AN AGENCY OF THE JEWISH FEDERATION OF OMAHA
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Volunteers of the Year ANNETTE VAN DE KAMP-WRIGHT Editor, Jewish Press lthough our community has many opportunities to say thank you to the amazing kindness shown by our volunteers, it is particularly important to remember those kind deeds right now. While we are unable to plan for a Jewish Federation of Omaha Awards Night and Annual Meeting the way we have done in the past, we are no less eager to shine the light on a number of people who have gone above and beyond. We start this week by highlighting the Agencyand JFO volunteers and will continue over the next few weeks, leading up to the Virtual Annual Meeting, which is scheduled for Monday, June 1. As we get closer to that date, we ask that you check our website at www.jewishomaha.org for the latest details, just in case we have to adjust the time and/or date. If there is one thing we have all learned: sometimes plans change.
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The cooking class of Marrakesh Page 4
Our approach to desperate times: Step 2, Dismantle stereotypes Page 5
Each spring, The Federation, Foundation and Agencies are each invited to select one individual who has provided ongoing and outstanding service to their organization as Volunteer of the Year. The names of each Volunteer of the Year are engraved on a plaque, which is permanently displayed in the JCC lobby. FAIGE JEIDEL is the Jewish Federation of Omaha Volunteer of the Year. Faige has gone above and beyond to make a positive difference in the Omaha Jewish Community. As a recent graduate from the University of Nebraska Omaha, she reached out to the Federation over the summer about helping to cultivate a Jewish student community on campus. Over the course of the year, she has recruited a group of about 10 students to start the J-Connect Club. The group was officially recognized as a student club this winter. In the Fall, they hosted an Escape Room get to know you for all the Jewish students on campus. Before winter break, she made the Latkes for See Volunteers of the Year page 3
ATTIPICAL ways to improve PPE Page 6
Beit Midrash: A timely topic for May 6
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MARK KIRCHHOFF Community Engagement and Education, JFO In the fall of 2019 when the leaves on the trees were beginning to turn, the thoughts in the minds of Omaha’s rabbis were beginning to churn. They were developing a community learning program, a Beit Midrash (house of study) that would cover a broad range of topics. Who would have thought then that the topic they were planning for the Panel Discussion in the month of May would have such profound relevance to the lives of the people in the community at that time? Moreover, who would have known that this session would shift the meaning of Beit Midrash more to “learning at home”? Following the opening Panel Dis-
cussion, Giving Jewishly, held in the JCC Theater in October, the rabbis and participants were excited to move to the newly-remodeled Shirley and Leonard Goldstein Community Engagement Venue for the December discussion, The Miracle & Meaning of Hanukkah, Then & Now, and the March panel, Who Knows, Maybe You Were Created for a Time Such as This: Heroism, Courage and Faith in a Troubled World. The rabbis are preparing to discuss the May topic, The Omer: How to Slow Down and Make Every Day Count - this time with a “virtual
venue.” During this unprecedented time in which the world has slowed down to combat the COVID-19 virus, Rabbi Steven Abraham from Beth El Synagogue, Rabbi Ari Dembitzer from Beth Israel Synagogue, Rabbi Mendel Katzman from Chabad House of Nebraska, and Rabbi Brian Stoller of Temple Israel, will present a timely Jewish perspective on slowing down and making every day count. This Beit Midrash Panel Discussion will be held on May 6 from 7:30 until 8:30 p.m. Unlike all other sessions, we are See Beit Midrash page 2
We still have work to do I want to believe that one of the few, beautiful c o n s e quences of experiencing the pandemic is that there is a real GARY NACHMAN feeling of car- Regional Director, ing for other ADL-Plains States people. How- Region ever, there is another virus, the virus of hate, that has also become an epidemic. The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) performed a national survey at the beginning of this year asking American Jews their feelings about anti-Semitism. The survey’s key findings: • About half of Jews (49 percent) say they have heard anti-Semitic comments, slurs or threats targeting others. One-in-five of those surveyed (21 percent) have themselves been directly targeted by anti-Semitic remarks. • One-in-five (22 percent) of those polled are affiliated with a Jewish institution that has been vandalized, damaged or defaced because of antisemitism. • One-in-seven (14 percent) know someone who has been physically attacked because they are Jewish. • About 14 percent of Jews have experienced anti-Semitic harassment online. • Roughly half of those surveyed said they were worried that a person wearing a yarmulke, religious skullcap or other public display of Judaism would be physically assaulted or verbally harassed on the street or in a public place. • About one-in-four American Jews (27 percent) have employed at least one strategy to avoid being targeted, with the most common strategy (12 percent) being avoiding markers of Jewish identification, including not using one’s last name, or not wearing a Jewish star or identifying as Jewish on a social media site. • One in-ten of those surveyed (11 percent) reported having trouble sleeping or concentrating or feeling anxious after experiencing online hate or harassment. Nearly two-thirds of American Jews believe that they are less safe today than they were a decade ago, according to a new ADL survey on Jewish encounters with antisemitism in the United States. The ADL survey found that more than half of American Jews (54 percent) have either experienced or witnessed an incident they believe was motivated by antisemitism. And nearly two-thirds of Jews (63 See Work to do page 4