Pittsburgh Jewish Chronicle 2-9-24

February 9, 2024 | 30 Shevat 5784

NOTEWORTHY LOCAL Sharing insider perspectives on Israel

Candlelighting 5:30 p.m. | Havdalah 6:31 p.m. | Vol. 67, No. 6 | pittsburghjewishchronicle.org

Beth Shalom Congregation celebrates Black History Month with ‘Soul to Soul’

CMU is site of another anti-Israel rally

Former Squirrel Hill couple returns from Jerusalem

By David Rullo | Senior Staff Writer

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Z various chants, several students arrived with large red balloons that, when launched into the sky, had orange letters attached that spelled out “No tech for apartheid.”

While the rally was more lightly attended than others in recent weeks, police were already in place more than a half-hour before its start, taking positions around the field where the sculpture is located.

Students were urged — both in social media posts and by the event organizers — to wear nondescript, solid-color clothes, masks and keffiyehs, suggestions followed by many in attendance. Attendees were also advised to turn off their phone location, face and fingerprint IDs, to not take photos that included people’s faces, and to not talk to the media or police without a lawyer present.

After leading the crowd in chants that included “CMU, try and hide, we won’t work for genocide,” “Free, free Palestine,” and “My work, not for war. My city, not for war,” Daria said that there had been crackdowns on college campuses across the country on those participating in pro-Palestinian protests.

She said New York University students were

almen Mlotek was inspired to create “Soul to Soul” — a multimedia concert melding Jewish and Black musical traditions — after meeting Elmore James, a Black actor turned dancer turned singer, who spent time in Alvin Ailey’s second dance company and on Broadway.

James decided to dance after an injury left him with a limp, something a doctor told him would remain for the rest of his life.

“I thought, ‘No, I’m not going to limp; I’m going to fly,’” he said.

While dancing on Broadway, James thought it would be prudent to take voice lessons. A voice teacher suggested he was an opera singer.

“I couldn’t believe it,” James said, “but he kept giving me arias.”

It was then that James discovered Paul Robeson, a pioneering bass-baritone concert artist, stage and film actor, professional football player and activist. He also recorded a few Yiddish songs, which James was interested in replicating but had no knowledge of where to turn for help.

“One day, I was walking down the street and passed a Judaica store and went in and asked if they could help me learn the song. The guy said, ‘No but I’ll give you my friend’s number,’” James recalled.

The friend referred James to the National Yiddish Theatre Folksbiene, where Mlotek is the artistic director.

Mlotek has a deep connection to Yiddish culture. His father, a Polish immigrant who escaped the Holocaust by moving to Shanghai, was a Yiddish writer and the education director of the Worker’s Circle, a fraternal Jewish organization that encourages cultural engagement through, in part, Yiddish language learning.

Please see Rally, page 18

Please see Beth Shalom, page 18

Answering the call to serve

Martin Gaynor's federal appointment Page 7

LOCAL

 Protesters at a rally at Carnegie Mellon University on Feb. 2

By David Rullo | Staff Writer

C

Holocaust history preserved in Grove City

College students translate accounts of French Jews Page 8

LOCAL A perfect treat for a gloomy day

Lemon ricotta pound cake Page 24

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arnegie Mellon University’s “Walking to the Sky” sculpture was once again the site of a protest rally with antisemitic themes on Feb. 2.

The “No Tech for Apartheid Rally for Palestine” conflated Israel’s war with Hamas and the university’s relationship with the Department of Defense and some corporations, including Lockheed Martin and Raytheon. The rally’s emcee, “Daria” from the group Against Carceral Tech, claimed many of those companies “literally made missiles that killed civilians.”

The event was hosted by CMU Students for Palestine, Against Carceral Tech, CMU Salsa, CMU Middle Eastern and North African Student Association, Jewish Voice for Peace Pittsburgh and Students for Justice in Palestine at the University of Pittsburgh, according to materials posted online.

More than 100 people attended the late Friday afternoon rally, including a mix of sponsors and organizers, students, alumni and outside community members.

As organizers set up a table with face masks and a flyer about the event that included

Photo by David Rullo

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Headlines Former Squirrel Hill couple returns from Jerusalem to talk about Israel-Hamas war — LOCAL —

By Adam Reinherz | Senior Staff Writer

A

couple who bridges the Diaspora and Jewish state returned to Pittsburgh to describe the interpersonal challenges spurred by the Israel-Hamas war.

Seated inside the JCC Katz Performing Arts Center on Jan. 30, former Squirrel Hill residents Dr. Laurie Wasser and Yisrael Klitsner described fundamental changes wrought by Oct. 7.

The couple explained that nearly 18 months earlier, they and their four children moved from Jerusalem to Pittsburgh so that Wasser, an ophthalmologist, could conduct research at the UPMC Vision Institute.

As Wasser focused on her fellowship, the family adjusted to life in the States. The children attended Hillel Academy of Pittsburgh. The parents made new friends. The family hosted parties and transformed their rented home into a space for gathering, watching television and spending hours talking about peoplehood, childrearing and the inconsistent play of Klitsner’s cherished Green Bay Packers.

The serenity of a newly created life was short lived, however. Days after Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack, Klitsner, like tens of thousands of Israelis living abroad, returned to Israel. While the Duvdevan reservist and former adviser for Diaspora affairs to the prime minister of Israel, rejoined his IDF unit for undercover operations, Wasser remained in Pittsburgh with their children ages 2-11.

“I was beautifully taken care of here,” she said.

WhatsApp groups became hubs for meal plans and babysitting. Community members helped Wasser and her siblings raise thousands of dollars for their brothers and fellow soldiers.

More than a month passed and “I don’t think I felt alone for a minute of it,” Wasser said.

During those six weeks, Klitsner served in the Judea and Samaria Area. But nearly 45 days into the war, Klitsner and Wasser learned that he would be entering Gaza.

p Dr. Laurie Wasser and Yisrael Klitsner speak to Pittsburghers on Jan. 30.

Photo by Adam Reinherz

Wasser decided it was best for the family to return to Jerusalem — where the children’s grandparents could offer help — and messaged the principal of an elementary school in Jerusalem to say the family was returning home.

What should have been a six-month process of registering with the municipality became a 10-minute WhatsApp exchange, Wasser said.

The expediency with which Israelis are working to preserve the normalcy of life for children is a testament to a people’s character, she continued: Israelis are so often known for their “tough love and abrasive approach, but I think the flipside to chutzpah is resilience.”

Wasser and the children readjusted to life in Jerusalem by becoming one of numerous families with relatives at war.

Sirens, shelters and absent loved ones made for a strange confluence of fear and calm, she explained.

When asked about her children’s understanding of the situation, Wasser said, “To be honest, I haven’t totally asked them what they know. I think I’m scared to ask because it’s a scary question, especially since this war is not over. We have no idea what is to come.

We still have hostages somewhere in Gaza, in tunnels somewhere. I’m pretty scared to know the full answer.”

Klitsner was quick to say that while he was away, Wasser and others were “really fighting the battle.” When the country is at war “and the people are on the home front, all they can do is read the news, and follow it and be very,

very worried.” For soldiers, though, there is an element of escapism in surrounding oneself with a bunch of “smelly human beings who crack obscene jokes.”

Reverie ends when reality arrives, however.

“There are moments where it hits you — that underneath your feet it is very possible there are tunnels that you don’t know about that will either blow you up or are holding hostages — and you just get sent back to that reality of both extreme fear and a tenseness that I didn’t know beforehand,” Klitsner said.

Combat has spurred other sentiments, he continued: “There is also this sadness and emptiness of how horrible the world we live in can turn out to be.”

Wasser offered a glimpse into that void.

After Klitsner returned from Gaza, Wasser met him at the train.

“He’s got a backpack, and all this equipment, and guns, and he’s standing there. We got in the car, and no one really told us on the home front how to break bad news to the soldiers when they came out of war,” she said. “I had to tell him about the people that we knew whose funerals I’ve been to over the past month — and I don’t even think I said it sensitively — I had to go down a list of funerals that our siblings had been to, our parents had been to, I had been to.”

“I do worry that one of one of the many evils that Hamas was able to thrust upon Israel was not just sowing terror, not just creating a lot of bereaved families all over the country and not just making sure that life as Israelis knew it stopped, but it’s also the optimism and the ability to dive into the real issues that were separating and dividing Israelis from within,” Klitsner said.

Approximately 21% of Israel’s population is Arab. Another 13% is ultra-Orthodox.

Fraught relations between these segments and the state have existed for 75 years, but pre-Oct. 7, people had finally pushed the government to address the chasms. Momentum generated by conversations regarding social contracts was undermined by Hamas’ attack, Klitsner said:

“Today’s news is how do we stay alive.”

By the time Wasser and Klitsner spoke to Pittsburghers, 116 days of war had passed.

The casualty toll in the Jewish state, based on figures from the Israeli prime minister’s office, includes at least 1,200 people killed and another 6,900 injured. According to the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry, more than 26,000 people in Gaza have been killed and 65,000 injured. Israel says about a third of the dead are combatants.

“There’s a lot of folks back in Israel who are still very much dealing with this,” Wasser said. “Like everyone here, we are exposed to a constant barrage of news, and bad news, and worse news, and it happens to get worse and then it gets worse like the disaster last week.”

On Jan. 23 the IDF said that 21 Israeli soldiers died a day earlier after a building in Gaza exploded and collapsed.

“We lost so many soldiers in one day and you keep thinking, ‘How can it get worse,’ but there’s also a lot of hope. I think for those of us who are raising young children through this, they are our biggest hope,” Wasser told attendees. “I think Yisrael said it well. I don’t feel like I’m ever going to be quite the same after Oct. 7 — I think probably a lot of people here feel the same way, I would imagine — but the children will be OK. I do believe they’re going to be OK. And that bit of hope has kept me very, very strong.”

Jason Kunzman, president and CEO of the Jewish Community Center of Greater Pittsburgh, said Wasser and Klitsner have “dedicated their lives to service.”

“This is a distinguished couple who both individually and collectively embody the values of courage, resilience and commitment to a safe and enduring state of Israel,” Kunzman said: “Each in their own right they have stood tall in the face of adversity and demonstrated strength of character that has long defined the Jewish people.” PJC Adam Reinherz can be reached at areinherz@pittsburghjewishchronicle.org.

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Classrooms Without Borders shares Israel-Hamas curricula, but some local educators can’t talk about it

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— LOCAL —

By Adam Reinherz | Senior Staff Writer

A

s students sat at their desks, James Lucot, a history teacher at Seneca Valley Senior High School, discussed the Israel-Hamas war. Tensions inside his classroom increased. One student kept referencing their family in East Jerusalem. Another student cited sentiments freely flowing on social media.

“We had some potential for contention,” Lucot said.

The educator, with more than 20 years of experience, saw a path forward.

“I said, ‘I will concede that you know more about this subject than I do,’” he said.

Lucot’s classroom admission didn’t signal defeat, he told the Chronicle. Rather, it demonstrated an unwavering commitment to a long-held philosophy.

“My students sit at desks all day hearing from people who say they have every answer to every question,” Lucot said.

“What I tell my students is, if you’re ever in an environment where someone claims to have every answer on every topic, you should get up and walk out.”

By acknowledging his willingness to learn, Lucot said, the classroom conversation increased. Students revisited and questioned their earlier perspectives. Terms, like “hostage” and “prisoner,” were no longer hurled with accusations, but instead addressed and defined in ways that fostered greater insight into the war.

The Seneca Valley educator credited Classrooms Without Borders, and its vast resources, with aiding his professional growth and knowledge regarding complex geo-political affairs.

Founded in 2011 by Tsipy Gur, the Pittsburgh-based organization offers seminars, travel experiences and comprehensive materials for educators.

Weeks ago, CWB released updated curricula and guides for middle school and high school educators interested in teaching

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about Israel. Topics include dilemmas faced by the Jewish state, a brief history of Israel and the Palestinians, and a consideration of local demographics.

Releasing these materials now is essential, according to Gur. “After Oct. 7, many of the teachers we support wanted to learn how to teach about this with students,” she said. “The teachers needed help so we did what we needed to do.”

Shortly after the war began, Kate Lukaszewicz, CWB’s education programs director, and Avi Ben-Hur, CWB’s scholar in residence, drafted, revised and released relevant lesson plans.

The goal, Lukaszewicz said, wasn’t just sharing sources specific to the current conflict but prompting broader study.

One topic raised within CWB’s curricula is whether a state should prioritize releasing hostages or protecting national security.

Another question probes whether a country can wage a “moral war.”

“We knew it would be important to get instructional resources to our educators so they could address this moment between Israel and Hamas with clarity, confidently and with high-quality factual materials,” Lukaszewicz said. What also became obvious was that “we needed to encourage students that these are understandings and skills they can apply in other contexts in their lives.”

Researchers use the term “transfer” to describe the “cognitive practice” when a student’s mastery in one area facilitates the application of that knowledge or skill in a separate setting, according to Yale University’s Poorvu Center for Teaching and Learning.

Lukaszewicz said she hopes CWB’s materials lead to that outcome.

Gur agreed but said the immediate need for quality materials is evidenced by a current climate in which many students and educators feel silenced.

One teacher who relies on CWB materials declined to speak with the Chronicle.

Please see Educators, page 19

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Headlines Gesher program bolsters inclusion, promotes community

p David Wilf and Shay Moffat

— LOCAL —

By Adam Reinherz | Senior Staff Writer

D

edicated educators, fitness trainers and community staffers are increasing inclusion by providing afternoon programs for young adults with physical, intellectual and developmental disabilities.

The activities, which promote socialization and reliance on gross motor and critical life skills, occur within the Jewish Community Center of Greater Pittsburgh and Squirrel Hill neighborhood.

Mary Hart has overseen the Gesher Program for approximately 18 months.

“I love all the people here,” she said.

“Everyone is just wonderfully supportive.”

Four days a week, Hart is joined by colleagues and 13 or 14 members of the Gesher program for fitness sessions, as well as hours spent cooking, learning about nutrition and bolstering technological prowess.

One of the goals, Hart said, is for participants to “create things and not just use things.”

So whether it’s making a meal, setting up an email account or developing a Facebook presence, “We wanted people to be able to communicate.”

Operated by the JCC for nearly 30 years,

p Gesher Program Director Mary Hart and David Goodman p Pedro Pereira-Nascimento and Annie Kostovny

Photos courtesy of Jewish Community Center of Greater Pittsburgh

Gesher has grown since its 1990s inception.

“As we started to see more of a need for people with different abilities, we expanded our offerings,” Annie Schroeder, the JCC’s marketing and communications coordinator, said.

Initially bundled within the center’s cluster of after-school activities, the program was redeveloped into a standalone service catering to young adults, ranging in age from their early 20s to late 30s.

Gesher members don’t necessarily attend every day, but there is a constant thread, Hart said: “This is a very loving program where everyone is treated with kindness and everyone is accepted.”

Being Jewish isn’t a requirement for membership. Still, Gesher incorporates numerous Jewish activities, including singing songs about the holidays, being mindful of kosher restrictions and praying before meals.

Annie Kostovny, the JCC’s fitness and wellness coordinator, has worked with Gesher for years.

Initially, Kostovny met with participants to “walk and play games,” but she and Hart decided that time with a fitness instructor was better spent focused on intentional cardiovascular movement, so Gesher members now use their sessions to ride stationary bicycles, use rowing machines and work with individual trainers, Kostovny said.

The program ensures that a commitment to wellness is fostered, she continued: “We’re getting people to do it more, and we’re finding ways to make it inclusive and fun and interesting and helpful.”

Best practices drive Kostovny’s approach.

Having recently earned an Inclusive Fitness Specialist Certificate from the American College of Sports Medicine, Kostovny said her training was a boon to generating client success: Whether working with neurodiverse or neurotypical individuals, having this knowledge base “made me a much better trainer and better able to make people feel more comfortable, use their time better and see more benefit from their training sessions and their workouts.”

Sandee Moffatt praised Gesher, both as a staffer and parent of a participant.

Moffatt began working at the program about two years ago. Her daughter, age 22, regularly attends.

“She goes down to work out with Annie. She sees a friend from EKC and they automatically have a connection,” Moffatt said.

With February marking Jewish Disability Awareness, Acceptance and Inclusion Month, staffers are happy to raise Gesher’s profile; still, the program is a part of a longstanding organizational mission.

“Gesher is constantly evolving to meet the

need,” Schroeder said. “We’re always focused on the future, on how to make this more accessible, on how to make our JCC programs more accessible, and on how to make this a place where truly anyone with any ability or background can come in here and say, ‘The JCC is for me.’”

That commitment to inclusion propels the program forward, Hart said: “Your son, or daughter, or your client is welcome here, and we will learn from them. We will learn new ways to serve and support our participants.

And we hope to share those with everybody because we want to keep growing too.”

People should know that “there’s no judgment at Gesher and we’re always modifying to meet a member’s needs,” Moffatt said.

The ability and willingness to adapt is one of the program’s greatest strengths, according to Gesher staffer Sara Masters.

Individuals aren’t considered as if they’ve “hit the ceiling,” she said. “You look at where they are now and take them further.”

That journey enables everyone to flourish, Masters added. Gesher members and the larger community understand that they “have a purpose in society … and that they can actually gain traction and help other people.” PJC Adam Reinherz can be reached at areinherz@pittsburghjewishchronicle.org.

Center for Victims sued for discrimination — LOCAL —

By David Rullo | Senior Staff Writer

T

he Center for Victims — the nonprofit that District 12 congressional candidate Laurie MacDonald serves as president and CEO — was sued by a former employee.

In a federal complaint filed on Dec. 21, 2023, Brandi Gurcak alleges the Center for Victims “discriminated against her on the basis of protected characteristics (gender and sexual orientation); and retaliated against her for opposing sex discrimination.”

Gurcak was hired by the Center for Victims in 2016 to work as a trauma therapist, the complaint states. From 2018 to 2019, she served as a clinical coordinator for the center, in addition to her work as a therapist.

The complaint asserts that the nonprofit’s leadership was aware that Gurcak was

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a lesbian and that its director of human resources, Diane Vrable, called her a derogatory term in the presence of a subordinate. Gurcak, the complaint states, complained to both her direct supervisor, Cindy Snyder, and center Vice President Tracey Provident, asking to schedule a meeting about the incident, which never occurred.

When Gurcak eventually spoke to Provident, the complaint alleges, she said that she felt discriminated against. No one in the center’s administration responded to any of Gurcak’s requests to further discuss the situation, Gurcak claims and, as a result, she alleges that she experienced emotional pain, humiliation and embarrassment.

Following the alleged discrimination and Gurcak’s attempts to discuss the matter, the complaint states that she was passed over for a promotion, despite being qualified for the role. Gurcak says that Snyder told her she didn’t receive the new role because she was

“too vocal” in her complaints about Vrabel and her homophobic slur.

Snyder, Gurcak alleges, told her she would “never” be promoted to a supervisory position.

According to the court document, MacDonald participated in the decision to not promote Gurcak, making her feel severe mental anguish and emotional pain.

Gurcak resigned from the center on Oct. 30, 2019. Before leaving, the therapist said she learned of another instance of LGBTQ discrimination there.

MacDonald, the lawsuit alleges, tore down signs indicating restrooms could be used by people in accordance with their gender identity. Gurcak stated that she heard MacDonald screaming at the therapist who posted the signs before that person was fired the next day.

MacDonald told the Chronicle in an emailed statement that, for nearly 50 years, the Center for Victims has provided shelter

PITTSBURGH JEWISH CHRONICLE

and services to thousands of people who find themselves, through no fault of their own, victims of crime.

“While we always adhere to EEOC compliance, we take our commitment to diversity one step further intentionally in hiring people of all races, ethnicity, faith, gender and LGBQT+ in order to ensure our staff is inclusive, diverse and culturally appropriate to provide services to all victims during their time of trauma,” MacDonald said.

The Center, MacDonald added, employs nearly 100 people and, like any large corporation, employees make claims against it.

“The Center for Victims asserts this claim is without merit and intends to vigorously defend our organization against these accusations,” she said.

Gurcak’s attorneys did not respond to the Chronicle’s interview requests. PJC David Rullo can be reached at drullo@ pittsburghjewishchronicle.org.

FEBRUARY 9, 2024

5

Calendar Submit calendar items on the Chronicle’s website, pittsburghjewishchronicle.org. Submissions also will be included in print. Events will run in the print edition beginning one month prior to the date as space allows. The deadline for submissions is Friday, noon. q FRIDAY, FEB. 9 Join Tree of Life Congregation as it celebrates Super Bowl weekend with a tailgate dinner followed by Friday night services and then oneg. A hot dog dinner will be served to kick off our enthusiastic football crowd before Shabbat begins. Free. 6 p.m. 4905 Fifth Ave. treeoflifepgh.org. q SATURDAY, FEB. 10 Join Beth Shalom for a fun trivia event, including a raffle, open bar and snacks. Trivia will be played with teams of three to six. Bring your own team or be matched up at the door. Must be 21 or older to participate. Limited to 30 teams, so don’t wait, sign up now. Drinks start at 7:15 p.m. with the trivia game starting at 8:15 p.m. Registration is required.

Deadline to sign up is Friday, Feb. 9, at 3 p.m. bethshalompgh.org/clues-and-schmooze-2024. q SUNDAY, FEB. 11 Temple Sinai Brotherhood and Women of Temple Sinai invite everyone for brunch followed by “The Arts Know No Boundaries: A Panel Discussion” related to Jewish Disability Awareness & Inclusion Month. Panelists include Anne Alter, Eli Kurs-Lasky, Kara Snyder, Flavio Chamis, Lindsey Kaine and Women of Temple Sinai President Lynn Rubenson. 10 a.m. templesinaipgh.org/ event/brotherhood-brunch/jdaim-event.html. q SUNDAYS, FEB. 11–DEC. 29 Join a lay-led online parshah study group to discuss the week’s Torah portion. No Hebrew knowledge needed. The goal is to build community while deepening understanding of the text. 8:30 p.m. For more information, visit bethshalompgh.org. q MONDAY, FEB. 12 Beth El Congregation of the South Hills invites you to the Adult Education Winter Speakers Series. Reception followed by a lecture from Bruce Ledewitz. 7 p.m. Free.

1900 Cochran Road, 15220, and online. RSVPs required. bethelcong.org. q MONDAYS, FEB. 12–MAY 13 H. Arnold and Adrien B. Gefsky Community Scholar Rabbi Danny Schiff presents Torah 2. Understanding the Torah and what it asks of us is perhaps one of the most important things that a Jew can learn. In Torah 2, Schiff will explore the second half of Leviticus and all of Numbers and Deuteronomy. 9:30 a.m. $225. Zoom. jewishpgh.org/event/torah-2-2/2023-10-09. q MONDAYS, FEB. 12–DEC. 28 Join Congregation Beth Shalom for a weekly Talmud study. 9:15 a.m. For more information, visit bethshalompgh.org. q TUESDAYS, FEB. 13, 20 Join Chabad of the South Hills for Kosher in the Kitchen,

a kosher cooking experience for your little chef. Ages 4-11, divided into age-appropriate groups. 5:30 p.m. $18/ class. 1701 McFarland Road. chabadsh.com/kidscooking. q WEDNESDAY, FEB. 14 Join Chabad of the South Hills for its Senior Lunch.

This month’s topic is “How to be Your Own Healthcare Advocate.” 1 p.m. $5 suggested donation; wheelchair accessible. Preregistration required at 412-278-2658.

1701 McFarland Road. q WEDNESDAYS, FEB. 14, 21 Join Rabbi Jonathan Perlman for Fun with Rashi: Torah Insights of a Medieval Scholar, an introduction to the most famous of all medieval Torah commentaries that will become the foundation of much Jewish thought and strategy concerning the reading of sacred sources.

Students will develop critical skills learned from greatest of the first wave of commentaries and understand how they influenced Judaism in generations to come. Please bring a Tanakh to class. Register by emailing janet@ newlightcongregation.org. q WEDNESDAYS, FEB. 14–FEB. 28 The 10.27 Healing Partnership and Emily Harris, experienced practitioner of Spirited Fun Improv, will be offering “Improv in the Community,” a one-hour, once a week improv program aimed at older adults (but open to everyone). Participants will cultivate a supportive, lighthearted space where their creativity and connection will shine. Games and scenes are inspired by participants’ life experiences and leave attendees refreshed and energized. 1 p.m. Squirrel Hill JCC, Room 316. 1027healingpartnership.org/event/improv-incommunity/2024-01-24. q WEDNESDAYS, FEB. 14–MARCH 6 Chabad of the South Hills presents a new six-week course from the Rohr Jewish Learning Institute, Advice for Life: The Rebbe’s Advice for Leading a More Purposeful Life. This multimedia course is a journey through the Rebbe’s practical wisdom on work, family, health and well-being. 7:30 p.m. Chabad of the South Hills, 1701 McFarland Road. chabadsh.com. q WEDNESDAYS, FEB. 14–MAY 15 The Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh virtually presents two Melton courses back-to-back: “Ethics” and Crossroads.” In “Ethics,” learn how Jewish teachings shed light on Jewish issues. “Crossroads” will present an emphasis on reclaiming the richness of Jewish history.

7 p.m. $300 for this 25-session series (book included). jewishpgh.org/series/melton-ethics-crossroads. q WEDNESDAYS, FEB. 14–DEC. 18 Bring the parashah alive and make it personally relevant and meaningful with Rabbi Mark Goodman in this weekly Parashah Discussion: Life & Text.

12:15 p.m. For more information, visit bethshalompgh. org/life-text.

Temple Sinai’s Rabbi Daniel Fellman presents a weekly Parshat/Torah portion class on site and online. Call 412-421-9715 for more information and the Zoom link.

q THURSDAYS, FEB. 15-29; MARCH 14-28; APRIL 11-18 Join Rabbi Amy Bardack and Dor Hadash member Charlie White for a morning Shabbat service study, a nine-session, in-depth study of the structure and content of the siddur, with a focus on the prayers of Shabbat morning. Explore themes and theology; identify blessings, Biblical quotes, and key words; and discuss the changes from traditional liturgy found in the Reconstructionist siddur. 7:30 p.m. Free for members; $120 suggested donation for non-members. In-person with a virtual option. congregationdorhadash.shulcloud. com/event/class-on-shabbat-morning-services.html. q FRIDAY, FEB. 16 Are you looking for an informal, inviting way to teach your little ones about Shabbat and connect with other families? Join Cantor David Reinwald, Rabbi Daniel Fellman and Danie Oberman for a Tot Shabbat Service and Dinner at Temple Sinai. 5 p.m. Contact Daniel Oberman at danie@templesinaipgh.org. q SATURDAY, FEB. 17 Join Temple Sinai for a JDAIM Dance Party honoring 2024 Shore-Whitehall Award recipient Sam Skobel.

7 p.m. No charge, however, there is a $10 suggested donation per person. Please register at templesinaipgh. org/event/jdaim-event.html.

Join Congregation Beth Shalom for the National Yiddish Theatre Folksbiene’s “Soul to Soul.” The first time in Pittsburgh, from klezmer to jazz to spirituals to show tunes — a rousing concert to celebrate what unites Jewish and African Americans. 7:30 p.m. Kaufman Center, 1825 Centre Ave. bethshalompgh.org/soul. q MONDAY, FEB. 19 Join Yeshiva Schools of Pittsburgh at its Here to Stay VIP donor event, including dinner, an open bar, live music from Tali Yess and keynote speaker Tamir Goodman. 5:30 p.m. For more details and tickets, visit yeshivaschools.com/heretostay. q MONDAYS, FEB. 19; MARCH 4, 18; APRIL 1 Join the 10.27 Healing Partnership and practitioner Shawn Fertitta on the first and third Monday for Reikiinfused Sound Bathing. Immerse yourself in the soothing tones of crystal and Tibetan singing bowls.

His experience is tailored to calm your mind, body and soul, promoting optimal healing. 10 a.m. South Hills JCC. 1027healingpartnership.org/reiki-infused-sound-bathing. q TUESDAYS, FEB. 20–MAY 14 Understanding and explaining Israel’s current position requires knowledge of history. In the 10-part course, A History of The Arab-Israel-Iran Conflict: All You Need

to Know, Rabbi Danny Schiff will provide a full overview of the regional conflict that Israel has experienced over the last century. What pivotal moments brought us to where we now are, and what might that mean about where the conflict is headed? The cost of taking a course is never a barrier to participation. If price is an issue, please contact the organizer of this course so that we can make the cost comfortable for you. $145.

8 p.m. jewishpgh.org/series/history-of-the-arab-israeliran-conflict. q WEDNESDAYS, FEB. 21; MARCH 20 Join the Squirrel Hill AARP for its monthly meeting.

Refreshments will be provided. For further information, contact Marcia Kramer at 412-656-5903. 1 p.m. Rodef Shalom Congregation, Falk Library, 4905 Fifth Ave. q SUNDAY, FEB. 25 Everyone has their own special recipe that they think is the best. Prove you have the winning recipe at Temple Sinai’s Kugel Cook Off. 10 a.m. templesinaipgh.org/ event/kugel-cook-off-sponsored-by-wots.html. q SATURDAY, MARCH 2 Join Congregation Beth Shalom for Sisterhood Shabbat. This year’s honorees are Shoshana Barnett, Tammy Hepps and Beth Jacobs. 9:30 a.m. Contact Helen Feder hrfeder@gmail.com. q SUNDAY, MARCH 3 Join Chabad of the South Hills for its annual Jewish Comedy Night, featuring comedian Chris Monty and opening act David Kaye. Enjoy hors d’oeuvres and an open bar. 7:30 p.m. Carnegie Stage, 25 W. Main St., Carnegie, 15106. $54/$45 early bird discount until Feb. 8. chabadsh.com/comedy. q THURSDAYS, MARCH 7–DEC. 5 Join Beth El Congregation of the South Hills for Hope & Healing on Zoom the first Thursday of each month, a 30-minute program led by Rabbi Amy Greenbaum.

Chant, breathe, pray for healing and seek peace.

Call Beth El at 412-561-1168 to receive the Zoom link.

5:30 p.m. bethelcong.org. q THURSDAY, MARCH 14 Join the 10.27 Healing Partnership for a free Legal Appeals Process Educational Program focused on the next phase of the Pittsburgh synagogue shooter trial. Professor David Harris, from the University of Pittsburgh’s School of Law, will explain what appeals are and the function they serve, and what we should expect to see in the case moving forward. Free.

6-8 p.m. In-person or on Zoom. Room 202 of the Squirrel Hill JCC. Registration required at jewishpgh.org/event/legal-appeals-processeducational-program. PJC

Join the Chronicle Book Club!

T

he Pittsburgh Jewish Chronicle invites you to join the Chronicle Book Club for its Feb. 25 discussion of “Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow,”

by Gabrielle Zevin. From Amazon.com: “Sam and Sadie — two college friends, often in love, but never lovers — become creative partners in a dazzling and intricately imagined world of video game design, where success brings them fame, joy, tragedy, duplicity, and, ultimately, a kind of immortality. It is a love story, but not one you have read before.”

including Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

It is also available through the Carnegie Library system.

Email: Contact us at drullo@pittsburgh jewishchronicle.org, and write “Chronicle Book Club” in the subject line. We will send you a Zoom link for the discussion meeting.

Registration closes on Feb. 22.

Happy reading! PJC — Toby Tabachnick

Your Hosts:

Toby Tabachnick, editor of the Chronicle David Rullo, Chronicle senior staff writer

How and When:

We will meet on Zoom on Sunday, Feb. 25, at noon.

What To Do

Buy: “Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow.” It is available at area Barnes & Noble stores and from online retailers, 6

FEBRUARY 9, 2024

PITTSBURGH JEWISH CHRONICLE

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Headlines An ‘opportunity to serve’: Martin Gaynor appointed to federal antitrust position

 Martin Gaynor

Photo courtesy of Martin Gaynor

— LOCAL —

By Justin Vellucci | Special to the Chronicle

M

artin S. “Marty” Gaynor — a Jewish Pittsburgher and the E.J. Barone University Professor of Economics and Public Policy at Carnegie Mellon University — started diving into the economics of American health care while attending graduate school at Northwestern University in the early 1980s.

He was working on his doctorate at the time when he took a class in “industrial organization” with Professor Frederic M. Scherer, who, at one point, served as the chief economist for the Federal Trade Commission.

(Since 2006, Scherer’s taught economics at Harvard University.)

Something clicked.

“You could see how things were relevant in the real world,” Gaynor told the Chronicle.

“That got me very excited.”

Gaynor, a Cleveland-born father of three, went on to research and develop a focus on competition and incentives in health care, as well as antitrust policy. He received his B.A. from the University of California, San Diego, in 1977 and his Ph.D. from Northwestern University in 1983.

Gaynor launched his teaching career as an economics professor at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University in 1981 and taught at Johns Hopkins University for seven years before coming to Pittsburgh to work at CMU in 1995.

“By Pittsburgh standards, we’re the people down the street who are very nice who just moved in,” Gaynor quipped. “We’ve been here a very long time and we love it.”

A director of the FTC’s Bureau of Economics in 2013 and 2014, Gaynor recently was appointed to a rather new prestigious part-time position — special adviser to Jonathan Kanter, assistant attorney general for the Antitrust Division at the federal Department of Justice in Washington, D.C. “I have dedicated my career to researching health care costs and spending in the United States,” Gaynor said. “I’m just incredibly grateful to have been given the opportunity to serve the country and do something to help America. I know that sounds very Pollyanna-ish, but I mean it.”

In his role as special adviser, which was announced in November, Gaynor will advise the DOJ’s antitrust division on economic issues in antitrust enforcement while also

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working on what the DOJ calls “a wholegovernment approach to competition policy.”

Gaynor will continue to be based in Pittsburgh in his new role, which is scheduled to last until year’s end.

Gaynor, who takes part daily in morning minyan at Congregation Beth Shalom, sees parallels between his Jewish faith and his work.

“I believe, as a Jew … I am periodically given opportunities to help,” he said. “Jews are given these opportunities for mitzvahs.

But, it’s our job to identify those mitzvahs and do them.”

He also knows how deeply his Jewish roots go in a growing climate of antisemitism.

Gaynor, a member of Congregation Dor Hadash, survived the synagogue shooting on Oct. 27, 2018, at the Tree of Life building in Squirrel Hill.

“After 10/27/18, I’m very grateful to be here, but I carry with me an obligation to do my best and to do good,” he said.

Dan Leger understands that.

Another synagogue shooting survivor, Leger has studied Daf Yomi with Gaynor for the past four years in memory of Dr. Jerry Rabinowitz, who was killed in the 2018 shooting, the most violent antisemitic attack in U.S. history.

“It’s always been very clear that Marty has a highly developed sense of principles about this — I think that’s just the way Marty is,” Leger said.

“I really don’t pretend to know what he’s doing,” he added. “But I think he’s the perfect person to solve the absolutely nightmarish landscape of health care.”

Brian Kovak, a CMU professor of economics and public policy, called Gaynor “a giant in his field” and “the central figure” on the study of how market structures affect cost and other factors in the U.S. health care sector.

“He’s clearly a really thoughtful person about everything he addresses,” said Kovak, who met Gaynor after coming to CMU in 2010.

In addition to serving on CMU’s faculty, Gaynor is an elected member of the National Academy of Medicine and the National Academy of Social Insurance, a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research, and an international research fellow at the University of Bristol.

But Gaynor said his faith is just as important as his curriculum vitae.

Congregation Beth Shalom Rabbi Seth Adelson agreed.

“Marty is truly and deeply committed to Jewish life and learning — he is not only a regular attendee at Beth Shalom’s weekday morning minyan but also frequently leads us in prayer,” Adelson said.

“He is also a role model for engaging with Jewish text in a thoughtful and contemporary way, currently participating in Daf Yomi, and his smile and joyful personality light up a room.” PJC Justin Vellucci is a freelance writer living in Pittsburgh.

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FEBRUARY 9, 2024 7

Headlines Grove City students translate accounts of French Jews during the Holocaust — LOCAL —

By Justin Vellucci | Special to the Chronicle

M

arcus Henry remembers details vividly from the government documents he translated about the arrest of Jews in 1940s-era France.

Amiens, France: July 18-19, 1942. Two years into the Nazi occupation of the Somme in France’s north, police rounded up all of the Jews in Amiens, the region’s capital. Two days earlier, police took 13,000 Jews into custody in Paris, sending them to atrocious conditions in an unused sports stadium — the Velodrome d’Hiver — then on to camps at Auschwitz or Sobibor.

Henry, a Grove City College freshman majoring in biology and French, read the bureaucratic account from Amiens: One girl, fleeing the roundup, was almost free.

She darted into a neighbor’s house and hid.

Then, she made a break for the street …

And was captured by the police.

The detail that upset Henry was the last sentence of the report, simply: “She was wearing a blue dress.”

“It’s one thing to see it in a history book — but to see someone talking about a friend, a family member or themselves … it’s devastating,” said Henry, who grew up in State College, Pennsylvania.

“I wouldn’t say it was an experience as if I had family who went through that,” said Henry, who is Christian. “But, I think looking at it from any perspective — it’s heartbreaking.”

Historian David Rosenberg has been enraptured by the history of Amiens for decades. The Jewish Pittsburgher first visited Amiens — today a city of 120,000 residents, about 90 miles north of Paris — in 1973 while researching his doctoral dissertation for Yale University.

But how and why did a group of undergraduate students from Grove City College, a small Christian liberal arts college an hour’s drive north of Pittsburgh, wind up translating accounts of Jews in an occupied French district during the Holocaust?

That story starts in 2023, when Grove City College Professor Kelsey Madsen was teaching a class, in French, on the history of World War II — and how different angles of memory interpret it.

Madsen took her class on a trip to the Holocaust Center of Pittsburgh — and also to the Bower Hill Community Church in Mt. Lebanon, which was hosting Rosenberg’s Amiens-driven exhibit, “Who Is a Jew?” “Here was someone else who has done this, to do what is possible to recognize people who were targeted,” Madsen said.

“David’s project resonated a lot with what we were doing in class.”

“It’s horrifying,” she added, “what society can become in moments of turmoil and corruption.”

Rosenberg and Madsen struck up a working relationship and, last fall, about 8

FEBRUARY 9, 2024

p Marcus Henry, Katelyn Livorse, Dr. Kelsey Madsen, Viriginia Williams and Cara Scott

a half-dozen of Madsen’s students translated — from French — the accounts from roundups of Jews in Amiens.

The students pored over microfiche and dealt with the linguistic subtleties of bureaucratic language.

Christian translators, whose great- or great-great-grandparents lived during World War II — in his work on Amiens.

“I’m just feeling very, very fortunate to have such interested and competent collaborators up there in Kelsey Madsen and

Photo courtesy of Grove City College

the themes he’s explored in his work in Amiens.

“It’s important to understand what those battles were about — the stories of great human evil,” he said. “With history, I think I want to show people as people, and people

“I’m just feeling very, very fortunate to have such interested and competent collaborators up there in Kelsey Madsen and her students.” ― DAVID ROSENBERG

The group also dealt with some obscure phrases, Henry said. One word he thought was “salamander” — phonetically, it sounded like “sodemondre” — actually was a type of gas oven popular in the era.

The larger picture, though — the meaning of the project — resonated for Madsen and her volunteers, she said.

“It was sinking in — these were not just words on a page. This was a person’s real experience,” Madsen said. “To have them make that connection with the past and with real people — ‘This isn’t just a story. This is real. This happened’ — I think the project succeeded with that.”

About a half-dozen students are preparing to do a second round of translations this spring, she said.

Rosenberg is modest about involving a new perspective — that of young

her students,” Rosenberg said.

Though Rosenberg has worked on the lives and persecution of Protestants in Amiens in the 16th century, his morerecent work has encompassed the Jewish community there. The core of his historical work revolves around personal identification cards of Amiens’ Jews that Rosenberg found at a French Holocaust museum in 2017, as well as documents from national archives he discovered in 2014.

Rosenberg was gifted with a medal of honor and a key to Amiens from city officials there in 2022.

In addition to staging the Amiens exhibit at Grove City College in April, Rosenberg encourages people to visit jewsofthesomme.com.

He also continues to hammer home

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in history. That’s the only way we can create this empathy, a sense of how to connect through history.”

The Rev. Dr. Brian Snyder, whose Mt. Lebanon church hosted Rosenberg’s exhibit last year, said he couldn’t imagine the persecution Jews faced in France during World War II. He sees Rosenberg’s work as a kind of warning.

“Germany was, technologically, a brilliant society — and it happened there.

I find that scary,” Snyder said. “I don’t think I’m at risk of persecution in this country, but many are … I see this as a cautionary tale.

If this could happen in the 1930s, it could happen here today.” PJC Justin Vellucci is a freelance writer living in Pittsburgh.

PITTSBURGHJEWISHCHRONICLE.ORG

Headlines — WORLD — Former Jewish Press Editor Elliot Resnick pleads guilty to Jan. 6 felony

Elliot Resnick, the onetime editor of a Jewish newspaper that claimed that he was at the Capitol riot to cover it, pleaded guilty on Jan. 30 to a felony charge for joining the attackers and obstructing a police officer, JTA.org reported.

“Did you do what the government stated?”

U.S. District Judge Rudolph Contreras asked the former editor of the Jewish Press who stood, subdued, alongside his lawyer in the courtroom, a 10-minute walk away from the Capitol he and hundreds of other rioters besieged on Jan. 6, 2021, in a bid to overturn Joe Biden’s presidential election.

“Yes, I did, your honor,” said Resnick, a 40-year-old New Yorker, who was clad in a navy blue blazer and black yarmulke.

Under a plea agreement the prosecution filed at the hearing, the prosecution and the defense agreed to recommend a prison sentence of 8-14 months and a fine between $4,000 and $40,000, in part because Resnick has no criminal record.

Contreras, who is not bound by the plea agreement, reserved sentencing for June 12, after he receives a report from the probation office. The maximum sentence for the charge, obstruction of law enforcement, is five years and three years of supervised release, and a $250,000 fine.

Evan Gershkovich’s pretrial detention extended through late March, one year after his arrest

A Moscow court extended the pretrial

detention of Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich through March 30, meaning he will have spent at least a year behind bars before his trial begins, JTA.org reported.

Gershkovich, the 32-year-old American son of Jewish immigrants from the Soviet Union, has been held on espionage charges since March 29, 2023, when he was arrested

by Russian agents while on a reporting trip in the city of Yekaterinburg. Gershkovich, the United States government, and the Wall Street Journal deny the allegations, for which the Russian government has not provided evidence.

The U.S. government considers him to be wrongfully held.

The Wall Street Journal and its parent company, Dow Jones, condemned the court’s decision, which was made in a closed hearing on Friday.

“It is chilling and outrageous that Evan has now spent 10 months of his life in prison, simply for doing his job,” their statement said.

“While these are clearly sham proceedings about patently false charges, we intend to appeal today’s ruling, as we have in the past. Journalism is not a crime, and we continue to demand Evan’s immediate release.”

Gershkovich is the first American reporter held on espionage charges in Russia since the fall of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War more than 30 years ago.

J Street drops Jamaal Bowman endorsement, saying his rhetoric ‘crossed a line’

J Street pulled its endorsement of New York Democratic Rep. Jamaal Bowman, citing his

“framing and approach,” a sign of how alliances on the Jewish left are shifting after Hamas’ Oct. 7 invasion of Israel, JTA.org reported.

Bowman was one of the earliest and most outspoken members of Congress to call for a cease-fire following Hamas’ invasion of Israel and the outbreak of the ensuing war in Gaza.

He has also described Israel’s military campaign in Gaza as “genocide.”

J Street, while critical of Israel’s wartime conduct, has not called for a cease-fire in the conflict. The liberal Israel lobby also adamantly rejects the use of “genocide” to describe Israel’s counterstrikes after Oct. 7, and opposed South Africa’s bringing genocide charges against Israel in the International Court of Justice.

“We have been pleased to work with Congressman Bowman for over four years to promote a shared set of values and principles rooted in the pursuit of justice, equality and peace,” said J Street’s statement, which was issued on Jan. 26. “The past few months have, however, highlighted significant differences between us in framing and approach.”

Jeremy Ben-Ami, the lobby’s president, cited the use of the term “genocide,” which Bowman has used multiple times in the months since the war began, as a breaking point.

Ben & Jerry’s Israel to build new $35.5M plant in Kiryat Gat

Ben & Jerry’s Israel will build a $35.5 million factory in the new industrial zone of the southern Israeli city of Kiryat Gat, JNS.org reported.

The ice cream maker will transfer its 200 employees in the southern region to the 5-acre

Items are provided by the Center for Israel Education (israeled.org), where you can find more details.

Feb. 9, 1994 — Israel, PLO sign 2nd agreement

p The Jerusalem Post’s Feb. 10, 1994, issue reports on the signing of the Cairo Agreement the day before.

Five months after signing the Oslo Accords’ Declaration of Principles, Shimon Pe r e s and Yasser Arafat meet in Cairo and sign an agreement on Palestinian selfrule and security co op eration in Gaza and Jericho.

Feb. 10, 1913 — Air Force builder Charles Winters is born

Charles Winters is born in Massachusetts.

Winters, who runs a Caribbean air transport service, purchases and helps secretly deliver three surplus U.S. B-17s, Israel’s only heavy bombers in the War of Independence.

Feb. 11, 1995 — AJC adopts Israel-Diaspora policy

The American Jewish Committee replaces its 1950 policy statement on IsraelDiaspora relations, which emphasized the independence of the U.S. and Israeli Jewish communities, with an approach focusing on interdependence.

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Feb. 14, 1896 — Herzl publishes ‘Jewish State’

Theodor Herzl’s “Der Judenstaat” (“The Jewish State”) is first published in Vienna with a run of 500 copies. The pamphlet calls for Jews to organize themselves to gain a territory and eventually a state.

Feb. 15, 1975 — Cairo Jewish leader Salvator Cicurel dies

A former leader of Cairo’s Jewish community, 1928 Olympic fencer and department store magnate Salvator Cicurel, dies. He was forced to sell his store after the 1956 Suez war and left Egypt in 1957. PJC

— Compiled by Andy Gotlieb

PRICES EFFECTIVE SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 11 – FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 16, 2024

The Winter Olympics open in Lillehammer, Norway, with an Israeli team for the first time.

It consists of figure skater Michael “Misha” Shmerkin, who finishes 16th. He was part of the wave of ex-Soviet immigration.

In a letter to Chaim Weizmann, British Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald disavows p British Prime the threats posed Minister Ramsay in Palestine by the MacDonald 1930 Passfield White reiterated his Paper, which calls nation’s comfor restricting Jewish mitment to Jewish settlement immigration and land purchases. in Palestine.

The Chinese video-sharing platform TikTok has lost one of its primary advocates in the Jewish state following his frustrations over the company’s unwillingness to properly crack down on antisemitic content, JNS.org reported.

Barak Herscowitz, who previously worked as an adviser to former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, had served as TikTok’s “vertical lead in the government and public sector.” He announced his resignation on Jan. 29 on X. “I resigned from TikTok,” he wrote. “We live in a time when our very existence as Jews and Israelis is under attack and in danger. In such an unstable era, people’s priorities are sharpened.

Am Yisrael Chai.”

Herscowitz had previously submitted a memo to TikTok regarding anti-Israel bias on the platform. PJC

1916 MURRAY AVENUE 412-421-1015 • 412-421-4450 • FAX 412-421-4451

Feb. 12, 1994 — Israel’s first Winter Olympian

Feb. 13, 1931 — British PM rejects White Paper

TikTok lobbyist in Israel resigns over app’s failure to oppose antisemitism

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Today in Israeli History — ISRAEL —

plant, which is scheduled to open in 2026, Globes reported on Jan. 30. It will replace the smaller manufacturing site in Beer Tuvia near Kiryat Malachi and about 12 miles north of Kirya Gat. More workers will be hired to handle the expanded production lines at the Kiryat Gat plant, which will include a visitors’ center, a flagship store and a logistics center.

Ben & Jerry’s Israel is separate from the U.S. firm of the same name and its move is not related to the July 2021 decision by the U.S. Ben & Jerry’s to stop selling ice cream in Israeli territory over the 1949 armistice lines (“Green Line”).

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Manage heart health for stronger brain health — HEALTH —

By Family Features

T

he same risk factors that contribute to making heart disease the leading cause of death worldwide also impact the rising global prevalence of brain disease, including stroke, Alzheimer’s disease and dementia.

The global death rate from Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias is increasing even more than the rate of heart disease death, according to the American Heart Association’s Heart Disease and Stroke Statistics 2022 Update.

Globally, more than 54 million people had Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias in 2020, a 37% increase since 2010 and 144% increase over the past 30 years (1990-2020). Additionally, more than 1.89 million deaths were attributed to Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias worldwide in 2020, compared to nearly 9 million deaths from heart disease.

“The global rate of brain disease is quickly outpacing heart disease,” said Mitchell S.V. Elkind, M.D. M.S., FAHA, the past president of the American Heart Association (2020-’21), a professor of neurology and epidemiology at Columbia University’s Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons and attending neurologist at New York-Presbyterian/Columbia University Irving Medical Center. “We are learning more about how some types of dementia are related to aging, and how some types are due to poor vascular health. It’s becoming more evident that reducing vascular disease risk factors can make a real difference in helping people live longer, healthier lives, free of heart disease and brain disease.”

According to the statistics update, people with midlife hypertension were five times more likely to experience impairment on global cognition and about twice as likely to experience reduced executive function, dementia and Alzheimer’s disease. The risk for dementia associated with heart failure was nearly two-fold.

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FEBRUARY 9, 2024

Photo courtesy of Getty Images

Experts recommend maintaining a healthy weight, managing your blood pressure and following other hearthealthy lifestyle behaviors that can also support good brain health while studies

following stroke or cerebrovascular disease and indicate a decline in brain health.

Consider these steps to live a healthier lifestyle and protect your heart and brain health:

minutes of vigorous physical activity, or a combination of the two, to improve overall cardiovascular health.

• Get your blood pressure checked regularly and work with your health care

Optimal brain health includes the ability to perform tasks like movement, perception, learning and memory, communication, problem solving, judgment, decision making and emotion. show maintaining good vascular health is associated with healthy aging and retained cognitive function.

Optimal brain health includes the ability to perform tasks like movement, perception, learning and memory, communication, problem solving, judgment, decision making and emotion. Cognitive decline and dementia are often seen

• Don’t smoke; avoid secondhand smoke.

• Reach and maintain a healthy weight.

Be mindful of your eating habits; eat foods low in saturated fat, trans fat, sodium and added sugars.

• Be physically active. Start slowly and build up to at least 150 minutes of moderate physical activity (such as brisk walking) each week. As an alternative, you can do 75

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team to manage it if it’s high.

• Have regular medical checkups and take your medicine as directed.

• Decrease your stress level and seek emotional support when needed. PJC Learn more about the relationship between heart health and brain health at heart.org.

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Senior Living The choice in senior living is yours. Make it wisely.

Guest Columnist Stefanie Small

M

any of us go through our lives believing that we will age in place, in our homes, where we are comfortable until the end of our days.

But reality may not match our beliefs, and home may not be the best or safest place for us to remain. It may be more expensive to stay in our own house with assistance.

Perhaps we need more specialized care and attention. Or maybe our home needs too much work to make it suitable for aging in place.

In those cases and others, a senior living facility may be the best choice.

So how do you determine whether moving is the right option for you or your loved one?

Think about these questions: • What can I do on my own, and what do I need help with?

• Is the help I need manageable on my own or with my family, or do I need more than they and I can give?

• Do I want to live alone, or do I prefer to live among other people?

• Can I afford to live in a facility?

• For family caregivers: Can you keep up with all you have been doing, or are you

suffering from burnout? Your needs matter and count in this decision, too.

There are a few things to think about when considering different types of senior living facilities. While some seniors may prefer an independent living facility, others may need more dedicated care.

Living facilities have varying levels of independence or assistance, such as independent living (think retirement

through Medical Assistance but only after all other options have been exhausted and applications have been made and accepted.

Housing costs at this age are therefore the same as at any age: out-of-pocket.

Once you’ve thought about these questions and considerations, visit some residences. Take a tour and ask questions like: Are residents allowed visitors anytime or only during certain hours? Are all staff

Ask about your particular needs: How will they be met? homes or senior high-rises), personal care facilities, assisted living facilities and skilled nursing facilities. Each of these types of homes offers different amenities, activities and accommodations, depending on the residents’ needs. Consider what you or your loved one may need and want in terms of how much independence or care a living situation offers.

Cost is another issue. Contrary to common belief, Medicare and other health insurance do not pay for long-term housing at any level. Long-term care insurance policies can cover housing only if it was built into the policy when it was purchased.

Skilled nursing facilities can be paid for

members given background checks? Is staff available 24 hours a day? Is there an automated defibrillator on site?

Ask about your particular needs: How will they be met?

Use your senses on these tours. Look around. Do you see an activity taking place or are residents just napping in the chairs in the lobby? What do you smell? Do you hear residents chatting and laughing or does it seem too quiet? Does the furniture feel like home or like institutional pieces you might see in a hospital?

Have a meal there if you can. Would you want to eat there on a regular basis?

Talk to the residents, if possible; find

out what they like about living there and also what they don’t. These conversations will help guide you in making this momentous decision.

Older adults often hesitate about moving into a facility, worried that they would be losing their independence.

But people of all ages receive help in some ways — no one is fully independent.

Whether we have cleaning help or an accountant, benefit from Instacart or use Uber, we all avail ourselves of assistance when we can. Seniors should take note that accepting a little bit of help can go a long way in allowing them stay as independent as possible.

As a geriatric social worker for more than 20 years, I always come back to the same advice time and again: Plan ahead with your loved ones, especially when it comes to issues like living arrangements. Do your research, communicate with each other, and know what is out there before a crisis occurs.

When you work from a crisis point, choices are made for you and not with you.

But if you look at different scenarios and plan ahead, the decisions you make will be based on your needs, your wants and your choices. PJC Stefanie Small, LCSW, is the director of clinical services at JFCS, overseeing senior programming as part of AgeWell Pittsburgh.

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FEBRUARY 9, 2024 11

Senior Living Stronger living Guest Columnist Jessica Neiss

“C

an you open this jar for me?”

“Can you carry my laundry down the basement stairs?”

Are these questions you or a loved one have asked recently? As a physical therapist, I see people every day who have lost the ability to do things they love because they lost strength. I am asked every day what helps to combat aging.

My reply is simple: The only way to taste the fountain of youth is to lift weights.

Strength training is the single most important type of exercise as you age. To understand why, we need to understand what happens to our bodies with age.

At around age 35, we begin to lose muscle mass. On average, 10% of muscle mass is lost per decade. This loss of muscle leads to a decline in activities of daily living, such as climbing the stairs or carrying heavier loads like groceries or grandchildren. People stop going down on the floor, stop playing sports and stop challenging themselves physically because of fear and weakness.

Sadly, in many aging adults, muscle weakness makes their world a smaller, less enjoyable place. Many have an increasingly difficult time getting out of a chair, climbing the stairs and opening jars. However, you can combat these effects of aging by lifting weights.

Along with aging comes a decrease in bone density; your bones get weaker with less activity. According to Wolff ’s Law, your body lays down bone when it is exposed to stress. Things that cause your body stress are high-impact activities like jumping, marching, stomping — and lifting weights. Weights stress the muscles, which attach to bones and cause bones to deposit more bone. Not only does lifting weights make your muscles stronger, but it also makes your bones stronger, too!

How heavy do the weights need to be?

When choosing the appropriate weight, you should determine how much weight you can lift at one time for one repetition (“one-repetition max”). The amount of weight you should lift is 60%-80% of that amount. For example, if you can squat and lift a 20-pound weight one time, then 20 pounds is your one-repetition max. To find your daily amount, take 60% of 20 pounds, which is 12 pounds.

For healthy aging, it is recommended that older adults lift weights two times per week, with seven or eight repetitions, with the last repetition feeling difficult to lift. Aim for two or three sets of each exercise.

My rule of thumb is, if you can lift 12-15 repetitions easily, it is time to increase the weight. Increasing the weight over time is what helps you continue to make strength gains.

If you have been lifting the same amount of weight for a long time, your body does not perceive it as a “stress” and all of the benefits of gaining strength and bone density plateau. The muscle may improve endurance or the amount of time it can lift that weight, but it needs to be continually stressed to gain strength.

Exercises to challenge your larger muscle groups are squats, deadlifts, weighted heel raises, a pulling exercise like a lat pull-down, a pushing exercise like an overhead press and a weighted carry.

If you’re wondering why each of these exercises is recommended, think about the everyday activities that each exercise may help to improve. Squats help you get out of a car or a low bench at a restaurant easier. Deadlifts allow you to pick up a laundry basket or grandchild from the floor. A pulling exercise simulates grabbing something off of a high closet shelf, and a pushing exercise can simulate loading dishes into the cupboard. Weighted carries allow for carrying your suitcase or groceries.

It’s not inevitable that you lose out on the activities that you love as you age. Including weightlifting in your regular exercise routine is the single best thing you can do to maintain strength, fitness, independence and, ultimately, fun throughout your lifespan. PJC Jessica Neiss is a physical therapist with 20 years of experience. She owns To Life! Therapy & Wellness, a Center in Squirrel Hill that offers physical therapy, occupational therapy and exercise classes for older adults and people with neurological conditions such as Parkinson’s or multiple sclerosis. tolifefitness.com.

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Senior Living What is a health care advocate?

Guest Columnist Jeffrey Weinberg

P

eople who need help with a health care crisis or with their aging parents often search the internet for answers.

What they end up finding is that they need a patient advocate.

But what is a patient advocate?

A patient advocate represents and works with families and their loved ones to navigate the bureaucratic health care maze.

Advocates provide families with resources, information and alternatives so they can feel empowered to make intelligent decisions about their health care choices, whether it’s when they are in a hospital or nursing home or living independently.

A patient advocate’s role is to protect the patient’s rights.

It is important to note that independent patient advocates are not employed by the hospitals or insurance companies.

A patient advocate is an independent

professional who partners with the client and no one else.

Some examples of the types of services that an advocate can provide are: • Advocating for patients who are hospitalized and need to be sent to a rehabilitation facility for additional care, but the patient’s insurance company wants them to be discharged to their home.

A patient advocate will work with the hospital, the insurance company, the rehab facility and the family to ensure that a discharge to a rehab facility is processed when medically necessary.

If the appeal fails, the patient advocate will work with the family to ensure they have the resources and assistance they need to bring the patient home safely.

• A patient advocate oversees care for people who are in a nursing, rehab or specialty care facility.

A patient advocate works with the family to provide scheduled visits to monitor the patient’s care and reports back their condition to the family.

• A patient advocate can provide medical management services where a nurse or other professional accompanies patients to medical visits. The advocate ensures that

the patient understands the plan of care and any changes to medications. Advocates can also report the results of the medical visit to family members.

It is important to note that patient advocates adhere to a code of conduct, which includes practicing compassion and respect for the clients and families with whom they work as they guide and assist their clients in medical decision-making. At no time will a patient advocate make decisions about a client’s health or medical care or payment for medical services.

Whether a person or their family hires a professional advocate or advocates for themselves, it is critical to have a plan to manage one’s health. That plan should start while you are healthy.

You can be your own advocate by

working with your PCP to stay healthy.

You should also take time to understand your health insurance, including learning which services and medications are covered and which are not. Also review your insurance plan to determine which medical facilities, such as hospitals or care communities, are in your network.

Once you know which facilities are in your network, take time to research these facilities to see which best meets your needs before you need them.

Learning to ask questions and get answers will be critical to your best health outcomes. PJC Jeffrey Weinberg is president of Caregiver Champion, LLC and Author of “The Emperor Needs New Clothes Or Why The Caring Disappeared from Health Care.”

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FEBRUARY 9, 2024 13

l l e W g Agin t a s t r a st the JCC

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Senior Living 4 tips to mind your mental health in 2024 — HEALTH —

By Family Features

T

here’s never a bad time to commit to managing your mental health, but the new year tends to make wellness a bigger priority. Wellness resolutions often focus on diet and exercise, but taking steps to improve your mental well-being is equally important.

In fact, your mental health can play a critical role in your physical health. Stress, anxiety and other manifestations of mental and

emotional distress can trigger physiological responses in your body that may erode your health over time.

Renew your commitment to self-care and managing your mental health with these tips: 1. Set realistic goals. Having something to work toward and look forward to is a healthy way to occupy your mind. Decide what you’d like to achieve and identify milestones toward your ultimate goal. Celebrating when you achieve each milestone can keep you motivated and help measure your progress along the way.

2. Nurture personal relationships. Loneliness

is a major contributor to mental health struggles, and having even a couple close relationships can help provide you with an essential sense of connection and belonging.

Whether you talk in person, by video or text, make time to talk to family and friends. If you find your circle is smaller than you’d like, try taking a class or joining an organization where you can meet others who share your interests.

3. Alleviate stress. A little bit of pressure can push you to do your best, but living in a constant state of stress can be bad for your health. Take time to understand your stress triggers and

actively work to avoid them. If that’s not fully possible, dedicate a portion of each day to de-stressing and clearing your mind.

4. Sleep more. Getting enough sleep means seven to nine hours each night, according to most experts, as it’s one of the best ways to protect your overall health and ensure you’re in the right frame of mind to approach the day. When you’re sleep deprived, you’re less capable of problem-solving, making decisions and managing your emotions and behavior. If winding down is an issue, try creating a bedtime routine that makes it easier to get to sleep. PJC

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HEALTH, MONEY & SENIORS This is one in a series of articles about Elder Law by Michael H. Marks., Esq. Michael H. Marks is an elder law attorney with offices in Squirrel Hill and Monroeville.

Send questions to michael@marks-law.com or visit www.marks-law.com.

Health is priceless, right? How many times have we said, “What’s most important is that you have your health!” But we need money for health, health care, healthcare insurance, etc. I advise clients about legal planning and transactions that involve life, illness, disability, health, and wealth.

Now, I’m not a financial advisor. I can’t tell you how to invest your money. But this article is intended as an overview of how we all, especially seniors, can use our money wisely to maintain our health.

When it comes to health and money, my clients’ goals are most often 1) to get the care they need – when they need it 2) make sure that it gets paid for, 3) at the least cost to my client and their family, AND 4) to save as much as possible of their money. Here are four ways that we can act to preserve and maintain your health AND your assets over the course of a lifetime:

1.

2.

3.

4.

HEALTHCARE INSURANCE LONG-TERM CARE INSURANCE ESTATE PLANNING STRATEGIC ELDER LAW ASSET PROTECTION PLANNING

HEALTHCARE INSURANCE If something little is broken at my house or on my car, I can pay to fix it. But if something is catastrophically expensive, that’s when I want somebody else, namely my insurance policy, to pay, and I’ll pay in advance for coverage for it. That’s what insurance is for.

Many people especially under 65 still have insurance through their own or spouses’ employment. If you do not have access to an employer plan, Obamacare (the Affordable Care Marketplace) now allows anyone (even with pre-existing conditions) to afford to be insured for basic hospitalization and primary care.

Almost all seniors are enrolled in Medicare.

Medicare is an entitlement program; if you paid in when you were working, you are now entitled to coverage, no matter how much money you have or you make.

It pays for doctors and hospitals and often for prescription drugs. But Medicare does NOT pay for long term care.

Most people add to their basic Medicare coverage with supplemental coverage. Many

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utilize a Medicare Advantage Plan (also known as Part C) under which your carrier provides all or almost all your care from the network of care providers that they manage. For all of us, managed care and managed care organizations now dominate the health care system and providers.

Adults under the age of 65 who win Social Security Disability benefits because they were disabled after working for 10 years also get Medicare benefits after a short waiting period. People with disabilities can sometimes also qualify for Medicare along with Social Security Dependents or Survivors benefits.

Medicare gets among the highest approval ratings of any government program, and is cost effective in using dollars for actual services and not overhead, compared to many other care sources.

Seniors may also be eligible for Medicaid.

Most often, my elderly clients using or about to use long term care services seek LongTerm Care Medicaid benefits. It’s intended for people who need nursing services due to disability or significant illness, but who cannot or can no longer afford to pay for it themselves. Medicaid can also pay for ordinary lifetime health care.

PRIVATE LONG-TERM CARE INSURANCE Private Long-Term Care Insurance can pay for costly long-term care. It’s true that it is generally expensive. Like most any other insurance: we pay for it – and hope we never need it! Historically, the complaint about long-term care insurance was that it was “use it or lose it.” If you didn’t end up in long-term care and get the benefits, you got no benefit at all from all your premium payments.

Modern policies tend to combine life insurance with long-term care insurance, so that you or your family will get the money back one way or another – either if you need long-term care, or when you die. Note that even old and small policies are valuable from my point of view. I like it when somebody else, anybody else, pays any amount toward my client’s cost of care.

ESTATE PLANNING Estate planning means making plans and arrangements for the future, in case something bad happens to you like disability or death, through legal arrangements like WILLS, TRUSTS, AND POWERS OF ATTORNEY. Another way to say it is to make sure that the people you want to be in charge of you when you can no longer act for yourself, will be in charge at the

right times, to do what you want them to do, and for the right people to inherit from you as you desire.

An old cliché is that there are people who make it happen; people who let it happen; and people who ask, “What Happened?” Don’t let other people make all the important decisions for you.

They may be the last people you would ever want to be in charge of you, and may do exactly the opposite of what you would want. And court battles over a Will or estate are usually not a “gift” that anyone wants to leave behind for others.

You need to have estate planning in place prior to the time that you need it. Don’t procrastinate. It’s not hard, and I can help you think through tough decisions that you’re not sure about yet. It’s what I do every day. And don’t be cheap and get an online kit. Use a lawyer. Homemade, do-ityourself documents work okay most of the time but sometimes blow up later. For the sake of everything you’ve ever worked and saved for, and those you love, do it right.

Do it to make winding up your affairs so much easier for your loved ones and those you call on to help after you are gone. Don’t make them clean up your mess.

STRATEGIC ELDER LAW PLANNING Strategic Elder Law asset protection planning is designed to help someone using long-term care services save more of their own money, often by getting Medicaid benefits. The financial tests to be eligible for Medicaid are stringent, the bureaucratic application process is annoying or worse, and few people qualify right from the start. For my clients of middle-class means, Medicaid is hugely important, unless you like writing checks to a nursing home yourself for $10,000

or $12,000 or $14,000 a month! We most often want Medicaid to pay instead, and to start as soon as possible. (Medicaid’s effort to shift money toward homebased care has not been very successful.)

But here’s the good news: for anyone going into a nursing home, either married or single I can help you save lots of your own money, and get Medicaid to start paying for you much sooner than they otherwise would. It’s never too late to try, even if you’re already in the nursing home. (One example of when I can save a client much of their own money even after they’re already in the care facility, is when the family finally decides to sell the house, and I can help protect half and sometimes almost all of the proceeds.)

We can often save more money for a married couple when only one spouse is going into nursing care, and somewhat less for a single, unmarried person. Even so, saving some money is definitely better than saving none.

Many Elder Law asset protection planning strategies do involve gifting. Some people think that gifting is never allowed in Elder Law planning. We use gifting every day, just in a planned, thoughtful, strategic, effective way, such as with an Irrevocable Asset Protection Trust,.

Whenever there is a disabled or special needs beneficiary who may inherit from you, special needs trust planning is almost always a must to get an optimal result for them, and for your hard-earned inheritance you will leave behind.

At Marks Elder Law, we help people every day with issues like these. I invite your questions and feedback. Please let me know how I can help you and your family.

PLAN AHEAD:

Protect Yourself and Your Loved Ones - Your Way

We provide expert help with long term care planning, powers of attorney, wills, trusts and special needs. We explain the benefits, risks and opportunities involved with elder law, disability and estate planning and help you implement financial and tax strategies to protect your wealth during your life and afterwards.

Michael H. Marks, Esq. member, national academy of elder law attorneys

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michael@marks-law.com www.marks-law.com

412-421-8944

4231 Murray Avenue Pittsburgh, PA 15217

FEBRUARY 9, 2024 15

YOUR ONGOING I EVACUATION AND HOUSING

With over 239,000 Israelis forced from their homes, Dror Israel helped to set up temporary education for traumatized children, enabling them to return to school and allowing their parents time to regain some normalcy and process their grief.

RELIEF R

RELIEF AND INCLUSION

Many olim (immigrants) fled war zones only to face war in Israel. Thanks to your support, immigrants like Addise from Ethiopia can feel safe and included in their new home with services such as respite and integration.

PROTECTION AND BOMB SHELTERS

Our Partnership2Gether region of Karmiel/Misgav faces the threat of Hezbollah rockets. Your support funded bomb shelters near schools, parks and playgrounds so kids can reach safety within the required 30 seconds.

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FOOD AND CLOTHING

Sima and her son were evacuated from Ofakim on Oct. 7. Since returning, her son has been unable to work. With your support, volunteers from Pitchon Lev have been able to send Sima and her son food packages with basic products such as oil, canned goods, pasta and spices.

239,000 190,000 538,000 $10.9M evacuees receiving food, healthcare and housing

volunteers trained to provide counseling services

packages of clothing, food and hygiene products delivered

distributed in cash for food assistance*

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$302M already in action The needs are immense and continue

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FEBRUARY 9, 2024

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IMPACT IN ISRAEL HELPING THE ECONOMY

The Jewish Agency for Israel (JAFI) is providing a lifeline for tens of thousands of evacuees who lost livelihoods.

Also, with severe shortage of farmworkers due to the war, HaShomer HaChadash mobilized over 100,000 volunteers to help pick vegetables, fruits and other agricultural products.

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FUND FOR VICTIMS OF TERROR

The Jewish Agency for Israel immediately helps families if terrorists injure or kill a member of the household.

With more than 10,000 families already receiving grants, the needs this year exceed 35 times a normal year.

$29.1M

allocated for economic relief and recovery*

far by the community

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RELIEVING TRAUMA

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$2.5M

472

Every child deserves to live without fear. Uprooted families with kids need a new routine to return to a sense of normalcy. Thanks to your support, community advocates like Tomer got children back to school, and gave teachers trauma training.

EMERGENCY MEDICAL SERVICES & HEALTHCARE

Following Oct. 7, the need for emergency medical services intensified. Emergency workers like Vicky from United Hatzalah shifted from treating victims of terror and trauma to coordinating doctors in evacuees’ hotels.

$46.2M invested in medical equipment*

1.7M

individuals treated in healthcare facilities

49,000

individuals treated through mental health organizations

*Allocated from Federations’ collective funds

n • $775M raised in total to grow. Please give at: jewishpgh.org PITTSBURGHJEWISHCHRONICLE.ORG

PITTSBURGH JEWISH CHRONICLE

FEBRUARY 9, 2024 17

Headlines Rally: Continued from page 1

disciplined for writing “Free Palestine” on a chalkboard, and that at Columbia University student protesters were sprayed with “a military-grade chemical weapon.”

“We’ve also seen something similar happen on CMU’s campus,” she alleged. “I’m not going to delve into it right now for the privacy of people involved.”

After the initial chants and introductory remarks, Daria said that she was a CMU alum and that the group she represented was working to ensure “the labor of our students, researchers and workers should not go into war and supporting genocide.”

CMU, she claimed, has been part of the “military-industrial complex” since the university’s earliest days.

She claimed that 50% of all research funding the university receives comes from the Department of Defense, and that “half the research on campus can be used to make weapons.”

CMU, she continued, has been expanding — buying property in Oakland, Hazelwood and Lawrenceville.

“Most of the places being bought are being used for defense contracts,” she charged.

Referencing an article in the left-leaning +972 Magazine, she claimed that Israel uses AI to conduct bombing in the Palestinian territories.

“We’re concerned that the next tool like this that has now killed 25,000-plus people, for God-knows-what reason, could be invented by a CMU student with no thought or regard to what that means,” Daria said.

She did not mention Hamas’ Oct. 7 invasion of Israel and the 1,200 people killed in that attack, nor the hostages still held by the terrorist organization in Gaza.

CMU, Daria said, was in effect, an arm of the U.S. military, which “serves to topple democratic regimes like that of the country my family comes from, Iran.”

Against Carceral Tech had three demands, she said: “Number 1, that Carnegie Mellon sever its extensive ties with the U.S. military and contractors and deny all of their presence on campus, entirely.

CMU graduate student “Anna” next addressed those in attendance.

Citing figures from Oxfam, a British confederation of 21 independent charitable organizations focusing on the alleviation of global poverty, Anna called the war in Gaza “the deadliest in the 21st century.”

“Israel is killing 250 Palestinians every single day,” she claimed.

She took issue with Israel’s use of AI to

More than 100 people attended the late Friday afternoon rally, including a mix of sponsors and organizers, students, alumni and outside community members.

“Number 2, we want to cancel institutional partnerships. Right now, CMU has a partnership with Raytheon. Right now, Raytheon has given CMU — it’s not that much — $35,000 to help better security. I don’t know, they might know a lot about security, but I don’t want to learn from a f---king war criminal.

“Our final demand is for CMU to be transparent to the student body by revealing annually — that means every single year — the sources of its endowment and where it invests those endowments.

We also want them to publish an annual report of sponsored research activity.”

This, Daria said, will help students think critically about how their labor and research are used. She urged students to withhold their labor and research from companies “complicit in the evil of militarism, including Israeli apartheid and occupation, ethnic cleansing and the genocide of the Palestinian people and their culture.”

Jewish Voice for Peace organizer and former

identify targets in Gaza. She said that CMU research for the military may end up being shared with Israel.

Anna ended her speech by saying “No technology for apartheid. Free Gaza.”

A representative from CMU Students for Palestine addressed the crowd, saying that “more than 27,131 Palestinian citizens have been murdered by the Israel Occupation Forces; 66,287 have been wounded and over 10,000 of those murdered by the IOF were children.”

She claimed that Israel committed war crimes both before and after Oct. 7.

“Since the beginning of the colonial state that is Israel in 1948, Palestinians have been ethnically cleansed and expelled,” she said.

The speaker echoed the claims about CMU’s research and technology made by the other speakers.

“Steph” from the Pittsburgh BDS Coalition and the Party for Socialism and Liberation next took the mic, calling for companies,

Beth Shalom: Continued from page 1

He met Mlotek’s mother, a Yiddish musicologist, in New York. The budding pianist, musical arranger, accompanist and composer spent summers at Yiddish camps.

Mlotek combined his love of music and Yiddish when he became involved in NYTF. The company may be best known for its Yiddish production of “Fiddler on the Roof ” directed by Joel Grey.

Socially conscious and involved in the civil rights movement, Mlotek said James’ singing inspired him.

“I imagined a program where we would hear songs from the African-American tradition and songs from the Yiddish tradition, and songs that were inspired by both or either.

So, I compiled a cast. Elmore was one of them and we put together a group of wonderful performers,” he said.

Billed as “an emotionally captivating theatrical concert featuring a mix of spiritual, jazz, klezmer and folk,” “Soul to Soul” has been produced for more than a decade, often on Martin Luther King Jr. Day, and has been performed in New York, Los Angeles, Boca Raton, Denver, Baltimore and Chattanooga.

This year, Pittsburgh will host NYTF’s annual production of “Soul to Soul” in honor of Black History Month. The program is sponsored by Congregation Beth Shalom and its Derekh program.

Judith Hoening Adelson, who directs cultural and Israeli programming for Beth Shalom, said 18

FEBRUARY 9, 2024

p Soul to Soul combines music from both Black and Jewish sources in one show.

Photo courtesy of National Yiddish Theatre Folksbiene

the performance mills the musical traditions of both communities and celebrates the cultures and commonalities of both people. And it is sung by performers with careers spanning from Broadway to the pulpit.

In recognition of both communities, the event will take place on Saturday, Feb. 17, in the Elsie Hillman Auditorium at the Kaufmann Center in the Hill District.

“We wanted to do it in a space that would be meaningful for both peoples,” Adelson said.

The performance, she said, has a lot of local support, including from the Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh’s Community Relations Council, the Rauh Jewish History Program

& Archives at the Heinz History Center, Classrooms Without Borders, the Jewish studies departments of both Carnegie Mellon University and the University of Pittsburgh, Repair the Word, Rodef Shalom Congregation and Temple Sinai.

Adelson, though, won’t be happy to just sell out the venue. She’s anxious for a diverse crowd to fill the auditorium and see the performance. After all, she noted, music has played an important role for both the Black and Jewish communities.

“When things are sad, we sing. When things are joyous, we sing. The commonality is what we’re trying to stress here,” she said.

PITTSBURGH JEWISH CHRONICLE

universities and other organizations to stop supporting Israel.

Without mentioning Hamas, the terrorist attack of Oct. 7 or the hostages, a representative from the Students for Palestine Solidarity Committee addressed the crowd, claiming the Israeli government is racist, bigoted and destructive “to another group simply because of the color of their skin, because they think differently, how they behave and their culture. So, they’re trying to take their land and take what they need to survive.”

Because the event was organized by two recognized student organizations, CMU had no issues with permitting the rally, the university’s Director of Media Relations Peter Kerwin said. CMU’s student affairs office and university police communicated with those groups before the event.

“The groups followed university procedures to hold the event,” Kerwin said.

“Campus police, city police and other safety personnel were on site to support the safety of participants and others on campus.”

The university, he noted, is a global leader in research areas critical to national defense and security.

“Our faculty and graduate students choose to conduct work focused on protecting the lives of military personnel and civilians through the latest technologies,” he said. “Most of our foundational research partnerships through technologies, such as artificial intelligence, are creating and leveraging tools that take our military personnel out of harm’s way.”

The university did not respond to Daria’s claims that CMU students were disciplined for their support of Palestinians. PJC David Rullo can be reached at drullo@ pittsburghjewishchronicle.org.

The history of both peoples, Adelson said, makes the two communities allies; and while they each face different challenges, each deserves to feel safe and free.

“Think about it: Black people being gunned down in a Buffalo shopping mall and Jews are being gunned down in a synagogue. At the root of it is hatred, and we need to be reiterating our commonality and shared humanity,” she said. “Culture does that. Music does that. The performing arts does that.”

Beth Shalom, Adelson said, wanted to do something to celebrate both cultures.

Mlotek agreed, saying that the Jewish community has been at the forefront of the struggle for Black civil rights because, when the movement began in the 1950s, Jews were still dealing with the consequences of the Holocaust. As a result, he said, the Jewish people know what it’s like to be singled out because of who they are.

“It’s important, especially today,” he said, “to be sensitive to each other’s historical issues.”

And, like Adelson, Mlotek doesn’t view ticket sales as the only measure of success of “Soul to Soul” each year.

“We hope this turns into an ensemble and people who have known these songs their whole lives will take the opportunity to sing with us. That’s really the goal,” he said, “besides, you know, being sold out. People singing is our success.”

Tickets for “Soul to Soul” can be purchased at bethshalompgh.org/soul. PJC David Rullo can be reached at drullo@ pittsburghjewishchornicle.org.

PITTSBURGHJEWISHCHRONICLE.ORG

Headlines Educators: Continued from page 4

Gur said two other educators told her that despite using CWB resources to learn about the Israel-Hamas war, they were not permitted to speak with the media.

Across the commonwealth, other prohibitive measures are occurring.

Last month, Bucks County Herald reported that 10 of the county’s 13 districts have policies requiring teachers and staff to obtain approval before speaking with journalists.

Two years earlier, Philadelphia’s Board of Education began requiring all district employees to receive permission from the district’s communications office before

addressing the media.

Pittsburgh Public Schools policy 311 doesn’t bar employees from talking to the press, but describes the district’s ability

in his/her professional capacity in a school setting.”

Gur said she’s pleased so many educators benefit from CWB, but worries

“What I tell my students is, if you’re ever in an environment where someone claims to have every answer on every topic, you should get up and walk out.”

– JAMES LUCOT to limit an employee’s free speech: “The District has a heightened interest in monitoring speech made by an employee

about a future in which fundamental democratic practices are stymied.

Lucot said he, too, is worried, mostly about

a societal willingness to traffic misinformation.

Students readily use terms like “socialist,” “fascist,” “Marxist” and “communist,” without knowing what they mean, he said, and “there has to be a concerted effort on tolerance and understanding.”

Four months into the Israel-Hamas war, the necessary lessons may already be ancient; nearly 2,400 years ago, Diogenes, a Greek philosopher, offered prescient instruction to today’s teachers, districts and administrators.

His words, which are inscribed on the Pittsburgh Allderdice building, read, “The foundation of every state is the education of its youth.” PJC Adam Reinherz can be reached at areinherz@pittsburghjewishchronicle.org.

Tree of Life Inc. hires chief financial and operations officer — LOCAL —

T

ree of Life Inc., the nonprofit rebuilding the site of the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting, has hired Robin Cohen, former chief financial and operations officer at Moving Traditions, as its inaugural chief financial and operations officer.

“I am deeply grateful for the opportunity to assist Tree of Life and its community on the journey of rebuilding and renewal,” Cohen said in a prepared statement. “This institution is composed of profoundly passionate people

p Robin Cohen Photo courtesy of Tree of Life Inc.

that I eagerly look forward to working with.

Together we will create the sanctuary and

More than 100 protesters calling to divest from Israel arrested in Harrisburg — LOCAL —

P

olice arrested 126 people Monday at a protest in Harrisburg against the Pennsylvania government’s investments in Israel, the Associated Press reported.

There were chants of “free Palestine” before and after the protesters were arrested.

The demonstration, held on the steps of the Capitol Rotunda in Harrisburg, was shut down.

A spokesperson for the Department of General Services described the protest “as an unpermitted, unauthorized demonstration,” according to the AP. Protesters were ordered to disperse before being arrested, issued citations for trespassing and then released, spokesperson Troy Thompson said.

About 10 people from Pittsburgh may have been among those who were arrested, according to Shawn Brokos, director of community security for the Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh.

The demonstration was organized

by Jewish Voice for Peace, the Philly Palestine Coalition and the Pennsylvania Council on American-Islamic Relations, PITTSBURGHJEWISHCHRONICLE.ORG

educational space this community deserves.”

Demolition began last month at the Tree of Life site. The reimagined building, designed by Studio Libeskind in collaboration with Rothschild Doyno Collaborative of Pittsburgh, will house an educational center and a museum exploring the roots and manifestations of antisemitism in the United States. A memorial to the victims of the massacre will also be at the site.

“I look forward to collaborating with Robin as she embarks on her tenure as Tree of Life’s new CFOO,” Carole Zawatsky,

Tree of Life’s CEO, said in a prepared statement. “Robin’s dedication and years of experience in the finance sector will help our institution achieve the longevity and prosperity that we all hope for, especially as we continue to navigate this tumultuous time for the Jewish people.”

As chief financial and operations officer, Cohen will manage the organization’s finances and day-to-day operations in close partnership with Zawatsky. PJC — Toby Tabachnick

Show the entire Jewish community how you can make their celebrations sizzle!

Celebratiоs

Party & Event Planning Guide ATTENTION Caterers • Venues • Photographers • Entertainment Gifts • Party Planners • Transportation p Pennsylvania State Capitol

Photo by Dough4872, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

KDKA reported.

Many of the protesters wore T-shirts that said, “divest from genocide,” according to the AP. Organizers of the protest said it was targeted at the commonwealth’s Treasury Department’s investment in Israel bonds. PJC — Toby Tabachnick

The Jewish community celebrates often and your ad in this well-read guide will help you book these events!

Weddings • Bar/Bat Mitzvahs • Anniversaries • Birthdays Graduations • Family Events • Corporate Events and more!

Feature Section: Feb. 23 Ad space deadline: Feb. 16

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PITTSBURGH JEWISH CHRONICLE

FEBRUARY 9, 2024

19

Opinion The audacity of Israel’s armchair critics Guest Columnist Daniel S. Mariaschin

S

ince Oct. 7, the international community has been in a race to add new meaning to the word chutzpah.

Just days ago, Josep Borrel, the European Union’s foreign minister and a former Spanish foreign minister, said, “Israel cannot have the veto right to the self-determination of the Palestinian people.” If the U.N. recognizes that right, he claimed, “nobody can veto it.”

He says this as if Israel did not have a vested security interest in such matters, especially after Oct. 7.

Vying for the audacity award is The Washington Post, whose headline after a preliminary finding at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on the South African petition charging Israel with committing genocide, declared, “Israel ordered to limit deaths.” The Financial Times went further, leading with “Israel ordered to prevent genocide.” All this as if the Jewish state were some incorrigible felon.

Of course, this is exactly what South Africa and its band of serial Israel-bashers were seeking.

A few months ago, news outlets vied with each other to micromanage Israel’s war against Hamas by running, for days on end, articles and opinion pieces about the Jewish state’s use of 2,000; 1,000; and 500-pound bombs.

The Financial Times ran a detailed chart with all manner of technical details about the ordinance in question.

Every day since Israel entered Gaza, major media outlets have arrogated to themselves the job of not only incessantly criticizing Israel but

also picking apart its war effort. There is also heavy coverage of calls for a ceasefire—any ceasefire—before Israel’s military objectives are achieved. Some generously add a demand for the release of hostages kidnapped by Hamas; others ignore the hostages altogether.

The New York Times and others have compared war damage in Syria, Iraq and other places to the fighting in Gaza, solemnly concluding that the damage to Gaza is the worst in post-World War II history. Ironically, the Times was caught red-handed repeating false Hamas charges of indiscriminate Israeli attacks on Gaza hospitals. Its daily efforts to hit Israel in the solar plexus are there for all to see.

But such bias is par for the course.

This bloviating seems to know no bounds.

Ireland’s Prime Minister Leo Varadkar, who admitted early on that Israel has a right to defend itself, stated not long after, “What I’m seeing now at the moment isn’t just self-defense. It looks, resembles something more approaching revenge.”

Chile’s President Gabriel Boric, only weeks after Oct. 7, declared that there can be no justification for “Israel’s barbarity in Gaza” despite the Hamas attacks. Not long after, he charged Israel with “violating international humanitarian law” in Gaza. Chile signed on to South Africa’s ICJ case against Israel.

Belgium’s Prime Minister Alexander de Croo reached for pure cliché, calling Israel’s military operations “disproportionate.” Belgian Green Party leader Petra de Sutter called them “inhumane.”

Some supporters of Israel have expressed concern that world opinion is turning against the Jewish state. The truth is that Israel enjoyed maybe two weeks of support before the tide turned, as we all knew it would.

Even before the IDF entered Gaza, admonitions about doing so “without an end

game” were heard. Memories of that dreadful Saturday morning in October seemed to have drifted off into the ether.

Does it really matter what Borrel, Varadkar, Boric, de Croo and a host of others think about how Israel discovers and destroys the terrorist tunnels underneath apartment buildings, schools, mosques and hospitals in Khan Yunis? Their countries are thousands of miles from the battlefield. Ireland is surrounded by water and has no adjacent neighbors other than the U.K. There is no perceptible threat to Spain from Portugal. Chile has had border issues, but no neighbor has stated its intention to wipe it off the map. The last time I checked, the Netherlands, Luxembourg and Germany had no designs on their neighbor Belgium.

Here in the U.S., calls to condition military aid to Israel on its conduct of a war in which the asymmetrical enemy cynically uses its own population as human shields and cannon fodder are similarly presumptuous.

Existential threats are called existential threats for a reason. America fought thousands of miles away in two world wars to, yes, save the world for democracy, but also to prevent our enemies in Europe and Asia from reaching these shores. It was not easy. It took four years and much sacrifice to accomplish and then, after victory, NATO had to be established to make sure similar threats would be deterred or met with a unified military force.

I know this: Kibbutz Nir Oz, where I had relatives, is less than 10 minutes from Gaza.

For people perched continents away, it is the height of arrogance—one might say recklessness—to opine on matters of existential security for Israel, especially in the aftermath of the barbaric massacre Israel just suffered.

And where is the appreciation for what Israel is doing for the broader community of democracies by seeking to destroy a terrorist organization fueled by blind hatred of Jews and others? An organization that would, if able, carry out Oct. 7-style killing sprees wherever it had the opportunity?

Given all that the Jewish people have endured not only over the centuries, but especially from 1933-1945, it is pure chutzpah for non-Jews to lecture and hector Israel as if it had the right to defend itself but only up to a point: “Do this,” “don’t do that,” “don’t use bombs that are too big,” etc. And the preposterous “don’t commit genocide,” as if that were on the mind of any Israeli policymaker.

In the 1990 Gulf War, the United States organized a “coalition of the willing,” which ultimately included 49 countries, to expel Saddam Hussein from Kuwait. Israel has not asked anyone else to fight for it. This is unsurprising, perhaps, because other than vital and welcome U.S. support, no country has offered any assistance.

Yet hardly a week goes by without, as they say in Yiddish, the eytzes gebers (advice givers) telling Israel when, where and how to conduct its operations in Gaza.

It would be nice if Israel could sufficiently ingratiate itself with these hyper-critics, but that would be a fool’s errand. The hubris and presumptuousness of those who think they know better than Israel how to defend Israel are insurmountable. Sadly, little of this posturing will bring Israel and the region one day closer to the peace they deserve. PJC Daniel S. Mariaschin is the International CEO of B’nai B’rith. This article first appeared on JNS.

Why the Conservative movement is changing our approach to interfaith marriage Guest Columnist Rabbi Jacob Blumenthal

A

t the recent convening of Conservative/ Masorti movement leaders, we were holding a workshop on new approaches to engage intermarrying couples when a participant spoke frankly about her own family. She said she felt like a failure and was not sure what to do.

“We’ve raised our daughter with a thorough Jewish experience,” she explained. “But she recently told us she is going to marry someone of another background.”

A member of the workshop panel responded quickly and emphatically: “Mazal tov!”

Murmurs quickly spread throughout the room. Some people echoed the hearty wishes of congratulations and wanted to give the parent permission to fully embrace the young couple. Others were more measured, reflecting a strong, traditional preference for marrying Jewish partners.

The tension in that room over how hearty our blessing should be reflects the tension we face in the Conservative/Masorti movement.

That tension was addressed in a new report from our movement’s Rabbinical Assembly, which I lead, issued last week, exploring ways to better welcome interfaith couples.

20

FEBRUARY 9, 2024

I was brought up in the 1970s and 1980s to believe that if I intermarried, it meant I didn’t care about Judaism and the Jewish people.

But in more than two decades of my rabbinate, I have not found that to be the case. Some of the most beautiful things said to b’nai mitzvah in my congregation came from parents who are not formally Jewish. They have been full partners — and in some cases, the driving force — in organizing religious school carpools, hosting a Passover seder, lighting candles, putting a mezuzah on their door and taking trips to Israel. Some ultimately chose to convert to Judaism.

And let’s face it: there are certainly households with two Jewish parents who make far fewer intentional choices about creating a Jewish home.

Being a rabbi also proved different than I expected when I was ordained. In rabbinical school, my teachers taught me a lot about rabbinic authority. When I actually started at my synagogue, I discovered that my influence with congregants was based much more on trust and relationship than on my title.

Given these experiences, it’s no wonder that our Conservative/Masorti movement is changing how we engage intermarrying and intermarried couples and families.

A series of prohibitions — around officiation, synagogue hiring, rituals and public roles — were developed in previous decades on the premise that intermarriage would inevitably lead to Jews leaving our people,

and that religious authority could influence congregants’ choices.

But that culture of disapproval did not generally dissuade individuals in their marriage choices. It certainly did not draw people closer to our communities. Instead, too often, it pushed them away.

It is time for us to reconsider some of those practices.

These policies and prohibitions also made it much too easy for rabbis and couples to avoid hard conversations about what it means to create a Jewish home together. Whether it was discussing what kind of wedding ceremony could have Jewish integrity for both the officiant and the couple, or what it would mean to raise Jewish children, our policies — and our attitude — have meant we didn’t have the opportunity to engage. Why bother having these conversations when our culture simply disapproved of intermarriage?

The issue of officiation at a wedding ceremony by a rabbi is a complex conversation, which our rabbis, and so many others in our communities, take seriously. The Rabbinical Assembly report issued last week recommends that the prohibition around officiation at interfaith weddings be maintained at this time.

But the report was clear that this standard of rabbinic practice does not need to be the start (or end) of our conversations. Our culture of welcoming and engagement can start with how we announce all of our weddings and life cycle events; how we offer blessings as a

PITTSBURGH JEWISH CHRONICLE

community in the days before and after a wedding; the pastoral conversations we have with all couples about creating a Jewish home; and how we include everyone in our communities during life cycle events, in worship, in Torah study and in acts of kindness and justice.

This new invitation is also reflected in the establishment of a Joint Working Group between the RA and United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism, which represents our congregations, on how we can better engage intermarrying couples.

For more than 100 years, our movement has learned how to conserve tradition while evolving with a culture of respect, inclusion and egalitarianism. I have no doubt we will continue to do so.

As I listened to the murmurs in the room when the mother shared her feelings of failure, it was clear to me that our movement has a duty not just to love every Jewish person — but to love the ones whom they love. I recognize this both as a parent and as a rabbi. This love inspires me to find the words to congratulate couples and their families and then to help them find a path toward a meaningful Jewish life. PJC Rabbi Jacob Blumenthal is the CEO of the Rabbinical Assembly and the CEO of United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism. Previously he served for over 20 years as founding rabbi of Shaare Torah in Gaithersburg, Maryland. This article first appeared on JTA. PITTSBURGHJEWISHCHRONICLE.ORG

Opinion Chronicle poll results: Summer camp

L

ast week, the Chronicle asked its readers in an electronic poll the following question: “Were you ever a camper or a counselor at a summer camp?” Of the 312 people who responded, 39% said, “Yes, a camper”; 4% said, “Yes, a counselor”; 40% said, “Yes, a camper and a counselor”; and 17% said, “No.” Comments were submitted by 82 people. A few follow.

Informal Jewish education, such as summer camp, is vital to the future of the Jewish people.

My mother made me go; I hated it!

Were you ever a camper or a counselor at a summer camp?

17% No

40% Yes, a camper and a counselor

The old “Emma Farm” in Harmony. Still very fond memories after all of the years.

had similar experiences. Collectively, we had over 45 overnight seasons.

Emma Kaufmann Camp was one of the greatest, and most developmental, experiences of my life. I am 71 years old and still have good friends from those years.

Met my husband at Emma Kaufmann Camp when I was 12. Ran into him several year later in Pittsburgh, and we have been married for 35 years.

39% Yes, a camper

The best times of my childhood were spent at overnight camp as a camper and as a counselor.

4% Yes, a counselor

I was both a camper and a counselor in Mexico. This experience changed my life for good. I became part of a team.

People that I met there are still considered part of my family.

both because it helps kids learn to be independent, get outside their comfort zone, grow new skills and make lifelong friendships/memories.

I was both because it is a Jewish rite of passage. It is a great concept to experience

Summer camp was the most formidable experience of my life. My wife and three sons

My family could not afford to send me to camp. I feel that it’s an experience that every child should have. I made sure that my own children got to go.

Every child should have wonderful camping experiences! I was a camper at Camp Wood Echo. I was a counselor at Camp Comet. Amazing memories of friends, activities, snakes, tadpoles, crayfish, poison

ivy, shooting stars, s’mores, dancing to Elvis (whatever that was), girls (whatever that was), campfires, sleeping bags, sports, learning lots of new stuff … priceless.

Chaim Potok was my camp director.

Those two summers changed my life!

As were many Jewish kids from Pittsburgh, I was blessed to experience four summers at two-month dropoffs at Camp Lynnwood.

I hated camp. I can see how it could have been fun, but it wasn’t for me.

These experiences were defining. My Jewish overnight camp provided a lifetime of connections. PJC — Compiled by Toby Tabachnick

Chronicle weekly poll question:

Do you agree with the decision by the U.S. and other countries to suspend funding to UNRWA after it was revealed that 13 of its employees were involved in the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks on Israel? Go to pittsburghjewishchronicle.org to respond. PJC

— LETTERS — Bhavini Patel is a welcome alternative to Summer Lee

While the 2024 Pennsylvania primary is still months away, I am writing to urge District 12 residents to vote for Bhavini Patel (“District 12 candidates spar over Israel, campaign finance at CMU forum,” Feb. 2). She is a clear and welcome alternative to our current congressional representative, Summer Lee. Over the past year, and in particular since the Oct. 7 Hamas terror attacks, Rep. Lee has consistently voted against Israeli interests and, by extension, the interests of Jewish Americans. Note that Summer Lee has voted “no” on: • House Continuing Resolution 057 (July 7, 2023): Expressing the sense of Congress supporting the state of Israel.

• House Resolution 771 (Oct. 25, 2023): Standing with Israel as it defends itself against the barbaric war launched by Hamas and other terrorists.

• House Resolution 340 (Nov. 1, 2023): Hamas International Financing Prevention Act. • House Resolution 559 (Nov. 1, 2023): Declaring it is the policy of the United States that a nuclear Islamic Republic of Iran is not acceptable.

• House Resolution 798 (Nov. 2, 2023): Condemning the support of Hamas, Hezbollah and other terrorist organizations at institutions of higher education, which may lead to the creation of a hostile environment for Jewish students, faculty, and staff.

These votes are unjustifiable, harmful to the interests of both Israel and the United States and fly in the face of decency and common sense.

As a House member, Summer Lee has voted “no” on several other seemingly commonsense bills including, but not limited to, bills expressing support for local law enforcement officers, protecting women and girls in sports, providing a parents’ bill of rights, protecting speech from government interference, denouncing the horrors of socialism, protecting America’s Strategic Petroleum Reserve from China, and family and small business taxpayer protection. Her voting record as a member of the Pennsylvania legislature is equally destructive.

Voting records matter, and are a clear indication of our officials’ proclivities and priorities.

I urge PA 12 voters to register to vote, and then to vote for Bhavini Patel; it will send a message to the Washington establishment that voters are watching.

Nate Scholnicoff Squirrel Hill

Summer Lee is ‘the best person to support the Jewish community’

I am writing in response to the story “District 12 candidates spar over Israel, campaign finance at CMU forum” (Feb. 2).

The article did not accurately depict the debate, Summer Lee or the Jewish community of Pittsburgh. You mention that the debate was attended by “students, Jewish community members and people donning black-and-white keffiyeh head scarfs, an emblem of solidarity with the Palestinian cause” as if those are separate groups, but I know that there are large overlaps in the Jewish community of Pittsburgh and those supporting the Palestinian cause.

The article states that amid a “rising tide of anti-Jewish hate, Lee voted against a resolution condemning the Hamas Oct. 7 attack and is a vocal critic of the Jewish state on social media.”

This conflates support of the Israeli state with support for the Jewish community as well as

opposition to the actions of Israel with antisemitism. As a member of the Pittsburgh Jewish community, I feel represented by Summer Lee, who has stood by her word to represent those suffering most. She has stood with striking workers, fought against U.S. imperial military overreach and now stands with the Jewish community by being one of the first and few Congress members to call for a cease-fire in Gaza, which is a necessary first step in stopping this conflict and decreasing further violence against the Jewish people. I know that I am not the only Pittsburgh Jew that shares this sentiment, and if you truly are a paper reporting on our behalf, then you have failed to hear our voices.

Summer Lee is the best person to support the Jewish community because she supports the Jewish idea of tikkun olam with her policies and positions, hoping to decrease gun violence, increase wages and rights for workers and the disabled, and continues to push for equity in all spheres of life.

Honey Rosenbloom Pittsburgh

Why rushing to judgment about UNRWA is justified

The reluctance of some to cast judgment on UNRWA is based in part on claims that countries were too quick to accept Israel’s evidence about UNRWA personnel participating in the barbaric Oct. 7 Hamas attack (“Israeli intel shows 10% of UNRWA workers in Gaza have ties to terror groups — report,” Jan. 29, online).

However, what the media should have noted is that many of the EU and other countries that are at least temporarily withholding funding from UNRWA usually do not join the U.S. in voting against the standard anti-Israel U.N. General Assembly resolutions (14 of the total of 21 resolutions against any country in 2023). Quickly assuming that UNRWA is guilty as charged is completely consistent with these countries well knowing UNRWA’s past history and present activities.

I have followed UNRWA’s blatant anti-Israeli activities closely since 1987 when I had an unsettling personal experience with an UNRWA official. While in a Geneva hotel near various international organizations, by happenstance I shared a breakfast table with a man who identified himself as a senior official at UNRWA and talked about how important his work was in protecting Palestinians against Israeli oppression. He said that the Israelis were now the Nazis, and that Israel would be taken care of immediately after South Africa. I asked him about a recent American television report about munitions in the basements of U.N. camps for Palestinian refugees, which he emphatically denied. But when I pushed the issue, he insisted I was wrong because the munitions were in tunnels under the camp buildings, not in basements.

UNRWA’s blatant anti-Israel activities are no secret. After repeated denials, and while under threat of EU and U.S. withdrawal of funding, UNRWA previously admitted production of educational material for schoolchildren that demonizes Israel and glorifies murderous martyrdom — but it has not kept its promises to reform. UNRWA also has been a foremost proponent of more concrete and steel being allowed in to rebuild Gaza while surely knowing the materials were being used for tunnels and weapons A mechanism to rebuild Gaza and feed its people is necessary. But an alternative to a Hamas front such as UNRWA must be found.

Bernard D. Goldstein Pittsburgh

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Celebrations

Torah

Engagement

‘When you will lend money’

Rabbi Jonathan and Dr. Beth Perlman of Squirrel Hill joyfully announce the engagement of their daughter Yael Daniella to Matt Shapiro, son of David and Shirley Shapiro of Montreal, Canada. Yael is the granddaughter of the late Marla and Dr. Lawrence Perlman of Shadyside, and of Dr. Harry and Karen Kissileff of Teaneck, New Jersey. Matt is the grandson of Lois and Bill Shubert, and Kati and the late Adolf Egett of Montreal. Yael is a graduate of Community Day School, the Ellis School, Midreshet Torah v’Avodah and Brandeis University in May 2023. Matt is a graduate of SAR high school in Riverdale, New York, Eretz HaTzvi yeshiva in Israel and expects his BA from Brandeis in May 2024. Yael is currently a legal assistant at Action for Boston Community Development and interned for Rep. Dan Frankel in summer, 2023. Yael and Matt are planning a late summer/early fall wedding.

Wedding It is with great pleasure that Debbie and Alan Iszauk of Monroeville announce the marriage of their daughter Jenna Ariel to Michael Isaac Berger. Michael is the son of Gayl Berger of Cleveland, Ohio, and Alan Berger of Boca Raton, Florida. Surrounded by family and friends from near and far, the ceremony and reception took place on Nov. 11, 2023, at the historic Glidden House mansion in Cleveland. Jamie Exler and Jane Phillips served as Jenna’s maid and matron of honor; Lee and Zach Berger, brothers of the groom, served as best men. The couple resides in Mayfield Heights, Cleveland, along with their dogs Pixie and Hulk. Jenna is a graduate of Ohio University and is a branch processing manager for Nations Lending. Michael is employed by JSS Electric as a commercial and industrial electrical contractor. A honeymoon to Costa Rica is being planned for later this year. PJC

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Rabbi Yitzi Genack Parshat Mishpatim Exodus 21:1-24:18

T

his week’s parsha is Parshat Mishpatim, or is it?

Our reading this week is a dense rendering of many of the fundamental mitzvot that form the basis for a functioning and just Jewish society. We read at length about the court proceedings of torts law, the responsibilities of custodian watchmen, the importance and nature of justice among many other laws. Fittingly, we call this reading Parshat Mishpatim, the Readings of the Laws.

However, there is an alternative practice recorded in the Sefer HaChinuch, which was published anonymously in Spain in the 13th century. That book divides the 613 commandments into their respective parshiot. In the middle of the many laws

in another chapter, because it needs to start somewhere. This verse and this mitzvah were chosen for their own reading in the yearly cycle because it forms a counterbalance to the numerous and detailed rules of a legal society, like those listed above. Aside from protecting the poor, protecting boundaries and promoting justice, there is a positive, actionable value of caring for people before they fall, proactively seeking to provide for their needs and foster their rebuilding. This is the commandment to giving loans.

The centrality of this commandment and its fulfillment throughout the generations can be seen by Googling “Free Loan Society” or the Hebrew equivalent, “Gemach.” You will find a multitude of contemporary Jewish organizations that lend millions of dollars a year around the United States to people in need, exactly as the Torah prescribes.

It does not stop with large organizations.

When I was a post-high school student in Israel, the majority of our needs were handled by the Yeshiva where we studied,

Aside from protecting the poor, protecting boundaries and promoting justice, there is a positive, actionable value of caring for people before they fall, proactively seeking to provide for their needs and foster their rebuilding. we read this week, the author begins a new parsha with a new title. That parsha, called “Im kesef,” is named for the first mitzvah in that section, which is the mitzvah to lend money to those in need. The literal meaning of the name is “When you will lend money.” The author here is reflecting the contemporary practice of his community of Barcelona, which split this week’s reading in two. This practice, or minhag, to split the parshiot in this way is still maintained by some communities of North African origin.

What is so interesting about this practice that has mostly disappeared over the past centuries is that it highlights an often unnoticed aspect of the rules and laws, which we will read this Shabbat. The alternate start and the name of a brand-new parsha is not arbitrary, just another verse

but we took with us a few hundred dollars in cash to fund whatever ancillary costs we had. Invariably, we misspent and ran out of money before returning to America for Pesach and replenishing. So, we went to Shragy. Even if you did not know him well, Shragy would lend you a few hundred shekel to be repaid after Pesach, no questions asked. He had a tiny notebook that he used as a ledger, and everyone was considered to have good credit, exactly as we read in the second section of our parsha. Kindness is paired with justice, and in the practice of the Sefer HaChinuch, they are each given a proper place. PJC Rabbi Yitzi Genack is the rabbi of Shaare Torah Congregation. This column is a service of the Vaad Harabanim of Greater Pittsburgh.

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Life & Culture Lemon ricotta pound cake Optional drizzle:

— FOOD —

2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice ½ teaspoon lemon zest 6-9 tablespoons powdered sugar

By Jessica Grann | Special to the Chronicle.

T

here isn’t a day of the year that I would not be happy with a lemony dessert, but the bright citrus flavor is especially nice on a gloomy day.

If you can cream butter and sugar, then you can easily make this cake. The addition of ricotta cheese makes a beautiful crumb that helps the cake stay fresh for several days.

The flavor of this is perfect: It’s not too sweet, and the texture holds together so well that you can cut pieces into slivers that don’t fall apart.

This recipe is excellent as it is, but I’m including instructions for a lemon juice drizzle that pumps up the volume on the flavor if you’re looking for a cake with a lemony punch.

If you’d like to make it plain, some whipped cream or a dusting of powdered sugar and some fresh fruit are all that you need.

This pound cake bakes really well, so I often make two and freeze one for later. You can use a hand mixer for this batter and make it in one bowl if you don’t have a stand mixer.

Prep time is about 15 minutes, plus baking time.

 Lemon ricotta pound cake

Photo by Jessica Grann

Ingredients

Makes 10-12 servings For the sponge cake:

1½ cups of cake flour. See note if you don’t have cake flour.

2½ teaspoons baking powder 1 teaspoon kosher or coarse baking salt ¾ cup unsalted butter (one and one-half sticks) at room temperature, plus extra butter for greasing the baking pan 1½ cups granulated sugar 1½ cups whole milk ricotta cheese 3 large eggs at room temperature 1 teaspoon vanilla extract Zest from one medium lemon Juice from one medium lemon (about 3 tablespoons)

Set the oven temperature to 350 F and place the wire rack in the middle position.

Whisk together the cake flour, baking powder, salt and lemon zest. (If you have a recipe that calls for both lemon zest and juice, always zest the lemon first before juicing it.)

Grease a loaf pan with about 1 tablespoon of butter. I suggest a glass or metal loaf pan.

Most loaf pans are 9-inches-by-5-inches. Mine is 12-inches-by-4-inches. You can be flexible with your choice; just watch the cake well toward the end of the baking process.

Cream the butter and sugar for about 2 minutes at medium speed or until the mixture is light and fluffy. A lot of butter can get caught in the bottom of your mixer bowl, so take a rubber spatula and run it around the bowl to be sure that everything is well combined. If there’s excess butter, scrape it from the bottom of the bowl and put the mixer back on for 30 seconds.

Add the ricotta cheese and mix for an additional minute.

Add the eggs one at a time. Once each one is blended into the batter, add the next.

When the eggs are mixed in well, add the vanilla extract and lemon juice and mix for 30 seconds, then add the flour mixture a spoonful at a time. Be sure that the flour is incorporated well, but don’t overmix the batter.

Pour the batter into your prepared loaf pan and smooth the top with a rubber spatula.

Bake for 45-50 minutes or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean. I start checking this cake at about 40 minutes. The edges may turn to a beautiful medium brown color. If you feel that they are getting too dark, then loosely cover the pan with foil until the cake is ready to come out of the oven. The center of the cake may look very soft because of the ricotta cheese. As long as the toothpick comes out clean, the cake will firm up once cool. If the middle is too soft then bake it for an additional 5-10 minutes. Your nose will tell you when it’s done. Cool the cake entirely in the pan on top of a wire rack.

Once the pan is cool, turn the cake out and place it on your choice of serving platter.

If you’d like to add the icing drizzle, mix the powdered sugar and lemon juice until it’s at a nice consistency that can be poured but is not too runny. Add a little zest for color and a little extra burst of flavor. You can spoon it over the cake or you can add some to each plate at the time of serving.

Enjoy and bless your hands!

Note: You can make cake flour at home if you have all-purpose flour and cornstarch on hand.

For one cup of cake flour, measure out ¾ cup plus 2 tablespoons of all-purpose flour and whisk in 2 tablespoons of cornstarch. It’s that easy. PJC Jessica Grann is a home chef living in Pittsburgh.

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Life & Culture Wine primer: The difference between mevushal and non-mevushal Guest Columnist Uriel Marcovitz

The differentiation lies in the way the wines are treated for religious purposes, impacting not only their production but also their taste and aging potential.

W

ine has a rich history deeply intertwined with cultural and religious practices. In the realm of kosher wines, two distinct categories emerge: mevushal and non-mevushal wines. The differentiation lies in the way the wines are treated for religious purposes, impacting not only their production but also their taste and aging potential.

Here are the characteristics of mevushal and non-mevushal wines, as well as the religious traditions and the consequences for flavor and aging.

Mevushal wines

Mevushal, which means “cooked” in Hebrew, refers to a process where the wine is heated to a specific temperature to render it kosher while maintaining its religious purity. This process allows mevushal wines to be handled and poured by non-Jews without compromising their kosher status.

Why? Does it really make sense?

Here is the religious significance: Mevushal

Photo by Elina Sazonova via Pexels

wines are often preferred in settings where the wine needs to be handled by individuals who may not be observant Jews.

So, how does this affect the production of mevushal wines? The heat treatment during the mevushal process can influence the wine’s flavor profile and may result in alterations to its aroma and structure. Many years ago, mevushal wines were typically pretty

atrocious. Thankfully, technology has helped improve the process through speed, control and temperature.

How long can you age a mevushal wine?

Mevushal wines typically have a shorter aging potential compared to non-mevushal wines due to the heat exposure. Then again, most wine collectors never really thought to age those types of wines.

Non-mevushal wines

Non-mevushal wines are produced without the heat treatment, maintaining the natural fermentation process. These wines are considered more delicate in terms of religious observance, as they must be handled exclusively by observant Jews to preserve their kosher status.

What does that mean in religious context?

Non-mevushal wines are often preferred for religious ceremonies and events where strict adherence to kosher laws should be maintained.

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As for production, the non-mevushal wines tend to retain more of their original flavors, aromas and structural components, as they are not subjected to the heat treatment.

This leads to non-mevushal wines generally having a longer aging potential, allowing them to evolve and mature over time.

Smell and taste characteristics for mevushal and non-mevushal wines What do they smell like?

For mevushal wines, the aroma may be influenced by the heat process, resulting in differences compared to their non-mevushal counterparts.

For non-mevushal wines, the natural fermentation process tends to preserve the original and nuanced aromas of the wine.

What do they taste like?

With mevushal wines, the heat treatment may alter the wine’s flavors, leading to a perception of slightly cooked or stewed fruit notes. Some argue that this process diminishes the complexity of the wine.

Non-mevushal wines often showcase more vibrant and complex flavor profiles, as they are not subjected to the same level of heat treatment.

I would never state that non-mevushal is better than mevushal. I may know a lot about wine, but who am I to determine your palate preference? Is one style truly better than the other? For many wine drinkers, it’s similar to expressing a preference for red wines over white wines.

Ultimately, choosing between mevushal and non-mevushal wines depends on individual preferences, religious observances and the intended use of the wine. While mevushal wines cater to broader handling requirements, non-mevushal wines often appeal to those seeking a more authentic and nuanced tasting experience. Whether you prioritize the convenience of handling or the preservation of the wine’s original characteristics, both options offer unique qualities within the world of kosher wines.

Here are easy drinking options for both types of wines, available locally.

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Herzog Lineage Sauvignon Blanc (California), $20.99 — A dry, crisp wine with predominant citrus notes.

Carmel Private Collection Cabernet (Israel), $16.99 — A relatively full-bodied red wine with subtle notes of blackberry and oak.

Non-mevushal:

Essa Altira White Blend (South Africa), $18.99 — Medium-bodied white with apple/ pear nuances, with some acidity. Balanced wine.

Yogev Cabernet (Israel), $19.99 — Reasonably full-bodied wine with blackberry and oak nuances. PJC Uriel Marcovitz is a former restaurateur in Pittsburgh. He studies wine with the Court of Master Sommelier and holds advanced-level sommelier status.

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Obituaries BARAN: Moshe (Morris) Baran. It is with profound sadness that we announce the passing of Moshe Baran on Saturday, Feb. 3, 2024, a beautiful soul, who not only survived one of the darkest chapters in history but emerged as a beacon of strength, hope, and resilience. Born in 1920 in the predominantly Jewish town of Horodok, Poland, Moshe Baran was the eldest of four children. In 1941, when Moshe was just 21 years of age, the Nazis stormed through his hometown. A few months after the invasion, the Jews were forced into ghettos, residing in 15 to 20 homes for hundreds of families. Surrounded by barbed wire fences, guarded by Nazi soldiers, denied access to food, shut away from the rest of the world, the inhabitants started to hear whispers about the destruction by the Nazis of neighboring communities. In the spring of 1942, 30 able-bodied men were chosen for various projects and sent to neighboring towns; Moshe was sent to work on the railroads and his brother was sent elsewhere. Just a few months later in July, Moshe’s ghetto was liquidated, but luckily Moshe’s family escaped and was later reunited at the place he was working. Knowing that when the work was completed, they would be exterminated, they began planning a resistance movement. Two of Moshe’s friends worked in the warehouse sorting captured Russian guns. Moshe and his friend devised a plan to steal gun parts by wrapping them in rags and hiding them in a nearby junkyard. Moshe was able to successfully smuggle gun parts into the ghetto. It was through Moshe’s connections that he was able to escape. A woman in the ghetto, who knew the area and the partisans well, led Moshe and his friend to the partisans’ encampment with the agreement that they would help her two children escape. After a week at the encampment, two Jewish Russian soldiers arrived to help organize the resistance. Because Moshe had smuggled guns into the ghetto, he was welcomed into the partisans and was given the name of a local farmer who would help facilitate additional escapes. Moshe was able to successfully plan the escapes of his mother, brother and one sister. Two days after his mother was freed, the ghetto was destroyed, and Moshe’s father and other sister were murdered.

Moshe stayed with his partisan group until 1944, helping with underground activities and recovering weapons dropped from Russian planes. Like many partisans fighting the Nazis, he was eventually drafted into the Soviet Army. Due to his bookkeeping skills, Moshe was assigned to the local battalion office, as the treasurer’s assistant, allowing him to stay off of the front lines. When the war ended, Moshe made his way back to Russia and then to Poland. Connecting with Bricha, the organization responsible for bringing Holocaust survivors to Palestine, he eventually arrived in Austria where he met his future wife, Malka, in the American Zone. In 1948, Malka, also a Holocaust survivor, left for Israel, but Moshe was unable to follow. A relative who was living in the United States, encouraged Moshe and his surviving family to come to the United States and helped them emigrate. Moshe eventually married Malka and brought her to the United States from Israel. They originally settled in New York, where they raised two daughters. They moved to Pittsburgh in 1993 to be closer to their daughter, Avi, and her family. Their other daughter, Bella, made aliyah as a teenager and still lives in Israel. (Above, courtesy of the Jewish Partisan Educational Foundation.) When Moshe and Malka moved to Squirrel Hill in 1993, they lived in Maxon Towers at Forbes and Denniston and immediately embedded themselves within the Jewish community. Eventually Moshe’s sister Mina moved into the apartment next door and the three of them became fondly known as “the Sages.” They were often found at Beth Shalom, Young Peoples Synagogue, the JCC, the Holocaust Center, Community Day School, and up and down Forbes and Murray as they ran errands and spent time with friends and family.

They spoke to students and other audiences near and far about their experiences during the Holocaust, with a mission to preserve the memory of the past while paving the way for a better future. Moshe was well-known for his sense of humor, his close friendships, and his dedication to Judaism and to his family. Until his final days, he was a model of gratitude, joy, and lightheartedness. He loved to laugh, learn, and listen. He loved to tell stories and jokes and was always eager to hear new ones. He never formally learned English, but he grew into an avid reader and writer and loved wordplay and language-based humor.

He grew up speaking Yiddish, Hebrew, Polish and Russian, and he understood German, Ukrainian and Belarussian. Malka passed away on May 7, 2007, and Moshe missed her to his last day. He was blessed to live to be 103 — independent into his late 90s, then lovingly cared for by caregiver Ted Goleman and the caring professionals at the Jewish Association on Aging in Pittsburgh. Moshe was the beloved husband of the late Malka Baran. Son of the late Esther and late Yosef Baran. Loving father of Bella Baran (Amos) Ben Menachem and Avi Baran (Paul) Munro. Brother of Mina Rosenberg, the late Yehoshua (Joshua) Baran, and the late Musia Baran. Cherished grandfather of Yosef (Hannah Jegart) Munro, Boaz (Emily Silverman) Munro, Isaac (Jonah Taylor) Munro, Eliana Munro, Maya (Tal Ben Avi) Baran, and Aviya Baran. Great-grandfather of Florence Malka Munro. Uncle of Sally (Edward) Rosenberg Rosenblatt, Marcia (Benjie) Chankin, the late Rochelle Rosenberg, and the late Michelle Baran. Services were held at Ralph Schugar Chapel, Inc. Interment Homewood Cemetery. Contributions may be made to Community Day School (comday. org/), Congregation Beth Shalom (bethshalompgh.org/), Holocaust Center of Greater Pittsburgh (hcofpgh.org/), or a charity of your choosing. schugar.com Please see Obituaries, page 28

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Jewish Association on Aging gratefully acknowledges contributions from the following:

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THIS WEEK’S YAHRZEITS — Sunday February 11: Henrietta Caplan, Ida Danenberg, Morris Finkelstein, Abe I . Friedman, Rose Goldenberg, Carl Gussin, Sadye Judd, Jack Leff, Lena Lefkowitz, Aaron Mallinger, Bella W . Marks, Solomon Neustein, Betty F . Paull, Emanuel Perlow, Alice Shapiro, Miriam Silberman, Julius Silverman, Janina Winkler Monday February 12: Sarah Louise Bernstein, Dorothy Frankel, Elizabeth Green, Ephraim Hurwitz, Gizella Kovacs, Saul Kurtz, Rose S . Levine, Orin J . Levy, Tillie Lipson, Max A . Loevner, Jane Margowsky, Lucille R . Mermelstein, Pearl R . Rosenberg, Ida R . Roth, Edward Schlessinger Tuesday February 13: Joel Baum, Helen Buck, David Canter, Leonard Chotiner, Yetta Cohen, Samuel Gescheidt, Saul I . Heller, Gus Kline, Elliott Kramer, Anna Kurtz, Jeannette G . Kurtz, Ethyl Sapper Levenson, Lynette A . London, Rose Mendlow, Solomon J . Metlin, Yitzhak Nadler, Milton D . Patz, David C . Pollock, Lena Robin, Pincus P . Rosenthal, Edward Schugar, Jack Steinfeld, Anna Tarshis, Donna Mae Zimring Wednesday February 14: Abe P . Bennett, Lou Ann Krouse, Ella Levy, Dr . Yale S . Lewine, Louis Luterman, Alyce H . Mandelblatt, Benjamin D . Miller, Esther Rudkin, Frances B . Sigal, Isaac W .

Solomon, Samuel Veinegar, Harry Zalevsky Thursday February 15: Alec W . Chinn, Gertrude Chizeck, Sara F . Cohen, Florence Farkas, Marvin Klein, Eugene Light, Sophia Podolney Krasik, Isaac L . Rosenfeld, Charles Schwartz, David Stern, Raye Supowitz, Helen Weinberger Friday February 16: Conrad Irving Adler, Bernard Berkman, Albert Farber, Samuel Farbstein, Frances A . Feinberg, Dr . Abraham Finegold, Israel Fireman, Charles Korobkin, Morris S . Levine, Tillie Lippock, Joseph Miller, Harry B . Orringer, M .D ., Harold B . Pollack, Phillip Weinberger Saturday February 17: Ella Alpern, Samuel J . Burke, Ruth Chell, Emil Glick, Edward Green, Meyer Hart, Rosella B . Horvitz, Harold Levine, Bessie R . Levinson, Jay Calvin Miller, Abe Rader, Stanley E .

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Obituaries Obituaries: Continued from page 27

COHEN: Susan S. Cohen, on Saturday, Feb. 3, 2024. Loving mother of Alan (Susi) Cohen, David (Jill Rubinstein) Cohen, and Danny (Andrea) Cohen. Daughter of the late Howard and Beatrice Smith. Sister of Edward (Gillian) Smith. Cherished grandmother of Rebekah, Russell, Jacob, Gil and Sarah, and great-grandmother of Easton.

Also survived by nieces Hillary and Isabel, and her beloved Yorkshire terrier Maggie.

Susan devoted her life to her family and teaching and enriching the lives of children. Services were held at Ralph Schugar Chapel, Inc. Interment private. In lieu of flowers, contributions may be made to the UPMC Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center, Attention: Leslie Dunn, University of Pittsburgh, UPMC Montefiore, Four West, 200 Lothrop St., Pittsburgh, PA 15213. schugar.com LEFF: Wanda J. (Rachel) Leff, on Monday, Feb. 5, 2024. Beloved wife of the late Melvin Leff. Beloved mother of Brenda (Bruce) Elliott. Sisterin-law of Ruth “Rushie” Leff. Boobie of Brittney Elliott (Derek Carman) and Brandon Elliott. Graveside service and interment were held at Machsikei Hadas Cemetery. Contributions may be made to Sivitz Hospice and Palliative Care, 200 JHF Drive, Pittsburgh, PA 15217. Arrangements entrusted to Ralph Schugar Chapel, Inc. schugar.com OKER: Raymond Oker. When it came to selling souvenirs, Ray ‘Medi’ Oker was anything but mediocre. What innocently started as a 14-year-old teenager helping his older brother Jay sell 25-cent gold shakers and $3 hats at the bottom of Cardiac Hill on fall Saturday afternoons in the early ‘70s, turned into a lifetime passion, profession and way of life for Ray. His souvenir exploits first took him from DeSoto Street down to Three Rivers Stadium and then over to Happy Valley where Jay and his younger brother Sol attended college. By the late ‘70s, Morgantown and Florida bowl games turned into regular fun — and profitable — destinations. Famous for his signature lines of “Don’t be shy, step up and buy,” and “cheaper on the outside,” Ray’s

weekend hobby turned into a full-time job when he moved down to Clearwater, Florida, at age 40 to be closer to and help raise his daughter Kerry.

Wherever there was a buck to be made, Ray was there. Scalping tickets at spring training games in Florida. Pushing merchandise at Monster truck pulls in Georgia. Hawking cowboy straw hats at Kenny Chesney concerts up and down the East Coast. Championship flags at World Series victory parades in Houston.

Mint juleps at the Kentucky Derby. Lanyards with plastic ticketholders to the fans at the Indy 500. Who knows what at the Cherry Blossom festival in D.C., and more concerts and parades in more towns you have never heard of. The hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash that Ray took in over the years was eclipsed only by the millions of miles he put on his succession of Chrysler white mini-vans. A typical fall weekend would see Ray drive to Knoxville on Saturday, Cincy on Sunday, to pass out Terrible Towels for $20 each at a Steeler away game and then stop in Alabama on the way home to peddle buttons at a Trump rally before returning home to Florida to load up for the next weekend. Way, way too many stories to tell. Myron Cope could never have imagined back in 1975 that 40 years later Steeler Nation would be buying Terrible Towels from Ray outside stadiums in Seattle, Dallas, Phoenix and L.A. Good-natured, upbeat, honest, engaging and fun. The hours in the car over the roads he traveled told the story of his life. A first ballot inductee into the Vendor Hall of Fame.

Deserving of a bronze statue wearing his signature square-frame black glasses, holding up a Bucco hat on the North Shore across from PNC Park. In the end Ray was a Pittsburgher at heart. Shipping boxes of merchandise to various 412 ZIP codes up until the last month of his life. Maintaining lifelong friendships with fellow Yinzers that shared in the love of the hustle. Taking Kerry and the kids to the movies at the Waterfront the day after Thanksgiving. Birthday dinners at Spaghetti Warehouse in the Strip. Graduating from Allderdice High School and Slippery Rock University. He was known in the Squirrel Hill community for coaching 14th Ward baseball, coaching youth basketball at the JCC, and as a substitute gym teacher at Hillel Academy and various Pittsburgh Public Schools before moving to Florida. After a courageous battle with cancer, Ray passed away on Jan. 20, 2024, in Clearwater, Florida, at the age of 66.

Born to Samuel and Gloria Oker. Younger brother of Harold. Given the same unconditional love as their own three boys, Ray grew up in the foster home of Sam and Phyllis Jacobs across the street from the Y-IKC in Squirrel Hill.

Ray is pre-deceased by his parents Samuel and Gloria Oker. Parents Sam and Phyllis Jacobs and brother David Jacobs. He is survived by his brother Harold (Sandy) Oker. Sister-in-law Linda Jacobs. Brothers Jay (Olivia) Jacobs and Sol (Jeannine) Jacobs. Devoted uncle to Amy (Robert) Grogan and Isabelle and Jesse Jacobs. Doting great-uncle to Bennett and Vivian Grogan. Lifelong friend to his former wife Nicole Bien and loving father to Kerry (Andrew) McCleaf and Grandpa to the joy of his life, grandson Atlas.

Donations can be made in Ray’s memory to the JCC of Greater Pittsburgh, 5738 Forbes Ave., Pittsburgh 15217.

SMITH: Lynda R. Smith, on Sunday, Feb. 4, 2024. Beloved wife of the late Steven Smith. Beloved mother of the late Samuel Smith. Sister of Myrna (Marshall) Berger.

Aunt of Samra Savioz and Kenneth Berger. Cousin of Leila (late Abe) Friedman and Howard (Lorraine) Madenberg. Graveside service and interment were held at Shaare Torah Cemetery. Contributions may be made to Make-A-Wish Foundation, 707 Grant Street, #3700, Pittsburgh, PA 15219. Arrangements entrusted to Ralph Schugar Chapel, Inc. schugar.com PJC

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Life & Culture ‘Digital pen pals’ program connects North American and Israeli teens during wartime — WORLD —

By Gavriel Fiske | The Times of Israel

R

om Buchacho, an 11th-grade student from Netanya, was surprised to learn that young Jewish people across the globe are going through their own set of challenges resulting from the Oct. 7 massacre, after signing up for a program that pairs Jewish teens in Israel with counterparts in North America for a series of one-on-one video conversations.

“Here in Israel we go through the war, the rocket sirens and the news and everything, but we have our country, our people and our army,” she said. In America, said Buchacho, her conversation partner doesn’t always feel like she belongs, especially “when she goes to school and there are pro-Palestinian students who bring flags. It’s scary to live like that. It really surprised me.”

It turned out that the two girls “have so much in common, although we live so far from each other. I had a great time with her talking about the situation and about the differences in how we are going through all of this,” Buchacho said.

The program they participated in, One2One, was started during the height of the COVID epidemic in 2021 and now is in its fourth year, with increasing demand. In the first year, the program had 600 participants, 2,500 in the second and 4,100 in the third, according to figures provided by One2One. For the current school year, the organizers expect that more than 5,000 students will take part.

Due to a surge in Israeli demand, the One2One team is scrambling to find enough English-speaking partners in North America, the staff said.

Based on the old idea of pen pals, the program aims to foster mutual understanding, connection and dialogue between Israeli and North American Jewish high school students, organizers said.

One2One is an initiative of ENTER, a Jerusalem-based foundation started by Charles Bronfman and other philanthropists. The English-language discussions are arranged in a series of five weekly meetings and last for at least 30 minutes each.

Individual matching is done by an algorithm based on age, interests and background, not unlike a dating service, and are private.

“I’ve done the One2One program twice now and both times I was matched with people who I had deep, meaningful, fun, and most importantly easy conversations with,” said Buchacho’s conversation partner, Danielle Borsutsky, an 11th-grader in New Jersey, via email.

She said that around the outbreak of the war, her school received attention from news networks due to divisiveness among students.

“People crowded in the cafeterias and screamed offensive comments at each other, there were Palestinian flags brought to school, and a lot of inappropriate and antisemitic posts made by people in my school directed at other kids.”

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FEBRUARY 9, 2024

p Composite image showing One2One participants on an undated video call, over a map connecting the U.S. and Israel

Courtesy image via The Times of Israel

“It was interesting to me that my partner in Israel felt safer in her school than I did in mine. Since she knew everyone at her school was Israeli, the sense of togetherness made her feel like no matter what, her classmates and teachers would be by her side,” Borsutsky said.

October 7 hits close to home Besides being a topic for conversation and sharing, the Israel-Hamas war has affected participants directly: One of the inaugural Israeli One2One participants, Karina Ariev, was kidnapped on Oct. 7 and is still being held hostage in Gaza. She was one of three young women shown in a video released by Hamas last month.

Ariev, 19, had participated in One2One in 2022. After graduating high school she began her IDF service and was on assignment as a forward observer along the Gaza border when her base was overrun by Hamas terrorists on the morning of Oct. 7.

The thousands of Hamas-led terrorists who invaded southern Israel that day brutally murdered 1,200 people, the majority of them civilians, including 360 mostly young people at a music festival. Roughly 253 people were also abducted to the Gaza Strip, where about half are still being held — not all of them alive.

Ariev’s kidnapping shows that One2One’s work “is about real people. When you read about someone online it’s something far off, but this is different,” Yael Rosen, One2One director, told The Times of Israel.

“For global Jewry, these times are affecting all of us. Teens and their communities everywhere are going through challenges they didn’t expect. On the Israeli side, we hear from schools and teachers that they and their students want to connect with Jewish teens abroad, especially now,” she noted. “We frame One2One as ‘interaction as first aid.’

We see this as something urgently needed by both sides.”

Sharing in wartime The Times of Israel recently held a joint video call with a small group of teens who

had gone through the program. Some of them have participated multiple times over the last few years.

Talia Decoursey, an 11th-grader from upstate New York, completed the program twice. The first was last spring, which she said was a great preparation for a summer Israel trip with BBYO. But her next time with One2One was during the Israel-Hamas war, in November.

“I feel like the program was a really good way to support each other during this time.

Obviously, we are in different situations… but [my partner] can understand how things are here, and I can kind of understand how things are there. We can support each other in that way,” she said.

“Most of my friends in America aren’t Jewish. They try to be supportive but they sometimes don’t get it,” Decoursey added.

Avia Biton, a 10th-grader who lives in the small southern Israeli community of Meitar, was paired with Decoursey for the November session. “My second time, I was with Talia. I enjoyed talking with someone from America to learn how they felt during the war, with all the antisemitism. It surprised me when she told me many people there don’t know what’s going on here. It’s become a trend to hate Israel and to support Gaza,” she said.

Adi Wagner-Jaget, a ninth-grader at the Yitzhak Shamir High School in Tel Aviv, admitted that she didn’t know much about American Jewish culture before she participated.

“I did hear that they celebrate some other holidays than what we do,” she said. “I didn’t know that Jewish people also celebrate Halloween. That actually surprised me a lot; I thought it was a Christian holiday. And they do Thanksgiving, and many things that I didn’t know existed.”

Improving English, improving ties Israeli pupils often think about “this dreamlike world of the American Jews, but they don’t truly know. I think that now, with

PITTSBURGH JEWISH CHRONICLE

the rising levels of antisemitism abroad, awareness of the complexity of Jewish life in the United States is something very new to Israeli teenagers,” Tziona Levi, director of the languages department and English education in the Education Ministry, said in a recent phone call.

The One2One program is implemented in Israel through liaising with high school English teachers, overseen by Levi and her department. Improving Israeli students’ English abilities, especially their spoken English, is one of the program’s primary goals.

Noa Kinan, a 12th-grader in the northern town of Nahariya, has completed the One2One program three times and plans for a fourth. Her participation has “definitely helped with my English,” she said.

She still isn’t fluent, but her speaking has gotten much better, she said, and described “a struggle with talking” during her first sessions. “I was opening a dictionary, I wasn’t sure if it would work. My partner was very supportive and understanding, and we managed to communicate,” she recalled.

Topics for discussion are prepared ahead of time for the teens, “but when they meet I am sure they don’t talk about them. The program is one-to-one, no one interferes, no one listens, so it gives them a lot of self-confidence, which is one of the most important factors in learning a foreign language,” said Mercedes Hadad, a veteran English teacher and among the first to sign up her students for One2One. Over the summer, just ahead of the war, Borsutsky, whose New Jersey high school got so much media attention, visited Israel with a partner of One2One, RootOne. “It made me grateful that I could see everything I saw in Israel before the war broke out, but also horrified that it all changed so quickly,” said Borsutsky. “It’s constant thoughts of, ‘Did anything happen to the places I visited?’ or ‘Are the people I met during the trip all safe?’” PJC PITTSBURGHJEWISHCHRONICLE.ORG

Community Another Super Sunday

More than 80 volunteers raised over $110,000 from more than 130 donors during Super Sunday. The annual Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh event, which was held on Feb. 4, supports the Community Campaign.

p Israeli Shinshin Maya Shafir helps raise funds for the Pittsburgh Jewish community.

p Working together is super.

Photos courtesy of Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh

Bring them home

Community members gathered, prayed and demanded the release of more than 130 hostages remaining in Hamas captivity. The Feb. 4 event at the corner of Darlington Road and Murray Avenue in Squirrel Hill marked 121 days since hostages were taken by Hamas.

p Congregation Poale Zedeck’s Rabbi Daniel Yolkut prays for the hostages’ return.

p Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh’s Director of Community Security Shawn Brokos describes her visit to Israel.

Photos by Adir Turgeman

Sing, sing a song

Cantors and area vocalists explored the rich history of Jewish composers. With performances from the cantorial tradition to Broadway, participants of the Feb. 4 show enjoyed an afternoon of music to benefit the Rotunda Collaborative at the former B’nai Israel synagogue in partnership with the Bloomfield-Garfield Corp.

p From left: Cantors Toby Glaser, David Reinwald, Stefanie Greene and Kalix Jacobson

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p Sara Stock Mayo

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Photos by Kim Rullo

FEBRUARY 9, 2024

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