July 5, 2024 | 29 Sivan 5784
Candlelighting 8:35 p.m. | Havdalah 9:42 p.m. | Vol. 67, No. 27 | pittsburghjewishchronicle.org
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LOCAL Lenda volorei ciendi non re nus A special homecoming
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Showing solidarity: Federation Local Christian leaders discuss leads mission to Israel ‘reckoning with antisemitism’ By David Rullo | Senior Staff Writer
T group met when they traveled to Israel from June 18 to 23. It was the Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh’s second trip to the Jewish state since Oct. 7, when Hamas terrorists invaded Israel, murdering more than 1,200 people and taking more than 250 hostages. “We came to bear witness, we came to see our impact and we came to stand with Israel,” said Brian Eglash, the Federation’s senior vice president and chief development officer. “To be there and stand with Israel at this point in time was incredible.” Sheba Medical Center, the leading hospital in the Middle East and an internationally recognized health care facility, was just one stop on the travelers’ itinerary. Pittsburghers visited the site of the Nova music festival, the Negev desert rave where Hamas terrorists committed brutal acts of sexual violence and murdered hundreds of people on Oct. 7. “There were hundreds upon hundreds of pictures there,” Eglash said. “You really see the enormity of it. You see these young faces and they were murdered because they were Jewish. These are future generations that were extinguished.” The travelers also met with families affected by the Oct. 7 attacks, with soldiers, and with municipal officials in Karmiel and Misgav, communities in Pittsburgh’s Partnership2Gether program.
he Rev. Liddy Barlow and community organizer Noah Schoen understand that wrestling with antisemitism as a Christian can be hard. The process involves confronting sacred texts and personal interactions in a way that might be uncomfortable. So, the pair were pleasantly surprised when more than 80 members of Pittsburgh’s Christian community, including nearly 50 clergy leaders, registered to attend the Christian Associates of Southwest Pennsylvania’s program “Reckoning with Antisemitism as Christians” on June 27. Barlow, executive minister of Christian Associates, and Schoen, the community outreach associate at the Holocaust Center of Greater Pittsburgh, facilitated the night’s discussion, which included Bishop Kurt Kusserow of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America’s Southwestern Pennsylvania Synod; Greta Stokes Tucker of the National Catholic Center for Holocaust Education; and the Rev. Leeann Younger of Cityview Church, an Evangelical Covenant Church. Barlow opened the conversation by recognizing that reckoning with antisemitism as Christians might involve examining cherished texts “with a critical lens that can sometimes make us squirm.” “It can be hard,” she said, “to discover ways that which is most precious to us has been used as a weapon against our neighbors. It can be hard to discover that this ancient form of hate has been mixed up in a tradition that we understand to be all about love.” This discovery, she noted, can be all the more difficult in light of the war in Gaza. The program, held in the John Knox Room at the Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, began with each participant introducing themself and explaining how they first became aware of Jews and Judaism. Speaking from a spartan stage adorned with a minimal cross, Younger said that she grew up in a Baptist, evangelical home.
Please see Mission, page 10
Please see Antisemitism, page 10
The Branch opens Falk House Et odictiumqui andae amusam Page 4 quistium LOCAL si de net voloritat
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Meet Alan Olifson LOCAL Ovit, ommodi remos ero
From left: Margorie Manne and Jan Levinson volunteer with the Federation on its mission to Israel. Photo courtesy of the Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh By Justin Vellucci | Special to the Chronicle
Comedian and storyteller lights up the stage Page 5
LOCAL Fodictiumqui aut entis andae asimuss Finding inspiration in Israel
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LOCAL Minto volupta ssimim
Reflections of a Chabad on Campus emissary Page 7
LOCAL A rodeo princess among us Lenda nus dolorum re pro mi, cuptati ntibus.
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Nomi Milmaster is master of horsemanship Page 15
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obody planned to meet Yosi. While 11 Pittsburghers last month toured Sheba Medical Center — a 2,000-bed hospital in Tel HaShomer, near Tel Aviv — the 39-year-old IDF soldier simply approached them and asked if they would listen to his story. An ambulance driver and father of five, Yosi braved a 14-hour-long firefight with terrorists on Oct. 7 in a northwestern swath of Israel’s Negev desert. At Kibbutz Be’eri, just 2.5 miles from the Gaza border, Yosi estimated he rescued some 25 families — about 70 people. Hamas terrorists killed more than 130 men, women and children at the 75-year-old kibbutz, 10% of its residents. Hamas terrorists shot Yosi several times, including in his legs. As he lay on the ground, bleeding and anticipating death, he said he prayed the Shema. A medic, though, found Yosi and, after a traumatic day that foreshadowed the months of war that followed, he entered Sheba, which houses Israel’s National Center for the Rehabilitation of Injured Soldiers. There, doctors installed a metal rod in what remained of his left leg. Many surgeries still await. Yosi was one of dozens of people affected by the terrorist attacks that the Pittsburgh
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