Great Metro West 7-9-2020

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NEW JERSEY JEWISH NEWS G R E AT E R M E T ROW E S T E D I T I O N A P U B L I C AT I O N O F T H E J E W I S H W E E K M E D I A G R O U P Vo l . LXX IV No . 2 8 | J uly 9 , 2 0 2 0 | 17 TA M M U Z 578 0 njj ew is hnews . c o m

Popularity of Israel programs spikes as Covid affects universities Students switch gears to avoid missing the ‘full’ college experience Johanna Ginsberg NJJN Senior Writer

NJJN wins multiple Rockower Awards State & Local 4

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Carl Reiner at the Emmys in 1989.

Boomers unduly affected by pandemic Opinion 13

State & Local 4 Opinion 11 Calendar/Community 14 LifeCycle 16 Touch of Torah 20 Exit Ramp 23

FLICKR

‘Humor is an angle on the truth’ Remembering the comic genius Carl Reiner Sandee Brawarsky Special to NJJN

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ditor ’s Note: The comic legend Carl Reiner, who died on June 29 at his home in Beverly Hills at the age of 98, spoke to The New York Jewish Week’s Sandee Brawarsky in 2003. We reprint the article here as a tribute to Reiner,

who wrote for Sid Caesar’s pioneering “Your Show of Shows,” created “The Dick Van Dyke Show,” and acted and produced in a career that spanned more than a half-century.

When Carl Reiner answers the door to his Manhattan apartment and leads me to his living room, I can’t help but hum the theme song to “The Dick Van Dyke Show,” half expecting that we’ll find a sunken living room. Here, there are no steps to slip on and Mary Tyler Moore is nowhere in sight. But within seconds, he makes me laugh, as he has been doing for Ameri-

Continued on page 6

onah Heimowitz had college plans until the pandemic upended them. A motivated high school student at Golda Och Academy in West Orange, he studied hard, aced his ACT exam, and was looking forward to starting the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Coronavirus Business this fall.

Now he’s tossing his syllabi and attending Young Judaea’s Year Course in Israel, a nine-month program in which high school graduates take classes, volunteer, and tour the country.

“I had time to sit and think a lot” during the pandemic, he told NJJN by phone from his home in South Orange. “It made me realize that maybe I didn’t need my life to be in such a rush.”

Similar programs in Israel are seeing an unprecedented spike in applications this year. The highest demand so far has been for gap year and internship programs, according to Ofer Gutman, acting CEO of Masa Israel Journey, who pointed out that it’s no coincidence that this is happening “as job markets tighten and universities remain closed for in-person classes around the world.”

Case in point, this week Rutgers and Princeton universities joined other institutions of higher learning in announcing their fall semester plans, which include a continuation of remote learning and reduced student capacity on campus. Like so many of Jonah’s peers, a gap year in Israel is more desirable than attending college stripped of in-person classes and a vibrant dormitory

Continued on page 8

NJ Jewish News ■ njjewishnews.com ■ July 9, 2020

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Now playing: When Eli Wed Ariella

The first time Eli Shapiro and his girlfriend Ariella Segal went to the Jericho Drive-In movie theater in rural Glenmont, N.Y., near her hometown of Albany, N.Y., a “Star Trek” movie was playing. Shapiro doesn’t remember which one.

The next time the couple went to that drive-in was more memorable. They were married there on Sunday.

Shapiro and Segal, both 29, who live in Los Angeles, met during the first week of their freshman year at New York University a decade ago. They arranged for their traditional Jewish wedding in such an untraditional setting when it became apparent a few months Newlyweds Eli Shapiro and ago that a large ceremony in May — “a Ariella Segal big hotel weekend” in her hometown — was out of the question. Guests couldn’t travel there, and large social gatherings were banned.

The wedding was postponed. Then Ariella asked Eli, “What if we get married at a drive-in movie?”

Shapiro, who grew up in West Orange and attended B’nai Shalom, immediately said yes. He is the son of Ann Hirsch and Stanley Shapiro.

The couple work in the entertainment field — he as a screenwriter, she as a content creator for an experiential marketing agency.

“We are always looking for creative ways to do things,” Shapiro told NJJN. How creative?

With bride and groom standing under a chuppah in front of the giant movie screen. With all 150 guests sitting in their cars. With the sound of the ceremony piped in over the cars’ radios. With catered kosher meals provided in boxes. With the guests honking their car horns to express their joy at the simcha during the 45-minute ceremony. With out-of-town people watching via a livestream.

Rabbi Roy Feldman, of Congregation Beth Aaron-Jacob in Albany, officiated.

After Shapiro broke the glass at the end of the ceremony, usually marking the start of spirited singing and dancing, he encouraged the guests to “dance in their cars.” Some stepped out to dance at the side of their vehicles, properly socially distanced from other celebrants.

When Shapiro and Segal went on their original date at the drive-in, their car engine died; they had to ask a stranger in a neighboring car for a jump.

No mishaps at their wedding there on Sunday, he says — no one needed a jump. — Steve Lipman/New York Jewish Week PHOTO BY TRICIA MCCORMACK PHOTOGRAPHY

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Vol. LXXIV No. 28 July 9, 2020 17 Tammuz 5780 EDITORIAL Gabe Kahn, Editor Shira Vickar-Fox, Managing Editor Lori Silberman Brauner, Deputy Managing Editor Johanna Ginsberg, Senior Staff Writer Jed Weisberger, Staff Writer Abby Meth Kanter, Editorial Adviser CONTRIBUTING WRITERS Michele Alperin, Jennifer Altmann, Max L. Kleinman, Martin J. Raffel, Merri Ukraincik, Stephen M. Flatow, Jonathan Tobin BUSINESS Nancy Greenblatt, Manager Sales/ Administration and Circulation Nancy Karpf, Senior Account Executive Steven Weisman, Account Executive Lauri Sirois, Classified Sales Supervisor/ Office Manager GRAPHIC DESIGN/DIGITAL/PRODUCTION Clarissa Hamilton, Janice Hwang, Dani Shetrit EXECUTIVE STAFF Rich Waloff, Publisher Andrew Silow-Carroll, Editor in Chief Gary Rosenblatt, Editor at Large Rob Goldblum, Managing Editor Ruth Rothseid, Sales Manager Thea Wieseltier, Director of Strategic Projects Dan Bocchino, Art Director Arielle Sheinwald, Operations Manager Gershon Fastow, Advertising Coordinator

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PUBLISHER’S STATEMENT New Jersey Jewish News, an independent voice, seeks to inform, engage and inspire its readers, covering and helping to build community.

The Greater MetroWest edition of NJJN (USPS 275-540) is published weekly by the JWMW, LLC, at 1501 Broadway, Room 505, New York, NY 10036. © 2016, NJ Jewish News. All rights reserved. • Periodical postage is paid at Whippany, NJ, and additional offices. • Postmaster: Send address changes to New Jersey Jewish News, 1719 Route 10, Suite 307, Parsippany, NJ 07054-4515. NJJN was founded as The Jewish News on Jan. 3, 1947. Member, American Jewish Press Association; subscriber to JTA. TELEPHONES/E-MAIL: Main — phone: 973739-8110, fax: 973-887-4152, e-mail: editorial@njjewishnews.com, ■ Manuscripts, letters, documents, and photographs sent to New Jersey Jewish News become the physical property of this publication, which is not responsible for the return or loss of such material.

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ADVERTISING: NJJN does not endorse the goods or services advertised in its pages and makes no representation as to the kashrut of food products and services in such advertising. The publisher shall not be liable for damages if, for any reason whatsoever, the publisher fails to publish an advertisement or for any error in an advertisement. Acceptance of advertisers and of advertising copy is subject to publisher’s approval. NJJN is not responsible if ads violate applicable laws and the advertiser will indemnify, hold harmless, and defend NJJN from all claims made by governmental agencies and consumers for any reason based on ads carried in NJJN.

NJ Jewish News ■ njjewishnews.com ■ July 9, 2020

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State&Local

NJ Jewish News ■ njjewishnews.com ■ July 9, 2020

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NJJN and New York Jewish Week combine for five journalism awards, honors First-place honors for stories on interfaith reporting and American-Jewish history

NJJN Staff Report

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he New Jersey Jewish News and its sister publication, The New York Jewish Week, combined to win three 2020 Simon Rockower Awards from the American Jewish Press Association (AJPA), as well as a pair of honorable mentions. The Rockower Awards— Jewish journalism’s highest honor — recognize achievements from the previous calendar year.

NJJN Senior Writer Johanna Ginsberg received a first-place award in the category of Excellence in American Jewish History, for “Research on ‘13 driver’s licenses’ in Germany leads to New Jersey” (Jan. 24, 2019). The story was about a group of Bavarian high school students who spent nine months tracking down de-

NJJN’s Johanna Ginsberg’s “Research on ‘13 driver’s licenses’ in Germany leads to New Jersey” earned a first-place finish in the Rockower Award category for Excellence in American Jewish History. scendants of Jewish German citizens whose drivers’ licenses — which turned up in a government office in 2017 — were confiscated

in 1938. Three of the licenses belonged to family members of a Livingston resident.

An anonymous judge who re-

viewed the entry commented: “The strongest story by far. It humanizes history and connects two peoples to their past in a presentday setting. The article is highly readable through a clear narrative and good use of detail and sources.” This was Ginsberg’s first top honor in the Rockower Awards.

Ginsberg also received a second-place finish, in the category of Excellence in Personality Profiles, for “Local war hero awarded France’s highest honor” (June 26, 2019). The story was about Lester Bornstein’s receipt of the French Legion of Honor medal for his U.S. military service during World War II. Bornstein lives in West Orange and is the father of Michael Oren, former Israeli ambassador to the United States.

Sandee Brawarsky, The Jewish

Jewish camp delays start date after counselor tests positive for coronavirus Ben Sales JTA

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Jewish camp in Pennsylvania is delaying its opening date after a counselor tested positive for coronavirus upon arriving at camp, in a scenario that could foreshadow the rocky path ahead for child-care settings amid the deepening pandemic.

Camp Seneca Lake, one of the few Jewish overnight camps to open this year in the Northeast, was due to welcome campers on July 5 and 6, but that has been pushed back two days following the counselor ’s positive test at staff orientation, according to an email the camp sent to families July 3.

Now, the camp, which is Modern Orthodox and serves campers largely from New York and New Jersey, is testing all the staff the teenaged counselor was in contact

with, and has quarantined them as well.

“This staff member had zero signs of being sick but out of extreme caution we have quarantined any other staff members that came into contact with him and we will retest them again in a few days,” the email read. “As all of our correspondence with our families has stated from the beginning, we set up this process to be prepared for a situation like this and all protocols are being followed accordingly.”

T h e J e w i s h Te l e g r a p h i c Agency reached out to the camp for comment via phone and email last week.

The positive test could serve as a cautionary tale for the Jewish overnight camps that are opening this year — and for the many child-care settings, including schools, whose operators are trying to devise ways to operate safely. Camps that are opening

this year have said that multiple rounds of testing, plus safety protocols at camp, put the camps in a good position to weather the pandemic safely.

An email that Seneca Lake sent to parents in late May detailing some of the camp’s safety procedures said staff and campers would be tested before arrival and then several times at camp.

“This strict screening, combined with other safety protocols which include limiting the number of campers at camp, is a large part of our strategy to make camp as safe as it can be,” the May email said.

An email last week said that the camp had received pre-arrival test results from 97 percent of campers, all of which were negative.

Many other Jewish camps have canceled their 2020 summers, either because their states are not allowing overnight camps to open,

or because they feel they cannot run camp safely given the risks of the pandemic.

The counselor who tested positive has been sent home, and at press time the camp was to have received the test results of the staff members with whom he was in contact.

With the virus spreading rapidly in many parts of the country, the camp will quarantine campers from outside the New York-New Jersey area until they receive results from tests taken upon their arrival, according to the camp’s second email to parents on July 3.

The email did not provide details as to what that will look like.

“While it is unfortunate that one staff member tested positive for coronavirus, we trust the procedures that we’ve established, and we are prepared for this situation,” Seneca Lake told parents. ■

Sandee Brawarsky of NJJN’s sister publication, The New York Jewish Week, won a first-place Rockower Award for Excellence in Interfaith Relations Reporting with her story, “Close encounters across the security barrier.”

Week’s culture editor, also came away with a first-place award — Brawarsky’s third overall — for “Close encounters across the security barrier,” about a 2019 visit to the West Bank and east Jerusalem, a listening tour for American-Jewish leaders to help them better understand the IsraeliPalestinian conflict. The article, which appeared in The Jewish Week’s annual “Israel Now” section, was in the category of Excellence in Interfaith Relations Reporting.

“I couldn’t be more proud of our writers, reporters, editors, and everyone else on our team who work tirelessly each week to let our readers know what’s happening in our local Jewish communities and around the world,” said NJJN Editor Gabe Kahn. “Anyone who’s worked with our staff knows how much they put into the paper, and I’m so happy to see that others outside our newsroom recognize their efforts, too.”

AJPA also recognized NJJN Managing Editor Shira VickarFox, Deputy Managing Editor Lori Silberman Brauner, former Bureau Chief Debra Rubin, Staff Writer Jed Weisberger, and Ginsberg with an honorable mention

for “Eyewitnesses to history,” which, like Ginsberg’s first-place entry, was in the category of Journalistic Excellence in American Jewish History. The collaborative story, profiles of five New Jersey residents who contributed to the birth of the Jewish state in 1948, appeared in NJJN’s “Israel Now” section, edited by Vickar-Fox. Finally, Kahn received an honorable mention in the category of Excellence in Writing about Sports for “Bill Buckner and the unforgiving glare of history” (June 6, 2019), which notes that Jewish values instruct us to celebrate the good in people, rather than fixate on their flaws.

Both NJJN and The Jewish Week compete in the category of newspapers and magazines with circulations higher than 15,000.

AJPA announced the winners on July 2 during its first-ever virtual award presentation; most years the Rockower Awards are presented during the AJPA’s annual conference. With the cancellation of this year’s conference, which was to be held in Atlanta but was cancelled due to the Covid-19 pandemic, AJPA has announced that Atlanta will host the conference in 2021. ■

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5 NJ Jewish News ■ njjewishnews.com ■ July 9, 2020

State&Local

NJ Jewish News ■ njjewishnews.com ■ July 9, 2020

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Appreciation Reiner

Continued from page 1 cans for more than 50 years.

The 81-year-old has been eliciting laughs for most of his life. As a second-grader in the Bronx, he had his class giggling and applauding when he put both feet behind his head and walked around the room on his hands. He learned to mimic accents and expressions early on, and would also repeat stories and routines he’d hear on the radio, in the style of the performer, for his friends and family. He loved the approbation of laughter and still does.

Reiner is tall, energetic, and engaging, punctuating many sentences with facial exaggerations and hand movements; jokes flow naturally. In conversation, he shifts into the role of a British butler, an aging Eastern European Jew, an African-American musician, as he talks about his life, his humor, and his new memoir, “My Anecdotal Life” (St. Martin’s).

In the book, Reiner presents his own “literary variety show,” retelling stories about his years acting in and writing for Sid Caesar ’s pioneering “Your Show of Shows,” playing straight man to Mel Brooks in their comic recording “The 2000 Year Old Man,” and creating and co-starring in “The Dick Van

Carl Reiner’s memoir, “My Anecdotal Life,” was published when he was in his 80s.

When a cure is no longer possible, what matters most...

Dyke Show” — which ran from 1961 to 1966 and still appears in reruns — based on his own life.

In short chapters with descriptive titles — “My Son the Hall of Famer” describes his showing up a day early to be honored at his alma mater, Evander Childs High School in the Bronx — he describes his experiences writing and directing “Something Different,” which began as busywork for his bored secretary and played on Broadway, and filming “Where’s Poppa?,” with its streaking scene, in Central Park. Often, he’s self-effacing, offering accounts of embarrassing moments, like the time, as an 18-year-old playing Shakespeare, he mimicked a theater director with a stroke, not realizing that the man didn’t really mean him to follow his example so exactly.

The winner of 12 Emmy awards and one Grammy along with the Kennedy Center ’s Mark Twain Prize for Humor, he got his theatrical start at a Berkshires adult summer camp called Allaben Acres. During the summer of 1942, he was a resident performer before joining the U.S. armed forces, where he worked “securing our nation’s freedom by touring the Pacific in an army musical entitled ‘Shape Ahoy.’”

Asked to define humor, he immediately responds, “Anything that makes you laugh.”

Then he continues, “It’s the stating of the absolute truth that everybody’s thinking, but putting it [in] such a way that allows you to vent, to laugh. Humor is a curvature of the truth; it’s an angle on the truth that’s not readily apparent to everybody but to those born with prisms in their head to see that side, the bright side, the silly side, the absolute truth side that people don’t want to see.”

The funniest comic ever? He says there are too many to name, and then adds, “In my life it’s Mel Brooks.”

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Commitment. Compassion. Community.

Looking out over Manhattan, he talks about growing up in the Bronx during the Depression years, and names the Murrays, Irvings, and Morrises who were his pals. He describes his bar mitzvah as a bootleg affair where he learned everything by rote, held on a Thursday morning. After that, he’d be pulled into a shul in a ground-floor apartment across the street from his home to make a minyan, and he recalls doing the kind of double talk he’d become known for in television, mixing words and accents so that it sounded like he was speaking another language fluently.

All of his friends were Zionists who belonged to a Revisionist club where they wore uniforms, and he attended too. “I wasn’t interested in politics,” he admits. “I was more interested in making laughs.” When he was about 15, he left the group to start taking drama classes downtown.

The book is dedicated to his mother Bessie.

She was the one who’d hit him with a yardstick while growing up — “Not in the head, Bes-

sie,” his father would inject — but loved him well. In later years, she’d watch “Your Show of Shows” and always thought they should have featured him more, even when he appeared in almost every act.

He frequently makes references in conversation to his wife of 59 years, Estelle, whom he met at Allaben Acres, and he introduces her warmly when she joins us in the living room.

They live mostly in Beverly Hills, but come to New York throughout the year. Most of the paintings in their apartment are her work, and it’s an impressive collection. Also impressive is the fact that she began performing as a jazz singer at age 65, and has recorded five CDs. She used to sing in Manhattan at Michael’s Pub and now performs monthly in Los Angeles. He remembers hearing her sing at a Saturday evening jam session at Allaben Acres and the band leader stopped playing to say “that lady should record” — and 50 years later she did. Proud husband that he is, he played a selection from her CD “Ukelele Mama” as part of his talk the previous week at the 92nd Street Y. The book jacket, on its front cover, features Reiner circa 1960, seated before a manual typewriter, with empty coffee cups, crumpled pages, and cigarette butts around him. On the back cover, he’s in the same pose some 40 years later, still looking over his right shoul-

der, working on “My Anecdotal Life” at a computer, with an empty bottle of water in the trash.

He explains that he now uses the shoulder twist as a writing technique. When he can’t think of a word, he turns his head sharply to the left. In his Beverly Hills home, that twist turns him so that he’s looking out of a window, directly at a tree. “If you turn your head way to the left, it opens a passage. There’s a flow of information from one side of the brain,” he says, demonstrating. “I’ve never told this before, I’m laughing.” To an unseen audience, he continues, “If you’re sitting in a room with a window in the other direction, try it in the other direction. If the room is windowless, try looking at a picture of trees. Short of that, keep a big fat thesaurus next to you.”

Reiner’s a busy man. In the fall, he has a children’s book coming out, “Tell Me a Scary Story But Not Too Scary” — a line he would hear from a grandson, the son of his son Rob. “Everything can be used,” he quips. He’s also working on a novella “nnnnn,” about a writer struggling to finish his book. It’s a book within a book that begins in the Garden of Eden. It may, in part, deal with the writing of the Bible, exploring Reiner’s own sense that “if there is a God, God is inside of everyone,” that when writers get ideas and don’t quite know where

they come from, they come from the God within.

He’s also involved in an animated show for TV Land that airs in July, titled “The Alan Brady Show” (the fictional television show on “The Dick Van Dyke Show”), where he’ll be the voice of Brady. And he’s working on a film about dogs who talk where he’s the voice of one, and a series called “Pride of the Family” about lions, where he’ll be the voice of the head of the family.

In “The Dick Van Dyke Show,” Reiner made cameo appearances as Brady, the creator of the show whose writers are Rob Petrie (Van Dyke), Buddy Sorrell (Morey Amsterdam), and Sally Rogers (Rose Marie). Rob and Laura (Mary Tyler Moore) lived in New Rochelle, N.Y., as Reiner did in those years. Their son Richie (Larry Matthews) would now be 47.

Recently, Reiner was at an awards ceremony with several of the actors — Amsterdam passed away — and asked if they’d take part in a remake of the show, and they agreed. He wrote it, and this fall, CBS is presenting a show updating all of their lives. “It flew out of me,” he says of the script, noting that he knows these people so well. “They are me and I’m them.” ■ Sandee Brawarsky is culture editor for The New York Jewish Week, NJJN’s sister publication.

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7 NJ Jewish News ■ njjewishnews.com ■ July 9, 2020

Appreciation

NJ Jewish News ■ njjewishnews.com ■ July 9, 2020

8

State&Local Israel

Continued from page 1 and social scene. In fact, for the upcoming year there is a 140 percent increase in demand for longterm programs in Israel, with a total of 7,800 registrants, according to Masa Israel, the central address for Israel programs.

Programs of all sizes, from Year Course to Yahel Social Change Fellowship, a service and learning program for older students and recent graduates, are seeing a significant jump in applications since the outbreak of Covid-19.

“With everything going on, I couldn’t see myself in a college environment,” said Hannah Brownstein, who lives in South Orange and is a graduate of Columbia High School in Maplewood. She told NJJN that instead of attending the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business this year, she plans to join her friend Jonah in Year Course.

Hannah said she made the decision about a month ago.

“Even if we’re on campus, we won’t get the full experience,” she said, citing the Big 10 football season as one example of an experience unlikely to happen this fall.

The University of Michigan has announced a blend of in-person and remote learning for the fall, and the residence halls will be open with public health guidelines in place.

Brownstein, who speaks Hebrew fluently and has family in Israel, knew her parents wouldn’t consider any other gap year program. Pointing to its size and history, she said, “It’s the one that will most likely continue running

Noa Niv of Livingston, center, participated in a recent Aardvark Israel program. if everything goes south.”

In Hannah’s view, Israel is doing better in containing the virus than the U.S. and she’s undaunted by the possibility of facing a mandatory quarantine when she arrives in the country.

“This was not the plan. I won’t lie,” she said. “But now that I’ve made the decision, I’m super excited.”

Young Judaea’s Year Course has seen a 120 percent increase in registration over last year, according to Dafna Laskin, director of engagement. Since March, the program has picked up 70 new participants — like Hannah and Jonah — who switched tracks and opted to defer their college enrollments. By comparison, the period between March and July usually brings in about 10-15 new applicants.

“It’s a transformative number

for us,” Laskin said of the outsized number of applications. Twentyseven of the recent applicants — around 38 percent — hail from New Jersey.

Yahel, a nine-month-long program for 20 individuals between 22-28, places students in Lod and Rishon Lezion, where they volunteer for NGOs, schools, or grassroots organizations. In an average year, by the end of June, the 10-year-old program has about 35 applicants with 16 confirmed participants, and as more applications trickle in, administrators take the summer to fill the program. This year they had received 45 applications by the end of June, according

PHOTO COURTESY AARDVARK ISRAEL

to executive director Dana Talmi; by the start of July the program was full, with eight people on the waiting list. Now they have stopped accepting new applications, and Yahel is trying to secure more funding to grow the program and enable a total of 30-35 people to participate.

Some of the applicants are graduate students who don’t want to spend “tens of thousands of dollars to sit in front of a computer” n e x t y e a r, Ta l m i s a i d . O t h e r s moved to a city for a job that got cancelled and are opting instead for the time in Israel. Fellows come from around the world, including the U.S., United Kingdom,

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Jonah Heimowitz is deferring University of Michigan to attend Young Judaea’s Year Course.

PHOTO COURTESY JONAH HEIMOWITZ

Aliyah numbers on the rise

“With everything going on, I couldn’t see myself in a college environment,” said Hannah Brownstein of South Orange.

PHOTO COURTESY HANNAH BROWNSTEIN

Argentina, Holland, and Estonia.

Aardvark Israel, a gap-year program that started in 2010, has also seen a significant increase in interest. Last year, Aardvark started the fall semester with about 90-100 students, according to Aardvark education director Moshe Levi (a former shaliach to Jewish Federation of Greater MetroWest NJ).

“We are looking at close to 130 to 140 this semester,” he said.

Despite the record number of applications, due to budget constraints Masa Israel is unable to offer grants or scholarships to students under 22 who are studying in yeshivas or seminaries.

Normally, Masa provides $500 in universal grants for eligible 18-20-year-olds on long-term programs, plus another $1,500 in needs-based grants. For eligible 21-30-year olds, it used to provide a universal grant of $3,000 plus $1,500 in needs-based grants. The dollar amounts can vary depending on the length of the program.

A U.S.-based gap-year program is also experiencing an uptick in applicants. Tivnu: Building Justice, a Portland, Ore.-based program that explores connections

between social justice and Judaism, started in 2013. It usually has eight-10 participants but will likely expand to 20-25 this year due to the large number of applicants, including one from New Jersey, according to executive director Steve Eisenbach-Budner.

While Israel is not immune to shutdowns related to the pandemic, gap-year programs learned to be resilient from their experiences this winter and spring, and those that remained open scrambled to adjust schedules and expectations.

“I won’t tell you that it was easy, because it was not,” said Talmi of Yahel. “But we’ve handled this now and we’ve learned a lot.”

She added, “We’ve seen that there is a lot that can be done and that our fellows can do, even in complete lockdown ... even if [the fellows] can’t go out to the community center, or they can’t go out to school.”

And Jonah appears unconcerned about the possibility that Year Course programming comes to a halt. “God forbid, I have to stay on the beach in Tel Aviv for the whole year,” he said. ■

INQUIRIES ON ALIYAH in June were up 365 percent from last year, according to Yael Katzman, vice president of PR and communications for Nefesh B’Nefesh. That’s a rise from 5,300 calls to nearly 25,000 calls.

“We’re all kind of exhausted, and we’re trying to figure it all out,” she said. The organization has expanded the call center and added new technology to handle the increase.

While every person who calls the hotline is not necessarily moving to Israel, numbers along the pathway to aliyah are up. Where 532 people started applications in June 2019, this year, nearly 2,000 started them, a 274 percent increase. As for finished applications, close to 1,200 were submitted last month, compared with just under 400 last June, a 218 percent increase.

Overall, 40 percent of those who start applications usually end up finishing the process.

This year? The figure is up to about 50 percent, a huge increase in raw numbers.

Katzman chalks it up to the fact that not only have people had more time to think about priorities, but also because obstacles keeping people from moving disappeared. She points to jobs that are now remote, families that now keep in touch over

Zoom, and Jewish communities that were always intensely local are now global, with people listening to lectures from Australia or virtually dropping into Jewish events all over the world.

Leaving the states is bittersweet for Patricia and Art Werschulz of Cranford. Although they bought an apartment in Jerusalem 11 years ago and had been planning this move for a while, they said the distance, and pandemic conditions, would make it difficult to see their grandchildren, who range in age from 6 to 10.

“It’s more poignant,” said Patricia, a patent lawyer whose practice has been online since 2009.

“We won’t be able to go back and forth to see our grandkids.”

In a stroke of good fortune, Art retired at the end of the academic year as a computer science professor at Fordham University.

He wasn’t thrilled with distance learning. “I could not look at my students’ faces to see if people are not getting it,” he said.

And so, there was little stopping the couple from getting on the plane this week, July 7, to realize their dream. “It’s taken a while to get it together,” said Art. And to their friends who worry about their health, he offered, “Last time I checked, there was pretty good medical care in Israel.”

— JOHANNA GINSBERG

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Editorial

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The price we’ll pay for overconfidence

F

our months into the coronavirus pandemic and counting, we can’t even begin to feel confident about reopening. While much of the rest of the world is cautiously returning to normal, cases are spiking across the country.

While our own area was hit hard in the first wave, officials and health-care providers responded in ways that should have been a model for the rest of the country. That much of their example went unheeded has exposed flaws in our nation’s leadership, its body politic, and its health-care system.

Israel too is facing a second wave, just two months after declaring victory over the novel coronavirus. Sky News Middle East correspondent Mark Stone described the price we all are paying for overconfidence. “In Israel, the lockdown was rightly lifted. But then the armor against the virus fell away fast: the masks slipped down, the distancing got smaller, the gatherings grew larger. We are suffering the consequences now.”

Those who turn mask-wearing and social distancing into political propaganda should take heed. The battle to fight the coronavirus has only just begun. ■

A modern dayenu for Carl Reiner

C

PHOTO COURTESY HBO

arl Reiner, the Bronx-born actor, director, writer and comedian, died June 29 at the age of 98 (see story on page 1). There seemed only one way to best remember someone who seemed to have had at least one comedy triumph in each of the eight decades of his career: Had he co-written and acted with Sid Caesar and company on “Caesar’s Hour” and “Your Show of Shows,” and not written the charming novel “Enter Laughing,” dayenu.

Had he written the charming novel “Enter Laughing,” and not created, produced, written, and acted on “The Dick Van Dyke Show,” dayenu.

Had he created, produced, written, and acted on “The Dick Van Dyke Show,” and not given us the “2000 Year Old Man” with Mel Brooks, dayenu.

Had he given us the “2000 Year Old Man,” and not made us laugh in “The

Russians Are Coming, the Russians Are Coming” and the “Ocean’s” films, dayenu.

Had he made us laugh in “The Russians Are Coming, the Russians Are Coming” and the “Ocean’s” films and not directed the darkest of dark comedies, “Where’s Poppa?,” dayenu.

H a d h e d i r e c t e d “ W h e r e ’s Poppa?,” and not co-written and directed the uproarious Steve Martin films “The Jerk,” “Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid,” and “The Man with Two Brains,” dayenu.

Had he co-written and directed the uproarious Steve Martin films, and not spent his 90s tweeting with liberal passion, dayenu.

Had he spent his 90s tweeting with liberal passion, and not modeled with his buddy Mel Brooks the deepest, most loving friendship in all of show biz, dayenu! ■

Letters to the Editor Jews shouldn’t back group promoting hatred

I strongly disagree with the views expressed by Michael Koplow in his op-ed “Why Zionists should stand with Black Lives Matter” (June 18).

Indeed, I believe all human lives are sacred. However, that is also precisely why I disagree with his position that Jews should support the Movement for Black Lives.

As Koplow points out, one of the political positions of this movement is that Israel is an apartheid state and “complicit in the genocide taking place against the Palestinian people.”

In plain language that is a complete fabrication based on pure anti-Semitism. The people who support this falsehood and slander — whether knowingly or not — are perpetuating racism and hatred.

It needs to be clearly understood that the ultimate end-point of racism is violence and death, such as we saw with the murder of George Floyd. I believe that the concept underlying Black Lives Matter (BLM) is that human beings of all races and ethnic groups must be judged as individuals.

It is the right of everyone to be treated with justice and equity, no matter their color, ethnic group, or creed.

For that reason, as a human being, and certainly as a Jew, I cannot support an organization that promotes hatred of my people. To those who are supporters of the Movement for Black Lives, you need to know that people of goodwill cannot and should not support anti-Semitism or any other racist philosophy, even in the name of BLM. Anthony Winston East Brunswick Michael Koplow whitewashes the anti-Semitic and anti-Zionist sentiment heard in BLM groups, considering it “ancillary to their focus.” But the anti-Semitism goes beyond words, as I have seen reports of synagogues vandalized amid protests and hateful shouting at Jews by people marching for racial justice. Some also demonize Israel.

If BLM the concept is to mean anything, it must mean respect for others, including Jews. Too often Jews whitewash attacks on Jews and Israel as just talk and meaningless. It is not merely that we as Jews must stand up for our rights, but hold accountable the BLM organization, just as the BLM movement holds white racism accountable. Not only

must we stand up, but so must black Americans.

I support BLM the movement, but I denounce BLM the organization and all those Jews and black and white people who won’t denounce them as well.

Melvin Farber Silver Spring, Md.

Wrong reasons to forego annexation

In “Israel’s best strategy is to forego annexation” (As I See It, June 25), Max Kleinman reaches the correct conclusion that Israel should forego annexation of areas within the West Bank, but his reasoning is wrong.

(Full disclosure: I had the pleasure of working with Kleinman at the United Jewish Federation of MetroWest in the mid-1980s.)

I agree that foregoing annexation will help maintain Israel’s developing relationships with several Arab countries. However, Israel does not have the “right to claim these territories as its own,” as Kleinman posits. If it did, Israel would have done so a long time ago. And, even if Israel did have the right, doing so would forever deny citizenship to those Palestinians who live in the annexed territories in Israel or elsewhere.

Kleinman also trots out the standard talking points of Israel’s genuine interest in a negotiated settlement and the Palestinian history of “never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity,” according to Abba Eban.

It should be clear to my former colleague that the Trump administration’s so-called “peace plan” was a charade and that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has zero interest in any settlement that includes a Palestinian state, thereby leaving millions of human beings stateless. I have no illusions about the corrupt and inept Palestinian Authority or the terrorist Hamas regime in the Gaza Strip.

Nonetheless, Palestinians are human beings who deserve citizenship in their own country.

Finally, the status quo is not “working out well” for Israel. Israel is financially and militarily secure.

But Israeli writers, politicians, soldiers, and rabbis attest to the occupation’s cancerous impact on the Israeli soul. No, my friend, the occupation is not working out well for Israelis or Palestinians.

Peter Herbst Montclair

Giving a gift subscription to The Jewish Week could be easier or more affordable. Just complete and mail entire ad and we’ll take careOpinion of the rest - including cannot heal this your wound announcing gift with a handsome greeting card Don’t forget that in refusing Conservative and liberal college seniors were deprived the in advance.

Atofprices this low, everyto occasion is the p congregations have per- graduation day they’ve been work- take steps to slow the spread of the virus, he prolonged it, thereby worsmitted streaming prayer ing toward for years. time to give a gift subscription to The Jewish Week. services, which have Don’t forget about the Jews ening the inevitable economic crash been meaningful to many around the world who couldn’t say he tried to prevent by sacrificing our Whyor Yizkor notfordo today? lives. (see Exit Ramp on page Kaddish theirit relatives.

11

Gabe Kahn NJJN Editor

A

couple months ago I listened to a podcast in which Chuck Klosterman, one 23 for Merrill Silver’s of my favorite writers and excellent essay on this outside-the-box thinkers, subject) and will likely Garden State continue in some form posited that in a decade or of Mind so we’ll see multiple eswhen synagogues fully says by writers about how they miss reopen. The wealth of online prayer the days of quarantine, “when I was options has also provided Jews with with my kids the opportunity to sample services Coronavirus every day and at synagogues around the world they were still without leaving their living rooms. the age when they wanted to cuddle Orthodox synagogues, which don’t up and snuggle with me.” permit Zoom services, will realize “This is why memory is totally that they can reach a larger audience [expletive] worthless,” Klosterman by streaming weekday classes when said. “It’s like it’s almost idiotic congregants are finally allowed to to value your memories, because attend in person. they’re all false. They’re just the inA little while ago I received a jection of emotion into these kinds of letter — yes, an actual, physical visual audio remnants in your mind.” letter, delivered by an employee Eventually he’ll be proven cor- of the United States Postal Service rect, I’m sure, because we’ve already — from close childhood friends instarted moving in that direction. viting my family to the virtual bar We’re still primarily resentful for mitzvah of their son, rather than having our lives upended, devas- the in-person event they had been tated by the enormous loss of life, planning. I felt especially badly for and scared of what’s to come. But the bar mitzvah boy, that the crisis like the title character in Monty Py- was robbing him of his ability to thon’s brilliant “Life of Brian,” we celebrate our culture’s most basic can’t help but “look at the bright side expression of reaching adolescence. of life,” even when faced with an But upon signing onto Zoom on the ever-present and constantly evolv- day of the bar mitzvah, I was hearting tragedy. ened to see the outpouring of joy Like Klosterman, I also have from the family, as well as from the young children, and though they’ve approximately 400 people watching driven me nuts for roughly 75 per- online. That they were apart from cent of their waking hours since Feb- guests and relatives, and that he ruary or March, I still feel closer to would have to wait to read from the them now than I did before. Gone, Torah, seemed to do little to dampen for now, are their maddening one- the celebration. word answers to my repeated and At times like these it’s easy to forrephrased questions about what they get the effect Covid-19 has had on our did at school that day; there’s no lives for the last four to five months. need to ask when we share a diningBut please, don’t. room table that serves as a classroom Don’t forget that a bad situation for them, an office for me. is still bad even when you make the On that point, perhaps the up- most of it. shot of our being forced to open Don’t forget that there are already impromptu home offices is that em- more than 130,000 Americans dead ployers, having seen that businesses from Covid-19, a number that is can be productive without everyone probably severely undercounting the on location, will be more amenable fatalities, and definitely far, far lower to parents who request permission to than we can expect in the final tally. work remotely so they can take care Don’t forget that our families of their children. were forced to stay apart for the We’ve also found that videocon- Passover seder and that our obserferencing apps such as Zoom can vance of the upcoming High Holienrich our Jewish traditions. In the days remains uncertain. absence of in-person prayer, many Don’t forget that high school and

Don’t forget the mortal fear we felt in March and April each time we went to the grocery store, or our concern for those who live in coronavirus hotspots.

Don’t forget that even though it’s imperative everyone wears a mask outside, it’s not normal, and we should never treat it that way.

Don’t forget that studies now show that remote learning is far less effective than classroom learning, and our children will be behind no matter what form of school they return to in the fall.

Don’t forget the parents who could not hug their children as they buried loved ones.

Don’t forget that our so-called leader refused to sound the alarm for weeks, or even months, out of concern for his own political prospects.

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Don’t forget that his allies chose to remain silent rather than cross him.

Don’t forget that even now he’s Will OU Oust Sh willing to risk our lives by ignoring uls With Women Cl ergy?

Con cern whether visit medical experts and trying to reopen s to four congregations will lead to com promise or punitive acti on. the country in a desperate effort to get reelected.

L Trump’s First Tr Don’t forgetIn that this isn’t ip: worth to Belly Of The Beast Will Mid the symbolism of moving east swing mov the Amerie past symbolism and into peacemakin can embassy to Jerusalem. g?

Don’t forgetI that when asked who is to blame, he responded: “I don’t take responsibility at all.”

On A Jam With Don’t forget didn’t have to Rothat ller Dit erby’s MOTs Gotham Girls Jew ish jammers and be this bad. bloc kers talk about faith, pride and gett up off the deck.

Don’t forgetingthat it’s not over yet.

Don’t forget that there’s someI thing we can do about it this fall. ■ www.thejewishw eek.com

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President Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu the White House at in February. Witho ut a clear Mideast Trump’s upcoming policy, visit raises many questions. G E T T Y I M AGES

Israel Looms Betw Macron And Jews een Int’l 26

Joshua Mitnick Contributing Edito r

t was a thorn in U.S.-Israel relations for years.

Right or wrong, former President Barack Obama’s decision, right at the start of his presidency, to visit Muslim nations around the Middle East while skipping Israel was seen

as an affront and vote of noconfidence in the U.S. ally. By the time Obama did visit in the first months of his second term, the scar had never healed.

Now, in a contra st with his predecessor, Presid ent Donald Trump is plann ing a quick swing through Israel first trip abroad since on his his inauContinued on page 23

Gary Rosenbla tt Editor and Publi sher

ess than three month s after the Ortho dox Union issued a halachic prohibition against women serving in clerical roles, three leader s of the influential nation al body have begun meeti ng with the rabbis of the four OUmember synagogues in the U.S. that employ women clergy, The Jewis h Week has learned.

Some believe the visits may be a first step toward Between punitive The Lines m e a sures, and possible expul sion, Rabba Sara for congregations Hurwitz: “Glad to that do know that the OU is finally not conform with meetthe OU’s ing a few of [Yeshivat Maha Continued on page rat’s] 7 graduates.”

Y E S H I V AT M AH

SPEC OFFE

Expir 06/30/2

A R AT

Rama Burshtein On Her New Film

Arts 27

29 Arts Guide 30 Travel

31 Sabbath

Hannah Dreyfus Staff Writer

f you want to play roller derby, you better get comf ortable with gettin g knocked down.

The same goes for being Jewish, said Gotham Girls roller derby skater Dara Fineman, who goes by the treif but lovably campy monik er Hebrew Ham Lin-

coln on the track.

“To play derb y, you have to be tough .

A recent practice You have to have in Williamsburg: a Wearing religion pads. H A N N A H D R E Y F thick skin, so you on their US/JW can get back up again when you fall down ,” said Fineman, 28, Fineman — who who joined the Gotha paints a Star of David m over her left Girls league in Febru eye — is not the only ary. “Those are Jewplayer to ish traits. As a people proudly sport her , we fall down but Judais m on the oval. The we 102-player keep surviving.” league, which is ranked No. 1 Contin

Contact Gabe Kahn via email, CELE BRATE IN CONCERT RU SALEM May 21, 2017 gkahn@njjewishnews.com,JE or Twitter: ZAMIR CHORALE Call 212870-3335 ZAMIR NODED HAZAMIR @sgabekahn.

ued on page 20

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Opinion

Policing Trump doesn’t solve internet hate problem Emily Schrader Special to NJJN

P

resident Donald Trump has a wellestablished reputation for being aggressive, petty, and even at times completely incoherent on Twitter. On May 29, he crassly tweeted, “When the looting starts, the shooting starts,” a phrase used by a white police commissioner in regards to racial tensions and riots in the 1960s.

With the enhanced scrutiny on social media networks to stop hate speech and misinformation, Twitter has implemented inconsistent policies to “fact check” and label tweets from the president and other public figures.

Facebook now plans to do the same.

Unfortunately, attempts to moderate Trump’s behavior will do more harm than good. Far from solving the prob-

lem, it will perpetuate it: Just as the media ultimately helped Trump win the election by giving him so much air time, so, too, will these new policies backfire.

Having spent the past decade working to combat anti-Semitism online, and as the architect of the StandWithUs digital department, I witnessed firsthand how even the most well-intentioned effort to police online speech can easily run into pitfalls or produce results that are the opposite of what’s intended.

Twitter has long faced criticism for political bias from many directions.

The far right argues that Twitter has an agenda of silencing right-wing figures such as Laura Loomer, and most recently Katie Hopkins, who were both permanently kicked off the platform.

Twitter also faces criticism for its continued failure to rein in Holocaust de-

nial, hate speech, Nazi imagery, and openly anti-Semitic leaders like Louis Farrakhan and former Knights of the KKK Grand Wizard David Duke.

Only after massive uproar did Twitter remove Farrakhan’s notorious tweet comparing Jews to “termites,” and even after that, it did not ban him from the platform.

While I find Trump’s looting and shooting tweet absolutely inappropriate and offensive, I don’t see it as more inappropriate or offensive than other content that Twitter chooses to ignore.

Twitter damages its own credibility by ignoring these threats while responding to Trump by placing a warning that his tweet “glorifies violence.”

Indeed, Twitter’s efforts have already backfired. On May 29, Trump issued an executive order to prevent online censorship in what was perceived as a direct attack on the network. While the executive order is deeply flawed and likely won’t stand up to legal scrutiny, it’s a serious act of hostility toward the social media site and will certainly rile Trump’s base.

While at war with the Trump administration, Twitter is also ignoring far more dangerous content. Iran, which has banned Twitter for its own citizens, routinely uses the platform to incite against Israel and the United States, and has even shared an image calling for the “Final Solution” — a cartoon in which Iran controls Jerusalem.

In recent weeks, Iranian leaders have also been vocal in latching on to the Black Lives Matter movement in an effort to criticize the United States.

Twitter has not placed warnings on tweets from Khamenei or other Iranian leaders. Similarly, there’s a well-documented track record of Iran, Turkey, China, and Russia using bots and Twit-

ter campaigns to promote pro-regime messages and misinformation. Though these coordinated campaigns are often discovered and the accounts removed, it’s always after the fact.

If Twitter has proven incapable of handling state-sponsored misinformation, Holocaust denial, and rampant anti-Semitism on its platform, what is it dealing with instead?

In the past few weeks Twitter, intentionally or not, provoked a fight with Trump by adding warnings to multiple tweets. In May, Twitter added a fact check to the president’s tweet about mail-in ballots with a point-bypoint refutation of his claims in its own voice. Note that Twitter at the time hadn’t fact-checked any of China’s misinformation about Covid-19 by its diplomats, nor Turkey’s propaganda campaigns, nor any other world leaders.

Additionally, the entire world of “factchecking” is fraught with errors from the left to the right.

So why has Twitter made itself the arbiter of truth, opening up the platform to accusations of hypocrisy and selective enforcement?

Regardless of how offensive and inappropriate Trump’s rhetoric is, Twitter is giving him more press, more ammunition, and more attention by singling him out repeatedly. This is the same method that much of the media adopted prior to the last election, and the result was the people pushing back against an almost obsessive Trump hatred. If Twitter continues on this path, it will have done its part to help President Trump secure a second term. ■

Twitter is

ignoring far

more dangerous content from

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Emily Schrader is the CEO of digital marketing firm Social Lite Creative and an expert on online anti-Semitism and hate speech. This op-ed was distributed by JTA.

In the time of Covid, is 70 the new 90?

Baby Boomers are being forced to recognize their limitations — and their mortality

Gary Rosenblatt Special to NJJN

I

n early March, when the coronavirus suddenly struck New York with a vengeance, my wife and I signed up on our synagogue’s list seeking volBetween unteers to bring groceries the Lines to the homebound in our neighborhood.

That evening our rabbi called to thank us — and gently explained that the best way people over 60 could be helpful was to stay home.

So much for volunteering.

“OK,” I told my wife after we hung up, “then let’s put our names on the other list.”

Which we did, and soon became the beneficiaries of a community known for its chesed.

That phone call was the first sign of a new and shocking reality for us. Like so many fellow Boomers (those born between 1946 and 1964) who think of themselves as engaged, active older men and women, we recognized that we are now perceived, in the time of the pandemic, as The Elderly.

That’s a particularly tough pill for Boomers to swallow. We were the generation of the ’60s and ’70s that thought we could change the world through our music, energy, and political activism, much of it focused on opposing the Vietnam War. Now that we’re in our 60s and 70s, we’re being forced to recognize and accept our limitations and more directly, our mortality.

We are now the generation most susceptible to the ravages of the coronavirus, fearful that this time of quarantine could become an extended period of isolation from family, friends, and much of society, perhaps for the rest of our lives.

When will we be able to hold and hug our grandchildren? Will we ever get on an airplane to visit distant loved ones? Is 70 the new 90?

Laura Geller, rabbi emerita of Temple Emanuel of Beverly Hills, Calif., and an expert on issues concerning aging, says, “70 is neither the new 50 nor the new 90. Seventy is simply a new 70.” A generation uncomfortable with words like “retired” or “senior” or “elder” has the opportunity “to make the rules for how we want to live these years.”

Geller was named an Influencer in Aging by Next Avenue, a digital publication focused on issues for people over 50. She co-wrote with her husband, the late Richard Siegel, an insightful and timely new book aimed at Boomers titled “Getting Good at Getting Older” (Behrman House, a Millburn-based publishing company of Jewish educational material). It’s

“Getting Good at Getting Older” was published

by Behrman House, based in Millburn, in the fall of 2019. a fitting bookend to “The Jewish Catalog: A Do-It-Yourself Kit” (Jewish Publication Society), the classic guide, co-edited by Siegel, to traditional and new rituals, ceremonies, and customs. Published in 1973, that book sparked a counter-cultural renaissance in Jewish life among a generation of young people — today’s Boomers.

Siegel died in the summer of 2018, a month short of his 71st birthday. The book the couple worked on together was published last fall, a few months before the pandemic hit, and it is all the more relevant today. Offering a style and energy similar to “The Jewish Catalog,” it mixes wisdom and whimsy (including pen-and-ink cartoon drawings), with sections including “getting good” at: gaining wisdom, getting along, getting ready (for the last journey), and giving away.

During a recent interview, Geller said the pandemic has brought to light five challenging aspects of many Boomers’ lives: a denial of dying; a depth of loneliness and isolation, which she called “a public health crisis”; intergenerational tensions, including the perception that older lives are less important than younger lives; the importance of technology, and the need for access training; and the “desire to live lives of purpose” through activities like mentoring and volunteering.

The rabbi chided the organized Jewish community for focusing so much funding and energy on youth and the frail elderly while largely ignoring the significant cohort of those between active midlife and nursing homes

— the people “who have time, desire to be engaged, expertise, funds and a level of commitment to Jewish institutions that younger people don’t have.”

She said “‘myopic’ is a generous word” for describing the communal attitude toward Boomers, many of whom find more meaningful volunteer work with secular nonprofits than in the Jewish community. (An exception: B3/ The Jewish Boomer Platform, led by David Elcott and Stuart Himmelfarb, is a leading nonprofit in seeking to engage, or re-engage Jewish Boomers in communal life. Himmelfarb is co-chair and former president of the board of The New York Jewish Week, NJJN’s sister publication.)

During our interview, I told Geller about the phone call that changed our status from wouldbe volunteers to aid recipients. “For people like us,” she noted, “it’s easy to offer help and hard to ask for help. The pandemic has changed the perception we have of ourselves and what it means to be part of a community.”

Her comments resonated deeply for me.

For four months, I have missed praying with fellow congregants on holidays and Shabbat.

Zoom services have been a wonderful substitute for those comfortable with the technology, but they also underscore the yearning we have to sing together, our prayers strengthened and carried along by the voices of those around us.

Now, even as local synagogues have carefully and gradually reopened in stages, older members and those compromised by medical conditions are being warned about the dangers of attending. However unintentional, the result may well be a widening of the age divide within congregations.

Is it possible that we’ll be home for Rosh HaShanah and Yom Kippur, when communal prayers are particularly poignant? I can’t imagine the High Holidays without standing in a packed sanctuary to hear the blasts of the shofar. I dread reciting, alone, “Do not forsake us in our older years.”

Hunkered down

Rabbi Avi Weiss shares those concerns, too.

The founding spiritual leader of the Hebrew Institute of Riverdale (HIR, also known as The Bayit) said he contemplates “with tears in my eyes” the possibility of not being in shul for the High Holidays.

Acknowledging “a certain sadness in being hunkered down” these last few months, the rabbi said: “The cornerstone of my life has been about giving to others.” But now, in his mid-70s and with a heart condition, he has to decline when congregants ask for a personal visit. “I’m on the phone all day” with those

Continued on page 15

13 NJ Jewish News ■ njjewishnews.com ■ July 9, 2020

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NJ Jewish News ■ njjewishnews.com ■ July 9, 2020

14

Calendar

Due to the outbreak of the coronavirus, most synagogues and organizations have cancelled all in-person activities for the time being. Some are offering online learning opportunities or plan to reschedule. Please email calendar@njjewishnews. com with online events open to the community.

Dementia caregivers support A free support group for those caring for loved ones with dementia will continue with Jewish Family Service of MetroWest and Alzheimer’s New Jersey via Zoom. Dates and times are: Thursday, July 16, 1 p.m.; Monday, Aug. 3, 10 a.m.; and Thursday, Aug. 20, 1 p.m.

Email JFSGroups@jfsmetrowest.org to register and receive a Zoom link.

MONDAY, July 13 Check. Change. Control Cholesterol. Sponsored

by JCC of Central NJ, the national initiative will be presented via Zoom with a physician from Atlantic Health System, 11:15 a.m.-12:15 p.m. For the Zoom link, contact Alison Rivlin at arivlin@jccnj.org or 908-8898800, ext. 260.

WEDNESDAY, July 22 “The Temple Mount In Jerusalem — Its History & Destiny.” Held via Zoom at 7 p.m. with Chabad Center of Northwest NJ, the three-week interactive course will focus on the history and spiritual significance of the Temple in Jerusalem. There is an optional sponsorship of $18, $25 per couple. RSVP to 973-625-1525, ext. 227, or JLI@OneTorahWay.org or visit OneTorahWay.org.

College fellowship Teach NJ will offer a six-week Advocates of Tomorrow Fellowship to train college students this summer in campaign and advocacy tactics to develop and implement a voter registration effort.

Fellows will meet virtually for one hour every Tuesday night from July 14 to Aug. 18. Each cohort will spend three-five hours per week reaching out to voters and tracking responses to increase 2020 election turnout.

To apply, go to teachcoalition.org/AOT.

Community MASKED MEN — Congregation Beth Israel in Scotch Plains held an installation ceremony on June 12 for its new officers and board of trustees during Friday evening Shabbat services that were broadcast live through the synagogue’s Facebook page. At front is outgoing president Jason Hoberman; in back, from left, are Rabbi Howard Tilman, past president and nominating committee chair Steve Wiener, and incoming president Aaron J. Kessler of Scotch Plains.

VIRTUAL GRADUATION — The Early School of Temple B’nai Abraham, Livingston, held a virtual graduation ceremony recently for its K-ready classes. On graduation day, the graduates took part in a Zoom program, and then were taken by car by their parents to the temple.

Greeting the students outside were Early School teachers and facilities manager Tracey Bent.

CAMP@HOME — A camper engages in a mindfulness exercise during the Camp@Home program launched by Temple Sharey TefiloIsrael (TSTI) in South Orange on June 15. The virtual summer camp experience is for children in pre-K through second grade. To register, go to bit.ly/TSTIcamp.

THANKING HEALTH-CARE WORKERS — Chabad of SE Morris County volunteers recently prepared and distributed thousands of masks and gifts of chocolate to health-care workers, as well as surplus food and hundreds of quarts of chicken soup to homebound and isolated seniors in the community. Rabbi Mendy Lubin is shown delivering the masks and chocolates.

GROWING A GARDEN — Jewish Family Service of Central NJ (JFS) Vice President Arielle Traub volunteered in the JFS Urban Community Garden with her son Caleb. For other volunteer opportunities, contact volunteer@jfscentralnj.org.

Boomers

Continued from page 13 who seek him out, “but I’m not there face-to-face, and it hurts that I can’t do it.”

Weiss said it’s important to remind older people that they “can still make significant contributions to society,” as he wrote in his most recent book, “Journey to Open Orthodoxy.” He noted that “if treated as infirm,” older people can stop believing in themselves, a feeling he has had on occasion as well. “If we pay half fare (as seniors on the subway), we can begin to believe we only half contribute to society.”

But he takes inspiration from a talk on aging that Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel gave at the White House in 1961: “The years of old age may enable us to attain the high values we have failed to sense, the insights we have missed, the wisdom we have ignored,” said Heschel, who referred

to that time of life as “formative years.”

Weiss said he is an optimist, hopeful that when a vaccine for Covid-19 is found, “we’ll feel that we are getting back the time we spent in quarantine.”

It’s a comforting thought. In the meantime, Geller reminds us that “the gift of the pandemic” is the opportunity to focus our thoughts on how we choose to stay engaged in the world. “We can’t pretend anymore” about the impermanence of life.

She’s right, of course. We must learn to navigate our lives with courage, thoughtfulness, and faith, mindful of the words of Psalm 90, which we read each Shabbat morning: “Teach us how to number our days, that we may attain a heart of wisdom.”

Amen. ■

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Obituaries Rita Roth

Rita H. Roth (Hochman), 89, of Pompton Plains died June 26, 2020. Born in Paterson, she spent most of her life in Morristown before moving to Pompton Plains four years ago.

Mrs. Roth taught first and second grade for 25 years at Alfred Vail School.

She graduated from Morristown High School, attended Drexel University, and obtained her teaching degree from Fairleigh Dickinson University.

She was active in school activities and enjoyed putting on musicals at Morristown Jewish Center Beit Yisrael, where she was a member for many years.

She is survived by her husband of 67 years, Bill; three sons, Harry (Helen), Stephen (Elizabeth), and Richard (Debra); a brother, Bill Hochman; and six grandchildren.

A private service and burial were held.

countries in need. He pioneered countless projects, including orphanages, playgrounds, and bomb shelters from start to finish.

He was also very involved with Chabad House of Monroe Township, where he and his wife celebrated their 60th wedding anniversary.

Predeceased by his daughter, Michelle Sion, he is survived by his wife of 62 years, Freida (Pressner); his son, Stuart (Lee); his son-in-law, Koresh Sion; two sisters, Diane Sommer and Sandra Stern; and six grandchildren.

Memorial contributions may be made to Chabad House of Monroe, 324 Applegarth Road, Monroe Township, N.J. 08831.

Jon (Jodie) Herbst; 18 grandchildren; 20 great-grandchildren; and two great-great-grandchildren.

Arrangements were handled by Bernheim-ApterKreitzman Suburban Funeral Chapel, Livingston.

Memorial contributions may be made to American Heart Association.

Joseph H. Newman

Joseph Herbert Newman, 95, of Jupiter, Fla., died July 1, 2020. He was born and grew up in Brooklyn, moving to West Orange in 1950, where he lived for 40 years until 1990, when he moved to Florida.

He continued to spend summers in New Jersey.

Doris Rubin Mr. Newman started his career in the construction Doris Rubin of Union died June 18, 2020. She was materials and aviation industries before transitioning born in Newark. to building science and construction technology, where Ms. Rubin worked for Waldor Insurance Agency he excelled professionally for three decades and was a for many years. nationally recognized innovator.

He retired as executive She graduated from Weequahic High School in vice president and director emeritus at Tishman Realty Newark in 1952.

Leonard Posnock & Construction Co., Inc., and as president and CEO She is survived by her sister, Betty; two brothers, of Tishman Research Corporation.

At Tishman, he Leonard (“Lenny”) H. Posnock, 83, of Monroe Joseph and Sol; and many nieces and nephews. developed and championed innovations that produced Township died June 30, 2020. He was born in 1936 Graveside services were held June 21 at Beth advances across the commercial construction industry. to Lillian (Schwartzstein) and Benjamin Posnock of David Cemetery, Kenilworth.

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York Building Congress, and Joint Energy Committee; Active in Jewish causes, he was an active member Bloomfield. and former member of numerous professional comPredeceased by her first husband, Jack Gross, who of Temple Beth O’r/Beth Torah in Clark. He also mittees and boards. served as president of the former Jewish Federation of was killed in action during World War II, she married Herbst, in 1959, who also - He earned a bachelor and master of chemical engiCentral New Jersey (which since merged with United her second husband, Edwin - Candle Lighting Jewish Communities of MetroWest NJ to become predeceases her. She is survived by six children, Joan neering at Polytechnic University, where he served as Jewish Federation of Greater MetroWest NJ), in which (Joel Aberbach), Steven (Sue) Gross, and Jerry (Rhona) a trustee and chairman of the university’s Board of he led dozens of missions to Israel, Russia, and other Gross and Diane Herbst, Robert (Nancy) Herbst, and Fellows.

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A double take on Holocaust memory Meryl Ain’s debut novel, set in 1950s Queens, centers on a very different pair of twins

Sandee Brawarsky Special to NJJN

M

eryl Ain brings readers a fresh view of the 1950s, when Holocaust survivors were resettling into America, when the Rosenberg trial captivated everyone, especially Jews, and schoolchildren learned to hide under their desks in atomic bomb drills.

In “The Takeaway Men,” Ain presents a New York tale. Set in the Bellerose neighborhood in northwest Queens, the plot centers on the residents of one block on the site of a former potato field, with rows of identical brick bungalows on manicured plots now dotted with fruit trees and rose-covered trellises.

The street is full of stories, secrets, double lives, and complicated identities.

“The thing about secrets,” Ain says in an interview, “is that they usually don’t really remain secrets forever.”

This wise and sensitive work of historical fiction, skillfully weaving fact and fiction, involves a pair of twin sisters, born in a displaced persons camp in the American zone in 1947 Germany, who arrive with their parents in New York Harbor to stay with cousins they don’t know. Their father Aron, who once had hopes of becoming a physician like his own father, is happy to find work in his cousin’s bakery on Union Turnpike. The girls sometimes wake up to their father’s loud nightmares, even as their mother tries to soothe him.

For the family, Bellerose “was as close to paradise as the twins and their parents had ever been — except, of course, when it wasn’t,” Ain writes.

The twins, Johanna and Bronka Lubinski, are closely entangled — they are loving, watch each other’s backs, and depend on the other.

But they react to America and to their past very differently. Johanna embraces America, wants to be popular, is embarrassed by her parents’ accents, while Bronka is the quieter sister, who seems to have inherited their parents’ pain — the “tragedy of her father’s unknowable and unspeakable legacy.”

Ain, who grew up in Bellerose, explains that inventing twins helped her to show how people born at the same time, to the same parents, living in the same environment still react very differently to their experiences. She is fascinated with twins, and has a lot of personal experience with them, as her husband, awardwinning New York Jewish Week staff writer Stewart Ain, is a twin.

In the novel, Ain ties in many themes: stories of Righteous Gentiles, a suspected Nazi living in the neighborhood under a new identity and working in a kosher deli, the stigma then of mental illness, questions of defin-

Meryl Ain is the author of several books, including her first work of fiction, “The Takeaway Men.”

ing Jewish identity and reacting to evil, and the popular culture of the ’50s, from Ginny dolls to poodle skirts to “Howdy Doody.” And there’s Hebrew School, with few girls in attendance, new immigrants as the earnest teachers, and boys who can’t sit still pelting others with spitballs.

She weaves the title artfully into the text, first in a letter written by a Polish-Jewish woman, recalling her time in the Plaszow forced labor camp in 1942, when her sister’s twin girls saw the Gestapo approaching them, and screamed, “Mama, the takeaway men are coming,” before they were loaded onto a truck with other children, never to be seen again.

A decade later, in 1951, a young girl who lives across the street from the Lubinskis in Bellerose witnesses her mother being taken away by FBI agents and arrested “for conspiracy to obstruct justice” in connection with David Greenglass and the Rosenbergs. She asks, “The takeaway men took Mommy away. When is she coming back?”

Continued on page 20

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Update pages provided by Jewish Federation of Greater MetroWest NJ

Greater MetroWest UPDATE

For the latest information & happenings in the Jewish community, visit us at www.jfedgmw.org

E D U C A T E.

A D V O C A T E.

A C T.

RACISM IN AMERICA The recent murder of George Floyd has rocked America and serves as a harsh reminder to us all: Racism in America is, tragically, alive and well. As a Jewish community, we cannot stand idly by.

To help educate our community about racial injustice and discuss what we can do to combat it, Jewish Federation has launched two virtual conversations, one for adults and one just for teens.

CONVERSATIONS FOR ADULTS

CONVERSATIONS JUST FOR TEENS

Session 2: Understanding Today

Session 1: Hearing from Our Leaders

Monday, July 13 7:30-8:45 p.m.

Thursday, July 16 7-8:30 p.m.

In the second of our three-part series, a distinguished panel of local African American leaders will discuss the effects of racial injustice on the lives of Black Americans and the ways that the Jewish community can be allies in the fight for racial justice.

Join teens from across our community for a threepart series to launch this important conversation.

In this first session, a panel of local rabbis will talk about the current struggle for racial equality and how our Jewish values and Jewish Identities should inspire us to act in the face of injustice.

For more information and to register visit

For more information and to register visit

jfedgmw.org/racism Questions? Contact Mara Gellman at mgellman@jfedgmw.org

jteengmw.org/teen-activism Questions? Contact Stephanie Brand at sbrand@jfedgmw.org

Federation cares for people in need, builds Jewish life, and saves the world, one person at a time, every day.

Building an inclusive community is a priority. Contact us and we will make every effort to meet your needs.

Follow us:

Update pages provided by Jewish Federation of Greater MetroWest NJ

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For the latest information & happenings in the Jewish community, visit us at www.jfedgmw.org

Jewish Federation and Jewish Community Foundation of Greater MetroWest NJ are deeply saddened by the passing of long-time friend, benefactor, and former president of our Federation

LEONARD POSNOCK August 26, 1936 - June 30, 2020 He is survived by his wife Freida Posnock, son Stuart Posnock, daughter-in-law Lee Posnock, and son-in-law Koresh Sion. Leonard and Freida lost their daughter, Michelle Sion, earlier this year.

Leonard was a driving force at Jewish Federation of Central NJ, having served on many committees and as Campaign Chair and President. He was a co-chair of Operation Exodus and a Founding Member of the Mack Ness Fund.

Leonard believed strongly in the work of Federation and his passion showed in everything he did. He brought that passion with him to the merger of the Central and MetroWest federations, and served on the Mack Ness Fund and Greater MetroWest board with the dignity that always followed him.

Leonard served as a role model and inspiration to all who knew him. Our community has lost a true friend and beloved mentor. We extend our deepest condolences to his wife Freida and their family.

May his memory be for a blessing.

JEWISH COMMUNITY FOUNDATION

Scott Krieger President, Federation

Dov Ben-Shimon EVP/CEO, Federation

Steven D. Levy President, Foundation

Kim Hirsh Executive Director, Foundation

Michael Goldberg Chair, Campaign

Rebecca Pollack Vice President, Campaign

Federation cares for people in need, builds Jewish life, and saves the world, one person at a time, every day.

Building an inclusive community is a priority. Contact us and we will make every effort to meet your needs.

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| SHABBAT CANDLELIGHTING | July 10: 8:11 p.m.

When taking a census, everyone counts Pinchas Numbers 25:10-30:1 Rabbi Joyce Newmark

T

his week’s parasha is Pinchas. Its two principal sections describe the census conducted at the end of the wilderness period that will be the basis for apportioning the land and the catalogue of the musaf — that is, additional — sacrifices that were to be offered on Shabbat and holidays.

But our parasha begins with the conclusion of the story of Pinchas, which began at the end of last week’s Torah portion. Last week we learned that while the Israelites were camped at Shittim, the men were drawn into acting immorally with the Moabite and Midianite women and worshipping their gods, so that God became enraged and a plague broke out in the camp. And if this were not bad enough, an Israelite man brought a Midianite woman to the center of the camp, to the

entrance of the Mishkan, and began to have sexual relations with her in front of Moses, Elazar, and the leaders of the community, who seemed to be unable to do anything but stand there and weep. At this point, Elazar’s son Pinchas grabbed his spear and killed them both, causing the plague to stop. Still, 24,000 Israelites died.

This week’s parasha then begins with God proclaiming Pinchas’s reward for his zealousness. Then the Torah says: When the plague was over, the Lord said to Moses and to Elazar son of Aaron the priest, “Take a census of the whole Israelite community from the age of twenty years up, by their ancestral houses, all Israelites able to bear arms.”

Rashi explains, “This may be likened to a shepherd into whose flock there entered wolves and killed some of them, and he counted them to know the number of the remaining sheep.”

So far, so good. But, of course, one of the themes of the book of Bamidbar is leadership.

Arts Debut

Continued from page 17 Aron Lubinski recalls the SS as the takeaway men, “who forced them from their homes and then starved, tortured and murdered them.”

Ain says that the title reflects what has been going on these days at America’s southern border, with children separated from their parents.

The phrase also goes back to an incident in Ain’s childhood, when she was about 4 years old — a trauma for her at the time, albeit one with a safe ending. She opened the front door of her home to encounter a man she didn’t recognize who looked official, with a black suit and horn-rimmed glasses. Before her parents came to the door, she asked who he was, and he said, “I’m the takeaway man, I’ve come to take you away.” She shrieked and ran into the bathroom. She was too young to recognize that he was a supervisor who had come to pick up their dry cleaning, and was kidding around with her.

The moment and the phrase stayed with her.

She worked on “The Takeaway Men” for about three years and says, “Sometimes I felt that the book was writing itself and that the characters were leading me.”

This is a first novel for Ain, who has published nonfiction books, “The Living Memories Project: Legacies That Last” and the companion book, “My Living Memories Project Journal,” works that encourage tangible ways for

readers to keep alive the memories of their loved ones. She has also written many articles and essays, and has had an accomplished career as a history teacher and school administrator on Long Island.

The author, who lives in Commack, N.Y., had been a reader of mostly nonfiction, but

And Rabbi Shlomo Ressler finds an important leadership lesson in this command to take a census. He points out that this verse is the very first time God speaks to Elazar after his father Aaron’s death. What, he asks, is the significance of the fact that this — the census — is the very first task God instructs Elazar to perform?

Rabbi Ressler says that God is teaching the newly installed leader that he must care about each and every one of his people — because they all count.

So we find that, once again, the Torah speaks to the issues of today. As Ben Azzai teaches in Pirkei Avot: Do not disdain any person, do not underestimate the importance of any thing, for there is no person who does not have his hour, and there is no thing without its place in the sun.

Rabbi Joyce Newmark, a resident of River Vale, is a former religious leader of congregations in Leonia and Lancaster, Pa.

since retirement joined a local book club and began reading a lot of fiction, and was inspired to try writing a novel. Now, she is interested in meeting with as many book clubs as possible, virtually, to discuss the book.

The Holocaust has been a lifelong “obsession,” she says, beginning in sixth grade when she read “The Diary of Anne Frank.” She has taught about the Holocaust, spoken with many survivors and their children, and has read extensively on the topic. For the novel, she did meticulous research in order to get the history right and to capture the reality for her invented characters. She also includes a glossary of Yiddish, German, Hebrew, and Jewish Americana.

Some scenes are set in the Kielce pogrom on July 4, 1946, a violent massacre of the town’s Jews by soldiers, police, and citizens, in which 42 Jews were killed and many were wounded.

Ain’s interest in these events was sparked by the 2016 documentary film, “Bogdan’s Journey,” which she saw when she was thinking about the shape and reach of the novel.

Ain reflects on the thread connecting the novel and her previous books, all of which relate to the urgency of memory.

“I think it’s important to remember the Holocaust and to remember the survivors. In Kielce, they killed Jews in cold blood a year after the war was over, and no one in the town ‘remembered.’ We have to remember.” n Sandee Brawarsky is culture editor for The New York Jewish Week, NJJN’s sister publication.

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Hammer

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Realtor® Sales Associate SRS, ABR Your Cutting Edge Realtor® ® Sales Associate Realtor Let a “niceSRS, JewishABR Susan Hammer

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NJ Jewish News ■ njjewishnews.com ■ July 9, 2020

CLASSIFIEDS CLASSIFIEDS CLASSIFIEDS

21

PROFESSIONAL DIRECTORY

NJ Jewish News ■ njjewishnews.com ■ July 9, 2020

22

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ExitRamp

23

Merrill Silver Special to NJJN

A

s New Jersey synagogues slowly reopen, I wonder about the future of mine, Congregation Shomrei Emunah in Montclair.

Reopen? It seems to me we never actually closed. Instead, thanks to Zoom (and our clergy, staff, and volunteers), we simply relocated and welcomed God into our living rooms, kitchens, porches, and patios.

The first time I “went” to Shabbat morning services during the pandemic was late March. I didn’t know what to expect. I had never gone to shul by sitting on the living room sofa, wearing slippers, and balancing an iPad on my lap.

I arrived early to see our social hall, rather than our sanctuary, on the screen. Bereft of people congregating, it appeared sterile and downright eerie.

Yet, Rabbi David Greenstein marched purposefully into the stark room, singing, “Ma Norah HaMakom HaZeh,” how awesome is this place.

“It’s good to be here,” he continued.

“It’s good to be alive.” He scrubbed his hands, washing away the week’s grime, then washed again and recited the blessing said over a ritual hand wash.

$

Suddenly, I was embarrassed to be wearing slippers to shul.

The rabbi breathed words of gratitude into the room. He thanked all the essential workers — from doctors to supermarket staff. He sang Modeh Ani, explaining that it’s not enough to thank God for returning one’s soul each morning; rather, we need God’s help to make something good of it. I say this prayer every morning, but never understood the deeper meaning.

Over the ensuing weeks and months, we gleaned wisdom from words of the Torah and the Prophets. Whether we are building a tabernacle or embarking on a journey to the Promised Land, we must learn to protect life and to love thy neighbor as thyself. It’s that simple — and complicated.

I try to attend our online services weekly. I say Shabbat Shalom to my friends in the Zoom chat box that appears on the right side of my iPad, the same place we exchange condolences and mazel tovs, and where someone “announces” page numbers. The keyboard is now the conduit to sharing life’s rhythms. Normally, I would whisper the names of those suffering from illness, as the rabbi catches my eye. Now I type their names into the Misheberach list, wondering whether God will be more attentive if I write in capital letters.

Virtual davening has made it easy to

As we eventually find our new “normal,” I reflect on what Pandemic Judaism 101 has taught me. Sure, I miss the physical sanctuary — holding the Torah, sitting next to someone, shaking hands, and hugging. I miss the way the sunlight dances on the stained-glass windows. Oh, how I miss the “singing table” at Kiddush after services on Saturday mornings.

Remote Jewish life has taught me that Judaism can be alive and well in my personal space. I may appear on the screen like the children’s book character Flat Stanley, but there’s nothing one-dimensional about my kavanah, intention, at a weekly service, shiva minyan, or funeral.

We’ve come a long way from Exodus, Chapter 25, when God gives Moses instructions on how to build a portable sanctuary. My tabernacle doesn’t have acacia wood or gold rims and rings, no cherubs in my Mishkan.

My holy space has my iPad or iPhone, and when the screen prompts me to “Join meeting,” I tap the link and am ready to pray. I thank God that another week has gone by and my family is healthy and safe. “Ma Norah HaMakom HaZeh” — how awesome is this place. ■ Merrill Silver is an ESL teacher at JVS of MetroWest in East Orange.

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keep track of time. We counted the Omer.

We blessed new months. We started and finished books of the Torah. With knots in our stomachs, we watched the number of Covid-19 deaths rise astronomically.

Then we watched them fall in the tristate area, only to soar in other parts of the country. More recently, we counted the number of black people killed by police, and the number of protests worldwide.

The changing seasons and the later sunsets also help mark the passage of time. I notice these subtle changes, particularly during Friday night services.

As we sing the familiar melodies, I appreciate the longer days and greener trees. I am glad that nature has not disappointed me.

At Kabbalat Shabbat services, our rabbinic intern, Morah Lily Lucey, greets us with her radiant smile, and asks everyone to think of something wonderful from the previous week. While I am drowning in worry, I appreciate her gentle reminder. I smile when I remember a FaceTime with a friend, and the garden flowers that surprised me.

Lucey encourages everyone to sing with her, although, as we are muted on Zoom, her soothing voice is the only one we hear. A few weeks ago, she sang Lecha Dodi to the tune of “We Shall Overcome,” and we all sang along, which I could tell because everyone’s mouths were moving.

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NJ Jewish News ■ njjewishnews.com ■ July 9, 2020

My Jewish practices are not virtual, they’re very real

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