Vol. LXXXIV No. 29 Omaha, NE
Celebrating 84 Years of Service to Nebraska and Western Iowa
Join Mideast Expert Tom Friedman Live from the 92nd Street Y by RACHEL BLUM During his journalistic JCC Program Director career, Friedman has held On Tuesday, April 5, 7 p.m. in the many titles at the Times, Jewish Community Center Theater, including Beirut bureau the Live from NY’s 92 St Y Series will chief, chief diplomatic corcontinue with Pulitzer Prize winner respondent, international Thomas Friedman, who will hold a economics correspondent, discussion with James Hoge, Editor of and his current position as Foreign Affairs magazine. foreign affairs columnist. Friedman has won the Pulitzer Friedman has also written Prize three times for his work at the many books; his most New York Times, where he currently recent--The World is Flat-serves as the foreign affairs columdemystifies the brave new nist. He graduated from Brandeis world of globalization, its University summa cum laude in 1975 successes and discontents. with a degree in Mediterranean His previous books are Studies. During his undergraduate From Beirut to Jerusalem; years, he spent semesters abroad at The Lexus and the Olive the Hebrew University of Jerusalem Tree: Understanding and the American University in Cairo. Globalization; and In 1978, he received a Masters Longitudes and Attitudes: degree in Modern Middle East Exploring the World After Tom Friedman Studies from Oxford and immediateSeptember 11. ly thereafter joined the London Bureau of United Press The live satellite broadcast is co-sponsored by Jewish International (UPI). Educational and Library Services and is funded in part by Friedman then lived in Beirut where he worked as a the Leonard and Shirley Goldstein Supporting Foundation. UPI correspondent until 1981, when he was hired by Tickets are $5 and may be purchased by contacting Cindy the Times, as a general assignment financial reporter, Reed, Registration Associate, 334.6419. For more informaspecializing in OPEC and oil-related news. tion, please contact me at 334.6404.
Young Artists: Can You Paint? by RITA SHELLEY JSS Publicity Coordinator All fourth and fifth graders are invited to express themselves with paint on murals at the Rose Blumkin Jewish Home while competing for prizes as part of the Kirsten Art Project. The mural-painting event will be Sunday, April 17, 1-3 p.m., at the Home. Activities staff and volunteers will place large sheets of paper on walls and teams will choose a Passover theme to paint. Refreshments will be served at 2:30 p.m. and awards will be presented at 2:45 p.m. Paint brushes and paint will be supplied. Winning murals will be displayed permanently at the Home. This event honors Kirsten Budwig, a nurse at the Home who died suddenly two years ago at age 36. She had cared for Blumkin residents, a job that she loved, for nearly 10 years. “Kirsten loved children and art. Kirsten Budwig and two of her daughters She was devoted to her family and to the residents who thought of her as family, too,” said Mike Silverman, Executive Director of the Jewish Senior Services and the Blumkin Home. “The staff and residents are looking forward to this event, which will provide young people an opportunity to showcase their work and to meet some of the people who meant so much to Kirsten.” Teams of four fourth and fifth grade artists each will compete for prizes of gift certificates to Oak View Mall-$50 each for members of the first-place team and $25 each for the second place team. Participants may form teams in advance, or join a team at the Home. No art experience is necessary; just come and have fun. For more information, call 391.3043. See related story and a drawing of the new Home on page 2.
Inside Opinion Page see page 8
Yad Vashem Inaugurates New Holocaust Museum
Heads of state, the United Nations Secretary-General, prime ministers, ministers, mayors and religious leaders from 40 countries were in Israel to participate in the inauguration of the new Yad Vashem Holocaust History Museum in Jerusalem. The distinguished visitors, led by President Moshe Katsav, attended the dedication of the new complex in a special general assembly ‘To Remember the Past, Shaping the Future’. The new museum cost $56 million, with the money being raised by private funding. Perhaps the most significant expression was made by Holocaust survivor and Nobel Prize laureate, Elie Weisel, responding to this theme. “It was man’s inhumanity to man--no. It was man’s inhumanity to Jews. Jews were not killed because they were human beings. In the eyes of the killers, they were not human beings, they were Jews”. Copyright: ISRANET
Genetic Studies Provide Critical Information Hearing Loss Study Results Revealed by LYNDA MIRVISH for the Omaha Committee for Jewish Genetic Testing Early in 2004, Jean Duitch set about to find a laboratory that could help her arrange to conduct tests in the Omaha area to identify carriers of certain Jewish Genetic diseases. Her quest resulted in a partnership with Doctors William Kimberling and Edward Cohn at the Boys Town National Research Hospital, and the testing of more than 100 Omaha Jews. The test results showed that one in four of those tested was a carrier for one of the diseases! However, the history of how this partnership evolved is even more amazing than the results of the tests. When Duitch first spoke to Dr. William Kimberling seeking assistance with her goal of testing 100 people for the common Ashkenazi diseases the Boys Town group was eager to participate in the project. And this is why. As part of his research on Usher syndrome (conditions causing hearing and vision loss), Dr. Kimberling had collected DNA from families with only hearing loss. After the gene for the most common cause of hearing loss, DFNB1(also called GJB2), was discovered, he screened his patients. (DFN stands for a deafness gene. B, in DFNB means it is recessively inherited and 1 signifies that the gene was the first recessive deafness gene to be identified.) In 1998, Dr. Phillip Kelley and Dr. Kimberling published their findings of mutations involved in DFNB1, and reported a carrier frequency in the USA of 2.8% . They noted that a particular DFNB1 mutation seemed to occur only among subjects of Jewish descent. Dr Kimberling and Dr. Cohn studied the clinical characteristics of DFNB1 and presented the data at the Molecular Biology of Hearing Meeting in 1998. Colleagues from all over the world asked, "Are all of your patients with the unique mutation Jewish?" DFNB1 theoretically is responsible for more than one third of all early (prelingual) hearing loss in Jewish Continued on page 11
Creighton Professor Announces Results of Colorectal Cancer Research by BETSY REECE for Creighton University In a recent special edition of Familial Cancer, a quarterly Journal of Cancer Genetics, results of research found Ashkenazi Jews may have one of the highest lifetime risks for colorectal cancer of any ethnic group in the world. Henry T. Lynch, M.D., editor of the Journal, professor and chairman of Preventative Medicine and Public Health, and director of the Hereditary Cancer Institute at Creighton University Medical Henry T. Lynch, M.D. Center, calls for more intensive colorectal cancer screening guidelines as a result of these findings. The lifetime risk of colorectal cancer in the general population of the United States is approximately 5-6 percent. However, among Ashkenazi Jews, the rate is estimated to be as high as 9-15 percent. Approximately 5-10 percent of cases of colorectal cancer is hereditary. “Clearly, these findings emphasize the need to develop special surveillance and management strategies for colorectal cancer among Ashkenazi men and women,” says Dr. Lynch. He recommends individuals with first or second degree relatives with colorectal cancer begin colonoscopies at age 35 and repeat it every three years. Special screening attention must be given to hereditary forms of colorectal cancer. This issue of Familial Cancer is intended to increase Continued on page 11
This Week: “New” Home Reinforces Community: Page 2 Natalie Portman Stars in Low-Budget Israeli Film: Page 3
14 Adar II, 5765 March 25, 2005
Omaha Symphony Celebrates Beth El’s 75th: Page 5
Coming April 15: Passover Issue Monthly Calendar for April: Pages 6-7
Goldstein Foundation Awards 16 Grants: Page 12