May 3, 2024

ANNETTE VAN DE KAMP-WRIGHT

Jewish Press Editor

Recently, the Jewish Federation of Omaha introduced a new annual initiative called Tapestry: A Celebration of Jewish Learning. Tapestry will take place Friday, May 31 - Sunday, June 9 and will feature guest scholar, Rabbi Joseph Telushkin. The JFO and its agencies, Jewish organizations and synagogues will offer a variety of programs, some public, some private, starting off at Temple Israel’s Shabbat service on May 31 at 6 p.m.

“We are honored to welcome Rabbi Joseph Telushkin back to our community,” Temple’s Head Rabbi Benjamin Sharff said. “I have often referenced his writings on Jewish wisdom and on Jewish humor when teaching, delivering a drash, or just providing Jewish insight into the community. We look forward to learning the guidance and insight he can provide into our collective and individual Jewish journeys.”

Rabbi Telushkin will be at Beth Israel Saturday, June 1 for morning services and Parsha teaching, and on Sunday, June 2, there will be a brunch with the advisory board members and staff of the Nebraska Jewish Historical Society. In the afternoon of Monday, June 3, it is time to engage Jewish edu-

cators and youth directors.

Rabbi Telushkin will speak at the Jewish Federation of Omaha Awards Night and Annual Meeting, which will be held in the Alan J. Levine Performing Arts Theater June 3, from 6-8 p.m.

On Tuesday, June 4, B’nai Israel Living History Synagogue will host Rabbi Joseph Telushkin for book club brunch and conversation about his book, The Golden Land: The Story of Jewish Immigration to America. This 2002 museum-in-a-book is more than a read; it is an interactive journey (with removable pieces) inviting the reader deep into the experience of the early American Jew.

Later on June 4, Rabbi Telushkin will visit the Rose Blumkin Jewish Home. “We will share background about Rabbi Telushkin with our Residents,” Maggie Conti said, “and we’ll discuss relevant wisdom from the Torah. We will add some Jewish humor as well!” June 5 is a day dedicated to the JCC directors, B’nai B’rith Breadbreakers and the Institute for Holocaust Education. Then, on Thursday, June 6, Rabbi Telushkin will have a late breakfast with the members of the Jewish Press advisory board.

Also on June 6, he will be a keynote speaker at the Tri-Faith “Race, Religion and Social Justice” Conference at Temple Israel, See Tapestry page 3

Jewish Teen Leadership Awards: Adria Tipp and Eva Bloom

GABBY BLAIR

Jewish Press Staff Writer

The Robert and Ellen Gordman Jewish Teen Leadership Award annually honors two local teens who have demonstrated an exceptional commitment to our community. Criteria for nominations include active participation and demonstrated leadership ability in local youth groups, strengthening their organizations, developing future leadership and community involvement.

Award winners will each receive a $1,000 stipend to use towards a conclave, convention, Jewish summer camp, or Israel experience of their choice.

The Jewish Federation of Omaha is pleased to announce that this year’s award recipients are Adria Tipp and Eva Bloom.

Award presentations will be made at the Jewish Federation of Omaha’s Awards Night & Annual Meeting on June 3 at 6:30 p.m. in the Alan J.

Levine Theater on the Staenberg Kooper Fellman Campus.

ADRIA TIPP is a senior honor roll student at Elkhorn South High School and a member of Temple Israel. She is the daughter of Sonia and Alan Tipp and the granddaughter of Steve and Marilyn Tipp of Omaha and Sara and Michael Baum of Maryland. See Teen Leadership page 2

Why we support the Rose Blumkin Jewish Home

ANNETTE VAN DE KAMPWRIGHT

Jewish Press Editor

The Rose Blumkin Jewish Home is renovating, bringing needed updates and improvements. It’s something that cannot be done without donors who care deeply about continuing the level of care the Blumkin Home is known for. This week, we hear from Nancy and Phil Wolf. WHY DOES YOUR FAMILY GIVE TO THIS PROJECT?

There is an obligation to honor and care for our aging parents and community. Looking at it from the perspective of community needs, if we didn’t have a place for the elderly, we would build it. Since we already have it, let’s do our part to maintain it and make improvements when necessary.

WHAT DO YOU WANT FUTURE GENERATIONS TO KNOW?

That there is a wealth of knowledge to learn from the wisdom of our ancestors.

WHY IS THE RBJH SO IMPORTANT TO YOU PERSONALLY?

It’s a fixture in our Jewish community, so if, or when, a caregiving home is needed for someone dear to us, we want it to be available.

HOW DOES THE RBJH BENEFIT OUR COMMUNITY?

It provides a safe, caring and Jewish home for those in need. The space provides comfortable and familiar surroundings, central in our Jewish campus, for our elderly community members when they need the extra care.

WHY SHOULD WE ALL CARE ABOUT THIS PROJECT?

We should all want to ensure that such a high-quality care environment, as our current RBJH, remains available to meet our Jewish community needs for the sick and elderly. More than being an obligation, our hearts tell us having this posture of support is the right thing to do.

Adria Tipp

Eva Bloom

KELLAH HOME CARE

The Passion of Caregiving

402-706-6894 www.kellahhomecare.com

If you experience antisemitism, there are ways to report an incident or hate crime:

IF THIS IS AN EMERGENCY, MOVE TO A SAFE AREA AND DIAL 9-1-1

CALL the JFO’s Safety and Security Team 402-334-6446

EMAIL JCRCreporting@jewishomaha.org

SCAN the QR code below to fill out the Incident Reporting Form

Continued from page 1

Teen Leadership

A testament to Adria’s selection for this award is the sheer number of leadership activities she is involved in not only within the Jewish community, but in the greater Omaha community and at her school. Adria is currently serving (2023-24) as Omaha Council N’siah (President), MZ Yoshanah BBG Chapter N’siah (President), Regional Coordinating Committee Member and International Convention Steering Member. She also served as 2022-23 Omaha Council Aym Ha’Chaverot (VP of Membership), MZ Yoshanah BBG Chapter Aym Ha’Chaverot (VP of Membership), Spring Regional Convention Coordinator, Fall Regional Convention Steering Member and Spring Regional Convention Steering Member.

Additionally, Adria worked to develop a partnership between Elkhorn South and The Children’s Miracle Network, helping to raise over $10,000 for the organization last year through coordinating a Dance Marathon for Miracle Network families which was held at her high school. She is continuing fundraising efforts for this worthy cause this year.

Adria will be attending the University of Kansas and plans to major in biology. “I am interested in biology, anatomy, and microbiology, and one of my biggest professional goals is to eventually become a Doctor of Veterinary Medicine (DVM),” she shared. A self-described animal lover, Adria is already following her passion. In addition to being an active volunteer at the Nebraska Humane Society, Tipp has an internship at Elkhorn South Veterinary Clinic and volunteers weekly at PetSmart through CatzAngels, a rescue organization. “I love working with the animals and with clients who share my love for them.”

Her parents share that they have immense pride in watching their daughter become a leader. “The sheer number of meetings she coordinates and leads in person or via Zoom, committees she has chosen to join, and the extraordinary interpersonal growth and skills she has developed are astounding to us. She is a force of energy in the best possible way and we could not be prouder of her.” They also share that Adria has become increasingly passionate about her faith after a leadership seminar she attended last year in Israel. “Part of her decision-making process in selecting a university was having a Jewish community and resources available on campus.”

connection to the organization and the influence of leaders she looks up to, she took on leadership positions in her junior and senior years. This provided her with a platform to inspire the next group of teens, encouraging them to create a similar connection and have meaningful Jewish experiences. Our current members look up to Adria for direction, leadership, and overall support in their BBYO experience.”

Geltzer continued: “During Adria’s time as Aym Ha’Chaverot, one of her main goals during the year was to form a strong connection with new members and the rest of the chapter.

She would personally text each new and prospective member each week to let them know about upcoming programs and went above and beyond in making each person feel welcome and included when they attended. As N’siah this year, Adria has really taken on the qualities of a leader. While not only leading by example and doing the work to make her chapter successful, she is also preparing the next group of teen leaders to take over the chapter. She creates an inclusive environment with her board, but also pushes them to be the best they can be. She is encouraging our youngest members to start thinking about how they can become active members and leaders in the chapter and how they can have a part in growing it as well. After the events of Oct. 7, Adria has also been a huge promoter of Israel in her chapter and making sure the rest of the members feel like BBYO is a place where they can share their feelings and opinions in a safe and welcoming space. She is a true leader in the sense that while she will share her own feelings and thoughts, she understands when it is time for her to listen, support her friends, and make sure everyone’s voices are heard.”

EVA BLOOM is an honor roll student at Lincoln High School and at the LPS Science Focus Program where she serves on the Student Council. Splitting her academics between her home school and the Focus Program classroom at the Lincoln Zoo provides her with a challenging and unique educational experience that she really enjoys. Eva plans to attend the University of Denver in the fall where she will major in Chemistry. “I am not sure what I want to do professionally, but I really like chemistry and will see where life leads me,” she shares.

We work directly with law enforcement, Secure Communities Network, and the Anti-Defamation League.

If you see something, say something.

Rabbi Deana Sussman Berezin, who nominated Adria for Temple Israel, said: “In the time that I have known Adria, she has always been a leader. Her natural enthusiasm and joyful spirit are contagious and they motivate those around her to dive into projects and experiences with similar passion, and to go the extra step to find meaning. It was unsurprising to me, therefore, that Adria stepped into board leadership at BBYO. Last year, she served as the Morah, or recruitment chair, and welcomed new members into her BBG chapter. Her passion and creativity helped motivate other young teens to dive into BBYO with the same energy as Adria consistently does. Her success and passion for this role led her to become the current N’siah (President) of Omaha BBG, where she uses her voice to lead both locally, and nationally. It was an honor to hear her speak with such pride as we welcomed BBYO International here this past summer to kick of the centennial celebration.

“Adria is also one of the most determined and resilient young people that I know. Twice in her high school career, Adria has experienced overt and public antisemitism. Each time, she handled the situation with courage and grace that few people demonstrate, regardless of their age and life experience. In each instance, Adria could have turned inward and tried to hide or stifle her Jewish identity. Instead, she chose to act with courage and conviction, to lead with tremendous integrity, and to work with school administration to help transform these painful moments into teaching opportunities. Furthermore, she has leaned into BBYO and leads her peers in embracing and being proud of their Jewish identity. Her resiliency and determination to use her voice to advocate for herself and her fellow students is admirable and inspiring.”

Rabbi Berezin continued: “Adria brings these qualities to every aspect of her life. She radiates positivity, joy, drive, compassion, and determination. She takes on a tremendous amount of responsibility, and always follows through on her commitments. Adria’s leadership and passion flow from Temple to The JFO Foundation to the Federation, through BBYO and beyond.”

Adria was also nominated for this award by BBYO Teen Program Director, Jacob Geltzer, who said: “If I were to give a reallife example of what a leader is, I would provide Adria Tipp’s name. Ever since Adria became a BBYO member, I have seen her love and passion for this organization grow. As one of only a few Jewish teens in her high school, she has said that she feels comfortable and reconnected to her Jewishness when she is involved in BBYO programming. Because of her strong

She is a member at Tifereth Israel and B’nai Jeshurun and works as a teaching assistant for the Lincoln Jewish Community Hebrew School’s Gan classroom. Eva’s parents are Sarah Kelen and Kenneth Bloom; grandparents are Estelle and Joel Bloom of Kintnersville, PA, and Miriam and Erwin Kelen of Minneapolis, MN.

“Eva has held multiple leadership positions that have strengthened our council and her chapter through Jewish and general programming and continues to help promote and publicize our organization,” Jacob Geltzer said. While our local BBYO is centered in Omaha, Geltzer wants to remind people that the program is open to all Jewish teens throughout the states of Nebraska and Iowa.

“We’re very proud of Eva and excited for her future,” her parents said. “She has shown a lot of commitment to BBYO, which for her means taking the time to get to Omaha for so many meetings and events, given that they are all an hour’s drive away. Eva has really valued the friendships and connections she has made in our broader Nebraska Jewish community, and we are happy for it.”

When asked what inspired her to get involved with BBYO and motivated her to assume leadership roles, Eva explains “I attended my first BBYO event in January 2020, towards the end of my 8th grade year. The Winter Regional Convention was being held in Omaha and I wanted to check it out and connect with other Jewish youth. Lincoln is great, but there are not many Jewish kids my age – in fact, my brother and I are two of three Jewish kids in our entire high school! The Convention was a good experience in spite of an ice storm that delayed the arrival of our cohorts from Kansas City and St. Louis. Shortly thereafter, COVID hit, and while everything was shut down, BBYO stayed active through Zoom. It provided me with a wide group of friends and an outlet to connect with a community of teens during the shutdown. I really liked and looked up to the older girls who were involved at the time; their leadership inspired me and passed on a love for BBYO. It was a real blessing to be part of this group during an especially trying time.” Jacob Geltzer explained that Eva was only the second teen from Lincoln to join BBYO under his tenure. Since then, Eva has become a dedicated advocate and promoter for Lincoln’s BBYO and has added four new members! She also helped spearhead a program that brought Omaha teens to Lincoln where they took part in a tour of Memorial Stadium followed by an informative presentation about BBYO and all the organization has to offer Jewish teens in an effort to build bridges between the youth of both cities and promote the organization. See Teen Leadership Awards page 4

Tapestry

Continued from page 1 and spend time at Friedel Jewish Academy:

“We are excited to welcome Rabbi Telushkin for a program geared towards parents of school-aged children,” Beth Cohen, Head of School, said.

“The title of his talk, How to raise good children in a morally complicated world, will explore Jewish values and traditions as we delve into the how-to of raising kind, honorable children. Babysitting and children’s activities will be included to make it easier for parents to attend.”

Friday, June 7 from noon-2 p.m., he is scheduled to meet with the Jewish Community Relations Council and Jewish Family Service, and will speak with a number of staff members and volunteers from The JFO Foundation and the Jewish Federation of Omaha. At this luncheon, he will discuss Tzedakah.

Friday night, he will be at Beth El for Kiddush and services. “Rabbi Telushkin is a giant in the Jewish world,” Rabbi Steven Abraham said. “His books speak to Jews across the spectrum of observance, belief, and knowledge, and I am thrilled to have him in Omaha.”

Afterwards, there is Shabbat dinner at Chabad, where Rabbi Telushkin will spend the remainder of Shabbat, followed by Chabad’s “Sunday morning (Tefillin) Wraps.”

Our time with Rabbi Telushkin will culminate with a community-wide program, hosted by The Jewish Federation of Omaha on Sunday, June 9 from 2-4 p.m., in the Shirley and Leonard Goldstein Community Engagement Venue at the Staenberg Kooper Fellman JCC Campus, 333 S. 132nd Street.

Tapestry aims to inspire Jewish literacy, provide opportunity for community members to engage with a prolific scholar and serve as a springboard to further educational explorations as individuals, and as a community. We hope everyone will find their way to engage with Rabbi Telushkin and with each other during our First Annual Tapestry: A Celebration of Jewish Learning.

This program has been made possible thanks to the generosity of the Jewish Federation of Omaha, the Ann Goldstein Education Endowment Fund, the Herbert Goldsten Trust and the Klutznick Fund, all three at The JFO Foundation, with accommodations for Rabbi Telushkin provided by Chabad of Nebraska.

Yachad Nenatzeach:

Together we will win, part 2

NANCY SCHLESSINGER

JFO President

Ed. note: Part one of this story was published in the April 26 edition of the Jewish Press.

We also visited a large school in Regba of about 600 young students. One class of 11-year-olds played music for us on their recorders. While we made art projects together, they also showed us some of their art they had made, which seemed to focus on the war. They took us outside to proudly show us their large and quite impressive vegetable garden. The smiles and happy expressions on these kids’ faces were infectious, as many also told us they have family members currently in the IDF. One boy pointed out the safe shelter, which looked small and could only hold about 50 kids. They were having a good time and playing sports as we listened to other speakers, reminding us that in the Northern region where we were visiting, it is not a matter of ‘if’, but ‘when’ they will be at war with Hezbollah. The Northern region is only about six miles from the Lebanon border, something I easily saw from my hotel’s rooftop.

One evening our P2G group was divided up and were invited to different Is-

raeli host families for dinner. Bob, Kim and I were invited to our friend Aya’s home. Aya Kagade is the Director of International Affairs Department at the Galilee Medical Center. I met Aya last summer when she was in Omaha for the Partnership, and we hosted her in our home for several days along with one of the doctors from the Galilee Medical Center. Not only is Aya in a Director position at the Medical Center, but she has also been involved with our Jewish Agency’s Partnership2Gether (P2G) program since 2008.

Aya, along with four of her five adult children made us a beautiful and memorable dinner, which included several different delicious Israeli salads, along with many other traditional and nontraditional Israeli main courses. The food was all homemade, and the company was extraordinary as we learned about the lives of her grown children, now involved in serving in the IDF. We enjoyed talking and even singing after dinner. At one point, one of her kids said: “Did you hear that”? See Together we will win page 4

Together we will win

Continued from page 3

The room shook a bit as well. Rockets were incoming from the nearby Lebanon border and targeted at Kibbutz Matzuva – only a ten-minute drive and a place we had visited earlier in the day. I will admit, I was worried at that point, and wondered if we would need to go into the neighborhood bomb shelter that Aya had shown us earlier in the evening. It turned out that we waited it out in her home, until it was time for Aya to drive us back to our nearby hotel, only a few minutes away by car. That night, the sirens went off and in the middle of the night, some of us went into the shelters in our hotel.

This was our day and our night – and only one time did we have this scary experience. What could not leave my mind is the thought that this is what our Israeli friends live with, day in, day out. This is their ‘normal’. Probably the sweetest memory I have is the one of The Equalizer (Shaar Shvyon). The program, which the Jewish Federation of Omaha helps support in this partnership consortium, works to reduce gaps in Israeli society by using sports as a tool for education and social change. Their goal is to give Jewish and Arab children and teenagers a significant framework for personal development while assimilating values such

as tolerance, mutual respect, preventing violence and eradicating racism. We did some activities with the boys as well as some soccer drills. Our team’s members ended up playing soccer with the kids. It was quite special, especially since we were told they had been waiting days for our arrival.

One of our dinners was with community members that have been evacuated from their homes. While we sat and ate together, they shared different stories of how they have dealt with being refugees in their own homeland. Some have moved into hotels, and since that is not an ideal situation for families, others have found apartments to rent until they are able to return to their homes.

Although our American group wondered how we could do more, the Israeli groups always thanked us for coming in solidarity during such difficult times and helping to support the economy, which has been hard hit by this war. This was a constant theme throughout the lectures, visits, and activities we attended.

I want to thank our Omaha Jewish Federation and JAFI for the incredible opportunity to go on this mission, and hope that others of our community can experience and visit Israel soon. That way we can put the ‘together’ into ‘together we will win.’

Holocaust remembrance and national reckonings

Teen Leadership Awards

Continued from page 2

“This was the first time in many years that we have held a BBYO program in Lincoln and it was all led by Eva’s determination to spread her passion for BBYO to her local community. She has also steered and coordinated multiple regional conventions to help plan fun and meaningful programming and Jewish moments; she has done everything from promoting events to helping with registrations.”

In 2021, Eva was aptly named as the Leon Fellman Emerging Leader Award Recipient. Since then she has held many BBYO leadership roles including Fall Regional Convention Steering member (2021); MZ Yoshanah BBG Sh’licha (VP of Jewish Heritage, Community Service, and Social Action) and Omaha Council Sh’licha (VP of Jewish Heritage, Community Service, and Social Action 2021-2022); Spring Regional Convention Steering Member and Fall Regional Convention Coordinator (2022); MZ Yoshanah BBG Mazkirah/Gizborit (VP of Communication and Treasurer) and Omaha Council Mazkirah/Gizborit (VP of Communication and Treasurer 2022-2023).

Eva was most recently a member of the 2023 International Convention Steering Committee and the 2023 Fall Regional Convention. She is currently serving as MZ Yoshanah BBG S’ganit (VP of Programming 2023-2024).

In 2022, Eva participated in the BBYO Passport to Israel program which allowed her to spend two weeks in Italy, followed by three weeks in Israel. “It was an amazing and fun trip, unlike anything else I have experienced,” she said. “I am so happy to have had the opportunity to visit Israel.”

“Something that Eva did last year, that no teen from our council has done in many years, was declare her candidacy to run for BBYO’s International Board for the position of International Sh’licha,” Geltzer said.

At the beginning of the section containing the graves of my parents, my paternal grandparents, and many other of my paternal relatives at the Beth David Cemetery in Elmont, NY, there is a tall obelisk engraved with the words: “This monument is in memory of the terrible destruction which was wrought by the German and Ukraine mass-murderers, in our town of Zbaraz. Our brothers and sisters fell in the thousands— killed, cremated, and asphyxiated, in the gas and torture chambers of Belzec, Treblinka, Auschwitz, etc. Our synagogues and holy places were wrecked, and even

the Jewish cemeteries were profaned by their using the memorial stones for street pavements.” On the lower portion of the obelisk is a list of a series of pogroms and the number of Jews killed, covering various dates between 1941-1943. As far as this monument is concerned, Ukrainians were as complicit in mass murder as Germans. I have had many occasions to think of this monument since the start of Russia’s war with Ukraine, when Israel has been occasionally charged with not sufficiently helping Ukrainians. It is fair and just to say that a person’s descendants ought not be blamed for that person’s sins. On the other hand, I do believe that when a large number of people in a given society commit evil, it is fair to talk not just in terms of individuals committing evil but of a people (or See Holocaust Remembrance page 5

PARENTS & SENIORS

We will be publishing our annual High School Graduation Class pages on May 24, 2024. To be included, fill out the form below with a photo and send it to us or you can email the information and photo to: jpress@jewishomaha.org by May 10, 2024.

“Being a BBYO International Board member is no easy level of leadership and takes someone with courage, passion, and determination to take the steps to run for this type of position. As part of her candidacy process, Eva and I had a one-on-one meeting to discuss her declaration. When asked why she wanted to take on this process, she said that she wanted to take her Jewish passion that she learned to develop within her time in BBYO locally and regionally and bring it to the international stage. She also wanted to be an example of how even if you come from a small Jewish community, you can still make an impact and provide ideas of how teen leaders from all over the world can incorporate their Jewish faith into this global movement. Although Eva was not elected to this position, she was willing to accept the huge responsibility that would have come with this role and gave inspiration to her friends that they too could lead in big ways if they want to.”

Medical interventions (!) in our travels

FRAN AND RICH JURO

HONG KONG – 1976

Almost 50 years ago, we were on a tour of the Orient and Fran struggled with a lack of potassium and other medical problems. So we went to a British doctor who was treating Westerners. The doctor examined her thoroughly, made some tests, and said to Fran:

“Push On! Push On!”

So that’s what Fran did and ever since that’s been our motto (except for Guatemala).

GUATEMALA – 1978

On a land tour of Guatemala, we toured the capital, Guatemala City, then went to the rest of the country. We met Fran’s cousin Judy Cohen (from Omaha) coincidentally in Chichicastenango at a market. After the unplanned reunion, we flew in a small plane to the northern Guatemalan jungle. The next day, we climbed the 150 foot high, thousand year old, Mayan pyramid at Tikal. It’s also called the Temple of the Jaguar and you could ascend it then. We planned to spend the next day at a nearby Mayan site.

We were staying at a hotel called the Maya International. Wrong name! It consisted of some green space with a small office and six wooden bungalows. There were monkeys around but they didn’t bother you unless you were eating. The electricity went off at 9 p.m. Around 11 p.m. Fran had a urinary tract problem that needed treatment immediately. I went outside and shouted, “Ayuda! Ayuda!! (“Help! Help!”). Two tobacco salesmen took me to the office. We woke the clerk, and she went to our cabin.

The female clerk had a car, so we drove Fran to the town and woke up the doctor. He suggested flying the next day to the capital, Guatemala City, so that’s what we did. The hospital in Guatemala City treated her and cured her in two days. Our trip was about over so we flew back to Omaha.

Successful, but Fran developed a case of strep that she got in the hospital.

Holocaust remembrance

Continued from page 4

nation) committing evil. And it then becomes incumbent upon that society to consider what elements of their culture may have led to such evil-doing. Thus, in the same way that the Jewish people owe a debt to the Danish people because of their courageous actions during World War II, the Jewish people have a right to expect some serious accounting from the Ukrainian people, and such soul-searching has not happened. All this has not stopped Israel from accepting tens of thousands of Ukrainian immigrants over the years, including (and this has to be the case because the numbers are too large) children and grandchildren of Ukrainian mass-murderers (under Israel’s Law of Return, you may immigrate even if just one of your grandparents is Jewish or if you are the non-Jewish spouse of such a person). To dare criticize Israel for not doing more? If your people commit mass murder against our people, the slate will automatically be wiped clean 80 years later? That would be like saying that while all nations have the right and duty to self-respect, the Jewish people do not. So while Israel has been incredibly welcoming of thousands of non-Jewish Ukrainian war refugees, I hope to God that we could even have done more. We cannot respect who we are if we treat the Ukrainian people the way we would if the Danish people were to come under attack.

Endnote 1: In the past, I have written about how the time of Israelis shunning German-made goods is a thing of the past. Still, I was shocked by the AEG company’s huge billboard that could be seen recently at the entrance to Herzliya. Under the English phrase “Made in Germany” is the tri-colored German flag, and at the bottom of the billboard is the phrase (in Hebrew) “German Innovation.” The product depicted on the billboard? An oven. Endnote 2: For most of Israel’s history, there were hardly any “survivors” here. Those who lived through the Holocaust years were known as “nitsolim,” which literally translates as “those who were saved.” In recent years there has been pushback against “nitsolim,” with many Holocaust survivors (and their families) objecting to the term; they say that no one “saved” them, and that therefore “sordim” (“survivors”) is more appropriate.

Teddy Weinberger, Ph.D., made aliyah with his wife, former Omahan Sarah Jane Ross, and their five children, Nathan, Rebecca, Ruthie, Ezra, and Elie, all of whom are veterans of the Israeli Defense Forces; Weinberger can be reached at weinross@gmail.com

UZBEKISTAN – 1980

We made a tour of USSR, including Uzbekistan, and Mongolia. Fran and I had been to Moscow, Leningrad, Kiev, and Yalta, in 1966, so we were looking forward to the Asian part of the USSR. After touring Moscow, we flew to Tashkent, the capital of Uzbekistan Soviet Socialist Republic (that was before it became an independent country in 1991). Tashkent even then was a city of two million. It had partly recovered from a disastrous earthquake in 1966. Our hotel rooms even had showers so we shared them with European students that were backpacking.

We toured Samarkand and Bukhara in Uzbekistan, and its famous ancient Islam architecture and mosques. They were great trading places on the Great Silk Road. Did you know there were thousands of Jews in Central

Asia before they moved to Israel, Russia, and the USA? They even had their own traditions.

When we returned to Tashkent, Fran had another urinary tract infection. She went to the hospital with our guide, Adriana, a New York City young woman who spoke fluent Russian. The doctor was tall, 6’5”, and dressed in pink and green scrubs. He was very concerned, but he stroked Fran’s breast as he examined her. The good news is that he gave her some German pharmaceutical pills that had not (and still hasn’t) been approved by the FDA. They cured her. The bad news is, he forever is known as “The Stroker.”

We “pushed on”to Ulan Bator, the capital of Mongolia, and stayed in yurts (semi-permanent tents). But that’s another story...

For more stories, visit FranAndRichsTravels.com.

“Omaha may be the home of the

and the best zoo in America,” JCC Exec. Director Mark Martin said. “However, our very own ELC is so healthy, we have goslings enjoying a nutritious meal in the front

They will also be the first set of quintuplets for fall enrollment.”

SP O TLIGHT

PHOTOS FROM RECENT JEWISH COMMUNITY EVENTS

SUBMIT A PHOTO: Have a photo of a recent Jewish Community event you would like to submit? Email the image and a suggested caption to: avandekamp@jewishomaha.org

Above: We’re so proud of the Friedel students who participated in the State Speech Contest at the Majestic Theater in Hebron, Nebraska. Congratulations to Jerome on placing third!

Above: RBJH Staff danced while Residents of RBJH enjoyed an evening performance by the Prairie Rose Ensemble.

Above: Roar! First and second graders checked out the LEGO dinosaurs at Lauritzen Gardens.

Below: Our Shlicha Mika enjoyed a visit from her parents.

Above:

Runza,

yard.

Above: Our ELC students have decided it’s almost summer, and that means plenty of time spent outdoors on our beautiful campus.

At B’nai Israel’s recent ADL Signature Synagogue event: left: Janie Kulakofsky, Alan Hogg, and Jessica Johnson; below left: Annabell Graetz and Linda Novak; and below right: Bob Wolfson (Speaker), Harmon Maples (ADL), and Mary-Beth Muskin (Speaker).

Above, below and bottom: Wild encounters at Temple Israel’s Tot Shabbat!

Left and below: Friedel students and RBJH Residents watched the eclipse.

Summit on antisemitism

SHARON BRODKEY

Executive Director, JCRC

The recently published report, State of Antisemitism in America, by The American Jewish Committee (AJC) and ADL’s annual Audit of Antisemitic Incidents released last week both found that antisemitism has increased 400% since the Oct. 7, 2023 HAMAS attack on Israel. AJC also found that 63% of Jews in the United States feel less secure than a year ago and 78% of Jewish Americans feel less safe after 10/7, the deadliest day for Jews since the Holocaust.

Coincidentally, as these studies and new data were dropping last week, Kansas City’s Jewish Community Relations Bureau-American Jewish Committee (JCRB-AJC) convened a first-of-its-kind regional summit on antisemitism to help teach and collaborate with non-Jewish Kansas Citians on how to be better allies.

JCRB-AJC Executive Director Gavriella Geller told the diverse crowd of 400 attendees: “The questions I’ve heard people ask in the past six months: When will we know when it’s time to leave? Should we have a bag packed? Should we buy property abroad?”

It is surreal that American Jews are even considering these options in 2024.

AJC data show that the American Jewish community hasn’t been this afraid to publicly identify as Jewish in decades. What really jumped out was that 46% of American Jews reported changing their behavior in at least one of three ways out of fear of antisemitism. That could mean hiding jewelry or apparel that identifies them as Jewish, See Summit on antisemitism page 12

The birds and the bees... and the fleas.

“Like the Birds and the Bees... and the Fleas.”

Maybe it’s the warm weather, but a few words kept popping into my head recently: “birds do it, bees do it.”

Then a few more: “even educated fleas do it.”

Just one more line— ”Let’s do it, let’s fall in love”—and I was in the midst of a characteristically clever Cole Porter song. From there it was but a hop, a skip, and a jump to an expression from the Book of Genesis, “Be fruitful and multiply” (Genesis 1:28). Then I decided to see how popular writers have made use of these Biblical words in their accounts of everything from clementines to investments.

Florida’s St. Petersburg Times offers this extended recipe, especially relevant for its setting in a garden (although, I hasten to add, not the Garden of Eden): “Grow mint, lemon balm, and chamomile, then brew your own tea and enjoy a party in the garden. Use grafting to be fruitful and multiply. Clementines— seedless tangerines—are everywhere.”

From an entirely different perspective comes this financial advice (found in The Christian Science Monitor): “The truly wise and insightful among us know how to send their money out into the world so it might be fruitful and multiply via mutual funds and

pension accounts and property deals.”

And then “the money will return home safely before being sent out again on some other lucrative mission.” Or more simply, in the words of Ecclesiastes 11:1: “Cast your bread upon the waters.”

Those of us who live in Omaha have many opportunities to visit one of the world’s preeminent zoos. But elsewhere there are similar adventures, such as this first-person narrative featuring the National Aquarium: “While on the tour, a sign caught our eye: ‘An Aquatic Treasure: Through the National Aquarium’s Sexual Coral Reproduction Project, we are raising more than 400 live coral species.’” As it happens, “in addition to the snakes, tropical fish and alligators cohabitating at the aquarium, the coral likes to be more fruitful and multiply. So go have at it guys!” Well, that’s not advice we often see.

For our last examples we turn to the realm of humans. Several stories featured A. J. Jacobs, the quirky author of The Year of Living Biblically. One of them, from The Toronto Star, portrays a few of Jacobs’ efforts to “live biblically”: “Some Biblical mandates Jacobs pulled off spectacularly well. Others not so. He failed

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to break a cow’s neck at the site of an unsolved murder (Deuteronomy 21:4). But following God’s injunction to Adam to ‘be fruitful and multiply,’ he became the father of twin boys before the year was out.” Now that doesn’t seem so quirky after all.

Jacobs would seem to have nothing on Solomon Burke, who was described in his obituary as an “influential soul singer” and a Grammy-winning R&B singer.” The sire of 21 children, 90 grandchildren (so says The New York Times; a mere 89, according to The Washington Post), and 19 great-grandchildren.

“I got lost on one of the Bible verses that said, ‘Be fruitful and multiply.’ “ Burke reportedly declared. “I didn’t read any further.”

If higher birth rates are your thing, we should take a look at the weather, at least in Israel (as reported in The Jerusalem Press):

“Very cold weather in the Rehovot area was the explanation given by the city’s Kaplan Medical Center for its highest ever number of births in the fall... The previous January was among the coldest months on record. This caused couples to stay at home and observe the command, ‘Be fruitful and multiply.’”

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Power trip

ANNETTE VAN DE

KAMP-WRIGHT

Jewish Press Editor

“A pro-Palestinian protest at Yale University allegedly turned violent with dozens of arrests,” Andrew Lapin recently wrote for the JTA. “The University of Southern California canceled all its planned commencement speakers. Encampments have sprung up at campuses from Boston to Ann Arbor and Chapel Hill. It’s not just Columbia: The unrest that has overtaken the Ivy League university in New York City, and upended life for Jewish students and everyone else, is spilling over into the rest of the country.”

A banner at the University of Michigan read: ‘Long Live the Intifada.’ The responsible student activist coalition added: “Power to our freedom fighters, glory to our martyrs.”

I feel the need to remind myself, as I read about the student protests, this is really happening. We’re not making this up.

These protesters, be they actual students or others who travel onto campuses where they don’t belong, are on a power trip. They think they have the moral high ground and they are drunk on their own delusions. So much so, that it becomes acceptable to use words like ‘Intifada’ and ‘martyrs.’ This has gone way beyond the river and the sea.

So here we are, freshly done with our matza, wondering what’s next. I’m hearing stories about classes going remote, commencement ceremonies canceling their speakers. Campuses closing down, “for the time being.”

And it seems we are still operating from the as-

Editorials express the view of the writer and are not necessarily representative of the views of the Jewish Press Board of Directors, the Jewish Federation of Omaha Board of Directors, or the Omaha Jewish community as a whole.

sumption that all this noise is temporary. But what if it isn’t? The very thought makes my blood run cold, and there’s still that voice in the background that tells me to not be so dramatic. You know that voice; you hear it too.

Do we need another march on the Washington Mall? Our own counter-power-trip? More blue pins, ribbons, posters in our windows?

On social media, we fight back through endless memes, reminding each other we are strong. Tiny sparks of wisdom and hope in a very dark world. We’re mostly talking to each other; we’re not convincing anybody else.

hate, we can be like Abraham and take pride in being different. Although I agree with his conclusion in theory, it can be a little hard to live by these days.

“Tough times don’t last,” one says. “Tough people do.”

I click ‘like’ and move on.

“Yes, sometimes it can be hard to be a Jew,” Jonathan Lieberman wrote for the Jerusalem Post last November, “but always it is a privilege. We must never lose sight of that, because if we do, the world will remind us pretty quickly.”

Lieberman reminds us of Abraham, the first to stand apart from the other nations; like him, we are different, unique, and while our otherness inspires

And yet.

That power trip those protesters are on? It cannot last. Sure, it’s lasted longer than we anticipated, and in fact seems to be getting worse by the day, but ultimately it WILL fade. We have to believe that. But us? We’ve lasted thousands of years. I’m not advocating for standing back, doing nothing and simply waiting this out. But I do hope we all remember that we have been here since we stood together at Sinai. How’s that for power?

The death of Brooklyn Dodger great Carl Erskine closes a chapter in Jewish history

ANDREW SILOW-CARROLL

New York Jewish Week via JTA

My son was in town from California for Passover, and treated the rest of the family to a Mets game.

Before the first pitch, the Mets had a moment of silence for pitcher Carl Erskine, who died that day at age 97. Erskine was a star of the storied Brooklyn Dodgers teams of the late 1940s and ’50s, when they won the National League pennant five times and the 1955 World Series.

Erskine was also the last surviving Dodger to have been profiled in Roger Kahn’s classic 1972 book The Boys of Summer, a celebration of a team that included Jackie Robinson — the first player to break the major leagues’ shameful color line — and future Hall of Famers Roy Campanella, Duke Snider and Pee Wee Reese. (Sandy Koufax was a rookie on the 1955 team, but only came into his own after the team moved to Los Angeles in 1957.)

Erskine’s death seemed to close a storied chapter in New York and Jewish history. The Dodgers ruled the National League when the Jews ruled — or at least left an indelible cultural stamp on — Brooklyn. In 1950, one out of four Brooklynites — 561,000 — was Jewish. And often the fate of the team — scrappy strivers who rose from adversity — seemed to mirror the fate of the Jews themselves.

“Arguably, no baseball team ever forged a closer relationship with Jewish fans than did the Dodgers during their Brooklyn years,” Bill Simon, co-editor of The Cooperstown Symposium on Baseball and American Culture, wrote in 2022. “In other New York City boroughs, the Yankees and Giants had their Jewish adherents, as did Major League Baseball teams in other cities, but in Brooklyn the Dodgers drilled deep into the social fabric.”

Kahn captures that connection in his book, which includes his own memories of growing up Jewish in Brooklyn’s Grand Army Plaza section, the son of two teachers. Even mediocre Dodgers teams provided a distraction from conversations about “the Nazi-Soviet treaty, nervousness about the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere and horror at Hitler’s pogroms.”

Kahn describes an era in Brooklyn that began after World War II, when what had been a “heterogenous, dominantly middle-class community, with remarkable schools, good libraries and... major league baseball” was about to be riven by racial tension in the streets and white flight to the suburbs.

But with Robinson, Jews saw an avatar for their own acceptance in white society.

“It really delighted people, particularly Jewish Americans, that Jackie Robinson was on this team,” the novelist and historian Kevin Baker, author of the new book The New York Game: Baseball and the Rise of a New City, told me recently. “It seemed like another affirmation that this was going to be a fairer country, a country where they could get a fair shake.”

own souls, inside the depths that made them human, and see the light,” he wrote. Erskine, whose youngest son was born with Down syndrome, also credited Robinson with helping change perceptions about people with disabilities.

I reached Baker at Citi Field, the Mets’ home in Queens, shortly before an afternoon game against the Pittsburgh Pirates. In his book, the first of a projected two volumes, he punctures the myth that baseball is a “pastoral” game born in rural America, and writes that its real roots are in the streets of New York.

And as a city game, baseball reflected the ethnic diversity of those streets. “Starting in the 1930s, ethnic America, and particularly Jewish and Catholic America, were recognized as full Americans in politics, in the movies, in sports,” said Baker. “And Brooklyn was always kind of a cliche of that.”

That recognition didn’t extend to African Americans, but in the pre-Civil Rights era, Brooklynites could nonetheless imagine, thanks to Robinson, a more tolerant future. While players, umpires and journalists elsewhere were still viciously racist, Kahn writes, the Dodgers “stood together in purpose and for the most part in camaraderie… That spirit leaped from the field into the surrounding two-tiered grandstand. A man felt it; it became part of him, quite painlessly.”

One of those men was Erskine, a devout Christian from Indiana, who years after he retired wrote a book, What I Learned From Jackie Robinson “Jackie made people look beyond race, inside their

I was shocked to realize that Kahn, who was 92 when he died in 2020, interviewed the Dodger greats less than 20 years after they retired, when they were only in their late 40s and early 50s. The book looks back on their era as if from a different century, not just two decades. But so much had changed that it might as well have been another century: Martin Luther King was dead. The Vietnam War was raging. Brooklyn’s “Jewish” neighborhoods were less so (this was years before gentrification, the mass immigration of Soviet Jews and the explosive growth of the haredi Orthodox community).

In writing about an aging baseball player, Kahn might as well have been writing about a way of life: “As his major league career is ending, all things will end. However high he sprang, he was always earthbound. Mortality embraces him. The golden age has passed as in a moment. So will all things. So will all moments. Memento Mori.”

The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of NYJW or its parent company, 70 Faces Media.

New York University students set up a Liberated Zone tent encampment in Gould Plaza at NYU Stern School of Business on April 22, 2024 in New York City. NYU students joined the growing number of students in colleges throughout the country to set up tent encampments on school grounds calling on their schools to divest from Israel and a ceasefire in Gaza. Credit: Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images

Members of the Brooklyn Dodgers celebrate after a 9-8 victory over the Philadelphia Phillies, tying the New York Giants for first place in the National League and forcing a playoff, Sept. 30, 1951. Jackie Robinson is second from left; Carl Erskine is at lower right. Credit: Bettmann/Getty Images

How a 100-year-old law changed American immigration policy

ANDREW SILOW-CARROLL

JTA

In May 1924, President Calvin Coolidge signed legislation, known as the Johnson-Reed Act, that severely restricted the number of immigrants by putting quotas on their country of origin, and completely excluded immigrants from Asia.

Among other things, the act brought to an end a historic migration of Jews to the United States, and set in place restrictions that would keep Jewish refugees out when the Nazis rose to power a decade later.

Jews weren’t the only targets of nativists who pressed for immigration quotas — the law drastically cut the number of Italians, Greeks and Eastern Europeans who could enter the country. Nor was the act unprecedented — in 1882, Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act banning Chinese laborers, and in 1921 imposed an Emergency Quota Act putting a cap on European immigration.

But Johnson-Reed cemented a change in how America viewed immigration, from a policy of largely open borders to a new emphasis on “desirables” and “undesirables.” Its Senate sponsor, David Reed of Pennsylvania, wrote in the New York Times that the law’s goal was to make the United States a more “homogenous” country.

It set the terms for a debate that if anything has become more intense exactly 100 years later.

Daniel Okrent, author of the 2020 book The Guarded Gate, a history of the Johnson-Reed era, has characterized anti-immigrant sentiments of the last century that sound familiar today. “‘We can’t let this happen to us. We can’t let this happen to our cities. We can’t let this happen to our school systems,’” is how he described them to an interviewer. “There was an openly prejudicial view that they wanted to save themselves by keeping out ‘the other.’”

The anniversary of Johnson-Reed is an occasion to remember America’s fraught relationship with immigration, and how Jewish history was shaped by migration and restrictions. On April 7, the Center of Jewish History in Manhattan hosted a symposium, Reconsidering Jewish Migration to the United States: A Century of Controversy

I spoke to a few of the scholars and activists who will be speaking at the symposium, asking about the historical context of Johnson-Reed and its legacy.

The participants:

Hasia Diner, professor emerita at New York University and co-editor of Immigration: An American History

Mark Hetfield, president and CEO of HIAS, the Jewish community’s international refugee agency.

Deborah Dash Moore, Frederick G. L. Huetwell Professor of History and Professor of Judaic Studies at the University of Michigan.

Beth S. Wenger, the Moritz and Josephine Berg Professor of History and Associate Dean for Graduate Studies in the School of Arts & Sciences at the University of Pennsylvania.

Our conversations were edited for length and clarity.

The anti-immigrant fervor after World War I climaxes with the passage of the Immigration Act of 1924. What were the factors that brought it about?

Deborah Dash Moore: Johnson-Reed happens at the time of the rise of the Ku Klux Klan and notions of white supremacy, and the new Klan is anti-Catholic as well as antiJewish. Many of the tensions in our society, especially notions of white supremacy and Christian nationalism, find their roots and support in this era of restrictive immigration.

In Europe, people used to not just come, they also used to go back; there was movement back and forth. That’s why we talk about transnational identities, and they could have multiple allegiances as a result — which led many to vilify immigrants, which I think was part of what produced Johnson-Reed.

Hasia Diner: There are multiple forces at work. First, I think “Americans” — the white, Protestant, Anglo-Saxon — were really disturbed by World War I. Ethnic groups were lining up with their home countries, so everybody wants their voice to be heard, based on what they thought was good for their ancestral home. And just as the Austro-Hungarian empire was breaking up, many “Americans” really feared that the United States was becoming balkanized in the same way. I think of the 1924 act as an effort to end that process of balkanization. In terms of the economy, right after World War I, there was brief panic, and a lot of labor agitation. Unions were seen in the white imagination as wrong, violent and illegal. This upsurge in union activity in the aftermath of the war was maybe icing on the cake. But in the lead up to restriction, it was way less significant than racism, international politics and a kind of understanding which grows out of both of them that there is such a thing as too much diversity. Theodore Roosevelt ran around in the early 20th century, telling white American women that it was their job to have more babies to offset the immigrants. He in fact called it “race suicide.”

Journalist Daniel Okrent has written about how elites would bring eugenics — the idea of genetically superior and inferior races — “into wide public consciousness, introduce

it into the nation’s political debate, and elevate it into the realm of scientific respectability.”

HD: The year 1894 is for immigration historians almost as important as 1924. That’s when the Immigration Restriction League was founded by three Harvard University alumni pressing for the exclusion of the lesser races. The rise of “scientific racism” really came to dominate intellectual and political discourse. It said that peoples of the world can be arrayed along a spectrum from civilization, with white Europeans at the top, and, at the bottom, Asians and Blacks. There are books and dictionaries and learned articles saying, “Well, should the Italians be ranked higher or lower than the Greeks? Where do the Jews fit in this?”

Where do the Jews fit in this?

Beth Wenger: There was such massive Jewish immigration in this period and Jews were one of the key groups who were

Immigrants awaiting approval of their entry into the U. S. crowd the lunchroom for their noonday meal at Ellis Island, 1923. The next year the U.S. would adopt legislation severely restricting immigration. Credit: Bettmann/Getty Images

among the “undesirables.” In the United States there’s a vacillation in some Jewish organizations between wanting to defend open immigration against quotas, and also a fear of being associated with the “undesirable.”

HD: It was 1922 when Harvard instituted its quota on Jews, and there was talk about Jews as revolutionaries, but also as unscrupulous businessmen. There was some talk about them being dirty and tubercular and loud, noisy, always talking with their hands.

But I’m going to say something that probably many of my fellow American Jewish historians would not agree with, that it wasn’t the Jews but the Italians who were the real focus of xenophobic hysteria. And earlier it was the Irish. It’s a really interesting comparison between the United States and Great Britain, where the discussion around the 1905 Aliens Act denying entry to “undesirable immigrants” was all about Jews.

Between 1880 and 1920, more than 20 million immigrants arrive, including 3 million Jews. What does JohnsonReed change, beside turning off the spigot of immigration?

DDM: It changes how the United States understands immigration. Prior to Johnson-Reed, although you had the Chinese Exclusion Act, and you had various tests for whether somebody is mentally ill or physically sick, or impoverished, you always had the assumption that immigration was open. And now the assumption is the reverse, that immigration is something to be controlled, something to be restricted. And that’s a real fundamental switch in thinking about the United States. And, of course, immigration drops by 80%, which has a really big impact on immigrant groups in the U.S., because suddenly, there are no newcomers, or hardly any newcomers. And that means that these immigrant groups are going to be made up of the second generation and then third generation.

Mark Hetfield: In the 1920s, ’30s and, ’40s, as a result of the Johnson-Reed Act, HIAS became an international agency. Prior to 1921, we could stay on Ellis Island and make sure they got into the system. That was our job. Immigrants had to prove that they wouldn’t be a public charge, that they weren’t radical, but they didn’t have to do any advance work. It was all done at Ellis. And then we made sure they got kosher food on Ellis Island while they were waiting and got the legal help that they needed. And then once they got off, we either gave them shelter, mostly in what is now the Public Theater on Lafayette Street or we would get them train tickets to some other places in the United States where they would sometimes join relatives. That was the way we functioned for our first 20 years. When Congress slammed the door shut in 1921 and 1924, we had to become an international organization because Jews couldn’t come here anymore for the most part. So we had to find other places for them to go. We had to operate in Europe and Asia and South America, to try to find some places that would accept them.

BW: Let me give you another specific example: It creates the Border Patrol, and the whole idea that the U.S. as a nation gate-keeps who comes in. This legislation firmly implanted that notion and changed some sweeping ideas about national identity about citizenship, who’s a good American. The rhetoric you see around immigration today, while obviously influenced by contemporary political and other developments, is very much a consequence of the long history of the way the

U.S. came to think about immigration in the 20th century. As the Nazis came to power in the ’30s, most Jews in Europe had a very slim chance of being able to immigrate to the United States. And we know the tragic consequences

MH: HIAS had to operate in places like Shanghai, Tokyo, South America. We couldn’t get them here. We couldn’t get them to Canada. We couldn’t get them to South Africa. We couldn’t get into Australia anymore.

HD: Antisemitism certainly ratchets up in the 1920s and the 1930s, when you have Henry Ford and America First. But again, every opinion poll done after 1935 shows that the American public does not want immigration, period. What changes brought about by Johnson-Reed are still with us, or can we perhaps say that so many things have changed that the periods surrounding 1924 and 2024 can’t be compared?

BW: An issue that’s really so painfully with us as a nation is this idea of who is a deserving and worthy American and the things that determine that. Anti-immigrant proponents used pseudoscience to determine who is unassimilable not only culturally but supposedly scientifically, and that immigrants would corrupt the pure western heritage of America. That notion has been, unfortunately, quite durable.

Politicians and individuals will say, “We’re a country of immigrants” and someone else will say, “No, it was different then. All those people really wanted to adapt and change and now they don’t.” It’s another version of who belongs here, and who doesn’t. It’s also a false notion that there was a simpler America, and it mostly began before the 1880s. It was not true then and it is not true now.

DDM: The Hart-Celler Act [the 1965 legislation that abolished the quota system] doesn’t change the assumption that the United States is going to control who enters and is not going to. But it does allow for family reunification. It opens up opportunities for people in eastern and southern Europe who had been left out. It gets rid of the Asian exclusion.

But the fundamental thinking isn’t changed. The law creates different kinds of classification schemes to distinguish between desirable and undesirable immigrants. We’re in the midst of a lousy immigration policy.

MH: Maybe 10 years ago I would say we were in a totally different era. And now I would have to say that if history doesn’t repeat itself, it certainly rhymes. I might have said that under President Obama we finally had different attitudes towards race and the other in this country, but now we’re clearly pretty much back to where we were in the 1920s, unfortunately. How do you characterize those attitudes?

MH: Well, xenophobic. “America First” was a slogan in 1920 in the days leading up to the Emergency Quota Act of 1921 [which limited immigration “scientifically” by imposing quotas based on immigrants’ country of birth]. The otherization of people. None of this is new to America. In November 2015, after the terrorist attacks in Paris, the response in this country was to call for a total shutdown of letting Syrian Muslim refugees into this country, notwithstanding that there were no Syrian Muslim refugees, or Syrian Muslims involved in that Paris attack. It was pure scapegoating. And that’s exactly the attitude that led to Johnson-Reed in 1924.

What would a better immigration approach look like?

DDM: One criticism of immigration in the United States is that most people who are trying to come are trying to come under the asylum category, which is not a standard immigration category intended to create pathways for a reliable workforce. Asylum has its own separate rules: You have to be fearful of what will happen to you if you go back to your home country, etc. And you have to prove that you need it. Are these really the kinds of ways in which we want to think about people moving from one place to another?

We all tell stories about Jewish immigrants who get off the boat and the next day, they take you to the garment shop, and sign you up for shifts. Now we have people who are seeking asylum in New York and other places, and they want to work, and they’re not allowed to work. What kind of a dopey system is that?

At the end of the day, why is history important to the immigration debate? What do we gain by looking at the past?

MH: We are living almost exactly what they were living in the 1920s when it comes to attitudes toward refugees, and immigrants, and the other, and it’s really dangerous and unsettling. And we saw what came after the 1920s in the rest of the world, with the rise in xenophobia, the rise of populism. All of these things that were happening in the 1920s are with us right now, all around us. And we saw where that took us in the ’30s and ’40s. Immigration is just one piece of that puzzle, but it’s a very telling one because the way that you treat refugees really is the canary in the coal mine. And that’s why we believe that the commandment to welcome the stranger is repeated 36 times in the Torah — because it’s so easily forgotten. Andrew Silow-Carroll is editor at large of the New York Jewish Week and managing editor for Ideas for the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.

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Monthly Speaker Series Service, Friday, May 10, 7:30 p.m. with our guest speaker. Our service leader is Larry Blass. Everyone is always welcome at B’nai Israel!

For information about our historic synagogue, please visit our website at www.cblhs.org or contact any of our other board members: Renee Corcoran, Scott Friedman, Rick Katelman, Janie Kulakofsky, Howard Kutler, Carole and Wayne Lainof, Ann Moshman, MaryBeth Muskin, Debbie Salomon and Sissy Silber. Handicap Accessible.

Services conducted by Rabbi Steven Abraham and Hazzan Michael Krausman.

IN-PERSON AND ZOOM MINYAN SCHEDULE:

Mornings on Sundays, 9:30 a.m.; Mondays and Thursdays, 7 a.m.; Evenings on Sunday-Thursday, 5:30 p.m.

FRIDAY: Kabbalat Shabbat 6 p.m.

SATURDAY: Shabbat Morning Service 10 a.m. with guest speaker Scott Littky at Beth El & Live Stream; May the Fourth Shabbat’s Cool (Grades K-7), 10 a.m.; Havdalah, 9:05 p.m. Zoom only.

SUNDAY: BESTT (Grades K-7), 9:30 a.m.; Third Grade Siddur Celebration, 11 a.m.

TUESDAY: Pirkei Avot, 10:30 a.m. with Rabbi Abraham.

WEDNESDAY: BESTT (Grades 3-7), 4:15 p.m.; Teen Yom HaShoah Dinner (Grades 7-12), 6 p.m. at Temple Israel; Yom HaShoah Community Commemoration, 7 p.m. at Temple Israel.

THURSDAY: PJP What Jews Think Series: Dr. Shira Billet, 7:30 p.m. via Zoom.

FRIDAY-May 10: Annual Meeting & Graduation Shabbat 5:30 p.m.

SATURDAY-May 11: Shabbat Morning Service 10 a.m. at Beth El & Live Stream; Adult B’nai Mitzvah; Jr. Congregation (Grades K-12) 10 a.m.; Havdalah 9:15 p.m. Zoom only.

Please visit bethel-omaha.org for additional information and service links.

FRIDAY: Nach Yomi, 6:45 a.m.; Shacharit, 7 a.m.; Mincha/ Kabbalat Shabbat, 7 p.m.; Candlelighting, 8:07 p.m.

SATURDAY: Shabbat Kollel, 8:30 a.m.; Shacharit, 9 a.m.; Tot Shabbat 10:30 a.m.; Youth Class 10:45

a.m.; Tehillim, 6:45 p.m. at the Uzi’s; Soulful Torah, 7:06 p.m. with Rabbi Geiger; Mincha 8 p.m.; Laws of Shabbos/Kids Activity 8:30 p.m.; Havdalah, 9:12 p.m.

SUNDAY: Shacharit, 9 a.m.; Duties of the Heart, 3 p.m. with Rabbi Geiger; Mincha/Ma’ariv 8:10 p.m.

MONDAY: Nach Yomi, 6:45 a.m.; Shacharit, 7 a.m.; Mincha/Ma’ariv, 8:10 p.m.

TUESDAY: Nach Yomi, 6:45 a.m.; Shacharit, 7 a.m.; Beth Israel Annual Meeting, 7 p.m.; Mincha/Ma’ariv, 8:10 p.m.

WEDNESDAY: Nach Yomi, 6:30 a.m.; Shacharit, 6:45 a.m.; Mincha/Ma’ariv, 8:10 p.m.

THURSDAY: Nach Yomi, 6:30 a.m.; Shacharit, 6:45 a.m.; Character Development Class, 9:30 a.m.; Mincha/Ma’ariv, 8:10 p.m.

Hersh Goldberg-Polin

JTA STAFF

JTA

Hamas has released a video showing one of the remaining American-Israelis that the terror group is holding hostage in Gaza, Hersh Goldberg-Polin, calling for the Israeli government to strike a deal to release the remaining hostages.

Goldberg-Polin, 23, was abducted Oct. 7 from the site of the Nova music festival after having his hand blown off by a Hamas grenade. His parents, Rachel Goldberg-Polin and Jon Polin, have become some of the most prominent advocates for the hostages; Rachel has met with Pope Francis, Zoomed with President Joe Biden and spoken at the United Nations. Last week, she was named to Time magazine’s list of 100 “most influential people” of 2024.

His parents posted an appeal just hours after the video was released.

“Seeing a video of Hersh today is overwhelming,” Jon Polin said, as he and Goldberg-Polin lean into the camera. “We are relieved to see him alive, but we are also concerned about his health and well-being

FRIDAY-May 10: Nach Yomi, 6:45 a.m.; Shacharit, 7 a.m.; Mincha/Kabbalat Shabbat, 7 p.m.; Candlelighting, 8:14 p.m.

SATURDAY-May 11: Shabbat Kollel, 8:30 a.m.; Shacharit, 9 a.m.; Tot Shabbat, 10:30 a.m.; Youth Class 10:45 a.m.; Tehillim, 6:45 p.m. at the Uzi’s; Soulful Torah, 7:13 p.m. with Rabbi Geiger; Mincha 8 p.m.; Laws of Shabbos/Kids Activity, 8:30 p.m.; Havdalah, 9:20 p.m.

Please visit orthodoxomaha.org for additional information and Zoom service links.

All services are in-person. All classes are being offered in-person and via Zoom (ochabad.com/academy). For more information or to request help, please visit www.ochabad.com or call the office at 402.330.1800.

FRIDAY: Shacharit 8 a.m.; Inspirational Lechayim, 5:45 p.m. with Rabbi and friends: Ochabad.com/ Lechayim; Candlelighting, 8:06 p.m.

SATURDAY: Shacharit 9:30 a.m. followed by Kiddush and Cholent; Inspirational Shabbat at Omaha, all day until 9 p.m. at Courtyard by Marriott. For more info at ochabad.com/BRK24; Shabbat Ends, 9:11 p.m.

SUNDAY: Sunday Morning Wraps: Shacharit, 99:30 a.m., Video Presentation, 9:30 a.m. and Breakfast, 9:45 a.m.; Torah and Tea, 10:30-11:15 a.m.; Advice for Life, noon-1 p.m. at Chabad. For more info at ochabad.com/AFL; Candlelighting, 8:01 p.m.

MONDAY: Shacharit 8 a.m.; Personal Parsha, 9:30 a.m.; Intermediate Biblical Hebrew Grammar, 10:30 a.m. with Prof. David Cohen; Advice for Life, noon-1 p.m. at JCC. For more info at ochabad.com/AFL;; Parsha Reading, 6 p.m. with Prof. David Cohen.

TUESDAY: Shacharit 8 a.m.; Intermediate Biblical Hebrew Grammar, 6 p.m. with Prof. David Cohen; Introductory Biblical Hebrew Grammar, 7 p.m. with Prof. David Cohen.

WEDNESDAY: Shacharit, 8 a.m.; Mystical Thinking (Tanya), 9:30 a.m.; Introductory Biblical Hebrew Grammar, 10:30 a.m. with Prof. David Cohen; Parsha Reading, 11:30 a.m. with Prof. David Cohen.

THURSDAY: Shacharit 8 a.m.; Introduction to Alphabet, Vowels & Reading Hebrew, 10 a.m. with Prof. David Cohen; Advanced Biblical Hebrew Grammar, 11 a.m. with Prof. David Cohen; Talmud Study (Sanhedrin 34), noon; Introduction to Alphabet, Vowels & Reading Hebrew, 6 p.m. with Prof. David Cohen; Kitzur Shulchan Aruch (Code of Jewish Law) Class, 7 p.m.

FRIDAY-May 10: Shacharit 8 a.m.; Inspirational Lechayim, 5:45 p.m. with Rabbi and friends: Ochaba d.com/Lechayim; Candlelighting, 8:13 p.m.

SATURDAY-May 11: Shacharit 9:30 a.m. followed by Kiddush and Cholent; Shabbat Ends, 9:19 p.m.

6:30 p.m. at SST; Shabbat Candlelighting, 8:33 p.m.

SATURDAY: Shabbat Morning Service, 9:30 a.m. at TI; Torah Study, noon on Parashat Acharei; Havdalah, 9:12 p.m.

SUNDAY: LJCS Classes, 9:30 a.m.; Men’s Bike/Coffee Group, 10:30 a.m. in the Conference Room at Rock 'n Joe (5025 Lindbergh St.). For more information or questions please email Al Weiss at albertw 801@gmail.com; Yom HaShoah — Community Holocaust Memorial, 10:30 a.m. at Wyuka Holocaust Memorial; LJCS to Wyuka, 10:30 a.m.; NE Holocaust Commemoration, 2 p.m. at the Capitol Rotunda; Pickleball, 3-5 p.m. Anyone interested in playing or learning how to play can text Miriam at 402.470.2393. If there are enough interested people; we will play in the Social Hall at TI; Candlelighting, 8:02 p.m.

WEDNESDAY: LJCS Hebrew School, 4:30-6 p.m. FRIDAY-May 10: Erev Shabbat Service with Rabbi Alex, 6:30 p.m. at SST; Shabbat Candlelighting, 8:15 p.m.

SATURDAY-May 11: Shabbat Morning Service, 9:30 a.m. at TI; Torah Study noon on Parashat Kedoshim; Havdalah, 9:20 p.m.

LINCOLN JEWISH COMMUNITY: B’NAI JESHURUN & TIFERETH ISRAEL OFFUTT AIR FORCE BASE

Services facilitated by Rabbi Alex Felch. All services offered in-person with live-stream or teleconferencing options.

FRIDAY: Erev Shabbat Service with Rabbi Alex,

FRIDAYS: Virtual Shabbat Service, 7:30 p.m. every first and third of the month at Capehart Chapel. Contact TSgt Jason Rife at OAFBJSLL@icloud.com for more information.

The Rose Blumkin Jewish Home’s service is currently closed to visitors.

In-person and virtual services conducted by Rabbi Benjamin Sharff, Rabbi Deana Sussman Berezin, and Cantor Joanna Alexander FRIDAY: Drop in Mah Jongg, 9-11 a.m. In-Person; Shabbat Service — Rabbi Sharff Installation, 6 p.m. In-Person & Zoom..

SATURDAY: Torah Study, 9:15 a.m. In-Person & Zoom; Shabbat Morning Service, 10:30 a.m. In-Person & Zoom; Family Installation Havdalah, 5 p.m. InPerson.

SUNDAY: Grades PreK-7, 9:30 a.m. In-Person; Temple Tots Sunday, 10 a.m. In-Person; Coffee and Conversation with Board Members, 10 a.m. In-Person; Book Club 10:30 a.m. In-Person & Zoom.

TUESDAY: Adult Prayer Hebrew: Level Aleph, 6 p.m. In-Person.

WEDNESDAY: Yarn It, 9-11 a.m. In-Person; Grades 3-6, 4:30 p.m. In-Person; Grades 7-12 Yom HaShoah Program and Dinner, 6 p.m.; Yom HaShoah Community Holocaust Commemoration, 7 p.m.

FRIDAY-May 10: Drop in Mah Jongg, 9-11 a.m. InPerson; Shabbat Service and Confirmation, 6 p.m. InPerson & Zoom.

SATURDAY-May 11: Torah Study 9:15 a.m. In-Person & Zoom; Shabbat Morning Service, 10:30 a.m. InPerson & Zoom.

Please visit templeisraelomaha.com for additional information and Zoom service links.

is seen alive in apparently

Credit: Jack Guez/AFP via Getty Images

as well as that of all of the other hostages and all of those suffering in this region. And we’re here today with a plea to all of the leaders of the parties who have been in negotiations to date. That includes Qatar, Egypt, the United States, Hamas, and Israel. Be brave, lean in, seize this moment and get a deal

recent video

done to reunite all of us [with] our loved ones and end the suffering in this region.”

Hersh was filmed climbing into a Hamas vehicle at the Nova festival, where his best friend was killed after saving others who sheltered with them.

But there had been no public signs of life since, including in reports from hostages who were released as part of a temporary ceasefire in November.

The exact date when the video was filmed is not clear, but several references suggest that it was made recently. In the video, Goldberg-Polin, the stump of his left arm visible below his elbow, says it has been almost 200 days — Wednesday is the 201st day since Oct. 7 — and references an upcoming holiday.

“It won’t be a happy holiday for me, but I wish one for you,” he says in Hebrew, with English and Arabic subtitles. Hostage videos are produced under obvious duress, and their release is widely considered a form of psychological warfare by Hamas. This article was edited for length-read more at www.omahajewishpress.com

B’NAI ISRAEL

BETH EL

BETH ISRAEL

CHABAD HOUSE

Rabbi Geiger’s Weekly Torah Expedition News

PARSHA KEDOSHIM

RABBI

MORDECHAI

GEIGER

Beth Israel

Rabbi Mordechai Gifter, dean of the Telz Yeshiva of Cleveland, was waiting at LaGuardia airport to board his flight back to Cleveland. While waiting, he noticed one of the yeshiva students was waiting on standby to board the plane. Finally, as the plane fills, the yeshiva boy is the last to board. Back then, they served kosher meals on these flights by request. The flight attendant brings the young man a kosher meal. He said thank you so much, but there’s no way this is mine. I was on standby and barely made it on the flight. The flight attendant said it was not yours, but the Rabbi said I should bring it to you. He felt very uncomfortable taking Rabbi Gifter’s meal, so he went to bring it back. The Rabbi said, “Young man, my wife and I are traveling home. We will certainly have dinner. But you are returning to the dormitory. You must eat this meal”. In this week’s parsha, G-d says, “You shall be holy!” (Leviticus 19:2). People might think this means to do weird things

like fasting or making vows of celibacy. However, the verse ends, “for I G-d am holy.” Let’s take a look at G-d’s holiness. His holiness can be seen in the beauty of a sunrise. In the kiss of a cool breeze on a summer day. And in his promise, stand guard over our homes. G-d’s Holiness does not remove Him from us but brings us closer. The holiness of Rabbi Gifter was expressed in his ability to see the needs of another above his own. This is the holiness that we can all achieve if we only try.

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Summit on antisemitism

Continued from page 7 removing all references to Jewish affiliation on social media, removing mezuzahs from their homes, and the list goes on. In our own community, Jews expressed discomfort in displaying Blue Square pins, stickers, and social media icons, and declined to display Shine a Light on Antisemitism yard signs produced last fall.

JCRB-AJC began planning the KC summit more than six months before the horrific Oct. 7 attack. Gavi (as she is known by her community and friends), started calling regional JCRC colleagues in March 2023 to share and brainstorm her vision of how the KC Jewish community would commemorate the tenth anniversary of the antisemitic attack on the Jewish community’s campus in April 2014. She was interested in exploring how the community and antisemitism have changed in the decade since the shooting. The “Driving Out Darkness in the Heartland Summit” was born.

Summit presenters included experts and allies like Cleveland Cavaliers’ Senior VP and Head of Social Impact and Equity, Kevin Clayton; former mayor of Charlottesville, VA, Mike Signer; Katherine Keneally, Head of Threat Analysis and Prevention U.S. at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue; President and CEO of the Greater Kansas City Urban League Gwendolyn Grant; experts from the ADL, AJC, American Public Square, KU Hillel and more.

Second Gentleman Douglas Emhoff joined AJC CEO Ted Deutch as keynote closing

speakers. They offered insights into the development and implementation of the White House’s U.S. Strategy to Counter Antisemitism. They also addressed perspectives on combating antisemitism, what is being done in the Heartland, and how to identify and cultivate allies because, as Deutch emphasized, “As we’ve seen rising antisemitism in the country, it’s never just the Jewish community that’s at risk, it’s a society-wide problem.”

Some takeaways from conference keynotes and breakout sessions are:

1. We will not eradicate antisemitism online. There are many online resources and tools to address and confront hate and misinformation, but don’t count on winning any arguments or moving the needle on social media. The best weapon we have to fight antisemitism is to “get offline and get personal.”

2. Non-Jews do not get to define antisemitism for us.

3. Anti-Israel sentiment and anti-Zionism as it is manifesting itself today is antisemitism – full stop. The type of anti-Israel hate we are witnessing and experiencing doesn’t fall neatly into a definition of antisemitism if we are defining it strictly as religious–based hatred or bias against Jews. To say, “I don’t hate Jews; I just hate Israel,” or “Zionists” is a weaponization of transmogrified ancient antisemitic tropes to attack Jews without using the words “Jews” or “Jewish.”

4. Holocaust trivialization is antisemitic.

5. Antisemitism affects society, and every-

one is responsible for combatting it.

6. Jews will not eliminate antisemitism. Allyship is the best path to curbing and protecting our community from antisemitism.

The day after the conference, Gavi convened JCRC directors from Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, and Oklahoma. They shared ideas, success stories, lessons learned and programs that have made an impact in our communities. We discussed how we can help our communities in our states, build relationships, and educate across large swaths of our states where there are no Jews, but there is antisemitism.

We also heard from Leonard Zeskind, author and internationally recognized expert on white supremacist movements in the US and abroad. Zeskind authored two books, When Hate Groups Come to Town and Blood and Politics. He shared state-by-state information on new (Active Club) and legacy hate groups (National Socialist Movement and KKK) operating in our region.

Our more conservative climate in the Heartland is not immune to the patterns of antisemitism we are seeing across the country and the world. Yet, smaller Jewish communities like ours have different concerns and ex-

periences from our Jewish friends and family in bigger cities with much larger and more diverse Jewish populations. As Gavi said, “This also means we have unique opportunities to try new ideas and strategies, and drive change from right here in the Midwest.”

It is critical in Nebraska, where we enjoy strong support from most of our elected officials and local governments, that we do not become complacent or assume we have no bridges to build. “Antisemitism is not just a problem for Jews,” she said. “It’s one we must all solve.”

We could never have imagined what we are witnessing today in all segments of our society. Jews cannot solve this alone. Nor can we expect or take for granted that good people will stand up for us. Drawing on lessons from the Holocaust is critical, but clearly, Holocaust education without contemporary context doesn’t solve the problem of antisemitism. If you would like to learn more about volunteering or supporting programs that educate, advocate, and collaborate to fight antisemitism, call the Omaha JCRC at 402.334.6572. Follow and engage with JCRC on JFO’s website, social media channels, and in the Jewish Press Email: jcrcinfo@jewishomaha.org

Father’s Day

JCRB|AJC Executive Director Gavriela Geller, left, AJC CEO Ted Deutch and Second Gentleman of the United States Douglas Emhoff at JCRB|AJC’s Regional Summit on Combating Antisemitism.