TORAH CONTEST TO MEMORIALIZE RABBI DR.

ZVI SUBIN page 6

NEW MILFORD MENTALIST MARC SALEM'S 'MIND GAME' page 12
THE MILK OF HARVEY'S KINDNESS page 48
DAY SCHOOL LEADERS CALL FOR POST-PARKLAND ACTION page 52

MARCH 9, 2018
VOL. LXXXVII NO. 25 $1.00 86 2017
7

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 GET TING THE SCOOP ON THE SCOPE
What You Need to Know
About Colorectal Cancer
In recognition of National Colorectal Cancer Awareness Month,
Dr. Anna Serur, chief of colorectal surgery at Englewood Hospital
and Medical Center, shares the latest recommendations about
screening and prevention—a topic she says is not often discussed
during regular health check-ups. Dr. Anna Serur
What is the most important information to know
about colorectal health and cancer risk?
Dr. Serur: Recent data from the American Cancer Society
has shown an increased prevalence of colorectal cancer in
younger patients. However, most people only need to have
a colonoscopy every 5-10 years, beginning at age 50, and
for African Americans starting at age 45. Screenings may
detect abnormalities like inflammation or precancerous
polyps—growths on the lining of the colon and rectum—
that can then be removed, which is cancer prevention at its
best. The most important recommendation to otherwise
young, healthy patients is to share all symptoms with their
primary care doctors or gastroenterologists. This includes
any change in bowel habits, abdominal pain, blood in the
stool, fatigue, or unintended weight loss. Many people may
assume their symptoms are unrelated to colon health, ignoring
signs that there may be something more serious going on.
If you experience two or more of these symptoms, make an
appointment to see your doctor immediately.
What are the causes of colorectal cancer?
Dr. Serur: Family history or genetic risk can be a major factor for
people who are diagnosed with colorectal cancer. Colon polyps
and genetic conditions, such as hereditary polyposis syndrome,
should be actively monitored by a gastroenterologist.
Environmental and lifestyle factors including physical inactivity,
diets high in processed food and red meat, obesity, stress,
alcohol consumption, and smoking are also known risk factors
for developing cancer. If you engage in two or more of these
lifestyle habits, you should develop an immediate plan to
reduce these risk factors in your life.
National leaders.
Local address.
To find a physician, call 201-608-2266 or visit englewoodhealth.org
2 JEWISH STANDARD MARCH 9, 2018
JewishStand_Serur_11x14.indd 2
What are some steps people can take to reduce
their risk?
Dr. Serur: Staying active, maintaining a healthy weight, and
reducing stress can lessen your cancer risk. Follow up regularly
with your primary care doctor, and reach out right away if you
notice symptoms. As a colorectal specialist, I work closely with
patients’ primary doctors to make sure we’re monitoring those
at high risk for developing a GI cancer. Being proactive can
positively affect your overall well-being, while minimizing your
cancer risk.
For those hesitant to get a colonoscopy, can you
offer any reassurance?
Dr. Serur: Think of your colonoscopy as a safe juice cleansing—
all the rage lately! The procedure itself is quick and painless.
Also, talk to your doctor about what screening options are
right for you. If you’re 50 and older with an average risk for
colon cancer—and without symptoms—you may be able to do
noninvasive screening, right from the comfort of your home,
using stool sample kits that can detect abnormalities.
Any advice for managing colon health and
cancer risk?
Dr. Serur: The gastrointestinal tract is sensitive to emotion. Anger,
anxiety, sadness, elation—all of these feelings (and others) can
trigger symptoms in the gut. There is, undoubtedly, a gut-brain
connection. If you’re looking to manage stress to improve your
gut health, try out acupuncture, yoga, massage, or meditation.
If you’re not sure where to start making changes to your diet,
consider nutritional counseling to help improve your eating habits
and avoid high-risk foods we encounter every day.
Colorectal
Cancer
Care
2/23/18 4:45 PM

Eran Zahavi extending
his contract with his
Chinese soccer team.
Planning a Jewish theme park in desert town of Dimona
● Israel — land of archaeological dis-
coveries, natural wonders and state-
of-the-art museums. But no true
theme park. At least, not yet.
But if a group of Israeli investors
have their way, Dimona, the south-
ern town in the Negev desert better
known for its nuclear reactor, will host
a large park combining Jewish educa-
tion and fun.
Pla’im Park (or “Park of Wonders”)
is being guided by Rabbi Yosef Zvi
Rimon, from the West Bank settle-
ment of Alon Shvut.
“It didn’t start with Dimona,” said
Tony Thwaites, a real estate investor
originally from England, now living
in Israel, who has been working with
Rimon on the project from the start.
“Rav Rimon had the idea, because
such a thing doesn’t exist.”
Israel’s $10 million soccer man
● Who knew that Chinese soccer could be so lucrative?
Eran Zahavi, the former star of Maccabi Tel Aviv, just extended his contract with the Chinese
team Guangzhou R&F for three more years, in a contact worth at least $10 million per season.
That makes him the highest-paid Israeli sports professional ever.
By comparison, Israeli NBA player Omri Casspi earns a base salary of $2,106,470 from the
Golden State Warriors.
Zahavi, 30, joined Guangzhou in June 2016 for an estimated $12.5 million over 30 months, in
They’ve spent several years re-
searching the idea, “talking to a whole
heap of people,” including theme park
designers from Florida, Thwaites said.
The park, which would cost an esti-
mated $300 million, is not geared to
be a profitable commercial venture.
“This is just about education,”
Thwaites said. “Visitors to Israel see a
lot of history and depressing things,
and this is explaining what being
Jewish is about in an exciting and
modern way.”
Project CEO Lea Malul told Walla
News the park was envisioned as a
Jewish “Magic Kingdom.”
It is set to include 16 major rides.
Plans include a water ride touching
on the days of the week (with the
Sabbath an island of tranquility in the
hectic affair), a Jacob’s Ladder at-
Page 3
addition to a $20,000 bonus for each goal scored.
Maccabi Tel Aviv received $8 million for Zahavi, report-
edly the most lucrative transfer ever involving an Israeli
sports club.
Since then, Zahavi has become the Chinese club’s top
scorer. Last season he scored 27 goals, although R&F fin-
ished in fifth place overall.
According to the Jerusalem Post, Zahavi will contin-
ue to receive a $20,000 bonus for every goal he scores,
a $1 million bonus if he is the league’s top scorer or if
the team wins the league championship, and $500,000
if R&F qualifies for the Asian Champions League.
Zahavi was named the Israeli Footballer of the Year
in 2013 and 2014, having scored a record 29 goals in
the Israeli Premier League. During the 2015–16 season,
he achieved an all-time league record of 35 goals.
ISRAEL21C.ORG
CONTENTS
NOSHES ...............................................................4
BRIEFLY LOCAL ..............................................16
COVER STORY ................................................ 22
JEWISH WORLD ............................................ 26
PASSOVER ....................................................... 38
OPINION ...........................................................40
D’VAR TORAH ................................................46
THE FRAZZLED HOUSEWIFE ................... 47
CROSSWORD PUZZLE ................................ 47
ARTS & CULTURE ..........................................48
CALENDAR ......................................................49
OBITUARIES .................................................... 53
CLASSIFIEDS ..................................................54
REAL ESTATE.................................................. 56
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Israeli government, Thwaites said, al-
though none of the government insti-
tutions approached by the planning
group have committed any funds to
Candlelighting:
the project just yet. Friday, March 9, 5:38 p.m.
Thwaites is fairly sure that they will
Shabbat ends:
get the necessary funding, comment-
ing that “there’s plenty of organiza- Saturday, March 10, 6:38 p.m.
tions with plenty of funds to do this.”
“Dimona connects nicely with the
whole idea of building in the south For convenient
and bringing infrastructure and jobs
to Dimona,” Thwaites said. “You real- home delivery,
ize what it could bring in terms of call 201-837-8818 or
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JEWISH STANDARD MARCH 9, 2018 3
Noshes
“I’m half a Heeb; we play
where we want to play.”
— Sharon Osborne, wife of Black Sabbath founder Ozzy
Osborne, at a press conference announcing Ozzy’s
farewell tour, which will include a performance in Israel.

A ‘THOROUGHBRED’:

Anton’s final role

deserves mention
A bittersweet TVish doings and she replied that her
movie opening JASON ALEXANDER, parents hyphenated
“Thoroughbreds,” open- 58 (“George” on “Sein- their last names into one
ing on Friday, March 9, feld”) will guest star on name. She added that
co-stars the late ANTON the March 15 episode she had a different first
YELCHIN in his final of the hit CBS series name for the first 10 days
film role. You may recall “Young Sheldon” (Thurs- of her life. Her (Jewish)
that Yelchin died in a day, 8:30 p.m.). He’ll mother, she explained,
freak car accident in play Mr. Lundy, Medford was into Kabbala — Jew-
High School’s resident ish mysticism — and
June 2016. He was 27.
drama teacher. Lundy there was an old belief
When he died, Yelchin
is described as “boldly that a parent should give
was a well-established
shepherding” Sheldon a child a “terrible, crappy
film actor. He’s prob-
into the world of act- Anton Yelchin Jason Alexander Judd Apatow name for the first 10
ably best known for his
ing. Nice to note: Alex- days of its life and it will
role as Chekov in the
ander and his (Jewish) keep evil spirits away….
“Star Trek” reboot mov-
wife, DAENA TITLE, 62, so she named me Dirt
ies. “Thoroughbreds” is
have been married since Pan… it worked, I’m still
dedicated to him.
1982 and have two sons, here,” she said. Colbert
The film is a black
GABRIEL, 27, and NOAH, mentioned her 2017
comedy and quasi-thrill-
22. Alexander grew up in film, “Band Aid,” which
er about Lily and Aman-
Livingston. I recently saw for the
da, childhood friends first time on Showtime.
The Netflix series
from suburban Con- “Love,” a quirky romantic While I wrote about the
necticut, who reconnect comedy with drama, will film when it opened,
when Amanda’s very start streaming its entire and I knew it got good
wealthy mother hires Lily, third and final season reviews, I liked it much
a model student, to tutor on Friday, March 9. The more than I thought I
Amanda for the SATs. series was co-created Lesley Arfin Sarah Silverman Zoe Lister-Jones would. Lister wrote and
Amanda has a sharp wit by JUDD APATOW, 50, directed this film, about
but is almost a socio- LESLEY ARFIN, 38, and she is a handful. Mickey roundtable last year, Rust the murders of some a couple who work out
path, and she starts to Paul Rust, 36. I watched appreciates Gus’s smarts, told the story of how high school students. their problems in their
lure Lily into her nasty the first two seasons and honesty, and kindness. In he met Arfin. They were This murder-in-a-high marriage by forming a
plans. They bond over I think it’s worth your real life, Rust is married both at the same party, school plot line didn’t sit band that sings about
Lily’s contempt for her time. Rust plays Gus, an to Arfin, a quite attrac- and Arfin asked SARAH well with Paramount in their marital problems.
oppressive stepfather. aspiring script writer. tive woman who, like SILVERMAN whether or light of the recent real- The movie couple is Jew-
Yelchin plays Tim, a local Based on looks alone, Mickey, had an alcohol not he was a member of life Parkland, Florida, ish, but relaxed about it.
hustler who the girls hire Gus shouldn’t be able problem (she’s long been the Tribe. Silverman told high school murders. Jewish stuff comes up
to do some dirty work to charm Mickey, a very sober). Arfin was a writer her, “If he’s not, his face So “Heathers” has been naturally. Their problems
for them. The film played attractive radio program for “Girls” before “Love.” should sue God.” shelved for the foresee- are achingly realistic.
at many festivals and got manager. It’s unstated, Gus, I should note, In my last column, able future. Fred Armisen is wonder-
good reviews. A British but it seems like Gus looks so stereotypically I wrote that the Para- On February 28, ZOE ful as the quirky neigh-
reviewer said this about sometimes puts up with Jewish (a dark-haired mount cable station LISTER-JONES, 35, ap- bor they enlist to play
Yelchin’s performance: Mickey’s often bad be- WOODY ALLEN type) series “Heathers,” based peared on the Stephen drums. Trust me: worth
“[He] gives another havior and abuse of al- that he’s often asked on a 1988 black com- Colbert show to promote watching on Showtime
twitchy, compelling turn cohol and drugs because if he is Jewish. He says edy film, would begin on her TV series “Life in or streaming for four
that reminds us why he’ll she’s a catch, looks-wise. he isn’t, but everyone March 7. Like the origi- Pieces.” Colbert asked bucks.
be missed so much.” She’s not a bimbo, but thinks he is. In a publicity nal, the series includes her about her last name –N.B.

California-based Nate Bloom can be reached at

Want to read more noshes? Visit facebook.com/jewishstandard Middleoftheroad1@aol.com

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4 JEWISH STANDARD MARCH 9, 2018

JEWISH STANDARD MARCH 9, 2018 5
Local
Academic rigor? Absolute creativity?
This must be about Rabbi Dr. Zvi Szubin
The Hadar Institute will remember the Teaneck rabbi and scholar
with award competition that reaches across denominational barriers
JOANNE PALMER
R
abbi Dr. Zvi Szubin of Teaneck,
who died on March 20, 2016,
was an extraordinary man.
His harrowing childhood,
fleeing the Nazis, going east, going west,
going to Palestine, and then eventually
winding up here, must have left a strong
mark on him, but Dr. Szubin’s approach to
the world was passionate curiosity, a pas-
sionate desire to understand through the
application of logic to text and to physi-
cal objects, and a passionate yearning to
explore the Jewish world and to deepen
his connection to it through understand-
ing it and unfolding and exploring and
unfurling its complexities.
It was a joyous and passionate combina-
tion of rigorous scholarship and pure cre-
ativity, and it infused his entire life.
He lived his life as an Orthodox rabbi
with strong ties to the Conservative move-
ment, never quite fitting entirely into any
one world, absolutely at home in both.
Absolutely at home in all Jewish worlds.
It makes sense, therefore, that his wife,
Laurie Szubin, and his children, Adam
Szubin and Lisa Szubin, have decided to
remember him through the Ateret Zvi
Prize in Hiddushei Torah. The award will
be given by the Hadar Institute, the Man-
hattan-based post-denominational institu-
tion (né Mechon Hadar) that —according
to its website — “empowers Jews to create
Dr. Zvi Szubin and his wife, Laurie, are flanked by their children, Lisa
and Adam.
6 JEWISH STANDARD MARCH 9, 2018
Rabbi Dr. Zvi Szubin
,and sustain vibrant, practicing, egalitar-
ian communities of Torah, Avodah, and
Hesed.”
Hadar now is looking for submissions;
the award will “recognize a work of inno-
vative and exceptional Torah scholarship.”
It will look for the combination of aca-
demic rigor and imagination that charac-
terized Dr. Szubin’s life.
Dr. Szubin is surrounded by his children and grandchildren.
“Our hope was to find a way that would
honor my father’s memory that was fit-
ting and appropriate and also would proj-
ect some positive Jewish contributions in
the world,” Adam Szubin, a lawyer who
lives with his wife and children in Wash-
ington, D.C., said. He and his family chose
Hadar because “of what Hadar is build-
ing as a proudly traditional and proudly
egalitarian Jewish community.
“My father was an iconoclast in many
ways,” he continued. “I would say that this
is just one of them.”
Dr. Szubin spent many summers as a
teacher in residence at Camp Ramah in
Wisconsin — the first of the Conservative
movement’s Ramah camps, and always
known as the most intellectually oriented.
“I still run into people who hear my last
name and say ‘Oh! I remember Zvi Szu-
bin!’ And not only do they remember this
name, they remember something spe-
cific he taught them in, say, 1978. They
would say ‘I remember this insight on
Tisha B’Av’ or ‘This thing he said about
the Pesach seder’ or ‘This comment on
the Megillah.’ This was from 40 years ago
— and I can’t even remember what I had
for lunch this afternoon.
“He touched a lot of students and teach-
ers, and he was happy to do it. And he
wanted to be in as many settings as pos-
sible. It’s not just that he was open to
this post-denominational approach — he
sought it out.
“He would often use the metaphor of the
Jewish people as having at one point, early
in history, been on a ship in the ocean, and
there was a shipwreck. So from early on,
for most of our history, we have been in
lifeboats, drifting off in different directions.
“He saw it as his duty, no matter what life-
boat he was in, to paddle toward the others.
SEE SZUBIN PAGE 52
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Local
Strep has consequences
Dr. Sandra Gold is among many health care professionals warning
about late-presenting symptoms; conference next weekend will study issue
JOANNE PALMER
P
andas.
That’s a cute, cuddly sounding
acronym for something that’s got
a far more ominous — and accu-
rate — full name.
Pandas stands for Pediatric Autoimmune
Neuropsychiatric Disorders associated with
Streptococcal infections.
It’s a nasty disorder that manifests
itself as an abrupt change in behavior in
children, who can go from being regu-
lar, cute, sometimes-annoying-but-more-
often-endearing small people to terrified,
anxious, hostile strangers.
For years, doctors have known that the
strep virus can manifest itself later as rheu-
matic fever and Sydenham chorea, a neu-
rological disease that causes rapid involun-
tary movement.
Remember Beth, the saintly sister in
Louisa May Alcott’s “Little Women”? Beth
nursed a poor, sick family, caught scarlet
fever — a form of strep — only sort of got bet-
ter, faded, and then years later she died, of
rheumatic fever. Classic.
As Dr. Sandra Gold of Englewood and oth-
ers have come to learn, strep also can turn
into Pandas. It’s a form of encephalitis.
There are cells — th 17 cells, Dr. Gold said —
“that bond to the olfactory nerve, and travel
up to the blood-brain barrier, and alert the
barrier to open. And it does open. We don’t
know why the th 17 cell has the ability to go
through that barrier, but it does.”
Once that happens, she said, the child’s
behavior changes. “Once the infection goes
into the brain, it can become OCD” — obses-
sive compulsive disorder — “anxiety, hostility,
anorexia, insomnia. The presenting symp-
toms can be very varied, but the main thing
is that they come suddenly.
“If you have a kid who, say, has insomnia
from birth and it just gets worse, that’s not
Pandas. The abrupt onset is the key.”
Dr. Gold speaks from personal experi-
ence. “My grandson, Max, got in a van to go
to camp with his best friend, happy as can
be. And they arrived 20 minutes later and he
couldn’t get out of the car.
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8 JEWISH STANDARD MARCH 9, 2018
“This isn’t just a story about Max,
though,”’ she said.
And in fact, Max Seeling is fine. He wasn’t
for some time; he acted out, and his par-
ents despaired. But, Dr. Gold said, “Arnold”
— that’s her late husband, the pediatric
neurologist Dr. Arnold Gold, who died just
a few weeks ago — “told her to get a strep
test.” The pediatrician didn’t think it was at
all necessary, but because the instruction
was coming from the renowned Dr. Arnold
Gold, the test was done.
It was positive.
Max didn’t get better with the diagnosis.
It took treatment. It took time — eight years.
Max wrote about the experience. “Through
those long eight years I have felt scared,
abnormal, different,” he said. “I thought
kids would tease me. I cried myself to sleep
many nights fearing how people would
react to me…
“Not only did my emotions change but
my physical being changed as well. It felt
as if I had a pit in my stomach a ton of the
time. I breathed more heavily and talked
less. Whenever I spoke less everyone knew
something was wrong.”
Now he’s okay, he writes — and his grand-
mother confirms.
There’s also the story of Emilia, a
5½-year-old whose mother reports that a
week after her daughter’s bout with strep,
“I started noticing some very odd behavior
with my daughter — extremely out of the
ordinary for my usually happy-go-lucky
child. She suddenly became very angry,
I would actually say raging mad during
simple conversation. I remember driv-
ing and her screaming and kicking the
back of seats. She was having obsessive
compulsive thoughts & could not stop the
thoughts from coming. She was following
me around & confessing them repeatedly…
She felt the need to urinate constantly.
Clothing that she used to wear with no
issue suddenly was intolerable…”
Pandas eventually was diagnosed, and
Emilia is doing much better, “But we don’t
know if Pandas is done with her yet,” her
mother writes.
It is important for parents to pay
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Dr. Sandra Gold
attention, Dr. Gold said, and to take action
as quickly as they can.
This weekend, the Pandas Network —
which as its name implies provides support
and advice and connections to parents and
children suffering from the syndrome — is
holding a conference at Columbia Univer-
sity Medical Center. On Saturday, March 10,
medical professionals are invited; the pro-
gram on Sunday, March 11 is open to pub-
lic, and the group hopes to attract parents.
There is no entrance fee.
Diana Pohlman, who lives in Stanford, Cali-
fornia, is the founder and executive director
of the Pandas Network. “It can take four or
five months for the antigen to percolate and
bubble and bubble and burst through the
blood-brain barrier,” she said. “The thing
that’s hardest for pediatricians is that they’ve
forgotten about the strep, which happened
maybe four or five months earlier. Maybe the
child had strep in January, and now it’s May.
“So the mommy goes back to the doc-
tor and reminds him, and the doctor
says ‘Oh yeah. Right.’ It is a problem with
strep education.”
She’s personally involved because her
daughter had Pandas.
“A mother can notice an abrupt, acute,
dramatic change in personality,” she said.
“Usually it’s intense anxiety that begins
to increase into obsessive compulsive
Max Seeling
thoughts, which come from a person with
intense anxiety issues. Obsessive compul-
sive behavior doesn’t mean that you are
counting your Cheerios.
“The parent might also notice pallor.
They look fatigued. They look tired. They
look unwell. Generally they will develop
mild to moderate neurological symptoms,
which will come and go. And they will
have sensory changes. Things will taste dif-
ferent. And they urinate more frequently,
often in their beds.
“Eventually the child’s personality will
begin to change. They can be aggressive, start
to use baby talk, can’t think, can’t talk, can’t
write. Their logical thinking is disordered.
Their handwriting starts getting bigger and
bigger, until it covers the entire page.
“The longer you are debilitated, the more
completely everything starts to fall apart.
“It’s serious business,” Ms. Pohlman said.
So if your child has had strep, and then
starts to act oddly, test for it. If the swab
doesn’t show anything, “re-swab,” she said.
Ms. Pohlman and Dr. Gold also both sug-
gest that parents consider going to the par-
ents’ part of the conference this weekend.
For information about the free conference,
go to www.pandasnetwork.org/common-
threads-conference-2018/. And you can learn
more about Pandas in general at www.pan-
dasnetwork.org.
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JEWISH STANDARD MARCH 9, 2018 9

Local
Jazz pianist sheds new light on liturgical improv
Ridgewood concert to feature ‘Jewish music the way it is meant to sound’
LOIS GOLDRICH
M
usician David Schlossberg
wants his audience to find “a
place beyond words” when
they listen to his music.
“I want to transport them to a place
where the music is carrying them and they
can use it to get in touch with themselves,”
Mr. Schlossberg, who will perform at Ridge-
wood’s Temple Israel and Jewish Commu-
nity Center on March 25, said.
Whether he is performing or recording —
“A Place Beyond Words” is the title of both
the program and his CD — Mr. Schlossberg’s
Who: Jazz pianist David Schlossberg
What: Will offer a program of liturgical
music improvisations
When: On Sunday, March 25, from 3 p.m.
to 5 p.m.; a festive reception will follow
Where: At Temple Israel and Jewish
Community Center, 475 Grove St.,
Ridgewood
Cost: $18 per adult, $5 per student,
children under 5 free
Reservations: Call or email music@
synagogue.org
From Teaneck to Lincoln Center
Local HaZamir chapter preps teen singers for annual choral festival
CURT SCHLEIER
L
ike the swallows returning to
Capistrano, some 400 Jewish
teens from 31 U.S. cities and
Israel will gather next week to
stretch their vocal chords.
Except they’re not really swallows.
They’re nightingales, members of HaZa-
mir — Hebrew for the nightingale sings.
The teens will spend three days rehears-
ing for the group’s 25th annual concert, an
event they’ve been preparing for in their
individual chapters all year. On March 18
at Lincoln Center’s David Geffen Hall, they
will perform a selection of traditional,
sacred, and contemporary choral pieces,
plus two works especially composed for
the occasion.
If you haven’t heard of HaZamir, you’re
not alone. Vivian Lazar, who will be
awarded the Kinor David (David’s Harp)
Award at the performance and has been
the group’s director since 2004, concedes,
“We’re a well kept secret outside of a small
Jewish population.”
HaZamir is part of the Zamir Choral
10 JEWISH STANDARD MARCH 9, 2018
goal is to help people “shut out all the noise.
They can use music as a place they can go to
find peace. It’s not necessary to do anything
but listen.” He’s not trying to be pretentious
but simply sharing his own philosophy, he
added.
Temple Israel has developed a noted
concert series coordinated by chairs Marc
Cantor, Tamara Freeman, and Nanette
Rosenbaum. Ms. Freeman, who is a tal-
ented musician, arranges concerts of
sacred music, and Mr. Schlossberg’s music
is included in that category.
“David spins traditional Shabbat prayers
and zemirot into imaginative, improvisatory
jazz pieces for the piano,” Ms. Freeman said.
“Listening to his music is like hearing Jew-
ish music the way it is meant to sound; that
is the magic, discipline, and authenticity of
David’s craft.”
Describing the pianist’s interpreta-
tions of the prayers as “spiritual, soulful,
emotional, and evocative,” Ms. Freeman
said she met Mr. Schlossberg through Dr.
Michael Kesler, the artistic director and
producer of annual pre-Holocaust con-
certs at the East Brunswick Public Library.
A Holocaust survivor, Dr. Kesler has pulled
together a group of musicians to present
This year’s HaZamir choir at Beth Sholom.
Foundation umbrella organization, which
includes choral groups of various ages
(including one made up of HaZamir
alumni) and offers various concert and
leadership opportunities.
It was founded by Vivian Lazar’s hus-
band, Matthew, a noted conductor,
who says, “Our aim from the beginning
David Schlossberg
the music of shtetls throughout Europe
from before the Holocaust.
“His philosophy is that you can’t begin
to fathom what was lost unless you know
what came before it,” Ms. Freeman said,
noting that she has participated in Dr. Kes-
ler’s concerts for the past six years and that
the library auditorium is always “packed.”
Mr. Schlossberg has played in these con-
certs as well. “He takes melodies that are
has been the pursuit of musical excel-
lence and mutual respect across the full
denominational spectrum, from Ortho-
dox to secular.”
That sounds like a public relation state-
ment— it actually came from a press
release — but it seems true. Anyone who
wants to join HaZamir must audition. If
usually just [annotated] with chords and
creates beautiful accompaniments,” Ms.
Freeman said. “To gild the lily, he adds
improvisatory intros that carry your heart
away into that time and place.
“Each person hears, interprets, and
feels music differently,” she continued.
“The genius of Dave Schlossberg is that he
stays true to the original melody, and you
can hear whatever the liturgical melody is,
right there” in the midst of the music. “He
spins notes around these liturgical melo-
dies, and you’re carried to the place where
prayer is supposed to be.” Even people
who know nothing about liturgy will be
enchanted, she said. “He plays beautiful,
charming music, and brings his sense of
humor. You can’t help smiling.”
Mr. Schlossberg, who lives in Monroe
Township, grew up attending Anshe Emeth
Memorial Temple in New Brunswick. “Sev-
enteen years ago, the cantor there found
out that I was a musician and asked me to
substitute at folk services on Shabbat,” he
said. “I found that I could improvise a bit,”
he said. “Those kinds of services require
more flexibility.”
These services were so successful that
“the cantor, ever so slowly, asked me to do
you are accepted, you attend rehearsals
every week to practice the program for the
following year’s concert. It is a substantial
commitment, one pledged to by the nearly
two dozen Bergen County teens who make
up one of HaZamir’s most active chapters
Vivian Lazar describes it as “very thriv-
ing, flourishing, none the least because of
its conductor, Cantor Hanan.
Ronit Wolff Hanan of Teaneck became
involved with HaZamir when her daugh-
ter, Adva, now 27, wanted to participate
in the program. The nearest chapter then
was in Caldwell, and she remembers
“shlepping there for a couple of years”
before deciding it would be easier to just
form a local group.
In her role as music director of Teaneck’s
Congregation Beth Sholom — her active
synagogue choir was profiled in the Stan-
dard last fall — she knew there was a reser-
voir of talented young people who might
be interested.
Jonah Pitkowsky was one of them. He
joined the congregation in 2011, when his
father Joel, took over as rabbi. He’s 17 and
attends SAR Day School in Riverdale, N.Y.
 To serve our communities…
Local
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more things — not things that required high formality,
will be open Sundays
such as High Holiday services, but events such as din-
ners and choir concerts.” Ultimately, he became the syn-
and Mondays
agogue’s part-time accompanist, branching out to play Starting April 8th - 10-6pm
for other synagogues and community choirs as well. Still
in college, he found himself doing an increasing amount
of work in Jewish venues and becoming heavily involved
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in the Jewish music world.
One of his gigs was playing at the American Confer-
ence of Cantors in Philadelphia, providing him with
the opportunity to improvise in a service setting. The
1643 Schlosser St.
music was so well received that he was inspired to pro- Fort Lee
duce his CD, featuring liturgical music improvisations.
“I’ve always been an improvisational pianist,” he said, 201-944-8011
noting that he had a good deal of experience in set-
tings where he had to be versatile “and figure out how
to accommodate people.” Being a regular synagogue
attendee, and combining that with his creative style,
“I developed a love for improvising on the melodies I
heard every week.” N E W S P R I N G A R R I VA L S
His method, he said, is to “choose a song that
sounds beautiful, with melodies that leave open room
for exploration — harmonic, melodic, and rhythmic.” The finest selection of Italian mens & boys
He cited “Oseh Shalom” as one example. “Certain suits and accessories at discount prices.
songs speak to me, based on their potential.” At his
Ridgewood concert, Mr. Schlossberg will play selec-
tions from his CD, “but not exactly the same,” since
he always improvises. Our
The music “feels like a painting to me, like a blank Teaneck Store
canvas I can draw on,” Mr. Schlossberg said. “I’m really will be
only limited by my imagination. I feel a sense of free-
dom, of being an explorer, using what comes naturally OPEN
to me to make something beautiful.” Rather than think- this Saturday Night
ing of himself as especially talented, “I think, ‘Not really. March 10th, 7:30-11:30 pm
It just makes perfect sense.’”

“I’d sung, but not in an organized way until I got to

Teaneck and Ronit took me into her children’s choir,”
SPRING
A R R I VA L S
he said. “When I was old enough she asked me to audi-
tion for HaZamir, and I did.”
His own musical tastes ran more to classic rock —
Elton John, Billy Joel, and, like his dad, Bruce Spring-
steen. But taking part in HaZamir has opened a new
world to him.
“It’s really a rigorous program,” Jonah said. “It offers
some of the most advanced Jewish choral music that
exists. The amount of knowledge I gain, just to be able
to sing the music, the Hebrew and Jewish history, I
think that’s very cool.
“Another piece of the puzzle is that I get to meet
tons of other Jewish teens, who share this common
interest. It’s two hours rehearsal every Sunday. I’ve
been doing it long enough so that it’s part of my rou-
tine; but it’s the happiest part of my week, so I don’t
think it’s a burden.”
But there’s more. Jonah has enrolled in another
Zamir program, one that teaches leadership. Every
chapter has teen leaders who take special courses and
whose job is to make sure that things go smoothly and
new members are comfortable and made welcome.
They also create social events and give-back programs
for the community at large. emporioclothing.com
Margo Sobel has a similar story. She’s 18 years old
and a senior at Teaneck High School. “I sang in her BORO PARK: FLATBUSH: LONG ISLAND: LAKEWOOD: TEANECK:
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didn’t speak to me. But she asked me to come to one Sunday & Legal Holidays Sunday & Legal Holidays Sunday & Legal Holidays Sunday & Legal Holidays Mon.-Thurs. 10 - 9,
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SEE LINCOLN CENTER PAGE 46

JEWISH STANDARD MARCH 9, 2018 11

Local
The language of truth
Mentalist Marc Salem of New Milford talks about nonverbal speech
JOANNE PALMER
Mentalism.
That’s a scam, right?
That’s when somebody’s on stage pretend-
ing to read your mind, tell your secrets, maybe
embarrass you, all while he’s busy diverting
your attention or his assistants are rummaging
through your bag, next to you on the floor, or
the person whose mind he’s reading is a plant,
right? Right?
Well, I don’t know. And I’m not here to tell
you one way or another. But I do want to pres-
ent the case for Marc Salem, mentalist by night,
for about 20 years a professor of psychology at
such schools as NYU and Mount Saint Vincent
(and the holder of a doctorate in developmen-
tal psychology from the University of Pennsyl-
vania) by day. (Oh, and also, on other days, for
nine years, the director of research at Sesame
Street, and directly responsible for Rechov
Sumsum, Sesame Street’s Israeli version.)
We’re focusing on Mr. Salem, who lives in
New Milford and is the son of a rabbi (and
whose given name, Moshe Botwanick, would
fit less easily on a theater marquee than his
taken name), because he will perform at a
benefit for Adas Emuno on Sunday (see box
for more information).
According to Mr. Salem (who could be
called Dr. but prefers not to be, he said), he
has always been interested in nonverbal com-
munication, “because people have a much
more difficult time lying nonverbally than
verbally. We are not really trained to read
nonverbal language, but it is much harder to
hide emotion because it literally is written on Marc Salem
people’s faces.”
He chose developmental psychology because, he said,
“I was always sensitive to other people’s nonverbal cues.”
From the time he was a small child, Mr. Salem added,
he was able to know things about other people that he
thought were entirely obvious, until he realized that no
one else could see them. “I wanted to go into psychology
because the mind fascinated me,” he said. “It was my play-
ground. I thought that everyone could read it, that it was
part of everybody’s makeup.”
What began as intuition he later honed and trained, so
now he works with a combination of instinct and decades
of experience, he said. It’s not magic; it’s observation and So, he said, he steers clear of avoidable pain. Instead, “I
knowledge. It’s also fast talking and fancy but obfuscatory
theory, of course, but that’s all part of the show.
And so is the idea of leaving audiences feeling puzzled,
but happy, never uncomfortable, never pried into.
Mr. Salem’s shows included a stint off Broadway — to
rave if disconcerted reviews — and a still-viewable (Google
for it) and honestly jaw-dropping segment with Mike Wal-
lace onstage for “60 Minutes.”
It’s all a balance.
There is no real conflict between his work as a teacher
and as an entertainer, Mr. Salem continued. “Marshall
McLuhan,” the mid-20th-century North American philos-
opher who pioneered media studies, said “Anyone who
tries to make a distinction between education and enter-
tainment doesn’t know the first thing about either,” Mr.
Salem said.
12 JEWISH STANDARD MARCH 9, 2018
Although he’s a writer, as well as a teacher and per-
former, one thing that he never has done and never will
do is counseling, although his credentials would allow him
to. Because he can see so deeply into people “I would be
too close to people’s pain, and it would hurt me to try to
deal with it,” he said. He uses his father as an example; as
a pulpit rabbi, at Tel Or in Havertown, suburban Philadel-
phia, his father, Rabbi Israel Botwinick, counseled congre-
gants, and he worried and grieved with them. As a result,
his son said, “My father died too young, because he didn’t
know how to build calluses against other people’s pain.”
bring joy.”
His shows include tricks like guessing which numbers
people are thinking about, or what words; they’re based
on an understanding of the sorts of words or numbers
people are most likely to guess. Although much of his
work is based on visual cues, some of it is purely verbal.
For example, on the phone, he said, “Pick a number from
one to four.” Almost everyone picks three, he explained,
because the sentence that offers the range of numbers —
from 1 to (2) 4 — omits three. He offers other, similar tricks,
which steer the listener clearly but unconsciously in spe-
cific directions. It’s not foolproof, but it’s smart.
His work, Mr. Salem said, “is a matter of being sensi-
tive to other people. If everybody learned to be better at
nonverbal communication, they’d be better parents, bet-
ter siblings, better lovers. It’s the one language that we
don’t learn, and it’s the one language that carries
the most truth.”
And yes, there is a great deal that is Jewish in
his work, Mr. Salem added. “A great deal of what I
do involves thinking things through. I think I use a
talmudic logic.
“The rabbis of old had incredible memories —
and so do I. They could memorize page after page
of Talmud. It is the written word versus the oral
tradition. I focus on both of them very strongly,
and I see how they differ from each other.
“I think — and McLuhan taught — that the writ-
ten word is very different from the oral word.
I think that our oral tradition allows laws to be
changed in certain ways, and it also creates pow-
erful memories.
“I worry about things like iPads and other elec-
tronics, because of the way we rely on them instead
of our memories,” he continued. “The Talmud says
that each generation will get weaker and weaker,”
and he fears that the devices’ external memories
make us dependent on them, and let our own
internal facilities degenerate. “I am no Luddite, but
I do think we must not let that happen,” he said.
“The more technology memorizes stuff for us, the
less we use our own muscles for memory.
“We are the people of the book, and I think that
the written word is the most powerful. I do think
that the power of the linear written work goes
into your cerebral cortex. What you hear to some
extent goes in one ear and out the other. To retain
things, you must be skilled in reading.
“I talk about the difference — not to my secu-
lar audiences, of course — between the Torah
she’be’ketav — the written Torah — and the Torah
she’baal peh — the oral Torah. They are both
important, but the 10 Commandments are written
in stone — they are unchanging — and the Talmud
is an oral tradition.
“I am of the belief that the future hasn’t happened yet,”
he said. “Therefore we make our own future. The smarter
you are, the easier it is to create your own future — but
there is also the random element.
“There is a tribe that used to let its cattle wander based
on the cracks that developed in the bones they would
throw in the fire. The cracks were random — so they never
went back to a place they’d already been. So what they
thought was predicting the future really was random-
ness, giving them a map to travel where they’d never been
before. Following randomness has certain advantages. It
prevents the bias of thought in doing things.
“It’s like a stream. If a rock goes into a stream, it will be
diverted. We have to realize that the rocks will be there.”
Confused yet? Marc Salem says many things; some of
them are entirely clear, and others are not so clear. But he
can read a great deal about you from the way you express
your confusion.
Who: The mentalist Marc Salem
What: Will present “Mind Game”
When: On Sunday, March 11, from 4 to 6 p.m.
Where: At Congregation Adas Emuno, 254 Broad Ave.
in Leonia
For more information: Call (201) 592-1712
How much: $10
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JEWISH STANDARD MARCH 9, 2018 13

Local

Talking about lone solders

Nefesh B’Nefesh invites parents to an informational program in Bergenfield
BANJI GANCHROW

A “lone soldier” is exactly what the term

implies
It’s a soldier — a man or a woman —
who is serving in the Israeli Defense
Forces and has no family living in Israel,
either literally or metaphorically. (Lone
soldiers include those whose families do
not or cannot support them.) The Lone
Soldier organization was established to
help these soldiers acclimate to life in the
army. It helps provide housing, nourish-
ment, moral support, financial aid, and a
different type of family — a family made
up of other soldiers in the same situation.
And then there is Nefesh B’Nefesh, the
organization that has been helping fami-
lies make aliyah — the move to Israel — in
the most stress-free way possible. By help-
ing new immigrants find jobs and housing.
Helping them enroll in an ulpan program,
where they learn to speak Hebrew. Help-
ing them navigate the system in Israel even
before their Hebrew becomes more fluent.
So it makes perfect sense that the
Nefesh B’Nefesh Lone Soldiers program,
in cooperation with Friends of the Israel
Defense Force, had been established to
help those young men and women who
choose to serve.
And because there are more than 3,000 Harrison Adler, who grew up in Tenafly and was a lone soldier, speaks for the FIDF in 2015. FIDF

lone soldiers who have made aliyah, there

also are many parents and families of lone
soldiers who can benefit from support.
On March 12, at the Bergenfield home
of Tzippy and David Giller, who are the
parents of a lone soldier, the Nefesh
B’Nefesh Lone Soldier program invites
all parents of current and future lone sol-
diers for a special opportunity to hear
about the program.
The evening will not be a fundraiser,
its organizers stress. Instead, it will be an
informative session where parents can
ask questions and learn about what their
children will face, if they haven’t gone
through it already.
Yael Katsman, Nefesh B’Nefesh’s com-
munications director, explained why the
group organized the meeting. “This is
an evening tailored for parents of lone
soldiers currently serving in the IDF, or
those who are planning to enlist in the
future,” she said. “Advisers from our lone
soldier program will be offering general
as well as practical information for these
parents on dealing with children serving
in the army.”
Having children in the army can be
very difficult and emotional, and that
can even be more true when those chil-
dren are so far away. That’s why, Ms.
Katsman said, “In addition, we will be
enabling parents to create a support net-
work through this special forum where
We will be enabling parents to
create a support network
through this special forum where
they will have the opportunity
to connect with like-minded
parents who are experiencing
similar feelings and experiences.
they will have the opportunity to connect
with like-minded parents who are experi-
encing similar feelings and experiences.
Together can share their thoughts and
encouragement with one another.”
The evening will include a presenta-
tion, light refreshments, and network-
ing opportunities. “We are expecting
between 30 to 50 parents to attend,” Ms.
Katsman said. The NBN Lone Soldier Pro-
gram has several events in different areas
in the state during the year. “We never
want the parents to feel they can’t reach
out and ask questions,” she added.
Dassah Kestenbaum, who used to live
in Teaneck, is the proud mother of a for-
mer lone soldier who was a member of
the Golani unit, and a lone soldier who
is serving in the Bardelas unit. “I became
involved while trying to get some medical
help for our daughter Hanna Bee, who is
serving in the coed combat unit, Barde-
las,” Ms. Kestenbaum said. “I reached
out to the lone soldier program and con-
nected both with Noya Govrin, the direc-
tor of the program, and Yoel Goldberg a
former lone soldier who now is the advi-
sor for the program. After helping with
Hanna Bee they asked if I would like to
help publicize the event for the New
York/New Jersey area. I was immediately
taken with this, recognizing the invalu-
able service and resources of the Lone
Soldier/Nefesh B’Nefesh/Friends of the
Israel Defense Forces program.”
As a parent of two lone soldiers, Ms.
Kestenbaum knows firsthand about
many of the issues that might arise.
Those issues range from the seemingly
trivial to highly serious, she said. “And
of course everything is heightened
because your child is so far away. And
the snatched phone conversations,
whether monosyllabic or tearful and
exhausted or noncommittal, speaks vol-
umes to parents.’”
Ms. Kestenbaum felt it imperative to
get involved and to “spread the word to
as many parents as possible so they can
learn firsthand how the LS program is a
fundamental and crucial resource both
for us and our children,” she said. “Fur-
thermore if we understand the work-
ings of the program we will also be more
adept at guiding our children positively
to get the help they might need.”
Ms. Kestenbaum reached out to other
local lone soldiers’ parents to for help
with the evening One of the people she
asked was a friend, Sallie Levi, who
shares an apartment with Ms. Kesten-
baum’s daughter and whose own daugh-
ter is a lone soldier. Ms. Levi did want
to help, “so we shared the load of try-
ing to reach as many community web-
sites as possible as well as reaching out
to schools and shuls in the New York/
New Jersey area. And as people RSVP-d I
enlisted their help in further advertising
within their communities too!”
A parent’s job is never done, especially
when her child is defending Israel.
For more information and to register
for the program, email Ms. Kestenbaum
at dassahdk@gmail.com

14 JEWISH STANDARD MARCH 9, 2018

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JEWISH STANDARD MARCH 9, 2018 15

Briefly Local
Nefesh B’Nefesh mega NYC event
Join Nefesh B’Nefesh on Sunday, March 11,
for “Aliyah: It’s Your Move,” a mega plan-
ning/networking event and medical semi-
nar at John Jay College, 524 W. 59th St., in
Manhattan. Check-in and registration are
at 10 a.m.
The event is an opportunity to learn
about aliyah, meet other aliyah-minded
people, and explore opportunities in
Israel.
Everyone is welcome, including young
professionals and young families, medical
professionals, newlyweds, empty nesters,
Senator Tom Cotton addressing the crowd at the Parker residence.
Norpac hosts Senator Tom Cotton
Last month, Careena and Drew Parker
hosted a Norpac pro-Israel meeting with
Senator Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) at their Engle-
wood home. More than 45 guests heard
Senator Cotton talk about his stance on
U.S.-Israel relations. He will be running for
re-election this year.
BCHSJS students give back
to New Orleans storm victims
Last month, students at the Bergen
County High School of Jewish Studies
partnered with NCSY for a tikkun olam
trip to New Orleans. They worked with
Habitat for Humanity to help with the
ongoing task of rebuilding neighborhoods
16 JEWISH STANDARD MARCH 9, 2018
and retirees. Special topics include devel-
oping an aliyah career plan; benefiting
from the Israeli Job Network; smart financ-
ing, budgeting, and banking; learning
how to buy or rent a home in Israel; and
building a community and social presence
there.
Young professionals are invited to a
dinner, including a magic and comedy
show by Itai Pinki, one of Israeli’s finest
magicians.
For more information, go to www.NBN.
org.IL/NYC2018.
Norpac is registering for its mission to
Washington, D.C., on Wednesday, April
25. The mission aims to bring about 1,000
citizen-activists to Washington to advocate
for a stronger U.S.-Israel relationship with
members of Congress. For information,
call (201) 788-5133 or visit www.norpac.net.
destroyed by Hurricane Katrina. Their
work included painting trim, raking yards,
and installing energy-efficient light bulbs
through Project Green Light. The students
also toured the French Quarter and went
to a jazz concert.
Joan Handler, Naomi Louisa O’Connell, Dorothy Kaplan Roffman, Tracey
Blumberg, and Alan Handler.
Thurnauer School of Music
attracts 500 at concert to
bolster student scholarships
More than 500 music lovers celebrated
at the JCC Thurnauer School of Music’s
annual Gift of Music Gala Benefit con-
cert, held at the Bergen County Acad-
emies in Hackensack last month. The
concert featured mezzo-soprano Naomi
Louisa O’Connell, who sang a repertoire
of classic operatic pieces along with Irish
ballads and other selections. She later
joined Thurnauer’s student ensembles
to perform popular songs from “West
Side Story” and other Leonard Bernstein
favorites to honor the composer’s 100th
birthday.
The evening also celebrated the 20th
anniversary of the school’s Music Discov-
ery Partnership with Englewood public
school system. That partnership gives
the district’s children access to a high-
quality music education, regardless
of their financial means The program,
which began with eight children in 1997,
now reaches more than 2,000 children
from elementary through 12th grade,
offering instrumental classes, musician-
ship, ensembles, and a chorus.
Funds raised at the concert go toward
scholarships to MDP students and other
children in the community who want to
Pre-Pesach yom iyun at YU
On Sunday, March 11, Yeshiva Univer-
sity’s Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological
Seminary offers a special pre-Pesach
yom iyun in commemoration of the 25th
yahrzeit of Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik.
The program, presented in conjunc-
tion with the Abraham Arbesfeld Kollel
Yom Rishon and the Minnie Arbesfeld
Midreshet Yom Rishon, is on YU’s Wilf
Campus in Furst Hall 501 at 500 W. 185th
St., New York City, at 9:30 a.m.
COURTESY JCCOTP
study music, but whose families cannot
afford it. Speaking at the concert, Engle-
wood’s school superintendent, Robert
Kravitz, talked about his appreciation
for the partnership and his admiration
for the students accomplishments.
Another highlights of the evening
included the presentation of the Gift of
Music Visionary award to Tracey Blum-
berg, a long-time supporter of Thurnau-
er’s vision and mission, who believes
that all children in the community
should have the opportunity to receive
a quality musical education.
“We are committed to bringing the joy
of music to as many people as possible
and believe everyone should have the
opportunity to enrich their lives through
the transformative power of music,”
Thurnauer’s director, Dorothy Kaplan
Roffman, said.
The annual Gift of Music Benefit Con-
cert was established by Drs. Joan and
Alan Handler, who continue to bring the
joys of music-making to a broad student
population in a nurturing and support-
ive environment. To make a donation,
call Nina Bachrach at (201) 408-1406 or
email her at nbachrach@jccotp.org.
RIETS also will host shiurim focused
on Rabbi Soloveitchik’s teachings in
shuls in Teaneck and in Long Island’s
Five Towns on March 10. Present-
ers include YU’s president, Rabbi Dr.
Ari Berman, and Rabbi Dr. Jacob J.
Schacter, YU professor of Jewish history
and Jewish thought and senior scholar
at the CJF.
For more information, go to www.
yu.edu.
 Super Coupon

Get Ready for Passover!

Present This Coupon at Time of Purchase Order,
Pickup or Delivery to Receive Discount

One (1)

5-lb. Box Matzo

• Yehuda
• Osem

From Soup... 4.5-oz. box, Any Variety, • Streits

.88
Matzo Ball Soup Mix or • Promiseland

Streit’s • Manischewitz
• Horowitz

Matzo Ball Mix Limit 4

Per Variety
.32 • ShopRite or Aviv

FREE
(Where Available, While Supplies Last)

2 3 $
With
32-oz. cont. 25 or
$

ShopRite Kosher
More
Purchase
With this coupon and an additional purchase of

Chicken Broth
$25.00 or more (Excluding fuel and items prohibited
by law). Limit one per family. Void if reproduced, sold

for
or transferred. Cash value 1/100 cent. Good at any
0 016230 8
ShopRite® store. © 2018 Wakefern Food Corp.
Effective Sun., March 4 thru Sat., April 7, 2018.

10.5 to 11-oz. pkg., Soup Singles or 14.5 to 15-oz. pkg., 8-oz. box, Tam Tams or 12-oz. box
Creamed Spinach, Cabbage Soup, Cream of Mushrooms,

.99
Manischewitz

1
2.75-oz. box

50
Tomato Basil, Old Fashioned Potato, Any Variety

Goodman’s Egg Matzos

(Excluding Organic)

Tabatchnick Kosher
for Passover Soups Limit 4
Per Variety
.29 Onion Soup Mix Your
Choice!
199
18-oz. Capacity Bowl, Dinner Plate
64-oz. btl., Any Variety or Lunch Plate, White, South Beach,

Kedeem
Corn Flower or Modena

2
64-oz. btl. (Where Available,

99 .70
Excluding Square)

Welch’s Manishewitz Grape Juice Grape Corelle

2
Dinnerware

79 .20
Juice
199
Limit 4
Per Variety

2 $1
33.8-oz. btl. (Plus Dep. or Fee Where Req.) Limit 4 .50
Tonic, Club Soda or Any Variety Per Variety

Vintage 9-oz. btl.

Limit 4 Seltzer for Gold’s

Horse Radish
Gefilte Fish & More... Sauce
6-oz. jar, Any Variety

Gold’s
24-oz. jar (Excluding Gold Label and White & Pike)

Manischewitz
Gefilte Fish Limit 4 499 1.00
DAIRY
179
Horse Radish (Frozen) 20-oz. cont., Low Sugar,
Sweet or White & Pike

149
(Frozen) 20-oz. pkg.
8-oz. cont., Any Variety
A&B Gefilte Fish A&B Salmon Gefilte Fish (Excluding Organic)

5 9
Breakstone’s
Farm Raised, Boneless, Never Frozen

Fresh Kosher FINAL COST

99 1.00 99 1.00
799 Whipped Butter
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8.99
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Sale Price lb.

2 $5
5
Limit 4 Limit 4
-1.00
Salmon Fillet
99
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NEW (Frozen) 20-oz. pkg.
for
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64-oz. (Where Available, While Supplies Last)

18
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99
Potato, Sweet Potato or Vegetable
8-oz. cont., Whipped

Spring Valley 12 to 15-oz. box, Any Variety Temp Tee

Souffles Manischewitz Cream Cheese
14 to 16-oz. canister (Excluding
Whole Grain) Farfel, Cake Meal or

2 $5
12.25-oz. cont.

13-oz. pkg.,Any Variety Manischewitz Gluten Free La Bonne

Spring Matzo Meal Cake Mix Quinoa

399 399
for
Valley
Blintzes Limit 4
Per Variety
.30 2 5 $
for
Gluten
Free! Limit 4
Per Variety 4 49 .50 32-oz. jar, Tomatoes,
Sauerkraut or Any Variety

Ba-Tampte
Sweets and Snacks.. Pickles
PASSOVER 299
Classic Cooking
Side Dishes:
• 35 oz. Potato Kugel, 10-oz. canister, Coconut, Chocolate,

199
TURKEY DINNER Almond, Chocolate Chips or
• 35 oz. Roasted Vegetable

Goodman’s
Kugel • 35 oz. Sweet
Carrot Tzimus • 1.5 LB.
Fully Cooked, Kosher for passover, Matzah Balls • 2.5 QT. Super Coupon
Just Heat and Eat.
– Serves 8 to 10 –
Chicken Broth • 16 oz.
Charoset • 15 oz. Gravy Macaroons Limit 4
Per Variety .50 Present This Coupon at Time of Purchase Order,
Pickup or Delivery to Receive Discount

399
6-oz. tot. wt. pkg., Any Variety 2.6-oz., Star Candle

Osem Bissli Yahrzeit

Empire Kosher 6 Pack Snacks Limit 4 .30 Memorial
Turkey, 12-14 lb. Seedless Golden Candles

4 1
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189 249 $
139
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n oti ce
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$ 99 Raisins
9-oz. box, Any Variety,
MUST
BUY 4 for

349
re q ui Marshmallow Twists or
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48 h O U
D EF RO
RS TO
ST IN
ER ATO R
Joyva Chocolate With this coupon. Limit one per family.
Void if reproduced, sold or transferred. Cash

Jelly Rings
IG
RE FR Limit 4 .20 value 1/100 cent. Good at any ShopRite®
store. © 2018 Wakefern Food Corp. Effective
016170
Per Variety
0 7 Sun., Mar. 4 thru Sat., April 14, 2018.

Prices, programs and promotions effective Sun., March 11 thru Sat., March 17, 2018 in ShopRite® Stores in NJ, North of Trenton (excluding Ewing, Hamilton Square, Hamilton Marketplace, Pennington and Montague, NJ, and Rockland County, NY), including E. Windsor, Monmouth & Ocean Counties, NJ. Sunday sales subject to
local blue laws. No sales made to other retailers or wholesalers. We reserve the right to limit purchases of any sale item to four (4) purchases, per item, per household, per day, except where otherwise noted. Minimum or additional purchase requirements noted for any advertised item exclude the purchase of prescription medications,
gift cards, gift certificates, postage stamps, money orders, money transfers, lottery tickets, bus tickets, fuel and Metro passes, as well as milk, cigarettes, tobacco products, alcoholic beverages or any other items prohibited by law. Only one manufacturer coupon may be used per item and we reserve the right to limit manufacturer
coupon redemptions to four (4) identical coupons per household per day, unless otherwise noted or further restricted by manufacturer. Sales tax is applied to the net retail of any discounted item or any ShopRite® coupon item. We are required by law to charge sales tax on the full price of any item or any portion of an item that is
discounted with the use of a manufacturer coupon or a manufacturer sponsored (or funded) Price Plus Club® card discount. Not responsible for typographical errors. Artwork does not necessarily represent items on sale; it is for display purposes only. Copyright© Wakefern Food Corp., 2018. All rights reserved.

JEWISH STANDARD MARCH 9, 2018 17

Briefly Local Purim Around the Community

Areyvut breakfast to honor

Billy Cook and Janet Hod
Billy Cook will receive Areyvut’s
Young Leadership award and
Janet Hod, the Community Lead-
ership award, at Areyvut’s annual
breakfast on Sunday, March 18, at
9:30 a.m., at Congregation Bnai
Yeshurun in Teaneck.
Areyvut is a New Jersey-based
nonprofit dedicated to the core
Jewish principles of chesed, tze- Temple Emanuel of the Pascack Valley presented “Frosted,” a Purim shpiel,
dakah, and tikkun olam. For more with religious school students. Boxes of pasta were used as groggers and
information, to make a reserva- Billy Cook Janet Hod then donated to Jewish Federation of Northern New Jersey. Cantor Alan
tion or donation, call (201) 244- Sokoloff, left, Helga; Emma Portnoy, the Snow Guard; Isaiah Wescott, King
6702 or email info@areyvut.org. Ahashveros-Kristoff; Maya Zislin, Olaf; Rabbi Shelley Kniaz, Rabbi Shella;
Eva Friedman, Esther-Anna, and Rabbi Loren Monosov, Ingrid.

Tamar and Uri Moche Temple Emeth in Teaneck’s Purim shpiel, “Haman with the Golden Gun:
Avital and Haim Hadad and family and family License to Shpiel” with a James Bond theme, had script and lyrics by
Jonathan Berkowitz. Cast members, from left, Mattan Poller, Arnie Graber,
3 families chosen David Bloom, Mindy Greenberg, Paul Seitelman, Barbara Rosenfeld, Shelley

for BPY recognition
Ben Porat Yosef in Paramus will hold its annual din-
ner on Tuesday, March 20, at Montammy Country
Club, Alpine, at 7:30 p.m.
The dinner will honor families whose contribu-
tions to the school have made significant impacts
through BPY’s 17 years: Avital and Rav Haim Hadad,
Tamar and Uri Moche, and Karen and Eric Orgen.
Tzippy Cohen and Laura Fein are the dinner
chairs. For more information, call Amy Handman
at (201) 845-5007, ext. 35, or email her at amyhand-
man@benporatyosef.org.
Brunston, Marla Levine, Marilyn Shapiro, and Aden Poller.
 BARBARA BALKIN
Agnes Adler of Westwood readies the dough
for her own hamantaschen at a “Make and Take”
hamantaschen at the JCC of Northern New
Jersey Active Adults program at Temple Beth Or
in Washington Township. The program is sup-
ported by the Jewish Federation and the Bergen
Eric and Karen Orgen County Y, a JCC Foundation.

Hindy Drizin, wife of

Rabbi Dov Drizin, cen-
ter, with Valley Chabad
ladies clad in Disney
attire. More than 200
guests participated in
Valley Chabad’s “Purim
in Disney” in Woodcliff
Lake. STEVE BERKOWITZ

Ruth Hyman Dani Dayan Yair Klyman

Rutgers Chabad to host affiliates Rabbi Ronald

The Chabad House Jewish Student Cen- than 600 community leaders and support- Roth of the Fair
ter at Rutgers University and its 10 affili- ers are expected to pay tribute to the hon- Lawn Jewish
ate Chabad houses that serve central and orees — Israel’s consul general in New York, Center/Cong.
southern New Jersey, will celebrate at its Dani Dayan, philanthropist Ruth Hyman, B’nai Israel with
National Founders 39th anniversary din- and Rutgers Chabad alumnus Yair Klyman, religious school
ner on Tuesday, March 13. The 6 p.m. gala who is the president of Klyman Financial. students celebrat-
is in the Chabad House grand ballroom, For more information, call (732) 296- ing Purim at the
170 College Ave., in New Brunswick. More 1800 or email dinner@chabadnj.org. shul’s annual
carnival.

18 JEWISH STANDARD MARCH 9, 2018

 A L W AY S A C L A S S I C.

Jewish Standard MARCH 9, 2018 19

barkan classic ad sizes.indd 3 9/4/17 5:02 PM

Sinai Schools
Sinai Schools dinner 2018
More than a thousand supporters gathered
on February 26 for Sinai’s annual benefit
dinner at the Marriott Glenpointe Hotel in
Teaneck, the largest attendance ever.
The honorees were Ruthie and Chazan
Shim Craimer of Riverdale; Amy and Dr.
Joshua Fogelman of Fair Lawn; Dr. Perla
and Dr. Gerardo Yablonovich of Engle-
wood; and Sinai alumnus and Bergenfield
native Yaakov Guttman. Sinai also recog-
nized Shimmy Stein of Bergenfield with
the Shomer She’erit Yisrael. Lawrence R.
Inserra Jr., CEO of the family-run Inserra
Supermarkets, Inc., received Sinai’s Com-
munity Partnership Award.
The dinner featured the documentary
“Walking Through Fire,” which tells the
story of how Yaakov Guttman rose to over-
come tragedy and significant learning dis-
abilities to become a sergeant in charge
of a sniper team in the Israel Defense
Forces and to save lives as a firefighter in
Tel Aviv. After the film, Mr. Guttman took
the opportunity to express his gratitude
From left, Lawrence Inserra III, Lindsey Inserra-Hughes, Marie Inserra, Lawrence
R. Inserra Jr., and Inez Inserra accept the award that longtime Sinai community
partner Michael Maron, president and CEO of Holy Name Medical Center, stand-
ing at the right, presented to them.
Chazan Shim Craimer and his twin sons, Ben and Eli, perform, as Sinai families join them onstage.
20 JEWISH STANDARD MARCH 9, 2018
to Sinai Schools for helping him realize
his potential. He spoke movingly about
his motivation for sharing his intimate
story: to help children who are strug-
gling as he once did, and to give them
and their parents hope for the future. The
film can be seen at www.Sinaischools.org/
walkingthroughfire.
A second video, “Prayers from My
Heart,” highlighted the range of students
Sinai serves and the impact Sinai spe-
cial education has on both students and From left, SInai School’s managing director, Sam Fishman; its chief development
their parents. officer, Esti Herman; honorees Drs. Perla and Gerardo Yablonovich; its vice presi-
Sinai’s dean, Rabbi Yisrael Rothwachs, dent Danny Federbush; and its dean, Rabbi Dr. Yisrael Rothwachs.
paid tribute to Rachel Schulman, an asso-
ciate director of the school, who died
just weeks before the dinner. A video
memorialized Jake Weinstein, another
associate director. These films are avail-
able at Sinaischools.org/dinner/video-gal-
lery. For information or to make a dona-
Rabbi Mark Karasick,
tion, call (201)833-1134, ext. 105, or go to
chairman of Sinai
Sinaischools.org.
Schools, stands with
honorees Amy and
Dr. Joshua Fogelman.
Jack Bendheim, the
president of SAR
Academy, Sinai’s
newest partner,
presents an award to
Sinai honorees Ruthie
and Chazan Shim
Craimer.
Honorees Shimmy Stein and Yaakov
Guttman.
UPCOMING AT KAPLEN JCC on the Palisades
A Sunday of Strong Women
Come together for a day of laughs, lunch and loads of
inspiration as three female authors share their ideas.
Audacious and tenacious, these women will engage,
enlighten and entertain.
AUTHORS INCLUDE: Julia Dahl—Conviction; Daphne
Merkin—This Close to Happy; and Amy Silverstein—
My Glory Was I Had Such Friends.
EVENT SPONSORS: Kim & Marc Harrison, Lisa Beth
& Greg Meisel, Eileen & Brian Pleva, and Julie Segal
& Mark Warner. Supported in part by the James
H. Grossmann Memorial Endowment Fund for the
Celebration of Jewish Book Month.
Sun, Mar 18, 10:30 am-1:30 pm, $38/$46

Monday Morning at the Movies

Join Harold Chapler and enjoy film screenings of some
of his top picks and then engage in discussion.
MAR 19 : I Know Where I’m Going (1945)
APR 16 : The Hustler (1961)
MAY 14 : La Strada (1954)

Mondays, 11 am, $8/$10 per film

Celebrating Mimouna with

Yasmin Lindberg
Mimouna is a three-century-old North
African Jewish celebration held the day
after Passover, marking the return to eating
chametz (leavened foods), which are forbidden
throughout the week of Passover. Join us for a
hands-on workshop and learn how to make the
famous traditional “Mimouna Sweets.”
Tues, Mar 13, 8 pm, $30/$35

ATHLETICS KIDS ADULTS

Winter/Spring Men's New 7:30 am-6 pm Support Group

Basketball League
TEAMS FORMING NOW!
Sign up today and play competitive
professional basketball at the J. Join a team
(leagues made up of ages 17-34 and 30+) or
play as a free agent. Includes 8 games plus
playoffs featuring professional referees and
scorekeepers, and full-service locker-room
facilities with showers, changing areas, and
sauna.
Starts Mar 19, Mondays or Thursdays,
7-10 pm, $149/$185
Visit jccotp.org/athletics-adults
Infant Program at the J! WITH JUDY BRAUNER, LCSW THERAPIST
Widows and Widowers: You Are Not Alone
Going back to work after you maternity
This bereavement group for those recently widowed
leave? Having a hard time finding a
provides an opportunity to share your feelings with
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Cover Story

The reincarnation
of Ruby Namdar
Or the making of a Hebrew-language American Jewish novelist

A
LARRY YUDELSON of Alice Munro and John Le Carré. university professor living on Manhat- (see box, and related articles).
And yet, there are those who bridge tan’s Upper West Side, won Israel’s Sapir How did Mr. Namdar come to be a bridge
merican Jews and Israeli those gaps. Prize for Hebrew-language literature — between American Jews and Israelis?
Jews, it might be said, The novelist Ruby Namdar is one such and prompted the awards committee to One answer starts with his journey to
are one people divided bridge. restrict future nominees to writers living in New York.
by an uncommon lan- Born in Jerusalem to Persian parents in Israel. The English translation of the book “I arrived in New York 18 years ago, for
guage — Hebrew. 1964, Reuben Namdar came to New York came out last year. the best set of circumstances possible — an
In New Jersey, we in 2000, and in 2013 he published what Mr. Namdar will sell and sign his book intense love story rekindled after years,”
read David Grossman and Amos Oz trans- is considered to be the first great Hebrew- — both the English and Hebrew editions he said. “We met in Israel many years ago.
lated into English, and in Nahariya, if the language American Jewish novel, “The — in Closter next week, where he will also She was from New York and had finished
latest Steimatzky’s bestseller list is to be Ruined House.” The book, the story of introduce the recent Israeli film “Maktub” college and studied in Israel for a year. We
believed, they read Hebrew translations a year in the life of an American Jewish as part of the IAC Cinametec film series were together. She had to go home. There

22 JEWISH STANDARD MARCH 9, 2018


was a whole story. Years later, we decided
to give it another chance and I came to
New York to visit this woman I loved.”
It is a romantic story with a happy end-
ing. Carolyn and Ruby got married, and
now they have two daughters.
“It was a double love story,” he said. “I
also fell in love with the city. This was the
winter of 2000. I was walking the streets
of Manhattan, taking it all in. The vastness
of it. The duration of it. The whole mess
of the city.”
You can hear the love in his book. From
the beginning of Chapter 2: “O Manhattan,
isle of the gods, home to great happenings
of metal, glass, and energy, island of sharp
angles, summit of the world!”
And here comes the other answer to the
question of what makes him a bridge. Grow-
ing up in Jerusalem, the child of Iranian
immigrants, “the Jewish component of my
SEE NAMDAR PAGE 24
A mission
from God
Ruby Namdar on
why “Maktub” matters
LARRY YUDELSON
M
aktub means fate in Arabic (and thus in Israeli
slang).
It is also the title of a comic movie, featuring
two Israeli television comedy stars, that tells
the story of two crooks who survive a suicide bombing and
decide to act as if they were angels, fulfilling prayers they find
at the Kotel.
At first glance, it seems like a genre or two removed from
Ruby Namdar’s tale of a middle-aged professor having a spiri-
tual crisis.
So why is it Mr. Namdar will introduce the film in Closter
next week?
As he plans to explain, both Maktub and his novel, “The
Ruined House,” reflect “a certain renaissance in Jewish
themes in Israeli culture,” he said.
“Until 20 years ago, most of Israeli literature and cinema
was very secular. Being religious or traditional made you mar-
ginal. Religious and traditional themes marginalized works of
art and cinema.
“In the last 20 years, something interesting happened in
Israeli culture. More and more attention is being paid to the
Jewish cultural roots of Israeli culture, roots that were really
severed by the first and second and third generations of Zion-
ism. The Talmud was rediscovered. Religious writing was
A scene from Maktub; above, a poster for the film.
What: Screening of “Maktub” with an introduction by author Ruby Namdar
When: Sunday, March 18, 6:30 to 9 p.m.
Where: Temple Emanu-El of Closter, 180 Piermont Road, Closter
How much: $12 JCC members/$14 nonmembers in advance at jccotp.org/israeli-center-adults ; $17 at the door
Cover Story
rediscovered.
“Slowly but surely, more people from religious groups
and more people of Middle Eastern or even Ashkenazi tra-
ditional background started creating mainstream, impor-
tant, good work that was painted with very clear traditional
Jewish cultures. That’s not something you could see when
I was growing up.
“Maktub is a crime comedy painted with very strong Jew-
ish colors. It’s funny and cute and it has various elements you
would never see in an Israeli film even ten years ago,” he said.
One simple example: The presence of mezuzahs on doors.
“Check out Israeli cinema,” Mr. Namdar said. “There’s no
mezuzot on doors. It’s striking to the eye.
“There’s a lot more. The charac-
ters go to the Kotel. They take out
the pieces of paper that people wrote
and they try to become angels who
fulfill people’s wishes. They speak of
themselves as doing God’s work. It’s a
little bit like the “Blues Brothers” — I
think there’s an influence there. But
it’s even less ironic than in the “Blues
Brothers.” Saying this in an Israeli film
is new.
“One of the protagonists — a crimi-
nal! — tells the other guy, ‘We had
meat for lunch, how can we talk about
cheese now?’ These are very impor-
tant signs of a deep change in Israeli
culture that I welcome. We’re recon-
necting with our Jewishness and bring-
ing it into the mainstream culture and
making it part of Israeli identity.”
JEWISH STANDARD MARCH 9, 2018 23
Cover Story

Namdar
FROM PAGE 23
identity was always very strong,” he said.
“I always felt more Jewy than my friends
the sabras, who were more Israeli in the
way they saw the world. For me, the Jewish
angle was always more vital, more crucial.”
He went to secular schools but developed
a self-motivated interest in Jewish culture
and texts. He studied on his own, and in
the pluralistic beit midrash study halls that
sprouted in Israel in the last generation.
He knew he wanted to be a writer since
elementary school. “I had a clear knowl-
edge that I would write fiction and that
would be my vocation,” he said. “Ironi-
cally, it took many years to actually be able
to write things I was proud enough to be
able to publish. I’m a huge perfectionist. I
write slowly and very meticulously.”
Not long after arriving in America, he
published a collection of short stories. It
was well received in Israel; it has not yet
been translated. Then he started on the
project that became “The Ruined House.”
It took him a decade.
His time in America, he believes,
strengthened his Jewish identity.
“American Jews dealt with Jewish iden-
tity in such a different way than the way I
knew,” Mr. Namdar said. “It was very inter-
esting to me, and very inspiring.”
His family life, he continued, is “thickly
Jewish.” They are members of Minyan Me’at
in Congregation Ansche Chesed — a Conser-
vative synagogue — and the daughters go to
the Abraham Joshua Heschel School.
Mr. Namdar didn’t just embrace Ameri-
can Jewish life when he came to America.
He embraced American Jewish culture.
“It’s a world we don’t know much about in
Israel,” he said. “I started reading Ameri-
can Jewish literature — also something we
are not very well versed in in Israel.” He
cites the 20th century American Jewish
canon of Saul Bellow and Philip Roth, Ber-
nard Malamud and Cynthia Ozick, as influ-
ences on his novel.
“I came to New York and discovered
them on the bookshelf and read them
with great enjoyment,” he said. “It was a
parallel Jewish literary universe, where
the Jewish experience is processed in
wonderful literary ways that is Jewish but
not very Israeli.”
But “the literary establishment in Israel
chooses to emphasize original Israeli fic-
tion and focuses on books that describe
the Israeli experience,” he said.
Though it was written in Hebrew, “You
will notice that my novel is a Jewish-Amer-
ican novel, it is not an Israeli novel,” he
said. “There’s very little Israel in it. The
little Israel that is there is not necessarily
from an insider’s point of view.”
And yet it’s a Hebrew novel, written in
demanding, literary Hebrew, whose bib-
lical references are well captured in the
translation by Hillel Halkin.
Take, for example, the opening
sentence:
“One clear morning, on the sixth day of
the Hebrew month of Elul, the year 5760,
counting from the creation of the world,
which happened to fall on Wednesday,
September 6, 2000, the gates of heaven
were opened above the great city of
New York, and behold: all seven celestial
spheres were revealed, right above the
West 4th Street subway station, layered
one on top of another like the rungs of a
ladder reaching skyward from the earth.”
Only Cynthia Ozick of the aforemen-
tioned quartet of American novelists
would have been quite so mystical, quite
so Jewish. And considered, in translation,
as a work of American Jewish literature,
it is explicitly wrestling more with Jewish
tradition than most of its antecedents. It is
not only that the heavens open up on the
first page; throughout the book there are
pages from a book within the book, stories
of an ancient Jewish priest surrounded, as
on a page of Talmud, by quotations from
the Talmud and other (mostly but not
always real) Jewish texts.
“The heart of the story is the tension
between the present and the ancient
mythological past,” Mr. Namdar said. “I
knew that something deeper and older
than the individual, an ancient collective
memory, makes a claim on the protago-
nist’s life and mind and almost threatens
to drag him into some deep abyss in time.
“There was a certain artistic process
to try to figure out the best way to make
it happen. I started playing around with
the format of telling the subplot using this
wonderful layout of the talmudic page.
It represents the existence of a differ-
ent layer of existence, another memory,
another layer of consciousness that we are
not always tapped into but exists under or
above or somewhere around reality as we
know it today.
“Once it clicked that this is the format
I’m going to use, it became a wonderful
project. I did a lot of research for these
pages. Parts of them are fiction, but a lot
of them are actual excerpts from the Bible,

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 Cover Story

the Talmud, the midrash, some kabbalis-

tic sources. Within these pages I also intro-
duce as a hint the whole notion of reincar-
nation in Judaism, which is also one of the
hinges the novel is hanging on.”
While he is busy promoting “The
Ruined House,” Mr. Namdar is working
on some short stories and the outline for
another novel. He is fluent in English, and
writes essays in it, but when it comes to fic-
tion, he will stick with Hebrew. “Hebrew is
really the language of my deep mind,” he
said. “English is the language of my every
day. I don’t write fiction of the every day.
Also, I’m invested in the project of Hebrew
literature. There is something about writ-
ing in the language of Bereshit and Kohe-
let and Tehilim and Yehuda Halevi and
Bialik and Agnon, something about being
part of this lineage that is a tremendous
honor. With its enormous depth, with its
biblical and talmudic and midrashic reso-
nance, it’s such a wonderful universe to
be part of. I’m very reluctant to leave this
wonderful language.
“Having said that, I’m extremely happy
with the translation done by the great Hil-
lel Halkin who did a tremendous work with
his translation. The translation really rep-
resents the original in a wonderful way.”
An ongoing film festival
Israeli American Council Cinametec brings movies to North Jersey
LARRY YUDELSON
An award-winning Israeli writer introducing a comic Israeli film
is just par for the course for the Cinametec, an ongoing film
series presented by the chapter of the Israeli American Council
based at the Kaplen JCC on the Palisades in Tenafly.
Luckily, for those of us who are non-Israeli American Jews,
the novel has been published in English, the film will be sub-
titled, and the discussion, as at all IAC Cinametec screenings,
will be in English too.
Details as always are in the box (on page 23), and you might
want to go online to buy tickets before you finish reading the
story because the film series has tended to sell out. Don’t worry,
though, about being the only one who needs the subtitles — the
series organizer estimates that 30 percent of the attendees at
the IAC Cinametec are American as opposed to Israeli Jews.
That number has increased this year, the Cinamatec’s sec-
ond. Etti Inbal, originally of Israel and now of Cliffside Park,
is the founder of the film program. Ms. Inbal’s goal for this
year was to forge partnerships with local Jewish organizations,
so this next screening will be at Temple Emanu-El in Closter,
instead of the usual venue, the JCC.
The point is not just to take in Israeli culture.
“The idea is to make connections and build community,” Ms.
Inbal said.
The program begins an hour before the screening. “We
have time for people to talk and share and introduce friends,”
she said.
Ms. Inbal makes it a point to get new films for the series.
“Our community, the Israeli community in Tenafly, wants to
be able to speak with their friends in Israel about what they
see,” she said.
Ms. Inbal is a graduate of the IAC’s Gvanim program, which
trains American Israelis in leadership and community activism.
The Cinameteq is a volunteer project. Her professional back-
ground is in educational technology and technology consulting.
Working with Jewish day schools, she came to know the Ameri-
can Jewish community.
“It’s very important to make more connections between
the two communities,” she said. “The idea of the film series
stemmed from my search for a way to bring together Israelis
and Americans around the nice aspects of Israel. I want the
community to discuss a wide variety of aspects of what is hap-
pening now in Israel, by appreciating the work of cinema. Most
of the dialogue around Israel is just the Israeli-Arab conflict. I
wanted to broaden the discussion.”

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Jewish World
He’s the Jew who inspired the PLO declaration
of independence. Now he wants to take down AIPAC
RON KAMPEAS
WASHINGTON — Thirty years ago, Jerome
Segal made headlines in Israel and the
United States with an odd pedigree.
He was the committed Jew who
wrote the Palestinian declaration
of independence.
That was never quite accurate — the
University of Maryland professor of phi-
losophy wrote an op-ed for a Palestinian
newspaper from which the Palestine Lib-
eration Organization seems to have cadged
a good portion of its 1988 declaration — but
it didn’t keep the Israeli media from calling
him “The Palestinians’ Jewish Herzl.”
Now he has cast himself in another
unlikely role — he’s a Bernie Sanders-
style contender for the U.S. Senate seat in
Maryland now held by Ben Cardin. Segal
believes that if he tops Cardin in the Demo-
cratic primary, he can show that the Amer-
ican Israel Public Affairs Committee is not
as all-powerful as some believe.
Perhaps counterintuitively, Segal was
26 JEWISH STANDARD MARCH 9, 2018
making his case this week at AIPAC’s
annual policy conference, having paid the
$599 entry fee.
During an interview on Sunday in the
halls of the Washington Convention Cen-
ter, Segal recalled his 15 minutes of fame
following his role in the Palestinian dec-
laration of independence, which per his
recommendation included recognition of
Israel. In its wake, he launched the Jewish
Peace Lobby as a counter to AIPAC.
“More like three years of Warholian
fame,” he said.
And then the Jewish Peace Lobby fol-
lowed the long list of American Jewish dov-
ish groups that tended to land with a bang
and then retreat to the margins of the Jew-
ish community, if not disappear altogether
— at least until J Street emerged in 2008.
“We had 400 rabbis, 5,000 members, Jerome Segal, a philosopher running for the U.S. Senate, at the AIPAC policy
and accomplished almost nothing on the conference in Washington, D.C., on March 4, 2018.  RON KAMPEAS
Hill,” Segal said with a wistful smile.
Nonetheless, Segal made a historic dif- way for actual Israelis to meet with Arafat, Now 74, a pancreatic cancer survivor
ference. The fact of a pro-Israel Jew meet- a process that led to the backchannels that with a lanky, energetic presence, Segal
ing with PLO chief Yasser Arafat paved the culminated in the 1993 Oslo Accords. wants to show that a politician’s closeness

to AIPAC isn’t all that it’s cut out to be.
Segal insists that a loss for Cardin, a fel-
low Jew, would be seen as a setback for
AIPAC, because Maryland’s senior senator
is among the Democrats most closely asso-
ciated with the pro-Israel lobby.
It’s a far-fetched strategy, based on
Segal’s resemblance to Sanders, the Inde-
pendent senator from Vermont who
mounted a surprisingly strong challenge
to Hillary Clinton for the Democratic pres-
idential nomination in 2016.
Segal casts the resemblance as one
of ideology, style, and perhaps a little
weirdly, biography, as if elderly Jews with
hardscrabble roots in the New York bor-
oughs were the next big thing.
“I’m an old lefty,” he said. “He’s from
Brooklyn. I’m from the Bronx. We both
have immigrant fathers from Poland.
Our mothers were born here. My books
overlap with Bernie’s political agenda.”
Segal boasts a library shelf full of books
on philosophy, the economy, and Middle
East peace.
He leaned over to make the even Ber-
nier-than-Bernie point: “He’s a social-
ist,” Segal said. “I grew up a socialist.”
Sanders, he said, came to socialism late,
in university.
According to Segal, that secures the 34
percent of Maryland Democrats who voted
for Sanders. How he gets from there to 50
percent plus one vote is a little more con-
voluted. He aims to peel away from Cardin
not only the Sanders voters, but those who
pulled the lever for Clinton because she
would have been the first woman presi-
dent and had a reputation for competence.
Then, and this is a little hard to under-
stand, although a reporter asked many
times: Segal gets the anti-NRA vote even
though Cardin does not in any way stand
with the National Rifle Association or the
gun lobby, and has been an outspoken
advocate of gun control.
Segal’s argument: Just as there is
momentum to take down the NRA in
response to last month’s deadly high
school shooting in Florida, the same zeit-
geist can be tapped to take down AIPAC.
“If we can beat AIPAC in Maryland, we
can beat the NRA in America,” he said.
“Both of them are the expression of big
money in American politics.”
Segal pointed out that Cardin is aligned
with AIPAC on almost every issue, even
those that the majority of other Democrats
reject. Cardin was among a handful of Sen-
ate Democrats who opposed the 2015 Iran
nuclear deal. He is among the lead spon-
sors of a bill that would penalize compli-
ance with boycotts of Israel. The measure
is having trouble gaining traction among
Democrats, in part because of free speech
concerns and because it targets those who
solely boycott Israeli settlements.
“I don’t support BDS,” Segal said, refer-
ring to the Boycott, Divestment and Sanc-
tions movement targeting Israel. “But
criminalizing someone who wants to sup-
port a boycott of Israeli settlements?”
Segal, like any politician, speaks assur-
edly of winning, but after a while acknowl-
edges — at least implicitly — that he would
be happy if he made a point. Get to 40 per-
cent of the vote on a platform that includes
opposition to AIPAC, he said, and it could
make it less appealing for middle-of-the-
road Democrats to solicit AIPAC’s support.
“No one has ever threatened the career
of any sitting member of Congress because
he’s run with AIPAC,” Segal said, relishing
the prospect of being the first. (AIPAC does
not endorse candidates, but its members
are keenly aware of which candidates
embrace the lobby’s policies and which
do not.)
He says his platform will emphasize the
bread-and-butter issues that Marylanders
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Jewish World
who do not track the nuances of Israel
policy — the vast majority of them — care
about. That includes income inequality and
the parlous state of Baltimore’s inner city
(an issue Cardin also addresses frequently).
Segal projects he will need $5 million to
$10 million to challenge Cardin. (Republi-
cans are not competing this year.) He says
he is ready to spend up to $500,000 of his
own money. He has a website that thus
far has little more than his contact infor-
mation. Segal has paid the $240 to run in
the primary (as have a handful of others,
including Chelsea Manning, the former
U.S. Army intelligence analyst convicted
of espionage in 2013 for her role in leaking
troves of classified information).
He may also need to bone up on what
makes AIPAC run. A reporter checked in
with Segal again a day or so into the pol-
icy conference.
“I know AIPAC in terms of policy, I’ve
never seen it as a culture,” he said of the
encounters he had with young American
Jews who were thrilled to be at the confer-
ence. “It’s amazing. The Palestinians don’t
get mentioned, the settlements don’t get
mentioned. It’s like they’re discovering
Israel — but Israel of the 1950s.”
 JTA WIRE SERVICE
JEWISH STANDARD MARCH2/20/18 9:58 AM
9, 2018 27
Jewish World

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you follow us online. ary Clinton over Trump. With the excep-
tion of the Orthodox, majorities of all
the major Jewish denominations voted
for Clinton.
So how did it feel for anti-Trump Jews
to hear the president cheered again and
to cheers. “America stands with Israel
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Several conference participants sug-
gested that it was possible to compart-
mentalize — appreciating the president’s
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of the American Israel Public Affairs
him in general. AIPAC is, after all, a sin-
gle-issue lobby that does not purport
Committee? to speak for the Jews or their broader
“Difficult,” multiple conference par-
ticipants said.
“I think there’s a lot of tension,” said
Sherie Silverman of Maryland. “People
like myself who are ardent Zionists are
Speakers from
confused because we love what Nikki both parties
Haley is doing, and moving the embassy
we love ... but we were disappointed
repeatedly
with [Trump’s] character and with many praised Trump’s
of his policies in general.”
The president himself did not appear
recognition of
at the AIPAC meeting here this week, Jerusalem as
but his administration was well repre-
sented and his name was cheered often.
Israel’s capital,
Vice President Mike Pence called him and his plans to
the most pro-Israel president ever, to
applause. Monday’s star, U.N. Ambas-
move the U.S.
sador Haley, got 12 standing ovations. Embassy there
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netan-
yahu, in a well-received speech the next
in May.
day, lauded Trump.
Speakers from both parties repeat- agenda items, including civil rights,
edly praised Trump’s recognition of immigration, women’s rights, religious
Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, and his freedom, or fighting anti-Semitism.
plans to move the U.S. Embassy there in Many who attend the conference say the

28 JEWISH STANDARD MARCH 9, 2018

 Jewish World Sandi M. Malkin, LL C
mere act of showing up is a statement of support for
Interior Designer
Israel, and partisan politics are for other settings. (former interior designer of model
“If I can make myself not look at anything else about rooms for NY’s #1 Dept. Store)
him, then I think what he’s done for Israel is amazing,”
said Risa Kipnis, a conference delegate from Mary-
land. “I’m not quite there yet. He’s just, he’s crazy. I For a totally new look using
just think the way he behaves and some of the things your furniture or starting anew.
he tweets and his past with women — I just don’t have
anything nice to say about him.” Staging also available
Republican conference participants, meanwhile,
were pleased with the reception for the president’s 973-535-9192
name. For some it was a confirmation that their party
was the best home for pro-Israel Americans. And even
though a few had reservations about some of Trump’s
conduct, they saw that as a small price to pay for a pro-

PESACH 2018
Israel administration.
“To me, he’s a neighbor and New Yorker like I am,”

Hilton Westchester
said Stan Monsowitz, who lives in New York City and
winters in Boca Raton, Florida. “He’s crazy like a lot of
New Yorkers are, but he’s so pro-Israel and pro-U.S.,
I love what he’s doing. If he kept his mouth shut and
kept off Twitter, it would be a lot better.”
The participants also said they believed the applause
was for policy, not the person. Jeremy Burton, execu- RYE BROOK, NEW YORK
tive director of the Jewish Community Relations Coun-
cil of Greater Boston, also thought that those who
were perceived as closer to Trump, like Pence, were
given less applause.
“Some of it was for specific policies,” Burton said.
“There are specific things this administration will do
that are things we will appreciate.
“Look at the differing levels of applause. Nikki Haley
got resounding and overwhelming applause, and
maybe other people who are perceived as closer to
him on a personal level got a little less.”
Throughout the conference, AIPAC emphasized
the importance of both bipartisanship and to the pro-
Israel movement. Left-wing speakers talked about Isra-
el’s unions and diverse civil society.

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If I can make myself
not look at anything
else about him, then I
think what he’s done
for Israel is amazing.
Two years ago, the lobby’s policy conference spurred
controversy when then-candidate Trump received
heavy applause for cheering the end of Obama’s term;
AIPAC officials apologized the next day. This year, Dem-
ocratic officials nearly abstained from criticizing Trump
from the podium. And as usual, both Republican and
Democratic officials talked about how partisanship
should end when it comes to supporting Israel.
In that vein, some liberal participants said they had
no problem with an event applauding high-ranking
officials who take time to address the conference,
regardless of party. Cole Bloomfield, a college student
from Oakland, California, said he had perceived AIPAC
as right wing. But he felt the conference did a good
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30 JEWISH STANDARD MARCH 9, 2018
JEWISH STANDARD MARCH 9, 2018 31
 ALL CLEAN OUTS Jewish World
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The bill’s proponent, Yesh Atid Party’s MK Aliza
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32 JEWISH STANDARD MARCH 9, 2018

JEWISH STANDARD MARCH 9, 2018 33
Jewish World
AIPAC airs endorsement of the two-state solution
RON KAMPEAS
WASHINGTON — The American Israel Public Affairs Com-
mittee opened its arms to progressives this week, launching
its annual policy conference with direct appeals to pro-Israel
liberals who lately have considered the lobby an unwelcom-
ing extension of Israel’s solidly right-wing government.
In addition to major speeches and smaller sessions
devoted to bipartisan outreach, there was a surprisingly
forthright endorsement of the fading two-state solution
from the organization’s executive director.
“To my friends in the progressive community, I want you
to know we are partners in this project,” AIPAC President
Mort Fridman said on Sunday at the launch of this year’s
conference at the convention center here.
“The progressive narrative for Israel is just as compelling
and critical as the conservative one,” Fridman said. “There
are very real forces trying to pull you out of this hall and out
of this movement and we cannot let that happen — we will
not let that happen!” The crowd applauded.
AIPAC is contending with a Jewish community that polls
show is deeply unhappy with the Trump administration and
its Republican allies in Congress. Jews who have achieved
maturity — and voting age — in the past decade have known
only an Israeli government led by Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu that has been at odds with the president favored
by the vast majority of Jews, Barack Obama.
So from the get-go, AIPAC has rolled out the welcome mat
for progressives — to the degree that the AIPAC’s leadership
could manage such a thing. There are plenty of obstacles to
Israel’s security
cannot be fully ensured
and a promise cannot
be fully realized until
she is at peace with all
her neighbors.
AIPAC making its tent wider: Its rank and file, judging from
the applause, remains partial to conservatives, and the pro-
gressive movement remains deeply suspicious of a lobby
they see as identified with hostility to Obama and the right-
wing policies of Netanyahu.
Which may explain why for the first time in memory
— possibly in the lobby’s history — AIPAC appeared to get
ahead of both the U.S. and Israeli governments of the day in
pressing for a peace deal.
“We must all work toward that future of two states for two
people, one Jewish with defensible borders and one Pales-
tinian, with its own flag and its own future,” Howard Kohr,
AIPAC’s executive director, said in a speech on Sunday eve-
ning (albeit a speech delivered after much of the conference
had departed for dinner or for the Jewish meet-and-greets
that traditionally crop up around AIPAC conferences).
It was a stunning declaration at a time when both Presi-
dent Donald Trump and the Netanyahu government have
retreated from explicit endorsement of a two-state outcome.
Moreover, while Kohr demanded “defensible” borders, he
made no mention of what for years has been a bedrock of
Israeli government and AIPAC rhetoric: demilitarization of
the Palestinian state.
Kohr also sounded a note that could have come from J
34 JEWISH STANDARD MARCH 9, 2018
AIPAC’s executive director, Howard Kohr, speaks to
the Israel lobby’s policy conference in Washington,
D.C., on March 4. AIPAC
Street, the liberal Mideast lobby that presents itself as an
alternative to AIPAC: Security, he said, is illusory without
peace deals.
“Israel’s security cannot be fully ensured and a promise
cannot be fully realized until she is at peace with all her
neighbors,” he said.
The settler movement immediately expressed shock.
“I am astounded as to why such a great, meaningful orga-
nization as AIPAC, whose raison d’etre is pro-Israel advocacy
in the United States, would present the positions of the State
of Israel (and of the U.S.) so inaccurately before senior gov-
ernment officials, senators and congressmen, and the gen-
eral pro-Israel public,” Yossi Dagan, the head of the Samaria
regional council, wrote in a letter to AIPAC, the Jewish Press
reported.
To be sure, Kohr made his pitch with the traditional AIPAC
caveats: The Palestinians were primarily if not wholly at fault
for the lack of movement because they would not agree to
direct negotiations. (Netanyahu wants direct talks; the Pal-
estinians say that an arena that keeps away international
pressure on Israel places them at a disadvantage.) And
Kohr notably made no mention of settlements. Avi Gabbay,
the new Labor Party leader in Israel, received only tepid
applause earlier that day, with his call to remove settlements
deemed illegal under Israeli law.
A key theme of the conference — and of its legislative
agenda — was using laws to push back against the Boycott,
Divestment and Sanctions movement targeting Israel. The
laws would allow state and local governments to block enti-
ties that support BDS from doing business with the state
through pensions and contracts. Progressives have come
out against the state BDS laws and those proposed for Con-
gress because they see it as inhibiting free speech. Liberals
also object that the laws almost uniformly target not just
entities that boycott Israel, but those that boycott settle-
ments as well.
And AIPAC stood strong in its continued disdain for the
2015 Iran nuclear deal that Obama negotiated. On Sunday, a
panel on the agreement featured a top AIPAC official, Brad
Gordon; U.S. Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, (R-Fla.),
and a former congresswoman, Jane Harman, a Democrat. All
were opposed to the deal. AIPAC’s legislative agenda included
a bill that would enhance sanctions on Iran as a means to force
compliance with policies not included in the 2015 deal, which
trades sanctions relief for a rollback of Iran’s nuclear program.
AIPAC officials made clear that the organization was
reaching out to the left but not closing out the right.
Fridman said maintaining bipartisan support for Israel
was critical in a polarizing time.
“People are angry and hurting and frustrated and fed up,”
Fridman said. “There’s an impulse to walk away from poli-
tics to retreat to partisan corners and to demonize the other
side. We cannot let those impulses win the day.”
AIPAC has been buffeted in recent years by tensions
between Israel and Democrats during the previous admin-
istration. It is striving to rebuild bipartisan support at a time
when Trump has made good on promises that AIPAC has
had on its agenda for years: recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s
capital, and seeking to alter the Iran nuclear deal.
Fridman’s thanks to Trump for those policies earned
extended applause.
At the same time, Trump has meager approval ratings
among American Jews, most of whom vote Democratic and
are repulsed by the bigotry they perceive in his rhetoric and
policies, and by his projected rollbacks of social safety nets.
On Monday, Trump meet with Netanyahu, who has been
effusive in his praise of the U.S. leader.
Winning back a majority progressive Jewish community
to its fold was nonetheless the overwhelming focus of a slew
of breakouts with titles like “Foundations of Pro-Israel Pro-
gressive Activism.” A session on Zionism and feminism drew
a packed room. (Most AIPAC breakout sessions like these are
closed to the media. New York’s Jewish Week editorialized
last week that it would not be sending reporters to the con-
ference to protest the closed-door policy.)
The progressive agenda also featured prominently on the
main stage. One of the keynote speakers on Sunday morning
was former Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm, a Dem-
ocrat, who called Israel a “progressive paradise” because
of its support for women’s rights and LGBTQ rights, and its
subsidies for health care and parental care.
“Israel can be a role model for other nations including
America showing how citizens are cared for,” said Gran-
holm, who received a standing ovation.
Progressives also dominated the stage on Monday; there
were talks by Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar, a Demo-
crat, Isaac Herzog, the Israeli opposition leader; and Rami
Hod, a union organizer who now directs the Berl Katznelson
Education Center near Tel Aviv.
“We should do the exact opposite of what BDS support-
ers advocate,” Hod said. “We should provide a space for the
multiplicity of voices.”
It was a theme Kohr advanced the evening before.
“Know this: We in the pro-Israel movement will ask you to
do many things, but we will never demand that you change
anything about yourselves,” he said. “We want you the way
you are. Whatever your politics or struggle, the color of your
skin, the language that you speak, the faith you hold close,
no matter whom you love, we want you.”
Another issue sowing tensions between Israel and Ameri-
can Jews is Netanyahu’s reneging on pledges he has made
over the years to improve the status of non-Orthodox Jews
in Israel. Ambassador Ron Dermer told the AIPAC crowd
that he expected “good news” later this year on allowing
organized non-Orthodox prayer at the Western Wall, one of
Judaism’s holiest sites.
An estimated 18,000 activists attended the conference,
which culminated in a Capitol Hill lobbying day on Tues-
day. On AIPAC’s legislative agenda is introducing new Iran
sanctions as a means of toughening the 2015 deal; codify-
ing into law a pledge of $38 billion over 10 years in defense
assistance Obama promised in his waning days in office;
and support for measures that would set penalties for
compliance with boycotts of Israel and Israeli settlements
in the West Bank. JTA WIRE SERVICE
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Jewish World

Why more Orthodox Jews are going to AIPAC

BEN SALES

WASHINGTON — On the second floor of

the downtown convention center here,
hundreds of people at the annual policy
conference of the American Israel Pub-
lic Affairs Committee packed a standing-
room-only hall. A bouncer stood outside
to control the overflow crowd.
It wasn’t a session on boycotts, Iran,
or the peace process. It was mincha, the
Jewish afternoon prayer service. Outside,
smaller groups of Orthodox men gath-
ered to form their own prayer quorums.
High school students in kippahs or long
skirts sat against the walls chatting.
Meir Raskas knows it hasn’t always
been this way. When he began attend-
ing the policy conference 10 years ago,
Orthodox prayer services would draw
about 20 people.
“It’s definitely enlarged,” said Raskas,
an investor and AIPAC volunteer from
Baltimore. “All the people on the correct
side of the argument are all here rallying
around the cause.”
AIPAC does not divide its 18,000
attendees by religious denomination,
but delegates to the conference say the
Orthodox contingent is growing. While
the Orthodox don’t make up a majority of
conference participants this year, Ortho-
dox leaders and laypeople say their rising AIPAC’s president, Morton Fridman of Teaneck, addresses the AIPAC Policy Conference in Washington on March 4, 2018. AIPAC

numbers at the event are a sign that they

are translating long-held sentiments into
political power. AIPAC’s newly installed
president, Morton Fridman, belongs to a
modern Orthodox synagogue in Teaneck.
“The Orthodox segment of the commu-
nity is most connected to and passionate
about Israel,” said Nathan Diament, the
executive director of the Orthodox Union
Advocacy Center, citing survey data.
“AIPAC is a central vehicle for Israel advo-
cacy, so more and more Orthodox people
want to be involved in that.”
Non-Orthodox attendees, meanwhile,
did not seem worried that a growing
Orthodox contingent would eclipse their
concerns. But some did worry about a
growing divide on Israel policy between
Orthodox and non-Orthodox Jews.
The Orthodox presence at AIPAC is
visible everywhere. Teenagers, stu-
dents, and adults in kippahs, if not black
hats, are visible all over the hallways.
Dozens of members of NCSY, the mod-
ern Orthodox youth group, clustered in
a semicircle in an alcove Sunday as their
leader told them a story about a plum-
meting plane sparking the passengers’
faith in God.
For some Orthodox participants, the
question isn’t why their numbers are
growing but why it took so long. Many
Orthodox Jews see Israel as a fulfill-
ment of biblical prophecy, and modern
Orthodox Israelis largely identify with
the nationalist wing of Israeli politics.
References to Israel and Jerusalem infuse
the prayers that Orthodox Jews say every
day, and their children are more likely
to spend extended periods of time there
studying in yeshivas.
“My background, like so many of the
people in that room, had Zionism as part
of their education,” said Rabbi Dovid
Asher, who heads the Orthodox Knesseth
Beth Israel in Richmond, Virginia, though
he eschews denominational labels. “It’s
only a fraction of American Jewry that is
so-called Orthodox, and it’s critical that
we have wide representation. “
But the growing numbers are also the
result of a concerted effort by AIPAC
to draw religious Jews of all denomina-
tions into its ranks. The lobby’s Syna-
gogue Initiative, launched in 2005,
recruits rabbis to bring congregants to
the conference, along with giving them
pro-Israel material to insert into weekly
sermons. And all food served at AIPAC
events has been kosher, as a policy, for
more than a decade.
“AIPAC has become not only more
and more welcoming but has actively
recruited in the Orthodox community,”
Diament said. “That and other things
have prompted a two-sided equation
in which the Orthodox community is
becoming more and more engaged, and
AIPAC has been very welcoming.”
Non-Orthodox rabbis were worried
about widening political divides between
Orthodox and non-Orthodox Jews. A poll
last year, for example, found that most
non-Orthodox Jews disapproved of Presi-
dent Donald Trump, while most Ortho-
dox Jews approved of him. The Orthodox
tend to be much more supportive of the
settler movement than non-Orthodox
Jews; Trump’s ambassador to Israel,
David Friedman, is an Orthodox Jew who
as a private citizen raised money for a
West Bank settlement.
The denominations’ respective leader-
ships also disagree on how much Ameri-
can Jews should influence religious con-
troversies in Israel, such as the debate
over prayer arrangements at the West-
ern Wall. The non-Orthodox movements
have made pluralism in Israel a priority.
Orthodox groups tend to support the sta-
tus quo represented by Israel’s Orthodox
chief rabbinate.
“Trump still enjoys wide support
among Orthodox Jews in America,
less so among non-Orthodox Jews,”
said Rabbi Jonathan Blake of West-
chester Reform Temple in New York.
“The result has become so divisive, it’s
actively dividing between Orthodox and
non-Orthodox Jews. I am concerned
that Reform Jews and Orthodox Jews
are not on the same page. We have been
brought into friction.”
But they also stressed that AIPAC has
been able to avoid those divisions by
sticking to advocating for security issues.
AIPAC’s legislative agenda seldom strays
far from the preferences of the sitting
Israeli government; the current organi-
zational consensus is well in line with
the right-wing policies of Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu and most Orthodox
pro-Israel activists.
“No other organization has tapped into
the Orthodox community except those
that are solely Orthodox,” said Rabbi David-
Seth Kirshner of the Conservative Temple
Emanu-El of Closter. “We have liberals and
conservatives, but we’re not divided in our
desire for a safe and secure Israel.”
Non-Orthodox rabbis say they don’t
feel threatened by a larger Orthodox
presence. A few said they appreciated
that the AIPAC conference, which sel-
dom touches on religion, is a place where
leaders of all movements can gather.
Rabbi Denise Eger of the Reform Con-
gregation Kol Ami in West Hollywood,
California, said she was heartened by
how well she got along with Orthodox
and Conservative colleagues on a recent
AIPAC trip to Israel. And her synagogue
delegation is growing, too. Last year, one
congregant joined her at the conference.
This year she brought seven.
“At the heart of it, we can have dif-
ferent ideas about what Zionism is, and
what Israel’s policies ought to be,” Eger
said. “But this is one of the few places in
Jewish life where we’re all in the same
room.” JTA WIRE SERVICE

36 JEWISH STANDARD MARCH 9, 2018


In Israel, Netanyahu is embattled.
At AIPAC, he was comfortbly at home
BEN SALES
WASHINGTON — Israeli Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu is mired in several
corruption scandals back home, and his
political future seems increasingly under
threat.
But you wouldn’t know it from his
speech on Tuesday at the annual con-
ference of the American Israel Public
Affairs Committee. He looked energized
and right at home.
His address to the crowd of 18,000
played more like a pep rally than a pol-
icy address. Netanyahu largely stuck to
his standard talking points, celebrating
Israeli innovation, confronting Iran, crit-
icizing the Palestinian Authority.
Pretty soon the
countries that
don’t have
relations with
us, they’re
going to be
isolated. There
are those who
talk about
boycotting
Israel. We’ll
boycott them.
But he was upbeat and relaxed while
doing it. He grinned, laughed, joked,
involved the crowd, walked around the
stage. If Netanyahu did have a script, he
went off it.
“Four thousand students — thank you
for cutting class to be here!” he said near
the beginning of the speech. “If any of
you needs a note, you can see me later.
There’s a line forming outside.
“I don’t want to stand behind this
podium, OK?” he said seconds later.
“What the heck? I’m the prime minis-
ter!” The crowd cheered and clapped as
he began walking around the stage.
Late in the speech, a woman yelled
“We love you, Bibi!” He responded,
“That’s very kind of you, thank you. ...
Who planted her?”
Much of the speech was, essentially,
a PowerPoint presentation about Israeli
tech and economic development that
would have felt just as appropriate at a
local Israeli economic mission. Netan-
yahu guided the crowd through slides
on his country’s agricultural innovation,
its place among a ranking of the world’s
Jewish World
most valuable companies, a recent history
of Israeli autonomous vehicle startups, a
line chart showing rising investment in
Israeli cybersecurity startups, and so on.
“Free market principles unleashed the
spark of genius embedded in our people,”
he said. “Israel is changing the world in
India, in Africa, in Asia, in Latin America.”
Netanyahu was no less defiant about his
diplomatic record. Only briefly mention-
ing the Palestinians, Netanyahu — as he
has before — touted his outreach to Latin
America, Asia, and Africa. He dismissed
fears of international pressure on Israel.
“People talked about Israeli isolation,”
he said. “Pretty soon the countries that
don’t have relations with us, they’re
going to be isolated. There are those
who talk about boycotting Israel. We’ll
boycott them.”
And he praised President Donald
Trump, with whom he met on Mon-
day. He thanked the American leader,
as many other speakers did, for his rec-
ognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capi-
tal and his promise to move the U.S.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks at Tuesday’s AIPAC conference.
 AIPAC
Embassy there in May. He also praised
Trump’s hardline stance against Iran and
the president’s promise to amend the
2015 agreement curbing Iran’s nuclear
program, which Israel and AIPAC said
was flawed. And, of course, Netanyahu
vowed to prevent Iran from acquiring
nuclear weapons.
“We will never let Iran develop nuclear
weapons,” he said, adding that if the
United States ends up withdrawing from
the agreement, “Israel will be right there
by America’s side, and let me tell you, so
will other countries in the region.”
As he has many times before, Netan-
yahu stressed the common interests that
Israel shares with other countries in the
region, and he said that Israel desires
peace with all its neighbors, including
the Palestinians. But he criticized Pal-
estinian Authority President Mahmoud
Abbas for praising terrorists, and for the
PA’s policy of delivering stipends to ter-
rorists in Israeli prisons.
“President Abbas has to embrace
peace and to stop supporting terror,”
Netanyahu said, then turned to the
crowd. “Raise your hands if you agree
with me that President Abbas should
stop paying terrorists who murder Jews.”
AIPAC wrapped up the proceedings
on Tuesday morning at the Convention
Center before delegates fanned out to
lobby their senators and members of
the House on Capitol Hill. AIPAC’s legis-
lative agenda includes a bill that would
enhance sanctions on Iran as a means
to force compliance with policies not
included in the 2015 deal, which trades
sanctions relief for a rollback of Iran’s
nuclear program. JTA WIRE SERVICE
JEWISH STANDARD MARCH 9, 2018 37
Preparing for Passover
Over the next few weeks, the Jewish Standard will offer Passover Local seders at area shuls
recipes and lots of ideas for the holiday, which begins this year To date, we have received information
about the following community sed-
on the night of Friday, March 30, and ends on Saturday, April 7. ers. We will update the list as more
synagogues tell us about what they’re
doing.
A taste of the holiday during Shabbat Haskell
Join Chabad of Upper Passaic
As part of the “One Book One Community”
County for an inspirational com-
project, sponsored by the Jewish Federation of
munity Passover seder, with dinner,
Northern New Jersey, Beth Haverim Shir Sha- insights, melodies, and wine. The
lom in Mahwah offers a “Taste of Passover” fol- seder is on the first night of Passover,
lowing Shabbat services on Friday, March 16, at Friday, March 30, at 7:30 p.m., at the
7:30 p.m. The oneg Shabbat will include food Chabad Jewish Center in Haskell. All
prepared with Passover recipes from this year’s are welcome regardless of affiliation
book selection, “ZAHAV, A World of Israeli or background. For more information,
call (201) 696-7609 or email Rabbi@
Cooking,” by Michael Solomonov and Steven
Cook,” The shul is at 280 Ramapo Valley Road.
JewishHighlands.org.
For more information, call (201) 512-1983 or go Wayne
to www.bethhaverimshirshalom.org. For the second seder on Saturday,
March 31, join Temple Beth Tikvah
in Wayne at 6 p.m. The seder with
Lamdeinu offers songs and activities for all will be led
by Rabbi Meeka Simerly. The dinner
a two-part series on is potluck family-style, where partici-
pants bring a ready-to-eat entrée and
side dish to share. Religious school
students can earn worship service at-
tendance credits and middle and high
schoolers can earn community ser-
vice hours. The shul is at 950 Preak-
ness Ave. For more information, call
Marian at (973) 595-6565 or go to
www.templebethtikvahnj.org.
Teaneck
Temple Emeth in Teaneck holds its
annual second-night Passover seder
at 6 p.m. The shul is at 1666 Wind-
sor Road. For information, call (201)
833-1322 .
Paramus
The JCC of Paramus/Congregation
Beth Tikvah hosts a second night
community seder led by Rabbi Arthur
and Shira Weiner, at 8 p.m. The shul is
at 304 East Midland Ave. For reserva-
tions or more information, call (201)
262-7691 or go to www.jccparamus.
org.

‘Reliving Purim & Pesach’

Travel the globe with Royal Wine
Dr. Chaviva Levin discusses “Reliving Purim & Pesach — How
Medieval Jews in Christian Europe Saw Redemption in Their
without leaving the seder table
Own Lives” for a series at Lamdeinu in Teaneck, 10:30 a.m. This Passover, spend your
Sessions are Tuesdays, March 13 and 20. The school meets at holiday in Israel, Italy, and
950 Queen Anne Road in Teaneck. Register at lamdeinu.org. France — all without ever
leaving the seder table. This
Dr. Chaviva Levin year, New Jersey-based Royal
Wine, the world’s largest
purveyor of kosher wines
Support NCJW-BCS and its thrift shop and spirits, offers Passover
selections from across the
Here is a small collection of the globe — including a new label
seder plates recently for sale at from former NBA star Amare
the Bergen County section of Stoudemire — for a broad
the National Council of Jewish range of tastes and prices.
Women’s thrift store in Bergen- “The kosher wine renais-
field. Check out the selection, sance over the past two
from vintage to modern. When decades has led to more and
you invite family and guests more sophisticated options
over, think about having an extra for Passover each year,” says
seder plate for a second table. Jay Buchsbaum, executive
What a wonderful place to shop vice president for marketing
for fun and unusual serving and director of wine edu-
pieces — while supporting the work of NCJW-BCS. The store is at 75 S. Wash- cation at Royal Wine Corp.
ington Ave. For more information, call (201) 385-4847 or go to www.ncjwbcs. “2018 has been an exciting
org/thrift-shop. year for exceptional new
releases from every major
wine producing region in
the world.” Even celebrities
and sports stars are leverag-
ing their name recognition to
produce and sell wine.
Stoudemire, 35, this week
unveiled three varieties of
Israeli wine whose labels
bear his name, produced
at the “Stoudemire Cellars”
of Kfar Tikva in the Upper
Galilee, imported and dis-
tributed by the Royal Wine
Corp. It’s no surprise that LVOV Vodka,
many of today’s kosher distilled from
wines are winning interna- beets, tequila,
and agave, and
tional competitions in top
Chateau Remo
award categories. Royal has
Grand Blend are
released a range of notable
two new offerings
wines and spirits to fit virtu-
from Royal Wine
ally everyone’s budget, from
Corporation that
$5 to $500.
are kosher for
Passover (OU-P).

Make book on Marvin in Mahwah Haroset — Hawaiian

BETH JANOFF CHANANIE
Marvin Goldsmith of Suffern, N.Y., has writ-
ten “Marvin’s Book of Great Passover Reci-
pes.” He will give a free lecture and tasting
at “Holiday Meals: Passover with Marvin
Goldsmith” at the Mahwah Library on
Wednesday, March 14, at 6:30 p.m.
The book, a collection of traditional and
contemporary recipes, is dedicated to his
parents, Ida and Morris Goldsmith, whose
European roots inspired Marvin’s love of
fine foods. He is active in the Paramus
Aloha! Different, and Very Delicious
Yiddish Club, which meets on the third Marvin Goldsmith
Wednesday of each month at 2:30 p.m.
at the JCC of Paramus/Congregation Beth 1 cup pineapple, crushed, fresh, or canned
1 large mango, ripe, peeled
Tikvah.
1 cup papaya, cubed
The book costs $18 plus $3 for shipping;
1 large banana, ripe, mashed
email greatpassoverrecipes@gmail.com. Mr. 4 ounces macadamia nuts, chopped
Goldsmith will autograph each copy ordered, 1 teaspoon cinnamon
and enclose a personalized gift card. 4 tablespoons sweet red Pesach wine
The library is at 100 Ridge Road in Mah- 1 to 2 tablespoons honey
wah. For more information, call (201)
529-7323. Register online at www.mah- In a food processor, pulse fruits and nuts
Marvin Goldsmith together until chopped. Add cinnamon,
wahlibrary.org or in person at the library’s
honey, and wine, and pulse again. Let sit
reference desk. covered overnight in the refrigerator.

38 JEWISH STANDARD MARCH 9, 2018

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JEWISH STANDARD MARCH 9, 2018 39

Editorial
The Gateway project
A is gone — and
few years ago, my husband
and I took a houseboat
up the Rideux Canal, the
waterway that connects
Ottawa with Kingston, Ontario.
Houseboats are not glamorous, and
the canal is not exciting; it’s a placid
waterway that starts in the St. Law-
rence River, next to the massive ships
from across the world that make the
St. Lawrence Seaway, right next to it,
bristle with commerce and steel. The
ride is a look at the interior of Ontario.
The canal was opened in 1832. It’s
connected by a series of locks, huge
metal wheels and cogs and levers. That
original system still works; the wooden
parts have had to be replaced, because
they’re constantly in contact with water,
but most of the rest of it is original. It’s a
marvel of engineering, simple and ele-
gant and remarkably clever.
I’ve been thinking about the canal
because I’ve been thinking about the
two tunnels that run under the Hud-
son River, connecting Secaucus and
Manhattan’s Penn Station. They were
opened in 1908 and they still carry all
the train traffic that Amtrak and New
Jersey Transit send between New Jer-
sey and New York.
They, too, were impressive feats of
engineering, built to last. But not to
last this long.
They are in sad shape by now, these
tunnels, and the salt water that Hurri-
cane Sandy shoved into them in 2012
has eaten away at their electrical sys-
tems and structural integrity. They
are dangerous, and they endanger the
economy.
The ARC tunnel was a massive proj-
ect that would have allowed many
more trains to go under the river,
quickly and safely. Work began on it in
2009, but in 2010, Chris Christie, the
Republican governor who apparently
thought that the move would endear
him to Republicans across the country,
but whose presidential ambitions died
in the George Washington traffic jam
his minions took great glee in creating
in 2013, killed it.
Jewish Editor
Joanne Palmer
Standard Associate Editor
Larry Yudelson
1086 Teaneck Road
Community Editor
Teaneck, NJ 07666
Beth Janoff Chananie
(201) 837-8818
Fax 201-833-4959 About Our Children Editor
Heidi Mae Bratt
Publisher
James L. Janoff
Associate Publisher Emerita
Marcia Garfinkle
thejewishstandard.com
40 JEWISH STANDARD MARCH 9, 2018
The region has suffered. Commuters
report more and more time spent in
transit as trains are canceled, and offi-
cials warn that the tunnels don’t have
much life left in them.
The plan is to replace those tunnels
with two more through the Gateway
Project, another ambitious plan to
greatly increase traffic flow under the
river. It’s expensive, but according to
just about everybody, including the
Senate and Congress, it’s necessary,
and well worth it.
This is relevant now because last
week, Donald J. Trump, who is a
native New Yorker but is feuding with
the Senate minority leader, New York
Democrat Charles Schumer, threat-
ened to pull federal funding from the
Gateway project, for no apparent rea-
son other than pique.
Local officials are trying to downplay
the threat, hoping that it will go away,
but Representative Josh Gottheimer
(D-5th Dist.) is clear about the danger
that shuttering the project would pose
to his district, to New Jersey and New
York, to the tristate area, to the North-
east Corridor, and to the country.
“The nerve center of our financial
economy runs through this region,”
Mr. Gottheimer said. “One-fifth of the
American economy depends on the
two tunnels that connect the roads
from Washington to Boston.
“When you look at our region, which
USA Today says generates $1.3 trillion
in economic output — that’s 9 percent
of the value of all sales and goods and
services across the United States,” he
continued. “So if that route shuts down,
the U.S. economy will lose $100 million
a day, according to the Northeast Corri-
dor Commission. (Google the commis-
sion to see more astounding facts about
the corridor’s importance, and the risks
its disruption would cause.)
And then, Mr. Gottheimer contin-
ued, beyond the financial costs, there
are the human, emotional, and physi-
cal ones. “New Jersey is the second
state in the nation for people who rely
on public transit,” he said.
Correspondents
Warren Boroson
Lois Goldrich
Banji Ganchrow
Abigail K. Leichman
Miriam Rinn
Dr. Miryam Z. Wahrman
Advertising Director
Natalie D. Jay
Classified Director
Janice Rosen
These are the challenges.
Many commuters take buses to work,
of course, and many others drive, but
it’s not as if there is a lot of extra capac-
ity to absorb more traffic. The gridlock
we see now would be nothing com-
pared to what would happen if a tunnel
had to close at rush hour.
“The two tunnels, which are more
than 100 years old, are crumbling,” Mr.
Gottheimer said. Literally crumbling.
If one of them has to shut down, that
will paralyze traffic. They close one
tunnel every weekend and patch it up.
Right now, about 24 trains go through
a tunnel at rush hour. On the weekend,
it’s only nine. So you can imagine what
would happen if we would have to shut
one of them down during the week.”
As the tunnels’ ability to handle traf-
fic has decreased, the number of rid-
ers has gone up, he added. “Our tran-
sit system, New Jersey Transit, has the
worst on-time numbers in the country.
And between 1976 and 2014, ridership
doubled.” That’s a lot more people.
“So in the nerve center of the econ-
omy, ridership is up, service is down,”
and there are threats not to fix it.
There’s not much local people can
do, Mr. Gottheimer said. All the local
members of Congress, Democrats and
Republicans, are strongly in favor of
the Gateway project. But “I think we
need to educate people on the impact,
writ large, on the country. It’s not just
New Jersey and New York.
“It will have a real impact on the
entire country.”
I keep thinking back to the idyllic
Rideau Canal, still functioning as it
was meant to — and probably carry-
ing as much traffic in its entire life as
the Hudson River tunnels do in, I don’t
know, a day. Maybe two days? Yes, I’m
making that figure up, but not the
truth behind it.
We can’t rely on quaintness. Our live-
lihoods, and in fact our lives, depend on
our being able to cross the river quickly
and safely. That’s a basic government
obligation — it’s what we pay our taxes
for — and we need it. —JP
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P.O. Box 7195 Jerusalem 91077
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Fax: 02-6249240
Israeli Representative
KEEPING THE FAITH
Morris Ayin
it’s our loss
M
orris Ayin is dead, and kashrut will never
be the same.
Morris, you see, was a big influence on
me when I was a young boy. He often deter-
mined what was proper and what was not. When I was 5,
for example, my father refused to allow us to put pareve
margarine on the table during a meat meal “because of
Morris Ayin.” I did not know Morris myself, but I was
impressed that he commanded such authority.
Near the end of fourth grade, during a warp speed
exploration of the Babylonian Talmud tractate Bava
Metzia (fourth-graders do not often go in for the kind of
hot and heavy debating that
slows progress of Talmud
study to a delightful crawl),
I discovered the truth about
Morris. He was not a person,
at all, but a principle of Jew-
ish law, “moris ayin” (marit
ayin, in today’s modern pro-
nunciation, or marit ha-ayin),
which loosely means “for
Shammai the sake of appearances,” or
Engelmayer more pointedly “the appear-
ance of transgression.”
The issue in that case was
one that normally would cause a fourth-grader’s eyes to
glaze over. A person had prematurely designated certain
grains as a Temple offering, and then set a cow to the task
of husking the grain by trampling all over it. The problem
is Deuteronomy 25:4, which says: “You shall not muzzle
the ox when it treads out the grain.” That would be fine
if the grain belonged to the person whose cow was doing
the trampling, but once the grain was designated for the
Temple, it belonged to the Temple, so the man could not
let his cow eat any of it. Muzzling the cow would seem to
be the only solution, but that violates Torah law. (For how
this problem was resolved, see BT Bava Metzia 89b-90a.)
What lit up my eyes was not the image of a cow stomp-
ing on grain. That image was way beyond the capacity of
a fourth-grader on the Lower East Side, who never saw a
cow or unhusked grain up close and personal. My eyes
lit up because I finally understood why we could not put
pareve margarine on a meat table: We did not want to give
Shammai Engelmayer is rabbi of Temple Israel Community
Center | Congregation Heichal Yisrael in Cliffside Park and
Temple Beth El of North Bergen.
Production Manager
Jerry Szubin
Founder
Morris J. Janoff (1911–1987)
Graphic Artists
Deborah Herman
Editor Emeritus
Meyer Pesin (1901–1989)
Bob O'Brien
City Editor
Mort Cornin (1915–1984)
Editorial Consultant
Max Milians (1908-2005)
Secretary
Ceil Wolf (1914-2008)
Editor Emerita
Rebecca Kaplan Boroson

anyone walking by our fifth-floor window the wrong idea — that we
were mixing meat with “milk.”
Considering that anyone walking by our window was more likely
to give us the wrong idea, I asked my father about this seeming per-
plexity. He gave me the definitive answer for everything that did
not make sense: “Azoy shteyt ess geshriben” (“that is the way it is
written”).
I learned several years later that in this instance at least, it was the
correct response. In BT Shabbat 64b and several other places in the
Talmud we read: “Rav Yehudah said in Rav’s name: In every instance
in which the Sages prohibited [something] for marit ha’ayin, [the
r thing] is forbidden even in the inner rooms,” meaning it was prohib-
ited even if no outsider was likely to see it.
(To be sure, not everyone agreed with this ruling. See the debate
- between the schools of Shammai and Hillel in BT Beitzah 9a-b,
, where the issues involved drying wet clothes in the sun and moving
a ladder between one bird shelter and another on a festival.)
f Perhaps the most relevant examples of the Marit Ayin principle
are to be found in BT Avodah Zarah 12a. Three cases are presented,
all involving situations in which someone would have to bend down
in front of an idol. In the first case, the person suddenly got a splinter
in his foot and had to remove it. In the second, the person dropped
f some loose change. In the third case, a man desperately in need
t of some water finds a spring of fresh water immediately in front of
the idol. In all three cases, bending down was prohibited because of
, marit ayin — someone observing from afar could conclude errone-
t ously that the man was bowing down to the idol.
, If a person dying of thirst may not bend down before an idol to
- drink from a pool of refreshingly fresh water because doing so might
t give others the wrong impression, how much more so should it be
- impermissible to have a beef taco smothered in “cheddar cheese,” or
, a helping of beef stroganoff, made with faux sour cream and served
r over “buttered” noodles. Why is macaroni and cheese an acceptable
r dish on Pesach, if the macaroni in question only looks and acts like
- the chametz variety?
An increasing number of faux chametz products hit the market
every year at Pesach, products that would have sent old Morris Ayin
into a tailspin. In this age of gluten-free, it even is possible to bake or
buy “sandwich bread” and “pizza dough” and “blueberry muffins.”
k All year-round, meanwhile, there are all kinds of faux cheese
and dairy products for sale, all of them much improved over earlier
attempts. In many cases, it may be difficult to tell the difference.
This is kashrut? In the case of the festival only three weeks away,
this is Pesach?
Pesach is unique; the food restrictions and other distinctive fea-
t tures that accompany it are designed to emphasize that uniqueness.
We wipe out that uniqueness when the only difference between yes-
w terday and today is that the bagel is not as chewy and the Cheerios
taste a bit funny. There is a growing library of wonderful Pesach
- cookbooks offering great recipes and meal ideas. There is no reason
f to resort to the output of the faux food factories. Is it asking too much
a to go without “pizza” or “bagel and a shmear” for eight days in order
to observe one of the most momentous events in Jewish history?
t As for lacing our meat dishes during the rest of the year with faux
dairy products, we lose much there, too. There is a moral lesson
behind “do not cook a baby goat in its mother’s milk,” and every
time we keep meat and milk separate, we (in theory) are supposed
to recall that lesson.
Milk, according to the Oxford Dictionary, is “an opaque white
fluid…secreted by female mammals for the nourishment of their
young.”
Milk represents life for newborn infants, animal or human.
Meat is the flesh of a dead animal. When the Torah says not to boil
a young goat in its mother’s milk, what it means is, “Can we be so
cruel as to kill an infant and then cook it in the very liquid meant to
give it life?”
Is that a lesson to be lost? The Sages of Blessed Memory did not
think so. When it became virtually impossible for the milk being
used to cook baby goat’s meat to have come from its mother, they
expanded the Torah’s rule to include all meat and milk rather than
see the lesson disappear.
If only Morris Ayin still lived.
Opinion
Singing in cars with kids
M
y earliest memory is a song. It’s a snap- Troubled Water” from the Simon & Garfunkel: The
shot of a moment:
I’m a toddler wobbling across the
muted carpet in the playroom at the
back of the arts and crafts building in Sefarady’s
bungalow colony in Monticello, New York. A bunny
rabbit rattles in a cage. And from a staticky cassette
player, “The Kids” of Sesame Street are singing Joe
Raposo’s “Somebody Come and Play.”
This song unlocks the gateway to an entire era of
my childhood, to those long, hot summers when
family reigned supreme. Sunday mornings hanging
out in long, dry grass, dodging the dragonflies, as
my father and the other dads who came up for the
weekend try to hit home runs into the forest at the
far end of the softball field. On those same Sunday
mornings, rushing to the front lawn with my brothers
so we could be among the first in line for fresh onion
rolls or Mom’s Knishes. Trekking down the country
road with my mom to get iced coffee at Kutsher’s
Country Club. These moments of nostal-
gia are precipitated by the memory of a
single song.
I’ve been thinking about this memory,
this song, as of late, and of how music
can shape the way in which a person
remembers an event, or, as in my case,
an entire chapter of your life. Music that
accompanies a memory can invoke all
kinds of emotions — longing, fear, con-
tentment, glee. Dena Croog
This last emotion comes to mind when
I think about riding in the station wagon
with my mom when I was a kid, when she would
always listen to CBS FM. I smile when I remember
the radio station’s jingle, with its alternating bass and remember a song like “Bridge Over Troubled Water”
falsetto: “One-o-one CBS FM, One-o-one CBS FM. We
play your favorite oldies — CBS FM, New York…” I
laugh when I recall how every time I heard the words
“the morning sun is shining like a red rubber ball”
play in that car, I would think how stupid those lyr-
ics were. I laugh at how every time I heard the song
about the yellow polka dot bikini, I would wonder
why they didn’t have anything more interesting to
sing about back in the Olden Days.
And then I wonder about what kinds of music
memories my own kids are creating.
A car can be an excellent vehicle by which this
process can occur. (See what I did there?) Recently, I
was driving in the car one weekday morning with my
three daughters. We were running way behind sched-
ule and I had to reverse the commute, first dropping
off my toddler at day care so that afterward I could
walk my two older kids into school and claim their
late notes at the office.
My youngest, who woke up on the wrong side of
the crib that morning, was fussing in her car seat,
and the two oldest, in an effort to cheer her up, were
cycling through the usual favorites like “Twinkle
Twinkle Little Star,” “Head Shoulders Knees and
Toes,” and “Row Row Row Your Boat.” Finally, they
broke through with “Mishenichnas Adar marbim
b’simcha” (“When the month of Adar arrives, we
increase our joy”), an outcome that was quite apro-
pos given the lyrics and time of year.
After the first drop-off, instead of the usual Kidz
Bop Radio or Radio Disney Live — or, as is my favor-
ite, the now-defunct UK band Keane — I turned on
the CD player and introduced them to “Bridge Over
Concert in Central Park album. I didn’t hear a peep
out of them for the entire ride. I wondered then if,
perhaps, they each were forming a new memory, the
kind that they might one day look back on and smile.
Simon & Garfunkel were before my time, as the say-
ing goes, but good music is good music. My kids have
a love for music — and an ear for it, too — which they
acquired from both sides of the family. Sometimes,
the car acts as a sound stage. My 11-year-old daughter
will belt out songs from school musicals, dramatically
capturing each character’s tone and intonation. My
6-year-old is a master of the crescendo, composing an
entire 15-minute symphony — four movements and all
— about all the different kinds of feelings and how all
of them are important. And my toddler is really good
at saying “twinkle twinkle” over and over again.
I’m grateful for this shared love of music, because
I know that the layer of depth that music adds can
enhance a person’s memories, and I know that a musi-
cal moment can be a fond memory in
and of itself. This understanding of how
great a role music can play has made
me more cognizant of its existence in
the present moment, not so much in
terms of how it will affect my own future
memories, but in light of how much it
will affect those of my children.
I want them to remember hearing
Adele’s “Hello” 20-plus times on our
drive down to Orlando one winter
break, and I want them to laugh about
it with each other one day, just like we
laughed at the absurdity of its constant presence on
the radio. I want them to feel something when they
coming through the speakers for the first time, and I
want them to remember what was happening in their
lives at the time that contributed to those invoked
emotions. I want them to remember singing along
to my Keane CDs in the car ad nauseam one day, and
ask themselves, “Why didn’t mom play anything else
in the car other than Keane?” Except for that time
when they heard Simon & Garfunkel.
For me, music opens a window through which I
can reach into the past. It can have this effect beyond
the four doors of a car, as is evident with my earliest
memory listening to the sounds of “Sesame Street.”
But the car, specifically, as a shared physical space,
can function as the perfect sound studio. Whether it
involves show tunes, obscure rock bands, a first grad-
er’s on-the-fly-symphony, or a self-conscious girl in
yellow polka dots trying to step out of her comfort
zone, these days music serves as a gift, a reminder
to appreciate the importance of family. Overall,
music has the ability to transport me to a place
where new memories are formed and old memories
are palpable.
If you want some music for the road, I can lend
you a CD or two. But chances are, you already have a
soundtrack of your own.
Dena Croog is a writer and editor in Teaneck and
the founder of Refa’enu, a nonprofit organization
dedicated to mood disorder awareness and support.
More information about the organization and its
support groups can be found at www.refaenu.org.
You can also email dena@refaenu.org with any
questions or comments.
JEWISH STANDARD MARCH 9, 2018 41
Opinion
A VIEW FROM THE PEW

Stoneman Douglas High School fuels

the Never Again movement’s momentum

I
n the Megillah of Esther, because despite the heroic
verse 4:14, Mordechai efforts of this coalition to
sends this message to change the gun laws and
Esther: gun culture of America,
“If you keep silent in this cri- nearly 300 school shoot-
sis, relief and deliverance will ings have occurred across
come to the Jews from else- America between New-
where, while you and your town and Parkland.
father’s house will perish. And Mordechai’s words to
who knows, perhaps you have Rabbi Neal I. Esther led her to take the
attained to royal position for Borovitz risk of speaking up for the
just such a crisis” innocent who were threat-
I thought of these words ened by Haman. Risking
from the Purim narrative on Monday her position and perhaps her life, the her-
night, February 26, when my wife, Ann, oine of Purim was willing to stand up and
and I attended an organizing meeting and speak truth to power. So too was the hero
memorial service in New York City for the of Passover, Moses, who risked his own
17 latest victims of murder in our schools station in life and conveyed to Pharaoh the
that was organized by alumni of the Park- Divine demand “Let my people go!” Marjory Stoneman High School student Cameron Kasky addresses local students
land Florida high school. The speakers In these weeks between Purim and as they rally at his school after participating in a countywide walkout in Park-
that evening included not only young peo- Pesach I find myself reflecting upon the land, Florida, on February 21, 2018. RHONA WISE/AFP/GETTY IMAGES

ple raised and educated in Florida’s Bro- reality that like Moses at the beginning of
ward County, but also spokespeople from the Book of Exodus and Esther after her power and societal status that even our us and our fellow middle class Americans
Moms Demand Action, a 50-state coalition elevation to the position of Queen of Per- parents and grandparents could not have is Mordechai’s question to Esther, and the
founded after the 2012 murders at New- sia, we American Jews, as a community, imagined. The question that the children of call of the inner voice of God that Moses
town, Connecticut, in 2012. I mention this truly are privileged. We have political Stoneman Douglas High School are asking heard as he saw the Egyptian taskmaster

Seven reasons why Albert Einstein is a prophet

M
arch 14 of this
year marks the
139th anniver-
sary of the birth
of Albert Einstein.
The number 139 is not one
we are likely to pay attention
to, so this anniversary may
not get a great deal of atten-
tion. We tend to sit up and take Dr. Lance
notice when the anniversary is Strate
a multiple of 100, or 50, or 10,
or even 5.
At the very least, we have a psychological bent toward
even numbers, and 139 is decidedly odd. But if Einstein
were still with us, he might point out that 139 is more than
odd; that it is, in fact, a prime number, which makes it
quite significant in its own right. He also no doubt would
point to the arbitrary nature of anniversaries, and of
calendars for that matter. Einstein’s date of birth on the
Hebrew calendar was the 19th of Adar in the year 5639.
This year, Adar 19 corresponded to March 6, last year it
was March 17, next year is a leap year so it will be February
24 for Adar 1, and March 26 for Adar 2.
I suspect that the differences between the solar calendar
The opinions expressed in this section are those of the authors,
not necessarily those of the newspaper’s editors, publishers,
or other staffers. We welcome letters to the editor.
Send them to jstandardletters@gmail.com.
of secular society and the lunar calendar of Jewish tradi-
tion had some influence on Einstein’s thinking. After all,
when we say, for example, that Chanukah is coming late
in a given year, it is just as true to say that Christmas and
New Year’s are early. The experience of living with two so
very different calendars could not help but point to the
relativity of time.
And as we remember Einstein, we do so, along with the
rest of the world, for his contributions to science, as the
recipient of the 1921 Nobel Prize in physics, and the person
named in 1999 as Time magazine’s Person of the Century.
More than anyone else, Einstein was the person respon-
sible for the paradigm shift in science that replaced New-
ton’s mechanistic view of the universe with a relativistic
understanding of space and time.
And we also remember him as an especially noteworthy
member of the Jewish people, one of our many gifts to
the world, a prime example of what we sometimes refer
to as yiddishe kop, intelligence born out of a tradition of
literacy and learning, one in which teachers and sages are
seen as heroic. And we may also recall that as a Jew, Ein-
stein was forced to flee Nazi Germany as a refugee, and
that he was a supporter of the Zionist movement and the
State of Israel.
We do not remember Einstein in a religious context,
however; he was not a rabbi or talmudic scholar or theo-
logian. I want to suggest, however, that we should remem-
ber him as a prophet. Admittedly, in our tradition we
consider the age of the prophets to have ended long ago,
but we cannot rule out the possibility of modern proph-
ets altogether. And while we would tend to be suspicious
of anyone claiming to be a prophet today, Einstein never
made any such claim, so he cannot be rejected as a false
prophet.
But I do think a case can be made, and I hope you will
consider the possibility as I put forth seven reasons for
naming Albert Einstein as a modern-day prophet.
1. Einstein’s name has become synonymous with genius.
We typically say that a given individual “is” a genius, but
everyone who truly fits the description will more accu-
rately refer to “a stroke of genius” in the sense of some-
thing coming from outside of themselves. The word
“genius” originates from ancient Rome, and refers to a
guiding spirit or deity, a supernatural source, like a guard-
ian angel. (Prophets are the recipients of divine revelation,
some form of communication, or we may call it inspira-
tion, which literally means, “to breathe into,” which is
how God brings Adam to life in the Book of Genesis.)
2. As a teenager, Einstein imagined himself chasing after
a beam of light, which led to his understanding that light
cannot be slowed or stopped, that the speed of light is
constant, and that it is time, instead, that must vary. This
thought experiment was the foundation that led to his
special theory of relativity. Other thought experiments fol-
lowed, notably the difference in what we would observe
when standing on a train vs. standing on a platform as
bolts of lightning strike the train. (Prophets are known to
receive revelation via visions, as in Jacob’s ladder, Joseph’s
dreams, the chariot of fire that appeared to Elijah, and
Ezekiel’s wheel within a wheel.)
3. One of Einstein’s most significant achievements was
determining the nature of light as consisting of quanta,
aka photons, and that light has a dual nature, as both
waves and particles. Clearly, he had a unique relationship

42 JEWISH STANDARD MARCH 9, 2018

 Opinion

attacking the Israelite slave: “In this time
and place, what are we going to do?”
The Newtown murders occurred as I
was preparing for my retirement and my
move from Bergen County. I remain very
proud of the fact that the JCRC that I was
then chairing supported the initiative of
Rabbi Joel Mosbacher, who created and
led the interfaith effort “Do Not Stand Idly
By.” The JCRC — an agency of the Jewish
Federation of Northern New Jersey — part-
nered with Rabbi Mosbacher in this effort
to increase awareness and promote com-
munity involvement. As this effort spread
across the state and the nation, the North-
ern New Jersey JCRC , under the chairman-
ship of Gale Bindelglass and the profes-
sional leadership of Joy Kurland, led the
effort in New Jersey to get a first-step law
to limit the size of bullet magazines and
organized an interfaith effort to discour-
age retailers from selling AR-15 and other
weapons of war in our community.
Sadly, the efforts at legislation were
blocked by Governor Christie and other
supporters of the NRA. (I urge every one of
you to go to the Jewish Standard archives
and search for Rabbi Mosbacher’s op-ed
of December 17, 2015. Read it, and you will
see clearly that despite the statements of
the NRA, the movement to end the sale of
assault weapons is not a partisan effort,
nor is criticism aimed only at Republicans.)
Is there a direct line from the murder of
those little children and their teachers in
Newtown to the murder of teenagers and
their teachers in Parkland?
Can the articulate voices of Florida teen-
agers be the Mordechai-like call that will
awaken us from the failures of the past
apathy and inspire us to be like Esther and
Moses? To willingly risk our perceived per-
sonal security and speak truth to power
and demand real action against gun vio-
lence in America?
On March 24, students from Marjory
Stoneman Douglas High School and their
families will lead the March for Our Lives
in Washington, D.C. There will be parallel
marches around the country, including in
the New Jersey/New York area. If you want
to join me in participating, go to to register
and learn more about the planned events.
Another way to be like Mordechai,
Esther, and Moses is to join in the activi-
ties described at www.momsdemandac-
tion.org, the national group that now 4
1/2 years after Newtown, needs more of
us to join its chorus of protest. You also
can check out www.jcpa.org, the website
of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs,
where I am a vice chair; for a complete
list of Jewish communal efforts you can
join in the battle against gun violence.
Each of us also can use our consumer
power to encourage corporate America
to join the battle for sensible and safe
gun-control legislation.
As I heard the angry voices of the Bro-
ward County teens and the mournful cries
of parents, siblings, and grandparents who
lost children these past week, I saw myself
and our community. What has happened
in Newtown and Parkland can and prob-
ably will happen in Bergen County if we
stand idly by and fail once again to use
the power of our citizenship in this great
democracy to enact sensible gun control.
The choice of Never Again movement as
the name for the response by Stoneman
Douglas High School students for their
mobilization has a link to the fact that one
of the classes where students and teachers
were murdered with an AR-15 was an elec-
tive on Holocaust education. More saliently,
it reminds me that just as the horrors of the
Holocaust could have been mitigated if mil-
lions of good people had not stood idly by,
but rather, like Esther, stood up and spoke
truth to power, we 21st century American
Jews have an opportunity and a responsibil-
ity to join the March for our Lives and make
2018 the year when we bring an end to sac-
rificing our children on the altar of a mis-
understanding of the Second Amendment.
Perhaps, as Mordechai said to Esther,
we American Jews have attained our sta-
tus in American life for just such a crisis.
Neal Borovitz, rabbi emeritus of Temple
Avodat Shalom in River Edge, is a former
chair of the Jewish Community Relations
Council of the Jewish Federation of
Northern New Jersey.

to the phenomenon of light. (Prophets are closely associ-
ated with light and enlightenment, Genesis famously says
that light was the first of God’s creations, Moses has a halo
when he descends from Mount Sinai after speaking to God
face-to-face, a direct encounter with the divine counte-
nance that we pray may shine upon us.)
4. Einstein gave us a new way of understanding the uni-
verse, of space and time as a single phenomenon, space-
time. (Prophets teach us about the nature of Creation to
better understand the Creator, and our place in the world.)
5. Einstein invoked the philosophy of the Enlightenment
founder Baruch Spinoza in explaining his own view of a
pantheistic God. That is a view that traditionally has been
seen as heretical, but is consistent with some approaches
to Kabbalah, God as the Ein Sof, and certainly is accept-
able within Reform Judaism. Above all, it is a view con-
sistent with science; as Einstein famously remarked, “sci-
ence without religion is lame, religion without science is
blind.” His resistance to the uncertainty principle of quan-
tum theory was famously expressed in the quote, “God
does not play dice with the universe,” asserts that Creation
is governed by laws that are rational and ultimately dis-
cernable, as well as based on an underlying monotheism,
as God would have no one to play dice with. (Prophets
often have been critics of established religious authority,
in favor of a direct encounter with God via nature.)
6. Einstein spoke out for social justice. He did so on
behalf of his own people, in opposition to Nazi Germany,
and in favor of Zionism and the State of Israel, but also as
a strong critic of racism and supporter of the civil rights
movement in the United States. He also was quite critical of
capitalism, arguing on behalf of socialism and advocating
for a democratic world government
and pacifism after the conclusion of
World War II. (Social justice is one of
the primary themes of the Prophets
section of the Tanach.)
7. Einstein warned President Roo-
sevelt of the danger of Nazi research
into the development of the atomic
bomb, leading to the Manhattan
Project. He later became an outspo-
ken critic of nuclear weapons. His
warnings largely have fallen on deaf
ears, at least as far as governments
are concerned. In 1947, the Bulletin
of Atomic Scientists introduced the
image of the Doomsday Clock, set-
ting it to seven minutes before mid-
night. On January 25 of this year, the
minute hand was moved up to two Albert Einstein
minutes before midnight, the clos-
est it has ever been, mainly because of North Korea and
our president’s threatening remarks, and not taking into
account Putin’s recent statements about Russian nuclear
missile capability, and his animated image of the bom-
bardment of Florida. (The biblical prophets issued warn-
ings about the destruction of Israel and Judea, and the
name Jeremiah has become synonymous with pronounce-
ments of doom.)
Einstein’s predictions in the realm of physics continue
to be supported by astronomical observation and experi-
mental evidence. Perhaps his predictions about society
and politics ought to be taken seriously as well?
Why bother arguing for Einstein as
a prophet?
Because American culture always
has had a strain of anti-intellectual-
ism, one that includes resistance to
many aspects of science, notably Dar-
winian evolution.
Because climate change is at least
as great a threat as nuclear war, and
is being met with denial, dismissal, or
disinterest from significant portions
of the population, and all too many in
leadership positions.
Because facts and logic are under
assault by religious fundamentalists,
cynical political opportunists, and
corporate executives with eyes only
for short term profits.
As Rabbi Barry L. Schwartz makes
clear in his recently published book,
“Paths of the Prophets: The Ethics-Driven Life,” our prophetic
tradition is of vital importance, one that always has and always
will be relevant for us. Naming Albert Einstein a prophet
should not detract from this tradition, but rather enhance it,
by adding a dimension that we need now more than ever: the
truth that ethics cannot be divorced from an understanding of
the world, of reality, in all its complexity, and glory.
Dr. Lance Strate of Palisades Park is a professor of
communication and media studies at Fordham University in
the Bronx, and the president of his synagogue, Congregation
Adas Emuno in Leonia.

JEWISH STANDARD MARCH 9, 2018 43

Opinion
Is a Jewish Me Too movement any different?
I
’ve been following the Me
Too movement and I’ve
been fascinated by the
rise of the counter-offen-
sive against aggressors who have
been defaming, attacking, and
violating women with impunity
for generations
I was proud and happy to see
how these unabashed womaniz- Soli Foger
ers finally are being put in their
place and made to taste their
own medicine. But at the same time, I have been wonder-
ing about my liberal values and my Jewish heritage, and I
question whether we’ve not become overly merciless in our
pursuit for vengeance. Is our approach to social justice dif-
ferent than that of the society at large?
I enjoyed reading Rabbi Jordana Chernow-Reader’s arti-
cle highlighting the example of Judah, Son of Jacob, who in
his righteousness condemns his son’s widow, Tamar, to be
burned to death because of her unexplained pregnancy. At
the stake, awaiting her death, Tamar cries, “Let the man
who made me pregnant acknowledge his signet seal, cords,
and staff.” Judah recognizes his belongings. So, although
there were no witnesses to what had happened, he belat-
edly realizes his wrongdoing and declares publicly: “She is
more right than I.”
Boaz, who redeems Ruth, the Moabite widow, and mar-
ries her, is equally honorable. In both highly celebrated bib-
lical examples, strong men accept responsibility for their
actions when it comes to women and they rise to protect
them, immediately after violating them, even if mistakenly.
Boaz and Judah are the founders of our messianic dynasty,
and I couldn’t help but feel pride that we belong to a tradi-
tion that ascends such men to leadership roles.
Still, I await an answer about the limit of our eagerness for
vengeance and keeping it proportionate to the misconduct.
Are we justified in seeking retribution and going the extra
mile to react to injustice? I wondered if, when, and how far
are we allowed to do so. I turned to some scholars and rab-
bis whom I trust, inquiring about this whole phenomenon
and looking to see if there is a justification for my violent
reaction.
I do not question the conviction of the likes of Larry Nas-
sar, a persistent violator, though I doubt if assigning him
a punishment that is worse than that of Charles Manson
reflects our true jurisprudence values. But I wonder if it is
fair to compare the wrongdoing of our current president,
who’s taken pride in his public aggression against women,
with that of Charlie Rose or Al Franken, who apologized for
apparently far less damning behavior.
Is it correct for our community to condemn Elie Wiesel,
on the grounds of a young woman’s lone claim of being trau-
matized from him grabbing her behind at a photo shoot?
Or should we stop singing Shlomo Carlebach’s nigunim
because of revelations of some misconduct? Both men are
dead and unable to defend themselves against our postmor-
tem litigation.
Rabbi Elly Krimsky replies, “Shaming for the sake of
shaming or a political move would be questionable halachic
behavior, if you ask me. I too have wondered what is being
accomplished by shaming someone who is dead, where
accusations came out after their respective demises.”
And outside the Jewish world, is it justified for us to stop
supporting or celebrating the achievements of any artists,
scientists, and politicians whose past includes some stains
on their character? This is exactly what the National Gallery
in Washington proposes to do with the cancellation of the
Chuck Close exhibit.
44 JEWISH STANDARD MARCH 9, 2018
In an interview, virtual reality pioneer Jaron Lanier com-
mented on today’s ills and he suggested that movements
that are social media-centric provide negative fuel to the
social media system. To maximize the value of that fuel, they
become routed in negative reactions, so the people who
are the most irritated by whatever is going on are brought
together, and often the backlash is vastly more powerful
than the initial attempt to correct a phenomenon. His pre-
diction is that the Me Too movement will succumb to same
kind of negativity through social media, which would move
it away from its honorable pursuit of stopping violators, to
sanctioning more extreme reactions. That would cause it
to lose its moral basis, just as the Black Lives Matter move-
ment did when it yielded to extreme factions, attacked peo-
ple indiscriminately, and attached anti-Israel sentiments to
its platform. It is the very mechanism of social media-based
reactions, he argues, and we have to be careful in how and
where we place our grievances.
One more comment in response to allegation about Reb
Shlomo came from a religious woman, whose name I will
not disclose. She said, “We are talking about the 60s here.
The women completely knew what they were in for during
that time period. They created the Free Love movement;
you make your bed, you sleep in it. It takes two to tango
and women have to start taking responsibility for the cul-
ture they helped create.” While I agree with the context of
loose moral environment, and while I have mixed feelings
with all the talk about Shlomo, especially since he’s not
here to defend himself, I disagree with blaming the victim.
A woman can dress prettily and go on a date, but it doesn’t
mean that in doing so she automatically gives permission to
be sexually abused. This, no more than in meeting an insur-
ance salesman, and discussing his product, I do not give
automatic permission to have my bank account accessed
against my will.
In order to return and focus on our own Jewish sources
for how to deal with transgressions, I recall Rabbi David
Ingber’s petition against former Rabbi Marc Gafni, a once-
promising Jewish leader indicted for child sexual abuse
stretching back years. Gafni refused to admit his wrongdo-
ing, refused to admit victimizing underage girls, until he had
no choice. Then Gafni admitted to being “sick.” But 10 years
later, seeking new roles in leadership, he attacks his accus-
ers and refuses to atone for his deeds. This is inexcusable.
Relating to same question, Rabbi Jeffrey Fox from Yeshivat
Maharat says, “I talk about ‘ideological separation,’ where
it is possible to pull the good parts out and leave the bad
parts on the cutting-room floor.” He further adds, “I am
more inclined to lean toward protecting potential victims
and boxing abusers out of parts of community.”
Rabbi Krimsky adds, “In today’s world, people measure
progress and effectiveness by petitions and social media
shares. Publicizing a miracle — pirsumei nisa — such as light-
ing Chanukah menorahs is a positive side of social media.
But imagine if I (God forbid) shame someone who is inno-
cent on social media and that goes viral. The negative power
of lashon hara shows how social media can truly destroy
people. The danger of hurting the innocent exponentially
grows with social media and people’s desire to share sala-
cious material.”
Lastly, in order to return and focus on our own Jewish
sources for how to deal with transgressions, I chose to bring
Rabbi Jonathan Sacks’s article from a few years ago, where
he distinguishes between shame and guilt cultures. They
both teach people how they ought to behave, but they have
very different approaches to wrongdoing:
“In shame cultures what matters is what other people
think of you: the embarrassment, the ignominy, the loss
of face. Whereas in guilt cultures what matters is what the
inner voice of conscience tells you. In shame cultures we’re
actors playing our part on the public stage. In guilt cultures
we’re engaged in inner conversation with the better angels
of our nature.
“The biggest difference is that in shame cultures, if we’re
caught doing wrong, there’s a stain on our character that
only time can erase. But guilt cultures make a sharp distinc-
tion between the doer and the deed, the sinner and the sin.
That’s why guilt cultures focus on atonement and repen-
tance, apology and forgiveness. The act was wrong, but on
our character there’s no indelible stain.”
In shame cultures, if you’ve done wrong, the first rule is,
don’t be found out. If you are, then bluff your way through.
Only admit it when every other alternative has failed,
because you’ll be disgraced for a very long time indeed.
My wife and I were blessed with four sons and I never
had to be afraid for their safety in the same way parents of
girls must be. Thus I cannot put myself in those parents’
In shame cultures
we’re actors playing
our part on the public
stage. In guilt cultures
we’re engaged in inner
conversation with the
better angels of
our nature.
place, but in looking at our biblical sources, we have plenty
of details about compassion and atonement for sin. There is
the story of King David, who sends Uriah the Hittite to die in
battle, in order to take his wife Bathsheba, and then is tor-
mented by his deed. While the story has multiple interpreta-
tions, what is remarkable is that the all-powerful king, David,
ultimately confessed to the prophet Nathan, “I have sinned
against the Lord.” Nathan replied, “Yes, but the Lord has for-
given you, and you won’t die for this sin.” Again, atonement
is rewarded, and it is David and Bathsheba’s son, Solomon,
who later is chosen to continue King David’s dynasty.
In reading the Torah parsha from a few weeks that dis-
cussed the building of the tabernacle, I am reminded of
a midrash that teaches us that everything God created in
heaven has a replica on earth. The tabernacle reflected
things in heaven brought to help us to ascend to Torah
level. While we cannot understand how God operates in
this world, we do know that we live with the challenge to
echo the heavens and pursue life in a manner that dignifies
our tradition.
Thus, I think further about Rabbi Sacks’ words:
“Shame has a place in any moral system, but when it
dominates all else, when all we have is trial by public expo-
sure, then the more reluctant people will be to be honest,
and the more suspicious we’ll become of people in public
life, in politics, the media, financial institutions, corpora-
tions, and let’s be honest, in religious organizations too.”
We need to make it easier for people to be honest and
apologize, which means that we too must learn how to
forgive.
Soli Foger, an architect, and his wife, Dr. Tani Foger, have
lived in Englewood for 27 years. They have four sons and four
grandchildren.

House of Windsor’s Israel problem
Q ueen Elizabeth II is
marking the 66th
year of her reign
in 2018.
By any standards, that is an
extraordinarily long time for
a single person to be a head
of state. (By comparison, King
David is said to have reigned for
40 years, and Queen Victoria — Ben Cohen
comfortably overtaken now by
Elizabeth — managed 64.)
Off the top of my head, I can’t think of any current ruler
who has remained in place throughout the Cold War
and beyond. In that sense, historians will have a grand
second Elizabethan era to pour through, one so lengthy
that those things that were features of the first half of
her reign — ration books, royal family struggles with the
Church of England, a snarling punk ditty by the Sex Pistols
that rhymed “queen” with “fascist regime” — were misty
memories by the time it came to its close, in the age of
social media.
But for all the momentous historic changes that Eliza-
beth witnessed from her vantage points at Buckingham
Palace, Windsor, and Balmoral — changes that often were
blessed with royal visits, high honors, state banquets and
so forth — one country went stubbornly unacknowledged:
Israel.
Now that Elizabeth’s grandson, Prince William, has
announced the first visit by a British royal to Israel, in
addition to Jordan and the “Occupied Palestinian Terri-
tories,” it is perhaps time to reflect on the relationship, or
absence of one, between the House of Windsor and the
Jewish nation.
Part of the delight around William’s impending visit
stems from the fact that few people see the royal family as
a political entity anymore; getting a visit from a Windsor,
the son of the iconic Princess Diana no less, is a moment
for a citizen’s national pride to swell in the glow of royal
approval. When Elizabeth visited post-Communist Lithu-
ania in 2006, the BBC reported on the cheering crowds
in the capital, Vilnius, waving their own flag alongside
Israel longs for peace
I do not present myself as an expert regarding the long
history of the Middle East conflict. Nevertheless, I must
express strong disagreement with Rabbi Meir’s view
of Israel’s record during its struggle for survival (“The
occupation and Israel’s human rights record,” March 2).
To my perception, the conflict began long before the
existence of the Jewish state. From the late 1800s, Jew-
ish immigrant pioneers who legally purchased uninhab-
ited and poor quality land from Ottoman landlords were
violently opposed by Muslim Arabs. They perpetrated
pogroms (massacres) in Hebron and Jerusalem, among
others.
After the establishment of Israel in May 1948, the
violence against the “Zionist Entity” persisted and
escalated. There has been a series of aggressive wars
(intended annihilation) pursued by Arab enemies. When
these failed, tactics of terror of various types were initi-
ated along with incitement of hatred among youth. This
perpetuates the “holy war.”
the Union Jack. One might imagine that Israelis, having
emerged from a similar history of turbulence, would have
appreciated a similar opportunity.
The point, however, is not simply that the queen made
Lithuanians feel good about themselves. In a speech to the
Lithuanian parliament, she saluted all the Baltic nations
in explicitly political terms. “You have emerged from the
shadow of the Soviet Union and blossomed as sovereign
states, taking up your rightful places in the international
community and as respected members of the European
Union and NATO,” she remarked. “It is a transformation
— political, economic and social — for which there are few
parallels in the history of Europe.”
Words like these could have been heard in the Knes-
set in Jerusalem. They should have been. But as far as the
queen and her close relatives were concerned — including
her husband, the Duke of Edinburgh, whose mother, Prin-
cess Alice of Battenberg, saved Greek Jews from the Nazis
and is interred on Jerusalem’s Mount of Olives — Israel may
as well not have existed.
To pin all the blame for this unsettling indifference
toward Israel on the Arabists at the British Foreign Office,
who have been in a state of penance ever since the Bal-
four Declaration of 1917, would do Elizabeth a great dis-
service. True, unlike her forebears, her divine right to
rule has been severely tempered by the more modern
rule of law. But that manifestly does not mean that she is
a plaything of the British government, blissfully unaware
of the soft power and international legitimacy that a royal
visit grants.
The bald fact remains, then, that a monarch who was
crowned when the wounds of the Holocaust still were
fresh, who witnessed at least three attempts by Arab states
to eliminate the Jewish state, and who always m+aintained
a cordial relationship with Britain’s Jewish community,
never asserted the importance of a visit to the land where
Christianity was born.
Yet she made her way to Germany in 1965, at a time
when most Britons still could remember the Luftwaffe’s
decimation of cities like Manchester, Coventry, and Lon-
don. Most of the Middle East’s autocracies — Saudi Arabia,
Sudan, Qatar, Iran under the Shah, Turkey — received a
There has never been a sincere and genuine effort
toward peace with their Jewish neighbors. To the con-
trary, in spite of false rhetoric, the enemy’s goal remains
elimination of Israel and replacement with the hoped-for
(single) State of “Palestine.”
All of this is well known and obvious to any fair observer.
To my perception, Israel’s record regarding these grim
circumstances is the following: all loyal citizens (regard-
less of ethnicity or nationality) are accorded civil, political,
cultural, and religious rights. Religious shrines are fully
protected with unrestricted access assured.
Is this principle applied perfectly?
No.
(Where is such perfection found anywhere in the
world?)
In my opinion, Israel compares favorably in this regard
with any modern advanced democracy.
The so called “occupied” territories are far more accu-
rately termed “disputed.”
They are in large part populated by people who
Opinion
Queen Elizabeth visits Birmingham in July 2012 as
part of her Diamond Jubilee tour. WIKIMEDIA COMMONS
visit, too. There are few major democracies or Western
allies that have not received one.
It beggars belief that the shrewd Elizabeth has not rec-
ognized this anomaly, and for whatever reason, has will-
ingly complied with the need to pretend that Israel doesn’t
exist. Even if you could make a realist case that a visit to
Israel during the mid-1970s would have been unwise in the
face of the Arab oil weapon, what held the royals back in
the comparatively more peaceful times of the late 1990s?
When Arab leaders and the leaders of Israel’s former Com-
munist enemies can and have made the trip, why has Eliz-
abeth not done so?
Perhaps we shall discover the reason in a diary fragment
that emerges some time in the future. Or perhaps it will
always remain an odd secret that largely will be forgotten a
decade from now. Because at that point, if all goes to plan
and barring a scientific miracle, the queen will have been
replaced by King Charles III. Prince Charles, you see, and
not William, is Elizabeth’s direct heir, and coincidentally
he never has paid an official visit to Israel either.
William will, I am sure, say most of what needs to be
said when he arrives in Israel in May. But as you listen to
him, do remember that his grandmother should have said
exactly the same a long time ago.
Ben Cohen writes a weekly column on Jewish affairs and
Middle Eastern politics. His work has been published in
Commentary, the New York Post, Haaretz, the Wall Street
Journal, and many other publications.
Letter
are conditioned toward hatred and violence by a cor-
rupt “leadership” obsessively driven toward Israel’s
destruction.
In my opinion, this “leadership” has NO motivation
toward a peaceful “two state” solution.
This opportunity has been offered by Israel at least
twice. It has been rejected. Painful concessions in
Gaza have led to disastrous results. Terror continues
unchecked, even encouraged.
I believe that Israel longs for a true and secure peace. Its
many concessions lead me to reject Rabbi Meir’s conviction
that is is primarily motivated by “The Greater Israel Project”!
Israel’s opponents will achieve peace with consequent
full freedom and unfettered economic development when
they change their “leadership,” recognize Israel as a Jew-
ish state, and agree to sincere face-to-face negotiations.
Sadly, this does not seem to be likely in the foresee-
able future.
Jerrold Terdiman MD
Woodcliff Lake
JEWISH STANDARD MARCH 9, 2018 45
D’var Torah
Vayakhel-Pekudei: Potential
F
ebruary 29, 1992, was the last time the
Lubavitcher Rebbe spoke on Shabbos to his
chassidim. In one of his talks, the Rebbe dwelled
on the fact that the Torah reading
of the day, Vayakhel, in many years is read
together with another section, Pekudei.
Because of the varying length of the Jew-
ish year, the annual Torah reading cycle
includes certain sections that are sometimes
combined with each other to form a single
reading. An interesting feature of these
potential “pairs” is that often their names
express opposite meanings. For example,
Nitzavim, which means “standing,” is often Rabbi Ephram
joined to Vayeilech, which means “going.” Simon
Vayakhel and Pekudei, which this week Friends of
coincide, form one of these paradoxical Lubavitch of
pairs: Vayakhel, which begins by telling how Bergen County,
Moses assembled the Children of Israel, Teaneck,
means “And he assembled” and is related to Orthodox
the word kehillah, “community.” Pekudei,
which begins with an audit of the Sanctu-
ary’s components, means “the counted things” and “the
remembered things” — the emphasis on the specific items
within the whole and the individual within the community.
In other words, explained the Rebbe, Vayakhel and
Pekudei express the contrasting values of community
and individuality, and the need to unite the two: to build
a community that fosters, rather than suppresses, the indi-
viduality of its members, and to cultivate an individuality
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46 JEWISH STANDARD MARCH 9, 2018
that contributes to, rather than conflicts with, the com-
munal whole.
Then the Rebbe asked a question: If that is the case, why
does Vayakhel come before Pekudei? Don’t
we first need to develop and perfect the indi-
vidual, before hoping to make healthy com-
munities out of him and his fellows?
To build a brick wall you need bricks. To
make a watch you need gears, springs, and
balance wheels. To create a community
you need people. You can’t build a lasting
building out of half-baked bricks. You can’t
assemble an accurate timepiece unless each
of its components has first been honed to
precision. Nor, it would seem, can you put
together a perfect world out of imperfect
individuals.
But this, the Rebbe explained, is the
Torah’s very point: Make communities, even
before you have perfect individuals. People
are not bricks or gears, which must be indi-
vidually forged to perfection before they can
be assembled together in a constructive way. People are
souls, with the potential for perfection implicit within
them. And nothing brings out a soul’s potential as much
interacting and uniting with other souls.
As we approach this Torah reading and contemplate
this lesson, I can’t help but think of the many children
in our and other communities who find themselves out-
side the box of the normative yeshiva education system.
Perhaps they learn a little differently, perhaps they have
some social issues and perhaps they have nothing more
than a personality conflict with the administrators of their
particular school. In so many cases that have come across
my desk I have found that children who are not “perfect”
are either directly or indirectly disenfranchised from our
education system. This isn’t exclusive to any one commu-
nity. I have seen it in chassidish, yeshivish, and modern
Orthodox circles. We make conferences and gathering
crying and wailing about the OTD (off the derech) crisis
that hits our community and yet how much of that is due
to children being pushed out of schools or made to feel
inferior because they are different? If Jewish education
leaves a child with a negative self-image it’s a very good
chance that child will drop Jewish education. Can you
blame them? I can’t.
I am reminded of the story (Baba Metzia 84a) of the
initial meeting between Rabbi Yochanan and Resh Lak-
ish. They went on to become two of the greatest talmudic
authorities in our history, but they didn’t start out that
way. Rabbi Yochonan was a scholar and Resh Lakish was
a bandit, far removed from Jewish observance. One day
when Rabbi Yochanan was bathing in the river, Resh Lak-
ish spotted him and jumped into the water with nefarious
motives. Rabbi Yochanan turned to him and said, “Your
strength would be better suited for Torah.” When he was
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rebuffed by Resh Lakish, Rabbi Yochanan told him that if
he would turn his life around and dedicate himself to Juda-
ism and to learning, then Rabbi Yochanan would mention
him as a marriage partner for his sister. In one moment
Resh Lakish turned his life around and became one of the
greatest scholars in our history. How did that happen?
What made him change?
The answer is obvious. Rabbi Yochonan believed in
Resh Lakish. When you show someone you believe in
them, it empowers them to accomplish great things. How
much more so does this apply to our youth. The great-
est message we can give to them is our belief in them.
They are special, they are unique, they have a role in the
universe that no one else but them can fulfill. When our
children get that message from our educators, it is incred-
ibly empowering.
Banim etem l’Hashem Elokeichem, we are like children
to our creator. Just as a parent doesn’t throw away a child
who isn’t “perfect,” but loves them and cherishes them
and helps them and guides them, so too God created us
all, with all of our imperfections and doesn’t desire that
we be perfect but rather desires that we strive to live up
to our individual potentials. How painful must it be when
He sees our children being disenfranchised from various
schools and yeshivos because they fall short of some imag-
inary state of what a perfect student should be.
We would all do well to recall these last words from
the Lubavitcher Rebbe regarding these two Torah
portions and remember that imperfect individuals,
brought together in love and fellowship, make perfect
communities.
Lincoln Center
FROM PAGE 11
Margo’s preference was musical theater and the
great American songbook. “I didn’t know how to
read music,” she said. “That was part of the reason
I was so hesitant. But I soon realized you don’t have
to know how to read music coming in. You learn
through rehearsals and reading sheet music time
and again.”
That’s not all she’s learned. Like Jonah, she was a
teen leader, and this year she has taken on additional
responsibilities as an international teen leader, which
means she’s head of the chapter teen leaders, assuring
the chapter leaders have the resources they need.
Cantor Hanan calls the program non-denomina-
tional, in the sense that though you have to be Jew-
ish to join, all members of the Tribe are welcome,
whether Orthodox or Reform. (Beth Sholom is
Conservative.)
Or as Vivian Lazar puts it: “No matter what language
we speak, we all speak the language of music. That
immediately breaks down all barriers.”
1245 Teaneck Rd.
Teaneck
837-8700
 The Frazzled Housewife Crossword
OH MY ___!” BY YONI GLATT
KOSHERCROSSWORDS@GMAIL.COM
DIFFICULTY LEVEL: MANAGEABLE

Airport pickup

O
ne of the more famous “Sein-
feld” episodes is when Elaine Newark, and I think she is at terminal A.
is driving someone to the air- I drive around terminal A. No friends.
port. She starts to recount
her adventure and how there had been
no traffic and she was weaving quickly
to her destination and then she gets to
the Van Wyck and no move-
ment occurs.
I think the person she was
driving missed her flight, but
all I can remember about
the episode is her yelling,
“The Van Wyck, the Van
Wyck. Nobody beats the Van
Wyck!” That gosh darn Van
Wyck Expressway. Why is it
called an expressway? There Banji
is nothing express about it! Ganchrow
Well, Van Wyck aside, the
other day I had an airport
pickup to attend to. My friends were
coming in from Chicago for a simcha
and I told them that I would pick them
up. Because friends do that for friends,
and every time I am in Chicago they pick
me up. I was happy to return the favor.
So about two weeks ago, she told me
which airport and when her flight was
coming in, and we were good to go. I put
it down on my kitchen calendar, on the
calendar near the laundry room, and in
my handy dandy filofax next to my bed.
Airport pickups,
minutes, and off to Newark I go. I get to
I call her and she says she thinks she is
at terminal B. I drive around terminal
B and I don’t see her. I call her again.
“Where are you?” Her response, “Um,
what airport are you
at?” You see where this
is going. I was at Newark
and she was at LaGuar-
dia. With her throwing-up
daughter and her son on
crutches and four pieces
of heavy luggage and a
husband who was back in
Chicago, who wasn’t com-
ing until the next day.
Oops. I offered to pay
for the Uber, but she said
no. And I am writing this
after I have just gotten back from drop-
ping them off at LaGuardia, so, hope-
fully, I have made amends.
I could have sworn that she told me
that she was landing in Newark, but, ulti-
mately, it was my fault because she did
send me her flight information. Unfortu-
nately, I just looked at the time the flight
was arriving and not the airport. (Note to
Across Down
self, always look at the airport because
1. Word on a door 1. Keats or Lazarus, e.g.
it doesn’t matter what time they get in,
5. 10 out of 10, e.g. 2. “Nah!”
if you are at the wrong airport, you can- 10. Israeli political party or all of the 3. Kingly title not used for Jewish kings
not pick them up.) All’s well that ends Talmud 4. Bar not focused on alcohol
well. (And she brought me chopped 14. State with only one consonant 5. Pointless
liver and salami from Romanian deli in 15. Many a 2018 Olympic medaler 6. General MacArthur, to friends
16. Mario ___, Nintendo racing game 7. Therefore
Chicago, which she still gave me, even
though I didn’t pick her up. Now that is
17. One is worth about 4.5 shekels 8. “Clueless” catchphrase

there is just a good friend!)

18. “The Adventures of ___ Marsh”
(Bellow novel)
9. Kin of onions some eat on Rosh
Hashanah

something But this also reminded me of the time

when husband #1 and I were flying home
19. A ghost in “Pac-Man”
20. Gretzky, in the early 90’s
10. Less chubby
11. Make like Haman
about them. from somewhere and we had parked
23. Drink in Jerusalem?
24. ___ Diego
12. Places for Torahs
13. “Piggies” setting
When they go the car at one airport. The weather was
bad and the pilot came on and said we
25. Big name in Torah commentary...and
wine
21. “That’s what ___ about you”
22. Words before “Sam” in a Sean Penn
smoothly, they were landing at another airport, so I had 28. Meas. for Jamie Geller or Susie title

are a blessing called my dad, woke him up, and asked

him if he could pick us up at the new air-
Fishbein
31. Light, watery sprays
25. Addiction-treatment facility, briefly
26. “Wonderland” girl

and when the port and take us to our car at the other
Van Wyck is airport. He, grumpily, said yes. A few
minutes later, the pilot announced that
involved, we were going to land in the original air-
perhaps, not port, so I had to call my dad again, who,
of course, had fallen back asleep in those
35. High Priest or Giant quarterback
36. Seder part with dipping
27. Enhanced sense for a prophet?
28. Genetic feature
39. Anagram for item, mite and time
40. Who Hebrew National answers to
29. They’re used for latkes
30. Where a sukkah might be built
43. Be in pain
44. Less of a mess
32. Whack, biblically
33. General who destroyed the Second
45. Day of the week Yom Kippur can Temple

so much. few minutes, to tell him that he didn’t

No electronic reminders for me! (Mostly
because I have no idea how to put things
in my phone.)
The day of the pickup comes. I told
her to call me when she lands and then
I would leave for the airport. The phone
rings and it is her. She told me that her
son was on crutches and her daugh-
ter had been throwing up the whole
flight because she had strep. I was still
eager and happy to see them. I leave
my house, tell her I will be there in 25
have to pick us up at all.
Airport pickups, there is just some-
thing about them. When they go
smoothly, they are a blessing and when
the Van Wyck is involved, perhaps, not
so much.
Safe travels to all.
Banji Ganchrow is counting down until
son #2 gets off the plane from Israel.
Hopefully, there won’t be a column about
how he pulled off staying even longer.
Dear Lord….
never fall on: Abbr.
46. Zionist youth movement
48. “General” on Chinese menus
49. Make a bracha
51. Archaeological undertaking
53. Apple or peach, e.g.
54. Landlord, perhaps
62. Post-it message
63. Old photo color
64. Kosher forest animals
65. Ancient Peruvian
66. “Slumdog Millionaire” actor Dev
67. McGregor in “Beauty and the Beast”
68. 1922 Danish Nobelist Niels
69. Billy Joel album “___ Front”
70. Sacrificial NFL team?
The solution to last week’s puzzle
is on page 55.
34. Eye ailments
37. Shamsky or Garfunkel
38. “___ shall be called woman” (Gen.
2:23)
41. Certain orthodontic device
42. Once around, to an astronaut
47. Sipped part of a kiddush cup
50. Joshua, after Moses
52. Deep, sudden breaths
53. Song by King David
54. “U2’s” main man
55. Insect bite consequence, perhaps
56. “Groovy!”
57. “What’ve you been ___?”
58. Jaffa waterfront walk
59. State with only one consonant
60. Large amount of paper
61. Gov. ID letters
62. Small Twizzler bite

JEWISH STANDARD MARCH 9, 2018 47


ARTS & CULTURE
‘A Letter to Harvey Milk’
MIRIAM RINN
W
hat’s the likelihood that
a retired kosher butcher
would land in a writing
class taught by a young
woman with the last name of Katzif?
For those who know that “katzif” is Yid-
dish for butcher, the coincidence is highly
unlikely, but it’s sweet nevertheless.
That’s an apt description for “A Letter
to Harvey Milk,” the new musical at the
Acorn in Theater Row. Riddled with cli-
chés, studded with ancient Borscht Belt
jokes, and coated with a thick veneer of
sentimentality, the 90-minute show, set
in 1986 San Francisco, still manages to be
genuinely affecting and enjoyable. Much of
the credit goes to lively direction by Evan
Pappas and an outstandingly sympathetic
and menschy performance from Adam
Heller, who plays the one-time butcher
and would-be writer.
As the show opens, Harry Weinberg
(Heller), a widower, doesn’t seem to
know what to do with himself. He misses
his wife Frannie (Cheryl Stern) enough
48 JEWISH STANDARD MARCH 9, 2018
to keep up a conversation with her when
she pops up in bed next to him. Aside
from his daily breakfast of half an Eng-
lish muffin and a little cottage cheese,
all he’s got going is the occasional visit to
the Shakespeare Garden in Golden Gate
Park and a new writing class at the JCC.
This brand-new endeavor may be respon-
sible for the bad dreams he’s been hav-
ing, Frannie helpfully points out, but he’s
loathe to give it up. His young teacher,
Barbara Katzif ( Julia Knitel), seems more
than a little lost herself. Only loosely con-
nected to her Jewish identity, the two
things she’s sure of are that she is lesbian,
and that she wants to preserve Jewish sto-
ries, whatever that means. In Harry, she
sees the sturdy Jewish grandfather she
never had in tony Connecticut. He even
corrects her Americanized version of
“zaidy” to “zaideh.”
Barbara begins to give Harry writ-
ing assignments, encouraging him to
write what he sees. First, she asks him to
describe an ordinary day, then urges him
to focus on the details of what he does and
sees. Her assignment to compose a letter
to someone personally important who
is no longer alive kicks the play’s central
motif into gear.
Despite Frannie’s coy insistence that
he not write too much about her, Harry
instead pens a letter to Harvey Milk, the
openly gay Jewish San Francisco supervi-
sor who was assassinated by Dan White
in 1978. It turns out that Harvey (Michael
Bartoli) not only was a Long Island lands-
man, but also an occasional customer at
Harry’s store. And not only did Harry sup-
port his political campaign, he also kept
jelly beans in the shop for the “sweet-
toothed faigele.” Milk’s murder affected
both Harry and Barbara in many different
ways, and Barbara is deeply impressed
with Harry’s composition.
The musical production number
expressing Harry’s — and the city’s — grief
after Milk’s death uses the small cast and
simple set effectively, but it also offers the
banal lyric “if enough of us hold hands, no
one can hold a gun.” That sentiment has
much more power this month than it may
have had when the song was written, but
it’s still pretty lame, as are many of the
Cheryl Stern (Frannie) hugs
Adam Heller (Harry) as Julia Knitel
(Barbara) looks on. RUSS ROWLAND/ALTHM
musical’s other lyrics. It’s safe to say that
the reputations of songwriters Cole Porter
and Frederick Loewe seem secure. The
several musicians playing the score in the
balcony above the stage is a clever touch.
Still, “A Letter to Harvey Milk” over-
comes that lyrical weakness and the
occasionally cartoon-like figure of Fran-
nie on the strength of the deeply felt per-
formances of Heller and Knitel and the
book’s tight plotting. Both Harry and Bar-
bara have secrets that are eating away at
them, and the play, which is based on a
short story by Leslea Newman, has secrets
of its own, which won’t be spoiled here.
Writers Ellen M. Schwartz, Cheryl Stern,
Laura I. Kramer, and Jerry James pack a lot
into the one-act show and manage to bring
it all together at the end.
“A Letter to Harvey Milk” was a selection
of the New York Musical Theatre Festival’s
2012 Next Link Project, where it won five
awards, including Most Promising Musi-
cal. It also was a finalist for the Richard
Rodgers Award. Despite a less-than-stellar
score, it is a rewarding and touching piece
of musical theater.
 Calendar
Sam Weiss, followed
Friday by kiddush and dinner.
304 East Midland
MARCH 9 Ave. Reservations,
(201) 262-7691 or www.
jccparamus.org.

Shabbat Across
America in Emerson:
Congregation B’nai
Israel participates in the
annual SAA, 6:30 p.m.
Celebrate Shabbat
with dinner, rituals,
songs, and prayers
Jonatas Chimen around the table, led by
Shabbat in Teaneck: Rabbi Debra Orenstein
Jonatas Chimen, the and Cantor Lenny
subject of the Jewish Mandel. 53 Palisade
Standard’s February 23 Ave. (201) 265-2272 or
cover story, is the artist bisrael.com .
and scholar-in-residence
at Temple Emeth through Saturday
March 11. He will present
stories, artwork, and an
MARCH 10
experiential installation,
“In Thy Tent I Dwell.”
Lunch on Saturday
and brunch on Sunday
require reservations.
1666 Windsor Road. MAR. Kol HaNeshamah offers a Passover program with Dr. Murray
(201) 833-1322 or emeth. Spiegel, author of “300 Ways to Create an Unforgettable
org/artist-in-residence.
13 Seder,” at the Solomon Schechter Day School of Bergen County
in New Milford on Tuesday, March 13, at 7:30 p.m. 275 McKinley
Zalman Suldan Ave. www.KHNJ.org or email RSVP@KHNJ.org.
Seder fun on Shabbat:
Zalman Suldan offers
Rak leads a program Alexandra McHale, and NJS, and the Jewish
creative, hands-on ways
at Temple Emanuel Mike Speirs of Headline Federation of Northern
to make your seders
of the Pascack Valley Entertainment, 8:30 p.m.; New Jersey host a forum
amazing, engaging, and
with Israeli kosher wine doors open at 8. Light with Representative Josh
exciting at Congregation
tastings, homemade hors refreshments and BYOB. Gottheimer (D-5th Dist.),
Beth Aaron in Teaneck,
Shabbat Across d’oeuvres, and catered 221 Schraalenburgh 9:30 a.m. Part of a series
3:30 p.m. He will also
America in Suffern: desserts, 8 p.m. Wines Road. (201) 768-5112 or of events for community
give a program on
Congregation Shaarey delivered in time for www.tbenv.org. members, office-holders,
Monday, March 12, at
Israel participates in the Passover. 87 Overlook and candidates to
Congregation Rinat
annual National Shabbat
Across America and
Yisrael in Teaneck at
Drive. Reservations,
(201) 391-0801 or www.
Sunday engage in a civil and
informed discussion on
7:30 p.m. (see listing). MARCH 11
Canada. Along with tepv.org. key issues. 950 Queen
Beth Aaron is at 950
services and a Shabbat Anne Road. Reservations, Letty Cottin Pogrebin
Queen Anne Road. Israel startup nation:
meal, the Heschel (201) 836-6210 or
(201) 836-6210 or www. Baruch Labinsky, a Letty Cottin Pogrebin in
Harmonizers high school BethAaron05RSVP@
bethaaron.org. certified investment Teaneck: Congregation
choir will sing and Rabbi gmail.com.
Elchanan Weinbach will manager and financial Beth Sholom offers
Comedy in Paramus: planner, discusses “Israel: Family program in
ask “Can You Hear the breakfast and a talk with
The JCC of Paramus/
Jewish Future?” 6 p.m. The Startup Nation: A New Milford: Solomon Letty Cottin Pogrebin,
Congregation Beth
18 Montebello Road. Financial Startup for Schechter Day School of “My Three-Part Jewish
Tikvah hosts a comedy
(845)266-6445 or www. You?” at Congregation Bergen County continues Journey: Belonging,
night starring Joe
shaareyisraelrockland. Beth Aaron in Teaneck, “Sundays at Schechter,” a Alienation, Return,”
DeVito and Karen
com. 8:30 p.m. 950 community-wide Jewish 10 a.m. Ms. Pogrebin
Bergreen. Doors open
Queen Anne Road. themed interactive family was a founding editor
7:45 p.m.; show starts Congressman
Shabbat Across (201) 836-6210 or www. series, with “Passover of Ms. Magazine and is
at 8:30. Refreshments Josh Gottheimer
America in Paramus: bethaaron.org. Pandemonium,” the author of 11 books.
and dessert. 304 East
The JCC of Paramus/ PHOTO PROVIDED 10-11:30 a.m. 275 McKinley 354 Maitland Ave.
Midland Ave., Paramus. Comedy in Closter:
Congregation Beth Ave. (201) 262-9898, or (201) 833-2620 or www.
(201) 262-7691 or www. Temple Beth El’s
Tikvah participates in Meet Josh Gottheimer: www.ssdsbergen.org/ cbsteaneck.org.
jccparamus.org. sisterhood invites
the annual SAA. Family- Congregation Beth sundays.
friendly services at 6:30, the community to Aaron in Teaneck, American Jews and
Wine tasting in
led by Rabbi Arthur be entertained by the Orthodox Union Lincoln: Dr. Gary
Woodcliff Lake: comedians Steven Scott,
Weiner and Cantor Advocacy Center, Teach Phillip Zola, executive
Gourmet chef Sam

JEWISH STANDARD MARCH 9, 2018 49

Calendar
director of the Jacob or recruiting potential Registration, Whitney,
Rader Marcus Center
of the American Jewish
soldiers. Location
information, dassahdk@
Thursday (201) 337-1111, SSNJ.org/
familychallah or Wblom@
Saturday
Experience & Reform gmail.com. MARCH 15 SSNJ.org. MARCH 17
Jewish History at Hebrew
Parkinson’s support: Book program in Shabbat joint learning
Union College –Jewish
Institute of Religion in
Tuesday The Jewish Home Family Westwood: As part program in Teaneck:
Cincinnati, discusses “He MARCH 13 continues a monthly of the “One Book One Congregations Rinat
Was One of Us! American support group for those Community” project Yisrael and Beth Sholom
Jewry’s Relationship Purim and Pesach: Dr. with a diagnosis of sponsored by the Jewish hold their fourth annual
With Abraham Lincoln,” Chaviva Levin discusses Parkinson’s disease, their Federation of Northern joint learning program,
for the Distinguished “Reliving Purim & Pesach families, and caregivers, New Jersey, the Mayors “Ha-Laylah Ha-Zeh:
Speaker series at Temple — How Medieval Jews at the Jewish Home at Wellness Cookbook How the Seder Helped
Beth Rishon in Wyckoff. Book club in Wayne: in Christian Europe Saw Rockleigh. Tai Chi, 10 Club offers a program Rebuild Jewish Life After
Sponsored by the Fred The Chabad Center Redemption in Their a.m.; program at 10:30. based on this year’s the Destruction of the
Emert Memorial Adult of Passaic County’s Own Lives,” for Lamdeinu This month’s discussion, selection, “ZAHAV, A Temple,” at Beth Sholom,
Education Fund with TBR Spotlight on Book Club in Teaneck, 10:30 a.m. “Hallucinations and World of Israeli Cooking,” 4 p.m. Group discussions
patron support. Breakfast for women offers a Series concludes March Delusions Related to by Michael Solomonov led by skilled facilitators
buffet, 9:45 a.m.; talk at discussion of Georgia 20. 950 Queen Anne Parkinson’s,” is led by and Steven Cook, at the from both congregations.
10:30. 585 Russell Ave. Hunter’s novel, “We Road. Register at Tania D. Randolph, of Westwood Public Library, 354 Maitland Ave.
(201) 891-4466 or www. Were the Lucky Ones,” lamdeinu.org. ACADIA Pharmaceuticals 7 p.m. Participants (201) 833-2620 or www.
bethrishon.org. 7:30 p.m. The novel is Inc. Refreshments. 10 will prepare and share cbsteaneck.org.
based on the life of the Café Europa in Fair Link Drive, Rockleigh. one of the recipes
Challah baking in author’s grandfather. Lawn: Café Europa, (201) 750-4246 or from the cookbook at Cabaret night in
Montebello: The Dessert. 194 Ratzer Road. a social program email parkinsons@ the meeting. 49 Park Wyckoff: Temple Beth
Montebello Jewish Chani, (973) 694-6274 or sponsored by Jewish jewishhomefamily.org. Ave. Register at www. Rishon holds a cabaret
Center hosts a challah jewishwayne.com. Family & Children’s westwoodpubliclibrary. evening with music,
bake for families with Services of Northern org or (201) 664-0583. wine, cheese, hors
4- to 13-year-olds, Mentalist in Leonia: New Jersey for Holocaust d’oeuvres, and desserts,
Congregation Adas 7:30 p.m. 585 Russell
10:30 a.m. 34 Montebello
Road. (845) 357-2430 or Emuno welcomes
survivors with support
from the Claims
Friday Ave. (201) 891-4466 or
www.montebellojc.org. renowned mentalist Marc Conference, meets at the MARCH 16 bethrishon.org.
Salem in “Mind Games,” Fair Lawn Jewish Center/
Paterson roots: The
Jewish Historical Society
4-6 p.m. 254 Broad Ave.
(201) 592-1712 or www.
CBI, 11 a.m. Kosher lunch
and a musical program
Sunday
of North Jersey offers adasemuno.org. by Klezmerfest. 10- MARCH 18
a discussion, “Paterson 10 Norma Ave. Shari Film in Suffern: As
Roots Remembered and
Forgotten in Heritage
Monday Brodsky, (201) 837-9090,
ext. 237, or sharib@
part of a series of the
Rockland JCC’s Film
iCAN teen conference
in Englewood: The
Tourism Abroad,” by MARCH 12 jfcsnnj.org. Festival and Jewish Jewish Federation
Dr. Daniel J. Walkowitz, heritage events at of Northern New
11:45 a.m. Refreshments. Rockland Community Jersey and the Jewish
17-10 River Road, Fair College, the 1947 film Federation & Foundation
Eric Mayer
Lawn. (201) 300-6590 or “Body and Soul,” whose of Rockland offer the
JHSNNJ@gmail.com. theme song was written Shabbat in Wayne: Eric iCAN teen conference
by Jewish composer Mayer discusses his life as at Dwight Englewood
Mitzvah party showcase Johnny Green in 1929, a resistor and Holocaust School in Englewood,
in East Rutherford: The is shown in RCC’s survivor, 1933-1947, for 10:30 a.m.-5 p.m. The
Meadowlands Racing and Technology Center, goal is to empower teens
the annual community
Entertainment offers a 12:30 p.m. Dov Oliver, to understand and deal
Joseph Gotthelf
mitzvah showcase, noon- campus Hillel director, with what is happening
Holocaust Memorial
4 p.m. 1 Racetrack Drive, at (845) 574-4422 or on today’s college
Diane Cypkin lecture at Temple Beth
East Rutherford. Register, Ilana Kurshan doliver@sunyrockland. campuses. Kosher
Tikvah, during services
Playmeadowlands.com/ Yiddish Theatre: The CSI edu. lunch and snacks, an
Author in Suffern: that begin at 7:30 p.m.
mitzvah. Scholar Fund of the JCC Israeli market, resource
As part of a series of Mr. Mayer contributed
of Fort Lee/Congregation Blood drive in Teaneck: the Czech Torah scroll fair, separate parents’
Passover arts and crafts Jewish heritage events Ma’ayanot Yeshiva High program from 3 to
Gesher Shalom, its in TBT’s sanctuary.
in Demarest: The ETC at Rockland Community School for Girls holds a 5. Content-providing
sisterhood, and ORT 950 Preakness Ave.
chapter of Hadassah College, author Ilana blood drive with New organizations include
present the “Story of (973) 595-6565 or www.
hosts “Passover Pals,” Kurshan discusses Jersey Blood Services, StandWithUs, the
the Yiddish Theatre,” a templebethtikvahnj.org.
a children’s Passover- her memoir, “If All a division of New York David Project, act-il.
concert in words and
themed arts and crafts the Seas Were Ink,” Blood Center, 4:30- com, AEPi, Students
music, by Dr. Diane Shabbat in Mahwah:
program led by Kathy in RCC’s Technology 9 p.m. 1650 Palisade Ave. Supporting Israel,
Cypkin. Refreshments at As part of the “One
Eisler, at the Art School Center, Ellipse, (800) 933-2566 or www. Israel Action Network,
12:30 p.m.; program at 1. Book One Community”
at Old Church, 11 a.m. 12:30 p.m. 145 College nybloodcenter.org. Hasbara Fellowships,
1449 Anderson Ave., Fort project, sponsored by
561 Piermont Road. Road. (845) 574-4422 or Israeli-American Council,
Lee. (201) 947 1735. the Jewish Federation
Raffles and refreshments. doliver@sunyrockland. and the Committee for
of Northern New Jersey,
Reservations, Kid-friendly seders: edu. Accuracy in Middle East
Beth Haverim Shir
kathyeisler@gmail.com Congregations Rinat Reporting in America.
Shalom offers a “Taste of
or (201) 567-2120. Yisrael and Shaare
Tefillah of Teaneck, with
Wednesday Passover,” with an oneg JFNNJ.org.
Table cloth sale: MARCH 14 featuring recipes from
Yavneh Academy’s YPAA, this year’s book selection, OU director in Monsey:
The sisterhood of The Community
host “Seder Surprises,” “Zahav,” 7:30 p.m.
Congregation Beth Bereavement support Synagogue of Monsey
hands-on ways to make 280 Ramapo Valley
Aaron has a pre- in Rockleigh: The and the Stern family hold
your seders amazing, Road. (201) 512-1983 or
Pesach tablecloth sale Jewish Home Family the 21st annual Israel and
engaging, and exciting, bethhaverimshirshalom.
at a private home in and the Visiting Pearl Stern Memorial
with Zalman Suldan, Michal Levison and org.
Teaneck, 506 Sagamore Nurse Association Lecture, 10:15 a.m. This
at Rinat, 7:15 p.m. 389
Ave., 6- 9:30 p.m. A of Englewood hold a family year’s is in memory of
West Englewood Ave. Shabbat in Teaneck:
portion of the proceeds monthly bereavement Lila Stern, who died
(201) 837-2795. Temple Emeth offers
will be donated support group at Challah baking in in September. Rabbi
musical services with
to the sisterhood. Parents’ night for the Jewish Home Oakland: The Academies Steven Weil, senior
the Temple Emeth Band,
(201) 836-6210 or www. lone soldier parents: at Rockleigh, 11 a.m. at Gerrard Berman Day managing director of
Cantor Ellen Tilem, and
bethaaron.org. Parents of current and Program is the second School hold the “Great the Orthodox Union, will
Rabbi Steven Sirbu,
future lone soldiers are Wednesday of the Family Challah Bake,” tackle “Are We on the
8 p.m. 1666 Windsor
invited to a get-together month. 10 Link 6-8 p.m. Sponsored by Verge of WWIII? — The
Road. (201) 833-1322 or
at a private home in Drive. Peter Powers, Michal Levison, founder Shia, The Sunni, The
www.Emeth.org.
Bergenfield, 8 p.m. Hear (732) 768-1689. of “Seasoned Moments.” Iran Agreement, JCPOA
about Nefesh B’Nefesh Admission includes (Russia, China, Germany,
and about the FIDF-lone dinner and two challot France, England and
soldiers program. Not a for each family to take The United States) and
fundraiser, about aliyah, home. 45 Spruce St. Israel.” Brunch. 89 West

50 JEWISH STANDARD MARCH 9, 2018


Maple Ave., in Monsey,
N.Y. No solicitation.
(845) 356-2720 or
comsyn.org.
History of Newark: Helen
Lippman discusses “The
History of Newark from
a Jewish Perspective”
at Temple Emeth in
Teaneck’s B’yachad
breakfast, 11 a.m.
1666 Windsor Road.
Singles Shabbat in
Alyssa Alhadeff z”l
Calendar
night. Fee includes
three Shabbat meals,
Flatbush tour, guest
speakers, and Saturday
night party. Home
hospitality. 1721 Avenue
J. (646) 529-8748 or
(718) 575-3962.
Brooklyn: Star Singles
and Shadchanim host
a weekend for modern

Breakfast reservations,
(201) 833-1322 or www.
emeth.org.
Better health in West
Orange: Food guru/
cookbook author
Shannon Sarna of
“Nosher” gives healthy
twists on Passover
favorites for Hadassah’s
Every Bite Counts
Heart Health Initiative,
at the café at the Leon
& Toby Cooperman
JCC, 4 p.m. Proceeds
support the Hadassah
Medical Organization.
760 Northfield Ave.
(973) 530-3996 or
Hadassah.org/events/
northernNJnosh.
Book discussion in
Emerson: Congregation
B’nai Israel, in partnership
with the Jewish
Federation of Northern
New Jersey, hosts “A
Delicious Exploration of
Israeli Cuisine,” a “One
Book One Community”
program, 2 p.m. Recipes
from this year’s book,
ZAHAV, A World of
Israeli Cooking,” by
Michael Solomonov
and Steven Cook, along
with a variety of Israeli
snacks and sweets,
will be prepared and
served and Rabbi Debra
Orenstein will talk about
her recent six-month
experience living in
Israel. 53 Palisade Ave.
(201) 265-2272 or www.
bisrael.com.
Sports tribute to Alyssa
Alhadeff: A community
night celebrating the life
of Alyssa Alhadeff, z”l,
formerly of Woodcliff
Lake, who died in the
Parkland school shooting,
is at Superdome Sports
in Waldwick, 5:30-8:30
p.m. Registration includes
all facility games and
activities. All proceeds
from ticket sales and
vendors on site, will
benefit a non-profit that
the Alhadeff family chose
to help raise awareness
in children. 134 Hopper
Ave. (201) 444-7660 or
superdomesports.com.
Singles
Friday  Greenberg, Amy Shey Jacobs, Mark Kan-
MARCH 9
Englewood Shabbaton:
Modern Orthodox/
machmir singles, 25-
35, are welcome to a
Shabbaton in Englewood.
Intimate dinner hosted
by members of the
community, Friday night
oneg, Shabbat, and
lunch with community
rabbis and their families.
EnglewoodShabbaton@
gmail.com.
Shabbaton: Sharon
Ganz & Friends host a
post-Purim Shabbaton
for Jewish singles
at Young Israel of
Avenue J in Brooklyn,
through Saturday
COURTESY TBR
Orthodox Jewish
singles, 40s- 60s, in
Flatbush/Midwood,
Brooklyn, at the Yun Kee
Restaurant/Chap a Nosh
in Flatbush. Gourmet
catered Shabbat
meals with divrei Cabaret night at Beth Rishon
Torah, seudah shlishit,
and a melave malka is planned March 17 in Wyckoff
with entertainment, Temple Beth Rishon holds Café Beth cantor emeritus of Temple Emanuel of
and shadchanim.
FrumSingles@aol.com. Rishon, a cabaret evening, on Saturday, Pascack Valley. Piano accompaniment is
March 17, at 7:30 p.m. at the synagogue. by Judy Kessler, guitar accompaniment
Sunday It is an eclectic musical venue that offers by Cantor Mamber, and Rick Cohen will
MARCH 18 classical music, selections from the be on drums. Other performers include
Broadway stage, contemporary compo- violinist Sylvia Rubin, clarinetist Jacob
Seniors meet: Singles sitions, jazz, opera, classic rock, Ameri- Niederman, trumpeter Len Stern, and
65+ of the JCC Rockland can folk, Israeli and Yiddish folk songs, guitarist Andrew Mester. The Synco-
meets for lunch at
and a special dance performance. pated Seniors Tap Dance Troupe will
Sutter’s Mill of Suffern,
noon. 214 Route 59, Performers include the shul’s talented perform.
Suffern, N.Y. Individual
checks. Reservations,
members — singers Gale Bindelglass, Refreshments include an assortment
Olivia Fornasieri, Adam Fox, Richard of cheeses and hors d’oeuvres, fruit,
Gene, (845) 356-5525.
and desserts; attendees are welcome to
trowitz, Robin Kantrowitz, Jane Koch, BYOB. The shul is at 585 Russell Ave. For
In New York Noah Leibowitz, Cantor Ilan Mamber,
Naomi Rogin, Jamie Roitman, and Steph-
information, call (201) 891-4466, email
cantor@bethrishon.org, or go to bethris-
anie Rosenblum, and a special guest hon.org.
Friday  appearance by Cantor Mark Biddelman,
MARCH 9
ASL-interpreted
Shabbat Across
America: Town &
Village Synagogue in
Manhattan participates
in Shabbat Across
America. ASL-sign-
language-interpreted
service, 6 p.m., and
dinner, 7 p.m. 334 East
14th St., between First
and Second avenues.
www.tandv.org or
(212) 677-0368 (V).

Sign up for June trip to ballet

Jewish Women International is going to
see the American Ballet Theatre perform
“Harlequinade” with artist-in-residence
Alexei Ratmansky at the Metropolitan
Opera at Lincoln Center on June 6. A
Family portraits in Wayne
Shomrei Torah is sponsoring a family
portrait day on Sunday, March 18, from
10 a.m. to 4 p.m. The cost for a 15-minute
sitting is $35 and includes one 8x10 print.
Additional packages and individual
bus will pick up attendees at 200 Win-
ston Drive in Cliffside Park at 10:30 a.m.
Lunch is not included. For information,
call Arlene at (201) 224-4105.
prints can be ordered upon receipt of
the proofs. To schedule a sitting, call the
synagogue office at (973) 696-2500. The
synagogue is at 30 Hinchman Avenue in
Wayne.
“You and Me” by Mummenschanz
Mummenschanz at bergenPAC
Mummenschanz’s “You and Me” will be
performed on Thursday, March 22, at 8
p.m., at the Bergen Performing Arts Cen-
ter in Englewood.
For more than four decades, Mum-
menschanz has been inspiring audi-
ences all over the world with its wordless
but poetic visual theater productions.
Straight from its Swiss tour of the new
stage show “You & Me,” this vivid perfor-
mance is fun for audiences of all ages.
Tickets are available at www.ticket-
master.com or by calling bergenPAC’s
box office at (201) 227-1030.

JEWISH STANDARD MARCH 9, 2018 51

Local
Szubin
FROM PAGE 6
“When he was at Camp Ramah, he was
seen as an upholder of traditionalism; when
he was interacting with his colleagues in the
yeshiva world, about issues like agunot, he
was a voice of progressivism.”
The competition at Hadar will reflect his
father’s values because “it is an open call for
innovative research and study and teaching
that goes across all Jewish worlds, whatever
the denomination, to schools and yeshivas
and universities and academic settings. It is
demanding that intellectual rigor be applied
to a thoughtful and careful study of Jewish
text. It is unusual in its combination of rigor
and openness.
“I hope that we will get submissions from
people from all corners of the Jewish world in
terms of their own observance and practice.”
Dr. Lisa Goldstein, an otolaryngologist
who lives in Englewood with her hus-
band and their children, said that “my
brother and I grew up in a home where
creativity and intellectual thought were
very important.
“Sometimes it’s hard growing up in the
environment,” she continued. “My dad was
a critic, and sometimes my brother and
I would come home from school excited
about something we’d learned, and my
dad was so knowledgeable that he would
explain why this wasn’t really so creative.
“He really cherished things that were
original or creative. They had to be text-
based — you couldn’t just have a creative or
original thought without any proof behind
it — but he loved text-based ideas, and he
loved sharing ideas with students, with his
family, with lots of people. And he didn’t
need credit for his ideas. He would tell
people and tell them to run with it. He was
always giving away his ideas.”
He would scribble them everywhere,
Dr. Szubin added. “He was always writing
ideas on the backs of envelopes or pieces
of scrap paper.”
Zvi Szubin left boxes and boxes of papers;
the family took them to the Jewish Theologi-
cal Seminary, where they will be scanned and
then available online, both freely and free.
“He was always hoping to write a book on
the siddur and its language,” Lisa Szubin said.
“He would have a folder on the shoresh — the
root — of words from the siddur.” Those fold-
ers are in the donated boxes, and the infor-
mation — the wisdom — they hold will be
accessible to anyone who is interested.
One of Zvi Szubin’s specialties was uncov-
ering the specific legal meaning of ancient
words, a meaning often lost as the word
seemed to take on a more poetic, less pre-
cise meaning. Take the word “ahavah,” love,
Lisa Szubin said, recalling one of her father’s
lessons. The Torah tells us that Jacob loves
Rachel. He has many wives and mistresses,
but “Rachel is the loved wife. The Bible talks
about that, about who is the beloved wife, but
my father felt that it had a legal implication.
The wife who was loved was the wife who
would inherit. It meant favored in the legal
rather than the emotional sense.”
52 JEWISH STANDARD MARCH 9, 2018
It is no coincidence that her father chose
an institution that prizes not only intellec-
tual rigor and textural integrity, but also
egalitarianism, Dr. Szubin added. “That was
among my father’s values. Hadar is perfect
for my father — their decisions to include
women are text-based. And he also was
very interested in the problems of the agu-
not” — the bound women whose husbands
would not give them divorces — “and about
women’s inheritance.
“My father definitely was not in any box,
and neither is Hadar.”
Rabbi Ethan Tucker is one of Hadar’s
three founders and leaders. All three of
them — Rabbi Tucker, Rabbi Elie Kaunfer,
and Rabbi Shai Held — hold the title of presi-
dent, and he is also rosh yeshiva and chairs
the Jewish law department.
The Ateret Zvi award is a natural for Hadar,
Rabbi Tucker said. “Innovative, insightful,
and religiously oriented Torah scholarship
lies at the heart of Hadar’s agenda, and for
the last several years we have been trying to
expand and reach out to more people.
“Professor Szubin really exemplified the
synthesis between rigorous scholarship
and a searching Jewish heart, so when his
children approached us about doing some-
thing in their father’s memory that would
generate meaningful scholarship, learning,
and teaching, we were delighted to be able
to play a part in it.
“It is an unusual award. There are a lot
of opportunities for rigorous academic
research in Jewish studies, and there are a
lot of fora for rabbis and educators to give
sermons and to teach, but there are not
so many fora that really try to incentivize
people to develop a religiously oriented
message at the level and depth that we are
looking for.
“At Hadar, we believe very strongly that
the Torah belongs to and speaks to the
entire Jewish people, and this prize reflects
that. It is intended to inspire and attract cre-
ativity from across the Jewish world. We will
be very excited to entertain a diverse array
of submissions.”
Rabbi Tucker knew Dr. Szubin personally.
“I remember once teaching publicly in Wash-
ington,” he said. “It was in Adam’s commu-
nity. And I remember Professor Szubin com-
ing up to me afterward and displaying delight
in hearing what I had attempted to teach.
“I say this because as a young teacher and
scholar, to have someone with that kind of
seniority and knowledge appreciate what
you are doing, and to be engaged with it, is
inspiring.
“And I also remember the incredible kind-
ness of his demeanor.
“That combination, that synthesis, really
stands out to me.”
Submissions for the award should be
between 1,800 and 4,000 words, in Micro-
soft Word; the deadline is June 30. There’s
a great deal more information on Hadar’s
website, at info.hadar.org/the-ateret-zvi-
prize-in-hiddushei-torah. (It might be sim-
pler to Google “Hadar” and “ateret Zvi.”) If
you have questions, email prize@hadar.org.
This makeshift memorial was put up in front of Marjory Stoneman Douglas
High School in Parkland, Fla., days after the shooting that left 17 students and
teachers dead. Alex Schachter, 14, was among the victims. JOE RAEDLE/GETTY IMAGES
Local day school leaders
sign letter after Parkland shooting
JOSEFIN DOLSTEIN
The heads of 139 Jewish day schools,
including several in northern New Jer-
sey, have signed an open letter urging
action in response to last month’s deadly
shooting at a Florida high school.
The letter, released Tuesday, expresses
support for the student movement call-
ing for gun reform and seeking political
change. Prizmah, a group representing
more than 300 Jewish day schools, orga-
nized the letter.
The schools that signed on are from
the United States and Canada, and rep-
resent various denominations and affili-
ations. They include range from ele-
mentary schools with early childhood
programs through high schools.
Local schools whose leaders signed the
letter include Academies @ Gerrard Ber-
man Day School in Oakland, Ben Porat
Yosef in Paramus, Solomon Schechter
Day School of Bergen County in New Mil-
ford, Yavneh Academy in Paramus, and
Yeshivat He’Atid in Teaneck.
“As leaders in our communities, as
Jews of conscience, and most of all, as
those who have taken on the sacred
task of educating and protecting our
children, we feel compelled to join our
nation’s youth to demand action that will
increase safety in all of our schools,” the
letter reads.
It calls upon President Donald Trump,
federal and state lawmakers, and citi-
zens “to enact common sense legisla-
tion that addresses all factors contrib-
uting to a safe and secure educational
www.thejewishstandard.com
community, including restrictions and
safeguards related to guns.”
Schools approached Prizmah with the
idea to write a letter, the group’s CEO,
Paul Bernstein, said. The letter was writ-
ten by a group of heads of schools, led
by Adam Shapiro of the Golda Och Acad-
emy in West Orange.
“It’s clear that as a day school commu-
nity we needed to make a statement as
well that represented all of us, much like
many of our independent school associa-
tions have done over this last week or so.
We felt it really important that the Jew-
ish day schools stepped forward as well,”
Shapiro said.
The letter is not taking a position on
whether schools should support stu-
dent walkouts planned nationwide for
later this month and in April, according
to Bernstein.
“Some schools will get behind the
walkout, some schools will look the
other way to express what they think
is important, but at the end of the day
everyone is standing for the same thing,
which is we need to protect our stu-
dents and the professionals that work in
schools,” Bernstein said.
Bernstein said that the issue of school
safety has a special resonance in the Jew-
ish community.
“I think that school safety is some-
thing we are all acutely aware of in the
Jewish community anyway, and people
feel that it’s important we say that we
name this and we say it with our Jewish
voice as well as our voice in our larger
community,” he said. JTA WIRE SERVICE
 Obituaries

Linda Baruch Donations can be made to the Wounded

Linda Baruch, née Weiss, of Englewood Cliffs,
formerly of Buffalo, died March 2.
She is survived by her daughters, Lauren Levant
(Rick) of Hillsdale, and Deena Rosendahl (Michael)
of Woodcliff Lake, and four grandchildren, Leah and
Alyssa Levant and Lily and Nate Rosendahl.
Donations can be sent to People, Inc. in memory of
Linda Weiss Baruch and Warren Weiss. Arrangements
were by Gutterman and Musicant Jewish Funeral
Directors, Hackensack.
Stanley Hittmann
Stanley Robert Hittman, 77, of Glen Rock died March 1.
A CCNY graduate, he earned a master’s from
CUNY Baruch College. He joined the Atomic Energy
Commission and spent 10 years in the design and
development of nuclear power plants and 41 years in
the manufacturing and selling of printing ink. He was
a former president of the Glen Rock Jewish Center,
a charter member of the Glen Rock Pops Orchestra,
and served on the zoning board.
He is survived by his wife, Sheila, children, Ian
(Stacy) of Chestnut Ridge, N.Y., and Carolyn Settlow
(Robert) of Glen Rock; a brother, Barry ( Joann) of New
York, and grandchildren, Nathaniel, Rachel, and Aaron
Hittman and Nicole, Amanda, and Evan Settlow.
Robert Schoem’s Menorah Chapel, Inc
Jewish Funeral Directors
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Warrior Project or the Glen Rock Jewish Center.
Arrangements were by Robert Schoem’s Menorah
Chapel, Paramus.
Phyllis Landau Funeral Planning Simplified
Phyllis J. Landau, née Zelikoff, 92, of Paterson died
March 2.
BergenJewishChapel.com
Predeceased by her husband, Arthur, and
201.261.2900 | 789 Teaneck Road, Teaneck, NJ 07666
brothers, Howie and Stuart Zelikoff, she is survived
by daughters, Eileen Rogers and Lynne Zuspan; Owner/Manager Daniel W. Leber, NJ Lic. No3186
grandchildren, Annie and Jill Zuspan; two great-
grandchildren, and cousins.
Arrangements were by Louis Suburban Chapel, We continue to be Jewish family managed,
Fair Lawn.
knowing that caring people provide caring service.
GUTTERMAN AND MUSICANT
JEWISH FUNERAL DIRECTORS
800-522-0588
Obituaries are prepared with
information provided by funeral homes. WIEN & WIEN, INC. MEMORIAL CHAPELS
Correcting errors is the responsibility 800-322-0533
of the funeral home. 402 Park Street, Hackensack, New Jersey 07601
ALAN L. MUSICANT, Mgr., N.J. Lic. No. 2890
MARTIN D. KASDAN, N.J. Lic. No. 4482
Advance Planning Conferences Conveniently Arranged
at the Funeral Home or in Your Own Home
GuttermanMusicantWien.com
Established 1902
Headstones, Duplicate Markers and Cemetery Lettering
With Personalized and Top Quality Service
Please call 1-800-675-5624
www.kochmonument.com
76 Johnson Ave., Hackensack, NJ 07601

201-791-0015 800-525-3834
The Christopher Family
LOUIS SUBURBAN CHAPEL, INC.
serving the Jewish community Exclusive Jewish Funeral Chapel
since 1900 Sensitive to Needs of the Jewish Community for Over 50 Years

Paterson Monument Co.

• Serving NJ, NY, FL & Israel
• Graveside services at all NJ & NY cemeteries
• Prepaid funerals and all medicaid funeral benefits honored
MAIN BRANCH
Paterson, NJ 07502 Pompton Plains, NJ 07444 “Always within a family’s financial means”
317 Totowa Ave. 681 Rt. 23 S.
973-942-0727 Fax 973-942-2537 973-835-0394 Fax 973-835-0395
13-01 Broadway (Route 4 West) · Fair Lawn, NJ
TOLL FREE 800-675-0727 Richard Louis - Manager George Louis - Founder www.thejewishstandard.com
www.patersonmonument.com NJ Lic. No. 3088 1924-1996

YOU’VE SPENT YOUR LIFE CARING FOR THEM

Help your family one more time A Traditional Jewish Experience
Pre-planning your funeral allows you the time needed to make important Pre-Planning Specialists • Graveside and Chapel Services
decisions regarding your funeral options. It makes your personal wishes known.
The Jewish Memorial Chapel funeral directors will lead you through the
pre-arrangement process and be attentive to your every need. They will answer all
your questions and never pressure you into making uncomfortable decisions.
Barry Wien - NJ Lic. No. 2885
We are a Shomer Shabbos facility and uphold the highest standards of Jewish Frank Patti, Jr. - NJ Lic. No. 4169
law pertaining to funerals. Contact us for our free brochure at 973-779-3048. Arthur Musicant - NJ Lic. No. 2544
Frank Patti, Sr. Director - NJ Lic. No. 2693
841 Allwood Road • Clifton, NJ 07012
973-779-3048 • Fax 973-779-3191
www.JewishMemorialChapel.org 327 Main St, Fort Lee, NJ
Vincent Marazo, Manager 201-947-3336 · 888-700-EDEN
NJ License No. 3424
COMMUNITY OWNED AND OPERATED SINCE 1921 • NON_PROFIT
www.edenmemorial.com

JEWISH STANDARD MARCH 9, 2018 53

Classified
Help Wanted
(201) 837-8818
Help Wanted Cleaning Service Plumbing
-SALES- APL Plumbing & Heating LLC
HIGH FASHION A POLISH CLEANING WOMAN
Torah Academy of Bergen County (TABC), a vibrant Modern Orthodox Women’s boutique seeking - Homes, Apartments, Offices- Complete Kitchen &
yeshiva high school for boys located in Teaneck, NJ, seeks experienced energetic & friendly personality. 15 years experience, excellent Bath Remodeling
Fashion sales experience references. Boilers · Hot Water Heaters · Leaks
and creative teachers who are passionate about teaching and profes- required. Affordable rates! EMERGENCY SERVICE
Englewood, NJ location. Izabela 973-572-7031
sional growth for the 2018-2019 academic year. Candidates should be Call 845-558-7405
Fully Licensed, Bonded and Insured
NO JOB IS TOO SMALL!
proficient in both their subject matter and 21st Century learning skills. for more information.
201-358-1700 · Lic. #12285
Candidates should be committed to working collaboratively and to Situations Wanted
becoming part of a professional learning community. Competitive salary CAREGIVER looking for live-in/out CLEANING SERVICE Home Improvements
and benefits available in a warm, collaborative environment. positiion. Reliable, pleasant. Will Homes, Apartments, Offices

BEST BEST
B”H
do light housekeeping & cooking. Insured
20 yrs Experience of the
Positions open: Drives/own car. Speaks English.
Call me...201-699-2233 Excellent References Home Repair Service
Hebrew Language Teacher Engineering Lab Technician Call Agnes
Carpentry Painting
845-309-4448
English Literature Teacher Physics College Counselor CHHA to care for elderly. Live-in or Decks Kitchens
live-out. Pleasant! 12 years experi-
Science Department Head Learning Specialist Locks/Doors Electrical
ence! References! Drives/own car!
Basements Paving/Masonry
973-778-0884 Masonry
Qualifications: Bathrooms Drains/Pumps
Plumbing Maintenence
• Bachelor’s degree (required), Master’s degree (preferred). CHHA with New Jersey and NY PICCA Masonry Tiles/Grout Hardwood Floors
• Understands principles of social, emotional and cognitive development lics. looking for 24/7 live-in posi- Est. 1955 General Repairs
• Is proficient in both their subject matter and 21st Century learning skills tiion. 9 years experience. Referen- Waterproofing · Steps
ces. Lt cooking/cleaning. 908-275- NO JOB IS TOO SMALL
Walls · Tile · Repairs
• Uses current educational methodology to maximize student 7728 24 Hour x 5 1/2 Emergency Services
Shomer Shabbat Free Estimates
Lic #13vh00258800
engagement and to differentiate instruction. CHHA/CNA with 12yrs experience,
• Approaches problem-solving in a positive, creative and encouraging excellent references, FT, day or 201-967-9295 1-201-530-1873
night. Drives own car, available for
manner errands, appointments. Barbara
Responsibilities : 347-326-3248, 201-952-0578 Antiques
• Prepares curriculum, lessons, and assessments COMPANION, nurse’s aide/care-
• Teaches students in a nurturing environment with differentiated learning
• Manages classroom effectively
giver. Flexible hours. Days/nights.
Live-in/out. Reliable. Excellent ref-
erences. I live in Bergen County.
Sterling Associates Auctions
• Maintains open communication with, parents, and administrators about 201-951-0362
SEEKING CONSIGNMENT AND OUT RIGHT PURCHASES
the students’ progress EXPERIENCED team of
women/men available 24/7 to care Sculpture • Paintings • Porcelain • Silver
• Works collaboratively with teaching team to plan and facilitate daily
activities and special programs
for elderly. Cook, clean, drive;
starting at $10/hour. 201-814-4412 Jewelry • Furniture • Etc.
Handyman TOP CASH PRICES PAID
Help Wanted Your Neighbor with Tools 201-768-1140 • www.antiquenj.com
Home Improvements & Handyman info@antiquenj.com
Boutique - Sales Woman - Benefits Shomer Shabbat · Free Estimates
70 Herbert Avenue, Closter, N.J. 07642
Over 20 Years Experience
Boutique located in the Teaneck/Englewood area Adam 201-675-0816
looking for a full time experienced saleswoman amark2@hotmail.com · NJ Lic. #13VH05023300 FREE APPRAISALS TUESDAYS FROM 12-2
who can sell high-end evening gowns and casual Instagram: yourneighborwithtools
IN OUR GALLERY. CALL FOR APPOINTMENT.
wear. This, may be your opportunity of a lifetime. Antiques
Benefits include vacation and 401K. Salary is
commensurate with experience.
Please email resume to: Antiques Wanted We pay cash for
allfashions411@hotmail.com Antique Furniture
WE BUY Modern Furniture
ADVERTISING Modern Art
SALES REPRESENTATIVES • Oil Paintings • Silver
The Jewish Standard is looking for professional, Paintings
• Bronzes • Porcelain
ambitious, highly motivated and reliable full
and part-time outside sales representatives
Bronzes ❖ Silver
for Bergen, Hudson and Rockland counties. • Oriental Rugs • Furniture Chinese Porcelain & Art
Candidates should have solid sales experience.
Print media and digital sales a plus. Work out of • Marble Sculpture • Jewelry Men’s & Women’s Watches
our Teaneck office.
• Good organizational, presentation
• Tiffany Items • Chandeliers Top Dollar for any kind of
and writing skills • Chinese Art • Bric-A-Brac Jewelry, including costume
• Communication skills in person,
by phone and email
• Visit businesses and establish relationships
• Prospect via email and phone
Tyler Antiques ANS A
• Established by Bubbe in 1940! • Over 25 years courteous service to tri-state area
Salary + commission. Car allowance.
Send resume to natalie@jewishmediagroup.com We come to you ❖ Free Appraisals
tylerantiquesny@aol.com Shommer
Call Us! Shabbas
201-894-4770 201-861-7770 ❖ 201-951-6224
Shomer Shabbos www.aadsa726@yahoo.com
54 JEWISH STANDARD MARCH 9, 2018
 Classified

Home Repairs

Electrical

“
Plumbing
and Being hungry affects your
All Home appearance, how you act.
Repairs
When I’m hungry, I’m not in the
“
mood for anything.
Roofing

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Estimates CO. Repairs
INC.
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HACKENSACK, NJ 07601

Car Service

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The most reliable and efficient service
at all times for your transporation needs.
Our professional and courteous team works together for you.
Serving the Tri-State Area, New York and Bergen County
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Tolls, parking, wlt, stops & tps are not included • Extra $7 Airport Pickup
Prices subject to change without prior notice. Price varies by locations.
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201-641-5500 • 888-990-TAXI (8294)
Visit us online at: www.apluslimo1.com E-mail: apluslimo@earthlink.net

Solution to last week’s puzzle. This week’s puzzle is

on page 47.

Inspired by Jewish values and ideals, MAZON is a national advocacy

organization working to end hunger among people of all faiths and
backgrounds in the United States and Israel.

Help us end hunger.

Please donate today.

Call us.
We are waiting 10850 Wilshire Blvd. Suite 400, Los Angeles CA 90024
for your classified ad! (800) 813-0557 | mazon.org
201-837-8818
JEWISH STANDARD MARCH 9, 2018 55
Real Estate & Business
Holy Name’s Spring Fashion Fling
On Sunday, April 29, the Holy Name Medical Center
Foundation will host its 21st Annual Spring Fashion Fling
to benefit Holy Name’s MS Center.
The afternoon luncheon takes place at the Glenpointe
Marriott in Teaneck and includes an auction and fashion
show, with the chic styles provided by Lord & Taylor at
the Fashion Center.
WNBC-TV meteorologist Chris Cimino will serve
as honorary chairperson and Meredith Vieira will be
Attention
House Hunters.
We know what homes
are available.
We’ll accommodate your
schedule: night & weekend,
home-viewings.
vera-nechama.com / 1401 Palisade Avenue, Teaneck, NJ 07666 / 201.692.3700
56 JEWISH STANDARD MARCH 9, 2018
honorary MS ambassador.
You can support the fashion show by becoming a spon-
sor, buying an ad in the journal, donating a prize for the
auction, supporting the raffles, or making a monetary con-
tribution — and by attending the event.
Your participation will directly support Holy Name’s
full spectrum of services, tailored to meet the medical
and emotional needs of each patient. Go to holyname.
org/springfling to register or donate today.
We know Bergen County
home prices.
We’ll help you negotiate
the best price.
Teaneck has its
own radio station
It’s WFDU 89.1FM,
the varied voice of the township
WFDU-FM is a noncommercial radio station broad-
casting to the New York metropolitan area at 89.1
mhz. and is now available worldwide with live audio
streaming on the internet at www.wfdu.fm, iHeartRa-
dio, iTunes Radio, and TuneIn.com.
The station also offers iPhone and Android apps.
There are a variety of musical formats and informa-
tion shows now airing, including RetroRadio Oldies all
day Monday through Friday, and on weekends, with
Americana, bluegrass, R & B, soul, country, folk, alter-
native rock, Latin, jazz, hip-hop, doo-wop and gospel.
WFDU also hosts public service shows, features, and
radio theater with a complete schedule of web-based
music shows. as well.
For requests on RetroRadio Monday thru Friday,
call (201) 692-2012.
Run NYC’s marathon
for the Blue Card
The Blue Card, the only organization in the United States
with the sole mission of providing ongoing direct aid to
Holocaust survivors in need, was named an official char-
ity partner of the 2018 TCS New York City Marathon.
The race will take place on Sunday, November 4, 2018.
“The Blue Card is thrilled to be named as an official
charity partner of the 2018 TCS New York City Mara-
thon and to host a running team for the 10th year,” said
Masha Pearl, executive director of the Blue Card. “The
TCS New York City Marathon provides a platform on
the world stage for our dedicated runners to pursue an
amazing personal accomplishment while also raising
awareness and greatly needed funds to help the thou-
sands of Holocaust survivors struggling to make ends
meet in the United States.”
Members of Team Blue Card have raised more than $1
million since 2009 at endurance sporting events in New
York, Miami, and around the world. Overall, the orga-
nization has provided nearly $35 million to Holocaust
survivors throughout the U.S. The Blue Card helps close
to 3,000 Holocaust survivor households with ongoing
assistance for most basic needs, including food, rent,
and utilities, and for emergencies such as dental care
and special medical equipment, along with many other
programs to improve mental well-being. Of the more
than 100,000 Holocaust survivors living in the United
States, an estimated one-third live at or below the pov-
erty line, making it difficult to afford proper medical
care, mental health care, nutrition and other basic
necessities.
More than 350 official charity partners will be part
of the 2018 TCS New York City Marathon, providing
thousands the opportunity to run in the world’s most
popular marathon. “We are proud to welcome the Blue
Card to our official charity partner program for the 2018
TCS New York City Marathon,” said Christine Burke, vice
president of runner products and services for New York
Road Runners.
To join Team Blue Card, find out more information
and download the application form, go to http://blue-
cardfund.org/team-bluecard.html
 Real Estate & Business

Networking at the North Jersey Jewish Busines

Alliance’s Economic Development Forum in Jersey
City. SHMUEL LENCHEVSKY

Don't Forget
to Spring Forward
OPEN HOUSE
SUNDAY, MARCH 11
t TEANECK t

SHMUEL LENCHEVSKY
Jewish business alliance For Sale or Rent by Owner
914 Columbus Drive, Teaneck
expands to assist firms
relocating to New Jersey
More than 100 participants convened to hear about the
advantages of doing business in New Jersey and about
the many incentives and benefits available to them at 634 Johnson Ct. $469,000 1 PM – 3 PM
the first Economic Development Forum sponsored by Best offer over $700,000 or $4,400 month rent Spacious Col. Deep 124' Prop. LR/Stone Fplc. Formal DR leads to
the North Jersey Jewish Business Alliance. Move in ready 4 BR/3.5 Bath side hall colonial on large flat 8740 Screen Porch+Patio. Lg Kit/Brkfst Rm. 4 (2nd Flr) BRs. Huge High
The GROWinNJ event, held at St. Peter’s University sq ft corner lot. 3 blocks from Country Club’s Young Israel. Large Ceiling Bsmnt. C/A/C. Gar.
LR and FDR. EIK with granite counters, stainless appliances
in Jersey City, attracted businesses now outside the 147 Degraw Ave. $489,000 1 PM – 3 PM
and glass doors to XL deck, 1/2 basketball court, and fenced in
state, especially in New York, where growth options yard. Den with gas FP. Spacious bedrooms with large closets; Beautifully Updated In & Out. Open Flr Plan/Ent Hall, Sunlit LR open
are more limited, and that are thinking about moving master includes his/her walk-ins. Nicely finished basement with to DR, Gorgeous Grnt Kit/Brkfst Cntr. Slders to Party Deck. 3 BRs,
in the next year or so. guest rm/full bath. Oversize attached 2 car garage, sophisticated 2.5 New Bths. Ceramic Tiled Bsmt. 5 Car Drvwy. New HVAC.
security and sprinkler, french drains, 2 sump-pumps, new
Event chairman Maksim Sheyn, who is a senior vice 759 Cottage Pl. $548,500 1 PM – 3 PM
windows and insulation, and XXXL storage. Low taxes.
president at Investors Bank and a member of the board Call Rona 917-885-9745 Spacious Bi-Lev. 3/4 BRs, 2.5 Bths. Quiet Cul-de-sac. Lg LR open to
of directors of the NJJBA, opened the conference by Formal DR, Mod Eat in Kit. Tiled Fam Rm, Deck. C/A/C, Sprinklers,
thanking the sponsors and presenters and said: “The Portable Generator, 2 Car Gar. Rm to Expand.
great state of New Jersey has a lot to offer businesses of
all types, sizes and industries. Logistically, it’s tough to
Let Us Finance Your 584 Cumberland Ave. $595,000 1 PM – 3 PM
Charm Brick Tudor. Totally Updated. LR/Fplc open to Formal DR,
find a better place than New Jersey.”
David Rosenberg, founder and executive director
House Purchase Grnt Isle Kit. 4 BRs (2 w/ Full Bth), 4.5 Bths Total. Game Rm Bsmt. 2
Zone C/A/C. 2 Car Gar.
of the group, welcomed the guests and announced • Direct lender 639 Churchill Rd. $785,000 1 PM – 4 PM
that the “alliance will now also assist out-of-state busi- • 2 to 3 day approval Just Listed! Mostly Brick CH Col. Expansion Poss. 70'x144' Prop.
Prime W Eglwd. LR/Fplc, Cov Slate Patio. 4 BRs, 3 Bths, Huge Bsmt.
nesses when choosing New Jersey. We have a wonder-
ful team and many resources for your business to ease • Closings within 30 days 2 Car Gar. C/A/C.
the process.”
The forum was comprehensive and informational
• Northern NJ Appraisers
• FHA loans w/55% debt ratio
BY APPOINTMENT
Custom Cape. Beaut Decorated. LR/Fplc, DR/Built-ins, Lg EIK/Grnt
for businesses expanding in or moving to the state,
Cntrs. 4 BRs, 2.5 Bths. Ceramic Tiled Fin Bsmt. Patio. Gar. $379,000
with each speaker addressing a different area. • Credit scores as low as 580 Col on 50'x132' Prop. 3 BRs, 3.5 Baths. LR open to DR, Den, Ultra
Michele Brown, president and CEO of Choose NJ, Bill
Isle Eat in Kit, Fam Rm. 2 Zone C/A & Heat, 2 Car Gar. $499,000
O’Dea, Hudson County freeholder and deputy director
Storybook Eng Tudor. Gorgeous Inlaid Oak Flrs. Ent Hall, Grand
of Elizabeth Development Company, and Ted Zangari,
LR/Stone Fplc, Sunlit Library, Lg Formal DR, Den, Ultra Designer
chair of the real estate department at Sills Cummis & Kit/Butler Pantry. Master Suite/New Bth+ 3 more BRs. 2.5 Bths
Gross, spoke about the different incentives for busi- Total. Spectacular Blue Stone Walkways & Landscaping. 2 Car Gar.
nesses expanding in or moving to N.J. and how things $689,000
may soon change. Sunlit, Sprawling Bi-Lev. C. Club Area. 2 Story Ent, Grand LR,
Tom Coughlin, president and CEO of BCB Bank, told Formal DR, Ultra Isle Kit/Deck. 4 BRs, 3 New Bths incl Master Suite.
the audience about small business banking and EDA Larry DeNike Daniel M. Shlufman Lg Fam Rm, New Roof/Siding/Windws/Cent Air. 3 Zone H/W Heat. 2
President Managing Director Car Gar. $759,900
loans, and Richard Mirliss, managing partner of Col-
MLO #58058 MLO #6706
liers International – N.J. explained how warehouse dshlufman@classicllc.com ALL CLOSE TO NY BUS / HOUSES OF WORSHIP /
ladclassic@aol.com
space in northern New Jersey was becoming limited HIGHWAYS / SHOPS / SCHOOLS
because increasing numbers of businesses are moving Classic Mortgage, LLC For Our Full Inventory including
into the state. Serving NY, NJ & CT Details & Pictures, Visit our Website
For more information on alliance activities, email 25 E. Spring Valley Ave., Ste 100, Maywood, NJ www.RussoRealEstate.com
info@njjba.com 201-368-3140
www.classicmortgagellc.com
MLS
#31149
(201) 837-8800
JEWISH STANDARD MARCH 9, 2018 57
Real Estate & Business

Cancer talk in Hackensack

SELLING YOUR HOME? The Memorial Sloan Kettering – Hack-
ensack Meridian Health partnership
will host its first talk in the Cancer Sci-
ence Today series on Thursday, March
15, at 6:30 p.m. at the John Theurer
Cancer Center at Hackensack Univer-
sity Medical Center, in first floor con-
ference rooms 1 and 2. The evening’s
topic is “Knowing Your Family’s Can-
cer Risk.” The event is part of a series
of complimentary community talks.
Dr. Elizabeth Jewell, director of
surgery at MSK Monmouth and MSK
Basking Ridge, and Dr. Deena Mary
Atieh Graham, breast and gyneco-
logic medical oncologist at John Theu-
rer Cancer Center at Hackensack Uni-
versity Medical Center, will lead an
interactive community talk address-
ing topics including an overview of
cancer and genetics, genetic testing
and counseling, available preventive
treatments and resources available to
patients and families through the MSK
– HMH Partnership.
The conversation, which will include
an audience Q&A at the end, will be
moderated by Joanna Gagis, host of Life
and Living on NJTV.
Formed in 2016, the MSK – HMH
partnership combines the expertise
of two world-class organizations to
work toward more cures for cancer
and increase patient access to the high-
est-quality cancer care available. Ulti-
mately, the partnership will develop
new standards of cancer care and open
joint treatment facilities.
To learn more about the partnership
or register for the event, go to http://
www.MSK-HMHPartnership.org/.

Call Susan Laskin Today

To Make Your Next Move A Successful One!
BergenCountyRealEstateSource.com Cell: 201-615-5353
©2018 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. REAL ESTATE
NVE-3501 Rev Mugs No Rates Ad 5x6.5_NVE-3454 Fall Mortgage Ad 5x6.5 3/2/18 2:06 PM Page 1
2018
Thursday, March 15th * 7:00-8:30
Teaneck Public Library
Auditorium
Warm up to our sweet 840 Teaneck Rd., Teaneck NJ 07666

mortgage rates. TAXES – What Homeowners Need to Know

• How the current tax laws affect homeowners
• What to consider as you decide to buy/sell
• Current real estate market trends

PLUS a Q&A session so you can get the answers

you need as a prospective buyer or seller
RSVP: (201) 310-2255 or wendydess@aol.com
Refreshments and coffee will be served.
7-YEAR 15-YEAR 25-YEAR
MORTGAGE MORTGAGE MORTGAGE
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Wendy Wineburgh Dessanti (chair), Barbara Ostroth, Allegra House, Deborah Pico
Mihael Baer, Wayne Ratti, Liz Santos, Joseph Viganols, Michael Adler, Steven Finklestein

Jimmy J
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Choose from a variety of mortgage options and rates at NVE.

the Junk Man

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painless — exactly what you’ll find when you work with our Mortgage
Specialist at NVE. Plus, our decision makers are local — paving the way
18
87 201
8 to a smooth and hassle-free process from start to finish. RESIDENTIAL & COMMERCIAL
WE CLEAN OUT:
Call today at 201-816-2800, ext. 1233,
Basements •Baseme Attics • Garages • Fire Damage
or apply online at nvebank.com Construction Debris • Hoarding Specialists
Constru
PROOF O.K. BY: _____________________________ O.K. WITH CORRECTIONS BY: _________________________
WE RECYCLE
PLEASE READ CAREFULLY • SUBMIT CORRECTIONS ONLINE CALL TODAY FOR A FREE ESTIMATE CALL
NMLS #733094

Bergenfield I Closter I Cresskill I Englewood I Hillsdale I Leonia I New Milford I Teaneck I Tenafly
ADVERTISER: TEANECK CHAMBER OF COMME
SALES PERSON: Cristina Nickson
PUBLICATION: NR-Suburbanite South
201-66•1845-600-5941
201-661-4940 - 4940
PROOF CREATED AT: 3/6/2018 11:49 AM
PROOF DUE: -
NR-0004243094-01.
2
We do notNEXT RUN DATE:
transport 03/08/18
solid or hazardous waste We d
SIZE: 3 col X 4.88 in INDD
58 JEWISH STANDARD MARCH 9, 2018
 Are you or a loved one a
Holocaust Survivor?

Jewish Family & Children’s Services, through generous funding from

Jewish Federation of North America, can now assist Holocaust Survivors with
the cost of home health aides while in a hospital or rehabilitation facility.

• For 90% of the survivors we assist, their home health aides

are their primary caretakers.
• When survivors need to be placed out of the home
temporarily, they lose their connection to the person who has
become their day-to-day lifeline.
• This causes disorientation, decreased communication,
agitation, and anxiety as they are not cared for in the way in
which they are accustomed.

Our survivors deserve to be cared for with dignity and consideration.

We are proud to be able to offer this bridge funding to cover to the cost of
personal care services during hospital or rehab stays.

For information on this program or other services for Holocaust Survivors including:

Café Europa, Shabbat meal delivery, home assessments, dental assistance and care management,
please call (201)837-9090 or email PattyS@JFCSNNJ.org.

17-10 River Rd, Fair Lawn, NJ 1485 Teaneck Rd, Teaneck, NJ 1 Pike Dr, Wayne, NJ
www.jfcsnnj.org
201-837-9090

JEWISH STANDARD MARCH 9, 2018 59

 CEDAR
is
SEDER
Ready!
Cedar Market's delicious and fresh meats are

Kosher for Passover!

Fresh Cut Daily Chicken, Turkey & Duck
High Quality Prime Black Angus Beef, Lamb & Veal
We also carry a full line of prepared Oven Ready Meat and Poultry items

646 Cedar Lane • Teaneck, NJ • 201.855.8500 • Fax: 201.801.0225

info@thecedarmarket.com • www.thecedarmarket.com