March 26, 2010: Passover Edition

Vol. LXXXVIX No. 28 Omaha, NE

Celebrating 89 Years of Service to Nebraska and Western Iowa

11 Nisan, 5770 March 26, 2010 3 Sections

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Jewish Press, Omaha, NE

March 26, 2010

It’s all about sports…or is it? Now that the Passover issue is here, and athletes are staring back at you from many of the pages, one could pose the question: what do sports have to do with Passover? At first sight, not much; and it is a valid question. However, every year a special theme is selected for this issue, and considering that this summer Omaha will be host city to the Maccabi Games, it is an appropriate choice. Passover’s underlying themes are freedom from slavery, choosing a Jewish life and all that that entails; we also focus on what to eat, how to express our Jewishness, and what our Biblical stories mean to us today. Basically, we place ourselves as Jews in a long tradition. The Maccabi Games, on the other hand, are about athleticism, sportsmanship, and community. In addition, this time we do not leave, but stay: instead of fleeing, we are the hosts, and an amazing number of people are working around the clock to make our guests feel welcome. Yet, as wide apart as Passover and Maccabi Games seemingly are, they do have something important in common: neither can exist without a strong sense of community. Who has heard of a one-person Seder? Having a thriving Jewish community means getting involved in many different aspects. Judaism is about what we believe, but also about what we do. In this case, it means ordering thousands of water bottles, making sure the visiting athletes have places to sleep, and putting our best efforts towards making this a memorable experience. To Omaha Jews, the Maccabi Games mean working together, and in that, expressing the pride we take in our

community. Regardless of where we go to school, which synagogue we attend (or don’t attend) or whether we actually get all that Chametz out of our kitchen, we are all in this community together. That means, if you haven’t volunteered yet, we welcome you to come on board and find something you can add. I imagine that in order to get out of Egypt, a lot of cooperation was needed. The Maccabi Games may be small potatoes compared to gaining one’s freedom, but the idea of working side by side towards a common goal is valuable no matter what that goal is. As always, this issue would not have been possible without a lot of hard work, by a great many people. From the Board of Directors, to our staff and volunteers, there is a lot of dedication going around, and therefore some sincere thanks are in order. This year, it’s not just about the Passover issue, but also about transitioning from Carol Katzman, a seasoned, experienced Editor, to working with a new person who still has to learn many, many things. First of all, I want to thank the talented staff at the Press office, for making this transition period as smooth as possible, and for never missing a beat: Advertising Manager Allan Handleman, Managing Editor Richard Busse, Assistant Managing Editor Lori KooperSchwarz, and Bookkeeper Barbara Kirkpatrick. You all have made me feel welcome, and you continue to teach me about this fabulous office. To Interim Editor Jill Belmont: starting a new job can be intimidating, stressful, and scary; thanks to you, it wasn’t. I strongly rec-

ommend you visit often. Then there are Dottie Rosenblum, Deborah Platt, Jean Duitch, and Suzanne Singer, who are tireless and meticulous volunteers. Of course, the list wouldn’t be complete without Human Resource Specialist Tina Story, and controller David Kampschneider, who have been incredibly patient explaining all sorts of things to me over the past month. The members of the Press Board, who have generously welcomed me in their midst, and who will continue to provide support, advice, and unlimited know-how: thank you for all you do. To Jan Goldstein and Julee Katzman, to the Agency Directors, librarians, school principals, accountants, computer whizzes and secretaries, and everybody else who walks the JCC hallways: thank you for showing so much interest, and continuing to support the Press. Finally, of course, you: the readers. Where do I begin? You are what it’s all about. You stop by, write in, call, advertise (if you don’t, now is a great time to start) and have shown your support in a myriad of ways. Without you, there would be no Press; and so we hope you will stick with us as you always have. Orthodox and Reform, young and old, Democrat and Republican, man, woman, or child, both in Omaha and elsewhere, which ever labels we choose for ourselves (or have chosen by others), there is one that fits us all: community member. Let’s all get in the game! Have a healthy and peaceful Passover. Chag Pesach Sameach! Annette van de Kamp-Wright, Editor Bobbi Leibowitz, President

On the cover is a section of the more than 80 local athletes who have signed on for the 2010 Maccabi Games. They will be joined by youth from all across the US, as well as Argentina, Mexico, Israel, and Canada. Credit :Jill Belmont

Passover GREETINGS

(Founded in 1920) Bobbi Leibowitz President Annette van de Kamp-Wright Editor Richard Busse Managing Editor Allan Handleman Advertising Manager Lori Kooper-Schwarz Assistant Managing Editor Barbara Kirkpatrick Bookkeeper Jewish Press Board Andy Ruback, Vice President; Michael Sigmond, Secretary; Michael Siegel, Treasurer; Howard K. Marcus, Immediate Past-chairman; Daphne Pollak Alperson, Marc Brodkey; Eric Dunning; Jason Epstein; Andie Gordman; Michael Kaufman; Bette Kozlen; Jamie Meyerson; Jim Simon; Dorothy Spizman. The role of the Jewish Federation of Omaha is to involve Jews in meeting Jewish communal needs locally, nationally and in Israel. Agencies of the Federation are: Community Relations, Jewish Community Center, Center for Jewish Education, Jewish Family Service/Jewish Senior Services, and the Jewish Press . Guidelines and highlights of the Jewish Press, including front page stories and announcements, can be found online at: www jewishomaha.org; click on ‘Jewish Press.’ Editorials express the view of the writer and are not necessarily representative of the views of the Jewish Press Board of Directors, the Jewish Federation of Omaha Board of Directors, or the Omaha Jewish community as a whole. The Jewish Press reserves the right to edit signed letters and articles for space and content. The Jewish Press is not responsible for the Kashrut of any product or establishment. Editorial The Jewish Press is an agency of the Jewish Federation of Omaha. Deadline for copy, ads and photos is: Thursday, 9 a.m., eight days prior to publication. E-mail editorial material and photos to: editor@jewishomaha.org; send ads (in .TIF or .PDF format) to: rbusse@jewishomaha.org. Letters to the Editor Guidelines The Jewish Press welcomes Letters to the Editor. They may be sent via regular mail to: The Jewish Press, 333 So. 132 St., Omaha, NE 68154; via fax: 1-402-334-5422 or via e-mail to the Editor at: editor@jewishomaha.org.. Letters should be no longer than 250 words and must be singlespaced typed, not hand-written. Published letters should be confined to opinions and comments on articles or events. News items should not be submitted and printed as a “Letter to the Editor.” The Editor may edit letters for content and space restrictions, but it should be printed as soon as possible to ensure timeliness. Letters may be published without giving an opposing view. Information shall be verified before printing. All letters must be signed by the writer, but the name can be withheld at the writer’s request. The Jewish Press will not publish letters that appear to be part of an organized campaign, nor letters copied from the Internet. No letters should be published from candidates running for office, but others may write on their behalf. Letters of thanks should be confined to commending an institution for a program, project or event, rather than personally thanking paid staff, unless the writer chooses to turn the “Letter to the Editor” into a paid personal ad or a news article about the event, project or program which the professional staff supervised. For information, call the Editor, 402.334.6450. Postal The Jewish Press (USPS 275620) is published weekly (except for the first week of January and July) on Friday for $35 per calendar year U.S.; $72 foreign, by the Jewish Federation of Omaha. Phone: 402.334.6448; FAX: 402.334.5422. Periodical postage paid at Omaha, NE. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to: The Jewish Press, 333 So. 132 St., Omaha, NE 68154-2198 or e-mail to: jpress@jewishomaha. org. 2008 award winner

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Love for “Stan the Man” continues by JOAN K. MARCUS These days, Stanley Widman, once a star athlete, lives at the Rose Blumkin Jewish Home. Even though Alzheimer’s disease has invaded his brain, Widman still enjoys seeing people, and especially enjoys visits from his wife, Barbara. It is important that they spend time together; that is why Barb visits him twice each day. “He still knows who I am, and we still converse in our own little private way. He hasn’t talked much for a long time, but he still is able to tell me that he loves me. Prior to his illness, Stan was often teased about talking too much. I’ve always said that the reason he talked so much all of his life is because God must have known that at some point, he would be unable to talk!” she joked. Although he was always forgetful about such things as his car keys, at a certain point his symptoms became worrisome to Barb, but they continued to travel and work full time. “It became a little difficult after a while. I couldn’t figure out why he left certain things up to me -- things he had always taken care of. He was often very distraught -- he knew he couldn’t remember things and that something was wrong; he just didn’t know what. That was when I decided to take him to the doctor,” she explained. “After visits to several different doctors, I asked Stan if the final test results leaned toward Alzheimer’s disease, did he want to know? He answered, ‘No. Unless there is a cure, there’s no point in knowing.’” Barb agreed to back him in his decision. Since he was diagnosed while still in his 60s, Stan’s case was considered “early

onset.” Although he was at home for as long as possible, in September 2008, Barb began to become concerned for his safety and

where many young men, including Stan, worked during high school. The Central High “O” Book lists Widman’s athletic activities as baseball (all

Barb and Stan Widman knew he had to be placed in a facility. four years) in which he lettered, bowling Barb knew that Stan would want to be in and football. He was honored with the a Jewish environment and couldn’t imag- Kiwanis Club’s “Recognition of ine placing him elsewhere. Excellence in Athletics” during high “He is getting excellent care,” she said school, and commended for his superior about the staff at the Blumkin Home. playing, sportsmanship and leadership. Stan was born in Omaha in 1937. His As a member of AZA #1, he received parents, Pauline and Isadore Widman, many awards for his excellence in bowling were also well-known in the Omaha and other sports. However, his skills Jewish community. Isadore was the man- weren’t limited to athletics during high ager of R & S Shoe Store, a business school. He also received many commen-

dations in recognition of his scholastic achievements. He was active in Inter-City/All-Star baseball and also participated in track and bowling. In 1954, he received the Harry Trustin Outstanding High School Athlete Award. Although the Athletic Wall of Fame at the Jewish Community Center was established in the 1960s, it hadn’t been updated in many years, so in 1998, Barb reactivated the process and a plaque for Stan now hangs in the Athletic Wall of Fame at the JCC. At the University of NebraskaLincoln, Widman excelled in academics and was the university’s football team mascot, The Corn Cob Man, for two years. He graduated in 1959, with a business degree and became an entrepreneur. His business career scanned many decades and included sales, owner of Stan’s Shoes in Millard, and, until his retirement, owner and operator of Widman Distributing. Stan became very active in the Millard Jaycees and Suburban Rotary. He was named as a Paul Harris Fellow through Rotary International, served as Suburban Rotary’s secretary for two years, and in 2001 was awarded the Suburban Rotarian of the Year award -- one of his proudest moments. Among other accolades are Volunteer of the Year from Jewish Senior Services; the Federation Award for Dedicated Leadership; B’nai B’rith Appreciation and Recognition Award for Service to the Lodge (Breadbreakers); the Selwyn Roffman Memorial Award; and the Ackerman Award for Continued Continued on page 4

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March 26, 2010

Love for “Stan the Man” Continued from page 3 Commitment to the prestigious Show Wagon. Many in the community also remember Widman’s talent when it came to singing and acting. He performed at the Firehouse Dinner Theater, Omaha Community Playhouse, Grande Olde Players, and in

is still there, so I do whatever I have to do to keep him laughing.” They met in 1991 at a New Year’s Eve party. “I didn’t feel like partying or going by myself. However, my friend would not hear of me not coming. I went and lo and behold, I spent the whole night standing in front

Stan Widman, left, wearing Central high school’s baseball uniform. Stan lettered in the sport, but also played football and was an avid bowler. His skills weren’t limited to sports; he alo received many commendations in recognition of his scholastic achievements.

many of Karen Sokolof Javitch’s musicals at the JCC, to name a few. He often worked with Joanie Jacobson; she was instrumental in helping Stan prepare his musical interpretation of the famous Al Jolson. He even appeared in the movie, About Schmidt with Jack Nicholson. He helped to found the sing-along at Rose Jewish Blumkin Home, sang for many years in the Beth El Choir and filled in for the cantor on occasion. When asked, he never hesitated to sing for any event -- Jewish or otherwise. Barb and Stan were married in 1995. Barb describes Stan as “philanthropic, cheerful and loving. We’ve held hands since day one; it was just an automatic thing. And now, when he’s smiling and laughing, that sparkle

of the refrigerator -- talking to Stan,” she recalled. “Our courtship was like a dream; it was perfect for both of us, and we often reminisced about it! Stan always liked to be at the forefront of things. However, he said he wanted to share it with me and always made sure that I was ‘in the forefront’ with him.” She added, “Stan was instrumental in getting me to come back to the synagogue. After my daughter Lisa died from cancer in 1990, I had a lot of issues with God and found it difficult to go to the synagogue. We talked a lot about it and Stan understood my feelings; he slowly and gently -- without pushing -- got me to go with him when he sang at weddings.” Before long, she joined him in the Beth El choir, and

was back in a synagogue. “That’s the way Stan is -- very determined, but in a kind, gentle and caring way. We understood each other; he used to say it was like we were kindred spirits.” About two years ago, Barb and Stan joined the Alzheimer’s Association and attended support groups for couples. “Couples would meet as a group and then caregivers and care receivers met separately. It was great, but when the caregivers’ group disbanded in December of 2007, most of us were just left hanging, not knowing how to deal with this insidious disease that was stealing our spouses right before our eyes. So I started my own support group, which has been a god send to everyone. We proudly raised almost $12,000 for the Alzheimer’s Memory Walk this year.” Barb continued, “During one of my visits, I planned to stay for only a short while. Stan was busy with an aide, so I went out into the hall to talk to some of the nurses. When I looked up, there he was, way down the hall, in his wheelchair waving both arms -- flagging me down! It was just precious and, needless to say, the visit was not a short one!” Barb’s days are full. In addition to visiting her husband twice daily, she teaches English as a Second Language for Omaha Public Schools. Until a couple of years ago, she also worked full-time for 16 years as administrative assistant to Jay Lerner at The Lerner Company. “I loved the people, the work, and I couldn't have been happier. But when Stan got sick, I knew I had other things I needed to do. “Our marriage has been wonderful. We still hug and hold each other -- even though it isn’t the same. It’s wonderful, but there is an emptiness -- Alzheimer’s has robbed us of so much. I know that if I had an illness, Stan would have supported me,” she said. “He always called me ‘sweetness’; he is the love of my life. We used to read the newspaper comics every night before we went to bed and would fall asleep laughing,” she noted. “Once, we were talking about his mother, Pauline, who had Alzheimer’s. I still remember where we were when Stan said to me, ‘If that ever happens to me, just turn, walk away, and don’t look back.’” Barb stopped and looked up. “Would I do that? No way!”

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Roy Katskee: A Jewish Athletic Life

play as a member of a team, learn to play fair, and improve self-esteem.� Roy Katskee could serve as the poster child for the above statement, and he credits the coaches at the JCC for many of the skills he developed while honing his athleticism: “There were some excellent coaches and great athletic directors at the JCC. I think the reason there were so many outstanding athletes in my generation was the great mentoring we received. Back then, sports were a bigger part of Jewish life. Nowadays, kids have more options to find extracurricular activities, and they don’t have to rely solely on Jewish sports.� “There was a little league during the summer,� Katskee continued, “which was actually not part of the JCC programming. My dad, Sheff Katskee, coached us whenever he could. It was just neighborhood kids, nothing official, playing against other kids in Omaha.� Sheff Katskee’s involvement in his son’s athletic endeavors landed him in trouble at least once: “We went for a basketball game in Sioux City,� Roy remembers, “and my father went along as our coach. We were expected to win easily, because everybody knew our team was much better, but once we got there, we found out they had recruited non-Jews. These guys were stronger and better than the kids that normally played on that team. This was a team we had played against for years; we knew something was fishy when we suddenly saw all these new and unfamiliar faces. Also, the referees were biased, and called foul Top: Roy Katskee at Northwest High easily made the transition after foul on us. My father from being a star athlete to coaching others; Bottom picture: became so upset, they had the Gerelick Motors basketball team, which won the league to escort him out of the championship in 1955. Front row: Lou Rich, left, Gabby Berg, building, and we ended Joel Davis, Arnie Altsuler, Walt Wise; Coach Sheff Katskee, back up losing.� left, Sam Bleicher, Larry Kohn, Roy Katskee and Gene Dandy; Katskee’s love for the For Roy Katskee, Jewish life and sports are a package deal. game(s) eventually resultDay school, and signing them up for reli- ed in him being a high school coach himgion classes. To some, it may mean skip- self. While he taught history and physical ping the pork, but doing a little shopping education, he also coached gymnastics on Saturday; to others, it may mean never and served as boys’ track coach and girl’s seeing the inside of the Synagogue -- softball coach. except on Yom Kippur. Then there are “One of the major reasons for my parthose who don’t do anything “Jewish� ents to move to Omaha was that I was that is obvious to an outside observer, but almost 13, and there was no place for me who nonetheless take great pride in their in North Platte to study for my Bar Jewish identity. Whatever path one Mitzvah,� Katskee remembered. “There chooses, it is quite often an intensely per- were only a handful of Jewish families in sonal path, and one that is quite meaning- North Platte, where my family had settled ful exactly because it is so personal. because of my father’s job. He worked for To Roy Katskee, the JCC at 20th and the railroad during the war, but when all Dodge was “the center of the universe.� the men returned after the war, it was a Roy was a fifth grade elementary school good time to leave. For me it was a rude student when he moved to Omaha from awakening, because once we were in North Platte, and he found a welcoming Omaha, I had to go to Hebrew school. I home in organized sports at the JCC: thought that was pretty tough.� “Every Jewish boy in Omaha went The way Jewish life and sports are there,� he said, “and it was extremely entwined in Roy Katskee’s life story (one structured. Back then, there were quite a can’t really be told without the other) is few limitations for Jewish boys. You reflected in the Maccabi Games’ mission couldn’t play on Saturday, and you could- statement. Roy’s story about being a n’t play on holidays. However, at the Jewish athlete may have started more JCC, you could participate in anything. than 50 years ago, but there is a striking For me, it was the first time I was ever similarity: “These Games will bring involved in any kind of organized sports. together our entire Jewish Community as There was a swimming competition, we we promote healthy development, physiwrestled, played basketball, baseball, and cal fitness and teamwork, all while ran track. It was there that I made lifelong strengthening Jewish identity and buildfriends.� ing self-esteem.� The American Academy of Child and Let’s hope that for all these young athAdolescent Psychiatry says that “Sports letes, just as it did for Roy, sports will help children develop physical skills, get mean more than ‘just a game,’ and inspire exercise, make friends, have fun, learn to them to learn lifelong skills. by ANNETTE VAN DE KAMP-WRIGHT To live a Jewish life means different things to different people. For some, it has to do with Kashrut, attending services, not traveling on Shabbat. It can mean never missing Friday night candlelighting, sending your children to a Jewish

March 26, 2010

Jewish Press, Omaha, NE

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by CAROL KATZMAN ... still holds that title. Since 1940, at least, Irv Yaffe is the only Jewish basketball player to have lettered in the sport at the Unviersity of Nebraska-Lincoln. Oh sure, Phil Gerelick lettered in basketball in 1926 or ’27, and Elmer Greenberg played varsity football at UNL in 1924. Other Jewish athletes have played varsity ball at colleges and universities out of state, but for Yaffe, that’s not the same. He’s proud of his origins as a “gym rat,” at the old Jewish Community Center on 20th and Dodge. That’s where he got his start swimming and tumbling, as well as in basketball, but he doesn’t recall his parents ever watching him play. “They were both immigrants from Russia,” Yaffee said in a video interview taped by his son-in-law, Robert Baumgardener, in July of 2008. “They were busy with their own lives, trying to make a living.” But Yaffe didn’t give up. his first organized team experience was in eighthgrade. His team won the district championship, but his name was spelled wrong -Yasse, instead of Yaffee! And he went on to become a star center for Central High school in the 1930s. Not only did he letter at Central, he was also named to the National Athletic Honor Society. “I had to work my tail off” to convince the coaches “to let me play,” Yaffe said, noting that he only weighed abut 100 lbs. at the time. “I kept coming to practice, and even though it was discouraging, I made it onto the reserve squad.” He got his lucky break in high school, however, in a game over winter break against South High. “The coach went home to see his family for the holidays,” Yaffe recalled. “Luckily, the reserve coach called me to be there.” Several of his varisty friends were at the game and let him play. He actually became the “high point man” for the Central team at that game. When the varsity coach returned from vacation, he started to let Yaffe play a little. “Gradually, I worked my way into being a starter on the reserve team but the varsity coach wouldn’t bring me up,” he recalled. At UNL, Yaffe was the smallest man on the team, weighing in now at 150 lbs and 5’9” tall. But not only did he letter all four years, he was named co-captain his senior year. At 91, he’s as spry as ever, but admits by today’s standards he probably wouldn’t make it on the team, let alone off the bench in college ball! But the coaches did begin to take notice of “this little shrimp” as he described himself, and he made the varsity sqaud as a sophomore. By his junior year, he was suiting up and playing in some games. In addition to his studies and basketball, Yaffe was also active in Sigma Alpha Mu, the “Sammies” at UNL, where he was president his senior year. His athletic career didn’t stop after he graduated from UNL in 1940, however. He played on AAU teams -which preceded the NBA. One of those teams just happened to be composed of former Creighton University basketball players. They made it to the AAU finals in Denver that year. Yaffe also played for corporate sponsors, as well as the South Omaha Eagles which travelled throughout Nebraska and Iowa playing small town basketball teams. During World War II, Yaffe continued his athletic pursuits, playing with some of the top United States Army teams -- from Ft. Lewis (Washington) to Camp Kohler, (California), which placed first in the Army leagues two years in a row. He trained with the Signal Corps and stayed stateside,

where he was sent to Ft. Leavenworth. Since both the basketball and Jewish worlds are pretty small, it was no surprise when an officer recognized him. “Benny Novicoff was from Lincoln,” he added, “and a Sammie brother.” Not only did he know about Yaffe’s basketball career, he took him out to dinner -- “better than those army meals!” He went from clerk school to operations, where he came across a rule number 283: athletic instructor. “I thought to myself, ‘I could qualify for this,’ and debated whether I should inquire,” Yaffe recalled. The athletic officer of the post -- for whom Yaffe played basketball on the post’s team! -- readily agreed and submitted papers for Yaffe. He walked into the classification office and who should be the officer -- Johnny Hyland -from UNL! Later he was tapped for the course “that was almost like going to medical school” and was confirmed as an athletic instructor. But

Left, In this 1939 photo, used with permission of the Omaha World-Herald, Yaffe was a junior. That game, against Wyoming, was Yaffe’s first off the bench; his play “sparked a rally that sent the Huskers into a commanding position that brought victory”; below, Irv Yaffe, shown with his trophies, played basketball at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, in the late 1930s and 1940.

by that time, the army was “breaking up Camp Kohler” and Yaffe was sent to Camp Barkley, TX. “They didn’t know what to do with us,” he laughed, “so we just played softball all day long!” At first he thought he’d be assigned to a hospital ship in the South Pacific, but another army officer at the next desk overheard the conversation. “Those guys are ‘283s’ and can’t be sent out of the country,” he announced. “That was the first time I had heard that,” Yaffe recalled on his way to Washington state. “I wound up playing with the Ft. Lewis basketball team ... they had a great team. It was fun!” From there, Yaffe was sent to the East Coast, before finally mustering out in 1944. And then, of course, came the “senior leagues” at the JCC. Yaffe played for the Old-Timers, culminating in 45 years of continuous basketball play -- quite a record, and still unbeaten! “The Los Angeles Lakers are a favorite,” Yaffe added, noting that he loves to watch all the pro baskeball teams. While basketball has always been a big part of his life (he follows the Huskers, of course!), Yaffe has also been an active volunteer. He was a member of the JCC Board of Directors and Jewish Federation Board, plus the District 66 School Board, where he served for 24 years. He is also a longtime board member of the AntiDefamation League, the Munroe-Meyer Institute and the Hattie B. Munroe Foundation. He retired from Yaffe Printing, a company he owned with his brother, Sol, when they sold it in 1988. Married for 60 years to Annette, they are parents of Joan and Robert Baumgardener of Austin, TX, and Ann and Lee Phillips of Upper Montclair, NJ, and grandparents of Perry Phillips, a junior at Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs, NY, and Lucy Phillips, a senior at Deerfield Academy in western Massachusetts, “I haven’t missed a year spending free time in a gym or fitness center since I was 10,” Yaffe added. And yes, the nonagenarian athlete still works out often at the JCC!

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Jewish Press, Omaha, NE

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Lerner’s lovin’ life as a Badger; getting his ‘kicks’ in the Big 10

by JILL BELMONT The University of Wisconsin gets a real kick out of Alec Lerner. Literally. And Lerner’s having a pretty good time, too. As a freshman walk-on for Wisconsin’s football team, the Omahan is enjoying life in Madison as a Big 10 kicker -- something he never anticipated. As a youngster, Lerner said he wanted to be a running back or wide receiver, “but my parents never wanted me to play because they didn’t want me to get hurt,” so he dedicated himself to the sport of soccer, playing for a variety of clubs and then for the highly competitive Arsenal United team. So how did this 2009 Burke High graduate end up playing football for the Badgers? Turns out all that soccer left him with a mighty strong kicking leg, which caught the eye of a faculty member during Lerner’s first year at Burke. One day in gym class, Lerner recalled, he began booting 40-yard field goals, “showing off for everyone because I was an arrogant freshman.” Little did he know that his phys ed. teacher -- one of the school’s football coaches -- was paying attention. Despite the fact that the season was almost over, the coach encouraged him to join the team. The coach’s feeling was “better late than never,” Lerner said. His first team practice was memorable, Lerner remembered, and not necessarily in a good way. “I had no idea what to do,” he said. “I even had my shoulder pads on backwards, which is something that I’ll never live down.” But by junior year, the shoulder pads were firmly in place, he was on the varsi-

ty team, and “ended up being pretty good at kicking and punting without ever practicing, other than playing soccer,” he said. (Lerner also played varsity soccer for

of herself and Alec’s dad, Gary. “Neither of us liked the game that much and our usual excuse was that it would conflict with soccer. Also, we knew if his club soc-

Alec, with parents Cheryl and Gary Lerner. Burke; he served as team captain for two years and received national recognition as a member of the U.S. Soccer Region II Under-18 team.) Transitioning from soccer to football was a piece of cake: the former entailed lots of running, and the latter, no running but a lot of weight-lifting. “Football’s much easier,” he said. Becoming the parents of a football player was not quite as easy, according to Lerner’s mom, Cheryl. “We weren’t too thrilled when he said he wanted to play football,” she admitted

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cer coach found out, he would throw a fit, so we said ‘no.’ Then his coach saw him fooling around with some friends, kicking the football, and before we knew what was happening he somehow ended up on the team.” As a sophomore on the junior varsity team, Alec kicked his first field goal: a 48yarder. “I didn’t realize that was a long way for a 15 year old,” Cheryl admitted. “My thought was, ‘Let’s finish the game; you have to go to soccer.’ Later we kept hearing from other parents that he was good, but we didn’t think that much of it.

We thought it was just kind of a fun diversion from soccer, something he could do with his other friends at school.” Eventually, the reluctant football mom realized that she needed to get schooled in the game, so she began attending the “Monday Night Moms” program at Fernando’s restaurant, sponsored by the Burke Gridiron Club. “We would eat nachos, drink margaritas and try to learn about football from the Burke coaches,” she said. “I went more for the nachos, margaritas and conversation; a lot of the football talk was beyond what I could understand. Then I would go home and try to explain things to Gary. I can follow a game now, but it’s still just the basics.” “Honestly, football was never a sport we envisioned any of our kids playing -his brothers played basketball and baseball. We got really involved with soccer, but football was a real stretch.” During his high school career, Lerner’s kicking game began to draw more attention. His longest field goal as a varsity player was 43 yards, and his longest in practice was 65 yards. “That was when my coach said ‘You need to quit soccer and start playing football,’” Alec said, joking that, “I don't think he realized I had a good old Nebraska wind behind me.” He assessed his skills by saying that, “I wasn't all that great at field goals but I kicked most of my kick-offs through the end zone, which is what got the most attention from college teams.” As with high school football, Lerner hadn’t thought about taking his football career to the next level -- until the winter of his senior year, when people began to Continued on page 8

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Jewish Press, Omaha, NE

March 26, 2010

Lerner’s getting his ‘kicks’ in the Big 10 Continued from page 7 friends I have made, and the fact that I tell him that he had potential to play col- get to be a part of something so much lege ball. So he sent out highlight tapes to bigger than myself, has really been a great eight Division I schools; then his luck experience. The Big 10 is a respected, kicked in. popular conference, so playing in it is an “It just so happens that the day I was honor.” accepted to Wisconsin, their back-up Being second on the depth chart, he kicker left the team to pursue a graduate school opportunity at Cornell University,” Lerner said. “They were looking for someone to fill the spot and thought that my highlight tape was better than the other 15 they were looking at. I was lucky to get the opportunity, and I credit the chance entirely to good timing and the Man above.” So last fall, the unintentional high school football player became the unintentional college football player; he was recruited by the Wisconsin Badgers as a preferred walk-on. He redshirted this year and hopes to see some playing time next season. He’s currently in line behind the starting kicker, an All-American, who will be a Early on, Alec had his sights set on soccer. junior next year. “I was competing with him a lot was selected to travel to every game durtowards the end of the year and I meas- ing the season. “I would say Ohio State, ured up quite well to him,” Lerner said. Hawaii, and the bowl game in Orlando, “I think there is a chance that I could play when we beat Miami, were my favorite next year but it’s going to be very tough games to travel to,” he said. to earn the spot while he is still on the “It’s a lot of guys’ dreams to play colteam. If all goes well, I may get to start lege football for a prestigious team. We for two years because of my redshirt sea- get to be on ESPN, we get free clothes; son this year.” we get treated like superstars on campus.” All in all, “my experience as a Badger For Cheryl, “It’s fun to see our son out has been unbelievable,” he said. “The there in uniform with the ‘big boys,’ see-

ing ‘Lerner’ on the back of a jersey. It’s pretty easy to spot him,” she joked of her 5’7” son: “he’s the shortest one out there.” Although he hasn’t yet seen any playing time, he warms up on the field prior to games and warms up the returners, so his

and studying can be difficult. “Focusing on school has been really tough with football,” remarked Lerner, who would like to pursue a career in medicine. “I probably spend an average of six hours a day on football. We practice every day of the week except for Mondays, which are our most difficult academic days, filled with tutors and study groups. “My days are very structured, which is helpful, but it’s tough to wind down and study when all I want to do is sleep because I have to get up so early every day. I have to be done with my classes by noon, so I have all morning classes -- not to mention the 7:30 a.m. weight-lifting sessions. “School at Wisconsin would have been a challenge without football, so playing football has made things even more difficult,” he pointed out. “However, I never once thought about quitting. I will get through it and I will figure out how to do better in school and continue No. 96, kicking the pigskin during game warm-ups. doing well with football. My mom noted that “it’s kind of funny parents tell me I am there for a reason watching his games on TV and thinking, and that is school. Although they often ‘Don’t show me the game -- show me the think I have forgotten the reason why I bench. I want to see the sidelines! It’s fun am there, I have not.” to try and spot him.” Still, Lerner’s sights are set on next fall, When the cleats and the shoulders pads when that strong kicking leg will (hopecome off, Lerner is immersed in the grind fully) have a chance to do its thing for his of a typical college student. And make no team. When that happens, you can bet his mistake: this student-athlete is at family and friends will be cheering him on Wisconsin to get an education, and for – and getting a kick out of their favorite him, the challenge of juggling practices Badger.

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Dedication and talent vault Sanford into college gymnastics scholarship

by JILL BELMONT If the adage “Follow your passion” seems like fortunecookie wisdom or tired advice, Taylor Sanford would probably beg to differ. As a young child, Sanford discovered her passion -- gymnastics -- and pursued it with a dedication, a zeal that has served her well: the 20-yearold Omahan is enjoying a full, four-year gymnastics scholarship at Denver University. Looking at her impressive pre-college accomplishments, it’s easy to see why DU recruited Sanford to become a Pioneer: she was a Level 10 Junior Olympics national qualifier in 2006, as well as a two-time Nebraska all-around state champion; she also earned the distinc-

not have been able to push through as well.” Another pillar of support for Sanford is Melissa Kutcher-Rinehart, head gymnastics coach at DU. Kutcher-Rinehart sang the praises of her gymnast, saying, “Taylor is a pleasure to coach. I’ve had her now for three years and it’s been great to continually watch her progress and improve -- not only gymnastics and skills-wise, but also by the way she’s contributing to the line-ups.” Coach Kutcher-Rinehart explained that early on, Sanford started in one line-up; however, her contribution to the team is now multi-layered. She now trains in all-around -- all four events -- “so she’s improved as an athlete, she’s improved skill-wise, she’s improved as far

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Above: As a senior in high school, Taylor takes a break during a workout to chat with a teammate; right: In 2009, during her sophomore year, Taylor shows impeccable form and focus on the balance beam.

tion as a Nebraska state champion on the uneven bars and floor exercise (2004), and on balance beam and floor exercise (2006). At the 2004 JO regionals, she won both the floor exercise and balance beam championships, and in 2006 was a national qualifier. These achievements wouldn’t have been possible without a driving passion and deep commitment. Sanford exemplifies both. “I am passionate about gymnastics because it is something that makes me happy, and I enjoy being around a team of girls who are having just as much fun achieving a goal as I am,” said the 2007 Millard North High School graduate. “I love performing in front of all the crowds; it’s just another place where I can show off my personality. Also, whenever I accomplish a new skill, there’s the feeling of excitement.” At age seven, Sanford became involved with club gymnastics at Premier Gymnastics in Omaha, but said she “did not know how dedicated and time-consuming this sport would be until I started succeeding through the levels at a rapid pace.” In club gymnastics, she explained, participants work on all four events (floor exercise, balance beam, uneven bars and vault), “no matter what you fear and what you like the most. Of course this caused some issues at times, but I pushed through and did what worked for me.” Sanford put in the time, honed her skills, excelled at her sport. But at what point did she realize that she had something special -- a talent that would take her farther than the local club level? “Little kids talk about the Olympics, but when you get older you realize that’s a hard goal,” she said. “That is when my mind switched over to how I could use my talent to be just like the college girls I saw on TV. My first major accomplishment was winning the all-around in Minnesota as a Level Eight gymnast, when I was 13 years old. That was the major turning point of it all.” Sanford credits her parents, Vicki Allely and Mark Sanford, with her development as a gymnast. “They were a great motivation key to me,” she said. “Of course, they had to be dedicated as well, since I could not drive a car [when I was younger], so making the trip to the gym five days a week was pretty time-consuming. “My mom and dad never let me quit when I would get scared of a skill,” she continued. “They always helped me keep my head up through the hard times, and I’m glad they were, and still are, behind me 110 percent of the way.” Her parents were also important when Sanford experienced the inevitable burn-out that athletes experience at some point during their careers. “I have experienced burn-out twice, once during senior year of high school and once just last year,” she recalled. “I talked to my mom, teammates and old coaches from home who helped motivate me every step of the way. I am glad and thankful to have such great people to fall back on, because without them I would

Jewish Press, Omaha, NE

as adding stats to our team and challenging for more line-up spots.” But beyond gymnastics, the coach said she has been most impressed watching Sanford mature as a person. “She really displays the three traits and qualities that we look for in our athletes: character, teamwork and excellence. That’s Taylor for you.” “She displays that character, that teamwork, and that level of excellence in both academics and athletics. And she is just a pleasure, has a positive attitude, is coachable, and is really enjoyable to work with.” Sanford’s opportunity to attend DU came about when she attended a training camp in Kentucky -- a camp at which an assistant coach from DU was working. She gave the coach a DVD of her gymnastics highlights, “and within two weeks he called me and we organized a time for me to visit later in the year,” she said. At the time, she was also considering the University of Kentucky, Iowa State and Ohio State. In the end, DU won out. “Denver is a great campus,” she said. “I loved the team and coaches, and the other athletics and education they had to offer.” Sanford dedicates 20 hours a week to working on her sport: strength and conditioning take place Monday through Friday from 7 a.m. to 7:45 a.m., and practice follows from 2:30 p.m. to 5:45 p.m. Her favorite event is balance beam, even though Sanford admitted that mastering it has also been her greatest challenge. Meeting that challenge has meant devising a specific game plan to help overcome her fears and accomplish her goals. Then, she said, “It just seemed to click one day, and now I enjoy working on and learning new things for this event.” Even at her current advanced level of competition, Sanford said she’s still gaining valuable knowledge about her sport. “You would think being at the college level there may not be much more to learn, but I have actually hit my peak point and just started accomplishing far more new skills than I did in my last two years of high school,” she said. Her college career has been illustrious: among her accomplishments, she earned DU’s third highest score on the beam with a 9.725, and a 9.8 on the vault during the 2009 Regionals; she also averaged a 9.581 on vault and 9.519 on balance beam for the season; in addition, she scored a 9.6 on balance beam during the 2008 Nationals, and set a career-high vault score with a 9.800 in a meet in early 2008 (she also matched that score on two other occasions). This past January, she received the highest beam score of her career – a 9.875 -- and last month made the bar line-up for the first time in a meet. And her proudest moment as a DU Pioneer? “My freshman year when we qualified for Nationals.” Continued on page 10

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March 26, 2010

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Ben Lohman dreams big! by JOAN K. MARCUS At the age of 16, Ben Lohman is a tall and lanky kid. However, he hasn’t always been that way. Ben is the only Jewish kid on the Central High sophomore basketball team, winner of last year’s city championship. Hopefully, according to Ben, he is headed for the varsity team. While some people keep track of every detail about basketball, others don’t know much more than that the ball is round. Luckily, there are people like Ben, who are polite, informative, and more than able to explain their love of sports. During his freshman year, he faced 90 other classmates who were trying out for the team. Elimination of four fifths of the candidates took place over five tryouts. He admits that, at 5’8”, he is one of the smallest kids on the team, but he makes up for his size with speed. He is known for his ‘three pointers.’ (That’s when you get the ball in the basket from the other side of the court!) Ben explained that Central’s team has won nine games and lost three, giving them a 9-3 season. Ben hopes to continue his basketball career through high school and college. He said, “In order to practice playing basketball, you just go to the gym and play ‘pickup games’ and try really hard.” He can often be found at the JCC during the weekend, in order to work out and play more basketball. According to Ben, “Playing helps you to have fun and get better. I watch basketball plays on television and I practice with my brother, Lee, 15. I always listen to what my coach says.” When he was born, in 1994, he was seven weeks premature and, according to his mother, Dr. Helene Lohman, “He was due in March but made his entrance in January. Actually, for a preemie, he was five pounds and that was a good-sized baby. However, his muscles were tight, and we were constantly trying to relax them. He wasn’t as coordinated as other babies because of being born so early. Who would have thought that he would end up loving sports?” Dr. Lohman is a professor of occupational therapy at Creighton University. Ben’s dad, Mike, is an orthotist (someone who fits people with certain disabilities for orthopedic braces.) Admittedly, they were “a little older than the average parents when Ben was born.” However, they have always done whatever they could to encourage his athletic abilities. Ben smiled and said, “My dad isn’t really interested in sports, but he goes to all

of my games and cheers me on. However, sometimes he might bring a book along to read during the game.” Ben began playing sports in kindergarten or preschool. He professes a love of basketball, football, soccer and anything else with a ball. In addition to being on the Central basketball team, he plans to try out for softball this year. Sports aren’t Ben’s only accomplishments. He is in math, science and history honors classes and shared the fact that he has a 4.0 average in his academic classes. He wants to go to Creighton University and has aspirations of becomeing a dentist. However, while at Creighton, he also wants to play basketball. Dr. Lohman said, “Ben comes home from school Left: Ben Lohman; below: Ben Lohman, second from right, With 2009 Central High School Eagles.

and immediately sits down to study. That's how he manages to be such a good student and an athlete. This is his last year to participate in the Maccabi Games here in Omaha. He would love to go on to participate in national and international games.” Ben enjoys the diversity of his fellow teammates. He says, “The guys on the team are all funny and talented in different ways. We get along, and I am well accepted by all groups. However, I grew up at Beyt Shalom, the now closed Reconstructionist congregation, and I miss the small congregation and my friends there. We were all very close.” He speaks about his parents, Helene and Mike, and says, “They have really been supportive parents. They take me to all of the games, buy whatever I need and make sure that I get to travel wherever there is an athletic opportunity.” Helene elaborated by saying, “It wasn't easy being a 41 year-old mom and having this little kid beg you to come outside and play ball. It was the farthest thing from my mind. But, when you see that your son has talent and is eager to play anything, you go outside and learn to throw a ball!”

Sanford vaults into college gymnastics scholarship Continued from page 9 Sanford noted that college competition “is more of a production than a club. We get all glittered up and just really go out and enjoy ourselves as a team. It is just pure fun each night we go and perform, even though the intensity volume is turned up pretty high.” Another perk is the traveling, she said. “If I had not done competitive gymnastics, I don’t know how much I would have traveled. I love the adventures we have and all the new and exciting information I learn at the tourist spots we visit. Coming home with new stories is one of the things everyone looks forward to.”

Her sport has also been a wellspring of valuable life lessons, including teamwork, leadership, discipline, confidence and many more, she said. “Gymnastics is a sport of the mind. I have been doing mental training since my club gymnastics days, and it has carried through to my college years.” Even when she’s not practicing or competing, Sanford is drawn to gymnastics, especially during the summer when she goes back to Premier and helps coach its youth program. “It’s something that I enjoy being around,” she said. “Gymnastics will always be a part of my life.”

March 26, 2010

Jewish Press, Omaha, NE

Page 11

Staying fit and creative in our Community!

by JOAN K. MARCUS When Ray Somberg went to Central High School, he didn’t know that sports and exercise helped assure good health. He only knew that he loved to play baseball, and he lettered in the sport his sophomore, junior and senior years. In fact, he remembers when he was a senior and Central was playing Tech High at Rosenblatt stadium. He was at bat and on the pitching mound was Bob Gibson, who became a St. Louis Cardinal and a member of the Baseball Hall of Fame. “Yes,” Ray said with a chuckle, “I struck out!” Actually he did have a high batting average, and he remembers it as a great experience. Stan Widman and Steve Rosenblatt were also on the Central team. During his senior year, his knowledge and passion for all sports came into play as Sports Editor of the Central High Register. “I loved baseball, basketball, and football, he said. “When I was in high school, I played all of the team sports that were in the Jewish Youth Council leagues. There were several AZA Chapters and also an independent group called Rayim. (Somberg was president of that group.) The rivalries were friendly, and we all had great fun. My favorite sport, of course, was baseball. I played first base, which was the same position my dad, Lou Somberg, had played in the 1920s. Like my dad, I just loved playing and competing.” I also loved to play hockey, but that was a neighborhood thing—on our driveways or much to my mother’s dismay, in our basement! After high school, Somberg went to the Wharton School of Finance at the University of Pennsylvania. He graduated in 1958 with a degree in business and finance. He was a member of Zeta Beta Tau and president of the fraternity his senior year. Following college and a short stint in the Nebraska National Guard, he returned to Omaha where he became part of the family business, Natelson’s; a store that many Omahans still recall with fondness. Along with his father and older brother, Marlon, Ray began working at the original store at 15th and Douglas St. In 1960, they opened the Natelson’s at Crossroads Mall. Later they expanded, and Somberg was a store manager, a buyer and a merchandise manager. In 1974, when the new Jewish Community Center opened, Somberg was chairman of the membership campaign. The campaign began before and ran during the construction work, culminating at the opening. “It was a big job and lots bigger than it seemed when Chuck Monasee talked me into doing it,” he laughed. When the 10 Natelson’s stores in Omaha, Lincoln and Council Bluffs closed in 1990 and 1991, Ray began

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working for the Omaha Chamber of Commerce as its Vice President of Small Businesses. He was in charge of the Big O! Show, the Small Business Council, and he started their TIPS Club, groups of noncompeting business people who met once a week to exchange tips, leads, referrals and information, with the goal of expanding their business. “The concept had been around for decades,” he explained. “I went to a couple of other cities where the

Chambers were involved in the groups. I started one group, and it was very successful. It grew to eight groups which meant that I had 400 meetings a year!” Now that he is retired from the Chamber, he continues to run the groups on a different level. Two groups called the Omaha Executive Club are made up of only owners of companies, presidents of companies, or senior management. Two additional groups, called the Omaha Leads Clubs, are made up of 80% salespeople and 20% executives. Each group has between 28 and 30 members, and they meet once a week. His business is called Somberg Networking Affiliates, Inc.” As an adult Ray became very involved in tennis. He

played for 23 years, the last 10 of which he played seven days a week. That ended about 13 or 14 years ago. “But as a result,” Somberg explained, “I’ve had three hip replacements and back surgery.” He now plays golf and exercises regularly at the Jewish Community Center. Some of his golf partners are John Goldner, Stewart Muskin, Ed Malashock, Irv Yaffe and Bob Kully. “Bob and I went to Humpty Dumpty Nursery School together when we were four years old. He graduated with honors, but I did not,” Somberg added. (Ray fared better at Central where he made the National Honor Society.) Most recently Somberg has partnered with Jerry Hoberman to plan a day to pay tribute to Omaha’s firefighters, police officers and paramedics. Mayor Jim Suttle has proclaimed June 10, 2010, as a day to honor the men and women who, Left top: Central High on a daily basis, protect, Baseball Team in 1954, Ray defend and serve all of the Somberg third from the citizens of Omaha. right, front row, Stan An appreciation luncheon, Widman, far left front row ; with an expected 1,600 bottom left: Athlete of the attendees, will be held in the Year award from Lindy Paul Qwest Center ballroom. in 1954; above: Ray “The mission of the appreSomberg today. ciation initiative is to increase awareness of what these people do for us every day, show appreciation to our first responders for their dedication to our safety, and raise funds for critically needed equipment and training of firefighters and police officers,” Somberg explained. Somberg said he and Hoberman hope this concept spreads throughout the nation and that someday there will be legislation in Congress designating a specific day to honor police and firemen. Although he has been involved in other civic organizations, including the presidency of the Downtown Rotary Club in 2002, he considers this project to be his most important volunteer role. Ray’s lifetime commitment to Omaha and business has shown in all of his activities. “I just can’t think of any place that I’d rather be!” “However,” he continued, “my three children have all settled in other areas -Kansas City, Seattle and New Jersey. But at least my seven grandchildren are continuing my love of sports -not tennis or golf, but basketball, baseball, soccer and volleyball!”

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March 26, 2010

Former baseball player shares fond recollections of the game

by GLORIA SHUKERT JONES Mention baseball to Arnie Weitz, and it’s a sure-fire conversation starter. Weitz said he was always interested in baseball, whether reading about it or playing, and he began at a very early age. “When I was a kid, we lived a couple of houses from Dundee School, and they had a big playground. As soon as the snow started melting in March, we would gather there and play baseball. There wasn’t much else to do at home, TV was a bad option and kids didn’t have all the activities they do today,” Weitz recalled. “Then in high school, I played basketball and baseball, he continued, “and in college, I played baseball as well. I was in school in Los Angeles at the time, at the University of Southern California, and in those days, the freshmen did not play varsity sports. As it turned out, I wasn’t good enough to play varsity anyway, as SC was a powerhouse then. The guys that I played with as a freshman went on to win the College World Series in Omaha when we were seniors in 1968.” Weitz further indicated that USC was probably the best-known baseball school in the country, and that it was quite a thrill to be around some of the great players and all the tradition. He went on to describe one of the most outstanding highlights of his baseball experience: “When I was 40 years old, my wife sent me to a fantasy baseball camp at Vero Beach, which was the spring-training home of the Los Angeles Dodgers. “It was the week before the spring training started, and the participant ages were from 30 to 65,” Weitz said. “The year I went, it was the first that the coaches were all Hall of Famers. There were people there like Roy Campanella, Duke Snider, Sandy Koufax, Juan Marichal, Bob Feller, Warren Spahn, Al Kaline, Don Drysdale, Frank Robinson, Bob Gibson, Robin Roberts, and more. It was really an exciting experience. At the end of the week we all got to play with the Hall of Famers. There were 5,500 people in the stands, and I got up to bat against Sandy Koufax, who struck me out. In fact, one of my great claims to fame in sports was that I was struck out by Koufax and Tom Seaver, who also

was a Hall of Famer, and another guy on my freshman team, Bill Lee, who later played for Boston and Montreal for many years, and was known as ‘The Spaceman.’ Of course, they all struck me out.” At this point, Weitz elaborated more on some of his high school memoirs regarding basketball, another sport in which he frequently participated. “It’s interesting,” he

Weitz said that at the present time, the only game he plays is golf. “Not particularly well,” he emphasized, “but I play.” He reported having a bad hip, and if he ever had hip surgery, he’d probably try to improve his golf game and do some bike riding. He added, however, that these activities would be more in the line of exercise rather than sports per se. He has no plans to take part in the upcoming Maccabi games, but did indicate he and Anne would be providing housing for out-oftown participants. Weitz and his wife, Anne, have two grown children: son, Andy, who lives with his family in Austin, Texas, and daughter, Kate, who makes her home in Jerusalem. Both his daughter and daughLeft picture: Weitz showing off the Dodger uniform; top, Weitz is ter-in-law are expecting being struck out by the great Sandy Koufax, at the LA Dodger’s babies. Weitz said. He and his wife are planning spring training home. a trip to Israel to visit Kate observed, “not like today, after her baby is born. I’m sure, but in those days When asked if either of his children followed in his we all lived mid-town, and sports footsteps, Weitz indicated that Kate was a good we’d go down to the JCC. swimmer in high school, and Andy plays all kinds of On weekends, we’d all get sports, but his favorite was soccer. on the bus and hang out In 1954 Weitz’s parents, Rose and Leo Weitz, foundthere. We were kind of ‘gym rats,’ and we’d play basket- ed the Rose Bowl, a popular bowling alley in mid-town ball all day. At that time we would take trips to Des Omaha. “We never talked about bowling, did we?” Moines and Sioux City to play basketball. There were Weitz joked. He said he was was only eight years old all-star teams and we played at the JCC in those cities.” when his parents built the establishment. He was an only Weitz also spoke of AZA and Rayim, the high school child who spent a lot of time at the bowling alley while youth organizations, and stated that the competition was his parents were working. “By the time I was 15 years quite fierce when they played baseball, basketball and old, I hated bowling. I had bowled and bowled and football. He remembered that everybody looked for- bowled. I just didn’t care that much for it,” Weitz ward to those games and really enjoyed them. He noted explained. that he still keeps in touch with some of those teammates Weitz is a long time member of the Rotary Club, servthat he knew in high school. ing at one time as its president. He has also served on the “I moved back to Omaha when I was in my 30s,” boards of the American Red Cross and NET, an is an Weitz recalled, “and played basketball in the evening at avid reader. the new ‘J.’” He was referring to the present JCC, as He is the owner and chief executive officer of the opposed to the former building on 20th and Dodge investment firm, Arnold Weitz and Company. He has Streets, which was also a haven for sports enthusiasts. “I been in the investment business for 39 years, and played basketball for 10 years, until knee surgeries pre- describes the job in general terms, as investment managvented me from playing any longer.” ing, dealing with money and with people. Although baseball was Weitz’s favorite sport, he indiWhen asked if he considered teamwork to be an essencated that in his younger years, he played everything. In tial criterion in competitive sports, he replied, reference to basketball, he stated, “I was the 12th man, “Teamwork is as essential to sports as it is to life. I feel as they say in basketball. I made the varsity, but I didn’t fortunate to have been able to apply many of the lessons play a whole lot.” from the playing fields to my professional career.”

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Aaron and Noah Placzek: more well-adjusted than their biblical brothers how to problem solve and compete and give as much effort as possible, no matter how hard the challenge is. It also really helps me appreciate teamwork when I play doubles. My coaches inspire me to keep going and stay positive.” Aaron credits his coach, Trish Faust, with his growth both on and off the court. “Before I started working with Trish, I was a pretty good varsity team player. But I doubted myself. Every time I faced another good player, I could never step up and play with the fire inside that’s needed to win. Trish gave me the confidence I lacked. She kept giving me pep talks until I finally heard what she was saying. ‘I can play just as well as other good players. I am just as smart as the opponents I face.’ Trish helped me improve my attitude and my game, but she also helped me realize I had qualities that would serve me well outside the world of tennis, too.” Along with the required Tennis-playing brothers Aaron, left, and Noah Placzek are real- physical training, the ly in the swing of things. Placzeks understand how Noah is a 15-year-old freshman; Aaron big a role mental conditioning plays duran 18-year-old senior. “If I have a bad ing and after a match. “I do consider tournament and Noah has a good one, myself a competitive person,” Noah I’m happy for him,” Aaron said. “Sure, I admitted, “and I don’t like losing because get a little jealous every now and then, when I do it feels as if I failed myself.” but we usually support each other real Aaron doesn’t like to lose, either. “I well. When I play against Noah, it can get always want to do my best ,” he said. “A competitive, but I think that’s because loss in tennis happens for one of two reaI’m older and have played tennis longer sons. Either your opponent plays well and than he has, so losing to him can be a beats you, or you play poorly and beat drag.” For Noah, his older brother is an yourself. If I play well but a better player inspiration. “I always push to be as good wins, I look at the loss as a fun match I as Aaron. He sort of gives me a personal lost. No big deal. But if I lose because of goal to strive for.” my own sloppy playing, that’s another And it’s a worthy goal. Recently, Aaron story. I am kind of a perfectionist, so was one of 12 Omaha-area students when I make a lot of mistakes, it frustrates awarded the Fall 2009 Top Scholar me.” Athlete Award by the Greater Omaha For the past two years, Aaron has Sports Committee. The honor recog- played Westside varsity doubles with Ke nized Aaron’s academic accomplishments Arkfeld. In 2008, the duo won first place as well as his four years on Westside’s var- in Metro Number One Doubles and secsity tennis team, which he captained dur- ond place in State Number One Doubles. ing his three years of eligibility. Aaron “Ke is one year younger than I am, and also received the Best Male very talented. By now, we know each Sportsmanship Award from the Omaha other inside and out. We even traveled to Tennis Association at its annual banquet France with a foreign exchange friend for last fall. Noah, too, is making his mark. 10 days. Ke and I play our best when we “My coaches have shown me how to communicate and have fun, and if we lose compete and give as much effort as I can. we never blame one another. We’re a At one point I was in the top 20 in the good team because our relationship is Missouri Valley Section of USTA. My strong. That’s crucial, because if one playgoal for the future is to win a high school er doesn’t want to support the other playstate title.” er, a doubles team is ruined.” Even at their young ages, Aaron and For the Placzek brothers, success on the Noah understand that playing tennis court is matched with success in the classinvolves more than whacking the ball. room. Aaron is an active member of “Tennis gives my life structure,” Aaron DECA, the marketing club at Westside, said. “It’s helped me learn the meaning of and serves as its Vice President of responsibility, both in planning my days Fundraising and Activities. He’s a memaround practice sessions and by continu- ber of National Honor Society and plans ing my work ethic when training. I’ve to study business in college. Noah says learned a lot about myself through tennis. biology is his favorite freshman-year subIt’s given me confidence and taught me ject, but figures he’ll focus on business how to be self-reliant. In a tennis match, when college rolls around. it’s just you out there. Unlike other Neither boy is shy about commenting sports, like football or basketball, in ten- on the behavior of other players and their nis there’s no coaching during the match. parents at tennis matches. “I’ve met great Only you can find the way to win. And parents and terrible parents,” Aaron said. there’s no substituting players, so you can “There are parents who just want their never give up. Tennis has helped me child to be happy. If their child loses, they become a person who never gives up on graciously congratulate their kid’s oppoanything.” Noah added, “Tennis is teach- nent. Then there are parents who don’t ing me some important life skills, like Continued on page 14

Jewish Press, Omaha, NE

Page 13

May You Find Happiness and Fulfillment in this Joyous Celebration

Happy Passover

by OZZIE NOGG Cain and Abel. Jacob and Esau. Joseph and his brothers. The Biblical examples of sibling rivalry are blood-curdling. But Aaron and Noah Placzek have apparently escaped the jealousy and anger exhibited by many of their ancient ancestors. Both boys are varsity tennis players at Westside High School, and direct their competitive drive only at non-family opponents.

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Nonagenarian still an avid sports fan by CAROL KATZMAN In 1987, Lloyd Friedman was surprised to hear from a writer for the Jewish Press who wanted to set up an interview for the April Passover issue: “Jews in Sports.� He was 73 at the time and told writer Bonnie Bloch, “I’m on the twilight side of being good.� So at age 94 and a resident of the Rose Blumkin Jewish Home, he once again wondered why the Press would call on him again for this Passover issue. Simple answer: his wife of 63 years, Lois Friedman, stopped by the office with her husband’s press clippings and a photo. And no one says ‘no’ to Lois Friedman! A varsity tennis player at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and a golfer who once had a handicap of only 12, Lloyd Friedman still follows sports on the big screen broadcasts at the Blumkin Home. You can bet that when Main Street opens, he has a front row seat already reserved for next fall’s Husker football games! His love of tennis began when he was only 10; he took himself every day after school to Dewey Park’s tennis courts. At Central High School, he won singles championships in his junior and senior years. He earned a letter at UNL and though he did win quite a few tournaments, he says he played strictly “for the love of the game.� He was also active in Zeta Beta Tau, and served on UNL’s Interfraternity Council, finishing his senior year as its president. He graduated in 1937, and went on to make a lifelong career in the insurance industry, owning Allied Insurors, Inc., until merging with Alexander & Alexander in 1980, where he rose to the position of vice president. When he was interviewed in 1987, Friedman noted that he was still playing tennis several times a week, and working out three days a week for nearly two hours at a stretch. He also played golf several times a week, “when the weather was nice.� These days, the workouts are confined to exercise classes run by the Blumkin Home activities staff. But if you ask him about tennis personalities, he can still name them. “Tennis players are top athletes,� he said in the 1987 story. “We didn’t play quite as hard when I was a kid.� He said then he didn’t think he would have made the team by the standards of the 1980s, let alone today! “The players are more physical today,� he said, noting

that his tennis game was one of “finesse, rather than power and strength.� His favorite tennis player is Andre Agassi. When asked about Agassi’s revelation that he used crystal meth while playing on the world tennis circuit, Friedman admitted he didn’t know anything about it, but that of course it would have affected his game. “I don’t approve,� he added. His athletic prowess was not confined to tennis and golf, either. Friedman has won his share of bowling tournaments and even golf-putting contests. At the age of 73, he served on the board of the Omaha Safety and

Above, Lloyd Friedman, seated, attended his granddaughter’s wedding in September: back row: Scott and Debbie Friedman, the bride and groom, Jennifer Friedman and Rob Roth, Gloria Rosenblum and her sister, Lois Friedman; front left: Angela Friedman, the bride’s sister; left, In this 1937 photo, tennis player Lloyd Friedman shows off his varsity letter sweater from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

Health Council. His philosophy then -- and the advice he gives to “younger seniors� is “Don’t be a recluse. Get out and be with people. Enjoy whatever you are doing.� Friedman, a native Omahan, is part of a five-generation Temple Israel family. His grandfather, Harry, who grew up in Little Sioux, IA, lived to be 96. Lloyd’s father, Samuel Friedman, lived to be 101. (Harry bought eight plots in the Temple Israel Cemetery in 1896.) Lloyd, his father and son graduated from UNL as well: Sam in 1902, and Scott in 1971, making them a three-generation UNL family. His son and daughter-in-law are Debbie and Scott Friedman. Their daughter, Jennifer, was married to Rob Roth of Chicago by Temple’s Rabbi Aryeh Azriel on Sept. 6 in Omaha. Their youngest daughter, Angela, is in Omaha, studying to be a massage therapist. By the way, they’re also a four-generation Central High family!

Aaron and Noah Placzek well-adjusted brothers Continued from page 13 accept losing for their child. If their kid isn’t a winner, then they aren’t good enough to be their child. Those parents make me sick.� Noah has observed good behavior and what he calls ‘not so good’ behavior at tournaments. “Sometimes parents will be nice when they watch, but sometimes they try to coach from the bleachers and cheer in the wrong way. A parent’s behavior is usually reflected in the kids, and if the kid starts yelling on the court, the parents don’t do a thing about it.� Both Placzek brothers give their parents, Kimberly and Matthew, high marks in the How-To-Deal-WithAthlete-Offspring department. “I’m so lucky to not have any problems with my mom and dad pushing tennis on me,� Aaron said. “They only want me to be

happy playing. They go to all my tournaments and help me through both good and bad times. They support me, which is all I could ask for.� Noah agrees. “My family has been very supportive of me and my tennis. They encourage me to practice, play in tournaments, and they try to watch as many of my matches as possible to cheer me on.� The Placzek boys’ sister, 12-year old Phoebe, also plays tennis and, according to their mom, “Both boys take the time to hit and work with her on her game a couple of times a week, which has strengthened the bond of their relationships.� Happily for all concerned, Aaron and Noah Placzek don’t act like biblical feuding siblings. They prefer the words of Psalm 133. How good and pleasant it is when brothers live together in unity.

March 26, 2010

Jewish Press, Omaha, NE

Page 15

Tom Kirshenbaum relives his “big sports memories”

by CLAUDIA SHERMAN “I come from a very sports-minded family,” acknowledged Tom Kirshenbaum. “My mother Audrey was a state champion tennis player many times over. My brother Bill is a professional bowler and has won over $100,000 in his career. My other brother Dick played baseball and tennis in high school and baseball at Arizona State.” Tom, born and raised in Omaha, has played sports “for as long as I can remember. And baseball was always my first love. I started playing organized baseball as a nine-year-old.” At 12, Tom’s team won the state championship and then the regional championship in St. Joseph, Missouri. It was “my first big sports memory.” After that, he played on a Pony League team that won the state championship when Tom was 14. He played on Westside High School’s baseball team all four years, starting at second base his last two years. “We had a very good team my senior year and were state runner-up that year.” Baseball was number one, but Tom also played “just about any other sport that was available,” he added. At that time, “the Jewish Community Center had a very good high school sports program through AZA. I played on all the Chaim Weizmann teams. We had a very good basketball team that went undefeated my senior year.” Others on the team were Todd Greenstone and Bud Grossman, who both played baseball at Central High. Maynard Beltzer and Howie Halpern were both very good athletes too, according to Kirshenbaum. After high school, Kirshenbaum attended the University of Nebraska and decided “to just play intramural sports. However that didn’t last long.” One of my high school teammates asked me to join him in trying out for a team in a newly formed Class A softball league in Omaha called the Centennial League. Like everyone who played baseball at that time, I didn’t think much of softball.” But after much discussion, he decided to try out.

“For the next 14 years, I played the most competitive ball I had ever played. We played 80 to 120 games per year throughout the Midwest. I played with and against some of the best ball players in the entire Midwest.” Kirshenbaum’s team won six or seven city and state

Adam in a select travel team. Even though Dad worked retail, which requires weekend hours, I can never remember him missing one of Adam’s or my games.” Now in his late thirties, Matt still plays softball. A couple of years ago when he needed a new glove, Tom gave him one for Hanukkah. “I guess the enjoyment of watching your kids play baseball never goes away,” Matt said. Kirshenbaum and Dan Rubin, “a very good coach,” according to Tom, were then asked by the Omaha Suburban Athletic Association, to coach a select team. “We coached that team to a 68 and 18 record.” They were a state runner-up. “The next year, both my boys were Left: Tom Kirshenbaum; right above: Adam, left, Tom and playing ball at Burke High Matt Kirshenbaum played on Temple Israel’s softball team, School, and I was very happy facing Beth El Synagogue in an annual summer rivalry to just retire and watch.” played on the Jewish Community Center field. Another memorable sports championships and three moment for Kirshenbaum was in the stands at regional championships. “One of my teammates was Jon Rosenblatt Stadium. “I sat next to Dan Rubin when our Okun, who was probably the best player I ever played boys, Adam, and his son Jay, started next to each other with. He’s now in the softball Hall of Fame.” on Burke’s baseball team that won the state champiA partner in his family’s business, Wolf Brothers, which onship.” There were quite a few boys on the team that has been selling western wear in Omaha since the 1940s, Kirshenbaum and Rubin had coached. Kirshenbaum decided to give up playing after 14 years of “Although my playing days are behind me, Matt mansoftball and coach his sons Matt and Adam. Kate ages and plays in a softball league, and every once in Kirshenbaum, Tom’s wife of 39 years, encouraged the awhile, when they are desperate for players, I fill in. I’m switch. “For the next six years, I had some of my best not very good, but I still love it,” Tom confided. sports moments coaching them,” Kirshenbaum said. “Now I get the joy of watching my four grandchildren “My youngest son’s team won state and regional cham- play in their many sports.” Kathleen, 10, Joey, eight, and pionships when he was 12.” Laura, seven, have picked up the family tradition and “From the time my brother Adam and I were very play baseball and softball. Jordyn, six, might start this young, I can remember Dad pitching to us in our back- year. yard and playing catch,” recalled Matt Kirshenbaum. “This could just be a grandfather talking,” admitted “As we got older, he would take us to baseball fields and Kirshenbaum, “but I think they’re all pretty good.” As hit pop flies and groundballs to us. He became my first for his participation these days, “I just sit in the stands coach when I was in first grade, and he later coached and keep my mouth shut!”

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March 26, 2010

An activity to be passionate about

by OZZIE NOGG clinics with head pro Dave Weber.” Rice was a huge fan a lot of time together at Dewey, Hanscom and the Two years ago, on Father’s Day, Tom Rice’s kids and of Australian tennis great Ken Rosewall, and modeled Racquet Club. I really treasure those memories.” his wife, Jeanne, gave him a new, state-of-the-art tennis some of his strokes after the legendary player. By the time Rice enrolled at the University of Arizona, racquet to replace the 20-year-old relic he’d been using. “Rosewall’s slice backhand was a killer shot. When I was he admits to being burned out from high school tennis “The racquet is so light, I can barely tell I’m holding 15, I went to a tennis camp where they videotaped our competition. “Had I been more driven, I could have it,” Rice said, “and the design really seems to help my strokes, and I was very proud that my slice backhand worked my butt off to make the university tennis team, swing speed, which has slowed down over the years. looked just like Ken’s.” but I simply wasn’t willing to put in the effort. Instead, When I actually made contact with the ball without I decided to focus on enjoying Tucson. I did win the embarrassing myself, it was a ‘wow’ moment, and singles intramurals, which was really fun. My fraternity proved how far technology has come in the years since brothers thought I’d won Wimbledon.” I took tennis seriously.” Currently a sales manager at Regal Awards, Rice has Giving credit to the racquet and not his own skills is clients all over the country to whom he sells corporate typical of Tom Rice. Despite being ranked No. 1 or 2 as gifts and, sometimes, the same kinds of trophies he won a teenage singles player in Nebraska during the 1970s, as a kid. He still plays tennis once in a while, always in Rice says he never was an especially competitive person. doubles games he describes as more about friendly “If I’d been hungrier, I might have pursued tennis to banter than competition. “Tennis has always been and the next level. To this day I remember feeling bad about will remain important to me. Frankly, the sport made getting knocked out of a tournament in an early round, my life easier because it taught me discipline, how to when I’d expected to go far. My dad asked me if I did relate to people, how to fit in, make friends and have Above: A 1976 Westside High tennis team photo shows Rice (kneelmy best and I said ‘yes,’ and he said, ‘Good, that’s all fun. Tennis also gave me my first chance to make ing, 3rd from left, and his teammates Ken Somberg, kneeling 2nd you can do,’ and I never sweated that again.” In addimoney. Good grief -- I bought my own car when I was from left, Bob Cassman, 5th from left, John Staenberg, 6th from tion to his success in singles, Rice and his Westside High 16 and it wasn’t a junker.” left and Dan Goldman; below: Tom Rice with his wife Jeanne and partner, John Staenberg, were the Nebraska Class A Tom and Jeanne’s children, 16-year-old Dana and 14kids Kyle, Jaime, and Dana at the Royal Gorge last summer. Doubles champs in 1977. year-old twins, Kyle and Jaime, play some combination Some of Rice’s fondest tennis memories have nothing of soccer, volleyball, football, basketball and golf, and to do with his own game. “Back in the 1970s, Omaha have been -- or currently are -- on swim teams at the was on the pro tennis tour, and all the big names would Jewish Community Center. As for tennis? “Dana is a come to town and stay with local families, including pretty good player,” Rice said, “but I think she gets ours. Over the years Clark Graebner, Jaime Filol and more pleasure from singing in the Marian High School Jaime Pinto-Bravo stayed with us. My folks, Don and Select Women’s Choir. Kyle could be quite a good at Evvie Rice, would often host a party before the tournatennis if he played more. Jaime could be good, too, but ment, and all the players would come to my house -she never loved the game.” Jimmy Connors, Stan Smith, Ilie Nastase -- it was aweWhen watching his kids compete, Rice takes a page some. For a young tennis-playing kid like me, those parfrom his parents’ playbook. “My folks always wanted to ties were such a treat. I would mill around with the come to my matches but I told them it made me nervgrown-ups and the players and was amazed that all these ous. Still, even when they said they’d stay home, I’d guys were in my house. They were very cool, but none catch a glimpse of my mom or dad sitting several courts of them seemed to think they were too cool to be there. away, watching me. They were always supportive, never They acted like regular guys at a regular party, not like a overbearing. I’m very calm when I watch my kids comcelebrity affair. It was a dream for me.” In addition to Halpine and Weber, Tom Rice lists pete, even though it can be agonizing inside. I’m Suiting up as a ball boy at those pro tournaments was, Toma Ovici as another influence and role model. “That amazed by parents who lose their minds at their kid’s in Rice’s words, “a ton of fun. It was even fun when a was an amazing time. I met Toma at the Racquet Club, sporting events. When I taught at the Racquet Club ball I tossed to Ilie Nastase took a weird bounce and shortly after he defected from Romania to the United there were moms or dads who failed to recognize that Nastase started hassling me. Nastase’s mentor -- Ian States and arrived in Omaha. He could not have been their kid was 14 years old and playing in Omaha, and Tiriac -- was sitting near my position on the court, and nicer. He had an infectious smile and would tell me sto- maybe wasn’t destined to be the next Billie Jean King. after play resumed, Tiriac gave me a thumbs up and ries about playing with Nastase and Tiriac on the It was too bad they couldn’t just sit and enjoy the whispered that Nastase was just messing around with Romanian Davis Cup team, which was fun for me to moment.” me, doing the crazy shenanigans he was known for, and hear about since I’d gotten to know those guys a little Though tennis no longer fills Rice’s days, some favorite not to worry about it.” from the times they played in the Omaha tournaments. mementos fill his garage. “I still have my vintage Dunlop, Rich Halpine, then the tennis pro at Dewey Park, was I’d hit with Toma and string his racquets and once, after Yonex, and Prince racquets hanging around. Even a claseight-year-old Tom Rice’s first teacher and coach. “I he won a satellite circuit tournament, he got back to sic Wilson T-2000, the kind Jimmy Connors played with, played my first tournament when I was nine, but there town and gave me a nice tip for stringing all his racquets. plus all my old trophies and medals. I just can’t throw were only three other kids in the under-10’s draw, so Halpine, Weber and Ovici made tennis fun, but still kept them away. Bottom line, I think everyone needs an activeach of us had a pretty good chance of winning some- it serious when I needed to buckle down.” According to ity to be passionate about. For me, it was tennis. But it thing.” By the time Rice was 12, he was working the Rice, his mom and dad added immensely to his enjoy- doesn’t have to be sports. Maybe it’s the theater or writdesk at Dewey and stringing racquets. “I was 13 when ment of the game. “I’m lucky my folks were tennis nuts ing or music or bridge. It doesn’t matter. Everyone needs the Omaha Racquet Club opened,” Rice said, “and I and loved to play. I’m the only one of my three siblings something that totally engages them. Whatever keeps you worked there as a racquet stringer and also taught in who really took to the sport, so my parents and I spent or your kids out of the malls and off Xbox is critical.”

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‘Gym rat’ considers himself a lucky man!

by JOAN K. MARCUS Barry Zoob came to live in Omaha when he was two and a half years old. His parents, Roz and Seymour Zoob, moved here from Baltimore when his father was offered a millinery buyer’s job at J.L. Brandeis and Sons Department Store. One year later, Seymour was promoted to be general merchandise manager, and it became evident then that the Zoob family was well on its way to becoming

“When I was an adult, there was a father/son tournament at Highland. By that time, I was in my late forties and my dad was elderly. I thought that it was a nice gesture to ask him if he’d like to play with me. When we got there, lo and behold, all of the fathers were in their 30s and their kids were 10 or 11. We were embarrassed,” he laughed, “but we wound up winning!” “My first real golf mentor was Jerry Dugan, a pro at Highland. During the summer, he would pick me up at six thirty in the morning. And my mother would pick me up at five or so in the afternoon. I would just hit golf balls all day. I wasn’t a swimmer, and golf just kind of took over.” In addition to Schrager, some of his fellow golfers were Howard Katzman (today an ophthamologist in Utah), Steve Rosenblatt (retired and living in Arizona) and Speedy Zweiback. “I wanted to play with people who were older than me and better golfers. By doing that, I could learn golf course behaviors,” he said. “These guys were role models and that made it a challenge for me to become a better golfer.” As a child, Zoob was considered a champion golfer. Barry Zoob on the links in 1988. He won the Nebraska US Omahans. Junior Amateur Golf Tournament and In 1956, Seymour opened an exclusive qualified for the national tournament in women’s fashion store on the corner of which he played with Johnny Miller, now 72nd and Cass. Women came from all a golf sports announcer for NBC. over to shop at the store, which carried “I remember that my father asked me designer brands, and many other afford- to make one decision about sports. Golf able styles. Zoobs always tried to make and baseball interfered with each other the customers feel special. and I was probably a better baseball playBarry was nine when he became friends er than I was a golfer. But my father said with a neighborhood boy, named Harley that I could play golf for the rest of my Schrager. They later became college life. And so I chose golf!” roommates as well as competitive golf After graduating from Westside in the partners. To this day, the two men top 10 percent of his class in 1965, Barry remain close friends. went on to the University of Wisconsin The Zoob family moved into a house at Madison. “Like a lot of Jewish young at 35th and Jones, and later, Barry was men, I wanted to be a doctor. However, joined by a sister, Barb (Wadleigh) and a I settled on a business major.” much younger brother, Michael. After graduating from college with a Barb lives in Phoenix, and Michael is in degree in finance, Barry joined his parthe commercial real estate business in ents in the family business. “My father, a Irvine, CA. survivor of the depression, taught me Zoob remembers going to several dif- that there are two basic assets in busiferent grade schools, and then to ness. One is your credit rating and the Westside High School. He always loved other is your integrity. My mother was sports, and it was at Westside that his supportive of my father and I have found athletic career began. “I think that I was a wife who mirrors my mother.” the first Jewish person to receive a varsiIn 1980, Zoob and his wife, Nora ty letter at Westside,” he said. He let- Rogoff Zoob, bought the business and, tered in golf, cross-country and basket- in 1988, Barry left to pursue other interball. In addition to being active in sports, ests. Nora continued to run Zoobs and he was a member of Rayim, a high school the Daisy, a young designer clothing Jewish fraternity. store, until 1998. “I was just a gym rat! I loved sports Nora took further training, and and I played every spare minute I had. I became a massage therapist at the Jewish went to camp one summer and I didn't Community Center. Barry decided to like doing arts and crafts; I would rather use his skills in marketing by joining spend my time on a field, basketball forces with Sitel Company. “At that time, court or a golf course.” His name is on they were a 3.8 million-dollar company the Athlete’s Wall of Fame in the Jewish and my responsibility was to run sales for Community Center for golf and basket- a specific division. I was with them for ball. four years, and I was part of the manageZoob remembers playing golf with his ment team when we went public. I was father at Elmwood Park. “My father was- responsible for bringing them the single n’t a very good golfer, but he used to largest contract in the history of the take me with him and we’d play a couple industry, which was the launching of the of holes. Even as a child, I liked the idea General Motors credit card.” of hitting a ball that wasn't moving. He left to join Steve Idelman at ITM When I was 12 or 13, my family joined Marketing Services where he worked the Highland Club and then I became a through 1997. The company was sold fanatic and was committed to the game,” twice. Then, explained Zoob, “I decided Continued on page 18 he explained.

March 26, 2010

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March 26, 2010

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Cantor Wendy Shermet finds peace and wonder while riding her horse

She started riding as a young child “like all the other horse-crazy little girls,” she explained. At the age of five while living in Maryland, Cantor Shermet attended lessons weekly and some horse camps until she was 16. “Then it was hit or miss for riding.” She rode in yearly horse shows, “but it didn’t amount to much.” Now she rides with The Farm at Butterflat Creek in the small town of Washington just north of Douglas County. Sometimes she participates in the North Hills Hunt, the first recognized foxhunt in Nebraska. Typically, she rides on Mondays, her day off, and weekends when she can. “I bought Doc when he was seven, which was four years ago. He has a little arthritis in his front right leg so we give him supplements and don’t overburden him, especially on hard ground. He’s good over jumps, is mostly calm, but gets overexcited Cantor Wendy Shermet and her 11-year-old American Paint took part in the North Hills Hunt in 2007. around too many student or the next worship service at Temple Israel where other horses, like on the hunt. He’s a very good alpha she has been a member of the clergy since 2001. Dr. Seuss horse to the minis,” added the Cantor. (whose name, “soos” in Hebrew, means horse) lives on an Although she recollects that she probably rode as a acreage in Bennington that the Cantor shares with her child because “of the power and freedom,” now Cantor husband Len Burrell and their 16-year-old son Sam. They Shermet says “it’s about movement, peace, and a unique grow their own brome for the horses on the farm. relationship. It’s wonderful that another species -- simiDoc shares the barn and pastures with his “herd,” as lar to dogs -- will tolerate us,” she marveled. “Horses Cantor Shermet refers to her two miniature geldings, Tal carry you on their backs. Think of how amazing that is.” and Geshem. by CLAUDIA SHERMAN When you ride a horse, “your mind needs to be on the task at hand,” according to Cantor Wendy Shermet. “If you’re thinking of work or other things, the distraction can lead to injuries.” So rest assured that when she’s riding her American Paint, Dr. Seuss, she’s not thinking about a Bar Mitzvah

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Continued from page 17 I had lived the dream of the corporate world and wanted to do something that would allow me to have greater control over my life.” “I ran Cellular Linking out of Chicago for 19 months and then came back; in 1999, I joined Grubb and Ellis Pacific Realty, where I could use my finance background, marketing skills, and the network that I had built.” There, as a vice president, he focuses mostly on the office market and does some retail and industrial work. In addition to that, he provides consulting services to buyers, sellers, Barry Zoob tenants, and landlords. Zoob has two daughters, Laurie Hyman and Amy Gordon, from a previous marriage. Together, he and Nora have a son, Jonathan, who lives in San Francisco and has followed his father into the commercial real estate business. So far, they have five grandchildren. In his “spare time,” Zoob has been involved with the United Cerebral Palsy and Cystic Fibrosis Foundations for 35 years. He began because he wanted to be involved with a health service agency that affected young people. “At the time that I got involved, fund raising was done by direct solicitation or a national telethon. My primary activity was to take pledges over the phone,” he said. “The first year was kind of fun but, after that, it got boring. So, someone I knew was on the Cystic Fibrosis Board and they raised money through events. CF is an orphan disease of children that affects only about 30,000 people in the United States.” However, he added, “There is a direct link to the Jewish heritage. I enjoyed my work and I felt like I was making a difference. Unfortunately, I held someone in my arms when they died and I became very attached.”

He has served on the board and as its chairman; he is now chairman emeritus. Zoob says, “When our son, Jonathan, was born, he exhibited some of the symptoms of CF. After he was tested, it was determined that he didn’t have the disease. However, two years later, my sister’s daughter, Lindsay, was born with the same symptoms. After testing, it was discovered that she, in fact, did have CF.” He added, “I really believe that G-d meant for me to get involved with this organization. It has been a part of who I have been for the last 32 years. Lindsay has been interviewed by Walter Cronkite and Dan Rather and was national poster child of the year. At the age of 26, she is the manager of an Apple Computer Store in San Diego. She is now involved with the final medical trial of a drug that is, what we believe, the game changer. It could be the magic pill that will allow her to live a full and complete life. CF is usually fatal and when she was diagnosed, life expectancy was, at best, in the teens.” Zoob says that golf is still his “drug of choice.” He enjoys golf trips with good friends and has had the good fortune of playing in the Pebble Beach and other major golf tournaments. “I’ve had the good fortune to play courses in California, Seattle, Oklahoma City and Myrtle Beach. Golf is a game where you learn a lot about people. You play with them for four hours and then you spend more time with them socially, afterwards,” he said. “It is based on honesty. When you see people who adhere to the rules, you know they’re honest people. When you see that they aren’t and try to misrepresent their game, then you have second thoughts about their integrity. I’ve probably spent some of the most cherished times of my life on the golf course with some of my friends.” Barry smiles and adds, “I’m a happy man. If you’ve got your health, an incredible spouse to love, the enjoyment of your children and grandchildren and challenges in life through work and community activities, that’s all you need. I've been placed in a position to truly have all of these wonderful things in my life.”

March 26, 2010

Jewish Press, Omaha, NE

Page 19

Jessie Morris: making a splash

by OZZIE NOGG According to Jewish tradition, parents are obligated (among other things) to teach their children how to swim. Jessie Morris’s mom and dad -- Cindy and Allen -- certainly did their duty. “I was three years old when I learned to swim on my own,” Jessie said. “Swimming has always been a passion of mine. It’s what I do to relax. When I’m having a bad day, I just try to get to the pool. The repetitive motion through the water helps me clear my head and calm myself.” But for 18-year old Jessie, water is more than simply therapeutic. “I started on the Jewish Community Center summer swim team when I was four, and joined the Millard Aquatic Club year-round team when I was five. By now, competitive swimming is part of who I am.” A Millard North High School grad, Jessie is a freshman at College of Saint Mary, where she’s majoring in Early Childhood and Elementary Education with a minor in Special Ed and Spanish. “One reason I’m at CSM is because they have a great education department,” Jessie explained. “The other reason is because of the swim coach, Rich Draper. He coached the team at Millard North when my older brother, Dan, was swimming there, and I always wanted to swim for him, too. But before I had the chance, Coach Draper retired from Millard North, took a year off, spent the next three years coaching at Ralston High and then moved to College of Saint Mary. So at the end of my senior year, when it came time to decide where I wanted to go to college, the thought of being able to swim for Coach Draper at CSM -- while also getting an outstanding education -was very appealing. He’s a great coach,

always encouraging us to do our best in the sport except early morning practice,” head the whole time. In the end, I think and out of the pool.” Jessie said. “It was especially hard during the adrenaline rush from the scare made Doing her best is reflected in the fact high school. I never saw the sun. Team me swim a little faster.” that Jessie holds the 200-yard butterfly members would get to school at 5:30 in The College of Saint Mary swim team and the 1000-yard freestyle records at -- the Flames -- is made up of 11 CSM, and was awarded academic and young women with a lot of oldathletic scholarships to the school. In fashioned camaraderie. “Even 2008, she competed in the Maccabi though swimming is an individgames in San Diego. “My favorite ual sport, you spend so much strokes are butterfly, backstroke and time with your teammates that freestyle,” she said. “I’ll swim anything they become your good as long as it isn’t breaststroke.” friends,” Jessie said. “In a team When not studying or competing, sport we share the victories and Jessie works at the JCC, where she gives the losses. We have to cooperlessons and coaches. “I especially love ate, look out for everyone and teaching the four year olds in Level One. support one another. At the I try to get them to be comfortable in JCC, I love to see the kids on the water, to be able to blow bubbles, the swim team become such float, and begin learning freestyle.” As a great friends. It’s also gratifying coach, Jessie has mentored the eightto watch youngsters learn the and-under age group for the past three Jessie Morris with nine-year-old Hannah Shaffer, daughter of importance of responsibility and summers. “With them, my goals are to JCC members Christopher and Katherine Shaffer, at last sportsmanship from being on a make sure they can do all four strokes summer’s City A League swimming finals held at the Elkhorn team. I hope to become either a Common Grounds. legally and just have fun.” kindergarten or fifth-grade Based on her own experiences, Jessie the morning, practice, go to classes all teacher, so working with kids in the pool understands that the relationship between day, then head straight back to practice has been valuable training for me, too.” swimmer and coach often changes over and not leave for home until six or 6:30. For the record, there’s far more than time. “When I was younger I loved my But sometimes, when I’d be swimming swimming in Jessie’s life. During high Millard Aquatic Club coach, Dave the 500 freestyle, I’d get in my own little school she was very involved in BBYO Lammel. He always pushed me to do my adrenaline-filled zone, and when I fin- and held every chapter board position for best. But I confess, when I got older there ished a particularly good swim I never MZ Yoshanah. Jessie was Beau Dance cowere days when I walked into practice, could remember anything I was thinking chairwoman in 2009, and an Honorary saw him and wanted to run away. But after about or even how I swam the race. The Sweetheart for Chaim Weizmann. She I finished one of his sessions, I always felt whole thing seemed to flow without con- also volunteers as a Big Sister, and plays better about myself. I hope I provide that scious effort. I love that feeling.” the cello as well as bass guitar. And while same kind of positive atmosphere for the Before one meet, however, Jessie found she may admire the achievements of kids I teach and coach at the JCC. herself in a zone where her mind and Olympic swimmers like Mark Spitz and Winning feels great, but encouraging kids body were totally out of synch. “I was Dara Torres, they are not her heroes. “I to reach their potential and take pride in getting ready to go up on the blocks and know it sounds really cliched, but my their achievements is what sports pro- I couldn’t find my goggles anywhere. I heroes are my parents and my brother, grams should be about.” spent what seemed like forever looking Dan, and sister, Alyssa. They inspire me Is there a downside to competitive for them, and almost had a panic attack to do better in swimming, in school, and swimming? “I really like everything about before I realized they were on my fore- in life in general.”

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March 26, 2010

A sound piece of advice: never say never

by LINDA SALTZMAN As a mom of five children ages 7 and under, free time can be a priceless commodity. So how does Omaha native Traci Kugler spend any spare moments that are hers and hers alone? For starters, she runs about 65 miles per week. Kugler, 35, is the proud mommy of 7-year-old Lauren, 5-year-old Alex, twin 3-year-olds Evan and Ryan and 7-month-old Megan. She and her husband, Lance, will celebrate their 10th anniversary in June. Kugler’s resume includes the completion of three full marathons (two Lincoln National Guard Marathons and a Chicago Marathon) and eight half-marathons. She is currently training for a half-marathon in Nashville on April 24th. “One day I might take up triathlons,” she said from her temporary home in Nashville, where she and her family have lived since July 2009 while Lance completes a fellowship at the Wang Vision Institute. The family will move back to Omaha in July. So how does she do it? Time management is key for Kugler. “I either get up at 5 a.m. and run, or, if I can, I go to the gym. On the weekends, if Lance isn’t working, I can usually get a run in.” Kugler said she also runs twice a week on the treadmill, for about 80 minutes covering about 11 miles, while baby Megan naps in the room next door. The benefits of running for Kugler are more than just fitness. “It’s like my therapy,” she said. “And I mean it. When I run, I get the majority of my stress out. And I’m a better person, a better wife, a better mom, because of it.” Kugler said her competitive spirit also keeps her going. “I love competition, and after high school, when my competitive sports career was over, I missed that so much,” she said. “Running marathons was the next best thing to being in a competitive sport. I just love to compete!” She adds she could not accomplish what she does without the support of her family. “One of the main reasons that I am able to train and run marathons is because of my husband, who goes above and beyond the call of duty to allow me to get my runs in when I need to,” she said.

Kugler believes everyone, especially parents, should set time aside for themselves. “My philosophy is, I have this one thing that is for me. Ninety-nine percent of my time is doing stuff for every-

marathon or half marathon.’ I always say, ‘just try’. You don’t know if you can do it until you try.” She added, “Even if you’ve never run a mile in your life, just seeing that ‘1 mile’ show up on the treadmill is a great feeling. It’s baby steps. You’ll be amazed at what you can accomplish.” The joy of running or pursuing any challenge comes from the feeling of reaching your goal, she said. “It’s such a wonderful sense of accomplishment, whether it’s a 5K race or whatever it is. Just crossing the finish line, no matter what it is, it just feels so good.” “There aren’t many things in this stage in life where you get that sense of accomplishment,” she said. “As a mom, you’re doing something wonderful, and you see glimpses of it, but just having that real sense of accomplishment is a high.” Running has not always been Kugler’s athletic passion. Beginning at age 5, Kugler developed a love for swimming. During her years at Swanson Elementary School, Westside Middle School and Westside High School, Kugler was a competitive swimmer. “I started running in high school,” Kugler said. “I got burned out from swimming and tried cross country my freshman year of high school.” She also experimented in track. Kugler said she wasn’t a “normal kid” growing up because of her many sports. “I never went home after school and watched TV,” she said. “I always had swim practice. In the summer, I had two practices a day for swimming. I couldn’t really have a job, either.” Her time commitments taught Kugler valuable life lessons. “Swimming is one of the most time-consuming sports,” she said. “The schedule was so demanding, that it taught me time management skills. Not only were sports good for me physically, but it taught me a lot about how to organize my life.” Kugler said that she has been lucky to avoid any careerTop: Traci and Lance Kugler with their children, ending injuries. “In swimming, I had really bad shoulleft, Alex, Megan, Lauren, and twins Evan and ders. My rotator cuff was just shot. In running, I’ve had Ryan; above: the Westside high school senior hip issues, ankle issues, IT band issues, and most of it was girls going to state swim meet in 1993 (Traci is because I would run too quickly after childbirth. Knock on the right); left: running in nashville 1/2 on wood, I haven’t had any injury that’s really serious.” marathon on Sept. 2009 (Traci is on the left). In addition to her family obligations and athletic one else. The other one percent is for me. It just makes endeavors, Kugler is also studying to get a masters me feel good.” degree in speech pathology. She hopes to start classes at Moms should not let guilt get in their way, she added. the University of Nebraska at Omaha this fall. In the “If there’s something you want to try, try not to feel meantime, she is taking prerequisite courses online guilty that you’re taking time away from your kids, through East Carolina University. because it might make you a better mom,” she said. “I The new degree would complement Kugler’s underjust think that if you have anything in your life that graduate degree from Emory University (1997) and you’re doing for yourself, it makes you a more well- Masters in Social Work from Case Western University rounded and happy person.” (2000). Another piece of advice: Never say never. Kugler’s parents, Sandy and Stuart Kutler, live in “So many people will say to me, ‘I could never run a Omaha. Her sister, Alison, 39, resides in Washington, D.C.

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Thousands of hours at the JCC

to support us, and I was very impressed by ANNETTE VAN DE KAMP-WRIGHT Editor of the Jewish Press by the depth of strength, as well as the David Skid, son of Stephen and Nancy pride of all the Jewish athletes I encounSkid, was born and raised in Omaha. “I tered. My only experience in competing went to school at Millard North,” he says, in regional events had been against non“and graduated in 1991. Besides going to Jewish athletes, so this was quite differschool, I spent thousands of hours of my ent.” youth at the JCC playing any and all Another difference, David learned, was sports that were offered, from basketball the competitiveness. “Typically, any comto racquet ball. Of course, tennis was my petitive athletic event provides you with favorite. I loved coman environment peting from an early where both particiage, and became seripants are focused on ous about tennis at winning. Competing age 11. My mom still at the Maccabi lives in Omaha, in Games, against other the same house in Jewish athletes, was which my sister and I just as intense grew up. Our father, “inside the lines”, Steve, passed away in but it wasn’t quite 2002.” David’s sister the same. We were is Allison Gordman, competing within married to Jay something much Gordman. bigger. There was an David took his first overriding emphasis tennis clinic at age 11 on sportsmanship, at the Miracle Hills and the outcome of Golf and Tennis the matches was secCenter. “After a few ondary to the oppormonths of playing, tunities to fraternize my parents were with the other athapproached by the Above: David Skid with his wife Johanna and letes. Over the head pro who indi- their daughter Isabella; below: David playing course of my tennis cated a belief in my tennis. career, I played in abilities. He thought hundreds of tournaI had the capacity to ments. None of develop into a comthem compared to petitive player, and the Maccabi Games; from then on, tennis they were unique.” became an enormous When the 1989 part of my life. This Maccabi Games were was entirely driven by over, the experience my own desire to stayed with him. So compete and promuch so, that when gress; I was never he played Division 1 pushed in that directennis on the East tion by my parents. Coast against a variAs a teenager, I ety of Ivy League played tennis on a schools, David was daily basis, either in able to develop clinics or lessons, or bonds and a sense of in training with my peers.” kinship with other Jewish players. “I David was ranked the top tennis player recall one player in particular who I first in the state of Nebraska within his age met at the Maccabi Games. It was undergroup from 14-18, and was ranked with- stood that when we played, we certainly in the top five best players of the Missouri played to win, but we also played with a Valley region. This region encompassed different element of respect.” Nebraska, Iowa, Missouri, Kansas, In 1995, David graduated from George Oklahoma, and the greater St. Louis area Washington. He met his wife Johanna in of Illinois. He also qualified to compete college. “We have been married for 12 within multiple national tournaments. “I terrific years. Our daughter, Isabella, is received a full athletic scholarship to play seven years old, and has been blessed with Division 1 tennis at George Washington the same athletic genes as her parents.” University in DC, and I was a two-time Currently, David is a Vice President of captain.” Wealth Management at Morgan Stanley David attended the Maccabi Games in Smith Barney. “Utilizing my professional Chicago during the summer of 1989. “I background as a Chartered Financial played tennis only,” he remembers, “and Analyst, Certified Financial Planner, and lost to a terrific player from Canada in Certified Public Accountant, I create three close sets during the first round. investment portfolios, and manage the Then I played all the way through the financial lives of high net-worth families.” back draw where I eventually lost in the In addition, David holds an MBA in finals of the consolation round. Ironically, Finance, as well as a Masters in Taxation. we met up again at a national event a few His undergraduate degree is in accountyears later.” ing. He has fond memories of participating “Although I no longer live in Omaha, I at the Maccabi Games. “The reception we still enjoy looking through my subscripwere given by the local Chicagoans dur- tion to the Jewish Press, and keeping up ing the opening ceremony made a lasting on the lives of the families I grew up with impression on me. Many people came out in Omaha.”

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March 26, 2010

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Always aiming for victory, pitcher Belmont throws caution to the wind

by JILL BELMONT favorite. As he got older, he found heroes closer to home. What can be the loneliest place on earth, but also the “As I began to understand the game more, my coachmost exhilarating - sometimes within the blink of an eye? es and my dad really influenced my love of baseball,” he Hint: It sits in the middle of a diamond, is 18-feet in said. “I’ll always remember my Kingswood coach telling diameter and sits 10.5 inches off the ground. It can be a me to ‘bulldog up’ in a tight situation in a game or when hostile place, what with parents yelling, coaches barking I wasn’t doing so well. Even now in high school, I still orders, and a determined opponent – holding a metal hear his voice in my head – I say it to myself all the time bat – standing just 60 feet, six inches away. on the mound.” Answer: The pitcher’s mound, an all-too-familiar place to Colin Belmont. The 17-year-old has spent countless hours there since first flexing his throwing arm at age seven. Through the years, he has reveled in his victories and plowed through those not-sogreat days – all while standing alone in the middle of the infield, always working to lead his team to victory. Is it exciting? Yes. Intimidating? Nope. Now a senior at Millard North High School, the seasoned southpaw has begun his second year as a varsity pitcher for the Mustangs, and relishes those adrenaline rushes that accompany his performances on the mound. “When I’m up there, I don’t see anything; I don’t hear anything,” Colin said. “All I see is that catcher’s glove. Everything else is blocked out.” That kind of focus earned him a spot as his team’s No. 1 starting pitcher by the end of his junior year. While he’s sometimes called on to close a game in relief, Colin prefers being a starter, because “I like being able to carry the team throughout the game and finish what I started. I absolutely love being able to shut a team down from the mound. The game’s in your hands -- it’s yours to win or lose.” Standing outside the University of Kansas student union before last November’s “Each time I’m out there, I can Nebraska-KU football game, Colin looks forward to becoming a Jayhawk this fall. figure on throwing between 60 to 80 pitches, although there Having been a varsity have been games where my pitch baseball player himself at count got above 100,” he continCentral High School in ued, noting that batters facing the early 1970s, Colin’s him can expect to see his fast ball dad gets a special thrill thrown at speeds reaching 85 watching his son play ball. miles per hour. He belongs to “I can still clearly rememthat small fraternity of left-handber my dad sitting in the ed pitchers, a definite advantage stands watching me dursince batters aren’t used to seeing ing every game I played the ball thrown from the left side. for Central,” Mark said. His favorite pitches are his fast“My dad was my biggest ball and cutter; but over the past fan, and it has been so few years he has also finessed his enjoyable and rewarding curveball and his change-up, for me to watch my son which “just sinks,” he said. “It’s develop his baseball talsick.” ents and passion for the As a little boy, Colin began sport over the years. To playing with the introductoryme, there is no greater level T-ball and coach-pitch sport than baseball, and teams, then for several years I’ll never forget Colin’s enjoyed being coached by his first home run – a grand dad, Mark. At age nine, the play slam -- or his first varsity became more competitive as he win on the mound for entered the world of select baseMillard North. He has ball, spending three years with Barely big enough to hold the bat, Colin, 5, begins his love given Jill and me many the Omaha Gladiators, then affair with the sport of baseball. proud and thrilling three years with the Kingswood Knights. moments through the years.” “I just fell in love with the sport,” he said. “It was Father and son also share a love of basketball, and from something I was good at and something I liked doing. Colin’s kindergarten through seventh grade years, Mark Once I got to the select level, I realized that if I put the served as either head coach or assistant coach for his JCC work into it, I could accomplish my goal of playing high teams. While playing for the ‘J,’ Colin was honored school baseball.” Always a fun-loving, gregarious kid, he twice as a recipient of the J.J. Greenberg Memorial was also drawn to the team aspect of the sport. “I love Award: first in 2003 as Most Improved 5th Grade Boy, it. I love the camaraderie and I love being a part of the and again in 2005, as Most Outstanding 7th Grade Boy. team.” As the exclamation point in his basketball career, he travAs a youngster, Colin followed his sports heroes: he eled to Phoenix, along with the Omaha contingent, to remembers admiring the major league players he’d watch play in the 2006 Maccabi Games. That experience and on television, most notably left-handed pitchers Randy the atmosphere “were amazing,” he said, “just knowing Johnson of the Arizona Diamondbacks and New York that everybody there was Jewish. I’ll never forget it.” Yankee Andy Pettitte; Yankee Derek Jeter was also a Continued on page 23

March 26, 2010

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Pitcher Belmont aiming for victory Continued from page 22 As any serious athlete can attest, physical training in a chosen sport must be accompanied by mental and emotional conditioning. In baseball, pitchers must learn to keep their emotions in check; showing frustration or anger on the mound only fuels opponents’ resolve. Although sometimes a challenge, Colin has learned to display a poker face when he’s on the mound, no matter how the inning may be going. “Baseball has taught me to harness my emotions when things aren’t going my way,” he said. “I never show batters any signs of weakness. If I throw a bad pitch, I want the batter to think that’s where I meant to throw it, and then I’ll come back with a strike.” If someone takes him deep, he never gives up. “All I want is that ball back in my hand so I can challenge the next batter.” He also noted that his sport “has taught me to be a good leader on and off the field, and it’s also taught me the virtue of patience. There’s a lot of standing around during games and a lot of times when things go wrong, but you learn to be patient and remember that it’s a nine-inning game -- things can turn around at any moment.” In addition to his baseball endeavors and academic responsibilities, Colin has dedicated his high school years to being an active member of the B’nai B’rith Youth Organization; in fact, it’s probably accurate to call the JCC Youth Lounge his home away from home during

the past four years. The valuable leadership skills he’s acquired on the baseball field have translated to his youth group participation. His involvement has included a past stint as president of Chaim Weizmann #1510;

team doesn’t work out, I’m OK with it.” For as long as he can remember, summer has meant baseball for Colin, and although he may not be playing next year, old habits tend to die hard. When he comes

Left: With his signature high leg kick propelling him forward, #15 puts a pitch in motion during a 2009 summer legion game; above, Focus is essential when he’s on the mound, Colin says. “All I see is that catcher’s glove. Everything else is blocked out.” his current positions home after his freshman year, he hopes to coach summer include serving as presi- legion ball at Millard North, and says that down the dent of the Cornbelt Council, as well as being a member road, he’d like to be a select baseball coach for young of BBYO Mid-America Region’s coordinating commit- kids. tee. When his final high school season comes to a close late With college just around the corner, Colin’s had to this summer, Colin will move forward, ready to begin make decisions, set priorities. Although he has received the next chapter in his life at KU. For the last time, he attention from a number of baseball coaches from will walk away from that familiar, lonely/exhilarating Division II schools, his heart is set on becoming a Kansas place in the middle of the baseball diamond -- and this Jayhawk (following in the footsteps of his sisters, Jessica writer (otherwise known to Colin as “Mom”) will also and Lindsay), so he’ll head to Lawrence this fall, with the bid farewell to the second loneliest/most exhilarating hopes of walking on with the KU baseball team. But, he place at the ballpark: that familiar spot on those wellsaid, “Being a student is my priority, so if making the worn bleachers, just behind the diamond’s backstop.

Best Wishes for a happy Passover and a celebration of freedom with family and friends.

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Jewish Press, Omaha, NE

March 26, 2010

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March 26, 2010

“It was the ‘journey,’ not the destination” for hometown athlete by GARY JAVITCH How many people can actually say, “I grabbed for the Brass Ring;’ I strived for the highest prize; or I was willing to put everything aside to pursue my dream and give it my best shot?” Tony Schrager can. Indeed, in his quest to become a major league baseball player, he did just that. His story is an interesting one. The 1995 Westside High School graduate was recognized by USA Today with an All-American Honorable Mention accolade in his senior year as a standout shortstop for the Warriors. After a year at Yale, Tony transferred to Stanford University. His baseball talents there helped propel his Cardinal team to a berth in the College World Series, where he demonstrated his skills before a warm and admiring hometown Omaha crowd. His standout effort also earned him a great deal of attention from major league scouts, and following his junior year at the Palo Alto-based university, the Chicago Cubs selected him as an early round draft choice in 1998. College and baseball was his life. It was an exciting time for him. But now the youthful student, 21, had to choose between continuing his education at a prestigious university and going into professional baseball. “Among the many things, I thought about was how important my education was to me.” Tony reflected. “Whether I made it to the majors or not, I wanted my college degree and I knew that I would eventually go back to school for it. I realized that it would be a lot tougher if I had to go back to school when I was 25 or 30. I wondered, “Is that something I really wanted to do?” “Another consideration: Unless you are a true superstar, breaking into the majors, especially in your first year, is an awesome challenge. “After a lot of thinking about it, I decided I would go with the draft. It was a big decision,” Tony noted. And so like almost all before him who wanted a career in baseball, he entered the minor league farm organization of the drafting team (the Cubs) to begin the “seasoning” process and prepare for his chance at the “Bigs.” They were heady days. “I was doing something I loved,” he recalled recently from his office in Atlanta. “I have some great memories. In 2003, I was invited to attend the Arizona Fall League. “The Fall League is a prestigious minor league showcase,” Tony explained. “It is composed of six teams owned and operated by Major League Baseball and only five or six of the best prospects per major league team get that opportunity to play the forty-game schedule. “I also had an invitation to attend major league spring training with the Dodgers and lead off on an ESPN

game that year. Then, too, I had a couple of three-home run games. The second time I hit three home runs, I also had eight RBI’s and we won 9-8. Tony mentioned memories of great friendships, too. “There’s also the warm camaraderie you experience. You get close to some guys. I have many friends in the big leagues. I have always been a fan. I love baseball and still follow it closely. In my playing days, I sometimes got teased by my teammates, because when I got back to my apartment after a game, I would turn the TV on to look for another game. “To some fans, the game is slow and borTony Schrager ing. But I like to follow some of the nuances of the game like watching a well-executed ‘hit and run’ play or great base-running technique. That’s what makes it really interesting to me. “What also sticks out in my mind was the opportunity I had to face star pitcher Curt Schilling, who had been sent down to the minors to do some rehab work following an injury. That was a real thrill.” Time to leave Why quit? Tony had played nine minor league seasons. “I had lot of things to think about. I was 29 years old. I hadn’t finished college. I still enjoyed the game, but I didn’t want to be a journeyman ‘career minor league guy,’ just hanging around. “Lately, I was not getting quality offers from any of the Triple A teams (the top minor league). I had been invited to a big league tryout in 2005, but I was still being offered only minor league jobs. “Still, I did consider that I might have enough in me to be able to work hard and make it to the top at 31. “I really thought hard about leaving for a long time. I played shortstop and second base in the minors. I had some great joys. I saw myself as a talented athlete, but not of the caliber, for example, of a 6’ 4,” 220-pound quarterback or a big center in basket ball. “I was the guy people could relate to. I was a very good player in Little League, high school, and college. But it’s not like anyone said you’re a sure-fire player and you’ll make it. “I really enjoyed competing. I wasn’t supposed to

make it as far as I did. My first full year was in 1999. I trained there with Sammy Sosa and Mike McGwire and I was thinking that this was all within my reach. I remember shaking their hands in the clubhouse. Here Tony mentioned his biggest supporters. “My parents (Beth and Harley) and sister Lois came to so many of my games. My dad also sponsored the Pacesetter Baseball League. It gave Omaha youth a real opportunity to experience great coaching and gain exposure to high-level competition and to foster the development of youth baseball.” “I really enjoyed the whole journey. I took great pride in what I did. I got to go to Yale and Stanford. Of course, anything short of making it to the majors upsets me. Still, even though I didn’t make it, I was good enough to get the shot. “After 2005, my contract expired and I signed on to play independent ball. The next year, I got picked up by the Florida Marlins organization in AA and did really well, advancing to AAA, where I did ok. I left in 2006. Post Baseball Tony returned to Stanford and got his degree in communication. At the end of 2008, he moved to Atlanta to begin working for his cousin Tim Schrager at Perennial Properties, which offers luxury apartment homes in Metro Atlanta. The properties are free-standing apartment buildings often with retail enterprises on the first floor. “It’s been a real learning experience for me,” Tony continued. “The company has given me exposure to all aspects of real estate development and property management. They are allowing me to learn in a lot of different areas and then let me choose which one resonates with me. Many stories are written about someone who experiences some bumps along the path and then comes out on top. This is not that kind of a story. What’s it feel like not fulfilling your dream? Omaha Heisman Trophy winners Eric Crouch and Johnny Rogers experienced that feeling and could share reams about it. Tony Schrager’s story, however, is an unfinished but a very satisfying one for him so far. His life experience can perhaps best be summed with the oft-quoted words of the poet Alfred Lord Tennyson who famously said, “Tis better to have loved and lost, Than never to have loved at all.” In practice, many have taken the safer, easier road: the path most traveled. Tony Schrager did not. His dream may have been broken, but his spirit was not. “I don’t regret a thing,” said Tony. “It was the journey, not the destination that was most important. I look back on those experiences most fondly, even though I am disappointed that I did not fulfill my dream. Still, it was a great lifetime experience. “I hope there will be something comparable to it later. But for now, it was the best.”

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Son of Pam Bloch and Mike Coyle School: Westside Middle School Grade: 7 Maccabi Sport: Basketball Other activities: Basketball for Westside Feeder Club, Goalie for Omaha Fubol Club, runs Cross Country and Track for Westside Middle School

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Hal Emas

Alec Epstein

Daughter of Ellene and Stan Edelstein School: Millard North Middle School Grade: 8th Maccabi Sport: Basketball or Volleyball Other activities: OFC Soccer, JCC Swim Team, Millard North Girls Basketball, Millard North Volleyball

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Son of Hillary and John Fletcher School: Westside High School Grade: 9th Maccabi Sport: Table Tennis Other activities: Hockey, Baseball

Daughter of Barbara and André Flott School: Westside High School Grade: 10th Maccabi Sport: Swimming Other activities: Westside Swim Team, Swim Omaha

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Son of Katherine Finnegan and David Gilinsky School: Westside Middle School Grade: 8th Maccabi Sport: Tennis Other activities: Show Choir, Basketball, Table Tennis, Snowboarding

Daughter of Katherine Finnegan and David Gilinsky School: Westside High School Grade: 10th Maccabi Sport: Bowling Other activities: Show Choir, Dance

Son of Larry Gendler and Tami Field School: LaVista Jr High Grade: 7th Maccabi Sport: Baseball Other activities: Golf, will go out for Track this spring

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Son of Jordana and Jim Glazer School: Westside High School Grade: 10th Maccabi Sport: Basketball Other activities: Soccer, Basketball

Daughter of Jordana and Jim Glazer School: Westside Middle School Grade: 8th Maccabi Sport: Volleyball or Tennis Other activities: Volleyball, Tennis, Show Choir, Dance

Son of Jennifer and John Glazer School: Westside High School Grade: 9th Maccabi Sport: Tennis Other activities: Westside High School Tennis, Baseball, Westside Warrior Express Show Choir

Son of Rosie Zweiback and Mace Hack School: Westside High School Grade: 9th Maccabi Sport: Table Tennis Other activities: Cross Country and Track

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March 26, 2010

Jewish Press, Omaha, NE

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The Longest Yard How Benny Friedman made football a quarterback’s game

by DAVID DAVIS LOS ANGELES (NEXTBOOK) -- A star quarterback on the New York Giants from 1929 to 1931, when the National Football League was in its infancy, Benjamin “Benny” Friedman started out the son of working-class Orthodox immigrants from Russia. In 1923, at age 18, he left his family behind in Glenville, Cleveland’s Jewish neighborhood, for the University of Michigan, where he became a national star. A daring, accurate passer at a time when football teams primarily ran the ball on offense, Friedman made All-American in 1926; in his junior and senior seasons, the Wolverines lost only twice. “In Benny Friedman, I have one of the greatest passers and smartest quarterbacks in history,” said Fielding Yost, his legendary coach. “He never makes a mistake, and as for football brains, it’s like having a coach on the field when Benny is out there calling signals.” After graduation Friedman joined the hometown Cleveland Bulldogs at a time when few Jewish college football players turned professional. The fledgling NFL was struggling to find its niche in the sports landscape. Pro football ranked far behind baseball, horse racing and boxing. So few spectators followed the Bulldogs that the team was forced to fold after Friedman’s inaugural season. Friedman played one season with the Detroit Wolverines, in 1928, before the New York Giants bought that franchise, just so that they could acquire him. Friedman soon became one of the NFL’s top draws, earning $10,000 annually (a fortune for an athlete at the time) during the Depression, and helped solidify the Giants’ presence in New York. Friedman’s innovative passing style was soon adapted league-wide. In an incisive and, at times, inspirational new book, Passing Game: Benny Friedman and the Transformation of Football, Murray Greenberg argues that Friedman was as revolutionary a figure in football as Babe Ruth was in baseball and Bobby Orr in hockey. Nextbook spoke with Greenberg about Friedman’s career. NEXTBOOK: How exactly did Benny Friedman transform college football? Greenberg: It’s hard to visualize now, when we see this very refined and flashy product on television, but in the

1920s the emphasis in football was with the running game. It was a rough-and-tumble, plodding, grinding kind of sport, and the forward pass was almost never used. Back then, they played with a big, fat, round ball that was hard to throw downfield. And the rules of the game severely discouraged passing, so that the pass was used only in desperate situations. In the mid-1920s, at the University of Michigan, along comes Benny Friedman. He had a unique ability to grip the football and throw it down the field with accuracy. As a kid he had ambitions to become a strongman, so he’d done a series of exercises designed to stretch and strengthen his wrists and arms: lifting heavy chairs and tossing them from hand to hand, things like that. Combined with his physical strength, he had Benny Friedman was a star nerve. He was completely quarterback for the New York unintimidated and uninGiants from 1920 to 1931. hibited. He’d throw the Credit: Public Domain ball on any down, from anywhere on the field, when that was practically a mortal sin. In 1927, he joined the NFL with the Cleveland Bulldogs. Before long, Friedman changed professional football too. How? When Friedman turned pro in 1927, the nascent National Football League was teetering on the edge

because of lack of fan interest. When the [NFL] owners saw Friedman bring thousands of fans into the stadium to see him pass the ball down the field, they decided to change their approach and open up the game to the forward pass. They went to a slimmer football, to make it easier to throw, and they changed the rules so that incomplete passes and interceptions weren’t penalized so severely. So what Friedman did was to propel the action toward the passing-dominated game that football has become. He paved the way for quarterbacks like Sammy Baugh and Sid Luckman and Otto Graham and, later on, Johnny Unitas and all the other great passers that followed. Because of his role with the Giants, a flagship franchise, he was crucial in the league’s ongoing struggle to survive. In the 1920s, the Giants were in serious trouble. They couldn’t give tickets away -- literally. That’s why [Giants owner] Tim Mara bought the entire Detroit Wolverines franchise in 1928: to bring Benny Friedman to New York. In the course of Friedman’s first season in New York, the Giants became profitable. By keeping the Giants afloat, Friedman went a long way in keeping the league afloat. Benny Friedman is pretty obscure today. If he was so instrumental in changing football, why is that the case? Frankly, I’m not sure there’s a ready answer to that. Of course, a lot of time has passed. And the sport that Benny Friedman played at the time -- football -- was not nearly as popular as baseball back then. What most people don’t remember, including serious sports fans and students of Jewish history and culture, is that roughly 10 years before Hank Greenberg came along, there was Benny Friedman. He was very much the same type of heroic figure to the Jewish community as Greenberg was. That’s gotten lost. Was Friedman part of a large Jewish contingent in football or an anomaly? It’s sort of both. The distinction lies in college versus the pros. There were a fair number of Jewish college football players in Friedman’s day, sometimes three or four on a team at a time when each roster had about 20 Continued on page 30

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March 26, 2010

The Longest Yard

Yost, recognized Benny’s skills and enabled him to because they felt like it wasn’t within the mission of the Continued from page 29 school. or 30 players. At Michigan, he had a couple of Jewish become the star attraction. Brandeis was a new university when Benny became the After his retirement as a player, Friedman coached footteammates. On the other hand, very few college players ended up turning pro because professional football in ball at both City College of New York and Brandeis. Both football coach and athletic director there in 1949. It was the first Jewish-sponsored, nonsectarian university in the those days was a struggling enterprise. The money just schools eventually dropped football. Why? United States. [Brandeis president] Abram Sachar wasn’t there to make a career. thought that Benny could provide Brandeis with What did Benny Friedman represent to his own cominstant football credibility and offset any notion that munity? the school was simply intellectually bound and driven In the 1920s, Jewish immigrants and children of -- that it was, in effect, a yeshiva. Benny did provide immigrants -- and, in particular, males -- were lookthat balance and he produced very competitive teams. ing for ways to become part of mainstream American As the 1950s wore on, there was a re-evaluation of culture. One way to do this was through sports and, the role of football in Brandeis’ mission. The sentiof all the sports, with the possible exception of boxment began to gain momentum that football had ing, football may have offered the best opportunity served its purpose, that it had accomplished its misfor that. Football was a rough sport. Football was a sion of presenting the university as well rounded. The way that a young Jewish guy could say, “I’m tough, primary mission of the school, academics, became I’m athletic. I’m not that old stereotype of the acaparamount, and the football program was seen as disdemically and intellectually inclined Jew.” pensable. After the 1959 season, football was disconFreidman was proud of his heritage. Having said tinued over Friedman’s vehement objections. It was a that, he preferred being thought of as a great football great disappointment to him. player who happened to be a Jew rather than being Friedman wasn’t elected to the Pro Football Hall of thought of as a great Jewish football player. I don’t Fame until 2005, on the 100th anniversary of his birth think that he was primarily motivated by, or conand 23 years after his death. Why was he overlooked for cerned with, being a role model to the Jewish comso long? munity. He didn’t set out to become that. But I don’t It’s a difficult thing to understand. The players who think he shied away from the fact that he was considwere inducted in 1963, the first class of the Hall of ered a hero in the community. Fame, included Red Grange, Sammy Baugh, Bronco In the book, you point out that Friedman played at the Nagurski. Those players were all completely worthy University of Michigan while Henry Ford was promoting anti-Semitism in nearby Dearborn. How did the of enshrinement. The problem was, Friedman was anti-Semitism of the day affect colleges and college footevery bit as deserving and every bit the outstanding ball? player they were, but he was overlooked. As the years The Jewish college football players of Friedman’s went by, he continued to be overlooked until finally time walked an interesting tightrope. On the one he began to campaign for himself. He couldn’t help hand, if they were good enough, they were welcomed himself -- he was just prideful and self-confident onto the teams. On the other hand, they knew that about his ability. But a lot of people didn’t like that, schools had Jewish quotas and that, if they weren’t and it may have hurt his chances. It became a vicious Igor Olshansky, a Jewish Ukrainian immigrant, plays for the San Diego cycle: the more he campaigned, the more he shot football players, they wouldn’t be welcome. Friedman felt very strongly that George Little, his Chargers.Credit: Mike Nowak/San Diego Chargers himself in the foot. So it took many years -- way too first head coach at Michigan, was anti-Semitic. He gave He had the deck stacked against him at City College. long, really --before he was inducted. Benny such a difficult time, almost daring him to quit He arrived there in 1934 and managed to put together David Davis is a contributing writer at Los Angeles the sport, that Benny was on the verge of transferring competitive teams until he left the school in 1942 for magazine. Reprinted from Nextbook.org, a new read from Michigan. Thankfully the next coach, Fielding the war effort. They dropped football, ultimately, on Jewish culture.

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March 26, 2010

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Son of Deb and Dan Marburg School: Sunset Hills Elementary School Grade: 6th Maccabi Sport: Swimming Other activities: Westside Swim Club of Swim Omaha, YMCA Youth Soccer

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Page 33

Baseball lures Omahan to Croatia

Westside baseball. Coincidentally, his younger brother by GARY JAVITCH For Ben Goldstrom, baseball has always been a part of Jory also won the same award in 2009. During his playing career, Ben also learned the catchhis life for as long as he could remember. “I remember being interested even before I began to play competi- ing position. “I started catching as a freshman at Westside. I saw that being able to play 3rd and catcher tively in Little League at age nine,” Ben said. made me more valuable as I worked my way up on JV He was always very good at it, too. “My dad was always a huge baseball fan. He and my (junior varsity) and Varsity.” Ben’s academic success also mom (Larry and Carol) were belies the myth of the “dumb my biggest supporters. It was jock,” as he was also elected to a part of our family activities. his alma mater’s National Honor My younger brother Jory also Society and Honor Roll. played.” College Career So how does it happen that a Ben’s college path has been young American boy, growing filled with a few bumps, and he up playing what was once has attended four different called “America’s National schools in his pursuit of both a Pastime” -- arguably now degree and a future in baseball. replaced by football -- is going Because the young man was able to end up playing baseball in to focus on his goals, however, Croatia? And where is Croatia, he has been able to keep his anyway? (The parliamentary dream of playing baseball alive. democracy borders the For his freshman year, Ben Adriatic Sea in Southeast attended Illinois Tech (also Europe.) known as Illinois Institute of Baseball Success Technology) in Chicago to play Outlined here, Ben has two 3rd base. However, when the chapters he wants to write in coach who recruited him left for his life story. The first is to play baseball, the game he Notre Dame, Ben transferred loves, as a career professional, schools. at the highest level he can. He did so for a couple of reaBen Goldstrom The second is to chronicle the sons. First, the replacement story of one young man’s pursuit of a dream, while at coach did not have the same managerial style and philosthe same time, also seeking a business career. ophy that Ben thought important: The practice sessions Ben is not your ordinary athlete. Indeed, as his father were shorter, the intensity of the drills was reduced and explained “Ben is a very good athlete. He earned five let- the direction the team was headed was opposite the way ters at Westside High School including three in football Ben wanted to go. as a linebacker and two in baseball. In 2006, the year His decision to leave for a better quality program Ben graduated, he won the school’s highly coveted Greg exemplified the drive and determination Ben exhibited “Walt” Weiss award as the starting 3rd baseman for the in his quest to be a better ball player. Westside baseball team that won the state champiA second reason for transferring is that Ben found an onship.” opportunity to play in a Kansas JUCO (junior college) The “Walt” is awarded annually by the Westside base- League. This particular junior college league has been a ball coaches to a player who most epitomizes the spirit of long-time proving ground for student athletes seeking to

hone their skills/development and grab the attention of a four-year university which may have a hole to fill at a certain position. A player coming out of JUCO with two years of college baseball and maturity under his belt can often help a coach and team immediately, his father explained. Accordingly, for his sophomore year in the fall of 2007, Ben transferred to Independence Community College (ICC) in Independence, Kan. The ICC is in the same Kansas Jayhawks JUCO League where Ben’s brother Jory is now playing at Hutchinson Community College. After his JUCO eligibility expired, Ben began his junior year at Bellevue University. “I wanted to be in a program where I could be on the field,” Ben explained. It soon became apparent, though, that it would be too difficult to break into the starting lineup at Bellevue. “I was lucky that the Bellevue coach helped me,” Ben related. “He let Midland Lutheran College (MLC) know about me and vice-versa.” To his good fortune, MLC had an immediate need for a catcher and although Ben played mostly 3rd base at Westside and 2 years of college ball, he did have a good deal of experience behind the plate and had been catching in the Summer Collegiate Baseball Leagues for a while. The transition to MLC appeared almost effortless. Ben received an academic and baseball scholarship, and this spring he expects to be the starting catcher for a second straight year on the MLC ball club. If all goes well, these next few months should be very exciting for Ben. In May, he hopes to graduate from Midland Lutheran College as an Academic All American and All-Conference catcher. In addition, he will have earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Business with a concentration in Marketing. Croatia “Croatia didn’t come up right away,” Ben offered. “I’m a senior and just now getting really good at what I do. I didn’t want to stop playing. So I started searching for a place to play. My first choice was Israel. But they no longer have an active professional baseball league. “So I began looking at European countries or Continued on page 34

Page 34

Jewish Press, Omaha, NE

March 26, 2010

Playing baseball in Croatia Continued from page 33 Leagues. I found it would be easier to get involved if I had some type of ‘connection.’ As it turns out, I do have a connection by my heritage to Croatia. I am a quarter Croatian on my mother’s side. Also my (late) maternal grandmother is 100% Croatian. Given that, Croatia then became a logical place to explore. “So I did a lot of research to determine how the Croatian program actually worked. There are two leagues in Croatia. I could play for the regular Croatian team, which has one level of competition. But to reach the higher level, I would have to play as a member of the Croatian National Team. And to do that, I needed to become a citizen. “I have applied for Croatian citizenship and ideally I will find out in the next few months if I can become a dual citizen in the US and Croatia. In the meantime, after graduation, I can play in the Croatian league, which starts in early June. The National team starts in later June on the 22nd. But getting on the Croatian team was not quite as easy as it sounded. Ben did have to demonstrate his skills to make the team. “I had a one-on-one tryout with the Croatian coach,” Ben continued. “The coach happened to be an American, who lives in Texas. We arranged to meet in Kansas City at an indoor facility. “The coach was also a former pitcher. I put the catcher’s gear on and he pitched to me. We threw the ball back and forth, and he saw how I received the ball as a catcher. I also took batting practice. He saw my throwing abilities. “He told that I was the type of player he would want on his national team. The level of play is fairly low in the Croatian league. I compare it at best, to an average college team.” That seemed to be okay with Ben, who felt that starting out at the lower level would mean he would be one of the league’s better players. “Based on my tryout, I have already made the international team, ‘Team Croatia’ where the play would be at a much higher competitive level. I am only waiting for the dual citizenship application to be approved.” (For reference, the team would be more comparable to a lower end minor league team in America.) Competitor teams from other European countries most likely will also be playing at a higher quality level. Why would someone travel across the country and travel all the way to Europe to play baseball? “I love baseball,” Ben said. I am a college senior and I am not ready to stop playing. Very few people in my situation can play at the American professional baseball level. “But my goal is to continue playing and be as good as I can possibly be, competing at the highest level I can. And besides, I really enjoy it.”

Devoutly Jewish fighters hoping titles will silence critics

by GIL SHEFLER comings in the ring. NEW YORK (JTA) -- Harking back to an era when Though both are undefeated, some have suggested Jews ruled the ring, two devoutly observant boxers are that Salita attained his high World Boxing Association fighting to make this the best year for Jewish boxing in ranking only because he has fought subpar opponents seven decades. and that Foreman can win only on points. Of Foreman’s Middleweight Yuri Foreman, 29, and welterweight 27 victories, only have eight have come by knockout. Dmitriy Salita, 27 -- both undefeated -- are poised to “In looking at Salita’s boxing record, it’s hard to see battle for world how he was ever pushed to titles this fall. the No. 1 spot in the WBA As they prepare rankings,” wrote Scott for their champiGilfoid, a blogger for Boxing onship bouts, the News. “I can’t recognize Brooklyn pair say one name among Salita’s 31 they feel good fights -- not one. I don’t about their know who these fighters are, chances of followand it seems peculiar that the ing in the footWBA put Salita at No. 1 steps of such based on these wins.” Jewish ring greats Salita acknowledges as Benny Leonard that he hasn’t fought top and Barney Ross. contenders, but he attributes “I would not be it to bad luck. Every time he in this sport if I was scheduled to fight a wasn’t confident,” major contender, the match said Foreman, Yuri Foreman is not only training for his world junior middleweight title fell through for one reason Credit: Yuri Foreman or another, he said. who will meet bout, but also for the rabbinate. World Boxing Association junior middleweight champiBoth Foreman and Salita were born in the former on Daniel Santos in Las Vegas on Nov. 14. “I am confi- Soviet Union -- Foreman in Gomel, Belarus, and Salita dent that I will be successful, God willing.” in Odessa, Ukraine. Salita immigrated with his family to Salita, who is gearing up for his WBA light-welter- Brooklyn in his early teens, while Foreman took a more weight title shot against Britain’s Amir Khan in a bout circuitous route, first immigrating to Israel before movtentatively set for Dec. 5, adds that “I think it’s incredi- ing to New York City’s largest borough in 1999 at age ble that Yuri and I made it to the same level at the same 20 to pursue his career. time. Hopefully we’ll both be successful.” They agree that the immigrant experience greatly Much of the media attention surrounding Foreman influenced their decision to pursue boxing. and Salita, who are friends -- Foreman attended Salita’s “Immigration is a tough process,” Salita said. “My recent wedding -- has focused on their strict observance American dream came alive through boxing.” of Judaism. The pious pugilists refuse to box on Shabbat, “If you look back at Jewish world champions, they and they keep kosher and study Torah in their free time. used to be immigrants,” Foreman said. “So I guess you Foreman is even training to become a rabbi. need this little quality, this hunger.” “Many people have a stereotype about boxing that you Their emergence has sparked the imagination of many can’t do anything spiritual,” Foreman said. “Judaism in Jewish boxing enthusiasts fond of a bygone era when many ways helps me in my boxing. It helps me to stay there were more Jewish fighters in proportion to their grounded, not to forget who I am and where I am.” share of the U.S. population than any ethnic group in Salita, who studies at a Chabad yeshiva, says his Judaism the country. helps him become a better person and fulfill life goals. “We had a period that people don’t know or appreci“God wants us to work hard,” he said. “While I ate when we had almost 30 Jewish world champions,” wouldn’t recommend that a rabbi’s son become a boxer, said Mike Silver, the curator of an exhibition on Jewish it fits in with my background. In my way, I’m spreading boxing at the National Museum of American Jewish my Judaism.” History in Philadelphia and author of “The Arc of But critics say the focus on Foreman and Salita’s Boxing: The Demise of the SweetScience.” Jewish credentials may be obscuring the boxers’ short- Continued on page 39

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Page 35

JCC Maccabi Athletes Brett Robinson

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Son of Marcelyn and Charles Rogers School: Columbian Elementary School Grade: 6th Maccabi Sport: Swimming Other activities: Swim team, plays saxaphone and piano

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Son of Mimi Rogers and Scott Farkas School: Kiewit Middle School Grade: 7th Maccabi Sport: Table Tennis Other activities: Football, Wrestling

Daughter of Marcelyn and Charles Rogers School: Beveridge Middle School Grade: 8th Maccabi Sport: Swimming Other activities: Ballet, Jazz, Theater, plays Violin

Son of Reva Rosenblum School: Westside Middle School Grade: 8th Maccabi Sport: Basketball Other activities: Baseball, Basketball, Football

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March 26, 2010

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Boston’s Kevin Youkilis named Jewish Major Leaguers’ Player of the Decade by MARTY APPEL Marty Appel Public Relations Newton, MA – Boston Red Sox infielder Kevin Youkilis has been voted the Jewish Player of the Decade in online balloting conducted by Jewish Major Leaguers, the organization which produces an annual set of trading cards to honor the Jewish contribution to America’s National Pastime. Youkilis received 54 percent of the nearly 350 votes cast, with Shawn Green finishing second at 20 percent, and Ryan Braun third at 11 percent. Other candidates included Brad Ausmus, Jason Marquis, Scott Schoeneweis, John Grabow, Gabe Kapler, Scott Feldman, Ian Kinsler, Craig Breslow, Adam Stern and Mike Lieberthal. Ausmus, Marquis and Schoeneweis played the full decade of the ‘00s, and Green enjoyed two monster seasons with the Dodgers at the start of the decade. “Clearly,” said Martin Abramowitz, who heads JML,

for-profit organization, “Documenting American Jews in America’s Game.” It has produced five highly regarded limited-edition sets of Jewish Major Leaguers baseball cards and two nationally-publicized events at the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, NY. The 2008 Hank Greenberg Edition and the 2009 “Record-Setters” edition are still available; the 2010 “Deck of the Decade” is planned for publication shortly after Opening Day of next season. Jewish Major Leaguers baseball cards are licensed by Major League Baseball, and the Major League Baseball Players Association. The 2010 edition will be produced in cooperation with The Topps Company, and is made possible in part by grants from Major League Baseball, the Chicago White Sox, the Florida Marlins, the New York Mets, the Tampa Bay Rays and the Washington Nationals. For further information, visit www.Jewishmajorleag uers.org.

“Youkilis made a more lasting impression because of his superb play in the second half of the decade, which included a .382 on-base percentage, tops among everyone in the group.” Youkilis also had a consecutive errorless streak at first base which broke an 86-year old record, won a Gold Glove, and had two top-ten finishes in MVP voting. Several voters commented on his versatility and intensity, which have led the Red Sox to four post-season appearances in his seven-year career. He batted .500 in the 2007 American League Championship Series, with a .929 slugging percentage. The 2010 edition of Jewish Major Leaguer baseball cards will include a card recognizing Youkilis’s selection. “One of the purposes of the balloting”, Abramowitz noted, ”was to highlight the fact that this has been an extraordinary decade for Jews in baseball, perhaps the greatest ever.” Jewish Major Leaguers, Inc., is a Boston-based not-

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March 26, 2010

Record-setting 85-year old still swims whole-“heartedly”

est I got to leaving the country was a two-week tour in by GARY JAVITCH meter swimming pool was a swim meet. Barton “Bucky” Greenberg is a robust man. While all Not knowing Bucky’s competitive college swimming Mexico before I left the service.” Insurance Career gray, his physical appearance is not that of an 85-year old history and being a foolish 27 year old, I raced Bucky in man. He looks much younger. Moreover, he is energetic a fifty-meter contest in the breaststroke. He was about Following the war, after some moving around, he and agile. His mind is sharp. returned to Omaha and enrolled in the University of 50 years old at the time, and he beat me handily. “Swimming helps me maintain my health, Bucky relatStill, it wasn’t until the interview for this article that I Nebraska in Business Admi-nistration. In-between the ed. “My entire family has a very bad histofirst and 2nd part of his senry of heart disease.” Indeed, his only sibling ior year, his father who had – his sister Lee Jane Parsow -- died of heart been in the insurance busidisease, as did all of his father’s family. ness since 1917, arrang-ed “My mother died from high blood presfor him to attend an insursure,” Bucky added. “That’s just one of ance summer school. Bitten the reasons I swim. by the bug, “I joined my dad “Swimming provides great physical and in the insurance department mental strengthening exercise and it aids at what was then Harry A. in relaxation. The competition and the Wolf Co. My father was goal setting make it easier to exercise and manager of the department try to improve. and I was with him since “I am very lucky to be in such good 1948. My father passed away health. My blood pressure is good and I in November ‘51 and shortattribute it to my swimming all these ly thereafter, I started my years.” Bucky does take medication, howown agency. ever, to keep his cholesterol in a safe range. Bucky has been involved in On July 1, Bucky will be 86 and will insurance for over 60 years Bucky Greenberg have lived longer than anyone else in his and has a number of acafamily. “I have taken periodic stress tests and my doctors learned for the first time that demic credentials after his have never told me to stop competing and training. Bucky’s victory over me was name, including being a Swimming has prolonged my life and I hope to contin- the incentive he needed to CPCU (Chartered Property ue swimming and competing as long as I live.” Casualty Underwriter); a join Masters Swimming. He CLU (Chartered Life While his comments may seem like a commercial for has been doing that for over Underwriter) and a ChFC the benefits of swimming, Bucky is no ordinary swim- 30 years now. mer. He is a Master Swimmer, a member of a national (Chartered Financial Swimming history organization that holds fitness and swim competitions Bucky started swimming Bucky Greenberg at at a swim meet in Indianapolis in 1989. Consultant), to name a few. around the world. The swim groups begin with a 19-24 when he was just a “kid.” “I swam in my younger years Today he is still doing part time work. “I cut back age bracket and end with a 100-104 age grouping. in the AAU (American Athletic Union),” Bucky from full time in 2006. I work on special projects like Since 1990, Bucky has been a consistent “top Ten” recounted. “I also swam with the Jewish Community those related to retirement.” swimmer for his age group. He currently swims in the Center team. I can remember a meet at Lake Okoboji He has cut back a little on his workouts. “I have a litwhen I was 9 or 10 years old. The ‘J’ Athletic director tle less lung capacity. Now I find that after swimming 85-89 classification. But his extraordinary achievements do not stop there, then was Lee Grossman and subsequently Dan 800-900 meters (a little over a half mile), I have to stop Bucky currently holds the world-record for the 100- Greenfield. Other than AAU, I also swam a meet at age about every 100 meters to catch my breath. meter breaststroke in his age group. This record was set 10 at Creighton University. Long active in the Jewish community, Bucky has “My favorite was the breaststroke. It came naturally to served as president of Beth El and on their board of in a national championship event in August 2009. “I swam 100 meters in 1:53.3 minutes. That was an me. I won a lot of meets. But there weren’t many com- directors. He is a 50-year member of B’nai B’rith, a 50American and world record. At the same meet, I set the petitors,” he joked. “I was fortunate that I had good year Shriner, and a 40-year member of Kiwanis. American record in 50-meter breaststroke in 51.2 sec- joints,” he commented, referring to the great strain put And how could we forget, he also chaired the JCC on the knee and ankle joints for the breaststroke. Swim Committee and served on the JCC athletic comonds,” he recalls. Central High did not have a swim team. Not too long mittee. His family established a basketball awards proAs a younger, 79-year old, he was named the “Athlete of the Year” in the 2003 Cornhusker State Games. He after WWII began, Bucky enlisted in the Army Air gram for the most improved and outstanding Team(s) or Force. He clearly remembers racing against a lieutenant Player(s) in 1954. still swims in the Cornhusker games. Bucky got his start in Masters Swimming following an from Offutt Air force Base who “cleaned his clock.” He continues to assist in coaching the JCC Sharks interesting sequence of events: For purposes of full dis- Ironically, the man later became his commanding officer team during the summer as he tries to match it with his summer training and meets. closure, Bucky served on the Jewish Community Center (CO). His CO was a master swimmer also. During the war years, Bucky received some training in Swim Committee that hired me to be the first Aquatics He has been married to Caryl for nearly sixty years and Director for the newly-opened JCC in the early 70’s. meteorology, but with an abundance of specialists in that they have two married children, Beth and Joe, and has One of the first events I held in the new outdoor 50- area, he was reassigned as a weather observer. “The clos- two grandchildren.

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March 26, 2010

Jewish Press, Omaha, NE

Page 39

JCC Maccabi Athletes Steven Vinci

Zoe Ann Watch

Max Weiner

Katelin Zetzman

Rylee Zimmerman

Zane Zimmerman

Son of Jody and Gino Vinci School: Westside High School Grade: 10th Maccabi Sport: Basketball Other activities: Youth Basketball Coach at the JCC

Daughter of Jamie and Jerry Watch School: Westridge Middle School, Grand Island, NE Grade: 7th Maccabi Sport: Table Tennis Other activities: Singing Champion, Speech Champion

Son of Kathy and Harry Weiner School: Beveridge Magnet Middle School Grade: 7th Maccabi Sport: Star Reporter

Daughter of Amee and Ted Zetzman School: Westside Middle School Grade: 8th Maccabi Sport: Volleyball Other activities: Omaha Wave Club Volleyball

Daughter of Linda & Todd Zimmerman School: Burke High School Grade: 9th Maccabi Sport: Dance Other activities: Burke Dance Team

Son of Linda and Todd Zimmerman School: Beveridge Magnet Middle School Grade: 7th Maccabi Sport: Basketball Other activities: Baseball, Basketball, Football

The Jewish Press is not responsible for those Maccabi athletes not included. The following athletes will be competing in the Maccabi Games, but their information was not available at press time:

Tyler Schneiderman and Rachel Zetzman

Jewish fighters hoping to silence critics

Continued from page 34 “What I like about this is that it brings back history. It makes more people become aware of the Jewish experience in boxing, and that should be taught as part of the Jewish immigrant experience,� he said. “Boxing was the sport that more Jews have participated in than all other sports combined. They have been more successful at that sport than in any other in terms of sheer numbers.� While Silver says he’s doubtful that the emergence of two Jewish boxers heralds a return to the glory days of Jewish boxing, in the 1920s and 1930s, “Even one fighter is a nugget of gold.� Lou DiBella, a veteran boxing promoter who has worked with both Foreman and Salita, says Foreman is the more tested and has a better chance Dmitry Salita raises his arms in to take a title. “With respect to Yuri, victory after his fifth-round TKO the television executives of Fabian Luque in New York don’t think he’s exciting City in February 2008. Credit: Alex Gorokhov because of his style,� DiBella said. “Dmitry has more of a brawling style, but with him the question is his quality.� Steve Kim, a blogger for MaxBoxing.com, said he calls Foreman Yuri “Boreman� because of his style in the ring. “Boxing needs exciting fighters, and I don’t think Yuri Foreman is one,� Kim told JTA. “He’s a very cautious, safety-first combatant. If you listen to the crowd’s reaction in his last bout in Atlantic City, people were booing.� Foreman is aware of the criticism and says he feels no need to apologize for avoiding slugfests. To him, boxing is more akin to chess, where opponents out maneuver and trick each other. “I don’t care what critics say, I just do my thing and it’s gotten me a shot at the world title bout,� Foreman said. “I am also thinking about my future, and I want to be able to talk to my children.� Salita says his fight in December, which likely will take place in either London or Manchester, will be his big chance to prove his worth in the ring. “I hope that Jewish people in Britain come out and show their support,� Salita said, “and that I make them proud.�

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Page 40

Jewish Press, Omaha, NE

March 26, 2010

The Congregation of Temple Israel wishes its friends in the Jewish community A Passover filled with good health,happiness and peace.

Happy Passover from

Henry Monsky Lodge Best Wishes for a Happy Passover

B’nai B’rith 334-6443

The Beth El Synagogue Board of Trustees, Congregation and Staff As we celebrate the Exodus this Passover, Beth El Synagogue invites you to celebrate with us at our community second Seder, open to all on Tuesday, March 30, 6:00 p.m. For more information and reservations, contact the synagogue office at 492-8550.

National Council of Jewish Women Omaha Section

NCJW extends its warmest wishes to the Jewish community for a Joyous Passover.

B’nai Israel Synagogue

A Happy and Healthy

Council Bluffs, Iowa

Passover

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to the Community

618 Mynster Street, Council Bluffs

323-8885 You’re always welcome at B’nai Israel!

Peace and Happiness on Passover 333 South 132nd Street Omaha, NE 68154 334-6441 or 334-6442 njhs@jewishomaha.org

With Your Help We’ll Have A Great Past Ahead Of Us

May Passover bring special joy to you and your family.

Beth El Sisterhood

HAPPY

Passover “In every generation one is obligated to view himself as though he came out of Egypt”

Omaha Chapter of

HADASSAH

HA DAS SAH

Best Wishes for a Kosher and Happy Passover The Rabbi, Staff and Volunteers

Chabad House

Wishing the community a Happy Pesach from the Staff and Governance Council of the Institute for Holocaust Education

League Offering Volunteers for the Elderly

www.ihene.org | holocaust@jewishomaha.org | 402/334-6576

The Rose Blumkin Jewish Home Auxiliary

Best Wishes for a

Happy

Passover

March 26, 2010

Jewish Press, Omaha, NE

Page 41

The Athlete’s athlete

by BERT LEWIS When Survivors Emma and Ben Josin arrived in Omaha in 1949 from Eastern Europe, I have to believe the last thing they worried about was sports and the games played and enjoyed by Americans. However, it seems reasonable to think they had to develop some interest after little Harvey was born in 1951. I don’t know when his birthday is, but it wouldn’t surprise me to learn it’s during baseball season, such is his love for the game. As a native Omahan, Harvey went through the school system, from Dundee to Lewis & Clark to Central High School, apparently sharpening his interest and love of sports of every description as he grew from a little kid to a tall teen. He says he played the three majors: baseball, football and basketball with the kids in the neighborhood and also at the JCC., with “good Jewish athletes like Jerry Raznick and Tom Milder.” This was after he realized that his dream of playing baseball with the New York Yankees was just that. A dream. He tells, in his funny, self-deprecating way, “I realized I’d have a better chance of being an accountant for the Yankees instead of a Jewish ball player!” Ok, there were other games to be played, and play them he did. Then, the disappointment of being cut from the 8th grade team at Lewis and Clark when many of his friends made it, apparently served as the incentive for working to make the 9th grade team. Mother Nature helped a bit at that point, when a good growth spurt helped him and he did make it. And that’s the team that won the all city championship, going undefeated and beating the Johnny Rodgers Horace Mann team Harvey says “this taste of glory led to more frantic playing as we spent countless hours playing pick up basketball in my good friend Bruce Muskin’s driveway.” On to Central High where he played on two state championship runner up basketball teams. In addition, in BBYO his Rayim squad swept two years of softball and football, “never tasting defeat.” Clearly, the high school

sports career finished at the top of his game. Fast forward to the University of Missouri freshman year, where Josin played as freshman quarterback, but they lost the all-fraternity football title. A change of venue to the University of Nebraska, where he finished school, he played on a 3rd place all-school intramural football team, losing to Guy Ingles team in the semi’s.

Harvey and Cindy Josin His career statistics include many games of AAU basketball, traveling the state of Nebraska, plus playing for a league champ T’s 13 flag football team and a 4th ranked in the state Davenport softball team. Also, he played and won a couple of mixed volleyball league championships against Class A competition, which included girls from Nebraska, UNO and Creighton team. He says, “it didn’t hurt that we had ex-Nebraska quarterback Van Brownson on our team.” According to Josin, he “stayed very active, playing in dozens of softball, basketball and volleyball leagues for

years, until two serious knee injuries brought athletic fun to a screeching halt.” And also, he was 49 years old at that point. Harvey Josin says he’d discuss his years of playing golf at the Highland Country Club with friends Steve Nogg, Mike Sherman and Jerry Simons, but if he counted how much money he lost, it would only suggest a “staggeringly unsuccessful golf career”. Said with great good humor, which could be expected from a really good sport. Ok, so where is our athlete today, as in What ever happened to Harvey Josin? He’ll gladly tell you today he lives “peacefully in Minneapolis with my bashert, Cindy, two step boys Sean and Luke, and my daughter Grace, who just turned 10.” He tells that the boys are into Lacrosse, music and girls, while Gracie does basketball, soccer and dance. He speaks of the family’s North Woods cabin located close to Lutson ski resort, where they ski many times over the winter. Josin says he and Cindy thought this would be a good sport to do together as a family, and he says the kids “are excellent skiers and we can hardly keep up with them. Now, we see them at the first lift and they join us in the hot tub later.” “As for sports, I help coach Gracie’s basketball team of 4th graders, who are really starting to put it together. I find this a very satisfying run at sports.” And of course he adds, “I am naturally, still a crazed Cornhusker fan, Creighton basketball and have become a very avid Minnesota Twins and Vikings fan.” (Hardly a surprise!) So how does Harvey Josin sum up his years of athletic enjoyment? He has sweet memories of playing with his strong, Jewish circle of friends, participating in so many activities together at the old J. And one obviously special memory of once scoring 54 points in a league basketball game there. “Chuck Arnold told me it was a record for that building.” That would seem to me a perfect finish to the story of Harvey Josin, Athlete.

Page 42

Jewish Press, Omaha, NE

March 26, 2010

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From basketball to golf course dogs: Harold Mann sees stories everywhere by ANNETTE VAN DE KAMP-WRIGHT Editor of the Jewish Press Harold Richard Mann hasn’t always lived in Omaha. He was born and raised in Elizabethtown, North Carolina, where he attended Elizabethtown High School, and then North Carolina State University. During his high school years, Mann, a self-proclaimed “sports maniac”, was an All State basketball, baseball, and track athlete. When he moved to Omaha, he became very active in sports at the old Jewish Community Center. In 1969, he earned the Les Burkenroad Award for best Jewish athlete in the JCC varsity basketball league. He is also on the wall of fame at the Jewish Community Center. Harold is married to Linda, and father to Kathy McGauvran, Amy Ref, Joy Wadleigh, and Jill Strite. One of Mann’s most treasured sports memories has to do with a well-known basketball coach, and his son, who played high school basketball in Raleigh, North Carolina. “While I was in college at North Carolina State University, there was a young man by the name of Pete Maravich. He was the #1 high school/college basketball player in America. His father was Press Maravich, and he was the coach at NCSU. I used to watch his son play all the time in high school, because he would score 50 to 60 points per game, and it was a thrill to watch such a gifted athlete. One day I received a phone call from Coach Maravich, and he asked me to come over to the gym where the varsity basketball team was practicing. They had a problem, because they had a lot of injuries, and they had a number of people out with the flu, and he needed someone to play the guard position at practice so they would have enough players. That’s how I became his substitute player for the team, which was exciting for me. To be able to practice with a top ranked team in America was a real thrill. Once coach Maravich’s son graduated high school, he left and went to Louisiana State University. The deal was that if he brought his son, he’d be coaching LSU. He left, but before he did, I enjoyed playing varsity basketball as a substitute at practice with the main team at NCSU, while he was there.” The younger Maravich went on to play professionally, first for the Atlanta Hawks, then the New Orleans Jazz, and finally for the Boston Celtics. Nicknamed “Pistol Pete” he was one of the youngest players ever to be inducted into the Hall of fame. Harold Mann relocated to Nebraska in 1967. “I moved here to work for my uncle, Carl Frohm, who owned Union Packing Company,” he said. After leaving Union Packing Company, I went to work for the Hinky Dinky Supermarkets briefly, and then for Morton Meats of Omaha. I owe a great deal to one of the finest people I have ever been associated with, the owner, Mort Glass. After a few years, I started my own meat company, Mann’s International Meat Specialties. When I sold the company, I became semi-retired. Of course, whenever someone says ‘semi’ retired, they really mean they manage to stay extremely busy. Harold Mann is no exception; together with his wife Linda, he manages the Frohm Foundation. “Our foundation is involved in many different things, such as Holocaust education, scholarships for college, the CDC, and Jewish Family Services, to name but a few.” He also is

Vice President of the Rose Blumkin Jewish Home board of directors. One would think the Frohm Foundation and the Rose Blumkin Board keeps him busy enough, but Mann would disagree: “I am also a writer,” he admits. “I wrote a children’s book about golf. It’s called Marvin, The Golf Caddy Dog, and it tells the story of a dog who is abandoned, and ends up on the golf course.”

Harold Mann Marvin decides to make the golf course his home, and befriends other animals, as well as a small boy, and becomes his golf caddy. “All the animals are actually real,” Mann said, “I didn’t make them up.” In addition to the story, the book includes golf rules for children. However, even those kids who don’t necessarily have an interest in golf would enjoy the story of Marvin The Golf Caddy Dog. “Many people who think about golf, who play the game, are focused on the game itself,” Mann said. “Whenever I play, I look at everything around me. Not just the ball and the hole, I notice all the other forms of life. If there is a squirrel or a bird sitting in a tree, I notice it. I watch the trees, I watch the sky; there is so much more to golf than hitting the ball. I think I look at things differently, and then I write about them.” Mann also writes mystery stories, poetry, and has another children’s book planned for this winter. “It should be out around Hanukkah,” he said. “In the meantime, ‘Marvin’ can be purchased at the Kripke Library, The Bookworm, and nationally at golf country clubs, golf discount stores, Humane Societies, or folks can also visit the website at http://the bookmann.com/.” About that website: it includes the usual suspects, such as links to purchase anything from the book itself to Marvinthemed golf accessories, golf headcovers, tee-shirts, and caps. However, there is one surprising link to be found on the home page. “It’s called “ask Marvin”, and once you click on it, you can leave a question. We get questions from kids all over, and they ask the most amazing questions. Some questions even need to be answered by a psychologist. Golf questions are answered by a golf professional. We make sure to answer every single one.” From a varsity basketball player to a children’s (and mystery!) author, and a few additional roles in between, Harold is quite the Renaissance man. Who knows what comes next? Whatever it is, one thing is sure: it will be exciting.

March 26, 2010

Jewish Press, Omaha, NE

Page 43

Boyhood dream not all glamorous

by GARY JAVITCH Matt Kutler loved baseball so much that he played or practiced the game almost daily from his elementary school years until the age of 25. A baseball standout during his years at Brown University, Matt also garnered additional accolades during his senior season, earning â&#x20AC;&#x153;Ivy League Player of the Yearâ&#x20AC;? and â&#x20AC;&#x153;All-Americanâ&#x20AC;? status, while batting for an awesome .427 average. The four-year starter also achieved honors in the classroom when the Ivy League named him to their â&#x20AC;&#x153;Academic First Teamâ&#x20AC;? during his sophomore year. Recognizing his talents, the Florida Marlins drafted him in June 2005, shortly after his college graduation. While not successful in his effort to become a Marlin at the major league level, he played professional baseball for two years, acquiring some great experiences, life-long friends, and learning about baseball at the grass roots level. A hurricane and a homer Perhaps Mattâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s best experience came during his last game of his first season -- called â&#x20AC;&#x153;Rookie Ballâ&#x20AC;? -- in July 2005. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Before the game started, weather warnings from Hurricane Katrina threatened to prevent the game from even being played,â&#x20AC;? Matt recalled. â&#x20AC;&#x153;By the 7th inning, it was actually raining sideways! Officials finally had to call the game. We all ran to the buses and I thought my season was over.â&#x20AC;? â&#x20AC;&#x153;Instead, because I had done well enough, I was told I was assigned to a team located in Jamestown, NY to finish out the last two weeks of their season. It was a promotion.â&#x20AC;? â&#x20AC;&#x153;So I didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t go home. I boarded a plane for Ohio and when I landed, I was driven an hour and a half to a ballpark.â&#x20AC;? â&#x20AC;&#x153;When I arrived (a little tired), I found that I knew a few guys, but for the most part my 25 new teammates were all strangers. I got there just before the start of the ball game and was issued my new uniform.â&#x20AC;? â&#x20AC;&#x153;It was the 8th inning and we were down one run, when the manager, Mike Mordecai, yells â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Hey, new guy,â&#x20AC;&#x2122; referring to me.â&#x20AC;? Matt was walking to the bathroom when he was told he was going to pinch hit! There were two outs. Before getting to the plate, he took a couple of practice swings. â&#x20AC;&#x153;The pitcher was throwing pretty hard,â&#x20AC;? Matt related. â&#x20AC;&#x153;I missed the first two pitches,â&#x20AC;? Matt then prepared for the third pitch. â&#x20AC;&#x153;I was just trying to make contact, but somehow I really connected and it sailed over the fence.â&#x20AC;? Matt had smacked a home run in his first at-bat in the higher league. (The NY Penn League). â&#x20AC;&#x153;My manager was so impressed, he played me in the remainder of the â&#x20AC;&#x153;Short â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Aâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; Seasonâ&#x20AC;? games. I hit .450. The season ended and I came home to my winter job at Lincoln Financial.â&#x20AC;?

To stay in shape during the off-season, Matt would hit and work out at batting cages and a gym in the evenings. Ins and Outs of Baseball Unless a ball player is a superstar, a fledging enters the â&#x20AC;&#x153;farm systemâ&#x20AC;? for seasoning â&#x20AC;&#x201C; honing skills, developing maturity and gaining experience -- while working through the various levels, A, AA, and finally Triple A, before entering the Majors. Matt, a mid-to-late round draft pick started out at the â&#x20AC;&#x153;Aâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; level.

Matt and his wife Cally, with Vincent, their 18-month old. Some of the players drafted out of high school received huge signing bonuses even before playing a single professional game. Matt knew four prospects who earned well over a million dollars. Typically, the older you were when starting, the lower the bonus, if one was given at all. Some of his associates didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t even get signing bonuses. Still, a standard bonus for guys like Matt, then 22, ranged from $1,000 to $3,000. When you get involved with money, more is at stake. â&#x20AC;&#x153;You try to make friends with the guys, Matt continued, â&#x20AC;&#x153;knowing full well that I would be competing against the others for a starting position. Guys below me were trying to take my job and I was trying to take the job of the guys above me. Nevertheless, I still had a good relationship with my teammates and continue friendships with them today. At the level I was at, it was tough making the rent. But I really loved the game. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Hitting was my strong suit,â&#x20AC;? Matt explained. â&#x20AC;&#x153;I could hit doubles and singles. But the Marlins were really looking for home run hitters from outfielders like me. Ultimately, that was my downfall, I felt.â&#x20AC;? The playing schedule during his rookie year was grueling. â&#x20AC;&#x153;I was up at 7 a.m. every day,â&#x20AC;? Matt explained. â&#x20AC;&#x153;I squeezed in breakfast and a van came by and took us to the field complex around 7:45-8 a.m. I participated in early hitting practice by 8:15 a.m. and a regular team practice at 9 a.m. for about two hours. Then we cleaned up and took a break for lunch, changing into our uni-

forms to play a game. â&#x20AC;&#x153;The games started at 12 noon. I did this six days a week in my first year. â&#x20AC;&#x153;In my second year, the schedule, which permitted me to sleep in, was even tougher. I got to the field at noon for a 7 p.m. game. It was not uncommon to play 15 games in a row, then get a day off and play another 15 consecutive games. In that second year, we played 140 games, April thru August. We stayed at hotels off the interstate and I got a small stipend for road expenses. The pressure was always on. â&#x20AC;&#x153;As a reserve player, I never had a clue when I was going to play because the big bonus players always got the first slots in the starting lineup. Wins and losses were not the priority; player development was. You can win 20 straight games, but if you donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t perform, you will get released or sent down a level.â&#x20AC;? This was certainly not a glamorous life. Knowing when to call it quits â&#x20AC;&#x153;In March 2007, I began my third Spring Training. As usual, I had to start from scratch and prove myself all over again. One day, I had a real sharp pain on the base of my big toe. It was unbearable. â&#x20AC;&#x153;As it turned out, I had â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;turf toe.â&#x20AC;&#x2122; The trainers kept me out. That was very frustrating because in a monthlong training period, every day missed makes it more difficult to make the team.â&#x20AC;? The trainers gave him meds and put a steel insert in his baseball shoes. Then they taped his toe to keep him from bending it. They let him take swings, but wouldnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t let him play in any games. â&#x20AC;&#x153;After I was finally cleared to play, the minor league coordinator and the player development person approached me as I was about to walk out for the last game. They gave me the bad news. â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re going to release you.â&#x20AC;&#x2122; They complimented me about my professional behavior and offered to contact other teams, which might have an opening for me. â&#x20AC;&#x153;I thought about what I wanted to do. If I signed with another team, I would be at bottom of the totem pole. â&#x20AC;&#x153;In the end, I decided to return to Omaha in April and put my rĂŠsumĂŠ together. I now work for First National Bank in commercial real estate. In between the seasons in February 2006, Matt married Cally, his high school sweetheart. In 2008, they had a son, Vincent, now 18-months old. Endnotes What would Matt tell a youngster coming up who has strong talents and loved playing baseball? â&#x20AC;&#x153;Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d say, â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Go for it.â&#x20AC;&#x2122; I personally have no regrets. I played as best as I could. I was given a fair chance and it didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t work out. But I enjoyed it. I was glad I did it. â&#x20AC;&#x153;But be prepared to work extra hard and for long hours,â&#x20AC;? he would caution. â&#x20AC;&#x153;All the players youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re competing against were the best on their high school or college teams.â&#x20AC;?

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March 26, 2010

Seder invite for that special someone: When’s the right time?

by SUZANNE KURTZ WASHINGTON (JTA) -- A few years ago I accepted an invitation to share a Passover seder at the home of my thenboyfriend’s parents. Since we were becoming more serious as a couple, I was excited to experience this penultimate sign of family acceptance. I bought a cute new dress to wear and some gourmet kosher-for-Passover chocolates for his mom. I prepped by asking for short bios on second cousins I’d be meeting for the first time and, in case I was asked, I practiced the Four Questions. Shortly after the seder began, it became apparent that this night indeed was going to be much different from all other nights. I learned quickly that in this family, the actions of an ancient Egyptian pharaoh could spark a hot debate on current U.S. Middle East policy. I witnessed a Haggadah reading enhanced by the insertion of several scratchy musical recordings -- a lovely albeit sederlengthening touch. And not surprising, I discovered, no one makes kugel better than my mother. In truth, it was a perfectly wonderful evening and few experiences provided as intimate a window into the theater of my boyfriend’s family. Their Passover hospitality, and peccadilloes, would set the bar for my relationships to come. Hospitality is more than encouraged on Passover; it is required. We are commanded to leave the door open for Elijah the prophet as well as to invite all who are hungry to come and eat. But when you are dating, the hungry can often interpret a come-and-eat invitation as more symbolic than the shank

bone on a seder plate. And your family can become either a boon or a liability. “For me it’s an investment,” says Tara Chantal Silver, 32, a publicist in Washington. “Passover is a very big deal in my family. I don’t bring every guy home, just the ones who are special.” So how do you know if it’s the right time to extend an invitation to that someone special? “The first question to ask yourself is, do I want this person sitting beside me?” says relationship expert Andrea Syrtash. “But it doesn’t have to be a specific answer, like I want them to be the mother of my children. It’s a gracious thing to invite someone for the holiday. No one normal or healthy would freak out being asked.” Dating coach Evan Marc Katz says to consider “the strength of the relationship over an arbitrary timeline.” If you think the relationship has the potential to become long-term or serious eventually, Katz says, at some point you’re going to have to meet the family -- and Passover is as good a time as any. Adina Matusow, 28, and her fiance, Ben, took it slow spending the holiday together. “As far as Passover, we weren’t so interested in sharing,” says Matusow, who lives with her fiance in Stamford, Conn. By the time she went to his aunt’s house for Passover, they had been dating for nearly two years. Matusow says the experience was different from what she was used to with her family. His family was smaller and less noisy, and the seder plate looked amiss. “I thought, where is the celery? They

were using parsley [as a leafy green vegetable] instead,” she recalls. “I didn’t say anything; I didn’t want to be rude. It’s not a big deal and it was a really nice experience.” Sometimes, though, a divide in ritual observance can be more significant than celery over parsley. In 24 years of marriage Robbie Wagner, 48, says most arguments with her husband stem from the differences in their holiday traditions. Wagner, who lives in Dallas, grew up with an Orthodox Passover seder conducted in Hebrew, a “command performance with 50 to 60 people there, everyone in their best clothes, both nights.” In contrast, she says, her husband’s family held a small, intimate dinner with no extended family and no reading of the Haggadah. She recalls being particularly disappointed that the afikomen wasn’t hidden for the grandchildren to find. Over the years, Wagner says she and her husband learned to negotiate and compromise to create meaningful Passover traditions for their children. Syrtash, author of “How to Survive Your In-Laws” and the upcoming “He’s Just Not Your Type (And That’s a Good Thing),” says couples should try to “have an open mind and remember there’s no such thing as normal. What’s weird to you is normal for him. Try not to have judgment.” When he was unable to get back to his native Montreal for Passover, architect Ian Roth, 35, accepted an invitation to spend Passover with his girlfriend Katy and her family in Denver. The seder was less traditional and

more interpretative than his family’s and the meal was less extravagant than his mother’s, says Roth, but “it was nice just being welcomed. It helped me have a warm feeling towards her and her family.” Syrtash suggests couples discuss in advance what Passover looks like in their family’s home. Give a head’s up if expecting a nosy aunt and, if the relationship is serious, discuss what customs you hope to retain or discard in the future, she says. For couples with a non-Jewish partner, this is especially important. Syrtash recommends preparing the non-Jewish partner on what to expect at a seder. “Approach it with enthusiasm, and go over a few things like the rituals and story of Passover before he or she gets to the table for the first time,” she says. “It’s a fun, festive holiday and it should feel light.” In preparation for hosting their own seder someday, Katz and his wife, a Catholic, took an introduction to Passover class as well as a Passover cooking class at a synagogue near their Los Angeles home. “Different people make it easier to share your customs,” he says, “and those are the people you should be with anyway.” When you are dating, navigating Passover can become a representation of the relationship, says Syrtash, and it can “signify a lot.” But she also says to keep in mind that “Passover is not a wedding. You don’t need a plus one.” Because if the relationship doesn’t work out, it’s important to remember there’s always next year in Jerusalem. And mom’s kugel.

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JNF aims to turn Israel diamonds from rough to ready

by RACHEL TEPPER Other fields in Israel face similar problems. Baseball is JERUSALEM (JTA) -- People historically have associ- regularly played in Bet Shemesh, but the town’s lone field ated the Jewish National Fund with planting trees in is constructed on a slope, forcing players to run uphill to Israel. Now the century-old charity is also working to first base. A field in Tel Aviv is not equipped with lights, make sure that Israelis will have decent places to put forcing play to end at dusk. The cities of Haifa, Beersheba good wood on the ball. and Tiberias also boast playThe organization’s latest ers but no fields on which to venture, Project Baseball, play. aims to develop baseball facilInadequate facilities have ities in Israel for the country’s not been baseball’s only nearly 2,300 amateur players. obstacle in Israel. Project Baseball has seen a rise in Baseball, though now a solo popularity in the State of effort by JNF, at one point Israel, but inadequate and was working in conjunction unmaintained facilities have with the Israel Baseball hampered its progress. League. The professional “People really love it,” said league’s only season came in JNF spokeswoman Jodi 2007, attracting players from Bodner, who described basethe United States, Canada, ball as “great team sport” Venezuela, the Dominican and credited its recent spike Israeli children play baseball, a game becoming increasingly Republic, Australia, Europe Credit: JNF and Israel. in popularity to the fact that popular in their country, on JNF fields. it offers Israelis “a different kind of recreation.” Financial difficulties struck out the 2008 season, and With funds raised by Project Baseball, JNF has helped the league’s front man, David Solomont, is facing legal refurbish several fields across the country. Work is under challenges. Solomont filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in way on a state-of-the-art sports park in Kibbutz Gezer, April, according to papers submitted to the U.S. not too far north of Jerusalem. Bankruptcy Court in Boston. JNF also recently completed work on Sportek Field Despite the hiccup, Project Baseball is working toward just outside of Tel Aviv, which hosted the 2009 advancing Israeli baseball. The JNF says its motivation Maccabiah Games baseball competition. stems from the belief that baseball is more than just a Baseball was introduced to the Holy Land in 1927, game. when the governess of a Jerusalem orphanage tried to In 2005, the Israel Association of Baseball hosted a engage her children in a game. According to popular clinic for 80 Israeli-Arab and Jewish students, teaching accounts, the sport was so alien to the children that they them the game’s basics and then having a game on a Tel dropped the baseballs to the ground and kicked them Aviv field. According to JNF’s Web site, “the setting of like soccer balls. a baseball field gave them a rare opportunity to interact It wasn’t until five decades later, in 1979, that the first and work together.” true Israeli baseball field was erected. The sport has Instances of cooperation and unity, JNF says, are what found a strong base in Jerusalem, where hundreds of res- make baseball a unique fit for the land of Israel. idents, adults and children, take part in league play. Bodner says there is a need for the diamond game However, the city has only one baseball field -- and it’s there. in poor condition, devoid of grass and instead covered “We see a need,” she said of JNF, “and we try to go with rocks, dust and thorns. fill it.”

Passover’s influence on Israeli society

JOURNAL ENTRY FROM ISRAEL by TEDDY WEINBERGER If one views Judaism as a religion that has something to say to all of life’s experiences, from the mundane to the sublime, then one is liable to hope that life in a Jewish State should greatly broaden Judaism’s sphere of influence. And one, judging from the past 61 years, will find oneself disappointed again and again. Take the holiday of Passover. What articles connected to Passover might one hope to read in one’s newspaper in the months leading up to the Jewish festival of freedom? A) How a number of Members of Knesset, in light of the upcoming holiday, which sensitizes the Jewish people to the plight of the stranger (“for you yourselves were once strangers in the land of Egypt,” Exod. 23.9), are proposing a law that strengthens the rights of foreign workers in Israel? B) How the Minister of Social Welfare, in light of the biblical reference to matza as “bread of poverty” (Deut. 16.3), has come up with a responsible plan to fight hunger in Israel? C) How a Member of Knesset from former Prime Minister Olmert’s Kadima Party has gathered the support of almost two dozen of his Knesset colleagues for a proposed amendment to Israel’s chametz law, which regulates the sale of leavened products on Passover. If you answered A) or B), then I fear that you are going to be disappointed. Yes, the only ongoing Passover-related story in my Haaretz newspaper in January and February was the proposed amendment to the chametz law. It seems that Israel’s 1986 chametz law contains a loophole: while it prohibits the “public display” of chametz, some supermarkets interpret this narrowly as covering only merchandise that can be seen through store windows. Of course, such a story plays right into Haaretz’s anti-religious bent. Its editors, I’m sure, were

only too happy to show Israel’s public just how narrow Judaism is, how irrelevant it is to the demands of the day. And the coercive element of the story (the state, rather than market forces, dictating the sale of leavened products) must have made the editors all the more joyous, since religious coercion is the great bugaboo of Israeli secular society. [Interesting side note: I seem to recall from my life in America that I was able to observe the ban on chametz even though my local supermarket tantalizingly continued to display leavened products throughout the Passover holiday.] I asked my friend Dyonna Ginsburg to comment on this situation. Dyonna is Executive Director of Bema’aglei Tzedek (“Circles of Justice”), an organization that aspires “to create a more just Israeli society informed and inspired by Jewish values” (this, from its website: www.mtzedek.org.il/english. Dyonna wrote to me, saying: “When most Israelis and Jews around the world hear the term ‘Jewish State’, they think solely of the Israeli government’s legislation regarding public observance of Jewish holidays, mass transportation on Shabbat, army exemptions for the ultra-Orthodox sector, or, in this case, the anti-chametz law. This is tragic. The ‘Jewish State’ demands a basic set of ethical norms and behavior just as much as ritual observance--if not more so. The State of Israel is in the unique position to turn to its own rich Jewish heritage and texts--from the writings of prophets like Amos and Isaiah to the legal rulings of elders like Rabbi Akiva and Hillel--to develop creative ways of addressing its socioeconomic problems rather than devising solutions to these issues in an ethical vacuum. I would like to hope that, on this Passover, we are as diligent in ridding our homes and society of haughtiness, corruption, and ill will as we are of breadcrumbs.” Happy Passover. Teddy Weinberger made aliyah in 1997 with his wife, former Omahan Sarah Ross, and their five children. Their oldest two, Nathan and Rebecca, recently completed mandatory service in the Israel Defense Forces; their daughter Ruthie is still serving in the IDF. Weinberger can be reached at weinross@netvision.net.il.

Jewish Press, Omaha, NE

Page 45

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Page 46

Jewish Press, Omaha, NE

March 26, 2010

Eat Fresh Food by ROZANNE GOLD & HER ALL-STAR TEAM (Bloomsbury, $17.99)

READ IT AND EAT Reviewed by LOIS FRIEDMAN

Gold is an award-winning cookbook author (and one of my favorites). She has gathered talented teen chefs who love to cook and who helped create over 80 healthy and fresh recipes. Fresh also stands for: F-farmer friendly, R-ripe-ready, E-easy-exciting, Ssustainable, and H-honest-healthy. If younger children are preparing these recipes, parents’ supervision is recommended. These recipes start with the freshest ingredients, have simple steps, and are doable for teens and their friends. The pleasure of cooking, eating responsibly, and the use of fresh ingredients dominate the pages of this book.

Gold suggests going to farmer’s markets, making healthy choices, and offers helpful techniques. The rainbow of colors provided by the ingredients is reflected in the colorful graphics and fun color photographs of teens and food. The seven chapters are: Bread, Butter & Breakfast Bowls: Soups & Pasta, Sandwiches, Burgers & Pizza, Salads, Big & Small, Dinner Specials with Vegetables, Side Dishes, and Desserts and Drinks. A dozen menu plans are suggested. The recipes are listed on the chapter page, have explanatory head notes and numerical instructions, all while featuring a casual tone. Cocoa is added to the bread recipe for taste and color. To make butter for spreading on the bread, mush it around to “knead it”. If one wants to use jam, Gold suggests a popular Egyptian sweet carrot mixture. For the Silver-Dollar Potato Pancakes, also known as latkes, use the chunky rhubarb sauce for springtime. Finally, for a great tasting and super healthy drink, try

this recipe from the Bread, Butter & Breakfast chapter. PINEAPPLE-COCONUT FRULLATO 1 medium very ripe pineapple 1 cup light coconut milk 1/4 cup orange juice or apple juice 3 tablespoons honey 1 medium ripe banana Carefully peel the pineapple, using a small sharp knife, keeping your fingers well back from the knife-it’s slippery! Cut in half lengthwise and remove the core. Chop enough to get 3 packed cups. Or buy 12 ounces fresh-cut pineapple. Put the pineapple and any juices in a blender. Add the coconut milk, orange or apple juice, and honey. Peel the banana and cut it into pieces. Add to the blender with 8 ice cubes. Blend until the mixture is very smooth and thick. Serve immediately or cover and refrigerate until very cold. Serves 4. Lois Friedman can be reached at ReadItAndEat@ yahoo.com.

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Child Nutrition Seders Matzoh ball eating: A competitive sport agey types prefer pre-combat fasting, â&#x20AC;&#x153;to get your mind focused and your body clear of all matter.â&#x20AC;? to raise awareness, During the actual contest, most competitive matzohSTAYING ball eaters stand. â&#x20AC;&#x153;You wonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t feel as full as when youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re advocate for funding IN TOUCH sitting,â&#x20AC;? one veteran explained. This stand and deliver by OZZIE NOGG

by ERIC FINGERHUT The Passover story is about the Jewish people gaining their freedom from slavery in Egypt. This year, two Jewish groups are connecting the holiday to a campaign to free American children from the bondage of hunger. The Jewish Council for Public Affairs and Mazon: A Jewish Response to Hunger are helping communities around the country hold a â&#x20AC;&#x153;Child Nutrition Sederâ&#x20AC;? to both raise awareness of the issue of proper childhood nutrition and build support for the reauthorization of congressional legislation providing billions of dollars for federal nutrition programs. â&#x20AC;&#x153;It perfectly reflects the message of Passover,â&#x20AC;? said JCPA executive director Rabbi Steve Gutow of the child nutrition seder, noting that the Haggadah begins with the words â&#x20AC;&#x153;Let any who are hungry come in and eat.â&#x20AC;? â&#x20AC;&#x153;Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a powerful idea to enhance the Passover experienceâ&#x20AC;? and â&#x20AC;&#x153;amplify the message of the story,â&#x20AC;? added Rosalie Licht, project coordinator for Mazon. â&#x20AC;&#x153;We were slaves and now we are free â&#x20AC;&#x201C; what are we doing with that freedom?â&#x20AC;? It is the second year the groups have encouraged communities to organize such events, and the two groups have put together a special 27-page Haggadah http://www.jewishpublicaffairs.org/Hagaddah for the service which includes the traditional blessings from a Passover seder along with English readings that reflect the child nutrition theme of the service. For instance, along with the blessing for karpas, or the green vegetable, the Haggadah notes that lowincome families often eschew buying fresh fruits and vegetables in favor of less expensive packaged foods. The Four Questions have been converted into four queries about hunger in America, while the four sons are the â&#x20AC;&#x153;four faces of childhood hungerâ&#x20AC;? and how they benefit from federal government nutrition assistance. In addition to a March 18 seder on Capitol Hill which will include the participation of members of Congress, JCPA says at least 40 seders are planned in more than 30 communities across the United States -- taking place anywhere from the weeks before the holiday to the week after, and in some communities being used as a theme for a second-night seder. The events are being organized primarily by local Jewish community relations councils but also by synagogues Continued on page 49

The Passover Haggadah proclaims, â&#x20AC;&#x153;All who are hungry, let them come and eat.â&#x20AC;? But before you invite Eric â&#x20AC;&#x153;Badlandsâ&#x20AC;? Booker to your Seder, be advised. Booker -- a 6â&#x20AC;&#x2122;5â&#x20AC;?, 400-pound subway conductor from Copiague, New York (and often described as the NFLâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s â&#x20AC;&#x153;Refrigeratorâ&#x20AC;? Perry without the muscle) -- is a two-time World Matzoh Ball Eating Champion. Booker earned the title after polishing off 21 half-pound matzoh balls in 2003, and nearly that same number in 2004 during the Charity Matzoh Ball Eating Contest held at Benâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Kosher Deli in mid-town Manhattan. The annual event gives contestants five minutes, 25 seconds to scarf down as many gargantuan matzoh balls as possible. In case of a tie, a one minute, 25-second eat-off determines the winner. Partially eaten matzoh balls donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t count towards the final score, and vomiting (or dribbling matzoh meal out the nostrils) means instant disqualification. After his 2004 win, Booker said he felt â&#x20AC;&#x153;greatâ&#x20AC;? and allowed that â&#x20AC;&#x153;the matzoh balls were a little fluffier than what I trained with. When I noticed that, I was like a horse out of the gate at Belmont.â&#x20AC;? The Matzoh Ball Contest is one of many chowdowns sponsored by the International Federation of Competitive Eating (yes, Virginia, there really is such an organization). According to a spokesperson, â&#x20AC;&#x153;gurgitating for glory is an ancient, time-honored practiceâ&#x20AC;? that cuts across gender, ethnic, socio-economic and religious boundaries. Apparently the sport is now experiencing a renaissance, and not only do kosher competitions dominate the speed-eating agenda, but (again, according to IFCE officials) Jews are leaders of the pack. The prevailing theory speculates that Jewish mothersâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; insistence on â&#x20AC;&#x153;making all goneâ&#x20AC;? makes for extraordinary consumption skills among Jewish youth. Case in point -- Staten Islandâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s legendary Kevin â&#x20AC;&#x153;Krazyâ&#x20AC;? Lipsitz. Now in his mid-40s, Krazyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s staggering matzoh ball stats include Most Contests Entered (17 semis and three finals) and Most Eaten Overall (148.75). Clearly, Jewish guys are genetically wired for gold medals in guzzling. Contenders for Matzoh Ball Champ must possess stamina, physical capacity and (obviously) guts, plus the ability to play mind games that produce fear in the competition. Some marathon eaters train by gorging on gallons of ice cream at one long sitting, while new-

method is countered by a fierce female competitor who sits and pops up and down as she eats, an activity calculated to tamp down the food in her stomach by releasing pesky air bubbles. Obsessive-compulsive speed eaters (influenced, no doubt, by their Sheldon-use-your-knife-and-fork-likea-good-boy upbringing) cut their matzo balls into quarters before methodically downing the segments. Purists shun utensils and simply use their hands to stuff the tennis ball-sized sinkers in, much like eating apples. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s something everybody feels they can do,â&#x20AC;? one competitor smirked. â&#x20AC;&#x153;But itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s not that easy. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s like shoveling cement down your esophagus.â&#x20AC;? The texture of matzoh balls ranges from those cement sinkers to airy floaters (the variety that buoyed Booker to his victory), and every family has its favorite formula. A recipe for â&#x20AC;&#x153;Feather Balls, Alsatian Style,â&#x20AC;? from The Jewish Manual (the first Jewish cookbook printed in English and published in 1846), instructs balebostehs to â&#x20AC;&#x153;Take half a pound of matzoh flour, two ounces chopped suet, season with a little pepper, salt, ginger, and nutmeg. Mix with this four beaten eggs, and make it into a paste. A small onion, shredded and browned in a dessert spoonful of oil, is sometimes added. The paste should be made into rather large balls, and care should be taken to make them very light.â&#x20AC;? Good luck. In addition to Booker and Lipsitz, several other sanctioned IFCE members would fit right in at a Seder table. Sonya â&#x20AC;&#x153;The Black Widowâ&#x20AC;? Thomas, a petite phenom from Alexandria, VA -- and Competitive Eating Rookie of the Year in 2003 -- holds the record for hard-boiled eggs (65 in six minutes, 40 seconds), chicken wings, (161 in 12 minutes), asparagus spears (almost six pounds in 10 minutes) and Sweet Potato (call it tzimmis) Casserole (8.62 pounds in 11 minutes). Also worthy of mention are Brian â&#x20AC;&#x153;Beautifulâ&#x20AC;? Seiken of Brooklyn, whoâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s top dog in kosher dill pickles (2.7 pounds in six minutes) and Dominic (no nickname) Cardo, the Whole Pickled Beef Tongue Champ (3 pounds, 3 ounces in 12 minutes.) Gotta love it. Finally, please note that â&#x20AC;&#x153;Badlandsâ&#x20AC;? Booker is no Johnny One-Note when it comes to traditional Jewish holiday food excess. In addition to his Passover matzoh ball prowess, Booker is also the World Hamentaschen Eating King -- an honor he received in March of 2004, after ingesting 50 of the Purim pastries in six minutes. Heâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s also a two-time World Cheesecake Eating Champion. Remember this when Shavuot rolls around.

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Page 48

Jewish Press, Omaha, NE

March 26, 2010

At Passover, finding a kosher path out of Egypt

by EDMON J. RODMAN LOS ANGELES (JTA) -- With lots of matzah, boxes of the right flat stuff required for the making of everything, are you kosher for Passover? What about the day after; then what happens? Last Passover I began a personal exodus that saw a departure from the diet I’d been using since my earliest days. What better time to begin? Passover is a celebration of the “going out” from Egypt, of the search for a Jewish identity that can be found on the way. At Passover, each of us is commanded to eat and drink, but to “esn un trenken,” in prescribed order from a very particular menu. Only last year, the prescription seems to have had a side effect. Call it KP syndrome: eye and brain strain from searching labels for KP (kosher for Passover). For whatever seasonal reason, as I sit down to the seder this year, it will mark a one-year journey that has caused me to part ways with things that I loved and fondly remember. As the sun sets on the first seder, I will mark one year of not eating treif, nonkosher food, and of extending the choice of kashrut that my wife and I have kept in our homes since 1980 finally to the last treif frontier -- restaurants. The Haggadah, the ultimate in interactive books, asks us to take the exodus personally; to project with imagery, tastes, questions and song the feeling that we were there. It’s a book that wants you to have some take-away. Did I come away last year with the line: “The more one tells the story of the departure from treif, the more one is to be praised?” No. But the seder did inspire me to turn the page.

Last year, after going through the announced that I was ordering a shrimp process of preparing the house for dish, “But daddy, that’s not kosher.” Passover -- bringing the dishes from the Still, it was not simply a kosher coincibasement, even koshering a few pots by dence that I began my exodus from treif boiling water and placing a stone in them -- I finally confronted something a friend said to me several years ago: “Edmon, your dishes are more kosher than you are.” T h a t truth hurt. Yet dishes were way For Passover, a shift in diet as the Haggadah’s focus on the departure from easier to Egypt can lead you down a path of change. Credit: Edmon Rodman change than my lifestyle. Not that I didn’t try. at Passover, the holiday that more than Though growing up in a Conservative any other puts Jews at odds with Jewish home, my family did not keep American gastronomic culture. The kosher. Not until my second year of col- unleavened thing, I think, after eight days lege, when I lived with a couple of more of struggle, flattens the field of choices, observant guys, did I give keeping kosher opening up a new perspective from which a try. But outside our apartment, I ate to view our eating habits. what I wanted. It starts with no bread. What does it When I married, my wife wanted to mean? At the restaurant, coffee shop or keep a kosher home, so I signed on. I still party, you turn it down. And then you ate treif in restaurants, though that began also forego other foodstuffs containing to change over time. leaven. Even those who don’t usually pay First, no bacon or pork. Then shellfish, much attention to this can become too, when at a New Orleans restaurant, obsessed for a week with the holiday one of our 8-year-olds declared, after I search for substitution.

It’s as if you’re being prepared for something besides a week of queasy unease. That’s why after eight days, two seders and a book full of blessings, I was on the exodus road, leaving behind the world of unkosher steaks and BBQ and brochettes. Once on the road, I found these objects in the mirror do appear closer than they appear. Even in the Bible, the children of Israel recall longingly the leeks and onions and yes, the meat of Egypt. It has not been an easy journey. Though we eat in kosher restaurants as often as possible, we eat in non-kosher ones as well. Every menu there is a kind of treif Haggadah, with its own order of temptation: Appetizers: “Does that have meat?” The soup: “What kind of broth is it in?” The entrees: “Can you leave the meat out of the ---- (fill in the blank)?” Not that I didn’t get lost on my journey. There was the night in a dimly lit Italian restaurant when my eggplant parmigiana was mixed with another diner’s veal parmiagiana. I discovered the error at first bite. My journey this year is not for everyone. For years it wasn’t even for me. (Barbecue sandwiches in particular remain a plague of temptation.) As I prepare for another Passover, even before hearing the exhortations of the Haggadah, I hope to imagine myself trekking in the desert with B’nai Yisrael - a “ben horin,” a free person who freely made a choice to go kosher. I’m on the road out of Egypt and I’m not going back. Edmon J. Rodman is a JTA columnist who writes on Jewish life from Los Angeles.

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March 26, 2010

Jewish Press, Omaha, NE

Page 49

Why; this movie is different than all other movies? scenery, easy dialogue, and a conflicted love affair. Think ‘You’ve got Mail’, set in Jerusalem instead of New York. 2. Lemon Tree describes the legal efforts of the Palestinian Salma to stop her neighbor (who happens to be the Israeli Defense Minister) from destroying her family’s lemon grove. At the same time, she bonds with his wife. It’s based on a true story and was not received well in Israel. 3. When Do We Eat? This one can only be described as a “romp”. Rife with stereotypes and lazy jokes, it depicts the family Seder at its worst. It’s good for a laugh, especially since chances are your family will come out looking really good by comparison. 4. O Jerusalem. From the Israeli War of Independence to the end of the British mandate of Palestine, and the Arab and Jewish Americans who are caught in the middle of a very familiar conflict, this is Statehood 101. It’s a much better choice than Ten Commandments; especially since there’s no Charlton Heston to distract the viewer. 5. Waltz with Bashir is animated, and I admit I was not looking forward to watching it. In fact, my ‘twenty minutes rule’ was invented specifically for this one. Then, the story of the loss of memory, and what that loss represents, drew me in, and I actually went back and watched the entire thing. Waltz was written and directed by Ari Folman. It depicts Folman’s struggle to remember what he did as an Israeli soldier during the 1982 Lebanon War. It’s poignant and raw; there is much in this film that will stick with you long after the end credits have rolled. There are worse ways to spend your down time. Happy Passover, everybody.

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by ANNETTE VAN DE KAMP-WRIGHT It’s almost Passover, and for many of us the house is sort of clean, the Seder menu is finished, and invitations have been sent out and, hopefully, accepted. Now that all the work is done, it might be time to plan for some relaxation. After all, Passover consists of more than Seders; there are intermediate days during which it might be possible to do a little bit of nothing. In our house, ‘nothing’ often translates into watching movies. If you feel the same way, let someone else clean up those many, many dishes, and pull up a chair. These movies all have their own special connection to Judaism, Israel, or the Passover Seder. I am not saying they are all good movies (that’s for you to decide), but they are -- at the very least -- entertaining, and yes, they are all available at the Kripke Library. For full disclosure, I only watched twenty minutes of each movie. I know; that’s not very good research, but I secretly believe there are many reviews out there written by people who don’t watch the whole thing. And think of it this way: at least you know I won’t be giving away the ending. 1. Every Time We Say Goodbye, directed by Moshe Mizrahi, with Tom Hanks and Cristina Marsillach, is a romantic spiel with attractive

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Child Nutrition Seders to raise awareness, funding Continued from page 47 and other Jewish institutions, and the participation of children and those outside of the Jewish community is emphasized. For instance, in Tucson, Ariz., members of the Jewish-Latino Teen Coalition – who will attend the D.C. seder – will hold a seder in their hometown to talk about their experience. Multiple Jewish communities in Connecticut are joining together at the state Capitol for a seder including elected officials, clergy and hunger advocates, Jewish and Catholic schools are getting together with the Silicon Valley JCRC for a seder there and in Philadelphia, the Moishe House -which plans social events for young Jewish adults – is sponsoring a seder. In addition to raising awareness of the issue, the seder is specifically designed to build support for the reauthorization of the Child Nutrition and WIC Reauthorization Act. The legislation funds all federal school meal and child nutrition programs, including the school breakfast and lunch programs and the WIC program – which provides food, education and access to health care to low-income pregnant women, new mothers, infants and children under age five. JCPA and Mazon are urging Congress to allocate at least $1 billion in additional funding for each of the next five years in addition to the $21.9 billion that went toward the federal programs in the last fiscal year. The legislation, they point out, is also a step on the way

toward President Obama’s stated goal to end childhood hunger by 2015. The authorization was originally set to expire last fall, but received a short-term extension into 2010. Each special Haggadah includes information on the legislation, as well as a sample letter to send to members of Congress. Gutow said that it is necessary to teach that while direct service to help the hungry – canned food drives, helping at soup kitchens – is important, learning and using advocacy skills that can help feed millions of Americans is essential. And by making sure children are involved and learning that advocacy message, said Licht, a “long-term sustainability” on the issues of poverty and hunger is being built. Gutow said the dozens of seders in the works demonstrate that fighting hunger and poverty message is a key priority of many in the Jewish community – and that these tough economic times make it even more resonant. “The idea of children being hungry -- the Jewish community doesn’t find it acceptable,” said Gutow. “Add to that so many people are out of work, concerned about hunger -- it literally raises the level of interest.” “I think it’s a good statement about American Judaism and where its values lie,” he said. Eric Fingerhut is a freelance journalist from Washington, D.C. He is a former JTA and Washington Jewish Week correspondent.

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Page 50

Jewish Press, Omaha, NE

March 26, 2010

Invigorate your Seder with a different Haggadah

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by SHERRIE SAAG Center for Jewish Education “And you shall tell your children on that day …”. Retelling the story of the Jewish people’s exodus from Egypt is a mitzvah performed around the world for thousands of years. If you use the same Haggadah year after year to tell the story, your own Seder may seem that old! But with hundreds of different Haggadot available, why not introduce a new version of the ancient story this year? People of the Book is a popular fictional account of the physical journey the famous Sarajevo Haggadah takes from its creation at the time of the Spanish Inquisition to its eventual re-discovery in post-war Sarajevo, Bosnia at the end of the 19th century. The Kripke Jewish Federation Library owns a copy of the first modern publication of the Sarajevo Haggadah that includes over 69 reproductions of the original, heavily detailed illuminations. The Hebrew text of this rare book contains the home service for the eve of Passover, centering on the story of the Exodus and the deliverance of the Hebrews from Egypt. “The Sarajevo Haggadah is well documented as one of the greatest treasures of medieval Jewish history. The library’s reproduction is truly the only way to experience it and enjoy it, because the original is displayed in the National Museum of Bosnia,” said Gary Katz, Library Administrator. The Sarajevo Haggadah is the centerpiece of a small collection of Haggadot currently on display at the Kripke Library through mid-April. The Library’s entire

collection numbers well over 150 different Haggadot, from sephardic to ashkenazi, orthodox to reform, medieval to modern. “There are as many different types of Haggadot as there are family seders, all unique and beautiful in the way they tell the story of the exodus from Egypt,” said Katz. “Our Haggadot display may even provide inspiration for new prayers or rituals at your family Seder this year, he added. Also included in the display is The Moriah Haggadah, an exacting reproduction of the original hand painted edition by renowned Jerusalem artist Avner Moriah. Although perhaps best known for his landscapes of Israel, Moriah’s vivid and original illuminations showcase a very contemporary view of the ancient Passover story. A Survivor’s Haggadah was written, designed and illustrated by Holocaust survivors in the months immediately following liberation. It is unique in that it commemorates both Israel’s deliverance from bondage in Egypt and the Jews’ liberation from the Holocaust. If you want to try a more musical Seder this year, The Eretz Israel Passover Haggadah contains an expanded song section with songs typically sung at an Israeli Seder. For a complete change of pace, Jewish techies can check out the Internet Haggadah. It can be downloaded from your computer in an easy to read format for just $18. The library has a bound copy available to review. For more information on these and other Haggadot or for assistance in introducing something new to your Seder, call the library at 334.6462 or contact gkatz@ jewishomaha.org.

Passover story illuminated as Delaware governor affixes mezuzah by MICHELLE EFFRON MILLER DOVER, Del. (Jewish Voice) -- Woodburn, the governor’s mansion in Dover, is a place rich with history. Built in 1798 by Charles Hillyard III, the home has been owned by gentlemen farmers, two doctors, a dentist, a judge, an abolitionist, two U.S. senators and eight Delaware governors. It is believed that as part of the Underground Railroad, the mansion’s secretive closets hid slaves seeking freedom. Seeking his own religious freedom, Delaware’s first Jewish governor left his indelible mark on Woodburn by affixing a mezuzah to the parlor door frame. “I do this for the kids at the Albert Einstein Academy, for Jewish kids around the state, and for all children,” Gov. Jack Markell told a standing room only crowd on Feb. 23. “To see a mezuzah hanging at the governor’s mansion in Dover is a pretty amazing thing.” Among those joining Markell in the ceremony were Rabbi Peter Grumbacher, rabbi emeritus of Congregation Beth Emeth in Wilmington; Rabbi Steven Saks of Adas Kodesch Shel Emeth in Wilmington and head of the Rabbinical Association of Delaware; and Glenn Engelmann, president of the Jewish Federation of Delaware. During the ceremony, Engelmann talked of the symbolic importance of the day not only for Delaware’s Jews, but for Jews around the world. “My relatives left Europe just ahead of the Nazis. We have children of Holocaust survivors here today,” Engelmann said. “To think about where we came from, to affix a mezuzah to the executive mansion of one of the 50 states of the wealthiest country in the world speaks well of the country. This is a joyous occasion.” Saks said that historically when Jews rose to a position of power, they typically hid their Jewish identity or downplayed it altogether. “Only in America would you have a governor put a mezuzah on the door and publicly do so,” he said.

Commenting on the meaning of the mezuzah, a small case containing a scroll of parchment with two chapters from the Torah, Saks said that some people mistakenly believe it is a good luck amulet. The mezuzah, he explained, comes from the story of Exodus. “When God struck down the Egyptians, he told the Israelites to place the blood of a paschal lamb on the doorpost,” Saks said. “So when God ‘passed over’ he would know this is an Israelite’s home and this is an Egyptian home. “But does God really need a marking on the door to tell Him who was Egyptian and who was an Israelite? No. It was a symbol for the Jewish people. They were being reminded that they were being freed to do the will of God. So to you, Governor Markell, I say ‘yasher koach’ for following in the footsteps of your ancestors and publicly proclaiming that you’re Jewish. And that mezuzah will remind you that you have been elevated to that position to continue God’s work, making Delaware a better place.” Grumbacher, of the governor’s synagogue and a longtime family friend, helped Markell affix the mezuzah in place. The son of a Holocaust survivor, Grumbacher said that “This speaks volumes of a country that would elect a Jew as governor and an African American as president.” The mezuzah, which literally means “doorpost,” is traditionally hung on the doorposts of Jewish homes as a reminder of the commandments. The governor’s mezuzah was given to Markell as an inauguration gift. Markell is not the first governor to hang a mezuzah. In 2007, according to the Associated Press, Florida Gov. Charlie Crist put a mezuzah on his office door at the state capitol in Tallahassee. The Delaware mezuzah could be the first affixed to a U.S. governor’s mansion.

Michelle Effron Miller is the editor of the Jewish Voice of the Jewish Federation of Delaware.

March 26, 2010

Jewish Press, Omaha, NE

Page 51

Eggs: What would Passover be without them?

by LINDA MOREL NEW YORK (JTA) -- I start Passover food shopping by buying six dozen eggs, but it’s never enough. Inevitably I return to the store at least twice, purchasing two or three more cartons of eggs each time. Matzah garners most of the attention in Passover fare because of the unleavened bread’s prominent role in the Exodus story. Eggs, however, are the unsung heroes, working behind the scenes, enhancing nearly every recipe consumed during the holiday’s eight days. Without fanfare, eggs perform the binding and heavy lifting usually accomplished by flour, the silky powder ground from cereal grains that are forbidden during Passover. With great prowess, eggs hold together the ingredients that go into Passover kugels, matzah brei and matzah farfel casseroles. When egg whites are whipped to a frenzy with electric beaters, they increase in volume six to eight times, lending structure and leavening to many baked goods. Egg whites singlehandedly add loft to cakes and other pastries, encouraging them to rise without a boost from the usual sources -- flour and baking soda. Eggs play a pivotal role during seders. Spherical and white, they symbolize the rebirth that occurs in the spring. Every seder plate reserves a place to display a roasted egg to remind us of the burnt offerings, the daily roasted sacrifices in the Temple. These sacrifices can no longer be offered because the Temple was destroyed centuries ago. In addition, the roasted egg on the seder plate is a symbol of the new life the Jewish people acquired in attaining their freedom from Egyptian bondage. During seder ceremonies all over the world, Jews consume an egg course. Ashkenazim partake in eggs that have been hard boiled and chilled. During the seder they pour heavily salted water over the eggs, a symbol of the tears shed by our ancestors during slavery. As a child, I looked forward each spring to the taste of hard-boiled eggs in a salty bath. When I was 12, I prepared the combination for lunch one day during

October. But as I took a bite of boiled egg doused in salty water, it tasted so terrible I couldn’t eat it. I was crushed by the disappointment and concluded at that young age that you have to wait for Passover to appreciate this special dish resonating with so much history. During Passover, many Sephardim eat an egg dish

called “Huevos Haminados” in Spanish, or oven eggs. The recipe is prepared by layering eggs among onion skins and coffee grinds in a pot of water. The mixture is then warmed in the oven on a low temperature for many hours. This slow cooking method not only gives egg yolks a satiny texture, but also turns their shells a splendid brown color, reminiscent of roasted eggs. Many Huevos Haminados recipes suggest saving the skins from the onions used in Passover cooking. However, I find that method does not produce a large enough yield. In preparation for making Huevos Haminados, I go from supermarket to supermarket collecting skins from bins of onions. The skins of red onions lend the most gorgeous color. Every spring my husband worries that I will be accused of shoplifting for this practice. So far, cashiers have given me nothing more than strange looks when I point out a bag full of onion skins. While Passover is perhaps the most cherished of Jewish

holidays, for many people the sheer volume of eggs used in recipes poses health issues, specifically regarding the amount of cholesterol consumed. There are several ways to be health conscious while observing the egg’s role during seders. The yolk is the culprit, containing all the egg’s cholesterol and fat (about 5 grams in a large egg). With only about 20 calories, the egg white consists of water and slightly more than half the egg’s protein. For the seder’s egg course, I recommend preparing large eggs. Ironically, large eggs are the smallest size available commercially, followed by extra large and jumbo. Another way to cut down on cholesterol is to slice hard-boiled eggs in half, thus limiting portion size. For those who want to get fancy, place a tiny dollop of caviar on each half. Cover the halves with plastic wrap before serving, so the yolks don’t dry out. For a cholesterol-free egg course, serve egg-white omelets. I suggest stirring some chopped parsley into the beaten egg whites to give them spring color. This also adds the symbol of Passover greenery. Of course, egg-white omelets can be served for breakfast, brunch or lunch throughout Passover. When it comes to matzah casseroles made with vegetables or fruit, you can eliminate one or two of the egg yolks called for in recipes. Add an egg white for each yolk you discard. Of course, the highlight of any seder is a rich chocolate cake, made lofty and moist by a bevy of luscious eggs. If you’re counting calories or cholesterol, dessert is the one place to splurge with an abundance of eggs. To balance a cake’s opulence, serve it with fresh strawberries. During Passover’s eight days, I often return to the supermarket for additional ingredients. I end up making more macaroons, either coconut or chocolate almond; matzah brei, either mushroom or classic; Passover lasagna, with or without meat; or my signature dish, peach kugel. These recipes wouldn’t exist without the most ubiquitous ingredient in all of Passover cooking -eggs. Continued on page 52

Page 52

Jewish Press, Omaha, NE

March 26, 2010

Eggs: What would Passover be without them?

Continued from page 51 HUEVOS HAMINADOS (OVEN EGGS) (PAREVE) Prepared entirely in the oven, these eggs turn sepia brown and are served at Sephardic seders as the egg course. What youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll need: A 4-quart ovenproof pot that you donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t care about, as it may get stained, or a deep ovenproof glass casserole of equal size.

Ingredients: 4 cups of tightly packed onion skins 12 eggs at room temperature 2 tablespoons coffee grinds 1 tablespoon cooking oil 1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar 1 teaspoon salt Preparation: 1. Preheat oven to 250 degrees. 2. Place half of the onion skins at the bottom of the pot or casserole. Nestle the eggs between the skins. Donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t crowd them. Sprinkle coffee grinds over eggs. Add oil, vinegar and salt. Slowly pour enough water inside to submerge the mixture, about 2 or 3 quarts. 3. If using a pot, cover it with the lid. If using a casserole without a lid, cover it tightly with aluminum foil. Place eggs in the oven for 6-8 hours. 4. Remove pot carefully. Lift out eggs using a long-handled slotted spoon and place them temporarily on paper towels to drain off excess water. Eggs can be served hot or refrigerated for later. Yield: 12 servings

VEGETARIAN PASSOVER LASAGNA (PAREVE OR DAIRY) Youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll need: 2 (10-by-15-inch) ovenproof pans Ingredients: No-stick cooking spray 2 vegetable bouillon cubes 6 tablespoons olive oil, or more, if needed 2 large onions, sliced Kosher salt to taste Freshly ground black pepper to taste

9 pieces of commercially prepared matzah 2 zucchinis sliced into circles about 1/8-inch thick 6 garlic cloves, minced 2/3 cup Parmesan cheese, optional 1 pound of mushrooms, sliced 3 dried sage leaves, crushed 2 large pinches of dried rosemary needles 6 eggs Juice from half a lemon Preparation: 1. Coat 1 baking pan with cooking spray and reserve. In second baking pan, dissolve bouillon cubes in 3 cups of boiling water and reserve. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. 2. In a large skillet, heat 2 tablespoons of olive oil on a medium flame. Add onions and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Saute until onion slices wilt, about 5 minutes. Move onions to prepared pan and distribute evenly. 3. Submerge 3 squares of matzah into bouillon bath until barely softened. Gently lift matzah pieces one at a time. Cover onion layer with the first 2 pieces of matzah. Break the third piece in half to fill in the edges on one side. (Donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t worry if matzah falls apart slightly. But if it completely disintegrates, soften additional pieces.)

4. To the skillet, add 2 tablespoons of olive oil. Add zucchini and half the garlic, sprinkling lightly with salt and pepper. Saute until wilted, about 5 minutes. Cover matzah layer with zucchini mixture. Sprinkle 1/3 cup of Parmesan cheese on top, if using. 5. Repeat Step 3 and cover zucchini layer with 3 pieces of matzah. 6. To the skillet, add 2 tablespoons of olive oil. Add mushrooms and remaining garlic, sprinkling lightly with salt and pepper, plus sage and rosemary. Saute until mushrooms wilt, about 5 minutes. Cover second matzah layer with mushroom mixture. Sprinkle 1/3 cup Parmesan cheese on top, if using. 7. Repeat Step 3 and cover mushroom layer with 3 pieces of matzah. 8. In a large mixing bowl, beat eggs until foamy. Add lemon juice and 1 cup of bouillon and beat again. Pour

egg mixture over the top of the lasagna. With a spatula, press down on the lasagna to even out liquids. Bake until lasagna is firmly set and bubbles at the edges, about 45 minutes. Recipe can be served immediately or made 2 days ahead, refrigerated, and reheated. Recipe freezes well. Yield: 24 squares PASSOVER PEACH KUGEL (PAREVE OR DAIRY) Ingredients: No-stick vegetable spray 2 cups apple juice 2/3 cup dried cherries 2 (15-ounce) cans sliced peaches 3 pieces of matzah, broken into 1-inch squares 6 eggs Zest and juice from half a lemon 2/3 cup sugar 1/4 teaspoon salt 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon 1/8 teaspoon nutmeg 2/3 cup chopped walnuts 4 tablespoons margarine or butter, melted Preparation: 1. Coat a 9-by-13-inch ovenproof baking pan with nostick spray. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. 2. In a small pot, heat 1 cup of apple juice to a simmer. Remove from flame. Stir in dried cherries and soak them while assembling remaining ingredients. 3. Place a colander over a large bowl. Drain the peaches, reserving the liquid from the can in the bowl. Dice peaches. 4. In a medium-sized pot, heat the remaining apple juice to a simmer. Remove from flame. Soak broken matzah squares in apple juice until soft, about 5 minutes. Using the colander, drain matzah and discard the juice. Reserve. 5. With an electric beater, whip eggs until frothy. Add lemon zest and juice, sugar and salt, and beat until well combined. 6. Drain the cherries and add them to the egg mixture, along with the peaches and walnuts. On a low speed, mix until incorporated. With a wooden spoon, add soaked matzah and gently stir until incorporated. 7. Move mixture to prepared pan and spread evenly. Pour 1/3 cup of the reserved peach juice evenly over the top. Drizzle the melted margarine or butter over the surface. Kugel will look quite liquid. Place kugel in the oven and bake for 45 minutes, or until edges brown and a tester inserted in the middle comes out clean. Serve immediately or cool to room temperature, cover with plastic wrap, and refrigerate for a day. Cut into squares before serving. Kugel tastes delicious with sour cream. Yield: 18 squares Continued on page 53

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A good egg -safety and nutrition tips 1. Buy the freshest eggs possible by purchasing them before the sell-by date. 2. Before purchasing eggs, examine them for cracks to avoid bacteria from getting inside. Gently roll around each egg within the carton. If an egg won’t budge, chances are the bottom is cracked and has leaked, gluing the shell in place. 3. Always purchase eggs from a refrigerated case. Avoid cartons at the front of the case because they have been exposed to warmer air each time the case was opened. 4. At home, refrigerate eggs immediately. It’s preferable to store them in their cartons at the back of the refrigerator so they are not exposed to room temperature air every time the refrigerator is opened. 5. Refrigerate cooked eggs within an hour after preparation. They should be consumed within a week. 6. Although recipes abound for raw eggs, they are still considered unsafe to eat by many health experts who warn against salmonella poisoning. 7. To improve whipping ability, keep raw eggs at room temperature for 20 minutes (but no longer) before beating them. 8. When separating eggs, it’s preferable to keep all traces of yolks from the whites so the whites can reach the maximum volume during beating. However, a speck of yolk will not ruin your chance of producing frothy egg whites. 9. Eggs are easiest to separate when cold. While egg separators, available wherever kitchenware is sold and at many supermarkets, keep yolks from whites, they take longer than the old-fashioned method of pouring whites into a bowl. 10. The stringy stuff inside an egg anchors the yolk in the center of the white. It is not an imperfection or a beginning embryo. The more prominent the stringy stuff, the fresher the egg. It does not interfere with cooking or the beating of an egg white. 11. Eggs with a visible blood spot on the yolk are safe for consumption. These tiny

red spots are caused by the rupture of a blood vessel during the egg’s formation. While in the past, the consumption of eggs with blood spots was forbidden by the laws of kashrut, because these spots were the beginning of an embryo, modern production methods have improved and this is no longer the case. Blood spots found in commercially produced eggs today do not present any fundamental problems for kosher consumers. However, many followers of kashrut continue to discard eggs with blood spots. 12. Organic eggs are produced by hens fed with certified grains, minus most conventional pesticides and fertilizers. Growth hormones and antibiotics are prohibited. Organic eggs are more expensive than regular eggs because it costs farmers more to allow their hens to roam outside of cages and to give them organic feed. However, organic eggs have the same nutritional content, fat and cholesterol as regular eggs. 13. Brown eggs are equally as nutritious as white eggs. The color of the shell is determined by the breed of hen. 14. Make sure your refrigerator is 40 degrees. If the temperature is colder, eggs may freeze. Eggs that have been frozen should be discarded as they don’t perform well in cooking. If the temperature is warmer than 40, your eggs will not last as long as they would in a colder environment. 15. When properly stored, eggs rarely spoil. However, as an egg ages, the white becomes thinner, the yolk gets flatter and the yolk membrane weakens. Although these changes affect appearance, they don’t indicate spoilage and don’t greatly affect the nutritional value of the egg or its ability to perform in recipes. Before spoiling, an old egg is more likely to dry up. But like all organic matter, eggs can go bad. Telltale signs are a sour or fruity odor and a blue-green color. If in doubt, discard a suspicious egg. It’s not worth the risk of getting sick.

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Jewish Press, Omaha, NE

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High School Seniors and Parents We will be publishing our annual Graduation Teen Age on June 11, 2010. To be included, we need your graduation photo and the following information.

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Eggs: What would Passover be without them? Continued from page 52

MOCHA PECAN TORTE (PAREVE) Ingredients: No-stick cooking spray 7 egg whites 1 cup pecans 1 cup semi-sweet chocolate bits 1 tablespoon instant espresso coffee 3/4 cup sugar Preparation: 1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Coat a 9inch springform baking pan with cooking spray. 2. In a large mixing bowl, beat egg whites until firm. Don’t overbeat or whites will become watery. Reserve. 3. In a food processor, using a metal blade, grind pecans and chocolate bits until broken into small pieces. Mix in coffee and sugar until blended. Fold mixture into egg whites, and by hand gently stir with a spat-

ula until well blended. Pour batter into prepared pan. Bake 40-45 minutes, or until cake tester inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool to room temperature and serve with sliced strawberries sprinkled with sugar and drops of lemon juice, or Coffee Whipped Cream (recipe below). Yield: 10-12 slices COFFEE WHIPPED CREAM (DAIRY) Ingredients: 1 pint heavy cream 2 tablespoons sugar 1 tablespoon instant espresso coffee Preparation: Place the ingredients in a large mixing bowl and beat with an electric mixer until cream forms firm peaks. Stop machine every minute or so to avoid overbeating and turning the cream to butter. To check for firm peaks, lift beaters from mixture. Serve immediately.

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Jewish Press, Omaha, NE

March 26, 2010

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Let my people post Passover videos U

LOS ANGELES (JTA) -- FADE IN. SCENE: A white Jewish boy wearing a backwards baseball cap, pink sunglasses and a snarl, walks down the street to the tune of “Baby’s Got Back,” but instead of saying “I like a big butts and I cannot lie,” he’s rapping these words: Dawgs, I like matzah balls and I’ll tell you why If I don’t get ‘em it makes me cry. When the smell rolls in and I imagine the taste, and around them in your face You get Tums! Wanna eat that stuff – cuz one just ain’t enough! My clothes they keep on tearing, I’m fat but I’m not caring... It’s “Matzah Ball Rap,” one of the many Passover videos virally spread around YouTube, the premiere medium to get out a message -- whatever that message may be. Since the Passover seder is the most attended Jewish ritual of the year, the Jews of YouTube have lots to say about it, with videos -- funny, satirical, animated and somewhat educational. In other words, a perfect medium for today’s younger generation of Jews looking to connect to their heritage. There are the rap songs, like the animated hip-hop video by Smooth-E (comedian Eric Schwartz) called “Matzah: Hip Hop Fo’ Jews” (I feel like a freak/because every time I pull out something to eat for this week/I can’t do it/because I’m Jewish/and I can’t eat bread/and my rabbi said only/MATZAH!). Then there are the melodic spoofs, such as Michelle Citrin’s “20 Things to Do With Matzah” (Passover’s over and wouldn’t it be neat/if you could use all the matzah you didn’t eat/Catch it like a Frisbee with your friends in the park/ or jump in the water and pretend you’re a shark), which in the last year registered more than a million hits. There are the cute ones, like Sam Apple’s “Who Let the Jews Out,” to promote his book “Schlepping Through the Alps” (Ballantine, 2006), and the utterly ridiculous ones, such as the movie preview “I Know What You Did Last Seder” (four Jewish teens are in great danger when a rabbi discovers they have been eating leavened bread during Passover). Others are more substantive than songs, with modern-day interpretations of the Passover story, such as “Let My People Grow,” an animated sketch -- by Stephen and Joel Levinson, based on their seder skits growing up in Dayton, Ohio. This one frames the Jews’ desire to leave Egypt as a breakup. (Jewish Slave Girl: “We think it’s time to move on, you know, get a place of our own.” Egyptian master: “But you can’t leave now! I mean things were going so well! Listen, this pyramid is almost done -- just finish it up ...”) “I think there’s a lot of stuff to be had in the Jewish world: a cynical, modernist retelling of the Bible,” Joel, a full-time YouTube videographer who earns his living winning YouTube contests, said about “God and Co.,” Nextbook’s video series of Bible stories. “God is portrayed in a way that he isn’t usually portrayed.” Just as the Internet and its blogs have upended traditional media like newspapers and television, YouTube has changed the way many young people think about religion. The Passover videos are just one example of how the Jews of YouTube -- usually 20- and 30-something comedians, musicians and writers -- are using their culture and creativity to redefine the tradition. “Being Jewish is a part of me -- it’s not the only part of me, but it’s part of my story,” said Smooth-E, a comedian who has made dozens of YouTube videos, including Jewish ones like “Crank That Kosha Boy,” which has generated more than 3 million hits, perhaps because it spoofs SoulJa Boy’s popular hip-hop song “Tell Em (Crank That).” “As a Jewish artist, I’m telling my story. I kind of have a skewed view -- I look at matzah and think that I love the tradition, but matzah stops you up like traffic on the 405 at rush hour,” Smooth-E said, referring to a Los Angeles highway. “It’s not disrespectful, but we can all relate to it.” There are different reasons behind Jewish videos on YouTube. Some are inadvertently America’s Funniest Home Videos-style funny, like “Seth’s Bar Mitzvah,” which features a family singing karaoke horribly off-key. Others are serious affairs, like castigating the United Nations for its stance on Israel, or explaining Jewish rituals such as the seder. But the ones that gain the most traction are the Continued on page 55

March 26, 2010

Jewish Press, Omaha, NE

Page 55

Passover videos

Continued from page 54 scripted, funny videos. Some promote Judaism, but in a more subtle -- and timely -- way. Take Citrin’s “I Gotta Love You Rosh Hashanah,” a parody of the “Barack Obama Girl” video (“Yom Kippur leaves me feeling empty inside/Passover reminds of the tears that we cry/but I don’t want to think of our tragic history/cuz I’m comin’ home for Rosh Hashanah”). “The crazy part was the response I got from people -- ‘You make me proud to be a Jew’ and ‘You’re so cool,’” Citrin said, noting that she heard from children, grandmothers, even a Holocaust survivor. Hebrew school teachers told her they use it in their curriculum, and people still stop her on the streets. “People really connect to it,” said the 28-year-old folk singer from Brooklyn. Others use YouTube videos to promote a specific cause, such as Sarah Silverman’s “The Great Schlep,” which encouraged young Jews to urge their grandparents to vote for Obama -- and grabbed more than 3 million views. “Talk to your audience where they hang out,” said Matt Dorf, of Rabinowitz/Dorf Communications, who worked with the people behind “The Great Schlep” campaign, and Birthright Israel, a Jewish organization that makes good use of YouTube. Birthright has hired artists like Citrin to make videos and holds video contests for program alums. “It’s where their people are,” Dorf said of the 18- to 26-year-olds eligible for Birthright’s first-time free trips to Israel. “You’re not going to speak to them with a full-page ad in The New York Times.”

Where do people hang out? On Web sites like JDate, which like Birthright recently hired Brandon Walker -- the songwriter of the 1.6 millionviewed video “Chinese Food on Christmas.” For Birthright, he wrote a Passover one, “Get Down Moses,” and for Jdate he wrote “February’s Here” (“Never thought I’d be the type to use a dating site online/but February’s here and I don’t have a Valentine ...”). “People still come up to me and say, ‘Oh my cousin from Argentina got it from his uncle in Israel who sent it to his doctor in California,’ these bizarre stories,” said Walker, 26, who teaches music at a Jewish day school in Baltimore in addition to writing music. (“Chinese Food on Christmas” was originally a college class assignment to write a Christmas song that he first posted on the Web in 2003). Walker wasn’t surprised by the popularity of his YouTube videos. “Jews love to have a voice in pop culture,” he said. “We’re a minority and been through so much, but we’re so vocal and prevalent -- I think that’s why we love stuff like this.” With YouTube, Walker said, Jews get “to make our presence known in a positive, lighthearted way, which is not always the case.” What is the line between lighthearted parody and wicked satire? Between being “good for the Jews” and “bad for the Jews”? Rob Kutner of “The Daily Show” does-

n’t think he crosses the line with Jewish spoofs -- “Meshuganeh Men” (Miss Holowitz, what would you say if I told you I had a cozy room reserved for you in the Catskills this weekend and we could curl up together and watch the Eichmann trial?) and “Jewno” (I thought it would be worse -- getting under 1200 under the SATs, donating money to the Jewish

Bush presidential library, stopping a diet!”) -- all written to promote the 92nd Street Y/Tribeca’s annual Purim shpiels. “I think these are generally positive stereotypes,” Kutner said, although he does receive some negative feedback as well. “I figure words can never hurt me.” Some YouTube Jews don’t care much about whether it’s good for the Jews or not. Consider “Miriam and Shoshana,” or as they are known on YouTube, “Hardcore Jewish Girls.” Dressed in buttoned-up white shirts and knee-covering dark pleated skirts, they play Orthodox yeshiva high school girls rapping -“School starts at 7:45 a.m./before that we get some ‘Schevitz in/’82 ‘yo, study Torah/we’d read some to ya/but we’d bore ya” -- as they chase boys and dream of being like Amy Winehouse.

Videos such as “Hardcore Jewish Girls” and “Modern-Day Jesus,” both produced by filmmaker Oren Kaplan, 29, are not out to promote a holiday or a cause or Judaism -- just the artists themselves. Kaplan noted that Comedy Central has optioned his “Modern-Day Jesus,” which he hopes will be a serious satire about religion and secularism. “We get broader exposure on YouTube than through the film festival route and working our way up through Hollywood,” he said. “It allows us to throw stuff out there and see what people like and don’t like, and it allows us to entertain.” It also caused a “conversation” on YouTube, where a rabbi made a video “banning” the “Hardcore Jewish Girls” video (“Hashem Yirachem [may God have Mercy] on all those involved and all those who have seen it,”) and another person “unbanned” it (“I think Hashem will be very proud and give them a lot of brachas”). Ultimately, though, Reb Moshe of Safed left it up there because the video had so many hits, it ended up getting him hired for other work, including a promotional video for the city of Las Vegas. What about people who don’t get the joke? “A lot of those involved with kiruv [religious outreach] seem to me overly concerned with how others think of the Jews,” said Kaplan, whose day job is a videographer for Disney. “I have been socialized in a much more secular world. I don’t really see a need to be extremely careful what I put out there,” he said. “I know it bothers a lot of people, but then [I say] don’t watch it and don’t talk about it.”

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Page 56

Jewish Press, Omaha, NE

March 26, 2010

The spring situation: Juggling matzah balls and Easter bunnies

by SUZANNE KURTZ WASHINGTON (JTA) -- When Stephanie Mattei was dating her husband, Angelo, she knew there was nothing more appropriate to make her South Philadelphia-bred Italian beau for dinner than pasta. But since it was Passover, and she is Jewish, there was only one option. “To this day, he still teases me about it!” says Mattei, 37, a psychologist in Havertown, Pa. “To him, it tasted like construction paper put through a shredder and boiled slowly in water. It was less than ideal. And he thought I had no culinary skills.” In the years since the kosher-forPassover pasta debacle, the couple, married for 11 years and raising two daughters Jewishly, has learned to navigate a common conflict for many interfaith families: the confluence of Passover and Easter. Mattei says it’s always stressful when Easter falls during Passover. Her husband’s grandmother has good-naturedly substituted matzah meal for breadcrumbs in the meatballs, she says, “But I know they feel bad and I feel like I am insulting them when I can’t eat the food.” Such tensions generally are associated with conflicts surrounding the Christmas and Chanukah season, the so-called “December dilemma.” In fact, several Reform and Conservative rabbis involved in outreach and conversion say they have never been asked about issues that arise regarding the Passover-Easter season. But Ed Case, president and publisher of the Web site InterfaithFamily.com, an online resource for interfaith families, says the spring season has the potential to remind couples of their differences.

Recognizing the conflicts caused by the timing of the two holidays, InterfaithFamily.com began surveying interfaith families six years ago to determine attitudes and behaviors during Passover and Easter. “The reason we focus on [Passover and Easter] is because it’s an obvious area of conflict,” Case says. “And over the past six years, the survey results have remained consistent.” Of visitors to InterfaithFamily.com who participated in the 2009 online poll and are raising their children exclusively Jewish, 97 percent were planning on either hosting or attending a seder. Thirty-six percent also were planning to host or attend an Easter dinner. As with the Mattei family, when Easter falls during Passover, it becomes especially complicated. Stacey Frank, 37, a teacher in her synagogue’s religious school in New Hope, Pa., says Passover and Easter holiday conflicts were “really not a problem” before she and her husband, John, had their two children -- a son, now 10, and a daughter, 8. Married for 13 years, their home is “strictly Jewish,” Frank says. Her husband’s family, however, is Catholic and “old-school Polish.” Visiting them during Passover has presented many challenges over the years, she says. “At first I was very inflexible. I brought my own food to my in-laws when it was Passover,” Frank says. “I thought giving in a little would be wrong. “It was torture,” taking away a candyfilled Easter basket while trying to explain the laws of kashrut to a 3-year-old who only wants to eat a chocolate bunny. Explaining to children why their family

was taking part in an Easter celebration, the InterfaithFamily.com poll found, was an area where non-Jewish and Jewish spouses were not totally on the same page. Non-Jewish spouses tended to cite open-mindedness and tolerance, while Jewish spouses cited a desire not to upset the in-laws. To better negotiate the issue, Karen Kushner, executive director

o f t h e J e w i s h Welcome Network in San Francisco, suggests interfaith families teach their children about the different holidays early on -- and point out both the similarities and differences in religious beliefs. Even synagogue movements and many Jewish organizations engaged in outreach to intermarried families often draw a line at participating in activities connected to non-Jewish religious observances. Kushner, whose organization bills itself as a non-denominational operation providing outreach consultation and resources to synagogues, Jewish schools and agencies, says you need to differentiate between family gatherings and church services.

Sometimes she will ask families, If they are leading a Jewish life all-year round, then what’s “corruptive about going to your mother-in-law’s for Easter?” “Grandparents shouldn’t have to hide who they are and what they believe,” Kushner says, “but they shouldn’t try to convert the [grandchildren] either. Learning to go to other people’s celebrations is completely different from taking the kids to Mass.” These days, Frank says, she’ll bend on certain issues. “I realized now it really is only a piece of chocolate,” she says. “If you have a strong Jewish identity, it’s not going to change who you are.” Before they visit her in-laws for Easter, Frank says her husband explains to the children about the holiday and what his parents believe. If Easter falls during Passover, she reminds the children in advance of a visit, “so they know what to expect” and “there’s no discussion [of what they can or cannot eat] once we’re at [their grandparent’s] house.” “This way, it’s not confusing for anyone, and it’s also respectful to John and his family,” she says. Respect was a key value for participants in the InterfaithFamily.com survey. Sixtytwo percent of the respondents pointed to respect for the non-Jewish partner and 67 percent said respect for the nonJewish partner’s extended family were the primary reason for their family’s partici Continued on page 57

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March 26, 2010

Jewish Press, Omaha, NE

Page 57

The Observer BERT’S EYE VIEW by BERT LEWIS

Ok, I know the drill. This is a special holiday edition and it has a theme. Happens that the general theme is Sports, but if you refine it, it’s really Jewish athletes here in our community. Fine. I get the picture, but now that I have it, what do I do with it? Am I the athletic type? (no snickering over there!) No, matter of fact, I’m not. This is no secret -- I openly admitted that more than once in these very pages. Everybody who knows me knows I can’t catch a ball, or for that matter, I don’t throw one very well either. I don’t know, to this day, how I got all the way through high school without forced physical education classes. I know I couldn’t have just said “I don’t do gym” and gotten away with it, but somehow I avoided the humiliation I surely would have suffered. I mean, when a person is 7 years old and doesn’t get picked for a team, it’s one thing. At the age of 15 or 16 it has to be an excruciating experience. So forget that span of time and let’s move along to the next period in my education, college. That’s where my luck ran out, but at least I had some choices -- sort of like being allowed to choose your own poison. I chose Tennis. It was a respectable game, something I could carry into adulthood and anyway the outfits the girls wore were cute. I showed up for the first class with no equipment but a smile and my talent for slipping behind taller girls. Of course that was a mistake because the lady jock in charge immediately commanded all the short people to come forward so they could see and be seen. Of course, you might know everybody else had a tennis racket and all I had was sweaty palms. I don’t remember how I got through the first class, but by the second one I had a racket and was ready. I think it’s true that we humans tend to forget experiences we find painful, so I can’t cite too many instances of my tennis lessons. I know this much however: they weren’t a pretty sight. My earlier issues with catching or throwing a ball seemed hardly worth remembering, compared with my inability to make that racket connect with that ball! And the word serve only conjured up a picture of me giving somebody a cup of coffee. When it came to scoring and the word love, well, let’s not go there. After all, I was a 17 or 18 year old girl, and I was in charge of myself. Yeah. Right. Alas, when my college days were over and I brought home all my belongings, I remember my Mom saying “where’s your tennis racket?” She wasn’t a bit amused when I told her I had left it in my locket at the gym. Nor did she find it interesting that I’d never miss it. And you can believe me when I tell you I was right. I’ve never missed it. The sad part of my story is I’ve gotten this far into my life without ever learning how to play any sport. I’ve regretted it too, because it was my generation that

The spring situation Continued from page 58 pation in Easter celebrations. Rachel Baruch Yackley, 49, says when her daughter, Rebecca, was little, she had no problem letting her participate in the Easter egg hunt at her “very traditional Catholic” mother-in-law’s home. Yackley, a freelance journalist and teacher in St. Charles, Ill., says her mother-in-law took pains to respect the Jewish upbringing and education of her granddaughter and recast the girl’s Easter basket as a “Spring basket” devoid of any religious decorations. “It was wonderful and extremely touching,” Yackley says. “No matter how traditional you are, it can be OK as long as you respect the differences. “People can get caught up in thinking about matzah and the food, but if you make a space in your family for respecting other people’s belief systems and teach your kids that, it can work.”

decided ladies golf was wonderful, as was tennis. And even bowling, for crying out loud. Sure, many enjoy the bridge game or mah jongg, but we have professional women’s golf or tennis tournaments because not everybody plays cards. Huh uh…..no way. And what’s that about soccer and all that chasing around, batting a ball with fists? Fact is, women are engaged in every sport these days, same as men. I even heard there was a womens curling team in the last winter Olympics! You can see why I’d be sorry for my life long commitment to the absence of sports. How could I have known that it would be important to look like I knew what I was doing with a golf club in my hands? I thought I was doing pretty good to know which detergent got the diapers whitest! I mean, who knew? Naturally, it’s too late now. Oh I know there are octogenarians who jog or swim or play golf or bowl. I know all about them. I just don’t belong to those groups. I’m the one who looks for

Steve Bloch

the parking place closest to the door of the restaurant I’m going to. That’s me, the one who waits for the elevator rather than the steps. So I’m not an athlete. We’ve established that as a fact and we needn’t keep harping on the subject. That’s why I don’t feel qualified to comment on games and scores and big winners. I am not a participant, but I am an observer of some games. I will watch football and a limited amount of golf and/or tennis, but I don’t do baseball. Pulleeese. Yes, I know that’s un-American, but that’s how I feel. Other games I can take or leave, but can’t say I’m a fan, with the possible exception of Nebraska college football. After all, I was born and grew up here, and I’ve always understood it’s mandatory! Whenever the subject of athletics or games or exercise comes up, I think of an old joke I heard some time ago. The woman says, “Everybody kept hocking me to join a health club. Ok, I joined one. Now they want me to go!”

Bob Freeman

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Page 58

Jewish Press, Omaha, NE

March 26, 2010

Candlelighting Friday, March 26, 7:25 p.m. Monday, March 29, 7:29 p.m. Tuesday, March 30, no earlier than 8:30 p.m.

Synagogue Listings B’nai Israel Synagogue 618 Mynster St. Council Bluffs, IA 51503-0766 322.4705 email: CBsynagogue@hotmail.com

Beth El Synagogue Member of United Synagogues of Conservative Judaism 14506 California Omaha, NE 68154-1980 492.8550 www.bethel-omaha.org

Beth Israel Synagogue Member of Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America 12604 Pacific St. Omaha, NE. 68154 556.6288 BethIsrael@OrthodoxOmaha.org

Chabad House An Affiliate of Chabad-Lubavitch 1866 S. 120th St. Omaha, NE 68144-1646 330.1800 www.OChabad.com email: chabad@aol.com

Congregation B’nai Jeshurun South Street Temple Union for Reform Judaism 2061 S. 20th St. Lincoln, NE 68502-2797 435.8004 southstreettemple.org

Offutt Air Force Base SAC Memorial Chapel 301 Lincoln Highway Offutt AFB, NE 68113 294.6244

Rose Blumkin Jewish Home 323 S. 132 St. Omaha, NE 68154

Temple Israel Union for Reform Judaism (URJ) 7023 Cass Street Omaha, NE 68132-2651 556.6536 templeisrael-ne.org

The Neighborhood Minyan 1317 No. 57 St. Omaha, NE 68132 551.6609

Tifereth Israel Member of United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism 3219 Sheridan Blvd., Lincoln, NE 68502-5236 423.8569 www.tiferethisraellincoln.org

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Allan Handleman, 402.334.6451

B’NAI ISRAEL SYNAGOGUE FRIDAY: Services followed by Oneg, 7:30 p.m. FRIDAY, April 9: Services followed by Oneg, 7:30 p.m. with guest speaker, Carol Lainof, RN, MSN on Here’s to Your Health. The community is invited.

BETH EL SYNAGOGUE Office Hours: Monday through Thursday, 9 a.m.-5 p.m.; Friday, 9 a.m.-4 p.m. FRIDAY: Musical Kabbalat Shabbat Service, 6 p.m. SATURDAY: Morning Service, 9:30 a.m. Men’s Club will help lead services; Mincha/Ma’ariv, 6:35 p.m. LEARNER’S SERVICE: Saturday, 10:15 a.m. Final service of the series, participants learn the basic structure of the Shabbat morning service. WEEKDAY SERVICES: Sundays, 9 a.m. & 5:30 p.m.; weekdays, 7 a.m. & 5:30 p.m. SUNDAY: Bible Study Discussion Group, 10 a.m. BESTT: Students will be on Passover/Spring Break from March 28-April 10. Classes resume April 12. MINI COURSE: Biblical Wisdom Literature: Job, Proverbs and Ecclesiastes, led by Prof. Guy Matalon, on Thursday, April 1, 7:30 p.m. PASSOVER MONDAY: Shaharit/Siyyum B’khorim, 6:40 a.m.; Minha/ Ma’ariv, 5:30 p.m. First Day: TUESDAY, Shaharit, 9:30 a.m.; Minha/ Ma’ariv, 5:30 p.m.; Community Seder, 6 p.m. at Beth El. WEDNESDAY, Second Day: Shacharit, 9:30 a.m.; Minha/ Ma’ariv, 7:40 p.m. THURSDAY, Hol Hamo’ed: Shacharit, 6:45 a.m.; Minha/ Ma’ariv, 5:30 p.m. MEN’S CLUB MATZO BREI BREAKFAST: Sunday, April 4, 10 a.m. Cost is $4 for adults; $2 for children 6-12; no charge for children 5 and under. RSVP to the office, or programming@bethel-omaha.org. TOT SHABBAT/SAY SHALOM TO SHABBAT: Friday, April 9, 6 p.m. For reservations made by April 7, dinner cost is $5 for Beth El members, $7.50, non-members; no charge for children six and younger. After April 7, cost doubles. RSVP to the office, or programming@bethelomaha.org. HAZAK SHABBAT: Saturday, April 10, 9:30 a.m. Group members will help lead services and sponsor Kiddush afterward. MINI COURSE: Parasha and Pizza, led by Cantor Beth

Schlossberg, on Wednesdays, April 14, 21, 28, May 13 and May 26, 7–8 p.m. Join us for a light dinner and discussion of the upcoming parasha. Cost: $18 members, $25 for non-members. Pre-registration is required; contact the office, or programming @bethel-omaha.org. Beth El classes and programs are open to everyone in the Jewish community.

BETH ISRAEL SYNAGOGUE Office hours: MondayThursday, 8:30 a.m.-4:30 p.m.; Fridays, 8:30 a.m-2 p.m. Services conducted by Rabbi Jonathan Gross. FRIDAY: Kabbalat Shabbat, 7:25 p.m. SATURDAY: Shacharit, 9 a.m. free babysitting, 9:30 a.m.; Children’s Classes, 9:45 a.m. with Torah Parade; Kiddush sponsored by Sisterhood; “Guard Your Tongue,” “The Great Midrash” and “Advanced Parshah Study for Kids” (ages 10 and up), one hour prior to Mincha every Shabbat; Mincha, 7:15 p.m., followed by Seudah Shlishit; Havdalah, 8:26 p.m. SUNDAY: Shacharit, 9 a.m.; Bagels & Beit Midrash begins with breakfast, 9:40 a.m.; Sacred Text Messages (for teens) with Rabbi Gross, and Living in Season with Miriam Gross are cancelled this week in preparation of Pesach; Sunday Night Dinner, 6 p.m. Make Your Own Hero Sandwiches plus soup and salads; Search for chometz not before 8:20 p.m. WEEKDAYS: Shacharit, 7 a.m. The synagogue office will be closed on Monday, March 29, in preparation of Pesach. The office will be closed on March 30 and 31 and on April 5 and 6 for the holiday. MONDAY: Siyum B’chorim will follow Shacharit; Burning of chametz, 11 a.m.; Mincha, 7:29 p.m.; Earliest Seder time, 8:21 p.m. TUESDAY: Shacharit, 9 a.m.; Mincha, 7:35 p.m.; Earliest Seder time, 8:30 p.m. WEDNESDAY: Shacharit, 9 a.m.; Mincha, 7:40 p.m.; Havdalah, 8:31 p.m. THURSDAY: Rabbi Gross’s classes, Women of the Torah and Weekly Class are canceled during Pesach.

CHABAD HOUSE Services conducted by Rabbi Mendel Katzman. FRIDAY: Services, 7 a.m. SATURDAY: Shabbat Minyan, 10 a.m.; Youth Minyan, 10:30 a.m. Mini-Mensch title will be

PASSOVER CLOSINGS & EARLY DEADLINE NOTICE The Jewish Press will be closed Tuesday-Wednesday, March 30-31 for the first two days of Passover, and Monday-Tuesday, April 5-6, for the last two days of the Jewish holiday. Questions? Call 402.334.6448. The deadline for all ads, synagogue schedules, articles and photos is 9 a.m. as follows: Issue Deadline April 9 Monday, March 29

Kiddush lunch folawarded; lows; join Rabbi Katzman from 12-1 p.m.; W.O.W. Parsha, Prophets, and Prayer, 12:45 p.m. SUNDAY: Service, 8:30 a.m.; Mishpacha Mornings Remix, 10:15 a.m. WEEKDAYS: Services, 7 a.m. MONDAY: Family Seder, 7 p.m. Please RSVP to rsvp@ocha bad.com or call 330.1800. TUESDAY-WEDNESDAY: Shacharit, 9 a.m. THURSDAY: Shacharit, 7 a.m. FRIDAY, April 2: Parsha Club for the Elderly, 2:30 p.m. at the Blumkin Home. Please contact Shevi@ochabad.com to make sure your parent at the home can become a member, with any questions or for further information. All programs are open to the entire community.

CONGREGATION B’NAI JESHURUN Services conducted by Rabbi Ilan Emanuel. FRIDAY: Peaceful Shabbat Service, 7:45 p.m. led by Rabbi Emanuel, with oneg following hosted by Nicholette Brackhan. SATURDAY: Shabbat Morning Service, 9:30 a.m.; Torah Study, 10:30 a.m. all led by Rabbi Emanuel; Bat Mitzvah of Marine Kushner at Tifereth Israel. SUNDAY: No LJCS Classes. TUESDAY: Temple Office Closed; Community Passover Second Seder, 6 p.m. Contact the office for information at 402.435.8004 or stemple@neb. rr.com. WEDNESDAY: No LJCS Hebrew classes. ADULT EDUCATION SUNDAYS, 7 p.m. Intro to Judaism, led by Rabbi Emanuel.

OFFUTT AIR FORCE BASE FRIDAY: Services, 7:30 p.m.

ROSE BLUMKIN JEWISH HOME FRIDAY: Shabbat Comes to the Blumkin Home, 2:30 p.m. led by Beth El Members; Kabbalat Shabbat, 6 p.m. led by Nancy Rips and Andy Greenberg. SATURDAY: Services, 9 a.m. led by Andy Greenberg. PASSOVER MONDAY, March 29: First Seder, 6 p.m., led by Carole and Andy Greenberg. TUESDAY, March 30: Services, 9 a.m. led by Rabbi Maximo Shechet; Second Seder, 6 p.m., led by the Zipursky family: Jim, Sally, Aaron and Naomi. WEDNESDAY, March 31: Services, 9 a.m. led by Rabbi

Shechet.

TEMPLE ISRAEL FRIDAY: Shabbat Service, 6 p.m. led by Rabbi Azriel, and Cantor Shermet and joined by Rabbi Josh Zweiback. He will connect the passover story to his personal experience as a new immigrant in Israel; Tot Shabbat and Dinner, 6 p.m. led by Rabbi Linder and hosted by Jenny and Scott Meyerson, Jamie and Troy Meyerson, Teresa Kramer-Ruback and Andy Ruback. Please contact the office, 556.6536 or mkube@ templeisraelomaha.com, to make a reservation. SATURDAY: Sparks Beneath the Surface: Warm Up to Others: The Lessons of the Oven of Akhnai, 9 a.m. with Rabbi Zweiback; Shabbat Service, 10:30 a.m. Max Slosburg, son of Martha and David Slosburg will celebrate his Bar Mitzvah. SUNDAY: Grades K-6, 10 a.m.; Rabbi Zweiback: The Philosophy of Otherness, 10 a.m.; Grade 2 VIP Seder, 10:45 a.m.; Children’s Choir Rehearsal, noon. Pizza lunch provided for choir members and younger siblings; Deli Night, 5 p.m. Reservations preferred! Carry-out available, please call the office, 556.6536. TUESDAY: Passover Service, 10:30 a.m.; Congregational Seder, 6 p.m. WEDNESDAY: No Family, Religious or Middle/High School.

NEIGHBORHOOD PRAYER GROUP FRIDAY: Minyan, 7:25 p.m. SATURDAY: Services, 9 a.m. There will be no serices held during Passover, resuming April 9.

TIFERETH ISRAEL Services conducted by Nancy Coren, Lay Leader. Office hours: Monday-Friday, 10 a.m.-3 p.m. FRIDAY: Services, 6:30 p.m. SATURDAY: Morning service, 9:30 a.m. followed by Kiddush lunch and Talmud study. SUNDAY: No LJCS Classes; Chametz Sell, in the evening. $1 donation may be made to Tzehakah. Forms available in the office. MONDAY: Services, 7:30 p.m. TUESDAY: Services, 9 a.m. and 8:30 p.m. WEDNESDAY: Services, 9 a.m.; Havdalah, 8:31 p.m.; No LJCS Hebrew classes. The temple office will be closed on Monday, March 29, in preparation of Pesach. The office will be closed on March 30 and 31 and on April 5 and 6 for the holiday.

To submit B’nai Mitzvah 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. Forms are available through Omaha and Lincoln synagogues, by contacting The Jewish Press at 402.334.6448, or by e-mailing the Editor at: avandekamp@jewishomaha.org. You can also submit other announcements (births, engagements, obituaries) online at the Jewish Federation of Omaha website: www.jewishomaha.org. Click on “Jewish Press” and go to Submit Announcements.

March 26, 2010 Advertiser Page A Permanent Solution .................................................. 14 Abacus Consulting ...................................................... 30 Abrahams, Kaslow & Cassman LLP ............................ 21 Acura of Omaha .......................................................... 17 Alegent Health ............................................................. 39 All Makes Office Equipment Co. .................................. 57 All Seasons Home Improvement Company ................. 31 Allens ........................................................................... 18 American Friends of Magen David Adom ..................... 33 American National Bank .............................................. 57 AmSan Nogg Paper & Chemical .................................. 16 Anderson O’Brien Gallery ............................................ 46 Anti-Defamation League .............................................. 40 Associated Counseling Professionals ........................... 49 B’nai B’rith Henry Monsky Lodge ................................ 40 B’nai B’rith Youth Organization .................................... 24 B’nai Israel Synagogue ................................................ 40 B’nai Jeshurun Synagogue .......................................... 28 Badger Body & Truck Equipment Co. ........................... 17 Bag ’N Save ................................................................. 21 Bagel Bin ..................................................................... 50 Bailey, Jane A., M.D. .................................................... 20 Belgrade Family ........................................................... 13 Bergman Incentives/Bergman Jewelers ...................... 34 Beth El BILU USY ......................................................... 24 Beth El Sisterhood ....................................................... 40 Beth El Synagogue ...................................................... 40 Beth Israel NCSY ......................................................... 24 Beth Israel Sisterhood .................................................. 40 Beth Israel Synagogue ................................................. 40 Body Basics ................................................................. 37 Boys Town ................................................................... 15 Branching Out ............................................................... 9 Broadmoor Market ...................................................... 46 Brodkey’s ....................................................................... 9 Brownell Talbot ............................................................ 43 Canfield’s Sporting Goods ........................................... 49 Care Consultants for the Aging .................................... 28 CB Richard Ellis/MEGA ............................................... 19 Chabad ....................................................................... 40 Clinical Cosmetics - Angela Bell ................................... 42 Cohen Family .............................................................. 20 Countryside Village ...................................................... 46 Crowne Plaza ............................................................... 11 Dance Shoppe ............................................................ 46 David Morton Food Marketing ..................................... 31 DiMartino & Associates, Inc. ........................................ 27 Emanuel Contracting, Inc. ........................................... 44 Enterprise Bank ............................................................. 3 Expressions ................................................................. 20 Eye Essentials .............................................................. 18 Family Enrichment, Inc. ............................................... 36 Frankel, Zacharia .............................................................. 22 Fraser Stryker Law Firm ............................................... 57 Friedel Jewish Academy ............................................... 45 Gordmans ................................................................... 23 Grace/Mayer Insurance .............................................. 54 Grubb & Ellis/Pacific Realty ......................................... 48 Hadassah .................................................................... 40 Hadassah Upper Midwest Region ............................... 56

Advertiser Page Hap Abraham Catering ................................................ 50 Heritage Pointe ............................................................ 10 Hiller Electric ................................................................. 4 Hockenbergs ............................................................... 21 Horizon Dental Center ................................................. 14 Hy-Vee ......................................................................... 60 Ideal Pure Water & Coffee .............................................. 4 Industrial Packaging Corporation ................................. 35 Institute for Holocaust Education ................................. 40 Interim Homestyle Services ......................................... 19 Jacobson Fish Co., Inc. ............................................... 43 Janine McClintock Studios ........................................... 19 Javitch Family ................................................................ 6 Jet Linx ........................................................................ 55 Jewish Community Center .......................................... 35 Jewish Federation of Lincoln ........................................ 42 Jewish Federation of Omaha ......................................... 3 Jewish Federation of Omaha Foundation .................... 53 Jewish Press ............................................................ 2, 24 Jewish Social Services ................................................. 54 Johanns, Senator Mike ................................................ 35 John A. Gentleman Mortuaries ...................................... 5 Kidwell ......................................................................... 22 Klutznick-Harris Symposium ........................................ 48 Kohll’s Pharmacy & Homecare .................................... 11 League Offering Volunteers for the Elderly ................... 40 Leisure Life Sports ......................................................... 6 Lerner Company ......................................................... 30 Lion’s Automotive Upholstery ...................................... 22 Louie M’s Burger Lust ................................................. 32 Lynn Roberts International ........................................... 14 Malashock Jewelry ...................................................... 22 Malbar Vision Centers ................................................. 36 Marathon Ventures ........................................................ 9 Mark Sanford Group ...................................................... 9 Marks Clare & Richards ............................................... 28 Marriott Regency Hotel .................................................. 8 McGill, Gotsdiner, Workman & Lepp, PC, LLO. ......... 56 McGrath North ............................................................ 34 Medico Insurance Company .......................................... 5 Members.MD .............................................................. 51 Mercedes-Benz of Omaha ........................................... 38 Mid Con Systems Inc. ................................................. 45 Mid-City Jewelry & Loan .............................................. 27 Midwest Ear, Nose, & Throat, P.C. ................................ 17 Mulhall’s ...................................................................... 38 N. Pitlor & Son, Inc. ..................................................... 55 Nan C .......................................................................... 31 National Council of Jewish Women .............................. 40 Nebraska Democratic Party ......................................... 55 Nebraska Educational Telecommunications ................ 59 Nebraska Furniture Mart ............................................. 11 Nebraska Jewish Historical Society .............................. 40 Nebraska Press Statewide Classifieds .......................... 59 Nelson, Senator Ben and Diane .................................... 8 No Frills ....................................................................... 38 Nobbies ....................................................................... 18 Noddle Companies ...................................................... 21 NP Dodge-Kathy Miller ................................................. 49

Wednesday April 7, 2010 | 10: 00 am | Downtown Campus During the Open House You Can: • Meet your Admissions Team • Tour Both Schools with Future Designers • Enjoy a College of Hair Design Show Downtown: 11th & M Street In Downtown Lincoln with Cosmetology, Barbering and East Campus: 90th & Hwy 2 Esthetics Demonstrations • Special Features include Hair Designers Next to Menards and Wal-Mart by Paul Mitchell, Goldwell and Make Up RSVP Today by calling: by Young Blood. 800.798.4247 or 402.477.4040 • Discover Exciting Career Opportunities email: heidi@collegeofhairdesign.com

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ADVERTISE STATEWIDE for $210/25 word classified ad. Over 170 newspapers with circulation of more than 365,000. Contact the Jewish Press at 402-334-6451 or call 1-800-369-2850.

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FREE SHRINE Screening Clinic, Children with Orthopedic problems, Friday, April 9, Columbus/Geneva. Appointments, call Mary Ann Townsend, 402-474-6890 or 1-888333-7764, 8AM-4:30PM, Monday-Friday. HOT TUBS $995 to $4,995. Walk-in bathtubs $2,995 up. Floor Model sale in progress. Call 1-800-869-0406 for price list and pictures. Town Center Showcase, goodlifespa.com. !"#$%&%'

To apply, submit cover letter, resume and at least three professional references to the above contact information no later than 5 pm Central Time, Friday, April 2, 2010.

Page 59

COME TO OUR OPEN HOUSE!

Advertiser Page Omaha Compound Company ..................................... 10 Omaha Jewelry ............................................................ 37 Omaha Steaks ............................................................. 27 Omaha Surgical Center ............................................... 34 Omaha Symphony ...................................................... 47 Omaha Temple Youth Group ........................................ 24 Omaha Trans Video ....................................................... 4 One Drake Place .......................................................... 13 One Pacific Place-Broadmoor ........................................ 5 Parsow’s ...................................................................... 26 Pasta Amore ................................................................ 37 Peterson Brothers Realty Co. ....................................... 43 Pulverente Monument Co. ........................................... 49 Rehab Visions .............................................................. 52 Regency Court ............................................................. 26 Remer Family .............................................................. 18 Remington Heights ........................................................ 7 Republic National Distributing Company ..................... 54 Right at Home ............................................................. 12 Roberts Dairy ............................................................... 16 Rockbrook Floors ........................................................... 8 Rockbrook Village ........................................................ 37 Russell’s ...................................................................... 46 Rotella’s Italian Bakery ................................................. 45 St. Joseph Villa ............................................................ 42 St. Peter & Paul, St. John Nepomucene & Holy Trinity Catholic Churches .................................................. 17 St. Robert Bellarmine Catholic Church ......................... 13 Sanctuary Day Spa ...................................................... 30 Sarah’s ........................................................................ 46 Schwalb Realty ........................................................... 31 Scott Conference Center ................................................ 3 Security Equipment, Inc. ............................................. 56 Security National Bank ................................................ 37 Seim Johnson Sestak & Quist LLP ............................... 10 Senior Market Sales, Inc. ............................................. 12 Sideris Commercial Construction, Inc. ........................ 25 Sir Speedy ................................................................... 57 Sol’s Jewelry & Loan ................................................... 45 Sonny Gerber Auto Sales ............................................. 53 Sparks Computerized Care Care ................................. 49 Spirit World .................................................................. 50 Stoddard Family .......................................................... 47 String of Purls .............................................................. 46 Suburban Newspapers Inc. ........................................... 6 Superior Pools, Spas, Etc. ........................................... 49 Swartzbaugh Farber .................................................... 36 Sweet & Associates ...................................................... 44 Tea Trove ..................................................................... 36 Temple Israel ............................................................... 40 Terry, Congressman Lee .............................................. 44 Tier One Bank .............................................................. 14 Tifereth Israel Synagogue ............................................... 6 University of Nebraska Medical Center ........................ 29 Valentino’s ................................................................... 32 Valpak of Omaha ......................................................... 41 Wiesman Development ............................................... 28 Winery ......................................................................... 32 Wolfson Used Cars ...................................................... 12 Zio’s Pizzeria ................................................................ 32

Economic Development President A privately funded economic development organization is seeking an energetic, positive individual to guide the economic development efforts in Custer County, Nebraska. Custer County is located at the heart of Central Nebraska, boasts friendly, hard-working people, progressive businesses and a tradition of community spirit. The President will be responsible to carry out a variety of activities focused on the retention and expansion of existing businesses, attracting new businesses and creating jobs while preserving the quality of life in Custer County, Nebraska. Full-time salaried position with benefits! Contact: Stephanie Miller P.O. Box 485, Broken Bow, NE 68822 Ph: 308-872-6494 Fax: 308-872-6498 stephaniemiller@adamslandandcattle.com

Jewish Press, Omaha, NE

FOUNDATION/BASEMENT repair. Bulging walls, broken footings, water proofing. Statewide service. Call Landmark Construction, CC accepted. 402-432-4517. Free estimates. Affordable. Insured. References. Member BBB. www.lincolnlandmark.com. RESTAURANT EQUIPMENT Outlet; new & used restaurant equipment. See www.Chillmasters.biz for more info; Sioux City, IA, 1-800-526-7105. SELL YOUR classic car, truck or motorcycle online. Call this newspaper or call 800369-2850 to place your ad on the national www.midwestclassiccars.com web site for only $25.00. Your ad runs until your vehicle is sold! 40 ACRES, two bath home, two car garage, new well, two storage buildings, new within last 6 months. Three miles east of Kilgore. 402-966-3451, 402-389-1108. FOR SALE: Well established bowling center in Central Nebraska. Eight lanes, well-maintained and updated equipment. Kitchen has wet ansul system. Call 308-452-3741 or 308-233-7738. TIME HAS run out. Must sell 3-bedroom manufactured home. Must move to your land. 785-841-4887. ATTENTION: COMPUTER work. Work from anywhere 24/7. Up to $1,500 part-time to $7,500/month full-time. Training provided. www.KTPGlobal.com or call 1-800-3308446.

Why is this city so important to so many?

The power of community in the face of evil

JERUSALEM:

Swimming in

Center of the World

AUSCHWITZ

Sunday, March 28 at 10 p.m. on NET1 and in high-definition NET-HD

Tuesday, March 30, at 11 p.m. on NET1 and in high-definition NET-HD

FULL-TIME FILLMORE County Emergency Manager position available. Contact County Clerk, Amy Nelson, for more information by March 31, 2010, at 402-759-4931 or amy.nelson@fillmore.nacone.org. BANKRUPTCY: FREE initial consultation. Fast relief from creditors. Low rates. Statewide filing. No office appointment necessary. Call Steffens Law Office, 308-8728327. www.steffenslaw.com. We are a debt relief agency, which helps people file bankruptcy under the bankruptcy code. FASTER INTERNET! No access to Cable or DSL? No problem! Get blazing high-speed internet. Hurry! Call now for a limited time offer from WildBlue, 1-877-419-8529.

Page 60

Jewish Press, Omaha, NE

March 26, 2010

EMPLOYEE OWNED

A happy and blessed

PASSOVER to you and your family.

5150 Center St.• 553-2664 • 50th & Center | 10808 Fort St. • 493-2089 • 108th & Fort | 11650 South 73rd St., Papillion • 597-5790 • Shadow Lake Towne Center 3505 L St. • 731-6107 • Stockyards Plaza | 3404 Oak View Dr. • 697-0811 • Oakview | 7910 Cass St. • 384-8668 • Peony Park | 9707 Q St. • 339-3047 • Applewood 747 North 132nd St. • 493-2911 • Westridge | 8809 West Center Rd. • 384-9072 • 90th & Center | 180th & Q St. • 896-4168 • Welch Plaza 156th & Maple • 493-0390 | 1706 North 16th St., Council Bluffs • 328-9762 • North 16th Street | 1745 Madison Ave., Council Bluffs • 322-9260 • Mall of the Bluffs