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BLUFFS. LINCOLN, OMAHA Omaha, Neb., Fri., June 19,1381
Groundbreaking, Campaign Kick-off Set for Juiy14 Groundbreaking for the Livingston Plaza and the community kick-off of the fund-raising campaign for the construction of the Rose Blumkln Jewish Home will take place on Tuesday, July 14. Ground will be broken for the Livingston Plaza, apartment complex for the well elderly, at 7 p.m. This will be followed at 8 p.m. by the kick-off of the $3,600,000
fund-raising campaign for the Rose Blumkln Jewish Home. Announcement of the two events was made jointly this week by Harlan Noddle and Isadore Tretiak, cochairmen of the Phase III Steering Committee, Leonard (Buddy) Goldstein, Finance Committee chairman, and Nancy Greenberg, Housing Committee chairman.
RELIGIOUS NEWS SERVICE PHOTO
Israelis Shout "Viva Begin" TEL AVIV, Israel—As toe morning newspapers in Tel Aviv, hit the stands on June 9 reporting the Israel Air Force raid on a nuclear reactor plant near Baghdad, Iraq, citizens greet the news with shouts of "Viva Begin" and praise for the bombing attack. Many other Israelis were reportedly disturbed by the feeling that the timing of the mission had been influenced by the upcoming elections — though this was strongly denied by Prime Minister Menachem Begin, who asserted that "reliable sources" had Indicated that the Iraqi plant could be ready for operation possibly as early as July.
Omaha Hosts 'Pro-Lifers' The National Right to Life Convention will be held in Omaha this weekend with a program which began June 18 and will run through June 21. Included In the weekend's events Is an Interfalth worship service on June 21, 8 a.m. at the Holiday Inn Convention Center 1-80 and 72nd Street.. This will be followed at 9:30 a.m. by an Interdenominational prayer breakfast. A variety of workshops are scheduled including "Bias for Life—a conservative Jewish approach to abortion" (10:30 a.m. June 19) with Rabbi Seymour Sicgel, Terry Piccolo and Moderator Bunnie Gronborg. In addition to the workshops and general sessions, there will be a rally in the Central Park Mall on June 20, 3:30 p.m. All Convention events are open to the public.
Talmud Fellowships Offered
Founder's Gift Mrs. Freda Felnberg Is presented with a certificate In recognition of her having given a Founder's Gift of $10,000 for Hadassah's Medical Relief Association. The gift was given In honor of her daughter, Mrs. Mona Crandell, granddaughter, Mrs. Jayne Schneider, and great-granddaughter, Robyn Leah. Mrs. Felnberg's name Is Inscribed on the Founder's Wall in the Hadassah Hospital on Mount Scopus, Jerusalem. Presenting the certificate Is Mrs. Dorothy Bucksbaum, regional chairman of Major Gifts In Fund-raising.
NEW YORK (JTA) — A gift of $200,000 has made possible the establishment of two graduate fellowships In Talmudic studies at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, according to Chancellor Gerson D. Cohen. The fellowships will be called the Professor Saul Lieberman and Dr. Judith Lieberman Fellowships in honor of the famous Talmudic scholar and his late wife. The gift came from the Dr. Bernard Heller Foundation. In letters to Herman J. Harris and Arthur Schaffer, foundation co-managers, Cohen expressed his and the Conservative seminary's appreciation for the gift.
AAareia Cohen Heads Women's Bond Drive Jeri Kaplan, outgoing chair- the community." man of the Omaha Women's For further information Division of Israel Bonds, an- about the forthcoming Omaha nounces that the 1981 General Women's Division Israel Bond Chairman of the Women's Di- campaign, call 341-1177. vision will be Marcia Cohen. Mrs. Cohen will be the 24th Women's Division chairman since Israel Bonds began in Omaha in 1951. In accepting, Mrs. Cohen The residents of the Dr. Sher stated, "I realize the chal- Home Invite their families and lenge is even greater this friends to an Open House on year, and I will do my utmost Sunday, June 28, from 2 to 4. to continue the accomA tea table and bazaar will plishments of the Women's Di- be part of this annual event. vision. The women of Omaha Items hand-made by some of have walked along new paths, the residents will be for sale, set new patterns of commu- and the entire community nity action, set new standards may attend. The Dr. Sher for Women's purchases, and Home is located at 4801 No. have had a growing impact on 52nd street.
Sher Home Open House
an 100 Years Old By Rabbi Ira Elsensteln President, Reconstructlonlst Rabbinical College Copyright ISS1. Jrwuh Telegraphic Agrary, I>*
On June 11, Mordccai Kaplan became 100 years of age. When he entered upon his centennial year last June, he recelvea numberless messages of gratitude from Jews all over the Jewish world, for he Is recognized as the one man who has taught at least three generations of Jews how to think about Judaism in the modern world. The extent of his influence has yet to be fully assessed; but already books and periodicals are appearing, and colloquia and symposia are being held to explore the contributions of this remarkable individual. The century which his life (may It continue for additional years) has spanned has been, for the world at large, and for the Jewish people in particular, an extraordinary one, a century which began, as it were, with the May Laws of 1881 in Czarlst Russia. These cruel edicts caused waves of Jewish immigration to the new world, and led to the creation of a new, prosperous and powerful American Jewry. But in Europe, they were the harbingers of an anti-Semitism which led to the death camps and the gas chambers, destroying one third of the Jewish people.
It has been a century of terror and triumph, of golden opportunities, for some, of ghastly slavery and dehumanlzatlon for others. It has been a century of death and resurrection. During these years the will to disappear from human history vied with the will to reenter the arena of world history. It was a century in which every conceivable panacea was offered to the Jews to enable them to cope with freedom In some places and Jew-hatred in others. It was a century which witnessed the emergence of outstanding scholars, artists, musicians, scientists and statesmen; and it was a century which challenged to the utmost the Intellectual skill of philosophers who sought to guide the Jewish people through this turbulent time. It was a century which produced the State of Israel. One month after the issuance of the May Laws In 1881, Mordecai Kaplan was born. The tidal wave of immigration brought his family and himself to America a few years later. From that moment on, his life and the life and destiny of the Jewish people were united. Perhaps no man ever became more obsessed with'a cause than he; for him the cause was the survival of the Jewish people, physically, spiritually, culturally, from heder to yeshivah, from public school to university, from the Jewish Theological Seminary to the Reconstructlonlst Rabbinical College, he clung to his single purpose, the reconstruction of Judaism for the twen-'
tieth century. Every discipline became grist for the mill; history, sociology, psychology, ethics, anthropology, literature, whatever he could learn from any source was enlisted in the cause of saving Judaism from the "acids of modernity." In his teaching and his learning, his preaching and his public activity, living and working in New York or in Jerusalem or in Los Angeles, he never allowed his attention to wander from his chosen goal. He suppressed his temptation to develop his talent for sculpture; he forced himself to turn a deaf ear to the seductive sounds of music — unless from art and music and drama he might draw strength for his battle against the steady disintegration of Jewish life. His total preoccupation with the problem of Judaism grew out of his clear and unflinching view of the dangers to the Jewish people and to Judaism, from without and from within. He recognized very early that this was a period through which Jews would experience unprecedented problems, problems of hate and self-hate, problems of theological doubts, problems of counter-acting the centifugal forces of powerful and attractive non-Jewish cultures, problems growing out'of the failure of Jews themselves to understand the nature of the chair lenges and the nature of the Judaism which they purported to (Continued on Page 2)