Jewish News April 20, 2015 by United Jewish Federation of Tidewater

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7 Tom Hofheimer Medical Mission

28 SIJL Reunion

Spring into Healthy Living with JFS Joan Lunden — Sunday, April 26 Run, Roll or Stroll — Sunday, May 3

32 —page 31

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upfront Children of Holocaust survivors more concerned about Iran nuclear threat, study finds JERUSALEM (JTA)—A new study in Israel shows that adult children of Holocaust survivors are more concerned about the threat of a nuclear Iran than those whose parents were not survivors. “Transmitting the Sum of All Fears: Iranian Nuclear Threat Salience Among Offspring of Holocaust Survivors,” a Bar-Ilan University study written by Dr. Amit Shrira, was published in the journal Psychological Trauma, an American Psychological Association journal dedicated to the study of trauma and its aftermShrira first studied 106 people, with 63 born after World War II ended in 1945 and whose parents lived under a Nazi or pro-Nazi regime, and a comparison group of 43 also born after 1945, but whose parents, of European origin, either immigrated to Israel before the war or fled to countries that were not under Nazi occupation. An identical second sample of 450 people gave the same results. The study found that second-generation Holocaust survivors exhibit greater preoccupation with the Iranian nuclear threat and are more sensitive to nuclear threat. The more they are interested in the subject, the study found, the more general anxiety they report. Also, second-generation Holocaust survivors had a more ominous outlook on the world in general.

jewish news jewishnewsva.org “In second generation survivors we most often see that they are a group with resilience and mental resources, and they generally exhibit good functioning on a daily basis,” Shrira said in a statement. “But they do have vulnerabilities which can be manifested during times of stress.”

Israel satisfied with Senate compromise bill on Iran deal JERUSALEM (JTA)—Israel called a Senate bill requiring the U.S. Congress to review any nuclear agreement with Iran “an achievement for Israeli policy.” Yuval Steinitz, Israel’s minister of intelligence and strategic affairs, made the remark in an interview with Israel Radio on the compromise bill passed unanimously the day before by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Steinitz said Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech last month to a joint meeting of Congress “was decisive in achieving this law, which is a very important element in preventing a bad deal, or at least in improving the agreement and making it more reasonable.” The bill requires that Congress vote to approve the lifting of U.S. sanctions on Iran based on the text of a final agreement with Iran to curb its nuclear program, and prevents the Obama administration from lifting sanctions on Iran until Congress is done reviewing the agreement. It also

contents Up Front . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Briefs. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Torah Thought . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 Pew study shows Muslims to overtake American Jews. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 Tom Hofheimer Medical Mission. . . . . 7 Ten not-so-well-known Israeli facts. . . 8 Competing views of Iran deal . . . . . . 10 Surge in anti-Semitism. . . . . . . . . . . . 12 Obama and Iran Deal. . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 Racial equality and Pesach. . . . . . . . . 14

requires the administration to report to Congress on various issues relating to Iran, including its support of global terrorism and its nuclear program. Intensive negotiations over recent days between the committee chairman, Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.), who authored the bill, and its top Democrat, Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.), stripped elements that the White House found objectionable, including linking sanctions relief to Iranian actions on terrorism, and shortened the review time from 60 days to 30 days. Obama had threatened to veto earlier versions of the bill, but Josh Earnest, the White House spokesman, said before the vote that if reports on the compromise legislation bore out, that would no longer be the case. The approved bill puts “more pressure and another barrier in the face of a bad agreement, and therefore the administration and the negotiating team will make more of an effort to seal gaps and to achieve an agreement that looks better, or at least more reasonable, so that it will pass in Congress,” Steinitz said. The major powers and Iran announced earlier this month the outline of a nuclear deal that would swap sanctions relief for restrictions aimed at keeping Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon. Israel and a number of Republican senators have strongly opposed the deal, saying it would leave Iran a nuclear weapons threshold state. The deadline for a final deal is June 30.

quotable Special Section: Health Care . . . . . . . 15 Book Review. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27 SIJL’s 40th Reunion. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28 Literacy skills for preschoolers . . . . . 30 What’s Happening . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31 Calendar. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34 Mazel Tov. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35 Obituaries. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36 Choosing a woman for the $20 bill. . 38

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briefs Eric Lynn, one-time Obama campaign Jewish liaison, launches bid for Congress Eric Lynn, a former liaison between the Obama presidential campaign and the Jewish community, is running for Congress in Florida. Lynn, a 36-year-old Democrat, launched a challenge against the Republican incumbent, Rep. David Jolly, in the Tampa-area district. Lynn, who graduated from high school in St. Petersburg, now works in the district as a defense industry consultant. Lynn once served as an intern at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. Jolly is considered vulnerable. He won the district in 2014 following the death of longtime incumbent Republican Rep. C.W. Bill Young, but the district favored Obama in the 2008 and 2012 elections, according to the Tampa Bay Times. Lynn parlayed his role in 2008 getting out the Jewish vote for Obama into senior advisory jobs in government, first at the State Department and then at the Pentagon. His pitch to voters will emphasize the heavy presence in the district of military bases and families. “I have been profoundly humbled by our brave soldiers, their selflessness and sense of duty,” Lynn said in his first fundraising letter. “I could never match them, but I’d like to bring a dose of ‘country first’ to Congress.” (JTA) Kerry and top negotiator meet Jewish leaders to discuss Iran deal Top Obama administration officials met for two hours with U.S. Jewish community leaders to discuss the emerging Iran nuclear deal. Represented at the April 8 meeting were Secretary of State John Kerry and his undersecretary, Wendy Sherman, who is leading the U.S. side in the nuclear talks. On the Jewish organizational side, representatives of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the American Jewish Committee, the Anti-Defamation League, the Jewish Federations of North America, and the Orthodox, Reform and Conservative streams were present. A State Department official said the meeting was part of the administration’s regular outreach to various civil society

groups in the United States. Kerry, the official told JTA, discussed “the U.S.-Israel relationship and the latest developments in our negotiations with the EU, P5+1 and Iran over Iran’s nuclear program.” P5+1 refers to the countries negotiating with Iran, including the United States, Russia, China, France, Britain and Germany. Kerry stayed for an hour in the room, which was cleared of leavened goods in honor of Passover week, and Sherman remained for an additional hour. The Jewish officials present would not describe the content of the off-the-record meeting, but they did say that they raised concerns about the deal. “Both the secretary and the undersecretary articulated with depth, rigor and passion the deal and explained it,” one Jewish official said. “There was an opportunity for real engagement. Secretary Kerry was reaching out to those who need more engagement and convincing.” The deal outline presented earlier this month by Iran and the major powers exchanges sanctions relief for restrictions aimed at keeping Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon. Israel and a number of Jewish groups have expressed concerns about the degree of the sanctions relief and whether the structures in place go far enough to keep Iran from achieving nuclear capability. (JTA)

Heirs of Nazi victim to get compensation from sale of looted Monet The heirs of a French Jewish art dealer killed in a Nazi concentration camp will get a piece of the upcoming sale at Christie’s of a Monet painting looted by the Nazis and acquired after the war by a Swiss collector. The painting, Haystacks at Giverny, was painted by Claude Monet in 1885 and is estimated to be worth $12 million to $18 million. Haystacks, one of several similar paintings of a pasture near the artist’s French home, was acquired by Rene Gimpel, a French art dealer associated with the intellectual elite of his time and a frequent visitor to Monet’s home, according to The New York Times. After the outbreak of World War II, Gimpel was detained by the Nazi-allied Vichy government in France and shipped off to the Neuengamme concentration

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camp, where he died. Gimpel’s grandson, who also is named Rene Gimpel and is an art dealer, believes his grandfather was forced to sell the Monet under duress, according to the Times. The artwork surfaced in Geneva during the war and eventually ended up in the hands of a private Swiss collector. Under the terms of a restitution agreement, the elder Gimpel’s heirs will receive an undisclosed amount from the auction house sale, which is to take place in May. Gimpel told the Times that his family has reached restitution agreements on two other artworks that had belonged to his grandfather. (JTA)

Sabra recalls classic hummus due to possible contamination The Sabra Dipping Company recalled 30,000 cases of its classic hummus due to a possible listeria contamination. The hummus tested positive for the food-borne bacteria listeria monocytogenes, which is potentially fatal and can affect the elderly, pregnant women, babies and those with compromised immune systems. No one has become ill from the Sabra hummus, according to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. The voluntary recall was announced on April 9. The bacteria were discovered during a routine, random sample collected at a retail location on March 30 by the Michigan Department of Agriculture and Rural Development, the Sabra company said. Those with questions should call (888) 957-2272. (JTA) Putin lifts ban on Russian air defense missile sales to Iran President Vladimir Putin of Russia lifted a ban on the sale of an advanced Russian missile defense system that could reinforce Iran’s defense of its nuclear facilities. A statement released by the Kremlin said that Putin signed a decree to remove the ban on Monday, April 13. The move signals that Russia is greatly interested in reaping profits from the resumption of international trade with Iran should a final deal be reached, The New York Times reported. Russia’s foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov, said that the framework deal signed by world powers and Iran earlier this month in Lausanne,

Switzerland, made the ban obsolete. Russia agreed to sell Iran the S-300 defense system in 2007, but strong opposition from the United States and Israel blocked the sale. Moscow was also prevented from selling Iran the missile system in 2010 after new U.N. sanctions on Iran’s nuclear program prohibited the exchange. Secretary of State John Kerry in a phone call to Lavrov expressed U.S. opposition to Russia’s intentions to sell the missiles. White House spokesman Josh Earnest said the sale could endanger the realization of a deal that lifts sanctions on Iran. (JTA)

Apple purchases Israel-based LinX Imaging Apple has purchased the Israel-based camera technology company LinX Imaging. Apple confirmed the purchase, which was first reported by The Wall Street Journal. Reports put the figure at about $20 million. LinX technology “sets new standards for image quality parameters such as low light performance, HDR, refocusing, color fidelity, shutter lag and more,” according to the company’s website. Its mini-camera hardware also is specifically geared toward tablets and smartphones. (JTA) Ex-girlfriend of billionaire Donald Sterling must return expensive gifts The ex-girlfriend of Donald Sterling must return millions of dollars in gifts from the former Los Angeles Clippers owner. On Tuesday, April 14, a Los Angeles Superior Court judge ruled that V. Stiviano must return to the Sterling Family Trust such items as luxury cars, including a Ferrari and a Bentley, a $1 million home and some $800,000 in cash. Stiviano claimed in court that she was entitled to the gifts because the Sterlings were separated when they were given, but the judge pointed out that the couple did not live apart during that time and were “estranged,” as Shelly Sterling had said during a television interview last year with Barbara Walters. Donald Sterling was forced to sell the Clippers last year and was banned for life and heavily fined by the NBA after he made racist comments to Stiviano that were secretly recorded and made public. (JTA)

Torah Thought

The ick factor

ne of the most difficult things a rabbi or cantor has to do is to look into the eyes of a 12-yearold child and tell him that, because of the bar mitzvah date his parents chose two years earlier, his Torah portion will deal with topics such as scaly white skin disease, childbirth, menstruation and nocturnal emissions (not to mention house mold and mildew on clothes). Mmmm, wet dreams, periods and skin scunge: everything a pubescent boy or girl least wants to think about. But there it is, smack in the middle of the Torah: the double parshah Tazria-Metzora, which focuses on the bodily conditions that cause ritual impurity and the processes by which a person makes himself or herself pure again. The subject matter is yucky enough, but a lot of folks are put off by the idea that naturally occurring physiological phenomena can be a reason for declaring someone unfit for participation in religious activities. You have to look a little bit under the surface to understand the thinking behind the prohibitions and instructions: the ancient priests saw discharges from the genitals and even the skin disease as an escape of the forces of life, a manifestation of death and it was contact with death that made someone ritually impure. Remember, too, that being ritually impure has never been

equated with being physically unclean. The compilers of the Torah knew that things like nocturnal emissions and periods were facts of life and that Israelite laypeople would experience them regularly. They saw nothing sinful, evil or dirty about these natural functions. Of course, hundreds of years later, the Sages had to get into the act and declare that tzara’at (often translated as “leprosy” but unrelated to that disease as we know it today), the growth of unwanted matter on skin, walls and clothes, was indeed a metaphor for sinful behavior. In the Talmud, Arachin 16a lists seven reasons someone might be afflicted with tzara’at: gossip, murder, perjury, forbidden sex, arrogance, theft and envy. (Which one of these did a 12-year-old commit to earn her first acne outbreak?) Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch, writing in the 19th century, said that tzara’at must have been a spiritual illness, as it was treated by priests, not doctors. Modern thinkers have pulled back from the Talmud’s extremes and tend to focus on gossip as the most apt behavioral parallel to Biblical tzara’at. This makes sense, because gossip is one of those failings so prevalent in human society that it’s practically a physiological fact of life. If passing on a juicy tidbit caused people to break out in scaly white patches, most of us would be covered with psoriasis from time to time. Perhaps Tazria-Metzora can be seen as a less toxic text if we view it as a spur to be mindful of the connection between what we say, what we do and how we feel physically. Each of us is imperfect now and then; the idea is to recognize the problem, clean up after it and keep moving forward. —Rabbi Ellen Jaffe-Gill, Tidewater Chavurah

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NEW YORK (JTA)—In 20 years, there will be more Muslims in North America than Jews, according to a new Pew Research Center report. The report, which was released Thursday, April 2 also found that more American Jews are leaving Judaism than non-Jews are joining the Jewish people. According to “The Future of World Religions: Population Growth Projections, 2010-2050,” Muslims will overtake Christians in the last quarter of the 21st century as the globe’s largest religious group. In the United States, Muslims will comprise 2.1 percent of the population in 2050, up from 0.9 percent in 2010. Jews, meanwhile, will fall to 1.4 percent of the U.S. population from 1.8 percent in 2010. The Pew study also offered a detailed look at the sizes of national Jewish communities around the world, how fast the communities are expected to shrink or grow, and Jewish fertility rates. There were nearly 14 million Jews around the globe in 2010, with expected growth to 16 million by 2050, according to the study—a lower growth rate than the general world population. Overall, Jews comprise roughly 0.2 percent of the world’s population, with about 44 percent of Jews in North America; 41 percent in Israel, the Middle East and North Africa; 10 percent in Europe; and 3 percent in Latin America and the Caribbean. By 2050, 51 percent of Jews are expected to live in the Middle East—almost all in Israel—and 37 percent in North America. The number of Jews in Europe is expected to decline more precipitously and outpace general European population shrinkage, according to the report. Meanwhile, the study showed that globally there were 1.6 billion Muslims in 2010 and a predicted growth to nearly 2.8 billion in 2050—from 23 percent of the population to 30 percent. In 2050, nearly three of every 10 people will be Muslims. Today, the United States and Israel have about the same number of Jews, though

there is some debate among Jewish demographers over which country is ahead. The Pew study counted 5.7 million Jews in the U.S. and 5.6 million in Israel, but other studies have shown more than 6 million Jews in each country, and Israel’s Central Bureau of Statistics said Israel had 6.2 million Jews in 2014. In any case, Israel is expected to pull unambiguously ahead in the coming years. The study counted as Jews those who self-identify as Jewish when asked their religion. It does not include so-called Jews of no religion—those who have Jewish ancestry or consider themselves partially Jewish but say they are not Jewish by religion. Nearly 95 percent of all Jews live in just 10 countries, according to the study. Except for Israel, none of those countries is more than 2 percent Jewish. The 10 countries with the most Jews are, in descending order, according to Pew, the United States, Israel, Canada, France, Britain, Germany, Russia, Argentina, Australia and Brazil. Jewish fertility rates are highest in Israel (2.8 children per woman), whereas Jewish fertility rates in North America (2.0) and Europe (1.8) are below replacement level (2.3). In the United States, the Jewish fertility rate is 1.9 children per woman. In every region examined by Pew, the Jewish median age was older than that of the general population. In the world overall, the median age was 28, compared with the Jewish median age of 37. In North America the median age is 37, with the Jews at 41. While the study showed that the spread of secularism is expected to continue and the number of atheists projected to rise, religious people are expected to grow as a proportion of the global population because they tend to have more children. In Europe, Muslims are expected to grow to 10 percent of the population in 2050, from 6 percent in 2010. In the United States, Americans of no religion are expected to grow from 16 percent in 2010 to 25 percent by 2050, and Christians are expected to shrink from 78 percent in five years to 66 percent by 2050.

Tom Hofheimer fund Part II of a Series

The Tom Hofheimer Medical Mission

Supporting myriad programs, including Magical Chairs, clinics and exchanges

he first part of this series (Jewish News, March 23, 2015) described how the Tom Hofheimer Fund brought Israeli reconstructive plastic surgeons to Tidewater to study with local specialists. While this remained the flagship program of the Fund for a number of years, other programs were also sponsored. First, six EVMS physicians were subsidized to practice four- to six-week fellowships in Israel. Then in 1987, the Fund sponsored a Shock and Trauma Symposium in partnership with the Virginia Israel Commission. This laid the groundwork in 1989 for a program that brought together the Virginia Israel Commission, UVa’s Kluge Children’s Rehabilitation Center and the Alyn Children’s Orthopedic Hospital in Jerusalem—the only rehabilitative hospital for children in the Middle East. Dubbed Magical Chairs, this international symposium on “seating the disabled child” was held in Jerusalem. Dr. Michael Sussman, director of Kluge Children’s Rehabilitation Center at University of Virginia and Dr. Shirley Meyer, director of Alyn Children’s Orthopaedic

Tom Hofheimer.

Hospital in Jerusalem, conceived of the seating symposium after agreeing to develop a medical exchange between their two institutions. Magical Chairs focused on the needs of children challenged by cerebral palsy, spina bifida, muscular dystrophy, spinal cord injuries and other problems. Handicapped children really live in their wheelchairs. The chair is the disabled child’s environment. If he is not properly seated, it can affect control of the head. He may not be able to see or hear properly, feed himself or learn to read, write or socialize as one should. The Jerusalem Post Thursday, September 21, 1989 At the symposium, experts demonstrated how technologically advanced seats could help the disabled control their head movements, balance themselves and manage other skills usually taken for granted. Several hundred orthopedic surgeons, rehabilitation experts and seating manufacturers attended the international symposium. Tom’s wife, Marcia, and sister, Joyce Strelitz, received an award in the Medical Mission’s name from Ezer Weizman, Israel’s Minister of Science and Technology and future President of Israel. Cross training and symposia occupied the Tom Hofheimer Medical Mission for most of the next decade. Following a symposium on Feeding and the Disabled Child in Israel, Israeli healthcare professionals were sponsored by the Medical Mission to work at Kluge in Charlottesville.

Dr. Michael Sussman with a child at the Magical Chairs Symposium.

In 1994, the Mission funded a nationwide conference in Bersheva on Childhood Development. Several years later, with funds donated by members of the Tidewater Jewish community, and with equipment provided by Sonny Lefcoe and other Joyce Strelitz, Marcia Hofheimer, an Israeli Represenative and Tidewater dentists, Dr. Michael Sussman at the Magical Chairs Symposium. a dental clinic was These were only some of the training constructed in Tidewater’s sister community of Pardes Katz. To this day, the clinic and educational seminars organized and continues to provide discounted and wel- financed by the Tom Hofheimer Fund fare care with the dedicated help of Dr. during its first two decades. The next Calvin Belkov, Lefcoe’s partner in this part of this series will recount the Fund’s effort. The clinic now bears the name, expanded involvement to other kinds Calvin Belkov Dental Clinic. In 1995, den- of projects in Israel, Europe and South tal equipment donated by Medical College America. of Virgina, was shipped at no cost to the program by Gordon Paper Company. The Tom Hofheimer Medical Mission To learn more, support or make rounded off the last decade of the millennia donation to the Tom Hofheimer um by sponsoring a pediatric symposium Fund with the Tidewater in Tel Aviv and a six month visit at Norfolk’s Jewish Foundation, visit Children’s Hospital of The King’s Daughters www.JewishVA.org/Hofheimer. for Dr. Yoram Ben Yehudah, a pioneer in the field of pediatric emergency medicine.

jewishnewsva.org | April 20, 2015 | Jewish News | 7

When El Al flew to Tehran—

and 9 other things you may not know about Israel’s past by Uriel Heilman

( JTA)—Yom Ha’atzmaut, Israel’s Independence Day, falls on April 23. In honor of the Jewish state’s 67th birthday, we present, in no particular order, 10 little-known aspects of its history. 1. El Al used to fly to Tehran. Iran and Israel enjoyed mostly good relations up until the Islamic revolution that overthrew the shah in 1979. Iran recognized Israel in 1950, becoming the second Muslim-majority country to do so (after Turkey). Iran supplied Israel with oil during the OPEC oil embargo, Israel sold Iran weapons, there was brisk trade between the countries, and El Al flew regular flights between Tel Aviv and Tehran. All that ended a week after the shah’s ouster, when Iran’s new rulers cut ties with Israel and transferred its embassy in Tehran to the Palestine Liberation Organization. Even after 35 years of hostilities, however, Iranians have less antipathy toward Jews than any other Middle Eastern nation. A 2014 global anti-Semitism survey by the Anti-Defamation League found that 56 percent of Iranians hold anti-Semitic views —compared to 80 percent of Moroccans and 93 percent of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza. For more on Israelis in Iran, check out the 2014 documentary “Before the Revolution.” 2. Israel is home to hundreds of Nazi descendants. At least 400 descendants of Nazis have converted to Judaism and moved to Israel, according to filmmakers who made a documentary about the phenomenon several years ago. In addition, others converted to Judaism or married Israelis but do not live in the Jewish state—such as Heinrich Himmler’s great-niece, who married an Israeli Jew and lives overseas. In Israel’s early years, the state was roiled by a debate over whether to accept German reparations for the Holocaust (it did), and Germany remained a controversial subject: From 1956 until 1967, Israel had a ban on all German-produced films.

3. Ben-Gurion invented Israeli couscous (sort of). The tiny pasta balls known as Israeli couscous—called ptitim in Hebrew—were invented in the 1950s at the behest of Israel’s first prime minister, David Ben-Gurion, who asked the Osem food company to come up with a wheat-based substitute for rice during a period of austerity in Israel. The invention, which Israelis dubbed “BenGurion’s rice,” was an instant hit. 4. Israel had no TV service till the late ’60s. The first Israeli TV transmission did not take place until 1966, and at first was intended only for schools for educational use. Regular public broadcasts began on Israeli Independence Day in May 1968. For almost two decades more, Israel had only one channel, and broadcasts were limited to specific hours of the day. A second channel debuted in 1986, and cable was introduced in 1990. Today, Israeli TV is a popular source for Hollywood scriptwriters: Homeland (Showtime), In Treatment (HBO), Your Family or Mine (TBS), Allegiance (NBC), Deal With It (TBS), Tyrant and Boom (Showtime) all are remakes of Israeli shows. 5. Queen Elizabeth II’s mother-in-law is buried in Jerusalem. Prince Philip’s mother, born in 1885 as Princess Alice of Battenberg and congenitally deaf, spent much of her life in Greece after marrying Prince Andrew of Greece and Denmark (yes, he was simultaneously prince of two different European countries). During the Nazi occupation of Greece, Alice hid a Jewish woman and two of her children from the Nazis, earning her eventual recognition by Israel’s Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial as a “Righteous Among the Nations” and by the British government as a “Hero of the Holocaust.” She moved to London in 1967 to live in Buckingham Palace with her son and daughter-in-law, Queen Elizabeth II. After the princess died two years later, her body was interred in a crypt at Windsor Castle. In 1988, she was transferred to a crypt at the Convent of Saint Mary Magdalene in Gethsemane on

8 | Jewish News | April 20, 2015 | jewishnewsva.org

Jerusalem’s Mount of Olives—honoring a wish she had expressed before her death. The Mount of Olives is home to the world’s oldest continuously used cemetery. 6. Alaska Airlines airlifted thousands of Yemenite Jews to Israel. When anti-Jewish riots broke out in Yemen after Israel’s victory in the 1948 War of Independence, Yemen’s Jewish community decided to move en masse to the Jewish homeland. James Wooten, president of Alaska Airlines, was among those moved by their plight. Between June 1949 and September 1950, Alaska Airlines made approximately 430 flights in twin-engine C-46 and DC-4 aircrafts as part of Operation Magic Carpet, the secret mission that transported nearly 50,000 Jews from Yemen to Israel. Pilots had to contend with fuel shortages, sandstorms and enemy fire, and one plane crash-landed after losing an engine, but not a single life was lost aboard the flights. 7. Golda Meir was the world’s third female prime minister. Meir (nee Myerson), who became Israeli prime minister in 1969, was preceded only by Sirimavo Bandaranaike of Sri Lanka (1960-65) and Indira Ghandi of India (1966-77). Born in Kiev and raised in Milwaukee, Meir moved to an Israeli kibbutz in her early 20s and quickly became active in Labor politics. Though popular with American Jews, Meir remains a subject of some derision in Israel for her perceived failures during the 1973 Yom Kippur War, when she opted not to attack preemptively Arab forces massing on Israel’s border with Syria. Though the Agranat Commission that investigated the war cleared Meir of direct responsibility, she resigned shortly afterward and was succeeded as prime minister by Yitzhak Rabin in 1974 (who served until 1977, but again became prime minister in 1992). 8. Israeli law began requiring solar water heaters in all new homes in 1980. The law was passed following the energy crisis of the late ‘70s and made Israel the world’s leader in the use of solar energy

per capita. Today, an estimated 85 percent of Israeli households use solar systems for hot water, amounting to some 3 percent of the nation’s energy consumption. However, today Israel lags behind other countries in implemented other solar energy solutions, and a growing number of new buildings in Israel utilize legal loopholes that provide exemptions to the solar heater law. 9. Jerusalem’s Mount Scopus is not technically part of the West Bank. Though situated in eastern Jerusalem, Mount Scopus, where Hebrew University and Hadassah Hospital have campuses, has been in Israeli hands since the state’s founding. After the conclusion of the War of Independence in 1949, the hilltop was controlled by Jews but surrounded by Jordan-controlled eastern Jerusalem. Israel maintained its Mount Scopus exclave by ferrying in troops and supplies every two weeks under United Nations guard. The convoys were frequently subject to Arab enemy fire, and an attack in 1958 killed four Israelis and one U.N. soldier. Mount Scopus was reunited with the rest of Jewish Jerusalem in the 1967 Six-Day War. 10. Albert Einstein was offered Israel’s presidency The offer came from David Ben-Gurion in November 1952 in the days after the death of Israel’s first president, Chaim Weizmann. “I am anxious for you to feel that the Prime Minister’s question embodies the deepest respect which the Jewish people can repose in any of its sons,” Israeli Ambassador Abba Eban wrote to the famed scientist. Einstein turned down the invitation, citing his advanced age and inaptitude at dealing with people. “I am deeply moved by the offer from our State of Israel, and at once saddened and ashamed that I cannot accept it,” Einstein replied, noting, “my relationship to the Jewish people has become my strongest human bond, ever since I became aware of our precarious situation among the nations of the world.” Interestingly, Ben-Gurion initially denied press reports about the invitation. Einstein died less than three years later.

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WASHINGTON (JTA)—Now that the outline for an Iran nuclear agreement has been released—or, more precisely, two outlines, one by Iran, the other by the Obama administration—major gaps have emerged that will need to be resolved ahead of a June 30 deadline for a final deal, including when sanctions on Iran are lifted. President Barack Obama and Iran’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, issued conflicting statements this month on the sanctions issue, with Obama suggesting sanctions would be relaxed only once Iran begins to implement its obligations and Khamenei demanding that all sanctions be suspended upon signing an agreement. Khamenei also vowed that military sites would not be open to nuclear inspectors, which clashes with the American text,

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which says inspectors have the right to visit suspicious sites “anywhere in the country.” The next round of talks is likely to be held within three weeks in New York City, on the sidelines of a meeting of the United Nations Disarmament Commission, and both Obama and Khamenei have said that nothing is agreed until everything is agreed. In the coming weeks, both sides will endeavor to sell the deal to its various constituencies: Iran to its domestic hardliners, and the Obama administration to Congress, Jewish groups and skeptical allies, Israel chief among them.

line, sanctions relief is conditioned on Iran abiding by its commitments. The sanctions architecture will remain in place so they can be quickly reimposed if Iran defaults. Additionally, Obama administration officials have emphasized that Iran’s breakout time will be extended from the current two to three months to a year, although how this will be quantified is not yet clear.

Prime

Minister

Benjamin

Netanyahu said

that the framework

What Iran wants to see In contrast with the phased relief outlined in the U.S. document, a “fact sheet” published by the Iranian Foreign Ministry posits an immediate lifting of sanctions after a deal is reached. On Thursday, April 9, in a speech broadcast live on Iranian television, Khamenei said there would be no point to the negotiations if they did not yield immediate sanctions relief. “All sanctions should be removed when the deal is signed,” Reuters quoted Khamenei as saying. “If the sanctions removal depends on other processes, then why did we start the negotiations?” On Twitter, Khamenei went further, accusing the United States of overall bad faith. “Hours after the #talks, Americans offered a fact sheet that most of it was contrary to what was agreed,” said a tweet posted on his feed. “They always deceive and breach promises.” On the enrichment question, the Iranian and American outlines are not mutually exclusive. “None of the nuclear facilities or related activities will be stopped, shut down or suspended, and Iran’s nuclear activities in all of its facilities including Natanz, Fordow, Isfahan and Arak will continue,”

deal would

threaten Israel’s survival.

What the Obama administration wants to see In its outline of a framework accord reached earlier this month in Switzerland, and in subsequent statements and interviews, the Obama administration has focused preeminently on the strict limits it is seeking on Iran’s capacity to enrich uranium. These include limiting Iran’s advanced centrifuges to scientific research and reducing the number of active firstgeneration centrifuges, from 19,000 to 5,060, for 10 years. Enrichment would be limited to 3.67 percent, the level required for medical research and well short of weaponization levels. Iran’s stockpile of enriched uranium would be limited to 300 kilograms for 15 years. The deal would also provide for a regimen of intrusive inspections at all Iranian facilities. “You have assurances that their stockpile of highly enriched uranium remains in a place where they cannot create a nuclear weapon,” Obama told National Public Radio. According to the administration’s out-

said the Iranian document, which goes on to name only Natanz as a site for 3.67 percent uranium enrichment, which comports with the U.S. document. The other sites are deemed acceptable for scientific research in the American version, a status that conceivably comports with “related activities” in the Iranian document. What Israel wants to see Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel said in the immediate wake of the agreement that the framework deal would threaten Israel’s survival. He counseled “standing firm and increasing the pressure on Iran until a better deal is achieved.” Netanyahu did not provide details, but in interviews he has said that Israel could tolerate a deal that left “hundreds” of centrifuges in place, as opposed to the 5,060 the U.S. outline anticipates—itself a significant concession for Netanyahu, who had previously said that Israel would tolerate no more than a zero capacity for uranium enrichment. Yuval Steinitz, Israel’s minister of intelli-

gence, also provided more details of Israel’s desires for a final deal in a briefing for reporters in Jerusalem, demanding a complete end to research and development of advanced centrifuges, the shuttering of the underground Fordo facility, and freedom for inspectors to go “anytime, anywhere.” In an Op-Ed published April 8 in the Washington Post, Moshe Yaalon, the Israeli defense minister, called for dismantling much of Iran’s nuclear infrastructure. “Intelligence and inspections are simply no substitute for dismantling the parts of Iran’s program that can be used to produce atomic bombs,” Yaalon wrote. Israel also has an eye on Iran’s destabilizing activities elsewhere in the region. The Obama administration and its five negotiating partners—China, Russia, France, Germany and Great Britain—see the nuclear deal as discrete from other Iranian actions. “Restrictions imposed on the Islamic Republic’s nuclear program will expire in about a decade, regardless of Iran’s cam-

paign of murderous aggression in Lebanon, Syria, Yemen and elsewhere across the Middle East; its arming, funding, training and dispatching of terrorists around the world; and its threats and violent efforts to destroy Israel, the region’s only democracy,” Yaalon wrote. Netanyahu recently also demanded Iran’s recognition of Israel as a component of a final deal, a requirement that Obama has said is unrealistic. What Congress wants to see Two bills under consideration in Congress, both backed by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, could affect the outcome of an Iran deal. One sponsored by Sens. Mark Kirk (R-Ill.) and Robert Menendez (D-N.J.), would mandate new sanctions should Iran default on a deal or walk away from the talks. Obama has said such a bill would scuttle the talks and has pledged to veto it. The bill was approved in January by the Senate Banking Committee. Now its fate

is in the hands of Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), the majority leader, who must decide whether it advances to the full body. McConnell has not shown his hand, but he is unlikely to move it forward unless he can build a veto-proof majority of 67, which would require the support of 13 Democrats. With Menendez sidelined as he faces indictment on corruption charges, that is unlikely. The other bill, backed by Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.), the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, would requires congressional review of an Iran deal. That bill was unanimously passed by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Wednesday, April 15. The compromise bill will allow Congress to vote to stop the deal if they wish, but will require 60 Senators and a simple majority of the House to accomplish this. Obama, who had previously said he would veto the Corker bill, now indicates that he could work with a modified version.

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Global surges of anti-Semitism Vandalism strikes Jewish deli in Copenhagen

Jewish deli and kosher supermarket in Copenhagen was vandalized. A window of the store was smashed and anti-Semitic epithets were scrawled on the wall, including “Jewish pigs,” The Local reported, citing the Berlingske Tidende newspaper. The attack, which was discovered on April 9 at Slagter & Delikatesse, comes less than two months after a terror attack outside a Copenhagen synagogue left a Jewish volunteer security guard dead.

In the wake of the synagogue attack, a guard protects the deli during business hours, The Jerusalem Post reported. “All vandalism is serious, but it is obvious that when it comes to this particular location, there will be an extra focus on it,” police investigator Kenneth Jensen told Berlingske. Also April 9, Denmark marked the 75th anniversary of the German invasion of the country, flying its flag at half-mast in front of the Danish Parliament. (JTA)

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even suspected members of an Islamist terror cell were arrested for plotting to bomb a Jewish bookstore in Barcelona. The cell also was planning attacks on local synagogues, as well as other public buildings in the Catalonia region, according to reports. Eleven people were arrested in total in northeastern Catalonia on April 8, and seven are under formal investigation, Reuters reported. They called themselves Islamic Brotherhood for Jihad Predication. The terror cell is similar to the Islamic State movement. (JTA) Her endorsement application made reference to her Judaism, including state-

ments such as “I identify as a proud South American and as a Jew,” and “I felt like I was not enough for the Latino community and further embraced my Jewish identity,” the student newspaper reported. Horwitz reportedly has asked for a public apology from the coalition. In a meeting with a university official, coalition members gave a different account of the line of questioning, according to the Review. The incident comes two months after a similar one at UCLA. The four student government members who questioned Rachel Beyda during a confirmation hearing later apologized. (JTA)

Swastikas drawn in University of Missouri dorm

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wastikas and anti-Semitic epithets were written in a stairwell of a dormitory at the University of Missouri in Columbia. The two incidents occurred on the April 9 and April 10. No suspects have been identified. The writing was done in ash, such as from the end of a cigarette or a cigar, the Columbia Daily Tribune reported. The vandalism has been removed. Neither the university nor police have released the contents of the epithets. University of Missouri police are investigating the incidents. Chantelle Moghadam, co-founder of Students Supporting Israel, a new campus

student organization, said in a statement that the graffiti included “a swastika, a symbol representing the ‘Illuminati,’ and the words ‘Heil’ and ‘You’ve been warned.’ “Our group wants to continue to bring awareness to campus about the fact that anti-Semitism still exists here,” Moghadam said. She said the graffiti did not just target Jews. “This goes to show that maybe we’re not as progressive and inclusive as we think we are as a campus,” she said. Thalia Sass, president of the Jewish Student Organization, told the student newspaper, The Maneater, that it was difficult to be Jewish on campus during such incidents. (JTA)

Obama, in meetings with Jewish leaders and donors, stresses how much he cares by Ron Kampeas

WASHINGTON ( JTA)—Jewish leaders expected President Barack Obama to sell them hard on the Iran nuclear deal. Instead, participants in two White House meetings on Monday, April 13 said he offered a softer pitch on how deeply he cares for Israel and the Jewish people. “He tried to explain he understands Jewish trauma, history, the Jewish feeling of being alone in a bad neighborhood,” says a participant in the first meeting, which was attended by 15 top officials from Jewish organizations. Another describes the meeting as “intense.” “There was an openheartedness, there were some deep reflections by the president,” this participant says. Sources say the second meeting, for Jewish fundraisers for the Democratic Party, had a similar cast. “He said, ‘I consider it a moral failure if something happened to Israel on my watch,’” a participant in the fundraisers’ meeting says. “He said, ‘I feel like I’m a member of the tribe.’” JTA spoke to six participants in the meetings, both of which were off the record. None agreed to be identified because of ground rules set by the White House. Additionally, representatives of a number of groups gave JTA descriptions of the meetings. The accounts did not differ. All six participants use “therapeutic” to describe the tone of the meetings. Obama’s tone—at times anguished, according to participants—signals his concerns about how his presidency, heading into lame duck territory, is perceived in terms of his relationship to Israel and to Jews. He raised these concerns in an interview with The New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman posted April 5 on the newspaper’s website. “It has been personally difficult for me to hear the sort of expressions that somehow we don’t have, this administration has not done everything it could

to look out for Israel’s interest,” Obama told Friedman. “And the suggestion that when we have very serious policy differences, that that’s not in the context of a deep and abiding friendship and concern and understanding of the threats that the Jewish people have faced historically and continue to face.” The worries come in the wake of a crisis in U.S.-Israel relations, focused mostly on disagreements over the Iran nuclear talks, but also fueled by lingering resentments over the collapse last year of the U.S.-brokered Israeli-Palestinian peace talks and the difficulties that Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have in communicating with one another. Jewish voter approval of Obama is at 54 percent, Gallup reported this month, just eight points above the national average of 46 percent. Jewish approval of Obama has routinely run 10-15 points higher than the national average throughout his presidency. Earlier this month, the major powers and Iran announced the outline of a deal that would exchange sanctions relief for restrictions aimed at keeping Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon. Congress was considering legislation that would require its review of any deal, and Obama had said he would veto it. (See page 10) Last week, Secretary of State John Kerry held a meeting with Jewish leaders from the same organizations attending the White House meeting asking them not to lobby in favor of the legislation. However, Democrats and Republicans in the Senate are close to a compromise on the legislation that would address White House concerns, and Obama told the second meeting with Jewish leaders that his concerns about the bill were allayed. It’s not clear what the compromises are, but Democrats are seeking to remove from the bill determinations for the contents of a final deal, which is due by June 30, and instead confine the bill to mandating congressional review of any deal. Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.), the

chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, told MSNBC on Tuesday, April 14 that a deal had been reached and that the bill was ready for a committee vote to take place that afternoon. The bill passed. A number of the more conservative organizational leaders attending the first meeting, among them Rabbi Marvin Hier, the dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, and Allen Fagin, the Orthodox Union’s CEO, challenged Obama on the particulars of the Iran deal, including concerns that the sanctions relief went further than merited by the restrictions on Iran’s nuclear activity. The meeting with the fundraisers became more of a strategy session on how Obama could better his messaging to Jewish-Americans, Israelis and the wider American community. Advice includes being more communicative with Congress, which has regarded the White House as insulated, and engaging directly with the Israeli public, which is still reeling over the bitter exchanges prior to Netanyahu’s speech to Congress in March. The address was arranged without consulting the White House. Along with Obama, National Security Adviser Susan Rice attended the first meeting. The second meeting included Vice President Joe Biden, who for decades has been close to the pro-Israel community, and Valerie Jarrett, one of Obama’s closest advisers.

Organizations represented at the first meeting included the World Jewish Congress, the Anti-Defamation League, the American Jewish Committee, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, J Street, the National Council of Jewish Women, B’nai B’rith International, the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, the Jewish Federations of North America, the National Jewish Democratic Council, the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations and the Israel Policy Forum, as well as representatives from the Reform, Conservative and Orthodox streams. The second meeting, with 14 invitees, included major Democratic givers and fundraisers, including Haim Saban, the Israeli-American entertainment mogul who has been critical of Obama’s Middle East policies; and Democratic donors associated with AIPAC, including past presidents Amy Friedkin and Howard Friedman, and with J Street, including Alexandra Stanton, Lou Susman and Victor Kovner. Not all of the Jewish leaders at the first meeting were won over by the president’s appeal for understanding. “People who come in with an anger and a dislike still walked out with an anger and a dislike,” says a participant who was sympathetic to the president but asked tough questions. “But a little guilty.”

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first person

Historical anniversaries, the struggle for racial equality and Pesach by Rabbi Arthur Ruberg April 10, 2015

’ll start by sharing with you that yesterday, April 9, was a special day for Miriam and me. It was our 37th anniversary. We were married just before Pesach in 1978, and since that date often coincides with Pesach, we’ve celebrated with lots of macaroons and matzah pizza ever since. Yesterday was also another anniversary, one of somewhat greater historical significance. April 9, 2015 was the 150th anniversary of the surrender at Appomattox. Marking the end of the American Civil War—a five year bloody war fought in part because the Confederacy was determined to preserve slavery and President Lincoln was committed to abolishing it. The growing community of Jews in America was divided on the war, the Jews of the North supporting the Union, and the Jews of the South

supporting the rebellion. Some 10,000 Jews fought in the Confederate army and several times that fought for the Union. In retrospect, it is totally fitting that the 150th anniversary of the war to abolish slavery in the United States fell on Pesach, the Jewish festival of freedom. Even then, the community of African-American slaves, then called Negroes, found hope and inspiration from the Pesach story in the Torah. They sang with gusto what we used to call “Negro spirituals,” especially “Go down, Moses, way down in Egypt land. Tell o’ Pharaoh, LET MY PEOPLE GO.” They found inspiration from the struggle of the ancient Israelites for freedom from slavery in Egypt. Ever since, as American blacks continued their battle for full equality, they continued to sing that song. I could talk for a long time today about the connection between Jews and blacks in the Civil Rights movement of our time (my

14 | Jewish News | April 20, 2015 | jewishnewsva.org

time anyway). But rather, I think I’ll share just one personal experience that conveys that connection better than anything else I could say. The story illustrates the close connection between the Pesach story in the Torah and the struggle for human rights in America. A little over 10 years ago, I was granted a three-month sabbatical by my congregation. I chose to spend it in part by going to different synagogues around the country so I could gather program ideas I could then use in my shul. Rabbis don’t usually have the luxury of seeing what other synagogues do on Shabbat. Anyway, on Martin Luther King weekend that year, I was visiting one of my close rabbi friends at his congregation in Montgomery, Ala. We spent Shabbat at his synagogue and the next day we went to the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church for the annual Martin Luther King memorial service where Dr. King served as pastor through the 1950s until he moved to Atlanta. You may remember that under Dr. King’s leadership, the Civil Rights movement in the Deep South started when women activists challenged the segregation laws by moving up to the all-white busses in Montgomery in the mid-fifties. Because of my relationship with my rabbi friend, he and I were invited before the public service to join the church deacons in prayer in a side room. It was truly a memorable experience. The head pastor introduced me to the group as “Rabbi Arthur from Virginia” and he even asked me to offer a prayer. I was honored, and I began to wonder “Why me? Who am I to be so honored?” Then we went into the church itself for the memorial service. The Church was packed to the back rows with people standing who had driven from all over the South. I saw busses in the parking lot that had come from Clemson University in South Carolina and from various colleges in Georgia. The main speaker was a white Alabama state official who had grown up believing that blacks were inferior, but who felt privileged to serve in government now with African-Americans as friends and colleagues. He had come to Montgomery to

thank the Church members and remember Dr. King who did so much to change the South and bring about justice for all. Again, with all the dignitaries who sat in the front rows near me, I was introduced as “Rabbi Arthur from Virginia.” That’s when it began to dawn on me why I was being treated like royalty. It didn’t matter that I was just a rabbi of a medium sized congregation in far-away Virginia. It didn’t matter that I had only met them minutes before. I came to realize that all of this wasn’t about me. It was about who I represented. I was the representative of Moses who taught us all about freedom so long ago. I was the representative of the great Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel who walked side by side through Alabama with Dr. King 50 years ago. I was up there because I was a rabbi. And to them as a rabbi, I represented Judaism, the religion that inspired their predecessors 50 years ago to stand up against oppression and for freedom. Never was I more proud to be a rabbi. Never was I more proud to say that I studied with Rabbi Heschel. Never was I more proud to be a Jew. That as “Rabbi Arthur” in the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church was one of the true highlights of my over 40-year career as a rabbi in America. I appreciate the opportunity to share that story on the 7th day of Pesach, the day we read in the Torah how Moses led the Jewish people across the Red Sea, away from slavery and on the road to the land of Israel and true freedom. And how appropriate it is that 150 years ago yesterday, the American Civil War ended, and our African-American neighbors at least began to travel down the road to justice, freedom and equality. And how special it is also that exactly 50 years ago last month, Rabbi Heschel led the rabbis of the 1960s in the freedom march through the streets of Selma. At times, being Jewish has been difficult. At times it can be frustrating. But sometimes it is downright inspirational. —Rabbi Arthur Ruberg delivered this sermon at his son Rabbi Jeremy Ruberg’s synagogue in New York.

Health Care

in the Jewish community

Supplement to Jewish News April 20, 2015

Health Care Published 22 times a year by United Jewish Federation of Tidewater.

Dear Readers, “Without your health, nothing matters!” Can you remember hearing your elderly relatives say those words, or a version of them, and also recall smiling and shaking your head, because it didn’t apply to you? I can’t remember exactly when, but I began finding myself saying the same not so many years ago. Truth is, eventually, we all end up expressing the sentiment. While we can’t choose our parents (and thus our genes), in 2015 there are plenty of lifestyle decisions that we may choose to enhance our health, our longevity and our quality of life. For instance, did you know that it is not just what you eat, but when you eat, that impacts your glucose surges? Check out the article about a Tel Aviv University study on the advantages of eating a high-caloric

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Reba and Sam Sandler Family Campus of the Tidewater Jewish Community 5000 Corporate Woods Drive, Suite 200 Virginia Beach, Virginia 23462-4370 voice 757.965.6100 • fax 757.965.6102 email news@ujft.org Terri Denison, Editor Germaine Clair, Art Director Hal Sacks, Book Review Editor Sandy Goldberg, Account Executive Mark Hecht, Account Executive Marilyn Cerase, Subscription Manager Reba Karp, Editor Emeritus Sherri Wisoff, Proofreader Miles Leon, President Stephanie Calliott, Secretary Harry Graber, Executive Vice-President www.jewishVA.org The appearance of advertising in the Jewish News does not constitute a kashrut, political, product or service endorsement. The articles and letters appearing herein are not necessarily the opinion of this newspaper. © 2015 Jewish News. All rights reserved. Subscription: $18 year For subscription or change of address, call 757-965-6128 or email mcerase@ujft.org.

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Health Care

Maimonides Society members support community programs while healing the world by Laine Mednick Rutherford

hey’re healers, researchers, artists and innovators. The variety of Jewish professionals who are members of the Maimonides Society of the United Jewish Federation of Tidewater is as broad as the diverse fields and specialties that prevail in healthcare today. Ranging from plastic surgeons to podiatrists, orthodontists to veterinary technicians, Maimonides members have at least two things in common: they work to heal others and they are committed to helping provide better lives for Jews in need—whether locally, nationally or globally. All Maimonides members have contributed at least $1,000 to the UJFT’s Annual Campaign, which in turn provides allocations to organizations, such as Jewish Family Service of Tidewater and the JDC (American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee), that provide food and medicine, or education or cultural enrichment, to those in need, wherever they may be. This year has been a busy and enlightening one for the Maimonides Society. Under the leadership of co-chairs Dr. Julius Miller and Dr. Steven Warsof,

Harriett Dickman and Debra Aleck.

things kicked off in late July with a Summer Social at the home of Alan and Dolores Bartel. About 40 medical professionals and their guests gathered for cocktails, hors d’oeuvres, conversation and the opportunity to hear from a medical student who attended Israel’s Bar Ilan University. In September, the Society co-hosted the first of three discussions in a new Bioethics lecture series, featuring Dr. Gerard Magill and Dr. Jonathan Crane who discussed bioethical issues from their respective religions—Catholic and Jewish. Partners with the Society in the series were Eastern Virginia Medical School, Old Dominion University and Bon Secours Virginia Health System. Held on September 4, January 29 and March 19, topics included Religion and Ethics as they pertained to dying, the beginning of life and emerging debates in healthcare. Society members had special opportunities to attend other events throughout the year. On November 19, medical professionals joined with members of the Business & Legal Society of the UJFT to hear Virginia’s Lt. Governor Dr. Ralph

Alison Ohana, Neil Schulwolf, Ralph Northam, Julius and Jeanne Miller.

continued on page 18

Lisa Binder Barr and Edie Weiss.

Ofer Merin, Marcia Samuel, Linda Samuels and Seven Warsof.

jewishnewsva.org | Health Care | April 20, 2015 | Jewish News | 17

Health Care continued from page 17

Northam speak about combining his work as a pediatric neurosurgeon with state politics. About 75 people attended the event, many staying to greet their friend, or ask more questions about changing healthcare laws and to further inquire about Northam’ s goals during his term. Two other special invitations for Maimonides members were extended

during the winter months. About 50 people attended a private reception held for visiting U.S. State Department dignitary, Ira Forman, the Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Anti-Semitism. Forman spoke about global anti-semitism at the reception and afterward to the community; the timely discussion coincided with the attacks on the Charlie Hebdo

Robert Lehman and Miles Leon.

Michael Salasky and Steven Warsof.

offices in Paris. Another reception was held on March 15 for Israel Defense Forces Reservist, Lt. Col. Ofer Merin, who was in Virginia Beach to speak at the Community Relations Council of the UJFT’s Israel Today Forum. Merin discussed his role as first responder—he’s the chief of the IDF Field Hospitals, and travels in that capacity to disaster areas around the world. He also spoke about his position as a cardiac surgeon, head of the trauma department, and Deputy Director General of Shaare Zedek Hospital in Jerusalem. Society members said they were impressed with the work Merin does, and didn’t envy some of the choices he had to make in either of his very tough jobs. The year will wrap up in June with a social and wine tasting on June 7 at a private home. The party is designed to both thank current Society members for their participation, their interest and their financial support of the Annual

Campaign, as well as to welcome other medical professionals who would like to find out more about the Maimonides Society and become members themselves. The mission of the Maimonides Society is to form a fellowship of Jewish healthcare professionals dedicated to educational, social and philanthropic activ ities. Together, members focus on the betterment of Jewish lives in Tidewater, in Israel and around the world. Throughout the year, there are opportunities for socializing, networking and learning, as well as a chance to demonstrate the many unique contributions members make through the integration of their medical and Jewish concerns. To join the Maimonides Society, or to find out more about upcoming events, Like the Maimonides Society’s Facebook page, www. fb.com/UJFTMaimonides, visit JewishVA. org/Maimonides, or call 757-965-6136.

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Health Care

A Breakfast of Champions for Diabetics Tel Aviv University researcher says high-energy breakfast and modest dinner can control dangerous blood sugar spikes all day Tel Aviv—The modern epidemic of obesity has led to an alarming rise in the incidence of diabetes. More than 382 million people on the planet suffer from diabetes, predominantly type-2 diabetes. For these people, blood sugar surges—glucose spikes after meals—can be life threatening, leading to cardiovascular complications. A new Tel Aviv University study published in Diabetologia proposes a new way to suppress deadly glucose surges throughout the day—eating a high-caloric breakfast and a more modest dinner. According to TAU’s Prof. Daniela Jakubowicz and Dr. Julio Wainstein of the Wolfson Medical Center’s Diabetes Unit, Prof. Oren Froy of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and Prof. Bo Ahrén of Lund University in Sweden, the combined consumption of a high-energy breakfast and a low-energy dinner decreases overall daily hyperglycaemia in type-2 diabetics. “We found that by eating more calories at breakfast, when the glucose response to food is lowest, and consuming fewer calories at dinner, glucose peaks after meals and glucose levels throughout the day were significantly reduced,” says Jakubowicz.

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All in the timing The new study was conducted on eight men and 10 women aged 30–70 with type2 diabetes. Patients were randomized and assigned either a “B diet” or “D diet” for one week. The B diet featured a 2946 kilojoule (kj) breakfast, 2523 kj lunch, and 858kj dinner, and the D diet featured a 858 kj breakfast, 2523 kj lunch, and 2946 kj dinner. Both diets contained the same total energy measured in kilojoules, a food energy measurement similar to a calorie, but were consumed at different times through the day, with the larger meal taking place during breakfast in the B diet. The larger meal includ-

ed two slices of bread, milk, tuna, a granola bar, scrambled egg, yoghurt and cereal; the smaller meal contained sliced turkey breast, mozzarella, salad and coffee. Patients consumed their diets at home for six days before the day of testing. On the seventh day, each group consumed their assigned meal plan at the clinic, and blood samples were collected just before breakfast and at regular intervals after the meal. Blood sampling was repeated at the same intervals after lunch and dinner. Post-meal glucose levels were measured in each participant, as well as levels of insulin, c-peptide (a component of insulin), and glucagon-like-peptide 1 hormone (GLP-1, also known as incretin: an indicator of glucose metabolism that stimulates insulin release). Two weeks later, patients switched to the alternate diet plan, and the tests were repeated. The results of the study showed that postmeal glucose elevations were 20% lower and levels of insulin, C-peptide, and GLP-1 were 20% higher in participants on the B diet compared with those on the D diet. What—and when—to eat Despite the fact that both diets contained the same calories, blood glucose levels rose 23 percent less after the lunch preceded by a large breakfast. “By demonstrating that a diet of high-energy breakfasts and more modest dinners is more effective in lowering overall daily post-meal glucose surges, we suggest that such a regimen is a powerful therapeutic approach for improving glycemic control and may potentially reduce cardiovascular complications in type- 2 diabetics,” says Jakubowicz. “It is not enough to tell the diabetic patient what he or she should or should not eat. It is more important to emphasize that a more advantageous meal schedule should be followed.”

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Your better half (by half?): Improving your fitness may improve your spouse’s. Tel Aviv University researcher finds the “power of the couple” has potential to get both partners moving Tel Aviv—With obesity on the rise in households across America, the demand for weight-loss treatments, personal trainers and lifestyle coaches is amping up. But when it comes to physical fitness, the best incentive to get in shape might be the very person sitting across from you at the dinner table. New research finds that exercising isn’t only good for you—it’s also good for your spouse. According to Dr. Silvia Koton of the Department of Nursing at Tel Aviv University’s Sackler Faculty of Medicine, lead investigator Dr. Laura Cobb, and their colleagues at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, if one spouse improves his or her exercise regimen, the other spouse is much more likely to follow suit. The study, presented last month at the American Heart Association’s EPI/Lifestyle 2015 Scientific Sessions in Baltimore, suggests that a better approach to helping people boost their physical activity might be to coach married couples together instead of individually. “It was well known that spouses exhibit similar risky behaviors like smoking and drinking, but it wasn’t clear how an individual’s level of physical activity was influenced by changes in his or her spouse’s level of physical activity,” says Koton. “Our study tells us that spouses can have a positive impact on one another in terms of staying fit and healthy over time.” A healthy partnership For the purpose of the study, the researchers examined records from the Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities (ARIC) Study, which in 1987 began following a group of 15,792 middle-aged adults from communities in Maryland, North Carolina, Minnesota and Mississippi. Koton and her colleagues analyzed data from two medical visits conducted roughly six years apart. At each visit, the researchers asked 3,261 spouse pairs about their physical activity levels. The Physical Activity Guidelines

for Americans, established by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, recommends that adults should exercise at a moderate intensity for a minimum of 150 minutes per week or at a vigorous intensity for at least 75 minutes per week. During the first visit, 45% of husbands and 33% of wives met these recommendations. Six years later, they found that when a wife met recommended levels of exercise at the first visit, her husband was 70 percent more likely to meet those levels at subsequent visits than those whose wives were less physically active. Likewise, when a husband met recommended exercise levels, his wife was 40% more likely to meet the levels at follow-up visits.

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Health Care

Breathe easier: get your D Study finds asthmatics with Vitamin D deficiency are 25 percent more likely to experience acute attacks

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Tel Aviv—Asthma, which inflames and narrows the airways, has become more common in recent years. While there is no known cure, asthma can be managed with medication and by avoiding allergens and other triggers. A new study by a Tel Aviv University researcher points to a convenient, free way to manage acute asthmatic episodes— catching some rays outside. According to a paper recently published in the journal Allergy, measuring and, if need be, boosting Vitamin D levels could help manage asthma attacks. The research, conducted by Dr. Ronit Confino-Cohen of TAU’s Sackler Faculty of Medicine, Meir Medical Center and the Clalit Research Institute, and Dr. Becca Feldman of the Clalit Research Institute, drew on the records of millions of patients and used physician diagnoses, rather than self-reports, for evidence of asthma episodes. “Vitamin D has significant immunomodulatory effects and, as such, was believed to have an effect on asthma—an immunologically mediated disease,” says Confino-Cohen, an allergy and clinical immunology specialist. “But most of the existing data regarding Vitamin D and asthma came from the pediatric population and was inconsistent. Our present study is unique because the study population of young adults is very large and ‘uncontaminated’ by other diseases.” A broad study Confino-Cohen and her team of researchers analyzed the medical records of nearly four million members of Clalit Health Services, Israel’s largest health care provider. The Vitamin D levels of 307,900 people were measured between 2008 and 2012. Researchers also took into account key predictors of asthma, such as obesity,

smoking and other chronic diseases. Of some 21,000 asthma patients in Israel studied, those with a Vitamin D deficiency were 25 percent more likely than other asthmatics to have had at least one flare-up in the recent past. The researchers found that Vitamin D-deficient asthmatics were at a higher risk of an asthma attack. “Uncontrolled asthma” was defined as being prescribed at least five rescue inhalers, one prescription of oral corticosteroids, or visiting the doctor for asthma at least four times in a single year. “Our results add more evidence to the link between Vitamin D and asthma, suggesting beneficial effects of Vitamin D on asthma exacerbations,” says Confino-Cohen. “We expect that further prospective studies will support our results.” Sunny side up? While most of the Vitamin D in people’s bodies comes from exposure to the sun, dermatologists recommend obtaining the ingredient from other sources—fish, eggs, cod liver oil, fortified milk or a dietary supplement—due to the dangers of overexposure to the sun. “We know a lot about this disease and many therapeutic options are available. So it’s quite frustrating that the prevalence of asthma is not decreasing and many patients suffer exacerbations and significant impairment in their quality of life,” Confino-Cohen says. “Increasing Vitamin D levels is something we can easily do to improve patients’ quality of life.” Based on the findings, the researchers recommend that people whose asthma cannot be controlled with existing treatments have their Vitamin D levels tested. For those with a Vitamin D deficiency, supplements may make sense.

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Health Care

Meet Omer Mei-Dan: Israeli BASE jumper, stuntman and orthopedic surgeon by Uriel Heilman

BOULDER, Colorado (JTA)—Omer MeiDan has jumped off more cliffs than he can count—not to mention helicopters,

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3,000 worldwide who jump from the fixed platforms for which the sport is named: buildings, antennas, spans and earth. Skydiving is a cakewalk by comparison. Because BASE jumpers leap from much lower altitudes, they often have mere milliseconds to deploy their parachutes. And for leaps that involve hazards below, like craggy mountainsides or steel structures, the risks are exponentially greater. To guide and control their falls, jumpers often don wingsuits, which make them look like bats or flying squirrels. Perhaps not surprisingly, BASE jumpers are killed with alarming regularity. Even a tiny mistake or misfortune—a gust of wind, impeded visibility, an equipment mishap—can mean sudden and violent death. But that’s all part of the thrill. “I like being afraid, I like the fear, I enjoy it,” Mei-Dan told JTA in an interview in Boulder, where he lives with his wife and three children. “In BASE jumping, every small thing dictates life or death. It makes me feel vibrant. Extreme sports athletes have the ability to sustain, cope with and enjoy the amount of stress other people would define as bad experiences.” Mei-Dan, who was born in Israel and moved to this city in 2012, stands out among BASE jumpers because he has found a way to combine his passion for extreme sports with his other area of expertise: medicine. A highly sought-after orthopedic surgeon with a robust medical practice at the University of Colorado in Denver and Boulder, Mei-Dan studies extreme sports athletes, operates on them and helps other physicians understand how to guide their rehabilitation. While he was in medical school, MeiDan was a Red Bull-sponsored extreme

sports athlete. He did stunts for corporate sponsors like McDonald’s and Coca-Cola. Last winter, the doctor starred in a 10-episode show on Fox Sports called Cutting Edge, MD that focused on Mei-Dan’s treatment and rehabilitation regimens for injured professional athletes. Mei-Dan’s ow n extreme athletic activities are not limited to BASE jumping. He does backcountry skiing and ice climbing in the winter, whitewater kayaking in summer, and rock climbing and mountaineering all year long. Raised on Kibbutz Ein Hamifratz north of Haifa, Mei-Dan’s outdoorsy pursuits began on a surfboard in the Mediterranean at age 10 and quickly escalated. His father was a pediatrician and Mei-Dan was always interested in medicine, but his drive to become a physician was strengthened in the Israel Defense Forces, where he says he couldn’t abide standing on the sidelines while comrades were injured. A paratrooper, Mei-Dan also found he really liked jumping. While studying medicine at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in Beersheba, MeiDan spent about three months a year traveling abroad indulging his extreme hobbies. He picked up sponsors like Red Bull and Nissan, did stunts for National Geographic and Discovery, and launched his own production company, ExtremeGate, to document his adventures. His mostly Israeli production team includes his wife, Hagit, whose sport of choice is open-water swimming. In Israel, Mei-Dan has jumped off the Azrieli towers in Tel Aviv, went cliff diving near the Dead Sea and jumped from all manner of flying vehicles. His medical interests developed in tandem. Mei-Dan studied orthopedics, became a sports surgeon and developed

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Health Care a subspecialty in hip preservation. Hip injuries are common among extreme sports athletes. Extreme sports athletes differ from other sportsmen in their physiology, endocrinology and even psyches, and need to be treated differently, Mei-Dan says. For example, a doctor who knows when to clear an injured soccer player to resume playing may not know enough to do so for rock climbers or BASE jumpers. The doctor might not realize, say, that a dislocated shoulder injury could lead to a BASE jumper’s death if he loses the dexterity to pull his chute while in flight. Mei-Dan outlined different approaches to treatment in a medical textbook he published in 2013, Adventure and Extreme Sports Injuries: Epidemiology, Treatment, Rehabilitation and Prevention, and last June he organized an international conference on extreme sports medicine in Colorado. Mei-Dan says his research suggests that extreme sports athletes are not subject to the post-traumatic stress that might affect others who witness gruesome fatalities or undergo frequent near-death experiences like those facing BASE jumpers. “These types of people are wired completely differently,” he said. “BASE jumpers are immune to PTSD.” The Israeli doctor, who has the trim physique of a rock climber, hasn’t escaped all his feats unharmed. A two-inch scar on his clean-shaven scalp is the result of striking a cliff. He also has cracked his pelvis, dislocated his ankle, torn his elbow and cracked ribs. On average, Mei-Dan says he needs one or two reparative surgeries per year. He’s also seen many of his friends die right in front of him—something he shrugs off with the insouciance he says is necessary for extreme athletes. “Seeing fatalities, experiencing near-misses, injuring myself and having surgery—it’s all part of jumping,” Mei-Dan said. In his younger and more careless days, Mei-Dan often would give his jumps a twist to make things more exciting—and perilous. When he jumped from the Eiffel Tower, Mei-Dan and his jumping partner, Jeb Corliss, compounded the danger by jumping through the center of the monument rather than off it, falling through the

hollow centers of the viewing platforms before deploying their chutes some 200 feet above the ground. Mei-Dan easily could have been killed: missing the hole and smashing into a platform, deploying his chute too early and getting it snagged on the steel latticework, or deploying his chute too late and crashing into the ground at breakneck speed. “The margin of error was about onetenth of a second,” Mei-Dan recalled, noting that a jumper that tried soon afterward to replicate the stunt died in his attempt. Mei-Dan came to Boulder three years ago, lured by a great job, proximity to the mountains and a culture that reveres the outdoors. When fresh snow fell in Colorado in late February after a long dry spell, MeiDan woke early that Monday morning to ski the backcountry some two hours from his home before zipping back to the city to see patients in the afternoon. “I love the life here. I feel it’s exactly what I want and what I need,” he said. “I can walk five minutes to the flatirons”— the 1,500-foot rock formations just outside Boulder—“and climb them with my children. It’s a lifestyle.” The Mei-Dans are also involved in the local Jewish community. His kids go to the JCC Ranch Camp in Colorado in the summer, his wife is involved in the Jewish federation and the family is connected to other Israeli expats in the Denver area. Though he has lived on five continents in the past 10 years, Mei-Dan said he didn’t imagine a long-term future outside of Israel until about three years ago, when he got the job offer in Colorado and realized that in Boulder he could both maintain his extracurricular pursuits and do the kind of clinical work he finds interesting. “Instead of looking into these activities that I like to do so much as just hobbies and just do them once in a while, I can actually live this life and enjoy them in a place that also offers me the university and the clinical practice,” he said. “Here you can snowboard, ice climb, mountain bike and rock climb in the same day, basically, and kayak and skydive and BASE jump and do whatever you want to do. This is how I want to live my life. I didn’t have to compromise.”

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Book Review A documentation of events surrounding the Nazi pogroms 75 Jahre Reichskristallnacht Anna Rosmus Grafenau: Samples, 2013 157 pages

nna Rosmus, the German author and public intellectual, is well-known to quite a few in the Jewish community of Hampton Roads since the Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures at Old Dominion University invited her several times to be a featured speaker for their international symposia which it had organized 1998–2009. Rosmus first made headlines in 1981 as a high school student when she exposed in an award-winning research paper, the dark Nazi-past of Passau, her hometown in Lower Bavaria. In 1990, the German film director Michael Verhoeven made a film about her called Das schreckliche Mädchen (The Nasty Girl) which was nominated for an Academy Award in the category of Best Foreign Film. In the wake of Hollywood, The Nasty Girl has become a classic in German Studies, Jewish Studies and other related disciplines. Since her first research paper, Rosmus has made a name for herself as a prolific author of a dozen books and numerous articles in anthologies, as well as journalistic essays in international newspapers including the New York Times. She has been featured several times on German television, appeared twice on 60 Minutes in the United States and has participated in talk shows or been the subject of documentaries in 11 countries around the world. Since 1985, Rosmus has been working with German Jewish veterans who have returned to Germany after World War II as part of the American occupying force. A decade later she began to facilitate encounters between Jewish immigrants who came from Germany, Austria, Poland and Hungary and she organized several trips for American veterans to revisit their former battlefields in Lower Bavaria at the end of World War II. Rosmus’ latest book 75 Jahre Reichskristallnacht (75 Years After the

Kristallnacht of the Third Reich) documents and commemorates the events surrounding the Nazi pogroms against Germany’s Jewish population in 1938, which became known as “Kristallnacht,” the “Night of Broken Glass.” It marked the systematic escalation of state-sponsored terror against the country’s Jewish population, which eventually was to culminate in the Holocaust. In his preface to Rosmus’ book, Rabbi Walter Homolka, director of the Abraham Geiger College at the University of Potsdam, remembers the pervasive misgivings, if not aggressive aversion of many citizens of Passau and beyond, when Anna Rosmus first began her research, but he also concludes: “A lot has changed. For this book, Anna Rosmus has received assistance from all sides in her endeavors to shed light on the local happenings surrounding 1938” (p. 7; all translations from the German are mine.) In her introduction, Rosmus states that her book intends to be a documentation of the events and victims of “Kristallnacht” in Passau and circa 15 other villages and towns surrounding Passau. She characterizes the goal of her documentation as a “starting point” for students, teachers, journalists and researchers of local history, providing names, places and other dates for further exploration. A total of 597 footnotes with further references substantiate her narrative. A major source of information is Ernst Finger, a former citizen of Vilshofen near Passau. After “Kristallnacht,” he was detained for a month in the concentration camp of Dachau. Following his release, he took detailed notes of his experiences before he finally emigrated to Chile. Many years later, he shared them with Rosmus in an extensive correspondence that lasted from 1986 to 1990. She complements Finger’s information with other eyewitness accounts as well as additional data from communal and federal archives. With her persistent exploration, she was not only able to reconstruct complete biographies, but also to contact survivors or trace their descendants in different parts of the world. As in some of her earlier books, Rosmus integrates into her narrative a substantial amount of visual material, most of which

The book intends to be a documentation of the events and victims of Kristallnacht in Passau and other villages.

she found when emigrants or their relatives shared their family albums with her. This visual material includes photographs of Jewish citizens in Passau and its surrounding villages in the 1920s and 1930s, Nazi pamphlets, emigration papers and ultimately pictures of tomb stones of Passau’s Jews who had emigrated to America, Chile and Israel. In principle comparable to Yaffa Eliach’s Tower of Life in the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., toward the end of her book, the author provides a long list of names of Jewish citizens from the Passau area who perished in the Holocaust, complementing the names with pertinent biographical data. The author’s concluding chapter entitled

“In Memoriam” describes the growing memorial culture, which sprang up in recent years all over Germany. Following the nationwide movement of implanting so-called “Stolpersteine” (stumbling stones) in front of houses where Jews once lived, before they were deported or forced to emigrate, several houses and public places in and around Passau are now marked by such momentous mementos. May Anna Rosmus’ formidable book also serve as an informative stumbling stone for future generations of Germans in their continuing research and remembrance. —Dr. Frederick A. Lubich is a professor of German at Old Dominion University.

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jewishnewsva.org | April 20, 2015 | Jewish News | 27

first person

Summer Institute for Jewish Living holds 40-year reunion by Phyllis White

n the summer of 1974, 15 local teenagers experienced an amazing month-long adventure in Israel. The trip followed a month of Judaic study taught by two Brandeis University graduate students and Hebrew taught by Froike Inbar, Community Shaliach, at the Jewish Community Center of Tidewater on Newport Avenue in Norfolk. The experience was so meaningful and important that 13 of the 15 gathered for a 40+ year reunion March 22 at the home of participant Terri Denison. Many traveled from out of town and had not seen each other since the trip. It was a wonderful and fun reunion, which included the two people responsible for the program’s creation and implementation, Dr. Barry and Lois Einhorn and Skyping with Sue Shaffer Deitch in Philadelphia, one of the tour chaperones and former director of Groups Service at the JCC. Many brought their scrapbooks, which were a huge hit, along with a slide show loaded onto a big screen TV. The fact that these scrapbooks have been carried along in our lives, surviving the de-cluttering cuts that multiple moves and downsizing might entail, attests to the place in our hearts this experience holds. Alumni attending the reunion were: Marcy Goldsticker (Berger), Lisa Bresenoff (Feierstein), Gary Danoff, Terri Denison, Sheila Drucker, Marty Einhorn, Jeff Goldman, Jonathan Leavitt, Roger Liebowitz, Margie Marcus, Bobby Morrell, Judy Rosenblatt and Phyllis White. Alan Lowenthal and Kim Goldner were with us in spirit. The American Zionist Youth Foundation assisted in planning the Israel tour. The reunion generated enthusiastic fondness and discussion of particular highlights: Ein Gedi Field School near the Dead Sea where we hiked up and down canyon walls into water waist deep to play in gorgeous pools and waterfalls; Gadna Camp, joining scores of Israeli teenagers in a paramilitary style camp, in uniform, sleeping on straw mats in green canvas tents, going through military maneuvers, climbing over and through

28 | Jewish News | April 20, 2015 | jewishnewsva.org

Front row: Shelia Drucker, Phyllis White, Terri Denison. Second row: Gary Danoff, Marcy Goldsticker Berger, Margie Marcus, Jonathan Leavitt. Third row: Lisa Bresenotff-Feierstein, Marty Einhorn, Bobby Morrell, Judy Rosenblatt, Jeff Goldman, Lois and Barry Einhorn. Tallest in far back: Roger Leibowitz.

obstacle courses, sometimes on our bellies, eating simple foods (bread and jam with dead bees still in it!); Jerusalem and the Western Wall and Yad Vashem, being deeply moved by and connected to our deep Jewish roots; and Kibbutz Gesher Haziv on the Lebanese border, working hard in the cotton fields. The JCC and United Jewish Federation subsidized much of the cost of Summer Institute for Jewish Living decades before the concept of the free Birthright trips to Israel emerged. Dr. Barry Einhorn, then chair of the Bureau of Jewish Education, envisioned the program and worked hard at promoting and achieving acceptance and support for it. Einhorn recalls that he felt an important feature of the program was the study component to give participants perspective and “greater depth of understanding” and appreciation for the Israel trip. Einhorn traveled to Brandeis University to interview and hire PhD students Steve Mostov (the other tour chaperone) and Larry Sternberg. Israel experiences for young people

have been proven to strengthen bonds to Israel and Judaism, as well as promote Jewish leadership. To select the SIJL participants, the Einhorns asked Tidewater youth group advisors to nominate teens who demonstrated leadership potential and/or who were already leaders in their respective organizations, e.g. Temple youth groups, BBYO, Jewish sororities and fraternities. Reunion attendees spoke about their adult commitments inspired by their strengthened Jewish identities with the SIJL. (see some on page 29) In the early planning stages of the reunion, Marcy Goldsticker Berger summed up best (on our SIJL Facebook page) the sentiments of all of us for this meaningful, fun and for some, life-changing program: “I would love to get together and to see everyone. 40 years! We must include Barry and Lois as well. I continue to thank them for all they did to make that year possible.” The reunion clearly confirmed the close bonding experience and love for this ‘family’ we created more than 40 years ago.

Lifetime impact of SIJL for Jewish Living. I am also a life member of Hadassah and an ardent supporter of many organizations that support Israel. Thank you Norfolk Jewish Federation in believing in this program, it made a lifelong impact on me! Margie Marcus has been a member of a Washington, D.C.’s Temple Micah’s choir for six years, singing in an environment where the music recalls both USY and NFTY folk tunes and Israeli melodies (jazzed up and on steroids!) She attended the North American Jewish Choir Festival several years ago “to further my love of modern Jewish music, which I’m sure was influenced by the time and our experience visiting the modern Jewish state and its Zionist pioneers.”

Marty Einhorn returned to Israel on a Men’s UJFT mission trip. He and his wife sent both their boys to Hebrew Academy with which they went to Israel on the annual 8th grade trip. He is the current president of the Simon Family Jewish Community Center and has been active with Ohef Sholom Temple where he blows the shofar for the High Holidays and other important occasions. In fact, as a surprise at the reunion, Marty pulled out the shofar he had purchased in Israel on the SIJL trip and wowed everyone with his incredible talent, “calling” the group to gather to eat.

Roger Leibowitz lives in Richmond and has served on the boards of the Richmond JCC, Beth Ahabah Museum and Archives and the Beth Sholom Auxiliary. In 2001 he became executive director of the Richmond Jewish Foundation. “Almost 30 years after going to Israel with the support of the Tidewater Jewish community I had the privilege of giving back to my community through my work at the Foundation. Truly a full circle moment,” he says. Roger’s first return to Israel was in 2003 as part of the Federation General Assembly in Jerusalem. He also celebrated his son’s Bar Mitzvah in Israel as part of a family trip with Congregation Beth Ahabah in 2012.

Lisa Bresenoff-Feierstein spoke of her leadership involvement in her synagogue. “The Israel trip that I was honored to be a part of when I was 17 years old, paved the way for me to be a spokesperson and lover of everything Israeli. My husband, Steve and I were Federation Mission leaders with my extended family, actually we had three generations (Harriet and Mort Bresenoff, Marc Bresenoff, Lisa and Steve BresenoffFeierstein, Aaron and Josh Feierstein), for the Raleigh Jewish community a number of years ago. I have always taken on leadership roles in the Raleigh Jewish Federation, which was all a direct result of not only my mom and dad being great role models, but my early experience with being part of the 1974 Summer Institute

Phyllis White, president of the Tidewater Jewish Youth Council at the time, was a first student year at UVa soon after the trip and was inspired to take courses in Old Testament, Biblical Hebrew and Jewish Studies. She switched her goal from law to becoming a Religious Studies major and eventually a Jewish educator for 33 years, returning to Israel four times including her junior year at the Hebrew University. After college she returned to Israel where she did a kibbutz/ulpan program, and worked for the Reform Youth Movement as a Madricha/trip leader and office assistant. Phyllis also did the popular Volunteers For Israel program, spending three weeks on an army base in army uniform helping with various tasks.

The group in front of the John F. Kennedy Memorial in Israel in 1974.

Marcy Goldsticker Berger The Tidewater Jewish community and my trip to Israel at 16 years old has played a large role in my Jewish connection. I love being Jewish. I married a Jewish man from N.J. We raised our children in a conservative synagogue in Bethesda, Md. and both were b’nai mitzvahed and studied at Hebrew school until their confirmation at 16 years old. Sasha, our 20-year-old daughter at WashU and Andrew, our 26-year-old son, who was active in the JSA at Macalester College, both celebrate Jewish holidays when away from home whether at college or now afterwards in Andrew’s case. We went to Israel as a family and Andrew went on birthright and Sasha will also take that trip. Terri Denison continues her commitment to Jewish life as editor of the Jewish News. She traveled to Israel on a UJFT Mission in 1991, is an honorary board member at Ohef Sholom Temple and has served on the executive board of the JCC and on UJFT committees, including the Community Relations Council and the Holocaust Commission, among others. In fact, she met her husband at a UJA convention in Washington D.C. Her daughters have assumed leadership roles in the North American Federation of Temple Youth.

jewishnewsva.org | April 20, 2015 | Jewish News | 29

Literacy: How do preschoolers develop reading skills? by Lorna Orleans, Strelitz Early Childhood Center preschool director

Teaching literacy in preschool involves helping students develop readiness skills to read and comprehend. As early as two years old, children begin building these skills. Strelitz Early Childhood Center teaches literacy, preparing students for kindergarten and the school years ahead, in a variety of ways. Encouraging conversation From babble to bubbly conversation, at age two, the emphasis is on developing expressive and receptive language skills. Teachers facilitate conversations with and between children. They help students join vocabulary into phrases and use a lot of verbal direction. Book awareness and reading aloud Reading to students is a primary way of developing pre-reading skills. Through Read Alouds at Strelitz, children learn to associate oral language with the written word and start to develop auditory discrimination and memory skills. Read Alouds are interactive, where teachers choose appropriate age books and offer opportunities during reading for students to make predictions. Books have repetitive phrases, which children recite. Oversized board books are often used so illustrations are visible, encouraging children to express their thoughts about the pictures, as well as to become aware of how to orient and turn its pages.

Listening The Strelitz preschool has a library of books accompanied by audio CDs. Children learn to listen for the sound that signals the turning of the page. Repeating familiar nursery rhymes, while integrating finger plays and using felt storyboards helps develop expressive language and sequencing skills. This is an important precursor to reading. When a two-year-old retells a story he has heard, he is on his way to being a reader. In the three-year-old program, teachers expand upon Read Alouds, maintaining classroom libraries that reflect current units. Added to this experience is the Mystery Reader program, where family members and friends are invited into the classroom to read favorite stories. At this stage, language development expands through sharing experiences and initiating conversations with peers during circle time. Students build auditory discrimination and memory skills as they retell or act out stories, repeat rhymes and learn to participate in the language of songs. Using table-top manipulatives for matching and sequencing, students also develop visual discrimination and memory skills, all tools for reading readiness. Word identification Three year olds are able to identify their names in writing as well as their friends’ names, and some can identify beginning letter sounds and connect them to their letter symbols. Teachers introduce writing centers with various writing and drawing implements, allowing students to experiment with writing letters. At this stage,

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Newly appointed Rabbi of Tidewater Chavurah

rabbicantorejg@gmail.com 215-359-7806 30 | Jewish News | April 20, 2015 | jewishnewsva.org

they can describe and dictate captions for their artwork, and learn the concept that “writing is talk written down.” Phonemic sequencing As children move into the four-year-old Pre-K program, their involvement with the written word becomes more active than passive. They also become proficient at identifying the letters of the alphabet and associating their sounds with the symbols. Teachers use a phonemic sequencing program that introduces the sounds of consonant pairs as well as vowel sounds which are grouped into smile, open and round sounds. Students learn the concept of joining consonant and letter sounds to create recognizable

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Jacquie Lam, Strelitz Early Childhood Center teacher’s assistant, works with four-year-old preschooler Leo Gottlieb on putting together consonants and vowels. This is a concept of the school’s phonemic sequencing program, aimed at teaching preschoolers reading readiness skills.

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words, with some developing a sight word vocabulary. Creative drawing and writing Teachers maintain “print rich” classrooms with libraries that include fiction and nonfiction selections. Through the use of “Handwriting without Tears” concepts, students learn to form letters and refine their grip. With well-stocked writing centers and opportunities for creative drawing, some students begin to write using inventive spelling as they create captions for their artwork. With pre-reading skills in place, four year olds are primed to learn to read. To quote Dr. Seuss, “The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you’ll go.” Hebrew Academy of Tidewater Konikoff Center of Learning and the Strelitz Early Childhood Center preschool is accredited by the Virginia Association of Independent Schools and is recognized as such by the Virginia Board of Education. It is also a founding member of RAVSAK. Serving students from preschool through fifth grade, the school is also a recipient agency of the United Jewish Federation of Tidewater, Tidewater Jewish Foundation and the United Jewish Community of the Virginia Peninsula. To learn more about Hebrew Academy and the Strelitz Early Childhood Center preschool, contact Carin Simon, director of admissions, at 757-424-4327 or csimon@hebrewacademy.net.

what’s happening First person

Spring into Healthy Living! Joan Lunden–Sunday, April 26, 2 pm Run Roll or Stroll–Sunday, May 3, 8 am by Betty Ann Levin, JFS executive director

11th Annual Run, Roll or Stroll

ave you seen the sunrise at the Oceanfront lately? I have! For the last seven years, a group of dedicated JFS board members, employees and other volunteers have arrived at 0’dark thirty to set up for the annual Run, Roll or Stroll (the race moved to the Oceanfront in 2008). By the time the first runners and walkers start arriving around 6:45 am, what has become a tradition in our community, is in full swing! The Run, Roll or Stroll—an 8k run, 5k run/walk and 1 mile run/walk—brings out both the serious (and not-so-serious) athletes from around our community. This includes those who want to take a nice Sunday morning stroll on the boardwalk and so many members of our Jewish community—of all ages. The Hebrew Academy of Tidewater’s “Team Tiger” grows each year, as does participation from our other schools, youth groups, and synagogues. I hope every one

of our local synagogues will bring a team this year. (Just enter your synagogue name in as your race team name when you register online.) When the 1 mile race—the largest event of the morning—starts, the feeling of excitement among all of the children, teens, parents and spectators is palpable! It is a family morning, a fun morning and a morning where our entire Jewish community comes together. Each of us is helping someone right here in Tidewater by participating in the Run, Roll or Stroll. We are allowing JFS to serve one more meal, counsel one more child who has lost a parent or help one more individual get back on his or her feet after surgery. Join me on Sunday, May 3 and watch the sunrise! Register for the Run, Roll or Stroll at www.jfsrunrollorstroll.org. Jewish Family Service is a constituent agency of United Jewish Federation of Tidewater.

A Run, Roll or Stroll runner watches the sunrise over the Atlantic.

You’ve seen her on TV, now see her in person

always enjoyed watching Joan Lunden on television and now I’m thrilled to welcome her to our community on Sunday, April 26. The American journalist, author and television host will speak at 2 pm in Norfolk Academy’s Samuel C. Johnson Theater. In the summer of 2014, Lunden announced that she is battling breast cancer and has become a passionate ambassador for breast cancer awareness and screening. Lunden says, “I am honored to be sharing my story at JFS’s 2015 Spring into Healthy Living event and being a part of the JFS mission of supporting Joan Lunden their community and promoting health at 1585 Wesleyan Drive, Norfolk. and happiness.” The presenting sponsor of Spring Into In addition to Lunden, we will hear briefly from Dr. Judith Salerno, president Healthy Living is Towne Bank. Lead sponand CEO of Susan G. Komen for the Cure. sors are the Lee and Bernard Jaffe* Family This event is free and open to the Fund of the Tidewater Jewish Foundation. community. Turnout is expected to be The Copeland/Klebanoff Families are the large, so reserve your seats now at http:// Diamond sponsor. tinyurl.com/joanlunden or call JFS at * Of blessed memory 757‑321‑2222. Norfolk Academy is located

11th Annual JFS Run, Roll or Stroll — Sunday, May 3

Registration and check-in

8K Run, 5K Run, and 5K Walk

1 Mile Run/Walk

6:45 am 8 am 9:15 am

Post Race Party begins after races Register at www.jfsrunrollorstroll.org Race packet pickup: Friday, May 1, 8 am–4 pm, Simon Family JCC The Arnowitz family at the 2014 Run, Roll or Stroll.

Betty Ann Levin with her family at last year’s race.

jewishnewsva.org | April 20, 2015 | Jewish News | 31

what’s happening David Broza performs for Celebrate Israel

Celebrate Israel Series features the film, Jerusalem

Thursday, May 21, 7 pm, Sandler Center for the Performing Arts

Thursday, April 23, 6 pm and 8 pm, Virginia Beach Aquarium

David Broza

or nearly 40 years, Israeli superstar David Broza has been considered one of the most dynamic and vibrant performers in the singer/songwriter world. Broza will perform live at Virginia Beach’s Sandler Center for the Performing Arts as the last event in the JCC’s Celebrate Israel series, presented by Charles Barker Automotive. Broza’s charismatic and energetic perfor-

mances deliver fusions of the three different countries in which he was raised: Israel, Spain and England. He has filled concert halls with his famous guitar playing, ranging from flamenco flavored rhythmic and percussion techniques, to whirlwind finger picking, to a signature rock and roll sound. Broza unites his three distinct cultural experiences with his ability to utilize the troubadour style tradition, featuring lyrics of the worlds’ greatest poets. Broza’s global tours have resulted in collaborative performances with musical figures such as Paul Simon, Al Dimeola, Bob Dylan, Spyro Gyra, Van Morrison, Jose Fernandez, Sting and more. In early 2014, Broza released the album, East Jerusalem West Jerusalem. Now on tour, he is presenting this album made in an East Jerusalem, Palestinian studio Sabreen, with Israeli, Palestinian and American musicians. This very spiritual and uplifting music is not to be missed. Tickets for this final Celebrate Israel event are on sale both at the JCC front desk, 321-2338, and the Sandler Center and are $25, $40 and $55. The Simon Family JCC is a constituent agency of United Jewish Federation of Tidewater.

Women cancer survivors honored at 4th Annual Pink Tea

ee Jerusalem through the eyes of three different teenage girls in the brilliant documentary at the Giant Screen Theater at the Virginia Beach Aquarium. This event is the second in the Simon Family JCC’s Celebrate Israel Series, sponsored by Charles Barker Automotive. The documentary, Jerusalem, makes it possible to virtually visit this holy place, thanks to the vision and daring of the team behind the film, presented by National Geographic Entertainment. “Jerusalem’s producers faced huge challenges to gain access to sacred spaces as well as the airspace above the holy city, which is usually a no-fly zone,” according to an article by The Huffington Post. Three teenage girls, Farah Ammouri, a Muslim, Nadia Tadros, from a Greek Orthodox and Catholic family and Revital Zacharie, a Jew, each took one of the producers (separately) on a one-day tour of

Jerusalem. “What was really amazing was that they would bring me to some of the same places in the city and tell me entirely different things,” he says. “Revital would point out Jewish history, but when I asked her if she knew about the Christian or Muslim attachment to the same places, she didn’t. The same was true of the other girls.” The producers say their goal was “to look at the roots of the universal attachment to Jerusalem: Jewish, Christian and Muslim. We hope the juxtaposition of these different religions and cultures— all with profound spiritual and historical connections to the city—will reveal how much Jews, Christians and Muslims have in common and inspire all of us to better understand each other.” Tickets for $18 or $15 for JCC members, are available at the JCC front desk; at the Aquarium on Thursday, April 23.

Sunday, May 4, 2 pm

Shaye Arluk and her mothemple Emanuel will er Leslie Siegel, Thomasina honor women cancer Scarbor and Renee Heyman. survivors at its annual Pink All of the money collected Tea. The event raises funds at the event will be donated to support the Beach Health to the Clinic. The minimum Clinic of Virginia Beach, an contribution is $7.50. Last organization that provides year, more than $2,000 mammograms for women was donated. The expenses who do not have any medassociated with the tea are ical insurance. covered by Pink Angels. The discussion at Dr. Louise Lubin Reservations may be the Pink Tea will explore “Cancer in the Family.” One of the speak- made by contacting Temple Emanuel at ers, Dr. Louise Lubin, a local psychologist, 428-2591 or Renee Heyman at 853-2145. has lectured on this subject and worked with area patients. Other presenters will be

32 | Jewish News | April 20, 2015 | jewishnewsva.org

Camp JCC Dive-in Open House Sunday, May 31, 1–4 pm

n afternoon of fun and frolicking is planned for the Simon Family JCC pool and fields. Enjoy some wacky water games and a slip ’n’ slide and dive into Camp JCC, including a GAGA tournament with prizes. Play as a team or as an individual. Games start at 2 pm. Special discount when registering for

one or all eight weeks of Camp JCC on this date. Email campjcc@simonfamilyjcc.org or call 321-2306 for more information.

what’s happening Beth El’s 165th — Sunday, May 3, 7 pm A display of kiddush cups made by the synagogue’s youth and ongregation Beth by professional artists, El will celebrate its including the Chrysler 165th anniversary with Museum’s glass studio, a free and open to the will be available for sale community commemoand by silent auction. A rative program. reception will follow. The program, Beth “Remembering the El Norfolk 1850–2015: past while honoring What We Built, is made the present is threaded possible in memory of throughout the evening,” Maxwell and Burnette says event chair Mickey Zedd by their children, These kiddush cups—from the Chrysler Held. “What better way Kay Kesser and Ronald Museum’s glass studio—are examples of Kiddush cups that will be available for sale and to stitch them together Zedd. bidding during a silent auction on the night than to honor all our conThe evening will of Congregation Beth El’s 165th anniversary celebration. (Photo by Betty Greenspan) gregants, from generation feature a video journey down memory lane, including clips of per- to generation, l’dor v’dor.” Make reservations by calling Congregation sonal stories, hundreds of old photos and a history of the sanctuary’s stained-glass win- Beth El at 757-625-7821 or by email noelle@ dows—all enhanced by professional and bethelnorfolk.com. amateur music. by Mark Kozak

YAD Talks: Big gains, huge losses, lessons learned with former Madoff trader, Andrew Cohen Thursday, April 30, 6 pm, Bite Restaurant & Catering

he stories Andrew Cohen will share at the Spring 2015 YAD Talks networking event could be the basis for a new Netflix Original Series: stellar career success, huge financial gains, early retirement, devastating losses, Andrew Cohen guilt-by-association, victimization, intrigue, naiveté and, now, reinvention. Cohen, a professor at Old Dominion University, teaches finance classes, including Wall Street 101, a subject he knows well. For a decade, Cohen was a top trader and investor for Bernie Madoff’s New York investment firm. He left the business before it came crashing down, but not before investing millions with his former boss. Like thousands of other individuals and organizations (many of them Jewish), Cohen became a victim of Madoff’s illegal scam—the largest Ponzi scheme in U.S. history—and lost most of his money. Jacob Mart, a financial analyst with Harbor Group International and YAD Talks co-chair with Shikma Rubin, is looking forward to hearing these stories, and the lessons Cohen has to share.

“This event will be entertaining, but also inspire and inform,” says Mart. “We are very fortunate that Andrew has agreed to speak to us in the intimate setting of YAD Talks. He’s a great guy and has a really unique story. It’s one of great success, and ultimately pursuit of happiness.” The Spring 2015 YAD Talks is a presentation of the Young Adult Division of the United Jewish Federation of Tidewater. Mart says YAD Talks creates an environment for a different conversation to take place in the Jewish community, and hopefully provides a way for Jewish young adults to connect and form friendships. The event at Bite Restaurant includes free appetizers with a cash bar. Space is limited. Register at www.jewishva. org/yad-talks, or email byaffe@ujft.org for more information. Bite Restaurant is located at 440 Monticello Ave Suite 110 in Norfolk. The Young Adult Division (YAD) of the United Jewish Federation of Tidewater is open to adults ages 22 through 45 (inclusively).To find out more about YAD Talks and other YAD programs, please visit www.jewishva.org/yad.

Passing in Review, a new book by Hal Sacks Reception and presentation

Thursday, May 7, 6:30 pm, Sandler Family Campus

ong-time Book Review Editor for Jewish News, Hal Sacks will discuss his latest book, Passing in Review. The collection of reviews and essays spans more than 30 years of Sacks’ contributions to the newspaper. After the presentation, Sacks will be available to sign books. For more information, contact Shelby Tudor at 757-965-6105.

• Watch the sunset while enjoying award winning seafood. • Fantastic view of the Chesapeake Bay.

Lynnhaven Fish House Restaurant

• Owned and operated by the Kyrus family for thirty six years.

hether it’s an intimate dinner for two, a business meeting for ten, or a celebration for fifty, join us and discover why we have been voted the Best of the Beach for 17 consecutive years.

2350 Starfish Road Virginia Beach, VA 23451 (757) 481-0003 www.lynnhavenfishhouse.net

Hal Sacks

Your Table is Waiting! jewishnewsva.org | April 20, 2015 | Jewish News | 33

CAREER

calendar

OPPORTUNITIES MARKETING DIRECTOR

Seeking a candidate with proven leadership skills in directing and/or coordinating progressive marketing policies and programs. This position requires a candidate with hands on experience in the coordination and use of all creative, visual, graphic and written materials required to meet objectives of marketing and Communications; including the use of formal and informal, traditional and non-traditional methods to reach all target audiences; oversees all public relations, advertising and promotional staff, agencies and activities.

MEMBERSHIP DIRECTOR Membership Director is responsible for all aspects of membership development, customer service, member retention, and the Simon JCC overall program creation, development, marketing, implementation, management, and evaluation of systems to increase membership, customer satisfaction, customer participation and revenue generation.

Through May 8, Friday Jewish Family Service of Tidewater’s 11th Annual Grieving Children’s Art Show on display in the Leon Family Art Gallery at the Simon Family JCC. April 23, Thursday National Geographic’s Jerusalem, a movie presentation. The JCC’s second Celebrate Israel event, presented by Charles Barker Automotive 6 pm and 8 pm at The Giant Screen Theater at the Virginia Aquarium. Reception at 7 pm with light refreshments, catered by The Village Caterers. Tickets available at the Simon Family JCC $18 per person. See page 32. APRIL 26, SUNDAY Brith Sholom will take a two-hour cruise at 2 pm on the Victory Rover from Nauticus. After the cruise, the group will go to Beth Sholom for dinner and entertainment. Sixty seats have been reserved. It is wheelchair accessible and walkers can be used. Cruise, dinner and entertainment: $20 per member. Call Gail for further information at 757-461-1150. Joan Lunden speaks at Norfolk Academy as part of JFS’ Spring into Healthy Living. 2 pm. See page 31. April 30, Thursday YAD Talks with former Madoff trader, Andrew Cohen. 6 pm at Bite Restaurant. See page 33.

Contact Taffy Hunter, Human Resources director, at 757-965-6117, resumes@ujft.org or submit resume to:

May 3, Sunday Pink Tea at Temple Emanuel to honor women cancer survivors and support the Beach Health Clinic. 2 pm. $7.50. See page 32.

Simon Family JCC

Attention: Human Resources 5000 Corporate Woods Drive Virginia Beach, 23462

If you are self-motivated, career minded, and a team oriented LEADER, one of these careers might be yours!

Beth El’s 165th anniversary program. 7 pm. See page 33. May 17, Sunday The Simon Family JCC’s annual Israel Fest, presented by Charles Barker Automotive. Taste, explore and discover at the JCC’s biggest party of the year. 11 am–5 pm. For information visit simonfamilyjcc.org. May 18, Monday –June 12, Friday Don Hurwitz–Photography. “Postcards from Southeast Asia” on display in the Leon Family Art Gallery at the Simon Family JCC.

Eric Kline Business Development Danny Kline President

MAY 20, WEDNESDAY The J.C.C. Senior Club guest speaker will be John W. Hallman, Virginia Beach Fire Department. Responsible for the “Operation Smoke Detector” program as well as the Older Adult Program, he will give a presentation on fire safety. Board meeting at 10:30 am, lunch at 12 noon, General Meeting at 12:45 pm. For information, call 757-497-0229.

Andy Kline CEO

May 21, Thursday David Broza live in Concert at the Sandler Center for the Performing Arts. This final performance of the JCC’s Celebrate Israel series, presented by Charles Barker Automotive, begins at 7 pm. Tickets: $25, $40 and $55, available at the Sandler Center or call the JCC at 321-2338. See page 32. Send submissions for calendar to news@ujft.org. Be sure to note “calendar” in the subject. Include date, event name, sponsor, address, time, cost and phone.

All Services. All Local. Payroll, Taxes and W-2s • Web Based Time and Attendance NCS Background Checks • Employee Loans Pay As You Go Workers Comp Insurance • HR Support Center Employee Self Service Online • Merchant Services • VISA Debit Payday Cards

Israel Fest and Yom Ha’Aztmaut celebration at the Simon Family JCC Sunday, May 17, 11 am–5 pm

Calling all willing volunteers! This annual endeavor would not be possible without the

Contact us today at 757-523-0605 or www.paydaypayroll.com 34 PD-ad-JewishNews-QtrColor-110614.indd | Jewish News | April 20, 2015 | 1jewishnewsva.org

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assistance of many volunteers. If available to assist at or before the event, please visit the online signup page at tinyurl.com/JCClsraelFest.

Mazel Tov to Birth Renen Katz and Amanda Perlman Katz of Loxahatchee, Fla. on the birth of their daughter on August 12, 2014, Ella Mia Katz. Ella is the granddaughter of Donald Katz of Stuart, Fla. and Elisa Ellin of blessed memory and Andrea Perlman and Perry Perlman, also of Loxahatchee. Ella is the great granddaughter of Bea

and Hyman Katz, both of blessed memory and Marvin Ellin and Stella Ellin of blessed memory. Mazel Tov submissions should be emailed to news@ujft.org with Mazel Tov in the subject line. Achievements, B’nai Mitzvot, births, engagements and weddings are appropriate simchas to announce. Photos must be at least 300k. Include a daytime phone for questions. There is no fee.

National Geographic’s

Jerusalem a movie Presentation of the simon Family JCC Thursday, April 23rd | 6:00pm & 8:00pm The Giant Screen Theater at the Virginia Aquarium

Who Knew? Kim Kardashian, Kanye West visiting Israel JERUSALEM ( JTA)—Reality television star Kim Kardashian and her husband, rapper Kanye West their nearly twoyear-old daughter, North West, as well as Kardashian’s sister Khloe, landed at Ben Gurion Airport on Monday, April 13 following a roots visit to Armenia. Photos of their arrival were featured on Israeli news websites and on news programs. The celebrities and their entourage had originally planned to stay at the new Waldorf Astoria Hotel in Jerusalem, but reportedly switched to another hotel after their plans were leaked to the public. An Israeli security firm that specializes in protecting VIPs reportedly was hired for the visit.

The group’s schedule included visiting the Western Wall and other Jerusalem sites, where footage reportedly was shot for the reality show “Keeping Up with the Kardashians.” The sisters were to make a trip to the Dead Sea and travel from Israel to Jordan. Ynet reported that the purpose of the visit was to baptize North at the Cathedral of St. James in Jerusalem’s Armenian Quarter. They were reportedly scheduled to visit the Church of the Holy Sepulchre following the baptism. Reports emerged in January that Kardashian and her two sisters were planning to buy a Tel Aviv apartment worth $30 million. (JTA)

Celebrate Israel’s Birthday, Yom Ha’atzmaut, by viewing a presentation sure to attract people of all ages and backgrounds throughout Hampton Roads. JERUSALEM immerses audiences into one of the world’s most beloved cities. Discover why this tiny piece of land is sacred to three major religions through the stories of Jewish, Christian and Muslim families. JERUSALEM is a unique and stunning cinematic experience, presented by National Geographic and narrated by Benedict Cumberbatch.

MAJor SupporT FroM

AddiTionAl SerieS SupporT FroM Gold Sponsor Ann & Bobby Copeland

The Families of

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Silver Sponsors Patricia & Avraham Ashkenazi ZIM Integrated Shipping Services Ltd. Bronze Sponsors Beth Sholom Village Harbor Group International Cindy & Ronald Kramer Palms Associates SL Nusbaum Realty Co. Wall, Einhorn & Chernitzer, P.C.

Israeli mobile game publisher TabTale purchases American developer JERUSALEM (JTA)—The Israeli mobile game publisher TabTale acquired a U.S. mobile game developer for children. TabTale, a top 10 worldwide mobile game publisher headquartered in Tel Aviv, announced that it had purchased Sunstorm Games, a Las Vegas-based firm that has released more than 100 games. It is the Israeli company’s first American acquisi-

tion and its third foreign buy this year. No purchase price was disclosed. Founded in 2010, TabTale has operations in seven countries, including Israel, the United States and China. It has more than 350 applications, 40 million monthly active users and 600 million downloads worldwide.

Reception at 7:00pm with light refreshments, catered by The Village Caterers Tickets: $18 | $15 JCC Members · Available for purchase at The Simon Family JCC Call 757-321-2337 or email elevitt@simonfamilyjcc.org to reserve seats In Partnership with The Virginia Festival of Jewish Film, presented by Alma* & Howard Laderberg Program support from the Community Relations Council of the UJFT on the Reba & Sam Sandler Family Campus of the Tidewater Jewish Community 5000 Corporate W oods Drive Virginia Beach, VA 23462 757-321-2338 • SimonFamilyJCC.org

Find & Follow Us!

fb.com/simonfamilyj

@ simon family

jewishnewsva.org | April 20, 2015 | Jewish News | 35

obituaries Shirley Biberman Norfolk—On April 4, 2015, Shirley “Honey” Biberman passed away. She was the devoted mother of Dr. David Zolet, Linda Zolet, Robin Zolet-Fink, S. Matthew Biberman and grandmother of Jacob Klau, Morris Zolet, Lucy Biberman, and Vincent Biberman. The funeral was held at Sol Levinson in Baltimore, Md. Contributions may be sent to Jewish Family Service of Tidewater 260 Grayson Road, Virginia Beach, VA, 23462 or National Alliance on Mental Illness 3803 N. Fairfax Drive, Suite 100, Arlington, VA, 22203. Pearl H. Glassman Virginia Beach—Pearl Hacken Glassman, born August 17, 1914, passed away peacefully in her home at the Beth Sholom Terrace on March 26, 2015. She was a native of New York City. She had a great exuberance for life. Pearl loved the beauty of the four seasons. She loved plants, reading, ballet, music and theater. She was the consummate hostess. During her lifetime, she and her husband, Bernie, of blessed memory, traveled to five continents, covering 72 countries. She was a member Hadassah, Beth Sholom Home Auxiliary, Hebrew Ladies Charity Society and the Jewish Women’s International. Among her favorite charities were also HIAS for Jewish immigrants, YIVO-Young Immigrant Organization, the sisterhood of Temple Emanuel and the Native American Indians. Blessed and grateful for countless family and friends, Pearl is survived by: Marilyn Wachtel, Steve Gordon, Harriet and Clyde Hall, Laura and Kenneth Elliott, Martin Offenther, Kenneth Offenther, Phyllis Johnson, Jean Hacken and Hazel Stewart. A star from the constellation, Cassopia, was renamed “Auntie Pearl,” and registered with The International Star Registry Vault in Switzerland. This was a gift from her lifelong friend, Marilyn Wachtel. Pearl treasured their relationship. Family and friends gathered at Beth Sholom Home to honor her memory. Pearl was buried at Sharon Gardens in Valhalla, N. Y. H. D. Oliver Funeral Apts.

Dr. David Benson Kruger NORFOLK—Dr. David Benson Kruger, 88, passed away on Sunday, April 5, 2015. He was born to Abraham and Eleanor (Krukin) Kruger at the family home in the Berkley section of Norfolk. David graduated from Maury High School before serving in the US Army during WWII. After an honorable discharge, he attended the University of Virginia graduating Phi Beta Kappa. On August 13, 1950 he married Adel Mazel. David then attended Medical School at UVa, graduating with honors in 1953. David shared a practice of general medicine with his older brother Dr. Howard Kruger for several years in Norfolk before returning to UVa to complete a residency in psychiatry. He then set up a psychiatric practice in Norfolk with Dr. Lawrence Bernert. David was a co-founder of Tidewater Psychiatric Institute. Later in his career he taught at EVMS, eventually becoming chairman of the Psychiatry department. David was deeply committed to his faith and the Jewish community, serving as president of Temple Israel and Hebrew Academy of Tidewater. He particularly enjoyed leading the cemetery committee for the Untied Jewish Federation of Tidewater. David is survived by his wife of nearly 65 years, Adel M. Kruger, a brother Theodore Kruger, a son Evan Kruger and his wife Annie, a daughter Sara Kruger, six grandchildren; Maurice, Elka, Avi and Seth Mednick and Abraham and Joseph Kruger. Funeral services were held at Temple Israel with Rabbi Michael Panitz officiating. Burial followed at Forest Lawn Cemetery. Contributions to the charity of the donor’s choice. H. D. Oliver Funeral Apts. Online condolences may be made at www.hdoliver.com. Lisa G. Lane Norfolk—Lisa Goldsticker Lane, 49, died Sunday, April 5, 2015. She was a native of Norfolk and was preceded in death by her father Murray Goldsticker. She was a member of Temple Israel and was a former salesperson with Humana. Survivors include her husband Russell S. Giles of Quinby, Va., her mother Flora

36 | Jewish News | April 20, 2015 | jewishnewsva.org

Goldsticker of Norfolk, her daughter Amanda Lane, her sister Amy Clyman of Florida, her brother David Goldsticker of Norfolk, brother Alan Goldsticker and nephew and niece Marc and Sara Goldsticker all of Carmel, Ind., and Dee Lane of Virginia Beach. Funeral Services were held in the Norfolk Chapel of H.D. Oliver Funeral Apts. with Rabbi Michael Panitz officiating. Burial followed at Forest Lawn Cemetery. Memorial donations may be made to www.fureverhomerescue.org or a charity of donor’s choice. Margaret Semel Virginia Beach—Margaret “Jimmie” Coplon Semel, age 93, of the Beth Sholom Home, died early Tuesday morning, April 13, of kidney failure. Daughter of the late Rose and Joseph Coplon, Jimmie was a life-long resident of Norfolk and the 1940 salutatorian of Maury High School. Survivors include children Judy (Dr. Reuven) Rohn of Virginia Beach, Debbie (Mark) Evans of Norfolk and Bernie Semel (Patricia Pummill) of San Diego; grandchildren Karen (Avi) Alpert of Silver Spring, Md. and David Johnson of San Diego, and two great-grandchildren; and brother Sidney Coplon of Wheaton, Md. She was predeceased by siblings Sadie Leibowitz, Sylvia Benas, Selma Coplon, Ruth Fine and Marion Baydush, and Julius, Louis, Tilton, Oscar and Hersh Coplon. During WWII, Jimmie and Selma, while both working full time, volunteered for the Norfolk Aircraft Warning Center’s 10 pm -2 am shift, each earning a 1,000hour award. In later years, while residing at Suburban House, she made weekly trips to the Foodbank, bringing back 500 loaves of bread and vegetables to New Americans and other residents. After a long and varied employment career, she retired at age 70 from the United Jewish Federation of Tidewater. Lifetime organizational affiliations included Beth El Synagogue and its Sisterhood, Hebrew Ladies Charity Society, Hadassah, Beth Sholom Home Auxiliary, Jewish Family Service Auxiliary, the Jewish Community Center and its Young at Heart Seniors Group, and the Ostomy

Association. She was a loyal supporter of Red Cross blood drives, on call for emergencies and had earned a 7-gallon pin. Jimmie was a life-long tomboy and was still riding her bicycle until her move to assisted living at age 83. Funeral services were conducted in the Norfolk Chapel of H.D. Oliver Funeral Apts. by Rabbi Jeffrey Arnowitz and other area clergy, with interment at Forest Lawn. Memorial donations may be made to Congregation Beth El, Beth Sholom Village or a charity of choice . The family wishes to thank the staff at Beth Sholom Village, especially the Blue Unit, for their support, care and friendship. Stanley Willner Virginia Beach—Stanley Willner of Palm Beach Gardens, Fla. and Virginia Beach, passed away peacefully on March 31, 2015 at the age of 94. Donations to a favorite charity. To learn more about the remarkable life of Stanley Willner go to www.sw-expow.com.

Normal Leventhal, philanthropist and leader in Boston’s development BOSTON ( JTA)—Normal Leventhal, a major figure in Boston’s development and a visionary leader and philanthropist in Jewish communal life, has died. Leventhal died Sunday, April 5 at age 97. Leventhal, who cofounded Beacon Companies with his brother Robert, is responsible for such Boston landmarks as Center Plaza, Rowes Wharf and South Station. Boston Mayor Martin Walsh called him a “legend” and said in a statement to the Boston Globe that Leventhal “will be remembered for generations to come for his immense contributions to our city.” The son of Jewish immigrants, Leventhal also made a profound mark on Jewish institutions with contributions of millions of dollars that included developing affordable housing for Jewish seniors and, with his relatives, creating the Leventhal-Sidman Jewish Community Center in Newton, a Boston suburb. Leventhal, an engineering graduate of Massachusetts Institute of Technology, bridged his involvement in the civic and

obituaries Jewish worlds seamlessly, according to Mark Sokoll, president and CEO of the Jewish Community Centers of Greater Boston. “He was a role model for his generation, that one could, as a Jew, contribute significantly to both the Jewish community and the civic community,” Sokoll told JTA. His legacy also includes younger generations of his extended family who now serve in local and national Jewish institutions, Sokoll said. Leventhal received honorary degrees from Brandeis University and Hebrew College. He also had a keen eye for antique maps. The author of Mapping Boston, Leventhal donated his collection of more than 400 maps to the Boston Public Library, where he endowed the Norman B. Leventhal Map Center.

Bernice Tannenbaum, longtime Hadassah and Zionist leader Bernice Tannenbaum, a former national president of Hadassah, the Women’s Zionist Organization of America who earned the group’s highest honor for her

legacy of contributions, has died. Tannenbaum, a former JTA vice president and national secretary, died Monday, April 6. She was 101. She joined Hadassah in 1944 and became its national president in 1976, serving until 1980. Tannenbaum initiated the organization’s practice of periodically holding its annual convention in Israel, convening the first such Jerusalem gathering in 1978. She also launched Hadassah’s first strategic planning initiative, resulting in key structural changes. She served as chair of the Hadassah Medical Organization from 1980 to 1984. In 1983, she founded HadassahInternational, which is now represented in 21 countries. She served as international coordinator of Hadassah International for 10 years. As chair of the American Section of the World Zionist Organization, Tannenbaum spearheaded the U.S. campaign for repudiation of United Nations General Assembly

Resolution 3379, equating Zionism with racism, which came to a successful conclusion with its repeal in 1991. In 2000, she played a central role as spokeswoman for Hadassah’s successful campaign to achieve NGO consultative status at the U.N. Economic and Social Council. She was co-president of the World Confederation of United Zionists for 15 years, then honorary president. She served as vice president and national secretary of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, vice president of the United Israel Appeal and national vice president of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. In 2003, Tannenbaum received Hadassah’s highest honor, the Henrietta Szold Award for Distinguished Humanitarian Service, and in 2009 the Hadassah Foundation established the Bernice S. Tannenbaum Prize, which recognizes innovative contributions to advance the lives of women and girls in Israel and the United States.

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first person

To choose a heroine by Chamie Haber

Today I voted. For a woman. Today I joined the movement “Woman on 20s,” which is encouraging the president to have a woman’s face replace Andrew Jackson’s on the $20 bill. I was taken by this idea for the same reason as hundreds of thousands of Americans—It’s time. As women have become more and more present in society, it’s time for women to be represented on our currency. Also, two of the final four candidates greatly appeal to me as heroines, albeit for two very different reasons. Between March 1 and April 5, “Women on 20s” invited Americans to vote for their choice of 15 female candidates to appear on the $20 bill. The candidates were chosen by a panel based on their impact on American society and the difficulties they

faced to accomplish these goals. More than 256,000 votes were cast. Each candidate earned at least 10,000 votes, and the top three earned more than 100,000 each. The contest is down to four candidates: Wilma Mankiller (first female Chief of the Cherokee Nation), Rosa Parks, Eleanor Roosevelt and Harriet Tubman. I have to tell you, I was thrilled to see that Harriet Tubman made the shortlist. She has long been one of my favorite historical figures. When I was in elementary school, I went through a period where all I would read were books about slavery and the Underground Railroad. I wrote multiple essays (don’t tell my teachers) on Harriet Tubman’s life and work. Years have passed, and I am still so inspired by her willingness to put her own freedom on the line in order to help others win theirs. Tubman was born with so many disadvan-

tages and overcame them all to become a true heroine. And yet, I feel conflicted. I owe a personal debt of gratitude to Eleanor Roosevelt. I don’t know if I’d be alive if not for her personal intervention in saving my grandmother from the clutches of the holocaust. In October 1940, my grandmother, Fannie Safrin Gottlieb, along with her mother and four siblings (her father had already been murdered in Buchenwald) was deported from Manheim, Germany to Camp de Gurs, in France. Soon after arriving at the camp, Bubby’s mother passed away. The five orphans were rescued from the camp by the OSE (A Jewish Social Services Organization) and transported to an orphanage called Chateau de Chabannes, where they were hidden from the Nazis. Within a few months, they received word that they had secured two spots on a children’s transport to

America. Having already lost their parents, the Safrin siblings made a decision: they would not allow their family to be split any further. They told their would-be rescuers “It’s all or none.” The organizers of the transport felt it unfair to save five children from one family, since they could not be sure that the other families would have any survivors. When Eleanor Roosevelt heard of this predicament, she hit upon the idea of a Collective Visa- My grandmother and her siblings were the first recipients of this visa! This story appeared in The Forward on July 6, 1941. This is how I came to be sitting at my computer in Norfolk, Va. in 2015, trying to decide if I’d rather see Harriet Tubman or Eleanor Roosevelt every time I go to the ATM. I won’t tell you what choice I made, but I will encourage you to go to www. womenon20s.org and cast your vote for an American heroine to represent all American women on our currency.

Celebrate Yom Ha’atzmaut—Israel’s Independence Day with the biggest party of the year...

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For more information, visit SimonFamilyJCC.org or call 757-321-2338. 38 | Jewish News | April 20, 2015 | jewishnewsva.org

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Providing comprehensive GI healthcare since 1971! Michael Sperling, MD Bruce Waldholtz, MD Douglas Howerton, MD Alex Williams, MD Gary Payman, MD Scott Yagel, MD Paul Ricketts, MD Established in 1971, Gastroenterology Associates of Southeastern Virginia, has spent many years providing outstanding healthcare to patients across the Tidewater area. All of the physicians of Gastroenterology Associates of Southeastern Virginia have completed rigorous University training programs, including Johns Hopkins, University of Virginia, Cleveland Clinic, University of Pittsburgh, University of Illinois as well as U.S. Naval Medical Center in San Diego. All are board certified in the practice of Gastroenterology. Combined, they offer over 100 years of combined Gastroenterology experience. To ensure future generations of outstanding physicians, our physicians also serve as Assistant Professors of Clinical Internal Medicine at Eastern Virginia Medical School.

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