CT Jewish Ledger • May 7, 2021 • 25 Iyar 5781

Friday, May 7, 2021 25 Iyar 5781 Vol. 93 | No. 19 | ©2021 $1.00 | jewishledger.com

JUSTICE for 1

Sarah

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INSIDE

this week

CONNECTICUT JEWISH LEDGER | SINCE 1929 | MAY 7, 2021 | 25 IYAR 5781

9 Milestones

15 Campus News

17 Crossword

18 Briefs

19 What’s Happening

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Under Arrest....................................... 5 A 21-year-old UConn student has been arrested and charged with a hate crime in relation to one of seven antisemitic incidents that have rocked the Storrs campus since October 2020

Tragedy on Mount Meron............. 5 Israel’s largest religious festival turned into its largest peacetime tragedy late Thursday night, as 45 Lag B’Omer celebrants were crushed to death in a horrific stampeded at Israel’s Mount Meron.

Art & Entertainment....................... 8 Netflix acquires a new Israeli thriller, and streams a 1998 Holocaust documentary produced by Spielberg…”Miss” attacks everyday antisemitism… and the Oscar doesn’t go to…

Opinion..............................................10 The month of May is both Jewish American Heritage Month and Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month. The perfect opportunity to celebrate the rich history and contributions – and shared friendship – of these two communities.

A Nation Celebrates......................11 Jewish American Heritage Month recognizes the indelible contributions American Jews have made, and continue to make, to our nation’s history, culture, and society.

Quiet Down.......................................15 A small Baptist-affiliated university in Oregon has fired a Jewish tenured professor for speaking out and accusing the university president of making antisemitic remarks.

Torah Portion

23 In the Kitchen

24 Obituaries

25 Business and Professional Directory

26 Classified

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UP FRONT CONNECTICUT JEWISH LEDGER | SINCE 1929 | MAY 7, 2021 | 25 IYAR 5781

UConn student arrested for antisemitic vandalism (JNS) A student at the University of Connecticut was arrested and charged with a hate crime on Thursday for spray-painting a swastika last month on a campus building.

Kristopher Pieper, 21, was charged with third-degree intimidation based on bigotry or bias and criminal mischief.

On March 27, following Shabbat and on the first night of Passover, the Nazi symbol was found spray-painted on the UConn chemistry building directly across the street from the school’s Hillel. Police launched an investigation and, according to an arrest warrant affidavit, after checking digital sources, including surveillance camera footage, wireless internet records and use of his student access card, Pieper was identified as a person of interest.

The act of vandalism was one of seven antisemitic incidents that took place on UConn’s Storrs campus this academic year, three of which occurred during Passover.

Pieper is accused of one of the acts of

vandalism: painting a swastika on the north side of the chemistry building facing the Trachten-Zachs Hillel House.

Police believe the incident Pieper is accused of is related to another act of antisemitic vandalism that occurred three day later, when another swastika and Nazi symbol were discovered spray-painted on the nearby Philip E. Austin Building.

According to the arrest warrant, Pieper initially denied spray-painting the swastika, but later admitted to the crime.

Following his admission, Pieper, who is from Enfield, agreed to provide a statement and apology to UConn’s Hillel and the Jewish community. The 10-page letter of apology he subsequently wrote was also peppered with antisemitic tropes and theories which he asked to read aloud to the officers present.

“We are grateful to UConn Police for their efforts, which, along with our clearly articulated values as an institution, help to

demonstrate that hateful acts such as these will never be tolerated at UConn,” UConn president Thomas Katsouleas said in a message to the university.

“Every member of our community – students, faculty, staff, alumni, and guests – deserves to feel safe and respected at UConn. Anyone who violates that principle goes against the values this university exists to uphold,” he continued.

Pieper’s arrest comes after UConn Hillel students, dissatisfied with the school administration’s lack of response to the spate of antisemitic acts that have gripped the campus since October of 2020, staged a solidarity gathering on campus on April 5. Attended by 150 students, including leaders of the state’s Jewish community organizations, UConn’s president, and UConn student leaders who vowed to be allies with the university’s Jewish population.

ENTRANCE AND SIGN TO THE UNIVERSITY OF CONNECTICUT. CREDIT: KEN WOLTER/SHUTTERSTOCK.

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TRAGEDY IN ISRAEL Why were so many Orthodox Jews gathered at Israel’s Mount Meron for Lag B’Omer?

BY CNAAN LIPHSHIZ

(JTA) – “If you haven’t seen the joy of Lag B’Omer on the grave of Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai, you haven’t seen joy at all,” wrote the author Shmuel Yosef Agnon, Israel’s first Nobel Prize laureate.

That description reflects an aspect of the annual pilgrimage to Mount Meron in northern Israel that was underlined by the deaths on Friday of at least 45 revelers in a stampede: It is a place whose symbolism reflects a mix of grief and euphoria.

Indeed, the tragedy struck during what for many observant Jews is among the happiest days of the year: the cessation of a period of mourning between the holidays of Passover and Shavuot during which many observant Jews abstain from weddings and haircuts. And it occurred exactly 110 years after another disaster at the site that killed at least 10 pilgrims in 1911.

Part of the reason for Friday’s tragedy appears to be rooted in the pilgrimage site itself – a remote and archaeologically significant site where construction is complicated both practically and for religious reasons – and the euphoric mindset of some pilgrims.

The Talmud ties Lag B’Omer to a plague that killed thousands of students of Rabbi Akiva, among the greatest early rabbinic figures who legend has it was put to death by the Romans for defying their restrictions on teaching Torah. According to Jewish tradition, the plague ceased on Lag B’Omer, making that date a time of celebration.

Lag B’Omer is also believed to be the date of death of Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai, a prominent disciple of Rabbi Akiva and a major figure in Jewish mysticism, or Kabbalah, whose gravesite on Mount Meron is the locus of festivities. Bar Yochai’s grave became a site for celebration because tradition CONTINUED ON THE NEXT PAGE

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Tragedy CONTINUED FROM PAGE 5

has it that he asked his disciples to rejoice instead of mourn when they commemorate his death.

In Israel, the celebration has become a colorful event, where tens of thousands of mostly Hasidic Jews dance into the night to a soundtrack as diverse as the revelers.

It ranges from old hymns in Aramaic to Yiddish songs to techno music and Don McLean tunes sung to Hebrew lyrics celebrating the Torah.

The pilgrimage to Mount Meron, located just outside the northern city of Safed, began in the 11th century at the gravesite of earlier sages – Hillel the Elder and Shammai the Elder – who are buried on the mountain as well. About 600 years ago, Shimon bar Yochai’s grave also began attracting pilgrims, eventually eclipsing the earlier rabbis, according to historians.

A plethora of unusual customs has emerged around the Lag b’Omer pilgrimage.

At one event, a white sheet is stretched on a stage and smeared with olive oil for long minutes in a ceremony that some believe corresponds to a mystical notion that wisdom can be absorbed through objects.

Some young men also shoot bow and arrow while reciting their choice verses from the Bible as a means of fighting evil urges.

Amid the euphoric dancing and eccentric activities, revelers often display kindness and express brotherly love. It is not uncommon for revelers to hug. Entire dance parties routinely grind to a halt

whenever one of the dancers loses their yarmulke so that the ritual object can be retrieved from the ground.

Women, particularly the newly devout, also flock to Mount Meron on Lag B’Omer, which has a separate women’s section. They pray passionately for hours.

The event’s pinnacle is the lighting of the traditional Lag B’Omer fire as the crowd recites, mantra-like, “bizchut hatanah Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai” – Hebrew for “in the merit of Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai of the Tannaim,” a reference to the generation of rabbis who flourished in the first two centuries of the Common Era. That’s exactly the moment when the Mount Meron pilgrimage tragedy happened in 1911. As thousands climbed a stone staircase to see the fire, the structure collapsed, killing at least 10 people.

“Suddenly the frail metal railing tore off the roof, collapsing and dragging with it heavy rocks and the masses of people on it tumbled into the dense crowd below,” the Hapoel Hatzair journal reported about the incident. “A terrible sight unfolded, the buildings rocks and the metal rods appeared to have fused into a pitiless wrecking machine, there are 10 dead and 30 wounded. The feast became a beast, rivers of blood and streams of tears washed over the sage’s compound.”

Shmuel Yosef Agnon was there, too.

“I stood among them when they were alive,” he wrote. “And then I carried their bodies.”

HUNDREDS OF ORTHODOX JEWS MOURN AT THE JERUSALEM FUNERAL FOR YEHUDA LEV LUBIN, ONE OF 45 VICTIMS FROM THE MOUNT MERON LAG B’OMER STAMPEDE, APRIL 30, 2021.

(OLIVIER FITOUSSI/FLASH90)

At least 6 Americans, including 3 teenagers, among victims in Israeli stampede

BY STEWART AIN

(New York Jewish Week via JTA) – Among the 45 people killed in the crush of bodies at a Lag b’Omer celebration at Mount Meron in northern Israel – the deadliest civilian disaster in the country’s history – were at least six Americans with ties to the New York area.

They included 19-year-old yeshiva students from northern New Jersey and Monsey, New York, as well as a 13-year-old boy who had moved to Israel with his family.

The New Jersey student, Nachman Doniel Morris, had flown to Israel in September to study at Yeshivat Shaalvim in central Israel, after the Israeli government made special provisions to allow yeshiva students to come to the country despite restrictions on travel because of the pandemic.

“The Morris family are pillars of the BergenfieldTeaneck community,” said a neighbor. “I have known [Nachman] since he was six. He was a rising star as a NACHMAN DONIEL MORRIS student in the Jewish world. He was a sweet boy. No one had anything negative to say about him.”

Morris was a graduate of the Marsha Stern Talmudic Academy in Washington Heights. He has two younger siblings who live at home. Their father, Aryeh, is the comptroller for a local company.

Also killed was Yosef Amram Tauber, 19, of Monsey, a student at the Brisk yeshiva. A relative said that he left for Israel to attend the yeshiva “for the first time last week” – after the country again relaxed COVID-19 restrictions.

“His parents were nervous to send him away,” the relative said, adding that he had never before been to Israel.

Tauber had an older sister who a neighbor said is to be married in August. There are also several younger siblings. Tauber’s father, Zvi Tauber, is a rabbi of a congregation in Chester, New York.

The neighbor said that Tauber, who was known as “Yossi,” was always “full of spirit.”

He had attended a local boys yeshiva, Yeshivas Maor Yitzchak.

Also killed in the stampede was Shraga Gestetner, a 35-year-old singer from Monsey. Married and the father of five, he was in Israel visiting relatives. His mother, Shoshana, was reportedly raised in Bnei Brak.

Born in Montreal, Gestetner in recent years gravitated from music to business. His was buried Friday afternoon on Jerusalem’s Har Hamenuchot after Israeli officials put out a call for locals to attend, because Gestetner’s family was all abroad.

Other American victims who were identified include: • Menachem Knoblowitz, 22, of Borough Park, Brooklyn. He was engaged to a young woman from Lakewood, New Jersey, according to social media.

• Rabbi Eliezer Tzvi Joseph, 26, of Kiryas Joel, New York. A Satmar Hasid, he was the father of four children.

• Eliezer Yitzchok Koltai, 13, who had lived in Passaic, New Jersey, before moving to Jerusalem with his family.

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• Yossi Cohen, 21, of Cleveland, Ohio, who was a student at the Mir Yerushalayim yeshiva.

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ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT New short film skewers the ‘Miss Hitler’ beauty pageant – and everyday antisemitism

Oscars 2021: Jewish nominees (nearly) strike

BY STEPHEN SILVER

(JTA) – The Academy Awards were notable this year for a ceremony that was split into different venues. Also notable: a very low number of Jewish winners. To be fair, there was not a large pool of nominees to begin with. And “Nomadland,” a portrait of homeless nomads who move around the American West, did feature one Jewish producer who got his hands on the top prize – Peter Spears, a former actor best known before Sunday night as a producer of “Call Me By Your Name,” the hit 2017 drama based on Jewish writer André Aciman’s novel of the same name.

Here’s a roundup of the other results and moments we had our eyes on:

(JTA) – “Miss,” a short film that debuted on Vimeo on Yom Hashoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day, at first seems like a British version of Lena Dunham’s “Girls”: Two young female roommates, Nina and Olive, share a London flat and appear to have something of an uneasy relationship.

Nina tells Olive that she wants to compete in an online beauty pageant and would like her photographer roommate to take some pictures for it. After a photoshoot, Nina steps out and Olive peeks on her computer, only to find that Nina’s contest is the infamous “Miss Hitler” pageant – an annual neo-Nazi event full of SS regalia that has gotten some of its contestants arrested.

The title of the 12-minute film, like its plot, refers to how antisemitism can fester under the surface of everyday life. Yael Roth, the film’s London-based co-director,

COVID happened, I was signed up to do a filmmaking course for six months, but that got pushed back. So I thought, no one’s coming to give it to you, so just kind of go out and make a film. So this is the first short that my friend Ella [Marks], who’s my great creative partner who wrote the script and co-directed it with me, that’s how we started.

I assume being Jewish had something do with your wanting to make a film with this subject matter.

Fully, fully, 100%. I’m very kind of vocal, proud to be Jewish, and love Israel, and all of what comes along with it. … It was back in May last year, and I was just thinking, “What film can you make, what short film that you can fully finance yourself as well?”

And I thought, “What’s interesting? What do you like?” And the first thing that came up was obviously anything Jewish.

So I went on this website called The Jewish News, which is a U.K.-based publication, and the third or fourth article down was … something along the lines of “Miss Hitler Beauty Pageant Winner Arrested.” I started reading the article, and you know A ROOMMATE’S PHOTO SHOOT HAS A DARK MOTIVE IN “MISS.” when you just go (SCREENSHOT) down a black hole of darkness of the internet? Five hours later spoke with JTA about her journey as an I was still reading about it. I was shocked. up-and-coming filmmaker and how the I know antisemitism is alive and very well, project shines the light on a shocking form especially in the U.K. with COVID, and a lot of modern-day antisemitism. of people hanging out on the internet, it’s (The film is now free on Vimeo.) pretty bad at the moment. But that was just another level of madness. So I found the JTA: Tell me a little about your article and I thought, “let’s just use that as background, and what brought you to the base of a story.” this film.

Roth: I grew up in Belgium, [in] Antwerp, and I was there until I was 18. Then I went to Israel for a year, then I went to university. I actually, by trade, work in PR, mostly within the hospitality industry. So obviously that had a massive hit because of COVID. But film is something that I’ve always wanted to do but never did, [except for] the odd internship here, the odd work experience there, kind of dipping in and out over the years. And then, when 8

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Has there been any thought of making this into a feature film?

We’re talking about it. The whole point of this was really to raise awareness – antisemitism on social media is just so crazy online. And from an educational perspective, we just think it’s way more engaging and fun, and a noncombative form of communicating a different perspective.

But when it comes to making a feature, you never know. | MAY 7, 2021

BY GABE FRIEDMAN

Sacha Baron Cohen lost in the best adapted screenplay category – his “Borat” sequel was beat out by Florian Zeller’s “The Father,” an adaptation of his own play. Cohen was also nominated as best supporting actor for playing Jewish activist Abbie Hoffman but lost to Daniel Kaluuya, star of “Judas and the Black Messiah.”

“White Eye,” an Israeli short film that tackles white Israelis’ biases toward African migrants, lost in the live short category to “Two Distant Strangers.”

After winning best screenplay at the Golden Globes, Aaron Sorkin‘s “The Trial of the Chicago 7,” about the 1968 Chicago Seven protesters, was up for six Oscars. Sorkin was personally up for best original screenplay. But the film didn’t win any on Sunday night.

For Jewish songwriter Diane Warren, 12th time was not the charm. Her tune “Io sì (Seen),” from the film “The Life Ahead” – which stars Sophia Loren as a Holocaust survivor – was nominated for best original song, the 12th time she had been nominated in that category. It lost to “Fight For You” from “Judas and the Black Messiah.”

“Mank,” director David Fincher’s film about the legendary Jewish screenwriter Herman Mankiewicz, was up for a leading 10 awards, but only won two – best cinematography and best production design.

Several famous Hollywood Jews were included in the show’s annual “In Memoriam” segment. They included Carl Reiner, Jerry Stiller, Joel Schumacher, Joan Micklin Silver, George Segal, Sumner Redstone, Ronald Harwood and Walter Bernstein.

In accepting an award for his humanitarian work, filmmaker Tyler Perry talked about

combating hate and about his inspirational mother. He recounted her at home one day when she was supposed to be at work. He said she worked at a Jewish community center, and there had been a bomb threat at the building.

“She couldn’t believe that someone wanted to blow up this place,” he said.

1998 Spielbergproduced Holocaust documentary will stream on Netflix

BY SHIRA HANAU

(JTA) – An Oscar-winning documentary about the experience of Hungarian Jews during the Holocaust that was produced by Steven Spielberg will be made available for streaming on Netflix. “The Last Days” will be remastered from the original 35 mm film before its streaming release on May 19.

The documentary, which won the Academy Award for best documentary feature in 1998, tells the stories of five Hungarian Jews who survived the Holocaust. One was Tom Lantos, who would go on to become a congressman from California from 1981 to 2008. The film follows the survivors after the war as they return to their hometowns, as well as visit the ghettos and concentration camps where they were imprisoned.

Spielberg was an executive producer together with the USC Shoah Foundation, which he founded after directing the 1993 Oscar-winning film “Schindler’s List,” about German industrialist Oskar Schindler and the Jews he saved during the Holocaust. The foundation houses more than 55,000 Holocaust testimonies.

Netflix acquires Israeli show about a school shooting

BY GABE FRIEDMAN

(JTA) – Netflix acquired “Blackspace,” an eight-part Israeli thriller series about a school shooting carried out by masked figures, it was announced Thursday.

The show follows police as they investigate

jewishledger.com

CELEBRATING MOTHER’S DAY!

out

How Mother’s Day Came to Israel

BY SARAH ZARROW

A SCREENSHOT FROM THE “BLACKSPACE” TRAILER. (YOUTUBE)

the death of four students, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

“Key to the investigation is an app, Blackspace, that the school’s pupils use to communicate with one another, sharing their secrets out of view of their parents and the adult world,” The Hollywood Reporter explained.

The series – produced by Federation Entertainment, which is under the Israeli channel Reshet 13 – already has the green light for a second season from Netflix.

Reshet’s vice president of content, Ami Glam, said the Netflix deal is “a huge achievement for Reshet and for the Israeli television industry,” Ynet reported.

No release date has been announced. It will be available in several countries, including the U.S., which is in the midst of a spike in mass shootings.

On Nov. 14, 1951, an 11-year-old girl named Nechama Frankel wrote to the children’s newspaper Haaretz Shelanu suggesting that Israel adopt the American holiday known as Mother’s Day. The editors agreed, and Israel has been celebrating the occasion in one form or another, on one date or another, ever since.

Initially honoring the yahrzeit of Zionist leader Henrietta Szold (who was known as the “Mother of the Children’s Aliyah” and who had no children of her own), the day was first celebrated by cooking breakfast and bringing it to mother in bed, based on the practice in the U.S. In the 1980s, pressure from some feminists spurred a name change, and the day has been known as Family Day ever since. Some argue that Family Day, lacking the “crass commercialism” of Mother’s Day in the U.S., better pays homage to Israeli mothers.

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MAY 7, 2021

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OPINION

The Japanese Americans who helped liberate Dachau knew the shared history of anti-Jewish and anti-Asian hate

BY HANA RUDOLPH

(JTA) – April 29 marks the 76th anniversary of the liberation of Dachau, the longest-operating Nazi concentration camp.

A lesser-known part of that day is that Japanese-American troops played a key role in the liberation of Dachau and its satellite camps. Japanese-American soldiers also rescued thousands of survivors of a Nazi death march nearby, caring for them until medical personnel could arrive.

These troops were from the 522nd Field Artillery Battalion, a detachment of the 442nd Regimental Combat Team, which consisted of second-generation Japanese Americans. Many of these soldiers enlisted directly from U.S. internment camps, where Japanese Americans were shamefully incarcerated. Ironically, the Japanese-American troops rescued and cared for Jewish victims of the Nazi death camps, even as their own families were still detained in U.S. internment camps.

The creation of the 442nd followed Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor, when more than 110,000 Japanese Americans, two-thirds of them born in the United States, were detained and relocated in the continental U.S. Over the course of the war, an estimated 18,000 Japanese Americans were enlisted and deployed to Europe.

Despite these circumstances, the Japanese-American soldiers were valorous.

The 442nd became the most decorated regiment in U.S. military history, earning 21 Medals of Honor, over 9,000 Purple Hearts, eight Presidential Unit Citations and more – totaling more than 18,000 awards – for its actions during World War II. The 100th Battalion, a component of the 442nd, had such a high casualty rate that it was nicknamed the “Purple Heart Battalion.”

On April 29, 1945, several scouts from the 522nd came upon some barracks encircled by barbed wire. Technician Fourth Grade Ichiro Imamura described what was likely the Dachau subcamp of Kaufering IV in his diary: I watched as one of the scouts used his carbine to shoot off the chain that held the prison gates shut. He said he just had to open the gates when he saw a couple of the 50 or so prisoners, sprawled on the ground, moving weakly. They weren’t dead, as he had thought. When the gates swung open, we got our first good look at the prisoners.

Many of them were Jews. They were wearing black and white striped prison suits and round caps. A few had blanket rags 10

COLOR GUARDS AND COLOR BEARERS OF THE JAPANESE-AMERICAN 442D COMBAT TEAM STAND AT ATTENTION WHILE THEIR CITATIONS ARE READ AT A CEREMONY IN THE BRUYERES AREA OF FRANCE, WHERE MANY OF THEIR COMRADES FELL, NOV. 12, 1944.

(U.S. ARMY SIGNAL CORPS)

draped over their shoulders. It was cold and the snow was two feet deep in some places.

There were no German guards. They had taken off before we reached the camp.

The prisoners struggled to their feet after the gates were opened. They shuffled weakly out of the compound. They were like skeletons – all skin and bones.

In addition to its role in the liberation of Dachau, the 442nd is famous for its heroic rescue of the “Lost Battalion,” a group of more than 200 American soldiers encircled

by Nazi forces. The unit’s motto “Go for Broke” – gambler’s slang meaning to put it all on the line – reflected the intense patriotism and bravery of its soldiers.

Members of the 442nd included Daniel Inouye, who lost an arm in combat and went on to serve in Congress, first as Hawaii’s sole representative and then as U.S. senator from 1963 until his death in 2012, as well as president pro tempore of the U.S. Senate (third in the presidential line of succession).

Another member of the 442nd was Sus Ito, who later became a renowned biologist at Harvard Medical School.

“He risked his life in defense of freedom

JEWISH LEDGER | MAY 7, 2021

and the country that had turned against his family,” Daniel Lubetzky, founder and CEO of Kind Snacks, wrote last year about Ito’s role in saving his father, uncle and grandfather. In 2015, Ito recounted his experience in the liberation of Dachau in an American Jewish Committee program jointly organized with the U.S.-Japan Council.

“You fought not only the enemy, but you fought prejudice – and you won,” President Harry Truman told members of the 442nd after the war.

In reality, however, Japanese-American troops and those returning from internment camps continued to face prejudice in the form of exclusion laws, housing discrimination and even violence.

Indiscriminate fear and senseless hatred toward Asian Americans have never fully waned and have spiked in the past year. Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, the monitoring group Stop AAPI Hate has reported approximately 3,800 hate incidents against Asian Americans, including physical assault and verbal harassment.

At this time it is important to

acknowledge the shared history of the Jewish-American and Asian-American communities. Our communities have been inextricably linked throughout U.S. history.

For example, following the deadly shooting at Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life synagogue in 2018, the United Chinese Americans delivered a letter of support from more than 100 Asian-American organizations voicing solidarity with the Jewish community.

The month of May is both Jewish American Heritage Month and Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month. This concurrent recognition of both peoples is an opportunity to celebrate not only the rich history and contributions of these two communities to the American experience, but also to note the deep history and friendship they share.

As we commemorate the liberation of Dachau on April 29, 1945, we should also remember the kindness and heroism of Japanese Americans in the 442nd Regimental Combat Team.

Hana Rudolph is Assistant Director of the American Jewish Committee’s Asia Pacific Institute. jewishledger.com

May is Jewish American Heritage Month

T

his May, Jewish American Heritage Month (JAHM) – established by Presidential Proclamation each year since 2006 – will recognize the indelible contributions American Jews have made, and continue to make, to our nation’s history, culture, and society.

The National Museum of American Jewish History (NMAJH) in Philadelphia leads this nationwide celebration that features a month-long series of events, including a virtual Capitol Hill event and the premiere of an important documentary about a rabbi who played a key role in the Civil Rights movement. More than 75 partner organizations across 29 states will participate in JAHM’s national programming and education campaign.

“For more than 360 years, American Jews have always risen to contribute to society and culture, including science, medicine, sports, business, civil rights, government, and military service,” said NMAJH CEO, Dr. Misha Galperin. “We’re working to raise awareness about those contributions and to stem the roots of antisemitism by bringing stories of American Jewish experience to life.”

Jewish American History Month began as an effort by the Jewish Museum of Florida and South Florida Jewish community leaders. Through the bi-partisan efforts of Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz of Florida and the late Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, JAHM was established in 2006 by President George W. Bush to honor the contributions and achievements of Jewish Americans and to educate all Americans. It’s been continued every year since then by Presidential Proclamation. NASA Astronaut Garrett Reisman, a New Jersey native, carried the original JAHM proclamation into space in 2010, and President and First Lady Barack and Michelle Obama hosted the first-ever White House reception in honor of JAHM that same year.

The JAHM 2021 Theme This Jewish American Heritage Month takes its theme from the ancient sage Rabbi Hillel’s most well-known saying – “If I am only for myself, what am I? If not now – when?” – and the work of Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, who marched with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in Selma.

JAHM will highlight historical moments in which American Jewish communities demonstrated remarkable resilience and care for communities outside of their own, and also how diverse communities stood up for Jews in the face of antisemitism. The month will showcase contemporary stories of communities transcending difference to come together in mutual support and solidarity and amplify diverse voices within jewishledger.com

the Jewish community. JAHM will work to fight not only explicit antisemitism, but also its insidious influences and discrimination against people of all races, religions, and walks of life.

JAHM Programming JAHM 2021 will feature a series of hallmark events throughout May. n The month of activities will kick off with a two-part event featuring an all-day free screening of the film, Spiritual Audacity: The Abraham Heschel Story, a documentary by filmmaker Martin Doblmeier about the prophetic civil rights leader. The screening will culminate in a conversation on the lessons of the Heschel-King legacy and its relevance today in fighting hate in all form with members of the Congressional Caucus on Black-Jewish Relations. n Typically held in person at the U.S. Capitol, this year’s Congressional JAHM Celebration will be held virtually. Our nation’s legislators will offer their perspectives on the importance of honoring and celebrating Jewish American heritage across the country. The event will also honor Holocaust Survivor and authoritative voice on the subject of antisemitism, Abe Foxman, the former long-time director of the Anti-Defamation League. n Other activities throughout the month include: a program with the Combat Antisemitism Movement on the lessons of the Soviet Jewry movement for today and how everyday people can leverage the power of their voices to make change; an event celebrating the diversity of American Jewish life through stories of Asian American Jewish experience in partnership with The Andrew and Ann Tisch Center for Jewish Dialogue at ANU, The Museum of the Jewish People; and more conversations, performances, and partnerships that will be announced in the weeks to come. n New for 2021, JAHM will feature a nationwide initiative to select the first community-based inductee into the NMAJH Ed Snider Only in America Gallery/Hall of Fame. Nominees will be Jewish Americans who embody the spirit of this year’s JAHM theme and have been dedicated to helping others and making a difference in their community during the past year. Details on how the public can participate in the nomination and voting process will are available on the JAHM website.

For more information on Jewish American Heritage Month, as well as stories about how Jews have shaped and been shaped by America across nearly four centuries, visit there NMAJH.org.

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JUSTICE FOR SARAH What’s going on with French Jews right now? What to know about the Sar and why it matters.

BY PHILISSA CRAMER AND CNAAN LIPHSHIZ

(JTA) – The 2017 murder of a Jewish woman in France has again burst into global view, with protests held in several countries last week against a legal ruling that means her killer will not face a trial for murder. But who is Sarah Halimi? Why is her death becoming a cause celebre for Jews around the world?

Why are French Jews – and their allies around the world – protesting right now?

In April 2017, a 65-year-old woman named Sarah Halimi was murdered at her Paris apartment. There is no question about who killed her: Her neighbor, Kobili Traore, then 27, entered her home, beat her and threw her out the window.

Over the subsequent four years, French courts concluded that Traore, who is Muslim, was motivated to kill Halimi because she was Jewish. He shouted about Allah when he was beating Halimi, and then cried out, “I’ve killed the demon of the neighborhood,” using the Arabic-language word “shetan.” But while French courts acknowledged that the crime was antisemitic, two 2019 lower-court determinations held that Traore could not be tried for murder because he was psychotic at the time of the killing – a condition the court concluded stemmed from the fact that he was

very high on marijuana when he killed Halimi.

On April 14, France’s top court, the Cour de Cassation, upheld the lower-court rulings, effectively ending any prospect that Traore will be tried for killing Halimi. The protest on Sunday, April 25, was a response to that ruling.

If the ruling didn’t change anything, why take to the streets now?

French Jews have marched in the streets over Halimi’s case previously, most recently in January following an appeals court ruling upholding the decision not to try Traore. The size of the current protests and the depth of emotion expressed during them reflect the fact that the latest ruling exhausts all avenues in the French legal system. Many saw the moment as a final straw in the strained relationship between France’s Jews and its justice system, and in their tenuous position in a country known for its high rates of antisemitic incidents. “This ruling is a watershed moment,” the president of the Consistoire, the country’s official Orthodox Jewish organization, said at the rally.

The protests aren’t necessarily charging that the court ruling itself was antisemitic, but they are rooted in disbelief that the French legal system prioritizes a confessed killer’s

(A

mental health claims over undisputed evidence that a crime was motivated by antisemitism.

While the courts said they had no discretion under existing French law, many French Jews question whether the argument that successfully averted a trial for Traore would have flown had the accused been motivated by far-right ideology.

How does radical Islam play into the story?

PROTESTERS GATHER AT THE FRENCH EMBASSY IN TEL AVIV TO DEMAND JUSTICE FOR SARAH HALIMI, MURDERED BY HER MUSLIM NEIGHBOR IN PARIS IN 2017, APRIL 25, 2021.

PHOTO BY AVSHALOM SASSONI/FLASH90.

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While the court ruling centered on mental health arguments, the case comes amid a string of antisemitic attacks by Muslim men in France that began prior to Halimi’s murder and has continued after, and that is part of what French Jews are responding to.

People from a Muslim background are responsible for the majority of violent antisemitic incidents in France and all antisemitic shootings and stabbings of French Jews over the past decade, according to the National Bureau of Vigilance Against Antisemitism, a mainstream communal watchdog. Many trace back to the wave of antisemitic attacks on Jews in the early 2000s, when the second intifada in Israel triggered hundreds of incidents in France.

The abduction, torture and killing in 2006 of a Jewish cellphone salesman named Ilan Halimi (no relation to Sarah) initiated the

current era of antisemitic murders. (Previous attacks on Jews in France had been carried out by foreign terrorists.) The perpetrators, a criminal gang that included many members from Muslim backgrounds, told police they had selected Halimi because he was Jewish and they thought that meant he had money.

The attacks have resulted in at least 10 deaths in the last decade, including the murder of four Jews by a jihadist at a Jewish school of Toulouse in 2012 and the murder of another four Jews at a kosher supermarket in Paris in 2015. And just a year after Halimi’s death, two men – one who shouted “Allahu akbar” – killed 85-year-old Holocaust survivor Mireille Knoll in her apartment in the same arrondissement, in what police labeled an antisemitic hate crime. That murder prompted a march in Paris as well.

Muslim fundamentalists have also waged attacks on non-Jewish targets, including a 2015 attack on a concert venue that killed 130 people and, just last year, a teacher who showed caricatures of the Islamic prophet Muhammed to his students. The country is also home to a significant population of Islamic clerics who adhere to radical teaching of Islam. (The majority of Muslims in France are not tied to these fundamentalist movements.) Traore may have been under the influence of one of these imams: Witnesses said that he had spent whole jewishledger.com

OPINION

rah Halimi case

To Sarah Halimi, world Jewry and France

BY ARIÉ BENSEMHOUN

(JNS) The denial of justice is not just a betrayal of the fight that we must lead against hatred of Jews and extremism in all its forms; it is the very betrayal of France’s own definition. It is hatred not just of Jews, but of France itself, of democracy and of the values that constitute France’s republican basis.

The “eternal pact” between the Jews of France and the French Republic, based on sublime notions, has been time and again challenged and undermined by a long line of events that have smeared the history and memory of the Jews with blood. If we look at the old masters, we find Racine, in his admirable Esther, denouncing the unenviable fate of his Jewish compatriots

Raymond Barre declared that the target was Jews, but among the people killed were also “innocent French people who were crossing the street.”

Sadly, we don’t need to go that far back in history. At the dawn of the new millennium, a new covert antisemitism arose, under the pretext of a general hatred of Israel, and unleashed unrestrained violence against Jews, without much global attention. The synagogues were on fire and the Jews had to hide away because they were threatened, insulted and abused on a daily basis.

In 2006, this antisemitic violence took a turn in horror with the murder of Ilan Halimi, who was kidnapped, tortured and

of the Grand Siècle. Montesquieu, Diderot and even Pascal Paoli, in their courage and intellectual lucidity, speaking out against the oppression and exclusion of Jews in the Age of Enlightenment.

But this pacte éternel has been repeatedly broken: In 1894, with the antisemitic plot that saw the conviction of Dreyfus for high treason; in 1940 and 1941, with the decree of the first and second antiJewish Vichy legislation; in 1942, with the Vél d’Hiv round-up, the deportation and complicity of the Vichy regime in the Shoah, a systematic extermination of the Jewish people.

Most of us may not remember, but in 1967, with the turnaround of France and the embargo decreed against Israel on the grounds of a new so-called “Arab” policy, Charles de Gaulle shamelessly claimed in a famous press conference that the Jewish people are “an elite, self-confident and domineering people.”

In 1980, following the attack on the synagogue on rue Copernic, Prime Minister

murdered simply because he was Jewish – and Jews, as the good old blood libel goes, have money.

In 2012, children of the Jewish school of Ozar-Hatorah were killed at close range by an Islamist, and again, a frightened France preferred to look away, rather than publicly show its collective indignation in the face of these heinous crimes.

It is anger and indignation that overwhelm us these days, as the French justice system has decided not to try the assassin of Sarah Halimi, on the pretext that this mad Islamist and antisemite, who has a full criminal record, is really a victim himself, of an “acute delirium” resulting from excessive cannabis consumption. Drug use constitutes in other circumstances an aggravating factor, but can in no case be considered as a cause exonerating criminal liability.

This moral and judicial bankruptcy seems to have awakened the conscience of our non-Jewish compatriots. Around the globe, women and men are rising to

BERNARD-HENRY LEVY SPEAKS AT THE PARIS DEMONSTRATION.

ANDREA SAVORANI NERI/NURPHOTO VIA GETTY IMAGES)

days at a nearby mosque in the months leading up to the murder.

French authorities desperately want to disrupt this dangerous dynamic, and Prime Minister Emmanuel Macron, who is politically liberal on many fronts, has even called for dramatic curbs to some forms of Muslim religious expression in France in order to dim the influence of fundamentalist clerics. Jewish groups have supported those moves, even though they occur amid diminishing tolerance for religion of any kind in the public sphere, including Judaism.

What changes do French Jews want to see now?

As with many protest movements, one goal of this one is to give voice to French Jews’ increasing distress – in this case, over their safety and their confidence that French institutions are protecting them.

But the rallies are also calling for two concrete changes. First, protesters want something called a trial of facts for Traore.

Such a trial would allow him to be prosecuted for his actions even if his mental health precludes normal sentencing.

The protesters also want a law named for Sarah Halimi that stipulates that voluntary CONTINUED ON PAGE 14

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express the horror that this abominable crime inspires in them. It is not just a denial of justice, but the very betrayal of the fight that we must lead against Islamism, obscurantism and hatred of Jews that takes new forms – but most of all, the hatred of France, of the values that constitute our republican base and of democracy.

It is France that finds itself alone in this fight against its very self. It is faced with its own cowardice, compromises and renouncements; confronted with the challenge to recover and return to its glorious days as a beacon among the nations. French President Emmanuel Macron, as former Prime Minister Manuel Valls, recalled with solemnity that “without the Jews, France would no longer be France.”

So, yes, the same France that unjustly condemned Dreyfus, dishonored itself and took an active part in the deportation of the Jews to Auschwitz, is once again committing the irreparable. France, which today refuses to judge the assassin of Sarah Halimi, betrays its own citizens’ confidence in the values of their country.

Nevertheless, France has two faces. The France of Zola and Péguy, who fought to demonstrate the innocence of Dreyfus; the France that raised the Resistance fighters and the Righteous Among the Nations, is eternal.

This France, which made the “great voice of justice” heard, possesses unalterable strength and remains in the hearts of all Jews, in Paris as in Jerusalem. This France will rise to recall the martyrdom of Sarah Halimi and cry out against antisemitism and Islamism.

This France will assert, loud and clear, its rejection of this denial of justice that withers the memory of all the victims of this centuries-old hatred of the Jews, because this hatred contradicts the very Republican promise and dissolves the European dream.

Dr. Arié Bensemhoun is chief executive officer of ELNET France.

ELNET Europe-Israel is a nonprofit organization dedicated to strengthening relations between Europe and Israel based on shared democratic values and strategic interests.

JEWISH LEDGER | MAY 7, 2021

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Just who was Sarah Halimi?

A WOMAN HOLDS UP A SIGN DURING THE DAY OF RALLIES AROUND THE WORLD PROTESTING THE FRENCH JUDICIAL SYSTEM’S HANDLING OF THE SARAH HALIMI CASE, APRIL 25, 2021.

(JACK GUEZ/AFP/GETTY IMAGES)

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 12

How are non-Jews in France responding?

consumption of drugs will make the consumer of those drugs criminally liable for any action committed while under their influence. The French government has said it plans to introduce a bill that would allow judges to take drug consumption into account when determining culpability.

Is it true you can get away with murder in France if you smoke pot?

The ruling holds that, under current laws, you can avoid being tried for murder if a court determines that the pot you smoked triggered a psychotic episode.

While marijuana use is not associated with departures from reality the way that some other drugs are, emerging research suggests that using high-potency marijuana may be associated with psychotic breaks, particularly in people who are predetermined toward certain kinds of mental illness.

That is what the psychiatrists who examined Traore concluded had happened.

One of them, Paul Bensussan, who is Jewish, concluded that Traore was experiencing a psychotic episode at the time of the killing. “The crime was that of a madman, but his crime was antisemitic because in his delirium he equated Jews with the devil,” Bensussan told Marianne magazine.

French courts are not always convinced that drug consumption makes it impossible to hold people accountable for their actions.

In another 2017 case, a man who threw a dog out a window in Marseille failed to convince judges that he was completely under the influence of drugs. Protesters at the Paris rally cited that case in advancing antisemitism charges, holding signs that said “In France, the life of a Jewish woman is worth less than a dog’s.”

Where is Halimi’s killer now?

French authorities are saying only that he is being held at a “psychiatric hospital.”

Traore will be subject to “restrictive measures” for the next 20 years, though the nature of these measures has not been specified.

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JEWISH LEDGER

Until very recently, the Halimi case had not featured prominently in French news coverage. The France 5 television channel and other major stations did not even mention the April 14 judgment of the Cour de Cassation in their weekly roundups, and almost everyone at the protest in Paris on Sunday was Jewish. But Macron’s comments on the case, and his instruction to seek changes to the country’s legal code, have brought the case into the national consciousness.

The case is being championed particularly by those who are concerned about immigration and radical Islam in France. This week, the cover of Charlie Hebdo, the provocative magazine whose offices were the site of a 2015 jihadist attack that killed 12 and another four at a kosher supermarket, featured a caricature of a Muslim man holding a knife while appearing to be blowing out the candles on a menorah.

How are Jews outside of France responding?

On Sunday, protests took place outside French embassies and consulates in Washington, D.C., Los Angeles, Miami, Rome, London, Tel Aviv and the Hague, at a minimum. Information about the Halimi case is also circulating widely on social media, with posts by Humans of Judaism, a popular Instagram account, and multiple other accounts devoted to fighting antisemitism offering posts for users to share.

Some of the groundswell has been driven by a campaign launched by an organization called the Combat AntiSemitism Movement, which organized many of the rallies and initiated hashtags, including #JeSuisSarahHalimi, meant to draw attention to the case on social media.

According to a recent report in the Forward, the group is part of a constellation of organizations formed in recent years, often with funding from American conservatives, that promote the idea that the far left and Muslim fundamentalists pose as much of a risk to Jews as white supremacists.

| MAY 7, 2021

Sarah Halimi was born Lucie Attal on Nov. 30, 1951, in Nogent-sur-Marne, a western suburb of Paris, to parents who had immigrated to France the previous year from Algeria and who worked as greengrocers. As an adult, Halimi joined a more observant Orthodox Jewish community than the one in which she grew up, changing her name to Sarah at around that time. She married a man from that community, a psychologist, and kept his name, Halimi, after their divorce five years later. They had three children together.

Halimi studied to become a doctor but opted for a different career: She became a kindergarten teacher and director of a private Jewish nursery in the 4th district of Paris. It was “her life’s work,” her son told Noémie Halioua, the author of a 2018 French-language book about Halimi titled “L’Affaire Sarah Halimi.”

What are the historical parallels for French Jews?

More recently, several antisemitic killings have been seen as watershed moments for French Jews. The killings in Toulouse in 2012, in particular, are seen as spurring a wave of emigration. And Jews have turned out en masse to protest antisemitic events many times in the past, including with a memorial march for Mirielle Kroll in 2018.

But the degree to which French Jews, including their leaders, are expressing concern about whether the state is on their side feels new. For that, the best historical parallel may be more than 120 years old.

That parallel, which is increasingly being cited in the Halimi case, is the Dreyfus affair, in which a Jewish army officer was accused of spying against France in the 1890s. The case shook French Jews’ growing confidence that they were considered full citizens in their country; it also inspired Theodor Herzl, considered the father of modern Zionism, to conclude that Jewish nationalism was needed to keep Jews safe in the world. At least some, including representatives of the conservative Europe-Israel advocacy group, explicitly made the comparison during the rally Sunday in Paris.

How do French Jews feel about the legal system?

Like Jews in other countries, French Jews appreciate the police and the protection they provide and express that appreciation in varying ways. In 2016, amid a polarizing debate in France about the use of force by and against riot police, the main political organ of French Jewry came down strongly on the side of police. And at Jewish community protest rallies, community leaders often invite demonstrators to sing the Marseillaise, the French national anthem, to honor police officers guarding participants.

That happened, too, at the April 25 rally. The first speaker asked the 20,000odd protesters in attendance to observe a minute’s silence for Stéphanie Monfermé, a police officer who was killed, allegedly by a jihadist, near Paris on April 23. The request was observed by all.

But it’s clear that for many French Jews, the Halimi case has represented a breach in confidence about whether the state is on their side.

“It defies belief,” a former police commissioner in the Paris area who led an antisemitism watchdog group told JTA in 2017 about how the police and justice system managed the case. “But it corresponds to broader problems. Today I no longer have full confidence that antisemitic hate crimes in France are handled properly.”

In particular, some French Jews believe that the country is especially hesitant to take on violence by radicalized Muslims. Prominent figures within French Jewry believe that the French media, justice officials, politicians and even representatives of French Jewry maintained from 2000 to 2002 a “virtual blackout on more than 500 cases of antisemitic violence” directed by Muslims at Jews, allegedly as payback for Israel’s actions, Shmuel Trigano, a prominent scholar of French antisemitism, wrote in 2017.

In 2019, the former head of a French intelligence agency revealed that France had agreed, possibly with judicial backing, not to target Palestinian terrorists who killed French Jews in Paris in 1982 if they refrained from carrying out further attacks on French soil.

Could the Halimi case cause Jews to emigrate?

We can’t know yet, but past episodes of antisemitism in France have led to spikes in emigration to Israel, the main destination for French Jews. About 50,000 Jews have moved to Israel in the past decade, from a community of about 449,000, according to a 2020 demographic survey. The exodus peaked in 2015 and coincided with economic stagnation and the wave of terror attacks on Jewish institutions, beginning with the 2012 Toulouse school shooting.

Because moving to Israel is a bureaucratic process, it took about two years for the trend to begin to appear in Israeli immigration data.

“Sometimes I think I’ll stay here, other times, like after the Sarah Halimi affair, I’m not so sure,” one 20-year-old French student told JTA during the Paris protest.

“When I’m afraid to walk in the street because I’m a woman, because I’m Jewish, it’s difficult. My nieces in Israel feel safe at all hours of the night. So you start thinking what’s better.”

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CAMPUS NEWS Baptist-affiliated Oregon school fires Jewish prof who alleged antisemitism

BY BEN SALES

(JTA) – Linfield University, a small school in Oregon, has fired a Jewish professor who accused the university president of making antisemitic remarks.

Daniel Pollack-Pelzner, a tenured professor who taught English literature, has accused Linfield President Miles DANIEL K. Davis of POLLACK-PELZNER making multiple antisemitic remarks in recent years. The antisemitism, he said, was partly a backlash to Pollack-Pelzner demanding that the school do more to address allegations of sexual assault against multiple university trustees, including Davis.

An email from Linfield Provost Susan Agre-Kippenhan to the school community, sent late Tuesday afternoon, April 27, said that a member of the faculty had been terminated for “serious breaches of the individual’s duty to the institution.”

“As a matter of policy and privacy, personnel matters are confidential, but maintaining that is not always possible, particularly when the precipitating events involve false public accusations that have, sadly, harmed the university,” Agre-Kippenhan wrote, adding that a safe environment on campus “cannot be achieved if individuals abuse their positions of trust and take deliberate actions that harm the university.”

Pollack-Pelzner, who has taught at Linfield for more than a decade, recently went public with his allegations of antisemitism. He and other professors alleged that Davis made antisemitic comments regarding Jewish noses and the Holocaust.

Linfield, a university near Portland with some 2,000 students, has almost no organized Jewish presence on campus and only a handful of Jewish students and faculty. It is affiliated with the American Baptist Churches USA. Pollack-Pelzner also alleged that, in response to his calls to address sexual assault allegations, Davis made a speech to the board of trustees warning of disloyalty and telling them to follow Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. Pollack-Pelzner was also a trustee, representing the school’s faculty.

Davis denied the allegations and has said he is not Christian. He has asked the local NAACP to investigate whether accusations against him were racially motivated. Davis jewishledger.com

is Linfield’s first Black president.

In recent weeks, the local branch of the Anti-Defamation League and the Oregon Board of Rabbis both contacted the school expressing concern about the allegations.

The board of rabbis called for the resignations of Davis and the chair of the board, David Baca, whom Pollack-Pelzner also accused of antisemitic remarks.

The faculty of the College of Arts and Sciences also overwhelmingly voted to approve a no-confidence motion calling on Davis and Baca to resign, but the university has stood behind Davis and Baca.

Because Pollack-Pelzner has tenure, it appears that his termination must go through a process outlined by the school’s faculty handbook. According to the handbook, Pollack-Pelzner must be served a “statement of charges,” and then has the right to a hearing, 20 days later, in front of an “elected faculty hearing committee,” where he would have the right to counsel.

He would then be afforded another hearing in front of the school’s governing board.

Calif. student gov’t passes resolution to divest from companies active in Israel (JNS) The Associated Students of Pomona College in California (ASPC) “unanimously passed” a resolution calling for the divestment of its funds from companies “complicit in the occupation of Palestine,” the Claremont Students for Justice in Palestine announced on Instagram on Thursday, April 22.

According to a report in the Claremont Independent, the firms from which ASPC will divest “are drawn from a list compiled by the United Nations and include such popular companies as Airbnb and TripAdvisor [and] student clubs that fail to divest from [them] will face the loss of ASPC funding.” The resolution – which called on “the other Claremont Colleges Student Government Associations to follow suit” – makes ASPC the second student government of the Claremont Consortium to enact a boycott of international companies active in Israel, following a similar resolution by the Pitzer Student Senate.

Pomona College management released a letter conveying “deep concern” that the “vote was held without representation from any student opposition.” The letter further stated, “The resolution’s stated goal of eventually enacting requirements that all student clubs supported by ASPC – not just ASPC itself – comply with its divestment stance or lose funding is also of deep concern, as it would require all students, regardless of their views, to participate in a boycott.”

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THE KOSHER CROSSWORD MAY 7, 2021

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Across 1. Shtisel patriarch 7. Daughter of 1-Across 11. Anthony Fauci’s org.

14. Eggs partner, at times 15. Shoresh 16. Glass or Gershwin 17. “Doctor Who” broadcaster 18. “ ___ boy!”

19. Iver or Jovi 20. Son of 1-Across 22. Niece of 1-Across 24. Son of 1-Across 28. Israeli diplomat Danny 29. Sidekick to both Jafar and Aladdin

30. Condescending person 33. Like a movie referencing itself 34. Eggs concoction 37. Michael who plays 20-Across 39. “All Things Considered” org.

40. Granddaughter of 1-Across 42. 20-Across is gifted at it 45. Mother of 1-Across 46. Playful talk 48. Cousin of Dwight on “The Office” 51. Fisher of “The Great Gatsby” 53. CREF’s partner 54. Carry with effort 56. Daughter-in-law of 1-Across 59. Last name of 7, 60, and

75-Across 60. Son-in-law of 1-Across 62. Rowing blade 63. Rocking sisters Este, Danielle, and Alana 65. The magic word 70. Geneticist’s letters 71. E.M.T. part: Abbr.

72. Peruvian livestock 73. Some Nintendos 74. Daughter-in-law of 1-Across 75. Grandson of 1-Across

Down 1. The Concorde, for short 2. “Dream on!”

3. “Nod” or “mod” attachment 4. Place to study 70-Across 5. Imprison, old style 6. Dolenz of the Monkees 7. Anti-___ boots (sci-fi footwear) 8. Little bit 9. Babe 10. Country with more than one Great Synagogue 11. Little bit 12. 1950 Asimov classic 13. Grandson-in-law of 1-Across 21. “Y” pluralized 23. “___ Said” (Neil Diamond hit) 24. Shtisel setting, so to speak

25. Improvise jazz-style 26. Bob who heads Disney 27. It’s highly unlikely these letters are part of your email address (if you’re under 30) 28. Oppenheimer project 31. Israeli brigade 32. Ending for pay or schnozz 35. Bit of time 36. Amsterdam bloom 38. “My Big Fat Greek Wedding” star Vardalos 41. Many ATM deposits 42. “___ goes to the runner” (baseball rule) 43. Legit 44. ___ Asar 45. Brooks and Torme

47. Ultimate degree 48. Program using “.doc” files, for short 49. There are four of them worldwide 50. 40-Across portrayer and fiances of 75-Across 52. Abstract artist Jean 55. Chayil preceder 57. Go for a job 58. Instrument for Yo-Yo Ma 60. “Spotlight” actor Schreiber 61. Israeli singer star Ziv 64. “Love” in Mexico 66. “That’s ___ in elephant” 67. Doc bloc, for short 68. “My Gal” of song 69. Ge’ula to the Rova dir.

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Briefs Biden: white supremacists are the ‘most lethal terrorist threat’ (JTA) – Setting his administration’s tone in his first speech to Congress, President Joe Biden said white supremacists posed the “most lethal” terrorist threat to the United States. Biden on Wednesday said the terrorist threat had evolved and referred to his decision to end the U.S. troop presence in Afghanistan after 20 years, when the United States first entered the country to pursue the Al Qaeda terrorists responsible for the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on the United States.

“Make no mistake, in 20 years terrorism has metastasized, the threat has evolved way beyond Afghanistan,” he said. “Those who are on the intelligence committees, the Foreign Relations Committee, the defense committees, you know well, we have to remain vigilant against the threats to the United States wherever they come from. Al Qaeda and ISIS are in Yemen, Syria, Somalia, other places in Africa and the Middle East and beyond.

“And we won’t ignore what our intelligence agencies have determined to be the most lethal terrorist threat to the homeland today, white supremacist terrorism,” he said “We’re not going to ignore that either.” Biden during his campaign to unseat former President Donald Trump accused Trump of stoking white supremacist tendencies and deadly attacks with his rhetoric and of ignoring the white supremacist threat. Trump came under fire for cutting programs targeting and tracking white supremacists.

Biden referred briefly to his efforts to reenter the Iran nuclear deal, a plan Israel vigorously opposes. Trump quit the deal in 2018, saying it was inadequate to keep Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons; Biden says the deal is the most practical means of preventing a nuclear Iran. Biden has said he is committed to consulting closely with Israel and other regional allies in entering the deal.

“On Iran and North Korea’s nuclear programs that present a serious threat to America’s security and the security of the world – we are going to be working closely with our allies to address the threats posed by both of these countries through diplomacy as well as stern deterrence,” he said.

NJ town sued again for discrimination against Orthodox Jews (JTA) – The state of New Jersey has sued one of its towns over alleged discrimination against Orthodox Jews – the second such lawsuit against the town in less than a year.

Jackson Township has been selectively applying local laws and drafting new ones 18

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as part of an attempt to push out Orthodox Jews and limit their religious activities, the lawsuit alleges, according to a report by NJ Advance Media. “We’ve filed this lawsuit because bias and hate have no home in New Jersey, and we will not allow some vocal residents’ intolerance to drive local government decisions,” New Jersey Attorney General Gurbir Grewal said in a statement.

“Like all public servants, municipal officials have a duty to uphold the law, not weaponize it against specific groups because of what they believe or how they worship.” The attorney general wants Jackson Township to overturn the allegedly discriminatory rules and pay a fine.

Terence Wall, the business administrator there, was quoted by local media as saying that he was “surprised” to learn of the lawsuit.

“Jackson Township is a community of over 60,000 residents, including members of nearly every faith, and the township will defend itself appropriately,” he said of the Jersey Shore community, which is located in what is considered the central part of the state.

The growth of the Orthodox community in Jackson and the adjacent town of Lakewood in recent years has come with complaints by non-Orthodox residents about the changing character of the area. Last year, the U.S. Department of Justice accused Jackson of enacting discriminatory rules. The new lawsuit, filed last week in Ocean County Superior Court, alleges that the negative reaction to Orthodox Jews among some residents led to an organized effort to catch Orthodox Jews violating esoteric ordinances.

Senate confirms Colin Kahl to senior defense post, some pro-Israel groups object (JTA) – The Senate confirmed Colin Kahl to be undersecretary of defense for policy, a Biden nomination that survived a fierce challenge from right-wing pro-Israel groups, which targeted Kahl for his role in shaping the 2015 Iran nuclear deal. Kahl was confirmed 49-45 last week along party lines.

Republicans targeted Kahl principally for his role when he was national security adviser to then-Vice President Joe Biden in shaping the Iran deal. Biden, now president, wanted Kahl back in government as the administration seeks to reenter the agreement. Christians United for Israel launched a six-figure ad buy in West Virginia targeting Joe Manchin, a moderate Democrat who sometimes votes with Republicans.

It didn’t work, as Manchin said he was on board with Kahl. Three Israeli generals who worked with Kahl when he was with the Obama administration effectively endorsed him, as did a cadre of Democrats who are close to the pro-Israel community.

| MAY 7, 2021

JCPA calls China’s treatment of Muslim Uyghur minority ‘genocide’

Reform rabbi suspended in 2000 now investigated for sex abuse allegations

(JTA) – The Jewish Council for Public Affairs, the main policy umbrella for U.S. Jewish groups, resolved to protest what it called China’s “genocide” of its Muslim Uyghur minority. “The Jewish community should call upon the CCP to end the genocide and exploitation of the Uyghurs, as well as halt the oppression of other ethnic and religious minorities living within its borders,” the JCPA, which brings together most national groups and virtually every local Jewish community relations council, said in a resolution at its two-day annual conference held virtually this week.

Other resolutions also urged expanded voter access, embraced last year’s normalization agreements between Israel and some of its Arab neighbors, and renewed its commitment to combat climate change.

The resolutions are significant because they frequently anticipate the direction of American Jewish activism.

The one on the Uyghurs represents a recent surge in Jewish community activity on behalf of the Muslim minority in China. The JCPA resolution calls on constituent groups to speak out against the genocide and work with other communities “to create a grassroots atrocity prevention movement.”

The JCPA, representing a community that is largely liberal, nonetheless is also conscious in its resolutions process of being nonpartisan. That has become increasingly difficult in a polarized environment, evident in the group’s resolutions to renew its commitment to combating climate change, a phenomenon that many Republicans deny, and expand voter access. The voter access measure decried “the discredited narrative of widespread voter fraud pushed by some leaders at the state and national level.”

Unmentioned was that all those leaders are Republican. The resolution embracing the Abraham Accords, the normalization agreements brokered by the Trump administration, emphatically promoted bipartisanship. “The Biden Administration should seize upon the progress made in the Middle East, as evidenced by the Abraham Accords which the Trump Administration helped to bring about,” it said.

A substantial portion of the conference was dedicated to criminal justice reform and advancing the Black-Jewish alliance. Taking the spotlight were Jewish activists in Atlanta who have worked closely with Sen. Raphael Warnock, a Democrat who until his election in January helmed Ebenezer Baptist Church.

A session titled “Athletes Against Antisemitism” featured Zach Banner of the NFL’s Pittsburgh Steelers, Alysha Clark of the WNBA’s Washington Mystics and Yael Averbuch, a former top-ranked pro in women’s soccer.

(JTA) – New York’s Central Synagogue is investigating sex abuse allegations against its former senior rabbi, Sheldon Zimmerman, and asking why a top Reform rabbinical body appeared to cover up the nature of his behavior when it suspended him two decades ago. In 2000, the Central Conference of American Rabbis, or CCAR, suspended Zimmerman following what it vaguely described at the time as “personal relationships” that violated ethical codes.

Shortly after he resigned as president of Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, the Reform seminary.

This fall, Central Synagogue launched a probe in which three women came forward and alleged sexually predatory behavior

by Zimmerman in the 1970s and ’80s, the Forward reported. Zimmerman was Central Synagogue’s senior rabbi from 1972 to 1985.

The complainants include a former teacher at the synagogue who said she was manipulated into a sexual relationship with Zimmerman, who was her boss, and a second victim who said she was 17 when Zimmerman first began to fondle and kiss her.

Two of the women had also spoken with CCAR during its investigation in 2000, according to a letter sent to congregants last week by its current senior rabbi, Angela Buchdahl, and the synagogue’s senior leadership. The CCAR’s failure to disclose the nature of Zimmerman’s behavior has sparked “institutional self-reflection,” the group said in a statement quoted by the Forward.

According to the Forward, Zimmerman lives outside Dallas, where he was senior rabbi of Temple Emanu-El from 1985 to 1996.

After his suspension in 2000, he went on to serve as vice president of Birthright Israel and rabbi of the Jewish Center of the Hamptons.

He did not respond to requests for comment.

IsraAID to provide oxygen concentrators, supplies to India during COVID crisis (JNS) In response to the devastating coronavirus outbreak in India, now at the epicenter of the pandemic, IsraAID will provide urgently needed medical supplies to the beleaguered nation. According to the World Health Organization’s weekly epidemiological update on COVID-19, India has reported some 2.7 million new cases as of April 27 and more than 15,000 deaths in the last week alone. (Since the pandemic began, there have been 17 million cases and more nearly 200,000 deaths.) Hospitals, which have become full, are in dire need of oxygen.

On social media, images of mass cremations have gone viral.

“As a humanitarian organization that has responded to COVID-19 in 17 countries up to now, we felt we could not just stand by,” said IsraAID CEO Yotam Polizer, jewishledger.com

whose organization will be sending medical equipment and supplies, including crucial oxygen concentrators, to health-care facilities and organizations in India. According to a news release, IsraAID will also explore technological solutions to meet gaps in COVID-19 response and care, including data management, logistical support, vaccinations and more. It will also respond to the growing mental-health crisis left in the pandemic’s wake by offering self-care programs for frontline health workers to build community resilience and “help the helpers.” Staff will work with their partners on the ground in India, including health-care organizations and civil-rights groups, and with the Israel-India Forum at Tel Aviv University.

Noting that life in Israel returning to a pre-pandemic “normal,” said Politzer, “it is crucial to remember our shared responsibility to partner with communities facing the worst of it.”

Noa Tishby takes action to offset book’s carbon footprint (JNS) Israeli-American actress, producer and activist Noa Tishby has partnered with the financial-services company Aspiration to offset the carbon impact of her debut book Israel: A Simple Guide to the Most Misunderstood Country on Earth. She announced the partnership with the Los Angeles-based company last week on Instagram. “Each printed book uses approximately four trees, and through this partnership, Aspiration will, in perpetuity, plant more trees than the paper used to print my book,” she said, adding, “Israel is the only country in the world to start the 21st century with more trees than the previous century.

This has inspired my partnership with Aspiration, and I think that it can be a model for the rest of the world.”

Those interested in joining her efforts can do so by connecting their credit or debit card to Aspiration’s automatic tree-planting program at PlantYourChange.com. The program automatically applies the spare change from each purchase to plant a tree.

Aspiration launched its carbon-offset credit card in March, which helps consumers cancel out the greenhouse-gas emissions associated with daily life, explained TechCrunch. Each time someone uses the card, one of its global reforestation partners will plant a tree. Sixty uses of Aspiration’s card result in the planting of enough trees to offset the carbon emissions from an average American home.

Israel to start reopening to tourism, beginning in May (JNS) Israel will begin admitting vaccinated tourists into the country at the end of May and has announced the launch of a global campaign to encourage as many people as possible to visit this year, Israeli Tourism Minister Orit Farkash-Hacohen said last week. Speaking at a press conference in Tel Aviv, she said “Israel today is a world leader jewishledger.com

in safety and health, and we will make sure every potential tourist knows this when planning their summer or winter vacation.”

Israel will allow in a limited number of vaccinated groups next month before allowing an unlimited number of groups to enter come June, she said, adding that the plan was for skies to fully open to individual vaccinated travelers in July. To encourage international visitors, the ministry will be putting up digital billboards in Dubai, New York City’s Times Square and London’s Piccadilly Circus. The first to launch, in Dubai, in both English and Arabic, will be the first-ever Israeli government campaign in the United Arab Emirates, according to the ministry.

The ministry will also be promoting a number of large, international events, including the Tel Aviv Pride Parade, which will be held live this year after being canceled in 2020 due to the coronavirus pandemic; a special Abraham Cycling Cup tour in partnership with philanthropist Sylvan Adams, which will see Israel and the UAE co-host the annual Tour of Dubai bike race; and an international music festival in Timna Park in the Negev Desert, north of the Israeli resort city of Eilat.

Israel and US consult on Iran nuclear talks (JTA) – Top Israeli and U.S. officials dealing with the Iran file met in a signal of the Biden administration’s efforts to keep Israel in the loop as it moves forward in reentering a nuclear deal that Israel rejects. Jake Sullivan, President Joe Biden’s national security adviser, met April 27 with his Israeli counterpart Meir Ben-Shabbat at the Israeli Embassy in Washington D.C. The White House statement after the meeting emphasized areas of concern to Israel.

“The United States updated Israel on the talks in Vienna and emphasized strong U.S. interest in consulting closely with Israel on the nuclear issue going forward. The United States and Israel agreed on the significant threat posed by Iran’s aggressive behavior in the region, and U.S. officials underscored President Biden’s unwavering support for Israel’s right to defend itself.”

Biden and his top officials have acknowledged that keeping Israel sidelined ahead of the 2015 deal, which traded sanctions relief for a rollback in Iran’s nuclear activities, was a mistake and stoked distrust between the Netanyahu and Obama governments. Biden wants back into the deal as soon as possible. The parties to the original agreement, known formally as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA, are meeting in Vienna to work out a sequence. Israel still opposes reentry to the deal and wants Biden to maintain Trump’s policy of maximum economic and diplomatic pressure on Iran. At last week’s meeting, the sides agreed to establish a working group to address Iran’s missile program. Trump and Israel have said a critical flaw in the 2015 deal is that it deals only with fissile material

enrichment and not with other issues, like its missile program. Israel’s statement after the meeting was also positive. “Today, Israel’s National Security Advisor Meir Ben Shabbat and I had an excellent meeting with US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan,” Gilad Erdan, Israel’s ambassador to Washington and the United Nations, said on Twitter. “We discussed our shared goal of preventing Iran from developing nuclear weapons and agreed to work together to strengthen our security ties.”

LGBTQ students sue Yeshiva U for discrimination (JTA) – A group of students and alumni is suing Yeshiva University for discrimination, claiming that the university violated New York City’s human rights law when it refused to recognize an LGBTQ student club. The lawsuit was filed Tuesday, April 27, in New York County Supreme Court. Over the last few years, the students repeatedly lobbied the university’s administration to formally recognize a Gay-Straight Alliance club. The suit asks the university to officially recognize the club as a student organization and to award damages to the plaintiffs.

Molly Meisels, a recent graduate of the Modern Orthodox school, who led the effort for inclusion while enrolled, said, “Queer students and allies at Yeshiva University have been meeting with administrators, applying for club status, sharing our stories with rabbinical figures and advocating internally for years,” Meisels told JTA. “When we realized that our efforts were for naught, we knew that filing a lawsuit was the last way for us to succeed in our endeavors.”

On Tuesday, 48 faculty members of Yeshiva University’s Cardozo School of Law sent a letter to the president of the university, condemning Y.U.’s refusal to allow LGBTQ students to form a club. “Discrimination against a student organization solely because of its focus on LGBTQ+ issues has no place in a university that holds itself out as a community committed to the flourishing and equal dignity of all its members,” the letter reads. The faculty members also wrote that the university’s decision is “unlawful under federal, state, and city civil rights laws.”

In a statement last week, the university responded: “Yeshiva University is the bearer of a 3,000 year-old Torah tradition, which we hold sacrosanct. At the heart of our Jewish values is love – love for God and love for each of His children. Our LGBTQ+ students are our sons and daughters, brothers and sisters, family and friends. Our policies on harassment and discrimination against students on the basis of protected classifications including LGBTQ+ are strong and vigorously enforced. Our Torah-guided decision about this club in no way minimizes the care and sensitivity that we have for each of our students, nor the numerous steps the university has already taken. We are actively engaged with our students, faculty and rabbinic leaders to facilitate productive

discussions with an eye toward understanding and embracing diverse perspectives.”

Police stop planned neoNazi attack on Argentine synagogue (JTA) – Police have arrested two people who authorities believe were planning a Fridaynight attack on an Argentine synagogue. The country’s federal judiciary was investigating a group called Goy Group Unleashed, according to the Simon Wiesenthal Center, when prosecutors found evidence on the messaging services Telegram and WhatsApp of the imminent Shabbat attack in the Tucuman province of northern Argentina.

Police ordered two raids on the capital city of the province, San Miguel de Tucuman, and in a smaller town called El Manantial. In addition to the two arrests, they found guns, knives, radio communications equipment and Nazi literature. “That two of the group decided to take violent action against a Jewish community is a worrying step, as the threat in Latin America had, until now, come from the far left and Islamist/Iran,” Shimon Samuels, director for international relations of the Wiesenthal Center, said in a statement Monday. The head of DAIA has been under police protection since February, when he received antisemitic threats.

NY man convicted of threatening lawmakers in ‘Zionist Occupied Government’ (JTA) – A New York City man who referred to Congress as a “Zionist Occupied Government” was convicted Wednesday on charges of threatening to “slaughter” lawmakers just days after the storming of the U.S. Capitol. A federal jury in Brooklyn convicted Brendan Hunt, 37, of Queens, also known as “X-Ray Ultra,” of threatening to assault and murder members of Congress. He faces up to 10 years in prison. In the days after the Capitol riot, Hunt posted threatening social media posts, including a video called “KILL YOUR SENATORS” in which he rants, “[W]e have to take out these Senators and then replace them with actual patriots. This is a [Zionist Occupied Government],” according to the Department of Justice. “Zionist Occupied Government,” or ZOG, is a catchphrase among white supremacists who believe that the U.S. government is controlled by Jews. The evidence against Hunt included white supremacist material and documents downloaded from his’s electronic devices, including Hitler’s manifesto “Mein Kampf.”

Hunt, who works for the courts system as an analyst, expressed remorse at the trial, saying he was “immature” and “wrote a lot of things I didn’t mean.” He was not at the Capitol on Jan. 6, but admitted posting videos and other materials expressing support for the proTrump mob that stormed the building.

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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.

WEDNESDAY, MAY 5 – TUESDAY, JUNE 1 Art in Action: Young Artists’ Vision of 2020 The Mandell Jewish Community Center, in collaboration with the Hartford Foundation for Public Giving, will showcase “Art in Action: Young Artists’ Vision of 2020,” a collection of creative work that captured the thoughts and emotions of teens from across the Greater Hartford region during the Covid-19 crisis.

During the fall of 2020, more than three dozen Greater Hartford artists, ages 13-19, submitted to the Hartford Foundation a variety of creative projects which reflected their energy and emotions during the pandemic. The artwork – in an array of art forms, including paintings, drawings, sculptures, poems and music – were subsequently featured at the Foundation’s annual stakeholder event and in a virtual gallery on the organization[’s website.

The works will be on display at the Mandell JCC May 5–June 11. For more information, visit mandelljcc.org.

PITTSBURGH STEELER ZACH BANNER WILL DISCUSS ANTISEMITISM, MAY 4 ON ZOOM.

Jason and Paris Rosenthal, co-author of Dear Boy, team up for talk The Israel Cancer Research Fund will host Jason Rosenthal and Paris Rosenthal on Tuesday, May 4, 8 p.m for. “A Journey of Hope,” a live virtual interactive conversation.

Guest speakers are Jason Rosenthal and his daughter Paris Rosentahl, the team behind the New York Times bestselling book, Dear Boy. Jason is author of the memoir, My Wife Said You May Want to Marry Me, an inspiring personal account of life, love, loss and new beginnings. Paris is the co-author of the #1 New York Times best-seller Dear Girl, a collaboration with her late mother, Amy Krouse Rosenthal. She also wrote Dear Baby, Dear Teacher, and Project 1,2,3. For information: beth_belkin@emus.gov.it.

Lessons from Elie Wiesel’s classroom

NOW THRU MAY 10 Brush Up Your Shakespeare!

A special performance featuring scenes, songs and monologues centered around the love themes embedded in Shakespeare’s plays is streaming online until May 10. Directed by Robin Frome and hosted by JCC in Sherman.

FREE (donations welcome) For more information: jccinsherman.org.

Ariel Burger, author of Witness: Lessons From Elie Wiesel’s Classroom, will talk about his experiences as Elie Wiesel’s teaching assistant.

Hosted by Voice of Hope, the Zoom event will be held May 4 at 5 p.m. Registration required.

For more information: ctvoicesofhope.org or 860-470-5591.

THURSDAY, MAY 13

TUESDAY, MAY 18

A conversation about Hate crimes and bias in CT

The Future of Persian Gulf Security

ADL Connecticut will host a conversation on hate crimes, bias and the actionable steps we can take to ensure the safety of our communities on Zoom, May 13, 7:30 - 8:30 pm. Guest speakers will be CT Attorney General William Tong and ADL CT Regional Director Steve Ginsburg. The conversation will focus on hate crimes, the surge in incidents against the Asian-American Pacific Islander (AAPI) community and trends in hate and racism. Co-sponsored by UJA/JCC, YWCA Greenwich. For more information or to register, visit adl.zoom.us.

MONDAY, MAY 10 How to talk to your children about antisemitism Child psychologist Dr. Lynne Goldstein, ADL CT Deputy Director Marji-LipshezShapiro, and ADL antisemitism educator Susan Walden, will have a candid discussion about age-appropriate ways to discuss antisemitism with children; strategies to respond when incidents happen; and tools to empower children to move forward after an incident, on May 10, 7 - 8 p.m. Register at https://adl.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_ u3aPV1FuQQOCLonMfPniuw.

SUNDAY, MAY 16 & MONDAY, MAY 17 Tikkun Leil Shavuot A virtual annual celebration of Shavuot, co-sponsored by Beth Tikvoh-Sholom and the Conservative movement’s Rabbinical Assembly, will be held May 16 and 17 at noon.

Participation is FREE. For more information, call (860) 243-3576.

THURSDAY, MAY 6 On Zionism, Israel, and Social Justice

TUESDAY, MAY 4 Tackling Antisemitism and Bigotry UJA-JCC Greenwich will host a free virtual talk by Zach Banner, offensive tackle for the Pittsburgh Steelers, on Tuesday, May 4 at 7 p.m. When Banner posted a video on Twitter protesting an antisemitic Instagram post by DeSean Jackson, he became one of the first NFL players to speak out on the issue. Banner’s video quickly drew more than 700,000 views and an outpouring of praise. For more information, visit ujajcc.org.

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Prof. Gil Troy, McGill University will discuss “On Zionism, Israel and Social Justice,” on Zoom, May 6 at 7:30 p.m. The lecture is part o ALEPH: The Institute of Jewish Ideas, a community-wide Jewish learning initiative co-sponsored by the Mandell JCC and UConn Judaic Studies. Troy’s lecture will analyze the central theme in Zionism ideology, assessing what Israel has achieved–and where it has fallen short–in creating a nation that fulfills the Torah’s commandment to seek justice. For more information, visit judaicstudies.uconn. edu or mandelljcc.org.

| MAY 7, 2021

The JCC in Sherman’s Great Decisions 2021 series will discuss the topic of “The Future of Persian Gulf Security” on Zoom, May 18, 7 - 8:30 p.m. FREE. For more information: jccinsherman.org/greatdecisions.

SUNDAY, MAY 23

BTS FIlm Schmooze: “Hava Nagila (The Movie)”

First, watch the film “Hava Nagila (The Movie),” a fun and fascinating journey throug history, mystery and meaning of this great Jewish standard, featuring interviews with Harry Belafonte, Leonard Nimoy, Connie Francis, Glen Campbell, Regina Spektor and more (available on Amazon Prime, iTunes and Google Play). Then join a virtual discussion of the film on May 23 at 7 p.m., led by Shari J. Cantor, who has an MA in Judaic Studies and has danced the hora at a wedding a time or two. For more information, call (860) 2433576.

“L’Chaim 2Life,” virtual concert from “Fiddler on the Roof in Yiddish”

A virtual concert featuring selections from the hit Off-Broadway production “Fiddler on the Roof in Yiddish” performed by the show’s award-winning star Steven Skybell, will be presented May 23 at 11 a.m. During the program, Skybell and Tony Award-nominated composer Zalmen Mlotek will share stories an first-hand experiences from the hit play. The program is presented by 2Life Communities, a Boston-area nonprofit senior living organization. The portion of the musical that i performed in Yiddish contains subtitles.

The Yiddish-language production of “Fiddler on the Roof” was a huge Off-Broadwa hit. Originally scheduled to run for eight weeks, the show played for more than a year and a half, winning the 2019 Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Revival of a Musical.

Skybell, who starred as Tevye, earned rave reviews.

In addition to Skybell and Mlotek’s music, viewers will also get an introduction to the performance from Dr. Barbara Wallace Grossman, a renowned theater historian, director and professor at Tufts University’s Department of Theater, Dance and Performance Studies, and hear stories from 2Life residents about how the themes of “Fiddler on the Roof” connect to their own lives.

The concert is FREE. For more information, visit 2LifeCommunities.org.

PROF. GIL TROY WILL DISCUSS “ON ZIONISM, ISRAEL AND SOCIAL JUSTICE,” ON ZOOM, MAY 6.

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MAY 5 – JUNE 17 TUESDAY, MAY 25 “Hineni: Here for Each Other” virtual community celebration The Jewish Federation of Greater Hartford presents “Hineni: Here for Each Other” on May 25, 7 - 8:15 p.m. The evening will feature a virtual interview with Lior Raz, star and co-creator of the hit Israeli Netflix series “Fauda, on May 25, 7 - 8:15 p.m. Attendees will receive a “celebration box” filled with kosher treats delivered to their door. Tickets are $36 per household. Paid reservations are required by May 11 to receive celebration box.

Attendees are also asked to make a gift to the Federation’s 2021 Annual Campaign, payable

by Dec. 331, 2021. For more information or to register: http://bit.ly/Hineni2021RSVP.

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 2 Spring Dinner with Jean Chatzky United Jewish Federation Women’s Philanthropy will host its Spring Dinner featuring guest speaker Jean Chatzky, CEO of HerMoney.com and host of the podcast HerMoney with Jean Chatzky, with live music

by Arielle Eden. Masks required and all safety precautions and social distancing protocols will be observed. Zoom participation is also welcome. Pre-packaged dinner with wine tasting, crafts, Tricky Tray and silent auction at 6:30 p.m.; followed by the program at 7:30 p.m. $95/per person before May 21; $125/ after May 21. For Tricky Tray/auction ticket information, visit ujf.org.

TUESDAY, JUNE 15 Brexit: Taking Stock and Looking Ahead The JCC in Sherman’s Great Decisions 2021 series will discuss the topic of “Brexit: Taking Stock and Looking Ahead” on Zoom, June 15, 7 - 8:30 p.m. FREE. For more information: jccinsherman.org/greatdecisions.

27th Annual Jewish FilmFest of Eastern CT is virtual and FREE!

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he Jewish Federation of Eastern Connecticut (JFEC) 27th Annual Jewish FilmFest of Eastern CT (formerly known as the International Film Festival), will open on Thursday, May 6 and run through Sunday, June 27.

Except for “The Spy Behind Home Plate,” (movie link available from 12 p.m. on .May 6 to Sunday, May 9, end time TBD), all movie links will be available to view from Thursdays at 12:01 a.m. through Sundays at 11:59 pm. the festival features award-winning, international dramas and documentaries, including highly acclaimed Israeli films.

Select screenings will be followed by Q&As with special guest speakers – including filmmakers, producers, and actors.

Admission if FREE (donations are welcome. Registration is required. For more information or to register, visit JFEC.com.

MAY 6-9 “Love in Suspenders” (Israel; Hebrew with English subtitles, 2019, 79 minutes) When absent-minded widow Tami accidentally hits 70-year-old widower Beno with her car, the last thing on her mind is love and romance. Israeli Oscarwinner Shlomo Bar-Aba (MJFF 2016 film “Hill Start”) gives a heartwarming performance as Tami’s late husband, who refuses to let her go in this charming romantic comedy for the young and young at heart.

Virtual Spring Celebration honoring Rabbi Herbert Brockman

MAY 13-16 “A Starry Sky Above the Roman Ghetto (Italy: Italian with English subtitles, 2020, 100 minutes) The discovery of a puzzling photograph sparks a student to probe the history of Rome’s Jewish ghetto and the fate of

jewishledger.com

MAY 20-23

While on their way to the institution, Aharon decides to run away with his son and hits the road, knowing that Uri is not ready for this separation. Or is it, in fact, his father who is not ready?

JUNE 17-20

“Kiss Me Kosher” (Israel, Germany: Arabic, German, and Hebrew with English subtitles, 2019, 105 minutes) Sparks fly when two families from wildly different cultural backgrounds collide to plan a same-sex wedding, in this screwball romantic comedy that crosses all borders.

Guest speakers: Director Shirel Peleg and producer Christine Günther, Sunday, May 23, 7:30 pm

May 20-23 “The Shabbos Goy” Short; (USA, 2019, 7 minutes)

THURSDAY, JUNE 17

Rabbi Herbert Brockman, rabbi emeritus at Congregation Mishkan Israel in Hamden, will be honored at a virtual celebration hosted by Jewish Family Services of Greater New Haven on June 17 at 7 p.m. The evening will also include a look at the impact of JFS of Greater New Haven on the community. For more info: (203) 389-5599 x110, jfsnh.org.

a little girl, in this Italian teen drama interlacing past and present.

Guess speaker: Director Giulio Base, Sunday, May 16, 1:00 pm

A “Shabbos goy” is a non-Jew who performs certain tasks which religious law prohibits a Jew from doing on the Sabbath. In this delightful comedic short God literally forbids Chana to turn off her vibrator gone rogue, so she sets out on a quest to find someone who can.

JUNE 3-6 “They Aint Ready for Me” (USA, 2018, 195 minutes) A feature-length documentary about Tamar Manasseh, the African American mother and rabbinical student who is leading the fight against senseless killings on the south side of Chicago.

Tamar, who is both authentically Jewish and authentically Black, brings an understanding of both communities, even as she struggles for acceptance in the Jewish world.

Guest speakers: Director Brad Rothschild and Tamar Manasseh, Sunday, June 6, 7:30 p.m.

“The Spy Behind Home Plate” (USA, 2018, 80 minutes) The first feature-length documentary to tell the real story of Morris “Moe” Berg, the enigmatic and brilliant Jewish baseball player turned spy. Berg caught and fielded in the major leagues during baseball’s Golden Age in the 1920s and 1930s. But very few people know that Berg also worked for the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), spying in Europe and playing a prominent role in America’s efforts to undermine the German atomic bomb program during WWII. Guest speaker: Producer/Director/ Writer Aviva Kempner, Sunday, June 20, 7:30 pm

JUNE 24-27 “Crescendo” (Germany: German with English subtitles, 2020, 106 minutes) A renowned conductor assembles an orchestra of Israeli and Palestinian youth, only to be drawn into a tempest of distrust and discord. For personal reasons, maestro Eduardo Sporck agrees to arrange a symbolic concert for a Middle East peace summit in Italy. But as auditions begin in Tel Aviv, conflict between the factions flares up, and it takes all the conductor’s skills to get his musicians in harmony. An impressive cast of Israeli and Palestinian non-actors, lends authenticity to this powerful drama, loosely inspired by Daniel Barenboim’s West-Eastern Divan Orchestra.

Guest speaker: Screenwriter Stephen Glantz, Sunday, June 27, 7:30 pm.

JUNE 10-13 “Here We Are” (Israel: Hebrew with English subtitles, 2020, 92 minutes) The story of devoted father, Aharon, who has spent his life raising is son, Uri, who is autistic. Now a young adult, it might be time for Uri to live in a specialized home.

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TORAHPortion

IN THE KITCHEN

Behar-Bechukotai

How to make matbucha, a delicious North African tomato and pepper dip

T

BY RABBI TZVI HERSH WEINREB

BY SONYA SANFORD

M

atbucha is a Maghrebi dish made of tomatoes and peppers and means “cooked salad” in Arabic.

Jewish immigrants from Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria and Libya brought matbucha with them to Israel, where it has become a staple of Israeli cuisine. Matbucha is nearly as popular as hummus, and the two are usually located right by each other at the grocery store.

Matbucha is technically a salad, but it does take serious cooking time. While storebought versions are convenient, nothing compares to making this recipe at home.

First, roast tomatoes and peppers until they are charred with a smoky flavor, and then simmer the matbucha for over an hour until it becomes thick and luxurious. The slow simmering process can’t be rushed, as all the flavor comes from the slow-cooked tomatoes. Matbucha varies from kitchen to kitchen – some cooks add onions and/ or garlic, and some prefer making it with lots of hot peppers. Adding some fresh chile pepper is traditional. In this recipe, it adds a very mild and subtle heat.

Matbucha has the consistency of a dip or spread, and it is commonly served with first-course salads (salatim) at the start of Middle Eastern and North African meals.

Matbucha also makes a delicious topping for grilled meat or fish and as a sandwich spread. It can even be used as the base for shakshuka.

Ingredients: 6 large Roma tomatoes 3 medium red bell peppers 1 jalapeño or Serrano pepper, seeded and diced fine ½ medium yellow onion, diced small 2-3 cloves garlic, minced 1 tsp salt, or to taste ¼ cup olive oil 1-2 tsp sugar (optional, or to taste) Directions: 1. Line a baking sheet with foil. Set the oven to broil (alternatively, you can char the peppers over a gas flame or grill).

2. Place the tomatoes on one half of the baking sheet and the peppers on the other jewishledger.com

MATBUCHA TAKES SERIOUS COOKING TIME, BUT NOTHING COMPARES TO MAKING THIS RECIPE AT HOME. (SONYA SANFORD)

half of the same baking sheet. Place the baking sheet on the top rack of the oven and broil the tomatoes and peppers for 10 minutes, or until blackened on top. Using tongs or a fork, remove the tomatoes. Turn the peppers onto their opposite side and continue to broil them until blackened on both sides, another 8-10 minutes. Watch your tomatoes and peppers carefully, as some ovens will broil them more quickly than others.

3. Once the peppers are blackened on both sides, place them in a bowl and cover it tightly with foil or plastic wrap to let the peppers steam. Prep the other ingredients while the tomatoes and peppers cool. Once cool enough to touch, peel the peppers and remove their seeds, and peel the tomatoes.

Dice the peppers and tomatoes and reserve.

4. To a medium pot on medium heat, add the olive oil, diced jalapeño, diced onion and minced garlic. Allow the mixture to cook and soften for 4-5 minutes, until the onion and garlic are aromatic but before they start turning brown. Add the peeled diced peppers and tomatoes to the mixture and bring it up to a simmer. Lower the heat and let the matbucha simmer for 90 minutes, or until most of the liquid has evaporated and the mixture significantly thickens. Stir every 10-15 minutes.

Matbucha can take more or less time depending on the size of the pot you use, or the amount of liquid in the tomatoes. If the mixture still has a lot of liquid, continue to cook it for up to 2 hours.

5. Once cooked, allow the matbucha to fully cool and then refrigerate. Matbucha can be eaten right after it cools, but it tastes even better the next day. It will last up to 1 week in the fridge.

This article originally appeared on The Nosher.

he word “bullying” refers to a behavior that victimizes others, that abuses them physically, or more typically, verbally. Words dinflict pain upon others and often cause long lasting damage to them.

Lately, we have read of more than one suicide which was the result of bullying.

During the past few years, as the public has become more concerned about bullying, I have been asked many times: “What does Judaism have to say about this?”

In fact, Judaism has a lot to say about bullying. One especially relevant source is in the first of this week’s double Torah portion, Behar-Bechukotai. “Do not wrong one another...” (Leviticus 25:17) Rashi quotes the Talmud, which states emphatically that this refers to verbal abuse.

Rashi, following the Midrash, provides two interesting examples of how words can be used to abuse another. “One should not,” writes Rashi, “tease or taunt another person, and one should not give inappropriate advice to others.” The former is an obvious example of bullying, but the latter is a much more subtle example of the damage that words can cause. Misleading a person by giving him advice which does not fit his personal situation is, in the eyes of our Sages, a form of bullying as well.

The Mishnah and Talmud in the tractate Bava Metzia give numerous examples of verbal abuse which all provide insights into the definition of bullying that was adopted by our rabbinic Sages. By analyzing these examples, we learn of some of the forms that verbal abuse takes.

“One must not say to a repentant sinner, ‘Remember your former deeds.’”

The person who speaks to a repentant sinner this way is guilty of cynicism. He is facing a spiritually motivated individual who sincerely wishes to change. But by confronting him with his past deeds, the penitent becomes discouraged and his idealistic commitment is thereby diminished, if not entirely eliminated.

“One must not say to a sick person that his illness must be a punishment for his misdeeds. He who addresses a sick person in this manner is guilty of both pretentiousness and sanctimony. He dares to presume that he knows the workings of the Divine system of reward and punishment, and, in addition, arrogantly proclaims the message, ‘I am holier than thou.’

“One should always be heedful of wronging his wife, for because of her

sensitivity she is frequently brought to tears.”

How aware our Sages were of the fact that the likeliest targets of bullying are precisely the people who are closest to us. Sensitivity to others must begin with sensitivity to our spouses and family members.

It is apparent just from these examples that our Sages were very familiar with the phenomenon of bullying in all of its diverse forms. They knew that bullying takes many forms, including cynicism, arrogance, condescension and disdain.

They were even aware of the prevalence of abuse within the spousal relationship.

This is noteworthy because when I was receiving my graduate education in psychology, the topic of domestic violence was absent from our curriculum. It was much more recently that the gap in my professional education was filled, and the reality of the cruelty which pervades many families became the focus of my clinical work.

In the book of Genesis, there is an example of emotional abuse within the context of a loving relationship. It is so shocking an example that I hesitate to mention it. When the barren Rachel bitterly bemoans her fate to her husband Jacob, he becomes angry with her and says, “Am I in place of God, who has denied you the fruit of the womb?”

(Genesis 30:2) The rabbis in the Midrash disclose the Almighty’s reaction to Jacob’s retort: “Is this how one responds to a person in distress?” The Midrash is teaching us that even the patriarch Jacob was once guilty of a callousness that bordered upon emotional abuse and was held accountable for it.

There is a lesson which we all should take to heart whenever we read about flagrant bullying. It is a lesson which must be learned whenever we encounter any prohibition in the Torah. That lesson is that we are all capable of bullying, and in fact, unless we guard against it, may engage in this practice much more often than we realize, and certainly much more frequently than we admit to ourselves.

When the Torah tells us, as it does in this week’s parsha, that we are not to wrong another person by abusing him or her verbally, we must not think that this is addressed to some villain or scoundrel.

Rather, it is a lesson directed to each and every one of us, and it is a lesson we must learn.

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

JEWISH LEDGER

|

MAY 7, 2021

23

OBITUARIES BERSON Deborah Jane Berson, 84, of Bloomfield, died April 24. She was the wife of Barry J. Berson. Born in Hartford, she was the daughter of the late Jacob Serotte and Miriam (Margulies) Serotte. She was a longtime active member of the former Beth Hillel Synagogue in Bloomfield. In addition to her husband, she is survived by her sons, Evan Berson and his wife Mindy of Merion Station, Penn., Jeffrey Berson and his wife Susan of Carlsbad, Calif., and Keith Berson and his wife Jennifer of Hudson, H.H.; her grandchildren, Noah, Myles, Rachel, Wyatt and Brody; and several cousins. She was predeceased by her late husband Gerald Dressler.

BLUME Helen Blume (nee Ziontz), 90, of Teaneck, N,J, formerly of West Haven, Milford and New Haven, died April 24. She was widow of Marvin Blume. Born in New Haven, she was the daughter of the late Martin and Pauline (Kuritch) Ziontz. She is survived by her children, Eleanor (Daniel) Salmon and her husband Daniel of Tappan, N.Y., Gerald (Linda) Blume and his wife Linda of Montclair, N.J., and Reyna Cortina of Limerick, Penn.; her grandchildren, Lisa Salmon, Karen (Chris) Huling, and her husband Chris, Scott Salmon, Dara (Adam) Blume Clewley and her husband Adam, Michael Blume and Alyssa Cortina; her great-granddaughter, Maya Clewley; her sister-in-law of Sue Ziontz; and several nieces and nephews. She was also predeceased by her brother Murray Ziontz, and her siblings-in-law, Evelyn and Jack Hillman and Norman and Elise Blume.

BOYARSKY Alexis Boyarsky of Bethany died April 30.

She was the daughter of parents Bella and Jeff Boyarsky of New Haven. In addition to her parents, she is survived by her brothers, Michael of Bethany, and Rus and his wife Crystal of North Haven; and her

nieces, Cali Rose and Cryslin Hope. She was predeceased by both sets of grandparents.

CHASNOFF Ivan Chasnoff, 74, of Hamden, died April 25. He was the husband of Hyla (Magun) Chasnoff. Born in Chicago, Ill., he was the son of the late Eugene and Renee Chasnoff. He was a veteran of the U.S. Air Force. In addition to his wife, he is survived by his children, Lori Flaks and her husband Jeffrey, and Brian Chasnoff; his sister Hilary Chasnoff and her husband Chuck Herring; his grandchildren, Justin and Jared Flaks; and many nieces and nephews.

KAPLAN Karin S. Kaplan, 75, of Woodbridge, died April 23. She was the wife of Dr. Richard B. Kaplan. Born in Brooklyn, N.Y., she was the daughter of the late David and Mollie (Schrier) Sugarman. In addition to her husband, she is survived by her children, Melissa A. Kaplan-Charkow and her husband Joshua Charkow, and Allison Kaplan and her husband Rick Bialecki; and her grandchildren, Eliza and David Charkow. She was also predeceased by her brother Verne Sugarman.

MUSHIN Allen E Mushin, 82 of Orange, died April 23, 2021. He was the husband of Sheila Mushin (Spivak). Born in Brooklyn, N.Y. and raised in New Haven, he was the son of the late Anne and Victor Mushin.

He served in the U.S. Navy as a radio operator on the USS Tingey. In addition to his wife, he is survived by his children, Mark Mushin, and Beth Korman and her husband Jay; his sister Linda Saslow; his grandchildren, Andrew Mushin and his fiance Beth Wellington, Jenna Mushin, Elana Korman, Sydney Korman; and several nieces and nephews. He was also predeceased by his granddaughter Alyssa Mushin, and his brother-in-law Harold Saslow.

PICK Harry K. Pick, 96, of Beit Shemesh, Israel, formerly of West Hartford, died April 24.

He was the husband of Eva (Hirschfeld) Pick. Born in Vienna, he was the son of the late Sigismund and Margareth Pick.

His family was forced to leave Austria following Krystallnacht in November 1938.

He was a member of the Tikvoh Chadoshah Synagogue in Bloomfield, and later of Congregation Agudas Achim in West Hartford. He moved to Israel in 2013, and joined the Carlebach Shul in Beit Shemesh.

In addition to his wife, he is survived by his children, Herbert Shlomo Pick of Bnei Brak, Israel, and Judith C. Pick of West Hartford; five granddaughters, and 17 greatgrandchildren, all in Israel.

ROSNER Pearle (Kruger) Rosner, 90, of Fairfield, formerly of New Haven, died April 26.

Born in West Haven, she was the daughter of the late Abraham and Mary G. Kruger.

She is survived by her children, Meryl Spetrini of Weymouth, Mass., and Jeffrey Rosner and his wife Sarah of New Haven; her sister Sally Kramer; her grandchildren, Jeremy (Cara) and Merrick (Adrianna), Jessica (Erin), and Evan; and her greatgrandchildren, Ethan, Shane, Sophie, and Sienna. She was also predeceased by her brother Harry Kruger, and her sisters, Molly Brodsky and Rita Adler.

SLUTZKIN Robert B. Slutzkin, 86, of Delray Beach, Fla., died April 24. He was the husband of Luzma Sabogal. He was the son of the late Mildred and Benjamin Slutzkin. He served in The United States Army. In addition to his wife, he is survived by his children, Ron Slutzkin and his wife Lucia of Middletown, Laurie Slutzkin of Brookfield, and Brenda Slutzkin of New Marlboro, Mass.; his stepdaughter, Beverly Beauregard and her husband Bob of Florida; his grandchildren, Brian Slutzkin, Melissa Slutzkin, and Shane Hamilton; his great-grandchildren, Luciana, Amilia, Kylie and Brody; and a nephew and several nieces. He was also predeceased by his sister Elaine Epstein and her husband Herbert, and his former wives, Norma Slutzkin and Diane Slutzkin.

For more information on placing an obituary, contact: judiej@ jewishledger.

ROSS Mark Ross, 94, of Santa Barbara, Calif., formerly of Storrs, died April 21. He was the widower of Helen Rubin Ross. Born in New York City , he was the son of the late Isidore and Rose (Steinberg) Rosenblatt.

He served in the U.S. Army in Korea. He is survived by his children, Paula Guice and her husband Patrick, Joel Ross and his wife Lee Naftali; his grandson Ben Naftali; and many nieces and nephews. He was also predeceased by his brothers: Bill, Don, Sidney, Al and Sam.

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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 Rabbi Nelly Altenburger (860) 346-4709 office@adathisraelct.org www.adathisraelct.org

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NEW HAVEN The Towers at Tower Lane Conservative Ruth Greenblatt, Spiritual Leader Sarah Moskowitz, Spiritual Leader (203) 772-1816 rebecca@towerlane.org www.towerlane.org Congregation Beth El-Keser Israel Conservative Rabbi Jon-Jay Tilsen (203) 389-2108 office@BEKI.org www.BEKI.org Orchard Street ShulCongregation Beth Israel Orthodox Rabbi Mendy Hecht 203-776-1468 www.orchardstreetshul.org NEW LONDON Ahavath Chesed Synagogue Orthodox Rabbi Avrohom Sternberg 860-442-3234 Ahavath.chesed@att.net 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

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Temple Shalom Reform Rabbi Cantor Shirah Sklar (203) 866-0148 admin@templeshalomweb.org www.templeshalomweb.org ORANGE Chabad of Orange/ Woodbridge Chabad Rabbi Sheya Hecht (203) 795-5261 info@chabadow.org www.chabadow.org Congregation Or Shalom Conservative Rabbi Alvin Wainhaus (203) 799-2341 info@orshalomct.org www.orshalomct.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

WALLINGFORD Beth Israel Synagogue Conservative Rabbi Bruce Alpert (203) 269-5983 info@bethisraelwallingford. org www.bethisraelwallingford. org WASHINGTON Greater Washington Coalition for Jewish Life Rabbi James Greene (860) 868-2434 jewishlifect@gmail.com 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

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

Congregation Beth Israel Reform Rabbi Michael Pincus Rabbi Andi Fliegel Cantor Stephanie Kupfer (860) 233-8215 bethisrael@cbict.org www.cbict.org Congregation P’nai Or Jewish Renewal Shabbat Services Rabbi Andrea Cohen-Kiener (860) 561-5905 pnaiorct@gmail.com www.jewishrenewalct.org

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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 WESTPORT Temple Israel Reform Rabbi Michael S. Friedman, Senior Rabbi Rabbi Danny M. Moss, Associate Rabbi Rabbi Elana Nemitoff-Bresler, Rabbi Educator (203) 227-1293 info@tiwestport.org www.tiwestport.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

MAY 7, 2021

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