HEADLINES | 5
SPECIAL SECTION | 18
A SON SEES HIS FATHER HONORED
HAPPY BIRTHDAY, SAM
Michael Baer traveled to Germany for the unveiling of a street named after his father.
Children's book author Sam Baker celebrated turning 100 on Aug. 26
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OCTOBER 7, 2022 | TISHREI 12, 5783 | VOLUME 75, NUMBER 1
Holocaust survivor shares story with Two days before Arizona’s top judges Jewish New Year, Arizona brings back Civil War-era R abortion ban SHANNON LEVITT | STAFF WRITER
SHANNON LEVITT | STAFF WRITER
P
ima County Superior Court Judge Kellie Johnson ruled Friday, Sept. 23, that a Civil War-era abortion ban is once again the law of the land in Arizona. Except in cases of preserving the life of the mother, all abortions in the state are now illegal. The determination of if the woman’s life is in danger is up to “the physician’s good faith clinical judgment.” This unclear metric may cause a doctor or clinic not to perform a potentially life-saving procedure for fear of legal ramifications. The “new” law carries a mandatory two-to-five-year prison sentence for performing an abortion. The ban was originally enacted in 1864 and reauthorized in 1901, but was blocked in 1973 after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of the right to abortion in Roe v. Wade. The Court reversed itself in June, however, with Dobbs v. Jackson, a decision that holds that the Constitution does not confer a right to abortion. That freed Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich to ask the state court last month to lift the injunction on the 1864 ban. Planned Parenthood Arizona (PPAZ) argued that abortion legislation passed after Roe, including SB1164, a 15-week ban that the legislature passed this year and Gov. Doug Ducey signed, takes precedence. Ducey’s office maintains that the 15-week ban is in effect and supersedes the 158-year-old ban.
unning, tripping over dead bodies and an overwhelming sense of fear are the things that Marion Weinzweig remembers most from her childhood in Poland. She was one of only a few family members to survive the Holocaust. She recounted those painful memories and her story of survival to about 200 people at the Arizona Supreme Court on Thursday, Sept. 22, in “Living Through the Holocaust,” a talk sponsored by the Jewish Lawyers’ Association (JLA) and hosted by the Arizona Court of Appeals. David D. Weinzweig, her son and the only Jewish judge on the Arizona Court of Appeals, proudly introduced his mother, calling her “a true survivor imbued with courage and grace, grit and gumption, virtue and intellect. “All I am is from her,” he said. A majority of Arizona Supreme Court and Court of Appeal justices were in attendance, along with lawyers, law students and community members. Marion, a petite woman, opened her talk by impressing upon her audience the importance of learning Holocaust history and the dangers of antisemitism. She spoke of the rise in antisemitic incidents in the country and the prevalence of Jewish victims in religiously motivated hate crimes. “The plague of antisemitism is more contagious today than at any time since the Holocaust, where 90% of Poland’s three million Jews were murdered,” she said. Her voice was soft but steady, and though she had to stop several times to sip water during her hour-long talk
Marion Weinzweig stands in front of a photo of her book before her presentation at the Arizona Supreme Court on Thursday, Sept. 22, COURTESY OF SHANNON LEVITT 2022.
— saying she was nervous because she is not a professional speaker — she never wavered in the clarity of her tale. She did tear up one time, however. That moment came when she spoke of her family’s decision to hide her with a Catholic family, the Ropelewskas, in her hometown of Opatów, Poland, early in 1942. “My aunt told me that my mother was just so crazy about me,” she said. Before letting her little girl go, she said, “my mother just kept hugging and kissing me and holding me. “My father took me up to the carriage and my mother stood back crying,” she said. “That was the last time I saw my mother and that was the beginning of the darkest period of my life.” Marion described how her father and his siblings found a way out of the ghetto to find work, ending up as SEE HOLOCAUST SURVIVOR, PAGE 2
Hidden in the Hills Get a glimpse into artist’s studios during the Hidden in the Hills Artist Studio Tour. See page 15.
COURTESY OF GENIE SWANSTROM
SEE ABORTION BAN, PAGE 3
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