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Partnership2Gether Young Adult Delegation Visits Omaha

Temple Israel Honors Roffman/Norton Family Pages 4 & 7

Rediscovering Federation Presidents: Harry Trustin (1960-1962) Page 8

JAY KATELMAN JFO Director of Community Development rom May 17–19, Omaha had the privilege of hosting an Israeli and Hungarian Young Adult Delegation through Partnership2Gether. Following their participation in the Young Adults Shabbaton in Louisville, delegation leader Sivan Friedman Lavi, along

F The Kaplan Book Group Looks at Art World Secrets Page 12

with Keren Meyer, Shlomi Cohen, Nahal Cohen, Lilach Agra, Lior Birak, Michal Cohen, Istvan Barsony, and Tal Beri Hatan, spent several days engaging with our community and experiencing all that Omaha has to offer. The delegation arrived Sunday afternoon and started their stay by touring the Staenberg Kooper Fellman Campus. They were incredibly impressed by the See Partnership2Gether page 3

A Voice from Israel: Living on the Border

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

It is hard to understand life on Israel’s northern border through headlines a l o n e . RACHEL KOLETTE S o m e - WHEELER times, we Collective Lavo-B’tov glimpse it Co-founding Director through the life of someone finding his own way to live inside it. “I’m popular today,” Natanel

joked when I reached him this week at his home in Metula. Everyone, it turned out, was checking in after an explosive drone struck a house not far from him in Israel’s northernmost town along the Lebanese border. Before the war, Metula was the kind of place Israelis escaped to for quiet weekends - mountain air, small guesthouses, and quiet weekends away from city life. In winter, many visitors continued on to ski at nearby Mount Hermon. For more than two years, life there has felt more like a battlefield than the picturesque town people once escaped to. Fruit orchards were destroyed, homes were shelled, and daily life unfolded under the constant presence of Hezbollah just across the border fence. Officially, the current situation is described as a ceasefire. In the reality of northern Israel, the war is

still very much present. Natanel, who was born and raised in Metula, is in his early forties and works as a translator, writer, lecturer, and digital music creator. He lives with CP and uses a wheelchair. After Oct. 7, he spent more than a year living out of a small hotel room in Tiberias after residents of northern Israel were evacuated. A hotel room feels very different when one is forced to live there through months of sirens, uncertainty, and the constant knowledge that back home, the war — and the damage — continue without you. For Natanel, the situation was even more complicated. Because he uses a wheelchair, reaching the hotel shelter during missile attacks and interceptions was often unrealistic. There were evenings when he would call me from the rooftop while watching the skies See A Voice from Israel page 2

Remembering Esther Silver ANNETTE VAN DE KAMPWRIGHT, Jewish Press Editor and JOE SILVER Esther Silver, who died April 11, was born in Będzin, Poland, on Sept. 20, 1924. She grew up with her parents and three younger brothers, Schmuelick, Alter and Herschel. They were close with their neighbors, and the synagogue was nearby.

Esther Silver. Credit: David Radler “My father and mother had a small business, and we made a living,” she told Ben Nachman in a 1996 interview for the Shoah Foundation. “We lived in a big apartment house and had a nice apartment. I had a lot of uncles and aunts and cousins, as well as friends. We used to go and visit on Shabbos and Saturday.” Back then, Esther also had two grandmothers, and one grandfather. She and her siblings spent summers with their grandparents in nearby Jarczówek. They would take a horse and wagon to get there when she was little. School began when she was seven years old; surrounded by only Jewish students, she was instructed mainly in Polish, with religious studies being taught in Yiddish. Girls and boys each went to their separate Jewish schools. Esther attended two schools during the day, and another one in the evening, because her parents saw the importance of a well-rounded education. “Especially Friday afternoon,” Esther remembered, “the preparing for Shabbat was so special. You had special clothes, special food. Oh, all week you worked hard. You toiled, you know, to make a living. But Friday afternoon when the Shabbat comes it was something special.” Her mother would bake See Esther Silver page 3