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SPONSORED BY THE BENJAMIN AND ANNA E. WIESMAN FAMILY ENDOWMENT FUND

INTRODUCING OUR 2024 Campaign Chairs A Talmudic tale gets a 12th-century Chinese twist in children’s book Page 4

Jewish Symposium LEONARD GREENSPOON This year will mark the 35th annual meeting of the Symposium on Jewish Civilization. Scheduled for Sunday, Oct. 22, and Monday, Oct. 23, the title is The Jewish Diaspora and the Promised Land: Origins, Developments, Future Prospects.

Sukkot at the ELC Page 6 Dr. Daniel J. Lasker

Marilyn and Steve Tipp

ANNETTE VAN DE KAMP-WRIGHT Jewish Press Editor he Jewish Federation of Omaha is delighted to announce the Tipp family as our 2024 Annual Campaign Chairs. We appreciate Marilyn, Steve, Amy, Alan, and Sonia’s dedication to our community. “Alan and Sonia were so involved last year,” Marilyn said, “that it was no surprise to us that they wanted to be even more involved

Orthodox Union certifies Israeli brand of lab-grown meat as kosher Page 12

this year. When asked about doing a Generational theme, we jumped at the opportunity!” As a Mom and bubbie, Marilyn said she could not be more proud “of the fact that my children and grandchildren are Jewish and that they continue to give back to our community as well as being a big part of it in so many ways. What more can I possibly ask for? Nu?” The Annual Campaign will be celebrated in style during our Sunday Night Give See 2024 Campiagn Chairs page 3

Omaha Jewish Film Festival

REGULARS7 Spotlight Voices Synagogues

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MARK KIRCHHOFF JFO Community Engagement and Education What makes the 21st Annual Omaha Jewish Film Festival different from any other Omaha Jewish Film Festival? A film is a film; a showing is a showing; an evening out is an evening out. Right? Well, if you think nothing can be changed, nothing can be improved, nothing can receive an injection of extra energy, then you might be better served to stay home watching the same old stuff on television and miss out on this year’s experience. If you have a bent for the

boring, forget 7 p.m. showings on Oct. 16, 17, 18, and 19 in the Alan J. Levine Performing Arts Center within

we then eliminated Holocaust films, leaving that topic to our Institute for Holocaust Education. With the goal

OMAHA

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the Staenberg Omaha Jewish Community Center for this year’s festival. We’re not leading you to a new promised land, but we are offering you a new festival experience. Throughout the past year we received 117 film offerings from six different film distributors. We selected 73 to place in a spreadsheet with pertinent information about each. In considering the nature of our festival,

of providing a mixture of drama, comedy, and documentary, we parsed the list further to a total of 20 films. We revitalized our community input by inviting community members to assist with the selection in a more systematic manner than in the past. As a group, we met in the Wiesman Reception Room and evaluated and rated each film on a 3-point scale and See Jewish Film Festival page 2

It is an honor to host this fall’s keynote presenter, Dr. Daniel J. Lasker, emeritus Professor of Jewish Values at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. The title of his presentation, which will take place at 7:30 p.m. on Oct. 22 in the Alan J. Levine Performing Arts Theater, is Zionism Before Zionism: 2000 Years of Jewish Attachment to the Land of Israel. If Lasker is a familiar name, there is good reason for that. This will be the fourth Symposium he has attended. He was born in Flint, Michigan and received his undergraduate and graduate degrees from Brandeis University. Shortly after receiving his PhD he moved to Israel, where he has lived for 45 years. He has written eight books and 130 scholarly articles, in addition to four edited volumes. His most recent book, which appeared last year, is titled Karaism: An Introduction to the Oldest Surviving Alternative Judaism. Published in London as part of the prestigious Littman Library, it was a National Jewish Book Award finalist. Lasker is internationally recognized as an authority on the Karaite Jews. As he explains it, they constituted a minority movement that did not believe in a Judaism that was based on an Oral Torah as codified in the Talmud. In his extensive writings on this group, Lasker has demonstrated that Karaism has been much more dynamic than usually thought, reflecting very closely developments and changes in the majority Rabbinic Judaism. Even though today there are only a few Karaite Jews, mostly in the State of Israel, Karaism once presented a major challenge to mainstream Jewish beliefs. Lasker’s keynote presentation features Karaites among other Jews who developed a special attachment to the Land of Israel. Rather See Jewish Symposium page 3