September 22, 2023

The Jewish Press

INTRODUCING OUR 2024 Campaign Chairs

Jewish Symposium

LEONARD GREENSPOON

This year will mark the 35th annual meeting of the Symposium on Jewish Civilization. Scheduled for Sunday, Oct. 22, and Monday, Oct. 23, the title is The Jewish Diaspora and the Promised Land: Origins, Developments, Future Prospects.

The Jewish Federation of Omaha is delighted to announce the Tipp family as our 2024 Annual Campaign Chairs. We appreciate Marilyn, Steve, Amy, Alan, and Sonia’s dedication to our community.

“Alan and Sonia were so involved last year,” Marilyn said, “that it was no surprise to us that they wanted to be even more involved

this year. When asked about doing a Generational theme, we jumped at the opportunity!”

As a Mom and bubbie, Marilyn said she could not be more proud “of the fact that my children and grandchildren are Jewish and that they continue to give back to our community as well as being a big part of it in so many ways. What more can I possibly ask for? Nu?”

The Annual Campaign will be celebrated in style during our Sunday Night Give See 2024 Campiagn Chairs page 3

Omaha Jewish Film Festival

MARK KIRCHHOFF

JFO Community Engagement and Education

What makes the 21st Annual Omaha Jewish Film Festival different from any other Omaha Jewish Film Festival? A film is a film; a showing is a showing; an evening out is an evening out. Right? Well, if you think nothing can be changed, nothing can be improved, nothing can receive an injection of extra energy, then you might be better served to stay home watching the same old stuff on television and miss out on this year’s experience. If you have a bent for the

boring, forget 7 p.m. showings on Oct. 16, 17, 18, and 19 in the Alan J. Levine Performing Arts Center within

we then eliminated Holocaust films, leaving that topic to our Institute for Holocaust Education. With the goal

It is an honor to host this fall’s keynote presenter, Dr. Daniel J. Lasker, emeritus Professor of Jewish Values at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. The title of his presentation, which will take place at 7:30 p.m. on Oct. 22 in the Alan J. Levine Performing Arts Theater, is Zionism Before Zionism: 2000 Years of Jewish Attachment to the Land of Israel.

If Lasker is a familiar name, there is good reason for that. This will be the fourth Symposium he has attended. He was born in Flint, Michigan and received his undergraduate and graduate degrees from Brandeis University. Shortly after receiving his PhD he moved to Israel, where he has lived for 45 years. He has written eight books and 130 scholarly articles, in addition to four edited volumes. His most recent book, which appeared last year, is titled Karaism: An Introduction to the Oldest Surviving Alternative Judaism. Published in London as part of the prestigious Littman Library, it was a National Jewish Book Award finalist.

the Staenberg Omaha Jewish Community Center for this year’s festival. We’re not leading you to a new promised land, but we are offering you a new festival experience.

Throughout the past year we received 117 film offerings from six different film distributors. We selected 73 to place in a spreadsheet with pertinent information about each. In considering the nature of our festival,

of providing a mixture of drama, comedy, and documentary, we parsed the list further to a total of 20 films. We revitalized our community input by inviting community members to assist with the selection in a more systematic manner than in the past. As a group, we met in the Wiesman Reception Room and evaluated and rated each film on a 3-point scale and See Jewish Film Festival page 2

Lasker is internationally recognized as an authority on the Karaite Jews. As he explains it, they constituted a minority movement that did not believe in a Judaism that was based on an Oral Torah as codified in the Talmud. In his extensive writings on this group, Lasker has demonstrated that Karaism has been much more dynamic than usually thought, reflecting very closely developments and changes in the majority Rabbinic Judaism. Even though today there are only a few Karaite Jews, mostly in the State of Israel, Karaism once presented a major challenge to mainstream Jewish beliefs.

Lasker’s keynote presentation features Karaites among other Jews who developed a special attachment to the Land of Israel. Rather See Jewish Symposium page 3

Jewish Film Festival

Continued from page 1 had informal discussions after submitting ratings. The top third of these films were further evaluated by the Community Engagement and Education staff resulting in the four films that make up this year’s festival.

The film festival opens on Oct. 16 with iMordecai featuring two-time Emmy Award winner for his leading role in the sitcom Taxi, and with numerous films - including Independence Day, he is a Bronx boy of German Jewish parents, Judd Hirsch. In the film, Mordecai, born of a different era, must face the challenges of the modern world and is confronted by the challenges of an unfamiliar object – an iPhone.

My Neighbor Adolf is next in the lineup on Oct. 17. While the title might lead you to believe that you will be viewing a Holocaust film, you will not. This 2022 film is the story of a grumpy Holocaust survivor living in South America who convinces himself that his neighbor is Adolf Hitler. He becomes acquainted with him, attempts to collect evidence of his belief, and forms a nuanced friendship in the process.

On Oct. 18 the intriguing 2021 documentary film That Orchestra with the Broken Instruments will be screened. A mixture of 100 professional and amateur musicians of all ages, ethnicities, backgrounds, and languages join together with broken instruments to perform a concert. They face the challenge of creating harmony in a discordant city.

The festival finale is Tiger Within on Oct. 19 featuring Ed Asner in the final film performance of his life. A Holocaust survivor develops a life-changing friendship with a homeless, anti-Semitic sex worker in Los Angeles. We need say no more.

YOUR HOSTS

We assumed you were tired of staff members reading scripts to introduce the films each night. We knew we could do better,

so we asked film-loving community members to host each evening’s screening by introducing the film and conducting a brief discussion opportunity in the Wiesman Reception Room after the film. Since iMordecai was at the top of Susie Silverman’s ratings, we asked and she accepted being the host for the first show of the festival. Jared Berezin is an avid movielover and had a sincere interest in My Neighbor Adolf. He’s hosting that one. Who better than people with whom music is such an integral part of their lives to host That Orchestra with the Broken Instruments than Aviva Segall and Patrick McNamara? Personal experiences with instruments and orchestras will certainly be part of their contribution. The host for the final film, Tiger Within, will come through the Klutznick Chair for Jewish Studies.

FESTIVAL PASSES

We heard you last year. Ticket prices were too high. We sought additional funding and are able to provide you with an offer you can’t refuse. [That might be from a different movie.] So here it is. You can buy a four-admission pass for $10 or an eight-admission pass for $15. You can use the pass with any combination of people and performances that you care to. But wait – what if I can only attend one? We haven’t forgotten you for that either. You can purchase single-admissions at the door for $5.

FREE CONCESSIONS

With each admission you are entitled to a free bag of popcorn and a wonderfully chilled bottle of water.

We’re excited about this year’s Omaha Jewish Film Festival. Keep reading the Jewish Press and watching your emails for more details as we draw closer. Visit jewishomaha.org now for information and for purchasing passes. Your contact for questions is Mark Kirchhoff, mkirchhoff@jewishomaha.org or 402.334.6463.

Trade scholarships available for the 2023-24 academic year

An anonymous donor in our community has created two trade school and/or cosmetology school scholarship opportunities, up to $5,000 each, to go towards the 2023-24 academic year.

Not every student who advances into higher education signs up for a four-year curriculum. Some high school graduates seek job training that lasts a year or two and then places them in the workforce. Such opportunities include, but are

Come to our Sukkah

not restricted to: Information Technology, Construction, Industrial, Transportation and Horticulture. It is not too late to apply for this upcoming school year!

Qualified students who have unmet needs regarding tuition for either a two-year trade school program or a trade certificate program can contact the Jewish Press at avande kamp@jewishomaha.org or jpress@jewishomaha.org for more information.

SOPHIE AMBROSE FRIEDLANDER

Sukkot has always been my favorite Jewish holiday. It never gets the love it deserves, coming just on the heels of the 10 Days of Awe. But there is something magical to me about building a sukkah and welcoming friends from all backgrounds to experience a meal outdoors, smelling the novel scent of the etrog, shaking the lulav, and gazing at stars through the roof. Some of my fondest memories are of gathering native plants to serve as s’chach (the material for the roof) including surreptitiously loading my car with fallen palm leaves on the side of Los Angeles roadways and cutting down cornstalks with the help of a friend’s Catholic grandfather on his Nebraska farmland.

The holiday has only become more magical after having children, who dutifully color pictures to hang as we put the sukkah up and then use it as their own backyard fort for a week. But my children would tell you their favorite part of sukkot is building their own edible sukkah. Each year we stick graham crackers together with icing and decorate the resulting structure with candy, eating as much candy and icing as possible along the way. This year Beth El is inviting families with children aged 0-5 years old, to come enjoy this tradition at the synagogue after Shabbat services and kiddush on Sept. 30. We’ll also read my favorite Sukkot story to children - The Very Best Sukkah: A Story from Uganda Please come join us. You’ll get all the fun of the tradition, without having to shop or clean up! To RSVP, please visit www.bethel-omaha.org. Questions can be directed to Robby Erlich, Engagement Coordinator 402.492.8550 or rerlich@bethel-omaha.org

Visit

2024 Campaign Chairs

Continued from page 1 community event, Sunday, Oct. 29 at 5:30 p.m. in the Alan J. Levine Performing Arts Theater. Not-to-be-missed keynote speaker that night is comedian and actress Rachel Dratch. We will serve Star Kosher Deli.

“To me,” Steve Tipp said, “Jewish Omaha means a warm, caring, and welcoming community. I grew up in Kansas City, MO, attended Hebrew school, had a Bar Mitzvah, joined AZA in High School, and the AEPi Jewish fraternity in college. Still, I never felt a part of the Jewish community as much as I did when Marilyn and I moved to Omaha 48 years ago. I felt the warmth and love from her family and friends immediately. As I became more involved with synagogue and Jewish life, the bonds only became stronger. I have had the opportunity to raise my children with a Jewish education and Jewish values, and now the same is true for my grandchildren with the help of a warm, caring, and welcoming community. Now is the time to be grateful for this blessing and give back to Jewish Omaha through the Federation Campaign.”

Jewish Omaha encompasses all that is dear to Marilyn. “I grew up in this city,” she said, “and my involvement from BBYO as a teenager to being President of Na’Amat , to helping serve lunches at Friedel Jewish Academy while my grandson Brandon attended, and to working on the Chevra Kadisha for 40 years, I know I can be involved and give back to this strong community of fellow Jews.”

As a family, they care deeply about the Annual Campaign. “Whether it’s a monetary gift or the gift of your time or talents,” Alan said, “giving is highly personal. I’m not one to pressure or tell someone how to give. That decision needs to come from within, but as Jews I feel it’s important to allocate the majority of whatever you set aside as a charitable contribution, and elect to support local organizations which support Jewish causes. As John Lewis so eloquently states ‘If not us, then who? If not now, then when?’ The Jewish Federation and its agencies ensure that our campaign dollars are distributed back into our community to make a direct impact on and investment in Omaha Jewish life from one generation to the next.”

“We all know the annual campaign is the largest fundraising event of the year for the Federation,” Steve added. “But not everyone realizes almost every Jewish life is touched in many ways by the funds and efforts of the Jewish Federation of Omaha.”

But, with the fundraising come the opportunities to connect as a community, especially during the community event.

Jewish Symposium

Continued from page 1 than waiting quietly and patiently for a divine redemption, they tried to help bring about the reestablishment of a Jewish state in Israel. They believed that residence in the Land of Israel, accompanied by ascetic practices and special petitionary prayers and lamentations, would hasten the coming of the Messiah. As Lasker sees it, they were among numerous Jewish “Zionists” well before the Zionist movement was formally established at the end of the nineteenth century.

Lasker is a consummate world traveler. Over the years he has visited approximately 70 countries and all 50 states in America. In the last year alone he was in Tahiti, the Caribbean, London, Barcelona, Munich, and southern France. Many of his travels have been connected to his teaching at such academic institutions as Yale University, Princeton University, University of Toronto, University of Texas, Boston College, Yeshiva University, and the Jewish Theological Seminary. Overall he has lectured on six continents. Early next year he is going on a cruise to Australia, the only continent he has yet to visit. At the same time he acknowledges that he won’t be giving any lectures there.

In addition to Karaism, Lasker has expertise in medieval Jewish philosophy, Jewish-Christian relations, Jewish religion and thought, and Jewish law and modern medicine. In addition to courses on these topics, Lasker has offered classes with intriguing titles like When Will the Messiah Come and What Will Happen When He Does and What Happens After Death.

Lasker has five children and 14 grandchildren, all of whom live in Israel. Within the past week his granddaughter gave birth to a daughter. So it is that Lasker and his wife are now great grandparents.

Lasker is one of fifteen scholars who will make presentations over the two days of the Symposium. These presenters come

“While monetary donations may be the hull of our ship,” Amy said, “our physical actions and presence is what drives the boat. We need action. We need commitment. We need your presence.”

“I absolutely LOVE party planning,” Marilyn said. “When we first talked about what each of our responsibilities were going to be, I made sure my family knew that this was going to be ‘my thing.’ I absolutely LOVE the idea that we are going to be doing something entirely different than we’ve ever done before. Plus, being able to offer DELI to a deli-deprived community makes this even better.”

“There is an old saying: your presence is present enough,” Amy added. “The Jewish Community, historically, has always taken care of their own as well as the communities around the world. This hasn’t just come in the form of monetary contributions. It comes from being present and through actions. This comes in the form of community action, philanthropic contributions such as volunteering, scholarships, community investments and sponsorships. Our community is a beautiful tapestry of young to elderly and with a wide variety of various contributions. Every one of us is the face of the Federation and all that it represents. Your presence in all its forms is a gift to everyone.”

The Tipps have the full support of their grandchildren Julia, Michael, Brandon, Adria and Asher. Marilyn and Steve’s youngest son David and his wife April live in Arizona with their daughters, Hayden Emily Salcido and Jo Jo Tipp. The grandchildren have received the message loud and clear; Julia was involved with BBYO in high school and was President of Hillel on the UNL campus. Michael helped every chance he got with the children at Beth El, including the Purim Carnival. Adria is the current President of BBYO in Omaha and on the international board of BBYO, Brandon attended Friedel and loves helping with Beth El’s Purim carnival, while Asher is also involved with AZA.

“Giving to this campaign helps so many people in so many ways,” Marilyn concluded. “It is every Jew’s responsibility to support our Jewish community. If we don’t support our own, who will?”

from as close as Lincoln and as far ranging as Israel and Poland. Each year interested individuals submit a summary of their proposed presentation. A committee, consisting of Prof. Leonard Greenspoon, Prof. Ari Kohen, and Prof. Jeannette Gabriel, evaluate these proposals and select the best ones as participants in this fall’s Symposium. In addition to scholarly credentials, committee members identify as presenters those specialists who can comfortably address general audiences in addition to other scholars. This is one of the unique features of the Symposium now mid-way into its fourth decade.

There are two venues for this year’s Symposium: The Staenberg Kooper Fellman Campus of the JCC and Creighton University. On both days activities begin at 9 am. On Sunday there are presentations until 5 p.m, with the keynote at 7:30 p.m. On Monday at Creighton’s Harper Center the presentations continue until 2:30 p.m. Both days feature free Kosher lunches are open to the public.

The Annual Symposium on Jewish Civilization is jointly sponsored by three Nebraska universities: Creighton University: The Klutznick Chair in Jewish Civilization and The Kripke Center for the Study of Religion and Society, the University of Nebraska-Lincoln: The Harris Center for Judaic Studies, and the University of Nebraska at Omaha: The Schwalb Center for Israel and Jewish Studies.

Support is also generously provided by these community funds: The Ike and Roz Friedman Foundation, the Riekes Family, the Henry Monsky Lodge of B’nai B’rith, The Dr. Bernard H. and Dr. Bruce S. Bloom Memorial Foundation, and Karen and Gary Javitch.

For comments or questions, contact Professor Leonard Greenspoon at ljgrn@creighton.edu or 402.280.2304. For further information, see the Klutznick Chair website at //creighton.edu/ccas/klutznick

ROOFING SIDING GUTTERS

A Talmudic tale gets a 12th-century Chinese twist in children’s book

Rabbi Akiva’s daughter was destined for death on her wedding day, at least according to the star-gazers. So the early Jewish sage seemed resigned to his daughter’s fate.

But on the wedding day, Rabbi Akiva’s daughter offered a poor old man her portion of the wedding feast. That night, before going to bed, she removed her hairpin and stuck it in the wall. In the morning, she discovered that the hairpin had pierced the eye of a poisonous snake, which trailed after the pin as she pulled it from the wall.

“Charity saves from death,” Rabbi Akiva declared.

Erica Lyons doesn’t remember the first time she heard this Talmud story, but she can’t forget its many strange omissions and inconsistencies. What rabbi listened to astrologers? Why wasn’t Rabbi Akiva worried about his daughter’s fate? And why didn’t Rabbi Akiva’s daughter have a name of her own?

“It sort of made me think of Jephtha’s daughter, this other girl who is going to potentially be sacrificed for the sake of a story, of a lesson of some sort,” said Lyons, referencing another biblical character from the Book of Judges.

Lyons’ new children’s book, Zhen Yu and the Snake, published last week with rich illustrations by Renia Metallinou, seeks to fill in those gaps — with a twist. The story is set in 12th-century Kaifeng, China, the city where Persian Jewish merchants established China’s first Jewish community. Its main characters are all Chinese Jews — Rabbi Akiva becomes Li Jian and his daughter finally gets a name, too: Zhen Yu, which means “precious jade” in Chinese. The astrologer in the story becomes a fortune-teller from the Chinese city of Chengdu, which was home to several famous fortune-tellers at the time.

At the time, Kaifeng was China’s vibrant Song Dynasty capital. Its location on the Yellow River, not far from the Silk Road, made it a commercial center bustling with merchants. The Silk Road trading route had attracted hundreds of Jews to China, who settled there around the 9th or 10th century and peacefully worshiped their own god for centuries.

In Lyons’ version of the story, Zhen Yu is the main character, who lives a life of virtue long before getting married. Common in Chinese culture, the presence of the fortune-teller feels natural in the Kaifeng market, where he reveals Zhen Yu’s fate to Li Jian on an afternoon before Shabbat.

Lyons stays loyal to the source text, highlighting the characters’ observance of Jewish law and the importance of Jewish values in their lives. But the setting and characters make the story more accessible to non-Ashkenazi readers, she said.

“The Talmud belongs to all Jews around the world,” said Tani Prell, creative director at Be’chol Lashon, a nonprofit dedicated to raising awareness about the racial, cultural, and ethnic diversity in Judaism, primarily through education. Encouraging teachers to include diverse Jewish stories is “a hard thing to do” when those resources are limited, Prell said. “So I think it’s beautiful that Erica is creating the resources that do have such a direct impact on the lived experiences of young Jews of color.”

Lyons, who has been living in Hong Kong for over two decades, had always wanted to be a writer. In college, she majored in English and Jewish Studies but began her career as a lawyer for an insurance company in New York. When she moved to Hong Kong with her husband in 2002, she saw the opportunity to get back to her undergrad roots.

Today, she is deeply involved with Hong Kong’s historic Jewish community, whose foundations were built by BaghdadiJewish dynasties such as the Sassoons and the Kadoories in the 19th and 20th centuries. The city’s Jewish population has fluctuated over the years but remains about 3,000-4,000 strong today with six congregations to choose from. Lyons chairs the Hong Kong Jewish Historical Society and serves as the Hong Kong delegate to the World Jewish Congress.

As a Persian-Ashkenazi Jew who is raising Chinese children, Lyons has prioritized the inclusion of Jews of diverse experi-

ences in her work in Hong Kong. As a journalist and founder of Asian Jewish Life, a magazine that spotlighted Jewish stories in Asia from 2008 until 2016, she has always been fascinated by “Jewish stories in the margins” — little-known bits of Jewish history or traditions that have gone overlooked by

the Jewish majority living in the West.

Today, few families in Kaifeng still observe Judaism and those who do have been forced underground as part of the Chinese Communist Party’s policy of repressing and limiting a range of religions. Judaism is not one of the country’s five officially recognized religions (Protestantism, Catholicism, Buddhism, Daoism and Islam), and Kaifeng’s Jews are seen by the state as part of the Han Chinese ethnic majority — not Jews. Little Jewish iconography remains on the old streets of Kaifeng today, and a majority of the country’s Jewish population are expatriates living in commercial centers such as Shanghai, Beijing and Shenzhen.

Lyons’ book comes at a time when Jewish stories from Asia — especially stories of Jewish escape and survival in China and Japan during World War II — are receiving a wave of attention. In this year alone, stories about Jewish refugees in Asia have been the subject of multiple novels, an exhibition in New York City, a musical and two high-profile symphony performances.

In these stories, China is often a temporary backdrop against which Western Jewish stories are set. There is less awareness of the history of the Chinese Jewish community in Kaifeng, Lyons said.

“In this way, I was able to educate people without being didactic in any way. I didn’t just pick a random city in China and plop my characters into it. I picked a Jewish community, and I think a lot of people are not aware that [Kaifeng] was a historic community,” she said.

Books for young readers about Chinese or Asian Jews, in particular, have been rare. But the widening availability of literature about diverse Jews in recent years is creating more demand for these stories, said Prell.

Nicholas Zane, a master’s student at Dartmouth University whose family immigrated to the United States from China with the help of a Jewish family in the Catskills, has been developing accessible information about the Kaifeng Jews through a website, nonfiction books and picture books in Chinese and English. Two New Years, a picture book published last month by Richard Ho, tells the story of a family that celebrates both Rosh Hashanah in the fall and Chinese New Year in the spring.

“There’s these stories that people don’t know, and to be able to tell them and bring them to Jewish children, and children generally, is really incredible,” Lyons said.

But there are still gaps, Lyons said, and she has been busy trying to help fill them with several other forthcoming picture books on the way. Counting on Naamah, also released on Sept. 5, turns Noah’s wife Naamah into a mathematical genius. In the coming year, her other releases will tell the stories of an 1881 Yemenite aliyah journey, the Indian Bnei Israel Jews (illustrated by renowned Indian-Jewish artist Siona Benjamin) and a Chinese-Jewish girl who must figure out how to celebrate Sukkot and the mid-Autumn festival on the same night.

“Racial diversity amongst the Jewish people is not a new thing. It has been there. That’s another reason why I also think it’s very, very cool for Erica’s books, that with Zhen Yu and the Snake and Naamah, it’s these stories that have been part of Jewish tradition over time,” said Prell.

ORGANIZATIONS

B’NAI B’RITH BREADBREAKERS

The award-winning B’NAI B’RITH BREADBREAKERS speaker program currently meets Wednesdays via Zoom from noon to 1 p.m. Please watch our email for specific information concerning its thoughtprovoking, informative list of speakers. To be placed on the email list, contact Breadbreakers chair at gary.javitch@gmail.com

IN THE NEWS

Greenblatt & Seay have been awarded the Nebraska Arts Council’s 2023 State Arts Award in the Heritage Award category. The Heritage Award is given to an individual, group (that’s us!) or organization that exemplifies excellence within a cultural tradition. Greenblatt & Seay’s performances feature many different traditions, including Irish, Swedish, Danish, Jewish, Scottish, Cajun, America folk, Ukrainian, etc.

This year’s award event will take place on Oct. 19, in Downtown Lincoln at the Embassy Suites, 1040 P Street. The celebration starts with a reception at 4:30 p.m. followed by the awards presentation at 5:30 p.m. The ceremony is open to the public. For more information, contact Sam Hennigh, Communications Manager with the Nebraska Arts Council, at Samuel.Hennigh@nebraska.gov

INFORMATION

ANTISEMITIC/HATE INCIDENTS

If you encounter an antisemitic or other hate incident, you are not alone. Your first call should be to the Jewish Community Relations Council (JCRC) in Omaha at 402.334.6572, or email JCRCreporting@ jewishomaha.org. If you perceive an imminent threat, call 911, and text Safety & Security Manager James Donahue at 402.213.1658.

Match your Philanthropy

PHILANTHROPY STAFF

In a world where corporate social responsibility is on the rise, many companies are stepping up their philanthropic efforts to support nonprofits. One effective way they’re doing this is through donation matching programs. These initiatives are gaining momentum, as both employees and organizations are recognizing the power of collective giving to create positive change in our communities.

Kiewit Corporation, Union Pacific, and Texas Instruments participated in the Jewish Federation of Omaha (JFO) 2023 Annual Campaign through their donation matching programs. Both employees and organizations are recognizing the power of collective giving to create positive change.

A company donation match is a corporate initiative that encourages employees to donate to their favorite nonprofit and their com-

pany will match that donation.

Companies embrace donation matching for employee engagement, social responsibility, and community impact. Nonprofits benefit

“I am fortunate to have worked for a company, Texas Instruments, that has excellent employee benefits. One of the benefits I’ve been able to take advantage of is a program that matches contributions that company employees, as well as retirees, make to qualified charitable organizations.

This matching program is very easy to utilize.

Once a charity is initially approved for matching, the contribution request and matching process can be completed entirely online. I am pleased that I am able to have my annual contributions to the Jewish Federation of my hometown fully matched by Texas Instruments. This doubles the amount of giving that I can provide the Federation every year.”

Mutual of Omaha makes it clear that they support the volunteer and charitable interests of their employees and stakeholders. As a company, they’ve been very generous helping to make living and working in Omaha and the surrounding communities a great place to live. I feel very fortunate that Mutual of Omaha has a matching charitable gift program that amplifies the contributions from their employees.

from the matching program with increased funding, strengthened relationships, and awareness and visibility.

Employees can check with their HR department or company intranet site to see if their company offers a match.

The Jewish Federation of Omaha is excited to already have a match for the upcoming 2024 Annual Campaign from Mutual of Omaha.

“I view it as a win-win-win-win; the company wins by furthering great causes in the community and elsewhere, the charity wins through increased donations, the employee wins because they can have more impact with their donations, and society wins as more people consider making charitable gifts by taking advantage of programs their company offers! That’s a home run! I hope more people come to know about the matching opportunities their organizations provide and take advantage of them.”

Local BBYO Presidents reflect on Conference

ADRIA TIPP AND JORDAN NOGG

To us, Omaha has always just been the place we live. Our perspectives fully changed on our hometown the weekend of August Execs. In BBYO, we are Regional Presidents of Mid America Region and Omaha Cornbelt Council #1. Additionally, we are both presidents of our own chapters, MZ Yoshanah BBG and Mother Chapter AZA. Omaha is a special place to BBYO, as it was the birthplace of AZA. Without the 14 boys walking the halls of Central High School, just 30 minutes from our homes, this worldwide movement would have never existed. Our fun filled week kicked off on Wednesday, Aug. 16, 2023 with the inaugural address given at our local JCC. We both gave a speech to welcome our regional counterparts, the International Board, and the Omaha community. This felt like such an important and impactful moment for the Omaha Jewish community and we feel more than lucky to represent.

Our week continued with strategic workshops on how to better lead the Jewish teens within our communities, increase member-

Sukkot at the ELC

AMY DWORIN ELC Assistant Director

To understand the educational philosophy of the Early Learning Center, ELC, come and celebrate Sukkot with us!

At the ELC, we believe in child-directed learning and that every object in our school

texture, tasting the fruits of the harvest, looking at the fall colors, and smelling the etrog. We learn about the rules of building a Sukkah and each classroom builds one. We make lulav and etrog out of loose parts, a staple in Reggio learning, and we have a schoolwide contest to see who can be the most creative.

ship, plan programming, and collaborate with other regions. We made friends from all around the world and got to reconnect with old friends as well. We spent time during our international business meeting voting and passing proposals given by our peers to improve BBYO as a whole. We learned rituals from both AZA and BBG and showcased our skills in “boot camps” led by the International Board. One of the most amazing experiences was walking through Central High School. We learned all about the storied school that produced BBYO legends. We both loved the new BBYO jerseys we got while chanting cheers on the football field and hearing from our staff about their inspiring BBYO experiences.

Through the laughs about what a “Runza” is, the constant nagging about where the cornfields are, and our friends questioning what we even do for fun here, we know a strong connection was made for all members at Execs. They now see Omaha as their home too. We are so glad we got to host this incredible weekend and we are ecstatic for all Omaha will achieve this year!

should represent our students. Our students played a role in every aspect of the construction of our Sukkah. Our lower school students tie-dyed the fabric while our upper school students used a sewing machine to sew panels. Our students used tools to secure gromets, and every year all of our students make decorations to hang inside the Sukkah. From start to finish, inside to outside, the Sukkah at the ELC belongs to the ELC students.

At the ELC we believe in learning Jewish traditions and making them accessible for our diverse community. We utilize all of our senses when learning about Sukkot; listening to the sounds of the lulav and feeling its dry

Although our student body is diverse, we are one community and we celebrate together. At the ELC, we recognize our role in the Jewish community and create opportunities for life-long learning and engagement. We celebrate the High Holy Days with representatives from Beth El, Beth Israel, and Temple Israel. We invite our families and friends to celebrate in our Sukkah to show off the structure and the community we have built. We cherish the opportunities we have to make community connections and carry on traditions from generation to generation. We are grateful to be a part of the JCC community and looking forward to another school year of celebrating, learning, and exploring!

SP O TLIGHT

PHOTOS FROM RECENT JEWISH COMMUNITY EVENTS

SUBMIT A PHOTO: Have a photo of a recent Jewish Community event you would like to submit? Email the image and a suggested caption to: avandekamp@jewishomaha.org

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A serious commitment

ANNETTE VAN DE KAMP-WRIGHT

Jewish Press Editor

Foolish talk. Haughty demeanor. I really do need to atone. Literally all of us, right? The good news is that Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur are the perfect time to clean up our mistakes from last year, and think about how we want to live our lives going forward. If you’re like, well, anyone ever, there are probably some things you’d like to change about yourself. (Jewbelong.com)

The above paragraph landed in my email a few days before Rosh Hashanah. Needless to say, it felt like a call to action, and we often take those personally- never mind that every other Jew on the planet is getting ready for the Holidays. When it comes to atoning, we can only worry about ourselves.

Finding things to feel apologetic about, remembering when we did wrong, noticing when we fell short—it’s never been hard. Imposter syndrome, anyone? If anything, it’s more difficult to pull ourselves up and have self-confidence. So, how do we atone in a realistic and effective way, without figuratively beating ourselves up?

Rabbi Shraga Simmons offers this headline at Aish.com: Done something wrong? We all have. Here’s how to fix it. Once and for all

Well now, ‘once and for all,’ that’s a tall order. Usually, when we atone for past transgressions, we have little hope we won’t do it again. And if our apology comes with an understanding that from here on out, we’ll be perfect, we’re setting ourselves

up for failure, no?

“On Yom Kippur, we say two prayers (“Asham’nu” and “Al Chet”) which contain an extensive list of mistakes,” Rabbi Simmons writes. “As a matter of fact, as you go through these lists, you’ll see the mention of mistakes covering every conceivable aspect of life! This begs the question: By saying these prayers, are we in effect making a commitment to never sin ever again?”

Change for the better, rather than aim for perfection—I can live with that, I think. The stumbling block, though, is that we tend to focus on this when the calendar tells us to, instead of every day. Anything you want to get better at needs to be practiced often, repeatedly. Remember those 10,000 hours you’re supposed to put in if you want to become really good at something?

“According to the great Hasidic master Rabbi Kalonymous Kalman Shapira, teshuvah is also a kind of creativity. More than a simple return to what has been, it is a process of remaking ourselves anew. But how? Rather than turning away from our missteps, the creative potential of teshuvah lies in a turning toward those places in which we faltered or failed. In the words of psychologist David Richo, “Hidden in everything negative is something alive and beautiful that wants to belong to us.” (MyJewish:Learning.com)

If it’s a creative process, it means a positive doing, rather than an end to the bad behavior. Actively doing good instead of stopping the bad, it’s a different and much more optimistic way to look at teshuvah. It then becomes work, it means we have to put forth the effort.

We are not, the Rabbi says:

“What concerns Him is whether we’re making a sincere effort to move in the right direction. G-d doesn’t ask you to change in an area that is not yet feasible for you to change. We are commanded to be human beings, not angels. This means making a serious commitment to change and taking the right steps at the right time.”

‘Good’ may not be something we always are, but it is something we do. Realize, regret, say you’re sorry and then get to work. Feeling regret and speaking regret are just the initial steps. It’s acting in a positive way that’s really going to heal and repair. For now, my serious commitment is to wrapping my head around this whole thing. And maybe pounding my chest a little.

to know

WEISLER JTA

A catalog of calamities is central to the liturgy of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, the Jewish High Holidays that begin later this week.

We Jews are asked to imagine ourselves perched on the precipice of life and death. Nothing frames it as starkly as Unetaneh Tokef, the roll call of ruin enumerating various disasters that might befall us in the coming year.

With its repetition of “Who by …” fill-in-the-blank awfulness — strangling, stoning, famine and plague — the medieval poem is the stuff of myth and legend, an opportunity to ponder fate and frailty. But for the Jews of Ukraine, the majority of whom remain in the country despite the ongoing conflict, the text is heart-wrenchingly real.

When we Jews pray, we face east, toward Jerusalem. But as the grandson of a Ukrainian Jew, east always conjures “the old country” — that’s where my soul calls home and where I’ve often directed my most fervent prayers. This year, Unetaneh Tokef is a compass for my heart.

I’m sure “who by water” resonates for Lyubov Irzhanskaya. When the Kakhovka dam burst in June, the Dnipro River surged into her second-floor apartment. The 76-year-old retired teacher had hours to decide where to flee.

“Who by fire” must send a chill through Lyudmila Dobroyer, 87 — a Holocaust survivor and the primary caregiver for her son Yuriy, who has developmental disabilities. During attacks on Odesa this summer, her building was badly damaged.

And then there are more workaday terrors, fears that keep me up at night half a world away in my safe Ohio bed. What if I lost my job and couldn’t provide for my family? What if it happened amidst power cuts and sub-zero cold?

“Who shall become impoverished” — ask Evgeniy Moshkovitch, 40, a forklift operator who fled Kherson with his family two months into the crisis. With employers skeptical of the displaced, he’s unable to find a job and relies on Jewish community assistance to pay the bills.

Grim as it is, Unetaneh Tokef isn’t about blindly submitting to fate. Instead, it gives us the keys to our own salvation — ”repentance, prayer, and charity,” it exhorts, “can lessen the severity of the decree.”

Our own hands can rescue us, and post-Soviet Jews, who’ve doggedly rekindled identity and community after the Holocaust and communism, could teach a master class. As a longtime staffer at the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, or JDC, the humanitarian organization that for decades has aided needy Jews and built Jewish life across the former Soviet Union, I’ve seen it firsthand.

In Ukraine, I’ve witnessed local Jews volunteering for relief efforts in record numbers and my colleagues delivering over 800 tons of humanitarian aid, home care to the bedridden and Shabbat gatherings during air-raid sirens. We’re also addressing new waves of need: unemployment, educational gaps and trauma — all with an imperative to strengthen lives, even if peace remains elusive.

Hidden in Unetaneh Tokef’s horrors are some best-case scenarios, too: “who shall be exalted,” “who shall reach the fullness of their days.” What if it all goes right, the prayer asks? What if we sustain each other? What if we write our most vulnerable into the High Holidays’ symbolic Book of Life?

We can do that by marshaling our resources, as my organization has done since February 2022 with tens of millions of dollars from our partners — the Jewish Federations of North America, the Claims Conference, International Fellowship of Christians and Jews, individuals, families, corporations and foundations — and by lifting up individual stories so we understand the stakes if we fail to act.

For centuries, Jews have debated the identity of the nameless Unetaneh Tokef writer who gave voice to the cruel uncertainty of human existence and the possibility of redemption even in the darkness.

That anonymity hasn’t blunted the poem’s cold

wisdom — life will often disappoint you, but it just might surprise you, too. I’ve learned that by listening to other Jews who could just as easily be lost to history and have just as much to teach.

In western Ukraine earlier this year, I met Liliya

Sumka, the last Jew in a small village only accessible by dirt roads. A 54-year-old widow with cerebral palsy, she ekes by on a $52 monthly disability pension.

For her, the difference between “who shall live and who shall die” is sometimes the stack of firewood and food packages delivered by my organization — or finding God in her own still small voice reciting the Shabbat blessings.

“Life?” Liliya chided me with a wry smile. “You can’t make it through that alone.”

May we all remember that, recognizing that we only get to fullness by giving it — showing up with full hearts and a full commitment to aiding those living on a knife’s edge around the clock, not just in the pages of our prayer books.

Alex Weisler is a former journalist and the JDC’s senior video and digital content producer.

The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of JTA or its parent company, 70 Faces Media.

Unetaneh Tokef, the High Holidays’ roll call of ruin, is heartbreakingly real for the Ukrainian Jews I’ve gotten

How This Is Real and You Are Completely Unprepared became a High Holidays classic

ANDREW SILOW-CARROLL JTA

Every few years I put out a call asking what people will be reading in preparation for the High Holidays, and usually one book tops the list: This Is Real and You Are Completely Unprepared: The Days of Awe as a Journey of Transformation, by the late Rabbi Alan Lew.

Published 20 years ago this month, This Is Real is an attempt by Lew, a Conservative rabbi trained in Buddhist practice, to get perhaps jaded readers to see the period that includes Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur and Sukkot as a time for deep spiritual introspection — or, as he writes, a time to “move from self-hatred to self-forgiveness, from anger to healing, from hardheartedness to brokenheartedness.”

If that sounds like the gospel of “self-care,” you’re not far off. Lew, who died in 2009 at age 65, came of age during the selfactualization movement, a serious attempt by psychologists to get people to live up to values that transcend their desire for wealth and status. By the time cosmetics companies, crystal sellers and lifestyle influencers took hold of the concept, it was derided as selfishness disguised as a spiritual journey.

But Lew’s book grounds concepts of “self-discovery, spiritual discipline, self-forgiveness and spiritual evolution” in normative Judaism. This Is Real never strays far from a traditional Judaism that saw the period of prayer, reflection and repentance surrounding the holidays as a time for a moral wake-up call.

That hybrid of the traditional and the much-maligned New Age continues to appeal to readers. Jewish educator Joshua Ladon, writing in the 2020 anthology The New Jewish Canon, calls the book “the handbook for American Jewish High Holiday survival,” comparing its influence to Rabbi Harold Kushner’s mega-bestseller When Bad Things Happen to Good People Synagogues host book groups to discuss the book in the runup to the holidays; the book’s publisher, Little, Brown and Company, issued a paperback version only in 2018, suggesting its hardcover sales had remained strong for 15 years.

Ilana Sandberg, a rabbinical student at JTS, recommended Lew’s book last month in a video for the seminary.

She first read the book in the fall of 2020 as she was preparing to lead High Holiday services at Brandeis Hillel for the first time as the rabbinic intern, and considers the late author her “spiritual hevruta,” or study partner, in the lead-up to the holidays.

The book, Sandberg says, is about “accepting this idea that we are ever-changing beings and there really is a possibility for change, for renewal as we go through the cycle of the year.”

Lew was spiritual leader at San Francisco’s Congregation Beth Sholom from 1991 to 2005. Raised in Brooklyn and New York’s Westchester County, he was underwhelmed by the suburban Judaism of the 1950s and ’60s and, like many Jewish seekers of his era, turned to Zen Buddhism — at one point considering becoming a lay priest.

“It was in a Buddhist monastery, meditating, that I realized who I really am. I am a Jew,” he wrote in One God Clapping: The Spiritual Path of a Zen Rabbi, a memoir he co-wrote in

2001 with his wife, Sherril Jaffe. “A Jew can use the practice of meditation to illuminate his or her Jewish soul.”

A poet and sometime bus driver, Lew was 38 when he enrolled at the Jewish Theological Seminary, the training ground for Conservative rabbis. In 2000, he founded Makor Or, a Jewish meditation center housed at his synagogue.

In This Is Real, he writes about the meditative aspects of High Holiday prayer. “When we sit in meditation with other people, breathing the same air, hearing the same sounds, thinking

Israel of the Berkshires in North Adams, Massachusetts, recommends the book for “folks who might not self-identify as seekers, but who are interested in approaching the holidays in a deeper or more informed way.”

“When I first read it, it changed how I experience this twomonth window of time, and I love opening that up for those whom I serve,” she wrote me. “How can we harness this season to fuel our inner work so that we can emerge ready to grow and become and try again?”

But she, like others, notes that This Is Real isn’t without his flaws. She suggests that Lew “had some blind spots, notably around gender.” (Last year, Jewish blogger Shari Salzhauer Berkowitz criticized his “heterosexual, male” handling of the sexual dynamics in Ki Tetze, the Torah portion that includes instructions for soldiers taking women captives as “wives.”)

The book also has admiring references to Rudy Giuliani — the New York City mayor turned RICO defendant and Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach — the songwriter who faced posthumous allegations of sexual misconduct — that read differently than they did 20 years ago.

thoughts in the same rhythms and patterns, we experience our connection to each other in a very immediate way,” he writes.

But Lew’s version of the High Holidays is hardly passive or even gentle: Preparing for the holidays, as he suggests in the title, is hard and daunting work. The dreamlike opening sequence describes the “journey” of the High Holiday period as “fraught with meaning and dread.”

Ladon wrote that Lew’s book represents “the possibility of American Judaism, full of vitality and transcending boundaries.” Perhaps because of, or even in spite of this, it was mostly non-Orthodox Jews who replied to my recent social media post asking about their attachment to This Is Real.

“I’m really moved by the way that Lew takes the traditional images of the Holidays — the wake-up call of the shofar, the books of life, death and the undecided, the opening of the gates — and retells them in a way that they speak directly to my personal existential discomfort,” wrote Jonah Mendelsohn, an actor and writer who has been reading the book with fellow members of SAJ, a Reconstructionist synagogue in Manhattan. “The book has me facing my own insecurity and self-judgment in a way that isn’t always comfortable, but pushes me to change.”

Karen Paul, a fundraising consultant and former executive director of the Washington, D.C.-based Tikkun Olam Women’s Foundation, said a friend gave her a copy of the book the year her husband died from glioblastoma.

“Lew’s comforting and relatable stories were precisely the roadmap I needed to begin to reshape my future,” she told me.

“My favorite parable in the book is the day that the rabbi had to be on one side of the park for a [funeral] and the other side of the park for a birth. This is the dialectic of life, which, if we listen for it, applies to all that we do.”

Rabbi Rachel Barenblatt of the Reform Congregation Beth

Barenblatt suggests pairing his book with a “contemporary and feminist text” such as Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg’s recent book On Repentance and Repair.

Lew’s style — he glides between poetry and memoir, allegory and darshanut, or Torah commentary — isn’t for everyone. Many prefer Nobel laureate S.Y. Agnon’s anthology Days of Awe, first published in English in 1948, a collection of mostly primary texts related to the High Holidays. Philip Goodman’s various anthologies for the Jewish Publication Society take a similar approach. The 1999 essay collection, Beginning Anew: A Woman’s Companion to the High Holy Days by Gail Twersky Reimer and Judith A. Kates is a corrective to books that ignore the central place of women in the liturgy.

Many of these books seem intended for readers who are looking for inspiration in synagogue when their attention begins to flag. Lew invites you to read his book as a coherent narrative of a nearly three-month process from destruction (Tisha B’Av) to joy (Sukkot). But for some readers, it is also a book to be dipped into and sipped from.

“I have never finished this book,” Pittsburgh Rabbi Mark Asher Goodman admitted last month in a column recommending books for the High Holidays. “I read four or five pages. I stop and ponder over the meaning of existence and God and human growth and obligation and fallibility. Lew is poetic and instructive and guru-esque but also deeply personal; you feel you know him. The book’s title is perfect, and yet the book really will prepare you for the High Holidays, even if you, like me, never actually finish reading it. One might argue that this book, if properly read, is never finished.”

Andrew Silow-Carroll is editor at large of the New York Jewish Week and managing editor for Ideas for the JTA.

The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of JTA or its parent company, 70 Faces Media.

Fighting society’s disintegration is a group effort. Just ask Moses.

RABBI JUSTUS BAIRD

This summer, in the middle of a 15-hour drive from Michigan to New Jersey, I stopped to buy two old wooden doors from a salvage shop in Cleveland. I found the seller, a kind, middle-aged dad whom I’ll call Jim, on Facebook. Jim renovates properties and has amassed a collection of old doors rescued from various job sites. His “shop” was a covered section of his suburban yard.

Jim had exactly what I was looking for: two matching solidwood five panels, unpainted, 24 inches wide. When we pulled them out into the sunlight to look them over, Jim struck up a conversation.

“So, what do you guys do?”

“My wife and I are clergy,” I told him. “She works at a congregation and I work in education.”

“Oh nice,” Jim said. “What kind of congregation?”

“Well, a synagogue. We’re both rabbis.”

I shot my kids a look to see if they were monitoring the conversation.

“Oh, you’re Jewish. My favorite person is Jewish!”

“Really?” I said, with false curiosity and a hunch about what was coming next.

“Yeah, Jesus Christ! You know, there’s a Jewish cemetery across the way from our house. Sometimes I do some tree work over there. I tell my friends that Jewish cemetery is proof the Bible is true.”

He paused for a second to make sure I was listening. I nodded for him to continue.

“You see, the Bible says that if God’s chosen people don’t follow God’s ways, they would be kicked out of their land and scattered all over the earth,” Jim said. “The fact that there are

Jews buried in a cemetery in Cleveland, so far away from their homeland, means that the Jews weren’t following God’s ways.”

At this point, I was strapping the doors to the rack on my car and all I could manage in response was, “That’s one way to look at it.”

The theology Jim espoused isn’t only, or even primarily, a Christian belief. Jews throughout history have believed that being scattered around the world was punishment from God for not following in God’s ways. We say it in the liturgy, and it appears in this week’s Torah portion, Ki Tavo: “If you fail to observe faithfully all the terms of this teaching in this book … the Lord will scatter you among all the peoples from one end of the earth to the other.”

When I was a young rabbi, I completely dismissed the idea that Jews would be punished because of our lackluster compliance with Jewish law. But the more I thought about this idea — or more accurately, this threat — that bad things will happen if we don’t behave properly, the more empathy I felt for what Moses and God were trying to teach. Moses and God were concerned about what would happen to the Israelites if they behaved poorly as a collective. If enough people engage in selfish behavior, society will disintegrate. To avoid this, Moses and God browbeat the people with two long lists: threats if they don’t behave, and blessings if they do.

Today, we face the same problem Moses faced — how to

shape the collective behavior of a society — only the stakes are much higher. Put simply, there are many more humans using many more technologies that have much greater impact. Our collective behavior is having enormous consequences for the planet, leading geologists to label our era the anthropocene, the human epoch.

And yet, despite the incredible human accomplishments over the last two millennia, we don’t have many more tools than Moses had to shape collective behavior. We have democratic governance, but the track record of democracies is lackluster in this regard, with some so-called eco-authoritarians now arguing that democracy ought to be set aside to address climate change. We have mass social movements, but anyone who has spent time working within them (I count myself in this category) knows how difficult it is to actually galvanize a collective movement that shapes behavior at the societal level. My father used to say, “People will never change their behavior unless they are forced to.” By people, he meant society. And by forced to, he meant that the negative consequences are so drastic there is no choice but to change. Was he right?

Is humanity incapable of anticipating a societal-level threat and changing our behavior to avoid the abyss?

This is a great spiritual challenge of our generation. We live in an era in which we are likely, just by going about our lives, to cause planetary damage. Will we develop new ways to shape collective behavior for the better before it is too late?

Rabbi Justus Baird is Senior Vice President, National Programs at the Shalom Hartman Institute of North America. The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of JTA or its parent company, 70 Faces Media.

Synagogues

B’NAI ISRAEL

SYNAGOGUE

618 Mynster Street

Council Bluffs, IA 51503-0766

712.322.4705

email: CBsynagogue@hotmail.com

BETH EL SYNAGOGUE

Member of United Synagogues of Conservative Judaism

14506 California Street Omaha, NE 68154-1980

402.492.8550 bethel-omaha.org

BETH ISRAEL SYNAGOGUE

Member of Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America

12604 Pacific Street Omaha, NE. 68154

402.556.6288 BethIsrael@OrthodoxOmaha.org

CHABAD HOUSE

An Affiliate of Chabad-Lubavitch

1866 South 120 Street Omaha, NE 68144-1646

402.330.1800 OChabad.com email: chabad@aol.com

LINCOLN JEWISH COMMUNITY: B’NAI JESHURUN

South Street Temple

Union for Reform Judaism

2061 South 20th Street Lincoln, NE 68502-2797

402.435.8004 www.southstreettemple.org

OFFUTT AIR FORCE BASE

Capehart Chapel 2500 Capehart Road Offutt AFB, NE 68123

402.294.6244

email: oafbjsll@icloud.com

ROSE BLUMKIN

JEWISH HOME

323 South 132 Street Omaha, NE 68154

TEMPLE ISRAEL

Union for Reform Judaism (URJ)

13111 Sterling Ridge Drive Omaha, NE 68144-1206

402.556.6536 templeisraelomaha.com

LINCOLN JEWISH COMMUNITY: TIFERETH ISRAEL

Member of United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism

3219 Sheridan Boulevard

Lincoln, NE 68502-5236

402.423.8569 tiferethisraellincoln.org

B’NAI ISRAEL

Kol Nidre Service, Sunday, Sept. 24, 7:30 p.m. with guest speaker, Leonard Greenspoon, Creighton University Professor of Theology and of Classical and Near Eastern Studies; Yom Kippur Morning Service

Monday, Sept. 25, 10:30 a.m. with guest speaker, Erik Omar, Executive Director of the Immigrant Legal Center/Refugee Improvement Center and Neilah Service, 5 p.m. followed by Break the Fast. Services led by Jeff Taxman. Everyone is welcome. For information about our historic synagogue, please contact Howard Kutler at hkutler@hotmail. com or any of our other board members: Renee Corcoran, Scott Friedman, Rick Katelman, Janie Kulakofsky, Howard Kutler, Carole and Wayne Lainof, Ann Moshman, Mary-Beth Muskin, Debbie Salomon and Sissy Silber. Handicap Accessible.

BETH EL

Services conducted by Rabbi Steven Abraham and Hazzan Michael Krausman.

IN-PERSON AND ZOOM MINYAN SCHEDULE: Mornings on Sundays, 9:30 a.m.; Mondays and Thursdays, 7 a.m.; Evenings on Sunday-Thursday, 5:30 p.m.

FRIDAY: Nebraska AIDS Project Lunch, 11:30 a.m.; Kabbalat Shabbat, 6 p.m.

SATURDAY: Shabbat Morning Service 10 a.m.; Junior Congregation (Grades K-12) 10 a.m.; Havdalah 7:55 p.m. Zoom Only.

SUNDAY: BESTT (Grades K-7), 9:30 a.m.; Kol Nidre Service, 6:30 p.m.

MONDAY: Yom Kippur Family Service, 9 a.m.; Yom

Kippur Morning Service, 9:30 a.m.; Yom Kippur Youth Service/Programming, 10 a.m.; Yom Kippur Study

Sessions: Session One — Food Bank for the Heartland, 4 p.m.; Session Two — Rabbi Steven Abraham, 5 p.m.; Mincha/Ne’ila, 6 p.m.; Break Fast, 8 p.m.

WEDNESDAY: BESTT (Grades 3-7), 4:15 p.m.; Hebrew High (Grades 8-12), 6 p.m.

FRIDAY-Sept. 29: Kabbalat Shabbat, 6 p.m.

SATURDAY-Sept. 30: Sukkot/Shabbat Morning Service, 10 a.m.; GaGa Shabbat (Grades 3-7), 10 a.m.; Young Family Graham Cracker Sukkahs 12:30 p.m.; Mincha/Ma’ariv 7:30 p.m. at Beth El & Live Stream. Please visit bethel-omaha.org for additional information and service links.

BETH ISRAEL

FRIDAY: Selichot, 6:40 a.m.; Nach Yomi, 6:45 a.m.; Shacharit, 7 a.m.; Mincha/Kabbalat Shabbat/Candlelighting, 7:04 p.m.

SATURDAY: Shabbat Kollel, 8:30 a.m.; Shacharit, 9 a.m.; Tot Shabbat 10:30 a.m.; Youth Class 10:45

a.m.; Shtiegers, 5:01 p.m. at the Geigers; Tehillim Youth Class, 5:15 p.m. with Rabbi Tal; Soulful Torah: Unpacking the Or HaChayim’s Teachings, 6 p.m.; Mincha/Ma’ariv, 6:50 p.m.; Laws of Shabbos/ Kids Activity 7:20 p.m.; Havdalah, 8:02 p.m.

SUNDAY: Shacharit 9 a.m.; Mincha/Ma’ariv 5 p.m.; Kol Nidrei/Ma’ariv/Candlighting/Fast Begins, 7 p.m. with Babysitting Available.

MONDAY: Shacharit, 9 a.m.; Yizkor, 10:30 a.m.; Kids Class, 10:30 a.m. with Rabbi Tal; Musaf, 10:45 a.m.; Tot Class, 10:45 a.m.; Story, 11 a.m. with Rabbi Geiger; Class, 11:45 a.m. with Rabbi Eitan; Neilah Class 5:30 p.m.; Mincha, 6 p.m.; Neilah, 6:45 p.m.; Kids Activity, 7:30 p.m.; Ma’ariv/Havdalah/Break Fast, 7:56 p.m.

TUESDAY: Nach Yomi, 6:45 a.m.; Shacharit, 7 a.m.; Mincha/Ma’ariv, 7 p.m.

WEDNESDAY: Nach Yomi, 6:45 a.m.; Shacharit, 7 a.m.; Mincha/Ma’ariv, 7 p.m.

THURSDAY: Nach Yomi, 6:45 a.m.; Shacharit, 7 a.m.; Character Development, 9:30 a.m.; Mincha/ Ma’ariv, 7 p.m.; Parsha Class, 7:20 p.m.

FRIDAY-Sept. 29: Nach Yomi, 6:45 a.m.; Shacharit, 7 a.m.; Mincha/Kabbalat Shabbat/Candlelighting, 6:52 p.m.

SATURDAY-Sept. 30: Shabbat Kollel, 8:30 a.m.; Shacharit, 9 a.m.; Tot Shabbat, 10:30 a.m.; Youth Class 10:45 a.m.; Shtiegers, 4:49 p.m. at the Geigers; Tehillim Youth Class, 5:03 p.m. with Rabbi Tal; Soulful Torah: Unpacking the Or HaChayim’s Teachings, 5:48 p.m.; Mincha/Ma’ariv 6:40 p.m.; Laws of Shabbos/ Kids Activity, 7:10 p.m.; Candlelighting, 7:50 p.m. Please visit orthodoxomaha.org for additional information and Zoom service links.

CHABAD HOUSE

All services are in-person. All classes are being offered in-person and via Zoom (ochabad.com/academy). For more information or to request help, please visit www.ochabad.com or call the office at 402.330.1800.

FRIDAY: Shacharit, 8 a.m.; Inspirational Lechayim, 5:45 p.m. with Rabbi and friends: ochabad.com/ Lechayim; Candlelighting, 7:03 p.m.

SATURDAY: Services, 10 a.m. followed by Kiddush and Cholent; Shabbat Ends, 8 p.m.

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WEDNESDAY: Shacharit 8 a.m.; Mystical Thinking (Tanya), 9:30 a.m.; Introductory Biblical Hebrew Grammar, 10:30 a.m. with Prof. David Cohen; Parsha Reading, 11:30 a.m. with Prof. David Cohen.

THURSDAY: Shacharit, 8 a.m.; Parsha Reading, 10 a.m. with Prof. David Cohen; Advanced Biblical Hebrew Grammar, 11 a.m. with Prof. David Cohen; Talmud Study (Sanhedrin 34), noon; Introduction to Alphabet, Vowels & Reading Hebrew, 6 p.m. with Prof. David Cohen; Kitzur Shulchan Aruch (Code of Jewish Law) Class, 7 p.m.

FRIDAY-Sept. 29: Shacharit, 8 a.m.; Inspirational Lechayim, 5:45 p.m. with Rabbi and friends: ocha bad.com/Lechayim; Candlelighting, 6:51 p.m.

SATURDAY-Sept. 30: Services, 10 a.m. followed by Kiddush Lunch in the Sukkah; Light Holiday Candles after, 7:48 p.m.

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B’NAI JESHURUN & TIFERETH ISRAEL

Services facilitated by Rabbi Alex Felch. All services offered in-person with live-stream or teleconferencing options.

FRIDAY: Kabbatlat Shabbat Service with Rabbi Alex and music by Nathaniel and Steve Kaup, 6:30 p.m. at SST; Oneg Host: TBD; Shabbat Candlelighting, 7:06 p.m.

SATURDAY: Shabbat Morning Service, 9:30 a.m. with Rabbi Alex at TI; Torah Study, noon on Parashat Ha’azinu; Havdalah, 8:03 p.m.

SUNDAY: LJCS Classes, 9:30 a.m.; Men’s Bike/Coffee Group meet, 10:45 a.m. at The Mill on the Innovation Campus. We sit outside, facing east. For more information or questions please email Al Weiss at albertw801@gmail.com; Pickleball is on haitus until Oct. 15. Anyone interested in playing or learning how

Israeli Tatami is making movie history

JACOB GURVIS

JTA

A film being billed as the first co-production by Israeli and Iranian filmmakers debuted at the Venice International Film Festival after a secretive production process that included a trip to Israel by the Iranian co-director.

Tatami, which received a standing ovation Saturday at the prestigious film competition, tells the story of a female Iranian judoka champion who is ordered to fake an injury to avoid facing an Israeli opponent at a judo championship.

The story is loosely based on the 2019 incident in which Iranian judoka Saeid Mollaei was ordered to throw matches at the World Judo Champi-

onships to avoid facing Israeli Sagi Muki, who would ultimately win the tournament. The International Judo Federation banned Iran from all international competitions over the incident. (The ban was later reduced to four years.)

Co-directed by Israeli Guy Nattiv, the Oscar-winner who also helmed Golda, and Iranian Zar Amir Ebrahimi, Tatami was shot in Tbilisi, Georgia — a country that Iranians can easily visit — beginning in the spring of 2022. The project was kept in strict secrecy because of Iran’s potential reaction to the production. Iran does not recognize Israel’s existence and, as the film’s plot underscores, forbids its athletes from competing against Israelis.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, the film’s

to play can text Miriam at 402.470.2393; Choir Call 6:15 p.m. at SST; Joint TI/SST Kol Nidre Service, 7 p.m. at SST; Candlelighting for Yom Tov, 7:02 p.m.

MONDAY: Yom Kippur Children’s Service, 8:45 a.m. at TI; Yom Kippur Service with Yizkor, 9:30 a.m. with Rabbi Alex at TI; Choir Call 9:30 a.m. at SST; Yom Kippur Service with Yizkor 10 a.m. with lay leadership at SST; Choir Call, 2:30 p.m. at SST; Yom Kippur Afternoon Service 3 p.m. with Rabbi Alex at SST followed by Yizkor, 4 p.m. and Ne’ilah, 5 p.m.; Yom Kippur Afternoon and Ne’ilah Services, 6 p.m. with Rabbi Alex at TI.

WEDNESDAY: LJCS Classes (Grades 3-6), 4:30-6 p.m.; Sukkah Set-Up, 6 p.m. at SST.

FRIDAY-Sept. 29: Kabbatlat Shabbat Service with Rabbi Alex and music by Nathaniel and Steve Kaup, 6:30 p.m. at SST; Oneg Host: TBD; Shabbat Candlelighting, 6:54 p.m.

SATURDAY-Sept. 30: Shabbat Morning Service, 9:30 a.m. with Rabbi Alex at TI; Torah Study noon on Parashat Ki Teitzei; Havdalah, 7:51 p.m.

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The Rose Blumkin Jewish Home’s service is currently closed to visitors.

TEMPLE ISRAEL

In-person and virtual services conducted by Rabbi Benjamin Sharff, Rabbi Deana Sussman Berezin, and Cantor Joanna Alexander

FRIDAY: Drop in Mah Jongg, 9-11 a.m. In-Person; Bring Your Own Picnic, 5 p.m. at Gene Leahy Mall InPerson; Shabbat Shuva Service and Tashlich, 6 p.m. at Gene Leahy Mall In-Person.

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WEDNESDAY: Yarn It, 9 a.m. In-Person.; Grades 36, 4:30 p.m.; Grades 8-12, 6 p.m.

THURSDAY: Thursday Morning Class, 10 a.m. with Rabbi Azriel via Zoom

FRIDAY-Sept. 29: Drop in Mah Jongg, 9-11 a.m. InPerson; Festival Shabbat Service, 6 p.m. In-Person & Zoom.

SATURDAY-Sept. 30: Torah Study, 9:15 a.m. InPerson & Zoom; Sukkot Service, 10:30 a.m. In-Person & Zoom; Sushi in the Sukkah with the 20-Somethings, 6 p.m. In-Person

Please visit templeisraelomaha.com for additional information and Zoom service links.

MEMORIAL SERVICES

Sunday, Sept. 24

Oak Hills/Bikhor Cholim, Council Bluffs, 11 a.m.

title and plot were kept secret throughout the public casting stage. It was first announced publicly in February 2023 with the name Untitled Judo. (A tatami is the traditional Japanese mat used in judo matches.)

“We were undercover. We knew it was a dangerous thing,” Nattiv told Reuters Tatami also drew inspiration from the death of 22-year-old Iranian Mahsa Amini, who was allegedly beaten by police in Tehran over Iran’s mandatory hijab policy last year. Her death sparked an unprecedented protest movement across Iran. “We just felt this sudden urgency of telling the story,” Amir Ebrahimi told The Hollywood Reporter Read more at www.omahajewishpress.com

What to expect during Benjamin Netanyahu’s first US trip since his return to office

RON KAMPEAS

JTA

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is not shying away from controversy as he embarks on his first trip to the United States since his reelection last year. Before he boarded the plane early on Sept. 18, Netanyahu accused Israeli antigovernment protesters of “joining forces” with the country’s enemies. And he praised Elon Musk, the billionaire social media mogul who once again flirted with antisemitism on Sunday by accusing George Soros, the progressive Jewish megadonor, of seeking “the destruction of western civilization.”

Netanyahu met with Musk on Sept. 18 before heading to the United Nations, where he will meet with President Joe Biden and later deliver an address to the General Assembly. The Biden meeting is one Netanyahu has sought for months, though it will take place at the U.N. and not at the White House. Biden had demurred on a White House meeting due to opposition to some of Netanyahu’s policies.

Throughout the five-day trip, during which he is also scheduled to meet with American Jewish leaders, Netanyahu is expected to meet a protest movement led by expatriate Israelis who oppose his efforts to weaken the Israeli judiciary.

In remarks at the airport, Netanyahu lumped those protesters in with Iran and the Palestine Liberation Organization, both of which are or have previously been Israel’s chief adversaries. He accused the protesters, who have already mounted demonstrations in the U.S. cities he plans to visit, of “joining forces with the PLO and Iran.”

Having to face Israeli protesters in the United States — a country where Netanyahu spent many of his early years and where he served as Israel’s United Nations ambassador — clearly irked him. “When they defame Israel before the nations of the world, it seems normal to them,” he said. “I don’t regard it as normal. When I was leader of the opposition, I never did that.”

Benny Gantz, the leader of the opposition centrist Blue and White Party, wrote on X, the social media network formerly known as Twitter, that likening the protesters to Israel’s enemies is “grave and must be thoroughly condemned.”

Later on Monday, Netanyahu’s office sought to walk back the comment, saying in a statement that when he “used the word ‘joining,'” he was referring to Israelis who will “be demonstrating at the same time as supporters of the PLO and BDS, which has never happened before.”

The protest movement, called UnXeptable, has projected images onto major U.S. landmarks accusing Netanyahu of seeking to overhaul the courts as a means of quashing his ongoing trial for corruption charges.

In San Francisco, where Netanyahu is set to meet Monday with Musk, the protesters projected an image of Netanyahu

onto Alcatraz. the shuttered and notorious island prison, depicting him behind bars in an orange jumpsuit alongside a message reading, “Welcome Bibi.” In New York, protesters projected text onto the U.N. headquarters, reading, “Don’t believe Crime Minister Netanyahu.”

Netanyahu’s meeting with Musk on Monday is the first major item on his agenda, and will include an hour long live conversation between the two on X, which Musk owns. The meeting comes after weeks during which Musk has attacked the AntiDefamation League online for tanking the platform’s ad revenue, an accusation the ADL denies. Musk has threatened to sue the ADL for billions of dollars.

Musk has also repeatedly attacked Soros, the progressive philanthropist and frequent target of antisemitic conspiracies. On Sept. 17, Musk replied to a post that called the migrant crisis in Italy a “Sorosled invasion” an echo of a pervasive antisemitic theory falsely claiming that Jews are seeking to replace majority-white countries with migrants of color.

“The Soros organization appears to want nothing less than the destruction of western civilization,” Musk replied. Earlier this year, Jewish groups condemned Musk for casting Soros as an all-controlling evildoer.

At the airport, Netanyahu described Musk as a pioneer, praising the tech entrepreneur’s pursuits in the field of artificial intelligence. The two had a phone conversation on that topic earlier this year.

“I will start this visit in California where I intend to meet the current leader of the most dramatic development in the new age and perhaps in general, Elon Musk,” he said. “I will discuss artificial intelligence with him and I will also work toward encouraging him to invest in Israel in the coming years. He is, to a large degree, paving the way that will change the face of humanity and also the face of the State of Israel. Israel needs to be a leader in artificial intelligence.”

On Sept. 20, Netanyahu will meet with Biden. Biden has declined to invite the Israeli prime minister in part because he is concerned that Netanyahu’s judicial overhaul, which would dramatically reduce the independence of the courts, is a threat to Israeli democracy. Instead, Netanyahu and Biden will meet on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly. Netanyahu is scheduled to address the body on Friday morning.

Netanyahu has traditionally used his U.N. platform to condemn Iran and its nuclear plans. He pledged to do so again and listed the world leaders he would meet with, including Biden and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. He claimed that he was much in demand on the world stage.

“Unfortunately, I cannot meet with all the leaders who made requests but I hope to meet with most of them,” he said at the airport.

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Orthodox Union certifies Israeli brand of lab-grown meat as kosher

JTA

The Orthodox Union has granted kosher certification to a type of lab-grown meat, a decision that could signal an expansion of the options available under Judaism’s intricate dietary laws.

The O.U., the most prominent kosher certifier in the United States, recognized poultry products from Israeli startup SuperMeat as kosher, the company announced. The startup is part of a growing industry that aims to provide an alternative to traditional meat by creating the food in a laboratory from stem cells.

“This collaboration aims to bridge the gap between scientific understanding and halachic adjudication, setting unprecedented standards in the cultivated meat industry,” Rabbi Menachem Genack, the CEO of O.U. Kosher, said in a statement, using a term referring to Jewish law.

The process of certifying lab-grown meat, a years-long quest for SuperMeat, demonstrated the complexity of applying Judaism’s age-old dietary laws to a culinary landscape where the range of foods, and how they are produced, is expanding rapidly — from lab-grown meat to plant-based alternatives and more. It may also represent yet another increase in the number of products kosher consumers can take off supermarket shelves.

“This step represents our commitment to inclusivity and respect for diverse dietary needs, making our cultivated chicken meat accessible to audiences around the world,” Ido Savir, CEO of SuperMeat, said in a statement. “We believe this historic initiative with the Orthodox Union not only broadens the options for kosher consumers worldwide but will also set clear guidelines for other companies in the cultivated meat industry seeking kosher certification, opening new avenues for the Kosher food industry.”

The lab-grown meat industry is in its infancy and may appeal to consumers who enjoy eating meat but oppose slaugh-

tering animals for food. It remains to be seen whether labgrown meat produced at a mass scale will be cheaper or more environmentally sustainable than regular beef or poultry. The U.S. Department of Agriculture granted its first approval for cell-cultured meat in late June, and SuperMeat first plans to roll out its products in the United States. The company is also

ternatives such as Impossible Foods or Beyond Meat, many of whose products are certified as pareve, neither meat nor dairy, meaning that they may be eaten together with all kosher foods.

Plant-based meat has provided a pathway for observant Jews to eat imitations of some archetypal non-kosher foods, such as cheeseburgers or pizza with a meat topping. SuperMeat will not offer those kinds of possibilities.

But Genack said that for Jews who keep a stringent form of kosher laws, SuperMeat’s certification will be a boon. “Theoretically, the impact on prices and availability should be significant,” he said.

That’s because the company’s chicken products are categorized as Mehadrin kosher — the strictest form of kosher supervision. And if the O.U. moves to certify lab-grown beef as kosher, which it has yet to do, it could lead to an increase in the supply of meat that is “glatt” kosher, a term that refers to meat slaughtered from an animal whose lungs are smooth.

The kosher seal of approval came after SuperMeat hosted two rabbinic delegations, and kosher authorities held a series of conversations on Jewish law surrounding the science used in the company’s technology, the Times of Israel reported.

looking into halal certification.

“The vast majority of the vegan-vegetarian movement is very supportive,” SuperMeat’s co-founder and CEO, Koby Barak, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency in 2016. “And we thank them for really supporting us.”

On the surface, kosher certification for lab-grown meat doesn’t appear to herald a revolution for observant Jewish eaters, especially in places where traditional kosher animal products are already easy to find.

As with regular chicken, the O.U. has certified the lab-grown variety as kosher meat, meaning that it can’t be eaten with dairy products. That separates it from recent plant-based meat al-

Obtaining kosher certification for lab-grown meat is complicated because the process of cultivating meat from stem cells requires the use of living animals — and kosher law bars the consumption of any part of a living animal. Founded in 2015, SuperMeat’s lab-grown poultry avoids this dilemma by acquiring stem cells from eggs rather than from the living birds themselves. And because the eggs are at an early stage of fertilization, there’s no concern that blood will end up in the product, which would also be prohibited by Jewish law.

“We were looking for something that can be universally accepted as Mehadrin, completely kosher, and that’s what taking the stem cells from the eggs represents,” Genack said.

Read more at www.omahajewishpress.com