CT Jewish Ledger • January 29, 2021 • 16 Shevat 5781

Friday, January 29, 2021 16 Shevat 5781 Vol. 93 | No. 5 | ©2021 $1.00 | jewishledger.com

TU B’SHVAT:

New Year of the Trees

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INSIDE

this week

CONNECTICUT JEWISH LEDGER | SINCE 1929 | JANUARY 29, 2021 | 16 SHEVAT 5781

14/15 Briefs

17 Crossword

18 What’s Happening

19 Torah Portion

20 Obituaries

Their Childhood Restored................................................ 4 A new online exhibit released by Yad Vashem in time for International Holocaust Remembrance Day reveals the story of how group homes across Europe provided children with a place to heal and reconnect with the Jewish people.

Team Biden............................................................................ 5 President Joe Biden’s slate of Cabinet secretaries, assistants and advisors reflect a cross-section of American Jewry who possess expertise gleaned from decades of experience in government, science and medicine and law.

21 Business and Professional Directory

22 Classified

Dear or No Deal?............................. 5 Secretary of State nominee Tony Blinken said the U.S. shouldn’t lift terrorism sanctions on Tehran or unfreeze its assets until the Islamic Republic comes to the negotiating table.

Authors’ Corner.............................. 8 Stamford resident Harris Kligman parlayed some of his heart-stopping experiences as an intelligence officer in the U.S. Army into a series of novels.

Introducing…................................ 10 The new (unabashedly, unapologetically Jewish) Senate majority leader, U.S. Senator Charles Schumer.

CANDLE LIGHTING

Sponsored by:

SHABBAT FRIDAY, JAN. 29 ON THE COVER:

From almond trees and veganism to ancient languages and Middle Ages sources, Tu B’Shvat is one fascinating festival. Also known as the New Year of the Trees – Tu B’Shvat begins at sundown Wednesday, Jan. 27. PAGE 12 jewishledger.com

Hartford: 4:45 p.m.

New Haven: 4:45 p.m.

Bridgeport: 4:46 p.m.

Stamford: 4:47 p.m.

To determine the time for Havdalah, add one hour and 10 minutes (to be safe) to candle lighting time.

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INTERNATIONAL HOLOCAUST REMEMBRANCE DAY How children’s homes revived the youngest Holocaust survivors

BY DEBORAH FINEBLUM

(JNS) It’s been 75 years, but Yaakov Guterman can still recall nearly everything about the nine months he lived in Zakopane, Poland.

He remembers that all of a sudden in this group home for children who’d survived the Holocaust, he had plenty of good food to eat, clean mountain air to breathe, other kids to play with and loving adults to care for him. “It was the best time of my life,” he says, speaking from his longtime home on Kibbutz HaOgen. “I was so happy there.”

After a seeming eternity of fleeing from place to place, living under a fake Polish name, taking shelter where he could and doing odd jobs to stay alive, above all, in Zakopane, the nine-year-old felt safe.

Safe, that is, until the night in 1945 when Polish nationalists began shooting and throwing grenades through the windows while home director Lena Kuchler and her volunteers scrambled to push the kids’ beds into the hall to protect them from harm. That was the night Kuchler decided that she and her young wards – many still healing from injuries and illnesses they had sustained over years of neglect and abuse – could no longer remain in Poland.

A journey destined to take them to France, and eventually, to the infant state of Israel in 1949.

Zakopane is one of seven very special group homes featured in a new online exhibit released by Yad Vashem: The World Holocaust Remembrance Center in time for International Holocaust Remembrance Day on Wednesday, Jan. 27.

Designed for everyone – families,

educators and congregations alike – “Children’s Homes for Holocaust Survivors: “My Lost Childhood” is replete with testimonies from the children who lived there and 150 historic photographs, many of them being released publicly for the first time.

Though 1.5 million Jewish children were murdered in the Holocaust, it’s likely that fewer than 100,000 survived.

These were youngsters who’d been taken in by non-Jews, hidden with partisans in the forest, lived on the street, or most miraculously of all, actually survived labor and concentration camps.

The exhibit shines a light on a littleknown phenomenon: Situated across Europe were dozens of group homes – known in Yiddish as kinderheim – where tens of thousands of Jewish children who’d managed to survive the Shoah found a place to heal, and for many, to reconnect with the Jewish people from whom they’d been separated at a young age.

Funded mostly by the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (the JDC or the “Joint”), the homes were also supported by the Jewish Agency and assorted Jewish organizations with help from volunteers from Israel (then Mandatory Palestine) and soldiers from the British Army’s Jewish Brigade.

Many of the children came to the homes after not finding any family alive back in their old towns; others were brought by neighbors and Poles who kept their eyes open for Jewish children; while still others were found by members of the Zionist

LENA KÜCHLER (CENTER), DIRECTOR OF THE CHILDREN’S HOME IN ZAKOPANE, POLAND, WITH THE CHILDREN AND STAFF IN 1945.

CREDIT: YAD VASHEM.

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Koordynacja (Coordination Committee) for the Redemption of Jewish Children, formed in Poland to locate them.

By the time Renee Baff Kochman arrived at the Blankenese children’s home in Hamburg, Germany, she was 17. The year was 1946, and like so many of the others, she was an orphan; her mother Shifra had been killed in the Lodz ghetto and her father Shelomo had died in a labor camp.

Kochman herself had survived Auschwitz.

“I emerged from the death camps after enduring the most terrible experience ever recorded in history, damaged in body and spirit,” she wrote years later, having given testimony to the Spielberg Visual History Archive in her Upstate New York home.

“After indescribable losses – my family, my childhood and my friends – I was overwhelmed with emotional and physical pain.”

But Blankenese “restored part of my lost childhood to me,” she added. “It became my home.” After nearly a year there, Kochman made aliyah, eventually moving to the United States.

‘These homes brought them back to life’

“When you consider the odds against their survival, each of them was a miracle,” says Yad Vashem spokesman Simmy Allen.

The most well-known of these miracles were future Nobel Prize winner Eli Wiesel and future Chief Rabbi of Israel Yisrael Meir Lau. They were among the 1,000 “Buchenwald Boys,” half of whom, including eight-year-old Lau and 16-year-old Wiesel, were sent to the Ecouis children’s home in France. The dramatic story of Lau’s childhood is recorded in his memoir Do Not Raise a Hand Against the Boy, whereas much of Wiesel’s story can be found in the classic book Night.

“Whether they’d survived in hiding or in forced labor or concentration camps, their childhoods were ripped from them,” says exhibit curator Yona Kobo, the daughter of survivors. “They were undernourished and desperately in need of healing, both physically and emotionally. These homes actually brought them back to life.”

Healing from such intense childhood pain is not a simple process, says one expert on the effects of childhood trauma.

“Not only did these children experience the forced separation from their parents at an early age, but all too often, they also suffered abuse at the hands of their caregivers, so they felt unsafe, emotionally

as well as physically,” says psychologist Julian Ford, a professor at the University of Connecticut School of Medicine and part of a team that identified Developmental Trauma Disorder (DTD).

This can give rise to a host of problems, including difficulty in forming loving bonds in the future.

For them to recover and lead a healthy life, Ford maintains, “these children need to experience a relationship with a good role model and source of security who won’t judge them.” This allows the child to “manage their emotions and most importantly to learn to trust.”

But the new caretaker must understand the child’s need to “catch up,” he adds, by being kind and, just as importantly, by gently setting consistent limits. “This takes a long time and a lot of patience, especially with all that they went through,” says Ford. “But with children, there is so much resiliency as well as so much hope.”

Indeed, among the most potent of the healing forces at work in these children’s homes were their young counselors – or madrichim, as they were called in the Zionistic homes where they were learning Hebrew. Many of these 17- to 25-year-olds were Holocaust orphans themselves and barely older than their charges, says Kobo.

As Kochman recalls, “my teachers and the other girls became my friends and my family.”

“As survivors, they could identify with the children’s pain, comprehend what they had endured, and, because they were alone in the world, too, the bonds they formed with these lost children were equally healing for them,” adds curator Kobo.

“The connection with a child desperate for someone they could trust was a special bond that allowed both of them to go on to eventually lead happy, productive lives.”

One such hero was Yeshayahu Drucker, a Jewish chaplain in the Polish army who, after liberation, doggedly combed the Polish neighborhoods and countryside for Jewish children, then bringing them to the children’s home in Zabrze.

“In most cases, child survivors living with Poles didn’t want to part from these families,” he wrote later. “Even when they had been badly treated, they didn’t want to go.” And that began a delicate process of disentangling the youngster from what was, in many cases, the only place they knew as home.

CONTINUED ON PAGE 7

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UP FRONT

CONNECTICUT JEWISH LEDGER | SINCE 1929 | JANUARY 29, 2021 | 16 SHEVAT 5781

All the Jews Joe Biden has tapped for top roles in his administration

Biden nominees stress that US not rejoining Iran nuclear deal anytime soon

BY JTA STAFF

(JTA) – President Joe Biden filled the months before Inauguration Day lining up a slate of Cabinet secretaries, assistants and advisors, many of them Jewish. Biden’s choices reflect a diverse cross-section of American Jewry and possess expertise gleaned from decades of experience in government, science and medicine and law.

Here’s a rundown of the Jewish names you should know as the Biden administration begins.

Merrick Garland, Attorney General

Garland was blocked from joining the Supreme Court in the last year of the Obama administration. Now, he’ll require Senate confirmation to become the country’s top lawyer. In his speech after being nominated, he credited his grandparents, who fled anti-Semitism in Europe before coming to the U.S. MERRICK GARLAND IN 2016.

Anthony Blinken, Secretary of State

SECRETARY OF STATE NOMINEE TONY BLINKEN, NOV. 24, 2020.

(CHANDAN KHANNA/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES)

Blinken, a longtime Biden advisor with an extensive diplomacy resume, is the stepson of a Holocaust survivor whose stories shaped his worldview and subsequently his policy decisions, including in the Middle East. He holds mainstream Democratic views about Israel and said during his confirmation hearing Tuesday that he wants the U.S. to reenter the Iran nuclear deal – and that he would consult with Israel on Iran policy.

(ALEX WONG/GETTY IMAGES)

Avril Haines, Director of National Intelligence Haines was deputy director of the CIA under Obama and Biden reportedly considered her to run that agency. Her mother was the Jewish painter Adrian Rappin (originally Rappaport), and her non-Jewish father once wrote in an account about a trip with Haines to Israel that the nominee identifies as Jewish.

NOMINEE FOR DIRECTOR OF NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE AVRIL HAINES, JAN. 19, 2021.

(MELINA MARA-POOL/GETTY IMAGES)

David Cohen, CIA Deputy Director

Ronald Klain, Chief of Staff

Cohen, who has long been involved in Jewish causes and issues, will occupy the job he held under President Barack Obama.

He does not require confirmation, meaning that Biden’s CIA has a top expert in Iran issues from Day One. DAVID COHEN IN 2011.

(BRENDAN HOFFMAN/GETTY IMAGES)

RON KLAIN, JAN. 13, 2015.

(BILL O’LEARY/THE WASHINGTON POST/ GETTY IMAGES)

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Klain, a longtime Biden who was the president-elect’s first major appointment in November, was previously chief of staff to Biden in his vice president days and to Vice President Al Gore. He has maintained ties with his childhood synagogue in Indianapolis, where he famously learned multiple Torah portions for his bar mitzvah, and has spoken about his commitment to raising Jewish children.

(JNS) Several nominees for U.S. President-elect Joe Biden’s national security team acknowledged on Tuesday, Jan. 19, that the United States isn’t ready to rejoin the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).

On Tuesday morning, Avril Haines, nominee for the director of national intelligence, remarked that Biden said that the United States would re-enter the JCPOA “if Iran comes back into compliance,” but things are “a long ways from that.”

She also told the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence that Biden “has also indicated in doing so” that he would “have to look at the ballistic missiles you’ve identified and destabilizing activities Iran engages in.”

The United States withdrew in May 2018 from the nuclear deal, reimposing sanctions lifted under it, along with enacting new sanctions on Iran as part of what the Trump administration has called a “maximum pressure” campaign.

The following afternoon, U.S. Secretary of State nominee Tony Blinken echoed Haines, emphasizing that the United States is “a long way” from re-entering the nuclear accord.

Blinken also told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that Biden would consult with Israel and Gulf allies before re-entering the deal.

Additionally, Blinken said that the United States should not lift terrorism sanctions on Tehran or unfreeze assets belonging to Iran until and in order for the Islamic Republic to come to the negotiating table.

In addition to his answers on Iran, Blinken talked about building on the Abraham Accords – the normalization agreements between Israel and the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Sudan and Morocco – though he said, without specifying, that there are details that should be reviewed. Previously, Blinken expressed reservations about America’s CONTINUED ON THE NEXT PAGE

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Top roles

Nuclear

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Eric Lander, Office of Science and Technology Policy director

ERIC LANDER WILL LEAD THE OFFICE OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY POLICY. (ALEX WONG/GETTY IMAGES)

Lander, a leading geneticist, will require Senate confirmation after Biden elevated his position to the Cabinet level. After he was criticized for toasting James Watson, the scientist who is credited with discovering the shape of DNA and who also expressed racist and sexist views, Lander said he, too, had been the subject of antisemitic comments

by Watson.

Anne Neuberger, National Security Agency cybersecurity director

An Orthodox Jew originally from Brooklyn and educated through college in Orthodox schools, Neuberger has worked at the NSA for more than a decade. She helped establish the U.S. Cyber Command and worked as chief risk officer, where she led the agency’s election security efforts for the 2018 midterms.

ANNE NEUBERGER

(NATIONAL SECURITY AGENCY)

Rachel Levine, deputy health secretary

Levine, raised in a Conservative Jewish home in Massachusetts, is Pennsylvania’s health secretary.

She is the first known transgender person to be nominated for a position that requires Senate confirmation.

Wendy Sherman, deputy secretary of state

RACHEL LEVINE, MAY 16, 2016.

(BONNIE JO MOUNT/THE WASHINGTON POST VIA GETTY IMAGES)

WENDY SHERMAN

(ERIC BRIDIERS/U.S. MISSION GENEVA)

Sherman was the lead negotiator for the 2015 Iran nuclear deal and took the lead in advocating for the agreement with the Jewish and pro-Israel communities, later describing tensions with Israel and some American Jewish groups over the deal as “very, very painful.” She has also played a role in hewing the Democratic Party platform to traditional proIsrael lines.

Alejandro Mayorkas, Secretary of Homeland Security

ALEJANDRO MAYORKAS, THEN DEPUTY SECRETARY OF HOMELAND SECURITY, ADDRESSES THE ORTHODOX UNION, SEPT. 21, 2016.

(ORTHODOX UNION)

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Mayorkas, 60, the deputy secretary of Homeland Security under President Barack Obama, was born in Cuba to a Cuban Jewish father and Romanian Jewish mother who survived the Holocaust. He has worked closely with Jewish groups and spoken often about the specific threats facing American Jews. An array of Jewish groups sought a swift confirmation given the threat of extremist violence surrounding the presidential transition, but a Republican senator who supported overturning the election results blocked that possibility on Tuesday.

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Janet Yellen, Treasury secretary, deputy Secretary of State Yellen already made history as the first woman chair of the Federal Reserve, but now she has been appointed to be the first female Treasury secretary.

The respected centrist was one of three Jews featured in a 2016 Trump attack ad that reflected longstanding antisemitic tropes.

F-35 deal to the UAE following Abu Dhabi normalizing ties with Israel.

Moreover, Blinken called Turkey’s acquisition of the S-400 from Russia “unacceptable.” In response, the United States ejected Turkey from Washington’s F-35 program that year. Last month, the United States enacted sanctions against Ankara for the acquisition.

However, Blinken criticized the Trump administration for its designation this month of the Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen as a terrorist entity, lamenting that the move will hinder humanitarian assistance to Yemen even if there are exemptions for the United States to do so, citing that most of the humanitarian aid to that country mostly comes from other countries.

Also regarding Yemen, Blinken said that while the United States should end its support for Saudi Arabia’s intervention in the country, Washington should continue its allied status with Saudi Arabia.

Furthermore, Blinken noted the BDS movement “unfairly and inappropriately” calls out Israel and creates a double standard, though he noted that the Biden administration will always respect First Amendment rights. He did call for the two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, though said, “Our commitment to Israel’s security is sacrosanct.”

Additionally, when asked by Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) if Jerusalem is Israel’s capital and whether the United States will keep its embassy in Israel in Jerusalem, Blinken replied: “Yes and yes.”

Finally, also on Tuesday afternoon, U.S. Defense Secretary nominee Lloyd Austin, a retired general, touched upon the Iranian threat and even praised the Abraham Accords.

Referring to the JCPOA, Austin told the Senate Armed Services Committee, “The preconditions for us considering to re-enter into that agreement would be that Iran meet the conditions outlined in the agreement … back to where they should have been,” adding that other issues, including ballistic missiles, would need to be addressed.

Referring to the Abraham Accords, Austin said that countries agreeing to normalize relations is a good thing and that the normalization agreements have put more pressure on Iran and he expressed hope that the deals will have good effects.

JANET YELLEN, DEC. 13, 2017.

(BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/ AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES)

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Remembrance CONTINUED FROM PAGE 4

‘I knew I had to be here’

Whereas roughly a third of the children in these group homes were reunited with relatives in the United States, South Africa, Latin America and Canada, the other twothirds eventually made their way to Israel, says Yad Vashem’s Allen. “Many went on to build the infant State of Israel, including the kibbutzim, with a strength they’d gained in these children’s homes,” he says. “Here they had a cause, a purpose and a direction.

After what they’d been through and what they’d seen, it had to be highly rehabilitative to part of building the Jewish state from the ground up.”

Including Meira Erlich, who arrived in Israel in 1947 at age 12, having left Poland the year before with 250 other children from the group homes, led by Rabbi Shlomo Schonfeld, who resettled them with Jewish families in London.

“As soon as I heard about a Jewish state, I knew I had to be here,” she recalls.

Seventy-three years, two children and six grandchildren later, she remains in the Haifa area.

In 1950, Yaakov Guterman was a teenager when his mother and stepfather announced their plans to move the family to Canada. “But I convinced them to come to Israel instead,” he recalls. “I knew I needed to be here.”

Today, Guterman and his wife still live

– and enjoy their five grandchildren – on Kibbutz HaOgen where they raised their four children, the oldest having lost his life in the Lebanon War. In the late ’50s, Lena Küchler, the director of the Zakopane children’s home who’d resolved to get her young wards out of Poland after the attack on their home, wrote in her memoir My Hundred Children: “In our apartment on Yarkon Street, close to Tel Aviv’s beach … we are holding a reception for my hundred children. Today, 10 years after our initial meeting, they are happy, and approach their lives with confidence. No one would believe that these are the same aggressive, miserable children I found at the Jewish Committee offices at 38 Dluga Street in Krakow. The wondrous completion of this return to life took place here, under the blue skies of Israel, when they experienced the freedom that only a homeland can give to its children – the freedom to spread one’s wings.”

Yad Vashem offers the opportunity to be matched with a Holocaust victim, and be sent their life story.

Both names are posted on the “I Remember Wall” online. Last year, some 85,000 people, including students and b’nai mitzvah, were matched with a victim. For more information: iremember.yadvashem. org.

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AUTHOR’S CORNER

Former intelligence officer weaves his own experiences into his spy novels

BY STACEY DRESNER

S

TAMFORD – Trained as a United States Army Paratrooper, Ranger and linguist, Major (Ret.) Harris Kligman served for 21 years in the United States Army, for much of that time as an Intelligence officer.

When asked if he was a spy during his younger years, he hesitates.

“Can I not go into that?” he says with a chuckle.

You could say Kligman has lived a very colorful life.

Now, at the age of 82, Kligman is sharing some of the exciting experiences he had as an intelligence officer in a series of fictionalized novels he began writing 10 years ago.

Two of Kligman’s books, The Profession and The Shaolin Covenant, have been selfpublished via Amazon.

Published last November, The Profession tells the tale of Nancy Gault, an American concert pianist, who also happens to be a “contract operative with a clandestine organization specializing in assassinations” working with British agent to assassinate a Chinese official.

MAJOR (RET.) HARRIS KLIGMAN SERVED FOR 21 YEARS IN THE UNITED STATES ARMY, FOR MUCH OF THAT TIME AS AN INTELLIGENCE OFFICER.

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Kligman says he based the main character on a female operative he knew during his days in Intelligence. But he added the piano angle from his own life.

“I play the piano. I have played piano all my life. It’s a nice escape,” explains the North Stamford resident. “Like building a house, you need a foundation. My foundation in many of these novels comes from experiences I had – something that I experienced that I always weave into the story. And from that I weave in other things that may not have happened to make it more readable.”

During the first two weeks after it was published, The Profession was listed in the top 30 on Amazon’s Top 100 Espionage & Spy category rankings for new releases across all of Amazon. It remained in the Top 100 for 45 more days, and since has sold 350 copies.

“We were extremely surprised,” says Kligman’s son, Rob Kligman. “On Facebook and social media channels it really took on a life of its own. Through really organic promotion, we really started to see some chatter about the book.”

Another of his books, Her Father’s Daughter, set to be published in March, deals with the Holocaust and a young attorney’s mission to recover artwork stolen from Jewish families.

“It involves aging Nazis, neo-Nazis, Israeli agents, Mossad, and much of what I put in there was from my background growing up and what I learned about World War II,” Kligman explains. “I thought I would bring into this book some of the historical events, both good and bad, that transpired in the camps. One of my characters is a Holocaust survivor.”

“Generally, when I write, my experiences come back to me – the antisemitism, the things that were done to me as an individual, to us in general. And then I bring in things that are factual, so that the reader can learn and visualize what that individual had to face to survive,” he adds.

Kligman’s life “experience” includes growing up one of only a few Jewish kids in a rough neighborhood in Philadelphia. “[Antisemitism] was always a part of my life unfortunately,” he recalls. “I stood out.

There weren’t many of us. It was a tough way to grow up. There were many fights and I tried to give as good as I got. My memories of those days growing up were always about the fights and the harassment my family

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suffered. The late 1930’s and early 1940’s were not an easy time for Jews in my neighborhood or for that matter anywhere else.

“I remember my father speaking of antisemitism and trying to explain it to me in terms that I would understand,” he recalls. “My father always told me how proud he was of me for standing up for what I was and what we, as a family, believed.”

An only child, Kligman loved the escape that books gave him. He also began writing at an early age.

“Writing was something that always carried through from my earliest days,” he says. “I would get a writing assignment at school or college, it was never a chore for me. It was something I always loved to do.”

Kligman attended Temple University in Philadelphia, majoring in business administration. He also joined ROTC after getting some advice from his beloved father.

According to Kligman, his father asked him, ’Do you want to lead or do you want to follow?’”

“I said, ‘I want to lead,”’ ‘Then you have to take ROTC in college so when you go in the Army you are an officer and a leader,’” Kligman says his father told him.

In 1958, after graduating he became a commissioned officer at the age of 21.

While he says serving as an officer opened many doors for him, he still had to deal with antisemitism.

“Antisemitism followed me to the United States Army and even though I was an officer, my fellow officers occasionally made comments that were reminiscent of my youth in Philadelphia,” he says. “What mattered – and only mattered to many of them – was that I was Jew. Some were okay with that, others not so much. It only made me stronger.”

After a 21-year career in Intelligence, Kligman retired, but kept his connections to the military. He lived in South Korea for more than four years, where he was trained in Hapkido and became the holder of a Black Belt. And he continued to interact with various military governments and business entities throughout the Far East, Africa, and South America as a businessman.

“My civilian life always was intertwined with my military life for 21 years until I

HARRIS KLIGMAN WITH HIS WIFE, NANCY, AND HIS SON, ROB.

retired officially from the military in 1979 as a Reserve Army Military Intelligence Officer,” Kligman says. I continued with my civilian career as an international vice president for a $20 billion commodities trading company whose varied activities spanned the world.”

Kligman settled in North Stamford 48 years ago, where he and his wife Nancy raised their two sons, Rob, who works in advertising sales for World Wrestling Entertainment in Stamford, and Marc, who lives with his family, including three children, in Las Vegas.

In his Connecticut home, Kligman says, he has hosted many of the individuals from around the world that he worked with during his international career.

“It was interesting for my children, because they got to meet people from different cultures.”

Ten years ago, at Rob’s behest, Kligman began writing down his stories – fictional stories of agents and intrigue, with bits and pieces of his own experiences thrown in.

For the past decade Kligman has basically been glued to a small table and chair in his basement, banging out his 12 novels on an old Windows desktop PC. He has also written four short stories and several children’s books. jewishledger.com

At the Hebrew Center for Health and Rehabilitation, we understand that comfort and familiarity is a key part of the journey to wellness. We also understand that maintaining your religious beliefs and principles is fundamental in continued enrichment of life.

Rob and Nancy began making copies of the various books’ manuscripts, which they have shared over the years with family and friends who can’t get enough of Kligman’s stories.

It was Nancy and Rob who over the past year convinced him to publish his books using Amazon’s self-publishing platform – which formats, prints, binds, and aids in marketing the books for a fee.

In each book Kligman thanks his wife and son for their love and assistance: “Dedicated to my son Rob, whose relentless urging motivated me to start writing. And to my wife Nancy, whose strength and fortitude kept our family intact over the many lengthy absences.”

They plan to publish all of the novels Kligman has written in the last 10 years in 2021 and 2022.

Publishing his father’s novels has done more than just make his stories available to the public; Rob says that it has been a meaningful way for he and his parents to come together and bond during the past year’s Covid-19 crisis. “[We] worked together during Covid to bring to life the imagination of an amazing father and husband,” Rob says. “Literally, it has been Dad, my Mom and myself sitting jewishledger.com

down at the kitchen table editing and coming up with ideas on how to get his books published. So it has been a true family affair.”

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ELECTION 2020

Chuck Schumer makes history as the highestranking elected Jewish official ever

BY GABE FRIEDMAN

(JTA) – Chuck Schumer could not let the moment pass without mentioning its Jewish history.

Georgia’s new senators, Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock, were sworn in on Wednesday, Jan. 20, making Schumer the new Senate majority leader – the first-ever Jew in that powerful role.

Never afraid to reference his Yiddishkeit, Schumer recalled his roots in an address in the Senate chamber. And he got biblical, too.

“With the swearing in of these three senators, the Senate will turn to Democratic control … under the first New York-born majority leader in American history,” he said. “A kid from Brooklyn, the son of an exterminator and a housewife, a descendant of victims of the Holocaust. .

“That I should be the leader of this new Senate majority is an awesome responsibility. Awesome in the biblical

unprecedented polarization. Democrats were outraged by the deadly Capitol insurrection two weeks ago staged by rightwing extremists, some of them antisemitic and white supremacist, and they called for the immediate removal of then-President Donald Trump for instigating the horror.

For Republicans, while the event forced a widespread reckoning for their party, over 140 lawmakers combined in the House and Senate continued to back Trump’s false claims that the election results were fraudulent.

If he can effectively corral his Senate troops, Schumer will have a chance to leave an outsized mark on a range of issues that Biden has signaled he wants to tackle post-pandemic, from climate change to immigration to health care. Schumer, a longtime moderate, has shown signs that he has been emboldened by the Macchiavellian moves of his predecessor Mitch McConnell, who often departed from traditional protocols to ram through Congress

SEN. CHUCK SCHUMER AT A NEWS BRIEFING WITH NEW DEMOCRATIC SENATORS AT THE U.S. CAPITOL, JAN. 21, 2021.

(DREW ANGERER/GETTY IMAGES)

sense, as the angels that trembled in awe before God. Today I feel the full weight of that responsibility.”

In his short speech, Schumer borrowed a line that President Joe Biden had used a few hours earlier to hail Harris’ glass ceilingshattering milestone and applied it to Jews.

“As President Biden said in his inaugural address: ‘Don’t tell me things can’t change,’” he said.

The honeymoon likely won’t last long for Schumer, who helms the slimmest of majorities in the Senate – a 50-50 split of Democrats and Republicans that Harris can break with a tie-breaking vote – amid

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everything from federal judicial appointees (and multiple Supreme Court justices) to high-stakes bills.

In his speech to the virtual Democratic National Convention in August, Schumer said that the Senate would “bring bold and dramatic change to our country” if Democrats won control of the chamber.

As for how he will make that happen, his former communications director Stu Loeser argued that unlike many senators, Schumer is savvy about forming small groups of like-minded Republican and Democratic lawmakers who can connect over noncontroversial issues.

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“So say there’s a Republican senator from, you know, Pennsylvania, a Democratic senator from Wisconsin, and all of us have this same problem that we’re working on in New York. Say this is not the only place in the country that has this kind of former defense plant that needs a new use,” Loeser told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. Schumer’s approach is “‘we’re going to build a coalition because we’ll find out the other ones, and we’re going to get these guys to work on us on a bipartisan basis.’

“He is acutely aware of what drives the senators. It’s not like you approach it from the idea of I’m going to get people across party lines, which is toxic now. But it’s I’m going to find [three to five] Republicans who actually have the same approach as the Democrats and get their support.”

Becoming majority leader is a possible climax to a career that many have called extremely ambitious, even by Washington standards. In a 1986 book, his sister, Fran Schumer, a journalist, wrote: ”Ever since he was eight, my older brother has wanted to recreate in the world his position in our family – president of the Schumers, favorite son of the United States.”

It was a lofty goal for the kid from Marine Park, a neighborhood deep in Brooklyn that in the 1950s and ’60s was crowded with Jewish, Italian, Puerto Rican and Caribbean immigrants. After graduating from James Madison High School, he attended Harvard as an undergraduate and law student in the late ’60s, where he felt out of place among its legions of WASPy and activist students. He dove right into politics without ever practicing law. He served in the New York State Assembly from 1974 to 1981, then in the U.S. House of Representatives, representing three different districts in Brooklyn and Queens through 1999, when he was elected to the Senate.

Throughout his career, Schumer has been a staunch ally of Jewish communities in his home state and of Israel. In 2015 he was tortured over the debate on the Iran nuclear deal, which pitted what he and many other Israel defenders saw as the Jewish state’s security interests against the Obama administration’s good intentions.

Schumer eventually would be one of a select few Democrats who opposed the deal.

In a memorable moment on Jon Stewart’s “Daily Show,” the host mocked an MSNBC reporter for trying to pin down CONTINUED ON PAGE 17

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CHAG HA’ILANOT – FESTIVAL OF TH 10 things you didn’t know about Tu B’Shvat

T

BY NAAMA BARAK

u B’Shvat, also known as the Jewish New Year of the Trees (some think of it as the Jewish Earth Day!), begins this year on the evening of Wednesday, Jan. 27 and end the evening of Jan. 28.

The festival is one of the lesser-known ones on the Jewish calendar, tucked in between the more popular Chanukah and Purim. Nonetheless, it’s pretty cool and also very easy to celebrate – even in accordance with health regulations.

Here are 10 fabulous facts about Tu B’Shvat to get into the holiday spirit, best enjoyed while nibbling on some dried fruit (more on that below).

1. It’s one of four Jewish New Years, but celebrated like Passover While we’re all familiar with the Jewish New Year – the one that involves dipping apple in honey – there are actually four New Years on the Jewish calendar and one of them is Tu B’Shvat, which marks a new year for trees and the revival of nature.

Somewhat confusingly, Tu B’Shvat is reminiscent of Passover since many people also celebrate it with a type of seder. What can we say, it’s the best of both worlds.

2. It’s not mentioned in the Bible

4. You can tell it’s Tu B’Shvat by the almond trees

Tu B’Shvat is not mentioned in the Bible but first appears in Jewish sources in the text of the Mishnah collection of oral traditions circa the third century CE. Evidence of Tu B’Shvat celebrations during the Middle Ages have been found in the Cairo Geniza and in multiple Jewish texts, shedding light on ancient customs and prayers relating to the holiday.

Aside from checking the Hebrew calendar, the surest way to realize that Tu B’Shvat is upon us is the sight of blooming almond trees in Israel. The magnificent pink and white bloom takes place around the same time as the holiday, making the tree a symbol of the festival and earning it an honorable mention in festive nursery rhymes sung in kindergartens across the country.

3. It got its name from the Akkadian language As you can see, the name Tu B’Shvat is comprised of two words. The first, “Tu,” equals 15 in gematria, system in which each Hebrew letter represents a number. The second, “Shvat,” is the name of the Hebrew month in which the festival is celebrated.

Shvat got its name from a word in the ancient Akkadian language that means “beat” or “hit” to describe the beating winds and rains that characterize this time of year.

Joined together, the two words then mean “The 15th of Shvat” – the Hebrew date of the holiday.

5. It’s the most vegan holiday ever Rosh Hashanah has its apples and honey, and fish heads (eeww), Passover has charoset and matzo brew (yum for some) and Shavuot the most delicious cheesecakes known to mankind. Tu B’Shvat, however, is the most vegan celebration on the Jewish calendar since it is marked by eating lots of dried fruit and nuts and drinking wine.

Perfect.

6. People eat dried fruit, but it used to be fresh ones

Although dried fruit does contain fiber, vitamins and minerals, and is definitely better for you than, say, the oil-drenched donuts of Chanukah, it does contain lots of natural sugar and sometimes added sugar as well. Dried fruits’ small size compared to their original, non-dehydrated selves makes it easier to eat really huge amounts. So enjoy in moderation. Or not – after all, it’s been a horrible year.

8. It’s all about planting trees In the late 19th century, Tu B’Shvat got a Zionist flavor when it was decided to mark the occasion by planting trees on land newly acquired by the Jewish National Fund. The JNF kept raising donations worldwide to purchase more lands and make them greener, and a custom evolved for schoolchildren to plant trees in forests

THE TRADITION OF EATING DRIED FRUIT TOOK HOLD IN THE D (NIR DAROM VIA SHUTTERSTOCK.COM)

(ZOLTAN KLUGER/GOVERNMENT PRESS OFFICE)

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7. Dried fruit is good for you, but also not

As stated above, Tu B’Shvat is celebrated by gifting and eating copious amounts of dried fruit. But where does this weird tradition

YEMENITE CHILDREN CELEBRATING THEIR FIRST TU B’SHVAT AT ROSH HA’AYIN IN CENTRAL ISRAEL IN 1950.

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come from? Originally, Jews in the Land of Israel marked the holiday by eating the fruit of the land – this being the New Year of the Trees – but once they found themselves in the diaspora these fruits were no longer readily available. The solution was to eat dried versions of the fresh stuff, and this tradition stuck. Raisins, anyone?

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HE TREES to celebrate the holiday. The effect is impressive – overall, the last 120 years have seen some 250 million trees planted in Israel.

9. You can still plant a tree online Don’t let a little thing like a global pandemic or the lack of flights stop you from planting a tree in Israel. Just log on to the Keren Kayemeth LeIsrael – the Jewish National Fund website, select the geographical area and then the specific forest where you’d like to plant a tree, make your payment and you’re done. You’ll even have a personalized online certificate to show for it.

ALMOND TREES BLOOM ON THE ROADSIDE AROUND THE TIME OF TU B’SHVAT. (COURTESY OF GPO)

10. Nowadays, it’s all about the environment As you may have noticed, Tu B’Shvat has always been a pretty green holiday. But the past few years have really seen the day being used to prompt discussion and interest in ecology, with environmental talks, lectures and activities gaining center stage.

Which is an excellent thing, considering that we want our planet’s trees to enjoy many more years to come. Happy New Year!

This article is reprinted with permission from israel21c.org.

DIASPORA.

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ISRAEL’S FIRST PRIME MINISTER, DAVID BEN-GURION, CENTER, PLANTS A TREE ON TU B’SHVAT AT WHAT WAS KNOWN AS BAB EL WAD NEAR JERUSALEM IN 1949.

(DAVID ELDAN/GPO)

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Briefs Doug Emhoff’s daughter wore Batsheva to the inauguration (JTA) – Ella Emhoff, Jewish daughter of the historic Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff, wore a dress designed by the celebrated Jewish fashion designer Batsheva Hay to Wednesday’s presidential inauguration ceremony. Hay, known in the fashion world by her first name, posted on Instagram that Emhoff wore her “burgundy moiré dress” to the festivities. Kamala Harris’ niece Meena wore a similarly styled dress, and the two posed together – but Batsheva pointed out that she didn’t know who had designed Meena’s frock. Batsheva, whose dresses have been worn by celebrities such as Sarah Jessica Parker, is known for blending Orthodox modesty rules into high fashion.

Jewish Sen. Bernie Sanders also made a bit of fashion news on Wednesday for a different piece of clothing: his mittens. As JTA’s sister site Alma noted, fans of the progressive lawmaker kvelled on Twitter over the homemade gloves, which were gifted to him by a schoolteacher in his state of Vermont. As the teacher, Jen Ellis, wrote on Twitter, they are made of wool from repurposed sweaters and lined with fleece made from recycled water bottles.

Jon Ossoff sworn in on book owned by rabbi of bombed Atlanta shul (JTA) – Jon Ossoff, the first Jew ever elected to the Senate from Georgia, was sworn into office on a book of Hebrew scripture once owned by the rabbi who decades ago forged the alliance between Black and Jewish Georgians that helped propel Ossoff to a stunning electoral win.

The book was once owned by Rabbi Jacob Rothschild whose leadership of the Temple – where, as it happens, Ossoff celebrated his bar mitzvah. Ossoff was sworn in Wednesday, Jan. 20, hours after Joe Biden was inaugurated as president. “Rabbi Rothschild was an outspoken civil rights activist and ally of Dr. [Martin Luther] King,” Ossoff’s campaign said, noting that Rothschild’s family had loaned Ossoff the bible.

In a rare political moment, both of Georgia’s Senate seats were up for grabs last year and went to a runoff election on Jan. 5.

That led Ossoff to run a joint campaign with fellow Democrat, Raphael Warnock, the pastor at King’s church, Ebenezer Baptist.

Together, they repeatedly invoked the Black-Jewish alliance. Warnock also won, and the twin victories will hand Democrats control of the Senate, and all levers of government.

UCLA opens center for music of the ‘American Jewish experience’ (JTA) – UCLA has opened a center to explore the history of Jewish music in America with an eye toward breaking ground. The Lowell Milken Center for Music of American Jewish Experience was backed by a $6.75 million endowment by the Milken Family Foundation. The center, which opened last month, aims to “become a national leader in the exploration of Jewish music,” Milken told JTA. While a number of departments at American universities focus either on the academic study of music or prepare future performers, the center will be the first to combine both functions, said Marc Kligman, its director. The Milken center is part of the university’s Herb Alpert School of Music.

Milken, a Jewish-American businessman and major philanthropist, had founded the Milken Archive of Jewish American Music. The archive holds more than 600 recordings, 200 oral histories and 50 albums documenting the Jewish contribution to American music, from the liturgical chants of Sephardic immigrants during the colonial era, through the hits of the Yiddish stage and to the jazz, blues and rock eras. Milken’s father implanted in his son a lifelong affection for music, starting when the boy was five years old with a devotion to jazz. Unlike most of his young Jewish schoolmates, Milken said, he loved going to synagogue to listen to the cantorial chants.

So what is Jewish music? Kligman says it “shows the vitality and vibrancy of Jewish life and represents a new way to explore American Jewry through its music.”

Notably, not included in the Milken archive’s definition of “Jewish music” are the many popular Christmas songs composed by Jewish talent, from Irving Berlin’s “I am Dreaming of a White Christmas” to Mel Torme’s “Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire.” Also absent from the “Jewish music” category are the compositions of George Gershwin, arguably the most popular Jewish-American composer, whose works are classified under “popular music.”

Knesset honors departing US ambassador to Israel (JNS) The Knesset honored departing U.S. Ambassador to Israel David Friedman on Monday, Jan. 18, as he finished his term.

Zvi Hauser, chairman of the Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, thanked Friedman for his “extraordinary contribution to strengthening the ties between the United States and the State of Israel.” Hauser said Friedman was given the task of “fulfilling the dreams of all of us, changing historical distortions, and actually realizing the traditional position of the jewishledger.com

United States and its historical vision that the capital of the Jewish people in the Land of Israel is Jerusalem.”Knesset Speaker Yariv Levin also thanked the outgoing envoy and noted his contributions, including increased security coordination, recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, relocation of the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem and recognition of Israeli sovereignty in the Golan Heights.

Friedman thanked the Knesset committee. The departing envoy also noted how the U.S. recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital in December 2017 led to major shifts in the Middle East. “Everyone feared that the recognition of Jerusalem would lead to an explosion, but it turned out to be an explosion of peace and not of violence,” he said, referring to the Abraham Accords that have led to the normalization of ties between Israel and several Gulf states.

Friedman, who had previously served as Donald Trump’s bankruptcy lawyer before becoming ambassador, recently told The New York Times in an interview that he was “elated” on how things worked out with the accords, despite Israel having to suspend plans to apply sovereignty over parts of Judea and Samaria.

UC Riverside professor: Zionism ‘politically toxified our schools’ (JTA) – A University of California, Riverside professor who wrote recently that Zionism “politically toxified our schools” said that outrage by Jewish groups over his remark proves it’s accurate. Dylan Rodriguez, a media and cultural studies professor at the university and the current president of the American Studies Association, a group that promotes research on culture and history, wrote about Zionism on Twitter on Jan. 12.

“A number of Zionist organizations want to convince us that Arab American Studies is ‘anti-semitic.’ This is not only intellectually insulting but is also an inherently racist position,” he also wrote in the tweet about anti-Israel vitriol and ArabAmerican studies.

The Anti-Defamation League’s Los Angeles deputy director, Ariella Lowenstein, told the Jewish Journal of Los Angeles in a statement about Rodriguez’s statement that “Jewish self-determination is a right enshrined in international law, not a toxic subject to be avoided.”

Rabbi Abraham Cooper, associate dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, told the paper that Rodriguez’s remarks were part of a broader push in academia to “demonize Zionism” and tell Jews that they have to leave behind their Zionism if they want to engage in social justice issues.

StopAntisemitism.org, a watchdog website, called the Rodriguez tweet antisemitic.

Rodriguez tweeted about that site: “I reject the premises enabling their weaponization jewishledger.com

of the terms ‘antisemitism’ and ‘hate.’

Ironically, their tweet trolls exemplify the very toxicity I referenced in my original post.”

The university declined to comment on the matter, the Jewish Journal reported.

UN aid agency for Palestinians gave out textbooks calling for jihad (JTA) – The United Nations aid agency for Palestinians said it is “taking steps” to address the glorification of “martyrs” and calls for “jihad” in books it handed out to students. UNRWA made the statements Thursday, Jan. 14, following a report published a day earlier by the Jerusalembased Institute for Monitoring Peace and Cultural Tolerance in School, or IMPACTse, saying the books went to hundreds of thousands of students in the Palestinian Authority and Gaza. Many seem to be based on Palestinian Authority resources. Some mislabel Israel as “Palestine” or erase the country from maps of the Middle East. One Arabic grammar booklet features phrases like “Jihad is one of the doors to Paradise.”

Another reads that “The Palestinians are lions in fighting the enemies.” One book has a poem about how “a raging fire awaits the Occupation,” while another states that “The motherland is worthy of any kind of sacrifice” and “the Enemy [committed] heinous offences against … the mujahideen,” Arabic for anyone fighting a jihad, or holy war. A ninth-grade social studies booklet accuses Israel of deliberately polluting Palestinian territories and spreading disease by dumping radioactive and toxic waste, the report said.

UNRWA spokeswoman Tamara Alrifai told the JTA that these and other texts were “not in line with U.N. values” and “mistakenly included” as the agency rushed to supply students teaching aids during the COVID-19 lockdown. Alrifai also said that UNRWA, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, will shortly launch a “selflearning platform.”

New York Republicans and the New York Post. Among the Jews who did make the cut were several whose crimes affected Jewish communities or who had the support of the Aleph Institute, an organization that works with Jews who are incarcerated.

Alex Adjmi, a New Jersey businessman who served a five-year sentence in a 1996 money-laundering scheme; Michael Ashley, a Long Island mortgage executive who was sentenced in 2019 to three years in prison for bank fraud; Jonathan Braun, who operated a massive marijuana importing operation from his parents’ NY home, had his sentence commuted after serving five years in prison; Elliott Broidy, the Republican fundraiser who violated foreign lobbying laws on behalf of Chinese and Malaysian interests; Drew Brownstein, a Denver hedge fund manager who pleaded guilty to insider trading charges; Abel Holtz, an 86-year-old South Florida retired bank executive who was sentenced to 45 days in prison in 1995 for impeding a grand jury investigation; Ken Kurson, a friend of Jared Kushner, who was arrested in October on charges of cyberstalking his ex-wife. Kurson was once named Journalist of the Year by the Jewish publication The Algemeiner; Hillel Nahmad, scion of a prominent Jewish art dealer family, who was convicted of a sports gambling offense; Stephen Odzer, who pleaded guilty to conspiracy and bank fraud, received a pardon conditional on repaying his victims. His supporters included Jewish philanthropist Michael Steinhardt, and Trump cited Odzer’s fundraising in honor of his cousin, an Israeli soldier kidnapped and murdered by terrorists in 1994; Aviem Sella, a former Israeli Air Force officer who was indicted in 1987 for recruiting Jonathan Pollard to collect U.S. military secrets for the Israeli government. Israel never agreed to extradite him; David Tamman, a Los Angeles lawyer convicted of doctoring documents at the request of a client who was running a Ponzi scheme preying on Iranian-American Jews; Eliyahu Weinstein, who defrauded his neighbors in the Orthodox Jewish community of

Lakewood, N.J., in a real estate Ponzi scheme; Shalom Weiss, a Brooklyn-born businessman sentenced to more than 800 years in prison in 2000 in a huge insurance fraud scheme.

Netanyahu congratulates Biden, urges him to work together on Iranian threat (JNS) Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu congratulated Joe Biden on his inauguration as 46th president of the United States, where he noted his decadeslong friendship and urged him to work together on confronting the Iranian threat.

“President Biden, you and I have had a warm personal friendship going back many decades,” Netanyahu said in the video that was released after Biden took the oath of office. “I look forward to working with you to further strengthen the U.S.-Israel alliance, to continue expanding peace between Israel and the Arab world and to confront common challenges – chief among them the threat posed by Iran.”

Biden has signaled that he intends on returning America to the Iranian nuclear deal, which former President Donald Trump pulled out of in May 2018. However, in Senate testimony on Tuesday, Jan. 19, Biden’s choice for Secretary of State, Tony Blinken, said that the United States is “a long way” from re-entering the nuclear accord.

Blinken also said that the United States would consult with Israel and Gulf state allies before re-entering the deal.

Israel’s President Reuven Rivlin also sent a message congratulating Biden, emphasizing that the ties between Israel and America go beyond political parties and are based on shared values. “Our region is changing quickly,” he said. “Many of the changes are positive. The recent peace deals between Israel and our neighbors brought new hope with them, and I expect to work with you to help build further bridges in the region, including with our Palestinian neighbors.”

Sheldon Silver, not among Trump’s pardons (JTA) – In the final hours of his presidency, Donald Trump awarded clemency to more than a dozen Jews who had been convicted of crimes – but not Sheldon Silver, the disgraced former New York State Assembly speaker. Silver was not on the list of 143 people granted clemency, a traditional act for outgoing presidents. That means the former Democratic power broker will continue serving a prison term on corruption charges. The New York Times reported that Trump abandoned a plan to give clemency to Silver at the urging of

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Election 2020

THE KOSHER CROSSWORD JAN. 29, 2021

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 10

“An A Capella Zimriya” By: Ruth Margolin

Difficulty Level: Medium

Schumer on the Iran deal while they chatted in a diner.

“You brought an old New York Jewish man to a diner?” Stewart said. “You realize what this means – you’re never going to end up talking about the Iran deal. You’re just going to end up talking about f***ing diners!”

That public image as a quintessential New York Jew has been fodder for his enemies and played into political rhetoric that some see as coded antisemitism.

But Schumer has never shied from his roots as a Jew or New Yorker. Politico marveled this week at how Schumer, in the midst of his ascension and still dealing with the fallout from the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, found time to appear at a Queens community board meeting and an Upper West Side Democratic club.

Loeser recalled how Schumer and his family, longtime members of Congregation Beth Elohim in Brooklyn’s Park Slope, spent a Christmas Eve in the early 2000s at a restaurant in Chinatown.

When a terrorism threat came up that night, Loeser tried to reach him, but his phone was off. So Loeser resorted to calling Chinese restaurants across Lower Manhattan, asking if the senator was there.

Loeser eventually found him, but only after hours of trouble.

The problem: He and his family “looked like everyone else” to the restaurants.

“They kept saying to me that ‘no, there’s no U.S. senator here,’” Loeser said. “‘Just a Jewish family.’”

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Find us online: jewishledger.com ANSWERS TO JAN. 22 CROSSWORD

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Across 1. A double portion of it fell on Fridays 6. Schlepped 11. Vessel for animals or scrolls 14. Imagination output 15. How the deli serves corned beef 16. Shabbat afternoon pastime, for some 17. This group frequently commands the stage?

19. IsraAid, e.g.

20. Like the Israelites for 40 years 21. Where to find kreplach 22. Village 24 km east of Caesarea 23. Reach 22, say 25. “The Last of the Mohicans”

director Michael 28. This group makes one song last for eight days?

34. Off 36. “All ___ Years Ago” (George Harrison tune) 37. Celestial Seasonings product 38. What most do when making kiddush Shabbos day 39. Accommodating type 41. State of Jones? (Abbr.)

42. “Joy of Kosher” abbr.

43. Awaken forcefully 44. Three legged seat 46. This group sings with utter charm?

49. “Just you wait, ___ ‘iggins...”

50. Hit musical or panned film

flop 51. Sighs of delight 53. Does the youngest’s job at seder 55. Bashert 61. So-so grade 62. This group sings at weekend retreats?

64. “All Things Considered” broadcaster 65. Ishmael’s mother 66. Mountain lions or sneakers 67. They’re out there...maybe, for short 68. Justice Kagan 69. Broadway Jule, composer of “Bar Mitzvah Boy” musical

Down 1. Broth before sushi 2. Rabbi Steinsaltz, who translated the Talmud 3. “Better luck ___ time” 4. Famous name in hot dogs 5. A tribe of Israel 6. Barcelona bull 7. Where many of us first enjoyed “Seinfeld” 8. Central image in paintings of Eden 9. An ___ for an ___ 10. Where many of us first enjoyed “Seinfeld” 11. Rashi’s expertise, essentially 12. Prego rival 13. Seoul music

18. Rabbi’s Abraham Accords counterpart 21. Ashdod to Hebron dir.

23. Safe place 24. They can give you a lift but not a lyft 25. “... cedars from Lebanon to make ___ for thee” (Eze. 27:5) 26. They might be mistaken for Hassidic Jews 27. Those who are hard to please 29. Consumed 30. Pursue 31. “Rica” or “Brava” front 32. Typical old world hazzan 33. In a sorrowful way 35. No-fat eater Jack of rhyme 40. Prunes, as branches

45. Make a trial run with 47. Univ. dorm figures 48. Actress Turner 52. URL introduction for a “locked” page 53. Teenage outburst?

54. 9th mo.

55. Sorcerer, old-style 56. Abba of Israel 57. Lead in for 55-Down 58. “Not ___ watch!”

59. Cholent ingredient 60. To be, in Jerusalem in 1 C.E. 62. “With the fruit of her hands ___ plants a vineyard” (Eshet Chayil) 63. “2001: A Space Odyssey” villain

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WHAT’S HAPPENING Jewish organizations are invited to submit their upcoming events to the our What’s Happening section. Events are placed on the Ledger website on Tuesday afternoons. Deadline for submission of calendar items is the previous Tuesday. Send items to: judiej@jewishledger.com.

TUESDAY, JANUARY 26 Are Your Kids Naked Online? For parents of middle & high school students Parents of middle school and high school school parents learn how to protect your children from the dangers of our digital world in this session, to be held Jan. 26 at 7:30 p.m., that goes beyond the exploitative world of sexting and social media into darker and more concerning areas of the internet to which young people have free and easy access. Designed for parents and guardians who may not be particularly tech-savvy themselves, Lisa Good will discuss topics such as the dark web, online pornography, cyberbullying and more.

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 27 Marking International Holocaust Remembrance Day Voices of Hope will mark the 11th Annual Greater Hartford International Holocaust Remembrance Day commemorating the 76th anniversary of the January 1945 Liberation of Auschwitz on Jan. 27 at 7 p.m. on YouTube. Designated by the United Nations General Assembly as International Holocaust Remembrance Day, on this annual day of commemoration, the UN urges every member state to honor the victims of Holocaust by developing educational programs to help prevent future genocides. The Voices of Hope program includes the presentation of the 2021 Chesed Award to Bea Israel, z”l, who died this past November and a keynote address by Dr. Amy Weiss, director of The Maurice Greenberg Center for Judaic Studies. FREE. For more information, visit www.ctvoicesofhope.org, or email info@ ctvoicesofhope.org or call (860) 470.5591.

Orange will discuss Tu B’Shvat, and its universal message, on Jan. 28. Register at orshalomct.org.

SUNDAY, JANUARY 31 Israel and the Jewish Reform Movement Anat Hoffman, executive director of the Israel Religious Action Center (IRAC) will discuss “The Legal Status of the Reform Movement in Israel” on Jan. 31 at 11 a.m. She will address the challenges of having Reform conversions and weddings recognized, equal governmental funding, and the challenges facing Reform congregations. For more information, visit cbict.org/calendar.

MONDAY, FEBRUARY 1 New series explores life, death, and the afterlife The topic of what happens when we die is the subject of “Journey of the Soul,” a six-session Rohr Jewish Learning Institute (JLI) course offered by Chabad House of Greater Hartford. Led by Rabbi Shaya Gopin, the course will be held on Zoom on six consecutive Mondays, 7:30 - 9 p.m, beginning Feb. 1. Practical and powerful, Journey of the Soul explores the Jewish perspective on life and death, as it considers what happens to the soul at birth and at death, whether there is a “better place” after this one, whether our loved ones continue to connect with us, the Jewish understanding of reincarnation, and how to relate to an afterlife even if we’re not spiritual.

“Particularly during these tumultuous times when, sadly, so many have lost loved ones to COVID, the need has become even more pressing for a course that presents the up-lifting Jewish perspective on mortality, death, and the afterlife,” says JLI’s Rabbi Naftali Silberberg.

Journey of the Soul is designed for people at all levels of knowledge, including those without any prior experience or background in Jewish learning. For more information call: (860) 232-1116, To register and for additional information, visit: chabadhartford.com/course

THURSDAY, JANUARY 28

MONDAY, FEBRUARY 1 TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 2

Celebrate Tu B’Shvat!

Virtual Mission to Washington

Celebrate with Rabbi Marisa James, Director of Social Justice Programming at Congregation Beit Simchat Torah in New York City, who leads the High Holiday services as visiting rabbi and cantor of Congregation Or Shalom in

Join the first National Jewish Virtual Mission to Washington – an opportunity for communities across the United States to join together virtually with political leaders and policymakers to advocate for the future of the Jewish community. Participants will

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JEWISH LEDGER

| JANUARY 29, 2021

have the opportunity to learn about and advocate for laws that fight antisemitism, ensure a strong U.S.-Israel relationship, and provide government resources to keep Jewish institutions flourishing. For more information: jewishnewhaven.org.

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 4 Short Story Coffee Break: The Spinoza of Market Street Stories from The Spinoza of Market Street

by Isaac Bashevis Singer is up for discussion at the next Short Story Coffee Break on Feb. 4, 11 a.m. Hosted on Zoom by Congregation Beth Israel of West Hartford, on the first and third Thursdays of each month, Short Story Coffee Break is a discussion of short stories by Jewish authors led by Beth Israel’s Learning Center Director Karen Beyard. For more information or to register and receive a copy of the next short story and Zoom link, email kbeyard@cbict.org.

Coming up: Feb. 18 – Purim Nights

by Edith Pearlman.

SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 7 In the Footsteps of David and Goliath: A Virtual Tour Yoramm Preminger will lead a virtual tour of the Elah Valley, the site of the battle between David and Goliath, on Zoom, Feb. 7 at 1 p.m. The biblical text aid in the exploration of the geographical setting for the battle, as participants look at some of the sites mentioned such as Azekah and Sha’arayim. The story opens a window into the important historical period of the early days of the Kingdom of Israel. For more information, visit cbict.org/calendar.

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 10 The power of unplugging on Shabbat The 9th Annual Saul Cohen-Schoke JFS Lecture Series presents “Tech Shabbat,” with guest speaker Tiffany Shlain, Emmynominated filmmaker and author of 24/6: The Power of Unplugging One Day A Week, who will focus on regaining your inner calm and connection to people instead of screens.

The free lecture to be held Feb. 10 at 7:30 p.m., is co-sponsored by UJA/ JCC Greenwich, Federation for Jewish Philanthropy of Upper Fairfield County and the UJF Greater Stamford, New Canaan and Darien, in partnership with the Jewish Book Council.

To register, visit www.ctjfs.org/saulcohen-jfs-lecture. For more info, contact Matt Greenberg at (203) 921-4161 or mgreenberg@ctjfs.org.

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 11 “Purim On Tap” for Young Adults The Tribe, a group for adults in their 20’s and 30’s organized by Congregation Beth Israel in West Hartford, and JewGood, a branch of the Jewish Community Foundation of Greater Hartford that empowers young professionals to engage in philanthropy, are hosting “Purim on Tap,” a virtual discussion of the Purim story on Feb. 11 at 6:30 p.m., with refreshments. For more information, visit cbict.org/calendar.

SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 14 “Before Fiddler – Live from Florence “with Hershey Felder “Before Fiddler - Live From Florence,” featuring actor, playwright and virtuoso pianist Hershey Felder as Yiddish author Sholem Aleichem, as well as performances by the Florence-based Klezmer music ensemble, Klezmerata Fiorentina. Filmed on location where events actually took place, this streaming production will feature the stories and characters of Sholem Aleichem, along with music that is sure to move the soul. This World Premiere production will be streamed live on Feb. 7 at 8 p.m., and will be available for on-demand streaming until Feb. 14 at 8:59 p.m.

Proceeds will benefit over 20 national and international theaters, arts organizations and publications.

Tickets: $55 per household, available at hersheyfelder.net.

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 18 Jewish Ethics, Social Justice, and the 21st Century Rabbinate Rabbi Stephanie Ruskay of the Jewish Theological Seminary will discuss “Jewish Ethics, Social Justice, Community Organizing and the 21st Century Rabbinate ” on Feb. 18 at 7:30 on Zoom, as part of the 2021 series of virtual lectures surrounding the theme of “The Jewish Roots of Social Justice,” presented by the ALEPH Institute, a learning initiative sponsored by the Mandell JCC and UConn Judaic Studies.

Rabbi Ruskay will focus on raising the scope and profile of social justice work and community organizing skills in the role of the contemporary rabbi. For more information, visit judaicstudies.uconn.edu or mandelljcc.org.

Beyond the Ghetto Gates with author Michelle Cameron The book Beyond the Ghetto Gates by Michelle Cameron is set in 1796-97, a rare happy epoch in Jewish life when Napoleon marched into Italy and demolished the jewishledger.com

TORAHPortion

JANUARY 26 – MARCH 4 ghetto gates, freeing the Jews who had long been trapped behind them. This virtual book discussion with Cameron on Feb. 18 at 7 p.m., explores issues the novel raises issue that remain pertinent today, including antisemitism, the conflict between assimilation and religious tradition, intermarriage, and the struggle between love and familial duty. For more information, visit cbict.org/calendar.

MONDAY, FEBRUARY 22 UJF Community Read to feature author Rachel Barenbaum Author Rachel Barenbaum will discuss her debut novel A Bend in the Stars on Zoom, Monday, Feb. 22, 7:30 p.m. at the Community Read hosted by United Jewish Federation of Greater Stamford, New Canaan and Darien.

Set in Russia during World War I, in A Bend in the Stars Barenbaum melds the science relating to solving Einstein’s theory of relativity with a love story. The book was named a New York Times Summer Reading Selection and a Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers selection. Barenbaum, who lives in Brookline, Massachusetts, is a reviewer for the LA Review of Books, the Tel Aviv Review of Books and DeadDarlings.

She is an honorary research associate at the Hadassah-Brandeis Institute and a graduate of GrubStreet’s Novel Incubator, and is founder of Debut Spotlight and the Debut Editor at A Mighty Blaze.

To register for this free program, visit ujf.org/communityread, or email Diane Sloyer at dianesloyer@ujf.org.

SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 28 Bi-Cultural Hebrew Academy’s gala goes virtual Bi-Cultural Hebrew Academy 65th Annual Celebration Dinner, to be held virtually on Sunday, Feb. 28 at 6:30 p.m,. will honor several community leaders, including: Guests of Honor Stephanie and Josh Bilenker; Young Leadership Award recipients Nicole and Jonathan Makovsky; Doris Zelinsky, recipient of the Morton G. Scheraga President’s Award; and the many school alumni who are currently serving in the Israel Defense Force. In addition, Jacqueline Herman, who will be retiring as Bi-Cultural head of school at the end of this academic year, will receive the inaugural Walter Shuchatowitz Award for Excellence in Education. For more information, call (203) 329-2186 or visit bchact.org.

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Looking for God in All the Right Places with author Rabbi Jeffrey Salkin Rabbi Jeffrey Salkin will discuss his book Looking for God in All the Right Places, on Zoom, Feb. 28 at 4 p.m. Rabbi Slakin is well known for his writing, teaching and activism. He has written or edited three Torah commentaries – two of which are for teens. Several of his books have won national awards. His award-winning blog, “Martini Judaism: for those who want to be shaken and stirred,” is published by the Religion News Service. He is currently spiritual leader of Temple Israel in West Palm Beach, Florida.For more information, visit cbict.org/calendar.

THURSDAY, MARCH 4 ALEPH presents: “Performing Judaism and Social Justice” How to both teach and deconstruct the dominant stereotypes that Jews reinforce when teaching about Jews and Judaism is the focus of “Performing Judaism and Social Justice,” will be presented on Zoom on March 4 at 7:30 p.m., as part of the 2021 series of virtual lectures surrounding the theme of “The Jewish Roots of Social Justice.” The Zoom-theatrical performance will feature Kendell Pinkney, a Brooklyn based theater-maker, Jewish-life consultant, and JTS rabbinical student; Avi Amon, a Turkish-American composer, sound artist, and educator; and Rebecca S’manga Frank, an actor, writer, director. The performance is part of the ALEPH Institute learning initiative sponsored by the Mandell JCC and UConn Judaic Studies.

For more information, visit judaicstudies.uconn.edu or mandelljcc.org.

Klezmer musician Michael Winograd & The Honorable Mentshn streamed live in concert The Museum of Jewish Heritage – A Living Memorial to the Holocaust continues to bring live music to audiences at home through the Live from Edmond J. Safra Hall concert series, presented from its state-of-the-art theater. Next up in the series: A live performance by the celebrated klezmer musician Michael Winograd & The Honorable Mentshn on March 4 at 8 p.m..

The group will play hits from Winograd’s 2019 LP Kosher Style, classics from the golden age of Yiddish theater and Klezmer music. Winograd will lead the concert on the clarinet, joined by trombonist Daniel Blacksberg, accordionist Will Holshouser, pianist Carmen Staa, bassist Zoe Guigueno, and drummer David Licht.

For more information, visit mjhnyc.org.

Beshalach

I

RABBI TZVI HERSH WEINREB

n the past three columns, we outlined specific qualities that our Forefathers possessed; qualities that we can put to use in our own lives. In this week’s column, we will describe two additional such qualities, drawing upon two analyses of a text in this week’s Torah portion, Beshalach (Exodus 13:17-17:16).

This text is near the beginning of the “Song of the Sea,” the triumphant hymn of Moses and the Sons of Israel after miraculously experiencing the splitting of the Reed Sea, the Yam Suf. There, we escaped our pursuers and witnessed enemy’s descent into the depths of the sea.

The passage reads: “…They said: I will sing to the Lord, for He has triumphed gloriously; Horse and driver He has hurled into the sea.

The Lord is my strength and might; He has become my salvation.

This is my God, and I will glorify Him; The God of my father, and I will exalt Him.” Let us now examine how two commentators interpret our text. I begin with a passage in the posthumously published essays of a Holocaust victim, Rabbi Abraham Grodzinski, who was the moral guide for the hundreds of students of the Slobodka Yeshiva during the years just prior to the Holocaust.

In this essay, Rabbi Grodzinki points out the connection between the phrase “horse and driver He has hurled into the sea,” a phrase which graphically describes the bitter end toward which evildoers are destined, and the phrases “This is my God… the God of my father.” He writes, “This song about the punishment of Egypt is an expression of the hatred one must bear, not to those who perpetrate evil, but rather to evil itself.”

He goes on to say that moral perfection must be prefaced by the recognition that there is indeed evil in the world and that one must disdain that evil. Only then can one begin to transform evil, to correct evil, and to appreciate the Almighty fully. The pious person is not naïve but recognizes the darkness that resides in the world.

Without that recognition, we cannot achieve the “status of our forefathers,” who knew evil and combated it, each in his own way. And so must we.

Rabbi Simcha Zissel Ziv, who died decades before the Holocaust but was also a moral guide for many yeshiva students,

has a different take upon this text. He was known fondly by his students as the Alter, the “Old Man,” of Kelm. He juxtaposes the phrase “He has become my salvation, my yeshuah” with the phrases “This is my God… The God of my father”.

The Alter suggests that just as the Lord is our salvation, so too can we “save” Him! You may ask, “How can one ‘save’ the Almighty?” To answer this question, the Alter relates the story of Shimon ben Shetach, as it is told in the Jerusalem Talmud.

Shimon ben Shetach was a scholar who was once quite poor. His disciples purchased him a donkey to enable him to travel. They obtained the donkey from an Ishmaelite, an Arab. When Shimon ben Shetach was about to mount the donkey, he spotted a tiny object in the saddle. He soon realized that the object was a large diamond. He asked the disciples for the identity of the original owner in order to return to the diamond to him. The disciples objected,\ and argued that the diamond was his to keep.

Shimon ben Shetach famously responded, “I purchased a donkey. I did not purchase a diamond.”

The Ishmaelite was so impressed by the fact that Shimon ben Shetach returned the diamond that he exclaimed, “Blessed is the God of Shimon ben Shetach.”

The Alter offers the story as but one example of a person’s ability to “save God;” that is, to bring glory to His name.

“Thus,” concludes the Alter, “The Almighty brought us salvation, and we too can bring ‘salvation’ to Him.” To review, in this week’s Torah portion, two early twentieth century spiritual guides brought two additional characteristics of the “redeemed” individual to our attention.

Rabbi Grodzinski taught that the “redeemed” individual does not ignore the prevalence of evil in the world but disdains it and confronts it wisely and successfully.

And Rabbi Ziv, the Alter, gifted us with the insight that our relationship with the Almighty can be reciprocal. Yes, He is our Savior. But we can reciprocate His salvation by bringing honor to His name by acting ethically and honestly, even in the face of temptation.

Rabbi Tzvi Hersh Weinreb is executive vice president, emeritus of the Orthodox Union.

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OBITUARIES BRODY David I. Brody, 95, died Jan. 15, of Boca Raton, Fla., formerly of Hartford. He was the husband of Shirley K. Brody. Born in New York City, he was the son of the late Rebecca and Harry Brody. He was a World War II Veteran and P.O.W. In addition to his wife, he is survived by his sons. Rick Brody and his wife Maxine, Mitch Brody and his wife Marilyn, and Steve Brody and his wife Marci; his grandchildren, Seth, Lauren, Marc and his fiance Sarah, Stephanie, Lisa, Rachel, and Samantha and her husband Curtis; and many nieces and nephews.

ELOVICH Marshal H. Elovich, 91, of Guilford, formerly of West Hartford, died Jan.16.

He was the widower of Arlene Elovich.

Born in Hartford and raised in West Hartford, he was the son of the late Harry C. and Rebecca (Goldstein) Elovich. He was a founder of Charter Oak Temple in Hartford (now Charter Oak Cultural Center) and a member of Temple Beth Tikvah in Madison. He was also predeceased by his daughter Dyan, son-in-law James Gray, his brother Myron, and his sister Eleanor Zimmerman. He is survived by his daughter Debra, his son David L. and his wife Mary Dineen; his son-in-law Bill Blumberg; his grandchildren, Aliza Gray and her husband Quinton Lucia, Abigail Gray, Rebekah Elovich, Alivia Elovich, Hannah Castle and her husband David, Spencer Blumberg and Jake Blumberg; and his great-granddaughters, Charlotte Dyan and Penelope Rose Castle.

GLUCK Hyman Gluck, 93, died Dec. 31. He ws the husband of Marilyn Block. Born in Providence, R.I., he was the son of the late Fred and Freida Gluck. In addition to his wife, he is survived by his children, Carol Levarek, and Donna Wardle and her husband Robert; his grandchildren,

Kenneth Levarek (Dani), Rachel Levarek (Todd Goldstein), Jon Wardle (Thea Di Giammerino), and Aimee Wardle; his greatgrandchildren, Lily and Emma Levarek; his sisters, Mildred Barron and Betty Gluck; and his brother Ben Gluck. He was also predeceased by his brothers, Sidney Gluck Goode, Marcus Gluck, and Arthur Gluck, and his sister Bertha Snyder. He was a member of Temple Judea in Palm Beach Gardens, Fla. and Agudas Achim Synagogue in West Hartford, CT).

GREENBERG Ernest M. Greenberg, 95, died Jan. 16. He was the husband of Libby Jacobson Greenberg. Born in Providence, R.I., he was the son of Leo Greenberg and Molly Beller Greenberg. He served in the U.S. Army during World War II, in the 78th Infantry Division in Europe. He was awarded the Bronze Star, the Combat Infantry Badge, and three Battle Stars. He was a longtime member of Temple Beth Am. In addition to his wife, he is survived by his children, Mark Greenberg and his wife Karen Pushee of Hanover, N.H., Lynn Rakos and her husband Gerry of Stamford, and Paul Greenberg and his wife Renee Goldberg of Westwood, Mass.; his grandchildren, Zack Greenberg and Liam Pushee; Dan and Allie Rakos; and Jake and Simone Greenberg.

LASSOFF Jordan I. Lassoff, 69, of Holderness, N.H., died Jan. 8. He was the husband of Rob Epp. Born in Brooklyn, N.Y., he was the son of Cherie Kaye and Nathan Lassoff. In addition to his husband, he is survived by his mother-in-law Marjorie Epp of Kings Park, N.Y.; his daughters, Jennifer Niskar of Boynton Beach, Fla., and Amanda Gill of Guilford; his sons-in-law, Scott Niskar and Graham Gill; his grandchildren, Marley and Max Flores, of Boynton Beach, and Olivia, Harper and Ryder Gill, of Guilford; his stepsons, Brian Slitt, of Ashland, Mass., and Michael Slitt, of West Hartford.

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MANDELL Bernard (Bernie) Mandell, 93, of Delray Beach, Fla., formerly of Bloomfield and Old Lyme died Jan. 12. He was the husband of Dorothy Berman and the widower of Carole (Cramer) Mandell.

Born in Manchester, N.H., he was the son of the late Benjamin and Charlotte (Tacher) Mandell. He served in the U.S. Navy 1946-1948, and was trained as a medic while stationed in Virginia. He was widower of Carole (Cramer). In addition to his wife, he is survived by children, Larry and his girlfriend Angie of Old Lyme, and Jill Brinker and her husband Steven of Newberry, S.C.; his grandchildren, Benjamin Brinker of Loganville, Ga., Noah Brinker of Yucatan Mexico, and Kyle Richards of Stonington; and his great-granddaughter Sophie Richards of Pawcatuck, R.I. He was also predeceased by his two sisters, Sara Chain and Elaine Mintz.

SHAPIRO David N. Shapiro, 84, of Milford, died Jan. 16. He was the husband of Diane (Guy) Shapiro. Born in Jersey City, N.J., he was the son of the late Natalie Shapiro, and Erwin and (stepmother) Mary Shapiro. He was also predeceased by his sister Zelda Davis, his son-in-law William Steigleder, and his grandchildren Hannah and Michael

Steigleder. He is survived by his children, Rachel Steigleder, Scott Shapiro and his wife Gillian, and Caren Maglio; his grandchildren, Megan, Sarah, Allison, Ryan, Jackson, and Hailey.

SHERMAN Harriett Rubin Sherman, 89, died Jan. 13. She was the widow of Michael S. Sherman. Born in Brockton, Mass., she was the daughter of to the late I. Manuel and Anna Rubin. She was also predeceased by her sisters, Miriam Snider and Charlotte Rothman. She is survived by her sister Marjorie Abramson; her children, Jennifer Torbick of Norwalk, Joseph Sherman of Natick, Mass., and Pamela Lesser and her husband Steven of Wayland, Mass.; and her grandchildren, Alexandra Torbick (Jennifer), Davi and Kayla Sherman (Joseph), and Daniel, Sophia, and Anna (Pamela).

The Ledger prints a basic obituary free of charge. Free obituaries are edited to fit the newspaper’s style.

Obituaries that those submitting would like to run “as is,” as well as accompanying photos, may be printed for a charge. For more information: ­judiej@jewishledger. com, 860.231.2424.

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Needed, a live-in caregiver for an elderly female home owner in Bloomfield. Duties include trash out, availability at night in case of emergency - attached apartment provided at reduced rent. Applicant must submit 3 references. Call Vivian at 860301-2066.

Compassionate Elder Companion - Driver & Cook Beth: alifeofplantsandart@gmail. com.

CHAUFFEUR, WEST HARTFORD will drive you to New York, Boston, New England tri-state area. Reasonable rates.

References. Call Jeff 860-7124115.

CNA - Five or Seven Days - Live In - Seventeen Years Experience - References Available - 860938-1476.

Mary and Alex Housecleaning.

We have experience and references. We are an insured company. Please call or Txt for a free quote. 860-328-1757 or servicesam.llc@gmail.com.

NURSE SEEKING POSITION: GETTING BETTER TOGETHER! Adult care only. Live-in, days or nights and weekends.

Responsible and dedicated caregiver with medical education. Leave message: 860229-2038 No Text or Email.

Caregiver - Willing to care for your loved ones overnight - Excellent local references Avoid nursing home or hospital in light of Covid 19. Call 860550-0483.

Tricia’s Cleaning Service - Residential & Commercial Detailed cleaning for Home & Office - For Free Quote call 860477-8636.

Polish certified nursing assistant.

Twenty years experience in hospitals, nursing homes and private home settings looking to help your loved ones. Please call 860-803-6007.

Certified Home Care Aide - Live-in - HHA Certficate Experience with dementia, stroke, alzheimer’s - Driver’s License - References - Lydia 718864-7600.

All Things

JEWISH

Mikael Poreshi - Remodeling & Painting - 860-978-2505 - miki. pori87@gmail.com.

CONNECTICUT September MASSACHUSETTS December For more information on advertising in these magazines, call Donna 860.833.0839 or DonnaE@jewishledger.com 22

JEWISH LEDGER

| JANUARY 29, 2021

P.C.A. - HHA Caregiver - 17 Years Experience - Available Live In or Live Out - Five Days a Week - Car Available - Have References - Please Call K.B. 860-796-8468.

Nurse (LPN, Male). 2 Years Experience in long term care.

4 Years Home Care as CNA and Nurse. Seeks Private duty.

Reliable, honest, hardworking.

860-656-8280.

Caregiver for your elderly loved one available Thursday evenings to Sunday evenings. Kosher experience, stellar references.

Monica - 347-486-0911.

Home Health Aide - Two Years Experience - Reliable - Livein seven days. References available, negotiable rates. Call Kwasi 774-253-5479.

Driver available for shopping & errands in the greater Hartford area. Reasonable rates, senior discount and references available. Call Ira 860-849-0999.

Caregiver looking for full time live-in job - HHA/Precursor CNA - 12 Years experience - Friendly, outgoing, dependable - Please call Janet at 412-527-9285.

CNA with 25 years experience, reliable car, live-in or hourly.

References available, and negotiable rates. Call Sandy 860-460-3051.

FOR SALE OR SEASONAL RENTAL

Two bedroom, two bath villa in Boynton Beach. Available immediately. $2800 monthly for winter season plus utilities.

Community pool, tennis and pickleball courts 561-632-6662.

REAL ESTATE

For lease- Boca Raton, FL. Fully furnished 2 bedroom, 2 bath condo with kosher kitchen in beautiful Century Village. First floor, parking, pool & club house. Call Mike 561-654-4221.

WANTED TO BUY

Third Generation Jeweler - Gold & Diamond Buyer - Is Buying All Gold Jewelry - Sterling Silver Flatware Sets - Diamonds Over 2 Carats - Fast Payment Contact - mitchellrosin@gmail. com.

Collector looking to purchase coins and currency, silver, copper, and gold. No collection is too small. Will travel. Call 860951-5191 paprfred@aol.com.

TUTOR

Accounting & Math Tutor Retired College Accounting Teacher Will Tutor at Your Home - Call For Appointment 860-402-1201.

Have something to sell?

Have something to rent?

Have a service to promote?

Home Health Aide - Companion available for live in/live out Mon. - Fri. Valid driver’s license. Over 15 years experience. Excellent References. Call 860-796-8468.

Reach our highly qualified readers by placing your display classified ad in our digital issue with a LIVE link to your website!

CNA - 8 Years Experience Reliable - Own Car - Live-in 24/7 - Negotiable Rates - Please call Tina 860-461-8692.

Contact Leslie 860.231.2424 or leslie@jewishledger.com

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CT SYNAGOGUE DIRECTORY To join our synagogue directories, contact Howard Meyerowitz at (860) 231-2424 x3035 or howardm@jewishledger.com.

BLOOMFIELD B’nai Tikvoh-Sholom/ Neshama Center for Lifelong Learning Conservative Rabbi Debra Cantor (860) 243-3576 office@BTSonline.org www.btsonline.org BRIDGEPORT Congregation B’nai Israel Reform Rabbi Evan Schultz (203) 336-1858 info@cbibpt.org www.cbibpt.org Congregation Rodeph Sholom Conservative (203) 334-0159 Rabbi Richard Eisenberg, Cantor Niema Hirsch info@rodephsholom.com www.rodephsholom.com Jewish Senior Services Traditional Rabbi Stephen Shulman (203) 396-1001 sshulman@jseniors.org www.jseniors.org CHESHIRE Temple Beth David Reform Rabbi Micah Ellenson (203) 272-0037 office@TBDCheshire.org www.TBDCheshire.org CHESTER Congregation Beth Shalom Rodfe Zedek Reform Rabbi Marci Bellows (860) 526-8920 rabbibellows@cbsrz.org www.cbsrz.org

COLCHESTER Congregation Ahavath Achim Conservative Rabbi Kenneth Alter (860) 537-2809 secretary@congregationahavathachim.org EAST HARTFORD Temple Beth Tefilah Conservative Rabbi Yisroel Snyder (860) 569-0670 templebetht@yahoo.com FAIRFIELD Congregation Ahavath Achim Orthodox (203) 372-6529 office@ahavathachim.org www.ahavathachim.org Congregation Beth El, Fairfield Conservative Rabbi Marcelo Kormis (203) 374-5544 office@bethelfairfield.org www.bethelfairfield.org GLASTONBURY Congregation Kol Haverim Reform Rabbi Dr. Kari Tuling (860) 633-3966 office@kolhaverim.org www.kolhaverim.org GREENWICH Greenwich Reform Synagogue Reform Rabbi Jordie Gerson (203) 629-0018 hadaselias@grs.org www.grs.org

Temple Sholom Conservative Rabbi Mitchell M. Hurvitz Rabbi Chaya Bender Cantor Sandy Bernstein (203) 869-7191 info@templesholom.com www.templesholom.com HAMDEN Temple Beth Sholom Conservative Rabbi Benjamin Edidin Scolnic (203) 288-7748 tbsoffice@tbshamden.com www.tbshamden.com MADISON Temple Beth Tikvah Reform Rabbi Stacy Offner (203) 245-7028 office@tbtshoreline.org www.tbtshoreline.org MANCHESTER Beth Sholom B’nai Israel Conservative Rabbi Randall Konigsburg (860) 643-9563 Rabbenu@myshul.org programming@myshul.org www.myshul.org MIDDLETOWN Adath Israel Conservative Spiritual Leaders: Rabbi Marshal Press Rabbi Michael Kohn (860) 346-4709 office@adathisraelct.org www.adathisraelct.org

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NEW HAVEN The Towers Conservative Ruth Greenblatt, Spiritual Leader (203) 772-1816 rebecca@towerone.org www.towerone.org Congregation Beth El-Keser Israel Conservative Rabbi Jon-Jay Tilsen (203) 389-2108 office@BEKI.org www.BEKI.org

ORANGE Chabad of Orange/ Woodbridge Chabad Rabbi Sheya Hecht (203) 795-5261 info@chabadow.org www.chabadow.org

Orchard Street ShulCongregation Beth Israel Orthodox Rabbi Mendy Hech t 973-723-9070 www.orchardstreetshul.org

Congregation Or Shalom Conservative Rabbi Alvin Wainhaus (203) 799-2341 info@orshalomct.org www.orshalomct.org

NEW LONDON Ahavath Chesed Synagogue Orthodox Rabbi Avrohom Sternberg 860-442-3234 Ahavath.chesed@att.net

RIDGEFIELD Congregation Shir Shalom of Westchester and Fairfield Counties Reform Rabbi David Reiner Cantor Debora Katchko-Gray (203) 438-6589 office@ourshirshalom.org

Congregation Beth El Conservative Rabbi Earl Kideckel (860) 442-0418 office@bethel-nl.org www.bethel-nl.org NEWINGTON Temple Sinai Reform Rabbi Jeffrey Bennett (860) 561-1055 templesinaict@gmail.com www.sinaict.org NEWTOWN Congregation Adath Israel Conservative Rabbi Barukh Schectman (203) 426-5188 office@congadathisrael.org www.congadathisrael.org NORWALK Beth Israel Synagogue – Chabad of Westport/ Norwalk Orthodox-Chabad Rabbi Yehoshua S. Hecht (203) 866-0534 info@bethisraelchabad.org bethisraelchabad.org Congregation Beth El-Norwalk Conservative Rabbi Ita Paskind (203) 838-2710 Jody@congbethel.org www.congbethel.org

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Temple Shalom Reform Rabbi Mark Lipson (203) 866-0148 admin@templeshalomweb.org www.templeshalomweb.org

SIMSBURY Chabad of the Farmington Valley Chabad Rabbi Mendel Samuels (860) 658-4903 chabadsimsbury@gmail.com www.chabadotvalley.org Farmington Valley Jewish Congregation, Emek Shalom Reform Rabbi Rebekah Goldman Mag (860) 658-1075 admin@fvjc.org www.fvjc.org SOUTH WINDSOR Temple Beth Hillel of South Windsor Reform Rabbi Jeffrey Glickman (860) 282-8466 tbhrabbi@gmail.com www.tbhsw.org SOUTHINGTON Gishrei Shalom Jewish Congregation Reform Rabbi Alana Wasserman (860) 276-9113 President@gsjc.org www.gsjc.org

TRUMBULL Congregation B’nai Torah Conservative Rabbi Colin Brodie (203) 268-6940 office@bnaitorahct.org www.bnaitorahct.org WALLINGFORD Beth Israel Synagogue Conservative Rabbi Bruce Alpert (203) 269-5983 richardcaplan@sbcglobal.net www.bethisrael/wallingford. org WASHINGTON Greater Washington Coalition Rabbi James Greene (860) 868-2434 admin@jewishlifect.org www.jewishlife.org WATERFORD Temple Emanu - El Reform Rabbi Marc Ekstrand Rabbi Emeritus Aaron Rosenberg (860) 443-3005 office@tewaterfrord.org www.tewaterford.org WEST HARTFORD Beth David Synagogue Orthodox Rabbi Yitzchok Adler (860) 236-1241 office@bethdavidwh.org www.bethdavidwh.org Beth El Temple Conservative Rabbi James Rosen Rabbi Ilana Garber (860) 233-9696 hsowalsky@bethelwh.org www.bethelwesthartford.org Chabad House of Greater Hartford Rabbi Joseph Gopin Rabbi Shaya Gopin, Director of Education (860) 232-1116 info@chabadhartford.com www.chabadhartford.com

Congregation P’nai Or Jewish Renewal Shabbat Services Rabbi Andrea Cohen-Kiener (860) 561-5905 pnaiorct@gmail.com www.jewishrenewalct.org Kehilat Chaverim of Greater Hartford Chavurah Adm. - Nancy Malley (860) 951-6877 mnmalley@yahoo.com www.kehilatchaverim.org The Emanuel Synagogue Conservative Rabbi David J. Small (860) 236-1275 communications@emanuelsynagogue.org www.emanuelsynagogue.org United Synagogues of Greater Hartford Orthodox Rabbi Eli Ostrozynsk i synagogue voice mail (860) 586-8067 Rabbi’s mobile (718) 6794446 ostro770@hotmail.com www.usgh.org Young Israel of West Hartford Orthodox Rabbi Tuvia Brander (860) 233-3084 info@youngisraelwh.org www.youngisraelwh.org WETHERSFIELD Temple Beth Torah Unaffiliated Rabbi Seth Riemer (860) 828-3377 tbt.w.ct@gmail.com templebethtorahwethersfield. org WOODBRIDGE Congregation B’nai Jacob Conservative Rabbi Rona Shapiro (203) 389-2111 info@bnaijacob.org www.bnaijacob.org

Congregation Beth Israel Reform Rabbi Michael Pincus Rabbi Andi Fliegel Cantor Stephanie Kupfer (860) 233-8215 bethisrael@cbict.org www.cbict.org

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JANUARY 29, 2021

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Stay Warm.

Stay Safe.

Convenient Curbside Pickup.

The Crown Market 2471 Albany Ave West Hartford, CT 06117

860.236.1965

www.crownmarketonline.com

e r o t S ! d o e r o o F M d o h o c u G The So M d n A

HKC supervises the Bakery, Five o’clock Shop, Butcher Department and Catering.

We’re not JUST kosher...we’re DELICIOUS! 24

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