SJL Deep South, March 2015

Southern Jewish Life SELMA, OY, SELMA: 50 YEARS LATER AUBURN’S BETH SHALOM CELEBRATES 25TH NEW BATON ROUGE CHABAD CORNED BEEF LUNCH TIME PORT GIBSON LIGHT SHINES ON OUR ANNUAL CELEBRATIONS ISSUE DOZENS OF WEDDINGS AT B’NAI SHOLOM

March 2015

Volume 25 Issue 3

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shalom y’all shalom y’all This month, we begin to revisit Selma in our ongoing series about the Jewish community in the civil rights era. In the last few years we have done pieces on the Scottsboro Boys and the 50th anniversary of the 1963 struggles in Birmingham.

Nationally, Selma has received a lot of attention, in large measure because of the film “Selma.” A minor controversy erupted as it was being released because it was seen as minimizing or ignoring the wide interfaith and interracial component of the demonstrations, a coalition that helped bring about massive change in American society.

Cover photo from Carol M. Highsmith’s America, Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division.

Cover Image: Courtesy Haspel

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Certainly, many in the Jewish community who know little about Jewish involvement in that era know that two of the three civil rights workers killed in Neshoba County, Miss., in 1964 were Jewish, and that Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel marched with Martin Luther King Jr. in Selma.

With Heschel playing such a visible role, and the presence of many rabbis and the pervasive presence of yarmulkes among even non-Jews, the film was seen as “airbrushing” Jewish involvement out.

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Of course, anyone criticizing how historical the movie was would have to also account for how King’s actual words could not be used in the film because the King Center would not license the rights, as they are reserved for an upcoming film that is expected to be produced

by Steven Spielberg.

Lonnie Kleinman and Lex Rofes of the Institute of Southern Jewish Life responded that the lack of a Jewish presence in the film was fine because it isn’t our story.

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commentary

March 2015 Cover Image: Courtesy Haspel

Southern Jewish Life Of course, any author and any film producer quite fully white — was caught in the middle. has the right to tell a story in the manner he or Second, it answers the shorthand notions she wishes. What to emphasize is a matter of that “Jews marched with blacks in the South” personal philosophy. on one hand, or “Jews in the South didn’t do In essence, this reopens the question of anything to help” on the other. The reality is who “owns” the civil rights movement. Was it a much more of a grey area. black achievement or was it a group achieveThis month, we have a timeline of events ment? leading up to Bloody Sunday and the afterFor many who work in interfaith and interracial relations, there is an emphasis on building allies across groups and celebrating coalitions. For others, there is a sense that the movement belonged to those who were being oppressed and who were suffering the deaths and injuries.

math that led to the successful famous march two weeks later. We also have remembrances from Jews who came to Alabama for the marches.

Next month we will have a piece on what was happening in the Jewish community of Selma at the time.

Regardless of how the movement is porOf course, there’s a whole lot more in this trayed in one film, the fact remains that Selma, issue, including our annual Simchas section, as with just about any historical event, has several new books by writers in our commumany layers and levels that can fill books, far nity and a lot of other news. more than can fit in two hours.

Enjoy, and let’s do this again next month.

Our aim has been to tell the Jewish community’s story. We have titled the ongoing series “Not Just Black and White” for two reasons.

First, it indicates that while the main issue was black versus white, the Jewish community of the South — which was often seen as not

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Lawrence M. Brook editor@sjlmag.com Our digital editions are ASSOCIATE PUBLISHER/ADVERTISING always availa Lee J. Green lee@sjlmag.com at sjlmag.com You may also CREATIVE DIRECTOR choose to go Ginger Brook ginger@sjlmag.com paperless an have each m WEB EDITOR magazine de Eugene Walter Katz eugene@sjlmag.com to your inbo PHOTOGRAPHER-AT-LARGE Rabbi Barry C. Altmark deepsouthrabbi.com

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CONTRIBUTING WRITER Doug Brook brookwrite.com

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agenda interesting bits & can’t miss events

For the first time in years, Ahavath Rayim in Greenwood was filled to overflowing on Jan. 16 at the start of a scholar in residence weekend held in conjunction with the Episcopal Church of the Nativity. Rabbi Jeremy Simons of the Institute of Southern Jewish Life led the Shabbat service that kicked off the weekend with Amy -Jill Levine, the E. Rhodes and Leona B. Carpenter Professor of New Testament Studies at Vanderbilt University Divinity School. The last remaining historically-Orthodox congregation in Mississippi, Ahavath Rayim’s membership is down to a handful of families.

New Hadassah Super South Tri-Region debuts with NOLA conference Three Hadassah regions will have a joint “Hadassah Big and Easy” spring conference and Shabbaton, April 17 to 19 in New Orleans at the Hilton Airport in Kenner.

The new Super South Tri-Region consists of the Southern Seaboard, Southeastern and Southern regions and is the organization’s first “hub.” Speakers will include development training consultant Renee Resnik and Ellen Hershkin, PRAZE Division coordinator.

The PRAZE division is Programming, Advocacy, Zionism and Education.

Roselle Ungar of New Orleans will also speak at the weekend. Keynote speaker will be Rachel Schonberger, resource chair for the Super South.

The focus will be viewing Hadassah from a cause-driven and social action agenda. A tour of Jewish New Orleans will also be available, and associates are welcome.

Early registration is $195 before March 24, $215 after.

For those who arrive early, New Orleans Hadassah is holding a panel with Shir Chadash on April 16 at 7 p.m., discussing “Sex, Lies and Politics: A Panel on Human Trafficking.” Panelists will include Loyola University faculty members Laura Murphy and Rae Taylor, and Tulane University faculty member Tania Tetlow. Moderator of the discussion will be Michelle Erenberg, Louisiana State Policy Advocacy Chair for the National Council of Jewish Women.

Popular Passover events planned Montgomery shul plans non-Jewish Seder

over 200 women celebrate the holiday, learn more about the role of women in Jewish history and enjoy a traditional Seder led by CanWith so many non-Jews interested in tor Jessica Roskin and Rabbi Laila Haas. The Passover, Montgomery’s Agudath Israel-Etz Seder is open to the community and begins at Ahayem is putting on a Seder on March 15 at 5 p.m. Reservations are $25, or $36 for spon1 p.m. sorship.

Many churches, figuring that the Last Supper was likely a Passover Seder, put on ver- Seder under the Saturn V? sions of the meal, and interfaith Seders are At Alabama’s largest Passover celebration also popular. this year, there will be plenty of space — but In a lot of cases, “messianic” groups tour how much room remains to be seen. churches this time of year and put on Seders Each year Pastor Robert Somerville orgathat take the traditional Passover symbols and nizes “Christ Our Passover” in Huntsville, replace their significance with Christian-based an interdenominational Hebraic roots event meanings, such as the paschal lamb represent- to promote awareness of Jewish festivals and ing Jesus. practices that underlie Christian teachings.

Rabbi Scott Kramer will lead the traditional The Seder attracts over 1,000 each year.

Seder with an explanation of the rituals and This year the event will be at the Space and practices. There will be a full meal and a wide Rocket Center’s Davidson Center, underneath range of Passover foods sampled. the Saturn V Apollo moon rocket that is susReservations are $45 and are limited to 100 pended from the ceiling. It will be on March participants.

31 at 6 p.m., and those attending the event are welcome to tour the Space and Rocket Center from 4 to 6 p.m.

Somerville, who heads Awareness Ministries, is also active in Christian Advocates for Temple Emanu-El Sisterhood in BirmingIsrael. Tickets for the Seder are $25, and this ham will hold its annual Women’s Seder on year’s community project offering recipient March 22. will be Space Camp’s scholarship fund for disThe interfaith event generally sells out, as advantaged children.

Women’s interfaith Seder in Birmingham

March 2015 • Southern Jewish Life 5

agenda Civil rights historian to speak at Beth Or In conjunction with events surrounding the 50th anniversary of the Selma to Montgomery march, J. Mills Thornton will speak at Montgomery’s Temple Beth Or on March 19 at 7 p.m. The program, sponsored by the Rothschild-Blachschleger Library Fund, is free and open to the community.

Thornton, a native of Alabama, wrote an article in the Alabama Review in 1980, “Challenge and Response in the Montgomery Bus Boycott of 1955-1956,” which in 2002 was expanded into a book, “Dividing Lines: Municipal Politics and the Struggle for Civil Rights in Montgomery, Birmingham and Selma.” The book was honored in 2003 with the Organization of American Historians’ Liberty Legacy Foundation Award.

A native of Alabama, Thornton was on the faculty of the University of Michigan from 1974 until his retirement in 2010.

His first book, “Politics and Power in a Slave Society: Alabama, 18001861,” published in 1978, was awarded the prestigious John H. Dunning Prize by the American Historical Association and the James F. Sulzby Prize by the Alabama Historical Association.

The Alabama Review’s January 2014 issue was a retrospective of Thornton’s career.

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Over 100 women attended the Mega Challah Bake on Feb. 2 at the Bais Ariel Chabad Center in Birmingham. The event was in memory of Jo Ann Hess Morrison and Hope Cogen McInerney.

agenda Deborah Levine to present cross-cultural wisdom as part of Spotlight on China Award winning best-selling author and curriculum designer Deborah J. Levine will present the 2015 professional development workshop for this year’s Birmingham International Center Spotlight on China.

The BIC selects a country to honor each year, providing a range of educational, social and economic forums during the year.

The workshop, “The Changing Face of Alabama’s Schools” will include presentations on cultural diversity through stories, “inspire your inner global leader” and cross-cultural wisdom.

Levine’s background in diversity work started as a child in one of the few Jewish families in British Bermuda. A pioneer in diversity training, Levine wrote the textbook and workbook “Matrix Model Management System: Guide to Cross-Cultural Wisdom.”

As a diversity trainer and master instructor for Global Leadership, Levine’s clients include Hamilton County Public Schools in Tennessee, Tulsa Public Schools in Oklahoma, and the MM International Language School.

An innovator in the arena of cross-cultural expertise in leadership development, she created the community-wide Global Leadership course in 2007. Based on her cutting-edge training and writing, she is currently the research coordinator at The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga’s College of Engineering and Computer Science.

Workshops will be provided in partnership with The Confucius Institute at Troy University and through support by a grant from the Alabama Humanities Foundation, the state affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities.

The workshops are from 8 a.m. to 3:30 p.m., with registration required.

There is no charge. The workshops will be in Birmingham at Samford University’s Beeson School of Education on March 7, at the University of

Alabama at Huntsville’s Shelby Center on March 14 and at the Thomasville Civic Center on March 21.

Registration is available at bic-al.org.

As part of the Spotlight on China, there will be “Kreplach and Dim Sum: Yes, There Are Jews in China” at the Levite Jewish Community Center on April 26 at 3 p.m., featuring Robyn Helzner.

Dothan hosts Hagler, Hoffman

Ari Hagler, assistant professor of history at Troy University, will be the scholar in residence at Dothan’s Temple Emanu-El the weekend of March 13.

Hagler will speak about the Middle East at the 7 p.m. Shabbat service on March 13 and then give a longer presentation at an adult education session on March 14 at 10 a.m. At 7 p.m. there will be a community-wide presentation.

Before coming to Troy, he was a Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow at Cornell College in Iowa. He teaches early and medieval Islamic history, and modern Middle East history.

On March 31 at 7 p.m., Emanu-El will host Joel Hoffman in partnership with the Troy Dothan Library. He will speak about his new book, “The Bible’s Cutting Room Floor: The Holy Scriptures Missing From Your Bible.”

In the book, Hoffman notes that some holy writings were left out for theological or political reasons, others simply because of the physical restrictions of ancient book-making technology. At times, the compilers of the Bible skipped information because they assumed everyone knew it.

And some passages were even omitted by accident.

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The Jewish Federation of Central Alabama announced a 26 percent increase in its 2014 Annual Campaign. Chaired by Lisa Weil, the campaign raised over $422,000 from 237 donors. Sixty percent of the gifts were either new or increased.

The Fred Sklar Jewish War Veterans Post in Shreveport will have a Mishloach Manot March Mitzvah on March 8, bringing Purim treats to veterans at area facilities, regardless of whether they are Jewish. Those who are not JWV members are also welcome to participate.

Bob Barber is looking to organize a Jewish War Veterans Post in the Dothan area. Membership is open to any person of the Jewish faith who served honorably in the U.S. military, whether or not they saw active combat. Those who are interested can email him at peterwbarber@yahoo. com.

Temple Beth Or in Montgomery is holding a Taste of Judaism class for unaffiliated Jews in the Montgomery area. The free program will be on March 18 and 25, and April 1, from 7 to 9 p.m. Serious prospects for conversion are also welcome.

Birmingham’s Temple Emanu-El continues its Year to Celebrate Israel with the Lunch and Learn Book Club’s exploration of “Menachem Begin: The Battle for Israel’s Soul” by Daniel Gordis on March 17 at noon, led by Cantor Jessica Roskin. On March 20, Jewish National Fund Shabbat will be at 5:40 p.m.

The Mobile Area Jewish Federation will have its annual meeting on March 8 at 12:30 p.m., at Ahavas Chesed.

Montgomery’s Temple Beth Or will have its annual Huntingdon College Night on March 13, welcoming religion students and faculty for a 5 p.m. presentation, followed by Shabbat services.

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Joseph Metz, a student at Mississippi State University, will speak at B’nai Israel in Columbus on March 21, telling the story of his grandfather, who was one of Mississippi’s few Holocaust survivors.

Gregg Swain, author of “Mah Jongg: The Art and History of the Game” will speak at Birmingham’s Levite Jewish Community Center on April 12 at 11 a.m. Admission is $5. A New York native, Swain published the first book to fully capture the story of the exotic game of Mah Jongg, offering an intimate look at the history of the game as well as the visual beauty of the tiles. Books will be available for purchase, and games will commence after the presentation. The event is co-sponsored by the Sisterhoods of Temple Beth-El, Temple Emanu-El, Knesseth Israel Congregation, and Birmingham Hadassah.

On March 19 at 7:30 p.m., James Hardin of the Cobb Institute at Mississippi State University will give a presentation of recently-found artifacts from a dig in Israel. Mississippi State Hillel is hosting “Recent Archaeological Finds and the History of the Kingdom of David and Solomon at the Colvard Student Union.

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Baton Rouge’s B’nai Israel holding annual Mitzvah Day B’nai Israel in Baton Rouge is holding its 16th annual Magical Mitzvah Day on March 22, fanning out across the community in a wide range of service projects.

At 9 a.m., participants will arrive at B’nai Israel for check-in and coffee, and then go to pre-assigned places, though many of the projects will be at B’nai Israel. When signing up, one may indicate a preference for three activities.

Some activities are age-restricted, while others are for all ages.

One team will meet early, at 8:30 a.m., and go to the Baton Rouge Food Bank to sort and box food for distribution to seniors.

Operation Shoebox participants need to bring size 10 knitting needles to knit or crochet skullcaps for military members. L’Dor Vador and More will be to assemble Passover bags for seniors for the Jewish Federation of Greater Baton Rouge.

The Magical Mensch Mania group will assemble toiletry packages for the Battered Women’s Shelter, snack bags for a homeless shelter, and other initiatives. Another team will work with GaitWay Therapeutic Horsemanship, which provides adaptive sports riding, interactive vaulting and equine assisted therapy to those who have disabilities.

Others will go to Boys Hope Girls Hope, a residential facility and mentoring program.

Around B’nai Israel, B’nai Buddies will do planting and spring cleaning, and the Neshamah Noshers will prepare lunch for all of the Mitzvah Day teams. Another group will do cleanup at the cemetery on North Street.

Registration forms and donations are requested by March 15. All donations will go toward the Mitzvah Day activities.

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Cantor Colman to sing at Tigers game Cantor Joel Colman of Temple Sinai in New Orleans will sing the National Anthem at the Detroit Tigers game on July 23. The game against the Seattle Mariners will begin at 1:08 p.m. Eastern time. This won’t be his first sports-related performance, he sang the National Anthem at the 2002 Sugar Bowl, and for the New Orleans Pelicans.

Colman will do a “Cantor on the Road” tour with the Institute of Southern Jewish Life this spring, visiting B’nai Israel in Natchez the weekend of April 10, and in May he will visit Temple Sinai in Lake Charles, B’nai Israel in Monroe, Beth Israel in Gulfport and B’nai Israel in Galveston.

Vicksburg artist and Attic Gallery owner Lesley Silver reigned as Queen of Mardi Gras at the Vicksburg Mardi Gras parade on Feb. 7.

March 2015 • Southern Jewish Life 9

agenda NAGHI’S Diamonds Platinum 14&18k Gold Antiques Estate Judaica

633 Royal St. • (504) 586-8373 On Jan. 25, Rabbi Jana De Benedetti (right) of B’nai Zion in Shreveport took part in World Religion Day, speaking at All Souls Unitarian Universalist Church in the morning. That afternoon she was a panelist in the main program.

Rabbi Judy Caplan Ginsburgh of Alexandria (center) gave a musical presentation, inviting de Benedetti to join her for the final song, and Susan Caldwell (left), religious education director at All Souls introduced keynote speaker John Mitchell.

San Francisco group taking Jews, Blues trip The Lehrhaus Judaica from San Francisco will be in the region again this month for “Jews, Blues and Jazz.” The program visited in November 2013, attending the Delta Jewish Open and visiting sites from Memphis to New Orleans.

The trip, from March 18 to 27, is at capacity. The itinerary includes the birthplace of the blues in the Mississippi Delta and the Stax Museum of American Soul Music in Memphis, the Civil War battlefield in Vicksburg and the site of the slave market in Natchez, the Medgar Evers House and the newly expanded National Civil Rights Museum at the Lorraine Motel.

There will also be a tour of the Lower Ninth Ward in New Orleans and exploration of the New Orleans Jewish community’s rebirth after Katrina.

The group is scheduled to visit the B.B. King Museum in Indianola after lunch at the Indianola Country Club on March 22, and has invited members of Hebrew Union Congregation in Greenville to join them.

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community Auburn’s Beth Shalom to celebrate 25th anniversary Those in a university town are quite familiar with the concept of homecoming. In April, Auburn’s Beth Shalom will have a homecoming to celebrate celebrating its 25th anniversary.

The weekend will begin on April 24 at 7 p.m. with a Shabbat service that includes a candle lighting Kaddish in memory of former members.

Rabbi Matt Dreffin from the Institute of Southern Jewish Life will lead services for the weekend.

On April 25 at 9 a.m., there will be a Shabbat morning service followed by a bagel brunch. At 6 p.m. there will be Havdalah, a catered dinner and dancing. Reservations are $25 for adults, free for children under age 13.

Reservations are requested by April 1.

There had long been a Jewish presence in the area, but without the numbers to establish a congregation. The first Jewish residents arrived by 1870 in neighboring Opelika, but the community never numbered more than three dozen. Families traveled to Montgomery, Columbus or Lanett for services.

At Auburn, there was a Jewish presence associated with the university. Tau Epsilon Pi was established in 1937, followed by Alpha Epsilon Pi in 1966.

Plans to organize the community began, and in 1981 Linda and Steve Silvern hosted a potluck dinner for Rosh Hashanah, telling a few friends to invite anyone Jewish that they knew. Much to everyone’s surprise, 80 showed up, and 100 came out the next year.

A religious school was set up in the Silverns’ basement and the community continued to meet informally.

In 1988 discussion turned toward an actual congregation, and on May 20, 1989, Beth Shalom was founded, with Marge Hirth as the first president.

Rabbi Sol Landau led the congregation in the first year, followed by

Rabbi John Rosenblatt, who was there for only a few months.

Silvern became lay rabbi, and after a few years was ordained in the Renewal movement. He led the congregation until 2004, and since then the congregation has had lay leaders and visiting rabbis from the Institute of Southern Jewish Life.

At first, the congregation met at First Presbyterian Church, using an ark from Fort Benning and a Torah from B’nai Jeshurun in Demopolis, which closed its doors in 1989.

Beth Shalom bought the former Christian Science Reading Room north of campus and dedicated it on Nov. 15, 1992. A renovation took place in 2005, and the interior has been repainted in anticipation of the anniversary weekend.

A 25th anniversary Tree of Life campaign was also held.

Today, the congregation has weekly services and Torah study, religious school and close ties to Hillel and the newly-reconstituted AEPi. There is also a book group and Auburn Hadassah.

For years, the congregation used several prayer books and resisted affiliating, as it is the only congregation in the area and needed to appeal to a wide spectrum, but in recent years the congregation affiliated with the Union for Reform Judaism while stating a goal “to support the Jewish traditions of all.”

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community New Chabad to open in Baton Rouge this summer Six months after new Chabad locations were announced for Mobile and Biloxi, the Chabad footprint is expanding into Baton Rouge.

Chabad of Louisiana in New Orleans announced the opening of a new branch in Baton Rouge. Rabbi Peretz and Mushka Kazen will move to the area with their infant daughter in August.

They were married in October 2013 in New Orleans. Mushka Kazen is the daughter of Rabbi Zelig and Bluma Rivkin, founders of Chabad’s presence in Louisiana.

Peretz Kazen’s father, the late Rabbi Yosef Yitzhak Kazen, was regarded as the “Father of the Jewish Internet,” helping develop the Chabad presence online and serving as a “virtual rabbi” worldwide.

Rabbi Peretz Kazen, a Brooklyn native, has served Jewish communities in Japan, Virgin Islands, Ukraine, Greece and Arizona.

“We are looking forward to working with the Jewish community in Baton Rouge,” he said. They look to provide adult education classes and lectures, children’s programs, holiday and Shabbat programs “and mainly being available for the needs of the Jewish community in any way we can.”

They also plan to work with Jewish students at Louisiana State University.

12 Southern Jewish Life • March 2015

They have already met with Rabbi Jordan Goldson of B’nai Israel amd Rabbi Thomas Gardner of Beth Shalom, along with others in the community. They planned to be in Baton Rouge for Purim, giving out shalach manot and doing megillah readings for the homebound and those who were ill.

Chabad began in Louisiana in 1975 when the Rivkins were sent to New Orleans by the rebbe to establish a Chabad center near Tulane University. Today, the Rohr Chabad Jewish Student Center and Uptown Chabad are next to each other on Freret Street.

With expansion of the community to Metairie, the Chabad Jewish Center of Metairie was established in 1990, headed by Rabbi Yossie and Chanie Nemes. The current Metairie center was constructed in 1999.

The Chabads in New Orleans have done programs for Jewish communities across the state.

“Our goal is that Chabad of Baton Rouge will be a place for all Jews without regard to their affiliation or level of observance,” Kazen said.

“We look forward to working together to strengthen Jewish life in Baton Rouge.”

They can be contacted at (347) 515-0835 or by email at peretzkazen@ gmail.com.

community Birmingham’s Asaf Stein to receive Israel aliyah prize at Knesset Asaf Stein, a Birminghamian who moved to Israel in 2012, was named one of the recipients of the Bonei Zion — Builders of Zion — Prize from Nefesh B’Nefesh. Six recipients will be honored at a Knesset ceremony in May for making “a major impact on the State of Israel.”

Stein will receive the Israel Defense Forces and National Service Young Leadership Award.

The awards were announced on Feb. 24. Also being honored are Professor Charles Sprung, Director of the General Intensive Care Unit at Hadassah Medical Organization, in the field of Science and Medicine; Jon Medved, founder and CEO of OurCrowd in the field of Entrepreneurship and Technology; Rabbi Dr. Seth Farber, founder and executive director of ITIM in the field of Community and Non-Profit; Chana Reifman Zweiter, founding director of Kaleidoscope Mainstreaming Network in the field of Education; and Asher Weill, consultant and editor of English publications for Limmud FSU for Culture, Sports & Arts.

An additional Lifetime Achievement Award is being given to Tal Brody for his contribution to shaping and impacting Israel through sports and dedicated public relations efforts on behalf of the State of Israel.

Hundreds of immigrants from English-speaking countries, including Australia, Canada, New Zealand, South Africa, U.K. and the U.S., were nominated for the prize. The prize recognizes outstanding Anglo immigrants who have helped Israel in a meaningful way by encapsulating the spirit of modern-day Zionism and contributing in significant ways towards the State of Israel.

“It has been incredibly inspirational, for the second consecutive year, to see the remarkable number of Anglo Olim who are making a signifi-

cant impact on the State of Israel. These Bonei Zion Prize recipients exemplify how Olim are making historic advancements and contributing, each in their own field, to the success of the country and our nation,” said Nefesh B’Nefesh Co-Founder and Executive Director Rabbi Yehoshua Fass. “We hope that highlighting the achievements of these Olim, in addition to expressing our gratitude to the recipients, will serve as a catalyst to inspire others to make Aliyah and follow in their footsteps.

Founded in 2002, Nefesh B’Nefesh works with the Israeli government and The Jewish Agency for Israel to revitalPhoto by Rabbi Barry Altmark ize Aliyah from North America and the U.K. by removing or minimizing the Asaf Stein financial, professional, logistical and social obstacles of Aliyah. Services have been provided to over 42,000 newcomers.

Stein is “affectionately referred to by his peers as ‘Dr. Golani.” He is regarded as an unusual case even by the standards of lone soldiers, those who immigrate to Israel without their families and enlist in the IDF. Stein, son of Susan and Michael Stein, is an alumnus of the N.E. Miles Jewish Day School. He earned his doctorate in biomedicine from the University of Alabama at Birmingham and then decided to immigrate to

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March 2015 • Southern Jewish Life 13

community Israel and join the IDF. He had volunteered in Israel in 2009 and set a goal of becoming a soldier in a combat unit, though he was much older than most entering the IDF. He beat the odds and was accepted to the elite Golani Brigade, telling skeptical high-ranking commanders who told him only four men near his age had ever been accepted to a combat unit that he would become the fifth.

He has spoken to Friends of the IDF Southeast gatherings and in October returned to Birmingham to speak at the joint Israel Bonds and Birmingham Jewish Federation and Foundation event. He was part of last summer’s ground operation in Gaza.

Now 30, Stein is nearing the end of his IDF service. According to Nefesh B’Nefesh, “His friends and colleagues in Golani laud his positive attitude and his lack of aversion to jobs that others, 10 years his junior, might consider beneath them. Asaf is an inspiration and has truly earned his nickname, Dr. Golani.”

Kosher BBQ contest taking year off After five years of kosher barbecue competition, Birmingham’s Temple Beth-El “When Pigs Fly” will be taking a year off.

The event has been held in May and attracted about 20 teams per year, competing in several categories. Last year, due to the sale of the building next door to Beth-El, along with the large parking lot that had been used for the festival, “When Pigs Fly” moved to the Levite Jewish Community Center.

According to organizers, many non-profits are moving annual events to every other year, to provide a wider range of programs. This year, the congregation will have a scholar-in-residence weekend from May 1 to 3, featuring Rabbi Irwin Kula.

The competition is expected to resume in May 2016.

Tulane Shabbat 1000 set for March 20

Photo by Donna Matherne

Each year, the Jewish community of Tulane University comes together to put on a huge Shabbat dinner, and this year’s seventh Shabbat 1000 will be on March 20 at 6 p.m. on Newcomb Quad. Coordinated

by Tulane Chabad, the goal is to have 1,000 students, faculty and staff attend the traditional dinner. Pictured above is last year’s event.

14 Southern Jewish Life • March 2015

community Temple Sinai celebrating 145 years in NOLA Temple Sinai is celebrating 145 years in New Orleans with festive events and an eye on reaching out to those in the community who are currently unaffiliated.

“Though we’re the first Reform congregation in Louisiana, we pride ourselves, both clergy and laity, on extending a personal welcome to all,” said Temple Sinai Rabbi Edward Paul Cohn.

“Many of our Temple families are descendants of our original founders, while others are newcomers who are engaged in our congregation’s multifaceted programs of education, worship and religious action.”

A hallmark of the congregation’s history has been interfaith and interracial relations. That tradition will continue with a March 14 performance of Mendelssohn’s “Elijah,” co-hosted with Loyola University. The 7:30 p.m. performance at Temple Sinai will feature a large group of acclaimed artists, including New Orleans native Alfred Walker. Also featured are Luretta Bybee, Tyler Smith, Betsy Uschkrat, Cantor Joel Colman, Marcus St. Julien, the Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra as well as the Loyola University Chorus and Chamber Singers, and Loyola conductor Meg Frazier.

Tickets to what is considered one of the greatest oratorios ever written are $20, with patron level at $125.

The congregation will also hold a “Salute to the Past, Step Into the Future” 145th anniversary Gala on April 11. There will be a patron’s party at 6 p.m., followed by the gala at 7 p.m.

A group of 37 New Orleanians dedicated Temple Sinai on July 3, 1870. Mostly Western European immigrants, they included local legends Isidore Newman and Leon Godchaux.

The congregation was the first in New Orleans to join the new Reform movement. A building was constructed on Carondelet Street near Tivoli Circle, now Lee Circle, and the congregation managed to attract Rabbi James

Gutheim, who had briefly served two of the more traditional congregations in town and pushed Reform practices while there, back to New Orleans.

In 1928, after Rabbi Max Heller urged the construction of a larger facility, Temple Sinai dedicated its current building near Audubon Park.

The congregation was at the forefront of desegregation in New Orleans when, in 1949, it hosted the first integrated public meeting of its size in New Orleans. Ralph Bunche, the United Nations Arab-Israeli mediator and future Nobel Peace Prize winner, spoke to a standing-room-only crowd of 2,000 white and black attendees at the synagogue in conjunction with the Interracial Committee of New Orleans. Though he was a well-known black diplomat, he was denied a place to speak in the city to an integrated audience until Temple Sinai opened its doors.

The New Orleans Human Relations Commission, the municipal agency that enforces the city’s Human Relations Rights laws, still holds its meetings at Temple Sinai today. The congregation also recently hosted a special Martin Luther King Day Shabbat service featuring former New Orleans Mayor Moon Landrieu and Xavier University President Dr. Norman Francis.

In addition to facilitating interracial interactions, Temple Sinai also has contributed to bringing together people of different religions. In the 1960s the congregation was an integral part of the first Project Understanding, a series of interfaith events hosted at the synagogue and participating Christian churches, fostering dialogue and better understanding for much of the city.

Over its history the synagogue has also opened its doors to ecumenical services as well as other faith communities needing a meeting place, including Felicity Street Methodist Church after its fire in 1887 and St. Paul’s Episcopal Church.

Under the leadership of Rabbi Cohn, who arrived in 1987, Temple Sinai has continued modeling the diversity of New Orleans, and prides itself in being a welcoming place for interfaith families; Lesbian, Gay, Bi-Sexual and Transgender Jews; and those coping with addictions.

The congregation, which has the largest membership of any Jewish congregation in the state, strives to build a community that stretches beyond the walls of the synagogue, maintaining relationships with organizations and other faith communities across the city.

“Though we’re 145 years old, our community is brimming with youthful energy,” said Carla Rose Jacob, Temple Sinai congregant. “Judaism at Temple Sinai is accessible to all.”

March 2015 • Southern Jewish Life 15

Not Just Black and White Civil Rights and the Jewish Community

Purim in the Selma jail

Jewish activists were plentiful in 1965 demonstrations According to some estimates, nearly half of the white activists who came to the South during the Civil Rights movement in the 1960s were Jewish.

For the demonstrations and marches in Selma in 1965, a large Jewish contingent made its presence known, in the streets and in the jails.

For Rabbi Joseph Gumbiner, it was an uneasy homecoming. He had been rabbi of Mishkan Israel in Selma for eight years in the 1930s, and traveled to Selma on March 17 with four other rabbis from northern California — Saul Berman of Berkeley, Gerald Raiskin of Burlingame, Herbert Teitelbaum of Redwood City and Joseph Weinberg of San Francisco.

Upon arrival in Montgomery, they were driven to Brown Chapel AME Church in Selma by an uncle of Jimmy Lee Jackson, who gave them more details about his nephew’s death. At the church they were cautioned not to leave except in large groups.

Gumbiner wrote that one of Martin Luther King’s assistants announced a protest in Smitherman’s neighborhood, and asked for “the man who was rabbi of Selma some years ago” to colead the group.

Baker stopped the procession and said they were under arrest. After Selma’s relatively moderate director of public safety, Wilson Baker, argued with King’s assistant, Gumbiner said they were there for peaceful protest, and as former Selma rabbi he was “not exactly an outsider.”

Baker replied, “I know who you are and I’m ashamed of you. You ought to have better judgment.”

On the bus heading to the jail, Berman related, he told one of the troopers that he sensed

the trooper really did not want to be doing this. The response was a swing of a nightstick, just missing Berman’s eye and putting a dent in the back of the seat.

At the jail, Baker offered to release the visitors on their own rePhoto courtesy of Susannah Heschel cognizance, but noting that would Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel (second from right), marched not have been offered to them if in Selma with Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., Ralph Bunche, Rep. they were black, they decided to John Lewis, Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth and Rev. C.T. Vivian. stay as an elevation of their protest. called upon Esther to do on behalf of the Jewish As the sun set, Purim began.

Berman had been doing the Fast of Esther that people of Persia.”

Two Mishkan Israel congregants visited the day, but Baker, in an attempt to get the visitors to leave, said the group had arrived at the jail rabbis in jail. One, a past congregational presitoo late for the 4 p.m. dinner. Berman broke the dent, spoke of how the civil rights boycotts had been hurting his business, while the other was one fast with items from the vending machines.

They explained Purim to the other prisoners, of his former religious school students. They queswho then wanted to participate in a service. tioned Gumbiner’s presence among the activists, Berman had brought a megillah in his suitcase, and said the rabbis were hurting the community.

Berman said they “described how the presbut it was at the home where he had been assigned to stay. They managed to get a message ence of Northern Jewish agitators, particularly to the church, and the megillah was brought to rabbis, was promoting hatred of local Jews and the jail, along with some kosher salami he had making their economic and social lives very difbrought to Selma. Berman chanted the megillah ficult to sustain.”

A long discussion ensued. Gumbiner wrote, as Weinberg translated, and they spoke of “redemption which ensued because a few persons “They were polite, but remained unconvinced of the propriety of an attack on segregation… surely had the moral courage to speak up.”

A group, led by an Episcopal priest from they had never before been exposed to so many Massachusetts, wrote a statement of common respectable looking white clergymen and laymen concern that they decided to entitle “The Purim united in defending the dignity and sanctity of the human person without respect to race.” of Selma, 5725.”

Gumbiner asked, for reasons of professional Berman wrote that he later learned that at Jackson’s funeral at Browns Chapel the minister courtesy, about the current rabbi in Selma, to quoted the Book of Esther, “calling upon those which he was told that the rabbi teaches at the with governmental connections to use their influence to save the blacks, as Mordecai had continued on page 21

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A timeline of events in Selma leading up to the March to Montgomery The civil rights battle in Selma is seen as the battle for voting rights and the right to demonstrate.

In 1964, Selma businesses generally refused to comply with the Civil Rights Act of 1964. It was in January 1965, six months later, that the city’s restaurants relented and started serving black customers.

Earlier in 1964, Selma had elected Joe Smitherman as mayor, who was seen as a relative moderate, and Smitherman had appointed Wilson Baker, a moderate, as director of public safety.

In Dallas County, a voter registration drive had started in 1963, but by the end of 1964 there were only 335 registered black voters in the county — 2 percent of those eligible, compared to 64 percent of eligible white voters who were registered.

On Jan. 2, 1965, the Dallas County Voter’s League, which had become part of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, held a direct action campaign. The campaign was to defy an injunction from the previous summer that was still in place which barred blacks from having three or more people at a meeting to discuss

civil rights or voter registration.

County Sheriff Jim Clark, a noted segregationist, was scheduled to be at the Orange Bowl that day, and Baker favored the non-confrontational approach used in Albany, Ga., in 1962. When over 700 flooded Brown Chapel AME Church, Baker’s force did not enforce the injunction.

The next day that the voter registration office at the courthouse would be open was Jan. 18, so “Freedom Day” was planned. Rev. Martin Luther King and John Lewis led 300 from the church in a march to the courthouse, but Baker stopped them as they did not have a parade permit. He would, however, let them proceed in smaller groups.

As the courthouse was county property, Clark had jurisdiction, and he barred the main entrance, herding the demonstrators to an alley where they waited all day, mostly in vain, to apply to vote.

Meanwhile, “compliance teams” tested area businesses to see if they were indeed serving all, black and white, and all were.

Though the voting office was closed the next day, many returned and insisted on using the front door, leading Clark to start mass arrests.

On Jan. 22, almost every black teacher in Selma marched to the courthouse, daring Clark to arrest them — figuring he would not risk having all of the students unsupervised and flooding the streets the next week.

With daily demonstrations all week, only 40 had been able to fill out voter applications and none had passed scrutiny.

On Feb. 1, King and Abernathy engineered a way to be arrested by Baker for marching without a permit, being placed in the relatively friendlier city jail. There, King wrote “Letter from a Selma Jail.” He was released on Feb. 5.

As daily demonstrations continued in Selma, a similar effort was made in Montgomery — but only 100 showed up, and they were quickly allowed into the courthouse and given voter applications without incident.

On Feb. 10, a group of students demonstrated in Selma. Clark and his deputies started marching them toward the jail but then forced them to run, beating them with clubs and cattle prods.

That re-energized the movement, swelling crowds the next day.

Baker granted a parade permit to the demonstrators, so 1,500 marched to the courthouse on

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not just black and white: timeline Feb. 15 to try and register.

In Perry County, SCLC project director James Orange was arrested on Feb. 18. That evening, 400 marchers in Marion protested the arrest, but a mob that included Clark and his team attacked the group, injuring an NBC reporter. Rev. James Dobynes was beaten, and died a year later from those injuries.

Some marchers tried to take refuge in black-owned Mack’s Café, where troopers shot Jimmie Lee Jackson, a 26-year-old veteran who had tried to register five times.

Until his death on Feb. 26, daily vigils for Jackson were held in Selma, with the backdrop of Malcolm X’s assassination on Feb. 21 in Harlem.

There was a call for a complete boycott of white-owned stores in Selma.

On March 1, James Bevel proposed a march from Selma to Montgomery to protest Jackson’s death and call for voting rights. King endorsed the march, but the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee felt it was a grandstanding move that wouldn’t benefit the blacks of Selma.

Wallace then issued a declaration that the march, planned for March 7, “cannot and will not be tolerated” and ordered state troopers to do whatever they needed to prevent it.

The SCLC leaders asked for medical volunteers from the Medical Committee for Human Rights, just in case, and figuring they would not be allowed to march to Montgomery, planned to kneel and pray when ordered to turn around, filling the jails and pressuring the government.

A group of about 70 Concerned White Citizens of Alabama went to Selma on March 6 to demonstrate in favor of black voting rights. Baker managed to extricate them from furious segregationists and lead them away.

After morning services at Brown Chapel on March 7, about 600 marchers lined up behind SCLC’s Hosea Williams and SNCC President John Lewis to head to the Edmund Pettus Bridge over the Alabama River, for the trek along U.S. 80 to Montgomery.

Baker was so concerned about what Clark’s men and the state troopers might do that he urged Smitherman to let him arrest the demonstrators before they left the city limits at the bridge, but Smitherman refused. Baker submitted his resignation.

On the county side of the bridge the demonstrators were ordered to turn around, so they knelt as planned. The troopers surged forward, swinging their clubs and firing tear gas and a free-for-all ensued as the troopers chased the demonstrators back through downtown Selma. Roughly 100 of the 600 marchers were injured, and it took Baker’s men half an hour to restore order on the streets of Selma. The events of “Bloody Sunday” were immediately broadcast worldwide. On ABC, footage from Selma interrupted the airing of “Judgment at Nuremburg.”

In response, King went to Selma to start a March 9 march and issued a national call for people to join. But a hearing was planned in Federal court on whether Alabama could legally prevent the demonstration, and an injunction barring a march was issued until a ruling could be made.

President Lyndon Johnson also asked King to cancel the march, with Attorney General Nicholas Katzenback calling King every hour.

Rabbi Richard Hirsch of Washington joined 40 area clergy, and Rabbi Israel Dresner, a Freedom Rides veteran who had also been jailed in Albany, headed to Selma.

Rather than disappoint the 2,000 who assembled, King led them to the bridge and went to the point where the March 7 attack took place. About 500 troopers were waiting on the other side. In what became known as “Turn-around Tuesday” King then led everyone back to the church so as not to be drawn into a trap of violating the injunction.

That night, three white ministers who came to the demonstration were attacked by whites who saw them dining at a black restaurant. One of them, Rev. James Reeb of Boston, was severely injured and died two days later in Birmingham.

As daily vigils and demonstrations continued, on March 15 Johnson 18 Southern Jewish Life • March 2015

March 2015 • Southern Jewish Life 19

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went on national television to present a draft of the Voting Rights Act. On March 17, Judge Frank Johnson authorized the Selma to Montgomery march and ordered the state to protect the marchers. An unlimited number of marchers was permitted, until a section of Lowndes County where the road narrowed to two lanes with no shoulders.

For that stretch, no more than 300 marchers were permitted. At the Montgomery County, where the road widened, there once again was no limit on the marchers.

When the march took place on March 21, there were 8,000 demonstrators, protected by 2,000 troops. The Alabama National Guard was placed under Federal control. With an Army escort they made their way seven miles to the first campsite, with thousands heading back to Selma because of the restriction in Lowndes County. They would be shuttled back on March 24 when the march crossed into Montgomery County.

The night of March 24, Harry Belafonte organized a major “Stars for Freedom” concert for the marchers.

After covering 54 miles, the march arrived in Montgomery on March 25 where King addressed a crowd of 25,000 on the capitol steps.

That night, a white woman from Detroit who had participated in the march, Viola Liuzzo, was killed by Klansmen after a chase along U.S. 80 between Selma and Montgomery as she was driving demonstrators back to Selma.

On April 18, a Federal court ruled Clark was guilty of interfering with the rights of blacks and prohibited restrictions on voting registration and use of public accommodations.

Clark’s “posse” was also found to be illegal, and the judges ordered him to disband it. Another ruling struck down laws against civil rights demonstrations.

The Voting Rights Act was signed into law on Aug. 6, 1965. In 1966, Baker ran against Clark for county sheriff, and won.

Next month: The involvement of Selma’s Jewish community

20 Southern Jewish Life • March 2015

not just black and white: activists

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Continued from page 16 girls’ academy in Marion. Gumbiner realized that was a subtle way of telling him that any contact with the activists could cause the rabbi to lose his job at the school.

The next morning, almost everyone was released and returned to the church, then divided up among host families in the black community. Gumbiner noted that it was odd not being able to walk freely in the streets where he had been decades earlier. If you sense someone following you, he noted, “you pray that the face you see behind you will turn out to be a Negro face.”

On March 19, a Friday, they had a larger protest in a white neighborhood, and once again were arrested. Though Baker said to leave and there would be no meals and no police protection that night in the makeshift detention facility, they stayed. The rabbis held a Shabbat evening service that concluded with Adon Olam sung to the tune of “We Shall Overcome.” Other clergy then led Christian hymns and freedom songs.

They were released the next morning and the police offered to bus them back to Brown Chapel. Berman would not ride because of Shabbat, and the rest of the group immediately decided to walk with him. “To the dismay of the police, over 300 people walked back from the prison to the safety of the black neighborhood, accompanied by a phalanx of empty buses and police cars.”

That evening, the newly-released group held a Havdalah service at Brown Chapel, fashioning a Havdalah candle from two birthday candles and a spice box from a tin of cloves. It was the last mass meeting before the start of the March to Montgomery, and Gumbiner was asked to be one of the speakers.

The march began on March 21, with thousands departing from Brown Chapel and heading in groups of eight to the Edmund Pettus Bridge.

Gumbiner saw a couple members of the Selma Jewish community on the sidewalk watching the procession. The rabbis waved them over to join the march, but they “smiled grimly and held their ground.”

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Heschel’s “legs were praying”

Perhaps the best-known Jewish participant in the march was Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, one of the leading Jewish theologians of the 20th century. His daughter, Susannah Heschel, said her father and King struck up a friendship when Rabbi Heschel gave a lecture in Chicago on religion and race in 1963, “in which he spoke with tremendous passion of the evils of racism.”

Her father grew up in a Chassidic family in Warsaw, and she said their friendship “is such a remarkable story” because of their vastly different backgrounds, but despite that they immediately became close friends.“My father did not have any black colleagues, he taught at a Jewish seminary,” she said.

Rabbi Heschel brought King to a number of Jewish groups to speak, the Jewish Theological Seminary gave King an honorary degree, and they later demonstrated together against U.S. actions in Vietnam.

A few days before visiting Selma, Heschel led a group of 800 protestors to FBI headquarters in New York to protest the “Bloody Sunday” events.

Rabbi Heschel was the only one allowed inside the building, where he spoke to the regional FBI director.

On March 19, just before Shabbat, Rabbi Heschel received a telegram from King asking him to come to Selma.

Susannah Heschel said “We knew about Bloody Sunday” and other recent events, such as the 16th Street Church bombing in Birmingham and the killing of three civil rights workers in Mississippi, and they were naturally fearful.

“It was a Saturday night, my father left, we went downstairs after we made Havdalah,” she said. “I remember quite vividly how he kissed me goodbye and got into a taxi to go to the airport. I remembered thinking, I don’t know if I will ever see him… many people felt that way” when they left for Selma.

But her father gave her “the feeling that this was the most important

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not just black and white: activists thing a human being could do at this moment.”

She called it “a religious moment, a moral moment, when America stood up and said this was immoral.”

The interfaith inclusiveness of the Selma march, Susannah Heschel said, is an important element that was not in the recent film “Selma,” which did not portray her father at all.

The film includes scenes in the home of Sullivan Jackson, a prominent black dentist in Selma. “Everybody goes there and they are eating” in the film.

Susannah Heschel has been to Selma twice in recent years and has visited the Jackson home, which is being turned into a museum. “What Mrs. Jackson thought was so extraordinary was that in her home, in her living room-dining room area, there was my father, Dr. King, a Greek Orthodox priest, people all gathered, each one in their corner, praying morning prayers. She thought that was extraordinary… it would have been great to show it in the movie.”

During the march, there was a system for identifying clergy — the Roman collar was used for all Christian clergy, and the yarmulke signified rabbis. That, Gumbiner said, was a “complete failure.” Some of the rabbis had brought a bunch of extras, and when Jewish marchers saw the rabbis, they started wearing yarmulkes as well.

Then non-Jews started asking for them as well, leading to emergency shipments of yarmulkes inscribed with “Freedom Caps,” reminiscent of when 19 Conservative rabbis visited Birmingham in May 1963 and the yarmulkes became popular with black demonstrators.

Berman said it showed “the extreme penetration of the Jewish community” in the movement.

Rabbi Marc Saperstein, was a third-year student at Harvard in 1965.

The United Ministry Office asked him to represent Harvard Hillel in Montgomery, so he went for the final day of the march.

Brant Coopersmith, Washington director of the American Jewish Committee, was sent with instructions to lend his expertise to the marchers. Benjamin Epstein, national director of the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith, led a contingent from ADL. Though many rabbis came to Selma, they were not universally applauded back home. Al Vorspan, who directed the Reform movement’s Religious Action Center, had to visit many congregations that were threatening to fire their rabbis because of their civil rights activism.

Some large Reform congregations temporarily withdrew from the movement because of its outspoken stance on behalf of civil rights, including New York’s Temple Emanuel.

There were also early signs of the fracturing of the black-Jewish alliance in Selma.

The second time the clergy was arrested in Selma, Berman noted, some of the black participants became angry at the presence of the white clergy.

In a 2011 JTA interview, Berman noted that “it was a precursor of much more intense feelings of that sort that emerged in the late ‘60s as black leaders began to resent white leaders who felt the civil rights movement was ‘theirs.’ I didn’t recognize the significance of that scene until much later.”

Nevertheless, King maintained close ties with the Jewish community, speaking out on behalf of Israel and addressing the Conservative movement’s Rabbinical Assembly on March 25, 1968, less than two weeks before he would be assassinated in Memphis.

At the end of the march, Rabbi Heschel and Rabbi Maurice Eisendrath accompanied King. Eisendrath, who carried a Torah, was president of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations from 1943 to 1972, and he gave the invocation at the Montgomery rally on March 25.

When Heschel returned home, he gave his famous summation of what had happened during his visit to Alabama. “For many of us the march from Selma to Montgomery was about protest and prayer. Legs are not lips and walking is not kneeling. And yet our legs uttered songs. Even without words, our march was worship. I felt my legs were praying.”

March 2015 • Southern Jewish Life 23

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Pensacola native to head Reform cantorial school Cantor Richard Cohn, a Pensacola native, has been named the new director of the Debbie Friedman School of Sacred Music, effective July 1. He succeeds Cantor Bruce Ruben, who has been in that position since 2006.

The announcement was made by Rabbi Shirley Idelson, dean of the New York campus of Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion.

Founded as the School of Sacred Music in 1948, DFSSM is the only Reform cantorial school, and has trained 490 cantors over the years.

“Cantor Cohn brings expertise and a distinguished record of innovation to his leadership of our seminary’s Cantor Richard Cohn program preparing cantors for the Reform Movement and the larger Jewish world,” said Idelson. “This world-class program, the first and most respected cantorial school established in North America, engages students in Judaism’s unique musical heritage, the beauty of the cantorial tradition, and contemporary expressions of Jewish prayer and spirituality. Cantor Cohn will guide our students in their development as clergy adept at inspiring others in worship, skilled in offering pastoral care, proficient in educating learners of all ages, and gifted in applying their creativity to the composition of new music to enrich contemporary prayer.”

Cohn began leading the singing at Temple Beth-El in Pensacola as a teenager. He received his Bachelor of Music degree in vocal performance, summa cum laude, from Louisiana State University in 1976, and his Master of Music degree at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1979. In 1992 he was invested as a cantor at HUC-JIR. He has served Temple Emanu-El of Dallas, Tex.; North Shore Congregation Israel in Glencoe, Ill.; and Oak Park Temple-B’nai Abraham Zion, Oak Park, Ill. From 2001 to 2007 he was president of the American Conference of Cantors, leading the organization’s transition. He served on the URJ Commission on Worship, Music and Religious Living, and with Cantor Rosalie Boxt helped establish the original Kesher Shir, a creative learning intensive for cantors and singer-songwriters in hevruta and artistic dialogue.

Cohn participated in the first cohort of the Cantorial Leadership Program of the Institute for Jewish Spirituality, and currently serves on the faculty of the IJS Clergy Leadership Programs, and as a member of the Prayer Project Working Group.

He was also the founder and conductor of Kol Zimrah: The Jewish Community Singers of Greater Chicago, and has served as a vocal soloist with the Chicago, Jerusalem, St. Louis, Milwaukee, Indianapolis and Grant Park Symphonies, among others.

“I feel blessed to be joining the College-Institute community at this moment of great promise for the future of the cantorate,” Cantor Cohn said. “The Debbie Friedman School of Sacred Music will continue to provide superior cantorial education, while cultivating vibrant relationships throughout the world of contemporary Jewish music. We will inspire, innovate and collaborate, as we seek to continuously revitalize the spiritual life of our people.”

community

A question of heritage Baton Rouge attorney Michael Rubin’s debut novel takes on race, religion in Louisiana What do we truly know about our ancestors, and if we knew more, would that alter our perceptions of them — and of us?

That is one of the questions Baton Rouge attorney Michael Rubin explores in his debut novel, “The Cottoncrest Curse,” which came out in September.

At the center of the novel is Jake Gold, “a Russian Jewish immigrant who must conceal his identity in Michael Rubin the Deep South” while working as a peddler in the 1890s. Gold was modeled after Rubin’s great-grandfather, Bernard Ginsberg, who was sent alone across Russia by his parents at age 12 so he could immigrate to the United States and wind up in Louisiana.

The book opens with the 1893 murder of Rebecca Chastaine by her husband, Colonel Judge Augustine Chastaine, owner of the Cottoncrest plantation, who then killed himself. Chastaine’s father had also committed suicide there at the end of the Civil War, leading to a reputation that the place was cursed.

Sheriff Raifer Jackson suspects it wasn’t a murder-suicide and Gold was guilty of murdering the Chastaines, leading Gold to go on the run from both the law and the racist Knights of the White Camellia.

The book takes place in three eras — the 1890s, the Civil Rights era of the 1960s and the present, Rubin noted. “The key murders that kick off the story take place in the 1890s but they resonate to the present.”

The book started taking shape during the 4:30 a.m. walk Rubin takes every morning with his wife, Ayan. They would talk about plots and characters, discussing how to address issues of race, religion, identity and culture in the South in the context of a thriller.

During one of those walks, she came up with the title — cotton for the plantation setting, and crest for both a pinnacle and the crest of an aristocratic family.

Rubin has always enjoyed writing and studied fiction writing in college with short story author Tillie Olsen.

“One of my concerns is how do you take concepts and make them accessible to the broadest audience? Legal books don’t do that,” he said.

Rubin noted that “we have these smidgeons of information about our great-grandparents and our great-great-grandparents, and we’re not sure if they are accurate or inflated, or simply fictionalized.” He asked, “If we knew more about our actual history would we change our perception of who we are?”

In the context of a thriller, the book is about “the truths that we know and the truths that we perhaps shouldn’t reveal or can’t reveal, and morally do we have an obligation to reveal them?”

The story details the compromises and sacrifices Gold had to make to survive in a “harsh and unyielding world,” describing the Jewish immigrant experience.

March 2015 • Southern Jewish Life 25

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Though the book’s origin is in weighty questions, Rubin said it’s not a heavy philosophical treatise — it’s a thriller. “At the heart is the story of Jewish identity and survival.”

He has already done book presentations to the Jewish communities of Monroe and Alexandria, where his great-grandfather landed and was active in the early days of one of the local congregations.

He will speak at B’nai Zion in Shreveport on March 9 at 7 p.m., followed by a reception and book signing.

In his talks to Jewish audiences, he gives a quick overview of the relationship between blacks and Jews in the South, from colonial days to the present.

In 1724, France applied the Code Noir to Louisiana. Most of the document codified the regulations for slavery of blacks in the colony, but the first article decreed the expulsion of all Jews. “Louisiana’s history and the history of the whole Louisiana Purchase has been one of race and religion since its inception,” Rubin said.

He researched the era extensively, reading fiction and non-fiction works from the time to ensure that he got the language of the time correct. Because it was published by LSU Press, they had the book vetted by faculty historians before publication.

Rubin grew up in Baton Rouge, and his father, Alvin Rubin, was a Federal judge in New Orleans who “ordered the desegregation of a number of schools, and the reaction was so vehement that we had Federal marshals living in the house for months at a time,” he said.

He studied music at an early age, gravitating to jazz at age 12. He started playing professionally in the French Quarter at 16 and had a jazz band while in college — with Natalie Cole as the opening act.

Often, when he gives presentations about his book, he ends at the keyboard with an original composition. “I still play every day,” he said.

He also has been a radio and television announcer, and has been an attorney in Baton Rouge since 1975. He has also been an adjunct professor at LSU, Tulane and Southern, and lectures nationwide on ethics.

Selected as one of the Jewish Book Council’s 2014-2015 authors, Rubin has a second book already completed — a contemporary novel about environmental racism and the question of where polluting industrial plants are located — and a third book is already in the works.

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Milton Burd, former minister of music at First Baptist Church, was honored on his 80th birthday by Adath Israel congregation in Cleveland where he has served as choir director for almost 50 years. Here, Ed Kossman, Adath Israel president, made a presentation to Burd during Shabbat services on Jan. 23.

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Thorne gives name, story to Lot’s wife in “Angels at the Gate”

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When Lot and his family flee from the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, his unnamed wife is turned into a pillar of salt for looking back at the destruction.

Birmingham author T.K. Thorne not only gives her a name, but an entire backstory as the central character in her new novel, “Angels at the Gate,” which comes out this month.

A book launch was scheduled for March 5 at the Harbert Center in Birmingham.

She will return to her native Montgomery on April 9 for a 7 p.m. talk at Temple Beth Or. Her debut novel, “Noah’s Wife,” received an award as Book of the Year for Historical Fiction. A short film from her screenplay “Six Blocks Wide” was a finalist in a film festival in Italy and has shown at other juried festivals in the U.S. and Europe.

Her more recent book was the non-fiction “Last Chance for Justice: How Investigators Uncovered New Evidence Convicting the Birmingham Church Bombers,” about the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church bombing in 1963.

Thorne said “Angels at the Gate” began with “Noah’s Wife.” She hadn’t thought about writing stories of Biblical women, but “she deserved more” than one brief unnamed mention in the Bible.

After “Noah’s Wife” received critical acclaim, she thought her Biblical career was behind her, until a co-worker joked “what’s next, Lot’s wife?”

Though her initial reaction was that Lot was the hero in the story and the whole episode was too dark for her, one question intrigued her. In “Noah’s Wife,” she did a lot of scientific and historical research to make the story more realistic. In the story of Lot, there were angels — how do you explain that rationally?

After a year of research, she started to write “my midrash, my commentary — my imagination layered on a foundation of archaeology, historical theories and ancient writings.” She realized that while she had a lot of information about the period, she knew nothing about the main character. Finally, she started typing about Adira, whose mother died in childbirth and who was raised in her father’s caravan as a boy.

“Adira means ‘strength’ in Hebrew and I liked that the masculine form was Adir,” Thorne said.

Adira rejects her looming changes into womanhood as a threat to her nomadic life and independence. Then two mysterious strangers arrive — Northmen who are said to be holy, perhaps “angels.”

After raiders invaded the caravan, she loses everything — her father, her freedom and the “angels.” Torn between an impossible love and her oath to return to her tribe and live the “proper life for a woman,” she sets out on a quest for revenge and to find her “angel.”

Thorne is a retired Birmingham Police captain and now is executive director of CAP: City Action Partnership, which works with businesses, residents and the police and has reduced crime in the central city by almost two-thirds since 1995. She is said to be the first Jewish police officer in Birmingham.

Thorne will also speak to the Baldwin County Writers Group in Daphne on March 21 at 10 a.m., sign books at Little Professor in Birmingham on March 25 at 4 p.m., and at Page and Palette in Fairhope on April 10.

simchas an annual SJL special section

Pensacola’s Beth-El Sisterhood designs new congregational chuppah

Photo by Rebekah Westover

At a Havdalah service on Jan. 24, the Temple Beth-El Sisterhood in Pensacola presented the congregation with a new chuppah, constructed

by Sisterhood members.

The chuppah project began in the fall of 2012 as a joint project to create something lasting for the congregation, and to bring Sisterhood members together.

In the spring of 2013, Marty Lisner approached many Sisterhood members with a wide range of designs, asking them to sew a square or a side piece for the chuppah. At least 16 members took part in the embroidery, done on uniform pre-cut squares.

Some embroidery veterans did multiple pieces, but for beginners Pam Ravenscroft led a sewing circle. When the squares were completed, Janet Schilling stitched them together to make the chuppah.

The embroidery designs are in shades of gold thread, and a gold cloth framework was used to assemble the squares. The members could do their own designs, and the squares range from linked hearts to birds, flowers, leaves, pomegranates, the Hebrew word Ahava, and the new Beth-El logo of people linking hands to form a Star of David.

Now, they said, all that is needed is a couple to use it.

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House of Broel The House of Broel’s Victorian Mansion and Gardens, located on the St. Charles Avenue streetcar line, offers old world elegance combined with new world charm for those hosting Simchas in New Orleans.

Located at the “Gateway to the Garden District,” the House of Broel is lovingly restored to its 19th century splendor, with at atmosphere created by rare antiques, crystal chandeliers and fragrant flowers. The courtyard features a columned pavilion, pond and waterfall for outdoor garden ceremonies.

The menu for celebrations offers a nice selection of Creole delicacies with both a hot and a cold buffet. They are happy to also design a kosher-style custom menu.

Guests and hosts can also enjoy a tour of the house and learn about its history. There is also a world-renowned Dollhouse Museum on the second floor that welcomes visitors.

Bonnie Broel started out by making custom dresses. After having a small store nearby, she bought the mansion which had been neglected.

After having her wedding and reception there in 1980, she decided to open the first floor to clients who wanted that same type of atmosphere for their celebrations.

Terry Cambise Wedding and Event Consulting Growing up in New Orleans, Terry Cambise loved to host parties, which eventually prepared her for her ultimate event-planning test — planning her own wedding.

Years later, while working as a buyer for an upscale bridal boutique, she soon found herself assisting brides with various aspects of their wedding planning.

Today Cambise and her experienced team can lead all aspects of wedding and event planning with her Terry Cambise Wedding and Events consulting company.

“Our team will bring our extensive knowledge and experience to ensure that every last detail is cared for, providing event hosts with the peace of mind so that they can simply relax and ‘be a guest at their own event’,” said Cambise. “We listen to our clients then tailor and event according to the host’s personality, style and vision.”

Over the years, Cambise has planned numerous events for those in the local and regional Jewish communities, including a couple of Jewish weddings late last year. She said she is aware of many customs and traditions with Jewish weddings, Bar/Bat Mitzvahs as well as other events.

She said they are happy to coordinate venue selection, budgeting, catering vendor and menu, florist selection, invitations, photographer selection, lighting design, entertainment provider, rehearsal coordination, guest accommodations, transportation and other coordination needs.

“Throughout the years, my team and I have established very important relationships with key venues and people throughout the city, which allows our clients to have access to the very best the city offers,” added Cambise.

30 Southern Jewish Life • March 2015

simchas

Huntsville’s Temple B’nai Sholom became the venue for over 60 samesex weddings in two days. Story, page 33.

Bama rabbis react to overturning of same-sex weddings ban in state Most congregations will welcome ceremonies

With the state of Alabama starting to recognize same-sex marriages, Rabbi Jonathan Miller said “it is nice to see the State of Alabama catching up with Temple Emanu-El.” The state’s law and constitutional amendment barring same-sex marriages were struck down by U.S. District Judge Ginny Granade on Jan. 23 and 26, but she allowed a two-week stay of the order so the state could appeal. The 11th Circuit Federal appeals court denied the state’s request, so a rush of weddings started on Feb. 9, when the stay was lifted.

Many judges across the state were ready to issue licenses that day, though Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy Moore advised county judges that they do not have to recognize a Federal decision, short of a ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court. As the first week progressed, more counties began issuing licenses.

Jewish same-sex couples should not have much difficulty in finding someone to officiate their ceremonies.

Miller, whose Birmingham congregation is the largest synagogue in Alabama, said he has heard no resistance to same-sex ceremonies in his Reform congregation, and has already officiated a ceremony for two men.

Rabbi Elliot Stevens of Montgomery’s Temple Beth Or, which is Reform, has also officiated a same-gender wedding, in the fall of 2013, “and proudly did a Jewish wedding, albeit without legal sanction by license or recognition.” The couple then had a civil marriage in a different state.

He said Beth Or revised its constitution from “spouse” to “spouses and partners” in reference to membership, and said there have been “a number of same-gender couples in our membership for years.”

Rabbi Barry Altmark of Birmingham said he has officiated at same-sex weddings in California. “It is very simple to me, if two Jews love each other and want to be married I will marry them,” Altmark said. “When it becomes legal in Alabama, and eventually it will become legal, I will be honored to perform same sex weddings here in Alabama.”

Rabbi Randall Konigsburg of Temple Beth-El in Birmingham, the state’s largest Conservative congregation, said if same-sex marriage is legal in the state, then a Conservative rabbi is permitted to officiate. “The Rabbinical Assembly has produced a wedding service for same sex couples,” he noted. His daughter, Rabbi Ashira Konigsburg, is the secretary for the Committee on Law and Standards, which determines acceptable practice in the Conservative movement.

Beth-El does not currently have a policy either way.

Rabbi Scott Kramer of Agudath Israel-Etz Ahayem in Montgomery, a Conservative congregation, said he has not been asked to do a same-sex

March 2015 • Southern Jewish Life 31

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32 Southern Jewish Life • March 2015

ceremony yet, but “I personally would not have a problem with that and believe that my congregation would support my decision to perform such a ceremony.”

He noted his congregation accepts “all Jews as members without regard to sexual orientation.”

One factor that could prevent a same-sex wedding from taking place in a synagogue is a different ban — if the couple is interfaith. While some Reform rabbis will perform interfaith ceremonies, Conservative rabbis are barred from taking part.

Konigsburg noted, “One may not be able to change sexual orientation but you can change religion. You have to be Jewish to be married by Jewish Law. Otherwise the ceremony has no meaning to someone who is not Jewish.”

Orthodox rabbis also do not perform intermarriages, nor are they going to perform same-sex ceremonies.

Rabbi Yossi Posner of Chabad of Alabama said that though it may be legal in Alabama, he is not going to “compromise my position” that the Torah mandates marriage between a man and a woman and officiate a same-sex ceremony.

But Posner added that not following the prohibition on homosexuality in the Torah is like someone not following the kosher laws, and that Chabad is not there to judge anyone’s level of observance. “A Jew always belongs” and should always be welcomed “because they are part of the family,” even though he can not perform that ceremony for them.

Rabbi Eytan Yammer of Birmingham’s Knesseth Israel, the state’s only Orthodox congregation, hopes that there will still be protection for “the rights of religious organizations to practice their religion as they feel is necessary.”

While there won’t be same-sex weddings at Knesseth Israel, Yammer said the key “is to treat people with love and respect.”

He said the idea of marriage is a religious one, and that the state’s recognition of marriage is essentially a financial relationship. “I don’t think halacha (Jewish law) has anything to say about how the United States constructs its tax shelters.”

Yammer noted that the separation of church and state “has served the Jewish community incredibly over the past couple of centuries,” and “I should advocate” for that civil protection for everyone, regardless of his religious views.

Kramer sees the issue of same-sex marriage “as having more to do with basic rights, that we all enjoy, being given to committed, caring and loving same sex partners than it does with religious issues. The right to visit your partner in the hospital, the right to health insurance for a spouse, to adoption, inheritance and tax benefits are all things we take for granted.

These basic civil rights do not in my mind constitute our myriad religions in the United States being forced to perform same sex marriages or commitment ceremonies,” and each faith tradition needs to come up with their own conclusion.

In some smaller communities, the issue has not come up. Rabbi Steven Jacobs said Tuscaloosa’s Temple Emanu-El has no stated policy on way or the other; while he has been approached once to officiate a same-sex ceremony, “it never came to pass.”

Jacobs commented that it is sad that both sides of the issue “appear to line-up as hardliners” preventing “reasoned discussion.”

Rabbi Elizabeth Bahar of Temple B’nai Sholom in Huntsville said “it is an exciting time when we start to recognize that we are all created in the image of God and we all deserve equal rights before the state.”

She said her congregation’s membership form says “Partner A/B” and B’nai Sholom has always accepted GLBT couples. “I, as the rabbi, have always been open to performing same-sex wedding ceremonies, but have yet to be asked. When asked I am happy to make a simcha all that more special for the couple!”

simchas

A flood of weddings at B’nai Sholom in Huntsville — though no Jewish ones When weather turns cold, congregation becomes venue for Wedding Week

by Larisa Thomason On Feb. 12, Temple B’nai Sholom in Huntsville hosted 27 weddings in a single day — many more than in the previous decade — and the congregation’s rabbi didn’t officiate at a single one.

Instead, Rabbi Elizabeth Bahar welcomed local ministers and non-sectarian wedding officiants as they thronged into the building’s sanctuary, library and classrooms to perform weddings for same-sex couples. She was joined by many Temple members who volunteered to serve wedding cupcakes and coffee, act as tour guides for the historic building, and cheer the happy couples.

How did this happen? It’s a joke few comedians could resist: gay marriage became legal and Alabama froze over. Except that the weather was no joke to the organizers of Huntsville’s Wedding Week. The group had planned to offer five days of weddings in Big Spring Park in downtown Huntsville to mark the first week of legal recognition. Local ministers and wedding officiants, florists, photographers and bakers offered their services for free.

Over 40 same-sex couples married in the park on Feb. 9, the first day.

They were soon joined by some confused heterosexual couples who had expected to have courthouse weddings and were disappointed to learn that Madison County Probate Judge Tommy Ragland had decided, “because of budget constraints,” to stop performing any weddings. That action meant that Huntsville’s “Wedding Week” got larger and more popu-

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lar than the organizers had ever imagined.

Then the weather report grew colder than anyone imagined. Temperatures on Thursday were expected to be barely above freezing with a biting wind thrown in. “Freezing temperatures and outdoor weddings don’t mix,” noted Lynne Abbott, a Universal Life Church minister and one of Wedding Week’s organizers.

On Feb. 10, the group scrambled to find a nearby indoor venue and had nearly given up when several B’nai Sholom members who had dropped by to watch the weddings heard about the problem. “They called Rabbi Bahar and she immediately offered the building to us,” Abbott said.

The resulting flood of happy couples filled the Temple building to the brim. At one point, organizers said, there were three weddings in progress at the same time: in the library, the sanctuary and the rabbi’s study.

For many of the same-sex couples, the week was a dual surprise — that they would be able to legally marry in Alabama, and that they would be doing it in a synagogue.

“Wedding Week is for everyone,” said volunteer Alix Moorehouse. She and her wife had a “Holy Union” ceremony in 1994 and married legally in Connecticut in 2009. “This is what equality means: everyone is treated the same and we all work together. The weddings in the park were incredible and I didn’t think the week could get any better, but here I am standing in a historic Jewish Temple celebrating same sex weddings.”

Even with the short notice, B’nai Sholom congregants worked together to make the event a success. Bahar said she was thrilled by how many

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congregants “just dropped by” to help serve cake, kvell with the brides and grooms, and do whatever they could to help. The Temple’s leadership was equally supportive, with B’nai Sholom President Sherman Banks offering this unequivocal endorsement: “We’ve got no choice. It’s who we are.”

Still, there were restrictions. Couples were welcome to use the Temple’s library, classrooms, and even the Sanctuary for ceremonies, but non-Jewish couples married in front of the bimah, not on it. Bahar stressed that the congregation wanted to be open to everyone, but with a few caveats.

“We also had to retain a level of sanctity for our congregation.”

B’nai Sholom has long welcomed same-sex families and Bahar said her only disappointment was that she didn’t get to perform a Jewish wedding.

“With all this love in the air, I really wanted to do a wedding, but I need a couple — and at least one of them needs to be Jewish!”

Asked why the Temple was so eager to participate when asked, Bahar shared the Talmudic lesson that one mitzvah leads to another mitzvah.

A local church has opened its doors to the B’nai Sholom for Passover, she said, because the late 19th-century building isn’t large enough for the expected crowd. “We’re holding our community Passover Seder in a Christian church on their holiday of Good Friday. The Church of the Nativity is opening its doors to us and this was our opportunity to open our doors to another segment of the community.”

With cold temperatures continuing on Feb. 13, so did the stream of couples. By the time B’nai Sholom prepared for Shabbat evening services, over 60 weddings had taken place in the building over two days, including some heterosexual couples who were caught in the controversy by the judge’s refusal to perform any weddings at the courthouse.

Tutwiler Hotel Those who want to celebrate their Simchas in a place steeped in tradition in Birmingham can have it at the historic Tutwiler Hotel, which turned 100 years old last year.

There have been numerous events in the Jewish community in recent years at the Tutwiler, including the Weisberg Bar Mitzvah, the Marx/Abel wedding and reception as well as the Weisberger/Hester wedding group.

The Tutwiler, located in downtown Birmingham, offers the Continental Ballroom, a space for up to 150 people banquet-style or 200 reception-style, the Ridgely Ballroom for 100 banquet, 150 reception-style, and the Jefferson Room, which seats up to 60 people banquet or 75 reception.

The hotel also offers three smaller boardrooms.

All of the food and beverage is handled by Culinard, which owns and operates the Century Restaurant and Bar at the hotel. Event hosts are allowed to bring in their own cakes, florists, photographers and entertainment.

The Tutwiler Hotel opened its doors on June 15, 1914, with “great poise and stature.” Alabama’s leading citizens turned out in formal attire for the opening ceremony to see the newly proclaimed “Grand Dame of Southern Hotels.”

Roslyn Mannon said “We would highly recommend the Tutwiler for family events in Birmingham” The Tutwiler was home base for guests to their daughter’s Bat Mitzvah in 2010.

“A number commented on the historical nature of the hotel and how they were within walking distance to several local historic sites, including the Civil Rights Museum,” she said. “They enjoyed their lodging and the suite layout, they also appreciated the staff ’s time and assistance in getting around the city” and the complimentary airport shuttle.

She concluded, “I appreciate the staff ’s willingness to work with us to ensure that everyone was comfortable, that the hospitality suite was cleaned and refreshed, and that everyone was made to feel ‘at home’.”

34 Southern Jewish Life • March 2015

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Vulcan Park and Museum It’s special to say that the world’s largest cast iron statue and unofficial mascot of Birmingham attended one’s Bar or Bat Mitzvah.

Last October, Vulcan Park and Museum hosted the Bar Mitzvah party of Austin Sikora, son of Bridget and Steven Sikora. Bridget is a real estate agent for RealtySouth and Steven owns Red Wing Shoes in Birmingham.

The Sikoras said “Vulcan was just a great, ideal venue and the staff was very easy to work with.” Vulcan Park and Museum rests high atop Red Mountain. Its museum contains important history not just of Birmingham but the Deep South.

Marketing Director Morgan Berney also said that Vulcan has hosted an increasing number of wedding rehearsal dinners and receptions as well.

For visitors to Vulcan Park and Museum, on March 12 there will be an after-hours program on Cooking Southern Italian tied into the current exhibition celebrating Italian immigration to the area. Later in the spring, visitors can come to Vulcan to celebrate Vulcan’s birthday on June 7.

In 2016, Vulcan will host an exhibition and programs on the origins and history of Birmingham’s Jewish community.

Hyatt French Quarter The Hyatt French Quarter Hotel promises celebrations hosted there will be “tres bien.”

“Those who we have worked with to host their special celebrations have said they thought the food and beverage was so tasty and original… and the service was so attentive,” said Hyatt French Quarter Marketing Director Gina Chimeno.

The hotel opened as Hyatt French Quarter in 2012 and has hosted many special events since.

It offers 10 event-space rooms including two large ballrooms that can each accommodate as many as 300 people for a reception or 200 for sit-down dinner.

For those who are planning on 100 or fewer, “we also have had some folks that have had celebrations in our interior atrium, our expansive garden courtyard, or both,” said Chimeno.

The hotel recently updated its wedding and catering menus with seasonal menus to bring in some of the freshest seasonal favorites. Chimeno said Cajun and Creole options abound, but many choices run the gamut from Italian to American to Asian cuisine.

The Hyatt French Quarter offers nine one-bedroom suites for special celebration guests and also has discounts for group and event room bookings.

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March 2015 • Southern Jewish Life 35

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Tres Beau Weddings event planning Ann Marie Loveille enjoyed planning her wedding so much more than 13 years ago that “she didn’t want it to end. It was then that I thought this is what I wanted to do — to help others make sure their special day is as memorable as it can be.”

Ten years ago she started Tres Beau Weddings, providing event coordination, planning and design services. “Before this I worked as a corporate dining chef for Saks 5th Avenue when it was headquartered here. I enjoyed being in food service but loved front-of-the-house things. It grew organically from there,” added Loveille.

Over the years, Loveille has built some great relationships with different wedding vendors and is happy to offer recommendations as well as questions that should be asked before choosing a vendor.

“I am there to make sure all aspects go smoothly. I carry out the vision of the clients so they don’t have to put time and worry into planning the numerous aspects of their special event,” said Loveille, who adds that though she primarily plans weddings, she has experience in planning all sorts of Simchas and is even happy to travel outside of the Birmingham area.

She said she has a full package for those who need coordination of many aspects of the event from start to finish. The other package allows her to come in a few weeks before the big day and just handle some items that someone needs help with.

Loveille said having a professional planner is especially important when planning an outdoor wedding or event. “We will make sure there are contingency plans worked in just in case there are issues with the weather, whether that is changing some schedule times or moving some aspects of the event inside,” she said. “They can rest assured we will handle everything.”

Theme weddings aren’t as common, but Loveille said she has planned a few, including an Americana of the 1940s one at the Southern Museum of Flight and one with a masquerade theme.

She adds that she has provided wedding planning for a few interfaith weddings, working with Rabbi Barry Altmark.

B&A Warehouse In the past year, the B&A Warehouse in downtown Birmingham has hosted two receptions with weddings as well as three Bar or Bat Mitzvah parties.

“We’re really happy with the increase in special celebrations we get the pleasure of working with those in the Jewish community on,” said B&A owner Susan Mason.

Jake Datnoff, son of Sallie Downs, who hosted a special event for Israel in late 2013 at the B&A Warehouse, had a wedding and reception there in 2014. More than 200 people attended.

“That was just a beautiful wedding and reception. The chupah (made by the groom’s great-grandmother) they brought in was just extraordinary,” said Mason, adding that the food was “upscale Southern kosher-style” with kosher options available.

The B&A also hosted the Shiff-Morganstern wedding and reception in 2014, which accommodated more than 300 people. In November 2015, they will host a wedding and reception for the Weiners.

Last year B&A also hosted the Bar Mitzvah party for Karen Wheeler’s son. All of the decorations were done in red and blue for Vestavia High School.

Mason said in 2014, the B&A Warehouse enhanced its facility across from Railroad Park and next to Regions Field with new terrace lights, chairs and added AV services. Updates for 2015 include the glass room, a smaller room that can hold a reception for up to 100 guests.

36 Southern Jewish Life • March 2015

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March 2015 • Southern Jewish Life 37

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Amerson Events A deejay still hits the notes for event entertainment, but to get the ovations for high production value involves a multi-faceted approach, meshing lighting with music with effects with video presentation with fun photo opportunities to fit the theme and the celebrants.

That’s what Chris Amerson and Amerson Events offers. “To make an event memorable and to really play out a theme, there are many options we can provide with music, lighting, interactive video presentation, photo booth with props, snow and fog machines — whatever they dream up, we can make it happen,” said Amerson.

He started doing some DJ work in 1988 to help pay for college. Amerson would earn degrees in electrical engineering and nuclear engineering, but felt like being involved with music and radio was his calling.

He worked for years at Birmingham radio stations WERC and Magic 96.5. Amerson was even the DJ for the 1996 Olympic soccer events in the Magic City.

Years later he started up his own event entertainment business. “I wanted to go beyond just being a DJ. I could see how music, lighting, effects and video projection could be interwoven to provide a more entertaining event experience,” said Amerson.

Some of the more unique-themed weddings Amerson has worked included Steampunk, Pirate and a Batman-themed wedding at Sloss Furnaces at which the bat signal was projected on the furnace tower.

For his photos with props service, Amerson doesn’t skimp. “I probably spend $2,500 a year on funny sunglasses,” he said.

Amerson has worked numerous events for those in the Jewish community including the Berger Bat Mitzvah last December at Regions Field, which had a “Winter Wonderland” theme; Mark Schaeffer’s 30th birthday party with karaoke and Rabbi Steven Jacobs’ son’s wedding last November at Sweet Apple Farms in east Alabama.

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Southern Museum of Flight Museum honoring women in the service, including first Jewish woman to become a pilot overseas

by Lee J. Green

G

Unique Simchas such as last December’s Wolnek Bat Mitzvah aren’t the only things up at the Southern Museum of Flight in Birmingham.

The Museum will have several public events to raise money to award a special scholarship to a talented young woman in aviation in connection with the Museum’s 50th anniversary in March 2016.

Southern Museum of Flight Marketing Director Elizabeth Grady said the Bat Mitzvah girl is a gymnast, so that was incorporated into the theme associated with flight. “It was a very fun, festive day and people were really impressed with the museum space,” said Grady. The Bat Mitzvah party was attended by 200 people, and Grady said they could accommodate 250 people seated or 400 standing for a celebration.

Last year the Museum added new carpets, a new gift shop layout and the Tuskegee Air Men art exhibit upstairs.

Aviation pioneer Mary Alice Beatty began the museum in 1966 at Samford University with a small collection of aircrafts and artifacts honoring great achievements in the Alabama and Southern aviation. In 1978, the Museum moved to its larger, current location a couple of miles from Birmingham International Airport.

To honor Beatty’s legacy, her daughter Mary Alice Carmichael created a scholarship that will be awarded to a young woman annually aged 15-25 who is in an aviation career or in school actively pursuing a career in aviation.

“March is perfect to launch our campaign of events to fundraise for the scholarships since it is National Women’s History Month. This is a great way to honor the women for all they accomplished in aviation, but working to afford more opportunities for future great women in aviation,” said Grady.

Those great women in aviation with an Alabama connection include Amy Sheridan. In December 1979, Sheridan earned her wings at the United States Army Aviation Center in Fort Rucker. In doing so, she became the first American Jewish woman to gain aviator status in any branch of the armed services.

While Jewish women including Selma Cronan had flown as members of the Women’s Airforce Service Pilots during World War II, they were technically civilians. The WASPS were allowed to pilot aircraft when flying domestically, but since they could not officially be members of the military, they could not be in command overseas.

Sheridan was the first woman to achieve this when she began commanding helicopters for VII Corps Aviation Company in Stuttgart, Germany, to begin a 22-year career in military aviation.

Sheridan grew up in Newton, Mass, and was in her second year at the American College in Jerusalem when the Yom Kippur War began in 1973.

Sheridan stayed in Israel for a few months, helping with the war effort and singing in a band before returning to Boston.

Sheridan spent over 20 years piloting helicopters and airplanes in the Western Hemisphere, Europe, and Asia. She was involved in every major post-Vietnam conflict. Sheridan continued her career at places such as Land Southeast NATO, Turkey and the United States Military Academy at West Point. While stationed in Korea, she served as the aircraft commander of the first all-woman reconnaissance flight crew in military history.

She retired from the Army as a Chief Warrent Officer 4 in 1999.

On the third Friday in March, the Birmingham Bombshells will be at Naked Art Gallery in Forest Park raising money for the scholarships through donations and sales of its 2015 calendar. The Rosie and GI Ball at the Southern Museum of Flight will be the big event fundraiser on Aug. 26, which is National Women’s Equality Day.

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March 2015 • Southern Jewish Life 39

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Simchas are just cooler with planes

tthew courtesy Caitlin and Ma

oto Gretchen B. Ph

Perfect Presentations Since 1980, Perfect Presentations has made beautiful celebrations even more beautiful with expert floral and event design in the New Orleans area.

Perfect Presentations Owner Johnny Lopez said he and his team have much experience working with the Jewish community.

“We provide florals and event design for several different types of events but we specialize in weddings. If you can get married in it, on it, or under it, we have done it,” said Lopez. “All weddings are custom designed to the specific style and taste of our brides.”

Those styles range from the contemporary to the traditional. Elements include centerpieces, other floral design, candles, glass, bronze or silver — “whether it’s elegant, artsy, simple or thematic, we have the right look for you,” he said.

Perfect Presentations offers a free initial consultation and has a team of experts in event design. They are located on Fulton Street in New Orleans. graphy

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The Elms Mansion The Elms is locally owned, by the third generation of the Elms Family.

The venue has been hosting events for more than 45 years, including wedding receptions and ceremonies, Bar and Bat Mitzvahs, corporate functions, seated dinners and other special simchas.

The Elms offers a romantic garden setting for daytime or nighttime wedding ceremonies. The iconic gazebo provides a stage for the exchanging of vows. Many Jewish ceremonies have found the gazebo a unique take on the traditional chuppah. The Elm’s gardens are also home to some of the largest magnolia trees in the state of Louisiana.

The mansion features elegant touches such as an imported mantel of hand-carved marble, ornamental cornices, 24-karat-gold sconces and a 48-foot grand ballroom lined with jeweled windows.

Built in 1869, the mansion was home to Watson Van Benthuysen II, then later housed the German Consulate before becoming a private home again.

The Elms’ staff provides oversight and management to ensure every detail of a wedding or other celebration is taken care of. Coordination is provided for ceremony setup, florists, cakes, musicians and photographers.

The Elms also works with event hosts to create a customized food and beverage menu prepared by Chef Steve, who has been a member of the Elms family for more than 11 years.

When not hosting a celebration, The Elms offers groups a historical tour of the mansion.

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Chaps Party Rentals, located in the Elmwood Business District of New Orleans, brings many years of experience and knowledge of what is new and trending with a wide range of items for any celebration — from tents to tablecloths.

Chaps Owner Ken Bernard said brides and party planners are looking for unique events. “They are tired of the same old cookie cutter items of the past. They are looking for odd-shaped tents such as Chaps Party rentals’ six-sided tents. They are also looking for the natural look with beiges, subtle greens and paler colors being prevalent,” he said.

Bernard said burlap has made a return to even the finest events and “we carry burlap in all sizes for table coverings. Event planners are looking for a more rustic, back woods type of flavor to the event.

“In the wedding category, brides want professional photo booths that offer social media in them. They want their guests to be able to email pictures and post on Facebook about their wedding while it is going on.

They also want a copy of the prints to share for years to come. Our photo booths are the quickest, generating prints in less than eight seconds so there are no long lines at the booth,” he said.

Perhaps the biggest trend Chaps is seeing is the desire for customer

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service. “They are looking for advice as far as how big a dance floor, how many plates or glasses do I need or how large of a tent do I need.

Chaps can help them and will spend the time with them planning their event,” said Bernard.

Chaps offers dance floors, staging, catering supplies, linen, china, glassware, tables and chairs in many colors and sizes. “If we don’t have it we will find it for them,” he added.

Workplay Workplay has hosted everything from Bar and Bat Mitzvahs to fundraisers to baby showers to business meetings to CD release parties. The facility can accommodate 350 people banquetstyle or 800 standing in its sound stage. The theatre can seat 275 or accommodate 450 standing.

Regional and national bands and musicianshave played at Workplay, including Texas Jewish cowboy Kinky Friedman. For a complete list of upcoming concerts, go to www. workplay.com.

Workplay also helps foster the dreams of aspiring musicians through its Rock School classes, in which participating kids learn to play instruments, sing and perform from current rock and roll professionals. Current artists can also book recording studio time.

BumperNets At BumperNets it’s always “game on” for kid and adult parties, featuring everything from table tennis to pinball to arcade and interactive games to billiards to darts.

The Birmingham area’s “fun central,” located in three stores by each other in the Riverchase Galleria, can accommodate 100 or so people for a sporty Simcha.

“We’ve hosted everything from Bar and Bat Mitzvahs to tournaments to corporate team-building, social outings,” said Homer Brown, owner and founder of BumperNets as well as one of the top senior table tennis players in the world.

Those having parties at BumperNets can bring in their own food and get unlimited play.

Brown said they are the second largest U.S. retail location for pinball machines, sales and rentals.

New at BumperNets is a video-interactive darts machine that allows players to compete against others across the globe. They also recently brought in a Pac Man Chompmania arcade game with a 42-inch screen and an Alienthemed arcade game with a 55-inch screen.

“The great thing about BumperNets is that we have so much that can appeal to those of all ages. We host parties for the kids that the parents also get to enjoy,” said Brown.

March 2015 • Southern Jewish Life 41

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simchas: b’nai mitzvah Grayson Jo Nash and McKenzie Raye Nash, daughters of Hollie Nash and Rhonda Nash, at B’nai Zion, Shreveport, on Dec. 6 Benjamin Norton Wilkins, son of Ginny Wise and Kevin Wilkins, at Touro Synagogue, New Orleans, on Dec. 6.

Eli Zitler, son of Stephanie Zitler and Justin Zitler, at Temple Sinai, New Orleans, on Dec. 6.

Clay Wheeler, son of Karen and Jeff Wheeler, at Temple Emanu-El, Birmingham, on Dec. 11.

Raquel Wolnek, daughter of Michelle Bearman-Wolnek and Seth Wolnek, at Temple Beth-El, Birmingham, on Dec. 13.

Bess Rosenthal and Ella Rosenthal, daughters of Jennifer and Rich Rosenthal, Birmingham, at Hebrew Union College, Jerusalem, on Dec. 27.

Joshua Michael Guimbellot, at Beth Israel, Jackson, on Jan. 3.

Haley Abrams, daughter of Jennifer and Lawrence Abrams, at Temple Sinai, New Orleans, on Jan. 17.

Jackson Gregory Haber, son of Kelly and Lawrence Haber, at Beth Israel, Jackson, on Jan. 17.

Kaitlyn Jefferson, daughter of Kelley Jefferson and Chris Jefferson, at Temple Beth-El, Birmingham, on Jan. 17.

Hayden Robinson, son of Pamela Baggett and Mark Robinson, at Temple Emanu-El, Birmingham, on Jan. 17.

Zachary Hagedorn, son of Christie and Jeff Hagedorn, Birmingham, at Temple Emanu-El, Birmingham, on Jan. 24.

Neil Jonathan Tepper, son of Julie and Michael Tepper, at B’nai Israel, Baton Rouge, on Jan. 24.

Catherine Loeb, daughter of Carol and Jamie Loeb, at Temple Beth Or, Montgomery, on Jan. 24.

Lauren Elizabeth Sklar, daughter of Stephanie and Brad Sklar, at Temple Emanu-El, Birmingham, on Feb. 7.

Netanel Somech, son of Ariella Somech, at Chabad Emerald Coast in Destin, on Feb. 19.

Molly Sarah Frohsin, daughter of Elise May and Henry Frohsin Jr., at Temple Emanu-El, Birmingham, on Feb. 21.

Ethan Scott Katz, son of Lisa and Brian Katz, at Touro Synagogue, New Orleans, on Feb. 28.

Bath named Shreveport Times editor Alison Bath is the new executive editor of the Shreveport Times. She started with the Times in 2007 as an investigative reporter, having moved to Shreveport from Reno, Nev. At the Times she has been a watchdog team leader, content development director and news director/strategist. She succeeds Alan English, who was named president and publisher.

Bath has also been a USA Today correspondent, covering Hurricane Isaac, the West, Texas explosion and Medicare payment inefficiencies. She has twice been recognized as USA Today Correspondent of the Month.

A member of B’nai Zion, in 2013 Bath wrote the USA Today feature on Jewish communities in the South that are recruiting newcomers, such as Dothan, Birmingham and Meridian.

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Richer honored by tourism group Steve Richer of Gulfport received the Bob Everidge Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Tour Association on Jan. 22 during the Travel Exchange annual convention, held in New Orleans.

Suzanne Slavitter of California was also recognized with the award, which recognizes longtime professional and personal contributions. Established in 2003, the award, named for the late NTA volunteer leader and 1996 president, honors individuals whose active dedication to the mission of NTA covers a span of at least 20 years.

An award-winning tourism director, Richer held the top post with the Nevada Commission on Tourism, the Greater Atlantic City Convention and Visitors Bureau and the Mississippi Gulf Coast CVB, and he was New Jersey’s first director of tourism. Richer hosted either an NTA convention or meeting at each of those destinations and had three stints on the NTA board. From 2007 to 2014, Richer was NTA’s public affairs advocate, based in Washington.

“Receiving the Bob Everidge Award has three special meanings for me,” Richer said. “It was created to memorialize the contributions of Bob Everidge, an outstanding NTA president with whom I served; it recognizes more than three decades of service to NTA and its leadership role in the travel industry; and it commemorates a lifetime of important experiences and relationships facilitated by my participation in NTA.” The award does not mark the finish line for Richer. Shortly after the convention, he was elected Region I U.S. vice president for SKAL International, the international association of travel and tourism professionals.

Send in your Mazel

To make sure your milestone is included, email the information to editor@sjlmag.com, or mail to P.O. Box 130052, Birmingham AL 35213.

Photos are welcome. We reserve the right to edit for clarity or space.

March 2015 • Southern Jewish Life 43

simchas When everything needs to be magical Trust your day to Terry

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Hank Lazer to recieve Harper Lee Award

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Hank Lazer of Tuscaloosa was selected by the Alabama Writers Forum to receive the Harper Lee Award for Alabama’s Distinguished Writer of the Year for 2015. The award is made to a living, nationally recognized Alabama writer who has made a significant, lifelong contribution to Alabama letters.

The award will be presented at the annual Alabama Writers Symposium in Monroeville in April. The last three recipients were Mark Childress, Gay Talese and Fannie Flagg.

Lazer said he “was stunned, shocked, and very pleased” to be named.

“Honestly, it was difficult for me to believe this good news. Local and regional recognition for my writing has been scarce, and this prestigious award is to be cherished because it represents acceptance and honor bestowed by my home state.”

A California native, Lazer received his undergraduate degree at Stanford and his graduate degrees at the University of Virginia. In 1977 he moved to Tuscaloosa to teach in the English department at the University of Alabama.

“I was born and raised in California, came to Alabama in 1977, married a Northport woman, and raised a family here,” said Lazer. “Virtually all of my significant writing and publishing has taken place while I have lived in Alabama.”

He has published 18 books of poetry. With co-editor Charles Bernstein, Lazer edits the Modern and Contemporary Poetics Series for the University of Alabama Press.

Lazer served as Assistant Dean for Humanities and Fine Arts from 1991 to 1997, and as Assistant Vice President for Undergraduate Programs and Services from 1997 to 2006. He retired in January 2014 but still teaches at Alabama.

Lazer’s work has been nominated for the 2005 Pulitzer Prize and the 2004 Forward Prize, and won the 2003 Emily Clark Balch Prize for Poetry from the Virginia Quarterly Review for “Prayer,” the first poem out of 10 in “The New Spirit.” Lazer has worked with jazz musicians Tom Wolfe and Chris Kozak on improvisatory jazz compositions based on “The New Spirit.” Lazer, Wolfe, and Kozak have performed their poetry-jazz improvisations in several concerts He cites both Jewish and Buddhist influences on his works. Recently he did several Judaic poems with graphic arrangements, a poem in a picture.

One that he did for the dedication of Temple Emanu-El’s new building in Tuscaloosa is set in the shape of the Hebrew letter Shin.

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The University of Alabama Board of Trustees approved construction of a new $37.5 million building at the University of Alabama at Birmingham that will house the Collat School of Business and Institute for Innovation and Entrepreneurship.

The building, which will be at the corner of University Boulevard and 13th Street, will create multidimensional learning and collaborative spaces that include breakout rooms for team projects, engaging space for entrepreneurial projects, a financial literacy training room, labs for behavioral research and sales presentations, career services space, and study rooms for students.

Eric Jack, dean of the Collat School of Business, said “this cutting-edge

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facility will provide a new home for our school and also for UAB-wide collaborations in leadership, innovation and entrepreneurship.”

“A new building will reflect the quality and commitment to the Collat School of Business by members of the community along with the university to develop visionary and transformational leaders who will determine the future of our city and state,” said Charles Collat.

The school was the first at UAB to be named after a benefactor. The naming officially occurred in September 2013 in recognition of Patsy and Charles Collat’s lead gift to the $1 billion Campaign for UAB. The Collats have donated $25 million in gifts and pledges to UAB. “The Collat name represents leadership, innovation and entrepreneurship in business,” Jack said. “It also symbolizes a family that stands out as one that gives back to the community. We want every student in the Collat School of Business to follow this example and to graduate with the high charge of, not only changing the world, but also giving back to it.”

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Bama native gets major award in Tel Aviv Wales was Wikipedia founder Alabama native Jimmy Wales is a recipient of the $1 million Dan David Prize, presented by the Dan David Foundation at Tel Aviv University.

The prize recognizes and encourages innovative and interdisciplinary research that cuts across traditional boundaries and paradigms, in the categories of past, present and future. Wales is the honoree in the present time dimension.

Each year the International Board chooses one field within each time dimension. Following a review process by independent Review Commitees comprised of renowned scholars and professionals, the International Board then chooses the laureates for each field.

Ten percent of the prize money is donated by the honorees to graduate students in their respective fields, thereby contributing to the community and fostering a new generation of scholars.

Wales is the founder of Wikipedia and member of the Board of Trustees, Wikimedia Foundation.

Wikipedia is a non-profit free content Internet encyclopedia that uses peer-reviewed collaboration as its source of content. It is the world’s largest encyclopedia.

Wales’ stated motivation for creating Wikipedia was to create a world “in which every single person on the planet is given free access to the sum of all human knowledge.”

Born in Huntsville, Wales received his undergraduate degree from Auburn and his master’s from Alabama. He currently lives in London.

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Oyvengers, Kafkaburlesque take over the city The two Jewish Krewes did their annual march through the Quarter on Jan. 31. Krewe du Mishigas marched in the Krewe du Vieux “KdV Begs for Change” parade as the Oyvengers (left). Krewe du Jieux marched in the krewedelusion’s Metamorphacity parade (right) with an insect-oriented Kafkaburlesque Jieuxish variety show, a nod to the krewedelusion’s Empress, Jewish burlesque artist Trixie Minx.

46 Southern Jewish Life • March 2015

culture art • books • apps • music • television • film • theatre

Image courtesy Cohen Media Group

FILM

What’s Really Inside a Pastrami on Rye? What Else? Tradition.

Ziggy Gruber of Kenny and Ziggy’s in Houston guides viewers of “Deli Man” through the phenomenon of the Jewish deli here in America. He’s without question one of the best to do so as he grew up in the business (his family owned Berger’s, the Woodrow Deli, and the famous Rialto Delicatessen on Broadway) and found it his calling to keep it going.

In 1931, New York counted 1,550 kosher delis, and today only 21 kosher and non-kosher delis remain. Around the country, there are about 150 in existence (this is where we all bemoan the loss of places like the Olde Tyme Deli in Jackson). In fact, it was at a Delicatessen Dealers annual dinner that Ziggy realized what his future must be: “I’ll never forget. I looked around the room, it was all 60- and 70-year old people. I said to myself: ‘Who is going to perpetuate our food if I don’t do it?’ That was my calling.”

The film visits famous delis, such as Carnegie, Katz’s, and 2nd Avenue Deli, and newer establishments such as Wise Sons in San Francisco (where besides the chopped liver, they’re serving fried kugel with warm maple syrup). Interviews with deli connoissers such as Jerry Stiller, Alan Dershowitz, Fyvush Finkel, and Larry King keep things tied together with sweet reminiscences.

Visit delimanmovie.com for screenings.

TELEVISION

Breaking Borders

The new Travel Channel program “Breaking Borders” places Peabody Award-winning journalist Mariana van Zeller and season six “Top Chef” winner Michael Voltaggio in conflict zones around the world with the goal of bringing together people from all sides for an amazing meal and some hope for common ground.

The series premiere will be March 15 at 8 p.m. in an episode in which van Zeller asks a Palestinian guide to “bring Israelis and Palestinians together for a meal in what is for some, a most controversial location: a Jewish settlement in Palestinian territory.”

Upcoming episodes take place in Northern Ireland, Egypt, Sri Lanka, Mexico/Arizona, Sarajevo, Lebanon, Rwanda and Cuba.

Image courtesy Travel Channel

Mariana and Michael visit the open-air market in Jerusalem to find fresh ingredients for the dinner that Michael will prepare.

March 2015 • Southern Jewish Life 47

culture

MUSIC

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The Atlanta Jewish Music Festival announced its “biggest and best” lineup for March 12 to 23. Now in its sixth year, the only Jewish music festival in the South features local, regional, national and international acts.

Founder and Director Russell Gottschalk said “I’m most excited about the spotlight we’ve given Israeli performers at our Main Event, offering Atlantans and visitors from around the South a chance to connect to Israel here at home. But we also continue to support local Jewish musicians and over half of our featured performers live in the Greater Atlanta area.”

Opening night features the local premier of Ska/Roots/Rock group Jump Babylon from Montreal. Performances will be on March 12 at 7:30 and 9:30 p.m. at Steve’s Live Music.

On March 13 there will be a musical Shabbat service featuring Kirtan chanting by musicians from Ahavath Achim and Bet Haverim. The 7:30 p.m. service at AA is free and open to the community.

Georgia native Hannah Zale will have a release show for her solo debut record, “Fortress” on March 14 at 8 p.m. at Steve’s Live Music.

The festival will have a stage at the 31st annual Hunger Run Walk for the Atlanta Community Food Bank, featuring the 4th Ward Afro-Klezmer Orchestra and Tony Levitas. The event starts at noon at Turner Field on March 15, with the walk at 2 p.m.

Macon-based Red Heifers will perform their Klezmer, Zydeco and World Music styles at a free concert at Beth Shalom on March 15 at 7:30 p.m.

Shabbat Ruach on March 20 will feature former Alabamian Rabbi Brian Glusman with Sammy Rosenbaum and other AJMF musicians at Beth Shalom at 6:15 p.m.

The main event will be on March 21 at the Variety Playhouse, featuring Israeli artists Yael Deckelbaum and Diwan Saz. Diwan Saz is a nine-member Jewish, Christian and Muslim group from northern Israel, blending Hebrew and Arab music. The show begins at 8:45 p.m. and is for ages 13 and up.

Members of Diwan Saz will give a talk on their lives in the Middle East and how they use music to promote peace. The free forum will be at the Emory Center for Ethics on March 22 at 10 a.m.

Temple Emanu-El will host a Cantorial Showcase, featuring Cantors Lauren Adesnik, Deborah Hartman, Nancy Kassel and Barbara Margulis. The 5:30 p.m. concert is free and open to the community.

The festival concludes on March 23 with a Holocaust remembrance concert, featuring Laurence Sherr, the Summit Trio and Atlanta musicians. Held at The Temple on March 23 at 8 p.m., the event is free and open to the community.

For ticket information, visit atlantajmf.org.

March 2015 • Southern Jewish Life 49

Rachel Jarman Myers with Joel May, Kevin Kirby, Cantor Coleman Reaboi at B’nai Emmunah.

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The congregation in Port Gibson, Miss., may not be in existence any more but its light continues to shine in Florida.

On Dec. 20, the Ner Tamid, the eternal light, from Gemiluth Chassodim was dedicated at Congregation B’nai Emmunah in Tarpon Springs.

The ceremony coincided with the fourth night of Chanukah.

The project began with a desire by the Florida congregation to replace its small ark that had fallen into disrepair before their 25th anniversary.

That small project became a complete overhaul of the bimah.

Sisterhood President Sheila Shear told the Jewish Press of Pinellas County that the congregation ran out of money for the final phase, and they couldn’t find a ner tamid that was right — or affordable.

Joel May, a Jasper native, told her about the Institute of Southern Jewish Life in Jackson, and the Museum of the Southern Jewish Experience.

May was familiar with ISJL’s work, as he had been part of the closing of Jasper’s Temple Emanu-El in 2005.

May contacted Rachel Jarman Myers, ISJL’s museum and special projects coordinator, who sent pictures of lamps in the museum’s collection from congregations that have closed. One of ISJL’s functions is to match items from defunct congregations with new congregations that could use them.

The committee chose the Port Gibson light, which was donated in 1892

by L.T. Newman in memory of his wife and children, who died in 1878.

The first Jewish settlers came to Port Gibson in 1839. The town was dubbed “too beautiful to burn” by General Ulysses Grant in the Civil War. While Gemiluth Chassed was established around 1871, a building was not erected until 1892. The unique Moorish design is instantly recognizable and the building was on the cover of Leo Turitz’s book “Jews in Early Mississippi.”

While the congregation had resident rabbis early on, after 1908 services were lay-led. The last Jews in Port Gibson closed the building in 1986, giving the Torahs and other artifacts to the museum. A 100th anniversary event was held in 1991, but soon after the building was slated to be demolished. A non-Jewish resident, Bill Lum, bought the building to preserve it. His son, Doug Lum, hosts a “messianic” congregation in the building.

At the dedication, Myers spoke of the history of Gemiluth Chassodim and the connection of Southern Jewish communities to the national Jewish community. She noted that while the congregation had a lot of transplants from the North, there were many who had family histories in smaller Midwest communities.

Some had Southern roots, including “a woman from Atlanta, a family from Brookhaven, Mississippi, a couple from New Orleans.”

Myers said “This eternal light, the ner tamid, will be given the opportunity to shine again and serve a congregation, ensuring the ancestors of small town Jewish communities like Port Gibson will not be forgotten.”

Bring on the corned beef!

While many congregations have corned beef lunches this time of year as fundraisers, Valdosta’s Temple Israel seemingly sets out to feed the whole town.

About 50 families in the south Georgia congregation work on the annual event, which has a goal of 6,000 sandwiches this year. The population of Valdosta is around 54,000, so that means over 10 percent of the city will be dining on corned beef from Temple Israel.

The event began in 1998 with a goal of 1500 sandwiches. It was an instant hit, and demand kept increasing each year. The record was 6,500 sandwiches in 2012.

The lunches are $10, with a 50 cent surcharge if ordered online. They include one-third pound of Hebrew National corned beef on rye, kosher pickle, chips, dessert and drink. The sale takes place on March 13, 15 and 16 and a portion of the proceeds goes to local non-profits in addition to being the congregation’s largest fundraiser each year.

This year’s food festival season began with the annual Montgomery Jewish Food Festival at Temple Beth Or on Feb. 22, and the annual corned beef luncheon at Hebrew Union Congregation in Greenville on Feb. 26.

Beth Shalom in Baton Rouge will have its 31st annual Deli for Lunch corned beef sale from March 15 to 17. Drive-thru and pickup will be available at Beth Shalom on March 15 from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m., and on March 16 and 17 there will be deliveries of orders of five lunches or more from 10 a.m. to noon.

The $9 lunches include a corned beef sandwich on rye, potato chips, dill pickle and homemade brownie. Tuna and egg salad sandwiches will be available by request.

Tickets are available at Beth Shalom, or orders can be placed online.

Springhill Avenue Temple’s Sisterhood Corned Beef Extravaganza in Mobile will be on March 17. The $10 lunches include a quarterpound corned beef sandwich on rye, kosher pickle, New York-style cheesecake and bag of chips.

Orders must be placed by March 10 and can be picked up at Springhill Avenue Temple from 10:30 a.m. to noon. Delivery is available for orders of 10 or more.

The annual corned beef sandwich sale at Temple Sinai in Lake Charles will be on March 16. Lunches are ordered in advance and delivered or picked up at Temple Sinai during the day.

Beth Israel in Jackson will have its 48th

Preparing sandwiches last year in Dothan annual Bazaar on March 25, but this year it has been renamed the Beth Israel Congregation Bazaar instead of the Sisterhood Bazaar.

The menu includes deli sandwiches and salads, brisket, stuffed cabbage, matzah ball soup, kugel and carrots, baba ganoush and chopped liver. There is a dessert section and a Take Home booth with frozen casseroles.

The 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. event also includes a silent auction, raffle and white elephant sale.

In Tuscaloosa, Temple Emanu-El will hold its second Jewish Food Festival on April 19, starting at 11:30 a.m. Last year was the congregation’s first time holding the event as a stand-alone, as it previously had been part of the opening night of Tuscaloosa’s now-defunct Jewish Film Festival.

The festival has boxed meals available, or a sampler bar where one can try a variety of items.

Dothan’s Temple Emanu-El will have its annual corned beef luncheon on April 30. Last year, the congregation sold just under 2,000 lunches, and 500 of the lunches were donated to nine local non-profits.

Arkansas festival big enough for a stadium Perhaps the largest Jewish food festival in the region takes place in Arkansas every year.

The 2015 Jewish Food Festival will be at War Memorial Stadium in Little Rock on April 26.

Last year, the first in the new venue, the festival attracted over 12,000 visitors despite severe weather, according to the Jewish Federation of Arkansas. By comparison, the Jewish population of the entire state is estimated at fewer than 2,000.

For the last three years, the festival has been named runner-up for Best Food Festival in the Arkansas Times.

The event begins with a Jewish breakfast at 8:30 a.m. The festival itself runs from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., and includes corned beef sandwiches, lox, bagels and cream cheese, kosher hot dogs, rugelach and traditional Israeli dishes including kabobs, falafel and Israeli salad.

There are cultural and religious booths describing everything from Jewish life in Arkansas to ancient Israel, numerous artists, a children’s area and entertainment. There is a replica of the Western Wall for visitors to place prayer notes, and the notes are later taken to the real Western Wall in Jerusalem.

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Performances include the B Flats, a Klezmer band, the Shechinotes and other acts. Admission is free.

Proceeds from the festival go to benefit Jewish Federation of Arkansas’s work in the community, which includes allocations to Jewish and nonJewish charitable organizations, financial assistance to Jews in need, scholarships and other resources for Jewish children and families, and funds to support charitable work in Israel.

Bronston’s new book details where to walk in the New Orleans area Though one may be a native New Orleanian, there is still a lot to learn about the city’s rich history and present.

Barri Bronston’s book, “Walking New Orleans: 30 Tours Exploring Historic Neighborhoods, Waterfront Districts, Culinary and Music Corridors, and Recreational Wonderlands,” comes out on March 10, with 30 self-guided tours for tourists and long-time residents.

Bronston spent most of her career as a staff writer at The Times-Picayune, where she covered parenting, education and other topics. She is currently assistant director of public relations at Tulane University.

The tours include maps, parking and public transit information, route summaries, points of interest and a quick-reference guide. The walks are grouped by theme, from culinary to spooky to family-friendly.

“Writing this book gave me an opportunity to explore neighborhoods and streets that I really knew little about — Treme, for example, Oretha Castle Haley Boulevard, Bywater, Algiers Point,” she said. “I think locals tend to take New Orleans for granted, whereas visitors and newcomers tend to really get out there and soak in everything that New Orleans has to offer.”

Among the things she learned while working on the book is the rich musical history of Algiers Point, how Henry’s Bar on Magazine Street was a favorite stop for Lee Harvey Oswald, and that St. Augustine’s Catholic Church is the oldest African-American Catholic parish in the country.

The tours range from St. Charles Avenue to Magazine Street to the Bywater and Faubourg Marigny. Each tour includes everything from historic sites to where to eat, drink, dance and play.

While there aren’t any specifically Jewish tours, several Jewish sites are included. The St. Charles Avenue tour includes the Jewish Community Center and Touro Synagogue, but does not extend as far as Temple Sinai.

She added, “The University neighborhood tour includes Hillel and Hillel’s Kitchen, a kosher restaurant that few people are aware is open to the public. The Riverfront tour includes the Holocaust Memorial. The Oretha Castle Haley tour points out that the street, formerly known as Dryades Street, was once a thriving neighborhood for Jewish-owned businesses.”

While it is coincidental that the book is coming out just before the 10th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, “working on this book showed me how far New Orleans has come since that horrific day,” especially in areas like Lakeview and Mid-City. “That’s not to say the city has fully recovered. The Lower Ninth Ward still has a long way to go, for example, but even that area has its bright spots, among them Brad Pitt’s ‘Make It Right’ neighborhood, which features safe, sustainable homes for people who lost everything in the storm.”

“Walking New Orleans” is published by Birmingham’s Wilderness Press.

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Entrepreneur David Kahn has brought to Alabama the concept of fresh, make-yourown, fast-casual pizza — along with imported Caesarstone from Israel for the countertops at the Pizza 120 locations in Mountain Brook, Madison, Tuscaloosa and Montgomery.

“I wanted to introduce a new concept in which everything was top of the line,” said Kahn. “The vision was to do an upscale, fastcasual pizza place. It was important for us to use the highest-quality, freshest ingredients and have a classy-looking restaurant but offer this quality at low price points (10-inch pizzas are $7.99 each) with quick service.” It takes 120 seconds to make each pizza in a high-heat brick oven imported from Italy.

Kahn had employed the Caesarstone in his Yogurt Mountain stores. “For those stores the vibrant apple martini (green) color really fit with what we wanted to convey. In this case, the vibrant red Caesarstone fits perfectly with Pizza 120. It is the color of red tomatoes, which we import from Italy,” said Kahn. “Caesarstone looks elegant and I like doing something that supports Israel while also fitting our décor perfectly.”

Yogurt Mountain introduced Alabama to the make-your-own yogurt concept with many flavor and topping choices. Kahn had become familiar with the concept for fresh, see and choose your own ingredients pizza while in California, and he felt like it could work in this region.

Kahn would frequent California Pizza Kitchen

in Birmingham, where he became friends with then-general manager Tasker Hewitt. He explained his Pizza 120 concept to Hewitt in late 2013 and Hewitt agreed to come on board as the director of operations for Pizza 120.

They opened the Tuscaloosa location in August 2014, then Mountain Brook in October, Madison in November and the Montgomery location opens this month. Each restaurant can seat approximately 70 people.

“Our table layout is very flexible so we can move tables around to accommodate large parties,” said Hewitt. Pizza 120 even offers catering and pizzas delivered for a minimum of eight pizzas.

So how does the concept work? Customers can choose an unlimited amount of sauces, vegetable toppings, meat toppings and cheese as their pizza is assembled before their eyes.

Then it goes into the high-heat brick oven for two minutes. For those who want some recommendations, Pizza 120 has a few pizza selections on its menu including the vegetarian pizza listed below in the recipe.

“Most people are curious at first and then when they get the concept, they really like being able to make their choices and see the fresh ingredients being put on,” said Hewitt. “People have gotten really creative with the pizzas they have made.”

The dough is light and crispy. All of the cheese they use is from Wisconsin and all of the ingredients are fresh. Pizza 120 also offers salads, dessert pizzas, beer and wine.

Kahn said Pizza 120 has some gluten-free crusts and some non-dairy cheese that can be substituted. “People who can’t have gluten, are vegetarian and/or who want to eat kosher style can have several tasty options here,” he said.

“Our goal is to offer something for everyone.”

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Since that fateful evening and morning, history has been replete with In theevents. beginning, was good, a historic Somethere of them some of them bad — which ones question. were which depends on who you ask, and when.

It was a warm, sunny, Commandments were summer issued, and summarily broken. Miracles were Shabbat morning, when went an for naught. The Mets won the World wrought, and other prayers unsuspecting woman was Series, and Barry M*nilow released his first album. approached in why a synagogue parking theand question that Some asked bad things happenlot, to and goodasked people, why good would launch a thousand quips. things happen to bad people. Why bad people happen to good things, you think you know four would prefer people sleeping and“Do why good people happen to rabbis do badwho things.

Some asked, others took through the sermon, rather than talking during it?”

She said, “probably. ” advantage.

From headline, “Rabbis prefer sleeping during sermon.” A But that now,came after the countable millennia, an update has been discovered.

In that first fateful column, years ago, her innocuous “probably” mysterious parchment was found18hermetically sealed in a mayonnaise jar was the basis of the scientific assertion that four out of five rabbis in the back of a dining hall freezer since midnight some night. Noprefer one, sleeping during sermon.

From where came theuntil fifthnow. rabbi? Simple: but no one, knewathe contents of this parchment…

When wasstill thethe lastLord, timeBig fiveG,rabbis agreed on Thus,out four out 1. I am who brought youanything? out of Egypt, of the of five. house of bondage. Yet that little episode was apparently not clear enough Theyou, journalistic and investigative unto so let Me integrity spell it out: Slavery = bad. skills demonstrated there could have easily led to a prestigious career today in covering Middle 2. You shall have no other gods before me.

After all, I wasthe here first.

Eastiffor most major newsother outlets. instead, columnYou labored But someone else has godsBut before Me,this let them. don’t every want month forthey thebelieve ones that were missed), and sometimes twice to mess (except with what in any more than you want them messing monthly, to bring almost several laughs to its almost several readers. with what you believe in.

It You rodeshall the not sound of The Southern Shofar though, despite 3. takewaves the name of the Lord, Big G, in vain. Neither contractual rode in this thecommandment’s seat behind a about Southern should you bestipulation, so vain that never I bet you think you.

Chauffeur.

It then in day its own Deep South Voice, before 4. Remember thespoke Sabbath to keep it holy.

SixJewish days you labor and settling in work, to Southern Jewish Life‘s end — unless you the do all your but the seventh day ishind a Sabbath to the Lord, Bigread G, who magazine right to left, which does not make most of the news today make tried to give you an out here — if you wouldn’t give yourself a day off, more, or Me. less,But sense. do it for that did not work for some of you, so just take off the Over the years, this the wisdom of Stop the recentlyseventh day: For me, forcolumn you, forpresented your spouse… whoever. burning discovered, long-lost Mishnah tractate Bava Gump which, among other yourself out — that bush was not consumed, but you will be.

I made the things, teaches how shrimp can be kosher. world in six days, and rested on the seventh — not because the world was Thebut column retold legendary thethat. beloved young done, because I wasthe pretty tuckeredadventures out. Learnof from kabbalist, Harry Plotzer, and his adventures with The Sanhedrin’s 5. Honor your father and mother, so that your days may be long Stone, in the through Chamber Shpielkis, withand Themother Prisoner of Ashkenaz land thatThe I give you. Or,ofhonor yourand father because if you and The of Fire, though not yet getting The Deadly don’t theyGabbai will make your days seem very long.toOr they mightChallahs. end your Occasionally there such as that the recurring days prematurely, andwere makeguests, another one looks justone likedue you.to a harebrained rabbinical Ask the Rabbit,it as as Gurb the Caveman 6. Thou shalt nottypo, murder, whether bewell another person or living Rabbi, and the occasional special report from The Oynion. creature, the score of a good show, or simply killing a good weekend.

Explored werenot calendar anomalies events, realadults, and surreal, such as 7.

Thou shalt commit adultery.and But act like otherwise.

It Thanksnukah, Mezuzapalooza, Kol Nidre the 13th, Purover, Chrisnukah, does not give you license to act like children.

Yomtober, and the Rosh Hashaarrrnah andnor Daythe of Aarrrtonement.

8. Thou shalt notpirated steal, neither a physical object hearts or minds The chorus of “Bubbe’s Been Run Over By a Reindeer” was sung, the that cleave to others. For it is just not nice.

Rebbe at the Bat got his bell rung, and the Grinch who hated 9. Thou shalt not bear false witness against your neighbor. Jew-ville Or your had his hatred unstrung. neighbor’s neighbor.

Or your neighbor’s neighbor’s neighbor. And so on.

In case it wasn’t apparent, thisenough is the 18th anniversary of truth, this space Specific enough now?

It’s difficult to keep track of the why not being for rent.

In honor of this Chai anniversary, it would seem introduce more to remember? appropriate to toast with neighbor’s some chai tea.

10. Do not covetityour house, wife, servant, animals, or Except that that ischai teaneighbor’s. has baffledTelling rabbinic scholarsthey for cannot hundreds of anything your someone want seconds. (“Should we have seconds?

Is one cup enough?

Let’s drink on something typically makes them want it all the more. Therefore, if you it.”) your After neighbor’s all, chai isnew not living pronounced like Chai, you though cup of chai like room furniture, can aask where he makes it easier to pronounce Chai.

And some say that chai has properties got it. If you like your neighbor’s wife, you can ask if she has a sister. that help to you extend Otherwise, canone’s looklife, but one’s don’tChai. touch. Even your neighbor’s love for And what is chai tea’s relationship Thai Iced Is there such Me, the Big G, you should not covet —tobut you areTea? free to emulate anda thing as Thai Chai Tea? If there is, are its effects best described as tai chi surpass it all the days of your life. I just sayeth. for the digestive system?

Doug is a writer in Silicon Valleythis whoHigh has Holy been Day a badseason, thing These Brook are questions to ponder during happening to bothnot goodlate people who read For though perhaps afternoon on this Yomcolumn, Kippur.since This1996. column past columns, other writings, and more, visit http://brookwrite.com/. For continued on previous page exclusive online content, follow facebook.com/the.beholders.eye.

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