Jewish American Heritage Month

Posted By admin on March 8, 2022

ITS been an exciting start to the year for thousands of Jewish students enrolled in public primary and high schools in Sydney, with the NSW Board of Jewish Education (BJE) updating its range of Judaism and Hebrew education programs, and introducing some new ones.

Jo Gluckman, BJEs Head of Experiential Jewish Life and Learning, told The AJN a new program has just commenced called Natif, which translates in Hebrew to pathway.

Natif is a brand new program BJE offers as an alternate to, or an addition to, traditional-based bat and bar mitzvah lessons, Gluckman said.

Its designed for bar and bat mitzvah-aged students to further explore their Jewish values.

Tailored to any level of previous knowledge, the program utilises a creative and engaging teaching and learning approach based on Jewish values of tikkun olam, integrity, and kindness, and explores how to integrate those principles and practices into daily life.

Woollahra public school BJE students Liviu Bighel (left) and Zachary Bernstein.

Gluckman said BJE is also implementing its new Special Religious Education (SRE) and SRE Extension curriculum, to offer students more experiential and tangible ways to connect on their personal Jewish journey, and collaborating with the Sydney Jewish Museum to enrich the learning experience for HSC students enrolled in a Studies of Religion course.

She said BJE has a team of dynamic young madrichim (youth leaders) that will breathe new life into Jewish education and engagement, and personalise connection for each individual student.

At BJE, we have redefined our vision of a Jewish journey a tailored roadmap for each child, student and family to connect in a way that is significant to them.

BJE is busy planning the Nesiah Year 10 Israel Program, which provides an opportunity of a lifetime for Jewish students in year 10 to spend five weeks on an educational experience in Israel with other Jewish youth, learning about Israel and their Jewish heritage.

Its family engagement program, Jwave, continues to provide the opportunity for families to meet up and connect at various events, including a tenpin bowling session for families with a year 7 student prior to their first day of high school, and the first Magical Picnic event for families with a child starting kindy, year 1 and year 2.

BJE also hosts many overnight camps, day camps, shabbatons, and social activities for Jewish students, like Milkshake Madness at a local cafe, and an Amazing Race style fun day.

For more information about BJEs programs, visit bje.org.au. To check out what family activities Jwave has to offer, go to jwave.org

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Posted By admin on March 8, 2022

Harold Bonavita-Goldman, 79, formerly of Philadelphia, the one-time president and chief executive officer of the Jewish Federation of Greater Philadelphia, and before that the president and CEO of Jewish Family and Childrens Service of Greater Philadelphia, died Saturday, Feb. 5, of cancer and COVID-19 at Northern Dutchess Hospital in Rhinebeck, N.Y.

A prolific fund-raiser, inspirational mentor, and entertaining dinner party raconteur, Dr. Bonavita-Goldman was able to simultaneously bring people together and get important things done. Formal but friendly, he saw the big picture, understood how others worked together best, and created programs that addressed the smaller issues that comprised the larger concern.

As president of the Jewish Federation from 2000 to 2006, he oversaw a controversial restructuring of the organizations goals and operations that focused on both its service objectives and budgetary targets.

Finances are not driving our agenda, he told The Inquirer in 2003. Whats driving us is the need to be able to communicate to our community, our stakeholders, what we stand for.

Eventually, the federation adjusted its financial commitment to all 26 constituent agencies and named three funding priorities: synagogues and other gateway institutions, Jewish education, and programs to help the poor and elderly. The goal is to have maximum impact on the big issues, Dr. Bonavita-Goldman told The Inquirer.

The first openly gay leader of the federation, Dr. Bonovita-Goldman told the Forward publication in 2006 that he did not make my personal agenda my work agenda. However, he said that some parents were grateful for his personal honesty.

They would come up to me and say they were pleased that I was so public about who I was because they felt it provided a good role model, he said.

As a leader at Jewish Family and Childrens Service from 1984 to 1999, Dr. Bonavita-Goldman helped rejuvenate the organization and oversaw new initiatives devoted to, among other issues, the prevention of domestic violence and increased services for the poor, elderly, and those with special needs.

We, as Jews, have a special mission in this world, he told writer Ami Eden in 1999. We came out of slavery. We need to be conscious of others because we are other.

In a tribute, officials at Jewish Family and Childrens Service said: His compassionate leadership continues to have a lasting impact on the legacy and mission of our work.

He also served as chairman of the steering committee for the Pennsylvania Council of Children, Youth & Family and on the board of overseers at the University of Pennsylvanias School of Social Policy & Practice. Later, he was executive director of Bnai Jeshurun in New York for five years.

Born Oct. 14, 1942 in Memphis, Tenn., Dr. Bonavita-Goldman grew up in an Orthodox family. He earned bachelors and law degrees at the University of Memphis, and a masters degree in social work at the University of Illinois.

At first, he provided legal aid to the needy in Tennessee and Illinois, and later became a political aid and chief legal counsel to the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services. His fathers death in the 1980s rekindled his interest in Jewish culture, and a bout with cancer spurred him to earn a doctorate in social policy at the University of Chicago.

He met John Bonavita, a medical executive and radiologist, in 1982 at a dinner party in Philadelphia. Sharing a love of art, travel, and other things, they were partners for 39 years and lived in Philadelphia, New York, and elsewhere. They married in 2011.

We influenced each other in certain ways, Bonavita said. He didnt let people get close, but he allowed me to see him. And he softened my edges.

Dr. Bonavita-Goldman was close to his sister, Marilyn Weinman, and niece Sharon Weinman. He and his husband visited art galleries and museums on weekends, renovated several homes, and traveled often to Israel.

He liked to read mysteries, watch Buffy the Vampire Slayer on TV, and sit with his goldendoodle Charlie. He could charm anybody, his husband said.

In addition to his husband, sister, and niece, Dr. Bonavita-Goldman is survived by other relatives.

Services were Feb. 8.

Donations in his name may be made to the presidents challenge scholarship fund at the State University of New York-Ulster, 491 Cottekill Rd., Stone Ridge, N.Y. 12484, and America Votes, 1155 Connecticut Ave. NW, Suite 600, Washington, DC 20036.

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Please join us for The Ritchie Boys: How Jewish Refugees Helped Win World War II with Dr. David Frey, founding director of the Center for the Holocaust at West Point.

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In 1942, the Military Intelligence Division, despite a history of bias,established the Military Intelligence Training Center (MITC), which recruited soldiers otherwise marginalized in American society: refugees from Nazi-occupied Europe, Japanese Americans, Native Americans, African Americans and women. Thesegroups possessed invaluable linguistic, cultural and intellectual skills that made them particularly effective at helping the U.S. fill a strategic gap in its intelligence-gathering capabilities. Among the Ritchie Boys (and Girls), named for Marylands Camp Ritchie, the MITCs location, were several thousand young Jewish refugees from Hitlers Europe and several hundred second-generation Japanese Americans (Nisei) who made huge contributions to the defeat of the Axis, the occupation governments and the war crimes trials in Germany and Japan.

In addition to discussing the origin of the MITC, its training and some of the contributions of its graduates, Dr. Frey will discuss how the intelligence techniques taught at Camp Ritchie are still relevant and utilized today and how they can help us to better understand the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Dr. David Frey is professor of history and founding director of the Center for Holocaust & Genocide Studies (CHGS) at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. As CHGS director, Dr. Frey oversees a comprehensive atrocity studies program and has spearheaded efforts to increase Defense Department understanding of, research into and efforts to prevent mass atrocity. He is the 2021-22 William J. Lowenberg Memorial Fellow on America, the Holocaust and the Jews at the Mandel Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM), researching World War II-era marginal soldiers. These include Jewish refugees who joined the U.S. Army military intelligence and contributed to reshaping concepts of American citizenship and belonging. Author of Jews, Nazis, and the Cinema of Hungary: The Tragedy of Success, 1929-44 (IB Tauris, 2017; winner, 2019 biennial Hungarian Studies Association Book Award), co-author of Ordinary Soldiers: A Study in Law, Ethics and Leadership (USHMM, 2014)and co-author of Least-Worst Decisions: The Leadership of LTG Romo Dallaire during the Rwandan Genocide (forthcoming), he taught at Columbia University after earning his Ph.D. in Central European history there. He serves on the USHMMs Education Committee and the executive committee of the Consortium of Higher Education Centers of Holocaust, Genocide & Human Rights Studies.

This talk is sponsored by the Temple Isaiah Brotherhood and Temple Isaiah Adult Learning.

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YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio The Youngstown Area Jewish Federation is announcing a rebranding of its senior living offerings and launch of a new website atYAJF.org/seniorliving.

Eric Murray, executive director of senior services, said the new branding and website better highlight the offerings of Senior Living by Youngstown Area Jewish Federation.

We offer a continuum of care including assisted living, adult day services, skilled nursing, and rehabilitation, he said. Our new branding and website make it easy for potential clients and their families to understand what we offer and to find exactly what they need.

Senior Living by Youngstown Area Jewish Federation includes Heritage Manor Rehabilitation & Retirement Community and Levy Gardens Assisted Living, and is located on an 18-acre campus on Gypsy Lane.

Heritage Manor offers 24-hour licensed nursing care seven days a week and is rated as a five-star nursing facility by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, according to a press release. It is the only Veterans Administration-approved provider of long-term care in Mahoning County, according to the release.

Short-term care services are also offered. These services include all types of physical, occupational and speech therapy.

Access to onsite mental health counseling through Jewish Family & Community Services is also available. The Adult Day Services program includes on-site nursing and is wheelchair-accessible. The center seeks to serve each individuals unique needs through individualized care plans, which include a variety of services in a supervised and structured environment, according to the release.

Levy Gardens Assisted Living Facility offers one- and two-bedroom apartments. Transportation to doctor appointments and grocery stores are also available.

All tenants receive a membership to the Jewish Community Center of Youngstown and have on-site support for daily living activities such as bathing, dressing and medication management.

Published by The Business Journal, Youngstown, Ohio.

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Youngstown Area Jewish Federation Rebrands its Senior Living Offerings - businessjournaldaily.com

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More than 200 members of Chicagolands Jewish community gathered Monday night to pray for peace in Ukraine and raise money for humanitarian efforts.

We know we cant change how a war goes in a practical sense, but we can change things in a spiritual sense, said Rabbi Yochanan Posner, who helped organize the gathering at a hotel ballroom in Skokie.

We believe God is listening and gets involved in human events, said Posner, who is part of Lubavitch Chabad, an international Jewish organization that is represented in 35 cities across Ukraine.

Rabbi Levi Notik estimates there were about 350,000 Jews in Ukraine before Russia invaded Ukraine.

That number is harder to assess as thousands have fled along with other Ukrainians to avoid the carnage of Russian troops and bombs.

Mushka Gurevitz, 30, is a high school teacher who lives in Chicago. But her father, Rabbi Pinchas Vishedsky, just days ago fled Ukraine to a neighboring country where he is currently doing whatever he can to assist refugees with food, shelter and transportation.

Sometimes he simply offers a good word, a hug, a prayer, a hope, she said.

A chorus of prayers that were beamed onto projector screens were offered up Monday night.

When asked what specific action he was praying for that would bring peace to Ukraine, Posner deferred.

I feel like I dont need to tell God how to do his job. I need to let God know that we need action. There has to be a change. And hell figure out the best way to make it best for everybody, said Posner, who has cousins who fled bombing in Kyiv.

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The General Encyclopedia (Di Algemeyne Entsiklopedye) was a Yiddish language publishing project created in Berlin, Paris, and New York from 1932 to 1966. It was begun optimistically in Berlin to celebrate the 70th birthday of the Russian-Jewish historian Simon Dubnow, who would be murdered in the street by Nazis in Latvia just over a decade later.

Initially planned as an all-embracing reference work, the encyclopedia became a record of the Holocaust and focused on preserving European Jewish culture that had disappeared during the war years. A new study by Barry Trachtenberg, author of previous books on the Holocaust and Yiddish culture, explores how the project was planned and executed. Recently Benjamin Ivry spoke to Trachtenberg about the triumphs and tragedies of the Entsiklopedye:

Benjamin Ivry: The Entsiklopedye was written by eminent Yiddishists, including Max Weinreich, head of the Yiddish Scientific Institute (YIVO); the Hebraist Simon Rawidowicz; and historian Salo Baron. There was also Sholem Schwarzbard, who assassinated the Ukrainian leader Symon Petliura, ostensibly for his role in presiding over anti-Jewish pogroms during the Russian Civil War. The Oxford English Dictionary notoriously enlisted help with definitions from a homicidal inmate at an asylum for the criminally insane, but was the Entsiklopedye the first reference work to employ a sane assassin?

Trachtenberg: I dont know if Schwarzbard was the first, but when I discovered that he had been a salesman for the Entsiklopedye and died in Cape Town, South Africa, where he was promoting the project, I decided I had to go there. The Entsiklopedye served many functions, and one of them was a make-work project for many of its participants. This was my sense of what happened with Schwarzbard. Elias Tcherikower, who organized Schwarzbards defense [in Paris] was also one of the central figures for planning the Entsiklopedye. Schwarzbards association lent prestige to the effort. He wasnt a particularly polarizing figure, certainly not among the Jewish left.

In volume one of the Entsiklopedye, one of the few women granted a biographical article was the English Jewish author Grace Aguilar. Was Aguilar considered acceptable because as a refined invalid, she suited an old style domestic ideal of womanhood, like a Jewish version of Elizabeth Barrett Browning? As opposed to including an article on a revolutionary such as Emma Goldman, for example.

Actually, a contribution on anarchism by Goldmans associate Alexander Berkman was rejected by the editors for being political. We can only speculate as to the reasons why some subjects were excluded. They put in very obscure male figures sometimes, but only very notable women.

The Entsiklopedyes chief editor Raphael Abramovitch eked out a living in Berlin as correspondent for the Yiddish Forverts, having been hired by Abraham Cahan when the latter visited Germany. Were most of the Entsiklopedyes contributors impoverished literati?

[Abramovitch] was paid in dollars and spent his salary in deutschmarks, which was how he was able to survive in Berlin at a time of hyperinflation. Yes, without a doubt, they were all schlepping for income, working as journalists, authors and teachers, trying to start new ventures to live off their intellectual labors, but it was extraordinarily difficult at the time. Part of the reason why there were so many contributors on the spectrum between the Communists on the left and Zionists on the right was that the editors were trying to extend employment opportunities to so many of their political comrades.

In 1946, the volumes on The Jewish People: Past and Present began appearing, an English-language presentation of aspects of Jewish life. An older article on The Anthropology of the Jewish People was silently revised by Claude Lvi-Strauss, while Gershom Scholem was irked when his Jewish Mysticism and Kabbala article was translated and reprinted without his permission. Why do you suppose that Lvi-Strauss labored in humble anonymity while Scholem was worried about his authors rights?

Lvi-Strauss happened to be in exile in New York, so they paid him $25 to revise a rather antiquated article. Its interesting that Scholem was so upset about his author rights. The date on his letter of protest was June 5, 1945, and its fascinating that anyone would be giving time and attention to this issue at that historical moment. I think he felt rightfully protective of the works that would appear under his name.

The Holocaust & the Exile of Yiddish reproduces an illustration of Easter Island, renamed Passover Island (Peysekh-indzl). Was this standard Yiddish terminology?

I use this image a lot in presentations because it is a light moment in a not always light subject. In common Yiddish parlance, I have been assured, Peysekh is used as a substitute term for Easter, with an etymological reference to the Paschal lamb, so it may not have just been for laughs, as I believed at one time.

You point out that in 1968, after the last Entsiklopedye volume appeared, Leo Rostens best-seller The Joys of Yiddish annoyed some scholars as an assortment of lowbrow and off-color jokes. Because of when the Entsiklopedye appeared and the difficulties involved, did it memorialize a culture without the wit and humor inherent in the Yiddish language? After all, it reproduces Jeremiah, a painting by the German Jewish artist Lesser Ury of the Bibles weeping prophet. This tragic aura evokes what Salo Baron called the lachrymose conception of Jewish history seen in books by Heinrich Graetz and Leopold Zunz.

After Peysekh-indzl, theres not a whole lot [of humor in the Entsiklopedye]. I think the notion that Yiddish is defined by lightness and off-color jokes was not a priority for the Entsiklopedye editors, given their circumstances. The threads of humor that run through Yiddish culture, present in European Yiddish cinema and theater, reached some of their greatest heights in America. So in the 1960s, when people started to rethink the possibilities of Yiddish, thats what they looked to, because they were looking forward. But so many older Yiddishists had already passed on by then and those remaining were thinking about preserving their legacy and creating an archive of their own demise.

Ben Zion Goldberg, an editor at the New York Yiddish daily Der Tog (The Day), compared the Entsiklopedye project to the creation of YIVO, about which some people scoffed that Yiddish was better suited for the marketplace than academia. Goldberg concluded: I believe in the encyclopedia. Did the project require belief, as in a deity, to be completed?

Im not sure it required belief at the level of a deity, but they certainly saw the project as a spiritual mission, even for this group of secular Jews. Yiddish was coming into its own as a language of modern thought and they had been instrumental in bringing this about during their youth. The encyclopedia was going to be their final great accomplishment. There was an enormous sense of responsibility and dedication, even after the project no longer made economic sense. They fled as refugees with as much of the project as they were able to carry en route, since they saw these remnants as the building blocks for a revitalized Yiddish culture.

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Mar 7th 2022

by Alexander Clapp

Milla Kirishun had plenty of opportunities to leave Ukraine before last week, she tells me by way of introduction: This is not how I planned on doing this. Kirishun is a small, delicate woman with oversized brown glasses and a tuft of grey hair. For nearly 80 years she watched the Jewish community of Bila Tserkva, her hometown, trickle away. The small city, 80km south of the Ukrainian capital Kyiv, is notorious for its bloody history. When the second world war broke out a fifth of the population was Jewish most of them were killed in 1941 by Nazi SS troops supported by Ukrainian soldiers. Soon after the initial massacre, some 90 Jewish children were slaughtered too.

During the Soviet era, the Jews of Bila Tserkva were subject to pedestrian anti-Semitism. Ukrainian boys might not lend you their bikes if they found out you were Jewish, Kirishun recalls. Most Jews departed in 1991 after the Soviet Union collapsed. More left later in the 1990s, as recession and hyperinflation made it hard to earn a living. When Kirishun worked as a typist in a local ceramics factory, she was paid in pairs of socks in lieu of cash, rather improbably.

By 2000, virtually all of Kirishuns old neighbours and childhood friends had gone to Israel to start their new life. Kirishun stayed. A decade later, she was one of just 150 Jews in a town home to 15,000 only a generation before. At an early age I saw that there was a stigma against being Jewish, she says. Some of my friends tried to hide their identity. But I went the other way. I embraced it. Yes, Im Jewish! I would tell anyone who asked.

Ukrainian boys might not lend you their bikes if they found out you were Jewish

After the Maidan Revolution of 2014, when the overthrow of the pro-Russian government resulted in a simmering war with Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine, two of Kirishuns daughters emigrated one to work in Warsaw, another to study in Tel Aviv. But she didnt want to leave. Her stalwart presence in Bila Tserkva was the stuff of local legend. Milla Kirishun! Youre still here? young townsfolk would ask, half-joking, when they saw her.

On February 25th, the day after Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine, Kirishun packed up her life in half an hour and left Bila Tserkva. This wasnt how I was planning on doing this, she repeats, in a voice drained of emotion. In a quiet corner she stood alongside Tanya, another of her daughters, and her grandson, Klim, stocky beneath his bright yellow hoodie.

Rumours of the invasion had been circling in Bila Tserkva for weeks but Kirishun hadnt taken them seriously. We had heard all these threats from Putin before, she says. But the day before Russian forces launched their attack, Kirishuns daughter called from Warsaw urging her to get out of the country as fast as possible. Kirishun finally listened.

That Friday, she and Tanya left home and spent the night in the gymnasium of Mitzvah 613, Bila Tserkvas last remaining Jewish primary school. They had no time to pack anything of sentimental value. We took whatever we could grab the fastest, she says. I thought I was taking a few things to make do in a basement for a few days. It didnt occur to me then that I was probably leaving for life. In the evening, Kirishun, Tanya and a small group of friends lay on mattresses side-by-side on the floor of the school gym and listened to the faint crackle of artillery. They left the next morning, after learning that the Russians appeared to be targeting military installations, concerned that the gym might be confused with an aircraft hangar.

They went to a friends house, who led them down to the basement, where two beds were already made up. Why did you take out such beautiful bed-covers for us? she asked her friend. Dont you know were only staying for the night? The next morning Milla and Tanya boarded a bus to Lviv in western Ukraine.

We took whatever we could grab fast. It didnt occur to me then that I was probably leaving for life

Looking out of the window as they drove, they spotted a plane flying ahead they couldnt tell if it was Russian or Ukrainian. They forced themselves to remain calm as police boarded the bus at checkpoints along the road. Were they looking for Russian spies? The strangest thing about the journey was the absence of men: most had stayed to fight. By the time Milla and Tanya crossed the border, the government had banned men between 18 and 60 from leaving the country.

Her new life began in Korczowa, an unassuming village straddling a single-lane road tucked in the gently rolling hills of south-eastern Poland. The bus dropped Kirishun and dozens of others at a vast shopping centre that had been renovated to receive the mounting swell of refugees from Ukraine. Inside, hundreds of camp beds were arranged in neat lines. People drank hot tea out of plastic cups or curled up in blankets with chess-board patterns of brown-and-white squares. Many refugees had relatives in Poland ready to take them in. Not so Jews like Kirishun, or many Chechens, Kazakhs, Tajiks and others fleeing Putins invasion. Some were being transported back to the countries where their families came from. To organise these repatriations, women walked around with placards like taxi drivers in an airport arrival hall TAJIKS!, UZBEK EMBASSY!.

Three generations of Kirishuns Milla, Tanya and Klim now find themselves in the middle of their own complex process of repatriation, caught between one life and another, awaiting the chance to resettle in Israel. This is not how I planned on doing this, Kirishun repeats for a third time, wearily.

She and other Jewish refugees drove five hours from their arrival point in Poland to a hotel a few miles south of Warsaw, where a lobby full of Jewish Ukrainians was hoping for Israeli visas to be approved. It was a strange place for such a dramatic almost Biblical exodus. Tourists awaiting delayed flights mingled with the Jewish evacuees. A janitor wiped his mop across a faux-marble floor cluttered with battered suitcases. Refugee children in parkas and yarmulkes played tag among the empty tables of the Czekolada Caf.

Many of these evacuees have never visited Israel. For some, it was the first time theyd left Ukraine. After days of hectic travel, they had lapsed into uneasy idleness. In the hotel car park, new arrivals from the border were dropped off by taxi and greeted with hugs, then rounds of nervous questioning. Are others coming? Whats the state of Ukraine?

In a corner of the lobby, sitting on grey sofa cushions piled on the floor, two elderly Ukrainian men observed the commotion and quietly debated the sort of missile that had recently struck the opera house in Kharkiv, a city in east Ukraine suffering an intense Russian bombardment. It was a Grad rocket, one explained matter-of-factly, almost as if describing the weather. On March 5th, a Russian rocket pulverised a number of homes in Bila Tserkva.

The Kirishuns escape from Ukraine was organised and financed by the Jewish Agency, a state-sponsored NGO in Israel that for nearly a century has facilitated the immigration of Jews from around the world. It also has experience getting Jews out of conflict zones as far afield as Georgia and Ethiopia. According to Max Lurye, the Jewish Agencys regional director in Ukraine, social media and groups on Telegram, an encrypted messaging app, play a crucial role in this evacuation. Immense logistical challenges nevertheless remain, he says.

People need to prove their Jewish identity to be evacuated to Israel. This can be tricky. Some Jews in the Soviet Union changed their last name to avoid discrimination; others burned their birth certificates. It can take months of combing through Soviet records, Red Army registers and local archives to determine who qualifies for a new life in Israel. Immigrants need at least one Jewish grandparent. Before war broke out in Donetsk in 2014, it was widely believed that there were 5,000 Jews in the region, Lurye says. But 6,000 came to us seeking new lives in Israel. So no one really knows the true number of Jews in Ukraine.

New arrivals were greeted with hugs, then rounds of nervous questioning. Are others coming? Whats the state of Ukraine?

The challenges will continue once the refugees reach Israel. The state must find accommodation for the new arrivals. Psychologists will offer therapy to those traumatised by their experiences. Hebrew lessons will be laid on, though people of Kirishuns age will find it hard to acquire a new language. Lurye reckons that some 4,000 Jews were evacuated from Ukraine in the first week of the conflict. Within six months, he says, another 50,000 people who qualify for Israeli citizenship may leave more than a quarter of the estimated Jewish population in Ukraine.

I asked Kirishun how she was going to prove her Jewish identity to those overseeing the visa process. She produced a fat green folder that she had been clutching behind her back for the past hour. Inside, pages of black-and-white photos showed generations of Kirishuns in Ukraine, and there were photos of Kirishun herself standing in front of a white fence in Bila Tserkva. There were crinkled Soviet birth certificates Kirishuns, in utilitarian blue dating to 1946, was stamped NO 623939 and Soviet military certificates attesting to the valour of her father, who fought with the Red Army throughout the second world war and helped capture Berlin. She had land records dating as far back as the Tsarist empire; some documents had burnt edges.

You said you didnt have time to pack anything of sentimental value. Isnt all this sentimental to you? I asked. No, she answered, pausing and shaking her head. Its not sentimental. Its just who we are.

Alexander Clapp is a journalist based in Athens. He is reporting from Ukraines western border for 1843 magazine

PHOTOGRAPHS: AYMAN OGHANNA

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How the last Jews of Bila Tserkva escaped Putins army - The Economist

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Rabbi Avremy Raskin, director of the Chabad Jewish Center in Brattleboro, Vt., stands outside a barn on Upper Dummerston Road, in Brattleboro, that will be turned into a synagogue.

A barn on Upper Dummerston Road, in Brattleboro, that will be turned into a synagogue.

A barn on Upper Dummerston Road, in Brattleboro, that will be turned into a synagogue.

Rabbi Avremy Raskin, director of the Chabad Jewish Center in Brattleboro, Vt., and Michael Hoffman stand together inside a barn on Upper Dummerston Road, in Brattleboro, that will be turned into a synagogue.

A barn on Upper Dummerston Road, in Brattleboro, that will be turned into a synagogue.

A barn on Upper Dummerston Road, in Brattleboro, that will be turned into a synagogue.

Rabbi Avremy Raskin, director of the Chabad Jewish Center in Brattleboro, Vt., stands outside a barn on Upper Dummerston Road, in Brattleboro, that will be turned into a synagogue.

A barn on Upper Dummerston Road, in Brattleboro, that will be turned into a synagogue.

Rabbi Avremy Raskin, director of the Chabad Jewish Center in Brattleboro, Vt., sits on a hay bail inside a barn on Upper Dummerston Road, in Brattleboro, that will be turned into a synagogue.

Rabbi Avremy Raskin, director of the Chabad Jewish Center in Brattleboro, Vt., stands outside a barn on Upper Dummerston Road, in Brattleboro, that will be turned into a synagogue.

A barn on Upper Dummerston Road, in Brattleboro, that will be turned into a synagogue.

A barn on Upper Dummerston Road, in Brattleboro, that will be turned into a synagogue.

Rabbi Avremy Raskin, director of the Chabad Jewish Center in Brattleboro, Vt., and Michael Hoffman stand together inside a barn on Upper Dummerston Road, in Brattleboro, that will be turned into a synagogue.

A barn on Upper Dummerston Road, in Brattleboro, that will be turned into a synagogue.

A barn on Upper Dummerston Road, in Brattleboro, that will be turned into a synagogue.

Rabbi Avremy Raskin, director of the Chabad Jewish Center in Brattleboro, Vt., stands outside a barn on Upper Dummerston Road, in Brattleboro, that will be turned into a synagogue.

A barn on Upper Dummerston Road, in Brattleboro, that will be turned into a synagogue.

Rabbi Avremy Raskin, director of the Chabad Jewish Center in Brattleboro, Vt., sits on a hay bail inside a barn on Upper Dummerston Road, in Brattleboro, that will be turned into a synagogue.

BRATTLEBORO Theres a list of essential items needed to turn a barn on Upper Dummerston Road into a Jewish temple.

Insulation, electricity, furnishing, said Rabbi Avrohom Raskin, director of the Chabad Jewish Center in Brattleboro. Its really not as daunting as starting from scratch.

His group purchased the property on Dec. 15. Raskin said about $100,000 was raised for the effort, mostly from local community members.

People were so excited to give and participate and make this a reality, he said. Its a community space.

A fundraising campaign for the renovations is underway. Information can be found at ChabadBrattleboro.org/donate.

Michael Hoffman sold the 11-acre farm where Raskin now lives in a house with his family. Hoffman estimates the two-floor barn built in the mid-1990s is about 2,000 square feet.

Raskin said engineers will be hired to help come up with a plan that includes accessibility for individuals with disabilities. Also, the hope is to eventually have a community garden and a kosher deli. Raskin expects to export the meat from New York or somewhere else rather than running a slaughterhouse onsite.

Especially for Passover, we know people who will drive hours to find unique Jewish food, and that we want to provide here, God willing, he said.

Hoffman and Raskin have been friends for a few years. Hoffman participates in some of the community activities organized by the center.

Im hoping this can be the most amicable, enthusiastic and friendly purchase thats around, he said, having helped with different aspects of the transition.

Hoffman said he wanted to downsize and simplify during the COVID-19 pandemic. He relocated somewhere closer to downtown.

He said he felt the center would provide new life and the right life to the property.

Its a little bit of closing the circle, said Raskin.

His great grandparents came to Vermont in 1914 and his great grandfather served as a rabbi in Barre.

My family has been spreading Judaism in Vermont for 100 years, said Raskin, whose parents moved to Burlington in the 1980s. Were continuing in Vermont to build Jewish infrastructure and to celebrate Jewish life here.

Raskins wife is from Brooklyn, N.Y., where the couple lived for two years after getting married. His father, who serves as regional director of the Chabad of Vermont, asked if they wanted to come to southern Vermont as they searched for a place to open a Chabad center in the U.S.

Seeing a need for a center in the local community, Raskins family arrived in Brattleboro about 10 years ago. He said he always had a special love for Vermont.

For now, due to the pandemic, some of the centers activities are happening in the house. Others are being held via Zoom.

Raskin described the Chabad experience being a team effort in which his wife and children interact with members of the center and work on its mission alongside him. He said the new property would be perfect for that model.

Hoffman recalled Raskin telling him, I got five kids. Theyll love it.

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Posted By admin on March 8, 2022

If you planned a bar or bat mitzvah or a wedding in the last two years heck, if you were simply invited to a celebration for a couple months down the road you can probably empathize with Riva Gambert, director of the East Bay International Jewish Film Festival.

For a brief, bright window back in the early fall of 2021, with vaccines widely available and the delta variant waning, the EBIJFFs return to theaters for its annual March shindig seemed likely. As the deadline approached to book cinemas, however, the pandemic took another turn for the worse.

We had to make a decision as omicron was surging, Gambert recalled in an interview. That involved not only projecting the risks posed by the disease but also dealing with local government guidelines and facility protocols. When the Sundance Film Festival put the kibosh on its in-person screenings in January and pivoted to an entirely virtual program, that sealed the deal.

So the EBIJFFs 2022 edition unspools March 12 to 26 online, as it did last year. To augment and enhance the festival-on-the-couch approach, no fewer than a dozen of the 30 films in the program will be followed by recorded talks by professors and other experts, such as Israeli Deputy Consul General Matan Zamir (for Avi Neshers 1948 saga Image of Victory) and historian Fred Rosenbaum (for the World War II dramas Berenshtein and Into the Darkness).

Another piece of good news is the leap from last years reduced slate of 18 films to this years 30, including the teens-only, socially distanced, in-person screening of The Raft, Oded Razs crowd-pleasing tale of four Israeli teens determined to sail to Cyprus for a big soccer match. (Call the festival office at (925) 240-3053 or visit eastbayjewishfilm.org to reserve a ticket.)

Gambert said the program was expanded so no gems would have to get left on the screening room floor. Each member of the screening committee said, We cant get rid of this film, with everyone citing a different favorite.

Also, she added, Its been a tough two years for our community, and we wanted to give back.

The decision to present a bigger festival than in 2021 was made easier by that most welcome development, a plethora of quality Jewish-themed films to choose from. This abundance can be attributed to a confluence of factors, notably Covid-buffeted distributors releasing titles they had once earmarked for theatrical release and filmmakers finishing movies sooner than expected during and after lockdowns.

Vadim Perelmans Holocaust-era drama Persian Lessons illustrates the pandemic-era flux that has especially impacted adult-oriented foreign-language films. Acclaimed at its Berlin International Film Festival premiere in February 2020, the saga of a Belgian-Jewish POW whose survival strategy requires teaching Farsi a language he doesnt know to a Nazi officer is finally reaching the East Bay.

Its taken us two years to get it, Gambert said. The U.S. distributor wouldnt even take our phone calls.

Similarly, the distributor of The Automat, an affectionate history of the sadly defunct New York and Philadelphia restaurant chain Horn & Hardart, originally wanted to wait for audiences to return en masse to theaters. (Makes sense: A film about the attraction and necessity of affordable public spaces where strangers paths cross should be experienced in just such a place.)

But in the face of demand from virtual festivals, the distributor relented, and the EBIJFF grabbed Lisa Hurwitzs documentary which features Mel Brooks singing his original tribute song to open the festival.

Films are made to be seen, Gambert said, and theres a limit to how long you can keep a film off the screen, even if its a small screen in someones living room.

Screenwriters and directors are looking at the global Jewish experience in an expanded way, she continued. There are different ways of incorporating a Jewish subplot, or a historic event, that would probably not have made their way into films a decade ago.

The German coming-of-age drama Wet Dog is an especially exciting example, with its familiar-yet-fresh take on immigration, assimilation and identity filtered through an Iranian Jewish youth.

It brings you inside a predominantly Muslim community in Germany, and it focuses on how young people teens, early 20s identify more with the birthplace of their parents than where they live, Gambert said. Parts of it are sad, like the good part of holding on to your own culture but not being part of the national experience. What does it mean to have a certain ethnic identity, and how do you live it to the fullest?

Gambert is particularly pleased that the festival found three solid comedies, led by the German romantic comedy Love & Mazel Tov and the French dramedy Rose. Assaf Abiri and Matan Guggenheilms droll geriatric marijuana farce Greener Pastures has the additional benefit of fulfilling one of Gamberts perennial goals: To showcase aspects of Israeli life and Israeli moviemaking that are generally overlooked.

Israeli films deal with so many subjects and themes and characters and plotlines which arent what the average person normally thinks about Israel politics and conflict, Gambert said. Films allow us to think about the depth and complexity of Israeli culture and society.

Not many people have grappled with that complexity and depth with more insight than the Israeli novelists Amos Oz and David Grossman, whose lives and ideas provide ample grist for the documentaries The Fourth Window and Grossman.

The festival opens with The Automat on March 12, after which two new films will begin streaming every day through March 26. Each will be available to stream for seven days. For example, Powder Keg: The Day We Died and The Fourth Window will be available for a week starting March 13, and Plan A and The Pianist from Ramallah will be available for a week starting March 22. The two films that start on March 26, Minyan and Tiger Within, will be available through April 1.

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Posted By admin on March 8, 2022

...The Flood Warning is extended for the following river inIndiana...Illinois...Wabash River....The Flood Warning continues for the following river in Indiana...Illinois...Wabash River..Ongoing and renewed flooding will continue or develop alongportions of the East Fork White, White, and Wabash Rivers over thenext 24 to 48 hours and beyond. River stages are rising again due tothe one to over two and a half inches of rain received from Saturdaynight through this morning. Minor flooding is expected, whichprimarily impacts river roads, parks, and agricultural land.PRECAUTIONARY/PREPAREDNESS ACTIONS...Be especially cautious at night when it is harder to recognize thedangers of flooding.Flooding is occurring or is imminent. Most flood related deathsoccur in automobiles. Do not attempt to cross water covered bridges,dips, or low water crossings. Never try to cross a flowing stream,even a small one, on foot. To escape rising water find another routeover higher ground.Additional information is available at http://www.weather.gov/ind.The next statement should be issued Tuesday afternoon by around 100PM EST /1200 PM CST/.&&...FLOOD WARNING NOW IN EFFECT UNTIL WEDNESDAY, MARCH 16...* WHAT...Minor flooding is occurring and minor flooding is forecast.* WHERE...Wabash River at Terre Haute.* WHEN...Until Wednesday, March 16.* IMPACTS...At 21.0 feet, The Wabash River extends to Interstate 70Mile Marker Number 4 from its west bank in the Terre Haute andWest Terre Haute area. All lakes in this area are affected by seepwater and reach capacity with some minor flooding.* ADDITIONAL DETAILS...- At 8:30 PM CST Monday /9:30 PM EST Monday/ the stage was 18.9feet.- Recent Activity...The maximum river stage in the 24 hoursending at 8:30 PM CST Monday /9:30 PM EST Monday/ was 18.9feet.- Forecast...The river is expected to rise to a crest of 20.9feet Thursday morning. It will then fall below flood stageTuesday, March 15.- Flood stage is 16.5 feet.- http://www.weather.gov/safety/flood&&

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New exhibit opens at the Candles Holocaust Museum highlighting experiences of Jewish women - WTHITV.com

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