September 2019

The Voice of Greater Rhode Island’s Jewish Community

JEWISH

SEPTEMBER 2019 | ELUL 5779

JEWISHRHODY.ORG

R H ODE I S L AND

Looking forward to a sweet year

L’shanah tovah!

The Conversation begins: Guns in the Synagogue

Meet Temple Emanu-El’s Rabbi Michael Fel

Krakow’s summer fest an ode to all things Jewish

2 | SEPTEMBER 2019

Jewish Rhode Island | jewishrhody.org

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JEWISH RHODE ISL AND

EDITOR Fran Ostendorf DESIGN & LAYOUT Leah Camara ADVERTISING DEPARTMENT Peter Zeldin pzeldin@jewishallianceri.org 401-421-4111, ext. 160 Karen Borger ksborger@gmail.com 401-529-2538 CONTRIBUTORS Cynthia Benjamin, Larry Kessler, Michael Schemaille COLUMNISTS Michael Fink, Geraldine Foster, Patricia Raskin, Rabbi James Rosenberg, Daniel Stieglitz

VOLUME XXVI, ISSUE IX JEWISH RHODE ISLAND

(ISSN number 1539-2104, USPS #465710) is published monthly.

PERIODICALS Postage paid at Providence, R.I. POSTMASTER Send address changes to: Jewish Rhode Island, 401 Elmgrove Ave., Providence, RI 02906.

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The Jewish Alliance of Greater Rhode Island, President/CEO Adam Greenman, Chair James Pious, 401 Elmgrove Ave., Providence, RI 02906.

401-421-4111; Fax 401-331-7961 MEMBER of the Rhode Island Press As-

sociation and the American Jewish Press Association

COPY DEADLINES: All news releases,

photographs, etc., must be received on the Wednesday 10 days prior to publication. Submissions may be sent to: editor@ jewishallianceri.org.

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tisements for pork or shellfish. We do not attest to the kashrut of any product or the legitimacy of advertisers’ claims.

We’re starting ‘The Conversation’ THIS IS TRADITIONALLY our biggest issue, and our sales team and local advertisers have come through this year. The robust advertising in this issue reflects just how involved our community can be.

As we approach the new year, we look forward to continuing to grow and improve our print and web publications, and to better serving our community. A new feature in this issue represents a step in that direction.

For as long as I’ve been the editor of this publication, people have asked for more diversity of opinion.

Some say we’re too left; others say we’re too right.

I’ve also heard people say that we are not pro-Israel enough, don’t cover enough ON THE COVER: of the controversial issues All the symbols that affect our community, of the new year. and don’t cover enough PHOTO BY KARAIDEL / CANSTOCK.COM community events – or cover too many community events.

To a certain extent, this diversity of criticism signals that we are accomplishing our goal of covering as much of our community as we can from as many angles as we can.

But we can do more.

Today, we start a new forum in our opinion section.

Called “The Conversation,” it features two perspectives on a single topic that we feel has meaning to our community. This month’s topic: To Carry or Not: Guns in the Synagogue.

We’ve asked two community members to give written opinions on this topic. We didn’t tell them what to write, and we had no idea what the outcome would be.

We chose people from diverse parts of our community.

We only asked that their commentary be limited to a maximum of 750 words.

We’ve already learned that you don’t always know what people think. And you never know exactly what you are going to get. That is OK with us.

We hope “The Conversation” will get you thinking.

It is not intended to be a point/counterpoint feature, although it might turn out that way on some topics. We didn’t want to set up an artificial pro/con structure.

Our aim is to start a conversation and offer differing views on important and timely issues.

We hope you will think enough of this feature to offer your reactions on our website or Facebook page.

Next month, we will feature some of your comments on our opinion pages.

Every other month, we will offer a new topic with two perspectives, followed by reader reactions the next month.

We appreciate those who share their opinions in Jewish Rhode Island; in some cases, it takes courage to put your thoughts on paper for all to see. The point of “The Conversation” is to have a safe space to agree and disagree civilly.

If you would like to be considered for sharing your opinion, or if you have a topic that you think would interest the community, please do not hesitate to contact me at editor@jewishallianceri.org.

Let’s get the conversation going. Perhaps we will discover that we agree on more than we realize – or at least that we can express different viewpoints civilly.

And wouldn’t that be a wonderful way to start the new year! Shanah Tovah!

Fran Ostendorf, Editor

BUSINESS 37–38 | CALENDAR 15 | COMMUNITY 27 | D’VAR TORAH 5 FOOD 13–14 | HIGH HOLY DAYS 16–21 | OBITUARIES 39–42 | OPINION 6–8 | WE ARE READ 43

THE MISSION OF JEWISH RHODE ISLAND is to communicate Jewish news, ideas and ideals by connecting and giving voice to the diverse views of the Jewish community in Rhode Island and Southeastern Massachusetts, while adhering to Jewish values and the professional standards of journalism.

ALL SUBMITTED CONTENT becomes the property of Jewish Rhode Island. Announcements and opinions contained in these pages are published as a service to the community and do not necessarily represent the views of Jewish Rhode Island or its publisher, the Jewish Alliance of Greater Rhode Island. We reserve the right to refuse publication and edit submitted content.

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Jewish Rhode Island | jewishrhody.org

UP FRONT

PHOTO | GLENN OSMUNDSON

Rabbi Fel: Ready to connect, ignite, transform

BY FRAN OSTENDORF

F

or Michael Fel, Temple Emanu-El’s new senior rabbi, moving to Providence is a bit of a homecoming. Rabbi Fel grew up in Miami, but his wife, Shayna, is a graduate of the Alperin Schechter Day School (now the Jewish Community Day School of Rhode Island) and her

brother, Ami Hersh, was Rabbi Fel’s best friend in rabbinical school. That’s how the couple met.

“I’ve been coming here [Providence] for over a decade,” Rabbi Fel said in a recent interview. “I always thought that this was the kind of place that I’d someday like to lead a congregation.”

Fel received a bachelor’s degree from the University of Miami. He was ordained at the Jewish Theological Seminary, where he was a Schusterman Rabbinic Fellow and earned a master’s degree in Midrash and Scrip-

tural Interpretation.

He spent the last eight years at Temple Emunah, a conservative congregation in Lexington, Massachusetts.

He started at Temple Emanu-El in July, following the retirement of Rabbi Wayne Franklin.

“Shabbat feels different for us here,” he said. “It’s a walking community. We wanted to be somewhere where being Jewish and living a Jewish life felt

normative.” In Providence, his three young children are near relatives and can have play dates on Shabbat.

In his spare time, Fel enjoys cooking, woodworking, creating and playing percussion instruments, and the outdoors.

I sat down with Rabbi Fel to talk about his thoughts and plans. Here is some of what we discussed.

Is this a kind of dream job?

Sometimes, every now and then, what’s good for the Jewish people and what’s good for you personally, they overlap. And this feels like one of those situations.

I’ve known that I wanted to be a rabbi since I was in 10th grade. I’ve always wanted to be in a place where family is important. A sense of community. A sense of people really taking their Judaism seriously. That can present itself in a variety of ways, and that’s what you find in this community of Providence.

How do you follow Rabbi Franklin?

You tread very carefully. And when you are following someone like Rabbi Franklin, you do it with modesty.

You have to figure out the culture of the institution. You have to figure out the things that sustain an institution and what are the things that are the benchmarks of this place.

As you bring your own flavor and approach, how does that jive or connect with what’s taking place here?

Institutions can’t change dramatically overnight, but they evolve. The way you ran a great institution 40 years ago, and even 20 years ago, has changed and is different from the way CONTINUED ON NEXT PAGE

jewishrhody.org | Jewish Rhode Island

SEPTEMBER 2019 | 5

The legacies we leave behind – writing an ethical will

IN THE NEWS

D’ VA

KNOWING THAT HE will die before he lessons like this through the writing of is able to lead the Israelites into the an ethical will.

Promised Land, Moses wants to remind We modern, liberal Jews focus on legal the people of all the lessons they have wills as a way to distribute property, learned in the desert and the values they possessions and money. But just stop will need to live by as they settle in the and think of how much more you have land of Canaan. to offer your loved ones. We have each The Israelites are his beloved flock; learned lessons and values, in both joyMoses has shepherded them through ful and painful ways. We want to enrich huge challenges and difficulties. He has and enlighten those we love as much as nurtured, scolded and loved them. He we possibly can. So Judaism teaches us wants to make sure to compose an ethical will – a collection they remember of our life lessons to share with our these lessons, descendants. and so his The added value for us is that when teachings are we compose an ethical will, we remind recorded in ourselves to pay attention to the values the final book that we strive to live by – but sometimes of the Torah. easily forget. We remember that we don’t At its always live up to our highest aspirations, essence, the and then we try again to do better (an whole Book of especially good reminder at this RABBI Deuteronomy, time of year).

ANDREW KLEIN including this week’s The very idea of composing an ethTorah portion, Shoftim, is ical will might seem daunting, but one long love letter from Moses to the it’s actually quite straightforward. The Israelite people before he says goodbye; it following steps will help you get started. is his ethical will.

Set aside some private time. Get quiet, As we read Moses’ farewells, we are focus and set your intention for the imreminded that each of us is mortal, and, portance and the value of this loving gift at some point, we will die and leave you want to create. Formulate language our loved ones behind – our children, for the lessons and values you hope will grandchildren, spouses, other relatives, sustain and strengthen your loved ones friends. in their lives. You might facilitate this With a lot of hard work and spiritual process by meditating or looking at famguidance, we find ways to deal with this ily photos of people whose stories have harsh reality of life. We discover a way inspired you. to say goodbye, let go of our most preKnow that composing an ethical will cious relationships, and bless our loved is a process; it won’t happen instantly. Be ones who go on living without us. patient with yourself as you formulate Like Moses, we want to leave behind your ideas. all that we can to help our loved ones Begin composing your thoughts by through the journey of their lives. writing them, audio-recording them, or Traditionally, Jews have transmitted videotaping them – whichever method

R

TO R A H

CONTINUED FROM PRECEDING PAGE synagogues have to run now.

What are the great things that I have to continue and build upon? What are people looking for? How do you create a Jewish life that is vibrant in 2019? As engagement declines if you are operating under that same model as 30 years ago, it’s not going to endure.

I’m interested in how to provide a sense of continuity with the past for the people who built these institutions and financed them. But also in how you are forward-thinking.

How do you keep traditions going and attract a younger demographic?

If we look at what’s happening with the independent minyan movement, there is a thirst for something that is authentic, meaningful and transformational. Our movement [Conservative Judaism] can provide that.

Torah has been giving meaning and transforming people’s lives for over 2,000 years. When people experience Shabbat as a time without a cellphone – as a time without technology – and connect with people, people crave that. People want the experience of being seen, being heard because of who they are as a person.

What is your vision going forward for this community?

It’s a three-pronged approach: connect, ignite, transform. That’s what we are in the business of.

We have to connect. We have to go to the people. We can’t wait for them to come to us.

We all have things that we are excited about. How do we ignite that spark in people via the synagogue? If what we are doing isn’t having an impact on the people of the world, we have to ask ourselves what we are doing.

It all starts with people. It all starts with relationships. People will sniff it out if it’s not authentic.

Tell me more about learning.

Over the first 100 days, we are targeting all the different demographics. We have been going to the different senior residences to meet and learn together.

When you learn with another person, it is a transformative experience for the teacher and the other person. Our tradition gives us a way to tackle life’s texts and gives us a rubric for meaningful conversations. Once you’ve learned together, you’ve broken the ice in a deeper way.

Being a rabbi to you is …

I think it’s a partnership. Being a partner and a teacher on life’s journey. There is a tremendous wealth of knowledge in our ritual life, in our spiritual life, and the more you access it, the more of a resource it can be.

I partner with people to learn. I enjoy doing it. It’s my hobby. Some people like hunting, some people enjoy sporting events. I like learning.

works best for you.

Here are some questions to help you get started: What are the important things that you have learned in your life? If you were to die suddenly, what would you want to make sure your loved ones know from your heart? What traits do you admire most in others? What important work have you begun that you hope your ancestors will carry on? How have you attempted to leave the world a bit better than you found it? What fills your heart with joy and meaning?

There is no need to finish your ethical will in one session. Even after you think it is complete, you may choose to revisit it and make changes from time to time.

And when you review it, remember to acknowledge the challenges and good works of your life and let them remind you of how you want to spend your days.

When your ethical will is complete, place it with your most precious and important papers, perhaps even attaching it to your legal will.

Remember – your life and your experiences have immense worth. Every individual offers great value to this world. You have a lot to say; share your thoughts.

And, just like every important act in your daily life, remember to sanctify the writing of your ethical will with words of blessing. Come up with a blessing that resonates with you. Perhaps something like, “Blessed is the One who has given me the ability to understand and express the ideals that are my very life and soul.”

“And these words … shall be in your heart, and you shall teach them to your children.” (Deuteronomy 6:6-7) ANDREW KLEIN is the rabbi at Temple Habonim, in Barrington.

How do you look at social justice in your rabbinate?

There is a reason we are religiously mandated to look out for the weakest in our community. In all kinds of social issues, I imagine what the prophets would have said. They never championed the most popular. That informs my approach to social action and social justice. I like to think of [Rabbi] Abraham Joshua Heschel when he walked with Dr. King [in the Selma civil rights march]. I like to think that regular prayer was an important part of his life.

Do you see yourself getting involved in social action?

Certainly. How do you make social action an important part of your life? Interfaith work is incredibly important. We can choose to focus on what we disagree with or what we agree with. The alternative is much too scary. The immigration piece has taught me that everyone has a back story.

What kind of advice have you received?

From my wife: Always lead with kindness. When I retire, I hope people will remember me for being kind, punctual and succinct. Embedded in these are core values for me.

FRAN OSTENDORF (fostendorf@ jewishallianceri.org) is the editor of Jewish Rhode Island.

New shlichah in town Or Cohen is the new community shlichah (Israeli emissary). The 27-year-old is from a small village near Netanya where she has three younger sisters and her father works on the family’s farm. Two years ago her mother passed away, after a three-month battle with cancer.

As a teen, she was a champion swimmer, specializing in the butterfly stroke. She joined the navy (rather than try out for the Olympics) and participated in combat operations as the executive officer of a missile ship. She was the first female commander of an Israeli patrol boat. Later, she was the commander of the academic phase of Israel’s naval academy.

Following her release from the IDF with the rank of lieutenant commander, she traveled all over the world: Kyrgyzstan, Vietnam, Philippines and the U.S. In Israel this past year, she has been volunteering in a children’s hospital, teaching swimming and coaching a teen water polo team.

‘Marvelous Mrs. Maisel’ season 3 gets trailer JTA – The third season of “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel” finally has an official trailer, and fans are kvelling.

In the trailer released Aug. 19, the show’s lead characters – a 1950s Jewish housewife-turned-comedian and her pugnacious manager – hit the road to tour with a famous singer.

“This is Us” star Sterling K. Brown, an Emmy Award winner, joins the cast this season. He’ll team with Rachel Brosnahan, who has picked up an Emmy and Golden Globe in her role as the title character, and Tony Shalhoub, a Golden Globe and Tony Award winner.

The series is nominated for 20 Emmys this year.

6 | SEPTEMBER 2019

Jewish Rhode Island | jewishrhody.org

LETTER

COMMUNITY VOICES | OPINION

Remembering Sid Goldstein

Bringing new life into old words

Past P resident and Honorary Trustee of the Brown-RISD Hillel Board of Trustees Executive Director of the Nelson Center for Entrepreneurship

Lifelong Learning Collaborative In the August issue of Jewish Rhode Island, editor Fran Ostendorf has an editorial titled “Learning opportunities are all around us,” and starts the editorial as follows: “You are never old enough, or wise enough, to stop learning.”

She then goes on to mention opportunities in our Jewish community to learn. However, she never mentions one of the largest lifelong learning programs in Rhode Island, the Lifelong Learning Collaborative.

This is an organization of over 450 members, which presents 2025 courses each Fall and Spring semester and another 5-10 courses each Winter and Summer session.

Most of these courses take place at Temple Beth-El with others at the RI Philharmonic Music School in East Providence.

Membership is $25 per year, and most of the courses meet for 2 hours each week for 10 weeks and charge $50 tuition. Shorter courses are pro-rated. As a former president of this organization, I highly recommend it.

For anybody interested, you can go to our website at lifelonglearningcollaborative.org where you can see the courses offered for this upcoming semester and learn more about the organization.

Edwin S. Mehlman Warren, R.I.

IT S E

WHEN I WAS A SOPHOMORE at Columbia College in 1963-1964, I had the privilege of studying creative writing with Kenneth Koch, a celebrated poet of what is known as the New York School.

Since creative writing is inspired by “creative reading,” Koch made it his mission to bring to our attention up-and-coming authors who were not yet widely read. I am especially grateful that he introduced us to the Argentinean Jorge Luis Borges (1889-1986), whose short-story collection “Ficciones” (Grove Press, 1962) had recently become available in an English translation from the Spanish.

Borges’ stories, though quite brief, are challenging in their mind-bending complexity and surrealistic wit. One particular story in “Ficciones” has continued to intrigue me, puzzle me and – until recently – elude my grasp, “Pierre Menard, Author of Don Quixote.”

The premise of this story is humorously bizarre: Pierre Menard, a French author living during the first half of the 20th century, has taken it upon himself to write “the ninth and thirty-eighth chapters of Part One of ‘Don Quixote’ and a fragment of the twenty-second chapter.”

What makes this so patently absurd is that Menard’s text is identical in every respect to those sections of Part I that Miguel de Cervantes wrote in 1605, despite the fact that Menard “did not want to compose another ‘Don Quixote’ – which would be easy – but ‘the Don Quixote.’ It is unnecessary to add that his aim was never to produce a mechanical transcription of the original; he did not propose to copy it. His admirable ambition was to produce pages which would coincide – word for word and line for line – with those of Miguel de Cervantes.”

Absurdity piles upon absurdity: as the narrator matter-of-factly points out, “The text of Cervantes and that of Menard are verbally identical, but the second is almost infinitely richer.” But this appears to be logically impossible: if two texts are “verbally identical,” how could one be “almost infinitely richer” than the other?

Though I have returned to Borges’ enigmatic story from time to time over the years, I was not able to make

EM

much sense of it until recently, when in our own circumstances here and I reread the brilliant “Jews and now.

Words” (Yale University Press, 2012) During my final three years of by the father and daughter team rabbinical school prior to my ordinaof Amos Oz (1939-2018) and Fania tion in June 1971, I served as student Oz-Sulzberger. On the next to last rabbi to the Manhattan-based Tempage, I found what I had been looking ple Beth Or of the Deaf. How well I for – an interpretation of “Pierre remember, though a half-century has Menard” that makes sense: passed, the profound relationship “Menard does not translate, or one of the synagogue leaders had copy, or quote, or paraphrase, or nourished with Psalm 23. Her name review, or comment upon, was Kitty, and she was one of the two Cervantes’ book. He auBeth Or members who spent hour afthors it. It is now a new ter hour patiently teaching me Amerbook. It is Menard’s ican sign language. I remember her book.” satisfaction when I could finally sign The authors contin“The Lord is my Shepherd” from ue: “Every time we, or beginning to end. you, or the rabbi, or the When I visited Kitty on her rabbi’s daughter, read deathbed after she had suffered a a text, we author it severe stroke, she was lying on her RABBI JAMES in our own image …. back seemingly oblivious to the ROSENBERG Even if we repeat an- world around her; nevertheless, she cient words verbatim, retained enough residual muscle they are no longer the ancient words, strength to keep signing Psalm 23 they are new now, and they are ours, over and over again. She was taking in our image, in our contexts, until that psalm with her, or perhaps that the next author comes along, the psalm was escorting her into the next Pierre Menard.” olam habah, the world to come.

What father and daughter are Let me now turn to the words of saying is that, in a very real sense, the first half of verse 49 from Psalm we readers transform the books we 89: “Mi gever yichyeh v’lo yireh read into books that we author; we mavet?” – “What person shall live put new life, our life, and not see death?” into old words.

I was still a teenWe readers ager Let us consider as when I first saw an example Psalm those Hebrew and transform the English words on the 23 – whether we know it in the King James white front cover of a books we read paperback collection version, “The Lord is my shepherd; I shall of essays on death and into books that dying. Now that I have not want,” some other English translation, or passed my 75th birththe Hebrew original, we author; day, I am living those “Adonai ro’i lo echsar.” words far differently While there are those we put new life, than I did when I was who believe that the 17 or 18. With every author of this psalm is our life, into passing decade, I have none other than King been rewriting those David, others hold that words, even as they old words. the man or woman who remain the same, recomposed these six working their relationverses will forever remain anonyship to my blood and bone and brain. mous.

To paraphrase words written on We can speculate about what cirthe first page of “Jews and Words,” cumstances might have inspired the the half verse from Psalm 89 is a vipsalmist to write these well-known tal fragment of the text-line – not the words, but we can never know what bloodline – that has given us Jews our he or she happened to be thinking immortality. and feeling 2,500 to 3,000 years ago.

It can be argued, then, that all of us JAMES B. ROSENBERG is rabbi who read Psalm 23 – to ourselves or emeritus of Temple Habonim, out loud, in solitude or in public – are in Barrington. Contact him at authoring these ancient words as if rabbiemeritus@templehabonim.org. for the first time, in our own image,

S TO M

E

When I joined the Brown-RISD Hillel board, Professor Goldstein was already an honorary trustee.

What I remember most about Sid from my years as board president is that he never missed a meeting.

That was true even as he became less able to get around himself and his beloved wife, Alice, wheeled him to meetings in a wheelchair. They made excellent use of our elevator when the new building opened.

At meetings Sid was soft spoken, and when he spoke he commanded the respect of everyone in attendance. His reputation preceded him.

When I was appointed an honorary trustee, I considered Sid as a role model for his ongoing commitment to staying involved and contributing.

Danny Warshay Providence, R.I.

Jewish Rhode Island publishes thoughtful and informative contributors’ columns (op-eds of 500 – 800 words) and letters to the editor (300 words, maximum) on issues of interest to our Jewish community. At our discretion, we may edit pieces for publication or refuse publication. Letters and columns, whether from our regular contributors or from guest columnists, represent the views of the authors; they do not represent the views of Jewish Rhode Island or the Jewish Alliance of Greater Rhode Island.

Send letters and op-eds to: Jewish Rhode Island, 401 Elmgrove Ave., Providence, RI 02906 or editor@jewishallianceri.org. Include name, city of residence and a contact phone number or email (not for publication).

SEPTEMBER 2019 | 7

jewishrhody.org | Jewish Rhode Island

COMMUNITY VOICES | THE CONVERSATION

Thoughtful opinions and civil discourse have a home here

BY ADAM GREENMAN NEWSPAPERS HAVE ALWAYS BEEN a place where community gathers – a town square of sorts. They are a place where people learn what is happening, hear the opinions of their neighbors, celebrate joys and recount tragedies.

For decades, Rhode Island’s Jewish community has had a proud tradition of the newspaper as a community resource, whether it was the Jewish Herald or the Jewish Voice or, now, Jewish Rhode Island.

As you know, the rise of the internet created strong competition for newspapers as news became more easily accessible and available in real time. Subscriptions have declined, advertising revenue has declined, and newspapers across the country have shuttered. Our Rhode Island Jewish

newspaper has not been immune from these national trends.

But the mission of today’s newspaper is more important than ever.

Newspapers provide not only a community record, but they present opportunities for reasoned dialogue.

The format lends itself to respectful, civil dialogue. When readers must sign their name to their opinion, they must use facts to build their arguments, and a space is created where people can actually hear each other: since we cannot read two things at the same time, people cannot talk past each other in a newspaper.

It is in this spirit that you will start to see some new features in Jewish Rhode Island. Beginning with this issue, we are introducing “The Conversation.” Six issues per year, we will give a forum to people in our commu-

nity to present their opinion on a topic that is meaningful to Rhode Island’s Jewish community. This month, we begin with the issue of security in our community, exploring whether carrying weapons in synagogue makes people safer.

The conversation will then move online, to jewishrhody.org and our Facebook page. There, you can submit your own viewpoint on the topic – as long as it is presented respectfully. We will then take the most thoughtful responses and print them in the next issue of Jewish Rhode Island. Eventually, we hope to continue the conversation with panel discussions and town halls.

Our goal is to re-establish a place in our society for civilized discussion and debate. To create a space where we can disagree without being disagreeable.

Communities cannot come together if we cannot air our differences and discuss them. If we cannot agree to disagree on some issues, it makes it harder to come together when we do agree.

“The Conversation” is an experiment – but we are confident that our community can have civilized discussion, and move together toward greater unity.

We are returning the newspaper to its rightful place as a source for news and thoughtful commentary that helps make our Jewish community stronger and more vibrant. We hope that you will read and participate.

ADAM GREENMAN, president and CEO of the Jewish Alliance of Greater Rhode Island, is publisher of Jewish Rhode Island.

To carry or not: Guns in the synagogue The Jews’ only defense

BY JEFFREY GLADSTONE IN LIGHT OF the increase in anti-Semitic incidents throughout the country and the reality of recent mass shootings, it is very timely to consider the propriety of “guns in the synagogue.” Unlike in Europe, where the presence of armed synagogue security has been in place for decades, such a concept is strange to American Jews.

I generally am not shy about expressing opinions. Nevertheless, in light of the contentious nature of this debate, and the strongly felt views on both sides, I fear that expressing my opinion on this issue now is likely to be more divisive than helpful. Let me explain.

I respectfully suggest that engaging in this type of debate feeds into the objectives of those who seek to do us harm. It factionalizes our community and weakens what should be our focus on combating anti-Semitism.

Nor will it resolve the differences of opinion in the gun debate.

Needless to say, we must act responsibly to protect our community from all manner of threats. This is true in all places of public gathering in a civil society. This physical threat, however, is already being addressed responsibly, with appropriate security measures developed for each

particular location by the stakeholders. We in Rhode Island are fortunate to have both the Jewish Alliance and the Touro Fraternal Association underwriting a major portion of the cost of security at every shul in the state.

The threat of gun violence is real, but a lone gunman does not present an existential threat to the Jewish people. What does present an existential threat is our failure to focus on what we must do to preserve and strengthen our Jewish community.

The Jewish people have survived and prospered for well over 3,000 years. We were subjugated by the greatest powers throughout history.

The Babylonians, Assyrians, Seleucids, Romans, Byzantines, Nazis, Soviets and others have sought our communal and physical destruction.

Yet, we survived.

We have been expelled from more countries, and have been subject to more repressive laws, than any other people. Our enemies sought to defeat us through assimilation and by force.

Yet somehow, despite the odds, we survived – refusing to give up our faith and holding on to that which makes us different.

Yes, we are different. We eat different foods, we observe Shabbat on Friday/Saturday, we study our holy texts and we aspire to live a life of good deeds in keeping with our traditions.

Throughout history, those committed Jews who did not succumb to forced assimilation moved on to carDEFENSE, CONTINUED ON NEXT PAGE

Let’s not create more risks

BY DAVID H. LEACH SO, YOU ARE worried that the synagogue might be a target, and you think that if there were guns being carried in the synagogue, you would be safe – or at least safer.

Think again.

You have a greater chance of dying in a car crash than you do in an airplane crash, but you dread flying.

Well, that is similar to facing a mass shooter in your synagogue. There are roughly 40,000 gun deaths a year in this country. About 24,000 are suicides. The remaining roughly 16,000 are classified as homicides, with a small number considered accidents or deaths at the hands of law enforcement.

Maybe about 350 or so of these are considered “mass” shootings, depending on the definition – typically, three or four or more deaths, not counting the shooter. Even one is too many, but a small percentage of these are school, church, synagogue and public-place shootings.

There is no question that Jews and Jewish houses of worship have increasingly been targets of anti-Semitism, graffiti, vandalism and even armed attacks. In response, there has been an increased use of various security measures, such as cameras inside and outside, alarms,

door buzzers and private security or law-enforcement details, especially at times when many people are expected to be in these buildings.

There is also increased contact with law enforcement, whose job it is to track terrorism and threats in the area.

These measures and others are all preferable to having civilians with guns in the building.

To buy a handgun in Rhode Island, one must be at least 21 years of age, make necessary application, go through a background check, and take and pass a handgun instruction and safety course. There are several ways to take the course, and it can be completed in a couple of hours on a Saturday afternoon. There is also a seven-day mandatory waiting period, and the seller must provide a trigger lock with the purchase.

Provisions for buying a rifle or “long gun” are less strenuous, and you must be at least 18.

Open carry is not permitted. In order to carry a handgun on your person, one must have a concealed-carry permit issued by either a local police chief or the attorney general’s office. No special training is required. Roughly one-half of 1% of Rhode Islanders have concealed-carry permits, or about 5,000 people.

Police officers in Rhode Island go through weeks of training to learn how to safely handle a firearm, how to use it, when or when not to use it, RISKS, CONTINUED ON NEXT PAGE

TO SUBMIT your comments, go to jewishrhody.org and comment on the article (you have to register first with a valid email address) or go to the Jewish Rhode Island Facebook page and comment on the post. You can also send comments to editor@jewishallianceri.org or send us a letter to the editor.

8 | SEPTEMBER 2019

Jewish Rhode Island | jewishrhody.org

THE CONVERSATION DEFENSE

RISKS

ry on our traditions in new locations in the Diaspora. Despite the difficulties, we always persevered and flourished.

So how did the Jews survive after such treatment over the millennia? Some will surely say that it was God’s will. Others focus on the strength and commitment of our ancestors, who stood firm against every adversity.

The stories of great Jews like Rabbi Akiva, who was martyred instead of forsaking God, or the Maccabees, who fought to protect the Temple, are seared into our collective memories.

There is no question that we are again under attack. But will arming ourselves solve the problem? I don’t know. I do know that we must adhere to the lessons of our history and not succumb to the influences that seek to turn Jew against Jew. Adherence to our communal practices, our commitment to God and Torah, our focus on both Jewish and secular education, and on family, and the fact that we are different in many positive ways will help us flourish through these challenging times.

As fall and the High Holy Days approach, it is the perfect time to reflect upon ourselves, upon our connection to the Jewish people, and upon the miracle of our continued survival. It is my belief that it is our responsibility to embrace our Judaism, and reject the destructive forces that seek to divide us as a people.

Instead, we should focus on what each of us can do to strengthen our Jewish community. There are many opportunities. We can increase participation in our shuls, give tzedakah, study a Jewish text, support Jewish education, teach our children the beauty of celebrating Shabbat.

As we are sitting in shul this holiday season contemplating our relationship with God, we can rest easy knowing that our security needs are being provided for by the generosity of Jewish benefactors.

Instead of detailing my thoughts on one of the most sensitive issues in our contemporary political discourse, I share my prayer that we come together as a people in peace and fellowship, that we each recommit to taking actions that bring us together as a community, that we turn our focus to educating our next generation, and that we go from strength to strength.

and how to de-escalate situations involving a weapon. They are also trained in how to deal with an active-shooter situation. They must requalify every year. And still they make mistakes.

Providence police carry semiautomatic pistols in a holster specially designed to prevent the gun from being removed by someone other than the officer. That does happen, but it is rare.

Civilians with concealed-carry permits do not have any specific training in how to deal with an active shooter. They can carry any type of handgun, whether appropriate for the task or not. They may have any kind of holster, or just stick the gun in their waistband, as long as it is not observable and is covered by a jacket, shirt or clerical robe.

The risks of armed civilians far outweigh any hypothetical benefit. The chance of a mass shooting is small, and it is unlikely that an armed congregant would be in the right place at the right time to do much, even if he or she had the requisite training.

And who should be authorized to carry in the synagogue? Members, anyone off the street, the custodial staff, the administrative staff, clergy? Would the synagogue be obligated to set standards for training? If someone not selected by the synagogue has a concealed-carry permit, can they come to synagogue armed? What insurance would be required to cover the synagogue if someone discharged a weapon intentionally or unintentionally?

In a synagogue, a person with a concealed-carry permit is more likely to leave their gun in the restroom, have it fall out of its holster, shoot themselves in the groin while adjusting their pants, or have it taken away by someone who shouldn’t have it than to ever use it against a mass shooter.

A civilian with a gun is also more likely to perceive a threat from an unruly teenager or an unknown visitor, and draw his or her gun, than to be confronted by an active shooter.

Anyone holding a gun when law-enforcement arrives also runs the risk of being shot and killed. Law enforcement must treat anyone with a gun as a threat.

National Rifle Association boss Wayne LaPierre has said, “The way to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.” I say, “A good guy with a gun is one trigger pull away from being a bad guy with a gun.”

JEFFREY GLADSTONE is a partner at Partridge Snow & Hahn, in Providence, and has been an active advocate for Jewish causes locally and nationally.

DAVID H. LEACH lives in Providence and advocates for social and community justice causes in Rhode Island and elsewhere.

CONTINUED FROM PREVIOUS PAGE

CONTINUED FROM PREVIOUS PAGE

Continuing The Conversation

Visit us online at jewishrhody.org

Many of us have been thinking about how we should protect ourselves and our synagogues amid signs of increasing risk of deadly violence.

Many resources are available that touch all sides of this issue. The JTA news service has several articles that we found interesting; we’ve put them on our website (jewishrhody.org) for you to read.

“After Pittsburgh” talks

about gun policies and the thinking behind those policies at congregations across the country.

“I Don’t Want To See Another Cop Car In My Synagogue” is one woman’s discussion about why she doesn’t want police to provide synagogue security.

Many were outraged when a Boston rabbi suggested his congregants consider bring-

ing guns to services. At the same time, many agreed. But overall, most security experts are not recommending this.

Clearly, the question is complicated. And opinions are divided.

One thing we can agree on is that every congregation should take steps to heighten security. These articles and more should help facilitate a broader dialogue.

SEPTEMBER 2019 | 9

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COMMUNITY VOICES

Thank you, dear spouse, for all that you do SPE A

K IN

quired many changes in our everyday routines. Since I’m retired, I was able to focus my time on helping my wife navigate her new daily challenges, including acting as her designated driver. Although she was pleased that I was available to chauffeur her to appointments and on errands, that proved to be one of many frustrating aspects of her recovery, because our driving styles couldn’t be more different.

Those differences can be summed up by pointLARRY ing out that she likes to KESSLER (sort of) joke that I won’t take a turn unless the nearest approaching car is in the next state, and I tend to park in the space that’s the easiest to get in and out of – regardless of how many miles away from the store that happens to be.

Driving was one of the many adventures that I had to face in my role as my wife’s helper. Other sore spots (her viewpoint) or challenges (mine) turned out to be: • Zippering 101: It turns out that it’s much harder to zip up a thick winter coat or sweatshirt for someone else than it is to zip up your own. Rare were the times when I got it done on my first try.

• Flip those pots and pans over: Thor-

G OU

T

AFTER 30-PLUS YEARS of marriage, it’s easy to take your spouse for granted – not in a negative way, but in a manner that suggests that you’re so comfortable with each other that you know what to expect in most scenarios.

But all that changed on Groundhog Day, shortly after Lynne left the house to do the weekly food shopping to avoid the next day’s Super Bowl rush. It was a typical Saturday until a freakish accident shook up our lives.

Long before she should have returned, the front door opened. It was my wife; before leaving for the store, she had gone into our hilly, icy, snow-covered backyard to feed the birds, and fell. Despite being in a lot of pain, she somehow had the strength and courage to pick herself up and walk up the hill to the front door.

Trips to an urgent care facility and then to the local hospital’s emergency room soon revealed what she had feared: she had a broken right wrist that would probably require surgery, a prognosis that was confirmed two days later at the orthopedist’s office.

The injury and surgery led to an extended recovery period that re-

oughly cleaning the pots, pans and cooking utensils was always among my Achilles heel of housecleaning chores, and it became one of the things that I regularly had to do over, because I never quite mastered the dual concepts of using soap with water and cleaning both sides of the pans and their covers. My wife was fond of telling me that it was her hand that was injured, not her eyesight.

• Folding for the perpetually lazy and inept: I’ve also never quite mastered the fine art of folding clothes and sheets – and let’s just say that my abject mediocrity in that area didn’t improve just because I was under more pressure to get it right.

• Food prep basics: My wife did the vast majority of cooking before her accident, and to her credit, continued to do most of it during her recovery, because she proved to be fairly adept with her non-dominant left hand. It took me so long to stir food in the frying pan and to cut up vegetables that she bought a clamp that locked the pan in place, which allowed her to do a good deal of the food preparation.

Along the way, I did have a few notable “victories,” including cleaning out the kitty litter boxes, picking up the dog’s daily deposits and opening up the plastic bags we use to dispose of them.

But the clear winner in this latest

chapter of our marriage was my wife, who proved to be a real trouper.

She faced her ordeal with determination, and readily found new strategies to let her accomplish the various activities of daily living.

For example, she figured out a way of inserting, removing and cleaning her contact lenses with one hand – after I failed to be much help with this task. She also showed better hand-writing skills with her left hand than I do with mine, which is saying a lot since I’m a southpaw.

She also became very adept at typing with one hand.

Beyond that, Lynne was also responsible for two significant “saves” involving appliances: She fixed our Keurig after watching a YouTube video, and she found the manual to our dishwasher, which enabled her to successfully troubleshoot the sudden appearance of a light on the front of the machine.

So, all in all, the experience turned out to be a mixed blessing for us. On the positive side, we saw a lot of movies and went out for more lunches and dinners than usual – but, above all, we vowed to never again take each other for granted.

LARRY KESSLER (lkessler1@comcast. net) is a freelance writer based in North Attleboro.

So many wonderful memories in my personal history …

BY GERALDINE S. FOSTER “Breaking up is hard to do” – Song by Neil Sedaka How true, how true these words are. I cannot remember the rest of the lyrics, or even much of the melody. Still, that line keeps running in a loop through my head.

It is hard to break up a home and end a relationship with a state and a community that began when I was in fourth grade at Arlington Grammar School. That is when my family moved from Rochester, New York, to Cranston, and then to Providence.

Warren and I moved seven times during our life together, from an apartment to larger homes as our family expanded, and then back to apartments as our children set out on their own.

With each move, whether upsizing or downsizing, we accumulated stuff.

We were very proud of ourselves when, with our first downsize, we repatriated term papers and letters and textbooks. “Look how much stuff we got rid of!”

That only left boxes of legal documents (some outdated), snapshots and albums, Warren’s trophies, souvenirs of places we had visited, my collectibles, old report cards, and Passover dishes and utensils. Those

neatly packed boxes followed us wherever we moved. And the number increased after the deaths of my inlaws and, later, my parents.

So many memories were bound up in this item or that. How could we not take them with us?

Storage was never a problem, as it happens, no matter where we moved.

We always had a place for the boxes.

We vowed we would look into them later and then triage the contents.

“Later” came sooner than expected, bringing with it a large dose of reality and difficult decisions to be made in a hurry – what to donate, what to keep. Be ruthless in culling these boxes, I told myself.

But each box was a treasure chest of memories made tangible. Each had a story to tell about a relative or a friend, special occasions or an event, where we traveled or when we found this souvenir to memorialize our happiness.

If no tears fell during this process, there was at a minimum a huge lump in the throat.

The first real item of furniture Warren and I bought was a marble-topped antique chest of drawers that graced the living room of each of our homes. In time, it became a repository for all sorts of things, ephemera, as it is known, photos and papers of all sorts. Be ruthless,

I told myself.

A riot of color greeted me as I opened the first drawer; candles of all sizes and shades, half-burned tapers that had graced a dinner table, little birthday candles, and a few left over from Hanukkah; kippot in a variety of fabrics and shades, from cranberry to light pink, as well as black, brown, beige, blue and, of course, white. Each demanded an examination, and so I paused to read the names printed on the inside, and to wonder. How many of those boys and girls standing on the bimah on their special day realized their hopes, their dreams? How many of the couples remain united?

Other drawers yielded letters from Yad Vashem confirming the fate of an aunt and two cousins in the Ukraine during World War II, Yiddish poems written by my father, Berel Segal, and set to music by Stanley Friedman, which I thought I had misplaced; tributes and eulogies and mementoes of my mother Chaya Segal’s career as a Hebrew teacher; and photo albums – pictorial evidence of life-cycle celebrations.

How bittersweet the feeling as I paged through the papers and photos, the happy occasions and the wonderful informal snapshots of family in animated conversation. Most of those relatives are no longer with us.

With this miscellaneous mix of photos and papers, I could not be ruthless. They would come with me in their own boxes for future generations to cull.

Leaving your community is also hard to do. The poet Sara Teasdale wrote: “Into my heart’s treasury / I slipped a coin / That time cannot take / Nor thief purloin ....” The coin is a “safe-kept memory / Of a lovely thing.”

I have been blessed with many wonderful years in Rhode Island.

Little Rhody is a beautiful and comfortable place to live. I shall miss the ambience. I shall miss this Jewish community that I love and have always considered myself at home.

Forgive me if I sound maudlin. In truth, my heart’s treasury is overflowing with “coins,” wonderful memories of people I have met and friends I have made, and special places and events in which I have been fortunate to participate.

My daughter Vivian and I have relocated to New Jersey. From our new home, I send you all the best wishes for a happy and healthy new year.

May it be a year that brings us peace.

Shalom.

GERALDINE S. FOSTER is a past president of the R.I. Jewish Historical Association.

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12 | SEPTEMBER 2019

Jewish Rhode Island | jewishrhody.org

COMMUNITY VOICES

As time goes by – a look in both directions report. We stayed at an inn and were the only guests. The lady in charge, Tina, served elegant breakfasts in a formal dining room under a crystal chandelier. Thick ceramic bowls, elegantly sliced bananas and plump purple

blueberries for our cereal, and deep mugs for the coffee, with cream in a pitcher.

She had a rescue dog, a mongrel with a playful Frisbee, but it had killed and eaten the parlor parrot.

Our hostess had just returned from a visit to Costa Rica, where she had seen a viper grab a frog and heard the victim scream as it was being consumed.

“Nature is not kind, although I try to believe that it is gentle, against all evidence to the contrary.” I said this to lady Tina, who rewarded me with a hug, a tear, and even a kiss, for my conversation about conservation.

Out beyond her property there loomed a vast mountain, a deep gorge and a rolling hillside lawn with clover – not signs declaring the presence of poisons to preserve the neatness of an illusion of “nature.” She had a collection of

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animal sculptures to decorate the grounds, a kitschy touch I found amusing and reassuring.

We drove past any number of antique shops. I chose to stop at a barn with a wide display of sundry objects.

This is a snapshot of the magNot to be ical frog in the pond behind an annoying our inn in Vermont. Taken by window shopper, Michael Fink (Mike’s wife).

I offered to purchase a few items. guest of honor. My dad fell in One was Irving love at first sight of her! The Howe’s study of Jewish concept of “fate,” or MIKE FINK the Russian Jew“destiny,” has a folkloric Haish immigrants sidic charm. who became Americans.

We were enchanted by Ver“But I’m reading it. Come mont: it had a touch of Safed, back in a few days when I’ve the city in Israel, with its finished it,” the clerk dequality of light and eerie mysclared. tical moods.

“How about that Seabees “Look! There’s a dusk hotcap?” I asked. air balloon – this must be Oz,” “Can’t sell it, it belonged my wife declared in wonderto my brother, who died last ment. year,” he answered.

I have a postscript and a “I guess he’s a hoarder, not footnote at the approach of an antiquarian,” declared my Labor Day: My beloved mothwife/travel companion. er was born on Aug. 2. She Decidedly, this Vermont is a gave birth on Aug. 2. She died strange and wondrous Shanon Aug. 2. I light two yahrtgri-La, I mused to myself. zeit candles for her, one on This senior citizen guy was the fifth of Av and the other wearing a woman’s hat decoaccording to the Roman calrated with lace, speaking with endar, to preserve the magic Yankee irony and wit, and of coincidence. mixing sarcasm with good-naAll my yahrtzeits, like tured hospitality. He asked fireflies, softly illuminate the my name. “Fink,” I said. charms of summertime. So “A good Irish name,” he I look backward sadly and responded. forward hopefully. As time I summed up and told my goes by. total tale as we packed up and loaded our car for the long MIKE FINK (mfink33@aol.com) drive home. teaches at the Rhode Island “My mother and father were School of Design. eloping from Montreal in 1926, mid-August. They stopped at bed and breakfast inns along the way. I have a couple of snapshots from a box of negatives I discovered in the attic after their passing. Any chance it could have been right here?” I mused to Tina.

“Very likely,” she encouraged.

It is a Jewish tradition to marry after the Tisha b’Av mourning for the victims of the Spanish Inquisition and the destruction of the temple.

My mom and dad This is a picture of Moe met in Montreal at Fink and Betty Co hen, Mike Fink’s paren the marriage of his ts, eloping from Montreal to Providenc widower father to a e, in August 1926.

It was taken at the very widow whose niece inn Mike found in Ve rmont. was a beautiful

BOOK

SKE

T

ALMOST LIKE the other new year on the secular calendar, we look backward as well as forward in the “What I did this summer” back-to-school essay assignment.

We drove to Vermont this summer, and I filed this

SEPTEMBER 2019 | 13

jewishrhody.org | Jewish Rhode Island

UP FRONT | FOOD & DINING

Instant Pot makes the easiest chicken for the holidays or any time Georgian Pomegranate Chicken Serves 6-8.

INGREDIENTS

12 whole chicken legs, or 6 bone-in thighs plus 6 legs (about 4 pounds) Oil, as needed 3 medium red onions, halved and sliced thin 4-5 cloves garlic, finely minced 2 teaspoons ground coriander

1 1/2 teaspoons aleppo pepper, or 1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes, or to taste 1 teaspoon sweet paprika 2 tablespoons tomato paste 1 cup pomegranate juice 2 tablespoons pomegranate molasses

2 tablespoons tamarind paste 1 tablespoon honey 3 sprigs fresh thyme 1 bay leaf Arils/seeds of 1 pomegranate 1/2 bunch fresh cilantro or parsley, for garnish Salt and pepper, as needed

on the Saute function again.

Allow to simmer and reduce until it has reached desired thickness. On the stovetop, turn the heat to medium-high and simmer.

ened, pour the sauce over the chicken. At this point you can keep warm in a low oven, or cool and freeze if making in advance.

DIRECTIONS Generously season chicken with salt and pepper.

PHOTO | SONYA SANFORD

Georgian Pomegranate Chicken

BY SONYA SANFORD (JTA via The Nosher) – I was initially an Instant Pot doubter. I love both my Dutch oven and my stock pot, and I love letting the kitchen slowly fill with warmth as things simmer and cook for hours while I putz around the house. Then I got married and an Instant Pot (real talk: Instapot) literally showed up on my doorstep. At the risk of sounding ungrateful, I put it in the closet and forgot about it for at least six months.

And then I heard about making rice in the Instant Pot. My first pot of sushi rice instantly made me a convert. My first vegetable stock changed my feelings about how stock can best be made. My first batch of chickpeas led me to making hummus on a more regular basis. Rice, stock and beans are all great in the Instant Pot, but I still carried some skepticism about cooking other things.

Chicken? What’s wrong with cooking it in the oven?

Turns out, chicken in the pressure cooker is delicious.

It ends up deeply infused with any added aromatic or spice, it becomes fall-off-the-bone tender and requires much less attention than cooking it on the stove.

As documented by the queen of Jewish cooking, Joan Nathan, and by Georgian food guru Carla Capalbo, the Georgian Jewish community traditionally makes chicken cooked in pomegranate juice for Rosh Hashanah. It’s a perfect recipe for the High Holy Days: sweet, tart, flavorful and eye-catching. The chicken is braised in a generously spiced, fruity pomegranate juice-based broth and then topped with fresh red jew-

el-like pomegranate kernels.

The pomegranate juice adds sweetness, but there’s also an assertive tang that comes through, especially with the addition of tamarind and pomegranate molasses. The copious amounts of onion and garlic add sweet savoriness to the dish. The coriander, hot pepper (not too hot) and thyme play off each other with their respective aromas, heat and mintiness. It is Rosh Hashanah, so a hint of honey makes its way into the pot to remind you of sweetness without being at the forefront.

After 15 minutes at high pressure, the chicken barely clings to its bones and the sauce becomes rich; fortified by the golden schmaltz left over from browning the chicken. Take out the chicken and let that liquid simmer (still in the Instant Pot), and the mahogany-colored sauce will thicken and become silky and as decadent as a festive meal demands.

Once the chicken and sauce are plated, you shower them with the bright green herbs and the glistening ruby red pomegranate seeds. Dark meat works best for this, but you can certainly make it with white meat as well. And like all great holiday dishes, you can make this several days in advance – it only gets better when reheated. It also freezes well, just leave the fresh garnish until right before serving.

Note: This recipe can easily be doubled. You can find tamarind paste and pomegranate molasses at Middle Eastern stores, Whole Foods or online.

SONYA SANFORD is a chef, food stylist, and writer based out of Los Angeles.

Turn Instant Pot or pressure cooker to the sauté setting.

If needed increase the heat to More or according to the manufacturer’s instructions.

Once the pot is hot, add a drizzle of oil. Brown chicken until golden, about 3-4 minutes on each side. Cook the chicken in batches so as not to crowd the pot. On the stovetop, brown the chicken in a large pot or Dutch oven on medium-high heat. Transfer it from the pot and reserve.

Next, add the onions to the same pot so that they can cook in the remaining fat. If your chicken did not release very much oil, add another tablespoon or 2 to the pot.

Season the onions with salt and sauté for 5-6 minutes or until softened and starting to brown. Add the garlic, coriander and paprika and sauté for an additional 1-2 minutes, or until fragrant. Add the tomato paste and stir everything until the onion mixture is well-coated. Nestle the reserved browned chicken back into the pot. Press Cancel to turn off the sauté function on the pot. Follow the same steps on a stovetop.

Add the pomegranate juice, pomegranate molasses, tamarind paste, honey, thyme and bay leaf to the pot. Place the lid on the Instant Pot, close the pot and seal it. Press the Poultry or Manual setting and set the time to 15 minutes. Let the steam naturally release for 10-15 minutes; shift the valve to venting if more air needs to be released. On the stovetop, cover the pot and simmer for 30 minutes on medium-low or until the chicken is tender and cooked through.

Press Cancel, open the lid and transfer the chicken to a platter and lightly cover with foil to keep warm. Remove the bay leaf and thyme stems. Turn

Once reduced and thick-

Before serving, garnish with the pomegranate and herbs.

14 | SEPTEMBER 2019

Jewish Rhode Island | jewishrhody.org

UP FRONT | FOOD & DINING Apple Cake (gluten free, dairy free) Serves 6-8.

INGREDIENTS 1/4 cup coconut sugar or brown sugar 1 cup extra-virgin olive oil 2 large eggs, room temperature 2/3 cup honey 1 teaspoon vanilla extract 2 1/2 cups gluten-free baking flour 1 teaspoon baking powder 1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon 1 teaspoon salt 1/8 teaspoon allspice 3 apples, peeled, cored and chopped into 1/4-inch pieces (I recommend a mixture of green and red apples) 2/3 cup walnuts, finely chopped (optional) Unsweetened plain almond milk (optional)

DIRECTIONS

The perfect dessert for Rosh Hashanah if you’re gluten-free

BY RACHEL PATTISON

THE GAMM THEATRE

(JTA via The Nosher) – In recent years, it seems that more and more of my family members and friends have developed food allergies and food intolerances. This can make it difficult to determine what to serve at holidays and family events. So a gluten-free, dairy-free apple cake for Rosh Hashanah is a delicious way to celebrate the holiday while also suiting everyone at my table.

Nut allergy? You can absolutely leave out the walnuts here.

My preferred gluten-free flour to use is Bob’s Red Mill Gluten-Free 1-to-1 Baking Flour, which can be used as a direct substitution for all-purpose flour and doesn’t require additional thickeners such as xanthan gum.

RACHEL PATTISON is a healthy food blogger living in Los Angeles. She loves taking traditional recipes (including Jewish family recipes!) and finding ways to make them healthier. You can find more of her recipes on her blog, www. littlechefbigappetite.com.

A DOLL’S HOUSE PART 2

BY LUCAS HNATH

“A triumph! Smart, funny and utterly engrossing.”

THE NEW YORK TIMES

DIRECTED BY FRED SULLIVAN, JR. | SEPTEMBER 12 - OCTOBER 6 GAMMTHEATRE.ORG

|

1245 JEFFERSON BOULEVARD, WARWICK, RI

Preheat oven to 325 degrees F. Grease and lightly flour a 9-inch bundt pan (nonstick, if you have one).

In a stand mixer, beat together the sugar and olive oil. Beat in the eggs, then the honey and vanilla. Turn off the stand mixer.

In a separate large bowl, stir together the gluten-free flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, salt and allspice.

Turn the stand mixer back on, and very slowly add the flour mixture to the wet ingredients. Use a spatula to scrape down the sides of the bowl, ensuring that all the ingredients become well incorporated.

Fold in the diced apples and

walnuts. If you find that the mixture is too thick, you can add some almond milk, 1 tablespoon at a time, not to surpass 1/4 cup.

Pour the batter into the prepared bundt pan and bake in the oven for 1 hour. Check the cake at the 50-minute mark.

It is done when a toothpick inserted comes out clean. Once done, allow the cake to cool in the bundt pan for 15 minutes.

Then place a cake plate on top of the bundt pan, and while holding the pan and the plate together, very carefully flip the bundt pan so the cake lands directly onto the cake plate.

Allow the cake to cool completely and then dust lightly with confectioners’ sugar.

Tourist pays $2,800 for shawarma platter in Jerusalem

BY MARCY OSTER JERUSALEM (JTA) – Was it the most amazing shawarma platter ever?

At $2,800, one would hope so.

That’s what one tourist was charged for the plate by a Jerusalem restaurant located near the Jaffa Gate.

In a post last week to the Secret Jerusalem Facebook page, Laura Ziff asked for assistance in locating information about the restaurant in order to secure a refund.

Her receipt from the eatery, which she identified as Old City Shawarma, showed that Ziff had been charged 10,100 shekels for the meal.

The owner told Israel’s Channel 13 that the transaction was a mistake.

A former employee, however, told the morning news program on Israel’s Channel 12 that the owners had used

the tactic several times before.

He said that sometimes the owner would quote the price in shekels but then charge the number quoted in dollars or euros. The employee added that some tourists gave up trying to recover the money that they were overcharged.

On Monday, Ziff posted in the comments section of her original post that she had been contacted by the restaurants owners, who apologized for the misunderstanding.

“I am confident that they are trying to do the right thing,” she wrote. “I am hopeful that within the next day or so everything will be resolved.”

One of the commenters on her Facebook page wrote: “100 people should go and have shawarma there and when he comes with the bill they can tell him that Laura Ziff already paid!”

SEPTEMBER 2019 | 15

jewishrhody.org | Jewish Rhode Island

UP FRONT | CALENDAR HIGHLIGHTS FOR COMPLETE MONTHLY LISTINGS, VISIT JEWISHRHODY.ORG

Ongoing

Alliance Kosher Senior Café.

Kosher lunch, program weekdays.

Dwares JCC, 401 Elmgrove Ave., Providence. Noon lunch; 1 p.m. program. Information or RSVP, 401421-4111, ext. 107.

West Bay Kosher Senior Café.

Kosher lunch, program Fridays.

Temple Sinai, 30 Hagen Ave., Cranston. 11:15 a.m. program; noon lunch.

Information or RSVP, 401-421-4111, ext. 107.

Duplicate Bridge. Dwares JCC, 401 Elmgrove Ave., Providence. Mondays noon-2 p.m.: 0-20 masterpoint game for less-experienced players. $5.

Tuesdays and Fridays 11 a.m.-2:30 p.m.: open stratified game, all levels. $7. Thursdays 1:30-3:30 p.m.: Guided play. $6. Information, abarton295@ aol.com or 401-390-9244.

Mah Jongg and Canasta. Wednesdays 6:30-8:30 p.m. Temple Torat Yisrael, 1251 Middle Road, East Greenwich. Mah Jongg every Wednesday. Canasta on 2nd and 4th Wednesday of the month. Lessons available. Free. Information, Torat Yisrael office at 401-885-6600.

Children’s Shabbat Programs and Kiddush. Shabbat mornings 10-11:30 a.m. Congregation Beth Sholom, 275 Camp St., Providence. Ages 2 to 12.

Free. Information, office@bethsholom-ri.org.

Friday | September 6

Nice and Easy Shabbat. 5:30-7:30 p.m. Temple Habonim, 165 New Meadow Road, Barrington. 5:30 p.m. tot service; 6 p.m. pizza dinner (sign up on Temple website); 6:30 p.m. service. Information, Jodi Sullivan at office@templehabonim.org or 401245-6536.

Holding on to Summer Shabbat.

5:45-7 p.m. Temple Beth-El, 70 Orchard Ave., Providence. Kabbalat Shabbat. Bring a picnic dinner, and Temple Beth-El provides dessert.

Free. Information, Jenn Thomas at jthomas@temple-beth-el.org or 401331-6070.

Friday Night Live. 5:45-9 p.m.

Temple Torat Yisrael, 1251 Middle Road, East Greenwich. Musical Shabbat service and dinner. 5:45 p.m., Cocktails and appetizers. 6:15 p.m. musical Shabbat service. 7 p.m., Shabbat dinner. Cost: Adults and children over 12 $20, 12 and younger free, family max. $60. RSVP, Torat Yisrael office at 401-885-6600.

Kabbalat Shabbat Service. 8 p.m.

Congregation Beth David, 102 Kingstown Road, Narragansett. Service followed by light Kiddush. Information, Jerry Kasten at 401-885-1296.

Saturday | September 7

Taste of Shabbat. 9-11 a.m. Temple Torat Yisrael, 1251 Middle Road, East Greenwich. 9 a.m. Torah discussion; 9:45 a.m. service and light Kiddush.

Information, stephanie@toratyisrael. org or 401-885-6600.

Shabbat Service. 9 a.m. Congregation Beth David, 102 Kingstown Road, Narragansett. Light Kiddush after service. Information, Jerry Kasten at 401-885-1296.

Sunday | September 8

Open House for Parents. 9 a.m.12:30 p.m. Temple Sinai, 30 Hagen Ave., Cranston. During first day of religious school, parents enjoy breakfast, get an overview of the curriculum and visit classrooms.

Information, Dottie@templesinairi. org or 401-942-8350.

Barbecue. Noon-2 p.m. Temple Torat Yisrael, 1251 Middle Road, East Greenwich. Meet members and enjoy games and food. Information or RSVP, Torat Yisrael office at 401-885-6600.

Exhibit Opening Reception. 1-3 p.m. Bunny Fain Gallery of Temple Habonim, 165 New Meadow Road, Barrington. Wine and cheese reception. Information, Jodi Sullivan at office@templehabonim.org or 401245-6536.

Monday | September 9

Morning Minyan. 8:30 a.m. Congregation Beth David, 102 Kingstown Road, Narragansett. Bagels and coffee following the service. Information, Jerry Kasten at 401-885-1296.

Friday | September 13

T.G.I.F. – Thank G-D It’s Friday.

5:45-7 p.m. Temple Torat Yisrael, 1251 Middle Road, East Greenwich.

Shabbat songs and story with Rabbi Aaron Philmus followed by a free kid-friendly Shabbat dinner. Information or RSVP, Torat Yisrael office at 401-885-6600.

Kabbalat Shabbat Service. 7:30-9 p.m. Temple Torat Yisrael, 1251 Middle Road, East Greenwich.

Service followed by Oneg. Information, stephanie@toratyisrael.org or 401-885-6600.

Kabbalat Shabbat Service. 8 p.m.

Congregation Beth David, 102 Kingstown Road, Narragansett. Service followed by light Kiddush. Information, Jerry Kasten at 401-885-1296.

Saturday | September 14

Taste of Shabbat. 9-11 a.m. Temple Torat Yisrael, 1251 Middle Road, East Greenwich. 9 a.m. Torah discussion; 9:45 a.m. service and light Kiddush.

Information, stephanie@toratyisrael. org or 401-885-6600.

Shabbat Service. 9 a.m. Congregation Beth David, 102 Kingstown Road, Narragansett. Light Kiddush after service. Information, Jerry Kasten at 401-885-1296.

Sunday | September 15

Super Sunday. 9 a.m.-1 p.m.

Dwares JCC, 401 Elmgrove Ave., Providence. 2020 Annual Campaign kickoff event. See article page 30.

Information, Seth Finkle at sfinkle@ jewishallianceri.org or 401-421-4111, ext. 146.

Sandra Bornstein Holocaust Education Center Book Club. 2-4 p.m., Dwares JCC, 401 Elmgrove Ave., Providence. Discussion of “The Weight of Ink” by Rachel Kadish.

Free. Information, May-Ronny Zeidman at May@BornsteinHolocaustCenter.org or 401-453-7860.

Shireinu Choral Performance.

2-3:30 p.m. Greenwich Farms, 75 Minnesota Ave., Warwick. Shireinu, the community chorus of Temple Sinai, performs for the residents of Greenwich Farms Assisted Living.

Information, Dottie@templesinairi. org or 401-942-8350.

Monday | September 16

Four Faiths Four Landmarks Walking Tour. 10 a.m.-12:30 p.m.

Touro Synagogue, 52 Spring St., Newport. Tour historic houses of worship (Touro Synagogue, United Baptist Church, Newport Congregational Church and Channing Memorial Church) that symbolize Newport’s commitment to freedom of religion and religious diversity.

Cost: $20 adults, $15 seniors, $10 students. Information, 4faiths.org.

Tuesday | September 17

Kollel and Project Shoresh Event with Lt. Col. Joseph Philbin. 7:30-9 p.m. Providence Hebrew Day School, 450 Elmgrove Ave., Providence.

Philbin, second-in-command of the RI State Police, attended the National Leadership Training program in Israel with the Israel Police force. He will share Israel’s experience with domestic terrorism. Information, Marc Adler at miadler@aol.com.

Wednesday | September 18

ECC Car Seat Check. 3-6 p.m.

Dwares JCC back parking lot, 401 Elmgrove Ave., Providence. Trained personnel will check the installation and safety of your child’s car seat.

Free. Information, Elissa Felder at efelder@jewishallianceri.org.

“Mischlinge Expose.” 7-9 p.m.

Dwares JCC, 401 Elmgrove Ave., Providence. Pianist Carolyn Enger’s “Mischlinge Exposé” brings to light the stories of Mischlinge interwoven with the music and writings of prominent German Jewish converts and Mischlinge. Presented by the Sandra Bornstein Holocaust Education Center. Free | donations welcome.

Information, Paula Olivieri at Paula@ BornsteinHolocaustCenter.org or 401-453-7860.

Thursday | September 19

Book Launch Event: “The Story of Dinah.” 7-9 p.m. Temple Beth-El, 70 Orchard Ave., Providence. Rabbi Gavi Ruit’s new book examines the intersection of rape culture and Jewish tradition, with its implications for modern Jewish teaching

and practice. Rabbi Ruit offers a lesson from the book followed by discussion. Free. Information, Jenn Thomas at jthomas@temple-beth-el. org or 401-331-6070.

Friday | September 20

Family Friday – Tacos and Torah.

5:30-7:30 p.m. Temple Emanu-El, 99 Taft Ave., Providence. Early Shabbat service and dinner for families with children ages 0-12. Information, shosh@teprov.org.

Open House Shabbat. 7:30-9 p.m.

Temple Sinai, 30 Hagen Ave., Cranston. Shabbat service open to anyone interested in becoming a member of the congregation. The temple chorus, Shireinu, will participate.

Information, Dottie@templesinairi. org or 401-942-8350.

Kabbalat Shabbat Service. 7:30-9 p.m. Temple Torat Yisrael, 1251 Middle Road, East Greenwich.

Service followed by Oneg. Information, stephanie@toratyisrael.org or 401-885-6600.

Kabbalat Shabbat Service. 8 p.m.

Congregation Beth David, 102 Kingstown Road, Narragansett. Service followed by light Kiddush. Information, Jerry Kasten at 401-885-1296.

Saturday | September 21

Taste of Shabbat. 9-11 a.m. Temple Torat Yisrael, 1251 Middle Road, East Greenwich. 9 a.m. Torah discussion; 9:45 a.m. service and light Kiddush.

Information, stephanie@toratyisrael. org or 401-885-6600.

Shabbat Service. 9 a.m. Congregation Beth David, 102 Kingstown Road, Narragansett. Light Kiddush after service. Information, Jerry Kasten at 401-885-1296.

Kids’ Night Out. Ages 5-11: 5-10 p.m.

Ages 2-4: 5-8 p.m. Dwares JCC, 401 Elmgrove Ave., Providence. Sports, crafts and movie. Pizza and snacks served. Older kids enjoy free swim.

Price: $40 | Dwares JCC Members: $30 | Siblings: $20. Information and registration, skochanek@jewishallianceri.org or 401-421-4111, ext. 147.

Selichot Service and Dessert.

8 p.m. Temple Torat Yisrael, 1251 Middle Road, East Greenwich.

Information, Torat Yisrael office at 401-885-6600.

Breakfast and Selichot Service.

9-11:30 p.m. Temple Sinai, 30 Hagen Ave., Cranston. Temple Brotherhood will host a breakfast followed by services with Shireinu, the temple’s chorus, at 10 p.m. Information, Dottie@templesinairi.org or 401942-8350.

Shabbat Service. 9 a.m. Congregation Beth David, 102 Kingstown Road, Narragansett. Light Kiddush after service. Information, Jerry Kasten at 401-885-1296.

Sunday | September 22

Visit to Manhattan’s Museum

of Jewish Heritage Auschwitz Exhibit. 7:45 a.m. Bus departure from Dwares JCC, 401 Elmgrove Ave., Providence. Guided tours of exhibit followed by time to explore the neighborhood. Cost: $62 per person. Includes bus transportation and tour. Hosted by the Sandra Bornstein Holocaust Education Center, Jewish Alliance of Greater Rhode Island, Temple Beth-El and North East Action Sports. Information, Paula Olivieri at 401-453-7860.

Men’s Club Breakfast. 9 a.m. Temple Torat Yisrael, 1251 Middle Road, East Greenwich. With guest speaker Lt. Col. Joe Philbin from the RI State Police. Information or RSVP, Torat Yisrael office at 401-885-6600.

Sprouts. 9:30-10:30 a.m. Temple Torat Yisrael, 1251 Middle Road, East Greenwich. Jewish learning for preschoolers including stories, songs, crafts and snack. Cost: $10 per session. Information or to register, Torat Yisrael office at 401-885-6600.

Apple Picking with Temple Emanu-El. 3:30-5:30 p.m. Dame Farm and Orchards, 91B Brown Ave., Johnston. Annual apple-picking excursion. Begin with a craft, spend some time picking apples in the orchard and perhaps enjoy a hayride.

Information, shosh@teprov.org.

Project Shoresh Annual Night of Inspiration. 7-8:45 p.m. Dwares JCC, 401 Elmgrove Ave., Providence. An evening of inspiration and unity to usher in the new year. Cost: $36/person or $50/couple. RSVP (requested) or information, Naftali Karp at naftalikarp@gmail.com or 401-632-3165.

Thursday | September 26

PJ Library Rosh Hashanah Drop In Program. 4-5:30 p.m. Dwares JCC, 401 Elmgrove Ave., Providence.

Welcome in the new year with apples and honey, Rosh Hashanah-themed stories and apple print making. Learn more about upcoming PJ Library offerings. Information or RSVP, Lyndsey Ursillo at lursillo@jewishallianceri.org or 401-421-4111 ext. 141.

Friday | September 27

Beth-Elders Dinner with guest speaker Rebecca Gibel. 5:45-8 p.m. Temple Beth-El, 70 Orchard Ave., Providence. Award-winning actor, singer and voice-over artist Rebecca Gibel plays Sheila Cianci, Buddy’s wife, in the upcoming Trinity production of “The Prince of Providence.” 5:45 p.m. minyan service; 6:15 p.m. wine and cheese; 6:45 p.m. catered dinner. Cost: $20. Information, Kim Campbell at kcampbell@ temple-beth-el.org or 401-331-6070.

Kabbalat Shabbat Service. 7:30-9 p.m. Temple Torat Yisrael, 1251 Middle Road, East Greenwich.

Service followed by Oneg. Information, stephanie@toratyisrael.org or 401-885-6600.

16 | SEPTEMBER 2019

Jewish Rhode Island | jewishrhody.org

HIGH HOLY DAYS

COURTESY OF APPLES & HONEY PRESS

Eric A. Kimmel; illustrations by Ivica Stevanovic Kar-Ben; ages 6-10

Once Upon an Apple Cake: A Rosh Hashanah Story Elana Rubinstein; illustrated by Jennifer Naalchigar Apples & Honey Press; ages 7-10 In this humor-filled, heartwarming chapter book, readers meet Saralee, an endearing 10-year-old Jewish girl whose cute-looking nose possesses the unusual superpower to sniff out scents and flavors. As Rosh Hashanah approaches, Saralee, whose family owns a restaurant, is excited to bake her zayde’s popular apple cake with a mystery ingredient that even Saralee can’t figure out.

Travel back in time in the third installment of the Scarlett and Sam Jewish-themed chapter book series for older readers by Kimmel (“Hershel and the Hanukkah Goblins”).

The lighthearted adventure begins when the brother and sister twins offer to take their Grandma Mina’s centuries-old carpet to be cleaned at the local rug shop. Engrossed in conversation with their mysterious ride-hailing service driver, Jonah, they forget to take the prized carpet with its aura of magic that their proudly Iran-born grandmother brought with her as she fled tyranny in her country.

Suddenly they find themselves transported to Jaffa in ancient Israel amid carpet sellers in the shuk (market). They stow away on a ship, where they reunite with Jonah, who they learn is the biblical prophet. The stormy caper shines with references to the biblical tale, as the kids and Jonah go overboard and are swallowed up in the slimy belly of a big fish (is it really a prehistoric shark, they fear?). With fierce determination, the clever kids prod the reluctant Jonah to travel to Nineveh, to be faithful to God and justice, and to speak out to the ruthless Assyrian king.

Ivica Stevanovic’s animated illustrations embellish the drama.

COURTESY OF APPLES & HONEY PRESS

Whale of a Tale

COURTESY OF KAR-BEN

Creation Colors Ann D. Koffsky Apples & Honey Press; ages 2-5 In this gloriously illustrated picture book of papercut art, Koffsky (“Judah Maccabee Goes to the Doctor”) presents young kids with the biblical story of Creation through the prism of color: from separating light from dark to the bubbling blues of the water, to the yellows of the sun, and the stripes and spots of the animals. After God created the first two people, a world full of people of all shades and hues followed. And then, on the seventh day, God rested.

This simple, lyrically told story is perfect for Simchat Torah, the joyful festival at the end of the High Holy Days that anticipates the start of the new cycle of the weekly Torah reading that unfolds with Genesis.

COURTESY OF KAR-BEN

JTA – A ROSH HASHANAH APPLE CAKE bake-off fit for reality television and another installment in the Scarlet and Sam series from the award-winning author Eric A. Kimmel are among the highlights in the crop of new High Holy Day books for children.

Six engaging and fun reads for kids of all ages seize the spirit of the Jewish holidays and the excitement and anticipation of beginning anew, reflecting on the past, and celebrating the warmth and joy of Jewish traditions with family and friends.

Kimmel’s “Whale of a Tale” provides a modern-day riff on the biblical Book of Jonah read aloud in synagogues on Yom Kippur, preaching forgiveness over revenge. The master storyteller adds his laugh-out-loud wit to this ancient and intriguing story.

In “Once Upon an Apple Cake,” the children’s book debut for author Elana Rubinstein, you get a zany, charming story of the meaning of family and the strength of Jewish tradition. Not to mention a terrific recipe, too.

Other offerings bring the Sesame Street characters led by Grover, and a brilliantly colorful biblical story of Creation by another award-winning author, Ann Koffsky.

For Sukkot, there’s an elephant making his way into a sukkah.

Trouble lies ahead when a new family opens a restaurant and threatens to take over the apple cake business.

When zayde bumps his head, he temporarily forgets the secret to the cake. Will Saralee rise to the occasion, bake the perfect cakes and win a contest judged by a famous food critic? More than anything, Saralee wishes that her grandfather returns home from the hospital for Rosh Hashanah.

The cartoon illustrations by Jennifer Naalchigar add zest to Rubinstein’s efforts. The recipe is included at the end of the book.

Shanah Tovah, Grover!

Joni Kibort Sussman; illustrated by Tom Leigh Kar-Ben; ages 1-4 Join Grover, Big Bird and other beloved Sesame Street characters as they welcome Rosh Hashanah with honey and apples, a shofar, and a festive meal with songs and blessings. Joni Sussman’s simple verse is perfect for reading aloud to little ones and for preschoolers eager to read on their own, paired with veteran Sesame Street artist Tom Leigh’s delightful, colorful illustrations.

COURTESY OF KAR-BEN

BY PENNY SCHWARTZ

COURTESY OF APPLES & HONEY PRESS

6 new children’s books for the Jewish New Year

The Elephant in the Sukkah Jackie and Jesse and Joni and Jae Chris Barash; illustrations by Christine Battuz Apples & Honey Press; ages 3-8 On a crisp fall day, four good friends stroll hand in hand toward the river clutching small bags of sliced bread. The diverse group is following their rabbi and neighbors to tashlikh, the custom during Rosh Hashanah of tossing crumbs or other small objects into moving water to symbolically cast away mistakes from the past year. Kids will relate as the friends recall misdeeds, like when Jae shared Jackie’s secret.

Chris Barash’s lovely rhyming verse comes to life in Christine Battuz’s cartoon-like drawings in warm autumn tones of browns, orange and green. On the closing page, the friends are seen from behind, walking home, again hand in hand – a palpable reminder of the power of asking for and extending forgiveness, a theme central to the High Holy Days.

Sherri Mandell; illustrated by Ivana Kuman Kar-Ben; ages 3-8 Nothing will get between a young boy named Ori and Henry, a lively elephant who once was a circus star but now is sent to a farm for old elephants where no one sings or has fun. When Henry wanders out one evening, he is enchanted by the joyful music and singing he hears from the Brenner’s family sukkah.

After a few nights, he even learns the Hebrew words.

Young Ori hears Henry singing along outside the sukkah and is determined to find a way to bring the animal inside to fulfill the mitzvah of welcoming guests. The boy’s surprising solution shines with kid-friendly inventive thinking.

Kids will chuckle at illustrator Ivana Kuman’s double-page spread as Henry, in his red-checkered shirt and small black cap, tries every which way to squeeze into the sukkah. On an author’s page, readers discover that the out-of-the-ordinary idea of elephants in a sukkah crossed the legalistic minds of the Talmud’s rabbis.

SEPTEMBER 2019 | 17

jewishrhody.org | Jewish Rhode Island

HIGH HOLY DAYS

5 hacks for the best Rosh Hashanah ever

BY BEATA ABRAHAM (JTA via Kveller) – I can’t help but wonder why Hallmark and the retail world at large haven’t co-opted the Jewish New Year. True, while there may “only” be some 5 million to 7 million Jews in the U.S. (depending on who’s counting), Rosh Hashanah is a particularly important holiday on the Jewish calendar.

Many Jews spend Rosh Hashanah at synagogue immersed in prayer, self-reflection, repentance, kicking off 10 days of “awe.” But it’s a family holiday, too, usually celebrated at home with a big family dinner.

So why aren’t there any light-up shofars or tasteful Happy New Year banners to be found leading up to the big day?

Of course, depending on where you live, you may come across a dusty box of matzah on the shelf of your local grocery store in a well-intentioned, if misguided, attempt to acknowledge Rosh Hashanah (along with every other Jewish holiday).

But fear not. In lieu of tacky, ready-made accoutrements, you can design your own Instagram-worthy Rosh Hashanah celebration. Keeping in mind that the goal is to create joy and lasting memories, I have tried and tested a few ideas to make your Rosh Hashanah celebration personal and memorable.

1

Conduct an apples and honey taste test

Not all apples – nor honey – are created equal. So here’s a fun way to see which varieties your family really prefers. Procure as many types of honey as you can (but remember, this is not a reality cooking show, so don’t go crazy). Put out a variety of sliced

apples to dip and create your own voting method, too. For a bit of extra flair, add a blindfold. The honey with the most votes will receive the honor of the blessing for a sweet new year.

2

Create a Rosh Hashanah craft museum

Remember all those New Year’s crafts your kids brought home over the years from Sunday school or day school? It’s time to unearth those boxes filled with clay honey pots, handcrafted Happy New Year cards and paper apple mobiles. Bonus if you can excavate the childhood Rosh Hashanah relics from your own youth. And if kids never made them – or you tossed them years ago – you can always make new Rosh Hashanah crafts, like a honey jar or shofar. Cluster these items in a special museum-style display for all to enjoy. Heart strings will be tugged, guaranteed.

3

Throw a birthday party for the world

Rosh Hashanah is not just a Jewish holiday – according to the Talmud, it is the birthday of humankind and the world. Considering that the universe is a pretty significant creation, some special treats to commemorate this day hardly seem like too much effort.

Whether you celebrate with a spherical cake frosted to look like planet Earth or a candle on a single cupcake, or even just a Happy Birthday banner, let it spark a conversation about what each individual’s part can be in making the world a better place – the ultimate birthday gift.

4

Make a Rosh Hashanah tablescape

If you are overwhelmed just thinking about setting an

elaborate table for the holiday, just remember that you are going to want to eat at some point, so it might as well be at a striking and impactfully set table. But that doesn’t mean an overwrought one. Small touches can go a long way, like an apple-print tablecloth; a few carefully placed honey or bee-themed items; a decorative tray filled with apples and pomegranates; a shofar as centerpiece. Tip: Use your imagination, not Google.

5

Spark meaningful conversation with reflection cards

Rosh Hashanah is a miniworkout for the soul, so you should probably break an existential sweat self-reflecting,

to be vaccinated or pay fines of up to $1,000.

New York City Health Commissioner Oxiris Barbot called on New Yorkers to continue to have their children immunized, however.

“Staying up to date on vaccines is the best way for people to protect the health and safety of their friends, family and neighbors,” Barbot told AP. The outbreak began in October 2018.

and keep in mind that Rosh Hashanah is not just about looking backward but is an opportunity to look forward as well.

I hope you will use one or all these ideas to set the stage for a sweet and meaningful New Year. And, full disclosure: While they are undoubtedly fun, none of these ideas will absolutely guarantee that you will be written in the Book of Life – but they may get you featured in Martha Stewart Living.

BEATA ABRAHAM, a lifelong writer and a Jewish educator, is currently the director of education at a Reform temple in Columbus, Ohio.

Pray for Peace May it be Your will, G-d of our ancestors, that You grant my family and all Israel a good and long life.

Remember us with blessings and kindness. Fill our homes with your Divine Presence. Give me the opportunity to raise my children and grandchildren to be truly wise, lovers of G-d, people of truth, who illuminate the world with Torah, good deeds and the work of the Creator. Please hear my prayer at this time. Regard me as a worthy descendent of Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel and Leah, our mothers, and let my candles burn and never be extinguished. Let the light of your face shine upon us, and bring true peace to Israel and the world.

CANDLE LIGHTING SCHEDULE 5779-5780 (2019–2020) Providence, Rhode Island September, 2019 6 6:51 13 6:39 6:27 20 27 6:15 29 Erev Rosh Hashanah 6:11 7:12 30 Rosh Hashanah

October, 2019

4 8 Erev Yom Kippur 11 13 Erev Sukkot 14 Sukkot 18 20 Erev Shemini Atzeret 21 Simchat Torah 25

1 6:03 5:56 8 5:51 15 5:48 22 6:49 29 5:40 5:37 6:38 5:30

November, 2019 5:20 4:12 4:05 4:00 3:57

December, 2019 5 13 20 27

3:55 3:56 3:58 4:02

January, 2020 3 10 17 24 31

February, 2020 4:07 4:14 4:22 4:31 4:39

7 14 21 28

4:48 4:57 5:06 5:14

Daylight saving time resumes March 8, 2020

March, 2020 6 13 20 27

April, 2020 5:23 6:31 6:38 6:46

5 12 19 26

June, 2020

7:57 8:01 8:03 8:04

3 8 9 10 14 15 17 24

3 10 17 24 31

Erev Passover Passover Passover Passover

July, 2020

6:54 6:59 8:04 7:02 7:06 8:11 7:09 7:17

8:04 8:01 7:57 7:51 7:44

May, 2020 1 7:25 8 7:32 15 7:39 7:46 22 28 Erev Shavu’ot 7:51 29 Shavu’ot 7:53

7 14

21 28

August, 2020 7:36 7:26 7:16 7:05

The above times are for Providence, RI. Other areas aroundtimes the region mayProvidence, vary by a fewRI. minutes.

The above are for

Other areas around may varyIsland by a few minutes.

Courtesythe of region Chabad Rhode

Courtesy of Chabad of Rhode Island 360 Hope Street, Providence, RI 401-273-7238

believeinprovidence@gmail.com Candle lighting time for the second night of the Holiday is usually about one hour after the candle lighting time of the previous night.

Please do not deface or discard this paper, for G-d’s name is on it.

Blessings for Shabbos

BO-RUCH A-TOH ADO-NOI E-LO-HEI-NU ME-LECH HO-OLOM A-SHER KI-DE-SHA-NU BE-MITZ-VO-SOV VI-TZI-VO-NU LE-HAD-LIK-NER SHEL SHA-BOS KO-DESH Blessed are You, G-d our Lord, King of the universe, who has hallowed us through His commandments, and has commanded us to kindle the lights of the holy Shabbos

Blessings for Holidays

Daylight saving time ends Nov. 3, 2019

NYC measles outbreak declared over JTA – The measles outbreak concentrated in Orthodox Jewish neighborhoods in New York City is considered over.

There have been no new infections over the last two incubation periods, signaling the end of the outbreak, city health officials said Sept. 3, the Associated Press reported. This means that an emergency order mandating vaccines will be lifted, according to the report.

The order required residents of those neighborhoods

soul-searching and resolution-making. Like any good workout, it will transform, strengthen and fortify you for navigating your daily life in the year to come.

Write some open-ended questions on cardstock, and arrange them on your table for your family or friends to select and answer aloud. Some examples: What were your biggest mistakes over the last year? Greatest achievements?

What brought you the most joy? Which moments felt deeply meaningful? What have you resolved to do differently next year?

What you write is up to – just make sure that each question can be answered by a responder of any age,

Select the proper ending for the appropriate Yom Tov: BORUCH ATO ADO-NOY ELO-HAY-NU MELECH HO-OLOM A-SHER KID-SHONU B’MITZ-VO-SOV V-T ZI-VONU L’HAD-LIK NER SHEL (on Friday add — SHA-BOS V-SHEL) Pesach, Shavuot and Succot .......................Yom Tov Rosh Hashanah ..........................................Yom-Ha-zi-Koron Yom Kippur ................................................Yom Ha-Kippurim Add this blessing following each of the above blessings except for the last holidays of Pesach.

BORUCH ATO ADO-NOY ELO-HAY-NU MELECH HO-OLOM SHE-HEH-CHE-YONU V’KEE-MONU V’HEE-GEE-ONU LEEZ-MAN HA-ZEH Special instructions for holidays (but not on Shabbat). It is forbidden to create a new fire by striking a match, lighter, etc., However, it is permissable to use a flame already burning since before the inception of the holiday, such as a pilot light, gas or candle flame.

CAUTION FOR FRIDAYS: DO NOT light candles after sunset so as not to desecrate the Shabbos. It is forbidden to light candles after sunset.

Come to a “FRIDAY NIGHT LIVE” Shabbat Dinner at the CHABAD HOUSE m Jewish Hospitality Center lo Sha360-362 Hope St. • Providence, RI 02906

CALL: 273-7238

18 | SEPTEMBER 2019

Jewish Rhode Island | jewishrhody.org

HIGH HOLY DAYS Synagogues gear up for the High Holy Days

BY JEWISH RHODE ISLAND STAFF Summer is winding down and we are gearing up for the High Holy Days. Our thoughts turn to the start of school and the bright promise of the Jewish New Year!

There are a number of synagogues in Rhode Island that do not require tickets for entry to their High Holy Day services; these are listed below. In all cases, RSVP and donations are appreciated.

PROVIDENCE

Congregation Beth Shalom Congregation Mishkon T’Filoh Congregation Sha’arei Tefilla Congregation Sons of Jacob

BARRINGTON

KINGSTON

Hillel Foundation at University of Rhode Island

MIDDLETOWN

Temple Shalom

NEWPORT

Temple Habonim Chabad House of Barrington

Newport Havurah

BLOCK ISLAND

Congregation Ohawe Sholam

Congregation Sons and Daughters of Ruth

BRISTOL

United Brothers Synagogue

FALL RIVER

Temple Beth El of Fall River

PAWTUCKET WARWICK

Chabad CHAI Center of West Bay

WESTERLY

Congregation Sharah Zedek

WOONSOCKET

Congregation B’nai Israel Jewish Rhode Island does not list information regarding specific services and schedules. Below is a list of all the synagogues, temples and congregational groups known to us, along with contact information that is current as we know it.

For more information on service schedules, please contact the synagogues directly or visit their websites.

ORTHODOX Congregation Beth Sholom Providence 401-621-9393 bethsholom-ri.org office@bethsholom-ri.org Congregation Mishkon T’filoh Providence 401-421-5074 mishkontfiloh@juno.com Congregation Ohawe Sholam Pawtucket 401-725-3886 dgpliskin@gmail.com Congregation Sha’arei Tefilla Providence 401-273-3923 shaareitefillaprov.org rds@shaareitefillaprov.org Congregation Sons of Jacob Providence 401-274-5260 sonsofjacobsynagogue.org congsons@hotmail.com Touro Synagogue (Congregation Jeshuat Israel) Newport 401-847-4794 tourosynagogue.org cji@tourosynagogue.org

CONSERVATIVE Congregation Beth David Narragansett 401-789-3437 cbdri.org eadler3@cox.net

Temple Beth El of Fall River Fall River, Massachusetts 508-674-3529 frtemplebethel.org templebethel@comcast.net Congregation B’nai Israel Woonsocket 401-762-3651 shalom-cbi.org synagogue@cbi. necoxmail.com Temple Emanu-El Providence 401-331-1616 teprov.org info@teprov.org Congregation Or Chadash Cranston 401-225-7194 orchadash-ri.org info@orchadash-ri.org Temple Shalom Middletown 401-846-9002 templeshalomrhodeisland.org contact@templeshalomrhodeisland.org Congregation Sharah Zedek Westerly 401-345-1544 or 401-596-9951 congregationsharahzedek.org Email form on website Congregation Tifereth Israel New Bedford, Massachusetts 508-997-3171 tinewbedford.org ti@tinewbedford.org

Temple Torat Yisrael East Greenwich 401-885-6600 toratyisrael.org stephanie@toratyisrael.org

REFORM Newport Havurah Newport 401-423-0407 Newporthavurah1@gmail. com Temple Beth-El Providence 401-331-6070 temple-beth-el.org jmoseley@temple-beth-el.org Temple Habonim Barrington 401-245-6536 templehabonim.org office@templehabonim.org

Temple Sinai Cranston 401-942-8350 templesinairi.org dottie@templesinairi.org, rabbigoldwasser@ templesinairi.org

RECONSTRUCTIONIST Congregation Agudas Achim Attleboro, Massachusetts 508-222-2243 www.agudasma.org office@agudasma.org

NON-DENOMINATIONAL Brown RISD Hillel Providence 401-863-2805 brownrisdhillel.org info@brownrisdhillel.org Hillel Foundation at the University of Rhode Island Providence 401-874-2740 urihillel.org amyolson@mail.uri.edu

Chabad CHAI Center of West Bay Warwick 401-884-7888 RabbiWarwick.com rabbi@RabbiWarwick.com Chabad House of Barrington Barrington 401-247-4747 jewishbarrington.com rabbi@jewishbarrington.com Chabad of Rhode Island Jewish Hospitality Center Providence 401-273-7238 chabadriprovidence.com believeinprovidence@gmail. com Congregation Sons & Daughters of Ruth Block Island 401-466-2861 United Brothers Synagogue Bristol 401-253-3460 unitedbrotherssynagogue.org ubsbristol@gmail.com

SEPTEMBER 2019 | 19

jewishrhody.org | Jewish Rhode Island

Happy Rosh Hashanah

SH A N A TOVA

Congressman David N. Cicilline

Wishing You a Happy, Healthy and Safe New Year

5780

Sandra Bornstein Bornstein Sandra Holocaust Holocaust Sandra Bornstein Education Center Sandra Bornstein Sandra Bornstein Education Center Holocaust

Holocaust

Holocaust Wishes TheCenter Jewish Education Education Center Education Center The Jewish Wishes Community Wishes The Jewish TheJewish Jewish WishesThe Wishes Community Community Community Community

L’Shanna L’Shanna L’Shanna L’Shanna L’Shanna Tovah

4 5 R o l f e S q u a R e , C R a n S t o n , R I • w w w. t o u R o f R at e R n a l . o R g

Tovah Tovah Tovah Tovah

TEMPLE HABONIM continues our open door High Holy Day tradition.

We invite you to explore Jewish tradition, spiritual fulfillment, and music within a diverse community.

L’shanah tovah.

Wishing you a happy and peaceful new year.

– Sheldon Whitehouse

Paid for by Whitehouse for Senate.

May the new year be a sweet one.

See our website or Facebook page for our High Holy Day Service schedule.

165 New Meadow Road • Barrington • RI 02806 • P: 401-245-6536 www.templehabonim.org • www.facebook.com/templehabonim

20 | SEPTEMBER 2019

Jewish Rhode Island | jewishrhody.org

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Wishing you and your family a year of sweet blessings filled with abundant joy, peace, and happiness.

On behalf of the board and staff at the Jewish Alliance of Greater Rhode Island, we wish you a happy and healthy 5780!

The Trachtenberg Family: Lincoln, RI

SEPTEMBER 2019 | 21

jewishrhody.org | Jewish Rhode Island

HIGH HOLY DAYS

An ideal time to look backward and forward The High Holidays are a time for introspection and self-improvement, in which we beseech God for a favorable judgment for the coming year.

– aish.com’s home page

L

HEA

NG

Y L I VI

I RECENTLY MET a restaurant owner and I remarked on his great success in drawing in customers with high-quality food and customer service.

He told me, “I wasn’t always successful.

I had to close several restaurants early in my career and start over.”

Curious, I asked him, “Did this affect your self-esteem and ability to continue?”

His answer has stayed with me. He said, “I don’t have a rearview mirror. I keep moving forward.”

I share this story as the High Holy

TH

Days draw near because Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur give us an annual opportunity to make positive changes in our lives, to reflect on the past year, and to move forward in the coming year.

I believe that to make positive changes, we must reflect on the past year, both the good and bad, to access what worked, what needs improving, and how we can proceed. I agree that looking in the “rearview mirror” for too long can PATRICIA keep us there, but obRASKIN serving our mistakes and flaws on a yearly basis can be highly beneficial.

Here are some questions I ask myself during the high holidays: • What accomplishments am I proud of this year?

• What growth have I seen this year,

Chabad opens its first center in Rwanda

both personally and professionally?

• What lessons have I learned?

• Have my words or deeds been hurtful? If so, can I make amends?

• Have my words and deeds been helpful? Can I appreciate and kvell over those moments?

• Where has God’s hand shown itself in my life this year?

• What has been the gift in any struggles I have encountered?

• What goals and dreams do I have for the coming year?

We can ask these questions anytime, but the high holidays give us a special time, place and space to take an “aerial view” of the whole year.

L’Shanah Tovah.

PATRICIA RASKIN, owner of Raskin Resources Productions, is a media host, coach and award-winning radio producer and business owner. She has served on the board of directors of Temple Emanu-El, in Providence.

JTA – Chabad has opened its first center in Rwanda, which becomes the African nation’s first synagogue served by a permanent rabbi.

Rabbi Chaim and Dina Bar Sella, and their 8-month-old son, Shneur Zalman, arrived last week in Kigali and managed to gather a minyan for Shabbat prayers, Chabad.org reported.

They will serve under the auspices of Chabad of Central Africa led by Rabbi Shlomo Bentolila in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo.

In the past, yeshiva students have made visits to Rwanda to run occasional Jewish events as part of Chabad’s “Roving Rabbis” program.

Rabbi Bar Sella said the new Chabad center will serve Jewish humanitarian workers and visiting businesspeople.

“We look forward to meeting the needs of everyone here,” he said.

The couple recently hosted a Jewish youth group from Great Britain that was touring Rwanda.

800 Cranston, 800 Rhode Reservoir Island Cranston, 800 Reservoir Reservoir Avenue, Avenue, 800 Reservoir Cranston, Avenue, Rhode Cranston, IslandAvenue, Rhode Island Rhode Island 401.944.8180 401.944.8180 • 401.944.7171 401.944.8180 •• 401.944.7171 401.944.7171 401.944.8180 • 401.944.7171

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a gift to Magen David Adom, Israel’s emergency medical first responder, ambulance, and blood-services

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Appetizers Chopped in Wine or Chopped Cream in Wine or Cream Chopped Liver Herring Chopped inLiver Wine•or or Herring CreaminLiver Wine• Herring or Cream ChoppedLiver Liver•••Herring Herring in Wine Cream Chopped Liver • Herring in Wine or Cream

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Chopped Herring •••Gefilte Fish ••Stuffed Stuffed Chopped Cabbage Herring • Gefilte Fish • Stuffed Cabbage Chopped Herring Gefilte Fish Cabbage Chopped Herring Chopped Fish Herring Stuffed • Gefilte Cabbage Fish • Stuffed Cabbage Place Your Early!

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Saturday, September until 2:00 pm–2 pm Rosh Hashanah Hours Rosh Hashanah Hours Saturday, September 288thth from 7am Rosh Hashanah Hours Rosh Hashanah Hours Sunday, September 9th thuntil 1:00 pm 7am –1 pm Complement Sunday, September 298 thfrom Saturday, September until 2:00Entree pm Saturday, September 8th until 2:00 pm Complement Your Entree th Saturday, September 8Saturday, until 2:00 September pm 8 until 2:00 pmYour Closed th30th & Tuesday October 1st th Closed onSunday, Monday, September September 9 thuntil 1:00 pm th until 1:00 pm thSunday, September 9 th th

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Monday,Monday, September 10 th& Tuesday, September Monday, 11 th September 10th & Tuesday, September 11th th October 7th17 from 7am –4 Monday, September until 4:00 pmpm Monday, September 10Monday, & Tuesday, September September 10th &11Tuesday, September 11th

Rosh Hashanah Hours Rosh Hashanah Hours th Tuesday, October 8th18from 7am –2 Tuesday, September until 2:00 pmpm Yom Kippur Hours Yom Kippur Hours th Closed on Wednesday, 9thKippur Saturday, September 8October until pm Saturday, September 8th until 2:00 pm Yom Kippur Yom2:00 Hours Closed Hours

th th th 17 th Monday, September 17thth9 until 4:001:00 pmpmSunday, Monday, September until 4:00 pm Wednesday, September 19 Sunday, September until September 1:00 pm Monday, September 17Monday, until 4:00 September pm 17th until 4:00 pm9 until th th Tuesday, September 18 thuntil 2:00 pm Tuesday, September 18 until 2:00 pm th Tuesday, September 18Tuesday, until 2:00 September pm 18 until 2:00 pm Closed Closed

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Monday, September 10th & Tuesday,Monday, September September 11th 10th & Tuesday, September 11th Closed Closed Wednesday, September 19thth Wednesday, September 19th Wednesday, September Wednesday, 19 September 19th

Yom Kippur Hours th

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Monday, September 17 until 4:00 pm Monday, September 17th until 4:00 pm th Tuesday, September 18 until 2:00 pm Tuesday, September 18th until 2:00 pm

Visit us online at jewishrhody.org

8/6/19 10:32 AM

22 | SEPTEMBER 2019

Jewish Rhode Island | jewishrhody.org

Cultural understanding Krakow’s 29th Jewish Culture Festival attracts thousand of Jews and non-Jews

In June, I flew to Krakow for the 29th Jewish Culture Festival (JCF), 10 days of concerts, film screenings, walking tours, photo exhibits, literary programs, Torah classes, panel discussions, lectures and culinary workshops attended by thousands of people from Poland and abroad.

The JCF’s founders, organizers and attendees are mostly non-Jewish Poles.

The more people I met in Krakow and the more of the festival I experienced, the more I wanted to understand why so many non-Jews seemed invested in learning about and promoting Jewish culture.

BY SHAI AFSAI

P

rior to World War II, about one-tenth of Poland’s population was Jewish, and Jews made up almost a quarter of Krakow, Poland’s residents. By the end of the war, 90% of Poland’s

Jews had been killed by the Nazis and their accomplices. Many of the Jewish structures in Kazimierz, an area that the Polish King Casimir the Great invited Jews to settle in during the 14th century, still stand in Krakow, though they remain largely emptied of Jewish occupants.

I

“

T IS VERY DIFFICULT TO ANSWER, ‘Why are you doing this?’ It is like answering, ‘Why do you breathe and live?’

I am a man who is aware he was born

Niro Abekasis (center) and members of the Piyut Ensemble.

PHOTOS BY SHAI AFSAI

SEPTEMBER 2019 | 23

jewishrhody.org | Jewish Rhode Island in the largest Jewish cemetery in the world, but also that six years of Shoah [the Holocaust] cannot eclipse a thousand years,” Janusz Makuch, the festival’s non-Jewish founder and director, told me when we sat to talk in Cheder – a Middle Eastern-themed café and meeting place situated in a former Jewish prayer house – about his decades of work on the JCF. “When I started putting together a Jewish festival at age 28, I was the only one in Poland. Now there are over 40 Jewish culture festivals. I felt the obligation to plant the seed. It came from a deep responsibility to memory, but also from deep fascination with and love of Jewish culture,” Makuch said.

“When I started to plant the seed, I noticed that many [Polish] people – especially, but not only, young people – long to learn, each for their own reasons, about Jewish culture, which is also a part of their culture. Come on! We were living a thousand years with Jewish people on the same soil, as neighbors!”

The first festival event I attended at the Galicia Jewish Museum was a guided tour through Chuck Fishman’s photography exhibit, “Regeneration: Jewish Life in Poland.” After the tour, museum educator Anna Wencel and I talked about her interest in Judaism from a young age and about her work at the museum since 2008.

“When I was 8 (in 1989), I by chance went into a local Jewish cemetery with a friend. We saw tombstones, but we could not read the inscriptions. We saw one tombstone with a crown and thought maybe it was the grave of a king or queen. It seemed like something from a fairy tale,” Wencel said. “I told my grandmother what my friend and I found, and she explained to me that it was a Jewish cemetery.

“My grandmother was born in 1923.

She refused to tell me anything about the war – it was too traumatic for her – but she talked a lot about the interwar period [between World War I and II], as if everything was better before the war.”

Though Wencel loves her education work, she said being a non-Jewish guide at a Jewish museum has its tensions.

“At the museum, I often get asked if I am Jewish by Jewish people, implying that it is not my story to tell. And some Christians ask the same thing with suspicion, implying a non-Jewish person cannot have actual knowledge in this field – ‘How can you know this?’ Sometimes it

Paul Schneller, Swiss photographer, author, and exotic animals vet.

Janusz Makuch, founder and director of the Jewish Culture Festival. gets a little bit anti-Semitic with non-Jewish visitors, implying that they want to listen to ‘a real Jew,’ someone representing this ‘exotic’ culture,” Wencel said.

But, she added, “There are people for whom their job is their passion. I am in that group. I do not believe in dividing things into ‘this is my story; this is their story.’ At the end of the day, we are all human.”

T

HE NEXT EVENT I ATTENDED at the museum was a talk by Paul Schneller, a Swiss veterinarian specializing in exotic animals who is also a professional photographer. In “About Polish Jews: See You Next Year in Krakow,” he discussed his family’s taboo surrounding his Jewish great-grandfather, Saul Chaim Grunfest, who was a communist, a friend of Lenin and the first Jewish Social Democratic Party member in Switzerland. Neither Grunfest’s communism nor his Jewishness were spoken of in Schneller’s home, though it was clear from his name that he was Jewish.

Schneller and I met for a drink the next day. “I am very attached to Krakow and Poland, but Krakow is not representative of Poland,” he said. “It is an unusual place. When you first come to Krakow, you just see the tourism here, but there is something more and deeper here about Jewish life than the superficial tourism.

The tourism itself is superficial, but it allows for a conversation to take place, like we are having now.”

Schneller continued, “There are more non-Jews active here in Jewish life than Jews. The Jewish Culture Festival is run by non-Jews. The director of the Galicia Jewish Museum is not Jewish. This Jewish life here would not exist without the non-Jewish people. When I ask Polish people about this activity, they say, ‘I feel a gap. I feel there is something missing.

We have to fill this gap.’

“Jewish absence in Poland has been described as a phantom limb. My interpretation is that with their interest in Jews, Polish people are involved in healing. It is a possible therapy – probably not conscious, but subconscious – to deal with a phantom pain, the trauma of the Nazis.

“They miss the Jews. They had a thousand-year history living alongside the Jews, and in six years, the Nazis wiped it out.”

Jakub Nowakowski, 36, has been head-

ing the Galicia Jewish Museum since 2010.

“If you go to the small towns, about which there are not media reports, you also see that many of them are interested in Jewish culture and history, and organize Jewish festivals as well. If you go to the small villages that have these festivals, there is no money made there. It costs them money,” he said.

“Why are people in these remote areas spending money to renovate synagogues and have Jewish festivals? Why do teachers come here? Why do they come to spend their vacations studying in Krakow? They are not doing it for money.

“Is it because we feel guilty? Of course some Poles feel guilty for what was done to the Jews. Others just miss the Jews, who are still alive in the memories of their parents and grandparents. But there is also the pride of coming from a multicultural world that was here. People look around, see homogeneity, and look for something different.

“It is about memory. It is about finding peace and moving forward. We live in the post-Holocaust space in a way no other country does. Traces of Jewish life and death exist so close to each other.”

D

URING MY VISIT, I got to know several of the festival volunteers, called machers, including best friends 25-year-old Joanna Chojnacka and 26-year-old Dominika Kołodziej.

They met me for lunch one day at Hevre, a former beth midrash (study hall) owned by the Gmina Żydowska, Krakow’s CONTINUED ON PAGE 24

Dominika Kolodziej (left) and Joanna Chojnacka (right) at the Hevre restaurant.

24 | SEPTEMBER 2019

Jewish Rhode Island | jewishrhody.org “I cannot consider myself Jewish, and I am writing from the perspective of the main character, who is a Jew. I was worried people would say, ‘It is not your thing.

You should not write it.’ But then I started saying to myself, ‘Then who will write it?’ I wanted to tell the story of the Jewish people of my city, who are also my people.”

A

Cantor Avraham Kirshenbaum of the Jerusalem Great Synagogue.

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 23 official religious Jewish community, and now leased as a restaurant and bar.

Hebrew calligraphy and paintings of holy places in Israel still adorn its walls.

Kołodziej is completing a master’s degree in Jewish Studies at Krakow’s Jagiellonian University.

“I always had an interest in Jewish history, but more of the interwar period, because I felt it was not studied much,” she said. “I was especially interested in the music and the movies of the interwar period – many of which were made

by Jews, especially in Warsaw. I always liked hearing songs in Yiddish. Warsaw has a specific dialect, and most of it is from before the war. Many of the words are in Yiddish.”

She continued, “It has become more and more normal to see Jewish people here. There is curiosity, maybe from tourists, but in Krakow, people know

there are Jewish people here, and they fit in the area and no one is surprised anymore. I feel it is very specific to Krakow.

We are used to seeing Orthodox people rushing to synagogue for Friday night. It is natural for us now.”

Chojnacka, who also majored in Jewish Studies, recently finished a soon-to-bepublished novel, “Szpagat” (an insult in Varsavian dialect for someone well-educated), about a Jewish tailor who returns to Warsaw after the war and finds that the Jewish quarter is gone.

“I had this idea four years ago. One of the reasons I chose Jewish Studies was to learn about Jewish life and to learn some Yiddish. I wanted my writing to be as authentic as possible. It is impossible, but I said, ‘I will try.’ At the time, I did not tell my professors why I wanted Jewish Studies, because it is quite unusual that you write about something that does not belong to you.

s for why Poles are so interested in Jewish culture, Chojnacka suggested, “I think Polish people still miss Jewish culture. We were neighbors. We were very close. More and more we miss it. People want to feel it, but it is very hard to feel it authentically. We are still searching for the way to show it.

“In Krakow, we still have the buildings and the synagogues, so it is easier. There is a Jewish quarter. I feel the Jewish Culture Festival is doing this very well. It is a very good way to show people Jewish culture – modern Jewish culture and with a focus on Israel. We are searching for something Jewish in Poland and this is the way to learn something authentic.”

Indeed, the JCF, with its many and varied offerings, does an excellent job of presenting contemporary Jewish culture and of grappling with current Jewish issues in Poland. While there were events in Polish and in English, many of the speakers, authors, cantors, singers, musicians, artists and religious figures participating in the festival were Israeli, which was no accident.

“Most importantly, I know that Israel is the center of Jewish life,” Makuch, the JCF’s founder and director, told me. “It is a festival dedicated to contemporary Jewish culture and life, which is centered in Israel. Israel is also a center of my life.

Being Jewish, you are connected to Israel.

Israel is my country and chosen land too.”

SHAI AFSAI lives in Providence. In November he will be presenting a program with Salve Regina University’s Dr. Sean O’Callaghan and Dr. John Quinn on “Newport’s Irish-Jewish Rabbi, Theodore Lewis, and Dublin’s Jewish Community” as part of the Museum of Newport Irish History’s lecture series.

The ‘Lucky Jew’ of Poland AMONG THE MEMORABILIA sold in Kazimierz’s Plac Nowy, or New Square – as well as in other parts of Krakow and throughout Poland – are pictures and figurines of the “Lucky Jew.” There are quite a few artistic variations on this theme. A common Lucky Jew portrait depicts a bearded man dressed in pre-World War II Eastern European Jewish garb counting gold coins.

Another shows a bearded Jew writing numbers in a ledger with a quill pen.

Such items are thought to bring good luck, especially financial luck, and are CONTINUED ON PAGE 26

Lucky Jew pictures and other souvenirs for sale at Plac Nowy in the former Jewish district of Krakow.

SEPTEMBER 2019 | 25

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Michael Rubenfeld and Adam Schorin talking about their portraits with Polish passersby at Plac Nowy.

Jewish Rhode Island | jewishrhody.org

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 25 hung in homes and shops throughout Poland.

In the U.S., these images would immediately be identified as expressions of anti-Jewish prejudice. In Poland, it is perhaps more complicated.

Since 2017, another Jewish festival has taken place in Krakow alongside the more established Jewish Culture Festival. Called FestivALT, it was founded in 2016 by Jason Francisco, Michael Rubenfeld, Magda Rubenfeld Koralewska and Maia Ipp. “Essentially, FestivALT was created to bring contemporary art about Jewish history, memory and identity in Poland to Krakow,” Francisco, who has lived there on and off since 2010, told me when I asked why a second Jewish festival was needed in the same place at the same time.

When Rubenfeld, a Canadian actor now living in Krakow, first saw the Lucky Jew images,

he was surprised. One of his responses was to create a performance piece in which he, Francisco and the author Menachem Kaiser grew

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We arrived at Plac Nowy to find that Rubenfeld and a writer, Adam Schorin, were set up in the same Lucky Jew booth as two years ago, but now – having had their portraits painted in the style of the coin-tallying Lucky Jew – they were selling Lucky Jew portraits of themselves. A number of curious and amused Polish passersby stopped and had friendly conversations with Rubenfeld and Schorin. A riveted British tourist bought several of their portraits.

I asked my new friend what she thought of all this. Skladzien replied that Jews had natural financial intelligence and Polish people wanted some of this luck. For her, it was not a negative stereotype. In fact, she said, she had purchased a Lucky Jew portrait for her mother and owned one herself.

As I said, in Poland, it is perhaps more complicated.

As part of the panel discussion at the Galicia Jewish Museum that afternoon, there was a screening of a short documentary film in which Rubenfeld heads to a Krakow fair on Easter to sell portraits of himself as a Lucky Jew. This was followed by clips of various intellectuals’ reactions to the Lucky Jew performance piece.

In the video clip of his response to the piece, Rabbi Michael Schudrich, the American-born chief rabbi of Poland, stressed that provocation is not necessarily education. He considers beards, dressed in garb resembling that of one the widespread Lucky Jew phenomenon to be of the commonly portrayed Lucky Jew charupside down and wrong: both anti-Semitic and acters, and set up a booth in Plac Nowy. There, anti-Polish. (Editor’s seated amid a pile of coins, a ledger and a quill Schudrich is pen, they interacted with passersby.

In Poland, it is note: the brother of Cantor Schudrich of ran into Rubenfeld in a pub in Plac Nowy perhaps more Nathaniel New Bedford’s Tifereth late one night. He was wearing his Lucky Israel Congregation.)

Jew attire, and I recognized him from an complicated.

After the event article I had read a year or two ago. I joined ended, I turned to a him at his table and he informed me that there woman who sat next to me, Margaret Krawecwould be a Lucky Jew performance in the ka, and asked for her thoughts. This ended up square this year too, followed by a panel discusbeing one of the most emotional conversations sion at the Galicia Jewish Museum titled “Real, I had in Krakow.

Live, Lucky Jews.”

“Polish people have intergenerational trauOne of the people I met at a Shabbat dinner ma from witnessing the abuse and destruction in Krakow was a non-Jewish woman, Agnieszof their friends and neighbors,” said Krawecka, ka Skladzien, 31, who had left Poland to work a Polish-born artist and architectural and inas a nurse in Switzerland. Before moving to terior design consultant who lives in Canada.

Switzerland, she had been a volunteer at Kra“Non-Jews are trying to come to terms with kow’s Jewish Community Center. Skladzien the fact that about one-fifth of the population had returned to Krakow for the Jewish Cul[in Poland] was wiped out [during World War ture Festival. I asked her to go with me to the II]. Some Polish people helped Jews at risk to Lucky Jew performance. their lives, some collaborated, but most just watched, paralyzed by the fear and

terror spread by the Nazi occupiers. There is a feeling of helplessness – and maybe also a confused sense of guilt.

“This country is still very deeply affected by the trauma of World War II. Even me. I was born in 1978, many years after the war, and still the weight is heavy. It is the memory.

“Some Polish people seem like they are not ready to move on. Of course, they have to. You can never forget what happened, but you also have to move forward – without forgetting. A lot of people have an existential void, a sense of nostalgia, a missing of anothRabbi Peretz Scheinerman er time and place.

Dean “In some strange way, perhaps these figurines of Jews, these lucky charms, are an attempt to bring back the past. There are so many 450 Elmgrove Avenue, Providence, Rhode Island complexities, so many layers.

02906 It is almost like the word ‘Jew’ (401) 331-5327 Ext. 21 has become a symbol.”

— By Shai Afsai

I

Best Wishes for a Happy New Year

The Executive Committee, Staff and Parents of the Providence Hebrew Day School

SEPTEMBER 2019 | 27

jewishrhody.org | Jewish Rhode Island

COMMUNITY Bernhardt Foundation seeks grant applications PROVIDENCE – Are you affiliated with a Jewish nonprofit organization in need of grant funds? If so, please consider submitting a grant request to the Helene and Bertram Bernhardt Foundation.

Established in 2005 under the wills of the late Helene and Bertram Bernhardt, the Foundation’s mission is to support nonprofit organizations, with a specific preference given to Jewish nonprofit organizations in Rhode Island, and to nonprofit organizations that Helene and Bertram Bernhardt supported during their lives. The Foundation also distributes a limited number of small grants (up to $250) to local charities that support the broader community.

Since its founding, the Foundation has distributed more than $4 million to such nonprofit organizations as Temple Beth-El, the Jewish Alliance, Jewish Collaborative Services, Brown/RISD and URI Hillel and The Miriam Hospital, as well as to many other agencies.

Many of these grants support new initiatives and/or individual projects that are unable to attract support from more traditional funding sources.

To receive the Bernhardt Foundation application form and funding guidelines, contact Samuel Zurier, secretary of the Foundation, at 55 Dorrance St., Suite 400, Providence, RI 02903 or sdz@zurierlaw.com or at 401-861-0200.

The deadline to submit applications for fiscal year 2020-21 is Dec. 1, 2019.

Cranston Seniors to meet in October Cranston Senior Guild’s next meeting is Wednesday, Oct. 2 at 1 p.m. at Tamarisk Assisted Living, 3 Shalom Drive, Warwick. After a short meeting, The Lucille Bernabe Trio will entertain with music and songs such as “I could Write a Book” and “Somebody Loves Me” along with requests.

Men and women age 55 years plus are welcome to join. Membership is $12 for the year. Cranston residency is not required.

OBITUARIES 39–42 | BUSINESS 37–38 | WE ARE READ 43

Moving ceremony marks 229th anniversary of Washington’s letter to the Jews of Newport

BY SAM SHAMOON

NEWPORT – On Aug. 18, a packed audience in Touro Synagogue heard two historic letters read aloud, marking the 72nd anniversary of the moving community ceremony. The audience listened with rapt attention to the two eloquent letters, written at the dawn of our nation and dedicated to the principle of religious freedom.

The first letter, written on Aug. 17, 1790, by Touro Synagogue Warden Moses Seixas and addressed to President George Washington, expressed the anxiety of the Jewish community and sought assurances that the “children of the stock of Abraham” would find in the new nation “all Liberty of conscience, and immunities of Citizenship.” The letter was read aloud by Rabbi Meir Y. Soloveichik, of Congregation Shearith Israel, in New York City.

The second letter, President Washington’s historically important reply, was read by Rhode Island’s senior U.S. senator, Jack Reed. In this letter, dated Aug. 21, 1790, the president of the new nation assures the Newport congregation that “… the Government of the United States, which gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance, requires only that they who live under its protection should demean themselves as good citizens, in giving it on all occasions their effectual support.”

With these words, Washington gave his official endorsement to freedom of religion, one year before the adoption of the Bill of Rights.

After the readings, the two letters were put into historical context by keynote speaker Judge Jed S. Rakoff, of the U.S. District Court for southern New York.

Judge Rakoff began his remarks by noting that while Rhode Island had ratified the U.S. Constitution in May 1790, becoming the last of the 13 states to do so, it was the ninth state to ratify what is now the First Amendment, which requires that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”

With that, Rakoff said, “Rhode Island, with its own history of religious toleration, had firmly declared its support for freedom of religion for the nation as a whole.”

Rakoff then spoke of the slow realization of the religious freedom and security expressed in Washington’s

PHOTO | JENNIFER CARTER PHOTOGRAPHY

Judge Jed Rakoff words. He noted that, “Rhode Island, for one, did not even allow Jews to vote in state elections until 1842.”

He said the “scourge of anti-Semitism” continued through the decades, with Jews being excluded from country clubs, board rooms and neighborhoods, and that even after World War II, “Polls showed that a considerable percentage of Americans still regarded Jews as communist sympathizers who, nevertheless, secretly controlled Wall Street.”

Rakoff then linked this sad history to recent tragic events, including the neo-Nazi march in Charlottesville, Virginia, in August 2017, and the mass shooting at Tree of Life synagogue, in Pittsburgh, on Oct. 27, 2018, “killing 11 members and wounding several others – the single worst anti-Semitic incident in U.S. history.”

In his concluding remarks, Judge Rakoff expressed thankfulness mixed with a warning. He said Jews owe this country a “huge debt, both for according us what Washington called our ‘natural rights,’ and for increasingly welcoming us into the American community without obliging us to abandon our own traditions and beliefs.”

He continued, “As Washington envisaged in his letter, Americans have in so many ways become ‘a great and a happy people,’ and Jewish Americans not least among them. But just as eternal vigilance is the price

of liberty, so we cannot be sure that such happiness will continue if we do not acknowledge and confront the growing dangers we face.”

The program continued with the awarding of annual prizes to people who have worked or written in support of religious freedom.

The Judge Alexander George Teitz award was presented posthumously to Tom Lantos, and the Lantos Foundation for Human Rights and Justice. Lantos was a congressman from California from 1981 until his death in 2008, and was the only Holocaust survivor to serve in the U.S. Congress. Lantos’ daughter, Katrina Lantos Swett, gave an emotional speech describing how her father escaped the Nazi death camps and came to America.

The audience was also treated to musical performances by acclaimed violinist Misha Keylin, accompanied on piano by Suzanne Laramee, resident artist of the Newport Music Festival. They performed the Introduction et Tarantelle, Op. 43, by the 19th-century Spanish composer Pablo de Sarasate, and later concluded the day’s program with a moving performance of “America the Beautiful.”

SAM SHAMOON, of Providence, is a member of the Touro Synagogue Foundation Board of Directors.

28 | SEPTEMBER 2019

Jewish Rhode Island | jewishrhody.org

COMMUNITY

Touro Fraternal awards grants Project Shoresh sponsored 3 inspiring programs for High Holy Day security

BY MICHAEL SCHEMAILLE IN JULY, the Touro Fraternal Association announced its intent to pay High Holy Days security costs for all Rhode Island synagogues, Chabad houses, and Hillel organizations. As of this writing, that offer has been accepted by 18 congregations across the state. Touro’s chairman, Alan Lury, explained, “We contacted every single entity within the state by certified letter … and the vast majority of them got back to us … in most cases, we effectively are covering all of their High Holidays security costs.”

Andrew Lamchick, head of Touro’s Community Involvement Committee, said, “We are covering every institution that fell under this in Rhode Island. We had requests from Fall River temples, Attleboro, etc., but we couldn’t do everything.

“We wish we didn’t have to do it; we wish we could spend the money on something that was more lasting, but you have to protect people. Life is the most precious thing…in many cases we offered more than what was requested. We have a major responsibility to

the Jewish community, and we take it very seriously,” Lamchick said.

Lury explained that “tens of thousands of dollars” for security were made available to Rhode Island’s congregations. He named the synagogue shootings in Pittsburgh and in Poway, California, as the catalyst for this initiative, citing a concern for the “safety of congregants across the state of Rhode Island…what we’re trying to do here is give the temples and synagogues some relief from having to be concerned, at least for these critical High Holy Days.”

Touro Fraternal Association, founded in 1918, is the largest independent Jewish fraternal order in the Northeast. They are headquartered in Cranston. The group will host an open house in October; for details visit tourofraternal.org or call 401785-0066. The organization is not affiliated with Touro Synagogue.

MICHAEL SCHEMAILLE (mschemaille@jewishallianceri.org) writes for Jewish Rhode Island and the Jewish Alliance of Greater Rhode Island.

in lead up to Tisha b’Av

BY RUCHAMA SZENDRO Every summer, Jews worldwide commemorate the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem with a three-week period of introspection that culminates in the national day of mourning, Tisha b’Av. During this period, Project Shoresh sponsored a series of three programs designed to engage and inspire members of the Rhode Island Jewish community.

Rabbi Tzvi Gluckin, author of four books and director of a Jewish think tank in Boston, spoke about “Good Times Bad Times” during the first program, held on July 23 at the Alliance’s Dwares Jewish Community Center, in Providence.

With his dynamic and interactive style, Gluckin challenged the audience to view all of their experiences with the attitude of gam zu l’tova, which means “this too is for the best.” He explained that although it may not be readily apparent, everything that we experience is – ultimately – for the best.

One of the rabbi’s many examples involved the tough coach of a football team.

Throughout the season, the players hated him as he drove them each day. But at the end of the season, as they celebrated becoming the new champions, they hugged the man who recognized their weaknesses and pushed them to overcome them and perfect their game.

The guest speaker on July 29 was Chana Silver, a crisis intervention counselor from

Jerusalem. She spoke to women from all over Rhode Island about “Inner Strengths You Didn’t Know You Had.” Silver discussed a basic difference in the way men and women think, with the caveat that there are many exceptions. She said that men tend to follow factual, analytical thought processes, while women are more likely to observe and deduce; in fact, they seem to excel at deduction.

Silver cited several instances in the Torah where women demonstrated this power of binah. For example, they refused to despair of Moses’ return from Mount Sinai, and consequently refused to donate their gold jewelry for the building of the golden calf. However, they eagerly presented their jewels when donations were sought for the building of the tabernacle.

Silver’s presentation illustrated the equal, distinct and complementary roles of men and women in Judaism.

The third program in the Project Shoresh series, held on Aug. 5, was a multigenerational event for mothers and daughters. Miriam Karp combined a cake-decorating activity with information about the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem and lessons on how to rebuild it.

To learn more about Project Shoresh and its programs to encourage and help Jews connect to their Judaism, email nkarp@projectshoresh.com.

RUCHAMA SZENDRO lives in Providence.

Rabbi Dolinger accepted to LEAP Fellowship Rabbi Barry Dolinger of Congregation Beth Shalom in Providence has been chosen to participate in the 2019-2020 cohort of the LEAP Fellowship, created by Clal and the Herbert D. Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies at the University of Pennsylvania. He will be a Katz Family Fellow in the program, which will have its first formal meeting in December.

The theme of this year’s

program is “The Jewish Home: Dwelling on the Domestic, the Familial and the Lived-in.” During the program, which meets for three, two-day sessions over the course of a year, the focus will be devoted to the home, seeking to shed light on this most formative and intimate context for Jewish life.

Rabbi Dolinger has been the spiritual leader of Congregation Beth Shalom since 2011.

SEPTEMBER 2019 | 29

jewishrhody.org | Jewish Rhode Island

Tour guide Deena Liffmann is a TripAdvisor star

BY MICHAEL SCHEMAILLE I’M SUPPOSED TO MEET Deena Liffmann at the RISD Museum, but she’s nowhere to be seen. I step outside to look for her along Benefit Street, and I suddenly realize that I’m in the wrong place. I rush down to the lobby on North Main, running past her before doubling back and sheepishly introducing myself. She accepts my apology and then calls Kenneth, her husband of 62 years, to let him know that I’ve arrived and that she doesn’t need a ride home just yet.

I’m nervous about having made a poor first impression, but that anxiety vanishes as soon as we start talking.

Liffmann, who will be 85 this month, quickly proves herself to be bright and friendly, with an easy smile and a contagious laugh. With these qualities, it’s not hard to understand why, with over 200 five-star reviews (and none lower than four stars), TripAdvisor lists her as the number-one tour guide in Providence.

To understand how Liffman, who taught for 30 years at Providence Hebrew Day School, became such an expert on the city, I first ask about her personal history. She tells me that she grew up in an Orthodox household in South Providence, went to Classical High School, and majored in biology at Brown University. As a child, she received private tutoring in Hebrew and Yiddish.

After graduating from Brown, she went to work in a research lab in Boston, where she met her husband, a now-retired general surgeon. She kvells a little about their three children, eight grandchildren and three great-grandchildren.

Continuing her story, Liffmann tells me that after deciding that three children were enough, she “needed something else to do.” She made a spur-of-the-moment decision to enroll at Rhode Island College for a master’s degree in teaching.

After graduating, Liffmann applied for a job at Providence Hebrew Day School, where her children were students.

“They knew me as a mother” at Providence Hebrew Day, she says, “and they weren’t sure I could teach, but they took a chance and gave me two classes, and I kept going … until one day [in 1998], I said, ‘I think this is enough, and I should do something else.’ ” Liffmann continues, “I didn’t know what I was going to do, and then I saw an ad in the paper for the [Rhode Island] Historical Society … they were looking for docents for the John Brown House. I learned a lot [in that position], and I really enjoyed it, and I met people who said, ‘you should volunteer here, and you should volunteer here,’ so I began volunteering all over the city.”

In time, Liffmann trained with, and gave tours for, the RISD Museum (for 16 years!), First Baptist Church, and

PHOTO | GLENN OSMUNDSON

Tour guide Deena Liffmann passes out pamphlets about Roger WIlliams at the end of a tour on Atwells Ave. on Federal Hill. the Providence Warwick Convention & Visitors Bureau. It was there, Liffmann explains, that “the woman who was in charge of volunteers said to me, ‘you should do this on your own, and then I can refer [people] to you.’ ” That was in 2007.

“Anyway,” Liffmann continues, “she convinced me. I signed up. I did a tour, and someone called me and said, ‘I want to write a review on TripAdvisor and I don’t see you there.’ So, I signed up … and I started getting calls from all over the world. It was very addicting.”

Asked about some of her most memorable clients, Liffmann immediately recalls a mother and daughter from Dubai, and various groups of Portuguese clients, and then says, “My most, most favorite people are most of them who come in, and they look, and they go, ‘what is that for?’ and ‘what does that mean?’ and that’s nice.”

She says that most visitors find Providence to be “a beautiful city, and they’re surprised at how quiet it is.”

Over her years of giving tours, Liffmann says Roger Williams has become her hero.

“I think back to what my origins are – Eastern European Jewish – that this was a place [Rhode Island] that saved all our lives. That the doors were open, and here we came. So I think about it like that, but it’s always been home to me, where my whole family was.

“I love walking on the old streets of Providence now that I know the stories, and things that I hadn’t seen before, and stories that have opened up.”

She finishes her thought by adding, about her experience working for the “I start most of my tours at Roger WilDEM. With a laugh, Liffmann says, liams [National Memorial], because “I like woods, and bugs, and stuff like that’s where the history begins,” and that, rocks and trees and dirt. I never then adds, with a twinkle in her eye, grew up to be a proper lady!” “and I have a place to park!”

Liffmann plans to retire from giving As we continue to speak, our contours at the end of the year, citing her versation becomes organic – natage as the deciding factor. ural, free-flowing and undirected; “I’ll be 85 in September; that sounds it becomes a conversation between OK, but to be 86 and still walking the friends, facilitated by streets ….” This last Liffmann’s boundstatement is accompa“I’ll be 85 in less curiosity. She nied by a wink and a is philosophical and laugh.

September; pragmatic, and we Then I ask, “What’s shift easily from topic next?” that sounds OK, to topic, touching on She says she’s not religion, family roles sure, but she menbut to be 86 and and personal freetions her desire to doms. We discover our travel, spend more still walking the mutual love of nature, time with her family, which gives Liffmann and perhaps write streets ….” a chance to talk about about her experiencspending part of every es. Liffmann says Providence tour guide year on her father’s many people have enfarm in North Scitcouraged her to write Deena Liffmann, on her uate when she was a these stories. She is retirement plans child, an experience uncertain about doing she describes as “very so, but it’s an idea that close to nature … that became a part has come up several times in our conof me.” versation, and I suspect that whatever That love of nature served Liffcomes next, Liffmann’s story doesn’t mann well during four summers of end here.

For more information on Deena her teaching career, when she worked Liffmann’s tours of Providence, go to as a naturalist for the Department of providencetours.blogspot.com, or email Environmental Management, at GodLiffmann at deenabl@cox.net. dard Memorial and Colt State parks.

She also spent a summer running MICHAEL SCHEMAILLE (mschemaille@ an Audubon Society day camp at the jewishallianceri.org) writes for Jewish Emilie Ruecker Wildlife Refuge, in Rhode Island and the Jewish Alliance Tiverton. of Greater Rhode Island.

Her eyes light up as she speaks

30 | SEPTEMBER 2019

We welcome you.

Join us for the High Holidays!

Congregation Agudas Achim

Old Traditions. New Thinking.

901 North Main St. Attleboro, MA (508) 222-2243 www.agudasma.org

/agudasma

Jewish Rhode Island | jewishrhody.org

Erev Rosh Hashanah Sept. 29, 7:30 p.m.

Rosh Hashanah I Sept. 30, 9:15 a.m.* Tashlich Sept. 30, 4:30 p.m.

Duck Pond across from Col. Blackinton Inn

Rosh Hashanah II Oct. 1, 9:15 a.m.

Kol Nidre Oct. 8, 6:15 p.m.* Yom Kippur Oct. 9, 9:15 a.m.* Mincha & Neilah Oct. 9, 5:30 p.m. *Child care and/or children’s services

COMMUNITY Alliance’s family-friendly Super Sunday fundraiser planned for Sept. 15

BY SETH FINKLE As summer changes to fall, students prepare for school and beach days drift away, the Jewish Alliance of Greater Rhode Island is powering up for Super Sunday, a unifying day of philanthropy that demonstrates the power of community.

Every year, the Jewish community comes together in support of the Alliance’s Annual Campaign and the more than 300 programs and services it funds annually.

Super Sunday, the Alliance’s largest one-day fundraising effort of the year, will be held on Sept. 15 and co-chaired by Jennifer and Michael Oelbaum. Michael grew up in Providence and Jennifer is the secretary of the board of Providence’s Temple Emanu-El and is a member of the Alliance Community Development Committee. The couple lives in Lincoln with their

8-year-old daughter.

The theme of this year’s annual campaign is Jewish Moments Powered by You. To make this the most successful Super Sunday ever, the Oelbaums have helped plan a family-friendly event where, in addition to the phone bank, there will be activities for young children and teens.

“We are very excited to be part of this important event,” the couple said. “We look forward to the opportunity to help raise money for the programs that keep our community strong and vibrant.”

Alliance Board Chair James Pious said, “Super Sunday is the kickoff to our 2020 Annual Campaign. I am so grateful to Jennifer and Michael Oelbaum for planning such a special day.

“I am also grateful for all the past support from our community, however, our needs continue to grow. This is always an inspiring day, as we witness the community come together.

If you cannot volunteer, please answer the [phone] call. With your help, we can make this the most successful Super Sunday to date!”

As an added incentive to “answer the call,” David and Carol Bazarsky have once again offered a matching gift, up to $10,000, for any new or increased gift made on Super Sunday.

Whether you make phone calls, volunteer in other ways to support Super Sunday, or answer the call, you are adding to the strength of the community in Rhode Island – and around the world. Community members are welcome to join the fundraising efforts at any time between 9 a.m. and 1 p.m. on Sept. 15 for Super Sunday, at the Alliance’s Dwares Jewish Community Center, at 401 Elmgrove Ave., Providence, as we raise essential dollars for the community.

To learn more about Super Sunday, sign up to volunteer or to donate online, go to jewishallianceri.org.

For more information contact Michele Gallagher at 401-4214111, ext. 165, or mgallagher@ jewishallianceri.org.

SETH FINKLE (sfinkle@jewishallianceri.org) is the development manager at the Jewish Alliance of Greater Rhode Island.

Michael and Jennifer Oelbaum

Temple Torat Yisrael Temple Torat Yisrael 1251 Middle

Holocaust center brings anti-war opera to Fall River

Road

1251 Middle RoadRI 02818 East Greenwich, Temple Torat Yisrael East Greenwich, RI 02818 For its annual fundraiser, 1251 Middle Road www.toratyisrael.org the Bristol Holocaust and www.toratyisrael.org East Greenwich, RI 02818 Genocide Center is proud to (401) 885-6600 (401) 885-6600 www.toratyisrael.org bring the Connecticut Lyric

Opera Company to Bristol Community College’s Fall River campus on Oct. 13 for a performance of Viktor Ullman’s “The Emperor of Atlantis.”

Ullman, a prominent Austrian Jewish composer, created the satirical anti-war opera, along with librettist Programs for all ages, Pre K to 7 Sunday School. and fellow prisoner Peter We look forward to welcoming you to our community!

Kien, while an inmate in the Programs for ages, Pre Pre KKtoto7 7 Sunday School.

Programs forus allatallages, Sunday School. Theresienstadt concentration Email welcome@toratyisrael.org.

We look forward to welcoming you to our community!

Ullman would later die We look forward to welcoming you to our community! camp. in the Auschwitz death camp.

Email us at welcome@toratyisrael.org.

The Connecticut Lyric Email us at welcome@toratyisrael.org.

Opera Company is a professional ensemble that stages (401) 885-6600

May Your Your New Year May New Year May be Your FilledNew withYear bebeFilled with Happiness and Good Filled withHealth Happiness GoodHealth Health Happinessand and Good

operas throughout the U.S. and Europe. The production of “The Emperor of Atlantis,” on BCC’s Fall River campus, at 777 Elsbree St., is the only one planned in New England at this time; it will be performed at Carnegie Hall in New York City later in the fall. The opera company will be accompanied by the Connecticut Virtuosi Chamber Orchestra.

Tickets to the Oct. 13 performance, at 2 p.m., are $50, or $25 for students. To reserve tickets, write to Dr. Ron Weisberger, LRC 200a, Bristol Community College, 777 Elsbree St., Fall River, MA 02730.

For questions, email Ron. Weisberger@bristolcc.edu or

call 508-678-2811, ext. 2444.

In addition to the opera, the holocaust center has a number of other programs scheduled for the fall, including a workshop for regional teachers, led by the national organization Echoes and Reflection, and three lunchtime lectures by local Holocaust and genocide scholars, all of which will be held at the Fall River campus. All programs are open to the public.

For more information on the center, go to www.bristolcc.edu/about/inthecommunity/bristolholocaustandgenocidecenter.

Submitted by the Bristol Holocaust and Genocide Center

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SUMMER CELEBRATION Photos by: Elaine Sandy, Barbara Brickle and Eli Landry 1. (left–right) Jerry Cohen, Bob Greenbaum

1

2. (left–right) Soni Price, Helen Klein, Betty Kotlen, Rose Gergel, , Trudy Katz

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3. Rick Granoff 4. (left–right) Thomas Fratini, Carole Sarocco, Jillian Brosofsky, Lisa Brosofsky, Debbi Jaffe, Andra Shea

2

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TEMPLE BETH-EL 4TH ANNUAL SUMMER CELEBRATION AND 10TH ANNUAL GOLF TOURNAMENT A HUGE SUCCESS Temple Beth-El’s Annual Summer Celebration including the 10th Annual Golf Tournament took place at Agawam Hunt on Monday, July 22. While all weather reports predicted the possibility of heavy rain and thunderstorms, the skies remained clear except for a few moments of cooling rain. This year we recorded several new records, including 24 foursomes for golf, 30 mah jongg and canasta players, 10 tennis players and 50 additional guests meeting up for evening festivities. How exciting to see 175 people gather in the club’s dining room for dinner.

Rick Granoff and Bob Greenbaum, chairs of the Golf Committee, announced that we netted over $60,000 - a new record. Rick Cohen chaired the auctions. He, along with several other congregants, secured more than 200 items for the silent auction and raffles.

Coupled with an extravagant live auction and fund-a-need, in support of youth groups the total raised for auctions was more than $26,000, another record breaker!

Cardroom chairs Lynn Glick, Rose Gergel, Betty Kotlen and Margi White made all participants feel welcome. Lisa Brosofky, chair of tennis, arranged for the players to play on the beautiful grass courts

Eric Antuono, Mike Sherburne, Alex Finkelman, Patrick McKenna

at Agawam Hunt and to host a clinic led by Agawam’s pro.

Children enjoyed their own Agawam Hunt day camp, including corn hole, crafts projects, relay races and swimming. Evening found the group of youngsters enjoying dinner at the pool’s snack bar followed by a video in the air conditioned kid’s room. Through the generosity of an anonymous donor, there was no charge for children to attend the day and/or evening activities.

While we have recognized chairs of the various committees, the Temple Beth-El Summer Celebration can only succeed with the dedication of dozens of lay leaders and volunteers. The Temple staff worked tirelessly and we must also express appreciation of the efforts of our volunteers.

Indeed the Temple Beth-El Summer Celebration has become both a major fundraiser and a way of bringing our congregation together for a mid-summer reunion. Monies raised from the Summer Celebration and Golf Tournament are directed to the Rabbi Leslie Yale Gutterman

Religious School.

Andrew Therrion, Anthony Landi, Steve Bienenfeld, Kevin Stacom

Chris Yalanis, Zach Magnone, Phil Torgan, Ken Kirsch

There are many ways to be Jewish. And there are many ways to be generous.

Dedicated volunteers worked throughout the 2018 - 2019 year to advance the mission of the Jewish Alliance of Greater Rhode Island and ensure that we can meet our goals and plans for the future.

We are grateful for their generous gifts of time and talent that strengthen our community.

2018-2019 Alliance Board of Directors Mitzi Berkelhammer, Chair of the Board Vice Chairs Rabbi Barry Dolinger, Governance Janet Goldman, Community Development James Pious, Philanthropy Oswald Schwartz, Jewish Life & Learning Richard Silverman, Communications Treasurer Harris Chorney Board of Directors Jason Bazarsky Adam Cable Susan Leach DeBlasio Michael Eides Donna Evans Ryan Forman Susan Froehlich, Leadership Development Marisa Garber Marc Gertsacov Richard Glucksman, Community Relations Council Robert Landau Shoshana Lew Sara Miller-Paul, Chair Appointee Cara Mitnick Vincent Mor Mara Ostro Judy Rosenstein Cheryl Greenfeld Teverow, Chair Appointee Miriam Esther Weiner Rabbi Rachel Zerin, Rabbinical Representative

Susan Leach DeBlasio Joan Gray Jay Rosenstein Steven Shalansky Richard Sutton Alliance Governance Committee Rabbi Barry Dolinger, Chair Andrew Bramson Michael Goldberg Sara Miller-Paul Mara Ostro Judy Rosenstein Oswald Schwartz Alliance Facilities Committee Harold Foster, Chair James Pious Oswald Schwartz Alliance Realty, Inc. Board Ronald C. Markoff, Chair Robert Stolzman, Vice Chair Sharon Gaines, Secretary/Treasurer

Alliance Audit Committee Shoshana Lew, Chair Robert Landau Jay Rosenstein

Jewish Federation Foundation of Greater Rhode Island Board Sharon Gaines, Chair Robert Sherwin, Vice Chair Melvin G. Alperin Robin Engle H. Jack Feibelman Mark R. Feinstein David M. Hirsch Marilyn Kaplan, Treasurer Richard A. Licht Michael Nulman James Pious Ralph Posner Jay Rosenstein Barbara Sokoloff Herbert B. Stern Cheryl Greenfeld Teverow, Secretary Mindy Wachtenheim As agreed upon with the Rhode Island Foundation, October 2018

Alliance Finance Committee Harris Chorney, Chair Jason Bazarsky

Jewish Federation Foundation Investment Committee Robert Sherwin, Chair

Honorary Directors Melvin G. Alperin Alan G. Hassenfeld Sharon Gaines, Immediate Past Chair Adam Greenman, President & CEO

Mitzi Berkelhammer Matthew Blank H. Jack Feibelman Mark R. Feinstein Sharon Gaines, Jewish Federation Foundation Chair David M. Hirsch Marc Lewin Jerrold Salmanson Steven Shalansky Kenneth Shimberg Jason Siperstein Terrence Smily Herbert B. Stern Mindy Wachtenheim Joel Westerman FRD Campaign Cabinet Mitzi Berkelhammer, Chair of the Board James Pious, Vice Chair of Philanthropy Melvin G. Alperin, At large Susan Froehlich, At large Sharon Gaines, Jewish Federation Foundation Chair Janet Goldman, Vice Chair of Community Development Maybeth Lichaa, Women’s Alliance Community Chair Lezli Pious, Women’s Alliance Lion of Judah/ Pomegranate/Jaffa Gate Chair Ralph Posner, Pacesetter Chair Edward D. Rotmer, Men’s Community Chair Richard Silverman, Leaders Chair Cheryl Greenfeld Teverow, At large 2019 Annual Campaign Solicitors Melvin G. Alperin Mitzi Berkelhammer Robert Berkelhammer Alan Buff Susan Leach DeBlasio Beverly Ehrich Susan Eides Gloria S. Feibish Mark R. Feinstein Barbara Feldstein Edward D. Feldstein Geraldine Foster Harold Foster Fred Franklin

Summary of Financial Investments The Jewish Alliance of Greater Rhode Island, through our Community Development Committee, along with donors, Donor Advised Fund holders, and endowment fund holders, has thoughtfully invested resources into the local and global community − both Jewish and secular − ensuring that needs are met in greater Rhode Island, Israel, and around the world.

Total Fiscal Year 2019 Investments: Annual Campaign $3,100,023 Supplemental Giving $401,735 Donor Advised Fund Grants $1,060,413 Unrestricted Endowment Grants $672,311 Restricted Endowment Grants $128,827 Other Endowment Income $503,000 $5,866,309

Breakdown by Category: Supplemental Giving Secure Community $17,050 Living on the Edge $162,556 Capital Campaign $132,993 Corporate Giving $47,865 Jewish RI Patron Campaign $23,440 Special Gifts $17,715 Relief Funds $116

Donor Advised Fund Grants Local Jewish $351,672 National Jewish $311,429 Overseas Jewish $22,520 Local Secular $230,066 National Secular $144,726

Restricted Endowment Grants Local Jewish $105,337 National Jewish $4,983 Overseas Jewish $9,873 Local Secular $7,751 National Secular $883

Susan Froehlich Sharon Gaines Marc Gertsacov Richard Glucksman Gloria Golden Janet Goldman George M. Goodwin Edward A. Greene David M. Hirsch Hope L. Hirsch Marilyn Kaplan William Kolb Robert Landau Judith Levitt Mayer Levitt Rachel Alexander Levy Maybeth Lichaa Alan Litwin David London Ronald C. Markoff Cara Mitnick Mara Ostro James Pious Lezli Pious Ralph Posner Judy Robbins Edward D. Rotmer Steven Schechter Kenneth Schneider F. Richard Shein Richard Silverman Barbara Sokoloff Cheryl Greenfeld Teverow Miriam Esther Weiner Joel Westerman Ada Winsten David Yavner Super Sunday and Giving Chai Day Phone-a-thon Volunteers Aliza & William Krieger, Super Sunday Co-Chairs Susan Adler Mitzi Berkelhammer Robert Berkelhammer Pinchas Berlin Elisheva Bielory Adam Cable Rabbi Michelle Dardashti Brauna Doidge Dawn Doucette-Kaplan Gabrielle Dworkin Gloria S. Feibish Ryan Forman Susan Froehlich Sharon Gaines Daniel Gamm Marisa Garber Richard Glucksman Miri Goldberg Janet Goldman Samantha Goldman George M. Goodwin Sara Goodwin Marilyn Kaplan Rabbi Naftali Karp Rabbi Noach Karp Robert Landau Rabbi Aaron Lapin Shoshana Lapin Elly Leyman

Maybeth Lichaa David London Sara Miller-Paul Erin Minior Cara Mitnick Talia Myers New England Rabbinical College Students Dianne Newman Bess Nochomowitz Grace Novick Amy Olson Mara Ostro Aryeh Pelcovits Amanda Petrocelli James Pious Jayne Richmond Sally Rotenberg Adam Roth Edward D. Rotmer Rabbi Raphie Schochet Oswald Schwartz F. Richard Shein Peter Shore Richard Silverman Adam Sinel David Talan Brian Tesar Gail Thornburgh Alane Torf Alison Walter Edie Weinstein 2019 Annual Campaign Event Marisa Garber & Daniel Gamm, Co-Chairs Women’s Alliance Rosh Hodesh Committee Maybeth Lichaa, Chair Sherry Cohen Katherine Haspel Toby London Judy Robbins Cheryl Greenfeld Teverow Women’s Alliance Endowment Fund Subcommittee Karen Borger Diane Ducoff Michelle Miller Jewish Alliance’s 34th Annual Dwares JCC Golf Classic Cindy & Mark R. Feinstein, Co-Chairs Community Development Committee Janet Goldman, Chair Overseas Subcommittee David Yavner, Chair Marc Adler Adam Cable Susan Eides Robert D. Mann Local Subcommittee Robert Landau, Chair Harold Foster Susan Froehlich Sharon Gaines Jennifer Oelbaum

CDC Redesign Committee Vincent Mor, Chair Peri Ann Aptaker Richard A. Licht Mara Ostro Richard Silverman CDC Split Committee Rabbi Howard Voss-Altman, Chair Adam Cable Stacy Emanuel Sharon Gaines William Krieger Jamie Pious Community Relations Council Richard Glucksman, Chair Adam Cable Rabbi Jeffrey Goldwasser Jenna Israel Michael Klein Robert Landau Cara Mitnick Eve Savitzky Shammai Weiner Social Justice Task Force Adam Cable Rabbi Jeffrey Goldwasser Rachel Newman Greene Perri Leviss Cara Mitnick Elizabeth Ochs Kayla Rosen Victoria Strang Rabbi Alex Weissman LGBTQ Advisory Committee Jodi Glass Alexandra Kohl Rabbi Adam Lavitt Eve Savitzky Jewish Life & Learning Committee Oswald Schwartz, Chair Marisa Garber Rabbi Rachel Zerin Early Childhood Center Parent Committee Adina Davies, Chair (401)j Stakeholders Ryan Forman, Chair Gabrielle Dworkin,Vice Chair Samantha Goldman Talia Myers Petr Petrik Jeremy Poster Community Security Campaign Harold Foster, Chair Mitzi Berkelhammer Harris Chorney Sean Comella, Security Consultant Sharon Gaines Jamie Manville

To view the full 2019 Donor Report & Financial Summary, please visit jewishallianceri.org.

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 For the uncertain child, • For uncertain it’s the developing poise child, it’s developing and confidence poise and confidence

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 For the uncertain child, bers,” said Adam Greenman, 2017, the poise Alliance began coordination it’sIndeveloping and confidence a three-year Alliance president and CEO. • For Forthe thechild child who who gives implementing up easily, it’s it’s “We want to hear what makes strategic plan designed to set THIS The FALL,Jewish the Jewish Alliance gives up easily,  For the impulsive Voice determination and determination and  aFor the child who way to community strong foundation for future plans of Greater Rhode Island ischild, it’saaJewish Ad #19 perseverance perseverance givestouphelp easily, it’s the orgaand vibrant, and develop our and guide undertaking a communitychannel energy accomplishment determination and into a rewarding B&W spot ad: 2" X 3" organization’s goals based on nization through the initial strategic-planning process For all children, piano is one of the greatest forms of perseverance accomplishment what we hear.” years of Greenman’s role as to help it develop goals and self-improvement confidence!

Forself-expression, all children, piano is one of theand greatest forms of As part of the strateCEO. Much of the work in the strategies for the next three self-expression, self-improvement and confidence! August 2 Issue – Education gic-planning process,piano the is one current years. It will replace the For all children, of theplan has been accomPrivate Piano Lessons in Your Home with Mike Fura Deadline: 23,set2019 Alliance will hold a of series of plished, while a few remaincurrent plan,July which goals Private Piano Lessons in Your Homeofwith greatest forms self-expression, Graduate of The Boston Conservatory Music Mike Fura listening sessions to get input ing goals and strategies are through June 30, 2020. self-improvement and confidence! and Berklee College of Music from all parts of the Jewish on their way to completion.

“We want to build the Graduate of The Boston Conservatory of Music (508) 889-6500 community on the challenges This has Alliance’s goals from what we and Berklee College of Music Private Piano Lessons in Your Homecreated a solid base michaelfura@gmail.com facing the community today, hear from community memwith Mike Fura for the Alliance to build upon as well as the hopes and throughout the next decade; (508) 889-6500 desires ofofthe community for the strategic plan is an BMW AUDI MERCEDES BENZ VOLKSWAGEN MINI Graduate The Boston Conservatory ofnew Music michaelfura@gmail.com tomorrow. discussions essential next step in that andThe Berklee College of Music and information sessions will development. take place in(508) private889-6500 homes “This process and the plan and synagogues statewide, at that comes out of it will build michaelfura@gmail.com the Jewish Alliance, and at a strong foundation for our “My car had trouble while I was partner agencies. entire Jewish community,” driving to work. It was towed to This fall, an informational said James Pious, chair of the German Motors who worked survey will also be distributed Alliance’s board. on it promptly. I wasn't able At t o r n e ys at L aw communitywide, and will be The Alliance hopes as many to pick it up myself, so they available online. community members as possidelivered the car to my home.”

A strategic-planning work ble will engage in the process, – Thomas D., Warren, Porsche 911 group, composed of lay leadeither through the survey, or Patrick C. Lynch Jeffrey B. Pine Courtesy drop-off to downtown. ers, Alliance board members, by attending a listening sesAttorney General: 1993-1999 Attorney General: 2003-2011 volunteers and staff, will sift sion to provide their thoughts G E R M A N M O T O R S INC through the information colon where the Jewish commuOne Park Row, Fifth Floor Providence, RI 02903 lected during these listening nity goes from here.

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Issue – High Holy Days goals, a new funding stratequality of lifeSeptember for those6we serve.

Deadline: August 20, 2019 gy to meet the community’s FOR MORE INFORMATION, conneeds, and other opportunitact Jennifer Zwirn, director ties for the Alliance to serve of community investment, at as a central hub for safeguard- jzwirn@jewishallianceri.org ing the community’s future. or 401-421-4111, ext. 102.

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Jewish groups provide help to the Bahamas JTA – The Israel-based humanitarian group IsraAID, B’nai B’rith International and Chabad are among those pitching in to help the Bahamas in the wake of Hurricane Dorian’s devastation.

IsraAID, a humanitarian aid agency that responds to emergency crises and engages in international development, said Sept. 3 that it would send emergency support to the Bahamas.

Its emergency response team will distribute relief supplies, offer psychological first aid and deploy water filters to restore access to drinking water while conducting further needs assessments in affected communities, the NGO said.

The group has opened an

Emergency Response Fund.

B’nai B’rith is accepting donations to its Disaster Relief Fund to assist those affected by Dorian. Donations will go to assist local recovery and rebuilding teams, the group said.

Rabbi Sholom and Sheera Bluming, directors of Chabad of the Bahamas in Nassau, have been in touch with the Jewish community in Nassau, which was relatively unscathed by the hurricane, but have not been able to reach some of those living on Abaco, according to Chabad.org.

The rabbi said that about 1,000 Jewish expats have made their home in the Bahamas, and that more than 100,000 Jews visit the islands each year.

SEPTEMBER 2019 | 35

jewishrhody.org | Jewish Rhode Island

‘Books on the Beach’ delves into historical fiction

BY FRAN OSTENDORF NEWPORT – Rain or shine, it’s always a pleasant afternoon at Hadassah’s annual Books on the Beach author luncheon and fundraiser. This year was no exception. The weather threatened rain on Aug. 6, but that didn’t stop the banquet room at OceanCliff Resort from filling up.

The ninth annual event featured two popular writers and raised funds for the women’s Zionist organization’s medical work in Israel.

Sally Koslow, author of “Another Side of Paradise,” and Mary Morris, author of “Gateway to the Moon,” were the featured speakers.

Both accomplished writers gave entertaining talks about their latest novels, how they chose the subject, and their writing process.

Koslow said she grew up in Fargo, North Dakota, where her mother was active in Hadassah. She said she always wanted to write historical fiction – but she didn’t start writing until she was in her 50s.

“Another Side of Paradise” is the story of Sheilah Graham, an early Hollywood gossip columnist who was F. Scott Fitzgerald’s lover.

Koslow said the book grew out of her desire to write about a Jewish woman and a love story.

“I stumbled onto Sheilah Graham. Everyone knows F. Scott Fitzgerald’s story, but few know about Graham.”

Koslow said Graham was like a female Jay Gatsby, the iconic character from Fitzgerald’s novel “The Great Gatsby.”

“When you write a book like this, you have to be factual” and create the story line within those constraints, she said.

Mary Morris also discussed the process of writing while relying on facts.

“You can get the facts and details, but it takes a while to make it my own,” she said.

Her Jewish background is secular. “My parents didn’t want me to be known as Jewish by my name,” she said.

“Gateway to the Moon” is about descendants of Luis de Torres, Columbus’ interpreter, who fled the Spanish Inquisition. The family eventually settled in the hills of New Mexico. Their descendants are known as crypto-Jews: secret Jews who publicly profess another faith.

Morris talked extensively about her research and writ-

PHOTOS | FRAN OSTENDORF

Left: Author Mary Morris chats with one of her fans. Right: Author Sally Koslow signs a book.

Nancy Falchuk speaks to the luncheon crowd. ing process.

“I’m a reluctant historical novelist,” she said. “I’m not a historian, but I’m a storyteller. The story is too important.

I want to know just enough [about the facts].”

“I don’t write in order; I don’t even talk in order,” she said to laughter from the audience. “You have all the pieces, and then you assemble them.”

At the beginning of the afternoon, the Hadassah members and guests listened to Nancy Falchuk, a Hadassah national past president, talk about Hadassah’s history in Israel and its newest fundraising effort.

Falchuk outlined the story of Hadassah and the American founder of the organization, Henrietta Szold, who traveled to Israel and saw the poor health conditions there.

Upon her return, she told members of the book groups she had created that they had to do something practical.

And that was the birth of Hadassah.

Through the years, Hadassah has funded clinics, hospitals, a nursing school, a medical school, a pharmacy and physical therapy schools in Israel with donations from its members.

Funds are now being raised to restore what is known as the Round Building, on the Ein Kerem campus of the Hadassah Medical Organization in Israel. A cutting-edge facility when it opened in 1961, it now needs renovation and upgrading. The rehab will also add 200 beds to the facility.

Falchuk told the audience, “It’s only going to get done if we do it,” and “We are going to do it.”

“Our heart and soul goes into this. We know it matters,” she said.

FRAN OSTENDORF (fostendorf@ jewishallianceri.org) is the editor of Jewish Rhode Island.

Happy New Year!

Edith H. Ajello Representative, District 3

Paid for by the Committee to Elect Edith H. Ajello Jennifer Kiddie, Treasurer

laW officEs of William m. Kolb, llc Telephone: (401) 714-0622 • Fax: (401) 714-0626 • bill@kolblaw.com

William m. Kolb, Esq. Attorney at Law

One Richmond Square, Suite 226W, Providence, Rhode Island 02906 www.kolblaw.com

Still your only Jewish newspaper

36 | SEPTEMBER 2019

Jewish Rhode Island | jewishrhody.org

COMMUNITY Chabad students in Rhode Island

90-year-old Chaim, originally from Homel, Belarus, keeps his traditions alive.

Jon putting on tefillin in front of Touro Synagogue in Newport.

APPROXIMATELY 70 years ago, the Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Shneerson, instituted a program for young rabbinic students to visit Jewish communities in an effort to raise Jewish awareness and pride. Each year, hundreds of students devote their summer break to spending time in rural areas

and big cities alike. Some bring kosher food and Jewish literature to places that have none, while others visit more established communities, seeking out estranged youth and those who have not yet felt the warmth of Judaism, exposing them to the beauty, meaning, and relevance of Jewish heritage.

This summer, Chabad of Rhode Island and Rabbi Yehoshua Laufer welcomed a number of these students.

Two of them, Shneur Wilhelm and Yehuda Chanowitz, who have studied this past year at the Rabbinical College of America, in Morristown, New Jersey, documented some of the activities.

Submitted by Chabad of RI

L'SHANAH TOVAH TIKATEVU SENATOR

Back to School HAPPY STUDENTS arrive at Providence Hebrew Day School on Elmgrove Avenue on Sept. 3, for the first day of school. PHDS, with its highest enrollment in 20 years, welcomed students from three communities in Massachusetts and five in Rhode Island to start the school year.Â

SEPTEMBER 2019 | 37

jewishrhody.org | Jewish Rhode Island

BUSINESS

How to survive a bear market ticular asset allocation has cial professional who knows performed in past bear marhow to use them, become parkets, are less inclined to make ticularly valuable. Not only imprudent asset-management can a financial professional decisions when a negative run various scenarios on scenario becomes reality. complex modeling software, To be worthwhile and accubut they can interpret the rate, these market scenarios findings and relate them to need to account for a wide your specific situation. range of factors. That’s where To find a Certified Financial Rosh Hashanah.qxp_3x10 8/10/18 9:18Planner AM Pagein 1 your area, go to the modeling tools, and a finan-

Financial Planning Association’s searchable database, at www.PlannerSearch.org.

JASON E. SIPERSTEIN, CFA, CFP, is the president-elect of the Financial Planning Association of Rhode Island and president of Eliot Rose Wealth Management. He can be reached at jes@eliotrose.com.

S&S

SE

AR

actually sold. Having a broad historical perspective helps investors resist selling assets when their value has plummeted, which is hardly an optimal move.

Ensure that your assets are appropriately allocated. Your money should be strategically allocated across asset classes, such as stocks and bonds, so your assets provide both the potential for growth and protection in a bear market.

It’s also important to maintain a cash reserve or emergency fund, from which you can draw money should you JASON E. lose your job, SIPERSTEIN instead of having to resort to liquidating stocks or tapping retirement accounts when their value is down.

Have a genuine big-picture financial plan that includes goals, and revisit the plan to remind yourself of those goals. Your long-term financial plan should connect your resources to your goals, and specify the asset-management strategies and steps needed to reach those goals, taking into account bear markets, bull markets and everything in between.

Get help from a financial professional to guide you through possible scenarios. People who have walked through the what-ifs ahead of time, with hypotheticals to see how their par-

EN

D O LL

WHENEVER THE STOCK market takes a negative turn, investors begin to wonder if the worst is yet to come. But panic-fueled selling in reaction to a down market can erase years of solid investment performance. Worse, it can ultimately decrease an investor’s ability to meet long-term life goals and undermine their overall financial health.

There is a better way. When it appears a recession is looming, or perhaps is already upon us, investors should take a deep breath and then make level-headed decisions on the best course of action. It is recommended that you don’t act hastily based on what you’re reading in the media about the economy.

The following four suggestions are designed to help people prepare in advance so they can resist making ill-advised, heat-of-the-moment choices about their assets when the next bear market hits – as history suggests it inevitably will.

Know the history and the context.

The stock market is prone to long and sometimes extreme highs and lows. But drops in the value of assets are on paper only and not true losses; they only become true losses when those assets are

The Miriam Hospital wishes you

a happy rosh hashanah. miriamhospital.org

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COMMUNITY | OBITUARIES Tribute: Joel H. Zaiman

BY EMANUEL C. PERLMAN Rabbi Joel H. Zaiman was the standard bearer for excellence. Every decision he made as a rabbi was reflected through the prism of the highest pedagogical foundations always based in Torah principles and fully validated, with halachic arguments on both sides exhaustively explored. As a teacher he masterfully made the most complicated rabbinic concepts accessible to laypeople.

He was peerless in his uncanny ability to select the right staff person for the right position. He supported his staff members unconditionally and expected no less or no more from them than he expected from himself. His definition of workload and work ethic surpassed the long established working definition.

He gave with an overflowing measure to his calling.

With Rabbi Zaiman the “calling” was never a job. His staff felt that it was an honor and privilege to work with “the” master teacher and role model.

He pastorally counseled as a shepherd, caring for every congregant in his large flock with focused attentiveness and unbridled compassion.

His sharp, psychoanalytic suggestions were transmitted spiritually and therapeutically.

Rabbi Zaiman was a rabbi’s rabbi.

He embraced and lived the tenets and teachings of Torah. We, the rare ones, who really knew him on a personal level experienced the biblical proportions he had achieved but what humbled us all was his emphatic demanding that he not be honored or specially recognized.

On a personal note, during evolving “seasons” over a 54-year span, Joel H. Zaiman was my rabbi, my teacher, mentor, colleague, role model and a man that I admired and loved as a cherished friend.

Sharing social time with Ann and Joel was sacred and gifted time. Rabbi Zaiman was determined to never be a burden on anyone for any reason. The measuring stick of Rabbi Zaiman as a father and grandfather has to be the respectful voluntarily cloned choices of his children and grandchildren that reflected the moral and ethical values he espoused

and lived.

The prosperous era of intensive, devoted Torah based learning has suffered an irreparable blow. Rabbinic and clergy of all faiths marveled at his command of Torah knowledge and his unstinting commitment to ecumenicism.

The brilliant mind of our beloved teacher is no longer with us but his brilliance will live on forever.

I conclude with sending love, respect and awe for my teacher and rebbe and with heartfelt condolences to his beloved Ann and their devoted children.

With endless gratitude, and with perfect faith I will forever envision my late father, Hazzan Ivan E. Perlman, Rabbi Joel H. Zaiman and me standing together as co-partners on the bimah of life and learning.

HAZZAN EMANUEL C. PERLMAN was co-clergy with Rabbi Zaiman from 1997-2004 at Chizuk Amuno Congregation.

Rabbi Zaiman also served with Hazzan Perlman’s late father Hazzan Ivan E. Perlman as co-clergy from 1964-1979 at Temple Emanu-El in Providence. Rabbi Zaiman, of Baltimore, died on July 31 at the age of 81. This tribute is reprinted with permission.

Memorial set There will be a memorial service for Dr. Sidney Goldstein on Monday, Sept. 23, at 6 p.m. at the Alliance’s Dwares Jewish Community Center.

RSVP to may@sbhec.org. See obituary, page 40.

Alfred Factor, 88

H. Alan ‘Bud’ Frank, 89

CRANSTON, R.I. – Alfred Factor died Aug. 15 at Rhode Island Hospital. He was the husband of Marilyn (Presel) Factor for 63 years. Born in Providence, a son of the late Benjamin and Jenny (Singer) Factor, he had lived in Cranston for 60 years, previously living in Providence.

He was a lawyer and former president of Kirshenbaum & Kirshenbaum for 51 years, retiring in 2008. Alfred was a graduate of the University of Rhode Island and Boston University School of Law, where he was on the Law Review. He was a member of the former Rhode Island Jewish Fraternal Association, a member and former president of the Rhode Island Board of Bar Examiners and member of the Committee of Character and Fitness.

He was the father of Jeffrey Factor, M.D., and his wife, Susan, of Avon, Connecticut, and Robyn and her husband, William Forte, of Cranston. He was the brother of the late Eleanor Zettel. He was the grandfather of Rebecca, Alyssa, Lauren and Jaime.

Contributions may be made to the charity of your choice.

PALM BEACH GARDENS, FLA. – Bud Frank, of Palm Beach Gardens and formerly of Providence, passed away on Aug. 24 with his wife, Ellie, by his side. He was born in Providence on May 26, 1930, the son of Haskell and Belle Frank. He was married to Ellie Frank for 62 years, and had three children, Robbie Frank (deceased), Lisa Edelson and Harley Frank. He is also survived by his grandchildren Benzi and Mia Edelson and Ross, Adrienne and Drew Frank, and his son-in-law Geoff Edelson and daughterin-law Donna Frank. He was known for his generosity, sense of humor and love of family and friends – “Everybody loved Buddy.”

Bud graduated from the University of Rhode Island in 1951. Bud became the third generation of family management at Union Paper & Stationery Co., a Providence company established by his grandfather Moses Frank in 1898 and continued by his father Haskell Frank. Bud broke new ground, investing in converting equipment, a bag machine, pioneering the way for Union Industries and ultimately Admiral Packaging. Bud successfully headed the company for 45 years. A great salesman, Bud grew the business with his magnetic sense of humor and attention to customers. Bud had a deep love of Admiral Packaging and instilled a strong foundation that the company continues to build upon today.

Bud was an avid skier, pilot and golfer and Bud and Ellie traveled the world.

He will be remembered for making others laugh. Bud was always out and about, cheering on the Patriots and Red Sox, listening to James Taylor at Tanglewood, and meeting friends for breakfast at the 19th Hole.

Bud was passionate about the Sandra Bornstein Holocaust Education Center, the Israel Tennis & Education Centers Foundation, and Sophia Academy, among others.

Donations should be made to one’s charity of choice.

Jason Forman, 41

"Auschwitz. Not long ago. Not far away." is a groundbreaking exhibition that brings together more than 700 original objects and 400 photographs from more than 20 institutions and museums around the world. It is the most comprehensive exhibition dedicated to the history of Auschwitz and its role in the Holocaust ever presented in North America.

On September 22, 2019, the Jewish Alliance of Greater Rhode Island, Temple Beth-El, North East Action Sports, and the Sandra Bornstein Holocaust Education Center will host a bus trip to Manhattan’s Museum of Jewish Heritage. Participants will receive guided tours of this landmark exhibition, followed by some time to explore Battery Park and the surrounding neighborhood.

Seating is limited; ticket price of $62 includes transportation and tour. The bus will depart the Jewish Alliance at 7:45am. To register online, please visit jewishallianceri.org/auschwitz-exhibit/. For additional information or to register by phone, please call Paula Olivieri at 401.453.7860.

GROTON, CONN. – Jason A. Forman died Aug. 6 at home.

Born in Boston, a son of Barry Forman and the late Bleama (Younger) Forman, he had lived in Groton for 20 years, previously living in Warwick.

He was a civil engineer at Groton Electric Boat for 20 years. Jason was a graduate of University of Hartford, with a bachelor’s degree in engineering. He was active with the Chabad of Eastern Connecticut and enjoyed surfing and snowboarding.

He was the brother of Deann Forman and her husband, Sidney Vidaver, of Teaneck, New Jersey. He was the uncle of Eliora, Noam and Liam.

Contributions may be made to Chabad of Eastern CT, 25 Pacific St., New London, CT 06320.

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Jewish Rhode Island | jewishrhody.org

COMMUNITY | OBITUARIES Sandra Friedman, 84

Lincoln Park Cemetery Graves for sale Two side by side graves in Beth Am section number 51, graves 1 & 2.

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CRANSTON, R.I. – Sandra “Sandy” Friedman died Aug. 13 at the HopeHealth Hulitar Hospice Center with her family by her side. She was the wife of the late Gerald Friedman. Born in Providence, a daughter of the late Norman and Betty (Tabulsky) Block, she had lived in Cranston for 10 years, previously living in Warwick for 38 years. Sandy retired in 1999 after a 17-year career as a customer service manager for Ross-Simons.

Sandy was an active and social person who was blessed with many friends. She enjoyed socializing with friends, music and dancing. Many times, Sandy and her late husband Jerry would take over the dance floor at weddings and other social events. Sandy enjoyed weekly mahjong games, outings with the Red Hatters and her visits to Twin Rivers and Mohegan Sun. She especially loved trips to the beach in Narragansett.

Sandy was a devoted wife, mother and Nana. She was the mother of William Friedman and his wife, Karin, of Warwick; Linda Palazzo and her husband, Andy, of Cranston; and Scott Friedman and his wife, Beth, of West Warwick. She was the sister of Philip Block of Cranston. She was the grandmother of Lauren, Andrew, Amy, Allison, Jason and Jordan. She was the great-grandmother of Matthew, Liam, Cole and Luke.

Contributions can be made to the Hope Center, 25 Brayton Ave., Cranston, RI 02920 or HopeHealth Hulitar Hospice Center, 1085 North Main St., Providence, RI 02904.

the George Hazard Crooker University Professor. He held emeritus status since 1992.

He was director of Brown’s Population Studies and Training Center, which he helped found, for 25 years.

Sid’s specific area of interest was the migration of people within countries, especially their movement from rural to urban areas. Beginning with analyses of migration in the United States and Denmark, his focus shifted to less developed countries, including Thailand, China, Vietnam, Ethiopia, Guatemala and South Africa. In each case, he was especially interested in the impact of rural-urban migration on the welfare and life patterns of the migrants and how they differed from those who were residentially stable.

An important component of his work in these countries was the development of local expertise so that the work that he had begun could be carried further by in-country researchers.

A secondary, but important part of Sid’s research focused on the American Jewish population. Applying the analytic methods used in his international research, he furthered the study of Jews at the US community level and then at the national level as chair of the committee that conducted the National Jewish Population survey of 1990. For his influence, Sid has been considered the dean of American Jewish demographers. He has been recognized for this work by the National Council for Jewish Culture and the Council of Jewish Federations, as well as the Institute of Contemporary Jewry of Hebrew University.

In addition to his prolific research, Sid was a consummate teacher. He mentored over 100 students at Brown,

not only during their tenure at the university, but also into their careers. His students originated in many parts of the world and now hold key positions in government, research institutes, and international organizations.

During his career, Sid has authored several books, well over 100 monographs and articles, and presented papers at meetings worldwide. He was the recipient of both Guggenheim and Fulbright Fellowships, and research grants from the Social Science Foundation, the United Nations, and the National Academy of Sciences. Other recognitions include being named the 2005 Laureate of the International Union for the Scientific Study of Population, president of the Population Association of America, and receipt of the Chulalongorn University (Thailand) Medney He was an active member of the Rhode Island Jewish community. He served as vice president and board member of the Bureau of Jewish Education, as board member of the Jewish Federation of RI, and as a member of the RI Jewish Historical Society. He was a longtime member of Temple Am David, serving as vice president, board member, and chair of its ritual committee. His first involvement with Jewish demography was when he conducted the Demographic Survey of the Greater Providence Jewish Community in 1963.

Sid was an avid gardener and stamp collector. He was also an excellent photographer and used the photos he took during his extensive travels in his teaching at Brown. At age 88 Sid discovered the joys of painting and by the time of his death had produced numerous landscapes and portraits.

Sidney Goldstein, 92 LEXINGTON, K.Y. – Sidney Goldstein died on Aug. 5, in Lexington. He was born on Aug. 4, 1927, to Max Goldstein and Bella Howscha Goldstein in New London, Connecticut.

He earned bachelor’s (’49) and master’s, (’51) degrees at the University of Connecticut and a Ph.D. (’53) at the University of Pennsylvania. Although his degrees were in sociology, his specific interest and lifelong work was in demography. After teaching two years at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, he joined the sociology faculty at Brown University, specifically to help develop a specialty in population studies.

In 1977, Brown named him

‫זיכרונו לברכה‬ Sidney Goldstein The trustees and staff of Brown RISD Hillel mourn the passing of our longtime board member Sidney Goldstein, Brown University Professor Emeritus of Sociology.

May his memory be a source of blessing, and may his good works bear fruit for generations to come.

We extend our deepest condolences to Alice and the entire Goldstein family.

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jewishrhody.org | Jewish Rhode Island

Sid is survived by his wife of 66 years, Alice Dreifuss Goldstein, three children and their spouses – Beth Leah Goldstein and Raphael Finkel of Lexington; David Louis Goldstein and Sarah Porter Goldstein of Dayton, Ohio; Brenda Ruth Goldstein and David Shragai, of El Cerrito, California – as well as seven grandchildren and three great-grandsons.

He is also survived by his brother, Herman Goldstein, of Madison, Wisconsin.

Donations may be made to Ohave Zion Synagogue of Lexington, Kentucky; the Bornstein Holocaust Education Center of Providence, Planned Parenthood or The Nature Conservancy.

Ferilyn D. Kaplan, 72 WEST WARWICK, R.I. – Ferilyn D. Kaplan died Aug. 6 at Briarcliffe Manor. She was the wife of Robert S. Kaplan for 50 years. Born in Providence, a daughter of the late Bernard and Anita (Zeldes) Berman, she had lived in West Warwick for 17 years, previously living in Cranston.

She worked at local retail establishments and in customer service at A&H Manufacturing. Ferilyn was a graduate of the University of Rhode Island. She was an active member of the River Farms community, playing mahjong and planning social activities.

She was the mother of Stacey Isaacs and her husband, Daniel, of Monroe Township, New Jersey, and Jody Kaplan Ro of New York, New York. She was the sister of Linda Ochsman of Chevy Chase, Maryland, and Barbara Kempner of Delray Beach, Florida. She was the grandmother of Emma, Abby, Benjamin and Amanda.

Contributions may be made to Brain Injury Association of RI, 1017 Waterman Ave., East Providence, RI 02914 or HopeHealth Hospice, 1085 N. Main St., Providence, RI 02904 or a charity of your choice.

Florence Landes, 101 WARWICK, R.I. – Florence Landes passed away at home Aug. 24. She was born in Providence on Oct. 4, 1917, the second of three daughters to the late Louis and Mollie Silverman, and lived in Warwick for the past 55 years.

The three sisters worked together as beauticians after high school; Florence went on to have her own beauty parlor.

Later she and her sister Ruth opened a restaurant and

continued on to work in the cafeteria at General Electric.

Florence moved to Sparrows Point II apartments when it opened in 1979. She was the last remaining charter tenant and was an active member of the residents association for many years. Florence was a remarkable cook and enjoyed preparing meals for her family and friends, especially over the holidays.

She made the best potato salad and the best French toast.

Florence also loved playing games with her neighbor friends each week, especially bingo and cards. She was a dedicated sports fan and enjoyed watching baseball games, especially the Red Sox. Florence was the mother of Jerald Landes and his wife, Laura, and Neil Landes and his wife, Nancy. She was the grandmother of Brent and his wife, Stacey, and Adam. She was the great-grandmother of Ean and Gregory. She was the sister of the late Anna Silverman and Ruth Bleau. She was the aunt of Marlene, Louis and Stephen. She was the greataunt of Juna, Ari and Alyssa.

Contributions may be made to Hospice: VNA of Care New England, 51 Health Lane, Warwick, RI 02886 or American Cancer Society, 931 Jefferson Blvd., #3004, Warwick, RI 02886.

Gladys Marinsky 102 NORTH PROVIDENCE, R.I. – Gladys “Goldie” Marinsky died July 31. She was the wife of Barney Marinsky. Born in Providence, she was the daughter of the late Harry and

Sara (Finkel) Lecht. She was predeceased by all seven of her siblings Samuel, Morris, Bluma, Esther and Leonard Lecht, Sophie Gollin and Elsie Koret.

She was the mother of David and Ellen. She was the grandmother of six. She was the great-grandmother of seven.

Contributions in her memory to Temple Emanu-El, 99 Taft Ave. Providence, RI 02906.

Clinical Associate Professor Emeritus of Pediatrics at Brown University. He was born in Yonkers, New York.

In 1956, he married actor Barbara (Tuschner) Orson.

Together, they raised three children: twin daughters, Beth and Diane, and son Ted. Dr. Orson was committed to serving children and

families from all walks of life across the state and around the world. He co-founded Pediatric Associates in the early 1960s. Parents would start calling the Orson home every morning at 6 a.m., and he’d drive his VW Beetle at all hours in all weather around Rhode Island making house CONTINUED ON NEXT PAGE

Lillian Metz, 95 PROVIDENCE, R.I. – Lillian Metz passed away Aug. 4. She was the wife of the late Nathan Metz. Born in Providence, she was the daughter of the late Harry and Rose (Goldstein) Fine.

She is survived by her children Ellen Goodlin, Judith Hay (Stephen) and Louis Metz; grandson Marc Robinson (Sarah); great-grandchildren Avery and Matthew; nephew Stephen Metz (Sandra); and sister-in-law Gertrude Fine.

She was the sister of the late Morton Fine.

Contributions may be made to Disabled American Veterans, www.dav.org.

Dr. Jay Orson, 91 PROVIDENCE, R.I. – Dr. Jay Marshall Orson passed away on Aug. 9. A beloved pediatrician, Dr. Orson specialized in pediatric endocrinology and was a

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The cemetery and its offices will be closed in observance of the following holidays: Monday, September 30: First Day of Rosh Hashanah Tuesday, October 1: Second Day of Rosh Hashanah Wednesday, October 9: Yom Kippur Monday, October 14: First day of Sukkot Tuesday, October 15: Second day of Sukkot Monday, October 21: Shemini Atzeret Tuesday, October 22: Simchat Torah

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Rabbi Emerita, Temple Ohabei Shlom Officiating: Rabbi Emily Lipof Music by David Sparr and Choir

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42 | SEPTEMBER 2019

Jewish Rhode Island | jewishrhody.org

OBITUARIES FROM PREVIOUS PAGE calls. During his career, Dr. Orson traveled to teach and work in Uganda and Australia, and after retiring, volunteered as a reading tutor in the public schools. He also provided expert testimony on complex medical issues for the Social Security Administration well into his 80s.

Dr. Orson was an iconoclast with a unique, inquisitive mind. A great supporter of the arts, he loved to “jog” on Blackstone Boulevard, go blue-fishing, and spend time with family and friends.

In addition to his children, he is survived by sons-in-law Tim Moran and Robert Elner, daughter-in-law Iris van der Walde, grandchildren Josh and Jacob Orson, Emily and Max Moran and Julia Elner.

Donations may be made to Hasbro Children’s Hospital – Pediatric Palliative Care, P.O. Box H, Providence, RI 02901.

Leon A. Resnick, 96 WARWICK, R.I. – Leon A. Resnick died July 31 at Providence VA Medical Center. He was the beloved husband of the late Beverly S. (Rotenberg) Resnick.

They were happily married for 57 years.

Leon was in the wholesale fruit and produce business for over 60 years, retiring at age 77. He was a member of Temple Torat Yisrael, Chabad of West Bay, Touro Fraternal Association, Cranston Senior Guild, Jewish War Veterans Post 23 and a life member of DAV and American Legion.

He served with pride in the Army with the 315th Combat Engineers in England, France, Belgium and Germany, where he was wounded. He participated at the Battle of the Bulge, the Rheinland, Ardennes-Alsace-Lorraine and received four Bronze Stars and a citation from the Republic of France.

He was the father of Jerri Labush and her husband, Harold, of Cranston, and George Resnick and his wife, Kathleen, of South Carolina.

He was the brother of the late Earl and Max Resnick. He was the grandfather of Joshua Resnick and great-grandfather of five. Leon is also survived by nieces and nephews.

He was the son of the late Morris and Fannie Resnick.

Leon loved to dance, sing and tell jokes.

Contributions in his memo-

ry may be made to American Cancer Society, 931 Jefferson Blvd, #3004, Warwick, RI 02886.

Joel Silverberg, 73 PROVIDENCE, R.I. – Joel Stephen Silverberg, 73, died Aug. 11. He was the loving husband and best friend of Patricia B.M. (Tish) Brennan; proud son of the late Irving and Anna Silverberg; proud father of Sarah Mae Brennan Silverberg; cherished brother of Wendy (Glenn Koocher) Silverberg.

Joel is also survived by his niece, Becky (Tim Downey) Koocher, his nephew David Koocher and his Pembroke Welsh Corgi, Taffy.

He was proud to be a Mainer and a Bangor boy.

That rock-solid start coupled with intellectual curiosity in abundance helped him earn four degrees from Brown University in music and in engineering and go on to teach at prestigious institutions such as Vassar and Boston University.

He was equally proud of his Jewish heritage, valuing the Jewish education he had received as a young man in Bangor and never ceasing to study a wide range of Jewish topics, both historical and contemporary.

Among Joel’s many pursuits: a highly accomplished musician who sang and played both modern and early instruments sometimes in ensembles he formed and led; an avid sailor; an enthusiastic birder and naturalist; and an historical researcher in mathematics of the 17th and 18th centuries, particularly related to navigation and surveying, including work as consultant on the papers of George Washington.

Whether among fellow Jews, musicians, mathematicians, historians, sailors, birders, or just intellectually curious folk, Joel was noted for his steadfastness and compassion as a friend. Once he adopted you as a friend, you could count on his affectionate support and subtle, wry humor forever.

Joel supported many worthy causes throughout his life, but he is certainly smiling as we ask you to do something that is strictly “for the birds”: gifts in memory of Joel may be made to The Audubon Society of Rhode Island, https:// asri.org/donate-membership/ in-memory-gift.html.

SEPTEMBER 2019 | 43

jewishrhody.org | Jewish Rhode Island

COMMUNITY | WE ARE READ

2020 Annual Campaign Event

SAVE THE DATE: Sunday, November 3 | 6:30pm

An Evening With ARI MELBER NBC / MSNBC’s Chief Legal Correspondent

Ari Melber is an Emmy Award-winning journalist, writer and attorney. He serves as Chief Legal Correspondent for MSNBC, covering the Justice Department, Supreme Court, FBI, prominent court cases and national legal issues.

In his legal reporting, Melber has conducted exclusive interviews with Attorney General Eric Holder, Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer, Judge Richard Posner, U.S. Solicitor General Don Verrilli, Senators Ted Cruz, Al Franken and Rand Paul, and a wide range of policymakers and experts. Melber received a 2016 Emmy Award for his reporting on the Supreme Court.

From 2009 to 2013, Melber practiced law at a major New York firm, specializing in First Amendment, reporter’s privilege and copyright litigation. Melber received a J.D. from Cornell Law School, where he was an editor of the Cornell Journal of Law and Public Policy, and he is a member of the New York Bar. WE ARE READ IN LONDON – Harlan Rich and family on a recent trip to London in front of the Tower Bridge (left to right) Harlan, Cole, Samantha, Ilan and Bev Rich.

In July 2017, Melber started hosting his own show on MSNBC: The Beat.

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401 Elmgrove Avenue | Providence, RI 02906

SEE FOR YOURSELF WE ARE READ IN ISRAEL – Dianne and Martin Newman at Aldo’s ice cream on Emek Refaim in Jerusalem with former Rhode Islander Rabbi Jaime Leiter and his children.

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WE ARE READ IN CANADA – Ryan Golditch recently visited Niagara Falls and Toronto in Canada with his family. His mother Lynda snapped this photo.

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