozen, who spent much of her life in the camping world. This summer, as Congregation Beth Israel’s (CBI) Camp Daisy & Harry Stein’s new director, she hopes to give Greater Phoenix’s campers that same great camp experience.

Rozen and Lolli, her miniature Goldendoodle, arrived in Scottsdale from Gainesville, Florida, where she wrapped up her position as chief program officer at University of Florida Hillel on April 7. Rozen grew up in Texas and got to know one Jewish summer camp there very well.

Union for Reform Judaism (URJ) Greene Family Camp in Bruceville, Texas, is where Rozen learned to be a cheerleader for the world of Jewish camping, first as a camper, and later as a counselor.

“It’s the place where I made great friends and really deepened my love and understanding of Judaism,” Rozen said.

That, combined with listening to her family’s stories and her grandmothers’ particular passion for Judaism, drove Rozen to learn more, so much so that as a history major at the University of Texas at Austin, she took enough classes in Jewish history to give her a double major in Jewish Studies.

“I am so impressed with Stefani’s wisdom and yiddishkeit,” said CBI Senior Rabbi Stephen Kahn.

After graduation, she moved to Washington, D.C., to work for URJ’s Religious Action Center (RAC) as a conference planner. During that time, she took an assistant director job at another URJ summer camp and realized how much she missed it.

“That camp community was something I felt really connected to and wanted to be back in,” she said.

That this epiphany came while working at a camp she didn’t grow up in let her know that it was the mission and culture of Jewish summer camps that she was connected to, not solely her childhood camping experience.

“My passion was bigger than that one camp,” she said.

Ironically, her next camp job was back at Greene Family Camp, where she was able to work alongside and learn from the people she had known for years and who had become her personal mentors.

“Loui Dobin, the camp director, knew me my whole life, and I consider myself lucky to have had the opportunity to work with him and to learn from him,” she said.

There’s a lot to learn because camp administrators and staff have to adapt to new technology and ideas to ensure campers feel welcome and are safe.

One big change since her own time as a camper is the ubiquity of cell phones. While they’re a tool and a resource, Rozen and her colleagues have to balance that with how the pesky little things can also limit involvement in the whole camp experience.

Culturally, things have shifted, too. Examining different aspects of one’s identity is not limited to the current political discourse but is also part of the day-to-day world of the modern teenager. Though she can’t speak to Camp Stein’s specific gender policies, she intends to work with her colleagues to create a welcoming environment for all.

Before coming to Scottsdale, Rozen did step back from the camping world for a couple of years to work for Hillel.

Even though she was happy at Hillel, when she heard of the Camp Stein job, it just felt right, she said.

“It was exciting to be back in that yearround, all-age inclusive environment and to watch kids go from camper to counselor to staff and grow into Jewish adults becoming part of our Jewish community,” she said.

People at CBI were warm and welcoming and conversations flowed easily, she said.

“We were all so impressed with her thoughtful and strong leadership style, calm demeanor and her depth of expertise in working with young adults who work at Jewish summer camp. Most of all, she is able to articulate a strong, sophisticated and dynamic vision for the future of our beloved Camp Stein,” said CBI Rabbi and Executive Educator Sara Mason-Barkin.

As soon as she posted the news of her move on Facebook, old camp friends started reaching out to let her know they lived close by.

She received a lot of messages all saying the same thing: “Let me know when you get here.” JN

For more information, visit campstein.org.

Stefani Rozen Courtesy of Stefani Rozen

Graphic images comparing Holocaust to abortion spark angst and protest at University of Arizona

SHANNON LEVITT | STAFF WRITER

On the last two days of Passover, a gruesome anti-abortion display featuring Holocaust victims appeared on the campus mall of the University of Arizona in Tucson. The Center for Bio-Ethical Reform, an antiabortion rights organization that carries its display filled with images from genocides and lynchings to college campuses across the nation, was invited to set up shop by College Republicans United, a student group.

University of Arizona Hillel’s office was closed for the holiday but Jessica Emerson McCormick, Hillel’s executive director, received a call about the display early Wednesday morning. Within 20 minutes of that phone call, she sent the first of several emails to university administration officials asking for clarification about the display.

“In the intervening hours, I had many more student complaints; there was a non-stop flood of students feeling extremely traumatized,” she told Jewish News.

Some of the students reaching out were not Jewish. The display had images not only from the Holocaust but also from the Cambodian and Rwandan genocides, as well as lynchings of Black people.

After hearing from angry and frustrated students, including some who reported being assailed with verbal abuse, including use of the N-word, by those working at the display, and receiving very little response from the administration, Hillel released a statement on Instagram Wednesday.

“UArizona Hillel condemns in the strongest possible terms the hateful, racist, antisemitic, and horrifying anti abortion display on the Mall today…First and foremost we are sorry for the students and staff members that had to experience the hate directly, especially those who interacted with people working the display and had to hear hate speech including, but not limited to violent slurs. We are so sorry and sad for our entire Wildcat community,” it read.

While McCormick agrees that freedom of speech is essential on a college campus, she’s disappointed that the university isn’t completely forthcoming on why such an offensive display was allowed back a second day, especially after reports and videos of people associated with the display using hate speech.

“I feel strongly that if Hillel reserved a two-day action on the mall and the first day I was, god forbid, using racial slurs, I would not be out there the second day.

Rightfully. I want to better understand the limits of protected speech on campus,” she said.

Hillel’s Instagram message also invited students to join in a protest of the display the following day. By Thursday at midday, hundreds of students, Hillel and otherwise, gathered at the campus mall. Thursday night, at Hillel’s pre-planned pizza party marking the end of Passover, McCormick added a letter-writing campaign component to give students a peaceful direction for their ire. Fifty students came to the multi-faith event, wrote letters and ate pizza. Additionally, the campus’ Consortium on Gender-Based Violence sent Hillel a kosher gift basket.

“We suggested people in the student government and administration they might write to and suggested they use personal stories. It was an amazing turnout,” McCormick said. “It was really lovely but I wish it didn’t have to happen.”

Sarah Kader, Anti-Defamation League Arizona’s community manager, released a statement “condemning the hateful and antisemitic display on campus earlier this week during the holiday of Passover. The use of graphic Holocaust imagery to further a political position is always inappropriate and unacceptable.”

Holocaust victims have been used in anti-abortion messaging since not long after abortion was first legalized in the United States in 1973, with advocates framing abortion as a modern genocide. In the 1980s and ‘90s, various anti-abortion groups started visiting college campuses with graphic images of Holocaust murder victims alongside aborted fetuses to show a moral equivalence between abortion and the Holocaust.

“The debate in the anti-abortion movement was not over the ethics of this strategy, but about whether it was effective,” Jennifer Holland, a University of Oklahoma history professor and author of “Tiny You: A Western History of the Anti-Abortion Movement,” told Jewish News. “They worried only about losing people by using such imagery and comparisons, not about any trauma they might cause.”

The Center for Bio-Ethical Reform and groups like it use these images to provoke debate because they know how shocking it is, she said.

“Because the Holocaust sits so centrally in American culture as a moral boundary, anti-abortion activists like to use it to force engagement with moral extremes,” she said.

The argument strains credulity when activists go beyond the comparison to say that the Holocaust and lynchings aren’t products of antisemitism or racism but mere examples of what happens when people devalue life. Moreover, this theory argues that the victims of the Holocaust can’t be as innocent as a fetus; therefore abortion is even worse than genocide.

“These groups often say, ‘At least the Jews could fight back,’” Holland said.

Drawing from her own experience teaching on a college campus, this generation of students has thought more deeply about the consequences of tossing around such graphic images to score a political point. For those students with a more direct relation to these images, “it’s another layer of horror, and groups like this are hoping that the horror can

transfer to their side,” she said. College Republicans United did not respond to Jewish News’ request for comment.

McCormick wants to make sure Hillel’s concerns are on the administration’s radar. Had she known the display was coming, there are things she could have done to prepare the Jewish students ahead of time. The administration knew in January the Center for Bio-Ethical Reform would be on campus last week but did not publicize it.

“I want to understand the whole process so I can have a clearer sense of a path forward in terms of preventing and responding to really egregious things like this coming to campus in the future,” she said. JN

Students gather at University of Arizona Hillel at the end of Passover to eat pizza and write letters about their frustrations over a two-day display on campus comparing abortion to the Holocaust. COURTESY OF UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA HILLEL

View of the student mall at the University of Arizona in Tucson COURTESY OF CHRISTOPHER OLSON

Temple Kol Ami introduces kindergarten alternative

SHANNON LEVITT | STAFF WRITER

Temple Kol Ami (TKA) is rolling out a new option next fall for kids not quite ready for traditional kindergarten. The new class, called K Prep, is a certified-kindergarten program that offers a low student-to-teacher ratio, small-group instruction, a multisensory approach to math and literacy and a socialemotional curriculum that promotes selfregulation and self-advocacy skills.

What’s being hailed as “Kindergarten the TKA way” is something Nicole Stokes, TKA’s early childhood director, has wanted to do for years. When she came to TKA last July, she found just the type of “open landscape that can accommodate and fit the needs of the kids we have here,” she told Jewish News.

Stokes has been an educator for 25 years and noted that in her career she’s seen a lot of kids who are not fully prepared for a traditional kindergarten class, where they’re expected to transition to different subject areas every 40 minutes with only two recess sessions plus lunch.

“For the average five year old, that’s not enough time. It can be pretty intense and a lot of families feel like their kiddos aren’t ready for that. This class provides

a next step that’s more like a junior kindergarten,” she said. TKA’s staff will offer advice, but the ultimate choice is the parents’. Because it is a certified kindergarten class, parents can apply for first grade or a traditional kindergarten class the following year.

Education doesn’t have to be a straight shot, Stokes said. Every kid’s educational journey can be different depending on what they need.

Many parents assume their child will start with an early childhood education program, then pre-K, then kindergarten with 25-30 students in a classroom, where, even in a private school, there is generally one teacher for every 15 kindergarteners.

“The difference is us being able to provide a kindergarten classroom with low student-to-teacher ratios, individualized learning and meet the needs of each of the kids based on their strengths and weaknesses — while in a play-based environment,” she said.

TKA Rabbi Jeremy Schneider is supportive of the program and said he’s proud of Stokes’ vision.

“We are providing something new in

the Jewish community, giving parents an alternative option for their children to receive small group instruction in a playbased environment while also helping families set up their kids for academic and social/emotional success,” Schneider told Jewish News.

Stokes offered an example of the difference when it comes to math instruction. In the K-Prep class, there will likely be four math centers in the room and the students will rotate between doing independent centers and working with the teacher on the skill that’s being focused on that day. That way, kids will develop independence at the same time that the teacher is also able to work strategically with each student. In a traditional classroom, on the other hand, the teacher offers a whole-class approach and teaches one concept to all the students at once.

“They can teach concepts in a hands-on way and with a multisensory approach, depending on the way the kids learn. It will be so helpful to provide center-based approaches and small groups — you just don’t see that many places,” she said.

Kindergarten readiness is not what it

used to be, according to Nancy Drapin, TKA’s executive director.

“Our new K-Prep program enables a child to hone independent decisionmaking skills and take responsibility for growing their social and academic learning process, while providing a year of preparation for entering a formal kindergarten program within a Jewish and nurturing environment,” Drapin said.

It’s important to acknowledge how society has changed when thinking about the needs of young students, Stokes said.

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Nicole Stokes COURTESY OF NICOLE STOKES

Swiss historical drama ‘Labyrinth of Peace’ shatters the myth of Switzerland’s neutrality in WWII

DEBRA NUSSBAUM COHEN | JTA

It’s Switzerland in 1945 and the war has just ended. A group of deeply traumatized, ragged-looking Jewish teenagers recently liberated from Buchenwald have been sent to live in a former Swiss school building.

A young Swiss woman named Klara cares for them, while her new husband, Johann, runs her family’s textile business, whose success is dependent on the work of unrepentant Nazis living in comfort in Swiss exile. Johann’s brother, Egon, home from the war after five years working as a Swiss border guard, is wracked by guilt for having to turn away Jewish mothers and children at the frontier. His new postwar job in the attorney general’s office: hunting down ex-Nazis.

This is the premise of “Labyrinth of Peace,” an engrossing Swiss drama set in the immediate aftermath of the Holocaust that is now available exclusively on ChaiFlicks, the Jewish streaming service in North America, Australia and New Zealand.

Shot in Switzerland and released in the country to great acclaim in 2020, the six-episode series is fraught with drama, romance and moral struggles.

“Labyrinth of Peace” is the brainchild of award-winning Swiss-Italian screenwriter and director Petra Volpe, who wanted to tell the compelling story of a little-known chapter of postwar history while also spotlighting the morally questionable role Switzerland took during and after the war.

“Switzerland wanted to show that they were on the right side of history, since they knew they had failed the Jews by locking down the country” during the Holocaust, and therefore took in Jewish refugees after the war, Volpe said in an interview from her home in Brooklyn. “When actual refugees arrived and they weren’t cute children younger than 12, and someone asked where the little boys were, the rabbi said of the youngest ones, ‘They were all gassed.’ Switzerland wasn’t happy when teenagers showed up. They didn’t treat them as nicely as they should have.”

The Buchenwald Boys, as they were called, had lost their childhoods and most of their families during the war years. More than 60,000 Jews died in Buchenwald — including my greatgrandfather, after he, my grandfather and uncle were arrested on Kristallnacht and sent to the concentration camp. But some 900 youths survived and were among those liberated by U.S. forces.

Jewish refugee agencies came to their rescue, and they were sent to various sites in France, England and Switzerland for rehabilitation. “Labyrinth of Peace” turns

the story of a group sent to Switzerland into an absorbing historical drama that belies the myth of Swiss neutrality and demonstrates how guilt and moral conflicts ran through families even after combat ended.

In the series, the recently liberated Buchenwald Boys find themselves at the heart of many more interests than anyone first realizes.

One of the teens, Herschel, falls in love with the Swiss Klara, whose father’s textile factory profited handsomely during the war. The family home is rich in sumptuous detail, from silk damask wall coverings to lush oriental carpets covering the floors to the gold-rimmed Limoges tea pot from which servants pour drinks. Nearby, the Buchenwald Boys live in empty classrooms without sufficient food or clothing, after arriving in the country wearing little but rags.

In real life, the 370 or so Buchenwald Boys who were sent to Switzerland became political pawns, Volpe says. They were promised several months of rest and rehabilitation, but their stay in Switzerland was cut short when authorities in pre-state Israel told them they were going to Palestine. Most didn’t want to go; some asked to settle in Australia and others wanted to stay in Switzerland.

“Everyone just wanted to bring them to Israel and get them out of sight,” said Volpe, who is not Jewish but is married to a Jewish man. “There’s collective guilt.”

In the series, the character of Egon is based on a real Swiss border guard whose story is known from frequent letters he wrote home to his wife. Egon is introduced to viewers as he arrives home just in time for his brother’s wedding to Klara. He is wracked with guilt and anger.

“Every day he had to drag mothers and young kids back across the border and it’s killing him,” Volpe said.

Desperate for expiation, Egon gets drawn into the U.S. authorities’ search for Nazis who moved to Switzerland and are living under cover with adopted names and identities.

Meanwhile, his brother Johann — Klara’s husband — is trying to transform his father-in-law’s textile business into a success by producing a low-cost synthetic alternative to nylon. Johann touts the achievement as a pure Swiss creation, but it turns out that it’s the work of a Nazi chemist working under an assumed name in the family lab — putting Johann in a morally dubious position and creating conflict with his wife.

Many Nazis who fled Germany after

the war found new lives in Switzerland, where their pasts largely were overlooked. The same happened in America, too; the U.S. government put ex-Nazi scientists to work developing military hardware and even rockets for the country’s fledgling space program.

“Switzerland imported the knowledge of German war criminals,” said Volpe, who grew up near Zurich, lived in Berlin for 20 years as an adult and has resided in New York for the past decade. “They tried to hire scientists from the chemical industry. Swiss economic success is based on knowledge we took from the Nazis.”

Volpe’s series shatters the notion of Switzerland’s ostensible neutrality and demonstrates how many Swiss shared in the war’s sins.

“War criminals were treated like royalty in Switzerland because they had money, and refugees were treated like criminals,” observed Volpe.

“Labyrinth of Peace” was a hit when it aired on Swiss national television, and last year won awards at several Jewish film

TKA

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 9

“A lot of the kids that are now kindergarten eligible have spent a year to two years in isolation because of COVID. A lot of their skills aren’t where they would typically need to be to head into an academic kindergarten program and this gives them another year in a small environment.”

“A lot of our families start here in the infant room, and the transition doesn’t have to be so big and scary.”

The teachers Stokes has talked to about the alternative class are excited to be able to focus on the individual strengths of each student. Additionally, the teacher will have an assistant in the classroom.

“This is like a teacher’s dream,” Stokes said.

festivals in the United States. The series is now available nationwide on ChaiFlicks, the subscription streaming service that focuses on Jewish and Israeli content.

At the end of the series (no spoilers!), Klara and a friend are shown driving while she opens a thin book that Herschel, the eldest of the Buchenwald Boys who fell in love with her, wrote and gave her. In his introduction Herschel writes, “I have done my best to prevent what was meant to be prevented. The eradication of us and our history.”

“The main message in his diary is: ‘They didn’t erase our voice and I can still tell my story,’ Volpe said. “That’s a form of victory also, and a very important message.” JN Watch “Labyrinth of Peace” at chaiflicks.com/ labyrinth-of-peace.

This story was sponsored by and produced in collaboration with ChaiFlicks, the leading streaming platform for Jewish and Israeli TV shows, movies and documentaries. This story was produced by JTA’s native content team.

Stokes has a master’s degree in early childhood education, and she has a child with reading and writing disabilities. When she learned of her child’s diagnosis, she wanted to know everything she could to help.

“Learning about it took me on a new path and I started to apply a lot of that information in my own classroom. I know what it’s like to be in a classroom with 18 kids, feeling like you don’t have enough time to be able to really sit with each one and use the approach that is going to be beneficial for them. When I talked to different teachers, they said, ‘Are you kidding me? I love this!’” JN

For more information, visit templekolami.org/earlychildhood-center/

A young Swiss woman named Klara cares for traumatized Jewish teenagers recently liberated from Buchenwald in the Swiss drama “Labyrinth of Peace.” COURTESY OF CHAIFLICKS

Why? What for?

JONATHAN FELDSTEIN

Throughout the streets of Efrat, the Judean mountain town of about 12,000 in which I live, thousands of people stood silently on Sunday afternoon, April 9, in reverence and grief, praying to provide comfort. We had been asked to line the streets as the Dee family drove from their home in my neighborhood to the cemetery just a few miles away to bury Maya, age 20, and Rina, age 15, who had been murdered in a terrorist attack two days earlier. Entire families stood silently, even with children too young to know why they were standing there.

Among the thousands of people, there were hand-printed signs showing love and support, along with numerous Israeli flags of all sizes. When tragedy strikes a family and community like this, particularly an incident as unspeakable and horrific as this, we all bleed blue and white and are united in solidarity.

To get to the funeral a few miles from our home, we had to park the car a 30-minute walk from the cemetery. An estimated 10,000 people showed up to pay their last respects. Along the way, people in the neighborhood closest to the cemetery set up tables with cups and cold water for thousands of complete strangers. Tragedy unites us. Sadly, this was not the first time.

The funeral was like nothing I had ever experienced despite the fact that other families have been attacked and murdered. In 2011, five members of the Fogel family were butchered in their home: a mother, father and three children — including an infant.

This year, two sets of brothers were also murdered in two separate terrorist attacks.

The funeral home in our community is made for one burial at a time. There’s a stone slab on which the deceased’s shroud-covered body is placed before burial. Our cemetery has never seen a double funeral of siblings, executed together and then buried together. As their sisters’ bodies were brought into the packed hall, a makeshift platform held one of the girls’ bodies as their sisters embraced them and wept uncontrollably, one last time.

I stood outside with my wife and children. Thousands of people surrounded the building, as if giving a big hug: family, friends, loved ones and strangers. Speakers were set up to broadcast the prayers and eulogies in the parking lot.

Passover is a holiday to spend time with family, at the seder meal and during the week with outings together. It was at the outset of such an outing that the Dee family was attacked. Passover for them will forever be marked by loss and grief. It was surreal that our family’s outing for the day was the funeral of two young women from our neighborhood. If not but for the grace of God, it could have been us. Amid uncontrollable sobbing and wailing, the girls’ father, Rabbi Leo Dee, found the strength to speak meaningfully, trying to find in his daughters’ murder a way for uniting all of Israel. His three surviving children also spoke lovingly but gut wrenchingly.

One of the sisters wept as she said that their “sisters” WhatsApp group would now just be a private chat between the surviving two. Two of the siblings apologized that they were not able to protect their sisters, even wishing aloud that they would have taken the bullets for them.

As much as it was all unthinkable, Rabbi Leo Dee asked how he would tell his wife, Lucy, that their two daughters were gone when she woke up from her coma. Lucy was in critical condition but they had faith she would survive. Sadly, less than 24 hours after her daughters were buried, Lucy succumbed to the wounds inflicted by the terrorists’ execution, despite the

doctors doing everything possible to save her. Now, it’s unimaginable that the family will have another funeral.

In Hebrew, the word “why” is “lama.” That was the word on everyone’s mind. Why? One of the family members noted that “lama” is similar to “le ma,” in English, “What for?” The Dees and all of Israel are not just asking “Why?” but “What for?” as in what can come out of their murder, to find some comfort. It’s superhuman even to think that, much less articulate it, and to do so as they were burying their loved ones. Some mistakenly confuse terrorist murders like this as being political. They are not political; they are just evil. They are a product of a theology and ideology that sees the Jewish presence in the Land of Israel as being illegitimate, hateful and something to destroy, whether in Jerusalem, Efrat, the Jordan Valley, Tel Aviv or anywhere else. The day after Maya and Rina Dee were murdered, another Arab terrorist ran down pedestrians on Tel Aviv’s beachfront promenade. The terrorists didn’t care that he murdered an Italian tourist and injured several other tourists.

I was interviewed by a Swedish media outlet after the funeral. I noted that we are attacked and murdered just for being Jews in the Land of Israel. I was asked

A NOTE ON OPINION

if I was hopeful. I thought of the words of Israel’s former Prime Minister, Golda Meir, who famously said we will only have peace when the Arabs love their children more than they hate ours. It’s still the truth. Their children are raised and brainwashed that Jews are foreign occupiers with no legitimacy here. They are raised to celebrate our being murdered and honor the murderers. Evil.

On the way home from the funeral, we drove past the sites where four other terror attacks occurred, leaving eight murdered. In my own neighborhood, before driving past the Dee’s house, I drove by the home of a friend whose son was murdered in a terror attack 15 years ago, around the corner from where a man lived who was murdered four years ago and past a park in memory of a soldier from our community who died in service.

We also gave a ride home to a neighbor who was the aunt of one of the three boys who were kidnapped and murdered in 2014, less than a mile from the cemetery that we had just come from. It’s all very close to home. Too close. JN

Jonathan Feldstein is a resident of Efrat, Israel, and neighbor of the Dees. He and his family made aliyah from the U.S. in 2004. He is president of the Genesis 123 Foundation which builds bridges between Jews and Christians and Christians with Israel. For more information, visit love.genesis123.co.

We are a diverse community. The views expressed in these opinion pieces do not necessarily reflect the views of the officers and boards of the Jewish Community Foundation, Center for Jewish Philanthropy, Jewish Federation of Greater Phoenix, Cleveland Jewish Publication Company or the staff of the Jewish News. Letters must respond to content published by the Jewish News and should be a maximum of 200 words. They may be edited for space and clarity. Unsigned letters will not be published. Letters and op-ed submissions should be sent to editor@jewishaz.com

The crowd outside the funeral for Maya and Rina Dee in Efrat, Israel.

COURTESY OF JONATHAN FELDSTEIN

‘Two Israels’: What’s really behind the judicial reform protests

ANDREW SILOW-CARROLL | JTA

When Benjamin Netanyahu put his controversial calls for judicial reform on pause two weeks ago, many thought the protesters in Israel and abroad might declare victory and take a break. And yet a week ago Saturday some 200,000 people demonstrated in Tel Aviv, and pro-democracy protests continued among Diaspora Jews and Israeli expats, including those who gather each Sunday in New York’s Washington Square Park.

On its face, the weeks of protest have been about proposed legislation that critics said would sap power from the Israeli Supreme Court and give legislators — in this case, led by Netanyahu’s recently elected far-right coalition — unchecked and unprecedented power. Protesters said that, in the absence of an Israeli constitution establishing basic rights and norms, they were fighting for democracy. The government too says the changes are about democracy, claiming under the current system unelected judges too often overrule elected lawmakers and the will of Israel’s diverse electorate.

But the political dynamics in Israel are complex, and the proposals and the backlash are also about deeper cracks in Israeli society. Yehuda Kurtzer, president of the Shalom Hartman Institute of North America, recently said in a podcast that the crisis in Israel represents “six linked but separate stories unfolding at the same time.” Beyond the judicial reform itself, these stories include the Palestinians and the occupation, a resurgent patriotism among the center and the left, chaos within Netanyahu’s camp, a Diaspora emboldened to weigh in on the future of Zionism and the rejection on the part of the public of a reform that failed the “reasonableness test.”

I recently asked observers, here and in Israel, what they feel is really mobilizing the electorate, and what kind of Israel will

To the editor

Regarding (“Jewish women conservatives ‘on the map’ in Greater Phoenix” April 7, 2023), it is of little surprise to me that the women profiled “reported feeling isolated at other Jewish gatherings due to their right-wing politics.”

It should be a given.

I’d like to know where in their Judaic values these individuals find it okay to build a wall to keep out the stranger.

emerge as a result of the showdown. The respondents included organizers of the protests, supporters of their aims and those skeptical of the protesters’ motivations. They discussed a slew of issues just below the surface of the protest, including the simmering Israeli-Palestinian conflict, divisions over the increasing strength of Israel’s haredi Orthodox sector, and a lingering divide between Ashkenazi Jews with roots in Europe and Mizrahi Jews whose ancestry is Middle Eastern and North African.

Conservatives, meanwhile, insist that Israeli “elites” — the highly educated, the tech sector, the military leadership, for starters — don’t respect the will of the majority who brought Netanyahu and his coalition partners to power.

Here are the emerging themes of weeks of protest:

Defending democracy

Whatever their long-term concerns about Israel’s future, the protests are being held under the banner of “democracy.”

For Alon-Lee Green, one of the organizers of the protests, the issues are equality and fairness. “People in Israel,” said Green, national co-director of Standing Together, a grassroots movement in Israel, “hundreds of thousands of them, are going out to the streets for months now not only because of the judicial reform, but also — and mainly — because of the fundamental question of what is the society we want to live in: Will we keep living in a society that is unequal, unfair and that is moving away from our basic needs and desires, or will it be an equal society for everyone who lives in our land?”

Shany Granot-Lubaton, who has been organizing pro-democracy rallies among Israelis living in New York City, says Netanyahu, National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and the coalition’s haredi Orthodox parties “are waging a

war against democracy and the freedoms of citizens.”

“They seek to exert control over the Knesset and the judicial system, appoint judges in their favor and legalize corruption,” she said. “If this legal coup is allowed to proceed, minorities will be in serious danger, and democracy itself will be threatened.”

Two researchers at the Institute for Liberty and Responsibility at Herzliya’s Reichman University, psychology student Benjamin Amram and research associate Keren L.G. Snider, said Netanyahu’s proposed judicial reform “undermines the integrity of Israel’s democracy by consolidating power.”

“How can citizens trust a government that ultimately has no limitations set upon them?” they asked in a joint email. “When one coalition holds all the power, laws and policies can be swiftly overturned, causing instability and volatility.”

A struggle between two Israels

Other commentators said the protests revealed fractures within Israeli society that long predated the conflict over judicial reform. “The split is between those that believe Israel should be a more religious country, with less democracy, and see democracy as only a system of elections and not a set of values, and those who want Israel to remain a Jewish and democratic state,” Tzipi Livni, who served in the cabinets of right-wing prime ministers Ariel Sharon and Ehud Olmert before tacking to the center in recent years, recently told Haaretz.

Author and translator David Hazony called this “a struggle between two Israels” — one that sees Israel’s founding

vision as a European-style, rights-based democracy, and the other that sees that vision as the return of the Jews to their ancient homeland.

“Those on the first side believe that the judiciary has always been Israel’s protector of rights and therefore of democracy, against the rapaciousness and lawlessness of politicians in general and especially those on the right. Therefore an assault on its supremacy is an assault on democracy itself. They accuse the other side of being barbaric, antidemocratic and violent,” said Hazony, editor of the forthcoming anthology “Jewish Priorities.”

As for the other side, he said, they see an activist judiciary as an attempt by Ashkenazi elites to force their minority view on the majority. Supporters of the government think it is entirely unreasonable “for judges to think they can choose their successors, strike down constitutional legislation  and rule according to ‘that which is reasonable in the eyes of the enlightened community in Israel,’” said Hazony, quoting Aharon Barak, the former president of the Supreme Court of Israel and bane of Israel’s right.

Daniel Tauber, an attorney and Likud Central Committee member, agrees that those who voted for Netanyahu and his coalition have their own concerns about a democracy — one dominated by “elites,” which in the Israeli context means oldguard Ashkenazi Jews, powerful labor unions and highly educated secular Jews. “The more this process is subject to veto by non-democratic institutions, whether it be the Court chosen as it is, elite military units, the Histadrut [labor union], or others, the more people will lose faith in democracy,” said Tauber.

Or to deny the humanity of LGBTQ+ people. Or to support marginalization of BIPOC populations. Or to undermine longstanding democratic processes. Or to denounce teaching accurate history to school children. Or to ban books.

When they invite the likes of Kari Lake, Blake Masters and Tom Horne into their midst — and worse, lend them their support — they turn their back on

everything we are taught to value as Jews.

And don’t get me started on women’s reproductive rights, which rabbis from the Orthodox to the most liberal have loudly shouted as being Jewish religious rights, based in Halachah.

Isolated? Those who support and further any views that would marginalize, oppress or denounce any group of people based solely on their identity — and that

includes bolstering others who feel the same — should feel more than isolation. Shame, dissonance, regret, perhaps?

There is no litmus test for one’s Judaism, beyond the rules of lineage and conversion. But the values at the core of Jewish life are vividly clear. And they are not the values espoused by the ideology to which this group claims to subscribe.

Jeremy M. Helfgot, Phoenix

JTA ILLUSTRATION BY GRACE YAGEL; PHOTO BY ERIK MARMOR/FLASH90

Healing wisdom at the site of the body

TAZRIA-METZORA:

LEVITICUS 12:1 - 15:33

At the site of the human body are many opportunities for inquiry and understanding. In

2016, a study was commissioned by the American Academy of Dermatology Association (AAD). Using data from 2013, they were able to identify 24 disease categories and an overwhelming number of people experiencing afflictions. In fact, the data indicated that one in four Americans experienced some dermatological event, the equivalent of 84.5 million people. Of those, one in three was treated by a dermatological specialist. Because of the demand, the economic burden on the United States healthcare system translated into $75 billion of medical expenses.

So, not only are issues pertaining to the skin, the largest organ of the body, prevalent in our day, as well as costly, but according to Torah, they were also very common in ancient times. For our ancestors, however, they represented a Divine message to both the afflicted and the community, with cures managed not by pills or shots, but ritual practices.

Tazria-Metzorah , can be doubly

Green also said there is “a war waging now between two elites in Israel” — the “old and more established liberal elite, who consist of the financial, high-tech army and industry people,” and the “new emerging elite of the settlers and the political far-right parties.”

And yet, he said, “I think we will lose if one of these elites wins. The real victory of this historic political moment in Israel will be if we achieve true equality, both to the people who are not represented by the Jewish supremacists, such as the Palestinian citizens of Israel, and to the people who are not represented by the ‘old Israel,’ such as the haredi and Mizrahi people on the peripheries.”

The crises behind the crisis

Although the protests were ignited by Netanyahu’s calls for judicial reform, they also represented pushback against the most right-wing government in Israeli history — which means at some level the protests were also about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the role of religion in Israeli society. “The unspoken motivation driving the architects and supporters of the [judicial] ‘reform,’ as well as the protest leaders, is umbilically connected to the occupation,” writes Carolina Landsmann, a Haaretz columnist. If Netanyahu has

challenging to hold, given bold and detailed references to bodily fluids, skin irritations and the very sacred act of procreation itself that resulted in a period of separation from normal routines and others. Furthermore, values were placed upon secretions, blood, skin abnormalities that reinforced the emerging purity laws, inherent in the glue of ancient Israelite society. How the ancients understood purity as life affirming and how we resonate with the concept today are different. Think about the notion of clarity, the properties of organic, the necessity for sterilization. Contrast these characteristics with the idea that something needs to be in a particular condition to be holy before God.

“He shall cry, ‘Impure! Impure!’ He shall be impure while the disease is upon him. Being impure, he shall dwell apart, his dwelling shall be outside the camp.”

(Lev.13:45-46)

Harmony creates a unifying field. Interestingly, contagions also generate a unifying field. In the past three years, lessons from Torah have become animated in a modern plague. We have seen the pandemic of our day wreak havoc upon every area of society, simultaneously generating both harmony, in areas of collaboration, and dissonance, illustrated by real-time tragic consequences and political tangles. At the site of the body, wars have been and continue to be waged. Even though purity, as emphasized in ancient times, does not seem to be part

his way, she writes, “ There will be no more two-state solution, and there will be no territorial compromises. The new diplomatic horizon will be a single state, with the Palestinians as subjects deprived of citizenship.”

Nimrod Novik, the Israel Fellow at the Israel Policy Forum, said that “once awakened, the simmering resentment of those liberal Israelis about other issues was brought to the surface.” The Palestinian issue, for example, is at an “explosive moment,” said Novik: The Palestinian Authority is weakened and ineffective, Palestinian youth lack hope for a better future and Israeli settlers feel emboldened by supporters in the ruling coalition.

Kurtzer too noted that the Palestinians “also stand to be extremely victimized following the passage of judicial reform, both in Israel and in the West Bank.” And yet, he said, most Israelis aren’t ready to upend the current status quo between Israelis and Palestinians. “It can also be true that the Israeli public can only build the kind of coalition that it’s building right now because it is patently not a referendum on the issue of Palestinian rights,” he said.

Religion and state

Novik spoke about another barely

of the equation, the concept of separation remains part of it.

Additionally, it could be argued that the costs of impurities to the individual and community were not the same in ancient times because of how the practice of medicine evolved and is understood in modernity. For example, Torah reflects upon the consequences of gossip in the ancient Near East with a famous story: God afflicts Miriam with a white, scaley skin disorder as a most obvious punishment for her sin. We are to understand that Miriam’s illness and related removal from the camp was her fault because she had gone against one of the essential values of B’nai Yisrael (Num. 12:9-10).

Today, if we accuse someone of causing their physical condition, we could be committing “psycho-spiritual malpractice,” according to my friend and colleague Rev. Mitzi Lynton, PhD. Furthermore, due to medical privacy acts and other conditions of our Western society, we would not publicly denounce someone as “impure” if they had an acne or psoriasis outbreak, for example. Rather, we would provide a remedy. Exploring a psycho-spiritual root to the physical condition is often accomplished in conjunction with allopathic treatments (depending upon a person’s cultural and/or religious affiliation) and with compassion, not branding or shaming.

One of the most complex encounters a chaplain can have with a person who is

subterranean theme of the protests: the growing power of the haredi, or ultra-Orthodox, parties. Secular Israelis especially resent that the haredim disproportionately seek exemption from military service and that non-haredi Israelis contribute some 90% of all taxes collected.

One fear of those opposing the judicial reform legislation is that the religious parties will “forever secure state funding to the haredi Orthodox school system while exempting it from teaching the subjects required for ever joining the workforce. It is to secure for them an exemption from any military or other national service. And it is to expand the imposition of their lifestyle on non-Orthodox Israelis.”   What’s next

Predictions for the future range from warnings of a civil war (by Israel’s president, Isaac Herzog, among others) to an eventual compromise on Netanyahu’s part to the emergence of a new center electorate that will reject extremists on both ends of the political spectrum.

David E. Bernstein, a law professor at the George Mason University School of Law who writes frequently about Israel, imagines a future without extremists. “One can definitely easily imagine the business, academic and legal elite using

APRIL 29 - 7:49 P.M.

stricken with illness and suffering is when they blame themselves for their problem: “What have I done to deserve this?” Indeed, there are times when identifying self-responsibility is both healing and empowering. However, it is a different situation when they travel the self-blame track. This can block one’s ability to receive healing messages or take action that would improve their situation.

In honor of parshiot Tazria-Metzora, please consider taking a moment to communicate with your body — the body that was birthed from your mother, the body that is an ultimate gift from the Source of All Life. If you are healed from an illness, or afflicted in any way, listen to that quiet voice within that beckons you to change, not blame; to open to possibilities, not shame. In the spirit of our ancestors, symbolically or physically discard that which no longer serves you. Embrace that which is for your highest good. Mark that moment in some special way. Then, go forth into this Shabbat lighter and renewed, connected to your loved ones, community and to God. JN

their newfound political voice to insist that future governments not align with extremists, that haredi authority over national life be limited, and, perhaps most important, that Israel create a formal constitution that protects certain basic rights,” he said.

Elie Bennett, director of International Strategy at the Israel Democracy Institute, also sees an opportunity in the crisis.

In the aftermath of the disastrous 1973 Yom Kippur war, he said, Israel “rebuilt its military and eventually laid the foundations for today’s ‘startup nation.’ In this current crisis, we do not need a call-up of our reserves forces, or a massive airlift of American weaponry to prevail. What we need is goodwill among fellow Israelis and a commitment to work together to strengthen our society and reach an agreed-upon constitutional framework. If we are able to achieve such an agreement, it will protect our rights, better define the relationships between the branches of government, and result in an Israel that is more stable and prosperous than ever as we celebrate 75 years of independence.” JN

Rabbi Mindie Snyder serves as the rabbi and chaplain for Sun Health Communities.

RABBI MINDIE SNYDER

Rabbi Mindie Snyder

Find area congregations at jewishaz.com, where you can also find our 2023 Community Directory.

The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of JTA or its parent company, 70 Faces Media.

Why buy?

OPHIR GROSS | COLUMNIST

As our world continues to evolve and fluidity amongst our lifestyles is increasing, it’s no surprise that the younger generation feels less attached to many of the traditional values previous generations cling to — homeownership being one of them. With remote work being favored by the younger generation, nomadic lifestyles are becoming increasingly popular as more and more coworking spaces emerge globally. According to Zippia, a career resources site, coworking spaces have grown 55% in the last five years and are projected to continue to increase.

Remote workers have the option to work where they’d like without the obligation of being confined to a single location. Although the need to be in a fixed location is diminished for these types of employees, and will most likely continue to be a standard in our increasingly digital world, learning how to view real estate as a strategic move to facilitate one’s lifestyle goals rather than merely a necessity is key. In this article we will discuss some of the top benefits of owning real estate and why it should be an integral part of your financial planning.

1. Financial stability and security

One of the primary benefits of owning real estate is the potential for financial stability and security. Real estate investments can offer a reliable source of passive income, which can help supplement or even replace your current income. If you have a rental property, for example, you can earn regular rental income that can help cover your mortgage payments, property taxes and other expenses associated with owning the property.

Real estate investments can also provide long-term financial security by building equity over time. As you make mortgage payments, you build equity in your

property, which means you own a larger share of the property. This can provide a safety net in the event of unexpected financial challenges, such as job loss or medical emergencies.

2. Tax advantages Another significant benefit of owning real estate is the tax advantages it offers. Real estate investors can take advantage of deductions for mortgage interest, property taxes and other expenses associated with owning and maintaining a property. These deductions can help lower your overall tax burden and increase your net income.

Additionally, if you own rental property, you may be eligible for additional tax benefits, such as depreciation deductions, which allow you to deduct the cost of the property over time.

3. Potential for appreciation

Real estate investments also offer the potential for appreciation, which means the value of your property can increase over time. This can help you build longterm wealth and provide a significant return on investment if you decide to sell the property in the future.

The potential for appreciation can be even higher in certain markets or locations, such as areas with strong job growth or where new infrastructure projects are planned. By investing in real estate in these areas, you can potentially earn a higher return on your investment and build even more equity over time.

4. Tangible asset

Real estate investments are tangible assets, which means you have physical ownership of the property. Unlike stocks or other financial investments, real estate investments can provide a sense of security and control, as you can see and touch the property.

This tangible aspect can also make real estate a more appealing investment option for some individuals, as they can see and experience the value of their investment first-hand.

5. Diversification

Finally, owning real estate can offer diversification of your investment portfolio. By investing in real estate, you can diversify your investments beyond traditional stocks and bonds, which can help reduce risk and potentially increase returns.

Real estate investments can also offer different risk profiles and potential returns, depending on the type of property and location. For example, investing in commercial real estate may offer higher returns but may also come with higher risk, while investing in a single-family rental property may offer more stable, long-term returns.

Notice how the benefits discussed are supplemental to one’s life and not based off of dependency or necessity. The only necessity is a mindset shift — a shift in how real estate is viewed, especially within younger crowds. The ideology around real estate needs to evolve, just as our world is evolving. Owning real estate is so

much more than just the need for shelter. Rather, owning real estate is a strategic tool to empower oneself and enhance one’s financial health to only support our ever-progressing lifestyles. JN

Ophir Gross is a realtor with Coldwell Banker Realty and has a combined skillset of business strategy and consumer psychology. She is a member of JNFuture Root Society, Women in Philanthropy, NowGen Phoenix, attends Congregation Beth Tefillah and began her roots in the community at the Phoenix Hebrew Academy and, formerly, Jess Schwartz High School. She can be reached at ophir.gross@ cbrealty.com or 480-794-0807.

Jewish News is published by the Jewish Community Foundation of Greater Phoenix, a component of the Center for Jewish Philanthropy of Greater Phoenix.

Ophir Gross COURTESY OF

The benefits of home composting

ROSIE ROMERO, JR. | COLUMNIST

Iam often asked about how to reduce waste, something I am a strong proponent of. While I reduce as much waste as possible in my home, I turned to the expert, farmer Greg Peterson of the Urban Farm in Phoenix, to explain how to compost and its benefits.

Learn how you can start to recycle various organic materials — otherwise regarded as waste products — and produce nutrient–rich soil to be used in your gardens.

“We have a deep, dark secret at the Urban Farm,” said Peterson. “It’s the reason our greens spring to life, our flowers are happy, why everything grows so well and the plants are ‘soooo’ healthy. Visitors to the Urban Farm often notice the thick mulch filling all our garden beds and inquire about our secret. I tell them it’s all in the compost!”

Getting started

Most of the time the heat and desert soils seem to consume organic material faster than we can add it. Building healthy soil by adding compost is the key to growing healthy plants. To compost or not to compost seems to be the question, or better yet how can you easily compost?

Start by looking at the amount of organic material that you have to compost. If all you have are kitchen scraps, traditional composting may not be your answer, as it requires a lot of organic material, which the typical homeowner generally does not have. Do not fret however, as there are several other ways to “compost” that are much simpler and still accomplish the same results.

So, what do you do with your compostable items that won’t require a PhD (stands for pile it higher and deeper) in composting?

Peterson calls it non-composting and and offers a few suggestions.

Chickens

“My favorite way of non-composting is to feed it to the chickens,” said Peterson. “I know, your first reaction is ‘I can’t keep chickens in my yard.’ Now I am not talking about roosters, just hens, and they are very easy to keep, are effective at weeding and controlling bugs, will eat your kitchen and yard scraps, provide lots of great compost material and give you the added bonus of the occasional egg or two for your breakfast enjoyment.”

The basic thing you need to know about chickens is that they like to have a coop area to roost in. Peterson uses the coop as a place to contain them for their first month, so that they learn that this yard is their home. Once done, they can run wild in your yard if you like; with the caveat that they will eat any new tender

plants that are coming up. So, be sure to have a designated chicken yard as their living space. There is also the notion of building a chicken tractor (portable chicken coop) that you move around your yard so that the chickens do the work of preparing your beds for planning. As for the kitchen and yard scraps, I just put them in their coop area and the chickens do the composting.

Worms

Now if you aren’t quite up for keeping chickens, you might try worms, which are much more innocuous. They do their own kind of digging, provide their own kind of manure and do a really good job of munching on your kitchen scraps. They are as easy to keep as putting a bucket under your sink with some shredded newspapers and worms or, you can add an old bathtub in some corner of your yard and vermicompost (a fancy word for worm composting).

Lasagna gardening

One of Peterson’s favorite methods of non-composting is called “lasagna” gardening. It is a process by which you build the soil in your garden and compost at the same time. The name says it all. Start by putting down a layer of dry material usually one to three inches deep with dried leaves, hay or straw. Then add a layer of manure to facilitate the slow composting, then another layer of dry material and manure. You can add layers to your heart’s content and if you want to plant right away, dig a little hole, add some soil and plant. Over the course of a few months the layers break down and create awesome slow-cooked composted soil. The added bonus is that you can take your kitchen scraps and tuck them into the lasagna garden and let nature take over.

Traditional composting

For traditional composting, the first thing to know is that you need a critical mass of organic material in order for the compost process to begin. The minimum size for effective composting is a cube of material 3 x 3 x 3 feet. The organic material used needs to consist of approximately 25% green/nitrogen such as manure, kitchen scraps and green grass clippings and 75% dry/carbon such as dried leaves, hay and chicken yard litter. Next you need to build the pile by thoroughly mixing your items, making sure they are fluffed appropriately so the pile can breathe. Then add just enough water so that when you squeeze the wet material like a sponge, a little water comes out. Add water once a week and watch the compost happen. A great item to use

for building the compost holder is old pallets. Wire three of them together in a “U” shape and add a fourth on the front to hold it all in. This makes harvesting easy when it is done, as all you have to do is unwire the pallets and use the compost. The composting process works when bacteria eat the organic material in the pile. This causes heat (and boy does it get hot; up to 160 degrees!). As the bacteria eat the compost, the pile shrinks, up to 50% in just a few weeks. After about six weeks the temperature drops dramatically and the pile needs to be turned and watered and the process starts again. Turn the pile one more time and let it sit for an additional six weeks and you will have wonderful compost. As a general rule, the smaller and more uniform the pieces of material going into the pile, the faster the compost will cook.

One of the most abundant materials to use in composting as well as in my noncomposting examples is leaves, which fall abundantly in most neighborhoods. Alfalfa hay is high in nitrogen and is another great material to use in your composting and lasagna gardening.

“When using kitchen scraps, I suggest

only using vegetable matter as dairy and meat products don’t seem to break down as readily and can attract pests,” says Peterson. Non-composting is easy, it just takes some work to get it set up and running. At the Urban Farm composting happens, with chickens, worms, lasagna gardening and traditional composting. The fruits of their labor arrive in great tasting food that we they harvest just about every day of the year. Using one or all of these methods just about guarantee you a great crop. Remember though, composting takes time as does raising a great garden. Be patient and compost away. JN

Rosie Romero, Jr. is co-owner of Arizona’s home improvement radio program “Rosie on the House.”

Outstanding value in Paradise Valley for this 6 year old home with 7,000+ sq ft, 6 bedroom, 7 baths, no interior steps, Camelback & Mummy Mountain views, 4 car garage, no HOA, and a peaceful location. The open floor plan boasts 16-foot ceilings, and lots of natural light. Spacious kitchen has Quartzite counters, an eating bar, and a 500+ bottle wine wall and bar. Elegant primary bedroom features a large soaking tub, two-person steam shower, walk-thru closet with washer/ dryer hook-up.

Uneaten produce can make nutrient-rich compost.

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ISRAEL AT 75

As a matter of faith, Jerusalem belongs to Jews, says Mort Klein

SHANNON LEVITT | STAFF WRITER

Morton (Mort) A. Klein, president of Zionist Organization of America (ZOA), wants the world “to be crystal clear” that, as a matter of faith, Jerusalem belongs only to Jews.

“The world is demanding that Israel give away part of Jerusalem because it’s holy to Muslims — but that’s a falsehood. It’s important to make it clear that this claim is not true,” Klein told Jewish News.

“Muslims have no right to claim any part of it. I chastise Israeli and Jewish leaders for not making that crystal clear,” he said.

Before Klein entered politics, he was an economist for the federal government under presidents Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter, and a mathematical statistician at UCLA School of Public Health and the Linus Pauling Institute of Science and Medicine in Palo Alto, California.

Klein got involved in Zionist advocacy in the late 1980s at the behest of his wife, who complained that he was doing nothing for Israel. He began reading and teaching himself what he could and called for changes to textbooks and travel guides, some of which he rewrote.

He became ZOA’s national president in 1993 and since becoming a public figure, Klein has courted controversy, first by fighting against the Oslo Accords, which restarted a peace process and created the Palestinian National Authority.

“I was attacked bitterly for being a warmonger,” he said.

Since then he has been criticized for promoting religious profiling of Muslims; initially defending Donald Trump’s birther conspiracy theory about President Barack Obama, who he called “a Jewhating antisemite;” and using the phrase “filthy Arabs” on Twitter, something he continues to stand by.

“Politics is not pleasant — because people call you names — and I do miss math and working with scientists. There I only got praise and now half the people attack me. However, I care deeply about Israel and the Jewish people, so I keep doing it,” Klein said.

Klein was the final speaker for the

Bureau of Jewish Education of Greater Phoenix’s (BJE) Passages series this year.

One goal of the series is to present a wide variety of speakers with different viewpoints who do not necessarily represent the organization, according to Myra Shindler, BJE’s executive director.

“The purpose of the BJE is to educate and Mort Klein is a well-known expert on Israel and the Middle East, especially on Jerusalem. If we only stick to our own ideas, not wanting to hear from the right or the left, we’re doing ourselves a disservice,” she told Jewish News.

Klein spoke at Chabad of the East Valley in Chandler about the faith-filled politics around Jerusalem, Israel’s capital city, on March 19.

The majority of his talk, “Jerusalem: Whose City Is It?” was spent dismantling the argument put forth by some Palestinian and Arab leaders, and scholars, that Jerusalem is an important city for Islam and even the extremist view that the city has no connection to Judaism. He also discounted the United Nations’ and Vatican’s goal that Jerusalem should be held under international jurisdiction as it was in 1947.

During the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, West Jerusalem was captured and later annexed by Israel, while East Jerusalem, including the Old City, was captured and later annexed by Jordan. Klein described Jordan’s management as disastrous for the city and claimed that with no steady water, electricity or plumbing “it became a slum.”

Klein reminded the audience that before 1967, Jews were barred from their religious sites in East Jerusalem, including the Western Wall, and that nearly all of the synagogues were destroyed.

During those 19-years, Arab leaders did not visit Jerusalem, which showed its religious insignificance to Muslims, according to Klein.

He also cited two Arab writers on the subject.

“We must recognize and realize Jerusalem is a religious symbol to Jews, and is holy and sacred to Jews, just as Mecca and Medina are sacred and holy to Muslims,” said Abd Al-Hamid Al-Hakim,

former director of the Jeddah-based Middle East Center for Strategic and Legal Studies and Saudi Arabian writer.

“There is no connection between Jerusalem and Islam: Al Aqsa is not ours,” said Youssef Ziedan, Egyptian writer and scholar specializing in Arabic and Islamic studies, referring to Al Aqsa Mosque at the southern end of Jerusalem’s Temple Mount.

Klein’s main evidence that Jerusalem does not have religious significance for Muslims is that specific mention of the city is absent from the Quran, Islam’s holiest text. On the other hand, Judaism’s sacred texts cite it more than 700 times.

“Jerusalem is a magnet to Jewish people,” Klein said, listing the various ways Jews memorialize and mourn the destruction of the temple and honor and yearn for Jerusalem in their prayers, holy days and ceremonies.

“When we pray, we face Jerusalem but Muslims face Mecca,” he said.

Klein once worked with Linus Pauling, who won both the Nobel Prize in Chemistry and the Nobel Peace Prize. He said Pauling always told him that he is required to believe the data, arguing that is what he is doing in making the case that Jerusalem belongs solely to Jews. “Our conscious endeavor must be to fulfill the words of Isaiah,” said Klein.

“On your walls, O Jerusalem, I have set watchmen; all the day and all the night they shall never be silent. You who put the Lord in remembrance, take no rest, and give him no rest until he establishes Jerusalem and makes it a praise in the earth.” (Isaiah 62:6-7)

Israel captured East Jerusalem from Jordan during the 1967 Six-Day War and subsequently annexed it into Jerusalem. The 1980 Jerusalem Law, one of Israel’s Basic Laws, refers to Jerusalem as the country’s undivided capital, and that’s as it should be, Klein said.

“The city is holy to Jews and that is why we Jews will not give it up — ever. It was given to us by God. We will never let Judaism’s holiest city be a new Berlin with a new Berlin wall,” he said.

Christians, who also live in and hold religious claims to the city, were men-

tioned only peripherally.

BJE always sends out a recording of live events to ticket holders, but Klein’s recording was damaged and he graciously agreed to re-record the talk, which was sent out the first week of April.

At the end of that recording, Klein answered one question that had been asked during the live Q&A about the demonstrations against Israel’s proposed judicial reform. The controversial proposal was made in early January to limit the power of the Supreme Court and the government’s legal councilors, and grant the governing coalition a majority on the committee that appoints judges.

Huge protests against the reform were still taking place when Klein came to Chandler, but by the time he sent his new recording, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had agreed to delay the legislation for a month and Klein was optimistic that a deal could be brokered.

Klein is in favor of judicial reform, saying that it would further democracy given that elected officials should be able to appoint judges rather than the Judicial Selection Committee. Klein accused the judiciary as it stands now of being “too left-wing” and said it brought this on itself because “it’s been calling Israeli laws unreasonable.” JN

For more information about the Zionist Organization of America, visit zoa.org.

Morton A. Klein COURTESY OF MORTON A. KLEIN

Israel & Technion Partners In Innovation

FIDF to be more present in Arizona after closing chapter a decade ago

SHANNON LEVITT | STAFF WRITER

In 2013, Friends of Israel Defense Forces (FIDF) closed its Arizona chapter after 18 months in operation as part of a national reorganization plan. Still, over the last decade, it has kept a toe in Greater Phoenix’s Jewish communal activities and programs with a few locals who remained committed to the work of supporting the wellbeing of Israeli soldiers.

Now, Lesley Plachta, FIDF’s new vice president for the Western region, plans to re-engage Arizona’s Jewish community more fully, both in terms of educating and creating awareness about FIDF’s programs and fundraising for them. There will be no local full-time staff on the ground, but the state falls under the auspices of the Los Angeles chapter, where Plachta has her office.

A committee of local community members — Barbara and Ed Leff, Jody Bartel, Jake Bennett, Mindy Franklin, Stephen Lewis, Norman Spector, David Weiner and Steve Winokur — will manage the bulk of the work, and Plachta plans to travel here three or four times every year.

The Leffs first learned about FIDF 10 years ago while they were in Israel. They visited a military base in the Golan Heights, where they heard from a group of Lone Soldiers, members of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) without immediate family in Israel.

“After spending an afternoon learning about what it meant to serve in the IDF for young Israelis and Lone Soldiers, we knew we wanted to be involved with this group that made all of the soldiers’ lives better,” said Barbara Leff.

Thus began the couple’s long and happy relationship with FIDF.

FIDF raises money for the humanitarian needs of the young adults who serve in the IDF by providing a variety of programs to support active soldiers, including vouchers for food and supplies to soldiers who fall below

the poverty line; scholarship programs and funding for university education; help transitioning back to civilian life after military service; and emotional support for young people before service.

The Impact Scholarship matches a sponsor and a student and is one program Barbara Leff found especially significant. From the first letter the student writes to the sponsor, the program “establishes long-lasting friendships,” she said.

“One of the things we love is sharing the knowledge we have gained in the hope that others are interested in helping. There is nothing more exciting than meeting the student you are sponsoring for the first time,” she said.

Between 2018 and the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020, the Leffs and a few others hosted local events for FIDF.

“We had a wonderful dinner that we called a Mini Gala in 2020, which was very successful. We even had one of the stars of “Fauda” in attendance,” Barbara Leff said.

Plachta, who spent her entire career working in the Los Angeles Jewish community in fundraising and community development — the Los Angeles Jewish Federation, American Jewish University and Los Angeles Jewish Home, for senior health care — came on board at FIDF three months ago.

“I knew about FIDF, which is known for doing an enviable gala. Everyone wanted to raise as much money in one night as they did,” she said.

Other than fundraising capacity, she had only a basic understanding of the organization, so she did her due diligence and what she learned excited her.

“It’s a great cause,” she told Jewish News. She’s married to an Israeli and her daughter also lived in Israel.

The Western region is composed of four chapters located in Las Vegas, Los Angeles, San Diego and the San Francisco Bay area, and cities like Phoenix and Tucson fall into one of those chapters.

Plachta’s committee members are researching adopting a battalion to fund. It would give people a direct relationship with all the soldiers in the troop and donors could ensure they would have a recreation room, a garden or fun recreational days, “anything to enhance the experience of the soldiers,” she said.

There’s also talk of adopting an air force base that would cost between $35,000 and $50,000 annually.

“The head of the base would tell the community what they need,” she said.

Other than fundraising and educating people about the IDF, the FIDF will bring active soldiers to town “to build pride in Israel and educate local young people about what their Israeli peers are doing,” Plachta said. “We’re the only organization that can bring active soldiers into a community.”

Hosting events, staffing FIDF booths, hosting parlor meetings and advising Plachta are all opportunities for prospective volunteers.

Marshall Polk, a Scottsdale resident, is excited about the more formal presence of FIDF in Arizona and said he is ready to do anything the organization needs.

“The FIDF motto says it all: ‘Their job is to look after Israel; our job is to look after them,’” he said. JN For volunteer opportunities, contact Lesley Plachta, Lesley.plachta@ fidf.org; (818) 455-2415.

“THE FIDF MOTTO SAYS IT ALL: ‘THEIR JOB IS TO LOOK AFTER ISRAEL; OUR JOB IS TO LOOK AFTER THEM.’

MARSHALL POLK

Brad’s mobile pizza oven ser ves delicious hand crafted pizza in your backyard

Lesley Plachta COURTESY OF LESLEY PLACHTA

MAY 14, 1948: An extraordinary Jewish state is born

CLIFF SAVREN | SPECIAL TO THE JEWISH NEWS

Initially, Theodor Herzl’s plans for the creation of a Jewish state and for bringing the Jewish people back to their ancient homeland must have seemed entirely unrealistic. But following the convening of the First Zionist Congress in the Swiss city of Basel, Herzl wrote the following: “In Basel, I founded the Jewish state,” he wrote in his diary on Sept. 3, 1897. “If I said this out loud today, l would be greeted by universal laughter. In five years perhaps, and certainly in 50 years, everyone will perceive it.”

Just over 50 years later, on May 14, 1948, as the British withdrew from the country, the state of Israel was proclaimed by the country’s first prime minister, David Ben-Gurion. There is no historical parallel of a persecuted people scattered around the world returning to their ancient homeland.

Zionism took several forms, which complemented one another. Herzl, who died in 1904 at the age of 44 and never lived to witness the major strides of the Zionist movement, was the personification of political Zionism.

The first milestone in the effort came in 1917 when the British foreign secretary, Lord Balfour, issued a very British-sounding letter stating that “his Majesty’s Government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people.” That was of importance because Britain was a major power, but it became key after World War I, when the League of Nations gave Britain a mandate to govern Palestine in 1920.

A second aspect of Zionism was practical Zionism – the idea that if a Jewish state were to be established, it required the presence of a significant Jewish population in the country and the development of all the hallmarks of a country, including institutions of governance, agriculture, industry, towns and cities and infrastructure. The first wave of immigration began in the 1880s, prior to the First Zionist Congress, but there were new waves of immigrants in the subsequent decades. And in the years since Israel’s establishment in 1948, the country has taken in an astounding 3.3 million immigrants.

There was also cultural Zionism, the most miraculous achievement of which was the revival of Hebrew as the spoken language of the Jews of the country in the making. Herzl, by the way, scoffed at such a prospect. In his landmark pamphlet “The Jewish State,” he claimed that it would be impossible to buy a train ticket in Hebrew.

Today, Israel has a modern train network selling tickets in Hebrew via smartphone apps. And thanks to a generation that worked tirelessly to revive Hebrew, and to the Hebrew Language Academy, which still helps guide the

language’s development, Israelis can not only buy a train ticket in Hebrew, but can also talk about complex technology in the language, with vocabulary based on ancient Hebrew roots.

IN THE BEGINNING

Despite the early support from Britain for a Jewish homeland, the British later limited Jewish immigration at a tragically fateful time for the Jewish people, just prior to the extermination of European Jewry in the Holocaust – under pressure from Arabs living in the country. Amid continuing Arab-Jewish tensions in Palestine after World War II, the British announced that they would withdraw from the country.

The future of Palestine shifted to the United Nations and a special committee that studied the issue. It recommended partitioning the country into a Jewish state and an Arab state (and the temporary internationalization of Jerusalem). This was the most critical period for political Zionism as efforts were made to get the U.N. General Assembly to vote in favor of the resolution.

One of the leading figures in that effort

was a Cleveland rabbi – Abba Hillel Silver. Following the United Nations’ acceptance of the partition plan on Nov. 29, 1947, all-out fighting broke out between Jewish and Arab forces in Palestine, even before the British withdrawal in May of the following year.

It was the armistice lines set in 1949 at the end of the War of Independence that shaped Israel’s initial boundaries. The war had displaced hundreds of thousands of Arabs and also coincided with a flood of Jewish immigrants to the country, mainly from Eastern Europe, the Middle East and North Africa. Dire housing shortages meant that many of the Jewish newcomers lived in transit camps.

The Arab world initially refused to recognize Israel’s existence and the presence of Arab refugees in surrounding Arab countries reinforced that stance. The Arabs vowed to destroy Israel and in 1956, after mounting attacks on Israel and the disruption of Israeli navigation, Israel went to war with Egypt. Israel was ultimately forced to withdraw from Egyptian territory, but secured arrangements that strengthened its military posture.

In 1967, after Egypt ordered peacekeeping forces out of the area and again declared a blockade of Israeli shipping, Israel launched a preemptive strike. Jordan and Syria joined the fighting on Egypt’s side. Israel emerged victorious in less than a week in what became known as the Six-Day War. It captured the entire Sinai Peninsula and Gaza Strip from Egypt, the West Bank from Jordan and the Golan Heights from Syria. Israel reunited Jerusalem, the eastern half of which, where the Temple Mount and the Western Wall are, had been under Jordanian control.

YOM

KIPPUR WAR

There was another round of fighting in 1973, in which Arab forces launched a surprise attack on Yom Kippur. Following heavy losses, Israel finally gained the upper hand.

Egyptian President Anwar Sadat made a breakthrough visit to Israel in 1977 and the two countries signed a peace agreement two years later, when Menachem Begin was prime minister. The 1990s saw the establishment of a self-governing

SEE STATE, PAGE 20

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

Support Magen David Adom by donating today at afmda.org/give. Or for further information about giving opportunities, contact 800.323.2371 or emichael@afmda.org.

Israel is celebrating 75 years.

Magen David Adom has been there for all of them.

Palestinian Authority in portions of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, which was seen as a precursor to an independent Palestinian state. In 1994, Jordan also signed a peace treaty with Israel.

The following year, the Israeli architect of the controversial peace process with the Palestinians, Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, was gunned down at a peace rally in Tel Aviv. The country in many ways is still suffering from the trauma and division that preceded and followed the assassination.

It was only in 2020, with the signing of the Abraham Accords that the next major breakthrough came in relations with the Arab world, with the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain normalizing relations with the Jewish state. Morocco would follow.

PALESTINIAN RELATIONSHIPS

Relations with the Palestinians have been much more complex. After the 1967 Six-Day War, Israel began building Jewish neighborhoods in the eastern half of Jerusalem to make it difficult or impossible to redivide the city. For their part, the Palestinians claim East Jerusalem as the capital of a future Palestinian state.

In the years since the Six-Day War, Israeli governments – some grudgingly and some enthusiastically – have permitted the establishment of Jewish settlements in the West Bank. The Palestinians view the West Bank, along with Gaza, as part of a future Palestinian state, but complicating matters further, in 2007, the Islamist

Hamas movement took over Gaza, ousting the Palestinian Authority and turning the territory into a terrorist base.

Israel effectively annexed East Jerusalem in 1967 and the Syrian Golan Heights in 1981, but it has never annexed the West Bank, which is now home to hundreds of thousands of Israelis as well as millions of Palestinians. The future of the territory remains a matter of dispute not only between Israel and the Palestinians, but also among Israelis themselves.

Despite the challenges and disagreements, Israel is one of the most spectacular successes of nation-building in the post-World War II period. From a Jewish population of roughly 600,000 Jews and 100,000 Arabs, it is now home to more than 9 million people, around 80% of whom are Jewish. It has also welcomed more than 3 million immigrants, including more than 70,000 last year alone. Theodor Herzl would be amazed.

So would Eliezer Ben-Yehuda, who led the effort to revive the Hebrew language. A major Israeli cultural milestone was achieved in 1966 when Hebrew writer S.Y. Agnon received the Nobel Prize for Literature. In the years since, a number of Israeli authors have achieved major international recognition, including David Grossman and the late Amos Oz.

A THRIVING NATION

Theater, the plastic arts and music have thrived in the new Jewish state and several Israeli universities are also top ranked. Since 2002, nine Israeli academics have won Nobel Prizes in economics or chemistry.

In contrast to Israel’s early years, when notable among its exports was oranges, over the past two decades, it has become an economic powerhouse that has attracted billions of dollars of investment to its high-tech sector. Astoundingly, high-tech products now account for half of Israel’s exports.

The dominant figure in Israeli politics over the past two decades has been Likud party leader Benjamin Netanyahu, who has even bested the record of Israel’s first prime minister, David Ben-Gurion, as the country’s longest-serving prime minister. Following a stint in the 1990s, and his electoral defeat in 1999, he managed to regain the post of prime minister in 2009.

Israel’s proportional representation system of parliamentary government in many ways suits a new country in which contentious issues such as the country’s borders and the role of religion are unsettled, but in recent years, the elections have led to inconclusive outcomes or unstable coalition governments. The political situation was further complicated when Netanyahu was indicted in 2019 while prime minister on corruption charges. His trial is ongoing.

Netanyahu was ousted from power following an election in 2021. For the first time, Israel had a coalition government that included an Arab party, the United Arab List. The common denominator in that government was opposition to Netanyahu, but differences within the coalition led to its losing its majority in 2022. Another election was held in November 2022, which brought

Netanyahu back into power at the helm of the most right-wing government in the country’s history.

His government has a stable majority in parliament, but its legislative plans, which would give the government dominance over the selection of Supreme Court justices and give parliament the right to overturn Supreme Court decisions, has sparked weekly protests that have attracted upwards of 200,000 people in Tel Aviv alone. At the end of March, amid the demonstrations and his plunge in public opinion polls, Netanyahu agreed to pause the legislation until after Israel celebrates its 75th anniversary (according to the Hebrew calendar) on April 26.

Even the most dispassionate observer of the sweep of history since the First Zionist Congress in 1897 would have to admit that Israel’s story is extraordinary in every respect. What Theodor Herzl started ultimately transformed the Jewish people from a persecuted and poor minority nearly everywhere that Jews lived into a people with a sovereign homeland that has taken its place among the family of nations. The Zionist movement has also created a strong and confident country of 9 million Israelis rooted in their past, but with an eye toward the future. If the past is any guide, one can only imagine the successes that the country will be celebrating on its 100th anniversary in 25 years. JN

Cliff Savren is a journalist and columnist for the Cleveland Jewish News, our sister publication. Based in Ra’anana, Israel, he is an editor at Haaretz. This story first appeared in the Cleveland Jewish News and is reprinted with permission

Women’s seder

Temple Solel Rabbi Debbie Stiel speaks to participants of the Women’s Seder held before Passover.

Passover prep

Sarah Ettinger preps the matzah balls before Passover 2023.

Family and friends together again

Stacy Hileman Rosenthal took a quick photo of her family seder, celebrating both old and new traditions and recipes, as well as catching up with friends and family after a long winter. “Family and friends are the sweetest ingredients of life!”

Celebrate with charcuterie

Lighting a spark

Pictured from left are Rachel Hoffer, the Center for Jewish Philanthropy of Greater Phoenix's (CJP) board chair; Leah Bold Mondlick; Richard Kasper, CJP’s CEO; and Bryce Schotz. Mondlick received the Lee Amada Young Leadership Award and Schotz received the Sy Clark Young Leadership Award at CJP's campaign breakfast on March 21, for their leadership and dedication to service in the Jewish community.

A special communal seder

Rabbi Aviva Funke led Gesher Disability Resources’ Model Seder this year. Culturally traditional events can be challenging to individuals with special needs. Gesher’s goal is for their participants to review the progression of the seder service and meal, but at their pace.

This COMMUNITY page features photos of community members around the Valley and the world. Submit photos and details each week to editor@jewishaz.com by 10 a.m. Monday.

Pictured from left are Avin Kreisler, Aaron Stein and Elisheva Sherman, who enjoyed Charcuterie Night last month at Chabad at Arizona State University.

Featured Event

SUNDAY, APRIL 30

Israel at 75 Community-wide Celebration:

2-5 p.m. Ina Levine Jewish Community Campus, 12701 N. Scottsdale Road, Scottsdale. Join more than 50 local Jewish organizations for this celebration. Event features food trucks, vendor fair, live music, beer garden, arts & crafts, children’s activities and more. For more information, visit vosjcc.org/program/israel75/.

Events

SUNDAY, APRIL 23

Yom Ha’atzmaut in the Park: 10-11:30 a.m. Location provided after registration. Join the East Valley Jewish Community Center’s Early Learning Center for a Yom Ha’atzmaut event celebrating Israel’s 75th birthday. For more information, visit evjcc.org/ jcommunity.

An Afternoon with Lan and Joy: 2 p.m. Gloria Christi Federated Church, 3535 E. Lincoln Dr., Paradise Valley. Join Beth Ami Temple for a concert featuring violinists Lan Qiu and Joy Pan. Cost: $36 per person. For more information, call 602-956-0805 or visit bethamitemple.org.

Leadership Tea: 3 p.m. Address provided upon registration. Join the Phoenix Women’s Division of American Friends of Magen David Adom for an event featuring Lizzy Savetsky, a social media fashion influencer, who in recent years has taken an active role in speaking out about increasing antisemitism in the United States and throughout the world. Stacie Brockman, an award-winning brand builder, journalist, entrepreneur and investor will serve as the interviewer. Cost: $108 adults, $54 ages under 21. For more information, visit afmda.org/lizzy-arizona.

The Rabbi Slurps Spaghetti: 3:30-5:30 p.m. Pardes Jewish Day School, 12753 N. Scottsdale Road, Scottsdale. Join PJ Library and Pardes Jewish Day school to cheer on your favorite rabbi (or representative) while they slurp up spaghetti for a good cause! Crafts, activities and a spaghetti dinner will be provided. Cost: Free. For more information, visit pardesschool.org/spaghetti-registration/.

MONDAY, APRIL 24

American Jewish Identity in the Age of Mass Migration: 5-6:30 p.m. Virtual. Join ASU Jewish Studies for a presentation by Laura Shaw Frank on marriage in the late 19th and early 20th century and the way Eastern European Jewish immigrants used courtship and marriage to assert their belonging in an era of rising anti-immigrant sentiment and contested notions of citizenship. Cost: Free. For more information, visit jewishstudies.asu.edu.

Yom Hazikaron-Israel Memorial Day: 6:308:30 p.m. Congregation Beth Tefillah, 6529 E. Shea Blvd., Scottsdale. Join Shevet Shemesh for a community observance to honor the lives of Israel’s fallen soldiers and victims of terror. Cost: Free. For more information, visit bit.ly/IsraelMemorialDay2023.

TUESDAY, APRIL 25

Celebrate Chai: 5:15-7 p.m. Ina Levine Jewish Community Campus, 12701 N. Scottsdale Road, Scottsdale. Join the Minkoff Center for Jewish Genetics in celebrating their 18th year in the Valley of the Sun. Learn about their programs and honor the 2021 and 2022 Sherman Minkoff Mensch Award recipients Seymour Rife, MD and Katherine Hunt Brendish, PhD, CGC. Cost: $36. For more informaiton, visit jewishgeneticsaz.org.

THURSDAY, APRIL 27

Year of No Garbage: 4-5:30 p.m. Virtual. Join Brandies National Committee Phoenix Chapter for a virtual book event with author and humorist Eve Schaub dsicussing her forthcoming book, “Year of No Garbage: Recycling Lies, Plastic Problems and One Woman’s Trashy Journey to Zero Waste.” Cost: $18 per family. For more information, visit brandeisphoenix.org.

Investing in your future: 5:30-7 p.m. MEET24, 2398 E. Camelback Road, Phoenix.

Join the Center for Jewish Philanthropy of Greater Phoenix’s Business & Professionals group along with Jewish Free Loan for drinks, networking and a panel discussion on the topic of investing in your future to help set you on a path of financial and philanthropic success in honor of Financial Literacy Month. Cost: $18. For more information, visit phoenixcjp.regfox.com/ investing-in-your-future-bp-event.

SATURDAY, APRIL 29

Wild, Wild West Night: 6:30-10:30 p.m. MacDonald’s Ranch, 26540 N. Scottsdale Road, Scottsdale. Join the Valley of the Sun Jewish Community Center for a BBQ dinner and open bar, country line dancing with the Canyon Walls band, calf roping, axe throwing, custom hattery by the Wild Knox traveling hat bar and more. Must be 21+ to attend. Cost: $100 per person, $185 per couple. For more information, visit vocjcc.org/wildwest.

USY Kid in the Corner Presentation and Pajama Party: 7:30-8:30 p.m. Beth El Congregation, 1118 W. Glendale Ave., Phoenix. Join 6th-12th graders to celebrate Havdalah, nosh on snacks, and paint kindness rocks at this pajama party. The Kid in the Corner organization will give a presentation on the importance of erasing the stigma around mental health and discuss what resources are available. Cost: Free. For more information, visit bethelphoenix.com.

TUESDAY, MAY 2

PAN May Gathering: 4:30-6 p.m. Ina Levine Jewish Community Campus, Social Hall, 12701 N. Scottsdale Road, Scottsdale. Join the Center for Jewish Philanthropy of Greater Phoenix’s Professional Advisory Network for a presentation by Laurie Liles, chief public policy officer at the Alliance of

Arizona Nonprofits and vice president at Arizona Grantmakers Forum for a legislative update and the impact on nonprofits in Arizona. Cost: $18 per person. For more information, contact Rachel Rabinovich at 480481-1785 or rrabinovich@phoenixcjp.org.

Meetings, Lectures, Classes & Ongoing Events

SUNDAYS

B.A.G.E.L.S: 9-11 a.m; last Sunday of the month. Valley of the Sun Jewish Community Center, 12701 N. Scottsdale Road, Scottsdale. Grab a bagel and a cup of coffee at Bagels And Gabbing Every Last Sunday and enjoy some time with your friends and make new ones. You must register to attend. Bagels and coffee will be provided. Cost: Free for members, $5 for guests. For more information and to register, visit vosjcc.org.

Jewish War Veterans Post 210: 10 a.m. Online. Any active duty service member or veteran is welcome to join monthly meetings, every third Sunday. Cost: Free. For more information, email Michael Chambers at c365michael@yahoo.com.

Sundays are for the Family Weekly Feed: 3-5 p.m. Tempe Beach Park, 80 W. Rio Salado Pkwy., Tempe. Join Arizona Jews for Justice and AZ HUGS for the Houseless every Sunday to serve food to those in need. For more information and to RSVP, email Arizonajews4justice@gmail.com.

MONDAYS Ethics of Our Fathers: 7 p.m. Online. Learn with Rabbi Zalman Levertov. Tune in at: bit. ly/2Y0wdgv. Cost: Free. For more information, visit chabadaz.com.

Quotable Quotes by our Sages: 7 p.m. Online. Learn with Rabbi Shlomy Levertov. Tune in at: JewishParadiseValley.com/ class. Cost: Free. For more information, visit chabadaz.com.

Torah & Tea: 7:30 p.m. Online. Learn with Rabbi Yossie Shemtov. Cost: Free. For more information, visit Facebook.com/ChabadTucson.

TUESDAYS

Tuesdays at the J: 10-11:30 a.m. East Valley Jewish Community Center, 908 N. Alma School Road, Chandler. Join individuals and couples age 55 plus for presentations on a variety of topics. Cost: Free; registration required. For more information, visit evjcc. org/tuesdays.

Let’s Knit: 1:30 p.m. Ina Levine Jewish Community Campus, 12701 N. Scottsdale Road,

Scottsdale. Share the pleasure of knitting, crocheting, etc. outside the social hall in the campus. Can’t knit? We can teach you! Every level welcome. Cost: Free. For more information, visit vosjcc.org.

Maintaining an Upbeat Attitude: 7 p.m. Online. A class exclusively for people in their 20s and 30s, learn how Jewish Mysticism can help with your attitude with Rabbi Shlomy Levertov. Cost: Free. Tune in at: JewishParadiseValley.com/YJPclass. For more information, visit chabadaz.com.

WEDNESDAYS

History of the Jews: 11 a.m. Online. Learn the Jewish journey from Genesis to Moshiach with Rabbi Ephraim Zimmerman. Cost: Free. Tune in here: zoom.us/j/736434666. For more information, visit chabadaz.com.

Happiness Hour: 11:30 a.m. Online. Class taught by Rabbi Pinchas Allouche that delves into texts and references culled from our traditions to address a relevant topic. For more information or to join, visit cbtvirtualworld.com.

Torah Study with Chabad: 12 p.m. Online. Take a weekly journey of Torah with Rabbi Yossi Levertov. Cost: Free. For more information, visit chabadaz.com.

Lunch & Learn: 12:15 p.m. Online. Grab some food and learn with Rabbi Yehuda Ceitlin. Cost: Free. Get Zoom link by emailing info@ chabadtucson.com. For more information, visit chabadtucson.com.

Mahjong: 1-3:30 p.m. East Valley Jewish Community Center, 908 N. Alma School Road, Chandler. Come play mahjong each week. For all levels. Free; registration required at evjcc.org/mahjong.

The Thirteen Petalled Rose: 1 p.m. Online. Kabbalah class that studies “The Thirteen Petalled Rose” by Rabbi Adin Even-Israel Steinsaltz, focusing on the many concepts of Kaballah and Jewish Mysticism and applying them to everyday life. For more information or to join, visit cbtvirtualworld.com.

JACS: 7:30-8:30 p.m. Valley of the Sun Jewish Community Center, 12701 N. Scottsdale Road, Scottsdale. In person and via Zoom support group for Jewish alcoholics, addicts and their friends and family on the first and third Wednesdays of the month. Cost: Free. For more information, email jacsarizona@ gmail.com or call 602-692-1004.

THURSDAYS

Storytime at Modern Milk: 9:30 a.m. Modern Milk, 13802 N. Scottsdale Road, #163, Scottsdale. Storytime for babies, toddlers and preschoolers. Integrates children’s books and songs while giving parents new

ideas for play. Cost: $5. For more information and to register, visit modernmilk.com/ after-baby.

Ladies Torah & Tea: 10:30 a.m. Online. Learn about the women of the Torah with Mrs. Leah Levertov. Cost: Free. Tune in at: ourjewishcenter.com/virtual. For more information, visit chabadaz.com.

Talmud - Maakos: 11 a.m. Online. Learn with Rabbi Shlomy Levertov. Cost: Free. Tune in at: JewishParadiseValley.com/YJPclass. For more information, visit chabadaz.com.

The Science of Everything: 4 p.m. Online. Explore the most fundamental work of Chassidut: the Tanya, with Rabbi Boruch. Cost: Free. Tune in at: zoom. us/j/736434666. For more information, visit chabadaz.com.

Teen Discussions: 7-8:30 p.m. Online. Learn with Rabbi Tzvi Rimler. Cost: Free. Tune in at cteen.clickmeeting.com/east-valley. For more information, visit chabadaz.com.

SATURDAYS

Saturday Mindfulness Gatherings: 9:30 a.m. Online. Hosted by Hospice of the Valley. To join by phone, dial 1-253-215-8782, meeting ID 486 920 2119#. To get the Zoom link or for more information, contact Gill Hamilton at ghamilton@hov.org or 602-748-3692.

Middle Eastern Percussion - Beginner Level: 12:45-1:45 p.m. One World Dance and Music Studio, 3312 N. Third St., Phoenix. Learn the fundamentals of Middle Eastern rhythms on tabla/doubek (drum), riq (tambourine) and zills (finger cymbals). Cost: $20 per class. For more information, visit oneworlddanceandmusic.com.

Book Discussion: 1:30-2:30 p.m. Online. Join Or Adam Congregation for Humanistic Judaism on the third Saturday of every month for a book discussion. For more information and to register, contact oradaminfo@gmail.com.

Shabbat

FRIDAYS

Shabbat in the Park: 10-11 a.m. Cactus Park, 7202 E. Cactus Road, Scottsdale. Join the Bureau of Jewish Education of Greater Phoenix monthly for music, parachute play, crafts and a family Shabbat experience. For more information, visit bjephoenix.org.

Welcome Shabbat: 11-11:30 a.m. Online. Celebrate Shabbat with the JFCS Virtual Center for Senior Enrichment. Each week a different guest host will lead the program with song and celebration. Cost: Free. For more information, visit jfcsaz.org/cse.

Shabbat at Beth El: 11-11:45 a.m. Beth El Phoenix, 1118 W. Glendale. Ave., Phoenix. Celebrate Shabbat with songs, blessings and teachings with Rabbi Stein Kokin the first Friday of every month. Special guests will be welcoming Shabbat during the remainder of the month. For more information or to join, visit bethelphoenix.com.

Erev Shabbat Service: 5:30 p.m. Online. Rabbi Alicia Magal will lead a service livestreamed for members of the Jewish Community of Sedona and the Verde Valley. Cost: Free. For more information and to obtain the Zoom link, visit jcsvv.org/contact.

Shabbat Services: 5:30 p.m. nosh, 6:15 p.m. service; morning varying dates and times. Temple Chai, 4645 E. Marilyn Road, Phoenix. For more information, contact Sheana

Abrams at (602) 971-1234 or sabrams@ templechai.com.

Pre-Shabbat Kiddush Club: 6 p.m. Online. Say Kiddush with Rabbi Mendy Levertov. Cost: Free. Tune in here: ourjewishcenter. com/virtual. For more information, visit chabadaz.com.

Shabbat Services: 6 p.m; 9:30 a.m. Congregation Or Tzion, 16415 N. 90th St., Scottsdale. Services are also live streamed at otaz. org/livestream. For more information about services, events and membership, visit congregationortzion.org or call 480-342-8858.

Shabbat Services: 6:15 p.m; 10 a.m. Congregation Beth Israel, 10460 N. 56th St., Scottsdale. Services held in the Goldsmith Sanctuary. Participants must pre-register by Thursday at 5 p.m. Priority will be given to members first and then guests. If there are more requests than available seats a lottery system will be used. For more information or to make a reservation, visit cbiaz.org/ shabbat-services.

Kabbalat Shabbat and/or Shabbat morning service: 6:30 p.m.; 10 a.m.; dates vary. Congregation Kehillah, 5858 E. Dynamite Blvd., Cave Creek. Join Rabbi Bonnie Sharfman and cantorial soloists Erica Erman and Scott Leader either in person or via Zoom. For safety reasons, please register ahead of time. For dates, visit congregationkehillah. org/event/. Register by emailing info@congregationkehillah.org.

Third Friday Shabbat: 7-9 p.m. Group meets at a North Scottsdale location. The Desert Foothills Jewish Community Association hosts a Shabbat service followed by a program. Contact Andrea at 480-664-8847 for more information.

Shabbat Services with Sun Lakes: 7 p.m. Sun Lakes Chapel, 9240 E. Sun Lakes Blvd. North, Sun Lakes. Sun Lakes Jewish Congregation conducts services on the second Friday of the month. For more information, contact 480-612-4413.

Shabbat Services with Beth Ami Temple: 7:30 p.m. Gloria Christi Federated Church, 3535 E. Lincoln Dr., Paradise Valley. Rabbi Alison Lawton and Cantorial Soloist Michael Robbins lead Shabbat services twice a month. For more information, visit bethamitemple.org. JN

ENGAGEMENT

MARISSA BERGGRUN AND SAMUEL SCHIFMAN

Ellen and Paul Schifman of Scottsdale announce the engagement of their son, Samuel Schifman of New York, to Marissa Berggrun of New York.

Parents of the bride-to-be are Michelle Berggrun Daunch and Timothy Daunch (stepfather) of Moreland Hills, Ohio; and Adam Berggrun.

Samuel graduated from Chapman University in 2016. He works as an originator at a commercial real estate debt fund.

Marissa graduated from The Ohio State University in 2016. She works as a marketing supervisor at Publicis Groupe.

The wedding will take place in the summer of 2024. JN

Marissa Arin Friedlander will become a bat mitzvah on April 22, 2023, at Congregation Beth Israel. She is the daughter of Janet Baratz and Robert Friedlander of Scottsdale.

Marissa’s grandparents are Joan Baratz of Paradise Valley, the late Robert Baratz and the late Dan and Shirley Friedlander.

For her mitzvah project, Marissa volunteers in the madrichim program at Congregation Beth Israel. A student at Desert Shadows Middle School, Marissa enjoys wrestling, reading and hanging out with friends. JN

OBITUARY

Susan Jane Goldman of Scottsdale died on April 1, 2023. She was 78. She was born in Cleveland, Ohio. Susan is survived by her daughters Dayna Goldman of North Chicago, Illinois and Jami Goldman of Scottsdale.

A Celebration of Life/Shiva service was held on April 20, 2023 at 10 a.m. at 11112 East Gary Road in Scottsdale. The Celebration of Life/Shiva service will be officiated by Rabbi Jeffrey Schesnol and arranged by Sinai Mortuary of Arizona. Donations in her name can be made to Reading is Fundamental (rif.org).

Mt. Sinai Cemetery

For sale: 1 Companion Plot Solomon Section

Burial plot for 2 people and: Stone Monument, 2 engravings, 2 open and close fees, Concrete vault liner, Full Perpetual care.

Original cost $15,105.79

Will accept best o er. abbey@goldbergaz.net

MARISSA ARIN FRIEDLANDER

BAT MITZVAH