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Special reasons for Jews to remember JFK on 50th anniversary of assassination
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letter
Published 22 times a year by United Jewish Federation of Tidewater.
Thank you Tidewater
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s you begin a new year and a new campaign, I want to say thank you on behalf of the 2,000 Jewish students at the University of Virginia. The Tidewater Jewish community’s unparalleled and unwavering support has been one of the true catalysts for the growth of Jewish life at UVa. The Brody Jewish Center, Hillel at UVa, today engages 175 students a week and more than 650 over the course of a year and none of it would be possible without your generosity. The United Jewish Federation of Tidewater and the Tidewater Jewish Foundation’s support has helped Hillel engage Jewish students at UVa in meaningful and significant ways. We have been able to take risks, develop dynamic program-
ming, and build a new addition because we know that we have reliable and supportive partners in the Tidewater Jewish community. You have helped to create a vibrant and welcoming community for the many Jewish UVa students from Tidewater who come to Charlottesville to attend the University. In everything we do, we strive to empower students to take ownership of their Jewish identity. We know the work that we are doing is important and impactful. A recent study by the Avi Chai Foundation found that the young people who are becoming today’s Jewish leaders participated in Hillel more than any other type of Jewish experience, including attendance at Jewish day school and even Jewish
Rihanna plays before 50,000 in Tel Aviv, shunning BDS campaign JERUSALEM (JTA) -- Rihanna sang before a crowd of 50,000 in Tel Aviv at Israel’s largest performance venue, Yarkon Park. Fans paid $100 and up for last week’s show, part of the pop star’s “Diamonds” world tour and her second performance in Israel. She played Israel three years ago. Rihanna came to Israel despite a campaign by the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement to convince her to cancel her performance. She arrived after performing in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. She participated in a photo shoot at the Dead Sea. Rihanna was expected to leave Israel immediately after the concert.
camp. Hillel experiences are invaluable for helping strengthen Jewish identity and creating the Jewish leaders of tomorrow. These results underscore the importance of the work the Brody Jewish Center is doing on Grounds and just how crucial the college years are with regards to identity formation. Your generosity enables us to do this incredibly important work. Together we are doing nothing short of ensuring a vibrant Jewish future for us all. Thank you. Sincerely, Rabbi Jake Rubin Executive director The Brody Jewish Center Hillel at University of Virginia
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Terri Denison, Editor Germaine Clair, Art Director Laine Mednick Rutherford, Associate Editor Hal Sacks, Book Review Editor Sandy Goldberg, Account Executive Mark Hecht, Account Executive Marilyn Cerase, Subscription Manager Reba Karp, Editor Emeritus United Jewish Federation of Tidewater Miles Leon, President Stephanie Calliott, Secretary Harry Graber, Executive Vice-President The appearance of advertising in the Jewish News does not constitute a kashrut, political, product or service endorsement. The articles and letters appearing herein are not necessarily the opinion of this newspaper. © 2013 Jewish News. All rights reserved.
About the cover— President John F. Kennedy addresses the delegates of the General Assembly of the United Nations at the General Assembly Hall, United Nations Headquarters, New York City, New York. September 25, 1961. Credit: Cecil Stoughton. White House Photographs. John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, Boston The funeral procession of President John F. Kennedy leaves the White House on North Drive en route to the Capitol Building in Washington, D.C., where the President’s body would lie in state. The casket is borne by a horse-drawn cassion with Honor Guard attending. Credit: Robert Knudsen. White House Photographs. John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, Boston
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Upcoming Deadlines for Editorial and Advertising November 11 November 25 Chanukah December 9 December 23 Education January 13, 2014 January 27 Mazel Tov February 17 Camp
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Letter. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
YAD men go for the hoops. . . . . . . . . 13
Briefs. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
It’s a Wrap. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
Torah Thought . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
Tips on Jewish Trips. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
done this holiday season without
Janet Yellen to head Fed. . . . . . . . . . . . 6
Book Reviews . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
you. A thousand blessings upon
Jews and JFK. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
What’s Happenin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
everyone. Hopefully next year we
Israelis aid Syrians . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
Calendar. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
can be on the giving end.”
Bloomberg gets award. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
Who Knew?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
HAT’s 25th golf tournament. . . . . . . . 10
Obituaries. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
JFS Chanukah Gift Program . . . . . . . 12
Scene: Lt. Governor Candidates. . . . . 26
“I don’t know what we would have
—page 12
Friday, November 1/Cheshvan 28 Light candles at 5:49 pm Friday, November 8/Kislev 5 Light candles at 4:42 pm Friday, November 15/Kislev 12 Light candles at 4:37 pm Friday, November 22/Kislev 19 Light candles at 4:33 pm Friday, November 29/Kislev 26 Light candles at 4:30 pm Friday, December 6/Tevet 3 Light candles at 4:30 pm
jewishnewsva.org | October 28, 2013 | Jewish News | 3
briefs Cory Booker, close to N.J. and national Jewish communities, wins Senate seat Cory Booker, the Newark mayor who headed two Jewish student societies while in university, was elected to represent New Jersey in the U.S. Senate. Booker, a Democrat, coasted to a win in a special election Wednesday, Oct. 16 to succeed the late Frank Lautenberg, defeating Republican Steve Lonegan with 55 percent to 44 percent of the vote, according to unofficial counts. Booker, who becomes the only AfricanAmerica senator, retains strong ties with the New Jersey and national Jewish communities, and also is close to pro-Israel groups. He is not Jewish, but immersed himself in Jewish learning in his university days, heading Jewish student societies at Oxford and Yale universities. Booker will serve out the term of his fellow Democrat Lautenberg, who died in June, through 2014. Booker has indicated he will run for a full term next year. (JTA) Hundreds of Bnei Menashe from India moving to Israel Hundreds of Indian citizens who claim to be Jews descended from the biblical tribe of Menashe will begin arriving in Israel in December. The aliyah of 899 Indians, known as Bnei Menashe, was approved by Israel’s Knesset and will last for a year, according to Shavei Israel, an organization that tries to find lost Jews throughout the world and lobbied to bring the Indians to Israel. Some 374 Bnei Menashe have immigrated to Israel over the past two years. Bnei Menashe must undergo a conversion process even though it is accepted as fact that they have Jewish roots. Some 1,700 Bnei Menashe are living in Israel. As many as 9,000 remain in India and Burma. (JTA) Bush to Jewish leaders: I don’t trust Iran’s peaceful intentions Former President George W. Bush told a Presidents Conference gathering that he did not trust the Iranian regime to change its intentions toward Israel. “I will not believe in Iran’s peaceful intentions until they can irrevocably prove
that it’s true,” Bush told the 1,200 guests at the gala of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, according to several people in attendance. “The United States’ foreign policy must be clear eyed and understand that until the form of government changes in Iran, it is unlikely that their intentions toward Israel will change.” The event, held Tuesday, Oct. 15 at the Waldorf Astoria in New York City, honored several past presidents of the umbrella organization and its longtime executive vice-chairman, Malcolm Hoenlein. Bush’s appearance had not been publicized, and attendees were asked not to record or tape his comments. The program also featured video testimonials from President Obama and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, as well as remarks from several Israeli and U.S. politicians, and Jewish notables. Bush, Obama and Netanyahu all praised the Presidents Conference for its work in supporting Israel and strengthening the U.S.-Israel relationship. Attendees said Bush thanked Presidents Conference leaders for always being professional, knowledgeable and respectful of the office of the presidency, even when there were disagreements over tactics. (JTA)
Sports teams should change racist names and logos, ADL says Professional sports teams should seriously consider moving away from “the use of hurtful and offensive names, mascots and logos,” the Anti-Defamation League said. Abraham Foxman, ADL’s national director, released a statement amid increasing pressure on the Jewish owner of the Washington Redskins, Dan Snyder, to change the name of the NFL team. Foxman said the ultimate decision to change a team’s name, however, “should come from the team’s ownership with input from the fan base. It is up to them to decide to let go of this hurtful tradition.” Other teams have come under fire for similar reasons, including the Cleveland Indians, whose grinning, red-faced mascot Chief Wahoo has been called racist and offensive. Teams such as the Redskins and the Indians “have a responsibility to be sen-
4 | Jewish News | October 28, 2013 | jewishnewsva.org
sitive to the legitimate hurt that offensive names, mascots and logos cause,” Foxman said. “Tradition matters, but tradition should not justify the perpetuation of such names and mascots. A name change will not impact how a team fares on the field, or in the standings.” Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones defended Snyder’s decision to adhere to the Redskins name. “It would be a real mistake—a real mistake—to think that Dan, who is Jewish, has a lack of sensitivity regarding somebody’s feelings,” said Jones, according to the Washington Post. “I promise you that.” The comments came after President Obama said that if he were the owner of the team, he would consider changing the name because it is offensive to some people. (JTA)
UC-Berkeley starting Jewish studies center The University of California, Berkeley is launching a Center for Jewish Studies. The university made the announcement of the center, for which it allotted $1 million, on Wednesday, Oct. 16. The center will be inaugurated Oct. 30. “The center will expand the breadth of Jewish studies scholarship here, connect more students to the wealth of Jewish studies resources across the campus, and enrich the university’s engagement with the Jewish community in the [San Francisco] Bay Area and beyond,” Chancellor Nicholas Dirks said. The center will serve as the focal point for faculty and courses from various disciplines and departments, ranging from comparative literature and law to theater and dance. Its addition enhances California’s reputation as a magnet for scholars and students in the field of Jewish studies. Stanford and UCLA also have major Jewish studies centers. (JTA) Peres meets Facebook execs after R&D center announcement Israeli President Shimon Peres met in Israel with a senior delegation from Facebook following the announcement that the social media company would open its first research and development center in Israel. “This was a major decision for Facebook
—to open the first R&D center outside of the United States—and we’re proud that it will be in Israel,” Nicola Mendelsohn, Facebook’s vice president for Europe, the Middle East and Africa, said during the visit, according to Peres’ office. Facebook acquired the Israeli start-up company Onavo for between $100 million and $200 million, according to a blog post by the Tel Aviv-based start-up. Onavo, a mobile analytics company founded in 2010, said its 30 Israel-based employees will remain in Israel and that the Onavo office will be Facebook’s first R&D center in Israel. “I thank Facebook for its significant investment and call upon the company to continue to invest in Israeli companies,” Peres said during the visit. “The creation of a Facebook research and development center in Israel will contribute significantly to Facebook—the lack of natural resources in Israel led to the development of great minds instead which built Israel’s successful hightech sector. Your investment in Israel is just the beginning.” (JTA)
Ex-San Diego mayor Filner pleads guilty in sexual harassment case Bob Filner, who resigned as San Diego mayor amid sexual harassment accusations, pleaded guilty to three charges in a case brought by three women. Filner made his plea in San Diego County state Superior Court on one felony count of “false imprisonment by violence, fraud, menace and deceit,” as well as two misdemeanor counts of battery. He will not have to serve any prison time. The victims were identified as Jane Does 1, 2 and 3. Filner, 71, who is Jewish, resigned in August after the San Diego City Council unanimously approved a deal under which he agreed to leave office by Aug. 30 in exchange for the city agreeing to pay his legal expenses in a sexual harassment lawsuit brought by his former aide. Some 19 women publicly accused Filner of acting inappropriately and sexually harassing them. He apologized to the city and the women who accused him of misconduct. Filner was San Diego’s first Democratic mayor in two decades; he formerly was a 10-term congressman. (JTA)
Torah Thought
Isaac: the mediocre patriarch
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lmost the entire career of our Father Isaac is recorded in parashat Toledot. It begins, “V’ele toledot Yitschak ben Avraham; Avraham holid et Yitschak.” (“Now, this is the story of Isaac son of Abraham; Abraham sired Isaac.”) Other than his birth and early childhood, his near sacrifice, his meeting and marrying Rebecca and, much later, his death, every episode in Isaac’s life is related in parashat Toledot. This is a considerably shorter set of narratives than those featuring his father, Abraham, or his son, Jacob. The Torah devotes many more parashiyyot to the other two patriarchs than to the middle one. A case has often been made for Isaac being simply the place holder between his much more actively involved father and son. Please do not misunderstand me. I continue to give Isaac the respect due to one of our three great patriarchs. Yet, I cannot but wonder at the relatively small amount of text devoted to his life and activities. The classical rabbis praise him in comparison to his two peers as the only patriarch who did not feel the need to leave the territory which would later become the land of Israel. Isaac’s connection to the Holy Land was so strong that he lived his entire life within its boundaries. We have been taught to admire him greatly for the strength of his bond to the Land. Yet, we read the Torah text which refers to the only occasion when Isaac might have had need to travel abroad and find that the decision was made for him. Parallel to the episode in Abraham’s life, a famine came to Canaan. Abraham chose to take his wife, Sarah, to Egypt in order to find food to eat. Isaac, under similar circumstances, was specifically instructed by God not to leave Canaan but to go only as far as Gerar to
find sustenance. He followed God’s command and did not leave the country. For his compliance, God renewed the Abrahamic Covenant with Isaac and rewarded him with wealth and possessions. After leaving Gerar, Isaac moved his camp to a series of locations. At each new place, his servants dug a well only to have the water source disputed by the followers of the king of Gerar. Rather than create an incident, Isaac moved his camp. Finally, he reached a place at which the ownership of his newly dug well was not disputed. Seeing that Isaac always did well no matter how much was taken from him, the king of Gerar proposed a treaty between the two of them. Isaac was perceived as the chosen favorite of a powerful God and to oppose him could prove dangerous. We read in the Torah that Isaac avoided conflict over water rights and then agreed to a treaty with a potential enemy that benefitted that enemy more than it would himself. At a certain age, Isaac’s eyesight began to fail. Again, reading the Torah text, we understand that he began to behave as a total invalid, rarely even leaving his tent. It is possible that his bodily strength also began to wane, but the text says nothing of this. More likely, the timidity exhibited in other episodes of his life continued to reign over his actions, making him hesitant to attempt any semblance of a normal life. This attitude leads directly into the famous story of Jacob’s impersonation of his brother, Esau. Jacob’s purpose was to receive the paternal blessing, which would bring with it the leadership of the clan. Even on this occasion, Isaac declines to act on the suspicion that the young man presenting himself as Esau was actually Jacob “in sheep’s clothing.” All in all, a close reading of the Torah favors viewing Isaac as an ineffective leader who allows others to manipulate him, molding the paths his life takes. Perhaps God protects him from harm precisely because Isaac is incapable of taking care of himself. In early November, we shall once again make our ways to our polling places and vote for new leaders. This is an “off-year” election so we shall not be voting for a new president, but many important state and city officials will be chosen by the electorate. If you are anything like me, you will go and vote because it is both a privilege and a responsibility in the great democracy of
the United States of America. For our entire lives, we have been told of the importance of voting; expressing our opinions and preferences as to where we wish our government officials to guide us. If we do not vote, we opt out of the process and, therefore, do not really have any business commenting on the course of governmental policy. Even more so, if you are anything like me, you are becoming more and more despondent over elections in this country and their results. There is a virtual litany of negatives associated with the electoral process. Primarily, there is a lack of acceptable candidates. For more years than I care to remember, I have been dissatisfied with all the candidates and am left to vote against the one I dislike more rather than voting for a candidate for whom I have real respect. These nominees frequently propose inadequate or incredible platforms, which are unlikely ever to be successfully implemented. Sometimes they represent ideas which are so distressing as to be an embarrassment. Experience now tells us that, regardless of who is elected, the same old crippling special interest groups will prevent any effective positive change anyway. It is as if those who occupy office are just that—people who come to work each
day (if they are not on extended vacations) and barely keep things going. The political system we have may still be the best in the world but it is so very far from achieving its potential. Isaac held the fort for one generation between Abraham and Jacob without coming up with any positive innovations. We have been experiencing that kind of stagnation or worse for too many political administrations for us to tolerate without speaking up. We must continue to perform our civic duty by voting. We must continue to participate in the process. But we need to go so much further than that. We need to put ourselves forward and find leaders who are capable of making positive strides toward real progress in our country and who will have the courage and integrity to rid the system of the special interests whose greed endangers our people and the peoples of the world. Then, perhaps, Isaac’s blessing of his son, Jacob, will become ours as well; “V’yitten l’kha ha’Elohim mittal hashamayim umishmaney ha’arets v’rov daggan v’tirosh”. (May God give you the dew of heaven and the fat of the earth, abundance of new grain and wine.”) See you at the polls! —Cantor Gordon Piltch, Congregation Beth El
jewishnewsva.org | October 28, 2013 | Jewish News | 5
Yellen’s rise to Fed chief gains more attention for gender than faith by Ron Kampeas
WASHINGTON ( JTA)—Janet Yellen is soft-spoken, tough, methodological, flexible—and Jewish. President Obama’s announcement that he had tapped Yellen, 67, to succeed Ben Bernanke as chairman of the Federal Reserve made news in part because she
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would be the first woman in the top spot. That very little was made of her Jewishness likely derives mostly from the fact that she would be not the first or second, but at least the fifth, Jewish chair of the U.S. central bank and the third in a row following Bernanke and Alan Greenspan. For the first Jewish Fed chairman, one has to go back to the 1930s, when the post was assumed by Eugene Meyer, better known perhaps as the patriarch of the family that ran the Washington Post for eight decades. Yellen’s Wikipedia entry lists her as Jewish based on a reference to a 2001 profile of husband George Akerlof, then a Nobel Prize-winning economist at the University of California, Berkeley. The article noted that the couple attended the Reform Congregation Beth El in the northern California city. Beyond that, Yellen’s Jewish connections are not known. It’s not clear if she and her husband are attached to any Washington-
area synagogue and local Jewish religious leaders are unaware of any affiliation. The lone Jewish organization to note her nomination, the World Jewish Congress, made more of her gender than her faith. Profiles quoting her classmates at Brown and Yale universities and at Fort Hamilton High School in her native Brooklyn, N.Y., depict her as a soft-spoken nerd. Her parents were Jewish, but one classmate’s memory of her Brooklyn home evokes an upbringing focused on all-American traditions. Her mom, Anna Blumenthal, was a den mother to Cub Scouts, Rich Rubin told Reuters. Yellen, who in the 1990s chaired President Bill Clinton’s Council of Economic Advisers, went on to become president of San Francisco’s Federal Reserve Bank from 2004 to 2010. Obama named her the vice chairwoman of the Federal Reserve in 2010. News reports about Yellen have focused on her similarities to Bernanke. According to a New York Times profile, Yellen intends
to continue and expand his insistence on transparency in how the Fed arrives at its policies, and prizes precision in arriving at formulas to assess interest rates. Yellen emphasizes unemployment over inflation, and has said she is willing to adjust inflation rates above 2 percent to spur employment. But some colleagues have noted her past embrace of “hawkish” policies. Peter Hooper of Deutsche Bank wrote in the Economist on Oct. 11 that in the 1990s, as a member of the Fed’s Open Market Committee, Yellen pushed to raise interest rates amid low unemployment. “Ms. Yellen’s policy orientation has proven to be flexible and appropriate to the prevailing economic conditions,” wrote Hooper, who was a staffer with Yellen on the Fed’s Division of International Finance. “I have known her to be a straight shooter, someone whose views are governed by an objective assessment of the data within a reasonable analytical framework.”
Schusterman to award micro-grants to 50 Jewish projects
6 | Jewish News | October 28, 2013 | jewishnewsva.org
(JTA)—A new micro-grants initiative will award funding of up to $1,000 each for 50 different project ideas. The #MakeItHappen micro-grants initiative, for creating Jewish experiences in communities around the world, was announced last week by the Charles and Lynn Schusterman Philanthropic Network. The submission deadline is Dec. 6 and the ideas will be selected on a rolling basis. Anyone 18 and older can submit a project idea. The project must occur before May 31. Five of the ideas could receive funding of up to $5,000. “#MakeItHappen is designed to empower young people to take that initial or next step on a leadership journey,” said Lynn Schusterman, chair of the Schusterman Philanthropic Network. “For many young Jews, these small grants embody a ‘first yes’ and a realization that the Jewish community values and is willing to invest in what they have to contribute to ensuring a vibrant Jewish future.”
OP_ed
Jews have special reasons to remember JFK on 50th anniversary of assassination by Ira Stoll
NEW YORK (JTA)—As the 50th anniversary of President Kennedy’s assassination approaches, we Jews have our own special reasons to mourn. The conventional community memory of Kennedy would be enough by itself. JFK overcame the legacy of his father, President Franklin Roosevelt’s notoriously appeasement-minded ambassador to Britain on the eve of World War II, Joseph Kennedy, to build a warm relationship with American Jews. As Warren Bass recounted a decade ago in his book Support Any Friend, the U.S.Israel alliance advanced significantly with JFK’s approval of the sale of HAWK—short for Homing All the Way Killer—missiles to Israel. President Kennedy appointed Arthur Goldberg as labor secretary and then to the Supreme Court, Abraham Ribicoff as secretary of health, education and welfare, and Mortimer Caplin as internal revenue commissioner. Even a strangely large number of the gentiles in his administration had Jewish roots: Speechwriter Ted Sorensen was a self-described “Danish Russian Jewish Unitarian,” while Treasury secretary Douglas Dillon and White House aide Arthur Schlesinger Jr. both had Jewish immigrant grandfathers. In the closing days of the 1960 campaign, Kennedy held separate rallies in New York’s garment district with David Dubinsky’s International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union and with the rival Amalgamated Clothing Workers, which also was heavily Jewish. In conducting research for my new book, JFK, Conservative, I came across two lesser-known pieces of evidence that shed new light on Kennedy’s positive views about the American Jewish community and the warmth of his relationship with it. The first was a tape recording of a meeting between Kennedy and American civil rights leaders following the March on Washington in 1963. The Oval Office recording system became famous under Nixon, but it was active in the Kennedy years as well, and it captured some fasci-
nating interactions. With the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. at the White House following his “I Have a Dream Speech,” Kennedy launched into a discussion not of the need for federal civil rights legislation, but rather of what blacks could do to help themselves. “Now, isn’t it possible for the Negro community to take the lead in committing major emphasis upon the responsibility of these families, even if they’re split and all the rest of the problems they have, on educating their children?” Kennedy asked/ lectured. “Now, in my opinion, the Jewish community, which suffered a good deal under discrimination, and what a great effort they made, which I think has made their role influential, was in education: education of their children. And therefore they’ve been able to establish a pretty strong position for themselves.” Kennedy added, “With all the influence that all you gentlemen have in the Negro community…[you] really have to concentrate on what I think the Jewish community has done on educating their children, on making them stay in school, and all the rest.” For blacks, the president’s advice might have been good, patronizing, beside the point or all of the above. But for Jews, it encapsulated the way Kennedy admired them and saw them as a success story of American immigrant upward mobility. An example of that trajectory was the Jewish attorney Lewis Weinstein, who built a close relationship with Kennedy and is the source of the second piece of evidence. Weinstein had been born in Lithuania in 1905. He had come to America when he was 15 months old, graduated from Harvard and its law school, served in the army on Eisenhower’s staff during World War II, and had returned to become a partner at the Boston law firm of Foley, Hoag, and Eliot. One day in the summer of 1946, Weinstein’s partner Thomas Eliot, whose grandfather Charles had been president of Harvard, walked into Weinstein’s office and said, “Lou, meet Jack Kennedy.” From this classic Boston political moment— the Brahmin lawyer introducing the
Irish Catholic politician to a Jewish partner who could help him raise campaign contributions—an enduring relationship began. The relationship came into play later when the plight of Soviet Jewry was starting to emerge as a concern for American Jews. And this particular anecdote is at least a partial corrective to the claim in Gal Beckerman’s well-received 2010 history When They Come for Us We’ll Be Gone that Soviet Jewry “was an issue that John F. Kennedy President John F. Kennedy greets Golda Meir, Foreign Minister of Israel, at a reception for delegates to the General Assembly of the United ignored.” Nations (UN) at United Nations Headquarters, New York City, N.Y. It is true that American Secretary of State Dean Rusk and United States Ambassador to the Jewish organizations were UN Adlai Stevenson look on. September 25, 1961. (Credit: Cecil Stoughton. White House Photographs. rebuffed when they tried the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, Boston) usual route—having friendly “You know, it’s getting pretty bad,” members of Congress contact the State Department. The assistant secretary of Weinstein said. “There are murder trials state for congressional relations, Frederick going on. They call them economic trials, Dutton, sent Senator Keating of New York but the defendant is always a Jew. He’s a long letter acknowledging that Russian charged with black market [trading] or synagogues had been closed and Jewish something else like that, he’s always concemeteries desecrated as part of “the long- victed and executed. They’re murder trials, term Soviet campaign against religion in which the defendant is murdered and generally,” but fretting that the American not the murderer.” Weinstein told Kennedy that Soviet government could not do much about it. “It is doubtful if further protestations authorities had closed the gates, slowing would be helpful to the Jews in the Soviet the flow of Jewish refugees out of Russia to a trickle. And he said no American Union,” the letter concluded. But that was not the end of the story. president had intervened with the Russian Weinstein, as he later recounted in a little-no- authorities on behalf of the Jews since ticed 1985 article for the journal American President Theodore Roosevelt had protestJewish History, went to Robert Kennedy and ed to Czar Nicholas II after the Kishinev succeeded in having a mention of the Soviet massacre. Kennedy replied: “Well, here’s one presclosing of synagogues included in President Kennedy’s September 1963 speech to the ident who’s ready to do something.” Kennedy told Weinstein to organize a United Nations General Assembly. Weinstein persuaded the president to conference in Washington about the Soviet have Averell Harriman raise the matter Jewry issue. The president told Weinstein with Khrushchev during a Harriman’s to schedule the meeting for sometime soon negotiating mission to Moscow on arms after Kennedy returned from an upcoming control. And in a White House meeting political trip to Dallas. —Ira Stoll is the author of JFK, with President Kennedy in November 1963, Weinstein, who was soon to take over as Conservative, published Oct. 15 by Houghton chairman of the Conference of Presidents Mifflin Harcourt. He was managing editor of of Major American Jewish Organizations, the Forward and North American editor of The Jerusalem Post. launched into a plea on the issue.
jewishnewsva.org | October 28, 2013 | Jewish News | 7
Israeli group quietly feeding Syrian refugees in Jordan by Ben Sales
MAFRAQ, Jordan ( JTA)—The purple plastic sacks fill two rooms in the otherwise sparsely furnished headquarters of a Jordanian NGO, awaiting distribution to Syrian refugees already lined up on the sidewalk. They contain an array of staple dry goods—lentils, pasta, powdered milk, tea—as well as a range of hygiene products like soap and detergent, enough for 250 refugee families. But before the goods were handed out, one thing will be removed— the word “Jewish.” Going sack by sack with a pair of scissors, an aid worker begins to cut. “We don’t announce with trumpets that we’re Israeli,” the worker says. “There’s no need for that. Once you let that cat out of the bag, everything starts to blow up.” The sacks are paid for by IsraAid, an Israeli nonprofit that provides disaster
relief and humanitarian aid across the world. The group has provided medical care and psychological services following earthquakes in Japan and Haiti, and supplies food and other materials to refugees at two camps in Kenya. IsraAid began working in Jordan early this year. Since then, the organization says it has provided approximately $100,000 worth of supplies to refugees who have escaped Syria’s brutal civil war. But because Syria and Israel technically have been at war for four decades, discretion and security are paramount in IsraAid’s Jordanian operation. Most aid workers interviewed requested anonymity, as did the Jordanian nongovernmental organization that is IsraAid’s partner on the ground. Working with Israelis, they say, could endanger their work and the lives of the refugees they help. Israelis may travel freely to Jordan, but when the IsraAid delegation crossed
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Before he died in 2007, Bill arranged for a bequest to the Hampton Roads Community Foundation to provide grants for arts and medicine in Hampton Roads. Goldback grants have helped expand Eastern Virginia Medical School and support 33 area music and arts groups. Thanks to Bill’s generosity he will forever bring music and health to his home region. Connect your passions to the future by ordering a free bequest guide. Learn how easy it is to leave a gift for charity. Call 757-622-7951 or visit leaveabequest.org.
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the border two weeks ago, it brought a letter from the Jordanian NGO that would facilitate the distribution as well as a list of individuals in its party. A police escort joined the group’s bumpy ride through northern Jordan, past small villages of flat-roofed houses, lemon groves and vegetable fields. In the distance were the mountains of southern Syria. “We try to work by the book and not go under the radar,” says Shachar Zahavi, IsraAid’s founding director, who explains that other countries also require extended security checks. “The Jordanians are open to it.” After 90 minutes, the delegation arrives at the Jordanian NGO’s headquarters, next to an empty lot filled with trash on a side street in this city. The capital city of a region of the same name, half of Mafraq’s 100,000 residents are refugees from the conflict next door. In total, half a million Syrians have taken refuge in Jordan. Most of them are here, in the border region, and most arrived this year. Directed by a soft-spoken, gray-haired retiree working without pay, the Jordanian NGO focuses on aiding the 200,000 local refugees not living in Zaatri, the massive United Nations refugee camp nearby. The director keeps meticulous records of the constantly growing number of aid recipients, registering every new arrival, noting the size of their family and when they last received aid. Seventy volunteers help purchase and package supplies with funds from groups like IsraAid. With the word “Jewish” removed, the purple bags begin to travel in a human chain down a tight stairwell to the refugees below, almost all of them women wearing long black dresses and matching hijabs. Bags are loaded onto trucks or carried in hand back to wherever they are staying. One woman approaches a volunteer to explain, through basic Arabic and hand motions, that a relative has cancer. Where, she asks, can she find medicine? “We’re still at this beginning stage,” the aid worker later tells JTA. “You’re still being inundated with refugees. They’re always going to need food until the situation is stable.”
The next stop for the IsraAid workers is Hamra, an impromptu refugee camp set up a month ago 20 minutes outside Mafraq. Situated under power lines, surrounded by desert and about to be clouded by a suffocating sandstorm, the camp is home to 25 families from a Damascus suburb who had walked 60 miles to the Jordanian border to escape the fighting. Now they share space in 10 tents with dirty, beige flaps featuring the block letters U.N.H.C.R.—for United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees—in faded blue. Inside one, seven thin mattresses sit in a square on a tattered rug. A second room, with a small burner and piles of pots and pans, serves as the tent kitchen. Although they eagerly crowd the distribution truck, most refugees appear healthy, if needy. While the distribution goes on, one resident insists that the workers sit for some coffee. But an elderly woman shakes as she pulls a deformed hand out of her robe, her two fingers wrapped backwards and melded into what was left of her palm. After the bombing that caused her injury, she joined her children and grandchildren on the 60-mile trek. Now she says nothing, her wrinkled face and sunken eyes conveying a resigned helplessness. Zahavi hopes that within a month, IsraAid can bring social workers to Mafraq to help refugees cope with the psychological trauma. Israelis, Zahavi says, are experts in trauma care after decades of dealing with terror attacks. “My main agenda is to put Israelis on the ground around the world and show the world that Israel cares about them,” he says. IsraAid receives support from several foundations, but the organization says some of its donors initially were reluctant to fund its work in Jordan for fear of becoming involved in the Syria-Israel conflict. But the aid worker says that when refugees discover the Israeli connection, they are still grateful for the help—no matter its political implications. “You’re talking about hungry people,” she says. “These people are in a dire situation. If I hand someone a can of tuna, do they really care where it’s coming from?”
Bloomberg ‘flattered’ by inaugural $1 million ‘Jewish Nobel Prize’
Michael Bloomberg in Israel at American Friends of Magen David Adom by Julie Wiener
NEW YORK (JTA)—In August, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg told New York magazine, “Wouldn’t it be great if we could get all the Russian billionaires to move here?” Today, the Russian billionaires—or at least some Jewish ones—returned the compliment, naming Bloomberg the first winner of the Genesis Prize. The new $1 million prize, administered by a partnership that includes the Genesis Philanthropy Group and the Israeli government, is intended to show “the importance of Jewish values to the fulfillment of human potential and to the betterment of the world,” and to highlight that importance to strengthen Jewish identity and combat assimilation. On Monday, Oct. 21 at a news conference scheduled to announce the consolidation of New York City vehicles, Bloomberg says he was “flattered” to have received what is being called the “Jewish Nobel Prize” but acknowledged, “I don’t need the money.” Bloomberg, who reportedly is worth $31 billion, says he would probably donate the money to a cause in the Middle East. “I want it to go for something unconventional that my foundation hasn’t supported in the past,” he says. Bloomberg has supported Jewish causes in the past, including the dedication of a women and child center at Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem in honor of his late mother, and Magen David Adom, the emergency medical service. But the bulk of
his philanthropy has been to non-Jewish causes, most notably his alma mater, Johns Hopkins University, to which he has donated more than $1 billion. Wayne Firestone, the former Hillel International president who now runs the Genesis Prize Foundation, says that Bloomberg is a “very sophisticated philanthropist who has made a huge impact globally and an outspoken friend of Israel.” Asked how the 71-year-old outgoing mayor will inspire young Jews, Firestone says Genesis will be embarking on a “process to introduce him to younger Jews” and arrange forums for him to interact with young Jews, although he acknowledged Bloomberg “hasn’t planned his post-mayoral schedule.” Bloomberg will complete his third term as New York mayor at the end of the year. The awarding of $1 million to a wellknown public figure with a huge personal fortune spurred some head scratching and ridicule in the Jewish communal world. One foundation leader who asked not to be identified says in an email that the reaction in her office has been “one of some surprise.” Most had expected the prize “would bring into the light someone doing amazingly deep unknown work, someone who needs the prize to advance that work and perhaps someone better to relate to the very demographic the prize seeks to attract,” she says. Writing in The New Republic, Marc Tracy notes that awarding Bloomberg $1 million “is like giving the average U.S. household $1.56.” “The soon-to-be-ex-mayor is a great philanthropist,” Tracy wrote. “Which begs the question of whether the Genesis Philanthropy Group’s $100 million endowment couldn’t be put to wiser use.” But Ilia Salita, executive director of Genesis Philanthropy Group North America, says younger generations are inspired by innovation. “There is hardly a better example of innovators than Bloomberg,” Salita says. Firestone and Salita declined to name the other finalists for the prize.
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jewishnewsva.org | October 28, 2013 | Jewish News | 9
Fairways to success The 25th Annual Hebrew Academy Golf Tournament by Dee Dee Becker
H
ebrew Academy of Tidewater’s 25th Annual HAT Golf Tournament held on Tuesday, Sept. 17 at Bayville Golf and Country Club was another outstanding triumph due to the generosity of spirit, time and funds of committee members, players and sponsors. It was a beautiful day marked by great sportsmanship and, of course, lots of food and celebration. In fact, the hard work of 36 volunteers, 84 golfers/21 golf teams and HAT staff, resulted in this year’s event surpassing its goal. Among the volunteers were Andy and Jeff Klein who coordinated the PayDay Payroll Vegas Hole; Angela Jenkins, who assisted Bob Josephberg in chairing the tournament for many years, who continues to serve as an advisor to the school in planning this fundraiser; as well Patti Seeman and Rachel Abrams, HAT parents and volunteer co-chairs, whose tireless work made it such a success. “The inaugural golf tournament began 25 years ago,” says Deb Segaloff, HAT development director, “thanks to the efforts of Eric Joffe, past HAT parent and current HAT grandparent, who wanted to start a fundraiser that would benefit our beloved Jewish Community Day school. It is on Eric’s wings that Bob Josephberg, past board president, took it to the next level, raising well over $1-million during the course of his tenure as event chair. Affectionately known as the Bob Josephberg Classic, the event is now chaired by David Cardon, who took the reins in 2011.” Of very special note this year were the gold ribbons which were given to all participants to help raise awareness and honor HAT kindergartener and young Superhero, Ben Goldberg, who is currently fighting a battle against cancer. The school wishes him a refuah shlema (a complete recovery) and looks forward to seeing Ben back in action in the classroom where he brings joy to everyone he meets!
Letting no moss grow under their feet (or the golf course!), no sooner than the close of this long planned event did HAT’s team of volunteers begin planning next year’s tournament. Mark calendars for Sept. 9, 2014 and contact Deb Segaloff, at 424-4327 or dsegaloff@hebrewacademy.net to volunteer, play or become a sponsor. Hebrew Academy of Tidewater is a constituent agency of United Jewish Federation of Tidewater. Annie Sandler, Joan Joffe, Sheila Josephberg and Ilana Benson.
Bob Josephberg, Marvin Friedberg, Erin Peck and Chuck Goldman.
Karen and Matthew Fine.
Jody Balaban, Gary Kell, Mike Simon and Rabbi Jeff Arnowitz.
Nathan Benson, James Stein, Eric Joffe, and Howard Joffe.
Jason Hoffman and David Cardon, tournament chair.
Rad Davenport, Victor Pickett, Alan Nordlinger, and Frank Cowling.
Stuart Sim, Evan Kalfus, Adam White and John Strelitz.
HAT parents and volunteer co-chairs, Rachel Abrams and Patti Seeman.
Eric Kline, Adam White and Andy Kline.
Jacob Strelitz, Joyce Strelitz, Bruce Breedlove and Nathan Strelitz.
10 | Jewish News | October 28, 2013 | jewishnewsva.org
3D Mammography finds 35% more cancer.
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hen you switch to a 3D mammogram for your next screening appointment, you’ll hardly notice a difference – but our highly skilled radiologists will see things very differently than ever before. The advanced technology of 3D mammography is revolutionizing the fight against breast
cancer. This groundbreaking new diagnostic tool has been shown to increase the early detection of cancer by 35%.* And it has also been proven to reduce the need to have women called back by 38%.* That means fewer follow-up exams, fewer biopsies and less worry for you. In Hampton Roads, 3D mammography is
available only from the Sentara Cancer Network. Our physicians follow the American Cancer Society recommendations for all women to have screening mammograms annually, starting at age 40. To schedule your screening appointment, please go to www.sentara.com/3Dmammogram or call 1-800-SENTARA.
Another first from the Sentara Cancer Network *June 2013 issue of the American Journal of Roentgenology
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jewishnewsva.org | October 28, 2013 | Jewish News | 11 10/7/13 10:38 AM
first person Making children’s Chanukah wishes come true Why I Give to the JFS Chanukah Gift Program We turned a house that grew with us into a home with fewer ups and downs. If you are 62 or better and looking to improve your retirement years, call us at TowneBank Mortgage. We can discuss ways to tap into your home’s equity for daily living expenses, medical costs, renovations, travel, and more.
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Browse listings at www.allaccessrealtyflorida.com. 12 | Jewish News | October 28, 2013 | jewishnewsva.org
I don’t normally consider shopping to be a recreational activity (except, of course, hen I was a kid, JFS staff in Israel). However, THIS my father was was the most fun I’d a Chief Petty and supporters: had shopping in a long Officer, and then a Chief Thank you for your time. Even though I Warrant Officer, in the wasn’t going to know Coast Guard. That generous donations who the kids were, was (long) before the as I walked up and all-volunteer military, to my family for the down the aisles and which means we never Chanukah season. the basket filled had a lot of money. up, I couldn’t help But he and my mother My daughter’s eyes lit up imagining how were always generous at Chanukah. I when she saw the Light Brite happy they they’d be when they got know, I know, it’s not toy and other gifts. I don’t stuff they wanted. supposed to be about Then, as I checked gifts. But you can’t know what we would have things off the list, deny it—that stuff I came to a sudden is important to kids, done this holiday season realization. They’re especially to a sister without you. A thousand not really asking for and brother who are much. I can get them the only Jews in the blessings upon everyone. ALL of this stuff. I neighborhood. So my can give them everydad and mom made a Hopefully next year thing they want! big deal out of Chanukah, How often do you including the exchange of we can be on the have the opportunity to gifts. giving end.” give someone everything he/ A few years ago, when I she wants? heard that Jewish Family Service of Tidewater was doing a Chanukah gift wish list program for low-income Jewish kids in the area, it brought back How to give to the JFS memories. Mostly I remembered how Chanukah Gift program lucky I was (and still am). I knew I had to • Contact JFS to request a Family be a part of this program. Wish List. It was (and still is) easy. JFS has a list • Create a Mitzvah Day tradition of families, and within each family, a list of with your family and friends and children. No names anywhere. The givers go shopping together for gifts. don’t know who the receivers are, and the • Consider a tax-deductible monereceivers don’t know who the givers are tary donation to JFS, and JFS will (with a tip of the hat to Maimonides). do the shopping for the items most The children are identified only by age needed/requested. and gender, e.g., “Girl, 12 years” or “Boy, 10 • Purchase gift cards from departyears.” Underneath each is their wish list. ment stores, grocery stores, etc., You can do as much or as little as you’d and families can shop for themlike. You can sign up for one line item, or selves. you can take a whole family. I told them All donations should be made to JFS I wanted a family with two elementary by Nov. 13. For more information, conschool age kids, a girl and a boy. JFS gave tact Maryann Kettyle at 757-459-4640 me the list, and off I went shopping. or mkettyle@jfshamptonroads.org. by Mark Solberg, JFS volunteer
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Dear
YAD Men’s Basketball continues to grow in size, popularity The YAD Men’s Basketball Group Front row: Igor Babichenko, Chad Dorsk; Middle row: Nathan Strelitz, Matt Kantro, David Calliott, Matt Nusbaum, Danny Rubin; Back row: Andrew Nusbaum, Ben Gross, Adam Tabakin, Ryan Lazernick, Jacob Walzer, Elliot Warsof, Adam Becker, Jody Balaban, Eric Miller, Jeff Hubbard, Todd Aftel, and Ari Stein. by Danny Rubin
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he Simon Family JCC gym was full of action Tuesday, Oct. 8 as 19 young Jewish men got together for pick-up basketball. That’s nine more people than the most recent basketball night on Sept. 23. Participants are part of the newly-formed YAD Men’s Basketball Group, which is open to Jewish men ages 22-45. YAD is the Young Adult Division of the United Jewish Federation of Tidewater. The crowd is a diverse mix of young people. With ages ranging from early 20s to early 30s, the group covers a variety of jobs; among them, several lawyers, a dentist, graphic designer, landscaper and manager of an Oceanfront restaurant. “The YAD basketball nights are great because they bring together many young guys in town,” says David Calliott, 24, an investment and wealth adviser who just moved back to Virginia Beach. “Every time I go, I meet someone new or catch up with an old friend.” The group meets twice a month at the
Ari Stein, a lawyer and Virginia Beach native who recently returned to the area, wore his JCC basketball t-shirt that’s at least 20 years old. Somehow, it still fits!
Simon Family JCC, 7:30–9 pm. Games in November are scheduled for Tuesday, Nov. 5 and Tuesday, Nov. 19. If interested in joining, contact Danny Rubin at dannyh.rubin@gmail.com or Amy Weinstein, YAD director, at aweinstein@ ujft.org.
Chanukah in a Box is back Last year Beth Sholom Village and the Village Caterers introduced “Chanukah in a Box”. It turned out to be a big hit, so Beth Sholom has brought it back this year. The orders are coming in fast. As most everyone knows by now, Chanukah and Thanksgiving collide this year. The first night of Chanukah is Wed., Nov. 27, and Thanksgiving is the very next day. What to do? What to cook? When to cook? The solution is easy: Cook the turkey, stuffing, and any other family traditional foods, and relax knowing the Chanukah festivities start with the opening of the box. Just heat up the latkes, thaw the donuts, light the candles, spin the dreidle and have a wonderful Chanukah dinner. Order online at www.bethsholomvillage.com or call Marcia Brodie at 757-420-2512 ext. 204.
jewishnewsva.org | October 28, 2013 | Jewish News | 13
it’s a wrap WVEC-TV Channel 13 visits Simon Family JCC’s Kids Connection
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he Simon Family JCC’s before and after school program, Kids Connection, enjoyed an afternoon in the limelight when Navy Chief Dustin Rushing had a surprise reunion with his daughter. Rushing was deployed on the USS Helena for six months and returned a day early. When he and his wife Amy stopped by to pick up his third grade daughter Kadie, WVEC-TV, Channel 13 was on hand to film the moment. The clip was shown on the 6 pm news, and can be viewed on the Simon Family JCC’s facebook page.
Navy Chief Dustin Rushing with his daughter, Kadie.
Spare change helps make a change
JFS Knitters Club donates a freezer to JFS
E
very Wednesday the ladies meet to knit. The members of the Jewish Family Service Knitters Club, however, aren’t just knitting for the fun of it. These women are creating lap blankets, scarves, and other items for JFS clients. And each week the group comes together, they place their spare change in a jar. Many of the knitted items they create are given away during the holidays as part of the Helping Hearts project, which gives bags of goodies to JFS indigent clients in the area. Helping others however possible, the club members heard of a need at JFS they knew they could fill. The freezer in the JFS Meals on Wheels program was old and ‘on its last leg,’ and JFS was in desperate need of a new one to store meals. The Knitters Club came to the rescue by using funds from their weekly collections to purchase a new freezer. When it comes to contributing to the
14 | Jewish News | October 28, 2013 | jewishnewsva.org
JFS Knitters Club members Leslie Legum, Natalie Steiner and Sandy Mendelsohn pose with JFS volunteer coordinator Jody Laibstain and the donated freezer.
Jewish community, The Knitters Club certainly goes beyond the yarn. Speaking of yarn, the JFS Knitters Club accepts and appreciates donations of spare knitting yarn. Contact Jody Laibstain at 757-321‑2227. Jewish Family Service is a constituent agency of United Jewish Federation of Tidewater.
it’s a wrap HAT alumni comes together for Jewish education and good times
Recent HAT graduates participated in a special event aimed at keeping alumni connected to their Judaism and friends through a continuing education and social program. Back row: Daniel Krell, Rabbi Mordechai Wecker (head of school), Audrey Peck, Rose Lefcoe, Shelby Brown, Sanni Wagenaar, Emily Myers, Josh Schwarz, Sid Studebaker, and Evan Gordon. Middle row: Mariah Berkovich, Tia Einhorn, Meg Lederman, Rachael Stromberg, Leora Friedman, Sarah Blais, Jordan Familant, Micah Schachet-Briskin, and Elizabeth Hughes. Seated and standing in front: Jonathan Peck (seated), Sam Lederman (on right). by Leon Covitz Hebrew Academy Judaic Studies teacher and coordinator of Jewish Life and Learning
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n Sunday, Sept. 15, the day after Yom Kippur, Hebrew Academy of Tidewater’s middle school alumni participated in their first continuing education and social program for the most recent graduates. The sound of the tekiya gedolah still echoed in the ears of 22 excited middle
First person
USY rocks with Matisyahu
by Genna Alperin
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school students who attended. Everyone not only enjoyed pizza, Israeli salad with all its trimmings and delicious deserts, but also participated in an educational program about Jews who volunteered to help with the establishment of the State of Israel. The program’s theme was connected to communal responsibility and was aptly named “Answering the Call of the Jewish community.” The participants “met” Jewish
n Sunday, Sept. 15, eight Jewish teens anxiously ate dinner, awaiting the start to what they expected to be one of the best concerts ever. This was the kickoff program for Atz Chaim USY, the United Synagogue Youth group for Hampton Roads. Many of the participants began the night with dinner at the Jewish Mother Backstage, a very fitting location for the group, complete with a dinner of matzah balls and latkes. After dinner, the group went to the NorVa for a Matisyahu concert, where it was lucky to be in the fourth row. When Matisyahu arrived on stage, the crowd
roared. He played various songs such as Sunshine, King Without a Crown, and even performed some of his famous beat boxing. As the concert continued, most of the teens maneuvered their way to the front row, which was a prime spot for being a part of the action when Matisyahu crowd-surfed. For the finale, Matisyahu sang One Day. He invited some of the concert attendees on stage to dance and sing along with him. Among them were two of the USYers, including, me, Genna Alperin. It was a truly amazing experience being up there with an inspirational reggae singer wearing my “Everybody Loves a Jewish Girl” shirt. What an amazing and unforgettable start to a new year.
volunteers from the U.S., the U.K. and South Africa who stepped forward and left their comfortable surroundings to take an active role in the future of the Jewish people—a sentiment which resonated with these young alumni who want to continue being connected to their beloved primary school. Judging from the responses received, the students not only enjoyed themselves
intellectually, but really appreciated being given a venue to socially come together with their former HAT classmates. More alumni events are being planned to keep HAT graduates active and engaged with their Judaism and childhood friends. Tidewater Jewish Foundation provided a grant to fund these special programs. Hebrew Academy of Tidewater is a constituent agency of United Jewish Federation of Tidewater.
THROUGH INDIVIDUAL RETIREMENT ACCOUNTS
IRA ROLLOVER Now is an excellent time to reduce your taxes for 2013 by making a gift from your IRA to charity. The American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012 permits individuals who are 70½ to rollover up to $100,000 from their IRA to charity, free from federal income tax. Better yet, an IRA rollover gift qualifies for your 2013 required minimum distribution, permitting you to lower your income and taxes for this year while helping our cause.
SIMPLE, EASY GIFT If you are like many individuals, your IRA has increased in value over the years and you have more income than you need. The IRA rollover gift is a simple and easy way to provide for you to Create A Jewish Legacy of your own while not increasing your taxable income. Contact your IRA custodian to make a gift from your IRA for 2013. The IRS will treat the amount of the cash gift as if you had made a direct rollover to charity and you can then avoid federal tax on the amount of the gift. Don’t wait! Contact The Tidewater Jewish Foundation today to learn more about how you can convert your taxable IRA distribution and potentially reduce your taxes.
To find out the benefits of planned giving and how to Create a Jewish Legacy of your own, please contact:
Tidewater Jewish Foundation 5000 Coroporate Woods Drive, Suite 200 Virginia Beach, Virginia 23462 Philip S. Rovner President & CEO psrovner@ujft.org •757-965-6111 jewishnewsva.org | October 28, 2013 | Jewish News | 15
Tips on Jewish Trips Post-Holocaust opera to be performed in Maryland Commemorating the 75th anniversary of Kristallnacht Saturday, Nov. 9, 8 pm
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he National Philharmonic with Maestro Piotr Gajewski, 12 professional soloists and the National Philharmonic Chorale will present the first complete concert performance of the opera Lost Childhood by composer Janice Hamer and librettist Mary Azrael at the Music Center at Strathmore in North Bethesda, Md. Premiering on the 75th anniversary of Kristallnacht (“Night of Broken Glass”), when a wave of violent anti-Jewish pogroms throughout Germany marked the unofficial start to the Holocaust, Lost Childhood is based on the memoir by Holocaust survivor Yehuda Nir. Nir, a New York psychiatrist and professor emeritus at Cornell Medical School, was forced into hiding from the Nazis as a child. When his father was arrested in 1941, 11-year-old Nir, his mother and teenaged sister survived by moving from place
to place disguised as Polish Catholics. The opera takes place in Poland and Germany during World War II and in Manhattan in 1993. “The story,” notes Azrael, “is often darkly humorous and ultimately triumphant as the family evades the monstrous power of the Third Reich.” The central relationship in the opera— between a Jewish survivor and a German descendant of a Nazi sympathizer—is fictitious, but several real-life relationships have determined the production and plot. One was the acquaintance of Hamer’s parents and Gajewski’s father at the retirement community of Ingleside at King Farm in Rockville, Md., where they live. Hamer’s meeting the older Gajewski at Ingleside and discovering that he was a survivor of the Warsaw Ghetto encouraged her to contact his son the conductor. Another real-life connection provided
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Rosa Lamoreaux and Tyler Young are rehearsing for the post-holocaust opera Lost Childhood. The background of this composite photo shows Jews being unloaded at the Auschwitz death camp in 1944. Credits: Rehearsal image,Marc Apter; background image, German Federal Archives.
the plot: the fictitious relationship between the two men was inspired by the actual friendship of Dr. Nir and Gottfried Wagner, a great-grandson of the composer Richard Wagner. Dr. Wagner, who served as consultant and dramatic advisor during this opera’s development, is a music historian, multimedia director and writer specializing in the Jewish composers persecuted during the Third Reich, as well as internationally promoting post-Holocaust discourse. Born in Germany after the war, he experienced the second generation’s sense of guilt and search for atonement. He has publicly and critically confronted the antisemitic elements of his great-grandfather’s work. Hamer, Nir and Wagner met one another at a Holocaust conference. The two men became friends, delivering lectures together about their respective childhoods at worldwide psychiatric conferences. Baltimore poet Mary Azrael, with whom Hamer had produced a prize-winning choral piece and begun exploring subjects for an opera, met
Nir and Wagner and proposed a plot for the opera involving a fictionalized version of their relationship as a way to explore the multi-generational effects of war on survivors. What happens to children of war as they grow older? Is forgiveness possible? Lost Childhood was commissioned by American Opera Projects, an opera development company in New York. A free pre-concert lecture on Nov. 9 will be offered at 6:45 pm with Associate Conductor Victoria Gau, in the Concert Hall at the Music Center at Strathmore. An exhibit of nine monoprints based on the opera’s theme by Silver Spring painter Miriam Mörsel Nathan will be on show that evening in the corridor of the hall. To purchase tickets, visit www.nationalphilharmonic.org or call the Strathmore box office at (301) 581-5100. Ticket prices start at $28, with children free through age 17. Attendance for children younger than 12 is not encouraged. Complimentary parking is available.
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National Museum of American Jewish History extends ‘Pay What You Wish’ admission through October 31
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n response to the good will and appreciation expressed by so many visitors for the Pay What You Wish policy implemented during the government shutdown, The National Museum of American Jewish History is extending Pay What You Wish admission through the end of October. The National Museum of American Jewish History, located on historic Independence Mall in Philadelphia, brings to life the 350-year history of Jews in America. For information on the Museum, including special exhibitions, hours and regular admission rates, call 215-923-3811 or visit http://www.nmajh.org.
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BOOK REVIEWS Hal’s Navy Cdr. Harold H. Sacks, USN (ret) Parke Press 2013 220 pages $19.95 (paper) ISBN 978-0-9883969-3-7 aby boomers and pop culture fans may remember a hit sitcom that ABC aired in the 1960s— McHale’s Navy. The series, Laine Mednick Rutherford which ran for four years, was filmed in black and white and set in the Pacific Islands during World War II. It followed the schemes and adventures of a sometimes savvy, often lucky, and arguably wily group of sailors, led by the brilliant and likeable Lieutenant Commander Quinton McHale (Ernest Borgnine). Replace fiction with fact; trade black and white TV for colorful, linguistic imagery; change the time period from World War II to a two-decade span that includes the Korean War, the Cuban Missile Crisis and the Vietnam War; move the setting to various naval ships, cities and ports around
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the world; introduce an entirely new set of real characters. Before you know it, you’ll find yourself chuckling aloud, and perhaps pondering survival, as you read Hal’s Navy. In this newly published memoir, Harold H. “Hal” Sacks recounts how, as a Jewish boy from the Bronx—an admittedly over-protected, only child—he joined the United States Navy as a reservist in 1952 to avoid being drafted into the Army. When his initial three-year commitment was coming to an end, this literature-loving, unlikeliest of sailors reenlisted, turning his service in the Navy into a 20-year career, eventually becoming the brilliant and likeable leader of his own group of men. Using his exceptional memory, attention to detail, and casually conversational writing style, Sacks provides readers with an often-humorous glimpse of Navy life during a crucial period of American history. He hooks us early, in the book’s introduction: “Whereas it is customary to thank those responsible for making this effort possible, the author wishes to thank: First, the People’s Republic of North Korea, for invading South Korea in 1950, and then for insisting on repatriation of 80,000 North Korean POWs which President Truman wisely refused thus precluding a cease-fire in 1951. Otherwise, I would not have faced a draft into the Army in 1952, the avoidance of which motivated me towards the Navy.” From the first chapter, we follow Sacks as he describes his earliest days of enlistment: how he was given a few months to complete his master’s degree in American Literature from Columbia University and barely fitting in a wedding ceremony to his beautiful bride Annabel just before leaving for Officer’s Candidate School. Surely, he wouldn’t have to deploy to war, Sacks theorized, which is why he joined the Navy rather than the Marines in the first place. His theory proved incorrect, however, and days after finishing OCS Sacks found himself aboard a destroyer, headed for battle support duty in the Korean War. Hal’s Navy is not just sprinkled with anecdotal gems; it is showered with stories ranging from narrow escapes, to brushes with celebrity, to new life and to lives lost. Readers may find themselves shaking their heads with amazement as they follow Sacks’ career, the growth of his family, and the changes he experiences sometimes
before, and sometimes along with, America and the world. Yes, there are the inevitable Navy titles and acronyms, but Sacks—to his credit— remembers that not everyone reading this memoir will have military experience, and helps us along with initial explanations and frequent references. Throughout Hal’s Navy, we are able to learn about Sacks’ commitment to observing Jewish traditions, wherever and whenever possible. He describes Passover seders held aboard Navy destroyers and in Saigon during the Vietnam War. A delightful story details how he was able to observe Shabbat while in Vietnam. Hal’s Navy is rife with a variety of stories, military and otherwise. He regales us with an improvisational visit aboard Aristotle Onassis’ yacht, an encounter that led to an evening of cocktails with Johnny Carson, and an Intelligence School paper that earned Sacks an A+ and gave America its defensive tactics during the Cuba Missile Crisis. Readers of Hal’s Navy can thank Sacks’ grandfather and his beloved grandchildren for giving this honored veteran and community leader the impetus for officially recording his Naval experiences. “The real reason I wrote this book was for my grandchildren,” Sacks says. “My grandfather was born in New York and I was very close to him when I was growing up, but never once did I ask him what his life was like as a child or a young man in the 1800s in New York City. “I am blessed with intelligent, talented and handsome grandchildren. Have they asked me, “Grandpa, what was it like in Korea?” or “What was it like in Vietnam?” Not once. So this book is really for them. I hope that in years to come it answers some of the questions they might wish they had asked.” Fortunately, Sacks chose to publish to a wider audience. With all that he’s shared in this memoir, readers can only guess that there are many stories Sacks didn’t have room to include. Volumes could follow, and, if we’re fortunate, this series—like a similarly named, much-remembered sitcom—will continue to entertain us with more volumes (episodes) to come. —Laine Mednick Rutherford is associate editor of Jewish News.
BOOK REVIEWS Four on food—briefly noted Jerusalem, a Cookbook Yotam Ottolenghi and Sami Tamimi Ten Speed Press, Berkeley, 2013 320 pages, $35 ISBN 978-1-60774-394-1 or months this at once beautiful and practical cookbook (covered in plastic so food and liquid stains can be easily wiped off) Hal Sacks was among this year’s best kept publishing secrets. Virtually unreviewed, it was talked about and passed on by word of mouth to friends and relatives, its recipes traded online. Finally, it was picked up by the major food book critics and is now a best seller. And it should be. Chefs Ottolenghi (author of Plenty) and Tamimi, partners in the eponymous London restaurant chain and the high-end restaurant Nopi, “return” to the Jerusalem of their youth to explore the distinctive foods of its diverse Jewish, Muslim, and Christian populations. Their selections include traditional, age-old dishes, cooked traditionally, just as they should be. Others benefit from the authors’ poetic license, updated to suit current times and sensibilities. Shakshuka, for example, is Tunisian in origin, but everywhere I have eaten this hugely popular dish claims to have invented it. In Israel it is claimed by Iraqis, Yemenites, and Moroccans. My Persian machatunim are masters of the dish: a rich tomato, onion and sweet pepper-based sauce (ideally cooked in a paella pan) in which eggs are poached. I haven’t made Ottolenghi and Tamimi’s version yet, but it looks fantastic—the alpha and omega of Shakshuka. One wishes these recipes had been around years ago, as the upscale thinking of the authors might have taught us what we have learned the hard way. For example, I have probably read at least 50 recipes for Latkes over the years and so have myriad other cooks. So why do so many good cooks make bad latkes? Wrong ingredients? Poor technique? How many decades did it take me to discover Yukon Gold potatoes that don’t discolor as you prepare the latkes? Jerusalem, the Cookbook does not attempt to offer recipes from every diverse culture
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in Jerusalem, but those it does offer are superb. We have made the Roast Chicken with Clementines, Fennel, & Arak and taken pleasure in the cries of “encore.” Not just a collection of recipes; there are valuable cooking lessons here. Israel to Go-Look and Cook Book Lara Doel, editor Lunch Box Press, 2013 119 pages aglit-Birthright Israel sends Jewish adults between the ages of 18 to 26 to Israel to strengthen individual Jewish identity. The program has been a very successful partnership between the government of Israel, private philanthropies and Jewish communities around the world (United Jewish Federation of Tidewater and Tidewater Jewish Foundation are significant supporters). The Look and Cook Book is a small, beautifully illustrated pocket culinary tour through Israel featuring 20 specially selected kosher recipes (including Shakshuka!) designed to be fairly easy for a home cook to follow. Included are Blintzes from Tzfat, Bedouin Pita and Hummous, and Braised Lamb Shank. It was interesting to learn what our Birthright generation (ages 18–26) found to be the best food in Israel.
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Autobiography of a Delicatessen—Katz’s Photographs by Baldomero Fernanadez Text by Jake Dell Bauer & Dean, 2013 383 pages, $39.95 ISBN 978-0-9838632-6-7 his autobiography is a AutobiogrAphy Delicatessen wonderful photo album of a New York City landmark; plus a few dozen pages of text covering the famous deli’s beginnings and the various twists of ownership and management over five generations dating back to 1888 (125 years ago!). As is the case with Russ and Daughters (see next review), there was a time when there was a Jewish delicatessen on every block of the LowerEast Side and competition was fierce—but few survived the Jewish exodus from the neighborhood after World War II. Katz’s
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is famous for their “Send a salami to your boy in the army,” promotion during the war; they sent more then 100,000 salamis and still ship hundreds of pounds of their meats weekly. Each week they corn (pickle) and smoke 25,000 to 40,000 pounds of meat and serve 2,000 to 5,000 hot dogs along with 8,000 to 15,000 pickles (sour and half-sour). Author, Jake Dell, a fifth generation owner who gave up going to medical school because he loves the business, reminds us of the origins of corned beef and pastrami. They are, respectively, pickled brisket and pickled smoked belly and were created in the shtetls of eastern Europe as a means of turning cheap cuts of beef into tender and delicious food, as well as a method of preserving the meat where there was no refrigeration. Although Katz’s is a habit for regular customers, it is an iconic tourist attraction; tourists arrive by the busload. Up to 4,000 customers are served daily and all meat is cut by hand by cutters whose families have been working at the deli for three generations. There is a photo gallery of every category of employee, from cookers to cutters to servers to cleaners. Katz’s remains a favorite of celebrities from the worlds of sports, theater, and politics. And, of course, everyone recalls the famous scene in When Harry Met Sally with Billy Crystal and Meg Ryan in Katz’s, where a customer sitting nearby exclaims “I’ll have what she’s having!” We are not certain if there has been a book about some of Katz’s famous neighbors, such as The Original Yonah Schimmel Knishery, or Gus’ Pickles, or Sammy’s Romanian. Gone are such legendary restaurants as Moskowitz & Lupovich, Glucksterns, and Ratners (a dairy emporium). In a sense, they are replaced by restaurants of the new immigrants, from Russia, Poland, Greece, Korea, and Vietnam. Don’t expect any recipes in this book. The Autobiography of a Delicatessen—Katz’s offers methodology rather than recipes. It is rewarding to see Katz’s gain the recognition of other famous deli’s like the Carnegie Deli and the Second Avenue Deli. For more on this subject the reader may wish to read Arthur Schwartz’s New York City Food, published in 2004.
Russ & Daughters Reflections and Recipes from the House that Herring Built Mark Russ Federman Foreword by Calvin Trillin Schocken, 2013 205 pages, 25.95 ISBN 978-0-8052-4294-2 hat are Anthony Bourdain, Oliver Sacks and Martha Stewart in total agreement on? You got it! Russ and Daughters is one of New York City’s greatest living institutions. Very good! Next question: What was a basic difference among an Italian grocery, a German delicatessen, and a kosher deli? Italian grocers sold mortadella and capicola, as well as parmesan and mozzarella cheeses. German delicatessens sold liverwurst and bratwurst, as well bergcase and cambozola cheeses. A kosher deli couldn’t sell cheese or creamed herring; dairy products could not be sold in a store that sold meat. So “Appetizing Stores” were invented. Therefore, on the lower east side of New York City, if you wanted a pastrami or corned beef sandwich or to “Send a salami to your boy in the army,” you might have gone to Katz’s Delicatessen. But if you wanted a “half a quarter belly lox,” or a nice schmaltz herring, or a shtikel vegetable cheese, you could get the best deal at Russ & Daughters, now being run by the author’s daughter, the fourth generation to run this century-old business. Up from a pushcart selling herring to immigrants to “J. Russ, Cut Rate Appetizing,” to its present emporium (definitely no longer cut rate), the family business has been nurtured by scores of brothers, sisters, sons, daughters, children, and in-laws, all of whom put in their “sweat” time. Even when going to college, law and medical school they were expected to return on weekends and summers to “help out” in the store. Author Mark Russ Federman has contrived to tell the family’s story (“sliced thin”), throw in a few good recipes and sprinkle it all with wonderful family photos. Russ & Daughters is a good read, especially if you’re interested in learning about 15 different kinds of herring. —Hal Sacks is a retired Jewish communal worker who has reviewed books for Jewish News for more than 30 years.
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what’s happening Global Day of Jewish Learning author personalizes boundaries of Judaism Sunday, Nov. 17, 1–3 pm by Leslie Shroyer
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he Simon Family JCC will celebrate Jewish heritage through Jewish-based learning in conjunciton with 350 communities worldwide as part of the Global Day of Jewish Learning. Conceived to mark the completion of Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz’s historic Talmudic commentary on Nov. 7, 2010, the Global Day of Jewish Learning has reached all corners of the world, and brought Jews “across the spectrum of beliefs and backgrounds together in a day of study and unity,” says its website. Jay Michaelson and a panel of area rabbis and cantors will lead what is sure to be a lively conversation about the boundaries of Judaism as part of the Lee and Bernard Jaffe* Family Jewish Book Festival at the Simon Family JCC. The event is presented in partnership with the Tidewater Board of Rabbis and Cantors. One rabbi with whom Michaelson has maintained a long friendship is Rabbi Jeffrey Arnowitz of Temple Beth El. They attended Camp Ramah as teens and spent time together in Israel in the late 90s. As Michaelson began his career as a
writer, the two kept in touch. Producing more than 200 articles on religion, sexuality, ethics, and contemplative practice, Michaelson has written prolifically in the past few years, including three full length books: God vs. Gay? The Religious Case for Equality an Amazon.com bestseller and Lambda Literary Award finalist (which he presented at Ohef Sholom Temple last year); Everything is God: The Radical Path of Nondual Judaism, and his latest, Evolving Dharma: Meditation, Buddhism, and the Next Generation of Enlightenment. “He has a great way of taking complex ideas and conflicts, boiling them down, and then making them personal,” says Arnowitz. The event will begin with an introduction by Arnowitz and then lead into a talk by Michaelson about his own spirituality. He will explain his personal exploration of the boundaries of Judaism through his lens, which he calls ‘ispirituality.’ “Jay Michaelson will weave his books together into a post-Modern Jewish tapestry,” says Arnowitz. The multipurpose room at the JCC will be set with tables, with a rabbi or cantor at each table. After Michaelson speaks, he and Arnowitz will be available to participants at
Sunday, Nov. 3 – Sunday, Nov. 17 at the Simon Family JCC Visit SimonFamilyJCC.org for complete line up. 20 | Jewish News | October 28, 2013 | jewishnewsva.org
Matthew Levitt author of HEZBOLLAH: The Global Footprint of Lebanon’s Party of God Monday, Nov. 4, 7 pm
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Jay Michaelson
each table, who, with the clergymen as facilitatiors, will share personal journeys and discuss their perspective and challenges. “People should feel encouraged to bring doubting questions about what’s troubling them, so we can all talk about where there is a space in the Jewish Community,’’ says Michaelson. “Don’t come to this Global Day with any preconceived notion,” says Arnowitz. “The afternoon is about how we draw boundaries and learn to feel comfortable with them. We live in a society whose boundaries are being challenged and reinterpreted. At the end of the day, we are all working towards building our Jewish community in innovative way, so it will grow and prosper.” Other events taking place at the Global Day of Learning at the Simon Family JCC include Alan Gratz, presenting Prisoner B-3087, which is based on the astonishing true story of an extraordinary boy in Poland, tracing his journey through 10 different concentration camps and 10 different encounters with death. This presentation, in partnership with BBYO, is for children in grades six and up. Also, the Children’s Creation Station will have stories, snacks, crafts, singing and more for children ages three years— fifth grade. Babysitting will be available for children six weeks through two years old by reservation only. For more information, call 757-321-2306. The Simon Family JCC is a constituent agency of United Jewish Federation of Tidewater.
ezbollah provides a thorough examination of the group’s covert activities beyond L eba non’s borders, including its financial networks and its criminal Dr. Matthew Levitt and terrorist operation s worldwide. With previously unreported material printed in this book, Hezbollah gives readers an assessment of the threat currently posed by the group. Dr. Matthew Levitt has written extensively on terrorism, violent extremism, illicit finance and sanctions, the Middle East, and Arab-Israeli peace negotiations. Leavitt’s articles have appeared in publications such as the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, and Foreign Affairs, and he is a frequent guest on national and international broadcasts. For well over a decade, the United States government and others around the world have relied on Levitt’s vast expertise and knowledge. He has worked as a counterterrorism intelligence analyst at the Federal Bureau of Investigation, served as the Washington Institute Terrorism Research Program’s founding director, and was the deputy assistant secretary for intelligence and analysis at the U.S. Department of the Treasury. Dr. Levitt will address the Tidewater community in a Simon Family JCC’s Lee and Bernard Jaffe* Family Jewish Book Festival event in partnership with the Community Relations Council of the United Jewish Federation of Tidewater. The event is free and open to the community with RSVP by Oct. 31 to Liz Henderson at LHenderson@ujft.org or 965-6107. *of blessed memory
what’s happening Hal’s Navy Just added—Special Jewish Book Festival event Wednesday, Nov. 6, 7 pm Hal’s Navy by Cdr. Harold Sacks, USN (Ret.)
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Veterans Day Memorial service at Sandler Family Campus Monday, Nov. 11, 11 am
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he Jewish War Veterans Monument on the Reba and Sam Sandler Campus of the Tidewater Jewish community was a dream come true for many local veterans. The Tidewater Jewish Foundation invites the community to attend its annual Veterans Day Memorial Service at the monument. A light lunch will be served in the Fleder Multi-Purpose Room immediately following. RSVP to Shelby Tudor at 757-965-6105 or studor@ujft.org by Wednesday, Nov. 6.
Honor a veteran in your family Dedication pavers are still available for the Jewish War Veterans Monument in two sizes, either 4" x 8" or 8" x 8". Contact Benita Watts at 757-965-6123 or ops@ ujft.org for information on pur-
literature-loving Jewish boy from the Bronx, Hal Sacks joined the U.S. Navy for a three-year stint and ended up serving his country for 20 years. Along the Hal Sacks way he fought in the Korean and Vietnam Wars, became a ship’s captain, and retired as a commander with multiple commendations. Tidewater’s own Hal Sacks—storyteller extraordinaire—and long-time book review editor for Jewish News, fills Hal’s Navy with descriptive, insightful, and often humorous recollections of battles, adventures, family and community. Join Sacks as he recounts a few of his stories and signs copies of his newly published book. The event, which is part of the Lee and
Bernard Jaffe* Family Jewish Book Festival, takes place at the Sandler Family Campus. Presented in partnership with Tidewater Jewish Foundation. * of blessed memory
chasing a paver. Forms will also be available the day of the memorial service.
Temple Israel getting dressed up for first-ever derby Saturday, Nov. 16, 7:30–10 pm
Israeli Youth Ambassadors at Tallwood High School visit Simon Family JCC Wednesday, Oct. 30, 3:30–4:30 pm
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oin the Community Relations Council of the United Jewish Federation of Tidewater and the Children and Family department of the Simon Family JCC to welcome Israeli Youth Ambassadors in their annual student exchange with Tallwood High School. After school snacks, cultural activities and presentations for community students of all ages will take place on the Sandler Family Campus. Free and open to the community with RSVP to Liz Henderson at LHenderson@ujft.org or 965-6107. To learn more about the student exchange, visit http://www.aifl.org/yase/ program-information or contact Robin Mancoll at RMancoll@ujft.org.
7th Annual YAD-Chabad Shabbat — Friday, Nov. 8
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AD and Chabad are teaming up for the seventh consecutive year to celebrate Shabbat. Dinner and lots of l’chaims are sure to make a great evening. Supervised playroom will be provided for children. $10 per adult; $5 per child.
Chabad House is located at 1920 Colley Ave. in Norfolk. RSVP to Amy Weinstein at aweinstein@ ujft.org) or Rabbi Levi Brashevitzky at rabbilevi@chabadoftidewater.com.
Giddy up, Hampton Roads! Temple Israel is dressing up and placing bets for a night at the races when the synagogue hosts its first-ever Temple Israel Derby. The fast-paced action will happen inside “Brody Downs” (formerly Brody Auditorium) with six separate “live” horse races on a projection screen. Sponsor a horse in each race or sponsor an entire race. A horse sponsorship is $100 and a race costs $500. The best part? Sponsors get “naming rights” to everything they buy! Plus, there will be a derby hat competition. The cost is $25 per person in advance and $30 at the door. Entry fee includes wine and beer, light snacks and dessert. To purchase tickets, contact Temple Israel at 489-4550. For more information, contact Wendy Brodsky at metswmn@yahoo.com or 639-3541.
Temple Israel Derby organizer Wendy Jo Brodsky has her hat ready.
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what’s happening
calendar
Dr. Gary Zola at Ohef Sholom Temple for Scholar in Residence Friday, Nov. 15–Sunday, Nov. 17
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hef Sholom Temple’s 2013 Marvin and Lillian Davis Scholar in Residence Weekend will feature Dr. Gary P. Zola, associate professor of the American Jewish Experience at Hebrew Union CollegeJewish Institute of Religion and executive director of The Jacob Rader Marcus Center of the American Jewish Archives. During Friday night services, Nov. 15 at 6:30 pm, Zola will deliver the sermon, “Profiles in American Jewish Courage.” The American Jewish experience has produced a remarkable array of enthralling personalities. Some of these people are renowned, but most are little known. Zola will examine the careers of three fascinating figures who epitomize inspiring lessons about the American Jewish experience. These stalwarts represent genuine examples of American Jewish courage. On Saturday, Nov. 16, at 9 am, Zola will lead Torah Study. His topic will be “What This Week’s Torah Portion, Vayishlach, Can Teach Us About American Jewish History.” More than a century ago, a remarkably talented satirist and writer, Gershon Rosenzweig (1861-1914), composed a Hebrew commentary on many of the weekly Torah portions, as well as topical parodies on Jewish holidays. Rosenzweig’s commentaries and poems shed light not only on Torah, but also on the trials and tribulations of life as a Jewish immigrant in America during the early years of the 20th century. Zola will introduce this little-known material, and, in doing so, will enrich the study of Torah and the American Jewish past. Zola will also deliver the sermon “He Was One Of Us! American Jewry’s Relationship With Abraham Lincoln” during the Shabbat Services on Nov. 16, which begin at 10:30 am. Few are aware of the remarkable history linking American Jewry and President Lincoln. Zola was the only American rabbi on the Academic Advisory Council of the congressionally recognized Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Commission in Washington, D.C. He also
October 28, Monday An Israel Advocacy Seminar, offered by the Simon Family JCC Jewish Life and Learning department. 7 pm. This seminar will augment what you already know and show you how to organize facts into a cogent, coherent and concise case for Israel. Dr. Sandra Haas-Radin and Mark Solberg will facilitate. $15 for materials. For more information or to register, contact Miriam Brunn Ruberg at MBrunnRuberg@simonfamilyj.org or 321-2328. October 29, Tuesday Pizza with a Purpose for Jewish Family Service. At California Pizza Kitchen. Contact JFS for coupon and details. 757-321-2222. October 30, Wednesday Join the Community Relations Council of the United Jewish Federation of Tidewater and the Children and Family department of the Simon Family JCC to welcome the Israeli Youth Ambassadors visiting Tallwood High School in their annual student exchange. After school snacks, cultural activities and presentations for community students of all ages will take place on the Sandler Family Campus, 3:30-4:30 pm. Free and open to the community with RSVP by Oct. 28 to Liz Henderson at LHenderson@ujft.org or 965-6107. See page 21. November 3, Sunday through November 17, Sunday The Simon Family JCC’s annual Lee and Bernard Jaffe* Family Jewish Book Festival. See SimonFamilyJCC.org for a complete list of events.
Dr. Gary P. Zola
prepared a monograph on Lincoln and the Jews. Zola will explain why many of Lincoln’s personal and professional characteristics have caused American Jews to embrace the 16th president as a man who possessed a Jewish soul. Lincoln’s remarkable human qualities offer American Jewry an uplifting legacy to ponder. On Sunday, Nov. 17, at 10:30 am, Zola will be the featured speaker at the Carpool Café. His topic will be “Great Voices, Civil Rights, and American Reform Judaism.” He will explain how some of the leading American rabbis handled pivotal world events from the pulpit and what American rabbis told their congregants about topics such as the rise of Adolph Hitler, the outbreak of World War II and the struggle for Civil Rights in the 1950s and 1960s. Zola will introduce some of Reform Judaism’s most notable orators. This will be a rare opportunity to hear a series of remarkable vocal recordings (digitized with visuals added) of several towering rabbinic voices, all of which come from the AJA’s extraordinary historical collection. All programs offered during this Scholar in Residence Weekend are free and open to the public. For more information call 625 4295 or email linda@ohefsholom.org.
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November 3, Sunday 2nd Annual Tour de Mensch. 15 mile bike ride in honor of Jewish War Veterans. Meeting at Congregation Beth El at 9 am. Route: Up Granby St. to Ocean View and Back. Ride and honor the Veteran of your choice and help promote the contributions of Jewish citizens in America’s defense. No charge for the ride. For more information, contact Craig Schranz schranzc@yahoo.com. November 4, Monday B’nai Israel Congregation hosts 16th Annual Read Hebrew America and Canada. Mondays through Dec. 9. 7:30 pm. Call B’nai Israel at 757-627-7358. November 5, Tuesday Hadassah Annual Health Program with guest speaker Holly Puritz, MD. Clubhouse at Ghent Village Apartments. 7 pm. RSVP to Judy at jgmitnick@aol.com or 495-4111. A charity brunch in support of Jewish War Veterans. 11 am at Congregation Beth El. The speaker is CAPT Marty Snyder, MC, USN, a veteran of both Gulf War’s and the Haitian Earthquake relief, Unified Response, 2010. Donation of $18 to support the Jewish War Veterans of the USA. RSVP to Beth El at 757-625-7821 or noelle@bethelnorfolk.com. Brith Sholom meeting held at the Beth Sholom Home. Board meeting, 10 am; General meeting, 11 am, followed by brunch at 12 pm. NOVEMBER 20 WEDNESDAY The JCC Seniors Club at the Simon Family JCC. Board meeting 10:30 am; Lunch 12 pm; General meeting follows with guest speaker Kerry Dougherty, columnist with The Virginian-Pilot. She has held this position since 2000. November 22, Friday Hebrew Academy of Tidewater Open House. 8:30 am. For information, contact Carin Simon, admissions director, 424-4327 or csimon@hebrewacademy.net. NOVEMBER 24, SUNDAY Brith Sholom pre-Chanukah lunch at Beth Sholom Home at 12 noon. Menu includes brisket, latkes, apple sauce, fish, vegetables, salad, jelly donuts and pineapple upside down cake. $10 for members; $20 for guests. Entertainment for listening, singing and dancing provided by The Lyrics. Reserve with payment at the Nov. 3 meeting or mail payment no later than Nov. 18. Call 461-1150. 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.
SAVE THE DATE
Who Knew?
Thursday, November 21, 11:30 am Woody vs. Anti-Zionists You can call Woody Allen a self-hating Jew all you want, but don’t make the mistake of thinking he’s not sensitive when others hate on his people. In an interview in France by Israel’s Channel 2 to promote the European release of Blue Jasmine, the filmmaker was asked if it’s harder lately to be a Jew in the United States. “No, I don’t think so,” he said, according to The Times of Israel. “By the low standards of tolerance for Jews all over the world, America’s been a very tolerant country. I do feel there are many people that disguise their negative feelings toward Jews, disguise it as anti-Israel criticism, political criticism, when in fact what they really mean is that they don’t like Jews.” The Times goes on to quote a story from Yedioth Ahronoth last year in which Allen says he does not believe in organized religion, and that he identifies with his heritage “mainly when people attack me because of my being Jewish.” Allen also spoke of his support of Israel and the inevitability of a trip there. (JTA)
The Auxiliary of the Beth Sholom Village’s
Fa l l Lu n c h e o n
Hats off to Gloria Honoring Gloria Polay for her years of service to the Auxiliary Gift shop Music provided by Dr. Brian Nedvin, assistant professor of voice, ODU Music Department Lunch catered by The Village Caterers
Miley vs. Jewish septuagenarians It seems impossible that Miley Cyrus could put her foot in her mouth, what with that enormous tongue she’s always sticking out taking up so much room in there. Somehow, though, the pop star has done exactly that. In a recent interview with the website Hunger TV, Cyrus spoke of how she is the authority on what her audience wants to see, and that too often creative decisions are made by people who are out of touch. Jewish and out of touch, to be more specific. “It’s always weird when things are targeted for young people, yet they’re driven by people that are like 40 years too old,” she said. “It can’t be like this 70-year-old Jewish man that doesn’t leave his desk all day telling me what the clubs want to hear.” (JTA)
Tarantino’s Israeli film fave
Haim beats Justin Timberlake
Director Quentin Tarantino has a new addition to his recently posted list of 2013’s top film, and this one’s an Israeli import. After a recent screening of Aharon Keshales and Navot Papushado’s Big Bad Wolves at the Busan International Film Festival in South Korea, the man behind Pulp Fiction and Inglourious Basterds called it “not only the best film of Busan” but the “best film of the year,” The Jerusalem Post reports. In the thriller, a series of murders of children brings together three men: a victim’s father, a vigilante cop and the suspect, a religious studies teacher. (JTA)
Let’s give a hearty l’chaim to the women of Haim on their recent success. The band’s highly anticipated album Days Are Gone debuted at No. 1 on the U.K. charts pushing out Justin Timberlake’s The 20/20 Experience—2 of 2. Billboard calls the battle one of the “closest finishes in chart history.” The band, comprised of Este, Alana and Danielle Haim—Jewish sisters from Los Angeles—trailed Timberlake early on by 700 sales before taking over the top spot on Oct. 3 by 28. Two days later the contest closed with Haim leading the way by 2,100 sales. (JTA)
Ivanka Trump gives birth
Of all of the Jewish characters on TV these days, few can be described as tough. In fact, few can be described as non-kvetchy. So we are sad to report that NCIS marked the seeming departure of Ziva David (Cote de Pablo), the show’s resident bad-ass Mossad agent. In the episode, agent Tony DiNozzo (Michael Weatherly) of the Naval Criminal Investigative Service went to the Holy Land! That’s right, his search for a missing Ziva leads Tony to Tel Aviv, where he engages in jokey insider banter with Israeli operatives (“Have you made the big move from Shin Bet to Mossad or are you just here to say hi?”) and hunts for clues in two supremely Israeli locales (a kibbutz and a cafe). Eventually he finds what he’s looking for. Turns out Ziva feels guilty about killing her brother—and apparently a whole lot of other people—so she has chosen to set off on her own to do some soul searching. But not before she and Tony (finally!) kiss. Is this really it or will Ziva be back? “Ziva’s not dead,” executive producer Gary Glasberg told USA Today. OK, so maybe that’s not the most promising statement we’ve ever heard, but Tony does wistfully dangle Ziva’s Star of David pendant in the last scene, so who knows—maybe we will someday get another chance to watch a tough, complicated Jewish woman on TV. And if that’s the case, we’ll make sure to tune in. (JTA)
Mazel tov to Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner on the arrival of their second child. “We just welcomed a beautiful and healthy son into the world. Jared, Arabella and I couldn’t be happier!” the “Celebrity Apprentice” judge and daughter of Donald tweeted Monday, Oct. 14. (JTA)
Kathie Lee Gifford’s rabbinic dreams Coming soon to a bimah near you: Kathie Lee Gifford? During an Oct. 9 appearance on Fox News Channel’s “The Real Story with Gretchen Carlson,” the “Today” show host closed out a conversation on the government shutdown with a comment about her rabbinical dreams. “If I could go back to college, I’d probably go to Hebrew University in Israel and study for however long it took to get my rabbinical degree,” said Gifford, a born-again Christian with a Jewish grandfather. “Because I started studying the Scriptures that way, through the eyes of a rabbi and through the Middle Eastern eyes and it’s transformed my life.” This is the second time we’ve heard Gifford talk about this potential career change. The first was earlier this year on Today when she said, “I want to go to Yeshiva University and become a rabbi. I want to get my Orthodox rabbinical degree.… I want to understand what words mean, what all the context is. I’m so fascinated by that stuff.” (JTA)
NCIS farewell to Ziva David?
jewishnewsva.org | October 28, 2013 | Jewish News | 23
obituaries Pope emails Jewish leader in response to Holocaust sermon ROME (JTA)—Pope Francis emailed Menachem Rosensaft, an American law professor who deals with Holocaust and genocide issues, with a reflection on the place of God during the Shoah. The email was a response to Rosensaft, who had sent the Vatican the text of a sermon he delivered at New York’s Park Avenue Synagogue on the topic during the High Holidays, Elizabeth Tenety wrote in the Washington Post’s On Faith blog. Rosensaft, the son of Holocaust survivor parents, is general counsel of the World Jewish Congress and vice president of the American Gathering of Jewish Holocaust Survivors and Their Descendants. In his sermon, which was published in the On Faith blog, Rosensaft had declared, “My parents’ entire immediate families were murdered in the Shoah. My mother’s five-a-and-half-year-old son, my brother, was one of more than one million Jewish children who were killed by the Germans and their accomplices only and exclusively because they were Jewish. Again, what possible transgressions could any of them have committed to cause God to turn away from them?” How, Rosensaft asked, “can we believe in God in the aftermath of the Shoah? Shouldn’t an omniscient God have had to know that the cataclysm was being perpetrated? And shouldn’t an omnipotent God have been able to prevent it?” Rosensaft concluded that God was indeed present during the Holocaust, within those inmates of the death and concentration camps who saved or helped others, such as Janusz Korczak in the Warsaw Ghetto who accompanied the children of his orphanage to their death at Treblinka, and Rosensaft’s mother, who with a group of other female inmates kept 149 Jewish children alive at Bergen-Belsen. According to the Post, the pope replied, “When you, with humility, are telling us where God was in that moment, I felt within me that you had transcended all possible explanations and that, after a long pilgrimage sometimes sad, tedious or dull—you came to discover a certain logic and it is from there that you were speaking to us; the logic of First Kings 19:12, the logic of that ‘gentle breeze’ (I know that it is a very poor translation of the rich Hebrew expression) that constitutes the only possible hermeneutic interpretation. Thank you from my heart. And, please, do not forget to pray for me. May the Lord bless you.”
Armond Caplan Virginia beach—Armond Caplan, real estate developer, family man, and philanthropist, died Oct. 9, 2013 after a short illness at the age of 101. Armond was the third oldest of six children of Louis and Tillie Caplan. He was born on June 22, 1912 in Portsmouth, Va. He graduated from Woodrow Wilson High School and earned a bachelor of science degree from the College of William and Mary in 1933. While at William and Mary, he was elected to ODK Honor Society. Shortly after graduation, he married Rose Jacobson, of blessed memory, on Oct. 16, 1934. They were married for 72 years until Rose’s passing. Rose and Armond owned a women’s hat and hosiery store on Church St. in Norfolk. During World War II, he worked as a chemist in the Portsmouth Navy Yard. In 1954, at the age of 42, Armond decided it was time to change careers. He sold the clothing store and started making real estate loans. That business evolved into real estate development. Soon, Armond joined with two partners, Alan Fleder, of blessed memory, and Bernard Jaffe, of blessed memory. Their partnership became Jaffe Caplan Fleder Real Estate, which grew to be a multi-generational real estate business involving the development of apartment complexes, shopping centers, warehouses, and office buildings. Armond believed in hard work. Despite becoming legally blind in his last few years, he continued to work every day, until days before his death. He had the rare luxury of working with his friends and family in a business he loved. He was a man of dignity, integrity, optimism, and honesty. He thought a deal was a success only if both parties benefited from it and wanted to work together in the future. He respected everyone. He was a delight, an inspiration, and a role model. Regardless of how much he loved work, it stood in the shadow of his true passion: his family and friends. Armond and Rose had three children (Gloria Caplan Hecht, of blessed memory, Stephen Caplan, and James Caplan), nine grandchildren and 16 great-grandchildren. In 1965, Armond took over the hosting of the family’s Passover Seder, which now is a 107-year-old tradition. The Seder
24 | Jewish News | October 28, 2013 | jewishnewsva.org
is frequently attended by more than 100 members of his extended family. He supported many causes, including the rejuvenation of Congregation Beth El in the late 1970s of which he was a trustee. He rarely declined to support causes in which he believed. Some of the beneficiaries included EVMS, Norfolk General Hospital, United Jewish Federation of Tidewater, Jewish Family Service, Simon Family Jewish Community Center, and Beth Sholom Village. His friends and family will miss his wisdom, advice, humor, laugh and smile. Besides his wife, Rose, and his daughter, Gloria, he was predeceased by his brothers and sisters and their spouses: Julius Caplan (Ceil/Mina), Ella Brewer (Saul), Irene Levitin (Bernard), Howard Caplan, and Doris Pollock (Jack). He is survived by his two sons, Stephen Caplan (Renee) and James Caplan (Randy), nine grandchildren, Randy Hecht (Lori); Larry Hecht (Mai Ellen); Michele Hecht Cleland (David); Emily Caplan Nied (Joel); Brooke Caplan August (Adam); Jenifer Caplan (Michael Bernstein); L.T. Caplan (Stacie); Seth Caplan (Melissa Whitlock); Sarah Caplan (Kyle Harman); and 16 great grandchildren and many nieces and nephews. He is also survived by his son-in-law Norman Hecht and sister-in-law, Norma Caplan. The funeral took place at Congregation Beth El. Burial followed at Forest Lawn Cemetery. Memorial donations can be made to Congregation Beth El, Beth Sholom Village, or a charity of one’s choice. H.D. Oliver Funeral Apts. Norfolk Chapel. Pearl Forman Virginia Beach—Pearl Decker Forman, 94, passed away on Sunday, Oct. 13, 2013. Pearl was born in South Norfolk, Va., often called Berkley. She was one of two daughters and two sons of Benjamin (Ben) and Jennie Decker. Pearl attended Henry Clay Elementary School, Ruffner Junior High School, and graduated from Maury High School in 1938. Pearl worked for her parents who had a store on Church Street and a store in the Norfolk City Market. Her primary work activity over the years was as a bookkeeper for various firms in Norfolk. Her husband, Sidney, predeceased Pearl in 2008. They met when she was serving
as a USO hostess in Norfolk during WWII. They were married in October 1945 and established their residence on Mayflower Drive in Norfolk. They lived there for several years until moving to Chesapeake and finally Virginia Beach. Pearl enjoyed various hobbies such as Mah Jong, sewing, knitting, and embroidery work. She also enjoyed fishing and crabbing. One of her greatest accomplishments was the establishment of a local travel club, which provided various trips for members within and outside Virginia. Pearl is survived by her son, Edward A. Forman and his wife, Sherry R. PressmanForman and her son, Jeffrey M. Forman and his wife Patricia A. Forman. Pearl was laid to rest next to her beloved husband, Sidney in Forest Lawn Cemetery, Tree of Life III section, Norfolk. Donations to the Kempsville Volunteer Rescue Squad (KVRS), P.O. Box 62345, Virginia Beach, VA 23466. Online condolences may be offered at www.altmeyer.com. Virginia Dorothy Lewis Mann Virginia Beach—Virginia Dorothy Lewis Mann, of Virginia Beach, Va., AKA “the smiling lady wearing the hat” passed away Monday, Oct. 7, 2013 at Beth Sholom Home, where she had resided for the past seven years. Born in Toledo, Ohio on May 31, 1912, she was the eldest of three children born to William and Matilda Lewis, all of whom predeceased her. She was also preceded in death by her deeply beloved husband and best friend, Solomon “Sollie” Mann, and son-in-law, David H. Levine. For many years, Virginia was a dental assistant to Dr. Siebert, DDS. She then became a proofreader for the Toledo Blade newspaper. Her favorite work was doing national sales promotions for Marcel Cosmetics, a division of the Borden Company. She traveled the U.S. doing promotions in various department stores. Sollie usually accompanied her, selling his book, Mann’s Speller Divider to school systems and universities. They totally retired after the seventh edition of the book. Virginia was a member of Congregation B’nai Israel, was a former volunteer for the Gift Shop and the Darlington House, all in Toledo, as well as a member of the
obituaries Sisterhood and Hadassah. Virginia is survived by two daughters, Deborah (Bill) Fischer of Texas and Susan Levine, of Virginia Beach, Va.; grandchildren Robert Levine, Conn., Robin (Greg) Jones, Ellis (Katheryne) Levine, Tenn., Laura Wygle, Ariz., Steven (Marybeth) Levine, Mich., and 14 great grandchildren. The family is deeply grateful to the Beth Sholom staff for the outstanding care, love, patience and support that Virginia received. Not only the nursing staff but the ENTIRE staff. To people who reject nursing homes, “you don’t know Beth Sholom Home.” She was under the care of Freda Gordon Hospice and Palliative Care. They provided a team of the most knowledgeable, kind and loving professionals. Graveside services were held in Beth Shalom Cemetery in Oregon, Ohio with Cantor Ivor Lichterman officiating. Robert H. Wick/Wisniewski Funeral Home in Toledo was in charge of arrangements. A memorial service was conducted by Rabbi Marc Kraus and Cantor Elihu Flax at Beth Sholom Home in Virginia Beach. Memorial donations to Beth Sholom Home or Freda H. Gordon Hospice & Palliative Care, 260 Grayson Rd., Virginia Beach, VA. 23462. Jacqueline S. Marten Virginia Beach—Jacqueline Stern Marten, 90, died peacefully on Oct. 9, 2013. Born in New York City on May 3, 1923, Jacqueline was predeceased by her beloved husband Albert with whom she shared 52 years of a marriage filled with extraordinary love and devotion. Jacqueline’s greatest love was her family
and she is survived by four sons, Richard and wife Nancy Loewenberg; Jonathan and wife Tanya; Seth and wife April Vail; and Ethan; grandchildren Joshua and wife Christine Driscoll; Jacob, Hannah, Lucas and Angel; as well as great-grandchildren Cia and Calen. She is also survived by her sister Stephanie Stern, several generations of nieces, nephews, cousins and life-long friend Anita Sigel. Jacqueline graduated from Hunter College in New York City and received a master’s degree in English from the University of Michigan. She was a best-selling author who started a stellar career writing confession stories, eventually creating 20 unforgettable novels of historical romance that delighted a legion of fans with her strong heroines, colorful and meticulously researched period details, and a healthy dose of spice. Jacqueline’s greatest inspiration was Jane Austen whose novels she devoured countless times and she was an active member of the Jane Austen Society of North America. A graveside service was held at Forest Lawn Cemetery with Cantor Elihu Flax officiating. The family would like to thank the entire staff at Beth Sholom Home and Medi Hospice for the loving care they gave to Jacqueline in the last two years and final days of her life. Donations to Beth Sholom Home or to a charity of choice. Altmeyer Funeral Home. Online condolences may be offered to the family at www.altmeyer.com. David Stephen Waranch Norfolk—David Stephen Waranch, 63, of the 800 block of W. Princess Anne Road, died Friday, Oct. 18, 2013 in his residence.
He was a native and lifelong resident of Norfolk and was the son of the late Sam and Ann Wise Waranch. He graduated from Maury High School and Virginia Commonwealth University with a degree in marketing. He served his country in the United States Navy Reserve. He was employed since 1976 as an accountant with the United States Civil Service working with the department of the Navy. He was a member of Rodef Sholom Temple. Survivors include his son, Adam Ross Waranch of Williamsburg, Va. and his sister Ellen Waranch of Virginia Beach, his grandchildren, Kendra, Aryanna and Alexis and other loving family members including, Caren Ashburn, Shelley Ashburn, Barbara Gordon, Myra Waranch and Jessica Wilson. Graveside funeral services were held in Forest Lawn Cemetery by Rabbi Gilah Dror. Memorial donations to Rodef Sholom Temple or Jewish Family Service. H.D. Oliver Funeral Apts.
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26 | Jewish News | October 28, 2013 | jewishnewsva.org
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Candidates for Lt. Governor speak to Jewish community
he Community Relations Council of the United Jewish Federation of Tidewater hosted candidates for Lt. Governor of Virginia on separate evenings last week. State Senator Ralph Northam met with the community on Monday, Oct.. 21st and Bishop E.W. Jackson did so on Tuesday, Oct. 22nd at the Simon Family JCC on the Sandler Family Campus of the Tidewater Jewish Community. With audiences of more than 60 people each night, the candidates addressed concerns from the community. Topics included support for UJFT’s agencies, Medicaid expansion, education, gay marriage, transportation, Affordable Care Act, gun control, religion in the public arena and more. Jackson was questioned on his alleged quote in the media regarding non-Chris- Jeff Cooper welcomes the crowd. tians being followers of “false religion” and did not deny saying something “akin to that.” Jackson did say that he is not anti-Semitic and is a lover of Israel. He also commented that he is not “running for Theologian of Virginia, but Lt. Governor of Virginia,” further stating that he “is a preacher. That means I’ve got to serve people who are atheists and Muslims and Buddhists and Hindus and Mormons and of every background. So I don’t want to try to get into a theological analysis of what I think of various religions.” Joel Rubin addresses the crowd. Jackson’s comments did not appease everyone, but it seemed that most people left each event feeling better that they heard from the candidates themselves. “The CRC was pleased to offer this important education and advocacy opportunity to the community,” says Megan Zuckerman, chair of the CRC. Bishop E. W. Jackson and Joel Rubin.
THE LEE & BERNARD JAFFE* FAMILY
NOVEMBER 3 – 17, 2013 Check out these exciting author events all at the Simon Family JCC!
*of blessed memory
SUNDAY, 11/3 1:00pm
ESTHER’S HANUKKAH DISASTER by Jane Sutton
SUNDAY, 11/10
BLOODLINES
3:00pm
by Neville Frankel
A well-meaning gorilla buys silly gifts for her animal friends, and young ones learn the real meaning of giving during Hanukkah. Messages include the importance of empathy and the joy of the holiday celebration.
An Apartheid era novel about the universal bond between a mother in South Africa and her estranged adult son across the Atlantic. After losing his father to cancer, an adult son learns that the mother he had spent his childhood mourning was very much alive and very different from the brave, selfless woman he had imagined.
For children ages 4–9 • Presented in partnership with Children & Family Programs of the Simon Family JCC
Presentation & reception courtesy of Sharon & Bill Nusbaum and Family
MONDAY, 11/4 7:00pm
HEZBOLLAH
TUESDAY, 11/12
by Matthew Levitt
12:30pm
STANDING UP
Lunch Provided
by Marion Grodin
Lebanon’s “Party of God”- Hezbollah is examined, by Levitt, a senior fellow of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. He argues that Hezbollah’s willingness to use violence abroad and at home, its global reach, and its relationship with Iran should be of serious concern.
Enjoy a stand-up comic discuss her memoir about a precocious Hollywood childhood, and a sober adult life on the stand-up comedy circuit. Daughter of funnyman Charles Grodin, the author knows firsthand that laughter is truly the best medicine, having survived both breast cancer and addictions.
Presentation & Dessert Reception • Presented in partnership with the Community Relations Council of the UJFT
$10 per person - RSVP by 11/6 • Presented in partnership with Beth Sholom Village & Jewish Family Service
WEDNESDAY, 11/6 7:00pm
HAL'S NAVY
THURSDAY, 11/14
by Cdr. Harold Sacks, USN (Ret.)
7:00pm
A literature-loving "Jewish boy from the Bronx” joins the U.S. Navy for a three-year stint and ends up serving his country for 20 years—along the way fighting in the Korean and Vietnam Wars, becoming a ship’s captain, and retiring as a commander with multiple commendations. Tidewater’s own Hal Sacks—storyteller extraordinaire—fills Hal’s Navy with descriptive, insightful, and often humorous recollections of battles, adventures, family and community.
A GUIDE FOR THE PERPLEXED by Dara Horn
This thrilling novel is about how technology changes memory and how memory shapes the soul. Interweaving stories from Genesis, medieval philosophy and the digital frontier, this tale is spellbinding.
Community Read! • Dessert Reception
NEWLY ADDED SPECIAL EVENT Presented in partnership with the Tidewater Jewish Foundation
THURSDAY, 11/7 12:30pm
RECIPES REMEMBERED
SAM AND CHARLIE (AND SAM TOO!) by Leslie Kimmelman
52 WEEKS OF PARENTING WISDOM by Meg Akabas
Easy-to-implement strategies written for parents of young children, providing parents with a year-long guide using Jewish values in once-a-week chapter form. Learn how to raise children who are committed, responsible and valuable members of their family and the larger Jewish community.
For parents of children under 10 years old • Presented in partnership with the Hebrew Academy of Tidewater 1:00pm
Box lunch available for $8.50 - Advance purchase required by 11/1 Presented in partnership with the Holocaust Commission of the UJFT 1:00pm
9:30am
SUNDAY, 11/17
by June Hersh
Authentic recipes and stories collected from 80 Holocaust survivors, ranging from the classic to the unexpected. The stories are uplifting and life-affirming, focusing on hope, faith and “bashert.”
SUNDAY, 11/10
FRIDAY, 11/15
EVOLVING DHARMA
Global Day of Jewish Learning
by Jay Michaelson
Michaelson, also the author of God vs. Gay and Everything is God, explores the boundaries of Jewish tradition in a conversation called “Is that Jewish?” with a panel of local Rabbis and Cantors, as he presents his latest book, Evolving Dharma: Meditation, Buddhism, and the Next Generation of Enlightenment.
Presented in partnership with the Board of Rabbis & Cantors of Hampton Roads
SUNDAY, 11/17 3:00pm
PRISONER B-3087
Global Day of Jewish Learning
by Alan Gratz
Five short stories celebrate friendship and Jewish values. Like all best friends, it’s not always smooth sailing. Children will learn about how to get along with one another and develop meaningful friendships from a Sesame Street book editor.
Based on the astonishing true story of an extraordinary boy, this book set in Poland in the 1930’s traces his journey through 10 different concentration camps and 10 different encounters with death. Yanek faces the terror trying not to lose his hope, will and most of all, his identity.
For children ages 5–8 • Presented in partnership with PJ LIbrary
For 6th Grade and up • Presented in partnership with BBYO
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For more information about all of these author events, visitjewishnewsva.org SimonFamilyJCC.org | October 28, 2013 | Jewish News | 27
A New Physician Specializing in the Care of Older Adults is Now in Your Neighborhood. Sentara Medical Group is pleased to announce that Masoumeh Kiamanesh, MD, a board-certified physician with specialized training in geriatric medicine, has opened a new Sentara Family Medicine Physicians practice in Virginia Beach. With experience managing older patients or those with multiple health issues, Dr. Kiamanesh is a wonderful partner whose services can evolve as you do – wherever you may be in your healthcare life cycle. And, as part of the Sentara family, she can connect you to other healthcare services and specialists as the Parking
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