w w w . j t n e w s . n e t n m a y 1 0 , 2 0 1 3 n 1 s i v a n 5 7 7 3 n v o l u m e 8 9 , n o . 1 0

JEWISHthe voice ofJTnews w a s h i n g t o n

art gone bad page 14

@jew_ish • @jewishcal/jtnewsprofessionalwashington.comconnecting our local Jewish community

Making peace

jfs hires a ceo page 6

How Ultimate Peace hopes to create an ultimate peace.Story on page 8.

At the grassy roots

2 JTNews . www.JTNews.NeT . friday, may 10, 2013

“our past Preserving

Eastside Torah Center - Chabad Bellevue

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Building’s eastside view GroundbreakingCeremony

Building’s northside viewCTeens watching with excitement

B”H

the rabbi’s turn

friday, May 10, 2013 . www.jtnews.net . jtnews

3opinion

“There’s going to be an awesome learning curve.” —Will Berkovitz on his new role as Jewish Family Service’s CEO. Read the story on page 6.

Repairing the natural orderRabbi Moshe KleteniK Bikur Cholim Machzikay Hadath

On a recent Sunday morn-ing, after morning services and teaching the daily Daf Yomi, the page of Talmud a day, I was looking forward to an invigorating Pacific Northwest bike ride. A quick check confirmed the omi-nous clouds predicted by weather reports. Not to be sat-isfied with such elementary evidence, I consulted several websites, which assured me that there was zero percent chance of precipitation until evening. I confidently mounted my bicycle and headed down the hill for a ride along our beautiful Lake Washington. About five minutes later I felt raindrops. Could this be real? Zero percent chance of precipitation! I had checked websites! Apparently, even scientists objectively interpreting scientific models are prone to error.

How much more so is this search for certainty and truth a challenge when con-fronting ethical issues. We human beings are so often swayed by subjectivity, pre-conceived notions, biases and emotions.

Our sages teach us in Bereshit Rabbah that indeed, “Love and hate disrupt the natural order.”

The horrific bombing at the Boston Marathon shocked the world. Three people were killed and over 200 wounded, many of them grievously. The alleged bombers had been welcomed to this coun-try and had enjoyed freedom as well as the opportunity for education. As the sus-pects were being identified, friends of one alleged bomber spoke of how nice and kind of a person he seemed to be. Others described how in the days following the bombing the suspect resumed normal activities as if nothing had happened, working out at the university gym and appearing perfectly calm as others spoke of the terrible attack and its human toll. All of this, even as he and his brother had bombed a city and wreaked carnage and human suffering. So often hate of an indi-vidual, a group, an institution, a religion, a race or a country can lead one to engage in cruel and even self-destructive behavior. “Hate disrupts the natural order.”

In the weeks leading to the Shavuot fes-tival it is traditional to study Pirke Avot. The first statement of this tractate docu-ments the chain of transmission of the oral law: “Moshe received the Torah at Sinai and transmitted it to Joshua, Joshua to the elders, and the elders to the prophets, and the prophets to the men of the Great Assembly.” The question arises as to why this chain of transmission is placed here before Pirke Avot, which is in the middle of the Mishna. It would seem more appro-

priate for this to appear at the very beginning of the entire Mishna, before the first trac-tate, Berachot.

Rabbi Obadiah of Berti-noro, a 17th-century Italian commentator on the Mishna, explains that previous tractates discuss ritual laws, including prayer, Shabbat and the festi-vals. People may more read-ily recognize that these are

given by God. Pirke Avot discusses ethics. Every civilized society has a code of ethics and values. One may think that our ethics and morals are constructed by ethicists. This preamble teaches us that our ethics are based on what was divinely revealed at Sinai and transmitted through the genera-tions: The eternal, immutable word of God.

As an Orthodox rabbi I fully believe that the Torah was given by God to Moshe and that all ethical challenges can be resolved by exploring the depths of Tanach, the Talmud, responsa literature and the codes of Jewish law. This is how a believing Jew finds answers to moral and ethical dilem-mas. At the same time, I recognize that human beings, no matter how learned, are subjective creatures who are often swayed by predispositions and preconceived notions, especially in areas that are gray, which real-life situations often tend to be.

Many of you know that Jewish medi-cal ethics is an area that I have spent much time studying. I have had the experience of serving on hospital and hospice ethics and critical care committees and have lec-tured at a number of conferences on these issues. I have done my best to assist fam-ilies and other rabbis who have consulted me in difficult situations. Yet, when criti-cal decisions needed to be made concern-ing the care of my own dear mother, who has been ill, I felt incapable of evaluating the situation. I was too close. I was too emotionally involved. I called an esteemed senior colleague, a leading expert in these areas, presented the issues, and then asked a physician to describe the medical cir-cumstances in detail. I told the rabbi, “I am too close to this to be objective. You rule as to what must be done.”

Rabbi Chaim Palagi, a 19th-century Turkish Halachist and Kabbalist, writes that there are certain areas into which the family of a patient should not venture, as they are too emotionally involved to be objective. “Love disrupts the natural order.”

As we approach Shavuot, let us resolve to take the time to explore more Torah together. It is the eternal wisdom of the Torah that illuminates what sometimes

Netanyahu must take a page from SadatMaRc schneieR JTA World News Service

NEW YORK (JTA) — U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry is correct to describe a new proposal by the Arab League to revive Israeli-Palestinian peace talks as “a very big step forward.” Yet there will be no seri-ous movement toward peace until Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu responds to the Arab League initiative by evoking the words of the late Egyp-tian leader Anwar Sadat before traveling to Jerusalem in the later 1970s, vowing “to go to the ends of the earth” — even to the Qatari capital of Doha or the Saudi capi-tal of Riyadh — in order to achieve peace.

The new peace initiative, which was presented to Kerry and Vice President Joe Biden by a Qatari-led Arab delega-tion in Washington on April 30, would revive — and improve, from Israel’s stand-point — the so-called Saudi Peace Initia-tive of 2002. That proposal, subsequently endorsed by the entire Arab League, promised Israel full peace and recogni-tion in exchange for a return to its pre-1967 borders.

Qatari Foreign Minister Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim Al Thani presented the new ini-tiative, which would accept for the first time a modification of those borders. According to Al Thani, “The Arab League delegation affirms that agreement should be based on the two-state solution, on the basis of the 4th of June 1967 line” with the possibility of a “comparable and mutual agreed minor swap(s) of the land.”

This important Arab League initia-tive comes in the wake of another sig-nificant but little-noticed development that also originated in the Gulf: An April 8 resolution by the Kingdom of Bah-rain condemning Hezbollah as a terrorist organization. The outlawing of Hezbol-lah, overwhelmingly passed by Bahrain’s parliament, represents the first known instance that an Arab country has used the T-word to describe a militant Arab orga-nization like Hezbollah, which has rained missiles on northern Israel and last year murdered Israeli tourists in Bulgaria.

When I visited Bahrain in December 2011, becoming the first rabbi to meet with King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifah in his palace, the king told me — as widely reported by the media — that Bahrain and Israel share a common enemy in Hez-bollah’s patron, Iran, which sits directly across the narrow Persian Gulf from Bah-rain and other Gulf states including the United Arab Emirates, Qatar and Kuwait.

Yet nearly a month after the Bah-raini statement, there has been no offi-cial response by the government of Israel. Indeed, when a reporter for the Times

of Israel asked the Israeli Foreign Minis-try why it has not commended Bahrain for its anti-Hezbollah stand, a spokesman blandly responded, “If the Bahrainis had wanted Israel to say something, they could have sent us a message through diplomatic channels. Since they didn’t, we didn’t.”

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu may well have decided to err on the side of caution in responding to both the Bahraini and Arab League initiatives by waiting to see whether support will hold up across the Arab world. Yet this is one of those criti-cal moments in Middle East history when an excess of caution may doom hopes for a breakthrough by strengthening cynicism and peace-process fatigue on both sides.

Following the dramatic steps by Bah-rain, Qatar and the Arab League, Netan-yahu needs to respond in similarly dramatic fashion. Just as Sadat fundamentally trans-formed Israeli-Egyptian relations 35 years ago by declaring his willingness to travel even to Jerusalem, Netanyahu should declare his readiness to fly to Doha or Riyadh to demonstrate his genuine desire for peace — with the Palestinians as well as Saudi Arabia and the other Gulf states.

The Israeli government and people need to remember that Israel exists and is destined to live forever in the heart of the Middle East, not the Middle West. The Jewish State can only secure its long-term survival by reaching an accommoda-tion with the Arab world — or at least an important part of it.

Thankfully, the positive initiatives of the past few weeks by Bahrain and the Arab League delegation led by Qatar — neither of which would have taken place without the encouragement and support of Saudi Arabia — make clear that a his-toric opportunity exists for Israel to build a strategic alliance with the oil-rich states of the Arabian Peninsula.

Israel and the Gulf states are endan-gered by Iran, a genocidal theocracy with nuclear ambitions that vows to destroy the Jewish State and has extended its reach into the heart of the Arab world through skillful manipulation of proxies such as Hezbollah in Lebanon and the tottering Bashar Assad regime in Syria.

If Netanyahu seizes the moment to reach a peace agreement with the Palestin-ians, thanks to the initiative put forward by the Qataris and the Arab League, there is a chance that after generations of bitter conflict, Israelis will finally live in peace and security. If, however, the Israeli prime minister spurns this opportunity, he will

X Page 16 X Page 16

4 commuNiTy News JTNews . www.JTNews.NeT . friday, may 10, 2013

JFS services and programs are made possible through

generous community support ofFor more information, please visit www.jfsseattle.org

“The help from JFS was a life saver in an ocean of despair.” – Emergency Services Client, Jewish Family Service

MOR receives NEA Art Works grantMusic of Remembrance, an organization that puts artistic works from the Holocaust

to music, received a grant for $15,000 from the National Endowment for the Arts for its Sparks of Glory outreach programs, a free concert-with-commentary series held at the Seattle Art Museum. Art Works grants support the creation of high-quality arts projects that encourage public engagement, lifelong learning, and community strengthening. The NEA awarded $26.3 million to 817 non-profit arts organizations around the country.

Rabbi Yohanna Kinberg wins Silver Wings AwardThe Planned Parenthood Votes Northwest awarded Rabbi Yohanna Kinberg of Temple

B’nai Torah its Silver Wings Award for outstanding clergy making contributions to the cause of reproductive justice. In a press release, PPVotesNW leaders wrote, “Whenever we need a diverse voice to be on a panel, to offer testimony, to write a letter to the editor, or anything else, we know we can call on Yohanna and she will always jump to our aid.” The organization named her a “she-ro” for the cause.

news briefs

coming up

SUNDAY, JUNE 2, 7PM

Town Hall Seattle

From Strength to StrengthSongs for the Journey

To purchase tickets or for more information, visit: www.seattlejewishchorale.org or call: 206.708.7518

TICKETS:General: $18 adv/$20 door

Students/Seniors: $16 adv/$18 doorUn(der)employed: Pay what you can

THANK YOU TO OUR SPONSORS:

© WASHINGTON STATE JEWISH

HISTORICAL SOCIETY

PRESENTS

WORLD PREMIEREAn original theatre production of Jewish History

in Washington State by Book-It Repertory Theatre. Kosher reception to follow

SUNDAY, JUNE 2, 2013 Performance at 2 p.m., doors open for open seating at 1:30 p.m.

LANGSTON HUGHES PERFORMING ARTS INSTITUTE 104 17th Ave. S., Seattle.

Tickets: $30 before May 28, 2013, $36 after. $108 group of 4 by May 28. $18 students and 18 & under.

Purchase yours today! Call 206-774-2277 or visit wsjhs.org.

Author Signing: The acclaimed book “Family of Strangers” will be available for sale at the production.

All three authors will be on hand.

DAY OF JEWISH ARTS AND CULTURE

■ Monday, May 13 at 6:30 p.m.Some Challenges of Researching Jewish Names

In a pair of talks, professional genealogist Meredith Hoffman explores the difficulties of working with Jewish personal, family, and place names as they morphed through time and place. In “My Grandfather Came from Poison,” she shows how online resources can help nav-igate name changes. In “Who the Heck is Ida Gerskill?” Hoffman provides tools for puzzling out the various names you may come across in your genealogical quest.

At the Stroum Jewish Community Center, 3801 E Mercer Way, Mercer Island. Free to Jewish Genealogical Society of Washington State members; $5 for non-members.

For more information contact Mary Kozy at genmail@marykozy.net or visit www.jgsws.org/meetings.php.

■ Sunday, May 19 at 5 p.m.BasarFest

Eli Varon caters this annual carnivorous pig-out (no pun intended) and fundraiser for NCSY. Stuff yourself silly on a meat cook-off, chili competition, and an offal sample table. But wait, there’s more: Jumping castle for the kids, a photobooth, music, and contests and prizes. $15 by May 16, $20 at the door, $70 per family of five and up, or $125 for a table for 10. To enter the cook-off, and for more information and tickets, contact Ari Hoffman at thehoffather@gmail.com or SeattleNCSY.com

At Sephardic Bikur Holim, 6500 52nd Ave. S, Seattle.

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JTNews is the Voice of Jewish Washington. Our mission is to meet the interests of our Jewish community through fair and accurate coverage of local, national and international news, opinion and information. We seek to expose our readers to di-verse viewpoints and vibrant debate on many fronts, including the news and events in Israel. We strive to contribute to the continued growth of our local Jewish community as we carry out our mission.

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JTNews (ISSN0021-678X) is published biweekly by The Seattle Jewish Transcript, a nonprofit corporation owned by the Jewish Federation of Greater Seattle, 2041 3rd Ave., Seattle, WA 98121. Subscriptions are $56.50 for one year, $96.50 for two years. Periodicals postage paid at Seattle, WA. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to JTNews, 2041 Third Ave., Seattle, WA 98121.

Reach us directly at 206-441-4553 + ext.Editor & Publisher *Joel Magalnick 233Associate Editor Emily K. Alhadeff 240 Sales Manager Lynn Feldhammer 264Account Executive Cheryl Puterman 269 Account Executive David Stahl Classifieds Manager Rebecca Minsky 238 Art Director Susan Beardsley 239

Board of directorsPeter Horvitz, Chair*; Jerry Anches§; Sarah Boden; Cynthia Flash Hemphill*; Ron Leibsohn; Stan Mark; Cantor David Serkin-Poole*. Nancy Greer, Interim CEO and President, Jewish Federation of Greater Seattle Shelley Bensussen, Federation Board Chair

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welcome, new advertisers! Eastside Torah Center • PJ Library

Tell them you saw them in JTNews!

Coming upMay 24Getaways

yiddish lesson

by sophie MeldA guter vort iz besser fun a nedove.A good word is better than a donation.

magalnick named JTnews publisherJoel Magalnick, who has been editor of

JTNews since 2003, was named publisher this week by the JTNews board. He served as acting publisher since May 2012 follow-ing the departure of longtime publisher Karen Chachkes. He will maintain the role of editor as well.

“I’m gratified that the board has put the trust of this community institution in my hands, particularly given the fragile finan-cial state of newspapers as a whole,” Magal-nick said.

JTNews board chair Peter Horvitz cited Magalnick’s handling of the paper’s finances during a difficult year.

“Joel has always been a good editor, but in the last year he has shown impres-sive growth as a publisher and has been instrumental in the turnaround of JTNews’ financial performance,” Horvitz said. “He deserves much praise for his accomplishments and we’re delighted with his leadership of JTNews.”

Shelley Bensussen, board chair of the Jewish Federation of Greater Seattle, which owns JTNews, agreed.

“Joel has done an excellent job managing the paper through a difficult year, with a transition in leadership at JTNews, and in a marketplace where print media is being challenged every day,” she said. “He has demonstrated that he has the mix of leadership and editorial skills to take on the key position of publisher.”

The appointment took effect May 7.

new direction 6Jewish Family Service talked to 20 different candidates to fill its CEO position before finding the best option right in its own back yard.

Grass roots peacemaking 8Ultimate Peace brings Jewish and Arab Israelis and Palestinians together on level ground — the playing field, that is.

Reconstructing memory 10The stories of the Sephardic experience in the Holocaust have largely been lost in the greater context of Eastern European Jewry’s destruction. The University of Washington is changing that, starting with a symposium of national and international scholars.

Why Qatar? 11Why has Qatar, of all countries, stepped in to put forth a peace plan between Israelis and Palestinians? In a word: Money. In another word: Iran.

What to do with that hitler teapot 14Revelations of Charles Krafft’s Holocaust denial shook the local art world. What should be the Jewish com-munity’s response to this and to other troubling works that surface in the area?

path of most resistance 17Music of Remembrance’s spring concert pays tribute to a Polish resistor, whose poems reflect the extraor-dinary decisions she had to make in her young life.

understanding the scrolls 21In preparation for Shavuot, think about how you can find your way around the Torah — not just pedagogi-cally, but the physical Torah itself.

moreCrossword 8m.O.T.: Bookworms 12israel – To your health: First-rate response 13The arts 18Community Calendar 20lifecycles 23Jewish and Veggie: Banana panna-cotta-rama 24The Shouk Classifieds 22

6 commuNiTy News JTNews . www.JTNews.NeT . friday, may 10, 2013

If you have comments or questions, please contact Amanda Ip at amanda.ip@fredmeyer.com.

Join QFC at Komen Puget Sound for the Cure

This year marks the 20th anniversary of the Puget Sound Komen Race for the Cure®. Great strides have been made in the fight against breast cancer during those 20 years, but the fight is not over. Advances in research, detection and treatment have saved thousands of lives and Komen has in some way touched every major breast cancer advance in the last 30-plus years. There is still more to be done and QFC is committed to helping continue the important work of Susan G. Komen for the Cure®.

The Komen organization is QFC’s charity of the month for May. On June 2nd, QFC will also be the presenting sponsor of the Puget Sound Komen Race for the Cure®. This great event brings together thousands of runners, walkers, breast cancer survivors, friends and families to spend a fun-filled morning of sharing, caring and community. 75% of the funds raised from this event stay right here in Puget Sound to support breast health education, breast cancer screening and treatment and other direct help.

This support is critically important because despite the many advances that have taken place, over 200,000 women and men in the United States will be diagnosed with breast cancer this year. One of every eight women in the U.S. will be diagnosed with breast cancer in her lifetime. Approximately 95% of all breast cancers diagnosed in the U.S. occur in women over 40. However, the good news is that the 5-year survival rate for women who have had their breast cancer diagnosed before it spread beyond the breast is 99%. This is up from 74% in 1982.

25% of the funds that are raised through local events like the Puget Sound event are used to fund a wide range of research. There are over 750 ongoing projects in the U.S. and many other countries. The research focuses on using current knowledge to discover new ways to reduce risk, identify cancer cells at earlier and earlier stages when treatment is most effective, develop new treatments, and ultimately to prevent breast cancer altogether. Research funding has been provided to a wide variety of college graduates, doctoral studies graduates and established scientists and doctors, including to three Nobel Prize winners. Research applications are rigorously peer reviewed by clinical and scientific experts and trained advocates.

If you would like to join QFC in supporting the valuable work of Susan G. Komen for the Cure®, one way would be to join us and thousands of others at the Race for the Cure on June 2, 2013, at Seattle Center. Information on signing up can be found online at komenpugetsound.org.

A second way to support the organization is to donate at our checkstands. We have donation scan cards in $1, $5, and $10 amounts and also change jars for your spare change. We thank our generous customers for their great support and joining with us to support a truly worthy organization. If you have any questions or comments please contact Amanda Ip at amanda.ip@fredmeyer.com or call 503.421.1146.

JFS gets a new leaderJoel MagalnicK Editor, JTNews

For the first time in almost three decades, Jewish Family Service of Greater Seattle is set to bring on a new leader. Will Berkovitz, who will succeed long-time CEO Ken Weinberg, takes over the social-service agency at the beginning of July.

“It is extremely exciting,” Berkovitz said, but “I really find it immensely humbling.”

The humility comes, in large part, from the work Weinberg and his staff have done in building the organization from what served a much smaller Jewish community with fewer needs when Weinberg began in 1975 to an agency that now has nearly 200 employees and a $9 million budget that serves more than just Jews. JFS now serves clients across the region from multiple reli-gious, socioeconomic and ethnic groups.

“This community feels just a passion and sense of protectiveness to the agency. It’s really special,” Berkovitz said.

Berkovitz, 44, is already well known within Seattle’s Jewish community. He is an ordained rabbi who spent seven years at Hillel at the University of Washing-ton, four of them as its executive direc-tor. The social justice and service work he infused into Hillel led him three years ago to the national Jewish service organiza-tion Repair the World, where he served as vice president of partnerships. His history will allow him to hit the ground running

at JFS, he said. Still, “there’s going to be an awesome learning curve.”

But, he added, “it’s not completely for-eign territory for me, and I’m hoping the professionals there will be teaching me and I’ll be a student of theirs for a strong period of time.”

Berkovitz’s career has taken him paral-

lel to the Jewish Family Service world. Last year he was a keynote speaker at a national conference for the umbrella agency for Jewish Family Services across the coun-try. He provides ongoing couples coun-seling, which he has done since his Hillel days. And his travels with young adults at Hillel to perform service trips in develop-ing countries brought him in contact with indigenous populations similar to those served by JFS’s immigrant and refugee resettlement program.

Berkovitz will come into JFS with a vision for how he wants to run the agency, but he will need to put that into the con-text of what already exists.

“It’s going to be an interesting balanc-ing act,” said Eric LeVine, JFS’s incoming board president.

Berkovitz’s vision begins with continu-ing what he did at both Hillel and Repair the World in measuring outcomes of pro-gram areas, which feeds into a revisiting of the agency’s strategic plan, some of which had to be put on the backburner after the start of the 2008 recession. And the need for emergency services such as the food bank and rent assistance continues to grow.

“Demand in a post-recession world still continues to be very high,” LeVine said. But “it’s a great opportunity for us to take a step back and challenge the status

quo a little bit and test our assumptions.”Of course, revisiting the agency’s strat-

egy means growing the agency, which means finding new revenue streams.

“A static agency is a dying agency, so I think we can’t be static,” Weinberg said. “We have to find ways of finding new leads, new projects, as well as those things that are already important to us.”

Even in the very near term, Berkovitz and his staff will face some heady obsta-cles.

“I can see cuts from the federal govern-ment, cuts from the state government, and I think it’s going to be enormously chal-lenging to keep the agency going [and] keep the agency vital, to grow where we need to grow,” Weinberg said.

In the long term, Berkovitz can see expansion — and revenue — from small neighborhood service centers, much in the same way banks are opening corner branches, or using the Internet to reach people in outlying areas to provide ser-vices.

In the near term, the implementation of the Affordable Care Act will affect both the agency’s clientele and its administration, as JFS will be required to provide health insurance for its sizeable part-time staff.

X Page 22

LiSi WoLf PHoTogrAPHy

Incoming Jewish Family Service CeO Will Berkovitz.

friday, may 10, 2013 . www.JTNews.NeT . JTNews 7

• BDA, Inc.• BlackRock, Inc.• CLG Employer Resources• Columbia Management• Congress Asset Management• Cornerstone Advisors Inc.

• Anonymous• The Commerce Bank of Washington• The Essential Baking Company• Harrison Berkman Claypool & Guard PLLC and

HBC Financial Services PLLC• The Jankovich Company

• glassybaby• Glazer’s Camera Supply Co.• International Value Advisers, LLC• The Jewish Federation of Greater Seattle• Markey Machinery Company• Moss Adams LLP

• Nichols Brothers Boat Builders• Penn Capital Management Company, Inc.• The Polyclinic• Seattle Bank• Seattle Children’s• Sprague Israel Giles, Inc.

We cannot thank our family, friends and neighbors enough for the tremendous outpouring of support expressed at the April 30th Community of Caring Luncheon. 1,175 of you donated $1,053,530 to provide crucial assistance to JFS clients here at home. By doing so, you are helping ensure that JFS will, as we have since 1892, assist those in our local community who have the greatest needs. After all, family matters…always has, always will.

VISIONARY

OF GREATER SEATTLE

For being a community that truly cares.

LEADER

PARTNER

• J.P. Morgan Securities LLC• Nosh Away • The Simon Family Charitable Trust and NOVA Foundation• Swedish Medical Center• United Way of King County• Wells Fargo Bank

SUPPORTER

COLLABORATOR

www.jfsseattle.org I (206) 461-3240Event Chairs: Lela & Harley Franco

11th Annual Community of Caring Luncheon

8 commuNiTy News JTNews . www.JTNews.NeT . friday, may 10, 2013

Follow Your Headby Gaby Weidling

© 2013 Eltana Wood-Fired Bagel Cafe, 1538 12th Avenue, Seattle. All rights reserved. Puzzle created by Lone Shark Games, Inc. Edited by Mike Selinker.

Answers on page 23

Everything follows the head in life,” says the Perkei de Rabbi Eliezer. “And an empty head will lead to an empty life.” Filling your head up with knowledge is the surest way to avoid that empty-headed life. In this puzzle, 14 clues are looking to improve themselves. Though they appear in the grid in a somewhat negative light, following their heads leads to a positive conclusion. So put your thinking cap on.

ACROSS1 Avoid5 Feathered accessory8 Following their heads, hurtful types become mind-

blowing?13 Following their heads, those occupying lawyers

become touched?15 Bagel topping16 Trim17 ___ There Yet? (Ice Cube film series)18 Tool-using animal19 Like the passion of those falling in love again20 Following one’s head, a homewrecker becomes

educational?22 “___ of Gold” (Sting song)23 Tub24 Cut crudely25 Following one’s head, a guy loitering becomes

authoritative about food?29 “Where the Streets Have No Name” singer30 Totality33 Tattoos34 Country whose flag featured a three-headed elephant36 Marisa of My Cousin Vinny38 Darling dog?39 Following one’s head, one taken in a trial becomes

upright?41 Where 4-Down wants a colony42 Christian’s creations44 Shallowest Great Lake45 Girl of Green Gables46 Opposite of NNE47 Shrinking lake in Africa49 Following one’s head, an explosive type becomes

interested in music?51 Small unit of mass52 Minion of Sauron53 Warm ___ (zombie love story movie)56 Following their heads, some two-bit sorts become

strategic?61 Robin’s friend Alan-___62 Track in a dirt road63 Chow down64 Sorority restriction65 Go quickly66 Following one’s head, one that’s a bit rocky becomes

commemorative?67 Following one’s head, one covering up a slip becomes

ceremonial?68 Quirky69 Again

DOWN 1 Con2 Mata ___3 Gives in to an addiction4 Politico Gingrich5 Explosion6 “My bad!”7 Dwarf’s weapon, often8 Popular jam flavor9 Small stream10 Ship’s body11 Oklahoma city 100 miles away from

Oklahoma City12 Following their heads, those making

a scene become communicative?14 Fulfill, as a term21 English nobles22 One who might cheer24 Mubarak deposed in the Arab Spring25 Following their heads, those that may

be shrill become not so forward?26 Diarist Nin27 Response to unsolicited advice28 Russian ruler of old29 Following one’s head, one with an

agenda becomes stabilizing at night?30 ___ friends31 Spaghetti western director Sergio32 Following one’s head, one prone to

cruising becomes like a star?35 First string37 Yemen’s neighbor40 Messing with Will?43 They can be mesh or smoke48 Owns50 Land units51 Buffy’s Watcher52 Exposed53 Following their heads, those who

play around a lot become capable of holding a mop?

54 Smell55 Julie Andrews or Maggie Smith, e.g.56 ___ pro quo57 “See you later!”58 Prince Harry’s school59 Norse letter60 Gush62 It follows pi

Making peace at the grassy rootsJoel MagalnicK Editor, JTNews

Grab a Frisbee and a few friends and you’ve got yourself a game of Ultimate. But get serious about it, and maybe the sport can bring together Israeli Jews, Arabs and Palestinian teenagers to become a mean-ingful effort toward peace in the ongoing Middle East conflict.

Since 2009, David Barkan’s organiza-tion Ultimate Peace has been doing just that. Barkan spent 20 years playing com-petitive Ultimate, and in 2005 he took some Jewish Ultimate players to spend a few weeks in Israel to introduce the sport to kids, hold clinics, and play in tournaments.

“When I came back

from Israel it became obvious to me that we needed to use this as a peace-building tool,” Barkan said. “I could see it had an effect on the kids that we worked with.”

From that, Ultimate Peace was born. “The idea was simple,” Barkan said.

“You bring them together, with Ultimate as the tool, to build bridges of understand-ing across the cultures, across the borders, with the hope that they not only enjoy playing Ultimate, and playing Ultimate together, but potentially change and trans-form, and become friends.”

Sixteen of these coaches in training, or CITs, who create new teams in their home communities as well as coach the play-ers, visited Seattle during the last weekend of April, both to compete at Spring Reign in Burlington, the largest youth Ultimate tournament in the world, and to talk about the program.

One of those players, Areen Shihade, 16, is an Arab Israeli girl from the north-ern Israeli town of Tamira and a budding leader in Ultimate Peace. Before she joined the group, she would quickly become

angry, she said, but Ultimate has helped her to control her temper. She attributes her newfound calm to one unique aspect of the sport: “In the game, there is no ref-eree, so we have to deal with our little problems on the field,” she said.

The self-refereeing aspect to Ultimate is what Barkan, who said that he too was once hot-headed on the playing field, sees as the key to a successful program.

“Soccer wouldn’t have worked,” he said. “The violence in it isn’t conducive to it, the fact that you can pull the guy’s shirt and elbow when the referee’s not look-ing. The whole point of this is personal accountability.”

If your opponent is also your referee, you have to figure out a solution on your own, he said, and that’s a skill that can be applied to daily life.

“They’ve already said that’s transferred

to their lives outside: How they behave with their families, how they are interested in other sports, and what kind of students and citizens they are,” Barkan said.

Like the game itself, the Bay Area-based Ultimate Peace operates from the grass-roots, relying upon donations and sponsor-ships to hold weeklong summer camps in Israel, pay its coaches, buy equipment and uniforms, and send its players to tourna-ments such as Spring Reign. More than 300 teens from the Middle East have partici-pated in Ultimate Peace since its inception.

While in Seattle, members of Temple Beth Am provided home hospitality and transportation.

Moses Rivkin, an Ultimate coach and teacher at University Prep in Seattle’s Northend, has been involved with Ulti-mate Peace since its beginning and worked with the camp in Israel. The visiting CITs spoke at his school, as well as rode the bus from Seattle to Burlington with his stu-dents, where he could see how they inter-acted with each other.

“It was cool to see them plugging into

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each other’s earbuds and sitting in these close quarters together, laughing together, and talking about how their days had gone,” Rivkin said.

Several University Prep students that Rivkin coaches have since applied to the Ultimate Peace coach-in-training pro-gram at this summer’s camp, he said.

Though these Middle East kids talked to many groups about their program, they also came to play Ultimate. Spring Reign organizers were at the last minute able to seed MashUP, as the team calls itself, with the A-level high school teams, which ended up being the right call.

“They are so good. They would have rolled over the B division,” said Jeff Jor-genson, one of the directors of Spring Reign. “It was highly competitive, a lot of strong throws, a lot of big jumps, a lot of downfield — all the elements you want to checkbox in a quality Ultimate match.”

The team members talked about Ulti-mate Peace at the awards ceremony, but they spent plenty of time on the field intermingling with the other teams.

“It was emotional for me, because I’ve got so many games under my belt,” Jorgenson said, “to see that play-ers from Ultimate Peace have come from such a troubled part of the world, where they can still rise up and play with respect for themselves, respect for their teammates, and remember the

real victor in a game is how well you play if you give it your all.”

Asmaa Hijazi, a 16-year-old Arab Israeli from the town of Tamira, said the energies she has devoted to the pro-gram have been life changing. Hijazi first heard about Ultimate Peace’s weeklong camp two years ago and decided to attend because she was interested in the sport. It quickly became much more than a game.

“Just going through the camp, and having weekend practices, we talk about many things,” she said of her teammates. “We’re always talking about our lives… just as if I was in Tamira and I’d see Arab Muslims.”

Hijazi has been traveling to other towns, both Arab and Jewish, to teach the sport and to recruit kids to come to the camp. She said her family has noticed a change in her, in particular how she has gotten less temperamental.

“When they saw me getting involved in the program and the national team, they saw how much I love it, and how good it is,” she said.

For Elad Strasman, 16, a Jewish Israeli

from the city of Ra’anana, being a part of the program “changed my perspective about Arabs and Palestinians,” he said. The former soccer player said that being a part of the leadership program has given him the courage to say something if one of his peers makes a disparaging remark about his newfound friends’ cultures.

The real test will occur in the coming years, when the first cohort of players and coaches-in-training leave the nest and faces the high pressure of the military — or the receiving end of Israel’s military tac-tics. Barkan said Ultimate Peace hopes to get the Israelis who join the army to take advantage of a community-service pro-gram that would allow them to continue coaching. But Barkan hopes active duty will allow his players to see the ongoing conflict differently.

“If they have a relationship, they’re way more likely to do the right thing when these guys go in the army, and they go into the neighborhoods of the kids who are in

their program,” he said. “Can you imagine how that’s going to be for them and how they’re going to think differently than the others around them would?”

That’s the hope of Barkan and Isra-el’s Ministry of Culture and Sport, which he said has embraced Ultimate Peace. What has become clear is what started as a modest program has become something more positive and fulfilling than its cre-ators could have imagined.

“I’d be really happy about it if it was a cool week for some kids in the Middle East who wouldn’t have otherwise met each other,” said Rivkin, the University Prep teacher. “But to see these incredibly artic-ulate CITs who’ve really grown up in the program, talking about how it changed their life, and coming here and talking to our students about how it changed their life and maybe touching them in some way, it’s a really profound thing for me. I’m glad it exists.”

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The changing field of Holocaust studieschaRlene Kahn JTNews Correspondent

Thinking about the Holocaust often comes from a Central- and Eastern-Euro-pean focus, with recognition of the exis-tence, established lives, and the eventual destruction of much of Sephardic Jewry further out on the periphery. Now those boundaries are expanding, thanks, in part, to a symposium at the University of Wash-ington.

“Sephardic Jewry and the Holocaust: The Future of the Field” brought together the university’s new Sephardic Stud-ies Initiative, the United States Holo-caust Memorial Museum (USHMM) in Washington, D.C., international schol-arly authorities, and Seattle’s Jewish com-munity for three days of talks in the Allen Library April 28-30. Support also came from the Hanauer Outreach Fund of the Department of History at the Univer-sity of Washington and Jack M. Karako, a USHMM Legacy of Light Society member.

Leah Wolfson, senior program offi-cer in university studies at the USHMM’s Center for Advanced Holocaust Stud-ies and symposium co-convener, said she approached the UW with the idea for the symposium after Devin Naar was appointed assistant professor of Jewish studies and history and charged with lead-ing the Sephardic Studies Initiative.

“This symposium was also an oppor-tunity for the center and the museum to engage with the Pacific Northwest,” Wolf-son told JTNews. “Given the strength of the Sephardic community here and the recent appointment of Dr. Devin Naar in the Jewish Studies Program and history department at the University of Washing-

ton, Seattle was a logical choice to convene this type of an endeavor.”

The symposium was scheduled for spring 2013 to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the start of the Jewish com-munity’s deportations from Salonika (now Thessaloniki, Greece) to Auschwitz. Eighty percent of the community perished.

Enthusiastic public support greeted the symposium. Sunday night’s keynote lec-ture, given by Stanford professor of Jewish history and culture Aron Rodrigue, sold out. Rodrigue’s talk, “Sephardim, Memory and the Holocaust,” delved into the con-structed memory of life on the Island of Rhodes among the remnant of the Rhodes Jewish community, of which 151 of about 2,000 people survived.

Recounting the history and travails of Jews from Rhodes, Rodrigue praised “the memory of Rhodes Jewry and how it lives in a diasporic space.” Rhodes Jews immigrated to Africa, North Amer-ica, Latin America and Europe, settling into new communities, but they always retained their connection to their “chico Yerushalayim,” their little Jerusalem, said Rodrigue.

A local Rhodesli, retired Seattle pedia-trician Sam Tarica, was moved by the lec-ture. “My Uncle Jacob survived with my father’s help and ended up in the Belgian Congo. My father and mother escaped the Nazis, but all of our relatives [except for Jacob] were lost. It was so distressing to know they had the longest and farthest deportation of any group,” he said.

X Page 20

MEryL SCHENkEr

Stanford professor aron Rodrigue presents on “Sephardim, Memory and the Holocaust” to a packed room at the University of Washington on april 28.

friday, may 10, 2013 . www.JTNews.NeT . JTNews world News 11

Mazel Tov!You’ve earned it!

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Published June 7 | Greeting reservation deadline June 1

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Oil-rich Qatar pushing to make its name as a Mideast peace brokerRon KaMpeas JTA World News Service

WASHINGTON (JTA) — When it comes to the latest Arab peace initiative, two questions are circulating in Washing-ton: Why Qatar? And why now?

The three answers: Because Qatar is rich; it is scared; and why not?

Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim bin Jabr Al Thani, the Qatari prime minister and for-eign minister, in recent weeks has driven the revivification of the 2002 Arab Peace Initiative, moderating it slightly to hew closer to the outlines touted by the Obama administration since 2011.

The updated version, outlined by Hamad in remarks to reporters follow-ing his meeting April 29 with Secretary of State John Kerry and Vice President Joe Biden in Washington, pulls back from the 2002 demand that Israel withdraw to the 1967 borders in exchange for comprehen-sive peace.

Instead, Hamid proposed “compara-ble and mutual agreed minor swaps of the land” — a formulation that opens the door to Israel’s retention of several major set-tlement blocs. Hamad also did not men-tion the Palestinian “right of return” and the division of Jerusalem, elements of the original Arab initiative that had led to its rejection by the Israeli government.

Qatar, the fabulously wealthy Persian

Gulf state that is host to the forward head-quarters of the U.S. Central Command, hasn’t been known until recently for grab-bing onto thorny diplomatic challenges. So what does Hamad hope to gain?

The Qatari Embassy did not respond to multiple requests for comment, but experts and officials say that Qatar is wealthy enough to do what it likes and, as an autoc-racy concerned for its survival in a region roiling with revolution, is driven to make friends and demonstrate its usefulness.

“For a small country, they’re throw-ing money around, organizing diplo-matic events, trying to shape a range of issues, much of it related to the Middle East uprising,” said Brian Katulis, a senior fellow at the Center for American Prog-ress, a think tank considered close to the Obama administration. “It’s rich, it’s small, it lacks the inner turmoil of other countries. It’s one of the [Middle Eastern] countries…that are more internally stable and have more resources.”

Just prior to unveiling the revised peace plan, Hamad, a distant cousin of the Qatari emir, was honored by the Brookings Insti-tution’s Saban Center for Middle East Policy, an organization that received $2.5 million to $5 million from the government of Qatar in 2012, according to Politico.

“It vaulted Qatar into a much more prominent role in regional politics because of the loss of [Egyptian President Hosni] Mubarak,” Saban’s director Tamara Cofman Wittes, told JTA. “Its regional assistance and Al Jazeera have allowed it to play a larger role in how the awaken-ing is viewed.”

Backing winners, whether the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt or the forces that helped topple Moammar Gadhafi in Libya, also lends credibility — and insurance — to a regime that is itself autocratic, Katu-lis said.

“If they win as many as friends as possi-ble, get in early on the ground floor, they’ll be all the more influential,” he said.

A State Department official played down Qatar’s role in reviving the Arab peace bid, noting that the new plan for-mally emerged from the Arab League. And yet he emphasized that the Obama admin-istration is focused mainly on returning the Israelis and Palestinians to the nego-tiating table and hopes the peace initiative can help them get there.

“It’s a sign that the Arab League is a constructive member in the process,” the official said. “The regional partners have a role, but our major focus is getting the Pal-estinians and Israelis back to the table for

direct talks.”So far, that doesn’t seem to be hap-

pening. Israel is less than thrilled about the new initiative. An Israeli official con-firmed that Netanyahu remains as unen-thusiastic about the 1967 lines as a basis for negotiations as he was in 2011, when President Obama’s proposal based on those lines precipitated a small crisis in U.S.-Israel relations.

Israelis are also skeptical of Qatar because of its support for Hamas, the ter-rorist group controlling the Gaza Strip. The country’s emir, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, became the first foreign leader to visit the strip last October.

“On the diplomatic front, Qatar pub-licly claims to support Israeli-Palestinian peace while making certain to undermine it in every possible way,” Seth Mandel wrote last week in Commentary, the neo-conservative journal.

But Wittes said Qatar’s relationship with Hamas could be seen as a benefit. Hamas is a mainstay of Palestinian poli-tics, and Qatar could help influence the group to moderate.

“If obstruction of peace was Hamas’s role as spoiler,” she said, “you have to look at the potential for Qatar as a posi-tive influence.”

Bookish typesdiana bReMent JTNews Columnist

1 At the book launch p a r t y f o r “ H o r a -tio’s One Wish,” held

at Seattle’s Mockingbird Books, newly minted chil-dren’s author Joshua Kries-berg related that he’d written voraciously as a child. In writ-ing “Horatio’s One Wish,” a book for middle-grade read-ers (ages 8 to 12) he tried to capture the free and unham-pered writing of those years.

Growing up in Bethesda, Md., Josh remembers “math and creative writing were the subjects I was most interested in,” find-ing that “one helps the other. Doing math sometimes brings out the creative side.”

After working for Microsoft for 16 years, he left last year to focus on promot-ing the book, most of which he wrote in 2007 and 2008.

“I was at a crossroads,” he says, “not doing what I really wanted to do,” and decided to return to his dream of writing. During that year he came home from work and wrote for two to three hours a day with the support of his wife, Jane Lichty,

and their twins, Max and Ben, who were 11 at the time.

Once complete, Josh sent the book to some publishers, but found the adventure, with its heroic hedgehog named Horatio, didn’t fit with cur-rent publishing interests. He put the manuscript away for four years, but once he left Microsoft he decided to pub-lish it on his own, a popu-lar route for authors these days. He found an illustra-tor, James Bernardin, hired a book designer, and used

CreateSpace (Amazon) for production.Now he is gearing up for what many

authors find most daunting — marketing his book. In addition to Mockingbird, he’s made one school appearance and hopes to appear at other schools, libraries and bookstores. He is doing some consulting for tech startups, “but a lot of my attention is on the book,” he says.

He has a website, www.joshuakriesberg.com, and an Amazon page where all but one reviewer has given the book five stars. He finds that in the “virtual world you’re

reaching out to a lot of people, but they’re not hearing you,” he says. “The physical world goes a long way.”

2 I went to Mockingbird Books another time last month to see Betsy Dischel in her monthly PJ

Library appearance there.

PJ Library  is an outreach program of the  Harold Grinspoon Foundation that sends interested families a Jewish-themed children’s book or CD each month, in partnership with philanthropists and local Jewish organizations. In the Seattle area it is administered by our Jewish Federation, which hosts storytelling events around Seattle.

Trained in special education, Betsy brings an additional dimension to the two to five PJ Library events she leads each month.

As “a special-ed teacher in California,” she explains, “I was working with students with disabilities, who spoke Spanish and also American Sign Language, all passions of mine.” After moving to Seattle she was inspired by a preschool music class her son Diego attended. She started Musikal Magic, creating classes for preschoolers that she brings to schools and organiza-tions around the Seattle area.

“It’s become popular,” says the New York City native, and there is a waiting list. “People want Spanish, they want American Sign Language, they want

12 m.o.T.: member of The Tribe JTNews . www.JTNews.NeT . friday, may 10, 2013

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Joshua Kriesberg at the book launch for his new children’s book, “Horatio’s One Wish.”

m.o.t.Member of the Tribe

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Israeli first responders’ first-rate lessons for BostonJanis siegel JTNews Columnist

In Boston on April 15, as happens in Israel, when an improvised explosive device detonated onto a crowd of innocent civilians at the finish line of the city’s signature marathon, bystanders instinc-tively and immediately rushed in to help the injured, tying improvised tourniquets on those with severed limbs, transporting them to wait-ing ambulances, and comfort-ing others who were in utter shock.

But within minutes, when emergency first-responders arrived on the scene that afternoon on Boylston Street, medics implemented a rescue operation with the precision and all of the skills they learned from their Israeli counterparts who helped train them, the Magen David Adom, Israel’s national emergency response organization.

Tasked with administering CPR, attending to traumatic injuries, mitigat-ing severe blood loss, retrieving and cover-ing severed body parts with sterile fabrics, readying patients for surgery, and trans-porting them safely to hospitals, Isra-

el’s MDA had proactively instructed Boston disaster teams on what to do in those crucial first 10 minutes of a disaster.

“Those first magic 10 min-utes, when the patient is really at the verge of life or death, is really where we come in,” said Erik Levis, assistant director for press relations and editorial content for the American Friends of Magen David Adom, speaking with JTNews from his New York

office. “We get victims in a position to be helped once they get to the hospital.”

Recently, he said, several of their staff traveled to Boston and all over the U.S. to speak about best practices in these types of emergencies and, he said, medical staff from Boston have traveled to MDA offices in Israel to see firsthand how they operate.

In December 2011, Kurt Schwartz, the undersecretary of homeland security for Massachusetts, went to Israel with home-land security and emergency medical ser-vices personnel from his state. He told JTNews they were focused on learning how to deal with a terror attack in the event that

a device, much like the one that surfaced in Boston last month, was detonated.

“We made visits to several hospitals and to Magen David Adom’s headquar-ters,” said Schwartz. “What I learned and saw in Israel helped me in my response to the IED attacks in Boston.”

Also in 2011, Ori Shacham, a high-ranking official in the MDA, visited the Boston University Medical School to coach students and paramedics in its emergency management program. Sha-cham described how Israel integrates and coordinates the police, security, ambu-lances, and the fire department into an unfolding catastrophe.

“The level and quality of the people at Boston University were comparable to everything we see in Israel,” said Sha-cham. “The only thing they were lacking was experience, which unfortunately, we could provide to them.”

Shacham also described the medicines MDA uses in those crucial minutes en route to the hospital and the sophisticated tourniquets they use in their ambulances.

That day in Boston, when so many ran to the aid of the wounded, Shacham said he was gratified to see all those people who tried to help.

“It was a real eye-opening experience for us in Israel because we haven’t seen Amer-ica attacked like this since 9/11,” Shacham said. “It felt a little like Israel, seeing that people were just rushing in — people caring for each other. We were all very happy to see that Americans cared for each other the way Israelis care for each other here.”

At an impromptu press conference at the scene of the Boston attack, Dr. Alastair Conn, chief of emergency services at Massachusetts General Hospital, also credited the Israeli preparation his team received.

“This is like a bomb explosion that we hear about in Baghdad or in Israel,” said Conn. “About two years ago, we asked the Israelis to come across and they helped us set up our disaster teams so that we could respond in this type of manner.”

In 2005, Conn consulted with Dr. Pinchas Halpern, a world-renowned expert on trauma treatment and chief of the emergency department at Tel Aviv Medical Center, who traveled to Boston to meet with him, according to reporting from Algemeiner.com.

Halpern said his team learned to

israel:To Your Health

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arts and KrafftseMily K. alhadeff Associate Editor, JTNews

What do you do when the person you love turns out to be vastly different from the person you thought you knew? This is the question Northwest art lovers, Jewish and not, have been asking themselves in the months since ceramics artist Charles Krafft was exposed by The Stranger as a sympathizer of white nationalist and Holocaust denial ideologies.

Krafft creates ceramic plates, objects, and figurines in the Delft style, but with an edge: A flowery AK-47, a plate decorated with the crashed Pan-Am plane, and — perhaps most famous — the Hitler teapot. Until now, Krafft’s Nazi-related art had been interpreted as wonderfully ironic. Jewish collectors bought his work.

Around the same time that story broke, Delila Simon, executive director of the Washington State Holocaust Education Resource Center, stopped by JTNews with a recently acquired painting. The framed oil depicts a moneylender with a trimmed white beard and a conniving grin, tip-ping a scale away from a soldier. A donor, assuming it to be a work of European anti-Semitica, donated it to the Holocaust Center.

This is not the first piece of art the Holocaust Center has received. Paintings, posters, postcards and artifacts have for years appeared at the center’s doorstep. Recently, they received a briefcase full of Nazi propaganda a new homebuyer found

in the house. At an estate sale, they picked up a box full of painstakingly preserved Nazi propaganda magazines saved by a German immigrant who turned out to be a pilot for the Luftwaffe.

Other items, like a postcard for Ger-many’s 1937 “The Eternal Jew” exhibit and a massive poster advertising a world Jewish conspiracy, are picked up by trav-elers who, for whatever reason, are inter-ested in propaganda.

So what’s to be done with it? And should our local Jewish community be concerned with revelations of Nazi sym-pathies and Holocaust denial in our midst?

“I think the Charles Krafft incident heightens our awareness into the subject of anti-Semitism, and how we as a community need to be ever vigilant and never assume that something isn’t anti-Semitic because we don’t want it to be,” Simon told JTNews. “We see cases of anti-Semitism happening

throughout our own region. And it makes our work that much more important.”

Simon cited a phone call from con-cerned parents in nearby Federal Way whose son was acting violently and had joined an Aryan group. In some parts of the state people don’t know what a Jew is.

“We use [the propaganda and art] as a case study to show future generations what it looks like when a country and its laws can marginalize its people, and how that manifests itself first as something as simple as paintings, to eventually the ulti-mate extermination of a people, and how a society as a whole tolerated what was subtle in the beginning. And how that occurs today,” Simon said.

In light of this, a question looms large: What should be done with Charles Krafft’s Hitler teapot, Ahmadinejad hot water bottle, and swastika windmills?

Krafft, who has been long consid-ered by admirers as a “provocateur” and encyclopedic in historical knowledge, skirts around his artistic intentions. In an email correspondence, he avoided that topic, instead adjuring me to “do my homework,” which would have involved watching several Holocaust revisionism YouTube videos and reading blog posts. He denies the Holocaust denier title, but appreciates “revisionist research that includes the study of the holocaust as a psy ops,” according to a comment he left on a blog. In a short documentary film produced for the Seattle Channel around 2007, he says, “I know exactly what I’m doing, and any good artist knows exactly what buttons they’re going to be pushing, or they wouldn’t be artists. So I take full responsibility for the imagery I use.”

While the revelation of Krafft’s affilia-tions stunned the art world, one response has been to shrug off this fringe outlier. There is an assumed separation between art and artist.

Akiva Kenny Segan, a Seattle-based artist and human rights educator whose “Under the Wings of G-d” series portrays Holocaust victims with angel wings, is understandably disturbed by Krafft’s views.

“I find it troubling that people are will-ing to divorce a famous art person’s poli-tics…from whatever their works are, even if their work doesn’t reflect it directly,” Segan said. “If this guy is a professed anti-Semite or racist…and his work was continuing to be popular, I would find it troubling.”

But as an artist, Segan finds it difficult to answer the question of intentionality versus interpretation. When an artist puts his or her work out for public view, “it’s

if you goYou can view Akiva Segan’s Holocaust and human rights art at Hillel at the University of Washington, 4745 17th Ave. NE, Seattle, through May 21.

EMiLy k. ALHADEff

akiva Kenny Segan describes his mosaics, part of his Holocaust-themed “Under the Wings of g-d” series.

friday, may 10, 2013 . www.JTNews.NeT . JTNews The arTs 15

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out of their hands,” he said. “It’s up for grabs in terms of what people are going to make of it.”

On that note, Segan dismisses Krafft’s work as boring.

“In terms of creativity I don’t find it exciting at all,” he said. “It’s just kitschy to me.”

According to Mark Mulder, a museol-ogy master’s student at the University of Washington and the collections assistant intern at the Holocaust Center, whatever Krafft’s intentions were, the exposure of his views changes the game.

“It’s easy to see Hitler’s head on a skunk body as being kitschy, as being ironic, a way of showing absurdity,” he said. But when the artist is revealed as a Holocaust revisionist, the pieces are “not as ironic as they once appeared.”

Mulder, like Segan and many others, squirms when asked what museums and art collectors should do with the art of offensive artists. He says he’s not sure if it’s

the responsibility of museums to say he’s a Holocaust denier.

“It’s contested argument,” he said. “I don’t think there’s any one answer.”

“How should the Jew react to this so-called gentleman’s beliefs? That’s a dif-ficult question to answer,” said Michael Ehrenthal of Moriah Judaica in New York. “Ultimately, it depends [on] each one’s personal belief and opinion.”

Ehrenthal’s father’s collection of anti-Semitica is on display at the Wolfson Museum of Jewish Art at Hechal Shlomo in Jerusalem. His catalog, “The Jew in Anti-Semitic Art,” includes benign Jewish figurines and vicious Nazi propaganda, as well as a porcelain ashtray with a Jew beckoning a naked little boy, captioned “The Yiddish Clipper.” This souvenir is marked “Niagara Falls, N.Y.” and dates to around 1900. Decorative plates, a por-celain tobacco jar in the shape of a Jew’s head, and (conversely) a chamber pot with Hitler’s face populate the collection.

Is Charles Krafft’s so-called Disaster-ware really as unique as everyone thinks,

then? Should we be outraged?“This is really nothing new under the

sun,” said Ehrenthal. “We Jews have expe-rienced this over the centuries.”

But Ehrenthal separates it from anti-Semitica. “Mr. Krafft has not exhibited or shown anything that is anti-Semitic other than personal beliefs,” he said. “You don’t necessarily have a good criticism regarding his artwork, at least up until now, unless he comes up with some thing anti-Semitic.”

Segan hopes Krafft will come around to education, especially “if he were amenable to folks like me.”

But should Krafft’s rendering of Charles Manson’s swastika-engraved head show up at the Holocaust Center’s door someday, the organization will just have to keep edu-cating about the dangers of propaganda.

“Propaganda can be a powerful tool to show institutional bigotry, brainwashing,” said Mulder. “It can start conversations about how the public was okay with acts that were committed.”

CourTESy fiNE ArTS MuSEuMS of SAN frANCiSCo

“Hitler Idaho,” better known as the “Hitler teapot.” a Jewish collector donated the piece to the Fine arts Museums of San Francisco before his death.

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appears to be the very opaque and murky spots of our life. I deeply believe and know it to be true that by doing this, we will be able to lead more meaningful, constructive and fulfilling Jewish lives and strive toward the goal God outlined when He gave us the Torah: “You shall be to Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.”

only empower the extremists in the Arab and larger Muslim world who are deter-mined to destroy the Jewish State.

Now is the time for Benjamin Netan-yahu to secure a better future for the people of Israel by taking a dramatic step for peace.

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W RaBBI’S TURN Page 3

W NeTaNyaHU Page 3

live music,” which Betsy provides on her guitar.

She also took Diego to a Tot Shabbat at Temple Beth Am and was further inspired by the synagogue’s song leader Shoshana Stombaugh, also a kindergarten and music teacher at the Seattle Jewish Community School.

“I wanted Diego to go to school where she worked,” says Betsy.

A school administrator “suggested I become a storyteller,” Betsy told me, and connected her with Amy Paquette at the Jewish Federation, who invited her to be a PJ Library teacher.

In her classes and PJ Library events, kids are getting “a professional level of instruc-tion, [including] brain development,” language development, and visual devel-opment as well as fun, says Betsy. The day I saw her at Mockingbird, there was a deaf toddler and mother in the audience. Betsy is quick to point out that she welcomes kids of all capabilities to her programs with “a joy and a heart for sharing language and stories with people of all abilities.”

W M.O.T. Page 12

DiANA BrEMENT

Betsy Dischel uses song, american Sign Language and both Hebrew and Spanish in her PJ Library programs. Here she is signing and guitar playing at a Musikal Magik class at the Phinney Neighborhood Center in Seattle.

friday, may 10, 2013 . www.JTNews.NeT . JTNews The arTs 17

Farewell, Auschwitz! 15th Season • Mina Miller, Artistic Director

7:30 p.m. May 14, 2013Illsley Ball Nordstrom Recital Hall, Seattle

6:45 p.m. Meet the Composer & Librettist: Jake Heggie & Gene Scheer

One Night Only! Two World Premieres!

Concert Tickets: $36 | (206) 365-7770 | musicofremembrance.org

MOR returns to the amazing story of Polish Resistance member Krystyna Zywulska, whose poems in Auschwitz circulated secretly and became anthems of resistance. In Farewell, Auschwitz!, composer Jake Heggie and librettist Gene Scheer breathe new musical life into those very poems. Also, the world premiere of the song cycle version of Heggie and Scheer’s For a Look or a Touch, based on the true story of two idealistic young lovers torn apart by the Nazis’ cruel oppression of homosexuals. Plus: music from Kurt Weill’s Three Penny Opera and a trio by László Weiner.

Jake Heggie

Caitlin Lynch

Morgan Smith

Sarah LarsenPolish resistor Krystyna Zywulska

‘Farewell, auschwitz!’ (Don’t you just want to say that?)gigi yellen-Kohn JTNews Correspondent

We may be Boomers or Millennials, Gen-Xers or Generation Thumbs, but all of us alive in this era are witnesses to the Holocaust. Survivors are still among us. We hear their reports, document them, read them, and work to maintain them accurately in the face of a forgetful world. It’s a heavy burden to carry, this witness thing. Many of us complain, “enough!” and would happily bid farewell to the name “Auschwitz” and all the baggage it deposits at our 21st-century doorstep.

But it’s ours, this baggage, and thank goodness some of our contemporaries bravely pick it up, examine it, and work it into art. Their efforts reveal that in every generation, and in the most surprising places, human creativity both survives and helps us survive.

That is what Krystyna Zywulska’s poems and songs did for her and her fellow prisoners at Auschwitz. And that is what American composer/librettist duo Jake Heggie and Gene Scheer are doing with Zywulska’s poems in their third work com-missioned by Seattle’s Music of Remem-brance. Their chamber ensemble version of Zywulska’s poetry, “Farewell, Auschwitz!” will receive its world premiere at MOR’s May 14 concert at Benaroya Hall’s Nord-strom Recital Hall.

One of America’s most acclaimed con-temporary opera composer/librettist teams, Heggie and Scheer created “Another Sun-rise” for MOR last season. That one-woman show introduced the drama of Zywulska and her struggle with the morally wrench-ing choices that allowed her to survive. Hiding her Jewish identity — she changed her name from Sonia Landau — she walked

out of the Warsaw Ghetto. It was resistance work that landed her in Auschwitz-Birke-nau, unacknowledged as a Jew and at first unaware of her gifts as a writer.

MOR founder and artistic director Mina Miller, a dogged researcher of such stories for over 15 years, didn’t learn of Zywulska until a presenta-tion at a 2007 Holocaust stud-ies conference in Warsaw by the American scholar Barbara Milewski of Swarthmore Col-lege, who researches amateur music-making in Nazi camps.

When Miller took Zywuls-ka’s story and poems to Heggie, she said he “was more inter-ested in social justice and the moral complexity of survival” than in simply setting Zywuls-ka’s poems to music. In fact, the original poems had been set to music — most of it lost — including resis-tance anthems and popular tunes of the day.

For “Farewell, Auschwitz!” Heggie says he composed music in the style of those tunes, ranging from sarcastic to comfort-ing. The half-dozen songs are set for three voices — soprano, mezzo-soprano, and baritone — with clarinet, violin, cello, double bass, and piano.

Librettist Scheer says he “was surprised that it was such a diverse collection of con-cerns and hopes.” His Polish-speaking in-laws translated Zywulska’s work literally so he could create his own poetic, singable versions in English.

“It was not what I expected,” he says. “There was gossip, all these sort of reveal-ing cross-currents that were going on in the

camps.” Scheer, who is Jewish, traces his own roots to Lodz and Warsaw, so “the cultural terrain for me starts here.”

Soprano Caitlin Lynch, who created the role of Zywul-ska in “Another Sunrise,”

returns with mezzo-soprano Sarah Larsen of Seattle Opera’s Young Artists Program.

Baritone Morgan Smith will also perform another Heggie/Scheer premiere at the May 14 concert, a song-cycle version of their mini-opera “For a Look or a Touch.” Commissioned and premiered by MOR in 2007, with Smith as co-star, “Look” dramatizes a gay man’s heart-broken memories years after Nazis mur-dered his young lover.

Though Miller has been with MOR for 15 years and shows no interest in retir-ing, she has named Smith “artistic advi-

sor,” with an eye toward the future. Even though he makes his home in Leipzig, Germany and travels constantly for his skyrocketing operatic career, his connection to MOR has him thinking ahead.

In an interview for a Hadassah magazine story on MOR last year, Smith told me that even as he considers expanding the subject matter of MOR’s work, “the crimes of the Holocaust of course will always be central.

“There is value in telling stories through music,” he says, “especially as the gener-ation that can give firsthand accounts is passing.”

Ironically, MOR’s spring concert on May 14 coin-cides with the first evening of Shavuot. Miller says she regrets the unfortunate timing, which will mean the absence of some valued staff and supporters.

But MOR is first of all a music organization, albeit one with an urgent sense of mission forged in Jewish tragedy. Just last week, the National Endowment for the Arts announced a grant of

$15,000 to MOR in support of its Sparks of Glory community outreach concerts-with-commentary. These concerts are held

if you go“Farewell, Auschwitz!” pre-mieres on Tuesday, May 14 at 7:30 p.m. at the Illsley Ball Nor-dstrom Recital Hall at Benaroya Hall, 200 University St., Seat-tle. A “meet the composer and librettist” pre-concert talk will take place at 6:45 p.m. Tickets are $36 and available through www.musicofremembrance.org.

X Page 23

LEo V. SANTiAgo PHoTogrAPHy

Baritone Morgan Smith in “For a Look or a Touch” in 2007.

CourTESy of MAx BoJArSki

Polish resistor Krystyna Zywulska, born Sonia Landau, in Lodz, Poland.

18 The arTs JTNews . www.JTNews.NeT . friday, may 10, 2013

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Mother’s Day sing-along and Fundraiser

tasty, musical fun

Visit peaks frozen custard in north seattle anytime on Mother’s day, and a

percentage of the price of your frozen deliciousness will go to the seattle jew-

ish chorale. from 2-4 p.m., chorale members and friends will lead a “kumsitz,” an

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at peaks frozen custard, 1026 ne 65th st., seattle. for more information contact

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sunday, May 19 at 4 p.m.

a jewish Dueling Piano Revue

Concert

the stroum jewish community center’s jewish touch lecture series continues with

a dueling piano revue with cantor david serkin-poole, music director peter pundy,

and special guests. the musicians will host a lively afternoon of jewish greatest

hits, new and old. sing, laugh, and cry out for more!

at the stroum jcc, 3801 e Mercer Way, Mercer island. for more information and to

register visit www.sjcc.org or contact Kim at klawson@sjcc.org or 206-388-0823.

Monday, May 13 at 8 p.m.

an evening with Michael Pollan

“rabbi” Michael pollan, jewish foodie guru and best-selling

author of “the omnivore’s dilemma,” will speak about his

new book, “cooked: a natural history of transformation.”

in his latest work, pollan explores his own kitchen and

learns how to harness the elements — earth, air, wind, and

fire — to transform basic things into delicious foods. pollan

aims to reclaim cooking as a way to make the american

food system more sustainable and healthier, and to lead to

more fulfilling and nourishing lives.

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For a complete listing of events, or to add your event to the JTNews calendar, visit calendar.jtnews.net. Calendar events must be submitted no later than 10 days before publication.

the calendarto Jewish Washington @jewishcal

Candlelighting timesMay 10 .............................8:15 p.m.May 17 ............................ 8:24 p.m.May 24 ............................ 8:32 p.m.May 31 ............................ 8:40 p.m.

fRiday 10 May10:30 a.m. — PJ Library Storytime at SJCS

Amy Paquette at amyhp@jewishinseattle.org The PJ Library welcomes Shoshana Stombaugh as guest musician and storyteller. Songs and a story, activities and playgroup fun. At the Seattle Jewish Community School, 12351 Eighth Ave. NE, Seattle.

satuRday 11 May1:15–2:30 p.m. — israeli folk Dance

Shelly Goldman at sgoldman@a.templebnaitorah.org or 425-603-9677 or www.templebnaitorah.orgInstructor Cindy Droker will introduce you to Israeli folk dancing. No experience necessary. Come with comfortable clothing and sneakers. Free. At Temple B’nai Torah, 15727 NE Fourth St., Bellevue.

Monday 13 May6:30–9 p.m. — My grandfather Came from Poi-son, and Who the Heck is ida gerskill? Some Challenges of researching Jewish Names

Mary Kozy at genmail@marykozy.net or www.jgsws.org/meetings.phpMeredith Hoffman uses real examples to explore the difficulties encountered when working with Jewish personal, family, and place names as they morphed through time and space. Free to Jewish Genealogical Society of Washington State members; $5 for non-members. At the Stroum Jewish Community Center, 3801 E Mercer Way, Mercer Island.7:30–9 p.m. — Jewish Soul food

Yiscah Smith at yiscah.smith@gmail.com or 206-427-9096 or www.yiscahsara.comDiscuss the inner soul dimension of the Torah. Discover the personal spiritual meaning in the weekly Torah portion. Ongoing class. Suggested donation $15. At private home, Seattle. Contact for location details.

tuesday 14 May10:30 a.m.–12 p.m. — outing to Hillel with Artist Akiva kenny Segan

Ellen Hendin at endlesspps@jfsseattle.org

or 206-461-3240 or jfsseattle.orgGuide and artist Akiva Segan will discuss his powerful mosaics and drawings in which he explores the Shoah and human rights. At Hillel at the University of Washington, 4745 17th Ave. NE, Seattle.7:30–10 p.m. — Music of remembrance Spring Concert

Micah Shelton at info@musicofremembrance.org or 206-365-7770 or www.musicofremembrance.orgWorld premiere by Jake Heggie, commissioned by MOR. Guest artists soprano Caitlin Lynch and baritone Morgan Smith. $36. At Illsley Ball Nordstrom Recital Hall, Benaroya Hall, Seattle.7:30 p.m. — Shavuot Leil Tikkun: Weaving Art, Torah, and relationships

Carol Benedick at carolbenedick@bethshalomseattle.org or 206-524-0075 or bethshalomseattle.orgStudy all night at Beth Shalom. Learn with Prof. Shalom Sabar and others. Cheesecake bakeoff. Learning for kids. At Congregation Beth Shalom, 6800 35th Ave. NE, Seattle.9–11:30 p.m. — Tikkun Leyl Shavuot

Shelly Goldman at sgoldman@a.templebnaitorah.org or 425-603-9677 or www.templebnaitorah.orgJoin Rabbi James Mirel, Rabbi Anson Laytner and Rabbi Olivier BenHaim for an evening of studying spiritual texts. Free. At Temple B’nai Torah, 15727 NE Fourth St., Bellevue.11:59 p.m.–6 a.m.— NCSy Shavuot All-nighter

Ari Hoffman at thehoffather@gmail.com or SeattleNCSY.comAll-night learning with an Eli Varon-catered breakfast. At Sephardic Bikur Holim, 6500 52nd Ave. S, Seattle.

Wednesday 15 May10–11:30 a.m. — Shavuot Cooking with “Jerusalem: A Cookbook”

Carol Benedick at carolbenedick@bethshalomseattle.org or 206-524-0075 or bethshalomseattle.orgUsing Yotam Ottolenghi’s new cookbook, prepare a fattoush salad with buttermilk dressing and a basmati and wild rice pilaf with chickpeas and fresh herbs. At Congregation Beth Shalom, 6800 35th Ave. NE, Seattle.10:30–11 a.m. — Shavuot katan

Leah Lemchen at leah@bethshalomseattle.org or 206-524-0075 or bethshalomseattle.orgShavuot songs, stories, and treats for children 1-5 years and their parents. RSVP appreciated. At Congregation Beth Shalom, 6800 35th Ave. NE, Seattle.

satuRday 18 May1:15–2:30 p.m. — Jewish Meditation: Pause and renew

Shelly Goldman at sgoldman@a.templebnaitorah.org or 425-603-9677 or www.templebnaitorah.orgInstructor Anna Satenstein will help students practice “listening to the still small voice” within. Cultivate shalom and compassion in these informative and experiential classes. Free. At Temple B’nai Torah, 15727 NE Fourth St., Bellevue.

sunday 19 May11 a.m.–12:30 p.m. — Parenting Mindfully: The Middah of responsibility

Marjorie Schnyder at familylife@jfsseattle.org or 206-861-3146 or www.jfsseattle.orgExplore how parents can express emotions and beliefs in balanced ways and look at both traditional Jewish writings and contemporary research and literature. Best for parents of children up to 12 years old. Free; limited babysitting with advance request. At Temple B’nai Torah, 15727 NE Fourth St., Bellevue.3:30–5:30 p.m. — The Livnot Project Think Tank

Julie Hayon at info@thelivnotproject.org or 206-486-0104 or thelivnotproject.orgTwo Muslim-Jewish dialogue groups will present and record a vision for how the communities can continue to work together to promote peace and dialogue. Celebration to conclude the first year of The Livnot Project in Seattle. At Jewish Family Service, 1601 16th Ave., Seattle.5 p.m. — Basarfest

Ari Hoffman at thehoffather@gmail.com or SeattleNCSY.comNCSY’s annual meat festival, with massive BBQ and gourmet meat dishes. At Sephardic Bikur Holim, 6500 52nd Ave. S, Seattle.6–9 p.m. — friendship Circle Annual Volun-teer Appreciation Dinner

Esther at dinner@friendshipcirclewa.org or 206-374-3637 or www.friendshipcirclewa.orgAn evening of appreciation for the 100-plus teen volunteers, dinner honorees Don and Deanne Etsekson, and volunteer of the year Talia Etsekson, for their support for families and children with special needs. At the Showbox SODO, 1700 First Ave. S, Seattle.

tuesday 21 May10:30 a.m.–12 p.m. — Cosmic Evolution of the universe

Ellen Hendin at endlesspps@jfsseattle.org

or 206-461-3240 or jfsseattle.orgUW Professor Bruce Balick will portray the cosmic evolution of the universe for the first 100 seconds of physical existence and summarize how scientists have made this determination. At Temple De Hirsch Sinai, 1441 16th Ave., Seattle.4–6 p.m. — Cooking Matters

Amelia at arighi@jfsseattle.org or 206-726-3603 or www.jfsseattle.orgSix-week cooking and nutrition workshop. Strategies for preparing healthy, affordable meals, nutrition information for people with diabetes or high blood pressure, and cooking practice. Free groceries, cookbook and other resources. At Jewish Family Service, 1601 16th Ave., Seattle.6:15 p.m. – 8:45 p.m. — family Meetings: finding Solutions Together

Marjorie Schnyder at familylife@jfsseattle.org or 206-861-3146 or jfsseattle.orgPositive discipline builds parent confidence and guides children in a context of mutual respect. Facilitated by Sarina Behar Natkin. Best for parents with children 2-12 years old. Financial assistance available. $20/session per person. At Jewish Family Service, 1601 16th Ave., Seattle.

thuRsday 23 May8:30 a.m.–12:30 p.m. — Annual Truck Day

Rich Greenwell at rich@cmsnaturalgas.com or 206-618-3738 or www.sjcc.orgOver a dozen vehicles, including a fire truck, police car, school bus and mail truck will be on display for kids to “test drive” and admire. At the Stroum JCC, 3801 E Mercer Way, Mercer Island.6–8 p.m. — Cardozo Society’s Annual L’dor V’dor Event

Shayna Rosen at shaynar@jewishinseattle.org or 206-774-2219 or jewishinseattle.orgThe Jewish Federation’s Cardozo Society of Washington State invites the legal community to L’dor V’dor 2013, honoring Joel Benoliel with the 2013 L’dor V’dor award. $54 per person. At Dorsey & Whitney LLP, 701 Fifth Ave., Seattle.

fRiday 24 May12 p.m. — Spring regional Shabbaton

Ari Hoffman at thehoffather@gmail.com or SeattleNCSY.comNorthwest NCSY returns to Keats Island, off the coast of Vancouver, B.C., for the final Shabbaton of the year. Mountain biking, rock climbing, canoeing/kayaking, ropes courses, hiking, and more. At Keats Island.

Regarding the symposium’s purpose — shedding light on the Sephardic Holocaust experience and parsing out the future of the field — Naar said, “not only did we attempt to find a place for the varied expe-riences of Sephardic and North African Jews within the standard narratives of the Holocaust, but more importantly, we ini-tiated a discussion about how the very nature of our understandings of the Holo-caust change when viewed from the Med-iterranean.”

The issue of European colonialism and North African persecution widens the geo-graphical scope of the Holocaust and wel-comes discussion about Muslim-majority contexts. “Together with the experiences of Jews in the Balkans and Greece, we can begin to develop a previously unexplored Mediterranean lens through which to view experiences of occupation, dispossession, persecution, resistance, and extermina-tion that enrich and also challenge the more familiar narratives focused on East-ern Europe,”said Naar.

The enhanced learning offered by the

symposium offered an extended benefit for local organizations. “The symposium offered the Holocaust Center a wonder-ful opportunity to learn about the latest research in the area of Sephardic studies, allowing us to share that knowledge and perspective with educators and students throughout the Pacific Northwest,” said Delila Simon, executive director of the Washington State Holocaust Education Resource Center.

At the end of the symposium, Univer-sity of California at Irvine professor of history Marc Baer reiterated this idea of

dissemination and education. “We also need to consider our audi-

ence,” he said. “While we have a built-in audience of Sephardic Jews because this is their history, we should address ourselves to a wider audience, because the stories we are telling have great significance for others, too. In all of our research, the ques-tion of what it means to be a Sephardic Jew also challenges what it means to be French, Spanish, German, Greek, or Turk-ish, and demonstrates how national iden-tity changes over time.”

W SePHaRDIC SyMPOSIUM Page 10

20 commuNiTy caleNdar JTNews . www.JTNews.NeT . friday, may 10, 2013

friday, may 10, 2013 . www.JTNews.NeT . JTNews shavuoT prep 21

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Torah navigation leads to new journeysedMon J. RodMan JTA World News Service

LOS ANGELES (JTA) — On Shavuot, we celebrate being given the Five Books of Moses by opening the gift and reading from the scroll. But first we need to find the place.

How do we find our place in the Torah?Newbies to the ways of a Torah scroll

will soon realize that unlike the mass-pro-duced technological marvels that bring order and wonder into their lives, this handmade inspiration comes without an operating manual.

As I discovered the first time I tried to find my place, the perfect columns of scribed, unvoweled Hebrew can seem like a phone book without page numbers in a foreign language.

For many, the only time we may have wanted to find our place in the Torah was at our bar or bat mitzvah — and even then someone showed us. But what if as adults we want to find our way back into the Torah — on our own? What if we want to find not only the correct place from which to read but a place to call our own?

There’s no app for that — yet.“The scope would be limited,” said

Russel Neil, a Jewish educator and tech-nologist who described himself as the “coding monkey” behind PocketTorah. The smartphone app has the text of the Torah and haftarah in Hebrew and trans-lated, as well as with the sound of how they are chanted and commentary.

Asked about an app that lets you find your place in the Torah, he said it would

“get in the way of the actual thing you want to be doing,” thinking of the tac-tile experience of confronting the text and grabbing hold of the wooden rollers, the etz chaim.

But is the absence of an app the only thing keeping us from being able to navi-gate the source of our spirituality?

Several years ago, at the conclusion of a parade welcoming a new Torah scroll to our small congregation, the Movable Minyan, was when I began to get my Torah bearings.

The plan was to conclude the event with a reading of the Shema from the new scroll. However, just as we entered the room, the one person knowledgeable enough to find the place told us she had an appointment and regretfully had to leave.

What now? We didn’t know the place, and there are no bookmarks that come with a Torah.

However, as we discovered that day, and as I was reminded recently by Rabbi Patricia Fenton of American Jewish Uni-versity, “you take what guideposts you can” in finding your place in the scroll. Fenton is the manager of Judaica and public services at her Los Angeles school’s library and a rabbinic studies adviser.

According to Fenton, who was named recently by the Jewish Daily Forward as one of America’s Most Inspiring Rabbis, the place can be found by looking for clues such as gaps, familiar words or even sec-tions.

“The Ten Commandments and Haazinu are written in a special way,” she added, the latter being the Torah portion featuring the Song of Moses. “Whether a person considers the Torah to be God’s words or a foundation text, it’s the source of who we are as Jews, and reading from it is a big responsibility.”

Fenton suggests starting with a Jewish calendar to find the week’s portion and then going to a tikkun — a guidebook for Torah readers with Hebrew text as it appears in the Torah scroll in one column and with vowels and singing marks in another — to narrow the search.

But the Movable Minyan had no tikkun and no experience, since the task of setting the place in the Torah was typically done by an expert.

So how did a group of Torah rook-ies manage? By navigating with our col-lective Jewish educations. We knew the Shema was in the Torah’s last book, Deu-teronomy — Devarim, in Hebrew — and from a prayer book that it was found in an early chapter.

The current place was somewhere near the middle, and since Hebrew reads from right to left, we would need to roll more up on the right roller to get to the last book. As we rolled, we noted the large gaps in text upon reaching the end of Leviticus-Vayikra, then Numbers-Bamidbar, until we reached Devarim.

“These are the words,” the book begins.After slowly scrolling over several more

columns, and finding the oversized letter ayin in the Shema, we had found our place.

Since then, I have found, like other novice readers, you can find your place by counting the columns of text in the tikkun from the beginning of a book, or the por-tion — the count will be the same in the Torah scroll. Later, as the Hebrew grew more familiar, key words and phrases became my guide.

Others in the minyan beginning their Torah journeys have used navigational aids — notes written on scraps of paper, photocopy enlargements, even Post-its — to find their place. More than an exer-cise or a game of word search, it became a matter of truly taking ownership of the text.

There are times, however, when we open the scroll and someone has forgot-ten to advance it from the previous Shab-bat. In those moments of being lost — and it does feel like being physically lost — and amid the pressure to find your way, words become landmarks, even the guideposts of which Fenton spoke.

On one of those rolling mornings, yad in hand, I was looking for the right “va’yidaber” in the book of Exodus, Shemot — many of its verses begin with the word, as in “va’yidaber Elohim,” “and God spoke.” The word began to loom large as I scanned past one after another.

In the moments it took to find the right word and my place, I felt the Torah was speaking to me as well.

22 commuNiTy News JTNews . www.JTNews.NeT . friday, may 10, 2013

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Similarly, as the Baby Boom genera-tion approaches retirement age, the need for Medicare and other services will be unprecedented.

“For the next 10 years we’re going to see the largest increase of older adults in the history of the world,” Weinberg said. “What are we going to do about it? And who will assist us? Who will be our part-ners in facing those challenges?

“I will do my best to share with him my thinking on these, but he and his team here will have to come up with solutions,” Weinberg said.

As much as JFS supporters, and Berkovitz himself, acknowledge the big shoes he will need to fill following Wein-berg’s departure, Weinberg said Berkov-itz needs to be judged on his own merits.

“He is his own unique human being with his own strengths, and I think it’s really important the community, the board, the workers, everyone pull for him,

and sort of let go of Ken,” Weinberg said.Berkovitz agreed.“I come from a rabbinic background,

so I believe deeply in understanding the roots of the tradition that comes before you and not cutting yourself off from your roots,” he said. “It’s in my nature to move with that understanding.”

That reflective perspective was a big reason why Berkovitz rose above, as LeVine put it, the 20 candidates the agency vetted for the CEO position.

“He brings a really outside-the-box creativity at how to look at some of the problems the agency’s been looking at for decades,” LeVine said.

Michele Rosen, who with former Star-bucks president Howard Behar led the CEO search committee, told JTNews that Berkovitz’s ability to connect both with donors and the agency’s clientele reso-nated with the search committee.

“That was the first thing that people noticed, that he really had empathy for the people that come to JFS,” she said. “I think

that’s critical.” Berkovitz did not slide through the

search process, Rosen emphasized. Her committee began searching in August, and continued until the May 3 announce-ment.

“There were at least 20 candidates that…had long screening processes, so this was not a shoo-in at all,” she said. “We had to do right by us and by him.”

Rosen was a board member at Hillel UW during Berkovitz’s tenure there, so she knew firsthand about his work on social justice issues and how he centered that mission around Judaism. But she said many members of the search committee learned only during the interview about that added dimension, and how it can move JFS forward.

“Will’s ability to understand the role of Judaism…and say this service that we per-form on behalf of others, the responsibil-ity we feel to take care of people in need who can’t take care of themselves at that moment, is in the very of DNA of what

is in the Torah and other teachings,” she said. “That’s our responsibility.”

Berkovitz has long struggled with the idea of God and religion, and he said he has given a lot of thought into what the Jewish part of Jewish Family Service will mean in the future.

“It’s some of the work that’s done in a secular space that actually allows for the possibility of serving the Jewish com-munity as well,” he said. “The balance of that is going…to have to be worked out deeply.”

It was only having the opportunity to work on a national scale that gave Berkov-itz the realization he could be more effec-tive at home.

“The impact I want to make is on the local scale in our community,” he said. “The degree to which that was important to me, that my kids could see [my wife] Lelach and I live out our values deeply like that, I don’t think I could have understood it until I was in the thick of it.”

W JFS DIReCTOR Page 6

friday, may 10, 2013 . www.JTNews.NeT . JTNews lifecycles 23

LifecycLes

How do I submit a Lifecycle announcement? Send lifecycle notices to: JTNews/Lifecycles, 2041 Third Ave., Seattle 98121E-mail to: lifecycles@jtnews.net Phone 206-441-4553 for assistance. Submissions for the May 24, 2013 issue are due by May 14.Download forms or submit online at www.jtnews.net/index.php?/lifecyclePlease submit images in jpg format, 400 KB or larger. Thank you!

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ObituaryJerome Katz

Jerome Katz passed away peacefully on April 28, 2013, Lag B’Omer. Born in Seattle on October 12, 1930 to Freida and Max Katz, he attended Seattle Talmud Torah, Garfield High School, and graduated cum laude from the University of Washington School of Pharmacy at the age of 20. A proud ROTC graduate and Korean War veteran, Jerry married Rita Shulman Katz in 1957, to whom he was devoted throughout 55 years of loving marriage. Together they raised three daughters, Renee (Eric), Cindy (David) and Julie (Andrew). A dedicated pharmacist, Jerry established Jerry’s Garden Pharmacy, and for 40 years

served his loyal customers with compassion and care, delivering prescriptions to those too frail to pick them up from his counter. Jerry was a talented musician, playing piano, ukulele and harmonica and harmonizing at every opportunity. He was deeply committed to the Jewish community and to his shul, Herzl-Ner Tamid, where he was one of the morning “minyannaires.” A loving father, he particularly delighted in his grandchildren, Joshua, Leora, Elie, Hana and Nathan. His gentle, solid presence will be greatly missed. Remembrances to Herzl-Ner Tamid Conservative Congregation, Kline Galland Home, Parkinson’s Foundation, or charity of your choice.

ObituaryRebecca Behar Mutal

Rebecca Behar Mutal was born October 17, 1927 in the Bronx, N.Y. and passed away April 26, 2013. She was the third of six children to Clavena and Jack Behar, who immigrated to America and resided in New York in the early 1900s, Jack from Turkey and Clavena from the Island of Rhodes. They had four daughters and two sons.

At age 12, Rebecca and her family moved to Burbank, Calif. In her golden years, she spoke fondly of the cross-country drive with her family, and truly loved the sunny California climate.

Rebecca met her late husband Henry (Hank) Mutal, a recently discharged World War II vet, on a blind date set up by his cousins while on vacation in California. They became engaged and were married on February 26, 1949 at Congregation Ezra Bessaroth in Seattle. Two years later, the young family, Hank, Rebecca and baby Sari Jane, relocated to Burbank to be near Rebecca’s family. Rebecca and Hank had two more daughters, Carol Jean and Joyce Ann.

In 1974, Rebecca and Hank moved back to Washington, living on Mercer Island. Rebecca lost Hank in 1990 and moved from their home in 2001. Rebecca worked in their family businesses in California and then in Seattle, at a lunch counter on Fourth Avenue called The Pantry Shelf. Throughout her life, Rebecca also took great joy in cooking, eating, and socializing with those around her.

Rebecca was a wonderful mother and grandmother to Sari (Ron, z”l) Drucker and their children David (Jenny) Drucker and Pamela (Lindsay) Drucker-Mann; Carol (Jeff, z”l) Akrish and their children Mindy (Erik) Matteson, Garrett (Barbi) Hoffman, Joel (Mary Ann) Hoffman, and Ronald Akrish; and Joyce (Larry) Steingold and their children Stephanie (Jason) Bressler, Jonathan Steingold, and Lauren Steingold. In addition, Rebecca had four great grandsons, Levi, Micah, Jacob, and John David and a step-great-granddaughter, Cecilia.

Rebecca survived all her brothers- and sisters-in-law, the Mutals of Seattle and the Behars of Burbank, all from the Great Generation. Rebecca was one of a kind and a truly unique woman throughout her lifetime.

Funeral services were held Sunday, April 28 at the Sephardic Brotherhood Cemetery in Seattle. Remembrances can be made to Sephardic Bikur Holim Congregation, Seattle or Overlake Hospital, Bellevue.

manage mass-casualty crises by performing additional CT scans to detect smaller pieces of shrapnel, streamlining the victim identification process, keeping patients long enough to be sure of the extent of their injuries, and calling up large numbers of staff as soon as a terrorist attack occurs — just in case.

“As soon as we heard about the blasts we didn’t let any anesthesiologists or gen-eral or trauma surgeons or pediatricians leave the hospital,” Conn said. “I remem-ber walking through the emergency depart-ment two hours after the bomb victims arrived. Many of the acute patients had already been moved, and it looked like there was more staff than patients in the ER. If there had been a third or a fourth bomb that day — we could have managed.”

Longtime JTNews correspondent and freelance

journalist Janis Siegel has covered international

health research for SELF magazine and

campaigns for Fred Hutchinson Cancer

research Center.

W ISRaeL: TO yOUR HeaLTH Page 13

on Saturday afternoons, further proof that MOR’s outreach stretches way beyond the observant Jewish community.

As Heggie puts it, “I don’t know any-thing quite like what Mina does. She is a force of nature. It’s almost like she’s a vessel through which these messages come.”

Scheer concurs: “It’s an amazing testa-ment to what one person can do.”

W MUSIC OF ReMeMBRaNCe Page 17

24 Jewish aNd veggie JTNews . www.JTNews.NeT . friday, may 10, 2013

got milk for Shavuot? How about delectable dairy? Michael natKin JTNews Columnist

Panna cotta is a classic Ital-ian dessert, traditionally made from cream and milk set with gelatin, which isn’t vegetar-ian. The gelatin is what makes it different from flan (set with eggs) or pudding (set with starch and sometimes eggs).

The best panna cotta is ultra-creamy and just barely set — it should have a dis-tinct wiggle to it. So the chal-lenge in making a vegetarian panna cotta is to replace the gelatin with something that doesn’t make a brittle, crumbly, or over-firm gel. Agar, derived from seaweed, can make a good panna cotta if you are careful to use the bare minimum amount.

Agar is relatively easy to find. The brand I like best is Telephone — it comes in little packets that you can find at Asian groceries or on Amazon.com. I find this brand to be completely flavorless, and the thickening strength is very reliable. If you try other brands, or agar flakes, etc., you may have to experiment to find the equiv-alent amount.

Whenever you use agar it’s important to disperse it before hydrating. The best technique is to whisk it in with sugar or another powdered ingredient, disperse it

into a vortex of liquid in the blender, and only then do you heat it. If you try to heat it, which causes the powder to hydrate, before fully dispers-ing it, you’ll have a clumpy mess on your hands.

With panna cotta you have the choice of serving it in ramekins or unmolding it. Obviously ramekins are the safest choice, but if you want to unmold, it’s best to use metal or silicone molds to

aid in the release. Dipping the base of the mold in hot water for a few seconds before drying and inverting on a plate may aid in release.

Caramelized Banana and Buttermilk Panna CottaFor the bourbon brown sugar syrup:3/4 cup water3/4 cup dark brown sugar6 Tbs. good-quality bourbon (Maker’s Mark or better)• Bring all ingredients to a simmer in a

small saucepan. Simmer 5 minutes. Strain and reserve in refrigerator.

For the caramelized banana and buttermilk panna cotta:3 overripe bananas, peeled (about 1 lb., peeled weight)

2 cups buttermilk1 cup heavy cream1/2 tsp. pure vanilla extract1/4 tsp. salt1/3 cup brown sugar1/4 cup white sugar1 tsp. Telephone brand agar agar powder (check if you need kosher, but other brands’ strength may vary)• Gather 8 ramekins, pudding cups, or

whatever you want to serve the panna cotta in onto a baking sheet that will fit in your refrigerator.

• Preheat oven to 400º. Put bananas on a parchment line baking sheet and roast until very well browned and bubbling, about 30 minutes, mashing with a fork a couple of times through-out to expose more surface area.

• Put bananas, buttermilk, cream, vanil-

la, salt, and brown sugar in a blender and blend on high speed for 2 minutes.

• Whisk together white sugar and agar in a small bowl. With the blender on medium speed, remove the top and sprinkle the sugar-agar mix into the vortex. Put the cover back on and blend on high speed for 2 more min-utes.

• Strain the mixture through your fin-est sieve into a saucepan. Heat at medium, whisking frequently until it comes to a simmer. Immediately re-move from heat and transfer to the ramekins. Place on baking sheet and cover with aluminum foil. Refrigerate at least two hours.

• To serve, unmold if desired by dip-ping the ramekin base in hot water then drying and inverting onto a plate. Otherwise, you can serve directly in the ramekins. Drizzle about 2 table-spoons of the bourbon brown sugar syrup on each portion.

• Makes 6-8 servings.

Local food writer and chef Michael Natkin’s

2012 cookbook “Herbivoracious, A Flavor

Revolution with 150 Vibrant and Original

Vegetarian Recipes,” was nominated this year

for a James Beard award. The recipes are

based on his food blog, herbivoracious.com.

jewish and veggie

MiCHAEL NATkiN