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INSIDE
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Southeastern Virginia | Vol. 53 No. 1 | 13 Elul 5774 | September 8, 2014
Campaign Kick off Will It. Create It. Achieve It.
6 Cease-fire in Israel
Monday, September 15
34 Bringing Israel Home
35 Hunger Feast feeds more than 130,000
—page 33 Hebrew Academy of Tidewater thanks donors 14 5000 Corporate Woods Drive, Suite 200 Virginia Beach, Virginia 23462-4370 Address Service Requested
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36 Team Virginia Beach takes Gold
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upfront
Standing as one T
hese past months our community, world Jewry and the people of Israel have faced enormous political, moral and life threatening challenges. Facing these challenges requires collective and individual thoughtfulness, wisdom and fortitude. We must break down complex, interlocking issues to ones that can be examined through the lens of our teachings, traditions, and what we hold sacred and immutable. We need to discuss with our family, friends and trusted leaders about what we individually and collectively must do, and what sacrifices we must make. We have seen Israel under attack by an enemy dedicated to its destruction; one that sacrifices its own citizens as human shields. We have been horrified by the discovery of more than 30 tunnels designed infiltrate Israel in order to kidnap, maim and kill unarmed Israeli citizens. We have seen a precipitous rise of anti-Semitism around the globe, with attacks rhetorical and actual, resulting in injuries and deaths. We have seen support of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement (BDS) by the Presbyterian Church USA, the largest Presbyterian movement in the United States, which voted to divest its investments from three American companies doing business in Israel. The challenges have been many, substantive and frightening, but our responses have been clear, strong and unwavering. Our community gathered 600 strong on July 24 at the Sandler Family Campus to express support for the state of Israel and our sorrow over the fallen IDF soldiers, Israeli civilians and innocent Palestinians sacrificed by their leaders. Thanks to generous donations from so many of you, we exceeded our fundraising goals in the Stop the Sirens emergency relief campaign, part of the Jewish Federations of North America $30,000,000 appeal.
Miles Leon
Harry Graber
quotable Gold at Maccabi Games. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . OST at PrideFest. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Educators learn to teach Israel . . . . . . . . . . YAD plays ball with teens . . . . . . . . . . . . . . SOPS holds reunion. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Shabbat at the Beach . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Book Review. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Benyamin Yaffe joins UJFT . . . . . . . . . . . . . What’s Happening . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Calendar. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Who Knew?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Mazel Tov. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Obituaries. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The roe ahead. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
36 36 36 37 37 38 39 40 40 42 43 43 44 46
Reba and Sam Sandler Family Campus of the Tidewater Jewish Community 5000 Corporate Woods Drive, Suite 200 Virginia Beach, Virginia 23462-4370 voice 757.965.6100 • fax 757.965.6102 email news@ujft.org www.jewishVA.org QR code generated on http://qrcode.littleidiot.be
THE UJFT Community Relations Council had Reverend Al Butzer, a local Presbyterian minister with national stature, address our community regarding his resistance to and rejection of the BDS decision by the Presbyterian Church USA. Three representatives of our UJFT Holocaust Commission were in Israel as guests of Yad Vashem presenting our What We Carry program to Holocaust educators from around the globe. The intermittent blaring of the sirens only brought further resolve to those present to hear how the memories of the survivors and lessons of the Holocaust can be taught more effectively in the global classrooms. Now we have entered the Jewish month of Elul, a period for individual introspection on how we have behaved in the past year and how we can improve upon that behavior in the coming year. Most recently, Jonathan Konikoff provided the answer as he spoke about becoming a Bar Mitzvah, a symbolic adult in the Jewish community. He spoke of individual responsibility and obligation to pursue the mitzvah of tzedekah, to pursue righteousness and justice, to do what is right, to perform the extraordinary deed. Our UJFT annual campaign offers us the opportunity to stand up as one, resist the threats, affirm our Jewish heritage, and collectively improve upon our past efforts. It all starts with one: one person, one event, one idea, one gift. We are confident that you and all of Jewish Tidewater will be the ones who change lives for the better. May you have good health, peace and prosperity in the coming year, 5775.
conte nts UpFront. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Briefs. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Torah Thought . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 Cease-fire in Israel. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 Bibi’s approval ratings dip. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 Detecting Gaza tunnels. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 Young Jews support Israel. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 Arab nations tilt toward Israel. . . . . . . . . . . 10 Sunny, with a chance of Rockets. . . . . . . . . 12 HAT thanks supporters. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 Special New Year’s Section. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 UJFT Campaign Kick Off. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33 Bringing Israel Home. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34 Hunger Feast feeds many. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
Published 22 times a year by United Jewish Federation of Tidewater.
Terri Denison, Editor Germaine Clair, Art Director Hal Sacks, Book Review Editor Sandy Goldberg, Account Executive Mark Hecht, Account Executive Marilyn Cerase, Subscription Manager Reba Karp, Editor Emeritus 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. © 2014 Jewish News. All rights reserved. Subscription: $18 year For subscription or change of address, call 757-965-6128 or email mcerase@ujft.org. JewishNewsVA
Upcoming Deadlines for Editorial and Advertising September 22 Yom Kippur October 6 Mazel Tov October 20 Home November 3 Business November 17 December 8 Chanukah December 22 Education
August 29 September 19 October 3 October 17 October 31 November 14 December 5
candle lighting Friday, September 19/Elul 24 Light candles at 6:47 pm
“The conference was less than an hour from ending, and the sirens went off!”
Friday, September 26/Tishrei 2 Light candles at 6:37 pm Friday, September 26/Tishrei 2 Light candles at 6:37 pm Friday, October 3/Tishrei 9 Light candles at 6:29 pm
—page 13
Friday, October 10/Tishrei 16 Light candles at 6:19 pm Friday, October 17/Tishrei 23 Light candles at 6:09 pm
jewishnewsva.org | September 8, 2014 | Jewish News | 3
briefs u. of illinois revokes Job offer to sCholar who ripped israel Officials from the University of Illinois publicly defended their decision to revoke a job offer to a scholar who had harshly criticized Israel on Twitter. Chancellor Phyllis Wise issued a statement explaining why the university had decided not to move forward with the hiring of Steven Salaita. On the same day, the president and board combined on a separate statement. Wise wrote in an open letter to the university that the university would not tolerate “personal and disrespectful words or actions that demean and abuse either viewpoints themselves or those who express them.” The president and board in their statement backed Wise’s decision, echoing her arguments. Neither of the statements cited any specific behavior by Salaita. The website Inside Higher Education had reported that Salaita’s appointment was blocked over concerns about strongly worded tweets criticizing Israel and its officials. Earlier this summer, the university indicated that Salaita would be joining the faculty of the American Indian studies program at the university’s Urbana-Champaign campus. The university statements have been criticized on a number venues, including a blog for the American Association of University Professors by John Wilson, a member of the academic freedom committee of the Illinois AAUP. Wise’s letter, Wilson wrote, was “an appalling attack on academic freedom and a rejection of the basic values that a university must stand for.” (JTA) stallone, rogen among hollywood elite to slam hamas Nearly 200 Hollywood elite, including Sylvester Stallone and Seth Rogen, signed a statement condemning Hamas as its conflict with Israel continues. Actors, directors and studio heads signed the statement by members of the Creative Community for Peace and posted on its website Saturday, August 23. The signers also included Aaron Sorkin, Roseanne Barr, Sherry Lansing and Kathy Ireland.
“Hamas cannot be allowed to rain rockets on Israeli cities, nor can it be allowed to hold its own people hostage,” the statement reads. “Hospitals are for healing, not for hiding weapons. Schools are for learning, not for launching missiles. Children are our hope, not our human shields.” The statement will appear as an ad in Hollywood publications including Billboard, The Hollywood Reporter and Variety. The statement also said that the signatories “are saddened by the devastating loss of life endured by Israelis and Palestinians in Gaza. We are pained by the suffering on both sides of the conflict and hope for a solution that brings peace to the region.” Several Hollywood figures have offered statements on Twitter and Facebook in support of Gaza and the Palestinians. (JTA)
Beheaded journalist Steven Sotloff held Israeli citizenship Journalist Steven Sotloff, who was beheaded by the jihadist group ISIS, was a dual American-Israeli citizen and studied in Israel, Israel’s Foreign Ministry said. The Foreign Ministry cleared for publication that Sotloff, 31, held Israeli citizenship. His connections to Israel and the Jewish community reportedly had been sanitized from the Internet and social media in order to keep the information from his radical Islamic captors. Sotloff, a grandson of Holocaust survivors who grew up in Miami, made aliyah in 2005 and studied foreign relations at the Interdisciplinary Center in Herzliya, a private college, Ynet reported. He then began reporting from countries throughout the Middle East, returning to Israel for the 2013 Maccabiah Games. Sotloff was abducted on Aug. 4, 2013, after crossing the Syrian border from Turkey. A hostage who was held with Sotloff and later released told the Hebrew daily Yediot Acharonot that Sotloff was able to fast last year on Yom Kippur without his captors knowing. “He told them he was sick and did not want to eat, even though that day we were served eggs,” the fellow captive said. He added that Sotloff also was able to pray in a hidden manner and in the proscribed way
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facing Jerusalem by looking which way the Muslims prayed in order to determine the proper direction. Sotloff is the son of Arthur and Shirley Sotloff. Shirley Sotloff has worked in the early childhood program at Temple Beth Am Day School in Pinecrest, Fla., according to the synagogue website. Shirley Sotloff pleaded in a video for his captors to have mercy on him. Sotloff published articles from Syria, Egypt and Libya in various publications, including Time.com, the World Affairs Journal and Foreign Policy. He also freelanced for The Jerusalem Post and the Jerusalem Report magazine. (JTA)
israeli Company rewalk going publiC The Israeli company ReWalk Robotics, which builds exoskeletons to help people with spinal cord injuries stand and walk, is going public. The company, which changed its name recently from Argo Medical Technologies to the name of its signature product, announced last month that it will be listed on the NASDAQ exchange this month. The company recently received approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for the ReWalk device, a 44-pound exoskeleton that allows individuals with spinal cord injuries to walk, stand and sit with minimal exertion. ReWalk is already in use in Europe and was featured in 2010 on the popular television drama Glee while ReWalk was undergoing clinical trials in the United States. Released in September 2012, ReWalk is the brainchild of Amit Goffer, an Israeli computer sci- entist and inventor who became paralyzed after a 1997 car accident. Although he cannot use the ReWalk himself because he lacks the use of his arms, he began designing the device with the help of a $50,000 grant from the Israeli government because, he said, he was frustrated at the lack of alternatives to a wheelchair. The device functions through motors attached to the legs that can propel a disabled person at a slow walking speed. A tilt sensor, the same technology used on
Segway electric transporters, can sense whether the user wants to move forward or back, and stand or sit. Poles are used for added support. (JTA)
bloCked israeli Cargo ship in Calif. unloads despite aCtivists An Israeli-operated cargo ship blocked from unloading its goods for four days in Oakland by anti-Israel protesters feigned a return to sea before doubling back secretly to port. The standoff began Aug. 16 when the Piraeus, operated by Zim Integrated Shipping Services, Israel’s largest shipping company, was scheduled to dock at Oakland Port. Hundreds of protesters organized by the Arab Resource and Organizing Center in San Francisco blocked the entrance to the port to prevent longshoremen from entering, ostensibly to draw attention to Israel’s operation in Gaza. The ship remained at sea for a day, then docked from Aug. 17 to the afternoon of Aug. 19, when it left with its cargo intact, seemingly headed for Southern California. Instead it quickly turned around and docked at another terminal, where two dozen longshoremen worked overnight to unload the cargo. AROC’s Block the Boat campaign had earlier declared victory, claiming in one statement that “workers honored our picket,” suggesting that union members sympathized with the protesters. But a news release Aug. 18 from the International Longshore and Warehouse Union said the union takes no position on the Middle East conflict and was concerned only with protecting its workers from the “volatility associated with a large demonstration and significant police presence.” Anti-Israel protesters had some success stopping Zim ships from unloading in Oakland twice before, in 2010 and 2012. Demonstrators attempted to block a Zim vessel in Long Beach on Aug. 13 but failed to stop workers from unloading the cargo. Block the Boat has called for protests in Tacoma, Wash., and Vancouver, B.C., with the aim of shutting down Israeli shipping to the West Coast. (JTA)
Torah Thought
Rosh Hashanah: The awakening of repentance
M
y teacher, Rabbi Dr. Joseph B. Soloveitchik, of blessed memory, noted that our prayers on Rosh Hashanah do not include any references to sin or forgiveness. Selichot (penitential prayers) and Viduy (confession) are absent from the liturgy. Yet we know that Rosh Hashanah is a Day of Judgment, ushering in the Ten Days of Repentance that culminate with Yom Kippur. There is a widespread custom to omit the first verse of the Aveinu Malkeinu (“Our Father, Our King”) prayer, “Our Father, Our King, we have sinned before You” on Rosh Hashanah. How do we account for the lack of any mention of sin and confession in the Rosh Hashanah prayers? Rabbi Soloveitchik suggested that Rosh Hashanah is a time for us to begin the process of repentance with Hirhur Teshuvah (lit., the “awakening” of repentance, usually understood as the “thoughts” of repentance). Unlike the formal process of repentance, Hirhur Teshuvah is amorphous and ill-defined. In another context, the Rabbi Soloveitchik suggested the sound of the shofar itself is a non-verbal expression of this as-yet-undefined process of Hirhur Teshuvah. Despite its raw form, Hirhur Teshuvah is an important milestone on the road to repentance. Rabbi Soloveitchik illustrated the idea from a sad personal experience: “On the seventh day of Pesach 1967, I awoke from a fitful sleep. A thunderstorm was raging outside, and the wind and rain blew angrily through the window of my room. I quickly jumped to my feet
and closed the window. I then thought to myself that my wife was sleeping downstairs in the sunroom next to the parlor, and I remembered that the window was left open there as well. She could catch pneumonia, which in her weakened physical condition would be devastating. “I ran downstairs, rushed into her room, and slammed the window shut. I then turned around to see whether she had awoken from the storm, or if she was still sleeping. I found the room empty, the couch where she slept neatly covered. “In reality, she had passed away the previous month. “The most tragic and frightening experience was the shock I encountered in that half second when I turned from the window to find the room empty. I was certain that a few hours earlier I had been speaking with her, and that at about 10 pm, she had said good night and retired to her room. I could not understand why the room was empty. I thought to myself, ‘I just spoke with her. I just said goodnight to her. Where is she now?’” The required response to the shofar, which according to the great codifier of Jewish law Maimonides symbolizes an awakening from our spiritual slumber to face G-d’s judgment, is the abrupt, tragic realization that the false assumptions upon which we build our lives have come crashing down before our eyes. We are jolted with the sudden awareness of the grievous extent to which our actions have alienated us from G-d. Amidst the panic of this experience, we have neither the intellectual nor the emotional fortitude to adequately express remorse, resolve, confession or even prayer. We find ourselves alone, bereft of our illusions, terrified and paralyzed before G-d. The arousal of fear on Rosh Hashanah is not meant to leave us permanently paralyzed. The Talmud records (Brachot 60a): “There was a certain student who was following Rabbi Yishmael son of Rabb Yose in the marketplace of Zion. Rabbi Yishmael
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noticed that the student was anxious. Yishmael told him, ‘You are a sinner….” One of my teachers noted that we can infer from this incident that there is “a fear that makes us and a fear that breaks us.” The powerful and ultimately destructive emotion of fear must be transformed during the Ten Days of Repentance into a mobilizing, constructive force of reverence and loyalty. This joyful acceptance of G-d as our King reflects a process of spiritual maturation in the penitent. Reverence is not based on visceral fear, but rather
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reflects a cognitive understanding of G-d’s power. Reverence in turn prompts introspection through the repentance period. Let us dedicate 5775 to introspection and to revitalizing our relationship with G-d and with Judaism. May He bless our country, the United States of America, the State of Israel, the Jewish people and the entire world with peace and prosperity. Amen. —Rabbi Mordechai Wecker, head of school, Hebrew Academy of Tidewater
jewishnewsva.org | September 8, 2014 | Jewish News | 5
ISRAEL
Cease-fire marks end to Israel’s longest, bloodiest war in Gaza by Ben Sales
TEL AVIV (JTA)—A rocket barrage fell on Israel, a boom sounded over Tel Aviv and then it was over—at least for now. After 50 days of missiles, airstrikes, ground operations, tunnel incursions, truce talks, cease-fire proposals, death and destruction, Israel and Hamas agreed to an open-ended truce on Tuesday, August 26. The cease-fire announced by Egypt stipulates that Israel and Egypt will open all border crossings to allow international humanitarian aid and construction materials to enter the Gaza Strip. The agreement requires Israel and Hamas to cease hostilities but, according to reports, does not include commitments to allow an international airport and seaport in Gaza. After a month, should the quiet hold, Israel and Hamas will restart indirect negotiations in Cairo on easing Israel’s blockade of the coastal strip and disarming the enclave. The end of the operation should not include “any significant political achievements for Hamas, which is a terrorist organization which doesn’t accept our existence here,” said Tzipi Livni, Israel’s justice minister. Livni added that the truce should be “part of an overall accord with those who seek peace.” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel had not spoken publicly or released a statement about the cease-fire as of press time. Two days prior, though, during a Cabinet meeting, he said: “We embarked on Operation Protective Edge in order to restore quiet and security to you and to all Israeli citizens. The more determined and patient we are, the more our enemies will understand that they will not succeed in wearing us down.” The agreement is the culmination of Egyptian-led cease-fire efforts that have been ongoing throughout the conflict. Last month, Israel and Hamas had agreed to a string of temporary cease-fires. The lull ended with Hamas rocket fire on Israel. The fighting is Israel’s third major
conflict with Hamas since 2008, following conflicts in 2008–09 and 2012. This one, however, was the longest and costliest between the sides since Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005. More than 2,000 Palestinians and 70 Israelis died in the latest conflict, which wounded more than 10,000 Gazans and 500 Israelis, according to Israel’s Foreign Ministry. Also, 20 Palestinians died in protests in the West Bank against Israel’s operation, according to the Guardian. The fighting created ghost towns across Israel’s South and devastated Gaza, destroying thousands of homes. Israeli forces delivered a punishing blow to Hamas, with airstrikes destroying thousands of rockets and ground troops eliminating much of its tunnel infrastructure both under the Israel-Gaza border and across Gaza. Last month, an Israeli airstrike killed three senior Hamas commanders. The chief of Hamas’ military wing, Mohammed Deif, may have been killed in a separate attack. Israel’s aggressive military tactics, along with a high Palestinian civilian death toll, drew widespread international criticism. In July, the United Nations Human Rights Council said it would send a fact-finding mission to investigate possible war crimes committed during the fighting. Israel has indicated that it likely would not cooperate with the investigation, alleging anti-Israel bias. Even the United States, an Israel ally, issued harsh criticism following an Israeli airstrike that hit a United Nations school on Aug. 3, and tightened its controls on weapons shipments to Israel. American assistance to Israel continued during the conflict, though, as the U.S. approved an added $225-million for Israel’s Iron Dome missile defense system. On Tuesday, Aug. 26, State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said the U.S. “strongly supports” the cease-fire. “We view this as an opportunity, not a certainty,” Psaki said. “Today’s agreement comes after many hours and days of negotiations and discussions. But certainly there’s
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a long road ahead. And we’re aware of that and we’re going into this eyes wide open.” Hamas saw many of its attempted attacks on Israel frustrated. Iron Dome intercepted nearly all of the rockets Hamas aimed at city centers, and the Israel Defense Forces stopped Hamas’ infiltrations into Israel close to the border. Nevertheless, Hamas killed 64 Israeli soldiers in Israel’s ground invasion of Gaza —the highest death toll for Israel since the Second Lebanon War in 2006—in addition to six civilians. Despite being ineffective, Hamas rockets proved to have an increasingly long range—mortar fire reached nearly all of Israel for the first time. While residents of Tel Aviv and Jerusalem were able to largely carry on with life under the protection of Iron Dome, they found themselves running for shelter daily at the sound of warning sirens, an experience that had previously been largely confined to southern Israel. And Hamas rocket fire on central Israel led a number of international airlines to cancel flights to and from Israel for two days, leaving Israelis feeling isolated. The U.S. Federal Aviation Authority instituted a 24-hour ban on flights to Israel, which some criticized as unwarranted. Hamas celebrated the cancellations in a statement as an “air blockade.” The conflict began on July 8 following a barrage of Hamas rockets on Israel. Tensions between the sides had risen after Hamas operatives in the West Bank kidnapped and murdered three Israeli teens on June 12. Israeli troops swept the West Bank in the ensuing weeks, arresting hundreds of Hamas members, according to Israel. The July 2 kidnapping and murder of a Palestinian teen, who was burned alive by a group of Israeli extremists in a likely revenge attack, further stoked the flames. Israel began its campaign with airstrikes across Gaza, targeting Hamas weapons and infrastructure but also killing hundreds of civilians. But following Hamas attempts to infiltrate Israel by tunnel and sea, Israel launched a ground invasion of
Reporting on Israel Operation Protective Edge appears to be over (at press-time). The next eight pages are devoted to analysis, reports and personal accounts of life in Israel during and immediately after the war. For up-tothe-minute reports, go to Jewishnewsva.org.
Gaza on July 17 that lasted two weeks. The ground operation ended as Israel and Hamas agreed to the first in a string of temporary cease-fires. During the calm, the sides engaged in Egyptian-mediated negotiations begun early in the conflict on a long-term truce. But the talks ended Aug. 19 without an agreement as Hamas resumed rocket fire. As in previous conflicts, a vast majority of Israelis supported the operation, with 95 percent of Israeli Jews in favor, according to the Israel Democracy Institute. But the conflict also opened divisions within Israel’s governing coalition, as more hawkish ministers called for the IDF to deal a harsher blow to Hamas and opposed the various cease-fires. Residents of the South, who have withstood rocket fire for more than a decade, also have called for a continued operation. “Any concession to Hamas is a surrender to terrorism,” Ashkelon Mayor Itamar Shimoni said, according to Haaretz. “The residents of the South wanted to see this campaign resolved, but that will probably not happen.”
ISRAEL
Bibi’s approval ratings, buoyed by war, are now plummeting—but why? by Ben Sales
TEL AVIV (JTA)— Israel’s war is over, but Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s fight may only have just begun. The past month has seen Netanyahu’s approval rating plummet, according to polling by Israel’s Channel 2. On July 23, about a week after Israel launched its ground invasion of Gaza, the television station reported his approval rating as 82 percent. Given the fractious political climate in Israel, it was an impressive achievement. It wouldn’t last long. Two weeks later his approval rating was 63 percent. By Monday, Aug. 25, on the eve of the ceasefire going into effect, it was at 38 percent, with a full half of the country disapproving of his performance. And a day after the truce it was down to 32 percent with 59 percent disapproving. The steep drop may reflect a measure of public disappointment in Netanyahu’s handling of the conflict. Throughout the fighting, his supposed allies on the right lambasted Israel’s indirect negotiations with Hamas and accused the prime minister of being unwilling to depose the organization. Meanwhile, the left called for a broader diplomatic initiative to achieve Israeli-Palestinian peace. “When you want to beat a terror organization, you defeat it,” Economy Minister Naftali Bennett, head of the hawkish Jewish Home party, said on Aug. 19. “When you hold negotiations with a terror organization, you get more terror. Sooner or later Israel will have to defeat Hamas, there’s no way to avoid it.” But political analysts say that despite the criticism, Netanyahu’s job is probably safe, noting that no other Israeli politician is strong enough to build a rival coalition. Plus, they say, a leader’s approval ratings often fall in the aftermath of conflict. Case in point: At the beginning of the Second Lebanon War in 2006, then-Prime Minister Ehud Olmert had a 73 percent approval rating. By the war’s end it was at 29 percent.
“It’s always this way in war,” says Gideon Rahat, a political science professor in Israel. “In the beginning everyone is supportive, and then the support falls. This is not exceptional. Strategically he goes to the center. That may help him unless there’s an alternative to the right.” Throughout the 50 days of conflict, Netanyahu aimed above all to project strength, determination and measured stewardship of the fighting. The goal, as he told his Cabinet, was “to restore quiet and security to you and to all Israeli citizens.” In July, it seemed, most Israelis thought he was succeeding. After Hamas either rejected a series of cease-fire proposals or broke actual truces, Netanyahu sent ground troops into Gaza to destroy the Hamas tunnel network—something many Israelis saw as a critical threat to the country. Two days after the July 23 poll showed 82 percent support, Netanyahu rejected U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry’s cease-fire attempt, which did not include Israel’s core demand to disarm Hamas. By Aug. 5, when Netanyahu registered the 63 percent rating, Israelis were becoming more skeptical. Israel was withdrawing troops from Gaza and entering a three-day cease-fire with Hamas — even negotiating with it (albeit indirectly) in Cairo. Yes, Israeli soldiers were back home and tunnels had been destroyed, but nothing was in place to stop Hamas from firing again. Hard-line members of Netanyahu’s coalition continued to call for a much stronger Israeli attack on Hamas. The left, meanwhile, wanted Netanyahu to re-engage with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas in broader Israeli-Palestinian peace talks. Netanyahu did neither. “The diplomatic agreement shouldn’t be with Hamas,” Justice Minister Tzipi Livni, who heads the center-left Hatnua party, told Channel 2 on Aug. 8. “It should be against Hamas. We do want to get to an agreement, but not with those who shoot at us—[rather] with those who don’t use violence.” And by Monday, Aug. 25, when the 38 percent approval rating came out, weeks of
negotiations with Hamas had yielded nothing. Meanwhile, rocket fire from Gaza had restarted and a 4-year-old boy from Israel’s embattled South had been killed. Far from acquiescing to demands from right or left, Netanyahu held a news conference to tell them all to be quiet. “There’s opposition from the left that we need a comprehensive agreement rather than having small wars, and there’s opposition from the right that says he should have made broader military moves to conquer Gaza,” Rahat says. “He’s in the middle.” For Netanyahu, rivals pushing him in different directions is nothing new. In the first year of his coalition government, his coalition partners to the right and left—Bennett and Livni, respectively—had taken the lead on many of the government’s major initiatives. Livni, for example, led the first substantive talks with the Palestinian Authority since 2008, while Bennett pushed a series of parliamentary measures on religion-state reforms. If the present calm holds, Netanyahu’s poll numbers may rise again. But politically, it’s a particularly bad time for him to be unpopular. His Likud party split with the nationalist Yisrael Beiteinu in the period leading up to the war, then lost another Knesset seat when a lawmaker who left to be ambassador to UNESCO, the cultural and scientific arm of the United Nations, was replaced by a Yisrael Beiteinu member. Likud now has 19 of the Knesset’s 120 seats, tying it with the centrist Yesh Atid and making it the smallest ruling party in Israeli history. But as long as Netanyahu stakes out centrist positions, says Bar-Ilan University political science professor Shmuel Sandler, he shouldn’t have to worry. “In any democracy, you can’t come to lead without the center, so that’s the best place to be,” Sandler says. “The course he has taken was very centrist, not right and not left. And from that perspective he’s the only candidate that can hold a coalition that can govern.”
jewishnewsva.org | September 8, 2014 | Jewish News | 7
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ISRAEL
Using seismic vibrations, Israeli tech firm aims to detect Gaza tunnels by Ben Sales
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OR YEHUDA, Israel (JTA)—Something that looks like a can of soda could be Israel’s hightech answer to the network of tunnels that Hamas has created under the Gaza border. A sensor known as a geophone can detect underground movement based on the sound generated by the movement, the Israeli defense firm manufacturing the device says. The firm, Elpam Electronics, says the geophone is capable of finding the location of a person crawling as far down as 32 feet. Israel has grappled with the danger of the Gaza tunnels for years, but the threat has gained greater urgency in the wake of Protective Edge, the military operation launched in July. A ground invasion of Gaza that had the stated aim of neutralizing the tunnels, 32 of which were subsequently destroyed, according to the Israeli military. Now the mission is continuing in the research labs of Israeli defense firms. Both Rafael Advanced Defense Systems and, according to several Israeli reports, Elbit Systems are at work on systems to detect tunnels. Neither company will comment on their research. But Elpam agreed to provide JTA with a look at the technology it’s been working on for decades and is now adapting to address the current threat. Iky Koenig, Elpam’s CEO, wants Israel to bury hundreds of sensors in a constellation around the Gaza border. By next year the company hopes to have developed a monitoring system that can locate tunnel activity and differentiate it from other subterranean noise. “Let’s say there’s a suspicion of activity from military intelligence or [the sound of] spoons digging,” Koenig says. “You put these things in the ground and if someone hears spoons, we’ll hear it like a bulldozer.” In 1988, Elpam created its sensors to assist in search-and-rescue operations. The sensors were designed to detect sound frequencies in the ruins of destroyed buildings. Rescuers could hear people trapped under the debris and the trapped could
respond. Dozens of the kits, which can fit inside a lightweight vest, were sold to the Israel Defense Forces. Elpam also developed and sold two tunnel detection systems to the IDF in 2005 and 2006. One was intended to detect tunnels along the Philadelphi Corridor on the EgyptGaza border, but the company could not say whether the system was ever deployed. In a statement to JTA, the IDF says it considered two tunnel detection systems in 2005 and 2006 that were not effective. The IDF says it is now combining those systems and readying them for field testing. The military expects deployment of the system to take one year and cost between $424 million and $565 million. The IDF will not confirm whether those systems were developed by Elpam. The sensor concept is not without its critics. Yiftah Shapir, a military technology expert at Tel Aviv University’s Institute for National Security Studies, says rows of sensors cannot detect tunnels that turn or intersections between multiple tunnels. Shapir also says the sensors do not have the ability to detect tunnel openings, which was among the key goals of the ground invasion. “You think a tunnel starts in one place and ends in another,” he says. “There are three or four entrances. In the middle there are junctions. It’s never just in one place. [The IDF] went in essentially to look at where the other openings are.” Atai Shelach, CEO of the defense firm Engineering Solutions Group, says the sensors will also have trouble pinpointing tunnels that are only a few feet wide. At best, he says, the technology will merely complement the military’s intelligence operations, not replace them. “If [the sensor] will be effective at one point for a very great depth, it only solves a small part of the problem,” says Shelach, a former commander in the IDF Engineering Corps. “If it only finds one tunnel, that doesn’t mean that there aren’t other tunnels. Until there’s a broad solution, there won’t be a choice but to rely on intelligence.”
ISRAEL Brandeis University study shows American Jewish young adults overwhelmingly support Israel in war with Hamas
Report: Netanyahu, Abbas met secretly in Amman
79% of respondents say Israel’s response is “justified” NEW YORK—Researchers from Brandeis University’s Cohen Center for Modern Jewish Studies (CMJS) released a study that finds that while American young adults may hold Israel responsible for the recent conflict in Gaza, American Jewish young adults do not, and in fact, overwhelmingly support Israel’s military response. Between August 6–11, 2014, nearly 2,000 Taglit-Birthright Israel applicants were surveyed, including young adults who participated in Taglit-Birthright Israel’s 10-day educational program and others who did not. The survey drew questions from recent surveys conducted by the Pew Research Center and Gallup, and new queries developed by CMJS. The widely discussed Pew Research Center poll conducted at the end of July 2014 found that more American young adults (ages 18–29) blamed Israel for the summer’s conflict in Gaza than blamed Hamas (29% vs. 21%). CMJS posed the same question to Taglit-Birthright Israel applicants and found that both participants and nonparticipants were overwhelmingly less likely to hold Israel primarily responsible for the violence. Only 6% of participants and 11% of nonparticipants believed Israel was primarily responsible for the conflict. By contrast, 60% of participants and 50% of nonparticipants believed Hamas was primarily to blame. The CMJS study found that young Jewish Americans were more likely to assign blame to both groups (27% of participants and 32% of nonparticipants) than was the broader young American sample in the Pew Center poll (15%). Taglit-Birthright Israel applicants were also more likely than U.S. young adults, in general, to believe that Israel’s actions in the conflict were justified. A recent Gallup poll (conducted July 22–23, 2014) found that only 25% of young Americans believed that Israel’s actions were justified, while 51% believed the action unjustified. In contrast, 79% of Taglit-Birthright Israel
participants and 67% of nonparticipants felt Israel’s actions were justified. Although the majority of all Birthright Israel applicants felt Israel was justified in its actions, some felt otherwise: 20% of participants and 32% of nonparticipants felt Israel’s actions were unjustified. Professor Leonard Saxe, director of the Cohen Center and one of the study’s authors, says Taglit-Birthright Israel applicants represent the diversity of young adult American Jews. “More than half a million young Jews have applied to participate since the inception of the program 14 years ago,” he says. “They include many who had little contact with the Jewish community prior to the program and a majority who consider themselves politically liberal.” Along with the findings about the attitudes of young adult American Jews regarding Israel and the conflict with Hamas, the study also revealed that most follow the news about Israel closely. Although almost all get their news from American news sources, social media was a significant source of news and more than half reported getting their news directly from Israeli sources. Taglit-Birthright Israel offers a 10-day trip to Israel for Jewish adults between the ages of 18 and 26. The trip aims to strengthen each participant’s identity as a Jew; to build understanding, friendship and a lasting bond with the land and people of Israel; and to reinforce the solidarity of the Jewish people worldwide. “The results of this survey demonstrate that Jewish young adults who participate in Taglit-Birthright Israel come away from the experience not only with a connection to Israel, but a strong interest and a commitment to being informed about its people and its challenges,” says Taglit-Birthright Israel CEO Gidi Mark. Taglit-Birthright Israel has sent more than 400,000 young Jewish adults to Israel from more than 66 countries and from all 50 U.S. states, including students from nearly 1,000
North American college campuses. Attendees are immersed in an active educational experience that includes visits to Jewish historical sites, history museums, Holocaust remembrance sites, the Western Wall, arts, and culture programs as well as touring, hiking, discussions, social events, camel, and jeep rides in the desert, and more. Taglit-Birthright Israel has a unique, historical and innovative partnership with the Government of Israel, thousands of individual donors and private philanthropists, and Jewish communities around the world through Jewish Federations of North America, Keren Hayesod, and the Jewish Agency of Israel.
JERUSALEM (JTA)—Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas met secretly in Amman days before the current cease-fire with Gaza, a Jordanian daily reported. The meeting reported by the independent Amman-based Arabic newspaper Al-Ghad was part of a gathering of senior Israeli and Palestinian officials, held at the invitation of King Abdullah II. No Israeli officials have confirmed the report. As part of the Egyptian-brokered, open-ended cease-fire between Israel and Hamas, the Palestinian Authority will coordinate reconstruction efforts in Gaza with international donors.
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Israel
Facing Islamist threats, Arab nations tilt toward Israel by Uriel Heilman
(JTA)—Between the war in Gaza and gains by Islamic militants in Iraq, Syria and Libya, there’s plenty of cause these days for pessimism about the Middle East. But amid all the fighting, there’s also some good news for Israel. If it wasn’t obvious before, the conflagrations have driven home just how much the old paradigms of the Middle East have faded in an era when the threat of Islamic extremists has become the overarching concern in the Arab world. In this fight against Islamic militancy, many Arab governments find themselves on the same side as Israel. A generation ago, much of the Middle East was viewed through the prism of the Arab-Israeli conflict. Then, during the Iraq War era of the 2000s, the focus shifted to the Sunni-Shiite divide and the sectarian
fighting it spurred. By early 2011, the Arab Spring movement had become the template for the region, generating excitement that repressive autocratic governments might be replaced with fledgling democracies. Instead, the Arab Spring ushered in bloody civil wars in Syria and Libya, providing openings for violent Islamists. Egypt’s experiment in democracy resulted in an Islamist-led government, prompting a backlash and coup a year ago and the restoration of the old guard. After witnessing the outcomes of the Arab Spring, the old Arab order appears more determined than ever to keep its grip on power and beat back any challenges, particularly by potent Islamist adversaries. The confluence of events over the summer demonstrates just how menacingly Arab regimes view militant Islam. A newly declared radical Islamic State, known by the acronym ISIS, made rapid
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territorial gains in Syria and Iraq, brutally executing opponents and capturing Iraq’s second-largest city. In Libya, Islamic militants overran the Tripoli airport while Egypt and the United Arab Emirates carried out airstrikes against them. Concerning Gaza, Arab governments (with one notable exception) have been loath to offer support for the Islamists who lead Hamas. Consider the players: Egypt Having briefly experienced a form of Islamist rule with the election and yearlong reign of President Mohamed Morsi, a leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, the pendulum has swung back the other way in Egypt. The Egypt of President Abdel Fattah al Sisi, who seized power from Morsi, is far more hostile to the Muslim Brotherhood than Hosni Mubarak’s was before the coup that toppled him from the presidency in 2011. Sisi’s Egypt has outlawed the Brotherhood, arrested its leaders and sentenced hundreds of Brotherhood members to death. The Brotherhood’s pain has been Israel’s gain. During the Morsi era, Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula became a staging ground for attacks against Israel and a conduit for funneling arms to Hamas, a Brotherhood affiliate. But after Sisi took charge, he all but shut down the smuggling tunnels between Egypt and Gaza, clamped down on lawlessness in the Sinai, and ended the discord that had taken hold between Cairo and Jerusalem. When Hamas and Israel went to war this summer, there was no question about where Cairo stood. For weeks, Egyptian mediators refused to countenance Hamas’ cease-fire demands, presenting only Israel’s proposals. On Egyptian TV, commentators lambasted and mocked Hamas leaders. With its clandestine airstrikes in Libya over the last few days, Egypt has shown that it is willing to go beyond its borders to fight Islamic militants. Saudi Arabia It may be many years before Israel reaches a formal peace agreement with the Arab
monarchy that is home to Islam’s two holiest cities, but in practice, the interests of the Saudis and Israelis have aligned for years – particularly when it comes to Iran, Hamas and Hezbollah. Saudi and Israeli leaders are equally concerned about Iran—both are pressing the U.S. administration to take a harder line against Iran’s suspected nuclear weapons program. With Iran’s Shiite leaders the natural rivals of Saudi’s Sunni rulers, the kingdom is concerned that the growing power of Iran threatens Saudi Arabia’s political, economic and religious clout in the region. Saudi antipathy toward Iran and Shiite hegemony accounts for the kingdom’s hostility toward Hezbollah, the Shiite terrorist group that serves as Iran’s proxy in Lebanon. After Hezbollah launched a cross-border attack that sparked a war with Israel in 2006, Saudi Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal blamed Hezbollah for the conflict. Hezbollah’s actions are “unexpected, inappropriate and irresponsible,” Saud said at the time. “These acts will pull the whole region back to years ago, and we simply cannot accept them.” More surprising, perhaps, was Saudi criticism this summer of Hamas, a fellow Sunni group. While former Saudi intelligence chief Turki al Faisal condemned Israel’s “barbaric assault on innocent civilians,” he also blamed Hamas for the conflict overall. “Hamas is responsible for the slaughter in the Gaza Strip following its bad decisions in the past, and the haughtiness it shows by firing useless rockets at Israel, which contribute nothing to the Palestinian interest,” Saud told the London-based pan-Arab newspaper A-Sharq Al-Awsat. Saudi rulers oppose Hamas because they view it as an affiliate of the Muslim Brotherhood, which they believe wants to topple Arab governments. Likewise, when ISIS declared this summer that it had established an Islamic caliphate, al-Faisal called ISIS “a danger to the whole area and, I think, to the rest of the world.” The Wahabbis who rule Saudi Arabia may be religiously conservative, but they’re not so extreme as to promote overtly
HOME COMFORT MEANS
Israel the violent export of their fundamentalist brand of Islam through war, jihad and terrorism. Of course, just because their interests are aligned doesn’t mean the Saudis love Israel. The Saudi ambassador to Britain, Prince Nawaf Al-Saud, wrote during the Gaza war that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “will answer for his crimes before a higher authority than here on earth.” But common foes increasingly are bringing Saudi and Israeli interests together. Qatar At first glance, Qatar may seem like a benign, oil-rich emirate of 2 million people living in relative peace, spending heavily on its media network, Al Jazeera, and planning to wow the world with construction for the 2022 World Cup. But Qatar is also a major sponsor of Islamic extremism and terrorism. The country funnels money and weapons to Hamas, to Islamic militants in Libya and, according to Ron Prosor, Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations, to groups in Syria affiliated with al-Qaida. In an Op-Ed column in the New York Times, Prosor disparaged Qatar, which is home to Hamas leader Khaled Mashal and serves as a base for Taliban leaders, as a “Club Med for Terrorists.” “Qatar has spared no cost to dress up its country as a liberal, progressive society, yet at its core, the micro monarchy is aggressively financing radical Islamist movements,” Prosor wrote. “Qatar is not a part of the solution but a significant part of the problem.” Syria When the uprising against Syrian dictator Bashar Assad began, champions of democracy cheered the revolution as yet another positive sign of the Arab Spring. It took a while, but the Obama administration eventually joined the chorus calling for the end of the Assad regime. In Israel, officials were more circumspect, fretting about what might come next in a country that despite its hostility had kept its border with Israel quiet for nearly four decades. Three years on, the conflict in Syria is
no longer seen as one of freedom fighters vs. a ruthless tyrant. Assad’s opponents include an array of groups, the most powerful among them Islamic militants who have carved out pieces of Syrian territory to create their Islamic State. Now the Obama administration is considering airstrikes to limit the Islamists’ gains—and trying to figure out if there’s a way to do so without strengthening Assad’s hand. For Israel, which has stayed on the sidelines of the Syrian conflict, the prospect of a weakened, but still breathing Assad regime seems a better alternative than a failed state with ISIS on the march. Iran Where is the Islamic Republic in all this? Compared to the newest bad boy on the block, this one-time member of the “axis of evil” looks downright moderate. Iran is negotiating with the U.S. over its nuclear program, and both view ISIS as a foe and threat to the Iraqi government (which Iran backs as a Shiite ally). State Department deputy spokeswoman Marie Harf recently indicated that the United States may be open to cooperation with Iran in the fight against ISIS, which is also known by the acronym ISIL. “If they are interested in playing a constructive role in helping to degrade ISIL’s capabilities, then I’m sure we can have that conversation then,” Harf said. Whether working with Iran is good or bad for Israel depends on one’s view of the Iranian nuclear negotiations. If one thinks the talks have a realistic chance of resolving the nuclear standoff with Iran diplomatically, the convergence of U.S.-Iran interests may ultimately serve the goal of addressing this existential threat to Israel. If one thinks Iran is merely using the negotiations as a stalling tactic to exploit eased sanctions while it continues to build its nuclear project, then Iran-U.S. detente may distract from the larger issue. Where all this turmoil will leave the region is anyone’s guess. One thing is certain, as made clear by the U.S. decision to intervene against ISIS: Ignoring what’s happening in the Middle East is not an option.
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jewishnewsva.org | September 8, 2014 | Jewish News | 11 CHESAPEAKE
Israel First Person
Optimism and uncertainty made July visit to Israel: Sunny, with a Chance of Rockets
T
he Holocaust Commission of the United Jewish Federation of Tidewater accepted an invitation to present its innovative original program, What We Carry, at the 9th International Conference on Holocaust Education at Yad Vashem in Jerusalem, July 7–10, 2014. The start of the conference coincided with the start of Operation Protective Edge, Israel’s defensive military action against terrorist attacks from Gaza. Despite the uncertainty of their safety, evacuations to bomb shelters, and the very-real threat of terrorist attacks, the four-woman team representing the Commission—Mickey Held, Deb Segaloff, Janice Engel, and Elena Barr Baum—remained in Israel for the duration of the conference. In the weeks following their return, the
women shared their experiences and observations with the community. Segaloff spoke at the Tidewater Stand Strong for Israel gathering on July 24, an email from Engel was reprinted as a UJFT blog post, Held contributed a blog and an article in the August 11 Jewish News, and Baum wrote a six part blog for JewishVA.org. The following article includes excerpts from Baum’s series, Sunny with a Chance of Rockets.
W
by Elena Barr Baum
e were a team of four: Mickey Held, What We Carry chair, Deb Segaloff, past Holocaust Commission chair, Janice Engel, one of the co-creators of the What We Carry films and program, and me, Elena Baum, Holocaust Commission director. The Holocaust Commission was chosen to present What We Carry (WWC) as
Opening Night Sponsor
one of 38 workshops at this international conference, with more than 450 attendees from 50 countries. Just two days after online registration opened, the WWC session was FULL! This was quite a boost… the Tidewater delegation had worked for months fine-tuning their presentation, which would take place on Thursday afternoon of the conference, the day devoted to the third and fourth generations. The Conference opened with a networking dinner and addresses from conference director, Ephraim Kaye, and Yad Vashem chairman and Tel Aviv Chief Rabbi, Israel Meir Lau, himself a Polish survivor of Buchenwald. We were gathered, packed in really, in the Valley of the Communities, an area dug into the mountain with sheer walls over 40 feet high inscribed with the
names of communities who lost Jews in the Holocaust. Day One was devoted to First and Second Generation, Telling the Story. The day was a blockbuster, every speaker a powerful one. Among others, we heard from Serge Klarsfeld, the French survivor and “Nazi Hunter” who was behind the capture and trial of “the Butcher of Lyon,” Klaus Barbie; and Historian Yehuda Bauer, a Czech survivor and renowned scholar who has authored literally dozens of books about the Holocaust and anti-Semitism. Klarsfeld had all 400+ people in the lecture hall enthralled with his discussion of the nuances between stories, testimonies, and documents, and how they each play a role in recording history. He is known for his story telling and has long professed that
Sweeney Todd is a masterpiece of drama and dark comedy – winning 8 Tony Awards including Best Musical – and is often considered Stephen Sondheim’s most operatic work – perfect to open this landmark season!
For tickets and more info visit us online at www.vaopera.org For tickets to Norfolk performances call 866.673.7282 12 | Jewish News | September 8, 2014 | jewishnewsva.org
Israel it is not enough to know the dates and facts of an event: “We must know the stories of individuals. We must study their moral dilemmas.” Day Two focused on The Second and Third Generation: Finding Meaning in the Story. After an interesting panel discussion about the seminal film Shoah by Claude Lanzman, we heard from Dr. Daniel Goldhagen, author of Hitler’s Willing Executioners. Goldhagen brought to light many previously unexplained thoughts on common theories that average Germans and German soldiers were “just following orders” or “unable to make different choices.” He cited that while it was common knowledge that the Germans reintroduced slavery to the European continent, too often the testimony of survivors and victims about how they were treated by “ordinary Germans” was neglected or even ridiculed, because it flew in the face of what the scholars were saying about the Nazi culture. While I was told later by a staff member of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum that some historians are skeptical of his research, I must say that it was one of the most thought-provoking lectures I have heard on the Holocaust. That’s the thing about this subject—there is always more to learn, more angles to investigate. Thursday brought The Third and Fourth Generation: The Relevance of the Story. This is where the rubber meets the road. How do you make the Holocaust important to the “digital natives” growing up today, who see the 20th century as ancient history? Kids who will never meet a survivor, or hear an eyewitness account of the Holocaust? All four of us had spent the previous two days talking up our program with colleagues and people we were meeting throughout the conference. Even though our session was “sold out,” we told lots of new contacts we’d met to come anyway! Among the 40+ people in our workshop, 13 countries were represented. Everyone truly appreciated that we had brought two of our suitcases the thousands of miles, and displayed them as we do in schools and other venues. In addition to showing the trailer of the What We Carry films we talked about the importance of preserving
individual stories in this dynamic way, in order for them to resonate with people who will not have an opportunity to meet survivors in person. We shared our successes with the program, which has been presented to more than 14,000 people in its first two and a half years, with many repeat presentations. We gave a “mini-presentation” of one of our survivors’ story, so those assembled could understand how a docent connected the films to the suitcases seamlessly. The response was wonderful, from professionals associated with Yad Vashem, who spoke with Janice about possibly creating some sort of partnership, to those from around the U.S. and other countries. We were invited, SERIOUSLY, to come present in Salonika, Greece, and are working on the possibility of bringing What We Carry to a variety of locations from New Jersey to Namibia. It seemed as soon as we began our presentation, it was time to pack up, as the conference only had two more sessions. The one that followed ours brought the entire cohort back together again for “the voices of the fourth generation.” What a powerful way to wrap up the week! Six young people from different countries shared with the delegates why Holocaust education was important to them, and what motivates them to promote it in their countries. I looked at these young adults with pride in their purpose. Even conference director Ephraim Kaye got a little emotional when thanking them for sharing their experiences and aspirations. But before the emotions had a chance to die down, we were treated to another profoundly emotive experience, as 11 high school students from Ashdod, which had been under heavy rocket fire the previous few days, shared their program called Mu-Zika. For about 20 minutes we watched as these young musicians performed their own compositions based on the poetry of several Holocaust survivors. They interpreted the voice of the first generation through the fourth generation’s lens. Their statements and performances validated that the work we do DOES have an effect. The memories of the Holocaust do not have to fade as the generation who lived through it leaves us. These young people
are capable of inspiring work based on the lives and experiences of their forbears, whether they are Israeli or Chinese. With the right education and understanding, they can promote attitudes and actions that bring us together in our common humanity, rather than separate us by any differences we may see, or simply perceive. The conference was less than an hour from ending, and the sirens went off! As we calmly filed out of our rows and headed down the stairs, a loud “BOOM” could be heard over the sirens. When someone asked what it was, an Israeli in the crowd responded, “That was the Iron Dome.” “You mean it just took out a rocket, and we could HEAR it?” “Yes,” came the almost nonchalant reply. Not having a true common language among the 50 nations represented, the most obvious celebratory song emerged from the group. The center of the throng joined hands and “Hava Nagila,” began to pulse up through the crowd. Tense faces turned to smiles as instead of wondering if they should call their loved ones from these moments in limbo, people reached for their phones instead to record this moment. The Israeli people showed me a lot on this trip. While we foreigners were out of our element and in a stressful situation, imagine what our conference organizers and local hosts were going through. Their
Elena Baum, Janice Engel, Mickey Held and Deb Segaloff in Israel.
homes were in harm’s way; their loved ones were being called up into their reserve units daily; and yet they went out of their way to make sure we, the conference participants, had a wonderful experience. They did not let the potential chaos in their own personal lives alter their commitment to the mission of Yad Vashem, and the cause of Holocaust education. I cannot commend them highly enough. Visit JewishVA.org and click on the Blog heading to read Sunny with a Chance of Rockets in its entirety, as well as Mickey Held and Janice Engel’s blogs. For more information about What We Carry, and the mission of the Holocaust Commission, visit JewishVA.org/ Holocaust-Commission.
jewishnewsva.org | September 8, 2014 | Jewish News | 13
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—Rabbi Mitchel Malkus 14 | Jewish News | September 8, 2014 | jewishnewsva.org
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$100–$499 Dr. and Mrs. Marc Abrams Mr. and Mrs. David Adut Mr. and Mrs. Warren L. Aleck Dr. and Mrs. Bernard Alper Anonymous Anonymous Anonymous Anonymous Mr. and Mrs. Michel Ashe Mr. and Mrs. Andrew S. Auerbach Mr. Jody Balaban Ms. Joan London-Baer Mrs. Clay Barr Mr. Matthew Barr Mr. Noah Barr
Ms. Rachel Malka Barr Ms. Terri Colby Barr Dr. and Mrs. Alan Bartel Mr. and Mrs. Gary Baum Beach Eye Care Dr. and Mrs. Steven Becker Mr. and Mrs. Bruce Berezovsky Mrs. Frances S. Berger Ms. Beth Hirsch Berman Dr. Robert Bernstein and Ms. Lisa Ehrich Mr. and Mrs. William Bernstein Mr. and Mrs. Robert Bloch B’Nai Israel Congregation Mr. and Mrs. David Brand Dr. and Mrs. Herbert Brewer Mr. and Mrs. Leonard H. Brooke Mr. and Mrs. Stuart Buxbaum Calvary Assembly of God Mr. and Mrs. Jimmy Caplan Mr. and Mrs. Lawrence Cardon Ms. Rebecca Cardon CB Richard Ellis Mr. and Mrs. Charles Cooper Mr. and Mrs. Jeff Cooper Mr. and Mrs. John M. Cooper Ms. Rebecca Danker Ms. Shelby Davis Mr. Pat Dillon and Ms. Kim Dillon Mrs. Roz Drucker Mr. Frankie Edmondson/ Portsmouth Commissioner of the Revenue Mr. Samuel Epstein and Dr. Christine Epstein Eric Joffe Construction Corp. Fannie and Milton Friedman Family Foundation Dr. and Mrs. Andrew Fekete Cantor Elihu Flax Mr. and Mrs. Joel Flax Mr. and Mrs. Lawrence Fleder Mr. and Mrs. Seth Fleishman Mr. and Mrs. Rick Foleck Ms. Vivian Forman Mr. and Mrs. Jack Frieden
Mr. and Mrs. Frank Friedman Mr. Leslie H. Friedman Capt. and Mrs. Marcus Friedman Mr. and Mrs. Neil Friedman Mr. and Mrs. Steve Funk Mr. and Mrs. Yossi Gatlin Mr. Brent Gerald/Spring Valley Realty Mr. John Gibson Mr. and Mrs. Seth Gilbert Dr. Nathan Goldin and Dr. Beth Leibowitz Dr. and Mrs. Charles Goldman Mr. and Mrs. Joseph Goldman Mr. and Mrs. Morton Goldmeier Mr. and Mrs. Abe Goldstein Mrs. Hilde D. Gonsenhauser Goodman-Gable-Gould Company Mr. and Mrs. Erik Gordon Mr. and Mrs. Harry Graber Ms. Malka Granados Dr. and Mrs. Guerry Grune H. D. Oliver Funeral Apartments Ms. Jackie Haywood Mr. and Mrs. Stuart Held Ms. Zena Herod Mr. and Mrs. Alan Hirsch Mr. and Mrs. Glenn Hoffman Ms. Marcia Hofheimer Dr. Daniel Isaacman and Ms. Francine Kohen Dr. and Mrs. Jonathan Jacobs Dr. and Mrs. Alan Jaffe Mr. and Mrs. Gerald Jaffe Mr. and Mrs. Carl Janow Mr. and Mrs. Joel Jason Dr. Denny Jenkins and Dr. Leanelle Goldstein Mr. David Kamer and Dr. Marcia B. Samuels Mrs. Nancy Kanter Mrs. Juliet Katz Mr. and Mrs. Ronald A. Kaufman Mr. Gary S. Kell and Dr. Jessica J. Kell Mr. and Mrs. Irv Kempner
Mr. and Mrs. Andrew Kline Mr. and Mrs. Norman Kozak Mr. and Mrs. John Kreimer Mr. and Mrs. Leonard Laibstain Mr. and Mrs. Laurence Land Mr. and Mrs. Richard Landis Larrymore Foundation Mr. and Mrs. Jay Legum Mr. and Mrs. Shawn Lemke Mr. and Mrs. Stephen Leon Ms. Nancy Levin Dr. Mark Lipton Rabbi and Mrs. Gershon Litt Dr. and Mrs. Bruce Longman Lynnhaven Fish House Mr. and Mrs. Julius Marcus Mr. and Mrs. Michael Matilsky Mrs. Tanya Miller Mr. and Mrs. Douglas Moore Mr. and Mrs. Jonathan S. Muhlendorf Mr. and Mrs. Robert Nied No Frill Bar and Grill (Spotswoods Food) Ms. Rhona E. Peck Mr. and Mrs. Stanley Peck Mr. and Mrs. John Peterson Dr. and Mrs. Earl Pollock Mr. Steve Poorman and Ms. Cara Scheffres Mr. and Mrs. Steve Poorman, Sr. Property Management Group Rashkind Family Foundation Roger Brown’s Restaurant and Bar Mr. and Mrs. J. Rose Mr. Richard Rose Mr. Robert S. Rosen Mr. Kurt Rosenbach Mr. and Mrs. Jordan Rosenblum Mr. Philip Rovner and Ms. Joanne Batson Mr. and Mrs. Joel Rubin Ruth’s Chris Steak House S. L. Nusbaum Insurance Agency, Inc. Mrs. Florence Samuels Mr. and Mrs. Marc Samuels Mr. and Mrs. Stanley Samuels Mr. and Mrs. Arthur Sandler Mr. and Mrs. Michael Scheffres Dr. Alfred M. Schulwolf Dr. and Mrs. Robert Seeherman Cmdr. and Mrs. Paul Seeman Shivar, Peluso, and Andersen PC Mr. and Mrs. Lawrence R. Siegel Mr. and Mrs. Michael P. Simon
Mr. and Mrs. Sanford M. Simon Mr. and Mrs. Richard Sisisky Siska/Aurand Landscape Architects, Inc. Ms. Arleen Sobel Dr. and Mrs. Adam W. Specht Mr. Billy Terry Stein Investment Company, LLC Mr. and Mrs. Gary Tabakin The Spindel Agency Thirty-First Street LC/ Hilton Va. Beach Mr. and Mrs. Brian Wainger Dr. and Mrs. Jules Wainger Rabbi and Mrs. Paul Walker Mr. Kenneth J. Weinstein Wells Fargo Foundation Educational Matching Gift Program Mr. and Mrs. Robert Werby Wolcott, Rivers, Gates Mr. and Mrs. Frank Zelenka Mr. and Mrs. Steven Zuckerman
Up to $99 Mr. and Mrs. Laurent Abitbol Mr. and Mrs. Beril Abraham Dr. and Mrs. Arnold Abrams Mr. and Mrs. S. Beryl Adler Ms. Sandi Advocat Mr. and Mrs. Alan Arnowitz Mr. and Mrs. Michael I. Ashe Mr. and Mrs. Greg Avant Mrs. Marlene Bass Dr. William Becker and Dr. Sherri Becker Mr. and Mrs. Alfred Benas Ms. Linda Bridges Mr. Robbie Carpenter and Ms. Nicole Sherrod Mr. and Mrs. Stephen E. Chapel Mr. and Mrs. Ryan Clapper Mr. Hyman Cohen Mr. Jeff Cohen Mr. and Mrs. Rad Davenport Mr. and Mrs. Barry Dorsk Mr. and Mrs. Igor Drohobyczer Mr. and Mrs. Joseph Drory Ms. Andrea Duval Mrs. Judy Eichelbaum Mr. James Eilberg and Dr. Susan Eilberg Mr. and Mrs. Craig Einhorn Mr. and Mrs. Bill Elings Mr. and Mrs. James Ellenson Mr. Barry Friedman and Ms. Linda Peck Mrs. Trudy Friedman Ms. Dana Gauthier Mr. and Mrs. Jack Georges Mr. Ross Glasser Mr. and Mrs. Ray Goldman
Mrs. Sura Goldner Mr. and Mrs. Norman Goldwasser Mr. Mark Gonsenhauser Dr. Anita Gottlieb Mr. and Mrs. Richard Gross Mrs. Shirley Schulwolf Hainer Mr. Maury Handel Mr. and Mrs. Bob Hoffman Ms. Dottie Holtz Mr. and Mrs. Howard Horwitz Mr. and Mrs. Lester Horwitz The Honorable and Mrs. Marc Jacobson Mr. and Mrs. James Jenkins Mr. and Mrs. David Jorgenson Ms. Jeanette Juren M. R. and J. J. Kahn Mrs. Sylvia Kaplan Mr. and Mrs. William Kass Mr. and Mrs. Herbert Katz Mr. and Mrs. Larry Katz Mr. and Mrs. Alan Kaufman Dr. and Mrs. Benjay Kempner Mrs. Sonia Kline Mrs. Clare Krell Mr. and Mrs. William Krell Dr. and Mrs. David Kruger Mr. and Mrs. David B. Laibstain Mr. Tom Lee Mrs. Shirley Legum Mr. and Mrs. Steven Legum Mr. and Mrs. Martin Leiderman Dr. and Mrs. Marty Levin Mr. and Mrs. Miles Levine Mr. and Mrs. Melvin Losic Mr. and Mrs. Sheal Lisner Mr. and Mrs. Burke W. Margulies Mr. Richard Marten and Ms. Nancy Loewenberg Ms. Elsie Martin Mr. and Mrs. Noah Matilsky Mr. and Mrs. Bernard Mayer Mr. Paco Mazo Mrs. Cilda Meltzer Mr. and Mrs. Bryan R. Mesh Mr. and Mrs. Richard Miles Mr. and Mrs. Claude Miller Mr. Shawn Mollen and Ms. Alexandria Drohobyczer Mrs. Bernice Moses Mr. Matthew Myers and Ms. Merrin Cenicola Mr. Eli Nidam and Ms. Mazal Sibony Mr. and Mrs. Charles Nusbaum Mr. and Mrs. Lorence Osmunson III Rabbi and Mrs. Michael Panitz
Mr. and Mrs. Alan Peltz Mr. and Mrs. John Peterson Mr. Victor Pickett Mr. and Mrs. M. David Proser Mr. and Mrs. Shahab Rahimzadeh Dr. and Mrs. Reuben D. Rohn Mr. and Mrs. Neal Rosenbaum Dr. and Mrs. John Rosenman Rabbi Arthur M. Ruberg and Mrs. Miriam Brunn Ruberg Mr. Jeremy Ruberg Dr. and Mrs. Leonard Ruchelman Mr. and Mrs. Jim Rush Mr. and Mrs. Gerald Sandler Cantor and Mrs. Wally Schachet-Briskin Dr. and Mrs. Stephen A. Schechner Mr. Jay Serrao Dr. Roberta Shames Mr. and Mrs. Norman Sher Mr. and Mrs. Harlan Sherwat Dr. and Mrs. Gary Siegel Mrs. Dorothy Slone Mrs. Carol Smith Mr. and Mrs. Kingsley Smith II Mr. Mark Solberg Dr. Patricia Speer Mr. and Mrs. Bob Steinberg Mr. and Mrs. Paul Terkeltaub Mr. and Mrs. Stan Tickton Mr. and Mrs. Paul L. Turok Mr. and Mrs. Joseph Watts Dr. and Mrs. Michael Weissman Mr. and Mrs. Samuel Werbel Mr. and Mrs. Jeffrey Werby Mr. and Mrs. Gregory Zittrain Mr. and Mrs. Lawrence Zittrain
ENDOWMENTS Harry & Sylvia Belkov* Memorial Scholarship Fund Leon & Florence Berlin* Memorial Fund William and Carole Bernstein Ezra Annuity Abraham and Malka Bornstein* Memorial Fund Julian Colby* Memorial Unrestricted Fund Bessie Dozoretz* Scholarship Fund Ronald Dozoretz Scholarship Fund Rosa K. Frieden* Memorial Unrestricted Fund Tavia and Freda* Gordon Scholarship Fund HAT Supporting Unrestricted Fund
Hebrew Academy Scholarship Fund The Lester & Barbara Horwitz Restricted Fund Leola Banks Jaffe* Unrestricted Fund of HAT Carl J* & Juliet A. Katz Unrestricted Fund Barry and Reatha Kantor Scholarship Fund of HAT Alene Jo Kaufman Endowment Fund Klebanoff Family Philanthropic Fund Kramer Family FN/PEJE Fund Celia Krichman* Unrestricted Fund Leon Leach Ezra Annuity Selma and Leon Leach Restricted Scholarship Fund Jeff & Elayne Littman Philanthropic Fund James London* Athletic and Outdoor Program Marguerite Marx Jewish History Collection Ada R. Michaels* Faculty Development Restricted Fund Joseph* and Barbara Patish Ezra Annuity Reba and Samuel Sandler* Memorial Fund of HAT Lonny & Terri Sarfan Philanthropic Fund Segaloff Family JFN/PEJE Fund Sarah and Samuel Sonnenberg* Memorial Fund Harold and Reva* Sprung Technology Endowment Celia Stern* Fund of HAT Solomon and Sylvia Yavner* Fund The Mel Bass* & Debbie Bass Sadoff* Memorial The Teachers’ Endowment Fund The Zena Herod Endowment Fund
GIFTS IN KIND 17th Street Surf Shop 19th Street & Atlantic Hotel Aldo’s Ristorante Anonymous Baker’s Crust Donna Bloom at JCC Cardo Café Closet Envy Color Me Mine CopyFax Cullipher’s Farm Market Fellini’s Fleet Feet Sports Freemason Abbey Restaurant Garden Gazebo Gary Allen Hair and Skin Care
Hampton Inn Harris Teeter Hebrew Academy Gift Shop Hi-Ho Silver Il Giardino Isabelle K. Jewelry Island Breeze Jody G Lemon Cabana Long Jewelers Lynnhaven Fish House Mary Kay Massage Lux Mizuno Janet Molofsky Nauticus Norfolk Tides PF Changs Quality Shop Ragged Robin Gift Shop Rowena’s Running Etc. Ruth’s Chris Steak House Sandler Center for Performing Arts Simply Selmas Skin-It Spa and Laser Center Sterling Meadows Kennel Sunsations The Fresh Market The Gourmet Gan The Globe The New Leaf The Royal Chocolate The Skinny Dip Todd Rosenlieb Dance Toshiba Trader Joe’s Virginia Aquarium Virginia Stage Company Virginia Zoo Jim White Personal Training Windsor Antiques YNOT Pizza Your Personal Trainer Yorgo’s
Education Improvements Scholarship Tax Credit Donors $10,000 Mr. Daniel Gordon Mr. and Mrs. Steven Gordon Mr. Tavia Gordon
$5000 and below Kramer Management Enterprises, Inc. Mr. and Mrs. Jerrold Miller Mr. and Mrs. Edward Reed Mr. and Mrs. Harold Sacks *of blessed memory
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Monday, September 15th 2015 Annual Campaign Kick Off Cocktail Reception • 6:30pm Performance • 7:00pm Please join us for an innovative performance, Will It. Create It. Achieve It., featuring Michael Lifshitz in the role of Theodor Herzl—the father of modern Zionism, and Gail Byer as Golda Meir—a heroine of the state of Israel. Extraordinarily motivating. RSVP by September 11th
Daily, Monday - Sunday Do Extraordinary Deeds! “Like” the UJFT Facebook page: FB.com/UJFTidewater and connect with the community via social media & through personal interactions to do extraordinary deeds. Each day, we will post a new good deed that you can easily do. Share your photos & stories on our page, and build connections—both virtual and very real.
Sunday, September 21st 1st Annual Mitzvah Day VA 1:30 - 3:30pm, Mitzvah Projects (various locations) 4:30 - 3:30pm, Pool Party & Cookout Choose one project designed to build community and help others: the military, our seniors, area homeless, the environment, kids with Diabetes. Following the Miztvah Day projects, participants are invited to enjoy music, food, and games with new and old friends at the Simon Family JCC. Register by September 17th
All events are FREE & open to the community For more info or to register for Mitzvah Day, visit JewishVA.org/Be-Extraordinary. To RSVP for Kick Off, email extraordinary@ujft.org or call 757-965-6115.
TOGETHER, WE DO EXTRAORDINARY THINGS. 16 | Jewish News | September 8, 2014 | jewishnewsva.org
L’ Shana Tova
5775
Supplement to Jewish News,| September September 8, 2014 jewishnewsva.org 8, 2014 | Jewish News | 17
Dear Readers, In this, the first of our two special High Holiday sections, we devote lots of pages to recapping the events of the worldwide Jewish community of 5774. What a year
Published 22 times a year by United Jewish Federation of Tidewater. Reba and Sam Sandler Family Campus of the Tidewater Jewish Community 5000 Corporate Woods Drive, Suite 200 Virginia Beach, Virginia 23462-4370 voice 757.965.6100 • fax 757.965.6102 email news@ujft.org www.jewishVA.org
it was…from the death of Ariel Sharon to the discovery of art confiscated from Jews in Germany to Operation Protective Edge. Don’t worry, we’re not forgetting about all that has happened this year in the
Terri Denison, Editor Germaine Clair, Art Director Hal Sacks, Book Review Editor Sandy Goldberg, Account Executive Mark Hecht, Account Executive Marilyn Cerase, Subscription Manager Reba Karp, Editor Emeritus
Tidewater Jewish community. Our final edition for 2014 will review those notable events.
Miles Leon, President Stephanie Calliott, Secretary Harry Graber, Executive Vice-President
On a lighter, tastier note, we’ve got some great, simple recipes for Rosh Hashanah on page 30. And, Hal Sacks’ book review in the main section of the paper on page 39, also offers a recipe that can be used during this season…perhaps best for Sukkot. Speaking of notes, there’s an interesting piece from Los Angeles about the daily blowing of the Shofar in the month
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of Elul, prior to Rosh Hashanah. In still another twist for the holidays, for those who tend to communicate digitally, we feature an article about reflecting online. With the holidays arriving late this
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year (Remember how early they came last year? Will they ever be on time?), our second High Holiday section on Monday, Oct. 6 will provide still more great dishes, locals’ favorite parts of the holidays and additional ways to observe and celebrate. L’ Shana Tova,
Terri Denison Editor
18 | Jewish News | September 8, 2014 | jewishnewsva.org
Upcoming Special Features Issue High Holidays
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Oct 20
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5774
Year in Review
NEW YORK (JTA)—Read about the global highs and lows of 5774—and everything in between.
Meanwhile, in a meeting with U.S. Jewish leaders, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas says he is more hopeful now for peace than he was in the mid2000s.
children as Jews. The survey also estimates the U.S. Jewish population at 6.8 million, roughly the same estimate arrived at by Brandeis University researchers analyzing 350 separate population studies.
September 2013
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by JTA Staff
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The United States and Russia reach a deal to rid Syria of its arsenal of chemical weapons, promoting Jewish groups to suspend their efforts lobbying for U.S. strikes against Damascus.
•
Rabbi Philip Berg, founder of the Kabbalah Centre in Los Angeles and teacher of Jewish mysticism for A-list celebrities, dies at age 86.
•
William Rapfogel, the ousted leader of the Metropolitan Council on Jewish Poverty in New York, is arrested on charges of grand larceny and money laundering. Investigators later say the scheme involving Rapfogel netted $9 million in illicit funds, including $3 million for Rapfogel himself. Rapfogel pleads guilty the following April and is sent to prison in July for three-anda-half to 10 years.
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In his address to the U.N. General Assembly, President Obama says the U.S. focus in the Middle East will be keeping Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon and advancing Israeli-Palestinian peace.
The Foundation for Jewish Culture, a 53-year-old organization dedicated to promoting Jewish culture and the arts, announces it is closing.
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Larry Ellison, CEO of the technology company Oracle, is ranked as the richest Jew in the United States, according to the Forbes 400 list of the wealthiest Americans, which puts Ellison at No. 3. Other Jews making the top 20 are Michael Bloomberg (10, $31 billion); Sheldon Adelson (11, $28.5 billion); Sergey Brin (14, $24.4 billion); George Soros (19, $20 billion); and Marc Zuckerberg (20, $19 billion).
• Ruth Bader Ginsburg becomes the first
U.S. Supreme Court justice to preside over a same-sex marriage, the wedding ceremony of Michael Kaiser and John Roberts.
October 2013
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A landmark study of U.S. Jews by the Pew Research Center finds the Jewish intermarriage rate has risen to 58 percent and that among the 22 percent of American Jews who describe themselves as having no religion, two-thirds are not raising their
The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, a pan-European intergovernmental organization, overwhelmingly passes a resolution calling male ritual circumcision a “violation of the physical integrity of children” and putting it in the same class as female genital mutilation. Israeli President Shimon Peres joins the chorus of voices protesting the decision. In November, the group’s leader assures Jews that the council does not seek to ban Jewish ritual circumcision.
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A day after meeting with President Obama, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu tells the U.N. General Assembly that Israel is ready to go it alone against Iran should it come close to obtaining a nuclear weapon.
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Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, the Israeli sage who founded the Sephardic Orthodox Shas political party and exercised major influence on Jewish law, dies at age 93.
• New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg
is named the first recipient of the Genesis Prize, a $1 million award for a renowned
professional capable of inspiring young Jews. The prize is funded by a consortium of Jewish philanthropists from the former Soviet Union.
•
Arieh Warshel, a U.S. professor born and educated in Israel, and ex-Weizmann Institute professor Michael Levitt are among the winners of the 2013 Nobel Prize for chemistry.
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Two Orthodox rabbis from the New York area and two accomplices are arrested for allegedly kidnapping and beating men to force them to grant their wives religious Jewish divorces, or gets.
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Israeli forces discover a “terror tunnel” running from Gaza to an Israeli kibbutz. The tunnel is full of explosives and ends near an Israeli kindergarten.
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Janet Yellen is named head of the U.S. Federal Reserve, becoming the third American Jewish central banker in a row and the first woman to hold the post.
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Movement leaders at the centennial conference of the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism in Baltimore agree that significant rejuvenation is needed if Conservative Judaism is to reverse its negative trajectory.
jewishnewsva.org | September 8, 2014 | Jewish News | 19
L’Shana Tova Best wishes for a happy and healthy year with shalom. BRESS PAWN & JEWELRY 721 Granby Street Downtown Norfolk Free Parking 757 625 4228 www.bresspawnshop.com
5774 November 2013
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Semen Domnitser, the former Claims Conference employee who was found guilty of leading a $57 million fraud scheme at the Holocaust restitution organization, is sentenced to eight years in prison. The scheme entails falsifying applications to two funds established by the German government to make restitution payments to Holocaust survivors.
The Union for Reform Judaism announces at its biennial conference in San Diego that it has sold off half its headquarters in New York and is investing $1 million from the proceeds to overhaul the movement’s youth programming.
•
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In a survey of 5,847 European Jews, nearly one-third of respondents say they “seriously considered emigrating” from Europe because of anti-Semitism.
• German authorities begin taking steps to
identify the provenance of more than 1,400 works of Holocaust-era art found in the Munich home of Cornelius Gurlitt.
•
Joseph Paul Franklin is executed for killing a man at a St. Louis-area synagogue in 1977. Franklin, 63, shot Gerald Gordon outside the Brith Sholom Kneseth Israel synagogue as Gordon left a bar mitzvah. Franklin also is convicted of seven other murders throughout the United States and claims credit for 20 deaths between 1977 and 1980.
• Forty families belonging to the haredi
Orthodox extremist group Lev Tahor consider fleeing their Quebec homes out of fears that Canadian welfare authorities are poised to seize their children.
Beach & Teach Join us Sept 12 for an evening of inspiration: 6pm Kabbalat Shabbat on the beach 7pm Dinner at Temple Emanuel 8pm Lecture by Dr Joseph Hodes “The Ingathering of the Exiles: Israel 1948-1951.” Register and pay online at www.tevb.org
20 | Jewish News | September 8, 2014 | jewishnewsva.org
International’s guidelines prohibiting partnerships with groups it deems hostile toward Israel. Hillel boards at Vassar and Wesleyan soon follow suit.
•
The United States and a coalition of world powers reach a six-month agreement with Iran to curb the country’s nuclear program in exchange for some sanctions relief while negotiations for a final settlement on Iran’s nuclear program are conducted. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pans the deal as a “historic mistake.” The deal goes into effect on Jan. 20.
December 2013
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The membership of the American Studies Association endorses a boycott of Israeli universities. The controversial decision comes after months of debate and prompts several American schools to withdraw from the association in protest and dozens more to condemn the move.
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Jacob Ostreicher, a New York businessman held in Bolivia since 2011, returns to the United States, in part thanks to efforts by actor Sean Penn. Ostreicher was managing a rice-growing venture in Bolivia when he was arrested on suspicion of money laundering and accused of doing business with drug dealers.
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The Native American and Indigenous Studies Association becomes the third U.S. academic body in less than a year to recommend that its members boycott Israeli universities.
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After being pardoned by Russian President Vladimir Putin, former Russian oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky is released from prison and leaves Russia, where he spent 10 years behind bars.
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Philanthropist Edgar Bronfman dies in New York at 84. An heir to the Seagram’s beverage fortune, Bronfman was a longtime advocate on behalf of Jewish causes, serving as the head of the World Jewish Congress and financing many efforts to strengthen Jewish identity.
• Gal Gadot, an Israeli actress who is a for- •
mer Miss Israel, is cast as Wonder Woman in the film Batman vs. Superman.
•
Swarthmore’s Hillel chapter becomes the first to join the so-called Open Hillel movement, which challenges Hillel
Amid a public debate in France over an allegedly anti-Semitic gesture called the quenelle, the French media publish a photo of a man performing it outside the Toulouse school where four Jews were murdered. Several French cities later announce they have banned performances by the
5774 comedian who popularized the salute, Dieudonne M’bala M’bala.
January 2014
and Oxfam have “a fundamental difference of opinion in regards to the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement.”
• The Israel Air Force is accused of attack• Brooklyn Hasidic real estate developer ing a warehouse of advanced Russian-made
Menachem Stark is kidnapped, his lifeless body later found in a dumpster. The New York Post provokes outrage among many Jews with a cover calling him a slumlord and a headline asking, “Who didn’t want him dead?” Months later, a construction worker is arrested for the killing.
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Ariel Sharon, the controversial warrior-turned-statesman who served as Israel’s prime minister from 2001 until 2006, when he was rendered comatose by a stroke, dies at age 85.
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JTA and MyJewishLearning, which includes the popular parenting website Kveller.com, announce their intention to merge.
• The Israeli government announces that
it plans to invest more than $1 billion over the next 20 years to strengthen the Jewish identity of Diaspora Jews, particularly young Jews, but the details remain fuzzy.
• The Chief Rabbinate of Israel reaches
an agreement with the Rabbinical Council of America to automatically accept letters from RCA members vouching for the Jewish status of Israeli immigrants. The agreement follows a temporary suspension by the Chief Rabbinate in accepting such letters from at least one well-known RCA member, Rabbi Avi Weiss of Riverdale, N.Y.
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Two modern Orthodox high schools in New York stir controversy with decisions to allow girls who wish to lay tefillin.
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UJA-Federation of New York, the largest Jewish federation in North America, names attorney Eric Goldstein as its new CEO and successor to longtime CEO John Ruskay.
• Actress Scarlett Johansson comes under
criticism for serving as a spokeswoman for the Israeli company SodaStream, which has facilities in the West Bank. Johansson, who is Jewish, stands by SodaStream and resigns as a global ambassador for the British-based charity Oxfam, saying she
S-300 missiles in the Syrian port city of Latakia. Israel declines to comment on the attack.
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A federal judge tosses out a $380 million sexual abuse lawsuit filed against Yeshiva University by 34 former students of its high school for boys. The suit alleged that the university ignored warnings of assault by two faculty members between 1969 and 1989. In dismissing the lawsuit, Judge John Koeltl rules that the statute of limitations has expired.
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Longtime California congressman Henry Waxman announces his retirement. Waxman had represented California’s 33rd District since 1975 and was considered the dean of Jewish lawmakers.
• Jewish philanthropist and humanitarian
Anne Heyman, founder of the AgahozoShalomYouthVillage in Rwanda, dies during a horse-riding competition in Palm Beach, Fla.
February 2014
• The government of Spain approves a bill
to facilitate the naturalization of Sephardic Jews of Spanish descent.
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Staff at Hadassah Medical Center in Jerusalem go on strike as the hospital, facing a huge deficit, teeters on the edge of bankruptcy and fails to pay its workers.
• Abraham Foxman announces he is step-
ping down as national director of the Anti-Defamation League after 27 years in the post. Foxman, a child survivor of the Holocaust one of the highest profile American Jewish leaders, says he will step down in July 2015.
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Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan, top the Chronicle of Philanthropy’s list of the top 50 U.S. donors to charitable causes in 2013. In December, the couple gave 18 million shares of Facebook stock, valued at more
than $970 million, to the Silicon Valley Community Foundation.
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Alice Herz-Sommer, the 110-year-old Holocaust survivor and concert pianist whose life is the subject of a documentary that a week later would win an Oscar, dies.
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The Giymat Rosa Synagogue in Zaporizhia, in eastern Ukraine, is firebombed, sustaining minor damage. The attack comes amid growing turmoil in Ukraine following the overthrow of President Viktor Yanukovych.
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5774
L’SHANA TOVA
THE TIME IS RIGHT TO FIND YOUR FLORIDA HOME
March 2014
country’s four major newspapers.
AIPAC leaders emphasize bipartisanship and mutual respect at the group’s annual policy conference in Washington. The conference follows a bruising period in which the pro-Israel lobby had championed a new Iran sanctions bill, only to back down when it becomes clear the bill lacked the necessary support from the White House and congressional Democrats to pass.
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Foreclosures - Short Sales - Estate Sales
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In one of many low-level skirmishes over the course of months, Israeli aircraft strike several targets in the Gaza Strip after Palestinians fire rockets into Israel, sending Israelis into bomb shelters.
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David Hellman, a New York personal trainer, pleads guilty to using violent means to force recalcitrant husbands to give their wives a Jewish writ of divorce, or get. Hellman, who faces up to 20 years in prison and a fine of $250,000, was one of 10 men arrested in October 2013 in an FBI sting operation.
• Yeshiva University is at risk of running
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out of unrestricted cash in the near-term future, warns Moody’s Investors Service, which says deep and growing operating deficits are likely to continue at the university due to “poor financial oversight and high expenses.” In May, Y.U. will announce that the Montefiore Health System is assuming operational control of Y.U.’s Albert Einstein School of Medicine.
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Former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is found guilty of accepting bribes in the corruption case involving the Holyland real estate development in Jerusalem. Olmert, who is convicted of receiving about $150,000 in bribes through his brother, Yossi, becomes the first former Israeli prime minister to be convicted of taking a bribe. The crime carries a possible sentence of 10 years in prison.
April 2014
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Casino magnate and conservative backer Sheldon Adelson buys another Israeli newspaper, Makor Rishon, making him the owner of several of Israel’s major right-wing media outlets and two of the 22 | Jewish News | September 8, 2014 | jewishnewsva.org
Mobilized by the death of Samuel Sommers—the 8-year-old son of Rabbi Phyllis and Michael Sommers whose struggle with leukemia was documented on a popular blog called Superman Sam -- 73 rabbis shave their heads to raise $600,000 for pediatric cancer research.
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American-Jewish contractor Alan Gross goes on a hunger strike to protest his imprisonment in a Cuban jail and the lack of American assistance. Later in the year, in ailing health and with no prospect of release, Gross bids goodbye to his family during a prison visit.
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White supremacist Frazier Glenn Miller, 73, kills a man and his grandson outside the Jewish Community Center of Greater Kansas City and then shoots to death a woman at a Jewish assisted-living facility a few blocks away. None of the victims are Jewish, highlighting the diverse constituency served by America’s Jewish institutions.
•
After weeks of near breakdowns in Israeli-Palestinian peace talks brokered by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, Israel suspends all negotiations after Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah party signs a unity accord with Hamas, a designated terrorist organization. President Obama responds by saying it may be time for a pause in Middle East peacemaking. Kerry later expresses regret for saying that Israel risks becoming an “apartheid” state or a non-Jewish one if the two-state solution is not implemented. U.S. negotiators blame Israel for the talks’ collapse.
•
Gennady Kernes, the Jewish mayor of Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, is shot in a suspected assassination attempt, leaving him in critical condition. The shooting comes amid growing violence between Russian-backed Ukrainian separatists in eastern Ukraine and forces loyal to the new Ukrainian government in Kiev. Kernes is airlifted to Israel for treatment.
• The Conference of Presidents of Major
5774 American Jewish Organizations rejects J Street’s bid for membership. J Street, the liberal Washington group that lobbies for increased American pressure to bring about a Mideast peace deal, lost its bid for membership in the main communal group on foreign policy issues by a vote of 22-17, with three abstentions. J Street needed the support of two-thirds of the conference’s 51 members to gain admission.
•
Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling is banned from the NBA for life and fined $2.5 million after being caught on tape making racist comments to his girlfriend. He is heard saying that his views reflect the way the world works, and as evidence he says that black Jews in Israel “are just treated like dogs.” His girlfriend is heard countering that as a Jew, Sterling should know better than to advocate discrimination, citing the Holocaust as an example of where racism can lead.
•
An arm of the private equity firm Bain Capital purchases the Manischewitz Company, the iconic producer of kosher packaged goods, for an undisclosed sum. According to The New York Times, the new owners are expected to promote kosher as an indication of quality food rather than just a religious designation.
• Genealogical research reveals that the
late archbishop of New York, Cardinal John O’Connor, technically was Jewish. O’Connor’s mother, Dorothy Gumple O’Connor, was born Jewish but converted to Catholicism before she met and married O’Connor’s father.
May 2014
•
New York’s 92nd Street Y, a Jewish center for arts and culture, names its first non-Jewish executive director, Henry Timms. Shortly afterward, Sol Adler, the previous longtime executive director, who was fired after revelations that he had a long-term affair with his assistant, hangs himself in his Brooklyn home.
• An Anti-Defamation League anti-Sem-
itisim survey finds “deeply anti-Semitic views” are held by 26 percent of 53,000
people polled in 102 countries and territories covering approximately 86 percent of the world’s population. Critics say the survey’s 11 questions are not accurate gauges of anti-Semitism.
• Maccabi Tel Aviv wins the Euroleague
basketball championship by beating favored Real Madrid, 98-86, in overtime.
• Novelist Philip Roth receives an honor-
ary doctorate from the Jewish Theological Seminary. Now considered one of the greatest living American writers, Roth had caused outrage early in his career with his sometimes stinging portrayals of Jewish life. In 2012, Roth announced he was retiring.
• The Jewish community of Sharon, Mass.,
is shocked as the rabbi of Temple Israel, Barry Starr, resigns amid allegations that he used synagogue discretionary funds to pay about $480,000 in hush money to an extortionist to hide a sexual relationship with a 16-year-old male. Starr apologizes to the congregation in an email.
• Far right parties make gains in European
Parliament elections, including Greece’s Golden Dawn.
•
The European Union says it has banned the import of poultry and eggs produced in West Bank settlements.
• A gunman kills four people at the Jewish
Museum of Belgium in Brussels. Several days later, Mehdi Nemmouche, a 29-yearold French national of Algerian origin, is arrested in connection with the attack.
• Pope Francis travels to Israel and the
West Bank, visiting the Western Wall, Yad Vashem and the West Bank security fence, among other sites.
June 2014
•
Former Knesset speaker Reuven Rivlin of the Likud party is elected president of Israel, defeating Meir Sheetrit of Hatnua in a 63-53 runoff vote. Rivlin formally succeeds Shimon Peres and becomes Israel’s 10th president in late July.
• Rep. Eric Cantor, the majority leader in
the U.S. House of Representatives and the jewishnewsva.org | September 8, 2014 | Jewish News | 23
Wishing you a happy and healthy New Year Southside Chapel 422-4000 • Maestas Chapel 428-1112 Chesapeake Chapel 482-3311
May we all enjoy a year of health, happiness and peace.
5774 highest-ranking Jewish elected official in American history, is upset in the Republican primary for Virginia’s 7th Congressional District by a Tea Party challenger. Dave Brat, an economics professor, wins handily after attacking Cantor for drifting from conservative principles. Days later, Cantor resigns his post as majority leader.
• Weeks after leading Maccabi Tel Aviv to
the Euroleague title, David Blatt becomes the head coach of the NBA’s Cleveland Cavaliers. Blatt had played for an Israeli kibbutz team in 1979 after his sophomore year at Princeton and then competed for the U.S. team that won the gold medal in the 1981 Maccabiah Games. He returned to play nearly a decade professionally in Israel.
•
Three Israeli teenagers, later identified as Naftali Fraenkel, Gilad Shaar and Eyal Yifrach, are kidnapped in the West Bank from a hitchhiking post. Israel responds with three weeks of intensive searches, including mass arrests in the West Bank of Hamas members and the rearrest of dozens of Palestinians released as part of the Gilad Shalit prisoner-exchange deal. Three weeks on, Israeli authorities find the teens’ bodies and announce that the boys were believed to have been killed the night they were kidnapped. The incident sparks the revenge killing by Jews of an Arab teen, riots and a surge of rocket fire from the Gaza Strip. The Israel Defense Forces responds by launching Operation Protective Edge—Israel’s deadliest foray into Gaza since its 2005 withdrawal—on July 8.
•
Israel announces that the suspect in the April 14 killing of Israeli Police Superintendent Baruch Mizrachi is Ziad Awad, a West Bank Palestinian released as part of the Gilad Shalit prisoner exchange.
Shanah Tovah from our family to yours! 422 Shirley Avenue • Norfolk, VA • 757-625-7821 • www.bethelnorfolk.com Artwork by Congregration Beth El members.
24 | Jewish News | September 8, 2014 | jewishnewsva.org
•
The General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) votes 310-303 to divest from three American companies that do business with Israeli security services in the West Bank. Heath Rada, the moderator of the assembly, says it’s not a “reflection for our lack of love for our Jewish sisters
and brothers,” but Jewish leaders say it will have a “devastating impact” on their relations with the church.
• New York Jewish teenager Josh Orlian’s
raunchy stand-up routine on “America’s Got Talent” cracks up the judges, but his Orthodox day school isn’t tickled.
July 2014
•
Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi, the father of the Jewish Renewal movement, which sought to introduce more music, dance and meditation into prayer and Jewish life, dies in Boulder, Colo., at age 89.
•
Israel launches its third major Gaza operation in six years. Dubbed Operation Defensive Edge, the campaign begins with 10 days of intensive airstrikes in Gaza. After several failed cease-fire attempts, a ground invasion of Gaza follows. Hamas fires thousands of rockets into Israel, striking as far away as Jerusalem, Tel Aviv and a Haifa suburb. In four weeks of fighting before a 72-hour cease-fire in early August, some 1,800 Palestinians are reported killed. Israel comes under heavy criticism for attacks that kill children, strike U.N. facilities and damage civil infrastructure. Israel blames Hamas for using civilians as human shields and schools, hospitals and U.N. facilities as weapons depots. The death toll in Israel includes 64 soldiers and three civilians. Several of Israel’s casualties are due to Palestinian infiltrations of Israel through tunnels burrowed under the Israel-Gaza border. Israel’s prime minister says destroying the tunnels is one of the war’s main objectives.
•
A riot outside a French synagogue is one of several incidents related to the Gaza war that threaten Jews in Europe. The riot by Palestinian sympathizers outside the Synagogue de la Roquette in central Paris traps some 200 people inside the building. A street brawl ensues between the rioters and dozens of Jewish men who arrived to defend the synagogue.
• Most foreign airlines suspend flights to
Israel’s Ben Gurion Airport near Tel Aviv after a Hamas-fired missile strikes nearby. The suspensions, prompted by a flight
5774 ban issued by the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration, last two to three days.
• Iran and the major powers, led by the
United States, agree to extend negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program for another four months, citing progress in a number of areas. But the potential deal breaker remains: Iran does not want to reduce its number of its centrifuges, and the world powers say they won’t accept Iran maintaining its existing capacity for uranium enrichment.
August 2014
•
As the fighting in Gaza wanes and Israeli troops begin to pull back, Israel experiences several terrorist attacks inside the country perpetrated by West Bank Palestinians, including a tractor attack in Jerusalem.
•
The 72-hour cease-fire that brought Operation Protective Edge to a halt expires, and Gazans resume intensive rocket fire against Israel. The Israeli military responds with airstrikes inside Gaza. The sides then agree to another 72-hour cease-fire.
High Holidays in Tidewater The Jewish community offers a multitude of places and events and ways to observe and celebrate the holidays. For details from each synagogue, go to www.jewishnewsva.org, click on the Guide to Jewish Living and go to page 33 to find specific contact information.
L’Shana Tova!
May the sound of the shofar herald health and happiness for your entire family, and the promise of a secure and lasting peace in Israel.
& Mrs. Scott Rigell
Congressman
jewishnewsva.org | September 8, 2014 | Jewish News | 25
Beyond the synagogue, a shofar’s call makes connections by Edmon J. Rodman
LOS ANGELES (JTA)—In preparation for the High Holidays last year, my community sent its shofar blower on the road. During the month of Elul, in the runup to Rosh Hashanah, we are supposed to hear the shofar blown every day except Shabbat. Traditionally this is done in shul. But our small, lay-led congregation does not meet on weekdays. So my wife, Brenda, who blows the shofar for the Movable Minyan, as our congregation is called, offered to visit member’s homes to perform the ritual there. “It will be more personal,” I remember her saying. Wanting to see how personal, I offered to be the chauffeur, scheduler and emcee. Once the show went on the road to our approximately 20 households spread throughout Los Angeles, I called ahead to work out the times. Even though we had announced the shofar calls would be on Sundays, I still received a few incredulous “you’re coming to do what?” kind of
26 | Jewish News | September 8, 2014 | jewishnewsva.org
responses. Undaunted, we hit our first location in the Hollywood hills. We were welcomed in and escorted to a back outdoor deck overlooking an oak and chaparral-filled canyon. In front of the family group that had gathered, I tried out my explanation as Brenda readied the small shofar she had been using for several years. “The shofar is blown to remind us that the High Holy Days are approaching and that we should start thinking about repentance and spiritual repair,” I said, suddenly aware of how personal this all was. “Elul can be seen as an acronym for ‘ani l’dodi v’dodi li’—‘I am for my beloved and my beloved is for me,’ ” I said, cribbing from something I had studied. “During the year God may call to us, but during Elul we must call to him—or her.” Then Brenda, who had learned to blow the shofar as the result of playing trumpet in junior high school, recited the blessing and blew. Hearing the shofar in their homes struck people in different ways. One woman, with her cat following, took us out to her back balcony to make sure her neighbors, some of whom were Orthodox, also would hear the sound. At another home, a seven-year-old proudly brought
open 7 days a week out a full Yemenite shofar and blew it along with Brenda, much to the delight of his father. At several homes, neighbors, as well as their children, extended family and even a boyfriend, had been invited over to hear the call. One woman placed small figurines that she had inherited from her grandparents around the living room in hopes that the sound would reach across the generations. A member in her 90s smiled and showed her appreciation by handing us a donation for the minyan. At the home of a rabbi, it seemed the sound of the shofar was a kind of alarm, alerting her to the time she had remaining to complete writing those services outlines and sermons for the nearing High Holidays. At a condo not far from the ocean, Brenda demonstrated the shofar’s sounds and I explained what they were: Tekiah, “the longest sound, calling us together,” I said. The Shevarim: “three broken sounds resembling sighing.” And the Teruah: “nine rapid sounds that can be thought of as a kind of wailing.” On the way out, the man of the house, perhaps thinking that the mobile shofar blower needed to get around in better style, showed us his classic car and hinted that it was for sale. When we visited his home, Stuart Ziff, a neon artist, asked Brenda if she wanted to blow the shofar in front of one of his works. The spiraled glass contraption,
looking like something from an old Buck Rogers movie, had at its core a Jacob’s Ladder, a device that sends a crackling high voltage arc traveling upward between two wires. As Brenda blew the shofar, Ziff joined in by pushing the “on” button, enveloping the room in a soft pink glow. Savoring the moment, he invited us to sit down for a bowl of homemade ice cream. There were other surprises. Driving up to one location, we couldn’t believe how close it was to our home; it was like finding a new neighbor. Then there was the unexpected audience. After sounding the shofar at a downtown condo and walking back to the car, we spotted a beautiful, long, curvy shofar in a music store window. On an impulse we walked in. With me egging her on, Brenda asked to try it out, and to the amazement of the store’s mostly Latino customers and personnel who had gathered around, blew a long beautiful Tekiah. “I can give you a very good price on the shofar,” the salesman said. As we walked down the street, recounting the ways her shofar had reconnected our community, she explained why she didn’t go for the one in the store. “I don’t need it,” she said. “This one works fine.” —Edmon J. Rodman is a JTA columnist who writes on Jewish life from Los Angeles. Contact him at edmojace@gmail.com.
May you and your family have a Healthy and Happy Rosh HaShanah!
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New High Holiday children’s services and activities at Ohef Sholom Temple
T
his year, Ohef Sholom Temple will introduce new children’s services and activities for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. The programs will run simultaneously with each of the early morning services from 9 until 11 am. During this time, two separate programs will take place for children so that parents can participate in the adult worship in the sanctuary. Children ages 3 to 6, will take part in a service especially designed for very little ones, while children in first through fourth grades will be able to participate in their own interactive service with songs, movement and a big screen digital
component. In addition, there will be crafts, games and holiday-related activities for both groups. These separate age-appropriate children’s programs and Ohef Sholom’s historically beautiful and meaningful adult services will ensure that the entire family experiences a positive and meaningful High Holiday. This year, throughout all services, childcare for infants and toddlers will also be available, as well as activities for older children (through age 10).
Rabbi Ellen Jaffe-Gill
serving Tidewater’s unaff iliated Jews and spiritual seekers as
Lifecycle Officiant Jewish Educator & Tutor rabbicantorejg@gmail.com 215-359-7806
jewishnewsva.org | September 8, 2014 | Jewish News | 27
Have a Happy and Healthy New Year!
Take a reflection online with 10Q New York, NY—Almost everything is now online, from newspapers and books to TV shows and community, so it makes sense that in today’s world, reflection should go digital. During the traditional period of reflection during the Jewish High Holidays this month, Reboot’s 10Q project responds to online needs by meeting people where they are, sending more than 20,000 people a question a day through email for 10 days, offering a modern way for people to reflect about their lives. The questions from 10Q (www.doyou10Q.com) which start Sept. 24, 2014, are not religious in nature and are focused on life, goals, plans for the future, relationships and more. 10Q is an ambitious online effort to
reverse the trend of living only for the moment from status update to status update, from tweet to tweet, which has taken over the notion of long-term reflection. Individuals’ answers are sent into a digital vault at the end of the process and a year later the answers are returned and the whole experience begins again. The idea is for participants to make an annual tradition of answering the questions, building a personal archive for future years. “In an era when what you posted on Facebook and Twitter yesterday has already disappeared into the ether, there’s something very beautiful about getting an opportunity to visit with your last year’s self year after year after year,” says playwright Nicola Behrman, one of the creators of 10Q. “It’s a way to look from a
Temple Israel is a vibrant, egalitarian, multicultural and multigenerational Conservative synagogue.
Join us for twice daily minyan services, weekly Join Temple Israel for the Holidays! Shabbat services, or any of our many special programs.
In addition to our sanctuary services, we offer:
November 4: Tim O’Brien Concert to benefit The Dwelling Place, a family shelter, and ForKids shelter Two LeveLS of ChiLdren'S ServiCeS, PLuS BaBySiTTing November 16: Shabbat Sign Language KoL nidre ServiCeS feaTuring a Services Pre-ServiCewith PerforManCe By CeLLiST Interpretation LeiLei Berz AprilCoMMuniTy 21: Blessing the Animals BreaKoffaST May 10: Service Under the Stars with a cookout and softball game
Call the Temple AIsrael Office for More Information! MONG MANY OTHER OFFERINGS We are proud of our military families. We offer affordable and flexible membership options for those who serve our country.
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28 | Jewish News | September 8, 2014 | jewishnewsva.org
very different perspective at where you’ve been, where you are and ultimately where you’re going.” The project was founded in 2008 by Reboot, a Jewish cultural organization that seeks to reinvent and re-imagine Jewish rituals and traditions, along with writer Ben Greenman, Behrman, and Reboot associate director Amelia Klein. In past years, it has attracted luminaries such as the governor of New York, the president of New York University and writer Amy Sohn. 10Q resonates with an ecumenical, multi-generational audience with participants ranging from teenagers to grandparents. Although the project is rooted in the Jewish idea of ethical wills and reflection, teshuvah, and occurs during the 10 days between Rosh Hashanah and Yom
Kippur, it has attracted people of all backgrounds and denominations, including Catholics, Episcopalians and Buddhists. Founded in 2002, Reboot engages and inspires young, Jewishly-unconnected cultural creatives, innovators and thought-leaders who, through their candid and introspective conversations and creativity, generate projects that impact both the Jewish and non-Jewish worlds. Reboot has been responsible for producing influential and innovative Jewish books, films, music, websites and large-scale public events. These projects include the National Day of Unplugging, Unscrolled, Sukkah City, 10Q, Sabbath Manifesto, Beyond Bubbie, the DAWN Festival and the Idelsohn Society of Musical Preservation. Find out more at www.rebooters.net.
Ohef Sholom’s annual cemetery service Sunday, Sept. 21, 1 pm, Forest Lawn Mausoleum
T
he community is invited to join Rabbi Rosalin Mandelberg and Cantor Wally Schachet-Briskin for Ohef Sholom Temple’s beautiful and moving cemetery service. Held each year prior to the High Holidays, the service honors the memories of departed loved ones with
prayers, meditations and hymns. This is a meaningful way to frame personal annual pre-High Holiday visits to family members’ and friends’ burial places. For more information, contact Sara Bachman at 625-4295 or sara@ohefsholom.org.
Sample 10Q Questions Question 1 Describe a significant experience that has happened in the past year. How did it affect you? Are you grateful? Relieved? Resentful? Inspired? Question 2 Is there something that you wish you had done differently this past year? Alternatively, is there something you’re especially proud of from this past year? Question 3 Think about a major milestone that happened with your family this past year. How has this affected you? Question 4 Describe an event in the world that has impacted you this year. How? Why? Question 5 Have you had any particularly spiritual experiences this past year? How has this experience affected you? “Spiritual” can be broadly defined to include secular spiritual experiences: artistic, cultural, and so forth. Question 6 Describe one thing you’d like to achieve by this time next year. Why is this important to you? Question 7 How would you like to improve yourself and your life next year? Is there a piece of advice or counsel you received in the past year that could guide you in this project?
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Question 10 When Sept. 2015 rolls around and you receive your answers to your 10Q questions, how do you think you’ll feel? What do you think/hope might be different about your life and where you’re at as a result of thinking about and answering these questions?
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Question 9 What is a fear that you have and how has it limited you? How do you plan on letting it go or overcoming it in the coming year?
Tidew a
Question 8 Is there something (a person, a cause, an idea) that you want to investigate more fully in 2015?
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jewishnewsva.org | September 8, 2014 | Jewish News | 29
Save the stress Here’s an easy and pleasing Rosh Hashanah menu by Shannon Sarna
(MyJewishLearning.com)—When the Jewish New Year comes around, many people stress for weeks leading up to the holiday and break out their most complicated recipes to impress guests. But when I entertain around the holidays, I prefer to rely on a few go-to dishes that are simple to prepare, pack a delicious punch and still impress my friends and
Sweet n Spicy Sweet Potato Soup Ingredients 10 medium sweet potatoes 3 tablespoons olive oil plus extra 1 medium onion, diced 2 carrots, diced 2 quarts chicken or vegetable stock 1 14-ounce can coconut milk ¼ cup brown sugar 1 teaspoon cayenne pepper 1 teaspoon paprika 2 teaspoon coarse sea salt 2–3 dried chili peppers (small; if using medium-sized dried chilis, just use one) Creme fraiche (optional) Olive oil for finishing (optional) Candied pecans or walnuts (optional)
Preparation Pre-heat oven to 400 degrees. Mix brown sugar, cayenne pepper, paprika and salt in a small bowl. Cut sweet potatoes in half and place on foil-lined baking sheet. Spread brown sugar spice mixture all over sweet potatoes and drizzle with olive oil. Roast sweet potatoes for 35–45 minutes or until completely soft. Set aside and let cool. In a medium to large pot, heat 3 tablespoons olive oil and saute onions and carrots until translucent and soft, around 4–6 minutes. Add 2–3 cups of stock and simmer for 5 minutes. Add sweet potato flesh and using an immersion blender, blend all vegetables until smooth. Add remaining stock and dried chilis. When the soup is heated through and flavors have blended, around 20–30 minutes, add coconut milk. Remove the dried chilis before serving. Note: the longer you let the chilis sit in the soup, the spicier the soup will be. If you are making this soup dairy, you can serve with a dollop of creme fraiche or sour cream. If you are serving this soup pareve, drizzle with good quality olive oil and some chopped candied pecans or walnuts. Yield: 6–8 servings
family despite my lack of stressing. Forget the chicken soup and start the New Year on a sweet note with this Sweet and Spicy Sweet Potato Soup. It doesn’t require a million ingredients or lots of time, but people will be asking for the recipe as soon as they taste it. Made with dried peppers, coconut milk and roasted sweet potatoes, this soup is one of my favorites to make, serve and eat. A perfect roasted chicken marinated with citrus and herbs is a wonderful counterpoint to a rich brisket on the table. Marinating for at least several hours will ensure a moist chicken everyone will talk about. And while challah should be served to start the meal, Balsamic Apple Date stuffed challah is so delicious you may want to serve it as the grand finale. Rosh Hoshanah has a late start this year, so enjoy those last few weeks of late summer, don’t stress about menu planning and instead make a menu of simple, delicious delights that people will only think consumed your September. —Shannon Sarna is editor of The Nosher blog on MyJewishLearning.com, where these recipes originally appeared.
Shannon’s Perfect Roast Chicken Ingredients 1 whole chicken, rinsed 1 orange, zested and sliced 1 lemon, zested and sliced 1 tablespoon fresh chopped rosemary 6 cloves garlic ½ tablespoon fresh chopped thyme 3 tablespoons olive oil ¼ cup white wine Salt and pepper to taste
Preparation In a small mixing bowl, whisk together rosemary, thyme, olive oil, wine, orange zest, lemon zest and the salt and pepper. Add the chicken to a large plastic bag that seals, and pour the wet mixture over the chicken. Add the orange and lemon slices, as well as the whole garlic cloves. After you seal the bag, make sure the entire chicken is covered with the marinade. Refrigerate for 2 to 24 hours before roasting. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. If you like, you can stuff some of the garlic cloves and citrus slices under the skin or in the cavity of the chicken. Roast the chicken for 45–55 minutes, or until a meat thermometer reads 165 degrees. Yield: 4–6 servings
30 | Jewish News | September 8, 2014 | jewishnewsva.org
Balsamic Apple Date Challah Ingredients For the challah dough: 5 cups flour ½ cup sugar 2 tablespoons honey ½ tablespoon salt 2 teaspoons vanilla 1 teaspoon cinnamon ¼ teaspoon nutmeg ¼ cup vegetable oil 1½ tablespoons yeast 1 teaspoon sugar 1¼ cups lukewarm water 2 whole eggs 1 egg yolk
Preparation
For the filling: 3 gala apples, peeled and diced 1 cup pitted dates, chopped ½ teaspoon salt 1 cinnamon stick ¼ cup water ¼ cup red wine 2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar 1 tablespoon sugar
For top of challah: 1 1 1 1 1 2
LG B T
pu re & natu ra l ho ney
pu re & natu ra l ho ney
pu re & natu ra l ho ney
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egg teaspoon water teaspoon honey tablespoon sanding sugar tablespoon thick sea salt teaspoons ground cinnamon
In a small bowl, place yeast, 1 teaspoon sugar and lukewarm water. Allow to sit around 10 minutes, until it becomes foamy on top. In a large bowl or stand mixer fitted with whisk attachment, mix together 1½ cups flour, salt, sugar, honey, vanilla, cinnamon and nutmeg. After the water-yeast mixture has become foamy, add to flour mixture along with oil. Mix thoroughly. Add another cup of flour and eggs until smooth. Switch to the dough hook attachment if you are using a stand mixer. Add another 1½ cups flour and then remove from bowl and place on a floured surface. Knead remaining flour into dough, continuing to knead for around 10 minutes (or however long your hands will last). Place dough in a greased bowl and cover with damp towel. Allow to rise 3–4 hours.
pu re & natu ra l ho ney
To make the filling, place apples, dates, salt, cinnamon stick, water, red wine and sugar in a medium saucepan and bring to a boil. Continue to simmer on medium heat until the mixture is reduced. Add the balsamic vinegar and simmer another 2–3 minutes. The mixture will cook around 10–15 minutes in total. Remove from the heat and allow to cool 5 minutes. Remove cinnamon stick. Place mixture in a food processor fitted with a blade attachment and pulse until smooth. After the challah is done rising, cut the dough in half. To be as precise as possible, use a scale to measure the weight. Roll out the first ball using a rolling pin into a rectangle. Spread around half, perhaps slightly less, of the apple-date mixture in an even layer, leaving ½ inch all around without filling. Working quickly, start rolling up the dough toward you. Try and keep the roll relatively tight as you go. Pinch the end when you finish. Create a pinwheel shaped-challah by snaking the dough around and around in a circle around itself. When finished, tuck the end under the challah neatly and pinch lightly. This doesn’t have to be perfect—remember, as long as it tastes good, almost no one (maybe except that judgmental great-aunt) will care what it looks like. Repeat with other half of dough.
NOW MORE THAN EVER, IT’S TIME TO LOOK BEYOND OUR LABELS With the crisis in Israel foremost in our minds, this Rosh Hashanah takes on an even deeper significance. And so does our unity. Because no matter how we may label ourselves—we are all Jews. That’s what matters. Now more than ever. This Rosh Hashanah, let’s make it a sweeter new year by standing together. You can do that by giving generously to the Federation. Your gift helps support our brothers and sisters in Israel and in our entire global community.
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Allow challahs to rise another 30–60 minutes, or until you can see the the size has grown. Beat 1 egg with 1 teaspoon water and 1 teaspoon of honey. Brush liberally over each challah. Combine sea salt, sanding sugar and cinnamon, and sprinkle over challah. Bake for 25–30 minutes, or until middle looks like it has just set, and the color is golden.
YOUR IMPACT IS IMMEASURABLE. IT ALL STARTS WITH ONE.
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Yield: 2 medium loaves
jewishnewsva.org | September 8, 2014 | Jewish News | 31
Wishing you a
Ha y & Hlthy
Rosh Hashanah!
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Donations to the United Jewish Federation of Tidewater’s Annual Campaign help nurture and enrich Jewish life in Tidewater, strengthen the global Jewish community, and care for vulnerable populations. Agencies and organizations receiving funds that positively change lives include:
Week of Extraordinary Deeds motivates community to “do good” Monday, Sept. 15, 6:30 pm, Campaign Kick Off Sunday, Sept. 21, 1:30–3:30 pm, Mitzvah Day VA
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f you survey a group of community members and ask them to name one of the most admired Jewish leaders of all time, odds are that you’ll hear the name Golda Meir. The great, mid-20th century heroine of many, throughout the world, was a teacher, a kibbutznik, Israel’s Minister of Labour, Foreign Minister and its fourth Prime Minister. When Golda Meir was asked a similar question, the person she named as her inspiration was Theodor Herzl. A 19th century journalist and political activist, Herzl is considered to be the father of modern Zionism, a champion and visionary for the creation of the Jewish State of Israel. At the 2015 United Jewish Federation of Tidewater Annual Campaign Kick Off on Monday, Sept. 15, the community is invited to see why Meir continues to inspire, and why she looked to Herzl for her own motivation. The evening’s festivities start at 6:30 pm with a cocktail reception. At 7 pm, the theatrical presentation, Will It, Create It, Achieve It, begins. Starring professional actors Gail Beyer and Michael Lifshitz, the show brings Meir and Herzl to life. The performance, which has impressed Jewish audiences throughout the country, is compelling in its portrayal of the impact one person can make on another person, on a community or on a nation. “This Kick Off performance, the face to face and online conversations and good deeds that we’ll be taking part in during this truly extraordinary week, are so important to our understanding of all the things that we do, and the broad spectrum of ways that we touch the world, and make Hampton Roads a better place and the United States a better place,” says Karen Jaffe, 2015 UJFT Annual Campaign chair. “As Jewish people, it’s important that we all take a part in accepting the responsibility for those who find themselves challenged
at this moment in history—economically, politically, because of wars or other crises,” Jaffe says. “We are different. We are special. And we are here to take care of each other. We do that by giving what we can, how we can, to the Annual Campaign.” Jaffe hopes that rather than merely absorbing the words of Herzl and Meir, community members gain inspiration at the Kick Off and then are active participants in the UJFT’s Week of Extraordinary Deeds. Be the one, says Jaffe, to initiate positive change, to do good, and to show a commitment to the Jewish values upon which the UJFT’s mission is based. Social media will be part of the Week’s events. In the days following the Kick Off, posts on the UJFT Facebook page will suggest simple good deeds that anyone who visits and likes the page can do to help build a stronger Jewish community in Tidewater, aid vulnerable populations, and show the global Jewish family that this area is vibrant, and people here care. The Week of Extraordinary Deeds concludes with the 1st Annual Mitzvah Day VA on Sunday, Sept. 21. Mitzvah Day invites every community member and friend of the Jewish community to lend a hand and help others. Five diverse projects will take place at a variety of locations, followed by a Mitzvah Day Pool Party and Cookout for participants at the Simon Family JCC. Mitzvah Day projects include: • Todah Rabah (Thank you), making paracord survival bracelets and writing notes of support for U.S. and Israeli troops, at the Sandler Family Campus • L’dor V’dor (From generation to generation), baking, creating, or playing games with Beth Sholom Village seniors, at Beth Sholom
• Gemilut Chasidim (Acts of loving-kindness), making no-sew fleece blankets for area homeless residents, at the Sandler Family Campus • Tikkun Olam (Repairing the world), a special planting project at the Chesapeake Bay Foundation’s new Brock Environmental Center, at Pleasure House Point in Virginia Beach • L’Chaim! (To life!), walking as a Mitzvah Day team in the JDRF Walk to Cure Diabetes, at Neptune’s Park, 31st St. and the Boardwalk.
“When people ask why we have to have an Annual Campaign every year, the honest answer is that the problems don’t go away. This Week of Extraordinary Deeds gives people many opportunities to be a leader, to be the one who does something—and what they’re doing is important and it’s valuable,” says Jaffe. “After the whole week of us meeting each other, seeing each other in restaurants or interacting on Facebook, and taking joy and pride in what we do as a community— the Mitzvah Day Pool Party is just going to be a fun way for all of us to come together, and for us to really celebrate that this year, and every year, we continue to be part of the solution,” says Jaffe.
More information and registration forms for Mitzvah Day can be found at JewishVA.org, or register by phone at 757-965-6136. To RSVP for the Annual Campaign Kick Off, email extraordinary@ujft.org or call 757‑965-6115 by Sept.11. UJFT Week of Extraordinary Deeds events are all free and open to the community. “Like” the UJFT on Facebook: fb.com/UJFTidewater.
Local and in Virginia Berger-Goldrich Home at Beth Sholom Village BINA Girls High School Community Database Hebrew Academy of Tidewater | Konikoff Center of Learning Hillels at ODU, UVa, Virginia Tech, College of William & Mary, George Mason University Jewish Family Service of Tidewater Simon Family Jewish Community Center Strelitz Early Childhood Center Tidewater BBYO Portsmouth United Religious School Yeshivas Aish Kodesh Talmudical Academy Toras Chaim Strelitz Early Childhood Center Synagogue/Temple Youth Groups United Hebrew School United Jewish Federation of Tidewater Committees & Programs ATID Business & Legal Society Community Concierge / Shalom Tidewater Community Relations Council Holocaust Commission Maimonides Society Synagogue Grants Tidewater Together Women’s Outreach Young Adult Division Va’ad HaKashrus of Tidewater Yeshivas Aish Kodesh Talmudical Academy National Anti-Defamation League Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society Jewish Community Centers Association of NA Jewish Education Service of North America Jewish Telegraphic Agency National Conference on Soviet Jewry National Foundation for Jewish Culture Jewish Council on Public Affairs Assn. of Jewish Family & Children’s Agencies National Hillel National BBYO Jewish Braille Institute Israel and Overseas American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee Atalef Foundation Atidim Bucharest Jewish Community Center, Romania Disability Services, including Centers for Independent Living in Tel Aviv Early Childhood Center in Hadera, Israel Employment training for at-risk young adults in Kiryat Yam, Israel Hunger relief and welfare programs in the Former Soviet Union Jaffe Jewish Family Service, Hungary The Jewish Agency for Israel Neve Michael (Israeli residential facility for 250 abused children ages 4–18) Pardes Katz (Tidewater’s Israeli sister community) Summer Camp in Cristian, Romania Taglit—Birthright Israel World ORT
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5th Annual Bringing Israel Home by Laine M. Rutherford and Robin Mancoll photo by Laine M. Rutherford
Complicated. The military actions Israel has taken to defend its people. Palestinian civilian deaths. Feelings of teens entering the Israel Defense Forces. Life. All are very complicated. Speaking to 50 local Jewish college students at Azar’s Restaurant at Hilltop on Thursday, August 14, Matt Weisbaum used the word repeatedly to describe the current situation in Israel, and to emphasize the importance of knowing how to speak to others about Israel Weisbaum, managing director of Jerusalem U, was the guest speaker at Bringing Israel Home, an annual event the Community Relations Council of the United Jewish Federation of Tidewater hosts. Organized by and for college students to strengthen Jewish identity and impart effective Israel advocacy skills, Bringing Israel Home featured Weisbaum in dual roles: Israel advocate and leader of a focus group for a Jerusalem U film now in its final stages of production: Beneath the Helmet: From High School to the Home Front. “You all are among the first 1,000 people to see this film, out of what we expect to be 10 million who will see it,” Weisbaum said. “You are the target audience and the feedback that you give us will determine how we edit this film.” Jerusalem U creates original feature films, such as Israel Inside and the Step Up for Israel film-based classes and courses (both have been presented locally by the CRC), and interactive learning, all of which are designed to inspire a new generation about Judaism and Israel. Before beginning the film, and after students had a chance to socialize and enjoy Azar’s stocked pita bar, along with delicious food from the new Kosher restaurant in Norfolk, Hummus Express, Weisbaum led a discussion about what students may find themselves facing as fall semesters begin. “Because of the situation going on in Israel and Gaza, it’s important to know that as you head back to your campuses, you will be having conversations,” Weisbaum said. “Education is not only about facts, but putting this situation into context as well.”
Wiesbaum offered talking points that students could use, if needed. • Israel is not perfect as a democracy, but it takes responsibility for its actions. • Ask people, ‘What would you have Israel do? More than 3,560 rockets have fallen on Israel in the past five weeks.’ Let them answer. Don’t let them NOT answer. • A sk people, ‘We shouldn’t have Israelis run down to bomb shelters? Or disable Iron Dome to make it proportionate?’ • Emphasize that Israel is doing everything within it’s power to avoid civilian casualties—giving warnings by dropping leaflets, sending text messages, letting international organizations know—more than any other country in the world ever has or is expected to do.
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eisbaum ended the conversation as he started it. He said, “Like I said, it’s complicated, but at the end of the day, Israel does everything it can do to protect civilian lives.” Attending the event for the second year, Isabel Shocket, Hillel at Virginia Tech’s coordinator of engagement and initiatives, says, “I have seen times when a student has had a transformational experience on a Taglit-Birthright trip, but when faced with verbal or written political attacks against
Attendees of 2014 Bringing Israel Home. 34 | Jewish News | September 8, 2014 | jewishnewsva.org
Israel, they are not confident in their Israel knowledge enough to respond.” She applauds the efforts of the planning committee and the CRC. “By offering college students the opportunity to learn Elli Friedman, Andie Eichelbaum and Jared Mercadante. with their peers I believe they are able to go to campus feeling empowered,” says Shocket. “A d v o c a t i n g for Israel will be a bit easier this year thanks to this great program,” says Arielle Flax, a senior at George Mason. “I feel better prepared to take Jessie Brenner, Rachel Gross and Arielle Flax. on any anti-Israel Israel on campus, which can be found on groups on my college campus.” Students left with a bag containing the CRC’s website at www.JewishVA.org/ materials that will help them on campus CRCIsraelAdvocacy. All Tidewater college students will be including Mitchell Bard’s Myths & Facts: A Guide to the Arab-Israeli Conflict, Gil invited over Winter Break to screen the editTroy’s Moynihan’s Moment: America’s Fight ed version of Beneath the Helmet and begin Against Zionism as Racism, informational discussion as to what they’d like to see as pamphlets from Stand With Us and the the topic of the 6th Annual Bringing Israel American Israel Public Affairs Committee home event to take place in Summer 2015. For more information on this or other CRC along with a sheet that includes links to all of the best resources online when it initiatives, contact RMancoll@ujft.org or visit comes to advocating for and defending JewishVA.org/CRC.
it’s a wrap How do you feed 130,000 people in one night? by Jacob Levy
“Never in all of my years of participating in events in the community, have I been to an event like this,” from a Hunger Feast participant. On Wednesday, Aug. 6, the atmosphere at the Simon Family JCC was nothing short of electrifying. Nearly 200 people, as young as five years old and as old as 85, came together for Hunger Feast.” A two-part, experiential event organized and led entirely by young people in the community, the night built around hunger awareness and activism began in the Fleder Multi-Purpose Room. As each person arrived, they were randomly assigned to a “level” at which they would be dining. Most were “lower class,” some were “middle class” and a select few were “upper class.” The “lower class” sat on the floor and was served a small portion of rice and beans, with “dirty water” (watereddown tea). Meanwhile, the “middle class” received a proper portion of rice and beans with clean water, while those lucky enough to draw the “upper class” level enjoyed a catered three-course meal. The stunning breakdown was proportionally based on the number of people worldwide in each class. Presenting participants with the facts, as well as this visual representation of world hunger and food access, the beginning of the event created an eye-opening perspective of world hunger. As participants dined, they heard from empowering speakers on hunger including
Joanne Batson, CEO of the Foodbank of Southeastern Virginia, Betty Ann Levin, executive director of Jewish Family Service of Tidewater, and Dr. William Evans, a James Madison University psychology professor and longtime hunger activist. The statistics on hunger around the world and in Tidewater are staggering. Evans left the audience empowered to change this, echoing the words of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. on how to make a difference: “Life’s most persistent and urgent question is, ‘What are you doing for others?’” The speakers and experiential dining left the audience inspired to combat hunger, and in the second part of the event, they did just that. Participants made their way to the gymnasium, forming an impressive meal-packing assembly line with the help of the organization, Stop Hunger Now. The group packed 21,972 meal bags in just one hour that will feed more than 130,000 people. Each meal bag filled with rice, dehydrated vegetables, dehydrated soy protein, 21 vitamins and minerals and seasoning, feeds a hungry family of six at almost no cost. With music and cheers that came with every thousand bags packed, Hunger Feast participants were making a difference through tikkun olam and having fun while doing it. The teamwork on each part of the assembly line, which often had children, teenagers and grandparents collaborating hand-in-hand, was an impressive sight. One table of the food-packing assembly
As they entered, guests randomly chose a number and then received instructions about where they would sit at the Hunger Feast.
Hunger Feast Committee: Shikma Rubin, Rebecca Curry, Sophie Levy, Hannah Moss, Tom Moss, Jacqueline Strelitz, Max Moss, Elli Friedman, Jacob Levy, Andie Eichelbaum.
line illustrated how the event brought the community together across generations working together to make a difference, with Helene Schulwolf, Ben Levy, Derek Weinstein, Amy Levy, David Brand and Sam Werbel. “As we continued into the night packaging these meal bags, it was brought up and discussed in our group that we consisted of someone from each generation. The age diversification and how well we all worked together, made my Hunger Feast experience even more memorable and unique,” says Derek Weinstein. After attending two separate, but similar events at James Madison University, 22-year-old Hannah Moss was inspired to bring the event to her home community. What began as just an aspirational idea to Moss, a 2014 JMU graduate and daughter of Marc Moss and Stacie Hofheimer Moss, became a night of profound impact for the Hunger Feast participants and the thousands of hungry people they fed. In addition to packing the meal bags, almost
“Upper class” guests sat at tables and were served a three-course dinner.
$20,000 was raised through the event. Partnering with Jewish Family Service and bringing together a committee of young adults that included Rebecca Curry, Andie Eichelbaum, Elli Friedman, Ben Klebanoff, Jacob Levy, Sophie Levy, Max Moss, Tom Moss, Shikma Rubin, Becca Schwartzman and Jacqueline Strelitz, Moss’ dream became reality. The Hunger Feast event was a mitzvah that united the community around service in an interactive, fun way unlike ever before. The most common feedback received about the event in exit surveys? “Do it again next year.” With the excitement permeating the room that night, it seems probable to have more “Hunger Feast” for many, many years to come. To find out more about this event, contact Hannah Moss at hungerfeast757@gmail.com. To learn how to continue to make a difference every day, go to: http://thehungersite. greatergood.com/clickToGive/ths/home.
“Lower class” guests sat on the floor and ate only a small portion of rice and beans. (Photography by Mednick Multimedia)
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it’s a wrap Team Virginia Beach takes the GOLD at JCC Maccabi Games by Ellie Bernstein
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old, Gold and more Gold! That is what Team Virginia Beach received at the JCC Maccabi Games held in Detroit last month. The Simon Family JCC’s 16 and under basketball team (comprised of Wayne Simon, Jake Levinson, Jacob Stern, Evan Roesen, Sheldon Millison and Billy Goldstein), won the championship in the B Division. Coach Tom Edwards, director of Sports and Recreation at the Simon Team Virginia Beach with medals. Family JCC, received the best birthday Theatre in Rochester Hallie Stewart. present a coach could, with the team’s win. The gold medals did not stop with basketball. Swimmer, Hallie and the Gem/ Stewart, won a gold medal in every event she entered…12, in all. Century Theatres in Detroit—where he has performed in countHallie is one of just 25 athletes who have won Gold in all compe- less shows including the Michigan premier of the Pulitzer Prize winning musical, Next to Normal. titions throughout the history of JCC Maccabi. If interested in participating in JCC Maccabi next summer, Aside from the athletic competitions at JCC Maccabi, an Artsfest also takes place. Clara Zimm performed two solos in the Artsfest contact Ellie Bernstein, delegation head for the Simon Family JCC Showcase with Musical Theater. Clara had the opportunity to work ,at 321-2324. The Simon Family JCC is a constituent agency of United Jewish with Eric Gutman, a Michigan-born actor and musician, whose credits include Tipping Point Theatre in Northville, Meadowbrook Federation of Tidewater.
Teaching Israel outside the box to Jewish educators by Leslie Shroyer
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ewish educators gather each August at the Simon Family JCC for the Jewish Education Council’s Summer Institute. This hands-on workshop is designed to improve teaching skills and share what works and inspires in the classroom. On Tuesday, Aug. 12, some 36 area Jewish educators learned new approaches to teaching students about Israel. Israel education has been Anne Lanski’s personal and professional passion for three decades. The executive director of The iCenter for ISrael Education, which works to enhance and support the place of Israel within Jewish education and Jewish learning experiences, Lanski is regarded as the seminal figure in making mifgash (shared experiences between Israeli and American peers), an integral component of Israel experience programs. She is also the recipient of numerous grants and awards for her
pioneering work in this field. In the interactive seminar, she worked with educators on incorporating what she calls the “Aleph Bet of Israel Education.” Lanski introduced the 11 principles and practices she uses, which lead to new and varied approaches to learning and teaching Israel. “Israel as a ‘subject’ is an integral component of Jewish identity,” asserts Lanski. “It’s not a single class, but a rather a totality of all Israel experiences. And it shouldn’t be taught in facts and figures.” Lanski works with educators worldwide to infuse Israel into what they are doing so students learn about it in meaningful and creative ways. Ina Mirman Leiderman, Beth El Sunday School’s 7th grade instructor, says “Anne Lanski gave me ideas I definitely want to use in this upcoming year. She shared links for us to go to for a multitude of resources. Her approach was refreshing, and what we came away with is both useful and timely.”
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“It’s all about how Israel organically and seamlessly enhances Jewish learning,” says Lanski, who recommends mixing up resources to refresh what teachers have to work with. “One simple way of learning about Israel is to connect to each other through personal Israel stories. If I can impart an excitement of new ideas to empower and inspire, then I’ve been a success,” says Lanski. In the end, it’s about igniting passions and engaging kids in lively conversations in the classroom. Judging by the receptive teachers coming out of the seminar, students in the community will surely learn about Israel in new ways. Summer Institute is sponsored by the Jewish Education Council of the United Jewish Federation of Tidewater and presented by the Marilyn and Marvin Simon Family Jewish Community Center. Simon Family JCC is a constituent agency of United Jewish Federation of Tidewater.
Linda Fox Jarvis, Todd Waldman, Cantor Wally, Tammy, Channa and Micah Schachet-Briskin.
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Ohef Sholom attends PrideFest2014
s its mission statement reads, Ohef Sholom Temple is “…a House of Prayer for all peoples.” With that in mind, congregants and clergy from Ohef Sholom Temple attended PrideFest2014 at Town Point Park in Norfolk on Saturday, August 23. The temple set up an interactive booth and shared a tent with two other churches and an interfaith coalition. “Many people came up and just thanked us for being there,” says Linda Fox-Jarvis, OST president. Cantor Wally Schachet-Briskin participated with clergy from a variety of faith groups in a ceremony offering blessings for couples and individuals. It was a unified message of support for members of the community. The group then made a procession across the entire park and was called up on the main stage to reinforce the message that “We are here and we are welcoming!” Participants from Ohef Sholom Temple also included Todd Waldman, Cantor Wally and family (Tammy, Channa and Micah), Nichole Kushner, Rabbi Arthur Steinberg, Lawrence Steingold and Linda Peck. “It was interesting,” says Fox-Jarvis. “We had a lot of people who came up and said one of their parents was Jewish, or they went to synagogue when they were young, or that they were just searching for a religious home that would accept the LGBT community. Many were just interested in Jewish philosophy and the Jewish position regarding LGBT. “One of the statistics in last year’s Pew Study was that 49% of persons who consider themselves Jewish are unmarried. Many in the LGBT community are part of that 49%, and we wanted to reach out to them,” Fox-Jarvis says.
it’s a wrap YAD Men’s Basketball, Maccabi team up for a scrimmage
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embers of the YAD Men’s Basketball Group and players on the JCC Maccabi Games basketball team squared off in a scrimmage on Monday, July 14 at the Simon Family JCC. The teens on the 16-and-under Maccabi team were preparing to head to Detroit for the JCC Maccabi Games, YAD and Maccabi team basketball players August 17–22. Coach Tom Edwards thought the players could use a little tune up against “tougher” competition. That’s where the YAD group stepped in. For the past year, the YAD Men’s Basketball Group has met twice a month for pickup games at the JCC. The group is open to YAD-age men (22–45). The games are a casual and fun way to meet other young Jewish guys in town. On July 14, the mood on the court was more serious. Just a little. YAD and Maccabi played a friendly 32-minute game (8-minute quarters) to give the teens a “live” environment and the kind they faced in Detroit. “I had a great time playing against the Maccabi team, “ says Andrew Nusbaum, a member of the YAD Men’s Basketball Group. “I think the teens have a lot of talent.” The YAD vs Maccabi final score? That will stay hidden and “unofficial,” but let’s just say the YAD men had a slight edge in size and strength. The Maccabi team, by the way, took the gold in Detroit. To be part of the YAD Men’s Basketball Group, contact YAD Men’schair Danny Rubin at danny@rubincommunications.com.
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SOPS holds successful reunion
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ormer members of Sigma Omega Pi Sorority, Sigma chapter, held its 50th+ reunion Aug. 9 and 10. SOPS was an area high school sorority for Jewish girls. Active for decades, it spanned generations. For the reunion, members met for dinner on Saturday at Freemason Harbor Condominiums and then for brunch on Sunday morning at the home of Vivian and Burke Margulies.
Former SOPS members came from Texas, Ohio, North Carolina, Maryland, Northern Virginia, Richmond, Williamsburg, Suffolk and Newport News to participate in the festivities. Committee members who made the gathering possible include Sue Ellen Berkowitz Teach, Eileen Heller Colton, Helene Berger Frost, Ernie Koster Goldstein, Judy Gutterman, Linda Halpern Kent, Vivian Cohen Margulies, Heliene Siegel, Natalie Halprin Steiner, and Nancy Shure Engel. Plans are being made for a reunion in Tidewater for Aug. 8–9, 2015. All former members of SOPS who are not on the current mailing list and wish to be included in future e-mails, should contact Judy Gutterman at judithgutterman@gmail.com.
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38 | Jewish News | September 8, 2014 | jewishnewsva.org
efore the winding down of summer, Conservative Jews from Tidewater took time for a relaxing and spiritually moving Shabbat service at the oceanfront on Friday, Aug. 8. Four synagogues joined together to create this opportunity for prayer on the beach. Rabbis Jeff Arnowitz (Congregation Beth El), Marc Kraus (Temple Emanuel) and Michael Pannitz (Temple Israel) along with Cantor David Proser (KBH) helped bring in the Sabbath. Attendees listened, sang, played in the sand and viewed the ocean’s beauty. Following the service, those who had made reservations, headed over to Temple Emanuel for a wonderful Shabbat dinner.
Book Review
Sort of two books in one Russian Vegetable Borscht
Food, Family and Tradition Hungarian Kosher Family Recipes and Remembrances Lynn Kirsche Shapiro The Cherry Press, 2014 279 pages, $35 ISBN: 978-0-9898479-0-2
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s the “2,000 Year Old Man,” Mel Brooks, used to say “Oy, I love a nectarine; half a plum, half a peach, not too sour, not too sweet; it’s a wonderful thing.” Food, Family and Tradition is a nectarine of a book. Part one is a family memoir with period photographs, biographies and a family tree of Holocaust survivors and victims. Part two is a cookbook containing family recipes updated for preparation in contemporary kitchens. First, the family memoir: Not a historian, author Shapiro has done a most creditable job of chronicling the history of her parents’ family, many of whom were born in countries whose names and borders have changed. Wherever possible she has used the names of places as they appeared on Holocaust-era maps. The specific area known as Subcarpathian Rus or Carpatho-Ukraine was dominated by Hungary and controlled after World War II by the Communist regime of the Soviet Union until 1989. Currently, it is inside the extreme western border of Ukraine. In essence, a small part of the family escaped to America and Israel. Sadly, the larger part was murdered during the Holocaust, although some in Europe survived both the Nazis and the Communists. My closest boyhood friend arrived with his family as refugees from “Czechoslovakia” just prior to WWII—but spoke Hungarian—and the recipes in this book are reminiscent of the meals I ate in their kitchen as a teenager. The author has labeled each recipe ‘dairy,’ ‘meat’ or ‘parve’ and has provid-
ed head notes that include ingredient substitutions, preparation tips, serving suggestions and Hal Sacks timing. Shapiro’s career as an educator was balanced by the integral role she played in her parents’ business, Hungarian Kosher Foods, an all-kosher supermarket in Skokie, Illinois. Many of the recipes, such as Kasha, Tzimmes and Brisket, are relatively similar to those in cookbooks derived mainly from German and Russian sources (except for heavier use of paprika). But the Kirsche (nee Kirschenbaum) and Weinberger families’ recipes for organ meats such as tongue and liver and for delicacies like roast goose, chulent, roast duck and Hungarian Goulash (Gulyas) bear careful replication and promise joyful eating. Food, Family and Tradition distinguishes itself from most cookbooks by the touching and informative attention given to family history and customs without diluting the attention to detail required when modernizing traditional recipes for present day use. Although not the size of a coffee table book, it is nonetheless a very attractive book that will be appreciated by the kosher cook and the kosher-style cook as well. With the many meals for the holidays on the horizon here is a sample recipe. —Hal Sacks is a retired Jewish communal worker who has reviewed books for Jewish News for more than 30 years.
Makes 8 to 10 (8-ounce) servings This is Goldie Weinberger’s recipe. “We made this soup every week ‘at home’ in the Soviet Union,” says her daughter Ibi. The soup can be served hot, room temperature or cold. If you are looking for a sweet and sour cabbage-based soup, which is not typical, this is perfect. It is spicy, refreshing and healthy. For a complete meal, Goldie often served this with cheese blintzes. 1 small to medium head cabbage, cored and shredded 1 carrot shredded 1 carrot sliced into thin rounds 12 cups water ½ tablespoon sweet Hungarian paprika 1 teaspoon salt, or to taste ¼ teaspoon freshly ground pepper 2 bay leaves 2 tablespoons vegetable oil 2 cloves garlic, minced 1 onion, chopped 2 small beets, peeled and shredded 1 (15-ounce) can crushed tomatoes 1 (15-ounce) can dark red kidney beans, drained 1 (7-ounce) can tomato sauce Scant 1⁄8 teaspoon hot Hungarian paprika, optional Fresh chopped dill, as needed, optional garnish Yogurt or sour cream, as needed, optional garnish 1 hard-boiled egg, thinly sliced, optional garnish • In an 8-quart pot, add cabbage and carrots and 12 cups of water. Add paprika, salt, pepper and bay leaves to the cabbage soup. Bring to a boil, decrease heat to low and simmer, covered, for 1 hour. • Meanwhile, in a separate sauté pan, heat oil over medium heat. Add garlic and sauté until soft and translucent, but not browned. Add onion and beets and sauté until beets are soft and onion is golden, but not browned, about 5 minutes. Remove from heat and reserve.
• Add tomato sauce, tomatoes and beans to the soup. Taste for seasoning and adjust. Bring to a boil and cook for an additional 10 minutes. • Add the reserved onion-beet mixture to the soup, heating through. Taste for seasoning again. If desired, add the hot paprika for an extra kick, and the chopped dill. Remove bay leaves and discard. • Serve soup ladled into bowls and garnish each with the chopped dill (If you haven’t added it to the soup), and a dollop of sour cream and/or a slice of hard-boiled egg. • Hint: The beets are best with the leaves still on. • Hint: For a thicker soup, start with 10 cups of water.
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Expanded outreach and engagement efforts at UJFT
what’s happening
New hire in Young Adult Division: Benyamin Yaffe
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he increasi n g l y successfuloutreach efforts, leadership programs and community building initiatives of United Jewish Federation of Tidewater’s Young Adult Division encouraged the creation of a new position to help develop a cohesive community of emerg- Benyamin Yaffe ing philanthropists. Benyamin Yaffe is filling the role of YAD program associate. He began work at UJFT in late August. Born and raised in Memphis, Tenn., Yaffe attended Solomon Schechter Day School before entering public school. During his high school years, he was very active in BBYO and USY, as well as other Jewish youth groups. He received a bachelor of arts in journalism with a concentration in public relations from the University of Memphis in 2008. Wanting to keep in touch with his Jewish roots, he was an active board member of the University of Memphis Hillel and a Hebrew tutor for a number of years. After college, Yaffe moved to Dallas, Texas to work for two large advertising firms, where he was trained in digital marketing. Those companies helped him gain a strong skillset in online marketing, social media management, customer retention and online programming. While in Dallas,
Yaffe paeticipated in the Jewish community as an Israeli activist, Judaic/ Hebrew Sunday school teacher and as an active member and program associate for multiple professional young adult groups. Before moving to Virginia Beach, Yaffe volunteered for six month in Israel as part of a specialized social entrepreneurship program working with Israeli teens. In Israel, Yaffe promoted multiple programs, including a Holocaust studies program which he created to involve Israeli teens in learning and promoting Holocaust education. The grandson and great nephew of Holocaust survivors, this is a personal and meaningful subject to him. Yaffee is excited to be working in the Young Adult Division of the United Jewish Federation of Tidewater and looks forward to starting a new chapter of his life with the Jewish community of Tidewater. For information about UJFT YAD’s programming for young Jewish adults in Tidewater between the ages of 22 and 45, visit www. jewishva.org/YAD or like YAD on Facebook at facebook.com/yad.ujft. To connect with YAD staff and get involved, contact Amy Weinstein, YAD director, at aweinstein@ujft.org or Benyamin Yaffe, YAD program associate, at byaffe@ujft.org.
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305.323.3247 Please contact me for all your Miami real estate needs 40 | Jewish News | September 8, 2014 | jewishnewsva.org
ODU Literary Festival features award-winning artist Tuesday, Oct. 7, 4–5 pm
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arah Lightman, award-winning artist, curator and researcher, will be the guest lecturer at Old Dominion University’s University Theater. Co-curator of Graphic Details: Confessional Comics by Jewish Women, Lightman also edited the book of the same name. She is co-director of Laydeez do Comics, the only women led comics forum that focuses on autobiographical comics and drama of the everyday. Sarah Lightman Her lecture, part of an annual week long celebration of literature featuring more than 20 artists and writers, promises to be of particular interest to the Jewish community. Lightman’s artwork will be on display at ODU’s Gordon Gallery through October. For additional information, contact Farideh Goldin, director, Institute for Jewish Studies and Interfaith Understanding (IJIU), at fgoldin@odu.edu or at 757-683‑6816.
First PJ Library event of the New Year Sunday, Sept. 28, 10–11:30 am, Simon Family JCC by Leslie Shroyer
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he Simon Family JCC will host a Fall Holiday Sampler where children can try a miniature Rosh Hashanah Sedar, taste Tashlich Sorry Crumbs and make Sukkah decorations. They will even get a Simchat Torah treat. Through PJ Library, any Jewish child, between the ages of six months and fiveand-a-half years can receive free books from this program monthly, and enjoy seasonal programs at the Simon Family JCC with other PJ Library families. “PJ,” stands for “pajamas,” and invokes that time at the end of the day when parents and children strengthen their bond through love and learning by cuddling up with a book. The PJ Library® is an international award-winning Jewish family engagement program designed to strengthen the identities of Jewish families and their relationship to Jewish community. The PJ Library offers free, high-quality Jewish books and music each month to 60,000 children in more than 125 com-
munities in the United States, Canada, and Israel. The program was created by the Harold Grinspoon Foundation, which funds institutions and programs that directly transmit Jewish learning to children, adults and families. The PJ Library partners with philanthropists and Jewish Federations, Jewish Community Centers, and other Jewish non-profit organizations to bring The PJ Library books and music to children. Locally, the PJ Library receives funding from a grant from the Tidewater Jewish Foundation. This community’s PJ Library is run by the Simon Family JCC Children and Family department. For information about joining PJ Library, visit www.pjlibrary.org or contact eeskenazi@ simonfamilyjcc.org. The Simon Family JCC is a constituent agency of United Jewish Federation of Tidewater.
what’s happening
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Introduction to Judaism classes ready to begin at Ohef Sholom
JCC to host free local NFL Punt, Pass and Kick competition
First class: Sunday, Sept. 14, 10–11 am
Sunday, Sept. 21, 10 am to 3 pm
ach year Ohef Sholom Temple offers a series of classes called Introduction to Judaism. These sessions are designed for those interested in becoming Jewish, those curious about Judaism without plans for conversion, interfaith couples and all Jews, OST members or not, eager to learn more about basic Judaism. This year, Rabbi Arthur Steinberg will teach the entire 11-session series. The fundamentals of Jewish thought and practice will be the classes’ focus.
Classes will be held approximately every third Sunday at Ohef Sholom Temple. The first class will cover the High Holidays. Other topics include the Hebrew calendar, Shabbat, Jewish History, Life Cycle events and prayers. These classes are free and open to the community; however, students may purchase an accompanying textbook for $20. For more information, contact Linda Peck at 625-4295 or linda@ohefsholom.org.
Lecture series at Jewish Museum and Cultural Center Begins, Sunday, Nov. 2, 2 pm “American—With a Jewish Accent” is the subject for the Jewish Museum and Cultural Center’s 2014–2015 Sunday afternoon lecture series. The series will address the history of Jewish humor, the garment trade and other pertinent subjects. The first lecturer, Jarrod Tanney, associate professor and Block Distinguished Scholar in Jewish History at University of North Carolina Wilmington, will discuss
the “Borscht Belt to B’nai Mississippi.” On March 1, Professor Adam Mendelsohn, professor of Judaica at College of Charleston returns to speak about the garment industry. His book, The Rag Race, will be published this spring. Two other lectures will be announced. For information, call 391-9266 or visit www.jewishmuseumportsmouth.org. JMCC is located at 607 Effingham St. in Portsmouth.
National Jewish Health presents New Directions Speaker Series Thursday, Sept. 18, 4–5:30 pm, Town Point Club, World Trade Center in Norfolk
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hen it comes to heart problems, most physicians focus on the heart alone. But how many know that lungs can play a critical role in heart health, too? Dr. Brett Fenster, assistant professor in the Division of Cardiology at National Jewish Health, is one of the leaders in the research and treatment of cardio-pulmonary conditions such as pulmonary hypertension, a difficult-to-diagnose condition that hospitalizes more than 200,000 Americans a year and can lead to heart failure. The heart and lungs work closely together, so the best place for the most effective treatment of any cardio-pulmonary problem is a medical center with top expertise in both areas—a description that fits National Jewish Health. Learn how Dr. Fenster and his team are discovering better ways to diagnose pulmonary hypertension through four-dimensional cardiac MRI technology at this free event. For more information and to RSVP, call 703-519-5760 or email: BlairM@njhealth.org.
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oys and girls ages six through 15 are invited to bring their skills to the Simon Family JCC to compete for a chance to go all the way to an NFL playoff game this season. Punt, Pass and Kick is a nationwide football skills competition sponsored annually by the National Football League and designed to provide America’s young athletes an opportunity to compete against their peers in five age brackets. Established in 1961, PPK is the oldest NFL youth football program. More than three million kids from around the country take part in PPK competitions from May through January, making it one of the largest youth sports participation programs. Kids can compete separately in five age divisions (6–7, 8–9, 10–11, 12–13, 14–15) by punting, passing and kicking anytime they chose between the hours of 10 am and 3 pm at the JCC. All participants launch one punt, one pass and one kick, with
scores based on distance and accuracy, in the hopes of winning a chance to advance to sectionals. The contest is free and all that’s needed is a birth certificate to verify age. Players can only participate in one local competition a year. The top finisher in each age group at each local competition will qualify for the sectional competition. At sectionals, each participant starts over and tallies new scores. The top four finishers in each age group at the sectional competition advance to the team championship in their respective NFL market. The winners there are named that NFL market’s Punt, Pass and Kick champion. From there, the top four scores nationally in each age group come together for the national competition. The finals generally take place in January at an NFL stadium that’s playing host to a playoff game. To register for the free PPK event at the JCC, visit the NFL’s Punt Pass and Kick website, NFLPPK.com, or email tedwards@simonfamilyjcc.org. The Simon Family JCC is a constituent agency of United Jewish Federation of Tidewater.
Babies, Books and Bagels at Ohef Sholom Sunday, Sept. 14, 10–11 am
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new and innovative monthly program at Ohef Sholom Temple, Babies, Books & Bagels, is for parents and caregivers and their children—newborn through age two. The class will explore the Jewish world through play, crafts, stories, music and movement and will use PJ Library books and materials. Bagels, healthy snacks and drinks will be provided. Babies, Books & Bagels will be facilitated by Wendy Jaffe, who holds a degree in Pediatric Physical Therapy. Jaffe is also a certified instructor for Zumbini, (a Zumba creation) which is a movement and music class for birth to three-year-olds and their caregivers. In fact, she was one of the first in the country to launch this
program, which she admits, “combines everything I love—working with little ones and their families and wiggling and giggling to kid-friendly Zumba music!” This is an opportunity to meet new friends in a stimulating, fun and creative environment. All participants will leave with at-home enrichment ideas. For more information, contact Kitty Wolf at 625-4295 or kitty@ohefsholom.org.
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calendar September 12, Friday Family Friendly Fridays at Ohef Sholom Temple. 5:45 pm. Join a brief Shabbat evening service with songs and a story, led by Rabbi Roz and Cantor Wally. Designed especially for families with infants through middle schoolers, it will be held right before Family Shabbat dinners, which begin at 6:30 pm. For the dinner: $10 adults (children 12 years and up); Children under 12 are free. (No charge for services) Contact the temple at reservations@ohefsholom.org or 757‑625-4295. Beach & Teach. Dr. Joseph Hodes at Temple Emanuel. Kabbalat Shabbat on the beach, 6 pm; dinner at Temple Emanuel, 7 pm; lecture, 8 pm. DInner: $15 for adults; $10 for children. Register at www.tevb.org. September 15, Monday Will It. Create It. Achieve It. UJFT Campaign Kick-off. 7 pm. Sandler Family Campus. 757‑965-6115. See page 33. September 17, Wednesday JCC Senior Club meeting with Cantor Wally Schachet-Briskin of Ohef Sholom as the guest. The meeting will take place in the Fleder Multi-Purpose room. Board meeting at 10:30 am, a free lunch for members is at 12 noon, general meeting follows. For further information, call 757‑338-2676. September 21, Sunday Community-wide Mitzvah Day. 1:30–3:30 pm. See page 33. Calling all young athletes! The Simon Family JCC, sponsored by the Washington Redskins, will host a local competition for NFL Punt, Pass & Kick 10 am to 3 pm. See page 41. Children’s class open house at the Simon Family JCC. Try different classes for children of all ages from mini-dance to Brickheadz, sign language and more. 10:30 am–12 pm. 757‑321‑2338.
Eric Kline Business Development Danny Kline Vice President
Andy Kline President
Brith Sholom will have a dinner at the Beth Sholom Home at 5:30 pm. Entertainment provided by the Daybreak Singers performed by six lovely ladies. $10 for members and $20 for guests. Reservations and payment must be received by Sept. 23. RSVP to Gail Gogan at 757‑461-1150. Jewish Fall Holiday Sampler at the Simon Family JCC. Try a little Rosh Hashana Sedar, Tashlich Sorry Crumbs and Sukkah decorations ending with a Simchat Torah treat. This is a PJ Library event. 10–11:30 am. This event is free. 757-321-2338. September 29, Monday First class of Israeli Dancing at the JCC. 7:30pm. $5. ($3 for JCC members.) Email sgiannelli@simonfamilyjcc.org for more information, or register at the JCC front desk. October 19, Sunday The Empress and the Nightingale, presented by the Virginia Opera at the Simon Family JCC. Recommended for Grades K–5. Child (ages 10 and under) $6; $4 JCC members; Adult (ages 11 and up) $8; $6 JCC members; Family (2 adults + children) $27; $22 JCC members. Call 757‑321-2338 for tickets.
Payroll, Taxes and W-2s • Web Based Time and Attendance NCS Background Checks • Employee Loans • Pay As You Go Workers Comp Insurance HR Answerlink H.R. Legal Resources • Employee Self Service Online Cobra Administration • VISA Debit Payday Cards
October 28, Tuesday First year Melton class begins at the JCC. This dynamic, year-long class meets 10 am–12:30 pm. For more information, call 757‑321-2328 or email mbrunnruberg@simonfamily jcc.org.
Call us today to see how we can help, 757-523-0605 or visit us at www.paydaypayroll.com. 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.
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7/6/11 11:54 AM
who knew?
Mazel Tov to BBYO celebrates director’s 13 years of service with a virtual “Bat Mitzvah”
Sarah Silverman wins Emmy, thanks her Jews LOS ANGELES (JTA)—Comedian Sarah Silverman broke out a Jewish joke as she took home a trophy at the 2014 Emmy Awards. Silverman won for Best Writing for a Variety Show for her HBO comedy special “Sarah Silverman: We are Miracles.” Upon being announced as the winner, she dashed onto the stage barefoot and thanked her agents, saying, “Thank you to my Jews at CAA.” Prior to the Monday, Aug. 25 ceremony, Silverman set the Internet abuzz when she announced in an interview on the red carpet that she had brought with her a vaporizer with liquid pot. Another Jewish winner was Julianna Margulies, who took home the Emmy as Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama for her role as Alicia Florrick on CBS’s The Good Wife. It was the third Emmy for Margulies, who had won earlier for The Good Wife as well as for “ER.” The Emmy for Outstanding TV Movie went to HBO’s The Normal Heart, based on the 1985 play by Larry Kramer, a Jewish writer and AIDS activist. Kramer’s screenplay lost to Noah Hawley for Fargo.
CBS to adapt British sitcom about Jewish family CBS will adapt a British sitcom called Friday Night Dinner about a Jewish family. The British show, created by Robert Popper, is about the Goodmans, a traditional Jewish family with two sons who come home each week for Friday night dinner. According to entertainment publication Deadline Hollywood, it is unclear whether the family in the CBS adaptation—which Popper will write—will be Jewish. The show’s development is still in its early stages. Deadline reported that the show will have features similar to those of the successful ABC sitcom Modern Family. Friday Night Dinner premiered in 2011 and is in its third season. It was previously picked up for American adaptation by NBC for the 2011–12 season, but the pilot did not become a series. (JTA)
Life-size statue of Amy Winehouse to go up in London A life-size bronze statue of the late Jewish singer-songwriter Amy Winehouse will be erected in the London neighborhood where she lived. The statue, showing Winehouse leaning against a wall with her hand on her hip, will stand in a market in the Camden neighborhood near where she died in 2011. It will go up on Sept. 14, which would have been her 31st birthday. Winehouse, known for hits like 2006’s Grammy Award-winning Back to Black, died at 27 of alcohol poisoning. “Now Amy will oversee the comings and goings of her hometown forever,” said Winehouse’s father, Mitch, according to a report in the Telegraph daily. “Amy was in love with Camden, and it is the place her fans from all over the world associate her with.” Winehouse said his family was “keen to have a memorial for her in the place she loved the most, which will provide fans a place to visit and attract people to the area.” (JTA)
through November
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llen Goldstein has served the BBYO Eastern Region of North Carolina and Southern Virginia’s Jewish communities for the past 13 years as BBYO Eastern Region’s regional director. Now, BBYO would like to honor and celebrate the impact she has had on the 10,000 Jewish teens in these communities whose connection to Jewish life would not have been the same without her. All are invited to join the celebration. “BBYO brought Judaism into my own life in a way I had never experienced before,” says Goldstein. “It made me want to help others have that experience, especially that one Jewish teen in a community with a small Jewish population. Going to an event with 250 others just like them is crucial to showing what it’s like to be part
of the greater Jewish community.” Since Goldstein began, Eastern Region has nearly doubled in size. “When I see BBYO alumni who I worked with as teens, raising their children Jewishly, they tell me that they cherish BBYO and want it to be around for their kids. These are the moments when I know I’m doing something important.” All gifts made in honor of Goldstein’s BBYO Bat Mitzvah Year in the fall of 2014 will go directly to supporting the programs and experiences she has so carefully overseen for 13 years in BBYO Eastern Region. For more information, contact Sara Rose Gorfinkel, BBYO regional director of the Friends and Alumni Network (FAN), at 301-348-3789 or sgorfinkel@bbyo.org.
Mazel Tov submissions should be emailed to news@ujft.org with Mazel Tov in the subject line. Achievements, B’nai Mitzvot, births, engagements and weddings are appropriate simchas to announce. Photos must be at least 300k. Include a daytime phone for questions. There is no fee.
HOME OR OFFICE “ Security In Every Job.”
Annual Donor Report online
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isit JewishVa.org beginning Sept. 16 to view the United Jewish Federation of Tidewater 2014 Annual Donor Report online. See how contributions to the UJFT Annual Campaign impact
757 321-6700
people all over the world.
www.herculesfence.com
For a printed copy, call 757-965-6115. Norfolk
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jewishnewsva.org | September 8, 2014 | Jewish News | 43
obituaries Howard Amdusky Virginia Beach—Howard “Moose” Amdusky, known as “The Moose” by many, died peacefully in his home on Sept. 2. He was 86 years young. He died as he lived, fighting hard and smiling until the end. Staying positive, thinking only of others and constantly reminding those lives he touched how blessed we were to have known him. While his family and friends were far reaching, he never believed he had to leave Virginia Beach to live his dreams. He was a man devoted to his family, his friends, and always giving to others in so very many ways. From the day he was born in Portsmouth, Va., to the late Abe and Blanch Amdusky, Oct. 14, 1927, up until his death, he was one of Virginia Beach’s finest, most respected and versatile business men. Working at his family’s store as a young boy, he learned early on that family can never be replaced by success. Upon completing his military service in the United States Army, Moose returned to the beach with business in mind. His passion for “everything” led him from owning a wig shop, to Moose’s Barbeque Pit, to owning some of the hottest night spots on the east coast including The Mecca and Moose’s Tropicana, where the motto was, “Pleasure is our most important product!” he provided an experience where everyone could relax, have a drink and enjoy life WITH him. He filled his days with family, friends, sports, card games and the sun. From Miami, to Vegas; Old Town to the Oceanfront, he never missed a moment of “sun or fun.” His “rose-colored” glasses were not only fashionable, but a symbol of his outlook on life. Moose was pre-deceased by his brother, Martin “Marty” Amdusky, his brother’s wife, Ruby, brother-in-law John Paul Jones and so many of his dearest family members and friends. He is survived by his loving wife, Barbara; son Michael Amdusky and daughter-in-law, Laura; daughter Sabrina Babb; and his three special grandsons, Zackery Babb, Zachary Dent, and Adam Amdusky. He is also survived by his sister, Carol Faye Kahn, and her husband Saul of Boca Rotan, Fla. and his two close nephews Robbie and Svi, and his sister-in-law
Deloris Jones. Moose was lucky to be surrounded by numerous close cousins, too many to name, who could squeeze years of fun into a one weekend family reunion. His family large, his circle of friends was larger. Services were held at H.D. Oliver Funeral Apartments. Donations to Temple Emanuel, the American Heart Association or The American Kidney Fund or the charity of your choice. Online condolences can be made to the family at www.hdoliver.com.
R.I., and Ellie and Leila Frank of Jerusalem, Israel. A graveside service was held in Forest Lawn Cemetery. H.D. Oliver Funeral Apts. Online condolences may be made to the family at hdoliver.com.
Larry W. Berman Norfolk—Dr. Larry Berman passed away on August 16. Larry was a graduate of Woodrow Wilson High School in Portsmouth, Va. He received both his undergraduate and medical degrees from the University of Virginia. Larry was a dedicated and well-respected pediatrician and a devoted husband, father, grandfather and brother. He is survived by his beloved wife of nearly 57 years, Shirley; his son Dr. Stuart Berman and wife, Ileana; his son, Bruce Berman and wife, Shari; his son Douglas Berman and wife, Jodi; his daughter, Paula Lefkowitz and husband, Michael; his brother, Marshall Berman and wife Karen; and his nine grandsons, Jacob, Ben, Josh, Avi, Zach, Ethan and Charlie Berman and Robby and Andrew Lefkowitz. A memorial service was held at Gomley Chesed synagogue in Portsmouth and at graveside at Gomley Chesed cemetery. Memorial donations to the University of Virginia Hillel or Toras Chaim.
Louis Katz Norfolk—Louis Katz, 99, a longtime resident of Portsmouth and Virginia Beach, passed away with his devoted wife Regina by his side on August 23, 2014. Born July 15, 1915, he was the son of the late Morris and Minnie Katz. Louis enjoyed a successful career in real estate and retired Civil Service. He served with distinction as a Lieutenant in the U.S. Army during WW II. He was active in Jewish organizations and was a member of Gomley Chesed Synagogue in Portsmouth, Temple Emmanuel in Virginia Beach and Temple Israel in Norfolk. Louis loved all sports, dancing and his beloved Redskins. He is survived by Regina S. Katz, wife of 73 years. Other survivors include son Stuart Katz, wife Cynthia; son Barry Katz, wife Kitty; and two loving grandchildren Leah Rosenberg, husband Jason; Erin Megan Katz, finance Lieutenant James King III; and numerous nieces and nephews. A graveside service was held at Gomley Chesed Cemetery in Portsmouth by Rabbi Michael Panitz and Cantor Elihu Flax. Memorial donations to the United Jewish Federation of Tidewater or a preferred charity. H.D. Oliver Funeral Apartments. Online condolences may be shared with the family at www.hdoliver.com.
Bette F. Cohen Virginia Beach—Bette Faye Cohen, 85, passed away on August 29, 2014. She was a native of Richmond, Va. and lived in the Tidewater area for most of her life. She was a member of Temple Emanuel, and was a loving wife, mother and grandmother who will be deeply missed. Survivors include her dedicated and loving husband of 63 years, Hyman Cohen, her three children, Jan Alan Cohen of Virginia Beach, Shauna Smith of Virginia Beach, and Lundi Frank of Jerusalum, Israel, seven grandchildren, Zachary and Jacob Smith, Braden Cohen of Virginia Beach, Ahbra and Eden Perry of Pawtucket,
Eugene Milton “Buddy” Levin Williamsburg—Eugene Milton (Buddy) Levin, 91, passed away August 14, 2014 surrounded by his family. Born on April 14, 1923, he was a lifelong resident of the Peninsula, the last 25 years in Williamsburg. Buddy grew up in Newport News and was graduated from Newport News High School in 1941. He received his BSE in Mechanical Engineering from Duke University after serving in the United States Navy as Lieutenant (jg) aboard the USS Intrepid during World War II. He returned to Newport News after graduation and was employed by Williams, Coile, and
44 | Jewish News | September 8, 2014 | jewishnewsva.org
Blanchard as an engineer. He later worked for Lang Construction Company. In 1955, he founded Apex Building Contractors, Inc. and later formed Newport Management Company, Inc. Buddy was the son of Isadore and Sarah Levin. He and his wife, Betty Allene Nachman, shared 63 years of life and love together. In addition to his wife, Betty, he is survived by his four children Stephen (Christine) Levin, Nancy Levin, David (Beth) Levin, and Ann Levin Lane. He was preceded in death by his brother, Robert Levin, and his son-in-law, Jeffrey Lane. He is also survived by his eight beloved grandchildren: Daniel Levin, Samuel Levin, Matthew Levin, Harrison Levin, Sarah Levin, Robert Levin, Sadye Lane and Hannah Lane. Buddy lived a life of commitment to the community at large and in particular to the Jewish community and encouraged his children and grandchildren to value education and philanthropy. He demonstrated his leadership in these areas in his service as chairman and longtime board member of the UJA/UJC Annual Campaign; chairman of the board of trustees of the Endowment Fund and vice-president of the Federation of the Virginia Peninsula; vice-president of Rodef Sholom Temple; co-chairman of the National Conference for Christians and Jews; board member of the Beth Sholom Home for the Elderly, and an active member of the Community Relations Council executive committee. In the business community he served on the board of directors of Sovran Bank (now Bank of America); the campaign committee of the Peninsula Nature and Science Center (currently the Virginia Living Museum); and the board of directors of American Health Services Inc. He was active in the Peninsula Literacy Council Advisory board and received the NCCJ Brotherhood Award. He was dedicated and worked tirelessly toward the betterment of the community. A funeral service was held at Rodef Sholom Temple in Hampton. Donations: the Endowment Fund of the United Jewish Community of the Virginia Peninsula; An Achievable Dream; or the Virginia Living Museum.
obituaries Lauren Bacall, sultry film legend NEW YORK (JTA)—Lauren Bacall, a film legend best known for her sultry onscreen presence and her Hollywood romance with actor Humphrey Bogart, has died. Bacall, the daughter of Jewish immigrants from Poland and Romania, died Tuesday, August 12 in New York. She suffered a massive stroke in her apartment on Manhattan’s Upper West Side. Bacall was 89. Born Betty Joan Perske in the Bronx, Bacall was a relative of former Israeli President Shimon Peres (nee Szymon Perski), although they did not meet until they were both famous adults. After her parents’ divorce, when she was six, she took the second half of her mother’s maiden name, Bacal, later adding an “l.” Her big break was a role, at age 19, in the film To Have and Have Not, where she played opposite Bogart. The two married
in 1945. Bacall went on to perform in more than 40 films, including The Big Sleep and How to Marry a Millionaire. She also performed on stage, winning Tony Awards for her starring roles in the musicals Applause and Woman of the Year. Her 1980 autobiography, Lauren Bacall: By Myself, won a National Book Award. According to her New York Times obituary, Bacall wrote that she felt “totally Jewish and always would.” However, she wrote that she and Bogart, an Episcopalian, had their two children christened in an Episcopal church in deference to Bogart’s concern that “with discrimination still rampant in the world, it would give them one less hurdle to jump in life’s Olympics.” The Times reported that during her romance with Bogart, Bacall asked him if it mattered to him that she was Jewish. His answer, she wrote, was “Hell, no—what
mattered to him was me, how I thought, how I felt, what kind of person I was, not my religion, he couldn’t care less—why did I even ask?” Bogart died in 1957. Bacall later married actor Jason Robards, with whom she had a son.
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The roe ahead: Russian science brings ‘caviar’ to kosher table by Cnaan Liphshiz
PARIS (JTA)—In a penthouse office with a view of the Eiffel Tower, Olivier Kassabi uses a ceramic spoon to extract a small scoop from a jar labeled as Russian caviar. Placing a clutch of black globules on the base of his thumb, Kassabi licks it off, savoring every fishy drop of the salty liquid inside the dark beads as they pop in his mouth. As recently as a few months ago, Russian caviar would have been strictly off-limits for an observant Jew like Kassabi. Sturgeon, the endangered fish species whose eggs are harvested to produce caviar, is not kosher. That’s what led Kassabi to import and market a caviar substitute that he hopes satisfies not just the growing demand among observant Jews for affordable delicacies, but also the desire for sustainable
foods with minimal environmental impact. “In the age of mass media and globalization, Jewish communities are much more exposed to fine cuisine,” Kassabi says. “People see special dishes on food blogs and they want a taste.” Kassabi is not the only businessman aiming to tap into what people in the food world see as a growing demand among observant Jews for gourmet foodstuffs that meet their dietary needs. Last year, the Brooklyn-based Black Diamond Caviar started marketing a caviar substitute from a non-endangered kosher fish called bowfin that is caught in Louisiana. And in February, Le Rafael became the first kosher restaurant in France to earn two stars from the vaunted Michelin Guide. “All over the world, average restaurant
46 | Jewish News | September 8, 2014 | jewishnewsva.org
goers are becoming more demanding because of the popularization of the the culture of gourmet dining, and kashrut keepers are no exception to this trend,” says Guy Cohen, one of the owners of Le Rafael, which is testing Kassabi’s substitute caviar. “Clients have become very demanding and we are rising to the challenge.” Kassabi’s caviar interest was piqued last year when he read that a company in Saint Petersburg called Tzar Caviar was developing a caviar substitute through a process known as molecular engineering in which a fish bouillon is made to resemble the contents of sturgeon eggs in taste and consistency. The liquid is then compressed into a membrane that looks like the soft shell of a fish egg. The result is a kosher product that its producer claims more closely resembles real caviar than most other kosher fish roes on the market. Overcoming Tzar Caviar’s fear of compromising the secrecy of its production methods took some time, Kassabi said. But within a few months he was able to arrange for kosher supervision from the chief rabbi of Saint Petersburg, MenachemMendel Pevzner. Kassabi and his partner, Yohann Assayag, have sold hundreds of jars of Tzar Caviar since they began marketing the product earlier this year. The demand is especially strong in France, where the ostentatious nature of Jewish weddings and other festivities is so renowned it is the stuff of parody, most famously in the character of Coco, an overzealous Frenchman (portrayed by the Jewish comedian Gad Almaleh) determined to give his son the best bar mitzvah the world has ever seen. The partners have also sold Tzar Caviar to Jewish delis in New York and expect to begin shipping to Israel in the coming months. “This stuff is flying off the shelf, thank God,” Kassabi said. Meanwhile, French media were
interested in Tzar Caviar not for its kashrut but because of its relative affordability. Tzar Caviar is 15 percent cheaper than real caviar, selling for just under $41 per 50 grams. It also has a longer shelf life and is produced without exploiting any endangered species. Traditional caviar production has rendered some sturgeon species near extinction, according to the World Wide Fund for Nature. Assayag was surprised when “Tele Matin,” a leading French daytime television program, didn’t bring up the kosher issue at all in an interview, asking only about the production process and pricing. Tzar Caviar hit the market just months after Raymond Mizrahi began marketing his own kosher caviar substitute in New York. Mizrahi shares the notion that observant Jews are demanding more because of exposure to new culinary pleasures, but believes that most kosher substitutes have come up short. “Kosher caviar substitutes are nothing new. You’ve always had salmon roe,” says Mizrahi, the owner of Black Diamond Caviar. “But it tends to behave like a plastic bubble and certainly not like the finer black kinds. And you have other kosher black caviar, too, but they are of poorer quality.” High-end black caviar or its substitute, Mizrahi says, “will not leave a black streak on a white plate.” Mizrahi couldn’t vouch for Tzar Caviar’s taste, but Kassabi claims the product is nearly identical. “I don’t know what real caviar tastes like,” Kassabi says, “but experts who do said it’s nearly indistinguishable from Tzar Caviar.”
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