Vol. LXXXV No. 46 Omaha, NE
Celebrating 85 Years of Service to Nebraska and Western Iowa
3 Av, 5766 July 28, 2006
Groups Collect for Israel Relief
Continuing Fighting Leaves Israelis and Recent Visitors Sad, Angry...and Determined
by JTA STAFF
by CAROL KATZMAN Editor of the Jewish Press Stop in to Uri Levin’s office at the Jewish Community Center these days and you’ll likely find him glued to web pages on his computer, reading blogs, military updates and looking at photos of the current fighting at Israel’s northern border with Lebanon. The Omaha community shaliach just returned last week from what was supposed to be a four-week trip to Israel with 21 Omaha teens. Instead, the group had to leave four days early. And Levin had to miss out on a weekend with his family. Levin, whose two-year stint in Omaha ends at the end of next month, comes The missiles continue to rain down on the north of Israel with scores of hits on buildings in from Tsurit, a small town in Haifa, Kiyrat Shmona, Carmiel, Tsfat and Tiberias. In Haifa, a series of loud explosions Israel’s Western Galilee, just rocked the city Monday as missiles damaged several buildings. Shaul Feldman checks that a few miles east of Acco. The his piano is still working after the apartment where he lives in Haifa was hit by a missile. entire group was to have There were no deaths reported, only light injuries. Since July 13, more than a thousand spent its last week in Levin’s Copyright: ISRANET katyushas have been fired from Lebanon on to northern Israel. “neighborhood,” which also happens to be Omaha’s Partnership with Israel region, fell there, too, ARTZA wound up in Tel Aviv. “We thought we would be based in Bat Yam (a suburb meet Levin’s family and experience home hospitality. “All the great experiences of that region--hiking in the south of Tel Aviv), but after a day at the beach, we were Banias, touring Acco, Rosh HaNiqra and the naval base told to go to a youth hostel in Jerusalem,” said Diane where I served--it all had to be cancelled,” Levin told the Malashock, a chaperone on the ARTZA trip with Levin Press upon his return from Israel. “We were actually in and Esther Katz (who will replace Leslie Wallace as the Haifa when the first missile hit.” The group was warned JCC’s new Dance Director). “Of course, the day we by the staff at the Israel Experience desk, the group that arrived was the day the police caught a suicide bomber plans teen tours like the Omaha’s ARTZA trip, “not to near City Hall,” Malashock added. “But really, we did cross the Acco/Tsfat line,” Levin added, noting that the not want to leave Israel. We honestly felt safe.” group then planned on going to Tiberias. When rockets Continued on page 2
NEW YORK (JTA)--Jewish groups collecting emergency relief funds for Israel include: • United Jewish Communities’ Israel Crisis Fund will provide emergency humanitarian and relocation relief to vulnerable Israelis, such as youngsters, the elderly, immigrants, the disabled and victims of terror. Visit the Jewish Federation of Omaha’s website at: www.jewishomaha.org to make a dontaion online or call 402.334.6429. • American Friends of Magen David Adom (AFMDA) has dispatched 150 ambulances and personnel to the northern part of Israel and has mobilized the MDA National Blood Services Center to supply additional blood to hospitals in areas under attack. Visit www.afmda.org/site/PageServer or call 212.757.1627 or 866.632.2763. • Friends of the Israel Defense Forces is a support group that aims to provide troops with supplies as Israel continues its military actions in the Gaza Strip and Lebanon to free captured soldiers. Visit www.israelsoldiers.org or call 1.888.318.FIDF, ext. 10. • Jewish National Fund announced Operation Security Blanket to raise funds to send Israeli children from the North to summer camps in central Israel, build security roads along the border with Gaza and purchase emergency response equipment. Visit www.jnf.org or call 1.888.JNF.0099. • The Lincoln Jewish Federation also is collecting donations for the Israel Crisis Campaign. Checks can be sent to PO Box 67218, Lincoln, NE 68506. • Western Galilee Hospital in Nahariya is located in Omaha’s Partnership with Israel region. During the last few weeks, the administration has been forced to send its critical patients, newborns and maternity patients into its underground facility. In addition, more than 600 wounded, 40 of whom are Israel Defense Force soldiers, have been admitted. According to Prof. Shaul Shasha, MD, Director General of this hospital, “With 50 years of experience and being only six miles from the border, our hospital has accrued extensive experience with situations of this nature. After the first katuysha rockets landed, we organized immediately, moving patients to the protected Continued on page 4
Ongoing Rocket Attacks Change Venue of Yad Vashem Seminar from Jerusalem to New York by CAROL KATZMAN Editor of the Jewish Press Despite the continuing battles with Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah on Israel’s northern border, a teacher from Omaha’s Central High School, had hoped to fly to Israel this Sunday for a seminar for educators about the Holocaust. Jennifer Stastny, a 11th and 12th-grade English teacher, is one of 17 teachers originally selected to attend a pedagogical seminar at Yad Vashem, the Holocaust Martyrs’ and Heroes’ Remembrance Authority, in Jerusalem. She was to be accompanied by Beth Seldin Dotan, Director of the Institute for Holocaust Education, an arm of the AntiDefamation League’s Great Plains Region office here in Omaha. Instead, the two will be flying to New York on Sunday, for a reformatted conference there, instead of in Jerusalem. Stastny studied “Echoes and Reflections, a Multimedia Curriculum on the Holo-
Inside Opinion Page see page 12
caust” and was trained on how to implement its lessons in their classrooms. Acording to Dotan, the curriculum is the result of an unprecedented partnership, combining the national outreach network of the Anti- Beth Seldin Dotan, left, and Jennifer Stastny, left, discuss the “Echoes and D e f a m a t i o n Reflections” curriculum before leaving for their educators’ seminar now League, the rescheduled for Rye, NY, instead of Israel. “As the years take us further away from unmatched visual history resources of the the Holocaust and witnesses pass away, it University of Southern California’s Shoah is incumbent upon us to teach not only Foundation Institute, and the historical of that terrible time, but to the history expertise of Yad Vashem.
This Week: Monthly Calendar for August: Pages 8-9 See Front Page Stories at: www.jewishomaha.org, click on ‘Jewish Press’
How You Can Help Israel’s Economy: Page 2
learn its lessons so that it will never again happen to any people anywhere,” said Abraham H. Foxman, ADL National Director, and himself a Holocaust survivor. “That is the goal of Echoes and Reflections, which will further solidify the knowledge of how to teach the Holocaust and allow the teachers to influence a new generation of young minds,” he added. Stastny and Dotan will avail themselves to lectures on a range of subjects at the Rye Conference Center, including the origins of anti-Semitism and the contribution of Holocaust survivors to the building of the State of Israel. “Jennifer has participated in numerous activities dealing with ‘Echoes and Reflections’, including a national focus group which reviewed the curriculum last April prior to publication,” said Dotan. “But we’re both very disappointed we won’t be travelling to Israel.” Continued on page 4
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Beth El Initiates Youth Chorus for Hanukkah Concert: Page 16