Jewish News - October 11, 2021

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Southeastern Virginia | Vol. 60 No. 3 | 5 Cheshvan 5782 | October 11, 2021

Important issues and conversations

6 Freda Gordon Hospice has new owner

10 BBYO has exciting start to year

Unpacking Antisemitism with Dara Horn Sunday, October 17

Advocating for Israel with Noa Tishby Wednesday, October 13 ­—page 32

14 BSV holds Memorial Service

­—page 33

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29 Sababa Social Club meets in the sukkah

If You Thirst for a Homeland FLAME-WORKED GLASS BY DAFNA K AFFEMAN

VISITING ARTIST SERIES with Dafna Kaffeman FREE PUBLIC DEMOS Friday–Sunday, November 5–7 LECTURE WITH THE ARTIST Saturday, November 6 at 7:30 p.m.

Attend the lecture in person or via Zoom.

CHRYSLER BOOK CLUB: MY WILD GARDEN Sunday, November 21 at 2 p.m.

Join us for a virtual discussion of My Wild Garden: Notes from a Writer’s Eden by Meir Shalev. Registration is required.

Learn more at chrysler.org.

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If You Thirst for a Homeland: Flame-worked glass by Dafna Kaffeman is co-curated by Trudy Wiesenberger of the ClevelandIsrael Arts Connection, a program of the Jewish Federation of Cleveland, and Carolyn Swan Needell, Ph.D., the Chrysler Museum of Art’s Carolyn and Richard Barry Curator of Glass.

On view through December 12, 2021

Support for the exhibition is provided by the Association of Israel’s Decorative Arts and by Cynthia and Stuart Katz.

This Visiting Artist Series program is supported by

FREE ADMIS S ION | CHRYS L ER.ORG The Lecture with the Artist is presented in partnership with the Jewish Community Relations Council of the United Jewish Federation of Tidewater, Simon Family JCC, & Community Partners’ 11th Annual Israel Today Series.

Dafna Kaffeman (Israeli, b. 1972), If you thirst for a homeland and seek shelter in its bosom, love it and live in its mountains and valleys, its flora and fauna, 2017, Homeland Plants series, Flame-worked glass and printed text on felt, Photo credit: Eric Tschernow

UPFRONT

JEWISH NEWS jewishnewsva.org

The CDC published a study finding that camp during COVID-19 can be safe. Its proof: Camp Ramah.

Israel hints Oman is next to join Abraham Accords

Published 20 times a year by United Jewish Federation of Tidewater.

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Gabe Friedman

(JTA)—The Centers for Disease Control has published a study conducted by the medical committee of the Camp Ramah network, highlighting the Jewish camps’ highly successful safety measures for avoiding the spread of COVID-19 this past summer.

Between June and August, nine Ramah campers tested positive for the virus, out of a total of more than 7,000 children and teenagers at nine out of the Conservative movement-affiliated system’s 10 camps, the study shows.

“Three of the nine cases occurred in vaccinated staff members and six in unvaccinated campers aged 8–14 years. The three staff member cases were identified before the arrival of campers,” the study summary reads. COVID-19 vaccines currently are not offered to children under 12.

In the words of the 10 Ramah authors, several of them licensed physicians, the study’s findings “highlight important guiding principles for school and youth-based COVID-19 prevention protocols.”

The authors emphasize that a combination of mandatory testing before attending camp, repeated testing while at camp, frequent hand washing, and the establishment of “pods,” or isolated groups of campers, led to a successful summer.

Campers in a specific cabin became a pod, and were allowed to interact freely without masks or other restrictions. After rounds of testing, multiple pods merged over time. Three camps achieved camp-wide “pod expansion.”

After shutting down completely like most other Jewish and non-Jewish overnight camps during the height of the pandemic in 2020, Ramah restarted this summer.

Rabbi Mitchell Cohen, national director of the National Ramah Commission, described the process—which included rotating groups of campers into prayer sessions, and putting up plastic dividers in dining halls—to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency in April, calling it “absolutely exhausting but incredibly exhilarating.”

(JTA)—A top Israeli foreign ministry official suggested that Oman will likely be the next country to join the Abraham Accords, leading to full normalization between the countries.

Eliav Benjamin, the head of Israel’s foreign ministry’s bureau of the Middle East and Peace Process Division, met via Zoom with reporters on Tuesday, October 6 to discuss the status of the accords reached last year between Israel and the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Morocco, and Sudan.

Asked which country might be next, Benjamin singled out Oman as a country that Israel has sustained low-level relations with since 1991, when a round of peace talks were held in Madrid.

“With Oman, we have ongoing cooperation and plans,” Benjamin said, noting that it was one of a handful of Arab countries to allow Israel to establish an interests office after the 1993 Israel-Palestinian Oslo agreement. Those offices shut down after the launch of the Second Intifada in 2000, during which Palestinians killed nearly 1,000 through suicide bombings and other attacks.

Despite that setback, Israel remains involved in MEDRC, a freshwater research facility established in Oman in 1996, Benjamin said. “So, we already have the relations with Oman.”

He suggested that Oman might opt for full normalization sooner rather than later.

Sustaining and expanding the Abraham Accords is a rare area of shared foreign policy between the Trump administration, which last year brokered the accords, and the Biden administration.

“I really hope that when we meet, if not before, this time next year, we will be able to talk about our countries that have joined,” Benjamin said.

Upfront . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Briefs. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Rand Paul blocks vote on Iron Dome funding . . 5 JFS and BSV welcome LHC Group to Tidewater.6 Antisemitic GOP flier in Virginia House race. . . 7 VP Harris “strongly disagrees” with anti-Israel college student . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

BSV remembers residents who passed away in the last year. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 Special Section: Mazel Tov!. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 PJ Library hosts Pizza in the Hut . . . . . . . . . . . 28 Sababa Social Club in the Sukkah . . . . . . . . . . 29 What’s Happening. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30 Calendar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34

Hineni Fellow embraces Jewish life . . . . . . . . . . 9

Who knew?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35

BBYO connects Jewish teens. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10

Obituaries. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36

Representatives Levin and Tlaib are friends who disagree on Israel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12

Jewish burial society makes amends t o deceased. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38

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BRIEFS SCIENTIST DAVID JULIUS, WHOSE GRANDPARENTS FLED ANTISEMITISM IN CZARIST RUSSIA, WINS NOBEL PRIZE IN MEDICINE David Julius, a professor of physiology at the University of California, San Francisco, whose grandparents fled antisemitism in Czarist Russia, was awarded this year’s Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine on Monday, October 4. He shared the award with Ardem Patapoutian, a molecular biologist and neuroscientist at the Scripps Research center.

The Nobel Prize committee cited Julius and Patapoutian’s research “for their discoveries of receptors for temperature and touch,” which have improved treatments for pain caused by a range of diseases.

Julius was born in 1955 and grew up in Brighton Beach, which was then home to a large population of Russian Jewish emigres. Julius described the neighborhood as “a landing pad for Eastern European immigrants like my grandparents, who fled Czarist Russia and antisemitism in pursuit of a better life.”

A graduate of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the University of California, Berkeley, Julius has spent his career researching the way human senses like touch, pain, and heat function and has used capsaicin, the chemical in chili peppers that makes them burn, to explore how human nerve endings feel heat.

“These breakthrough discoveries launched intense research activities leading to a rapid increase in our understanding of how our nervous system senses heat, cold, and mechanical stimuli,” the Nobel Prize committee wrote in its announcement of the winners. (JTA) JEWS, CHRISTIANS, AND MUSLIMS COME TOGETHER TO PAINT OVER SWASTIKAS IN ARGENTINIAN JEWISH CEMETERY After Nazi graffiti was found at a Jewish cemetery in Argentina last month, the local Jewish community wanted to do more than just paint it over.

So on Friday, October 1, the local Jewish community of Sante Fe, a province about 300 miles northwest of Buenos Aires, convened representatives of other religious groups for an interfaith ceremony

to remove the swastikas painted in the cemetery, one in the area dedicated to the memory of Holocaust victims.

The ceremony included evangelical Christians, Catholics, and Muslims, as well as representatives from a host of local groups, and it was streamed online.

A video showed several people brushing over swastikas painted near the ground, followed by a series of comments from representatives of different groups.

“These are acts of hatred and can’t remain unpunished,” Horacio Roitman, the Santa Fe representative of the Argentinian Jewish group DAIA, told the UNOSantafe newspaper before the event, hosted by the Interreligious Initiative of Santa Fe. “A clarification of what happened is owed to the whole society.”

The vandalism at the Santa Fe Jewish cemetery comes after a series of incidents at the biggest Jewish cemetery in the country, in Buenos Aires. In that case, no Nazi or otherwise antisemitic symbols were found, and Jewish leaders denounced a lack of security. (JTA)

POWAY SYNAGOGUE SHOOTER GETS LIFE WITHOUT PAROLE IN STATE COURT SENTENCING The man who opened fire at a synagogue in Poway, California, in 2019 will spend the rest of his life in prison.

The shooter, who attacked the Chabad of Poway with an automatic rifle on the last day of Passover, killed one person, Lori Gilbert Kaye, and injured three, including the synagogue rabbi and a child. He turned himself into police following the shooting and pleaded guilty to federal and state charges this year.

The guilty pleas allowed John Earnest to avoid a death sentence, and at his state sentencing on Thursday, September 30, he received life without parole. His federal sentencing will take place in December.

“He will be erased from history,” District Attorney Summer Stephan said, according to the San Diego Union-Tribune. “What will remain is the name of Lori Gilbert Kaye and all of the heroes that jumped into save life that day.”

The shooting took place exactly six months after a synagogue shooting in Pittsburgh that killed 11 people at prayer.

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It was the first of three fatal antisemitic attacks in 2019. In December of that year, assailants killed Jews in Jersey City, New Jersey and Monsey, New York.

Before the sentencing, relatives of Gilbert Kaye addressed the court. Ellen Edwards, her sister, called her “an amazing wife, mother, sister. and friend.”

“What do you say in front of the person who killed my sister?” she said, according to Yahoo News. “I hate you. That just doesn’t seem enough.” (JTA)

DAVID SCHOEN, LAWYER WHO DEFENDED TRUMP DURING IMPEACHMENT, TO CHAIR ZOA The Zionist Organization of America elected as its national chairman David Schoen, the Jewish lawyer whose Orthodox observance drew media attention as he defended former President Donald Trump at Trump’s second impeachment trial.

Schoen, a constitutional lawyer who lives in Atlanta, has for years served on ZOA’s board and has represented the organization, in one instance, leading ZOA’s efforts to hold the Palestine Liberation Organization legally accountable for terrorist attacks committed in its name.

He became nationally prominent when he represented Trump after the House of Representatives impeached the former president for spurring the Jan. 6 insurrection at the capital. The Senate acquitted Trump.

Schoen several times covered his head with his hand before taking a drink of water while speaking during Trump’s Senate trial, leading observers to guess that he was saying a blessing. He also absented himself from the trial when Shabbat loomed.

Schoen, who usually wears a kippah, said he did not wear one while speaking during the trial because he thought it would look “awkward.”

Trump was not Schoen’s first high-profile case. He was set to represent Jeffrey Epstein on charges of sex trafficking when the financier was found dead, ostensibly by suicide, in jail.

The ZOA election was Sunday, Oct. 3.

The membership reelected longtime president Morton Klein. Klein is the professional leader of the organization and Schoen is its lay leader. (JTA)

AMID ANTISEMITISM CONCERNS, 101 LOCAL JEWISH FEDERATIONS TO SPEND $54M TO IMPROVE SECURITY The Jewish Federations of North America is launching a campaign to expand its security program to every federation in the country, an initiative that will cost $54 million.

JFNA CEO Eric Fingerhut announced the initiative on Monday, Oct. 4 at the organization’s General Assembly in Washington. Currently, 45 of the 146 member federations are part of what the JFNA has since January dubbed LiveSecure, a network of security offices.

The new funding, to be raised over three years, will assist the 101 communities that have faced fundraising obstacles in establishing the security points in their communities so they too can join LiveSecure, a program launched after a spate of deadly antisemitic attacks in Pittsburgh; Poway, California; Monsey, New York; and Jersey City, New Jersey.

These points, called Community Service Initiatives, establish “a single point of contact for critical incident coordination, information and intelligence sharing, safety and security training, and resources for every Jewish institution in a community,” a JFNA release said.

Additionally, the program will assist communities in navigating the application process for federal grants that help nonprofits pay for security services.

A focus of this year’s General Assembly, the annual meeting for local and national federation groups, has been the recent spike in antisemitic incidents.

“There’s an urgent need to protect Jewish communities,” Nikki Haley, former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations who is seen as a contender for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, said at the event.

Also speaking was Ritchie Torres, a New York Democrat in the U.S. House of Representatives who has staked out a strongly pro-Israel posture within the progressive caucus.

“We are sitting on a powder keg of antisemitism, and the Jewish community and all of us cannot afford to be complacent,” he said. (JTA)

NATION

Rand Paul obstructs quick vote on Iron Dome funding their darkest hour and it would betray the American people’s commitment to supporting our Afghan allies.”

WASHINGTON (JTA)—Republican Sen. Menendez has said he will continue Rand Paul blocked an expedited vote to to attempt to bring the vote through approve $1 billion in funding to replenish unanimous consent. If Paul continues Israel’s Iron Dome anti-missile system to block unanimous consent, it may be and received swift criticism from an array weeks before the funding, which the of pro-Israel groups.

Biden administration favors, is approved.

Sen. Robert Menendez, the Democratic The U.S. House of Representatives Relations Foreign Senate the chairman of last month overwhelmingly approved the Committee, launched a bid Monday, funding, which Israel has asked for to October 5 to pass the bill by unanimous replenish Iron Dome batteries depleted consent, a procedure that accelerates pasduring the Gaza conflict in May. The debate. sage by minimizing money is in addition to the $500 million Paul objected, saying he wanted the Israel gets annually to fund Iron Dome. funding to come out of money earmarked Prior to the vote, objections to the to assist Afghanistan as it recovers from by a handful of progressives funding years of war. roiled Congress and “I support Israel. led to a debate over I voted for hundreds defense assistance of millions of dolto Israel.

Iron lars to support The Christians Dome. I am glad United for Israel the United States “strongly group has a strong bond Paul’s condemned” But with Israel. decision in a statethe United States ment. The American cannot give money in funding Israel Public Affairs it does not have, no the Committee, strong matter how to be approved powerhouse pro-Isour relationship is,” to replenish rael lobby, chastised he said.

Paul on Twitter, said Paul Israel’s Iron Dome likening him to the the he believes “Squad,” the small aid Afghanistan anti-missile system progressive faction money will end up that opposed the with the Taliban, funding—and who assumed which Republicans revile. control of the “Their objections country in August, to funding Iron ending a 20-year Dome undermine Israel’s security, cost U.S.-led military presence there. innocent lives, make war more likely, and Menendez said the money does not go embolden Iran-backed terrorists,” AIPAC to the Taliban, but to the people affected said, grouping Paul with Reps. Alexandria by the war it waged for decades.

Ocasio-Cortez, who voted “present” on would amendment “Sen. Paul’s the funding, and Rashida Tlaib, Ilhan actually raid the funding that delivers Omar, and Thomas Massie, who voted lifesaving humanitarian aid to the Afghan “no.” Ocasio-Cortez, Tlaib and Omar are people and they need it more than ever,” members of the “Squad,” and Massie was amendment Paul’s Sen. he said. “In short, the lone GOP vote against the funding. would undermine national security, it would abandon the Afghan people in Ron Kampeas

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NATION

The vast majority of progressives overwhelmingly backed Iron Dome funding—but with a caveat Ron Kampeas

WASHINGTON (JTA)—After the controversy last month surrounding a progressive push to block extra Iron Dome anti-missile funding for Israel, the final vote to pass it was lopsided: 420–9.

And in the end, most progressives backed it: Of the 95 members of the Democrats’ progressive caucus in the U.S. House of Representatives, 85 voted yes.

At first glance, that resounding progressive “yes” to the $1 billion in additional funding to replenish the system’s batteries—depleted from the latest Gaza conflict in May—would seem to put to rest the narrative that the Democratic Party’s largest caucus was discarding pro-Israel tradition.

But last month did mark a significant

change: the way the funding was ultimately approved, in addition to statements from some of the progressive caucus members who voted yes, made clear that from now on, Israel can no longer expect a blank check for defense assistance, at least from progressives.

Last month the progressive caucus forced Democratic leadership to pull out the $1 billion from an unrelated emergency government funding bill that came before Congress on Sept. 21.

Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., the chairwoman of the Congressional Progressive Caucus who led the push to separate the Iron Dome funding from the larger spending bill, said it was absurd to shove through such an amount of money without first debating its merits.

“That just isn’t the way things work

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around here,” she told CNN the following day, after the House passed the spending bill, sans Iron Dome. “There was no discussion about it.”

After the critique, Democratic leadership moved quickly. There was a debate, and it seemed to have been persuasive: Jayapal was among those who voted yes, and so were some of Israel’s toughest critics in the progressive caucus, among them Mark Pocan of Wisconsin, Betty McCollum of Minnesota and Jamaal Bowman of New York.

Bowman told Bloomberg News that his problem with the original effort to approve the Iron Dome funding had nothing to do with Israel and everything to do with the rush to get it voted on without traditional debate.

“It’s not about Israel, it’s about, once again, leadership, throwing something on our table last minute and expecting us to decide in five minutes what to do with it, that’s the bigger problem,” he said.

The eight Democrats who voted against funding, and the two who voted “present,” got plenty of political and media attention — Rep. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez’s lengthy and anguished explanation of her “present” vote made many headlines, in part because of the tears she admitted to shedding on the House floor. Republicans in Congress tried to paint them as the true face of the Democratic Party (a single Republican, Thomas Massie of Kentucky, was among the small group that voted no on the final funding bill).

But many of the progressives who spoke during the debate were reportedly unequivocal in agreeing with their more moderate colleagues that the Iron Dome was purely a defensive measure, and deserves support because it saved lives.

“The legislation before us ensures that Israel can fully defend all its citizens, a necessary condition for lasting peace,” said Rep. DeLauro, D-Conn., the progressive who is the chairwoman of the House’s most powerful committee, Appropriations, in remarks reported by the Foundation for Middle East Peace.

Still, while Iron Dome may have been an easy “yes,” progressives otherwise made clear that the days of unquestioning approval of Israel’s defense requests were over.

The final vote was lopsided: 420–9

Just hours before the vote, Rep. Andy Levin, D-Mich., convened a press conference outside the Capitol to announce a bill that would enshrine the two-state outcome as U.S. policy. But it includes restrictions on how Israel could spend U.S. funding, with explicit bans on spending on West Bank settlements.

“The bill makes clear that assistance to help Israel to address its very real security challenges should continue at not one dollar less, but it cannot be used in a manner that violates internationally recognized human rights, or for activities that perpetuate the occupation or enable de facto annexation” of parts of the West Bank,” said Levin, who is Jewish.

The JTA asked the five co-sponsors present at the press conference whether they planned to vote for the Iron Dome funding, and each said yes.

Rep. Sara Jacobs, D-Calif., who is Jewish, underscored the defensive nature of the antimissile system in explaining her vote.

“I’ll be voting for it; I think what this bill that we’re talking about calls for is the legitimate use of our support for the security of Israel, and that’s what Iron Dome does,” she said. “And it’s time for a new chapter and a new approach, where we’re making sure that this defensive equipment is used in furthering that.”

NATION

Kamala Harris ‘strongly disagrees’ with student who said Israel was carrying out ethnic genocide Ron Kampeas

WASHINGTON (JTA) — Vice President Kamala Harris “strongly disagrees” with a university student who told her that Israel was carrying out “ethnic genocide,” her office said, pushing back against claims that she encouraged the student’s view.

“Throughout her career, the Vice President has been unwavering in her commitment to Israel and to Israel’s security,” Harris’s spokeswoman, Symone Sanders, said Friday, October 1 in a statement to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.

“While visiting George Mason University to discuss voting rights, a student voiced a personal opinion during a political science class. The Vice President strongly disagrees with the student’s characterization of Israel.”

Harris had reached out to Jewish organizations after sustaining criticism from Republicans and some Jewish communal figures for not correcting the student during a visit to a political science class.

Harris was on the campus Tuesday to attend a voting rights rally.

Harris spoke for about 15 minutes to the class about the importance of organizing and making one’s voice heard, tying it to Democratic Party efforts to push back against a spate of laws in Republican-led states that add restrictions to voting.

“Your vote is an expression of your voice, and we should never support anything that would stifle a person’s voice,” Harris said.

She took questions, and one woman, who said she was Yemeni and Iranian, challenged Harris’ claim that speaking out brings change.

“You brought up how the power of the people and demonstrations and organizing is very valuable in America, but I see that over the summer there have been protests and demonstrations in astronomical numbers standing with Palestine,” she said. “But then just a few days ago there were funds allocated to continue backing Israel, which hurts my heart

because it’s ethnic genocide and displacement of people, the same that happened in America, and I’m sure you’re aware of this.”

The woman appeared to be referring to protests in May during Israel’s conflict with Gaza, and then to the U.S. House of Representatives’ overwhelming approval last week of $1 billion to replenish Israel’s Iron Dome anti-missile system, which was depleted during the conflict.

“The people have spoken very often of what they do need and I feel there is a lack of listening,” the student said.

Harris said she was glad the student spoke up, saying, “your voice, your perspective, your experience, your truth should not be suppressed.”

The vice president then pushed back against the student’s argument that expressing opinions in America was fruitless.

“The point that you are making about policy that relates to Middle East policy, foreign policy, we still have healthy debates in our country about what is the right path, and nobody’s voice should be suppressed on that,” she said.

Harris said that organizing and voting were effective means of making one’s voice heard, casting the students’ views as part of a broader debate. “Our goal should be unity, but not uniformity, right?” she said.

“Unity should never be at the expense of telling anyone personally that, for the sake of unity, ‘Oh, you be quiet about that thing. You suppress that thing. Let’s not deal with that thing.’ That’s not unity.

True unity is everyone in that room has a voice.”

The Republican National Committee posted an excerpt of the exchange, cutting off at where Harris said “your truth should not be suppressed.”

“Kamala Harris nods as student accuses Israel of ‘ethnic genocide’: ‘your truth cannot be suppressed,’” the RNC said in a tweet. The Republican Coalition called the exchange “disgraceful.” Fox News headlined a story, “Kamala Harris

applauds student, who accused Israel of ‘ethnic genocide,’ for speaking ‘your truth.’”

Rabbi David Wolpe of Sinai Temple in Los Angeles, in Harris’ home sate of California, chided her on Twitter.

“Madame Vice President, the idea that Israel has committed genocide against the Palestinians is not someone’s truth, it is someone’s lie, whether they know it or not,” he said. “And it is pernicious, destructive, and should not be elided or ignored by the highest officials in the land.”

Harris’s office reached out to at least two pro-Israel organizations in the wake of the controversy.

“The Biden-Harris Administration, as well as President Biden and Vice President Harris personally, have exemplary

pro-Israel records, for which we are immensely grateful,” Mark Mellman, the president of the Democratic Majority for Israel, said in a statement. “We were pleased Vice President Harris’s senior staff reached out to us today to confirm what we already knew: Her ‘commitment to Israel’s security is ironclad,’ and she ‘strongly disagrees with the George Mason student’s characterization of Israel.’”

Anti-Defamation League CEO Jonathan Greenblatt weighed in on Twitter.

“Just spoke with @VP office,” he said.

“Glad to hear her confirm she is proud of her record supporting #Israel, and knows claim it is committing ‘ethnic genocide’ is patently false. Looking fwd to a clearing of the record so there’s no ambiguity that what that student said was hateful/ wrong.”

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NATION

Andy Levin says his friendship with Rashida Tlaib gives him hope for Israel Ron Kampeas

WASHINGTON ( JTA)—When Andy Levin was elected to Congress in 2018, he was known, at least in Washington, mostly for his lineage: His father and uncle were giants among congressional Democrats.

Levin’s father, Rep. Sander Levin, whose seat Levin inherited, and his uncle, the late Sen. Carl Levin, were establishment Democrats who reliably supported the U.S.-Israel relationship but, unlike some other Jewish lawmakers, did not make it a front-and-center issue of their careers.

Andy Levin, who represents a Detroitarea district, has set himself apart on both fronts.

A former union organizer, he has distinguished himself as a leader among progressives as a member of the committee on education and labor, where he has been outspoken on environmental sustainability, workers’ rights and reducing college costs. He is a deputy whip of the Congressional Progressive Caucus.

And last month, Levin, 61, introduced legislation about Israel that included provisions criticized by some Israel advocates. Levin’s proposed legislation would enshrine as law the U.S. commitment to a two-state outcome to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but would also introduce strictures on how Israel spends U.S. defense assistance, banning U.S. funds from entrenching Israel’s presence in the West Bank.

Levin says before he introduced the bill about why he believes U.S. support for Israel, including U.S. Jewish support needs recalibrating. He also talks about how his Jewish faith informs his politics; his friendship with the most outspoken anti-Zionist in Congress, Michigan Rep.

Rashida Tlaib; and why he‘s in it for the long haul. Here’s what he says.

On Mordecai Kaplan’s influence on his legislation “You probably never heard of Reconstructionist Judaism,” Levin says, explaining how he was proud to be one of just two current members of Congress who have been presidents of synagogues.

The other is Jacky Rosen, the Democratic senator from Nevada, and Levin says they bonded over dinner when they realized they had that in common.

Levin seems to delight in the denomination’s small size and says his congregation, T’chiyah in suburban Detroit, is “tiny,” but “it’s growing.”

Once Levin realizes that, yes, JTA is acquainted with Reconstructionism, he geeks out on the movement’s founder, Rabbi Mordecai Kaplan. “His daughter was the first girl ever bar mitzvahed!”

Then he goes onto Kaplan’s sociological and theological teachings.

Kaplan “really came up with the idea that Judaism is a civilization, and this is actually super relevant to this question” of Levin’s support for Israel as expressed through his bill, he says. “I don’t see Judaism as a religion. I see us as a people, you know culture, cuisine, Yiddishkeit I mean, so much. And this is part of why I feel like we deserve a homeland—not to mention the oppression of centuries, millennia.”

On his friendship with Rashida Tlaib Levin’s district neighbor is Rashida Tlaib, the Palestinian-American congresswoman who opposes Israel’s existence as a Jewish state. Her actions and comments have led some of her caucus colleagues to call her antisemitic; during last week’s vote on supplemental funds for Iron Dome,

Visit us on the web jewishnewsva.org 8 | JEWISH NEWS | October 11, 2021 | jewishnewsva.org

Rep. Ted Deutch, the Jewish Democrat from Florida, outright said her use of the word “apartheid” to describe Israel was antisemitic.

Levin and Tlaib, Detroiters say, act as a team in advocating for federal relief for the city, and he says they have been friends for ages, having got to know one another when she was a Michigan state legislator and he was the director of Michigan’s labor and energy department.

“She and I worked on economic justice in Detroit long before she or I would never dream of running for Congress,” he says.

So, does Levin talk about Jewish peoplehood and the need for a Jewish homeland with Tlaib?

Absolutely, he says, and while he rejects her rejection of a Jewish homeland, he does not see it as antisemitic.

“People misunderstand Rashida,” he says. “I mean, she is the one person that I know of in the House or the Senate, who is openly for a one-state solution, and people say that is antisemitic.”

Levin says calling one-state advocates antisemitic was problematic; for one thing, he said, there were a growing number of young Jews who favored the outcome, in part because of their friendships with Arab Americans.

“There’s a distinction between what I would call the romantic notion, what I would say is maybe an unrealistic or even naive notion, or even a utopian notion of one state which Jews and Palestinians, all share…and the push-us-into-the-sea crowd which exists and is real.”

Levin, who in 2019 helped organize private, emotionally frank talks between Jewish and Muslim Democrats, says his relationship with Tlaib could serve as a model for Jewish-Palestinian dialogue.

“If this Jewish boy and Palestinian girl

Andy Levin.

from Detroit disagree with each other and talk about our views about the future for Israel and Palestine—you know, let’s go,” he says. “I mean this is what we that the Jewish and Palestinian peoples need to do on a broader scale.”

On why he’s planning for the long term Levin, refreshingly, acknowledges that his bill on two-states and strictures on funding for Israel won’t likely see the light of day this Congress. (No lawmaker ever admits that a bill is doomed.) But, he says that’s not the point.

As an organizer at heart, he says he sees what he hopes is a parallel in the Voting Rights Act and Civil Rights Act that Congress passed in 1964 and 1965.

“So, let’s say now it’s 1962 or even 1958, and you were having an interview and I’m whoever introduced those bills in those years. And you said ‘well, this is naive, this is not passing’—but you have to organize for change,” he says. “We are duty-bound to try to get there. And let’s end there and we need to start today.”

Levin may have time. His dad served in his district for 36 years.

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VIRGINIA GOP flier in Virginia House race shows Jewish Democrat and a pile of gold coins

Ron Kampeas

WASHINGTON ( JTA)—A GOP flier distributed to homes in the Virginia suburbs of Washington depicts the Jewish Democratic candidate for the House of Delegates at a table stacked high with gold coins, a pairing of images of Jewish candidates with money that has proliferated in political attack ads in recent years.

“Dan Helmer has raised Virginia’s cost of living to new heights,” the mailer says.

It was distributed by Helmer’s Republican challenger, Howard Pyon.

Helmer, the incumbent in the House of Delegate’s 40th District, which covers parts of Fairfax and Prince William counties, tells the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that the photoshopped scene was clearly antisemitic and that he had heard from Jewish families in the district who were outraged.

“People are deeply upset by this,” says Helmer, an incumbent freshman running for reelection. “They expect us to be talking about the issues, not to be using antisemitic tropes.”

A spokesman for Pyon says the depiction in the recent mailer was not antisemitic and could apply to any politician accused of voting to hike taxes.

“It’s showing the increases because of his votes,” Pyon’s spokesman says of the four piles of coins topped with a car for car taxes, a lamp for utilities, a gasoline pump, and a house. Helmer’s being

Jewish “was not on Harold’s mind” when the candidate approved the mailer, the spokesman says.

Similar depictions of Jewish candidates reveling in cash in recent election cycles have drawn condemnations from Jewish groups. Most of the attacks have targeted Jewish Democrats, although in one instance, a Republican Jewish nominee was targeted by Democrats.

One of Helmer’s fundraising emails in the 2019 election condemned the recent spike in antisemitic attacks and accused his opponent, a longtime incumbent, of ignoring it. It showed Helmer celebrating his son’s bar mitzvah. Helmer’s grandmother spoke at his swearing-in in 2020 about her joy, as a Holocaust survivor, at witnessing her grandson’s election to public office.

Helmer also says that the way the original photograph was made grainy in the photoshopped mailer appears to accentuate his nose. Helmer, a veteran, also notes that the photoshopped version erased the West Point insignia on his jacket. The Pyon spokesman denies that there was an effort to make Helmer’s nose more prominent, noting that making photographs of opponents more grainy was commonplace in political ads.

Helmer won the 2019 election by a close margin, ousting a long-term Republican.

State Republicans have invested in Pyon’s candidacy, hoping to wrest the House of Delegates back from Democratic control.

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FREDA H. GORDON HOSPICE AND PALLIATIVE CARE OF TIDEWATER

Jewish Family Service and Beth Sholom Village welcome LHC Group to Tidewater Susan Graves

A

decade ago, Betty Ann Levin, then CEO of Jewish Family Service of Tidewater and David Abraham, CEO of Beth Sholom Village, met together with their organization’s boards of directors to create the Freda H. Gordon Hospice and Palliative Care of Tidewater (HPCT) organization. The Gordon family’s confidence in HPCT was a key factor in reaching such lofty goals. The program has operated successfully throughout its existence.

Now, the agency is undergoing another evolution to adapt to the evolving envi-

Their experience and emphasis on providing quality, value-based healthcare to patients in the comfort of their own home settings mirrors what we have been doing for years, just on a larger scale.

ronment of healthcare.

LHC Group approached the HCPT board about the possibility of taking over and managing the organization. During those talks, it was also learned that LHC Group was interested in doing the same with Generations Home Care, which provides home- and community-based skilled nursing and therapy services.

Generations is a joint venture between BSV in Tidewater and Beth Sholom in

10 | JEWISH NEWS | October 11, 2021 | jewishnewsva.org

Richmond.

HPCT remains the preferred provider to clients of Jewish Family Service and Beth Sholom.

“Throughout the past several years, the landscape of home health and hospice has changed dramatically, with group payment models and increased managed care restrictions making smaller organizations like ours at a disadvantage to compete in such a way that supports the growth and sustainability of the program,” says Kelly Burroughs, CEO of JFS. The transfer of HPCT and Generations to LHC Group was completed on October 1, 2021.

LHC Group has home office locations in Lafayette, La., and in Louisville, Ky. With 800 locations in 35 states and the District of Columbia, LHC Group provides support to 525,000 patients annually through their home health, hospice, home- and community-based services, as well as facility-based care and ACO management.

“They are uniquely positioned to help support the growth of Freda H. Gordon Hospice and Palliative Care of Tidewater,”

says Abraham.

“Their experience and emphasis on providing quality, value-based healthcare to patients in the comfort of their own home settings mirrors what we have been doing for years, just on a larger scale,” he says.

The name of the organization will not change.

“The Board of the Freda H. Gordon Hospice and Palliative Care of Tidewater is honored to have provided stewardship of such a caring and well-respected program,” says Lawrence Steingold, current board chair.

“The gratitude that families and the healthcare community have expressed over the years has made all of us in the Jewish community proud.”

Local Relationships Matter

JEWISH TIDEWATER

Hineni Fellow Jason Hoffman embraces Jewish life Brian Berusch

J

ason Hoffman leads a Jewish life. When we caught up for this interview—to chat about his experience with United Jewish Federation of Tidewater’s Hineni Fellowship —he was hanging around an airport awaiting Denise and Jason Hoffman at the Western Wall. the arrival of his teenaged daughter, who was returning from a BBYO event in Pennsylvania. Hoffman clearly wants to insure his children understand the value and significance of being a proactive member within the Jewish community.

The Hoffmans lead by example. “I live the Jewish life and participate as much as I can because it’s important to me,” he says. “This is how I expose my kids to Jewishness, by showing them through example. It seems to be rubbing off,” he adds, noting this is his daughter’s second BBYO trip in less than a month.

A Wells Fargo financial advisor with 26 years of experience in the industry, Hoffman completed a yearlong Hineni Fellowship—along with his wife, Denise— in 2009. In addition to the mentorships,

Nothing bad has happened to me

by participating;

nothing bad comes

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“Our passion is helping those in the community who really need our help. We work for people who are not in business and are not well off. We focus on Workman’s Compensation with a mission to help injured workers.

We are one of a few in the community who do this work.”

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“Our experience with Payday Payroll has not just been positive but fabulous! They are true experts at what they do. Whenever we have an ‘internal hiccup’ even if not directly related to payroll, but in record keeping or data collection we call them and they always help us out. They find a solution for everything.”

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Our client relationships are anything but transactional.

We are long-term partners, dedicated to the success of our clients, and most importantly, their people.

from being generous.

Denise and Jason Hoffman in Israel.

new friends, and inspiring trip to Israel, the Hineni participation made an additional impact for the Hoffmans.

“Being an interfaith family, we weren’t sure about being prominent in the Jewish community. That all went away through Hineni, doing it together,” Hoffman shares. “To be able to experience being members of the community on such an elevated level really superseded those worries. We came out stronger.”

Highlights of the Hineni program included a group dinner at Miles Leon’s house. “He and Sandra were so happy to have us. Sandra’s passion for the JCC is unrivaled. You just can’t help but be

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inspired by them.”

PD-ad-three-eighths-V-color-Jewish News-111320.indd 5 Another aspect of Hineni that resonated with Hoffman, who now leads as UJFT’s finance committee chair, was the mock allocation. The exercise helped the group understand that there are more requests than there are funds, how to navigate through the process, and how to make it work.

“It’s all worthy. It shines the light on why we ask for gifts and pledges. It compels you to be more involved, so we can adequately manage and steward the Federation.”

Returning from their end-of-Hineni

Payroll Benefits HR

Israel trip together, the Hoffmans 11/13/20 became 2:56 PM entrenched in the Federation. “Nothing bad has happened to me by participating; nothing bad comes from being generous.

It’s an opportunity to be a stakeholder in your community. And you get out what you put in,” he adds.

The UJFT Annual Campaign, the Simon Family Foundation, and the Thomas Hofheimer Medical Mission support the Hineni Fellows leadership program. Donations directly aid in the mentorship of these future Jewish leaders. Visit JewishVA.org/Hineni or call 965-6139.

jewishnewsva.org | October 11, 2021 | JEWISH NEWS | 11

YOUR DOLLARS AT WORK

BBYO begins with excitement and opportunities for teens to connect

AZA boys ride and smile before the big drop.

Getting there is half of the fun. A bus selfie on the way to Busch Gardens.

Dave Flagler

T

idewater’s BBYO chapters have enthusiastically begun this school year.

BBG (B’nai Brith Girls), which locally consists of Dr. Abraham Cohen and Kruger chapters, and AZA (Aleph Tzadik Aleph), which locally consists of Dr. Israel Brown and Old Dominion chapters, are ready to plan a year of chapter-specific and combined programming.

The teens are excited to be in-person again, and the “New Year’s” pool party kick-off was well attended by both old and new faces.

Virginia Council of Eastern Region BBYO, consisting of teens from Richmond, the Peninsula, and Tidewater, recently had their first event of the season at Busch Gardens for new and prospective members. More than 70 teens from the Council participated, with 34 from Tidewater.

Plenty of opportunities for teens to get involved with BBYO are planned for this fall. On the weekend of October 22, new BBYO members will have the opportunity to attend the Eastern Region New Member Weekend Convention in Greensboro, North Carolina. Tidewater teens will have the chance to meet other Jewish teens 12 | JEWISH NEWS | October 11, 2021 | jewishnewsva.org

from North Carolina, Virginia, South Carolina, and southern Georgia, learn all about BBYO, and have a great time.

Locally, the AZA and BBG chapters are hard at work planning fun and meaningful programs for later in October and beyond. These programs, typically scheduled on Sunday afternoons, are a great opportunity for teens to connect with Jewish peers and share common interests.

BBG girls enjoy the day together.

To learn more about BBYO or other ways teens can get involved in the Tidewater Jewish community, contact Dave Flagler, director of Camp and Teen Engagement at the United Jewish Federation of Tidewater, at DFlagler@ UJFT.org or 757-452-3182.

This is part of a series of articles spotlighting local and overseas partner agencies that are beneficiaries of the United Jewish Federation of Tidewater’s annual Community Campaign.

Israel today

jewishnewsva.org | October 11, 2021 | JEWISH NEWS | 13

BETH SHOLOM VILLAGE

Memorial Service at BSV remembers those departed since last year Marcia Futterman Brodie

I

t is a Jewish custom to remember family members and friends on the anniversary of their passing. A memorial prayer is recited, a candle is lit, and donation is often given in memoriam. After not gathering in person for more than one year, Beth Sholom Village held a very special service to remember those who passed away.

On the warm evening of August 25, approximately 50 family members, loved ones, and local clergy gathered outside, socially distanced, and wearing masks.

The goal for the Service of Remembrance, emerging from an unparalleled difficult time, was to provide healing and hope to the families and friends of all who had called Beth Sholom Village home.

“It was truly wonderful to see family members whom we had not seen for over a year, and to remember and honor their

loved ones,” says David Abraham, president and CEO of Beth Sholom Village.

Hedda Kirschbaum, whose husband, Mel, passed away in March of 2020, says, “It was nice to see staff and other family members. I visited with Mel every day for seven and a half years. So, it was good to see people we had not seen for a long time.” The Kirschbaums were married for 56 years. Hedda Kirschbaum and her children came to honor Mel’s memory.

Rabbi Adam Ruditsky, director of Religious and Spiritual Services at Beth Sholom Village, revised the memorial program that had been put on hold due to the pandemic.

“It was essential for us to acknowledge and remember those who lived with us, so their memory lives on,” says Rabbi Ruditsky. “We recited the Mourners Kaddish and read each person’s name that left us, and asked family members

14 | JEWISH NEWS | October 11, 2021 | jewishnewsva.org

David Abraham, BSV CEO, speaks at the service.

to come up and put a stone in a bowl of water. Water represents their lives, and the stone represents their death. We were fortunate to have local Cellist Lei Lei Berz play meaningful and beautiful music.”

Rabbi Ruditsky will continue this tradition every six months to memorialize the passing of loved ones who influenced and inspired during their lifetimes.

! v o T l e z a M Supplement to Jewish News October 11, 2021

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Mazel Tov

C E L E B R AT E YO U R

Mazel Tov A T

Dear Readers,

I

n the best of times, planning a milestone event is known to create stressful situations.

Throw in a pandemic, along with months of uncertainty, and the stress leaps to a

never-seen-before level.

Believe me, I know.

My husband and I just returned from Boston celebrating our daughter’s delayed May 2020 Commencement from Boston University. While there was never a consideration not

R I S T O R A N T E I N S P I R E D

B Y

I T A LY

to attend, we had concerns, including wondering how many others would make the trip.

Upon arriving in Boston, we soon learned the answer.

Approximately 8,000 BU Grads and families said yes to the weekend and traveled from around the globe to celebrate these graduates’ achievements and tenacity. It was a glorious weekend of ceremonies and reunions and we were so glad we chose to be part of the happiness…complete with masks adorned with BU logos and Class of 2020.

Eighteen months into COVID-19, one friend, who happens to be an intelligent nurse and tends to lean on the cautious side when it comes to medicine and this pandemic, said to me, “We need to celebrate life’s simchas…we just need to take smart precautions.”

How right she is.

And, that’s exactly what we did in Boston and what we’ll do when our older daughter soon gets married.

In fact, I plan to take lessons from the three women featured on page 18: Two mothers of the bride and one bride. They managed joyful weddings in three very different settings. Mazel Tov to them all!

Weddings and graduations are just two reasons for shouting Mazel Tov! and within these pages, we have articles celebrating some of the others—a big birthday (page 21),

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the first Bar Mitzvah in Bahrain since 2005 (page 25) and the birth of a precious baby just 10 days after the death of her beloved grandfather (page 24).

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Mazel Tov

Weddings 2021: Happy ever after, hitches and all Lisa Richmon

T

he 2020–21 wedding theme is a mix of Suspend Disbelief and Hello Fantastical.

For three recently married couples, snookered by the pandemic and forced to alter their original dream wedding plans dramatically, getting the last laugh was extra sweet.

Erin Leon and Charlie Olson; Danielle Campion and Chris Adsit; Rachel Gross and Aviv Faraj; and their good friends and families, learned overnight that a hitch-less

wedding was not beshert.

In reality, however, the wedding of their dreams turned out to be one they could never have imagined. Nor would it have been possible if not for the wrath of Mother Nature and her ruinous rival, COVID-19.

Turns out moving a wedding from Israel to Virginia Beach, Virginia Beach to Jackson Hole, Wyoming, diluting the guest list from 200 plus people to 18—or bringing 150 people together in a rain-drenched tent—can bring joy and delight in greater measure than a fleeting sense of discomfort or disappointment. For these couples, a

turbulent year surviving marital mashups and letdowns, and zigging and zagging right up to the altar, getting the last laugh was the best revenge of all.

For our March Mazel Tov section, Jewish News spoke with Beth Campion and Laura Gross as they were planning their daughters’ weddings. Now, we ask them, along with a bride, Erin Leon Olson, how their weddings and dreams turned out.

Jewish News: After all the ups and downs, and twists and turns, what was the biggest and best surprise?

Laura Gross, mother of Rachel Gross Faraj The biggest and best surprise is that the wedding was every bit as beautiful, incredible, family-oriented, happy, and fun as it could have been. Could not have been more hamisha. The Israeli crew brought their own sensibilities…the Hora went on forever.

When you have family and friends like we have, you can count on that support regardless of what obstacles are put in your path. Between that, and Rachel and Aviv being who they are, it was seamless.

Credit also goes to the caterer, band, and florist. After a year of working sporadically, or with next to nothing for a year, I give a lot of credit to the professionals. It’s amazing.

After what they’ve been through with COVID.

Rachel Gross Faraj and Aviv Faraj.

18 | JEWISH NEWS | Mazel Tov | October 11, 2021 | jewishnewsva.org

Rachel Gross Faraj and Aviv Faraj dance their first dance.

Mazel Tov

Erin Leon and Charlie Olson are married in front of the Teton Mountain Range.

Erin Leon Olson and Charlie Olson.

an intimate ceremony and reception with our immediate families. We chose Jackson, Wyoming because it is the special place where Charlie and I first met.

We are so grateful to our parents— Sandra and Miles Leon and Mimi and David Olson—for supporting us through the wedding planning journey, and all of our family who travelled great distances to join us.

What made all of the “zig-zagging” worth it? Without hesitation, the meaningful and loving relationships created between our families, thankfully including our grandparents—Papa Arnold Leon, Grandma Ellie Porter, and Grandma Katie Olson—who were able to celebrate with us. This special setting also allowed us to deliver personal touches like handwritten notes, family wedding portraits displayed during dinner, and even Grandma Ellie’s homemade wedding cake, carried cross-country!

With a smaller wedding, Charlie and I could really focus on our marriage ceremony (with the help of Jackson Hole’s “Rabbi Josh”) and bring our families together. The fact that each of our siblings and grandparents (seven in Time for the Horah for Erin Leon Olson and Charlie Olson. total) were able to recite the seven blessings, with the Erin Leon Olson Teton mountain range in the background, Charlie and I are both very lucky to was more beautiful than we could have have large extended families and ever imagined. And the celebration deep friendships around afterwards (with bluegrass, of the world, and deficourse) was pure magic. nitely envisioned a Toasts, roasts and lots big wedding preof laughter brought COVID. While so much joy, espeit was beyond cially when we did the difficult not to Horah! include all family We left knowing members and dear that all eighteen (Chai!) friends, the panguests felt as special and demic forced us to create full of love as we did! L’CHAIM! continued on page 19

jewishnewsva.org | October 11, 2021 | Mazel Tov | JEWISH NEWS | 19

Mazel Tov Beth Campion, mother of Danielle Campion Adsit

The bridal party poses for pictures on the Campion’s porch.

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Danielle Campion Adsit and Chris Adsit.

We zigged and zagged right up to the walk down the aisle, but there is not one thing we would change. Not even the weather.

The best surprise is that we just moved to East Beach in March. Who would have known we would have used our new house for wedding photos a few months later on Memorial Day weekend, or that it would rain more than three inches in three hours on that Saturday when the Farmer’s Almanac hasn’t seen over .04 inches ever on that day.

We had to put slits in tents to suck out the water and make it happen. My daughter doesn’t know about any of this, or the shot of tequila I took with her bridesmaids.

Taking photos on the porch with all of Chris’ family and the bridal party was totally unplanned, but it was so much fun. The pictures could not have turned out better! Danielle was not fazed about her veil, which was not cooperating, or her hair that didn’t curl because of the rain. Her attitude was, ‘This is about me and Chris and our families. I want to look like myself.’

Another highlight came from the band and a completely impromptu song they played after hearing my husband’s welcome speech which referenced a line from Message of Love by The Pretenders. The line is, “when love walks in the room stand up.” That was just another beautiful surprise in what felt like a Hallmark movie wedding.

Mazel Tov Congregation Beth El plans anniversary celebration with Six13 Sunday, December 5, 4 pm

C

OVID might have delayed Congregation Beth El’s plans to celebrate its 170th Anniversary by a year, but it could not dampen the enthusiasm and excitement of the planning committee to create a community-wide event to celebrate Hanukkah and its 171st Anniversary.

The groundbreaking, six-man a cappella vocal band, Six13 will perform their signature, soulful harmonies in Norfolk, both in-person and virtually.

Six13’s videos are an international phenomenon. They have been featured on national television, around the world, and at the White House for a private audience of President and First Lady Obama and Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. They handle the Jewish repertoire with the same flair as secular classics. Known for their high-energy performance and catchy original songs performed by top-notch professional

singers, Six13 is sure to have everyone clapping their hands, tapping their feet, and dancing in the aisles.

Mark calendars for what will certainly be a fun-filled, family-friendly, musical celebration.

Admission is free and reservations are requested. Sponsorship opportunities are requested in support of Congregation Beth El. The in-person concert will take place at Congregation Beth El in Norfolk.

Seating will be socially distant, masks will be required, as will vaccinations, for those who are age-eligible.

For more information or to RSVP, contact Noelle Wright at Congregation Beth El at noelle@bethelnorfolk.com or 757-6257821. For sponsorship information, call Deb Segaloff at 757-285-9009. Reservations and sponsorships will soon be available through www.bethelnorfolk.com.

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Mazel Tov Helping you navigate through life transitions and important life events.

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In Israel, a chicken farm released special-edition eggs to mark egg-related Talmud study milestone Shira Hanau

(JTA)—As participants in the Daf Yomi, a program in which participants study one page of Talmud each day, near the end of the current tractate, an Israeli chicken farm decided to join in the celebration.

In honor of the completion of the Talmud Tractate Beitzah, which means “egg” in Hebrew, Meshek Kedumim printed the words of the text recited upon the completion of a Talmud tractate directly onto the eggs.

“We will return to you, Tractate

An aerial banner said ‘Jew, I have a question.’

It turned out to be a marriage proposal.

Ben Sales

(JTA)—The banner, dragged by a plane last month across the Florida sky, looked disconcerting.

“Jew, I have a question,” it said.

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Beitzah,” the eggs read in Hebrew. “Be strong and take courage, from the chicken coops of Kedumim.”

Daf Yomi participants will complete Tractate Beitzah, so named because it begins with a story related to an egg, before continuing on to Tractate Rosh Hashana.

The entire Daf Yomi cycle, in which participants study one double-sided page of the 37 tractates of the Talmud each day in order, takes about seven and a half years to complete. At the end of the cycle, celebrations are typically held, including a massive gathering at MetLife Stadium.

Certainly, it was a moment made for Twitter, attracting both jokesters and antisemitism watchdogs.

A tweet of the photo by the group StopAntisemitism got more than 100 shares.

Another group, United With Israel, shared the photo and tweeted, “Antisemitism is alive and well.”

Others poked fun.

“Judging by my experience of Judaism the question is either something deep, philosophical and existential or ‘when are we eating? I’m STARVING,” one person tweeted.

Ben Shapiro, the Orthodox Jewish rightwing commentator, tweeted the photo out to his 3.5 million followers along with a joking, obscure reference to how rabbis answer questions of Jewish law.

Turns out the banner wasn’t meant to be hate speech or a joke: It was a marriage proposal to a woman nicknamed “Jew.” (What that’s short for—Julia? Jewel?

Judith? Remains unclear.)

According to Glenna Milberg, a local South Florida television reporter, the banner was created and flown by Aerial Banners, whose Instagram page shows examples of similar marriage proposals— though others tend to say “Will you marry me?” That probably would have cleared up the confusion here.

Milberg reported that Milo Srkal Jr., a representative of Aerial Banners, said he didn’t realize the banner could be read as offensive until he got a call from the local branch of the Anti-Defamation League.

“It was like, ‘Wait, what? What are you talking about?’” he said, according to News10, Milberg’s station. “And then after sitting back, thinking about it, reading a few things and having things explained to us, it was like, ‘Oh my God.’” Of course, the real story of the banner prompted another question: Did “Jew” say yes?

According to Milberg, she did.

Mazel Tov

Sunlight enhances romantic passion Scientific study from Tel Aviv University shows sunlight makes you fall in love

S

un exposure has its benefits, among them: enhancing passion in humans.

Researchers in Professor Carmit Levy’s Tel Aviv University (TAU) laboratory have found that exposure to ultraviolet radiation from sunlight increases levels of romantic passion in both genders.

The radiation affects the regulation of the endocrine system responsible for the release of sexual hormones in humans.

The discovery was published as a cover story in the new issue of the scientific journal Cell Reports.

Professor Levy of the Department of Human Molecular Genetics and Biochemistry at TAU’s Sackler Faculty of Medicine says, “It has been known for many years now that ultraviolet radiation

from sunlight increases testosterone levels in males, and we also know that sunlight plays a major role in both the behavioral and hormonal regulation of sexuality.

However, the mechanism responsible for this regulation remained unknown. Our study enabled a better understanding of this mechanism.”

The discovery may lead to practical applications, such as UVB treatments for sexual hormone disorders. More research is required before this can be achieved, but according to Professor Levy, the breakthrough will also lead to further discoveries in basic science.

“Our findings open many scientific and philosophical questions,” Professor Levy says. “As humans, we have no fur, and our

skin is directly exposed to sunlight. We are only beginning to understand what this exposure does to us, and the key roles it might play in various physiological and behavioral processes. It’s only the tip of the iceberg.”

The study culminated in a survey of 32 human subjects, who filled out validated questionnaires on behaviors of romantic passion and aggression. Treated with type b ultraviolet (UVB) phototherapy at the Tel Aviv Sourasky (Ichilov) and Assuta Medical Centers, both genders exhibited a rise in romantic passion, and males also noted an increase in levels of aggression.

Similar results were found when the subjects were asked to avoid sunlight for two days, and then tan themselves

for approximately 25 minutes. Blood tests revealed that exposure to sunlight resulted in a higher release of hormones like testosterone compared to one day before exposure. A rise in testosterone in males during the summer was also found in analyses of data from the Clalit and Maccabi Health Services.

Tel Aviv University (TAU) is a globally top-ranked university, a leading research institution, and a center of discovery. As Israel’s largest public institution of higher learning, TAU is home to 30,000 students, including 2,100 international students from over 100 countries. The University encompasses nine faculties, 35 schools, 400 labs, and has 17 affiliated hospitals in its network.

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Mazel Tov Bittersweet blessings for Paul Turok’s growing family Lisa Richmon

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aul Len Turok was born to count many blessings: Building a sweet life with Vivian (Viv); moving from South Africa to Virginia at just the right time; feeling embraced by the local Jewish community; raising two healthy children with good souls and great hair; and designing and building bold spaces for people to live, work, and gather. He made lifelong friends year after year.

An artist architect, Paul always found something to smile about. His biggest blessing was Vivian, his life partner of 42 years. Beaming brightly wherever they went, Paul and Viv loved hard on their friends and family, but it was the way they cherished each other’s company daily that was a blessing of rare intensity and duration.

Paul passed away 10 days before the birth of their fourth grandchild. Parker Lane Turok, born on March 26, 2021,

shares the initials P.L.T. with her grandfather. This burst of new life has Davey Turok soaking up his father’s affirming parenting practices like a sponge.

“We all miss him so much, and it honestly doesn’t seem real that he is gone,” says Davey. “The biggest thing I learned from my dad, and I hope to pass along to my kids is not how to succeed, but how to fail. Out of every negative he would challenge me to find a positive. He taught me that as long as you have the right mindset, you can never lose. You either win or you learn.”

Keeping Paul’s powerful presence is not a struggle for Davey and his younger sister Lindi Gold, but facing his loss on a daily basis, can be.

“He was my sounding board, my spiritual guide, and my voice of reason.

Something he would always say to us (and I will teach to my kids) is to ‘keep a cool head,’” says Lindi. “For anyone who knew my dad, it is perfectly fitting for the type of person he was.”

The Turok family.

24 | JEWISH NEWS | Mazel Tov | October 11, 2021 | jewishnewsva.org

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One Happy Camper: Summer Hoffman connects with her Jewish roots in summer program

Summer Hoffman at her Bat Mitzvah.

Summer Hoffman

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his summer, I went on BBYO’s Kallah summer program. When the catalog came in for all the summer programs, I chose Kallah for one main reason: it was the summer program of connection.

At any given moment on Shabbat, I could look out at a sea of tallit and siddurim. I could watch people who I only just met wrapped in each other’s arms during Havdalah. It was just so beyond mind-blowing to see how one thing we all shared in common could bring us that close, that fast. Every time I would see one of these things, I could feel my Jewish identity growing stronger by the second. Going to Kallah and knowing I was completely safe in being Jewish was such a weight lifted off my shoulders that I did not even know it was there to begin with. I felt a sense of safety and comfort in the person I realized I had wanted to be all along, which was a strong Jewish young woman.

This experience made me realize the thing I was missing all this time was not external, but internal. I wanted to be more

Jewish, but simply did not know how.

Kallah taught me how to do that, and I had the incredible opportunity to get Bat Mitzvahed and receive a Hebrew name while I was there.

Before this, I had never spoken a lick of Hebrew in my life, and then when I was given a Torah portion about a minute long, I could feel myself getting more and more nervous.

On top of learning my Torah portion, I also had to pick out a name. I chose Chaya for my paternal great-grandmother and its meaning of life. The ceremony came and went, and I was B’nai Mitzvahed and given a name alongside four other wonderful BBGs and AZAs. It was something I had always felt somewhat ashamed of, almost a fraud for not ever having a Bat Mitzvah or a Hebrew name. However, Kallah made me realize it did not matter how “Jewish” I was, but that the simple fact that I identified as Jewish was good enough.

I will forever be grateful for what those three weeks have taught me, and the people I met while I was there.

Mazel Tov Bahrain’s Jewish community celebrates its first bar mitzvah in 16 years

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( JTA)—The Jewish community of Bahrain celebrated the country’s first bar mitzvah since 2005.

The bar mitzvah ceremony took place in the House of the Ten Commandments in Manama, the kingdom’s only operational synagogue, according to a release from the Association of Gulf Jewish Communities, which coordinates and promotes Jewish life in the region.

The bar mitzvah boy, who was not named in the release, read from a Torah scroll donated by Jared Kushner, the adviser to former President Donald Trump. The bar mitzvah ceremony comes about a year after Bahrain signed a normalization accord with Israel that Kushner helped broker. Israel has signed or committed to similar agreements with the United Arab Emirates, Morocco, and Sudan.

There are currently about 50 Jews living in Bahrain. According to the release, Jews in Oman recently celebrated a bat mitzvah, though it did not provide further details in order to protect the family’s privacy.

“It is a very exciting time for Jewish life in the GCC as more families celebrate Jewish milestones more publicly,” read a statement by Rabbi Eli Abadie of the Association of Gulf Jewish Communities,

referring to the Gulf Cooperation Council, a regional alliance. “This is an affirmation of the continued growth of Jewish life in the region.”

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Mazel Tov Impossible Pork is here—but the plant-based meat won’t be certified as kosher Don’t expect to see it served at festive meals—yet Jacob Gurvis

(JTA)—Impossible Foods, the plant-based meat company, is releasing a long-awaited new product—but unlike the wildly popular Impossible Burger, it won’t be certified kosher.

The largest and most influential certifier of kosher products in the world has declined to endorse Impossible Pork, even though nothing about its ingredients or preparation conflicts with Jewish dietary laws.

“The Impossible Pork, we didn’t give an ‘OU’ to it, not because it wasn’t kosher per se,” says Rabbi Menachem Genack, the CEO of the Orthodox Union’s kosher division. “It may indeed be completely in terms of its ingredients: If it’s completely plant-derived, it’s kosher. Just in terms of sensitivities to the consumer…it didn’t get it.”

For Jews who keep kosher, the Impossible Burger has allowed some food experiences that would otherwise be off-limits because of the prohibition in dietary law on mixing milk and meat.

For the last five years, Jews and kosher restaurants have been able to serve up cheese-topped chili, greasy cheeseburgers, and that quintessential American diner pairing: a hamburger with a milkshake.

“The Impossible Burger itself is a huge, huge success and people really, really like it,” Genack says. “It’s a really excellent, excellent product in every respect.”

With the new product, Impossible Foods wanted to give that same experience to Jews and Muslims who do not eat pork, along with others who are seeking to avoid animal products or reduce their environmental impact.

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But Genack says he and others at the OU recalled what happened when they once certified “bacon” that wasn’t made of pig.

“We still get deluged with calls from consumers who either don’t get it or they’re uncomfortable with it,” he says.

The OU has held back certification for reasons other than food preparation before. In 2013, for example, it required a Manhattan restaurant to change its name from Jezebel, the name of a biblical figure associated with immorality, to retain its certification.

But the organization certifies other products that might seem to conflict with Jewish dietary law, explaining on its website that “a fish sauce may display a picture of a non-kosher fish, the OU may appear on artificial crab or pork, or there may be a recipe for a non-kosher food item on the label.” It even certifies other products that aim to replicate the pork experience, such as Trader Joe’s “spicy porkless plant-based snack rinds.”

But ultimately, agency officials decided that a product called “pork” just wouldn’t fly, Genack says.

“We of course discussed it with the company and they understood,” he says.

For Impossible Foods, the word “pork” is here to stay.

“While Impossible Pork was originally designed for Halal and Kosher certification, we aren’t moving forward with those certifications as we wish to continue to use the term ‘Pork’ in our product name,” an Impossible Foods spokesperson says.

The decision means Impossible Pork won’t be on the menu at kosher restaurants, which must use only kosher-certified products in order to retain their own kosher certification. That includes kosher and/ or vegan Asian restaurants with mainstay dishes that would typically include pork, such as the dumplings and dim sum that marked Impossible Pork’s first outings this week in New York and Hong Kong.

It also means that Jews who seek to follow traditional dietary rules will have to make their own freighted decisions about Impossible Pork—including

whether to follow the OU’s ruling.

“I don’t think the OU labeling on it has a huge impact on me,” says Rabbi Justin Held, the director of Jewish education at Herzl Camp and the University of Minnesota Hillel, who described himself as a “huge Impossible fan.”

But he says he was concerned about marit ayin, or appearance to the eye, a concept in Jewish law that prohibits actions which appear to violate Jewish law, even if they technically do not. The concept raises the concern that someone who sees Held eating an Impossible Pork banh mi sandwich, for example, might think that he eats non-kosher meat.

A different concept, lifnei iver, or not placing stumbling blocks before the blind, could also come into play. The concept raises a related concern: whether someone who sees an observant Jew eating Impossible Pork dumplings could conclude that pork must actually be kosher.

For Held, the issues related to dietary law pale in comparison to the ick factor of consuming something that replicates one of Judaism’s strongest taboos—and even that isn’t enough to keep him away.

“The word pork is definitely a gross aversion to me,” he says. “But knowing it’s not [pork], I will try it.”

Rena Kates, an attorney in Baltimore, isn’t sure she will. Like Held, Kates keeps kosher and also uses ingredients, not an agency’s certification, as her guide for whether food is acceptable.

An avid consumer of plant-based meat products, she doesn’t think she can stomach Impossible Pork.

“I have this visceral reaction to it,” she says. “There is something about pork that is just triggering.”

It was that reaction, Genack says, that swayed the OU’s decision-making— though he says Impossible Pork came close to carrying the agency’s label, and still could one day.

“It could have gone either way, frankly,” Genack says. He adds, “This is something which we absolutely would be willing to review in the future.”

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jewishnewsva.org | October 11, 2021 | JEWISH NEWS | 27

IT’S A WRAP

PJ Library in Tidewater’s Pizza in the Hut: a Sukkot celebration Nofar Trem

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idewater families gathered in the sukkah on the Sandler Family Campus for a Sukkot celebration on Sunday, September 19.

The path to the sukkah featured a life-sized book walk of images from The Harvest Blessings by Amy Meltzer, a PJ Library author. In the sukkah, children and their parents, grandparents, aunts, and uncles enjoyed some Sukkot

Life-sized book walk of Harvest Blessings.

tunes, while Sierra Lautman, director of Jewish Innovation at the United Jewish Federation of Tidewater, visited each table to teach about the lulav and etrog.

After eating pizza, children of all ages created Sukkah decorations.

Younger children made long colorful chains using pool noodles and rope, while older kids painted styrofoam spheres to resemble fruits and vegetables.

“There is always so much thought put into the PJ Library in Tidewater programs.

It was no surprise that Pizza in the Hut was a great time,” says Jade Rouzeau, a PJ Library in Tidewater parent.

“My son loved the crafts and the idea that what he made would be hung up in the sukkah for all to see.”

Families create Sukkah decorations.

To learn more about PJ Library in Tidewater and how to get a free Jewish book delivered each month, or to register for upcoming events, visit JewishVA.org/ PJLibrary or contact Nofar Trem, UJFT’s PJ Library program coordinator at ntrem@ujft.org.

Sierra Lautman teaches about the lulav and etrog.

28 | JEWISH NEWS | October 11, 2021 | jewishnewsva.org

IT’S A WRAP

Sababa Social Club in the Sukkah…with the In[HEIR]itance Project Jill Grossman

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hen the Sababa Social Club met in the Sukkah for an introductory artistic salon with the In[HEIR]itance Project, old and new friends gathered, chatted, caught up, and noshed to start the evening. It wasn’t long, however, before Jon Adam Ross, managing director

Jon Adam Ross.

and founding artist of the In[HEIR]itance Project, and Chantal Pavageaux, writer, director, and interdisciplinary artist, began the conversation.

Ross has spent more than 20 years making art with communities around the country as an actor, playwright, and teaching artist. Pavageaux’s work has been produced nationally. Ross and Pavageaux engaged the crowd, encouraging everyone to share their vision of community, life, lifestyle, religion, and geography—anything and everything Hampton Roads.

This conversation, along with others taking place throughout the region, are part of an open artistic process that invites community members to share their personal insights as inspiration and material for a final play that will premiere at the Virginia Arts Festival in 2022.

The Sababa Social Club, supported by United Jewish Federation of Tidewater and Simon Family JCC, provides an opportunity for adults to be together with the Jewish community. Sababa Social Club in the Sukkah with The In[HEIR] itance Project was its second event. The crowd consensus is that Sababa is a hit.

Sababa—it’s cool!

Hillary Wriggers, Ellen Hundley, Naomi Limor Sedek, and her mother, Susan Limor.

For more information on Sababa Social Club, or to get involved with planning future events,

contact Jill Grossman, director, Arts + Ideas, at jgrossman@ujft.org, or 757-965-6137.

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jewishnewsva.org | October 11, 2021 | JEWISH NEWS | 29

ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT

As Jon Stewart returns to TV, here’s a look back at his most Jewish moments Stephen Silver

(JTA)—After a hiatus of more than six years that followed his departure from The Daily Show, Jon Stewart returned to regular series TV on September 30 with The Problem with Jon Stewart. Debuting on Apple TV+, it’s a new talk show that will feature in-depth discussion of different political issues, with new episodes debuting every two weeks.

The 58-year-old Stewart, of course, is Jewish, and has frequently referenced Judaism throughout his comedy career, including before, during and after his time on The Daily Show.

Odds are he will be cracking Jewish jokes again on his new show.

To mark his return to the screen, here are some of the funniest Jewish highlights from Stewart’s career: Jew Beanie In a standup routine from the 1990s, Stewart discussed his religious beliefs.

“I’m a Jewish guy, but I’m not a serious Jew,” he says in the clip, pointing out that he doesn’t wear a kippah, while reminding his audience it’s not called a “Jew beanie.”

Stewart goes on to say that while he believes in God, he suspects that God, billions of years after creating the world, may have “moved on to another project.”

Jesus, Muhammad, and Moses all went to the same high school In another standup routine, from 1996, Stewart talks about the Middle East, foreign policy, and the state of Israel.

“I’m a Jewish guy, I’ve been to Israel, I’m really glad it’s there, but there will never be peace there,” he says. While noting that all three major Abrahamic religions give Israel and Jerusalem significance, he jokes that “Jesus, Muhammad and Moses all went to the same high school.”

Stewart then riffs about young Jewish women visiting Israel, and male Israeli soldiers “lining up to see ’em,” with amorous intentions.

Adolf Hankler In 1998, near the end of the run of The Larry Sanders Show on HBO, Stewart appeared as himself, as part of an arc in which he was in line to replace Sanders (fellow Jewish comedian Garry Shandling.)

In one episode, Stewart is the guest host of the show, and they produce a German game show parody called Adolf Hankler, in which the character Hank Kingsley (Jewish actor Jon Stewart applauding at the 2016 Department of Defense Warrior Games.

Jeffrey Tambor) dresses as Adolf Hitler and answers every question with “the Jews.” presidential primaries in 2012, Stewart In the tradition of Mel Brooks’ fronted a segment showing how the Springtime For Hitler, the offensiveGOP presidential candidates all touted ness of the premise is the joke itself, their love for Israel, while implying that as it leads Jewish Seinfeld actor Jason then-President Barack Obama did not Alexander—“the celebrity spokesman for share that love. the Anti-Defamation League”—to walk off Stewart, however, then pointed out the show in protest. When Stewart says that Obama had spoken at that year’s the Hitler sketch “doesn’t bother me, and AIPAC Israel lobby conference in I’m Jewish,” producer Artie (Rip Torn) Washington, and had vowed there to retorts, “so was Jesus, and we all know guarantee Israel’s security. The show even where he ended up.” spliced in Obama singing a bar of Al Green’s Let’s Stay Together, which was from Can I Interest You in Hanukkah? a different speech.

In 2008, about a decade into Stewart’s Daily “Get a Sukkah, you two,” Stewart said Show run, he made a guest appearance on of Obama and Israel. the Christmas special of his correspondent-turned-fellow-host, Stephen Colbert, We Need to Talk About Israel which was titled A Colbert Christmas: The In 2014, around the time of Israel’s war Greatest Gift at All. in the Gaza Strip, The Daily Show broadIn Stewart’s segment, the duo sang casted a segment in which four different a duet of an original song called Can I correspondents on the show yelled in Interest You in Hanukkah?, in which the Stewart’s ears the minute he mentioned Jewish Stewart explained the Festival of Israel. Jordan Klepper went one step furLights to the Catholic Colbert. ther, calling Stewart a “self-hating Jew” for The song, written by Tweet of God author daring to even hint at criticism of Israel.

David Javerbaum and the late Fountains The bit was meant to mimic the type of Wayne songwriter Adam Schlesinger, of overheated rhetoric that tends to take explains aspects of Hanukkah, before place about Israel, especially when there’s finishing with a few bars of Hava Nagila. a war going on—and also the way in which a single article, or even a single Hebrew Nationalist sentence, from The New York Times or Joe On The Daily Show, during the Republican Biden could be seen by different people as

30 | JEWISH NEWS | October 11, 2021 | jewishnewsva.org

horribly biased for or against Israel.

“Just merely mentioning Israel, or questioning in any way the effectiveness or humanity of Israel’s policies, is not the same thing as being proHamas,” Stewart said.

He ultimately threw his hands up and decided to “talk about something lighter, like Ukraine,” unaware that country would form the basis of a presidential impeachment five years later.

And speaking of which…

Donald Trump vs. “Jonathan Leibowitz” Stewart retired from The Daily Show in August of 2015, just two months after Donald Trump announced that he was running for president. Many Daily Show fans have noted that they missed Stewart’s commentary during the Trump era.

But that doesn’t mean Trump and Stewart haven’t clashed. Back in April of 2013, Trump used a tweet to cast aspersions on Stewart’s Jewishness.

“If Jon Stewart is so above it all & legit, why did he change his name from Jonathan Leibowitz? He should be proud of his heritage!” Trump wrote in the tweet—which, like all others in his account, was taken off Twitter earlier this year. Trump has referred to Stewart by his given surname other times as well.

Stewart addressed the episode during a stand-up segment at a Stand Up For Heroes veterans’ charity event, days before Trump’s election in 2016.

“I started to think to myself, oh, I think this guy is trying to let people know I’m a Jew,” Stewart said. “And I think to myself, doesn’t my face do that? Where have you seen this face, other than on a poster for Yentl?”

He went on to note that “it would be funny if it wasn’t so toxically f***ing crude and horrible.”

UNPACKING ANTISEMITISM: AN ACTION BASED WORKSHOP

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Institute for Jewish Studies & Interfaith Understanding in partnership with the Jewish Community Relations Council and the Konikoff Center for Learning of the United Jewish Federation of Tidewater and as part of the United Jewish Federation of Tidewater & the Simon Family JCC’s Lee and Bernard Jaffe Family Jewish Book Festival.

jewishnewsva.org | October 11, 2021 | JEWISH NEWS | 31

WHAT’S HAPPENING

Ignorance is not bliss Israeli American actress, activist, and author Noa Tishby to speak on advocating for Israel Wednesday, October 13, 7:30 pm FREE AND OPEN TO THE COMMUNITY WITH IN-PERSON AND ONLINE OPTIONS AVAILABLE, RSVP (REQUIRED) AT JEWISHVA.ORG/ISRAELTODAY

N

oa Tishby is the first speaker in the 11th Annual Israel Today Series presented by the Jewish Community Relations Council of the United Jewish Federation of Tidewater, Simon Family JCC, and Community Partners’ as part of the Lee and Bernard Jaffe Family Jewish Book Festival.

EXCERPT FROM A TIMES OF ISRAEL ARTICLE:

A

s [Noa] Tishby explains in the first chapter, the longer she spent in the U.S., the more ignorance and misconception about Israel she discovered, including among Jews—usually to its detriment.

After becoming disillusioned with media coverage of her homeland, about which she often tweeted, she founded Act for Israel in 2011. In her book, she describes it as “the first online advocacy and rapid response organization dedicated to truth spreading and pre-bots troll fighting.” A few sentences later, she adds: “This was

when my advocacy became not just this thing I did at dinner parties but a true calling.”

In the ensuing years, while pursuing her TV and film career, Tishby worked with pro-Israel organizations and NGOs. In 2014, she co-founded Reality Israel, a series of leadership trips to Israel for working professionals—Jews and non-Jews—from different fields. In her speaking engagements—including at the United Nations in New York in 2016 and 2018—and online activity, she debunked falsehoods about Israel.

A natural extension of her advocacy, Israel: A Simple Guide also has a strong autobiographical narrative. It effectively integrates her personal and multi-generational family story, sometimes quite candidly, with the history and development of Israel.

“That wasn’t my intention when I began writing the book,” says Tishby, who

visits Israel often. “I planned to write a modern explainer about Israel and at first, it was around 90 percent history Noa Tishby. and 10% personal.

But both my agent and publisher pushed me to include more personal stories.”

The book is replete with humor, irreverence, self-deprecation and US vernacular, including the occasional expletive. It’s part of her goal to attract younger readers, giving them a livelier, more relatable alternative to dry history tomes.

“From the outset, my plan was to make the book conversational, fun and easy to read and understand,” says Tishby, the mother of a 5-year-old son to whom she dedicates the book on the opening page.

“I set out to write a modern take on Israel, explaining it to the new generation, and to

the old generation that want to reacquaint themselves with certain information and have fun in the process. The topic is heavy enough. We can lighten it up a bit.”

This excerpt is taken from the Times of Israel article: Israeli actress Noa Tishby’s ‘Simple Guide’ to Israel shakes up US progressives by Robert Sarner, reprinted with permission. To view the entire article, visit https://www.timesofisrael.com/ israeli-actress-noa-tishbys-simple-guide-toisrael-shakes-up-us-progressives/.

If You Thirst for a Homeland: Flame-worked glass by Dafna Kaffeman Saturday, November 6, 7:30 pm, Perry Glass Studio or via Zoom HTTPS://CHRYSLER.ORG/EVENT/VISITING-ARTIST-LECTURE-WITH-DAFNA-KAFFEMAN/

C

urrently on display at the Chrysler Museum of Art, Dafna Kaffeman’s exhibit of exquisitely crafted plant replicas express the complexities of modern life in Israel.

Inspired by the natural world, each specimen in its botanical form can be found in Israel, reflecting the natural world that surrounds Kaffeman at home.

Each glass piece Kaffeman has created

Dafna Kaffeman

32 | JEWISH NEWS | October 11, 2021 | jewishnewsva.org

is mounted onto fabric, and surrounded by quotes, many from current events in Israel—either in Hebrew or Arabic—furthering the paradox of the inherent beauty and conflict in her home.

Join the Chrysler Museum’s Perry Glass Studio, as part of the Jewish Community Relations Council of United Jewish Federation of Tidewater, Simon Family JCC, and Community Partners’ 11th Annual

Israel Today Forum, to hear from Kaffeman as she describes her process for creating such beautiful pieces.

Registration is required. Free to Museum members, it is $5 for non-members.

Limited in person space available. To RSVP, visit https://chrysler.org/event/visiting-artist-lecture-with-dafna-kaffeman/.

WHAT’S HAPPENING Then, Now, & Looking Forward: Lorraine Fink Retrospective extended through November

Unpacking Antisemitism: An Action Based Workshop with Dara Horn

Leon Family Gallery, Sandler Family Campus

FREE, OPEN TO THE COMMUNITY, PRE-REGISTRATION REQUIRED AT JEWISHVA.ORG/UNPACKINGANTISEMITISM

Jill Grossman

Sunday, October 17, 6 pm, Zoom

Elka Mednick

T

ribes, Tribesmen, For the Young at Heart. Silkscreens, collages, photographs, sculptures, and more than 100 ink and watercolor drawings. Dancers, musicians, masked forms, and women morphing into birds.

Contemporary artist Lorraine Fink constantly seeks to learn, translating the detail and nuance of all she sees, reads, and experiences into the imaginative canvases, works on paper, photographs, and sculptures.

Now in her 10th decade, Fink creates works that bear witness to a life rich in experiences of discovery, joy, celebration, and at times memories of sadness. Three-dimensional works address memories, watercolors express the creation of the world, wingless birds lament individual limitations, humans morph into animals that dance, and discarded objects breathe new life.

Fink’s creativity knows no bounds.

J

Lorraine Fink

View and purchase Fink’s works through November, 2021 at the Leon Family Gallery and throughout the Simon Family JCC at the Reba and Sam Sandler Family Campus of the Tidewater Jewish Community, 5000 Corporate Woods Drive, Virginia Beach, Virginia. To learn more, contact Jill Grossman, Arts + Ideas director at JGrossman@ujft.org, 757-965-6137, or visit www.

JewishVA.org/gallery.

Mooncycle Transformation to Beast.

oin the United Jewish Federation of Tidewater’s Jewish Community Relations Council and the Konikoff Center for Learning, along with the Old Dominion University Institute for Jewish Studies and Interfaith Understanding for Unpacking Antisemitism: An Action Based Workshop.

This is the second in a series of programs geared toward not only learning how to identify antisemitism, but how to engage with it in a productive, nuanced manner.

U n p a c k i n g Antisemitism will shed light on how antisemitism has changed in recent years, and how to identify it in news, conversation, and pop culture. Bestselling author Dara Horn will share thought provoking instances of antisemitism from history and today…that often come across as benign without further examination. Through years of experience and research, Horn has become an expert in understanding how antisemitism comes up in many aspects of history.

In addition to Horn, speakers will represent organizations including the Anti-Defamation League, FBI, Robert Nusbaum Center at Virginia

Dara Horn.

Wesleyan University, and Virginia Center for Inclusive Communities.

Though initially planned as a hybrid event with in-person and Zoom participation, the event will be completely virtual in order to respect the campus guidelines at ODU. Note the time change from afternoon to evening on Sunday, October 17.

Free and open to the community, to register, visit www.JewishVA.org/ UnpackingAntisemitism. For more information about the workshop, contact Elka Mednick at emednick@ujft.org.

Jewish News Digital Version See the paper 3 days before the cover date:

JewishNewsVa.org/digital.

To have the paper emailed, send your email address Todays Ballet.

to news@ujft.org. jewishnewsva.org | October 11, 2021 | JEWISH NEWS | 33

CALENDAR THRU NOVEMBER 18, TUESDAYS The Melton School of Adult Jewish Learning presents Soul’s Cycles: A Ride Through the Chapters of Life. Ready to flex those spiritual muscles? This six-week course taught by Miriam Brunn Ruberg will lead participants through a focused, high-intensity journey through the Jewish perspective on some of life’s milestones: birth, marriage, divorce, mikvah, conversion—a fascinating ride that will deepen an understanding for when these moments happen personally, to family and to friends.

12–1:30 pm. For more information or to register, visit JewishVA.org/KCL or contact Sierra Lautman, director of Jewish Innovation, at slautman@ujft.org or 757-965-6107.

OCTOBER 12, TUESDAY Antisemitism: A Bipartisan Problem that Demands a Nonpartisan Solution–How Progressives Can Counter Antisemitism on the Left, presented by the Jewish Federation of Greater Philadelphia, the ADL mid-Atlantic/Midwest, and the Jewish Community Relations Council of the United Jewish Federation of Tidewater, this is the first of two in a speaker series featuring leaders who have courageously and powerfully challenged anti-Jewish bigotry from their own political allies. Free and open to the community, registration for this virtual event is required. 7 pm. Visit https://jewishphilly.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_m9lNRH4CRq6Lo5e6BwXxfQ. For more information contact Elka Mednick, assistant director, JCRC, at emednick@ujft.org or 757-965-6112.

OCTOBER 13, WEDNESDAY The Jewish Community Relations Council of the United Jewish Federation of Tidewater, Simon Family JCC, & Community Partners’ 11th Annual Israel Today & Simon Family JCC’s Lee & Bernard Jaffe Family Jewish Book Festival kicks off with Israeli American actress, activist, and author Noa Tishby, who will share her insights of utilizing twitter and other social media platforms to advocate for Israel. Israel Today is free and open to the community, RSVP required. 7:30 pm. For more information, or to RSVP (required) visit JewishVA.org/IsraelToday or contact Elka Mednick at emednick@ujft.org or 757‑965‑6112. See page 33.

OCTOBER 17, SUNDAY Unpacking Antisemitism: An Action Based Workshop, in partnership with ODU’s Institute for Jewish Studies & Interfaith Understanding, the Jewish Community Relations Council of the United Jewish Federation of Tidewater present a workshop to understand and combat modern antisemitism, with keynote address from author of People Love Dead Jews: Reports from a Haunted Present, Dara Horn. The interactive, virtual workshop begins at 6 pm and includes speakers from the FBI, Virginia Wesleyan University, ADL, and more.

For more information, or to RSVP (required) for this VIRTUAL workshop, visit www.JewishVA.org/unpackingantisemitism or contact Elka Mednick at emednick@ujft.org or 757-965-6112. See page 32.

OCTOBER 21, THURSDAY

The Seventh Annual Great Big Challah Bake, a partnership between B’nai Israel Congregation and the Konikoff Center for Learning at the United Jewish Federation of Tidewater. Always a fun and meaningful evening, tie on those apron strings, and head to B’nai Israel Congregation to reconnect with old friends and make some new ones as the women of Tidewater come together to celebrate the Jewish tradition of preparing for Shabbat and the spiritual joys of making challah. 7 pm. For more information, or to RSVP for this in-person event, (required), contact Sierra Lautman at slautman@ujft.org or 757-965-6107.

OCTOBER 25, MONDAY The Unexpected Spy with author Tracy Walder. From her tenure at the CIA and, later the FBI, Walder will share details from her life, beginning with her recruitment by the CIA out of her sorority house at the University of Southern California. This memoir is about a woman who made a career in a male-dominated field and what she has taken away from it now that she is no longer in government service. Presented by United Jewish Federation of Tidewater and the Simon Family JCC’s Lee and Bernard Jaffe Family Jewish Book Festival in partnership with the United Jewish Federation of Tidewater’s Women’s Cabinet. 7 pm. Free and open to the community, in-person and online participation available, with registration required for both. For more information and to register, visit JewishVA.org/BookFestival or contact Jill Grossman, director, Arts + Ideas, at 757-965-6137, or jgrossman@ujft.org.

OCTOBER 28, THURSDAY Leah Garrett talks about her book, X Troop: The Secret Jewish Commandos of World War II, the incredible World War II saga of the German-Jewish commandos who fought in Britain’s most secretive special-forces unit—but whose story has gone untold until now. Presented by United Jewish Federation of Tidewater and the Simon Family JCC’s Lee and Bernard Jaffe Family Jewish Book Festival in partnership with the United Jewish Federation of Tidewater’s Holocaust Commission. 7:30 pm. Free and open to the community and offers in-person and online participation, with registration required for both. For more information and to register, visit JewishVA.org/BookFestival or contact Jill Grossman, director, Arts + Ideas, at 757-965‑6137, or jgrossman@ujft.org.

NOVEMBER 4, THURSDAY Join cardiologist turned legendary scientist and winner of the Nobel Prize, Robert Lefkowitz, as he discusses A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Stockholm: The Adrenaline-Fueled Adventures of

34 | JEWISH NEWS | October 11, 2021 | jewishnewsva.org

an Accidental Scientist. Presented by United Jewish Federation of Tidewater and the Simon Family JCC’s Lee and Bernard Jaffe Family Jewish Book Festival. VIRTUAL event is free and open to the community with pre-registration required. 7:30 pm. For more information and to register, visit JewishVA.org/BookFestival or contact Jill Grossman, director, Arts + Ideas, at 757-965-6137, or jgrossman@ujft.org.

NOVEMBER 6, SATURDAY The Jewish Community Relations Council of the United Jewish Federation of Tidewater, Simon Family JCC, and Community Partners’ 11th Annual Israel Today series and The Chrysler Museum of Art’s Perry Glass Studio presents: If You Thirst for a Homeland, a visiting artist lecture with Dafna Kaffeman at 7:30 pm as a hybrid in-person or via zoom. Registration is required, and free for museum members. For more information or to register, contact the Chrysler Museum by visiting https://chrysler.org/ event/visiting-artist-lecture-with-dafna-kaffeman/.

NOVEMBER 8, MONDAY Join author, lawyer, arbitrator, prize winning author, and one of Israel’s prominent contemporary writers, Yishai Sarid as he discusses his New York Times Book Review Notable Book of 2020, The Memory Monster.

Presented by United Jewish Federation of Tidewater and the Simon Family JCC’s Lee and Bernard Jaffe Family Jewish Book Festival, and the Jewish Community Relations Council of the United Jewish Federation of Tidewater, Simon Family JCC, and Community Partners’ 11th Annual Israel Today series. 12 pm. VIRTUAL event is Free and open to the community with pre-registration required. For more information or to register, visit JewishVA.org/BookFestival or contact Jill Grossman at 757-965-6137, jgrossman@ujft.org.

NOVEMBER 14, SUNDAY Susan Groner, parent educator and author of Parenting with Sanity & Joy will present an interactive workshop. Through actionable tips, parenting mentor Groner will share the best parenting wisdom, which can also be found in her easy-to-read book, providing simple, fun, and effective guidance. Parents are invited to join the workshop while their children enjoy Sunday Fun Day activities led by Camp JCC staff. Presented

by United Jewish Federation of Tidewater and Simon Family JCC’s Lee and Bernard Jaffe Family Jewish Book Festival in partnership with PJ Library & PJ Our Way. Free and open to the community. In-person and online participation options, with registration required for both. 2 pm. For more information and to register, visit JewishVA.org/BookFestival or contact Jill Grossman, director, Arts + Ideas, at 757-965-6137, or jgrossman@ ujft.org.

Sunday Fun Day: Family-friendly field games and fun at the Simon Family JCC! Crafts, games, activities, and a sweet treat. This event is free to JCC members, Strelitz and Camp JCC families, YAD, and Tidewater synagogue members. 2–5 pm. For more information, or register, visit JewishVA.org/PJLibrary of contact Nofar Trem, PJ Library program coordinator, at nmtrem@ujft.org.

NOVEMBER 15, MONDAY Last Summer at the Golden Hotel with author Elyssa Friedland. Friedland will share details of her novel about two families presiding over a glamorous resort in the so-called Jewish Alps. What happens when the facilities and the management begin to fall apart? Presented by United Jewish Federation of Tidewater and the Simon Family JCC’s Lee and Bernard Jaffe Family Jewish Book Festival in partnership with the JCC’s Seniors Club. A Simon Family JCC Book Club pick. 12 pm. Free and open to the community with in-person and online participation. Registration is required for both. For more information and to register, visit JewishVA. org/BookFestival or contact Jill Grossman, director, Arts + Ideas, at 757-965-6137, or jgrossman@ujft.org.

NOVEMBER 18, THURSDAY Antisemitism: A Bipartisan Problem that Demands a Nonpartisan Solution—How Conservatives Can Counter Antisemitism on the Right, presented by the Jewish Federation of Greater Philadelphia, the ADL mid-Atlantic/Midwest, and the Jewish Community Relations Council, the second of two in a speaker series featuring leaders who have courageously and powerfully challenged anti-Jewish bigotry from their own political allies. 7 pm. Free and open to the community, registration for this virtual event is required; visit https://jewishphilly.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_ebm63LmvR6yHUVQthy2p-A. For more information contact Elka Mednick, assistant director, JCRC, at emednick@ujft.org or 757-965-6112.

NOVEMBER 21, SUNDAY One of Israel’s most celebrated authors, Meir Shalev, will discuss his book My Wild Garden: Notes from a Writer’s Eden. A Chrysler Museum of Art Book Club discussion, inspired by the Chrysler’s current exhibition, If You Thirst for a Homeland: Flameworked Glass by Dafna Kaffeman. Both Kaffeman and Shalev find inspiration in the beauty and fragility of the natural environment. A Chrysler Museum partnership with the Jewish Community Relations Council of the United Jewish Federation of Tidewater, Simon Family JCC, and community partners as part of the 11th annual Israel Today series as part of the Lee and Bernard Jaffe Family Jewish Book Festival. 2 pm. This VIRTUAL conversation with the author is Free and open to the community with registration required. For more information or to register, contact the Chrysler Museum by visiting https://3243.blackbaudhosting.com/3243/Chrysler-Book-Club-My-Wild-Garden.

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.

WHO KNEW? KATHRYN HAHN’S NEXT JEWISH ROLE: JOAN RIVERS Gabe Friedman

( JTA) —Showtime is producing a limited series on the late Jewish comedy legend Joan Rivers, and its lead actress should not come as a surprise.

Kathryn Hahn, Kathryn Hahn. the non-Jewish star known for playing a rabbi on the very Jewish series Transparent among other Jewish roles, will portray Rivers, who died in 2014 after complications from a surgery.

The series The Comeback Girl will focus on the years in the 1980s after Rivers dealt with a string of professional defeats and contemplated suicide. Rivers often referenced her Jewishness in her stand-up comedy and left donations to several Jewish institutions in her will.

Hahn, who grew up Catholic, but is married to Jewish actor Ethan Sandler, will also soon appear in The Shrink Next Door on Apple TV+, an adaptation of a 2019 reported podcast about a Jewish psychiatrist on the Upper West Side of Manhattan who takes control of the life of one of his Jewish patients.

In 2016, Hahn talked to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency about her research for the role of Rabbi Raquel on Transparent.

“Playing a rabbi on this show has changed me in so many ways I can’t articulate. It’s perfect timing for me in my life as a mom with two kids and wandering spirituality,” she said at the time.

DAVID LEE ROTH, VAN HALEN’S PROUDLY JEWISH FORMER FRONTMAN, IS RETIRING FROM MUSIC Gabe Friedman

( JTA)—David Lee Roth is done running with the devil.

The Jewish rock star, best known for fronting Van Halen during the influential band’s heyday in the 1970s and

David Lee Roth.

’80s, says that he is retiring from music.

“I am throwing in the shoes. I’m retiring,” he tells the Las Vegas ReviewJournal. “This is the first, and only, official announcement.”

Roth, 66, grew up with Jewish parents and reportedly first learned to sing while preparing for his bar mitzvah. He grew up in Indiana and later southern California, where he performed with other bands before joining Van Halen in 1974. As a part of the world famous group, also anchored by its late virtuosic guitar player Eddie Van Halen, Roth became one of rock music’s most famous showmen. He first left the band in 1985—he would leave and rejoin it multiple other times— and embarked on a less touted solo career, releasing seven albums on his own.

In his autobiography, Crazy From the Heat, and in a rollicking interview with The Washington Post during a stretch of his solo run in 2003, Roth expounded on his Jewish identity. He claimed, in the words of Post writer David Segal, that “much of his style and energy came from fury over anti-Semitism and an urge to crush Jewish stereotypes.”

“There’s not a lot of Jewish action figures,” Roth told Segal. “Heroes for little Jewish kids are very few and far between….”

“Jewish kids take a paperback to the beach instead of a football,” he added later, “half-approvingly” according to Segal.

Roth was a member of Van Halen again during the time of its guitarist’s death last year, after which the group disbanded.

He will play a farewell series of shows in Las Vegas in January.

ADAM SANDLER IS GEN Z’S FAVORITE CELEBRITY Gabe Friedman

(JTA) — Who says Adam Sandler’s heyday is behind him?

A survey of 10,000 teens, conducted Aug. 17 to Sept. 16, found that the Jewish actor and Adam Sandler. comedian is their favorite celebrity.

“Adam Sandler moved up from no. 4 in

the Spring to the top celebrity taking the spot from Kevin Hart,” according to Piper Sandler, an investment bank and securities firm with no relation to the actor, which asked the question as part of its twice-yearly survey of teen attitudes.

After repeated movie flops in the 2010s, the 55-year-old star of early career hits like Happy Gilmore and Billy Madison, is having a pop culture resurgence. His acclaimed performance in the 2019 drama Uncut Gems as a frenetic Jewish jeweler sparked a “hot dad” fashion conversation.

Young fans on Instagram can’t get enough of his love for pickup basketball (and the retro baggy shorts he wears while playing). His crashing of a Jewish wedding in 2018 delighted the couple and made headlines.

What’s next for the Sandman? Two more dramas, neither of which have release dates: Spaceman, in which he will star as an astronaut on a solo mission, and Hustle, about a basketball scout who tries to resurrect his career by bringing a player over from Europe into the NBA.

NETFLIX RENEWS MY UNORTHODOX LIFE FOR SECOND SEASON Gabe Friedman

( JTA)—Netflix is bringing back My Unorthodox Life, the reality series about a formerly Orthodox fashion mogul and her family, the streaming giant announced last Julia Haart. month.

No details about the content of season two or any approximate release date were disclosed.

The series follows Julia Haart, who left the Orthodox community she grew up in in Monsey, New York, to become CEO of the Elite World Group fashion model agency. Over the course of nine episodes, she and her four children wrestle with how to adapt their varying levels of Jewish practice in secular New York City society.

The show sparked a wide array of debates in different Jewish communities and drew some criticism for its portrayal

of Orthodox communities as harshly restrictive.

“Before you judge the show, maybe you might want to watch the show?” Haart told the JTA after the series debuted in July. “Because they had the word ‘unorthodox’ in it, people have made a thousand assumptions without actually taking the time to listen to what I actually have to say.”

ALANA HAIM MAKES ACTING DEBUT IN STARSTUDDED PAUL THOMAS ANDERSON FILM Gabe Friedman

( JTA)—The Haim family is getting into the movie business.

Or at least one of them, that is.

Alana Haim, guitarist of the famed band made up of three Jewish Alana Haim. sisters, is set to star in director Paul Thomas Anderson’s latest film, Licorice Pizza. Its trailer was released last month.

The coming-of-age film stars the youngest Haim sister as a teenage actor in Los Angeles’ San Fernando valley—the exact location where the Haim family grew up.

Its impressive cast includes the late Philip Seymour Hoffman’s son Cooper, along with Jewish director Benny Safdie (part of the brother duo behind Uncut Gems), Sean Penn, musician Tom Waits and Bradley Cooper—who plays Barbra Streisand’s former boyfriend Jon Peters.

In a memorable moment in the trailer, Cooper’s character corrects a mispronunciation of Babs’ last name.

Anderson is one of Hollywood’s most respected directors, known for films such as There Will Be Blood and Boogie Nights, also set in the San Fernando Valley. He is married to Jewish comedy star Maya Rudolph, who also has a role in Licorice Pizza.

Anderson worked with Haim on multiple music videos tied to their acclaimed last album, Women In Music Pt. III—which they promoted with a series of concerts at Jewish delis.

jewishnewsva.org | October 11, 2021 | JEWISH NEWS | 35

OBITUARIES THOMAS BACHMAN NORFOLK—On September 29, 2021, Thomas Charles Bachman, 69, passed away in Norfolk.

He was born in Baltimore, Md., to John and Ann Bachman, of blessed memory. He is survived by his wife of 43 years, Gail; sons John, David (Laura), and Brian (Sara). He was predeceased by his sister, Dianne, and brother, Ricky.

Tom proudly served as a chief in the United States Navy for 20 years.

Following his retirement from the Navy in 1990, he spent over 20 years as an independent contractor. Tom was involved in Fleet Park Little League baseball where his kids played for over a decade. He also was an active member of the Ohef Sholom Temple family for several decades, serving in many leadership roles.

Above all, Tom (“Pops” to his sons) was most proud of his beloved family.

Fair winds and following seas, Chief!

A private funeral was held with Rabbi Roz Mandelberg and Cantor Jen Rueben officiating. The service was livestreamed at facebook.com/hdoliverfuneralapts, and was later available on Ohef Sholom Temple’s Facebook page. H.D. Oliver Funeral Apts.

Donations may be made to Ohef Sholom Temple.

CONNIE BANKS BERNSTEIN NORFOLK—Connie Banks Bernstein of Norfolk, Va. passed away on Sept. 13, 2021, at age 95.

She is predeceased (1988) by her beloved husband Elliot Bernstein. She is survived by her three children: sons Albert and Morton Bernstein; daughter Joyce Howell; and by her seven grandchildren and seven great grandchildren.

While raising her family she was active at Congregation Beth El and the Norfolk Garden Club.

Her family will remember the care and warmth she put into preparing family meals (and endless chocolate chip cookies) for the holidays, her tireless work in the garden of her home on Brandon Avenue where she lived for 70 years, her artistry in knitting, her love of summers at Mallory Pool and the JCC

with the grandkids, and her sense of humor and sharp wit.

She treasured above all her family, and she will be missed by them and by her friends in West Ghent and Beth Sholom Village.

The family plans to remember her next year around what she loved most—a family Passover meal.

NORMAN BLUMENSON KEIZER, ORE.—Norman Blumenson, born September 12, 1925, died on September 15, 2021, a few days after his 96th birthday, in Keizer, Oregon.

Norman was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York, the son of the late Isadore and Fannie Blumenson. He was predeceased by his wife of 59 years, Alice, and his sisters Barbara Krieger and Elinore Kavit.

Norman served in the Army Air Corp during World War II, and then attended and graduated from Long Island University. He went to work at Alexander’s department stores in New York and became the woman’s coat buyer, which took him throughout Europe to many fashion shows. Following his years at Alexander’s and then S. Klein department stores, he and his wife opened a shoe store off of Fifth Avenue in Manhattan.

He lived for many years in Livingston, N.J., and later Suffolk, Virginia and Aventura, Florida. He was a member of Temple Beth Shalom in Livingston and Congregation Beth El in Norfolk, and was a member of Men’s Club and B’nai B’rith. He enjoyed golfing and watching football and baseball. He was fond of remembering attending Don Larsen’s “perfect” World Series game in 1956.

Norman is survived by his daughters and sons-in-law, Randi Blumenson and Daniel Mussatti of Salem, Oregon; Gail Blumenson Reisman and Adam Reisman of Washington, DC; as well as his grandsons, Danny (Rosie), Stevan (Janie) and Scott (Liz) Mussatti, and Eli Reisman. He is also survived by his great-grandchildren Tristan (Alex), Justin, MacKenzie, Taylor, Addison, Austyn and Harper Mussatti, Jenna Schoeplfin and Aiden and Isaac Bien; as well as his nieces and nephews.

36 | JEWISH NEWS | October 11, 2021 | jewishnewsva.org

A private graveside funeral was held in Portsmouth, Virginia. Smith and Williams. The family welcomes donations in Norman’s name to Mazon (www. mazon.org) or Western Tidewater Free Clinic (www.wtfreeclinic.org).

LORETTA ANN COHEN NORFOLK—Loretta Ann Cohen, nee Comess, passed on the 18th of September, 2021.

Loretta was born in 1937 and raised in Norfolk, Virginia. A true Norfolkian; she attended Blair Middle School and Maury High School. She was passionate about art, philanthropy, and her five grandchildren.

Loretta is predeceased by her husband of over 50 years, Jack Cohen; her brother Barry Comess, Richmond; and her son, David I. Millison.

She is survived by her brother, Allan Comess, Virginia Beach; daughter, Rachelle Millison, Annapolis; and her five grandchildren: Sydnee Millison, Ezra Beasley, Jules Millison, Jordan Beasley, and Sheldon Millison.

A private graveside service was held at Forest Lawn Cemetery.

MILDRED LILLIAN DREYFUS CHESAPEAKE—Mildred Lillian Dreyfus, 94, passed away on September 26, 2021, surrounded by her loving family.

She was born in Union City, New Jersey to Benjamin and Rebecca Scherb on December 7, 1926. One of seven siblings, she was a first-generation American in a European immigrant family.

When she was 10 years old, Mildred moved with her family to Montgomery, Ala. for two years as her father took part in building the City of Saint Jude, an institution providing social services to the African American community and an important center of the Civil Rights movement.

After completing her schooling in Union City, Mildred worked for several years in Manhattan’s Garment District.

She met Alfred Dreyfus, a German-born Holocaust refugee recently arrived in New York, at a Jewish singles dance at New York’s City Center, and the couple was married in 1951. The couple, soon

blessed with children Claudia and Mark, moved frequently as a result of Alfred’s work: from Queens, N.Y. to Schenectady, N.Y. to Stratford, Conn. and finally to Norfolk, Va. in 1966. In the Tidewater area, Mildred was a steadfast partner to her beloved Alfred and instrumental in helping him to establish and grow ECPI University. Her common sense, encyclopedic recall for names and figures, and caring nature were invaluable as she and Alfred built an institution centered on computer science education and other professional training programs. “Mrs D” was well-respected and admired by everyone and a fixture at holiday parties and graduations.

Mildred was devoted to family and especially to her grandchildren and great-grandchildren, to whom she was known affectionately as Oma. Mildred was renowned as a gourmet cook and delighted in preparing special dishes for the Jewish holidays. She was a repository of family history, using her phenomenal memory to transmit many stories to the younger generations. She kept her wits and sense of humor to her last day.

As her Hebrew name, Malka, evokes, she had a regal presence and always carried herself with dignity and poise. She made friends easily and greeted everyone with a warm smile and a kind word. She was civically minded and dedicated to community welfare, performing many charitable acts without fanfare or recognition. She always put the needs of others before her own.

Mildred is survived by her beloved husband Alfred Dreyfus; daughter Claudia Dreyfus (Henry Levi, of blessed memory); son Mark Dreyfus (Rebecca); grandchildren Brett and Marisa Levi (Andrew Staines), Sam, Max, and Sophia Dreyfus; and great-grandchildren Joshua, Evan, and Natalie Staines.

Following a private family service, she will be interred at Cedar Park Beth-El Cemetery in Paramus, New Jersey.

The family asks that donations be made to the Holocaust Commission of United Jewish Federation of Tidewater or the Beacon Education Foundation LIFT Scholarship, which improves access for

OBITUARIES African-Americans into skills-based programs that offer economic opportunity and upward mobility.

ARNOLD M. HOFFMAN, DDS VIRGINIA BEACH—Dr. Arnold M. Hoffman, DDS, age 88, passed away at Atlantic Shores Seaside Health Center in Virginia Beach on October 2, 2021, from complications of Parkinson’s disease.

He was born in Baltimore, Maryland to the late Max and Lena Hoffman. He was preceded in death by his parents, as well as his daughter Cheryl, brother, Mervin “Buddy” Hoffman (Alene) and sister, Bertha Glaberman (Saul).

Survivors include his loving wife of 64 years, Miriam Meyer Hoffman; Children, Jennifer M. Morgan and her husband Dennis of Glen Allen, Virginia, Richard Hoffman of Norfolk; Grandchildren, Parker and Carter Morgan of Glen Allen, Max Hoffman of Norfolk, and Alexandra Blanton and her husband Lawrence of Wilmington, North Carolina; and Great-grandchildren, Finley, Wyatt, and Madeline Blanton of Wilmington.

Arnold attended Blair Middle School and Maury High School in Norfolk, Virginia. He received a Bachelor of Science in Chemistry at the University of Richmond and graduated from the School of Dentistry at the Medical College of Virginia (now Virginia Commonwealth University) in 1958. After dental school, he served as a Lieutenant in the US Navy and was attached to the United States Marine Corps at Camp Lejeune North Carolina. While serving in the Navy he was assigned to the USS Boxer in Vieques, Puerto Rico and at one time deployed toward Beirut, Lebanon.

After honorably leaving the Navy, he practiced dentistry in Norfolk and Virginia Beach for 44 years. He was a member of the Tidewater Dental Association, the Virginia Dental Association and the American Dental Association House of Delegates. He was a member of the International College of Dentistry and was selected as a recipient of the Simmons Award for excellence in dentistry in the Tidewater area.

He valued all aspects of Judaism as a lifetime member of Congregation Beth

El in Norfolk. He served as a consultant in Forensic Dentistry to the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner assisting in many cases in Norfolk during his career in private practice.

Arnold was a gentle, gregarious, and caring man who always welcomed others warmly. He took much pride in his dental practice and valued each of his professional relationships. He enjoyed traveling, playing poker, watching ACC basketball, and cheering on his Yankees.

Above everything else he loved his family.

The funeral was graveside at Forest lawn Cemetery in Norfolk. Memorial donations to The Michael J Fox Foundation for research in Parkinson’s disease or the Cure Tay Sachs Foundation. Online condolences may be made at www.hdoliver.com.

Richmond, Virginia.

Sylvia was born in Norfolk. She was the youngest of the six children of Morris and Hannah Kahn.

She was the bookkeeper for Temple Israel and Nicholson & Marks, a boutique clothing store, for 40 years. Sylvia volunteered with The American Red Cross and other organizations for many

years. She was a wonderful cook and enjoyed spending time with her family.

She was preceded in death by her husband, Gene Linden; and daughter, Debra Linden. A loving and devoted wife and mother, Sylvia is survived by her daughter, Roberta Wiener and son-in-law, Richard Wiener; three grandchildren, continued on page 38

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continued from page 37

Jennifer Green (Steve), Jason Wiener (Sara) and Janna Wiener (Jose); and six great-grandchildren, Hannah, Madeline, Natalie, Noah, Ava and Zoe. Graveside services were held at Greenwood Memorial Gardens in Richmond. Donations can be made in Sylvia’s name to Beth Sholom Gardens at 201 Lauderdale Drive, Richmond, Va.

BERNICE DUBINSKI MOSES NORFOLK—Bernice passed away on Tuesday, September 28 at Sentara Leigh Hospital.

She was preceded in death by her

parents, Max and Martha Dubinsky; brothers, Leo and David Dubinski; husband, David Moses; and daughter, Maxine Moses Garnher. She is survived by her son, Douglas Moses; daughter-in-law, Tina Moses; son-in-law, Jim Garnher; grandchildren, Danielle and Michelle Moses, Nicole (Brian) Tercero, and Paul (Ashley) Garnher; and great-grandchildren, Jessica, Matthew, Andrea, Addalyn, and Gavin.

Bernice was born in Chicago in 1928 and moved to Norfolk with her family during the Great Depression. She married the love of her life, David Moses, on May 20, 1954. They were founding

members of Temple Israel, Norfolk. Her family then moved to Potomac, Md. in 1968, where they became founding members of Har Shalom Synagogue. At Har Shalom, she was involved in many committees, was Sisterhood president and catering chair. She later became president of Seaboard Branch of Women’s League of Conservative Judaism (WLCJ), vice president of WLCJ. She had a special place in her heart for Torah Fund.

Bernice returned to Norfolk with the birth of her grandchildren to become an integral part of their lives.

Bernice’s door was always open to family and friends who were often

fortunate enough to partake in her holiday meals. She expressed her love through cooking and hospitality. She was always generous to those in need. Bernice played Mah Jong every week and enjoyed traveling the world. She frequented the theater, Norfolk Forum, Symphony, and Opera. She loved making pottery, hosting two book clubs, and attending Jewish education classes. She will be greatly missed by all the lives she touched.

A graveside service was held at Forest Lawn Cemetery in Norfolk by Rabbi Michael Panitz. H.D. Oliver Funeral Apts. Online condolences may be shared with the family at www.hdoliver.com.

After tweaking rituals during the pandemic, a Jewish burial society in Pittsburgh has made amends Adam Reinherz

PITTSBURGH (Pittsburgh Jewish Chronicle via JTA) — Tahara, the act of washing and purifying the deceased, is paramount to Jewish burial. So, when the pandemic descended on the United States in March 2020, members of a Pittsburghbased Jewish burial society devoted to the practice made a difficult decision.

Given fears of COVID-19 transmission, members of the New Community Chevra Kadisha stopped traveling to funeral homes and performing the sacred act of tahara in person. Instead of physically washing and purifying a body prior to burial, members gathered on Zoom for what they called a “spiritual tahara,” a virtual service of readings, song and prayer, with men tending to men and women to women.

Between March 15, 2020, and June 21, 2021—when the group resumed in-person practices—chevra kadisha members completed more than 100 spiritual taharas. During this time, many other Jewish burial societies across the country were similarly figuring out how to perform their sacred rituals safely.

But while the group was satisfied by its approximation of the traditional ritual during a time of crisis, something nagged at its members. Jewish burial is often called chessed shel emet, a true kindness: Washing a body, purifying it and placing

shrouds on the deceased is performed by the living with no ability for repayment.

When those acts of kindness are completed “in some diminished way, it feels like you’re cheating somebody out of something,” says Dr. Jonathan Weinkle, a Pittsburgh physician and longtime chevra kadisha member.

So, on Oct. 3, 21 members of the burial society traveled to Beth Shalom Cemetery, located just outside Pittsburgh, to make amends. Standing side by side, the group recited biblical and Talmudic passages, chanted Hebrew phrases, recited names of the deceased and poured water for each person who at the time of their death was unable to be washed according to Jewish tradition, in a 40-minute ceremony organized by Weinkle.

Along with publicly stating their burial society’s rationale for adopting spiritual tahara, or tahara ruchanit, the group offered an apology: “While the decisions we made were taken with every consideration of pikuach nefesh, saving lives from danger, they nonetheless had consequences that made many of us feel we, and the meitim (deceased) we cared for, had lost something precious. It is to acknowledge this loss that we gather here today.”

Burial society members explicitly asked for forgiveness.

“We, the Chevra Kadisha, ask your forgiveness for each departure we had to

38 | JEWISH NEWS | October 11, 2021 | jewishnewsva.org

make from traditional practices in preparing your body for burial,” they read. “On the road, up from Egypt, and through the wilderness, we have done our best to serve you, to be with you and to give you the burial befitting a child of Israel. We pour this water on your grave as a tikkun and completion, as a final act to bring purity and love to your transition.”

Weinkle then distributed a list with names of more than 100 people who received tahara ruchanit. Society members took turns reciting each name before pouring fresh water from jugs onto the cemetery’s ground—spilling water onto the earth, one person at a time, was intended to mimic the act of shoveling at a funeral. Before disbanding, the group recited the Mourner’s Kaddish.

Rabbi Doris Dyen, whose involvement in the group dates back more than 12 years, described the ceremony as a rare occurrence.

It’s unusual to stand in a cemetery and say “It’s so good to see you,” Dven says.

But after almost two years of not being able to work the way we do “day in and day out, month in and month out, year in and year out,” she says it was powerful to stand together and “hear the murmur of other voices.”

Patricia Cluss, who co-founded the New Community Chevra Kadisha in 2004, also said it was comforting being with others after such a difficult period.

Even members who were unable to attend reached out with messages of solidarity.

“Everybody feels like it’s been such a hard year, just in general, and then such a hard year for trying to figure out what’s the right thing to do for this,” Cluss says.

For Lucas Grasha, the Oct. 3 service was a “restorative” chance to reconnect with burial society members he barely knew. Grasha, 25, joined the group in February 2020. After attending a dinner the next month, Grasha’s connections went digital.

Grasha is one of Pittsburgh burial society’s youngest and newest members, spurred to join by the deaths in a year of his mother and both grandmothers.

Standing feet away from Grasha was Forest Hills resident Marcie Barent, who had reached out to Cluss about joining the burial society just a week earlier. She says she had been nervous about coming but participated in the readings and pourings, at one point experiencing shock when she heard the name read aloud of a classmate she hadn’t realized had died.

“It can be a very emotional thing,” Barent says about participating in a Jewish burial society. But she said the event solidified her desire to begin participating in the tahara ritual herself. “It’s going to be a real honor for me,” she says.

A version of this story originally appeared in the Pittsburgh Jewish Chronicle.

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