Pittsburgh Jewish Chronicle 7-28-23

Synagogue shooter’s trial proceeds with sentencing phase

Local rabbis inspired at convention to ‘Re-Charge’ the Reform movement

By Chronicle Sta and Union Progress Sta

The sentencing phase of the synagogue shooter’s trial began on July 17 and continues this week. The jury already found the defendant guilty and determined he is eligible for the death penalty.

In this phase of the trial, the jury will be asked to decide whether the defendant should be sentenced to death or spend the rest of his life in prison. In making their decision, jurors are weighing evidence about the impact of the defendant’s crimes on his victims and their survivors against evidence about the defendant.

On Oct. 27, 2018, the defendant stormed the Tree of Life building in Squirrel Hill and shot everyone he saw. He killed 11 Jewish worshippers and seriously injured several

other people, including first responders. Evidence showed he had been planning the attack for six months. Before the attack, he ranted on social media about his hatred of Jews, and when he was apprehended, he told police that “all these Jews need to die.”

The defense only needs to convince one juror that the defendant was mentally ill when he opened fire at the Tree of Life building to spare him from the federal death chamber in Indiana.

Below is a recap of testimony presented in Days 2 through 5 of the trial’s sentencing phase. For more complete and up-to-date coverage, go to pittsburghjewishchronicle.org.

Please see Trial, page 10

By David Rullo | Sta Writer

The Reform Movement is at an inflection point, at least according to Rabbi Ammiel Hirsch.

Hirsch is the senior rabbi of the Stephen Wise Free Synagogue in New York City, which hosted the Re-Charging Reform Judaism Convention from May 31–June 1. He delivered this message as part of his keynote address to the nearly 300 people in attendance.

He said there were three priorities that the movement needed to address at the convention:

• Repair the fraying commitment to Judaism and a growing distance between North American liberal Jews and Israel.

• Recharge and restore the optimal balance between universal values and Jewish peoplehood, and ensure that tikkun olam remains rooted in Klal Yisrael.

• Refresh religious commitments in a postreligious century.

Hirsch noted that in a 2020 Pew Research survey, 2.1 million Jewish adults identified with Reform Judaism, but only about a

Please see Reform, page 11

 Rabbi Ammiel Hirsch addresses attendees at the Re-Charging Reform Judaism Conference.

Photo by Lenny Medina / RetroLenz Photography

 Clockwise from top, Sylvan and Bernice Simon; Irving Younger; Rose Mallinger; and Dr. Jerry Rabinowitz Collage by Jennifer Kundrach/Pittsburgh Union Progress

Headlines

Legacy endowment establishes the H. Arnold and Adrien B. Gefsky Community Scholar

old thing all the time and new people will show up. Our program has been innovating every single year.”

By David Rullo | Staff Writer

Pittsburgh adult Jewish education will continue in perpetuity, at least if Arnold and Adrien Gefsky have anything to say about it.

The pair recently endowed the adult Jewish learning scholar position through a planned gift to the Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh, meaning the community scholar position now held by Rabbi Danny Schiff will be a permanent part of Pittsburgh’s Jewish educational landscape. The position will be re-named the H. Arnold and Adrien B. Gefsky Community Scholar.

“The issue of education in the Jewish community, and in our Jewish community, is of utmost importance to me,” Arnold Gefsky said. “I specifically hone in on adult education.”

Gefsky, a local attorney and former chair of the Jewish Community Foundation, said that as a child Jewish education was wasted on him, or as he put it, “Sabbath school was a joke.”

That thinking, he said, was shared by many of the children he grew up with, so adult education became important to gain a better understanding of Judaism.

“Why be Jewish? What’s it all about? Where does it come from? Where did it originate? What are the miracles along the way?” were some of the questions he pondered.

It was through a relationship with Schiff, the Federation’s community scholar, and some of the classes he offered that Gefsky began to find answers.

Schiff is quick to note that he and Gefsky have a relationship dating back three decades to when the Pittsburgh attorney was part of the first Florence Melton School of Adult Jewish

Learning class offered locally.

“Arnie was a member of that class. We’ve been partners in this enterprise for over 30 years, learning together.”

scholar with Jewish Education Institute, which became the Agency for Jewish Learning. The work of the AJL, Schiff said, became part of the Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh’s Jewish Community Foundation in 2015. Over the last year, Federation has done some internal restructuring, and adult learning is now part of the engagement group.

The legacy gift, Schiff said, will continue the work he’s done with the Federation, which has

touched more than 1,500 Jewish Pittsburghers since 2015. That number only accounts for registered participants — countless more have attended classes, lectures and programs that didn’t require registration, like the annual Tikkun Leil Shavuot attended by hundreds

Some of the programs, Schiff said, qualify as Continuing Legal Education courses

Over the years new educational programming has developed.

“Pittsburgh is both a large and small community at the same time,” Schiff said. “It’s not possible, nor is it desirable, to do as happens in much larger cities, which is to offer the same

The endowment created by the Gefskys, Schiff said, is the fulfillment of what an adult Jewish educator hopes for.

He said the need for education beyond what children are taught in day schools or religious schools is vital as a vehicle for immersing one in Judaism.

He called the gift a “singular affirmation” of the importance of adult learning and the belief that it is key to the future of building a strong Jewish community — something both he and the Federation hold to be true.

“After all, you build a future community with two things: physical resources and people who are knowledgeable about the vision of where the community needs to go. And we’re really trying to work very hard on the second part of that,” he said.

The gift was part of legacy planning, Gefsky said, something he views as vital to the community. He said during his time with the Foundation, he emphasized the “rainy day theory.”

“It’s important to build a treasure chest in the Foundation,” Gefsky said. “I’m hoping more people start thinking about legacy planning so that programs that are important to people and important to the community can be established and are able to be continued on a regular basis because of the availability of endowments.”

The Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh will launch the Gefsky Community Scholar at a celebration honoring the Gefskys’ gift at a Sept. 19 event at Federation headquarters that will also serve as a reunion of past participants in the Florence Melton School of Adult Learning. PJC

David Rullo can be reached at drullo@ pittsburghjewishchronicle.org.

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p Rabbi Danny Schiff

Photo courtesy of Rabbi Danny Schiff

Hindu/Jewish program welcomes mutual call for peace and oneness

By Adam Reinherz | Staff Writer

Members of Pittsburgh’s Jewish and Hindu communities recommitted themselves to pursuing peace during a July 23 program at the Hindu Jain Temple in Monroeville. Organized by Julie Paris and Bhavini Patel, the afternoon affair included a tree planting, gift giving and public calls for “oneness.”

“We all have a lot more in common than we oftentimes hear about, especially in today’s climate. This ability for people to come together and share a dialogue around faith, it ultimately sends this positive message that we’re dedicated to the ultimate goal of just peace,” Patel, an Edgewood Borough Council member and worshipper at the Hindu Jain Temple, told the Chronicle. “This is who we are as Pittsburghers. There’s a beauty of diversity, but we’re also rooted here in this community. This is our home, and we’re rooted here as one.”

Paris, the StandWithUs Mid-Atlantic regional director, said a partnership between Hindus and Jews made sense given commonalities, including “deep connections to our sacred homelands, similar holiday themes, dietary laws, rituals and practices.”

There’s another tie between these communities, she continued: Whereas both “share a profound respect for religious diversity and have common histories of ancient civilization and colonization,” both communities also have experienced an increase in hatred, “fueled by misconceptions and stereotypes leading to antisemitism and Hinduphobia.”

According to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, reported hate crime incidents increased from 8,120 in 2020 to 9,065 in 2021. The 11.6% jump includes acts driven by bias toward race, ethnicity, ancestry, religion, sexual orientation, disability, gender and gender identity.

Speaking inside the temple’s prayer space, Paris said that despite representing merely 2.4% of the U.S. population, Jews are subject to nearly 60% of all religiouslymotivated hate crimes.

Within Pittsburgh, the Hindu community has been an ally, she said.

Paris credited Monroeville interfaith leader Som Sharma and recalled a gathering at the Sri Venkateswara Temple in Penn Hills held after the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting.

During that meeting, religious symbols, including the Star of David and Hindu Anahat Chakra, were used to create a poster, which was signed by hundreds of Hindus and later presented to Pittsburgh’s Jewish community, Paris said.

“After the horrific massacre in Tree of Life, members of the Hindu Jain community came to our Sabbath worship services, many weeks in a row, just to be there in support. And we are forever grateful for that hand in friendship,” Tree of Life Congregation’s Rabbi

that hand of friendship,” he added.

Throughout the afternoon, spiritual leaders and activists reiterated the value of togetherness and called for combined efforts to better the community.

“When you are in peace, you absorb peace, you manifest peace, you share peace,” said Chidanand Saraswati, an author and spiritual head of India’s Parmarth Niketan Ashram and Monroeville’s Hindu Jain Temple. “When you are in pieces, what you share [is] only pieces.”

“People who bring violence, people who bring hatred, they are living in pieces because they offer what they have inside of them. That’s why spirituality, this tree of life, these temples are very important to bring the community together,” he added.

Sadhvi Bhagawati Saraswati, a Californianborn India-based author and spiritual leader, cited the Redwood forest and said the tree of

life is “that which connects us.” According to the National Park Service, “thousands of Sierra Redwoods between 2,000 and 3,000 years old” exist in California forests.

How is it that these trees can live so long and grow hundreds of feet high, yet withstand earthquakes and storms, asked the spiritual guide.

It’s not that their roots reach deep into the earth, but rather “the roots of every tree are interlinked and interlocked with the roots of every other tree; and that interlinking and interlocking of their roots is to me what enables it to withstand everything that both man and mother nature can throw at them,” she said. That is the “secret of the Redwood forest and the secret of its resilience.”

The message is apparent, she said.

“As we come together, we come together as a tree of life: united anchored, grounded, strong, and that which provides life to others — both that logistic life that our communities do in terms of the social service, but the spiritual life of that oneness, that togetherness, that connection to the divine, even by different names, forms, ways, languages. That’s our life.”

During the July 28 program, various gifts were presented to the speakers, including bouquets, shawls and books. The spiritual leaders offered public prayers for peace. Myers recited the kiddush on Kedem grape juice, then said the HaMotzi blessing before slicing a challah made by Creative Kosher Catering.

Before descending to a lower-level social hall for more food, participants headed outdoors for a tree planting.

As the summer sun beat down, a small patch of earth was ripped from a hill near the temple’s parking lot. A young dogwood tree was inserted into the hole. Dirt was placed above the cavity. The spiritual leaders and attendees admired the area.

Anil Manocha, a temple volunteer, reached for a water can, soaked the soil, then began building a fence to prevent deer and other threats from harming the sapling.

“We will make it survive,” he said. “That’s my job now.” PJC

Adam Reinherz can be reached at areinherz@pittsburghjewishchronicle.org.

p From left: Bhavini Patel and Julie Paris stand in front of the Hindu Jain Temple.

Photo by Adam Reinherz

p Anil Manocha builds a fence around the newly planted dogwood tree.

Photo by Adam Reinherz

p Rabbi Jeffrey Myers, second from left, recites the HaMotzi blessing before Sadhvi Bhagawati Saraswati, Chidanand Saraswati and Julie Paris. Photo by Adam Reinherz

Local educators return from Austria, grapple with teaching its lessons of history

— LOCAL —

By Adam Reinherz | Staff Writer

There’s confusion about the Holocaust: Some people think it only occurred in Poland and Germany. Others don’t even know it happened. Young Pennsylvanians are particularly ignorant about World War II.

When asked to name a single concentration camp or ghetto, 45% of millennials and Gen Z adults can’t do so. Thirty-three percent of young Pennsylvanians, according to the same 2020 study by the Claims Conference, erroneously believe 2 million or fewer Jews were killed during the Holocaust.

For decades, James Lucot Jr. has used his classrooms — both at Butler County Community College and Seneca Valley High School — to counter fallacy and oblivion. Apart from myriad facts, photographs and films about the systematic murder of 6 million Jews, Lucot often speaks about his late friend, Jack Sittsamer, who survived six concentration camps and later built a life in Pittsburgh.

Lucot said he used to regularly walk with Sittsamer and discuss the survivor’s earlier years. Those conversations, and Sittsamer’s recollection of imprisonment at the Mauthausen concentration camp, served a critical purpose.

In a post-survivor world, one way educators hope to reach students is by preserving narratives, Lucot said.

A recent trip should bolster that approach.

Austria up close

Between July 2-13, Lucot and 18 other teachers traveled to Austria with Classrooms Without Borders, a Pittsburgh-based organization that its officials say combats “discrimination, injustice and hate” with educational tactics.

While focusing on Austro-Hungarian Jewry, the travelers toured memorials, museums and other Holocaust-related sites.

“We often take teachers to Poland and Germany. What we learned is that many educators don’t know about Austria’s role in the Holocaust,” CWB’s founder and Executive Director Tsipy Gur said.

For almost 50 years, Austria had a “clouded” view of its past. Seeing the country, and speaking with people there, showed Austria’s regard for its responsibility, Winchester Thurston School’s Joshua Andy said.

Historians point to the Anschluss (Germany’s annexation of Austria) and a period spanning the late 1930s and early 1940s as enabling Austria’s sense of “victimhood.”

On March 12, 1938, German troops entered Austria to gain territory. One day later, Austria was incorporated into Germany. A subsequent vote — in which Jews and Roma were barred from participating — demonstrated that about 99% of Austrians approved the annexation, according to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

Throughout the early 1940s, journalists and politicians described the country’s relationship with Nazi Germany as one of “victimhood.”

On Feb. 18, 1942, The New York Times published a statement by Prime Minister Winston Churchill: “We can never forget here

in this island that Austria was the first victim of Nazi aggression … We remember the charm, beauty, and historic splendour of Vienna, the grace of life; the dignity of the individual; all the links of past generations are associated in our minds with Austria and with Vienna.”

The sense that Austria was a victim rather than a collaborator remained the status quo for decades after World War II, former Sewickley Academy civics teacher Kate Lukaszewicz told the Chronicle: “Austria didn’t see itself as having to reconcile itself with the past.” Beginning in the 1980s, and especially during the last few years, however, the country has “tried to lean into doing some reconciliation regarding their complicity in treating the country’s Jews.”

Two structures tell that story.

The first, Andy said, is Vienna’s Judenplatz Holocaust Memorial.

Unveiled on Oct. 25, 2000, the steel and concrete structure depicts a series of outward-turned books.

“You can see the names of the places where the Jews went to die or were exiled, but it doesn’t say who they were,” Andy said. The other striking feature is the text “solely blames the Nazis.”

Engraved on the memorial are German, Hebrew and English words stating, “In memory of more than 65,000 Austrian Jews who were murdered between 1938-45 by the National Socialist criminals, may their names be obliterated.”

The second structure, Vienna’s Shoah Wall of Names Memorial, was dedicated on Nov. 9, 2021, (83 years after Kristallnacht) near the Austrian National Bank. The memorial’s nearly 160 granite slabs bear the names of approximately 65,000 Austrian Jews who were murdered in the Holocaust.

“As they learn more, they are adding more names,” Andy said of Vienna and the National Fund’s commitment to preserving history. When the Austrian monuments are viewed collectively they demonstrate “a trajectory of how a country grapples with its past.”

Expanding the classroom

“For educators who teach not only about the Holocaust, but about hate, antisemitism and European history, there’s no substitute for being

where it happened,” Gur said.

Lucot agreed and said that since returning from Austria last week, he is still trying to articulate his observations: “It’s hard to process.”

Two sites stuck out, he said.

The first was Hartheim Castle.

Between May 1940 and September 1941, doctors, police, nurses and other Hartheim staff administered the involuntary euthanization of 18,269 people deemed medically or physically unfit. Before the final gassing on Dec. 11, 1944, another 12,000 people were murdered there, according to USHMM.

Lucot said he’d spent years reading about Hartheim and how the former home for disabled children became a “killing center.”

“I knew the geography, the topography, the situation, but there was a supermarket and coffee shop 75 yards from the gas chamber,” he said. “How do you put this into perspective?”

The other site on Lucot’s mind is Mauthausen.

Between August 1938 and May 1945, 197,464 prisoners entered Mauthausen’s camp system. Of the nearly 95,000 people who died there, more than 14,000 were Jews, according to USHMM.

Before traversing the Austrian area, Lucot already knew the numbers. He also had another point of reference: his friendship with Sittsamer.

Lucot’s former walking buddy — who told his Holocaust narrative to 100,000 listeners before his 2008 death — survived Mauthausen.

“I kept thinking about his transfer there,” Lucot said. The monuments and museums tell a story, yet all the while “we’re having catered lunches in these places where all this happened. It’s just hard to process.”

Lucot said his observations in Austria will “tremendously” change the way he teaches. “They’re going to empower me. I’m going to emphasize things I didn’t emphasize before. I’m going to reduce the scholarship and academic side, but it will probably benefit my students.”

The pedagogical shift “will make it more real,” for his students, Lucot said. “In class, we will talk more about the parallels today.”

Witnessing history

Lucot, who also teaches AP U.S. history and AP U.S. government, said he’s “frightened”

by what he’s seen.

Days before boarding a plane to Austria, he traveled to downtown Pittsburgh. He walked along Grant Street and entered the Joseph F. Weis, Jr. U.S. Courthouse. Once inside the building, Lucot passed through security, rode an elevator and made his way into Judge Robert J. Colville’s courtroom.

As lawyers in the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting trial described the defendant’s digital promotion of swastikas, Adolf Hitler and Holocaust references, Lucot said he sat beside SWAT officer Timothy Matson — the first officer to confront the man responsible for murdering 11 Jews during Shabbat services.

“I had full intention to go back the day [Matson] testified, but I couldn’t go back,” Lucot said. The “difficulty” of hearing everything surrounding Oct. 27, 2018, precluded a return.

Lucot said he initially felt an “obligation” to attend the trial “for myself, for my students, for my community,” but he isn’t sure about the reasoning anymore. “I don’t know why I went. I have some friends who went to Tree of Life, but I don’t know any of the victims.”

The horror conveyed inside that courtroom depicts the unimaginable, he said.

“It used to be that I could always discuss Holocaust denial and antisemitism in the United States, but this — now that Pittsburgh is the site of the greatest antisemitic attack in the U.S. — the names and the faces connected to it. You see these fascist statements and elements happening in our country and there’s no answers,” Lucot continued. “I can’t even begin to introduce a concept that would be remotely acceptable to my students.”

“The whole purpose of taking teachers somewhere is that it gives them a different perspective,” Gur said. “It’s very important for them to be at the place of history. They understand that what needs to be shared are not just the facts they studied or what they read about, but what comes from the heart. When teachers do that, it makes learning all the more interesting.” PJC

Adam Reinherz can be reached at areinherz@pittsburghjewishchronicle.org.

p Tsipy Gur at the Lidice Memorial for Children Courtesy of Kate Lukaszewicz

‘Our poor Brethren’

By Eric Lidji | Special to the Chronicle

The Industrial Removal Office was a Jewish employment bureau with a philanthropic mission. It sought to alleviate big-city congestion in the early 20th century by relocating urban Jewish immigrants to smaller cities throughout the country.

The IRO emerged from a basic fact of immigration: It’s a national conversation about a local issue. In coming to a new country, immigrants come to a new city. Those local conditions inspire national policy — sometimes sincerely, sometimes cynically.

The leaders of the IRO worried that conditions in crowded eastern cities would be used to justify closing national borders to Jewish immigration. These worries emerged from reality, as well as from their own biases about class, ethnicity and religiosity. It is a complex, perpetually relevant story, and I wanted to find some compelling local angle.

Reviewing the IRO’s records online, I found a series titled “Surveys of Jewish Population and Living Conditions.” It was a collection of questionnaires sent to Jewish residents from all over, asking for basic facts about population, wages and schools.

One response came from Kaylor, Pennsylvania. There are two unincorporated communities in Pennsylvania named Kaylor. This one was in Armstrong County. The entire community was essentially an intersection on Route 68, halfway between Chicora and East Brady, just outside Butler. It was about as small a town as a small town can get.

With the response was a letter, dated Sept. 6, 1906. It read as follows:

Enclosed find your request filled out.

The writer and his family used to live in Cleveland for 15 years, and 7 years decided to venture out in the country and start in Business, which at first was uphill work, but have made a success, and can at present move Back to a City if I wish and retire.

I am not the only case where a Jewish Family once moves out of the large Cities into a small town or village, one always making an easier living then in the Crowded Cities, and if our poor Brethren in New York and other cities would only make the attempt there would be no need for so many Jewish Aid Societies.

Any assistance I can lend you will gladly do so.

Res. yours

Louis Horwitz

In the research process, every document you find is a lighthouse calling you to some port. But until you reach land, you never really know where you’ve been going.

The letter initially seemed to me to capture a crucial divide of that era, one that is overlooked in some early 20th century American Jewish histories. Before World War I, Jewish immigrants often had a choice between cultural comfort and economic comfort.

Cultural comfort could be found in a few large enclaves, like the Lower East Side of New York or our Hill District. These neighborhoods provided all-encompassing Jewish

environments with synagogues, community centers, schools, butcher shops, bathhouses, bookstores, theaters and a general sense of Yiddish on the street. With those amenities, though, came challenges like overcrowding, pollution, poverty and “vice.”

Economic comfort could be found almost everywhere else. The country was rapidly expanding. There were literally tens of thousands of growing towns, each in need of some mercantile operation to supply the local population. Anyone willing to venture into the frontier, and work hard, stood a good chance at obtaining financial success.

In these towns, though, a Jewish immigrant would be a curious minority at best, and often entirely alone. Any participation in communal life happened at a distance.

The IRO was convinced that the promise of economic security would be decisive for many Jewish immigrants, as it had been for Louis Horwitz. What they found is that many new arrivals preferred to tough it out in a familiar Jewish environment like the Lower East Side than to chase success amid the overwhelming loneliness of the frontier.

In our corner of America, the tri-state region around Pittsburgh, literally tens of thousands took a different path. Mostly independent of the IRO, these immigrants chose to bypass the city in favor of county seats, boroughs, townships and even miniscule unincorporated communities like Kaylor. In the city, hundreds lived at the margins in places like Woods Run, the West End, and Hazelwood, instead of the Hill District.

This dispersion occurred all over but was especially extreme here, thanks to our topography, our industrial landscape, and state laws that encourage local government.

The fact that some 40% of the regional Jewish population at one point chose to live outside of major urban enclaves like the Hill District, Squirrel Hill, the East End, or the South Hills says something fundamental about the personality of our community.

Louis Horwitz’s letter promised a way to tell that story, and so I started building his biography. He immigrated to the United States from Minsk in the mid-1880s with his wife Temma and their children. They settled

Please see Immigrants, page 22

p First page of a letter from Louis Horwitz on Pittsburg General Store letterhead to Central Committee of the Baron de Hirsch Fund, also known as the Industrial Removal Office Image courtesy of the American Jewish Historical Society, Industrial Removal Office Records

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, JULY 28

Eberle Studios presents two films by Sheila Chamovitz. In “Skokie: Rights or Wrong,” Sheila examines free speech via the controversial events of the ACLU defending a Nazi march in a Jewish neighborhood. “Murray Avenue: A Community in Transition” is an elegy for the changing culture of the Squirrel Hill neighborhood, told through a look inside now-vanished Jewish-owned business. These moving films will both be presented on 16mm, and Chamovitz will discuss her work following the screening. 7:30 p.m. Free. 229 E. 9th Ave. pghsoundandimage.com.

q SATURDAY, JULY 29

Celebrate Tu B’Av, Jewish Valentine’s Day, by wearing traditional white clothes and enjoy dancing, a musical Havdalah and more. Bring or maybe meet your bashert at this Tree of Life Young Jewish Community and Temple Sinai event for adults in their 20s and 30s. 8 p.m. Free. Temple Sinai Bodek Rose Garden. treeoflifepgh.org/ event/tu-bav-white-party-yjc.html.

q SUNDAY, JULY 30

Join Congregation Beth Shalom for an afternoon at the movies in the Samuel & Minnie Hyman Ballroom. Watch “iMordecai” and stay for a virtual questionand-answer with writer-director Marvin Samel. $10/ per person, in advance. Walk-ins, $15/per person. To purchase tickets, visit bethshalompgh.org/ imordecai-movie.

Join Chabad of South Hills for its annual summer BBQ. Enjoy life-size lawn games, crafts, bubbles and toddler fun, music, food, drink and more. RSVP before

Tuesday, July 25. $15/Adult $40/Family. 5 p.m. Scott Park, Walnut Pavilion. chabadsh.com/summerbbq.

Rendezvous in Rodef Shalom’s Biblical Botanical Garden for a free live jazz performance from the Craig Davis Quartet with drinks and hors d’oeuvres. 7 p.m. 4905 Fifth Ave. rodefshalom.org/garden.

q SUNDAYS, JULY 30 – DEC. 3

Join Chabad of Squirrel Hill for its Men’s Tefillin Club Enjoy bagels, lox and tefillin on the first Sunday of the month. 8:30 a.m. chabadpgh.com.

q SUNDAYS, JULY 30– DEC. 17

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 MONDAYS AND WEDNESDAYS, JULY 31 – AUG. 2

There has never been an age in Jewish history without internal Jewish controversies. In the six-part series Contemporary Jewish Controversies, Rabbi Danny Schiff will lead robust discussions about significant Jewish controversies that echo across the contemporary Jewish landscape, including Zoom prayer, intermarried rabbis, the death penalty for acts of terror against Israelis and much more. $85. Mondays and Wednesdays. 9:30 a.m. jewishpgh.org/event/ contemporary-jewish-controversies/2023-07-17.

q MONDAYS, JULY 31 – DEC. 18

Join Congregation Beth Shalom for a weekly Talmud study. 9:15 a.m. For more information, visit bethshalompgh.org.

q WEDNESDAY, AUG. 2 – THURSDAY, AUG. 3

Join the Holocaust Center of Pittsburgh for a Teachers Workshop presented by Echoes &

Reflections. This training is free, and Act 48 credit hours will be available. It will be held in person, with courses led by Echoes & Reflections facilitators. 8:30 a.m. Chatham University. eventbrite.com/o/ holocaust-center-of-pittsburgh-10903531159.

q WEDNESDAYS, AUG. 2 – DEC. 20

Join AgeWell for an intergenerational family dynamics discussion group. Whether you have family harmony or strife, these discussions are going to be thought-provoking and helpful. Led by intergenerational specialist/presenter and educator Audree Schall. Third Wednesday of each month. Free. 12:30 p.m. South Hills JCC.

q WEDNESDAYS, AUG. 2– DEC. 27

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 THURSDAY, AUG. 3

Facilitated by local clergy from Jewish and Christian backgrounds, the Jewish/Christian Dialogue is a monthly discussion exploring topics of similarities and differences. 12 p.m. Free. 4905 Fifth Ave. rodefshalom.org.

q THURDAYS, AUG. 3 – AUG. 17

Be the best bridge player you can be at any level with lessons from the Pittsburgh Bridge Association 9 a.m. Rodef Shalom, 4905 Fifth Ave. Advance registration is requested at pittsburghbridge.org/classreg.htm.

q SUNDAY, AUG. 6

Rendezvous in Rodef Shalom’s Garden for a free live performance with The Boilermaker Jazz Band. Join for drinks and hors d’oeuvres, as they bring the swinging sounds of the Jazz Age back to life. 6 p.m. Free. 4905 Fifth Ave. rodefshalom.org/garden.

q WEDNESDAY, AUG. 9

Join members of the community for the annual Jewish

The Pittsburgh Jewish Chronicle invites you to join the Chronicle Book Club for its Aug. 27 discussion of “The Secret Chord,” by Geraldine Brooks.

From Amazon.com: “With more than two million copies of her novels sold, New York Times bestselling author Geraldine Brooks has achieved both popular and critical acclaim. Now, Brooks takes on one of literature’s richest and most enigmatic figures: a man who shimmers between history and legend. Peeling away the myth to bring [King] David to life in Second Iron Age Israel, Brooks traces the arc of his journey from obscurity to fame, from shepherd to soldier, from hero to traitor, from beloved king to murderous despot and into his remorseful and diminished dotage.”

Your Hosts:

Toby Tabachnick, editor of the Chronicle

David Rullo, Chronicle staff writer

How and When:

We will meet on Zoom on Sunday, August 27, at noon.

What To Do

Buy: “The Secret Chord.” It is available from online retailers, including Amazon

Heritage Night as the Pittsburgh Pirates battle the Atlanta Braves. This year, an optional pre-game meal is available in the Picnic Park from 5:30-7 p.m. from Elegant Edge Catering. Each game ticket purchased will also include a limited edition Pittsburgh Pirates Hebrew T-shirt. 7:05 p.m. $16-44. PNC Park. jewishpgh.org/event/jewish-heritage-night.

q SUNDAY, AUG. 13

What better way to prepare for 5784 than to finally learn to read the Hebrew alphabet? Register to participate in Rodef Shalom Congregation’s three-week, six-class intensive course to introduce you to the alef-bet and start you on the road to reading Hebrew. $36. 10 a.m. rodefshalom.org/alefbet.

q MONDAY, AUG. 21

Join the Zionist Organization of America: Pittsburgh for its Kandy Ehrenwerth Memorial Lecture. The guest speaker is Dan Pollak, ZOA’s director of legislative affairs, based in Washington, D.C. The title of the lecture is “Christian Senators and Representatives are our Best Allies — Religious Misconceptions and the Future.” 7 p.m. Free. Registrations required by emailing pittsburgh@ zoa.org. Beth Shalom Ballroom, 5915 Beacon St.

q TUESDAY, AUG. 22

Join Rodef Shalom Librarian Sam Siskind for the congregation’s summer book club and discuss Omer Friedlander’s “The Man Who Sold Air in the Holy Land,” winner of the 2023 Association of Jewish Libraries Fiction Award. 6:30 p.m. Free. 4905 Fifth Ave. rodefshalom.org.

q MONDAY, SEPT. 18

Join the Holocaust Center of Pittsburgh First Person and Generations Speakers Series: A Talk by Holocaust Survivor Oscar Singer with his daughter Lee Fischbach. 6 p.m. Free. hcofpgh.org/events

q WEDNESDAY, SEPT. 27

The Holocaust Center of Pittsburgh welcomes back to Pittsburgh Tony McAleer, the subject of the documentary “The Cure for Hate” and a reformed white nationalist, for an enlightening conversation on how conspiracy theories begin, take root, and how we can stop them. 6 p.m. Free. Chatham University. Woodland Rd. hcofpgh.org/events. PJC

and Barnes & Noble, and through the Carnegie Library system.

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

Happy reading! PJC

Toby Tabachnick

Summer Lee votes ‘no’ on resolution backing Israel

By Jacob Magid | The Times of Israel

WASHINGTON — The U.S. House on July 18 overwhelmingly passed a symbolic resolution reaffirming support for Israel that was introduced by Republican lawmakers in an implicit rebuke of a leading Democrat who called the country a “racist state” but later apologized.

“The State of Israel is not a racist or apartheid state, Congress rejects all forms of antisemitism and xenophobia, and the United States will always be a staunch partner and supporter of Israel,” read the resolution that passed 412-9-1.

Rep. Summer Lee, who represents Squirrel Hill, joined just eight other Democrats in voting against the resolution. Lee did not respond to a request from the Chronicle for comment.

The vote came as Israel’s President Isaac Herzog was in Washington for meetings with President Joe Biden and other administration officials. A handful of progressive Democrats, including Lee, skipped his address to both chambers of Congress on July 19.

The resolution supporting Israel does not mention Rep. Pramila Jayapal of Washington by name, but was introduced days after she criticized Israel and its treatment of Palestinians at a conference on July 15.

Jayapal, the 100-member chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, walked

back the comments the next day, insisting they were aimed at Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government and not the Jewish state as an entity.

But Republican Rep. August Pfluger pushed forward the resolution forward with the support of House Speaker Kevin McCarthy who ostensibly eyed an opportunity to divide Democrats over the issue.

In voting “no,” Lee was joined by Democratic Reps. Jamaal Bowman, Cori Bush, Andre Carson, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, Ayanna Pressley, Delia Ramirez and Rashida Tlaib. Fellow progressive Rep. Betty McCollum casted the lone “present” vote.

Rep. Chris DeLuzio, who represents Beaver County and parts of Allegheny County, including Mt. Lebanon, was unable to be present for the vote because he was welcoming Jill Biden, Pete Buttigieg and Julie Su to his home district. He said he would have voted “yes” had he been present, “supporting the state of Israel.” He did attend Herzog’s speech.

James Hayes, a Republican hoping to challenge Lee when she is up for reelection, praised the resolution and condemned Lee for voting against it.

“It’s time for Summer Lee to leave the political margins and stand against the thinly coded antisemitism of colleagues like Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib and Pramila Jayapal who have united in opposition to the only democracy in the Middle East,” Hayes said in a prepared statement.

Among those voting in favor was Jayapal herself, as well as several progressive Democrats normally harshly critical of Israel, such as Raul Grijalva and Chuy Garcia.

Just about all “no” votes were members of the progressive Squad, five of whom boycotted Herzog’s speech to a joint session of Congress on July 19.

Among those five is Tlaib, who spoke from the floor in opposition to the resolution ahead of the vote.

“Israel is an apartheid state,” Tlaib said, citing several rights groups, including Israeli ones, that have reached that conclusion. “The government is deeply problematic in the way that they are proceeding in the structure of oppression.”

Much of Tlaib’s speech was littered with poorly attributed quotes and half-truths as well as a blatantly false claim that Herzog opposes “interracial marriages,” based on a statement he made bemoaning Jews marrying out of the faith.

Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries avoided referencing the “no” votes entirely, saying in a statement that “The decisive vote by House Democrats in support of the Israel resolution once again demonstrates our strong commitment to the State of Israel and her right to exist as a homeland for the Jewish people.”

“House Democrats will remain steadfast in our ironclad commitment to Israel’s security, as well as to a robust two-state solution where the Israeli and Palestinian people can live side by

side in peace and prosperity. I look forward to welcoming President Isaac Herzog to Congress for the Joint Address,” he added.

Others in the party were quick to criticize House Republicans for turning Israel into a political football.

“Kevin McCarthy and House Republicans rushed this resolution to the House floor for the most cynical, most repugnant of purposes: weaponizing antisemitism and the U.S.-Israel relationship to score political points,” said Jewish progressive Rep. Jerold Nadler, who voted in favor of the resolution.

He accused the party of paying lip service to Israel’s actual needs, noting McCarthy’s refusal to cancel testimony from fringe presidential candidate Robert Kennedy Jr. to a Republican-controlled subcommittee, after Kennedy suggested that COVID-19 could have been “ethnically targeted” to spare Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese people.

“Kevin McCarthy eagerly put this resolution to a vote, all while his party invites an antisemitic conspiracy theorist to testify before a House Select Subcommittee this week,” he said. “The Republican Party is working to undermine the United States’ historic bipartisan support for Israel all while supporting efforts that stoke tensions in the IsraeliPalestinian conflict.” PJC

The Associated Press contributed to this report. Toby Tabachnick contributed to this report.

Coalition passes 1st judicial overhaul law, limiting review of government decisions

By Carrie Keller-Lynn | The Times of Israel

After 29 weeks of protests and mass public opposition that have roiled the country and divided its citizens, the Israeli Knesset gave its final approval Monday to a law that prevents the courts from reviewing the “reasonableness” of government and ministerial decisions, the first major bill of the government’s judicial overhaul to pass into law.

The bill passed its third and final reading with 64 votes in favor and 0 against, as the entire 56-member opposition boycotted the vote in protest.

The vote concluded 30 hours of continuous plenum debate, which began on Sunday morning. During that period, hundreds of thousands of protesters took to the streets, both for and against curbing judicial checks on political power, and President Joe Biden sent his fifth message in a little over a week calling on the government to not rush constitutional changes.

Within the Knesset, last-minute attempts to amend the bill or to come to a broader agreement with the opposition failed, following two rejected compromise proposals floated by a union leader and President Isaac Herzog on Sunday.

Immediately following the vote, Justice Minister Yariv Levin celebrated the law as “the first step in a historic process to correct the judicial system.” Coalition leaders have publicly committed to continue the process, with the next step being a bill to remake the panel that selects new judges, expected in the Knesset’s winter session.

Opposition Leader Yair Lapid promised to quickly petition the High Court of Justice against the freshly passed law, as did the Movement for Quality Government in Israel.

“This is a complete breaking of the rules of the game,” Lapid said, speaking minutes after the law passed. “The government and coalition can choose the direction the state goes in, but it can’t decide the character of the state.”

The plenum session was tense and chaotic ahead of the decisive vote, with outbursts punctuating Lapid’s address, in which he asserted that Israel is heading for destruction, and Levin’s, in which he dismissed the court’s reasonableness test as wholly dependent on a subjective “worldview.” Presenting the government’s position on the bill ahead of the back-to-back second and third readings, Levin argued that “reasonableness” is a nebulous legal concept that bleeds into personal opinion.

“Reasonableness is a worldview. It’s not contract law, it’s not evidence law, it’s not a legal matter,” the justice minister said of the judicial test, used as one of the chief oversight tools for appointments and the actions of governments during election periods and in general.

“You [judges] want to decide what’s reasonable and what’s not, instead of the people chosen by the nation? That’s reasonable?” Levin rhetorically asked. “I want to say more than that — who even said that what is reasonable in the eyes of the judges is even the logical thing to do? Who decided that their personal positions are better than those of the ministers?”

An amendment to Basic Law: The Judiciary, the law prohibits courts from exercising any scrutiny over the “reasonableness” of cabinet and minister decisions, including appointments and the choice to not exercise vested authorities.

Supporters say that the law is a necessary corrective against abuse of judicial power, while critics say reasonableness is an important — and in some contexts, main — check against inappropriate use of public power.

Now passed, the coalition has more legal cover if it chooses to pursue three political goals its members have supported that would have otherwise been stymied by the reasonableness test: firing the attorney general or other guardians of the rule of law; not convening the Judicial Selection Committee until its composition has been changed; and returning court-disqualified Shas party head Aryeh Deri to the cabinet. However, the

courts have other tools to review and potentially nullify those moves.

Lapid told the plenum before the vote that several coalition members are against the “reasonableness” bill, and urged them to stop the legislation as the final plenum votes were set to be held.

“Over the past few weeks, I have had hundreds of hours of conversations with people from within the coalition. Don’t worry, I won’t name names, but you know who you are and you know the truth. You know something terrible is happening here,” Lapid said.

National Unity party head Benny Gantz echoed Lapid, and similarly claimed to the Knesset plenum that “there’s a majority in this auditorium, and I know this for a fact, that doesn’t want this result.”

Lapid denounced the legislation as a “hostile takeover of the Israeli majority by an extremist minority, and also a hostile takeover of [the Likud] party.”

“You know that what’s happening here is a disaster that can be prevented. A tragedy that we must stop,” he said.

“You can stop it. It may not be what you planned for yourself. It may not be what you came to politics for, but if you don’t stop it now, you’ll wake up at night for the next 30 years and ask yourself why you didn’t do

it when you knew it was the right thing to do,” Lapid added.

Shortly before the vote, Lapid announced via a television interview that negotiations were over, saying that the coalition wants “to tear apart the state, tear apart democracy, tear apart the security of Israel, the unity of the people of Israel, and our international relations.”

Therefore, he concluded, “there is no way to continue to work with them — because this is the most irresponsible government there has ever been here.”

Gantz argued that the law, when passed, would harm Israel’s democratic foundations, economy, and security.

“I’m very bothered by the security situation and what we broadcast to our enemies,” the former defense minister and military chief said.

On Sunday, Gantz received a special briefing from IDF Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi on military readiness, given the large number of reservists who say they will opt out of voluntary duty to protest the judicial overhaul.

Protests were expected to escalate across Jerusalem and the country after Monday’s vote, and overhaul supporters organized a Monday evening rally outside the Knesset. PJC

p Anti-overhaul protesters outside the Knesset, where barbed-wire has been placed around the parliament’s perimeter, July 24, 2023

Photo courtesy of The Times of Israel

Yair Lapid denounced the legislation as a “hostile takeover of the Israeli majority by an extremist minority, and also a hostile takeover of [the Likud] party.”

Headlines

Neo-Nazis picket Jewish center outside Toledo after first protesting LGBTQ event

A small group of neo-Nazis was feeling restless after targeting an LGBTQ event in downtown Toledo on July 15, so they headed to a suburb that’s home to several Jewish institutions, JTA.org reported.

The group, which the Cleveland Jewish News identified as an antisemitic organization named Blood Tribe, showed up at a Sylvania, Ohio, complex containing the Jewish Federation of Greater Toledo headquarters, two synagogues and a Jewish community center. Waving swastika flags and tiki torches, the group of around a dozen people stood on a sidewalk across the street for around 10 minutes before dispersing.

No Jews were present at the center when the group arrived and the parking lot was empty, the federation said. Law enforcement was monitoring the group’s activities and was quickly on the scene; when group members tried to stand on the Jewish center’s property, police directed them instead to a public sidewalk across the street.

“I don’t know who they thought would be there, or what. But there wasn’t a car in the parking lot,” Sylvania Township Police Chief Paul Long told the Toledo Blade.

Israel antiquities among items found at Mar-a-Lago, report claims

The Israel Antiquities Authority believes that a set of ancient ceramic oil lamps missing for more than three years are at Mar-a-Lago,

the Florida estate of former President Donald Trump, according to Haaretz, JTA.org reported.

Haaretz reported that the Antiquities Authority loaned the White House the lamps in 2019 ahead of a Chanukah party where a major donor to the Antiquities Authority, Saul Fox, would be in attendance. The lamps ultimately did not make an appearance at the event.

The return of the items was hindered by the onset of the pandemic in early 2020, when travel was severely restricted. The authority required that a staffer accompany items of such value while they travel. They were to remain in Fox’s possession for a limited time until they could be returned.

After a long delay, the authority learned several months ago that the items ended up at Mar-a-Lago, according to Haaretz.

On July 21, JTA.org reported that a Trump spokesperson said the antiquities would be returned.

In a first, Israel’s prime minister will visit Morocco

Moroccan King Mohammed VI invited Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to visit Morocco days after Israel recognized the country’s claim to the disputed Western Sahara, JTA.org reported.

“The invitation was sent in a warm, personal letter in which His Majesty thanked the State of Israel for its recognition of Moroccan sovereignty over the Western Sahara,” Netanyahu’s office said in a statement it released on July 19.

“King Mohammed VI wrote Prime Minister Netanyahu that the visit would open up new

Today in Israeli History

July 31, 1988 — Jordan drops claim to West Bank

possibilities for strengthening relations between their two countries.”

Israel and Morocco normalized ties in 2020 under the Abraham Accords, a series of agreements between Israel and a few of its Arab neighboring countries. Senior Israeli officials have visited the country, but this will be a first for an Israeli prime minister.

Israel this week became the second country after the United States to recognize Morocco’s claim to oil-rich territory it annexed in 1975, as Spain ended its colonial presence there. Indigenous Sahwari rebels launched a war to keep Morocco from claiming the territory; a 1991 ceasefire fell apart in 2020.

Netanyahu ousts Likud Party activist for telling protesters he wishes ‘another 6 million would burn’

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu expelled a prominent activist from his Likud Party after the activist was filmed calling protesters “whores” and saying that he wishes “another six million would burn,” a reference to the Holocaust, JTA.org reported.

The activist, Itzik Zarka, directed the epithets at protesters who were demonstrating on July 15 against Netanyahu’s effort to weaken the judiciary. Weekly protests have occurred nationwide against the planned judicial overhaul, a key portion of which is set to advance to a final vote in the coming weeks.

“You whores, burn in hell, burn in hell,” Zarka screamed at a demonstration near the northern Israeli city of Beit Shean. “It’s not for nothing that six million went. I’m proud, I’m proud. I wish another six million would burn.”

His comments, which were condemned by a wide range of senior Likud politicians, were a crude allusion to a perceived ethnic split in Israel between supporters and opponents of the judicial overhaul, and to a longstanding grievance that supporters of the overhaul hope to address.

Latin American Jewish and Muslim umbrella groups gather for landmark meeting

In what both organizations are touting as a milestone moment for South American religious groups, leaders from the World Jewish Congress’ Latin American chapter met with leaders from the Muslim World League, JTA.org reported.

More than 40 members of the groups from Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, El Salvador, Panama, Peru and Venezuela, along with three representatives of the Muslim World League based in Makkah, Saudi Arabia, met in Buenos Aires for two days earlier this month. They discussed ways to collaborate and published a “decalogue” of agreements, which includes future interfaith programming in South American schools and invitations to members of each group to participate in holiday services of the other faith.

“In other latitudes, an initiative like this would be considered a miracle,” said Claudio Epelman, executive director of the Latin American Jewish Congress, an arm of the World Jewish Congress. “From Latin America, we are spreading hope to those places where an encounter between Jews and Muslims is an unthinkable event.” PJC

— Compiled by Andy Gotlieb

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

July 28, 1923 — Opera arrives in Palestine

p A playbill shows that Mordechai Golinkin’s production of “La Traviata” was not a one-nightonly opera.

Mordechai Golinkin’s production of “La Traviata” marks the beginning of opera in the Land of Israel. His Palestine Opera stages 16 productions by 1945, including “Dan Hashomer,” the first opera written in Hebrew.

July 29, 1891 — Pregnancy test developer Zondek is born

OB-GYN Bernhard Zondek is born in Wronke, Germany, now in Poland. He and Jewish colleague Selmar Aschheim develop the A-Z pregnancy test in 1928. Zondek moves to Mandatory Palestine in 1934.

Jordan’s King Hussein announces that he is giving up political claims to the West Bank, although he seeks to retain influence over Jerusalem. King Abdullah I annexed the West Bank and East Jerusalem in 1950.

Aug. 1, 1955 — First residents move into Dimona

The development town of Dimona welcomes its first residents, who are recent arrivals from Morocco, as Israel tries to settle immigrants housed in tent cities. Dimona gains municipal status in 1969.

Aug. 2, 1923 — Shimon Peres is born

p U.S. President Bill Clinton demonstrates a 3D camera to Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres at the White House on Dec. 11, 1995.

By Tsvika Israeli, Israeli Government Press Office

Shimon Peres, the only person to serve as Israeli prime minister and president, is born in what is now Belarus.

Peres makes aliyah in 1934, enters politics in 1941 and is first elected to the Knesset in 1959.

July

30,

1980

— Jerusalem Basic Law is enacted

The Knesset passes the Basic Law: Jerusalem, enshrining the official Israeli position that a united Jerusalem is the capital of Israel. The U.N. Security Council rejects the law with Resolution 476 on Aug. 20.

Aug. 3, 1945 — Horrible conditions are found in DP camps

Earl Harrison, sent by President Harry Truman to check on Europe’s displacedperson camps, reports that the rumors of poor treatment are often true. Truman then calls for Britain to admit 100,000 Jewish refugees into Palestine. PJC

Headlines

Trial: Continued from page 1

Victim impact statements

Jerry Rabinowitz, 66 Dr. Jerry Rabinowitz “was so happy to be a doctor and have his patients,” Daniel Kramer, Rabinowitz’s brother-in-law, said. “I can’t remember a time when he wasn’t smiling.”

Rabinowitz operated a family practice in Shadyside and took great joy in caring for people in all stages of life, Kramer said. When his elderly patients struggled with mobility, he would make house calls and stick around longer to talk to those who were lonely.

In the 1980s, in the midst of the AIDS crisis, he was a go-to doctor for patients who had contracted the disease. The ailment was mysterious at the time and many doctors turned people away, but Rabinowitz welcomed them, Kramer said — hugging them at the end of their visits.

To the many nieces and nephews of the family, he was Uncle Jerry, a playful and always present member of the family. He “adored” his wife, Miri.

Bernice Simon, 84, and Sylvan Simon, 86

Michael Simon and Michelle Weis, who are siblings, testified about their parents, Bernice and Sylvan Simon. Bernice and Sylvan got married in 1956 in the Pervin Chapel at Tree of Life — the same place where they were murdered — and raised their kids in the synagogue.

Weis said that without the connective tissue provided by their parents, the family has not spent holidays together the way they had in the past.

“I lost my best friend, my confidante,”

Irving Younger, 69

Judith Kaye, who was Younger’s girlfriend, praised Irv’s “warmth” and his “loving” nature. Younger loved baseball, Kaye said, and was so revered as a baseball coach in Squirrel Hill that people would come up to him and tell him how grateful they were for his support. As he got older and his wife passed away after a long illness, he adopted two children and fostered several more.

The government showed pictures of Kaye and Younger spending time together. Younger, Kaye said, was a doting boyfriend.

Rose Mallinger, 97

Amy Mallinger, Rose’s granddaughter, told stories about Rose’s selfless and fun-loving personality and her mental sharpness at her advanced age. Growing up, Amy would visit her grandmother (whom she called “Bubbe”) alongside her siblings and cousins. They would go to the park and play a card matching game on the floor.

After graduating from college, Amy stayed in Pittsburgh and visited her Bubbe often. At family gatherings and celebrations, Rose would get out on the dance floor. Her favorite was the chicken dance, Amy said.

“She was funny, but she didn’t really know she was funny,” Amy said.

Daniel

Stein, 71

Sharyn Stein, the widow of Dan Stein, described him as a solid husband and father, worker and community volunteer who was devout and active in his Jewish faith.

Shown was a snapshot of her with “Danny,” as she called him, on a trip to California in July 2018. Also shown were photos of him in his Pirates hat — Pittsburgh sports was one of his joys — holding his grandson who had been born that March and who she said put her husband “over the moon.”

The Steins’ son, Joseph Stein, became emotional when he recounted how his dad once came to his workplace before a ballgame and showed his boss a photo he kept in his wallet of Joseph in first grade. He said he still tries to be like his dad, who he said also was extremely close to his sister, Leigh.

Cecil Rosenthal, 59, and David Rosenthal, 54

and he cries daily but has learned that’s OK at “happy school,” as he calls therapy. At one point, Matson said, he was in such a dark place that he considered suicide, but when he stepped outside, he was inspired to keep going by a weed that had sprouted in an angler’s minnow bucket, and that reminded him of his own strength and support system. He tucked it in some soil and placed the plant on his porch.

Andrea Wedner

Andrea Wedner survived the attack but watched her mother be shot and die, and she was left with arm and hand injuries that left her unable to return to the job she loved as a dental hygienist. She said she can barely brush or floss her teeth. She elaborated on a favorite photo of her mom at a family wedding wearing a purple dress. “She just looks beautiful in this picture. Such a happy day. We were all just so happy.”

Daniel Leger

Daniel Leger, who was shot and thought he was going to die on some synagogue stairs, talked about his many surgeries and excruciating complications, having to get a colostomy, and still having so much shrapnel in his body that the white bits on X-rays look “like a night sky, like a snowstorm.”

He also said how it feels to have lost his dear friend Dr. Jerry Rabinowitz in the attack.

Leger battles dark thoughts and daily pain, constant reminders of that day nearly five years ago. “I just feel diminished,” he said. “I feel very diminished.”

Defense evidence

Clinical psychologist Katherine Porterfield, Ph.D, a trauma expert, testified that, based on her detailed psychosocial history, the defendant experienced trauma from the time he was in the womb and came from a family wracked with trauma including drug and alcohol abuse and mental illness.

She spoke about difficulties the defendant experienced as a child. She explained how she was commissioned to create the psychosocial history that involved her reviewing some 21,000 pages of documents and interviewing 17 people, although not the defendant.

diseases, mental illness and violence.”

For a child, “This is what we would call an extraordinary dose of trauma and risk,” Porterfield said. “It’s very hard for that child to develop normally.”

Beginning in middle school, he became “completely out of control,” Porterfield said. He had a fraught relationship with his mother and, at 13, he physically threatened her and was involuntarily committed to a psychiatric ward. After about nine months at various treatment facilities, he was discharged and returned home, but his domestic situation had not improved and recommendations for individual and family therapy were ignored.

At ages 16 and 17, he was committed briefly to psychiatric institutions after additional suicide attempts.

His deterioration continued, Porterfield said, and he failed out of school in 11th grade. After that, he worked “mostly low-paying, short-lived jobs,” she said. He did, however, work for 14 years as a delivery driver for Potomac Bakery. He lived over the bakery in a subsidized apartment, but was evicted in 2004 when he was fired for stealing money.

After losing his job, apartment and phone, Porterfield said, he “lapsed into crisis.” She pointed to records that he had put a gun in his mouth and called the police to say he was suicidal, and then spent three days at St. Clair Hospital.

On cross-examination, though, prosecutor Nicole Vasquez Schmitt cited the defendant’s own recollection of that event — recorded in reports from the prosecution’s expert witnesses who conducted mental health examinations on him before the trial. The defendant told those doctors that he feigned the suicide attempt so he could go to the hospital and have a place to stay and make phone calls for a few days.

Porterfield traced the trajectory of the shooter’s life after leaving St. Clair, including opioid addiction and depression. But she also testified that he got a commercial trucking license in 2008 and worked for two trucking companies. He also served as a home health aide, including as a caregiver for his grandfather.

Joyce Fienberg, 75

Brothers Anthony and Howard Fienberg, whose mother, Joyce, was a victim of the shooting, felt a similar familial loss. Joyce was an educational researcher and a devoted grandmother. Her grandkids, Anthony said, were the center of her world.

Joyce would arrange family gatherings and do the logistical work to make sure everyone could make it. Getting updates about everyone in the extended family was easy, they said, because Joyce always knew what was going on. When the family got together, she would insist on taking the cooking and cleaning duties.

“She was the linchpin on multiple sides of the family,” Howard said.

Michele Rosenthal talked about her brothers Cecil and David Rosenthal, who delighted their Squirrel Hill neighbors including city firefighters. She shared videos of “the boys,” as they were known, leading a service for other people with special needs in Tree of Life’s Previn Chapel, an annual tradition that delighted them. Asked about losing them both, she said that words such as “devastated, heartbroken, traumatized … they don’t scratch the surface.” Also played was a video of their father talking about the loss that time has not healed: “Our hearts are empty every single day.”

Pittsburgh police Officer

Tim Matson

Matson survived being shot multiple times but was left with injuries so serious that he’s had 25 surgeries and has another scheduled; he didn’t make it home from the hospitals and a friend’s house for more than 20 weeks and didn’t get back to work (modified duty) for two years. He still can’t sleep in a bed or without medications,

She summarized her findings in a 26-page report.

She researched his family tree including his maternal grandmother, who was put in an orphanage with her eight siblings — a family that Porterfield showed, through hospital and police and other records, experienced “a lot of mental illness and trauma and abuse.”

She said the defendant’s own parents once threatened to kill the boy, and his father tried to kill himself after his discharge from a psychiatric hospital. The defendant’s mother was by her own admission not a good mother, had only part-time and low-paying jobs, and had relationships with a number of different men including a second husband who was later charged and convicted for child molestation.

In fact, Porterfield said, by the time the defendant was about 5, he had experienced seven of 10 standard adverse childhood experiences, or ACES, defined in part as “severe repetitive traumatic stressors [that] cause changes in children’s stress response systems … alter children’s developing brains and nervous systems,” and “are linked to physical

The psychologist concluded that the defendant had a “heavy genetic risk” of serious mental illness because of the mental illness of his relatives, including his mother, Barbara Bolt, and his father, Randall Bowers.

But on cross-examination, Porterfield admitted that Bolt wasn’t sure that Randall Bowers was the defendant’s father because there were a lot of men in her life at the time.

(On Monday, the defense filed a motion asking the court to exhume Randall Bowers’ body to prove paternity.)

On cross-examination, Schmidt noted that the defendant recalled some of the purported adverse events that Porterfield relied on in her report differently, and didn’t remember some of them occurring at all.

Porterfield also admitted on cross-examination that while experiencing adverse childhood events can be a risk factor for negative outcomes in adulthood, that is not always the case. She agreed with Schmidt’s statements that there are “lots of people with bad childhoods who become successful adults” and that “having been

Please see Trial, page 11

p Joyce Fienberg Photo courtesy of Marnie Fienberg

Headlines

Trial:

Continued from page 10

traumatized does not predispose someone to traumatize others.”

A retired psychiatrist said that he treated the Pittsburgh synagogue killer at age 13 for depression after he threatened to kill his mother in 1985, and a second psychiatrist recounted treating the troubled boy at a juvenile facility where he was subsequently committed.

Neither doctor remembered the defendant among the thousands of patients they’ve seen in the 38 years since.

But both testified for the defense based on records from that time indicating the boy suffered from depression because of conflict with his mother. One said he slowly improved over several months on antidepressants.

Earl Brink, formerly chief of psychiatry at McKeesport Hospital, said his old notes indicate that the defendant ended up at the

Reform:

Continued from page 1

quarter, 555,000, are affiliated with a Reform congregation. Conservative and Orthodox denominations each have much larger affiliation rates, 56% and 93%, respectively.

Those numbers, along with growing fissures in the Reform movement are reasons for honest debates among its leaders, he said.

“We cannot pretend they do not exist for the sake of a false sense of unity,” Hirsch told the crowd. “Otherwise, the rifts that emerged between the anti-peoplehood, anti-Zionist Reform Jews of the first half of the 20th century, and the Zionists who were committed to Jewish particularism, will reopen in our movement with devastating consequences for 21st-century Reform synagogues. We must develop curricula from early childhood through advanced Jewish studies that instill a love of our people and a commitment to the Jewish state.”

Three local rabbis attended the convention: Rabbi Larry Freedman, director of the Joint Jewish Education Program of Pittsburgh, a multi-denominational Jewish complementary school for students in grades K-7; Temple B’nai Israel Rabbi Howie Stein; and Temple Sinai Rabbi Daniel Fellman. One other local rabbi was tangentially connected to the convention: Rabbi Danny Schiff, the Gefsky Community Scholar at the Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh, whose book “Judaism in a Digital Age” was referenced by at least one rabbi during public remarks. The book’s theses were similar in scope to several of the presentations given at the conference.

Fellman was invited onto the planning committee by a friend nearly four years ago. The idea for the convention, he said, began several years ago among various people who felt the movement had gotten off track.

“I think the letter written in 2021 by 99 rabbinic students in opposition to Israel really sparked people,” Fellman said, referencing a public letter signed by students enrolled in non-Orthodox rabbinical schools accusing Israel of apartheid and calling on American Jewish communities to hold Israel accountable for the “violent oppression of human rights.”

hospital because he had threatened to light his mother on fire with lighter fluid.

Brink injected him with increasingly high doses of the tranquilizer Thorazine, prescribed an antidepressant and later recommended that he be evaluated for the possible emergence of schizophrenia at age 16 or 17. Doctors also did a CT scan.

Child psychiatrist Alan Axelson, who previously ran Southwood Psychiatric Hospital, reviewed old records indicating that the defendant had been sent there against his will and initially lay curled up in bed and refusing to interact with others. But with antidepressant treatment over several weeks, he said, the boy gradually began participating in group activities and completed his schoolwork PJC

This story is part of ongoing coverage of the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting trial by the Pittsburgh Jewish Chronicle and the Pittsburgh Union Progress in a collaboration supported by the Pittsburgh Media Partnership.

“I think we’ve lost in a real sense of what it means to be a Reform Zionist,” Fellman said.

And while Fellman is quick to say that he doesn’t always think Israel is right, he noted that it’s important for Jews to recognize the miracle of the country.

That concept was the focus of the conference’s first day.

The second day, he said, concentrated on universalism versus particularism, which grew from a conversation about how Reform Jews understand the role of tikkun olam.

“Tikkun olam has become a real centerpiece,” Fellman said, “but it has blurred too easily into what’s the Democratic Party’s policy position.”

Or, to put it another way, “Tikkun olam b’malchut Shaddai, to bring about God’s kingdom based in religious practice, not political practice or political theory,” he said.

This indifference can be seen through Jewish spirituality. Freedman said Jews haven’t rejected the idea of spirituality: They enjoy things like yoga and mindful meditation. He said Jewish leaders aren’t bringing that out in Reform Judaism, though.

Picking up on a theme discussed in Schiff’s book — assimilation and the Reform movement — Freedman takes a long view.

“The advantage of the early reformers is that they were reacting against something,” he said. “When you’re in the midst of a revolution you feel pretty good about it. You identify with it. It’s very moving to be at the vanguard of a revolution. That touches your soul and nurtures your identity.”

What do you do when the revolution is over? he asked.

Switching metaphors, he posited that the Reform world is like jazz.

the broader Jewish community and not become isolated.

“And then, how do we reinvigorate the movement, whether it’s worship, ritual practice, education to keep us with the times, to stay relevant and on top of the skill we want Jews to have,” Stein said.

While the conference wasn’t sponsored by the Union for Reform Judaism, it was attended by URJ leadership, as well as leaders from the Central Conference of American Rabbis and Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion.

Freedman isn’t waiting for the URJ to take up some of the issues discussed at the convention. He said that J-JEP is changing its curriculum to ensure its students understand how special Israel is. That includes discussing the diversity found in the country and including what it means not only to be a Jew, Muslim or Christian in the country but also what it means to be an Arab Jew.

“With the eighth grade, I want to dig deep into some of the problems,” Freedman said. “They should know about BDS and this antiIsraeli environment. They should know because … it’s an important part of the Israel story. If you don’t want Israel to be what the BDS folks make it out to be maybe we should do something about it.”

For Fellman, that means putting social justice work back in the realm of Jewish identities and pulling it out of the universal political realm.

The challenge, he said, is determining how to make Reform Judaism speak to people, especially to unaffiliated liberal Jews.

“What does it mean to our actual lives?

What does this mean to how I live day-to-day? How does this affect me? How does this affect how I raise my kids and interact with my neighbors, do business, donate to charities?

That’s a huge place for Reform Judaism to thrive,” he said.

For Freedman, the largest threat to the Jewish people is apathy.

“It’s the shrug,” he said. “It’s not even disinterest. It’s just nothing compelling.”

That apathy, he noted, is apart from “being Jewish.” People like being Jewish, he said.

“They just don’t do anything Jewish.”

“We love the harmonies, and we love riffing, but we don’t know the melody very well,” he said.

Early Reform Judaism, Freedman said, allowed its members to be super-creative but today, all that remains are the harmonies. “How do we recapture the melody?” he asked. “That’s the tough part.”

B’nai Israel’s Stein said the conference was important because it reignited the idea of a relationship with Israel as well as building Jewish literacy to help live a life outside of the synagogue.

He felt the Israel portions of the convention were important but said the Reform movement has been consistent in its Zionism, even while raising awareness of some actions of the Israeli government it finds alarming — the treatment of minority groups, for example.

More important, he said, were conversations about how to stay connected to

He said that if there is even a kernel of truth in the things said by anti-Israeli groups, there is only one answer: Communication.

“Let’s talk about it,” he said.

Fellman, too, is talking about these at Temple Sinai.

The rabbi said he’s already presented each of the three main themes of the conference at Shabbat services and has had conversations during morning minyans.

“So, we’ve already spent some time wrestling with them,” he said.

His hope is that issues like how the movement thinks and teaches about Israel and social justice, and how it can animate Jewish lives, become part of the national conversation.

“I have a hunch,” Fellman said, “that over the holidays these are going to be big topics that we are discussing.” PJC

David Rullo can be reached at drullo@ pittsburghjewishchronicle.org.

“We must develop curricula from early childhood through advanced Jewish studies that instill a love of our people and a commitment to the Jewish state.”

–RABBI AMMIEL HIRSCH

p Clockwise from top left: Dan Leger (photo by Adam Reinherz), Officer Tim Matson (photo by Anthony Seretti), Dan Stein (photo courtesy of Leigh Stein), Andrea Wedner with her husband, Ron Wedner (photo by Toby Tabachnick), brothers Cecil Rosenthal, front, and David Rosenthal (photo courtesy of the Rosenthal family) Collage by Jennifer Kundrach/Pittsburgh Union Progress

Netanyahu’s judicial overhaul victory spells a tragic, disastrous defeat for Israel

Guest Columnist

David Horovitz

Shortly before 4 p.m. on Monday, July 24, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition voted to approve the so-called “reasonableness” law — the first part of its plan to politicize and radically constrain Israel’s hitherto independent judiciary — and thus set in motion a process that risks tearing apart the state of Israel.

The legislation was spearheaded by Likud Justice Minister Yariv Levin, and steered through its committee stages by far-right Religious Zionism Knesset member Simcha Rothman. Significantly it was Levin — the “real prime minister of Israel” in the words of many opposition MKs — who celebrated “the first step in a historic process to correct the judicial system,” and posed for selfies with fellow coalition MKs once the law had passed.

But it was Netanyahu — discharged just hours earlier from the hospital where he was fitted with a pacemaker after a potentially life-threatening “transient heart block” — who ensured its passage.

In March, the prime minister had temporarily suspended the enactment of a more central element of the overhaul package, under which the governing coalition would be able to choose almost all of Israel’s judges, amid huge nationwide protests and a warning from his defense minister, Yoav Gallant, that the

legislation was causing dangerous rifts in the Israel Defense Forces, the people’s army. Since then, the protests have only escalated and the rifts in the military widened.

Thousands of volunteer reservists have said they will not report for service; several hundred of them are pilots in the active reserves, hundreds of others serve in elite units, and their skill, experience and commitment are nothing less than central to Israel’s capacity to defend itself and face down its enemies. Even as the Knesset was debating the law on Monday, Gallant could be seen in the plenum arguing with Levin over the legislation, and endless unsourced reports suggested that he was still trying to broker some kind of eleventh-hour compromise with the opposition.

But Netanyahu, who at one point had Gallant and Levin sitting on either side of him, openly arguing, chose to let the legislation proceed. Levin and the far-right police minister Itamar Ben Gvir were reported to have told him that either the law passed or the coalition fell. Netanyahu, who looked understandably exhausted amid the political crisis and his medical ordeal, tragically chose the unity of his hard-line coalition over his manifest key responsibility as prime minister: the unity of the nation.

The “reasonableness” law — backed by all 64 coalition members, while the 56 opposition MKs boycotted the final vote — is significant in and of itself.

It bars judicial review of government and ministerial decisions on the grounds of their reasonableness — depriving the courts of a key legal barometer. Critics fear it will pave the way for the coalition to seek the removal

of key “gatekeepers” of democracy — first and foremost the attorney-general, Gali BaharavMiara. She has issued legal opinions against the overhaul legislation, and worked to protect demonstrators from the heavy hand sought by police minister Ben Gvir, and her removal could enable Netanyahu to extricate himself from his ongoing corruption trial. Several members of the coalition, indeed, have repeatedly made clear that ousting Baharav-Miara is precisely what they have in mind.

But the particularities of the law are less important than the fact that it was blitzed through parliament over the objections of the opposition, despite the pleas of President Isaac Herzog, amid multiplying signs that the coalition’s declared agenda is deterring investors in Israel’s high-tech industry, and over the advice of President Joe Biden, who repeatedly urged Netanyahu to seek consensus and keep Israelis unified, especially in the light of this small country’s array of regional enemies.

The parties in the Netanyahu coalition won a clear mandate in November’s elections — a mandate to govern, that is, but not to change the way in which Israel is governed.

A substantial proportion of the population believes Yariv Levin’s arguments that Israel’s judges do not properly represent the diversity of the population, and that they are unelected, elitist busybodies intervening to prevent the politicians from implementing the will of the people. But a substantial proportion of the population, too, respects the courts, and especially the High Court of Justice, as the only brake on government abuse, the only guaranteed protector of rights and freedoms in a country

with no constitution and with a parliament that cannot defy a single-minded coalition.

No sooner had the law passed than demonstrations intensified outside the Knesset. If the experience of 29 weeks of protests against the overhaul is any guide, those demonstrations will spread from now on. And the number of volunteer reservists choosing not to serve is likely to mount. Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi and other IDF top brass have been briefing ministers with increasing frequency and concern about the likely impact.

Huge numbers of Israelis believe with good reason that this coalition, once the judges are sidelined, intends to legislate for an Israel no longer committed to the values of democracy, equality and tolerant Judaism set out in the 1948 Declaration of Independence. Huge numbers of Israelis feel themselves profoundly alienated from the Netanyahu government — and never more so than now.

“This is a time of emergency,” Herzog declared on Sunday, as he tried to broker some kind of compromise. “An agreement must be reached.”

But no such agreement was forthcoming. Said Opposition Leader Yair Lapid shortly before the fateful vote, “With this government, it is impossible to reach agreements that preserve Israeli democracy.”

The Netanyahu coalition steamrolled to a Knesset victory on Monday afternoon. But Israel, hitherto relatively harmonious and extraordinarily resilient, has sustained a dangerous defeat. PJC

David Horovitz is the founding editor of The Times of Israel, where this first appeared.

Long-overdue judicial reform process finally underway

Guest Columnist

Alex Traiman

Amid the largest and most wellfunded protest movement in Israel’s history, the democratically elected governing coalition passed the first reform in a historic process aimed at bringing Israel’s activist Supreme Court in line with the judicial limitations present in most Western democracies.

With 64 votes in favor, Basic Law: The Judiciary will limit the court’s usage of an undefined “reasonableness standard” that has long served as an unrestrained lever to overturn Knesset legislation and executive policy. Reasonableness has often been utilized by the court to reverse laws and policies that, while not in direct contradiction to laws already on the books, stood in contradiction to the limited worldview of a court that is dominated by secular, left-wing justices — a minority in Israeli society.

For those who claim that Israel will no longer be governed by the rule of law, nothing could be further from the truth. Should the newly minted law go into effect, the court will still maintain its authority to rule on

petitions and even overturn legislation based on established legal principles. The court will lose its authority to overturn legislation on the discretionary basis of what it deems to be acceptable or proper.

Judicial revolution

For decades, Israel’s Supreme Court under the leadership of former Supreme Court president Aharon Barak has amassed increasing authority in landmark, self-defined rulings, shifting the delicate balance of power between the three branches of government in its own favor.

This s elf-proclaimed judicial revolution determined that any issue — legal, procedural or otherwise — is justiciable. It allows for petitioners to bring cases to the court without standing and enables the court to cancel legislation; force the parliament to pass laws; and hamstring the activities of the prime minister and his or her cabinet. And it was all initially instituted without majority votes in the parliament.

Limited reform

The reform is just one component of a larger package introduced by the government several months ago. Amid protests and pressure from all sectors of society by those uncomfortable with the right-wing makeup of Israel’s democratically elected coalition,

Netanyahu rescinded the larger reform package. He and his coalition partners then engaged the opposition in weeks of negotiations — headed by Israeli President Isaac Herzog — aimed at reaching a broad-based compromise arrangement.

Negotiations break down

In June, negotiations were halted suddenly by the opposition — ironically, at the moment the government voted to install an opposition lawmaker onto a judicial selection committee that is responsible for appointing new justices to the Supreme Court. The opposition had threatened to break off negotiations if their candidate, Yesh Atid Knesset member Karine Elharrar, was not installed on the committee.

Without the realistic possibility of a negotiated compromise, the coalition, in accordance with its campaign platform, advanced a singular component of its reform: to modify the reasonableness standard. The government selected reasonableness among all other reforms specifically because polls demonstrated that the issue was the most broadly understood by Israel’s public.

Opposition used to support reforms

In fact, prior to the formation of the current government, several opposition

leaders, including Yair Lapid, Avigdor Lieberman and Gideon Sa’ar, have all spoken out in favor of judicial reform.

Yet once it was Netanyahu and a rightwing coalition that had both the votes and motivation to advance the overdue reforms, the very same policy that opposition leaders previously extolled was now un-kosher.

And since the initiators of judicial reform — right-wing, traditional and religious parties — were now in the driver’s seat, the opposition gave up on its previous reformminded principles to protest the reforms with every ounce of their being.

Campaign to paralyze the country

While most of the protesters are typical law-abiding Israelis who care deeply for the state and its future, the organizers of the protest movement have demonstrated a willingness to tear the country to shreds while blaming all the damage — direct and collateral — on Netanyahu and his coalition partners.

The opposition organized an extremely well-funded protest movement complete with the consistent unleashing of new organizations and campaign slogans printed on billboard-size signage, as well as costumes aimed at feeding headlines and photo

Please see Traiman, page 13

Chronicle poll results: Fasting on Tisha b’Av

Last week, the Chronicle asked its readers in an electronic poll the following question: “Do you fast on Tisha b’Av?” Of the 232 people who responded, 75% said no; 21% said yes; and 4% said sometimes. Comments were submitted by 33 people. A few follow.

I never heard of Tisha b’Av until I was an adult. In Sunday School we learned about the holidays as they came during the school year. We didn’t learn about Tisha b’Av because it’s not during the school year.

I believe that many Jews only like to participate in those events that bring the fun and happy historical and religious occurrences to the traditions table. As we know, sad things happen, and it helps to raise the level of the beautiful and happy events. Solemnity and mourning help create a realistic balance to our truthfulness.

The loss of the Temple was a great tragedy, but it feels wrong to fast for it when we don’t

Traiman:

Do you fast on Tisha b’Av?

fast for other national tragedies, and we can’t very well fill up the calendar with fast days for all the evils we’ve been afflicted with.

While I am aware of the day and its importance in our history, health reasons

prevent me from fasting. I do try to eat less to acknowledge the day.

Maybe to lose weight but not for religious reasons.

The act of fasting helps me to focus my energy on the extreme sadness of the day. There is a point in any fast where you lose the ability to focus on multiple ideas, and on Tisha b’Av you have the chance to fill that void with historical sadness and generational trauma as opposed to Yom Kippur where that void can be filled with repentance and self-improvement. It isn’t easy, but if you can do it the process is cathartic.

I’m not interested in the renewal of animal sacrifice, and I haven’t yet found a different meaning that works for me.

If the Israel government continues on its chosen path, the result will probably involve my fasting on Tisha b’Av!

It’s a tough fast, but someone’s got to do it.

The fast of Tisha b’Av, which was instituted by Moshe Rabbenu as an attempt to repent for the sin of worshipping the golden calf and the subsequent destruction of the tablets, and then later both Temples along with many other tragedies throughout history, makes it not only the sole biblical fast, but in our days it should be a day of opportunity to improve our relationship with G-d. And for that reason I, and everyone else who is able, should fast.

It is a time for sadness, to mourn the tragedies that have befallen our people. As long as I can fast safely, I will do so.

Compiled by Toby Tabachnick

Chronicle weekly poll question:

Are you concerned with the preservation of Israel’s democracy? Go to pittsburghjewishchronicle.org to respond. PJC

— LETTERS —

Continued from page 12

captions for the domestic and international media. Protesters have repeatedly blo cked highways, as well as Ben-Gurion International Airport, much to the chagrin of residents and tourists who have been caught in now-regular traffic jams.

Dueling protests

The legislation entered into law amid vehement demonstrations both in favor and against judicial reform. While most around the world have seen photographs of anti-reform protests, two mammoth demonstrations in favor of the reforms, including one Sunday evening, also garnered hundreds of thousands of attendees.

In a surreal situation on Sunday, a sea of anti-reform protesters can be seen heading down the massive escalators at Jerusalem’s Navon train station heading home from a protest against the reforms, while an equally sized sea of supporters was heading up the adjacent escalators to a demonstration of their own.

Competing visions for the Jewish state

What underlies the current crisis is not whether Israel has a constitution or whether the Supreme Court should be able to exercise a standard of reasonableness when judging policy or legislation. At the core of the matter is the face of the Jewish state in the years ahead.

For the first time in the history of the nation, right-wing, traditional and religious parties have established a governing majority without the need for left-wing partners. And on the basis of demographics, there is the likelihood that the current coalition may not be an outlier.

‘King Bibi’ or judicial oligarchy?

Opponents of the reform fear a “King Bibi” who has defected from the secular elite and the political center to form an

ideologically aligned right-wing government that prioritizes traditional Jewish values over more liberal and progressive philosophies. Supporters of the reform fear a Supreme Court that has asserted itself as a self-appointed oligarchy over the elected branches of government.

Israel’s right wing sees the country as ultimately standing alone, both in the region and on the global stage. It views Israel as a nationalist entity with firm sovereign rights in Judea and Samaria — a nation that must maintain strong borders and serves as a protectorate of Jewish traditions.

Israel’s left wing sees the state as an extension of Western Europe on the Eastern Me diterranean that fosters a secular and liberal haven, encourages progressive expressions, and serves as the incubator for a startup economy.

With traditional Jewish values clashing with new progressive norms in Western societies — and polarized governments and their media outlets the new normal in democratic nations — the differing worldviews have been highlighted in the battle between a right-wing government and a left-wing court.

Need for co-existence

Yet the truth is that both the composition and the idea of Israel aren’t one reality or the other. They exist as a complex balance of worldviews that must find a way to continue to co-exist. And while fragile, the balance has lasted until now with dynamic results. Yet increasingly, too many of Israel’s leaders see the nation through limited lenses. For the judicial reform crisis to dissolve, at least one side, if not both, will be forced to compromise. For the moment, a bitter crisis ensues with the historic passage of an overdue reform. PJC

Alex Traiman is CEO and Jerusalem Bureau Chief of Jewish News Syndicate where this first appeared. This piece has been edited for length. To read the full article, go to pittsburghjewishchronicle.org.

Shame on Summer Lee

So Summer Lee was only one of nine votes against a resolution that read “The State of Israel is not a racist or apartheid state, Congress rejects all forms of antisemitism and xenophobia, and the United States will always be a staunch partner and supporter of Israel,” a resolution that had 412 votes in favor (“Summer Lee votes ‘no’ on resolution backing Israel,” online July 19, this issue Page 7).

And yet she claims to “represent” a district that includes Squirrel Hill and its large Jewish population.

Shame on her, and I hope that every Jew who voted for her will reconsider their vote when she faces the voters again in the next congressional election.

Michael Roteman Pittsburgh

‘Buyer’s remorse’ for electing Summer Lee?

I wonder if the Jewish voters who gave Rep. Summer Lee (D-PA) their support in the last election are now feeling “buyer’s remorse” after yet another House vote in which she voted, together with the members of the Squad, NOT to reject the calling of Israel a “racist state” (“Summer Lee votes ‘no’ on resolution backing Israel,” online July 19, this issue Page 7). This characterization was made by Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA), but even she walked it back — albeit after a firestorm of protests. But not Rep. Lee, who was among nine representatives who voted against the resolution (412-9-1). I recommend that all in her district write to Rep. Lee and tell her that her fringe progressive views on Israel do not represent your own on proudly supporting the state of Israel.

Eli Seidman Squirrel Hill

Don’t ‘bite the hand that feeds you’

There has been an outpouring of comments and concern raised regarding the recent Health Department inspection at Murray Avenue Kosher (“Consumer alert posted at Murray Avenue Kosher,” July 14).

It is a family-run business that has been the keystone of the kosher market in Pittsburgh for decades. It is not in this position because it has some sort of monopoly on the market (it doesn’t —there are numerous other options for kosher food and meat including Costco, Giant Eagle, Trader Joe’s and countless online retailers), but rather because in a city with a relatively small demand for kosher food, it has consistently been creative in keeping a fresh variety of every kosher essential, and much more. All that, while keeping prices comparable with cities such as New York and Chicago — and sometimes even beating the prices of the larger kosher markets.

Please see Letters, page 16

We invite you to submit letters for publication. Letters must include name, address and daytime phone number; addresses and phone numbers will not be published. Letters may not exceed 500 words and may be edited for length and clarity; they cannot be returned. Mail or email letters to:

Letters to the editor via email: letters@pittsburghjewishchronicle.org

Address: Pittsburgh Jewish Chronicle

5915 Beacon St., 5th Flr., Pittsburgh, PA 15217

Website address: pittsburghjewishchronicle.org/letters-to-the-editor

Life & Culture

Ravioli with shiitake mushrooms and sundried tomatoes

— FOOD —

By Jessica Grann | Special to the Chronicle

On my quest for simple dinners, I came across a well-loved recipe from my sister that is similar to the one I am sharing now but instead uses butter and heavy cream. Since I’ve been cooking healthier food, I adapted the recipe to use olive oil and added some vegetables to balance out the pasta.

You can take store-bought, frozen cheese ravioli and make a dinner that tastes gourmet in no time. The flavor in this savory dish is unreal!

It is hard for me to pinpoint which element I like the best, but the mushrooms and roasted pine nuts pull all of the ingredients together beautifully.

Ingredients

Makes 3-4 servings

1 bag of frozen cheese ravioli, precooked per the instructions on the label

⅓ cup toasted pine nuts

Half a sweet onion, diced

4-6 tablespoons olive oil, divided

2 cups shiitake mushrooms, stemmed and sliced

3 cups fresh, washed spinach

2 cloves garlic, roughly chopped

¼ cup chopped sundried tomatoes

A round half-teaspoon of sea salt

4-5 turns of fresh ground pepper

½ cup crumbled feta cheese

This meal can be prepared in less than a half-hour.

Fill a large pot with water for the ravioli and boil.

Cook the ravioli per the instructions on the package.

While the water is boiling, cook the other ingredients, so you can scoop the cooked ravioli out of the water when they are ready and quickly add them to the pot of vegetables.

In a small sauté pan, add raw pine nuts and toast them over very low heat, stirring constantly. If they begin to brown after a minute, raise the heat slightly but don’t walk away. Cooking time varies depending on your pan, so this step could take less than 2 minutes. The nuts are delicate and burn easily. When they are ready, pour them into another dish so that they don’t continue to cook in the pan. If yours are blackened, throw them away and start again.

Dice half an onion and add it to a medium-sized pot with 2 tablespoons of olive oil. Sauté over medium-low heat for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Wash, stem and slice 2 cups of shiitake mushrooms. Shiitakes add both flavor and substance to vegetarian meals. Add them to the pot of onions and cook for another 10 minutes, stirring occasionally. The onion or mushrooms should not brown — you’re simply softening them to bring out the best flavor. You may want to add another tablespoon or two of oil at this point so that the mushrooms are well-coated.

When the mushrooms are tender but firm, stir in the fresh spinach and allow it to cook down for a few minutes.

Add the chopped garlic (I suggest chopping it as opposed to mincing it — the flavor is more subtle in this kind of dish). Stir the garlic into the vegetables for 2 minutes.

Add the salt and chopped sundried tomatoes and allow it to cook for another minute or two.

Add half of the pine nuts.

Scoop the ravioli from the pot and gently stir them into the sauce. Ravioli float to the top of the water when cooked, so use a strainer to remove them from the pot, then remove the pot from the heat.

Add olive oil if you think it’s needed. There should be a nice amount of oil in the pot, but the ravioli should not be dripping in it.

Garnish with feta cheese and the remaining pine nuts, either in the main pot or on individual plates.

I love putting the warm ravioli over a bed of fresh spinach. Adding some cucumber and tomato will make a beautiful meal. The ravioli will slightly wilt the spinach that is directly under it, but most of the salad will remain fresh.

The oil from the ravioli and vegetables will coat the salad, so there is no need for added dressing.

Enjoy and bless your hands! PJC

Jessica Grann is a home chef living in Pittsburgh.

 Ravioli with shiitake mushrooms and sundried tomatoes

Photo by Jessica Grann

Our experience at the Early Childhood Development Center has been fantastic.

I think the thing that stands out the most is we feel like our child is being put into the hands of people who care for her and love her as much as her own parents, and that is an incredible gift.

Schedule

pittsburghgives.org/jccpittsburgh

Alisa & Jonah Paul

Screening of ‘Murray Avenue’ documentary showcases old haunts, familiar faces

By Adam Reinherz | Staff Writer

Forty years ago, Sheila Chamovitz made a movie about Squirrel Hill because the neighborhood was changing. After Chamovitz finished filming, the community changed. Then it changed again and then it stayed the same.

The irony of revisiting a place that alters, adapts and yet remains familiar, Chamovitz, 77, told the Chronicle, is that “it’s like coming home.”

Thanks to Pittsburgh Sound + Image, an organization committed to film preservation, screenings and education, interested viewers can glean that sense and see Chamovitz’s 1983 cinematic elegy, “Murray Avenue: A Community in Transition,” on July 28 at Eberle Studios. The free screening, which also features her 1987 film “Skokie: Rights or Wrong,” is a chance to watch both documentaries in their original 16 mm format.

“I would say it was a crisper better image, but that may not be true now. I mean movies have evolved,” Chamovitz said with a laugh. Watching the two films, which total less than an hour, in their original format on a big screen is “just fun for me.”

Longtime Pittsburghers and city newcomers will enjoy the films, too. Though many of

Letters:

Chamovitz’s interviewees, like Marianne Silberman and Rabbi Bernard Poupko, are deceased, the movie’s eponymous street remains and its current inhabitants’ behavior — whether greeting passersby, checking in on neighbors or gossiping — is similar to what transpired 40 years ago.

“Things change and they stay the same,” the filmmaker said.

But Chamovitz wasn’t certain of that when she picked up her camera in 1981. At the time, she aimed to capture a vanishing world: On April 6, Silberberg’s Bakery closed. Eight months later, Federman & Fogel Butcher Shop closed. Before the year was up, Marc Haber — then 25 — bought Murray Avenue Newsstand from Eddie Millstone, who had operated the store for 31 years.

“These were places that I went to regularly — they were my regular haunts — I knew the people that owned them, and when they were going out of business, I was very sad. So I filmed it as best I could,” she said.

What Chamovitz documented were

immigrants, Holocaust survivors, community members — people who, whether shochets, bakers or newspaper brokers, filled the tapestry of Squirrel Hill.

These people were “characters,” Chamovitz said. They had personality, were funny and made raising a family in Squirrel Hill all the more memorable.

“I think in Squirrel Hill and many longstanding neighborhoods, particularly ethnic ones, there is a sense that everybody is responsible for everybody else in a big way. If a kid falls off a bike in front of my house, I pick him up, I bring him into my house, I clean off his knees and I call his mother,” Chamovitz said. “I think anybody would do that, and I think they would do that now.”

Although much has changed from when Chamovitz filmed Poupko entering Murray Avenue Newsstand and buying what he called his “Yiddish paper: The New York Times,” Chamovitz believes the community remains remarkably similar all these years later.

“I named it ‘Murray Avenue: A Community

— LETTERS —

Continued from page 13

If you were ever in the food industry, you’d know that it’s rare for a Health Department inspection not to find any issues of concern. The fact that MAK had more than just one issue noted, and some that seemed worrisome to many, is simply an indication that corrections need to be made. Any suggestions of carelessness is speculative at best. Knowing the owners, I’d venture to say it’s sloppy speculation. They are nothing but honorable, caring and understanding, and I am confident that they will take whatever corrective measures are necessary.

If you have a good suggestion, instead of stomping on a family-run business and essential community resource while it’s down, pick up the phone and offer your assistance.

If you think you can do it better yourself, it’s a free market — take a shot at it. But think long and hard before you bite the hand that feeds you.

Rabbi Henoch Rosenfeld Squirrel Hill Palestinian Authority must stop abusing youth

Your article about Israeli President Isaac Herzog’s speech to Congress quoted him as saying, “The younger generation of Israelis and Palestinians deserve better. They are all worthy of a future to look towards, a future of peace and prosperity.” (“In speech to Congress,

in Transition’ but I don’t think that’s a great name for it. I think it should be ‘Pittsburgh’s Jewish Community’ because it does feel not unlike what it would feel like if I’m walking down that street today,” the current Oakland resident said. “I would see people I know, they would ask how my children were, they would ask how my brother-in-law was. Everybody is in everybody else’s business. It’s an extended family.”

Though Chamovitz is pleased another generation can see her work on July 28, the film’s had many screenings over the years, she explained.

“‘Murray Avenue’ got shown all over the place for a long time. I always thought these people in North Dakota must have thought we came from another planet. But I don’t think they did when I think about it. I think they were looking at their community and what community gives us: the intimacy, the security, the shelter.”

“That is lost in many places,” Chamovitz continued. “I think part of the magic of Squirrel Hill is that people are here and they stay. It stays pretty much the same.” PJC

Adam Reinherz can be reached at areinherz@pittsburghjewishchronicle.org.

“Murray Avenue: A Community in Transition” and “Skokie: Rights or Wrong” are part of Essential Pittsburgh: Sheila Chamovitz, at Eberle Studios, 229 E. Ninth Ave., Homestead, PA 15120 on July 28 from 8-9:30 p.m. Tickets are available at pghsoundandimage.com.

Herzog lauds strong judiciary, says democracy in Israel’s DNA,” online July 21).

President Herzog was absolutely right. Young Israelis deserve to grow up in a world where they are not murdered for the “crime” of being Jews. In just the past few days, Palestinian Arab terrorists stabbed a young Israeli man 20 times in the Jerusalem neighborhood of Gilo, attempted to run over a group of young Israeli soldiers near Sebastia and seriously injured a young Israeli shepherd near the town of Nahaliel.

And young Palestinian Arabs deserve better, too. They deserve to grow up in a world where their government, the Palestinian Authority, doesn’t name streets, parks and sports tournaments after terrorists. Where their schools don’t teach them that the highest goal in life is “martyrhood,” to be achieved by dying while killing Jews. And where their summer camps do not consist of paramilitary training and skits about kidnapping and murdering Jews. At the 2005 AIPAC Policy Conference, then-Sen. Hillary Clinton said that the Palestinian Authority was trying to “create a new generation of terrorists” through its summer camps. “Using children as pawns in a political process is tantamount to child abuse, and we must say it has to end now,” Clinton said, emphasizing that PA chairman Mahmoud Abbas “must be held accountable.”

President Herzog and Sen. Clinton were right. But will the international community ever heed their words, and compel the PA to stop abusing Palestinian Arab children?

Stephen M. Flatow New York, New York

— FILM —

p Stills from “Murray Avenue: A Community in Transition”

Photos courtesy of Pittsburgh Sound + Image

“I think part of the magic of Squirrel Hill is that people are here and they stay. It stays pretty much the same.”

–SHEILA CHAMOVITZ

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Birth

It is with great joy that Eden and Gregory Tabor of Boca Raton, Florida, announce the arrival of their daughter, Avery Sutton Tabor, on Feb. 28, 2023. Avery is the sister of Myles Hunter Tabor. Avery is the granddaughter of Susie and Mark Tabor of Boca Raton, Florida, formerly of Pittsburgh and Robin and the late Mark Hirsch of Albertson, New York. Avery is the great-granddaughter of the late Jane (Hantman) and Bruce Gilbert, formerly of Pittsburgh and Boca Raton, Florida, the late Adeline (Gruber) and Harry Tabor, formerly of Pittsburgh and Boca Raton, Florida, the late Sara (Klempner) and George Targum of Little Neck, New York, and the late Beatrice (Bloch) and Leo Hirsch of Lido, New York. Avery is named in loving memory of her late great-grandmothers Adeline (Gruber) Tabor and Sara (Klempner) Targum.

Wedding

Reesa and Joel Rosenthal proudly announce the recent marriage of their daughter, Laura, to Rick Guido, son of Noreen and Rick Guido of Sewell, New Jersey. Laura is the granddaughter of the late Daniel and Estelle (Tauberg) Rosenthal and the late Leonard and Frances Trachtenberg. Rick is the grandson of the late Bernard and Anna Guido, and the late Joseph and Alice Keough. The wedding took place at Brandywine Manor House in West Brandywine Township, Pennsylvania, with Laura’s cousin Leslie Binder officiating. After a honeymoon to Lisbon and Madeira, Portugal, the couple will continue to reside in Philadelphia. PJC

The Shema as a guide

have forever been a student of our liturgy, finding my greatest inspiration in the sounds of Jewish music and prayer. I remember even as a kid finding great solace in the rhythm and comfort of the Hebrew, reciting it to myself as a wellknown mantra. This week’s portion, Va’etchanan, is perhaps the most connected to our daily liturgy, with the words of the Shema and continuation into the first paragraph of the V’ahavta marking the framework of our days. Some of us treat these words as a meditation to begin and end the day, perhaps covering our eyes, focusing on the meaning of the words. The words of Shema are also to be the last words someone is to speak — or hear, if unable speak— at the point of death. They are words connected to the timeline of our lives. And, I think solemnly that these were the words that the journalist Daniel Pearl spoke and held fast to before he was tragically killed.

and enlightenment. The latter is not always an easy path, but one we must tread to stay connected to the present. I recently learned that scientists have found that when we travel and experience that which is outside our daily norm, our brains are actively rewired. Challenging our minds to see things in a new way keeps us alive and strengthens us.

The V’ahavta notes that we shall bind these words as a sign upon our hand and a symbol between our eyes. While some read this as literal instruction and symbolize this through the wearing of tefillin, I cherish the idea that these are words that guide us to hold true to our values as we employ them physically, mentally and spiritually. For many years, I have happily taught my students to not only sing the Shema, but also how to sign it in American Sign Language. When using sign language, one can choose and interpret the words that best suit the meaning of what one is trying to say. It is often the practice to sign the word “Shema” not as “to hear or listen,” but as the sign for “focus.” The Shema carries much broader meaning in guiding us in our lives if we find

What is it about the Shema that grounds us? It takes us back to some of our earliest Jewish memories, and even for those who chose Judaism at a later point in their lives, these are the words said to mark that moment when they officially entered into the covenant. As a cantor, I am often focused on creating prayer experiences which balance the comfort of ritual, using familiar melodies and connecting congregants with something that fulfills their set expectations, alongside the idea of pushing those same participants toward new, innovative paths of spirituality

the focus it aims us toward.

It is fitting that the Shema arrives in the final book of the Torah. It holds the weight of the experience of our people, and became the center point of our prayer, holding in its words the very essence of our experience with the divine in the past, present and hopeful future. PJC

Cantor David Reinwald is the cantor of Temple Sinai. This column is a service of the Greater Pittsburgh Jewish Clergy Association.

The Shema carries much broader meaning in guiding us in our lives if we find the focus it aims us toward.

Cantor David Reinwald Parshat Va’etchanan Deuteronomy 3:23 – 7:11

Obituaries

JACOBS: Sandra K. Jacobs, of Pittsburgh, passed away peacefully on July 18, 2023, in Boynton Beach, Florida, after a brief illness. She was the daughter of Bess and Herman Kaufmann. Sandy earned her undergraduate degree from the University of Pittsburgh, and her master’s degree from Duquesne University. She retired from the Pittsburgh Public School System after over 30 years of devoted teaching. She and her husband also successfully owned and managed several apartment rental properties. Sandy enjoyed photography, singing while playing the guitar, performing in plays, playing games, spending time with family and friends, caring for pets and traveling. She volunteered at hospitals as a certified therapy clown to cheer up sick children. She was president of her local Hadassah chapter. She was a wonderful friend whose brave spirit and teachings will live on in all who had the pleasure to have known her. Sandy is survived by her loving husband, Ronald Jacobs, of 60 years; children Heather, Brian and Neal (Marlene) Jacobs; grandchildren Brooke, Reuben, Aaron and Nathan; sister-in-law Beverly Kaufmann. She was predeceased by her youngest son Arthur; brother Carl Kaufmann; sister Eileen Cooper (Danny). Please make memorial contributions Hadassah or St. Jude Children’s Hospital.

METLIKA: Lois Ash Metlika, 86 years old, passed away on July 20, 2023, in Jacksonville, Florida. Lois, “Libby,” originally from Pittsburgh, moved to Miami, Florida, when she was in her early 20s. In 1993, she moved to Jacksonville, Florida, to be closer to her family. Libby remained part of the “Steeler Nation” her whole life. She watched every game she could, waving her “Terrible Towel.” Some of her favorite things included cruises, horse racing, telling stories of her childhood in Squirrel Hill, chatting with friends on Facebook, the Hallmark Channel, and British television and movies. In 2013 she traveled throughout England where she toured all the places she only dreamed of seeing her whole life. It was a trip of a lifetime and one of the happiest times of her life. Lois is predeceased by her parents, William and Sadie Ash, her sisters, Esther, Ruth, Rebecca and Sarah, and her brother Emanual. She is survived by her children, Mark (Fran), Brian (Cindy), Jodi (Ira) and Andrea, her five grandchildren, two great-grandchildren and her brother Irv. In lieu of flowers, the family asks that you make a donation to the Mayo Clinic, Jacksonville.

RICHMAN: Irwin “Unc” Richman, of Pikesville, Maryland, passed away on Monday, July 17, 2023, at the age of 84. He is survived by his dear sister, Francine (late William) Harvie; loving nieces and nephews, Andrea (Bruce) Hyatt, Stephen (Beth) Harvie, Jim (Trish) Harvie and Melissa Eisenberg; loving niece and nephew-in-law, Gloria Frank and Jeff Simon; adored great-nieces and nephews, Alicia Harvie, Matthew Harvie, Jared (Sarah) Scheff, Ross Hyatt, Alexandra Hyatt, Gregory (Taylor) Eisenberg, Casey Eisenberg, Brett Eisenberg, Amanda (Gavin) Mahoney, Justin Harvie, Rebecca Simon, Aaron Frank and Erica Frank; and cherished great-great-nieces and -nephew, Maya Scheff, Savannah Frank and Ari Eisenberg. Unc was predeceased by his beloved sister Zaneta Frank; parents, Shirley and Samuel Richman; and dear niece and nephew, Paul Frank and Joyce Simon. Irwin taught for numerous decades at Hebbville Elementary School, where he was beloved by all of his students. He was “Unc” to all the neighborhood kids on Janvale Road. He will be dearly missed by all those who were blessed to know him. Services were held at Beth Shalom Cemetery on Sunday, July 23, 2023, at 12:00 p.m. Contributions in his memory may be sent to Hebbville Elementary School, 3335 Washington Ave, Windsor Mill, MD 21244; or Taylor Allderdice High School, 2409 Shady Ave, Pittsburgh, PA 15217.

SHUTZBERG: Carol Closky Shutzberg, of Alpharetta, Georgia, passed away peacefully on July 18, 2023, at the age of 89. Born in Pittsburgh, Carol was an avid antique dealer for more than 30 years. If she wasn’t at local antique shows, she was searching flea markets and estate sales looking to acquire her prized possessions. Carol loved to travel and to spend time with her friends and family. She was predeceased by her loving husband of 49 years, Morris “Moe” Shutzberg. Carol is survived by her children, Lori of Pittsburgh, Lenny (Marianne) and Michael of Atlanta, and Larry (Jody) of Memphis. She also leaves behind six grandchildren: Kevin, Andrew, Alison, Abby, Rebecca and Jessica Shutzberg. Graveside services and interment will be held on Aug. 7, 2023, at 11 a.m. at Beth Shalom Cemetery in Pittsburgh. Memorial gifts can be made to the charity of one’s choice. Arrangements entrusted to Ralph Schugar Chapel, Inc., family owned and operated. schugar.com

Please see Obituaries, page 20

Jewish Association on Aging gratefully acknowledges contributions from the following: A gift from ... In memory of...

Anonymous

Pauline Dobkin

Arlene B Fogel

Arlene B Fogel

Dorisgayle Gladstone

Edward M Goldston Sam Goldston

Irwin Goldston Max Goldston

Nathaniel S Pirchesky

Charlotte & Evan Reader

Galler

Kwall

Robert Rosenstein Harry Silverstein

Eileen E Snider & Family Myron Snider

Sharon Snider Myron Snider

Dr Susan Snider & Family Myron Snider

Yvonne & Barry L Stein

Thall

Sunday July 30: Bess Baker, Marilyn Brody, Meyer Coon, Samuel Finkelstein, Meyer I Grinberg, Irwin “Ike” Kitman, Blanche Labovitz, Albert H Levenson, Dorothy Levine, Emil Mendlow, Jean Ostfield, Dr Herman Pink, Hermina Schwartz, Harriet Taper, Benjamin H Tauberg, Stuart D Weinbaum, Lillian Wells

Monday July 31: Morris Chetlin, Ida Daly, Miriam Friedlander, Bruce Robert Gordon, Max Harris, Sylvia G Levine, Morris Linder, Ida Match, Jacob Mazer, Pearl C Numer, Charles Olinsky, Goldie Faleder Recht, William Myer Rose, Simon Jacob Rosenthal, Reuben C Solomon, Leonard Stein, Tsivia Topaz Sussman, Ray Weiner Wesosky, Florine K Wolk, Benjamin I Young, Harry N Zeligman

Tuesday August 1: Sam Baker, Harry Davidson, George Freeman, Paul Allen Friedlander, Ruthe Glick, Sophia Mintz Latkin, Benjamin D Lazar, Tillye Shaffer Malyn, Mary Perilman, Margaret Racusin, Reva Rebecca Reznick, Katie Share, Ethel K Stept, Cora M Strauss, Morton A Zacks

Wednesday August 2: Anna R Brill, Sam Friedman, Sam Goldston, Mitzi Davis Marcus, Belrose Marcus, Samuel Morris, Samuel Natterson, Phillip Nesvisky, Jacob Pearl, Nathan Rosen, Mayme S Roth, Earl Schugar, S Milton Schwartz, Becie Sokoler

Thursday August 3: Esther Bennett, Dr Simon Berenfield, J Richard Bergad, Frances Cartiff, Bertha Feldman, Solomon Kramer, Beverly Lebovitz, Abraham Leibowitz, Rose Lipser, Benjamin Plotkin, Samuel Sidney Sakol

Friday August 4: Jacob Friedman, Gilbert Murray Gerber, Helen Goldberg, Diana D Gordon, Robert Green, Anna Greenberg, Morris H Hirschfield, Herman Jacobs, Rae Labovitz, Morris Lebovitz, Robert Shapiro, Ruth F Zeligman

Saturday August 5: Sarah Bales, Adam Chotiner, Abraham Endich, Anna Friedman, Anna Friedman, Rose H Green, Eva Greenberg, Rebecca Gusky, Annetta Marks Horwitz, Marvin Klein, Isadore Mandelblatt, Tzivia Marbach, Milton Morris, Anna R Rosenbloom, Freda Barnett Safier, Cecilia Selkovits, Eleanor Ruth Simon, Louis A Skeegan, Myron Snider, Earle S Thall, Harry Winsberg, Esther M Wyner, Harry Zerelstein

Continued from page 19

ZOFFER: H.J. “Jerry Zoffer,” Ph.D., the dean of the University of Pittsburgh’s Katz School of Business for 28 years from 1968 to 1996 and a member of the faculty for 67 years until his retirement in 2020, died peacefully on July 22, 2023, surrounded by family. It was a day short of his 93rd birthday. During Dr. Zoffer’s long tenure as dean, the Katz School surged in its offerings and its renown, taking its place among the highest ranked business schools in the country; re-establishing an undergraduate business college; inaugurating a dedicated building on the former site of Forbes Field; entering into innovative partnerships in the 1980s and 1990s with the International Management Center in Budapest and the Czech Management Center in Prague; and establishing several new dual-degree programs with other faculties at Pitt. In 2016, Pitt’s business school established the H.J. Zoffer Chair of Leadership and Ethics to honor his long and distinguished years of service in teaching, administration, and research and writing. Dr. Zoffer’s career in academia and business was marked by numerous leadership positions and accolades. In 1986 he was selected as Man of the Year in Education by Vectors-Pittsburgh. He was president both of the American Association of University Administrations (AAUA) and of the American Assembly of Collegiate Schools of Business, after serving in a variety of board and committee leadership positions in both organizations. He also served on the board of directors of Oliver Realty, Penn Traffic Company, Eckstein Company, Pennwood Savings Bank, Red Bull Inns of America, various Emerald Funds (Growth, Bank and Finance, and Technology), and The Enterprise Corporation. Dr. Zoffer was the author of a number of articles and books on subjects as diverse as individual and group decision-making under risk, the social responsibility of business, continuing education for managers, business ethics, corporate risk analysis, accounting education, and improving institutional credibility. His articles have been published in such journals as Management Review, Academy of Management Review, Management Accounting, the Journal of General Management, and Corporate Governance. Dr. Zoffer gave generously of his time and talents as well to the broader community, serving as a board member to various civic organizations, including his religious congregation Temple Sinai of Pittsburgh (where he is a past president), the Three Rivers Arts Festival, the Travelers Aid Society of Pittsburgh, the Epilepsy Foundation of America (Allegheny chapter), the David Berg Foundation and the University Club of Pittsburgh (where he is a past president). Those who know Dr. Zoffer personally and professionally will recognize him as having immense joie de vivre and being tireless in his pursuit of professional excellence, faithful service to the community, and the well-being and enjoyment of his family and friends. He was an avid collector of art and a devoted patron of the performing arts, including the Pittsburgh symphony, ballet and opera, and theater in New York. He is survived by his children Gayle (David MacNaughton) of Minneapolis and Bill (Caryn Zimmerman) of Chapel Hill; his brother Joseph of Pittsburgh; his beloved grandchildren Josh, Emily and Mollie; his longtime partner Sorel Berman; and many dearly loved nieces, nephews and cousins in different generations. His wife, Maye Rattner Zoffer, pre-deceased him. Funeral services were held Wednesday, July 26, 2023, at Ralph Schugar Chapel, Inc. Interment New Light Cemetery in Shaler Township (750 Soose Rd; Pittsburgh, PA 15209). In lieu of flowers, the family suggests contributions to the University of Pittsburgh General Scholarship Fund or to Temple Sinai of Pittsburgh (templesinaipgh.org/donation). schugar.com PJC

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EXECUTIVE

The Pittsburgh Jewish Chronicle is seeking a dynamic, creative and innovative sales professional with proven success. You will have myriad opportunities to earn an income that increases with every sale you make.

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We value a culture of collaboration and professional and personal growth for all team members.

If you feel strongly that you could contribute to our team, and thrive in a fun, fast-paced atmosphere, we encourage you to submit your cover letter and resume to jobs@pittsburghjewishchronicle.org. Please include “Account Executive” in the subject line. No phone calls.

The Pittsburgh Jewish Chronicle is an Equal Opportunity Employer.

Life & Culture

There was a mass exodus to Threads. Is Jewish Twitter staying behind?

— SOCIAL MEDIA —

By Louis Keene | The Forward

One Saturday night a few years ago, Rabbi Dovid Bashevkin tweeted a picture of the book he had been reading that day. The idea was simply to recommend it, but a few of his followers replied with their own Saturday reading material.

“I read this on Shabbos” caught fire as a meme, then a trend, and finally a feature of Jewish Twitter, the community that kibbitzes and kvetches about Jewish life in 280 characters or less. Some caption their posts in the non-Ashkenazi manner: “I read this on Shabbat,” not Shabbos. But to Bashevkin, this was Twitter at its best. The app wove a tapestry from many different Jewish threads.

“Twitter serves as this place where we can kind of pass notes across the mechitza,” Bashevkin, 38, said, referring to the physical barrier between men and women in some synagogues. “Normally in the Jewish world we have these boundaries — important boundaries — but it was a place where it was appropriate to interact with those from outside of your community and almost build friendships.”

Now Bashevkin and others who have built Jewish Twitter are testing Meta’s Threads.

Going Meta

They’ve got some of the same reasons everyone else has for hoping that Meta, the company that gave us Facebook and Instagram, has come up with a better alternative to Twitter. And some particularly Jewish ones, too.

Under Elon Musk, who acquired Twitter in October 2022, Twitter has suffered numerous technical headaches, restored legions of banned accounts and seemed to promote known agitators. Antisemitism on Twitter has spiked. He fired the entire team of moderators who policed hate on the platform.

Fed up, some Jewish users quit Twitter weeks before Threads existed. More than 100 million users signed up in Threads’ first week, the company said.

But though bigotry and obnoxiousness may

Immigrants:

not be thriving the same way on Threads, Jewish users I spoke to are having a hard time finding a home there, at least one similar to the one they had on Twitter. Bashevkin was one of several Jewish Twitter personalities who said they would not be switching to Threads, even as they admitted Twitter had changed for the worse.

The site could be toxic, spam-filled and a drain on mental health, but they believed the future of Jewish Twitter was, well, on Twitter.

Trying Threads

Bashevkin, the director of education at NCSY (formerly known as the National Conference of Synagogue Youth), opened a Threads account shortly after its July 5 debut.

He did not last long there. After “threading” twice, he ditched the platform, describing himself as “philosophically opposed.” He has amassed 24,000 Twitter followers, and is prepared to go down with the ship. If it does ultimately sink (it struggles with heavy debt and ad revenue has nearly halved since Musk took over), Bashevkin said he would take a hiatus from social media.

Others continued threading in spite of their doubts about the new platform.

Avital Levene, who goes by the Jewish Meme Queen on Twitter, where she posts Jewish humor for about 9,000 followers, adopted a similar username on Threads and has been posting there a couple times a day.

So far, she said, it’s “a Twitter wannabe place,” lacking many of the features that facilitate community building on that app, like hashtags, direct messages and search.

Lack of community

More importantly, she said, it’s missing many of the people she likes following on Jewish Twitter, especially like-minded Orthodox Jews. She noted that Threads made it easy to create an account through Instagram, but also observed that some Orthodox Jews, especially Orthodox men, don’t seem to engage much with Instagram and are therefore less likely to migrate.

“The majority of people on Twitter just do Twitter — that’s their entertainment, that’s their outlet and they stick with it,” Levene, 25, said. “They don’t have time for TikTok

and Instagram and Facebook and the like.”

Since Musk took over at Twitter, Levene says she’s noticed an uptick in antisemitic troll accounts, and that many of the hateful comments she reports don’t get taken down. But overall, her experience on Twitter was still one of civility, at least in Jewish spaces. The community polices itself. People tend to shout down those who are cruel. And the trolls, she said, “you just have to block out.”

And in spite of Musk’s reluctance to crack down on even some of the most intolerant voices on the platform, tolerance prevails on Orthodox Twitter, Levene said, which she believed was the product of a more educated user base than Instagram’s — and a smaller one. She predicted that the dominant voice in the Orthodox corner of Threads would be more reactionary because that’s the tone she encounters on Orthodox Instagram.

“Instagram is just more toxic,” she said. “There are too many people who are closeminded on there. On Twitter, the liberal Jews really have more of a voice.”

The people remain the product

In a way, the advent of Twitter rivals — not just Threads, but also Bluesky and Mastodon — highlighted Twitter’s best features. Jewish Twitter users had made memories, connections and careers on the app — and whatever remained of those possibilities made Twitter worth enduring.

Emily Tamkin, a journalist and author

of Bad Jews, noted that Musk’s decision to overhaul blue-check verification made the app harder to use. Other technical difficulties have throttled the site since Musk took over — sporadic outages, “rate limits” and an influx of spambots.

None of those headaches compared to a much older scourge: the nastiness its users often displayed toward each other. Tamkin said she thought Twitter’s architecture enabled that behavior.

And yet: On the same website she had turned many online friends into real-life ones, built a following of 20,000 and met her husband.

Not all Twitter’s fault

“While there were days that I was like, I’m so angry about this tweet, it’s also brought a lot into my life,” Tamkin said.

Reflecting on her marriage’s origin in a Twitter direct message about an article she had written — the correspondence eventually produced a coffee date — she said the first inperson interactions with her future husband worked because “there was a sense you already knew each other.”

Now she wondered if social media’s moment as a site of civil discourse had passed entirely. Twitter had swapped its meritocracy for a system that up-ranks anyone who pays $8 per month. And she didn’t see Meta caring about fostering any kind of discourse at all. One of the reasons Tamkin said she had not created a Threads account was that she feared its algorithms were more likely to surface brands and influencers than accounts you actually follow.

Meanwhile, most people I spoke to agreed that Twitter’s worst feature — the nastiness — was probably endemic to social media in general.

“It was never about the platform,” said Bashevkin, the NCSY educator. “It was us. It was us the whole time.” PJC

Louis Keene is a staff reporter at the Forward covering religion, sports and the West Coast.

This article was originally published on the Forward. To get the Forward’s free email newsletters delivered to your inbox, go to forward.com/newsletter-signup.

Continued from page 5

in Cleveland, working in furniture repair.

By 1900, they had moved their nine children to Chicora, Pennsylvania, near Butler. They started the Pittsburg General Store and soon opened a second branch in nearby Kaylor.

Their oldest son, William Horwitz, worked in the family store before starting his own junk business. Butler was experiencing an oil boom, and he shrewdly converted his junk business into an oil field supplies company called Keystone Pipe & Supply Co.

By the end of World War I, Keystone Pipe & Supply had become one of the largest oil field suppliers in Butler and was eager to expand. The company bought more property in Butler but also made a key strategic decision to open a branch in Texas.

William sent his younger brother Isadore to Fort Worth in May 1919. A few months later, their brother Al Horwitz started a branch of the business in Wichita Falls. This stunned me.

Some 30 years later, Al’s nephew Billy Morgenstern came to Wichita Falls from Ashland, Ohio, looking for help breaking into the Texas oil patch. He married a local gal named Rita Belle Oberndorfer, and they had four daughters, one of whom is my mother.

The closer I got to the letter, the closer it got to me. What was first a national story became a regional and communal story and then a surprisingly personal story. In a few handwritten sentences, Horwitz explained how my family came into existence — not only the specific decisions leading one to the

next but also the guiding philosophy. And as a result of this closeness, the letter suddenly felt much farther away. Whatever conclusions I wanted to draw about the experiences of the many Jewish immigrants who prioritized small-town success over big-city community felt much safer when those people were anonymous to me. As family, I was talking about my cousins. It was a useful reminder. Every broad conversation we have about national issues is also about actual individual people whose full experience we might never fully know. PJC

Eric Lidji is the director of the Rauh Jewish Archives at the Heinz History Center. He can be reached at rjarchives@heinzhistorycenter. org or 412-454-6406.

p Elon Musk in 2022 Air Force photo by Trevor Cokley, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

p Detail from memorial board at Congregation B’nai Abraham in Butler, Pennsylvania, listing yarhzeit information for congregants Louis, Temma, William and Dora Horwitz Image courtesy of the Rauh Jewish Archives

Community

The air up there

Squirrel Hill resident Howard Rieger led a town hall meeting regarding Pittsburgh’s air quality. The July 18 Zoom event, which featured comments from local physicians and climate activists, was titled, “Why are AHN & UPMC Silent While People Die?”

Keeping cool on the roof

The Friendship Circle hosted Teen Scene members for an ice cream social on the roof. Friends played games, made friendship bracelets and stayed cool with frozen treats.

Reaching new heights

Hillel

Black, yellow and Jerusalem stone

Emma

Be kind

James and Rachel Levinson Day Camp and JCC South Hills Day Camps took part in a nationwide day of promoting kindness. The July 19 celebration was held in partnership with PJ Library Pittsburgh and The Positive

Screenshot by Adam Reinherz

p The peak of friendship

Photo courtesy of The Friendship Circle of Pittsburgh

p Pittsburghers raise their flag on sacred ground. Photo courtesy of Beth Goldstein

Kaufmann Camp staff-in-training participants visited the Kotel. The teens toured the holy site and learned about the Western Wall complex.

p Always look up.

Photo courtesy of Rabbi Akiva Sutofsky

Camp visited Ascend Pittsburgh, an indoor climbing park.

p Hue wants to paint next?

Painting Project.

p Spread kindness through art. Photos courtesy of Jewish Community Center of Greater Pittsburgh

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