The Voice of the Lehigh Valley Jewish Community
www.jewishlehighvalley.org
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Issue No. 462
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February 2023
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Sh’vat/Adar 5783
AWARD-WINNING PUBLICATION EST. 1977
Inclusivity, accessibility: More than just a ramp p5
Our ‘Kids at Camp and Beyond’ special section will help get you ready for summer p13-22
FROM THE DESK OF JERI ZIMMERMAN p3 MITZVAH DAY p4 LVJF TRIBUTES p8 JEWISH DAY SCHOOL p10 JEWISH FAMILY SERVICE p11 JEWISH COMMUNITY CENTER p16-17 COMMUNITY CALENDAR p23
Our first-ever antisemitism summit
Lawmakers, security experts, law enforcement officials to gather with community By Aaron Gorodzinsky
Director of Campaign and Security Planning
It’s not an underestimation to say that every single member of our Jewish community is more concerned than ever about antisemitism and finding solutions that will ensure that our community feels safe and supported. People want to know that our efforts to combat antisemitism are having an impact. Every day, I meet members of our community who are frightened by the current climate in our country and by the news about attacks on the Jewish community in our nation and abroad. Even our local community has been targeted by antisemitism. There was an the incident in
Bethlehem where four individuals walked around Christkindlmarkt wearing messages of hate on their shirts. At the same time, our community has received tremendous support from our elected officials at the local and state level. But that is not enough. That’s why we have spoken more and more over the last few months about standing up to antisemitism, joining the national campaign to Shine a Light on antisemitism. Now we are inviting experts, elected officials and law enforcement partners to join our first-ever Summit to Combat Antisemitism on March 12 at Muhlenberg College. Cosponsored by the AntiDefamation league (ADL),
the summit will feature four panels of experts, each focusing on an important element of combating antisemitism. We will begin the summit by looking at the rise of antisemitism and extremism in Pennsylvania through presentations by the ADL Center on Extremism, the Secure Community Network (SCN) and the Pennsylvania State Police to understand where we stand today and what can we do to alter the current trend. The second panel will bring experts from the Israel Action Network, the SCN and the ADL to talk about tracking antisemitism, about how important it is to document incidents better as part of bringing attention to the situation and of lobbying our elected officials at the state
and national level to do more to protect the Jewish community with increased security funding and by enacting steeper penalties for perpetrators of antisemitic acts. On the third panel, our elected officials and our representative from the Pennsylvania Jewish Coalition will talk about what the state is doing to enact laws and provide security funding to combat antisemitism. There is a lot that can be achieved at the state level, and we want our elected officials to guide us in how to lobby more effectively, to let us know what is achievable given the laws and regulations in our state, and to give us their views on where we can expect better outcomes. Based on their
feedback, we will have action items available for all attendees so we can follow up after the summit. After a long day focused on antisemitism, the last panel is about hope. Members of the Bethlehem Interfaith Group will talk about faithful approaches to combat hate and antisemitism. The group has been meeting for a few years to find ways to work together as a community of faith to understand one another and support one another when needed. Here they will showcase what they have done. The summit is open to everyone in the Lehigh Valley. To learn more and to RSVP to the event, visit our website at jewishlehighvalley.org/ calendar or scan the QR code on page 5.
Openly Jewish Shapiro sworn in on Jewish Bibles From Jewish Telegraphic Agency and Jewish News Agency reports
On the day before Josh Shapiro was set to be sworn in as Pennsylvania’s 48th governor, he had somewhere important to be: the Jewish Community Center in the state capital of Harrisburg. Shapiro and his family spent that day, January 16, volunteering at the Alexander Grass Campus for Jewish Life, which was hosting a Martin Luther King Day celebration
for the region. It was a pre-inauguration stop that made sense for Shapiro. From his stint as Pennsylvania’s attorney general to his gubernatorial campaign ads to his election victory speech, Shapiro has long woven his Jewish identity into his politics, making him an archetype for a new breed of Jewish politicians. “They seem above politics because they exude pride,” Scott Lasensky, a professor of American Jewish studies at Non-Profit Organization
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the University of Maryland, said about Shapiro and other Jewish politicians who publicly demonstrate comfort with their identity. “It offers a much-needed respite from the reactive, defense posture that has seized the community.” As Shapiro was sworn in on Tuesday, the 17th, on a stack of three Hebrew Bibles — including one from Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life synagogue, where a gunman massacred 11 Jewish worshipers in 2018 — a novelty became reality: A Jewish day school grad and dad is now one of the most influential elected officials in the United States. “Now is the time to join together behind the unifying strength of three simple truths that have sustained our nation over the past two-and-a-half centuries,” Shapiro said: “that above all else, beyond any momentary political differences, we value our freedom, we cherish our democracy and we
love this country.” After the swearing in, the day of celebration continued on a schedule that included a sold-out concert with performances by rappers Wiz Khalifa and Meek Mill, Rock and Roll Hall of Famer Smokey Robinson and the rock group Josh Shapiro gets sworn in as Pennsylvania’s govenor. Mt. Joy. Back in Novema dozen of them have said in ber, Shapiro said in his victory interviews that the 49-year-old speech that “you’ve heard me graduate of Akiba Hebrew quote my scripture before, that Academy (now Jack M. Barno one is required to complete rack Hebrew Academy) has the task, but neither are we openly melded Jewishness and free to refrain from it, meaning activism since his early teens, each of us has a responsibilpracticing a politics of bringity to get off the sidelines, to ing together disparate commuget in the game and to do our nities with his Jewish identity part.” at the core. It was a speech that “He gets done what he Shapiro’s friends, teachers and needs to get done, what he associates might have enviwants to get done,” said Robin sioned decades ago. Nearly Shapiro sworn in Continues on page 2