^JEWISH PRESS VoLLXXX
No. 35
Omaha, NE
1Tammuz,5761
June 22,2001 22,
SERVING NEBRASKA AND WESTERN IOWA FOR 80 YEARS
Temple Israel Welcomes Cantor Wendy Shermet
Kofi Annan Visits Shevah School
by JEWISH PRESS NEWS SERVICE
Wendy Shermet will be the new cantor at Temple Israel in early July. She will replace Cantor Jennifer Blum, who is returning to the Twin Cities where she will be cantor at "" » Mount Zion - " Congregation in St. Paul, MN. Cantor Shermet is a May, 2001, graduate of the School of Wendy Shermet Sacred Music at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in New York. She also holds a Master of Music degree from the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston and a Bachelor of Arts in Theater and Music from Lewis and Clark College in Portland, OR. Cantor Shermet worked as a soloist at Seattle and Los Angeles area synagogues for many years. She served as a teacher at two Seattle area synagogues where she taught Hebrew and music to children and conducted the children's choir. She also
served as a student cantor at HUC-JIR in Jerusalem and New York. From 1998 until aer investiture, she was the student cantor at Temple Sholom in Plainfield, NJ. In addition to her work in the field of Jewish music, Cantor Shermet has extensive performance experience in the secular world where she worked as a singer, actress, composer, arranger, pianist and music director. She has performed with the Los Angeles Opera Company, Opera Metropolitan de Caracas, Venezuela, Seattle Choral Company, Sante Fe Desert Chorale, the Washington Opera aftd Annapolis Opera, Maryland. She also performed at the Kennedy Center, Washington, B.C., at the Handel Festival. Cantor Shermet is the recipient of numerous honors and prizes, including the Rabbi Jack Stern and Rabbi Lawrence Hoffman Prize in Liturgy, the Cantor Andrew Edison Prize for Excellence in Reform Worship, and the Rocky Mountain Cantors' Association Prize for Excellence in Cantoriai Programs. Cantor Shermet is originally from Maryland and, although she and her family have lived all over the country, this will be their first experience in the Midwest. She and her husband, Leonard Burell, have a son, Samuel, age 7.
U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan paid Ms respects a t tiie memorial corner for the seven students from the school who were killed in the disco suicide bombing. Annan spent some time talking to the students as well as paying his, respects at the memorial comer set op to remember the slain students. Annan was in Israel for talks with Israeli and Palestinian leaders to encourage fall compliance with the cease fire a g r e e m e n t b r o k e r e d by CIA Director George Tenet, Despite Arafafs statement that he will adhere to the cease fire, there are still daily incidents of Palestinian attacks on Israeli targets. Photo by ISRANET,
Jerusalem International Book Fair Judged a Huge Success by RABBi BERNARD SOLOMON RASKAS Five hundred publishers signed up to attend the 20th Biennial Jerusalem Book Fair, and all 500 came. They were joined by 150 publishers in Israel. They came from all over the world—from Japan and China to South America and Canada, almost every country in Europe, and a huge number of prestigious firms from America and England, such as HarperCollins, Penguin, and the university presses from Princeton, Yale, Nebraska and California, to name a few. They brought 100,000 books and multimedia packages, maps and related products. I was fortunate to represent Lemer Books of Minneapolis and shared a booth with Jerusalem Publishing House. The owner and founder, Sholomo (Yosh) Gafni, has scored huge successes with A History of Israel and the Holy Land, several single volumes that serve as a great reference for Judaism, and Encyclopedia of Before and After the Holocaust. Gafni taught me the technique of manning the booth and introduced me to many of the publishers, would-be authors, illustrators and technicians. Not only was it an exciting week, but we also sold many books from Lemer, particularly children's books. Because Yosh and I covered for each other, I had the opportunity to roam the exhibits and talk to publishers from all over the world. Publishers, writers, literary agents and members of the press from every conceivable culture conducted business in a bustling atmosphere, benefiting from a cultural experience and a personal touch. Booths ranged from Chasidim to Christianity, scholarly volumes, comic books, cookbooks and biographies. The high-tech section showed how to produce an entire e-book. I was particularly taken by a London firm called Facsimile Editions Limited, which produces facsimiles of great classical Jewish manuscripts. It is almost impossible to tell them from the originals. They include Hebrew Psalms from Parma, Italy (1280), a haggadah from Barcelona, Spain (1340), and Meah Berachot (100 Hebrew blessings printed in its original size, 1 5/8" by 1 3/8") from Corona, Spain, the original of which is in the Bodleian
Around the 1400s, Maimonides' descendants moved to Aleppo, Syria, taking that Bible with them. In 1947, riots against Jews broke out in the Arab world, including Aleppo. Its synagogues and Torah scrolls were burned. It was assumed that the Codex was destroyed in the riots. However, the Jews had kept it in a box in a cave known as the Cave of Elijah. In 1958, a man brought it to Israel and presented it to the president, Ben-ZvL Twenty-five years ago, a Jerusalem publisher, Nahren Ben-Zvi, was asked to turn the Codex into a printed Hebrew Bible. Since many believe that every letter and word comes from God, he had to be extremely careful. Ben-Zvi used very sophisticated technical equipment, including computers, to create a new type face that captured the flavor of the old manuscript. Hebrew Book Week got off to a delayed start This year, he finally completed the massive project, this year. The annual book fair had its open- and the result is exquisite. ing delayed by several days due to the suicide A few months ago, the Speaker of the Knesset bombing in Tel Aviv which took 20 young announced that this edition of the Bible would be lives. This year, business was reported as used for swearing in Israel's future presidents. quite brisk. Israel still has one of the highest Copies of the new Bible," in various sizes, were first book readerships per capita of any country in made available at this Book Fair. the world despite cable and satellite televiThe report of the People of the Book International sion. Photo by ISRANET. Book Fair is that books are here to stay. Jerusalem Library at Oxford. still offers great culture and, despite all the trouAll of them are printed on vellum, bound in bling news, is safe. It, too, is here to stay. Rabbi Bernard S. Raskas is Rabbi Emeritus leather and lavishly illustrated in color. Contrary to myth, they demonstrate that Jewish art flour- of the Temple of Aaron, St. Paul, Minnesota, and Distinguished Visiting Professor of ished throughout the Middle Ages. The outstanding publication by all counts is Keter Religious Studies at Macalester College. He is Yerushalaim, by Crown of Jerusalem. It is based on author of the trilogy. Heart of Wisdom and th" the Aleppo Codex, which was commissioned in 910 recently published Seasons of the Mind. in Tiberias. It took two scribes (one was Aharon Ben-Asher) 10 years to complete. When it was fin!NS§DE: ished it was sent to Jerusalem with clear instructions on several of its front pages: "Holy to the Where Are They Now..™ Page 6 Lord. Do not sell, do not redeem." Later, the Crusaders took the Codex and sold it to
the Jewish community of Cairo. It is known that the great Jewish scholar Maimonides used it and pronounced it to be the most authoritative version of the Hebrew Bible.
Temple Israel Gives Social Justice Award&......~~.....~.~JPage 11 Milestone Birthdays..
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