New Jersey Jewish Standard - January 25, 2013

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January 25, 2013 · Vol. LXXXII · No. 18 · $1.00 JSTANDARD.COM

201281N E W J E R S E Y

JewishStandard

Steven Rothman looks back, dreams aheadSteven Rothman

Life after Congress

COMMUNITY

Federation rallies for Super Sunday 8

ISRAELThe morning after the elections 33

81

Standard

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2 Jewish standard JanUarY 25, 2013

NY BOARD OF RABBIS PRESENTS

David Broza LIVE AT TEMPLE EMANU-EL OF CLOSTER

Concert to Benefit New Jersey Hurricane Sandy Victims

Sunday, Feb. 10th / 1 Adar6:00pm Concert

VIP Reception after the Concert

Tickets$50 each

VIP Ticket Packages

$360: 2 Tickets + Signed CD

$500: 2 Tickets + Signed CD + VIP Reception with Artist

$ 1,000: 2 Premiere Tickets (first 3 rows) + Signed CD + VIP Reception with Artist

Invited Guests Governor Christie

Senators Lautenberg & Menendez Congressmen Garrett, King & Pascrell

To purchase tickets please contact

Jessica Di Paolo at 212.983.3521

or [email protected]

PUBLISHER’S STATEMENTJewish Standard (USPS 275-700 ISN 0021-6747) is published weekly on Fridays with an additional edition every October, by the New Jersey Jewish Media Group, 1086 Teaneck Road, Teaneck, NJ 07666. Periodicals postage paid at Hackensack, NJ and additional offices. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to New Jersey Jewish Media Group, 1086 Teaneck Road, Teaneck, NJ 07666. Subscription price is $30.00 per year. Out-of-state subscriptions are $45.00, Foreign countries subscriptions are $75.00.The appearance of an advertisement in The Jewish Standard does not constitute a kashrut endorsement. The publishing of a paid political advertisement does not constitute an endorsement of any candidate political party or political position by the newspaper, the Federation or any employees.The Jewish Standard assumes no responsibility to return unsolicited editorial or graphic materials. All rights in letters and unso-licited editorial, and graphic material will be treated as unconditionally assigned for publication and copyright purposes and subject to JEWISH STANDARD’s unrestricted right to edit and to comment editorially. Nothing may be reprinted in whole or in part without written permission from the publisher. © 2013

FYI

The ties that bindLarry yudeLson

Behind every great father-son synagogue experience there is a little girl.

Well, at least there is one behind the “Kasha, Pizza, and Ties” program being held at the Glen Rock Jewish Center next month.

It was when a very young Dara Tow began innocently wiping her hands on her father’s neckties that Rabbi Neil Tow began to appreci-ate the sensibility of his cousin, who had long made a habit of wear-ing bow ties.

So Tow asked for and received a lesson in how to tie a bow tie.“When I tell people that it’s one I tied myself, their eyes get wider.

They say, ‘How do I do that?’”In fact, says Tow, “the knot isn’t terribly difficult. With a bow tie, it’s

much more about the finishing, making it look neat and well placed and centered and tight.”

The program, scheduled for February 21, is billed as “an evening for fathers to teach sons, grandfathers to teach grandsons... an evening for men to learn both necktie and bow tie tying.” With his daughter now 5½ and old enough not only to keep her hands off his tie, but to help him select which tie to wear, Tow sports both kinds of neckwear.

The choice of which to wear “is kind of a feeling of the moment,” he said. “I have never worn a bow tie to a funeral. I don’t feel com-fortable. Even my solid black doesn’t feel right. For most other occa-sions I’m flexible.”

Bow ties “are something a little different, and fun. When you start to wear one, people will tell their stories of how someone in their family would wear one. It elicits a story,” he said.

“Part of the idea of the event is having fathers and sons do some-thing for the first time. I’m envisioning us using that as an education-al moment to teach the Shehechiyanu prayer for learning something new, adding something to our repertoire of skills,” he said.

Tow said that even though “we’re living in an age where dress is getting less formal, there’s still quite a need and desire to have neckware. On an average Shabbat, close to 75 percent of the men are wearing some sort of neckware — mostly neckties. There are a few scattered about who are not wearing ties; maybe a sweater, maybe a collar that’s open. Our community is pretty welcoming of the range of clothing choices.

“Maybe after this night we’ll have a few more bow ties from time to time,” he said.

KEEPING THE FAITH PAGE 16

Perhaps I will return to this space some day.Shammai Engelmayer

CANDLELIGHTING TIME: FRIDAY, jAN. 25, 4:46 P.M.SHABBAT ENDS: SATURDAY, jAN 26, 5:49 P.M.

NOSHES ...................................................................................................5OPINION ..............................................................................................16COvER STORY....................................................................20TORAH COMMENTARY ..................................47ARTS & CULTURE .......................................................48

LIFECYCLE ....................................................................................53CLASSIFIED ..............................................................................54GALLERY .........................................................................................56REAL ESTATE ....................................................................... 57

Contents

FORESTRY

Life sprouts in Carmel after fire 36

HOLIDAY

Tu Bi-sh’vat via Middle-earth 52

LOCAL

Rabbi Harvey rides into town 12LOCAL

Victory lap for area prize writers 14

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Jewish standard JanUarY 25, 2013 3

ON THE BAR/BAT MITZVAH SUPPLEMENT COVER:Max Harris celebrates his bar mitzvah at Temple Emanu-El of Closter, November 17, 2012. PHOTO BY HecHler PHOTOgraPHers

BAR/BAT MITZVAH

A supplement to The Jewish Standard, Jewish Community News, and Rockland Jewish Standard · WINTER 2013

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JANUARY 27

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Local synagogues celebrate Tu Bi-Sh’vat with song, seders, and sentimentLois GoLdrich

W ith Tu Bi-Sh’vat beginning at sundown on Friday, synagogues throughout the area are preparing for the holiday in a variety

of ways. Some already have held educational events. Teaneck’s Netivot Shalom, for example, sponsored a special holiday program for children several weeks ago, led by members of the Bnei Akiva youth movement. Most congregations, however, are gearing up for seders, family programs, and celebratory concerts to be held over the holiday weekend.

A special treeTemple Sinai of Bergen County in Tenafly has a special weekend planned, its Cantor Nitza Shamah said, noting that the congregation will hold a seder including not only the traditional dried fruit and wine but poetry, songs, and a dairy meal.

The congregation will use its own haggadah, she said, describing it as “a compilation of old and contemporary poems that highlight our relationship to the world of trees. These are interwoven with kabbalistc texts that correspond to the nature of the different kind of fruits from the Land of Israel that we traditionally eat on Tu Bi-Sh’vat.”

The congregation also will host Yale University’s Jewish a capella group, Magevet, for a musical Kabbalat Shabbat service in honor of Shabbat Shirah, which also falls this weekend.

Jordan Millstein, Temple Sinai’s rabbi, said that the synagogue will dedicate a tree in memory of Paul Winter, “a member of our temple who was a force for social jus-tice and helped so many in our community.”

Winter’s grandson, Andrew Kahn, is a member of Magavet. The Kahn family — who donated the cherry tree at the entrance to the synagogue — is sponsoring the reception after the concert.

Winter’s daughter, Audrey Winter Kahn, a longtime member of the congregation, described her father as a “gentle, kind, and giving soul” who fled from Germany on the eve of Kristallnacht, returning later to fight as a member of the U.S. Army. Settling later in Bergen County, he became a lumber salesman.

In the speech she will deliver at the dedication, Kahn will note “how fitting this is Tu Bi-Sh’vat, the birthday of the trees. My dad loved trees. He had taught himself so much about them and, in turn, taught my brother and me. I was the only kid in third grade who knew how to differentiate a poplar from an oak.”

Kahn said that after he retired, her father “threw him-self wholeheartedly into the service of others — primarily through the social action work at Temple Sinai. I would come home from college to find our front hall filled with bags of donated clothes and household goods.… He was there for people who had lost everything. He never forgot his own roots.”

Noting that “with every ending there is a beginning,” Kahn pointed out that her father died 19 years ago, the same year that Magevet was founded at Yale.

A time to learnFor some congregations, the focus of the holiday will be on study.

“It will be four cups of Torah rather than four cups of wine,” said Rabbi Lawrence Zierler, religious leader of the Jewish Center of Teaneck.

Zierler will provide four different learning opportuni-ties over the course of the holiday, beginning Friday night with remarks between Kabbalat Shabbat and Ma’ariv on “unusual minhagim.” During Shabbat services, he will relate Tu Bi-Sh’vat to the haftarah, which speaks of the judge Deborah. He also will explore the holiday in his Saturday Talmud class, held before Minchah, and during seudat shlishit, when he will “look at the issue of trees in Pirkei Avot.”

Zierler said that Tu Bi-Sh’vat has gained much more significance in recent years; not only with the establish-ment of seders but also the creation of more texts to be used during the holiday.

He is impressed, he said, “by the degree to which people can find original material. There is an interesting struggle between what is set and accepted and the op-portunity to break out and do something different” — in-cluding readings on the environment, for example.

He noted, however, that the holiday, at least outside

of Israel, seems to “come too quickly. There’s a greater awareness in Israel, which is already spring-bound,” he said.

In addition, he said, the holiday also competes with Shabbat Shirah.

“What do you pay homage to?” he asked. “There’s overstimulation when Shabbat is [also] Tu Bi-Sh’vat.”

Zierler pointed out that Tu Bi-Sh’vat “is one of those places where we can show incredible creative ability.”

He said that unlike past years, when the shul offered a seder, his goal this year is to “give people a grounding in the text so that they can better appreciate the scope of the customs. It’s better than bringing them to a seder without the framework behind it.”

Education also is key at the Fair Lawn Jewish Center/Congregation B’nai Israel.

Judy Gutin, principal of the Howard and Joshua Herman Educational Center, the religious school at the Fair Lawn Jewish Center, said she is planning a Family Education Day for Sunday. The event will involve 62 first- through fifth-graders and their parents. The

theme, Gutin said, is “Planting for our future; taking care of our world.”

“It will be in two parts,” she said, noting that she wants to define Tu Bi-Sh’vat as it is presented in the Mishna, “as rosh ha’ilanot — not as a birthday, but as the head of a year. In Hebrew, we never have the concept of a birthday for trees.”

Gutin said that teaching the children why the Mishna called this a “rosh” will bring home the importance of trees in Israel, which she called “paramount to the land and to people’s survival on the land.”

Parents will attend one class session with their children, learning together and then preparing mate-

Children pose as trees for Tu Bi-Sh’vat at the Fair Lawn Jewish Center.

Last year’s Tu Bi-Sh’vat seder at the Jewish Center of Teaneck.

Temple Sinai will host Magevet, Yale’s Jewish a capella group.

Tu Bi-Sh’vat “is one of those places where we can show incredible creative ability.”

— Rabbi Lawrence Zierler

Tu Bi-Sh’vat


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rial reflecting what they have learned. Each class will be responsible for fashioning one branch of a “teaching poster” featuring a large tree of five branches.

For example, fourth-graders will focus on the Torah verse that speaks of the “tree of life.”

“The teacher will take the verse and analyze it with the children and parents,” Gutin said, noting that the guided discussion of symbolism inevitably will lead to a discus-sion of the word “Torah, our etz hayim … what holds us up in a community.”

The 20 fourth-graders and their parents then will be given a blank Hebrew letter to decorate. With their par-ents’ help, they will put the letters together to form the verse, which will be brought to the community tree and uploaded on the appropriate branch.

“They may also do artwork signifying what it means,” Gutin said, and each child will decorate clay planters in which they will actually do some planting.

The event will begin with a Shacharit service led by Rabbi Ronald Roth and Cantor Eric Wasser, she said. At the end of the day, “we will look at the full tree we created so we can all learn from one another.”

Participants will be encouraged to “talk about how we can go forward and take care of our world,” Gutin said. “We’re taking the concept of caring about Israel and ap-plying it also in our own lives.”

In the context of the Hebrew school, that will trans-late into a commitment to recycle. She is hopeful that this commitment will be reflected in the synagogue and home as well.

Rabbi Mordechai Shain, executive director of Lubavitch on the Palisades, said that his group is having a “huge seder on Friday night and a massive children’s

program on Saturday.” He estimates that 200 people will attend the festivities.

Shain said that every child will be given a bag contain-ing different kinds of fruits.

“They will play a game to understand what the fruits mean and learn to do blessings on each fruit,” he said.

At noon, the entire congregation will join in a fab-rengen — a gathering — sharing a lunch in honor of the holiday.

“People really love it because they don’t just eat the fruit, but we explain how the seven species represent the seven character traits of human beings,” he said, reeling off the attributes of kindness, restraint, determination, mercy, humility, bonding, and receptivity. “Each time they eat a fruit, they feel as if they’re expressing those characteristics.”

A focus on IsraelSome congregations will use Tu Bi-Sh’vat to deepen con-gregants’ connection to Israel.

At Congregation Beth Sholom in Teaneck, a Tu Bi-Sh’vat seder will serve as the culminating event of the shul’s annual Shabbaton. (Over the weekend, Beth Sholom members and friends will offer some 25 different learning sessions on the theme “Defining Moments in Jewish Time.”)

Estelle Epstein — a cantor and bar/bat mitzvah tutor at the synagogue — said she expects about 100 people to attend the seder, which she will lead. It will be run under the auspices of the shul’s Ayin L’Tzion Committee, de-signed to heighten Israel awareness.

Participants will use readings pulled together by the

committee last year.“Now we have a standard seder,” Epstein said. “It’s

loosely based on the kabbalistic idea of going from white to red.”

The seder begins with a cup of white wine, indicating winter, she said. Red wine is added gradually, “adding more red, to indicate spring and planting.” Participants also will get to sample a wide range of fruits, and Epstein will introduce a variety of folk songs and dances. The event will include a “little quiz” at each table, including questions about Israel and trees.

The organizer said she expects the event to be a suc-cess because “congregants like to come together, sing, and celebrate their connection to Israel.”

At Temple Avodat Shalom as well, “The accent is on Israel,” Cantor Ronit Josephson said. “We tell kids that Israel is the only country that has more trees now than it did when it was established. Our primary concern is to teach them love for, and pride in, Israel.”

Music is also a large part of the River Edge celebration.Josephson said the synagogue choir will sing on

Friday night, incorporating pieces that celebrate both Shabbat Shirah and Tu Bi-Sh’vat.

On Saturday, the synagogue will serve “a Tu Bi-Sh’vat nosh” and show the movie “Beaufort,” which deals with the last Israeli stronghold in Lebanon. On Sunday, reli-gious school children and their parents will have what the cantor called “an informal seder, tasting from the fruits we eat on Tu Bi-Sh’vat.”

“There’s a whole weekend of celebrating,” she said, predicting that attendance will be good. She noted that when the weather is nice, the lower grades get to plant something as well, although this year that seems unlikely.

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Volunteers to take the field on Super SundayLarry yudeLson

It’s Super Sunday time.The annual telethon of the Jewish

Federation of Northern New Jersey has returned to its traditional pre-Super Bowl Sunday time slot.

And with it, the federation has rolled out a football theme, as volunteers prepare to take to the field — well, the phone banks — to dial for dollars.

“This is the time for the Jewish community to move forward and help each other,” said Howard Chernin, one of the chairs of the event. “We’re trying to raise that million dollars.”

The federation hopes that its hundreds of volunteers — 300 already have signed up — will make a total of 15,000 calls on Sunday, reaching out to everyone in the

federation’s database who hasn’t already pledged for this year’s annual campaign or isn’t in line to be solicited in person rather than by phone.

“Open your heart, open your wallet, and let it all fall out,” says Chernin.

Raising money is a clear goal for the day, the federation’s largest one-day fundraising event.

Another important goal — perhaps the most important — is bringing in new donors.

“This is a community effort. We’re all in the room for one thing, to help that community,” Chernin said. “This is a great day because the community comes together.”

High school students, college students,

and members of the federation’s new group for 20-somethings — eNgageNJ — are scheduled to show up and help out the team.

“It’s a day to strengthen our community and make it more vibrant,” said David Goodman, the federation’s president.

Jason Shames, the federation’s CEO, emphasizes the organization’s ability to bring the community together as a team.

Soon after the last Super Sunday — held in December 2011 — the federation became the community’s focal point as Bergen County officials convened safety events in the wake of the string of synagogue fire bombings.

The federation again brought in

federal homeland security grants for area institutions.

In the wake of Superstorm Sandy, the federation enabled its Jewish family service agencies to feed the elderly who lost food due to the power outage.

And through grants, the federation created new programs such as the iEngage series of courses, which focus on the relationship between diaspora Jews and Israel.

That is in addition to its ongoing work in helping Jews in Israel and its new sister city in the Ukraine, Lviv.

“All of this happens because of our annual campaign,” Shames said. “All of us together, we’re stronger than we are as individuals.”

It’s not too late to join the Super Sunday team

Larry yudeLson

Join the telethon, give to the food drive, and donate blood.

Unlike the teams competing in New Orleans next week, the federation’s Super Sunday team is accepting recruits until the very last minute.

Even rookies are welcome.“We’re going to train you,” Howard

Chernin said. “We’re going to give you the script. We’ll put everything together.

“There’s so much excitement in the room.”

Volunteer callers can sign up for one of four shifts, starting at 9 a.m. Sunday morning and ending at 9 p.m. Registration is at the federation’s website, jfnnj.org — or you could just show up without signing up. You won’t be turned away.

If you are coming, consider bringing non-perishable kosher food, or such household supplies as toiletries, toilet paper, paper towels, soap, dish detergent, and shampoo, for the Jewish

Family Services to distribute to their clients.

And perhaps allow extra time before or after your shift to drop by the blood drive, which will be taking place from noon until 4 p.m.

Organizers of Super Sunday hope to arouse a competitive spirit among the volunteers.

“We’ll be giving out little prizes to the people who get the most increases in gifts,” said Amy Shafron, one of the chairs of the event.

Feel nervous about calling up strangers and asking for money?

Don’t, Shafron said.“You’re offering people the option to

put their own values into motion.”She admits that “it can be a little

bit tricky when someone hangs up or someone isn’t responsive. Our goal within the first 60 seconds is to captivate that person and share that passion.”

Zachary Greenblatt and mom, Dr. Adrienne Greenblatt, made calls together.

From left, Joan Krieger, Rena Klosk, Lauri Bader, and Gale S. Bindelglass. In back, Sue Ann Levin and Tracy Zuron PHOTOs cOurTesy JFNNJ

Sen. Frank Lautenberg, for-mer chairman of national United Jewish Appeal, solicits a donation.

Israeli Tzofim (Scouts), from left, Dorr Elmatad, Corale Naor, Liran Yarkoni, and Tamar Hovav, federation shlichah.

Jason Sperber and Sophie Porter

Photos from Super Sunday December 2011

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Moving back to Motor CityJFnnJ’s david Gad-harf leaves town, looks back

Larry yudeLson

I f it takes a David to slay a giant Goliath, what does it take to knock a David out of the ring?

It wasn’t the financial crisis of 2008 that did in David Gad-Harf, who is the chief operating officer at the Jewish Federation of Northern New Jersey and the number two staffer there since 2005.

Nor did he shirk from helping the federation reinvent itself for a new century.

No, what’s sending Gad-Harf out of northern New Jersey and out of Jewish communal service is a six month old boy named Jonah. He is Gad-Harf’s first grandchild.

When Gad-Harf met Jonah, “lightning struck.“We didn’t want to be drop-in grandparents,” he said.

“We wanted to be part of our grandchild’s life.”Jonah’s father, Josh Gadharf, had been raised in Detroit,

where Gad-Harf had been the director of the Jewish com-munity relations council for 17 years, and he and his wife, Danielle, had just returned to the city.

Gad-Harf and his wife, Nancy, decided to follow their only child and his family.

(A word about names in the Gad-Harf family. David and Nancy decided to combine their last names when they married; their son and his wife decided to keep the name but drop the hyphen.)

He found a job in Detroit, working for the Henry Ford Health Center, a major hospital system in Detroit, helping the hospital system form partnerships with the private sector.

For the first time in over 30 years, Gad-Harf will not be working for the Jewish community.

“It was special, because I felt I was serving the Jewish community, not only in northern New Jersey, but around the world, especially in Israel,” he said.

In New Jersey, those with whom he worked at Federation will miss him.

“He will definitely be missed,” said David Goldberg, the federation’s president, who worked extensively with Gad-Harf on the federation’s strategic planning process. “We’ve had quite an adventure together.”

A lot has changed in the federation since Gad-Harf joined in 2005. There has been a name change; a move; the departure of long-time executive Howard Charish, who had brought Gad-Harf on board; and a year when Gad-Harf served as interim CEO.

And then there was the twin calamity of the financial collapse and the Bernie Madoff scandal. “It hit our federa-tion hard, as it did many other federations,” Gad-Harf said.

“We had to reduce our budget and reduce our staff size. That was the painful part of the upheavals.

“But even the negative parts became a spur for our or-ganization to rethink who we were, the role that we played, the value that we provided. It was a lead in to the transfor-

mation of Federation that has been going on for the last several years,” he said.

Gad-Harf led the strategic planning process that started in 2009 and was adopted by the federation in 2010.

As a result, the federation is repositioning itself “as an organization that provides real value to our Jewish com-munity, that builds collaboration among agencies and organizations, and engages people, especially donors, in new ways,” he said.

“During the last year I’ve been fortunate to be leading the way professionally in the fundraising area, helping to introduce new strategies to raise money, to bring new people into our system, to do so in a way that attracts younger people. We’re just starting to see the fruits of those strategies.”

One change: “We’ve recommitted ourselves to the idea of fundraising missions. That was exemplified by the recent mission to Cuba. That will continue this year with a mission to Israel. There will be many more missions to Israel and elsewhere — we got away from that in the last few years.”

Gad-Harf recalls a mission to Israel early during his ten-ure here as “a pivotal experience.”

The trip impressed him with “the diversity coming from every corner of our community.”

Diversity is one of the strengths of the northern New Jersey Jewish community, he believes.

“The diverse ways that people express their Judaism, in the whole metropolitan New York area, has been amaz-ing to me. I gained a much deeper sense of respect for the diversity that exists within the Jewish community. That’s something I will always carry with me,” he said.

The northern New Jersey Jewish community also has some unique challenges, he said.

“Unlike most other large city federations, our Jewish community didn’t start in an urban center. There isn’t a common memory. There aren’t the generations and gen-erations that lived in the area that provides other commu-nities with a sense of shared history and a shared future.

“Also, we live in the shadow of Manhattan. So many of the people who live here work in Manhattan and make their donations to the UJA-Federation of New York, because that’s where they are encouraged to do so at their places of work. That’s a problem that doesn’t exist elsewhere.

“A final characteristic, not necessarily unique to north-ern New Jersey, characterizes New Jersey as a whole. There is a sort of balkanization, a decentralization of communi-ties that often gets in the way of building unity. That’s very challenging to overcome when you have people who feel a sense of identity with their little town, but not a sense of shared purpose with the town next door.

“I’m the kind of person who sees the opportunity in every challenge. It makes the federation role all the more important. You need something to serve as the glue that holds together the Jewish community. The federation is that glue. Unlike any other Jewish organizations in north-ern New Jersey, it has the capacity to bring people from disparate parts of the community together to discuss and act on issues and concerns of shared interest, and then to devise strategies to address those concerns.

“The federation that I came to in 2005 has really been significantly transformed. It’s a very different federation than the one that I knew in 2005. I’ve been lucky to be part of so many of the changes that have happened and that are making it a more relevant, a more potent, and a more valu-able organization for now and into the future.

“I am really optimistic about Federation’s future. It has visionary leaders and highly committed volunteers and really superb staff members. That’s the recipe for success,” he said.

As for him, “I’m really appreciative of the wonderful op-portunity I’ve had here and the friendships and collegial ties I’ve enjoyed and will carry with me for the rest of my life.”

David Gad-Harf and his grandson, Jonah.

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A line-drawn rabbi in the wild wild WestKehillah Partnership for sixth graders uses art to break down barriers and connect students to Jewish ideas

Joanne Palmer

Rabbi Harvey is a long drink of water, a stretched out black-and white line drawing whose single

eyebrow curls across the top of his head like a literal hairband — a band of hair — and whose beard entirely obscures his mouth and almost all of his nose. (We do get to see an occasional flash of nostril.)

How he breathes is anyone’s guess — but because he’s the creation of graphic novelist and children’s book author Steven Sheinkin, we don’t really have to worry about that.

The length of Rabbi Harvey’s gesta-tion could put an elephant to shame. He was conceived when Sheinkin, now 44, was 10 years old, and first appeared when Sheinkin was almost 40.

Rabbi Harvey first began to form when Sheinkin was a Hebrew school student at Ramat Shalom in Nanuet, New York. His father could see that “I was doing just fine in terms of memorizing, but I wasn’t get-ting the gist of it,” Sheinkin said. He wasn’t getting the joy and profundity and wisdom of the Jewish tradition.

“So my father gave me a book of Jewish folktales, called ‘101 Jewish Stories,’” he con-tinued. “I read them and loved them, but I didn’t realize that I was learning Judaism from them. I thought they were clever and

wise, but much later I realized that I was so moved by the stories that I’d like to do something of my own with them.”

Those stories — midrashim, folk tales, stories from Chelm, Sholom Aleichem’s work — form the base of the Rabbi Harvey stories, but they have been moved from the Middle East and eastern Europe to the timelessly wild West, and their star is a cross between a rebbe and a sheriff, both as reimagined in the twenty-first century.

Rabbi Harvey and Steven Sheinkin are going to be the headliners at the second Kehillah Partnership sixth-grade program, set for Sunday, January 27, at Temple Avodat Shalom in River Edge.

The partnership, funded by the Jewish Federation of Northern New Jersey, pri-marily focuses on students in nine after school Hebrew schools in the federation’s catchment area, although it is open to sixth-graders from other schools as well. This year, it offers four Sunday programs; this one is the second.

The first program, on December 2, was with Julie Wohl, an artist and Jewish Theological Seminary-trained Jewish educator whose work includes both Conservative and Reform versions of a children’s siddur called “Mah Tov.”

At that workshop, held at the Jewish Community Center of Paramus, “the chil-dren learned about prayer and expressed prayer in art,” Juliet Barr said. Barr, a Bergen County Jewish educator, develops, coordinates, and runs the program.

The art workshop was created in re-sponse to Hebrew school principals’ wor-ries about how to “show them that prayer is not memorizing,” Barr said. “How can we make it vibrant?”

When 159 kids showed up that Sunday morning they first did icebreaker exercises and then were broken into six groups. Each

group was assigned a prayer, and each student was given a worksheet about the prayer. “Ninety-nine percent of the kids had at least some familiarity with the prayer, but we wanted them to hear it as if they’d never heard it before,” Barr said. The sheets included the prayer in Hebrew, in transliteration, and in English, as well as some basic information on it. Barr’s background is Reform but Wohl’s husband, Josh Wohl, is a Conservative rabbi, so he checked them to make sure that all per-spectives, including the Orthodox, were represented. Beneath that, Wohl asked some questions about the art.

After a discussion about the prayers, Wohl gave the students paper, wax pastels, and watercolors, and she taught them an art technique called wax resist. Finally, each student was asked to paint his or her feeling about the prayer, approaching it as if it were brand new. “Even if you’d heard it all your life, paint it as if you hadn’t,” she

told the kids.Once that was done, the students were

regrouped by their home shuls. Finally, they were asked to cut up their art (“I was nervous about that part,” Barr said. “They knew it was coming, and I knew that Julie had done it before, but I’m a mom too, and I worried.”) Then they put the pieces together, and were given acrylic paint to make it all cohesive.

“I brought them home to my house to dry, before I returned them to the shuls,” Barr said. “I got a little emotional looking at them. They are that good.”

This Sunday, the program will be simi-lar, in that students will be exposed both to a creative art — in this case, cartooning — and to its Jewish content, and to allow their own hands and hearts to try it for themselves.

There are now three Rabbi Harvey books, and each of the 150 children reg-istered for the workshop will have been

Steven Sheinkin’s Rabbi Harvey, at right, brings Yiddishkeit to the wild West.

Sixth graders made art of prayer during their workshop with Julie Wohl.

“The minute you get kids out of the classroom and show them Jewish programming that is exciting, that speaks to them, they will hold onto it for a long time.”

— Juliet Barr

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given one of them to read. (The program is not free, although it is heavily subsidized by the federation and the schools. It costs $75 for children who belong to one of the participating Hebrew schools; other chil-dren pay $100. The fees go toward materi-als and snacks.)

The kids will start with a snack, and while they’re having it Steve will do a PowerPoint presentation,” Barr said. Then they’ll be divided into three groups, depending on which book they read, and Steve will come to each group and do a step-by-step lesson on how to cartoon. If they want to, they can draw their own cartoons panels, and another group will do dramatic readings and skits based on their book. Then Steve will put together questions and do a giant synagogue-

versus-synagogue trivia game. One of the rabbis will be there as a timekeeper. We’ll divide the kids up so they’ll meet new kids, and it’s important to come back to their temple groups.”

Barr is passionate about her work, which she sees as having more than one objective. One is to connect Hebrew school students to Judaism through art, which often has a more direct line to the heart and soul than prosaic words can of-fer. Another is to break down some of the barriers between members of different Jewish streams. The Kehillah Partnership works almost entirely with students whose families belong to Reform or Conservative shuls, but she would love to welcome students from other parts of the Jewish world as well.

“I think it’s profound,” she said of the effects of the program. “The barriers be-tween Reform and Conservative often are too high to chip away, but there are no barriers here.” The effort is helped along in practical ways because all the boys wear kippot and all the snacks are kosher.

The next Sunday program, set for March 10, is Tzedakah Day.

“It will be powerful in a different way,” Barr said. “Every kid will have a dollar put in their hand. They’ll walk around the room, with people telling them about different programs, and they’ll have to de-cide. They’ll hear people from Hurricane Sandy cleanup organizations, people representing programs that help handi-capped children, that help disabled kids, that train seeing eye dogs.

“So where does their dollar go? Obviously they can’t tear it up and give it to more than one place. So how do you make that decision? We tell the kids that they’re about to become bar or bat mitzvah?

“How are you going to decide?”The last program, scheduled for April

14, is going to be about Israel.“Our dream is to grow this program,”

Barr said. “It’s not really about the syna-gogues It’s about the kids. It’s fantastic ex-periential programming. The minute you get kids out of the classroom and show them Jewish programming that is excit-ing, that speaks to them, they will hold onto it for a long time.”

For more information, go to kehillah-partnershipgrade6.weebly.com.

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Local authors win prestigious awardProuser, Korn are national Jewish Book award recipients

Lois GoLdrich

Each year, National Jewish Book Awards recognize outstanding books of Jewish interest in areas ranging from Sephardic culture to illustrated

works for children. Begun in 1950 by the Jewish Book Council, the awards program has recognized such nota-bles as Deborah Lipstadt, Bernard Malamud, Chaim Potok, Philip Roth, and Elie Wiesel.

This year’s winners include two writers and scholars from Bergen County.

Ora Horn Prouser’s “Esau’s Blessing: How the Bible Embraces Those with Special Needs” — a winner in the education and Jewish identity category — delves into a familiar biblical narrative to elicit new insights into both special needs and Jewish teachings.

Rabbi Eugene Korn’s “Jewish Theology and World Religions,” a finalist in the anthologies and collections category — explores critical issues both Jews and there-fore Jewish thinking faces in relating to other major religions.

Prouser, who lives in Franklin Lakes, is executive vice president and academic dean at the Academy for Jewish Religion. Her family is deeply involved in the religious life of northern New Jersey.

Her husband, Rabbi Joseph Prouser, is the religious leader of Temple Emanuel of North Jersey; her brother-in-law, Rabbi Randall Mark, heads Congregation Shomrei Torah in Wayne; her father, Rabbi William Horn, was the longtime rabbi at the Summit Jewish Community Center and now is its rabbi emeritus; and her sister, Dassy Mark, is Hagalil USY’s regional director.

Prouser trained as a Bible scholar, and for 20 years she was an adjunct faculty member at the Jewish Theological Seminary. She said that though she now works as an ad-ministrator, she continues to teach Bible and to consult in the creation of Bible curricula.

“My interest has not only been in research but also in connecting Bible with education,” she said.

Calling her book “a modern critical literary approach to studying Bible,” Prouser said that “[Esau] is the one who brought me to the topic…. So much of the material written about him is quite negative, looking at him as evil and horrible — the epitome of everything bad we have ever experienced.”

But, she said, what came to her “out of the blue” was that Jacob’s brother shows the characteristics of a person with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder.

“That’s where the whole book started, with that little thought,” she said. Indeed, what was described in tra-ditional teachings as negative and evil actually may be “misunderstanding a lot of beautiful, good intentions, missing the boat a bit. If we understand him as having special needs, he deserves empathy.

“He’s quite a positive character,” she continued, noting that this is shown “through his love for his family and the beautiful things he does for his father. Tremendous bless-ings and gifts” can come through if you read the story through the lens of special needs.

She said that she recently read an article announcing that the Israel Defense Forces will now accept people with ADHD into their combat units.

“At the end of the article, it said that the IDF has long sought out [people with ADHD] for intelligence work because of the creative way they have of thinking and putting things together. It’s a perfect example of how something can be looked at as a deficit or a gift.”

Prouser suggested that traditional texts go out of their way to emphasize the good qualities of those deemed to be “good guys, while they have piled on so much negative on those not chosen.”

She pointed out as well that the whole field of dis-abilities studies is “not that old. It hasn’t been that long that we’ve asked what it means to approach a text through disability studies. It’s the same as with feminist studies.” While women always were in the Bible, often they were not seen, and “only recently have we asked the question, ‘What does it mean to approach these stories through the lens of feminist studies?’”

The author said she is very gratified by responses to the book, both from people in the disabilities community and from traditional biblical scholars and educators — even from readers who may disagree with her conclusions.

“They feel appreciation that it’s a careful, methodologi-cal biblical study,” she said, stressing the importance of “not just using biblical characters to talk about something but doing careful textual analysis.”

According to the author, the book draws a number of conclusions.

“But my major conclusion is that our sacred literature shows openness and appreciation for special needs,” she said. “It’s something for us to be proud of and to use as an inspiration to do the same thing.”

She also hopes that the work will encourage people to “go back to the text.”

When people see themselves in the text — when they feel that their own stories are being told and appreciated — they may be more inclined to study. “I’ve learned that everybody wants to see themselves in the Bible,” Prouser said.

She noted that she is very excited about winning the award.

“I’m very gratified,” she said. “I worked on it for a long time, and I believe in it with all my heart.”

Rabbi Eugene Korn of Bergenfield, the American direc-tor of the Center for Jewish-Christian Understanding and Cooperation in Efrat and editor of Meorot: A Forum for Modern Orthodox Discourse, has been involved in issues relating to Jewish theology and Jewish ethics for a long time. An expert in the area of Jewish-Christian relations, for a time Korn also was director of interfaith affairs for the Anti-Defamation League.

Korn and Alon Goshen-Gottstein are co-editors of “Jewish Theology and World Religions,” and he wrote one of its chapters, called “Rethinking Christianity: Rabbinic Positions and Possibilities.”

“My book is an attempt by Jewish thinkers to under-stand world religions and the issue of pluralism,” Korn said. “We live in a world where we are constantly interact-

ing with others with different religious views.” He sug-gested that traditional Jewish thought has “lagged behind” in developing a theology that “helps understand the other.”

In his book, 15 Jewish scholars from around the world, representing a number of disciplines, “think seriously about how to understand in a positive way Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism and the phenomenon of the Jewish people being placed in a world where we inter-act with others. In a sense, it’s an attempt to bring Jewish religious thought into a pluralistic modernity beyond the shtetl,” he said. “We live in a pluralistic world. We have to think seriously about this.”

A statement from the publisher pointed out that “Jewish thinking regarding other religions has not succeeded in keeping pace with the contemporary realities that regularly confront most Jews, nor has it adequately assimi-lated the ways in which other religions have changed their teachings about Jews and Judaism. Many Jews who grapple with Jewish tradition in the contemporary world want to know how Judaism sees today’s non-Jewish Other in order to affirm itself…. ‘Jewish Theology and World Religions’ advances this conversation.”

Korn said his chapter provides a halachic analysis of how rabbis throughout history have looked at Christianity.

“As a traditional Jew with fidelity to halachah, I need to understand how halachah can guide me in relating to the Christian world and Christianity,” he said. That’s not at the top of the agenda for many traditionalists, “which is why the book had to be written.”

Korn pointed out that parts of the book were used by Yeshiva University when students from the university’s Center for the Jewish Future traveled across the country to meet with an evangelical pastor.

“YU contacted me and asked what [students] could read in preparation for this. I gave them this chapter,” he said, calling the book “an attempt to stimulate a conversa-tion about how traditional and modern Jews can positively interact with … those believers who are not a part of our own community.”

David Nekrutman, executive director of the Center for Jewish-Christian Understanding and Cooperation, said that “Just like the State of Israel has a foreign ministry to diplomatically work with nations around the world, Judaism also needs its own ministry in dealing with other religions that takes into account the advancements of how faith communities look at our religion…. [This book] pro-vides a template on how we can work with others without compromising Judaism’s core theological doctrines.”

Ora Horn Prouser: The Bible and special needs. Rabbi Eugene Korn: Understanding others.

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briefly local

Beit Orot dinner honors localsThe Beit Orot dinner honoring Yocheved and Bennett Deutsch of Teaneck, along with Renee and Moshe Glick of West Orange and Alyssa and Chaim Winter of Cedarhurst, N.Y., was held on January 8 at the Crowne Plaza in Times Square in Manhattan. Jewish radio personality Nachum Segal served as the evening’s emcee and Naftali Bennett, the recently elected head of Israel’s Bayit HaYehudi (Jewish Home) party, delivered the keynote address via live Webcast.

Beit Orot, anchored by a hesder yeshiva, represents the first living Jewish presence on the Mount of Olives in more than 2,000 years. The organization is dedicated to restoring the Jewish neighborhoods of the Mount of Olives Ridge in historic Jerusalem and to educating people about Jerusalem’s ancient and modern Jewish history.

Shlomo Zwickler, executive director, Beit Orot, left, is pictured with honorees Bennett and Yocheved Deutsch and Seth Schreiber, Beit Orot’s board chairman. Courtesy Beith orot Nussmans are award winners

Rosalyn and Bruce Nussman recently received the Harry S. Feller award at the annual meeting of the NJY Camps at the Crystal Plaza in Livingston.

The award is presented to a New Jerseyan who has made an outstanding contribution to the center movement and has exhibited leadership in the Jewish community.

Rosalyn Nussman was an educator in North Bergen for 40 years, creating and coordinating the district’s gifted and talented programs. She co-founded the Hudson County Coordinators of Gifted and Talented, serving as its president for almost 30 years. She mentors educators and is involved with the Kaplen JCC on the Palisades in Tenafly. She was a counselor in Camp Nah-Jee-Wah in 1967.

Bruce Nussman was a scholarship camper at the NJY Camps for 10 years. He is now a member of its board, was its president for three years, and has served on many committees and chaired its scholarship and nominating committees. He is a partner in Kates Nussman Rapone Ellis and Farhi LLP, a law firm in Hackensack, and has contributed his legal services, pro bono, to the NJY Camps as well as other charitable organizations.

Bruce and Rosalyn Nussman are pictured with Jonathan Drill, right, NJY Camps president. Courtesy NJy Camps

Zinstein given Grinspoon-Steinhardt awardThe Jewish Federation of Northern New Jersey recently awarded its Grinspoon-Steinhardt Award for Excellence in Jewish Education to Chana Zinstein. She joins 47 other Jewish educators from around the country who all are community award recipients. Rabbi Shelley Kniaz, the educational director at Temple Emanuel of Pascack Valley where Zinstein is a third-grade teacher, nominated her. A Jewish educator for 32 years, Zinstein also teaches at Temple Beth El in Closter and the Rosenbaum Yeshiva of Northern New Jersey in River Edge.

Pictured from left are Dan Kramer, president of Temple Emanuel of the Pascack Valley, Chana Zinstein, and Rabbi Shelley Kniaz, Temple Emanuel’s educational director. Courtesy JFNNJ

Rules for not-for-profitsA “Fist-To-Five” seminar, sponsored by Sax, Macy Fromm & Co., PC in Clifton will be held at the Grove in Cedar Grove on Wednesday, February 6, beginning with breakfast at 8 a.m. Themed “A New Playbook,” the seminar will address the changing rules on how not-for-profits receive funding. Guest speakers include Dawn Apgar, deputy commissioner of the New Jersey Department of Human Services; Annette Baron, managing director of Proposal Architect; and Robert Davison, executive director of the Mental Health Association of Essex County. The seminar is free and all are welcome. Kosher meals are available with advance notice. To register, call (973) 472-6250 or email [email protected].

Mesivta Sanz dinner set for Feb. 2The gala annual dinner for the Mosdos Sanz Klausenburg Union City community will be held on February 2 at Mesivta Sanz, 3400 New York Ave., in Union City.

Rabbi Yakov Shmion Scher, deputy mayor of Netanya in Israel, is the guest of honor, and Sender Landau will receive the Kesher Shem Tov award. The Avodos Hakodesh award will be given to Rabbis Chaim Meir Fogel, Avrum Cohen, Yeshua Silber, Moshe Mates Weitzner, Hershel Zieg, Meir Zev Zafir, Mordechai Spitzer, and Yakov Yoel Scher.

The Hirschman, Abramowitz, Kaplan, and Rapfogel families will give a memorial tribute to their parents and grandparents, the late Rabbi Harold and Ruth Hirschman. Rabbi Hirschman served Temple Israel Emanuel in Union City for over 40 years.

For information, call (201) 867-8690, ext. 105, or email [email protected]

Breast cancer survivorship teleconferenceSharsheret, a national not-for-profit organization supporting young women and their families, of all Jewish backgrounds, facing breast cancer will present a free national teleconference, “Am I A Survivor?” What You Should Know Now About Breast Cancer Survivorship, Tuesday, January 29, at 8 p.m. The teleconference is part of Sharsheret’s National Survivorship Teleconference Series. An audio recording and written transcript will be posted online following the teleconference at www.sharsheret.org.

OPENLocal yeshiva teacher pleads guilty to child pornography chargesA 27-year-old former teacher at a modern Orthodox yeshiva in Teaneck has pleaded guilty to child pornog-raphy and exploitation charges, according to federal prosecutors.

Evan Zauder, who taught sixth grade at Yeshivat Noam, pleaded guilty in Manhattan federal court to charges that he used the Internet to entice a minor to engage in illegal sexual activity, and to receiving, dis-tributing, and possessing child pornography.

“Evan Zauder’s abuse and exploitation of minors was heinous criminal conduct perpetrated on some of the

most vulnerable and powerless members of society,” Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara said in a state-ment. “This office treats the protection of children as an extraordinarily serious responsibility, and as this case demonstrates, we will persist in our efforts to en-sure that those who prey on minors are found and held accountable.”

Zauder was arrested in May 2012, after the FBI, act-ing on a tip, raided his Manhattan apartment. There they found hundreds of graphic images and videos of young boys on his computers. There was no evidence

that his criminal conduct involved any students at Yeshivat Noam, according to federal authorities.

Before he came to Yeshivat Noam, Zauder had worked as youth director at Congregation Bnai Yeshurun in Teaneck, and as a part-time youth director at the Hebrew Institute of Riverdale in the Bronx. He also was a Bnei Akiva summer tour counselor.

Zauder faces sentences that range from five years to life imprisonment on the various charges. His sentenc-ing is scheduled for May 22 in Manhattan.

EditorialThe people have spoken

A ll of the advance doom-and-gloom public opin-ion polls notwithstanding, the true result of Israel’s election this week is a country that is

far less conservative than its government has been, and far more desirous of progress in the areas of economic growth, social equity, and even peace with Palestinians.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, together with his politically odd bedfellow, Israel Beitenu’s Avigdor Lieberman, jointly held 42 seats in the just ended Knesset session. In the Knesset about to be sworn in, the Likud-Yisrael Beitenu list may not even make it to 32 seats.

Many pundits believe that this steep decline — the joint list was meant to increase representation, not di-minish it — was due to the rise of a more radical right-wing party, Bayit Hayehudi, which translates as Jewish Home. This party does not advocate a two-state solution. Indeed, the party leader actually said in a televised in-terview that he would advise Israeli soldiers to disobey

a direct order to vacate settlements if ordered to do so by govrenment or court decree. He craftily insisted mo-ments later that his remarks were misinterpreted, or that he misspoke, but his message was very clear. Here was a man seeking to be prime minister of the State of Israel who was advocating that the army of the State of Israel disobey the orders of the legitimate government.

According to the pundits and the polls, that stance endeared him to a “large size” of the voting public. According to the only poll that counts, the one on Tuesday, it endeared him only to the more radical elements within the ruling coaltion. If the joint Likud-Yisrael Beiteinu ticket comes in, as predicted, with a mere 30 to 31 seats, and Jewish Home garners the 12 the exit polls say is its share, those 12 seats will come at the expense of the Likud-Yisrael Beiteinu coalition. Rather than Israel becoming more radicalized, Netanyahu’s support has become more centralized; his most radical backers have found a new voice.

The bottom line of this election is that a coalition of all conservative right-wing parties at best will have either the barest minimum of 61 or perhaps 62 seats — an extremely unhealthy cushion upon which to govern Israel in the coming years. There is only one way that

Netanyahu can govern for any length of time without having to call new elections anytime soon, or to be effec-tive in any way in addressing the very serious problems facing Israel. It is to eschew the more conservative ele-ments in the Knesset, and even the religious parties for the first time in memory, and turn to the centrists and the moderates.

Those same exit polls show that a new party led by a popular former TV news anchor, Yair Lapid, took 18 seats; the Labor Party, meanwhile, under Shelly Yacimovich, took 17. That is 35 seats between them. Add to that the seven seats of Hatnuah, led by former Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, and that means that a Netanyahu-led coali-tion of the center-left would give the new government between 72 and 73 new seats. That is a far more work-able arrangement, which would pave the way for serious reforms in the economy, in housing, in education, in religious coercion, and even in Israel’s electoral process. Increasing the threshold required for a party to enter the Knesset from two percent to perhaps four or five percent would limit the stranglehold smaller otherwise insignifi-cant parties have on the future of the state.

Tuesday’s election gives Netanyahu a tremendous op-portunity. He has it in his grasp to become one of Israel’s most memorable, most productive, most progressive national leaders ever. Netanyahu is a very smart politi-cian. He must see how eroded the conservative base truly is. He must also see the advantages available to him by moving to the center. We pray that he has the wisdom to do so, because he has it in his power to secure a far bet-ter Israel for tomorrow than anyone hoped and dared to predict until now.

As for President Barack Obama, who formally began his second term on Sunday, it is time to reassure that if he does in fact move to the center, he will find a friend-lier environment within the administration than he could possibly have with a coalition that includes Bayit Hayehudi and its incendiary political positions.

The people of Israel have spoken, just as the people of the United States spoke just two months ago. Both coun-tries voted for a change from the status quo.

Now is the time for wisdom on both sides of the great ocean. It has been said that neither country has great leaders today of the caliber of the leaders of yesterday. That is not true. There never were such leaders. There only were circumstances in which good leaders became great ones.

Good people, here in the United States and there in the State of Israel, have before them the circumstances to seize greatness for themselves.

For the future of our two countries, for the future of the Jewish people and the Jewish state, for the future of the American republic and the democracy that shines like a beacon into the darkest corners of this planet, we pray that our leaders choose greatness.

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Conceding conceitShammai EngElmayEr

There comes a point in the life of columnists — who by their nature write, and even

speak, in absolute terms, as if they are the only ones who see the truth, the only ones who know what is right and what is wrong — when they must face up to that conceit and acknowledge that arrogance.

And then to set aside the pen, at least until they can master some humility.

The truth is, I for one do not know the truth. I was raised in a tradition that ac-cepted many truths, that allowed for a variety of opin-ions, often contradictory, but all for the sake of heaven.

I should have remembered that, cherished it, nur-tured it in myself and others. I hope I do that when I teach. I did no such thing when I wrote.

The midrash tells of the frustration felt by the sages of blessed memory at how unresolvable were the decisions handed down by the Schools of Shammai and Hillel. If one said black, the other almost certainly would say white. Which one was correct? If the Oral Law truly was handed down at Sinai, then who spoke for the God of Sinai?

The sages finally decided to lock the great minds of both academies into a single room, charging them to remain there until such time as they could produce one law that all could follow. Three years went by, and yet if the one said black, the other said white. Nothing had changed.

Totally defeated, the sages looked to heaven for help. “You resolve this for us,” they cried. “You tell us which one of these two speak for You? Which one of these two teaches Your proper law?”

Suddenly, a voice came from heaven: “Elu v’elu divrei elohim chaim.” This one and this one are both the words of the living God.”

There is no one truth. There is no one path. There is no one correct answer. To insist that there is rejects ev-erything that Judaism ever stood for.

I led a very interesting and very varied life. I accom-plished some good in this world. Often, over the years, I saw myself as the Jewish Standard’s profile of me put it, as something of the Lone Ranger, the man in the mask, out to right the wrongs of society, but never quite reveal-ing myself, perhaps not even to myself.

At the age of 23, I helped to craft groundbreaking legislation that protected the jobs of Sabbath-observant public employees.

After years of work, with the help of some very won-derful people, I was part of an effort that brought about


KEEPING THE FAITHOne religious perspectIve on issues of the day

Shammai Engelmayer is rabbi of the Conservative synagogue Temple Israel Community Center in Cliffside Park and an instructor in the UJA-Federation-sponsored Florence Melton Adult Mini-School of the Hebrew University.

“It has been said that neither country has great leaders today of the caliber of the leaders of yesterday. There never were such leaders. There only were circumstances in which good leaders became great ones.”

Op-edSenator Hagel’s divisive nominationDr. BEn ChouakE

Next week, the Senate Armed Services Committee will begin questioning former

Nebraska Senator Chuck Hagel during his confirmation hearing for secretary of defense.

To put the importance of this position into perspective, the defense secretary is in charge of our nation’s largest employer, the Department of Defense, with some 3.5 million employ-ees and a budget in excess of $600 billion. Outside of the president, in terms of responsibility and decision making powers, this is the single most important position in the executive branch of government. It requires a person of exceptional skill and exceptional judgment to manage these duties.

We believe that this nomination is problematic and should be declined. Sen. Hagel’s record related to his fu-ture possible responsibilities can be accurately described as fringe. Take for example one of the primary responsi-bilities of the Defense Department: to prevent terrorism, expansionism, and nuclear ambitions from Iran. The most outstanding thing about the senator’s record on the threats America and its allies face is the consistent solici-tude he has shown toward Iran and the terrorist organi-zations and states it funds: Hezbollah, Hamas, and Syria.

In July 2001, Sen. Hagel was in a minority of only two senators to vote against extending the original Iran-Libya sanctions bill, designed to deny both regimes revenues that would assist their weapons of mass destruction programs.

In April 2002, Hagel was one of only 10 senators to oppose banning the import to America of Iraqi oil until Iraq stopped compensating the families of Palestinian suicide bombers. In November 2003, he failed to vote on the Syria Accountability Act, which imposed sanctions on Syria for its support of terrorism and occupation of Lebanon. The act passed by a vote of 89 to 4.

In 2004, Hagel refused to sign a letter urging President Bush to highlight Iran’s nuclear program at the G-8 summit.

In 2004, 2007, and 2008 Hagel opposed sanctions on Iran.

In 2007, Hagel declined to support the bipartisan Iran Counter Proliferation Act, aimed at targeting gov-ernments and businesses that assist Iran’s nuclear pro-gram. The following year, a congressional aide told the Huffington Post that Hagel was “solely responsible” for blocking an Iran sanctions bill.

His refusal to acknowledge the danger of a nuclear armed Iran and his consistent opposition to every leg-islative effort to contain this treat is in stark contrast to almost every other member of the Senate. Hagel, despite recent assurances that he would implement the admin-istration’s policy, has been so far out of the mainstream on these issues of national security that it defies rational thinking.

Senators by and large are an exceptionally talented and disciplined group. So when such people say things that can embarrass the office, or vote well out of the bell

curve, it is usually because they are unable to keep their emotional feelings about the issue in check.

His unfortunate comments about the “Jewish lobby”; his statement that “I am not the senator from Israel”; his chairing the Atlantic Council, which published an article titled ‘Israel’s Apartheid Policy’ that equated Israel with South Africa’s historic racist policy; his being one of 12 senators not to urge that Hezbollah be designated a ter-rorist organization by the European Union, and his being the lone senator to refuse to sign a letter condemning anti-Semitism in Russia should give you insight into his beliefs.

Hagel has other pet peeves. He repeatedly voted against amendments to allow servicewomen to pay for abortion services at military hospitals out of their own pockets. He also opposed abortion in cases of rape and incest because those cases are “rare.” He consistently vot-ed against gay rights; three times his record earned him a zero percent rating from the Human Rights Campaign, the leading LGBT rights lobby. Among other things, Hagel voted against extending basic employment non-discrimination protections and the federal hate-crimes law to cover gay Americans.

In 1998, after President Bill Clinton nominated a prominent gay-rights advocate from San Francisco, James Hormel, to be the ambassador to Luxembourg, Hagel, then a senator, seemed to go out of his way to malign not only Hormel — he called him “openly, ag-gressively gay” — but gay Americans generally, with comments that were blatantly offensive even then. His comments suggested that the very fact of being gay should disqualify someone from representing America abroad.

Is this the person we wish to be in charge of national defense and to manage the nation’s largest employer?

It is telling that virtually none of Hagel’s former col-leagues, even in his own party, are embracing this nomi-nation. Those senators that know him best are opposed to it.

Most of President Obama’s appointments to fill the vacancies in his new cabinet make sense. Sen. John Kerry, set to replace Hillary Clinton as secretary of state, is the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and has built tremendous crossroads with his Republican neighbors across the aisle by working hand in hand with ranking Republican Sen. Richard Lugar on important issues. His ability to work across par-ty lines to get legislation passed will make Kerry a strong pick to be the nation’s top diplomat. Jack Lew also makes sense as the successor to Timothy Geithner as secretary of the treasury. Before becoming President Obama’s chief of staff, Lew was director of the Office of Management and Budget; before that, he was successful working with President Clinton on fiscal policy.

There are many qualified people of both parties who would make a superb secretary of defense and further the interests of the United States. Sen. Hagel is not one of those people.

Dr. Ben Chouake, who lives in Englewood, is president of Nor-pac, the nation’s largest political action committee dedicated to strengthening U.S.-Israel relations.

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the first and only criminal prosecution of a major manu-facturer for what amounted to corporate murder. The case involved the Ford Motor Company and its Pinto, with its exploding gas tank, and a courageous prosecutor in Elkhart, Indiana. The prosecutor lost, but the public won. Ford agreed to fix the Pinto.

When evidence came forth that women were dying because of a medical device manufactured by a major drug company, and that the drug company knew of the dangers, Robert J. Wagman, who was my writing partner at the time, and I pursued it. In this case, all the credit for resolving the problem must go to a federal judge by the name of Miles Lord. Yet we played a role in that, especial-ly in helping to focus attention on an insidious economic calculation used by corporations, called the “benefit-to-risk ratio.” Essentially, an estimate is made of how many people will be harmed by a product, or killed, and how much money would have to be expended in compensa-tion and legal fees. If the product still would show a large profit, the risk would be worth the benefit.

I wish I could say that the benefit-to-risk ratio was no more, but it is still a staple of corporate planning. I can say, however, that at the very least more consideration today is given to potential victims than had been in the past.

What is my point? It is not to go over history, or to pat myself on the shoulder. Rather, it is a way of trying to ex-plain whence comes the arrogance and the certainty of correctness of which I am guilty. I saw a world that need-ed changing and became convinced by a heady series of small successes that were not even entirely my own that I alone knew how to change it.

I forgot that “Elu v’elu divrei elohim chaim; this one and this one are both the words of the living God.”

I was reminded of that very recently in an all too pain-ful way.

I do believe I have things to say, I do believe I have much to offer, but never again may I do it as if my words themselves come from Sinai.

Over the years, in this space, I have angered people, I have hurt them, perhaps inadvertently I even maligned some of them. I chose to close my eyes to their truths, to their certainties. I chose only to see “the right way,” which meant my way.

I have paid a heavy price for that. In many respects, I am a lightning rod for controversy, when what I should be is a teacher of Torah who opens doors for others to find their own truths.

I could apologize to all who have felt the sting of my pen, but apologies cannot make up for the hurt that was caused, the grief that was felt, the pain that was endured. Solomon ben Joseph Ibn Gabirol perhaps put it best when he wrote, “As long as a word remains unspoken, you are its master. Once you utter it [or publish it], you are its slave.”

I am a slave to my past words. I am a slave to their arrogance and to the certainty with which I expressed them, privately as well as publicly. Not everything I ever wrote was wrong, not every opinion I ever held was incorrect. But I can no longer act as though there is a “Torat Shammai” and all the rest simply is mistaken commentary.

If I can learn to write without the columnist’s conceit, and if people still believe there is some value in what I have to say, perhaps I will return to this space some day.

Allow me, meanwhile, one more public conceit: I pray for a community that recognizes the words of that heavenly voice and acts upon it for the good of us all. “Elu v’elu divrei elohim chaim.” This one and this one are both the words of the living God.

We are one. I say with no arrogance but with uncom-promising certainty that it is time we acted like it.

Shammai Engelmayer is rabbi of the Conservative synagogue Temple Israel Community Center in Cliffside Park and an instructor in the UJA-Federation-sponsored Florence Melton Adult Mini-School of the Hebrew University.

Letters

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Morsi’s anti-Semitism reveals more about us than himBEn CohEn

It’s a story that began with an eagle-eyed Jewish blog-ger who writes under the pseudonym “Challah Hu Akbar” and progressed all the way to the White House.

In the process, it has reignited the debate as to whether Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood president, Mohamed Morsi, is really the pragmatic moderate that many believe him to be.

On January 3, Challah Hu Akbar tweeted an item from the Middle East Media Research Institute in which Morsi, in a 2010 speech, uttered what is a standard Islamist anti-Semitic slander, namely that Zionists are descended from “apes and pigs.”

A little more than a week later, noticing that Morsi’s statement had barely registered with the wider media, Atlantic columnist Jeffrey Goldberg wrote a blog post with the entirely apt headline, “Egyptian President Calls Jews ‘Sons of Apes and Pigs;’ World Yawns.” At Forbes magazine, Richard Behar made an identical point, add-ing that in the same set of remarks, Morsi had called for a boycott of the United States — whose taxpayers have provided Egypt with billions of dollars in aid — because of its support for Israel.

Eventually, the Morsi story found its way into the New York Times, which felt duty-bound to point out that “Mr. Morsi and other political and Brotherhood leaders typi-cally restrict their inflammatory comments to the more ambiguous category of ‘Zionists.’”

Actually, it’s not ambiguous at all. Especially since the Second World War, the word “Zionist” has always been code for “Jew” in the capitals of the Muslim world, as well as in the capitals of the late, unlamented communist bloc of states. And in case there was any lingering doubt, a subsequent Morsi item posted by MEMRI, also from 2010, showed the Muslim Brotherhood leader helpfully urging his people “not forget to nurse our children and grandchildren on hatred towards those Zionists and Jews.”

Unusually, given the prevailing view that accusations of anti-Semitism are a smear cooked up by the unscru-pulous Jewish — sorry, I mean Israel — Lobby, condem-nation of Morsi did follow. The New York Times published an editorial urging President Obama to convey directly to Morsi that such offensive comments ran counter to the

goal of peace. White House spokesman Jay Carney also issued a statement, declaring, “President Morsi should make clear that he respects people of all faiths, and that this type of rhetoric is not acceptable or productive in a democratic Egypt.”

Of course, no apology from the Egyptians was forth-coming. Instead, Yasser Ali, Morsi’s spokesman, claimed that his boss’s comments had been taken “out of context” and really were directed at Israeli “aggression” in Gaza. In fact, Ali’s statement is far less stupid than initially ap-pears; anti-Semites in the Arab world know that there is a strong current of opinion in the West that regards their fulminations against Jews as justified, if unfortunately worded, anger towards Israel. Ali was playing to that par-ticular gallery.

And that leads to a broader, far more important obser-vation. In its editorial, the New York Times asked, “Does Mr. Morsi really believe what he said in 2010? Has be-coming president made him think differently about the need to respect and work with all people?” Disgracefully, the Times also argued, “Israelis are not immune to re-sponding in kind either” (a sentence that appeared to have been overlooked by establishment Jewish groups like the American Jewish Committee, which rushed to welcome the editorial). As for the White House’s Carney, his statement categorized Morsi’s remarks as “religious hatred,” a term that barely scratches the surface of what is really at issue here.

For the Morsi affair tells us much more about how anti-Semitism is understood in the West than it does about the nature of Islamist anti-Semitism. If the Times is to be believed, then the episode is merely a depressing example of how both sides dehumanize each other with nasty rhetoric. Similarly, the White House wants us to think that Morsi’s offense was religious intolerance.

As I’ve long argued, anti-Semitism isn’t just another form of bigotry. It is a method of explaining why the world is as it is; incendiary rhetoric against Jews, there-fore, isn’t just an afterthought, but the natural conse-quence of the genuinely held belief that our planet is in the grips of a Jewish conspiracy. We have to assume the Times would not have questioned whether the anti-Semitic outlooks of Hitler and Stalin were genuinely held,

so why do so with Morsi?There are two reasons. Firstly, the misguided view that

anti-Semitism is essentially a European phenomenon, and thus an alien import into the Muslim world that will disappear once the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is re-solved. That reflects, secondly, an enormous ignorance about the origins of anti-Semitism in the Muslim world and its centrality to the Muslim Brotherhood’s worldview.

In his masterpiece “Terror and Liberalism,” the scholar Paul Berman quotes Sayid Qutb, the leading theoretician of the Muslim Brotherhood, which was formed in 1928, as writing that “most evil theories which try to destroy all values and all that is sacred to mankind are advocated by Jews.” Elsewhere in the book, Berman painstakingly documents Qutb’s frankly Hitlerian view of the Jewish role in world history, including his repeated assertions that Jews had conspired against Muslims from the dawn of Islam.

These were the ideological foundations of the Muslim Brotherhood then, and they remain firmly in place now. Any compromise with the Jews, such as a peace treaty with Israel, therefore would be another twist in the same conspiracy. According to Qutb and his followers, the only honorable path is to vanquish the Jews entirely.

These are the same beliefs of Mohamed Morsi. They may be insidious, but they are authentically held. Asking him to recant them, as the White House did, is like asking Hitler to apologize for “Mein Kampf.”

A far more productive approach would be to integrate the persistence of Islamist anti-Semitism into policy analysis of our relationship with Egypt. Critically, we need to ask whether someone who really believes that there is a hidden Jewish conspiracy at work—and that, consequently, political relationships are camouflage for that — can be a partner in any sense of that term.

Going by their reactions to Morsi’s remarks, neither this White House nor its supporters in the commentariat are up to that task.

JNS.org

Ben Cohen is the Shillman Analyst for JNS.org. His writings on Jewish affairs and Middle Eastern politics have been published in Commentary, the New York Post, Ha’aretz, Jewish Ideas Daily, and many other publications.

Free-will duesTemple Beth-El, the Reform congrega-tion in Jersey City, was pleased to see the recognition given to free-will do-nations programs as an alternative to synagogue dues (“Time for Jews to Lose the Dues,” January 18). In July, our con-gregation enthusiastically instituted a pilot program we call “Terumah: Annual Voluntary Financial Commitment.” We explain our financial needs to each household and believe that each mem-ber knows best his or her own capacity to give. Whatever the gift, it is honored.

Our motto is: You know what our temple means to you. Give until it feels good. Be realistic. Be generous.

This change has brought in many new members — singles, couples, and families — who specifically informed us that they had not planned to join so quickly. It retained many members who were unwilling to ask for dues relief. It inspired those with greater financial resources to increase their giving. It has reduced the time that lay leaders de-voted to dues collection. But the key for us was that this approach matched the philosophy of our synagogue — to be an open community that serves all Jews,

affiliated or not. Temple Beth-El believes that blurring the lines between insiders and outsiders does not dilute the value of membership. Rather, it makes it easy for those who are new to move into deeper genuine involvement with the community.

If there are congregations in Northern New Jersey or Rockland County who would like more information on our Terumah program, check out www.betheljc.org/terumah/ or give us a call.

Rabbi Debra HachenKay Magilavy, President

Temple Beth-ElJersey City

Starting another warIn response to Harry Lerner’s letter in the January 18 Standard, I find it startling that he pulls a phrase out of the paper’s previous editorial on Chuck Hagel, “See, we told you so,” yet proceeds as though he hadn’t read the rest of the edito-rial. The Standard’s editorial goes on to describe an editorial Senator Hagel co-authored with others discussing the positive values of the military option. Yet sanctions against Iran put in place by President Obama are the strongest ever, more, certainly, than President Bush’s

Opinions expressed in the op-ed and letters columns are not necessarily those of The Jewish Standard. Include a day-time telephone number with your letters. The Jewish Standard reserves the right to edit letters. Write to Letters, The Jewish Standard, 1086 Teaneck Road, Teaneck, NJ 07666, or e-mail [email protected]. Hand-written letters are not acceptable.

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were. And Iran is no pushover like Iraq. Any attack by the United States on Iran means an immediate attack on Israel. Reasonable people like the president are aware of this. Those in our government representing the defense industry are pushing for war. I have to ask Mr. Lerner which of the president’s Iran policies doesn’t he like, the enormously damag-ing sanctions or the fact we haven’t start-ed yet another war in the Middle East?

Larry BravermanWestwood

DNA of the Hebrew BibleMeasurably successful nondenomina-tional megachurches, e.g., Willow Creek Community Church in So. Barrington, IL, Saddleback in Lake Forest CA., and Northpoint Church in Alpharetta, GA, to name a few, don’t have dues structures and yet are able to raise literally millions of dollars to fund their communities’ visions and missions. And that’s the key here: It’s not about programming; it is about a God and community honoring heart thumping, passion producing, picture of a preferred future — a clear, crisp, concise, and compelling vision statement that is a part of the DNA of their churches’ communities. This is what they have that most Jewish congre-gations are sorely lacking. The concept of stewardship that megachurches fol-low dates as far back as our own Tanach; to at least 2,500 to 3,000 years ago. It’s just being ignored.

That many Christians believe in and take the teachings of our Hebrew Bible more seriously than the vast majority of non-Orthodox Jews makes a huge dif-ference in the culture and DNA of their communities.

They believe that they are command-ed, and thus obligated. There is no such belief for most non-Orthodox Jews. For “evolved” non-Orthodox Judaism, the idea of a “theological understanding” is irrelevant or meaningless, thus the idea of commandments has been sup-planted by the idea of suggestions and the concept of obligation…well, that’s typically met by a form of the question, “Who are you to tell me what to do?” It’s also true that Chabad has no dues structures and yet they too are able to raise large sums of money. One of the similarities of Chabad and measurably successful megachurches is that they both take Jewish teaching seriously.

Jordan GoodmanWheeling, Illinois

Meaning of the Holocaust?It may be that the reason for the Holocaust is beyond our understand-ing, and that the answers are “in the heavens,” meaning God only knows what they are. But that certainly doesn’t mean that they are beyond our con-cerns, as Rabbi Shmuley Boteach claims (“Religion’s most repellent idea,” January 18). Moreover to say that only God knows the meaning of the Holocaust is equivalent to saying that there is a good reason why He either allowed it or intended for it to happen, and that therefore the Jews got what they deserved. That is a good argu-ment for rejecting the theistic God of the Bible and of Jewish tradition. If non-Jews would say the same thing we would call them anti-Semites. Boteach, with good reason, argues in favor of the counter, subversive tradition in Judaism as exemplified by Abraham and Moses’ challenging God when they thought He was unjust.

A more morally potent example, however, is found in the Book of Job. There God tells Job that his so called “comforters,” who all tell him that he must have done something to deserve his unspeakable suffering, are wrong, and that he, Job, who stuck to his guns and proclaimed his innocence, is right.

Boteach excoriates the rabbis and rebbes who, like the comforters, say the Jews brought their annihilation on themselves and that Nebuchadnezzar and Hitler were only God’s agents. But he is wrong in saying that melech hamoshiach belongs to the camp that argues with God. The plaintive cry of the Lubavitcher rebbe that Boteach cites (“How long? How long?”) is hardly an adequate challenge to God’s moral authority. In fact the rebbe belongs in the same camp as the Satmar rebbe and others who found some higher good in the Holocaust. This is what Schneerson said about it: “It is clear that no evil de-scends from Above, and buried within torment and suffering is a core of exalted spiritual good. Not all human beings are able to perceive it, but it is very much there. So it is not impossible for the physical destruction of the Holocaust to be spiritually beneficial. On the con-trary, it is quite possible that physical af-fliction is good for the Jewish spirit.” And Boteach says he “misses the Lubavitcher rebbe even more.” More than what? The response to Schneerson’s contemptible excuse for God harmed his moral au-thority. He never withdrew it but rather found it more prudent to keep silent on the subject.

Rabbi Mark W. KielWoodcliff Lake

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Steven Rothman has just moved into his offices at Sills, Cummis & Gross, but he already has surrounded himself with memorabilia from his years in politics.PHOTO BY JerrY SzuBin

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Cover story

LIFE AFTER CONGRESSFormer Congressman Steven Rothman comes home to Englewood

Joanne Palmer

If someone who lives in Englewood says that he “moved west,” most people think of the Pacific coast.

California sun, Seattle coffee and fog, Oregonian earnestness – each could possibly have its appeal.

Or maybe they think Idaho, for the skiing, or Montana, for the vistas and the privacy, or New Mexico, for the sunlight and the art.

They’re unlikely to think Wyckoff.But when Steven Rothman, the former congressman

who left office and started the next chapter of his life on January 2, says that he moved west in 1989, that’s what he means. It proves that you can try to take the boy out of Bergen, maybe even move him to Washington, but you can never take the Bergen out of the boy.

Even after 16 years in Washington.Rothman was born in Englewood in 1952. His parents,

Philip Rothman, who died in November at 90, and Muriel Fischer Rothman, were among the generation of mainly first-generation American Jewish philanthropists who built so many of the institutions that distinguish the northern New Jersey Jewish community. His father — who also was a literal builder, erecting offices and houses, including his own — helped start the local chapter of what many name-changes later became the Jewish Federation of Northern New Jersey, as well as the local chapter of Israel Bonds. He was on the board of the JCC when it was still on Tenafly Road in Englewood and later he was on the advisory committee as it built its building on East Clinton Avenue in Tenafly and changed its name to the JCC on the Palisades. His mother was the first president of the Bergen County chapter of ORT, and she spearheaded the effort to bring the Israeli youth symphony to the United States. (“One of the youngsters in the symphony was a teenager by the name of Yitzhak Perlman,” her son recalled.)

The Rothmans were members of Temple Sinai in Tenafly, and the family’s first trip to Israel was in 1968.

“I never forgot many things about that trip, including the burnt-out shells of Soviet tanks we saw on the Golan Heights which had just been retaken by the Israeli Defense Forces in the ‘67 war,” Steve Rothman said.

The family moved from Englewood to Tenafly in time for Rothman to go to Tenafly High School.

Running and winning — and then losingRothman next went to Syracuse University and then to Washington University School of Law — the school is in Missouri, and Rothman was very far west. Once he grad-uated, he headed back home to Englewood. Five years af-ter his return, he ran for mayor, getting the nomination in a contested primary and then winning the general elec-tion. The job, which he held for two terms, paid $2,000 a

year, so Rothman also worked as an attorney, first with a firm in Jersey City and then on his own, “above the barber shop in Depot Square,” he said. In 1992 Rothman ran for

Bergen County Surrogate Court Judge, which, he said, is the only elected judgeship in the state. In 1996, “I was en-couraged to seek Bob Torricelli’s open seat in Congress,” he said. (Torricelli ran for the Senate and won; his appar-

Congressman Rothman strolls in the White House portico with President Barack Obama in June.

“I’ve been looking forward — with a little bit of reflection on the past, but mainly looking forward — to this new chapter in my life.”

— Steven Rothman

Mayor Steve Rothman in Englewood in 1987.

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ently shining career ended in scandal.) There was a three-way contest for the Democratic nomination, which Rothman won with 75 percent of the vote. From there, the general election was easy.

Rothman won eight elections to Congress, repre senting New Jersey’s ninth congressional district. His ninth run, though, presented him with a new set of problems. He was redistricted, and his base was taken out from under him. He had to decide where to run — in the fifth, where he lived (he’d moved from Wyckoff to Ridgewood to Fair Lawn), and he’d have to face a strong Republican, Rep. Scott Garrett, in the general election

— or in the newly redrawn ninth, where his primary opponent would be his friend Rep. Bill Pascrell.

“I wanted to represent the district that was mostly mine, geographically, including Englewood and Tenafly, and I also wanted to help. I’d represented Jersey City as its congressman for eight years, until it was taken away from me in redistricting,” he said. “I wanted to represent the people of Paterson and Passaic and help them as I’d helped the people of Jersey City, getting them a great deal of federal aid.” (Paterson and Passaic were both in the redrawn ninth district.)

Rothman moved back to Englewood

Mayor Steve Rothman in

Steve Rothman’s political ambi-tions go at least as far back as 1973, his junior year, in Syracuse University.

Rothman with civil rights

heroine Rosa Parks in 1983.

Robert Di Nero, shown here with Rothman, filmed “Falling in Love”

with Meryl Streep in Englewood in 1984.

Cover story

Rothman was a lifeguard at the JCC in Englewood.

and chose to take on Pascrell.Whoops!“My friend Bill Pascrell won a

fantastic campaign, and he whooped me,” Rothman said.

“His campaign delivered unprece den-ted votes out of Paterson and Passaic, with Bergen County not turning out in the numbers we had hoped for.

“And I got whooped.”How does it feel? “In the end, the

voters who show up get to pick their representative,” Rothman said. “And while I was very disappointed that I wouldn’t have the opportunity to continue to serve the public, I accepted what happened. I accepted the will of those who showed up to vote.”

A new lifeRothman certainly has landed on his feet.

He is now a partner in Sills Cummis & Gross, a law firm with offices in both Newark and midtown Manhattan. (“It’s at

30 Rock,” Rothman said.)“I’ve been looking forward — with

a little bit of reflection on the past, but mainly looking forward — to this new chapter in my life.

“My amazing children, John, who is 24, and Karen, who is 21, with whom I am extraordinarily close, were with me every step of the way. And while they shared in my disappointment, they were nonetheless openly ecstatic at the outcome for me personally. They said, ‘Dad, your career has done so much for so many people, and it’s allowed us to experience things we never would have experienced — but now it’s a chance for you to actually have a life! To make some money! To go on vacations!’”

Rothman will concentrate on government relations and on developing an aerospace and defense industry practice, which will be new for the firm.

He’s excited about working for Sills Cummis. “I wanted to work with people who are the top of their field, who


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could help me help individuals start up companies, establish firms, and solve problems that are very difficult to solve, but important.

“I wanted to be on the Yankees of my field. That’s why I joined these folks.”

He has maintained his membership in Temple Avodat Shalom in River Edge.

Partisanship, Jewishness, and New JerseyLooking back at his decade and a half in Congress, Rothman talked about the committees he’d been on. Chief among them was the appropriations commit-tee. “As I recall, the committee had ap-proximately 65 members at the time, only one of whom was Jewish,” he said. “I immediately sought a position on the foreign operations and state department

subcommittees, which recommended all the foreign aid from the United States, including to Israel.” He served on other committees and subcommittees, “and then finally I got the holy grail of subcom-mittees for my purposes — the 15-person defense subcommittee, which recom-mended all of the military spending for the United States. I was the first Jewish American ever to serve on the defense ap-propriations subcommittee in the history of the United States; in fact as of today I’m the only Jewish American.”

He also was on the judiciary committee when “a Republican majority sought to impeach President Clinton. I was part of that historic but extremely unfortunate saga.”

Rothman believes that “the good news is that this president” — Barack Obama — “is completely and thoroughly committed

Steve Rothman’s political ambi-tions go at least as far back as 1973, his junior year, in Syracuse University.

The Bergen Record records Rothman’s move to the House appropriations committee in 2001.

Robert Di Nero, shown here with Rothman, filmed “Falling in Love”

with Meryl Streep in Englewood in 1984.

A reporter talks to Rothman on the day he was sworn in in 1997 as his children, John and Karen, look on.

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to Israel’s security and prosperity, not only because of his own life experiences and personal relationships and our two nations’ historic connections, but even more importantly because he and his administration understand that America’s vital national security is dependent on Israel’s existence and Israel’s national security.

“The other good news is that Congress, on the bipartisan level, reflecting the sentiments of the vast majority of Americans, supports the Jewish state of Israel wholeheartedly.

“The challenging news is that Israel still lives in a sea of dictators, thugs, terrorists, and murderers. Israel is truly not only an island of democracy, Western values, tolerance, and modernity in the Middle East, it is also — and now I am going to mix my metaphors — tantamount to a nuclear super powered aircraft carrier in what is now an even more unsettled, unstable, and dangerous region.”

His being Jewish was an issue when he first ran for Congress, Rothman said. “I was the first Jew elected from the ninth district. During some of the debates for the Democratic nomination in my first

race, one of the other gentlemen who was seeking the nomination said at every debate that Steve was a great mayor of Englewood, but let’s face it. He’s a Jew. A Jew can never be elected in this district.

“Ninety percent of the folks in the district were not Jewish, and 90 percent plus of the Democratic county committee at that time was not Jewish. Some folks did speak up; they said that it was dumb or irrelevant. And then I won 75 percent

of the vote at the election.” Problem solved.

Despite the Jewish community’s apparent belief that they constitute a large percentage of the voters in the ninth district, “I would guess that the percentage of Jews in the district is approximately 10 to 12 percent,” Rothman said. And only about 2 percent is Muslim, despite the community’s idea that Paterson’s Muslim population is

huge. “The district is overwhelmingly Catholic,” Rothman said. “I would guess at least 70 to 75 percent.”

It was not difficult being Jewish in Congress, though, he continued. “We often forget that we’re only 2 percent of the population.” Many representatives, he said, “had no great contact — if any — with Jews until they got to Congress.” But Jews fit right in.

“Although for many of my colleagues in both parties, interacting with a Jew like myself, whether it was in the gym or in committee or on the house floor, was a new experience. I can honestly say that there was not a single time when I felt uncomfortable being a Jew. There was not a single instance when anyone said anything about my religion, except in the late nights, after voting.

“When you finished voting, late at night, you go out drinking. I was the only Jew there. When guys from across the country get together and drink, it gets rough. My Jewish heritage came up on occasion, when bunches of us would get together and unwind, have dinner and more than a few beverages. There were some tough characters from across the country, but take my word for it, when it

On Air Force One with President Bill Clinton; Rothman is across from Clinton, and an aide faces actor Kevin Spacey.

Cover story

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came up I responded in kind.“We had a lot of laughs, and everything was said with

great good cheer and warmth.”Rothman not only is Jewish, he is from New Jersey, a

state the rest of the country seems to think of as being inherently funny. “The Sopranos” was on television during the start of his tenure, and he went out at the same time as “Jersey Shore.” “It’s fair to say that New Jersey always had a reputation for having members who could handle themselves, in every sense, whether it was physically, intellectually, in the rough-and-tumble banter on the floor, or at a bar,” Rothman said. “We always gave better than we got, and it tickled people.

“New Jersey was not alone, anyway. Every state was stereotyped. Just about every member had his or her nose rubbed in their state’s worst stereotype at one time or another, but in 99 percent of the cases it was with great fellowship and without an ounce of animus.”

Rothman said that the idea, now in common currency, that extreme partisanship is making it impossible for friendships to develop across the aisle, and therefore making it easier for each side to demonize the other, is not true.

“It’s a complete misperception of what’s going on there,” he said. “It’s not personal, it’s not even for the most part partisan. It is ideological.

“People come to Congress, for the most part, to do what they think is in the best interests of the country. Oftentimes they come armed with preconceived notions of what ideas and principles should be followed in an absolute manner. But — and this is one of the arguments against term limits — over time members realize that people on the other side of the argument are not evil. They are not stupid. They love America. They have some truth to their positions. Members also come to realize that no one and no party, whether they are in the majority or not, ever get their way 100 percent of the time.”

Now Rothman is back in Englewood, eager to start his new life. “I love it here,” he said. “The love affair I had with Englewood when I was in my early 20s never left me. I left my heart in Englewood.

“Now I’m back with so many people I grew up with, who I served in office with, who helped with Englewood’s revitalization and renaissance. I feel as if I’ve come home.”

John, Karen, and Steve Rothman with George W. and Laura Bush at a White House Christmas party.

Steve, Karen, and John Rothman with President Barack Obama.

www.jstandard.com

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BLOGS jstandard.com/blogs

Jewish Democrats low key, grateful at second inaugurationRon Kampeas

WASHINGTON – The inaugural poem included a “sha-lom,” and three rabbis and a cantor attended the tradi-tional next-day inaugural blessing. But the message that Jewish Democrats were most eager to convey during President Obama’s second inauguration on January 21 was that the long romance between the community and the party was nowhere near over.

There was no big Jewish Obama inaugural ball this year — overall, celebrations were fewer and less ambi-tious than in 2009 — but in small discreet parties across Washington this week, Jewish Democrats sighed with re-lief because their candidate had been reelected and won a substantial majority among Jewish voters.

“It’s easy to forget, as it already seems a long time ago, but despite a profoundly negative campaign aimed at the president in our community, he overwhelmingly won the Jewish vote,” David Harris, the president of the National Jewish Democratic Council, said in an interview.

Obama scored 68 to 70 percent of the Jewish vote in November’s presidential contest, according to exit polls, a slight decline from the 74 to 78 percent he won in 2008.

Throughout the Obama presidency, Republicans have claimed that there was a growing rift between the Democrats and what for decades has been a core and generous constituency. They have cited in particular Obama’s tense relations with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu; according to a recent report, Obama has said repeatedly that “Israel doesn’t know what its own best interests are.”

Yet Obama’s Jewish ties seem as deep as ever.U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.), the third-ranking

Democrat in the Senate, emceed the inauguration cer-emonies at the Capitol. U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.), who has made a mantra of saying that the Democratic Party is the “natural political home for the Jews,” reassumed her position as Democratic National Committee chair on January 22 at the commit-tee’s winter meeting here. Rabbi Amy Schwartzman of

Temple Rodef Shalom in Falls Church, Va., delivered an invocation at the event.

A few blocks away, at the National Cathedral, four Jewish clergy participated in the presidential inaugu-ral prayer service: Rabbi Rick Jacobs, the president of the Union for Reform Judaism; Rabbi Julie Schonfeld, the executive vice president of the Conservative move-ment’s Rabbinical Assembly; Rabbi Sharon Brous, the founder of IKAR, a Jewish community in Los Angeles, and Cantor Mikhail Manevich of the Washington Hebrew Congregation, a Reform synagogue just blocks from the cathedral.

There were some hiccups: Muslim and Jewish clerics joined their Christian colleagues in a procession headed by ministers bearing aloft a crucifix. Brous substantially changed her prayer reading, which had been drafted by the cathedral, to make it more forthright. A genteel rebuffing of “favoritism” in her prepared text became a rebuke against “biases” in her delivered remarks.

“I wanted to make it a little Jewier,” she told another rabbi after the service.

The day before, when Obama fulfilled another time-honored inaugural tradition with a visit to historic St. John’s Church across the street from the White House, Rabbi David Saperstein, who directs the Reform move-ment’s Religious Action Center, and Rabbi Jack Moline, who helms the Conservative Adas Achim synagogue in Alexandria, Va., delivered readings.

Sixth and I, the historic synagogue in the city’s down-town, drew several hundred to a Shabbat service for government and campaign workers. Wasserman Schultz delivered a sermon, and although she avoided blatant partisanship, she described Democratic policy objectives — including access to health care and a reinforced safety net for the poor — as Jewish values.

Otherwise, the Jewish profile was low key. NJDC, along with J Street, the liberal Jewish group that had made its hallmark the backing of Obama’s Middle East policies,

hosted private parties, reflecting the overall subdued festivities. There were only two “official” balls this year instead of the 10 in 2009, and 800,000 people poured into the capital, a million less than four years ago.

A Jewish official said that there were similarly fewer Jewish visitors to Washington this year, which likely drove the decision by the major Jewish groups not to repeat the ball at the Capital Hilton. In 2009, hundreds of Jewish Chicagoans were in Washington; this year there was not as much interest.

Instead, many celebrants dedicated themselves to service, in line with a call from the White House for such projects to be timed with Martin Luther King Jr. Day. The District of Columbia Jewish Community Center drew 25 volunteers to help refurbish two apartments for people transitioning from homelessness.

“Volunteering today was meaningful because service is very important to the president, and Martin Luther King is important to him,” said Erica Steen, the director of community engagement for the DCJCC.

J Street brought in 75 activists from across the country to distribute leaflets to passers-by asking them to urge Obama to make Middle East peacemaking a priority.

“Without strong U.S. leadership it won’t be resolved,” said Talia Ben Amy, a 26-year-old assistant editor from New York who was handing out literature near the National Mall.

Eran Sharon, a law graduate from the University of Texas at Austin who is on a fellowship with Jews United for Justice, was helping out at a homeless kitchen after the Sixth and I service. The second inauguration, he said, had brought on more of a sense of relief than exultation.

“It’s a new opportunity to finish the policies Obama has started,” said Sharon, 29. “Hopefully with less bickering with Congress.”

JTA Wire Service

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Charedi Orthodox account for bulk of Jewish population growth in New York CityGil Shefler

Most of the growth of the parts of the New York Jewish community in UJA-Federation of New York’s catchment area during the last decade

was in two Brooklyn neighborhoods, according to new data from a survey first published last year.

Researchers interviewed 6,000 people living in 26 pri-mary areas to compile information for the study, which covered UJA-Federation’s catchment area.

Last week, UJA-Federation released more details from its 2012 demographic study to show that two-thirds of the rise in the number of Jews living in New York City and Nassau, Suffolk, and Westchester counties occurred in Borough Park and Williamsburg, two largely charedi Orthodox communities.

“When we examine the geographical profile and see where cohorts of the Jewish community — and their diverse characteristics — are found, we recognize both challenges and opportunities for communal leader-ship,” said John Ruskay, UJA-Federation’s executive vice president and CEO. “A challenge because more people have more needs and those needs differ from area to

area throughout the region. And an opportunity because there are now more people to engage in Jewish life and community.”

According to the survey, the number of Jews liv-ing in New York and its northern and eastern environs increased by 10 percent over the past decade, to 1.54 million, cementing its status as the largest metropolitan Jewish community in the world outside Israel.

According to the study’s new data, the Jewish popula-tion in Borough Park, home to the Bobov chasidic sect and several other charedi communities, rose by 71 per-cent. In Williamsburg, the seat of the Satmar chasidic sect, the Jewish population increased by 41 percent.

The data offer a glimpse of demographic trends that are reshaping the makeup of the world’s most important diaspora Jewish community. The 469-page study, carried out by a team of sociologists and claiming to be the “most comprehensive and detailed study ever conducted on local Jewish areas,” also shows significant changes else-where in the metropolitan area.

The number of Jews living in the northern Manhattan

neighborhood of Washington Heights skyrocketed by 144 percent. The Bronx, a onetime bastion of Jewish life that had seen a long period of decline, is rebounding. The number of Jews living there rose from 45,100 to 53,900 in the last 10 years. More Jewish families live in a single Manhattan neighborhood, the Upper West Side (43,900), than in all of Cleveland, Ohio (38,300).

The study also addressed patterns of affiliation. In Brownstone Brooklyn — a large swath of Kings County that includes such neighborhoods as Park Slope, Red Hook, and Windsor Terrace — Jewish residents reported relatively low rates of affiliation. About half the respon-dents in the area volunteered at charities, although not necessarily Jewish ones.

The highest proportion of married Jewish couples lives on Long Island, particularly in Great Neck and the Five Towns. Residents of these suburbs on average gave more to Jewish causes, traveled to Israel more frequently, and felt a closer connection to the Jewish state than re-spondents from almost any other county.

see Charedi page 28

Two chasidic men walk in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. along with Borough Park, the neighborhood accounts for two-thirds of overall Jewish population growth in New York City and some of its suburbs, according to new details from a 2012 study. Gedalya GottdenGer via Creative Commons


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The survey also provided information about the reli-gious affiliation of the community. About 40 percent of participants living on the Upper East Side of Manhattan said they identified with Reform Judaism, and more than 30 percent of respondents in the Queens neighborhoods of Flushing and Kew Gardens Hills were affiliated with Conservative Judaism.

Last year’s findings had showed a general decline in the number of those affiliated with both movements.

Ruskay said the data gathered by his organization already had been put to use in assessing the damage wrought by superstorm Sandy.

“Since the data was assembled just a year before the hurricane, we have a baseline that tells us about the character of communities that live in areas affected by the storm,” he said. “In the future, we’ll be able to gauge temporary versus long-term impact on residents by comparing new data with this baseline.”

JTA Wire Service

Charedi from page 27

Washington Post calls on Obama to ‘reset’ relations with NetanyahuJERUSALEM - President Obama should “reset” his re-lationship with Benjamin Netanyahu, the Washington Post wrote in an editorial.

“The wise U.S. policy would be to concede, and maybe even welcome, Mr. Netanyahu’s reelection while quietly urging him to construct a centrist government,” urged the editorial published on January 22, Election Day in Israel.

The editorial presumes that Netanyahu will be elect-ed to a third term as Israel’s prime minister, saying, “No scenario contemplated by political analysts foresees anyone other than Mr. Netanyahu emerging as prime minister from the bargaining that will follow Tuesday’s election.”

The editorial points out that Netanyahu has not been afraid to play up his “his notoriously bad relations” with Obama, something that would have been political sui-cide in previous election years. It also points out that a recent poll showed that half of Israelis believe the coun-try’s leaders should pursue his policies “even if they lead to conflict with the United States.”

The editorial conceded Obama’s “poor handling of Israel, which he has not visited and where he is widely regarded as supportive of the nation’s defense but un-sympathetic to its psyche.”

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Kaplen JCC on the PalisadesLifeyour Center for The Kaplen JCC on the Palisades is a barrier free and handicapped accessible facility.

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Free and Open to the CommunityWaltuch Art Gallery - 2nd floor

Norman Rosen is a retired lawyer who studied at theOld Church Art School, the Art Center of Northern

NJ, and attended watercolor and pastel classestaught by Paulette Cochet. “Painting absorbs me ina way that most other activities do not. I draw onmy unconscious and enjoy creating both realistic

and abstract works. I particularly love organicshapes such as flowers, birds, fish and trees,

which permit me to combine realism and abstraction in the same painting.”

For information call Stephanie at 201.408.1411 or email [email protected]

Monkey Mind:A Memoir of Anxiety

Thursday February 7at 7:30 pm

Waltuch Art GalleryArt in Retirement:Right-Brained Artof a Left-BrainedLawyer:Watercolor & Pastelsby Norman Rosen

On display February 1-25

Meet-the-Artist Reception Sunday, February 3, 1-3 pm

James H. Grossmann Memorial Jewish Book Month

with authorDaniel Smith

$8 members • $10 non-members

Are the two most important Jewish communities in the worlddestined to become increasingly estranged from

each other? Why is the relationship in crisis, and what can be done to heal and deepen it?

What are the responsibilities of American Jews and of Israelis to create a healthier relationship?

This program is made possible by the Adler Family Innovation Fund at Jewish Federation of Northern New Jersey. Co-sponsored with many local synagogues

Cost: $7 JCC members/$9 general admission

For more information call Robyn at 201.408.1429

The Future of the American Jewish-Israeli Relationship

Thursday, January 31, 7:30 pm

For more information contact Stacey at 201.408.1484 or [email protected].

the Rubach Family

שמח! פורים

Step Right Up to

Purim CarnivalSunday, February 24, 1-4 pm

with Yossi Klein Halevi, Senior Fellow at the Shalom Hartman Institute

Book sale & signing after presentations

The Purim Carnival will open at 12 pm for

families with children with special needs

Cotton Candy, Popcorn & more!

Visits from some of your favorite characters!

Train Ride, Junior Bounce & more

for pre-schoolers! Moon Bounce & Double

Slide for the big kids! Fun for Everyone!

Suggested entrance donation:$1 per person

or a non-perishable food item to be donated to

the Center for Food Action

JS 012513_JS 012513 1/22/13 12:00 AM Page 2

Saturday, January 26 at 8:00 pm

Programin

Hebrew

Call Sharon Kestenbaum at 201.408.1406 or [email protected]

$20 JCC Members/ $25 Non-MembersTickets available at the door

for info call Aya at 201.408.1427

$30.00 per personFunds raised from this concert will help support the Stephanie I. Prezant Maccabi Fund

Songs That She Loved: A Tribute ConcertAn evening dedicated to rememberingStephanie’s glowing personality and enthusiasm for life through Songs She Loved.Please join us Saturday, February 9th, 8 pm

Stephanie Prezant

Live music provided by her friends and family:· Jeffrey Prezant: guitar and vocal· Jonathan Prezant: keyboard and vocal· Shlomi Pilo: keyboard and vocals Udy · Udy Kashkash: guitar and vocals· Ronen Milkay: saxophone· Arlene Gould: vocals· Uri Kleinman: bass· Gal Gershovsky: drumsSpecial performances by:· Nancy Follender, vocals and Diane Honig, piano· Sarah Fortinsky, vocals; Robert Prezant, drums; · Zach Prezant, bass; Erel Pilo, vocals


This audio-visual slide presentation by Milton Ohring commemorates the Holocaust in the context of approximately18 pieces that he created. These include sculpture in bronzeand stone, and memorials in stone and stainless steel. Inspiredby actual events, Yiddish ghetto songs, and traditional as well asmore recent Holocaust symbols, aspects of individual as well ascollective suffering are explored in these works. In suggestingnovel ways of viewing the Holocaust, he hopes to help theviewer better remember to never forget.

Meet Robi Damelin. Born in South Africa during the Apartheidera, Robi later lost her son, who was shot and killed by aPalestinian sniper while serving with the Israeli Army Reserve.When Robi’s attempts to speak with the Palestinian who killedher son are rejected, she embarks on a journey back to SouthAfrica for answers to the questions that are haunting her.Is it possible to forgive someone who has committed such ahorrible crime it leaves your scarred for the rest of your life?And, if so, can the means used to resolve the conflict inSouth Africa be applied to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict?These are the fascinating questions explored in One DayAfter Peace.Panel discussion will follow film

For more information call Robyn at 201.408.1429 For more information call Robyn at 201.408.1429

Commemorating the Holocaust in Stone & Metal

Sunday, January 271:30 pm

Sunday, February 10, 7 pm

$8 JCC Members, $10 Non-Members

with Professor Milton Ohring

U.N. Holocaust Remembrance Day

NJ Screening Premiere

One DayAfterPeace

Free and

Open

to the

Community

JS 012513_JS 012513 1/22/13 12:00 AM Page 3

JS-31


Free and Open to the CommunityWaltuch Art Gallery - 2nd floor

Norman Rosen is a retired lawyer who studied at theOld Church Art School, the Art Center of Northern

NJ, and attended watercolor and pastel classestaught by Paulette Cochet. “Painting absorbs me ina way that most other activities do not. I draw onmy unconscious and enjoy creating both realistic

and abstract works. I particularly love organicshapes such as flowers, birds, fish and trees,

which permit me to combine realism and abstraction in the same painting.”

For information call Stephanie at 201.408.1411 or email [email protected]

Monkey Mind:A Memoir of Anxiety

Thursday February 7at 7:30 pm

Waltuch Art GalleryArt in Retirement:Right-Brained Artof a Left-BrainedLawyer:Watercolor & Pastelsby Norman Rosen

On display February 1-25

Meet-the-Artist Reception Sunday, February 3, 1-3 pm

James H. Grossmann Memorial Jewish Book Month

with authorDaniel Smith

$8 members • $10 non-members

Are the two most important Jewish communities in the worlddestined to become increasingly estranged from

each other? Why is the relationship in crisis, and what can be done to heal and deepen it?

What are the responsibilities of American Jews and of Israelis to create a healthier relationship?

This program is made possible by the Adler Family Innovation Fund at Jewish Federation of Northern New Jersey. Co-sponsored with many local synagogues

Cost: $7 JCC members/$9 general admission

For more information call Robyn at 201.408.1429

The Future of the American Jewish-Israeli Relationship

Thursday, January 31, 7:30 pm

For more information contact Stacey at 201.408.1484 or [email protected].

the Rubach Family

שמח! פורים

Step Right Up to

Purim CarnivalSunday, February 24, 1-4 pm

with Yossi Klein Halevi, Senior Fellow at the Shalom Hartman Institute

Book sale & signing after presentations

The Purim Carnival will open at 12 pm for

families with children with special needs

Cotton Candy, Popcorn & more!

Visits from some of your favorite characters!

Train Ride, Junior Bounce & more

for pre-schoolers! Moon Bounce & Double

Slide for the big kids! Fun for Everyone!

Suggested entrance donation:$1 per person

or a non-perishable food item to be donated to

the Center for Food Action

JS 012513_JS 012513 1/22/13 12:00 AM Page 2

Saturday, January 26 at 8:00 pm

Programin

Hebrew

Call Sharon Kestenbaum at 201.408.1406 or [email protected]

$20 JCC Members/ $25 Non-MembersTickets available at the door

for info call Aya at 201.408.1427

$30.00 per personFunds raised from this concert will help support the Stephanie I. Prezant Maccabi Fund

Songs That She Loved: A Tribute ConcertAn evening dedicated to rememberingStephanie’s glowing personality and enthusiasm for life through Songs She Loved.Please join us Saturday, February 9th, 8 pm

Stephanie Prezant

Live music provided by her friends and family:· Jeffrey Prezant: guitar and vocal· Jonathan Prezant: keyboard and vocal· Shlomi Pilo: keyboard and vocals Udy · Udy Kashkash: guitar and vocals· Ronen Milkay: saxophone· Arlene Gould: vocals· Uri Kleinman: bass· Gal Gershovsky: drumsSpecial performances by:· Nancy Follender, vocals and Diane Honig, piano· Sarah Fortinsky, vocals; Robert Prezant, drums; · Zach Prezant, bass; Erel Pilo, vocals


This audio-visual slide presentation by Milton Ohring commemorates the Holocaust in the context of approximately18 pieces that he created. These include sculpture in bronzeand stone, and memorials in stone and stainless steel. Inspiredby actual events, Yiddish ghetto songs, and traditional as well asmore recent Holocaust symbols, aspects of individual as well ascollective suffering are explored in these works. In suggestingnovel ways of viewing the Holocaust, he hopes to help theviewer better remember to never forget.

Meet Robi Damelin. Born in South Africa during the Apartheidera, Robi later lost her son, who was shot and killed by aPalestinian sniper while serving with the Israeli Army Reserve.When Robi’s attempts to speak with the Palestinian who killedher son are rejected, she embarks on a journey back to SouthAfrica for answers to the questions that are haunting her.Is it possible to forgive someone who has committed such ahorrible crime it leaves your scarred for the rest of your life?And, if so, can the means used to resolve the conflict inSouth Africa be applied to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict?These are the fascinating questions explored in One DayAfter Peace.Panel discussion will follow film

For more information call Robyn at 201.408.1429 For more information call Robyn at 201.408.1429

Commemorating the Holocaust in Stone & Metal

Sunday, January 271:30 pm

Sunday, February 10, 7 pm

$8 JCC Members, $10 Non-Members

with Professor Milton Ohring

U.N. Holocaust Remembrance Day

NJ Screening Premiere

One DayAfterPeace

Free and

Open

to the

Community

JS 012513_JS 012513 1/22/13 12:00 AM Page 3

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Find us onfacebook.com/KaplenJCCOTP


Presents

Concert Location:Bergen Performing Arts Center30 North Van Brunt StreetEnglewood, NJ 07631

Wednesday, January 30at 7:30 pm

Supporting music education in our

community!

Special Tribute toAvi and Dr. Galit M. Sacajiu

beloved friends of the JCC Thurnauer School of Music

For ticket & info Call 201.408.1465 or email [email protected]

2013 Gala Benefit ConcertFeaturing

Paquito D’Rivera11-time Grammy Award winner

and his ensemble

Fee for 4 sessions: $100 JCC members, $125 non-members • Ask about our couples feeFee for 2 sessions: $60 JCC members, $75 non-members • For more information call Kathy at 201.408.1454 or Esther at 201.408.1456

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Likud leads, but...the rise of Yesh atid, Jewish home bode bumpy road ahead for netanyahu

Ben SaleS

TEL AVIV – His party shrunk, his opponents grew, and his challengers multiplied.

But with the results in, it seems that Benjamin Netanyahu survived the Knesset elections on January 22 to serve another term as prime minister.

Netanyahu faces a bumpy road ahead. His Likud par-ty, together with the nationalist Yisrael Beiteinu, fell to 31 seats in the voting from its current representation of 42.

The biggest surprise of the election was the ascen-dance of former TV personality Yair Lapid’s centrist Yesh

Atid party. Founded just a year ago, Yesh Atid won 19 seats on a platform of national service and pro-middle-class economic reform. Likud’s traditional rival, the center-left Labor, grew to 15 from eight seats by promot-ing progressive economic policy.

And another political newcomer, Naftali Bennett, is likely to push Netanyahu to the right on security is-sues. His Jewish Home party, a successor to the National

Members of Yair Lapid’s Yesh Atid party celebrate in Tel Aviv after hearing the exit poll results. Yehoshua Yosef/flash90/JTa

Likud-Beitenu supporters cheer in response to exit polls MiriaM alsTer/flash90/JTa

see Likud LeAds page 34

ELECTION RESULTS:Likud-Yisrael Beiteinu: 31Yesh Atid: 19Labor: 15Shas: 11Jewish Home: 11United Torah Judaism: 7Meretz: 6Hatnua: 6Raam-Taal: 5Hadash: 4Balad: 3Kadima: 2


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Religious Party, increased its representation from three to 11 seats.

Together with the Sephardic Orthodox Shas party and the charedi Orthodox United Torah Judaism, the right-wing Knesset bloc will hold 60 of the Knesset’s 120 seats — exactly half.

That’s anything but a mandate for Netanyahu, who campaigned on the slogan “A strong prime minister, a strong Israel.” Instead of being able to lead a new coali-tion with a large party behind him, Netanyahu will have to negotiate with rivals and forge compromises with op-posing camps.

Judging from the successes of Yesh Atid, Labor, and Jewish Home, Israelis cast a resounding vote for pro-gressive economic reform and new leaders in their parliament.

The biggest thorn in the prime minister’s side looks to be Lapid. Unlike the fiscally conservative Netanyahu, Lapid won support by calling for housing reform, op-posing tax increases for the middle class, and including charedi yeshiva students in Israel’s mandatory military conscription.

But Netanyahu’s biggest concern may be a rival in his own right-wing camp, Bennett, who appears to have picked up most of the seats lost by Likud-Beiteinu.

While Netanyahu remains ambiguous on the question of a Palestinian state — he formally endorsed the idea in a 2009 speech at Bar-Ilan University but has hardly men-tioned it since or done much to promote it — Bennett passionately opposes the idea. Instead, Bennett, a former high-tech entrepreneur, calls for annexing much of the west bank.

Even within Netanyahu’s party, nationalists on the Likud list who never before made it into the Knesset will now occupy seats. Among them is Moshe Feiglin, leader of the Jewish Leadership faction of Likud, who favors west bank annexation and encouraging Arabs who hold Israeli citizenship to leave Israel.

The rise of Yesh Atid and Jewish Home do offer Netanyahu some new opportunities, too. Rather than rely on the charedi Orthodox parties such as Shas and United Torah Judaism for the coalition, Netanyahu could make common cause with Yesh Atid and Jewish Home, both of which want to draft charedi Israelis into the army

or some form of national service — even though they may disagree significantly on security matters. Lapid talked during the campaign of his willingness to join a Netanyahu coalition, influencing the government from within rather than from the opposition.

So even though the charedi parties grew by two seats — Shas stayed at 11 seats and United Torah Judaism went from five to seven, according to exit polls — Lapid’s willingness to provide Netanyahu with a larger chunk of seats to build his coalition means that the charedi parties may have lost their political leverage to keep yeshiva stu-dents out of Israel’s military draft.

For its part, Labor looks destined to lead the Knesset’s opposition; its chairwoman, Shelly Yachimovich, has vowed not to join a Netanyahu coalition. Tzipi Livni’s new Hatnua party, which won just six seats, is likely to stay in the opposition, too.

The election represented a major defeat for Livni, who in the last election led the Kadima party to 28 seats, more than any other party. This time, the eviscerated Kadima scraped by with the minimum two seats.

Hatnua’s poor showing also suggested how little of the election was about negotiations with the Palestinians. Livni made much of the issue during the campaign, but it clearly failed to resonate with voters. Hatnua’s six seats equaled the showing of Meretz, the solidly left-wing par-ty. By contrast, Labor, traditionally a promoter of peace talks, barely raised the issue in the campaign. Instead it focused on socioeconomic issues and made significant Knesset gains.

With Election Day over, the coalition building begins: To win another term as prime minister, Netanyahu now must cobble together an alliance of at least 61 Knesset members to form Israel’s next government. Who he chooses — and who agrees to join him — will determine a great deal about the course charted in the years to come by the Israeli government.

JTA Wire Service

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Likud leads from page 33

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blog

eLeCTiON ResuLTsLikud-Yisrael Beiteinu: 31

Yesh atid: 19

Labor: 15

shas: 11

Jewish home: 11

United torah Judaism: 7

meretz: 6

hatnua: 6

hadash: 5

raam-taal: 5

hadash: 4

Balad: 3

Kadima: 2

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The consequences of Israel’s voteUriel Heilman

A few observations about the Israeli election results:Right-left split changes, but not a game

changer: From an outsider’s perspective, Israel would seem to be a very politically unstable place. The big-gest party in the previous Knesset, Kadima, crashed from 28 seats to two. The number 3 party, Yisrael Beiteinu, hitched its wagon to the ruling party, Likud, but their combined list lost about a quarter of its seats, down to 31 from 42. Meanwhile, a party that didn’t exist until a few months ago, Yesh Atid, emerged as the 120-seat Knesset’s second largest with 19 seats.

Yet despite the swapping of party labels, not much has changed in the right-left power split. Yes, the right wing lost a little ground — from 65 seats in the last Knesset to 60 seats in the new one. But within the rightists’ camp, votes moved rightward from the more moderate Likud to the Jewish Home party. Also, it would be a mistake to lump together all the centrist and left-wing parties. The biggest winner of the center, Yesh Atid, espouses positions on Palestinian-related issues that in many respects are not dissimilar to Likud’s: Both favor negotiations with the Palestinians (though skeptics say Likud’s position is more rhetorical than genuine) and retaining the large Jewish settlement blocs in the west bank while opposing any divi-sion of Jerusalem. Most notably, Yesh Atid leader Yair Lapid has made clear that he wants to join a coalition with Likud, which is led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Even if centrist parties such as Yesh Atid are massed with the leftists, they constitute a minority of fewer than 50 seats; the balance goes to the Arab parties.

New priorities: With Israelis deeply pessimistic about the chances for imminent peace, a significant number of voters went for parties that made socioeconomic issues, not security, the centerpiece of their campaigns. Yesh Atid ran a campaign about social and economic issues, and Labor leader Shelly Yachimovich, who led the party to 15 seats, up from eight in the last Knesset, virtually ignored security issues in her campaign. This represents a sea change from the old days, when campaigns were all about security. Tzipi Livni’s Hatnua bucked the trend, emphasiz-ing peace with the Palestinians. The result: six seats.

New faces: The 19th Knesset will see a plethora of new members, with more than a quarter of the parliament oc-

cupied by first-timers, most of them from Jewish Home and Yesh Atid. Jewish Home is led by a son of American im-migrants to Israel, businessman-turned-politician Naftali Bennett, and Yesh Atid is guided by Lapid, a former TV per-sonality and the son of the late politician Yosef “Tommy” Lapid.

Women: The new Knesset will have more women; Yesh Atid leads the way with eight female representatives. The Likud-Beiteinu list has seven, Labor has four, Meretz has three and Jewish Home has two. Hatnua and Hadash each has one. Among the newcomers will be the body’s first Ethiopian-Israeli woman, Penina Tamnu-Shata of Yesh Atid, an attorney who immigrated to Israel when she was 3 during Operation Moses.

The end of Kadima: Twice in its short history, the Kadima leader occupied the prime minister’s office. But in just one election cycle, the party went from Israel’s largest faction to just two seats. Various factors doomed Kadima: the rise of Yesh Atid, whose socioeconomic-focused platform and charismatic leader peeled away centrist voters; Livni’s failure to gain adherents for Kadima and subsequent defection to her new party, Hatnua; and Shaul Mofaz’s decision to join, albeit briefly, the Likud-led ruling coalition. It’s not the end of centrist politics in Israel, but it appears to be nearly the end of the road for the party started by Ariel Sharon as a breakaway from Likud.

Bibi weakened: Netanyahu supporters used to herald him as Bibi, King of Israel. So did Time magazine just a few months ago. But with the combined Likud-Yisrael Beiteinu list falling by a quarter after what was widely panned as a lackluster campaign, it’s difficult to make the case that Netanyahu’s star is burning brighter. He’s almost sure to capture the premiership again — now comes the horse trading that is Israeli coalition building — but it seems it will be more for lack of an alternative than enthusiasm for Netanyahu.

Hello, Naftali Bennett: If there was any enthusiasm on the right wing this time, it appeared to be for Naftali Bennett, leader of the newly constituted Jewish Home Party (itself a successor to the National Religious Party). The party captured 11 seats, up from just three as the NRP in the last Knesset. Bennett, who supports annexation of parts of the west bank, is likely to apply pressure on Netanyahu to shift further right on security issues.

JTA Wire Service

NEWS ANALYSIS

Nechemya Weberman sentenced to 103 years for sexual abuseNechemya Weberman, an unlicensed therapist, was sen-tenced to 103 years in prison for sexually abusing a teenage female patient over several years.

Weberman, 54, a member of the Satmar chasidic com-munity in Brooklyn, did not speak during the January 22 sentencing in New York State Supreme Court. He had been sent to Rikers Island prison without bail immediately after his conviction in December. He was found guilty on 59 counts. The encounters started in 2007, when his victim was 12, and lasted until she was 15. She is now 18.

The girl’s parents sent her to Weberman for therapy at her school’s recommendation. The girl was referred for not meeting her sect’s strict modesty guidelines and for asking questions about the existence of God.

The victim reportedly gave a tearful statement in court.“I clearly remember how I would look in the mirror,”

she is reported as saying. “I saw a girl who didn’t want to live in her own skin, a girl whose innocence was shattered, a girl who couldn’t sleep at night because of the gruesome invasion that had been done to her body.”

The New York Daily News reported on January 19 that a new investigation it conducted showed that Weberman had violated at least 10 other female patients. At his trial, prosecutors said they were aware of six other victims, four

of them married women and other two underage girls. The Daily News reported that it identified four more women who do not want to come forward. Weberman’s victims, according to the new investigation, include four married women, three of whom he counseled, and six unmarried women, all of whom were Weberman’s clients.

According to the paper, sources close to the women said that he used patterns of grooming and nurturing to lure them. He showered outcast teenagers with attention, taking them on road trips and buying them lingerie, they said. The unlicensed counselor also cited kabbalah when forcing his victims to have sex with him to convince them his acts were allowed, once telling a victim, “I learned kab-balah and we were a couple in another incarnation.”

“The intimate acts he was performing were intended as a form of repentance for sins committed in their previous lifetimes,” Rabbi Yakov Horowitz of Monsey, N.Y., a man in whom other victims had confided, told the Daily News.

Five others told the newspaper that they were aware of Weberman’s misconduct with clients years before he was accused of sexual abuse, and sources said the anonymous victim who put him on trial came forward after friends told her Weberman “was a known pervert.”

JTA Wire Service

After fire, Israel’s Carmel Forest rejuvenatesBen SaleS

CARMEL FOREST, Israel – The rabbi’s yarmulke fluttered in the wind, his hand holding it to his head, as he recited El Malei Rachamim, the traditional prayer for the dead.

In front of him were 50 guards from a nearby prison. Behind him, a wall displayed the names of 44 prison ser-vice cadets, teachers, police officers, and firefighters who died when a bus carrying the cadets was engulfed by the largest fire in Israel’s history.

The Carmel fire started on December 2, 2010, and burned for five days, destroying 6,000 acres of northern Israel’s expansive Carmel forest. In June, the govern-ment released a harsh report criticizing the conduct of its agencies during the fire.

But even as the country continues to mourn the fire’s dead, the forest is being reborn. Trees are regenerating on their own, new species are being planted, protection against future fires is expanding, and hikers are return-ing to once-charred trails. Israel’s fire services also have grown.

On January 18, for the first time since the fire, families will come to plant trees in the forest before Tu bi-Sh’vat, the Jewish New Year for trees.

Today, the area burned by the fire looks like a giant bald spot in the middle of a dense forest of pines and oaks. Rolling hills, bare of trees, stand encircled by ver-dant slopes where the ground is hardly visible. On the empty hills, a few solitary trees have survived. Many of them are black on one side and green on the other, par-tial victims of the fire.

Closer to the ground stand rows of light brown tubes about two feet tall, made from a plastic material that looks like cardboard. A few leaves peek from underneath. These are the oaks, carob trees, and Jerusalem pines planted by the Jewish National Fund, a quasi-govern-mental organization that helps develop Israel’s land and nature and that is famous for planting trees across the country.

“Usually, a natural forest you leave to nature,” said Omri Boneh, director of Israel’s northern region for JNF. “But in the specific environment of the Carmel, if we don’t intervene, it will lead to a very dense forest with

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A view of part of the scorched area of the Carmel forest, burned in the 2010 fire, with an intact area of the for-est in the background. Ben SaleS

Visitors at the memorial to the victims of the 2010 Carmel fire in Beit Oren, Israel. Ben SaleS

A tree surrounded by protective casing growing in the Carmel forest. The Jewish National Fund is plant-ing trees in the area that had been destroyed by the 2010 Carmel fire. Ben SaleS


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JNF sits on a committee to rehabili-tate the forest along with Israel’s Nature and Parks Authority, the Environmental Protection Ministry, and the Agriculture Ministry. Formed in 2011, the committee has been able to accelerate its work after being granted a nearly $15 million budget last year.

The committee hopes to turn tragedy into opportunity. Its team wants to let the forest regenerate on its own but will in-tervene in a few ways: thinning out the pine regrowth to prevent future fires from spreading quickly, introducing new tree species, and rebuilding hiking trails.

“We’re changing the nature of the character of the flora,” said Guy Ayalon, the Nature and Parks Authority’s northern Israel director. “When they’re dense, they are a risk for a fire like the one we saw.”

The authority plans to introduce more Jerusalem pines as well as oak, almond, olive, and carob trees. Those species all are native to Israel, Ayalon said, and therefore they are in better sync with the environment. Boneh said that a wider range of trees will attract a wider range of wildlife to the forest.

Both men expect the rehabilitation process to take at least 10 years. By then the newly planted trees will have grown tall and thick. In the meantime, Ayalon hopes, the government will keep funding the project.

“Forest care needs to happen all the time, and Israel needs to know how to invest in it,” he said. “If you do ad-equate prevention, fires will be rarer and smaller.”

The government, meanwhile, has in-vested in its fire prevention capabilities, which drew heavy criticism in the Carmel fire’s wake. It has united the local fire stations under a new national umbrella agency and invested nearly $100 million in fire equipment and personnel. The funds have paid for new gear for firefight-ers, an expanded fleet of trucks, and for the first time a fleet of eight planes dedi-cated to fire prevention. Each plane can spray nearly 80,000 gallons of water.

Still, Fire and Rescue Service spokes-man Yoram Levy said, Israel has a long

way to go. He said the goal was to be able to respond to fires within nine minutes. Now the average is 14.

The government has promised the ser-vice an additional $268 million over five years. But with Israel facing a $10 billion budget deficit this year, Levy suspects that may turn out to be an empty promise.

“Now we’re talking about budget cuts, and [members of Knesset] were saying they want to cut us,” he said. “They’re definitely going to try.”

Boneh is happy to see Israel’s fire ser-vices improve, but says that in the end preventing fires like the Carmel is nearly impossible.

“It doesn’t matter what we do,” he said. “On December 2 [2010], there hadn’t been significant rain, the dryness of the soil was extreme, and there was wind. If there’s a fire, it’ll get to that size.”

For now, though, Boneh and Ayalon hope to rebuild the forest they saw burn — and to see it last.

“Planting a tree in Israel testifies to our roots in our homeland,” Ayalon said. “But you have to make sure that the trees are appropriate to their surroundings.”

JTA Wire Service

Visitors at the memorial to the victims of the 2010 Carmel fire in Beit Oren, Israel. Ben SaleS

Omri Boneh, the Jewish National Fund’s northern Israel regional direc-tor, in the area destroyed by the 2010 Carmel fire. Ben SaleS

Israel celebrates education gains, but challenges remainBen SaleS

HOLON, Israel – Just before 1 o’clock on a sunny af-ternoon, students streamed out of the Amirim Public School and headed for home. But for their teachers, the workday was far from over.

Some would stay late to attend faculty meetings and prepare upcoming lessons. Others would help small groups of students in subjects including math, science, Hebrew, and English.

The extended hours are but one aspect of sweeping changes the Israeli Ministry of Education instituted in 2009. The changes were in response to Israeli students’ generally disappointing results in several international achievement tests in 2006 and 2007. Israeli fourth grad-ers had ranked 24th among some 60 countries in math, while eighth graders came in 25th in science and 31st in reading comprehension.

In an effort to improve performance, the education ministry urged teachers to focus their classes on the international tests and to develop precise lesson plans and curriculums. The education budget was upped by hundreds of millions of dollars — $100 million more was allocated in 2012 alone — and teachers were compen-sated for lesson planning time and teaching small-group enrichment classes.

“I’m happy that we have these resources,” Orly Bahat, Amirim’s principal, said. “We never had a situation where, when the kids went home, we could stay here and they would pay us. The kids got this new help.”

The results have been significant, both across Israel and at Amirim.

In 2011, Israeli fourth graders had improved to seventh place in the math section of the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study test, which is given to students in approximately 60 countries in-cluding the United States, China, and several in Europe. Eighth graders came in 13th on the science portion of the test. Israelis also finished 18th in the 2011 Progress in

International Reading Literacy Study, which tested stu-dents in about 40 countries.

At Amirim, students taking the math test moved up from an average grade of 64 percent in 2007 to 80 percent, placing them in the top 10 percent of Israeli schools. Its students also moved into the top fifth of Israeli students in Hebrew, an improvement of 10 percentile points.

“We had a clear measurable goal; every teacher and every employee knew what was expected of them,” said Dalit Shtauber, the education ministry’s director-general. “We [previously] talked about process and we [moved] to an emphasis on results at every level, from the general staff through individual schools.”

The improvement in test scores paints only a partial picture, at best, of Israeli education. Low-income stu-dents performed far worse than wealthier ones. Arabs lagged behind both Israeli Jews and the international average in math and reading. Class size in Israel, which is about 50 percent higher than the U.S. average of 24 students, remains a cause for concern. Charedi Orthodox students, who don’t learn the country’s core curriculum, did not take the test and thus were not factored into Israel’s averages.

Shtauber says that test scores in all socioeconomic sectors have improved since 2007, though the education ministry’s statistics show the gap in scores between rich and poor had shrunk only slightly in that period — and have widened on the reading comprehension test.

But on the whole, the improvements have been dra-matic. And Israeli teachers, who initially opposed the increased demands on their time, seem to have come around.

“We know what’s expected and we’re very precise,” said Orly Barel, a Hebrew teacher at Amirim who de-scribed the initial reaction of her colleagues as “antago-nistic” to the new requirements.

Teachers are now expected to work longer hours, and they bemoan the size of Israeli classes, which range from 32 to 40 students. And like teachers in other countries where standardized testing has been made a crucial part of accountability in education, they resisted infringe-ment on their classroom autonomy.

“The teachers need to adjust themselves to the system,” said Ran Erez, who heads Israel’s high school teachers union. “If you’re teaching one way for 20 years and they say to do it differently, it’s hard.”

The funding increases also have allowed schools to hire more teachers to teach specific subjects, as opposed to having one person teach several subjects.

“It’s just like when you break a leg, you go to an ortho-pedist, not a general practitioner,” Bahat said. “Parents and kids know they have expert teachers.”

JTA Wire Service

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Israeli middle-schoolers have scored better on international tests in the last few years, as systemic changes were implemented. Maya Levin / FLash90 / JTa


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Belgium acknowledges war guiltstill divided, the country nears a belated consensus on holocaust-era complicity

Cnaan Liphshiz

ANTWERP, Belgium – As the sister of Belgium’s most powerful Nazi, Madeleine Cornet knew better than to inquire about the ethnicity of the three women she hired as housemaids in October 1942.

Cornet did not want to implicate herself any further by hearing what she already knew. Her new hires were Jews who managed to escape the deportations that her brother, the Belgian politician and Nazi collaborator Leon Degrelle, was busy organizing.

The unlikely story of Cornet and her husband, Henry, was unearthed only a few months ago. It was among a wave of articles in the Belgian media last year dealing with the country’s role in the Holocaust. The sudden fo-cus on Belgium’s Holocaust history reflects the country’s belated reckoning with its complicity in the deaths of 28,902 Belgian Jews during World War II.

In the last year, Belgium opened its first Holocaust museum, and for the first time it acknowledged its role in the persecution of its Jewish citizens. The acknowl-edgment began in August, when the mayor of Antwerp admitted the country’s Holocaust-era guilt, initiating a string of mea culpas by his Brussels counterpart and the leaders of several other municipalities. It culminated

with a statement from the prime minister himself.“We must have the courage to look at the truth,” Prime

Minister Elio Di Rupo said. “There was steady participa-tion by the Belgian state authorities in the persecution of Jews.” He was speaking at a memorial ceremony in Mechelen, the point from which more than one-third of Belgium’s Jewish population — approximately 66,000 — was sent to Auschwitz. That information comes from Yad Vashem, Israel’s national Holocaust museum in Jerusalem.

This month, a committee of the Belgian Senate en-dorsed a watered-down version of his words, noting only that “some Belgian authorities” helped deport the Jews.

The formal admissions of guilt have come late by Western European standards. Austria acknowledged its culpability in 1993; France and the Netherlands followed suit two years later.

“I think the delay owed in part to tensions between Belgium’s two parts, the Flemish-speaking Flanders re-gion and the French-speaking Wallonian region,” said Guido Joris, an editor of Joods Actueel, the Antwerp-based Jewish weekly that published the Cornets’ story for the first time. “These differences meant it took a long

time to arrive at a consensus.”Indeed, even such mundane decisions as building a

new university or hospital often lead to recriminations between the distrustful representatives of the country’s two ethnic groups, the Flemish and the Walloons, who occupy three autonomous regions that make up a brittle federal entity the size of Maryland.

Historian Jan Maes discovered the Cornets’ story,

Belgium’s prime minister, Elio Di Rupo

see BElgium page 40

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tracking down one of the housemaids, Hannah Nadel, who now lives in Israel. Nadel recalled that visitors asso-ciated with the Nazi movement routinely would dine at the house, while the three Jewish women hid in the base-ment. Nadel’s mother sometimes would cook gefilte fish, which Cornet presented to her guests as “oriental fish.”

The bravery of couples like the Cornets was not as uncommon in Belgium as it was in other European countries. According to Yad Vashem, Belgium has 1,612 Righteous among the Nations, the designation applied by the museum to non-Jews who saved Jewish lives during the Holocaust. The figure is the third highest in Western Europe, behind France (3,513) and Holland (5,204) and well ahead of Germany and Italy, with 500-some rescuers apiece.

The Cornets are not on the list, however. Nadel, 86, never submitted their names.

“We thought about it for a long time but we never did,

as we feared, at the time, it might get them into trouble with their heavily Nazi family,” she said.

Like Degrelle, hundreds of Belgians — many of them police officers — were involved directly in hunting down Jews. Not a single Belgian municipality refused the Nazi occupiers’ orders to register the Jews in their jurisdic-tions. Only one, in the Brussels region, refused to hand out yellow stars.

These facts were documented in an 1,100-page report, “Obedient Belgium,” that was released in 2007 by the Center for Historical Research and Documentation on War and Contemporary Society. That was five years after the federal body started its work at the Belgian Senate’s request.

The report found that the Belgian state collaborated systematically with the Nazi occupation in hunting down its Jews and Roma, or gypsies. On January 9, a decade after the center launched its probe, the Senate adopted

some of its findings.“Part of the delay owed to how on the French-

speaking side, relevant documents had not been prop-erly kept, whereas Flemish authorities archived them meticulously,” Maes said. “There were concerns this dis-parity in documentation could create a lopsided report.”

And no politician was eager to add Holocaust com-plicity to the list of tensions that already burden the rela-tionship between Walloons and Flemish, Maes said.

There was another inconvenient truth as well. According to Dr. Eric Picard, founder of the Brussels-based Association for the Memory of the Shoah, about 25 percent of the Jewish population in French-speaking Belgium was murdered, compared to 75 percent of Flanders’ similarly sized Jewish community.

Historians attribute the disparity to a number of fac-tors: the availability of escape routes to French speakers; the close-knit nature of Antwerp’s more religious com-munity; and the Aryan affinity that some Flemish non-Jews felt toward Germany.

Picard, a fiery 54-year-old psychiatrist from Brussels, says that while he’s appreciative of the “enormous, albeit belated momentum” with which Belgian officials have addressed their country’s darkest hours, he fears some backslide is occurring, noting the difference between Di Rupo’s sweeping acknowledgement of official complicity with the Senate’s more conditional language.

This, Picard says, is “Holocaust revisionism.” He is dis-appointed as well by the Senate’s failure to enact a special status for Holocaust survivors, as the 2007 study recom-mends, or to offer restitution.

Eli Ringer, the honorary president of Flemish Jewry’s Forum of Jewish Organizations, nonetheless calls the re-cent admissions of guilt “important milestones” and the opening in December of Belgium’s Holocaust museum in Mechelen (or Malines, in French) a “significant step.”

Named the Dossin Barracks Memorial, Museum and Documentation Centre for the Holocaust and Human Rights, the imposing building was inaugurated by King Albert II and is made of 25,852 bricks, representing the 25,257 Jews and 595 Roma known to have been sent to their deaths from the nearby barracks.

“There were and there are many setbacks,” said Joris of the Joods Actueel monthly. “But at this late stage, forward movement on Holocaust recognition is simply unavoidable for our country.”

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Henry and madeleine Cornet in their home near Brussels in the 1940s. Jan Maes

Belgium from page 39

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AMSTERDAM – The Birthright Israel phenomenon ar-rived in the small Jewish community of the Netherlands only last year. With only 250 Dutch Jewish alumni, few here knew much about the program, which has brought 300,000 young diaspora Jews on free 10-day group trips to the Jewish state.

And that’s the way it might have remained if not for a documentary, “Make Jewish Babies,” that aired in early 2012 on the Dutch Jewish Broadcasting Company. The film, which follows the Birthright experience of three sisters from Amsterdam, sparked a fierce debate in the Netherlands. Some said the program inspired partici-pants to be proud Jews; others decried it as a nationalist propaganda exercise.

But the same year, two local groups and a philan-thropist started planning the first all-Dutch Birthright delegation.

The documentary demonstrates not only the Dutch Jewish Broadcasting Company’s importance to Holland’s Jews, but also what could be lost when the Dutch govern-ment implements its plan to withdraw the $1.2 million it provides annually to the broadcaster, known locally as Joodse Omroep, or JO.

“The threat of excluding us from public broadcasting is terrible and shakes the community’s internal feeling of safety in their identity, which is necessary for openness toward other identities,” said Awraham Soetendorp, the country’s chief Reform rabbi. “It will banish the commu-nity’s soul.”

Dutch Jewry received its own broadcasting company 40 years ago, with the establishment of NIK Media. In 2005, the outfit became JO, and it is now the only publicly funded Jewish broadcaster of its size in Europe, offering 70 hours of radio and 23 hours of television annually. It also owns a website that includes news and archived pro-grams. JO’s five staffers run the operation out of a humble studio in Hilversum, Holland’s media capital, with an an-nual budget of just $1.2 million, provided entirely by the Dutch government.

Local Jews say JO provides a vital platform for com-munity members to talk to one another and to Dutch society at large, while also providing an avenue for Jews outside Holland’s major cities to stay connected to the community.

On Dec. 6, the Dutch government announced that it would cut the annual $18 million that it gives to nine religious broadcasters, including JO, as part of a wider effort to reduce the government’s culture expenditures. Each broadcaster that wishes to continue to receive pub-lic funds must sign up 50,000 subscribers by 2016 and reapply.

For other religious communities, this probably won’t be hard. There are more than 1 million Muslims in the Netherlands, along with170,000 Buddhists and at least 90,000 Hindus. Each of those groups has its own broad-casting service; Dutch Muslims have two. But Holland’s Jewish community, with 40,000 people, stands little chance.

“The government’s decision therefore spells certain demise only for JO,” said Bart Wallet, a historian at the University of Amsterdam and an expert on Dutch Jewish history.

The singular impact of the government’s decision on the Jewish community has led, perhaps inevitably, to public discussion of the Holocaust, in which 100,000 Dutch Jews were killed. Even among critics of subsidized media, the argument that special dispensation should be provided to Holland’s Jews has resonated.

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A scene from Make Jewish Babies, a film about Birthright Israel that was produced and aired by the Dutch Jewish Broadcasting Company in 2012. Jewish Broadcasting company

see DUTCH JEWS page 42

Dutch Jews fear cultural lossJewish broadcaster in the netherlands likely to be shuttered

Cnaan Liphshiz


JS-42*


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“Generally speaking, our taxes shouldn’t go to spreading religion, but I would make one exception here, and that is in the case of the Jews,” Prem Radhakishun, a Surinam-born Hindustani television personality, said recently in a prime-time television ap-pearance. In relative terms, he said, “more Jews were murdered here than elsewhere in Europe, and we have a moral debt to Jews.”

But for some Jewish leaders, such appeals to Holocaust guilt are discomforting.

“I don’t want to immediately go all the way back to the Shoah,” the JO’s director, Alfred Edelstein, said. “The JO is impor-tant for Jewish life here and now, for the community and especially for people who live in small towns, for whom it is a way to stay connected.”

Given such sensitivities, Dutch author-ities have been reticent, unwilling to com-ment directly on JO’s fate. In a televised

discussion on December 9, the state sec-retary for education, culture, and science, Sander Dekker declined to comment on any “specific program or network.” But Dekker added that “very specific and complicated issues that concern very few Dutchmen should not be the first place that public funding goes.”

Nevertheless, Edelstein remains hope-ful that a place can be maintained for Jewish broadcasting in the Netherlands, perhaps by housing JO at one of the larger broadcasting groups. Edelstein said he will raise that possibility in a meeting with government officials on January 16. But Wallet is less optimistic.

“I don’t know which broadcaster will want to be Santa Claus for the JO, which only costs money and brings nothing in,” Wallet said. “I’m afraid all Dutch media are feeling a serious pinch right now, and I’m not sure at all a satisfactory solution will be worked out.”

JTA Wire Service

Dutch Jews from page 41

The film sparked debate on Jewish broadcasting company’s fate.

Jewish community offers to help teen who desecrated New Zealand cemeterySYDNEY — A New Zealand teen who pleaded guilty to desecrating a Jewish cemetery in Auckland was offered assis-tance by the Jewish community.

Robert Moulden, 19, who was among the vandals who painted swastikas and anti-Israel expletives on historic head-stones in the Symonds St. Cemetery last October, will be sentenced next month.

A second man, Christian Landmark, 20, appeared in the Auckland District Court on January 22 and pleaded not guilty to a charge of intentional damage. He is scheduled to reappear in court in June. Police withdrew a charge against a third man.

Geoff Levy, chair of the New Zealand Jewish Council, confirmed to the local media this week that Moulden had at-tended a restorative justice session in which offers were made to pay for his university fees.

Moulden lives in a hostel and has no

family support, according to a report by Fairfax Media. During the program he was taught about the Holocaust and at-tended a Friday night Shabbat dinner, the report said.

“When we asked him what he wanted to do with himself, he expressed a desire to follow engineering if he could,” Levy told Fairfax Media. “We’ve given this young man a chance to respond to the offers, and we’ve appointed someone to liaise with him to see whether he can be helped or wants to be helped.”

Others, however, within the small Jewish community are nonplussed by the olive branch.

Levy added, “It doesn’t derogate from the need for him to pay a penalty for what he has done, or the need to restore the cemetery or the anger and upset we feel as a community.”

Moulden has not confirmed if he will accept the offer. JTA Wire Service

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JS-43

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More than a half-decade on,

Italy is still years from opening first Holocaust museumRuth EllEn GRubER

ROME — If all goes according to plan, a starkly modern $30 million Holocaust museum soon will rise on the site of fascist dictator Benito Mussolini’s Rome residence.

The site, also the location of ancient Jewish catacombs and now a city park, will be home to a museum first proposed in 2005 but held up repeatedly by finan-cial and bureaucratic problems.

“I hope construction begins this sum-mer,” Leone Paserman, the president of the Museum of the Shoah Foundation, said. “Of course in Italy, it is always hard to say.”

The facility will be the first Holocaust museum in Italy, which despite its war-time alliance with Nazi Germany has a somewhat mixed Holocaust record. The country adopted fiercely anti-Semitic legislation in 1938, barring Jews from schools, dismissing them from public positions, and outlawing intermarriage, among other restrictions.

At the same time, the Italian military generally declined to take part in the murder or deportation of the country’s Jews, and territories occupied by Italian forces were considered relatively safe. The first deportations to death camps came only after Nazi Germany occupied parts of Italy in 1943, following the surrender of the Fascist government to Allied forces.

“There are delicate situations in Rome, including the role of Pope Pius XII, and also prewar anti-Semitism,” Paserman said. “But we have to remember that thousands of Jews in Italy were saved in convents” and other Catholic institutions.

Rome’s City Council approved final plans for the museum a year ago, but city funding later was blocked by gov-ernment-imposed financial restrictions on municipal spending. The funds were freed up in December.

Rome’s mayor, Gianni Alemanno, said that the final bureaucratic approval from local authorities was expected by the end of January. The city is expected to issue an international tender to construction firms and award a contract in the spring.

“It will be very important to inaugurate this museum while there are still some survivors alive,” Alemanno said.

The new museum will be built on the grounds of Villa Torlonia, an elegant 19th century mansion that Mussolini used as his residence from 1925 to 1943. Jewish catacombs dating back to ancient times were discovered by chance beneath the surface of its extensive gardens in 1919.

“It is surely one of the ironies of his-tory that for nearly two decades Mussolini resided on top of a catacomb complex constructed by those whose descendants

— being the main victims of his racial policies — were the ones he forcefully tried to eliminate from the very fabric of Italian society,” Leonard Rutgers, a Dutch expert on the catacombs, said.

The museum, which will cover 25,000 square feet, was designed by the archi-tects Luca Zevi and Giorgio Tamburini. Zevi, whose mother, Tullia, served for years as head of the Italian Jewish com-munity, has described the design as a “black box” — a huge flattened cube that will bear the names of Italian Holocaust victims. A permanent exhibit as well as an archive, library, conference hall, and facilities for research and education will be inside.

Plans for the museum’s exhibition and research facilities are being overseen by a committee headed by Marcello Pezzetti, one of Italy’s leading Holocaust scholars and educators, who also will serve as the museum director. Pezzetti has said he wants the museum to “insert the Holocaust in the Italian context into the Holocaust in the European context: By the time that the first Italian Jews were de-ported from Rome in October 1943, three-quarters of East European Jews already had been killed.”

Among the main focus areas, Paserman has said, will be a confronta-tion with Italy’s “uneasy” history as a fascist ally of Nazi Germany at the onset of World War II, as well as the ambiguous role of the Catholic church before and during the Shoah.

“Almost 70 years have passed since the Shoah, and the survivors — the wit-nesses — are passing away,” Paserman said. “After 70 years, we are passing from memory to history, and this museum will be a place to learn history, to train teach-ers, to educate new generations.”

Holocaust education already is a fix-ture of the Italian school system, with classes and courses as well as special events marking International Holocaust Memorial Day, January 27. Each year, hundreds of Italian students are taken to Auschwitz on educational trips.

Even with no further delays, Paserman said, the new museum still will not open until 2016 or 2017. Construction alone, he said, would take more than two years. Further complicating matters is the fact that while the city is footing the $30 mil-lion bill for the museum’s construction, funds for the exhibition still must be found.

“We are all hit by the financial crisis,” Paserman said. “But there is great will to get the museum built on the part of the authorities.”

JTA Wire Service

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A tale of mutual empathyJewish refugee scholars at historically black colleges

Michele Alperin

In Philadelphia, the city of brotherly love, an exhibi-tion that opened on Martin Luther King Day will highlight a historical moment of mutual respect and

cooperation between the African American and Jewish communities.

Although their relationship often has been tense, es-pecially after the rise of the black power movement and its expressions of anti-Semitism, the hiring of Jewish ref-ugee scholars in the 1930s by historically black colleges stands as a beacon to the potential for common ground between the two groups.

Ivy Barsky, executive director of the National Museum of American Jewish History, explains the museum’s goals in mounting “Beyond Swastika and Jim Crow,” a travel-ing exhibit created by the Museum of Jewish Heritage — A Living Memorial to the Holocaust. “We wanted through this exhibition to really look at what happens when groups or individuals live together, understand each other and their histories, and come from a history of shared empathy and understanding — what happens when those relationships are shared and deep, real and authentic,” she said.

In producing this exhibit and its associated programs, Barsky and her staff collaborated closely with the African American Museum in Philadelphia. Patricia Wilson Aden, its interim president and CEO, notes that the sub-ject matter — the little-known history of Jewish refugee academics from Germany and Austria who were given livelihood and dignity by the historically black colleges — “provides an opportunity to delve into our mutual history.”

The exhibit grew out of a film that itself was motivated by Gabrielle Simon Edgcomb’s book, “From Swastika to Jim Crow: Refugee Scholars at Black Colleges.” Filmmaker Steve Fischler learned of the book in a letter to the editor of the New York Times by refugee scholar John Herz, who referred to it during a period of overt discord between Jews and blacks. The film that Fischler produced with his partner Joel Sucher was first aired by PBS in 2000.The two men actively helped to develop the

exhibit.During the interviewing process for the film, Fischler

was particularly impressed with the mutual recognition by scholars and their students of their shared experienc-es of oppression. “You will see some of the students talk-ing about how, when they learned about this history of their teachers, they felt sympatico in some ways. Having themselves been victims of racism, they saw the scholars being subjected to anti-Semitism and worse in Europe. They felt they were two exploited groups that did have something in common, and that bonded them together.”

These shared experiences contributed to strong con-nections between the Jewish refugee scholars and their college communities, but the reciprocal nature of their relationship was also noteworthy. “It was not one-sided,” Barsky said. “The colleges give these professors homes and communities, and the professors bring their talents, content knowledge, and incredible teaching skills.”

In contrast to relationships during the civil rights era, the black colleges in this case were the philanthro-pists, as it were, offering the highest form of tzedakah, a livelihood, to the refugee scholars. “They are the ones doing the helping, and in a very real way these lives were saved,” Barsky said.

As young academics, the refugee scholars did not have the international reputations of an Einstein or an Arendt, and they could not get jobs in the white institutions of the Northeast. “They were here during the Depression, on tourist visas, afraid that if they didn’t get jobs they would get sent back,” Fischler said.

The scholars’ gratitude to these colleges was so strong that in some cases they never left, even in the face of of-fers from prestigious institutions. Fischler recalls inter-viewing Plato expert Ernst Manasse three months before he died. He asked Manasse why he did not accept a job offer from Princeton University while teaching at North Carolina College for Negroes (which later became North Carolina Central University). His response?

“I could never do that. I could never leave.”The exhibit’s artifacts reflect both the activism of some

Professor Ernst Borinski teaching in the social science lab at Tougaloo College, Mississippi, ca. 1960. Borinski, a refugee from Germany, was part of the Tougaloo community for 36 years. His students were encouraged to think critically and question social attitudes, prejudices, and race relations. Courtesy of Mississippi DepartMent of arChives anD history

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scholars in the civil rights move-ment as well as their strong empa-thy for the black experience.

Included in the exhibit is a re-ceipt for a fine that Donald and Lore Rasmussen had to pay for having lunch with a black student in a coffee shop. “This is not a great act of resistance; this is them living their daily lives as they want to live it,” Barsky said.

Another set of artifacts includes paintings by Victor Lowenfeld and his student John Biggers, who went on to become by far the greater art-ist of the two. Barsky paraphrases what Biggers says in the film about his first experience creating art, in Lowenfeld’s class. “The professor told us that we had a lot to com-municate, that we were living in the segregated South with incredible persecution and violence, and we had a lot of anger and a lot to say; and Lowenfeld encouraged us to say it through artwork.”

The symbiotic relationship be-tween the professors and their students exemplifies the value of strong mentoring, another take-home from this ex-hibit. Fischler illustrates this with an anecdote by Calvin Hernton, who eventually became a dean at Oberlin College. His professor Fritz Pappenheim encouraged him to apply for a Fullbright, which Hernton thought was “the most ridiculous thing in the world.” But to sat-

isfy Pappenheim, he filled out the application, and as a result he re-ceived the Fullbright that launched his career.

The programming around this exhibit also is opening up pos-sibilities for revisiting the rela-tionship between the Jewish and African American communities today, through music, film, speak-ers, and cultural programming. “People are absolutely hungry for this type of programming,” Barsky said, citing a conversation with Robert Jennings, president of Lincoln University, one of two Philadelphia-area historically black colleges: “He says his students don’t know Jews and what they per-ceive about Jews is not good, and our community desperately needs to have this conversation.”

The exhibit is an opportunity to create new dialogues and advance those that are already happen-ing in small grassroots groups in Philadelphia.

“We might come at the exhibit from a different perspective, but

there is common ground there that I think we all want to explore and will all be richer for doing so,” Aden said. “What we are hoping is that we will model the coopera-tion, collaboration, and mutual respect that our commu-nities have had and should have in the future.”

JNS.org Wire Service

Donald Cunnigen’s Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity sweater from Tougaloo College, ca. 1970–1974. Cunnigen was a member of a black fraternity during his time at the college in Mississippi. Social life at a black college was similar to student life at white colleges and universities. ColleCtion of Dr. DonalD

Cunnigen

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The annual book of “Palestine”how an appointments diary is helping to build a state

Linda Gradstein

JERUSALEM – Every journalist has one.So does every nonprofit institution in Israel and

the west bank. The hard-cover diaries published by the Palestinian Academic Society for the Study of International Affairs are a hot commodity.

The 2013 one is hot off the press right now. PASSIA chairman Mahdi Abdul Hadi tells the Media Line that he made the cover green because there hasn’t been a green book in a while. The 10,000 copies in print already are being snatched up. By March, you won’t be able to get one.

“Every country has an annual book — you have an annual book of Britain, France, Belgium. Where is the annual book of Palestine?” Abdul Hadi asked in an interview in his office in east Jerusalem this week. “The book has statistics, information on land, people, history, settlement, refugees, water — all these components of what is Palestine.”

The PASSIA diary has three parts — a telephone book, a diary with a “political theme,” and the maps and documents.

For journalists, it is the first part — the telephone book — that is invaluable.

“It has the numbers of all of the Palestinian institutions from the president’s office to the smallest NGO in Palestine,” Abdul Hadi said. Because Palestinian officials frequently change their cell phone numbers, journalists say they have come to rely on the PASSIA book.

“It’s one of the only few old-fashioned books I can think of that’s worth lugging around while you’re out and about reporting in the Holy Land,” Mathew Bell, a radio journalist for Public Radio International’s The World, said. “The book has come in handy for many, many different assignments. I just wish I could load it all into my phone.”

Bell will get his wish. Starting this year, the PASSIA diary will be available as a downloadable app as well as in hard copy.

Abdul Hadi admits that in the beginning some officials did not want their phone numbers published. But now, 25 years later, much has changed.

“These days, if you are not in the book, it’s as if you don’t exist,” he said. “People are fighting to have their names and institutions in the book.”

Zoghbi Zoughbi, the director of the Wiam Center for Conflict Resolution in Bethlehem, says the PASSIA book is an invaluable resource.

“It helps me know about different organizations and institutions that I didn’t know about before,” he said. “And it helps me get my name and my organization out there. Everybody uses it.”

But PASSIA is much more than the annual diary. It is a think tank, with just five full-time staffers, that has published almost 2000 books and monographs and does briefings for both Israeli and Palestinian journalists and academics.

“We’re like the Brookings Institute in Washington or Chatham House in London,” Abdul Hadi said proudly.

“We are independent and not affiliated with any party.”The institute is housed in a stone building in

eastern Jerusalem, which Palestinians say must be the future capital of a Palestinian state and Israel says is an indivisible part of Jerusalem. The location enables Abdul Hadi to invite Israelis to participate in the seminars although it also means that some Palestinians are unable to attend.

Some Palestinian officials say PASSIA’s location in Jerusalem is crucial.

“Jerusalem has always been the hub of Palestinian culture and research and PASSIA is a continuation of that old tradition,” Palestinian spokeswoman Nour Oudeh said. “It is very important to have active Palestinian institutions in Jerusalem.”

Throughout the building are owls, a symbol, Abdul Hadi says, of the cultural differences between the West and the Arab world.

“In Western culture, the owl is a symbol of wisdom and good luck. In Arab Islamic culture it’s a bad omen,” he said. “There are two different cultures in one symbol. Everybody knows it’s an owl, but they don’t know what it means to the other.” With his fluent English and courtly manners, Abdul Hadi is as comfortable at international conferences in Europe as he is in Jerusalem. He comes from an aristocratic Palestinian family that traces its roots to the 7th century. In the 1840s, his family governed part of Palestine for the British, and in the 1920s his uncle Awni Abdul Hadi was one of the architects of the pan-Arab movement.

Mahdi Abdul Hadi studied law in Damascus and then did a Ph.D. in peace studies in England. He founded the Al-Fajr newspaper and has taught at Birzeit University in the west bank.

These days, he’s busy writing more books and articles and hosting seminars and discussions. And each day, he says, he’s trying to help his people move forward toward a state.

The Media Line Ltd. All Rights Reserved.

OPEN

“It’s one of the only few old-fashioned books I can think of that’s worth lugging around while you’re out and about reporting in the Holy Land. The book has come in handy for many, many different assignments. I just wish I could load it all into my phone.”

— Matthew Bell

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JEWISH STANDARD JANUARY 25, 2013 47

RABBI RACHEL KAHN-TROSTER

When I was growing up, my father would occasionally make a recipe for Shabbat Shira called “Pharaoh’s Wheel.” A traditional

Italian-Jewish recipe, it’s a pasta dish, baked in a circular pan to resemble a wheel, and filled with nuts, sweet rai-sins, and meat. It’s a little over the top, this dish overrun with delicacies, and not something you could eat every-day. Unlike the flat, plain matzah of Passover, the lekhem oni (bread of affliction) of slaves, Pharaoh’s Wheel is a dish to be tasted in freedom.

Pharaoh’s Wheel calls to mind the highlight of this week’s parashah, the joyous crossing of the Sea of Reeds by the Israelites. But once on dry land, clean water and fresh food become major concerns for the Israelites. They cry out to Moses and Aaron: “If only we had died by the hand of God in Egypt, when we sat by the pots of meat, when we ate our fill of bread! For you have brought us out into this wilderness to starve this whole congregation to death.” (Exodus 16:3) The culinary memories of the Israelites seem at odds with what the diet of slaves must have been. The harsh conditions of the desert create false memories, a homesickness or desire for a past that never existed, and without their basic needs met, the Israelites’ faith in God waivers.

How could conditions deteriorate so soon after the miracle of the crossing of the Sea, when Israelites’ faith never seemed stronger: “And when Israel saw the wondrous power which God had wielded against the Egyptians, the people feared God; they had faith in God.” (14:31) A midrash explains that, in fact, the people left Egypt in hopes of experiencing God in such a tremendous way. Miriam and the other women brought timbrels with them as they fled Egypt because they had faith that God would perform miracles for them and give them cause to celebrate.

Once in the desert, it was not so obvious that God was in their midst. Daily, the Israelites saw not miracles, but God’s human emissary, Moses. When confronted with humanity, rather than divinity, the faith of Israelites withered and they complained. As former slaves, conditioned to disappointment and hardship, they could not imagine God outside of the big moments.

But Pharoah’s Wheel is rich enough to only be eaten once a year and seas do not part every day. The Israelites needed tangible and constant reminders of God’s presence, ones that answered their instinctual concerns about basic needs. God responds to the crisis of food with a miracle that is not large and wondrous but tangible in

the everyday world of the wanderings in the wilderness: manna. Manna is God’s bread of freedom, renewed each day when the sun rises: “It was like coriander seed, white, and it tasted like wafer in honey.” (16:31) I remember hearing as a child the idea that it tasted to each person exactly like the food they most wanted, a magic that wasn’t showy to the world, but internal, unique to each Israelite.

Manna is also the bread of trust. Each Israelite can only gather as much mana as needed for each day, with two portions on Shabbat. (16:29) To gather more would show a lack of faith that God would not abandon them in the desert, and would never allow them to starve.

This year, I’m serving Pharoah’s Wheel to celebrate both Shabbat Shira and my younger daughter’s third birthday. But I hope that as she grows, she learns the lesson learned by the Israelites over 40 years of wandering: that God is always present, even in miracles as quiet as our everyday food.

Rabbi Rachel Kahn-Troster is director of North American programs for T’ruah: The Rabbinic Call for Human Rights. She lives in Teaneck with her husband and daughters.

D’VAR TORAH

Arts & culture

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Yossi minus Jagger, 10 years laterERIC A. GOLDMAN

I never will forget the time when I was asked to introduce an Israeli film to a group of women at the convention of

a national Jewish organization.The film was Moshe Mizrahi’s “I Love

You Rosa.” At one point in the film an actress is seen bare-breasted, although just for a few seconds. Within moments, I was stunned to see about 20 women quickly leave their seats, not to return. At the conclusion of the film program I saw several of the women waiting outside, and I asked them why they retreated from the hall. They told me that they were appalled to see nudity in an Israeli film.

I asked them whether such nudity would bother them if the film were French or Italian. “Certainly not, but to see it in an Israeli movie is reprehensible,” they answered.

To be fair, that incident took place a quarter of a century ago, but many of us still hold Israel up to a different standard.

More than a century ago, the Zionist thinkers dreamed of a country complete “with criminals and prostitutes,” a country that would be like any other. Ze’ev Jabotinsky wrote of his desire for “a nation that lives a normal national life on its land.” Along with the special character that makes Israel so dear to most of us, the country indeed has achieved normalcy.

But as Israel has become “am kechol ha’amim,” a nation like all the nations, it has allowed for diversity and difference, particularly over the last two decades. Today, Tel Aviv is known as “the gay mecca of the Middle East,” where one of the world’s grandest gay pride parades takes place each June. An American Airlines survey published in the Gay Cities website hailed Tel Aviv as the best city for gay tourists in the world.

So how do we react to homosexuality in Israel? And what about a film about a gay man in Tel Aviv?

Amos Guttman made “Nagua” (“Drifting”) in 1983. It was a bold independent effort that garnered little interest except for the fact that it was the first Israeli film to tackle homosexuality.

Guttman, an openly gay man, was a pioneer who went on to deal with gay or “fringe” characters in his next three films, but unfortunately he died of an AIDS-related illness in 1993. He was 38 years old.

The very next year, American-born Eytan Fox would make his first film, “Song of the Siren,” the story of a young women seeking love with the first Gulf war playing out in the background. That sense of disorder and searching seemed to be a central characteristic of Fox’s work; he created the fast-paced television series “Florentine” about the struggles of a group of twenty-somethings in pre- and post-Rabin Tel Aviv. Probably the most powerful episode had a young man rejected by his high-powered, high-ranking Army officer father when he comes out to him to be gay.

That scene was inspired by the moment when Fox told his father — Seymour Fox, a highly regarded Jewish educator from the Hebrew University — that he was gay, something the elder Fox was not ready to hear. The big question when the movie came out was whether the country was ready to listen.

This time, it wasn’t a few hundred

people watching a low-budget Guttman film at the art house. It was hundreds of thousands of Israelis watching TV and beginning a discussion about gays in Israeli society.

In 2002, a year after Sandi Simcha Dubowsky raised the subject of homosexuality and Orthodoxy in his groundbreaking film “Trembling Before G-d” and years before “Brokeback Mountain,” Fox took the giant step of making “Yossi and Jagger,” a film about two male soldiers serving in Lebanon who fall in love with each other. To see two men in IDF uniforms kissing on screen was not something most Israelis were ready to see, but the film moved forward the discussion of inclusion in Israel. As film scholar Robert Sklar noted, “the nature of the content and control [of cinema] helps to shape the character and direction” of the culture.

Three years later in this country, Ang Lee’s “Brokeback Mountain” broke all kinds of box-office records. Millions of viewers apparently were ready to watch Jake Gyllenhaal and Heath Ledger kiss. These films were pushing Israelis and Americans to thrash out their views on homosexuality, opinions that have

Was Israel ready for gay portrayal?

Filmmaker Eytan Fox continues to ask tough questions.

Ten years later, why is Yossi still closeted?

changed dramatically over the last decade.

Eytan Fox ends “Yossi and Jagger” with Jagger’s death in a skirmish. As Yossi grieves alone at his lover’s funeral, Jagger’s parents want to know more about their son’s life, and they wonder who might have been his girlfriend. In a powerful moment, they go up to one of his comrades, a woman soldier, wanting to believe her to have been Jagger’s lover.

The Yossi and Jagger relationship would remain secret for a decade, until Fox decided to break it wide open in “Yossi,” a sequel to his previous work. It is 10 years later, and Yossi still mourns his loss. He has exchanged his army uniform for hospital whites and become a successful cardiologist, and he has chosen his work to be his companion. He still is closeted. Yossi’s co-workers, seeing how lonely he is, frantically but unsuccessfully try to get him to meet women. Why is a nurse who attempts to get close to him rebuffed?

Much has happened in Israeli society and the question that Fox seems to be pushing is why Yossi hasn’t simply come out as a gay man. A key moment seems to be when Yossi accidentally meets Jagger’s mother. What has to happen to free this talented and dedicated physician? Why does his loss and grief have to be contained and kept secret? These are questions that Fox clearly is asking not just of Yossi, but of Israeli society as a whole.

Two years after “Yossi and Jagger” Fox made “Walk on Water,” a brilliant narrative study of the machismo of a Mossad officer who is asked to search out a former Nazi official and assassinate him. During the course of his quest, the officer meets the Nazi’s grandson and befriends him, only to learn that this man is gay. The macho agent, at first homophobic, learns to accept his new friend, but can Israeli society?

In 2006, in Fox’s “The Bubble,” two gay men on the periphery of Israeli life, one an Arab from the west bank and the other a Tel Aviv Jew who has served as a soldier at a border checkpoint, meet and fall in love. Is there a place for both these men in their respective worlds? The highly talented Eytan Fox seems continually to ask tough questions in his films.

Ohad Knoller, who won the Best Actor award for “Yossi and Jagger” at the 2003 Tribeca Film Festival, returns to his role as Yossi and does a fine job. The always remarkable Orly Silbersatz plays Jagger’s mother. “Yossi” brings us to a different level in how we perceive Israel. Are we ready yet to accept that Israel is a nation with criminals, prostitutes, and yes, gays and lesbians?

Eric Goldman’s new book, “The American Jew-ish Story Through Cinema,” will be published by the University of Texas Press in April.

Calendar

JS-49*

Shabbat in Franklin Lakes Barnert Temple offers its Shabbat Shirah/Tu Bi-Sh’vat potluck seder, 7 p.m. 747 Route 208 South. Natalie, (201) 848-1800 or [email protected].

Shabbat in Jersey City Cong. B’nai Jacob and Temple Beth-El Friday hold their second annual joint Shabbat/Tu Bi-Sh’vat seder, at TBE, 7:30 p.m. 2419 Kennedy Boulevard. (201) 333-4229 or [email protected].

Shabbat in Closter Temple Beth El hosts a Shabbat Shira spiritual service with guest violinist, Sheryl Staples, 7:30 p.m. 221 Schraalenburgh Road. (201) 768-5112.

Shabbat in Leonia Congregation Adas Emuno offers services, 7:30 p.m., followed by a Tu Bi-Sh’vat dessert seder. 254 Broad Ave. (201) 592-1712 or www.adasemuno.org.

Shabbat in Wyckoff Temple Beth Rishon offers the Shabbat of Song, 8 p.m., with the Kol Rishon and Zemer Rishon choirs, instrumental accompaniment by guitarists Cantor Ilan Mamber and Mark Kantrowitz, pianist Itay Goren, violinist Sylvia Rubin, and percussionist Jimmy Cohen. 585 Russell Ave. (201) 891-4466 or www.bethrishon.org.

saturday [january 26]

Shabbat in Short Hills The Union for Reform Judaism hosts a Shabbaton at Congregation B’nai Jeshurun, where Jews from the Reform movement’s northeast region gather for a day of learning, prayer, music, and food. 8:30 a.m.-5 p.m. 1025 South Orange Ave. (973) 379-3177.

Shabbat in Teaneck The Jewish Learning Experience offers an educational prayer service at Congregation Beth Aaron, with a selection of prayers, some in English, some in Hebrew — transliterations are available — including discussion and commentary. Zvi Weissler will read from the weekly Torah portion. 9:45 a.m. Youth groups for children. (201) 966-4498, [email protected], or www.jle.org.

Latin music/dance/food in Closter Temple Beth El of Northern Valley celebrates the Latin Jewish connection with salsa with vocalist Kike Cruz and the Orquestra Royal, dancing, led by instructors from the Anchor Dance Studio of Oradell, and (non-kosher) Latin food, and sangria, 7 p.m. 221 Schraalenburgh Road. (201) 768-5112 or www.tbenv.org/music.

Con Vivo Courtesy tBe

Music in Jersey City Con Vivo performs at Temple Beth-El, 7:30 p.m., as part of the temple’s Contemporary Concert series. The trio includes pianist Denise Fillion, oboist Karisa Werdon, and violinist Amelia Hollander. Wine, soft drinks, and sweets, at 7. Raffle prizes. 2419 Kennedy Boulevard. (201) 333-4229 or [email protected].

monday [january 28]

Senior program in Wayne The Chabad Center of Passaic County continues its Smile on Seniors program at the center with a Tu Bi-Sh’vat program and brunch, 11:30 a.m. 194 Ratzer Road. (973) 694-6274 or [email protected].

Current events Al Nahum leads “Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow” for the senior group at the Jewish Community Center of Paramus, 1:30 p.m. East 304 Midland Ave. (201) 262-7691.

Job networking Barnert Temple in Franklin Lakes, in partnership with Beth Rishon of Wyckoff and Beth Haverim Shir Shalom in Mahwah, hosts a job networking program, 6:30 p.m 747 Route 208 South. (201) 848-1800.

wednesday [january 30]

Rabbi Arthur Weiner

History of Zionism Rabbi Arthur Weiner of the JCC of Paramus begins a six-session course, “The History of Zionism, the Jewish National Movement,” at 3 and again at 8:15 p.m. East 304 Midland Ave. (201) 262-7691.

Jewish women in history The Wayne YMCA continues a free series, Jewish Women in History, led by Roni Mishpati, Jewish Federation of Northern New Jersey’s Youth shlicha, 5 p.m. Weekly through February 27. Sponsored by the Jewish Federation of Northern New Jersey. The Metro YMCAs of the Oranges is a partner of the YM-YWHA of North Jersey. 1 Pike Drive. (973) 595-0100.

Torah portion The JCC of Paramus holds “Drosh and Nosh,” a lay-led discussion on the weekly Torah portion, 7:30 p.m. Snacks served. Minyan at 8. East 304 Midland Ave. (201) 262-7691.

thursday [january 31]

Family education/social action The Kaplen JCC on the Palisades in Tenafly offers “Bread for Hunger” with baking, discussion, and chessed activities, 6 p.m. (201) 408-1429 or www.jccotp.org.

Mah jongg in Washington Township The Bergen County YJCC offers a beginner’s mah jongg class, 7:30 p.m., through March 7. Jill, (201) 666-6610, ext. 5812, or [email protected].

Yossi Klein Halevi

American Jews Author/lecturer Yossi Klein Halevi, a fellow at the Jerusalem-based Shalom Hartman Institute, discusses “The Future of the American Jewish-Israeli Relationship” at the Kaplen JCC on the Palisades in Tenafly, 7:30 p.m. Made possible by a grant from the Adler Family Innovation Fund at Jewish Federation of Northern New Jersey to the Shalom Hartman Institute of North America. Co-sponsored with shuls including Temple Emanu-El

Martin Perlman & Jo-Ann Hassan Holocaust Education Institute Endowment Fund. Robyn, (201) 408-1429 or www.jccotp.org.

Children’s concert in Tenafly Temple Sinai of Bergen County’s Early Childhood Center hosts a winter concert with the Dirty Sock Funtime Band, 3:30 p.m. 1 Engle St. (201) 568-3035.

Film/book discussion in Woodcliff Lake Jewish Federation of Northern New Jersey’s “One Book, One Community” program continues at Temple Emanuel of the Pascack Valley, with a screening of “Korczak,” 7 p.m. This year’s book is “The Zookeeper’s Wife.” 87 Overlook Road. (201) 391-0801 or www.jfnnj.org/onebook.

Women’s book club The Chabad Center of Passaic County offers a discussion on Alex Witchel’s memoir, “All Gone,” at a private home in Wayne, 7:30 p.m. Refreshments. Chani, (973) 694-6274 or [email protected].

sunday [january 27]

Super Sunday Jewish Federation of Northern New Jersey holds its annual Super Sunday fundraising event. Howard Chernin, Matthew Libien, and Amy Shafron are event chairs. Sign up to make calls. (201) 820-3937 or www.JFNNJ.org/supersunday.

Blood Drive in Franklin Lakes Barnert Temple hosts a blood drive, 8:30 a.m.-1:30 p.m. (201) 848-1800 or www.redcrossblood.org/make-donation-sponsor.

Laura Hall Courtesy yMCA

Concert in Wayne The YMCA of Wayne continues its Sundays Backstage at the Y series with a performance by jazz vocalist Laura Hull, 11:45 a.m. 1 Pike Drive. (973) 595-0100, ext. 257.

Camp fair The New Jersey Summer Camp Fair is at the East Hanover Ramada Inn and Conference Center, noon-3 p.m. 130 Route 10 West. www.njcampfairs.com.

Preschool brunch in Woodcliff Lake The Early Childhood Program at Temple Emanuel of the Pascack Valley holds a “Daddy and Me” brunch with activities to celebrate Tu Bi-Sh’vat, 12:30 - 1:30 p.m. 87 Overlook Drive. (201) 391-8329.

U.N. Holocaust Remembrance Day Sculptor Milton Ohring commemorates the Holocaust with an audio-visual slide presentation in the context of 18 pieces that he created in stone and metal at the Kaplen JCC on the Palisades in Tenafly, 1:30 p.m. Holocaust programs are sponsored by the

The New York Board of Rabbis presents David Broza live in concert at Temple Emanu-El of Closter on Sunday, February 10, at 6 p.m. Broza, who has been called the “Israeli Bruce Springsteen,” sings in Hebrew, Spanish, and English. VIP reception follows. The concert is to benefit victims of Superstorm Sandy; invited guests include Gov. Chris Christie, senators, and members of Congress. The Jewish Standard is among the concert’s sponsors. For tickets, call Jessica Di Paolo at (212) 983-3521 or email her at [email protected].



Taken at last year’s YU Seforim Sale. Courtesy yu

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of Closter; Congregation Beth Sholom, Teaneck; Temple Sinai of Bergen County, Tenafly; Jewish Center of Teaneck; Temple Emanuel of Pascack Valley in Woodcliff Lake; and Ahavath Torah of Englewood. (201) 408-1426 or www.jccotp.org.

friday [february 1]

Shabbat in Teaneck Rabbi Moshe Stepansky, an associate of Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach, returns to the Jewish Center of Teaneck for Shabbat Yitro. During services at 4:55 p.m, he will discuss “One People.” On Shabbat afternoon, after Minchah, which starts at 4:45 p.m, the topic will be “Unity: from the Cosmic to the Personal.” 70 Sterling Place. (201) 833-0515.

Shabbat in Paramus The Young Jewish Families club of the Jewish Community Center of Paramus hosts a family-friendly service and program for young families and children, 13 and younger, 7:30 p.m. Oneg/playtime in the gym follow. East 304 Midland Ave. (201) 262-7691 or [email protected].

Shabbat in Teaneck Temple Emeth offers family services, 7:30 p.m. 1666 Windsor Road. (201) 833-1322 or www.emeth.org.

Shabbat in Closter Temple Beth El offers “Ruach Shabbat,” an informal/interactive evening with choice of Shabbat experiences, including a healing prayer, 7:30 p.m. 221 Schraalenburgh Road. (201) 768-5112.

Shabbat in Jersey City Cong. B’nai Jacob offers Friday Night Live! services with Cantor Marsha Dubrow, 8 p.m. 176 West Side Ave. (201) 435-5725 or bnaijacobjc.org.

Shabbat in Emerson Congregation B’nai Israel offers its casual “Catskill Shabbat” service; Rabbi Debra Orenstein and Cantor Lenny Mandel share memories, history, and humor from summers in the Catskill Mountains’ borscht belt, 7:30 p.m. 53 Palisade Ave. (201) 265-2272 or www.bisrael.com.

saturday [february 2]

Community Torah learning Sweet Tastes of Torah, a community night of study, discussion, music, and fun, presented by the North Jersey Board of Rabbis with support from the Jewish Federation of Northern New Jersey and local synagogues, is at Temple Emeth in Teaneck, 6:30 p.m. Snow date February 9. (201) 652-1687 or www.jfnnj.org/sweettorah.

Wine sale/seminar The sisterhood and Road Scholars of Congregation Ahavath Torah in Englewood host a pre-Passover wine sale, with more than 200 drinks to sample, including Scotch and kosher for Passover liquors. Discount for purchases. Sale begins at 8 p.m, at 8:30 there will be a wine-pairing seminar with the executive chef from Teaneck’s ETC Steakhouse. 240 Broad Ave. (201) 568-1315 or www.ahavathtorah.org.

sunday [february 3]

Tefillin event/bone marrow drive Temple Emanu-El of Closter participates in the Federation of Jewish Men’s Clubs’ World Wide Wrap to spread the mitzvah of tefillin, 9 a.m. Breakfast served. Bone marrow donor drive until 11:30 for Smiles for Shira, a mother of three who needs a donor match. 180 Piermont Road. (201) 750-9997.

Tefillin event in Fair Lawn Temple Beth Sholom participates in the World Wide Wrap, 9 a.m. Bagel breakfast. 40-25 Fair Lawn Ave. (201) 797-9321.

Pre-K program in Ridgewood The Northern New Jersey Jewish Academy, a collaborative Hebrew school with Temple Israel and JCC, Ridgewood; Congregation Beth Sholom, Teaneck; Kol Haneshama,

Englewood; Temple Beth Sholom, Fair Lawn; and Temple Emanuel of North Jersey, Franklin Lakes, offers a free monthly pre-K program at Temple Israel, 9:30 a.m. 475 Grove St. (201) 444-9320 or [email protected].

War veterans meet in Teaneck The Teaneck/New Milford Post #498 Jewish War Veterans offers a breakfast meeting at the American Legion Building, 9:30 a.m. Prospective members welcome. 650 American Legion Drive. Past Commander Stan Hoffman, (201) 836-0814.

Bagels/preschool class The JCC of Paramus’ Young Families Club offers a bagel and schmooze breakfast at 9:30 a.m. and the Candle Club, a monthly pre-K holiday class with stories, music, arts and crafts, and nut-free snacks, at 9:45. (201) 262-7733 or [email protected].

Tefillin event in Cliffside Park Temple Israel Community Center/Congregation Heichal Yisrael participates in the World Wide Wrap, 10 a.m. Open to all. Bagels served. 207 Edgewater Road. (201) 945-7310.

in new york

sunday[january 27]

International Holocaust Remembrance Day The Museum of Jewish Heritage — A Living Memorial to the Holocaust offers “The Power of Witnessing: Reflections, Reverberations, and Traces of the Holocaust,” 2:30 p.m. Inspired by a book edited by psychoanalysts Nancy R. Goodman and Marilyn B. Meyers, who will be among a panel of psychologists, artists, and survivors who will discuss how the trauma of the Holocaust is processed by survivors, their children, and those who help them heal. 36 Battery Place. (646) 437-4202 or www.mjhnyc.org.

monday [january 28]

Eleanor Antin Courtesy JM

Author reading The Jewish Museum presents “Bubbe Meises,” a reading performance with artist Eleanor Antin, 11:30 a.m. She will read from “Conversations with Stalin,” her unpublished coming-of-age memoir about growing up in a family of first generation Jewish immigrants in New York City. 1109 Fifth Avenue at 92nd Street. (212) 423-3337 or TheJewishMuseum.org.

wednesday [january 30]

Austrian classical music The renowned Merlin Ensemble Vienna performs pieces by Jewish composers, including Mendelssohn, Schoenberg, and Zemlinsky, at the Museum of Jewish Heritage—A Living Memorial to the Holocaust, 7 p.m. 36 Battery Place. (646) 437-4202 or www.mjhnyc.org.

thursday [january 31]

Performative reading Poet, artist, and cultural designer Amir Parsa responds to the medieval manuscripts in the current exhibition, “Crossing Borders: Manuscripts from the Bodleian Libraries,” in a performative reading at the Jewish Museum, 6:30 p.m. 1109 Fifth Avenue at 92nd Street. (212) 423-3337 or TheJewishMuseum.org.

Adult ed in Emerson tackles living and dyingCongregation B’nai Israel hosts a se-ries of adult education classes that will examine “How Jews Deal with Living and Dying.” The classes will run from February until April, and a series of work-shops on lifecycle events will be held on Sunday mornings, led by Rabbi Debra Orenstein, Cantor Lenny Mandel, and guest speakers.

The “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door” se-ries, beginning February 10, focuses on the customs and traditions of a Jewish funeral and unveiling; shiva and visiting a shiva home; and what is done just before death, at the moment of death, and after. On March 3, “With a Little Help From My Friends,” features a panel discussion about funeral arrangements. Barry Wien, co-owner of Eden Memorial Chapels in

Fort Lee, will provide information about buying plots, selecting a funeral home, preparing for funerals, prepaying for funerals, and out-of-state transport of bodies. Louise Reich, a congregant who is an estate planning and administra-tion attorney, will focus on living wills, health proxies, and preparing your estate. Orenstein and Mandel will discuss organ donation, bequests, and tzedakah.

The series continues on April 14 with “All I Have to Do is Dream,” a discussion about Jewish beliefs in the afterlife, led by Orenstein and Mandel, and concludes on April 21 with “Leader of the Pack,” a learning session to teach people how to lead a shiva minyan. For information, call (201) 265-2272 or go to www.bisrael.com.

Closter shul sponsors spin-athonThe second annual Ride 2 Provide — a spin-athon sponsored by the men’s club of Temple Emanu-El in Closter — is set for Sunday, February 10. It raises funds for food banks in Bergen County, includ-ing the one at Jewish Family Service of Bergen and North Hudson.

The Ride 2 Provide, held at CORE Center of Fitness in Closter, begins at 9:45 a.m. Every rider will be given Gatorade, healthy snacks, and a goodie bag that includes a shirt.

Call Jeanine at (201) 750-9997 or email her at [email protected].

Annual seforim sale at YU to benefit shuls/schools affected by SuperstormYeshiva University will hold its annual Seforim Sale — North Afmerica’s largest sale of Jewish books — from February 3 to March 3 on YU’s Wilf Campus in Manhattan.

A portion of the proceeds from this year’s sale will benefit victims of Superstorm Sandy. As part of the #Seforim4Sandy campaign, sale orga-nizers will help replenish the depleted library of a shul or school affected by the storm. Based on the results of online voting, one participating organization will be selected to receive up to $10,000 worth of books. You can vote to pick that organization at www.facebook.com/seforim. The Seforim Sale website, www.theseforimsale.com, also will provide online registries for contributions to as-sist other organizations that were devas-

tated by Sandy.Last year, the sale drew more than

15,000 people from the tristate area and grossed more than $1 million in sales. There will be discounted prices on the latest of more than 10,000 titles in rab-binic and academic literature, cook-books, and children’s books.

The sale has become a highlight of Yeshiva University’s year, as students, alumni, and members of the greater community attend to add books to their personal libraries. People who cannot attend the sale in person can order on-line at the Seforim Sale’s website. To see a complete list of dates and times, buy gift certificates, look at the online catalog, or contribute to a participating shul or school registry, go to www.theseforim-sale.com.

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Join Team SharsheretTeam Sharsheret is seeking participants for the NYC Half-Marathon, set for Sunday, March 17, and the Aquaphor NYC Triathlon, scheduled for Sunday, July 14. Proceeds raised by race participants help support Jewish women and families facing breast or ovarian cancer. The orga-nization will fly participants to New York for the race if they live outside the New

York metropolitan area. As a member of Team Sharsheret,

participants will receive race gear, coaching, virtual training, and a personalized fundraising page; those in the New York metropolitan area also are offered group runs. For information, email [email protected].

“Only a Paper Doll,” created from discarded clothing, 33” x 47”, by Linda Friedman Schmidt.

Franklin Lakes artist displaying works“Diaspora,” a juried exhibition of contem-porary fine art presented by the Jewish Women’s Art Network of the Women’s Caucus for Art, will be at the New Century Gallery in New York City from February 5 to 16. Laura Kruger, the curator at the Hebrew Union College Museum of Art, was the juror who selected the artwork for the exhibition and accompanying catalog. An artists’ reception will be on

Saturday, February 16, from 6 to 8 p.m.Linda Friedman Schmidt of Franklin

Lakes is among the artists. She was born in a displaced person’s camp in Germany, the child of Holocaust survivors who met in the camp. She did not start creating art until she was 50.

For information, call (212) 367-7072 or go to www.newcenturyartists.org.

February 12

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Tolkien Bi-Sh’vatLooking to the Middle-earth folk to save our planet

Edmon J. Rodman

LOS ANGELES – What lore does Bilbo Baggins have to share with us about Tu Bi-Sh’vat?

While watching “The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey” and hearing the Middle-earth characters talk-ing about threats to the forests, more than a seed or two of connection between the increasingly popular Jewish holiday dedicated to trees and the fruit of J.R.R. Tolkien’s work popped out to me.

With my 3-D glasses, I watched as Bilbo, Thorin, Gandalf and Elrond — the representatives of Tolkien’s Middle-earth races — mostly lived hand in hand with the natural world. When I thought about Jewish atti-tudes toward trees and environmentalism, I wondered which group we should strive to emulate.

Would it be the hobbits, the dwarves, the elves, the wizards? Or do we secretly identify with the goblin-like orcs, who tear through the environment wherever they go?

When I left the theater, I considered the question of which Middle-earth group would be best to have over for a seder on Tu Bi-Sh’vat, which begins this year on the evening of January 25 and ends the next night. Not that I was planning a role-playing party — that could wait till Purim — but who would best get into the seder’s singing and drinking and connections to nature?

Who loves to feast and toast more than the dwarves? The seder’s four differently colored cups of wine — the change in color is meant to show the progression of the seasons— certainly would be much to their plea-sure. And given their singing and dancing in the film, you could almost hear the dwarves harmonizing and stomping to a rendition of “Uvshatem mayim,” a song we sang at our seder last year.

The dwarves, miners of the earth, no doubt would identify with the song’s lyric: “Draw water joyously from the wells of salvation.”

Tolkien himself likened the dwarves, who were ex-iled from their mountain home, to Jews. According to a transcription of a 1971 BBC interview with the English author found on Tolkienlibrary.com, he said, “The dwarves of course are quite obviously, couldn’t you say that in many ways they remind you of the Jews? Their words are Semitic obviously, constructed to be Semitic.”

And Tolkien’s dwarves are stubborn and bound to tradition. They even have beards, like the rabbis of yore.

The dwarves might be fine for a festive seder of wine and song, but which group seemed the best protectors of the forest?

As shown in “The Lord of the Rings” trilogy, Lothlorien is the forest refuge that protects the sylvan elves and allows them to flourish. Known as “tree folk,” the elves are most protective of huge, golden mallorn trees, and are willing to fight for them.

Because the portion of the Tu Bi-Sh’vat seder repre-senting “briyah,” — creation — calls for us to commune with nature, the elves, with their woodsy “ruach,” or spirit, seem to be Middle-earth’s group most suited to answer the call.

Yet the hobbits appear to be the best overall model for living in harmony with the earth. Gardeners and farm-ers, with the earth between their toes and their homes built into hillsides, Bilbo and the rest of the inhabitants of the Shire seem the most at home in nature. A giant Party Tree even is at the center of many hobbit commu-nity events.

Who but a hobbit chowing down on four meals a day could be more appreciate of the fruits of the earth repre-sented by Tu Bi-Sh’vat?

Hobbits even seem closest to the seder’s concept of “assiyah” — doing. Consider that from a Jewish point of view, Bilbo Baggins, who is at the center of the film, is tasked with repairing the world and keeping it whole.

What do the wizards have to tell us about Tu Bi-Sh’vat?On our earth, the Torah places human beings as the

steward of nature. On Middle-earth that role falls to Gandalf and the wizards in his order. Watching over the land, they are the “Fixers,” the gray geschreiers and ex-horters to action.

The wizard, Radagast the Brown, is the film’s best poster boy for Tu Bi-Sh’vat, which is derived from the

Torah and Mishnah, and marks the Jewish New Year for trees, Rosh Hashanah La’Yanot. Drawn by a sled of speedster rabbits and outfitted with a bird’s nest in his hat, he is the first to report that evil is falling upon the forest, changing it from Greenwood to Mirkwood. His furry-looking hat even resembles a shtreimel.

The oddball of the film, Radagast is like our sincerely nutty environmentalist aunt, uncle, or cousin, who has berated us for not washing and reusing our plastic uten-sils. Like that green relative, he’s the one who can make us squirm by painting a picture of impending environ-mental disaster.

On today’s earth, sensing the coming of our own environmental Mirk, the Coalition on the Environment and Jewish Life has pledged “To carry to our homes, communities, congregations and workplaces the urgent message that air, land, water and living creatures are endangered.”

Though COEJL doesn’t seem to be working with swords or shields, or even wizards, perhaps the part of us that identifies with “The Hobbit’s” coalition of nature-loving Middle-earth inhabitants can see the adventure and mitzvah of saving our earth as well.

JTA Wire Service

Edmon J. Rodman is a JTA columnist who writes on Jewish life from Los Angeles. Contact him at [email protected].

In “The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey,” a film with characters that bring to mind the themes of Tu Bi-Sh’vat, Bilbo Baggins discovers there is trouble brewing in the forests of Middle-earth. Courtesy Warner Bros.

Would it be the hobbits, the dwarves, the elves, the wizards? Or do we secretly identify with the goblin-like orcs, who tear through the environment wherever they go?

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B’NAI MITZVAH

Jacob Kovar

Jacob Kovar, son of Beth and Lance Kovar of Upper Saddle River and brother of Alyssa and Leah, celebrated becoming a bar mitzvah on January 19 at Temple Emanuel of the Pascack Valley in Woodcliff Lake.

Samuel LebowitzSamuel Lebowitz, son of Sandra and Nate Lebowitz of Demarest, celebrated becoming a bar mitzvah on January 19 at Temple Emanu-El in Closter.

Sarah MazieSarah Mazie, daughter of Tracy and Allen Mazie of Oradell, celebrated becoming a bat mitzvah on January 19 at Temple Beth El in Closter.

OBITUARIES

Sonia GoldSonia Gold, née Scherer, 87, of Fort Lee, died January 19 at Holy Name Medical Center in Teaneck.

Born in New York City, she was a member of Young Israel of Fort Lee.

Predeceased by her husband, Robert, she is survived by nieces and nephews.

Arrangements were by Eden Memorial Chapels, Fort Lee.

Joseph GrabczakJoseph Grabczak, 92, of Fair Lawn, formerly of Lynnbrook, N.Y., died January 16.

Predeceased by his wife, Jeannie, neé Warheit, he is sur-vived by children, Gilda Altman (David) of Fair Lawn, and Ellen Myron (Benjamin) of Keyport; and four grandchildren.

A Holocaust survivor, he or-ganized the Survivor’s Group in Cedarhurst, N.Y., 22 years ago and was in the movie “Paper Clips.” He was a cutter in the garment industry in New York City.

Donations can be sent to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington. Arrangements were by Louis Suburban Chapel, Fair Lawn.

Rose LippmanRose Lippman, 92, of Fair Lawn, died January 16. Arrangements were by Louis Suburban Chapel, Fair Lawn.

Larry PismennyLarry Pismenny of Fair Lawn died January 20. Arrangements were by Louis Suburban Chapel, Fair Lawn.

Sidney PolaySidney Polay, 92, of Fair Lawn, died January 15. Arrangements were by Louis Suburban Chapel, Fair Lawn.

Rita StrochakRita Frankel Strochak, née Toroker, 79, of Boca Raton, Fla., formerly of Fort Lee, died January 14 at home.

Born in the Bronx, she is survived by children, Edmond Frankel of Harrington Park, Andrew Frankel of Closter, Patty Frankel of Marlboro, Mass., and Cathy Turner of Boca Raton; a sister, Eleanor Tron of Spring Lake, and six grandchildren.

Arrangements were by Eden Memorial Chapels, Fort Lee.

Pearl WillenskyPearl Willensky, née Brussel, 101, a lifelong Passaic resident, died January 15.

Predeceased by her husband, Murray, and a daughter, Ann Beth, she is survived by a daugh-ter, Ronnie Sue Ebenstein (Alan) of Ridgewood and Manhattan; and a granddaughter, Amy Beth Ebenstein.

Donations can be sent to the American Cancer Society. Arrangements were by Louis Suburban Chapel, Fair Lawn.

This week’s Torah commentary is on page 47.

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• Resolve medical insurance claimsFree Consultation

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Estates Bought & SoldFine Furniture

AntiquesAccessoriesCash Paid

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Jewish standard January 25, 2013 55

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Installation of All Types of Carpets, Floors & Borders

Staining & RefinishingComplete Repair Service

Quality ProductsFree EstimatesFully Insured

Oakland · Rutherford201-651-9494 · 201-438-7105

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Help us transform how it is into how it should be.

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Photo licensed under Creative Commons from flickr user [auro].

We don’t blame you for feeling tired of hearing stories about the ever-growing number of families struggling with hunger.

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gallery

1 Avinoam Segal-Elad, Jewish Federation of Northern New Jersey’s

shaliach, visited with youth at Temple Beth Rishon in Wyckoff to discuss cities and hot spots in Israel. Courtesy tBr

2 Children at The Helen Troum Nursery School and Kindergarten at Temple

Beth Sholom in Fair Lawn are learning about Tu Bi-Sh’vat and creating trees in different colors, shapes, and sizes. Courtesy tBs

3 Students from the Lubavitch on the Palisades Elementary School

visited residents at the Jewish Home at Rockleigh in honor of rosh chodesh Shevat. First grader Becky Rich is pictured decorating a flower pot with JHR resident Alease Tynes in honor of the upcoming holiday of Tu Bi-Sh’vat. Courtesy LotP

4 Students at the Leah Sokoloff Nursery School at Shomrei Torah in

Fair Lawn, including Noah Avital, Daniel Eckman, and Yoni Bodoff, had an early Tu Bi-Sh’vat celebration with fruits from Israel. Courtesy LsNs

5 Temple Beth Tikvah in Wayne hosted members and non-members at a Tu

Bi-Sh’vat seder, led by Rabbi Stephen Wylen and Cantor Charles Romalis. The event included foods and traditional Israeli dance. Courtesy tBt

6 Bella Levison works on a painting inspired by artist Jackson Pollack

at The Gerrard Berman Day School, Solomon Schechter of North Jersey. Students have been exploring the styles of famous artists. Courtesy GBDs

1

5

2

6

3 4

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REAL ESTATE & buSinESS noTES

Allan Dorfman Broker/Associate

201-461-6764 Eve201-970-4118 Cell

201-585-8080 x144 [email protected]

The Colony in ForT lee

Serving Bergen County since 1985.

■ 1BR 1.5 Baths. Updated. $134,900

■ 1BR 1.5 Baths. Total renovation. $229,900

■ 2BR 2.5 Baths. B Line (East and West). Total renovation with laundry. $599,000

■ 3BR 2.5 Baths. High floor renovated. “Owner says sell!” $499,000

Private Movie Theater and Health Club

AMY AXELRODLicensed Real Estate [email protected]

(Bergen County bred, Manhattan resident)

Looking to buy, sell or rent in NYC?…all you have to do is call Amy!

(Bergen County bred, Manhattan resident)

AMY AXELROD Licensed Real Estate [email protected]

Looking to buy, sell or rent in NYC?…all you have to do is call Amy!

SERVING BOCA RATON, DELRAY AND BOYNTON BEACH

AND SURROUNDING AREAS

Advantage Plus601 S. Federal HwyBoca Raton, FL 33432

Elly & Ed Lepselter(561) 826-8394

COME TO FLORIDASpecializing in Country Club,

Active Adult & Beachside Communities

FORMER NJ RESIDENTS

Orna Jackson, Sales Associate 201-376-1389TENAFLY

894-1234

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TENAFLY STUNNING $2,295,000Stately custom built brick colonial with slate roof on .92 East Hill acres,foyer with spiral staircase, living room with fireplace, country kitchen with island stove top & BBQ, family room with fireplace opens to yard with 2 patios & babbling brook, master suite with Jacuzzi bath.

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Open Houses Sunday Jan. 27

1-3 PM602 PENN AVE $370’sTree lined street. Close to Cedar Lane shops/buses. Mint condi-tion colonial. LR/fplc, Formal DR, Fam Rm & Ultra Kitchen w/ sldng door to deck. 3 Bedrooms, 2.5 baths C/A/C. Att Gar.

622 MARTENSE AVENUE $280’sContemp Colonial. Univ Area. Open & Sunlit LR/Dining Rm. Den, EIK. 2 Bedrooms 2 mod baths (Jacuzzi). Fin Bsmnt. Det Gar.

12-2 PM646 CUMBERLAND AVENUE $330’sBrick Colonial. LR/fplc. Formal DR & Den. 3 Bedrooms (King Size Master). Fin Bsmnt. Close to parks, University, & NYC Buses

For Our Full Inventory & Directions Visit our Website

www.RussoRealEstate.com

(201) 837-8800

READERS’CHOICE

2012

FIRST PLACEREAL ESTATE AGENCY

JAN 27TH OPEN HOUSES 529 Churchill Rd, Tnk $1,229,000 12:00-2:00pm16 Highgate Ter, Bgfld $619,000 1:00-3:00pm

CLOSED WEEK OF JAN 13TH689 Northumberland Rd, Teaneck

1269 Sussex Rd, Teaneck

PREVIEW NEW LISTING IN TEANECK1st Time Offered! Multi-Level in W Englewood w updated windows, roof & bthrms/Kohler fixtures. Master Br/bth, large Fam Rm on ground fl w powder rm & laundry. $586,300 Call V & N for an appointment.

FOLLOW TEAM V & N ON FACEBOOK AND TWITTER

www.vera-nechama.com201-692-3700

Looking to Rent or Buy a Property in Israel?

Avoid the hassle! Let us help you navigate the system.

Contact Debbie Bain [email protected]

Professional · American Service · Fully Licensed in Israel

Teaneck Chamber of Commerce launches shopping surveyThe Teaneck Chamber of Commerce has launched a sur-vey to help understand some of the issues confronting the town’s business community.

To take part, visit www.teaneckchamber.org and click on “Surveys.”

To receive additional information on the Teaneck Chamber of Commerce, its activities, programs, mem-bership, or to get on their e-mail list, visit the Chamber’s website at http://www.teaneckchamber.org.

NVE Bank appoints Stephen J. BuraczynskiRobert Rey, president and chief executive of-ficer of NVE Bank, has an-nounced the appointment of Stephen J. Buraczynski to IT manager.

Buraczynski has exten-sive experience in the banking industry, having held IT and security officer positions at First Atlantic Federal Credit Union in Eatontown, and Allegiance Community Bank in South Orange.

NVE Bank, established in 1887, offers an extensive range of personal and business products and services. The Bank maintains 12 offices located throughout Bergen County. For more information, call their toll-free number 1-866-NVE-BANK (683-2265) or visit www.nve-bank.com.

Stephen J. BuraczynskiGlaucoma update at Holy NameJanuary is Glaucoma Awareness Month. Glaucoma is a disease that damages the eye’s optic nerve. Left untreat-ed, it can lead to blindness. Because early disease pro-duces no symptoms and progresses slowly, many people are unaware that they are affected. Learn about early de-tection and treatment that can help preserve your vision in a presentation by Dr. Andrew Brown at Holy Name Medical Center, Wednesday, January 30, 11 a.m.-2 p.m.

The event is free, but a $5 parking fee will apply. To register call HNMC’s Ask-a-Nurse at 1-877-HOLY-NAME (1-877-465-9626) or visit www.holyname.org.

Colds and flu are not the sameIf someone in your family is suffering, it’s important to be able to tell the difference between a cold and the flu.

According to the physicians at ENT and Allergy Associates, in a cold, a fever is rare and sneezing and a stuffy nose are common, as is a hacking or wet cough. A sore throat is commonly present, but generally not chills or headaches.

By contrast fever is usually present in the flu, as are chills and headaches. There is rapid onset of intense symptoms, including a dry cough. There is almost no sneezing and no sore throats.

ENT and Allergy Associates offers a full complement of services, including general adult and pediatric ENT, voice and swallowing, facial plastics and reconstructive surgery, disorders of the inner ear and dizziness, asthma, clinical immunology, diagnostic audiology, hearing aid dispensing, sleep and CT services.

For more information or to make an appointment, call 1-855-ENTA-DOC.

www.jstandard.com


SERVING BOCA RATON, DELRAY AND BOYNTON BEACH

AND SURROUNDING AREAS

Advantage Plus601 S. Federal HwyBoca Raton, FL 33432

Elly & Ed Lepselter(561) 826-8394

COME TO FLORIDASpecializing in Country Club,

Active Adult & Beachside Communities

FORMER NJ RESIDENTS

Open Houses Sunday Jan. 27

1-3 PM602 PENN AVE $370’sTree lined street. Close to Cedar Lane shops/buses. Mint condi-tion colonial. LR/fplc, Formal DR, Fam Rm & Ultra Kitchen w/ sldng door to deck. 3 Bedrooms, 2.5 baths C/A/C. Att Gar.

622 MARTENSE AVENUE $280’sContemp Colonial. Univ Area. Open & Sunlit LR/Dining Rm. Den, EIK. 2 Bedrooms 2 mod baths (Jacuzzi). Fin Bsmnt. Det Gar.

12-2 PM646 CUMBERLAND AVENUE $330’sBrick Colonial. LR/fplc. Formal DR & Den. 3 Bedrooms (King Size Master). Fin Bsmnt. Close to parks, University, & NYC Buses

For Our Full Inventory & Directions Visit our Website

www.RussoRealEstate.com

(201) 837-8800

READERS’CHOICE

2012

FIRST PLACEREAL ESTATE AGENCY

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Interest Rates Are At An All Time Low!

Please contact us for refinance options to reduce the payment on your current mortgage or for a new loan

to purchase a home.

Classic Mortgage, LLCServing NY, NJ & CT

25 E. Spring Valley Ave., Ste 100, Maywood, NJ

201-368-3140www.classicmortgagellc.com

MLS #31149

Larry DeNikePresident

MLO #[email protected]

Daniel M. ShlufmanManaging Director

MLO #[email protected]

SELLING YOUR HOME?

Call Susan Laskin TodayTo Make Your Next Move A Successful One!

©2013 Coldwell Banker Real Estate LLC. Coldwell Banker is a registered trademark licensed to Coldwell Banker Real Estate LLC. An Equal Opportunity Company. Equal Housing Opportunity. Owned and Operated by NRT LLC.

BergenCountyRealEstateSource.com Cell: 201-615-5353

Jewish Community Housing Corporation partners with medical centerThe Jewish Community Housing Corporation of Metropolitan New Jersey (JCHC) is collaborating with the Geriatric Health & Disease Management Center at Saint Barnabas Medical Center in Livingston to provide free educational and instructional health and wellness pro-grams to residents in three JCHC communities: Jewish Federation Plaza in West Orange, The Village Apartments of the Jewish Federation in South Orange, and the South Orange Federation B’nai B’rith House.

The Geriatric Health & Disease Management Center, which opened this fall, coordinates health and social services for the elderly and their families, and provides consultations and comprehensive geriatric care and education.

“This partnership brings our residents vital informa-tion and services they need to maintain optimal wellness in their homes, with a focus on prevention and medical management,” said Harold Colton-Max, CEO of JCJS. “The wide variety of health and wellness lectures and screenings, right where they live, gives our residents

unparalleled convenience in accessing prevention and medical support programs,” he added.

The expanded geriatric services arose through recent collaboration between JCHC and Jewish Family Service of MetroWest New Jersey.

Residents will enjoy free monthly lectures and pro-grams on various health-related topics, presented by the center’s holistic nurses. These will include tips on diabe-tes control, nutrition for seniors, dealing with changes in gait or balance, the warning signs of stroke or heart at-tack, and medication management. The nurses will also give presentations and provide services that deal with physical and emotional health issues that older adults face such as memory loss, feelings of isolation, and de-clining mobility.

For more information about the Jewish Community Housing Corporation, its diverse buildings and com-munities, and programs and housing options for area seniors, visit www.jchcorp.org or call (973) 731-2020.

Len Pomerantz

Arms on display at Heritage PointeLen Pomerantz recently gave a presentation on weap-ons of the Civil War to residents of Heritage Pointe of Teaneck, the senior independent living community.

www.jstandard.com

[email protected] · [email protected] · www.MironProperties.com/NJ

Each Miron Properties office is independently owned and operated.

Contact us for your complimentary consultation

Jeffrey SchleiderBroker/Owner

Miron Properties NY

Ruth Miron-SchleiderBroker/Owner

Miron Properties NJ

TENAFLY

63 OAK STREETPicture perfect Center Hall Col.

TENAFLY

14 LAWRENCE COURTExquisite E.H. Center Hall Col.

TENAFLY

11 WHITEWOOD ROAD

Sleek contemporary architecture.

TENAFLY

15 BIRCHWOOD PLACEStately Old Smith Village Col.

ENGLEWOOD

215 E. LINDEN AVENUEMajestic 8 BR E.H. Col.

ENGLEWOOD $659,000

133-A E. PALISADE AVENUE3 BR/2.5 BTH corner unit.

ENGLEWOOD $1,975,000

230 WALNUT STREET.64 Acre. Picturesque.


212 MAPLE STREET7 Br/5.5 Bth Construction.

SOLD!

EXQUISIT

COLONIAL!

SOLD!

MEDIT. COLONIAL!

SOLD!

BRICK

TOWNHOUSE!

SOLD!

UNDER

CONTRACT!

TEANECK

368 WINTHROP ROADExpanded Col. Num. amenities.

TEANECK

193 VANDELINDA AVE.Beautiful Col. Gorgeous property.

TEANECK

1094 TRAFALGAR ST.Charming Brick & Stone Col.

TEANECK

1624 DOVER COURTSpectacular contemporary Col.

SOLD!SOLD!

SOLD!

JUST SOLD!

CROWN HEIGHTS

817 ST. JOHN’S PLACE2 BR. Central location.

CHELSEA

456 WEST 19TH STREET1 BR Condo. Doorman bldg.

EAST VILLAGE $800,000

90 EAST 10TH STREET1200 sq. ft. + bsmnt. Back patio.

TRIBECA $3,985,000

110 DUANE ST, #PH3SPosh Penthouse. Prestigious loc.

LEASED!

SOLD!

COMMERCIAL/

RESTAURANT!

UNDERCONTRACT!

CHELSEA

451 WEST 22ND STREET“Prettiest block in Chelsea”/TimeOut NY

WILLIAMSBURG

490 METROPOLITAN AVENUECommercial. 690 sq. ft. Prime block.

WEST VILLAGE $540,000

165 CHRISTOPHER ST, #LNDoorman bldg. Steps from Pier.

DUMBO

205 WATER STREETBrand new construction.

UNDER

CONTRACT!

LEASED!

SOLD!

JUST LISTED!

We specialize in residential and commercial rentals and sales.We will be happy to assist you with all your real estate needs.

NJ: T: 201.266.8555 • M: 201.906.6024NY: T: 212.888.6250 • M: 917.576.0776

Israeli technology perks up new CorvetteViVa Sarah PreSS

The sleek Chevy Corvette C7 Stingray took the stage at North America’s glitziest auto show this week to show off its new look. Israeli cutting edge technology was used to make the 2014 version of this iconic sports car stronger, lighter and more superior in handling.

Plasan is a Kibbutz Sasa company better known for its very dense plastic composite product that affords ballistic protection without significantly adding to the weight of the vehicle. For years, the Pentagon has looked to Plasan to keep American soldiers safe in Afghanistan and Iraq.

In a bid to win back some of the Corvette’s glory, General Motors turned to Plasan’s technology to reduce mass while increasing strength.

Plasan’s handprints can be found on C7’s front fend-

ers, doors, rear quarter panels, and the rear hatch panel that were all made with the lighter-density sheet molding compound.

“There are some new components with unusual shapes that required innovative mold tooling. We devel-oped removable sections of the mold tools to attain de-tailed design shapes for fine character line definition in order to meet the stringent design studio requirements,” Gary Lownsdale, chief technology officer of Plasan Carbon Composites, said.

The new Corvette uses aluminum and carbon fiber to keep it lighter and faster, and it was also built to be more fuel efficient.

Israel21c.org

JS-59


[email protected] · [email protected] · www.MironProperties.com/NJ

Each Miron Properties office is independently owned and operated.

Contact us for your complimentary consultation

Jeffrey SchleiderBroker/Owner

Miron Properties NY

Ruth Miron-SchleiderBroker/Owner

Miron Properties NJ

TENAFLY

63 OAK STREETPicture perfect Center Hall Col.

TENAFLY

14 LAWRENCE COURTExquisite E.H. Center Hall Col.

TENAFLY

11 WHITEWOOD ROAD

Sleek contemporary architecture.

TENAFLY

15 BIRCHWOOD PLACEStately Old Smith Village Col.

ENGLEWOOD

215 E. LINDEN AVENUEMajestic 8 BR E.H. Col.

ENGLEWOOD $659,000

133-A E. PALISADE AVENUE3 BR/2.5 BTH corner unit.


230 WALNUT STREET.64 Acre. Picturesque.


212 MAPLE STREET7 Br/5.5 Bth Construction.

SOLD!

EXQUISIT

COLONIAL!

SOLD!

MEDIT. COLONIAL!

SOLD!

BRICK

TOWNHOUSE!

SOLD!

UNDER

CONTRACT!

TEANECK

368 WINTHROP ROADExpanded Col. Num. amenities.

TEANECK

193 VANDELINDA AVE.Beautiful Col. Gorgeous property.

TEANECK

1094 TRAFALGAR ST.Charming Brick & Stone Col.

TEANECK

1624 DOVER COURTSpectacular contemporary Col.

SOLD!SOLD!

SOLD!

JUST SOLD!

CROWN HEIGHTS

817 ST. JOHN’S PLACE2 BR. Central location.

CHELSEA

456 WEST 19TH STREET1 BR Condo. Doorman bldg.

EAST VILLAGE $800,000

90 EAST 10TH STREET1200 sq. ft. + bsmnt. Back patio.

TRIBECA $3,985,000

110 DUANE ST, #PH3SPosh Penthouse. Prestigious loc.

LEASED!

SOLD!

COMMERCIAL/

RESTAURANT!

UNDERCONTRACT!

CHELSEA

451 WEST 22ND STREET“Prettiest block in Chelsea”/TimeOut NY

WILLIAMSBURG

490 METROPOLITAN AVENUECommercial. 690 sq. ft. Prime block.

WEST VILLAGE $540,000

165 CHRISTOPHER ST, #LNDoorman bldg. Steps from Pier.

DUMBO

205 WATER STREETBrand new construction.

UNDER

CONTRACT!

LEASED!

SOLD!

JUST LISTED!

We specialize in residential and commercial rentals and sales.We will be happy to assist you with all your real estate needs.

NJ: T: 201.266.8555 • M: 201.906.6024NY: T: 212.888.6250 • M: 917.576.0776

Israeli technology perks up new CorvetteViVa Sarah PreSS

ers, doors, rear quarter panels, and the rear hatch panel that were all made with the lighter-density sheet molding compound.

“There are some new components with unusual shapes that required innovative mold tooling. We devel-oped removable sections of the mold tools to attain de-tailed design shapes for fine character line definition in order to meet the stringent design studio requirements,” Gary Lownsdale, chief technology officer of Plasan Carbon Composites, said.

The new Corvette uses aluminum and carbon fiber to keep it lighter and faster, and it was also built to be more fuel efficient.

Israel21c.org

JS-60


RCBC

Mashgiach Temidi / Open 7:00 am Sunday through FridayNow closing Friday at 2:30 pm

1400 Queen Anne Rd · Teaneck, NJ · 201-837-81101400 Queen Anne Rd · Teaneck, NJ · 201-837-8110

For your SUPER BOWL PARTY

score a touchdown with your friends!

*Please place all Super Bowl orders by Wednesday, January 30.

Parve football cupcakes

available at LAZY BEAN

Customized Hero Sandwiches

Bucket of Fried Chicken made fresh while you shop.

Choice of Falafel, Almonds, Challah Crumbs,Bread Crumbs, Rice Crispy, Corn Flakes

Chicken CutletsChoice of Grilled, Baked,

Skewers, Shwarma

French Fries

Chicken WingsChoice of Buffalo, BBQ, Smoked, Spicy, Sweet &

Sour, Breaded, General Tso’s, Honey Glazed

*

New Jersey Jewish Standard - January 25, 2013

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Transcript of New Jersey Jewish Standard - January 25, 2013