February 6, 2015

Sponsored by the Benjamin and Anna E. Wiesman Family Endowment Fund AN AGENCY OF THE JEWISH FEDERATION OF OMAHA

UNO students fight the bias

February 6, 2015 17 Shevat 5775 Vol. 95 | No. 21

This Week

“All about the people we help”

by SHERRIE SAAG Communications, Jewish Federation of Omaha Our community donors are not lists or numbers or categories to Sharon Kirshenbaum. For Sharon, every donor is an individual whose generous gift to our Federation Annual Campaign is received with gratitude and heartfelt thanks.

Voices from the World Page 5

Martin MacNabb, co-founder, left; Emily Newman, co-founder and co-president; and Joe Willms, co-founder and copresident.

by EMILY NEWMAN For any student who is beginning his or her college career, the task is a daunting one. Meeting your new roommate, getting acquainted with completely new surroundings, all while having to step up to meet the requirements of university-level academics. However, for Jewish students or any others who support Israel, there is a whole other dynamic that can make their experiences at their chosen university even more intimidating. This is the rise of anti-Israel bias and anti-Semitism at universities

Exploring Israel’s ethnic cuisine Page 7

across the United States.

For many students, their support of Israel can create a barrier between themselves and other students, and even at times between them and their professors, due to the influence of anti-Israel bias both in and outside of the classroom. Depending on the university, these students face enormous rallies and protests, petitions placed before their student governments to divest from and boycott Israel, and at the most extreme level they may even face threats to their physical safety.

However, the tides are turning.

Students Supporting Israel (SSI) was founded by Valeria Chazin and Ilan Sinelnikov in March 2012 at the University of Minnesota in response to the anti-Israel bias they faced as both Israeli and Jewish students. Their message and desire was clear: to create a clear and confident Pro-Israel voice on college campuses, and to support students in grassroots ProIsrael activity.

Although the road has been a rough one for many of the new chapters Continued on page 3

Dorothy Kaplan Book Discussion Group Surviviors return to Auschwitz Page 12

Inside Point of view Synagogues In memoriam

This Month Non Profits See Front Page stories and more at: www.jewishomaha.org, click on Jewish Press

8 10 11

by MARK KIRCHHOFF Center for Jewish Life The Dorothy Kaplan Book Discussion Group has made its book selections for the next four months. The selections cover a variety of topics sure to elicit lively, thoughtful discussion. All meetings of the group are on the third Thursday of the month from 1 p.m. to 2 p.m. in the Kripke Jewish Federation Library. The group always welcomes new members.

The Feb. 19 selection is An Available Man by Hilma Wolitzer. In this tender and funny novel, when Edward Schuyler, a modest and bookish sixty-two-yearold science teacher is widowed, he finds himself ambushed by female at-

tention. There are plenty of unattached w o m e n around and a h e a l t hy, handsome, available man is a

rare and desirable creature.

Edward receives phone calls from widows seeking love or, at least, lu n ch , while well-meaning friends try to set him up at dinner parties. Even an attractive married neighbor offers herself to him.

What man wouldn’t enjoy such attention? Edward doesn’t. He doesn’t feel available. He is still mourning his beloved wife Bee and prefers solitude and the familiar routine of work, gar-

dening, and bird-watching. When his stepchildren prepare a surprise for him, Edward’s inner struggle intensifies. As the story unfolds, Edward experiences encounters that are startling, comical and sad. Just when he thinks he has the game figured out, something happens that changes his life again.

Until We Meet Again: A True Story of Love and Survival in the Holocaust by Michael Korenblit and Kathleen Janger will be the book discussed at the March 19 meeting. The year is 1942. The place is a small town in Poland. The people are two Jewish families fleeing in hopes of evading deportation by the Nazis. At the last moment, 17-year old Manya makes the heartwrenching decision to leave her family and join her sweetheart Meyer, also 17, with his family. For three long years, Manya and Meyer endure the loss of their parents and siblings, separation from each other, and the horror of the concentration camps, including Auschwitz. At various Continued on page 2

Sharon Kirshenbaum After twenty years as a Jewish Federation of Omaha fundraising professional, Sharon is closing the chapter on her communal career on Feb. 12.

Her knowledge of our donor base is vast and, quite frankly, mind-boggling; and it has been a major factor in her success as a Campaign fundraiser. Without benefit of personal notes or computer printouts, Kirshenbaum can recite a donor’s sisters, brothers, children, even grandchildren.

She knows where they work or what business they are in, who they play Mahjongg or Bridge with, whom they socialize with and where they head for the winter months. She knows which donors are neighbors, who has significant wedding anniversaries and even who they kibitz (Yiddish for talking) with while exercising at the J. Those of us who are office “newbies” in comparison, marvel at the sheer volume of information Sharon accesses to succeed at her job.

Friend and community leader Murray Newman expressed surprise at the 20 year anniversary mark. “It seems like yesterday when Sharon and (husband) Jeff moved back to Omaha. She was a young bride then and I still think of her that way, except they have a daughter in college! To me, Sharon and the ‘Campaign’ have become synonymous. She was meticulous in her attention to detail and follow through and had a gentle touch when making that difficult ask.”

“Whether it was recruiting workers or handling a difficult solicitation, Sharon was superbly professional. Who possibly could Continued on page 3

2 | The Jewish Press | February 6, 2015

Dorothy Kaplan Book Discussion Group

Continued from page 1 times they are helped by Polish Catholics. They are constantly sustained by their faith and their love for each other. Co-authored by the couple’s son Michael, this absorbing and suspenseful narrative reads like a novel, yet tells a true story of love and horror, sacrifice and courage, with a conclusion that is truly miraculous. Of particular interest with the March selection of Until We Meet Again... is that Mr. Korenbilt will be the speaker for Omaha’s Yom HaShoah Commemoration Service on April 15 at Beth El Synagogue. Liz Feldstern, Executive Director of the Institute for Holocaust Education will join the group for the March discussion.

Assaf Gavron, the Schusterman Scholar with the Schwalb Center at UNO, will lead the discussion of his book, Almost Dead at the April 16 meeting. The novel tells the story of a thirty-something Tel Aviv businessman Eitan “Croc” Einoch whose life is turned upside down when he narrowly escapes a suicide bombing on the minibus he rides to work. When he survives a second and third attack he becomes a reluctant media celebrity. The Palestinian terrorists responsible for the attacks are less than happy. This

embarrassing symbol of their failure must be neutralized.

Meanwhile, Fahmi Sabih, the young Palestinian suicide bomber, lies in a coma, quarrelling with his conscience. He has learned everything he knows about bombs, targets, and revenge from his brother. So why has Einoch survived?

As Fahmi’s story unfolds, it becomes clear that their paths are destined to cross again – for there is another bombing still to come. Luck will change drastically for one or both of them.

But who, if anyone, has right on his side?

Kate Taylor’s A Man in Uniform will be the selection for May 21. At the height of the Belle Epoque, a period in the late 19th century characterized by optimism, peace, the flourishing of art and the growth of technology in Europe before the horrors of World War I, François Dubon is leading a well-ordered life in the bourgeois quarters of Paris’ eighth district. He enjoys a prosper-

ous legal practice and is content with marriage to his aristocratic wife Geneviève and satisfying afternoon encounters with his mistress, Madeleine. He is never late for those five o’clock appointments nor for family dinner at seven – until a mysterious widow comes to his office with an unusual request.

The lady insists that only Dubon can save her innocent friend, an Army captain named Dreyfus who was convicted of spying and exiled to Devil’s Island two years earlier. Not wishing to disappoint the alluring widow, the gallant Dubon makes some perfunctory inquiries. But when he discovers the existence of a secret military file withheld from the defense during the trial, he embarks on an obsessive pursuit of justice that upends his complacent life.

Donning a borrowed military uniform, Dubon goes undercover into the murky world of counterespionage where his erratic hours alarm his forbidding wife and make his mistress increasingly aloof. As the layers of deceit and double crosses mount, Dubon’s quixotic quest threatens to throw France itself into turmoil. A Man in Uniform is a gripping mystery with nuances in the plot worthy of discussion.

The Dorothy Kaplan Book Discussion Group has been in continuous existence since its inception on Nov. 15, 1979 and continues to meet in the Kripke Jewish Federation Library from 1–2 p.m. on the third Thursday of each month.

The group receives organizational support through the Center for Jewish Life whose mission is to maximize involvement of Omaha’s Jewish community in imaginative, compelling and meaningful Jewish experiences. For questions and information about obtaining books, contact Shirly Banner at 402.334.6462 or sbanner@jewishomaha.org.

Making more memories

by MARCIA KUSHNER They came for a game of Hearts on Wednesday, Jan. 21, to once again renew a tradition from their teen years.

Michael Kushner came from Oakland, CA, Rabbi Morris Allen from Mendota Heights, MN, and Cantor Mark Kushner from Philadelphia, PA. They came to play the card game at the home of Richard Evnen in Lincoln.

The men had played countless games of Hearts as teens in Lincoln. They played relentless basketball at Tiferith Israel, too, occasionally joined by Rabbi Waldman, who was a good athlete.

Mark and Richard Kushner were born in Lincoln and played together throughout their earliest years. Mark’s cousin Mike came to Lincoln with his family when he was 7 years old in 1962, and joined the boys. By 1965, 10-yearold Morris had moved to Lincoln with his family and became part of the gang.

They were all in Hebrew school together and prepared

for their Bar Mitzvahs in 1968. The boys were devoted USY members. They attended Camp Ramah and went to Southeast High School. After going off to different colleges, only Richard returned to make his life in Lincoln.

In 2005, as they were all turning 50, they came together for a game of Hearts. This year, they will be 60, and they returned again for a commemorative game of Hearts.

Richard prepared a dinner party for the men, as well as two of the wives and family members who were in town. It was a marvelous meal, with stories their parents had never heard: how they harassed the girl who played French horn with Mike and Mark in the high school orchestra, and how they tormented their Hebrew school teacher, Cantor Levinson. They remembered experiences as new drivers.

After an amazing dessert – a six-layer chocolate cake baked

by Richard – the wives and family members left.

Then the boys began to play cards, reminisce and catch up. Historically, Morris never – but NEVER – won at

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Michael Kushner, Cantor Mark Kushner, Rabbi Morris Allen and Richard Evnen.

Hearts. He had commented earlier in the evening that no one else had to bring money to the game – only he needed to. So this night went. At the end of the night, Morris won!

He was so thrilled that he texted his wife.

The men found the old bonds still strong. They will meet again. Richard thinks they will play on a five-year reunion.

Ten is too long.

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Encourage others (current or former students, parents, teachers) to do so also.

A teacher who was nominated in the past, but not selected, can be nominated again. Only an update is needed.

Send your letter by March 2 to Janet Henthorn at the Jewish Federation of Omaha Foundation, 333 So. 132nd St., Omaha, NE 68154 or jhenthorn@jewishomaha.org.

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February 6, 2015 | The Jewish Press | 3

Sidelines

by MURIEL (MICKEY) GREENBERG Editor’s note: the following column was published in The Jewish Press of April 20, 1973. We are reprinting it in honor of Mickey Greenberg, who passed away on Jan. 20.

Mickey was editor of this paper from 1963-1974.

One of the real rewards of writing a column like this is the knowledge that you sit in a position of power -- that your ideas reach the great reading public -- that your words serve to influence the thinking and the actions of the masses.

I didn’t need vice president Agnew to tell me about the power of the press. I have my own spectacular record to testify to the overwhelming influence I exert.

Remember when I started a campaign in this column to bring back the fat woman? In the months that followed, Weight Watchers recorded unprecedented increases in Muriel “Mickey� Greenberg enrollment!

Remember when I denounced Arthur Godfrey? In the months that followed, his popularity soared!

And now, I’ve done it again.

Last year, after the annual meeting of the Omaha Jewish Federation, I wrote a courageous column, which was somewhat critical of Federation.

While the Jewish Press tries to maintain an independent editorial policy, the fact of the matter is, the Federation is the publisher, and it takes a bit of chutzpah for an employee to be critical of the boss, and in print at that.

But I did it. Crusader that I am, I put my criticisms in print along with my suggestions for improvements. I really believed in my power to “influence the thinking and actions of the masses.�

Among my criticisms of last year’s annual meeting were: 1)

all the committee reports were made by men. I wrote: “It seems to me that there are many capable women in the community whose talents are not being used. I would hope that the Federation leadership considers this in the years to come.�

Result of that crusading suggestion: at this year’s annual meeting the eight people at the speaker’s table were all male!

2) Last year I was very critical of the method of electing members to the Executive Committee. I noted that nominations made from the floor were not representative of the entire community; that more attention should be paid to the qualifications of members of the board and that a better way should be devised for the election.

Here my success was even more spectacular. The election this year was held in the same way as last year, with nominations from the floor. Last year, however, 14 nominations were made from the floor and there was an indication that some pre-thinking had been done before the nominations were made. This year, only nine nominations were made and I had the feeling that many were spur of the moment suggestions.

There really has to be a better way.

Now for a few observations about this year’s meeting.

(Listen, when you sit in a powerful position of influence like I do, you have to continue to influence.)

I know the difficulties of scheduling meetings, but surely a better time could have been picked than the night before the first seder. The timing of the meeting immediately excluded any number of women who would have come if not faced with the pressing kitchen chores of the night before Passover.

Observation 2. Once again, in deference to the 20-40 age group who objected to the expense of a dinner meeting, the dinner portion of the meeting was dropped. Once again, in spite of this concession, very few of that age group were present at the meeting.

Observation 3. Federation leadership can’t be blamed for everything. Critical as I am about the way the members are elected to the Executive Committee, it is the easiest way for the vocal “anti-establishment� members of the community to get into positions of power. But where were they?

Continued on page 6

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ten, to try to understand donors, their needs and what part of the Federation’s mission is important to them,� she explained.

Jan Schneiderman, Lion Chair for the 2015 Annual Campaign has high praise for Sharon. “I have worked with Sharon off and on over the years. She was always on top of every issue and every need to make our Campaign successful. If she didn’t have an answer to a question or a concern, she knew how to get the answer through her many connections in the Federation world. She was a joy to work with and our Campaign’s success over the years is due to her extraordinary efforts.�

Every gift to our community Annual Campaign is measurable and every gift matters. Together... We are Family and together we will recognize Sharon’s many years of service at a community gathering on Tuesday, Feb. 10 at 2 p.m. in the Auditorium on the Federation campus. The entire community is invited to join us as we convey our best wishes to her.

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Sharon Kirshenbaum

Continued from page 1 ever say ‘no’ to Sharon Kirshenbaum? The community and the Federation will miss Sharon’s dedication,� Newman said.

Like almost everyone I spoke to, community volunteer Dana Kaufman is both friend and valued donor to Sharon and she remarked, “Her welcoming spirit, kind heart, dedication to the Federation and compassion for others will be missed. I am humbled by her service and proud of all she has accomplished on our behalf. She is a pillar of our community and I am honored to call her my friend.�

Her colleagues uniformly describe Sharon as warm and gracious to every donor. To the donor who walks into the office, every year without fail, to deliver a $10 gift and to those with greater means who donate upwards of five figures and more. Everyone is treated with the same kindness, compassion and respect that are the hallmarks of a successful Campaign professional.

Chief Development Officer Marty Ricks adds, “Sharon has been a valuable member of our Fundraising team and guided the Campaign process with professionalism, strong donor cultivation and dedication to volunteer involvement. She encouraged leadership growth through the Jewish Omaha Leadership Training (JOLT) in years past and always engaged with volunteers in a positive manner. She’s taught me a great deal about Campaign administration and with her guidance, our last two Annual Campaigns have had significant increases.�

According to Sharon, her time at the JFO is “all because of Jan Goldstein. I was an economics major working for First National Bank and she was awarded a grant to begin a Young Leadership program.� Many donor programs and missions followed over the years. “I met Sharon when she and Jeff traveled to Israel on a Federation Young Leadership Trip in the early 90’s, when she had just recently arrived from New York City. Sharon became an Omahan from the get-go. She is as dedicated to this community and worldwide Jewry as she is to her family and friends,� said Goldstein.

She added, “This community was fortunate to have Sharon Kirshenbaum building and enriching our resources for all these years.�

Sharon points to community as the reason for her longevity at the JFO. “We get a front row seat to all the amazing things our donor dollars do to help Jews everywhere. Our Annual Campaign is not about me or any single professional; it’s about all the people we help.�

Her advice would be to keep listening to community members. “To work in fundraising, you have to be willing to lis-

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Continued from page 1 that have been founded since March 2012, SSI has continued to push through and grow. As of Jan. 28, 2015 there have been 29 chapters of SSI founded across the United States and Canada. There are chapters at both the high school and university levels, all giving students a place to come together in their support of Israel.

The University of Nebraska Omaha will be home to the 21st Chapter of SSI. The Co-Presidents, Emily Newman and Joe Willms and the Co-Founders Natasha Fields and Martin MacNabb are excited to be bringing a Pro-Israel voice to campus, to bring about open and healthy debate, and to provide a safe place for students who support Israel to meet each other. We hope to educate the future leaders of UNO’s campus and our community to be both supportive of Israel’s right to exist and to be more knowledgeable about current Middle Eastern affairs.

In the future, we hope to see SSI UNO grow to include a large and diverse Pro-Israel community and to foster and encourage intellectual discussion regarding the Jewish State, the State of Israel.

For further information, please like and visit our Facebook page and email us at ssisrael.omaha@ gmail.com. You can also gain more information about SSI as a whole at www.ssimovement.org.

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4 | The Jewish Press | February 6, 2015

Is Rahat the Ferguson of Israel?

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by BEN SALES TEL AVIV (JTA) -- In an economically depressed town populated largely by a minority group, a young man is killed by police under disputed circumstances. In the days that follow, riots consume the town, pitting frustrated and angry residents against the police, who maintain the officer acted in self-defense. But activists say the incident shines a light on structural racism that has led to a pattern of police brutality against minorities.

sought to relocate thousands of Bedouins from unrecognized villages surrounding Rahat, though the plan was shelved amid protests from lawmakers.

“The tension between the state and Arab citizens, and specifically with the Bedouins, means that any small trigger leads to a crisis like what occurred,” said Amir Fuchs, a research fellow at the Israel Democracy Institute. “Arabs here feel tension with the state. They claim that the state chases them.”

Rahat residents protested al-Ja’ar’s death,

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Protesters clashing with Israeli police following the funeral of Sami al-Ja’ar in Rahat, in southern Israel, Jan. 18, 2015.

Credit: Activestills.org Sound familiar?

The death of a young Arab man this month in the Bedouin city of Rahat carries several parallels to the shooting last year of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo., which ignited widespread protests across the United States. In both cases, the deaths set off violent clashes fueled partly by deep-seated resentment among a disadvantaged minority population.

“What’s similar is that the police -- the government body -- is working with an excess of power toward minorities,” said Thabet Abu Rass, co-executive director of the Abraham Fund Initiatives, a JewishArab organization that runs cultural sensitivity workshops for Israeli police. “The two circumstances have the same result, with the death of two people. That’s no small thing.”

On Jan. 15, Sami al-Ja’ar, 20, was shot and killed during what police say was a drug search. Police said al-Ja’ar was caught in the line of fire in a shootout between police and the drug suspects, and that it’s unclear whose gun fired the fatal shot.

But Mossawa, an Israeli nongovernmental organization that advocates for Arab rights, said al-Ja’ar was not involved in the drug search and was killed while returning from work. Mossawa claims that police fired at alJa’ar on his doorstep with intent to kill.

Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said the Israeli Justice Ministry is investigating.

As with African-Americans in Ferguson, Arab-Israelis have a tense relationship with police, fewer than 2 percent of whose officers were Arab as of 2010. Arab-Israelis make up 20 percent of Israel’s population.

Al-Ja’ar’s death also struck a nerve among Negev Bedouins, who harbor distrust toward the state born of a longstanding fight over land rights. In 2013, the government

leading to clashes with police at his funeral in which another Bedouin man, Sami Ziadna, 43, died. Rosenfeld said police came under attack at the funeral and that Ziadna died of a heart attack amid the unrest. But Mossawa said the police provoked the mourners, using tear gas, sound grenades and live fire when funeral attendees protested their presence.

Mossawa has counted 50 Arab-Israelis killed by police since 2000. The organization’s director, Jafar Farah, said in a statement after the al-Ja’ar funeral that “this police brutality is a shame to democracy.”

Rosenfeld said the protests in Rahat have dissipated and that the police are strengthening their contacts with local leaders. But Bedouin resentment toward Israeli authorities is unlikely to be ameliorated by an outreach campaign. A proposed bill defining Israel as a Jewish state and gaps in funding between Jewish and Arab cities, among other things, have led to a sense of disenfranchisement among Israel’s Arab minority.

Though it was built to help transition Bedouins from a nomadic to a modern way of life, Rahat today is a dusty and dilapidated town that ranks as one of Israel’s poorest municipalities. During this summer’s Gaza war, officials there complained of a dire lack of bomb shelters to protect against incoming rockets.

While many older Bedouins served in the Israeli military, younger Bedouins have told JTA that they don’t feel they belong to the state.

“The Arab public finds itself in despair from the amount of racist incitement and racist attacks that exist,” Farah told JTA in October. “We don’t see an economic future, a diplomatic future.”

Arts+Entertainment Greenblatt & Seay’s Schoolhouse Performance Series features a concert of Irish music on Sunday, March 15, at 2:30 p.m., in the Old Avoca, Nebraska Schoolhouse. Greenblatt & Seay will be singing and playing a variety of instruments, including fiddle, pennywhistle, folk harp, guitar, hammered dulcimer, and recorders.

Traditional Irish tunes will be featured, along with some Greenblatt & Seay originals

inspired by the great Irish traditions.

The concert will be followed by light refreshments, and a chance to chat and even jam with the performers.

Admission is $10 for adults, $5 for students and senior citizens, and $1 for children. Seating is limited.For more information, call 402.275.3221 or e-mail debby@ greenblattand seay.com.

February 6, 2015 | The Jewish Press | 5

Eye on Israel to focus on Voices from the World

by ELIAD ELIYAHU BEN SHUSHAN Community Shaliach During Operation Protective Edge, I was asked, by the Jewish Agency that, as a religious shaliach to wear a hat instead of a kippah in airports. This was only one of the security requirements I needed to follow during that time, because of the sensitive situation which was caused by the operation in Gaza. Many of my friends in different communities in the USA shared with me the same feeling of being hyper-sensitive and paying extra attention to details to protect ourselves from any anti-Semitic incidents. My friends, who are shlichim in different places in the world, shared with me via WhatsApp and Facebook a variety of unpleasant situations such as the pro-Palestinian demonstrations on campuses, a synagogue in Paris which was surrounded by radical Muslims, and an Israeli flag being burned in the streets of Budapest, Hungary while chants of “Death to all Jews” spread in the air.

Being a Jew and experiencing Judaism is so different from one country to another. Although it seems like we all have the same destiny, when something radical happens in Israel like a war, terror attack or an operation, we all fear the same old anti-Semitism issues will occur.

Three years ago, I led a mission of young adults from Israel to our Partnership2GETHER communities in the USA and Budapest, Hungary. We spent so much time together, in the bus, in the youth hostel, traveling the Western Galilee together and we got to know one another well. Although there are many cultural gaps, we achieved a good level of openness. My strongest memory from this mission was the shock the Israeli and American participants had when they heard the group members from Budapest sharing stories from their lives. They talked about hiding their identity, walking in fear in parts of the neighborhoods, and the constant worry about the future, where the support for the anti-Semitic parties is constantly increasing.

When you know someone personally, it changes the entire picture. Thinking about my friends in Europe is maybe the same feeling my American friends feel towards me when I am in Israel during wars, operations or any kind of terror attack. This feeling of sorrow and unity was very strong three weeks ago when we heard the sad news of four Jews who were murdered by a radical Muslim in the kosher grocery in Paris. It was the same feeling I have when I hear about the increased anti-Semitism in Budapest or the terror attack in Sydney, Australia. When you know someone in person and then learn the facts of an event, you can easily live their story, their fear and their hope.

I invite you to the next session of Eye on Israel to hear personal voices from different Jewish communities in the world. Eye on Israel will take place on Tuesday, Feb. 10 at noon-1 p.m. in the Kripke Jewish Federation Library. You will have the opportunity to meet, via Skype, three of my friends who will share personal stories about life in their

Jewish communities. We will meet three of my friends – one from Paris, France; one from Budapest, Hungary; and one from Sydney, Australia. Meeting them and hearing their voices will give you a stronger understanding of the current Jewish challenges all around the world providing a more personal connection.

Eye on Israel and the Community Shaliach program are offered through the Center for Jewish Life whose mission it is to maximize involvement of Omaha’s Jewish community in imaginative, compelling and meaningful Jewish experiences. For more information, please call 402.334.6463 or email mkirchhoff@jewishomaha.org.

Temple Israel Caring Committee news

by SCOTT LITTKY Program Director, Temple Israel In Torah we have a statement made by Cain, “I’m my brother’s keeper.” Over time, we as Jews have thought much about the meaning and purpose of the statement. In the late 1980’s and early 1990’s the Omaha Jewish community gathered together and helped bring Jews from the former Soviet Union to live as free Jews here in Omaha. For all who were involved, it was an amazingly rewarding experience. Over the years, the Caring Committee of Temple Israel has asked itself, “What does our Jewish community need now and what direction are we going.” This is not always easy to define or to implement.

In early February, the Chair of our Caring Committee, Amy Rabinovitz, will be attending the Wise Aging Program of the Institute for Jewish Spirituality in Kansas City. The program provides resources and trains leaders for small groups of older people who come together to learn, share experiences and acquire skills for making changes in their lives that will lead to a deeper sense of well-being. The Institute has developed two major resources for use in the groups: Wise Aging: Living with Joy, Resilience, and Spirit, a book for participants published by Behrman House; and a Facilitator’s Guide for Institutetrained facilitators to lead Wise Aging groups.

The primary vehicle for Wise Aging’s exploration of this stage of life is peer groups led by trained facilitators who structure sessions based on Wise Aging resources. Topics

include coming to understand what is special about this stage of life; life review; becoming one’s authentic self; developing a positive relationship to our changing bodies; revitalizing and nourishing healthy relationships; cultivating qualities of soul; practicing forgiveness; learning to live with loss, change and death; cultivating wisdom; and leaving a legacy. Participants are guided through reflective work that enables them to come to new understandings about their lives, selves and values. Learning includes text study, active listening, exercises, reflection and journaling. Participants in pilot groups have called the experience transformative, as they see their fear of aging become eagerness to embrace the challenges and possibilities of the years ahead.

The interactive training programs focus on issues of aging and on the methodology and pedagogy that underlie the leading of the Wise Aging peer groups. They introduce facilitators to the core components of the program: the use of Jewish texts and other sources of spiritual wisdom to deepen insight into growing older; forms of active listening and contemplative speech to create a safe environment for personal exploration; mindfulness practices to help participants deepen and integrate their insights. Sessions include model workshops and practice teaching. When Mrs. Rabinovitz returns from the training, it is the goal of the Caring Committee to enact what she has learned by forming our own Wise Aging group. Stay tuned for more details.

Full Time Elementary Teacher 2015-16

Due to a retirement, Friedel Jewish Academy is seeking applications for an elementary teaching position for the 2015-16 school year. Friedel Academy is a K-6 private community day school fully approved by the state of Nebraska. All applicants must hold a valid elementary teaching certificate. This individual will exhibit skills pertinent to foster positive human relationships and the ability to work effectively with students, staff, parents and the community.

This individual will exhibit strong standards of professional ethics.

Email all resumes and inquiries to friedelacademy@fjaomaha.com.

Omaha, Nebraska

Please join us to Honor and Thank

Sharon Kirshenbaum for 20 years as a Federation professional, valued colleague and treasured friend to the Omaha Jewish Community Dessert Reception Tuesday, February 10 | 2 p.m. | JCC Auditorium

6 | The Jewish Press | February 6, 2015

Dear Editor

by ANNETTE VAN DE KAMP-WRIGHT al column.”

Jewish Press Editor In May of 2014, Debra Rich Gettleman “It’s difficult to project,” Mickey Greenberg wrote about Mickey for Arizona Jewish Life, wrote not long ago, “when you will be reading which published short columns by Mickey this and what preceded ‘the end.’ Did I die from time to time. peacefully? Were my loved “Mickey appreciates life ones there? I’ve always been and every individual who curious about my funeral. I crosses her path,” Gettleman wish I knew who came, who wrote. “Walking through her spoke, who cried. I’ll never tastefully decorated know -- because I’m dead Scottsdale home, one is and I had to die before there struck by the photos of was a funeral. It would cerMickey with renowned tainly be embarrassing if no political figures such as LBJ one came.” and David Ben-Gurion. But Mickey was the editor of it isn’t until we wander The Jewish Press for over a through the kitchen that decade. Before she became Mickey shows me the phothe editor, she worked in tos that make her the proudadvertising; afterwards, she est. The walls are adorned went on to become a Vice with photos of her kids, President at a major savings their children and her greatMickey Greenberg and loan institution. With grandchildren. ‘Every time I her first husband, Robert Gerelick, she had look at them,’ Mickey tells me, ‘I say to three children: Howard, Jerry and Marcia. myself: that couldn’t have happened without “In the past week,” they said, “we have me.’ Mickey is truly an extraordinary heard from so many people offering warm woman who’s led an extraordinary life.” and kind memories of our mother, how she That life also had quite an impact on the was a role model to so many. She was cer- Omaha Jewish community, her children say: tainly ahead of her time, as a professional “It was profound because it spanned difcareer woman while the younger generation ferent generations. She always had a unique was still testing the waters.” way with kids and teens and connected with What comes across when you read them through her work as a youth group Mickey’s writing, of which there is plenty, is advisor and Sunday school teacher.” her directness. That, and she was funny, Always the writer, Mickey toyed with the irreverent and incredibly sharp. An editor idea of composing her own eulogy. Her colneeds to have a straight spine and broad umn, Thoughts on Dying, was read at her shoulders, and Mickey certianly seems to memorial service. In it, she confessed her have had both. hesitation. It is, as so much of the writing “Of her three careers, her favorite was by she did in this paper, a combination of solid far being the editor of The Jewish Press,” her insight and thinking out loud: children stated. “It may not at the time have “What if no one else sees me as I see been intended to be such a “big deal,” but myself? What if no one would want to read she took on the position, and we think she a eulogy I wrote for myself? On the other was proud that she was so instrumental in hand, if I’m dead, what’s the difference? Like making The Jewish Press a ‘must read’ each everything else, I probably won’t get it finweek, particularly her Sidelines column.” ished before I die. There is something to be Mickey’s Sidelines were a weekly staple; in said for procrastination. If I could only proit she addressed a wide variety of issues. She crastinate my dying!” did not shy away from controversy, regularly A little jarring, maybe, that voice from inspiring community members to write let- beyond the grave. Yet, at the same time it is ter after letter. Sometimes they cheered her highly appropriate, that a woman like on, sometimes they were critical; in either Mickey leaves behind these powerful words case, her writing was not ignored. As is evi- for family and friends. That her words end dent in the opening paragraph of this article, up being read at the funeral, and may inspire Mickey’s words jump off the page and grab readers of this paper one last time would you, even now, long after she wrote them. have pleased her, I hope. And so, we’ll give Mickey’s friend Silvia Roffman remem- Mickey the last words: bers: “Readers enjoyed Mickey’s sense of “In case I don’t get to the eulogy, I do want humor which was apparent in a number of it known that I’m sorry I died -- but I’m glad timely topics she wrote about in her person- that I lived.”

Joel Grey comes out at 82

by JULIE WIENER Among the more incongruous ones, given NEW YORK (JTA) -- It’s no longer sur- his Jewish background: Joseph Goebbels in prising for a prominent actor to come out The Empty Mirror (1996), Ghost of publicly as gay.

What is a little surprising, however, is when he does so at age 82.

Joel Grey -- whose illustrious career includes winning an Academy Award, Tony Award and Golden Globe Award, all for playing the master of ceremonies in Cabaret -- came out Wednesday in an exclusive interview with People magazine.

“I don’t like labels,” he told the magazine, “but if you have to put a label on it, I’m a gay man.”

Grey, who was married to actress Jo Wilder for 24 years and is the father of actress Jennifer Grey, was already out to friends and family, Joel Grey and daughter Jennifer Grey attend the but had not spoken publicly about Trust Me world premiere, April 20, 2013 in New York City. his sexuality.

Credit: Michael Loccisano/Getty Images for Grey’s original surname was Tribeca Film Festival Katz, and his father, Mickey Katz, was also an actor. In the People interview, Christmas Past in A Christmas Carol he recalled growing up in Cleveland and (1999) and the narrator in Twas the Night “hearing the grownups talk in the next Before Christmas (1974). room, my mother included, talking deriHis CV includes some Jewish roles as sively about ‘fairies’...” well, however: in 1994, he appeared in the In addition to his award-winning show Borscht Capades, which the Cabaret performances, Grey, who is also a Philadelphia Inquirer described as a “kind photographer with three books of photo- of a Yiddish vaudeville.” And while he may graphs and a Museum of the City of New not be a Jewish doctor, he’s played them on York exhibit to his credit, has played a wide TV, including Jude Bar-Shalom on Brothers range of roles for stage, film and television. & Sisters and Dr. Singer on Grey’s Anatomy.

Sidelines Continued from page 3 I’m really very tired of hearing people say that only the elite can get on the Federation board. It just isn’t true. With a little organized effort, anyone could have been elected to the board last Sunday. So those who didn’t show up last Sunday to have a voice in the elections really have no grounds to complain.

And some very positive observations.

Last year there were serious doubts voiced that the money could be raised for the new Jewish Community Center, and that the dream of a new Center would have to remain a dream.

Sunday night we heard Dan Katzman tell us that not only was the money being raised as expected, but that next year the annual meeting would be held in the new building!

Last year Chuck Monasee announced that new additions to the JCC staff were being considered.

Sunday evening four of those new staff members were introduced.

It seems that in spite of all the mistakes we make; in spite of all the criticisms; we have what it takes to move this Jewish community forward.

Just think what great strikes we could make if everyone would realize the power of the press and act on all the profound suggestions I make.

It will be interesting to say what observations I make about the Federation annual meeting next year, that is, if I’m still editor next year, after this column.

Just in case, does anyone have a job for an aspiring crusader?

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February 6, 2015 | The Jewish Press | 7

Exploring Israel’s ‘ethnic’ cuisine

by AMY KLEIN (JTA) -- From Givatayim’s renowned Sabich Shel Oved – a simple eggplant-sandwich shop with lines snaking around the corner -- to lesserknown places like Chachaporia Georgian cuisine in Jerusalem, the new ebook Israel’s Top 100 Ethnic Restaurants provides the English-speaking tourist a window into the delectable, folksy Israeli foods that locals have raved about for years.

Israel has been on the culinary ascent of late, with dozens of food blogs, new high-end restaurants, cooking shows and celebrity chefs, and a fascination with everything foodie. But there’s no need for catchphrases like “local” and “fresh” in a place CHIRSHI famed for its bountiful pro(Spicy Tripolitan Pumpkin Paste) duce piled high in open-air markets, from Tel Aviv’s Chirshi is a well-seasoned Libyan pumpkin paste tradiCarmel Market to Mahane tionally served as an appetizer accompanied by thick Yehuda in Jerusalem. slices of simple challah bread. The secret of this dish is to As noted in the book, maintain the incandescence of the pumpkin by avoiding which was published by The overcooking or overseasoning it -- but seasoning should World Jewish Heritage, a nonetheless be applied generously to the dish, as we are nonprofit that promotes ardent supporters of dominant flavors. Therefore, tourism to heritage sites, both although normal quantities in Israeli cuisine are of rather markets also house restau- flexible nature (for Israelis are notoriously disobedient), it rants and after-hour bars in is important to strictly follow the quantities and preparaaddition to the daily fruit, tion instructions provided in this recipe. vegetables and tchochkes they Ingredients: cacophonously hawk.

3 cups fresh pumpkin, diced Many of the tastiest morsels 1 sweet potato, peeled and chopped aren’t served up in white-cloth 3 carrots, peeled and chopped establishments or by rising 4 garlic cloves, finely chopped stars. Rather they are offered 1 tablespoon hot paprika at nondescript holes in the 2 tablespoons ground caraway seeds (necessary!!) wall and unadorned booths Salt by old-school traditionalists, Juice squeezed from one lemon like Savta Eva on Allenby 6 tablespoons olive oil Street in Tel Aviv, serving clas- Preparation: sic Ashkenazi fare such as 1. Cook pumpkin, sweet potato and carrots in boiling chicken soup with matzah water until carrots are soft and let rest in the colander to balls and farfel, or Rita get rid of any excess water.

Romano of the Libyan buffet 2. Roughly mash the vegetables using a fork (not a food at Rita’s Kitchen in Herzliya. processor!) together with the remaining ingredients.

That raises the question, Leave a few chunks. what exactly is Israeli ethnic 3. Taste and adjust seasoning. food?

4. Serve hot or cold with plenty of fresh bread.

“It’s Moroccan, Russian, Polish, Bukharian, Ethiopian, Syrian, lumped together under one heading the way Lebanese -- you name it,” says famed Israeli the variegated Mizrahi and Arab cultures food critic, TV personality and chef Gil are often termed “Sephardic” in America. A Hovav, who served as a consultant on the number of hummusiyot -- hummus joints book. In the foreword, he writes, “While ter- - are featured in every section, from roir may be too big a word to apply to Israeli Hummus Ashkara in Tel Aviv to Pinati in street food, we are definitely loyal to what- Jerusalem. But you’d probably need another ever grows in our sun-drenched part of the whole e-book just for the chickpea spread world, where everything seems to be in sea- alone, which when it comes to “the best” engenders fierce debates as heated as any in son all year round.”

At a book launch event this month at Israeli the Middle East.

“We could have easily done 500 restauchef Einat Admony’s Lower East Side restaurant Balaboosta, Hovav told a story of com- rants,” Hovav says, noting that the next step ing to New York after 9/11 to film his show, is to add Arab and Bedouin eateries.

He writes in the foreword, “We are people but instead being recruited to cook breakfast for 500 Ground Zero workers at 5:30 a.m. in from more that 60 ethnicities living in a tiny conditions he said were more rustic than his country, and each and every one of us is cerdays in the Israeli army. After feeding shak- tain that his or her grandma’s cholent” -- or shuka to the hungry hordes, the sated work- for that matter tbit or hamin or whatever ers marveled, “How interesting that in Israel your Saturdaystew is called -- “is far better than everyone else’s. And you know what? you eat Mexican food for breakfast!”

“It’s Moroccan!” Hovav wanted to tell That is what makes us unique. And delicious. them.

The chef, who came to New York for two days for the event, will return in March for three days to host a Yemenite Pop-Up dinner with food writer and Israeli cuisine expert B’NAI B’RITH BREADBREAKERS Adeena Sussman on the Upper West Side in Recent Retired Stratcom General Don collaboration with the website EatWith.

Bacon will provide an intelligence update In Israel’s Top 100 Ethnic Restaurants, based on his service in Israel and Europe for which offers capsule reviews and a sampling Wednesday, Feb. 11, noon. For more inforof color photos, there’s also Yemenite, mation or to be placed on the email list call Egyptian, Iraqi, Turkish, Persian, Tunisian 402.334.6443 or bnaibrith@jewishomaha. and Ashkenazi food -- they are notably org.

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8 | The Jewish Press | February 6, 2015

Point of view

American Jewish Press Association Award Winner

The silent story

by ANNETTE VAN DE KAMP-WRIGHT Jewish Press Editor For this week’s editorial, I read about 20 different articles about House Speaker Boehner’s invite to Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu. I really was planning to write about the political fallout it caused, honestly. Then I realized: almost everybody is mad at Bibi. From Fox News commentators to J Street, and everybody in between, and what do I have to add? Frankly, I became a little bored with the faux outrage.

Sometimes the entire media occupies the same echo chamber; enough already.

What does kind of irritate me is that Boehner’s actions (well, that and inflate-gate) overshadowed the news so much that we barely took a moment to discuss the State of the Union address. It’s like it never happened. Also, what is going on in the Ukraine? And even though just a few weeks ago, we all were ‘Charlie,’ and ‘Juif,’ we can’t wait to move on and leave Paris behind us. Seriously, we have the collective attention span of a three-year-old.

This became extra obvious last year when CNN lingered on the missing Malaysia plane. They talked about not knowing anything, their coverage focused on not having any news, day after day, and the anchors were criticized endlessly. The message: unless you have any actual wreckage, or maybe even bodies, we don’t want to hear it anymore.

So on the one hand, I want everyone to move on from complaining about Bibi. On the other hand, I think we often

move on too fast. Knowing when to linger and when to put a story to bed is difficult. And stories don’t end just because the media and the public stop paying attention; life is much too messy for that.

Case in point: I keep thinking about that supermarket in Paris, and I wonder what’s happening. What do you do, when tragedy lands on your doorstep, uninvited; when your customers die violently and police, politicians and every camera in the world is looking your way? When, after a few weeks, the bodies are buried, the crime scene is cleaned up, and those same cameras are pointed somewhere else? How do you pick up the pieces and go back to selling brisket and knishes?

We read many books, but often put them back on the shelf

Nebraska Press National Newspaper Association Association Award winner 2008

after reading only the first chapter.

What happens next is anyone’s guess; we leave the story open-ended because we simply stop looking. And when it happens again we act surprised, and wonder how it is possible.

I am not suggesting we drown ourselves in sorrow day after day. We have to live our lives, and can only do that if we make room for the mundane. Then how do we compromise? How do we pay more attention and open ourselves for what happens next? It’s not an easy question, and it doesn’t have an easy answer.

The next chapter is out there, but it is up to us to look for it. We cannot be passive consumers, only looking at the headlines, forgetting everything else as if it were background noise. We, most of all, need to keep listening, and we need to keep talking.

We may disagree about many things, but it is the discourse that will keep us from becoming jaded. The victims of the attack in Egypt on Jan. 29 can’t make us forget the victims in Paris, just as they can’t allow us to forget Har Nof; Har Nof in turn can’t make us forget the children in Norway, and so forth and so on. Yes, it piles up, and yes, it’s a lot to remember.

But tragedy that happens around the world is not a bestseller list. We can, and we should, always look beyond the headlines.

When the office is a death camp

by KATARZYNA MARKUSZ OSWIECIM, Poland (JTA) -- Seventy years ago this month, Germany evacuated 58,000 prisoners from the concentration camps at Auschwitz and Birkenau, burning documents and blowing up gas chambers and crematoria. On Jan. 27 -- the day now celebrated as International Holocaust Remembrance Day -- the Soviet Red Army arrived, liberating several thousand sick prisoners left behind.

Two years later, the camp that has since become nearly synonymous with the Nazi attempt to eradicate European Jewry became a museum. Last year, 1.5 million people visited the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum, most of them from Poland, Italy, Germany, Israel, the United Kingdom and the United States.

The visitors generally come for a day, but dozens of people come to Auschwitz every day -- the conservators, researchers and curators who work to disseminate new information about the Holocaust and preserve the museum’s legacy for future generations.

“For me, Auschwitz is a place of reflection and meditation,” said Piotr Kadlcik, the former president of the Union of Jewish Communities in Poland and a board member of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Foundation, which raises money for the museum. “I think it is important for many people who come here to work. They cannot really imagine that they could work elsewhere. They are somehow shaped by this place.”

Below are short portraits of several employees of the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum.

Margrit Bormann, 34, is a conservator from Germany who works in the building where newly arrived prisoners were registered. Through the window is a clear view to the nearby cell blocks behind the barbed wire.

In 2005, as a university student in Cologne, she participated in a two-week educational program at Auschwitz, helping preserve objects in the museum. She returned later for a sixmonth internship.

“This stay has changed everything in my life,” Bormann said. “I came to know the place and its history even more. I knew a lot about the Shoah, but now I learned about the testimonies of Polish prisoners, about whom in German

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schools very little is said.”

After graduation, she went to work full-time at the museum. Two years ago she was asked to take care of the maintenance of six baskets of shoes that once belonged to prisoners.

“I wanted to be close to this place, these objects, but with shoes I felt afraid,” she said. “There was some bad energy.

When I returned home from work, my whole body hurt.”

Bormann would pick up a shoe and stare at it. One seemed to have been repaired multiple times by a cobbler.

Maybe the owner walked in it to work, perhaps wearing a suit and carrying a briefcase. Such thoughts would occur often, but Bormann would try to inhibit them and focus on the object at hand. One day she began to cry.

“I knew the story, the facts, the number of victims, the memories of former prisoners,” she said. “It brought me sadness, but I never cried so hard. I acted that day like I was at a funeral. When I cried for the victims, something was passing from me and I could get back to work.”

Piotr Setkiewicz, 51, the head of the museum’s Research Center, has worked at Auschwitz since 1988. His uncle died in the camp, and his grandmother was an employee of IG Farben, the chemical company that supplied the German army’s war needs. A plant producing gasoline and rubber was located at Auschwitz, and 20,000 prisoners worked there.

“During the school years I had no awareness of the uniqueness of this place,” Setkiewicz said. “That changed when I started working here.”

Setkiewicz is involved in efforts to disseminate new historical information about the camp. Occasionally he hears people asserting that there is nothing more to learn about what transpired there, but Setkiewicz says it’s not true. With advances in research and the emergence of new historical sources, there is always more to learn.

Several years ago, Setkiewicz caused a mini-crisis in Polish-Russian relations when he pointed out to a journalist errors in an exhibition about Soviet prisoners at Auschwitz prepared by the Russians. His comment led to claims in the media that Setkiewicz was denying the suffering of the Russian people. Shortly after, Russia stopped importing Polish pork.

“They began to connect me with this, as the one who

stopped the delivery of Polish meat to the east,” Setkiewicz said. “To this day, on Google you can find several thousand hits on the subject.”

Pawel Sawicki, 34, works in the museum’s spokesman office. Among his duties is the photographing of personal items that belonged to the prisoners -- shoes, glasses and other personal effects.

The photos show the scale of the tragedy that occurred at Auschwitz, but also its human dimension -- what Sawicki calls “the power of a single personal experience” as reflected in individual objects.

Sawicki is also the compiler of Auschwitz-Birkenau: The Place Where You Are Standing, a photo album that juxtaposes archival photographs taken by the Germans in 1944 with contemporary shots of the same spots.

“Taking these photos, more and more I felt a special emptiness,” Sawicki said. “I missed the people who were the essence of the photo album. Today, those people are not here anymore.

Only the place where most of them were killed still exists.”

Piotr Cywinski, 43, has been the museum director since 2006. A historian whose interest was the Middle Ages, he was asked several years ago by his professor, a former camp inmate named Wladyslaw Bartoszewski, to help in the work of the International Auschwitz Council. When his predecessor retired, he was asked to take over.

Cywinski says it’s easier to work at Auschwitz than to visit.

Visitors come for their own purposes, he says, while the museum employees work on behalf of others. At night he dreams of the camps and the war, though he prefers not to discuss the details.

“This place is impossible to ignore,” he said. “It is a turning point in human history. Nothing that preceded it will ever return. Ethics, morality, law, faith, science, enlightenment, positivism -- all died here. A man lost his sense of innocence that he cherished and found so comforting.”

Cywinski is mindful of the survivors and their stories. He knows they will soon pass away and only the museum will remain, which will have to carry their stories forth for future generations.

“There will be no great silence,” Cywinski said. “We are too many and we know too much.”

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February 6, 2015 | The Jewish Press | 9

Letters TO THE EDITOR Dear Editor, As voices of Survivors fade I wanted to share the words my Mother, an Auschwitz survivor, wrote in her journal back in 1979. “Why is there no grave that I can go and cry when I ache?

Mother where are you?

I am beginning to go back and am wondering so much.

How did you die?

Did you sit in a corner with Channu besides you?

Was Iczu by your feet?

Did you collapse and hope it is not true?

Did you go first or did they?

Was Iczu with you or did he end up with grandfather?

Was he alone when he died?

Did the Kommandos notice or pay attention when they came in to move your bodies?

Did they notice that you were a young mother and only 40 years old with a little girl who was just 10 years old?

A young mother that did everything for her children and family, a young woman that did not have a chance to enjoy the good things life has to offer.

She did not have a chance to travel to see the rest of the world.

I stand alone now on the balcony in Mexico on the island of Cancun overlooking the Caribbean Sea, the beautiful blue body of water reflecting the clear dark blue sky with myriads of stars above.

The vastness of this universe overwhelms me, and the beauty of the surroundings, warmed the depth of my soul.

Then the feeling of my loneliness come over me.

I remember all the beautiful places and many continents that I have seen. I cannot tell this story to my mother, and she never knew or saw any of this.

No matter what type of relationship a mother has with her children, husband, lover, sister, brother, no one ever takes a mother’s place.

I really could not go back over the past without being a masochist.

What if it cleanses my soul and maybe I will feel better?

How little I remember of the encounters from before with my family members that perished on that night in 1944.

Like my youngest sister Channu as if she never existed, how tragic the only thing I remember about her is that she was born in July or August of 1933.

She had brown eyes and very light brown almost blond hair, and she was pretty and the baby of the family.

My heart is breaking when I think, she was a little girl of 10, and had not done any harm to anybody, and her life snuffed out without her knowing why.

Now my tears are rolling down my face.

I wonder why have we have been so forgiving?

Why, have we not cried out about all these massacres?

Why, did we not go to Germany and go on a rampage, like the people, in Iran or elsewhere, where there was not even a resemblance of oppression and cruelty.

Why were we so busy trying to start a new life that we pushed back our suffering and pretended that it never happened and the world, Germany especially, was more than happy to accommodate us.�

Magda Fried 1929-1985 LEST WE FORGET. May she rest in peace as her words continue to move us.

She and my Dad, Sam, came to Omaha and started a new life. She passed away in 1985 but a day did not go by that she didn’t see the good in people and maintained hope for the future. She began the journey with Sam to educate the next generations of Nebraskans about the dangers of complacency in the face of bigotry and hate. Although he, along with Frances, was able to continue that noble endeavor, my Mom’s voice was one of the first to be heard retelling her story and sharing her memories.

As I read of survivor stories on this 70th anniversary of Auschwitz’ liberation, I thought perhaps another voice might be of interest to you and your readers.

Susan Fried

Dear Editor, There’s so much to take issue with in Annette van de Kamp-Wright’s editorial, Choosing My Enemy (January 23), that I’ll instead focus on just one line: “Of course, none of this was really about the prophet Mohammed in the first place. I don’t care how many times you yell “Allahu Akhbar.� Killing innocents is not Islam.�

First, there’s the reference to “the prophet Mohammed�.

I don’t recall a Jewish Press editorial ever referring to “the Savior Jesus Christ� or “Moses our teacher�. My guess is if they were to be mentioned in future articles, their names would not include the above titles. Why then, in the pages of our Jewish newspaper, is Mohammed deserving of such consideration? “None of this was really about the prophet Mohammed�? When the murderers yell “Allahu Akhbar�

(God is great) likely realizing that these could be among the last words they ever utter, I tend to take their statement literally. How could the author claim to know the minds of the murderers better than they do?

And then there’s the phrase, “Killing innocents is not Islam�. I will admit to knowing too little about Islam to judge what Islam is and is not. But unless the editorial’s author has studied Islam or at least the Koran thoroughly, she has no basis from which to make such an assessment.

I do believe the best way to judge any religion is by assessing the behavior of its followers. If we can say that those who murder in the name of a religion are never following that religion, then that religion can never be accused of advocating murder. Certainly, we know how to strongly criticize Orthodox Jews for their ugly behaviors towards non-Orthodox women at the Western Wall. Yet we don’t try to disassociate the offenders from Judaism.

To the contrary, many will even take issue with the traditional teachings the offenders use to explain their actions.

We’re rightly willing to call Yigal Amir, the murderer of Yitzhak Rabin, and Baruch Goldstein, the murderer of dozens of Muslims in Hebron, Jewish extremists. I wish the editor’s assessment of Islam were consistent with her paper’s articles regarding our own faith.

It is possible for followers of any religion to commit acts of evil in the name of that religion. The more this happens, the more suspect the religion. I’m rendering no judgment about Islam, but unlike the words of “Choosing My Enemy�, I won’t make the author’s sweeping defense of any religion either... including my own. Honest assessments of religion can only make religion better.

The memory of the murdered in Paris deserve a far better editorial than this one.

Joel Alperson

To submit announcements: Announcements may be e-mailed to the Press with attached photos in .jpg or .tif files to jpress@jewishomaha.org; faxed to 402.334.5422, or mailed to 333 So. 132 St., Omaha, NE 68154 (with photos we will scan and return). Forms are available through Omaha and Lincoln synagogues, by contacting The Jewish Press at 402.334.6448, or by e-mailing: jpress@jew ishomaha.org.

Readers can also submit other announcements -- births engagements, marriages, commitment ceremonies or obituaries -- online at the Jewish Federation of Omaha website: www.jew ishomaha.org. Click on “Jewish Press� and go to Submit Announcements. Deadlines are normally eight days prior to publication, on Thursdays, 9 a.m. Check the Jewish Press, however, for notices of early deadlines prior to secular and Jewish holidays.

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10 | The Jewish Press | February 6, 2015

Synagogues B’NAI ISRAEL SYNAGOGUE 618 Mynster Street | Council Bluffs, IA 51503-0766 |712.322.4705 email: BnaiIsraelCouncilBluffs@gmail.com Join us for our monthly Shabbat Speakers Series on Feb. 13, 2015 at 7:30 p.m. with guest speaker, Ben Justman, Executive Director of the Sarpy County Museum on A History of Sarpy County. Larry Blass will lead the service. Oneg to follow service. Everyone is always welcome at B’nai Israel!

For information on our historic synagogue, please contact any of our board members: Mark Eveloff, Rick Katelman, Carole Lainof, Marty Ricks, Sissy Silber, Nancy Wolf and Phil Wolf.

BETH EL SYNAGOGUE Member of United Synagogues of Conservative Judaism 14506 California | Omaha, NE 68154-1980 | 402.492.8550 www.bethel-omaha.org Services conducted by Rabbi Steven Abraham and Hazzan Michael Krausman.

FRIDAY: Kabbalat Shabbat, 6 p.m. Hazzan Krausman will speak about his recent experiences with Leket Israel.

SATURDAY: Morning Service/USY-Kadima Shabbat, 9:30 a.m.; Junior Congregation, 10 a.m.; Mini Minyannaires, 10:45 a.m.; Cholent Cook-Off, noon; Mincha/Ma’ariv, 5:30 p.m.

WEEKDAY SERVICES: Sundays, 9 a.m. & 5:30 p.m.; weekdays, 7 a.m. & 5:30 p.m.

SUNDAY: BESTT Classes, 9:45 a.m.; Torah Study Group, 10 a.m.; Torah Tots, 10:15 a.m.; Adult B’nai Mitzvah Class, 11 a.m.; Sunday Scholar Series, 11 a.m., with Annette van de Kamp-Wright, Jewish Press Editor on How to Tell a Story.

TUESDAY: Wrestling with Rabbis of the Talmud, 10 a.m. with Rabbi Abraham.

WEDNESDAY: BESTT Classes, 4:15 p.m.; Hebrew High School, 6:45 p.m.

THURSDAY: Cholent Prep Night, 7 p.m.

Hamantashen Bake-a-Palooza, Sunday, Feb. 15, 9 a.m.

Women’s Rosh Hodesh Passover Kosher Wine Tasting, Thursday, Feb. 19, 11 a.m.

All classes and programs are open to everyone in the Jewish community.

BETH ISRAEL SYNAGOGUE Member of Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America 12604 Pacific Street | Omaha, NE. 68154 | 402.556.6288 www.orthodoxomaha.org Office hours: Monday-Thursday, 9 a.m.-4:30 p.m. and Friday, 9 a.m.-2 p.m.

FRIDAY: Shacharit, 7 a.m.; Mincha/Kabbalat Shabbat, 5:29 p.m.

SATURDAY: Shacharit, 9 a.m. Mincha/Seudah Shlishit, 5:15 p.m.; Havdalah, 6:31 p.m.

SUNDAY: Shacharit, 9 a.m.; Bagels and Beit Midrash: Understanding our Prayers, 9:45 a.m.

WEEKDAYS: Shacharit, 7 a.m.

MONDAY: Scholar’s Club with Boys, 3:30 p.m.

TUESDAY: Wrestling with Rashi Class, 8 p.m. with Rabbi Weiss.

THURSDAY: Med Center Chaburah, 1 p.m.; Scholar’s Club for girls, 3:30 p.m.; Avot U-Banim, 7 p.m.

CHABAD HOUSE An Affiliate of Chabad-Lubavitch 1866 South 120 Street | Omaha, NE 68144-1646 | 402.330.1800 www.OChabad.com | email: chabad@aol.com Services conducted by Rabbi Mendel Katzman. Office hours: Monday-Friday, 7 a.m.-4:30 p.m.

FRIDAY: Shacharit, 7 a.m.

SATURDAY: Shacharit, 9:30 a.m.

SUNDAY: Shacharit, 8:30 a.m.

WEEKDAYS: Shacharit, 7 a.m.

TUESDAY: Dynamic Discovery with Shani Katzman, 10:15 a.m. A class for women based on traditional texts with practical insights and application. RSVP by calling the office.

WEDNESDAY: Personal Parsha class, 9:30 a.m. with Rochi Katzman. RSVP by calling the office; The Development of the Oral Tradition, 7 p.m. with Rabbi Katzman. RSVP by calling the office. In memory of Forrest Krutter -- Efrayim Menachem Ben Avraham Yitzchak.

THURSDAY: Women’s Study at UNMC with Shani Katzman, noon. RSVP by emailing Marlene Cohen at mzcohen@unmc.edu.

All programs are open to the entire community.

CONGREGATION B’NAI JESHURUN South Street Temple | Union for Reform Judaism 2061 South 20th Street | Lincoln, NE 68502-2797 | 402.435.8004 www.southstreettemple.org Services conducted by Rabbi Craig Lewis.

FRIDAY: Shabbat Evening Service, 7:45 p.m. with oneg following.

SATURDAY: Shabbat Morning Service, 9:30 a.m.; Torah Study, 10:30 a.m. on Parashat Yitro.

SUNDAY: LJCS Gan through Grade 7, 9:30 a.m.-noon at Tifereth Israel; Hallah High Lite, 9:45 a.m.-noon at South Street Temple; Hallah High, 9:45 a.m.-noon at Tifereth Israel; LJCS Parent Teacher Conferences, noon-1:30 p.m.; Jewish Book Club, 1 p.m. at Marcia Kushner’s home and will discuss My Mother’s Shoes by Shirley Wachtel. Please contact Stephanie Dohner with any questions.

TUESDAY: Alexander Technique Session #3 of 3 with Robert Rickover, 7 p.m. The classes are open to all members and their friends at a cost of $20 for each class. Enrollment is limited to 15 per class. To reserve your place, please contact Jean at the Temple Office, 402.435.8004 or office@southstreettemple.org to make sure there is space and then your check, payable to the South Street Temple, to 2061 South 20th Street, Lincoln, NE 68502. You can learn more about the Alexander Technique at www.AlexanderTechnique.com.

WEDNESDAY: LJCS grades 3-7, 4-6 p.m. at Tifereth Israel.

2015 Purim Speil Casting Call “Frozen in the Magic Kingdom (of Shushan)”, Sunday, March 1, 3 p.m. at the Temple. Please let us know if you plan to participate by contacting Leslie Delserone at leslie.delserone@gmail.com or Jean in the Temple office at office@southstreettemple.org.

Bakers Needed as part of the Temple’s celebration of its 130th anniversary as a congregation and the 90th anniversary of our beautiful building, we are having monthly events culminating in the anniversary gala in May. For many of these events, we would like to serve cookies or other easy to handle dessert items. We are looking to volunteers to supply home-baked goodies. If you are willing to contribute in this way, please let Alan Frank know at afrank2@unl.edu. We’ll have you bring your treats to the Temple and store them in the freezer.

OFFUTT AIR FORCE BASE Capehart Chapel 2500 Capehart Road | Offutt AFB, NE 68123 | 402.294.6244 FRIDAY: Services, 7:30 p.m. every first and third of the month.

ROSE BLUMKIN JEWISH HOME 323 South 132 Street | Omaha, NE 68154 SATURDAY: Services, 9:15 a.m. led by Steve Riekes.

Services will be held in the Chapel. Members of the commu-

B’nai Mitzvah Rebecca Denenberg, daughter of Deborah Denenberg, will become a Bat Mitzvah on Saturday, Feb. 14, at Beth El. Rebecca is a sixth-grade student at Friedel Jewish Academy. Becca learned by Skype with Yaffa Epstein, a Torah scholar from Jerusalem.

Yaffa is coming to Omaha for the Bat Mitzvah and will speak during services Friday and Saturday. She qualified for the Junior Olympics as a trampolinist.

Her interests include trampoline, ice skating, dance and art.

For her mitzvah project, Rebecca speaks Hebrew and plays with a younger Israeli child at the CDC every school day.

She has a twin brother, Lev. Grandparents are Eunice and Norman Denenberg.

Candlelighting Friday, February 6, 5:29 p.m. nity are invited to attend.

TEMPLE ISRAEL Union for Reform Judaism (URJ) 13111 Sterling Ridge Drive | Omaha, NE 68144-1206 | 402.556.6536 http://templeisraelomaha.com FRIDAY: February First Friday, Community Court, 5:30 p.m., Service, 6 p.m., followed by dinner. Cost is $5/person, max of $20 per family. Please RSVP to Temple Israel, 402.556.6536 or templeisrael@templeisraelomaha.com.

Thank you to our First Friday Sponsors: Anonymous (3), Scott Burger, Ed Cohn & Shelley Smith, Elly & Bob Gordman, Andie Gordman & Dan Fitzgerald, Jackie & Justin Grau, Mendy & Mike Halsted, Sally & Gary Kaplan, Jennifer & Brandon Koom, Corinne & Hugh Levin, Ellen & Jeff Platt, Eileen & Miles Remer, Susan Rothholz, Betty Rubin, Lordes Secola and Lindsey Thomas.

SATURDAY: Torah Study, 9:15 a.m.; Shabbat Morning Service, 10:30 a.m. Eitan Rosenquist, son of Julie Rosenquist and Thor Rosenquist, will celebrate his Bar Mitzvah.; Spaghetti Dinner Setup with lunch and snacks, noon. Open to all 7th-12th graders.

SUNDAY: Grades K-6, 10 a.m.; Beginning Prayer Study, 10 a.m. with Elyce Azriel; Torah Chanting, 10 a.m. with Cantor Shermet; Non-Jews Raising Jewish Children, 11 a.m. with Rabbi Azriel; Temple Israel Book Club, 11 a.m.; Spaghetti Dinner Setup with lunch, noon. Open to all 7th-12th graders; Religious School Steering Committee Meeting, noon; Spaghetti Dinner, 5-8 p.m. Join us in celebration of our Temple Israel youth at this year’s Spaghetti Dinner and Auction. Proceeds support Temple Israel youth programs.

20% or a maximum of $4,000 of the proceeds will benefit Camp Rainbow, a camp for kids with cancer and other blood-related diseases. The cost is $10 for adults, $4 for children ages 6-12 and no charge for children five and younger.

Please RSVP to Temple Israel, 402.556.6536 or RSVP@templeisraelomaha.com. Now requesting donations! Please contact Director of Youth Engagement Nikki Flatowicz, 402.312.9822 or nflatowicz@templeisraelomaha.com.

WEDNESDAY: Grades 3-6, 4 p.m.; Family Night, 6 p.m.; Grades 7-12, 6 p.m.; School Dinner, 6 p.m.; Cutting Edge Medical Ethical Dilemmas: What is your response?, 6:30 p.m.

THURSDAY: Dilemmas of Faith: God and Spirituality in the Modern World, 10 a.m. with Rabbi Azriel.

Shabbat Service with Kol Rina and St. Paul Choir, Friday, Feb. 13, 6 p.m. at Temple Israel and Sunday, Feb. 15, 11 a.m. at St. Paul.

TIFERETH ISRAEL Member of United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism 3219 Sheridan Boulevard | Lincoln, NE 68502-5236 | 402.423.8569 www.tiferethisraellincoln.org Services conducted by lay leader Nancy Coren. Office hours: Monday-Friday, 9 a.m.-1 p.m.

FRIDAY: Services, 6:30 p.m.

SATURDAY: Morning service, 10 a.m. followed by a Kiddush luncheon.

SUNDAY: LJCS Gan through Grade 7, 9:30 a.m.-noon at Tifereth Israel; Hallah High Lite, 9:45 a.m.-noon at South Street Temple; Hallah High, 9:45 a.m.-noon at Tifereth Israel; LJCS Parent Teacher Conferences, noon-1:30 p.m.; Haftorah Reading class begins, 11-11:50 a.m.; The Jewish Book Club, 1 p.m. at Marcia Kushner’s home and will discuss My Mother’s Shoes by Shirley Wachtel. Please contact Stephanie Dohner with any questions.

WEDNESDAY: LJCS grades 3-7, 4-6 p.m. at Tifereth Israel.

To submit announcements: Joshua Bennett Siegel, son of Andrea and Michael Siegel, will become a Bar Mitzvah on Saturday, Feb. 14, at Temple Israel.

Josh is a seventh-grade Honor Roll student at Westside Middle School.

He is a Duke TIP Participant.

His interests include computers, basketball and tennis.

For his mitzvah project, Josh worked with a child with Spina Bifida in All Play Baseball League and individually.

He has a sister, Monica, and a brother, Tyler.

Grandparents are Sheryn and Arnold Joffe, Anne Siegel and the late Stephen Siegel.

B’nai Mitzvah announcements may be e-mailed to the Press with attached photos in .jpg or .tif files to jpress@jewishomaha.org; faxed to 402.334.5422, or mailed to 333 So. 132 St., Omaha, NE 68154 (with photos we will scan and return). Forms are available through Omaha and Lincoln synagogues, by contacting The Jewish Press at 402.334.6448, or by e-mailing: jpress@jewishomaha.org.

Readers can also submit other announcements -- births engagements, marriages, commitment ceremonies or obituaries -- online at the Jewish Federation of Omaha website: www.jewishomaha.org. Click on “Jewish Press” and go to Submit Announcements. Deadlines are normally eight days prior to publication, on Thursdays, 9 a.m. Check the Jewish Press, however, for notices of early deadlines prior to secular and Jewish holidays.

Pulverente MONUMENT CO.

February 6, 2015 | The Jewish Press | 11

In memoriam MORRIS BRESEL Morris Bresel passed away on Jan. 29 at age 85 at Rose Blumkin Jewish Home. Services were held on Feb. 1 at Golden Hill Cemetery, 5025 North 42nd Street.

He was preceded in death by his parents, Jacob Bresel and Martha Bresel Wolfson, his wife of 52 years, Jean Bresel, and his brother, Isadore Bressel.

He is survived by son and daughter-in-law, Jim and Marge Bresel of Omaha, daughters and sons-in-law, Candee and Jerry Mack of Omaha, and Marti and Larry Fry of Overland Park, KS; grandchildren: Amanda Gurock, Michael Bresel, Amy Bresel, David Bresel, Daniel Fry, Brian Fry, and Jonathan Fry; and great-grandchildren: Mika Bresel, Kaplan Bresel, Leah Gurock, Max Gurock, Jacob Gurock and Sophia Gurock.

Mr. Bresel was born in Kansas City, and attended Omaha Tech High School. He served in the Army Reserves as a First Seargent for over 20 years. Morris was a member of Beth Israel Synagogue for over 50 years. He created Midwest Box Company in 1966 with his wife Jean Bresel and worked there until retirement in 1995. He enjoyed dancing, watching Nebraska football games, old movies, collecting bears and following the stock market. He enjoyed traveling, especially going on cruises. He loved the song, Sunrise, Sunset.

His greatest love was being with his family.

Memorials may be made to the Alzheimer’s Association or to the Rose Blumkin Jewish Home.

RALPH G. TURKEL Ralph G. Turkel passed away on Jan. 28 at age 92. Services were held on Jan. 30 at Golden Hill Cementery.

He was preceded in death by his son, Sheldon J. He is survived by his wife Estelle of 70 years; son and daughter-in-law, Marshall and Bev; daughter-in-law, Louise; grandchildren: Robert, Lance, Autumn, Meadow, Jay and Niki; great-grandddaughter, Zoey; sister-in-law, Joan; special nieces and nephews and the Omaha Police Department.

Ralph was a Naval veteran in World War II and the Korean War. He was an Omaha dentist for 43 years and an honored Omaha Police volunteer for 25 years. He was an Omaha Shriner and an avid golfer.

Memorials may be made to the Omaha Police Foundation Volunteer Program or Pancreatic Cancer Research at Nebraska Medicine.

B’nai Israel Speaker Series Nancy Wolf, board member of B’nai Israel Synagogue in Council Bluffs welcomes the community to join the congregation to hear from guest speaker Ben Justman, Executive Director of the Sarpy County History Museum. This Shabbot service on Friday, Feb. 13 begins at 7:30 p.m. Ben will share some stories and historical background of Sarpy County, the City of Bellevue and Offutt Air Force Base. Justman holds a master’s degree in history from Western Illinois University and a Certification in Museum Studies from Northwestern University’s School of Professional Studies.

The Synagogue is located at 618 Mynster St. For directions, contact Marty Ricks at 402.334.6440.

Only Nisman DNA found

by JTA NEWS STAFF BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (JTA) -- Only the DNA of Argentine prosecutor Alberto Nisman was found at the site of his shooting death.

On Jan. 30, the prosecutor in charge of the investigation into Nisman’s death revealed the information.

“Chemical testing of shirt, shorts, gun, pistol magazine, bullets and shell casing has found a single genetic profile that matches without a doubt the genetic profile of the deceased,” Viviana Fein said.

The death of Nisman, who was heading the probe into the bombing of the AMIA Jewish center in 1994, remains unexplained two weeks after his body was found in his Buenos Aires apartment.

Nisman, 51, was found dead on Jan. 18 hours before he was to present evidence to Argentine lawmakers that President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner covered up Iran’s role in the attack. The security camera in the apartment building’s service elevator was not working and there were no cameras in the building’s stairwell, a specialized group of the Federal Police discovered after analyzing the security cameras in Nisman’s apartment building, Le Parc.

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12 | The Jewish Press | February 6, 2015

Survivors return to Auschwitz determined to share their stories

by TOBY AXELROD KRAKOW, Poland (JTA) -- What kept you alive? Did your non-Jewish friends reject you? Could you ever forgive?

Those were some of the questions posed by Jewish young adults to Holocaust survivor Marcel Tuchman on Monday at the Galicia Jewish Museum here.

“What kept me alive was having my father with me,” said Tuchman, 93, a physician from New York who was born in Poland and survived several concentration camps, including Auschwitz. “And another thing was the hope I had that one day I will be able to tell the story to the likes of you, so you can tell it to the next generation.”

His meeting with young Jews was one of many such encounters taking place in and around Krakow on the occasion of the 70th anniversary of the Soviet army’s liberation of Auschwitz, where an estimated 1.1 million people were murdered -- many of them gassed.

On Tuesday, in a tent set up around the gaping entrance to the Auschwitz-adjacent Birkenau concentration camp, survivors and their companions were joined by dignitaries from more than 40 countries for ceremonies that may well mark the final time that so many Auschwitz survivors are together here again.

Halina Birenbaum, who survived Auschwitz as a child, described to the crowd of 3,000 her impressions of the Nazi camp 45 miles east of Krakow, calling it “a bottomless pit of hell that I could not get out of.”

“All around us was electric barbed wire. Rows of barracks, stinking mud... a disgusting mass of people all in lousy wet rags, with numbers and shaven heads,” she said. “Those gray faces with legs like sticks, wearing those muddy clogs.

Nothing reminded you of anything human.”

Roman Kent, president of the International Auschwitz Committee, which was founded by a group of Auschwitz survivors, said his experience in the camp was “more than enough to keep me awake at night until the end of time.”

He added: “How can I ever forget the smell of burning flesh that permeated the air” or “the cries of children torn from their mother’s arms.”

While survivors cannot forget, others simply must remember. Otherwise, Kent said, “the conscience of mankind would be buried alongside the victims.”

Tuesday’s memorial was sponsored by the World Jewish

Congress, the USC Shoah Foundation and Discovery Communications, whose subsidiary, Discovery Education, is working with the Shoah Foundation to develop digital teaching materials about Auschwitz. The event also featured the screening of a short documentary, Auschwitz, co-directed by the famed filmmaker Steven Spielberg, who started the Shoah Foundation.

In a moment of disequilibrium, survivors watched the film about their former place of imprisonment, sitting in front of the very gate through which cattle cars once passed, delivering so many Jews to their deaths. Just outside the tent, a light snow was falling on the remaining barracks of Birkenau, surrounded by barbed wire.

Ronald Lauder, president of the World Jewish Congress, addressed the crowd.

“Auschwitz never goes away,” he said. “This awful place stands as a reminder that propaganda leads to anti-Semitism... that anti-Semitism will grow if nobody speaks out.”

Anti-Semitism, he said, “leads to places like Auschwitz.”

He added: “After the recent events in Paris and throughout Europe and around the world, I cannot ignore what is happening today. Jews are targeted in Europe once again because they are Jews.”

The ceremony was the culmination of several days of events and meetings attended in total by some 300 Holocaust survivors. Few of them were actually liberated at Auschwitz. But all passed through its gates.

Today they are in their 80s and 90s, and fit enough to have traveled from Israel, America, Argentina and elsewhere.

A group of survivors who was to visit the Auschwitz

exhibit on Monday never got beyond the infamous gate, marked “Arbeit Macht Frei” -- so crowded was this threshold with eager journalists who had come from around the world. And yet the hubbub didn’t seem to faze them a bit. In fact, most of the visitors seemed determined to tell their stories to all who inquired.

“I know that we’re getting old and have to make sure that the memory doesn’t die with us,” said Irene Weiss, 84, of Fairfax, Va., who traveled with her daughter Lesley. Her key message to today’s youth: “[Don’t] be deceived by demagogues.”

On Monday at a ceremony for visiting survivors, Spielberg, whose Oscar-winning movie Schindler’s List was filmed partly in Krakow, told the survivors, “I found my own voice and my own Jewish identity thanks to you.”

Spielberg, whose USC Shoah Foundation has interviewed more than 50,000 Holocaust survivors since it was founded 21 years ago, said he was first confronted with the Holocaust as a child reading the numbers on his grandfather’s arm.

Edgar Wildfeuer, 90, came here this week from Argentina with his daughter, Doris Wildfeuer, wanting to show her both the camp he survived and city where he grew up: Krakow, with its parks and market squares, its church spires and streetcars. They planned to visit the street where he had lived and the synagogue where he had his bar mitzvah.

Wildfeuer, who was deported to Auschwitz in 1944, lost 32 relatives.

“I was the only one left,” he said.

Still, his daughter said, “He wanted to show me not only that place but the place where he grew up and was happy.”

Tuchman, too, recalled a happy childhood in Poland. But when the question of forgiveness came up before the youthful crowd on Monday evening, he paused.

“Forgiveness is a very complicated thing,” said Tuchman, who came with his son Jeffrey. After the war, he testified on behalf of a German engineer who had overseen slave laborers, including Tuchman himself, in Auschwitz.

But Tuchman also dealt out his own justice. In postwar Germany, he and a fellow survivor spied a man who had tortured them.

“He was a sadist: He pounded on our stomachs when we were sick with diarrhea,” Tuchman recalled. “We recognized him on the street and grabbed him, and beat the hell out of him.”

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