CT Jewish Ledger • November 6, 2020 • 19 Cheshvan 5781

Friday, November 6, 2020 19 Cheshvan 5781 Vol. 92 | No. 45 | ©2020 $1.00 | jewishledger.com

giving in the time of

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REPAIRING THE WORLD

TOGETHER. Perpetuating cherished values. Reaching out to those in need. Building community.

Every day, in every way, Federation is your partner in tikkun olam - the Jewish commitment to repair the world. Learn more at tinyurl.com/FederationTogether.

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INSIDE

this week

CONNECTICUT JEWISH LEDGER | SINCE 1929 | NOVEMBER 6, 2020 | 19 CHESHVAN 5781

10 Opinion

12 Arts & Entertainment

18 Briefs

21 Torah Portion

23 Around Connecticut

Crime Report................................... 5 The residents of the New Haven neighborhoods with sizable Black and fast-growing Orthodox Jewish populations confront police officials who are struggling to contain it with a reduced police force.

Say the Word..................................... 5 A recent survey of non-Jewish Americans reveals that close to half are “unsure” or have “never heard of the term” antisemitism. Is education, or the lack thereof, to blame?

A Shot in the Arm.......................... 17 The SARS-CoV-2 vaccine “BriLife,” developed by the Israel Institute of Biological Research, was administered to 26-year-old volunteer Segev Harel, beginning the first of three stages of human testing.

27 Crossword

KRISTALLNACHT REMEMBERED

33 Bulletin Board

36 Obituaries

37 Business and Professional Directory

38 Classified

ON THE COVER:

The Mishneh Torah describes tzedakah as a personal duty in which we contribute toward the sustenance of our community and to help those in need. Meaning “righteousness” in Hebrew, tzedakah is not charity. It’s a mitzvah, or commandment, that all Jews are obliged to follow. Even the poor are required to give tzedakah, according to their means. With so many non-profits suffering the financial effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, giving this year is more important than ever. PAGE 30 jewishledger.com

French Resistance....................... 28 In response to the beheading of a schoolteacher in France by a radical Muslim, French President Emmanuel Macron announces a plan to crack down on radical Islam. The country’s Jewish community applauds his efforts.

Matchmaker, Matchmaker...... 22 A new dating site called “JustKibbitz” is here to help you find the love of your life by unleashing your well-meaning mother’s inner yenta.

Nov. 9 & 10 mark the 82nd anniversary of Kristallnacht – “The Night of Broken Glass” – a 2-day wave of anti-Jewish violence that swept through Germany, annexed Austria, and German-occupied Sudetenland in Czechoslovakia on those days in 1938.

Marked by 91 deaths; the destruction of hundreds of Jewish homes, synagogues, and businesses; and the arrest and deportation of some 30,000 Jewish males, these pogroms are widely considered to be the first salvo of the Holocaust. Read about a global initiative to commemorate Kristallnact on p. 25. For a list of Connecticut commemoration, see the Bulletin Board section on page 33.

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Bridgeport: 4:22 p.m.

Stamford: 4:23 p.m.

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JOY! Conservatory Student, performing in NPR’s From the Top at Jorgensen 2018

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UP FRONT

CONNECTICUT JEWISH LEDGER | SINCE 1929 | NOVEMBER 6, 2020 | 19 CHESHVAN 5781

Latest crimes rattle – and unite – New Haven neighborhood

A

Sabbath encounter with a machete-wielding man outside their synagogue in the Beaver Hills section of New Haven has Orthodox Jews wondering if it’s safe to walk their streets in daylight – and neighbors of all backgrounds vowing to work together for change.

The Sabbath encounter was one of two incidents within 48 hours that once again brought an uptick in Beaver Hills crime into the limelight. Police made an arrest in one case and are pursuing leads in the second, an attempted carjacking with a woman inside the vehicle.

In the wake of the incidents, community leaders renewed calls on public officials to deliver on promises of public safety. And 100 signs vowing neighborhood unity began popping up on lawns.

The incidents, which occurred Thursday night and Saturday afternoon, follow weeks of neighborhood meetings, including with the mayor and police chief about the growing violence. The crimes have ranged from shootings, break-ins, and muggings to three successive burglaries of the Norton Street synagogue. As of last month, the department detected 18 shooting incidents in the police district that includes Beaver Hills. There were only seven by this time last year.

Some of the incidents involved references to victims’ Jewish backgrounds; Beaver Hills is among New Haven’s more diverse neighborhoods, with both a sizable Black population and a fast-growing Orthodox Jewish population affiliated with the Chabad Lubavitch Hasidic movement.

Most of the crimes did not include references to religion, rather mirroring the increase in crime occurring throughout New Haven and in cities nationwide as the Covid-19 pandemic has dragged on.

At the same time, at least four or five different gatherings of Hasidic Jews are engaged in prayer on Saturday mornings and then walking the streets home in the early afternoon. Jewish law forbids driving on the Sabbath. As a result more Jews are often on the streets – and potentially targets for street crime.

“The entire community is shaken up,” jewishledger.com

‘Stunning:’ Nearly half of Americans know ‘little about’ or ‘never heard of’ antisemitism

BY PAUL BASS

BY SEAN SAVAGE

Moti Sandman, president of Congregation Chabad Lubavitch, said Sunday. “We don’t know how to react. How do we protect ourselves?”

“I’m Going To Kill You” Saturday’s incident began around 1:30 p.m., after the second of two Sabbath morning services concluded at Sandman’s synagogue on Norton Street near Whalley. (The congregation began holding two services to comply with Covid-19 restrictions.)

Services had also just concluded next door at the “Shulounge,” an affiliated youthoriented congregation.

According to Sandman and Avi Meer, a board member of the Shulounge, two teenaged girls were leaving Congregation Chabad Lubavitch when they noticed that a tall man following them. They crossed the street. The man crossed the street. They started running. The man ran after them. After a few blocks, they ran into two men who were also heading home from the synagogue. They told the men what was happening. The men ushered them to the home where they were having lunch.

Rivka Fenton, who was inside the home,

told the Independent that the girls were rattled, reporting that a man following them had threatened, “I’m going to kill you.”

The two men outside, meanwhile, traced their steps back to Norton Street. They found the man who had followed the girls standing in front of the synagogue.

“What are you doing?” one asked him.

The man at first apologized for disturbing the girls – then drew a machete from his pants. He allegedly approached the men and swung the machete at them. The man evaded him and called out for someone to call the police. An employee of the synagogue made the call. Officers arrived within moments and arrested the man.

By that time people were coming outside from the Shulounge.

As police remained at the scene taking statements, another young man affiliated with the synagogue ran up reporting that someone traveling inside a BMW had just shot at him at the corner of Goffe Street.

The young man wasn’t hurt; he believes the shot may have come from a b.b. gun.

Police Chief Otoniel Reyes said Sunday that the arrested man is known to police CONTINUED ON PAGE 7

NEIGHBORS SAFIQ ABDUSSABUR AND RIVKA FENTON, WITH THE NEW SIGN THAT IS GRACING THE LAWNS OF MANY BEAVER HILLS HOMES.

(JNS) A new survey conducted by the American Jewish Committee on Jewish and non-Jewish Americans revealed a stark level of ignorance when it comes to antisemitism awareness among the U.S. general public.

According to the survey, “The State of Antisemitism in American 2020,” which surveyed 1,010 non-Jewish adults between Sept. 15-20, 2020, some 46 percent of Americans are “unsure” or have “never heard of the term” antisemitism.

“This is stunning. Notably, there is a correlation with levels of education.

More than a third of adults who have a high school education or less (36 percent) said they have never heard the word antisemitism,” Holly Huffnagle, U.S. director for Combating Antisemitism, told JNS.org “Education in American schools is imperative. The more Americans know about antisemitism and its dark history, the better prepared they will be to counter it,” she said.

The survey, which also separately polled 1,334 adult U.S. Jews from Sept.

9 to Oct. 4, 2020, also found a stark disagreement between how Jews and non-Jews about whether antisemitism has increased.

While eight in 10 American Jews (82 percent) say antisemitism has increased in the past five years, only four in 10 members of the general public (43 percent) believe that it has escalated.

Huffnagle said there needs to be a “multi-pronged approach” to address the lack of awareness of antisemitism.

Among her suggestions was an increase in antisemitism education, building coalitions and better reporting.

“One reason why many Jews who have been the target of antisemitism do not report it is because they believe nothing will change (resignation in fighting antisemitism) and/or it is not serious enough (normalization of antisemitism),” she said. “In fact, our survey revealed that three out of four CONTINUED ON PAGE 15

(CREDIT: PAUL BASS)

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New Haven CONTINUED FROM PAGE 5

as an “aggressive panhandler” who has a substance abuse problem. The man is currently being held in a psychiatric ward.

Reyes said police have beefed up patrols in the neighborhood, which is why officers arrived so promptly to make the arrest. He said there was no evidence that the Saturday incident was a hate crime connected to the victims’ religion; he linked it to the general uptick in violence taking place citywide. Police have arrested some of the people believed responsible for shootings, which have targeted victims known to the shooters, Reyes said, while quality-of-life crimes have targeted victims across all backgrounds.

At the same time, Reyes acknowledged that police have an additional responsibility to make sure people feel safe. “Right now people in the community don’t feel safe,” he said, and he plans to continue reaching out to Jewish community members to track neighborhood crime and work together.

Officers also arrived promptly Thursday night upon learning of an attempted carjacking on Colony Road.

At around 8 p.m., the victim, Sara Atia, had just returned home from grocery

shopping. It was cold and raining. Still inside her car, she was talking on the phone with her husband, who was inside the house, she told the Independent Sunday.

The car was running. She asked her husband to come help her with the bags.

“Give me two minutes,” he said.

Just then, “I heard somebody try to open the door. He tried again and again.”

In fact, numerous young men were outside the car trying to get in.

“I screamed, ‘Yaakov, you’ve got to help me!’”

After she screamed, and her husband came outside, the men fled.

A home surveillance video captured the incident. Chief Reyes said the men had already stolen one car, which they were driving in the neighborhood, looking for another car to steal. They came upon Sara Atia’s car apparently not recognizing someone was inside. They ran back to the stolen car when they heard her and drove away. Police recovered the stolen car later and are continuing their investigation. He emphasized that police have been making arrests, and that there was no evidence in the two most recent incidents that the perpetrators targeted victims because of their religion.

“Thank God my door was locked,” Atia, who moved here from Israel six years ago,

said Sunday. “Now I look around before I open the door.”

At “eight o’clock, nobody should have to worry about coming home with groceries,” she added. “We need to do something.”Fine Racial-Religious Line

“Love Your Neighbor Rivka Fenton, who is Jewish, and her neighbor Mareika Phillips, who is not Jewish talked about how non-Jewish neighbors could show support for Jews targeted in some attacks that were religiously motivated. They came up with the idea of printing signs for neighbors of all backgrounds to display on their lawns to show solidarity. “Love Your Neighbor,” reads one side of the sign, above representations of four people of different ethnic and religious backgrounds.

The other side reads: “No hate. No fear.

We Stand for Peace & Love Here.” That side shows a drawing of a man dressed in Jewish religious garb. “We stand with our Jewish neighbors,” it reads in small type.

“As a mother of young children and as a wife of a rabbi who clearly looks like a rabbi I asked myself and my friends, ‘What is happening in our neighborhood?’ and more importantly, ‘What can we do to stop it?’” Fenton, a music educator, said Sunday.

“My family has been living in New Haven

for five years, and we love it here. We love our school community. We love our faith community. We love our friends and we love our neighbors. We love the diversity here. People of all colors and religions living together harmoniously.”

At the same time, she worried about the uptick both in general violence and in antisemitic incidents. “It feels like almost every day something new and terrible is happening. Two days ago an attempted carjacking. Yesterday an attack with a machete. Last week young rabbinical school students pushed around and chased.

Two weeks ago nasty names screamed for absolutely no reason – other than being Jewish.” She noted that the girls followed and threatened on Saturday, and the men who dodged machete swipes, were dressed in “obvious” religious garb. So whether or not the attacker mentioned religion, she has difficulty removing it completely from the equation.

She and others in the neighborhood have sought to navigate a sensitive line between race and religion. Beaver Hills has for decades had both visible Jewish and visible Black populations. The Jewish population has grown by hundreds of families in recent years because of a new CONTINUED ON PAGE 17

1 4 T H A N N U A L “Odd Nansen not only saved my life. He also

Kristallnacht

COMMEMORATION Sunday, November 15, 2020 - 9 a.m.

ALL ARE WELCOME ON ZOOM Congregation Or Shalom orshalomct.org

Odd Nansen jewishledger.com

enriched it with his philosophy of life”

Professor Thomas Buergenthal, Nansen Rescuee

Please join us for our Annual Community-Wide Kristallnacht Commemoration.This year, we will honor the conscience and heroism of Odd Nansen, who financed and operated an orphanage in Oslo, Norway for Jews and all facing imminent death in Nazi-occupied Europe. Sent to a concentration camp by the Nazi Gestapo, Nansen kept a secret diary there which later became an important testimony to the realities of the Holocaust.

In the camp, Nansen risked his life in order to save inmates.

PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS: • U.S. Senate Commendation presented by Senator Richard Blumenthal to the Nansen family.

• Comments by Timothy Boyce, Esq., re-publisher of “From Day to Day,” the secret diary of Odd Nansen.

Sign up at: jewishnewhaven.org/RSVP JEWISH LEDGER

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By Uniting together, we can go beyond creating a “new normal” and create a “better normal”.

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1:19 PM9

Opinion

What we learned on Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s last visit to Israel

EDITORIAL Stacey Dresner Massachusetts Editor staceyd@jewishledger.com • x3008 Tim Knecht Proofreader

BY SANA BRITASKY AND JILL WEBER SMITH

(JTA) – As executives at a foundation that celebrates Jewish achievement and contribution to the world, we have been privileged to meet some truly remarkable Jewish people of our time.

But getting to know the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg was an honor life rarely affords – not just meeting our hero, but also spending meaningful time with her.

Oct. 29 marks the end of shloshim – 30 days since Justice Ginsburg was laid to rest.

Jewish tradition allots this time to embrace the loss and to reflect on the memory of the departed. We have had much to reflect on.

In October 2017, we traveled to Washington, D.C., to meet Justice Ginsburg in her chambers at the U.S. Supreme Court. In 2018, our foundation conferred the Genesis Lifetime Achievement Award on Justice Ginsburg, honoring her contributions to women’s rights and civil liberties.

Upon entering her chambers, we saw the prominent inscription: “Tzedek, tzedek tirdof “– Justice, justice shall you pursue.

The proclamation of her Jewish heritage in the context of her profession was there for all to see, in her words: “a judge, born, raised, and proud of being a Jew.” She took a genuine interest in both of us, asking about our families and where we were from. We bonded as Jewish women, and learned that we had many things in common, including that all three of us have faced and overcome gender discrimination in our personal and professional lives.

We spoke extensively about the award and what it meant. We asked the octogenarian judge whether she was able to travel to Israel to accept the award. RBG had not been to Israel for almost 25 years.

She replied: “Yes, I would like to make one last visit to Israel.” We understood then just how important the trip would be for her.

As we spent four days by her side in Israel in July 2018, we learned just how important it would be for us.

In Israel, the 85-year-old justice insisted on a full schedule. The morning after her arrival in Tel Aviv, she sat down with dozens of leaders of Israeli women’s organizations to learn about – and encourage – their work. The audience mirrored the diverse ethnic make up of 10

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JUSTICE GINSBURG AND STAN POLOVETS AT THE WESTERN WALL IN JERUSALEM. (CREDIT: NATASHA KUPERMAN)

modern Israel. NGOs represented in the room focused on a wide range of women’s issues, from education to violence to the right to divorce. They spoke for hours. Up to this day, women who were there continue to tell us how important this meeting was for them – not just as a source of inspiration, but as a roadmap for advocacy and a powerful reminder of the magnitude of social change that can be achieved in one lifetime.

RBG was keenly interested in promoting equal opportunity for all women and girls in Israel: Jewish, Muslim, Christian, Druze and Bedouin. In honor of Justice Ginsburg, The Genesis Prize Foundation distributed $3.5 million in grants to non-profits focused on women’s rights and empowerment.

Today we take pride in the fact that grants distributed in honor of Justice Ginsburg reflected her worldview.

RBG’s humility shone through, as she was the guest of honor at Israel’s Supreme Court. She spoke briefly, deferring to her hosts, and praising the Jewish state’s Supreme Court for its pursuit of justice and

| NOVEMBER 6, 2020

equal opportunity. Even though she was the honoree, she chose to honor the institution and others in the room.

At the award ceremony in Tel Aviv, Justice Ginsburg received a lifetime achievement award from Aharon Barak, the former president of the Supreme Court of Israel. The two have had a longstanding intellectual bond. RBG had previously cited the landmark ruling of Israel’s Supreme Court (then led by President Barak) that banned the use of torture to obtain information from terrorist suspects. In a rare case of a U.S. justice citing foreign precedent, RBG said she was affected by the “tremendous persuasive value” of this legal opinion.

Their admiration was mutual: In presenting the award, Aharon Barak described RBG as “one of the great legal minds of our time and an outstanding Jewish jurist, whose pursuit of human rights and justice for all stems from her Jewish values.”

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ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT Folksbiene puts on a Sinclair Lewis play that imagines U.S. falling into authoritarianism

BY JOSEFIN DOLSTEN

(JTA) – In 1936, Sinclair Lewis’ play “It Can’t Happen Here” was presented simultaneously by 21 theater companies across the country. The controversial play, which tells the story of a populist president who leads the United States into authoritarianism, had special resonance as fascism was spreading in Europe.

Last week, as the Ledger went to press, it was once again put on by a collective of theater companies, including a Yiddish one, just days before the U.S. election. The reading, performed entirely by actors on Zoom, is available online through Nov. 1.

“It’s a call to action. We want people to participate in democracy. That’s how we prevent dictatorship from taking hold,” said Motl Didner, associate director of the National Yiddish Theatre Folksbiene, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.

Folksbiene, a 105-years-old company housed at the Museum of Jewish Heritage in New York, joined forces with eight other companies to put on the production, which includes scenes performed in six different languages – English, Yiddish, Hebrew, Italian, Spanish and Turkish. The companies include Israeli Artists Project, Kairos Italy Theater, Repertorio Español, Turkish American Repertory Theater & Entertainment, Pan Asian Repertory Theatre, New York Classical Theatre and Playful Substance.

“That’s what America is. America is a collection of communities. it’s a collection of people from all over and it’s that American

spirit that we’re trying to put forward,” Didner said.

New Heritage Theatre Group/Impact Repertory Theatre, a Black theater company based in Harlem, was also supposed to join but the group dropped out last minute due to “several personal health challenges in the company,” executive producer Voza Rivers said. The company is still marketing the performance to its supporters and Didner said Folksbiene was anticipating it would work together with the theater in the future.

Folksbiene first started thinking about putting on a production of the play last year when staff came across the 1936 Yiddish translation of the script.

The original performance was part of a New Deal initiative to fund the arts that staged the play simultaneously in 17 states by 21 theater companies, including the communist-influenced Yiddish theater Artef.

The play was adapted from a novel by the same name published a year earlier

by American author Sinclair Lewis. It chronicles the political rise and resistance against fictional populist demagogue Berzelius “Buzz” Windrip, who calls for a return to “traditional” values. After being elected president, Windrip starts setting up a paramilitary force, sends political dissidents to concentration camps and limits the rights of women and minorities.

Bringing together a number of companies, languages and cultures brings with it some challenges too. Since each theater company is doing one or two scenes, the actor playing each part changes eight times. And many of the companies will be performing in foreign languages. To ensure that viewers follow along, each actor’s square will be labeled with the character they are portraying and every scene will be subtitled.

FOLKSBIENE’S VIRTUAL PRODUCTION OF “IT CAN’T HAPPEN HERE” FEATURES SCENES IN YIDDISH AND FIVE OTHER LANGUAGES. (SCREENSHOT VIA FOLKSBIENE)

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Didner sees a special resonance with his theater’s Jewish heritage.

“We certainly know what the end result of dictatorship and of antisemitism and fascism are. We know that better than anybody else in the world, probably,” he said.

“But there’s also I think an inherent Jewish distaste for dictatorship. It’s inherent in the way that we historically involve more democratic processes even in the Talmud, it’s by committee and by discussion and by interpretation. It’s not one person declaring how we are to interpret the law, but it’s about building consensus. So there’s something I think inherent to the Jewish character that calls for a democratic process.”

‘Esau’ stars Shira Haas and Harvey Keitel in Israeli film based on Meir Shalev novel

BY GABE FRIEDMAN

(JTA) – The first trailer is out for “Esau,” a new movie loosely based on a biblical sibling rivalry that was filmed in Israel and boasts an all-star cast of Jewish actors.

“Esau,” a drama based on the novel by the same name by Israeli author Meir Shalev, stars Shira Haas, Harvey Keitel and Lior Ashkenazi.

The story is a modern spin of the story of Jacob and Esau. Ashkenazi, who is known to international audiences for his roles in the Israeli indie hit “Foxtrot” and alongside Richard Gere in “Norman: The Moderate Rise and Tragic Fall of a New York Fixer,” stars as the protagonist, a writer who returns home to Israel to help care for his ailing father, played by Harvey

SHIRA HAAS AND YOAV ROTMAN IN “ESAU.” (COURTESY OF GVN RELEASING AND AEC/DISTRIBUTION SOLUTIONS)

Keitel. His brother, played by Mark Ivanir (you’ve seen him in “Away,” “Kajillionaire,” “Schindler’s List”), has married the woman they both loved and taken over the family’s bakery business.

Haas, who broke out in the Israeli series “Shtisel” and was nominated for an Emmy and Golden Globe for her lead role in the Netflix series “Unorthodox,” plays the young brothers’ love interest.

“Esau” will be released on streaming platforms on Dec. 1. It is directed and co-scripted by Russian filmmaker Pavel Lungin. The English-language film was produced in Israel.

“My film is a story of great love, return and merciless time. It tells us that there are things in life when time is not a great healer at all, and there are sorts of mistakes that simply shouldn’t be made,” Lungin told JTA in a statement.

‘Borat’ lawsuit from Holocaust survivor’s daughter is dismissed

BY GABE FRIEDMAN

(JTA) – A judge in Georgia dismissed a lawsuit by the daughter of a Holocaust survivor who appears in “Borat 2.”

Judith Dim Evans’ daughter claimed that her mother, who teaches the title character about the Holocaust in the film, was “horrified and upset” at learning after filming that Sacha Baron Cohen’s film was a comedy. Evans’ daughter sought to have the scene cut from the film, which debuted on Amazon Studios on Friday, Oct. 23.

Evans died earlier this year.

Cohen and Amazon said that Evans was clued into the film’s running gag style – which tricks unknowing people into doing things on camera – right after the scene was filmed, and that she signed a waiver form that authorized the use of her scene. Cohen devotes a large portion of his new film to mocking antisemitism and Holocaust denial. He dedicated the movie to Evans’ memory, something he has not done with any of his previous films.

“Sacha Baron Cohen was deeply grateful for the opportunity to work with Judith Dim Evans, whose compassion and courage as a Holocaust survivor has touched the hearts of millions of people who have seen the film,” an Amazon rep told Deadline.

“Judith’s life is a powerful rebuke to those who deny the Holocaust, and with this film and his activism, Sacha Baron Cohen will continue his advocacy to combat Holocaust denial around the world.”

According to Deadline, Cohen and Amazon are working to share the cut footage of Evans telling her full Holocaust story “for viewers of the film to hear Evans tell the story of what happened to her family during World War II.” jewishledger.com

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Antisemitism

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American Jews (76 percent) who have been the target of antisemitism in the last five years did not report the incident.”

Another interesting result, especially ahead of the presidential election, was that notably two-thirds of American Jews (69 percent) and a little more than half of U.S. adults (52 percent) say the Republican Party holds “at least some antisemitic views” compared to only 37 percent of American Jews and 42 percent of the general public who say the same about the Democratic Party.

Huffnagle said that while some of this is a result of the fact that a large majority of American Jews support former Vice President Joe Biden and the Democratic Party, it is also likely a result of where most American Jews think where sources of antisemitism in American today are coming from.

According to the survey, nine in 10 (89 percent) American Jews said the extreme political right poses a threat with 49 percent saying it’s a very serious threat.

“The fact that the majority of farright and white-supremacist voters vote for members of the Republican Party most likely influences the response to the question about antisemitic views and the Republican Party,” pointed out Huffnagle.

At the same time, six in 10 (61 percent) American Jews said the extreme political left posed a threat with only 16 percent said it’s a very serious threat. In fact, the fear of Islamic extremism is greater for American Jews than the far-left, with 85 percent saying extremism in the name of Islam was a threat and 27 percent saying it’s a very serious threat.

“I want to emphasize that both Democratic and Republican Jewish voters said antisemitism was a problem in the U.S. today, as did American voters (although fewer Republicans (57 percent) versus 71 percent of Democrats).”

Huffnagle added that addressing antisemitism must be a concern of both parties. “We must work to depoliticize it and to use the term judiciously, and not overstate or understate the problem,” she said.

But there were some bright spots in the survey. While one in four of U.S. adults (24 percent) reported not knowing much or anything at all about the Holocaust, 90 percent of U.S. adults said it was important–either “very important” (68 percent) or “somewhat important” (22 percent)–to teach about the Holocaust in school.

Another important bright spot is the results regarding support for Israel and its right to exist.

The survey found that three-quarters of Americans (74 percent) agree that the C statement, “Israel has no right to exist,” is antisemitic (compared to 85 percent of M American Jews).

Y “AJC has been saying for decades that CM anti-Israel animus has been used as a pretext for threats and violence against MY Jews. We have advocated at the highest levels of government for the critical need CY to understand anti-Israel antisemitism,” CMY emphasized Huffnagle. “While we have known the majority of American Jews viewK anti-Zionism as a form of antisemitism, we now have information about the general population.”

Contemporary Israeli Voices 2020 Thursday November 12, 2020 8:00 PM Live online multi-media presentation with Q&A session with the audience

Why Hollywood Loves Israeli TV Shows Ron Leshem will deliver a presentation about the TV shows he is writing and producing, such as Valley of Tears, The Syrian Civil War and Euphoria. The presentation will include video clips from some of his TV shows.

Ron Leshem is an award-winning screenwriter and author and the winner of the Sapir Prize, Israel's top literary award. Leshem was the co-creator and writer of the Israeli TV show Euphoria, which was adapted and featured on HBO. He was a producer of the successful Israeli TV show Chatufim adapted into the hit American TV show Homeland. Leshem has been the executive producer of NBC's TV drama Allegiance, as well as writer of several new TV drama series for Hulu and Apple TV, such as Valley of Tears, the most expensive TV show ever to be produced in Israel. Leshem’s movie Incitement won the Israeli Academy Award.

Sponsored by the Center for Jewish Studies Organized by Dalit Katz, Director To register for this virtual lecture, please visit our website at civ.site.wesleyan.edu Free Admission Open to the Public PARTICIPANTS AT THE “NO HATE. NO FEAR.” RALLY IN NEW YORK CITY ON JAN. 5, 2020.

PHOTO BY RIVKA SEGAL.

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R T E HE T F A

the

AFTER THE

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New Haven CONTINUED FROM PAGE 7

influx of Lubavitch Hasidim. That’s part of the reason the city is hearing more from Beaver Hills these days than from some other neighborhoods where crime has seen an uptick: The community is organized, with hundreds of people connected to their neighbors through a WhatsApp discussion group, for instance. The challenge for organizers has been both to recognize the existence of antisemitism while also acknowledging that crime is afflicting people of all backgrounds.

At times racial tensions have emerged in communal discussions, along with appeals to racial unity.

Shafiq Abdussabur, a retired police sergeant who lives in Beaver Hills, picked up one of Fenton’s signs Sunday to place in front of his home. He also checked in on neighbors to make sure they were OK and see if they needed advice on security systems. He said he worries about the threat to cross-cultural neighborhood unity posed by the recent crimes. He said it’s important to recognize both the effect on Jewish families and the effect on the neighborhood as a whole.

“It fractionalizes the community,” said Abdussabur, who is Black and a practicing Muslim. “The conversations should not be about race. It should be about community wellness. We literally all live next door to each other.”

Kelvan Fitzpatrick was walking past

Fenton’s sign on Sunday when he learned about the machete incident. He was saddened, and glad an arrest was made.

“I think it’s terrible,” said Fitzpatrick, who has worked in maintenance at Yale and Yale New Haven Hospital for 37 years.

“I’ve been living in the neighborhood nine years. My neighbors are Jewish; they’re very beautiful people. This bothers us all; it should happen nowhere.”

“Something’s definitely happening. I’m wondering: Why is this happening? It’s out of control. People should be able to walk down the street and feel safe,” said Beaver Hills Alder Jill Marks.

Avi Meer talked about that too – about how an out-of-town guest visiting this weekend and considering moving to town asked if it’s “safe to walk home at 1:30” on the Sabbath. “Of course,” Meer remembered replying. That was half an hour before the machete incident.

The girls followed home and threatened are now “traumatized,” Sandman said. “The community is absolutely traumatized.”

“I was born in Beaver Hills,” he said.

“My mother grew up here. We’ve never had issues this bad.” The community is doing its part by reporting crime and pushing police officials and elected officials to respond.

Now, he said, they need to deliver results.

This article first appeared in New Haven Independent and is reprinted with permission. It has been edited slightly for space concerns and can be read in its entirety at newhavenindependent.com.

Clinical trials of Israeli coronavirus vaccine underway (JNS) The first Israeli SARS-CoV-2 vaccine was administered at Sheba Medical Center at Tel Hashomer in Ramat Gan on Sunday to the first volunteer in a clinical trial. The vaccine, called “BriLife,” was developed by the Israel Institute of Biological Research (IIBR), which has prepared 25,000 doses ahead of the 80-person trial. Half of the volunteers will be given the vaccine (or a placebo) at Hadassah University Medical Center in Jerusalem, and half at Sheba Medical Center.

In the first stage of the trials, the volunteers, ages 18 to 55, will be monitored for anti-bodies and side effects for three weeks after receiving an injection (vaccine or placebo). The second stage is set to begin in December, and will involve extensive safety tests on a group of 960 healthy volunteers in several medical centers across Israel. The third and final phase, scheduled for April or May, will test the vaccine’s efficacy with the participation of up to 30,000 volunteers.

At a press conference at Sheba, IIBR head professor Shmuel Shapira said the vaccine represented “an incredible scientific achievement” which was made in record time, despite the fact that the IIBR had taken no shortcuts “of the kind enjoyed by the big corporations.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who was present at the event, along with Defense Minister Benny Gantz and Health Minister Yuli Edelstein, thanked Shapira, the IIBR and the Health Ministry for their work in developing the vaccine, but emphasized that Israel has also been working with the big pharmaceutical companies for access to their vaccines, and has reached out to various world leaders to ensure Israel “was at the front of the line, not the back.”

“I do not think that this will happen immediately, but I do tell you that I already see the light at the end of the tunnel. Therefore, I have one request: that you pay heed to the regulations of the Health Ministry and corona Cabinet, which are designed for the benefit of the citizens of Israel. This is to safeguard your lives and your health. Above all, wear masks over the nose and mouth,” he said. jewishledger.com

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there is trust being built … I believe that there is a lot of collaboration that we can build,” he said according to the report.

Israel marks 25 years since Yitzhak Rabin’s assassination (Israel Hayom via JNS) Israel on Thursday, Oct. 29, marked the 25th anniversary of the assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin with a series of commemorative events, including a special Knesset plenum session.

Speaking at the state ceremony at the President’s Residence in Jerusalem, Rivlin warned that much like in the days leading up to Rabin’s murder, hatred is once again rampant in Israel, with the public torn into two opposing camps. “The country is split like the Red Sea between two camps, and the hatred is simmering underfoot,” said Rivlin. “It cannot be that there are those who would dare to think that the political assassination of a prime minister, a minister, a president [or] an MK is even a possibility,” he added. “It cannot be that we prepare the ground for the slightest possibility of another assassination, in words or in silence, with a look or with actions.”

Rivlin called on the Israeli public to find a way “to mend the damage done to Israeli democracy in the last quarter-century,” saying that Israelis have a “responsibility to fix the rift in Israeli society.

Speaking at the special memorial session held by parliament, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pointed out that the public discourse since Rabin’s assassination has not changed. “Some 25 years after the murder, there is still incitement to murder the prime minister and his family members,” he said.

Knesset Speaker Yariv Levin said “even now, 25 years after this terrible murder, the internecine hatred, incitement to violence and violence itself has not ceased to exist among us. The time has come for us to learn a different way.”

Report: Israel’s Hadassah hospital in talks to open branch in UAE (JNS) Hadassah Medical Center is in talks with leaders in the United Arab Emirates about opening a branch in the country, according to the hospital’s director-general professor Zeev Rotstein.

“They want us in the Emirates; they appreciate us; they want to benefit from our abilities. For us, this is really a testament to our services and a vote of confidence,” Rotstein told The Jerusalem Post.

The Hadassah director visited the UAE last week during the Abraham Accords Business Summit and plans to return next month, according to the report.

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U of Illinois Jewish students say they face “unrelenting” antisemitic harassment (JTA) – A complaint filed with the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights alleges that Jewish students at the University of Illinois at UrbanaChampaign “faced an unrelenting campaign of antisemitic harassment.” A Friday statement announcing the complaint said that Jewish and pro-Israel students in the past five years “have been subjected to an alarming increase in antisemitism and antiZionism” and that the university did not take adequate action.

The complaint was prepared by the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law and Arnold & Porter Kaye Scholer LLP on behalf of Jewish students at the university. It was done in consultation with the Jewish United Fund, and Hillel International. A summary of the complaint, originally filed in March, detailed a number of incidents where swastikas were found on campus and Jewish buildings and ritual items were vandalized. It also included events that displayed virulent anti-Israel rhetoric, which it said made campus inhospitable for Jewish and pro-Israel students.

“We gave UIUC seven months since the complaint was filed to address the ongoing harassment. In the face of continuous stall tactics and almost no action from the university, we decided to publicize our efforts,” Brandeis Center President Alyza Lewin said in the statement.

University spokeswoman Robin Kaler told the Chicago Sun-Times that its accrediting organization had found in March that the allegations “do not indicate substantive noncompliance with their requirements and that no further review would be conducted.”

Last year, President Donald Trump signed an executive order that made the Civil Rights Act of 1964 apply to Jewish college students. The order meant that students could now file complaints, such as the one at the University of Illinois, alleging discrimination against them on campus.

Americans born in Jerusalem can list ‘Israel’ as place of birth on passport (JNS) American citizens born in Jerusalem are now allowed to list Israel as their place of birth on their U.S. passport, announced U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Thursday, Oct. 29. “Consistent with President [Donald] Trump’s Jerusalem

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Proclamation of December 6, 2017, and the historic opening of the U.S. embassy in Jerusalem on May 14, 2018, today I am announcing updates to the Department’s guidance on passports and other consular documents issued to U.S. citizens,” said Pompeo in a statement. “U.S. citizens born in Jerusalem who do not specify their place of birth on applications for consular services as ‘Israel’ will continue to be issued documents that indicate their place of birth as ‘Jerusalem,’” said Pompeo.

For American citizens born outside the United States, U.S. passports usually list countries, not cities, under place of birth.

Therefore, there will be no third option to list “Jerusalem, Israel” as one’s place of birth. U.S. passports for citizens born in America include the city of birth.

In 2015, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Zivotofsky v. Kerry that the executive branch has the sole power to grant recognition to sovereign states, striking down a move by Congress to command the executive to change its position on Jerusalem. While at the time the ruling was a victory for the Obama administration, which had been upholding a policy recognizing no state as having sovereignty over Jerusalem, it now has allowed the Trump administration to change course on the passport issue.

Professor Eugene Kontorovich, director of International Law at the Jerusalembased Kohelet Policy Forum, said that “the important announcement does what a bipartisan Congress insisted on decades ago, but no president since has managed to carry out.”

“U.S. policy is being oriented around basic reality – indeed, the fact that Jerusalem was not described as being in ‘Israel’ on passports even after the President’s recognition of Israeli sovereignty shows how the State Department has been functioning in an alternate reality for decades.”

The boy whose name came to denote a Supreme Court decision codifying executive control of foreign policy finally got his wish: a passport listing his birthplace as “Jerusalem, Israel.” On Friday in Jerusalem, U.S. Ambassador to Israel David Friedman presented Menachem Zivotofsky, now 18, with a passport stating Zivotofsky’s birthplace as “Jerusalem, Israel.”

Ivanka Trump says she’s pro-life (JTA) – Ivanka Trump said in an interview that she is “unapologetically” pro-life, taking a side for the first time in the culture wars over abortion, an issue that Jewish law does not take a definite stand on. “I respect all sides of a very personal and sensitive discussion, but I am also a mother of three children, and parenthood affected me in a profound way in terms of how I think about these things,” Trump told Real Clear Politics on Thursday. Trump, who underwent an

Orthodox conversion before marrying Jared Kushner, had never expressed a firm opinion on abortion. She has modeled herself as a figure pushing for female empowerment around the world, and some commentators wondered if she was at odds with her father’s presidential administration on the issue.

Jewish law does not consider a fetus a full person and does not claim that life begins at conception – a tenet present in all Christian religions. The life of the mother is paramount in Jewish law, but there are differences among Jewish denominations – and even within the denominations – as to what constitutes a threat to the mother’s life.

A White House aide told Real Clear Politics that “A huge driving part of” Ivanka’s willingness to speak out “is where the Democratic Party has gone.”

Jeremy Corbyn could be expelled from Labour over antisemitism, his successor says (JTA) – Jeremy Corbyn, who was suspended from Britain’s Labour party this week for downplaying its antisemitism problem, could be kicked out of the party altogether, his successor said. In an interview Friday, Oct. 30, Keir Starmer, who succeeded Corbyn as party chief in April, responded to the dramatic fallout from a report this week by the Equality and Human Rights Commission, which found that Labour had violated antidiscrimination laws under Corbyn by mishandling complaints and committing “unlawful harassment” of Jews by two party agents. The report, published Thursday, was the first time that a mainstream party was the focus of an investigation by the government’s racism watchdog, whose findings are binding.

Corbyn, a far-left politician who has been accused by the current and previous chief rabbis of Britain of being personally antisemitic, responded to the report by reiterating his objection to antisemitism, but added that the problem has been “dramatically overstated for political reasons.” Starmer responded by suspending Corbyn, pending a party review.

The review, Starmer told Radio 4, could result in the first-ever expulsion of a former party leader from its ranks.

“Yes, people have been expelled from the Labour party,” Starmer said in response to a question about whether Corbyn could be permanently removed. Of the 827 antisemitism cases investigated since April, about a third have resulted in expulsion from the party, he said.

Corbyn has vowed to fight the possibility of expulsion, calling that move political, too.

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Khamenei tweets: Why is it a crime to deny the Holocaust?

(JNS) Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei tweeted on Wednesday asking why it’s a crime to doubt the Holocaust, though it is permitted to insult the prophet Muhammad. “The next question to ask is: Why is it a crime to raise doubts about the Holocaust? Why should anyone who writes about such doubts be imprisoned while insulting the Prophet (PBUH) is allowed?” said Khamenei.

It came after another tweet in which the Iranian leader criticized France for allowing free speech that permits insulting the prophet Muhammad. “Young French people! Ask your President why he supports insulting God’s Messenger in the name of freedom of expression. Does freedom of expression mean insulting, especially a sacred personage?”

The tweets came in the wake of the beheading of 47-year-old middle-school history teacher Samuel Paty in Paris on Oct. 16, and amid a wave of Muslim anger at France and its president, Emmanuel Macron, over his stance on Islam.

On Thursday, French authorities began investigating another terrorist attack where a knife-wielding man shouted Allahu Akbar (“God is great” in Arabic), and beheaded a woman and stabbed two other people to death at the Notre Dame church in Nice.

Breakthrough could influence treatment of leukemia spreading to brain (JNS) An international research group from Israel and Scotland has reported in Nature Cancer a breakthrough that may influence the treatment of metastatic leukemia spreading to the brain. The researchers include hematological-oncological experts from Schneider Children’s Medical Center and Tel Aviv University, as well as scientists from the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology and the University of Glasgow. Their research focuses on acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL), the most common type of cancer among children.

Although recovery rates for this disease are relatively high, the treatment is harsh and accompanied by numerous side effects that can persist years after the patient is cured.

Since one of the main risks of ALL is that the cancer will metastasize to the brain, children diagnosed with this disease receive a prophylactic treatment that protects the brain from metastasized cells.

Currently, this treatment consists of injecting chemotherapy drugs into the spinal fluid and sometimes also radiation to the skull, which carries the risk of side effects for damaged brain function since these chemotherapy drugs also harm healthy brain cells. jewishledger.com

For this reason, a worldwide effort is underway to develop more selective treatments that will only affect the leukemia cells and not the brain cells.

The work was carried out by three young female scientists from Tel Aviv University’s Sackler Faculty of Medicine, the Rappaport Institute and Rappaport Faculty of Medicine at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, and the Wolfson Wohl Cancer Research Centre at the University of Glasgow. Part of the research was also carried out at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York. The discovery is also relevant for several other types of cancer in children and adults. This research, which demonstrates that cancer cells adapt to the organs to which they spread, paves the way for biological treatments that block these adaptation mechanisms, thereby stopping the cancer cells from metastasizing.

Teen journalists uncover Hitler quotes in Kentucky police training materials (JTA) – A report by Louisville, Kentucky, high school students has drawn national attention to local police training materials that quoted Adolf Hitler admiringly. Hitler was the most-quoted person in a Kentucky State Police training presentation that encouraged officers to be “ruthless killers,” according to the report that appeared Friday in the Manual Redeye, the student newspaper of Louisville’s DuPont Manual High School. The presentation quotes from Mein Kampf and links to Hitler’s page on a social networking site about books, according to the report.

The student journalists, brothers Satchel and Cooper Walton, obtained the presentation because they are related to a partner at a law firm that had requested training materials as part of its work in a case related to a 2018 police killing, their article disclosed. The report swiftly drew widespread attention from national news organizations and clarification from the state that the presentation had not been used since 2013. It also elicited condemnation from Kentucky officials and Jewish leaders.

“As a Kentuckian, I am angry and embarrassed. And as a Jewish American, I am genuinely disturbed that there are people like this who not only walk among us, but who have been entrusted to keep us safe. There needs to be consequences,” tweeted Rep. John Yarmuth, who represents Louisville in Congress. In a second tweet, Yarmuth said the presentation reflected “a poisonous culture that has gotten too many innocent people harassed and killed.”

Louisville has been one center of national protests against police killings this year, after officers there shot and killed Breonna Taylor in March during a botched overnight raid on her apartment.

Two weeks after Twitter bans Holocaust denial, CEO says it’s still allowed

BY BEN SALES

(JTA) – Two weeks ago, Twitter banned Holocaust denial.

Or did it?

The company announced earlier this month that it would ban posts that “deny or diminish” violent events, including the Holocaust. But in a Senate hearing Wednesday, Oct. 28, CEO Jack Dorsey appeared to say that Twitter did not have a policy of removing content denying the Holocaust.

Responding to a question from Republican Sen. Cory Gardner, Dorsey said Holocaust denial is not included among the types of misinformation Twitter bans.

“We have a policy against misinformation in three categories, which are manipulated media, public health, specifically COVID, and civic integrity, election interference and voter suppression,” Dorsey said in a video shared by Yahoo News reporter Alexander Nazaryan. “We do not have a policy or enforcement for any other types of misleading information that you’re mentioning.”

Gardner specifically asked Dorsey: “If somebody denied the Holocaust happened, it’s not misinformation?”

“It’s misleading information,” Dorsey responded. “But we don’t have a policy against that type of misleading information.”

Dorsey’s comments appear to contradict a company spokesperson’s statement to Bloomberg News on Oct. 14 that while the company doesn’t have an explicit policy barring Holocaust denial, it would remove “attempts to deny or diminish” violent events, including the Holocaust.

“We strongly condemn antisemitism, and hateful conduct has absolutely no place on our service,” a Twitter spokesperson told Bloomberg. “We also have a robust ‘glorification of violence’ policy in place and take action against content that glorifies or praises historical acts of violence and genocide, including the Holocaust.”

Dorsey has yet to publicly clarify his comments, but a Twitter spokesperson responded to a query from the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that appeared to reiterate the company’s earlier statement to Bloomberg.

“Our Hateful Conduct policy prohibits attempts to deny or diminish violent events, and our glorification of violence policy prohibit glorification of genocide including the Holocaust,” the spokesperson said.

Gardner’s questions came during a hearing on social media content moderation in the Senate Commerce Committee. The hearing was convened after social media platforms, including Twitter, limited or

JACK DORSEY SPEAKS TO THE SENATE VIA VIDEOCONFERENCE ON OCTOBER 28, 2020.

(SCREENSHOT)

blocked the spread of an article reporting unsubstantiated corruption allegations about Joe Biden and his family. Twitter has also hidden or flagged previous posts by President Donald Trump for contravening its guidelines.

Given that Twitter had taken action against Trump’s tweets, Gardner asked Dorsey why Twitter did not block posts

by Iranian Ayatollah Ali Khamenei that question the veracity of the Holocaust.

As if to test the policy, Khamenei tweeted Wednesday, following Dorsey’s comments, “why is it a crime to raise doubts about the Holocaust?”

The Senate hearing is also discussing Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, a legal provision that absolves social media companies of responsibility for most illegal content published on their platforms. Officials on both sides of the aisle have called for Section 230 to be reexamined.

Twitter’s earlier announcement of a ban on Holocaust denial came amid a crackdown by social media companies on antisemitism and hate speech. Two days earlier, Facebook announced a ban on Holocaust denial after years in which the company’s CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, had repeatedly defended Holocaust denial as acceptable speech. In recent weeks, YouTube and TikTok have also announced policies limiting hate speech and disinformation.

Twitter’s approach to Khamenei’s tweets, particularly those that call for the elimination of Israel, was also questioned earlier this year in a hearing in the Israeli Knesset. A Twitter official said those tweets did not violate company guidelines.

“We have an approach toward leaders that says that direct interactions with fellow public figures, comments on political issues of the day, or foreign policy saber-rattling on military-economic issues are generally not in violation of our rules,” said Ylwa Pettersson, Twitter’s policy head for Israel and Nordic countries.

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TORAHPortion Vayera

T

BY SHLOMO RISKIN

he akeda (“binding’ of Isaac) serves as a model for one of the most important questions in contemporary family life: to what extent should a parent continue to influence, direct, or channel their adult child’s life? Can the power of a parent be taken too far? Ultimately, how much control can parents continue to have in their relationships with their adult children? The Torah offers an insight to these questions in describing the immediate aftermath of the akeda.

What happened to Isaac after the harrowing experience with his father on Mount Moriah? The Torah states, ”So Abraham returned [singular form] to his young men [the Midrash teaches they were Eliezer and Ishmael, who accompanied them, but did not go to the actual place of the appointed sacrifice] and they [Abraham and the young men] rose up and went together to Be’er Sheva and Abraham dwelt in Be’er Sheva” [Gen. 22:19].

Where was Isaac? Didn’t Isaac also descend from the altar and return to Be’er Sheva?

Yonatan Ben Uziel, in his interpretive Aramaic translation, writes that Isaac is not included as having returned home to Be’er Sheva because he went instead to the yeshiva of Shem and Ever. In other words, prior to the akeda, father and son magnificently joined together – ”and they walked, the two of them, together” (Gen. 22:6) – but afterwards, they had to part ways.

Abraham returns to his household, while Isaac returns to his books, to an academy of solitude and study. In the vocabulary of Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik z”l, Abraham is the outerdirected, extroverted, aggressive Adam I, while Isaac is the more inner-directed, introverted, introspective Adam II. In the conceptual scheme of the mystical Zohar, Abraham is the outgoing, overflowing symbol of hesed (loving kindness), while Isaac is the disciplined and courageous symbol of gevura (inner fortitude). The akeda is both the point of unity as well as the point of departure between father and son. Isaac enters the akeda as Abraham’s son; he emerges from the akeda as Jacob’s father (Jacob will also study at the yeshiva of Shem and Ever).

Isaac’s commitment to God is equal to that of his father, but his path is very different. Simultaneously, the akeda is the point of unity and separation, between father and son, for each must

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respect both the similarities as well as the differences within the parent-child relationship.

The commandment to circumcise one’s son is most certainly modeled on the symbol of the akeda. After all, the basic law prescribes that it is the father who must remove his son’s foreskin (even though most fathers feel more comfortable appointing the moreexperienced mohel as their agent).

From a symbolic perspective, it is the parent’s responsibility to transmit to the children the boundaries of what is permissible and what is not.

Nevertheless, despite the fact that every child is a product of the nature and nurture provided by his/her parents – and the Torah teaches that a child must respect and even revere his/her parents – the existential decisions of how to live one’s life, which profession to enter and which spouse to marry are decisions which can only be made by the adult child himself/herself. [See Shulhan Arukh, Yoreh Deah, Chap. 240:25, Laws of Respecting Parents, the last comment of Rema, citing Maharik.]

We see the importance of parental restraint in the continuation of Gen. 22:12: “For now I know that you are a God-fearing man, seeing that you have not withheld [hasakhta] your only son from Me.” However, we can also understand the verse to mean, “For now I know that you are a God-fearing man, seeing that you have not done away with [the Hebrew h-s-kh can also mean to remove, or cause to be absent] your only son because of [My command].”

In the first reading, the angel praises Abraham for his willingness to sacrifice Isaac; in the alternative reading, Abraham is praised for his willingness not to sacrifice Isaac. [See Ish Shalom, ‘Akeda,’ Akdamot, August 1996.]

The critical lesson of the akeda, then, is not how close Abraham came to sacrificing his own son, but rather, the limits of paternal power.

Paradoxically, when a parent enables a child to psychologically separate, the child will ultimately move forward. Isaac returns from the yeshiva to continue his father’s monotheistic beliefs and Israelcentered life. Our paramount parental responsibility is to allow our children to fulfill their own potential, and our challenge is to learn to respect their individual choices.

Rabbi Shlomo Riskin is chancellor emeritus of Ohr Torah Stone and chief rabbi, Efrat, Israel.

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JEWISH LIFE On this unique Jewish dating site, moms get to play the yenta

O

BY SARA IVRY

n a visit home to Fort Lauderdale back in 2013, Jeffrey Kaplan and his then-girlfriend watched as Kaplan’s mother pulled out her computer to show them the fake JDate profile she’d put together in a stealth effort to help Kaplan’s brother find love.

“She was worried about him not finding a Jewish girl to marry,” Kaplan said. At the time, he was a graduate student in entrepreneurship at the University of Florida.

“I remember the drive back to Gainesville, thinking to myself: When you see a person go to absurd lengths to solve a problem that should be easily solvable, there’s opportunity there,” he recalled. “It clicked for me: We need to make a website where Jewish mothers can be the yentas they were meant to be.”

That was the germ of the idea for JustKibbitz.com, a unique dating site where fathers, grandparents, friends and – yes – Jewish moms can channel their inner yentas by setting up profiles for their loved ones to try to find them a potential match.

The site is meant for Jews of any stripe.

Kaplan, 34, and co-founder Mike Ovies launched the site earlier this year after winning $150,000 at an investment capital pitch contest in 2019. Both employees at a software development company, they spent a lot of their spare time over the last two and a half years doing market research into dating apps, millennial dating behavior, Jewish dating trends and more.

On JustKibbitz.com, the yentas do all the legwork – setting up profiles, scrolling through potential matches – and can even pay for the date in advance and determine where it will take place. (Of course, the target of their matchmaking must agree.)

“We put all the responsibility on the parents to know their kid and know what they want,” Kaplan said.

Pandemic-era social-distancing limitations notwithstanding, Kaplan thinks now is a great time to launch a dating app of this kind.

“Single millennials are spending 10 hours a week on dating apps. They’re online increasing their isolation in coronavirus,” Kaplan said. “So this app feels like a breath

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of fresh air, an alternative, letting someone who knows you best to set you up. The pressure is taken out.”

Noting the prepaid feature of the dating app, Kaplan said that surveys show that 92% of single millennials would go on a date set up by their parents if it was prepaid. So far, hundreds of people have signed themselves and their children up, according to Kaplan, proving that the concept works.

Among them is Theresa Levy, a Jewish preschool director in Jacksonville, Florida.

Eager to help her daughter find a partner, Levy recently started sussing out potential matches. She knows that some parents on the site may over-praise their kids.

Nevertheless she says she sees great merit in the approach JustKibbitz takes.

“It’s not going to be a booty call thing,” she said. “If you want that, go on Tinder.

This is more of: ‘Hey, let’s meet and get to know each other and our parents know about it.’ There’s a little bit more accountability because parents are involved, and I like that for people like my daughter.”

A child’s willingness for their parents to set them up speaks volumes about the quality of their relationship, Levy said. “It’s a really strong vote of confidence,” she said.

“If you have a strong relationship with your family, that’s got to spill over into other areas of their life.”

Her daughter, Marie-Claire Levy, 26, is game for her mother’s involvement.

“I’m kind of lazy,” said the younger Levy, who works at a Jewish nonprofit in New York. She learned of the site from a friend, thought it was funny (including the over-the-top promotional video), and told her own mother about it. “I don’t care if my mom signs up. It gives her something fun to do, and I’m not the best at putting myself out there.”

What JustKibbitz understands is that when you’re dating someone, or when you marry them, the relationship is larger than just two people, said Sheri Jacobs, a a Houston-based actor and author of The Friendship Diet: Clean Out Your Fridge, Get Real With Yourself, and Fill Your Life With Meaningful Relationships That Last.

“You’re also dating this family,” Jacobs said.

Jacobs praised the buy-in from wouldbe daters like Marie-Claire Levy that JustKibbitz requires. “You’re not crossing boundaries. If your son or daughter says, ‘No mom,’ you’re not going to do it. But if your son or daughter says, ‘I want your help,’ it paves the way for potential romantic dates and it creates a platform for a more authentic dialogue.”

It’s “a nice hybrid of tradition and culture,” Jacobs added, “and simultaneously modernizing the dating experience, especially in our pandemic world.”

One of the things that makes JustKibbitz unique is its implicit recognition that the parents of those in a relationship will themselves forge a unique bond that may last a lifetime, Kaplan said. With JustKibbitz, they may create those bonds even before the couple does.

“No other culture has a word for ‘macheteniste’” – the Yiddish term for the relationship between two sets of in-laws, Kaplan observed. “Even when you’re dating, there’s this anxiety of ‘Are your parents going to like this person you’re bringing home?’ JustKibbitz eliminates that.”

This article was sponsored by and produced in partnership with JustKibbitz.com; and produced by JTA’s native content team. jewishledger.com

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#LetThereBeLight March of the Living launches global interfaith initiative to commemorate Kristallnacht (JNS Wire) On Nov. 9, 1938, a two-day pogrom began during which the Nazis burned more than 1,400 synagogues and Jewish institutions in Germany and Austria on ‘Kristallnacht’ (The Night of Broken Glass), a critical moment in the chain of events that led to the Holocaust.

On Nov. 9, 2020, March of the Living will mark Kristallnacht with a message of unity and hope, through a unique international campaign. Titled “Let There Be Light”, March of the Living will invite individuals, institutions and Houses of Worship across the world to keep their lights on during the night of Nov. 9, as a symbol of solidarity and mutual commitment in the shared battle against antsemitism, racism, hatred and intolerance.

As part of this historic virtual initiative, people from all over the world will be able to add their voice to the campaign.

Individuals of all religions and backgrounds are invited to write personal messages of hope in their own words at the campaign website The main synagogue in Frankfurt (one of the few not destroyed on Kristallnacht) will be illuminated as well as other places of religious and spiritual significance across the world. Personal messages and prayers from the virtual campaign will be projected on the walls of the Old City of Jerusalem.

As such, against the backdrop of rising antisemitism and racism, the shadow of Covid-19, these individual expressions of optimism and unity will help illuminate the world against darkness and hatred.

March of the Living President Phyllis Greenberg Heideman & March of the Living World Chair Dr. Shmuel Rosenman: “We must use our voices to tell the world that attacks on Jews and non-Jews alike, whether on the basis of religion, race, color or creed are inexcusable. In the days when synagogues and holy places for various religions are attacked on a regular basis all over the world, it is our duty to speak out loudly and clearly.”

Head of the Jewish Community Frankfurt am Main, Prof. Dr. Salomon Korn: “Antisemitism and racism threaten our society as a whole, they endanger our values and our democracy. Together we want to send a signal against the increase of antisemitism and hate-speech all over the world. We want to raise awareness against growing discrimination and intolerance and jewishledger.com

VIRTUAL IS THE NEW ROUTINE. HATE SHOULDN’T BE. bring the light of humanity in these difficult times”.

John Farmer, director of the Eagleton Institute of Politics, at the Miller Center: “Kristallnacht marked a fundamental turning point in the historical movement from culturally based anti-Semitism to state-sanctioned genocide. On Nov. 9, 1938, the antisemitic propaganda to which the Jewish population had been subjected for years was transformed to open violence, sanctioned by the state. Commemorating that dark day in human history is particularly significant today, as the hatred that has been rising over social media has begun erupting into violence against the Jewish and other faiths. It is imperative that such darkness be refuted by light: the light that will shine on houses of worship throughout the world tonight, and the light of truth that shames all forms of hatred.”

Note: Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, for the first time since its inception, the annual March did not take place in Poland this year. Instead, as part of a virtual commemorative project, March of the Living launched an international digital initiative in which Israel’s President Reuven Rivlin was the first to lay a virtual plaque on the virtual train track of Birkenau, followed

by Holocaust survivors and their families.

In total, more than 18,000 people from 60 countries around the world took part in the online event.

Support ADL and fight hate for good. adl.org/donate

And don’t miss our virtual events this fall: Never is Now: ADL’s Summit on Antisemitism and Hate November 8-19 Add your voice to the conversation at Never is Now, the world’s largest Summit of its kind. Never is Now is the best way to learn about and discuss contemporary drivers of antisemitism and hate, and how to combat bias of all kinds.

ADL in Concert Against Hate December 6 Celebrate the stories of ordinary people who performed extraordinary acts of courage, compassion and strength when confronted by hatred and bigotry at our 26th annual and first virtual ADL In Concert Against Hate.

For Kristallnacht commemorations in Connecticut, please see page 33.

©2020 ADL

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JEWISH LEDGER

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jewishledger.com

Opinion CONTINUED FROM PAGE 10

The award ceremony at the Rabin Center in Tel Aviv made history in another way: All living justices of the Supreme Court of Israel came to honor their U.S. counterpart. Among them were other outstanding women: former Supreme Court Presidents Dorit Beinish and Miriam Naor and current President Esther Hayut.

During her trip, RBG took the time to meet with Rona Ramon, an influential education activist and wife of Israel’s first astronaut, Ilan Ramon, who died in the 2003 Space Shuttle disaster. Like RBG, Rona too had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. Two prominent Jewish women, both stricken with cancer, who had lost their husbands, met privately. We don’t know what they talked about, but both emerged from the meeting teary-eyed; Rona, in her own words, “full of hope.” She passed away five months later, less than two years before Justice Ginsburg.

Despite her age and frailty, RBG was a pillar of strength, refusing to give in to jet lag or scorching July heat. After a packed visit, she traveled to the Red Sea and then on to Jordan, where she rode a horse into the ancient ruins of Petra.

For us, the most emotional part of Justice Ginsburg’s visit to Israel was her tour of the Old City of Jerusalem accompanied by human rights activist Natan Sharansky, whom she met for the first time on this trip. Together, the four of us walked through the ancient streets of the Old City, reliving her childhood memories triggered by the smells of the Jewish Quarter, and answering her many questions.

She asked about the separation of women and men at the Western Wall and learned how Sharansky tried to negotiate a gender-neutral prayer space.

We met our foundation’s co-founder, Stan Polovets, and made our way across the plaza to the Western Wall. Approaching the wall, RBG stretched out her hands; she didn’t just touch – she embraced the stone. Sunset came, as she stood, merging with the ancient rock and looking up to the sky. It was a mystical moment: a great daughter of the Jewish people, and a small woman, in communion with the symbolic foundation of Jewish peoplehood.

It is taught that at the end of shloshim, having reflected on the legacy of the deceased, one is to return to life with a sense of renewal. RBG’s legacy as a jurist is now firmly enshrined in America’s legal system. But what is her legacy as a person?

To us, she embodied the quintessential Jewish qualities, ever so needed to stay true to the principle of tikkun olam. “It is not your responsibility to finish the work of perfecting the world, but you are not free to desist from it either.” (Rabbi Tarfon, Pirkei Avot 2:21) May the memory of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg forever be for a blessing.

ANSWERS TO OCT. 30 CROSSWORD

jewishledger.com

THE KOSHER CROSSWORD NOV. 6, 2020 “Through the Years”

By: Yoni Glatt

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SHABBAT DINNER TRADITIONAL DAIRY LUNCHEON DELI SANDWICH PLATTER DINNER MENU

Across 1. Leon who wrote “Mila 18” 5. Best seller of all time, with “The” 10. Month after Nisan 14. Disney title fish 15. Neighborhood in Jerusalem or moshav in the Golan 16. Presidential power 17. One who destroyed the first Temple 19. Orthodox party, in Israel 20. Disciple of Elijah 21. ___ Yomi 23. Circular Quaker cereal 24. Woeful one, for short 25. “It’s ___!” (“I’ll see you then”)

28. Two-time DDE opponent 30. Braided hair 32. Part of a Jewish wedding 36. Calmed 38. Get coverage for 39. Some believe there’s a hidden one in the Torah 42. This occurs in the starts of 17, 32, 49, and 67-Across 44. Direction when praying in America 45. “Rocky” role 47. Microscope-slide dye 49. Israel, when compared to Russia, Canada, and China 51. Keeps Shabbat 55. “...___ penny earned”

56. It’s worth 8 points in Scrabble 58. The Hornets, on scoreboards 59. Show sum sense?

61. “Curb Your Enthusiasm” channel 63. 12 on a ruler 65. “Monopoly” card 67. Violators of the 7th Commandment 70. America, to Israel 71. Cash in Kashmir 72. Uzi filler 73. What matzah does not do 74. Jewish actor Ed who has played Santa Claus in seven different movies and TV shows 75. Light gas

Down 1. Like Mordecai when Haman would walk by 2. Less of an illusion 3. Have some booze 4. Protein-rich beans 5. Covering many subjects 6. ___ Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum’s character in “Jurassic Park”) 7. Obesity meas.

8. Rich, in slang 9. Most popular volcano in crosswords 10. Letters that can replace food and water 11. Protégé of Moshe 12. Baruch follower 13. “Friend” who was 18. Bob who gave painting

instructions 22. Satyr-like creature 26. Tap ___ (get the beer flowing) 27. Least cluttered 29. Dead Sea Scrolls sect 31. “Win Ben ___ Money” 33. Does some City of David work, maybe 34. Gp. that takes a pay cut?

35. You can play basketball without one, but not tennis 37. Nail salon offering, briefly 39. Animal Israel’s Knesset gave “pawliamentary immunity” to last summer 40. Possible poem 41. Toys with shins on one one side 43. Denier’s phrase

46. Make, in Hebrew 48. Sherlock’s Ms. Adler 50. Burning Bush book 52. “Ponzi” or “rhyme” follower 53. “Dynamic” or “nuclear” starter 54. “Kol ___ v’kol simcha” 57. Bit more than a quart 59. It’s two before 10-Across 60. Sandwich store 62. “Asher ___ 54-Down v’simcha” 64. Start of some juice blend names 66. Shade provider?

68. Rival of The WB, once 69. Author Harper who wrote about Atticus

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THE GLOBAL JEWISH COMMUN FRANCE IS CRACKING DOWN ON RADI FRENCH JEWS

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JEWISH LEDGER

| NOVEMBER 6, 2020

(JTA) – As the French government rolls out a controversial plan that amounts to its most robust crackdown on religious activity in decades, it is enjoying broad support from at least one of the country’s faith communities: French Jews.

Jewish community leaders have applauded President Emmanuel Macron’s effort to counter what he calls “Islamist separatism” with a plan that would require children to attend state-recognized schools from the age of three, effectively barring the practice of Muslim home-schooling, and mandate an oath of allegiance to the state from religious associations.

The new plan would also increase oversight of foreign funding for mosques and end a program that allows the children of immigrants to receive subsidized lessons in their parents’ native language. While the new measures do not explicitly target French Muslims, which would be barred by the French constitution, Macron has made clear that they are aimed at “isolating radical Islam.”

“We need to reconquer all that the republic has ceded, and which has led part of our youth and citizens to be attracted to this radical Islam,” Macron said in an Oct. 2 speech near Paris.

The plan, which is scheduled to be brought before the National Assembly later this year, has been widely condemned by Muslims, both in France and beyond, as an attack on their faith. In Gaza, protesters burned posters of Macron, and in Turkey, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan described the plan as part of a legacy of European crimes against religious minorities that includes the Holocaust. Erdogan’s comment last week that Macron needs “mental treatment” prompted France to recall its ambassador from Ankara.

In France, some left-wing Jews oppose the plan for similar reasons. Maxime Benatouil of the Jewish-French Union for Peace, which supports a blanket boycott of Israel, said in a statement that the plan is motivated by racist hatred, juxtaposing it with what the Nazis and their collaborators did to French Jews in 1940.

But among the mainstream of French Jewry, Macron’s plan enjoys broad support, which only grew following the gruesome murder on Oct. 16 of a high school history teacher who had shown his students caricatures of Mohammed first published in France by the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo – which was also the target of a 2015 attack by jihadists murdered 12 people at

PRESIDENT EMMANUEL MACRON DELIVERS A SPEECH ON COMBATING RADICAL ISLAM, FEB. 18, 2020.

(CREDIT: JEAN-FRANCOIS BADIAS / POOL / AFP)

the magazine’s office. Two days later, an accomplice murdered four Jews at a kosher supermarket.

“Bravo for having the courage to call things by their name and charting a course for ensuring the strength of the republic, the mother of all its children who love and respect the values of France,” Gil Taieb, the vice president of the CRIF umbrella of French Jewish communities, said on Twitter.

Taieb’s sentiment reflects a widely held fear that the wave of jihadist attacks that have claimed hundreds of lives in France since 2012 are merely a symptom of an even greater problem than terrorism: The ceding of whole neighborhoods and cities to parallel Islamic education, justice and moral systems. French-Jewish historian Georges Bensoussan, in an influential 2002 book, called these areas “The Lost Territories of the Republic.”

While the fear of radical Islam is selfexplanatory, French Jews have their own religious associations and schools. Are they not worried of suffering collateral damage as the country cracks down on Muslim groups?

“Not at all,” said Bruno Benjamin, the president of the CRIF branch of Marseille, home of the second-largest Jewish community in France. “French Jews as a community have accepted the values of the republic. Their communal organizations observe its laws. So there is no reason for Jews to oppose the application of those same laws on Muslims,” he told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.

Benjamin views on the Macron plan jewishledger.com

NITY ICAL ISLAM – WITH THE BLESSING OF

are a matter of consensus for mainstream Jews, according to Delphine Horvilleur, a Reform rabbi at Paris’ MJLF Beaugrenelle congregation. French Jews, who are high on the list of targets for radical Islamists, have much to gain and little to fear from the plan because their education system conforms – and for the most part belongs – to the public school system, Horvilleur said.

“The demands being made in the plan are largely ones that the Jewish community has accepted a long, long time ago,” she said.

Accepting those demands goes back to the core of what it means to be Jewish in France, she added.

“Crudely put, in America people are assured freedom of religion, whereas in France people are assured freedom from religion,” Horvilleur said. “That’s why most Frenchmen, including its Jews, support the president’s plan.”

Leaders of French Jewry have at times shown tolerance for measures aimed at curbing radical Islam, even if it impairs Jewish religious life. In 2016, Moshe Sebbag, a senior rabbi at the Grand Synagogue of Paris, came out in support of a controversial ban – largely repealed – on wearing the full-body swimsuit known as a burkini in public. Even though Jewish religious women wore similar garb, he supported the ban because the Muslim variant was “a statement as to who will rule here tomorrow,” he told JTA at the time.

But in the case of Macron’s school reforms, which aim to eliminate a network of underground Islamic schools that provide little in the way of secular education, Jewish institutions would likely not be very affected. Only about 50 of France’s 200 or so Jewish schools operate privately under the supervision of the French Education Ministry, according to a 2018 report by the municipality of Lyon. Clandestine schools, of the sort that Macron says indoctrinate thousands of Muslim children, are virtually nonexistent among Jews.

“Typically, when you enter a French Jewish school, there is a French flag at the entrance and a plaque reading ‘liberty, equality, fraternity,’ because French Jews not only respect those principles, but love them,” Benjamin said.

The embrace of republican values

by French Jewish schools has been so successful that some of the strictest Orthodox schools in the country have been ranked among France’s top secondary education institutions. jewishledger.com

One of them, Paris’ Lucien de Hirsch Orthodox Zionist high school, a private school with some government funding, was ranked by Le Parisien as the city’s best last year, with a perfect matriculation score among its graduates. Another Jewish Orthodox high school, Yabne, is ranked fifth. Ozar Hatorah, a Chabad-affiliated school, was ranked eighth.

This is the case even though the national mandatory curriculum requires the teaching of evolution, sexual education and diversity – including gender – that often clash with traditional Jewish teachings. But at statefunded Jewish schools, says Benjamin, “There are teachers for secular studies, and there are teachers for Jewish studies.

They take place on different hours and different faculty. But they both take place.” Jewish schools in France have also sidestepped many of the challenges that have plagued state-funded Jewish schools in other European countries in recent years.

In the United Kingdom, several Jewish schools have flunked government inspections for separating boys and girls or their alleged failure to teach “tolerance.”

In Belgium, the government in 2013 introduced a reform that threatened Jewish schools with closure if they refused to teach certain subjects. And in the Netherlands, Jewish schools last month lost public subsidies because they collected money from parents for specific communal needs.

Still, the escalating measures against Muslim isolationism in France do sometimes lump Jews into the equation, making some French Jews uncomfortable.

One example occurred on Oct. 20, when Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said he was “shocked” by supermarket aisles dedicated to ethnic foods, suggesting shop owners do away with them “to be patriotic.” He added that he nonetheless supports the right to operate kosher or halal supermarkets.

Philippe Meyer, president of the France branch of B’nai B’rith, said Darmanin’s comment was “astonishing.” The minister must “not conflate communal isolationism, which we need to fight, and the freedom of worship that we must guarantee,” Meyer wrote on Twitter.

“There are these transgressions that occur from time to time,” Horvilleur said.

“But they are minor, and mostly verbal.

French Jews overall have confidence in their contract with the French state. And they fear radical Islam much more than they fear this kind of spillover.”

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Jewish Future Pledge and Jewish Federations of North America partner to ensure the future of Jewish giving (JNS Wire) – Today, Jewish Future Pledge and The Jewish Federations of North America (JFNA) announced a new partnership, which will advance a shared vision and commitment to secure a vibrant Jewish future, sparking critical intergenerational conversations about Jewish values and proliferating a culture of legacy giving.

The partnership comes at a critical time for the Jewish community as two seismic forces are converging at the same time. The social and economic impact of the COVID19 pandemic has left the Jewish community more uncertain about its future than ever before and comes during the largest transfer of wealth in history. According to Center on Wealth and Philanthropy at Boston College $6.3 trillion could be allocated to charity over the next 55 years. The Jewish Future Pledge seeks to leverage this wealth transfer to secure the financial future of the Jewish people by directing hundreds of billions of dollars toward Jewish and Israel-related causes “The ripple effect of gifts secured decades ago is being felt in a profound way as this crisis unfolds,” said JFNA’s Chairman of the Board of Trustees, Mark Wilf. “Legacy gifts made today will have the ability to secure our community well into the future. That is why we are excited about partnering with the Jewish Future Pledge.”

The Jewish Future Pledge calls on all Jews to sign a pledge that commits half or more of the charitable giving in their estate plan to support the Jewish people and/or the State of Israel. This new collaboration with Jewish Federations will engage ten local Jewish Federations in a two-year pilot program and a set of JFNA’s national affinity groups for expanded programs in the coming years.

“The Jewish Future Pledge is thrilled to partner with the most significant Jewish umbrella organization in the U.S.–The Jewish Federations of North America–as we pave the way today for the Jewish communities of tomorrow,” said Jewish Future Pledge co-founder, Mike Leven.

“Jewish Federations have extraordinary reach into Jewish communities big and small. This strategic partnership will accelerate our new movement’s expansion across the country as we work to secure the funds needed to ensure that Jewish life is sustained for generations to come,” said Leven.

“We must act now with passion and creativity to ensure that future generations

have the resources to build and maintain vibrant and dynamic Jewish institutions.

Together, the Jewish Future Pledge and The Jewish Federations of North America are uniquely positioned to make an impact in communities large and small all across the country. I am confident that the seeds planted today through this new partnership will blossom for years to come,” said Mark Silberman, Chairman of the Jewish Future Pledge and JFNA National Board Member.

About the Jewish Future Pledge: The Jewish Future Pledge is a worldwide movement working to ensure that vibrant Jewish life continues for generations to come. It calls on all Jews to pledge that half or more of the charitable giving in their estate plan will support the Jewish people and/or the State of Israel.

About the Jewish Federations of North America: The Jewish Federations of North America (JFNA) represents 146 Jewish Federations and over 300 Network communities, which raise and distribute more than $3 billion annually and through planned giving and endowment programs to support social welfare, social services and educational needs. The Federation movement, collectively among the top 10 charities on the continent, protects and enhances the well-being of Jews worldwide through the values of tikkun olam (repairing the world), tzedakah (charity and social justice) and Torah (Jewish learning).

Learn more about us at www.

JewishFederations.org.

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Giving in the time of COVID A Conversation with … David S. Federman

F

ARMINGTON – “If ever there was a year when charitable contributions are important, it’s this year.”

Those are the of the words of David S. Federman, CPA, attorney and founding and managing partner of Federman, Lally & Remis LLC, a boutique accounting firm located in Farmington, when asked what people should be thinking about now in terms of year-end charitable giving.

With more than 45 years experience as a tax professional, Federman works with closely-held companies and complex tax and family matters including succession planning. His expertise includes manufacturing, real estate and distribution as well as working with high net worth individuals.

But as 2020 comes to a close, Federman’s concern in terms of charitable donations goes way beyond the issues of tax deductions.

Which is apropos for someone who has long been active civically and philanthropically in both Hartford’s Jewish community and the greater community.

Among his numerous communal activities, Federman has served as chairman of the board for the New England Region of the Arthritis Foundation as well as chairman of the board of the Arthritis Foundation of Northern and Southern New England. He served on the National Board of Trustees for the Arthritis Foundation. His efforts on behalf of the Arthritis Foundation

earned him in 2017 the organization’s Lifetime Achievement Award.

An esteemed leader of Greater Hartford’s Jewish community, Federman is a life officer of the Mandell Jewish Community Center, where he is also a past president. He previously served as annual campaign chairman of the Jewish Federation of Greater Hartford, where he is currently a life trustee. He is also a trustee and corporate of Hebrew Health Care in West Hartford and a member of the Board of Governors and the Major Gifts Committee of Hartford Hospital.

“David has held numerous leadership roles at the JCC and in our community,” MandelL JCC Executive Director David Jacobs told the Jewish Ledger. “His commitment to Jewish life is evident in all of his leadership and volunteer activities.”

And it is commitment that Federman stressed when the Jewish Ledger recently spoke with him about the important of giving, as his tips on end-of-year charitable giving strategies.

JEWISH LEDGER: Why do you believe that charitable giving is more important now than ever before?

DAVID FEDERMAN: We know, from our clients and the charities where I am involved, that all of the charities are hurting, big time. They can’t do events and memberships are down. The Jewish community – whether it’s the JCC or JFS [Jewish Family Service] or any other agency

– have got to be suffering.

They did get those paycheck protection loans, which was huge and very helpful. But they have used them. That money is already gone and the year isn’t really up. This isn’t going to be over at least, I think, for another year, and people aren’t going to come back to the charities so quickly.

And it’s not just the Jewish agencies.

Think about things like the Hartford Stage or the Bushnell. They are basically closed.

So this year, for so many reasons, is a year when people need to be helpful to charities however they can. Of course, the problem is that so many people can’t because they too are hurting.

If so many people are hurting, who is there to help these charities during this difficult time?

I think that it falls to the people who I’ll call the “usual suspects” –those who always help the community and are the largest contributors. My experience has been that while donors, especially those at the higher bracket levels, are aware of tax benefits, that’s not really why they are making donations.

The people who make the largest donations are the people that care the most about the charities they are involved in; the places for which they have a passion.

They’re going to have to do even more just to keep things even. Because I think that what we call the “modest contributors” aren’t able to do anything right now.

We can talk about giving strategies, but if you don’t have a job or you’re on unemployment, you’re not giving; you are more in need.

That’s how I look at it from a purely philosophical or realistic point of view.

How do you look at it as a tax professional?

From a tax point of view, right now someone using the so-called standard deduction for taxes doesn’t get any tax benefit whatsoever for charitable contributions. Those tend to be people making relatively modest contributions.

So that has made it even tougher for anyone thinking in terms of taxes.

But in 2020, they made a small change, so you can get $300 as a tax deduction over and above the standard deduction for charitable contributions. So people can get a little bit of tax benefit.

For the larger donors, 100 percent of their charitable contributions can be

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deductible for tax purposes – 100 percent of what we call AGI [adjusted gross income].

It used to be limited to 50 percent, then 60 percent. But this year, they can offset 100 percent of their so-called adjusted income by charitable contributions. So it’s a good year to do that.

How did these changes come about?

Through The Cares Act. (The CARES Act provides fast and direct economic assistance for American workers and families, small businesses, and preserves jobs for American industries. The Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act was passed

by Congress with overwhelming, bipartisan support and signed into law by President Trump on March 27th, 2020.)

It’s all part of the post-Covid relief law they passed.

Are there any other tips you can share?

In terms of other strategies, people could also use their IRA retirement plans.

They can make what they call “qualified charitable donations,” which means they can reduce the taxability of their retirement plan required payment by whatever they paid directly to charities. But it has to be paid directly to the charities.

The real savings there is the state taxes because Connecticut doesn’t allow a deduction for itemized deductions like charity.

People can also donate appreciated securities and avoid capital gains taxes.

Those are some of the strategies. In theory, depending on who gets elected in 2020, tax rates may go up; the tax benefit of charitable deductions may get greater. But all of that is very uncertain.

I guess your most important tip when it comes to charitable giving is to give the extent you canduring this difficult year?

Yes, to me, this is the year to dig down if you can. The charities need it more than ever.

I’ve been doing this for a long time. And we always say this is the most important year to support [charitable organizations].

But this actually might be the most important year ever.

JEWISH LEDGER

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Open the door to new worlds.

Reading opens doors to new worlds and new possibilities. But many doors are closed to kids who struggle with reading.

Your gift to Children's Reading Partners opens doors for hundreds of local students like Miguel. With help from his reading mentor, he has become such a confident reader that he now has a leading role in the class play.

Since 1998, we've helped 7,000+ students in 20 schools, libraries, and enrichment programs improve their literacy skills and learn to love reading.

To contribute, mail your check to: Children's Reading Partners Zachs Campus 333 Bloomfield Avenue, Suite C West Hartford, CT 06117 Or call us at 860.236.READ (7323).

childrensreadingpartners.org an initiative of

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JEWISH LEDGER

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Jewish Federation of Greater Hartford

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BULLETIN BOARD Rabbi Isaiah Rothstein discusses “Diversity and Inclusion,” Nov. 4 On Wednesday, Nov. 4, 4 p.m., Rabbi Isaiah Rothstein, rabbinic scholar and public affairs advisor for Jewish Federations of North America for a discussion, will discuss “Diversity and Inclusion” on Zoom.

An Orthodox rabbi from Yeshiva University and an author, Rabbi Rothstein was raised in a multi-racial Chabad family in Monsey, N.Y. He previously served as rabbi-in-residence at Hazon: The Jewish Lab for Sustainability, and as the spiritual and experiential educator at Carmel Academy in Greenwich. He is best known for his essay “Color Erases, Color Paints” which generated extensive debate within the Jewish community about race and diversity.

He lives in Harlem, N.Y. with his wife, Leah.

Hosted by United Jewish Federation of Greater Stamford’s Jewish Community Relations Council. Register at UJF. ticketspice.com.

Kristallnacht remembered, Nov. 5 On Thursday, Nov. 5, at 8 p.m., Dr. Shay Pilnik, director of the Emil and Jenny A. Fish Holocaust and Genocide Studies Center at Yeshiva University, and the son of Holocaust survivors, will lead a virtual discussion of “The Night of Broken Glass: History & Memory. Hosted by the Center for Community Education and Bi-Cultural Hebrew Academy. Pilnik is the former executive director of the Nathan and Esther Pelz Holocaust Education Resource Center (HERC) in Milwaukee. He earned a B.A. from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, majoring in Comparative Literature and Jewish Thought; an M.A. in Jewish Studies from McGill University; and a doctoral degree from the Jewish Theological Seminary in the field of Modern Jewish Studies. His PhD dissertation dealt with the commemoration of the Babi Yar Massacre in Soviet Russian and Yiddish literature.

From 2008–2014, he was an adjunct instructor at the Universities of WisconsinMilwaukee and Oshkosh, lecturing on a variety of topics including the Holocaust, modern Jewish history and culture, Judaism, Hebrew Bible, and the religions of the world.

Register at zoom.us/meeting/ register/tJ0rd-uprz8uE9Bv93_ VWdqd20KXelcqfLlP.

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14th Annual Kristallnacht Commemoration, Nov. 5 Congregation Or Shalom in Orange and the Jewish Federation of Greater New Haven will sponsor the 14th Annual CommunityWide Kristallnacht Commemoration. This year’s commemoration will pay tribute to Odd Nansen for his conscience and heroism. Nansen financed and operated an orphanage in Oslo, Norway for Jews and others facing imminent death in Nazioccupied Europe. Sent to a concentration camp by the Nazi Gestapo, Nansen kept a secret diary there which later became an important testimony to the realities of the Holocaust. In the camp, Nansen risked his life in order to save inmates.

U.S. Senator Richard Blumenthal will present a U.S. Senate Commendation to the Nansen daily; and attorney Timothy Boyce, who republished From Day to Day, the secret diary of Odd Nansen.

Register at jewishnewhaven.org/RSVP.

Interfaith Kristallnacht commemoration, Nov. 5 & 7 On Thursday, Nov. 5 at 7 p.m. and Sunday, Nov. 8 at 5:30 p.m., Charter Oak Cultural Center in Hartford will host a virtual community gathering to remember Kristallnacht – the Night of Broken Glass – when over the course of two nights in 1938 the terror of the Holocaust began in the streets of Germany. All are invited to join in this program of music, dance and innovative ritual. Register at charteroakenter.org/events.

A Global Update from the Jewish Agency, Nov. 3 On Tuesday, Nov. 3, 12 noon, Ronen Weiss and Pnina Falego Agenyahu of the Jewish Agency for Israel will speak.

Weiss, the Jewish Agency’s director of the Worldwide Community Services Unit will share an update on antisemitism in and aliyah from Argentina, Venezuela, UAE, South Africa and France, as well as his work with schlichim (Isralei emissaries) in these countries.

Agenyahu, director of the Jewish Agency’s Interfaces and Synergy at the Strategic, planning and content Unit of the Jewish Agency, will focus on the family reunification efforts to bring 2000 Ethiopians home to Israel.

Register for this program at ujf@ ticketspice.com.

Bi-Cultural Hebrew Academy to host virtual Lower and Upper School open houses The Bi-Cultural Hebrew Academy of Connecticut (BCHA) invites parents to attend the school’s first-ever virtual Open House for prospective Lower School families on Monday evening, Nov. 9, 7:45 to 9 p.m.

A comprehensive pre-k through grade 12 Jewish community school located in North Stamford, the open house is specifically designed for families with children in pre-K through 8th grade.

A separate virtual open house for high school students will be held Sunday Nov. 8, 10 - 11 a.m.

For information or to register for the Lower School open house and receive a Zoom link, contact Miriam Sperber at (203) 883-8968 or msperber@bcha-ct.org.

For information or to register for the Upper School open house visit bhaupperschool.org/open house or call (203) 883-8970.

Preserving history through family photographs, Nov 12 On Thursday, Nov. 12, 7 p.m. on Zoom, Sarah Beck and Sue Werner will talk about preserving family photographs digitally and in print and will offer ideas for sharing your family’s history in a creative and artistic way. Hosted by the Jewish Historical Society of Greater Hartford. Registration at jhsgh.org/saving-history.

Lectures at the Bennett Center for Judaic Studies All lectures in this year’s Bennett Center for Judaic Studies at Fairfield University are virtual and free of charge. Registration required at fairfield.edu/bennettprograms.

For information: bennettcenter@fairfield. edu or (203) 254-4000 x2066.

Tuesday, Nov. 10, 7:30 p.m.

“Goring’s Man in Paris: The Stry of a Nazi Art Plunderer and His World,” with guest speaker Jonathan Petropoulos, PhD, Jonn V. Croul professor of European History, Claremont-McKenna College.

Ticket required. Open VISIONS/espresso, in affiliation with the Bennett Center and the Judaic Studies Program.

Wednesday, Nov. 18, 8 p.m.

“Flint’s Fight for America’s Children,” with guest speaker Dr Mona Hanna-Attisha, pediatrician, public health advocate, whistleblower on the Flint, Michigan water crisis. Ticket required. Co-sponsored by Open Visions Forum.

Thursday, Dec. 3, 7:30 p.m.

“Cotton Caitalists: American Jewish Entrepreneurship in the Reconstruction Era,” with guest speaker Michael R Cohen, PhD, Stuart & Suzanne Grant Chair in the American Jewish Experience Tulane University. FREE webinar

The Mandell JCC Virtual Book Festival All the following Zoom Webinar Author Talks are followed by Q&As. Presented in partnership with the JCC Literary Consortium. For more information, visit mandell-jcc.org/bookfestival.

Nov. 8, 8 p.m.

Joan Lunden, author of Why Did I Come Into This Room? A Candid Conversation About Aging. In Conversation with Holly Firfer, CNN Journalist. $11/ticket; $36/ ticket and copy of book.

Nov. 10, 8 p.m.

Dale Berra, author of My Dad, Yogi. $11/ticket; $24/ticket and copy of book.

Nov. 11, 3 p.m.

John Grisham, author of A Time for Mercy. $11/ticket; $37/ticket and copy of the book.

Nov. 11, 8 p.m.

Cameron Douglas, author of Long Way Home. $11/ticket; $24/ticket and copy of book.

Nov. 18, 8 p.m.

Michael Ian Black, author of Better Man: A (Mostly Serious) Letter to My Son. Cleo Stiller, author of Modern Manhood. $11/ticket; $32/ticket and copy of either book; $50/ticket and copy of both books.

Nov. 19, 8 p.m.

Michael J. Fox, author of No Time Like the Future: An Optimist Considers Mortality. In Conversation with author Harlan Coben. $36/ticket and copy of book.

Dec. 2, 7:30 p.m.

Ina Garten, author of Modern Comfort Food. In Conversation with Michael Ian Black, comedian, actor, and author. $45/ticket and copy of the book.

JEWISH LEDGER

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Connecticut stands with you.

We are a broad-based network of community organizations, religious and business groups, legal service providers committed to protecting the rights of and economic development of refugee and immigrant communities in the state.

ADVOCATING FOR IMMIGRANT & REFUGEE COMMUNITIES IN CONNECTICUT Please call us or go online today to find out how you can get involved

Robert Fishman, Executive Director | Donations welcome at: Connecticut Immigrant & Refugee Coalition (CIRC), 40 Woodland St., Hartford, CT 06105 or online at www.coalitionct.org | RFishman325@gmail.com | 860.727.5731

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JEWISH LEDGER

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So many of us have so much to be thankful for....

Please consider making a donation for a gift bag filled with holiday trimmings for those less fortunate than we are and help Jewish Family Services provide food for those in need.

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$

With your $18 donation plus an in kind donation from The Crown Market, The Anja Rosenberg Kosher Food Pantry will receive a bag of groceries filled with all the “trimmings” (valued at over $30) that make a turkey dinner a Thanksgiving feast!

So many are thankful and don’t have so much....

The Crown Market 2471 Albany Ave West Hartford, CT 06117

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Can be donated at the registers during your checkout in the store.

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

We’re not JUST kosher...we’re DELICIOUS! jewishledger.com

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NOVEMBER 6, 2020

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OBITUARIES FEIGENBAUM Gladys Pinsker Feigenbaum, 90, of New Britain, died Oct. 20. She was the wife of Fenmore Feigenbaum. Born in Wallingford, she was the daughter of the late Joseph and Eva Pinsker. In addition to her husband, she is survived by her brother Clive and his wife Marge; her sister Joyce; her children, Seth and Betty Feigenbaum of Farmington, Ira and Deborah Feigenbaum of West Hartford, and Sara and David Miller of Bedford, Mass.; her grandchildren, Tamar Levine and her husband Jason, Dana Jackson and her husband Kyle, Talia Miller, Miriam Baruch and her husband Mark, Max Feigenbaum, Kayla Miller, Asher Feigenbaum, Rafi Feigenbaum, Avi Miller, and Maya Feigenbaum; and her greatgrandchildren, Orli and Taytum. She was also predeceased by her son Daniel.

JORDAN Karen (“Cakes”) Eisenberg Jordan, 53, of Agawam, Mass., died Oct. 18. She was the wife of Dennis Jordan. Born and raised in Bloomfield, she was the daughter of Richard and Marion Eisenberg. In addition to her husband, she is survived by her sister Genie Eisenberg Watsky and her husband Russel; her brother William Eisenberg and his wife

Susan; her nephews, Seth and Jonathon Watsky; her nieces, Erica, Julie and Renee Eisenberg; and many cousins and friends.

LEVINE Jerome D. Levine, age 74, of Camarillo, Calif., and formerly of Vernon, Conn., died on Oct. 29, 2020. He was the son of Rena (Smith) Levine and Morris Levine and was born in Muskegon, Michigan. He moved to Connecticut in 1962 and completed his last two years of high school at Newington High School, where he was a defensive co-captain of the 1963-64 football team, president of the Debate Club and a member of the National Honor Society. He was also a member of the initial honors program at the University of Connecticut, where he majored in and graduated with honors and distinction in Political Science.

He was a member of Phi Beta Kappa, Pi Sigma Alpha (political science honor society) and Alpha Epsilon Pi, a social fraternity. Jerry was also a member of the Board of Governors of the UConn Student

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Union and wrote news articles for the Daily Campus. He graduated from the University of Connecticut Law School, where he was a member of the Law Review. Attorney Levine practiced for 35 years in Vernon, Connecticut – 22 years with a local law firm and 13 years as a sole practitioner. During that time he was the Vernon town attorney for two terms, successfully defending the town’s then juvenile nocturnal curfew with co-counsel in litigation in Federal Court and in the Connecticut Supreme Court. In 2007, he was appointed a human rights referee, Office of Public Hearings, Commission on Human Rights and Opportunities by then-Governor M. Jodi Rell and was reappointed in 2010. Attorney Levine was a past member and president of the Tolland County Bar Association, member of the American Bar Association and member of the Connecticut Bar Association and past member of its board of governors and house of delegates. He leaves his beloved wife, Marlynn Block of Camarillo, Calif.; his devoted stepson and daughter-in-law, Jonathan May and Lorelei Laird and their son, his treasured grandson Malachi of Culver City, Calif.; his sisters, Miriam Levine-Alcala and her husband, Manuel of Berkeley, Calif., and Laurie Zimmerman of Tucson; his niece, Shelby Zimmerman Irwin and her husband Rob, and grandnieces Indigo and Harper of Hamden, Conn.; his nephews Sam and David Alcala of Berkeley; his nephew Marc Zimmerman and his wife Robin and their children, Jeffrey and Cody Zimmerman, of Newington, Conn., and his niece Nicole Zimmerman and her husband Joe Thomas of Colorado. Jerry had two sons by a prior marriage, Seth and Joshua Levine, in the Boston area, two grandsons, Jacob and Samuel, and two granddaughters, Izzy and Makayla. While in Connecticut, he had been a member of Temple Beth Sholom/B’nai Israel and Temple B’nai Israel, where he had served as president of the Men’s Club. Jerry often entertained with a joke or story when meeting a new

friend or acquaintance or when trying to ease an old friend’s sadness or pain. He was a kind, thoughtful and generous man and he will be dearly missed by all who knew and loved him. Memorial contributions may be made to the Michael J. Fox Parkinson’s Foundation, Paul Newman’s Hole in the Wall Gang Camp, IKAR Los Angeles Jewish Community or to a charitable cause of the donor’s choosing.

LEVY Susan Bonnie Levy, 67, of Meriden, formerly of New Haven, and Fort Lauderdale, Fla., died Oct. 21. She was the daughter of the late Jacob Levy and Frances Shapiro Levy. Sue is survived by her sister Helen Levy Butler and her husband Charles; her nieces, Amy Butler and Rebecca Butler; her nephew-in-law Ryan Akerley; and many family members and friends.

MOONEY Robert Irwin Mooney, 98, of Simsbury died Oct. 21. He was the widower of Shella (Steinberg) Mooney. Born in Bridgeport, he was the son of the late Sol and Ida Mooney. He served in the U.S. Army. He is survived by his children Bryna Mooney, Hal and Judy Mooney, and Rhonda and Edward Stachowiak; his grandchildren, Melissa and Joshua Wikoff, Steven Mooney, and Eric Stachowiak; and his great-grandchildren, Avital and Benjamin Wikoff.

ROSS Paul Martin Ross, of San Francisco, Calif., died Oct. 21. Born in New York City, he was the son of the late Norma Ross and Daniel M. Ross. He is survived by his sister Joan; his niece and nephew Hannah and Benjamin Hoffman; his aunt Phyllis Mandelbaum; and several and cousins.

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Driver available for shopping & Home Health Aide - Companion errands in the greater Hartford available for live in/live out Mon. area. Reasonable rates, senior - Fri. Valid driver’s license. Over discount and references 15 years experience. Excellent available. Call Ira 860-849-0999.

References. Call 860-796-8468.

Caregiver looking for full time CNA - 8 Years Experience live-in job - HHA/Precursor CNA Reliable - Own Car - Live-in 24/7 - 12 Years experience - Friendly, - Negotiable Rates - Please call outgoing, dependable - Please Tina 860-461-8692. call Janet at 412-527-9285.

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

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

All Things

JEWISH

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

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

Reliable, honest, hardworking.

860-656-8280.

CONNECTICUT September

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

Monica - 347-486-0911.

MASSACHUSETTS December For more information on advertising in these magazines, call Donna 860.833.0839 or DonnaE@jewishledger.com 38

JEWISH LEDGER

| NOVEMBER 6, 2020

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

Responsible and dedicated caregiver with medical education. Leave message: 860-229-2038 No Text Please.

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

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

REAL ESTATE

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

WANTED TO BUY

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

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

TUTOR

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

FOR SALE

Motorized KD Smart Chair rarely used - excellent condition - Call or text 203-710-0615.

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

References. Call Jeff 860-7124115.

Have something to sell?

Have something to rent?

Have a service to promote?

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

Contact Leslie 860.231.2424 or leslie@jewishledger.com jewishledger.com

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

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

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

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

Paid Advertisers

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

TRUMBULL Congregation B’nai Torah Conservative Rabbi Colin Brodie (203) 268-6940 office@bnaitorahct.org www.bnaitorahct.org

Congregation P’nai Or Jewish Renewal Shabbat Services Rabbi Andrea Cohen-Kiener (860) 561-5905 pnaiorct@gmail.com www.jewishrenewalct.org

WALLINGFORD Beth Israel Synagogue Conservative Rabbi Bruce Alpert (203) 269-5983 richardcaplan@sbcglobal.net www.bethisrael/wallingford. org

Kehilat Chaverim of Greater Hartford Chavurah Adm. - Marcey Ginsburg Munoz (860) 951-6877 info@ kehilatchaverim.org www.kehilatchaverim.org

WASHINGTON Greater Washington Coalition Rabbi James Greene (860) 868-2434 admin@jewishlifect.org www.jewishlife.org WATERFORD Temple Emanu - El Reform Rabbi Marc Ekstrand Rabbi Emeritus Aaron Rosenberg (860) 443-3005 office@tewaterfrord.org www.tewaterford.org WEST HARTFORD Beth David Synagogue Orthodox Rabbi Yitzchok Adler (860) 236-1241 office@bethdavidwh.org www.bethdavidwh.org Beth El Temple Conservative Rabbi James Rosen Rabbi Ilana Garber (860) 233-9696 hsowalsky@bethelwh.org www.bethelwesthartford.org Chabad House of Greater Hartford Rabbi Joseph Gopin Rabbi Shaya Gopin, Director of Education (860) 232-1116 info@chabadhartford.com www.chabadhartford.com

The Emanuel Synagogue Conservative Rabbi David J. Small (860) 236-1275 communications@emanuelsynagogue.org www.emanuelsynagogue.org United Synagogues of Greater Hartford Orthodox Rabbi Eli Ostrozynsk i synagogue voice mail (860) 586-8067 Rabbi’s mobile (718) 6794446 ostro770@hotmail.com www.usgh.org Young Israel of West Hartford Orthodox Rabbi Tuvia Brander (860) 233-3084 info@youngisraelwh.org www.youngisraelwh.org WETHERSFIELD Temple Beth Torah Unaffiliated Rabbi Seth Riemer (860) 828-3377 tbt.w.ct@gmail.com templebethtorahwethersfield. org WOODBRIDGE Congregation B’nai Jacob Conservative Rabbi Rona Shapiro (203) 389-2111 info@bnaijacob.org www.bnaijacob.org

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

JEWISH LEDGER

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NOVEMBER 6, 2020

39

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40 Loeffler Road, Bloomfield, CT 06002 • (860) 380-5006 • Duncaster.org 40

JEWISH LEDGER

| NOVEMBER 6, 2020

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