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Agency Heads Seek New Collaboration

MARK ARNOLD
Jewish Journal Staff

In her maiden address as president of the Jewish Federation of the North Shore Sept. 22, Peabody’s Deborah M. Ponn pledged to convene a President’s Council, where the heads of all local Jewish agencies, rabbis and synagogues would come together to share ideas, expertise and needs.

Less than two months later, the new group has met, and the early verdict is positive. “It has the potential to be very successful,” says Greg Ehrlich, president of the North Suburban Jewish Community Center in Peabody.

Adds Harold Mindel, president of Orthodox Congregation Ahabat Sholom in Lynn: “I thought it was very beneficial. I’d like to see it continue.”

The Nov. 13 meeting at the North Shore Jewish Community Center in Marblehead drew 26 local leaders from nine agencies and 10 synagogues, including Rabbis Abraham Kelman from Ahabat Sholom and Edgar Weinsberg of Temple Beth El in Swampscott. It was a first step, says Ponn, in finding ways to work together to solve common problems.

The formation of the Council comes at a time when several agencies and synagogues are running heavy deficits and there is concern that some institutions can not survive beyond the next year or two. Thus, there are new incentives to collaborate, rather than compete, as many of these institutions have in the past.

“People got a sense of the breadth and scope of issues we can cooperate on,” says Federation Executive Director Merritt Mulman, “from joint purchasing, to health insurance, to auditing services, and possibly shared staffing of some functions. The possibilities are almost endless.”

The President’s Council is an expanded version of the “executives/rabbis group,” a forum for discussing issues of community concern that has been meeting every two weeks for more than three years, under the auspices of the Federation. Regulars at this forum are eight to 10 agency directors plus two or three rabbis. The President’s Council extends the circle to include lay leaders of all North Shore Jewish organizations.

Speaking about the progress of the executives/rabbis group, Sandy Sheckman, executive director of the North Shore Jewish Community Center in Marblehead, says: “It’s taken us a long time to overcome mistrust and learn to work together. But because we have, the new group should be able to move a lot faster.”

One project that may be undertaken by the President’s Council is a long-talked-about demographic/needs study for the community. This is an undertaking that may cost upwards of $100,000, but agency directors believe the benefits outweigh the cost.
“No business would plan its future without identifying the future needs of its customers,” says Jon Firger, chief executive of Jewish Family Services. Federation leaders say they are prepared to raise the money for the study in a way that won’t impact on their normal fund-raising activities.

Ponn plans for the group to meet again in December and at regular intervals thereafter. That’s fine with Elayne Levin, who was elected six months ago as president of Temple Beth Shalom in Peabody.

“I’m a newcomer to all this so I have a lot to learn,” she told the Journal. “If this group can bring the community together, I’m all for it. We’re all Jews, after all. So why shouldn’t we work together?”

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Temple Shalom Turns 50

GARY BAND
Jewish Journal Staff

SALEM — In 1998, Congregation Sons of Jacob celebrated its 100th anniversary. Five years later, the congregation again has reason to celebrate: Their second spiritual home recently turned 50, which they commemorated with a fete on Nov. 8.

Originally housed in the converted Calvary Church on Essex Street, the 15 founding members of Sons of Jacob, the first and only Orthodox shul in Salem, davened in this spot for over 50 years. They changed their affiliation to Conservative in 1947. And then, because many congregants began moving to south Salem, they decided to construct a new synagogue within walking distance of the majority of its shomer shabbat membership.

Fifty years later, the temple and its membership of 163 families, some descendant from the founders, stands undiminished by time and the elements.

Among the founding members was Max Winer. And because the apple rarely falls far from the tree, the temple stands and looks as it does today due in part to his grandson Richard, a retired dentist who has served for the last two years as the temple’s president.

“I have very deep roots in this community,” says Winer. He became a bar mitzvah in 1940 when the temple was still on Essex Street. He’s been involved ever since, serving on the Board of Directors since 1960, as vice president beginning in 1987, and as president and chairman of the search committee that hired Rabbi Ilana Rosansky in 2000.

As president, Winer has helped raise over $200,000 for improvements to the building and the grounds. The temple now has a new heating and sound system, a new roof and bathrooms, and is handicapped accessible. The temple has also restored four torahs and purchased a new one, renovated the bima, ark and reader’s table and landscaped the grounds.
Looking toward the next half century, Winer says, “We’re building for the future. We hope people will continue to join and become members of the Temple Shalom family.”

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Wasserstein Holds Court

SUSAN JACOBS
Jewish Journal Staff

SALEM — Author Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas used to hold court in their Parisian salon, where the most noted artists and writers of the period regularly gathered to discuss literature and politics. Contemporary author and playwright Wendy Wasserstein held court at a gathering of educated women at Salem’s Hawthorne Hotel on Nov. 12, where she was the guest speaker at Jewish Book Month’s annual Girls’ Night Out event.

Since it was a Jewish event, first came the food. The 160 well-coifed Who’s Who of North Shore women dined on a seasonal menu of pumpkin soup, grilled salmon, baked squash and cranberry crisp.

Guests rhapsodized over the kitchy party favors at each place setting, particularly the leopard and Burberry print magnifier reading glasses.

After coffee was served, the program — hosted by the Jewish Community Center of the North Shore and underwritten by Grosvenor Park Nursing and Rehabilitation Center — began. The event was moderated by broadcast host and correspondent Robin Young, who has won five Emmys for reporting, hosting and producing. She and Wendy Wasserstein, who appeared tired and a bit disheveled, sat on high-backed upholstered chairs on a small stage in the opulent dining room.

Young read a series of prepared questions that Wasserstein obligingly answered, peppering many of her remarks with an impish smile and a wry sense of humor. Through the exchanges, the enthusiastic audience learned that Wasserstein was born in 1950 in Flatbush, Brooklyn and was educated at yeshiva. She attended Mt. Holyoke College, where she got her first taste of “episcopalian girls who wore headbands and ate chicken salad sandwiches on white bread with the ends cut off.” After graduation, she studied creative writing at City College of New York and then attended the Yale School of Drama, where she earned a master’s degree in 1976.

As a writer, Wasserstein is best known for her colorful characters, many of whom, she admits, are based upon people she has known. Her experiences at Mount Holyoke inspired Uncommon Women and Others, a play about eight Mount Holyoke women, that was produced off-Broadway in 1977 and adapted by public television in 1978. In that piece, her alter ego is Holly Kaplan, the only Jew among a group of Protestants.

Wasserstein’s grandfather was a Yiddish playwright, and Jewish identity has always figured prominently in her work. Unlike many other Jewish writers, she says she does not shy away from strong Jewish characters.

“With the exception of Philip Roth, I find that most Jewish writers don’t create Jewish characters, or if they write them, they have (non-ethnic) actors like Blythe Danner portray them,” she says.

Much of her work is autobiographical or deals with themes recurrent in her own personal life. In her 1983 play, Isn’t It Romantic, writer Janie Blumberg disappoints her parents who want her to marry a Jewish doctor she doesn’t love. (Wasserstein has never married, much to the chagrin of her parents.) And her 1992 Broadway hit, The Sisters Rosensweig, which examines three Jewish women and their quest for love, self-definition and fulfillment, was largely inspired by life with her own sisters, Sandra and Gorgeous. In that play, Wasserstein can be compared to the youngest sister Pfeni, an unmarried travel writer.

Family has always been very important to Wasserstein. When asked how her sisters felt about being immortalized in The Sisters Rosensweig, she shares the following story:

“When I wrote the play, I didn’t tell my sisters what it was about. Suddenly, it was opening at Lincoln Center, and of course, they wanted to come. I told my sister Sandy that she could attend, but I didn’t want her to tell me what she thought of it, good or bad. The next day, I received a big bouquet of flowers with a note saying, ‘No commitment.’ I thought it got sent to me by mistake from a bachelor on the East Side that was sending it to a girlfriend. But it turned out that it was from Sandy, and the note was supposed to read, ‘No comment.’”

Although her parents Morris, a textile manufacturer, and Lola, a housewife, always pushed for her to marry, being single didn’t seem to bother the feminist Wasserstein. In Isn’t It Romantic, she wrote, “No matter how lonely you get or how many birth announcements you receive, the trick is not to get frightened. There’s nothing wrong with being alone.”

Today, Wasserstein can laugh about her mother’s obsession with marrying off her youngest daughter. She shares the following vignette:

“It was the opening night of The Sisters Rosensweig on Broadway in New York, which was a big deal since my family was from New York. There was a big party at Tavern on the Green. A literary agent approached my mother and said, ‘You must be so proud of Wendy.’ She agreed that she was, but then added, ‘Wouldn’t it be nicer if this was Wendy’s wedding?’”

While Wasserstein was not necessarily seeking a partner in her life, she did yearn for a child. In her most recent collection of essays, Shiksa Goddess (Or How I Spent My Forties), she chronicles her struggles with infertility and the miraculous birth of her daughter, Lucy Jane.

“I was at the far end of last chance,” explains Wasserstein, who was 48 when she got pregnant. “I had tried for nine years, and was about to adopt. My older sister Sandra had just passed away from breast cancer, and I decided to try just one more in vitro cycle. To my amazement, I got pregnant. Ironically, I found out on Easter Sunday, the festival of eggs.”

The pregnancy was high-risk, and the baby was born prematurely at 1 lb. 12 oz. The girl spent 10 weeks in the neonatal intensive care unit, but she came home at 4 lbs. and is now a healthy four-year-old “survivor” who goes to school at Manhattan’s 92nd St. Y.

Becoming a mother has irrevocably changed Wasserstein’s life. “Before my daughter was born, I had never eaten Gold Fish or Chicken Tenders, both of which have now come into my life. I’m also exhausted,” admits Wasserstein, who was accustomed to going to sleep (and waking up) late. She has learned how to deal with potty training and the croup, and points out that parenting isn’t given the accolades it deserves.

“Having a child has made me think about women’s choices to stay home or work. Parenting takes a lot of skill. All choices deserve equal respect,” says the woman who has won a Pulitzer Prize and a Tony Award, among many other honors, and has taught at NYU, Columbia and Princeton.

Wasserstein says she got her feminist streak from her feisty mother Lola, who is still alive. “She was traditional yet eccentric, and is the most interesting, colorful and complicated person I know,” says Wasserstein, who wants to write a substantial play about her.
As far as other future projects are concerned, she just wrote two one-act plays about midlife, and is working on a musical based upon her children’s book, Pamela’s First Musical, about a nine-year-old girl who loves to put on plays.

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Merrimack Fed Fetes Chanukah

The Merrimack Valley Jewish Federation, in cooperation with the synagogues and Jewish organizations of the valley, will hold First Light 5764 at Temple Beth El, 105 Princeton Boulevard in Lowell, on Dec. 21 at 5 p.m., the third night of Chanukah.

Nationally acclaimed contemporary Jewish musical band SAFAM will perform original compositions that have become standards for a generation of American Jewish audiences, with styles ranging from rock, folk, pop, cantorial, Chassidic, Latin and more. The program will begin with a traditional outdoor candle lighting of the menorah followed inside by a community dinner, concluding with the SAFAM concert.

Pre-registration for dinner and concert is $15 for adults and $10 for seniors over 60 and children under 18. Pre-registration for the concert only is $10 for adults and $5 for seniors and children. On event day, ticket prices for the concert only will rise to $15 for adults and $12 for seniors and children.

First Light recognizes the law firm of Devine, Millimet and Branch of Andover who have made a major grant towards the financial support of First Light. Additional supporting grants are provided by: Royal Jewelers, White Street Paint and Wallpaper Company, Vocell Bus Company, H.L. Farmer and Sons Funeral Homes, Ozzy Property Management Company, Cardinal Shoe Corporation, Esthetiques Par Kiki, Saints Memorial Medical Center, Joan I Gittlin, MD., Morse Bayliss Funeral Home, Inc., Law Offices Sheldon A. Fine, Larry Levine’s Kosher Meat Market, Golden Grafix, Holy Family Hospital, KG Associates, LLC, BSL Concepts, and Goldman Funeral Chapel.

Participating organizations for First Light are: Temple Beth El in Lowell, Congregation Shalom, North Chelmsford, Temple Emanuel, Andover, Temple Emanu-El, Haverhill, Congregation Tifereth Israel, Andover, Havurat Shalom, Andover, Temple Emanuel of the Merrimack Valley, Lowell, Solomon Schechter Day School of Haverhill, Southern Merrimack Valley Chapter of Hadassah, and Chabad Lubavitch of the Merrimack Valley.

For an $18 contribution, a family or individual can sponsor a candle on the menorah. Register early. Checks should be made payable to the Merrimack Valley Jewish Federation and mailed to Merrimack Valley Jewish Federation P.O. Box 937, Andover, MA 01810.
For more information, call the Federation office at 978-688-0466.

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A Groundbreaking Event

The groundbreaking ceremony recently took place for Brooksby’s new interfaith chapel, expected to be completed by September 2004. Three residents, (shown l-r) Joan Bardwell Les Miller and Ruth Clark, who represent Brooksby’s Jewish, Catholic and Protestant faith communities, broke ground to signal the start of construction. Brooksby’s chapel will seat approximately 200 people. Brooksby, a campus for people over the age of 62 and home to over 850 residents, opened in June of 2000.

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Jewish War Veterans Honored in Peabody

Close to 200 people gathered at Peabody City Hall on Veterans Day, Nov. 11, to pay tribute to those who have fought and died for their country. As part of the tribute, the Post honored WWII Veteran and POW Philip Dantowitz of Peabody for his role in the Battle of the Bulge and surviving a Nazi led forced march in the final days of the war. The ceremony was led this year by the Jewish War Veterans of the United States, North Shore Post 220 with Rabbi Nechemia Shusterman and Avrom Herbster.

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Putting the ‘Judaism’ into the Reform Movement

JOE BERKOFSKY

MINNEAPOLIS (JTA) — The prospect of a new, catchier name did not seem to excite many Reform Jews — until it actually happened.
Thousands gathered at the 67th biennial of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations in Minneapolis earlier this month, yet few seemed to have much passion for the impending vote to change the venerable synagogue association’s name to the Union for Reform Judaism.

The sentiments of Stephen Lynn, president of one of the oldest and most prestigious Reform congregations in North America, the Stephen S. Wise Free Synagogue on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, were typical: The name-change “is silly,” Lynn said. “I don’t care. I’ll still come to the conventions.”

But that was before the Nov. 7 vote.

The president of the body representing more than 900 Reform congregations, Rabbi Eric Yoffie, urged the name change in a speech that touched on the spiritual.

Names “are not unimportant” in Jewish tradition, Yoffie said.

Referring to the weekly Torah portion that coincided with the conference and the vote, Yoffie said,

“Abram becomes Abraham and Sarai becomes Sarah, signifying that they are no longer leaders of a clan or a tribe, but of a people — and not only a people, but a religious people covenanted to God.”

In Judaism, he added, “a change of name takes place when a person or a group undergoes a change in essence.”

That transformation is taking place in the Reform movement, Yoffie said.

Since its founding 130 years ago, Reform Judaism has gone from a German Jewish movement advocating enlightenment and emancipation from ritual to one seeking more tradition and more active participation in Jewish life.

Reform has grown into “the largest and most dynamic religious movement in American Jewish life,” Yoffie said, with 1.5 million members and 920 congregations.

Studies bear that out.

Of the 46 percent of 4.3 million Jews who claim affiliation with a synagogue, 39 percent identified as Reform, compared to 33 percent Conservative; 21 percent Orthodox; 3 percent Reconstructionist and 4 percent other, according to the National Jewish Population Survey 2000-01.

In the past decade, Reform Judaism grew 4 percent, while the Conservative movement fell 8 percent in terms of affiliation.

Reform attributes some of its success to its outreach to unaffiliated Jews, and its embrace of non-Jewish spouses of Jews.
Yet the congregational umbrella has found it difficult to win acceptance in wider circles, Yoffie said, in part because of an “awkward” moniker.

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Soros Blames Jews for Anti-Semitism, Provokes Tough Criticism

URIEL HEILMAN

NEW YORK (JTA) — Billionaire financier and philantrhopist George Soros caused a stir at the Jewish Funders Network conference Nov. 5 when he declared European anti-Semitism is the result of the policies of Israel and the United States.

“There is a resurgence of anti-Semitism in Europe. The policies of the Bush administration and the Sharon administration contribute to that,” Soros said. “It’s not specifically anti-Semitism, but it does manifest itself in anti-Semitism as well. I’m critical of those policies.”

“If we change that direction, then anti-Semitism also will diminish,” he said. “I can’t see how one could confront it directly.”

The billionaire financier said he, too, bears some responsibility for the new anti-Semitism, citing last month’s speech by Malaysia’s outgoing prime minister, Mahathir Mohammad, who said, “Jews rule the world by proxy.”

“I’m also very concerned about my own role because the new anti-Semitism holds that the Jews rule the world,” said Soros, whose projects and funding have influenced governments and promoted various political causes around the world.

“As an unintended consequence of my actions,” he said, “I also contribute to that image.”

In the past, Mahathir has singled out Soros and other “Jewish financiers” for financial pressure that Mahathir said has harmed Malaysia’s economy. After the conference, some Jewish leaders who heard about the speech reacted angrily to Soros’ remarks.

“Let’s understand things clearly: Anti-Semitism is not caused by Jews; it’s caused by anti-Semites,” said Elan Steinberg, senior adviser at the World Jewish Congress. “One can certainly be critical of Bush policy or Sharon policy, but any deviation from the understanding of the real cause of anti-Semitism is not merely a disservice, but a historic lie.”

Abraham Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League, called Soros’ comments “absolutely obscene.”

The one-day meeting on funding in Israel, which took place at the Harvard Club in New York, was limited mostly to representatives of Jewish philanthropic foundations.

After Soros’ speech, Michael Steinhardt, the real-estate magnate and Jewish philanthropist who arranged for Soros to address the group, said in an interview that Soros’ views do not reflect those of most Jewish millionaires or philanthropists.

Steinhardt approached the lectern and interrupted Soros immediately after his remarks on anti-Semitism.

“George Soros does not think Jews should be hated any more than they deserve to be,” Steinhardt said by way of clarification, eliciting chuckles from the audience.

Steinhardt then gave the lectern back to Soros, who said he had something to add to his remarks on the issue of anti-Semitism. Soros then paused to ask if there were any journalists in the room.

When he learned that there were, Soros withheld further comment.

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Turkish Jews Dig Out After Bombings

YIGAL SCHLEIFER

ISTANBUL (JTA) —Turkish Jewish leaders are shocked by the force and sophistication of the bombings of two synagogues here during Shabbat services — but not surprised that the Jewish community was targeted.

“This was bound to happen,” said Lina Filiba, executive vice president of the Turkish Jewish community. “Something here is changing. The peaceful life here is different now.”

A pair of truck bombs exploded outside two of Istanbul’s largest synagogues Saturday morning Nov. 15, killing at least 23 people and injuring more than 300. At least six of the dead were known to be Jewish.

The first explosion occurred at 9:30 near the main entrance of the city’s central synagogue, Neve Shalom. The second took place a few minutes later at the back side of the Beit Israel synagogue, in Istanbul’s Sisli neighborhood, about three miles away.

The blasts were heard from miles away and left the streets surrounding the synagogues littered with shards of broken glass. It’s still not clear if the explosions were set off by suicide bombers driving by or if they were ignited by remote control, in trucks parked near the buildings. Turkish authorities have said they believe they were suicide attacks.

An usher working in Neve Shalom said it was filled with close to 400 people celebrating a Bar Mitzvah.

“We were in the middle of reading the Torah when we felt a big explosion. Everybody ran out,” said the usher, who asked not to be named.

Another congregant standing atop the rubble looked out on the scene of destruction, holding a handkerchief to his face to keep out the strong smell of ammonia that filled the air after the explosion. The bombs were made of ammonium sulfate and nitrate, a Turkish security officer told CNN.

“What kind of peaceful Sabbath is this?” the congregant asked.

Condemnations poured in away from around the world, including from such unlikely sources as Iran and Malaysia, both Muslim nations.
Turkish police arrested three people in connection with the bombings, but they already had been released a day later, according to news reports.

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon opened the weekly Cabinet meeting with a statement of condolences for the victims.

“We saw yesterday yet again that terrorism knows no bounds,” Sharon said. “Terrorism doesn’t discriminate by religion or blood. The aim of terrorism is one, to sow fear and terror through the slaying of innocent people.”

International Jewish organizations also mobilized. The American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC) started a fund to help rebuild the damaged synagogues and is assessing how it can help the community.

The Jewish Agency for Israel sent a delegation of seven Turkish-speakers — among them two psychologists who are terror specialists and two youth leaders who are familiar with the Istanbul Jewish community — to Istanbul.

Overnight, religious Israeli forensic volunteers, still in their Sabbath clothes, donned fluorescent vests and scoured the bomb sites for body parts.

“We are, unfortunately, used to terror in Israel and feel we can help here, in accordance with Jewish law,” their spokesman told curious local journalists.

An Israeli diplomat noted that Turkey was ripe for violence by Islamic terrorists.

“As the world’s only Muslim democracy, with ties to Israel, Turkey is doubly likely to be hit by Islamist terrorism. That puts Turkish Jews all the more at risk,” the diplomat said, according to Reuters.

Such concerns were nothing new for Nessli Varol, a 23-year-old daughter of Turkish emigres who flew in from Israel for the funeral of an uncle killed in the Beit Israel attack.

“The Jews here have a prosperous life, but there is also fear. They stick together and avoid too much exposure,” she told Reuters. “When I used to visit my grandmother as a child, she would tell her Muslim friends I was from France, rather than Israel.”

Jewish community officials said they have been on high alert for the last three months regarding possible attacks and had notified the police about their concerns. Security at Istanbul’s synagogues had been increased in response, officials said.
“If we didn’t have security as good as it is, the tragedy could have been a lot worse. We wouldn’t have been as lucky,” community leader Filiba said.

Funds for JDC’s relief effort may be sent to Turkey Mailbox, JDC, 11 Third Avenue, Ne

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JTA News Briefs

They’re Not the Beatles
PRAGUE (JTA) — Czech Jewish leaders called for authorities to ban a Czech rock band whose songs are said to incite hate. The call came following a performance by the rock group Agrese 95 at a private party. Tomas Jelinek, chairman of Prague’s Jewish community, said the band sang a number of racist songs,including one that suggested torching a synagogue. Czech police said they took no action because they could not identify the lyrics clearly. Two years ago, Czech police also took no action against a Slovak band called Juden Mord, or “Death to Jews,” which played at a concert south of Prague.

Rabbis Back Marriage Solution
JERUSALEM (JTA) — Non-Jewish marriages in Israel should be authorized by special Chief Rabbinate officials, Israel’s chief rabbi suggested. The idea was raised during a meeting of the Knesset’s Immigration and Absorption Committee by Israel’s chief rabbis, Shlomo Amar and Yona Metzger, Ha’aretz reported. But legislator Roman Bronfman said the suggestion was inadequate to solve the problems of immigrants from the former Soviet Union who are not halachically Jewish, adding that he backs efforts to initiate civil marriage in Israel. At the same meeting, lawmaker Colette Avital reported that only 700 of 2,500 immigrants from the former Soviet Union who have studied at conversion institutes in Israel actually completed their conversions.

France Promises Protection
PARIS (JTA) — French Jewish leaders welcomed new government proposals to get tough on anti-Semitism. Speaking after Jewish leaders met President Jacques Chirac, Haim Muzicant, executive director of the CRIF umbrella organization of French Jews, said the president “sent a strong message to all those who would wish to commit attacks against Jews. This is the kind of talk we have been waiting for.”
Earlier, Chirac convened a special meeting of government ministers and announced that Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin would head a new Cabinet committee to combat anti-Semitism.The committee is to meet on a monthly basis, examining reported anti-Semitic acts and deciding on methods of punishment, Raffarin said. Raffarin said security would be beefed up outside synagogues and Jewish community institutions.

Holocaust Database Eyed
JERUSALEM (JTA) — Yad Vashem has launched the largest Internet database of Holocaust victims in the world. The Israeli Holocaust museum recently unveiled the database which, when completed in June 2004, will include biographical data on victims including name, birth date, place of birth and occupation, The Associated Press said. Any Internet user will be able to access the information and add new data.

Falash Mura Claim Victory
JERUSALEM (JTA) — Israel’s Supreme Court called on the government to explain why it has not yet brought to Israel thousands of Ethiopians claiming Jewish ancestry. The Nov. 13 decision demands that the Israeli government and Interior Minister Avraham Poraz submit a detailed explanation, within a month, of why the government hasn’t implemented a February decision to determine the eligibility for aliyah of thousands of Falash Mura, Ethiopians who claim Jewish ancestry, and bring them to Israel, said Omri Kaufman, who represented a group of petitioners against the government.

Laurence Tisch Dead at 80
NEW YORK (JTA) — Laurence Tisch, former president of the UJA-Federation of New York, died Nov. 15 in New York at the age of 80. Tisch was known for the Loews Corporation, which owned hotels, insurance companies and movie theaters, among other industries. He also was known for inviting rabbis to discuss biblical passages with him and his family. His son, James, is chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations.

Pollard Loses Again
NEW YORK (JTA) — A U.S. judge rejected a claim by convicted spy Jonathan Pollard. On Nov. 13, Judge Thomas Hogan dismissed a claim by Pollard, who was convicted of spying for Israel, that his previous lawyers did not do all they could to free him. Hogan also denied a request by Pollard’s lawyers to gain access to classified documents that could help his release. Pollard, a former U.S. Navy analyst, is serving a life sentence in a U.S. jail.

Degussa Back in on Memorial
BERLIN (JTA) — In a reversal, the company linked to supplying Zyklon B to Nazi camps will take part in building Germany’s Holocaust memorial. The panel overseeing the construction of the site decided to allow Degussa to continue working on Berlin’s memorial, Wolfgang Thierse, the president of Germany’s Parliament said Nov. 13. The country’s Jewish community reportedly opposed the decision.

Netanyahu: Happy Days Are Here Again
JERUSALEM (JTA) — Israel’s recession is over, the country’s finance minister said. Benjamin Netanyahu made the comments after Israel’s Central Bureau of Statistics announced that Israel’s gross domestic product increased by 2.7 percent in the third quarter. Imported goods and services increased by 27.5 percent in the quarter, the Statistics Bureau said.

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People in the News

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Fed Assembly Visitors Boost Israeli Tourism

JUDY LASH BALINT
Special to the Jewish Journal

Israel’s only growth industry got a major boost when 4,000 delegates attending the General Assembly of the United Jewish Communities poured into Jerusalem on Nov. 15-16. The visitors added $15 million to the Israeli economy.

Tourism is up 24 percent over last year, as word trickles out that you can still have a great time in a country at war.  Potential visitors realize that peace isn’t about to break out any time soon, so it doesn’t really pay to postpone a trip to one of the most fascinating places in the world.

Most tourists tend to spend a little more than three days in Israel. But Israeli tourism officials hope they will return to their home communities and spread the word that tourism can help Israel almost as much as writing a big check. 

That’s the message Israel’s Ministry of Tourism tries to spread through the GA, in perhaps the cleverest piece of shtick handed out to delegates. Among the US and Israeli flag pins, buttons, CDs and posters offered to the Jews wandering the conference halls of the Binyanei Ha’uma conference center, Tourism Ministry representatives pass out packages of four playing cards.

On one side are the questions: How can you really help Israel? How can you really fight assimilation? How can you really strengthen your community? How can you really raise more money?

On the flip side, the answer to all the questions: Bring Your Community to Israel! Right below the answer in a box, like the surgeon general’s warnings on cigarettes, are factoids: Frequent visits to Israel strengthen Israel’s economy. Frequent visits to Israel fortify the immune system against assimilation. Frequent visits to Israel build strong communal unity. Frequent visits to Israel open the heart — and the checkbook.

Money was a major topic at the news conference just prior to the General Assembly opening. More than $220 million is transferred annually to Israel by North American federations. Indeed, one Chicago delegate was still in shock as she related the huge donations pledged by some members of her delegation at a pre-GA “caucus.” Several donors promised contributions of millions of dollars, she said.

©Judy Lash Balint 2003. Judy Lash Balint is a Jerusalem based writer and author of Jerusalem Diaries: In Tense Times. www.jerusalemdiaries.com.

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Holocaust Tale of Girl’s Suitcase Touches People from Tokyo to Toronto

BILL GLADSTONE

TORONTO (JTA) — A child’s suitcase that was abandoned by its owner at a Nazi death camp has become the unlikely epicenter of a remarkable literary success story stretching from Toronto to Tokyo.

The small brown, slightly tattered suitcase is clearly marked as the property of Hana Brady, a young orphan. After gathering dust at Auschwitz for nearly six decades, the unassuming relic has taken on new life by inspiring a children’s story that apparently has touched untold numbers around the world.

An international best seller, Hana’s Suitcase so far has been translated into 17 languages.

Written by Toronto radio producer Karen Levine and first published last year as an illustrated book for children, the book relates the true story of how the director of a small Holocaust museum in Japan received the suitcase from the Auschwitz Holocaust Museum and began an investigation into its former owner.

Seeing the suitcase in a display case, visiting schoolchildren were full of curiosity about the mysterious girl whose name was painted on it in big white letters, along with the word “Waisenkind,” German for orphan.

Prodded by their questions, Fumiko Ishioka of the Tokyo Holocaust Center used records from the Terezin Ghetto Museum to locate Hana’s brother, George Brady, who had survived Terezin and Auschwitz and lives in Toronto.

The Czech-born Brady was stunned to receive Ishioka’s letter.

He sent Ishioka photographs of Hana, who was just 13 when she died, along with many details of her life. Brady later visited Japan and received a warm welcome from schoolchildren who had adopted Hana as a symbolic representative of the more than 1 million children who died in the Holocaust.

Hana’s suitcase has become the centerpiece of a traveling display, “The Holocaust Seen Through Children’s Eyes,” which has drawn tens of thousands of people at dozens of sites around Japan.

After Levine wrote a riveting radio documentary about Brady’s experiences, Toronto publisher Margie Wolfe urged her to turn the story into a tale for children.

Since its publication, Hana’s Suitcase has become a runaway best seller, helping bring Hana’s spirit to life for some 250,000 readers in 26 countries, according to Wolfe. Her publisher, Second Story Press, published the story as part of a series of Holocaust books for young readers.

Reaching mostly non-Jewish readers, the book has sold about 100,000 copies in Japan and gone into its third printing in France and its seventh in Canada, Wolfe said.

“One reviewer said that it’s perhaps as important as The Diary of Anne Frank in giving a face to the Holocaust,” Wolfe said. “People have said that if children are not ready for Anne Frank yet, then they should read Hana’s Suitcase.”

The book has won numerous awards, including a Canadian Jewish Book Award. Earlier this year it was named the Canadian Library Association’s Book of the Year for Children.

Now 75 years old, George Brady spent two-and-a-half years in Terezin before being transported to Auschwitz in September 1944. He says the book has helped him deal with his family tragedy.

“It’s taken me a long time to get over my sister’s death because I felt responsible for her,” he said. “She went to Auschwitz one month after me, and the older I got the more it bothered me.”

He used to believe his role was “not to forget the past but not to live in it,” but now, as a result of the book’s popularity, Brady has become a frequent public speaker on Holocaust topics. He has received hundreds of letters from readers around the world, including many from teachers.

For Levine, who has donated all royalties from the book to the Tokyo Holocaust Center, the book’s popularity came as a total surprise.
“I’d never written a book before and I had no idea how overwhelming the response would be,” Levine said. “It’s hugely gratifying and hugely rewarding.”

When writing the book, the longtime Canadian Broadcasting Corporation radio producer said she struggled with how much information to include.

“I decided not to include the most gory of details, and I know those questions will come out when children are reading the book,” she said.

“I only hope they will have a smart and sensitive and knowledgeable adult to ask.”

Levine’s own son recently turned 8 and has begun asking questions about Nazis, she said.

“A few days ago he started asking me why they burned books,” she said. “I tried to explain it to him and I said, ‘But that’s not the worst thing they did; they also killed a lot of people and one of them was Hana.’ He’s now, I think, ready to hear it.”

The book has generated about 10 offers for film rights and two for theater rights so far, according to Wolfe, the publisher, who said any decision would involve both Brady and Ishioka.

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Chanukah Children’s Book Roundup

HANNAH GESHELIN
Special to the Jewish Journal

Giving books to children is a great way to encourage reading. This fall, there are good Jewish books for all young readers. A few outstanding Chanukah books will add meaning to children’s holidays, while other books of Jewish interest are just plain fun. Note that many of the best Jewish-themed books are published by small or specialty publishers whose books may not be carried by your local bookstore. Special-order them or get them from an on-line bookseller like Amazon.

For kids in the upper elementary grades, Eight Lights for Eight Nights is sure to please, but be sure to give it to the kids before the holiday. Author Debbie Herman tells the story of Chanukah, including fascinating little-known “fun facts.” The retelling of the Chanukah story is notable because in a straightforward, non-denominational way it talks freely about God’s role in the fighting and victory of the Maccabees. Ann Koffsky’s art illustrates the emotions as well as the facts of the Chanukah story. Her activities and crafts will appeal to kids with many interests and levels of skill. At $8.95, this book is a bargain.

Hanukkah: A Counting Book in English, Hebrew, and Yiddish will appeal to young children just learning to count as well as to older kids attending Hebrew School. Emily Sper wrote, illustrated and designed this gorgeous book with simple shapes and brilliant colors. Very small children will enjoy practicing their numbers as the number of candles grows. Older children will be challenged to read numbers and holiday words in Hebrew, Yiddish, and transliterations as well as in English. Published in hardback in 2001, this book is now available in paper for only $5.99.

Stephanie Spinner’s delightful storybook, It’s a Miracle! A Hanukkah Storybook, will appeal to children from ages 4 to 8. Few recent children’s books include as much positive Jewish feeling as this read-aloud, which is funny and poignant; realistic, loving and warm. While the presence of a woman rabbi and a glass of milk served with chicken somewhat limit its appeal, most readers will find it an upbeat and memorable addition to the bookshelf. Only available in hardback at $16.95, the high price is offset by the fact that there’s plenty here to bring kids back for many rereadings.

For young children, Who’ll Light the Chanukah Candles? by Dandi Daley Mackall is a winner. While this simple story, written and illustrated by non-Jews, has no spiritual or cultural depth, it still rates highly. It’s a warm family story in which the main character has to cope with a slightly older, more aggressive cousin—-a situation that will resonate with most children. The rhyming text and charming cartoon illustrations are sure to please. And as a bonus, the book includes 50 “prismatic” holiday stickers that kids will love. Only $4.99.

Teens looking for a gripping novel will enjoy The Enemy Has a Face by Gloria D. Miklowitz. This tale uses the Arab-Israeli situation as backdrop for a modern and very American story. The political issues are presented accurately and sympathetically to both parties. At $16, this small hardback is well worth the price.

David Sokoloff’s Classic Jewish Tales presents eight traditional Jewish stories. Told with humor, they’re highly readable, and Sokoloff’s delightful cartoons are wonderfully Jewish in feel. This paperback is suitable for kids from 5 to 10 years old. Published by S.P.I. Books, this paperback sells for $8.95.

Kids who enjoy puttering in the kitchen will particularly enjoy Tasty Bible Stories: A Menu of Tales & Matching Recipes. Tami Lehman-Wilzig has retold fourteen Bible stories in a modern, light-hearted yet accurate fashion. Each story is followed by recipes that relate to the text.
Girls from 6 to 9 will enjoy Tali’s Jerusalem Scrapbook, a contemporary story set in Jerusalem. Besides showing the life of a Jewish child in that beleaguered city, this is a warm story of personal growth and change. $9.95.

Boys and girls alike will enjoy Mira Wasserman’s Too Much of a Good Thing. Growing from a brief Talmudic tale, the story explains how Shabbat, as one-seventh of our week, provides a perfect balance of work and rest. With delightful illustrations and lively language, this book makes a great gift. $6.95.

I Only Like What I Like, written and illustrated by Julie Baer, is that rarity, a contemporary picture book in which the character happens to be Jewish. Lush and exciting art and a realistic and engaging story about a small boy make this book a winner. Hardbound, $15.99.

For children who are curious about God, Where’s God? is a perfect gift. Dr. Laura Schlessinger has written an engaging story about a child’s quest to answer this important question. While there’s nothing overtly Jewish in the book, the explanation of God is very Jewish.
Toddlers on your gift list will enjoy Shapes of My Jewish Year and Sounds of My Jewish Year, two board books written by Marji Gold-Vukson and illustrated by Sally Springer. Both will help make Jewish concepts familiar to the youngest readers. Each sells for $4.95.

Hanna Geshelin is a former librarian, teacher, author and professional Jewish storyteller from Worcester.

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So, Is Turkey Kosher?

HERSH GOLDMAN
Special to the Jewish Journal

Thanksgiving is a non-Jewish holiday that you don’t have to be a goy to enjoy. In fact, it takes a Jew to really appreciate Thanksgiving. I shudder to guess what might have been if my grandparents had remained in Russia instead of emigrating to America. I enjoy turkey every Thanksgiving like other Americans. The only difference is my turkey comes with a seal attesting that it was slaughtered according to kosher standards.

But is turkey really kosher?

If you ask a rabbi how we know what birds are kosher (I’ve asked a few), they will say “kaballah”. That means that our ancient ancestors knew what birds were kosher and we received this knowledge from them by hand-me-down-word-of-mouth tradition. A woman was surprised when I told her shrimp wasn’t kosher. “But I know so many Jews who eat shrimp and it’s served at so many Jewish affairs,” she said. I sometimes wonder if we are approaching the dawn of a New-Age kabballah when shrimp will be declared an honorary kosher fish because so many Jews have been eating it for so many generations.
I will tell you why I pick on turkey (no pun intended):

How can we know that turkey is kosher through an ancient kaballan transmittal if the Old World first learned about turkey only after the Pilgrims (or Columbus, at best) discovered it from the American Indian?

The Torah (Deut. 14: 3-21) tells us what creatures may and may not be eaten: the “clean” and “unclean”. I prefer the words “kosher” and “treif.” It sounds silly to say a fish is clean? Of course it’s clean! It’s in the water all the time! The Torah gives clear signs (simmonim) to identily kosher animals and fish. Kosher animals both chew their cud and have split hooves and kosher water creatures have both scales and fins. But no signs are given for birds. Instead, the Bible names off a list of forbidden birds. Rashi, the famous medieval Bible commentator, explains (Deut. 14:13 Rashi) that this is because there are more clean (kosher) birds than unclean (treif) so the Torah just mentions the unclean (treif) [and we are to understand that all other birds are permissible.]

What would we do without Rashi? If turkey isn’t mentioned in the Bible’s treif list, it’s kosher. But even though the Torah lists the forbidden birds we still rely a lot on kabballah because there is mystery and controversy over the translation of many of the bird names [there are 21 names] in Deuteronomy’s list.

Leviticus gives a list of forbidden birds (Lev. 11:1-30) that reads similar to the one in Deuteronomy. Rashi says (Lev. 11:13 Rashi) that when a bird is described with the word “kind” [for instance, “Every raven after its kind thou shalt not eat”] it teaches that though the bird listed comes in varieties that look different and have different names, the variations are still included because they all belong to the same kind.

My personal guess is that the turkey was accepted as kosher because it was seen as merely a variation of a known kosher fowl: a species of chicken. It certainly tastes a lot like chicken. Of course, people say lobster tastes like chicken and that rattlesnake meat tastes like chicken. It’s no wonder Jews eat so much chicken. It’s to make up for all the foods we can’t eat that taste like chicken.

Knowing a bird’s species can get tricky. Talmud Baba Kama Page 92 has a Mishnah discussing whether a bird called “zarzir” is kosher. Rabbi Eliezer said that despite appearances, it wasn’t kosher because it associated with the raven. The Mishnah cites Rabbi Eliezer’s famous pronouncement: “Not for nothing did the zarzir approach the raven, but because it was his kind.” And all this time you thought the expression: “Birds of a feather flock together” was of English origin.

My U. Lowell biology professor once asked us how scientists usually classify a specie. We had studied how different habitats and environmental conditions can cause the same species to diverge and adapt to survive, causing them to look different from others of their specie. We knew you couldn’t always tell a specie by first glance so we were hesitant to answer. The professor finally answered his own question. “Scientists classify species by observing how they mate.” It was the same method used by Rabbi Eliezer of the Mishnah.

Someone told me that the early American Jews mailed turkey drawings (that is drawings of turkeys, not drawings by turkeys) to leading rabbis in Europe and that the rabbis wrote in their reply that based on the drawings, the turkey is kosher. Rembrandt, Michaelangelo, Chagall, Copley, Picasso and Rube Goldberg were okay artists in their own way. But when I’m asked who was the greatest artist of all time, I have to say that far and away, the greatest artist was the anonymous artist who did the turkey portraits and put that fabulous fowl forevermore on the kosher menu.

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Arts & Entertainment

Nobody Doesn’t Like Sara Leib

BRETT M. RHYNE
Jewish Journal Staff

It’s hard not to be enchanted by jazz vocalist Sara Leib once you’ve heard the smooth stylings on her debut CD, it’s not the moon. The Journal caught up with the Berklee College of Music grad while she was attending Jazz Aspen Snowmass Academy in Colorado.

Jewish Journal: Tell us about yourself.
Sara Leib: I’m 21. I grew up in a musical household in Los Angeles. I was always active in music, and took piano lessons as a kid. I went to high school there at a music magnet.

I decided I really liked jazz singing after joining a vocal jazz choir. I earned a scholarship to Berklee and then continued at the New England Conservatory’s jazz program, from which I graduated in May. I currently live in Los Angeles

JJ: What’s your relationship to the Boston music scene?
SL: Both Berklee and NEC were so rich with wonderful music that my relationship with the music scene in Boston was like a total constant. It seemed like every night I was going to a concert at Berklee or NEC, sometimes both, running up and down the street to hear my friends do two different sets. So either I was attending concerts or participating in them, sometimes a school concert, sometimes singing background vocals for a friend’s recital. So it was through these two schools that I began meeting musicians and I eventually formed my own quartet. I performed with them a couple of times at Ryles Jazz Club in Cambridge. I was also fortunate to perform twice at the Regattabar with Paul Im and his group, Remember Rockefeller.

JJ: Are you a practicing Jew? What do you think is the relationship between your Judaism and your music?
SL: My family is conservative, and I would say I am practicing not as someone who is particularly religious as far as observance goes… but I identify with Judaism as a culture, definitely. I do things to celebrate holidays through food, you know? I cook a lot for my friends… feed ’em till they’re stuffed.

Going to a Jewish elementary school, there was always some time for music class, and I remember in first grade I had a teacher, and every time we’d have prayers in the morning, she would sing harmonies to the prayers, you know, like a third above the melody or something. And as simple as that was, I think it gave me a foundation for having a harmonic relationship to the music we were singing day in and day out.

JJ: How do you choose your songs?
SL: My favorite singers are people like Ella Fitzgerald, Carmen McRae, Sarah Vaughan, Nina Simone, Nancy King… people who have sung the standards so ridiculously well that sometimes it doesn’t leave much room or reason for anything different or new. So when I sing a ballad, I usually study the lyrics to see how I interpret them, and I think about how I might arrange it to get my feelings of the lyrics and the melody and harmony across. And with songs other than ballads, I guess I just have to like the tune!

JJ: How did your CD come about?
SL: My CD really just needed to happen. I had been playing with that band and I wanted to have our sound recorded, so that’s what we did. It’s available at www.cdbaby.com/saraleib, or you can also get it online at twerrecords.com or amazon.com.

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Comedian Robert Schimmel Says Laughter is the Best Medicine

Comedian Robert Schimmel, who is headlining this weekend at The Comedy Connection in Boston, is a cancer survivor. Three years ago he was diagnosed with non-Hodgkins lymphoma and was given six months to live.
While undergoing chemotherapy treatments, he says his spirits were boosted by listening to comedy CDs. Now he asks fans in each city where he performs to bring a new or used CD or audio book to the venue. He collects and delivers the donations to infusion centers at local hospitals in their hometowns. In addition, if the infusion center lacks a CD player, he personally purchases and donates one so it can have the beginnings of a music library for the patients.

In addition to his own personal struggle with cancer, Schimmel watched his mother (successfully) battle breast cancer, but tragically lost his 11-year-old son Derek to the disease.

Although cancer itself is not funny, Schimmel draws from his personal experiences with it to build a show that offers laughter, hope and inspiration to others.

Schimmel appears at The Comedy Connection, 245 Quincy Marketplace in Faneuil Hall, Boston on Fri., Nov. 21 at 8 & 10:15 p.m., and Sat., Nov. 23 at 6, 8 & 10:15 p.m. Tickets: $22.50 - $27.50. 617-248-9700.

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Editorial

A New Day for Same-Sex Unions in Massachusetts

Historic is not too strong a word to describe the decision by the state Supreme Judicial Court asserting the legal right of same-sex couples to marry in Massachusetts. The 4-3 ruling on Nov. 18, in a case brought by seven same-sex couples, gives the legislature 180 days to bring state law into compliance.

From a Jewish perspective, the decision is hard to square with scripture, as we have pointed out before (editorial, Aug. 15). And we have no doubt our readers, like Americans generally, will be deeply divided on the issue.

To those who take the Bible literally and other traditionalists, same-sex union, by whatever name, is an abomination, a violation of the natural order, a giant step down the slippery slope of moral decline. Yet many Jews, like many other Americans, support the right of couples to enter into such unions. The Reform movement now allows its rabbis to officiate at gay and lesbian commitment ceremonies, while declining to call these unions marriage.

To civil libertarians, who form the majority on Massachusetts’ highest court, it’s a matter of simple justice. “The question before us,” said the Justices, “is whether, consistent with the Massachusetts Constitution, the Commonwealth may deny the protections, benefits, and obligations conferred by civil marriage to two individuals of the same sex who wish to marry. We conclude that it may not.”
While recognizing that the decision flies in the face of deep-seated religious, moral, and ethical convictions that limit marriage — as Governor Romney noted in condemning the decision — to one man and one woman, the court said it could find no “Constitutionally adequate reason for denying civil marriage” to, and making “second-class citizens” of, same-sex couples.

The decision could have profound political implications for next year’s presidential election. Same-sex marriage will join abortion as a lightning rod for conflict between liberals and conservatives. With the Democratic convention scheduled to take place in Boston in July, Republican opponents may seize on the issue to portray the Democrats as the party of decadence and immorality, as they did so effectively in scuttling George McGovern’s candidacy in 1972.

But lots of Americans are ready for this decision. They just haven’t been vocal about their support. Their legislators, for the most part, lean the other way: Preparing for this day, 38 states have passed legislation forbidding officials from recognizing same-sex marriages performed elsewhere. Those laws will now be tested.

Here, there may be a rash of new same-sex marriages — by couples already in civil unions, those thinking about it, and visitors from other states seeking to tie the knot as first-class citizens. But that will happen only if the divided Massachusetts Legislature enacts non-cumbersome enabling legislation and that legislation is upheld.

Meanwhile, it’s a new day, in Massachusetts, for same-sex couples. And an invitation to a national debate on the subject, which will go on for years.

MARK ARNOLD
Jewish Journal Editor/Publisher

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Local Columnists

Two Great Writers in Our Neighborhood

I love to hear authors talk about the books they’ve written. Years go into studying the subject; writing means sculpting every paragraph, sentence and word. You hear in a lecture what they did, how they felt, what it means to them.

In the last three weeks in our own neighborhood north of Boston I heard two great writers and wonderful lecturers.

Carmit Delman is a 28-year-old writer and college teacher with a highly praised new first book: Burnt Bread and Chutney. She appeared for Jewish Book Month on Nov. 9 at the Jewish Community Center in Marblehead.

The audience of 120 was completely smitten by this woman, smart and articulate as only a young scholar can be, and as charming as a young Audrey Hepburn.

Delman’s mother descends from Bene Israel; Jews living in India cut off from outside Jewry for 2,000 years, yet whose yearning for Zion brought almost all of them to Israel after 1948. She met her husband, an American Jew of Eastern European background, as he worked for a time as a visitor on her kibbutz. The couple, bound by love and Zionism, took little notice of the “interracial aspect of their union.... but Carmit, growing up in America, was well aware of their uncommon heritage.”

You’ll want to savor each passage rather than rush to the conclusion. Ms. Delman intertwines her story with that of her great aunt (think of a sari-dressed grandmother), her family’s story, her growing up and coming of age with all the issues of parent-child, brother-sister, classmates-friends, plus issues of skin color, Judaism, Zionism and American values and practices for growing kids in the 80s and 90s.
How different is the second writer who spoke at Salem State College a few days earlier. In his sixties, son of a high ranking American military officer who served a long Pentagon stint, where James Carroll, the child, ran through the corridors of the largest building in the world on Saturday mornings (before present-day security).

Now an author of highly acclaimed non-fiction and fiction, and a weekly column in the Boston Globe, he is soft-spoken but passionate, makes both ardent friends and opponents, and calls himself, in contradiction to his Pentagon childhood, a peacenik.
Professor Carroll’s latest book, Secret Father: A Novel, and an earlier book Constantine’s Sword: The Church and the Jews, both won National Book Awards.

I met James Carroll for the first time last January at a symposium at the Hartman Institute in Jerusalem. He was brilliant, delivering his many-threaded thesis about inter-religious relations with every nuance, date, and event spun of words and ideas poetic and original.
Here in Salem, Carroll talked of peace and war, Iraq and Afghanistan, soldiers and generals, presidents and advisors, about citizens, our responsibility and how we remember and deal with the memorable and famous events and dates of history.

He began with November 9, 1938, Kristallnacht, the day the savagery and horror of World War II began. He admonished the audience: “Remember it!”

But remember also November 9, 1989, 51 years later, same country, when tens of thousands of young Germans began to tear down the Berlin Wall, the symbol of division between East and West. Remember, he urged, that instead of an apocalyptic nuclear World War III that many believed would probably end the Soviet-American rivalry, instead it ended with a non-violent fall of the Berlin Wall and the Soviet Empire.

“Which story will you tell?” he asked. The one of depravity and nihilism or the one of peace and hope. Both stories, he said, should be remembered, but the possibility of conflict and change without war and killing should be uppermost in our hearts and minds.

He went on to talk of other dates and times with a similar parable that war need not be the only solution to national or international conflict.
We chatted briefly after the lecture and found that both of us would again be in Jerusalem in January. Here is a man who proves by word and deed that one can be both a liberal peacenik and a friend of the Jewish people and Israel.

We need more friends like James Carroll; we need more Jews like Carmit Delman.

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The Last Time I Saw Paris

ELLEN GOLUB

Ellen Golub teaches journalism at Salme State College

“Life doesn’t get any better than this,” I whispered to Steve in the romantic little bistro we’d found in Paris seven years ago. Le Petit Leo had everything I wanted out of life at that moment: the best food I had ever tasted, a superlative bottle of Merlot, and a charming waiter who appreciated, yea understood, my high school French. So amazing was this meal that when Steve had to work the following evening, I returned alone to the same restaurant and ordered it all over again.

The last time I saw Paris, we sat out on the Champs-Elysees drinking so much espresso that we didn’t sleep for a week, which was OK with me, since I was mesmerized by the shopping and awestruck by the art. I developed such a passion for Picasso and Monet that I began having separation anxiety when I left the Musee D’Orsay. I read so many novels, ate so many frites, and ogled so much gorgeous modern furniture that when I called the kids to say I couldn’t wait to come home, I felt guilty to be lying.

So you’d think, when Steve called the other day and announced another working vacation in Paris, at a four star hotel in the 18th arrondisement, I’d have jumped for la joie. “Couldn’t we go somewhere else?” I begged.

“Are you crazy?” he was incredulous. “A free trip to Paris — and then next year, a chateau in Bordeaux?”

“Again, France?”

“Well,” my husband said in the isn’t-anything-I-do-good-enough-for-you twang, “we could always go back to Atlantic City and eat weiners on the boardwalk again! Or maybe my boss will spring for a weekend in the White Mountains at that tacky motor lodge where we got food poisoning!” Then, deflated, he said, “Why don’t you just tell me where you’re willing to go, and I’ll see if Greyhound drives there.”
A neighbor looks at me strangely when we stop to exchange pleasantries at the mall. She can’t believe that I dread going to France, but that I have sent my daughter to study in Israel, and that we, as a family, are planning a summer vacation there. “You feel safer in Israel than in France?”

Yes, indeed. Safer in Israel than in most of Europe. I try to explain to my neighbor that anti-Semitic incidents in Europe — particularly France — are more prevalent than anything we’ve seen since Hitler. Physical assaults on Jews, fire bombings of synagogues and JCCs, vandalism at Jewish cemeteries. “The climate is so virulently anti-Semitic,” I tell her, “that I would be afraid to wear a Magen David in public.”
My neighbor is patronizing, “Oh, I’m sure it’s not that bad — and if you feel so unsafe, just don’t wear anything that makes you stand out as Jewish.”

It is a rare occurrence, but it happens. I am struck dumb.

“Can you imagine, planning a vacation in post-Kristallnacht Germany? Would you bring the kids home some souvenirs of the Third Reich?”
“Don’t worry,” I tell Steve later, “I didn’t really say the part about the Third Reich. I’m too unconfrontational to do that.”
But confrontation and boycott may be the only way to respond. Not buying French wine or cheese. Not traveling to places where hate crimes are swept under the rug. Not making donations to NPR, which sponsors the travesty of BBC “news” and thereby incites violence against Jews.

Le Petit Leo, the Champs-Elysees, the Eiffel Tower: I think of them now as a war zone, where — if my true identity were known — I would be lucky to escape with my life.

Hot dogs on the boardwalk in New Jersey are looking better all the time.

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Slice of Life
Whose House This Year?

PHYLLIS DINERMAN
Jewish Journal North of Boston

@Phyllis Dinerman 2003. Phyllis Dinerman is a resident of Marblehead and Boynton Beach, FL.

Thanksgiving is around the corner. Has anyone in your family volunteered to host the dinner? Someone in the family has to be the “fall guy.”

In my family, my sister always hosts Thanksgiving; of course, she does Rosh Hashanah and Passover as well. I used to have everyone for Rosh Hashanah when I lived in Marblehead, but since I live in Florida, no one wants to make the trip. I guess it’s a long way to go for a Yontif dinner.

Thanksgiving is relatively easy compared to Passover. Passover is the tough meal to plan since every dish requires matzah as an ingredient. It is also the meal that stays with us forever. (G-d bless matzah and its effects on our digestive system.)
On Thanksgiving turkey is served. That is a given…and cranberry sauce as a side dish. Turkey and cranberry sauce is like brisket and tsimmis.

Every year the seating is different at Thanksgiving. Some members of our family pass away, and others are born to take their place at the table. Children grow up, get married, and now holiday dinners must be shared with “the other side,” the spouse’s side. One year the children must go to the “husband’s side;” and another year, the children go to the “wife’s side.”
Lately, some parents (who else would host 14 or more at dinner? The children?) have decided it is easier to take the group out for Thanksgiving dinner.

Every restaurant or country club hosts a special meal at holiday times, and it is so much easier on the hostess. Number one: she does not have to get up at 5 a.m. to put the turkey in the oven. Number two: she doesn’t have to have the house look “just so.” Number three: she can enjoy herself as much as her guests.

But does dining outside the home lose some of the intimacy, some of the joviality? How can the “little ones” run around? How can you talk about someone? That person might be at the next table. How can you tell the men to go downstairs and watch the football game while the women remain at the table to kibbitz?

My feeling is this. I only wish my family were down here in Florida to sit at my dining room table and share the Thanksgiving meal with my husband and me. It would be my pleasure to serve them and share the special time. They wouldn’t even have to cook a thing.

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Op-Ed

Turkish Bombings are Rooted in Prejudice and Paranoia

AARON B. COHEN Aaron B. Cohen is executive editor of JUF News, Chicago’s largest-circulation Jewish community magazine, from which this article is reprinted. He is immediate past-president of the American Jewish Press Association.

CHICAGO — The massive car bombings of the Neve Shalom (Oasis of Peace) and Beit Shalom (House of Peace) synagogues in Istanbul on Saturday Nov. 15, killed at least 23, injured more than 300, devastated several city blocks, and marked another dark turn in a war being fought if not between civilizations, then between value systems.

Who would want to murder Turkish Jews at prayer, while also killing and maiming scores of passersby, the majority of them Muslims? What messages did exploding pick-up trucks deliver in the peaceful neighborhoods of Sisli and Beyoglu?

In an email to the London-based, Arabic newspaper al-Quds al-Arabi, Al Qaida claimed it perpetrated the attacks after it “kept Jewish intelligence agents under surveillance and determined that five of them were in two synagogues.”

It would be a grave mistake to accept this statement at face value, to explain away terror, as have many newspapers, as a “militant” tactic in a struggle against Israeli government policy or Turkish-Israel relations. In fact the attacks carried two underlying messages, which underscored the reality that more than a conflict over policies, a clash in core values is now raging.

One message, aimed directly at Jews everywhere, said: “No matter who you are, whatever your political bent, whatever your nationality, you are targets for murder because you are Jewish.” The other message, aimed at all members of civil society, said: “Your blood is the currency we use to pay back you and your government for the sins of religious tolerance or political independence.”

The first message is fundamentally racist. It reflects a value system that justifies indiscriminate attacks against people simply because they belong to an “enemy” religion, ethnicity or nationality, and thus sanctions the targeting of innocents as a matter of course. The bombing of synagogues betrays an Islamist worldview that regards Jews —all Jews — as “the enemy” who, in the words of Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohammed, “rule the world by proxy.”

Today a frightening number of Muslim politicians, theologians, journalists and academics espouse a wild-eyed anti-Semitism, which posits that only by defeating “the Jews” will Islam regain the hegemony that is its due. Fuelling this logic are a plethora of books, articles and television programs throughout the Arab world which resurrect the specters of Jewish conspiracies and blood libel, and which call, overtly or in code, for the eradication of Israel and the murder of Jews “wherever they are” (an oft-repeated admonition in Friday sermons by Hizbullah and Hamas preachers).

Rooted in prejudice and paranoia, such incitement creates the rationalization for the murders of Istanbul bombing victims Anet Rubinstein, 8, her grandmother, Anna Rubinstein, 85, and all the other innocent Jews and Muslim bystanders killed that Saturday and in scores of prior attacks in Israel, Morocco, Tunisia, France, Belgium and elsewhere. The other message delivered in Saturday’s attacks was aimed at the Turkish state and all Turks — indeed all Muslims —who uphold the value of religious tolerance.

Non-Jewish Turks, the majority of the dead and injured in the Istanbul attacks, committed no offense other than being in proximity to a synagogue. Their “crime’’ was simply to coexist, to tolerate Jews in their midst, and to live in a state and vote for a government that pursues an independent foreign policy.

Al Qaida warns of more attacks, which aim to undermine states, demoralize populations, and drive wedges of terror between leaders and the public, and between policy and public opinion. Hopefully, strong intelligence and security measures will thwart those attacks and bring their would-be perpetrators to justice.

Winning this war between value systems will require more than effective policing. It will require a good offense. That means refusing to be intimidated, practicing those values we seek to protect, and militantly rejecting racism and intolerance, which are the core values of those who seek to destroy what we hold dear.

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Throwing Stones at Tanks: Is it West Bank or Gaza?

JONATHAN FRIENDLY

Jonathan Friendly is the national editor of Jewish Renaissance Media

The picture last week of pre-teen boys preparing to throw stones at an oncoming tank looked like a scene from the West Bank or Gaza. Instead, it was snapped in Falluja, in Iraq. The boys were Sunni Muslims and the tank was American.

The image was a stark reminder of how closely America’s “war on terror” has come to resemble Israel’s efforts to stem Palestinian mayhem and how difficult the task remains. In both cases, the occupying forces started off with an apparently clear and moral purpose.

Israel was going to hold onto the land it won in 1967 only as long as it took to negotiate a peaceful settlement with the Arabs who had started the war, and America was going to be in Iraq only long enough to get rid of Saddam Hussein, remove any weapons of mass destruction and establish a new Iraqi civilian government. But as the troops have remained, the civilian populations have come to doubt the occupiers’ motives.

Many Iraqis think America is there because it wants oil and other business opportunities. Others see the troops as warring against Islam rather than liberating a population to govern itself. Similarly, the Palestinians, their Arab allies and significant populations in Europe and elsewhere doubt Israel’s claim that it merely wants secure borders with a stable and peaceful Palestine.