August 5, 2011

Sponsored by the Benjamin and Anna E. Wiesman Family Endowment Fund AN AGENCY OF THE JEWISH FEDERATION OF OMAHA August 5, 2011 5 Av 5771 Vol. 90 | No. 47

Goodmans to host employee picnic

This Week

by OZZIE NOGG In October of 2009, while walking across a Grinnell, Iowa, parking lot, Barbara Goodman was hit by a car.

Her right ankle and leg were broken in seven places and she sustained a third-degree separation to her left shoulder. After five days in a Des Moines hospital, Barbara returned to Omaha and underwent rehabilitation at the Rose Blumkin Jewish Home. “The care I received was excellent,” she said. “The physical therapists started the very first day, and the entire staff motivated me to work hard so I could do things for myself, get better and go home.”

Now -- in appreciation for the care she received during her month-long stay at the RBJH -- Barbara and her husband, Bob Goodman, are sponsoring a campus-wide employee picnic at the Jewish Community Center on Sunday, August 21 from 5 p.m. to 9 p.m.

“Before Barbara’s accident,” Bob said, “my only experience with the Blumkin Home was when I served on the Personnel Practices Committee as a Federation board member in the 1980s. After the accident, it was very stressful having Barbara in the hospital and needing to arrange rehab for her when we got her back to Omaha. Enter my angel,

Mourning Amy Winehouse: A biblical vixen goes back to black Page 4

Rachel Rosenberg celebrates 88 years Page 7

Before leaving rehab at the Blumkin Home, Barbara and Bob Goodman brought a “Thank You” cake to share with staff and residents. Barbara, center, is shown with Erin Byrne, RN, left, and Nakia Martin, LPN, right.

Shane Kotok, the Home’s Director of Admissions and Community

Outreach. She made a tough time go a lot easier. Shane helped me get

through all the admission issues -and believe me there were plenty, because we were dealing with insurance companies that were making me miserable. Shane and Mike Silverman assured me that one way or another, everything would be okay. And it was. For that, Barbara and I are very thankful.”

Looking for advice on how to best express their gratitude, the Goodmans met with Marty Ricks, Omaha Jewish Federation Foundation Executive Director.

“After talking to Marty,” Bob said, “we decided to set up the Robert L. and Barbara J. Goodman Donor Advised Fund at the Jewish Federation Foundation to underwrite an annual event for the staff at the Home. We discussed a few options with Mike Silverman and then, since this is a year of change at the Federation, we figured it would be a perfect time to sponsor a campus-wide employee picnic at the JCC. Through our Fund, we hope to keep providing something enjoyable, every year, for the staff that treated Barbara so well during her stay at the Blumkin Home.”

Shelly Spencer, an LPN at the Home, is in charge of picnic plans.

“One highlight of the event is the Continued on page 2

Norway: the aftermath Team Omaha departs for Israel Contrary to type, Larry David’s not at all neurotic Page 12

by ALEX WEISLER OSLO, Norway (JTA) -- Norway has just 1,500 Jews, but to hear Avi Ring tell it, the country is reacting to last Friday’s bombing of a government office building and massacre at a political summer camp in a traditionally Jewish way.

of Norway’s official Jewish community organization, called the Mosaic Religious Community and known by its Norwegian acronym, DMT. “It’s like a country sitting shiva.”

A sea of flower bouquets, candles, photographs and handwritten notes line not just major Oslo memorials -

by SHERRIE SAAG Development Associate, Jewish Federation of Omaha Team Omaha gathered early Sunday morning, July 24, at Eppley Airfield bound for the Western

Aaron Rosenfeld, JCC Executive Director, met the Team and its chaperones, Brian Henson and Jodi Levine, at the airport bright and early Sunday morning for a traditional and meaningful send-off.

Inside Point of view Synagogues In memoriam

8 10 11

This Month Back to School See Front Page stories and more at: www.jewishomaha.org, click on Jewish Press

A woman lighting a memorial candle outside the Domkirke Cathedral in Oslo for the July 22 attack victims in Norway, July 25, 2011. Credit: Alex Weisler “As soon as people speak about it, they start to cry,” said Ring, a neuroscientist and former board member

- like the fence of the exclusion zone around the blast site or the central Domkirke Cathedral -- but farflung fountains, parks and statues with no connection to the violence.

“We’ll be together in the grief,” said Ervin Kohn, the leader of DMT, which is also the country’s main synagogue and counts about half the country’s Jews as members. No Jews are known to have been injured in the attacks.

Yet even as they mourn along with their fellow countrymen, some Jews Continued on page 2

Top row: Max Saferstein-Hanson, left, Michael Popkov, Steve Vinci, Brian Henson and Aaron Rosenfeld; middle row: Josh Sullivan, left, Ben Lohman, Zachary Bram, Max Polack, and Jodi Levine; seated: Emily Fann, left, Sydney Robinson, Rachel Saag and Alex Murray.

Galilee and the 1st ever Maccabi Games in Israel. The delegation, consisting of 12 athletes and artists, is competing in both the Games and Artsfest with a basketball team, a swimmer, a tennis player, two dancers, a vocal performer, and a digital photographer.

After everyone checked in, Rosenfeld led the recitation of Tefilat Haderech, the Traveler’s Prayer. “May it be Your will, God and the God of our ancestors, that You lead us toward peace, emplace our footsteps towards peace, guide Continued on page 3

2 | The Jewish Press | August 5, 2011

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From handrails to shower modification to wheelchair ramps, they were very firm on what needed to be done. They trained Barbara on the best ways to get around our house and arranged for someone to come help with her personal needs after she got back home. It wouldn’t be fair to name the people who went above and beyond the call of duty, because it would be difficult to name anyone who didn’t.”

“What we’re doing is not unusual for families in our very caring Jewish Community,” Goodman continued. “We’re telling our story because we’re so grateful for the care Barbara received at the Blumkin Home. It was instrumental in getting her off to a good start on the road to recovery. We also hope that others who aren’t already doing so, show their appreciation in whatever manner they see fit, if and when the occasion arises.”

Barbara Goodman faces more surgery on her shoulder this summer, but will be able to recuperate in her own house. “If I needed specialized care this time around, I wouldn’t hesitate to go back to the Blumkin Home. I’d recommend it to anyone recovering from an accident. To this day, when either Bob or I are in the building, many of the staff come over to ask how I’m doing. The environment and the people are so welcoming, it feels like my second home. In fact, during my month of rehab, the Residents at my table in the dining room told me that if I stayed long enough I’d have a good shot at being chosen Purim Queen.

That’s what I call friendly.”

Marty Cohen

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A complex and intimate portrait of one of America’s best-known names – and least-studied men – is presented in George Washington Carver.

Visitors will discover fascinating insights into the life and work of a man whose curiosity and persistence took him from slavery in a remote Missouri town to success as a teacher and researcher at the famed Tuskegee Institute.

This exhibition is organized by The Field Museum in collaboration with Tuskegee University and the National Park Service.

Sponsored by The Durham Society, Douglas County Commissioners, Northern Natural Gas, MidAmerican Energy Company, CBSHOME Real Estate, Dr. C.C. and Mabel L. Criss Memorial Foundation, Monsanto Fund, Lincoln Financial Foundation, U.S. Bank, AGP, and the Steven H. Durham Family Foundation. Additional support provided by Thomas and Aileen Warren.

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Continued from page 1 Dunk Tank,” Spencer said. “Our list of intended victims includes Mike Silverman, Omaha Federation CEO; Bob Goldberg, Federation Director of Communications and Young Leadership; Shelley Cash, RBJH Director of Nursing; Jerry Harris, RBJH Dietary Staff; Jennifer Richey, Social Services; and Denise Ipock, JCC Members Services Director. We’re sure the crowd will be delighted to see these ‘campus celebrities’ get drenched.” Picnickers will also be treated to ‘DA the DJ’ and his music, games and pool-side entertainment, plus burgers, hotdogs and all the trimmings supplied by the Star Deli kitchen. “Employees and their families are in for a super good time,” Spencer said. Others working on picnic arrangements are Kathy McGauvran, Diane Malashock, Esther Katz, Jen Kirshenbaum, Shelly Fox and Maggie Conti.

“I can’t speak highly enough about the culture Mike Silverman and his team have built at the Blumkin Home,” Bob Goodman added. “From the day Barbara was admitted to the day she was discharged, everyone made sure her needs were met. The nursing staff, the physical therapy and food services staff, housekeeping, the shuttle drivers who took Barb to doctors appointments, the laundry staff, the residents -- everyone was supportive and friendly. And a week before Barbara was released from the Home, some of the physical and occupational therapy staff came to our house and told us how to make it accessible for Barbara.

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Norway: the aftermath Continued from page 1 response to the massacre -- it took about an hour for police here are expressing concern that the attack by a right-wing to reach Utoya -- has been widely reported and debated here. xenophobe who apparently sympathized with Israel may “This happened in a place where if someone walks in and further mute pro-Israel voices in Norway, where anti- steals a pack of eggs, it would make the news,” Ring said.

Zionist sentiment already runs “Norway will have to strong. increase its awareness of In the rambling 1,500-page security on all levels.” manifesto attributed to the At Oslo’s main synaalleged perpetrator of the gogue, which was the tarattacks, Andres Behring Breivik, get of an early-morning anti-Muslim diatribes are puncshooting attack in 2006 tuated at times with expressions that resulted in cosmetic of admiration for Israel and its damage but no casualties, fight against Islamic terrorism. security already is high.

And on Utoya island, the Concrete barriers make it young Labor Party activists who impossible to park in front were holding a retreat when of the building, and a Breivik ambushed them, had receptionist told a reporter spent part of the day before disthat he could not enter the Norwegian mourners lighting memorial candles outside the cussing the organization of a facility on Tuesday “for Domkirke Cathedral in Oslo for the July 22 attack victims in boycott against Israel and presssecurity reasons.” their country, July 25, 2011. Credit: Alex Weisler ing the country’s foreign minisNorway, like practically ter, who was visiting the camp, to recognize a Palestinian every country in Europe, has a spotty history when it comes state. to the Jews.

If the Norwegian public is looking for a larger villain than Jews were first allowed into Norway after the Inquisition, Breivik, Jews here are worried that Zionism and pro-Israel but were banned from 1687 to 1851. The first synagogue in organizations may be singled out.

Oslo was established in 1892. Some 800 Jews were killed “Can the average Norwegian accept that this is the one during the Nazi occupation of the country, and many who random act of one confused ethnic Norwegian?” Ring fled to seek asylum in Sweden did not return after the war. asked. “What I’m worried about is that in the Norwegian Today, most of the country’s Jews live in Oslo, though mind it will slowly attach an antagonism to Israel.” smaller congregations do exist in other cities. David Rachel Suissa runs the Center Against Antisemitism, a pro- Katzenelson, an Israeli who has lived in Norway for 15 years, Israel group that counts about 23,000 supporters and 10,000 said Norway is not known as a particularly hospitable place subscribers to a quarterly journal. She said the Norwegian for Jews. A math and science teacher who also runs the government’s general pro-Palestinian stance makes Zionism small Society for Progressive Judaism here, Katzenelson said difficult to promote here. he has had a swastika spray-painted on his mailbox and that “Anyone who dares support Israel is demonized,” said Jewish students of his have been afraid to publicly disclose Suissa, a professor of medical chemistry. “The Jews need to their faith. know that they have a lot of friends in Norway, but the “There’s a feeling in the society that you have to be nice to Norwegian politicians are not our friends.” everyone who’s in the room -- and since Jews are generally a In an interview published Tuesday by the Israeli daily very small group who are usually not in the room, you’re Maariv, Norway’s ambassador to Israel, Svein Sevje, said it allowed to speak nasty about them because that doesn’t diswas important to recognize the distinctions between the criminate against anyone present,” he said. “That can develNorwegian attacks and terrorism in Israel. op into very ugly things.”

“We Norwegians consider the occupation to be the cause In the wake of last Friday’s attacks, however, the prevailing of the terror against Israel,” he said. “Those who believe this mood among Norwegian Jews has been solidarity -- as it has will not change their mind because of the attack in Oslo.” for all Norwegians.

Suissa said she is concerned that Breivik’s attack will make More than 150,000 people participated in a “rose march” in it more difficult for Israel supporters and the right-wing front of Oslo City Hall on Monday even after the event was Christian groups she works with to express their views. But officially canceled for security reasons because it had grown Rabbi Joav Melchior, spiritual leader of the community syn- too large. People have taken to cheering for policemen and agogue also known as DMT, dismissed such concerns.

Red Cross workers when they pass by on the streets. And “That someone ... calls himself pro-Israel shouldn’t in bars and restaurants are packed in Oslo in an apparent show principle change anything for us,” he said of Breivik. “We that this city of about 600,000 will not cow to terror. don’t feel that he’s a part of our group.”

While many Norwegian Jews interviewed by JTA were The bombing in Oslo and shooting rampage on the nearby quick to say now is the time for grief and that soul searching island of Utoya has sparked a national debate in Norway should be put off for later, Rabbi Shaul Wilhelm, who runs about security measures in this country of 4.6 million where the 7-year-old Chabad-Lubavitch center in Oslo, said the political leaders routinely travel without a protective security way to prove Breivik and his ideology wrong is to embrace detail and police officers do not carry guns. The slow police tolerance.

August 5, 2011 | The Jewish Press | 3

Team Omaha departs for Israel

Tisha B’Av Challenge

Continued from page 1 us toward peace, and make us reach our desired destination for life, gladness, and peace.”

Rosenfeld then added additional meaning to their journey when he handed each Team member a one dollar bill, instructing them to use it for tzedakah in Israel, explaining that giving tzedakah to a traveler before a trip will help to insure their safe passage.

Aaron Rosenfeld, Executive Director of the JCC, foreground, recites the Traveler’s prayer with Team Omaha members just prior to departure for the Maccabi Games in Israel on July 24.

According to Rabbi Jonathan Gross of Beth Israel Synagogue, “Jewish tradition says that a shaliach mitzvah – a messenger who is sent to perform a mitzvah – is given an added level of divine protection to ensure the fulfillment of the sacred mission. It has become the custom to give a traveler a dollar to deliver as tzedakah when they reach their destination so they become a shaliach mitzvah.”

Approximately 1,500 teens, coaches, chaperones, and family members have traveled to Israel to take part in the combination athletic-and-arts event that began July 24 with competitions spread out across the northern part of the country. The artists and athletes from America are joined by teens from Mexico, Panama, South Africa, Venezuela, Great Britain, Canada and Israel for a truly once-in-a-lifetime experience.

This year, the teens will experience home hospitality during a Shabbat weekend with local Israeli families. In addition they will take part in a volunteer program called Days of Sharing and Caring, where athletes join with local community organizations to work on social-action projects.

This year in Israel, teens will take part in an “extreme makeover” of a school, playground, park, and senior facility damaged by rocket fire in Kiryat Shemona.

To follow our Omaha teens during the Maccabi teams, go to www.israeljccmaccabi2011.org or like JCC Maccabi Games on Facebook.

by RABBI JONATHAN GROSS Beth Israel Synagogue It was Erev Pesach 1942 in Dulhinov, a small town in Lithuania, not far from Vilna. Zelig Dimishtein, just 18 years old, returned from hiding in the forest. That day he had been captured by the police and barely escaped with his life. When he returned that night to Dulhinov he found that his life had changed forever. While he was gone, the Nazis had come through and perpetrated a massacre, killing most of the residents of Dulhinov. To this day, Zelig refers to Erev Pesach as the first shechitah -- the first slaughter. It was the first in a series of three massacres: Erev Pesach, the 13th day of Iyar, and Erev Shavuot. Zelig’s family miraculously hid and survived the first massacre. His mother was murdered on the 13th of Iyar. The day after Shavuot, of the thousand or so Jewish souls that had lived in Dulhinov seven weeks earlier, less than a dozen were still alive.

When Zelig returned to Dulhinov after the first shechitah, the streets were dark. There was not a single home from which any light emitted. The survivors had gone into hiding. Zelig went straight to his family’s home, the house that he had grown up in. He found his family and a few other survivors hiding in the dark. After reuniting with his family, Zelig’s father gathered the family at the table. This Pesach night was different from all other nights. There was no desire to sing songs of praise and thanksgiving to Hashem. The streets were filled with death and it was too dangerous even to open the door for Elijah. Nevertheless, Zelig’s father instructed Zelig to bring him a Pesach Haggadah. There was no matzah, no maror, no charoset, but as best they could the Dimishteins observed the Seder according to its laws, rules, and regulations. Temporarily blocking out the incomprehensibly terrifying circumstances that surrounded them, they took on the impossible task of serving Hashem by fulfilling the mitzvah to rejoice in your festivals and to remember the Exodus from Egypt.

Today we cannot possibly comprehend what Zelig and his generation went through. We live in a time when every day is Pesach. Every day is an opportunity for each and every one of us to call out to Hashem in praise and thanksgiving or to thank God that we are free and not in slavery.

Every day we can say next year, next week, or even tomorrow in Jerusalem and we can board a plane to Israel and fulfill something that was just a distant dream to our ancestors.

Celebrations like Pesach are a piece of cake for us (figuratively of course). The challenge for us is how to properly

observe the fast of Tisha B’Av. In contrast to our generation, for Zelig and all the Jews of that time every day was Tisha B’Av. They always were without food and water, they constantly mourned the destruction of life as they once knew it, and they were in a constant state of crying out to Hashem asking, “Why did this befall us!”

But just as they had an obligation to celebrate Pesach, no matter how daunting, we have an obligation to mourn on Tisha B’Av. Tisha B’Av is the day that we mourn the loss of the first and second Temples in Jerusalem; events that involved the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of Jews as well as the beginning of the 2,000 year exile. On Tisha B’Av we mention the expulsions from Spain, Portugal, England, North Africa, and Arab countries, we remember the Chmielnicki massacres, years of pogroms in Europe and Russia, and we of course remember the destruction of European Jewry during World War II. As Ben Zoma teaches us in the Haggadah, even during the black and perilous nights of persecution we are required to mention the exodus from Egypt. During those times Jews especially needed to be reminded of God’s eternal promise to Abraham that his children would forever be a great nation. Perhaps it was that reminder that gave the Jews the strength they needed to rebuild after World War II and to establish a Jewish homeland in Israel.

There are lessons learned from Tisha B’Av that are unique for our privileged generation. Although we may be privileged, Tisha B’Av reminds us that suffering still exists in the world.

By remembering days of expulsion, persecution, and destruction we are able to better appreciate the many blessings that we experience daily.

And Tisha B’Av is a day of reflection and prayer when we are moved by the calamities of the past and inspired to resolve to be better people in appreciation for the opportunities that God has afforded us.

Thank God our challenge is mourning on Tisha B’Av as opposed to the alternative. Still it is a challenge that we must confront. This year Tisha B’Av falls on Tuesday August 9th. There are three wonderful synagogues in town as well as a wealth of resources on the internet that are just a Google search away. I strongly encourage everyone to incorporate Tisha B’Av into their lives this and every year, and may God reward us with continued liberty and prosperity, and may we one day see the end to all suffering and peace for everyone.

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International superstar Matisyahu returns to Omaha on August 13th at the MAHA Music Festival

Named the “most intriguing reggae artist in the world,” the last Omaha performance by the Grammynominated Matisyahu was a sellout.

Don’t miss this return engagement as he performs outdoors at Stinson Park in Aksarben Village!

Sat., Aug. 6, 2011 NORFOLK, NE SHOW HOURS: Saturday, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Creedence Clearwater Revisited at 8 p.m.

Vehicle Registration $35 until day of show.

DeVent Center West Hwy 275 • Norfolk, NE

77734

For information, call Jim Marr, 402-371-7848, or Troy Kimble, 402-529-6015

Tickets are only $30 and include access to a full day of music with 11 bands, including Guided By Voices, Cursive and J Mascis of Dinosaur Jr. Buy your tickets now at www.mahamusicfestival.com

4 | The Jewish Press | August 5, 2011

Mourning Amy Winehouse: A biblical vixen goes back to black

by DVORA MEYERS NEW YORK (JTA) -- Late last year, I spent the better part of a month working on a lengthy profile on Amy Winehouse, the British Jewish retro soul singer who tragically died over the weekend at 27. It was in the doldrums of this process, which included reading a book about Jewish immigrants who performed in blackface in the early 20th century and researching the bizarre music producer Phil Spector, one of her primary musical influences -- that I was forced to ask myself: Why do I like Amy Winehouse so much?

I had become an instant fan of the singer almost from my first listen to Back to Black in 2007, Winehouse’s second and now final album. At first, like many Amy Winehouse others, I was very taken by the ballsy track Rehab, where she famously rejected the help she so clearly needed. Yet at the time of the track’s release, she hadn’t yet spiraled out of control. Her refusal seemed as much a denial of her alcohol and substance abuse problems as an aversion to the type of image rehab that many actors, singers and politicians are forced to undergo in order to make them more palatable to the general public.

Winehouse seemed immune to this kind of image meddling. As a Jewish woman raised in a strictly Orthodox community, I identified with her refusal to be controlled if not her choice of transgressive behavior. (My habit of wearing pants can hardly be considered self-destructive.)

It was this unrepentant behavior that signaled Winehouse’s place in a very different line of Jewish women - not the “nice” ones who make you chicken soup when you’re sick or assure their sons that they’re the smartest boys in the world and any woman would be lucky to marry them.

Winehouse’s ancestors are the biblical vixens: Dina, who slept with Shechem; Deborah, the biblical heroine; or, more recently, Monica Lewinsky, the “portly pepperpot” (as The New York Post dubbed her) who nearly ended Bill Clinton’s presidency. These women possessed sexuality so powerful and intoxicating that it influenced national and political outcomes.

Her devil-may-care attitude extended to her live performances. Even at her best, Winehouse shimmied awkwardly and endearingly as she sang onstage. Her doo wop-styled back-up singers were far more at ease, nimbly dancing

behind her. Winehouse herself was never quite ready for primetime, and yet she was embraced by the music industry and mainstream, recognized for her adenoidal voice and towering songwriting talent (and beehive) with the Mercury Prize and several Grammy Awards.

Yet Winehouse wasn’t always a “bad girl.” She once was a freshly scrubbed Jewish teen from northeast London. Back when she recorded her first album, Frank, at 19, she was curvier and wore her long dark hair in loose waves. There was nary a tattoo in sight. True, she had been kicked out of a prestigious stage school (the same one that Adele attended) for getting her nose pierced, but that’s hardly scaling the mountain of teenage rebellion.

This younger Winehouse had been nurtured both artistically and religiously by her family. Her parents and paternal grandmother, Cynthia, who once dated the legendary musician Ronnie Scott, raised her on a steady diet of jazz greats and soul singers from Billie Holiday to Ella Fitzgerald to Dinah Washington. It was also Cynthia who hosted weekly Friday night dinners. Her death in 2006 is said to have precipitated her granddaughter’s downward spiral.

It was at this time that Winehouse entered the studio to record Back to Black. She changed musical course on this album, veering away from the adult contemporary jazz sounds that had dominated Frank into darker lyrical terrain set, almost paradoxically, to the sunny sound of the ‘60s American girl groups that had been helmed by Spector.

Under the poppy cloak of the Ronettes’ sound from 40 years ago, Winehouse brought a thoroughly modern -- and Jewish -- sensibility to her lyrics and performances. She spoke not of love and romance, as her predecessors did, but of addictions, sex and every Jewish girl’s favorite emotion, guilt. Her songs and tone dripped with regret, but also the inevitability of her bad behavior. Any astute listener knew that she probably wasn’t going to change.

Yet her fans held out hope, as did her family and probably even the troubled artist herself. Ultimately, however, like an Old Testament prophet, she foretold her own fate. On the titular track of her master work, she sang, “I tread a troubled track/My odds are stacked/I go back to black.”

This article was adapted from a piece that first appeared in the online magazine Tablet.

Mainstreeters: satisfy your need to know

by OZZIE NOGG Everyone wants to be up-to-date on current events.

And when those events are sponsored by Mainstreeters, you’ll really want to be in the know. The way to insure you remain in the loop is to keep your name on the Mainstreeters Communication Roster.

Jim Wax, Mainstreeters Communication Chair, said, “The colorful printed flyers we mail out in advance of an event give the who, what, when and where details of our activities -- from monthly luncheons to classes to social and cultural events. Even in this age of electronic Instant Messaging, it’s helpful to get a notice that you can stick on your refrigerator and use as a reminder. Our roster is quite extensive, and we encourage people on the current mailing list to help defray the cost of printing and postage for the next year.

Mainstreeters is open to everyone in the community aged 60 and over -- there are no membership dues -- and we invite those who are not already on the mailing list to get on board, too.”

The Mainstreeters communication fee for July 2011 through June 2012, is $5 per person. “This nominal fee will help us get the word out,” Wax said. “Our events are open to everyone, but those whose names are on the Communication Roster will receive a heads-up mailing at least two weeks before programming information appears in the Jewish Press. That means they’ll be first in line when it comes to ticket availability, bus seats and reservations in general. Eventually I’ll need to purge the Communications Roster, so I encourage everyone to respond soon, before your name is taken off the list.”

Checks for $10 per couple or $5 per person made payable to Jewish Social Services should be mailed to Mainstreeters, c/o Jim Wax, 118 So. 88th Street, Omaha, NE, 68114.

Births Carrie Jacobson and Eric Voegele of Los Angeles, announce the June 8 birth of their daughter, Ella J Voegele.

Grandparents are Joanie and Richard Jacobson, and Sonia Voegele of Studio City, CA. Great-grandmother is Molly Sandler of Des Moines, IA.

Eliana Pissk and Sorin Juster announce the June 26 birth of their son, Noah Ben Juster.

He has three sibblings: Caroline, Sam and Ari. Grandparents are Monica and Pablo Pissk from Neuquen, Argentina, and the late Clara and Ariel Juster.

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August 5, 2011 | The Jewish Press | 5

Beth El’s new adult-education class ponders “A World Without Jews”

by JILL BELMONT Beth El Publicity Coordinator With each of his adult-education classes, Beth El teacher Andy Greenberg likes to stretch his students’ imagination and encourage them to think outside the box. This year’s offering will be no different, as Greenberg presents “A World Without Jews?” a monthly class beginning Sunday, Aug. 28, from 10 a.m. to 11 a.m.

The class’s concept came about as students in Greenberg’s previous class offered ideas regarding possible topics for a 2011-12 course. The suggestion was made to discuss famous Jews over the years – and from there the creative teacher spun the idea a bit farther: how about focusing on the impact these people had on the world -- and what would the world be like if they never existed?

The seed was planted and Greenberg built his course around it. Participants will explore the inventions and discoveries -- scientific, medical, artistic, musical, etc. -- during different centuries; they will then discuss which contributions were made by members of the Jewish community. The class will also delve into learning about the living conditions for Jews during those various times, and how they served as

inspirational, motivational factors.

“I truly believe this will help us to identify who we are, why we are and why, collectively, we can advance our culture and thought process and religion, at least among ourselves,” Greenberg explained. “It is always terrific to go back to our roots to determine who we are.

“Also, we often talk about other cultures, such as the Greeks, the Romans and the Chinese, and what they contributed to our daily living styles of today. Why not go back and explore what the Jewish contribution was; perhaps even melding those together with what everyone else contributed.

And who knows -- it might inspire one of us to do something that will impact the world. The study of Judaism is not limited to religious and spiritual aspects: it also encompasses who we are and why we are.”

Future classes are scheduled for Sept. 25, Oct. 23, Nov. 20, Jan. 22, Feb. 26, March 25 and April 22, and all adults in the Jewish community are invited to join the conversation. Registration fee is $36 for Beth El members; $45 for non-members. To register or for more information, contact Beth El Program Director Margie Gutnik at 402.492.8550, or via email at programming@bethel-omaha.org.

My Tisha B’Av problem

Journal entry from Israel TEDDY WEINBERGER In traditional Judaism, the three weeks leading up to and including the 9th day of the Hebrew month of Av (which this year comes out on August 8-9) are characterized by an increasing severity of mourning for the destruction of the Temples. For me, these three weeks also serve as a sober countdown to the one day of the year when it is extremely difficult to reconcile ethnic-based observance with the actual practices of the Jewish people.

Israel tries its best to be sensitive to the religiously observant on Tisha B’Av. Israeli law says that each municipality may decide whether or not to prohibit “public entertainment” on Tisha B’Av, and in practice the night of Tisha B’Av is pretty quiet. Officially, “public entertainment” is defined as “plays, movies, concerts, discos, dances, ballet, night clubs, circuses, games or sports, and any entertainment such as these.”

Before the Knesset went on its summer break a few weeks ago, a sub-committee considered whether or not coffee houses should be considered “public entertainment.” Last year, Tel Aviv coffee houses were closed on Tisha B’Av, but afterwards the Tel Aviv Attorney General ruled that coffee houses were not “public entertainment” and should not have been closed -- whereupon the Mayor of Tel Aviv declared that his coffee houses would stay open this Tisha B’Av. So the Knesset decided to take up the matter. (This sort of political debate happens all the time in a country with no separation of religion and state.)

The quiet, public spaces may encourage people to go to synagogue on Tisha B’Av to hear the beautiful, poignant chanting of Lamentations. Indeed, the Israel Association of Community Centers published a booklet to be used for this evening at Centers all over the country (many Israelis are not comfortable going to a synagogue and so the local Community Center will sometimes host holiday ceremonies). The booklet contains Hebrew poetry, Lamentations (with modern Hebrew glosses), and other selected readings, traditional and contemporary.

But a huge gap separates an evening listening to Lamentations with the most challenging ritual observance of Tisha B’Av: a 25-hour fast. While on Yom Kippur there are some non-observant Israelis who fast out of ethnic identity, I have yet to meet an Israeli who fasts on Tisha B’Av for this reason. On Shabbat and Jewish holidays, people like me,

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who base their religious observance on ethnicity, can say: “Everyone is celebrating; some do it in less traditional ways, and I choose to do it in more traditional ways.” Fasting is another matter. You either fast or you don’t. The only people who observe the fast of Tisha B’Av are religious Jews, a minority of the Jewish people. If one primarily observes Jewish traditions because they are the “folkways” of the Jewish people (as Mordecai Kaplan, founder of Reconstructionism, referred to them), a “folkway” that has been abandoned by the majority of the Jewish people will not seem particularly inviting -- all the more so if that folkway involves going without food and water for 25 hours in the middle of the summer.

There is another important reason why fasting on Tisha B’Av is challenging for a person whose religious observance is based on a connection to the Jewish people rather than to a commanding God, and this has to do with one’s attitude toward the Temple. True, the Temples were destroyed and these were national tragedies, but the Jewish people have moved on from there. Yet built into traditional mourning (including fasting) for the Temples’ destruction is the traditional hope for the rebuilding of a Third Temple. The ethnically motivated observant tend to shudder rather than rejoice at the prospect of a return to animal sacrifice.

According to Jewish tradition the Messiah will be born on Tisha B’Av. And the really good news, for the purposes of my Tisha B’Av problem, is that once the Messiah arrives Tisha B’Av will become the first day of a week-long Jewish festival.

Let’s just hope for a liberal interpretation of an accompanying teaching: “Whoever mourns for Jerusalem will merit the future vision of her joy.”

Teddy Weinberger made aliyah in 1997 with his wife, former Omahan Sarah Ross, and their five children. Their oldest three, Nathan, Rebecca and Ruthie, are veterans of the Israel Defense Forces; Weinberger can be reached at weinross@netvision.net.il.

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In the news Edward Jones Financial Advisor Mike Sigmond recently was ranked within the top 25 percent of the country for excellence in client service at Edward Jones.

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6 | The Jewish Press | August 5, 2011

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ROSH HaShanah Greetings Thisyear youcansendyour greetingsthrough these veryspecialads that will run in our annual Rosh Hashanah issue. Each ad can be personalized with your name, the names of your children or your grandchildren.

Just fill out the form below and send or bring it to the Jewish Press office. But hurry these ads will only be accepted through August 23, 2011. For other sizes and prices, contact Allan Handleman at 402.334.6451 or email at ahandleman@jewishomaha.org.

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by OZZIE NOGG Home medical carts that will assist nursing One hundred nineteen individuals and staff in administering meds to residents in thirteen community groups were honored by the safest, most efficient way possible.

Jewish Social Services and the Rose Blumkin “L.O.V.E. has been a part of the Omaha Jewish Home at the agency’s annual Jewish community for almost forty years,” Volunteer Recognition Day on Sunday, July Brookstein said. “We take great joy in giving 24. Jim Wax was named Volunteer of the to those who call the RBJH their home, and Year; and Sophie Cemaj and Molly Paskar it is our honor to help take care of those who were honored as Teen Volunteers of the Year. have taken care of us.”

Wax was praised for his vision, confidence and his ability to implement ideas.

“Jim has proven through his many volunteer activities that he realizes the importance of providing social, spiritual and educational programs geared to, and for, the mature members of the Jewish community,” said Lois Wine, Director of Volunteer Services. “When Jim takes responsibility for a project, he completes it. He can always be counted on. Jim is a volunteer extraordinaire.” Wax currently serves as Communications Chairman for Main- Shown at the JSS/RBJH Volunteer Awards event are: Molly streeters and is President- Paskar, left, Teen Volunteer of the Year; Lois Wine, Director of elect of L.O.V.E. (League Volunteer Services; Judy Brookstein, L.O.V.E. President; Jim Offering Volunteers for Wax, Volunteer of the Year. Not pictured: Sophie Cemaj, Teen Volunteer of the Year. the Elderly).

Wine described Sophie Cemaj as “friendThe depth of dedication shown by ly, conscientious and reliable. She assists res- JSS/RBJH volunteers was made clear by Lois idents to and from afternoon concerts and Wine in her expression of thanks to the helps with Tea Time. She enjoys visiting group. “Countless hours are spent by our volwith our residents and they truly think she unteers for the benefit of our residents and is one nice young lady. Sophie is a very car- staff,” she said. “Staff can come and leave; ing teenager.” According to Wine, “Molly family and friends come to visit. Staff is paid; Paskar began her volunteer service as a very family is duty bound. But the volunteer’s role quiet, shy girl who has blossomed into a is very different, in that they bring the special self-assured young woman. She fills in for gift of self and time. Volunteers come vacationing front desk receptionists at the because they want to, and this is what makes Blumkin Home, escorts residents to our volunteering unique. I personally want to programs and makes up our monthly activ- thank all of you for what you do, for the joy ity calendars, where her artistic ability adds you bring. May God grant you the strength a creative touch. Both Molly and Sophie are to continue your service to the Rose Blumkin very worthy of these volunteer awards.”

Jewish Home and Jewish Social Services.”

As part of the event, Omaha Jewish Refreshments were served after the award Federation CEO Mike Silverman received a presentation. Joe Chereck, a regular RBJH check for $10,000.00 from L.O.V.E. and its volunteer, provided Clavinova entertainpresident, Judy Brookstein. The monies, ment during the afternoon. which come from L.O.V.E. fundraising For information on how you can become efforts, are earmarked this year for laptop a JSS/RBJH volunteer, call Lois Wine at computers and software for the Blumkin 402.334.6519.

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B’NAI B’RITH BREADBREAKERS Rachel Jacobson will talk about her startup success as the Executive Director of Film Streams and the Ruth Sokolof theater on Wednesday, Aug. 10, noon at the Blumkin Home. An optional buffet lunch costs $10; beverage service is $3. For more information or to be placed on the email list call 402.334.6443 or bnaibrith@jewishomaha. org.

LOMIR REDN YIDDISH Yiddish teaches an optimistic vision that allows us to view the world with joy and hope. Come join us at the Blumkin Home, every Thursday in the board room, at 1 p.m., to reap “The Joys of Yiddish!” For information call Anne Skolkin at 402.343.1638.

MAINSTREETERS Summer Picnic on Sunday, Aug. 14, 13:30 p.m. at Chalco Hills Recreation Area (154th and Giles Road). Cost is $6 per person and includes rotisserie chicken meal, drinks and entertainment. Please bring a side dish to share. If your last name begins

with the letter “A through G” bring a dessert and “H through Z” bring a salad. Musical entertainment by Michael Lyon who is back by popular demand. Send reservation to: Mainstreeters, c/o Maggie Conti, 323 S. 132 Street, Omaha, NE 68154. Make check payable to Jewish Social Services.

Mainstreeters Luncheon is on Monday, Aug. 15 at 12:30 p.m. Auditorium. Don’t miss the wildly entertaining Omaha Country Kickers. Cost is $10 per person.

Send reservation to: Mainstreeters, c/o Maggie Conti, 323 S. 132 Street, Omaha, NE 68154. Make check payable to Jewish Social Services.

Baseball Night at the new stadium at Werner Park in Papillion on Thursday, Sept. 1. Cost is $7 per person for game admission. Jewish Social Services will sponsor the transportation. Depart from the JCC at 5:30 p.m. to return back to the JCC by approximately 10:00 p.m. Dinner is on your own at stadium. Send reservation to: Mainstreeters, c/o Maggie Conti, 323 S. 132 Street, Omaha, NE 68154. Make check payable to Jewish Social Services. For questions call Harry Alloy at 402.697.8709.

August 5, 2011 | The Jewish Press | 7

Fifty years later, Kirk Douglas wins tribute for breaking Hollywood blacklist

by TOM TUGEND LOS ANGELES (JTA) -- Ask Kirk Douglas for the proudest accomplishment in his 94 years and the iconic actor cites his actions in breaking the infamous Hollywood blacklist.

Douglas did so by giving writer Dalton Trumbo full credit for the script of the movie Spartacus, normally a routine acknowledgment. But in 1960, openly employing an accused communist or communist sympathizer was an almost guaranteed career killer, even for one of Hollywood’s biggest stars, and required an extraordinary degree of moral courage.

“I was always an impulsive guy and young enough not to pay attention to the consequences of hiring Trumbo,” Douglas recalls.

The San Francisco Jewish Film Festival will present its Freedom of Expression Award to Douglas “for his courageous actions in support of artistic freedom.”

Kirk Douglas as Spartacus in 1960 and as he is today.

Douglas will be on stage at the Castro Theatre to accept the award and to introduce a 50th anniver- They were cited for contempt of Congress and imprisoned sary screening of Spartacus, in which he played the title role for up to one year.

While Trumbo was not Jewish, six of the other Hollywood and served as executive producer.

A near-fatal helicopter crash and a stroke in the 1990s Ten were, and among many politicians and compilers of forced Douglas to relearn speaking, which he now does “suspect” lists, charges of being a New York or Hollywood slowly and with a slight slur. His memory, however, is as “commie symp” served as the code word for Jew. Along with Douglas, Spartacus also featured two other good as ever, and he clearly recalls the mood and details of prominent Jews: director Stanley Kubrick and Howard Fast, the red-hunting McCarthy era.

“Though people told me I was crazy and would never also blacklisted, who wrote the original book. It was based work in this town again, I was so disgusted with what was on the life and death of the Thracian slave whose followers going on in the country and in Hollywood, that I had to do nearly overthrew the mighty Roman Republic in the Third Servile War of the first century BCE. something,” he said.

So, Douglas was asked, was the campaign against “politiNevertheless, Douglas recalls spending plenty of sleepless nights -- not in debating his decision, but in cursing “the cally unreliable” artists fueled, at least in part, by antistupidity of it all, in which some of the most talented actors Semitism? Of course, he answered.

“Listen, all my life I’ve always assumed that everybody I and writers accused of [having ties to] communism couldn’t met was an anti-Semite unless he could prove otherwise,” he work anymore.”

“Then there was the utter hypocrisy because everybody in said.

Douglas finds in the Spartacus revolt an analogy to the Hollywood knew that Trumbo was writing Spartacus, current uprisings in the Arab Middle East. though under the pseudonym of Sam Jackson.”

“If Spartacus were to return today, he would go to Libya or Trumbo later thanked Douglas, writing, “Thank you for Syria to fight with the rebels,” said the actor, who in 1996 giving me my name back.”

Douglas finally had his way, and it didn’t hurt that he was won an honorary Academy Award “for 50 years as a creative one of Hollywood’s most bankable actors, the Brad Pitt or and moral force in the motion picture community.”

Douglas, born Issur Danielovitch, learned early about Tom Cruise of his day, and just off the box office hit The Vikings. The premiere of Spartacus in October 1960 was fol- anti-Semitism from his boyhood fights in Amsterdam, N.Y. lowed within two months by the opening of Exodus, also But as he made his way in Hollywood as a Nordic-looking written by Trumbo and with his name openly listed in the leading man, he shed most of his religious upbringing.

However, he said, “I always fasted on Yom Kippur. I still screen credits.

Though the period from the late 1940s to the late 1950s worked on the movie set, but I fasted. And let me tell you, it’s generally is known as the McCarthy era -- named for the not easy to make love to Lana Turner on an empty stomach.”

He returned to Jewish observance in 1991 after surviving demagogic Wisconsin Sen. Joseph McCarthy -- the senator’s baleful work had precedent, and it was continued by the a helicopter crash that compressed his spine by three inches House Un-American Activities Committee, or HUAC, even and killed two younger companions.

“I came to believe that I was spared because I had not yet after his 1957 death.

Among the earliest HUAC targets were the Hollywood come to terms with my Judaism, that I had never come to Ten, predominantly well-known screenwriters who refused grips with what it means to be a Jew,” he said.

In his mid-70s, Douglas embarked on an intensive regime to declare their political affiliations or denounce colleagues.

of Jewish studies and discovered “the greatest screenplay ever written. It has passion, incest, murder, adultery, really everything. That’s why they keep making movies about it.”

Now he maintains weekly sessions with Los Angeles Rabbi David Wolpe and lights candles at home on Friday nights. Douglas celebrated his second bar mitzvah at age 83.

Still, he is ambivalent about religion in general.

“I believe in God, I’m happy to be a Jew,” he said. “But I think too much religion has not helped civilization. Caring for other people, that’s my religion.”

Douglas has embarked on two more careers -- as a philanthropist underwriting hundreds of playgrounds in California and for Arab and Jewish kids in Israel, and as an author.

He has written nine books -- autobiographies, novels, children’s books -- with two more due to be published in late 2011 and early 2012. One is I Am Spartacus, playing off the movie’s most famous line and describing the making of the film and the breaking of the blacklist. The other is Fragments of Memory, about his tumultuous life.

In addition, Warner Brothers is releasing a DVD of Before I Forget, his earlier one-man show in New York.

After all that, Douglas promises at least one more book, “with lots of humor,” titled It’s Hard to Be a Jew.

Happy B-day, Rachel

On August 1, Rachel Rosenberg turned 88. She celebrated early with her JCC water fitness class, which Rachel has attended for years. Back row: Kate Bradley, left, June Schweiger, and Sharon Derra; front row: Joan Reider, left, Pat Kasakoff, Marquetta Kinnamon, and Rachel Rosenberg.

Helen Epstein, not pictured, says: “We’ve been taking this class together for so many years, it feels like we’re family. This class, taught by Debbie Johnson and Nancy Luetzinger, is probably the reason Rachel looks so fantastic!”

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8 | The Jewish Press | August 5, 2011

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The world according to Anders Breivik

by ANNETTE VAN DE KAMP-WRIGHT Editor of the Jewish Press When, on Friday, July 22, Anders Behring Breivik left his calling card, the world took notice. The usual media stampede followed: shock, outrage, jumping to conclusions, and finally: analysis of the (sort-of) facts.

We may never know the exact how or why; the sheer body count that resulted from whatever was going through Breivik’s mind defies explanations. But, explanations we must have, and if we can’t find quick answers, we’ll go after the more complicated ones instead. And few answers are more complicated than those presented in Breivik’s own words.

This blonde, blue-eyed monster is a right wing extremist, a self-proclaimed Christian, and a “Nationalist Crusader” to boot. He fits the Northern European Nazi archetype perfectly, with the exception of pretending to like Jews. Those Protocols of Zion are so last century: in Europe these days, you get much more bang for your racist buck if you go after Muslims instead.

Except, to complicate things even further, Breivik didn’t kill Muslims; he killed Norwegians. Because, apparently, those kids who were learning all about politics were particularly interested in anti-Israel boycotts, support for Palestinian statehood, and so forth. If all of this makes your head hurt, you’re not the only one.

However, it gets worse. On his radio show, Glenn Beck compared the victims on the island, since they were participating in a political summer camp, to “Hitler Jugend.”

Members of Hamas heard about that, and jumped at the chance to tie Glenn Beck, Fundamentalist Christianity, and

Zionism all together, in an article titled The cancer of Christian Zionist terror.

Oy. Compared to this, the American budget crisis seemed like fluffy entertainment on Bravo.

The thing is, Breivik isn’t the first on the European right who has traded anti-Semitic sentiments for self-professed pro-Zionism. “European right-populist parties increasingly have been waving the flag of friendship with Israel,” writes JTA’s Toby Axelrod, “as well as expressing vehement opposition to Europe’s multicultural society.” The ill-advised marriage of anti-Islamist views with a pro-Israel stance is celebrated all over Europe: with Geert Wilders in the Netherlands, Germany’s Rene Stadtkewitz and Belgium’s Filip Dewinter being the most vocal party guests.

In Europe, the phrase “right wing” in and of itself has

changed meaning; that much is certain. But changing the focus of irrational hate from Jews to Muslims doesn’t make a difference: hate is still hate, and a dead child is still a dead child: “Breivik was clearly influenced by an ideological movement both in the United States and Europe that is rousing public fear by consistently vilifying the Islamic faith,” Anti Defamation League national director Abraham Foxman said.

So what went wrong? When did right wing extremists figure out that verbalizing hate for Muslims is okay, and that simultaneous support for Israel makes for a great distraction? When did the world become this confusing?

“In the recent years we have witnessed the phenomenon of radical rightists proclaiming their sympathy for Jews and their support for Israel,” said Stephan Kramer, general secretary of the Central Council of Jews in Germany. “In many cases, it is clear that this is no more than a PR-maneuver to create an air of respectability. Whatever ‘support’ for Israel Breivik may have had in his abominable mind, it is not the kind of support we want.” (JTA.com) Rabbi Shaul Wilhelm, who runs the Chabad Lubavitch center in Oslo, said the way to prove Breivik and his ideology wrong is to embrace tolerance.

“What we should try to learn from all this is that multiculturalism isn’t just a thesis and a concept,” he said. “That would be the greatest revenge against this murderer and against people of his ilk: that we can actually practice tolerance in a very real way.” (JTA.com) Those would make for some excellent parting words, but as nice as they sound, I have a feeling it will be a while before we get there. In the meantime, there are two things we should focus on. First, regardless of what everybody else says or believes, or who we want to point the finger at, it was the man Anders Breivik who committed mass murder. He - and he alone - carries that guilt. Second, the fact that all of this makes for an incredibly uncomfortable discussion means now is the perfect time to talk.

Auction of Mengele journals is an outrage

Behind the headlines MENACHEM Z. ROSENSAFT NEW YORK (JTA) -- Bill Panagopulos runs Alexander Historical Auctions, an affiliate of Alexander Autographs, which bills itself as “one of the world’s premier auctioneers of militaria [sic], historic letters, manuscripts, documents and relics in all fields of collecting.” Panagopulos also peddles Nazi memorabilia at his Conn. auction house.

Among the items offered for sale on July 21 are “the hidden journals of Dr. Josef Mengele,” with an estimated price tag of $300,000 to $400,000. Mengele, you may recall, was the SS “doctor” who ran selections for the gas chambers at the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camps, where he also conducted often deadly medical experiments on inmates.

Among Mengele’s victims was my mother’s sister, whom he sent to death in April 1944. He also twice struck my mother in the face.

“One day,” my mother wrote in her memoirs, “a young woman was late for roll call outside her barrack. Mengele ordered her to come forward, knocked her to the ground, and put his boot on her chest. Humming an aria from ‘Madama Butterfly,’ he kept his foot there until she was dead.

He showed the SS men a new way of killing.”

So what precisely is Alexander Historical Auctions hawking? The “Historically important” Lot 4, according to the auction house’s website, consists of “31 autograph manuscripts, approx. 3,380+ pp. in various formats, largely bound journals... some illustrated. All writings are penned in ink in a legible hand, in generally excellent condition.”

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The content of these journals is irrelevant. Reminiscences, ponderings on eugenics, “philosophical and introspective writings,” poems, political commentaries, travelogues. Who cares? The ramblings and ravings of a sadistic sociopath who murdered thousands upon thousands more than Osama bin Laden ever did should not be allowed to yield a small fortune in profits to the anonymous consignor -- no doubt with a healthy commission to Alexander Historical Auctions.

Moreover, the lucky purchaser will “own the copyright to materials contained within the lot” together with the consignor until Dec. 31, 2035. Say what? Yup, the seller of this garbage, presumably richer to the tune of several hundred thousand dollars after the auction, will retain the “co-exclusive right to use copies of any and all writings in this lot in any documentary or film about Josef Mengele or any direct relative of Josef Mengele.”

Stripped of its veneer, could the purpose of the planned sale simply be to enable a Mengele heir to finance the glorification or perhaps merely the equally reprehensible historical sanitization of his (or her) monstrous ancestor?

But there’s more: Lot 5 is an “Extremely rare and revealing page full of pencil drawings in Mengele’s hand, some captioned, undertaken while he was in hiding in South America, ca. 1970. Among the sketches is a four-legged hideously-toothed beast at upper-right, a smiling cyclops, a car shown between two collapsing buildings, a Lutheran priest complaining about taxes, a small house in a suburban setting with a lederhosen-clad figure at one side, and a Napoleon-like figure with a sword in hand declaring: ‘Dem Volke’ [the people].” The estimated price for this gem is between $7,000 and $9,000. Pardon me while I puke.

And just in case you’re a bit squeamish and Mengele is not up your alley, Alexander Historical Auctions will gladly sell you a handsome signed and dated 1924 photograph of Adolf Hitler himself (Lot 1, estimated price: $15,000-$18,000); a handwritten birthday greeting from the Fuehrer to a presumably Aryan “gracious lady” (Lot 7, price tag: $10,000$12,000); or, for the budget-conscious neo- or crypto-Nazi, a postcard signed by Hitler’s sister Paula, valued at a measly $200-$300.

This is not the first time Panagopulos has brokered sales of Nazi memorabilia. In February 2010, he claimed that he had sold another Mengele journal to the grandson of an Auschwitz survivor who was going to donate it to a Holocaust museum. At the time, the American Gathering of Jewish Holocaust Survivors and Their Descendants condemned the sale as “a cynical act of exploitation aimed at profiting from the writings of one of the most heinous Nazi criminals.”

Let’s be clear: While selling child pornography is a criminal act that will land you in jail, establishing a market for signed Mengele manuscripts and Hitler memorabilia is perfectly legal -- in the United States, at least. But the same First Amendment that allows Alexander Historical Auctions and its ilk to aid and abet the glorification of Nazism allows the rest of us to ostracize the purveyors of such obscenities.

The online auction and shopping site eBay prohibits the sale of Nazi memorabilia. So does Yahoo. The least we can do is boycott Panagopulos and his Alexander Historical Auctions.

Menachem Z. Rosensaft is vice president of the American Gathering of Jewish Holocaust Survivors and Their Descendants.

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August 5, 2011 | The Jewish Press | 9

Media Mayhem

Behind the headlines EMILY GILLER, Jewish Press Intern Media are objective, righteous and fair sources for providing news to people all over the world. Media are ethically sound and never subjective. As part of their responsibilities, media serves as a device to export necessary information to the public. Without media, our world would be corrupt.

What a postulated, presumptive piece of work that was. Be honest, you were probably rolling your eyes. Good, because lately, media have proven to be less and less objective.

After three years of taking classes about media, writing, ethics and law, I have been told that media are necessary for informative and also entertainment purposes. Can’t disagree much there. I’ve also been told that news sources are just that, news sources. There are no opinions and no subjective material. If only that were true.

So why do I want to go into, for lack of a better term, a corrupt field? Because just like all the other journalism majors in the world right now, we want to take a corrupt system and correct it. We want to go back to the days of Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, or even Edward R. Murrow.

So now I ask, when did the media start making headlines instead of writing them? For instance, media mogul Rupert Murdoch (chairman and CEO of News Corporation) has been the target of a lot of news coverage lately due to suspicions of a hacking scandal. Reports say that Murdoch’s United Kingdom papers have been trying to cover up the fact that they illegally hacked into people’s cell phones to gain information. It’s been discovered that the people hacked include murder victims and the Royal Family. After several

arrests and resignations, the investigation is still underway.

Well, I did say I wanted to go back to the days of Woodward and Bernstein -- wiretapping and manipulation -- it’s Watergate Esq. I would also like to point out that not every news source has been covering this Murdoch story as well as others. Did I mention that Murdoch is the creator of Fox Broadcasting Company? Which conveniently has kept his name out of the media spotlight as much as possible. That’s objective reporting?

Not only that, but Fox News has been a hot topic in the online news lately. In June of this year, Chris Wallace of Fox News invited Jon Stewart of the Daily Show on Comedy Central to join him on Fox News Sunday. The intention of this meeting was to publically confront Stewart about his ‘bias’ against Fox News and in a way, rehabilitate Fox’s reliability as a news outlet. Major backfire. On the show, Wallace accused Stewart of leaning toward the left and not wanting the other side to be heard.

Now, in my journalism classes I have been taught to do background research about a person before you interview them. Obviously Wallace didn’t do that, because if he had he would have discovered that Stewart is a comedian. A comedian! His job is based on entertainment, not media ethics.

The same goes for Stephen Colbert who also has a fake broadcast show on Comedy Central. Neither one claims to be a journalist.

Don’t worry, Wallace doesn’t just offend supposed liberals, he’s an equal opportunity offender. I’m talking about the apology he had to make at the end of June after he asked Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., “Are you a flake?” Bachmann, not amused, responded with:

“Well, I think that would be insulting, to say something like that, because I’m a serious person.”

Classy Fox News.

I can’t pick on one news source, though; MSNBC has also been caught reporting in a subjective manner. The perfect example is Rachel Maddow who hosts a nightly show on MSNBC called The Rachel Maddow Show. On this show, Maddow is very open about how she feels about certain issues. For example, on the topic of Anthony Weiner resigning from office, the Huffington Post reported Maddow saying: “Congratulations, Democrats. In an era of unhinged, ideological, big money conservative media that is wholly and admittedly divorced from the precepts of journalism, in hounding Anthony Weiner into resigning ... you have just fed and unleashed this beast onto yourselves, probably for a generation.”

Those are harsh words for an unbiased news organization.

Is there any hope for media from here? Unfortunately, some people don’t know what real news is. I know people who get their news strictly from Stewart and Colbert. So what does that say about news organizations if people can’t tell the difference between real and fake? Who is held accountable here? Do we blame media for twisting the news? Not necessarily. I think it’s the people’s responsibility to educate themselves on what is real and what has been manipulated. However, I do think media need to be held accountable as well. News outlets needs to take a step back and remember that they are here for the purpose of reporting the news and acting as watchdogs for the public. They aren’t here just for entertainment, or to provide a secret agenda. They are here to simply report the news.

‘Innovationists’ must make changes MATTHEW ACKERMAN NEW YORK (JTA) -- The Austrian economist Joseph Schumpeter argued that the forces of “creative destruction” unleashed by capitalist economies were largely positive, as they favored the best innovations. Just as the mom-and-pop video store was destroyed by Blockbuster and Blockbuster now finds itself made largely obsolete by Netflix, capitalism perpetually lays low old orders, replacing them with more efficient ones better able to take advantage of new technologies.

Following the announcement of the closing of music promoter JDub, the American Jewish world may now find itself in a moment of creative destruction. Coming on the heels of announcements of winding down by other creative start-ups like Heeb and Jewcy.com, it’s possible that the movement has spent itself out.

That movement has dominated the conversation about young Jews in the United States for the past decade.

Buttressed by the conviction that both personal and collective identity had fundamentally shifted, well-connected young Jews and the network of foundations and writers who supported them came increasingly to set the communal agenda.

They grasped far earlier than most the profound changes the Internet would bring, and they understood that this would raise questions about how to maintain healthy organizations and communities. They saw also that some of the major institutions of American Jewish life were hampered by idea-killing bureaucracies with too many staffers who

alive, both in and outside of Israel, Balkan Beat Box need not explain how it speaks to a certain contemporary Jewish reality. But for most Jews it’s just music that they either like or don’t. So as with their other tastes, it is easily discarded when something new with nothing Jewish about it comes along.

No wonder, then, that as a major April report by Jumpstart pointed out, two-thirds of the participants in the JDub clones founded in the last decade shared the rich upbringings of the founders. No wonder as well that a report last September written by Jack Wertheimer and sponsored by Avi Chai found that 93 percent of the married leaders of these efforts are hitched to another Jew, even though only 24 percent say they have a problem with intermarriage.

Little wonder, too, that funders are increasingly finding the return on investment low for vanity projects able to appeal only to some of that select portion of the Jewish world that has even heard of JDub. That cheerleading April Jumpstart report repeatedly cited Schumpeter. Responses from those whose efforts Jumpstart promoted to JDub’s demise may prove that the innovation advocates are perhaps not quite as committed to creative destruction within the Jewish community as they thought.

There is talent and passion among the self-styled innovationists. If they can come to see service in the Jewish community as first and last a service to an enduring moral vision, Jewish institutions would do well to embrace them and their ideas. If not, there are other sources of communal leadership, and we should look to them with confidence.

Matthew Ackerman is a New York-based Middle East analyst for The David Project, a nonprofit dedicated to educating and inspiring strong voices for Israel.

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Focus on issues

were hostile to the very idea of change.

As the American intellectual Walter Russell Mead has written, we are at the beginning of the most explosive period of change in human history. Profound and ongoing adaptation is required to simply survive, let alone thrive. This is as true for Jewish institutions as for any other.

The innovation advocates saw and reported this, trying their best to shake organized Jewry from its stupor.

This was overshadowed, though, by what they got wrong.

They mistook changes in methods of communication for changes in the nature of community itself, buying into faddish claims about a fundamental shift in individual identity.

Human beings may live in a dramatically changing world, but if modernity and the Enlightenment have proven anything, it is that the human spirit remains unchanging. The world will change but we will remain the same people underneath, with the same need for communities deeper than those found on a computer screen.

Worst of all, the innovation advocates placed themselves and the needs of their cohort above the needs of the Jews they claimed to serve. This blinded them to the fact that they came from backgrounds of day school educations, months or years spent in Israel, and similarly rich Jewish experiences that are foreign to nearly all non-Orthodox American Jews.

Drawing on their large capital of Jewish fluency, they could play Jewish symbols against those of other cultures in pleasing games because they always knew where the unspoken lines lay between the Jewish and the non-Jewish.

True outsiders to just about anything Jewish didn’t understand the game. If you grew up in the ever-mixing diversity of contemporary Jewish life in those places where it is truly

10 | The Jewish Press | August 5, 2011

Synagogues B’NAI ISRAEL SYNAGOGUE 618 Mynster Street | Council Bluffs, IA 51503-0766 | 402.322.4705 email: CBsynagogue@hotmail.com FRIDAY: Services followed by Oneg, 7:30 p.m.

There will be no services on Friday, Aug. 12.

BETH EL SYNAGOGUE Member of United Synagogues of Conservative Judaism 14506 California | Omaha, NE 68154-1980 | 402.492.8550 www.bethel-omaha.org Services conducted by Rabbi Mordechai Levin and Cantor Beth Schlossberg.

FRIDAY: Kabbalat Shabbat, 6 p.m.; Welcome dinner for Rabbi Steven and Shira Abraham will follow at 7 p.m. For more information about the dinner, contact the office, or programming@bethel-omaha.org.

SATURDAY: Morning service, 9:30 a.m.; Evening Services, 8:40 p.m.; Kiddush given by Sheryl and Arthur Friedman, in honor of their 40th wedding anniversary.

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

TISHA B’AV: The destruction of Jerusalem and the loss of Jewish independence in the land of Israel will be commemorated on Monday, Aug. 8, with the chanting of Eicha, following the 5:30 p.m. service. On Tuesday, Aug. 9, services will be at 6:50 a.m., 1 p.m. and 5:30 p.m.

LET’S DO LUNCH: Join Rabbi Levin for lunch at the Blumkin Home’s Star Deli on Friday, Aug. 12, noon, for a delicious meal and some casual conversation. Walk-ins are welcome, but RSVPs are appreciated so the rabbi can reserve seats. Contact him at rabbilevin@bethel-omaha.org.

PARSHA & PIZZA: On Sunday, Aug. 14, 12:30 p.m., at Bagel Bin, join Cantor Schlossberg for a slice (or two) of pizza and a lively discussion about the week's Torah portion.

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

BETH ISRAEL SYNAGOGUE Member of Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America 12604 Pacific Street | Omaha, NE. 68154 | 402.556.6288 www.BethIsrael@OrthodoxOmaha.org Office Hours: Mon.-Thurs., 8:30 a.m.-4:30 p.m.; Fri., 8:30 a.m-2 p.m. Services conducted by Rabbi Jonathan Gross and Rabbi Yitzchak Mizrahi.

FRIDAY: Kabbalat Shabbat, 7:30 p.m.

SATURDAY: Shacharit, 9 a.m.; Free babysitting, 9:30 a.m.; Children’s Classes begin with Torah Parade, 9:45 a.m.; Kiddush is sponsored by Sisterhood; Veshinantam, 5:30 p.m., a learning program for families followed by a kidfriendly dinner; The Laws of Shabbat, 6:15 p.m.; Advanced Parshah Study for Kids (ages 10 and up), 7:15 p.m.; Mincha, 8:15 p.m. followed by Seuda Shlishit; Havdalah, 9:21 p.m.

SUNDAY: Gemara class, 8 a.m., learning tractate Kiddushin; Shacharit, 9 a.m. followed by breakfast.

Bar Mitzvah Isaac Schlossman Ferber, son of Jenni Schlossman and Jeff Ferber, will become a Bar Mitzvah on Saturday, Aug. 13, at Beth El. Isaac is an eighth-grade Distinguished Honor Roll student at Westside Middle School. He received the National Education Technology Assocation. award for best digital sound 2010.

His interests include being a Brown belt in Tae Kwon Do, playing trumpet, and reading.

For his mitzvah project, Issac volunteered for the Ponca Hills Preservation Association, picking up trash.

He has a sister, Lila.

Grandparents are the late Alvin Schlossman, the late Evelyn Schlossman, the late Lillian Ferber, and the late Erwin Ferber.

To Submit B’nai Mitzvah Announcements Announcements may be e-mailed to the Press with attached photos in .jpg or .tif files to jpress@jewish omaha.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, by e-mailing the editor at: avandekamp@jewishomaha.org or online at: www.jewishomaha.org, click on ‘Jewish Press.’

WEEKDAYS: Shacharit, 7 a.m.

MONDAY–EREV TISHA B’AV: Weekly Teleconference Mishnah Class, 10:30 a.m. Contact the office for information on how to call-in to the conference call; Mincha, 7:45 p.m.; The Book of Iyov and the Jewish Approach to Suffering, with Rabbi Gross, 8 p.m.; Fast begins/Ma’ariv, 8:33 p.m.; The Book of Eicha/Kinnot, 8:45 p.m.

TUESDAY–TISHA B’AV: Shacharit/Kinnot, 6:45 a.m.; Serving Hashem when Circumstances are Less than Ideal, with Rabbi Mizrahi, 8 a.m.; OU Webcast, 9 a.m.; Yeshiva University Webcast with Rabbi Dr. Jacob J. Schacter: The Dialectic of Exile and Redemption, 1 p.m.; Forgotten Refugees, 2 p.m.; Cast a Giant Shadow, 3 p.m.; A Discussion with Milton Kleinberg, author of Memories of My Childhood, 6 p.m.; Mincha, 6:30 p.m.; Valkyrie, 7 p.m.; Ma’ariv, 9:10 p.m.; Fast ends, 9:17 p.m.

WEDNESDAY: Board Meeting, 6:30 p.m.; Advanced Halachic Kollel, 9 p.m.

THURSDAY: Beth Israel’s NEW Breakfast Speaker Series kicks off with Aaron Rosenfeld, our JCC’s new Executive Director. Aaron will speak at 8 a.m. Breakfast will be served immediately following minyan; Women of the Torah class, 9:30 a.m. with Rabbi Gross.

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

FRIDAY: Service, 7 a.m.

SATURDAY: Shabbat Minyan, 10 a.m.; Youth Minyan, 10:30 a.m.; Mini Mensch title will be awarded. Kiddush luncheon follows. Join Rabbi Katzman, noon-1 p.m.; W.O.W. Parsha, Prophets and Prayer, 12:45 p.m.

SUNDAY: Service, 8:30 a.m.

WEEKDAYS: Services, 7 a.m.

All programs are open to the entire community.

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

FRIDAY: Kiddush, 6 p.m.; Early Family Shabbat Service, 6:15 p.m.

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

SUNDAY: Board of Trustees, 1 p.m.

MONDAY: Erev Tisha B’av TUESDAY: Tisha B’av THURSDAY: Choir rehearsal, 7:30-9 p.m.

Annual Back-to-School Supplies Drive: From now through the month of August, the Social Action Committee

Candlelighting Friday, August 5, 8:18 p.m.

is collecting school supplies to donate to Saratoga Elementary School. Bring your items to the stage area of the Social Hall.

Thank you for helping the children in our neighborhood!

OFFUTT AIR FORCE BASE SAC Memorial Chapel 301 Lincoln Highway | Offutt AFB, NE 68113 | 402.294.6244 FRIDAY: Services, 7:30 p.m.

NEIGHBORHOOD PRAYER GROUP 1317 North 57 Street | Omaha, NE 68132 | 402.551.6609 FRIDAY: Minyan, 8:18 p.m.

SATURDAY: Services, 9 a.m.

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

Services will be held in the Chapel. Members of the community are invited to attend.

TEMPLE ISRAEL Union for Reform Judaism (URJ) 7023 Cass Street | Omaha, NE 68132-2651 | 402.556.6536 www.templeisrael-ne.org FRIDAY: Shabbat Service, 6 p.m.; D’var: Marty Ricks - A Journey From Unaffiliated to Jewish Professional; Oneg in honor of Lonnie Williams’ 37 years of service at Temple Israel.

SATURDAY: Sparks Beneath the Surface, 9:15 a.m.; Shabbat Morning Service, 10:30 a.m.

Shabbat Service, Friday, Aug. 12, 6 p.m. D’var: Jordan Jensen - Oh The Places You’ll Go! Temple Israel Annual Golf Outing, Monday, Aug. 15, noon at Shadow Ridge Country Club (188 and Pacific Street) Please contact the Temple Israel office, mweidner@tem pleisraelomaha.com or 402.556.6536, for registration form.

TIFERETH ISRAEL Member of United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism 3219 Sheridan Boulevard | Lincoln, NE 68502-5236 | 402.423.8569 www.tiferethisraellincoln.org Services conducted by lay leader Nancy Coren. Office hours: Monday-Friday, 10 a.m.-3 p.m.

FRIDAY: Services, 6:30 p.m.

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

Annual Back-to-School Supplies Drive: From now through the month of August, the Social Action Committee at South Street Temple invites you to join them in collecting school supplies to donate to Saratoga Elementary School.

You may bring your items to either the Temple or the Synagogue. Thank you for helping the children in our neighborhood!

Israeli protesters join general strike

by JTA NEWS STAFF JERUSALEM (JTA) -- Municipal employees throughout Israel went on a one-day strike in support of social justice.

The Union of Local Authorities in Israel authorized the municipal workers to close their offices in support of a Facebookorganized general strike on Monday. There was also no garbage collection or street cleaning.

The local authority in Jerusalem declined to join the strike.

More than 23,500 Israeli Facebook users indicated that they would participate in the strike.

Despite the wave of protests over social and economic issues Israeli lawmakers voted to take The social justice rally in Tel Aviv their summer recess mated 100,000 people.

The Knesset presidium on August 1 voted down a proposal to delay the Aug. 7 start of the parliament's summer recess, a proposal that had garnered support from lawmakers in both the ruling

and opposition coalitions. Lawmakers from the Shas and Kadima parties were the only representatives to vote in favor of the proposal submitted by Interior Minister Eli Yishai, the head of Shas.

Opposition leader Tzipi Livni had thrown her support behind the proposal.

The Knesset needs to keep working,” said Livni, the chair of Kadima, said Sunday.

“Fixing what is happening on the streets has to be done through the Knesset.”

Israeli-Arab lawmakers objected to canceling the recess since this year it falls at the same time as the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

The Knesset is schedwhich was attended by an estiuled to return at the end Credit: ISRANET of October, but Speaker Reuven Rivlin said he would convene the parliament in the interim if the government is ready to take steps to alleviate the housing and economic crises.

Pulverente MONUMENT CO.

August 5, 2011 | The Jewish Press | 11

From a gang of slaves to ISRAEL!

Sparks from the word RABBI MYER S. KRIPKE Parsha Devarim The reader (including me) is somewhat taken aback to realize that our Parsha tells us that Moses was speaking to the Israelites in the neighborhood of Sinai.

By that I mean to say that suddenly we realize the end of Exodus (after the so-called Ten Commandments) and Leviticus and Numbers, all these events and thoughts were still in the neighborhood of Sinai. The Promised Land was still far away.

As I have said elsewhere, it was one thing to get the Israelites out of Egypt, but quite another to get the mind set of slavery out of their heads.

Now, a full generation later, Moses is ready to lead the Israelites into the Promised Land. Now they are no longer escapees from Egypt, escaped slaves. Now they are a free people: a People!

We have seen a transformation that is quite remarkable! A group of slaves have now become a united People. They are now Am Yisrael, the People of Israel.

Later on, Jews were accustomed to say Am Yisrael CHai! The People of Israel is alive, alive now forever!

All of this now ran through the mind of Moses, and he explained it aloud to the Israelites while they were still in the neighborhood of Sinai.

What was still to come was exciting: they were to come to the Promised Land, the much promised, perhaps overpromised Land. It was in the land of Canaan, now forever to be called the Land of Israel.

We do not know exactly how long ago that was. But it is still true. On any map of the Middle East, Israel is there to be seen -- and more than that, to be reckoned with! For here is a land that changed the nature of the Middle East, a land where justice was to be found, justice and freedom for all. It was not easy for that simple statement (justice for all!) to be understood and then to be made real. Everyone knows the idea of “justice and liberty and the pursuit of happiness,” as an American ideal. We can understand that this elevation of humankind had its beginning many centuries ago in the struggle of ancient Israel to become ISRAEL.

Shulamit Shamir dies

by ALAN D. ABBEY Shulamit Shamir, the wife of former Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir and a one-time fighter in the pre-state underground group Lehi, died July 29 at 88 in her Tel Aviv home.

Shamir was eulogized by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the opening moments of the weekly Cabinet session on Sunday.

“Shulamit was a woman of principles, an idealist, who stood at her husband’s side throughout his life,” Netanyahu said.

“She was a member of the Lehi; she fought for Israel’s freedom. She was always faithful to the principles of the Jewish people and the Land of Israel. She and her husband raised the wonderful Shamir family, which has contributed, and is contributing, to the State of Israel in so many areas. I am certain that I speak for all ministers and all Israelis as we convey our condolences to the Shamir family on Shulamit’s passing.”

Shulamit Shamir was born Sarikah Levi in Sofia, Bulgaria, to a traditional Sephardi family. She became a Zionist in her grandfather’s home, attended a Hebrew elementary school and a Bulgarian gymnasium, and joined a Betar youth club.

She left school in the eighth grade and immigrated to prestate Palestine “illegally, on a rickety boat” in 1941 with fellow Betar members and was promptly arrested by the

Rabbi murdered by deranged visitor

by EDGAR ASHER The funeral of Kabbalist Rabbi Elazar Abuhatzeira, who was stabbed to death last night at his yeshiva in Beersheva, was buried today on the Mount of Olives. Many thousands of his followers accompanied the funeral procession, including the Sephardi Chief Rabbi Shlomo Amar and the Shas spiritual leader Rabbi Ovadia Yosef. Rabbi

The funeral of Rabbi Elazar Abuhatzeira on the Mount of Olives.

Credit: ISRANET Abuhatzeira, known as 'Baba Elazar', was seventy years old.

He was the grandson of the 'Baba Sali' a much revered Moroccan rabbi who was believed by his many followers to possess mystic healing powers.

The rabbi was receiving visitors and giving a blessing when he was stabbed in the chest and stomach several times by a deranged man who had come to Beersheva to receive a blessing from the rabbi.

Some of the rabbi's followers apprehended the assailant, named as Asher Dahan from Elad, a religious town in central Israel. They held him until the police arrived at the yeshiva. Rabbi Abuhatzeira died on the way to hospital.

British and held in the Atlit prison camp.

A year later, upon her release from prison, she joined the Lehi underground group and became a message runner for Yitzhak Shamir, who was code-named Michael at the time.

The small militant band had fewer than 200 women in its ranks. Her tasks included transferring the orders for an escape from a detention camp to 20 Lehi members imprisoned there, and accompanying Eliyahu Bet-Zuri to Cairo, where his mission there, unknown to her, was to assassinate Lord Moyne, British minister of state for the Middle East.

Moyne was killed on Nov. 6, 1944 by Bet-Zuri and Eliyahu Hakim, who were executed for the crime.

When Shulamit married Shamir in 1944, the two broke an unwritten rule that activists in the underground group would not marry.

“We had a lot in common, and I just fell in love with her,” Shamir said in a 1993 interview. “I was the first to demand not to live a monastic life, and I argued that it was a normal life that would increase our strength. I demanded to marry.”

After their first son, Yair, was born, Shulamit went back into political activities and was arrested in 1947, when she went on a hunger strike for 11 days.

After Yitzhak Shamir became prime minister of Israel in 1983, Shulamit Shamir did volunteer work on behalf of the poor and needy and established an organization for the elderly poor. She visited her homeland of Bulgaria in 1991 as wife of Israel’s prime minister and received an award for her active role in renewing relations between Israel and Bulgaria.

Yitzhak Shamir, 95, lives in a nursing home in Tel Aviv.

Two children, five grandchildren and six great-grandchildren also survive Shulamit.

Giffords will run for re-election

by JTA NEWS STAFF WASHINGTON (JTA) -- Following her dramatic return to Congress for the first time since she was shot, U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords announced that she would run for re-election in 2012.

Giffords (D-Ariz.) made the announcement Tuesday morning on The Early Show. The CBS program promptly tweeted the news.

The announcement that Giffords, the first Jewish women elected to statewide office in Arizona, would be seeking her fourth term in Congress came the morning after she surprised her colleagues in the House of Representatives by appearing on the House floor to vote for the debt ceiling package, which passed the $2.5 trillion deal. She received a standing ovation from the chamber, creating a brief moment of unity after weeks of fractious budget debates.

“The Capitol looks beautiful and I am honored to be at work tonight,” Giffords said in a tweet before appearing in the chamber, the first tweet made in the first person since she was shot Jan. 8 in an assault that killed six people while she met constituents at a strip mall in her congressional district in Tucson, Ariz.

Giffords walked onto the House floor accompanied by her husband, astronaut Mark Kelly, and her closest friend in Congress, Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.), to building applause from both sides of the aisle.

“This is a day for the history books,” Wasserman Schultz said in a statement.

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12 | The Jewish Press | August 5, 2011

Contrary to type, Larry David’s not at all neurotic

by RACHEL SHUKERT Marty Funkhauser are rendered all but cataNEW YORK (Tablet) -- Three adjectives tonic by the bodacious ta-tas on Richard are often used to describe Larry David, the Lewis’ burlesque-dancer girlfriend — Lewis, star and creator of Curb Your Enthusiasm, in true Allen fashion, can only bring himself which recently premiered its eighth season to admit he admires her for her mind — after two excruciating Curb-less years.

Larry calmly slurps his drink and later matOne is “bespectacled,” which is fair ter of factly informs her that she has a mole enough. Another is “bald,” a signifier that on the underside of her right breast that she David’s television alter-ego regards as a tra- really ought to get checked out. ditionally oppressed In all realms, sexual tribal identity (spitting David is refreshingly in biblical fury when the un-creepy. In the world assimilationists among of Curb, Jeff and Susie’s this imagined fraternity teenage daughter, of the hairless attempt to Sammy, is Larry’s antag“pass” under the camouonist. In the world of flage of a baseball cap or, Allen’s films, she’d be a God forbid, a toupee). love interest.

Finally, and most ubiqTheir relationships uitously, he is “neurotic.” with technology are at “Larry David plays odds as well. Compare himself as a bald, Allen’s famous war with bespectacled neurotic,” machines to Larry’s priThe New York Times mal rage at vacuum wrote in a review of the packaging. Allen blames new season. himself for his difficul“Larry David plays a ties. With Larry, it’s the Larry David neurotic fussbudget package’s fault. For named Larry David,” The Washington Post David, the conflict is always external, and said in 2010. this lack of introspection characterizes vir“He’s officially an L.A. neurotic,” the New tually all of his interpersonal actions.

York Post recently bemoaned.

When David refuses to add an additional Far be it for me to argue with writers for tip for the servers at the country club, the such august publications. But having said problem isn’t his parsimony, it’s the server’s that, I don’t think any of these people actu- greed. He feels similarly in the right when he ally knows what “neurotic” means, other tries to rescind his order for Girl Scout than a word you swap in when you think it’s cookies or screams at the neighborhood impolite to say “Jew.” kids for serving him subpar lemonade. Why I can’t speak to the inner tumult of the real should he allow himself to be taken advanLarry David, the writer and actor behind the tage of? bald, bespectacled mask. I’ve never met the As far as Larry is concerned, his only man. (If I ever did, we either would circle problem is the unreasonableness of others. each other silently in a moonlit forest clear- He might come off like kind of an a--hole, ing before gently pressing our foreheads but that’s your problem, not his. He’s a selftogether like unicorns performing a mating actualized a--hole. rite, or within five minutes each lie dead by It’s tempting to ascribe David’s blind the other’s hand.) Yet by any measure -- and unconcern for the feelings and good opincertainly compared to his Jewish comedic ion of others on his immense fortune, which contemporaries -- Larry David is a character is alluded to, if rarely explicitly stated -- if I remarkably free of internal conflict. had half a billion dollars, I probably wouldPsychoanalytic theory holds that neurosis n’t care what anyone thought of me either. occurs when the different parts of the per- But Larry seems utterly unimpressed by the sonality are at war with each other. Now trappings of wealth -- he still buys his pants think of Larry David: He has no internal at Banana Republic, for God’s sake -- and as conflicts; he’s difficult, but he’s content. such, I propose his bizarre self-confidence Not for him the unrelenting angst of Albert comes from another, deeper source: Brooks or the comically tattered sense of self- Virtually alone among his peers, Larry esteem of Richard Lewis (a frequent Curb David has absolutely no ambivalence about Your Enthusiasm guest star). As for the Grand being a Jew. Emperor of Neurotics, Woody Allen (and From his disgust at Cheryl’s enormous David’s director in the 2009 film Whatever Christmas tree, to the glee with which he Works), the two men’s public personas could hangs a mezuzah with his father-in-law’s hardly be more different. Apart from the special Christ Nail, to his inadvertent rescue glasses, the Brooklyn accent and their of a Jewish man from a mildly coerced bapJewishness, David is, in effect, the anti-Allen. tism, David’s outlook is essentially tribal. To Skeptical? Consider, for a start, their atti- him, a Jew trying to pass as a gentile is as tudes toward women. A defining theme in ridiculous as a bald man in a toupee. David’s Allen’s oeuvre, women are no more than an comic pose is less that of the anxious assimafterthought in David’s, and the latter gives ilationist eager to fit in than that of the cluehis female stars far more interesting things less greenhorn making his way in a world to to do. (Just think of Susie Essman’s volcani- which he’s not sure he cares to belong. cally foul-mouthed Susie Green.)

Or perhaps he’s even more atavistic than David is no romantic; he wouldn’t have that. Neurosis is often defined as a focus on lasted five minutes with a whimsical naive behavioral minutiae that can border on the like Annie Hall. obsessive-compulsive, but Larry’s many preIn the first episode of Curb’s latest season, occupations, from the unwritten laws of dry David’s divorce from Cheryl is finalized. cleaning, to the proper way to treat chaufFirst, though, there is a possibility of recon- feurs, gardeners and other laborers, to the ciliation, which David characteristically irrevocable uncleanness of certain objects bungles. Cheryl leaves and then David just (pens that have seen the inside of Jason cuts to his divorce lawyer one year later. One Alexander’s ears, $50 bills laced with can imagine Allen commemorating this Funkhauser’s foot sweat) recall another endevent with a sentimental montage of happi- less litany of unbending edicts: the Book of er times; Larry is more concerned with Leviticus. Larry David isn’t a neurotic; he’s Dodgers tickets and whether his divorce just demanding. Like the God of the lawyer is lying to him about being Jewish.

Hebrews. He can be kind of an a--hole, too.

Nor does sex hold him in any particular This was reprinted from Tabletmag.com, thrall. In a recent episode, as Jeff, Leon and a new read on Jewish life.

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