Vol. LXXXVII No. 15 Omaha, NE
Celebrating 86 Years of Service to Nebraska and Western Iowa
Recounting memories still allows seniors to take part in life today love for music.” by CLAUDIA SHERMAN Temple Israel His wife, Florence Communications Director Nerenberg, a Julliard Five members of the graduate, grew up at Beth Jewish community in El Synagogue while their 70s, 80s and even Eisenberg’s family 90s say there’s no secret belonged to Beth Israel. He attended Lake School to living a healthy life as and graduated from you age. But there are Technical High School. parallel threads of family The Eisenbergs decided love and being involved -to join Temple Israel, even passionate, in some “because they had more cases -- in everything programs for young peofrom politics to football ple and were more liberal that crisscross through and progressive,” he their lives. explained. For George Eisenberg, The Eisenbergs had 83, a native Omahan who three children and three has lived here all his life except for four years servgrandchildren. Florence ing in Europe with the died about six years ago. Army during World War George lives alone in the George Eisenberg relaxes in his West Omaha home. II, it started with onions. ranch home on a tree“My entire life after the military was spent in the bedecked street south of 101st and West Center Road wholesale fruit and vegetable business specializing in he shared with her for three decades. potatoes and onions,” he said. As a boy, he worked for These days, Eisenberg’s energy is riveted to the ecohis father Ben Eisenberg. George bought out his dad and nomic life of the Old Market district and the rebirth of eventually became known as the “Onion King” for his downtown Omaha. He’s “always been active in city govknack of finding and cultivating onions with lots of rings. ernment. I’ve encouraged the orderly growth of the Old But Eisenberg’s “original focus was to properly raise Market,” and he is pleased with what he sees today. my family and to encourage my wife to continue her Continued on page 23
12 Tevet, 5768 December 21, 2007 2 Sections
Fellman named to USCJ national board by JILL BELMONT Beth El Publicity Coordinator Longtime Beth El Synagogue congregant and past president Richard Fellman was elected to the national board of the United Synagogue for Conservative Judaism, at that organization’s biennial convention earlier this month in Orlando, FL. Fellman, a retired attorney Dick Fellman who currently teaches political science classes at the University of Nebraska-Omaha, expressed enthusiasm about his new role within the Conservative Movement. “The movement has some outstanding strengths: all over the country it has strong, vibrant congregations with top-flight programs -- just like we have at Beth El in Omaha; it also offers strong educational institutions, including the Solomon Schechter Day Schools, and tremendous summer camps,” he said. “There are some exciting things happening on the horizon, and I’m looking forward to being a part of it,” he added. He also noted challenges that the Conservative Movement is tackling nationally, among them the loss of membership, and confusion over what the movement believes regarding the issue of admitting openly-gay individuals to the seminary, plus the question of performing civil union ceremonies. Continued on page 3
More impressive archaeological discoveries unveiled in Israel, south of Jerusalem’s Old City by EDGAR ASHER JERUSALEM -- The Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) announced that a mansion it has been uncovering in Jerusalem since March 2007 may have been a palace belonging to Queen Helene of Adiabene. The mansion is only a short distance from the Dung Gate of Jerusalem’s Old City. This latest discovery was found under a car park and so far one dunam of the five dunam (1.25 acre) car park has been excavated. The mansion, according to the dig director Dr. Doron Ben-Ami, is thought to be the palace of Queen Helene from the Second Temple period. 516BCE-70CE Helene of Adiabene, who converted to Judaism some 2,000 years ago and moved to Jerusalem, built grand residences in the area of the City of David. She was known in Jewish sources as a righteous woman, one of the queens of Adiabene, a kingdom on the upper Tigris river. The Roman-era Jewish historian Josephus mentions her in his book The Antiquities of the Jews and mentions her son, Monbaz II, a number of times. He relates how she converted to Judaism together with her son, under the influence of two Jews, and how she and Monbaz assisted the Jews of Jerusalem during the Great Revolt. According to historical sources, Helene came to Jerusalem to sacrifice in the Temple after her conversion, and distrib-
Inside
uted money generously to the poor. She spent the rest of her life in one of the palaces she built in the City of David. The excavation, carried out by the IAA, in cooperation with the Israel Nature and Parks Authority and the Elad association, has uncovered the complex’s massive foundations; walls, some of which have been preserved to a height of five meters with stones weighing hundreds of kilograms; halls preserved to a height of at least two stories, a basement with an arched and The newly discovered mansion of Queen Helene of Adiabene adjacent to ceiling, the Old City of Jerusalem. Credit: ISRANET remnants of col-
This Week: Senior Living Issue starts on Page 21
See Front Page Stories & More at: www.jewishomaha.org, click on ‘Jewish Press’ Opinion Page see page 16
B’nai B’rith Bible Quiz winners produce a tie: Page 7
ored frescoes and ritual baths. Evidence of the drama that took place in this area before the city was destroyed by the Romans in 70 C.E. can be seen in narrow open- The director of the excavaings found in tion is Dr. Doron Ben-Ami. Credit: ISRANET the basement through which its inhabitants attempted to flee. The IAA archaeologists say the entire structure was intentionally destroyed. Among the finds are pottery and stone vessels and coins dating to the end of the Second Temple period. Remains from the Byzantine, Roman and Muslim periods were found above the presumed palace, and from the Hellenistic and First Temple period below it. The provenance of the mansion and the site in general will be able to be confirmed without any doubt when the whole area is excavated over the next few years. In the meantime, it is yet another very significant find showing the connection of the Jewish people to the city of Jerusalem, and the City of David. Continued on page 14
Coming Next Month: Tax and Financial Planning on Jan. 11 U.S. soldiers celebrate Hanukkah in Iraq: Page 20
Local author profiled: Being Jack Moskovitz: Page 25
Page 2
Jewish Press, Omaha, NE
December 21, 2007
As rivals gain, Clinton and Giuliani get a lift from Jewish survey AMERICA DECIDES 2008
Get in the game! UNO Maverick Hockey Mavericks vs. Princeton Sunday • December 30 7:05 p.m. • Qwest Center Omaha Tickets: 554-MAVS • gomavs.unomaha.edu
Why fight it? CLIP & SAVE
CALENDAR OF EVENTS FRIDAY, DECEMBER 21 No School Friedel Winter Break Dec. 21 thru Jan. 4 Parent/Toddler Class, 9:30 a.m at Temple Israel C L I P & S A V E
SUNDAY, DECEMBER 23 Bible Study Group, 10 a.m. Beth El MONDAY, DECEMBER 24 JCC Closes at 7p.m. Chinese Dinner, 6 p.m. at Beth Israel TUESDAY, DECEMBER 25 JCC Open 9-5 WOW Parsha, Prophets and Prayer, 9 a.m. at Chabad Parshah Roundup, 7 p.m. at Chabad
C L I P & S A V E
WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 26 Camp Gan Israel Winter Camp, 9 a.m. at Chabad House through Dec. 29 Kabbalah Circle, 7 p.m. at Chabad C L I P & S A V E
THURSDAY, DECEMBER 27 Women of the Torah, 9:30 a.m. at Beth Israel Insights and Values from the Torah, noon at Beth El Yiddish Group, 1 p.m. Women’s Book Group, 1:15 p.m. at Beth El BBYO Winter Regional Convention, 2 p.m. in KC through Dec. 30 LOVE Auxiliary Board Meeting, 7 p.m. Class with Rabbi Gross, 7:30 p.m. at Beth Israel All events held at the JCC unless otherwise indicated. The Jewish Press is not responsible for the accuracy of events. To keep calendar accurate or for questions, call Marlene Hert at 334-6437. FOR A COMPLETE LISTING, VISIT THE FEDERATION’S WEBSITE: www.JewishOmaha.org (click on calendar)
This Space For Rent Call Allan Handleman 334-6451
C L I P & S A V E
Arkansas. Even while noting his staunchly conservative issues on social issues, several liberal commentators have praised Huckabee for his emphasis as governor on fighting poverty and improving race relations. These commentators also point out that he has drawn criticism from economic conservatives for pushing through some tax increases. Some conservatives have slammed Huckabee as well for refusing to stop benefits for the children of illegal immigrants. Still, Rabinowitz said, Giuliani would clearly be the more formidable candidate. “Of course Democrats would rather run against Huckabee, who is a true conservative,” he said. The 58 percent self-identification was the statistic that Jewish Democrats plucked from the AJC poll. The National Jewish Democratic Council noted a steady rise in Jewish Democratic self-identification, from 48 per-
by RON KAMPEAS WASHINGTON (JTA) -- It’s still a Hillary vs. Rudy race for American Jews, but national polls suggest that their top challengers are rapidly gaining ground. Last week the American Jewish Committee released a survey that showed U.S. Jews giving the highest favorable ratings to U.S. Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.) and Rudy Giuliani, the former New York mayor. The AJC phone survey of 1,000 Jewish Americans found that Clinton was rated favorably by 53 percent of American Jews, with Giuliani finishing second at 41 percent. Among Jews who identify as Democrats, Clinton scored a 70 percent favorable rating, compared to 48 percent for former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards and 45 percent for Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.). Giuliani registered 75 percent among Jewish Republicans, followed by Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) at 49 percent, and ex-Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and former Tennessee Sen. Fred Thompson at 32 percent. The findings come as polls show former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee leading in Iowa and tied with Giuliani across the country, and Obama gaining ground on Clinton nationally and in position to challenge her in several early primary states. Respondents in the AJC survey were not asked about Huckabee, because at the time the poll was conducted last month he did not meet the organization’s threshold of 10% in Hillary Clinton, who is still one of the top choices for president among American Jews, speaks at an AIPAC dinner Feb. 1, 2007. national polls. Clinton and Giuliani are prominent political fixtures with cent in the AJC survey in 2002. national profiles in the city with “As a Jewish Democrat I am the largest Jewish population in encouraged by this news, but not the country. Both boast promisurprised,” Ira Forman, the nent Jewish supporters and have NJDC’s executive director. “The not been shy about taking lead new Democratic Congress has rolls in advancing causes backed been great on Israel, and by the Jewish community. American Jews side with the Giuliani’s strong showing in Democratic agenda on all major the AJC poll, which was conductdomestic priorities.” ed Nov. 6-25, is unusual in a Giuliani was the only candicommunity that trends strongly date whose unfavorable rating, Democratic. The survey, with a 38 percent, was in a dead heat three percent margin of error, with his favorable rating. That’s had Giuliani with a higher favorthe norm for Clinton in polls of able rating than all the the general population, but Democrats except Clinton, among Jews her favorable rating including Obama and Edwards, was far ahead of her unfavorable Rudy Giuliani who tied at 38 percent. rating of 29 percent. Credit: Wikipedia According to the survey, 58 Par for the course, said Ann percent of Jews identify as Democrats, 26 percent as Lewis, Clinton’s senior adviser. independents and 15 percent as Republicans, diverging “From providing universal health care and calling for from the third-third-third breakdown that is the norm a new energy policy to standing up for the security of in polls of the general U.S. population. Israel, our community knows her as a trusted and reli“Even though the sample is heavily weighted to the able friend,” Lewis said to JTA in an e-mail. “She has the Democratic side, Giuliani does better than two of the strength, experience, and the ‘saichel’” -- Yiddish for three leading Democratic candidates,” said David common sense -- “to be a great president.” Singer, the AJC's director of research. Clinton has assiduously cultivated Jewish communal “Giuliani is a known commodity in the Jewish com- leaders, almost always making time to address every munity,” Singer said. “He was the mayor of New York major Washington forum, trending hawkish on Iran and City, where a significant piece of the Jewish population becoming a leader on combating incitement in Arab is familiar with him.” nations. The Giuliani campaign did not return multiple The poll was a bright spot for a campaign that has seen requests for comment. Obama nip on Clinton’s heels in recent national polls. Giuliani’s popularity among Jews derives partly from The latest surveys show Obama leading or even with his unstinting support for Israel, but also because he is Clinton in early primary states and as little as 10 percent the most moderate Republican, corresponding with the behind in national polls. positioning of some Jewish organizational leaders and Singer said the AJC was still examining subgroups pro-Israel activists who are hawkish on foreign policy closely, but said one revelation undermined arguments but liberal on domestic issues like church-state separa- in recent years that the Orthodox are increasingly tion, gay marriage and abortion. becoming Republican. “There’s no pretending he’s not a moderate,” said Self-identified Orthodox Jews constituted 15 percent Steve Rabinowitz, a political strategist who is backing of the respondents, he said. Of those, 30 percent were Clinton’s candidacy. “The only Republicans who are Republicans and 42 percent were Democrats. acceptable to Jews are moderates.” “There’s a tendency in the general media to equate Huckabee, a Southern Baptist pastor, has sought to Orthodox Jews as Republican, and it’s clear they’re position himself as the choice of Christian conservatives much more open to Republicans” than other Jews, while also highlighting his ability to work with both Singer said. “But it’s also clear that a plurality are sides of the aisle during his years as governor of Democratic.”
December 21, 2007
Jewish Press, Omaha, NE
Page 3
Eisen speech helps invigorate United Synagogue biennial by BEN HARRIS ORLANDO (JTA) -- Delegates to the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism biennial apparently didn’t expect much when Arnold Eisen took the stage here last month, offering only tepid applause for the Jewish Theological Seminary chancellor. Less than an hour later, however, they were on their feet, cheering a Conservative leader who has wowed movement audiences frequently since he took the seminary helm this summer. Eisen’s speech on the opening night of United Synagogue’s biennial convention set the tone for an event that featured an energy missing in previous years. More than any other arm of
Conservative Judaism, the United Synagogue has been roiled by the larger challenges bedeviling the movement -not just its declining membership rolls but the dilemmas posed by intermarriage, the difficulty of retaining youth and the seeming ossification of its message. Not surprising, perhaps, the organization’s biennial convention hasn’t been distinguished by its dynamism -- younger attendees at the gathering joked about the advanced average age of its 400 or so delegates. But Eisen brought some vigor the first night and the next night hundreds danced and joined hands during Sabbath services. On Saturday morning, multiple worship options demonstrated a willing-
ness to experiment and innovate that thing the movement has been agitating many say has been absent for while watching its numbers of late. decline and its position as the Former Omahan largest American denomination Raymond Goldstein, eclipsed by the Reform moveUSCJ’s international presment: a definition. As is his ident, said the atmosphere inclination as a sociologist, Eisen offered no grand statewas notably different from the 2005 conclave in ments of theology but rather Boston, where “a cloud the comparatively simple sugwas hanging over us” due gestion that Conservative to the impending decision Judaism define itself by what of the movement’s law Conservative Jews do. Arnold Eisen committee on whether to “We are those Jews commitCredit: The Jewish ted to full and authentic ordain openly gay rabbis. Theological Seminary engagement with the Jewish “The mood is up,” Goldstein told JTA. “The mood is up.” people and the Jewish tradition, heart In his speech, Eisen delivered some- Continued on page 4
Fellman named to USCJ national board Continued from page 1 “These have been the hot issues lately,” he said. Among Fellman’s obligations as a board member will be attending board meetings several times a year and committee work, including continuing on the congregational standards committee, on which he has served for the past two years. Being actively involved in synagogue life is nothing new to Fellman, who says he feels a strong bond with Beth El after many decades of affiliation. “My personal involvement at Beth El began in 1943, when I was eight years old and I walked from my house at 53rd and Farnam to 49th and Farnam to go to Hebrew School,” he recalled. That’s a long time, and I feel very close to the synagogue.” He also cited a high school class at the
synagogue which proved to be influential in his Jewish life. “Rabbi Kripke taught a little class in his study on Wednesday afternoons for six to eight high school kids, and we began reading Rabbi Milton Steinberg’s book, ‘Basic Judaism’,” Fellman recalled. “I didn’t tell anybody that I was going to that class because it wasn’t a ‘cool’ thing to do -- but I enjoyed the class and I remember it very well. It had a tremendous influence on me, because Rabbi Kripke dealt with high schools kids like adults, and we discussed Judaism as an adult subject.” Over the years, Fellman has shown great dedication to Beth El in a variety of ways, from serving president of the congregation and participating as a board member for 11 years, to chairing the search committee for a new rabbi in 2001 and attending adult education classes.
“Trying to find a rabbi, cantor, and educational director in a short period of time is challenging for any congregation,” said Beth El’s Rabbi Mordechai Levin. “Our synagogue underwent these major changes with its professional staff from 2002 to 2004, during Dick’s presidency. Many believed that Dick showed great leadership and talent as he guided the congregation through this transitional period. He was the right person at the right place. His commitment to Jewish life and lifelong Jewish learning, as well as his dedication to the synagogue, are to be admired. He has much to contribute and will surely do it in this new capacity with the USCJ board.” Beth El President Sally Zipursky congratulated Fellman, saying, “This is a very appropriate and exciting position for Dick. He has certainly served Beth El over the years; his passion for
Conservative Judaism is evident in all he does. I know Beth El and the entire Conservative Movement will benefit from his hard work and dedication. Mazel tov to Dick from his Beth El family.” USCJ International President Ray Goldstein (a former Omahan and past Beth El president), also lauded Fellman and welcomed him to the national board. “Clearly, we look for leaders from congregations throughout North America and want people who will participate,” Dr. Goldstein said. “We knew Dick through his work on the standards committee; he’s been coming to New York when we have meetings there, and has shown his commitment to USCJ. We’re excited about having him on the board, and I know that he is going to represent Omaha and the Conservative Movement very well.”
better water, pure and simple.
There Is Still Time to Lower Your 2007 Federal and State Income Taxes
66 MONTHS MONTHS NO NO INTEREST INTEREST NO NO PAYMENTS PAYMENTS
Gifts of appreciated stock (held over one year) to the Jewish Federation of Omaha Foundation are still the best way to give, because...
1.You receive a full income tax deduction for the stock’s 1. value at date of transfer. 2.You avoid paying tax on the potential capital gain.
• Free Water Analysis • Bottled Water & Salt Delivery
With such a gift, you can satisfy your commitment to either the Federation Annual Campaign or the Rose Blumkin Jewish Home Capital Campaign, or you can establish an endowed gift to assist the community. Some examples are to provide for:
• Basic necessities of life for those in a financial crisis • Scholarships to ensure a Jewish education at the Friedel • Jewish Academy and the CDC • Training for the leaders of tomorrow through • conferences and Israel experiences • Programs to enhance the lives of the elderly still living • in their homes • Assistance for special needs children working toward • their B’nai Mitzvah
• Softeners • Drinking Water Systems • Filters
Or you can establish a Donor-Advised Fund to support Jewish charities as well as secular ones. better water. pure and simple.
Contact Marty Ricks, Foundation Executive Director, at 402/334-6440 for questions or a confidential interview.
335 N Park St • Fremont 11615 Centennial Rd. STORE HOURS: Mon. - Fri. 8 am - 5 pm La Vista, NE 68128
Store Hours: Mon. - Fri. 8 am - 5 pm
CALL DeLon Schaal TODAY AT 721-1866 OR 1-800-249-7609 402/397-4234
.
*Certain Restrictions May Apply.
Page 4
Jewish Press, Omaha, NE
December 21, 2007
Eisen speech at USCJ Continued from page 3 timid in declaring our vision.” heart and soul and mind, as Despite the enthusiasm at the biennial, well as full engagement with especially for Eisen, ample skepticism the society and culture of remains over how his and Epstein’s objecwhich we are a part, again tives would be put into practice. Goldstein heart and soul and mind,” said he was doing his part to increase the Eisen said. For the most level of Jewish practice in the movement by requiring those he named to leadership part, that definition is more positions to commit to keeping kosher and aspirational than descriptive. observing the Sabbath, among other Conservative Jews largely requirements. don’t live such lives, a point One appointee, he said, had been forced driven home in remarks the to make his kitchen kosher before acceptfollowing evening by the ing the post. Though a marked shift in United Synagogue’s executive vice president, Rabbi Rabbi Jerome Epstein, left, executive vice emphasis from his 2005 address, when he Jerome Epstein. In a forceful president of United Synagogue of urged greater outreach to intermarried address that surprised move- Conservative Judaism, and Sallai Meridor, couples on the margins of the movement, ment insiders for its direct- Israel’s U.S. ambassador, embrace on Nov. Epstein’s remarks generally were well ness, Epstein said 29 at the United Synagogue’s biennial con- received by the synagogue lay leaders and professionals in attendance. But it was Conservative Judaism was vention in Orlando, Fla. quite clear in its principles -- it was Conservative Jews who Eisen who stole the show. Over the past year, Eisen has emerged as the movewere not living up to them. “We don’t need more definitions of Conservative ment’s indisputable leader and the repository for its Judaism in order to make Conservative Judaism come hopes of reversing a generation of decline. In April, at alive,” Epstein said. “What we stand for is abundantly the annual gathering of the movement’s rabbinical assoclear. What we do need is commitment on the part of ciation, the Rabbinical Assembly, Eisen earned a similarConservative Jews to live the definition. We have been too ly enthusiastic response as he laid out his assessment of
where Conservative Judaism had come up short and outlined his plans for the coming year. Last month, in his first address to leaders of the movement’s congregational arm, Eisen laid out in plain language 10 principles that should guide Conservative Judaism. Among them: learning Torah, building strong communities, tikkun olam, commitment to Israel and Hebrew literacy. Eisen also reiterated his threefold agenda: articulating a clearer message about what Conservative Judaism stands for, improving the quality of programming and improving cooperation among the movement’s bodies. Beyond the particulars, Eisen established a tone of confidence and optimism as he enjoined Conservative Jews not to see Judaism as a lifestyle choice, but to build strong communities and live lives of Torah. As he has before, Eisen rejected talk of crisis and malaise, urging listeners to see that Conservative Judaism “got it right” and is an authentic bearer of the Jewish tradition. “I listened to him absolutely mesmerized,” said Harriet Moldau from Temple Ner Tamid in Peabody, Mass. “I think Eisen gets it.” With further leadership changes looming -- both Epstein and the head of the Rabbinical Assembly, Rabbi Joel Meyers, are due to retire in 2009 -- the future remains uncertain. “He has an amazing vision for the future of the Jewish community,” Moldau said of Eisen.
Prayer group uses ‘Jam Davening’ for a more spiritual experience by JACOB BERKMAN NEW YORK (JTA) -Seeing Bob Dylan at a prayer service isn’t all that rare. Hearing a Bob Marley tune played on guitar while a minyan sings the Shema prayer is. Marley and Dylan tunes are just as likely to be part of the nusach at “Jam Davening” as those of Shlomo Carlebach and Debbie Friedman. The monthly prayer group at Yoni Stadlin, left, and Davey Rosen say the genesis for Jam the Davidson School of Davening happened on the back of a tour bus in Israel, where Jewish Education of the they and other friends would play Grateful Dead and bluegrass Credit: Jacob Berkman Jewish Theological Sem- tunes. inary is part guided meditation, part sing- ing and deeply spiritual. “Tefillah is much broader than what is along, part traditional prayer and part dorm-room musical jam that includes in the prayer book,” said Yoni Stadlin, a instruments ranging from guitars to second-year student at the Davidson school who started the minyan about a didgeridos. Participants say the result is invigorat- year ago with fellow students Davey
Rosen and Matt Check, along with JTS rabbinical student Andy Shugerman. “The best tefillah is in your feet and your voice and your hands. It is a communication and an action embodying holiness or kindness and goodness," he said. “The words in the prayer book are time tested, and they are ours and they have worked and seem to work for many of us, but I don’t limit myself to thinking that prayer is only in that book. It is a great guidebook, but this is much broader.” Jam Davening draws about double the audience of a typical learning minyan, participants say. Now the group is trying to figure out how to bring Jam Davening to a wider audience, first by inviting the broader seminary community into the minyan, then by taking the idea to individual synagogues. This comes at a time when music is rapidly being introduced into Conservative synagogues. Musical instruments had been excluded
from Conservative synagogues on Shabbat partially because of Jewish law and partially as a remembrance of the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem nearly 2,000 years ago. But starting in the 1950s, the movement allowed Conservative congregations to decide for themselves whether to use instruments. Now as the movement debates whether Jews should be praying for the rebuilding of the Temple or just Jerusalem -- and about whether or not the use of electricity on Shabbat is banned -- the use of instruments has also come under “healthy debate,” according to Rabbi Moshe Edelman, the director of the Committee on Congregational Standards for the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism. Also, members of the Law Committee of the Rabbinical Assembly are working on a paper to address the issue, according to Rabbi Joel Roth, a professor of Talmud and Jewish law and formerly the head of the committee.
Jewelry from Israel Thrilling performance, on or off the beaten path. Utility and flexibility for virtually any use, any road, any whim. The BMW X5 SAV®. Have it all. Do it all. • 4.8-liter, 350-hp 32-valve V-8 engine • 6-speed automatic transmission • xDrive all-wheel-drive system • Anti-theft CD/MP3 audio • Nevada Leather interior • Dynamic cruise control • 50,000 mile warranty • Tire pressure monitor • Power winodws • Keyless entry • Climate control • Dual front air bags • Panoramic moonroof • Star Spoke light-alloy wheels • 10-way power-adjustable seats • Dark Burl Walnut Wood interior trim
Now On-line! Visit our new website
www.shirtal.com
Get in the game! UNO Maverick Hockey Mavericks vs. Yale
See us at 6701 Telluride Drive I-80 & N 27th St. • Lincoln, Nebraska
BMW of Lincoln
Friday • December 28 7:05 p.m. • Qwest Center Omaha Tickets: 554-MAVS • gomavs.unomaha.edu
bmwusa.com 1-800-334-4BMW
The Ultimate Driving Machine®
Why fight it?
December 21, 2007
Jewish Press, Omaha, NE
Page 5
Survey of active Reform Jews: under-40 crowd more observant being Jewish. And similar numbers of both groups -about 80 percent -- said remembering the Holocaust, caring about Israel, supporting Jewish organizations and attending synagogue were important to them. The survey was conducted by the Union for Reform Judaism among a selfselecting group of the most highly involved Reform Jews. It was sent by email to 45,000 officers, board members and clergy of Reform congregations, as well as people who subscribe to the movement’s free “10 Minutes of Torah” online service. It came on the eve of the movement’s biennial in San Diego last week, where a major focus was on outreach and membership. Nearly 14,000 people responded to the survey, with the results compiled from the first 6,221 responses. With the data not yet analyzed, the survey at this point represents an initial, informal picture of the beliefs and practices of the most Jewishly engaged segment of the An online survey sent to 45,000 engaged Reform Jews revealed Reform community. increased interest in dietary practice and worship, taken at the Among the key findings: last Reform biennial in Houston. Credit: Michael Fox • 39 percent of those vance, the younger Reform Jews showed surveyed say they were raised Reform, a strong commitment to communal and while 25 percent were raised ethical priorities. More than 95 percent Conservative and six percent were raised of both the under-40 and over-40 crowd Orthodox. The other 30 percent were said “leading an ethical life,” “making the raised in another stream, Christian or world a better place” and “celebrating with no religion. Jewish holidays” were important parts of When one looks at the differences by SUE FISHKOFF SAN FRANCISCO (JTA) -- A new online survey of the most active Reform Jews reveals a younger generation that is more comfortable with Jewish ritual than their elders but just as committed to communal causes and improving the world. The increased ritual observance comes despite the fact that 19 percent of the under-40 group surveyed grew up in intermarried homes. Reform leaders say that proves their position that intermarriage in itself is not a deterrent to Jewish identity, but that Jewish upbringing is a more important factor. In addition to increasing ritual obser-
Heritage and mission reflected in reintroduction of Boys Town name, look by JOHN A. MELINGAGIO, APR Director of Public Relations On Dec. 8, 1917, Father Edward Flanagan borrowed $90 from an anonymous friend, believed to be Henry Monsky. Four days later, Father Flanagan’s Boys’ Home was opened in an old rundown Victorian mansion. Father Flanagan welcomed the first five boys to join a new kind of family, one that was open to children of every race, creed and culture. Boys Town is a beacon of hope for America’s children and families. Now 90 years strong, this outreach is being expanded across the country to include young women and a variety of residential and in-home programs. In its mission to change the way America cares for children and families, Boys Town is providing direct care to more than 47,000 children and families annually and has indirectly assisted nearly one million through its national crisis
hotline and outreach training program. Boys Town announced a continuum of care initiative that provides children and families with a linked array of services to provide the right care at the right time. This continuum is surrounded by quality medical care, education, care coordination and a nonsectarian spiritual and religious foundation for healing. Boys Town expects to significantly increase direct care of children and families through its youth care and health care divisions, more than doubling the number of children in youth care by 2012. In order to clearly communicate its new vision, the Boys Town name was reintroduced and a new image of its iconic “Two brothers” logo was unveiled. Boys Town recognizes the important role that Henry Monsky, the Jewish community and Omaha played in providing a home and a family to America’s neediest children.
Religious diversity issues topic of workshop in professional caregiving by BETH KATZ Director of Project Interfaith at the Anti-Defamation League A training for professional care givers, medical personnel, and social service providers in facilities and in-home care, is being offered Thursday, Jan. 17, 2008, 7:45 a.m.-4 p.m., at Heritage Pointe Assisted Living and Memory Support, 16811 Burdette Street, (168th and Blondo). Continuing education credits are available. This day-long training will provide participants with information and resources to: • Explore their own views about religion and identity and understand how these views may impact their interactions with the clients;
• Learn about major laws governing when and how religion and religious materials can be used in a caregiving facility and what religious accommodations are allowed; • Find out about the basic beliefs, demographics and organization of the major religious communities in the Omaha metropolitan area; • Receive best practices for making your organization or facility inclusive of religious diversity. Cost is $75 per participant. Participants may receive five Continuing Education Units (CEUs) through the Respite Resource Center. To register or for more information, contact me at: office 402.333.1303 or at bkatz@adl.org by Monday, Jan. 7, 2008.
between those older and younger than age 40, a slightly different picture emerges: • Among the over-40 set, 35 percent were raised Reform, 28 percent were raised Conservative and seven percent Orthodox; • Among the under-40 set, 56 percent grew up in Reform households, 11 percent Conservative and two percent Orthodox. Movement leaders say this indicates that the Conservative and Orthodox movements are not losing as great a percentage of their people to Reform Judaism today as they did in decades past. At the same time it shows that the most active younger Reform Jews come from an increasingly strong Reform background, including attending movement summer camps and youth groups. “They’re not running away from something like their parents were,” said Rabbi Daniel Freelander, vice president of the Union for Reform Judaism, which sponsored the survey. “They were raised Reform” and feel strongly enough about what the movement represents to remain within it. Another major difference between the older and younger respondents involves
Jewish practice, particularly when it comes to diet. • 39 percent of Reform Jews under 40 bring shellfish into their home, compared to 58 percent of the older crowd; 29 percent of the younger group bring pork into the home, compared to 43 percent of older Reform Jews; and 16 percent of younger Reform Jews eat only kosher meat, compared to nine percent of their parents’ generation. • A higher percentage of the under-40 crowd keeps Passover (77 percent compared to 68 percent) and eats dairy on Shavuot (43 percent to 32 percent). Freelander says this increased commitment to kashrut and other Jewish dietary practices among younger Reform Jews does not represent a greater commitment to halacha, or Jewish law -- just 53 percent of the under-40 crowd said halacha was important to their sense of being Jewish, a negligible increase from the 49 percent of older Reform Jews who said the same. Rather, Freelander said, the increase in ritual observance is due to “communal norms,” the desire of younger Reform Jews to do what other Jews are doing rather than maintaining the more rebellious position of their parents’ generation vis-a-vis the other Jewish streams.
Page 6
Jewish Press, Omaha, NE
December 21, 2007
Christopher A. Stanosheck, D.D.S. 9202 West Dodge Road Suite 201 Omaha, NE 68114 402.884.1607 www.thesmiledesignstudio.com
Independently Owned and Operated
This holiday season do you and your family want more stuff...or memories? Call today to plan the best gift ever! Ralph and Laura Williams
402-334-4120 Toll Free: 866-334-4190 rwilliams@cornerstoneglobalcruising.com • www.cornerstoneglobalcruising.com
The Builders Choice — The Homeowners Solution!
BJ Shower Door Co. Serving Nebraska & Iowa For Over 25 Years • Large Selection of Standard Units • Custom Work - Sandblast Designs • Installation - Parts – Repairs • All Major Brands Available
778-9596
Featuring Craft Shower Doors
Your Satisfaction is Our Success!
13237 B St. • Open Mon - Fri 7 to 5
Sun, Sun, Sun, Here We Come Snowbirds Please let the Jewish Press know in advance when you are leaving and when you are returning. Sometimes several papers are sent to your “old” address before we are notified by the Post Office. Every time they return a paper to us, you miss the Jewish Press and we are charged 70¢! Please call us at 402.334.6448 or email us at jpress@jewishomaha.org.
What every parent needs Making Judaica keepsakes is focus Beth El’s to know: Cyberbullying by MARGO PARSOW Education Director, Anti-Defamation League As parents we face new challenges with our children everyday. Some of the challenges are minor and some can be quite daunting. The most recent topic to cross our “parental path” is cyberbullying. What is cyberbullying you ask? Cyberbullying is defined as, “willful and repeated harm inflicted through electronic media,” specifically, the internet and cell phones. The behavior is intentional, though sometimes shrouded as a “joke” which results in graver consequences than foreseen; it is repeated and reflects a pattern of behavior rather than an isolated incident. The repetition may come in the form of multiple people viewing/forwarding, a single message or incidence as a person is being repeatedly harassed and targeted. Tragically, our media has exposed us to the unconscionable case where it was the parent who was engaging in online bullying and the target of this cruelty took her own life. The town in Missouri where this occurred has admirably voted to make cyberbullying a misdemeanor crime. Children are not the only perpetrators of this horrific behavior. To truly understand this current trend in today’s society it is important to become familiar with the most common forms of cyberbullying which are: Flaming: Online fights using electronic messages with angry and vulgar language. Harassment: Repeatedly sending rude and offensive messages. Cyberstalking: Repeatedly sending messages that include threats of harm. Denigration: “Dissing” someone online or sending cruel gossip. Exclusion: Intentionally excluding someone from an online group, like a buddy list or game. Trolling: Intentionally posting provocative messages about sensitive subjects to create conflict. Impersonation: Breaking into someone’s account posing as that person and sending denigrating messages. Outing and trickery: Sharing someone’s secrets online or tricking them into revealing embarrassing information and then sharing it online without their knowledge. All of these activities are damaging and cruel behaviors that some 53% of young people have been the targets. The impact of bullying has been well documented. Studies have shown that difficulty making friends, loneliness, low self-esteem, depression, poor academic achievement, truancy and most seriously, suicide are all positively associated with being bullied. Cyberbullying is ubiquitous, there is no refuge and victimization can be relentless and damaging. This is a modern day challenge that affects many families. If you would like to learn more about Cyberbullying please plan to attend a workshop on Jan. 8, 2008, 7-9 p.m., at the Jewish Community Center. A minimum number of eight people is required for the workshop; space is limited. Please contact me at 334.6576 or MParsow@ adl.org to register.
ENGAGEMENT BURHENN/MALASHOCK Sheryl and Russell Burhenn of Topeka, KS, announce the engagement of their daughter Michelle to Ryan Malashock, son of Jody and Neal (Buzz) Malashock. The bride-to-be graduated from the University of Kansas with a Bachelor of Science degree in Journalism. She is the wire editor for The Morning News of Northwest Arkansas in Springdale, AR. She is the granddaughter of Darlene and Floyd Anderson of Great Bend, KS, Leah Burhenn of Hoisington, KS, and the late Vernon Burhenn. Her fiancé graduated from the University of Kansas with a Bachelor of Science degree in Journalism. He is a sportswriter for The Morning News of Northwest Arkansas in Springdale, AR. He also is a sports columnist for the Omaha City Weekly. He is the grandson of Barbara and Stanley Malashock of Rancho Mirage, CA, and the late Esther and David Rice. An Aug. 31, 2008, wedding is planned in Lawrence, KS.
upcoming mini course by JILL BELMONT Beth El Publicity Coordinator Let your creative side shine and make a unique piece of Judaica artwork during Beth El’s upcoming “Art of Jewish Stenciling” mini-course for adults, to be held on Wednesdays, Jan. 9, 16, 23, and 30, 8-8:45 p.m. Teacher Daniel Christensen will lead participants through the artistic process of making lovely wall plaques, from creating the stencil itself to embellishing and completing the finished product. In addition to the plaques, Christensen said, participants Daniel Christensen will have the opportunity to stencil a t-shirt, time permitting. (Everyone will be allowed to work at his or her own pace.) Attendees may select their own Judaic designs; among the popular pieces are hamses, hanukkiyot and Stars of David. No prior art experience is necessary, he stressed, adding, “This is something that anybody can do and even unintended results will be pleasing.” Christensen said he believes there is great value in making a piece of art that can be cherished by family members. “Is our generation creating things that will allow our grandchildren to say, ‘My grandmother did this.’ Do we have special homemade creations to pass on to future generations? It’s a good thing for people to create keepsakes they can pass on to others.” This class is open to all adults in the Jewish community; cost is $18. To register, contact Program Director Margie Gutnik in the synagogue office. For more information, call Christensen at 719.4714.
MARRIAGE LAVES/WIESMAN William Andrew Wiesman, son of Anna Ellen and Benjamin Wiesman, and Marilyn Usa Laves, daughter of Debbie and Michael Laves of Teaneck, New Jersey, were married in October. The ceremony, conducted by Rabbi Lawrence Zierler of Teaneck, NJ with Cantor Ira Greenberg of Teaneck, and Rabbi Albert Gabbai of Philadelphia participating, was held outside at the Hilton Hotel in Woodcliff Lake, NJ. The bride, a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania, earned a Masters Degree in Social Work from Hunter College in New York. She is Assistant Vice President of Substance Abuse and Preventive Services at Women in Need, a non-profit social service agency in Manhattan. She is the granddaughter of Nellie Gross of Queens, NY, and the late Jacob Gross and the late David and Lillian Laves. The groom is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania, Wharton School of Finance. He has been a consultant to the Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts in Philadelphia for several years, since their opening. Prior to that position, he worked in financial positions at hi-tech companies in Israel. He is the grandson of the late Samuel and Sarah Wiesman and Isador and Margaret Robinson. Best man was his brother David, with brothers Mark and Stephen serving as groomsmen. The bride’s matron of honor was her sister Sharon Wenger, accompanied by her husband Bruce, and their six-year-old son Jonathan, with cousin Tracy Kahn and friend Rachel Epstein as bridesmaids. A traditional chatan’s tisch, where the ketubah was signed ,and a public bedeken, where the bride was veiled, were held prior to the ceremony. Relatives of the groom honored by participation in the ceremony were Bette and Sam Alloy of Omaha, Sally Schechter of Glencoe, IL, Beverly Robinson of Des Moines, IA, and Rabbi John Schechter and Cantor Erica Lippitz of South Orange, NJ. Relatives of the bride who participated were Bill and Karen Gross of Highland Beach, FL, Alien and Freda Gross of Westchester, NY, and Ben and Mary Laves of Somerset, NJ.
December 21, 2007
Jewish Press, Omaha, NE
Page 7
Nachman and Katzman win Bible Quiz by LOIS EPSTEIN Henry Monsky Lodge #3306 It came right down to the wire in the championship round. Ben Nachman matched each correct response given by Rochi Katzman, question after question. The outcome was not decided until the final question. And it was a tie! Both contestants achieved a perfect score. Amazingly, while there have been ties for first place before, in the 22 years of the quiz, no one has ever earned 240 points, the top score possible. Interestingly enough, the two did not win their preliminary rounds. Those honors went to Aaron Priluck and Tali Levin who each won their respective rounds to advance to the finals. However, neither could match the precision and pace of Rochi or Ben. Aaron captured the third position to take a $250 prize. Tali Levin placed fourth and won $125. The other championship round finalists in order of the final standings were Chani Katzman, Melanie Long, and Ygal Schuller.
All contestants who correctly answered three or more questions received a $10 cash prize at the end of the evening. Rochi Katzman and Ben Nachman each garnered $50 for their first place honors. Steve Riekes chaired the Bible Quiz committee and was helped by Gary Javitch, Gloria Kaslow, Stan Mitchell, and Ray Millimet who also ran the program. Scholar-Judges were Drs. Guy Matalon and Leonard Greenspoon and cantors Wendy Shermet and Gaston Bogolmoni. Temple Israel, Beth El, Beth Israel, and the Chabad House rabbis, the religious staffs and BBYO director Rachel Blum contributed greatly to the successful outcome of the program, which took place despite the closing of the schools earlier in the day because of ice and snow.
Participants and judges are: winner Ben Nachman, front row left, Stan Mitchell, Gloria Kaslow, Lev Nachman, Ari Brodkey, Gary Javitch; second row: Ray Millimet, Steve Riekes, Adam Goldberg, Max Halstead, Ygal Schuller, Melanie Long (hidden), Charles Parsow, Macklin Emas, Dr. Guy Matalon, Aaron Priluck, Tali Levin, winner Rochi Katzman, and Chani Katzman; (not pictured: David Anderson and Henry Ginsburg).
ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT On Monday, Dec. 24, 8 p.m. to midnight, B’nai B’rith St. Louis and the St. Louis Jewish Light newspaper will present their third annual Jewish Singles Soiree, December DecaDANCE, at the Marriott St. Louis Airport Hotel. This event is designed to bring together unmarried individuals for an evening of sophisticated socializing, and will include a lavish dessert buffet, a cash bar featuring the event’s signature drinks, the Mazeltini and Glass of Choliday Cheer, a fundraising raffle, attendance gifts, and DJ music to dance the night away. Jewish singles from St. Louis as well as surrounding cities and states are invited to attend. Special enhancements to this year’s
event include the addition of Utopia Entertainment, and appearances by “The Magic Man”, Aaron Goldstein, and balloon artist Mike Geerloff of Mike’s Balloon Creations, LLC. For those persons traveling from outside St. Louis, the Marriott hotel is offering a special reduced rate for accommodations of only $69 per night. Reservations may be made by calling 314.423.9700 or 800.228.9290. Tickets to the event are $25 in advance, and $35 (cash only) at the door. You may register online at www.bnaibrithstl.org, or mail your check, payable to B’nai B’rith St. Louis, to P. O. Box 50321, Clayton, MO 63105-5321. For more information, call Michelle
Distinctive Surroundings… Extraordinary Events. • Special Sunday Wedding Packages • Entertainment Packages • Special room rates for out-of-town guests • Call today for information about other special event packages: Bar/Bat Mitzvah Parties • Birthdays Sweet 16’s • Family Reunions
909 South 107th Avenue • Omaha, NE 68114 402.397.8000 • www.regencylodge.com
Gralnick, Executive Director, at 314.569.4122 or email BBD2WRO@ aol.com. First Night of Play, a family friendly New Year’s Eve celebration, will take place on Monday, Dec. 31, 6-8:30 p.m., at the Omaha Children’s Museum, 500 So. 20 St. This year’s Hollywood-themed event will feature games, face painters, balloon artists, science shows, a Hollywood craft, food and drink, dancing and karaoke with Radio Disney’s hit music, and lots of great giveaways. Everyone who attends will receive an official party pack with surprises and goodies to help ring in the New Year.
“First Night of Play is an ideal way to celebrate the end of 2007 and ring in the New Year with the entire family,” said Lindy Hoyer, OCM executive director. “This has become one of our most popular events and we expect this year’s party will be another big hit.” At 8 p.m. there will be a countdown ending in a Bubble Wrap Stomp, where each guest gets to pop their own section of bubble wrap. The event ends at 8:30 p.m. leaving plenty of time for adults to celebrate at other gatherings afterward. Tickets are $8 for members and $12 for non-members and can be purchased at the museum’s front desk or by calling 342’6164, Ext. 424.
Wyndham Street Ltd.
A SIAN & E UROPEAN A NTIQUES Formerly in Regency Mall
Going Out of Business Forever We moved thousands of antiques to 7 Day Furniture to completely liquidate our entire inventory at drastically reduced prices, up to 50%-80% off. These are one-of-a-kinds. You cannot find these anywhere in the Midwest. Come to 7 Day Furniture at 72nd & L Street for one of the most unique sales you can ever imagine. We thank you for your past business and hope you will come to our sale to find a keepsake that will never lose its value.
Now Showing at 72nd & L Street, Omaha (In the old Rod Kush Furniture Store)
Page 8
Jewish Press, Omaha, NE
December 21, 2007
Yachad members complete relationship building course by ANDREA BARTMAN “These are the types of skills,” says Pieper, “that will for Jewish Family Service enable them to maintain current friendships and the Where and when did you come by the relationships in potential to develop new friendships within the commuyour life? Can you remember forming those bonds and nity.” what it has taken to make them last? Some members of Other discussions for the group included developing Yachad recently completed a relationship building good conversation skills by taking turns both listening course offered in seven sessions -- Relationship Building: and talking and the effect on relationships of positive attiGuidelines and Boundaries: Utilizing Appropriate Social tude and a smile. Modeling of behaviors, role playing and Skills in Building Meaningful Relationships. feedback were all employed to teach and reinforce the tarThe members who participated experienced the geted skills. The group was given breaks with the opporopportunity to tunity to socialize review topics and group activisuch as greeting ties were others, manners, employed to praclistening, starting tice the skills they conversations, were learning. asking for and According to giving help, interPieper, “Part of rupting approprimy rationale ately and agreebehind the RBC ing and disagreeprogram was ing with others. based on getting Fluency in the members to these skills can reflect on their mean the differown lives, through ence between the creation of a meaningful and personal collage, varied relationand learn to ships in their lives appreciate and tell versus few relatheir own story. tionships at all Yachad members received a certificate of achievement for their participation, The ultimate goal outside of the including: Alan Friedman, front row left, Jill Salomon, Lisa Salomon and Nancy was accomplished family. According Isler; back row: Marilyn Zevitz, Eric Friedberg, Josh Parsow, Jeff Steinberg, Michael on the final to Jewish Family Parsow, and Grace Isler, (not pictured: Ben Kravitz). evening as they Service, one of the goals of the Yachad program is to told their own personal stories to the class. This storyassist its members in interacting in both the Jewish and telling process required the class to listen, which then led larger community in a positive and successful manner. to a variety of follow-up questions and an opportunity for This course served as a way to help members facilitate all members to practice the art of conversation. They realtheir greater social interactions. ly displayed a concern and interest in one another.” The first half of each session was spent learning a new The program was developed and taught by Pieper, skill and discussing the importance of it in various set- who comments on his appreciation of the use of a classtings: social, work, and home. According to Duane room at the Center for Jewish Education, the support of Pieper, Yachad Program Coordinator, the participants Yachad family members and the classroom assistance of showed great commitment to the course through their his wife, Kathie. It was funded through a grant to Jewish attendance and participation, which even included Family Service and Yachad by the Morton A. Richards homework to complete. Youth Fund and the Harris Family Endowment Fund. For example, after one session on being a good friend, “It was a very positive experience,” says Pieper, “in members were asked to make a phone call to a friend. which I saw personal growth in each and every member. The act of calling to make contact demonstrates a dedi- They are very excited about learning and look forward cation to the relationship and a genuine interest in the to new endeavors and expanding their circle of friends.” other person and what might be going on in their life. For information about Yachad, call JFS at 330.2024.
Hadassah Mission connects American and Israeli nurses by ROBERTA ELLIOTT (NEW YORK) --The opportunity to blend vocation with vacation, earn continuing education units (CEUs), and make lasting friendships is available to all professional nurses by visiting Israel with Hadassah, the Women’s Zionist Organization of America. “See Israel Through the Eyes of a Nurse,” March 2028, 2008, is not only a learning experience, but a celebration sponsored by Hadassah’s National Center for Nurses’ Councils. Scheduled to take place during the festive Jewish holiday of Purim, the mission will celebrate Israel’s 60th anniversary and the 90th anniversary of the Henrietta Szold Hadassah-Hebrew University School of Nursing. Among the professional highlights of the trip are meeting and dialoguing with Israeli colleagues in all nursing environments, including Israel’s major hospitals, like the tertiary-care Hadassah Medical Center in Jerusalem, and the rural countryside, where nurse practitioners work on kibbutzim. Participants will have the opportunity to shadow an Israeli nurse in a chosen field and share an evening of hospitality at the home of a nursing counterpart. There will be multiple opportunities to learn about nursing leadership in the Israeli healthcare system and academia. Participants will be encouraged to explore their own leadership style and gain professional strength from empowerment. In addition, the mission will offer the opportunity to travel throughout the country, visiting historic sites from the Old City in Jerusalem to the Atlit Detention Center outside Haifa, where Jewish refugees who illegally ran the British blockade during the Mandatory period were imprisoned, to the cultural heritage sites of Tel Aviv, a city with the world’s heaviest concentration of “International Style” architecture. For more information, please contact: nursingcouncils@hadassah.org, or call:(212.303.8023.
Omahans at White House Sarah Abrahamson, left, and her mother Dinah, right, met Senator Joseph Lieberman (I-CT) and his wife Hadassah at the Hanukkah Party last week at the White House.
ASK FOR...
TONI ROSEN MULTIMILLION DOLLAR CAREER SALES
For Experienced Professional Service In The Sale Of Your Home
Res: 334-7257 Bus: 498-8300
LEAD TEAM. OUR
You have the desire and the drive to make it to the top. In the Army National Guard, you learn skills that are critical to leading a team through difficult situations. Most Guard members serve one weekend a month and two weeks a year, leaving you with plenty of time for school, friends and family. Join our team and learn to lead. In the Army National Guard,YOU CAN.
1-800-GO-GUARD • www.1-800-GO-GUARD.com
December 21, 2007
What do you put on your latke? by ANNETTE VAN DE KAMP-WRIGHT Two weeks ago, it was time for Friedel Jewish Academy’s annual Hanukkah Play. Visitors, who came out en masse in spite of the less than perfect weather, were treated to “The Chefs and Saba’s Special Box.” Hebrew and Judaic Studies teachers Na’ama Artzi and Eadie Tsabari wrote the play. Children from kindergarten through sixth grade delivered their lines in Hebrew, while those in the audience that aren’t quite as fluent received an explanation in English. The different acts centered on famous Jewish chefs, school children being visited by grandparents with a suitcase full of dreidels, and, of course, those nasty Greeks had to make an appearance. The play also included a special visitor: first grade teacher Angie Mass drew the short straw and was hoisted into a Curious George suit. Imagine a few miles of faux fur under the glare of the stage lights, and you can imagine that Mass’ dedication to the school was proven beyond a doubt. From the first act until the very end, latkes were the focus of everyone’s attention. The great latke debate occurs year
after year, and the question of what the best topping is never gets a satisfactory answer. What do you put on them, the student-actors asked, ketchup, or chocolate? Even the audience was asked to interact and many offered their favorite toppings, ranging from the classic applesauce or sour cream, to sugar and jelly. The one thing everybody did agree on was the amazing talent displayed by the Friedel students; they can sing, they can dance, and they can act. Audience member Rabbi Jonathan Gross enjoyed the show: “Friedel is the most important Jewish institution in Nebraska,” he said. “Without a Jewish day school, the community has no future.” The latke dilemma sort of stayed with me all evening, and the next day, while visiting Friedel for the world famous Latke Day, I decided to ask a few more people about their preferences. ‘Latke Day’ is Friedel’s annual chance to open its doors to the community; students, teachers and parents, community volunteers and, last but not least, board members, get together to cook and eat. Every year, the ingredients for the Friedel Latkes are donated by Bag ‘n Save. Due to the school’s growth, the actual cooking this year was done in the Blumkin kitchen, after which the latkes were schlepped back to the school’s Commons Room. One of Friedel’s parents, Sarah Wiseman (an applesauce advocate) volunteered all day long. “To me, latkes represent a lot of hard work”, she said, “but it also means bringing the whole family together.” Sarah has a daughter, Destiny, who attends kindergarten at Friedel. Also in kindergarten is Zoë Berman, whose mother, Beth Cohen, helped out by frying latkes. She likes hers with apple sauce and sour cream: “It’s just one of those Jewish things that brings the family together,” she says, “and I love
coming to the school. It’s so fascinating to see how fast and how much Hebrew Zoë is learning.” Even rabbis have their preferences when it comes to what to put on the latke. Rabbi Gross’ vote goes to applesauce: “Choosing applesauce signifies that you are sturdy on the outside, like the apple, but also that you can be pressed down into something more soft, like applesauce. At the same time, apples come in many different hues, but once pressed, you can’t tell the difference anymore. It’s what’s on the inside that counts.” Rabbi Gross finished his argument by saying that “Apples have seeds, so they represent growth.” This is true; one cannot grow a tree out of sour cream. So far, applesauce seemed to be the favorite for most. However, when I spoke with Kim Goldberg, I hit the jackpot. She likes hers with grape jelly. Kim is the mother of Lily Goldberg, who is a Friedel first grader. Teacher Na’ama Artzi likes hers with Israeli salad, which my family immediately tried at home, and we can vouch for it. Nancy Kutler is a PTO member and mother of Sarah, who reprised her role as Antiochus in the Hanukkah play. She has never tried anything ‘weird’ on her latkes. Bev Fellman came to share lunch Left: Nathaniel Teetzel, Michael Popkov, Ortal Cohen, Eva Phillips, and Sarah Potash played the “Famous Jewish Chefs.” Below: Angie Mass, first grade teacher in the “George” suit, is surrounded by Michael Popkov, right, Samuel Bogomolni (from the back) Hannah Leff and Dahlia Hamicksburg.
Jewish Press, Omaha, NE
Page 9
Angela Bell Licensed Massage Therapist Stress Reduction Pain Relief Relaxation Swedish Massage Sports Massage Pregnancy Massage
697-3838
981-6599
Fax: 697-3888
by appointment only
2505 South 174th Plaza Omaha, NE 68130
COMING 01.2008
Tax+Financial Planning Publishing Date 01.11.08 Space Reservation 12.28.07 Camera Ready Deadline 01.02.08
COMING 02.2008 with her granddaughter Gabby Witkowski, who attends first grade. She has a son-in-law who once upon a time used ketchup, or so the legend goes. Gaston Bogomolni, father of Samuel, doesn’t put anything on his latkes. However, he does have a tip for the cooks among us: put some eggshell in the pan and the oil won’t soak your latkes! Larry Novak, father of Sammy (a kindergartner) and Rebecca (third grader) likes honey on his latkes, which begs the question: can you put applesauce on your apples for Rosh Hashanah? Naturally, it is principal Cookie Katskee who is the most opinionated: “I like my latkes crisp and thin. Then I want a smooth layer of sour cream, topped with applesauce. The strangest thing I have ever heard someone put on their latkes is mustard.” According to Katzkee, the latke holds a special place among holiday foods: “When you compare the latke with, for instance, the hamantaschen, the latke wins hands down. The latke has a personality; take my husband Roy, for example. He eats them for breakfast with strawberry jam, weeks after Hanukkah is over and done with. Latkes rock.” The many people who visited Friedel on Latke Day probably agree; we hope it will become a tradition we all enjoy for years to come. With or without applesauce.
Simchas+ Celebrations Publishing Date 02.08.08 Space Reservation 01.25.08 Camera Ready Deadline 01.30.08 Contact your advertising representative to advertise in either of these special editions. Call Allan Handleman at 402.334.6451 or email:ahandleman@jewishomaha.org
Call Terri Greenwood at 402.334.6559 or email:terrigreenwood@jewishomaha.org
Page 10
Jewish Press, Omaha, NE
December 21, 2007
Cruise Away... into a Great Vacation! Nebrasksa’s #1 Volume Cruise Agency!
DISCOUNTS UPTO 50%
Omaha’s Oldest, MOSTEXPERIENCED, Representing CRUISE LINES...WORLDWIDE! OPEN WEEKDAYS 9:00-6:00, SAT. By Appointment Only Nationally Recognized Award Winning Agency
339-6800 OR 1-800-289-5505
PRINCESS
Carnival
10760 “Q” St., Omaha, NE 68127
NATIONALTOP NATIONALAGENCY NATIONALTOP PRODUCER AWARD OF THE YEAR PRODUCER AWARD
If you think you are too young to do estate planning or have all of your estate planning done, consider this . . . THIS YEAR YOU ARE SIX TIMES MORE LIKELY TO BECOME DISABLED THAN DIE! This alarming statistic shouldn’t surprise you . . . you see it everyday. Unfortunately, the number of people becoming disabled will double in the next decade. Most estate planning, including most Revocable Living Trusts, was designed to deal with death not disability, but that can be corrected. MOST POWERS OF ATTORNEY ARE OUTDATED WHEN PRESENTED (MANY ARE NOT EVEN AVAILABLE). Your Power of Attorney is used to allow someone to make financial or health care decisions on your behalf when you are unable to. Unfortunately, these documents keep becoming outdated. Assuming your document is current, will it be available in an emergency? Hospitals report in 3 out of 4 cases the Patient’s Health Care Power of Attorney is not available when needed (they will always ask if you have one before you are admitted, regardless of your age). Our new program makes this document accessible 24 hours a day, 7 days a week via the telephone. WITHOUT A LIVING WILL YOU MAY BE KEPT ALIVE ON LIFE SUPPORT AGAINST YOUR WISHES IN CERTAIN INSTANCES. Remember Terri Schiavo? She was only 26 years old when she collapsed in her home due to respiratory and cardiac arrest. She spent the next 15 years of her life in a persistent vegetative state, kept alive on feeding tubes, until she died at age 41. We will never know whether those were her wishes since she did not have a Living Will. Don’t let this happen to you. Make sure your wishes are known. Don’t wait until you actually have a problem before you deal with it. By waiting until the problem happens you typically can only minimize the damage, rather than prevent it. Let’s prevent it! We have developed a solution for every problem.
Latke/Hamantaschen debate a winner Hamantaschen showed how all by AMY ZLOTSKY for Congregation good things come in threes. Think id/ego/superego, the B’nai Jeshurun This year’s Hanukkah Three Stooges, and Robert party took a new turn Parish, Kevin McHale and Larry with the first ever Temple Bird of the 1981 Boston Celtics. Latke versus Haman• Dr. Susan Poser’s discustaschen Debate. Followsion of Justice and the ing in the 50-year tradiHamantaschen made the point tion at the University of that the Hamantaschen was the Chicago, Temple memreligiously just cookie (with bers debated just which is parallels to the Oreo, the racialthe most superior Jewish Moderator David Feingold ly-just cookie). warms up the crowd. holiday food! • And while Dr. Ken Bloom’s Debaters appeared in full academic garb and lab coats, and were armed with Power Point presentations and actual grease and cholesterol reenactments. Moderator David Feingold’s opening remarks highlighted the participants credentials and set the rules. During the debate, Feingold tried valiantly to keep the teams to their time limits and fair play! Highlights of the debate included: • Dr. Sarah Kelen’s Team Latke looks poised while under attack: Dr. Sarah Kelen, research on “What Would left, Dr. Ken Bloom, Dr. Scott Stanfield and Penny Berger, JD. Shakespeare Eat?” ([potato] cakes and ale, of course), as well as survey data on the preferences of the next generation. • Dr. Steve DiMagno’s chemical analysis of the latke, revealed compounds related to radiator fluid and diesel oil. In comparison, the diversity of Hamantaschen fillings provided vitamins, fiber, and aphrodisiacs! • An impressive analogy was made between the potato and the Jews by Dr. Scott Stanfield, who Team Hamantaschen looks tense under pressure: Dr. Brian described how both were Bornstein, left, Dr. Christie Emler, Dr. Melissa Bornstein, Dr. taken from their native Steve DiMagno, and Dr. Susan Poser, JD. homelands, distributed throughout the theory of Quantum Latke Dynamics purglobe, and have since flourished and portedly received hearty approval during nourished the world! His presentation a practice session in the UNL Physics concluded with his original ode to the Department, it was well beyond this potato, “Potatode”. reporter’s comprehension. • Deleterious health effects of the latke A vicious rebuttal by Dr. Poser revealed were discussed by Dr. Christie Emler, Dr. Kelen’s recent interview in the who demonstrated what happens to our Lincoln Journal Star, the document-ofarteries from eating latkes (yes, she really record, where Kelen was quoted as saying used a syringe of raw eggs and latke that “you could eat a lot of latkes, but you grease). The recent Surgeon General’s might regret it”. In her closing remarks, Latke Warning was presented, along with Poser also emphasized, “if you can make “before” and “after” photos showing the vodka, why would you make a latke”? An equally feisty rebuttal by Berger, results of switching from a diet high in inquired of Dr. Emler as to what she latkes to one high in Hamantaschen. • Penelope Berger, JD, read her served at her famous Hanukkah brunchdelightful poem on the hamish qualities es? While Emler stated that she served “babkas,” it was revealed that latkes had of the latke. • Dr. Melissa Bornstein’s tripartite psy- been consumed at her home by several chological evaluation of the debate participants!
Monsky Lodge hosts Hanukkah Run
Call our office today to schedule your complimentary consultation.
17445 Arbor St., Suite 310 Omaha, NE 68130
578-6480 RICHARD M. DWORNIK ATTORNEY AT LAW
The annual Hanukkah Run, sponsored by Henry Monsky Lodge, was held Dec. 9. This year’s theme was “Freedom from Dependence on Foreign Oil”. Members of
the community, including BBYOer Cameron Stern, left, and Mark Javitch, and Steve Zalkin participated.
December 21, 2007
Jewish Press, Omaha, NE
Page 11
Music, merriment and menorahs make for memorable morning for Beth El families by JILL BELMONT Beth El Publicity Coordinator A special Hanukkah celebration for families in Beth El Synagogue’s Talmud Torah (BESTT), offered a morning of holiday fun, and was capped off by a delightful concert performed by students in the religious school. From top left: art projects and a lively tug-of-war competition were among the many activities which kept kids busy for the first part of the morning; the musical performance offered both Hanukkah and traditional Jewish selections performed by each grade, including the high school’s music class, led by Jeffrey Malashock (at the piano) and featuring Rachel Stein, Tali Levin, Daniel Schlessinger and Ari Brodkey; the concert culminated in the singing of traditional Hanukkah songs and blessings by all BESTT students from kindergarten through seventh grade.
Bush lights Pearl family menorah
Hanukkah in Jerusalem
WASHINGTON (JTA) – President Bush was joined Dec. 10 in the Grand Foyer of the White House by Jewish leaders and Pearl’s parents, Ruth and Judea, at left, who lit the menorah, belonging to the great-grandfather of their son, Daniel, the slain Wall Street Journal reporter, and recited the blessings for the seventh night of Hanukkah. That was followed by a performance by the Zamir Chorale of Boston. “By honoring Daniel, we are given the opportunity to bring forth hope from the darkness of tragedy, and that is a miracle worth celebrating during the Festival of Lights,” the president said. Bush also recognized Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff and his family, who were in attendance. “As we light the Hanukkah candles this year, we pray for those who still live under the shadow of tyranny,” Bush said. “This afternoon I met with a group of Jewish immigrants to mark International Human Rights Day. Many of these men and women fled from religious oppression in countries like Iran and Syria and the Soviet Union. They came to America because our nation is a beacon of freedom. And they see a day of hope on the horizon when people all across the world will worship in freedom. The forces of Credit: Yosef Kramer/www.SHMAIS.com intolerance can suppress the menorah, but they can never extinguish its light.”
An Israeli family takes part in a ceremony on the first night of Hanukkah outside the Jerusalem municipality building on Dec. 4. The menorah is the height of a sixCredit: Brian Hendler story building.
90 years ago, he had a dream. And an anonymous benefactor.
Fast, Affordable & Flexible!
Father Flanagan had an extraordinary dream, an enormous heart, but a very small purse.
Complete your degree now and make an iMpact in your life!
Then, on December 8, 1917, an anonymous friend (now known to be prominent Omaha attorney and social justice advocate Henry Monsky) loaned Father $90 to establish the first Father Flanagan’s Boys’ Home. For his vision and selfless efforts, Fr. Flanagan will
The Midland
iMpact
never be forgotten. And for his kindness and generosity, we hope Mr. Monsky will always be remembered. To learn more about the
An Adult Degree Program
fulfillment of Father Flanagan’s dream, visit www.boystown.org.
Classes begin January 4th! Father Edward J. Flanagan
www.mlc.edu/impact
Contact an iMpact Program representative today at impact@mlc.edu or 402.941.6170
Paid for by the Boys Town National Board of Trustees.
Page 12
Jewish Press, Omaha, NE
December 21, 2007
Beth El mini course Santa Claus and Zionism to expose “The Many Faces JOURNAL ENTRY of Extremism” by JILL BELMONT Beth El Publicity Coordinator There are, unfortunately, a variety of extremist groups in our society, but do you know who they are and what they’re about? How do you respond if confronted by these groups and their hate-filled messages? Understanding the importance of educating our community about Alan Potash these organizations and how they operate, Beth El is sponsoring a new mini course, “The Many Faces of Extremism,” led by Alan Potash, regional director of the Plains States Region of the Anti-Defamation League. Scheduled for Tuesdays, Jan. 8, 15, 22 and 29, 7 -8 p.m., this class is open to all adults in the Jewish community. “Extremism in the world today takes on many different shapes, symbols, sizes and causes,” said Potash. “In this mini course, I will take participants on an extremism tour. We will cut across the familiar KKK, skin heads and neo-Nazi groups to the eco-extremists, religious extremists and political extremists; also, local, regional and international groups. Each week we will focus on different groups. “Using printed material and the Internet, we will take a comprehensive look at these growing movements,” he explained, adding that by the end of the four sessions, he hopes to facilitate a greater understanding of the depth of extremists groups and their missions. Class members will also learn how to appropriately react to and address these groups when they impact the community, plus how to identify their methods of operation in the public square. Potash emphasized the increased use of the Internet, noting that it is the vehicle used more frequently by extremist organizations to spread their messages and recruit members. Cost to attend is $18; to reserve a spot, contact Program Director Margie Gutnik at 492.8550, or programming@bethel-omaha.org.
Out
Dining When you patronize these fine establishments, tell them you saw their ad in the Jewish Press.
CAFE LUNCH: MONDAY-FRIDAY 11:00-2:00
FROM ISRAEL by TEDDY WEINBERGER One evening last December, we were having dinner and the name “Santa Claus” came up (I think we were speaking about differences between Hanukkah and Christmas). Then my 12-year-old son Elie asked, “Who’s Santa Claus?” Despite the immediate questioning of Elie’s intelligence provided gratis by his sister Rebecca (“Oh come on, are you for real?”), I realized that it is perfectly understandable that Elie has no idea who Santa Claus is. Elie arrived in Israel at the age of two, and since then he has been back in the States on only two occasions -both during summer time. Still, it was a bit of a shock for me since we are American Israelis, and it seems that I cannot remember a time in my life when I did not recognize the name “Santa Claus.” Elie does not know about Santa Claus because Elie lives in a country without a Christian majority culture. I wonder: is there a person reading this column whose 12-yearold child or grandchild does not know who Santa Claus is? In America, Jews are cognizant of major Christian holidays and traditions -- this is fine and only natural given the dominance of Christian culture in America. The problem comes when Jews start to view themselves through non-Jewish eyes, when Jewish holidays and traditions start to seem strange. Even though I grew up in Brooklyn, a place with a huge Jewish population, my family was always conscious of the fact that Jewish traditions are foreign to their larger society. If, for example, one of the fringes from my tzitzit happened to sneak out of my shirt, my mother would immediately have me tuck it back in, lest anyone see this weird undergarment. And I can remember sitting in our succah eating with my family and my father wondering out loud: “I wonder what Al Siefert would say if he saw us now.” I doubt if my father’s gentile friend ever wondered what Lenny Weinberger thought about this or that Christian tradition, but then again Al is Christian and is part of America’s majority culture. In Israel, Jews don’t have to measure themselves against a different religious culture. Indeed, religious
True Italian Food
DINNER: MONDAY-SATURDAY 4:30 -ON
ELECTRONIC SERVICE TECHNICIAN SignCo EDS, a leading manufacturer of electronic message centers, is now accepting applications for the position of Electronic Service Technician. Technician will assist in areas of system wiring, software operation, component repair, & system installation. Other duties to include new product quality control inspections and electronic diagnostics. Good communication and organizational skills are a must. Must have AAS in Engineering/Electronics Tech. or equivalent. Must be a self-starter, energetic & detail oriented. Some traveling required. Excellent benefit package after 90 days. Drug testing required. Call 308-384-6860 or apply at:
Elegant Year-Around Dining
402.391.2585 Rockbrook Village 108th and West Center Road 11027 Prairie Brook Road Omaha, NE 68144 www.PastaAmore.net
650 North H Street Fremont, NE 68025
How is this publication thinking about the future?
By becoming part of the past. This publication is available from ProQuest Information and Learning in one or more of the following ways: • Online, via the ProQuest® information service • Microform • CD-ROM • Via database licensing
Electronic Databases
Microform & Print
Chadwyck-Healey
1-800-521-0600, ext. 2888 (US) or 01-734-761-4700 (International) www.il.proquest.com From
Omaha/Fremont 402/727-8321 800/942-8321
Director of Diagnostic Imaging Beatrice Community Hospital is seeking a dynamic individual to join our team as Director of Diagnostic Imaging. We are looking for an individual who can lead a team of 15 professionals to superior performance and customer service. Responsible for the department·s clinical and administrative functions including strategic planning, finance, marketing, operations, customer relations, quality improvement and compliance. The department is technologically advanced and works collaboratively with radiologists who are sub-specialized in all areas of radiology. Send Resume or Contact:
Beatrice Community Hospital & Health Center For more information, call
2809 E. Hwy 30 • Grand Island, NE 68801 • EOE
Teddy Weinberger made aliyah a decade ago with his wife, former Omahan Sarah Ross, and their five children, two of whom now serve in the Israeli Defense Force. Weinberger works in the education department at the Jewish Agency for Israel and may be reached at: weinross@netvision.net.il.
DELI
BAR
OUTDOOR DINING PRIVATE PARTY ROOM CATERING AVAILABLE
Zionism’s dream was that in a country where Judaism is the majority culture, Judaism can grow and thrive in ways unimaginable in the Diaspora. This dream, however, has been put on hold. There are two major reasons for this. One is that a large percentage of the religious public, the ultra-orthodox (haredim), is uninterested in what religion can contribute to general culture because it is uninterested in general culture. The haredim have a way of putting “modern” religious people on the defensive. The moderns tend to bow to the haredim when it comes to such things as the observance of the kosher and Shabbat laws, and a huge effort in Israeli religious culture is made towards seeing to it that these laws are implemented in a stringent way. Yes, there are religious people concerned about the environment, about animal rights, about nuclear proliferation, but they are usually not active as part of a group of religious people that is exploring how Judaism relates to these issues. Religious parties in Israel create uproars over such issues as highway construction performed on Shabbat. Religious parties in Israel do not create uproars about traffic accidents on those same highways. The second reason for the religious Zionist dream being put on hold is that for the last four decades a very significant amount of time and energy has gone into settling the territories, often in homogenous religious communities. The notion of interacting with secular Israel was shunted off to the side. Esther Zandberg, architecture critic for Ha'aretz, could thus write that “synagogues are associated in the consciousness of many people-albeit the majority of whom are secular -- with religious and national extremism.” If religious Zionism is to reclaim its dream of creating a Judaism that is relevant to all aspects of society, it must first reconnect with the secular Israeli public. Though secular Israelis may not want to observe Jewish law, this does not mean, for example, that they are averse to filling their holiday experiences with more Jewish content. Here is where religious Zionism can lend a hand. This may not be as sophisticated an intellectual project as, say, constructing a Jewish framework for organ transplantation, but at this point it’s the job that needs to be done. Happy Dec. 25 -- Vacation Day!
Attn: Human Resources P O Box 278, 1110 N. 10th St. Beatrice, NE 68310 402-223-7379, Fax 402-223-6538 Email: ssaathoff@bchhc.org www.beatricecommunityhospital.com EOE
Out
Dining
December 21, 2007
ORGANIZATIONS B’NAI B’RITH BREADBREAKERS The Sixth Annual Welcome Back program featuring graduating high school seniors or returning college students will take place at Breadbreakers on Wednesday, Dec. 26, noon, at Regency Lodge, according to Gary Javitch, chairman. This warm, sentimental treat is always a big hit. All men and women in the community are invited to attend. Cost is $12 for a complete lunch and $3 for beverage service only. LOMIR REDN YIDDISH Come to the Yiddish meeting at the JCC on Thursdays, 1-3 p.m. If you have any Yiddish books to donate, please call Anne Skolkin at 343-1638. VISIONS Membership dues to Visions for January-December 2008 are due. Please mail your check to Visions for $7.50 to: Beverly Gilinksy, 1406 No. 126 St., Omaha, NE 68154.
IN THE NEWS The Omaha Jaycees announce that applications for the Fourth Annual Ten Outstanding Young Omaha Teens (TOYO Teens) Awards are now being accepted. The TOYO Teens Awards are based on the prestigious Ten Outstanding Young Omahans (TOYO) Awards that were started 75 years ago by the Omaha Jaycees. The TOYO Awards are intended to honor young Omaha professionals who are making a difference in the community. The Omaha Jaycees wanted to expand the effort with the launch of TOYO Teens. The purpose of TOYO Teens is to award ten outstanding teens whoare making a difference in the Omaha community through volunteerism and community action. In order to be eligible, you must meet the following requirements: be 13 to 19 years of age before March 15, 2008; live in the Omaha Metro area; have made significant contributions to the Omaha community through volunteerism and community action The Ten Outstanding Young Omaha Teens will receive a $100 scholarship. The recipients will also be honored at a ceremony held at Village Pointe Shopping Center on May 4, 2008.
Heartland Orchestra performs at JCC Heartland Philharmonic Orchestra presented Scheherazade at the Jewish Community Center recently featuring two guest soloists, Cantor Gastón Bogomolni, tenor (Winner of UNO’s 2007 Concerto/Aria Competition) and Kristin Simpson, violinist (also a winner of the Concerto/Aria competition). The program started with “Hatikvah” and the “Star-Spangled Banner,” following with compositions from Mozart, Donizetti, Block and Rimsky-Korsakov. This concert was sponsored by the Noddle family in memory of Edith Noddle.
Talk With Your Mouth Full: The Hearty Boys Cookbooks by D. Smith & S. McDonagh (Stewart, Tabori & Chang, $27.50)
READ IT AND E AT Reviewed by LOIS FRIEDMAN During their early television cooking experiences and tasting on camera during the program countdown, these two Chicago, self-taught caterers and former actors, aka “The Hearty Boys,” gobbled and swallowed quickly to ohh and ahh on camera about the taste albeit with their mouths full. Shared are their hands- on experiences from grandmother’s kitchen table to formal tables at the French Embassy. Chapter notes, headnotes, and sidebars are full of helpful ideas for partying and entertaining ... like “people eat with their eyes first”, get all your tchotchkes off the counter workspace so you can have room to prepare the food, and how to fan a stack of paper napkins. Passed and Buffet Hors d’Oeuvres, Starters, Main and Side Dishes, Desserts and Libations chapters feature 125 food and drink recipes with detailed instructions, Cook’s Notes, Make Ahead suggestions, time tables for preparation and cooking and lovely photographs. Sample Menus and Liquor Buying Guide are helpful for a DIY (Do It Yourself) party plan. Growing up on Long Island, in “a heavily Italian and Jewish neighborhood,” taught them how to whip up a chicken liver mousse said to be as good as “someone’s Jewish grandmother’s” ... served with a tangerine marmalade and shallot confit. Blinis, falafel with garlic tahini sauce, cheese terrines ... a Hearty Boys signature dish, everything from Honey Roasted Parsnip Bisque to Spiced Cocktail Nuts and this -- for New Year’s! SMOKED SALMON CANAPÉS WITH ORANGE BUTTER AND CAPERS 1 loaf challah bread, cut into 1/2-inch slices Orange Butter: recipe follows 12 ounces smoked salmon, sliced 2 tablespoons nonpareil capers, for garnish Orange zest, for garnish Special equipment: 2-inch biscuit cutter Preheat the oven to 350° F. Using the biscuit cutter, cut 24 rounds out of the bread slices and place them on a baking sheet. Toast them in the top half of the oven until lightly browned, about 3 minutes. Remove and let cool. Make Ahead: Challah toasts can be made the day before and stored in an airtight container. To assemble the hors d’oeuvres, spread the challah toasts with a little softened orange butter. Top with a small fold of smoked salmon and garnish with a few capers and a sprinkle of orange zest. Serve immediately. Yield: 24 pieces. ORANGE BUTTER cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened 1 teaspoon orange zest 1/4 teaspoon kosher salt pinch cayenne Put the butter, orange zest, salt and cayenne in a small bowl and mash together with the back of a spoon until well combined. Use right away or refrigerate for up to one week. Yield 1/2 cup. 1/2
Lois Friedman can ReadItAndEat@yahoo.com.
be
reached
at
ings, dessert and beverages will be served at a cost of $5 per person. If you don’t want dinner, you are still welcome to attend at no charge. Please RSVP with the office if you plan to have dinner. “After dinner, we’ll commence with the games,” said Cohen. “We like to say that this is a B.Y.O.B.G. event -bring your own board games. In-house, we’ve got Monopoly, Scrabble, Candy Land and many more. People can bring their cards and poker sets to play poker. Others might play Mah Jongg. What’s fun is that there is something for everyone, for both children and adults.” For more information and to RSVP, please call the office at 556.6288.
Page 13
When you patronize these fine establishments, tell them you saw their ad in the Jewish Press.
THE GREEK ISLANDS 3821 CENTER • 346-1528 Greek Specials Daily Greek Beer & Wine Homemade Pastries Dine In/Carry Out Party Room We Cater Too! Full Service Bar Mon.-Thurs., 11 a.m.-9 p.m.; Fri.-Sat., 11 a.m.-10 p.m. Sun., 11 a.m.-7 p.m.
Fine Indian Cuisine and Indian Fusion Check our new extended wine list
12 different wines by the glass, 10 by the 1/2 bottle and 137 by the full bottle. Lunch Thurs, Fri.: 11:30 a.m.-2 p.m. Dinner Sun.-Thurs.: 5:30-9:45 p.m. Dinner Fri., Sat.: 5:30-10:45 p.m.
Rockbrook Village 108th and Center Streets
www.jaipurbrewhouse.com
Celebrate the New Year at Beth Israel’s Game Night by MARY BORT for Beth Israel Synagogue What will you do to bring in the New Year? If you are looking for a family-friendly way to spend the evening and celebrate with your family and friends, then make plans to attend Beth Israel Synagogue’s New Year’s Eve Game Night, on Monday, Dec. 31, 7 p.m. “This event has become a tradition at Beth Israel,” explained Beth Cohen, executive director. “People enjoy the evening, playing a wide variety of board games, and some stay until midnight to celebrate the New Year with champagne.” A deli dinner, featuring deli sandwiches and all the fix-
Jewish Press, Omaha, NE
Half Pound Hot Pastrami or
5
402/392-7331
Give your loved one a gift certificate this holiday season.
Corned Beef Sandwich, Chips & Soft Drink
$ 99 Offer expires 12/31/07
Spirit World 7517 Pacific Street • 391-8680 www.spiritworldwine.com
Page 14
Jewish Press, Omaha, NE
December 21, 2007
PRIVATE DUTY CARE
PEOPLE WHO READ NEWSPAPERS ARE
EXPERIENCED TRUSTWORTHY RELIABLE WILL TRAVEL REFERENCES
STUDENTS WITH BETTER GRADES
PROVIDER AVAILABLE
PLEASE CALL HELEN 402-341-8802
1.tif
v2
10:40
12/2/02
It all starts with Newspapers.
JC
85
IRIS-1
It’s her future.Do the math.
SM
www.girlsgotech.org
Immediate Openings Available NOW! NOTE TO PUB: DO NOT PRINT INFO BELOW, FOR I.D. ONLY. NO ALTERING OF AD COUNCIL PSAS. Girl Scouts - Newspaper (3 3/4 x 3 1/2) B&W GSUGSU-N-09209-E “It’s Her Future” 85 screen Film at Schawk: 212-689-8585 Reference #: 200498
We are seeking candidates for our industrial maintenance operations, located at the Cargill corn milling site in Blair, NE • Electrician - JEL Preferred • InstrumentationTechnician • Insulation/Scaffolding • Janitor • LubricationTechnician
• Pipe Welder/Fitter • Project Mechanic - 50%Travel • Safety Observer • HVACTechnician • Maintenance Mechanic
We offer competitive wages, medical/dental insurance, 401(k), paid holidays/vacation and work uniforms. Background check & drug screen required. Submit resume with position title to tcoe@unicco.com or by mail to P.O. Box 227, Blair, NE 68008 or FAX to (402) 533-4305. No Phone Calls, Please. EOE M/F/D/V
MOVING? Please give us the following information:
Name _______________________________________________________ Old Address __________________________________________________ City, State, Zip ________________________________________________ (Or attach your mailing label) Name _______________________________________________________ New Address ________________________________________________ City, State, Zip ________________________________________________ New Phone __________________________________________________ Effective Date ________________________________________________ If moving out of town,please check one: ❍ Discontinue Press ❍ Bill Me ❍ Full-time College Student ❍ “Snowbird” date of return _____________ Mail this coupon 3 weeks in advance to:
The Jewish Press 333 South 132nd Street Omaha, NE 68154 or see page 16 for email address and Fax number
Who is a Jew? Book discusses role of genetics in answer
BOOK REVIEW by AARON LEIBEL Washington Jewish Week Jon Entine considers himself “a practicing Jewish atheist.” His rather unconventional views, as well as his passion for his Jewish heritage, suffuse his new book, Abraham’s Children: Race, Identity and the DNA of the Chosen People (Grand Central Publishing, 2007). “My Jewish heritage is very important to me and I have an incredible love for Judaism,” says Entine, an adjunct fellow at the American Enterprise Institute in the nation’s capitol, who is a consultant on media and business ethics; has written four books, including Taboo: Why Black Athletes Dominate Sports and Why We’re Afraid to Talk about It; and is a columnist for Ethical Corporation magazine. As someone who considers himself both an atheist and a Jew, the author says he knows his ideas may be “discordant” to many Jews, “but to me, Judaism has many threads.” Entine says he has never heard a rabbi demand that he change his views so they correspond with those of the rabbi. “It’s open as long as we match the basic ethical requirements of what it means to be Jewish,” he says. Unlike Christianity or Islam, which he describes as “faith-based,” Judaism is much more complex -- “a tribal religion tied to nationhood” -- encompassing peoplehood, land and ancestors, as well as faith. He wanted to explore that complexity with his book, he says. He decided to write Abraham’s Children following a family tragedy. Born in Philadelphia in 1952 into a family of “High Holiday Jews,” he became bar mitzvah and was confirmed at the family Reform synagogue. Nevertheless, he says he never believed in God, but
always considered himself a Jew. His mother died of ovarian cancer when he was 17, and that reaffirmed in his mind that there was no God. (“If there were a God, he wouldn’t have let this happen,” he remembers thinking.) Nonetheless, he says he was fascinated by religion, which he studied -- along with philosophy -- at Trinity College in Hartford, CT, graduating in 1974. After a stint working for Father Robert Drinan, the Catholic priest who was a Democratic member of Congress from Massachusetts in the 1970s, Entine spent the next 20 years as a writer and producer for ABC and NBC television. In Taboo, he had written about genetics. After it was published, the author learned that his sister had been diagnosed with breast cancer -- “a rapidly spreading kind” similar to the disease that had killed his mother as well as his grandmother and aunt. Tests showed that his sister had a genetic mutation, common in Jews, that almost surely had caused her cancer -- and probably that of his other relatives. This “tragic marker of our family’s Jewish ancestry” rekindled his interest in Judaism and led to the book, he says. Among the issues that Entine deals with in his book - an amalgam of history and genetics -- is the classic conundrum “Who is a Jew?” How, for example, should the Jewish people relate to Father William Sanchez, a practicing Catholic whose genetic make-up shows that his family was at one time Jewish? Or the Falashas of Ethiopia, who are practicing Jews with no apparent genetic connection to the Jewish people? Or the Lemba tribe in southern Africa, some of whose members apparently are Semitic in origin? Or, for that matter, people like the author who are atheists? DNA is a “problematic way to establish identity,” he writes. “Despite the understandable excitement that comes with exploring our genetic attic, there is a clear danger in granting far too much explanatory power to the genes. Religion, culture, social groups, and legal associations all play a role in defining identity.” In other words, genes help to illuminate individuals’ backgrounds, but cannot, by themselves, determine who is a member of the tribe.
Discoveries unveiled in Israel Continued from page 1 From the rich ar chaeological finds discovered in Jerusalem, it would seem that almost every week archaeologists, working on various ancient sites in and around the Old City of Jerusalem, are revealing more and more of the complex Jewish history of the city. For three years now the Above: A section of a newly revealed eastern section of a wall just outside Shalem Center the Old City of Jerusalem, thought to be about 2,500 years old. Below: A has been sponmodel of the complex with the revealed wall shown lighter. soring an archaeCredit: Edgar Asher of ISRANET ological dig in the ancient City of David under the direction of H e b r e w University archaeologist Dr. Eilat Mazar. Earlier this month, it was revealed that a 2,500 year-old section of wall had been located just outside the Dung Gate of the Old City Wall. A 30 meter section of wall
was revealed in the excavation and part of a tower dated to the 5th century BCE, according to pottery found under the tower. This period is known as Nehemiah’s period. Nehemiah lived at a time when Judah was part of the Persian Empire in 445 BCE. This latest discovery by Dr. Mazar, together with an early discovery two years ago adjacent to this site, is pointing to the fact that this construction might very well have been the site of King David’s palace. It was also at this time that the Second Temple was in existence. Built in 516 BCE it was later destroyed by the Romans in 70 CE.
Hebrew University archaeologist, and senior fellow of the Shalem Center, Dr. Eilat Mazar.
December 21, 2007
Jewish Press, Omaha, NE
Page 15
Omaha Performing Arts Presents
Trumpet in the New Year!
Chris Botti
New Year’s Eve 2007 Celebration
Experience a tantalizing blend of fine jazz and pop music with the sounds of GRAMMY®, nominated trumpeter, Chris Botti.
Chris Botti New Year’s Eve 2007 Celebration Monday, December 31, 2007 | 8:30 p.m. Kiewit Concert Hall | Holland Performing Arts Center Additional support provided by Midlands Choice Hospitality Host: Hilton Omaha Media Partners: Classical 90.7, The Jewish Press of Omaha and metroMAGAZINE
Preview this artist at www.omahaperformingarts.org Following the performance, all patrons are invited to ring in the new year with a post-concert celebration featuring The Personics in the Holland Center’s Scott Recital Hall.
Photo: Fabrizio Ferri
Tickets start at $45
Upgrade your evening with the New Year’s Eve Party Package! Contact Holly Kaffenberger for more information hkaffenberger@omahaperformingarts.org or call 402.661.8454
| 402.345.0606 | www.ticketomaha.org | 13th and Douglas streets
Page 16
Jewish Press, Omaha, NE
December 21, 2007
The secret to successful aging When the Jewish Press profiled a half dozen “seniors” in our New Year’s issue a few months ago, we commented about their lack of kvetching because they were so busy helping others. In this week’s Senior Living issue, readers will find profiles about some seniors at Temple Israel, as well as a local author in his 70s, all of whom are leading vital active lives. What’s their secret? None of them claim any special diets or a daily shot of whiskey. Nor do they boast of a long-lived line of ancestors and good DNA. Instead their secret formula seems to revolve around one simple, basic idea: stay busy. Whether it’s working on detective novels as Jack Moskovitz does, staying involved in community work as George Eisenberg does, remaining passionate about politics as Evie Zysman does and Nebraska football like Bernice Kaplan, or maintaining social contacts as Joe Boin and David Rice do -- these seniors have learned that human contact is the secret. Those seniors who volunteer, get out and visit friends and neighbors, attend social events, meetings and family gatherings are those who seem to have the most satisfied lives. That’s not to say that they don’t suffer their share of aches and pains (don’t we all!), but they’ve learned that physical ailments (whether it’s arthritis or heart disease) is no excuse for staying home and withering away. Relatives and friends do need to be on the lookout for signs of depression among the more senior members of our community. When seniors feel that there’s no reason to get dressed in the morning or they’re sleeping the day away and not eating enough to keep up their strength, those are signs of trouble. But the answers are only a phone call away. Lucky for us in Nebraska, there are scores of well run, well maintained assisted living facilities, nursing homes, and hospitals. There are
fine, caring staff ranging from social workers to doctors and nurses who truly care about the well being of our seniors. They respect our seniors’ experiences and are only too willing to take the time to listen to their concerns (whether it’s about their physical, mental health or financial health). And there are solutions to the problems of loneliness, depression, and lack of financial security. Just peruse these pages and readers can find a score of services and products aimed at “The Greatest Generation” as author Tom Brokaw has characterized them. These seniors are the ones who have lived through the Depression and World War II. They’ve seen the maps change in Europe, Asia, Africa and the Middle East. They can recall the rise of the Soviet Union, its iron fisted hold on Eastern Europe and then its downfall. They remember the birth of the State of Israel and the founding of many of our local institutions. They were there for us, to nurture us as children and young adults, and to be examples of tzedakah and generosity. They even mortgaged their homes when Israel was in need, and pledged to build synagogues, a Jewish Community Center (twice!) and a home for the aged (three times!). Now it’s our turn. It’s time for us to ensure they are treated with dignity, given every comfort they deserve. It’s time to pay attention to their stories (even if they’ve been told what seems like a million times!) and listen to their complaints. As one middle-aged woman said recently, “My mom is 82.
Whatever the argument ... she wins.” Or as another 80-something said, “Now that I’ve reached this age, I can say anything I want. And you have to listen!” Yes we do. And we will. And we hope our seniors are around for a long time to come, to remind us that adversity can be overcome, that plans don’t always materialize, and that dreams (sometimes) do come true. So you seniors out there: keep going -- we’re right behind you ... and we want rock ’n roll on the intercom, wireless connections to the internet, and happy hour when we arrive!
cells or certain already-produced lines of embryonic cells. The Times’ skepticism notwithstanding, it is at least arguable that the White House’s refusal to fund embryonic stem-cell research and its encouragement of alternate approaches to procuring stem cells may in fact have contributed to the happy turn of events. After all, if Mr. Bush’s steadfastness constituted “shackles” that “hobbled” efforts to consider embryos an unobjectionable source of stem cells, then it is certainly reasonable to imagine that his resolve may have played a role in the development of alternative sources for the cells. Whatever role the President may or may not
treatments for muscular dystrophy, cardiac disease, liver failure and leukemia. And the list is potentially much longer. But in the headlong rush to gain access to the potential benefits of stem cell research, some were, one might say, blinded by science. From a Jewish perspective, the issue of utilizing fertilized embryos for research is complex. While some Orthodox Jewish rabbis and organizations concluded that Judaism would encourage embryonic stem cell research under certain conditions, others had deep reservations. Now, thankfully, it seems that resort to destroying embryos may no longer be necessary for stem cell research to take place. And so, instead of taking umbrage, bashing Bush and hoping for the destruction of future embryos, The Times’ editorialists might better have reflected a moment or two on a quote featured in a Nov. 22 story on their paper’s own front page. Dr. James A. Thomson’s laboratory at the University of Wisconsin was one of two that in 1998 first successfully removed stem cells from embryos. His laboratory was one of the two that have now reported the new way of turning ordinary human skin cells into very similar, if not identical, stem cells. Reflecting on those developments, Dr. Thomson, the pioneer of procuring stem cells from embryos destroyed in the process, told The Times’ science writer Gina Kolata that “If human embryonic stem cell research does not make you at least a little bit uncomfortable, you have not thought about it enough.” Rabbi Shafran is director of public affairs for Agudath Israel of America. His op-ed is courtesy of Am Echad Resources. He can be reached at: Shafran@agudathisrael.org. (Editor’s note: See related story on stem cell research in Israel on page 29.)
Seething and thinking
FOCUS ON ISSUES by RABBI AVI SHAFRAN The Old Gray Lady isn’t cute when she’s angry. Quite the opposite, in fact. The New York Times editorial page’s longstanding antagonism to the Bush Administration is well documented. Still, the only dignified editorial response to last month’s news that two independent teams of scientists had reported having turned human skin cells into the equivalent of embryonic stem cells was “Hallelujah” -- or, for the staidly secular Times, some less parochial but equally enthusiastic expression of joy. After all, if the reported results are duplicated by other labs and various technical obstacles overcome, there will now be an inexhaustible supply of human stem cells available for research -- and the controversy over the destruction of embryos to procure stem cells for research will have been effectively rendered moot. Instead of rejoicing, though, The Times just seethed. On Dec. 3, an editorial in the paper petulantly conceded that the new discovery “could help free scientists from shackles that have long hobbled their efforts.” But, it hastened to add, “any claim that Mr. Bush’s moral stance drove scientists to this discovery must be greeted with particular skepticism.” The editorial ended with the hope that “the next president will quickly jettison all restrictions on stem cell research.” The moral stance referenced is, of course, the President’s long and unwavering insistence that federal funds for stem cell research be limited to projects using non-embryonic stem
... if Mr. Bush’s steadfastness constituted “shackles” that “hobbled” efforts to consider embryos an unobjectionable source of stem cells ... his resolve may have played a role in the development of alternative sources for the cells. have played, however, what cannot be denied is that, in light of the recent breakthrough, the idea of destroying nascent life for scientific research is now more easily seen for what it is, namely, the destroying of nascent life for scientific research. To be sure, the potential of such research was always clear. If stem cells can be induced to develop into pancreatic cells, they will hold the promise of curing diabetes; if they can be convinced to turn into dopamine-secreting brain cells, they may be able to reverse Parkinson’s disease; if into muscle, heart, liver or blood cells, they will figure prominently in
(Founded in 1920) Howard K. Marcus President Carol Katzman Editor Richard Busse Managing Editor Allan Handleman Advertising Manager Lori Kooper-Schwarz Assistant Managing Editor Terri Greenwood Advertising Executive Barbara Kirkpatrick Bookkeeper Anne Muskin Editorial Intern Jewish Press Board Bobbi Leibowitz, Vice President; Stan Mitchell, Secretary; Scott Meyerson, Treasurer; Joanie Jacobson, Immediate Past-chairman; Susan Lehr; Jamie Meyerson; George Quittner; Eve Randone, Melissa Schop; Michael Siegel, Michael Sigmond; Jim Simon; Nancy Skid; and Dorothy Spizman. The role of the Jewish Federation of Omaha is to involve Jews in meeting Jewish communal needs locally, nationally and in Israel. Centers of Excellence of the Federation are: Community Relations, Jewish Community Center, Center for Jewish Education, Jewish Family Service, and Jewish Senior Services. The Jewish Press is an agency of the Jewish Federation. Highlights of the Jewish Press, including front page stories and announcements, can be found online at: www jewishomaha.org; click on ‘Jewish Press.’ Editorials express the view of the writer and are not necessarily representative of the views of the Jewish Press Board of Directors, the Jewish Federation of Omaha Board of Directors or the Omaha Jewish community as a whole. The Jewish Press reserves the right to edit signed letters and articles for space and content. The Jewish Press is not responsible for the Kashrut of any product or establishment. Editorial The Jewish Press is an agency of the Jewish Federation of Omaha. Deadline for copy, ads and photos is: Thursday, 9 a.m., eight days prior to publication. E-mail editorial material and photos to: ckatzman@jewishomaha.org; send ads (in .TIF or .PDF format) to: rbusse@jewishomaha.org. Letters to the Editor Guidelines The Jewish Press welcomes Letters to the Editor. They may be sent via regular mail to: The Jewish Press, 333 So. 132 St., Omaha, NE 68154; via fax: 1-402-334-5422 or via e-mail to the Editor at: ckatzman@jewishomaha.org.. Letters should be no longer than 250 words and must be singlespaced typed, not hand-written. Published letters should be confined to opinions and comments on articles or events. News items should not be submitted and printed as a “Letter to the Editor.” The Editor may edit letters for content and space restrictions, but should be printed as soon as possible to ensure timeliness. Letters may be published without giving an opposing view. Information shall be verified before printing. All letters must be signed by the writer, but the name can be withheld at the writer’s request. No letters should be published from candidates running for office, but others may write on their behalf. Letters of thanks should be confined to commending an institution for a program, project or event, rather than personally thanking paid staff, unless the writer chooses to turn the “Letter to the Editor” into a paid personal ad or a news article about the event, project or program which the professional staff supervised. For more information, contact Carol Katzman, Jewish Press Editor, 402.334.6450. Postal The Jewish Press (USPS 275620) is published weekly on Friday for $33 per calendar year U.S.; $40 foreign, by the Jewish Federation of Omaha. Phone: 402.334.6448; FAX: 402.334.5422. Periodical postage paid at Omaha, NE. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to: The Jewish Press, 333 So. 132 St., Omaha, NE 68154-2198 or e-mail to: jpress@jewishomaha. org.
Award Winner 2006
Nebraska Press Association
National Newspaper Association
December 21, 2007
Jewish Press, Omaha, NE
Page 17
No, Ehud, Jerusalem belongs to all of the Jewish people Capabilities vs. Intent
FOCUS ON ISSUES by JEFF BALLABON NEW YORK (JTA) -- The justification for the modern State of Israel is Jewish history both glorious and grim, and there has long been a compact between the Jews in Israel and the Diaspora. Israeli Jews were on the front lines and Diaspora Jewry was a vital source of economic and political strength. The Jews of Israel bore the lion’s share of the pain, but also reaped the bulk of the benefits. There have been rifts -- many times in Israel’s history where Jews of one stripe or another took issue with a government’s policies. And at times, vulnerable Diaspora communities became front-line victims of terror or violence from Israel’s enemies. But our bond withstood all because Israel’s leaders ensured it remained a Jewish state. And perhaps nothing embodied this commitment more than the dedication to preserving Israeli sovereignty over Jerusalem, the 3,000-year-old capital of the Jewish people reunified in 1967 In recent months, however, there have been rumblings from Israeli government ministers about the negotiations with the Palestinians on the potential re-division of Jerusalem. On the eve of the Annapolis conference, in response to objections from U.S. Jewish groups about this alarming trend, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert bluntly declared: “The government of Israel has a sovereign right to negotiate anything on behalf of Israel.” In that he wasn’t wrong; but his formulation missed a corollary truth that no Israeli government has the unilateral or unfettered right to negotiate anything on behalf of the Jews when it comes to the eternal Jewish verities or heritage, such as our capital. As such, Olmert’s statements were not merely disappointing to Jewish sensibilities, they were dangerous to Jewish interests. Olmert can try to negotiate anything he wants with Palestinians -- including whether Jerusalem is a redivided war zone, and even whether Israel itself remains a Jewish state or is transformed into a “democratic state of all its citizens.” He just has no right to expect or demand that Jews acquiesce. Nor do Jews in America -- the country whose influence is most strongly felt in Israel and which also holds the largest and most powerful Diaspora community -- require Olmert’s permission to exercise
our political clout in accordance with our best moral, religious and political assessments. Jerusalem unites Jews across religious and ideological lines as well as across geographical ones. This is not a struggle of Diaspora Jewry vs. Israeli Jewry; it is a struggle that unites Jewry. Jerusalem’s mayor is opposed to dividing the city and is working with American Jews. A majority of the Knesset opposes negotiating Jerusalem, and they also are working with American Jews. Dozens of Israeli organizations are working with American Jews. Contrary to those who characterize this as a “rightwing religious” or an “anti-peace” bloc, the groups in the United States and in Israel range all along the religious and secular spectrum, and are fully committed to peace and security. They simply are mindful of the deadly consequences of previous “peace processes” and current realities, like the unending barrage of rockets from Palestinian-controlled Gaza Strip. Jerusalem’s mayor reports that the talk of ceding control of parts of the city has already begun to stir radicalization and unrest within the city’s Arab population. In short, as Olmert has himself done many times and is doing even now, Israeli citizens and leaders are working together with Diaspora Jews for that which affects us all. It surely is awkward for Olmert to be on the other side of an issue that so unites Jews, and to find such tepid support for his own position, but it is important that he not let his frustration erode core principles on which Israel’s existence always hinges. We recall Olmert’s own adjuration that every Jew is obligated to speak out regarding Jerusalem’s fate because “Jerusalem is not only the city of those who live in Jerusalem, it’s not only the city of those who live in the State of Israel -- it is the city of every Jewish person no matter where he lives.” In uttering those words, Olmert ratified personally that which every Israeli prime minister has declared and which Jews have believed since long before the modern State of Israel came into being. By floating a division of Jerusalem, Olmert started down the path of severing the link between his government and the core principle that the Land of Israel is by right the Jewish homeland. It should serve as a red flag to him that as an immediate consequence, he found himself undermining the relationship between Jews everywhere and the State of Israel. Olmert should backtrack not only on his unfortunate comment, but on the policies he seems set on pursuing. Jeff Ballabon, a political consultant, is directing the Coordinating Council on Jerusalem, www.ccjer.org.
... no Israeli government has the unilateral or unfettered right to negotiate anything on behalf of the Jews when it comes to the eternal Jewish verities or heritage ...
NEWS ANALYSIS by SHOSHANA BRYEN There is little disagreement between Israeli and American intelligence officials about Iran’s overt and covert nuclear-related programs, including the limitations of our knowledge. There is enormous difference in the processing of that information to result in policy. Israel considers only an adversary’s capabilities; the United States factors in what it believes about an adversary’s intent. This perhaps reflects the much smaller margin of error Israel faces. The National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) was based on five questions: the first about Iran’s “intentions toward developing nuclear weapons,” then two on internal and external factors that might affect Iranian decision-making and a “range of potential Iranian actions concerning the development of nuclear weapons.” Only one concerns “current and projected capability.” Moreover, the NIE “does not assume that Iran intends to acquire nuclear weapons. Rather ... to assess Iran’s capability and intent (or lack thereof) to acquire nuclear weapons.” The NIE, by the way, “does not assume that the strategic goals and basic structure of Iran's senior leadership and government will remain similar to those that have endured since the death of Khomeini in 1989 ... acknowledge the potential for change ... unable to confidently predict such changes or their implications.” So, Iran’s stated goals of eliminating Israel, spreading Shi'ite Islam and restoring the Caliphate may change and the mullahs may be replaced, but our guys won’t confidently predict when or how, by whom or what it might mean. What an odd time for them to lose confidence in their crystal ball. We want to know what they have, what they do and how that threatens the United States and American interests and allies abroad. The Iranian government has been working on the acquisition of nuclear technology, including weaponsrelated technology, from the start of the Revolution. Iran has missile technology including, according to U.S. intelligence, a new solid-fuel rocket with a range of 1,250-1,500 miles. Such a rocket has the potential to carry a nuclear warhead. Iran has shared missiles and missile technology with Syria and Hezbollah. Iran has actively engaged in the targeting and killing of American soldiers in Iraq. Iran has financed, trained and supported Hezbollah and Hamas terrorists as well as Shi’ite insurrection in the Gulf. Iran has targeted, imprisoned and killed regime opponents at home. Continued on page 19
U.S. Jews must be ready for Israeli deal on Jerusalem
FOCUS ON ISSUES by KENNETH BOB NEW YORK (JTA) -- My first visit to Israel was in 1969, only two years after the Six-Day War, and soon after my arrival I was walking through narrow Jerusalem streets on my way to the Western Wall. This was without question an emotional and spiritual encounter with history. Before our trip back to Rishon LeZion, my host family took me to Abu Shukri’s restaurant, where I enjoyed what still may be the best humus in Jerusalem. It was not hard to see, even as a 17-year-old, that there were more than just Jews inhabiting this holy city. Three more wars and two intifadas have not altered the fact that Jerusalem is the spiritual and political center for both Jews and Palestinians. With renewed peace negotiations and a joint Israeli, Palestinian and American commitment to address the “core issues” of the conflict, an alliance of mostly Orthodox Jewish groups and secular right-wing Zionists staked out their position, stating they “oppose any negotiations which involve possible concessions of Jewish sovereignty or control over Jerusalem.” Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert responded by saying that “the Israeli government has the sovereign right to negotiate on behalf of Israel,” rejecting a role for Diaspora Jewry in the policymaking process. With this very public conflict between an Israeli prime minister and selected American Jews taking place before actual final status negotiations regarding Jerusalem have
even begun, what is really going on here? In the interest of full disclosure, since Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir declared in the early 1970s that “there are no Palestinians,” I have publicly voiced opinions on Israeli policies and believe it is healthy for Diaspora Jews to debate such issues. Engaging other American Jews in this way creates a higher level of identification with Israel. As American citizens we can influence our elected officials regarding support for Israel. Despite what others might conjecture, there is no monolithic “Israel lobby” and Jewish activists don’t always agree on the best way for the U.S. government to interact with Israel. For example, in Annapolis, Md., on the day of the peace conference there were two rallies -one of an alliance of progressive Jews supporting the Bush-Rice initiative and a Jewish-Evangelical Christian
American Jews must recognize that it is Israelis, not Diaspora Jews, who bear the direct consequences of the actions that Israel takes ... gathering opposing any peace negotiations. American Jews can show direct financial and moral support for those in Israel with whom we agree on coexistence, social justice, religious pluralism and other issues. We also have every right to share ideas and analysis with Israeli leaders. At the end of the day, however, American Jews must recognize that it is Israelis, not Diaspora Jews, who bear the direct consequences of the actions that Israel takes, and that is why Diaspora Jews should be circumspect about how they express their protests against the government in Jerusalem. I find it illogical that this new “Jerusalem lobby” is singling out Jerusalem as the one
issue on which they must be consulted. When we say in the daily service, “May Your Presence dwell there as You promised, praised are You, Lord who builds Jerusalem,” is there any indication of divine demarcation of borders? In fact, the Israeli government already has signaled by placing certain Arab neighborhoods on the Palestinian side of the security barrier that they will likely cede those areas to a future Palestinian state. The less than one square kilometer (0.4 square mile) comprises the Old City, including the major holy sites, ultimately will be governed under a formula that provides complete religious and security protection for all. As Ephraim Sneh, a senior Labor Knesset member and side has to give up one national dream -- Israel has to give up the dream of a united Jerusalem, Palestinians have to give up their dream of the return of refugees to Israel proper. To achieve peace, Israel and Jews worldwide will have to accept sharing Jerusalem and Palestinians will have to accept that refugees will ‘return’ to a Palestinian state.” The anti-negotiation forces are conveniently using the emotional tie to Jerusalem in an attempt to scuttle the entire renewed peace process. At the end of the day, Jerusalem must be treated like the other core issues when it comes to negotiations. Diaspora Jews have no more say regarding the specifics of border modifications on the West Bank than which Arab Jerusalem neighborhood becomes part of the capital of a Palestinian state. The 137th Psalm instructs us “If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand lose her cunning.” Olmert, a former mayor of Jerusalem, will need all of his cunning and American Jewish support to address these difficult challenges on the road to peace. Kenneth Bob is the president of Ameinu, a leading progressive Zionist organization in the United States.
Page 18
Jewish Press, Omaha, NE
December 21, 2007
Candlelighting Friday, Dec. 21, 4:39 p.m.
Synagogue Listings B’nai Israel Synagogue 618 Mynster St. Council Bluffs, IA 51503-0766 322.4705 email: CBsynagogue@hotmail.com
Beth El Synagogue Member of United Synagogues of Conservative Judaism 14506 California Omaha, NE 68154-1980 492.8550 www.bethel-omaha.org
Beth Israel Synagogue Member of Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America 12604 Pacific St. Omaha, NE. 68154 556.6288 BethIsrael@OrthodoxOmaha.org
Beyt Shalom An Affiliate of the Jewish Reconstructionist Federation 3012 S. 119 St. P.O. Box 390352 Omaha, NE 68139 660.2395 www.beytshalomomaha.org
Chabad House An Affiliate of Chabad-Lubavitch 1866 S. 120th St. Omaha, NE 68144-1646 330.1800 www.OChabad.com email: chabad@aol.com
Congregation B’nai Jeshurun South Street Temple Union for Reform Judaism 2061 S. 20th St. Lincoln, NE 68502-2797 435.8004 southstreettemple.org
Offutt Air Force Base SAC Memorial Chapel 301 Lincoln Highway Offutt AFB, NE 68113 294.6244
Rose Blumkin Jewish Home 333 S. 132 St. Omaha, NE 68154
Temple Israel Union for Reform Judaism (URJ) 7023 Cass Street Omaha, NE 68132-2651 556.6536 templeisrael-ne.org
The Neighborhood Minyan 1317 No. 57 St. Omaha, NE 68132 551.6609
B’NAI ISRAEL SYNAGOGUE FRIDAY: Services followed by Oneg, 7:30 p.m.
BETH EL SYNAGOGUE Services conducted by Rabbi Mordechai Levin and Cantor Gastón Bogomolni. FRIDAY: Musical Shabbat services, 6 p.m. SATURDAY: Morning services, 9:30 a.m.; Kiddush given by Michael and Andrea Skolkin, in honor of their daughter, Maddison, becoming a Bat Mitzvah; Minha/Ma’ariv, 4:45 p.m. Sitter Service is available during Friday night and Saturday morning services, on a drop-in basis, at no charge. WEEKDAY SERVICES: Sundays, 9 a.m. & 5:30 p.m.; weekdays, 7 a.m. & 5:30 p.m. ADULT EDUCATION SUNDAY, Bible Study Discussion Group, 10 a.m. THURSDAY: Rabbi Levin’s Insights and Values from the Torah class is at noon; Women’s Book Club, 1:15 p.m., led by Susan Paley. MEN’S CLUB RAFFLE Tickets still available at $5 each or $10 for three. To purchase tickets, call Margie Gutnik; for more information, contact Gabe Meyer at 445.0275, or gabe@ meyer717.com. YOUTH GROUPS’ PROGRAM Tuesday, Dec. 25, 10 a.m.-2 p.m., USY, Kadima and BESTT Chaverim members will meet at CoCo Key Water Park, located at the Holiday Inn Hotel and Convention Center, 72nd and Grover St. Cost is $22 per person; lunch will be provided. RSVP to Robert Mosenkis in the synagogue office, or at youthdir@ bethel-omaha.org. COLLEGE STUDENTS’ GET-TOGETHER Catch up with friends during this special winter break gettogether, for Wednesday, Dec. 26, 7:30 p.m., at Caffeine Dreams Coffee & Tea, 4524 Farnam St. (See full article on page 19.)
PJ HAVDALAH Saturday, Dec. 29, 5:15-6 p.m. Havadalah services for the youngest among us, followed by songs, stories, a snack, plus an art project, led by ‘Miss Patty’ Nogg who will wear her pajamas and encourages everyone else to also! No charge to attend, but RSVP to Margie Gutnik at margie.gutnik@gmail.com or call the synagogue office.
BETH ISRAEL SYNAGOGUE Office Hours: Mon.-Thurs., 8:30 a.m.-4:30 p.m.; Fri., 8:30 a.m-2 p.m. Services conducted by Rabbi Jonathan Gross. FRIDAY: Special Musical Kabbalat Shabbat with Rabbi Ari Dembitzer, 4:39 p.m. SATURDAY: Shacharit, 9 a.m. free babysitting, 9:30 a.m.; Children’s Classes, 9:45 a.m. with Torah Parade; Kiddush is sponsored by Alan Kohll in honor of his engagement to Brigette Mimran; Mincha, 4:15 p.m., followed by Suedat Shlishit; Havdalah, 5:46 p.m. SUNDAY: Shacharit, 9 a.m.; “Reading the Rambam” is canceled as Rabbi Oxman is out of town; Rabbi Gross’s teen class is on winter break. WEEKDAYS: Shacharit, 7 a.m.; Ma’ariv, 8:30 p.m. MONDAY: Third Annual Chinese Dinner, 6 p.m. TUESDAY: Shacharit, 9 a.m.; office is closed. THURSDAY: Women of the Torah class, 9:30 a.m.; Rabbi’s Gross’s weekly class, 7:30 p.m.
BEYT SHALOM FRIDAY: Shabbat in the Home.
tic Insights for Women, 12:15 p.m. TUESDAY: W.O.W. Parsha, Prophets, and Prayer, 9 a.m.; Parshah Roundup: Weekly Torah Portion Class, 7 p.m. WEDNESDAY: Gan Israel Winter Camp, 9 a.m.-3 p.m. for ages 4-10; Kabbalah Circle, 7 p.m. THURSDAY: Gan Israel Winter Camp, 9 a.m.-3 p.m. for ages 4-10; Jewish Thought, 12:45 p.m. FRIDAY, Dec. 28: Gan Israel Winter Camp, 9 a.m.-3 p.m. for ages 4-10. All events and programs are open to the community. For more information or to register, call the office or visit our website.
CONGREGATION B’NAI JESHURUN Services conducted by Rabbi Ilan Emanuel. FRIDAY: Shabbat Evening Service, 7:45 p.m., with discussion led by Nancy Myers, and oneg following provided by Barbara Straus. SATURDAY: Shabbat Morning Service, 9:30 a.m.; Torah Study, 10:30 a.m. all led by Rabbi Emanuel. SUNDAY: No LJCS classes. WEDNESDAY: No LJCS Hebrew classes. ADULT EDUCATION: Mark your calendar for the upcoming series: “Lincoln and King: Prophetic Leadership in American History.” The sessions will be taught by Scott Stanfield, Professor of English, Nebraska Wesleyan University, on Tuesdays, Jan. 15 and 22, 7-8 p.m., in the Temple Social Hall.
CHABAD HOUSE Services conducted by Rabbi Mendel Katzman. Office hours: Monday-Friday, 7 a.m.-4:30 p.m. FRIDAY: Services, 7 a.m. SATURDAY: Maamar class, 9 a.m.; Service, 9:30 a.m.; Kiddush luncheon follows the service. SUNDAY: Service, 8:30 a.m.; Mishpacha Mornings, 10:15 a.m. WEEKDAYS: Services, 7 a.m. MONDAY: Maamar Kabbalis-
OFFUTT AIR FORCE BASE FRIDAY: Services, 7:30 p.m.
ROSE BLUMKIN JEWISH HOME SATURDAY: Services, 9 a.m. led by David Herzog and Jim Polack.
TEMPLE ISRAEL
p.m. Rabbi Aryeh Azriel, and Jonathan Rathsam will lead the service. SATURDAY: Sparks Beneath the Surface, 9:15 a.m.; Morning Service, 10:30 a.m. SUNDAY: No Religious School. SITTER SERVICE: Available Wednesday evenings during Family School hours, Friday evenings service except when there is a Tot Shabbat, Saturday mornings when there is a B’nai mitzvah, and Sunday mornings during Religious School. Advance reservations and a $5 donation appreciated. Young children, including infants, are welcome. WEDNESDAY: No Religious or Family School and No Middle/High School. COLLEGE DINNER WITH THE CLERGY Sunday, Dec. 23, 6 p.m.: Upstream Brewing Company (Old Market) All college-age young adults are invited to join Temple’s clergy for an evening of conversation and food. Stop in and catch up with Omaha news! FRIDAY, Dec. 28: Shabbat Comes to You, 2:30 p.m. at Blumkin Home.
NEIGHBORHOOD MINYAN FRIDAY: Minyan, 4:39 p.m. SATURDAY: Services, 9 a.m.
TIFERETH ISRAEL Services conducted by Nancy Coren, Lay Leader. Office hours: Monday-Friday, 10 a.m.-3 p.m. MONDAY and THURSDAY: Minyan, 9 a.m. Contact the office to arrange for a minyan. FRIDAY: Services, 6 p.m. with a Shabbat dinner following. SATURDAY: Morning service, 9:30 a.m. followed by kiddush lunch and Talmud study; join us as we say “farewell and good luck” to Griff Geffen and family. SUNDAY: No LJCS classes; Torah Trope for Adults, 11-11:50 a.m. WEDNESDAY: Men’s Lunch Group will meet at the Knolls, 12:30 p.m. Contact Yale Gotsdiner at 423.7066; No LJCS Hebrew classes.
FRIDAY: Shabbat Service, 6
Tifereth Israel Member of United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism 3219 Sheridan Blvd., Lincoln, NE 68502-5236 423.8569 www.tiferethisraellincoln.org
CORRECTIONS Daniel Levy was incorrectly identified as David Levy in the back page article about the winners of the Hanukkah contest in the Nov. 23 issue. In the Dec. 7 issue, we made two errors: George Shafer was misidentified in the caption under the photo of Mayor Fahey. And it is Calvin James Puckett Newman -- his first name was inadvertantly omitted from his birth announcement. The Press regrets these errors.
Local professor expands on long life of Joshua by MARY SUE GROSSMAN Administrator Center for Jewish Education The life and deeds of Joshua, Son of Nun, have received extensive elaboration over the years in the Jewish tradition, from the earliest translations through modern works by Eli Wiesel and others. In January, Dr. Leonard Greenspoon will add his discourse to the many discussions, with a four-week course exploring Joshua’s long, long life entitled “The Very, Very Long Life of Joshua, Son of Nun.” The course is presented by the Center for Jewish Education; pre-registration is required. Greenspoon, Klutznick Chair in Jewish Civilization at Creighton University, will begin with the
narratives of the biblical text and work through a wide variety of sources to see what Joshua has meant to generations of Jews. As Greenspoon describes it, “We are all familiar with how fictional characters, such as those in Shakespeare, are given full ‘lives’ far beyond those in his plays. The same is true, especially in the Jewish tradition, for the major individuals of the Hebrew Bible.” He added, “Many incidents that are narrated only briefly in the Hebrew Bible receive extensive elaboration through the process of midrash. Even within legal texts, more information about key biblical individuals can be detected.” With respect to Joshua, Greenspoon noted, there are spe-
Dr. Leonard Greenspoon cial features dealing with his many roles, such as Moses’ successor, Israel’s leader, and commanderin-chief. Also, since the names “Joshua” and “Jesus” are the same in some ancient languages,
this allows for insight into JewishChristian relations. Further, interpreters like Eli Wiesel have looked into their own life experiences to understand some of the actions and motivations of Joshua. Greenspoon will be providing copies of materials to everyone, and he will encourage all who attend to consider their own interpretations and applications of this important biblical personage. The course will meet Mondays, Jan. 7, 14, 21 and 28, 7-8:15 p.m., in the CJE classroom. Tuition is $23, discounted to $18 for donors to the Annual Campaign of the Jewish Federation of Omaha. To register or for any questions, please call 334.6445 or e-mail mgrossman@jewishomaha.org.
Pulverente MONUMENT CO.
December 21, 2007
The wandering Jew
SPARKS FROM THE WORD by RABBI MYER S. KRIPKE Parashat VaYehi Three thoughts come to my mind: The first is that we have finished the first Book of Torah with this Sidra. And before us is the Book of Shemot, called in the English (really Greek), Exodus. The exodus from Egypt looms large in Jewish history and even in Jewish liturgy. For example, even in the kiddush for Shabbat evening, we have “in memory of the Exodus from Egypt.” The second thought is that we have finished now with the story of the Patriarchs, which led us to the life of Joseph, whom I have called “The Hero of Genesis.” As we open the second Book of Torah, we are concerned now, not with a family, but a people, who later on we may call a nation. Israel is now not another name for Jacob, but another name for the people who lived in Canaan, that is to say, the People of Israel. And the third thought is that our Sidra opens with a summation of the journeys of Jacob. And this is a forerunner of the journeys of the People of Israel from land to land. Somehow in the larger non-Jewish world, there is the myth of “the wandering Jew.” But it was not the Jew who wandered, but the Jew who was booted out from one country to another from that to a third and that to a fourth by the Christian love that surrounded us. I did not want to use the word “savage” as in savage persecution, so I will not. One who reads Jewish history is surprised that in all the different countries in which Jews lived, there remained the traditions that started with Abraham, traditions of a moral sense and a feeling for the value of human life. Thus, if there were migrations, the essential values of Jewish tradition were carried from country to country. I consider it fortunate that the sense of morality and the value of life were continued in the Christian tradition, although to state the obvious, Jews are not fond of the Christian myth of a man-god, which Jews had rejected many, many centuries before. I will add now a fourth, and that is that I read sometimes with interest and with sorrow the obits in the local newspaper. We are told that so-and-so died at such-and-such an age and left children who live in various parts of the country. For most of us that kind of obit is natural, and we can write our own and send it to the newspaper in advance. But with Jacob and the Patriarchs, in general, it was not only the fact that he died, but that he left an important tradition behind him.
Capabilities vs. Intent Continued from page 17 Under the circumstances, we’ll stick with capabilities, thank you, and leave the head shrinking of the mullahs to someone else. We’ll stick with what we know and even what we think we don’t know about overt, covert and dual-use capabilities, thank you, and leave the results of an unpredicted and unpredictable Iranian revolution to someone else. We think the U.S. intelligence community would serve us better if it did that as well. Shoshana Bryen is Senior Director for Security Policy, JINSA, Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs. She can be reached at: sbryen@jinsa.org. Read more at www.jinsa.org.
To Submit Announcements to the Jewish Press: Announcements may be e-mailed to the Press with attached photos in .jpg or .tif files to jpress@jewishomaha.org; faxed to 402.334.5422, or mailed to 333 So. 132 St., Omaha, NE 68154 (with photos we will scan and return). Forms are available through Omaha and Lincoln synagogues, by contacting The Jewish Press at 402.334.6448, or by e-mailing: ckatzman@jewishomaha.org. Readers can also submit other announcements -- births engagements, marriages, commitment ceremonies or obituaries -- online at the Jewish Federation of Omaha website: www.jewishomaha.org. Click on “Jewish Press” and go to Submit Announcements. Deadlines are normally eight days prior to publication, on Thursdays, 9 a.m. Check the Jewish Press, however, for notices of early deadlines prior to secular and Jewish holidays. The deadline for the Jan. 4, 2008, issue is Wednesday, Dec. 26.
DEATHS CHARLENE RIPS Charlene Rips died at the age of 70. A graveside service was held Dec. 14 at Beth El Cemetery. She is survived by daughter and son-in-law, Paul and Debbie Nager of Leawood, KS; son and daughter-inlaw, Daniel and Mary Rips of Boulder, CO; son, Richard Rips of Iowa; grandchild, Sydney Angel Nager. Memorials to the Rheumatoid Arthritis Foundation. RALPH COOPER Former Omahan Ralph Cooper died Dec. 9 in Palm Springs, CA. Services were held Dec. 12 at Desert Memorial Park, officiated by Rabbi Harvey Block. He is survived by his wife, Rita Rita Swartz Cooper; children, Sally Silverberg, Dallas, TX, David and Arlene Cooper, Dallas; Lanny and Sheila Cooper, Plano, TX; grandchildren, Robyn and Adam Burck, Houston, Elliott Cooper and Louis Cooper, Plano; a great-granddaughter. Memorials to the Alzheimer Foundation or charity of your choice.
Jewish Press, Omaha, NE
60 Years Experience With Jewish Lettering and Memorials
Coffee and schmoozing on tap for college students by JILL BELMONT Beth El Publicity Coordinator Winter break is the perfect time for college students to catch up with old friends, and Beth El is pleased to sponsor a special evening for Jewish young adults -- at no charge -- on Wednesday, Dec. 26, 7:30 p.m., at Caffeine Dreams Coffee & Tea, 4524 Farnam St. “The Caffeine Dreams/Beth El college students’ gettogether will be a great opportunity for Beth El college students to catch up with their friends,” said Robert Mosenkis, the synagogue’s youth director and event organizer. “Everybody is spread out all over the country and only have a few times a year when they can see their Hebrew school and youth group friends. It’s great to see how college life is treating everyone, and what better way than over a warm cup of coffee during what will surely be a cold day! “Rabbi Levin and Cantor Bogomolni also will be attending and look forward to hearing how everybody’s semester went and what they have been up to,” he added. No reservations are required, Mosenkis said, and students are welcome to bring along a few friends. “We look forward to seeing everyone,” he said. “Stop by and say ‘hi’!”
AD vertise in over 170 Nebraska Newspapers for only $195...
Page 19
1439 So. 13th 341-2452
Frank L. Ciciulla, Jr.
Career Opportunity Helping all people live healthy lives
BD Diagnostics Preanalytical Systems 150 South 1st Ave Broken Bow, NE. Manufacturer of disease diagnosis and sample collection devices.
It's easy with the...
N
EBRASKA CLASSIFIED
ADVERTISING NETWORK
Contact your local newspaper or
800-369-2850 www.nebpress.com
Excellent benefits available! Now accepting applicants For
Quality Facilitator QUA1004H &
Site Validation Leader QUA1004I @ http://bd.com/us/careers/job by Jan 15, 2008. EOE
A concept to “stretch” your LTC benefits by ROBERT M. NELSON Vice President Grace/Mayer Insurance Financial and Estate Planning Division I have long thought that “scare tactics” do not belong in talks about insurance. Yet we have all heard the scary stories about the rising costs of long term care ... both in nursing homes and care received at home. I am always looking for ways to balance risk and insurance costs ... in other words, we have lots of fun ways to spend money ... buying insurance isn’t one of them. So how should a husband and wife decide on whether to buy LTC insurance and what kind should they buy? First, let’s be clear that government benefits for LTC care are limited and mostly available once you have spent down your own assets. Government benefits are also not likely to increase, considering the strain on governmental budgets at all levels. So is there anything “new” that we should check out? Recently, I have become a big fan of a concept called “Shared Care.” Simply stated, “shared care” provides a benefit shared between a husband and wife. For example, you might set up a plan for a “shared benefit” of eight years. If the first person requires care, he or she is eligible to use up to eight years of benefits. If that person only uses two years, then six more years of benefits remain for the surviving spouse. If the first spouse doesn’t use any, it leaves eight years for the surviving spouse. The flexibility of shared care is what I like best. The cost of an eight year “shared care” plan is approximately the same as two individual plans with a five-year benefit. The “shared” concept, however, seems to fit the uncertainty of just how much and when when two people might need care. As with most important financial decisions, your options should be checked out carefully, so that you can make an informed decision. You should find a trusted adviser and make your decisions together. A final thought is to communicate your plans with family members who might also enjoy peace of mind that you have addressed these issues. PAID ADVERTISEMENT
Statewide Classified ATTENTION ADVERTISERS! For $195/25 word classified you can advertise in over 170 Nebraska newspapers. For more information contact the Jewish Press at 334-6448 or call 1-800-369-2850. BANKRUPTCY: FAST relief from creditors. Statewide filing. No office appointment necessary. Affordable rates. Call Steffens Law Office, 308-872-8327. www.steffenslaw.com. We are a debt relief agency, which helps people file bankruptcy under the bankruptcy code. COLORADO VACATION deals! Ski & stay $69 to $106 PP, double occupancy! 5-night special: $195, 4/7/08 - 11/21/08! 6-day family adventure: $1,095! www.monarchmountainlodge.com, 800-332-3668. SELL YOUR classic car, truck or motorcycle online. Call this newspaper or call 800-3692850 to place your ad on the national www.midwestclassiccars.com web site for only $25.00. Your ad runs until your vehicle is sold! HOT TUB buyers, buy direct from manufacturer, save 50% or more! Closing out 2007 production models, 12 styles - $1,995 to $3,995. We deliver. 1-800-869-0406, osthottubwarehouse.com. ALL CASH candy route. Do you earn $800 in a day? Your own local candy route. Includes 30 machines and candy all for $9,995. 1-888-755-1356. AIRLINES ARE hiring - train for high paying Aviation Maintenance career. FAA approved program. Financial aid if qualified - job placement assistance. Aviation Institute of Maintenance, 888-349-5387. PHYSICAL THERAPIST Assistant: Chase County Community Hospital in Imperial, NE is seeking a PTA. Sign on bonus, competitive wages/benefits. 308-882-7234, email: jsccch@gpcom.net. ROSHOLT, SD, Farmers Elevator is seeking a qualified General Manager. A diversified grain shuttle loader and agronomy cooperative with sales of $45 million. This cooperative is in Northeast SD. Send resume and employment application to: Larry Fuller, Regional Manager, 5213 Shoal Drive, Bismarck, ND 58503, email lfuller@mbrservices.com. CALL TODAY! Guaranteed home Christmas. Sign-on bonus/benefits. 36-43 cpm/$1.20pm. $0 lease/teams needed, Class A/3 months recent OTR required. Tollfree: 877-258-8782. DRIVER: KNIGHT Transportation. Great pay/benefits. Hiring regional & OTR. 2,500 + MPW. Weekly home time! Call recruiting, 888-562-7783. www.knighttrans.com. Class-A CDL/4 months OTR required. 800-437-5907 O/O. DRIVERS: GET respect you earned! $5,000 sign on, 1 year OTR, Class A CDL, regional/48 state! www.ffeinc.com. Students welcome, training available! FFE, Inc., 800-5699232.
Page 20
Jewish Press, Omaha, NE
December 21, 2007
With M-16s on their shoulders, soldiers mark Hanukkah in Iraq by RABBI DAVID GOLDSTROM BAGHDAD (JTA) -- In some ways, this year’s Hanukkah in Baghdad seemed just like Hanukkah any other year. Everyone gathered around the menorah outside. I spoke about the meaning of the holiday for us, in Baghdad today. A few people laughed as I pointed out some of the parallels between the Maccabees of old fighting for their just cause and the work the United States is engaged in every day here in Iraq. Just like my other Hanukkahs in Iraq, I couldn’t Jewish U.S. soldiers stationed at Camp Taji in Iraq prehelp but notice that most of pared this menorah for a communal service celebrating Credit: David Goldstrom those gathered for the meno- Hanukkah last week. Each one of those soldiers gathered rah lighting were well armed. Each was in uniform and carrying an M-16, M-4 or around the menorah is a candle, and it is M-9, all with ammunition, ready for the light of loving kindness that they can show each other, even in difficult circumaction if needed. We said the blessings over the lights stances, which will carry them through and sang together under the inky night their deployment here. The light they sky. People lingered over “Maoz Tsur,” bring into the world will make a differsinging “Rock of Ages” in English. ence wherever they are. Inside the dining facility, everyone Lighting took a while, as one soldier worked at getting a kerosene lantern loaded up on latkes with applesauce and filled with olive oil to light because drank eggnog. Small groups formed kerosene wasn't available. The clear flame around the tables, and we listened to burned brightly, and we each admired it music and talked. One officer told me before going inside for latkes, dreidels there was a $40,000 cash bounty on his head, as well as on those of everyone on and more festivities. I had spoken in part about the cause of his team. In order to keep the bounty religious freedom and how the values of from going higher, he tries not to adverpluralism in America mean that we, as tise his Jewishness. A young soldier told me proudly that he soldiers, are allowed to practice our own religion even while fighting halfway originally is from Israel and was only in around the world. I also spoke of how Baghdad for a few days. Fortuitously he our sages teach that even a small candle had seen the Hanukkah flyers we had posted all over Camp Taji. Another solcan push away a great deal of darkness.
dier told me how glad his mother was that a rabbi was in Baghdad now, even though he would be heading home in a month. Others talked about the meaning Hanukkah held for them or of memories from back home. Holiday cheer seemed to improve even the taste of the latkes. After the evening’s program ended and the decorations were taken down, a small group stayed behind singing “I have a little dreidel.” Somehow, amid all the celebration, we had forgotten this Hanukkah standard. Before drifting off in twos or threes, many of those who came exchanged e-mail addresses, and we all promised to try and meet again before the end of the holiday. Most Jewish soldiers spend their holidays on their own, with little around them to remind them of home or their Jewish identity. The “local” paper, Stars and Stripes, carried a picture on the front page I had taken earlier in the day of the 12-foot menorah as it was being set up. Later, a soldier wrote to the paper from his remote outpost in Iraq to say how much it meant to be reminded of Hanukkah. The opportunity for Jewish soldiers to gather together, just as they might back home, is valued very highly here in this distant land. A small community of Jews has been meeting here all year long thanks to the efforts of Capt. Stephen Schwab, who led a weekly Friday-night service and organized holiday gatherings with the help of a small group of regulars. Schwab remarked that this Hanukkah was the largest gathering of Jewish soldiers he had seen in his 14 months deployed. While each of us can bring light into the world, the light we bring
seems so much brighter when we can come together. For our group of soldiers serving at Camp Taji in Baghdad, the lights this Hanukkah burn bright. Rabbi David Goldstrom is a U.S. Army chaplain stationed in Iraq.
Bush meets with Jewish leaders at White House
President Bush met with Jewish leaders from throughout the world Dec. 10, prior to the annual White House Hanukkah reception, which was also International Human Rights Day. The guests included Jack Abraham, president of what is believed to be the only Afghan synagogue in the United States, Anshei Shalom in New York; Dr. Mayer Ballas, the founding president of the Council to Rescue Syrian Jews; Yuli Edelstein, the former deputy speaker of the Knesset; and Ruth Pearl, the co-founder of the Daniel Pearl Foundation and the mother of the slain Wall Street Journal reporter. Bush said the group discussed “how America must remain engaged in helping people realize the great blessings of religious freedom and where we find societies in which religious freedom is not allowed to practice, that we must do something about it." Credit: Yosef Kramer/www.SHMAIS.com
The Jewish Press will publish Israel@60, on April 18, 2008. We’re calling for articles and photos from anyone who has been to Israel on a mission, teen trip or on their own, anyone who has spent a semester abroad there or a post-high school year on a program, anyone who has studied there, lived there, or lives there now. Articles can be 500-2000 words in length (but for those who don’t feel comfortable writing, a few photos and captions are welcome, too). Photos can be real photographs or digital images e-mailed to the Press to ckatzman@jewishomaha.org, with stories as attachments (in Word) or mailed to the Press at 333 So. 132 St., Omaha, NE 68154. Deadline is Feb. 29, 2008. Questions? Call Editor Carol Katzman at 402.334.6450.
December 21, 2007
Jewish Press, Omaha, NE
Page 21
Top Reasons to Move into...
= Beautiful, spacious suites
• Wheelchair Van Sale & Rental • Home Medical Equipment & Repair • Walkers & Canes • Scooters & Wheelchairs • Stair Glides • Electric Seat Lift Chairs • Bathroom Aids • Oxygen & Respiratory Equipment • Diabetes Supplies & Shoes • Nutritional Supplies • Mastectomy & Lymphedema Products • Vaccinations & Health Screenings Full-Time Professionals To Serve You:
= Live-in managers are here for you day and night = Three delicious chef-prepared meals served daily = Weekly housekeeping and linen service = Convenient, scheduled local transportation = Diverse activities and outings = Safety call system = All utilities, except phone = Barber/beauty salon
Retail & Compounding Pharmacists • Respiratory Therapists Certified Repair Technicians Certified Mastectomy Fitters • Certified Orthotic Fitters Nurses • Certified Compression Garment Fitters
Kohll’s Pharmacy & Homecare
7 Convenient Locations • (402) 408-1990 • Toll Free: (877) 408-1990
= Small pets welcome = So much more! Š 2007 Holiday Retirement 2425
Call today for your complimentary meal and personal tour! 402-391-1055
/ OE 4USFFU t 0NBIB /& t XXX SPMMJOHIJMMTSBODI VT
Page 22
Jewish Press, Omaha, NE
December 21, 2007
December 21, 2007
Jewish Press, Omaha, NE
Page 23
Recounting memories Continued from page 1 Responsible for the historic lamp posts on the 10th Street bridge, Eisenberg belongs to Downtown Omaha Inc. and remains active in the Old Market Business Association. “A person who keeps busy and has a good sense of humor and isn’t afraid to express themselves doesn’t start to get old prematurely,” according to Eisenberg. “I read a lot so I know what's going on in the world, but I’m not a scholar. I also think like a younger person.” Bernice Kaplan, 95, tries to read, but her eyesight is “not as good as it used to be,” she admitted. For her, family keeps her going. “People say, ‘What’s your recipe?’” for living a long life. “I don’t have any rules,”she explained. “Most of my friends are gone. If I didn't have any family, I don’t know what I’d do,” said the petite lady who was born in Omaha. “I don’t have a set routine and that suits me, because I used to” while working with her late husband Lazar Kaplan in the wholesale ready-to-wear business, Tobers (women’s clothing) stores, and raising her two children. After living in Elk Creek, near the Nebraska-Kansas border, for a few years, Bernice’s family returned to Omaha when she was a teenager. She attended Kellom and Farnam Schools, high school in Lincoln, and the University of Nebraska for about one year. Lazar and Bernice met in Lincoln and were married by Rabbi David Wice, who served Temple Israel from 1933 to 1941. Lazar Kaplan was president of Temple from 1960 to 1962. “I just always supported him in whatever came up,” Bernice said. Lazar, who died in 2005, and Bernice built several homes. She lives now in a spacious Regency apartment with her son, Bob. Grandmother of Bernice Kaplan three and great-grandmother of three, Bernice enjoys the view of geese paddling on the lake outside her window and watching Nebraska football on television. But preferring no set routine and no rules, she pointed out, “I just let it happen!” Evelyn (Evie) Adler Zysman takes a different view. “Be involved in politics and the world around you, and do something about it!” emphasized the 97-year-old who was born in Omaha. Living across the street from Miller Park, Zysman, the youngest of eight children, recalled playing tennis there, attending Lake and Miller Park Schools and Central High School. A Phi Beta Kappa, she graduated from UNL and then received a scholarship to the Jewish
Senior Moving Services
Fact: As a senior or a family member of a senior, moving to a new home is one of the most challenging and stressful events a person may have to experience.
Whether it's a move to another home, a retirement community, managed care facility, or a simple transfer within your existing facility, we offer a full range of moving services to assist seniors and their families in making the transition as smooth and seamless as possible.
By providing unique yet affordable services, and allowing the liberty to choose what services are needed, we believe we can reduce the stress and anxiety related to your move. This will allow you to take care of what matters most in life ~ you and your loved ones! For more information about our services please call: 402-445-0996 or Visit our web site: SeniorMovingServices.com
School of Social Work in New York City. She also attended the New York School of Social Work and earned a master’s degree. Although she had never left the city limits of Omaha until she went to college, Zysman, who has lived in a 100-year-old two-story house at 50th and Davenport, for 56 years, has been to Europe, Israel, and Turkey. After meeting Jack Zysman, a football player at the University of Maine, they married and together ran Playtime Equipment Company in Omaha. However, Evie started a Evie Zysman second career which helped launch Head Start in Omaha, the second city in the nation to establish the school readiness program. She’s been involved in numerous civic and children's projects including the Omaha Children's Museum, the Panel for Americans, and Temple Israel's Social Justice Committee. She’s been honored by many organizations such as the Urban League, the Omaha Children’s Museum, and the National Council of Jewish Women and takes pride in her Hannah G. Solomon statuette. “I’ve had a lot of fun,” acknowledged Zysman who spoke proudly of her son, a professor at the University of California at Berkeley, and her granddaughter. Still an ardent advocate, Zysman, who reads The New York Times everyday, said, “The world around me has changed and is very frightening. I’m deeply concerned about the role the United States is playing, and the world around us. Anyone who doesn’t see or hear it has got to be blind.” No one could see how perilous it was to be born in Berlin, Germany, 85 years ago. But Joe (Joachim) Boin was, and by 1939, he and his family were shipped off to one concentration camp, including Buchenwald and Auschwitz, after another. As World War II ended, Boin was taken by the Germans to a border town between Germany and Poland and was rescued there by the invading Russian Army. Between the ages of 17 and 22, “this was my life,” he said. Boin was advised by a Russian officer, who was Jewish, to go to the west side of Germany where he jumped on a train to Holland and was miraculously reunited there with his parents and two sisters. “I met my wife (Lilly) in Holland in 1946. She had been interned at Theresienstadt. A rabbi attached to the British Army suggested they go to Palestine. The young couple left from Marseilles, France, on the last ship into Palestine. Arriving in Haifa without visas, they were
forced into a camp by the British until rescued by the Jewish Agency. The Boins lived in Israel, where he was a tour guide, for 20 years and had two children. When their children moved to the United States, Joe and Lilly followed and settled in Trenton, New Jersey, where Joe became a locksmith for 30 years. Later they moved to Minnesota to be closer to their daughter. When her family moved to Lincoln, Joe and Lilly did too. However, they liked Omaha better and eventually moved here. They joined Temple Israel nearly 20 years ago. Lilly died in 1995, and Joe, who now uses a wheelchair, lives in The Joe Boin Waterford at Miracle Hills retirement home. “People are very nice,” he said. But he wishes there were more Jews at Waterford and that he could attend services. However, Judaism continues to be most important to him. “I’m not a very religious man, but I admire how much we went through, but we’re still here.” He’s concerned that “the Jewish people may become too Americanized.” He admires Shane Kotok, director of admissions and community outreach at Jewish Senior Services; Shelly Fox, JSS geriatric social worker; Dorothy Spizman, Temple’s retired executive director; and Lisa Epstein, chair of Temple Israel’s Caring Committee. “They live their Judaism,” he believes. David Rice, 76, lives alone now. Originally from Baltimore, Maryland, he came to Omaha when he was about 20. An interior designer, Rice attended the University of Nebraska at Omaha. He ran his own firm for years and worked for many residential customers until he retired about eight years ago. “I loved it!” he said. He’s been active with the American Society of Interior Designers and with the Opera Omaha Board. Rice met his life’s partner, Ephraim Marks, an attorney, in Omaha. They were together 46 years until Marks died in 1998. Rice has been practicing Judaism for about 35 years and attended Beth El Synagogue with Marks. Looking for a more contemporary approach with “a liberal outlook and acceptance of gay people,” Rice joined Temple two or three years ago. His relationship with Marks and his career were the most important ingredients in Rice’s life. “Now it’s just keeping vertical,” he partly teased. He enjoys traveling and spends three weeks a year in Continued on page 24
Page 24
Jewish Press, Omaha, NE
December 21, 2007
Recounting memories Continued from page 23 Paris, three months in Florida, and two months in Massachusetts. In Omaha, he lives in a condo on So. 11 St. in a building more than 100 years old. “I like it there. I can see the Old Market, ConAgra and the fountain in the pond, and the casinos in the distance,� he said. Although recently diagnosed with Parkinson’s, Rice knows there’s no mystery to keeping himself healthy. He does it “by staying alert, by reading, being involved with friends, and going out and enjoying life.�
Join Embassy Park’s community by BETTY PRICE Getting older, but still too young at heart to consider a retirement home? If so, consider Embassy Park Apartments, just north of 90th and Dodge. Instead of worrying about mowing your lawn, cleaning gutters, replacing your furnace or paying steep monthly gym membership or condo fees, spend your retirement carefree at Embassy. “Embassy is comfortable and secure living for me. They do a terrific job maintaining the property and the buildings,� said Sheila Rosen, a 26-year resident of Embassy. The security, underground parking and privacy is what keeps Charlene Cramton happy. “I really love the staff; they’re so kind and friendly. They are helpful at the drop of a hat and they make me feel like I am part of one big family.� The community is just that -- a community: join other residents for weekly Bridge games, Mah Jongg games, tennis and other outings. At Embassy, you’ll be sure to have wonderful neighbors and friends to interact with throughout the years. Maybe you’re fortunate enough to enjoy your retirement by heading south during the winter months. Embassy’s snowbirds are not burdened with house maintenance, snow removal or worrying about the security of their houses and prized possessions while they’re away. Continuing its tradition as Omaha’s finest apartment community, Embassy has a new look to match its high standards of luxury and service. The newly remodeled apartment homes boast an incredible 41’ of open living space, in-unit washers and dryers, fully equipped kitchens with side-by-side refrigerators and prep islands, all with the convenience of elevators, underground parking and video recorded entries. The staff is on hand to take care of the details, with offices open seven days a week. To schedule a tour, call 397.7788.
Visiting Nurse Association meets healthcare needs
Retirement: how much can you take out?
by BARB IVEY by ROB RANDELS Senior Vice President, Envoy, Inc. This is a common question I hear when discussing the distribuThe Visiting Nurse Association has roots in Omaha and tion phase of one’s retirement. First, let’s create a scenario from Council Bluffs going back more than 100 years. As the area’s a recent meeting I had had with a potential client. He said he had need for comprehensive, accessible healthcare has grown, so been making about 10% in his investment account historically. He has their scope of services. felt that he could take about 8% from his account each year and The VNA provides healthcare for all citizens, regardless of this should provide him with a two percent cushion. age, income or situation. Services fall into four categories: He thought he’d never run out of money -- right? Wrong! • Home Care; Why? One of the wonderful advantages we have when we are • Hospice and Palliative Care; accumulating wealth is dollar cost averaging. This is the phe• Community Health; and nomenon that allows us to buy (more) at lower prices and (less) • HomeAide. at higher prices. This same principle works against us in the Home health care includes treatment and support for people distribution phase. with injury or illness. VNA staff is trained to meet diverse medA safe distribution rate is about half of the assumed investical needs, including skilled nursing care, IV therapy, physical, ment rate in a portfolio that has almost any degree of volatility. occupational and speech therapies; home health aide services, in other words, if you can reasonably expect to earn 8%, then medical social work, dementia/Alzheimer’s care, cardiopul- you can reasonably take out 4%. When we take a distribution monary care, diabetes care, wound care, nutritional services, from an account when prices are low, we can never recover and telehealth. those shares that are redeemed. VNA is well known for its hospice and palliative care for perAlso, we need to be cautious in assuming that we might aversons with life-limiting illnesses. VNA professionals are trained to age 10% in the market over the next five years. Statistically, there take care of the whole person – physical, emotional, social and are two “upâ€? years and one “downâ€? year for every three years in spiritual by creating a pain-free, relaxed, comfortable environ- the stock market. Unfortunately, this does not come in neat litment where the patient is surrounded by family and loved ones. tle packages. We have now experienced four good years in a row, Through community health, VNA strives to foster dignity while without a down year. Are we overdue? I would suggest “yesâ€?! increasing self-care and independence regardless of financial Now is the time to be more cautious, not more aggressive. status. Services include skilled nursing and therapies for perAlso, can we expect 10% on an investment portfolio that is sons with limited resources, home health aide and companion designed for consistency and safety in the retirement distribuservices, family support services, services for moms and tion phase? I believe this is a tall order to fulfill. We normally babies, childbirth education, homeless shelter nursing, and flu need to lower the risk in our portfolio at this life stage which prevention. also lowers the return long term. HomeAide, provides homemaker/companion and personal When an individual needs to start taking money from the nest care assistance for individuals who may not require extended egg they have created, we need to be sure we don’t “loseâ€? the medical care at home, but who can benefit from assistance retirement nest egg. This is serious core money and should be with daily living activities. HomeAide allows you or your loved treated as such. Hopefully, this provides some insight for your one to remain safe and well at home by providing that extra planning objectives. help needed in order to maintain an independent lifestyle. Happy safe and prosperous investing to you in the new year! Rob A Randels, CFP, MBA, ChFC, is a Wealth Management The VNA is a nonprofit organization providing health services, education and advocacy. For more information, please call Advisor with the Northwestern Mutual Financial Network based 402.342.5566, 712.328.2636, or visit our website at: in Omaha. To contact him, call 402.390.8271 or e-mail: rob.randels@nmfn.com. www.vnaomaha.org. PAID ADVERTISEMENTS
Enjoy the secure, carefree lifestyle of independent and assisted living. To Make the Rest of Your Life, the Best of Your Life.
Immanuel offers five distinctly different communities built on a shared philosophy - to make
the rest of your life the best of your life. No matter which location you choose, you are assured of outstanding services and amenities, innovative wellness programs and a wide array of educational, cultural and social opportunities.
:H LQYLWH \RX WR FDOO DQ\ QXPEHU OLVWHG EHORZ WR VFKHGXOH D SHUVRQDO YLVLW
Lakeside Village 17475 Frances Street Omaha, NE 68130 (402) 829-9020
Immanuel Village 6803 N. 68th Plaza Omaha, NE 68152 (402) 829-3220
Trinity Village 522 W. Lincoln Street Papillion, NE 68046 (402) 614-5500
The Landing at Williamsburg Village 3500 Faulkner Drive Lincoln, NE 68516 (402) 420-9355
$IÂżOLDWHG ZLWK WKH 1HEUDVND 6\QRG (YDQJHOLFDO /XWKHUDQ &KXUFK LQ $PHULFD
Visit Our Web Site: www.immanuelseniorliving.com
3DFLÂżF 6SULQJV 9LOODJH 805 S. 173rd Court Omaha, NE 68118 (402) 691-8434
December 21, 2007
Jewish Press, Omaha, NE
Page 25
Being Jack Moskovitz by LEO ADAM BIGA Jack Moskovitz long ago concluded his writing, like his acting or DJing, wouldn’t put him on Easy Street. That’s okay, you tell him. The mere fact you do write and write well is something to be proud of. He points out he’s only published by small vanity presses. That his book sales and royalty checks amount to little or nothing. Not important, you explain. Talent is talent, and you’ve got it, Jack. Thanks, he says, before launching into a riff about still being an obscure author after 60 years and how he’s destined to remain unknown. Like the world-weary souls who schlep through his hard-boiled fiction, the Omaha native takes a cynic’s view of life. He reminds you of Rodney Dangerfield with his deadpan “I don’t get no respect” gripes and self-deprecating cracks about “my hunched back, my wide feminine hips and my flabby body.” The retired civil servant bends your ear about supposed failures and slights -- unpublished manuscripts, lost parts and so on. He doesn’t mention his well-reviewed novellas, short stories and plays or that he’s been an invited reader and panelist at the (downtown) Omaha Lit Fest. He does acknowledge the event’s founder/director, renowned author Timothy Schaffert (Devils in the Sugar Shop), “has been in my corner.” Instead of enjoying his inclusion among Omaha’s literati, Jack talks about “not being in their class ... I’m the kind of guy that’s whistling in the dark and I’ve always been that way,” he said. “Just like I thought I could have a career as a writer just because I loved to write. But it’s like a steer wanting to sire off-spring: the
desire might be there but because of certain limitations the steer can’t.” “Every time I feel sorry for myself it comes out in my writing,” he said. He also takes a bleak view of his work as a character actor in local community theater, this despite working with some of Omaha’s finest players and directors since the mid-1950s. He still bristles with resentment over the late Charles Jones’s refusal to cast him at the Omaha Community Playhouse. But as recently as last spring he played four parts -- a judge, a reporter, a physicist and a tourist -- in the Playhouse’s Give ‘Em Hell Harry, one of dozens of plays he’s acted in there and on other stages. As soon as Harry closed he went into rehearsals for the Blue Barn Theatre’s Six Degrees of Separation, in which he did a funny turn as a doorman. He’s had on-screen bits as well, including as “featured atmosphere” in Alexander Payne’s Citizen Ruth and a scene-stealing cameo as a cross-dressing grandfather in Jeremy Lerman’s Nebraska Supersonic. But to hear Moskovitz tell it his film work doesn’t amount to much. He says the same thing about his decades-long career in radio, a field that saw him work as an announcer-DJ for stations in Omaha and Lincoln. He was good enough to work for some of this market’s top call letters -- KOIL, WOW -- yet he ruminates over lost chances. Acerbic and neurotic in an Oscar Levant sort of way, Moskovitz, 72, compulsively sells himself short and finds a dark cloud in every silver lining. He speculates his depressive nature is “in-born, and all it takes is just a little push.” He suggests he’s never really gotten over losing his father as a teenager. The death, he
says, devastated his mother, who “had a complete physical collapse” and depended on Jack to help her out. When she passed, the last semblance of family went with her, as he and his two brothers suffered a falling out that never mended.
Jack Moskovitz “The dissolution of a family is exactly what happened,” he said. “I went through four years of depression, which writing helped alleviate to a degree.” In truth, he said, the fissures in his family were always present. He felt apart, not just from them but from society. “I am estranged from just about every unit or community I tried to be part of. I’m always on the outside,” he said. “There’s a panoramic photograph from a family picnic back in the late 1940s and, stage right, who’s this guy standing all by himself? Me.” His radio work offered a sanctuary. “Radio was kind of like the glue that held everything together. It got me out of the
house,” he said. It’s only after you spend some time with him you understand his bitter jags are just Jack being Jack. He kvetches not so much to wallow in self-pity or elicit sympathy, as to frame the world for his sardonic stories. His terse style is inspired by pulp fiction and its tradition of gritty action and gloomy sensibilities. His titles, The Tuxedo Square Job and Feast of the Purple Beast, are in keeping with the genre. Jack himself is the model for his cranky, Guy Noirish protagonists. Like him, they’re wise-cracking figures with a chip on their shoulder and a thankless task to perform. His hand-to-mouth characters are habitues of flophouses, dive bars, diners, after-hours joints and dead-end jobs, all of which he’s familiar with from personal experience. Once a heavy drinker, he knows the despair of the bottle. He’s had his share of women, too, and therefore is on intimate terms with the emptiness of one night stands and the loneliness of mornings after. The hard road he’s traveled has given him insight into what it means to hustle, scrape by and see dreams fade away. That’s not to say Jack or his work is all dour. Indeed, he and his characters engage in the kind of witty, edgy repartee Dorothy Parker and her vicious set went in for, only his verbal sparring matches unfold at the corner cafe, not the Algonquin. In the last decade he’s found a measure of calm with his companion Johnnie Mae Hawkins, a voracious reader like him. She’s also a writer. Besides their shared love of words, the two are fellow travelers in another way -- as outsiders. Continued on page 26
Want more confidence in your investments? Ask Rob Randels about the investment power of Russell. Global leaders in multi-manager investing. Creators of the Russell 2000® Index. Providing guidance on more than $1 trillion. Russell products and services are available through the Northwestern Mutual Financial Network. With Russell, Rob Randels brings a new level of expertise to your portfolio.
¤ Rob , MBA, Rob A. A. Randels, Randels, CFP MBA, ChFC,ChFC CFP® Wealth Management Investment Specialist Advisor Northwestern Northwestern Mutual Mutual Financial FinancialNetwork NetworkofofNebraska Nebraska Embassy Embassy Tower, Tower, Suite Suite 500 500 9300 9300 Underwood Underwood Avenue Avenue Omaha, Omaha, NE NE 68114 68114 (402) (402) 390-8271 390-8271 rob.randels@nmfn.com rob.randels@nmfn.com www.nmfn.com/robrandels www.nmfn.com/robrandels
05-2261 © 2004 Northwestern Mutual. Northwestern Mutual Financial Network is the marketing name for the sales and distribution arm of The Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Company, Milwaukee, WI (NM) and its subsidiaries and affiliates, including the Northwestern Mutual Financial Network of Nebraska. Financial Representative is an agent of NM (life insurance, annuities and disability income insurance.) Securities are offered through Northwestern Mutual Investment Services, LLC (NMIS), which is wholly owned by NM and a member of the NASD and SIPC. Frank Russell Company is a subsidiary of NM. NM and the Northestern Mutual Financial Network of Nebraska are not registered broker-dealers. CFP Board owns the certification marks CFP® and federally registered CFP (with flame logo), which it awards to individuals who successfully complete initial and ongoing certification requirements. 4044-187
Page 26
Jewish Press, Omaha, NE
December 21, 2007
Being Jack Moskovitz
The Promise of Convenience. Our dedicated staff helps patients enjoy better quality lives through convenient, in-home healthcare. If you or someone you know could benefit from our services, please call us at:
(402) 342-5566 (800) 456-8869
Caring
M a k i n g
a
d i f f e r e n c e
Senior Helpers strives to ensure a better quality of life by providing dependable and affordable care. We specialize in providing non-medical care to seniors who desire to maintain their independence.
Continued from page 25 He’s Jewish, she’s African-American. He confronted anti-Semitism here, she endured racism down South, where the Arkansas native was of the last generation to pick cotton in the fields. She sharecropped alongside her folks, doing backbreaking labor unfit for man or beast. Based on her recollections of those times he wrote a poignant poem called “The Voiding Tree.” Late in life these two seemingly disparate people found each other as kindred spirits do and they’re not about to let each other go now. “The best thing that ever happened to me was meeting her,” he said. “She’s a very sweet-natured woman. Very understanding, very considerate, very helpful, even in my writing. Dependable, loyal. You know, everything I never found in a woman.” His recent books feature the dedication: “To Johnnie Mae Hawkins, who likes thrift shops, kittens, and me.” Until she came along, he admits his taste in women left much to be desired. “They weren’t the kind of women you brought home to mother,” he said. “In my glory days it was the beginning of the sexual revolution where you locked your valuables in your car and carried just enough money for the night. It was just like Frank Sinatra sang, ‘Strangers in the Night,’ and still strangers the next day.” One relationship, with an actress, ended badly. “I fell for her. I really fell for her,” he said. But then he learned her declarations of “I love you, I need you” were mere lines she practiced on him in order to seduce the man she was really after. “It was just really bad melodrama ... bad soap opera.” After years of abusing alcohol, he long ago cleaned up his act. “I haven’t had a drink in, what is it, 4550 years. I was getting to the point where I was looking forward to losing myself in ... things like Screwdrivers and Vodka Collins. I used to drink when I was really feeling kind of happy, but then I found myself drinking more when I wasn’t happy, which was most of the time. That’s when I stopped. I changed jobs and dropped the lady I was seeing at the time and kind of got some other things taken care of. I just had no more need for it.” Growing up, he often felt things spinning out of control and the solitary pursuits of reading-writing-acting were escapes into worlds of his own dominion. “When you’re the only Jews in a Catholic neighborhood, that’s really tough,” he said. “Back then, there wasn’t this liberal bent. These blue collar guys living here didn’t have any use for Jews or any minorities. If you weren’t Catholic,
forget about it. If you were Protestant, that was almost as bad as being a Jew. So it was very unpleasant ... the Jew bashing. “When you have the insularity of a family you get a sense of security, even though you know when you walk out the door somebody’s going to throw something at you. In fact, a good day for me ... was not having hard objects hurled at me. A good day was when all that was hurled at me was invective ‘Jew boy.’ Geez, I don’t know how the hell I survived that, but I did.” The sense of injury Moskovitz carries around with him was exacerbated when he saw his father, a restaurant fixture sales manager, get demoted and take a pay cut. “We were in a helluva fix,” Jack said. His father later partnered with others to start their own supply house, but soon thereafter Bert Moskovitz fell ill. “The cancer got him,” is how Jack puts it. Rabbi Myer Kripke officiated at his father’s and mother’s funerals at old Beth El Synagogue, just as he did at Jack and his brothers’ bar mitzvahs. Jack was 14 when his father died and to help make ends meet he went to work for one grocery store after another, cleaning, stocking, bagging, delivering, whatever needed doing. His mother worked at Hayden’s Department Store. With few friends, Jack slipped increasingly into his interior life. He’s never married. He has no kids. “It’s been a lonely life,” he said. His imagination was fired by the stories that transfixed him on radio, the stage, in the movies and in books. Moskovitz was fated to be a writer when, as a child, he steeped himself in the “beautiful library” his immigrant grandparents kept at home. The library contained the complete works of Dickens, O Henry, Sir Walter Scott, etcetera. There were full-length play scripts. He read it all. “That’s where I would do my reading,” he said. “It was something I looked forward to doing.” His creative side was nurtured by his mother, who played violin “beautifully,” he said. She’d trained on the instrument and could read music. He still has her violin and the original case for it and displays them on the dining room table. Also, his older brother, Mayer, brought him to plays. Jack adored musical theater. Mere blocks from where he grew up was the original Omaha Community Playhouse site at 40th and Davenport, where he saw many productions But, always, there were books. Piles of books surround he and Johnnie Mae today. As a young man he devoured comingof-age classics like the Signet edition of Catcher in the Rye and the Studs Continued on page 27
Companionship & Conversation | Medication Reminders | Light Housekeeping Grocery Shopping | Pick Up Prescriptions | Alzheimer’s & Dementia Care Arrange & Escort to Appointments | Meal Preparation & Cleanup Caregivers are insured,bonded and screened with background checks.
Call for Complimentary Assessment!
One Bedroom/Two Bedroom Units Available Community Life
402/991-6847
• Community/Dining Room • Optional Dining • Van Transportation • Library • Wellness/Exercise • Guest Room • Country Store A Non-profit Development Sponsored by
8031 W. Center Road | Suite 206 | Omaha, NE 68124 www.seniorhelpers.com | jfitzgerald@seniorhelpers.com
Call us for a tour today!
Bloomfield Forum 402-390-9991
9804 Nicholas St. • Omaha, NE 68114 Omaha’s Independent Senior Living Specialists www.bloomfieldforum.com
December 21, 2007
Alegent Health reiterates decision on Medicare Advantage Plans by LORA ULLERICH Public/Community Relations Specialist Alegent Health Corporate Communications As Seniors make selections on private Medicare replacement products during this open enrollment period, Alegent Health hospitals and clinics will see Medicare-eligible patients only through traditional Medicare and all MediGap (Medicare Supplement) policies. Alegent Health is not participating in nongovernmental Medicare Advantage private fee-for-service (PFFS) replacement plans in any of our service areas in Nebraska or Iowa, except under emergency situations. Some of these plans include Humana Gold Choice, Unicare Security Choice, Secure Horizons Medicare Complete Essential, Sterling, Coventry Advantra Freedom and Today’s Options. In addition, Alegent Health is not participating as an in-network provider for any private Medicare HMO, POS or PPO products in our market such as Secure Horizons Medicare Complete HMO, POS, MedicareBlue PPO (Blue Cross and Blue Shield), or Coventry Advantra Platinum, Silver or Gold. Some of the PPO/POS plans have out of network benefits, so patients must check with their health plan to see if they can use the Alegent Health providers as out of network. Scott Wooten, Alegent Health senior vice president and chief financial officer, explained, “As the largest provider of Medicare services in the region, we see over 100,000 Medicare patients every year and are committed to Medicare. We do not participate in non-governmental Medicare private fee-for-service replacement plans because we are concerned about the longterm viability of private Medicare products. History indicates that many private insurers have withdrawn from the Medicare programs, leaving seniors to seek out an alternative product or return to Medicare.” Wooten stated the example of the more than 2.3 million seniors dropped from their private Medicare plans between 1999 and 2004, because their plans withdrew from participating with Medicare. Wooten also noted that Alegent Health has experienced administrative and payment issues with private Medicare replacement plans. Traditional Medicare has been in existence for many years and Wooten believes it will continue to be around for many future generations to come. Additionally, there are many Medicare Prescription Part D options available for seniors who remain with traditional Medicare. Comparison information is available on www.Medicare.gov. For those still considering purchasing one of the non-governmental Medicare replacement plans, Wooten suggests, “Before purchasing one of these plans, it is very important to verify that your health care providers are participating with the plan.”
PAID ADVERTISEMENT
Just Like Home That’s The
Pointee
Heritage Pointe is Omaha’s premiere Assisted Living, Memory Care and Adult Day community.
Jewish Press, Omaha, NE
Page 27
Being Jack Moskovitz Continued from page 26 Lonigan trilogy and he found his niche in the spare, masculine style of Ernest Hemingway, Mickey Spillane, James Jones, Leon Uris, Richard Prather, John MacDonald, Vin Packer and others. His work betrays the influence, too, of realists Raymond Carver, John Fante and Charles Bukowski. “They all wrote in a fast-paced, very terse style and each word was carefully chosen,” he said. “It whips along.” He strives for the same efficiency of language. “I write the flabby prose on the first draft and then I go take each sentence and try to telescope it. I weed out chunks.” He began writing stories and plays way back at Saunders Elementary School, just up the block from the stucco house he grew up in and occupies today in the Cathedral neighborhood. His love for theater sparked his interest in writing. Cast as the lead in a school play, he heeded the ham in him when a castmate got a bad case of stage fright and missed her cue and he covered for her by ad-libbing. That’s when he fell for acting and got it in his head that maybe he could craft his own dramas. “That’s what I started doing,” he said. As a boy he began sending out his work, even play scripts, to publishers, once getting a reply from the famed play publishing company, Samuel French. “I got back what I thought was a personal letter from Mr. French himself and, of course, it was your standard rejection slip,” he said. He was serious enough about acting that he began auditioning at the Playhouse right out of high school and soon landed a role in its production of Secret Service, which was part of Omaha’s centennial celebration. He averaged about a play a year at the OCP until Charles Jones arrived in the ’70s. Jack also went to the west coast with the idea of trying to break into Hollywood. He had the cockeyed notion of being “the Semitic Troy Donahue,” but was dissuaded by family friend, Lynn Stalmaster, already a casting director scion, who warned him of the struggles and heartbreak ahead. Jack appreciated the straight talk. “What a mensch he was,” he said. Even with the intoxicating scent of Jasmine in the air, all that gorgeous sun, the ubiquitous palm trees, meeting stars and limited prospects back home, Jack heeded the advice. He’s not sorry he did. “I’ve never looked back,” he said. With “no marketable skills,” he returned to doing “stoop labor,” content to act and write on the side. Besides the Jewish grocers he worked for, he was a grunt in an appliance warehouse and washed and bused dishes at a restaurant. When he worked at Shaver’s market on 40th Street, he hit upon an after-work routine to indulge his passions for good eats and good stories. “I’d get me a bowl of chili and I’d buy a Gold Medal
paperback for 25 cents. I was reading Westerns written by Vin Parker. They were real hard-boiled, lusty, actionpacked plots that Gold Medal was famous for. Then I’d go across the street to the Admiral Theater and see whatever was on. Then I’d walk over to the West Dodge Pharmacy and get me a Lime Ricky at the soda fountain.” Another favorite pastime was sitting in front of the radio to hear the world come into his home. He and his old brother Mayer loved listening to network radio broadcasts like The Shadow, The Bell Telephone Hour and Stella Dallas. They were so crazy about radio they wormed their way into the studios at KFAB and WOW as audience members for live shows whose formats ran the gamut from quiz to music. He said it was heady stuff for a boy with a flair for the dramatic. “Wow, this is kind of fun,” Jack recalls thinking. “The announcers would be personalities. What kind of clinched it was when I met a neighbor who was in radio. That’s when I thought maybe I ought to try radio, too.” By 1956, at age 21, he was on the air in Denison, Iowa, learning the ropes for no pay at tiny KDSN. A year later he got his first paying on-air gig at KLMS in Lincoln. Then he went over to the capitol city’s KLIN. When he lived in Lincoln he stayed at the Sam Lawrence Hotel, a low rent roomer that often shows up in his stories. He and his radio cronies bent a few at after-hours hangouts like Hamp’s. One night he was going to help a KLIN staffer celebrate the birth of his first child when an urgent phone call came in. Moskovitz said the new father took the call, “turned to me, and said, ‘Jack, there’s not going to be any celebration tonight. We’ve got a triple homicide.’ Well, that was the beginning of the Starkweather spree.” Moskovitz covered the morning police briefings from the start of the manhunt to the suspects’ capture and arrest. This was the start of his itinerant, he’d call it checkered, radio career -- from the dawn of rock ‘n’ roll and DJ’s spinning records on turntables to the age of talk radio and automation. He worked for KOIL and at WOW with such local legends as Ray Olson, Dale Munson, Ray Stevens and Jim Murphy. What he lacked in the “basso profundo” voice department of his colleagues, he made up for with personality. He did stints at KOWH, KEMO, KBON and KCRO, “a holy station where four people worked and nobody got along. Can you imagine that? It wasn’t very brotherhoodish, that’s for sure.” His last radio job was with “easy listening” KESY in 1989. In the ‘60s he pulled an Army Reserves hitch. He also worked a year as a reporter-photographer for the Council Bluffs Nonpareil. As much as radio and the theater fascinated him, his true heart was in writing. Continued on page 28
Everyone’s getting into the act... We’ve been selling and servicing Long Term Care Insurance for over 20 years! Trust plus Experience... A great combination
Affordable elegance ■ Choice of apartment floor plans ■ Individualized service ■
168th & Blondo ■ 402/614-5222
Call Mike Murphy or Bob Nelson 402-397-5050 800-279-2081
Page 28
Jewish Press, Omaha, NE
December 21, 2007
Being Jack Moskovitz Continued from page 27 By the time he graduated from Central High School, where he appeared in some plays, he disciplined himself to write every day. It’s a practice and ritual he follows to this day. Now that he’s retired, it’s no problem applying himself to his craft. But when he worked steady, it was tough. “It was hard working some of these crappy jobs I had and then coming home and trying to get the energy to sit down and write something that was possibly commercial,” he said. “As tired as I was, I turned out some stuff...” His last regular job was working for “the fed” as a Grade 3 clerk-typist at Douglas County Veterans Hospital, OSHA and the U.S. Attorney’s Office. He wasn’t crazy about the work, “but by God I liked the security, that paycheck, the benefits,” he said. A back problem forced him to take early retirement in 1985. Moskovitz was in good company when it came to toiling at a 9 to 5 job and still maintaining a writing life. Former U.S. Poet Laureate Ted Kooser of Garland, Neb. held an insurance post for decades while churning out his award-winning verses. Jack doesn’t go to a job anymore, but old habits are hard to break and so he still bangs out copy on his Olivetti typewriter. He prefers it to chancing his work on a computer, which he professes to be “illiterate” at. Call him old school or old fashioned, he doesn’t mind. Another example of how he and Johnnie Mae lead a simple life, is their lack of a car. They walk or ride the bus most everywhere. Unlike his brothers, who graduated college to become professionals, Jack went his own way, did his own thing. He stud-
ied radio broadcasting at then-Omaha University, but didn’t get a degree. As the family’s black sheep, he said, he felt his brothers’ contempt for squandering a life to pursue this writing dream. When you hear enough disparaging remarks, he said, “you get to kind of believe it.” Where his brothers may have had the edge in book smarts, Jack has native intelligence. His instinct for thinking on his feet goes back to childhood, like the time he saved the school play by ad-libbing when his co-star went AWOL. Fast forward five decades to Jack at the Playhouse. The actor was on stage one night in Over the River when he once again found himself playing for time. Unbeknownst to him, a fellow actor banged his head against a heavy picture frame back stage. “I throw a cue for him to enter and he staggers on stage, holding his eye,” Jack recalls. “I could tell something was wrong. I said, ‘Are you alright?’ and he said, ‘Yeah...no, and then he walks off. I said to the actress playing my wife, ‘Ida, go see what’s wrong with him,’ and she went off and so did the other two actors on stage, and I’m standing there by myself.” Seizing the moment, a resourceful Jack filled the silence the best way he knew how -- by talking. The audience thought his improv was part of the show. “In the story I’m supposed to be learn-
ing to play the mandolin and I’m standing there with this out-of-tune mandolin I wouldn’t know how to play even it was in tune,” he said. “So I start ad-libbing, telling a few jokes. Like, ‘Why does it take two actors to change a light bulb? One to do the work, one to point and say, Hey, that should be me up there.’ Or, ‘The hottest day of the year this old rummy staggers into a bar and says, Whaddya got that’s tall and cold? The bartender says, Have you met my wife?’ You know, doing these little Henny Youngman routines. “Then I started singing show tunes of the 1920s and ‘30s. ‘42nd Street, ‘I Only Have Eyes for You’... I did that because in always auditioning for musicals at the Playhouse and never even getting picked for the chorus, I didn’t know if I’d ever have a chance to sing there again.” What gives him the moxie to make up bits out of thin air? “The same chuztpah that got me interested in theater at Saunders when I was 10,” he said. Moments like these, he said, give him “such a sense of empowerment, because I’m controlling this thing.” Much like the mastery of events reading and writing provides. Words have always offered solace for the turmoil inside him. “After all these emotional setbacks -- the deaths, the betrayals, the antipathy, and so on -- what I would do just to get away from the house is walk
down to the library.” Alone with his prose, he found peace. Writing and DJing gave him a satisfaction he misses. “It really heightened my life. It provided the toots and whistles for an otherwise monotone existence.” He talks about this being the end of the line. About his window of opportunity having passed. How he’s done putting himself through the “pain” of rejection. “I’ve pretty much given up any possibility of getting anything produced or published. I took the pledge to quit wasting my life on that,” he said. But he still plugs away. Only last year he finished a new novel, Brothers and Sisters. It’s with a publisher now. He’s even learning to write Haiku. He still scans the trades seeking outlets for his work. He also continues to audition and win parts in plays. If a radio gig were offered tomorrow, he’d jump at it. If a publisher called, he’d dance a jig. When the phone rings at his place, his sense of anticipation is palpable. He interrupts a conversation with a guest -“Hang on a minute” -- to ask Johnnie Mae, “Is that a call from a publisher?” He’s ever hopeful his writing will find an appreciative audience. Having a major publisher discover his work would be his legacy, which is much on his mind given he’s the last of the Moskovitz line. He’s already achieved a legacy of sorts. Several volumes of his work are carried by the Omaha Public Library. Do Jack a favor and check his work out. You won’t be disappointed. And he’ll be glad you cared enough to read some of what he’ll leave behind. Leo Adam Biga is an award winning freelance writer whose work has appeared in the Jewish Press, the Reader, and other papers around the region.
Adult Day Services We provide compassionate care andstimulating activities in a secure environment for the elderly. • Health Care • Bathing • Beauty Salon • Registered & Licensed Nurses • Meals • Activity Professionals • Socialization • Flexible scheduling • M-F, 7 a.m.-6 p.m.
3615 N. 129th St. • Maple & 132nd St. • 496-3379
A Lifetime Resource for Your Financial Peace of Mind • Financial Planning • Retirement Planning • College Funding • Wealth Accumulation • Wealth Protection and Wealth Transfer
Serving the Omaha and surrounding area for 22 years Pearce Financial Services Kevin Pearce, Financial Advisor 2102 N. 117th Ave. Omaha, NE 68164 402-502-6900
AFN40990
Mutual of Omaha Financial Advisors is a service of Mutual of Omaha Investor Services, Inc., a securities broker-dealer and registered investment advisor. Home Office: Mutual of Omaha Plaza, Omaha, NE 68175-1020. There is no contractual relationship between Pearce Financial Services and Mutual of Omaha Investor Services, Inc.
December 21, 2007
Israel in the forefront of stem cell medical revolution by SIMON GRIVER and Catholic, have tradition(IPS) -- Israeli scientists ally taken a more rigorous have published more stem definition of the start of life cell research articles per than even the more consercapita than any other counvative Orthodox rabbis and try in the world (according as a result, the US was forto The Scientist magazine), bidden from granting federwhile a growing number of al funds for stem cell the country’s startups in the research using embryos until biotech sector seek to trans2002. Even today such assisform innovative stem cell tance is severely limited. research into marketable This gives Israel -- where products. the government does fund Prof. Dov Zipori, Director stem cell research -- a comof the Helen and Martin petitive advantage over the Kimmel Institute for Stem U.S., but Prof. Zipori stressCell Research at the Prof. Dov Zipori’s research focuses on proliferating stem es that even so, vast amounts Weizmann Institute of cells and enhanced matching in his lab at the Weizmann of private American capital Science, explains that stem Institute of Science in Rehovot. Credit:Weizmann Institute. does support research. cells promise a revolution in medical treatment. Shortly before his death in 2004, legendary actor “There was a time when if your car had a problem, the Christopher Reeve, who had been paralyzed from the garage mechanic would fiddle with the faulty part and neck down in a horse riding accident, spent five days at try and mend it,” he recounts. “Now everything is mod- the Weizmann Institute participating in stem cell testing ular. The mechanic simply takes out the faulty part and for spinal injuries. The principle aim of the visit was to puts in a new one. Stem cells offer us the potential to do publicize the importance of stem cell research for the the same in medicine. In theory if a person has a disor- future benefit of mankind, to emphasize Israel’s leading der in their liver, heart or lung, instead of trying to cure position in the area and to chastise the U.S. for being slow it, we could transplant a new one.” to exploit the advantages that stem cell therapy can bring. This will be a radical departure from the current situProf. Zipori takes little comfort in Israel’s “competiation, where there are not enough new organs to go tive advantage” because he feels that major American around for those who need lifesaving operations, let federal support for stem cell research is required to make alone people requiring more severe corrective surgery. the dream of stem cell transplants a reality sooner rather Moreover, above and beyond transplants, stem cells, than later. which have the potential for renewing all our cells and “There are a number of major obstacles that must be tissues, will be available for treating almost the full range overcome before the dream is realized,” explains Prof. of human diseases, conditions and disabilities, including Zipori. “Principle obstacles include the need to generate Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s diseases, spinal cord injury, far larger volumes of stem cells than are presently availstroke, burns, heart disease, diabetes, osteoarthritis and able and to enhance matching so that the recipient body, rheumatoid arthritis. following a transplant, does not eventually reject cells. Stem cells have fascinated biologists for decades Prof. Zipori’s own research focuses on this need to because of their remarkable potential to develop into proliferate stem cells and for better matching. These are many different cell types in the body. Serving as a sort of areas in which Israel is a world leader and Israeli biotech repair system for the body, they can theoretically divide startup companies have already commercialized their without limit to replenish other cells as long as the per- patents, which promise methodologies for producing son is still alive. They are available from three sources – vast amounts of stem cells, which can be better matched mature human blood, cord blood and, most controver- up with recipients. sially, embryos. Christian authorities, both Protestant Continued on page 34
A home for memories by JANE PROCHASKA for Silver Memories For the first 10 years of my legal career, I worked as an elder law lawyer, specializing in wills and trusts, guardianships and conservatorships. Then, in 1985, I was appointed as a Douglas County Judge, and spent the next 22 years specializing in elder law as Douglas County’s primary probate Judge. On Sept. 11, 2001, I received a 4 a.m. telephone call from my mother. I could tell that something was terribly wrong, so I immediately went to her home and found her sitting in the dark, where she told me she had been for three days. I drove her to the hospital, where we learned she was suffering from a strokelike condition. That’s where we were when the terrorists hit New York City several hours later. Our lives changed forever that day. The brain damage left my mother with a condition similar to Alzheimer’s disease. Our family was faced with the decision of where to place our mother for the remainder of her life. As a probate judge, I thought I knew everything, but when it came to the placement of my own mother, I was overwhelmed. Our family was shocked when we saw the treatment of some dementia patients, many of whom spend their days in wheelchairs, parked beside a nurse’s station. I knew there had to be something better and I developed a passion to help these individuals. In December of 2006, I retired and founded Silver Memories, Inc., which converts regular single-family houses into specialized homes for dementia patients, very close to a real residential setting. Our houses are fully licensed as assisted living facilities with the State of Nebraska. We employ caregivers 24 hours a day, seven days a week. There is a CNA/medication aide awake and on duty at all times. We also have registered nurses on call at all times, and geriatric physicians make house-calls for residents who are unable to go out of the house easily. Our residents are able to live out the remainder of their lives in a real house. Our newest home is a four-bedroom ranch on the corner of Morrison and Deer Hollow in Leawood West. Best of all, I can see a little bit of my own mother, who is gone now, in each and every one of my residents and they allow me to feel as though I am helping my own mother. Call me at 689.2800.
My father had hearing aids -- and hated them by JULIE CHRISTENSEN Audiologist, Boys Town National Research Hospital Hearing aid success is determined by many factors, including the configuration of the hearing loss, the way the hearing aid is fit, a person’s motivation to wear a hearing aid, and a person’s listening environment. Chances are that your father was also wearing an older type of technology. The majority of today’s hearing aids offer much more sophisticated programs for noise. Basically, the hearing aids work to reduce background noise and amplify speech sounds. The tricky part is that in many situations, background noise IS speech (ie: in a restaurant). The hearing aids don’t know who you want to hear (and who you want to tune out!) Their solution is to use directional microphones that take in speech in front of you (assuming you are facing the person you want to hear) and block out speech behind you. There is no hearing aid that will completely reduce background noise, but most people feel that this technology gives them an edge. On some hearing aids, you push a button when you enter a noisy room, but many hearing aids do the work for you, by automatically adjusting as you move in and out of background noise. Some hearing aids will even switch to a special music program when they detect music and go to a phone program when you put a phone to your ear! Some behind-the-ear style hearing aids have become very small and can have an ‘open’ fit. Depending on the severity of your hearing loss, you may be able to wear a connecting ear mold that doesn’t plug your ear canal. Open fittings are now possible because today’s hearing aids do a better job of managing the squealing sound that comes from poorly fit aids. Many hearing aid wearers report that these hearing aids make speech sound more “natural.” For more information, contact Boys Town National Research Hospital at 402.498.6520 or log on to www.boystownhospital.org. PAID ADVERTISEMENTS
Jewish Press, Omaha, NE
Page 29
“Preserving the Lifestyle for the Next Generation”
Care Consultants for the Aging Since 1991
A home care registry that screens and schedules Companions, CNAs, HHAs, LPNs and RNs. You may schedule 7 days a week 1 to 24 hours a day. Since 1991 our reputation for excellence has been our hallmark.
7710 Pacific St., Ste 100 Omaha, NE 68114 402/398-1848
4535 Normal Blvd., Ste 275 Lincoln, NE 68506 402/488-3771
www.careconsultants.com
Silver Memories, Inc. Assisted living for individuals with Alzheimer’s disease, memory loss and other forms of dementia in the comfort of a real home.
Now serving Omaha at two locations. Our original location at 80th & Maple and our newest in the heart of Leawood West near 126th & Pacific.
402/689-2800
617 Morrison Drive
Page 30
Jewish Press, Omaha, NE
December 21, 2007
Hot on the trail of lost relatives BERT’S EYE VIEW by BERT LEWIS It seems like every decade or so, some member of my family gets enthused about hunting for information regarding the places from which our mishpacha originated. Some years ago, a distant cousin got started on a genealogy project, which had some good data, but also had many errors. Her files somehow got into my hands, and I’ve taken very good care of them --that is, they’ve been stored nicely in a drawer in my desk. There have been a couple of others, searching some of the recent and more efficient sources we have now, including members of my roommate’s clan, looking at his side of the family. As I said, roughly every decade or so, somebody gets an itch to know exactly where Bubbe and Zayde were born and where they met and married. A week ago, I heard from one of my sons, who had just finished a book he raved about -- and that book has been a catalyst for the latest Q and A game we’ve been doing, via email. The book, called The Lost by Daniel Mendelson, concerns the emotional search for a family who disappeared into the horrors of the Holocaust. (I haven’t read it yet, but it’s on my list.) Everything I’ve heard so far about the book makes me know I want to read it too, but for my son, it was all he needed to rekindle an old curiosity. Okay, that’s brings us up to date: It also brought me to the point where I remember
that my sources are very few these days. Sadly, those who could answer questions aren’t here anymore. So, how can I be of help to my kid? I guess I did what everyone does -- start with somebody in the clan who just might have either information, or who at least knows of somebody else to ask. I called a first cousin of my mom’s, and what a happy surprise I got! He had, in his possession, papers and documents and copies of forms and dates, and even the name of a ship! It turned out that what he actually had was minimal in doing such a search, but it
was of vital importance in establishing the where and when of some of the earliest family arrivals in this country. Also turns out, that’s really what my son was most interested in ... where did everyone come from? If he wasn’t familiar with the terms before, he now knows the word, Gebarnia, as well as shtetl. He knows that most of his maternal ancestors came from the Ukraine and if he didn’t know before, he now knows about areas that merged and why some names on old documents no longer relate to a real place. Wars, politics and human nature have been the cause of much of that kind of thing, but I
hope he’s getting what he wanted when he began asking questions. Real, accurate “trees” where a person can trace from their great-great-grandparents down to the present don’t interest me a lot, I must confess. I enjoyed knowing both sets of grandparents, hearing family stories, learning that Chaim was born on the first night of Pesach, that my Zayde didn’t eat ice cream his whole life after his first taste upon arrival. How come? Because it was given to him after he had eaten a fleishig meal and nobody told him what it was made of! He never touched it again. Continued on page 31
The right care in the right setting by NIKKI EVANS and ANNIE ALLEN for Alegent Health Systems How does Faith Community Nursing differ from all other kinds of nursing?? Much of nursing is done in a medical setting. A Faith Community Nurse (FCN) is part of the congregation and works with members of the synagogue and community to promote health of body, mind and spirit throughout the lifespan. Why do we need a nurse in a congregational setting? Judaism holds a holistic view of health and a belief that the community plays an integral part in maintaining health and promoting healing. In a congregation, people know one another and support one another in good times as well as through challenges. Faith can help enhance well-being; therefore, FCNs integrate faith and health to strengthen caring responses within synagogues. What does a Faith Community Nurse do? FCNs are not home health nurses, therapists or Rabbis. Depending on congregational needs, they may develop a walking program or blood pressure screening for seniors, offer heart health classes, answer health questions,
Crown Pointe Makes Retirement Living Great!
refer to a community service, coordinate volunteers, build a support group, visit someone at home after surgery or help a person through the sometimes confusing maze of health services. They build a Health Committee to help with this work and can also work alongside other groups, such as Bikkur Cholim. What is the Alegent Health Faith Community Nursing Network? An innovative and successful model of nursing is growing through a network of multi-faith congregations in the Omaha metro area. The program will belong to the synagogue. Alegent Health promotes success by providing training, resources, consultation and support. Forty two congregations and 60 nurses have already made a difference for over 53,000 contacts in the community by promoting healthy lifestyles, offering a sense of hope for the ill and encouraging justice and access to services throughout the health care system. Alegent Health Home Care is committed to delivering high-quality, patient-centered care for patients with a variety of health care needs – ensuring our patients receive the right care in the
right setting. Our care includes meeting patients’ health care needs in their own home from the delicate newborn, to helping control a patient’s pain through Palliative Care or even giving a patient and their loved ones the most peaceful last moments through our Hospice services. By providing a continuum of services throughout eastern Nebraska and western Iowa, Alegent Health Home Care provides a full line of comprehensive home care services and products to the communities we have the privilege to serve. Alegent Health Home Care provides holistic, individualized, skilled care, utilizing the services of a team of professionals and community support resources to care for patients. This team is made up of nurses, physical, occupational and speech therapists, respiratory therapists, medical social workers, dieticians and home health aides. Alegent Health also offers Infusion Pharmacy, Home Medical Equipment, Hospice and Palliative Care. For more information log on to Alegent.com or call 1.800.ALEGENT.
PAID ADVERTISEMENT
You Never Know What The Future May Hold
PMA9999
I can help you plan for tomorrow – TODAY!
Long-Term Care Insurance Health Insurance Dental Insurance (Underwritten by Physicians Mutual Insurance Company)
Medicare Supplement Medicare Part D* Life Insurance Annuities A Capital Senior Living Community
(Underwritten by Physicians Life Insurance Company) *Plans are offered by Aetna Life Insurance Company
2820 South 80th Omaha, NE 68124
Call Today
Call Today! Bob Murphy
(402) 391-7555
Insurance Agent
www.capitalsenior.com Call and schedule your FREE lunch and tour!
402-391-9060 or 1-800-776-1354 We are not connected with or endorsed by the U.S. Government or the Federal Medicare Program. PMA2668B 2600 Dodge St. Omaha, NE 68131-2671
December 21, 2007
On the trail of lost relatives Continued from page 30 I know my mother-in-law chased somebody on a bicycle for blocks, the first time she saw such a thing. She couldn’t believe her eyes! And somebody, I don’t remember who or even which side of the family, but somebody upon getting their first taste of bananas, over did it a bit, ate way too many, and like Zayde and the ice cream, gave them up for life! I’ve heard many tales, who knows how accurate? They somehow guarantee that certain family lore will never be forgotten, no matter which shtetl. On my mom’s side, a favorite story told every Pesach was about the goat who entered when the door was opened for Elijah. Country and small village people had animals like that around -- it could happen! The stories were made forever meaningful when the listener could see the mixture of joy and maybe yearning on the face of the person who told it. Stories like the goat were typical of the sort of thing which caused laughter in the telling because there really wasn’t a whole lot that was funny. Life was hard, the groshen with which to buy necessities were scarce; the climate was cruel and if the family was Jewish, there was always fear. But they found things to laugh about and told stories forever after, which the next generations began to appreciate. I have often wondered about the young women who said goodbye to parents and friends, knowing they would not likely see each other again -- the young women who followed husbands to a strange land, across an ocean, with neither funds nor prospects and certainly not language! How much courage that must have taken -- how many tears they must have wept. Thinking of such separations, it’s easy
for me to remember, even though I was a small child, the joy with which my bubbe would receive a letter from “home.” She would hold it in her hands as if it was gold, then put it in the pocket of her apron. Then, when she decided the time was most perfect, would sit down in her rocker, put on her glasses, and read the “brief fin der hame.” I can’t remember seeing or hearing her laugh, but more than once I saw her cry as she read. I know bad news was reported, but I wonder how often it was nostalgia that brought the tears. Another thing we’ll never know. Yes, there are lots of reasons people decide to search for their family roots. The name of a shtetl located in Gabernia maybe is important. I guess it depends on why you want to know, whether from just plain curiosity or because you’re compiling a family history. I know where my grandparents (all four of them) came from, and I know where they are right now. I will always be grateful for the time in between, when they were such an important part of my life, and in some ways even better, for the part they had in the lives of my children. Our eldest is named for his maternal great-grandfather; the second for somebody important to his paternal grandfather. The girls also were named for some early ancestors, which may or may not mean a lot to them, but it makes me feel good to know those people were not forgotten. So that’s my bubbemysah on the subject of family trees. If we used real trees, I guess mine would be a cherry tree, so we’d always remember to make and enjoy cherry verenikas! How bad could that be? Bert Lewis can be reached at BertLewis39@aol.com.
Skilled Nursing Care Rehabilitation Services Extended Stay Respite Care
Jewish Press, Omaha, NE
Page 31
Solve the million dollar problem by BARBARA J. WIES, CSA Everywhere you turn you see more and more advertising on the need for Long Term Care Insurance. So I caution you to do your research not only on the company but on the Insurance Agent who is selling you the product. You wouldn’t have a heart surgeon perform brain surgery on you. So why would you have any licensed agent sell you Long Term Care Insurance? This is an investment of your money. People seeking LTC insurance should buy it through an independent agent who specializes in this product. Here are a few questions to ask an agent who sells Long Term Care Insurance: • What insurance products do you offer besides Long Term Care Insurance? The best answer is zero. You want someone whose complete focus is on LTC. You don’t want their attention divided between different types of products. • What insurance carriers do you represent? If the agent mentions only one carrier, that’s not good. You want someone who can offer a choice between several different A-rated carriers. One company is not the best for each couple or individual. There are different factors that take place in determining the premium such as age, health and benefits. You want a product that is best suited for your needs not
someone else’s. • How long have you sold or been in the Long Term Care Insurance industry or how many clients do you have? A specialist has dozens to hundreds of clients or has been focused in this field for several years. • Are there tax breaks and other financial ramifications? Can you advise me on this? The majority answer is yes. Well informed agents know the regulations and advantages of owning LTC Insurance but don’t stray from their specialty. They work with knowledgeable advisors, accountants and other planners. If you are in your 40s or 50s and have at least $30,000 in assets, not including your house, it’s important you begin planning today. An accident or illness can happen at any age. Consider LTC Insurance as nursing home avoidance insurance. Having this in place will give you the choices you deserve and peace of mind. I’ve been in the insurance industry for 22 years, the last seven years educating others on the importance of LTC Insurance. My motto “Education comes first and everything else falls into place”. Visit us at: www.GeminiGenerations.com, or e-mail Barbara@GeminiGenerations.com or call 402.714.0306. PAID ADVERTISEMENT
Creighton celebrates Hanukkah Chabad’s Rabbi Mendel Katzman and his son, Zelig watched as Trevor Gerson helped with the lighting of the menorah on Dec. 5 at the Creighton University campus.
Outreach Services Family Consultation Community Programming Kosher Meals on Wheels and Transportation
323 S. 132nd Street ♦ Omaha, NE 68154 ♦ www.RBJH.com
Page 32
Jewish Press, Omaha, NE
December 21, 2007
It’s your time now
Raising the bar on adult day services by LISA GRAPER SarahCare Adult Day Services located in Eagle Run Square is Omaha’s newest Adult Day Center. Dr. Michael Levine, owner and President of SarahCare, realized the opportunity in Omaha to follow his personal vision and mission of families being able to stay home together, coupled with the SarahCare mission of providing professional service in a secure environment for adults with health related needs, while giving support and respite to the caregiver. SarahCare, an Adult Day program that supports caregivers in keeping their family members at home was started in 1985 by renowned gerontologist, Dr. Merle Griff, in Canton, OH. Adult Day Centers are one of the fastest growing aspects in the continuum of care for seniors. From 15 centers nationwide in 1975 to more than 4,000 in 2007, centers providing adult day services still fall far short of the 8,500 needed. Education is the key component and how it fits into the choices available for caregivers and families. Older adults, their health and living needs, as they age, has become an increasingly important concern in addition to understanding and trusting the arena of services marketed. Caregivers are angels in disguise, but often we find that they do not allow or give themselves permission to take time off. Personal interests, time spent with friends and family, begin to take a backseat to the needs of the one they are caring for. The Center, open Monday-Friday, 7 a.m.-6 p.m., is staffed with a professional nurse, medication aides and an Activity Director. SarahCare provides breakfast, lunch and an afternoon snack. Our lunch is prepared by a chef, with all menus and spe-
cial diets approved by the Center’s Consultant Dietitian. Our professional nursing staff can provide medication services, monthly health monitoring, bathing, and recognition of health deficiencies such as urinary tract infections. Activity Director Roxane Hartle plans activities around the interests of the participants in addition to ensuring that their social, emotional, physical, spiritual and creative needs are also tapped. “Activities are going on simultaneously so participants have options to choose from. We try to encourage involvement, but everyone understands the choice is theirs,” she added. SarahCare’s other mission is to ensure participants and families are able to spend quality time together. To help this happen, the Center has partnered with professionals and businesses to provide a consignor menu of services that can be taken care of while at the Center. We provide dental, optometry, and podiatry services as well as physician-ordered speech, physical and occupational therapy. SarahCare also provides take home meals from various restaurant menus and dry-cleaning pick-up and delivery. Patt, a participant at SarahCare, said “that she loves the crafts, and chatting with her friends. It’s foolish not to give SarahCare a try, especially if you are at home alone.” “Adult Day provides a program specifically tailored for adults who need supervision and assistance during the day, Graper said, “in addition to offering peace of mind and much needed respite to families.” For more information on how to obtain “Free” two half-day coupons, call 496.3379, or visit 3615 No. 129 St. in Eagle Run Square for a tour.
Carefree lifestyle for today’s senior by ROXANN ROGERS MEYER Immanuel Senior Living Director, Marketing and Sales Immanuel Senior Living promotes a secure, carefree lifestyle for today’s senior. Everything we offer our residents is inspired by our commitment to creating a lifestyle that caters to the individual. Immanuel Senior Living is Nebraska’s premier senior living provider with six communities in Omaha, Papillion and Lincoln, serving all income levels. With a rich heritage of compassionate service to the community that began in 1887 when Pastor Fogelstrom created a ministry which emphasized works of mercy, Immanuel offers distinctively different communities built on one shared philosophy, “to make the rest of your life the best of your life.” Discover a better way of life as you choose from independent and assisted living housing options, including patio homes. Each of the communities is located on a beautiful campus featuring manicured lawns and gardens that preserve the views and create a vibrant, inviting setting. Immanuel features a variety of spacious apartment home designs. You will enjoy the luxury of housekeeping services and interior and exterior maintenance. There are countless opportunities for you to enjoy the well appointed common spaces, designed for social gatherings
and stimulating events. You will give five stars to the exceptional dining program featuring chef-prepared entrees, served restaurant-style. Our menus are designed by our executive chef who has 25 years of culinary experience. Private dining rooms make the perfect setting for intimate family celebrations. Immanuel is the leader in senior wellness with state-of-the-art AgeWell Centers for Active Aging, heated indoor pools and a trained professional staff that works with our residents to develop a personalized wellness program. Our wellness program is comprehensive with educational lectures and computer labs for the mind and pastoral care for the spirit. Working with its partner, Alegent Health, Immanuel plans to continue development of innovative programs to fill the gap in health services to seniors. Over a century ago, the people of Immanuel were committed to a philosophy of improving lives and this continues to be the hallmark of Immanuel Senior Living today. From the smallest details to the largest concerns, be assured that the staff is dedicated to exemplary service. Schedule a visit or check out our website at www.immanuelseniorliving.com or call 402-829-2929.
by GEORGE BAKHIT Executive Director of Fountain View Senior Living Independent Living, Assisted Living & Memory Lane Our communities are designed to delight you with beautiful surroundings and pamper you with exceptional services. Our communities are special places where our residents enjoy the advantages of community living without compromising their individuality, dignity or privacy. Our exquisite campus rests on over six acres just south of 108th and Q, near Interstate 80, where convenient shopping, restaurants, banks and many other businesses are part of the surrounding neighborhood. Nestled within Fountain View’s campus are our 75 apartments of independent living, 24 assisted living apartments, and 15 special memory apartments. We also offer garages at a reasonable rate. Our communities are monthto-month leases, so your don’t have the worry of a buy-in or entrance fees. We are committed to providing the highest quality of living and personal care while understanding that our residents are entitled to be treated with dignity and respect. Fountain View Independent living has 75 apartment homes with five selections of apartments to choose from ranging from 683-1074 sq. ft. Each is equipped with full sized kitchens that include stove with range, microwave, full sized dishwasher and refrigerator. Every apartment also has its own stackable washer/dryer. Rent includes light housekeeping, basic cable TV, trash collection, gas and electric and any needed maintenance or repairs at no extra charge. Our goal is to provide an environment for independent living, where residents can maintain or improve their current lifestyle for as long as possible. We offer 24 assisted living apartments from 676-826 sq. ft. An array of carefully chosen amenities are available to enhance day-to-day living, as well as a variety of social activities and convenient personal services. Independence and enjoyment can mean different things to different people. Our mission is to offer lifestyle choices that allow each resident just the right amount of attention from our certified staff. Our health care provisions allow for a range of customized services to meet the personal needs of each resident. Fountain View Special Memory Care Community provides your loved one with three meals a day and a comfortable, spacious private studio room filled with their own familiar furnishings and a private restroom. Our Special Memory Care Community also provides you with peace of mind. Our goal is to help your loved one enjoy each day. Specially trained caregivers are on staff round-the-clock to help with daily activities such as bathing, dressing, grooming, eating and managing medications. They strive to help your loved one get the variety of activities designed for those with special memory care needs. With a high staff ratio, you can be assured of quality care for your family member. Contact us at 402-596-9033, website: fountainviewseniorliving.com.
PAID ADVERTISEMENTS
Ready to hear the world around you? The audiologists at Boys Town National Research Hospital understand that you have questions, concerns and maybe even hesitations when it comes to wearing a hearing aid. Boys Town National Research Hospital 555 North 30th Street 498-6520 Lakeside Clinic 17055 Frances Street, Suite 102 330-6500 Bergan Mercy Clinic 7710 Mercy Rd., Suite 326N 390-1100 Boys Town National Research Hospital (Village of Boys Town) 14040 Boys Town Hospital Road 778-6800
We offer a wide selection of hearing aids from all major manufactures to meet your needs and personal preferences. Let our highly trained staff help you make the right choice.
The Blues are good for you! www.bcbsne.com
BOYS TOWN N AT I O N A L RESEARCH H O S P I TA L For more information on hearing loss and hearing aids, visit our website at
www.boystownhospital.org
A not-for-profit mutual insurance company and an independent licensee of the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association.
December 21, 2007
Jewish Press, Omaha, NE
Page 33
Stem cell revolution
Confused by Medicare plans?
Eating Well Serves Two
Continued from page 29 Gamida-Cell Ltd., which strives to overcome the problem of generating quantity in creating enough stem cells for effective future treatments, is a leader in the expansion of stem cell therapeutics. It is currently in clinical development for cancer and autoimmune diseases, as well as future regenerative cell-based medicines, including heart and pancreatic tissue repair. Israel has always been in the forefront of stem cell research. The first breakthrough in the development of stem cells occurred in the 1960s at the Weizmann Institute when Prof. Leo Sachs in parallel with Australian colleagues was the first person in the world to produce stem cells from blood. This formed a platform on which stem cell research developed in Israel. “This field of research has never been as vibrant and as vivid and as exciting as it is today,” observes Prof. Zipori. “The prospects of translating stem cell research into medically applicable technologies are high. But it will all take time.” Prof. Zipori refuses to be nailed down as to when the stem cell modular transplants he foresees will become routine surgery. “It is not going to happen in the next five or 10 years,” he insists, “but it is going to happen.”
by BOB MURPHY, CLU, and MSAA Physicians Mutual Insurance Company I specialize in Medicare and Medicare-related insurance matters and find great satisfaction helping Medicare recipients make intelligent choices regarding additional health and prescription drug options, which can affect you the rest of your life. How you choose to receive your Medicare benefits, either through Medicare or through a Medicare Advantage plan can be especially confusing today. It can also be extremely expensive if you make a wrong choice. That is why it is important for you to discuss these matters with a trained, licensed insurance professional who has received the Medicare Supplement Accredited Advisor (MSAA) designation. I have been in the Medicare supplement insurance market for over 28 years and have satisfied many people with answers and solutions to the same questions that you will have. Since 1980 my office -- Physicians Mutual -- and I have been busy discussing and explaining the Medicare programs, such as Prescription Drug Plan, to our clients and prospects. When we meet I also deliver the Official Government Medicare Consumer Guide, which explains additional coverage and the various alternatives. Please don’t hesitate to contact me at: 402.391.9060 or toll-free at 1.800.776.1354.
by Jim Romanoff & the Test Kitchens of Eating Well Magazine (Countryman Press, $24.95)
Why do people buy long-term care insurance?
Remain independent
by JASON J. VELINSKY Operations Director Caretech, Inc. For the past nine years, Caretech, Inc. has quickly become a by KEVIN PEARCE one stop shop for seniors wanting to remain independent. The LUTCF, FSS There are a lot of good reasons. When we asked our policy- family owned organization has been developed with seniors’ holders why they feel a long-term care insurance policy is progression of needs in mind. Caretech has many program essential in today’s world, here’s what they told us: I know I’m choices to fit a variety of in-home care needs and budgets. The getting older; I want to stay at home; I’ve seen what happens to company offers Lifeline personal response systems as well as people who don’t have it; I don’t want my kids to take care of in-home caregiver services for individuals in Eastern Nebraska me; I don’t want to spend my life savings on long-term care and Western Iowa. A Caretech Lifeline System is a simple way to provide peace services; I want to leave an inheritance for my kids; or It’s the of mind if a senior is frequently alone and worried about falling. smart thing to do. Some policyholders also said there’s one reason they almost The system connects to a telephone line and offers assistance didn’t buy a long-term care insurance policy: they thought it was at the touch of a button. If the subscriber should fall, they only more expensive than it really is. A Mutual Care long-term care need to press their personal help button to receive immediate insurance policy from Mutual of Omaha Insurance Company personal assistance over the speaker phone unit. For seniors needing more care oriented services, Caretech provides coverage to help pay for the services you need in the setting that’s right for you – whether in your home, an assisted also offers qualified, trained caregivers to help with everything living facility or a nursing home. The policy covers the essential from housekeeping and meal preparation to errands and perlong-term care services people use most often, and that means sonal assistance. Caregivers are available to help as little as you don’t pay for a lot of extra features and benefits you may once a week for three hours. The visits and hours are based on the needs and schedule of each client. never need. The flexibility of care and economical options make I hope you’ll allow me to show you just how affordable a Mutual Care insurance policy can be. Please call or e-mail me Caretech’s programs affordable and tailored to each individual. soon. I’ll be happy to provide an assessment of your long-term Caretech’s website, www.caretechinc.com, offers more care insurance needs at no cost or obligation. Call me for more information about individual service. They can also be contacted by calling 402.697.5121. information: 402.502.6900. PAID ADVERTISEMENTS
YOUR CHOICE
AUTO™
Accident forgiveness Deductible rewards Safe driving bonus What’s not to love? Call me today for a quote!
Tim Wortman
10914 Elm Street • Omaha 402.390.2337 www.timwortman@allstate.com
Victoria Gardens affords a new beginning for individuals who need assisted living and support care for Alzheimer’s and related memory loss.
402-682-4295 1702 Hillcrest Drive Bellevue, NE www.victoriagardens.org
Locally Owned & Operated An Affiliate of Hillcrest Health Systems
READ IT AND E AT Reviewed by LOIS FRIEDMAN Healthy in a hurry ... all of these 150 recipes can be made in 15 to 45 minutes. Special icons are for Healthy Weight, Lower Carbs and High Fiber, Nutritional Data, Ingredient Notes and numerical instructions are part of the one recipe to-a-page format. “Getting It Together” is the guide to planning, shopping and cooking techniques and safety. Other chapters are Dinner Salads, Soups & Stews, Vegetarian Main Dishes, Chicken-Duck & Turkey, Fish & Seafood, Beef & Lamb, and Accompaniments. Several pages of Tips & Notes -- from blending hot liquids to water chestnuts. Special Tips for two and leftovers and storage. The international recipes are for two servings and are from apples to Zucchini Fettuccini Alfredo. Serve this 30 minute High Fiber recipe the next time you’re in the mood for chili. WHITE CHILI 2 teaspoons canola oil, divided 1 small onion, chopped 4 ounces ground chicken or turkey breast 1 4-ounce can chopped green chiles 1/4 teaspoon dried oregano 1/4 teaspoon ground cumin Pinch to 1/8 teaspoon cayenne pepper, to taste 1 15-ounce can white beans, rinsed 1 cup reduced-sodium chicken broth 1 teaspoon cider vinegar or 2 teaspoons lime juice Heat 1 teaspoon oil in a large saucepan over medium heat. Add onion and cook, stirring occasionally, until softened, about 5 minutes. Add the remaining 1 teaspoon oil and chicken (or turkey) and increase heat to mediumhigh. Cook, using the back of a spoon to break up the meat, until browned, about 2 minutes. Stir in chiles, oregano, cumin and cayenne. Cook, stirring occasionally, until fragrant, about 1 minute. Stir in beans and broth; bring to a simmer. Cook, stirring occasionally, until slightly reduced, about 10 minutes. Add vinegar (or lime juice). Makes 2 servings, 1 1/4 cups each. Lois Friedman can be reached at ReadItAndEat@yahoo.com.
Page 34
Jewish Press, Omaha, NE
December 21, 2007
“Cargill, Inc. is offering an approximately 30% moisture gypsum available for pick-up at its Blair, Nebr., facility. This gypsum is offered free of charge. If interested, contact Matt Gutzmann at (402) 5331494 or Matthew_Gutzmann@cargill.com. We will need to coordinate a pick-up schedule to ensure we have adequate gypsum and minimize the waiting lines.”
LOW ENERGY? Biofeedback Therapy can help you! Find out how. • Stress Reduction • Weight Issues • Anxiety/Phobias • Addictions Sandra Herzog
• Any dis-ease
CBS, MSW
Call for a free phone consultation!
Integrated Health, LLC • 321-2873 Located in Rockbrook Village • 108th & Center
FREE Generic Prescription Drugs
January—March 2008 Prescriptions filled with a generic drug will be free for all eligible* Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Nebraska members. Talk to your physician to see if a generic is available and appropriate to treat your condition. Prescriptions have never been more affordable now that we’re picking up the tab on generics. Visit genericsfromneblues.com for details.
An Independent Licensee of the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association.
Making Health Care Costs Easier to Swallow *Some Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Nebraska members are not eligible to participate in this offer. Offer valid January 1, 2008–March 31, 2008. Contract limitations and exclusions apply. For more information, go to www.genericsfromneblues.com.
Visit
a premier website developed exclusively for the security needs of the mature individual.
!!
"#" #!$ % & $%$ $ ""
Jewish penicillin: Fact, fiction and flavor
PEOPLE OF THE
BYTE
by MARK MIETKIEWICZ Did Bubbe know from neutrophils? Unlikely. But Bubbe did know that a steaming bowl of chicken soup would probably cure what ails you. And even if it didn’t, it wouldn’t hurt either. That too seems to be the consensus of science community. Chicken soup, aka the Jewish Penicillin, certainly won’t hurt and may just make you better. How far do the curative powers go? According to drugs.com, “therapeutic observations were recorded as far back as 60 A.D. by Pedacius Dioscorides, an army surgeon under the emperor Nero. He was responsible for the book ‘De Materia Medica,’ which, among other natural science knowledge, discusses chicken soup.” [http:// tinyurl.com/3cqnd8] As for the approbation of a doctor with a Jewish bubbe, that would have to wait several centuries. The medieval Jewish philosopher and physician advised that “the meat taken should be that of hens or roosters and their broth should also be taken because this sort of fowl has virtue in rectifying corrupted humors.” Chicken soup also works on hemorrhoids, constipation, leprosy and on respiratory illnesses like the common cold. [http://tinyurl.com/ lz1f] According to drugs.com, a modern controversy dates to 1975 when “the editor of the journal ‘Chest’ published the scientific spoof on uncontrolled studies entitled ‘Chicken Soup Rebound and Relapse of Pneumonia: Report of a Case.’ The patients suffered severe pneumonia requiring a thoracostomy and treatment with penicillin after he discontinued a course of self-treatment with chicken soup.” [http://tinyurl.com/2nyc87] That sparked five years of “correspondence over the next five years expounding the virtues of chicken soup.” For the definitive word of chicken soup research, most people now turn to the work of Omahan Dr. Stephen Rennard. In 2000, he began investigating the elixir for amusement value. Then the pulmonary specialist at the University of Nebraska Medical Center realized that soup could have genuine value. He theorized if soup can
A tradition built on care by CAROL FEELHAVER Community Relations Director for Bickford Assisted Living The Bickford tradition of Senior Living evolved from a personal journey of owner’s Don and Judie Eby. When Judie’s mother, Mary Bickford, was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, the family faced the difficult decision of selecting the right residential care facility. The options were limited. They searched for a residence that possessed all the elements of home but also provided the necessary support services to offer the family peace of mind, when they couldn’t find one they built their own. Omaha is home to two Bickford Assisted Living residences, both specializing in a full range of assisted living services. Their Foundational Belief, “Created to care for our family, devoted to serving yours.” has lifted Bickford Senior Living to a leadership role in the development of senior housing communities. The company now has over 36 communities across the Midwest. Bickford is committed to providing an assisted living environment that affords their residents the highest possible level of independence while providing a support system for their current and future needs. Medication management, bathing, dressing and grooming assistance, as well as a wide array of other personal services, can be provided. Hospice, home health, physical and occupational therapy, can all be brought in to enhance the resident’s services. Fully staffed with certified and licensed caregivers, Bickford Assisted Living provides a variety of healthcare services. Using the flexible care program, Bickford can easily adjust to meet the individuals needs of each resident. They also accommodate wheelchairs, walkers and memory care support as the need arises. All apartments feature: 24 hour emergency response system, Voice-to-Voice staff communication, Handicap accessible bathrooms, Walk-in showers, and Individual temperature control. All rooms are filled with the resident's own furniture and personal treasures; each of the one and two bed room apartments feels like home. Bickford Assisted Living has two convenient locations in Omaha: 11307 Blondo St. and 7337 Hickory St. For more information or arrange a tour of the residences, please call 402.491.0400 or 391.3000.
stop or reduce inflammation of upper tract common in colds, it might reduce the symptoms of a cold. (Rennard conducted his tests in vitro. We still await the definitive test of human subjects on a soup regimen.) As reported by CNN, Rennard “found that chicken soup and many of its ingredients helped stop the movement of neutrophils -- white blood cells that eat up bacteria and cellular debris and which are released in great numbers by viral infections like colds.” [http://tinyurl. com/y4fwem] After administering some of his wife’s grandma’s Chicken Soup along with various store-bought soups, he found that all soups were equally effective in reducing inflammation. I highly recommend visiting this site that combines medical research, photos of the Rennard family in the kitchen along with the recipe for Grandma’s Soup. [http://tinyurl.com/29v48f] The CBC Television consumer program Martketplace has also taken a look at chicken soup’s possible medicinal value. They interviewed Dr. Rennard along with contagious disease specialist Dr. Allison McGeer who says there is no scientific evidence to back the healing powers of chicken soup. [http://tinyurl.com/lz1f] Two believers are Abraham Ohry, MD and Jenni Tsafrir, PhD. The Israeli researchers asked the World Health Organization to declare chicken soup an “essential drug.” Ohry and Tsafrir’s rationale: “We feel certain that, despite the absence of significantly statistical evidence from scientific studies, chicken soup is here to stay as part of the armamentarium of traditional effective remedies. In answer to the question, whether it be a drug or not, chicken soup is ... essential.” [http://tinyurl. com/2ezhu4] The curative powers of Jewish chicken soup have even been proven in court. Well moot court, at least. In making his historic ruling that the broth deserves its reputation as the Jewish penicillin, Municipal Judge George Choppelas of the Court of Historical Review and Appeals “took due note of Alexander Fleming, the Scottish scientist credited with the discovery of penicillin. Civilization had to wait centuries for ‘something better’ than chicken soup, he said.” [http://tinyurl.com/ysmjb4] Whatever the scientists (and the judges) determine, I don’t think anyone would disagree with Dr. Andrew Weil who suggests that the true value of chicken soup goes beyond its ingredients. “The cultural implications Continued on page 35
Help for seniors who want to stay home by TRISHA GROTH Director of Marketing - Home Instead Senior Care Independence is a concept dear to all Americans, but it is especially important to seniors who want to remain in their homes and remain independent. Home Instead Senior Care allows them to do just that. The company, which is the world’s largest provider of non-medical companionship and home care services, was founded in 1994 by Omaha natives Paul and Lori Hogan. Today, more than 27,000 CAREGivers provide one-on-one assistance through more than 700 locally owned franchise offices in the United States, Canada, Japan, Portugal, Australia and Ireland. Local offices are located in Omaha, Bellevue and Fremont. Home Instead Senior Care’s services include companionship, meal preparation, medication reminders, light housekeeping, errands, shopping, incidental transportation, bathing, grooming, incontinence care, and so much more! Their services are also available to families seeking help with Alzheimer’s/Dementia care and respite services. Home Instead Senior Care provides award-winning training programs for both their owners and the CAREGivers they hire. “I’ve learned to step inside the world of the person with Alzheimer’s. The training prepared me to give my clients all the respect, compassion, and patience they deserve,” said a Home Instead CAREGiver. All CAREGivers are bonded, insured, and go through extensive screening; which includes drug testing, a DMV check, an APS check, a CPS check, a criminal background check, and a minimum of six qualified reference checks. Home Instead Senior Care has been recognized by Inc. magazine as one of the country’s fastest growing private companies. Entrepreneur magazine ranks it as the number one non-medical senior care company in the nation, and Home Instead Senior Care is regularly honored as one of Omaha’s top twentyfive fastest-growing companies. For older adults, Home Instead Senior Care can be the difference between counting the years and living them. Please call for a free, no obligation service visit today at 498-3444!
PAID ADVERTISEMENTS
December 21, 2007
Enjoy adult day services at Heritage Pointe by TRACY ZINK Adult Day Services are designed to help Improve and preserve each individual’s physical and mental health, reduce isolation, prevent decline of abilities, and improve the overall quality of life. Utilizing the Adult Day Service also allows caregivers to continue working outside the home, receive help with the physical care of a loved one, and have respite from what can be a round-the-clock responsibility. There are three types of Adult Day Services that will be offered at Heritage Pointe: social, health related, and dementia specific. Social programming is designed to meet the social and/or emotional needs of adults whose wellbeing could be threatened by a lack of companionship, socialization, and stimulation. Health services are designed for those who want to live independently in the community but have a health condition which needs regular monitoring including: diabetes, high blood pressure, or complications caused by stroke or heart attack. And finally, Dementia Specific, or Memory Loss services are the best choice for families coping with Alzheimer's disease or other conditions causing memory loss. Each type of services offers activities and programs that place emphasis on failurefree activities, increasing sensory experiences, and accentuating abilities that enhance self-esteem. Regardless of the type of service needed, one can be assured that activities are designed with each participant’s level of ability and interests in mind and will occur in a safe, supportive and homelike environment. A typical day may include: intergenerational activities, music, art, nutritious meals, recreation and exercise, nursing care, education and assistance with activities of daily living. Heritage Pointe is located at the corner of 168th and Blondo, approximately one mile north of the Village Pointe shopping mall. Other services include assisted living apartments, a memory support community, and the adult day services. Heritage Pointe is a welcoming family that provides nurturing assistance, family comfort, and peace of mind to residents and their families. Tours are always available and reservations are being accepted for all programs. Additional program information can be obtained by calling me at 614-.5222 or via email, tzink@heritagepointeomaha.com.
Jewish Press, Omaha, NE
Page 35
Jewish penicillin: Fact, fiction and flavor Continued from page 34 of comfort, love and caring is captured in a mixture that fills your nose and warms your inside.” [http://tinyurl. com/ywu4jf] But for all its amazing curative properties, there are some things chicken soup can’t do. I’ll leave the last word to author Arthur Naiman. “Chicken Soup: An
ancient miracle drug containing equal parts of aureomycin, cocaine, interferon, and TLC. The only ailment chicken soup can’t cure is neurotic dependence on one’s mother.” [http://tinyurl.com/29fknw] Mark Mietkiewicz is a Toronto-based Internet producer who writes, lectures and teaches about the Jewish Internet. He can be reached at highway@rogers.com.
The “insperience” trend is here How to avoid an estate by DAN L. ZONGKER planning nightmare Zongkers Custom Woods, Inc You’re familiar with ‘Cocooning,’ right? A familiar trend in the 80s and early 90s was the need to retreat from the harsh realities of life. The millennium has brought us the new age, a new outlook on the future and a new trend now being called “Insperience.” The consumers desire to bring top level professional experiences into their homes. Whether it is sports courts, home theaters, fine dining facilities, wine rooms or refrigerated beer kegs; the homeowner is bringing the outside world into their safe haven. What could be better then sitting around your private bar, sipping a cold beverage or watching your favorite movie with family and friends? The “Insperience” trend is here and we all find ourselves participating. Designs compliment each individual’s personality as we feel the need to customize our surroundings to fit our taste and desires. No longer is the small bar in the corner of a room, but a grand party room decorated nostalgic of the 50s. Television’s no longer contained in consoles, but now are home theaters giving us the full experience. Kitchens are no longer utility driven, but now more gourmet complimented and designed for the family to gather. Our lifestyles have changed and with this have come the new trend, “Insperience”. Bringing our outside experiences into our homes. Zongkers has dedicated themselves in product research and design to accommodate these special rooms within the home. Consumers with “space to spare” are thinking game rooms, home theaters, party rooms, home offices, wine cellars and home spas. Whatever the need and desire, we can provide elegant designs and quality furnishings to help achieve the ultimate “Insperience”. Contact us at: 402.344.7784 or dz@zongkers.com. PAID ADVERTISEMENTS
Research Center of Excellence II Opening January 2009
by RICHARD M. DWORNIK, MBA, JD Have you ever been asked by an attorney or financial planner if you have all of your estate planning done? Usually when I ask this question the answer is “yes”. However, upon further questioning the answer changes to “no” or “I’m not sure”. Why is that? I find that it always hinges on the fact that “you don’t know what you don’t know”. There are plenty of so called “experts” out there who are always giving out free advice and muddying the waters. Yet all of these so called “experts” always have a disclaimer stating “I am not an attorney and if you rely on my information you do so at your own risk”. Why would anyone rely on that kind of information? Yet, I see it all the time. Many times well meaning parents inadvertently disinherit their children because they did something without fully understanding the consequences of their actions. For example, if you are single (including widowed/widower) when you die and you leave only a house and a checking account which are titled jointly with one child, that child will receive everything you own when you die and you have disinherited your other children. This is true even if you have a will that leaves everything equally to your children. This is a very common mistake and creates hard feelings between children yet it can be avoided through proper planning. This is just one of the many mistakes I see all the time. The best advice I can give you is to not rely on free advice from the so called “experts” and consult with an attorney who practices in the area of Estate Planning to have your planning reviewed or updated on a regular basis. You may contact me at 402.578.6480 or e-mail me at richard@dwornik.com.
Michael F. Sorrell Center for Health Science Education Opening Fall 2008
Page 36
Jewish Press, Omaha, NE
December 21, 2007
Uncork A better life!
Like a fine wine, Embassy lives up to your tastes! Sophisticated and smooth, Embassy is the
ULTIMATE CAREFREE LIVING EXPERIENCE!
Brand new designs - open FLoor Plans - elevators - underground parking - video recorded entry - CARING STAFF - FITNESS CENTER - prime location
At its heart, a community is its people. As an active community, Embassy instantly connects residents through shared interests. All the amenities, technology and activities are intended to provide a greater sense of community and help people connect with those around them.
Tempt Your Palate
Today!
90th & Dodge
(402) 397-7788 w w w . e m b a s s y p a r k a p a r t m e n t s . c o m