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THE CHICAGO
JEWISH NEWS
April 10-16, 2015/21 Nisan 5775
www.chicagojewishnews.com
One Dollar
Samuel Alschuler, a Jewish
photographer, lent Lincoln his
own velvet-trimmed coat
for this photo taken
in Urbana, Illinois,
on April 25, 1858.
Lincoln would again sit for
Alschuler two years later,
after he was elected president.
The people of Lincoln
Some of Honest Abe’s best friends were Jews
More Muslims than Jews
in U.S. by 2050
Daughter finds the write
words from dad
Larry Layfer on our
songs, our survival
An interview with Ed Asner
2
Chicago Jewish News - April 10-16, 2015
In one room in Jerusalem, 2,700 years of history
By Ben Sales
JTA
JERUSALEM – When
Amit Re’em embarked on a 1999
excavation of an abandoned Ottoman prison in the Old City of
Jerusalem, he didn’t expect anything revolutionary.
The dig was primarily aimed
at inspecting the site before it
was transformed into an event
space for the nearby Tower of
David Museum, and Re’em, then
just 28, hoped at most to uncover
some remains of a Herodian
palace, or maybe part of a wall
from the second century.
He did find those things –
along with much more.
In one 160-by-30-foot space,
Re’em unearthed an archaeological timeline of Jerusalem dating
back 2,700 years. Layers from
Author Event | Book Signing
Alex’s Wake
Thursday, April 16 at 7pm
The Tragic Voyage of the SS St. Louis to
Flee Nazi Germany and a Grandson’s
Journey of Love and Rememberance
In 1939, the SS St. Louis sailed from Hamburg bound for Havana.
On board were 900 Jews attempting to flee Nazi Germany. After
being turned away by Cuba, the US, and Canada, the ship was
forced to return to Europe. Among the passengers were Alex
Goldschmidt and his son Helmut, who spent the next three
years as refugees in France before being shipped to Auschwitz.
Author and radio personality Martin Goldsmith, Alex’s grandson
and Helmut’s nephew, retraced their journey, traveling more
than 5,700 miles. Alex’s Wake is his eyewitness report.
Spertus Institute is a partner in serving our community, supported by the JUF/Jewish Federation.
Beneath a former Ottoman prison in Jerusalem’s Old City, layers of ancient history were uncovered. (JTA)
nearly every era of the city’s history lay on top of each other,
from the time of the First Temple
through the Roman, Crusader
and Ottoman periods, and up to
Israel’s independence in 1948.
Remains from those eras are
strewn throughout the Old City,
but rarely are they found so close
together or so well preserved.
“The strength of the remains
and the layering of them one on
top of each other is like an open
book, the whole historical and
archaeological sequence of
Jerusalem laid out in front of our
eyes,” Re’em said. “We expected
to find things, but the strength
that we saw them in was beyond
our expectations.”
Called the Kishle – Turkish
for prison – the site was built as a
jail by the Ottoman Turks in the
1800s and used by the British in
the 1940s to hold captured Jewish militia members. A map of
Greater Israel etched by an imprisoned member of the prestate
Irgun militia is still visible on the
wall.
Below the prison lay the
foundations of a fortification wall
built in the eighth century
B.C.E. by the ancient Jewish
King Hezekiah, who like later
rulers took advantage of the site’s
strategic high ground. Across the
room are remains of another defensive wall built 600 years later
by the Hasmoneans, who ruled
Jerusalem after the Maccabees
revolt.
The room also houses remains of the wall of a massive
Herodian palace built near the
beginning of the Common Era,
as well as basins from the Crusader period that were likely used
to dye clothes and tan leather.
The current walls of the Old
City, built by the Ottomans in
the 16th century, sit atop the
Herodian wall and later served as
the outer wall of the prison.
Re’em also believes the
room may have been the site of
Jesus’ trial by Pontius Pilate. Pilate would have tried Jesus in a
prominent location like Herod’s
palace, Re’em said, noting that
the original route of the Via Dolorosa that Jesus followed to his
crucifixion passed the spot where
the Kishle now stands.
“A lot of times you expect
something and don’t find it because you didn’t get down to the
lower layers because of logistics,
budget, you name it,” Re’em said.
“On the other hand, archaeological layers and remains are [sometimes] destroyed. Here we were
lucky the remains weren’t damaged or destroyed. We could dig
for two years from the top down
to the bottom.”
Re’em’s findings convinced
the Tower of David Museum not
to build on the site. But since the
dig ended in 2001, the room remained closed due to budget
constraints until the museum’s
new director, Eilat Lieber,
opened it to the public last year.
The room has not been
changed since 2001 and looks
like an active archaeological dig.
Lieber hopes to place a glass floor
above the remains and to augment them with 3-D imaging
that will show what the space
looked like in different periods.
“It’s like a hello from different historical eras that connect
us to this place and allow us to
understand what was here,”
Lieber said. “What remains are
stones, but behind the stones are
what was here, who the characters were.”
Many of Re’em’s conclusions
about the room are based on dating techniques and inferences
from historic sources. The claim
that the walls belonged to Herod’s
palace come in part from the writings of the historian Josephus
Flavius. Re’em’s belief that the
basins were used for cloth dying is
derived from an account by Benjamin of Tudela, a medieval Jewish traveler, plus remnants of red
dye on the basin walls.
But Re’em added that at a
certain point, dating and accuracy become less important than
what the site means to visitors
looking for a spiritual experience.
“As an archaeologist who
works in Jerusalem, it doesn’t
matter where the real location of
Jesus’ trial was,” he said. “What
matters is what people believe.
“At the Kishle site, people
can touch the stones of the
Herodian palace. Whoever
wants can see this place as the location of the trial of Jesus.”
3
Chicago Jewish News - April 10-16, 2015
Meet the attorney whose successful restitution effort inspired ‘Woman in Gold’
By Tom Tugend
JTA
When attorney E. Randol
(Randy) Schoenberg saw himself
portrayed on the big screen by
hunky Ryan Reynolds in the
movie “Woman in Gold,” he immediately spotted a difference.
“Obviously, I’m not the sexiest man alive,” Schoenberg acknowledged in an interview,
referring to People magazine’s
designation of Reynolds in 2010.
“I don’t look like Ryan, with a Tshirt on or a T-shirt off.”
Such differences aside,
Schoenberg wasn’t bothered seeing his years of struggle and triumph portrayed by Reynolds in
“Woman in Gold,” a new drama
based on Schoenberg’s successful
recovery of a world famous painting looted by the Nazis from its
Jewish owners.
The movie focuses on the
relationship between Maria Altmann, the elderly descendant of
one of the wealthiest and most
prominent Jewish families in Vienna, and a young, unproven
lawyer who took on the Austrian
and American governments to
recover what was then the most
expensive painting in the world.
“Woman in Gold” recreates
an era when Vienna rivaled Paris
as the cosmopolitan capital of
the world, with Jewish talent,
taste and wealth integral to its
fame and lifestyle. Among the
most prominent Jewish families
of the time was the Bloch-Bauer
family, headed by the sugar magnate Ferdinand Bloch-Bauer.
Bloch-Bauer’s wife, Adele,
reigned over a glittering salon attended by Vienna’s leading artists
and intellectuals. A frequent
guest was Gustav Klimt, the most
sought-after painter in Austria,
as famous for for seducing the
subjects of his portraits as for his
innovative style.
Between 1903 and 1907,
Klimt painted Adele in a goldflecked portrait, “Portrait of
Adele Bloch-Bauer I,” which to
the Viennese embodied the
glamor and beauty of their city
and was dubbed the “Austrian
Mona Lisa.”
The family’s privileged life
came abruptly to an end in 1938,
when Adolf Hitler annexed his
native Austria to the Third
Reich. The film shows Hitler’s
motorcade entering Vienna,
greeted by near-hysterical,
swastika-waving citizens, while
their Jewish neighbors were
forced to scrub the sidewalks
with toothbrushes. The BlochBauer clan was stripped of its
wealth and its private art collection, including the Adele portrait.
A year earlier, Adele Bloch-
Bauer’s niece Maria had married
Fritz Altmann, a handsome Polish-Jewish opera singer who was
imprisoned at the Dachau concentration camp after the Nazi
takeover. Maria and Fritz escaped
the Nazis in a harrowing chase
sequence shown in the movie,
made it to America and settled
in Los Angeles in 1942. They
bought a middle-class home, and
Maria opened a small dress shop.
Her husband, his opera ambitions unfulfilled, died in 1994.
Altmann died in 2011 at age 94.
After the war, Austria came
under increasing international
pressure to return or compensate
its former Jewish citizens for their
confiscated property. In 1998,
the country’s parliament passed a
restitution act, which included
compensation for looted art.
Maria was informed of the
new law and advised first to hire
a first-class lawyer. But her first
call was to Schoenberg, then a
rising 32-year-old Los Angeles
attorney.
From the beginning, more
experienced legal experts told
the headstrong Schoenberg that
there was no chance that he
could successfully sue a foreign
country in an American court.
And even if by some miracle he
cleared that hurdle, they cautioned, Austria would never give
up its “Mona Lisa.”
Despite facing a battery of
Helen Mirren as Maria Altmann and Ryan Reynolds as her attorney
Randol Schoenberg in the film "Woman in Gold." (JTA)
experienced lawyers representing
both the Austrian and American
governments, the justices ruled 6
to 3 in Maria Altmann’s favor.
Austria did not recognize the
American verdict and, in another major gamble, Schoenberg
agreed to submit the dispute to
an arbitration panel of three
Austrian experts. Again, against
all odds, the panel ruled in Altmann’s favor.
Even now, the struggle over
Klimt’s paintings is not over. Just
last month, the Austrian government refused to return Klimt’s
112-foot “Beethoven Frieze” to
the heirs of a Jewish art dealer
who claim the painting was sold
under duress at a discount. The
rejection reminded Schoenberg
just how easily the decision in
the “Woman in Gold” case could
have gone the other way.
“Before I took on this lawsuit I talked it over with my wife
and we both realized that our
family could easily go down with
this case,” he said. “If that had
happened, there would have
been no book, no movie. I would
have just put my tail between my
legs and looked for a new job.”
4
Chicago Jewish News - April 10-16, 2015
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Jewish News
■ Dr. Robert Neulander, a prominent physician and Jewish lay
leader in Syracuse, N.Y., was found guilty of second-degree murder in the 2012 death of his wife. An Onondaga County Court
jury issued its verdict following 18 hours of deliberation. Both
Neulander and his late wife, Leslie, were active in the Syracuse
Jewish community. As the verdict was read, Neulander looked
straight ahead and his children cried. His daughter Jenna, who
testified for the defense, said, “I was there. You didn’t do it” and
“We will get you out” after Neulander was handcuffed. While
Leslie’s death was initially ruled an accident, officials later accused Neulander of killing her in a fit of rage and then staging
the scene to make it look like she slipped and fell in the shower.
Neulander and his attorneys, insisting that he was innocent, said
he had no motive for harming his wife. Even prior to the trial,
Neulander, an obstetrician, already was well known in the local
community, where he reportedly has delivered more than 10,000
babies. He was active in both secular and Jewish charities.
■ A Jewish candidate for the British Parliament has withdrawn
after suggesting that Israel should “do an Eichmann” on Barack
Obama. Jeremy Zeid of the United Kingdom Independence Party,
or UKIP, quit his campaign in response to the blowback to a Facebook post in which he suggested that Israel should “[k]idnap the
bugger” and “lock him up for leaking state secrets,” according to
the Jewish Chronicle. Zeid was outraged over the Obama administration’s negotiations with Iran. Zeid, a decorator, was running in
a northwest London district with the second-highest number of
Jewish voters of any constituency in Britain, at approximately 17
percent, according to the Chronicle. He denied that the UKIP, a
right-wing party defined by its anti-immigrant positions, had pressured him to resign. Zeid was replaced on the ballot by Dr. Raymond Shamash, a dentist who served as a medical officer in the
Israeli army during the Yom Kippur War in 1973.
■ A synagogue in Boca Raton, Fla., has set a world record for
the largest prayer shawl. The Guinness Book of World Records
certified a special tallit made for the Boca Raton Synagogue, a
modern Orthodox congregation, for its yearly Simchat Torah
service. On Simchat Torah, it is customary for children younger
than bar and bat mitzvah age to gather under a tallit to receive an
aliyah to the Torah and the Kol Hanearim blessing. The congregation, which has nearly 1,000 children, decided it would create
a special large prayer shawl for the occasion rather than have the
tallitot of many men held up together. The congregation first used
the prayer shawl, the size of 40 regular tallitot and created by Boca
Judaica, at its Simchat Torah celebration in 2013. It covers the
entire sanctuary and is held up by wooden poles. Last October,
the congregation applied to Guinness to register the record, but
no category existed for largest prayer shawl. So Guinness added
the category, saying that a tallit should be at least 10 times the size
of a regular one in order to qualify.
■ Anne Frank died earlier than previously believed, according
to new research. Researchers from the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam looking into the last months of the teenage diarist and
her sister Margot concluded that they died in February 1945.
Their deaths had been marked as sometime during March 1945,
the Red Cross concluded at the end of World War II. The exact
date of Anne Frank’s death from typhus in Bergen-Belsen concentration camp is unknown.
■ The estranged wife of Rabbi Barry Freundel, who pleaded guilty
to secretly videotaping women in his Orthodox synagogue’s mikvah, spoke publicly for the first time since his arrest in October.
Sharon Freundel delivered a lecture at the Charles E. Smith Jewish
Day School study center in Rockville, Md., titled “Post-Traumatic
Stress Responses in the TaNaKh,” or Bible, the Washington Post
reported. The Freundels signed a Jewish divorce agreement soon
after his arrest, but they have not yet obtained a civil divorce, according to the Post. In her 90 minute talk, Sharon Freundel did not
discuss herself or her estranged husband except to say, “As you all
know, I’ve become an expert in PTSD. Researching this has been so
therapeutic.” However, the lecture addressed issues related to her
husband’s crime, such as sex abuse and marriage, as they played out
in Bible texts. Rabbi Freundel, the longtime spiritual leader at
Washington’s Kesher Israel and a leading expert on Orthodox conversion, pleaded guilty to 52 misdemeanor counts of voyeurism and
is scheduled to be sentenced on May 15.
JTA
THE CHICAGO
JEWISH NEWS
Vol. 21 No. 27
Joseph Aaron
Editor/Publisher
Golda Shira
Senior Editor/
Israel Correspondent
Pauline Dubkin Yearwood
Managing Editor
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and Associates
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Production Director
Kristin Hanson
Accounting Manager/
Webmaster
Jacob Reiss
Subscriptions Manager/
Administrative Assistant
Ann Yellon
of blessed memory
Office Manager
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Chicago Jewish News - April 10-16, 2015
Omer Mei-Dan: Israeli BASE jumper, stuntman and orthopedic surgeon
By Uriel Heilman
JTA
BOULDER, Colorado –
Omer Mei-Dan has jumped off
more cliffs than he can count –
not to mention helicopters, skyscrapers and bridges. Just don’t
call him a skydiver.
An orthopedic surgeon and
extreme sports athlete, Mei-Dan,
42, is a BASE jumper – one of an
estimated 1,500 to 3,000 worldwide who jump from the fixed
platforms for which the sport is
named: buildings, antennas,
spans and earth. Skydiving is a
cakewalk by comparison.
Because BASE jumpers leap
from much lower altitudes, they
often have mere milliseconds to
deploy their parachutes. And for
leaps that involve hazards below,
like craggy mountainsides or
steel structures, the risks are exponentially greater. To guide and
control their falls, jumpers often
don wingsuits, which make them
look like bats or flying squirrels.
Perhaps not surprisingly, BASE
jumpers are killed with alarming
regularity. Even a tiny mistake or
misfortune – a gust of wind, impeded visibility, an equipment
mishap – can mean sudden and
violent death.
But that’s all part of the
thrill.
“I like being afraid, I like the
fear, I enjoy it,” Mei-Dan said..
“In BASE jumping, every small
thing dictates life or death. It
makes me feel vibrant. Extreme
sports athletes have the ability to
sustain, cope with and enjoy the
amount of stress other people
would define as bad experiences.”
Mei-Dan, who was born in
Israel and moved to the United
States in 2012, stands out among
BASE jumpers because he has
found a way to combine his passion for extreme sports with his
other area of expertise: medicine.
A highly sought-after orthopedic
surgeon with a robust medical
practice at the University of Colorado in Denver and Boulder,
Mei-Dan studies extreme sports
athletes, operates on them and
helps other physicians understand how to guide their rehabilitation.
While he was in medical
school, Mei-Dan was a Red Bullsponsored extreme sports athlete.
He did stunts for corporate sponsors like McDonald’s and CocaCola. Last winter, the doctor
starred in a 10-episode show on
Fox Sports called “Cutting Edge
MD” that focused on Mei-Dan’s
treatment and rehabilitation regimens for injured professional
athletes.
Mei-Dan’s own extreme athletic activities are not limited to
BASE jumping. He does backcountry skiing and ice climbing
in the winter, whitewater kayak-
ing in summer, and rock climbing and mountaineering all year
long.
Raised on Kibbutz Ein Hamifratz north of Haifa, Mei-Dan’s
outdoorsy pursuits began on a
surfboard in the Mediterranean
at age 10 and quickly escalated.
His father was a pediatrician and
Mei-Dan was always interested
in medicine, but his drive to become a physician was strengthened in the Israel Defense Forces,
where he says he couldn’t abide
standing on the sidelines while
comrades were injured. A paratrooper, Mei-Dan also found he
really liked jumping.
While studying medicine at
Ben-Gurion University of the
Negev in Beersheba, Mei-Dan
spent about three months a year
traveling abroad indulging his
extreme hobbies. He picked up
sponsors like Red Bull and Nissan, did stunts for National Geographic and Discovery, and
launched his own production
company, ExtremeGate, to document his adventures. His mostly
Israeli production team includes
his wife, Hagit, whose sport of
choice is open-water swimming.
In Israel, Mei-Dan has jumped
off the Azrieli towers in Tel Aviv,
went cliff diving near the Dead
Sea and jumped from all manner
of flying vehicles.
His medical interests developed in tandem. Mei-Dan studied orthopedics, became a sports
surgeon and developed a subspecialty in hip preservation. Hip
injuries are common among extreme sports athletes.
Extreme sports athletes differ from other sportsmen in their
physiology, endocrinology and
even psyches, and need to be
treated differently, Mei-Dan says.
For example, a doctor who
knows when to clear an injured
soccer player to resume playing
may not know enough to do so
for rock climbers or BASE
jumpers. The doctor might not
realize, say, that a dislocated
shoulder injury could lead to a
BASE jumper’s death if he loses
the dexterity to pull his chute
while in flight.
Mei-Dan says his research
suggests that extreme sports athletes are not subject to the posttraumatic stress that might affect
others who witness gruesome fatalities or undergo frequent neardeath experiences like those
facing BASE jumpers.
“These types of people are
wired completely differently,” he
said. “BASE jumpers are immune
to PTSD.”
The Israeli doctor, who has
the trim physique of a rock
climber, hasn’t escaped all his
feats unharmed. A two-inch scar
on his clean-shaven scalp is the
result of striking a cliff. He also
has cracked his pelvis, dislocated
his ankle, torn his elbow and
cracked ribs. On average, MeiDan says he needs one or two
Omer Mei-Dan jumps into the Cave of Swallows, a 1,200-foot-deep site in Mexico. (JTA)
reparative surgeries per year. He’s
also seen many of his friends die
right in front of him – something
he shrugs off with the insouciance he says is necessary for extreme athletes.
“Seeing fatalities, experiencing near-misses, injuring myself
and having surgery – it’s all part
of jumping,” Mei-Dan said.
In his younger and more
careless days, Mei-Dan often
would give his jumps a twist to
make things more exciting – and
perilous. When he jumped from
the Eiffel Tower, Mei-Dan and
his jumping partner, Jeb Corliss,
compounded the danger by
jumping through the center of
the monument rather than off it,
falling through the hollow centers of the viewing platforms before deploying their chutes some
200 feet above the ground.
Mei-Dan easily could have
been killed: missing the hole and
smashing into a platform, deploying his chute too early and
getting it snagged on the steel
latticework, or deploying his
chute too late and crashing into
the ground at breakneck speed.
“The margin of error was about
one-tenth of a second,” Mei-Dan
recalled, noting that a jumper
that tried soon afterward to replicate the stunt died in his attempt.
YOM HASHOAH 2015
Let Us Remember Those Who
Perished in the Nazi Holocaust
Join us for our Annual Memorial Service to pay tribute to our
SIX MILLION KEDOSHIM
WE WILL ALSO OBSERVE THE 70TH ANNIVERSARY OF
THE LIBERATION FROM THE CONCENTRATION CAMPS
SUNDAY, APRIL 19, 2015 - 1:30 P.M.
Skokie Valley Agudath Jacob Synagogue
8825 East Prairie Road • Skokie, Illinois 60076
FREE ADMISSION
EVERYONE WELCOME
Participants
Honorable Roey Gilad
Honorable George Van Dusen
Consul General of Israel to the Midwest
Mayor of Skokie
OUR COLLECTIVE DAY OF REMEMBRANCE
A Candle Lighting Memorial Service for our Six Million Kedoshim
Sheerit Hapleitah of Metropolitan Chicago
Charles Lipshitz, President
David Levine, Chairman
Moshe Hubscher, Co-Chairman
Henry Jelen, Co-Chairman
Co-sponsored by
6
Chicago Jewish News - April 10-16, 2015
Arts & Entertainment
Second act
Beloved starof-all-trades now
plays a president
By Pauline Dubkin Yearwood
Managing Editor
That voice. That VOICE:
almost a growl in the lower register – Mary has done something
wrong again! – and a sweet whisper in the upper. Lou Grant
could whisper sweet nothings too
to the right person, even if he
had to keep his hands in his
pocket in embarrassment.
But this was his voice on the
phone: not Lou Grant, either the
comedic or the serious one, nor
Santa Claus in “Elf” nor Carl
Fredrickson in “Up” nor any of
the other innumerable characters
he has played (or voiced). This
was Ed Asner, on the phone,
talking about acting and bar
mitzvahs and especially about
President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, whom he portrays in “An
Evening with the Roosevelts,” a
one-man show with which he
has sporadically toured the country, including in Chicago.
Asner says he has personal
as well as professional reasons to
relish portraying the 32nd president.
“I adored him,” the 85-yearold Asner says. “When he died,
to me it was like god the father
had died. There has never been
another like him. I wanted to do
the show for two reasons: to give
people who remember him a
taste of what he was and for him
to serve as an example of the
kind of man we should have as
our leader.”
FDR, he says, “had a distinctive voice and manner. I don’t
look or sound like him but I hope
by employing his words (audiences) can come to believe he is
existing.”
Asner, who certainly has his
own distinctive voice and manner, was born to Russian-Jewish
parents and brought up in an Orthodox home in Kansas City,
Mo. He attended the University
of Chicago, then worked for a
time on the assembly line for
Ed Asner as Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
SEE ASNER
ON
PAG E 1 4
EVGENY KISSIN
P L AY S B EE T H O V EN A N D C H O P I N
“The capacity crowd leapt to its feet at the end, roaring its
appreciation, clearly hoping to hear another marathon of
encores” (Chicago Tribune). Don’t miss Kissin’s exceptional
artistry and dazzling virtuosity in his annual visit to Symphony
Center, certain to be one of the musical events of the year.
ow on
n
s
t
a
e
s
e
g
Sta
Sunday, April 19, 3:00
BEETHOVEN Sonata No. 21 (Waldstein)
PROKOFIEV Sonata No. 4 in C Minor
CHOPIN Selected Nocturnes and Mazurkas
LISZT Hungarian Rhapsody No. 15 (Rákóczi March)
sale!
SYMPHONY CENTER PRESENTS PIANO SERIES
cso.org / 312-294-3000 / Group Services 312-294-3040
Artists, prices and programs subject to change.
The appearance of Evgeny Kissin is generously sponsored by JS Charitable Trust.
The SCP Piano series is generously sponsored by Judy and Verne Istock.
7
Chicago Jewish News - April 10-16, 2015
Food
Have a date with a date
Versatile fruit
can turn up in
surprising places
By Eileen Goltz
Food Editor
The date is said to have originated on the Arabian Peninsula
and there are many different varieties of dates, all of which can be
eaten fresh. However, the most
common form (and most widely
available) is the dried date. Drying
it (much as with the raisin) prevents spoilage and extends the
shelf life. Dates pair well with
other fruits, meats, poultry and
seafood. They are also excellent
combined with vegetables, grains
and in baked goods.
Medjool dates are considered
the “best of the best” variety of
dates you can get and while they
are a bit harder to find their amazing taste and flavor are certainly
worth the extra effort and cost. It’s
best to store your dates in a tightly
sealed container in a dark cool
pantry. They can also be refrigerated or frozen.
I make the date nut bread for
my dad these days but to tell you
the truth it’s not my favorite way
to use dates. I much prefer the following recipes and I hope you do
too.
Couscous With Dates (Parve)
1/3 cup water
2 teaspoons olive oil
1/2 teaspoon orange zest
1/8 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup couscous
1 tablespoon finely chopped
dried pitted dates
2 sliced green onions
In a saucepan combine the
water, oil, zest and salt and bring
the mixture to a boil. Add in
couscous and dates; mix to combine. Cover and remove pan
from heat. Let set, covered, 5
minutes. Remove the lid, fluff
the mixture with a fork and add
in the green onions. Serve immediately. Serves 2. This recipe
can be doubled or tripled.
Modified from Gourmet, May
2004
Date Slaw (Dairy)
1/2 cup shredded pepper jack
cheese
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
2 1/2 tablespoons water
1 tablespoon mayonnaise
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 head romaine lettuce, shredded
2 cups red cabbage, shredded
1 cup baby lettuce
1/2 red onion, sliced thin
1/2 cup pitted dates, chopped
Dressing: In a food processor
combine the lemon juice, water
and mayonnaise and process
until smooth. Add the oil and
process until combined. In a
salad bowl combine the romaine,
spinach, cheese, onion and dates
with the dressing and mix to
combine. Serves 6.
Date Nut Bread (Parve)
3/4 cup chopped pitted dates
1 cup cake flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
3/4 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon salt
Pinch nutmeg
3/4 cup oil
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup honey
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 cup chopped pecans
Preheat oven to 325°.
Grease a 9-inch loaf pan and set
aside. Place the dates into a bowl
and cover them with very hot
water. Let dates soak for 15 minutes. In a bowl, sift together the
cake flour, baking powder, cinnamon, salt and nutmeg. In another bowl, whisk together the
oil, brown sugar, honey, eggs and
vanilla.
Combine the egg mixture
with the flour mixture and mix
to combine. Drain and pat dry
the dates. Add the pecans and
dates to the batter. Pour the batter into the prepared loaf pan.
Bake for about 1 hour, or until a
toothpick inserted in the center
comes out clean. Cool on a rack
until room temperature, then remove the bread from the pan.
Makes 1 loaf. (This is NOT my
grandmother’s recipe.)
Chicken With Dates and
Olives (Meat)
12 bone-in chicken thighs,
skinned
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
1/8 teaspoon kosher salt
2 tablespoons parve margarine,
divided
2 tablespoons olive oil, divided
4 cups sliced onion
1 teaspoon minced fresh ginger
18 green olives, chopped
2 tablespoons flour
3/4 teaspoon cumin
1/2 teaspoon coriander
1/8 teaspoon ground red pepper
1 3-inch cinnamon stick
2 cups chicken broth
1 cup dates, chopped
3 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
(optional)
1/4 cup fresh basil leaves
Season the chicken with
pepper and salt. Melt 1 tablespoon of the margarine and oil in
a Dutch oven. Cook 6 of the
chicken thighs 4 minutes on
each side or until browned. Remove chicken from pan. Repeat
with remaining margarine, oil,
and remaining 6 chicken thighs.
Remove the chicken but don’t
clean the pan.
Add the onion and ginger
and sauté for 6 to 8 minutes, stirring frequently. Add the olives,
mix to combine and cook for 1
minute. Add flour, cumin, coriander, red pepper and the cinnamon stick. Mix to combine
and cook 1 minute. Add the
SEE FOOD
ON
PAG E 1 8
8
Chicago Jewish News - April 10-16, 2015
Pew study: Muslims to overtake American Jews by 2050
By Uriel Heilman
JTA
In 20 years, there will be
more Muslims in North America
than Jews, according to a new
Pew Research Center report.
The report also found that
more American Jews are leaving
Judaism than non-Jews are joining the Jewish people.
According to ”The Future of
World Religions: Population
Growth Projections, 2010-2050,”
Muslims will overtake Christians
in the last quarter of the 21st
century as the globe’s largest religious group. In the United
States, Muslims will comprise 2.1
percent of the population in
2050, up from 0.9 percent in
2010. Jews, meanwhile, will fall
to 1.4 percent of the U.S. popu-
lation from 1.8 percent in 2010.
The Pew study also offered a
detailed look at the sizes of national Jewish communities
around the world, how fast the
communities are expected to
shrink or grow, and Jewish fertility rates.
There were nearly 14 million Jews around the globe in
2010, with expected growth to
16 million by 2050, according to
the study – a lower growth rate
than the general world population. Overall, Jews comprise
roughly 0.2 percent of the world’s
population, with about 44 percent of Jews in North America;
41 percent in Israel, the Middle
East and North Africa; 10 percent in Europe; and 3 percent in
Latin America and the
Caribbean.
By 2050, 51 percent of Jews
are expected to live in the Mid-
dle East – almost all in Israel –
and 37 percent in North America. The number of Jews in Europe is expected to decline more
precipitously and outpace general European population shrinkage, according to the report.
Meanwhile, the study
showed that globally there were
1.6 billion Muslims in 2010 and
a predicted growth to nearly 2.8
billion in 2050 – from 23 percent
of the population to 30 percent.
In 2050, nearly three of every 10
people will be Muslims.
Today, the United States
and Israel have about the same
number of Jews, though there is
some debate among Jewish demographers over which country
is ahead. The Pew study counted
5.7 million Jews in the U.S. and
5.6 million in Israel, but other
studies have shown more than 6
million Jews in each country, and
American Muslims are expected to be more numerous than American
Jews by the year 2050, according to a new study. (JTA)
Israel’s Central Bureau of Statistics said Israel had 6.2 million
We Remember!
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in the Holocaust. We also honor our many Park Plaza residents who are survivors, whose
indomitable spirits stand as a triumph for the Jewish people.
6840 N. Sacramento Avenue, Chicago Y www.park-plaza.org Y 773.465.6700 (Yehuda)
Jews in 2014. In any case, Israel is
expected to pull unambiguously
ahead in the coming years.
The study counted as Jews
those who self-identify as Jewish
when asked their religion. It does
not include so-called Jews of no
religion – those who have Jewish
ancestry or consider themselves
partially Jewish but say they are
not Jewish by religion.
Nearly 95 percent of all Jews
live in just 10 countries, according to the study. Except for Israel,
none of those countries is more
than 2 percent Jewish. The 10
countries with the most Jews are,
in descending order, according to
Pew, the United States, Israel,
Canada, France, Britain, Germany, Russia, Argentina, Australia and Brazil.
Jewish fertility rates are
highest in Israel (2.8 children per
woman), whereas Jewish fertility
rates in North America (2.0) and
Europe (1.8) are below replacement level (2.3). In the United
States, the Jewish fertility rate is
1.9 children per woman.
In every region examined by
Pew, the Jewish median age was
older than that of the general
population. In the world overall,
the median age was 28, compared with the Jewish median
age of 37. In North America the
median age is 37, with the Jews
at 41.
While the study showed
that the spread of secularism is
expected to continue and the
number of atheists projected to
rise, religious people are expected
to grow as a proportion of the
global population because they
tend to have more children.
In Europe, Muslims are expected
to grow to 10 percent of the population in 2050, from 6 percent
in 2010.
In the United States, Americans of no religion are expected
to grow from 16 percent in 2010
to 25 percent by 2050, and
Christians are expected to shrink
from 78 percent in five years to
66 percent by 2050.
9
Chicago Jewish News - April 10-16, 2015
Death Notices
Esther Katz, nee Zuckerstein,
passed away peacefully in
her Boca Raton, Florida winter home on April 2. Former
resident of River Forest, IL,
1212 N. Lake Shore Drive,
and The Hancock Building.
Born and raised in Sheboygan, WI. Beloved wife of the
late Jules Katz; loving
mother of Norman (Susanne) Katz, Karen L. Wallerstein (Robert Kemp), Charlotte (James) Robertson, and
Richard (Susan) Katz; ador-
ing grandmother of Craig
(Lesley) Wallerstein, Debra
Katz, Miriam Katz, Jacob
Katz, Aaron Katz, Timothy
Robertson, Desiree Robertson, Rachel Katz, and
Nathan Katz; fond sister of
the late Rebecca Pyer, Ethel
Myers, Morris Zuckerstein,
and Dina Matlin. Esther was
a
very
accomplished
woman: owner and President of Illinois Steel Service,
needlepoint instructor at
Bonwit Teller, top sales asso-
ciate at Marshall Fields,
owner and manager of numerous Gold Coast rental
units, and successful stock
market investor. She was
loved, respected, and adored
by all who knew her for her
kindness, caring, sweet disposition, optimism, intelligence, determination, and
sense of humor. Esther will
be sorely missed by many.
Arrangements by Lakeshore
Jewish Funerals,(773) 6258621.
Isabell Zisman, nee Klein,
age 91. Beloved wife of the
late Meyer Zisman. Cherished mother of David
(Karen) Green-Zisman and
Ronald (Sandra) Zisman. Devoted grandmother of Jodi
(Jeremy) Potirala, Randi
(Greg)
Shanin,
Jason
(Pamela) Risdon, Brandon
and Lauren Zisman and
great-grandchild
Quinn
Shanin. Dear sister of the
late Ethel (Harry) Pearlman,
Yetta (Irving) Kadish, Barney
(Hannah) Klein and Dora
Heinan. Fond aunt of many
nieces and nephews. Special
thanks to her devoted care
giver Venus “Vicky” Guinto.
Contributions in Isabell’s
name to the Council for Jewish Elderly (CJE) or Congregation Am Shalom would be
appreciated. Arrangements
by Mitzvah Memorial Funerals.
Bernice Tannenbaum, longtime
Hadassah and Zionist leader
(JTA) – Bernice Tannenbaum, a former national president of Hadassah, the Women’s
Zionist Organization of America
who earned the group’s highest
honor for her legacy of contributions, has died. She was 101.
She joined Hadassah in
1944 and became its national
president in 1976, serving until
1980. Tannenbaum initiated the
organization’s practice of periodically holding its annual convention in Israel, convening the first
such Jerusalem gathering in
1978. She also launched Hadassah’s first strategic planning initiative, resulting in key structural
changes.
She served as chair of the
Hadassah Medical Organization
from 1980 to 1984. In 1983, she
founded Hadassah-International,
which is now represented in 21
countries. She served as international coordinator of Hadassah
International for 10 years.
As chair of the American
Section of the World Zionist Organization, Tannenbaum spearheaded the U.S. campaign for
repudiation of United Nations
General Assembly Resolution
3379, equating Zionism with
racism, which came to a successful conclusion with its repeal in
1991. In 2000, she played a central role as spokeswoman for
Hadassah’s successful campaign
to achieve NGO consultative
status at the U.N. Economic and
Social Council.
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Chicago Jewish News - April 10-16, 2015
The people of Lincoln
Some of Honest Abe's best friends were Jews
By Pauline Dubkin Yearwood
Managing Editor
“Denied citizenship in most
of Christendom … they have
bent all their energies to … the
accumulation of money … (Yet)
the Jew has the same privileges,
social, religious, and political,
that any other class enjoys.”
That was how the author of
an editorial titled “The Jews, as
Citizens” in the Washington
Sentinel in May, 1854 saw it.
At a time when about
150,000 Jews lived in the United
States, a tiny fraction of the total
population of 31 million, most
citizens – a majority of whom
had never met a Jew – would
agree.
There was at least one notable exception: Abraham Lincoln.
Throughout his lifetime, the
16th president interacted with
many Jews, from a trusted attorney colleague who was one of the
first to encourage Lincoln to go
into politics to a Jewish photographer who took the first photograph of Lincoln with a beard to
the appointment of the first Jew
to hold a patronage position, that
of postmaster.
But Lincoln’s interactions
with American Jews went deeper
than acquaintanceship or even
friendship. Among other courageous acts favoring Jews at a time
when anti-Semitism was virulent
in America, when General
Ulysses S. Grant issued an order
barring Jews from areas under his
command, Lincoln promptly
countermanded it.
You could find out all this
and more from the president Illinois claims as a native son (even
though he was born in Kentucky) from a new exhibit at the
New-York Historical Society
called “With Firmness in the
Right: Lincoln and the Jews.”
The exhibition is designed to
mark the 150th anniversary of
the end of the Civil War and to
bring to light Lincoln’s relationship with the Jewish community
through a number of never-before-exhibited original writings
and documents by Lincoln and
his Jewish contemporaries.
It will travel to the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Museum in Springfield in August.
The exhibition was inspired
by the publication of “Lincoln and
the Jews: A History,” a new book
by Brandeis Professor Jonathan
Sarna and Benjamin Shapell,
A painting of Lincoln’s deathbed shows Dr. Charles Liebermann, a Russian-born Jewish ophthalmologist and a leading Washington physician, gazing
intently at the president.
founder of the Shapell Manuscript
Foundation, an educational organization dedicated to the collection and research of original
manuscripts and historical documents, especially those relating to
the United States and Israel.
ith so many museum exhiW
bitions focused on Lincoln, especially as we commemorate the sesquicentennial of the
Civil War, the obvious question
that arises in the wake of announcing a new exhibition on
Lincoln is, ‘Is there anything new
for visitors to learn?’ The answer is
a resounding yes,” Dr. Louise Mirrer, president and CEO of the
New-York Historical Society,
wrote in an email exchange with
Chicago Jewish News.
“The story of Lincoln’s relationship with the Jews will be
unknown to most visitors, and
even those who know something
of it will be surprised at this astonishing treasure trove of evidence in the show,” she wrote.
Lincoln’s attitude toward
the nation’s Jews demonstrates
his “profound sense of human
equality,” she wrote.
As the exhibit shows in a
graphic display, Lincoln had 120
Jews in his circle. Lincoln was
“distinctive” for his time in judging people “as people not by religion or race,” Sarna told the
Jewish news service JTA. The
prominence of Jews connected to
Lincoln “normalized the place of
Jews” in American society, Sarna
said.
he exhibit draws from many
T
different sources, with Chicago and Illinois amply represented. The exhibit, Mirrer
wrote, “will illustrate how America changed as its Jewish population surged from 3,000 to
150,000, and how Abraham Lincoln, more than any of his predecessors, changed America in order to accelerate acceptance of
Jews as part of the mosaic of
American life.”
More than 80 artifacts document the connection between
Lincoln and the Jews, including
letters, official appointment notices, pardons and personal
notes. The exhibit also includes
Bibles, paintings and Judaica,
many of which illustrate Lincoln’s profound interest in and
connection to the Old Testament, despite this famous protestation. “That I am not a member
of any Christian Church is true;
but I have never denied the truth
of the Scriptures; and I have
never spoken with intentional
disrespect of religion in general
….”
That wall quote from the exhibit is from an 1846 handbill in
which Lincoln replied to charges
of “infidelity.”
Visitors to “With Firmness in
the Right: Lincoln and the Jews”
move chronologically through
Lincoln’s life, with an emphasis
not only on his relationship to
Jewish individuals and U.S. Jews
as a whole but on the forces that
shaped those attitudes.
Though he never professed
to be religious, Lincoln “regularly
referenced the Bible throughout
his life – in writing, public speaking and conversation – quoting
the Old Testament about three
times more often than he did the
New,” text from the exhibit
notes.
It goes on to say that “in
Lincoln’s strict Baptist Calvinist
home, life was lived by the ‘Bible
alone.’ … Unlike most 19th-century Americans, the Lincolns
and members of their church
strongly believed in predestination – that one’s fate was determined by God alone; they
opposed missionizing and had no
interest in converting Jews to
Christianity.”
In an 1858 lecture “On Discoveries and Inventions,” Lincoln “cites Old Testament
characters and events nearly 50
times, as well as ‘the five books of
Moses.’ He mentioned the New
Testament only twice,” the museum text explains.
A section of background in
the exhibit notes that a wave of
European emigration in the 19th
century brought many Jews to
America, “first as peddlers – a
traditional role in Europe – then
as clothiers and merchants. Jews
brought necessities to their customers. They established communities from Cincinnati to San
Francisco, where they hoped to
find acceptance and religious
freedom as well as economic success,” the text explains.
Lincoln became acquainted
with at least three Jewish clothiers in Illinois: Julius Hammerslough of Springfield, Henry Rice
of Jacksonville and Abraham
Kohn of Chicago, who met Lincoln in his shop on Lake Street
in 1860.
An exhibition section on
“Revolutionizing Retail: The
Julius Hammerslough Story” puts
a new twist on what to many
Chicagoans is a familiar tale. The
German-born Hammerslough
was the first Jewish resident of
Springfield, where Lincoln
moved in 1837, and one of the
few Jews in that city to know
Lincoln personally. “Lincoln
probably purchased clothes from
Hammerslough’s store,” the text
notes.
Meanwhile Hammerslough’s
sister, Augusta, had married another German-Jewish immigrant,
Samuel Rosenwald, who worked
in her brother’s clothing business. Their son was Julius Rosenwald, the legendary Illinois
businessman who was among the
founders of Sears, Roebuck &
Co. and a major Chicago philanthropist.
The exhibit includes an advertisement from 1857-58 for
Hammerslough’s clothing business, which during the Civil War
helped to clothe “39 regiments of
infantry and nine regiments of
cavalry.” Several photos of the
Hammerslough and Rosenwald
families are included in the exhibit, including one of Augusta
and Samuel Rosenwald’s home
in Springfield, across the street
from the Lincolns’ home. The
two families probably did not
know each other, the text explains, because Lincoln was al-
11
Chicago Jewish News - April 10-16, 2015
ready president at the time; he
and his family had left for the
White House in 1861.
Another exhibit subsection,
“The Jews of Cincinnati,” is notable because it traces the origins
of one of the most important
Jewish figures in Lincoln’s life,
Abraham Jonas, who arrived in
the city in 1819 from England,
joining his brother, Joseph, who
was the first Jew to settle in
Cincinnati.
Abraham Jonas is believed
to be the first Jew Lincoln came
to know well. Jonas was a lawyer
(as was Lincoln, who began practicing law in Springfield in the
late 1830s) and one of Lincoln’s
earliest political supporters. In an
1860 letter in the exhibit, Lincoln calls Jonas “one of my most
valued friends.”
“Although Jonas was not an
observant Jew, there was no mistaking his Jewish identity,” the
text explains. “His law practice
was housed below the Congregation B’nai Abraham, which his
family had helped to found.
Jonas, his partner Henry Asbury
and Lincoln were part of a circle
of attorneys who often opposed
each other on trial and then socialized after court adjourned,”
the exhibition text states.
Entering politics, Lincoln
ran in the Illinois senatorial race
of 1858 but lost to Stephen A.
Douglas. Shortly afterwards, according to the exhibit, Jonas
began promoting him for the
presidency of the country.
“I should prefer you to any
other … and should be pleased to
render you any service in my
power,” Jonas wrote to Lincoln
in an 1854 letter.
Jonas was not the only Jew
to support Lincoln’s candidacy.
“As Lincoln gained political
prominence, he attracted more
Jewish supporters,” according to
information from the exhibition.
“They worked on his behalf in
New York City, which had the
largest Jewish population in the
nation … Other Jews supported
him at the Republican Convention in Chicago in May 1860.
Lincoln won the nomination
there, with Jonas playing a major
role behind the scenes, and then
went on to win the presidential
election in November.”
“The pre-convention favorite, William H. Seward, took
an early lead in the first balloting. But Abraham Jonas had
helped pack the hall with Lincoln supporters who unleashed
‘immense applause and cheers’
when Lincoln’s name was put
forward. The momentum shifted
and Lincoln won on the third
ballot,” wrote Thomas William
Law in a lithograph on loan from
the Chicago History Museum.
A month later, even before
his inauguration, Lincoln received a letter from Jonas – on
view in the exhibit – warning of
an assassination plot, rumors of
which Jonas learned from his extended family in the South.
Lincoln heeded the warning
by traveling through Baltimore –
the only Southern city on his
route to the White House – in
the middle of the night and entering Washington clandestinely.
Lincoln’s “most valued”
friendship with the Jonas family
would continue throughout his
life. During his presidency, he appointed Abraham Jonas to the
sought-after federal position of
postmaster of Quincy, Ill. Years
later, on Jonas’ death, he appointed his widow, Louisa Jonas,
C.M. Levy, the son-in-law of Rabbi Morris Raphall of Congregation B’nai
Jeshurun, was a well-known Orthodox Jew in New York. In response to
his application for the position of quartermaster, responsible for housing,
transportation, clothing, and supplies for the troops, Lincoln noted to
Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton, “We have not yet appointed a Hebrew.” Describing Levy as “a capable and faithful man” (the word faithful,
with typical Lincoln wordplay, carried a double meaning), Lincoln appointed him “Assistant Quarter Master, with the rank of Captain.”
to succeed her husband in the
post.
In addition, Abraham Jonas’
son, Benjamin, a lawyer in New
Orleans, reached out to Lincoln
in 1857 to help him defend a
young black Springfield man,
John Shelby, jailed for defying
curfew. “Lincoln dispatched his
own funds to Benjamin to free
Shelby, keeping the whole affair
quiet,” according to the exhibit
text.
And when Charles Jonas,
Abraham’s eldest son, became a
Confederate prisoner of war on
Johnson’s Island, Ohio in 1864,
Lincoln issued a “compassionate
order” allowing Charles a threeweek parole to return to Illinois,
where Abraham Jonas lay dying.
He made it back just in time to
see his father alive once more.
ut Lincoln’s relationship to
B
the Jewish community went
beyond the personal. As the exhibit notes, he often took unpopular stands in defense of Jews
and Judaism, and the exhibition
explores his two most important
wartime interactions with the
Jewish community.
One was his role in amending the chaplaincy law so that
Jews and other non-Christians
might serve as chaplains; he also
appointed the first-ever Jewish
military chaplains in the United
States.
The other was his countermanding of General Ulysses S.
Grant’s notorious General Orders No. 11 that expelled “Jews
as a class” from the territory then
under his command.
For background on this unprecedented act of American
anti-Semitism, the exhibit
quotes an article from the Daily
Chronicle & Sentinel of Augusta, Ga. from 1862: “The Israelites have come down … like
locusts. Every boat brings a load
of the hook-nosed fraternity,
with mysterious boxes under
their arms, and honied words on
their tongues.”
“Times of national crisis almost always heighten prejudice
and discrimination, as people
blame convenient scapegoats,”
another text informs visitors.
“During the Civil War, bigotry
and distrust of minorities – Jews,
African Americans and Catholics – were all too common. In the
military, anti-Semitism was casual, yet virulent and omnipresent.
Union
generals
Benjamin F Butler, George B.
McClellan, William T. Sherman
and others wore their anti-Semitism without shame. General
Ulysses S. Grant went so far as to
ban Jews from the vast area under
his command: his order against
‘Jews as a class’ was the most notorious official act of anti-Semitism in American history.”
Lincoln had the order revoked as soon as he learned of it,
explaining that he did “not like
to hear a class or nationality condemned on account of a few sin-
Abraham Jonas was a Jewish lawyer in Quincy, Illinois whom Lincoln
first met in 1843. Jonas was a staunch supporter of Lincoln throughout
their more than two decades of friendship. The correspondence between the two men demonstrates their personal, professional, and political closeness, with Lincoln calling Jonas “one of my most valued
friends.”
ners.”
Lincoln also supported the
promotion and decoration of
Jewish Civil War soldiers. On
view in the exhibition are dueling pistols presented to the Civil
War hero Edward S. Salomon by
the citizens of Cook County in
1867. Salomon led the so-called
“Jewish Company” from Illinois
and was commended for his battlefield bravery, exhibited at the
Battle of Gettysburg and beyond.
Another of Lincoln’s Jewish
connections began in 1862, just
as he was preparing to deliver the
preliminary Emancipation Proclamation to his cabinet. He was
treated by podiatrist Issachar
Zacharie, who soon became a
close confidant. Lincoln entrusted Zacharie with several secret missions, including sending
him to New Orleans to promote
pro-Union sentiments among his
Jewish “countrymen.”
“Zacharie also worked to
win Jewish voters to Lincoln’s
side in the 1864 election. In return, when Savannah was restored to the Union, he sought
Lincoln’s permission to visit his
family there. In a remarkable
1865 letter bluntly titled ‘About
Jews,’ which is on view in the exhibition, Lincoln instructed Secretary of War Edwin Stanton to
grant passage for Zacharie.
Lincoln also ordered a hearing for a dismissed Jewish provost
marshall (head of the military
police) whom, he wrote, “has suffered for us & served us well.” In
an era when anti-Semitism was
commonplace, Lincoln openly
sided with these Jews, against the
advice of his Secretary of War,”
the exhibition notes.
There is much more in the
exhibit, from a mezuzah found on
a Civil War battlefield to a set of
“traveling candlesticks” to a brief
biography of the Jewish telegraph
operator, Edward Rosewater, who
transmitted the Emancipation
Proclamation over the telegraph
wires on Jan. 1, 1863.
And then there is the sad
note that Lincoln was shot on
Good Friday, April 14, 1865, the
fifth day of Passover, and died the
next day. “Many Jews were on
their way to synagogue when his
death was first reported,” according to exhibition text. Jews were
devastated by the assassination
and many synagogues held memorial services for the president.
Mirrer, The Historical Society
president and CEO, wrote to the
Chicago Jewish News that she
hopes that visitors to the exhibit
take away, above all, “a sense of
Lincoln as a champion for all humanity. When we think of Lincoln’s embrace of humanity writ
large we tend to think of his advocacy of freedom for African
Americans, and his friendship
with Frederick Douglass.
“But this exhibition shows
that Lincoln’s embrace included
American Jews, in the face of extreme anti-Semitism, and that
among his ‘most valued friends’
was a Jewish man, Abraham
Jonas. I would also hope that by
recalling, as this exhibition does,
Lincoln – whose assassination
shattered the nation’s spirit at
the very moment it began to
taste victory and the return of
peace – visitors will be reminded
of the causes for which Lincoln
lived and died, and by which his
countrymen should live henceforth.”
12
Chicago Jewish News - April 10-16, 2015
Senior Living
Daughter finds the write words from dad
By Rachel Heller Zaimont
Los Angeles Jewish Journal
My father rarely wrote anything down. Take birthday cards,
for example: While my mother
would embellish the printed message with sweet, loving passages
and hand-drawn hearts, my father’s heavy script only appeared at
the bottom, where he signed his
name. It seemed strange for a man
who told me, when I began writing
fiction in grade school, that he
once wanted to be an author.
As I got older, I realized his
reticence stemmed from something deeper – it was hard for
him to express emotions, either
verbally or on the page. He rarely
spent quality time with me, and
never seemed interested in my
personal life. Sure, he would
praise a high test score at the dinner table or, on rare occasions,
help me with a math problem or
science project, but conversation
never flowed naturally between
us. Our brief exchanges usually
petered out when he turned back
to the TV or the newspaper, detached.
I grew envious of my friends’
relationships with their fathers.
They had dads who remembered
the names of their friends, who
shared inside jokes, who lent a
patient ear during times of teen
angst. I couldn’t imagine confiding in my father about a crush or
any kind of school drama. He
only seemed to care whether I
kept enough gas in the car. There
was a moat between us, and
eventually, neither of us remembered how to cross it.
Just before I left for college,
we seemed to find common
ground. He was perpetually immersed with books about geopolitics, and I was hungry to expand
my worldview. He began to treat
me as an intellectual partner, if
not an emotional one. We talked
stocks, commodities markets,
global finances. I felt privileged
that he was finally lavishing me
with attention.
Rachel Heller Zaimont with her dad in 1987.
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One day, in a moment of
boldness, I suggested, “Why
don’t you write me a book?” It
would give him a chance to become the author he wanted to
be, and it would also fulfill a selfish desire of mine: I craved more
communication from him; I was
starved for his words. But he
never picked up a pen.
When Alzheimer’s disease
began to set in six years ago, my
father’s writing, ironically, was
our first clue. My mother and I
began to find notes around their
house – email addresses taped to
the computer screen, phone
numbers scrawled on the desk
and on filing cabinets. Once, we
found a short paragraph he had
written, describing the nature of
his Army service in the 1950s. Its
only purpose that we could
fathom was to preserve the memory. I held onto it – even a few
sentences in his choppy hand
were better than nothing.
The years of distance between us have taken their toll.
Now that my father stays in a
nursing home, I don’t visit him as
often as I could. There is even
less to say than before, when he
still remembered what I do,
where I live, my husband and
cats – when he could easily recall
my name.
But a few months ago, my
father’s second cousin in Israel
called with a bombshell: My dad
had written him letters over the
years. Lots of them.
Letters? When he could
barely sign a greeting card?
CONTINUED
O N N E X T PAG E
Just because he
didn’t say kind
words out loud
doesn’t mean they
weren’t there.
Chicago Jewish News - April 10-16, 2015
Senior Living
CONTINUED
F RO M P R E V I O U S PAG E
Not only that, but my father’s relative had dutifully preserved them. He scanned a few
so I could see them, and I caught
my breath as the images popped
up on my computer screen.
October 2000: Rachel has
one more year in high school, so
we are starting to look for a university she could attend. She is
mostly interested in art, literature
and creative writing.
March 2002: Rachel will be
starting her university education
in late August. She will be 200
miles away and we will miss her.
I felt gobsmacked. So there was
life on the other side of the moat,
after all. And caring. And pride.
Had I missed something?
As my father’s illness progresses, the channels between us
are opening in other surprising
ways: He’s starting to say all of
the things he never could when
he was well. When he sees me
walk into the room now, his knitted brow relaxes and the corners
of his mouth turn upward. On
walks, he asks to hold my hand.
He kisses my fingers and tells me,
“You’re beautiful.”
When I was sitting next to
him on the couch recently, he
suddenly turned to me, clutched
my hand and announced, “My
darling girl.” I was stunned. Had
I been his darling girl this whole
time? Why didn’t he say so?
Yet maybe, in his own way,
he did. I printed the letters and
showed his heartfelt sentiments
to my mother.
“Shocking, right?” I asked
her.
“Not shocking,” she countered. “You don’t remember
everything.”
“What don’t I remember?”
“How much he cared for
you.”
So maybe there’s another
side to the narrative. Maybe I,
too, am guilty of forgetting – of
focusing only on my resentment
and the ways I felt cheated over
the years, of holding fast to my
grudge. Thinking back, maybe I
closed my ears to my dad and ignored the quiet hum of how he
felt. Just because he didn’t say
kind words out loud doesn’t
mean they weren’t there.
After seeing his thoughts
written down – uttered, it turns
out, to someone else – I’m starting to re-evaluate his constant
inquiries about the gas in my car,
about whether I lock my doors at
night. That might have been the
closest he could come to saying,
“You’re important to me.”
I can’t ask my father for closure now; there’s no point in replaying memories he can no
longer recall. Maybe memory
only has so much value, anyway.
Maybe there is healing in letting
go.
13
14
Chicago Jewish News - April 10-16, 2015
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Asner
CONTINUED
F RO M PAG E
6
General Motors.
His acting career began
when he served with the U.S.
Army Signal Corps and began
appearing in plays that toured
Army camps. After his military
service, he joined the Playwrights Theatre Company in
Chicago, but was already in New
York pursuing his career when
the members of the company regrouped as the Compass Players,
the forerunner of Second City.
In New York, Asner received notice from audiences and
critics as Jonathan Jeremiah
Peachum in the long-running
Broadway revival of “The Threepenny Opera,” then went on to a
distinguished career in television, where he was one of the few
actors ever to appear as the same
character in a comedy (“The
Mary Tyler Moore Show”) and
its dramatic spinoff, “Lou Grant.”
He won Emmy Awards for
both portrayals. In later years, his
career has entered a second act as
he has voiced dozens of characters in animated films and narrated numerous documentaries.
The Jewish – if not the religious – part of his heritage has
stuck with him, he says.
“I practice Judaism almost
none at all but I identify strongly
as a Jew,” he says. “I don’t practice it but I revere it.”
He is particularly proud that
his four children (by first wife
Nancy Sykes) all had bar or bat
mitzvahs.
“I was a failure at mine – a
prize student but I didn’t deliver,”
he says. “But having a kid at age
13 perform such demanding duties
gives us a shot at swifter intellectual improvement over our nonJewish peers. I think being part of
a tradition is phenomenal.”
Although he considers
much of what he learned growing up “Jewish fairy tales, he says,
“I believe in the uniqueness of
being a Jew. Most of it is fairy
tales but it did create a respect for
the word. It inculcated good progressive learning in most of us
and it puts us a step ahead.”
Besides, he says, “being discriminated against, being a minority makes you tougher. I’ve
always said a little prejudice is a
good thing. It makes you realize
the world is not your oyster and
you try to carry a big stick but not
show it.”
In politics, he admits, “I lean
left. I think of myself as a socialist if I could ever see it put into
practice.” He has been associated
with a number of causes and
charities and served as the presi-
dent of the Screen Actors Guild.
As for how he sees the Jewish world today, he prefaces his
remarks with an endearing
caveat: “This is kind of a
provocative statement I’m going
to make,” he says. “I felt the
world adored Israel in 1948.
Anti-Semitism was at its rock
bottom. But successively Israel
has pissed away that liking, that
adoration the world had for Israel.”
Today, he says, “We’re back
to where we were in 1939. I resent (Israel’s) approach. I realize
at the same time that the Arabs
have not made it easy. The latest
fiasco with what (Israeli Prime
Minister Benjamin) Netanyahu
has done, makes it worse. I’m
glad Obama is pursuing a separate policy now about not being
attached at the hip, which has
been the case with Israel.”
On to less controversial topics, such as Asner’s best-known
character, the gruff but inwardly
tender and scrupulously ethical
newsman Lou Grant and his development. He didn’t spring
whole from his creator, as it turns
out.
“’Mary Tyler Moore’ was on
for seven years, ‘Lou Grant’ for
five,” he says. Creating the character “was an accretion, layer by
layer of adjusting and employing
others’ vision. I often said that
with ‘Mary Tyler Moore’ I used
my two bombastic brothers as my
guide. With ‘Lou Grant’ that
wasn’t working for me, so I went
into myself and came up with a
second Lou Grant. I didn’t want
viewers to see too much difference but inwardly I approached
it differently. I dispensed a few
demons.”
Since then he has done
more TV and plays and, lately,
voiceover work in the movies,
which he enjoys.
“I would not pick one over
the others,” he says when asked
which he prefers. “I gain something from everything. Now I get
my jollies doing voiceovers. I’ll
keep on acting as long as I can
lift a spoon. I don’t do anything
else well. I love being an actor.
I’m learning all the time and adjusting all the time.”
As for FDR, Asner will continue to tour his show – and to
admire the man.
“I love FDR no matter what
I read, and the literature I’ve read
on him has not added to his
spots,” he says. “I think he was a
great great man, with faults. He
would be unreal if he didn’t have
faults. I think his achievements
in directing this country through
the Depression and through the
war was phenomenal.
“He belongs in Heaven,” he
growls.
15
Chicago Jewish News - April 10-16, 2015
Torah Portion
CANDLELIGHTING TIMES
4
Our songs, our survival
Prayer, Torah,
education have
helped us endure
By Lawrence F. Layfer
Torah Columnist
8th day of Passover
“And when your children ask
of you … “ (Exodus 12:26)
For this Sabbath, the last of
the holiday, the Midrash and the
Talmud offer us a different
Passover story, one not found in
the Haggadah.
In the days after the Northern Kingdom had been destroyed, and the Southern
Kingdom of Judah had turned to
idol worship, there reigned a
righteous king by the name of
Hezekiah. Louis Ginzberg, in his
landmark work “The Legend of
the Jews,” relates that when
Hezekiah inherited the throne
from his father Ahaz, he “devoted himself mainly to the task
of dispelling the ignorance of
Torah his father had caused. So
serious was he about education
that he placed a sword in front of
each school with the pronouncement that he who did not learn
deserved the point of the sword.
The academies closed by Ahaz
were kept open under Hezekiah
day and night. He supplied the
oil to illuminate. Gradually
under this educational system a
generation grew up so well
trained that one could search the
land from Dan to Beer-Sheba
and not find a single unlearned
person. Woman and children,
both boys and girls, knew all the
laws, even of the clean and unclean.”
Sennacherib, the Assyrian
king, moved against the Southern Kingdom with so many men
that it was said if each horse took
a sip of water from the Jordan
River no water would remain,
and if each soldier ran his finger
over the walls of Jerusalem to remove minor amounts of stone,
no wall would remain standing.
His warriors urged him to immediately press ahead with the attack, but deciding that the
outcome was so pre-determined
they could wait till the next
morning, he went to sleep.
Hezekiah looked out over
the walls of Jerusalem and knew
that the morning brought certain
destruction. But that night was
Passover, and the people began
to sing the psalms of praise, the
Hallel, as we do each seder night.
Lawrence F. Layfer
In honor of all Hezekiah’s piety,
the angel Gabriel was sent to destroy the Assyrian army. The
next day when Hezekiah again
looked over the walls of the city,
Sennacherib and his army had
vanished. That same First Temple wall has been excavated in
our generation, and you can see
it still, and stand by it as
Hezekiah did, in the Old City of
Jerusalem.
The Midrash relates that
G-d thought to make Hezekiah
the Messiah at that point.
However, urged to sing songs of
praise and thanksgiving by his
father-in-law the prophet Isaiah, he demurred, saying that
Torah study was a substitute for
such expression. But King
David, Hezekiah’s ancestor 15
generations removed, had written: “I will sing praises to my
G-d while I live.” (Psalm 104)
This gave the angels an opportunity to plead against
Hezekiah, saying: “Lord of the
World, David, who sang so
many songs of praise to You,
You did not make the Messiah,
so how can You confer this distinction to Hezekiah, for who
it could not enter his heart to
sing as the children of Israel
did at the miracle of the sea?”
Still he was a great man, and
we learn that Hezekiah was
buried next to his ancestors
David and Solomon, and it was
said of him that “he who rests
here has fulfilled, and taught,
all that is ordained in the
Torah.” (Baba Kama 17A)
The tractate Sanhedrin tells
of Hezekiah’s son, Manasseh,
“Wisdom of the
mind alone without
wisdom of the heart
is worthless.”
who followed him on the throne,
returned the kingdom to idol
worship, and is one of the kings
who the Talmud says has no
place in the World to Come. Rav
Ashi, teaching a millennium
later, ending his day’s discourse
with his students, said tongue in
cheek that tomorrow we will
open our studies with our colleague Manasseh.
That night the ghost of
Manasseh appeared to Rav Ashi
in a dream. He said to Rav Ashi:
Do you compare yourself to me
that you call me a colleague? If
so, answer this simple question:
On which part of the bread
should a blessing be made? Uncertain, Rav Ashi said: I do not
know, but teach me, and tomorrow I will say it in the school in
your name. Manasseh answered:
where the bread forms a thick
crust and is well baked. Rav Ashi
asked in reply: With that knowledge, why did you worship idols?
Manasseh answered: Had you
been there with me, you would
have taken up the hem of your
cloak and run after me.
It seems that for all the education Hezekiah gave to his people, it was no protection against
Manasseh’s charms. How could a
generation so learned fall so far
so fast? The answer may be that if
Hezekiah couldn’t sing, how
could those whom he taught?
One may fill their head with any
amount of knowledge under pressure but yet have no ability to
have it touch their souls. An ancient phrase states that for those
who sing their prayers, it is as if
they had prayed twice.
Rabbi Aaron of Karlin, an
18th century Chasidic master,
felt that “wisdom of the mind
alone without wisdom of the
heart is worthless.” So as we say
good-by to the Passover for another year, let us resolve to let
the concepts we discussed at our
tables be planted deep in our
hearts, and thus also in our children’s: to seek out and aid the
poor and the needy; to cherish
the freedoms we have and extend
them to the stranger; to expect of
the young many questions and to
answer each of them with love.
This is what has made our
people survive where so many
other nations have fallen in the
trash can of history. Not with
wealth or glory or numbers, but
rather with the lessons of Torah,
with its song in our hearts and its
words on our lips, repeated each
seder night as it has been for
some 3500 years. Shabbat
Shalom and Chag Sameach.
Lawrence F. Layfer M.D. is
vice chairman of medicine at North
Shore University Health System,
Skokie Hospital.
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Chicago Jewish News - April 10-16, 2015
Community Calendar
under.) Reservations required, tbiskokie.org or
(847) 675-0951.
SPOTLIGHT
The H.L. Miller Cantorial School and
College of Jewish Music of the Jewish
Theological Seminary and the Cantors
Assembly present “Voices of a People:
Then, Now & Always” featuring cantorial students Rachael Brook, Josh
Kovitz, Sarah Levine and Isaac Yager.
8 p.m. Monday, May 4, Westin O’Hare, Harvey L. Miller
6100 N. River Road, Rosemont. RSVP to
www.jtsa.edu/DellheimChicago or (312) 606-9086.
Saturday
April 11
Temple Beth Israel Sisterhood presents Trivia Night
competition and dinner for
adults. 6-10 p.m., 3601
Dempster, Skokie. $20.
(Baby-sitting available, $10
includes movie, pizza and
snack for ages 12 and
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Sunday
April 12
Congregation Beth Shalom
hosts LifeSource Community Blood Drive for ages
17 and older; must weigh
110 pounds or more. 8
a.m.-1 p.m., 3433 Walters
Ave., Northbrook. Appointments, swelisco@edarch.
com or (847) 498-4100.
National Council of Jewish
Women Chicago North
Shore Section holds collection drive to assist women
and children leaving domestic violence shelters.
Needed are new sheets,
new towels, non-garment
bag luggage, small toiletries, backpacks, purses,
children’s books and new
stuffed animals. 10 a.m.noon, Extra Space Storage,
1620 Old Deerfield Road,
Highland Park. (847) 8538889.
Congregation B’nai Tikvah’s
USY holds fund-raiser benefitting Water is Life featuring silent auction, arts
and crafts, food, DJ and
more. 1 p.m., 1558 Wilmot
Road, Deerfield. $10, $5
under age 6. (847) 9450470.
Reform Cantors of Chicago
present “Singing for
S’mores” fund-raiser for
OSRUI and URJ Camp scholarships, with raffle for 2week sessions at OSRUI.
4:15 p.m., Beth Emet Synagogue, 1224 Dempster,
Evanston. $18 adults, $10
ages 7-17. Raffle tickets
$10. singingforsmores2015.
eventbrite.com.
Continuum Theater presents staged reading of
“Paris Time,” Steven Peterson’s story of interfaith cou-
SPOTLIGHT
Temple Beth Israel hosts educational event about research
study, “Is Parkinson’s a Jewish
Genetic Disease?” No-cost genetic screening provided to
qualified participants. 11 a.m.noon Sunday, April 26, 3601 W.
Dempster, Skokie. tbiskokie.org
or (847) 675-0951.
SPOTLIGHT
Lincolnwood Jewish Congregation A.G.
Beth Israel presents panel discussion,
sixth annual “Man’s Search for Meaning,
The Next Generation: A Dialogue” following film clip from “Kristallnacht
Remembered.” 7 p.m. Thursday, April 16, 7117 N. Crawford, Lincolnwood.
RSVP to RabbiGordon@LJCong.org or (847) 676-0491.
ple faced with anti-Semitism
in the workplace, followed
by discussion and refreshments. 7 p.m., Congregation
Solel, 1301 Clavey Road,
Highland Park. $10. continuumtheater.org or (800) 8383006 Ext. 1.
Monday
April 13
Congregation Beth Judea
Sisterhood presents author
Cyndee Schaeffer discussing
her book “Mollie’s War.” 8
p.m., Route 83 and Hilltop
Road, Long Grove. RSVP,
(847) 634-0777.
Tuesday
April 14
Congregation B’nai Tikvah
hosts conference on antiSemitism and anti-Israel
sentiment on college campuses. 7:15 p.m., 1558
Wilmot Road, Deerfield.
ncrane@bnaitikvah.net.
tion presents Eric Fusfield,
deputy director of B’nai
B’rith International Center
for Human Rights and Public Policy, speaking on “The
Resurgence of European
Anti-Semitism.” 11 a.m.,
4500 W. Dempster, Skokie.
(847) 675-4141.
Israel Cancer Research Fund
Young Leadership presents
Revolving Tables, mentoring and networking event
for young professionals.
5:30-9 p.m., Ivy Room, 12 E.
Ohio, Chicago. $118.
flink@icrfonline.org or
(847) 914-9120.
Spertus Institute for Jewish
Learning and Leadership
hosts author Martin Goldsmith discussing his book,
“Alex’s Wake.” 7 p.m. 610
S. Michigan Ave., Chicago.
$18; $10 Spertus members;
$8 students and Spertus
alumni. spertus.edu or (312)
322-1773.
Friday
April 17
Wednesday
April 15
Ezra-Habonim, the Niles
Township Jewish Congregation Men’s Club hosts author Charlotte Bonelli
speaking on “Exit Berlin:
How One Woman Saved
Her Family from Nazi Germany.” 7:30 p.m., 4500 W.
Dempster, Skokie. (847)
675-4141.
Thursday
April 16
Ezra-Habonim, the Niles
Township Jewish Congrega-
Congregation B’nai Tikvah
presents musical Kabbalat
Shabbat service followed
by Oneg. 6:30 p.m., 1558
Wilmot Road, Deerfield.
(847) 945-0470.
Saturday
April 18
West Suburban Temple Har
Zion presents Anne Hills
and Michael Smith in concert, “Stars in the Sky.” 9
p.m., 1040 N. Harlem, River
Forest. $25. wsthz.org or
(708) 296-5465.
SPOTLIGHT
Temple Jeremiah presents Dr. Joel M.
Hoffman speaking on “Ancient Answers
to Good and Evil That Were Cut From
the Bible.” 8 p.m. Saturday, May 2,
937 Happ Road, Northfield. (847) 4415760.
Dr. Joel M. Hoffman
17
Chicago Jewish News - April 10-16, 2015
By Joseph Aaron
CONTINUED
F RO M PAG E
Specialized
18
is a Nazi.” And that put an end to any chance of peace, any hope. Begin gave hope a chance and that led to peace with Egypt, yes sometimes a cold peace, but peace nonetheless with the most important
Arab country, a peace especially welcome in today’s turbulent mess of
a Middle East.
Rabin loathed Arafat, could not stand to be in the same room
with him, had a few years before called the Palestinians “cockroaches.”
But when Rabin saw the chance for the two neighbors sharing the
small piece of land to reach an accommodation, to finally recognize
the reality of each other’s existence, when he saw the opportunity for
Israel to be recognized by the world for giving peace a chance, for Israel’s isolation to end, he shook Arafat’s hand, agreed to the Oslo accords, that, while they have been far from perfect, have in so many
ways done so much good for Israel on so many fronts, made it a more
secure, more accepted, more prosperous country.
But even when presented with a good deal that does so much to
curb Iran’s nuclear program, Bibi just says no, says it’s a bad deal, says
it threatens Israel’s survival. He won’t even, as Saudi Arabia’s king has
done, give it a chance.
Listen to the words of New York Times columnist Roger Cohen,
who strongly identifies as a Jew, and is one of the country’s leading experts on the Middle East. The framework agreement with Iran, he
wrote, “reflects harsh realities – Iran has mastered the nuclear fuel cycle – yet represents the best possibility by far of holding Iran short of
a bomb, ring-fencing its nuclear capacities, coaxing change in the Islamic Republic, and ushering a hopeful society closer to the world. If
the yardstick is effectiveness, and it must be, no conceivable alternative even comes close. Perfection is not part of diplomacy’s repertoire.”
Bibi, who seems open only to the demons in his own head,
would do well to consider Cohen’s words. So, too, the words of Iran’s
President Rouhani. “Some think that we must either fight the world
or surrender to world powers. We say it is neither of those, there is a
third way. We can have cooperation with the world. With those
countries with which we have a cold relationship, we would like a better relationship. And if we have tension or hostility with any countries, we want an end to tension and hostility with those countries.”
As Cohen notes, “There were no qualifiers there – not for “The
Great Satan,” as the United States has been widely known in Iran
since the theocratic revolution of 1979, not even for Israel.”
Not even for Israel. I would remind all the right-wing wackobirds
who think Bibi is so right when he could not be more wrong, or be doing more damage to Israel’s image in the world and to Israel’s relationship with the most important countries in the world, that Iran was
one of the first countries to recognize the new state of Israel, that less
than 40 years ago, Israel had an embassy and an ambassador in Iran,
that El Al had an office on the main street in downtown Teheran.
Bibi keeps saying we must “take the Iranians at their word.”
Well listen to what Iran’s democratically elected president, very popular with Iran’s overwhelming young population, had to say. And have
hope, because not only has Iran agreed to a deal that blocks all possible paths to a bomb, but it has signaled its desire to once again engage with the world, perhaps even one day engage with Israel.
Crazy, right? Well, before Sadat, no one could imagine an Egyptian president addressing the Knesset. Are you crazy? Before Rabin, no
one could imagine an Israeli prime minister shaking the hand of the
head of the PLO on the White House lawn. Are you crazy? It is not
as hard to imagine, since it has already taken place, that Israel will one
day have diplomatic relations with Iran. No, not tomorrow. But we are
seeing the start of a new Iran, setting out on a path that Israel should
be welcoming and encouraging and celebrating, rather than, as Bibi
is doing, trying to sabotage. At a time that calls for hope, Bibi is smothering us with fear.
As a writer for the Jerusalem Post put it, there is a tendency “to
see in present-day expressions of anti-Semitism and violence against
Jews a reflection of a recurring, immutable theme. In this formulation,
Hamas is Amalek; the Iranian mullahs are Haman; we are living in
1938; US President Barack Obama is Neville Chamberlain, or
Haman…
“Part of the problem with this way of thinking is that it prevents
us from understanding the world the way it is. It replaces rational
thinking with a mystical determinism. It obscures and even obliterates distinctions that are important to make if we are to understand
our world …
“Maintaining a habit of thought … that we once again face
Amalek or Haman or the Nazis, prevents Jews from recognizing the
extent to which the Jewish present is radically different from the Jewish past … With a Jewish state comes not only power but also the responsibility to devise a policy based on the unique circumstances of
contemporary reality.”
Bibi’s head can’t get out of the dark horrors of the Jewish past. As
a result, he is stubbornly trying to prevent us from making the most
of the bright possibilities of the Jewish future.
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18
Chicago Jewish News - April 10-16, 2015
Food
CONTINUED
F RO M PAG E
7
broth and bring the mixture to a
boil, scraping the bottom of the
pan to loosen browned bits.
Cook for 1 minute. Place all the
chicken in the pan and spoon
the sauce over the chicken.
Cover, reduce heat to a simmer
and cook 12 to 15 minutes. Stir
in dates; simmer 10 minutes or
until chicken is done. Stir in
lemon juice if using, and garnish
with basil. Serves 6 to 8.
Modified from Cooking Light
Date and Figgy Swirls (Dairy)
2 cups flour
1/2 cup sugar
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon
8 tablespoons (1 stick) cold unsalted butter, cut into pieces
1 large egg
1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons orange
juice
1 cup dried figs, stemmed
1 cup pitted dried dates
2 tablespoons honey
In a food processor combine
the flour, sugar, salt and half of
the cinnamon and pulse until
mixed. Pulse in the butter until
the mixture is crumbly. Pulse in
the egg and 2 tablespoons orange
juice just until the dough forms a
ball. Divide the dough in half
and pat into 24 1/2-inch-wide
disks. Wrap disks in plastic wrap;
chill for 1 hour.
In processor combine the
figs, dates, honey and remaining
orange juice and cinnamon and
process until you have a smooth
paste. Transfer the mixture to a
bowl, cover and refrigerate for
about 30 minutes.
Unwrap 1 packet of dough.
Place the dough between sheets of
waxed paper and roll out into an
8-by-10-inch rectangle, about 1/8
inch thick. Trim the edges. Remove the top sheet of waxed
paper and spread half of filling
over dough, leaving a 1/4-inch
border at the edge. Starting with a
short side, use the paper to help
roll up into a log. Wrap in plastic
wrap and freeze until firm, at least
2 hours and up to 1 week. Repeat
with remaining dough and filling.
Preheat oven to 350°. Line
3 large baking sheets with parchment paper. With a serrated
knife, cut each log into 1/3-inchthick slices. Place the cookies on
the cookie sheets, 1 inch apart.
Bake 20 to 25 minutes until
golden brown. Let cool for 2
minutes; transfer to wire racks to
cool completely. Makes about 36
to 40 cookies depending on the
size you cut them
Modified from Health magazine, submitted by Rachel Kintrey,
Chicago.
By
Joseph
Aaron
Fear itself
It’s one thing to be tough, it’s another to be smart.
There was no tougher Israeli prime minister than Menachem Begin. Head of an underground army before Israel was established, he put
his life on the line many times to bring about the creation of the Jewish state. But in 1973, when Egyptian president Anwar Sadat reached
out his hand in peace to Israel, Begin reached back, invited Sadat to
Jerusalem, joined with him at Camp David, signed the historic peace
treaty in place to this day.
There was no tougher Israeli prime minister than Yitzhak Rabin.
A commander of the Haganah, Israel’s pre-state army, he played a key
role in the War of Independence, was chief of staff during the Six Day
War that returned the Western Wall to Jewish hands. But in 1993,
when PLO chief Yasser Arafat reached out his hand in peace to Israel,
Rabin shook it on the White House lawn, which led to the Oslo Accords, which, while far from perfect, transformed Israel’s place in the
world, finally recognized reality.
Neither Begin nor Rabin had any illusions that doing what they
did would usher in an era of lollipops and rainbows. But they both understood that just saying no and hunkering down was not a strategy,
that Israel, for its own sake, needed to give peace a chance, that you
have to give in order to get, that getting something is better than getting nothing, that insisting on everything leads nowhere.
Which brings us to today and a prime minister who likes to think
he’s tough but who, over and over again, is proving that he is not very
smart and certainly is not a leader.
Bibi doesn’t want Iran to have a bomb. He’s made that abundantly clear. But in making his case, he’s resorted to hysteria and distortion, keeps calling Iran an “existential threat” to Israel when not
one top Israeli military or security official not currently serving in his
government believes that, when many, including the last three heads
of the Mossad, have said the opposite.
Once it was announced that the framework of an agreement with
Iran had been agreed on, Bibi could not race to the microphone fast
enough to immediately dump all over it, call it a bad deal, rant that
it “would threaten the very survival of the state of Israel.”
Only in Bibi’s warped, obsessive and delusional mind is it a bad deal.
It is, in fact, a good deal. No, it doesn’t do everything Bibi wants it to
do, but Bibi’s demands are beyond unrealistic. And so not getting all his
pipedreams fulfilled, Bibi petulantly called it a bad deal, as if the United
States, China, Russia, France, Britain and Germany are idiots, would
agree to something that threatens Israel’s survival. How insulting.
And not only does Bibi want Iran to dismantle its nuclear facilities, which it has spent hundreds of billions of dollars on, and considers a matter of supreme national pride, but he wants the agreement to
include a statement from Iran saying it recognizes Israel’s right to exist. Perhaps the ayatollah can also cook him a kosher chicken dinner.
Talk about chutzpah. Iran hasn’t even agreed to diplomatic relations with the United States. But Bibi wants everything, doesn’t see
that wanting everything would lead not only to no agreement, but
would accelerate Iran’s getting a bomb and with absolutely no restrictions at all on it. Unlike Begin and Rabin, who understood their
agreements wouldn’t solve everything, but were a very important step
forward, Bibi can only criticize and stomp his feet like a five year old.
It is no secret that the Sunni Arab countries are as opposed to Iran
getting a bomb as Israel is. Indeed, have more reason for concern, since
they are geographically closer to Iran, and have no nuclear weapons,
while Israel, please remember, has its own arsenal of at least 200 nuclear bombs. Israel is itself a major nuclear power, with one of the best
militaries and missile defense systems on the planet. You wouldn’t
know that hearing all of Bibi’s whining.
The Sunni Arabs are far more vulnerable than Israel, and yet
when the framework agreement was announced, the king of Sunni
Saudi Arabia issued a statement cautiously endorsing the deal. “The
council of ministers,” a top governing body within the Saudi system,
“expressed hope for attaining a binding and definitive agreement
that would lead to the strengthening of security and stability in the
region and the world,” read the statement, published by the Saudi state
news agency.
A leader, especially a Jewish leader, should always be about providing hope to his people. Hope is what propelled Begin to reach back
when Sadat reached out. That’s not as easy as it sounds. Please note
that a few years before Sadat offered to come to Jerusalem, he had done
the same when Golda Meir was prime minister. Her response, “Sadat
SEE BY JOSEPH
AARON
ON
PAG E 1 7
19
Chicago Jewish News - April 10-16, 2015
ADVERTISEMENT
G-d
Bless
Israelfrom
Handshake
A LetterAto
the
World
Jerusalem
According to the late General Alexander Haig, U.S. Secretary of
State and Supreme Commander of NATO: "Israel is the largest
American aircraft carrier, which does not require a single US aircraft
or boot on board; cannot be sunk; and is deployed in a vital area for
critical US commercial and military interests. Without a Jewish state
in the eastern flank of the Mediterranean, then the US would have to
deploy additional aircraft carriers and tens of thousands of US soldiers
to the Mediterranean. It would have cost the American taxpayers
some $15BN annually, which is spared by a viable Jewish state."
In my office I have a photograph of a tall, burly man shaking hands with me
as we exchange smiles. I learned much about him after unexpectedly receiving
the photograph. I got a call from a friend at the Federation inviting me to a
private reception before the man's first post-retirement public speaking event.
As my friend and I entered the private room at the hotel, only a few dozen
people were gathered. When the others had finished talking with him, my friend
and I introduced ourselves. Never one to shy away from asking a provocative
question, my opening line was, "It's too bad you didn't finish the job." To which
he responded diplomatically, "That wasn't the mission." And I replied,
"Bullshit! The Saudis wouldn't let you wipe your ass without asking 'Mother
may I!' " Chuckling in agreement, he growled, "You're damn right. It's not what
I would have done." And then I asked how he would have felt leading his
troops into Iraq if the Israelis hadn't bombed the nuclear reactors at Osirak in
1981. He answered with a broad smile, "Those Israelis are really something.
If the reactors were still there, I don't know what I would've done—maybe
even retired." As we shook hands, he uttered words I'll never forget: "G-d
bless Israel!" When people ask me about the photo, I tell them that's my 'G-d
Bless Israel' photo of me with General Norman Schwarzkopf z"l. I jokingly
told him to drop the "kopf" and he could become a member of the tribe! Yes,
those Israelis are really something.
You may recall that one of the first countries to condemn Israel's bombing of
the Iraqi nuclear reactors was the U.S. under President Ronald Reagan and his
Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger. Prime Minister Menachem Begin had
not consulted the U.S. before ordering the bombing and only informed them as
the Israeli planes were returning to Israel. Reagan, Weinberger and the State
Department went ballistic, and the relationship took a serious turn for the worse.
The Saudis, who had just fought for the AWAC surveillance aircraft, accused
Weinberger not only of being a Jew, but of intentionally programming the
aircraft to disable it from detecting the Israeli planes.
From the book First Strike by Shlomo Nakdimon:
During the afternoon of June 10, 1981 (after the strike), Israeli
Ambassador Evron was summoned to (Secretary of State) Haig's office.
"In a few hours...the State Department spokesman will officially
announce the President's decision to suspend delivery of the four F16s." Evron responded, "We (the Israeli government) take a grave view
of the suspension. It is offensive and unjust, and it will encourage
Israel's enemies. ... The United States will set a dangerous precedent."
(p. 246) ... The following day, June 11, Haig sent an official letter to
Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Charles Percy
"providing...information pursuant to section 3 (c) (2) of the Arms
Export Control Act. ..."
Sales to Israel under the Foreign Military Sales program are
governed by a Mutual Defense Assistance Agreement...which provides
in pertinent part: "The Government of Israel assures the United States
Government that such equipment...as may be acquired from the United
States...are required for and will be used solely to maintain its internal
security, its legitimate self-defense, or to permit it to participate in the
defense of the area of which it is a part...and that it will not undertake
any acts of aggression against any other state." (p. 247)
Other disagreements arose during 1981; and finally on December 20, in
an unprecedented move, Prime Minister Begin summoned the U.S.
Ambassador to Israel and read to him the following statement:
Three times during the past six months, the U.S. Government has "punished"
Israel. On June 7 we destroyed the Iraqi nuclear reactor "Osirak" near
Baghdad. I don't want to mention to you today from whom we received the final
information that this reactor was going to produce atomic bombs. We had no
doubt about that: therefore, our action was an act of national self-defense. We
saved the lives of hundreds of thousands of civilians, including tens of thousands
of children. Nonetheless, you announced that you were punishing us. Not long
after, in a defensive act – after a slaughter was committed against our people
leaving three dead (including an Auschwitz survivor) and 29 were injured – we
bombed the PLO headquarters in Beirut. [Again the U.S. complained that
civilians were killed in the Israeli attack.]
You have no moral right to preach to us about civilian casualties. We have
read the history of World War II and we know what happened to civilians when
you took action against an enemy. We have also read the history of the Vietnam
War and your expression "body count." We always make efforts to avoid hitting
civilian populations, but sometimes it is unavoidable – as was the case in our
bombing of the PLO headquarters. We sometimes risk the lives of our soldier to
avoid civilian casualties. Nonetheless, you punished us: you suspended
delivery of F-15 planes.
A week ago, at the instance of the Government, the Knesset passed on all
three readings by an overwhelming majority of two-thirds, the "Golan Heights
Law." Now you once again declare that you are punishing Israel. What kind of
expression is this – "punishing Israel"? Are we a vassal state of yours? Are we
a banana republic? Let me tell you who this government is composed of. It is
composed of people whose lives were spent in resistance, in fighting and in
suffering. You will not frighten us with "punishments." He who threatens us
will find us deaf to his threats and I protest at the very use of this term.
You have announced that you are suspending consultations on the
implementation of the memorandum of understanding on strategic cooperation,
and that your return to these consultations in the future will depend on progress
achieved in the autonomy talks and on the situation in Lebanon. You want to
make Israel a hostage of the memorandum of understanding. I regard your
announcement suspending the consultations on the memorandum as the
abrogation (by you) of the memorandum. No "sword of Damocles" is going to
hang over our head. So we duly take note of the fact that you have abrogated
the memorandum of understanding.
The people of Israel have lived 3,700 years without a memorandum of
understanding with America – and it will continue to live for another 3,700. ...
We will not agree that you should demand of us to allow the Arabs of East
Jerusalem to take part in the autonomy elections – and threaten us that if we
don't consent you will suspend the memorandum. You have (thereby) violated
the word of the President. When Secretary Haig was here he read from a
written document the words of President Reagan that you would purchase 200
million dollars' worth of Israeli arms and other equipment. Now you say it will
not be so. This is, therefore, a violation of the President's word. ...
What did you want to do – "hit us in our pocket?" In 1946 there lived in this
house a British general by the name of Barker. Today I live here. When we
fought him, you called us "terrorists" and we carried on fighting. After we
attacked his headquarters in the requisitioned building of the King David Hotel,
Barker said: "This race will only be influenced by being hit in the pocket" and
he ordered his soldiers to stop patronizing Jewish cafes. To hit us in the pocket
– this is the philosophy of Barker. Now I understand why the whole great
effort in the Senate to obtain a majority for the arms deal with Saudi Arabia
was accompanied by an ugly campaign of anti-Semitism.
First, the slogan was sounded, "Begin or Reagan?" And that meant that
whoever opposes the deal is supporting a foreign prime minister and is not loyal
to the President of the United States. And thus senators like Jackson, Kennedy,
Packwood, and of course Boschwitz are not loyal citizens.
Then the slogan was sounded, "We should not let the Jews determine the
foreign policy of the United States." What was the meaning of this slogan? The
Greek minority in the U.S. did much to determine the Senate decision to
withhold weapons from Turkey after it invaded Cyprus. No one will frighten
the great and free Jewish community of the U.S. ... They will stand by our
side. This is the land of their forefathers – and they have a right and a duty to
support it. (Sadly, how things have changed!)
Some say we must "rescind" the law passed by the Knesset. "Rescind" is a
concept from the days of the Inquisition. Our forefathers went to the stake
rather than "rescind" their faith. We are not going to the stake. Thank G-d, we
have have enough strength to defend our independence and our rights. Please
be kind enough to inform the Secretary of State that the Golan Heights Law will
remain valid. There is no force on earth that can bring about its rescission.
When Israel first began purchasing military aid from a reluctant United
States, Asst. Secretary of State Joseph Sisco admitted to an Israeli diplomat, "I
want to assure you that if we were not getting full value for our U.S. dollar,
you [Israel] would not get a cent from us." The U.S. has always been
pragmatic in its relationship with Israel. Common values are as ludicrous as the
common values America shares with Saudi Arabia. It's all about common
interests.
I was reminded of Stormin' Norman as Prime Minister Netanyahu addressed
the U.S. Congress (minus about 55 "stunt-minded" Obamacrats). As we now
know, the Israeli Prime Minister was speaking not just to the U.S. Congress but
also to much of the world, including (ironically) the Saudi government that
demanded that Obama listen to the Prime Minister.
Bruno Bettelheim once noted, "All people, Jews or gentiles, who dare not
defend themselves when they know they are in the right, who submit to
punishment and loss of equal freedoms of sovereignty not because of what
they have done but because of who they are, are already dead by their own
decision; and whether or not they survive physically depends on chance. If
circumstances are not favorable, they end up in the gas chambers."
And so, to Congresswomen Nancy "the phony whiner" Pelosi, Dianne
"pompously humiliated" Goldman-Feinstein and Jan "the J Street babbler"
Schakowsky, as well as half the members of the Congressional Black Caucus
who pulled their ever-ready race card: Your boycotting "stunt" was an
embarrassment to yourselves, belying your empty claims of that "unbreakable,
unshakable" bond you've been selling to the all too gullible Jewish community.
But the good news is that the Saudis, Jordanians and Egyptians were riveted on
every word. In reality, you didn't just betray Israel; you lost the confidence of
every Arab ally in the region. This incompetent, feckless American
administration has created its own climate change, where "America's allies
don't trust us, and our enemies don't fear us." I smile at the photo of our
handshake. General Schwarzkopf had it right: "G-d bless Israel!"
Shabbat Shalom, 04/10/15
Jack "Yehoshua" Berger
20
Chicago Jewish News - April 10-16, 2015
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