Southern Jewish Life, Deep South, January 2022

Southern Jewish Life

January 2022 Volume 32 Issue 1

Southern Jewish Life P.O. Box 130052 Birmingham, AL 35213 Chanukah Party at B’nai Israel in Columbus, Miss.

“It makes you dream of a heavenly world. It’s really a balsam, a salve for the soul. It’s something that really restores you, regenerates you.”

—Filippa Giordano, famous Italian-Mexican Singer

Shen Yun’s unique artistic vision expands theatrical experience into a multi-dimensional, deeply moving journey. Featuring one of the world’s most ancient and richest dance systems—classical Chinese dance—along with dynamic animated backdrops and all-original orchestral works, Shen Yun opens a portal to a civilization of enchanting beauty and enlightening wisdom.

Shen Yun Performing Arts is a nonprofit organization based in New York. Its mission is to revive 5,000 years of traditional Chinese culture. Traditional Chinese culture—with its deep spiritual roots and profoundly optimistic worldview—was displaced by communism in China. While Shen Yun cannot perform in China today, it is sharing this precious heritage with the world.

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January 2022 • Southern Jewish Life

“This is the best I have ever seen. It was so uplifting. It spoke to everything that is good in this world.”

—Glen Duncan, Grammy Award-winning musician

CHINA BEFORE COMMUNISM

“So beautiful and so moving!”

—Vikki Carr, Grammy Award-winning singer

“There was something pure and bright and very dignified about them.

The show gave me a real sense of goodness and meaning in life.”

“Shen Yun brought something most needed in this world—hope: hope for a better world, hope for a better future, hope for a better life.”

—Anna Liceica, soloist with the American Ballet Theatre

—Jesse Miranda, producer

Huntsville, AL Jan 11, 2022 Von Braun Center

Jackson, MS Feb 8, 2022 Thalia Mara Hall

Birmingham, AL Feb 12, 2022 BJCC Concert Hall

ShenYun.com/Huntsville

ShenYun.com/Jackson

ShenYun.com/Birmingham January 2022 • Southern Jewish Life

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commentary

MESSAGES

Maccabi USA leader praises Birmingham Games

I have had the honor of attending many Maccabi competitions around the world. From Israel to Australia to South America, Europe and the JCC Maccabi games around the United States and Canada, I have logged many miles seeing how sports can be a vehicle to help build Jewish the Middle East?”

By Rabbiespecially JonathaninMiller identity, our young.

Tutu could smile and cry at the same time. He I felt enjoyed serving as the rabbi of the largest honored to come to Birmingham for the first time and fell in love with not just the city said that he was dismayed at the amount of sufsynagogue in Birmingham andSouthern the state hospitality of Albut the people.

You have taken to a new level with your kind and caring fering endured in that part of the world and, “It abama. approach to the JCC Maccabi Games. is so sad to see that the same people, the Jews, Birmingham is a beautiful mid-size Southern Led by the Sokol and Helds, your hard-workingwho volunteers were wonderful. have suffered so much They and sopartnered recently are city, but with a painful history as a crucible of with your outstanding staff, led by Betzy Lynch, toinflicting make thethe 2017 JCCsuffering Maccabiongames a huge hit. same the Palestinians. violence and racial hatred that keeps it on the I want to take this opportunity as executive director of Maccabi USA to say thank you ontobehalf What was done to them they are doing others.” map of the world’s imagination. During my tenof everyone involved.

I thought I would explode.

I blurted out inure, important people come through to check in dignantly, “Archbishop, do you really think just returned from 20th World Maccabiah games in Israel with a U.S. delegation ofthat forI ahad visit.

Birmingham is anthe important place.

Israelis areBack Nazis?

Where the over 1100,15who joined JewishPeace athletes fromthe 80 countries. in July theare eyesthe ofovens, the entire About years ago,10,000 the Nobel Prize genocide, that cattle cars and the gas chambers?

Jewish world were on Desmond Jerusalem Tutu, and the Maccabiah.

This past month with 1000 athletes and laureate, Archbishop made his suffering coaches frompilgrimage. around the Iworld being in to Birmingham, you becamebabies the focal point. the same way Birmingham was honored hear Are Palestinian that Jewish babies did during the Holocaust? him speak atfrom the the beautiful of the Everyone JewishChurch community andAdthe community at large, including a wonderful Are the Israelis and the Nazis really cut from the vent and thenare join as a guest forThese an intimate police force, tohim be commended. games will gocloth? down How in history as being a seminal same can you say that?

Israel has the lunch with religious leaders.

Tututo the future by providing such wonderful Jewish moment forBirmingham’s the Jewish community as we build power to do to the Palestinians what the Nazis was magnificent. I cannot remember exactly memories. did to the Jews, and they do not do that in any what he said to the overflowing church audiway, shape or form.

How can you say that?”

Jed Margolis ence, but I do remember how I was mesmerAll eyes were on me. I realized that I had overExecutive ized by hisDirector, speech. Maccabi He spokeUSA about justice and stepped the bounds of polite discourse, sometruth, a rebuke of the powerful interests. But his thing treasured in the South. I shrunk back. passion was colored with love and a bounteous supremacists would like to see pushed back “Rabbi, ” the great humanitarian smiled, On Charlottesville grace that inspired us all with hope. into a corner and made to feel lesser. We stand things are complicated, but injustice I had recently returned from an interfaith “These with and pray for the family of Heather Heyer, Editor’s Note: This reaction to the events in everywhere is terrible and must be denounced.” trip to Croatia, Bosnia and Serbia with fellow who was there standing up to the face of this Charlottesville, written by Jeremy Newman, I was horrified.

I took his card and sent him a Birmingham religious leaders. We witnessed the hate.

Master of the Alpha Epsilon Pi Theta Colony long letter, first apologizing for my outburst but powerful forces that tore apart the communities Wechallenging recognize the essence of the American at Auburn University, was shared by AEPi then him to reconsider his views and had them turn on each other with a vicious narrative as a two-century old later struggle to rid a National, which called it “very eloquent” and and his language.

Six months I received cruelty. To prepare for our trip, we each read ourselves of such corners, and my allow those in praised “our brothers at AEPi Theta Colony at note thanking me for sharing opinion with Tutu’s epochal work on the South African Truth themand thewishing seat at the table that they so deserve.

Auburn University and… the leadership they him me well. and Reconciliation Commission, and we studied It is the struggle to fulfill the itpromise of be thetold. display on their campus.”

I share this story because needs to the confluence of accountability and forgiveness Declaration of Independence, that “all menman are I am not so churlish as to pick on a dead as a model for overcoming historical injustice. created equal… endowed by their Creator with who cannot answer me now, just as I received At lunch, I was thrilled to sit aatcancer the right White supremacy has been onhand no certain unalienable rights. ” Weunderstand know our work response back then.

I can Tutu’s of Archbishop Tutu.

I jumped in and shared how our country since its beginning, threatening is far from finished, butsuffering we knowofwe will not identification with the the Palestinsome of Birmingham’s leaders its hopes, its values, andreligious its better angels.had just move backwards. come back from the Balkans, how we were in- ians. I can understand how people can disagree The events that took place inand Charlottesville Israel’s policies and take them to task.

When men and women, fully armed, takeThat spired

by South workThose under the with represented the Africa’s worst ofspiritual this nation. is not what troubled me then.

Nor is this to the streets in droves with swastikas and what Archbishop’s nodded who marcheddirection. onto theHe streets withappreciatively. tiki torches disturbs me stilloftoday. hate, it is a reminder of how Then I asked, “Archbishop Tutu, do youand think other symbols and swastikas did so to provoke violence I don’t know if Archbishop Tutu’s lack of comrelevant the issues of racism and anti-Semitism that a Truth and Reconciliation Commission fear. Those who marched onto the streets did passion for Jews was motivated by classic that might be a good way for Europe to deal withtoits are today. It is a wake-up call to the workwestern so to profess an ideology that harkens back Christian tropes ortopolitical expediency, or maybe needs to be done ensure a better, more centuries of anti-Jewish persecution and vioa bleaker, more wretched time in our history. real belief country. that JewsBut anditNazis, shouldthe notvictims come and lence? that bewomen a great model tocreeds, explore awelcoming A timeWouldn’t when men and of many perpetrators are one and the same.

I don’t know. without a reflection on how far we’ve come. and bring light the forces thisequal historic races, and to religions were far of from andviofar But I did learn from this experience that lence and in bring to bothAthe victims America wasbeing, born even a slave nation.

A century from safe ourhealing own borders. time whereand every human those we beatify, has aAmericans way forward forunder the perpetrators?” into our history we engaged in a war in part lived a constant cloud of their blind spots where they refuse to see.

He responded, “Rabbi, I understand your to ensure we would not continue as one. We racism, anti-Semitism and pervasive hate. The Archbishop Tutu will, justly, be remembered as question, theplace experience of the Jewsserved in Eu- found ourselves the fortitude issue of civil events thatbut took in Charlottesville a man spiritualconfronted courage andby great who rope is not the as the experience of the rights,ofand embarked on a mission to ensure as a reminder of same how painfully relevant these helped his nation heal from the terrible injustice blacks in South theapartheid. fair treatment all peoples no that matter issues are today.Africa.”

I willofremember him way.their But I wanted to ask him, “What is the difference of skin color.

Although we’ve made great strides, I will also remember him as someone who disapAuburn’s Alpha Epsilon Pi stands with the and why would you advise against this?” But I it is a mission we’re still grappling with today.

Jewish Icommunity of aCharlottesville, and didn’t. was, after all, lunch guest, one of may- pointed me profoundly for his unwillingness to the Jewish painan and my own anguish. waspeople’s also born immigrant with the Jewish people around the country be a dozen people. It would not be good form to feelAmerica Blind spots — if Desmond Tutu has them, we country.

As early as the pilgrims, many and around the world.

We also stand with the dominate the discussion. all have them. groups and families found in the country the minorities who are targeted by the hate that Our host and my friend, the Episcopalian to plantMiller stakes,ischase future,of was on display in Charlottesville.

Wewould stand you opportunity Rabbi Jonathan rabbitheir emeritus Bishop, later asked, “Archbishop, and be themselves. were met with open with the minorities of whom theseiswhite Emanu-El inFew Birmingham. share with us your sense of what going on in Temple

An Unsettling Lunch with Archbishop Tutu

4 January 2022 • Southern Jewish Life

January January2021 2022

Southern Jewish Life PUBLISHER/EDITOR Lawrence M. Brook editor@sjlmag.com ASSOCIATE PUBLISHER/ADVERTISING Lee J. Green lee@sjlmag.com ASSOCIATE EDITOR Richard Friedman richard@sjlmag.com V.P. SALES/MARKETING, NEW ORLEANS Jeff Pizzo jeff@sjlmag.com CREATIVE DIRECTOR Ginger Brook ginger@sjlmag.com SOCIAL/WEB Emily Baldwein connect@sjlmag.com PHOTOGRAPHER-AT-LARGE Rabbi Barry C. Altmark deepsouthrabbi.com CONTRIBUTING WRITERS Rivka Epstein, Louis Crawford, Tally Werthan, Stuart Derroff, Belle Freitag, Ted Gelber, E. Walter Katz, Doug Brook brookwrite.com BIRMINGHAM OFFICE P.O. Box 130052, Birmingham, AL 35213 2179 Highland Ave., Birmingham, AL 35205 205/870.7889 NEW ORLEANS OFFICE 3747 West Esplanade, 3rd Floor Metairie, LA 70002 504/249-6875 TOLL-FREE 888/613.YALL(9255) ADVERTISING Advertising inquiries to 205/870.7889 for Lee Green, lee@sjlmag.com Jeff Pizzo, jeff@sjlmag.com Media kit, rates available upon request SUBSCRIPTIONS It has always been our goal to provide a large-community quality publication to all communities of the South.

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Documenting this community, a community we are members of and active within, is our passion.

We love what we do, and who we do it for.

shalom y’all If you are reading this magazine, chances are you are now seen as a legitimate target.

Do you attend a synagogue somewhere in our coverage area? Gone on a mission to Israel? Attended or sent your kids to one of the Jewish summer camps in our region?

Give to Federation, support the Anti-Defamation League?

Or, heaven forbid, you’re a member or associate of Hadassah, or visited a Hillel house while in college.

In other words, if you are pretty much any random Jew in America today.

You may consider yourself open minded and tolerant, you may think that you are working toward peace and justice in the world. Oh, but no. Your evil has been exposed, and the warning has gone out about your existence.

And a target has been put on your back.

The alarm bells about you were sounded recently by none other than a leading figure with the Council on American Islamic Relations, which considers itself the leading American advocate for Muslim rights and a warrior in the battle against hate and bigotry. By a person who briefly was named to the Women’s March board, but was quickly bounced after her history of antisemitic social media posts came to light.

In a speech to the American Muslims for Palestine national convention in late November in Chicago, Zahra Billoo, CAIR’s San Francisco regional director, told those in attendance that the vast majority of American Jews are their “enemies.”

She specifically referenced “Zionist synagogues” — which is the vast majority — Hillel Houses on “our campuses,” the ADL (ironic, since for years CAIR has tried to portray itself as the Muslim version of the ADL, before the ADL became anathema

SJL Online: sjlmag.com Southern Jewish Life is an independent Jewish periodical. Articles and columns do not necessarily reflect the views of any Jewish institutions, agencies or congregations in our region.

To subscribe, email subscribe@sjlmag.com

continued on page 6

January 2022 • Southern Jewish Life

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commentary in certain social justice circles) and Jewish Federations, which are the mainstream umbrella group in pretty much every Jewish community of more than a few hundred people.

The frightening aspect is that outside of certain pro-Israel advocacy circles and some Jewish media outlets, there has been barely a mention of this.

Imagine a politician, or, to make a closer analogy, a prominent regional director of the ADL, giving a speech that labels the vast majority of American Muslims or any other group as “enemies.”

We wouldn’t hear the end of it.

And CAIR would be at the forefront of denouncing that speaker — with most Jewish organizations not far behind. But in response to Billoo’s remarks, CAIR has doubled down in defending her, even stating that criticism of her dangerous remarks is Islamophobic.

In other words, “if you denounce our hateful incitement, you’re being hateful and inciting.”

She has since announced that she is taking an already-planned sabbatical, while complaining of a “prolonged Zionist onslaught” against her.

Billoo’s remarks are part of the increased radicalism in anti-Israel circles. Over the last couple of years, Israel has been increasingly referred to as a white supremacist or Jewish supremacist endeavor.

Remember the longstanding policy of not negotiating with terrorists? That has been turned 180 degrees. Calls for a two-state solution, where Israelis and Palestinians can live in peace side by side in their own states, have been falling by the wayside as Israel is considered a foreign European outpost in the Middle East, an illegitimate presence no matter what borders are drawn.

Not only is one not supposed to negotiate with such a regime, but one should not even normalize relations, or even interact with Israel as one would any other country.

Far from being a protest against Israeli policies in the territories, the Boycott Divest and Sanction movement doesn’t really care about Israel’s policies, its aim is the complete dismantling of Israel.

Aside from the tiny fringe groups such as Jewish Voice for Peace and IfNotNow, the vast majority of the Jewish community disagrees with the idea of dismantling Israel and realizes such actions would result in a massacre as the “colonizers” are dealt with and sent back to “where they came from,” as many in the anti-Israel crowd propose, imagining that they “came from” Europe though the majority of Jewish Israelis have roots in Arab countries that kicked them out. Not to mention those who had been in what would become Israel for generations before the modern state was established, who the activists conveniently label as “Palestinian Jews,” a term used by precisely none of those Jews.

Forget that the vast majority of American Jews lean left and want to see Jews and Palestinians living side by side — even if it is a Jewish state where Arabs live as full citizens as societal equals, and a Palestinian state where its leaders have insisted no Jew would be allowed to reside.

In the mind of the anti-Israel activist, the Jew-free Palestinian state is completely justifiable while pluralistic Israel is racist apartheid.

But in an age where the anti-Israel activists, especially in academia, consider a Jewish state on any square inch of the Middle East to be illegitimate, even a two-state solution is unbearable because it perpetuates said supremacist, colonialist regime, and must be resisted. And

What do you think?

Send your letters to editor@sjlmag.com or mail to P.O. Box 130052, Birmingham, AL 35213 6 January 2022 • Southern Jewish Life

yes, resistance means whatever it takes, violence and terrorism (er, freedom fighting) included.

For them, there is no middle ground, no room for agreement. There is only the evil occupier, Israel, which must be dealt with and expelled.

And if you disagree with that extreme notion, you are complicit in that evil.

The way Billoo and her cohorts are now publicly framing the argument defines the vast majority of American Jews in those terms.

Sadly, it is a maximalist argument that does nothing to make life better for actual Palestinians and only delays hope of a better future for them, as Israel isn’t interested in committing national suicide.

Billoo’s rhetoric is a double-edged danger for the Jewish world.

First, there is the physical danger as more extreme acts against a wider range of Jewish targets in the U.S. are not only advocated, but justified.

If you are fighting racism and genocide, battling ethnic cleansing and apartheid, then what you do claims the moral high ground. You’re fighting for the greater good.

In Europe, there have been rulings that attacks on synagogues are legitimate expressions of political opinion, not hate crimes. American courts recently ruled that a group harassing a Michigan synagogue for years with weekly anti-Israel protests on Shabbat can continue to do so.

A prestigious university gave a pass to a student who threaten to light someone on fire who was wearing an Israeli Defense Forces sweatshirt.

Imagine a student using a noose to threaten a Black student. Another prestigious university drags its feet over dealing with a student diversity officer (!) who expressed a desire to kill all Zionists.

The other danger is that Jewish youth, especially in college, where this rhetoric is at its most pervasive, will look at what they are being accused of by being Jewish, look at their own humanistic ideals, accept at face value the distortions and outright lies being told about Israel, say “who needs this,” and turn their backs on the community and on Israel. It would be so much easier to just fade into the woodwork and not deal with this.

Who wants to be identified as an oppressor? As a supremacist? Not your typical “let’s all get along” Jewish college student who was raised on the concept of Tikkun Olam.

An alarming percentage already feel it necessary to hide their Jewish identity from peers, or even worse, professors known to be anti-Israel, lest their grades suffer. How much more would it take for them to just walk away?

How has it reached this point?

How has society devolved to the point where social justice activists can label the vast majority of American Jews as enemies and there is no outpouring of outrage, but silence or nodding agreement?

How, in this atmosphere, can so many in the Jewish community pretend that the only threats to the community come from the far-right white supremacists that nobody takes seriously?

And how can so many profess a greater trust in the likes of CAIR, which was established by those with ties to Hamas, than in evangelical Christians who profess unconditional love and support of Israel and the Jewish people, with no conversionary or end-times agenda?

Over the last couple of decades, the anti-Israel movement has become much more strident and extreme, and it has reached the point where they are trying to make Jewish identity toxic.

This problem can not be ignored, and our communal impulse to work with and get along with everyone can no longer keep us from standing up for ourselves. Some might argue that this is no time to burn bridges, but in this case, in the words of Billy Joel, “we didn’t start the fire.”

Lawrence Brook, Publisher/Editor

agenda interesting bits & can’t miss events

On Dec. 16, ground was broken for the Louisiana Community Mikvah, a combined effort of all Jewish congregations in New Orleans and Baton Rouge. The freestanding building will be behind Shir Chadash in Metairie and serve the region.

Baton Rouge congregations unite, plan to announce new name As the secular new year begins, a new chapter in Baton Rouge Jewish life unfolds.

No longer two Reform congregations named Beth Shalom and B’nai Israel, Baton Rouge is now home to what is temporarily being called Unified Jewish Congregation of Baton Rouge. The merger is the culmination of a process that has been discussed for years, but especially over the last two years. Both congregations approved the merger in August.

The congregation’s first annual meeting was scheduled for Jan. 9, but was postponed due to Covid. When it takes place, fig trees will be planted, Torah scrolls will be exchanged, and there will be a champagne toast following lunch.

The new congregation has been voting on a new name, which will also be revealed at the meeting. Two of the top four choices are combinations of the previous names, Beth Israel and B’nai Shalom. The others are Gesher, which means bridge, and Or Chadash, a new light.

The new congregation’s logo is a braided candle with a flame in the shape of the Hebrew letter “shin,” as found on the mezuzah.

At the meeting there will also be a facilities update. The plan is for the new congregation to expand the existing Kleinert Avenue location and eventually sell the Jefferson Highway property, once the preschool has its new home. A town hall meeting is planned to discuss the expansion plans and get input from congregants. The goal is to have the facilities completed by the High Holy Days in 2023.

A rabbinic search committee is already interviewing candidates. Rabbis Batsheva Appel and Teri Appleby were brought on specifically to serve the two congregations as they navigated the transition process.

Shabbat evening services are alternating between locations, with services on Jan. 7 and 21 at Jefferson Highway, and Jan. 14 and 28 at Kleinert Avenue. Shabbat mornings, there is a 10 a.m. minyan at Kleinert Avenue and a 10:30 a.m. service at Jefferson Highway.

MSJE named Top Ten new attraction in USA Today reader poll The Museum of the Southern Jewish Experience in New Orleans was named to the USA Today Readers’ Choice 10Best list for Best New Attraction in 2021.

A panel of experts came up with the initial 20 nominees, and the top 10 were decided by popular vote. At fifth, the museum was the highest-listed museum in the survey, and the only attraction in Louisiana.

“This award is a huge accomplishment for the Museum to receive within such a short time frame from when we opened in May 2021,” said Executive Director Kenneth Hoffman. “Despite opening in the middle of a pandemic, MSJE has quickly gained recognition as an important center for cultural exploration and a vibrant tourist destination. The Museum appreciates the support it has received from the people of New Orleans, supporters from across the South, and thousands of visitors from around the world.”

The museum is planning its long-delayed opening celebration for its first anniversary, June 11 and 12. The weekend will include a founding donor patron party, Jazz brunch, special exhibition opening reception and Family Fun Fest.

The overall winner was SkyFly: Soar America, a “flying theater” attraction at The Island in Pigeon Forge, Tenn.

The Van Gogh Immersive Experience placed second. It is touring the country, and will be in New Orleans from April 8 to June 17, at a location to be announced. An exhibition in Birmingham ran from November to Jan. 2. There are five different companies producing immersive Van Gogh experiences across the country, and the New Orleans exhibit is a different group than the Birmingham exhibit.

Allegiant Stadium tours at the new home of the Las Vegas Raiders in Paradise, Nev., and the Friends Experience in multiple cities, based on the television show, placed third and fourth.

January 2022 • Southern Jewish Life

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agenda Lynda Gutcheon retired as interim director of education at Birmingham’s Temple Emanu-El, effective Dec. 31. She has been in the position for three and one-half years. Rabbi Adam Wright said “for over three years, this community had one of the best Jewish educators in the country guiding and teaching us.” A search committee for the next director of education has been established.

With the continued uncertainty of the Covid pandemic, Temple Beth Or will once again not hold its annual Jewish Food Festival, a major fundraiser usually held in February. There is a possibility of an alternative event at some point. The congregation’s Sisterhood, though, reported that its Carnegie cheesecake sale was a huge success, with over 700 sold.

The Jewish Federation of Greater Baton Rouge will have its annual meeting on Jan. 23 at the Unified Jewish Congregation of Baton Rouge’s Kleinert location, starting at 3:30 p.m. A Zoom link will be available.

Krewe du Jieux kicks off carnival season in New Orleans with a family bagel decorating workshop at the Museum of the Southern Jewish Experience. The workshop will be Jan. 22 at 10:30 a.m., and a minimum of one adult is needed for every four children. Cost is $10 for the bagel and decorations. The workshop will include the history of the prized throw and what it represents.

The Jewish Krewes will march in New Orleans on Feb. 12. Krewe du Mishigas is part of the Krewe du Vieux parade, which kicks off at 6:30 p.m. at Royal and Press, then winds its way to Toulouse in the Quarter, and back. Krewe du Jieux marches with krewedelusion, starting at 7 p.m. at Franklin and Royal, also going through the Quarter to Toulouse and back to Frenchmen.

The next Southeast Chavurah lunch will be on Jan. 15 at noon, at the Fairhope Yacht Club. Rabbi Ed Boraz will lead Torah study, and there is a request to bring canned goods for the Fairhope Ecumenical Food Bank.

Beth Shalom in Fort Walton Beach will reinstitute its Nite on the Town series, with a 6 p.m. dinner at La Famiglia in Destin on Jan. 22.

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The Temple Beth Or Sisterhood in Montgomery will have Sisterhood Shabbat, Jan. 14 at 6 p.m. Guest speaker is Leah Nelson, research director for the Alabama Appleseed Center for Law and Justice.

Temple Beth El in Pensacola will have its annual poker tournament on Feb. 19. Doors open at 4:15 p.m. with play starting at 5 p.m. Buy-in for the no limit Hold-em tournament is $100 in advance, $110 at the door. There will be food and prizes. The tournament is the congregation’s largest annual fundraiser.

Birmingham’s Collat Jewish Family Services will have its annual meeting virtually on Jan. 19 at 5:15 p.m.

Birmingham’s Levite Jewish Community Center will hold its annual meeting on Jan. 30 at 10:30 a.m.

On International Holocaust Remembrance Day, Jan. 27, the Birmingham Holocaust Education Center will hold an educational event at 5 p.m. at Vestavia City Hall. Esther Levy, the daughter of a Holocaust survivor, will share her family’s experiences, followed by a question and answer session.

Bais Ariel Chabad in Birmingham will have Tibetan Shabbat, with Chef Josh Haynes on Jan. 14.

Beth Shalom in Fort Walton Beach will have an Exodus study group with St. Simons Church and Rev. Clelia Pinza Garrity. The group continued on page 27

Growing Chabad at Panama City Beach acquiring building, launching campaign The Chabad Jewish Center in Panama City Beach has signed a contract on a new facility that will be renovated and become the new Chabad Center.

The new building is on Miracle Strip Loop, close to where they are currently renting a space.

Rabbi Mendel Havlin said their current space has one main room where they have “the shul, the dining hall, the workshop space, the classroom, the kids school, the meeting room and the party space,” often having to switch purposes in the middle of an event. Because of a lack of space, large events have to be held elsewhere.

A campaign is underway to raise $1.2 million for the purchase and renovation of the 5,000 square foot facility, with numerous dedication opportunities available. They hope to be in the new facility by Rosh Hashanah.

Havlin said that they had been looking for a new facility, but after Hurricane Michael, “purchasing a space in Panama City Beach has become almost impossible.” Then this opportunity came up “to purchase a building, in a central location, to serve the growing and vibrant Jewish Community in Panama City Beach.”

They plan to have a large synagogue and library, a dining hall “that can comfortably seat a big crowd,” a lounge space, a commercial kitchen and separate Passover kitchen, dedicated children’s classroom and a space for kosher groceries.

Chabad in Panama City Beach has a Hebrew school, Cteen programs, Torah classes, a Jewish women’s circle, services on Shabbat and holidays and a Young Professionals group.

Havlin said the Jewish community includes “young couples that just moved recently to the area,” those stationed at Tyndall Air Force Base and the Navy Support Base, as well as veterans, families, singles, businessmen, retirees, and students at Gulf Coast State College and Florida State University Panama City.

The area is poised for growth, with many large new developments, such as Latitude Margaritaville Watersound, the “New Orleans inspired” Lagoon Manor, Breakfast Point, Moonraker and others.

“We are also serving many visitors, tourists and businessmen, or people with second homes at the beach area,” Havlin said.

In August 2020, there was a gathering of Chabad rabbis from the panhandle in Tallahassee, where they committed to helping the Havlins purchase a center.

Havlin said this project “would not be happening without the tremendous help of Rabbi Schneur Oirechman from the Center of the Chabad Lubavitch of the Panhandle” in Tallahassee, and Rabbi Moshe Kotlarsky, director of the international conference of Chabad-Lubavitch emissaries and the vice chairman of Merkos L’Inyonei Chinuch, the educational arm of the Chabad-Lubavitch movement.

Chabad has seen tremendous growth in the panhandle in recent years, under the direction of Oirechman.

The first Chabad center in the panhandle outside of Tallahassee was established in 2013 in Destin by Rabbi Shaya Tenenboim. In September 2018, Rabbi Mendel Danow arrived in Pensacola to establish Chabad there, just days before Hurricane Michael hit the area. At the start of 2019, the Havlins arrived in Panama City Beach.

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community

New Orleans Federation unveils strategic plan at annual event The Jewish Federation of Greater New Orleans unveiled its new strategic plan at its annual celebration on Dec. 8 at the Audubon Tea Room.

But that presentation and the installation of the Federation’s new officers wasn’t why Rabbi Deborah Silver of Shir Chadash began the evening with the recitation of “Shehecheyanu,” said at auspicious occasions.

“It is so long since we have sat in a room together,” she said. “It makes this moment a very special moment.”

Outgoing Federation board chair Joshua Force said the past two years had been “difficult for the Jewish community and difficult for the Federation.” Despite having “to deal with plagues of Biblical proportions and storms, our Federation never stopped working.”

In addition to the usual work of the Federation in a normal year, “the Federation has been nimble enough to pivot and face any challenges head-on,” including conducting the bulk of work in the virtual world the last two years.

At the City Park event where he became Federation president, Force said his emphasis would be on a strategic planning process for the Federation. Not only was that accomplished, the Federation launched two new Centers of Excellence for Jewish-Multicultural Affairs and Interfaith Families, but developed special programs to respond to Covid, and Hurricanes Laura and Ida. Noting that the Federation’s emphasis is on implementing the strategic plan, incoming board chair Brian Katz said his first remarks as president “might be the easiest presentation I’ve ever had to make.”

Asked about his goals for the next two years, he said “I was handed a strategic plan and told, ‘Here are your goals.’ Since the community told me what my goals are, those are my goals.”

He hopes “the next two years in our community will be short on challenges” but are “as prosperous as the last two.”

Katz also promoted the upcoming Louisiana Trade and Community Mission to Israel and the United Arab Emirates in July, where there will be a traditional “explore Israel” track and four business tracks for state businesses, including medicine, biotech and health care; energy and sustainability; transportation, port and maritime; and cybersecurity and innovation. Registration is already open at louisianatoisrael.com.

He also noted the recent hiring of a Community Security Director,

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Photos by Donna Matherne

Transition: Outgoing board chair Joshua Force and incoming board chair Brian Katz

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Left: Barri Bronston receives the Oscar J. Tolmas L’dor V’dor Award from Lisa Romano. Right, Rebecca Friedman receives the Herbert and Margot Garon Young Leadership Award from Bobby Garon.

Jimmy Stewart, a former FBI agent and retired New Orleans Police Department officer.

Mark Wilf, board chair for the Jewish Federations of North America and owner of the Minnesota Vikings, made a video presentation for the event.

He recalled how, in the aftermath of Katrina 16 years ago, New Orleans was at the center of Jewish Federation awareness, and countless recovery volunteers “got to experience a community that was warm and welcoming despite what it was enduring.” The local leadership “set the bar for how Jewish Federations take care of everyone.”

He mentioned the partnership with Baton Rouge and Shreveport following Hurricane Laura in 2020, saying “I don’t have to convince this group of the power of the collective.”

That sense of community responsibility also manifested in the response to Covid, Wilf said.

Arnie Fielkow, CEO of the Federation, recalled being on the city council 15 years ago in the aftermath of Katrina, watching the range of programs Federation put in place during the recovery. Now, he said, the community is 20 percent larger than the pre-Katrina figure, approaching 12,000.

He hoped for “a sense of normalcy” for 2022, and noted that “this is the best community of any place in the U.S.”

Community Awards Bobby Garon presented the Herbert and Margot Garon Young Leadership Award to Rebecca Friedman. A New Orleans native, she moved to New York after graduating from Yale in 1998. She then worked for McKinsey and Company in Philadelphia, and Garon said she didn’t anticipate moving back to New Orleans, but she did in 2010, asking McKinsey to work remotely “long before long-distance work became the norm” due to Covid.

Now a freelance writer, she became part of the 2019 class of the Federation’s Katz-Phillips Leadership Development Program. She joined the Jewish Community Center’s board, where she was quickly “regarded as a shining star.”

“It’s been such a pleasure coming home to this community… and getting to know what Federation does,” Friedman said. “I hope to do a lot more.”

Lisa Romano, vice president of the Oscar J. Tolmas Charitable Trust, presented the Tolmas L’dor V’dor Award to Barri Bronston.

Bronston got her community start in the youth group at Gates of Prayer. Since coming back to New Orleans after graduating from the University of Missouri, “she devoted much of her time to the National Council of Jewish Women.”

In the 1990s she was in the Federation’s Lemann-Stern Leadership Program, predecessor to Katz-Phillips.

She has been on the Federation board, chaired Super Sunday and

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community served on many committees, served on the boards of the JCC and Gates of Prayer, and the Jewish Children’s Regional Service gala committee. She was a founding member of the New Orleans Jewish Day School, “where her daughter Sally was in the first graduating class and the only eighth grade class.”

For over 30 years she was a writer at the Times-Picayune, sharing a Pulitzer in 2006 for coverage of Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath. Since 2012, she has worked in public relations for Tulane University, and is author of “Walking New Orleans,” which came out in an updated version last year.

Bronston said she was “shocked” to find out she was receiving the award. “Especially in this room, there are so many people who are equally deserving.”

She added, “I love this J community and plan on being involved for many more years to come.”

In recognizing the Annual Campaign chairs, Joshua Force said that due to recent conditions, Mara Force and Joshua Rubenstein “actually chaired two consecutive campaigns,” something that hasn’t happened for a very long time.

Last year’s campaign raised $2.6 million from 1,222 households, with a 4 percent card-forcard increase. “Their passion and hard work made the 2021 campaign a real success.”

Joshua Force said the campaigns were successful “despite the fact that we were not able to meet with people on a face to face basis and discuss the campaign.”

Mara Force thanked “both of my Joshes,” and Rubenstein thanked Mara Force for “making this very easy for me.”

Nancy and Steve Timm will chair the 2022 Annual Campaign, with Melinda Mintz and Marc Behar succeeding them for 2023.

Fielkow noted that “at the end of the day, we are a fundraising organization,” and Federation donors provide “a safety net” for the community.

Strategic Plan

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January 2022 • Southern Jewish Life

Joshua Force said the strategic plan being unveiled at the event “is not a plan to sit on a shelf.”

The plan was recently presented to the Federation board and approved.

The plan was the culmination of almost two years of discussions, focus groups, surveys and interviews.

In the community, Force said the Federation plays several different roles: Convener, to bring groups in the community together; Funder of local agencies and overseas needs; Program Provider and Supporter of the Jewish People locally and around the world.

The plan has four main objectives that “all lead to different channels of impact on the Jewish community, its members, organizations, and

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One priority is to welcome and connect all Jews “into an inclusive, meaningful environment,” whether first-time or long-time community members, and using the two new Centers as entry points. The goal is to have a space for everyone regardless of views or affiliation level.

Building a sustainable, resourced future involves expanding donorship, understanding of the Federation’s effect on the community, and increasing young leadership participation.

“We need to ensure the community understands not only how we raise money, but how we spend money and the impact it has,” and ensure that funds are spent efficiently, Force said.

Collaboration and coordination in the local Jewish ecosystem involves awareness of the different organizations and institutions, and their roles in enhancing community, and to share resources and cut redundancy.

For example, engaging younger adults should be done in partnership with the community groups that are already reaching them, to boost their efforts and provide additional resources to develop long-term active community members.

The fourth priority is to optimize the board, staff and leadership, improving communication and clarity of roles, and greater access to organizational information.

Each of the priorities comes with a set of recommendations on how to implement them, and how to measure success.

Force said “this is not going to happen overnight. It will take a while for it to be implemented fully.”

Katz announced that Michele Gelman and Shea Soll will chair the plan’s implementation, and said one piece of the fundraising component has been implemented with the hiring of Kassie Cosgrove as chief development officer.

The task force and committees “will be responsible for shaping the New Orleans Jewish community for the next five years or so,” Katz said.

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Pensacola Chabad adding preschool Chabad of Pensacola continues to add to its offerings with the establishment of a Jewish children’s daycare that will open “in the very near future.”

Jewish PensaTots will be for ages two months to four years, with limited space. The program will promote Jewish values with a Reggio Emilia philosophy, encouraging the individuality of each child, and seeking “to instill a love and pride of being Jewish by providing meaningful experiences for children and their families in a safe, nurturing and stimulating environment.”

The program will be led by Nechama Danow. Parents can register for 9 a.m. to either 12:30 or 3 p.m. On Fridays, the day will include a Shabbat party.

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community Local “Crime on the Bayou” opens Baton Rouge Jewish Film Festival Event’s return to in-person screenings postponed

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January 2022 • Southern Jewish Life

For the 16th installment of the annual Baton Rouge Jewish Film Festival, the festival is looking locally for its programming.

At press time, just days before the festival was to return with in-person screenings this year, the Omicron variant outbreak forced a postponement. The festival will still be held in person, but at dates that will be announced later.

The festival’s run of four films was to debut on Jan. 12 at 7 p.m. with the 2021 documentary “A Crime on the Bayou,” the story of Gary Duncan, a Black teen from Plaquemines Parish, and Jewish attorney Richard Sobol, who leaves a prestigious Washington law firm and volunteers in New Orleans.

In October 1966, Duncan was 19 when he was driving through Plaquemines Parish and saw his nephew and cousin surrounded by white teens.

The parish had just fought a bruising battle over school desegregation and tensions were high.

Duncan approached and introduced himself, touching one of the white teens on the arm. That night, Duncan was arrested for assaulting a minor. Leander Perez, a powerful segregationist who ruled the area from his position as district attorney, prosecuted Duncan as part of his effort to maintain de facto segregation. In the film’s trailer, Duncan said Perez “wanted to use me as an example for the rest of the Blacks.”

Duncan was denied a jury trial and sentenced to 60 days in prison and a $150 fine.

Sobol had arrived in Louisiana in 1966 as a volunteer for the Lawyers Constitutional Defense Committee. He became a leading figure in civil rights litigation, and took on Duncan’s case, leading to a 7-2 ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1968 that Louisiana was fundamentally obligated to provide a trial by jury, a ruling that rippled nationwide.

Director Nancy Buirski said the film shows how the legal system was used to oppress minority groups in America, a problem that has not been completely eliminated.

“A Crime on the Bayou” is the third in Buirski’s trilogy of films profiling individuals who fought for justice during the Civil Rights Era. The first two films were “The Loving Story” and “The Rape of Recy Taylor.”

When Sobol died in March 2020, Duncan said “I lost part of myself,” as Sobol “was one of the greatest people in the world.”

In 2016, Sobol wrote that his work with the LCDC brought him to “a new world from which I have never returned.” He was jailed for representing Duncan, and after the 1968 Supreme Court ruling, he returned to Washington to practice law. In 1971 he returned to Louisiana, then set up a civil rights law firm in Washington, and in 1991 returned to Louisiana for two decades. He was involved in an employment discrimination class action lawsuit against a Bogalusa paper mill, and many other cases.

Retired Columbia Law School professor George Cooper told the Associated Press that Sobol “was one of those men for whom civil rights and justice, particularly justice for black people, was the cause to which he devoted his life. And he faced a lot of danger because of that.”

“In Louisiana, people who needed help would be depending on my work,” Sobol wrote. “Whether I did it and did it quickly and successfully meant the difference between jail or not jail; integrated or segregated education; fair or discriminatory employment practices; the right to demonstrate or the denial of that right; access to public accommodations or the denial of access; the right to vote or tricks to nullify that right; and so on.”

The festival continues with “Born in Auschwitz,” the story of Vera, who arrived in Auschwitz in May 1944 and was selected for medical experiments run by Josef Mengele. Her daughter, Angela, was born in the camp and hidden for five weeks before liberation.

community The film explores healing in a parent-child relationship, as Angela passed on the trauma of the Holocaust to her daughter, Kati, an ultra-Orthodox cancer researcher who is determined to keep from passing that trauma to her children. While trying to free themselves from the Holocaust’s long shadow, they visit places they never wanted to return to, and meet people they never would have expected, including German psychotherapists and Pope Francis.

The romantic comedy “Honeymood” is next in the lineup. In the Israeli film, a newlywed couple arrives at their hotel suite in Jerusalem after the wedding, but instead of a relaxing, romantic night together, a gift from an ex-girlfriend launches them into a fight that leads to a dazed all-night urban journey, confronting past loves, repressed doubts and the lives they left behind.

This is the second film by director Talya Lavie, following her breakout hit “Zero Motivation.”

The festival concludes with “The Light Ahead,” a 1939 film that the National Center for Jewish Film considers one of the most important films in its archive collection. This showing is the Louisiana premiere of its 4K digital restoration.

Audaciously adapted from the work of novelist S. Y. Abramovitch, whom Sholem Aleichem dubbed the grandfather of Yiddish literature, this luminous allegory of escape marries Edgar Ulmer’s masterful direction with superb acting by members of New York’s Artef and Yiddish Art Theaters. Film historian J. Hoberman calls Helen Beverley and David Opatoshu “perhaps the most beautiful couple in the history of Yiddish cinema…their scenes have a touching erotic chemistry.”

The film is about a lame young man who is in love with a blind orphan

Photo: Augusta Films

A Crime on the Bayou girl in a cholera-obsessed town. They long to escape to Odessa, the big city, and an enlightened bookseller uses small-town superstitions to their advantage. The film, made on the eve of World War II, is “painfully conscious of the danger about to engulf European Jews.”

All screenings will be at the Manship Theatre. Individual tickets are available on the Manship Theatre website. The film festival website, brjff. com, has a sign-up for a VIP club that includes two tickets to opening night, discounts to all other nights, and food and drink coupons.

January 2022 • Southern Jewish Life

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community

Mobile Jewish Film Festival goes virtual again this year

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January 2022 • Southern Jewish Life

After holding a virtual event last year, the Mobile Jewish Film Festival was planning on a hybrid event this year, returning to its model of numerous films in several venues, while preserving a virtual option for all but one of the films.

But at the end of December, the rapid spread of Omicron compelled the organizers to announce that the festival will be virtual-only this year.

“We are holding our breath to see what the next month holds,” said festival co-chair Barry Silverman last month. “If things worsen, we may revert to virtual again as we did last year.”

One positive from the Covid-era festival last year was connecting to filmmakers over Zoom, Silverman said, and there are plans to have question and answer sessions with three filmmakers this year. With the festival going virtual, the timing of introductions and question-and-answer sessions may change.

The festival will run from Jan. 13 to 30. “Breaking Bread” was supposed to be the final film in the series but was not available for online screening, so it has been dropped from the schedule. All films will be available virtually starting at 8 a.m. on Jan. 13.

Organizers hope to screen “Breaking Bread” in person later this year, along with a few other films, when Covid wanes.

Since the festival has shifted to online, in-perKiss Me Kosher son tickets can be exchanged for online tickets. Those preferring not to view films online can get refunds.

Individual film tickets are $9, and a festival pass is $65. Tickets are available at mobilejewishfederation.org. Sponsorships start with Friend at $100 to Executive Producer at $2500.

The first film will be “Chasing Portraits.” The film details the works of Moshe Rynecki, a prolific artist in Warsaw who painted scenes of the Polish Jewish community. He was murdered at the Majdanek concentration camp in 1943. After the war, his wife was able to find only a small fraction of his work, but a lot more of his pieces survived. His great-granddaughter, filmmaker Elizabeth Rynecki, embarked on a decade-long quest to find his works, with unexpected success. Rather than reclaim them, she explores how the works wound up where they are, and whether they should remain there.

Rynecki will have a question and answer session following the film, via Zoom. The group screening was planned for Jan. 13 at 3 p.m.

Many people embark on significant new careers, though it would initially seem like Carl Laemmle would be hard-pressed to top his initial achievements. The documentary about his achievements goes by the same name, “Carl Laemmle.”

A German immigrant, Laemmle invested in nickelodeons and fought Thomas Edison’s attempts to monopolize the film industry. He headed to California and in 1912 founded Universal Pictures.

Laemmle hired many talents who would go on to become Hollywood legends, including Walt Disney, John Ford, William Wyler and Irving Thalberg, and also hired many female directors.

In 1936 he changed course, forced to sell Universal because of the Depression. He had annoyed Adolf Hitler with his 1930 Best Picture winner, “All Quiet on the Western Front.” Now, he set out to save lives, battling Nazis and the notoriously antisemitic U.S. State Department to rescue more than 300 Jewish refugee families in his original hometown from the

community Holocaust before he died in 1939.

There will be a question and answer session with filmmaker James Freedman after the screening, which was planned for 3 p.m. on Jan. 16.

Inspired by true events, “Persian Lessons” depicts a Jewish prisoner during the Holocaust who pretends to be Iranian in a bid to save his life, then is forced to teach Farsi — which he does not speak — to a Nazi officer.

David Meola, Jewish and Holocaust Studies Chair at the University of South Alabama, will lead a discussion after the film. The screening was planned for Jan. 18 at 7 p.m.

“Thou Shalt Not Hate” is an exploration of emotion and morality.

Simone, a surgeon who is the son of a Holocaust survivor, rushes to a hit-and-run accident, but upon seeing a swastika tattoo on the victim’s chest, he lets nature take its course. After, he confronts the ethics of his choice, further complicated by feelings of guilt and how he bonds with the neo-Nazi’s daughter.

Author Roy Hoffman will lead a post-film discussion, originally planned for 7 p.m. on Jan. 19.

“Kiss Me Kosher” is a romantic comedy about two families from very different cultural and religious backgrounds frantically planning a samesex wedding in Israel, and how they try to overcome their differences — except for one grandmother of the Israeli partner who insists Germans and Jews should not marry, while she has her own skeleton in the closet.

“Irmi” is a deeply personal film made by a daughter who is inspired by her mother’s story and her spirit, exploring the way in which unexpected events and chance encounters can both shape a life and reveal its true nature.

Actress Hanna Schygulla reads from the memoir of Irmi Selver, a native of Germany who lost her first husband and two children in the Holocaust, detailing how she traveled from country to country, picking up the local language and showing strength, resilience and joie de vivre. She died in New York in 2004 at the age of 97.

“My Name is Sara” is based on the true-life story of 13-year-old Sara Goralnik. After escaping a Jewish Ghetto in Poland and losing her family at the outset of the Holocaust, Sara hides in plain sight, using a classmate’s name to pass as an Orthodox Christian in the Ukrainian countryside, where she is taken in by a farmer and his young wife. She soon discovers the dark secrets of her employers’ marriage, compounding the greatest secret she must strive to protect, her true identity.

Filmmaker Mickey Shapiro said he did not know many details of his mother’s story until she visited the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum with her grandchildren. She was interviewed for the Shoah Foundation oral history project in 2012. Springhill Avenue Temple Rabbi Edward Boraz will introduce the film, originally scheduled for Jan. 25 at 7 p.m.

A story accessible to all ages, “The Crossing” tells the story of the adventurous 10-year-old Gerda and her brother Otto, whose parents are in the Norwegian resistance movement during the Second World War. One day, just before Christmas in 1942, Gerda and Otto’s parents are arrested, leaving the siblings on their own. Following the arrest, they discover two Jewish children, Sarah and Daniel, hidden The Crossing in a secret cupboard in their basement at home. It is now up to Gerda and Otto to finish what their parents started: To help Sarah and Daniel flee from the Nazis cross the border to neutral Sweden and reunite them with their parents.

Don Berry, director of the Gulf Coast Holocaust Center, will introduce the film, which was originally scheduled for Jan. 27 at 7 p.m.

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Investigative Reporting as an Exercise in Tikkun Olam

By Richard Friedman Discovering how his Jewish identity shapes TV journalist David Hammer’s award-winning investigative reporting takes some investigating.

But if you dig you come to understand how his commitment to the Jewish concept of Tikkun Olam — repairing the world — intersects seamlessly with this New Orleans reporter’s dogged pursuit to expose fraud and corruption.

Hammer is passionate about the two Js in his life — Judaism and journalism — and sees his determination to shed light on the misdeeds and malfeasance that harm the people of his city as a reflection of his obligation to make the world a better place.

“People react with gratitude and convey a feeling that what I am doing is actually helping to make New Orleans better,” Hammer said in a recent Zoom chat as he reflected on his work. “You feel like Sisyphus sometimes pushing the rock up the proverbial hill, but you see incremental improvements and people really appreciate it.”

“Though it is kind of a cliche to say that Tikkun Olam is the driving force behind my work, it really is. I can’t do more to improve the world than pursue the opportunities this job affords me.”

This articulate Harvard graduate, who turns 47 in January, has had varied journalism jobs over the years, ranging from sportswriting in New England to political and governmental coverage for the Associated Press in Little Rock and Washington.

Along the way he learned his craft well — welcoming pushback from hard-nosed editors, which Hammer describes as the best way to learn, while picking up local, regional and national reporting awards along the way.

Yet for this seventh-generation New Orleanian, his hometown was in his heart. Offered a chance to join the New Orleans Times-Picayune in 2006, he jumped at it, becoming an investigative reporter for what was then one of the South’s most influential newspapers.

Besides, New Orleans, as every journalist knows, has been fertile ground historically for covering government corruption and even to this day, 15 years after he returned home, Hammer says the city still behaves at times “like a third world country.”

Turning Point Another turning point for Hammer came in 2012 when the paper, due to declining revenues and growing Internet competition, cut back to three days a week while striving to “You see upgrade its online presence.

In the process roughly half of the incremental news staff — 84 of the 173 newsroom employees — were abruptly let go. improvements Though Hammer was invited to and people really stay, he chose not to, believing the paper’s influence would decline. He was appreciate it” especially frustrated that at the time only 36 percent of the households in the New Orleans market had Internet access and converting to an online strategy would cost the paper significant readership.

What especially troubled him was that the bulk of those without Internet access were poor and powerless, and that they and their neighborhoods often were the ones most heavily impacted by the municipal misdeeds that Hammer was intent on uncovering.

So, he switched paths.

WWL reached out to Hammer and offered him a reporting slot. The 18

January 2022 • Southern Jewish Life

community television station was ready to expand its commitment to investigative reporting and they wanted Hammer because of the work he had done at the Times-Picayune and elsewhere over the course of his career.

He didn’t have an ounce of TV reporting experience, though station officials told him that he had the most important ingredients — a heart and head for investigative reporting — and that the TV skills could be learned.

They were right.

Hammer today has an excellent on-screen presence. He comes across as genuine, and restrained yet passionate. He speaks with precision and explains things clearly, and the footage and graphics that accompany his stories enable viewers to not only grasp the importance of his reports but also how his coverage relates to their day-to-day lives.

Just in recent weeks, his investigations have helped send the former head of a charity to prison for stealing $1.3 million from public library donations, forced the FBI to raid a local government office hours after his report on self-dealing by agency officials, and exposed major engineering failures that caused a New Orleans hotel under construction to collapse, killing three workers.

Several of his investigations over the years have led to prison time for their targets. At times, prosecutors have used his reports to present their case in court, and defense attorneys have argued that his stories would turn the jury against their clients. But he’s also investigated law enforcement for abusing their powers and government agencies for failing to safeguard the public.

He’s won major national journalism awards,

including Scripps-Howard, Edward R. Murrow and four Emmys for environmental, investigative and government reporting.

Deeply Woven Along with the rigors and intensity of being a well-known investigative reporter, Judaism remains deeply woven into the fabric of Hammer’s life.

“Judaism is very important to me,” he explained. “Many members of my father’s family died in the Holocaust because they weren’t able to get out of Hungary, though my grandfather came to the U.S. in 1938 and I got to know him very well.”

Before the Covid pandemic, the newsman and his son attended Shabbat services regularly at Touro Synagogue. “This was something very important for me to share with him.”

His son’s Bar Mitzvah, scheduled to take place shortly after Covid erupted in early 2020, would become the first New Orleans Bar Mitzvah to be broadcast on Zoom, and the March 28 ceremony took place at the family’s dining room table.

Hammer himself contracted Covid that same week. He provided powerful first-hand reporting while facing a terrifying struggle and through his recovery. The New York Times quoted him describing his scariest symptoms in a May 2020 headline: “Like an anvil sitting on my chest.”

Today, this busy journalist still finds time to study Torah regularly. He also is planning to chant his Bar Mitzvah Torah portion at Shabbat services to mark the anniversary of the event.

Hammer also has lent his time and talents to the Jewish community. For the American Jewish Press Association, he judged entries for

WWL TV photo David Hammer its prestigious Rockower Awards for Excellence in Jewish Journalism, and recently moderated a program on U.S.-Israel relations for the new Louisiana Jewish Coalition.

Given his visibility and the explosive nature of the stories he reports, Hammer was asked if he has ever experienced antisemitic backlash from those he has covered or from his viewing audience in general.

On occasion, yes, he said, though it is not a major problem. It certainly hasn’t fazed him. “When people have said things, it is from people who are kind of crazy. I don’t put much stock in what they have to say.”

Meanwhile, Tikkun Olam keeps driving this gifted reporter forward, providing him with passion and propulsion to ferret out corruption in his beloved hometown.

Clearly his hard-hitting investigative reporting is making the world a better place.

That is, for everyone other than the crooks he exposes.

January 2022 • Southern Jewish Life

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Southern Jewish Life 2022

It’s hard to believe the new year is here.

People, including us, are praying that America’s civic health will soon be restored.

We hope the bitterness and acrimony that seem to characterize every public discussion will begin to diminish.

We as Jews go into the new year especially concerned about increasing anti-Jewish rhetoric and violence both in the US and abroad.

Who would’ve thought the FBI would be taking out ads in Southern Jewish Life, as it has done now for several issues, urging the Jewish community to be vigilant and to report hateful acts when they occur?

This, sadly, is the year we are moving into — and at a time of stress heightened by pressures and tragic losses stemming from the ongoing pandemic.

At Southern Jewish Life, our work as independent journalists has never been more important.

Through our coverage, we connect Jewish communities throughout Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana and NW Florida, making us all stronger, and keeping us apprised of the mutual concerns that course through our region.

To continue to do this well, though, we need your help. More dollars are needed to sustain and expand our magazine which is why, in addition to advertising revenue, we have developed a growing donor base.

So as 2022 begins, please consider becoming a Southern Jewish Life donor by sending a check to SJL, P.O. Box 130052, Birmingham, AL 35213, or going https://sjlmag.com/contribute/ (Donations to Southern Jewish Life are not tax-deductible.)

By doing so, you will join an important effort and one that will make Jewish life in the Deep South even stronger.

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January 2022 • Southern Jewish Life

community Leventhal Center partners with 18Doors to serve interfaith families The Sherry and Alan Leventhal Family Foundation Center for Interfaith Families in New Orleans announced a partnership with 18Doors, along with a search for the Center’s next executive director.

Launched in 2020, the Sherry and Alan Leventhal Center for Interfaith Families — an in-house initiative of the Jewish Federation of Greater New Orleans — is designed to foster a broader and more inclusive Jewish community through programs and community partnerships for families and households who identify as interfaith regardless of age, observances, and where they fall on the Jewish spectrum.

In collaboration with area synagogues, Jewish organizations, and non-Jewish partners, the Leventhal Center creates opportunities to explore and connect to Jewish community, values, traditions, experiences, texts and spirituality to support an individualized Jewish or Jewish adjacent journey.

18Doors, formerly InterfaithFamily, was founded during the early stages of interfaith acceptance in Jewish communities, and is ever evolving to serve the unique needs of a changing Jewish and interfaith community.

The organization has served as the industry leader in making Jewish more welcoming and inclusive, creating accessible entry points to explore Jewish identity and expansive perspectives for interfaith couples and families.

Through individualized professional coaching and myriad learning opportunities, 18Doors supports Jewish organizations across North America — from Jewish Federations and synagogues to Jewish Day Schools, Jewish Community Centers, and Jewish summer camps. 18Doors can now count the Leventhal Center as one of its partner organizations.

“This partnership with the Leventhal Center is critically important,” said 18Doors CEO Jodi Bromberg. “It furthers the reach of 18Doors’ programs and resources. Now, interfaith couples and families who come to the 18Doors’ website or find us on social media will know that there’s a local organization in New Orleans that they can trust — that will welcome and include them.”

Teri Hunter and Alex Gershanik, Leventhal Center co-chairs, said “18Doors has been the gold standard leader in making Jewish life and meaning more welcoming and inclusive for individuals and families in interfaith relationships. As a partner in their network, the Leventhal Center is now a part of a national network of support, connection, and education for interfaith families.”

Transform life through meditation at next Jewish Learning Institute course “Meditation from Sinai” will be the next course offered by Chabad’s Rohr Jewish Learning Institute, for six sessions starting in mid-January.

The course is based on how not only the Torah was given at Mount Sinai, so were the meditative tools to help people open up, see more, and live more deeply. It teaches the what, how, why, where, and when of Divine Meditation, Mindful Awareness and Soulful Transcendence.

Class topics include how we control our brains, not the other way around; how to tune into spirituality through meditation; transforming every moment of life; and how Mount Sinai is “Mountain Do” to engender spiritual and physical change in the universe.

At New Orleans Uptown, the course will be offered on Wednesdays from Jan. 19 to Feb. 23 at 7 p.m. Registration is $70.

In Metairie, there will be a free trial standalone class on Jan. 25 at 10:30 a.m. and 7:30 p.m. There will be a dinner for the evening class. The entire course runs for six weeks starting Jan. 25, though the fourth week will be on Wednesday, Feb. 16, and there will be no class on Mardi Gras. Virtual and in-person options are available. Registration is $70.

In Birmingham, the course will begin on Feb. 2, and the course will be offered in Baton Rouge, but details were not set at press time. Information and registration will be available on myjli.com.

community “Squirrel Hill” author to speak to Mobile faith communities Mobile’s faith congregations and organizations are partnering to host Mark Oppenheimer, the author of the newly released book, “Squirrel Hill: The Tree of Life Synagogue Shooting and the Soul of a Neighborhood.” The event echoes how the city’s faith communities united in the aftermath of the 2018 shooting at the Pittsburgh synagogue.

Oppenheimer will speak on Jan. 26 at 6:30 p.m. at Old Church: St. Ignatius Catholic Church.

On Oct. 27, 2018, a gunman entered Tree of Life during services and murdered 11 people, the deadliest antisemitic attack in U.S. history.

In his book, Oppenheimer shifts the focus from the attacker to the community at the center of the tragedy, speaking with residents and nonresidents, Jews and gentiles, survivors and witnesses, teenagers and seniors, activists and historians.

In it, he details the hopes, fears and tensions that the community faced on the road to healing, from collective grief and love, to difficult dialogues and messy confrontations.

Jonathan Sarna, one of the foremost historians of American Judaism, said “Years from now, when people want to know what happened in Pittsburgh, this is the book to which they will probably turn.”

Oppenheimer’s talk will include a discussion of how to build bridges and foster interfaith community in Mobile.

The event is sponsored by Springhill Avenue Temple, Ahavas Chesed, the Mobile Area Jewish Federation, Spring Hill Presbyterian Church, St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Christ Church Cathedral, Israel Team Advocates International, Mobile Christian-Jewish Dialogue and Norman H. McCrummen III, the Gulf Coast Holocaust Center, St. Ignatius, Dauphin Way United Methodist and Ashland Place Methodist.

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Programs complement Monroe’s Tobiasse exhibit Several programs this month will complement the Masur Museum of Art’s exhibit by Jewish French artist Theo Tobiasse.

The museum in Monroe will have the exhibit on display through Feb. 5.

The three-part Jewish Heritage Film Series was to conclude on Jan. 6 with the screening of “Strange Fruit,” at the Northeast Louisiana African American Heritage Museum, but the screening was postponed. A new date is anticipated in February. Recorded by Billie Holiday in 1939, the iconic protest song about lynching was written by a Jewish school teacher. In 1999, Time magazine called it the “song of the century.”

On Jan. 13, Rabbi Judy Caplan Ginsburgh of B’nai Israel in Monroe will give a talk about Tobiasse and the Jewish symbolism in his work. The 6 p.m. talk was originally going to be at the museum, but it will be virtual.

Ginsburgh noted that Tobiasse’s work, “influenced by surrealism, expressionism, and modern primitivism, explores themes of mythology, biblical stories, exile, and his own past.”

On Jan. 20 at 6 p.m., Doyle Jeter and Stefan Nodarse will lead a printmaking demo and talk. The programs conclude on Jan. 27 at 6 p.m. with a talk by Jackie Rosenberg, son of Holocaust survivor Sol Rosenberg, who survived six concentration camps and lost his entire family before winding up in Monroe, where he eventually founded Sol’s Pipe and Steel.

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community Groundbreaking partnership quietly defied the days of segregation Chance encounter at Shreveport store transformed Birmingham media

By Richard Friedman

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It was 1958. Not an easy time for Blacks in the Deep South.

No one knew that better than Shelley Stewart, a young Birmingham-based African-American disc jockey who was gaining a wide following across the region.

He found himself in Shreveport one day, sent there by his parent company, which owned stations in Alabama, Arkansas and Mississippi, to help get a new station off the ground.

Stewart got there and needed a necktie. So he walked into a men’s store. There were three salesmen on the floor, all white. None of them would even say hello.

Then a fourth salesman walked out of the bathroom, a young white man. He greeted Stewart courteously, saying to him, “Can I help you, sir?”

Stewart introduced himself and told him that he was a disc jockey and radio announcer who had been sent to Shreveport to help establish the new station.

The white man stuck out his hand. “Welcome to Shreveport,” he said. “My name is Cy Steiner and I‘m Jewish.”

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January 2022 • Southern Jewish Life

That chance encounter birthed a partnership that would change both of their lives, launch a stealth attack on Birmingham’s iron wall of segregation and ignite a friendship that would leave a lasting legacy.

Steiner was from New York and his wife was from Louisiana which is how, fresh out of the Army, he had landed in Shreveport.

They chatted a bit while Stewart picked out his tie.

Stewart saw something in Steiner. He went back to his bosses and convinced them to hire Steiner to sell advertising for their new station, even though this New York transplant had no ad experience.

“In those days, even though these were African-American stations appealing to African-American audiences, the advertising sales force was white,” Stewart recalled in a recent Zoom chat.

The Black stations wanted white advertisers.

Yet most white businesses at the time refused to deal with Black salesmen.

So Steiner came on board.

Courtesy Birmingham Times

Shelley Stewart (above), Cy Steiner (right) Historicimages.com really make his mark.

It wasn’t long after that, that Stewart, who had become a major radio personality famously known as “Shelley the Playboy,” approached Steiner with an idea. He said they should go into business together, starting their own marketing and advertising firm, with Steiner as the face of the company and Stewart as a silent partner.

He proposed this arrangement because he knew that many in the Birmingham business community would be uncomfortable with a white man and Black man joining forces, especially if the Black man was Shelley the Playboy.

The product of an incredible personal story, filled largely with tragedy, difficulty and disadvantages, Stewart, a proud, visible and determined Black man, had become a lightning rod for people such as Birmingham’s segregationist public safety commissioner Eugene “Bull” Connor and Alabama governor George Wallace.

This was the 1960s and Stewart was using his widely listened-to show to energize the Civil Rights movement, often in code. He also used his show to introduce white teenagers to soul music, and raise money from whites to help fund the African-American struggle for equal rights.

Salt and Pepper

In the midst of these tumultuous times, Stewart and Steiner saw a business opportunity — and how their skills could complement the other’s talents.

Eating together one day as they were evolving their vision, Steiner pointed to the salt and pepper shakers on the table.

He then removed the salt, to illustrate that both are needed for seasoning meals. Then he put the salt back and removed the pepper. “Shelley,” he said, “I’m the salt and you’re the pepper.

Our agency needs both.”

An Idea Together they formed their own advertising After a few months, Stewart saw Steiner’s po- and marketing company. Yet because of the tentential and recruited him to come to Birming- or of the times they called it Steiner Advertisham, a larger market, where he felt Steiner could ing to camouflage Stewart’s involvement. Their

community enterprise grew and eventually became O2 Ideas, a nationally-respected advertising firm with a large and diverse client base.

“We built the agency together. At the heart of it was our salt and pepper philosophy — but we also knew how much pepper and how much salt.”

The two friends also talked a lot about racism and white supremacy, often over wine. Stewart, who already knew some of Birmingham’s downtown Jewish merchants, gained a greater appreciation of the Jewish community and Jewish experience as a result of his talks with Steiner.

Steiner, in turn, gained a deeper understanding of Stewart’s journey. At age five, Stewart watched helplessly as his alcoholic father murdered his mother with an ax. He would become homeless.

Stewart was eventually taken in by a white family. They gave him opportunities that would nurture his intelligence and talents, and ultimately transform his life. Stewart recounts his remarkable journey and againstall-odds business success in his book “Mattie C’s Boy,” as his mother’s name was Mattie C. Stewart.

Children born into all kinds of circumstances have dreams and dreams are powerful.

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Time Had Come In 1992, Steiner died. Shaken by the loss of his dear friend, Stewart knew that for the good of the agency the time had come for him to step forward and become visible. He did, helping to lead the agency publicly until it was sold in 2015.

The Stewart-Steiner partnership was unique for its time, though Stewart stressed that the two joined forces not to break new racial ground but to create professional excellence and make money.

“We were a business. Our commitment was to provide excellent service to our clients. It was not to engineer social change.”

Yet, at the same time there were certain clients who knew that Shelley the Playboy was Steiner’s partner and they were comfortable and even enthusiastic about that.

Author TK Thorne, in her recent book “Behind the Magic Curtain: Secrets, Spies, and Unsung White Allies of Birmingham’s Civil Rights Days,” sees their joint enterprise, which she writes about in her book, as “unique and groundbreaking — almost unheard of.”

Thorne said “I believe it also reflected the fact that a lot of Jewish people in the community at that time would have liked to have done more, both for and with the African-American community, and done it openly.

“But at the time such activity and visibility could have affected their own businesses, families and even their safety.”

More than 60 years later it is hard to imagine that those bad old days even existed, given the changes in Birmingham’s business and civic culture and the general harmony that prevails in the workplace between Blacks and whites.

Steiner has been gone for 30 years, and Shelley the Playboy is now 87.

As he looks back, he thinks one reason Steiner was so warm and courteous toward him on that day they met, was that he was from New York and had grown up in a more liberal racial climate.

Even in his older years this legendary radio personality’s magnetic presence has not waned; his narratives are passionate and compelling and his memory is crisp, especially when talking about Steiner.

In a life filled with remarkable chapters, Shelley Stewart will still tell you that hands down, without a doubt, one of the most remarkable chapters of them all began the day he walked into a Shreveport men’s store looking for a necktie.

“Not only did we become business partners, we became friends — and brothers.”

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January 2022 • Southern Jewish Life

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community The Tramont brings luxury condominiums high above Highland Park

By Lee J. Green

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Classic meets modern with a new planned luxury condominium community overlooking downtown Birmingham and co-developed by David Silverstein.

Construction on The Tramont, a collection of condominiums with lush gardens, expansive terraces and upscale amenities to be located in the historic Highland-Redmont Park district, will begin in the spring.

“We have a vibrant community that has seen what’s happening in cities such as Los Angeles, New York and Atlanta,” said Silverstein, president of the FiveStone Group. “The Tramont will give them something they have only seen in larger cities and something that complements the area so well.”

The six-story community will include 28 units from one to three bedrooms, some two stories, ranging in square footage from 1,100 to more than 4,000, and ranging in price from $900,000 to $2.5 million, including a penthouse.

The Tramont features a fitness retreat with sauna, bathing facilities and yoga/barre studios; a heated lap pool with poolside lounging; a gym, a lobby gallery and full-service concierge as well as a covered parking garage with vehicle charging stations.

“We’re really focusing on the little details and doing everything to bring out this feeling of understated elegance,” said Silverstein, who is developing the project with Evan Watts out of New York. He said the condominiums will feature large windows, high ceilings, acoustically insulated high performance glass and elegant interiors.

“We also want to contribute to quality of the neighborhood with some infrastructure enhancements to the surrounding area” including landscape enhancements, lighting and adding sidewalks.

The Tramont will be built just a couple of blocks up the hill from Temple Beth-El and Temple Emanu-El. Silverstein’s company is currently developing the new Birmingham Holocaust Education Center at Emanu-El, which will open this spring, and has developed The Summit as well as The Pizitz.

Margi Ingram, president of Ingram and Associates Real Estate, said The Tramont sales office recently opened in English Village and they are conducting presales.

Ingram said she has been selling condominiums since the late 1970s and “I’ve never been associated with a community the caliber of what is being planned with The Tramont. This will be more luxurious than anything we have ever seen before. The name Tramont comes from the Italian word Tramonto, which means ‘sunset’ and the views will be spectacular. We’re really excited to share this project with Birmingham.”

Conceptual image from The Tramont website 24

January 2022 • Southern Jewish Life

January 2022 • Southern Jewish Life

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community Museum holding looted art program Hadassah installation at reception before event The Birmingham Museum of Art will host Darsie Alexander, the Susan and Elihu Rose Chief Curator at the Jewish Museum, for an evening lecture about the Jewish Museum’s recent exhibition, “Afterlives: Recovering the Lost Stories of Looted Art.” She will also speak on the unique role of the Jewish Museum in the cultural landscape of New York today.

The free lecture will be on Jan. 20 at 6 p.m. Beforehand, the Birmingham Jewish Federation will co-host a reception starting at 5 p.m., and at 5:30 p.m., Birmingham Hadassah will step aside for a brief installation ceremony for its new board.

During World War II, untold numbers of artworks and pieces of cultural property were stolen by Nazi forces. After the war, an estimated one million artworks and 2.5 million books were recovered. Many more were destroyed.

“Afterlives” chronicles the timelines of individual objects that survived, telling the stories of their theft, post-war rescue and how they passed through numerous hands, from museums to private collections. The exhibit includes pieces by Pierre Bonnard, Paul Cézanne, Marc Chagall, Gustave Courbet, Paul Klee, Franz Marc, Henri Matisse, Pablo Picasso, and Camille Pissarro.

The Jewish Museum also commissioned four contemporary artists to create new works that address the resonance of the exhibition’s themes: Maria Eichhorn, Hadar Gad, Dor Guez, and Lisa Oppenheim.

Currently the Chief Curator at the Jewish Museum, Alexander has previously held curatorial positions at the Walker Art Center, Baltimore Museum of Art and The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Most recently, she served as executive director of the Katonah Museum of Art in Westchester County, N.Y. This lecture is sponsored by Margaret and Bruce Alexander. Registration is required, at artsbma.org.

CJFS honoring Bearman family at Hands Up Collat Jewish Family Services in Birmingham will have an intergenerational celebration at its annual Hands Up Together event, honoring the Bearman family for decades of leadership, volunteer and professional roles with the agency.

The April 26 event will honor Suzanne and Howard Bearman, daughters Sheri Krell and Michelle Bearman-Wolnek and sons-in-law Jimmy Krell and Seth Wolnek. Final details for the event will be announced in the weeks to come.

“Suzanne Bearman served as our agency’s president at a critical time in 1991 and ’92, when CJFS had just welcomed more than 100 Jewish refugees to Birmingham from the former Soviet Union” said CJFS Executive Director Lauren Schwartz. “Suzanne led a broad community effort to help those immigrants learn a new language, adapt to a new culture, find employment and so much more, and that was just the beginning of this family’s involvement.”

Years later, Michelle joined the agency’s staff as a social worker providing counseling, community outreach, education and tornado relief. Michelle later served on the CJFS board, and was president in 2019 and 2020. Both Seth and Jimmy also served on the board, and in 2015, Jimmy co-chaired the “Min Halev: From the Heart” endowment campaign, which met its goal of boosting the CJFS endowment to $5 million.

In 2019, Sheri was named CJFS Volunteer of the Year, recognizing the many hundreds of hours she has devoted to such diverse tasks as delivering produce boxes to low-income senior housing communities, coordinating volunteer activities for teenagers and older adults, assisting with mailings, helping clients shop and run errands, and volunteering at the CJFS CARES dementia respite program.

“The services and care provided by CJFS go hand in hand with the involvement, time, and love which the Bearmans, Krells, and Wolneks have devoted to our community for decades,” said Susan Lapidus, who is co-chairing the event with CJFS past president David Romanoff.

Michelle recalled as a child or young adult asking her mother why she devoted so much time to the agency, then known as Jewish Family Services. “She would say it was important, to make our community a better place, important enough to leave us. It made me realize that this organization was really special.”

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January 2022 • Southern Jewish Life

community >> Agenda will study the first 20 chapters of Exodus over five Thursdays, Feb. 3 to March 10, except Feb. 17, at 10 a.m. The sessions will alternate between Beth Shalom and St. Simons, and one need not attend all sessions. Those interested in attending should contact Rabbi Mitch Delcau.

The Unified Jewish Congregation of Baton Rouge will have a Tu B’Shevat Shabbat Swamp Stroll, Jan. 15 at 2:30 p.m., at the BREC Bluebonnet Swamp Nature Center. Reservations are requested.

The Jewish Fertility Foundation office in Birmingham is holding virtual support groups at 7 p.m. on the second Wednesday of the month. They are free and open to anyone in Birmingham who is experiencing infertility. Registration is required no later than 24 hours in advance. Upcoming sessions are Jan. 12, Feb. 9 and March 9.

A new Introduction to Judaism class will be held at Temple Beth El in Pensacola, starting on Jan. 9 at 10:30 a.m. Rabbi Joel Fleekop will lead the class during School for Jewish Living sessions, through April 10.

Rabbi Yossi Friedman will teach a beginner Yiddish class at Birmingham’s Levite Jewish Community Center. The four one-hour classes will be on Tuesdays at 1 p.m. from Jan. 11 to Feb. 1. All are welcome and no prior experience is necessary. Registration is $36.

Knesseth Israel in Birmingham will have a Tu B’Shevat seder, with various fruits, along with dairy and vegan dishes. The Seder will be Jan. 16 at 6 p.m. Reservations are $25 per person or $75 per family by Jan. 9, $30 and $90 after.

continued from page 8 The Social Justice Team at Temple Beth El in Pensacola will have a Tu B’Shevat cleanup, Jan. 16 from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. at Pensacola High School. Pizza will be served, and gloves are recommended.

Gemiluth Chassodim in Alexandria will screen “Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story” on Jan. 15 at 7 p.m. While the Vienna-born Jewish star is best known for her film roles, she helped invent a secure, radio-controlled torpedo guidance system, “frequency hopping,” that forms the basis of today’s WiFi, Bluetooth, GPS and cell phone technologies.

There will be a Red Cross blood drive at Bais Ariel Chabad in Birmingham on Jan. 30 from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.

You Belong in Huntsville will have a Bowling Adventure at Madison Bowling Center on Feb. 6 at 1:30 p.m.

The next Shabbat Hilicha hikes at Red Mountain Park for Birmingham’s Temple Emanu-El will be on Jan. 15 and Feb. 12, meeting at the Frankfurt Drive entrance at 10:30 a.m.

The Levite Jewish Community Center in Birmingham will have a Pickleball open house, Jan. 18 from 6 to 8 p.m. Non-members are welcome.

Birmingham’s Temple Emanu-El will have a Shabbat Shirah musical service on Jan. 14 at 5:45 p.m., with members of the choir participating.

Temple Beth El in Pensacola will have Opera Shabbat on Jan. 14 at 7 p.m., welcoming Pensacola Opera’s artists in residence. There will

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January 2022 • Southern Jewish Life

PJ Library will have a Tot Shabbat virtually with Temple Emanu-El, Birmingham, on Feb. 4 at 5 p.m., as part of the “It’s In The Bag” series.

Reserve by Jan. 25 with the Federation for an at-home craft goody bag. No affiliation is necessary to participate.

The Etz Chayim Men’s Club in Huntsville will have its annual hockey outing on Feb. 20 to watch the Huntsville Havoc take on the Birmingham Bulls. Faceoff is 5 p.m. at Propst Arena, and reservations are $16.

Israeli tour guide Hanoch Young is returning to the United States to speak about Israel.

An Orthodox Jew, he specializes in tours for Christian supporters of Israel. He is scheduled to speak in DeRidder, La., on Jan. 15 and St. Francisville on Jan. 16, and in Huntsville on Feb. 8. Venue details were not available at press time, except in St. Francisville, where he will speak at United Israel World Union at 7 p.m..

The call has gone out for aspiring actors and actresses in Pensacola as Temple Beth El announced its annual comedy show will be May 21. “Play It Again, Shmuel” will have some of the best previous song parodies and some new twists. Rehearsals for the show, which raises funds for camp scholarships, will begin in January.

The Atlanta Jews of Color Council will hold a Jewish Social Justice Summit over King Weekend, online on Jan. 16 at 5 p.m. Central.

The panel will include national change agents who contribute to Tikkun Olam. Speakers include Jesse Rabinowitz of Miriam’s Kitchen, SooJi Min-Miranda of ALEPH Alliance for Jewish Renewal, Rabbi Shais Rishon of MaNishtana, Mariely Luengo of The West Tribe and Stacy Aviva Flint of Congregation Boni Shalom.

The Atlanta Israel Coalition’s Virtual Tours of Israel continue with Eilat on Jan. 9 and Haifa on Jan. 23. Tour guide David Sussman leads the free virtual sessions at 8 a.m. Eastern. Past episodes are available on YouTube.

The Museum of Jewish Heritage in New York will present a virtual performance of “Sweet Tea and the Southern Jew,” Jan. 23 at 6 p.m. Central. The production, which explores what it means to be Jewish in the South, is produced by The Braid, formerly the Jewish Women’s Theatre in Los Angeles. Tickets are available on the museum’s website, mjhnyc. org.

education an annual SJL special section Brian Cain with NEMJDS spelling bee winner Eli Brook and runner-up Leo Menaker

Cain learns about Day School “diamond” A decade ago, Brian Cain’s son competed in swim meets at the Levite Jewish Community Center. He asked someone what the building behind the outdoor pool was, and was informed that it’s the N.E. Miles Jewish Day School.

“I didn’t know anything about it,” he said, but not only does he know now, he understands “how unique it is, how much of a diamond it is.”

Cain is the interim director at the school this year, with Debra Abolafia stepping down last summer after a decade of heading the school, and as a search for a permanent successor continues.

Two years ago, Cain stepped down after 12 years as principal of Simmons Middle School in Hoover. Last year he was a facilitator for the Hope Leadership Academy, through the Hope Institute at Samford University.

Before heading Simmons, he spent 13 years teaching math, psychology and sociology at Vestavia Hills High School, then was assistant principal at Hoover High School for three years and principal of Crossroads Alternative School for two years. He also has a master’s degree in counseling.

When meeting with the school leadership and faculty last spring, he “fell in love with the people” immediately. At a public school, “you don’t necessarily fall in love with the people because you don’t get to meet all of them.”

But it wasn’t just the parents and teachers that impressed him. During the school day, “I try to walk around a lot and be the eyes and ears.”

He said the “level of debate and discussion” among the students in class “is high-brow” and shows a level of confidence in their abilities.

The Day School isn’t “regurgitational teaching” of learning material and just being able to repeat it, it is much more hands-on and developmental, understanding the concepts. “Our kids have a lot of confidence intellectually” with a sense of “I know my stuff and I can talk about it.”

With larger classes in public school, that style of teaching isn’t always possible. “You can’t have 25 in Algebra or trig and have them all speak all the time.” With smaller classes, each student contributes to the discussion on a regular basis. “I love that about our school,” he said.

When he started at the Day School, he had very little knowledge of Judaism, and wanted to be sure not to inadvertently cause offense. “I’ve learned probably one one-thousandth of what I need to know, but I have learned how to ask questions,” he said. He has found “there’s so much more that unites us as human beings than we realize.”

But while there is so much that unites people, he has become convinced of the unique value the Day School provides in providing students with a deep sense of who they are, making it easier to navigate a diverse world.

At the start of the year, he indicated that a priority would be building enrollment, which currently is currently around 50 students from Kindergarten to 8th grade.

What the students learn in “these deep formative years, they are life-long, life changing attributes,” Cain said.

If parents want their child to be “a good strong Jewish person, where else are they going to get that? It can happen outside the Jewish Day School, but it’s harder.”

He added, “It’s not going to happen at Hoover High School.”

“If you want that, why aren’t you coming here?” he asked.

He said the Day School has to be on the radar of more Jewish families, and he is confident that “if they were to spend an hour in the classroom, they wouldn’t leave without registering their child.”

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January 2022 • Southern Jewish Life

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education

Jewish life thriving at Alabama

By Lee J. Green The Alabama Crimson Tide are back in the College Football Playoffs and Jewish life continues to thrive with a swell of activities and return to high participation numbers at Hillel.

“We want Hillel to always be a Jewish home away from home,” said Hillel Director Lisa Besnoy. “The students find community here and we can see how much they enjoy being together.”

During the 2020-21 academic year, Hillel had to scale back on the size of some events and some of the programming was via Zoom. But the fall of 2021 returned a sense of normalcy.

“We’re being safe, but we’ve gone back to a regular schedulewith our welcome-back visits, Shabbat dinners and holiday celebrations,” said Besnoy.

There are an estimated 1,000 Jewish students at the University of Alabama and some Shabbat dinners in the past have been attended by more than 100 students.

Besnoy said 40 students signed up for the return of Birthright Israel’s trips for late December and she expects even more to take the trip in May. In April, The University of Alabama Hillel will partner with the Birmingham Holocaust Education Center to bring the “Darkness into Life” Holocaust art exhibition to campus. This will coincide with a Shabbat dinner honoring Holocaust survivor Max Steinmetz, who passed away last March.

Besnoy said they want to provide opportunities to educate and to help students to prepare for professional careers. Hillel Connections helps students to earn internships in the Birmingham area and the Hillel Five-Plus program focuses on providing networking and as well as social opportunities for Jewish graduate students.

She said they have begun planning for their first-ever Jewish Alumni Weekend, April 29 to May 1. Open to alumni of all eras, the weekend will include a Shabbat dinner at the Bryant Museum; stadium and campus tours; a special presentation by University of Alabama President Dr. Stuart Bell and a late-night party on The Strip.

“We’ve really seen a renaissance of Jewish life over the past 10 years especially, and we are excited to share that with our alumni,” said Besnoy.

“It is a great opportunity to come back to Tuscaloosa, see old friends and make new memories.”

Alabama School of Fine Arts opens applications process The Alabama School of Fine Arts has produced famous alumni, including “Hunger Games” book writer Suzanne Collins, Emmy-nominated actress Laverne Cox and Alabama Poet Laureate Ashley Jones.

Someday that list could include Avi Goldberg, a talented ninth grader in the creative writing department at ASFA, an institution that was created by the Alabama legislature in 1971 to provide tuition-free instruction for talented and gifted students from throughout the state. His sister, Minna, is an ASFA alumna.

The graduates of the 2021 senior class earned close to $12 million in scholarships and awards. Of those seniors, 97 percent were awarded merit scholarships.

ASFA recently opened admissions for Alabama students in grades six through 10 for the 2022-23 academic year. Students qualify via application and audition to enroll in one of six intensive specialty programs: creative writing, dance, mathematics, science, music, and theatre and visual arts.

The school’s full-time college counselors help students and their families identify and evaluate schools to find the ones that best align with their long-term goals.

ASFA will offer tours of the school on Jan. 11, 18 and 25 for prospective 30

January 2022 • Southern Jewish Life

education

Fostering Jewish Community on the Plains students and their families. Some of the school’s upcoming performances include “Figaro,” Feb. 25 to 27, “25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee” on March 18 and 19, the Spring Music Gala on April 22 and the Visual Arts Exhibit on April 28.

Strengthening Jewish student life at Auburn

By Lee J. Green Auburn basketball coach Bruce Pearl is a “gem” for Jewish students at the University and he has made it a point to make sure they are well-supported.

“Our students know that he is always there for them,” said Auburn Hillel advisor and Journalism/Communications Professor Nora Patterson. “Bruce has done a lot to boost Jewish student life and for some (incoming freshmen), he is the one they reach out to.”

Students come to Bagels with Bruce once per month, and recently he hosted the annual Chanukah party at his house, featuring the famous Pearl family recipe latkes. He also works with Hillel to organize some groups to attend Auburn basketball games, where junior guard Lior Berman, from Mountain Brook, is on the team.

Patterson said this past fall, Hillel doubled the amount of programming from the previous year, and they are planning for a busy spring of 2022.

They are planning a community Passover Seder, Israel Independence Day celebrations, Shabbat dinners, including campfire Shabbats at the Kreher Nature Preserve in Auburn, and other events to be determined.

“Our program is very student-driven,” said Patterson, adding that they have some excellent leadership from Hillel President Alexa Cotel-Altman. “We are also trying to plan a bus trip to Tuscaloosa for a joint Purim party with the University of Alabama Hillel.”

Patterson said that 10 faculty members at Auburn are from Israel, as is sophomore Romi Levy, who is a star on the Auburn women’s basketball team.

“We want to give those outside of the Jewish community opportunities to learn more about our holidays, traditions and Israel. The students want to be ambassadors of the community… promoting education, understanding and diversity.”

She said a few Hillel members also teach Sunday school at Beth Shalom, Auburn’s congregation.

Patterson is originally from Los Angeles and said that Jewish students from across the country come to Auburn. Cotel-Altman is from Westchester County, N.Y. They estimate that just more than 100 Jewish students are on campus, but that number continues to grow.

“We want to give them opportunities to connect with other Jewish students and be a home away from home,” she said.

Contact us to schedule a tour or phone call to learn more about Jewish life at Auburn.

Instagram: @auhillel Facebook: Auburn Hillel https://auburnhillel.wixsite.com/ auburnhillel

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summer camp an annual SJL special section Camp Blue Star

Grants, scholarships for summer camp From individual congregational programs to regional incentives, there are many ways to offset the cost of summer camp.

The Jewish Summer Camp Experience Incentive Grant program, administered by the Jewish Endowment Foundation of Louisiana, provides up to $1,500 for a Jewish child attending a Jewish not-for-profit sleepaway summer camp for the first time.

The Incentive Grant, underwritten by the Goldring Family Foundation, is open to every Jewish child in Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi and the Florida Panhandle who has never attended a not-for-profit Jewish sleepaway summer camp. It is not need-based.

Since 1999, this program has helped send 1,632 children to Jewish summer camps. Deadline for this summer is March 1, and more information is available at jefno.org under the Youth and Camping tab.

The Jewish Endowment Foundation also oversees the RoseMary and Saul Brooks Fund for Jewish Youth Engagement, which provides scholarship assistance to Jewish campers who are full-time residents of Louisiana but outside of a major metropolitan area, such as New Orleans and Baton Rouge.

The rural Louisiana scholarships are for those entering grades one to 12, and the application deadline is March 1. Recipients can re-apply for future years.

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January 2022 • Southern Jewish Life

Jewish Children’s Regional Service, based in New Orleans and covering a seven-state region, has a new option in its popular need-based scholarship program.

The longstanding JCRS summer camp scholarship program provides need-based awards based on family circumstances. Last year, JCRS provided partial scholarship funding to over 300 campers.

This year, the JCRS is introducing a short form with a $250 grant, or the traditional longer application with the possibility of a larger amount, to be determined by the award committee on a case by case basis.

The JCRS scholarships are for those in third to 12th grades, residing in Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Oklahoma, Tennessee or Texas. Camps must be non-profit, and programs in Israel or other countries are not eligible.

The priority deadline for applications is Feb. 15, and the application process is done online at jcrs.org.

JCRS also does need-based college aid, special needs programs and a Chanukah gift program for children in challenging situations.

The Henry S. Jacobs Camp in Utica is offering a $1500 grant for First Time @ First Session, for first-time campers in grades 3 to 8 who attend the first session for the first time. The grant is not need-based. The first session runs from June 12 to July 6.

Ramah Darom in Georgia has an incentive program for campers from smaller communities, for up to $3,000 off a camper’s first summer and a minimum of $1,500 off the second summer.

summer camp

Discover Ramah Darom Blue Star planning 75th anniversary celebration weekend Two of the six camps that make up Camp Blue Star in Hendersonville, N.C. are called “Pioneer.” That pioneering spirit will be celebrated over Memorial Day weekend as Blue Star marks its 75th anniversary as the South’s first Jewish summer sleepaway camp.

The camp was founded by the Popkin brothers in 1948 and is now run by the third generation — Herman Popkin’s granddaughter, Lauren Herschthal, and her husband, Seth.

Seth Herschthal said the anniversary weekend will be “Catskills at Blue Star style” the weekend of May 27 to 30. The fully-programmed, catered event will be for alumni, families and friends, modeled after the Family and Friends weekend they do every five years, but with “extra flourishes, being the 75th.”

Plans are still being formulated, but two long-time former summer camp leaders Tali Azoolin and Evan Grabois are coming in from Israel and Miami to host the weekend.

There will be a full camp Shabbat experience, sunrise or sunset hikes on Pinnacle Mountain, child care provided, special programs for adults, a color war or Maccabiah competition, and visits by food trucks.

More information about the weekend will be announced soon.

After the anniversary celebration, it will be time to go right into staff training in anticipation of a “much more traditional, much more typical Blue Star summer” than during the past two summers with Covid in the background. First session will begin on June 12.

Herschthal said, “once campers are on the mountain, camp should feel like the rest of the world is far away.”

Blue Star’s six camps are Rookies/Juniors, Pioneer Girls, Pioneer Boys, Senior Girls, Senior Boys and the Teen Village.

Blue Star was one of the few camps to hold an in-person camp during the summer of 2020, and did so successfully with numerous anti-Covid measures in place.

Last summer was much closer to a typical summer, but still with many Covid protocols in place. Herschthal noted that there was “more stress on the system” with the emotional and mental health of campers and staff who had not been “interacting in a regular, healthy developmental way” for over a year. “Kids of all ages were having to figure out how to be together again.”

This summer, Blue Star plans to reinstitute field trips to outdoor, nature-based activities. They are also expanding their on-site water ski and cable park systems, so those activities can be done at camp instead of off-site.

There will be new martial arts offerings and an expanded music program with multiple musical arts instructors.

A theater space is being retrofitted into a Be Creative space, with laser 3-dimensional printing, screen printing and more computer-based arts.

There will also be a new official pickleball court by the tennis courts.

They anticipate a full house this summer, and look forward to welcoming back large numbers of international staff. “We actually had more international counselors and activity specialists hired before Dec. 1 than in any previous summer,” Herschthal said.

With the hopes that the pandemic will no longer be much of a concern, “this should be a celebratory summer, and it just happens to coincide with the 75th,” Herschthal said.

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Judaea “family” adjusted to bring in recordbreaking numbers

By Lee J. Green Camp Judaea is based on traditions and a close family community. For the first time in 2021, the daughter of Assistant Director Ilana Schlam got to enjoy the experience at the Hendersonville, N.C. camp before Schlam joined the year-round team.

“My daughter had an absolute blast. As a camp parent, we could not have been more pleased with her experience and how happy, and healthy she was the entire time,” said Schlam, who joined Camp Judaea this fall after having served as a counselor and assistant director there years ago. “I am excited to return to the CJ team full time and to have the chance to experience the magic of camp alongside her and my son for years to come.”

Schlam said the majority of the staff were former campers, “which adds a special element.

We are all truly like a big family here.”

Camp Judaea Director Lori Zeligman said they had a record-breaking 2021 summer with just over 320 new campers, as Judaea adjusted to make camp a safe and healthy environment for everyone. They ate in an open-space event tent, installed new field lights so that they could enhance programming in the evenings outside, and set up bowling in an open-air sports pavilion to bring in to camp the activities they would generally be doing in town on field trips.

“After having run a successful summer last year, we know that we can ensure proper protocols to keep everyone healthy and happy,” said Zeligman. “We are looking forward to an even-better summer of new and enhanced programming in addition to keeping our traditions alive at CJ.” Camp Judaea programs are for rising 2nd Grade through rising 10th Grade. Daily activities include high ropes and zipline, horses, lake activities including a slide and trampoline, arts and crafts, sports, GaGa, Israeli culture, Israeli dance, cooking, petting zoo, and so much more.

In addition, Judaea is planning to launch a couple of new travel programs for 2022. The Southern Jewish Journey will be a new travel program based around the theme of Jews and the Civil Rights Movement. The trip, for rising 9th graders in the Bogrim unit, will be going to Birmingham, Selma, Montgomery and Atlanta, including learning opportunities and tikkun olam.

Rising 10th graders, called Chalutzim, will learn about social action/tikkun olam, the historical experience and present-day life of Southern Jewish communities in a week-long

summer camp

trip from New Orleans to Memphis. After the trip, campers are encouraged to attend Camp Tel Yehudah, Young Judaea’s teen camp in upstate New York, to continue their exploration of Jewish history, values and identity.

The 2022 programs have already been filling up and the Camp Judaea team are happy to do some informational Zoom sessions with parents considering registration. In addition, staff hiring has begun and potential staff can apply directly on the website for summer opportunities.

Day Camps in region

For those too young or not ready for sleepaway camp, there are many day camps offered in the region.

A Birmingham tradition since 1952, the Levite Jewish Community Center’s summer camp is for grades 1 to 8, with the Early Childhood Learning Center offering a Kindergarten camp.

Information about this summer will be released in January. Last year, the LJCC camp ran for 10 weeks, along with tennis camp and soccer camp.

Both the Uptown and Metairie locations of the New Orleans Jewish Community Center hold summer camp, with ages 21 months to grade 5 Uptown and age 3 to grade 5 in Metairie. Applications open on Jan. 14 for JCC nursery school families, and Feb. 1 for campers who attended in 2021. Applications open to everyone on Feb. 15. Camp runs for eight weeks in June and July.

Gates of Prayer in Metairie also holds a camp at the Louise Hayem Manheim Preschool, for ages 15 months to 4 years. Dates for this summer were not set at press time, but last year there were two four-week sessions in June and July.

After a hiatus last year, the North Louisiana Jewish Federation hopes to hold Camp Chai in Shreveport this summer. The two-week camp runs in late July and early August for ages 3 to 13.

Camp Gan Israel will be held at numerous Chabad centers in the region.

Chabad of Alabama in Birmingham holds camp at their facility. Information about summer has not been released, but last summer the camp was held for four weeks.

In Huntsville, the camp will run from June 28 to July 9 at the Monte Sano Lodge at Monte Sano State Park.

Chabad in Panama City Beach will have two sessions, from June 3 to 15 and from July 12 to 30.

Chabad Baton Rouge will hold camp at the Elan Vital Montessori School, with two one-week sessions, June 21 to 25, and June 28 to July 2.

In New Orleans, the camp will be at Slater Torah Academy, with five one-week sessions from June 20 to July 22. CTeen Xtreme for grades 6 to 8 will be held June 20 to July 1.

Information for this summer in Pensacola has not been finalized.

SUPPORT QUALITY, INDEPENDENT, ORIGINAL SOUTHERN JEWISH JOURNALISM Visit supportSJL.com to contribute January 2022 • Southern Jewish Life

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summer camp

Jacobs Camp: “Kids need camp,” especially in times like these After being forced to take the summer of 2020 off due to the Covid pandemic, the Henry S. Jacobs Camp in Utica had “a spectacular summer,” according to Camp Director Anna Herman. “We’ve always said that kids need camp, and that was never more true than it was last summer.”

Even with “stringent Covid protocols that were very successful,” it “was still one of the best summers ever.”

She is looking forward to “a much more normal summer,” while acknowledging that in today’s climate “you can only plan so far ahead.”

Enrollment is “really strong” and the camp will require the Covid vaccine for campers this summer, as a way of having a more normal summer.

“When you have hundreds of young people living together, we’ve had a longstanding vaccine policy, so this is nothing new for us.”

Many age groups are already waitlisted or close to full, especially in second session. There is a special incentive for first-time campers who choose first session, which opens on June 12, but “spaces are getting tight” even for first session.

There are numerous short programs for younger campers. There is a March 26 weekend for those currently in first and second grade, and an overnight in June for Kindergarteners. There are also 10-day and 2-week mini-sessions in June for first and second graders.

“We’re excited to give our youngest potential campers a small taste of camp, so they can come for longer in the future,” Herman said.

The top staffers have resumed visiting communities in the region for recruitment events. “We’re starting to get back on the road, and it’s great to be back with people.”

That said, Covid did teach ways to connect to the camp family yearround, through age group meetups on Zoom.

New Pool Bath House With the shutdown in 2020, the camp embarked on a major fundraising campaign for the year-round expenses that don’t disappear and to keep the gates open. They also did “aggressive fundraising” for increased demand for scholarships, and to bolster the staff experience as days off

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January 2022 • Southern Jewish Life

excursions outside camp were curtailed.

Even with those campaigns, they were still able to embark on building a new pool bath house for the 2022 season. “Annual donors helped make it happen,” Herman said.

The new building will have a larger, better configured and more accessible restroom and changing areas, and updated fixtures. Herman said it is “something our campers have been begging for, for years.”

The camp also recently added pickleball to its sports portfolio.

The Foundation for Jewish Camp recently published its satisfaction survey of parents, with Jacobs Camp at the top of the charts in almost every category, and highest in the country in some, including percentage who would recommend the camp to others, and satisfaction with communication from camp.

summer camp

Ramah Darom celebrates its 25th summer

By Lee J. Green Camp Ramah Darom celebrated its 25th anniversary this past summer, and it is also a reunion for the camp’s new director, Anna Serviansky.

“I was a counselor at Ramah from 2000 to 2004 and it was such a memorable experience,” said Serviansky, who joined Ramah Darom’s professional staff in late 2020 after serving as an associate dean with New York City’s List College. “The experience working as a counselor made me love who I am. I believe that with all my heart. The way we approach Jewish learning and living is unique.”

Serviansky said “everyone would agree that our 25th anniversary summer was a huge success. It was a fun, safe and healthy summer.”

They did weekly testing throughout the camp. All the counselors and employees were vaccinated. The only trips outside of camp that they took were in nature areas. Ramah’s Covid-safety protocol was even recognized by the CDC for its stringency and effectiveness.

The camp is expanding its programs and camp offerings in 2022, and the first session is already almost full. They are piloting two new programs for younger kids entering the second and third grades.

Ramah Darom also plans to open the Menkowitz bike trail, named for former Camp Ramah Director Geoffrey Menkowitz, as well as adding a couple of popular sports — pickleball and bubble soccer.

“We’re in the midst of a big capital, programmatic and endowment campaign, called Kadima (Forward). We will be adding many fun outdoor activities like rock climbing, a zipline, a new slide into the lake and so much more” said Serviansky. “In the summer, we want to add specialty camps

like drama, offer horseback riding, teach more about social justice too.”

She said they will have much continued learning about Israel and will bring in the counselors from Israel again. They hope to recruit on a visit to Israel, but may need to do it via Zoom as they did for 2021.

“The kids really love learning about Israel from those who live there,” said Serviansky. “It’s eye-opening learning about their military service. The campers also really enjoy learning about Israeli food and getting to cook it.”

Ramah Darom also plans to expand its Tikvah support program, which gives campers with varying needs and disabilities the opportunity to enjoy the Ramah Darom experience.

They also hope to grow their Small Communities Incentive Program that attracts campers from smaller Jewish communities. “We get campers coming from as far away as Tulsa,” said Serviansky.

In addition to Summer Family Camp, which runs while camp is in session, Ramah Darom also has family experiences all year. They just held Winter Break Family Camp. Coming soon and open for registration are the Southern Schmooze Shabbaton for small communities, including Montgomery and Mobile, the weekend of Feb. 4. The PJ Library Grand Getaway will be March 13 to 15 for kids and their grandparents, and the always-popular Passover Retreat, April 14 to 24.

She said that while the camp facilities have grown significantly since she was there as a counselor and they have added many programs, one thing hasn’t changed.

“The heart of Ramah Darom never changes,” said Serviansky. “Kids can learn about themselves and their Jewishness. We are molding future Jewish leaders.”

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On Dec. 3, members of Temple Sinai in Lake Charles had a Chanukah celebration at Episcopal Church of the Good Shepherd. The congregation has been meeting at the church for in-person events as the Temple undergoes repairs from Hurricane Laura in 2020.

Rabbi Barry Weinstein noted that the church met at Sinai when the church was damaged in a 1918 hurricane.

The experience of hosting the Temple at the church has prompted Father Jim Lueckenhoff to write a couple of children’s stories explaining Judaism.

“About five years ago I created the Forest Friends, Fred the Fox, Stinky the Skunk and Floppy the Rabbit, who were deputized by Sheriff Thompson,” Lueckenhoff said. “They gather under the old oak tree in the forest and their duty is to help protect the forest which is that magical, whimisical place in my mind where doctors, arborist, Santa Claus, kayakers, care takers for the elderly, biologists etc. come to visit and some build a cabin by the lake.”

When Sinai started meeting at the church, he was inspired to have a rabbi come to the forest to explain Shabbat and Torah, leading to “A Jewish Rabbi Visits the Forest,” featuring “Rabbi Weinstein, Joel and George.”

Sinai’s president is Joel Davidson, and George Bodin is the congregation’s cantorial soloist and lay leader, who recently announced that he will be pursuing rabbinic ordination with an eye on staying in Lake Charles afterward.

With Chanukah approaching, Lueckenoff wrote “Hanukkah in the Forest,” where the three “come in a flatbed truck with griddles and menorah to celebrate Hanukkah and explain it to the forest friends.

He now has about 40 Forest Friends stories. As he explained, “there is a place in the forest for everyone.”

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Chanukah at the Riverwalk, New Orleans

The Terk and Rothman families at Chanukah on the Avenue at Temple Sinai, New Orleans, on Dec. 3.

Images of Chanukah

Chabad Car Menorah Parade finishes outside Regions Field in downtown Birmingham

Chanukah at the State Capitol in Baton Rouge

For Beth Israel in Gulfport, the Bowling Pin Menorah lights up the bowling alley at Cypress Lanes in D’Iberville on Dec. 4.

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Representing all new members of Temple B’nai Sholom in Huntsville, Gregory Wallach holds the Shamash while his wife Karen Anne Wallach offers a meditation on the miracle of the menorah light’s brightness persisting through darkness, as their daughters and Rabbi Eric Berk look on.

Tulane Chabad Celebration on the LBC Quad on Nov. 29

On Dec. 5, the Shir Chadash Men’s Club in Metairie had an Ugly Sweater Chanukah Poker Night. Pictured are (Front row, left to right) Hal Levkowitz, Shawn Daray, Rabbi Deborah Silver, Peter Title, Bee Clancy; (Back row) Henry Weber, Alvin Samuels , Barbara Kaplinsky, Peter Seltzer and Steven Lew.

On Dec. 5, the Chanukah candles were lit at the landmark St. Louis Cathedral in New Orleans.

For more than 20 years, “Chanukah at the Cathedral” has fostered a strong Jewish-Catholic interfaith relationship and community dialogue, reflecting the relationship and commitment to interfaith understanding between Temple Sinai and the Archdiocese of New Orleans.

Archbishop Gregory M. Aymond and Ecumenical Officer Father Buddy Noel invited Temple Sinai to present a celebratory program featuring the music and readings of Chanukah. The event was led by Temple Sinai Rabbi Daniel Sherman, Rabbi Emeritus Ed Cohn and Cantor Joel Colman. The temple’s clergy, congregation officials, auxiliaries and youth led attendees in the lighting of Chanukah candles, readings and songs.

“This was a special time for the New Orleans Jewish community to celebrate the last night of Chanukah and gather in word and song,” Sherman said. “We were proud to underscore the historic interfaith relationship between the Archdiocese and the New Orleans Jewish community.”

January 2022 • Southern Jewish Life

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Rabbi Moshe Rube of Knesseth Israel in Birmingham traveled to Piedmont in northeast Alabama, where Alan Tyree, who attends KI, lives. During Sukkot, Rube had asked Tyree if he knew of a place to get bamboo for his sukkah, so Tyree asked Mayor Bill Baker, and a delegation from Piedmont delivered. They discussed having a Chanukah celebration there, so Rube brought the menorah and latkes for the ceremony, held in a gazebo across from the old Kass store. The Kass and Steinberg families were the Jewish families who used to live in Piedmont. Gabe Weinstein, grandson of Ethel Kass Weinstein, was a history intern at the Institute of Southern Jewish Life in Jackson in 2013.

GatesFest returns in March with expanded offerings Last year, Gates of Prayer in Metairie held one of the first Covid-era festivals, with GatesFest taking place in parking lot pods as bands played all day.

A larger GatesFest returns on March 27, and the lineup is headlined by multi-platinum artist X Ambassadors. In addition to the two parking lot stages, there will be acoustic performances in the sanctuary and a family stage in the playground. It is hoped that pods will not be necessary this year.

This year, GatesFest is partnering with other organizations. The Team Gleason Beer Garden will raise funds for the Gleason Foundation. The Humana Arts Village will feature many community artists, who will have their works for sale. The Jewish Community Day School and J-FLEx Family Fest Area will have games, arts and crafts, and music for the youngest in attendance.

With the Jewish Children’s Regional Service Jewish Roots Gala that evening, there is also an option to Fest for JCRS by adding an $18 donation when purchasing a ticket to GatesFest.

The lineup includes Jon Cleary and the Absolute Monster Gentlemen, Big Sam’s Funky Nation, AsheSon, New Orleans Klezmer Allstars, Greg Hicks and Friends, Ben Kessler, Tiffany Pollack and Company, Electric Yat String Quartet, Duo Louisiane featuring Glenn Hartman and Washboard Chaz, and a Stephen Sondheim tribute with Jordan Lawrence.

General admission tickets are $54, with children 12 and under admitted free, and a Krew of GatesFest VIP package is $2500. The VIP package includes six VIP tickets, promotional recognition, a parking pass on-site, indoor VIP area and restrooms, open bar, prioritized covered seating at the main stage and catering by Katie’s restaurant. Additional sponsorships are available starting at $5,000, up to $25,000 for presenting sponsor.

Additional information is available at gatesfest.org.

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January 2022 • Southern Jewish Life

community Bama grad lights menorah at Israeli president’s residence It’s not every Chanukah that a young woman from Georgia who graduated from the University of Alabama gets to light candles with the president of Israel.

Yet that was exactly the case as Rebecca Gilbert, a Jewish leader at Alabama during her time in Tuscaloosa, was among a select few invited to light the menorah with President Isaac Herzog and his wife, Michal, at the president’s residence in Jerusalem.

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Here is her account: I am currently doing Masa Israel President Isaac Herzog and Israel Teaching Fellows, a Rebecca Gilbert at the recent 10-month fellowship where na- Chanukah menorah lighting. tive English speakers teach in Israeli public schools. I currently teach grades 3 to 6 along with two special education classes at Givat Gonen in Katamonim. (Masa means journey in Hebrew.)

My students come from the melting pot of Israeli culture. I work with secular and religious students from Ethiopian, Russian and Mizrachi backgrounds.

Having such a large variety of Israeli society in my classroom has opened my eyes to the wider Jewish community that is out there, and I have had the unique opportunity to experience Jewish culture through their lenses.

Since arriving in August I have attended a variety of Shabbat meals, went to a Sigd (an Ethiopian Jewish holiday) celebration with my students, and have celebrated one of my Russian student’s Bat Mitzvah.

I am grateful to be able to give Israeli students a chance to further their English skills while also building a bridge between the Jewish community in Israel and the United States. One of my favorite activities with my students is teaching them about the different Jewish traditions in America.

Bright Smiles Regarding Chanukah, I taught the students how Jewish communities in the U.S. celebrate. I loved seeing their bright smiles and the exclamations of “Wow, Rebecca, you also light the menorah. You’re Jewish in the same way as me!”

As we continue to build these bridges, we become a stronger Jewish people.

When I heard I was one of eight out of 8,000 Masa participants to be selected to light the menorah at the president’s residence I was shocked. It was an incredible honor and one of my most memorable moments in Israel so far.

The organizer of the event told me I was chosen to represent the global Jewish community by being one out of eight. Each of us represented a different Masa program and community from around the world.

It was inspiring to be with a group of leaders, both government officials and Masa participants, who also share a passion for Israel and educating future generations about what Israel means to the Jewish people.

Speaking with the president and first lady was also a special experience. They were incredibly warm and welcoming and made the event feel personal.

Chanukah teaches us that even the smallest flame can brighten the darkest room. As I continue my fellowship I hope to share my light with others — one word of English and one new connection at a time.

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January 2022 • Southern Jewish Life

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take care of yourself an annual SJL special section

Is My Child Too Sick to Go to School?

Courtesy Children’s of Alabama Being sure that a child is well enough to go to school can be tough for any parent. It often comes down to whether the child can still participate at school. Having a sore throat, cough, or mild congestion doesn’t always mean kids can’t handle class and other activities.

As the Covid-19 pandemic continues, though, health experts ask that families keep sick kids home. Even mild symptoms like sore throat, cough, or a headache can be signs of a Covid-19 infection that can spread to teachers or other kids. During the pandemic and after it’s over, kids should stay home when they have symptoms like a fever over 100.4°F, diarrhea, vomiting, or trouble breathing.

When in doubt, check with the school. Schools have guidelines about what families should do during the pandemic if their kids get sick. It’s also important to report that your child is sick, so the school staff can check to see if others might have been exposed to your child.

As for other types of infections, chickenpox sores should be dry and crusted over before kids go back to school. Usually this takes about 6 days. Kids with strep throat need a dose or two of antibiotics first, which can mean staying home the day after diagnosis, or possibly longer. Other contagious infections — like rubella, whooping cough, mumps, measles, and hepatitis A — have specific guidelines for returning to school. Your doctor can help you figure this out.

Lice, scabies, and ringworm shouldn’t keep kids out of school. If the problem is found by the teacher or school nurse, the child should stay in school until the end of the day. Kids who get their first treatment after school should be able to return to the classroom the next morning.

You know your kids best. A child who has the sniffles but hasn’t slowed down at home is likely well enough for the classroom. But one who coughed all night and had a hard time getting up in the morning might need to take it easy at home.

Turkey Train at Gates of Prayer

Photo courtesy Diana and Chip Mann

On Dec. 19, Gates of Prayer in Metairie held its first Turkey Train, passing donated turkeys down a line of adult volunteers and students from J-Flex to a waiting van. About 75 turkeys were donated to Second Harvest food bank.

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January 2022 • Southern Jewish Life

borhoods!

counselor’s corner a monthly feature from Collat Jewish Family Services

It’s All In The Neighborhoods

Forgetfulness: What is Normal?

By Pam Leonard, LBSW, CDP In our virtual support groups for family caregivers, it’s not uncommon for someone who’s caring for a loved one with dementia to voice concerns about their own memory. “I pick up the phone and don’t remember who I was going to call. I walk into the other room, then can’t remember why I went there,” they’ll say. “Are these the early signs of dementia?”

Perhaps you’ve had the same concerns. You may be relieved to hear that memory impairment can be a normal part of aging — but how do we tell the difference between “normal” forgetfulness and serious brain diseases like Alzheimer’s?

Normal age-related forgetfulness is when we occasionally misplace items such as glasses, keys, and the remote control. We also may become easily distracted in the middle of performing a task or telling a story. It is also common to forget an appointment or mix up an acquaintance’s name.

In contrast, the symptoms of dementia go beyond memory loss, according to the Alzheimer’s Association. Signs of dementia may include trouble communicating, focusing, reasoning and completing tasks. Examples may include: Inability to solve problems: Working with numbers, such as taking care of monthly bills, becomes more difficult.

Issues completing everyday tasks: Driving, playing a game or working — tasks that used to come second nature — seem impossible.

Feeling confused about time or location: Someone loses track of time and becomes confused about where he or she is, in places like the grocery store or at the park.

Inability to engage in conversation: Dementia may cause someone to have trouble engaging in spoken or written conversation.

Poor judgment: Affected individuals may make faulty decisions, such as leaving home without a jacket on a frigid day.

Change in personality: If someone seems more fearful, anxious, depressed or suspicious than usual, it may be a sign of dementia.

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If you’re struggling with increased forgetfulness, the normal aging process may play a role, but stress can also be a factor. At Sweden’s Sahlgrenska University Hospital, researchers have found that severe stress is causing a growing number of people to seek help for self-perceived memory problems. In addition, the researchers found that lack of sleep can affect our ability to focus and remember.

If stress can lead to “normal” memory problems, then it’s not surprising that caregivers are sometimes forgetful. It is not “selfish” to take time to manage your own stress. It is restorative to nourish yourself by doing something you enjoy; exercising, being in nature or having coffee with a friend. Reducing your stress may help you focus and stay on task — a benefit to both your loved one and yourself.

Pam Leonard, LBSW, CDP, is program director of the CJFS CARES respite program, which provides four hours per day of cognitive, social and physical engagement for those affected by dementia and related disorders.

Pam is also a facilitator of CJFS’ virtual caregiver support group. To learn more about CARES and caregiver support, contact pam@cjfsbham.org or (205) 960-3411.

January 2022 • Southern Jewish Life

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culture From the JCC stage to Broadway tours

By Lee J. Green

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January 2022 • Southern Jewish Life

Sam Primack first hit the stage as a four year old, playing the Golden Goose in the Scottsdale Jewish Community Center production of “Into the Woods.”

The 20-year-old Phoenix native hasn’t stopped soaring since. Primack understudies for Evan Hansen, Connor Murphy and Jared Kleinman in the traveling Broadway production of “Dear Evan Hansen,” coming to the Birmingham-Jefferson Convention Complex, January 19 to 24, as part of the American Theatre Guild’s 2022 season.

“Theatre has been the love of my life. I’m so happy to be doing something that I love that can have such an impact on people,” he said.

Called “one of the most remarkable shows in musical theatre history,” “Dear Evan Hansen” debuted on Broadway in December 2016. It would go on to win six Tony Awards in 2017, including Best Musical, and it has broken box office records.

The character of Evan Hansen, played by Ben Platt in the musical and the movie version that come out this past September, writes a letter that was never meant to be seen that turns into a lie that was never meant to be told, and a life Hansen never dreamed he could have. It is a deeply personal story about seeking acceptance, understanding and growing up today.

Primack went to New York City four years ago as a finalist in the National High School Musical Theatre competition, the Jimmy Awards.

Platt hosted the event, and it inspired Primack to audition.

While still a senior in high school, he was cast as an understudy in the “Dear Evan Hansen” Broadway production and would join the national touring production in 2019.

He said the national touring production has nine understudies for eight roles. Juggling three roles and being prepared to play any of them on any given night can be a challenge, but it is one he embraces. “They rehearse the understudies every day and prepare us well, but juggling everything can be a challenge. There are times when all three of my characters are on the stage at the same time but singing different notes.”

This isn’t Primack’s first national touring Broadway production. When he was 10 years old, he was cast as Pugsley Addams in “The Addams Family.”

Primack said growing up, his family was involved in the Phoenix area Jewish community. He had his Bar Mitzvah and went on to become president of the Jewish Student Union at his high school. “I’m very proud of my Jewishness and being involved.”

There are a “handful” of Jewish cast and crew members in “Dear Evan Hansen.” “We were on the road for Chanukah, but we had a menorah in the dressing room and we said our prayers. I miss my family, but I am so grateful for my Evan Hansen family.” He was able to go home briefly on break in late December.

Primack said he relishes the opportunity to travel across the country and to experience Jewish communities in places he has never been to, including Birmingham later this month.

“That is what makes this experience so rewarding — to meet new people and learn more about these places we go to,” he said. “How many people can say that their college education is touring the country? I’m just so grateful for this opportunity.”

community >> Rear Pew

continued from page 46

not living in it.” Cohn says that the Talmud declined to state that Jews plant trees at this time of year, with Tikkun Olam in mind, to compensate for all the trees left curbside during the previous month by our Christian brethren and sistren.

If confronted with this notion, any Talmudic scholar today will disavow it, in no small part because the Talmud was written many centuries before the advent of Christmas trees.

Cohn understands that not everyone buys into his scholarly screed; however, he points out that people often assume the Talmud and Torah have no connection to modern times.

But they do. You just have to listen closely during the Torah reading.

To hear it over the snoring.

Doug Brook knows that you’ve been pining for him to cover this subject, but won’t abuse having you in the palm of his hand. Oakie dokie? For nearly a few more laughs, listen to the new Rear Pew Mirror podcast at anchor. fm/rearpewmirror or on any major podcast platform. For exclusive online content, follow facebook.com/rearpewmirror. For past columns, visit http:// rearpewmirror.com/.

BJF holding annual meeting, awards ceremony virtually

The Birmingham Jewish Federation will have its annual meeting and board installation virtually, on Jan. 23.

The annual awards will also be presented. David Sher will receive the Susan J. Goldberg Distinguished Volunteer Award. Carlie Stein Somerville will receive the Joanie Plous Bayer Young Leadership Award.

The Birmingham Jewish Foundation will present the N.E. Miles Lifetime Achievement Award to Eric Siegel and the late Rhonda Siegel.

The program will be on the Federation’s Facebook page and on YouTube beginning at 1 p.m.

Advertise in Southern Jewish Life Call Lee Green, (205) 870-7889

ISJL announces cultural programs The online cultural programming at the Goldring/Woldenberg Institute of Southern Jewish Life continues on Jan. 20 with Daniel Cainer presenting “Gefilte Fish and Chips” at 7 p.m.

Cainer, from London, has been called “The Comic Bard of Anglo-Jewry,” and his one-man show details what it means to be British and Jewish through a series of stories on a wide range of topics.

As part of Jewish Disability Awareness Month, the ISJL will host “Being Heard,” a program with New Orleans native Nick May, on Feb. 10 at 7 p.m.

Raised in a musical household, May is a singer/songwriter, educator, song leader and inclusion activist. He found music as a way to express himself as a person who stutters.

“Being Heard” was inspired by a presentation he made in 2018, detailing his story of growing up as a person who stutters, and how his summer camp and day school communities supported him. The program combines storytelling, singing and group discussion, and has been done at venues around the country.

The programs will be available to sponsoring congregations or communities, at $250 per organization. Among those signed up for May’s presentation as of press time is the Unified Jewish Congregation of Baton Rouge.

For Cainer’s presentation, Temple Sinai in New Orleans and Beth Israel in Jackson are among the presenters. Anyone who donated to the Institute in 2021 will also be invited to the Cainer presentation.

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rear pew mirror • doug brook

A Tree By Any Other Name January Seventeenth, Twenty-Twenty-Two. Why is this day different from all other days?

It’s Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, commemorating an historic icon whose dream is probably rolling over in his grave with him lately.

It also would have been Betty White’s 100th birthday, being commemorated with a nationwide cinematic party. (As of this writing it’s not known if they’ll continue with it as a commemoration. There was originally something funny in this paragraph, but sadly she passed just before publishing. The CDC says that this column didn’t jinx her.)

Third and last…

(Yes, the opening alludes to The Four Questions — which are really four answers to one question, if you read your Haggadah more closely this April — but, due to holiday season postal delays, only three questions arrived in time for this writing. So, third and last…) … it’s also Tu B’Shevat. The Jewish New Year for the Trees. Yes, this holiday exists. After all, trees are people, too, and we have to care for them — it’s not like they grow on trees, you know.

Despite what its name sounds like, Tu B’Shevat is on the 15th of the Hebrew month of Shevat, not on the second (“tu”) of Shevat.

(Editor’s note: That’s funnier spoken than in writing. Please read it out loud, react accordingly and, if that reaction didn’t include ripping this page from the magazine and pouring kerosene on it to stoke your winter fireplace, continue reading.)

(Editor’s note: The editor didn’t actually write the previous editor’s note.

Or this one.)

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January 2022 • Southern Jewish Life

So, why would Judaism have its own Arbor Day, and in one of the coldest months of the year? Talmudic scholars spent so long debating this that they didn’t even have time to write their debate into the Talmud.

But the holiday itself does go all the way back to the Talmud. It’s not some post-modern vegetarian environmentalist plot. The Mishnah mentions four new year’s days in the Jewish calendar, of which Tu B’Shevat is one. (This column has previously presented all four, as nearly a couple of you won’t recall that you read over the years.)

Tu B’Shevat isn’t as well-known as some other Jewish holidays like Chanukah because, while its name has numerous debatable spellings, none can be morphed into nearly as many variants as the name of the annual Maccabean memorialization.

Trees have a long presence in Judaism despite so much of early Jewish history being in deserts. All the way back in the Garden of Eden, there was the Tree of Life and the Tree of Knowledge — which both lasted thousands of years until George Washington famously chopped them down because Martha was making cherry pie for dessert that night.

The biblical big-fish story of Jonah less famously concludes with Jonah’s anger at the Almighty over the death of a tree he planted. (Bet you’ll go back for Yom Kippur afternoon this year to know what that’s about, won’t ya.)

But no text records the definitive origin of Tu B’Shevat — at least, the origin according to the world’s most revered unknown rabbinic botanist, Pinchas “Pine” Cohn. For the first time ever in print, here’s his heretofore unheralded Talmud-esque treatment about this winter holiday’s historic provenance.

Cohn says that a central tenet of Judaism is Tikkun Olam, literally “repairing the world” because, as the Talmud says, “if it ain’t broke, you’re continued on previous page

Celebrating trees? In the middle of winter?

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CATCHING UP Here, we’re going to reach back to books that have been published not in the last two or three months, but in the last two or three years and deserving of space as a reminder of how really great they are. We’ve recommended Predicting the Past: Zohar Studios The Lost Years by Stephen Berkman a million times and that’s not enough: the person you know who has everything doesn’t have this enormous, evocative, wondrous coffee table book and needs it. The works inside, a “tribute to the enigmatic 19th century New York City photographic establishment known as Zohar Studios, located in the predominantly Jewish Lower East Side” produced using the photographic process known as wet collodion, brings forth the most captivating images in a historical vision.

Photographer Murray Riss produces the images that make up Beloved, a large selection of photographs of Memphis’ Temple Israel Cemetery, one of the oldest Jewish cemeteries in the South. For collectors of Southern Judaica especially, a nice addition. For children, I Am Anne Frank by Brand Meltzer, illustrated by Christoper Eliopoulos, is special. Using many of Anne’s own words to explain her journey and a tone that’s hopeful, not fearsome, a community explains in the last pages how Anne’s story ultimately ends, and the bright spots — Jewish values — that shine still and can be carried forward by us all. Judah Touro Didn’t Want to be Famous by Audrey Ades and illustrated by Vivien Mildenberger begins with Touro’s sailing to New Orleans and the successful shop he’d go on to open at 27 Chartres. After being injured during the War of 1812, Touro wonders how best he can use his success in business and good luck in surviving, and decides to help the community in (very) big ways and small, never seeking the spotlight. An important example of doing good because it’s the right thing to do, not for the spotlight. Goodnight Bubbala, A Joyful Parody by Sheryl Haft is just that: a sweet take on the classic, mixing in some Yiddish in effusive short passages alongside absolutely charming illustrations by Jill Weber. Like the original, prime to be read aloud time after time before bed, as is the more relaxed, slower-paced Lilah Tov Good Night by Ben Gundersheimer and Noar Lee Naggan.

ISRAEL

THE ISRAELI CENTURY

How the Zionist Revolution Changed History and Reinvented Judaism

by Yossi Shain

Yossi Shain moves us through the timeline of Jewish peoplehood and how Israel the country defines how we see ourselves and each other, serves as a geopolitical dining room table where we are all tied together and can always come home to, and how that sense of permanence gives each a greater confidence not previously enjoyed. Not a bit player, Israel here is the hero that isn’t kowtowed by Diaspora donations, enjoys a robust economy and is a shining star in global start-up culture, and while real political threats linger, its successes on the world scene bring admiration.

In a discussion on return to history and its meaning (and how far back to go), the assertion is made that the State of Israel’s stability of sovereignty is what makes pluralistic Judaism thrive, otherwise a more traditional ideology would take hold in fear of the whole being threatened with collapsing. The overall takeaway? The Diaspora isn’t needed to prop up Israel, the author maintains Israel is instead setting the tone for the Diaspora and will continue that trajectory.

UNDER JERUSALEM

The Buried History of the World’s Most Contested City by Andrew Lawler

Even the discussion on Jerusalem’s size and importance in King David’s era, perhaps a dozen acres and a thousand or so inhabitants, the “capital of a few small villages,” ripples forth into current stances. Highlighting the continuing saga of archaeological digs setting off religious motivations, political intrigue, and history book re-writes, “Under Jerusalem” also sets out as an outline for a more peaceful, shared identity for what and whom is above.

JUDAICA Marvels of Judaism:

SYNAGOGUES

by Leyla Uluhanli

Certainly not the first generouslysized volume of synagogue architecture, this has one major difference: the essays are more than just color commentary.

A nice selection of images includes the exterior as well as interior design, and some of the most compelling are the more contemporary, almost stark spaces as opposed to elaborate environments elsewhere.

While we were hoping to see a few southern treasures like Touro in New Orleans or Gemiluth Chassed in Port Gibson, Miss., in the New World section, Charleston’s 1841 Kahal Kadosh Beth Elohim deservedly made the cut of 60+ world synagogues included overall.

The stunning 2010 rose window commissioned by the Museum at Eldridge Street in New York featured on the cover ensures this coffee table book stays on the top of the stack.

FOOD

CLAUDIA RODEN’S MEDITERRANEAN

Treasured Recipes from a Lifetime of Travel The first three or four recipes in, and you’re hooked (focaccia to tapenade, and already an envisioned grocery run is in the works). Roden is famous for her time-tested recipes, research, and stories peppered in that bring a strong sense of place. Not only kosher recipes, but easy enough to figure out mods in most cases. Uncomplicated, delicious.

January 2022 • Southern Jewish Life

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January 2022 • Southern Jewish Life