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THE CHICAGO
JEWISH NEWS
March 13-19, 2015/22 Adar 5775
www.chicagojewishnews.com
One Dollar
JAN’S
STAND
An exclusive
interview with
Rep. Jan
Schakowsky
on why she
didn’t attend
Netanyahu’s
speech to
Congress
Is feeling panicked in
Jewish genes?
Israel gets ready to elect
a prime minister
Rabbi Tucker on
a day to unplug
New theater
for Windy City
2
Chicago Jewish News - March 13-19, 2015
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Chicago Jewish News - March 13-19, 2015
Feeling panicked? It could be in the genes
By Deborah Kotz
Washington Jewish Week
In designing and testing theories on how the body programs
its 19,000 genes, Moshe Szyf, a
geneticist and molecular biologist at McGill University in
Montreal, has expanded the notion of Jewish guilt.
Sure, we might feel bad
about passing along hereditary
genes that raise our baby’s future
risk of breast cancer, obesity or
depression. But now, thanks to
Szyf’s research, we must contend
with the possibility that our experiences early in life could shift
how those genes are expressed for
generations to come.
Thus young stockbrokers
who escaped from the tumbling
towers of 9/11 might be raising
preschoolers a decade later who
are prone to panic when they
smell burnt paper or fireplace
ash. Those who crash dieted during teenage years might wind up
with grandchildren with slower
metabolisms designed to better
handle starvation.
Researchers studying the
children and grandchildren of
Holocaust survivors have found
that they have higher rates of
post-traumatic stress after enduring car accidents, possibly due to
modifications in their stress hormone system inherited from their
survivor parents.
Szyf, however, prefers to
take an optimistic view of his
field, called behavioral epigenetics.
“It introduces an element of
freedom and responsibility,” Szyf
says. “With a deterministic
genome, we can’t decide what
kinds of mutations we pass on,
but if experience is important in
building a healthy genome, it
gives us a feeling of some level of
control.”
In his current research, Szyf
is attempting to determine
whether tinkering with environmental conditions, like diet or
stress levels, could alter the way
in which certain genes function,
specifically those involved in
cancer.
“I’m interested in identifying early markers of adversity to
see if they can be altered with
lifestyle interventions or drugs,”
Szyf says.
Born in London and raised
in a family of observant Jews,
Szyf headed to Bar-Ilan University in Israel to study political science and Jewish studies, but
parental encouragement to learn
more “practical” subjects pushed
him to transfer to dental school
at Hebrew University. While
working on his doctoral thesis
with an Israeli epigenetics researcher in the late 1970s, he
found his real passion and says he
has never regretted his decision
to abandon dentistry.
For the past two decades,
Szyf and his McGill colleagues
have been studying methyl
groups that att ach at various
points to long strands of DNA.
Szyf refers to the methyl groups
as “punctuation” that mark genes
in certain places to determine
how they work to help cells manufacture proteins – akin to
changing the meaning of a sentence by swapping out an exclamation point for a period.
“These methyl groups make
out the language of our DNA,
and if they go awry, you’re in
trouble,” Szyf says.
Epigenetics researchers initially believed such changes in
genetic programming occurred
only during fetal development,
putting even more pressure on
expectant mothers to eat nutritiously, manage stress and avoid
environmental exposures with
potential risks to their developing babies.
But recent landmark studies
conducted by Szyf and others
suggest that methyl groups could
be added to DNA in adulthood –
at least in rodents – due to
changes in diet or environmental toxins. Those epigenetic additions could be passed on to
future generations, causing permanent changes in gene function.
In a study published last year
in the journal Nature, researchers from the Emory University School of Medicine found
that mice exposed to a particular
odor along with small electroshocks developed a fear of
that smell and later gave birth to
offspring that also had a high
stress response whenever they
were exposed to the odor. The
researchers also found methyla-
Researcher Moshe Szyf in his lab at McGill University in Montreal. (JTA)
tion changes in a smell receptor
gene in both the mothers and
offspring.
In other experiments, Szyf
and his research group examined
the DNA of rat pups raised by
mothers who neglected them.
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Chicago Jewish News - March 13-19, 2015
Contents
Jewish News
■ Danish Muslims can create a peace ring around a Copenhagen synagogue that came under a deadly attack, the city’s police said after originally refusing the request. The peace ring is
scheduled to take place at the central Copenhagen shul, or Krystalgade Synagogue. On Feb. 14, a volunteer Jewish security guard,
Dan Uzan, was shot and killed there by a lone Islamist gunman
who hours earlier had killed one in a shooting at a free speech
event at a cultural center in the Danish capital. Police had cited
security concerns for rejecting the original request, which was
made a week after the shootings. The Copenhagen organizers are
planning to duplicate a similar initiative that took place last
month in Oslo, where reports said that more than 1,000 people,
including many Muslims, formed a human chain around a synagogue in a show of support for Jews.
■ Hillel International President Eric Fingerhut was aware of
who would speak at a J Street conference before he confirmed his
attendance, the liberal Jewish Middle East policy group said.
“After agreeing to speak for the first time in a public forum with
J Street U students he chose to pull out, citing objections to the
other featured speakers,” J Street U, the group’s campus affiliate,
said in a statement. “The speakers were clear to Mr. Fingerhut before he confirmed and Mr. Fingerhut was not being asked to share
a podium with anyone he might find objectionable,” the statement said. Fingerhut’s statement said he withdrew from the conference because he had “concerns regarding my participation
amongst other speakers who have made highly inflammatory
statements against the Jewish state.” Asked to name an offensive
speaker, Hillel’s chief administrative officer, David Eden, cited
Saeb Erekat, the longtime chief negotiator for the Palestinians in
talks with Israel and the United States, who has been criticized for
his inflammatory statements. Eden and other Hillel officials insist
that Fingerhut was not aware of Erekat’s participation before confirming. J Street says it made Erekat’s participation public on
March 3 and Fingerhut confirmed on March 6.
■ Israel’s ambassador to Sweden protested the pulling off the air
of a cooking show because its presenter called Jerusalem the Jewish state’s “heart.” TV4, a commercial channel, stopped airing reruns of the Israel episode of celebrity chef Tina Nordstrom’s “Tina
Visiting” last month following viewers’ complaints over her characterization of Jerusalem. A spokesman for TV4 said the footage
was pulled to avoid having the show deal with political issues.
“Only under the most hateful of interpretations can this be deemed
offensive,” Isaac Bachman, Israel’s ambassador to Stockholm, wrote
in an open letter. The show was first aired last year. On the show,
the announcer says, “Jerusalem, Israel’s heart. Here lives the present, side by side with the past. Israel is also one of the world’s most
multicultural countries. It has an incredible mix of everything.
Wherever you are in Israel you are reminded of religions.”
■ The prestigious Israel Prize for Literary Scholarship will not
be awarded this year due to controversy over the makeup of the
judges’ panel. An attorney for the State Prosecutor’s Office told
the Supreme Court at a hearing that the prize would not be
awarded for 2014 following the intervention of Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu in the panel’s composition.
JTA
THE CHICAGO
JEWISH NEWS
Vol. 21 No. 23
Joseph Aaron
Editor/Publisher
7
Arts and Entertainment
Golda Shira
Senior Editor/
Israel Correspondent
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Passover Food
Pauline Dubkin Yearwood
Managing Editor
Joe Kus
9
Death Notices
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Cover Story
Staff Photographer
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and Associates
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Advertising Account Executives
Denise Plessas Kus
12
Community Calendar
Production Director
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Accounting Manager/
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Chicago Jewish News - March 13-19, 2015
Japanese culinary curiosity gives hummus moment in the rising sun
By Cnaan Liphshiz
JTA
TOKYO – At the end of his
13-hour workday, Hidehiko
Egata takes a seat at the bar at his
regular eatery in this city’s upscale Shibuya neighborhood.
A senior adviser at a local financial firm, Egata sips sake and
nibbles on traditional Japanese
pickles as he chats with the
owner in Japanese. Then he orders his usual dish: hummus
topped with warm chickpeas,
tahini and olive oil.
“I first ate hummus a few
years ago on the other side of
town,” said Egata, a slender man
in his 50s who keeps fit by practicing Japanese martial arts daily.
“I found that it was more
healthy than my usual dinners
then. It was filling, but it didn’t
make me tired the way a noodle
dish would. When this place
opened, it became my regular
spot.”
This place is Ta-im, an intimate 16-seater that is one of no
fewer than eight Israeli restaurants to open in Japan in the past
five years, serving up hummus
and other Middle Eastern staples
to the novelty-oriented and
health-obsessed urban elite. In
January, the Chabad House in
Tokyo joined the trend when it
opened Chana’s Place – the capital’s only kosher certified restaurant – serving hummus, shakshuka, matbucha and other
popular Israeli dishes.
“The urban population in
Japan only recently became exposed to real international cuisine beyond the obvious dishes
like spaghetti, pizza and hamburgers,” said the Israeli businessman Dan Zuckerman, 54,
who moved to Tokyo in 1985
and ran a deli before he opened
Ta-im in 2011. “Now they are
discovering the more exotic
foods like Mexican, Portuguese,
Spanish and Greek.”
As new foreign restaurants
open in Japan, Israeli and Arab
food enjoys an advantage because
of its reliance on fresh vegetables
and other lean substances, according to Rabbi Binyomin Edery, a Tokyo-based Chabad rabbi
who supervises King Falafel, the
city’s only certified kosher
food stand.
“In a city where the population is so health conscious that
about a third of them regularly
wear surgeon masks whenever
they go out, a lean, fiber-rich
food that’s full of vitamins is
going to have a serious advantage
compared to fat-dripping tacos,”
Edery said. “Israeli food is becoming super trendy in this
country, and hummus is leading
the charge because people here
are already used to the idea of
bean paste from their local food.
It just fits.”
Chana’s Place, housed in the
Tokyo Chabad center and run by
the movement’s envoy to Japan,
Rabbi Mendy Sudakevich, is
small, accommodating only 14
diners at a time. The restaurant’s
profits are used to fund activities
for Tokyo’s Jewish community of
a few hundred people.
“If this restaurant is to succeed, it needs to appeal to the
Japanese public,” Sudakevich
said. “The Jewish, kosher-observing community is too small to
sustain this business.”
Unlike Zuckerman’s Ta-im,
which feels like a typical Tel
Aviv hummus bar, complete with
the Israeli pop radio station Galgalatz playing in the background,
Chana’s Place fuses Middle Eastern cuisine with a local Japanese
design, including a miniature
Japanese garden.
Sudakevich says he realized
he would need to adapt hummus
for the Japanese after he served
the dish at an event he catered
for an Israeli firm in Tokyo.
Hummus is consumed typically
by wiping the paste from a plate
with pita bread, but the Japanese
cut the bread into pieces and
made tiny hummus sandwiches.
“The Japanese marry an almost impossible mix of hunger
for new stuff with a deep conservatism,” Sudakevich said. “If you
want to serve them something
new, you need to make sure you
do it in familiar ways.”
Roy Somech, a 33-year-old
Israeli who last year opened his
second restaurant in Sendai, 220
miles north of Tokyo, takes a different approach. Somech believes in totally immersing his
patrons not only in the Israeli experience, but that of the entire
Middle East.
“When you come to our
restaurants you find three flags:
CHICAGO’S
JEWISH
COMMUNITY
NEEDS YOUR
HELP.
Roy Somech serving patrons at a restaurant he owns in Sendai, Japan.
Israel, Turkey and Tunisia,”
Somech said. “There’s Arab and
Israeli music, there’s hookahs –
all the fun stuff of the Middle
East and Israel that many Japanese don’t know because they only
hear of terrorism and bombs from
that part of the world.”
Somech says he receives approximately 200 patrons daily at
his two restaurants in Sendai and
that 70 percent of them are returning customers.
S E E J A PA N
ON
MAOT CHITIM OF GREATER CHICAGO
has been providing the Chicagoland Jewish community
with traditional Kosher Passover food packages for over
100 years. We purchase the food that volunteers pack
and deliver. Our recipients depend on us to help
them celebrate the Yom Tov in a dignified manner.
Join the hundreds and hundreds of volunteers
in an inspiring act of Tzedakah by delivering
these packages.
DELIVERY DAY
Sunday Morning, March 29 2014
9:00 a.m. - 10:30 a.m.
Warehouse Location
8220 N. Austin, Morton Grove, IL
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Super Sunday, March 22 is PACKING DAY!
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10:00 a.m. - 12:00 p.m.
MAOT CHITIM of Greater Chicago must raise more than
$750,000 this year to help those less fortunate in our community.
Open your heart and your wallet and support MAOT CHITIM.
Join us in this all important MITZVAH by sending your generous contribution NOW so that
we may continue our necessary work. It is YOU who will help decide how many
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For more information, visit our website or call 847-674-3224.
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No pre-registration is required to deliver Passover food packages.
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Joel H. Schneider, President
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Joellyn Oliff, Executive Director
2014
6
Chicago Jewish News - March 13-19, 2015
In Israeli elections, Bibi had it right: It’s all about him
By Ben Sales
JTA
TEL AVIV – However
much they disagree with his policies, opponents of Israeli Prime
Minister Benjamin Netanyahu
would surely admit he was right
about one thing: These elections
are all about him.
When he called for new
elections in December, Netanyahu said the vote would enable him “to gain the trust of the
nation.” Since then, the campaign’s central question is
whether he has that trust.
Both his Likud Party and the
party best poised to defeat him,
the center-left Zionist Union,
have focused their messaging on
the prime minister’s record and
fitness for leadership – or lack
thereof. Parties closer to the ideological extremes have argued
that a vote for them will either
strengthen or weaken Netanyahu’s reelection prospects.
A national campaign to
“change the government” has
put out ads attacking Netanyahu’s record. And when
40,000 people amassed in this
city’s Rabin Square calling for a
change in government, ousting
Netanyahu was the focus. The
keynote speaker was former
Mossad chief Meir Dagan, a respected general and harsh critic
of Netanyahu’s handling of the
Iranian nuclear threat and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
“Six years Mr. Benjamin Netanyahu has served as prime min-
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu campaigning at Jerusalem's Mahane Yehuda market. (JTA)
ister,” Dagan said in his speech.
“Six years in which Israel has
never been stuck as it is now. Six
years he hasn’t led any real move
to change the face of the region
or to create a better future.”
Despite the campaign
against him, Netanyahu stands a
good chance of being reelected.
Likud and Zionist Union have
been neck and neck atop the
polls for months, and Israel’s
right-wing bloc is considerably
larger than its left-wing counterpart. A poll by Israel’s Channel 2
earlier this month found that 47
percent of voters say Netanyahu
is best suited to be prime minister, with only 28 percent choosing Zionist Union’s co-chairman
Isaac Herzog. A Haaretz poll
from late February found that
voters trust Netanyahu more
than Herzog by a wide margin on
diplomacy and defense, and that
51 percent of respondents pre-
dicted that the prime minister
would be reelected.
“Not Tzipi, not Bougie.
They won’t stand up to Hamas.
They won’t stand up to Hezbollah. They won’t stand up to Iran’s
nuclear program,” Netanyahu
said at a February campaign
event, referring to Zionist
Union’s co-chairs Tzipi Livni
and Herzog’s nickname. “That’s
the real choice in these elections
and no smokescreen can hide it.
Who will guard the State of Israel? The left, headed by Tzipi
and Bougie, or the nationalist
camp headed by Likud and led by
me? There’s no question.”
Netanyahu has sought to
make his perceived forte – national security – the election’s
central issue. His speech to a
joint session of the U.S. Congress on the dangers of Iran’s nuclear program achieved that goal
for a few days, landing Iran on Israel’s front pages.
Netanyahu and his wife,
Sara, have been forced to fend off
a series of allegations that they
overspent public funds at their
private residences on ice cream,
alcohol and other luxuries. In
February, the state comptroller
published a report blaming Netanyahu for not adequately addressing skyrocketing housing
prices, one of the campaign’s
burning issues. And on March 6,
the
Israeli
daily
Yediot
Acharonot reported on a 2013
document showing that Netanyahu had offered far-reaching
concessions in talks with the
Palestinians, undermining his
right-wing bona fides.
Isaac Herzog hopes to speak softly
and carry Israel’s election
By Ben Sales
JTA
TEL AVIV – Isaac Herzog
paces slowly up and down the
stage, one hand in his suit
pocket, a slight smile forming
through his slender lips.
Quietly, his heavy breath
audible through the microphone, the center-left candidate for prime minister runs
down a detailed a list of policy
reforms, almost never changing
his tone or raising his voice.
Even when he builds toward an
early crescendo – telling the
crowd “I intend to win” – it
sounds more like a policy
analysis than a rallying cry.
It’s a stark contrast to his
opponents in the Israeli elections, and Herzog knows it.
When an audience member
mentions right-wing Economy
Minister Naftali Bennett, who
had gesticulated and grinned
and filled the room with his
voice during an appearance before the same forum several
days earlier, Herzog cut off the
question.
“And he was flamboyant
and everything was simple,”
Herzog said sarcastically, addressing an auditorium of English speakers. “And he will
annex 100,000 Palestinians
and they will have [Israeli] IDs
and they will all be loyal to the
flag.”
Herzog, who leads the center-left Zionist Union slate, is
the leading contender to replace Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu when Israelis go to
the polls on March 17. But his
campaign represents a change
not just of substance, but of
style.
Herzog is soft-spoken, focused on building consensus
domestically and strengthening
ties internationally. Netanyahu
is vociferous, presenting himself as an uncompromising
leader willing to stand up even
to Israel’s closest allies.
“All parts of our society are
simmering from within, are
asking questions, are debating,”
Herzog said. “My role as a
leader is to unite everyone,
bring them together to a common denominator, give them a
sense of purpose and hope.”
Herzog’s detractors – Netanyahu chief among them –
say this tendency is a weakness.
Netanyahu’s ads claim Herzog
will “capitulate to terror” and
question whether he’s fit to
lead a country beset by threats.
Herzog’s quiet demeanor may
also be costing him with voters
accustomed to an outspoken
prime minister. Though his
party has been running neckand-neck with Netanyahu’s
Isaac Herzog
Likud atop the polls, a recent
Times of Israel survey found
that one-fifth of likely voters
either had no opinion of Herzog or hadn’t even heard of
him. Herzog’s nickname – the
diminutive “Bougie” – doesn’t
help.
“He lacks charisma,” said
Eytan Gilboa, a public opinion
expert and senior research associate at the Begin-Sadat
Center for Strategic Studies.
“There are people who are better and worse on screen. He’s
less good. He doesn’t demonstrate enough strength and
charisma, so he’s taken as
someone who can’t be right for
this position.”
Herzog was born in 1960
to Israeli political royalty. His
grandfather, Yitzhak HaLevi
Herzog, was the country’s first
chief rabbi, and his father,
Chaim Herzog, its sixth president. Like Netanyahu, Herzog
attended high school in the
United States, graduating from
New York’s Ramaz School
while his father was Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations.
A tough exterior has been
a prerequisite for left-wing
politicians to win in Israel. If he
becomes prime minister, Herzog will be the first Labor candidate since 1969 to do so
without first serving as defense
minister or Israel Defense
Forces chief of staff.
“The nation accepts Bibi’s
thesis that before talking about
quality of life, you talk about
life – that security issues are the
most important,” said Arye
Mekel, a veteran Israeli diplomat and former adviser to
Likud Prime Minister Yitzhak
Shamir. “Can a Labor man who
doesn’t have an extensive security background become prime
minister? That’s an interesting
question.”
But for Herzog, policy
specifics are mostly beside the
point. He has positioned himself as the anti-Netanyahu, collected and moderate under
pressure. His fate will likely
hinge on whether a moderate
alternative is enough to inspire
Israeli voters.
7
Chicago Jewish News - March 13-19, 2015
Arts & Entertainment
Beginning days
New troupe tries
to inspire, amuse
Chicago viewers
By Pauline Dubkin Yearwood
Managing Editor
Amy Rubenstein
she said in a recent phone interview, “has been in my life as long
as I can remember.”
She lived in Israel for a year,
working in several Englishspeaking theater companies,
then moved back to Chicago and
worked as an actor for a year.
Eventually she moved to Los Angeles and, in need of a day job to
supplement her acting, started a
small real estate company.
“Real estate was booming,”
she says. “It took over my life.”
She married and had children,
now ages six and four. “Life got
in the way” of her theatrical career, she says.
Four years ago, she and her
husband, Milan Rubenstein, decided to move back to Chicago
to be closer to family. That’s
when Amy Rubenstein started
thinking about what she could
do to broaden the age and
lifestyle range of Chicago theatrical audiences.
Nearly a year ago she bought
property at 3014 Irving Park
Road in Chicago’s Albany Park
neighborhood and set about developing the Windy City Playhouse along with her husband
and brother, Josh Rubenstein,
the three partners in the enterprise.
The first show of the new
Equity theater’s first season, Deborah Zoe Laufer’s “End Days,”
often described as a “post-911
comedy,” opens March 19 for a
run through April 26.
The season of four plays also
includes “Stick Fly,” local playwright Lydia Diamond’s witty
family-reunion drama; Peter
Ackerman’s funny tale of three
couples, “Things You Shouldn’t
S E E W I N DY
ON
PAG E 1 2
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and
LAURA
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All-star cast directed and
choreographed by Rob Ashford
and conducted by David Chase
APRIL 10 - MAY 3
New Lyric Opera production generously made possible by The Negaunee Foundation, an Anonymous Donor, Robert S. and Susan E. Morrison,
Mr. and Mrs. J. Christopher Reyes, Liz Stiffel, Mrs. Herbert A. Vance and Mr. and Mrs. William C. Vance, and Jim and Vicki Mills/Jon and Lois Mills.
Rodgers & Hammerstein’s CAROUSEL. Music by RICHARD RODGERS. Books and Lyrics
by OSCAR HAMMERSTEIN II. Based on Ferenc Molnár’s Play “Liliom”. As adapted by Benjamin F. Glazer. Original Dances by Agnes de Mille.
Fyvush Finkel
And a cast of deli mavens far and wide!
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DENYCE GRAVES
MATTHEW HYDZIK
JENN GAMBATESE
When former Chicago actor
Amy Rubenstein returned with
her family to her hometown from
Los Angeles four years ago, she
noticed a striking fact about theater audiences in our city: There
was a generation missing.
“We would go out to theater
and find our peers weren’t there,”
Rubenstein says. “I didn’t see
people there in an age range of
25 to 65. We were really missing
the next generation of theatergoers.”
She started thinking about
doing something to rectify the
problem.
Rubenstein grew up in Deerfield, attended Solomon Schechter schools in Northbrook and
Skokie and graduated from Brandeis University, where she studied theater, an enterprise that,
The story of the men behind the food behind the tradition.
LYRICOPERA.ORG | 312.827.5600
LONG LIVE PASSION
8
Chicago Jewish News - March 13-19, 2015
Passover Food
Going beyond gefilte
By Eileen Goltz
Food Editor
Part of most Ashkenazi Pesach experience is gefilte fish. I
grew up in a home where my
mom enlisted my siblings and
myself (OK coerced, bribed and
otherwise insisted) to help chop,
mix and cook her special secret
blend of fish and spices.
The following recipes are all
simple, easy to make ahead of
time and are perfect for not only
the week of Pesach but the rest
of the year as well.
Fish Cakes With Horseradish
Sauce (Fish)
Sauce:
1 cup cucumber, seeded and
chopped (you don’t have to peel
it if you don’t want to)
3/4 cup mayonnaise
3 tablespoons white horseradish
2 tablespoons chopped parsley
3 sliced green onions
Fish cakes:
3 tablespoons olive oil plus more
for frying
3 carrots, peeled, finely chopped
1 2/3 cups sweet onion, minced
2 eggs
6 tablespoons matzah meal
1 3/4 teaspoons kosher salt
3/4 teaspoon pepper
18 ounces skinless whitefish fillets, cut into 1-inch cubes
1 9-ounce skinless salmon fillet,
cut into 1-inch cubes
Lemon wedges
For sauce: In a bowl combine the cucumber, mayonnaise,
horseradish, parsley, and green
onions. Season with salt and
pepper to taste. Cover and refrigerate.
For fish cakes: Line a
rimmed cookie sheet with plastic
wrap. Heat 3 tablespoons oil in
heavy large skillet over medium
heat. Sauté the carrots and
onions until soft but not mushy,
approximately 10 minutes. Cool
in skillet.
In a bowl combine the eggs,
matzah meal, salt and pepper.
Add the carrot mixture and mix
to combine. In the bowl of a food
processer combine the white fish
and salmon and pulse until combined. You’ll want small pieces of
fish mixed, not a paste. Add the
fish to the matzah meal mixture.
Using wet hands shape about 1/3
cup mixture into a patty. There
will be enough for 14 to 16 patties. Place the patties on the
cookie sheet and cover them
with plastic wrap. Refrigerate for
at least 4 hours.
Add enough oil to 2 heavy
large skillets to coat bottom.
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Heat oil over medium-high heat.
Add 8 fish cakes to each skillet.
Sauté until golden and cooked
through, about 3 minutes per
side. Serve immediately with
sauce. You can garnish with
lemon wedges and parsley. Serves
8.
Modified from Bon Appétit,
April 2008
Pepper Salmon With Leeks
and Asparagus (Fish/Dairy)
This is wonderful over a baked
potato.
4 tablespoons butter
2 tablespoons sweet white wine
4 medium leeks, halved, thinly
sliced (you can use 2 large sweet
onions)
1/2 pound asparagus, washed and
ends removed, cut into small
pieces
1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons whipping cream
8 to 10 ounces smoked peppered
salmon (or smoked white fish if
you prefer), cut into 1/2-inch
pieces
3 tablespoons chopped green
onions
1 tablespoon minced parsley
Grease a 9-inch by 13-inch
baking pan and set it aside. Melt
the butter in a large skillet. Add
the leeks and white wine and
cook for 5 minutes. Add the asparagus and green onions and
cook an additional 5 minutes.
Add 1/2 cup cream to the asparagus mixture. Cook over low
heat until almost all of the cream
is absorbed, stirring occasionally,
about 10 to 12 minutes totally.
Remove the mixture from the
heat and cool.
Preheat broiler. Stir the
salmon pieces into the leek mixture. Spoon the fish-leek mixture
into the prepared dish. Drizzle 2
tablespoons cream over the
salmon mixture. Broil until top is
golden brown, 2 to 3 minutes.
Remove from the oven immediately, Sprinkle with the minced
parsley and serve. Serves 4-6.
Lemon Lime White Fish With
Carrots, Celery and Onions
(Fish)
3/4 cup fresh lemon juice
1 lime, sliced
1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons olive
oil, divided
1/2 cup chopped parsley
3 bay leaves, crushed
1 teaspoon lemon zest
1 teaspoon fresh thyme leaves
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
6 skinless fillets white fish
S E E PA S S O V E R
ON
PAG E 1 5
9
Chicago Jewish News - March 13-19, 2015
Death Notices
Eva Kahn, nee Reinheimer,
age 90. Beloved wife of the
late Henry. Cherished mother
of Linda Kahn, Susan Kahn,
and Sanford (Eliana) Kahn.
Devoted grandmother of
Nathaniel and Ariel. Dear sister of the late Anita (Kurt)
Wagner and the late Kurt
Reinheimer. Fond aunt of
many nieces and nephews.
Arrangements by Mitzvah
Memorial Funerals.
Charles “Chuck” R. Polonsky,
age 66 Beloved husband of
Susan, nee Agrest. Cherished
father of Jordan (Melissa)
and Robert Polonsky. Cherish-
ed grandfather of Maybeline.
Dear brother of the late
Julian Polonsky and the late
Susan Klein. Contributions to
either The American Heart
Association, or the American
Diabetes Association would
be appreciated. Arrangements by Mitzvah Memorial
Funerals.
Jeanette “Janet” Schatz nee
Antin. Beloved Wife of the
late Sol Schatz. Loving
mother of the late Judith
Woods and the late Laura
Tasky. Devoted mother-in-law
of Perry (Susan Kovitz) Tasky.
Cherished grandmother of
Barrett (Barbara) Tasky, Kevin
(Dayna) Tasky, Brian Tasky,
Sarah Kovitz, Daniel Kovitz
and the late Joshua Tasky.
Adored great grandmother
of Nathan and Lilly. In lieu of
flowers remembrances to the
Les Turner ALS Foundation,5550 West Touhy Avenue
#302, Skokie, IL 60077 would
be appreciated. Arrangements by Mitzvah Memorial
Funerals.
Shirley Schwartz, beloved
wife of the late Morrie. Loving mother of Marlene (Eddie) Stetzer and Norine
Siegel. Cherished grandmother of Steven (Ellen)
Matzkin, Jill Ake, and An-
drew (Georgette) Siegel.
Fond great-grandmother of
Emma, Joey, and Sarah
Matzkin, and Amanda Ake.
Dear sister of Jerry (Muriel)
Epstein and the late
Lawrence Epstein. Best friend
of Harriet Greene. In lieu of
flowers, donations to American Diabetes Association
would be appreciated.
Arrangements by Mitzvah
Memorial Funerals.
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two oldest practicing and most experienced licensed Jewish
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Izzy and Seymour serve the families that call them through
Mitzvah Memorial Funerals. Combined with Lloyd Mandel,
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has the most experienced staff of Jewish funeral directors in
Chicago with over 200 years of combined experience.
Mitzvah Memorial Funerals also provides the lowest price!
In most cases we save families $2000-$5000 versus what
Chicago Jewish funeral homes with chapels charge for the
same or similar services and casket.
If your Synagogue has a discounted funeral plan that we
are not currently a provider of you can still choose us. We
guarantee to be at least 25% less!*
Lloyd Mandel
Founder, 4th generation Jewish Funeral
Director, also licensed in Florida
(no longer with Levayah Funerals)
agogue Hebrew School. In
1990, Joel relocated to
Tampa, Florida where he
most recently worked as administrator of the Atkins
Group Home in Zephyrhills,
Florida. He was widely admired and loved by the staff
and residents. Joel and his
family attended Congregation Bais Teffilah in Tampa.
The family has requested that
donations be sent to a school
close to Joel’s heart - the Hebrew Academy of Tampa
at 14908 Pennington Road
Tampa, Florida 33624.
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to better serve
our community.
WITH MORE THAN 200 YEARS
of combined service,
Weinstein & Piser Funeral Home is dedicated to
honoring heritage and faith. Let us help you and
your loved ones create a meaningful service that
truly captures the essence of the life it represents.
Seymour Mandel
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Past President of the Jewish Funeral
Directors of America (J.F.D.A.)
(Formerly with Piser)
Proudly serving your family (clockwise from left) are William Barr, Licensed Funeral
Director; Alan Yaffe, Former Owner and Licensed Funeral Director; Robert Sheck,
Manager and Licensed Funeral Director; Todd Lovcik, Licensed Funeral Director; Jamie
Greenebaum, Licensed Funeral Director; and Arlene Folsom, Licensed Funeral Director.
William Goodman
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Insurance Agent (no longer with
Goodman Family Funerals)
Ian “Izzy” Dick
Oldest licensed Jewish Funeral Director
in the State of Illinois
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Lawrence “Larry” Mandel
If you have already made pre-arrangements elsewhere you
can switch to us. In most cases we will refund your family
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Joel H. Orloff, beloved son of
Myrna and Leon OBM and
dear brother of Reuven
(Royce) and Mark Orloff,
passed away suddenly on
Purim, Thursday, March 5, at
the age of 51. He was a
beloved uncle to many wonderful nieces and nephews.
Joel was born in Skokie, and
attended the Evanston Public
School system. Joel graduated Illinois State University
with a bachelor’s in recreational therapy. He received
his Jewish education at the
Skokie Valley Traditional Syn-
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10
Chicago Jewish News - March 13-19, 2015
JAN'S STAND
An exclusive interview with Rep. Jan Schakowsky on
why she didn't attend Netanyahu's speech to Congress
By Pauline Dubkin Yearwood
Managing Editor
When U.S. Rep. Jan
Schakowsky (D.-Ill.) issued a
press release titled “An Israel
Supporter Who Won’t be at the
Prime Minister’s Speech” several
days before Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu was due to
speak in front of a joint session of
Congress, it got her plenty of attention.
Schakowsky, who represents
Illinois’ 9th District, which includes parts of Chicago and suburbs, appeared on CNN and
“Meet the Press” and generated a
flurry of comments on social
media, including from Republicans predictably calling her
“anti-Israel.”
She was one of some 60 congressional Democrats who stayed
away from Netanyahu’s speech.
Schakowsky, 70, has represented the district for 16 years,
becoming known particularly for
her progressivism and her tough
stance on consumer issues and
special interest in women’s issues
and health.
In a wide-ranging telephone
interview with Chicago Jewish
News just after the speech,
Schakowsky, who is Jewish herself, elaborated on her reasons for
what some were calling a “boycott” of the talk.
That’s not a word she cares
for in this context, she said.
“Boycott is certainly not the
right word,” she said. “That implies an organized effort. I decided not to be in the chamber.
The House chamber is the place
where the president of the
United States gives the State of
the Union address and other
heads of state speak. It is the
most prestigious venue in the
world.”
House Speaker John Boehner’s invitation to Netanyahu to
speak – an invitation not sanctioned nor requested by President Obama – was for “political
purposes,” Schakowsky said.
“John Boehner decides to go
around the president of the
United States for someone who
he knows will make a speech that
100 percent contradicts and really undercuts our president,” she
said. “Imagine if the situation
Rep. Jan Schakowsky at the Western Wall in Jerusalem.
were reversed. I did not want to
be part of politicizing the issue of
Israel. I think John Boehner was
trying to do that – (implying)
that the Republicans are the only
ones who care about Israel.”
She watched the entire
speech from her office, she said.
“I didn’t miss a word.”
“Nearly 60 Democrats
stayed away,” she said. “There
were (Democrats) who did go –
several of them were at a press
conference after the speech
where they expressed their disagreement with the position Netanyahu took. There were plenty
of Democrats who for their own
reasons (went to the speech). I
never argued with anyone not to
go. But the invitation was a political one.”
There’s another reason, she
said, that she decided to skip the
speech.
“In his last election, the
prime minister used an ad that
was a video showing him first before a picture of the capital of the
United States, then him standing in front of Congress. This was
a campaign ad, and I certainly
didn’t want to be part of this
year’s campaign ad,” she said.
Netanyahu is running for reelection next Tuesday, March 17.
Boehner invited Netanyahu
to speak, Schakowsky said, for
two reasons: “To show it’s really
the Republicans who are the
friends of Israel, and for an opportunity to undermine the president of the United States.”
As for concerns that she will
be called “anti-Israel,” Schakowsky noted that some Republicans
are already labeling her as such,
and said, “I understand there are
people who, not in a partisan way,
disagreed with my decision. I understand their disagreement with
my position but I certainly would
not want it to be taken as lack of
support for the State of Israel. For
16 years in Congress, and the rest
of my life before that, I have been
a strong supporter of Israel.”
In her media release,
Schakowsky wrote that “as a Jew,
support for Israel is in my DNA.”
Despite the tension associated with Netanyahu’s speech,
Schakowsky said, U.S.-Israel relations are good.
“I think this (speech) does
absolutely not reflect a difference
in support for the State of Israel,”
she said. “It has much more to do
with the position the prime minister has taken, anyway I am
hopeful that’s the case and we’ll
see the same support.”
U.S. Ambassador to the
United Nations Susan Rice “said
after the speech the prime minister appropriately pointed out
that the bond between the
United States of America and Israel is unbreakable. I thoroughly
agree, and I will certainly do my
best to make sure it’s true,”
Schakowsky said.
Turning to the perception of
some Jews that Obama is not
supportive of Israel, Schakowsky
said, “I think there has been an
organized effort in a partisan way
to question the president of the
United States. I met with representatives of AIPAC (American
Israel Public Affairs Committee)
and emphasized that this president, more than any other in recent history, has been more
supportive of Israel.”
The Jewish state, she said,
gets a baseline amount of $3 billion from the United States with
additional funds for the Iron
Dome and other special programs, “twice as much as under
the George W. Bush administration,” she said.
“The United States has
been a friend, and sometimes the
only friend of Israel at the
United Nations under this president (in terms of) vetoing anti-
Israel resolutions,” she said. “The
U.S. has been a friend at the International Criminal Court of
the United States, always being
there for Israel when Israel
sought help.”
At a time when the Israeli
embassy in Cairo was under
siege, surrounded by angry and
threatening Egyptians, and the
Israeli personnel there were in
danger and needed to be evacuated, Netanyahu called Obama
in the middle of the night – “that
3 o’clock in the morning phone
call,” as Schakowsky put it.
Obama called Egyptian officials
and asked them to provide a military escort to take the Israeli
personnel safety to the Cairo airport. All were evacuated safely to
Israel thanks to Obama’s immediate intervention, she pointed
out.
“The prime minister himself
pointed out that the support (for
Israel) has always been there,”
she said. So what accounts for
the perception among some that
Obama is “anti-Israel”?
“I think there has been a
persistent online drumbeat –
birthers, other people – ‘is he really more a friend of Muslims,
Arabs than of Israel?’ There is
not a shred of evidence for that.
11
Chicago Jewish News - March 13-19, 2015
It’s very frustrating,” she said.
“Some of the reasons it may stick
may have to do with race. I certainly think there are people in
this country that can’t imagine
that this African American president is as strong a supporter of
Israel as he is. Mainly there’s just
been a partisan effort to make
that case.”
Turning to the ostensible
main topic of Netanyahu’s
speech, Iran, Schakowsky said
that “the president has pointed
out that Iran has been a dangerous regime that continues to engage in activities that are
contrary to (the welfare of) the
United States, Israel and the region. He has pointed out that
Iran has repeatedly threatened
Israel and engaged in the most
venomous anti-Semitic statements. On the core issue we all
agree – Iran should not have a
nuclear weapon, but there are
great differences in how to proceed.”
The United States, Britain,
France, Germany, Russia and
China are currently working on
an interim agreement with Iran
for the end of March. No agreement has yet been reached.
In his speech Netanyahu
discussed the threat posed by
Iran’s nuclear program, saying
“Iran has proven time and again
that it cannot be trusted,” and rebuked Obama’s threat to veto
new sanctions on Iran.
On issues concerning Iran,
“the White House has reached
out to Jewish members (of Congress). We’ve had so many questions about it. It has been very
clear that these negotiations are
not based on trust. Susan Rice
paraphrased (President Ronald)
Reagan: ‘Do not trust, verify,’”
Schakowsky said.
“This is not a done deal,”
she said referring to an interim
agreement. “There’s a 50-50
chance Iran will not agree.” That
plan would include “vigorous enforcement and intrusive inspections.”
“The (Israeli) prime minister said a year ago that the Joint
Plan of Action would make Israel
less safe,” Schakowsky said.
“That turned out not to be at all
true. Israeli intelligence said the
JPOA turned out to be good.”
The Joint Plan of Action or
JPOA is an interim deal on Iran’s
nuclear program implemented in
early 2014 and extended to June
2015 requiring Iran and other
countries, including the United
States, to take specific steps
while negotiators worked on a
comprehensive agreement.
“Freezing Iran’s nuclear program, having inspections that are
very intrusive, these are ways to
block the pathway for Iran to advance its nuclear capability,” she
said.
“The real question for the
prime minister is, what is the alternative,” she said. “Essentially
he said Iran had to act like a normal country, it first had to
change its ways before any nego-
tiations could go forward, with
absolutely no (uranium) enrichment, no timelines whatsoever.
We couldn’t get a deal. To me
buying 15 years – that’s what the
United States is pushing for – of
Iran not being able to make a nuclear weapon is a good deal.”
The United States and its
partner countries “will never be
able to make Iran unlearn how to
make a nuclear weapon but we
can shut off the pathways for Iran
to do it. That’s a much better
idea than the military option.
That feels like war with Iran.
Now, if Iran cheats, we will be
able to call them on it. The option of the military is on the
table if they don’t comply with
the terms of the agreement,” she
said.
“I’m for a peaceful resolution
with a tough negotiated agreement with the support of the international community,” she
said. “If somebody is going to
walk away from the table let it be
Iran. If the sanctions regime we
have right now falls apart we are
much closer to a weaponized Iran
than through a negotiated deal.”
Schakowsky also referenced
Netanyahu on the subject of
ISIS, the rebel terrorist group operating out of Syria, Iraq and
other areas of the Middle East.
“In 2002 the prime minster,
as a private citizen, came to the
United States to vigorously argue
for the United States to overthrow the Saddam regime” in
Iraq,” she said. “He said, ‘If you
take out the Saddam regime, I
guarantee you it will have enormous positive reverberations in
the region.’ The big winner, in
my view, of the disastrous Iraq
war was Iran. We got rid of their
big enemy and managed to kick
over the hornet’s nest of sectarian violence, which has had
many ramifications, including
ISIS.”
ISIS “needs to be destroyed,” she said. “These are byproducts of the Iraq war that
we’re feeling all over the world,
an Iraq war the prime minister
came to urge in the strongest
terms. He said preemption is
something we have to do. We
shouldn’t have to wait for the international community.
“We’re living in a dangerous
world, in some ways a more dangerous world than right after
9/11,” she said. “We made the
mistake of going to war with
Iraq.”
Switching to domestic politics and the fact that Republicans now control both houses of
Congress, Schakowsky made it
clear she is not pleased with the
situation.
“When the Republicans
won the election in the Senate
they promised they would govern
in a way that would bring everybody in,” she said.
“Nothing could be further
from the truth. In their first bill
they took a swipe at Social Security and continued the war on
women and then, unbelievably,
Schakowsky with Israeli ambassador to the United States Ron Dermer.
the day after the Paris terrorist
attack, the day after that they
added amendments to the funding for the Department of Homeland Security that would
overturn the president’s executive order on immigration.”
The House approved a ninemonth funding bill for the DHS
earlier this month, breaking a
three-month-long stalemate over
Obama’s immigration policies.
The vote came just before a
deadline that would have allowed DHS funding to expire.
“Essentially they were outmaneuvered by (House Minority
Leader)
Nancy
Pelosi,”
Schakowsky said. “Boehner had
to call for a clean funding bill for
the DHS and got rid of the
amendment dealing with immigration.”
According to the website
Politico, the bill passed after
Boehner engaged in “backroom
negotiations with House Democrats.”
Schakowsky said House Republicans “are having internal
conflicts that are preventing
them from working with Democrats or themselves – right-wing
versus moderates. Fifty-two Republicans voted against the DHS
bill that Boehner was pushing,”
she said. “He thought he was
going to be able to pass a threeweek extension that included the
anti-immigrant amendments. Lo
and behold, he gets to the floor
and 52 Republicans vote no.”
She called the move “complete ineptness. Nancy Pelosi
knows exactly how many votes
(she has) before the vote is
called. The only option left was
to get a vote on this clean bill
and they finally had to do it –
182 Democrats and 75 Republicans voted for it. They had to get
the votes from the Democrats,”
she said.
Despite the internal dissention, she believes Boehner
will keep his seat.
“The full House of Representatives chooses the speaker of
the House, so we knew they
would win,” she said. “All of the
Democrats, most of them,
wanted Nancy Pelosi. Boehner
lost a record number of Republicans but still had enough votes to
be voted speaker. To officially
unseat him there would have to
be a vote in the House of Representatives and I can’t see that
happening. He would have to be
ousted by all the members and
that isn’t going to happen.”
Still, she said, “clearly there
is talk of a coup in the Republican conference.”
Speaking about her own
work in the House, Schakowsky
said she is still putting much of
her energy into consumer issues,
with nanotechnology (the manipulation of atoms and mole-
cules on a molecular level to
make products) posing a new
threat.
“Today I talked to the chair
of the Consumer Products Safety
Commission and they have done
a tremendous amount of work in
reducing the number of dangerous toys,” she said. “But there are
still products out there and we
are still looking at things.”
One question is “what’s the
effect of having nanotechnology?” she said. “What about
products made with these nanosized ingredients? There is some
concern it could have the same
effect on people as asbestos
does.”
On a broader scale, she said,
“overall the thing I’m interested
in is the economy and what we
need to do to end income inequality. It is growing so badly
and people are falling out of the
middle class. People are insecure.
We need to have strategies to
raise the wages of ordinary
Americans.”
Meanwhile, looking ahead
to 2016 and asked if she was supporting any candidate for president, Schakowsky said, “I was at
(an) Emily’s List (event) and
Hillary Clinton made a great
speech. That’s my comment on
that. The time is right for a progressive woman, and I heard
what I wanted to hear from
Hillary Clinton.”
12
Chicago Jewish News - March 13-19, 2015
Community Calendar
Windy
CONTINUED
F RO M PAG E
7
Saturday
Say Past Midnight”; and “Chapter Two,” Neil Simon’s popular
romantic comedy about finding
love the second time around.
“We tried to figure out how
we could connect with” audiences, Rubenstein says. “We
wanted to make the productions
themselves very accessible and
contemporary in tone, things
people can relate to. We didn’t
want them to be depressing. I
think sometimes people get
scared away (from theater) because they don’t want to get depressed.
“We don’t want to be light
and fluffy,” she adds. “When we
say entertaining it doesn’t mean
we don’t want to have depth to
our work. We’re trying to be the
gateway theater for people who
may not go to theater, people
who aren’t necessarily thinking
theater is what they want to do
on a Saturday night. They are
going to come see a show and
enjoy it and next weekend
maybe they’ll branch out to
other theaters.”
At the new playhouse,
“we’ve created a space that is a
theater but also functions as a
lounge. The seats are big swivel
chairs and there is table service –
the food and drinks come to
you,” Rubenstein says.
As for the play itself, the
award-winning “End Days” follows a Jewish family that starts to
fall apart after the Sept. 11
tragedy. The husband, who
worked at the World Trade Center, loses his job and goes into a
depression. The mother has some
private conversations with Jesus
(who appears as a character in
the play, along with Stephen
Hawking and several other notables) and becomes a fanatical
born-again Christian convinced
the end of the world is coming,
naturally confusing the couple’s
teenage daughter.
The day is saved by the new
boy-next-door, who, although
not Jewish, is planning his bar
mitzvah and appears as “the light
in the show, a happy, optimistic
kid who helps everyone turn
things around,” Rubenstein says.
Meanwhile, the new space
recently had its inaugural outing
– not for a play but a fund-raiser
for Chicago Jewish Day School,
which the Rubensteins’ children
attend. But the purpose was actually twofold, Rubenstein says:
“I’m trying to engage the (Jewish) community in theater as
well.”
“End Days” opens March 19
and continues through April 26 at
Windy City Playhouse, 3014 Irving Park Road, Chicago. For times,
ticket prices and other information
visit windycityplayhouse.com or call
(312) 374-3196.
March 14
Congregation Kol Emeth
presents Athol Fugard’s
“Blood Knot.” 8 p.m., also 8
p.m. Sunday, March 21 and
28, and 2:30 p.m. Sunday,
March 15, 22 and 29. 5130
W. Touhy Ave., Skokie. $25,
$22 members, $10 students.
[email protected]
m or (312) 857-8487.
Lubavitch Chabad of Skokie
shows film “R’Elimelech and
the Classic Legacy of Brotherhood” written and produced by Rabbi Hanoch
Teller. 8:30 p.m., 4059
Dempster, Skokie. $5 door,
$3 advance. Reservations,
SkokieChabad.org or (847)
677-1770.
Spertus Institute for Jewish
Learning and Leadership
presents Deidre Berger, director of AJC’s Berlin office,
speaking on “The Upsurge
of Anti-Semitism and the
Future of Jewish Life in Europe.” 7 p.m., 610 S. Michigan Ave., Chicago. $18, $8
students. Spertus.edu or
(312) 322-1773.
Monday
March 16
Skokie Public Library presents author Karen L. Kaplan
speaking on her new memoir, “Descendants of Rajgrod-Learning to Forgive.”
7 p.m., 5215 Oakton,
Skokie. (847) 673-7774
Wednesday
Sunday
March 18
March 15
JCC Chicago presents JJAMZ
Family Concert featuring
singer and songwriter Mr.
Dave. 10-11 a.m., Mayer Kaplan JCC, 5050 Church,
Skokie. $5. gojcc.org/jjamz
or (847) 763-3603.
Congregation Beth Shalom
hosts H.U.G.S. Chocolate
Seder for families with special needs. 1-2:30 p.m., 3433
Walters Ave., Northbrook.
ecastellano@bethshalomnb.
org or (847) 498-4100.
Illinois Holocaust Museum
and Education Center
shows film, “The Death of
Captain Pilecki” followed
by discussion with actor
Marek Probosz. 1:30-4 p.m.,
9603 Woods Drive, Skokie.
Free for museum members
and with museum admission. Reservations required,
ilholocaustmuseum.org/eve
nts.
Bookends and Beginnings
presents author Dina Elenbogen’s launch reading of
“Drawn from Water: an
American Poet, an
Ethiopian Family, an Israeli
Story.” 3 p.m., 1712 Sherman Ave., Evanston. (847)
475-6845 or dinaelenbogen.com.
Ida Crown Jewish Academy
hosts Dr. Edward A. Crown
Scholarship Dinner. 5:30-8
p.m., Skokie Holiday Inn,
5300 W. Touhy, Skokie.
$100 alumni under age 30;
$200 general public.
[email protected] or (773)
973-1450 Ext. 111.
Highland Park Hadassah
holds lunch and multimedia
program with educator and
lecturer Helene Turner
speaking on “What a Metamorphosis: China from
1980s to Today.” Noon,
Chicago North Shore Chapter Hadassah Office, 60 Revere Drive, Suite 800,
Northbrook. $18. RSVP,
(847) 926-8982.
CJE SeniorLife presents
Weinberg Community for
Senior Living’s 3rd annual
Taste of Passover. 4:30-6:30
p.m. ,1551 Lake Cook Road,
Deerfield. Registration,
[email protected]
or (847) 236-7852.
Chicago Chai Tech Professional Networking Chapter
holds meeting and roundtable discussion on plans
for 2015 and 2016. 6:30-9
p.m., Merrill Corporation,
311 S. Wacker Drive, Suite
1800, Chicago . RSVP required, [email protected].
Ezra-Habonim, the Niles
Township Jewish Congregation Sisterhood hosts
Passover Women’s Seder
led by Rebbetzin Julie
Weill. 7:30 p.m., 4500 W.
Dempster, Skokie. $12 Sisterhood members with
reservations, $15 non-members and door. Reservations,
(847) 675-4141.
SPOTLIGHT
United States Holocaust Memorial
Museum presents “Just Following
Orders? How Ordinary People Became
Perpetrators,” with Museum historian
Edna Friedberg interviewing Christopher Browning, author and professor
of history emeritus at the University of
North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Noon on
Thursday, March 19 at Mesirow FinanChristopher Browning
cial, James C. Tyree Auditorium,
353 N. Clark St., Chicago. Presentation is free. Registration required
at ushmm.org/events/browning-chicago-march19. For more information, [email protected] or (847) 433-8099.
her book “Pioneers & Partisans: Soviet Jewish Youth
Confront the Nazi Genocide.” 6:30-8 p.m., 9603
Woods Drive, Skokie. Free
for museum members and
with museum admission.
Reservations required, ilholocaustmuseum.org/events.
Jewish Council on Urban
Affairs hosts 2015 annual
Passover Seder. 6:30-8:30
p.m., Beth Shalom B’nai
Zaken Ethiopian Hebrew
Congregation, 6601 S.
Kedzie, Chicago. $25. ($5
chartered bus ticket from
Spertus, 610 S. Michigan,
Chicago; leaves 5:30 p.m.)
[email protected] or (312) 6630960.
Chicago YIVO Society presents Columbia University
lecturer in Yiddish, Agi
Leguto, speaking on “Possessed by the Past: Dybbuks, Postmemory and
Identity in Modern Jewish
Culture.” 7 p.m., Evanston
Public Library, 1703 Orrington Ave., Evanston. (312)
408-9410.
Friday
March 20
Congregation Beth Shalom
presents “Shabbat with a
Twist” for families with children up to Pre-K. 11-11:45
a.m., 3433 Walters Ave.,
Northbrook. (847) 4984100.
Ezra-Habonim, the Niles
Township Jewish Congregation holds Prospective
Member Music and Pizza
Evening. 6 p.m., 4500 W.
Dempster, Skokie. RSVP,
(847) 675-4141.
Thursday
March 19
Illinois Holocaust Museum
and Education Center presents Anika Walke discussing
Sunday
March 22
Congregation B’nai Tikvah
presents Emory University
Professor Deborah Lipstadt
speaking at its annual JUF
event. 10:30 a.m., 1558
Wilmot Road, Deerfield.
(847) 945-0470.
Illinois Holocaust Museum
and Education Center presents staged reading of “In
Their Voices” by actors
from Writers Theatre. 1:303 p.m., 9603 Woods Drive,
Skokie. Free for museum
members and with museum
admission. Reservations required, ilholocaustmuseum.org/events.
Congregation Beth Judea
presents 9th annual
Passover Wine Tasting with
opportunity to order wine
at discount. 3-5 p.m., Route
83 and Hilltop Road, Long
Grove. $10.
[email protected] or
(847) 634-0777.
StandWithUs Chicago presents “Orchestra of Exiles”
followed by Q&A with director Josh Aronson. 4 p.m.,
Northbrook Court AMC,
1525 Lake Cook Road,
Northbrook. $15 advance;
$20 door. [email protected].
Ezra-Habonim, the Niles
Township Jewish Congregation presents Amy Stoken,
Chicago regional director
of the American Jewish
Committee, speaking on
“The Rising Tide of AntiSemitism.” 6:30 p.m., 4500
W. Dempster, Skokie. Reservations, (847) 675-4141.
Continuum Theater hosts
2015 Midwest Jewish Play
Writing Contest with actors
reading from three new
plays and audience voting
for their favorite. 7 p.m.,
Theater Wit, 1229 W. Belmont, Chicago. $10. continuumtheater.org or (800)
838-3006 ext. 1.
13
Chicago Jewish News - March 13-19, 2015
Senior Living
After intrigue, theft and deterioration, Holocaust collection secure
By Uriel Heilman
JTA
BOULDER, Colo. – The
yellowing document is crumbling
and fading, but the smooth signature on its cover is as legible as
it is chilling: Rudolf Hess, the
Nazi who served as a Hitler
deputy from 1933 to 1941.
The signature, which adorns
a 70-year-old leniency plea for
top Nazi Hermann Goering during the postwar Nuremberg trials,
is one of some 500,000 discrete
items and 20,000 books donated
last year to the University of
Colorado at Boulder – nearly the
entirety of one of the world’s
largest privately owned Holocaust collections. The unusual
trove includes aerial surveillance
photos of the Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination camp, decaying copies of the Nazi newspaper
Der Sturmer, Nuremberg trial
transcripts, and a trove of proNazi and Holocaust denial literature.
“We don’t even know what
we have,” said David Shneer, director of the Jewish Studies program at University of Colorado
at Boulder and the person responsible for bringing the
archive to the university. “We
have teams of students inventorying it. We hope to get through
everything by the fall.”
The unlikely story of how
the archive, known as the Mazal
Holocaust Collection ended up
in Boulder is a tale of Holocaust
denial, a hidden Jewish past and
the shady market for Holocaust
artifacts.
The collection represents
the life’s work of Harry Mazal, a
businessman from Mexico City
who was raised Protestant and
discovered during his teen years
that he was Jewish. Mazal’s family emigrated from present-day
Turkey before World War II, and
his father built a successful
women’s lingerie business that he
subsequently passed on to his
son.
Though neither Mazal
nor his parents personally experienced the Holocaust, Mazal became increasingly disturbed by
the rising tide of claims that the
genocide against the Jews was
fabricated. Determined to do
something about it, Mazal, who
made his first research trip to
Germany in the 1960s and died
in 2011 at age 74, began collecting and carefully documenting
evidence of the concentration
camps, the Final Solution and
the murder of the 6 million Jews.
Mazal became fixated on documenting the Holocaust. He traveled to Europe to photograph the
camps and bought rare Holocaust
artifacts on eBay. He established
a relationship with the U.S.
Holocaust Memorial Museum in
Washington and became a repository for trial transcripts that
were duplicates of material the
museum already had. He collected Yizkor memorial books,
original sketches of extermination camps and aerial photographs of the camps taken by the
U.S. military, American Nazi
newspapers from the 1930s and
‘40s, materials relating to the
David Irving-Deborah Lipstadt
Holocaust denial trial in England, and an extensive array of
Holocaust denial literature. He
also wrote scholarly articles and
lectured about the attempted
Harry Mazal
genocide of the Jews.
“I remember him being very
offended by the fact that Holo-
caust denial was so prevalent,”
Mazal’s daughter, Aimee Mazal
Skillin, said. “He really took it to
heart. He began to collect as
much information as he could
about the Holocaust and the war,
and about how the Jews were
mistreated. Combating Holocaust denial was his real motivation. It was like he was walking
around with horse blinders and
saw nothing else other than this
mission.”
By the mid-1990s, there was
no more room for Mazal’s collection in his home in San Antonio, Texas, where he had moved
with his family. So Mazal built an
addition to his house, which
proved inadequate even before it
was completed. He later added
two more expansions, bringing
the total space dedicated to his
in-home Holocaust library to
3,000 square feet. It became one
of the largest privately held collections in the world, according
to Lipstadt, the Holocaust historian who was sued by Holocaust
denier David Irving in 2000.
Mazal even kept some bone fragments collected at Auschwitz in
a glass case on his desk (his
daughter later buried them).
As Mazal’s collection grew,
he enlisted help. That ultimately
led to one of his most devastating discoveries: that someone
working for him was stealing
one-of-a-kind materials and illicitly selling them online. Mazal,
SEE HOLOCAUST
ON
PAG E 1 4
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14
Chicago Jewish News - March 13-19, 2015
Senior Living
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F RO M PAG E
13
who by the time of the discovery
was ill with cancer, mounted a
sting operation to find the perpetrator.
Ultimately, a young man
named Mansal Denton who had
volunteered at Mazal’s Holocaust
library was arrested in January
2011 and charged with stealing
some 17,000 pages of documents
valued at $100,000 to $200,000.
Last June, Denton was sentenced
to eight years in prison. Some of
the material Denton pilfered still
has not been recovered.
The Denton theft underscored the need to find a proper
home for the collection, especially after Mazal’s death in 2011,
when it became clear his family
wouldn’t keep the big house.
Skillin considered selling the
materials, whose value was estimated at $1 million to $1.5 million, but she didn’t want the
collection to be broken up.
While planning to move her
own family to Boulder, Skillin,
who is an interpreter and social
media consultant and is raising
her children as Jews, was introduced to Shneer. In 2011,
Shneer had helped bring the collection of Rabbi Zalman
Schachter-Shalomi, the father of
the Jewish Renewal movement
who died last summer, to the
University of Colorado.
Skillin and Shneer hit it off,
but with Skillin’s imminent plans
to sell her San Antonio home,
Shneer had to act fast. When he
flew to San Antonio to examine
the collection, he only had 24
hours or so to figure out what to
do with it, he recalls.
Eventually, a small portion
of the collection went to Texas
A&M University, including
about 8,300 books. The rest was
packed into 367 boxes and
trucked to Boulder.
In the months since, Shneer
has been overseeing a team of
student interns and graduate students cataloging and digitizing
the collection in a windowless
office in the bowels of the university library.
Schneer says it has been
challenging not just to figure out
what’s in the trove, but how to
deal with the copious collection
of Holocaust-denial and pro-Nazi
material, including literature
produced by the American Nazi
Party beginning in the 1930s.
“We have to think about
how we deal with Holocaust denial literature,” Shneer said. “Libraries are afraid of the material.
We can’t just put it on shelves
without context. How do we deal
with this?”
Once the Mazal collection is
categorized and digitized, the
university plans to make it accessible to researchers all over the
world by putting it online. Some
of the collection’s 20,000 books
will end up on the library’s
shelves. Rare and one-of-a-kind
volumes will be preserved in the
university’s 60,000-square foot
archive.
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www.chicagojewishnews.com
The Jewish News place in cyberspace
A copy of the Nazi weekly Der Sturmer from February 1943, with a
headline at bottom left reading "Bolshevism is radical Jewish domination." The newspaper is part of the Mazal Holocaust Collection at the
University of Colorado-Boulder. (JTA)
15
Chicago Jewish News - March 13-19, 2015
Torah Portion
Passover
CONTINUED
A time to unplug
Shabbat offers
chance to free us
from technology
By Rabbi Annie Tucker
Guest Torah Columnist
Torah Portion:
Vayakhel-Pekudei
Exodus 35:1-40:38
Like many of us I am more
than a little bit obsessed with my
iPhone, and over the course of
the last few years I’ve amassed an
eclectic collection of favorite
apps. There are the old standbys,
of course, like Facebook, The
New York Times, and Words
with Friends. There’s Flixster for
movie times, SpotHero for discount parking, my bank for remotely depositing checks.
I have a bunch of Jewish
apps – a candle-lighting time calculator, a siddur in both Hebrew
and English, an amazing Bible
program complete with concordance, maps, and even a translation function. And I have a few
oddballs too – including the notorious (and very helpful, I might
add) “Sit or Squat” which uses
GPS technology to find the location of the nearest public restroom. The newest app on my
touch screen, however, is not one
that helps to make my life more
organized or more efficient, more
economical or more entertaining. Rather, the newest guy on
my digital block is called the Unplugging App. It is devoted – not
without irony! – to taking a
break from technology.
The Unplugging App was
designed by a Jewish organization
called Reboot and is part of their
National Day of Unplugging, the
group’s self-described “creative
project designed to slow down
lives in an increasingly hectic
world.” This annual 24-hour period of desisting from technology
encourages participants to power
down their computers and cell
phones, stop updating their Facebook pages, refrain from texting
and Tweeting, emailing and ichatting, all for the purpose of
decelerating the frenetic pace of
our lives and freeing up time for
what Reboot labels the 10 principles of the Sabbath Manifesto:
Connect with loved ones
Nurture your health
Get outside
Avoid commerce
Light candles
Drink wine
Eat bread
Find silence
Give back
Rabbi Annie Tucker
Avoid Technology
I don’t know about you, but
this vision of Shabbat sounds
pretty appealing to me!
Reboot’s Sabbath Manifesto
may be a hipster take on a timeless practice, but in addition to
being quite clever I also think
that its rebranding conveys
something powerful about the
nature of Judaism’s holiest day.
Shabbat is not just about rules
and restrictions, not only about
should-not’s and isn’t-alloweds,
but it is more importantly about
creating time and space – for renewal, for mindfulness, for connection with others, for stopping
to appreciate the natural world
around us, for contemplation, for
quiet, for nurturing of our bodies
and our spirits.
Dedicating a day to a particular kind of rest (not the mindless relaxation that comes from
vegging out in front of the TV,
for example, but the deep rejuvenation that comes from sleeping,
eating, and exercising well) can
be truly transformative. And in
our modern world of non-stop
work and communication, it is
perhaps even more necessary
than ever. When is the last time
you truly unplugged? What
would it feel like to have the luxury of such deep and all- consuming rest?
In this week’s Torah portion,
Parashat Vayakhel-Pekudei, we
continue reading about the creation of the Mishkan (Tabernacle), the portable sanctuary that
the Israelites used during their
period of desert wandering.
Almost five full parshiot at
the end of the Book of Exodus
are devoted to describing with
enormous specificity and detail
the instructions for the building
of this holy structure; creating
the Mishkan becomes the most
central task with which the Israelite community is charged.
Yet despite the incredible
significance accorded to the
Mishkan, we learn in our Torah
portion this week that there is
one event that supersedes it, that
causes the work of it to come to a
complete and utter halt. “On six
days work may be done but on the
seventh day you shall have a Sabbath of complete rest, holy to the
Lord.” (Exodus 35:2) VayakhelPekudei proclaims. Even the work
of the Mishkan, of creating a sacred space for our G-d, must yield
in service of holy rest.
One of Judaism’s fundamental contributions to the world is
the notion that sanctity resides
not only in space, but even more
so in time. The great religious
philosopher Abraham Joshua
Heschel captures this idea in his
beautiful work “The Sabbath,”
where he contrasts the great
cathedrals and stunning architectural works of the Christian
community with Judaism’s quintessential embodiment of holiness, our palace of Shabbat rest.
For many of us, we spend our
days trying to make the hours increasingly efficient, squeezing
more and more into less and less,
and the advances of modern technology are only too eager to help
us. But while our smart phones
and tablets and lightning-fast
computers all may enhance productivity, I am concerned that
they also diminish the spirituality
of daily living – cutting against
gratefulness, mindfulness, attention to the people most dear to us,
cultivation of wonder, permission
to just be, reveling in peace and
quiet. It is no wonder that faith
communities typically meet not
in office parks devoted to organization and industry but rather in
designated spaces created for
beauty, tranquility, and spirit. To
nurture holiness we need to use
time intentionally, too, creating
palaces that celebrate the things
we value most rather than the
things that most easily and noisily clamor for our attention.
And so this week, perhaps,
we will find inspiration in
Parashat Vayakhel-Pekudei and
take some time to unplug. Read a
book. Take a walk. Invite a friend
over for tea. Have a family board
game competition. Take a nap.
Meditate. Sing. Sit in a quiet
place and do nothing for a while.
How very much we could all use
some sacred disconnect.
My Unplugging App may
not be as useful as “Sit or Squat,”
as engaging as mobile Scrabble,
as economical as Groupon, but
I’m glad that it sits there on my
iPhone all the same. It reminds
me of all the clever, handy, and
amusing things that technology
can do. More importantly, it reminds me of where technology
falls short.
Rabbi Annie Tucker is the senior rabbi of Beth Hillel Congregation Bnai Emunah (Conservative)
in Wilmette.
F RO M PAG E
8
1 large onion, thinly sliced
2 large carrots, shredded
3 stalks celery, sliced into ½ inch
pieces
In a 9-inch by 13-inch glass
baking dish combine lemon
juice, lime slices, 1/2 cup oil,
parsley, bay leaves, lemon zest,
thyme, salt and pepper. Add fish
fillets. Flip to coat both sides.
Marinate 1 hour in the refrigerator. Turning the filets over, marinate 1 more hour.
In a large skillet, heat 2 tablespoons oil. Remove 3 filets
Japan
CONTINUED
F RO M PAG E
5
The Israeli restaurants are
able to supply their patrons with
fresh pita thanks to the only bakery in the country that produces
the flatbread, an operation set up
a decade ago by the Israeli entrepreneur Amnon Agasy. But
white tahini, the sesame spread
that is a key ingredient of hum-
from the marinade and cook 3
minutes on each side (they will
be almost cooked but not finished). Remove the cooked filets
to a plate. Repeat with the remaining filets. When the last 3
filets are done place them on the
plate and cover them with foil.
Do not clean the pan. Add
onions, celery and carrots to the
marinade.
Mix the vegetables, coat,
then add the vegetables to the
skillet (discard the marinade).
Cook for 7 to 10 minutes until
the vegetables are starting to
soften but are still crisp. Add the
fish back to skillet; cover the
filets with the vegetable mixture.
Cook 4 to 5 minutes or until fish
is cooked through. Serves 6.
Modified from about.com
mus, must be specially imported – a constraint that has 3
1/2 ounces of hummus selling in
Japan for about $6.
“There’s demand for hummus, sure,” said Somech, who
opened his first restaurant, Middle Mix, five years ago.
But, he added, in a country
where even cheap street food is
expected to meet strict standards,
and whose capital city has more
Michelin stars than Paris, “competition is very, very tough.”
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Chicago Jewish News - March 13-19, 2015
Your Money
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CONTINUED
Forbes’ billionaires list features
new and old Jewish faces
By Gabe Friedman
The billionaires’ club isn’t as
exclusive as it used to be.
Forbes recently released its
29th annual list of every billionaire on the planet, and it features
a record 1,826 people, or 181
more than last year.
As in previous years, Jews
are disproportionately represented on the roster of the
world’s wealthiest, with 10 Jews
among the top 50. (The list,
topped by Bill Gates, ranks from
richest to slightly less rich.)
Larry Ellison, the founder of
the tech giant Oracle Corporation, is the wealthiest Jew in the
world and the fifth wealthiest
person alive. At age 70, his net
worth is $54.2 billion.
With a net worth of $35.5
billion, former New York City
Mayor Michael Bloomberg is the
second wealthiest Jew on the list
and 14th wealthiest person overall. Mark Zuckerberg, still one of
the world’s youngest billionaires
at age 30, climbed five spots on
the list to number 16 overall. His
net worth has grown to $33.4 billion.
Other Jews in the top 50 include casino magnate Sheldon
Adelson ($31.4 billion), Google
co-founders Sergey Brin and
Larry Page ($29.2 and $29.7 billion), investors George Soros
($24.2 billion), Carl Icahn
($23.5 billion) and Len Blavatnik ($20.2 billion), and Dell
Computer Founder Michael Dell
($19.2 billion).
There are several Jews among
the newcomers on the list as well,
including Russ Weiner, the
founder and CEO of Rockstar energy drinks, Jerry Reinsdorf, the
owner of the Chicago Bulls and
the Chicago White Sox sports
franchises, and Ken Grossman, a
co-founder of the Sierra Nevada
Brewing Co. Weiner is the son of
prominent conservative radio talk
show host Michael Savage (born
Michael Weiner).
While men far outnumber
women on the list, a few Jewish
women are on it, including Shari
Arison ($4.4 billion), Karen
Pritzker ($4.3 billion), Lynn
Schusterman ($3.7 billion) and
Doris Fisher ($3.2 billion).
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Panic
They found that genes controlling the production of stress hormone receptors had high levels
of methyl groups attac hed to
them compared to genes from
pups raised by attentive, nurturing mothers. Pups raised by inattentive mothers also acted more
hyper and skittish in response to
stress.
The researchers then studied
another litter of rat pups from
the same mothers, but this time
they had the nurturing mothers
raise pups from inattentive
mothers and vice versa. They
found that the extra methyl
groups were again added to the
pups raised by the neglectful
mothers and that these pups had
an overactive stress response.
Both sets of pups with the
extra methyl groups passed them
on to their offspring.
“We certainly know that
human experiences affect how
our genes are expressed,” says
Rachel Yehuda, a professor of
psychiatry and neuroscience at
the Icahn School of Medicine at
Mount Sinai Hospital in New
York, who has performed epigenetic studies on Holocaust survivors. “But we don’t know for
sure how this process works and
how strong a contributor epigenetics really is compared to other
things like genes.”
Life experience capable of
shaping perceptions and reactions even without touching
DNA. In studies published over
the past decade, Yehuda has
found that children of Holocaust
survivors have altered stress response systems and differences in
methylation on the gene that
regulates the number of stress
hormone receptors. She also
found that these alterations were
complex and dependent on a
mother’s age when she went
through the Holocaust and
whether a father experienced it,
too.
“Do uniquely Jewish experiences from the past – like the
pogroms our great-grandparents
escaped – affect the way we behave today? I think that’s a valid
question,” Szyf says.
“Jews that left Europe were
highly self-selected for their survival skills and perseverance,” he
adds, which might have been due
to their genetic tendencies rather
than epigenetic changes.
In the end, though, it may
not matter whether inherited
genes or inherited methylation of
those genes or plain-old nurture
plays the dominant role.
“Jews have always tended to
lead lives that emphasized education, family structure and religious values,” Szyf says. “So it
should come as no surprise that
these values have been passed
on.”
17
Chicago Jewish News - March 13-19, 2015
By Joseph Aaron
CONTINUED
F RO M PAG E
Get Home Care
18
East, he said, “is being radicalized and terrorized by a number of unreconstructed dictatorships whose governmental creed is based on
tyranny and intimidation. The most dangerous of these regimes is Iran
that has wed a cruel despotism to a fanatic militancy. If this regime …
were to acquire nuclear weapons, this could presage catastrophic
consequences, not only for my country, and not only for the Middle
East, but for all mankind.”
He went on, 19 years ago, to call Iran an “existential danger” and
said the deadline for stopping Iran from going nuclear “is getting extremely close … ladies and gentlemen, time is running out.”
Time is running out, that is what Bibi said on July 10, 1996. And
yet here he was again standing before Congress again saying time is
running out. He was clearly wrong 19 years ago and he is clearly wrong
today.
As foreign policy expert Fareed Zakaria wrote, “For almost 25
years now, Netanyahu has argued that Iran is on the verge of producing
a nuclear weapon. In 1996 – 19 years ago – he addressed the Congress
and made pretty much the same argument he made this week. Over
the last 10 years he has argued repeatedly that Iran is one year away
from a bomb.
“So why have Bibi’s predictions been wrong for 25 years? … Iran
has always recognized that were it to build a bomb, it would face huge
international consequences. In other words, the mullahs have calculated – correctly – that the benefits of breakout are not worth the costs.”
And yet for 19 years, Chicken Little Bibi has told us the sky the
falling, disaster is imminent, the world is coming to an end. Which is
why Bibi is nothing like Winston Churchill. Not only because
Churchill saw reality while Bibi sees delusions, but because of how
each reacted.
Read Churchill’s speeches and you see he never once used the
term existential danger, never acted as if disaster was imminent, that
Britain’s survival was at stake.
That’s all that Bibi does. He keeps talking about Iran as an existential danger to Israel, keeps saying that Israel’s very survival is hanging in the balance. He only and always tries to scare us. At a time when
we have a strong powerful state of Israel, when Jews have never been
more secure and supported and protected by the countries of the world
(by the way, what happened to all that anti-Semitism supposedly running so rampant all over the place? Hear of any incidents in the last
month?) Bibi is always trying to terrify us. When four Jews are killed
in Paris, he immediately urges all 700,000 Jews of France, indeed all
the Jews of Europe, to flee their homes and run for their lives. When
he talks about Iran, he always talks about it being a threat to “the very
survival of my country.” Churchill never talked like that. He never
ever said Britain’s survival was in jeopardy. Bibi scares us, Churchill
inspired us. Bibi trades in fear because it is politically advantageous to
him, is what keeps getting him elected.
Shame on him for making us worry if we are going to survive
when he should be inspiring us to thrive. But Bibi’s head is always in
the dark past, not in the bright present and certainly not in the even
more hopeful future. Just a week before Israelis were to head to the
polls, Bibi told supporters that there is a “tremendous effort, worldwide,
to topple” him. Noting that his right wing party is running neck and
neck with the center-left Zionist Union, he said “The battle is very
close, nothing is guaranteed. It is not guaranteed because there is a
tremendous effort, worldwide, to topple the Likud government.”
A tremendous effort worldwide to topple his government. The
man is delusional. There’s an election campaign in Israel that most of
the world could care less about. What exactly is this worldwide effort
to topple him? Many Israelis are tired of Bibi after nine years in office,
which is the way it is for most politicians in most countries who have
been in power a long time. It’s an election and there are attractive alternatives to him. But, no, to Bibi there has to be a worldwide effort
to topple him, a conspiracy against the Jews, again evoking scary images of the past, again feeding into peoples’ worst fears instead of their
brightest dreams.
Scaring people about an Iran that has been a year away from a
bomb for 19 years now, blaming his standing in the election on a worldwide effort to defeat him, shows how out of touch Bibi is with the state
of Judaism today, how ignorant he is of how much has changed for the
better for Jews today, how good things are for Jews today.
But Bibi doesn’t want us to see that or think like that. He was first
elected because he played on fears in the wake of the Rabin assassination and he has stayed in power because he always paints dark pictures of how Iran is this close to wiping Israel off the face of the earth,
always paints dark pictures of a world that hates us and is conspiring
against us, always paints dark pictures of a Europe aflame with Holocaust type Jew hatred.
Winston Churchill was a true leader, Bibi is nothing but a craven
politician. Churchill brought out the best in his people, Bibi brings out
the worst in his. At a time when Jews need a Jewish Winston
Churchill, what we have instead is a kosher Chicken Little.
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RABBI MORRIS
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18
Chicago Jewish News - March 13-19, 2015
By
Joseph
Aaron
Scary Bibi
www.
chicagojewishnews
.com
The Jewish
News place in
cyberspace
Prime Minister Bibi likes to think of himself as a modern day
Winston Churchill, when in fact he’s more like Jonathan Pollard and
Chicken Little.
Winston Churchill was a truly great leader, someone who was way
ahead of his time in warning the world about the dangers of Nazism
and who then rallied his nation with his stirring words of determination, resolve, optimism and courage.
Bibi likes to think he too is way ahead of his time, he too is warning the world about a great danger. Difference is that Nazism truly was
a threat to the very existence of the free world, whereas Bibi’s neurotic
obsession, Iran, is not.
Who says so? Well let’s start with Meir Dagan, who led the
Mossad for eight years and who is considered Israel’s foremost expert
on Iran. As head of the Mossad, Dagan was intimately involved in
tracking Iran’s nuclear program, personally ordered the killing of
dozens of Iran’s scientists.
Well, Dagan says Iran is not an existential threat to Israel as Bibi
claims and he also says that Iran is nowhere near to having a bomb,
certainly not a year away or less, as Bibi claims. In fact, Dagan said
Bibi’s speech to Congress was “misleading” in that regard and, in fact,
Dagan said Bibi’s speech was “bullsh—-.”
You will not find one top military expert in Israel, not one, who
agrees with Bibi’s assessment that Iran is close to having a bomb. Indeed, you will find many of Israel’s top security experts say that Iran
has not even yet decided to build a bomb. To have a nuclear program,
yes, but not to actually build a bomb.
In any case, I say that Bibi is like Jonathan Pollard in that Pollard, thinking he was doing a service for Israel, actually did it great
harm. By being a traitor to his country, by stealing American secrets
and passing them on to the Israeli government, he ensured that the
security agencies of the United States did not trust any Jew working
for them. And did not trust Israel.
It is a source of incredible shame that so many American Jews
want Pollard to be released, that so many think he’s been in jail for
so long because of anti-Semitism, when there is not one shred of evidence to support that charge. It is very much worth noting that presidents of both parties, leaders of Congress of both parties, top military
leaders serving under administrations of both parties, have all unanimously and consistently opposed letting Pollard out of jail.
What most amazes me is how many Jews make the case for Pollard’s release by noting that convicted Soviet spies have served far less
time than Pollard has. Proving they just don’t get what being a friend
is all about. We expect Russia and China and countries like them to
spy on us. And so we are not shocked or hurt when they do. But America is Israel’s best friend in the world, has been there for Israel in so
many ways, protected and supported and defended Israel in so many
ways, has been like a big brother to Israel in so many ways.
You don’t expect your best friend, your brother, someone you have
done so much for, to stab you in the back. By the Israeli government
paying Pollard to betray the United States, Israel betrayed its best
friend, its greatest ally. And so, of course, what Pollard did hurt us
much more than what the Soviets did, of course what Pollard did was
more outrageous and ugly. Friends don’t, or shouldn’t, treat their
friends like that.
Which is the essence of why what Bibi did in speaking to Congress behind President Obama’s back was such a betrayal. If you can
put your prejudice aside a minute and look at the facts, Obama has
done more for Israel than any president before him. That is a fact. Hell,
even Bibi said as much in his speech.
And yet how did Bibi treat this great friend? By stabbing him in
the back. Imagine, the head of a foreign country, one we have done so
much for, comes to our Congress without consulting the president first,
and proceeds to trash an agreement that president is in the midst of negotiating. Talk about chutzpah, talk about ingratitude, talk about betrayal. Of course, it hurts more, is the more outrageous having come
from a friend. What Pollard did by his actions, Bibi did by his words.
And Bibi is like Chicken Little in that he is always saying the sky
is falling, that disaster is imminent, that the world is coming to an end.
Consider this. The first time Bibi addressed a joint session of Congress was on July 10, 1996 – almost 19 years ago.
And this is what Bibi told Congress 19 years ago. The Middle
SEE BY JOSEPH
AARON
ON
PAG E 1 7
19
Chicago Jewish News - March 13-19, 2015
ADVERTISEMENT
forfrom
the Devil
A Letter toSympathy
the World
Jerusalem
Please allow me to introduce myself, I'm a man of wealth and taste;
I've been around for a long, long year, stole many a man's soul and faith;
And I was 'round when Jesus Christ had his moment of doubt and pain;
Made damn sure that Pilate washed his hands and sealed his fate.
Pleased to meet you, hope you guess my name;
But what's puzzling you is the nature of my game ...
So if you meet me, have some courtesy, some sympathy and some taste;
Use all your well-learned politesse, or I'll lay your soul to waste ...
---Rolling Stones. Beggars Banquet, 1968
The platitudes and eulogies in Europe have passed and another four Jews
were buried. As horrific as the killing spree at Charlie Hebdo was, it could be
said that the Hebdo staff had done something that depraved Islamists considered
provocative. What act of provocation had the Jews committed? Shopping for a
challah for Shabbat? Then again, I can understand how that might be
provocative. But let's be honest – Europe's mourning is momentary. It's like
throwing a pebble into a pond and watching the ripples. One European country
after another threatens to recognize a virtual "Palestinian state" on land
European governments themselves had approved for the reestablishment of the
national homeland of the Jewish people. As part of the League of Nations
Mandate, these same European powers voted unanimously, 51 to zero, at the
San Remo conference in 1922, for a Jewish homeland in all of Palestine. That
was, and still stands as international law. And don't blame it all on the new
Islamic immigrants. It's the good old Europe of the last 1800 years again
ascending.
What was Europe's excuse for Jewish expulsions in 1066 England, 1382
France, 1492 Spain, 1497 Portugal, the Germany of the 1340s, the Austria of the
1420s, and the resurgent anti-Jewish Germany, Austria and Vichy France in the
1930s and 1940s? Can't blame the Islamists – Weren't there. Just Europeans
doing what they do so well.
Today, the leftist intelligentsia and the right-wing fascists of Europe share a
common frustration: hatred of that which represents Jews – the State of Israel.
The Islamic terrorists in Europe's midst are in some ways just a convenient front
for Britain's, Belgium's, Spain's, Norway's and France's dirty work. And once
again, my old friend Ben Hecht said it best, in his Guide for the Bedevilled:
In the history of the Jew it takes one to make an auto-da-fé and
two to make a wedding. [The Jew's] delusion that he is German,
Polish, French, Spanish, or Italian, his readiness to write their
tongues, increase their cultures and die for their peculiar
national ambitions, have nothing to do with his ultimate status as
citizens of these lands. His deeds, however valiant and talented
in behalf of foster lands, are fineries quickly stripped from him.
Loaded with medals and diplomas, he is sent packing into
ghettos, exile or death, and if he is not a Jew in the eyes of God
or the rabbis, he is always one in good standing in the eyes of
misfortune. (p. 48)
Now don't get me wrong. Islamic terrorists picking off Jews by the threes
and fours is no happy matter. But let's not forget that after the murder of the
four Jews in a Paris supermarket, it was the President of France who had the
audacity to tell the Prime Minister of Israel, Bibi Netanyahu, that he was not
welcome in France to pay his respects to dead Jews. That, for me, was a bigger
story. And although Jews being slaughtered in Europe is an old story, the
French President's words once again reveal his disdain not just for Jews but the
State of the Jews --- Israel. Which brought to mind that endearing blurp from a
former Vichy French ambassador to Britain, Daniel Bernard, who let his true
Gallic feelings out while a bit tipsy at a dinner party: Calling Israel (not in
Arabic but in perfect English) "a shitty little country," he asked, "Why should
the world be in danger of World War III because of those people?" Some things
just don't change! Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose!
Tom Gross of the National Review noted back in 2002 that "instead of
unreservedly condemning Bernard for his racist slur, ... many in the British and
French media instead sought to make [Barbara Amiel, the hostess of the party]
and 'those people' the target for daring to expose and criticize the ambassador's
prejudices. The important lesson for us now is that anti-Semitism in France
and England have been allowed to grow... among many of the ruling elites
and opinion-forming classes in Paris and London." I think he meant
classless.
Gross continues with another, lesser known story of the Vichy France
variety that happened a short time later. Marc (Marc with a "c" usually connotes
a Jewish name) Gentilli (probably a proud convert), the president of the French
Red Cross, "described as 'disgusting' a request by the American Red Cross that
Israel be admitted to the International Red Cross, and that the Star of David be
accepted alongside its existing emblems, the Cross and the Crescent.
Gentilli...left little doubt of the disdain he holds for the Star of David..." By the
way, Gentilli is not Islamic.
Unwilling to let the French have all the fun, the British press wanted in on
the act. London Observer columnist Richard Ingrams, in a piece titled "Black's
Hole" (Black is a reference to Amiel's married name) writes, "The gaffe wasn't
made by the ambassador, but by Amiel for betraying the confidences of the
dinner table and writing such an intemperate article."
Not to be left at the altar, Guardian columnist Joan Smith, in "Dinner at
Amiel's Leaves a Bad Taste," opines that [Amiel's] "assumption that Bernard's
remark was anti-Semitic, is pretty dubious. ... If there is a lesson to be learned
from this episode, it is not the French ambassador's politics that have been
called into question on this occasion, but his taste in friends." You just gotta
love those Brits. There's no shame left in England these days, as they get in line
for their burqas.
Gross presciently concludes, "Since Bernard's remarks were reported, there
have been over a dozen fresh anti-Semitic incidents in France. Only last
weekend attackers firebombed a synagogue in the northern Park suburb of
Goussainvil. A few days before that, gasoline bombs were hurled into a Jewish
school in the southeastern Paris suburb of Creteil, setting a classroom on fire.
On the same day another synagogue was torched. Have the French and English
learned nothing from the twentieth century?" In 2002, that's rhetorical.
We as Jews are commanded to never forget, and for good reason. Delivering
a jolt of history is a poignant old movie so powerful that it ought to be required
viewing on every Holocaust Remembrance Day:
Your Honor. It is my duty to defend Ernst Janning. And yet,
Ernst Janning has said he is guilty. There's no doubt, he feels his
guilt. He made a great error in going along with the Nazi
movement.... Ernst Janning said, "We succeeded beyond our
wildest dreams." Why did we succeed, Your Honor? What about
the rest of the world?Did it not read his intentions in Mein
Kampf, published in every corner of the world? Where's the
responsibility of the Soviet Union, who signed in 1939 the pact
with Hitler, enabled him to make war? Are we now to find Russia
guilty? Where's the responsibility of the Vatican, who signed in
1933 the Concordat with Hitler, giving him his first tremendous
prestige? Are we now to find the Vatican guilty? Where's the
responsibility of the world leader, Winston Churchill, who said
in an open letter to the London Times in 1938 – 1938, Your
Honor: "Were England to suffer national disaster, I should
pray to God to send a man of the strength of mind and will of an
Adolf Hitler!" Are we now to find Winston Churchill guilty?
Where is the responsibility of those American industrialists, who
helped Hitler to rebuild his armaments and profited by that
rebuilding? Are we now to find the American industrialists
guilty? ...No, Germany alone is not guilty. The whole world is as
responsible for Hitler's Germany. It is easy to condemn the
German people, to speak of the "basic flaw" in the German
character that allowed Hitler to rise to power – and at the same
time positively ignore the "basic flaw" of character that made the
Russians sign pacts with him, Winston Churchill praise him,
American industrialists profit by him! Ernst Janning said he is
guilty. If he is, Ernst Janning's guilt is the world's guilt. No more
and no less. — Hans Rolfe, defense attorney.
"Judgment at Nuremberg" is as relevant today as it was in 1961, maybe more so.
And it was journalist Israel Harel who wrote in Ha'aretz in 1995 – just two
short years after Oslo, but 20 years before Charlie Hebdo:
The denial of Israel's right to exist as the state of the Jewish
people has become the stuff of legitimate discourse in all
cultural salons and prestigious talk shows in Europe. ... Never,
since the days of the Nazis, has anti-Semitism reared its head the
way it is doing today. ... And all this has happened since the
signing of the Oslo agreements..."
Yet "Pinky" the Opinionator wallows in those worthless French platitudes
called eulogies. President Hollande went on national television and called the
kosher supermarket massacre "a dreadful anti-Semitic act." (I guess telling
Netanyahu to stay home was just normal French etiquette, and Obama calling it
"folks killed at a deli" was a Manny's Deli moment.) France's Prime Minister
Manuel Valls added, "France will no longer be France if Jews leave the country.
The soul [?] of the French republic would be at risk if there were a mass exodus
of Jews. ... We will be a failure." Mon Dieu! Whom will France feed to its
Muslim barbarians if there are no Jews? How splendid to leave the French and
the Muslims to live together in a Utopian welfare state! "Pinky" quotes
Segolene Royal, the third most important figure in the French government:
"Anti-Semitism has no place in France." Golly gee... Do you really believe...
Click those heels, "Pinky." From his "kishkes" he writes: "Altogether, we are
talking about 11 dead Jews" (three teenage yeshiva students, four rabbis at the
Har Nof synagogue and four in the kosher supermarket). If 11 are not enough
to get your "kishkes" in a knot, just wait – more are on the way.
I know that "Pinky" and others are gushing at the fact that European leaders
are denouncing anti-Semitism, even as the words "Islamic terrorism" get stuck
in some politically correct throats, in quixotic pursuit of that "moderate
Muslim." But as one European capital after another supports a "virtual"
Palestinian state for a mythological Palestinian people, those adherents are not
Muslims! They're just good, old-fashioned, "white man's-burdened," lapsedChristian Europeans. "But what's puzzling you-- the nature of their game?"
Islamists may be pulling the trigger—or wielding the knife—but remember
that the soil of Europe has already been saturated with Jewish blood. Our
Jewish people have seen this European movie before and we know how it ends.
First they come for the French Jews, then the Belgian Jews, then the British
Jews ... Are you liberal-leftist peace-aholics listening?
Shabbat Shalom, 03/13/15
Jack "Yehoshua" Berger
20
Chicago Jewish News - March 13-19, 2015
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or just reminisce about times past, keeps us connected to the world and is good for our health and
well-being. There are many individuals just waiting to meet you at the Selfhelp Home, where you’ll
receive the assistance you need, right in your own Selfhelp apartment or in our skilled nursing Center.
Great care, right at home…
the Selfhelp Home.
For more information, visit our website at www.SelfhelpHome.org
or schedule a tour by calling 773.271.0300.
908 W. Argyle Street, Chicago
The Selfhelp Home is a non-profit senior living community offering independent living, assisted living,
intermediate, rehabilitation and skilled nursing services.