Vol. LXXXI
No. 32
Omaha, NE
7lyar,5762
April 19,2002
SERVING NEBRASKA AND WESTERN IOWA FOR 81 YEARS
Tribute to Rabbi Drazen and Family Planned for May by OZZIE NOGG by PAM MONSKY, Federation Communications Director.
As the crisis in Israel grows deeper by the minute, the desire to do something grows in the hearts of Jewish Omaha. The Jewish Federation of Omaha has established the Israel Terror • Relief Fund, as part of the We Stand With Israel campaign led by Shirley Shirley Goldstein Goldstein and Tom Fellman, to relieve the suffering of Israelis at the hands of terrorists. In addition to the Israel Terror Relief Fund, a Solidarity Walk and Rally is being organized for Sunday, April 28, 3 p.m., at the Jewish Community Center. Everyone is encouraged to attend and to bring their entire family. After the brief rally, featuring local elected officials, clergy and Israel advocates, the Solidarity Walk will proceed to the West Dodge frontage road, headed east to 120th St. We Stand With Israel signs and Israeli flags will be distributed. Solidarity Walk participants will also have the opportunity to contribute to the Israel Terror Relief Fund. Goldstein is Omaha's most vocal champion of
human rights. Her work to help free the Soviet Jews is well known throughout the world. She feels that the crisis in Israel is just as great, if not greater, than the plight of Soviet Jewry. "Now more than ever Israel needs us. Israel is Tom Fellman facing some of its darkest days since it's fight for Independence 54 years ago. This isn't a crisis; it's an emergency," she implored. Fellman, a past president of the Jewish Federation of Omaha, led Operation Exodus in 1992, which rescued thousands of Soviet Jews and brought them to freedom in Israel, Omaha and many other places in the United States. He believes that the crisis in Israel is more urgent than anything else in the Jewish world. "Social services are strained to the limit. The government has transferred more than $2 billion from social welfare services to defense. The cost to Israel's economy, due to the relentless terror, is about $4 billion," he explained. "There are only two (Continued on page 2)
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An "Evening to Remember" tribute to Rabbi Paul Drazen and his family is being planned for Sunday, May 19,7:30 p.m., at Beth El Synagogue. "The Beth El family has been fortunate to have had only four spiritual leaders, since, pur congregation was founded some 80 years ago," said Margie Gutnik, one of the co-chairmen for the evening. "This summer, we come to the end of a chapter in the Beth El history book when, after nearly two decades, we say goodbye to Rabbi Paul Drazen, Susie, Gila and Yoni. "This 'Evening to Remember' will let us-as individuals and as a congregation—show the Drazens what a lasting impact their presence has had on our lives, on the lives of our congregation and on the larger Omaha Jewish community, as well," she added. "We invite everyone to help us celebrate their years at Beth El and wish them well as they begin a new chapter in their lives." Rabbi Drazen will step down as spiritual leader of Beth El at the end of June, to assume the position of Executive Director of the newly-formed MidContinent Region of the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism. Additional co-chairmen are Bruce Gutnik and Mike and Sheri Abramson.
A Woman's Journey in Her New Found Jewishness
by LEO ADAM BIGA, Special to the Jewish Press — Christina Micek's world was rocked in 1999. That's when this young Omaha educator, reared in a traditional Polish-German-American Catholic family, discovered a hidden Jewish legacy on her mother's side, a revelation that's meant far-reaching implications for her life and her work. Today, Micek, a third-grade teacher at Spring Lake Academy in Omaha, is pursuing a graduate certification in Holocaust studies from the Spertus Institute of Jewish Studies in Chicago, is the author of a school-age Holocaust curriculum being piloted at Westside High School, and is actively immersing herself and her three-year-old son, Evan, in aspects of Jewish culture and faith. While no one else in her family has embraced the discovery of their long-withheld Jewish heritage as enthusiastically as she has--in fact, she said, some would rather forget or deny the whole thing- Micek considers the experience a transforming one that has enriched her and her family. "I'm not the same person at all. The whole experience has changed my life completely," the 24-yearold single mother said in an interview from the Southwest Omaha home she shares with her son. "Here I had grown up in a Catholic family-a very strongly Catholic family-and to find out I'm Jewish came as a shock. I felt kind of like my identity shifted. I felt a great personal loss, because here was this whole dimension to my family I didn't know anything about. My family was kind of cheated out of their culture and their religion. "It's really made a difference in my family because I have made an effort to educate us in the Jewish tradition," she added. "Now we celebrate the Sabbath, Passover, Hanukkah and Yom Kippur, and we're kind of trying, I know it sounds crazy, to be Catholic and Jewish at the same time. I had read about people who felt their family history had been stolen from them and then to experience that myself, it just made me want to learn more
"At the time I thought, 'Oh, that's kind of interesting,' but I didn't think a whole lot more about it." She told her family about it but they politely dismissed the implied Jewish connection as mere coincidence. It just so happened that a few weeks later a relative embarking on a genealogical search overseas was informed by Micek's mother of their name's possible Jewish link and was asked to "check this out...never thinking it would amount to anything," Micek said. "But when my mother's cousin, Bill Daley, came 1 back he said, 'Guess what?' It turned out he found birth records of my great-great-greatgrandfather, Josef Feldman (spelled Feldmann History teacher Bill Hayes, right, field-tested then), at a synagogue. We were floored." Micek's Holocaust curriculum in his classroom at When Daley's 1999 search for birth records came up empty in Catholic churches in and Westside High School last Friday. around the Feldman ancestral home near and to involve my child more in knowing what his Frankfurt, a priest directed him to a local synafamily history is. I want to incorporate thole things gogue, noting it was not uncommon for certain genfor Evan now because I don't want that sense of erations of Europeans who, for all intents and purloss to continue. I want him to know and be proud poses, appeared Christian to, in reality, be Jews. of his Jewish heritage." In some cases, the priest explained, Jews conIntriguingly, before Micek found out about her Jewish past and began writing lesson plans on the cealed their true identity and posed, for example, Shoah, she already "felt drawn to the Jewish faith" as Catholics as protection against anti-Semitic discrimination and persecution-ranging from bigotry and had "an interest in the Holocaust." She explained, "I think it started in high school to outright" pogroms. For reasons that may never be when we studied European history and saw clear, ihe last known Feldman patriarch, Josef, Schindler's List. Then, when I attended the College concealed his Jewish roots at some point and of St. Mary (after beginning her college studies at assumed the life of a Catholic. (Continued on page 8) the University of Nebraska-Lincoln) they started offering more courses in the Holocaust and I took . advantage of the opportunity and decided to make INSBDE: my minor in history." The then education major was first introduced to Korczak Exhibit. , page 6 the possibility her mother's maiden name— Feldman-might be of Jewish origin when one of Photos from Yom HaShoah page 9 her St. Mary instructors mentioned Feldman was among the most common German-Jewish names. Maccabi Delegation Surpasses ]0G.,..page 11