Southern Jewish Life, July 2022 by Southern Jewish Life

Southern Jewish Life

July/Aug 2022 Volume 32 Issue 7

Southern Jewish Life P.O. Box 130052 Birmingham, AL 35213 Members of Israel’s delegation to the World Games take a team photo at Vulcan

the

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July 2022 • Southern Jewish Life

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shalom y’all A peek behind the notebook… It is always fun covering a Big Event and chronicling history. The World Games in Birmingham were presented with a theme of witnessing history, and there were certainly many story lines specific to our coverage. Having 50 Israeli athletes in town for over a week was certainly a big story. The sports of the World Games are those that are not currently in the Olympics, though some have been and others aspire to be there, so these competitions were the highest level in each of those sports. Olympic-level competition without the Olympics. As the Israeli team continued to rack up the medals, we covered the competitions and sent the results to the rest of the Jewish media world. And of course, as a native, it was a thrill to be at the medal ceremonies in places like Boutwell Auditorium or Legacy Arena and hear “Hatikvah” echoing through the room. But one of the greatest parts was covering the Abraham Accords effect. In past years, many Muslim countries would refuse to compete against Israelis in international events. They would often feign injury or throw a match that, if they won, might result in facing an Israeli. Iran is still notorious for doing that, and many international sporting associations have suspended the Iranian teams. That wasn’t an issue during the World Games. The most visible event was the dedication of a site for an Abraham Accords tree, with diplomats and a few athletes from Israel, UAE, Bahrain and Morocco joined by Birmingham officials in a celebration of moving toward a better future. There were also many informal moments, as the Abraham Accords delegations cheered each other — unless they were competing directly. The night before the tree ceremony, officials from the Arab nations congratulated Israel gold-medal gymnast Daria Atamanov backstage, having their pictures taken with her. continued on page 4

Southern Jewish Life is an independent Jewish periodical. Articles and columns do not necessarily reflect the views of any Jewish institutions, agencies or congregations in our region.

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July 2022 • Southern Jewish Life

commentary

MESSAGES

Maccabi USA leader praises Birmingham Games

I have had the honor of attending many Maccabi competitions around the world. From Israel to One Australia to South America, Europe and the JCC Maccabi around the United of the Ju-Jitsu matches was between tition. Thatgames was emphasized during States the World andIsraeli Canada, logged many miles seeing howGames sports can be a vehicle to help build Jewish an andI have a United Arab Emirates athlete, in Birmingham, a place where the idea identity, especially in our young. refereed by an official from Bahrain. of reconciliation and working on moving beRose Sager, the yond anand uncomfortable history arethe central I felt honored to Bahrain come to representative, Birmingham forwas the first time fell in love with not just city to clearly toYou cheer ontaken the Bahraini athletes, thetocity’s but the there people. have Southern hospitality a newidentity. level with your kind and caring but she spent much timeGames. with the Israelis Some of our coverage of the World Games approach to theso JCC Maccabi that they may well could have adopted her. is in this edition, more will be in next month’s. Led by theunforgettable Sokol and Helds, your hard-working werenext wonderful. Another moment was when volunteers Also in the issue, They backpartnered to external with your outstanding staff, led by Betzy Lynch, to make the 2017 JCC Maccabi games—a speaking huge hit. Sager, a member of the tiny Bahraini Jewish topics that often aren’t uplifting I want to takelitthis as executive director Maccabi USA to say thankinyou behalf community, theopportunity Shabbat candles at an Israeof of which, if you have friends theonPresbyteof everyone involved. li Consulate Shabbat dinner at Temple Beth-El. rian Church (USA), you’ll want to share next There were so many memorable moments. month’s Page 3 with may have I had just returned from the 20th World Maccabiah games in Israel withthem a U.S.(we delegation of it There is sowho much negative in Jewish the world, so beonlineBack before over 1100, joined 10,000 athletes fromposted 80 countries. in then)… July the eyes of the entire ing ableworld to cover uplifting is Maccabiah. always Jewish weresomething on Jerusalem and the This past month with 1000 athletes and acoaches welcome break. from around the world being in Birmingham, you became the focal point. Sports are supposed to bring people toEveryone from the Jewish community and the community at large, including a wonderful gether in an atmosphere of respectful compepolice force, are to be commended. These games will go downLawrence in historyBrook, as beingPublisher/Editor a seminal moment for the Jewish community as we build to the future by providing such wonderful Jewish What happened to the last issue? memories. We’ve had several questions about the last is- a different paper. When the presses came back Jed Margolis sue, which was dated June/July (though we have up, we were asked if we would agree to use a Executive Director, Maccabi USA not combined months, we will still be produc- different paper for that issue, otherwise it was going to be a few more days. We did agree, but ing 12 issues as always). we saw would the finished we decided supremacists like toissue, see pushed back that We had production delays, and then as we when On Charlottesville definitely a one-time thing, we into a corner and be made to feel lesser. Weand stand wrapped, our printer’s press was down for 12 would would go back to our normal paper. with and pray for the family of Heather Heyer, days. Then, of course, we are subject to the Editor’s Note: This reaction to the events in We’re to get up back on schedule over wasworking there standing to the face of this whims of the post office — all of which com- who Charlottesville, written by Jeremy Newman, the next few weeks, and have lots of great stories hate. bined to make that issue very late. Master of the Alpha Epsilon Pi Theta Colony store! manyUniversity, of you noticed, the magazine recognize the essence of the American at As Auburn was shared by AEPiwas on in We National, which called it “very eloquent” and praised “our brothers at AEPi Theta Colony at Auburn University and… the leadership they We are of our ”city. Our school system display on proud their campus. is in the top 1 percent nationally, and one of the best in the state for quality of schools. Our city hasWhite no financial problems. And we’re so supremacy has been a cancer on very lucky to have three highly qualified people runour country since its beginning, threatening ning for unpaid, volunteer City Council seats. its hopes, its values, and its better angels. We’re asking you to voteinfor Billy Pritchard, The events that took place Charlottesville Lloyd Shelton Graham Smith. Those Each canrepresented theand worst of this nation. didate has demonstrated their commitment who marched onto the streets with tiki torchesto Mountain Brook tirelessly and swastikas did by so to provokeworking violence collaband oratively resolve challenges facing thedid city. fear. Thosetowho marched onto the streets They done with integrity, and no agenda so to have profess an so ideology that harkens back to but to serve thewretched best interests of our the history. city. Such a bleaker, more time in successful leadership requires dedication, plus A time when men and women of many creeds, lots of and timereligions and hardwere work. races, far from equal and far Their opponents want to change from safe in our own borders. A time where our award-winning school system with imagined Americans lived under a constant cloud of grievances that politicize our school board and racism, anti-Semitism and pervasive hate. The hurt our teachers. We’re than that.served events that took place in better Charlottesville 1: VoteofGraham Smith, relevant a member of the as Place a reminder how painfully these Mountain Brook Planning Commission, past issues are today. PTO president ay Cherokee Bend and LegislaEpsilonRichard Pi stands with the tiveAuburn’s DirectorAlpha for Senator Shelby. Jewish ofPritchard, Charlottesville, andserved Placecommunity 3: Vote Billy who has with the Jewish around theCity country 22 years on the people Mountain Brook Council, and around the world. We also stand with the is past president of the Mountain Brook Schools minorities who are targeted by the hate that Foundation, and a respected attorney. was on display Charlottesville. We stand Place 5: Vote in Lloyd Shelton, who has served 8 with the of whom years on minorities the Mountain Brookthese Citywhite Council, 21

narrative as a two-century old struggle to rid

ourselves of such and allow those in This Mountain Brook election iscorners, important

4 July 2022 • Southern Jewish Life

them the seat at the table that they so deserve. years onstruggle the Mountain Brook Finance of CommisIt is the to fulfill the promise the sion, and is an accomplished accountant Declaration of Independence, that “all men who are served Mountain Brookby Chamber treasurer. createdas equal… endowed their Creator with So few people pay attention to our municipal certain unalienable rights. ” We know work elections, especially in a town that seems to run is far from finished, but we know we will not just so these contests can be decided by a movefine, backwards. handful of votes. Your vote does count! WhenTuesday, men andAug. women, armed, takepollVote 23 atfully your regular to the streets droves swastikas and ing place. Oringet your with absentee ballots now at other symbols of hate, is a reminder how Mountain Brook CityitHall. Vote forofcomperelevant the issues of racism and anti-Semitism tence, vote for NO political agenda, vote for the are today. ItBrook is a wake-up call to the work that Mountain we admire. needs to be done to ensure a better, more Thank you. welcoming country. But it should not come without a reflection onCaleigh how far Rathmell we’ve come. Alevy Caryn and Steven America was born a slave nation.Corenblum A century Heidi and into our history we engaged in Martin a war inDamsky part Helene Elkus to ensure we would not continue as one. We Cathy and Paul Friedman found ourselves confronted by the issue of civil Fran and LeetoGodchaux rights, and embarked on a mission ensure Greene the fair treatment of all peoples noSteve matter their Ricki Kline skin color. Although we’ve made great strides, Candy and Ed Meyerson it is a mission we’re still grappling with today. Glenda and Dr. Paul Nagrodzki America was also born an Marjorie immigrantPerlman country. As early as the pilgrims, Bunny and Joelmany Rotenstreich groups and families found in the Dr.country Michaelthe Saag opportunity to plant stakes, chase their future, David Silverstein and be themselves. Few were met with open Linda Verin

January 2021 July 2022

Southern Jewish Life PUBLISHER/EDITOR Lawrence M. Brook editor@sjlmag.com ASSOCIATE PUBLISHER/ADVERTISING Lee J. Green lee@sjlmag.com ASSOCIATE EDITOR Richard Friedman richard@sjlmag.com V.P. SALES/MARKETING, NEW ORLEANS Jeff Pizzo jeff@sjlmag.com CREATIVE DIRECTOR Ginger Brook ginger@sjlmag.com SOCIAL/WEB Emily Baldwein connect@sjlmag.com PHOTOGRAPHER-AT-LARGE Rabbi Barry C. Altmark deepsouthrabbi.com CONTRIBUTING WRITERS Rivka Epstein, Louis Crawford, Tally Werthan, Stuart Derroff, Belle Freitag, Ted Gelber, E. Walter Katz, Doug Brook brookwrite.com BIRMINGHAM OFFICE P.O. Box 130052, Birmingham, AL 35213 2179 Highland Ave., Birmingham, AL 35205 205/870.7889 NEW ORLEANS OFFICE 3747 West Esplanade, 3rd Floor Metairie, LA 70002 504/249-6875 TOLL-FREE 888/613.YALL(9255) ADVERTISING Advertising inquiries to 205/870.7889 for Lee Green, lee@sjlmag.com Jeff Pizzo, jeff@sjlmag.com Media kit, rates available upon request SUBSCRIPTIONS It has always been our goal to provide a large-community quality publication to all communities of the South. To that end, our commitment includes mailing to every Jewish household in the region (AL, LA, MS, NW FL), without a subscription fee. Outside the area, subscriptions are $25/year, $40/two years. Subscribe via sjlmag.com, call 205/870.7889 or mail payment to the address above. Copyright 2022. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in whole or part without written permission from the publisher. Views expressed in SJL are those of the respective contributors and are not necessarily shared by the magazine or its staff. SJL makes no claims as to the Kashrut of its advertisers, and retains the right to refuse any advertisement.

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agenda interesting bits & can’t miss events Birmingham Mayor Randall Woodfin addresses the Israel Comes to Birmingham event at Temple Beth-El on July 14, where the Jewish community welcomed Israel’s World Games athletes

Delta announces direct flights between Atlanta, Tel Aviv After years of advocacy, the Southeast once again has a much easier way of getting to Israel. Delta Airlines will offer direct flights between Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson Airport and Ben Gurion Airport in Israel, starting May 10, 2023. Reservations will be available as of July 30. The flights are expected to be on Wednesday, Friday and Sunday each week, on a 306-seat Airbus A350-900. Eastbound flights will depart Atlanta at 2 p.m., arriving in Tel Aviv the next morning at 9:15. Flights from Israel will leave at 11:30 a.m. and arrive in Atlanta at 5:55 p.m. Delta’s first flight to Israel debuted in March 2006, from Atlanta. In 2009, the route was transferred to JFK in New York City, and there hasn’t been a direct flight to Israel from Atlanta ever since. With the new Atlanta flights, Delta will have 13 Israel flights weekly, from Atlanta, New York and Boston. The announcement of the new flights today came after years of dialogue among Delta executives, the Consulate General of Israel to the Southeastern U.S., and Israel’s Ministry of Tourism office to the Southern U.S. Consul General Anat Sultan-Dadon and Tourism Director Yael Golan worked together, alongside many friends and partners in the region, to highlight the significance and value of resuming a direct connection between Israel and the Southeast U.S.

“These flights will serve to further strengthen the close relations between Israel, the state of Georgia and the Southeast U.S. and will have a significant and positive impact on our relations in a wide range of fields, including political, economic, academic, and cultural exchanges,” Sultan-Dadon said.

Golan said the new route “will significantly benefit both American and Israeli travelers by providing a direct link between the heart of the American South and Israel, creating an easier travel experience for one of our key markets.

Southern Jewish Life magazine had its best-ever showing in the 41st annual Simon J. Rockower Awards for Excellence in Jewish Journalism. The regional publication with offices in Birmingham and New Orleans received four awards in what is regarded as the “Jewish Pulitzers.” The Rockowers were presented on June 27 at the American Jewish Press Association annual convention in Atlanta, and this year the Rockowers set a new record for most entries. Southern Jewish Life received first place in news obituaries for “A Bit More Than ‘Showbiz’,” the obituary of controversial Pensacola trial lawyer Fred Levin, who was best known for taking down Big Tobacco. Second place in Writing About Antisemitism was for “More Education, More Antisemitism,” about an Arkansas study that used a different survey method to show that those with graduate degrees were more likely to harbor anti-Jewish bias than those with less education. Southern Jewish Life received honorable

mention for News and Feature Reporting on the Arts for “Entering the world of demons in Jewish folklore,” about the Jewish horror film “The Vigil” and its star, Dave Davis of New Orleans. The other Rockower was honorable mention in photography, for a cover photo of a couple kneeling in prayer next to the Holocaust memorial at the Riverwalk in New Orleans. All four pieces were by Editor/Publisher Larry Brook. As a magazine, Southern Jewish Life competes in the category with monthly newspapers and magazines, many of which are national in scope, such as Moment, Hadassah, Lilith and the Orthodox Union’s Jewish Action. This brings Southern Jewish Life’s cumulative total to 22 Rockowers. Next year’s convention and Rockowers presentation will be held in New Orleans, co-hosted by Southern Jewish Life and Crescent City Jewish News, whose publisher, Alan Smason, is the current president of AJPA.

continued on page 6

SJL wins four national journalism awards

July 2022 • Southern Jewish Life

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>> Delta

continued from page 5

This will help travel from the southern U.S. to Israel reach new heights.” Conexx: America Israel Commercial Alliance provided information to Delta on Israeli and U.S. company business activity to help strengthen the case. Barry Swartz said the flights position the group, its members and the Southeast “as a tier one business destination, putting us on par with the largest metropolitan areas in the U.S.”building on regional advantages, “including an award-winning business climate, the world’s busiest airport bringing the world to the South, an affordable and vibrant quality of life, a world class talent pool, and a major connection hub to North and South America and the Caribbean.” Georgia Governor Brian Kemp, a long-standing supporter of the bilateral relations with Israel, stated “Delta has a long history of connecting Georgia to the world, and this direct flight between Atlanta and Tel Aviv will provide our state with opportunities for continued growth with important economic partners. The state of Georgia proudly supports Delta’s priority to provide service to Tel Aviv and we look forward to delivering expanded travel options for Georgians, strengthening international ties and creating new relationships in the region.” Pat Wilson, the Georgia Department of Economic Development Commissioner also emphasized the importance of connectivity for the bilateral relationship with Israel. “The most important factor in building a successful business is connectivity, and that’s doubly true for international business. Working hand-in-hand with companies like Delta Air Lines and partners like the Consulate General of Israel, Georgia has a variety of assets that make global connections simple and seamless. We are excited about this newly strengthened bridge between Georgia and Israel and the opportunities that will undoubtedly come as a result.”

Preview the Beth-El Civil Rights Experience With the historical marker dedication kicking off the Beth-El Civil Rights Experience, the next program will be a sneak peek at the civil rights exhibit. Tzofim La’atid, Looking to the Future, will be on Aug. 25 from 5:30 to 8 p.m. There will be docent-led tours of the exhibit and a chance to provide feedback on the project. Drinks and appetizers will be served, and there will be a chance to meet with community partners and donors. The Experience seeks to show Birmingham’s civil rights experience through the stories of what was happening in the Jewish community at the time, and to build connections for ongoing acts of tikkun olam. Several groups on civil rights tours of the region have already been scheduled to visit. The evening will include a rare exhibit of photos taken by Spider Martin during the civil rights movement, especially Selma in 1965. At the preview, there will be remarks from Dejuana Thompson of the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute, J. Mason Davis of Dentons Sirote, and T.K. Thorne, author of “Behind the Magic Curtain,” which details the “unsung white allies” of the movement, many of whom were in the local Jewish community. The project also announced a challenge grant from Dentons Sirote, with $1 being contributed for every $2 raised, up to $5,000. Admission to the Aug. 25 event is free, but donations toward the development of the center are welcomed.

Southern Jewish Life

In The Next Issue of : More World Games wrapup • Mobile’s New Mikvah Making our Jewish communities more secure Local Representation at World Maccabiah Games 6 July 2022 • Southern Jewish Life

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“The Crossing” concludes Mobile film fest The Mobile Jewish Film Festival concludes its Summer Film Series on Aug. 21 at 2 p.m. at Springhill Avenue Temple with a story accessible to all ages, “The Crossing.” The film tells the story of adventurous 10-year-old Gerda and her brother Otto, whose parents are in the Norwegian resistance movement during the Second World War. One day, just before Christmas in 1942, Gerda and Otto’s parents are arrested, leaving the siblings on their own. Following the arrest, they discover two Jewish children, Sarah and Daniel, hidden in a secret cupboard in their basement at home. It is now up to Gerda and Otto to finish what their parents started: To help Sarah and Daniel flee from the Nazis cross the border to neutral Sweden and reunite them with their parents. The subtitled film won Best Narrative at the Seattle Jewish Film Festival. Individual tickets are $9, available from the Mobile Area Jewish Federation office or website. All unvaccinated attendees will be required to mask.

LJCC hosting J’la fundraiser on Aug. 18 Birmingham’s Levite Jewish Community Center kept its doors open during the Covid pandemic, providing a wide range of services to the community as normal programming could not take place and despite the financial hit required. Now, the LJCC is holding a J’la, a gala celebrating community and raising funds to continue supporting LJCC programming. During the pandemic, the LJCC hosted blood drives, food distribution days, free preschool for children of first responders, and offered free WiFi for students studying remotely. The J’la will be on Aug. 18 from 5 to 8 p.m., followed by an after-party silent disco until 10 p.m., where everyone grooves to the tunes in headphones. There will be a cocktail hour and silent auction, a three-course plated kosher dinner, live auction and “Fund-A-Need.” Proceeds from the J’la will support youth camps; adult, Jewish and theater programming; and community outreach. Tickets are $125, and sponsorships range from $1,500 to $5,000. On Our Cover: On the first day of the World Games, much of Team Israel got up early to take a team photo at Vulcan, Birmingham’s iconic statue. Medalists were also presented with a miniature Vulcan during the awards ceremonies.

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July 2022 • Southern Jewish Life

agenda The Unified Jewish Congregation of Baton Rouge will continue the Beth Shalom tradition of a corned beef sale. This year’s event will be on Aug. 21 from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Orders for a five-sandwich kit can be placed for drive-through pickup. The kits are $60. U.S. Rep. Terri Sewell will be the guest speaker for JCRC Sisters Shabbat, Aug. 12 at 5:45 p.m. at Temple Beth-El in Birmingham. A dinner will follow, reservations are $18. This is a kickoff event for Sisters, which was formed as Sisters Chaverim in 2009 to foster dialogue and sisterhood between Jewish and Black women in Birmingham. Sewell is an alumna of the original group. Beth Israel in Gulfport will have an Evening With the Biloxi Shuckers, Aug. 14 at 5 p.m. Tickets are $10. Contact Hannah Hall to purchase. The Temple Beth Or Men’s Club in Montgomery will screen the 2018 PBS documentary “GI Jews” on Aug. 28 at 3 p.m. The film tells the story of the 550,000 Jewish men and women who served in the U.S. military in World War II. Pizza, salad and beverages will be served, and the community is welcome. The screening was rescheduled from July. The Summer Union Shabbat Services in New Orleans among the Reform congregations will continue in August with Temple Sinai hosting, Fridays at 6:30 p.m. following a 6 p.m. Oneg, and Saturdays at 10:30 a.m. On Aug. 12 there will be a Back to School Shabbat, with a school supply drive benefiting Kingsley House. Needed items include backpacks, pencils, glue, crayons, scissors, pens, construction paper, disinfectant wipes, tissues, paper towels. Aug. 19 will be a special Camp Shabbat, and Aug. 26 will be a musical Shabbat.

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JNOLA will have a pool party and lawn games, Aug. 21 at 5:15 p.m. at the Uptown Jewish Community Center. There will be competitions and drinks, followed by pizza by the pool at 6:15 p.m. Reservations are required. The Uptown Jewish Community Center in New Orleans will have a workshop on documenting one’s family history. Kathy Rush, a retired cultural anthropologist specializing in oral histories and one of the founders of the Oral History Library of the University Women’s Club of Buenos Aires, will lead the workshop. Emphasizing that family history does not end with the past and should be more than the pure facts of births, deaths and marriages, she will show how to keep family history alive with recordings, photos and stories. Dessert and coffee will be provided at the noon program on Aug. 18, participants are welcome to bring a lunch. There is no charge for the program. To prepare for the new year, Gemiluth Chassodim in Alexandria is screening Simon Schama’s five-part series, “The Story of the Jews” and holding discussions, Tuesdays at 6 p.m., from Aug. 23 to Sept. 20. A light dinner will be served. Shir Chadash Men’s Club is hosting a Saints watch party for the season opener, Sept. 11 at 11:30 a.m. at Shir Chadash.

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Gemiluth Chassodim in Alexandria will have a Camp Shabbat on Aug. 19 at 6 p.m., followed by dinner.

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The Eastern Shore Chavurah will have a kosher sushi lunch with Chabad of Mobile on Aug. 24 at noon, at the Eastern Shore Shopping Center meeting room in Spanish Fort. Rabbi Goldwasser will discuss the Jewish view of heaven and hell. Lunch reservations are $10 and should be sent to Carol Zimmerman.

July 2022 • Southern Jewish Life

continued on page 31

community

Pearl hopes Auburn “Birthright” Israel trip becomes regular basketball event Auburn University is set to make history as the first Power 5 basketball team to do a preseason tour of Israel. Auburn will play three games against Israeli national teams during the July 31 to Aug. 10 trip, and all three games will be televised on the SEC Network. Auburn Basketball Coach Bruce Pearl hopes that the inaugural “Birthright for College Basketball” tour will become an annual event, bringing top college basketball teams to Israel. According to NCAA rules, college basketball teams can do an overseas trip once every four years. Auburn’s last overseas trip was Italy, in 2017. The only other Division I-A team to visit Israel was the University of Connecticut, in 1998. The following season, UConn won its first national championship. The Toledo women’s team traveled to Israel in 2011, and the Wheaton (Ill.) College men’s team visited Israel in 2016. “This experience, academically, historically and religiously, will have a forever effect on our student-athletes,” Pearl said. “As a Jewish-American college basketball coach, I am honored and blessed to share this experience with our Auburn Basketball Family. Birthright for College Basketball in Israel will become one of the most sought after and impactful foreign trips in the future.” Pearl said this trip, and the concept of an Israel tournament for college basketball programs, has been a dream of his for several years. He told Aaron Fruh’s Israel And You podcast that “This is the beginning of an annual August event. Auburn is taking the first trip so I can get this tournament started, and in the future we are looking to bring over the best teams in college basketball.” Pearl is on the board of Fruh’s Israel Team Advocates International. Auburn will play Israel’s U-20 national team on Aug. 2 at Malha Arena in Jerusalem. Pearl said that game will be against players who are comparable in age to a college team. At Sport Palace Tel Aviv Yafo, Auburn will play an Israel All-Star Select Team on Aug. 7, and the Israel National Team on Aug. 8. The national team is Israel’s best players, Pearl said, the team that Israel would put on the floor for the Olympics to compete when the U.S. assembles its national team of NBA players. “That will be all we can handle,” Pearl said. The games will tip off at 8 p.m. in Israel, so the live broadcasts on the SEC Network will be at noon Central. Auburn is just the second school to have its foreign tour aired on SEC Network, after the 2014 and 2018 Kentucky tours. Kansas and several other Division I schools have had its foreign tours streamed online. Auburn is the reigning SEC regular season champion. They return 11 letterwinners, including three of last year’s starters in senior Allen

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Southern Jewish Life Grand Slam!

In the American Jewish Press Association’s 41st annual Simon J. Rockower Awards for Excellence in Jewish Journalism, Southern Jewish Life hit a new high this year with four awards. You can read on page 5 about which pieces were recognized in this highly-competitive process. We’re proud of this grand slam. But there’s nothing new about Southern Jewish Life being honored. For more than 30 years we have been providing independent Jewish journalism at a level of excellence. Today — in addition to our news-driven website and weekly e-edition — our monthly print magazine is distributed free to every Jewish household in Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana and Northwest Florida. We are unique asset to the entire region. Our opportunities to make an impact — through innovative and important stories that readers can’t find elsewhere — keeps growing. But in addition to our advertising revenue, which in recent years has been increasingly unstable for all print media, we need donor support. The more support we receive, the more pages we can produce and the more stories we can run. So please join the growing number of people in our region who have become donors to Southern Jewish Life. To contribute, send a check to Southern Jewish Life, P.O. Box 130052, Birmingham, AL 35213, or go to https://sjlmag.com/contribute/ (Donations are not tax-deductible.) Thank you for your support, which enables us to keep producing at a nationally-recognized level! 10

July 2022 • Southern Jewish Life

community Flanigan (6.3 ppg), graduate senior Zep Jasper (5.1 ppg) and junior K.D. Johnson (12.3 ppg). Also returning is senior guard Lior Berman of Birmingham, who is part of the U.S. national team competing in the World Maccabiah Games in Israel this summer. Four newcomers will travel and participate in their first games in an Auburn uniform — sophomore transfer Johni Broome, freshman Tre Donaldson, freshman Chance Westry and freshman Yohan Traore. The regular season will start on Nov. 7 against George Mason. Off the court, Auburn will visit Bethlehem, Yad Vashem, City of David, the Dead Sea, Jerusalem’s Old City and the Sea of Galilee. Pearl hopes the trip will influence his players to return home as allies of Israel. “Our kids also come from a perspective culturally and educationally that they will return to the U.S. as allies and friends of the State of Israel, and certainly for some of my players, the dream would be for them to be able to come back and play professionally in Israel because it is such a great country to play professionally because of the supportive fans,” said their coach. The Tigers’ travel and international competition have been a collaboration between Pearl, Complete Sports Management, the Israeli Basketball Association and Athletes for Israel. “We believe this trip will be the start of a longstanding relationship with college basketball and Israel,” said Lea Miller-Tooley, CEO of Complete Sports Management. “Coach Pearl’s vision coupled with SEC Network’s coverage will make for an unprecedented trip. Complete Sports Management is proud to be part of history in the making.”

CAIR urged Auburn to cancel Israel trip The Council on American-Islamic Relations, an anti-Israel activist group that positions itself as a defender of Muslim civil rights in the United States, called on Auburn University to cancel its upcoming “Birthright for College Basketball” tour of Israel, or at least to get away from Israeli “handlers” and meet “ordinary Palestinians” while they are in the region. In a press conference two days before CAIR’s statement, Auburn Basketball Coach Bruce Pearl noted that the team will be meeting with Palestinians, and the coach of the Palestinian National Team. Auburn’s men’s team will play three Israeli national teams over a 10day period in early August, with games to be broadcast on the Southeastern Conference Network. In a July 27 statement, CAIR National Communications Director Ibrahim Hooper said “This propaganda junket is clearly designed to normalize Israeli apartheid and racial segregation, while ignoring Israeli violations of Palestinian human rights and international law.” He said that if the trip is not cancelled, “we urge members of the Auburn basketball team to meet with ordinary Palestinians without the presence of Israeli handlers so they can learn the realities of Israeli occupation and apartheid.” To bolster his position, Hooper cited the recent widely-discredited Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch reports that have labeled Israel an apartheid state. Auburn is scheduled to host a basketball clinic for Israeli and Palestinian children at the YMCA in Jerusalem, in an event coordinated by Tamir Goodman, “The Jewish Jordan.” The team will also travel to Bethlehem and have lunch at the home of Paul Coughter, coach of the Palestinian National Team. A former Memphis State player, Coughter also coached Ezzahra to the 2022 regular season championship in the Tunisian League. Pearl said the idea that a Jewish basketball coach from Auburn would bring his team to Bethlehem to have lunch with the coach of the Palestinian team should be seen as normal.

community LSU’s Reyzelman drafted by Yankees By Howard Blas (JNS) — If everything goes according to plan, Eric Reyzelman may become the most Jewishly connected and affiliated Major League baseball player in history. Of course, there is a long road ahead for the friendly, hard-throwing 21-year-old Californian recently drafted by the New York Yankees. But to date, his Jewish credentials are almost as impressive as his pitching ones; the list of accomplishments already includes Hebrew school, bar mitzvah, a family trip to Israel and naches shepped by parents and grandparents. Reyzelman, a 6-foot-2 right-hander currently pitching for Louisiana State University, was the 160th overall pick in the fifth round of the draft on July 18. He spoke with JNS from Tampa, Fla., where he will begin his Major League career at the Yankees’ development facilities. He still finds the experience surreal. He was watching the draft in a restaurant with his family and some close friends: “It was one of the craziest moments of my life. It was unreal. I was surrounded by those who got me here!” He reports that the TV broadcast was delayed at the time, and he actually began getting calls from an “area scout” and friends before he received the official word from the Yankees. “I took my time enjoying the news,” he says, “and then they told us we’d be flying to Tampa in a day.” Reyzelman notes that packing on short notice was no problem; after all, he quipped, “I have been living out of a suitcase for the past two years — going from San Francisco [SF Dons of the West Coast Conference] to LSU to Southern California to the Cape Cod League [Harwich Mariners] to LSU to Southern California to Cape Cod!” His mother, chiropractor Victoria Reyzelman, accompanied him and helped him get settled in

Eric Reyzelman

Photo by Chris Parent/Courtesy of Louisiana State University Athletics

Tampa. He says he works out daily from 8:30 a.m. until mid-afternoon. Reyzelman and the 20 other players drafted by the Yankees will continue training at the southern facilities. “There are a ton of options to get some innings in,” says Reyzelman, who doesn’t yet know how he will spend the rest of the season. He may remain in Tampa and play in the rookie league; he may play for the Tampa Tarpons, the Minor League Baseball team and Single-A affiliate of the Yankees; or for the Hudson Valley Renegades in Fishkill, N.Y., the High-A affiliate.

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Reyzelman being drafted by the Yankees is especially impressive given some of the obstacles he encountered growing up. He was cut from his high school team twice, and underwent and recovered from Tommy John (ulnar collateral ligament) surgery. He grew up a San Francisco Giants fan, watching multiple Cy Young Award winner Tim Lincecum pitch. While Reyzelman enjoyed watching games, he acknowledges that “the eighth and ninth innings were the parts of the game with the most action!” Given his interest in late-game excitement, Reyzelman also loved watching Yankees closer Mariano Rivera. He also liked watching Yankee CC Sabathia pitch. “It was an unbelievable group!” he gushes. The 21-year-old knows what a big deal it is to join the legendary organization and can’t wait to actually wear pinstripes. “It is an unbelievable, indiscernible feeling knowing their rich history and the number of fans they have everywhere. You say ‘Yankees’ all over the world and ears perk up. It is crazy to think I am part of this incredible organization!” Still, Reyzelman is quick to note that his older 6-foot 5-inch, 250-pound football-playing (formerly a player at Fresno State University) brother is the “true athlete of the family.” He is also proud of his 13-year-old brother who is “obsessed with baseball.” His parents and grandparents are relatively new arrivals on the baseball scene. While his father, Alex Reyzelman, a podiatrist, came to the United States from Moldova as a child, his mother, Victoria, a chiropractor, came to America from Ukraine (via Italy) in 1989. “My mother was here with me from the time of the signing until now; she just went back home,” he says. “My parents love it. We talk every day, and my dad loves getting updates.” He notes that his grandparents are also enthusiastic supporters, despite arriving “late to the game,” so to speak “My grandparents got into it when I was at the University of San Francisco [before transferring to LSU]; they started streaming every game,” he says. “Now, my grandmother who came from Moldova knows baseball and asks questions like, ‘Why was this pitcher taken out?!’ ”

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July 2022 • Southern Jewish Life

“We grew up in a pretty strong Jewish family,” reports Reyzelman, who went to Hebrew school and whose family was very active with Chabad of the Tri-Valley in Pleasanton, Calif. — some 38 miles southeast of Oracle Park, home of the San Francisco Giants. He celebrated his bar mitzvah there under the tutelage of Rabbi Raleigh Resnick. “We have made so many friends there and made so many connections. I am pret-

ty sure I could pick up my Torah portion now if I reviewed it a few times!” He credits the rabbi with connecting him to Chabad centers and rabbis in Louisiana, and now in Tampa. “After I transferred to LSU, I was trying to get involved. The rabbi in Baton Rouge went out of his way to make me feel comfortable.” Rabbi Peretz Kazen from Chabad at LSU spoke glowingly of Reyzelman’s Jewish pride, saying “we’ll miss Eric at our Shabbat table, proudly wrapping teffilin on campus, but hey, we may get him back one day as a pro, to up his game at Menorah lighting, to kindle the one at the State Capitol.” At the campus Chanukah celebration on the Parade Grounds this past year, he was honored with lighting the menorah. Jay Johnson, head baseball coach at LSU, is excited about Reyzelman and his future, saying “he is a true testament to work ethic, determination and perseverance. Eric had a terrific season this year for us and is really prepared to have success with the Yankees organization.” The 21-year-old finished three years of college, studying kinesiology at San Francisco and then sports administration at LSU. He’ll be leaving to play professional ball. The coach adds that “he has a Major Leagueready fastball and the ability to add to his arsenal as he works through Minor League Baseball. I believe the best is yet to come for him as a pitcher.” As for Reyzelman, he says he would love to don No. 18 on his Yankees uniform if given the chance: “That would be awesome. It was always lucky in my family and in Judaism, though I am not so big on numbers.” He makes it a point to note that he appreciates the Jewish players who have come before him. He especially admires baseball legend Sandy Koufax. “We all know the story. He definitely has to be one of the biggest. And I didn’t know until recently that Ian Kinsler [MLB legend and current Team Israel manager] is Jewish!” Reyzelman has been following Team Israel and has watched (and re-watched) the 86-minute documentary about them called “Heading Home: The Tale of Team Israel.” He says, “I know the whole team from the documentary,” and adds that he would welcome the opportunity to play for Israel’s baseball team — in fact, “I am trying to get it set up for next year.” He also acknowledges that he would be eligible to play in the World Baseball Classic qualifiers but would need to become a citizen of Israel to potentially play in the Olympics. Peter Kurz, general manager of Israel’s Olympic and National teams, replies that he would be thrilled to see Reyzelman one day wearing the blue and white. He is also delighted to see him playing in New York — sort of. He notes dryly, “as a Mets fan, he should be going to Queens…”

Museum of the Southern Jewish Experience Celebrates First Year with Expansion Announcement Opening celebration finally held after Covid delay A year after opening, the Museum of the Southern Jewish Experience was finally able to have its celebration. But the delay also meant that with a successful year under its belt, the New Orleans institution was able to announce an expansion, as it was announced that the museum had exercised an option to take a large space on the third floor of the building on Howard Avenue. The space was the venue for a reception for donors and members on June 11, kicking off the celebration weekend. Jay Tanenbaum, board chair for the museum, said “It’s a testament to the first year success that we felt comfortable already expanding the museum.” The long-awaited museum opened on May 27, 2021, and saw about 9,000 visitors in its first year, with the expectation of the 10,000th visitor toward the end of July. An opening celebration was originally scheduled for October, but a surge in Covid cases forced a postponement. Instead, there was a brief mezuzah hanging ceremony with museum board members. The celebration weekend drew from across the country, in a Southern family reunion. Because of the museum’s history at the Henry S. Jacobs Camp, there was also the flavor of a camp reunion. Board member Janis Rabin welcomed everyone to the opening reception, noting that she had moved back to New Orleans after 50 years, having routinely heard “You’re Jewish and you sound like that?” about her accent. “It’s so good to be surrounded by y’all,” she said. She spoke of visiting her grandparents in Bogalusa, where her grandmother “really taught me what it meant to be a Jewish woman in the South.” Rabin told the crowd, “this is your museum, enjoy it,” noting “what a

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2022-2024 Nomination Slate The Jewish Federation of Greater New Orleans’ Annual Meeting will take place September 14, 2022 at 7:00 p.m. on Zoom. During this brief business meeting, Federation members (defined as being part of a Jewish household and a donor in good standing to the 2022 Annual Campaign) will vote on the nominating slate below. Pursuant to the Jewish Federation of Greater New Orleans ByLaws, Article VI, Section 5, the 2022-2024 Nomination Slate is posted to the membership at large. Additional names for Trustees and Officers may be nominated by petition containing the signatures of at least 50 members of the Federation. Nominations by petition shall be submitted, in writing, to the current Secretary (Marc Behar) at least 30 days before the Annual Meeting. Register now at jewishnola.com/2022annualmeeting.

The Annual Celebration will take place December 7, 2022 at the Jerome S. Glazer Audubon Tea Room. 14

July 2022 • Southern Jewish Life

rich history we have, and how grateful we are to share it and show it to others.” She introduced Tanenbaum, along with vice-chairs Rusty Palmer of San Antonio, originally from Selma; and Morris Mintz of New Orleans, formerly of Monroe. Tanenbaum lives in Atlanta and is from Dumas, Ark., and Rabin spoke of how Tanenbaum signed on to lead the effort for the museum a decade ago, and how “it has been a labor of love for him.” Museum Director Kenneth Hoffman paid tribute to Palmer, Mintz and Tanenbaum, saying the museum’s success “falls squarely on the shoulders of the three men you see up here.” Tanenbaum described the “long journey to get to this point,” from the time when the Institute of Southern Jewish Life, which had spun off from the original Museum of the Southern Jewish Experience, announced in January 2011 that it would be closing its location in Utica, at the Henry S. Jacobs Camp. Macy Hart, who was the longtime director of the camp, started the museum in 1986 after the camp wound up being the repository for historical artifacts from around the region, as small-town congregations closed or downsized. Many ritual items were used by the camp. “We would not have a Museum of the Southern Jewish Experience if not for Macy’s vision” and his understanding that there were so many stories that needed a place to be told, Tanenbaum said. In the 1990s, the museum brought in photographer Bill Aron to chronicle Jewish life in Mississippi, Louisiana and Arkansas, resulting in the first “Shalom Y’all” exhibit. Additional phases were done in Alabama, Tennessee and South Carolina, and a traveling version of the exhibit was developed. The Aron photos are now displayed in a second floor gallery at the current museum. In 1998, an “Alsace to America” exhibit about 19th century Jewish immigration to Mississippi River communities was held in Jackson, and then was permanently installed at the museum. In 2000, Hart established the Institute, which included the museum as part of its activities. But in a rural location at a summer camp, the museum was able to attract only those who were determined to get there. By 2011, “there were better uses for the property at Jacobs Camp, so we started looking for something else, and here we are,” Tanenbaum said, and the Institute spun off the museum into an independent entity. After much deliberation, in 2017 New Orleans was announced as the site for the new museum, and a $10 million campaign was launched.

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Jeff Cohen, Macy Hart and Francine Gertz Lou Jacobs, Deborah Lamensdorf Jacobs, Louise Lamensdorf, Marilyn Lamensdorf

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Bill Aron’s photos on display

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July 2022 • Southern Jewish Life

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One of the first orders of business was to bring Hoffman on board, and he came highly recommended. Tanenbaum recalled, “Macy Hart said to me you have the perfect candidate for the job in New Orleans, and he should be the first call you make.” Hoffman had worked at the National World War II Museum for 18 years, and was the third person hired when that museum was being established. “He really knows how to build a museum,” Tanenbaum said. It wasn’t as if they were meeting for the first time, though. As Hoffman related, “Jay, you taught me how to ride a horse at Jacobs Camp in 1976.” The next big task was to select a designer, and they chose Patrick Gallagher, “the world’s classiest, the world’s best museum design firm.” Their projects include the Sazerac House, College Football Hall of Fame, the Tennessee State Museum, the MAX Monica Edelstein and Kenneth and the Grammy Museum in MissisHoffman sippi, Museum of the Jewish People, National World War II Museum and the Illinois Holocaust Museum. The museum inherited about 4,000 artifacts from the original museum, and in 2019 the collection came out of storage in Mississippi and made its way to New Orleans. “We didn’t want a museum where people just looked at artifacts, we wanted to pull together a story, a lesson, to teach something,” Tanenbaum said. The Southern Jewish story is “a very different story than New York,” he added. In the South, Jews went and lived everywhere and became part of their communities,” instead of living in Jewish enclaves. “They built their communities together with people of other religions and cultures, and that’s a beautiful story we tell… The Jewish experience in the South is demonstrative of the beautiful thing that can happen when people come together.” The museum starts with an introductory video, then the first floor is divided into three main sections. The first describes the waves of immigration and integration into their communities. The middle atrium describes Jewish practices and symbols. The third section is about 20th century topics, from the Holocaust and the establishment of Israel, to the civil rights era and the decline of many small-town communities. The role of summer camp in building community is also highlighted, including a display of Southern Jewish couples who originally met at camp. The celebration weekend included a jazz brunch at the New Orleans Culinary and Hospitality Institute, across from the museum, on June 12. The brunch had a traditional Southern flair, with blackberry rugelach, pecan pie, grits and a display of biscuits next to a supply of shmura matzah. An open house followed at the museum, with visitors touring the exhibits and enjoying crafts, music and food trucks in the parking area next door with games including matzah ball gumbo cornhole, and pin the hat on Willie Sklar, who was mayor of Louise, Miss., for 24 years. Tanenbaum reflected, “When we set out to create a new museum, our vision was much smaller… as we found out there was wide support and encouragement, the vision expanded,” and “we have ended up with something beyond what we could have imagined five or six years ago.” Now, the board will determine how to utilize the additional space. They won’t have to scramble for material — of the museum’s 4,000 artifacts, only around 100 are currently displayed. “There’s a lot more material to work with,” he said. The museum is open daily except for Tuesdays, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. The museum is also closed on New Year’s, Mardi Gras, Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, Thanksgiving and Dec. 25.

Photos courtesy Aaron Braunstein/Israel Consulate

Or Moshe and Shir Cohen celebrate their kickboxing gold medal victories at Boutwell Auditorium in Birmingham on July 14

Israel has “historic” Top 15 finish at 2002 World Games First-ever gold medals and first-ever team competitions part of memorable visit for large Israeli delegation Despite a final two days of podium near misses by Israeli athletes competing in acrobatic gymnastics and wakeboarding at the 2022 World Games in Birmingham, the leader of the Israeli delegation was “speechless” at how well the delegation did overall. Israel came in 11th overall in gold medals at the World Games with seven, just ahead of Spain and Great Britain, and just behind China and Colombia. Add three silvers and four bronze medals, and Israel tied for 13th overall with 14 medals, the same number as China and Sweden. Before the 2022 Games, Israel had never won a gold medal, and had only one silver. At the 2017 World Games in Wroclaw, Poland, Israel came in 48th with one silver medal and five bronze medals. Israel had one bronze medal each at the 2013 Games in Cali, Colombia, and the 2009 Games in Kaohsiung, Chinese Taipei. After watching Israel’s final event in the World Games on July 17, where Nili Block won silver in women’s 60kg Muay Thai, Ayelet CEO Arik Kaplan marveled, “in my best dreams, I never dreamed we would be in the first 15 countries.” Ayelet is the Federation of Non-Olympic Competitive Sports in Israel and is in charge of the World Games delegation. The World Games consists of sports that are not in the Olympics, though some had been in the Olympics before, while others are expected to be approved in the coming years. Kaplan said the World Games results show the wide range of world

championship-caliber athletes in Israel, and he hopes to attract more support in Israel for the athletes, and from donors around the world. “We represent Israel just like any other sport, but unfortunately the support we get is less,” he said. Despite a relative lack of resources, “we are doing a great job, with amazing coaches, with amazing athletes, and it is very difficult to do, send them around the world, give them scholarships” and everything else they need to compete at the highest level. The World Games began on July 7, with 3,500 athletes from over 100 countries. Block lost in the Muay Thai finals to Charlsey Maner of the United States, 30-27, as the spirited Israeli delegation at Boutwell Auditorium held its own in the face of a loud hometown crowd. On July 16, Block won the semifinal against Niamh Charlotte Kinehan of Great Britain, 30-27, and she defeated Ewin Ates of Sweden on July 15 in the quarterfinals, 30-27. In men’s 71kg Muay Thai, Itai Gershon was eliminated in the quarterfinals by Thailand’s Thanet Nitutorn, 30-27. Nitutorn would go on to win the gold. Daria Atamanov started the medals parade for Israel on July 12, with two gold and one silver in the four rhythmic gymnastics events. Kickboxers Shir Cohen and Or Moshe won gold in their respective divisions on July 13. The flurry of medals came on July 15, with Israel scoring five medals in Jiu-Jitsu — two gold, one silver and two bronze — along with a bronze in July 2022 • Southern Jewish Life

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acrobatic gymnastics. In men’s 77kg Ne-Waza, Nimrod Ryeder won the gold medal over Ali Munfaredi of Bahrain, 3-0. Further making it an Abraham Accords match, the mat referee was Obaid Kamis Ali Saeed Alkaabi of United Arab Emirates. Meshy Rosenfeld won gold in the women’s 57kg division, defeating Galina Duvanova of Kazakhstan, in a referee decision following a 0-0 score. She had defeated Duvanova in the pool round, 18-0. In the final match of the day, Rony Nisimian took silver in women’s 63kg Ne-Waza, losing the gold medal bout to Slovenia’s Maja Povsanar, 14-0. In the men’s 69kg Ne-Waza competition, Viki Dabush won the bronze medal, defeating Valentin Blumental of France, 4-0. Saar Shemesh received the bronze medal in men’s 85kg Ne-Waza by “walkover,” as there was no opponent for the bronze medal match. The semifinal match between Maciej Kozak of Poland and Bader al-Kuzai of Jordan did not take place, as Kozak did not show and al-Kuzai “refused to compete,” according to the announcers. The Jordanian delegation reportedly was protesting a referee decision in the earlier match between al-Kuzai and Faisal Alketbi of the United Arab Emirates, which was scored 0-0 but went to Alketbi by advantages. In the second day of Jiu-Jitsu, Rosenfeld won the women’s open Ne-Waza gold medal, defeating Bogdana Golub of Ukraine, 2-0. In the semifinals, she had defeated Galina Duvanova of Kazakhstan, 2-2, by referee decision. In the quarterfinals, she lost to Shamma Alkalbani of United Arab Emirates, 2-0, and defeated Tainara Weidgenand of the United States,

Anastasia Chiriliuc doing one of her Wushu routines 18

July 2022 • Southern Jewish Life

world games 14-0. Saar Shemesh won his second bronze, as Mohamed Alamri of United Arab Emirates withdrew in the men’s open Ne-Waza bronze match. Shemesh lost to UAE’s Faisal Alketbi in the semifinals, 0-0, on advantages. In the quarterfinals, Shemesh defeated Elioenai de Abreu Campos of the United States, 6-0, and UAE’s Mohamed Alsuwaidi, 14-0. Israel was one of four teams that withdrew from the 12-team mixed national competition after the individual matches. In acrobatic gymnastics, Israel reached the finals each day, as four teams moved on from the qualifying rounds, but managed just one bronze medal, in mixed pairs on July 15. Adi Horwitz and Meron Weissman placed third in the finals, behind Belgium and Germany, after qualifying second overall with a second place finish in dynamic exercise and third in balance. In women’s groups on July 16, Nikol Aleinik, Meshi Hurvitz and Inbal Zeitounei finished fourth in the finals. In the qualifying rounds, they were second in balance and third in dynamic, for second overall. In men’s groups, Israelis Hen Banuz, Lior Borodin, Amir Daus and Tomer Offir placed fourth in the finals on July 17. During the qualifying rounds, the Israeli men finished third in balance and first in dynamic, placing second overall. In men’s wakeboard freestyle, Guy Firer placed third in the semifinals to qualify for the top six in the finals, but finished fourth on July 16. In sport climbing, Nimrod Marcus placed sixth in the men’s boulder final. He had placed third in the qualification round, where six of 11 athletes advanced. Ayala Kerem placed sixth in the women’s boulder final. She had placed fourth in qualifying to advance to the top six out of 12. In Wushu, Anastasia Chiriliuc placed fifth in the five-person field for women’s Taolu Jianshu, and fourth in Qiangshu, for a fifth place overall finish.

Liana Odikadze and Alexey Korobchenko competed in Latin DanceSport July 2022 • Southern Jewish Life

world games Liana Odikadze and Alexey Korobchenko did not advance to the semifinals in DanceSport on July 8, placing 16th in a field of 20 couples in the Latin competition. This was the first World Games where Israel had team competitions, having qualified for the eight-team men’s and women’s lacrosse tournaments. The World Games marked the debut of the new sixes format for lacrosse, played on a smaller field with six per side and a 30-second shot clock. The Israeli women finished fifth, defeating Japan 13-12 in their final game on July 15, giving them their highest-ever world ranking. The team received a lot of local attention as Olivia Mannon, who grew up in Birmingham and played lacrosse in high school, was a member of Team Israel. Mannon said being able to represent Israel and play lacrosse in her hometown was “like a fever dream,” and she played “the game of my life” in the fifth-place game, with the traditional defender scoring three goals, including a game-tying goal late in the fourth quarter. The men’s team notched their first international win in the new lacrosse sixes format, defeating Japan in a come-from-behind 21-20 overtime win to start the tournament, but that would be their last win as they came in eighth. Regardless of the results, Jacob Silberlicht said it was a privilege to put on the Israeli uniform and play “for all the kids in Israel who have ever picked up a lacrosse stick… Arab, Jew, Muslim or Christian,” many of whom are from underprivileged communities. Kaplan said the 2022 World Games were “an amazing achievement for Israel, for Ayelet Federation, to make history.” Now, attention turns to the 2025 Games in Chengdu, China, and at least matching the achievements from 2022. Particularly memorable for Kaplan was an evening that was coordinated by all the synagogues and Jewish institutions in Birmingham, so the Jewish community could meet the athletes. The event was held at Temple Beth-El on July 14. “They showed how much they care about Israel, how much they care about our athletes. It was very moving.” But most memorable, he said, was hearing Israel’s national anthem, “Hatikvah,” played in venues around Birmingham during gold medal ceremonies. “Always, when there is Hatikvah, I am crying… it is a dream come true.”

A changing world: When Moroccan athletes wanted a photo celebrating after their medal ceremony in Muay Thai, a member of the Israeli delegation was happy to help. 20

July 2022 • Southern Jewish Life

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Activist waves Palestinian flag next to Israeli delegation during opening As Israel’s delegation marched into the 2022 World Games opening ceremony on July 7 in Birmingham, there was an unexpected intrusion as an activist who was a volunteer for the Games was able to get next to the team and march next to them waving a Palestinian flag for several seconds. Jeff Emerson, a spokesperson for the World Games, said “this behavior is not in accordance with the training all volunteers have gone through to show respect to our guests, and this volunteer was immediately removed from the volunteer program. The World Games 2022 has apologized for this incident to the Israeli Consul General Anat Sultan-Dadon and apologizes to the delegation from Israel.” In an Instagram post, Hekmat Aboukhater, a Syrian living in Birmingham, said he was “about to piss off some people.” In the post, which started in the room where the delegation flags were held, he noted that Ghana had to drop out of the Games, so he was going to take advantage of the opportunity. “I hope you’re happy your pole is now bearing the Palestinian flag,” he said to the Ghana delegation in his post. He then apparently hid in the bathroom with the Palestinian flag until it was time to go to the parade of nations, and made his way next to the Israelis. As Israel was announced, he started waving the Palestinian flag in front of the Israeli flag, then noted “I got kicked out.” He added “Peace for the Palestinians” and the name of Shireen Abu Akleh, an Al Jazeera journalist who was killed in the crossfire on May 11 as Israel did anti-terrorism raids in Jenin. Palestinian activists have accused Israel of targeting the journalist intentionally, but it is still inconclusive as to which side fired the fatal shot. Aboukhater said he waved the flag for “freedom and peace for the Palestinians,” and claimed that Israel was trying to ban the raising of the Palestinian flag “in Israel and occupied Palestine,” and he wanted to show “the Palestinian flag will always have a place on American soil.” According to his LinkedIn profile, he is a 2020 graduate of Boston College now living in Birmingham, and a Venture for America Fellow. All volunteers for the World Games had to be vetted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The World Games was given a level one Special Event Assessment Rating, making it on par with events like the Super Bowl and providing security resources from the FBI and Department of Homeland Security, among others. Security is always of particular concern to Israel, given that 11 members of Israel’s Olympics team were murdered by Palestinian terrorists at the 1972 Olympics in Munich. Arik Kaplan, president of Ayelet, the Federation of Non Olympic Sport in Israel, said this “should not have happened, and in another situation it could have ended in a much more unfortunate way.” Nevertheless, he noted that the Israeli delegation was received “with applause and great love” when they entered the stadium, receiving one of the louder ovations of the evening. Kaplan also said that one of the Israeli coaches who is an Arab Christian, who had not yet arrived at the Games, saw the footage from the ceremony and “felt insulted.” Sultan-Dadon said that “no provocative attempt will diminish our pride.”

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July 2022 • Southern Jewish Life

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World Games Birmingham Organizing Committee CEO Nick Sellars, Birmingham Mayor Randall Woodfin, Israel Deputy Consul General Alex Gandler, United Arab Emirates National Olympic Committee Acting General Secretary Azza Sulaiman, Moroccan Political Counselor Fatima Zahra Aboulfaraj and Bahrain Trade Representative Rose Sager receive proclamations at the dedication of the Abraham Accords tree site in Birmingham.

Birmingham honors Abraham Accords nations with “Peace Tree” dedication The 2022 World Games in Birmingham have been promoted with the slogan of “witness history” in a city that has come together after being a flashpoint of the seemingly intractable civil rights struggle in the early 1960s, so a July 14 ceremony dedicating a “peace tree” with the Abraham Accords countries in the Middle East was seen as a fitting tribute. Representatives of Israel, Bahrain, United Arab Emirates and Morocco were on hand for the early morning ceremony at Marconi Park in downtown Birmingham, along with officials of the World Games and the city. Mayor Randall Woodfin said the spirit of the World Games over the previous week “has been one of unity and peace,” and “today we solidify that message. Birmingham is honored to be home to this tree, planted by four countries that happily can call themselves friends.” The idea for the ceremony came several months ago as representatives from the Israeli Consulate in Atlanta met with World Games officials to plan their involvement in the festivities. Kathy Boswell, vice president of community engagement for the World Games, said as Aaron Braunstein with the Consulate was describing the Abraham Accords, it resonated with the local organizers because of Birmingham’s history as a civil rights battleground. There were themes of “coexistence, dignity, cooperation, diversity and respect — but most of all, it was a vision of peace.” In both cases, she said, it was “people willing to find a solution, to make the greater good move forward.” Nick Sellars, CEO of the Birmingham Organizing Committee, said “our city, as you well know, has had our fair share of moments of challenge and struggles, much like our friends and partners here today… but when we see these athletes on the field competing and committed to something bigger than their own self interest, there is so much we can learn from that, because the past does not have to equal the future.” He added, “Peace is so fragile, it has to be committed to every day.” Azza Sulaiman, acting general secretary of the United Arab Emirates National Olympic Committee, thanked Birmingham for hosting the

world games event and the World Games, saying “we believe that when we stand together, we move together, there are rewards for everyone, for peace.” Rose Sager, trade representative from Bahrain, spoke of how King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa issued a declaration in 2017 promoting religious freedom and tolerance. “Bahrain has always had religious coexistence,” she said, and she is part of the island nation’s small Jewish community. The Abraham Accords came about because of leadership that was thinking ahead, she said, and while it should not have come as a surprise, it was still a “miraculous move.” The Accords will encourage “not only peace but prosperity, trade, education, cultural exchanges, business exchanges, hopefully trade exchanges from Birmingham,” Sager said. “It won’t be a problem, we have the same weather you do.” Fatima Zahra Aboulfaraj, political counselor for the Moroccan embassy in Washington, called it “a very joyful day, allowing us to renew our commitment for peace, the normalization of relations between Morocco and Israel is indeed a historic event.” She added that Morocco “will always contribute to regional peace and stability.” Alex Gandler, Israel’s deputy consul general in Atlanta, noted that President Joe Biden had just arrived in Israel to promote “further peace across the Middle East between nations that several years ago, we could not have imagined would be speaking to each other, but now we are embracing each other.” In Birmingham, “the city of peace,” Gandler said, “we stand together,

Moroccan, Bahraini, Emirati and Israeli, to tell you all that peace is possible. It is achievable, and it is so sweet.” He pointed out that the logo for the event and for the tree consists of the four nations’ flags connected in the image of a thumbprint, “a symbol that truly humanizes the term ‘people to people diplomacy’.” He concluded, “May the message of unity and harmony resonate far and wide.” The actual tree planting was not part of the event, as it is difficult to successfully plant a tree during the heat of the summer. The tree, which will be a fruit tree, will be planted in the fall. The Jones Valley Teaching Farm next to the park will be responsible for maintaining the tree, and will use it as part of its educational curriculum. The farm hosted the mid-week athletes’ party the night before the tree ceremony. Noting that Birmingham will host the International Peace Conference in May 2023, Woodfin said “this tree will stand tall as a bond between all countries,” and read a proclamation declaring July 14 as Abraham Accords Day in Birmingham. This is not the first time that Israeli diplomacy has been recognized in Birmingham. In 2005, the city of Birmingham officially established sister city ties with Rosh Ha’Ayin in Israel and al-Karak in Jordan. The three-way signing ceremony was held at Kelly Ingram Park, the site of civil rights demonstrations in 1963, now known as “A Place of Revolution and Reconciliation.” Kelly Ingram Park also has an Anne Frank Tree that was dedicated in 2010, though it is not one of the official saplings from Amsterdam.

July 2022 • Southern Jewish Life

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First to Sign On July 9, Israel’s Ayelet Federation of Non-Olympic Sport signed an historic agreement with the International World Games Association. The Memorandum of Understanding will have Ayelet and IWGA “work more closely” to promote non-Olympic sports in Israel, with greater direct involvement with the individual sports federations under the Ayelet umbrella, Ayelet CEO Arik Kaplan said. This is part of an effort to promote non-Olympic sports around the world, and it is expected that many more countries will be signing similar agreements. “We are the first country and first organization to sign,” Kaplan said. “This is a great honor for the State of Israel and Ayelet.” The agreement was signed by Kaplan and IWGA President Jose Perurena Lopez.

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Bahrain Trade Representative Rose Sager and Alabama-Israel Task Force Co-Chair Laura King of Huntsville light Shabbat candles together at Birmingham’s Temple Beth-El on July 15, at a dinner sponsored by the Consulate General of Israel in Atlanta, in celebration of the World Games.

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Iran’s karate team did not compete in the World Games in Birmingham after the United States refused their visa applications, according to Fox News, which reported on an article in the Iranian Student News Agency, which is controlled by the Iranian government. The team has “direct links” to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, which is designated as a terrorist organization by the U.S. State Department, as it supports and supplies numerous jihadist terror organizations around the world. Iranian terror-linked organizations are responsible for over 600 American military deaths in the Middle East, Fox News reported, and quoted Beverly Wolfer, sister of Maj. Stuart Adam Wolfer, who was killed in Iraq in 2008 by an Iranian-backed terror cell. “Allowing Iranian sports teams to compete in the U.S. legitimizes a terrorist regime by flying its flag and playing its anthem on American soil. Ignoring their chants of ‘Death to America,’ signing a nuclear deal which immunizes the IRGC for damages stemming from their terrorist acts, and enabling their athletes to compete on U.S. soil are slaps in the face to America’s Gold Star Families,” she said. They reported that the karate team members’ links with the IRGC were first revealed by Sardar Pashaei, an Iranian-American who used to coach the Iranian national Greco-Roman wrestling team. He told Fox News Digital “In Iran, they are saying, ‘Death to America and Israel,’ but at the same time they are applying for American visas.” The head of the karate team, Zabihullah Poursheib, told ISNA that this was American “revenge” and injecting political issues into sports. Iran has a long history of throwing competitions or simply withdrawing rather than run the risk of facing an Israeli athlete, and some international sports groups have sanctioned Iran for being unwilling to compete. Iran has been working on developing a nuclear bomb and routinely threatens to eradicate Israel with it. Iran also fights Israel through proxy wars by Hamas and Hezbollah, and Israel has been working to ensure that Iran does not get a military foothold in Syria. As an example, an Iranian athlete withdrew his participation in an international jiu-jitsu competition in the United Arab Emirates to avoid facing an opponent from Israel, Iran’s Press TV reported. Hamid Amraei was originally scheduled to go head-to-head against a competitor from Brazil in the men’s 77-kilogram weight class in the AJP Tour Fujairah International Pro Jiu-Jitsu Championship, which took place in the UAE from July 2 to 3. However, officials changed the draw, and he was matched to go against an Israeli competitor. In protest of the decision, Amraei decided to pull out of the international tournament to avoid competing against the Israeli athlete, according to Press TV. Earlier this year, Iranian Wrestling Federation head Alireza Dabir and others were denied U.S. visas for a competition in Texas. Dabir has called for the violent destruction of America and praises General Qassem Soleimani, who was the head of the IRGC’s elite Quds Force and a major coordinator of regional terror efforts until he was killed in a U.S. drone strike in Iraq in 2020. Pashaei said Karate Federation head Seyyad Hassan Tabatabaei called Soleimani the “shining sun of karate,” and Tabatabaei calls himself a member of the Basij and wants to see more involvement by athletes in the Basij. The Basij is a paramilitary group used by the Khamenei regime to suppress dissent and protest in Iran. (With JNS reports regarding the jiu-jitsu competition)

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community Two Shinshinim from Rosh Ha’Ayin coming to Birmingham for the year

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For the next year, Birmingham will host two young adults from Israel as part of the Shinshinim program. On Aug. 21, Zohar Shemesh and Maayan Elisha will arrive in the community as emissaries. Both are from Birmingham’s sister city in Israel, Rosh Ha’Ayin. Shinshinim is a “year of service program” coordinated by the Jewish Agency for Israel that offers Israeli high school graduates an opportunity to delay mandatory service in the Israel Defense Forces and serve Diaspora communities for up to 10 months. The program allows communities to meet young Israeli ambassadors who perform meaningful service prior to entering the army. A growing program, the number of Shinshinim in Jewish communities more than quadrupled over the last decade. The name comes from shinim shinshin, an acronym for shenat sherut, “year of service.” Anat Sultan-Dadon, Israel’s consul general to the Southeast, said Shinshinim is “one of the most important programs a community can do.” The young adults bring Israel to the community, “but going back to Israel, they also take back with them what the Jewish community here is about… they promote understanding both in the United States and in Israel.” Shemesh and Elisha will provide innovative Israeli educational programs throughout the community. They will be informal educators and facilitators for community organizations and agencies, including the synagogues, youth groups, the N.E. Miles Jewish Day School and other schools, and the Levite Jewish Community Center. They will share Israeli culture, Jewish celebrations and contemporary life in Israel. While in Birmingham, they will each rely on home hospitality from host families. They will have their own phones, a car and a financial stipend from community agencies. Elisha concentrated on physics and computers in high school. She has been in the scouts since the age of 10, serving as a counselor for several grade levels. She has two older brothers and her parents have a company that does programs for team guidance workshops. Shemesh majored in biology in high school, and switched from biotechnology to psychology and sociology. The youngest of four siblings, her mother is originally from Uruguay and immigrated to Israel at the age of four, and is a teacher. Her father is CEO of an international software company he started. They went through a highly-selective process to become the Shinshinim for Birmingham.

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L’Chaim celebrates new name, new center A lot of changes will be celebrated when the annual L’Chaim event takes place on Sept. 18, benefiting Holocaust education in Alabama. For starters, the organization’s name has changed. The Birmingham Holocaust Education Center has become the Alabama Holocaust Education Center, reflecting its statewide role in promoting Holocaust education. A new executive director will be in place for the September event, and the agency will also be celebrating its new center, located at Temple Emanu-El in the space that formerly housed the Discovery School, which closed in 2020. The fundraising event, which will be at 3 p.m. at Birmingham’s Red Mountain Theatre, will also honor those who had prominent roles in the 2018 Violins of Hope programs in Birmingham. Niv Ashkenazi, violinist and former student of Itzhak Perlman, will perform on one of the violins from the Violins of Hope collection. At first, Amnon Weinstein, a third-generation violin maker in Israel, was reluctant to work on violins that had survived the Holocaust. In 1996, as he started training his son, Avshalom, he agreed to restore one that had been played in the concentration camps. The Weinsteins formed Violins of Hope, and have restored dozens of violins with the idea that they would be used in performances, giving voice to their owners, many of whom did not survive. The agency’s new 8,300-square-foot facility will be an education center, to hold programs and welcome guests and groups. It is double the size of the previous facility, at the former Bayer Properties office, and slightly smaller than the pre-expansion size of the Museum of the Southern Jewish Experience in New Orleans (story, page 13). The lobby will hold an exhibit on the robust Jewish life in Europe before the Holocaust, using images, video and archival material from the 173 survivors who are known to have settled in Alabama after the Holocaust. There will be two permanent exhibits. “Darkness Into Life” tells the stories of 20 Alabamians who survived the Holocaust, through the modern-day photographs of Becky Seitel and paintings by Mitzi Levin portraying their pre-war stories. A traveling version has been exhibited in venues throughout the state. The second permanent exhibit is Holocaust-themed paintings by Israeli artist David Boskovich. There will also be installations honoring servicemen and women from Alabama who lost their lives in World War II, and one honoring Alabamians who liberated the concentration camps. The research library holds over 3,000 volumes, making it the largest Holocaust library in the Southeast. A climate-controlled archive holds about 8,000 artifacts and documents. David Silverstein, vice president of development for AHEC, said the new center will allow the agency “to be more accessible to the public as it furthers its mission of educating the people of Alabama about the impact of extremism and the lived experience of antisemitism.” The agency holds several teacher workshops throughout the year, and over 1,600 teachers already have been trained in Holocaust education.

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Over 120 teachers have received scholarships to study at seminars in Washington and Europe. Over 400 groups of students have heard from local Holocaust survivors or second-generation survivors. A community-wide Holocaust commemoration is also held every April, and a “Holocaust in Film” series is screened. This year’s L’Chaim honorees are Sallie Downs, Kay Donnellan, Henry Panion III and the Weinsteins. In 2018, they spearheaded four days of Violins of Hope concerts and educational events. A central event was a concert at Sixteenth Street Baptist Church, where four girls were killed in a Klan bombing in 1963. The concert featured the premiere of Panion’s composition, “Dreams of Hope for Solo Violin and Orchestra,” and was filmed for an award-winning documentary, “Dreams of Hope,” that aired on public television stations nationally. Downs spearheaded the effort to bring the violins to Birmingham, visiting the Weinsteins in Israel. Donnellan was co-coordinator for the Birmingham events, having seen a “60 Minutes” piece on the violins. She was determined to see the violins come to Birmingham, and discovered that Downs was also working on it. A two-time Grammy winner, Panion is a composer, arranger, conductor and a music professor at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. His most recent work was as artistic director for the opening and closing ceremonies of the World Games in Birmingham, for which he composed “Hope of Alabama.” Ashkenazi has made several Carnegie Hall and Kennedy Center appearances, and has performed in Europe, the Middle East, and across North America. His debut album, “Niv Ashkenazi: Violins of Hope,” the first solo album recorded on one of the Violins of Hope, was released in March 2020 on Albany Records, and he is the only musician with a long-term loan of one of the violins. His album has received international critical acclaim and was named one of the 10 best classical recordings of 2020 by the Chicago Tribune. A Juilliard graduate, he serves on the professional advisory board of Inclusion Matters by Shane’s Inspiration, a global nonprofit organization dedicated to building inclusive playgrounds, and formerly served on the board of the Los Angeles Youth Orchestra. The violin Ashkenazi will play is one of the Klezmer violins from the collection. It was one of the first that Amnon Weinstein restored, and little is known about its background. It has an inlay Star of David on the back. Tickets are $50, $36 for ages 40 and under. Sponsorships start at $250 and go up to $20,000. Tickets are available from Red Mountain Theatre, or online at aheclchaim.swell.gives.

community Contentious school issues spill over into Mountain Brook council election Passionate controversies from the summer of 2021 have spilled over into the normally-serene Mountain Brook City Council elections, as a slate of three challengers takes on what they are portraying as the establishment. Three of the council’s five seats are up for election on Aug. 23. Billy Pritchard and Lloyd Shelton are running for re-election, and Alice Womack decided to retire. Graham Smith is running for the open seat. A slate of three candidates, some linked to the MB Families group that got the Anti-Defamation League’s curriculum ejected from the school system last summer, is challenging the incumbents. Tate Davis is running against Shelton, Chris Powanda is challenging Smith, and Kent Osband is running against Pritchard. Osband is a member of Temple Emanu-El and was publicly critical of the ADL last year, saying it was not being transparent about its curriculum, which has been used to teach tolerance in schools nationally for decades. After a May 2020 video of students drawing swastikas on another student went viral, a diversity committee was formed to address longstanding issues of antisemitism in Mountain Brook schools. A plan was established to introduce the ADL’s No Place for Hate curriculum, and do teacher training on diversity. In June 2021, a new group, MB Families, suddenly emerged to express concerns over the ADL training, accusing the ADL of being partisan and extreme. The arguments were made with the backdrop over national controversies about critical race theory, and the growing tendency in some schools to categorize students into various groups, some of which are privileged and some of which are oppressed by the privileged. A booklet distributed by MB Families led to contentious public meetings with some accusing the city of trying to ignore the long-standing problems of prejudice and harassment in the schools, while others demanded that the city apologize for the “damage” done by the ADL training. While the school system said it would develop its own training to deal with the issue, it was soon overshadowed by the question of when and how the schools would reopen at the end of the summer due to Covid, and another bruising ideological battle over requiring masks in classrooms. The passion and division of last summer’s battles was rekindled with news of the three “opposition” candidates running. The city council appoints members of the school board, and that has become one of the defining issues in the race. Noting that the election has been a major top-

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community ic in the community, Rabbi Adam Wright of Temple Emanu-El said the job of Jewish leaders is “to diffuse the tension” and encourage everyone to not engage in Sinat Chinam, baseless hatred that can come from political passion, regardless of one’s political leaning. A widely-circulated email by Ralph Yielding referred to the three as the “Grievance Opposition Candidates,” and a flyer circulating on social media comparing the candidates has photos of the incumbents and Smith, while instead of photos of the three “opposition” candidates there are images of some of the Jan. 6 Washington rioters. While the rhetoric has heated up, Osband says he wants to be a “conscientious objector to the culture war” and urges everyone to “calm down. There are so many real big issues to worry about.” Osband says he is running to make Mountain Brook schools among the best in the nation, not just in the top 200. He compares Mountain Brook schools being the best in Alabama with being the best football team in Vermont, and says that the eighth-wealthiest community in America should have one of the top 20 school systems. Rather than just looking at other public schools, Mountain Brook should be comparing itself to places like Indian Springs or Highlands Day, local private schools with national reputations for excellence. He said the school board should be directly elected rather than appointed, to add accountability and transparency. One lack of transparency and accountability, he said, was the delay in reopening Mountain Brook schools. Parents pay high taxes to support the schools, yet they remained closed during Covid while area private schools were open, and opened later than other over-the-mountain systems. The ADL controversy was also about transparency, he said. If the ADL curriculum “is worth teaching the kids, why isn’t it worth teaching the parents? You have to trust parents as partners.”

July 2022 • Southern Jewish Life

And parents have lessons to learn, he said. “We have to treat each other with respect,” and “I want to extend that culture to community political differences.” Osband said he was “extremely left” in his youth, but as he was exposed to Soviet-style economies he had a “disillusioning” enlightenment. He also noted that the second-most antisemitic regime in Europe after Nazi Germany was the Soviet Union. He said America has the challenge of coming together with such a wide diversity of thought. “We need things to bring us together,” which until recently included things like the flag and Independence Day. He said the best way to form an in-group has been to find an out-group, and “we Jews know that too painfully.” After the Soviet Union fell, “we started picking on each other” and now “nearly 100 percent of Americans think 50 percent of Americans are crazy. This is very dangerous.” Often, antisemitic incidents in schools aren’t from some innate bias, “it’s just that middle schoolers are mean and trying to form an in-group” through identifying an out-group, and there are many types of groups that can serve that purpose. “Let’s be against bullying,” Osband said, and “focus on just plain ol’ manners.” The emphasis should be on teaching critical thinking skills, not a left or right ideology. He said many in the Jewish community have told him that they will not support his candidacy, and he says that’s fine. “I am not claiming to be the Jewish candidate… but I am inspired by what I think are some great Jewish traditions.” He added that transparency, accountability and non-partisanship “serves the interests of local Jews.” “If I lose,” he said, “I want to go out the same way I came in — fired with enthusiasm.”

community >> Agenda will hold a JMSO Shabbat dinner on Aug. 19 at the home of Rabbi Yochanan Rivkin. Shabbat services will be at 7 p.m., with the dinner at 7:30 p.m. One need not be in medical school to attend. B’nai Israel in Pensacola will hold a Lebanese Shabbat dinner, Aug. 26 at 6 p.m., with services following at 7 p.m. Dinner reservations are $25. Emerald Coast Chabad in Destin continues its 30A series with a bonfire at the beach, Aug. 21 at 5:30 p.m. Location will be given with a reservation. Liam Smokey, a Birmingham native and N.E. Miles Jewish Day School alumnus, will speak about his experiences as a Lone Soldier, one with no family in Israel to support him. He is a paratrooper in the Israel Defense Forces. The program will be at Bais Ariel Chabad in Birmingham, Aug. 17 at 7 p.m. Temple Beth El in Pensacola will have its first Jews Who Cook fundraiser, to support the congregation’s Brotherhood and Sisterhood. The Aug. 20 event will feature chefs competing in four categories — entrees, appetizers, sides and desserts. Each chef will have a tip jar, and the chef with the most tips in each division wins. Tickets are $50 before Aug. 15, $60 at the door, and there will be a cash bar. The event is from 6 to 9 p.m. During the 6 p.m. Shabbat service at B’nai Israel in Monroe on Aug. 19, four new members of the Jewish community by conversion will be officially welcomed by the congregation.

continued from page 8 The Goldring/Woldenberg Institute of Southern Jewish Life will have a virtual live concert by Lapidus & Myles, Aug. 11 at 7 p.m. Lapidus is the composer-in-residence at The Temple in Atlanta, and Myles is a soloist in the Historic Ebenezer Baptist Church choir. They perform music based on their faith traditions and personal stories. Congregations can become event sponsors so their membership can view the performance, or any individual can register for $10. Temple Emanu-El in Birmingham will have a Jacobs Camp Family Reunion for campers, staff, alumni and families, on Aug. 28 from 11:45 a.m. to 12:45 p.m. There will be a brunch, and Jacobs Camp shirts are encouraged. For those new to the Capstone, the University of Alabama Hillel will have a freshman social on Aug. 18, and the welcome back barbecue will be on Aug. 21. Dawn Coleman Lee, Friends of Birmingham Botanical Gardens’ Education Activities Specialist, will lead a Story Walk through the Bruno Vegetable Garden to see the progress of the summer harvest and enjoy the story “Try It! How Frieda Caplan Changed The Way We Eat” by Mara Rockliff. Then registrants will make a crown that displays the new foods “kiwi queen” Caplan marketed. The walks are Aug. 11 at 4:30 p.m. or Aug. 13 at 10 a.m. Auburn’s Beth Shalom will have an outing at Martin Luther King Park on Aug. 20, with schmoozing, games and children’s activities starting at 4:30 p.m. A picnic will begin at 5:30 p.m., followed by dessert and Havdalah at 6:30 p.m.

July 2022 • Southern Jewish Life

community

Shir Chadash honors Rabbi Deborah Silver with British-style tribute After six years of leading the New Orleans area’s only Conservative congregation, Rabbi Deborah Silver was celebrated with a proper sendoff, as Shir Chadash held A Very English Tea with a New Orleans Flavor on June 12 at the Windsor Court Hotel. From the décor to the menu to the music, the event celebrated Silver’s British roots. Tables were adorned with tea roses and early summer blooms in porcelain teapots from Perfect Presentations, silver pom-poms for cheering, and historical quotes about tea. Linda Waknin of Dvash Catering and Rimon at Tulane Hillel prepared finger sandwiches, scones and a selection of British-style sweets, complemented by Pimm’s Cups and milk punch. Singer Meryl Zimmerman, accompanied by pianist Kris Tokarski, presented “Tea for Two,” “A Foggy Day in London Town” and “Do You Know What It Means to Miss New Orleans?” Among the gifts to Rabbi Silver, Julie Finger presented handcrafted sterling silver magnolia earrings, representing the rabbi’s strength. Rabbi Silver presented an original poem, “My Darling New Orleans,” remarking, “To live here, you have to find joy!” A video presentation detailed Silver’s time in Metairie, calling her a “trailblazer” in many areas. She came to Louisiana after six years as an assistant rabbi at Adat Ari El in California, where she began after being ordained by the Ziegler School at the American Jewish University in 2010.

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Above, Nicole Tygier accepts a special gift from Rabbi Deborah Silver for her efforts after Hurricane Ida. Right, Shir Chadash President Peter Title with Sheryl Title

Photos by Donna Matherne

Rabbi Deborah Silver with one of her many gifts, an image of the Sanctuary Scrolls, from the Shir Chadash Sisterhood Before that, she had been in theater and publishing, including a post as the senior English editor of the “Oxford English-Hebrew Dictionary of Current Usage.” She had also been an attorney before moving from England to the United States to pursue the rabbinate. She also serves on the Committee of Jewish Law and Standards for United Synagogue, where she recently was co-author of a new guideline on how to call up non-binary individuals for honors. She is returning to the Los Angeles area, where she has “35 and counting” family members, and envisions teaching and working on projects to serve unmet needs of Jewish adults over the age of 55. In addition to the tributes for Silver, Leron Finger spoke of William David Samuels, a longtime board member of the congregation who died last September at the age of 52. Finger invited guests to pick up the silver pom poms to second line in place in Samuels’ memory, to the tune of “Mardi Gras Mambo.”

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community Building sold, Knesseth Israel moves out

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July 2022 • Southern Jewish Life

After years of uncertainty, Birmingham’s Knesseth Israel is finally moving on to its next chapter, with the sale of the building it has called home for the last 15 years. The congregation is vacating the Overton Road property at the end of the month, following the sale of the building to the city of Mountain Brook. The fire department will be taking over the site. The building became known as the Fred and Brenda Friedman Center for Jewish Life when it was purchased by the Friedmans and Jimmy Filler in 2013 after the bank had forced it to be put on the market due to the size of the outstanding mortgage. Knesseth Israel remained in the building under a special arrangement until it could be resold. The Mountain Brook City Council approved the $2.5 million deal at its June 13 meeting. As part of the deal, the lease to KI is terminated so the city will take over the 18,000 square foot building unencumbered, and KI has the right to remove its personal property. The stained glass window in the sanctuary is specifically mentioned. A lot of fixtures and furniture have been listed for sale online. Knesseth Israel will move into the rabbi’s house, just down the street. President Jack Hasson noted that “a lot of Orthodox congregations across the nation function out of houses, and it’s not unusual.” The congregation is vacating the building at the end of July, and will hold its first service in the house the first weekend in August. The sale puts the finishing touches on a decade-long saga, as the congregation was unable to sustain the new building. There have been several attempts to sell the property over the years, all of which fell through. Hasson said the move is “a blessing in disguise” for the congregation, as it will allow them to focus on their core activities, rather than spending their energy trying to maintain a building it could not afford. As part of the restructuring over the years, the congregation made sure that the rabbi’s house was financially separated from the building, and that it is owned by the congregation, free and clear. The house is listed at 5,736 square feet. The upstairs great room is being set up as a synagogue, and the dining room and breakfast nook will host onegs “and anything we need to do with a large group… it is large enough where we can entertain and do events.” An additional small room will serve as the business office, and the rabbi’s personal living space will be further upstairs. They will also have some storage areas for items the congregation wants to keep for down the road, and for their historical items. “We can go for years like this” in the house, Hasson said. A major benefit is that “our costs have suddenly been reduced tremendously,” such as insurance on the large facility, heating and air conditioning, and maintenance. “All of those things go away,” he said. The congregation will use funds dedicated to maintaining the building “toward programming, bring speakers in and do things to benefit the whole community.” Hasson said “our role is to keep the flame burning for traditional Judaism and modern Orthodox Judaism in Birmingham.” The congregation has around 30 to 40 members, and Hasson said there are a lot more associate members and donors who care about the congregation and want to see a continued Orthodox presence in Birmingham. Throughout the region, Hasson said that kind of support will become more important in the future. “It’s important that everybody think about

community that and support every Jewish institution.”

Long Process Founded in 1892 as the city’s first Orthodox congregation, Knesseth Israel was the last of the city’s congregations to leave the “old neighborhood” on the Northside of downtown Birmingham, moving to Montevallo Road in 1955. In 2004, after years of maintenance issues in structures originally intended to be temporary, the congregation started a rebuilding project, but problems with that property and a lack of affordable housing for young families within walking distance caused them to start looking elsewhere. They voted in December 2005 to move to Overton Road. The congregation, then with 100 member families, raised $5.4 million for the new facility, which was dedicated in 2007. The real estate collapse of 2008 hampered the sale of the Montevallo Road property, which ultimately brought in far less than was anticipated. That, combined with other factors, led to an announcement in the summer of 2012 that there was $3 million still owed to the bank on what had become an $8 million project. The project’s cost exceeded that of two other similar-sized or somewhat larger regional congregations that were built around the same time — Beth Israel in Gulfport and Beth Israel in Metairie, both of which were replacing buildings made unusable by Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath. After negotiations with the bank, in 2012 the KI property was put on the market for $5.5 million. After a year on the market, the “for sale” sign came down as the Friedmans and Filler bought it. As part of the arrangement, Knesseth Israel would remain in the building, which was also made available for other community groups. Temple BethEl used it as an alternate religious school location, and when Collat Jewish Family Services started its CARES program in 2015, it was housed there. In 2016, the property went back onto the market, as KI’s then-president Ken Ehrenberg stated the building had become “a financial burden to its owner.” The congregation had also realized that the expenses of being in such a large facility were also unsustainable, and moving the congregation into the rabbi’s house would help the congregation’s budget. Some in the community wanted other local Jewish institutions to consider purchasing the building. Temple Beth-El did a study, but decided the facility did not meet its needs. With the uncertainty over how long it would take for the building to sell, Beth-El stopped using it as a satellite location, and the CJFS CARES program moved out in 2018. After a couple of sales fell through, in July 2018 the congregation held a meeting at which it was announced that there was a potential buyer and the sale was expected to close that October, but the process was delayed by the process to rezone the property for a medical facility. A petition was started to urge the city to not rezone the property, and in May 2019, the prospective purchaser, Grotting and Cohn Plastic Surgery, officially withdrew the zoning request. Fred Friedman died in December 2020, and Brenda Friedman finalized the sale to the city. Filler said that “It is so important for our community to have an Orthodox presence,” and the sale will also result in KI having some money in the bank. Hasson said that will be paired with other donations so the congregation has “a good jumpstart for down the road,” if they eventually decide to adapt another nearby space into a synagogue. But now, the congregation will “establish ourselves in the house,” and “if we’re functioning well in the house, there is no need to jump and do something” about another location. If there is a local resurgence of Orthodox Judaism or an influx of new families nearby, they will be able to consider alternatives — but if they ever need to move again, “we’re not going to build anything until we have the money in the bank.” “There’s no hurry,” he added.

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counselor’s corner a monthly feature from Collat Jewish Family Services

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My client, Jane, was devastated to learn that her husband, Dave, had Parkinson’s disease. Dave was having difficulty speaking and feeding himself, but Jane knew that as the disease progressed, the symptoms could worsen. Jane was embarrassed by Dave’s symptoms and didn’t want other people to see him that way, so she began making excuses to avoid dinners out with friends. Rather than trusting their friends and accepting their support, Jane and Dave withdrew. And because they withdrew, they had to deal with the progression of Dave’s disease alone. When we face serious health conditions, even those that are normal byproducts of aging, they interfere with our concept of ourselves and our perception of our abilities. This can be frustrating and depressing, and it is tempting to hide these frustrations by hiding our condition. But times like this are exactly when we need our friends and family the most. When life presents challenges, the worst thing we can do is pull back from our support network and community. After we withdraw, our challenges may continue to grow more severe, making it even harder to re-connect. We might feel uncomfortable asking our friends and loved ones to help, but if people really care about us, they take us as we are. We shouldn’t prejudge that our friends and family would be unwilling to help. Sometimes we’re hesitant to ask for help, only to find that our friends would have had their feelings hurt if they had not been asked. When we are the one needing help, we may forget what an honor it can be to serve those we love. Isolating ourselves as Jane and Dave did can lead to depression and anxiety. People need people. Caring for others, and allowing them to care for us, are part of what makes us human, and this does not change when we age or face new challenges. Counseling from CJFS is confidential, and it is often covered by insurance. To learn more, visit https://cjfsbham.org/our-mission/professional-counseling/ or contact Clinical Director Marcy Morgenbesser, marcy@ cjfsbham.org or call 205.879-3438.

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A new musical about an Alabamian who escaped the Holocaust will debut in Savannah in August. “We’ll Meet Again,” about the life of Henry Stern, will debut at the Savannah Theatre from Aug. 19 to 28. There will be an encore performance in Stern’s hometown, at the Opelika Center for the Performing Arts, on Aug. 30. Julius Hagedorn was a merchant in Opelika in Photo courtesy AHEC the 1930s, and anticipating what was happening Henry Stern in Europe, he started working to bring his young nephew’s family to the United States. Stern arrived in 1937 at the age of five, having been on the last sanctioned ship allowing Jews out of Germany, and the musical details his escape from Europe and adjusting to a new life in a small Southern community. Stern became a business owner and philanthropist, and was a founding member of Beth Shalom in Auburn. He died in 2014.

Photo by Cheryl Empey from FreeImages

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Mobility Scooters Power Chairs

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Summer is time to pay attention to skin wellness Gunn Dermatology wants its clients to enjoy fun in the summer sun while also being focused on skin wellness. “We offer safe and effective sunscreens,” said Dr. Holly Gunn. “We also perform multiple types of photorejuvination treatments that reverse the signs of sun damage, including Icon treatments, SkinPen and Blu Light Therapy.” The full-service dermatology and skin wellness office in Mountain Brook’s Crestline Village will open a second location in Lane Parke, likely by September. Gunn said the new office is three times the size of the current office and they will be expanding their spa and aesthetician treatments in addition to offering medical, surgical and cosmetic dermatology at Lane Parke. “We are adding safe tanning booths at the new location that provide long-lasting and natural coverage for the face as well as the body,” said Gunn. Gunn Dermatology continues to advance its practice with the latest and “most up-to-date technologies in skincare and treatments.” They just launched a new daytime product that is the most robust collagen and elastic fiber producer, Journee Firm. “It’s a sunscreen, growth factors, peptides, antioxidants and a moisturizer all in one,” said Gunn. Microneedling with radiofrequency is also a growing practice and reverses the signs of aging. Gunn Dermatology can now add Exosomes to this treatment for more skin tightening and elasticity in the skin. Gunn also advises understanding the warning signs for melanoma. Any mole or spot on the skin that is growing rapidly, with significant change seen within one month, should be screened for skin cancer. “Another big sign is any spot on the skin that looks funny,” she said. “If it looks funny and is growing, we need to see it.”

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Keeping kids safe while being active Summertime in the Deep South usually means high heat and humidity. Children’s Hospital of Alabama wants to help active families to stay cool with some hot tips. “For kids who are playing sports and other activities outside, hydration is so important,” said Dr. Gigi Youngblood, a pediatrician for Children’s Hospital who leads the Trussville office. “Water is a lot more hydrating than sports drinks and you don’t want your kids to have anything with too much sugar.” Youngblood advised wearing sun-protective clothing that is protective and has wicking properties. “I recommend frequent reapplication of sunscreen, and I think sunscreen powder is more effective since it absorbs sweat and stays in place,” she said. If kids are outdoors and hiking in wooded areas, insect repellant is key to protecting against mosquitos and ticks. Deet is fine for kids at least two months old. “During the summer, families tend to hit the lake and ocean more,” said Youngblood. “Make sure they wear Coast Guard-certified life preservers

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health/wellness and be aware of the conditions.” She also said both kids and their parents should wear helmets when cycling. Youngblood enjoys weightlifting and keeps active with her two kids. Parents come to her with questions about their kids, their sports training and how to try to prevent injury. “I love it when kids make regular physical activity a part of their lives,” she said. “When kids are younger, it’s good for them to play several sports and not just focus on one. Dr. (William) Andrews talks about damage from specializing in just one sport for many years. When kids get older and start to build muscle, they can specialize at that time.” Weightlifting and strength training should wait until post-puberty, with focus put on proper mechanics and “building up.” “Sports are part of our Southern culture, but we need to put some thought into preparation and education,” said Youngblood. Diet and nutrition are critical parts of the wellness equation for active kids. It’s important that they get meat or plant-based protein and complex carbohydrates for sustained energy. “I love preventative care and being a good source of information for my families,” she said.

Anti-aging options for the face Turning back the hands of time is possible with anti-aging skin care options. Birmingham’s Rousso and Adams Facial Plastic Surgery can offer surgical and non-surgical options to help patients restore their youthful appearance. Both procedures can treat the same issues, such as wrinkles, fine lines,

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sagging cheeks and a loss of jawline definition. However, when it comes to the techniques employed, recovery period and longevity of results, the procedures are vastly different. “The fillers do a really good job in filling wrinkles on the face, especially the ‘parenthesis’ areas around the mouth,” said Dr. Daniel Rousso. “But when the patient begins to have a lot of jowling, especially loose skin around the neck, the filler and Botox are not as helpful.” The traditional facelift usually involves general anesthesia, surgical incisions and tightening of the skin. Some surgeons many also employ liposuction or a brow lift to enhance a patient’s results. Surgical facelifts traditionally take two to three hours to complete. A liquid facelift usually involves a carefully selected combination of injectable dermal fillers and relaxers that are tailored to the needs of the patient. Unlike surgical facelifts, a liquid facelift can be completed in a matter of minutes and the patient can return home afterwards. Surgical facelifts typically last up to 10 years. Liquid facelifts, on the other hand, require upkeep every few months — three to four months for Botox; six to 18 months for dermal fillers. Dr. Rousso said some patients can benefit from filler and Botox after a facelift. “If you try to remove every little wrinkle and fold with a facelift, you will sometimes get an unnatural, stretched appearance. Consequently, the patients can derive some benefits by relaxing muscles around the crow’s feet and between the eyebrows by using Botox that can’t be done with just a facelift,” he said. The marionette folds around the mouth are difficult to completely remove with a facelift and can often benefit with some filler, Rousso added. He also said that for facelift procedures, they “commonly use patients’ own tissue from their facelift procedure that can be moved from the cheek area near the ear to the corners of the mouth to improve the results of a facelift.”

health/wellness Life coach always learning, drawing inspiration from Jewish values For Jewish life, leadership and executive coach Caryn Corenblum, her successes come from helping others grow, learn and achieve success in their lives. “I find that as I am working with others to increase their awareness to maximize their personal and professional potential, it allows me to grow and understand more about myself as well,” said Corenblum, who in 2005 launched IntuitvEdge Coaching and Learning in Birmingham. She said achieving goals and success in life involves a team. “I coach so that people can discover new insights, develop passions, plan for the future and learn to trust their internal motivation and longings.” One of the emerging fields Corenblum has successfully employed with her clients and in workshops she conducts is NeuroLeadership. This focuses on bringing scientific knowledge about the brain and the body to the fields of leadership development, change management, emotion regulation and collaboration with others. “I consider myself a ‘deep coach.’ My clients and I work together to identify where they are stuck and what their next steps are to move themselves forward. Clients feel more courageous about taking actions that resonate with who they are now and moving in the direction of who they want to become. To do my work, I listen to the client’s body physiology and narrative,” she said. Corenblum is originally from Baltimore and met her husband, Steven, while she was at the Emory University pursuing a degree in Business Administration. She would later earn a law degree from the New England School of Law. Steven was from Birmingham, so they moved to the Magic City, with Caryn working as an accountant, then later as an attorney. They started having children and experienced the challenges of balancing family with career. “This was in the late 1980s and I started working part-time in diversity training,” she said. That led to her becoming program director for Coalition Against Prejudice at the National Conference of Christians and Jews. “That work opened my eyes to the importance of creating an inclusive

culture, through culture and leadership,” said Corenblum. She would go on to obtain a Masters in Social Work from the University of Alabama. More recently she has also completed an intensive PBSP training, a holistic development healing methodology. Corenblum continued training to become the first Somatic Experiencing Practitioner in Alabama. Being Jewish, a mother, spouse, daughter and business owner have been important identities in her own development, as well as providing a foundation of emphatic understanding to partner with others. “Leadership implies and includes being a parent. Its focus is developing and supporting others to become who they are while maintaining a separate living, growing self. It’s a balance,” she said, adding that her husband and her sons Elliot, Carl and Zach have been “my greatest teachers.” Corenblum said her Judaism and specifically the concept of Teshuva grounds her in her purpose to become a master facilitator of change. “Assisting others to continually choose and create a life consisting of more pleasure, satisfaction, comfort, connection and meaning despite living in an imperfect world is an expression of Judaism. It is both human and spiritual,” she said. “I always come back to my Jewish values. As I expand and grow my sense of Judaism, it makes me feel even more connected to something that is bigger than myself. It keeps me grounded.” Corenblum said that she can work with clients via in-person sessions, Zoom or a combination of both. She is also developing an Emotions Education 101 Zoom class that will meet on Fridays starting Oct. 14. “Making a change and growing involves a commitment,” she said, adding that typically she would work with a client for six months to a year at a time, either weekly, biweekly or monthly, depending upon their goals. “Many times, the best way to achieve the quickest results is to slow down. My goal is to partner with others so that they can be themselves while offering their unique gifts to the world.”

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MyEyeDr focusing on new lens technology MyEyeDr continues to focus on advancements in contact lens and glasses technology as well as preventative care for children. “Technology has really led to great improvements in contact lens and glasses in recent years,” said Dr. Brooke Kaplan, who is the Clinical Field Director of Alabama operations in professional services for MyEyeDr. “We stay focused on the latest developments so we can offer our patients vision solutions to best fit their needs.” The fastest growing modality of lenses is daily disposables, including bifocal contacts. In 2021, the Food and Drug Administration approved contact lenses for kids, that can be used to prevent a progression of near-sightedness. In the fourth quarter of 2022, glasses that prevent the progression of near-sightedness will come out. “We’re all about proactive care and these (contact lenses or glasses) can help kids as young as six,” said Kaplan, who is also currently serving as president of the N.E. Miles Jewish Day School. For adults with myopia who have started having some issues with presbyopia when they have their contact lenses in, drops are now available for those who don’t want to wear reading glasses all of the time. “It’s also ideal for patients who have had Lasik surgery. They can use the drops instead of having to put on glasses to read,” she said. Kaplan said they have seen increased cases of dry eye and fatigue since the start of Covid, mostly attributed to higher amounts of screen time. For those on a computer or phone screen more than three hours per day, she recommends a blue light filter on the screen or blue-light-filtering glasses. “We also suggest the 20/20/20 rule,” she said. “Every 20 minutes, look out 20 feet for 20 seconds.” Kaplan ads that kids should be sure to go outside and take breaks to break up the visual-field focus. MyEyeDr was co-founded by Sue Downs in 2001. Downs started as the front desk person for a local optometrist in the Washington area. She helped the company grow from one location to 840 across the nation. There are 18 MyEyeDr offices in Alabama and 15 in Louisiana. “It is inspiring to be led by a woman who is as passionate about optometry as we are as optometrists,” said Kaplan. Kaplan also wants to inspire future optometrists, serving as a professor for the University of Alabama at Birmingham’s School of Optometry. “It’s rewarding and exciting to play a part in helping the next generation of optometry for one of the oldest, most-renowned optometry schools in the nation,” she said. One might say the future is so bright, sunglasses would be recommended.

Hadassah Super South gathering in Atlanta

1 6 0 0 7 TH AV E N U E S O U T H BIRMINGHAM, AL 35233 (205) 638-9100 | ChildrensAL.org

July 2022 • Southern Jewish Life

Hadassah Super South will hold “Hadassah Out Loud: Raising Our Voices Together,” a tri-region conference, from Sept. 9 to 11 at the Hilton Atlanta Airport Hotel. Featured guests include Hadassah National President Rhoda Smolow and Hadassah Grassroots Advocacy Director Lauren Katz, who will advocate for women’s health equity, ensuring reproductive rights, combating antisemitism, and strengthening U.S.-Israel relations. The recent Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade will be a topic of discussion, as Hadassah expresses “unwavering support for full and complete access to reproductive health services and a woman’s right to make health decisions according to her own religious, moral and ethical values.” National award-winning Atlanta author Melissa Fay Greene will discuss her book, “The Temple Bombing and the Wolves of Hate,” about the bombing of The Temple in Atlanta in 1958 during the civil rights era. Hadassah Super South encompasses three Hadassah Regions: Southeastern, Southern and Southern Seaboard, in Alabama, Arkansas, Northern Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia and West Virginia. Information about the conference is available at www.hadassahsupersouth.org/TriRegion 2022.

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When Louisiana legislators ridiculed Jewish law In 1990, Rabbi Loewy was reportedly the first to argue abortion as a matter of Jewish religious freedom With the recent Supreme Court ruling overturning Roe v. Wade and returning the issue of abortion to the states, many Jewish groups have been vocal in the fight to preserve personal choice. Rather than reproductive rights or privacy, much of the current advocacy focuses on how Jewish law emphasizes the health and well-being of the woman over that of the unborn, which in Judaism does not have the same status as those who have been born — meaning that abortion bans can prevent Jews from following Jewish law about protecting women’s lives. The emphasis on Jewish law also fights back against the view that opposition to abortion is the default stance of those who take religion and the Bible seriously, and that there is a moral argument for providing access to abortion. The willingness of so many in the Jewish world to make that assertion is a very new phenomenon — because when Rabbi Robert Loewy of New Orleans made that argument before the Louisiana Legislature in 1990, it was met with ridicule. In June 1990, the Louisiana Legislature was debating what was the most restrictive anti-abortion bill in the country, as the only exception was to save the life of the woman, not for cases of rape or incest. Gov. Buddy Roemer would eventually veto the bill because of that omission. In his 1994 book “Jewish Power,” longtime Jewish journalist JJ Goldberg said that Loewy’s arguing the abortion issue as one of Jewish religious freedom had “never been done in a public forum before.” “Whether or not it was one of the first times, I don’t know,” Loewy said.

“It was the first time I gave that argument.” Loewy, who had been rabbi at Gates of Prayer for six years at the time, was chair of the Community Relations Committee and said “it was an issue that we cared about deeply.” He and his wife, Lynn, went to Baton Rouge to testify, and at the time they were expecting their third child. For them, “This was a personal issue, a moral issue, a religious issue and a political issue,” Loewy said. “Which it is for many people.” Loewy explained to the legislators, who largely came from a background of “life begins at conception,” that Jewish law regards the fetus as “a drop of water” in the first 40 days, part of the mother’s body during the rest of the pregnancy but not allowed to endanger the mother, and having an independent right to life only upon emerging from the birth canal. Even with that, because of the high prevalence of infant death in past centuries, mainstream Jewish practice has been to not have the typical mourning and burial rituals for an infant that does not make it to 30 days, though such rituals are now becoming more common. Part of their testimony was about how their pro-choice beliefs were shaped by the death of their first child. Their son was “seemingly fine” when he was born, but it soon became apparent that there were degenerative neurological problems “that were never fully diagnosed.” He died after six months. If there was a way to know about catastrophic degenerative conditions, which are much more detectable than they were in 1990, “we would want to choose abortion if need be,” Loewy said. “Both from a personal percontinued on page 47

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July 2022 • Southern Jewish Life

community “Three Minutes” looks to have lasting impression at Sidewalk Film Festival Two local Holocaust survivor documentaries among the offerings By Lee J. Green In just three minutes, many years of lifetime and history can be told. “Three Minutes — A Lengthening,” a feature-length documentary inspired by three minutes of 16-millimeter color film footage shot in a small Polish village by an émigré from America, makes its Alabama debut at the 24th annual Sidewalk Film Festival, Aug. 22 to 28 in downtown Birmingham. Bianca Stigter directs “Three Minutes,” which was co-produced by her husband and Academy Award-winning director Steve McQueen. The Amsterdam native said she was working primarily as a film critic when she saw the film online and information about the Glenn Kurtz book “Three Minutes in Poland: Discovering a Lost World in a 1938 Family Film.” “When the three minutes were over, I was just so moved,” said Stigter. “I wanted to find a way to keep this past in the present longer; to extend these three minutes.” Kurtz’ grandfather, David, shot the footage. David Kurtz was born in the town but emigrated to the U.S. with his family in 1888. He made the video in 1938 while on a trip to Europe, to learn more about his birth town of Nasielsk. Less than a year later, the Nazis invaded and the 3,000 Jewish residents in the town of 7,000 were sent to the Treblinka concentration camp. Only 100 survived. The book and the movie go in-depth to piece together the stories of the residents. “I am a historian by trade, so this fascinated me,” said Stigter, who wrote the book “Atlas of an Occupied City 1940-45” about her native Amsterdam during World War II. The book was published in 2005 and its second edition came out in 2019. She is not Jewish, but her grandfather served with the resistance and was sent to Dachau toward the end of the war, and was later freed. “The original footage was a microscope, but so much time has passed since then. The challenge was finding out more those included in the film.” Stigter worked with Kurtz and assembled a filmmaking team. They first came out with a 20-minute short film, but Stigter knew there were more stories to tell and set out to make a full-length documentary feature. “There were about 100 people included in the footage. Anything that we could find was a gift,” she said.

July 2022 • Southern Jewish Life

Three Minutes — A Lengthening The feature documentary came out in 2021. It includes interviews with Kurtz and Maurice Chandler, a survivor who appears in the film as a boy. Award-winning actress Helena Bonham Carter, who is of Jewish descent, narrates “Three Minutes – A Lengthening.” Stigter said they were invited to show the film at a film festival in Poland. “We had a special viewing in Nasielsk and everyone got together for a dedication of the memorial at the Jewish cemetery in the town, organized by Glenn Kurtz and other descendants of Jewish inhabitants in the town.” “The windows from the old synagogue that was destroyed in the war, were also incorporated in the memorial,” she said. “It was a very moving, special and important day.” The film will show on Aug. 28 at 10 a.m. at the Birmingham Museum of Art, one of seven Sidewalk Film Festival venues. The production team is in discussion with the Alabama Holocaust Education Center about a special screening after the new Center opens in September at Temple Emanu-El. They are also in discussion with the Goldring/Woldenberg Institute of Southern Jewish Life about a New Orleans screening as early as September. Some other titles of interest in the 24th annual festival include:

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W NO “The Automat” by Jewish director Lisa Hurwitz, at the Alabama School of Fine Arts on Aug. 27 at 10 a.m. The Automat tells the 100year story of the iconic restaurant chain Horn & Hardart, the inspiration for Starbucks, where generations of Americans ate and drank coffee together at communal tables. From the perspective of former customers, including entertainer Mel Brooks, Starbucks founder Howard Schultz, Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Secretary of State Colin Powell, the Horns, the Hardarts, and key employees — the film shows a business climb to its peak success and then grapple with fast food in a forever-changed America. “Surviving the Holocaust: A Conversation with Dr. Robert May” is a 27-minute film that will be screened in a block of Alabama Documentary Shorts, Aug. 27 at 10 a.m. at the Alabama Theatre. Alabama director Kim Garner offers an intimate look at the life of one of Birmingham’s only remaining Holocaust survivors, detailing his feelings of loss, hope and triumph over tragedy. The second block of Alabama Documentary Shorts, Aug. 28 at noon at the Birmingham Museum of Art, includes “Smile Little Ladybug,” a 17-minute film by Laura Asherman. Herbert Kohn and his parents escaped Nazi Germany when he was 12, eventually winding up in the Jim Crow South, where he felt he had escaped one persecution to find himself in the middle of another. While he eventually moved from Alabama to Atlanta and devoted himself to repairing the world, his daughter and granddaughter were unintentionally inspired to bring joy to the world in another way, through becoming clowns. His granddaughter, Andrea Zoppo, is known as Miss Ladybug. “Love Without Parole” will be the concluding short film in the Alabama Spotlight Night shorts package, Aug. 22 at 7 p.m. at the Sidewalk Cinema. The documentary is produced by Greg Womble and Elaine Witt. The film is about Michael, who is sentenced to life without parole under Alabama’s three strikes law, despite his crimes being non-violent. While in prison, he falls in love with a woman who visits him, and they get married despite his being behind bars. After serving for 36 years he is miraculously freed — but will the long-cooled romance be reignited outside of prison? Witt said it is “an extraordinary love story wrapped in an Alabama fiasco, the continued imprisonment of older inmates who were convicted decades ago, under the state’s old habitual offender law, for crimes in which no one was physically hurt.” Just before “Love Without Parole” is “Preacher’s Pulpits and the Letter from a Birmingham Jail,” about Martin Luther King’s 1963 masterpiece. The short film, directed by Anissa Latham-Brown, explores why King wrote the letter and who the intended audience was. Rabbi Milton Grafman of Temple Emanu-El was one of the eight clergy members who issued a statement that King was responding to with the letter. “Refuge” is about Chris Buckley of LaFayette, Ga., a veteran of Iraq and Afghanistan who was a leader in the Ku Klux Klan, and started hating Muslims on Sept. 11, 2001. A text message he receives from a Muslim refugee in Clarkston, Ga., a town that is a magnet for refugees from around the world, forces him to confront his views, along with an intervention from a group specializing in helping those with extremist views, following concern from his wife. “Refuge” was directed and produced by Erin Levin Berhnardt and Din Blankenship of Atlanta. They were inspired by the 2017 “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Va., especially as they are alumni of the University of Virginia. Bernhardt is a sixth-generation member of Ahavath Achim in Atlanta and recently told the Atlanta Jewish Times that “anything that counters hate should be considered Jewish.” The film will be screened on Aug. 28 at 5:20 p.m. at the Birmingham Museum of Art.

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For complete schedules and more information about the 24th annual Sidewalk Film Festival, go to www.sidewalkfest.com. July 2022 • Southern Jewish Life

Unique Impressions

Tagine-style chicken

Birmingham (205) 527.7883

(serves four)

Ingredients: 1 1/2 lbs. skinless, boneless chicken thighs or breasts 1 tbsp olive oil 2 red onions, thinly sliced 1/2 cup pitted prunes, halved 1/2 tsp ground coriander 1/2 cup apricot, halved 1/2 tsp ground cumin 1 tbsp tomato paste 1/2 tsp ground turmeric 1 small eggplant, cubed 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon 2 zucchini, diced 2 cups chicken broth 1/4 cup fresh parsley, chopped 1/2 cup parboiled long-grain brown rice Directions: In a large skillet over high heat, brown the chicken in the oil. Season with salt and pepper. Add the onion and cook for 2 minutes. Put in the spices and continue cooking for 1 minute, stirring constantly. Add the broth, prunes, apricot, tomato paste and bring to a boil. Cover and let simmer over medium heat for 10 minutes. Stir in eggplant and cook, covered, for 5 minutes. Add zucchini and continue cooking covered for 2 minutes. Season with salt and pepper. Cook rice separately. Let rest for five minutes. Sprinkle with chopped parsley before serving.

Unique Impressions Catering By Lee J. Green Since starting out in the kitchen at Birmingham’s Temple Beth-El in 1979, Debra Malone estimates she has led or been a part of catering for more than 1,000 events in the Jewish community — everything from holiday celebrations to shivas to B’nai Mitzvah to weddings. The owner of Unique Impressions catering said she really feels like part of the community. “I love my Jewish clients and I’m grateful for all of the support over the years,” she said. “I feel like they have become like family. I also really love making and eating kosher food.” Malone is from Choctaw County and went to college in Birmingham to pursue bookkeeping. But she realized she didn’t want a desk job and she always loved to cook. She would go on to work with Roz Bloomston and Kathy G before starting Unique Impressions in 2008. “I’ve learned a lot over the years about kosher and Jewish traditions. It’s fun to be creative and to come up with dishes that people have never had before,” said Malone. continued on page 45 44

July 2022 • Southern Jewish Life

community >> Rear Pew

continued from page 46

the king and Haman losing the lottery. Calfgate – Moses was on Sinai for so long that the Israelites tired of idling and decided to start idoling instead, in an early instance of not being worth it to go for the gold. Kolgate – Kol is Hebrew for “voice,” which the Torah gave three times to one of its better-known brushes with controversy, “a tooth for a tooth.” Korachgate – Korach was revolting, but not to his hundreds of followers. Once he stood up against Moses and Aaron, he should have known his days were Numbersed. Seagate – To save the Israelites, thousands of Egyptians were unfortunately lost when the Big G ended the brief parting of the Red Sea with a crashing hard drive of waters. Of course, none of these biblical scandals measure up to one of the most scandalous cataclysms of any era: Billgate, the creation of Microsoft Windows.

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Doug Brook prefers a world that provides sandals of biblical proportions. For nearly several more laughs, listen to the five-star rated Rear Pew Mirror podcast at anchor.fm/rearpewmirror or on any major podcast platform. For exclusive online content, follow facebook.com/rearpewmirror. For past columns, visit http://rearpewmirror.com/.

Chabad in B’ham dedicating new Torah Bais Ariel Chabad in Birmingham will welcome a new Torah with a community celebration on Aug. 28. The Torah is being dedicated in memory of Rabbi Zushe and Yehudit Posner, parents of Rabbi Yossi Posner, who has led the Chabad in Birmingham since the 1980s. The dedication will start at 4 p.m. at the Overton Park tennis courts. There will be a celebratory parade at 4:15 p.m. from the park to Chabad, followed by a dinner.

>> Unique Impressions

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Malone said she has some set dinner-style and appetizer menus. She also is happy to work with family recipes and provide custom options not on the set menus. Unique Impressions has used substitutes such as filo dough and vegan butter to make items kosher. Some of Malone’s specialties include Tagine-style chicken, beef tenders, stuffed mushrooms, Thai salmon, cheese, fruit and dessert plates. “I’ve also done some Southern culture dinners with some of the foods I’ve loved growing up — fried chicken, black-eyed peas, cornbread and egg casserole,” she said. Malone has provided catering for all the synagogues, the LJCC, at other venues and even personal chef work and kosher-meal delivery to clients’ homes. During the early months of the pandemic, she said Unique Impressions would stay busy with kosher-meal delivery and smaller, safe-distance events. “We can do anything from an event for hundreds of people of a kosher meal for one,” she said. “We’ve always been flexible and accommodating.” For a recent event at Temple Beth-El honoring the Israeli delegation in the World Games, attended by approximately 250 people, Unique Impressions provided a kosher spread of appetizers and desserts, including chicken skewers, miniature baked potatoes, quiches and a dessert table. Malone said her focus goes beyond just making tasty kosher food. “It’s an art. The presentation is very important… as is honoring the tradition,” she said. “It’s about creating an experience… and being a part of these lasting memories.

Levite Jewish Community Center • Birmingham • bhamjcc.org July 2022 • Southern Jewish Life

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rear pew mirror • doug brook

Biblical scandals Editorial note: This was scheduled to be a piece about biblical sandals. Due to an erroneous autocorrect that slipped by a pair of nimrods, we apologize for presenting this instead.

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Today’s world frequently provides scandals of biblical proportions. So, it might be interesting, and even instructive, to revisit the great scandals that are actually in the Bible. Instead of doing that, this will be a brief exploration of scandals in the Bible as they’d have been referred to in today’s world. These are presented in the order they occurred in the Torah, except for the ones presented out of sequence. Watergate – To provide water to the Israelites, Moses was supposed to speak to the rock but he decided he wanted a break in listening to the Big G’s commands, so he hit it instead. Applegate – Eating fruit from the Trees of Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Knowledge was forbidden to Adam and Eve, but they were seduced into it by a snake. What better appellation for this than the name of the devil in D*mn Y*nkees? Abelgate – Humanity’s first murder and the origin story of sibling rivalry fed the first instance of raising Cain since Adam and Eve tried to parent their boys. Floodgate – The Big G didn’t like what it said about Him that all the people created in Her image were rotten, so They left the faucet on and tapped Noah for mankind’s mulligan. Ironically, Noah was never portrayed on screen by Richard Mulligan. Babelgate – The people were successfully building a tower toward heaven so, to stymie productivity, the Big G introduced the inability to understand communication in the workplace, that’s still religiously pracThis column may ticed today. or may not be Birthrightgate – Jacob sneaking in with a meal for papa Isaac before Esau sponsored by got back from a field trip was the first proof that the way to steal a man’s heart Gates of Prayer… is through his stomach. Rachelgate – Lavan promised Jacob that he could marry Rachel but pulled a switcheroo at the chuppah; a veiled attempt that became the first instance of needing to read the fine print. Rachelgate II – When Jacob and family leave Lavan after 20 years, Rachel is caught stealing his idols so he won’t worship them anymore, as an early form of cultural appropriation. Coatgate – Like many people today, Joseph’s brothers couldn’t learn all the colors in his coat so they stopped at green, to match their envy, but didn’t stop there in a story of betrayal that could someday make an amazing musical. Bloodgate – Pharaoh wouldn’t let the Israelites go free, but instead of spilling blood the Big G decided to spill blood into the Nile River instead. Hailgate – When six plagues fail to convince Pharaoh to free the Israelites, perhaps the seventh is the charm? Each plague is related to scandal, but Hailgate has more of a ring to it than Slayingofthefirstborngate. Gategate – Briefly stepping out of the Torah, Mordechai overheard gossip at the palace gate which eventually led to a Dear Diary moment for continued on previous page

July 2022 • Southern Jewish Life

community >> Legislature spective, we would want that as a right, and from a religious perspective, it was appropriate.” After Loewy’s testimony, the bill’s sponsor, Sen. Louis “Woody” Jenkins, told reporters that “we heard from a religion that believes in killing babies” and “doesn’t even think that babies are people after they’re born.” A few days later, Loewy addressed another committee, where Sen. Mike Cross was waiting for him. Loewy said the irony of the senator’s name did not escape him. “I got clobbered by the senator.” As Loewy spoke about his family’s experiences, Cross interrupted him to ask if he supported a woman’s right to choose to be a prostitute or to use illegal drugs. Loewy spoke about how in Exodus, the killing of a fetus and homicide are treated differently, and that is the Biblical basis for the Jewish view on the status of a fetus. Cross retorted that the verses in Exodus are “not in my Bible.” A reporter at the time called the exchange the “rabbi’s roast.” Reflecting on the hearings, Loewy said “It was a different time.” That was also the time when Loewy’s House district was represented by former Klan leader David Duke. Loewy fretted that he had not been able to sway any of the senators, but he said that Leslie Gerwin with the Louisiana Coalition for Reproductive Freedom “indicated some of them had been.” Still, after the hearings he stopped advocating on the issue, figuring it was pointless in Louisiana. Now, he says, “we have to continue to advocate, we have to continue to make our voices heard. Silence suggests acceptance of a position we find abhorrent.” Because the Jewish community is a small minority, he said it is important to build coalitions with like-minded faith groups and advocacy

continued from page 41 groups. “We can not allow one religious view to dominate when there are multiple religious views,” he said. Those whose faiths proscribe abortion can choose not to have one, while those who feel it is sometimes “appropriate and necessary” should have access. He is watching the lawsuit by Rabbi Barry Silver of L’Dor Va-Dor Congregation in Florida, which states that Florida’s ban on abortion after 15 weeks violates the state constitution’s freedom of religion clause. Loewy said the religious argument should not be the sole reasoning. “There are pluses and minuses to being able to say that you need to allow this because my faith says it is so. That can be a slippery slope… Some faiths allow for things we believe to be reprehensible from a Jewish perspective. “The argument shouldn’t solely be ‘my faith says we can do it’,” he added. For now, the battle will be difficult, especially in this region. Loewy figures it will take a national effort in Congress, or the court changing to become more reflective of the American public.

LJCC sceening “Crime on the Bayou” Birmingham’s Levite Jewish Community Center will screen “A Crime on the Bayou,” Aug. 21 at 2 p.m., with donations to benefit the Temple Beth-El Civil Rights Experience. The award-winning documentary profiles Gary Duncan, a black teenager who bravely challenges the most powerful white supremacist in 1960s Louisiana with the help of Richard Sobol, a young Jewish attorney. A discussion will follow, featuring Duncan and writer Lolis Elie, the son of a lawyer from Sobol’s team.

July 2022 • Southern Jewish Life