A Catskills mystery unraveled

Transcription

THE CHICAGO
JEWISH NEWS
August 29 - September 4, 2014/3 Elul 5774
www.chicagojewishnews.com
One Dollar
Finding the
Goldbergs
Israeli in Chicago biking
to beat cancer
Larry Layfer on creating
a just society
A controversial chief rabbi
steps down
Chicago
makeup
artist
2
Chicago Jewish News - Aug. 29 - Sept. 4, 2014
THEMaven
Chicago Jewish News
U.S. HOLOCAUST
MUSEUM TO HONOR
STEINFELDS, HEAR
KEARNS GOODWIN…
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■ The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum will
host Pulitzer Prize-winning author and presidential historian
Doris Kearns Goodwin at its
2014 “What You Do Matters”
Risa K. Lambert Chicago
Luncheon to be held at noon
on Tuesday, Sept. 9, at the Sheraton Chicago Hotel & Towers.
She will be the featured speaker
for the event.
The Museum will honor
Fern and Manny Steinfeld at
the luncheon with the United
States Holocaust Memorial Museum’s National Leadership
Award for their decades of dedication and support. After leaving Germany just before World
War II, Manny Steinfeld enlisted in the U.S. Army and
fought to free his home country
from Nazi tyranny – learning
later that his mother and sister
died during the Holocaust.
“The Museum slogan
“Never Again is a call to action,” Manny Steinfeld says. “In
light of what is happening in
many parts of the globe now, it
is difficult to believe that only
70 years after the end of the
war, chants and protests today
are identical to the Nazi chants.
The Museum is the voice that
will not be stilled and requires
1,750
Owned and operated by NWHA, Inc. (an Illinois not-for-proﬁt Corporation)
6840 N. Sacramento Avenue, Chicago
www.park-plaza.org Y 773.465.6700 (Yehuda)
www.
chicagojewishnews
.com
The Jewish
News place in
cyberspace
Fern and Manny Steinfeld
your support to continue in its
vital mission to remember those
that perished and to ensure that
future generations will “Never
Again face human degradation
and the loss of freedoms that are
the basic rights of all mankind.”
“Service has always defined
the Steinfelds,” said Jill Weinberg, Director of the Museum’s
Midwest Regional Office.
“Manny served the country that
harbored him from Nazi persecution during World War II and
in Korea. Since then, he and
Fern have unwaveringly served
the Chicago community and
numerous other charitable organizations throughout the
country and around the world.
“The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum is
pleased to honor them with the
Museum’s National Leadership
Award. Manny was one of the
six original co-chairs of the
campaign to build the Museum
and for 25 years has exhibited
extraordinary leadership and
generosity to the Museum.”
The event will be chaired
by Karyn and Bill Silverstein.
Honorary co-chairs are Governor Pat Quinn and Mayor
Rahm Emanuel. The luncheon
will support the Museum’s national campaign, “Never Again:
What You Do Matters.”
To purchase tickets or to learn
about sponsorship opportunities,
contact the Midwest Regional Office at (847) 433-8099 or midwest@ushmm.org.
3
Prague’s longtime chief rabbi leaves colorful and controversial legacy
of Czech dissident and future
president Vaclav Havel, Sidon
had lived in exile in Germany,
where he studied at the College
of Jewish Studies in Heidelberg.
By 1990, Sidon’s fellow dissidents and intellectuals had re-
By Jan Richter
JTA
PRAGUE – When the
novel “Altschul’s Method” hit
the shelves in Czech bookstores
this March, it was hailed as a
brilliant political and psychological thriller combining elements
of science fiction, alternate history and Jewish mysticism.
But it became a true literary
sensation when it was revealed a
week later that the book’s supposed author, Chaim Cigan, was
a pseudonym for Karol Sidon,
the longtime chief rabbi of
Prague.
Sidon had explained that he
was writing under a pseudonym
mainly to draw a distinction between his literary work and his
duties for Prague’s Jewish community.
“Such writing does not befit
a rabbi,” he told a Czech news
website.
“Being a rabbi has its limits,”
Sidon explained in the interview.
“I won’t lie; I wanted to quit
some time ago and it will happen
sooner or later.”
But it was more than a passion for literature that led Sidon
to step down as chief rabbi in
June, earlier than he had
planned.
His resignation came amid
reports that he had separated
from his third wife and become
engaged to one of his former conversion students.
Sidon’s departure marks the
end of an era for the Prague Jewish community. The first postcommunist chief rabbi of Prague,
Sidon, a former dissident, symbolized the revival of Czech
Jewry following decades in which
religion was suppressed.
“His arrival at the post was
crucial for the community,” said
Charles Wiener, a former executive director of the Prague Jewish
community who lives in Geneva,
Switzerland. “All institutions in
then-Czechoslovakia were in the
shadow of communism and collaboration, and suddenly someone came who had not been
collaborating but was in fact
thrown out of the country by the
communist authorities.”
But Sidon leaves behind a
divided community struggling to
overcome a conflict in which he
played a prominent role.
The combination of a generational gap, religious disagreements, accusations of cronyism
and personality conflicts contributed to intracommunal tensions during his tenure. A decade
ago, Sidon was even removed
from his post when a new communal leadership took charge,
only to be reinstated when his allies regained control of the community.
Jakub Roth, 41, who served
as the Prague Jewish community’s deputy chair between 2005
placed discredited communistera officials at the Jewish community and asked him to take
over the rabbinate. He agreed,
going on to study at the Ariel Institute in Jerusalem and be ordained as an Orthodox rabbi be-
fore finally returning to Prague.
Sidon’s path to Judaism was
not straightforward. The son of a
Christian mother and a Jewish
father who was murdered in the
Terezin concentration camp in
SEE PRAGUE
ON
Rabbi Karol Sidon
and 2008 and has been a Sidon
supporter, said the rabbi’s resignation had long been anticipated. But he would not
comment on the circumstances
surrounding Sidon’s decision.
Prague Jewish leaders have
chosen Rabbi David Peter, 38, to
succeed Sidon. A native of
Prague, Peter is an Orthodox
rabbi who returned to the Czech
capital in 2011 after 13 years of
studies in Israel.
Sidon also asked for an unpaid six-month leave from his
duties in the largely ceremonial
position as chief rabbi of the
Czech Republic. The head of the
country’s Federation of Jewish
Communities, Petr Papousek,
said that Sidon would return to
the post after his hiatus.
Sidon, who just turned 72, is
known for his scholarly demeanor and biting sense of
humor. An Orthodox Jew, he focused much of his energy on encouraging greater religious
observance among Prague’s
largely secular Jews, who are estimated to number some 6,000,
though only about 1,800 are officially registered as community
members.
Sidon’s tenure has seen the
growth of a small but active traditionally observant segment of
the city’s Jewish community. But
Sidon also has accumulated critics during his more than two
decades in office.
Sylvie Wittmann, the
founder of a liberal Prague Jewish congregation, Bejt Simcha,
who sits on the Prague Jewish
community board, believes it
would make sense if Sidon retired from his rabbinical duties
altogether.
“If he’s embarked on a new
life, literary or private, he should
pursue it,” she said. “We should
thank him for his efforts. He did
what he could. But a self-searching, three-times-divorced, egocentric man cannot really be
considered a serious figure respected by his community or a
good rabbi.”
Sidon became the chief
rabbi of both Prague and Czechoslovakia in 1992, less than three
years after the fall of communism
in what was then Czechoslovakia. A respected writer and ally
2014 RISA K. LAMBERT LUNCHEON
Join us in honoring
Fern and Manny Steinfeld with the
United States Holocaust Memorial
Museum’s National Leadership
Award for their decades of
dedication and support.
11:15 a.m. Registration
Noon Luncheon and Program
Sheraton Chicago Hotel & Towers
301 East North Water Street
TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 9
FEATURED SPEAKER
DORIS KEARNS GOODWIN
Presidential historian and
Pulitzer Prize-winning author
HONORARY CHAIRS
Governor Pat Quinn
Mayor Rahm Emanuel
CHAIRS
Karyn and Bill Silverstein
MEDIA SPONSOR
RSVP at ushmm.org/events/chicagoluncheon.
For more information about event
sponsorship, please contact the Midwest
Regional OΩce at 847.433.8099
or midwest@ushmm.org.
Holocaust survivor Margit Meissner
leads young visitors from Chicago
on a tour of the Permanent Exhibition
during the 2011 Grandparents Trip.
US Holocaust Memorial Museum
100 Raoul Wallenberg Place, SW Washington, DC 20024-2126
ushmm.org/campaign
PAG E 1 1
4
Contents
Jewish News
■ Officials from the University of Illinois publicly defended
their decision to revoke a job offer to a scholar who had harshly
criticized Israel on Twitter. Chancellor Phyllis Wise issued a statement explaining why the university had decided not to move forward with the hiring of Steven Salaita. On the same day, the
president and board combined on a separate statement. Wise
wrote in an open letter to the university that the university would
not tolerate “personal and disrespectful words or actions that demean and abuse either viewpoints themselves or those who express them.” The president and board in their statement backed
Wise’s decision, echoing her arguments. Neither of the statements
cited any specific behavior by Salaita. The website Inside Higher
Education had reported that Salaita’s appointment was blocked
over concerns about strongly worded tweets criticizing Israel and
its officials. In a follow-up article, Inside Higher Education wrote
that students, parents, alumni and even the university’s own
fundraising officials lobbied Wise to block the appointment. Earlier this summer, the university indicated that Salaita would be
joining the faculty of the American Indian studies program at the
university’s Urbana-Champaign campus. It subsequently informed
Salaita, however, that his appointment would not go to the board
of trustees for approval, typically a pro forma step with university
appointments. The university statements have been criticized on
a number venues, including a blog for the American Association
of University Professors by John Wilson, a member of the academic freedom committee of the Illinois AAUP. Wise’s letter,
Wilson wrote, was “an appalling attack on academic freedom and
a rejection of the basic values that a university must stand for.”
■ A government rabbinic court in Jerusalem issued an order prohibiting a woman from bringing her children to meet her female romantic partner. The order came during divorce proceedings between the woman and her husband, according to Israel’s Center for
Women’s Justice. The center filed a petition with the Supreme
Court of Israel on the wife’s behalf challenging the order. The couple agreed that the wife would have custody of the children, but the
husband asked the court to issue an order prohibiting her partner
from seeing the children. Without such an order, the husband said
he would refuse to grant his wife a get, or a ritual divorce. The court
agreed to his request. Israel does not allow civil divorce, so Jewish
couples must divorce through the rabbinic court system.
■ A group of right-wing Israeli lawmakers is proposing a bill to
make Hebrew the sole official language of the State of Israel. The
bill has the support of Knesset members from the Likud, Yisrael
Beiteinu and Jewish Home parties. Current law mandates that Arabic as well as Hebrew must be used in various official functions, including in the court system, government ministries, and official
government forms and announcements, Haaretz reported. The law
dates back to the period of the British Mandate. Under the proposed bill, highway signs would still have to include Arabic.
■ Three-quarters of Israeli Jews and nearly two-thirds of Israeli
Arabs would not marry someone from a different religion, according to a poll. The poll found that opposition to interfaith relationships was highest among haredi Orthodox Jews, at 95
percent. But 88 percent of traditional and religious Jews, as well
as 64 percent of secular Jews, also opposed interdating. Seventyone percent of Muslim Israeli Arabs opposed interfaith relationships, but only half of Christian Israeli Arabs were opposed.
Across religious denominations, Israeli Jews would be much more
opposed to their relatives marrying Arabs than they would be to
relatives marrying non-Arab gentiles. Only a third of secular Jewish Israelis would be opposed to a relative marrying an American
or European Christian, but a majority would oppose a relative
marrying an Arab. Seventy-two percent of Israeli Jews overall
would be opposed to a relative marrying an Arab. Opposition to
intermarriage was lowest among immigrants from the former Soviet Union. More than half would avoid having a relationship
with a non-Jew, but if they were to fall in love with a non-Jew,
only 35 percent would insist their spouse convert. Two-thirds of
Israeli Jews see intermarriage as a serious threat to Jews worldwide, and one-third see it as a serious threat to Jews in Israel.
■ Comedian Sarah Silverman broke out a Jewish joke as she
took home a trophy at the 2014 Emmy Awards. Silverman won
for Best Writing for a Variety Show for her HBO comedy special
“Sarah Silverman: We are Miracles.” Upon being announced as
the winner, she dashed onto the stage barefoot and thanked her
agents, saying, “Thank you to my Jews at CAA.”
JTA
THE CHICAGO
JEWISH NEWS
Vol. 20 No. 47
Joseph Aaron
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5
Best face forward
Helping women
look and feel
more beautiful
By Pauline Dubkin Yearwood
Managing Editor
If you’ve ever wondered how
someone decides to become a
makeup artist, Elise Brill has a
story for you – one she admits is
“a little odd.”
The Northbrook-based Jewish makeup artist studied film at
Columbia College in Chicago,
intending to become a casting director. She began working in film
and TV after graduation but also
found herself hanging out more
and more often in the makeup
trailer.
“I have a love of faces,” she
said in a recent phone interview.
“I was just fascinated when actors
would come on set preparing to
be on camera. I started falling in
love with makeup application.”
But since that wasn’t a field
she had studied or thought about
as a career, she found herself
somewhat lost when the TV
show she was working on moved
to Las Vegas and she decided not
to follow.
So she did what any sensible
Jewish girl does when she finds
herself at loose ends – she went
to Israel and joined the IDF.
Well, not exactly the IDF,
but Volunteers for Israel, an organization that recruits non-soldiers to help do routine tasks that
soldiers would ordinarily do. Brill
spent three months on a tank
base. “I had a very important
job,” she says. “I made a lot of
coffee.”
When she returned to the
United States, Brill says, her
focus had become clear.
“I was able to say, I know a
lot about makeup,” she says. (Besides the film jobs, she had
worked at a makeup counter in
Marshall Field’s for a time. While
there, she was constantly getting
requests from clients to do the
makeup for their weddings.)
Feeling confident about her
new direction, Brill launched
Leesi B Cosmetics (the name is
based on her nickname), which
today is celebrating 15 years in
business.
Operating out of a studio in
her Northbrook home, she develops and sells her own line of
cosmetics, helps clients pick the
best colors and makeup for their
skin types and does makeup for
weddings, Jdate pictures and
other special occasions. Her line
has kosher and gluten-free
makeup available and none of it
is tested on animals.
Brill, who is married to an
Israeli man and has two sons,
ages 20 and 22, says clients like
Elise Brill
coming to her studio better than
going to a department store
makeup counter because there is
no pressure to buy.
“When someone calls me,
they come here, I set aside an
hour appointment,” she says. “I
do the makeup application, I
chart the colors I recommend for
them and I keep a copy. Everything is computerized. They can
leave here and buy nothing. I
never charge for people coming
to get educated and try new colors.” She adds new products to
her line four times a year.
“What makes makeup different is quality and pigment,” she
says. “Is the makeup from the
drugstore terrible? No, but it’s
not the quality of the makeup
you will get from me.”
Being responsive to the
needs of individual clients is also
important, Brill says.
“In the past seven years people have more allergies than I’ve
ever seen,” she says. “You have to
be sensitive to people’s allergies.
I try to tune in to what my
clients want. Gluten-free is very
big right now, also paraben-free.
People will call me for Passover,
they need to get all new makeup,
and I know exactly what I can
sell to them.”
As she launches her fall line,
Brill says one noteworthy trend
is “very bold lips. We’ve been
away from that for a while.
Makeup is very bold, with bur-
gundies, hot pinks – nothing for
the shy. But you can incorporate
it to the level of your comfort,
take it up or down a notch.
“I like to help my clients
wear the latest trends but I don’t
take them too far from who they
are,” she says.
SEE MAKEUP
ON
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MAOT CHITIM OF GREATER CHICAGO
purchases the food that volunteers deliver.
This kosher holiday food will feed more than
12,000 people for Rosh Hashanah 2014.
To accomplish this, we need your help!
We rely on the entire Jewish community to make this happen!
BE A VOLUNTEER!
Help us continue the tradtion that was started in 1908.
Give of your time
so that we can continue to help those in need celebrate the holidays in a traditional and dignified manner.
Delivery Day is Sunday, September 21st
Join us to pack perishables beginning at 6:00 a.m.
Food package delivery will start at 9:00 a.m.
Warehouse Location
3411 Woodhead Drive, Northbrook, IL
Visit our website for directions. Must wear closed shoes.
No one under the age of 12 permitted in the warehouse.
To volunteer to pack,
email our group coordinator at volunteer@maotchitim.org.
For more information, call our office at 847-674-3224
or visit our website at www.maotchitim.org.
MAOT CHITIM OF GREATER CHICAGO
7366 N. Lincoln Avenue • Suite 301, Dept. RHJN
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Joel H. Schneider, President
Joellyn Oliff, Executive Director
L’Shana Tovah
PAG E 1 1
6
Torah Portion
CANDLELIGHTING TIMES
7:10
Sept. 5
6:59
Landmarks and livelihood
Torah shows
how to create
a just society
KABA
A
Fine
ITMediterranean
Cuisine
By Lawrence F. Layfer
Torah Columnist
B
P
4
Aug. 29
LUNCH SPECIAL
Torah Portion: Shoftim
Deuteronomy 16:18-21:9
“You will not remove your
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Not only in ancient Israel
was the use of border stones common. The Encyclopedia Judaica
notes that “many boundary
stones engraved with invocations
and curses against their removal
have been found in ancient
Babylonia.” The clear intent of
the commandment to not move
another’s stone, Rashi suggests, is
simple robbery: “He relocates a
marker of division of land into
his fellow’s field in order to expand his own field,” and
Deuteronomy (29:17) curses
such a person “that moves his
neighbor’s landmark.”
So serious was the prohibition that land surveyors were instructed to make their recurrent
measurements in the same season, as rope may lengthen or
shrink when the weather
changes from the cold of winter
to the warmth of summer, adding
unacceptable if small inaccuracies. There is even concern that
planting a tree too close to the
border of your neighbor’s field
may violate the rule because your
tree may spread its roots across
your boundary into your neighbor’s field and steal some of the
ground water from his trees.
Proverbs suggests that the
character of those who begin by
moving border stones eventually
leads them to steal from others
less able to defend themselves:
“Do not remove the old landmark, and do not enter the fields
of the fatherless, for their Redeemer is mighty.” (Proverbs
23:10) Hosea compares the rulers
of his generation to thieves by
using the image of those who violate border markers, noting that
Divine punishment will follow:
“The princes of Judah are like
those that remove the landmark
stones, therefore I will pour out
my wrath upon them.” (5:10)
Job goes further, claiming
that the cascade of evil that starts
with the moving of a border
Lawrence F. Layfer
stone ends with ever increasing
depths of evil: “Some remove the
landmarks, they violently take
away flocks and feed them, they
drive away the donkey of the fatherless and take the widow’s ox
for a pledge, they turn the needy
out of the way, the poor of the
earth.” (24:2-4)
A question: The commandment not to steal has already
been given to us twice in the
Decalogue, so why is the ruling
on moving the border stone, a
subset of stealing, necessary to be
stated? The Torah does not waste
words, so if this ruling seems redundant, then we must look
harder to uncover some novel
concept that requires this particular example. Perhaps the core
issue in moving the border stone
is not the theft of land itself but
rather the loss of income from
the farmable land that lessens
the owner’s ability to care for his
family’s needs.
Therefore Rabbi Elazar Rokeach of Worms (1165-1238), a
German rabbinical scholar, can
propose that “one who encroaches
competitively on a neighbor’s
livelihood is violating the commandment of moving his neighbor’s border stone.” The issue of
Hasagat Gevul has then become a
look at the marketplace behavior
of direct competition, often good
for consumers, but perhaps an unfair infringement on the livelihood of other merchants.
The Rabbis of the Talmud
straddle both sides of this issue.
Some Sages consider that a seller
who lowers his prices is unfair to
his competitors, and yet other
Sages say that such a merchant is
remembered for good because he
eases the market price for consumers (Baba Metziah 60A).
And Rav Huna said (Baba Basra
21B) if a resident of an alley sets
up a mill for commercial purposes and then a fellow resident
comes and sets up a mill next to
his, the law is that the first one
can stop the second one, for he
can say to him “you are cutting
off my livelihood”; but the Rabbis challenged Rav Huna’s opinion, saying a person may open a
rival store next to the store of his
fellow, or a rival bathhouse next
to the bathhouse of his fellow,
and the established owner cannot prevent him from doing so,
because the rival can say to the
original owner “you do as you
wish inside your property, and I
do as I wish inside mine.”
The arguments are not limited to shopkeepers; they also extend to issues such as fishing
rights and intellectual property.
In our own day, Chicago has seen
such a discussion concerning a
national grocery chain in its approach to the kosher-keeping
community, threatening the survival of smaller local suppliers.
In an article published some
years ago, Rabbi Beryl Wein offers a concise summary of the
Torah’s expectation of how we
ensure that the Talmud’s conflict
of approaches is balanced. He
considers competition as the fuel
for the engine that drives our society forward, without which we
would be at the mercy of monopolists and cartels that stifle
progress, efficiency and incentive.
He reasons that “competition is an accepted condition in
our society. In commerce, sports,
government, the arts and sciences, competition is the fuel for
the engine that drives our society
forward. Nevertheless, like all
seemingly positive attributes,
competition should have its limits, as unrestrained, cutthroat, vicious competition is immoral,
wrong, and eventually counterproductive to the society itself.
Just as it is obviously wrong to
move one’s border fence to gobble up a piece of ground of the
neighboring lot, so too is it
wrong to engage in unfair competitive practices in order to injure someone’s business in order
to benefit one’s own business enterprise. The Torah is interested
in creating a fair, just, harmonious and compassionate society.
Unfair competitive practices,
when practiced regularly, openly
and without shame, prevent the
achievement of such a society.
Following this precept guarantees the sanctity of privacy, the
holiness of confidentiality and
the civility necessary for a fair,
civil and trustworthy marketplace.”
Lawrence F. Layfer M.D. is
vice chairman of medicine at North
Shore University Health System,
Skokie Hospital.
7
H I G H H O L I D AY
SYNAGOGUE FOCUS
David Gregory’s Jewish book plans
Kehillat
Shalom
By Anthony Weiss
JTA
David Gregory was just
sacked as host of “Meet the
Press” in public and humiliating
fashion. And like so many before
him, he will seek respite from the
suffering of worldly scorn in the
consolation of religion.
This isn’t to say that Gregory will be retreating to a cave
in the desert – on the contrary,
according to Politico Playbook,
Washington’s online political
gossip sheet, Gregory is available,
through the Leading Authorities
speakers bureau, “to speak to associations and companies” about
“the political landscape, the
White House, Congress, the
2014 elections, and what’s ahead
for 2016.” (In other words, what
he used to speak about on “Meet
the Press” before he was fired.)
Rather, Politico Playbook brings
us the news that Gregory is writing a book about “his Jewish
faith.”
That Jewish faith is an important part of his Beltway persona – Gregory studies Torah
with David Brooks, Jeffrey Goldberg and Martin Indyk; he attends D.C.’s Temple Micah
alongside Democratic Leadership
Committee founder Al From;
and his life as a Jew was even
profiled in The Daily Beast,
where he confided that his faith
helps him “to work with more
compassion and empathy” and
“gives me a sense of perspective.”
That sense of perspective
will be useful as Gregory recovers
from a rocky tenure on “Meet the
Press,” which was characterized
by plunging ratings, brutal reviews and a report that NBC had
hired a “psychological consultant” to diagnose what ailed the
show. (NBC argued that the conS E E G R E G O RY
ON
PAG E 1 1
Skokie Valley
Agudath Jacob Synagogue
A cornerstone of the Skokie Jewish
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Special Children’s Programming
$125 per adult Introductory membership included with ticket purchase for families with children 12 and under.
Email your reservation to holidaytix@kehillatshalom.org
For complete information and service times visit www.kehillatshalom.org
8610 Niles Center Road, Skokie, IL • (847) 679-6513
Orthodox Services will be led by:
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Traditional Services will be led by:
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Join us year round for inspirational services and activities
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Introductory membership plans and
individual High Holiday seats are available.
CONGREGATION
BENE SHALOM
“The Miracle on Oakton Street”
Skokie Valley Agudath Jacob Synagogue
8825 East Prairie Road
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L’Shana Tova 5775
High Holidays start September 24th.
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Join Rabbi Jeffrey Weill and
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as we celebrate the High Holidays.
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• Where traditional Reform services are celebrated
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celebrated Saturday morning
• Where children develop a warm relationship with
our Rabbis and attend religious school in a
nurturing environment
Services are sign language interpreted.
Non Jews are welcome to become members.
We welcome people of any sexual orientation.
Rosh Hashanah
Erev service: Wed., September 24 at 8:15 p.m.
1st day: Thurs., September 25 at 10:30 a.m.
Family service: open to the public,
Thurs., September 25 at 3 p.m.
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Rabbi Dr. Douglas Goldhamer
Assistant Rabbi Shari Chen
President Rita Carroll
Cantorial Soloist Charlene Brooks
8
Finding the
Goldbergs
By Uriel Heilman
JTA
MONTICELLO, N.Y. – The
moment I kicked in the door of
the abandoned house in the heart
of the Catskills, I felt like I was in
an episode of “The Twilight
Zone: Borscht Belt edition.”
In some corners it appeared
as if the residents were just out for
the afternoon. Pictures and
tchotchkes adorned the walls. A
mezuzah with the parchment still
inside was affixed to a doorpost.
A working upright piano sat in
one corner. Ironing boards were
open. Mattresses lay on beds; in
one room the beds were still halfmade.
But elsewhere, things were
in a state of advanced decay. The
roof over the kitchen had caved
in. The sink was overflowing
with rotting leaves. In a bedroom, vines poured in through
the window and spread over
much of the ceiling. Mold was
having its way with the walls.
I had come to the Catskills
hoping to get one last look at
Kutsher’s, the last of the great
Borscht Belt resorts, after hearing
the news that its demolition was
imminent. For much of the 20th
century, Kutsher’s and other Jewish hotels like it helped make the
Catskills the summer destination
of choice for New York Jews.
But when I reached the
mountains a few days later, I
found the roads leading to Kutsher’s blocked by chains and sawhorses posted with warnings
against trespassing into the hardhat zone. I tried to make my way
on foot, wading through wet,
overgrown grass, but three burly
construction workers spotted me
and I was forced to beat a hasty
retreat.
Which is how I found my
way into a crumbling bungalow
colony at the edge of Kutsher’s
1,500 acres.
Aside from the main house
with 10 bedrooms and side building with a dining room and
kitchen that I had broken into,
there were a handful of bungalows, a pool and a lake. The
buildings all were vacant, in
varying states of disrepair
and overcome by nature.
One room had half a dozen
ovens and refrigerators. Opening
one fridge, I half expected to find
a cold can of Tab. No dice. In the
corner of what appeared to be
the living room, there was a public telephone. I picked it up. No
dial tone.
Most of the bedrooms were
disheveled or empty, but in one I
found toiletries and a shoeshine
kit carefully arranged on the
dresser, three drab but clean
dresses hanging in the closet, and
a shelf filled with unused legal
pads and blank paper.
Then I spotted the first clue
to who may have lived here.
Tucked into the mirror was
a photograph of four happy-looking elderly couples posing in
front of the lake out back now
obscured by foliage. Their names
were carefully inscribed on the
back: Nat & Sylvia, Herman &
Eleanor, Milton & Norma, Jack
& Charlotte. There was also a
date: August 2001.
Who were these people and
why did they leave? What purpose did this odd house serve?
Were the people in the photo
still alive? When was the house
last occupied?
This being the age of the Internet, it took less than an hour
of sleuthing, a credit card and
$3.95 to unravel the mystery of
this strange Catskills time capsule.
The simple part was figuring
out who lived there. An address
label affixed to some shelves in
the bedroom with the shoeshine
kit read Goldberg. That matched
the name on a Jewish National
Fund Tree-in-Israel certificate
posted on the wall in another
room. Along with the photograph I found, I had my target
couple: Nat and Sylvia Goldberg.
Combing through online directories and death notices, it didn’t
take long to locate family members. Soon I had Nat and Sylvia’s
daughter, Judy Viteli, on the line.
She almost cried when I told her
where I had been.
“Ah, the kochelein,” she
said wistfully.
The what?
“The kochelein,” she said.
“It’s a Yiddish word.”
Over the course of several
conversations, including one in
which we went through old pictures at her kitchen table, Judy
and her sister, Paula Goldberg –
now 60 and 63, respectively –
told me the story of what had
transpired half a century ago in
that house, why it represented
the best years of their lives and
how it all came to an end. This
is their story.
The kochelein
The kochelein – a term that
literally means “cook alone” –
represented a particular kind of
bungalow colony: a place where
several families shared a house
but where everyone was responsible for their own food. That’s
why there were half a dozen
fridges and ovens in the kitchen:
Each of the 10 families was allotted half a refrigerator and a
shared oven to prepare meals.
A pharmacist from the
Bronx, Nat Goldberg began
bringing his family to this
kochelein, called Fairhill, in
1953, when Judy was still in diapers and her sister Paula was 5.
The rest of the house was filled
with cousins and close friends, all
from the same working-class
Bronx neighborhood. Everybody,
of course, was Jewish.
There was practically no privacy: Parents and their children
slept in the same room, all the
families shared only two bathrooms and everyone ate their
meals in the shared dining room.
From a kid’s perspective, the
summers were idyllic. Days were
spent hiking in the woods, swimming in the lake, picking wild
blueberries, playing hide-andseek, trying to sneak into the resort at Kutsher’s and waging
endless girls vs. boys wars. On
rainy days they’d pack into the
dining room with their parents to
play mah-jongg or a variation of
rummy, gambling for split peas.
After the rain stopped, the kids
would run outside to hunt sala-
In the 1950s, during the heyday of this Catskills bungalow colony, 10
women shared the single kitchen.
manders.
Once the Goldberg kids
turned 10, they were allowed to
hitchhike into Monticello; their
mother would wave goodbye as
they climbed into strangers’ cars.
On weekends they might catch
rides with their father en route to
the racetrack.
On Saturday nights, when
the adults went out, the kids left
to their own devices smoked,
played kissing games and did
whatever else they could think of
that their parents had forbidden.
“Every one of us will tell you it
was the best time of our lives,”
Paula said of those summers.
“Our mothers never knew where
we were and didn’t care.”
For the adults, the bungalow
colony was both an extension of
and a break from their lives in the
crowded Jewish enclaves of the
Bronx. It was mostly the same
people, but there was cleaner air,
less privacy and less testosterone:
The men, who worked Monday to
Friday, came up only on weekends; the women and children
stayed all summer.
“It was a total matriarchy,”
Paula said.
It was the 1950s, before
three major factors destroyed the
Jewish Catskills: air condition-
ing, which made staying in the
city more palatable; declining
discrimination against Jews,
which opened up previously unavailable summertime alternatives; and the rise of the working
woman, which made moving
away for the summer untenable.
The bungalow colony was
not for the wealthy. Accommodations were simple. Water came
from a well. When it went dry
one summer, the families went
days without showering and
walked around with divining
rods. The swimming pool – now
cracked, overgrown and shrouded
by trees – wasn’t built until sometime in the late ‘50s.
With the exception of Nat
Goldberg, none of the men at the
kochelein had gone to college,
and they all worked blue-collar
jobs. Jewish families with more
money went to resorts like Kutsher’s, where meals, entertainment and a wide range of recreational
facilities
were
included. At Kutsher’s, residents
of bungalow colonies like the
Fairhill kochelein were referred
to derisively as “bungees.”
Entertainment at the kochelein was mostly homemade:
Someone would play the piano or
the adults would hold silly parties
9
where everyone wore their
clothes backward or husbands
and wives swapped clothing or
held mock weddings or soup-eating contests.
The men were constantly
pranking each other. In the
mornings, the first thing everyone would do was get in line for
the bathroom, toothbrush and
soap in hand. With as many as 40
people sharing just two bathrooms, dillydallying was severely
frowned upon – not least by your
stern, socially conscious mother.
“Everything happened in front of
everybody else – all the babying,
all the disciplining,” Judy recalled. “There was no private
place to yell at anybody.”
One morning when she was
11, Judy had to conceal a hickey
she said a boy had forced on her
neck the night before.
“It was the summer, you
couldn’t wear a scarf,” she said.
“So I put on makeup before I
came out from the top of my
head down to my neck thinking
nobody would notice.”
To no avail. As soon as she
walked into the dining room, a
girl named Arlene spotted it and
broke into peals of laughter. Judy
was humiliated; her mother
made her wear pancake makeup
until the hickey subsided.
The food was kosher – to
some degree. At home in the
Bronx, Sylvia would let her kids
have milk after meat, but at the
bungalow colony she was stricter
because Aunt Faye was sitting at
the next table.
“We used to pretend to be
kosher,” Judy said. “It was shameful if you weren’t kosher. But
people were different degrees of
kosher.”
Because the ladies didn’t
drive, the mothers would list the
groceries they needed in a spiral
notebook hanging from a hook
in the dining room, and the Polish Catholic family that owned
the property – Alex and Mary
Chicko – would go to town every
day to buy the provisions, adding
a penny or two to each item as a
delivery fee.
The families all shared a single public telephone. If Milton
should phone from the city to
speak to his wife who was down
by the lake, whoever answered
would get on the P.A. system and
make the announcement, summoning Norma to the receiver.
If the kids misbehaved, the
parents would punish them by
dragging them along to Kutsher’s
shows instead of leaving them
behind with their boyfriends and
girlfriends.
For Paula, one kochelein relationship proved to have special
staying power: with Mark Goldberg, a boy whose family had
been coming to the Fairhill
kochelein since the 1920s. She
was 5 and he was 6 when they
met, and they began “going together” in the summer of 1959.
That was when 13-year-old
Mark asked Paula to a movie theater in town to see “Journey to
the Center of the Earth,” and the
two kissed during the film – with
their eyes open, Paula says.
He was fresh; he was a bad boy,”
Paula said with a mischievous
smile.
The two broke up at the end
of every summer and then got
back together the following July.
Some summers Mark’s family
didn’t go up to the mountains,
but Mark always came – even if it
was in the care of someone else’s
parents. That is, until the summer of ‘66, when Mark’s father
collapsed at the kochelein of a
heart attack and died. Mark was
19.
When Mark was 22 and
Paula was 21, they married. The
couple recently celebrated their
45th wedding anniversary.
The later years
By the 1960s, things had
begun
changing
at
the
kochelein. A pool had been
built. Two more bathrooms were
added to the main house. There
had been three or four bungalows
onsite at least since the early
‘50s, but in the ‘60s the owners
decided to build several more,
enlisting the summertime kids to
help.
Most significantly, the owners cut a deal that traded the use
of part of their land to Kutsher’s
in exchange for nightly passes to
the resort’s shows. Kutsher’s
eventually bought the bungalow
colony outright.
“That changed our lives,”
Paula recalled. “Our parents
could get dressed up and go every
night and see all the Borscht Belt
comedians. They could go dancing on the stage. Our little bungalow colony had very special
power based on the land.”
Judy says she enjoyed the
shows, except for one thing:
“The comedians would tell their
joke, and then the punchline
would be in Yiddish. I’d ask Mom
what he said and she’d say, I’ll
tell you later.”
When she was old enough,
Judy began working summers at
Kutsher’s as a camp counselor. It
was hard work, she says: 12-hour
days, six days a week, for just $15
per week. At the kochelein, the
traditions continued.
At summer’s end, when each
family finished packing up the car
to leave, the remaining families
would assemble for a parting ceremony. They’d all bang pots and
pans and sing a song to the tune of
the “The Farmer in the Dell”:
We hate to see you go We
hate to see you go We hope to
heck you never come back We
hate to see you go
The Goldbergs were usually
the last to leave.
“We left a day later than
everyone else because God forbid
we should get stuck in traffic,”
Paula recalled.
As they graduated high
school and college, the number
of kids at the bungalow colony
dwindled. Some went up only for
weekends, some not at all.
Even as the Catskills fell
into decline in the ‘70s and ‘80s,
the adults kept going to the
Fairhill kochelein – relishing the
space without kids, according to
Paula. They stopped only when
they couldn’t physically do it, obstructed by illness, death or retirement to Florida.
By the 1990s, most of the
kochelein’s rooms were empty.
But not the Goldbergs’; they
were diehards. Even when Nat
and Sylvia took a place in Florida
for the winter, they would return
to Monticello for the summers.
Sylvia kept three separate bottles
of moisturizer so she could travel
lighter: at her bedside at the
The kochelein was a matriarchy, with women running the show while their husbands mostly came up just
for weekends. This photo was taken in August 1956.
This Catskills house near Kutsher’s, in the old Borscht Belt, once was
home to a vibrant communal summer home called a kochelein – Yiddish for “cook alone,” because while living and cooking space were
shared, each family was responsible for its own meals.
kochelein, in Florida and in
Yonkers, where the couple
moved when they left the Bronx.
(Snooping around the abandoned property, I spotted Sylvia’s
bottle of moisturizer.)
With the surrounding area
growing shabbier every year, the
Goldberg kids tried to convince
their parents to stop going to the
kochelein – or at least get a room
for the summer at Kutsher’s, which
by now they could afford. But Nat
and Sylvia wouldn’t budge.
“To me it was depressing to
go up in those later years,” Judy
said. “My mother’s sister used to
bring up all her money for the
summer and hide it in her room.
When she had a stroke in the
middle of one summer, her son
asked us to find the money and
we couldn’t. Eventually someone
found it.”
The last few summers the
Goldbergs spent at the bungalow
colony, they were the only couple there.
“It was eerie,” Judy said.
“You would go upstairs and all
the other rooms were abandoned
looking.” Nat and Sylvia would
spend their days at Kutsher’s –
Sylvia in pottery classes making
tchotchkes that she’d take back
to the kochelein and hang on the
walls, Nat outside organizing
shuffleboard games. At the end
of the day they would go back to
their big, empty house at the
bungalow colony to eat and
sleep. Though there were half a
dozen refrigerators, they still confined themselves to the same
half-fridge they always used.
“It felt like the ‘Twilight
Zone’ to me,” Paula said. “Dad
was 92. We were scared already.
They were living alone in that
big house and crossing over to
the dining room for meals. They
were anachronisms.”
Finally, in the summer of
2002, after 50 years of summers
at Fairhill, the Goldberg kids
managed to convince their parents to forego the kochelein for
the following summer, and they
booked rooms at Kutsher’s for 10
weeks starting in June 2003.
But when Nat and Sylvia
left the kochelein at the end of
August 2002, Sylvia was complaining about feeling tired, and
she spent that fall in and out of
doctor’s offices. She was diagnosed with cancer.
“After we booked them into
10 weeks at Kutsher’s, my mother
felt like a very rich lady,” Paula
said. “Even when she was in hospice, she thought she’d spend the
summer at the hotel.”
Sylvia never made it. She
died in July 2003.
Nat, 10 years her senior,
held on for nearly another
decade, living until the age of
100. He died in June 2010.
Today, the Jewish Catskills is
largely a relic. There are still a
few bungalow colonies scattered
about, and some haredi Orthodox camps have put down stakes,
but all the great Jewish hotels
have been sold off or abandoned
to nature and decay.
Kutsher’s, the last holdout,
was sold in late 2013 for $8.2
million to Veria Lifestyle Inc., a
company owned by Indian billionaire Subhash Chandra. He
plans to build a new health and
wellness resort at the site.
Decades on, the kochelein
still maintains a hold on the
Goldberg sisters – and many of
the others who spent their childhood summers there. In 1996,
when the sisters held a 50th anniversary party for their parents
at Paula’s Westchester home,
many of the old kochelein kids
showed up for the occasion.
“They were like family,”
Paula says.
At Paula’s insistence, she
and Mark used to drive to Monticello every year on Aug. 2, the
anniversary of their first date.
Then last year, for the first
time, Paula decided she didn’t
want to go anymore. It was just
too sad and spooky.
From what I saw on my foray
there, it’s also dangerous. There’s
no telling when a floor might
collapse or the roof cave in. The
property is a wreck.
But it’s also full of artifacts –
enough for an enterprising visitor to decode the mystery of the
copious fridges, the half-full bottle of moisturizer, the piano in
the corner of the dining room.
Enough, that is, to tell the Goldbergs’ story.
10
THEMaven
Chicago Jewish News
RIDE ON
FOR A CAUSE…
■ It’s not that Tom Peled, an
Israeli reservist, doesn’t appreciate the blankets, cakes, food
packages and all the rest of it
that supporters send IDF soldiers from all over the world.
But he would be willing to
give up his share if those supporters donated to fund cancer
research in Israel instead, he
says.
Peled, 26, is the creator of
Bike for the Fight, a bicycle
journey he and his team took to
raise funds for Israel Cancer
Research Fund. The trip and a
subsequent one bore personal
meaning for Peled but were also
important for the future of the
Jewish state and its research, he
said during a recent stop in
Chicago, where he was accompanied by two members of the
ICRF’s Chicago office, development director Jennifer Flink
and Sandy Rosen, head of individual gifts.
Peled’s involvement in the
organization grew out of a
tragedy: His father, Rami, was
diagnosed with a form of cancer
so rare only five other Israelis
had it.
Doctors gave him just
months to live; he battled the
disease valiantly for eight years.
“He had a passion for life,”
Peled says. “The worse his physical condition got, the better his
spiritual condition got. It was
amazing to see.”
While there was little incentive to develop a treatment
for such a rare form of cancer,
Israeli scientists are worldwide
leaders in cancer research in
general, Flink says. The Jewish
state also had the highest rate of
“brain drain” – top scientists
leaving to work in countries
where they would be better
funded.
ICRF was started in 1975
to stop that state of affairs.
Today it gives grants primarily
for career development so scientists can have the freedom to
build labs and work long-term
on cancer research.
Three of the most recent
“miracle drugs” – Doxil for
breast cancer, Gleevac for
leukemia and Velcade for multiple myeloma – came out of Israeli research, Flink says, and in
2004, a group of Israeli researchers at the Technion won a
Nobel Prize for their part in the
development of Velcade. Today
the ICRF is the largest source
for private funds for Israeli cancer research, Flink says.
Peled, meanwhile, was try-
A TALE OF
TWO COUNTRIES…
At an Israel Cancer Research Fund event in downtown Chicago with
Tom Peled, were, at left, Jennifer Flink of ICRF; and, at right, event cochairs Ashley Silver, Gillian Kriezelman, and Sophia Berman.
ing to cope with the death of
his dad in 2011.
“I went through a very difficult few months,” he says. “I
lost all direction, all motivation. I was thinking, what do I
do now?”
Eventually he decided that
biking, which he had always
loved, would be his salvation,
and he took a three-month bike
trip throughout Europe.
When he returned, “I felt
this energy. I thought, you can’t
stop now,” Peled, who grew up
in a small village in Southern
Israel but now lives in Herzliya,
says. “I needed to find a way to
take this energy and use it for
something bigger – this time for
a cause. The first thing that
jumped into my mind was cancer research.”
Now he needed to connect
his energy to an established organization. He started asking
around and found out about
ICRF.
“From the start I felt, this is
it,” he says. “You’re not just giving to (research on) one type of
cancer. This is the best of the
best.”
Flink adds that “among scientists, an ICRF grant is the
grant you want to get. It has
such prestige, other granters see
it as a stamp of approval.”
With ICRF support, Peled
and his team set out to bike
from Los Angeles to New York
in the summer of 2012, stopping
to tell their story in synagogues,
schools, Chabad houses, JCCs
and other venues where community members gathered.
“We didn’t specifically ask
for people to give us money, but
people saw we were for real, and
people connected to that,”
Peled says. A lot of people also
connect to cancer research, he
adds, citing statistics showing
that one in three individuals
will be diagnosed with the disease.
That effort raised more
than $100,000 for ICRF. A second tour, Toronto to Washington, D.C., was shorter but raised
the same amount of money.
Israeli leaders including former President Shimon Peres,
Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat
and singer-songwriter David
Broza supported his efforts.
Eventually Peled returned
to Israel, where he recently
graduated from the Lauder
School of Government, Diplomacy and Strategy at the IDC
College in Herzliya. He envisions going into public service
in the future, but for now is
working for a company that
builds machines for 3-D printing.
He recently spent his IDF
reserve duty in a combat unit
locating and shooting down
Hamas rocket launchers after
the Iron Dome system had destroyed the rocket or missile.
Peled was spending some in
Chicago recently to help launch
a Young Leadership division
within the Chicago ICRF chapter, which he says is the fastestgrowing chapter in the United
States.
He’s planning another bike
ride soon, but in the meantime
he wants American supporters
to know that the cookies and
socks they send to soldiers are
appreciated, but helping to fund
cancer research will allow Israel
to keep its scientists at home
and benefit the Jewish state and
the rest of the world just as
much.
“The battle against cancer
is ongoing,” he says. “We need
support as much as we need
blankets and cakes and massages.”
■ Relations between Greece
and Israel have fluctuated,
but they’ve been warm over
the past few years. Four years
ago, Charles Mouratides, a
Chicago journalist and pro-Israeli Greek native, decided to
take advantage of that situation by founding the Circle
for Hellas and Israel, a
Chicago-based non-profit designed to strengthen the two
countries’ alliance in educational, cultural and technological realms.
“I created the organization out of a commitment to
Jewish and Israeli causes. I
want this organization to
strengthen the alliance and to
try to find specific ways to
show that this alliance is going to practically benefit
Greece and Israel,” Mouratides, a former reporter and
editor who is now retired and
devotes most of his time to
the organization, said.
An upcoming event
should raise CHI’s profile in
Chicago. It will feature a reception and musical program,
with U.S. Sen. Mark Kirk
(R.-Ill.) as the keynote
speaker discussing the importance of the Greece-Israel alliance in the Eastern
Mediterranean and what the
U.S. role is in that alliance.
In addition, Chazan Alberto Mizrahi, cantor at
Chicago’s Anshe Emet Synagogue, accompanied by pianist
Howard Levy, will sing
Greek, Hebrew and Ladino
songs. Mizrahi was born in
Athens. Also at the event two
scientists who participated in
an exchange program between
the two countries will receive
the 2014 Miletus Tradition
Awards, named after an ancient city that was the center
of scientific knowledge.
The celebration takes
place from 3 to 5 p.m. Sunday,
Sept. 14 at Heller Auditorium, Francis W. Parker
School, 330 W. Webster Ave.,
Chicago. (For tickets, $30,
call 773-562-3534.)
Mouratides was born in
Thessaloniki, Greece, a city,
he said in a recent phone conversation, whose population
was three-quarters Jewish before the Holocaust.
“The port (of Thessaloniki) was closed on the
(Jewish) Sabbath because of
all the Jewish people who
worked there,” he said. “It was
Charles Mouratides
a heavily Jewish city intellectually, commercially, religiously, with all kinds of
Jewish educational institutions and synagogues.”
The Jewish community
there was decimated during
the Holocaust, he said, with
more than 95 percent of the
Jewish population sent to
Auschwitz. Most perished
there. A few survived and
went back to Greece, but the
population was effectively destroyed, he said.
A happier chapter in the
city’s history occurred in 2013
when CHI brought a number
of Israeli scientists from Bar
Ilan University to meet with
Greek scientists at Thessaloniki University, the largest
in the country.
“We decided in a way to
capitalize on the fact that this
had been a Jewish city. About
20 Greek scientists met with
seven Israeli scientists and
began a process of acquaintance and hopefully collaboration,” Mouratides said.
Meanwhile, another exchange between Greek and Israeli scientists is planned for
December. The event “is becoming an important bridge
between the two countries,”
he said.
He said that he devotes so
much time to the organization
“not only because I’m pro-Israel but because it is of vital
importance to Greece and Israel. All other countries except for Greece and Cypress in
the Eastern Mediterranean are
Muslim countries that are not
on good terms with Israel,” he
said.
“This is not just an idea.
It’s very practical for both
countries,” he said. “I want to
expand and create alliances
with a lot of other groups to
bring our message across and
show people there is a practical benefit.”
11
Makeup
CONTINUED
F RO M PAG E
5
That wisdom applies to weddings too. “A bride will come in
for a consultation and say, I
never wear makeup but for my
wedding day I want the Kim Kardashian look. I’ll say, five years
from now are you going to feel it
is a good representation of you? I
want people to feel beautiful but
still feel like themselves.”
Her general rule is, “We all
want to put our best face forward,
but we don’t want the makeup to
walk in the room before us.”
Her
personal
favorite
makeup product from her line,
she says, is the Leesi B Invisible
Blotting Powder. “It eliminates
Gregory
CONTINUED
F RO M PAG E
7
sultant was a “brand consultant.”)
Of course, one part of that
perspective might be that Gregory helmed the show as ratings
have faded for Sunday shows
generally, and as they have become less culturally relevant
amid the decline of the major
networks and the rise of alternative news sources (as well as persistent that the Sunday shows
are more hospitable to conservatives and Republicans than liberals and Democrats).
Another might be that Gregory was dealt a losing hand by
Prague
CONTINUED
F RO M PAG E
3
1944, Sidon formally converted
to Judaism in 1978. At that time
he found himself under immense
pressure from the secret police
after signing the Czechoslovakian human rights manifesto
Charter 77.
“What made me want to
convert was my experience with
the Soviet occupation of Czechoslovakia and with Charter 77,”
Sidon told the Terezin Initiative
Newsletter in 2005. “To put it
short, I realized that I had a soul,
and my commitment to God
emerged from that.”
Although Sidon only adopted
Orthodox Judaism during his rabbinical studies in Israel, his strategy
for reviving the Prague Jewish
community after four decades of
communism consisted of focusing
on observance of halachah, or Jewish religious law, and building up
religious life.
In the eyes of the public,
Sidon soon became the symbol of
a new chapter in the life of
Czech Jews and of their opposition to communism. But his ap-
shine and perspiration instantly.
The application is invisible and
leaves no residue,” she says.
She also has some advice for
women 45 and over.
“When I was 20 I could walk
out the door with no makeup
on,” she says. “Now – not. The
most important thing is for your
skin to look finished and have a
healthy glow. As we age skin
tends to look dull.”
Today’s trend of women
wearing tinted moisturizer “is OK
when you’re 20, but there’s still
nothing like a good foundation.
It’s so easy for skin to have a glow
with the right foundation and
the right application.”
Another message she wants
to send to women: “Don’t be
afraid to wear a lip color as you
get older, something with a sense
of brightness. It doesn’t have to
be flaming, but color gives you
life. A nice blush, a beautiful lipstick, a little mascara and you’re
ready to go.”
Looking back on her 15
years in the business, Brill says
she belong to the “it takes a village” school of thought.
“The best part of my job is
helping women and building relationships,” she says. “I have
learned more from my clients
than I have ever done for them.
We have so much to share with
each other besides makeup.”
stepping in after the sudden
death of Tim Russert, master of
the hardball interview.
Gregory’s perspective may
be aided as well by the reported
$4 million severance that NBC
is said to be shelling out for canning him before the end of his
contract.
His book on Judaism may
perhaps draw critics from those
traditionalists who will argue
that he is not technically Jewish,
given that he was born to a Jewish father and a non-Jewish
mother. Those same critics will
also likely argue that his three
children are likewise not Jewish,
given that Gregory’s wife, Beth
Wilkinson, is not of the Tribe.
(He will probably not encounter
any such quibblers at his shul,
however, which is Reform and
therefore recognizes Jewish lineage through the maternal line
and/or paternal line.)
Given what he has been
through for the last six years on
“Meet the Press,” any such quibbles would likely be the least of
Gregory’s problems.
As for “Meet the Press,” it
will not lack for yiddishkeit: Gregory’s replacement, Chuck Todd,
also is a Reform Jew, the son of a
Jewish mother and non-Jewish
father. Interestingly, Todd had
succeeded Gregory as NBC’s
White House correspondent
when Gregory was promoted to
the “Meet the Press” gig.
Does this mean that in a few
short years, Todd also will be
penning a book on his Jewish
faith?
Stay tuned.
proach met with opposition from
some community members.
“He pushed us into an Orthodox box, which drove many
people away,” Michaela Vidlakova, a Holocaust survivor and
a longtime community member,
told JTA in an email.
Sidon clashed with more religiously liberal Prague Jews who
wanted communal recognition of
non-Orthodox congregations
and of those who had Jewish fathers and non-Jewish mothers.
Eventually the community
offered those who traced their
Jewish identities only from their
fathers what was called “extraordinary” membership in 2003,
without the possibility of running for leadership positions. By
that time, however, controversies
over control of the real estaterich community’s finances and
other issues had raised tensions
between Sidon and supporters of
Tomas Jelinek who was elected
community chairman in 2001.
In 2004, Jelinek moved to
oust Sidon as Prague chief rabbi,
alleging that he had failed to
carry out his duties.
“He wasn’t able to groom a
successor, there were always
problems with kosher food at the
community and scores of other
things,” Jelinek said.
Jelinek appointed Rabbi
Manis Barash, a representative of
the U.S.-based Chabad Hasidic
movement, to take over Prague’s
famed Altneu Synagogue. But in
November of that year, Jelinek
suffered a staggering defeat in a
communal vote that eventually
resulted in him being removed as
leader.
Emotions continued to run
high for several months. In April
2005, members of the Sidon and
Barash minyans had a fistfight
during Shabbat prayers at the Altneu Synagogue.
A year-and-a-half after his
initial ouster, Sidon was reinstated as Prague’s chief rabbi.
Since then, the community
has become more pluralistic,
with several liberal leaders having been elected to the board.
Sidon had been planning to
retire in the fall, but on June 23
the Prague Jewish community
suddenly announced he would be
stepping down, citing his age.
The announcement came a
day after a Czech Jewish blog run
by Jelinek reported that Sidon
had separated from his wife and
was in a new relationship.
Brill is offering Chicago Jewish
News readers a free mini sample of
Leesi B Grande Mascara-Lash
Boosting Formula with any purchase
of $50 or more. Visit leesib.com to
place an order or make an appointment.
Senior Living
Preventing elder financial abuse
The Independent Community Bankers of America, the
Senior Housing Crime Prevention Foundation and Chicago’s
Devon Bank have some tips for
preventing the disturbing trend
of elder financial abuse
• Secure all of your valuables in a bank safety deposit
box. These valuables can include
your Social Security card, passports, credit card account numbers, will and other legal
documents, financial statements
and medical records.
• Do not give financial information to callers that contact
you and claim to be from established organizations such as your
bank or credit card companies,
especially if they ask you to wire
funds or send them private information. If you are concerned
about your bank account, contact us directly.
• Check your bank accounts
and bill statements carefully. You
can check them online so you
can zoom in easily in case you
need to make the statement
larger for easier reading. If you
notice unauthorized charges,
alert Devon Bank and your other
banks immediately.
• Do not give your personal
information, such as bank account numbers or PINs, to anyone in a phone call, letter, email,
fax or in a text message.
• Have enough money set
aside to support yourself and your
immediate family for at least six
months in case of an emergency.
Your local community banker
can help create a financial
roadmap for you and your family.
“Elder financial abuse is a
rapidly growing problem in our
country, so we produced the Preventing Elder Financial Abuse
Video Toolkit because we are
dedicated to providing educational resources to help our nation’s seniors and their family
members on ways to protect
themselves against financial exploitation,” said Peter Gwaltney,
chairman, president and CEO of
the Senior Housing Crime Prevention Foundation.
For more information about
the Senior Housing Crime Prevention Foundation, visit www.SHCPFoundation.org. To order the Preventing Elder Financial Abuse
Video Toolkit, visit SHCPF’s website.
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Camp Manitowa to host ‘Unleavened Dead’
A product of the 1960s San
Francisco counterculture, the
Grateful Dead inspired a fanatical
loyalty from fans drawn as much
by their music as the traveling carnival of seekers and misfits that
followed them from venue to
venue; yet there has always been a
deep connection to the music from
Jews.
This is where Unleavened
Dead comes in. The three-night
event highlights the best in community and features a wide variety
of workshops, concerts, jam sessions, campfires, and other
leisurely happenings.
During daytime hours, attendees will leave the indoors behind
as workshops and numerous outdoor activities including water
sports, ropes course, yoga and
much more will keep patrons busy,
entertained and active across
Camp Manitowa’s sprawling, updated campus. And on Saturday, a
Grateful Dead themed concert.
It will be held at Camp Manitowa, the Midwest’s newest residential summer camp and retreat
center located at Rend Lake, IL. It
goes from Sept 12-14. Camp will
open at 3 p.m. on Friday and close
at 3 p.m. on Sunday. Cost
is $165 which includes t-shirt,
housing, six meals, concert, all programming; $125 which does not
include housing. Includes t-shirt,
six meals, concert, all programming (There are many hotels
nearby) or $40 for Saturday entry
beginning at 4 p.m. Includes dinner, Sunday breakfast, concert,
campfire and camping.
Visit www.CampManitowa.
com to register for the retreat or to
buy individual tickets for the concert
and more information or contact
Beth Koritz at bethkoritz@gmail.
com.
CJN Classified
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CEMETERY LOTS
Westlawn Cemetery
3 plots available
$3000 each or
best offer
Call Batya
(847) 433-5991
MEMORIAL PARK
CEMETERY
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in Makom Shalom Annex Section.
Currently selling for $4,500 each,
asking $2,500 + transfer fees
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Inclusive of deed & endowments
1 Grave @ Memorial Park,
Gan M’Nucha
$3900.00
Larry – 847-778-6736
openspacesltd@yahoo.com
4 Cemetery Plots Available
Shalom Memorial Park
Prime Location:
Garden Of Eden Vl
Listed For $6800 ea.
Asking $4000 ea.
Contact Dan Snyder
847-564-1220
Memorial Park
Gan M’Nucha
FOR SALE
12 Prime Lots
available together or will divide
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ANNOUNCEMENT
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‫)דוד חנן‬
Community Calendar
Sunday
August 31
Chabad Community Center
of Rockford presents
“Learning from the Past;
Living the Present; Looking to the Future,” first
Midwest appearance of
Anne Frank’s childhood
friend and stepsister Eva
Schloss of London. 4-5:30
p.m., UIC College of Medicine Auditorium, 1601
Parkview Ave., Rockford.
$15 adults, $5 students.
Tickets, ChabadRockford.
com/events or (815) 9858594.
Thursday
September 4
Sweet Singers of Congregation Ezras Israel perform
program of Yiddish, Hebrew, Israeli and English
songs for seniors. 1 p.m.
Council for Jewish Elderly,
1015 W. Howard, Evanston.
(773) 764-8320.
Friday
September 5
Congregation Beth Judea
holds Shabbat Under the
Stars and barbecue dinner.
Bring own chair. 5:45 p.m.,
Route 83 and Hilltop Road,
Long Grove. Members $10
adult, $5 under age 12, $30
family; free for non-members. Preregistration required, info@bethjudea.org
or (847) 634-0777.
Saturday
September 6
JCC Chicago presents
Olympic Gold Medalist
Lenny Krayzelburg providing free swim evaluations.
Noon-3 p.m., University of
Chicago Lab School, 1362 E.
59th St., Chicago. Also 9
a.m.-1 p.m. Sunday, Sept. 7,
Bernard Horwich JCC, 3003
W. Touhy, Chicago. kconner@gojcc.com or (773)
516-5855.
Sunday
September 7
Ezra-Habonim, the Niles
Township Jewish Congregation holds Recycling Sunday for metals, appliances,
computers, sports equipment and other hardware.
9 a.m.-1 p.m., 4500 W.
Dempster, Skokie. (847)
675-4141.
Ezra-Habonim, the Niles
Township Jewish Congregation’s Men’s Club presents
musical duo Jeff & Janis at
brunch for men and women.
10 a.m., 4500 W. Dempster,
Skokie. $12 advance, $15
door. (847) 675-4141.
Beth Hillel Congregation
Bnai Emunah and Temple
Jeremiah present A Gourmet Honey Tasting with
dipping apples, children’s
activities and raffles. 11
a.m.-2 p.m., Mariano’s, Produce Dept., 1822 Willow
Road, Northfield. (847) 2563137 or (847) 441-5760.
Tamar-Modin Hadassah
hosts Puzzle Challenge
fund-raiser with dinner and
prizes. 2 p.m., 60 Revere
Drive, Northbrook. $32.
(847) 205-1900.
Tuesday
September 9
United States Holocaust
Memorial Museum hosts
“What You Do Matters,”
Risa K. Lambert Chicago
Luncheon featuring
Pulitzer Prize-winning author and presidential historian Doris Kearns
Goodwin. Noon (registration at 11:15 a.m.), Sheraton Chicago Hotel &
Towers, 301 E. North Water
St., Chicago. $250. Midwest@ushmm.org or (847)
433-8099.
SPOTLIGHT
Lincolnwood Jewish Congregation A.G. Beth Israel presents the 2014
Diane and Simon Zunamon Memorial Fine Arts Music Series, featuring “Music of the Opera-Songs of Broadway,” Tuesday, Sept. 9; Duo
Sonidas, Tuesday, Oct. 21; and Chicago Harp Quartet with Marguerite
Lynn Williams, principal harpist of the Lyric Opera of Chicago, Tuesday, Nov. 11. 7117 N. Crawford, Lincolnwood. For prices and times call
(847) 676-0491.
13
By Joseph Aaron
CONTINUED
F RO M PAG E
14
least five rockets fired from Syria landed in areas across the Golan
Heights. A rocket fired from Lebanon injured two children in the upper Galilee region of northern Israel.
So, all in all, a tough couple of months to be making the case that
anti-Semitism is no more and that Israel must give peace a chance.
And yet even after all we’ve seen, the truth is those two things
remain true.
Look, I never said anti-Semitism had disappeared. What I have
always said and continue to say is that as a factor in the lives of almost
all of us, it is no longer something that personally affects us. No longer
does it keep us from living in certain neighborhoods, attending certain
universities, acquiring certain jobs. That is true and remains true.
It is also true that our traditions and ways are much better known
to the people of this country than that of most other religions. Our TV
stations wish us a happy Rosh Hashanah, our food stories fill aisles with
Passover food products, our malls make sure to include a menorah near
the Christmas tree.
It is also true and remains true that it is not acceptable in our politically correct world to say mean things about the Jews. If you do, you
are called on it and pay the price for doing so. No one of any prominence would dare publicly utter a nasty word about the Jews.
And it is true and remains true that no one blames all of us when
Bernie Madoff or Alan Greenspan screw up; that the government does
much to protect us, from enforcing hate crime laws to provide funding for security for Jewish institutions to having an official at the State
Department whose very job is to combat anti-Semitism.
And it is true and remains true that this time in countries around
the world where there has been anti-Semitism, governments have
been quick to condemn it and do all they can to combat it.
My point is not that we shouldn’t be concerned about the antiSemitism we have seen, but that we must be very careful not to be too
concerned, not to let it so frighten us that we become convinced nothing has changed for us, all is as it has always been for us.
It’s been a bad couple of weeks, but part of the shock of what’s
happened is that it is the exception that proves the rule that antiSemitism in not anything nowhere close to what it was.
And so what I worry about most is that Jews will overreact, will
draw the wrong conclusions, will once again not trust the world, will
once again devote too much energy and too many resources to fighting anti-Semitism when the real job of this generation of Jews is to
build Jewish life.
And the same is true for the peace process. Yes right now considering how Hamas has behaved, it is tough to make the case for sitting down and making a deal with the Palestinians. But in fact what
it shows is that a deal is essential. We are fated to share the same very
small piece of land with millions of Palestinians. Hamas is about
making them hate us, telling them how bad we are, that we must go.
But that is not what the majority of Palestinians believe or want.
Shame on them for not doing more to get rid of Hamas, but it is on
us to not throw the baby out with the bathwater.
What this war showed is that we can build a security wall, but they
will build tunnels under it and fire missiles over it. For the missiles to
stop, we have to learn to live together and Bibi has given the Palestinians no hope that a fair deal is what he is willing to conclude.
Yes I blame the Palestinians for failing time after time to grab the
outstretched hand of Israeli leaders trying to make peace, but that does
not absolve us from continuing to reach out. Not for their sake, but
for ours.
The psychological toll this war has taken on Israelis, especially on
kids, will be felt for years. It is beyond traumatic to wonder if a missile is heading your way for 50 days. This was the third time in five
years we’ve gone through this and no doubt it will happen again in a
year or two if some serious peace effort is not made.
No, Israel can’t do it on its own and yes, it is past time for the
Saudis and other Arab countries to show they are willing to make
peace with the Jews. But my fear is that this Gaza war will just make
us stop working for peace. Hell, Bibi already said one of the lessons of
the war is that Israel can’t give back any of the West Bank.
He is wrong. The lesson is that we have to find a way out of this
endless cycle of violence and horror. No, the Palestinians have not
done enough and yes, they are to blame for this war.
But that does not mean we stop doing the right thing. As someone once said, even if you are justified, still act dignified.
Jews are a people of peace and the citizens of Israel deserve to really feel at home, to live in peace and quiet. It may seem right now
that that is an impossible dream, but so was it an impossible dream in
1898 when Herzl said there would be a Jewish state within 50 years.
There was, and there can be a Jewish state living in peace side by
side with its Palestinian neighbors.
I know it’s hard to imagine that now, but we must never ever stop
believing.
Did you have a Yahrtzeit Plaque
at Shaare Tikvah Bnai Zion?
When Shaare Tikvah Bnai Zion closed
the Yahrtzeit Plaques
were removed and are now in storage
If you are interested in retrieving your plaques send an email with
the subject: Plaques
to: stbzchicago@yahoo.com
We will have two Sunday mornings a month available to meet at the
facility in Morton Grove, IL to locate and retrieve your plaques
OR
for a nominal charge we have arranged for a service that will travel
to the facility, locate, and mail your plaques to you.
The Chicago Jewish News
gratefully acknowledges the generous support of
RABBI MORRIS
AND
DELECIA ESFORMES
14
By
Joseph
Aaron
The right lessons
www.
chicagojewishnews
.com
The Jewish
News place in
cyberspace
Well, I’ve had a rough couple of weeks.
Not only is August the month I celebrate my birthday, which I
always thought was weird because August is incredibly hot and I have
absolutely no tolerance for hot, but the number I marked this year was
a pretty high one, which kind of shocked me in that it literally seems
like yesterday that I was patting myself on the back for having accomplished what I had before the age of 25. Now I have shirts that
are older than 25.
But what’s made it so tough for me is that it hasn’t been a good
couple of months for two of my most cherished beliefs. One that antiSemitism as a real factor in our everyday lives is no more; and second
that it is very much in Israel’s interest to conclude a peace agreement
with the Palestinians and the sooner the better.
Obviously what we saw during the almost two months of the Gaza
War has not, shall we say, exactly buttressed my arguments.
The anti-Semitic crazies took the opportunity of the Gaza War
to go, well, crazy. All over Europe and in a good many places in the
United States, very ugly words about Jews were said, very ugly things
to Jews were done. It was, indeed, like a festival of anti-Semitism, with
the Jew haters come up with all kinds of ways to express their feelings.
A look back just at the last week brought us news of a Jewish married couple who were verbally and physically attacked in New York
City by assailants yelling anti-Jewish statements. A gang pulled up in
two cars and several motorcycles and surrounded the couple on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. The wife was hit with a water bottle and
her husband was punched in the side of his head. Police believe the
couple was singled out because the husband was wearing a yarmulke.
Anti-Semitic fliers were dropped in the mailboxes of private
homes in Jewish suburbs of Sydney. Residents of Bondi Beach and Double Bay, which contain large numbers of Sydney’s 40,000-plus Jewish
community, found the flier in their mailboxes. “Wake up Australia,”
the flier reads. “Jews have been kicked out of countries 109 times
through history. ... Could it be that having them in a European country is harmful to the host?” The flier also reads, “The Jews own all Hollywood studios & 97% of US newspapers and media. Any movie or tv
show you watch may well be coming straight from Israel.”
An employee at a South Florida gas station told a customer that
she was no longer welcome because she is an Israeli. The customer, a
woman originally from Tel Aviv and a resident of Coral Springs for the
past 15 years, said the employee said “You guys are killers and your
money is not welcome here.” The woman said she believed the employee knew she was Israeli because she would speak in Hebrew on her
cellphone.
A Jewish school in Denmark’s capital city had its windows broken and anti-Semitic graffiti spray-painted on the building. “No
peace in Gaza” and “No peace to you Zionist pigs” were scrawled on
the walls of the historic Caroline school in Copenhagen.
A Jewish student at Temple University was punched in the face
by someone at an informational booth for Students for Justice in
Palestine. Vessal approached the booth during a campus fair and was
punched following a verbal exchange that included anti-Semitic slurs.
The number of calls to an anti-Semitism hotline in the United
Kingdom jumped nearly fivefold since the beginning of Israel’s conflict with Gaza, reported a British Jewish organization. A branch of the
British supermarket chain Sainsbury’s removed kosher food from its
shelves during an anti-Israel protest.
And this was a much quieter week than others in the last month
or so.
Meanwhile, on the peace front, a rocket fired from Gaza struck
a home in Ashkelon and injured 28 while damaging about 50 neighboring apartments. Israeli security forces said later that the warhead
was exceptionally large and could be a new type of rocket, perhaps intended to travel longer distances. A rocket from Gaza landed on the
playground of a kindergarten in Ashdod.
Hundreds attended the funeral for Daniel Tragerman, the 4year-old who was killed in a mortar attack outside his home near the
Gaza border. “We were the happiest family in the world, and I just cannot come to grips with it,” Daniel’s mother, Gila Tragerman, said between sobs at the funeral. “We wanted to protect you but even the
Code Red siren failed to save you. You would always run first and call
your little brother [to the shelter], and then in a second it ended.”
Rockets fired from Syria and Lebanon struck northern Israel. At
SEE BY JOSEPH
AARON
ON
PAG E 1 3
15
Death Notices
Remembering Leonard ‘Leibel’ Fein, ‘a great man in Israel’
By David Ellenson
JTA
In II Samuel, Chapter 1,
when David learns of the death
of Abner, he proclaims to his soldiers and all of Israel, “You well
know that a prince, a great man
in Israel, has died this
day.” When I learned of the
death of my friend Leonard
“Leibel” Fein at the age of 80, I
thought immediately of that line
– Leibel truly was “a great man in
Israel.”
Leibel Fein has been described as a journalist, a writer,
an academic and an activist, and
he surely was all of these things.
However, he was above all, for
me, an “echte yid,” a learned and
feeling Jew steeped in the values
and teachings of the tradition.
The first time I met him in person was in 1978, although I had
already read a number of his writings and certainly knew who he
was. Leibel addressed an informal
conference I attended, and I was
fortunate to sit at his table at dinner. He reminded me immediately of both Arthur Hertzberg
and Arnold Jacob Wolf: He
shared their politics and their intellect, and I felt with him, as I
did with them, that I was in the
Alice Brown, nee Lepunsky,
an elegant and spirited 105
years old. Beloved wife of
the late Harry Brown.
Dearly devoted mother of
Angie (the late Marvin) Astrin and Dr. Anthony
(Francine) Brown. Loving
grandmother “MOOMOO”
of 5, great-grandmother of
11. The last child of ten chil-
presence of someone truly extraordinary. He laughed easily
and was extremely easygoing and
pleasant, speaking in an unaffected manner that belied but did
not subvert the important lessons
and messages – the challenges –
he was sharing.
I found Leibel to be like this
not only during that first meeting but on every occasion I was
fortunate enough to be in his
presence. He provided a model of
what it meant to be a mensch – a
Jewish human being. He made
me want to do more, to be a better person.
Raised as a Labor Zionist in
the home of a Baltimore Hebrew
College professor, Leibel had Yiddishkeit emblazoned in his soul.
His love for the Jewish people
and the State of Israel was unending even as it was often critical. His commitment to a
progressive Zionism was a touchstone of his life, leading him in
the 1970s to raise his prophetic
voice in defense of the group
Breira and its left-liberal viewpoints on Israel, and later to become a founding member of
Americans for Peace Now.
In his hundreds and hundreds of columns, in his academic books and in both public
and private talks, Leibel prodded
and provoked Jews to do more.
dren born to Jacob and
Anna Lepunsky. In lieu of
flowers, memorial contributions in Alice’s name to:
Chicagoland Greater Food
Depository, 4100 W. Ann
Lurie Place, Chicago, IL
60632, Attn: A. Varchese.
Arrangements by Mitzvah
Memorial Funerals.
Melvyn Joel Goldfarb, age
70. Beloved husband of 49
years to Gail Deborah Goldfarb, nee Bogomol. Cherished father of Jeffery Goldfarb and Denise Cyndi
Goldfarb. Devoted son to
the late Belle May and
Samuel Goldfarb. Fond Uncle of many. Dear Nephew
of Maxine Hyman. Longtime
friend to Godmother Nancy
Llewellyn and his late godfather Sandy Alexander
Llewellyn Loved dogs, cats
and ferrets. Melvyn was a
talented chef and he loved
to travel. Arrangements by
Mitzvah Memorial Funerals.
Robert Joseph Kohl (19242014). Beloved and devoted
husband for the past 63
years of Goldie, nee Ross.
Cherished father of David
(Dawn) Kohl. Dear brother
of Richard (the late Helga)
and the late Donald (survived by Diane) Kohl.
Robert was a Chicago native
and was a Sullivan High
School graduate. He was a
proud WWII veteran who
became commander of the
local CBI Group. His love of
cars reflected in his 30+
years in the auto industry,
also working at Road America for 38 years (timing &
scoring). Former President
of Volkswagen Club of
Chicago. He lived through
every Chicago Bears championship and all but the first
of their 93 wins over the
Packers. Arrangements by
Mitzvah Memorial Funerals.
Leonard Fein
He taught that we could
never be satisfied with either the
state of the world or the condition of the Jewish people, and he
goaded us constantly with his
brilliance, his fearlessness, his directness, his ethics and his passion. He took seriously the
biblical command to offer rebuke
to our people when reproof was
needed – which he always felt it
was. He taught that tikkun olam,
the repair of the world, was always possible and demanded we
strive for repair and improvement of ourselves, the Jewish
people and the world.
Leibel expressed his talents
in so many ways. He was a major
intellectual whose books on Israel and Zionism, American Jews
and Judaism, American politics
and institutions earned him fame
and academic posts at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
and Brandeis University. He
helped shape both scholarly and
popular discourse and policy directions on these topics throughout his lifetime. The policies of
outreach and inclusion that
Rabbi Alexander Schindler advanced during his years as president of the Reform movement’s
Union of American Hebrew
Congregations, as well as the significant expansion of the work of
the Religious Action Center of
Reform Judaism – an expansion
that continues unto this day –
were stimulated in no small
measure by the aspirational and
challenging vision of a dynamic
Reform Judaism that Leibel put
forth in 1970 in his brilliant
book “Reform Is a Verb.”
His activism expressed itself
in his service as chairman of the
Commission on Social Action of
the Reform movement and his
founding of Moment Magazine,
Mazon: A Jewish Response to
Hunger and the National Coalition for Jewish Literacy.
In a world where divisions
and binary thinking abound,
when people all too often think
in “either-or” categories, Leibel
demonstrated that it was possible
to be “both-and.” He was a
scholar and intellectual, but he
also was a man of action who created some of the most vital and
humane organizations and projects in modern Jewish life.
Mitzvah
Memorial Funerals
Lloyd Mandel
Founder, 4th generation Jewish Funeral
Director, also licensed in Florida
(no longer with Levayah Funerals)
Seymour Mandel
3rd Generation Jewish Funeral Director
www.comparemitzvah.com
Why was Mitzvah Memorial Funerals entrusted
to direct more than 700 funerals in our first
4 years in business?
We provide compassionate professional service and
significant savings – usually $2,000-$5,000 less
than Chicago Jewish funeral homes with chapels
charge for the same or similar services and casket.
If your synagogue has a discounted funeral plan
with one of our competitors you can still use us.
We guarantee a minimum 25% savings.
William Goodman
Funeral Director, Homesteaders
Insurance Agent (no longer with
Goodman Family Funerals)
Ian “Izzy” Dick
Oldest licensed Jewish Funeral Director
in the State of Illinois
Jerry Sadoff
Director of Shmira
• Graveside Services
• Synagogue Services (yours or
several that are available to
non-affiliated families)
• Cemetery Chapel Services
If you have prepaid funeral services with one of our
competitors you can switch to us. In most cases we
will refund you or your family $2,000-$5,000.
• Alternative Locations & Services
We pre-arrange funerals and fund
these through Homesteaders Life.
500 Lake Cook Road, Suite 350, Deerfield, IL • 8850 Skokie Blvd., Skokie, IL
630-MITZVAH (648-9824) • www.mitzvahfunerals.com
16
Vitality
Encouraging an active and fulfilling lifestyle.
Every day at the Selfhelp Home brings a new opportunity to energize your senses. From fresh, homemade meals
to regular exercise classes and social events, there are many ways to become engaged in our community and
remain involved with everything you’re passionate about. With a little help from our staff, you can develop your
talents in our art studio, listen to lectures and enjoy performances by a variety of Chicago-area entertainers. Live
a vibrant lifestyle while receiving the care and assistance you need from people you have come to know and trust.
As rated by the U.S. Centers
for Medicare and Medicaid
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 and skilled nursing care.

A Catskills mystery unraveled

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