February 21, 2025 | 23 Shevat 5785
Candlelighting 5:45 p.m. | Havdalah 6:45 p.m. | Vol. 68, No. 8 | pittsburghjewishchronicle.org
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Rodef Shalom, Temple Sinai Former continue with unification talks Chronicle editor Joel Roteman dies at 87
NOTEWORTHY LOCAL Widening community
The benefits of day school Shabbatons LOCAL
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Partnering for peace
Joel Roteman (left) and former Chronicle General Manager Albert Zecher accept an award on behalf of the paper.
File photo courtesy of Joel Roteman
Multicultural Sharaka to visit Pittsburgh
By Deborah Weisberg | Special to the Chronicle
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LOCAL
Please see Unification, page 10
Please see Roteman, page 10
Photo by NadineDoerle courtesy of Pixabay
By David Rullo | Senior Staff Writer
The wisdom of Roy Horovitz
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LOCAL "I Never Saw Another Butterfly"
Holocaust-themed show opening at Prime Stage Page 14
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n his book “Cheshbon HaNefesh,” Menachem Mendel Lefin of Satanov writes, “All your acts should be preceded by deliberation.” It’s a lesson leaders of Rodef Shalom Congregation and Temple Sinai have internalized. In December 2023, the two Reform congregations announced plans to begin exploring the idea of collaboration through an “18-month intentional and targeted process with the goal of strengthening our Reform Jewish community,” according to a joint letter sent to congregants from Rodef Shalom President Bill Battistone and Temple Sinai President Stephen Jurman. Since that time, they have engaged merger consultant David Weinberg and begun examining the functions of the congregations in six broad categories: financial, community, education, legal, operations and ritual.
Event Planning Coming February 28
Wollwerth Imagery/Adobe Stock
Battistone said that about 150 members of the two congregations have joined the six different committees in some capacity throughout the process. The goal, according to an email sent in February to the congregations' members, is to “establish where we align, where we have difference, and what a unified congregation would look like in each area.” Battistone said the deliberative process appears slow but is "purposeful” and “meaningful.” Early on, he said, time was spent looking at congregations across the country that have unified. “One of the things we realized when we talked to congregations who have gone through a unification — and maybe it didn’t work out as perfectly as they wanted it to — one of the common themes was that they
hen, in 1986, a rabbinical student was murdered on a Squirrel Hill street in a random act of antisemitism, The Jewish Chronicle’s executive editor Joel Roteman received phone tips about the identity of the shooter, which he passed on to authorities. “Joel got the calls because he was seen by the community as the right person to go to,” recalled Iris Samson, the Chronicle’s assistant editor at the time. “People were frightened but Joel held steady.” Samson worked with Roteman for all of the 18 years that he was at the helm of The Jewish Chronicle (now the Pittsburgh Jewish Chronicle), writing award-winning editorials, covering news locally and abroad, and mentoring young journalists. Roteman died Jan. 27 at age 87, leaving behind Micki, his wife of 60 years, daughter Phyllis Roteman, of Los Angeles, and son Dan Roteman, of Hillsborough, New Jersey. “Joel was the quintessential Pittsburgher but also the quintessential newsman who brought his professionalism every day to the Chronicle,” said Samson, who went on to work
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