HEADLINES | 6
SENIOR LIFESTYLE | 15
COMMUNITY
CREATIVE AGING
Bat mitzvah project fills a void for children with disabilities
A new director and programming at the JFCS CSE
MARCH 4, 2022 | ADAR II 1, 5782 | VOLUME 74, NUMBER 13
$1.50
Jewish community Local home chef appears on Food Network’s ‘Guy’s Grocery Games’ files lawsuit to prohibit use of W gas deployed at Auschwitz for executions MALA BLOMQUIST | MANAGING EDITOR
NICOLE RAZ AND MALA BLOMQUIST
T
he Jewish Community Relations Council (JCRC) and two local Jewish community members are suing the state of Arizona in hopes of preventing capital punishment by hydrogen cyanide, the same lethal gas that was deployed at Auschwitz. Paul Rockower, executive director of the JCRC of Greater Phoenix and one of the plaintiffs, said the lawsuit is narrowly focused. “We are not arguing the merits of the death penalty, nor the guilt or innocence of the defendants – simply that because of our tragic history we have a unique lens to declare that the use of Zyklon B is a cruel and barbarous practice whose usage has no place in modern society.” The other plaintiff, Alan Zeichick, is a board member of JCRC. During World War II, the Auschwitz camp in Germanoccupied Poland and others were designed for the use of pellets of Zyklon B – a hydrogen cyanide formulation. At the height of the deportations of Jews from 1943 to 1944, an average of 6,000 Jews were killed each day at Auschwitz. Janice Friebaum, former vice president and spokesperson for the Phoenix Holocaust Association, shared that survivors and their descendants are horrified that the state is considering the possibility of using a gas that’s either the same or a derivative of what was used during the Holocaust. “It’s a very painful way to kill a person and it’s fundamentally inhumane. To think that it was done to millions of people during the Holocaust is horrific SEE ZYKLONB, PAGE 2 enough, but to think that 70
hen Jordan Urnovitz won the fourth annual Top Home Chef cooking competition held by “The Arizona Republic” newspaper in 2016, he had no idea that that experience would lead to an appearance on “Guy’s Grocery Games” hosted by Guy Fieri on Food Network. Initially, Food Network reached out to Urnovitz at the beginning of 2020 to discuss possible plans for him to appear on a new, geographical-based home chef show they were working on. Then COVID-19 hit and they called back to say that they were putting things on pause. “So, every three or four months, they would call me and they would say, ‘Hey, we’ve got an idea for something. It looks like COVID-19 is ending …’ and sure enough, COVID never ended,” said Urnovitz. “Then they called and said, ‘We know that COVID is not going away, but we’d still love to have you do something. Would you be interested in doing ‘Guy’s Grocery Games?’’ and I was just ecstatic.” The Food Network call happened on a Friday and Urnovitz was on a plane that Sunday headed to Santa Rosa, Calif., where “Guy’s Grocery Games” or “GGG” (Triple G) as it is known to its fans is filmed. The setting for the show, known as Flavortown Market, is both a television set and a full-fledged grocery store located inside a 15,500-square-foot warehouse. “It has the design of a grocery store and SEE GUY'S GROCERY GAMES, PAGE 3
Jordan Urnovitz competing on Food Network’s “Guy’s Grocery Games.” COURTESY OF JORDAN URNOVITZ VIA FOOD NETWORK
9 things you didn’t know about Purim With costumes, spiels and lots of drinking, Purim, which in 2022 starts at sundown on Wednesday, March 16, is one of Judaism’s most raucous holidays. See page 8. COURTESY OF MAGNES COLLECTION OF JEWISH ART, UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY
KEEP YOUR EYE ON jewishaz.com
NATIONAL
How a Jewish debate coach contributed to Ketanji Brown Jackson’s path to Supreme Court nomination
INTERNATIONAL
Volodymyr Zelensky was a Jewish comedian. Now the world’s eyes are on him
ISRAEL
Israel to join UN condemnation of Russian invasion as Ukraine evacuation and aid efforts continue