JewishNewsVA.org
INSIDE
Southeastern Virginia | Vol. 65, No. 2 | 3 Tishrei 5787 | September 14, 2026
6 Remembering 9/11 25 years later
27 Rabbi Levi Brashevitzky’s trope sidekick
End of Summer Shabbat: a community affair
30 Mizrahi in Motion
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UPFRONT
JEWISH NEWS
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Israel-American Council urges Ed Sheeran to toss Macklemore from tour after criticizing Israel onstage
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Derek Caney (JTA) —The Israeli-American Council called for the rapper Macklemore to be dropped from the opening slot on pop star Ed Sheeran’s U.S. tour for chanting “Free Palestine” and accusing Israel of apartheid and genocide during his performances at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey on Friday and Saturday nights, Sept. 4 and Sept. 5. Known for such hits as Thrift Shop and Same Love, the rapper’s anti-Israel monologue at the performances preceded his 2024 song, Hind’s Hall, referring to Columbia University’s Hamilton Hall, which pro-Palestinian protesters occupied and unofficially renamed for Hind Rajab, a 6-year-old Palestinian girl who was killed during the war in Gaza. “I had wanted to stand up here on stages and stadiums across America and say two words that are very near and dear to my heart, ‘Free Palestine’,” he said at the show he opened for Ed Sheeran, according to videos posted from the concerts. “I want those words to be loud and clear so the people from Gaza all the way to the occupied West Bank know that we have their back and that we have not forgotten them.” He went on to dedicate the song to “the bravery of Columbia University students, the encampment movement that mobilized the entire world.”
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“Ed Sheeran – do not allow your stage to be used to divide people or spread one-sided political propaganda,” IAC said, circulating a petition demanding Macklemore be taken off the bill for his remaining nine dates of the tour. Messages left for representatives of Macklemore, Ed Sheeran, and the concert promoters AEG and the Messina Group were not returned. Macklemore addressed the Jewish community directly during his appearances, saying, “To all of my Jewish brothers and
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sisters: Criticism of Israel, criticism of apartheid, being against genocide in no way is criticism of you. My message is for peace,
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love and for all human beings to be treated with dignity, respect and equality.” The reactions to Macklemore’s remarks were far from unanimous. Some fans took to social media to praise him. Many
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others condemned Mackelmore, as well as Sheeran for turning the concert into a political event and making the Jewish Upcoming Deadlines for
concertgoers uncomfortable. Macklemore has been speaking out against Israel’s conduct of the war in Gaza since late October 2023. He was one of the first of 55 performers to sign the Artists4CeaseFire open letter to then-President Joe Biden calling for a permanent ceasefire, the release of all hostages, and the delivery of lifesaving aid to civilians in Gaza.
QUOTABLE
CONTENTS Up Front . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Briefs. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
In Memoriam: Gloria Steinmen, Jewish feminist trailblazer. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 TJF: Marie and Harry Mansbach leave legacy. . . . . 14
U.S. House passes bill against universities that boycott Israel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
High Holiday special section . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
Local reflects on 9/11. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
Rabbi Levi’s new trope sidekick. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
California lawmakers pass bill that deems ‘Jewish’ an ethnicity. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
SEnd of Summer Shabbat . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
Israeli expats loose court case to vote. . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 Hollywood’s Jews divided over Mark Ruffalo’s comments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
Mizrahi in Motion. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30 Havdalah on the beach . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31 What’s Happening . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32 Calendar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35 Obituaries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
“
Editorial and Advertising Issue Deadline October 5 Legal September 11 October 26 Business/Investments October 9 November 9 Mazel Tov October 23 November 23 Hanukkah November 6
I think every person in America wanted to take some tangible action. I was fortunate to have that opportunity. – page 6
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BRIEFS ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
Brussels Airlines workers threaten strike over flights to Israel
A
Belgian union has threatened to strike against Brussels Airlines for compelling staff to work on flights to Israel, saying that anyone with “safety or conscientious objections” should be able to refuse. ACV Puls, Belgium’s largest trade union, said Sept. 1 that the company was breaking previous agreements to rely on volunteers for flights to Tel Aviv. The airline resumed flights to Tel Aviv on August 3, following a five-month pause because of the U.S.-Israeli war in Iran, and its first flights were operated with volunteers. “Serious concerns exist among the staff regarding both physical safety and the mental and ethical impact of these flights,” ACV Puls spokesperson Jolinde Defieuw said. The notice launched by cabin crew representatives said that a strike could follow if Brussels Airlines does not reverse its decision to resume regular staffing. They argued that flying to Israel could not be deemed sufficiently safe, citing Belgium’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which advises against “all non-essential travel to Israel and Jerusalem.” Along with threatening a strike, the union called on the Belgian government to weigh in. ACV Puls said the government should take a stance on the availability of commercial flights to Israel “despite the ongoing war, the massive civilian casualties, and the serious accusations of war crimes and human rights violations against the Palestinian population.” Belgium has grown increasingly critical of Israel’s conduct in Gaza and Israeli settlements in the West Bank since 2023. Earlier this year, Belgium barred aircraft carrying military equipment bound for Israel from crossing its airspace. The government in July approved a ban on goods imported from Israeli settlements in the Palestinian territories. (JTA) ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
American-Israeli woman denied services by Virginia store owner
T
he Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law on Sept. 2 filed a civil rights complaint with the Office of the Attorney General of Virginia alleging an Alexandria beauty business denied services to an American-Israeli Jewish woman because of her Jewish and Israeli identity, then filmed and posted a video of the woman on business-affiliated social media accounts, precipitating harassment and threats against the woman and her family. The Virginia Human Rights Act prohibits places of public accommodation from denying or conditioning services because of protected characteristics, including national origin and religion. According to the complaint, Jessica Walton’s appointment on August 13 with Karimi Brows owner Fatana Karimi was cordial until Walton disclosed she was a dual citizen of the United States and Israel. Karimi abruptly stopped the appointment and demanded Walton leave and
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denied her a refund. After denying Walton services, Karimi began recording Walton despite Walton’s request that she stop, and published the footage, images, and commentary about the encounter to her social media accounts. Over the next few days, Karimi continued posting about the incident on social-media accounts, publicly identifying Walton and continuing to justify the refusal to serve an American-Israeli customer based on her identity. The posts precipitated a barrage of harassment and threats against Walton, including death and rape threats. According to the complaint, Walton has suffered humiliation, fear, loss of sleep and appetite, disruption to work and family life, and concern for personal safety and professional reputation. While Karimi claimed she was denying service over “politics,” according to the law, calling an Israeli customer’s identity “politics” does not make discrimination based on that identity lawful. The Brandeis Center asked Virginia’s Office of Civil Rights to investigate whether unlawful discrimination occurred and require Respondents to end discriminatory practices. The complaint also seeks a written nondiscrimination policy, civil rights training, a public notice affirming that services are provided without discrimination, removal of business associated communications indicating services will be denied on protected grounds, and other appropriate relief. (The Brandeis Center) ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
Israel and Greece ink defense deal
I
srael and Greece finalized a $3.5 billion deal on August 31 providing the Hellenic Republic with a multilayered antimissile system designed to protect the European Union country against aerial attacks from nations such as Iran and Turkey. It is one of the largest defense export deals in the history of the Jewish state. The two countries “share common strategic interests and face shared regional challenges,” Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said after the deal, called “Achilles Shield,” was signed at Tel Aviv’s Ministry of Defense. “At a time when actors with hegemonic ambitions are seeking to expand their influence and undermine stability in the region, Israel and Greece will continue to deepen their defense and strategic cooperation and will act with determination to preserve stability and safeguard their security and shared interests.” Katz said. Katz didn’t name Iran or Turkey in his remarks, but it was widely understood that the two countries pose regional concerns for both countries. Turkey and Greece are not just neighbors but historic enemies with several current disputes. As Israel’s relationship with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has deteriorated, Jerusalem and Greece have drawn closer in an effort to counterbalance Turkey’s growing power. At the same time, Iran launched ballistic missiles at Israel multiple times since 2024. Greece has not been under Iranian fire, but Tehran has threatened to attack European
countries. Greece hosts a U.S. naval base and is among those European countries that are closer to Iran. The multilayered system Israel will build for Greece will mark the first time that it provides a country with a system that can combat a wide array of threats from ballistic missiles to drones, the ministry explained. Among the systems included in the “Achilles Shield” architecture are David’s Sling, SPYDER, BARAK MX, and MMR multi-mission radars for air surveillance. The two countries also signed a supplementary deal valued at $30.2 million for the sale of the Israeli company Rafael’s Drone Dome systems. (JTA) ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
JD Vance refuses to disavow Tucker Carlson
V
ice President JD Vance acknowledged that he has “political disagreements” with Tucker Carlson, the former Fox News personality who has spread antisemitic conspiracy theories and sparked a rift within the Republican Party. But that won’t impact their friendship, Vance said during a press conference on Sept. 3 at the White House. “Everybody knows that Tucker Carlson and I are friends, and I think it’s very obvious that Tucker has said some things that I disagree with,” Vance said. He pointed to Carlson’s criticisms of Vance’s boss, President Donald Trump, as well as Carlson’s suggestion that he would rather Democratic progressive Abdul El-Sayed win Michigan’s U.S. Senate seat than Republican Mike Rogers, as examples of where they disagree. “Tucker is a friend despite the fact that we disagree on a number of things. And I’m not going to play the game where I throw friends under the bus because I have political disagreements with them,” Vance said. Vance’s refusal to disavow Carlson comes days after he appeared in a closed-doors session in Las Vegas before hundreds of Republican Jewish Coalition members, some of whom have indicated that they would prefer Secretary of State Marco Rubio to Vance as Trump’s successor in 2028. His RJC appearance started and ended with standing ovations for the vice president, and he spoke about the importance of the U.S.-Israel relationship and denounced antisemitism during the 35-minute conversation. He angered a number of attendees and Jewish conservatives, however, when he sidestepped a question about Carlson and other controversial right-wing podcasters. On Sept. 3, a reporter asked Vance about “those who are uneasy” with his close relationship to Carlson and believe that he is avoiding addressing questions about it. “I’m not avoiding anything,” Vance countered. After declining to distance himself from Carlson, Vance said that his refusal to do so should be a model for how other Americans engage in discourse across lines of disagreement. “If you have a disagreement with someone politically — even over a deeply held issue — you should still be friends with that person, because the whole republic depends on people of different perspectives being able to talk to one another,” Vance said. (JTA)
NATION
US House passes bill stripping federal funds from universities that boycott Israel (JTA) — The U.S. House of Representatives on Thursday, Sept. 3, approved a bill that would prevent federal funds from going to academic institutions that participate in commercial boycotts of Israel. The HR 4795 bill, co-sponsored by North Carolina Republican Rep. Virginia Foxx and New Jersey Democrat Rep. Josh Gottheimer, passed in a 237 to 169 vote, with 203 Republicans, 33 Democrats and one Independent in favor. Whether Democrats will grant sufficient support to pass the legislation in the Senate remains unclear. If the Protect Economic and Academic Freedom Act goes on to become law, it would amend the Higher Education Act of 1965 to require universities to refrain from “participating in a nonexpressive commercial boycott of Israel” in order to remain qualified for certain funds. Expressive conduct is “symbolic speech” designed to relay a message, like picketing, marching, flag desecration and draft-card burnings. A 2022 U.S. Court of Appeals ruling deemed economic boycotts nonexpressive commercial conduct as opposed to independent expression. In addition to forbidding boycotts, the legislation also stipulates that institutions receiving such funds would need to “certify that students are not unreasonably obstructed from participating in academic programs in Israel.” “This bill is an important step forward in ensuring academic freedom for all students,” Gottheimer, who is Jewish, said in a statement. “I will push the Senate to take up the bill shortly so it can become law.” Foxx, meanwhile, stressed that the act “takes a strong stand against the BDS movement on college campuses across the nation,” referring to the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign that aims to put economic pressure on Israel by barring the purchase of Israeli products and suspending trade agreements. “This legislation has true teeth and completely severs any possible taxpayer support of these concrete campaigns of antisemitism in the form of BDS and
academic boycotts of Israel,” Foxx added. The Anti-Defamation League welcomed the bill’s passage, deriding BDS activities as a tool used “to delegitimize Israel and demonize Jews and other students for their connection to the Jewish state.” The Combat Antisemitism Movement, an interfaith advocacy group that aims to fight “Jew hatred,” echoed these sentiments. A Sept. 3 statement from the coalition noted that ahead of the vote, the group had sent a letter to all U.S. House members conveying its support for the bill. “Academic boycotts of Israel harm American students and scholars, weaken vital U.S.-Israel research collaboration, and lend the credibility of American universities to a discriminatory campaign that singles out the only Jewish state,” the letter stated. Among the 32 Democrats to join Gottheimer in supporting the bill were many prominent Jewish lawmakers, such as Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Lois Frankel, and Jared Moskowitz of Florida; Greg Landsman of Ohio; Brad Schneider of Illinois; Eugene Vindman of Virginia and Kim Schrier of Washington. Yet not all Jewish legislators, even those who are against BDS, voted in favor of the bill. Ahead of the vote, Rep. Jerry Nadler, a Democrat from New York, vowed in a statement that he would vote against the bill and urged his colleagues to do the same. While Nadler voiced his antipathy to BDS and acknowledged that proponents of the movement “can veer into antisemitism,” he stressed that “those who engage in BDS have a First Amendment right to do so.” Nadler, meanwhile, described the measure as both “a direct and gross violation of the First Amendment” and “the latest assault by the Trump Administration” on the nation’s academic institutions. “No matter how much I may disagree with BDS, and find it strategically stupid and morally repugnant, I will always fight to protect Americans’ right to speech with which I disagree,” he added. “It is the only way to ensure speech I do agree with is equally protected.”
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NATION
“I was fortunate to have that opportunity.” 25 years after 9/11, one local Jewish Marine remembers Ground Zero Haley Bartel On the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, David Ashe was at home in Virginia Beach watching the Today Show while on terminal leave from the Marine Corps. He had recently completed his first active-duty tour and was stationed in San Diego. At the moment, however, Ashe was at home visiting his parents, Marilyn and Mike Ashe. His leave was scheduled to end Sept. 15. When the television cut to live coverage of a fire at the World Trade Center, he called his roommate in San Diego. “Sorry to wake you up, but there is
some news,” he told him. He asked his roommate to turn on a news station, and as he did the second plane struck the second tower. Like millions of Americans, Ashe spent the next day glued to the television. At one point, he saw a brief clip of a volunteer searching through the debris of the collapsed towers. Then he began hearing about the bucket brigades – lines of people passing debris hand-to-hand through the wreckage. The images stayed with him until he decided he needed to be a part of the
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efforts. By 4 am on Thursday, Sept. 13, he had left a note for his parents and was on the road, driving north to New York. When he arrived at Ground Zero, the scene was unlike anything he had imagined. “It was very loud,” he recalls. “Generators, steam, people, vehicles, dozens of cranes.” The rubble pile rose from street level in places to roughly 75 feet high. Steel beams that formed the basic framework of the towers – massive pieces of solid steel, roughly a foot square – had been twisted and bent, like copper wire. And then there was the smell. “The entire area smelled like someone lit a stack of newspaper and doused it with formaldehyde.” At times, he could see glowing red steel deep inside the pile. Flames remained visible in nearby buildings and in portions of the rubble that rescuers could not reach. Standing on Church Street, about 25 feet from where one of the towers had just been, he looked at the remains. The buildings had Mike Ashe at Ground Zero. fallen “cleanly and eerily on top of themselves.” But the scale of destruction was not of concern at this point – Ashe, and many other volunteers, were thinking about the possibility that someone might still be alive amongst the rubble. “It truly felt like SAR,” he says, referring to search and rescue. “We all had that urgency.” Ultimately, though, the group discovered human remains, and calls moved down the line for medical personnel to come take control. “It felt very sudden and sad and it temporarily sapped us,” he says. “I had truly thought we were going to find
people we could help.” The mission continued, though, as the nature of the work became clearer. Ashe points to his Jewish background as the driving force behind his determination to help, no matter how grim the situation turned out to be. “Jews ignore religion and ignore danger when help is needed,” he says. “We take action and we care for others. That’s the mindset of Judaism.” And the threat of danger was imminent. Three blasts from a horn meant falling debris was coming and everyone should take cover. At first, people tried to move when they heard the signal. But the debris was so extensive and movement through the site so slow that they quickly realized there was often nowhere to run. In one instance, Ashe says he heard a sound like a cannon – which he later identified to be a large piece of glass falling from one of the buildings near the Millennium Hilton. The sound startled everyone, and then the three horn blasts came. Nobody moved or spoke; instead, they just looked at one another and waited. “We seemed to communicate that we were ready to help if anyone was hit by something,” Ashe says. That said, the lasting memory of those days for Ashe isn’t pain, but gratitude. The work at Ground Zero was dark and sad. Volunteers came face to face with death, destruction and danger at a scale few people can comprehend – but in spite of it, he was just grateful to be there. “I think every person in America wanted to take some tangible action,” he says. “And I was fortunate to have that opportunity.”
jewishnewsva.org | SEPTEMBER 14, 2026 | JEWISH NEWS | 7
NATION
California lawmakers pass bills to address antisemitism, deem ‘Jewish’ an ethnicity and protect religious observance Sharon Udasin (JTA) —California is poised to become the first state to deem “Jewish” an ethnic and racial identity, after lawmakers gave final approval to the groundbreaking legislation on Monday, August 31. The SB 1387 bill, which would expand the definition of ethnicity “to include Jewish identity” in demographic data collection, will now head to the governor’s desk. If the legislation becomes law, state agency forms that allow for voluntary disclosures of ethnicity or race would also need to offer a “Jewish” option. Both the State Assembly and Senate granted final approval to the bill in the last few hours of California’s 2026 legislative session, which concluded at the end of the day on August 31. Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, has until Sept. 30 to sign bills into laws or veto them.
The SB 1387 ethnicity legislation has been a priority among many California Jewish organizations, who argue that Jewish peoplehood should be connected to much more than just religion — and that the law should reflect that understanding. This bill, which would take effect in 2030, would affect forms issued by agencies ranging from public schools to unemployment offices to prisons. Data collected would serve to inform research initiatives, identify disparities, and guide policy decisions, while banning the disclosure of personal information, per the bill. Also heading to the governor’s desk are five other bills that are relevant to the state’s 1.2 million Jews and that had the support of the Jewish California coalition. On Sunday, August 30, the legislature passed AB 1853, a bill that bars threatening false and misleading information from
California voter guides. Jewish California, which represents 43 organizations, praised the legislation’s advancement, stressing that 54 Jewish groups voiced their support for the bill within 48 hours of its introduction. “Hate speech does not belong in a state-approved document paid by tax dollars,” David Bocarsly, CEO of Jewish California, said in a statement. “AB 1853 boldly declares that our state’s official election documents can’t be used to spread conspiracy theories and bigotry,” added Bocarsly. Also on August 30, lawmakers approved AB 2664, the Safe Worship Zone Act, which would create a 100-foot zone around the entrances of houses of worship, where no one would be able to come within 8 feet of a congregant without their consent. The bill, which received the backing of a wide-ranging interfaith coalition, is
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modeled after Colorado’s bubble zone law that offers patients protection around reproductive health clinics. “The rise of antisemitism is undeniable, and our communities must be protected,” Democratic Assemblymember Rebecca Bauer-Kahan, the bill’s author, said. “AB 2664 gives communities an important tool to push back against harassment and intimidation and protect the sanctity of our houses of worship,” Bauer-Kahan added. Meanwhile, on Thursday, August 27, the legislature approved AB 395, which would require government agencies, K-12 schools and public universities to avoid scheduling major events or meetings on days “that members of the public would be unable to participate or be present due to the ritual observance of a religious, cultural, or ancestral holiday.” Among the Jewish observances that would be codified on a list of such holidays are Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, and the first and last two days of Passover. “For too long and in too many communities, religious minorities and other people of faith have been asked to make difficult choices on the days that matter most to them,” Democratic Assemblymember Jesse Gabriel, the bill’s author, said in a statement. “This legislation would help to prevent that injustice and ensure that Californians of all backgrounds can fully participate, particularly when important decisions are being made,” added Gabriel, who chairs the California Legislative Jewish Caucus. Lawmakers on August 27 also approved another Gabriel bill, AB 1836, which seeks to close a gap in the current structure of the California State Nonprofit Security Grant Program. Because the program allocates security funds only for a nonprofit’s physical building, off-site events like menorah lightings on Chanukah were not eligible. A fifth bill relevant to the Jewish community, AB 1763, is also heading to Newsom’s desk, after passing in the legislature August 25. This bill would include religious holiday observance as a type of excused absence in schools, without requiring a written request from a parent or guardian.
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ISRAEL ELECTION 2026
Israeli expats voting case dismissed by Israel’s High Court Deborah Danan (JTA) —TEL AVIV – Israel’s High Court on Wednesday, Sept. 2, dismissed a petition by Israeli expatriates seeking to vote in the Oct. 27 election after discovering that they had been excluded from the voter rolls under a little-known Interior Ministry classification that records certain citizens as nonresidents. The petition was filed by some 100 expatriate Israelis challenging their exclusion from the voter rolls under an Interior Ministry classification known as “Code 51,” which records them as having ceased to be Israeli residents. The petitioners said they had never asked to give up their status as Israeli
residents and questioned the legal authority, criteria, and process by which the classification was imposed. Some only discovered the designation when they checked their eligibility ahead of the election. The court did not resolve that factual dispute, instead dismissing the petition on procedural grounds. Justice Yechiel Kasher said the case was filed too late, a week before the voter registry was due to be finalized, and that the petitioners had not first used the statutory appeals process available to challenge their registration status. The court also said the petition lacked a detailed factual record showing how each of the petitioners came to
receive Code 51. The case arose as tens of thousands of Israeli citizens living abroad are making plans to return to Israel to cast ballots in the country’s first national election since the Oct. 7 Hamas attack. More than 30,000 expatriates had registered with Fly&Vote, an initiative helping Israelis arrange election travel, which has already secured seven dedicated flights to Israel. The Interior Ministry told the court that Code 51 is given to citizens who informed a population registry official that they were leaving Israel and asked not to remain registered as residents. The petitioners disputed that account, saying they had never asked for their registration
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as Israeli residents to be canceled. Ilana Mittman, a retired social scientist living in Baltimore and a petitioner in the case, discovered this summer that her residency status had been changed under Code 51 on March 7, 1986, the same date she visited the Israeli Consulate in San Francisco to register her newborn son. Mittman told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that consular staff took away her Israeli ID card during the 1986 appointment without explanation. “I remember how bad of a feeling it was to give that document away,” she said. “I felt I gave a part of myself away when that happened. But I didn’t know that my biggest right as a citizen – the right to vote – was just robbed from me.” The petition also challenged the law tying voting eligibility to residency, arguing that it conflicts with Israel’s Basic Law governing the Knesset, which guarantees every Israeli citizen aged 18 or older the right to vote unless a court has deprived them of that right. The court did not decide that question, and Kasher said the petitioners could raise it again after the election.
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since the Oct. 7 Hamas attack.
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ANTISEMITISM
HOLLYWOOD’S JEWS TAKE SIDES IN MARK RUFFALO-PARAMOUNT ANTISEMITISM ROW
Andrew Lapin (JTA) — Some 170 notable Jewish personalities released an open letter defending actor and producer Mark Ruffalo, who has been accused of antisemitism for his comments on Paramount Skydance’s pending acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery. Entertainers, rabbis, and a physician who is featured in a new documentary about doctors treating Palestinians in Gaza signed the letter released Wednesday, Sept. 2, which called the attacks against Ruffalo a “false and dangerous weaponization of charges of antisemitism.” George Clooney also defended Ruffalo. Signatories of the pro-Ruffalo petition include Broad City creators Abbi Jacobson and Ilana Glazer; celebrated filmmakers Joel Coen, Jonathan Glazer, and Todd Haynes; Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Tony Kushner; and actors including Hannah Einbinder, Joaquin Phoenix, and Debra Winger. In late August, Ruffalo, the award-winning actor and progressive activist, went on social media to link Paramount Skydance CEO David Ellison, the chief driver of the looming Paramount-Warner Bros. merger, to tech giant Oracle, which Ruffalo claimed is responsible for “an apartheid system of oppression” in Gaza. Oracle is owned by Ellison’s father, Larry Ellison, one of the world’s richest men; both Ellisons are Jewish and prominent Israel supporters. Oracle also owns a stake in the social media network TikTok’s U.S. operations and has long been a target of progressives who point to the company’s links to, and public support for, Israel. “Larry Ellison will own most of ‘Para Bros,’” Ruffalo wrote in the post, which is no longer available, according to a screenshot reproduced by the Hollywood Reporter. The Spotlight and Marvel star also called Larry Ellison a “classic oligarch” who is “crushing workers and consolidating the wealth of the world for their own power and concentrated dominance.” The $110 billion merger is under adjudication in federal court in
California following an antitrust lawsuit filed by 12 state attorneys general and the Writers Guild of America. As backlash to the merger has steadily grown across Hollywood and in political and media spaces, Paramount at least since June has been pushing the idea that opposition to the merger has had an antisemitic element. The company seized on Ruffalo’s comments, immediately releasing a lengthy statement to media after his controversial social media post that accused the actor of invoking “antisemitic tropes,” adding, “This simply exposes the true motivation of some who have advocated opposition to this transaction.” Several leading Jewish groups have also said his post stepped beyond legitimate criticism of the merger and into classic antisemitic rhetoric about Jewish wealth and power. In an August statement, the head of the Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles said the actor’s comments “combined Jewish wealth, media control, secret technology and sinister global power,” drawing on “recognizable antisemitic tropes with a long and dangerous history.” Other LA-based Jewish activist groups, including Creative Community For Peace and the Simon Wiesenthal Center, have also condemned his comments. Speaking amid the unfolding controversy about Ruffalo and his use of the word genocide to describe Israel’s campaign in Gaza, Fauda co-creator Avi Isaacharoff called him “a rare combination” of “ignorant” and “stupid.” The Jewish Telegraphic Agency has reached out to Shani Rosenzweig, Ruffalo’s agent and a prominent Jewish entertainment figure in her own right, for comment and a Ruffalo interview request. Rosenzweig did not respond to either request. Ruffalo has found support from several progressive Jewish figures beyond the entertainment industry, including IfNotNow co-founder Simone Zimmerman, Israeli Holocaust historian Raz Segal and Jewish Currents editor Peter Beinart. In their open letter defending Ruffalo, the progressive Jewish cohort argued the actor was right to draw links between
Israel’s behavior and the merger. “Pointing out the crucial connections between what is happening in Gaza and what is happening in Hollywood is the exact opposite of antisemitism,” the letter reads. “It is, for us, the very essence of Jewish ethical duty.” The letter points to specific statements from Larry Ellison, and Oracle executives, describing their surveillance and artificial-intelligence technological ventures and their positive relationship with Israel. Other entertainment figures have tried to thread a more careful needle. Oscar-winning filmmaker Kenneth Lonergan, who has directed Ruffalo in two movies and was at one point developing an American remake of the hit Israeli TV series Shtisel, defended the actor from antisemitism charges while also noting, “I disagree profoundly with many of his
positions on the Middle East, Israel, Gaza, and Iran’s constellation of fanatical Islamist fundamentalist proxies.” “But Mark and I have been friends for over 30 years,” Lonergan continued in his letter to the Hollywood Reporter. “The notion that he is antisemitic is overtly preposterous, and the accusation itself a cynical and disgusting lie.” Opposition to David Ellison’s bid to combine two historic media giants, each having recently weathered smaller mergers of their own, has grown considerably in recent months. Those objections have come both from Hollywood rank-andfile concerned about further industry consolidation, as well as from political and media figures voicing objections to Ellison’s close ties to President Donald Trump and his intentions with Warner’s flagship news property, CNN.
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IN MEMORIAM
Gloria Steinem, Jewish feminist trailblazer
Ron Kampeas (JTA) — Gloria Steinem, the trailblazing feminist who turbocharged the women’s rights movement’s second wave by casting the liberation of women as part of the broader project of eliminating other bigotries including antisemitism, died at 92 on Wednesday, Sept. 2. “Yesterday, Gloria Steinem passed away peacefully at her home in New York City, surrounded by some of the many who loved her,” read a post on her Instagram account. “Gloria’s near-century on earth were years well-lived, and she continued
working for equality until the very end.” Steinem began her career as a journalist before moving to activism in 1969 after writing a story about women who’d suffered through illegal abortions. From there she became one of the most identifiable leaders of a movement that helped transform the daily experience of women in America. Steinem was born in Toledo, Ohio, in 1934 to a Jewish father, Leo Steinem, and a Protestant mother, Ruth Nuneviller. Her Jewish background informed her understanding of how oppression
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is structural and interrelated among targeted groups. “Never in my life have I identified myself as a Christian, but wherever there is antisemitism, I identify as a Jew,” her friend and her fellow co-founder of the seminal magazine, Ms., Letty Cottin Pogrebin, quoted Steinem as saying in a profile she wrote for the Jewish Women’s Archive encyclopedia of Jewish women. Steinem’s father, who booked musical acts and who sold antiques on the road, was a “wonderful, kind, charming, Gloria Steinem utterly irresponsible man,” she said. He left the family when Steinem was 10 years old and Steinem – whose older sister was away at college – became primarily responsible for caring for her mentally fragile mother. Yet it was her mother Ruth who instilled Steinem with her understanding of her Jewish background. It helped shape Steinem’s understanding of how one group may deprive another of essential rights. “Steinem remembered that when she was 8 or so, her mother encouraged her to listen to a radio dramatization of Jewish torment under the Nazis and the story of a mother who could not get enough food for her little girl,” Cottin Pogrebin wrote. “‘This is going on in the world’,” Ruth Steinem said, ‘and we must know about it.’” Steinem never shook the lesson. In 1981, speaking at Cornell University, she said liberating women was inextricable from liberating other vulnerable populations. “We know, when we look at women and blacks in this country, or at women and Jews in Nazi Germany, or in South Africa, we understand that these two caste systems are interdependent and truly can only be fought together,” Steinem told the
students. It was a radical reimagining of what feminism meant, and was reflected in Steinem’s insistence on advocacy for others. Her outspoken support for minorities, for LGBTQ individuals and for others unsettled some second wave feminists. (The first wave was the suffragette movement, which decades earlier had brought about the right for women to vote.) In the 1981 Cornell lecture, Steinem laid the groundwork for what would become known as intersectionality. “Politics is any power relationship in our daily lives,” she said. “Any time one group of people or one person is habitually dominant over one another group or person, not because of experience or talent, but simply because of group of birth, whether that is race or sex or class, that is politics. That is a power relationship, and that is deserving of change.” Her advocacy helped poison her relationship with an early ally, Betty Friedan, the Jewish feminist who launched second wave feminism with her 1963 book, The Feminine Mystique. Friedan believed the movement should remain focused on women’s liberation and dismissed Steinem as a grandstander. “The media tried to make her a celebrity,” Friedan said of Steinem in 1972, “but no one would mistake her for a leader.” Yet it was Steinem’s broader understanding of women’s rights as part and parcel of liberation movements that led her to sign a letter three years later decrying the United Nations General Assembly resolution equating Zionism with racism. “We are appalled at the ‘racist’ label applied solely to the national selfdetermination movement of the Jewish people,” said the letter – spearheaded, as it happened, by Steinem’s erstwhile rival
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IN MEMORIAM Friedan. “We decry this implicit denial of Israeli statehood and this incitement to worldwide anti-Semitism.” It was signed by 60 women, including the pantheon of Jewish second wave feminists, among them: Bella Abzug, the New York congresswoman; Joan Ganz Cooney, the co-creator of Sesame Street; Nora Ephron, the essayist and filmmaker; and Beverly Sills, the opera diva. Steinem later joined in advocacy to release Ida Nudel, the Soviet Jewish refusenik. She could be critical of Israel. In 2019, she swore not to visit Israel while Benjamin Netanyahu was prime minister after he came under pressure from President Donald Trump and banned entry to two Muslim congresswomen who are strident critics of Israel, Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar. She recalled a dinner in the 1980s she attended with Netanyahu, which she evidently did not enjoy. “You were a conversational bully to your guest, just as you are a bully to these two elected women leaders now,” she said in a statement. Steinem herself was descended from Jewish feminist royalty – but did not know it until she was an adult, when she was enlightened by a feminist who was writing a monograph about her grandmother. “I had a Jewish suffragist grandmother, Pauline Perlmutter Steinem, who died when I was about five,” Steinem wrote for the Jewish Women’s Archive. “She had addressed Congress, but nobody told me about that. They told me that she was a wonderful woman who kept a kosher table, had four sons, and was a pioneer of vocational education – different measurements of success – but not that she was also the first woman to be elected to a Board of Education in the state of Ohio, as a suffragist on the same ticket with the socialists and the anarchists.” Cottin Pogrebin wrote that Steinem maintained at least one Jewish tradition for years. “Every Passover for over 20 years, she joined a small group of ‘seder sisters’ — E. M. Broner, Phyllis Chesler, Lilly Rivlin, Michelle Landsberg, Bea Kreloff, Edith Isaac-Rose, and Letty Cottin Pogrebin — Jewish women in New York City who planned and performed a women’s seder,
usually on the third night of Passover,” Cottin Pogrebin recalled in her Steinem entry in the Jewish women’s encyclopedia. “The founding premise of this seder was that women matter, that women must be acknowledged for their roles in the Exodus story and their current struggle for equality in Jewish life.” Steinem did not marry until she was 66, when she wed David Bale, a South African activist who died three years later of cancer. She dated powerful men, many of them Jewish, including film director Mike Nichols and media magnate Mort Zuckerman. Steinem was a lightning rod for the right wing, in part because she would not eschew glamour. Midge Decter, a Jewish cofounder of the neoconservative movement, described in her autobiography, An Old Wife’s Tale, a debate she had with Steinem. “Gloria was unforgettable that evening, for she turned up in a crotch high suede skirt and knee-high suede boots and kept warning the men in the audience that she and women like her were dead serious, and no longer were women going to put up with being their playthings,” Decter wrote. “Where I grew up we used to call that ‘teasing.’” Steinem began her career as a journalist, famously going undercover as a Playboy bunny in 1963 to expose how grueling the work was. But she brought an unstinting seriousness to her career as an advocate, which began in 1969 after she attended, on assignment, a gathering of women who described their illegal abortions. The experience – and the memory of her own secret abortion in 1957 – radicalized her. “They spoke about the dangerous illegal underground they had to enter, about bargaining with illegal abortionists, dealing with men who demanded sex before performing an abortion – incredible stories” Steinem wrote in her Jewish Women’s Archive essay. “For me it was like a big light coming on. I had had an abortion and never told anyone – not a girlfriend, not the man, nobody.” She was a political columnist for New York Magazine: Her next essay was After Black Power, Women’s Liberation. She never looked back.
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Steinem lived long enough to see many of the successes she helped bring reversed – including, perhaps most painfully, the 2022 overturning of Roe v. Wade, the 1972 Supreme Court decision identifying the right to an abortion. “I don’t feel my work or the work of all the women and men who care about racial and sex equality has been struck down,” she told NPR then. “It’s just that it has a roadblock now, theoretically coming from the highest court in the land, but actually will impose hardships unequally but will not change the fact that we either have decision-making power over our
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own bodies, women and men, or there is no democracy.” Her credo, Steinem said in a joint 2015 New York Times interview with an old friend and Jewish feminist trailblazer, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the late Supreme Court justice, was kindness. “Kindness matters enormously. And empathy. Finding some point of connection,” Steinem said then. She also advised never standing down. “The great thing about obstacles is that they cause you to identify with other groups of people who are facing obstacles,” she said.
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JEWISH TIDEWATER
A LEGACY OF OPPORTUNITY TJF Staff by investing in young people in their Harry Mansbach, of blessed memory, hometown of Norfolk. The idea became believed that opportunity carried the Marie A. Mansbach Memorial Student responsibility. His daughter, Sally Motivation Program. Herman, remembers a father who Mansbach wasn’t necessarily understood how looking for the much circumstance valedictorian or could shape a the student whose person’s path. She potential was says he believed already obvious. those who had He envisioned been fortunate had helping capable a responsibility to students create opportunities who needed for others. encouragement, When his mentorship, and wife, Marie, died someone willing Marie and Harry Mansbach. in 1989, Mansbach to believe more put that belief into action. Marie had was possible. been involved with the Girl Scouts, “He was able to take himself out of and Mansbach chose to honor her his own moment and empathize with
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other people,” says Herman, who serves says. “Being so fortunate in so many ways, on the board of the program. More than it’s our responsibility to help others.” three decades later, his family still carries After her father’s death, Herman that responsibility. recognized that managing an increasingly Today, through An Achievable complex program required institutional Dream, the stability, financial program provides stewardship, and Norfolk Public the ability to adapt Schools students without losing with mentoring, sight of its original academic support, purpose. The enrichment, and family found that college preparation – partner in TJF. all supported by the That program’s endowment relationship at Tidewater Jewish has allowed the Foundation. family to remain Harry and Marie Mansbach on their wedding day. For Herman, connected to continuing to invest reflects what her Harry and Marie Mansbach’s intentions father taught his family. “Every human without carrying the responsibility being has something to contribute,” she of administering the program alone. For May Lynn Mansbach, the couple’s daughter-in-law and a program board member, TJF has become more than the institution managing the endowment. “With TJF, we’ve never felt like we simply handed over a fund to be managed,” says May Lynn Mansbach. “They have taken a genuine interest in the program, in the students, and in what Harry and Marie wanted to accomplish. They’ve helped us care for the legacy, not just the money.” That distinction matters. The family needed a partner capable of understanding why the fund existed, protecting Harry and Marie Mansbach’s intentions, and helping the program evolve as circumstances changed. For families considering their own charitable legacy, the Mansbach story offers a model: it’s not necessary to know today exactly how a community’s needs will change tomorrow. That is what TJF provides the Mansbach family; the stability to protect the original vision, the flexibility to respond to changing needs, and the confidence to continue investing in something deeply personal to their family. To learn more, go to foundation.jewishva.org.
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Fall Into Fall Into Into Fall
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Dear Readers, With the High Holidays mostly taking place in September this year, there’s a high likelihood that the weather will be perfect for spending time in a sukkah. On page
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20, several community Sukkot events are highlighted. But it’s just a partial listing. In fact, a very partial listing. To find more, go to your congregation’s website or give them a call. Dining alfresco in a sukkah and shaking the lulav and etrog is always uplifting. Among other articles in this section, three families share how they observe and celebrate Yom Kippur with their young children, Temple Emanuel’s Rabbi Ari offers a different take on how to reflect on Yom Kippur, and a couple of recipes for holiday fare are featured. On a personal note, only twice in my life – my freshman year in college and the year post-college when I “backpacked through Europe,” have I missed attending Rosh Hashanah services at Ohef Sholom Temple. This year will be the third time. The day this paper goes to press, my husband and I will board a plane headed for San Franscisco to attend services where our daughter is a rabbi. As excited as we are to be in the sanctuary where she is on the bema, we also know it will feel odd to know only those sitting beside us – our other daughter and her husband will join us. For our family, the change in venue goes along with my message from the
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last issue – to being open to creating new memories for the holidays. Before we even step foot on the plane, I have a strong feeling that we’ll revere the memories of this Rosh Hashanah forever. And then, before we know it, we’ll be home for Kol Nidre, with our Ohef Sholom Temple family. Wherever you are and however you celebrate, all of us at Jewish News wish for you that you make new memories to cherish while having a peaceful, healthy, happy, and safe High Holiday season. G’mar chatima tovah,
Terri Denison Editor
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SAYING SORRY: OBSERVING YOM KIPPUR WITH LITTLE ONES It encourages us to slow down, reflect honestly, celebrate growth, and set intentions for becoming better each day.
Haley Bartel Where Rosh Hashanah brings sweetness and celebration, Yom Kippur asks something different — stillness, honesty, and the harder work how adults themselves of reflection. For young childon’t always agree on dren, that’s a tricky needle to whether the story hapthread. Three local families pened literally or was share how they’ve made it meant to teach a lesson. meaningful. For Nina Kruger, For Jennie Tabakin, a teaching Yom Kippur to pediatrician and mother Jennie Tabakin and her family. her son, Liam, now 10, to Rivka, 6, and Ben, 8, has evolved over the years. When he was younger, she talking through hard topics with kids is second nature explained it simply, as a time to “say our sorries.” As Liam professionally — but she credits her children’s Jewish day has grown, the conversation has deepened. school with getting the holiday conversations started in “We talk about Yom Kippur as an opportunity for the first place. reflection — a chance to look back on the past year, rec“It was a huge help for them to go to Strelitz ognize where we can do better, and make a commitment (International Academy) because the conversation started to grow,” Kruger says. The there, and then it is easier to continue at home,” Tabakin family focuses on learning says. PJ Library books, she says, help open the door further, and accountability rather and everyday sibling squabbles — Rivka and Ben “love than dwelling on mistakes — each other fiercely and fight just as fiercely” — have taught values reinforced by Kruger, the kids what it means to ask for forgiveness. her partner, Darin, and The family doesn’t have the kids fast, but a Break Liam’s grandfather, Pop Pop. Fast hosted by their grandmother is the day’s anchor. Liam isn’t yet required This year, Tabakin is considering a different challenge — to fast, but each year he giving up something other than food for the 25 hours, chooses to challenge himself, such as phones. going a little longer than the “Honestly, in 2026 it’s probably harder for many to year before — a milestone give up screens than food,” she says. he’s proud to share with his The family attends services at Temple Emanuel, father in Arizona. which Tabakin describes as family-friendly, and pushes back on the idea that services Honestly, in 2026 are too serious for young kids. “Without children, it’s probably harder there’s no future in Judaism,” for many to give up she says. “It’s super importscreens than food. Nina Kruger and her family. ant to include them, even if One family tradition carries the holiday’s spirit well it’s with adaptations and games.” beyond the day itself: a nightly “Dark, Light, and Sparkle,” Not every question at home has an easy answer. A where each person shares something that didn’t go well, few years ago, her son asked whether Jonah was really something positive, and something to improve tomorrow. swallowed by a whale — sparking a conversation about
“It encourages us to slow down, reflect honestly, celebrate growth, and set intentions for becoming better each day — and ultimately, better
each year,” Kruger says. The family also finds meaning in Kol Nidre, a service Kruger calls one of the most moving of the year — “gathering in shul with family, friends, and community members, all united in prayer, reflection, and hope for the year ahead.” Kruger says Liam often surprises her by apologizing for things she wouldn’t consider worthy of an apology — sometimes even on behalf of people who he feels may have wronged her. Looking ahead, she hopes the holiday’s values of reflection, accountability, and compassion become a lasting part of who he is. For Amy Weinstein, mother to Avi, 11, and Daniella, 9, Yom Kippur centers on services at Ohef Sholom Temple, where kid-friendly, clergy-led family services use storytelling to convey the holiday’s meaning. But for her family, the heart of the day is what comes after: the meal that breaks the fast. Ten years ago, with a toddler at home and invitations to Break Fast gatherings starting too late in the evening, Weinstein and her husband , Eliot, decided to host their own — building a new tradition with friends who, like them, hadn’t grown up in Tidewater. They started with six families, including their own. A decade later, the gathering has grown to more than 15 families, including friends who did grow up locally and Weinstein’s own parents, who later retired to Tidewater. The kids in the group have grown up together — the oldest is now a jewishnewsva.org | SEPTEMBER 14, 2026 | JEWISH NEWS | 17
High Holidays 5787
high school senior. The evening leans non-traditional: arts and crafts, and s’mores once it gets dark. Weinstein’s youngest even took her first steps at Break the Fast in 2019. “We’ve realized that we want to make sure that our kids and our friends’ kids are Break Fast at the Weinsteins, 2025. making core memories around the High Holidays,” Weinstein says. “Yom Kippur may seem like a strange choice for something that seems so celebratory, but we’re really just interested in creating community.”
For some guests, it’s become the most consistent holiday plan they have every year — “and we are honored by that,” Weinstein says. “Wouldn’t have it any other way.”
Yom Kippur may seem like a strange choice for something that seems so celebratory, but we’re really just interested in creating community.
Roasting marshmallows for s’mores at the Weinsteins’ Break Fast.
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High Holidays 5787
New children’s books bring the High Holidays to life Penny Schwartz (JTA) — A bumper crop of new kids’ books about the High Holidays is hitting shelves in 2026, surprising close observers of Jewish children’s literature. “It is unusual for multiple Sukkot books to be published in the same year, especially of consistently high quality. It’s very exciting,” says Heidi Rabinowitz, a Jewish librarian and host of the Book of Life podcast, which describes itself as “a podcast about Jewish kidlit (mostly).” Rabinowitz notes that one of the books is coming from a mainstream secular press, rather than from the smaller boutique presses that tend to release books about Jewish holidays. Here’s some of what’s new on shelves this season:
Rosh Hashanah: Square-Circle-Star!: A First Shapes Book Joy Nelkin Wieder; pictures by Aura Lewis Abrams Appleseed; ages birth to 3 Preschoolers will enjoy finding shapes in their favorite Rosh Hashanah traditions with this large-format board book – square bites of honey cake, a round swirl of challah, the curves of the shofar and even apple slice semicircles.
Diving Deep on Rosh Hashanah: Reverse Tashlich for a Better World Rachelle Burk; illustrated by Craig Orback Intergalactic Afikomen; ages 4-10 This children’s book illustrates a relatively new Jewish tradition that has gained wide traction in recent years: the Reverse Tashlich. It recounts the story of Ed Rosenthal, who — years after watching The Underworld of Jacques Cousteau and dreaming of one day seeing the wonders beneath the sea — snorkeled in the Red Sea after hiking in Israel. As a rabbi at a college in Florida, he created the “Scubi Jew Club” for his students to share his passion. At a service for tashlich, the Rosh Hashanah tradition in which Jews cast symbols of their sins into bodies of water, a student suggested instead clearing the water of trash to make a cleaner, better world for the start of the Jewish year. Now, synagogues across the country and world include a reverse tashlich in their High Holiday plans.
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Awe! It’s Everywhere Chana Stiefel; illustrated by Susan Gal Scholastic; ages 4-8 In Chana Stiefel’s simply worded, lavishly illustrated book, young readers can experience awe, in perfect time for the Days of Awe — another term for the period from the start of Rosh Hashanah through Yom Kippur. Awe can be small or miraculous, according to the book, which features mesmerizing illustrations including a double page spread that unfolds to reveal the waterfalls of Yosemite National Park.
I’m Sorry for the Bagel Burps: A Yom Kippur Apology Jacob Sager Weinstein; illustrated by Jason Kirschner Rocky Pond Books; ages 5-8 In this story optimized for children with a penchant for the gross, a young boy and his older brother have a spat when the older one calls him a baby because he’s not old enough to fast on Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. In turn, during synagogue services, the young boy teases back. By story’s end, they apologized for their hurtful words and are back to their playful ribbing — all involving fake burps. Jason Kirschner’s cartoon-style illustrations match the levity of the moment.
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High Holidays 5787
Celebrating the Jewish Harvest holiday in Tidewater Haley Bartel Sukkot, which literally translates to “booths” or “huts,” is akin to a fall harvest festival. It’s a holiday that celebrates all God gives, both in terms of crops and shelter. Eating, dwelling, and even sleeping in the sukkah commemorates the time of Jews living in huts while wandering the desert for 40 years. While not everyone is able to build a sukkah in their backyard, plenty of opportunities to gather in one exist in Tidewater. In fact, most area congregations offer various events, meals, and other occasions for congregants, friends, and guests to enjoy time in their sukkahs – most constructed each year by volunteers. In addition to congregation-sponsored events, NextGen757, a community group for young Jewish adults, is hosting a five-event series across Tidewater for the holiday, each one held at a different local congregation. According to Hannah Yasemsky, NextGen’s Engagement coordinator, that is by design. “I wanted the NextGen community to be able to meet all our local synagogues here in a fun and festive way,” she says – something looser than a typical Shabbat service, but “so very Jewish at the same time,” rooted in a shared sense of community and belonging. For those hoping to build their own sukkah or take up the lulav and etrog at home, several online retailers ship nationwide in time for the holiday. The Sukkah Project (sukkot.com) sells both DIY sukkah kits and lulav-andetrog sets sourced through Pri Hadar, a longtime supplier of the four species. EasyEtrog.com and GotEtrog.com both offer kosher lulav-and-etrog sets from Israel, with shipping typically beginning shortly after Rosh Hashanah to ensure freshness for Sukkot, which begins the evening of September 25. Judaica.com is another option for ordering the four species online. Given shipping windows, those interested should plan to order at least a week or two ahead of the holiday. Whether attending a community Sukkot event, or enjoying a sukkah built in the backyard, there’s a way to mark Sukkot for nearly every kind of celebrant this year. Festive or reflective, family-friendly or adults-only, newcomer or lifelong congregant – Tidewater’s Jewish community has plenty of ways to celebrate the Jewish harvest season, however close to home each person chooses to bring it.
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Sukkot with NextGen United Jewish Federation of Tidewater’s NextGen has myriad plans for Sukkot at venues throughout the community. NextGen is for Jewish adults, ages 22 - 45ish. All Sukkot events can be found at www.Jewishva.org/Nextgen, where registration, which is required, can take place. For additional information, contact Hannah Yasemsky, NextGen engagement coordinator, at 757-470-8080 or Hyasemsky@ujft.org. ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
Oktoberfest in the Sukkah Friday, September 25, 7:30 pm, TIDE B’nai Israel This NextGen Oktoberfest-themed Yom Tov/Shabbat dinner takes place in B’nai Israel’s Sukkah. Inspired by the lively spirit of Munich’s Oktoberfest—known for its warm hospitality, festive flavors, and fun atmosphere—this gathering brings a Bavarian twist to one of Judaism’s most joyful harvest holidays. $10 per person. Registration required. ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
Under the Stars: Sukkah & Cinema Sunday, September 27, 6 pm, Temple Israel Celebrate Sukkot with UJFT’s NextGen and Temple Israel at a cozy Pop-Up Sukkah experience. Gather for a delicious meal in the sukkah, then settle in for a cinema screening of the acclaimed Israeli film Ushpizin. Bring a favorite blanket, cushion, or pillow, get comfortable, and enjoy an evening of holiday tradition, good food, and great company. Free to attend, registration required. ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
Pop-up Sukkah Social Wednesday, September 30, 6:30 pm, Ohef Sholom Temple NextGen teams up with Ohef Sholom Temple for an unforgettable pop-up Sukkot celebration. Come out for an evening of great company, lively games, music under the stars, and fire pits to gather around – all centered around a delicious, harvest-themed meal. Free to attend, registration required. ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
Sukkah Hoppin’ and Craftin’ Thursday, October 1, 6 pm, Congregation Beth El Celebrate Sukkot with UJFT’s NextGen and Congregation Beth El at an evening designed for connection and creativity with two distinct gatherings for NextGen families and young adults. Join for one session—or make a night of it and stay for both! Free to attend, registration required. Family and kid-friendly Sukkah fun time • 6 - 7:30 pm. Bring the entire family into the sukkah for interactive, holiday-inspired activities, hands-on fun, pizza, and meaningful time together. NextGen singles and adults gathering • 7:30 - 9 pm. Enjoy a guided discussion, appetizers, and an art activity led by Hannah Yasemsky and local creative specialist Sharon Serbin. ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
Free Mazel Tov listings! Tell Jewish Tidewater about your simchas and have a photo published in Jewish News to remember for years to come. Up to 100 words and photo at no charge. Send your listing and photo to HBartel@ujft.org with Mazel Tov in the subject line. If you do not get a response or have a question, call 757-965-6100.
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Sukkot with Temple Emanuel: a three-day event marathon Monday, Sept. 28 - Wednesday, Sept. 30, Temple Emanuel Temple Emanuel is hosting a three-day event Sukkot marathon. It opens with the Ahavah Women’s Club potluck dinner, followed by Burgers & Brews in the Sukkah ($15), and closes with a lunch and conversation titled, Fragility, Strength, and Us as part of Emanuel’s Adult Education Program. For information, go to tevb.org. ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
Sukkah Happy Hour with NextGen and KBH Monday, September 28, 5:30 pm Sandler Family Campus Join United Jewish Federation of Tidewater’s NextGen and Kehillat Bet Hamidrash (KBH) for a special Sukkah Happy Hour. Hosted in the Sukkah on the Sandler Family Campus, this festive evening offers an opportunity to mingle with the community while enjoying appetizers, drinks, and lively lawn games. For information, contact Hannah Yasemsky, NextGen engagement coordinator, at 757-470-8080 or Hyasemsky@ujft.org. Free to attend, pre-registration is required at Jewishva.org/Nextgen.
G’mar Chatima Tova
May you be inscribed for good. Tidewater Jewish Foundation wishes you and your loved ones a year of peace, health, and happiness.
foundation.jewishva.org | 757-965-6111 | foundation@tjfva.org
22 | JEWISH NEWS | SEPTEMBER 14, 2026 | jewishnewsva.org
High Holidays 5787
Yom Kippur: When “Impossible” becomes “I’m Possible” Rabbi Ari Oliszewski There is something about Yom Kippur that makes time feel different. Perhaps it is the haunting melody of Kol Nidrei, or the fasting, or simply the knowledge that Jews around the world are standing before the same ancient questions: Who have I become? What have I taken for granted? And, perhaps most importantly: who could I still become? We tend to think of Yom Kippur as the most solemn day of the Jewish calendar. And it is. But solemnity should not be confused with despair. Yom Kippur may actually be the most hopeful day of the Jewish year — because it makes an extraordinary claim about human beings: we are not finished. And in the same breath, it asks us to see what we already have with new eyes, before life forces us to. Look at a word we use far too easily: impossible. Now move the space. I’m possible. It sounds like wordplay, but it may hold one of Yom Kippur’s deepest teachings. Teshuvah is Judaism’s refusal to accept that a human being is ever a finished product. The Talmud tells us about Resh Lakish, whose life had taken him far from the world of Torah before Rabbi Yochanan encountered him — and saw something Resh Lakish could no longer see in himself: potential, strength that could be redirected, a future that did not have to resemble the past. Resh Lakish changed his life and became one of the great Sages of his generation. His past was real. But it was not his destiny. Most of us carry something we wish
we could rewrite — a mistake, a broken relationship, words we wish we could take back. Judaism does not ask us to pretend those chapters were never written. It asks something more demanding: what chapter will you write next? That question becomes sharper when we ask a harder one: what would happen if, suddenly, we lost what we complain about? What if the complicated relationship with a parent were no longer there? What if the job that exhausts us disappeared tomorrow, and we found ourselves missing it? Something strange happens when we imagine loss — irritation becomes gratitude. Ingratitude begins with the assumption that good things are inevitable. They are not. Yom Kippur asks us to see our blessings with different eyes, not to frighten us, but to awaken us. Call your parents. Hold your children a little longer. Apologize while there is still someone to hear it. Say “I love you” before it is left unsaid. Be grateful for the ordinary Tuesday, the crowded table, the imperfect relationship, the friend who still answers the phone. Teshuvah begins when we stop assuming that tomorrow owes us a continuation of today. Maimonides made one of Judaism’s boldest statements about human freedom: the power is given to every person to incline toward good and be righteous, if one so chooses. We are free — not free from consequences, not free to pretend our mistakes never happened, but free to decide what happens next. And yet we so often build a narrative about ourselves and live
The power is given to every person to incline toward good and be righteous, if one so chooses.
SHANAH TOVAH! Beth Chaver im, Vir ginia B eac h's Ref orm Jewish Congr egation, war mly invites you to join Guest R abbi Susan Rheins, Soloist Jim Hibber d, and the Beth Chaver im Choir for our High Holiday Ser vic es. Celebrate R osh Hashanah and Y om K ippur with our welc oming, inc lusive com m unity, and join us for our annual Break -the-Fast following Y om Kippur . Services ar e available both in per son and online. For mor e infor mation or to r equest vir tual ac c ess, please c ontac t: t em p l e. o f f i ce@ b et h ch a v er i m . co m
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inside it for years: I am just like this. That relationship is beyond repair. It is too late. These may be the most dangerous forms of “impossible” — because eventually we stop recognizing them as assumptions and start treating them as facts. When the final shofar sounds at the close of Yom Kippur, it can feel like an ending. Perhaps it is the opposite. There are relationships still waiting to be repaired, apologies waiting to be spoken, blessings we have failed to notice — and a version of ourselves we have not yet met. Your past is not your destiny. Your story is not over. And the person you could
still become is waiting for you to begin. My wish for all of us this Yom Kippur is simple: I wish that we could truly become “I’m possible.” May we find the strength to forgive — the people who hurt us, the chapters we wish were different, and even ourselves — so that we do not need to lose what we have today in order to finally appreciate it. May the things that bother us stop having the power to keep us from the people and the blessings already in front of us. Gmar Chatimah Tovah. Rabbi Ari Oliszewski, Temple Emanuel, Virginia Beach.
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High Holidays 5787 It isn’t Yom Kippur Break Fast at my house without this egg casserole Easy, cheesy and can be prepared a day ahead.
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Skye Estroff This story originally appeared on The Nosher. Our family’s approach to Yom Kippur Break Fast is a Southern one. Many North Americans associate this feast with an array of sweet kugels, bagels with all of the accoutrements, rugelach in every flavor, blintzes, and maybe a special cake or two. Chances are you have never seen a spread filled with egg casserole, cream cheese grits, and homemade biscuits. Before the early 1900s, my family had not either. How did this menu come to be for a half-Sephardi, half-Ashkenazi Jewish family? It’s a funny story. I recently recovered my greatgrandpa’s autobiography that had been stowed away in storage. He detailed the lengths that it would take to acquire kosher food in Georgia in the early 20th century. Quick synopsis: It required special connections and effort to secure the holiday food necessities from the certified grocer. The “good stuff” was reserved for the residents of Atlanta, Augusta, and Savannah, while little was set aside for small town Jewish families. My family was one of the latter, so we had no choice but to incorporate ingredients that were more accessible into our meal planning. Eggs, grits, and flour were much easier to secure than specialty meats. Thus, Southern-style cuisine became intertwined with our family meals and traditions. All of this to say that I’ve grown accustomed to this style of Break Fast. Simple, flavorful and easily digestible foods are the strength and strategy in our Southern-inspired menu. The hearty pièce de résistance of our table is my mom’s egg casserole. It’s silky, cheesy, and smells amazing coming out of the oven. Egg casserole can be made in advance; refrigerate overnight and forget it until an hour before sunset. When going in for the bake, know that the egg mixture will be settled so the ratio of bread to egg mixture will look skewed. It’s not. The “casserole” bakes like a souffle, so the egg mixture will rise and create a pillowy texture to complement the crusty bits of challah that are exposed at the top. Feel free to modify this recipe to use any kind of bread (i.e. wholewheat, gluten-free, sourdough, etc.), milk instead of half-and-half, or a different sharp
cheese (Gruyere or Manchego would be nice). Serve my mom’s egg casserole alongside cream cheese grits, thick-cut biscuits plus a little bit of fruit and not only will you be covered for the holiday, you’ll get a taste of the lesser-known tradition that we hold so dear. • Total Time: 3 hours – overnight • Yield: Serves 4-6
Ingredients • 8 oz challah, cubed (half a challah) • 1½ cups shredded cheddar cheese • 6 large eggs • 2 cups half-and-half • 1 tsp mustard powder • ½ tsp salt • ¼ tsp black pepper • ½ tsp garlic powder • ½ tsp onion powder
Instructions 1. S pread the cubed challah across the bottom of a 9×13 baking dish. 2. S prinkle the shredded cheese evenly over the bread cubes. 3. I n a large bowl, whisk together eggs, half-and-half, mustard powder, salt, pepper, garlic powder, and onion powder until well combined. 4. P our the egg mixture evenly over the bread and cheese in the baking dish. 5. C over the dish with plastic wrap or foil and refrigerate it overnight (or at least a couple of hours) to allow the bread to absorb the egg mixture. 6. Preheat the oven to 350°F. 7. R emove the casserole from the refrigerator and let it sit at room temperature for about 15 minutes while the oven preheats. 8. Bake, uncovered, for 45-50 minutes or until the top is golden brown and the casserole is set in the middle. Insert a knife in the center to check if it’s fully cooked (it should come out clean). 9. L et the casserole cool for a few minutes before cutting and serving.
Notes • The casserole needs to chill in the fridge for a couple of hours, or overnight, before baking. • Egg casserole can be made in advance; refrigerate overnight and forget it until an hour before sunset.
High Holidays 5787
Classic Tzimmes Simple, forgiving and easy to make ahead, this dish
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• Advance funeral planning Sheri Silver This story originally appeared on The Nosher. Tzimmes has always been one of those dishes that feels like a hug from the past. It’s cozy, a little sweet and full of nostalgia — the kind of food that instantly makes me think of family holidays and a table full of favorites. A traditional Ashkenazi Jewish dish, tzimmes is made with a mix of root vegetables (usually big chunks of carrots and sweet potatoes), dried fruits such as prunes and raisins, and sometimes a drizzle of honey or a pinch of warm spices. It shows up often during the High Holidays, since the sweetness is meant to symbolize the hope for a sweet new year. Like so many traditional recipes, there are endless ways to make it. Some versions include meat, others get mashed into a smooth casserole, and a few go in a brighter direction with apples or pineapple. Everyone seems to have their own take — but the one I come back to again and again is simple and classic. Just chunky carrots and sweet potatoes baked slowly with prunes and raisins until they’re tender, glossy, and perfectly sweet without being too much. It’s a family favorite, and one of those dishes that always makes an appearance on our holiday
table, no matter what else we’re serving. One of the best parts about this recipe? It’s super forgiving. You can make it ahead (a couple of days in the fridge, or even weeks in the freezer), and it reheats beautifully. Honestly, it’s one of those holiday dishes that takes the stress down a notch because it’s ready when you are. And as a bonus, this version is vegetarian and dairy-free, which makes it easy to share with just about anyone at the table. Simple, comforting and holiday-ready — exactly what tzimmes should be! • Total Time: 1 hour 45 minutes (15 minutes of prep) • Serves: 4-6
Ingredients • 2 lb. carrots, peeled, trimmed, and cut into ½-inch-thick slices • 2 medium sweet potatoes, peeled and cut into chunks • 1 cup prunes (or dried apricots, or a mix) • ½ cup golden raisins • 2 Tbsp vegetable oil • 3 Tbsp brown sugar • 1 tsp cinnamon • ½ tsp kosher salt • ¼ tsp black pepper • 1 cup orange juice
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www.altmeyerfuneralandcremation.com and the sauce thickened into a glaze. 5. S erve warm.
Instructions 1. P reheat the oven to 350°F and lightly grease a 9×13 baking dish. 2. P lace the carrots, sweet potatoes, prunes, and raisins in a large bowl. Drizzle with the oil, then add the brown sugar, cinnamon, salt and pepper. Toss to coat. 3. P our in the orange juice and toss again to coat. 4. T ransfer to your prepared baking dish, cover tightly with foil and bake for 1 hour 30 minutes, stirring once or twice. The vegetables should be tender
Notes • To refrigerate: Cool the tzimmes completely, then cover and refrigerate for up to three days. Reheat, covered, at 325°F until warmed through. Add a splash of orange juice or water if needed. • To freeze: Cool completely before freezing in an airtight container for up to two months. Thaw overnight in the fridge and reheat, covered, at 325°F until hot, stirring once or twice.
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a v o T a L'Shan 5787
THE BOARDS AND STAFF OF THE UNITED JEWISH FEDERATION OF TIDEWATER
AND THE SIMON FAMILY JCC WISH YOU A SWEET & HAPPY NEW YEAR!
A Place to Connect Along the Dementia Journey:
JFS Dementia Café
A place where people living with dementia, their families, friends, and care partners can gather in a friendly, welcoming setting. Beginning this October, Jewish Family Service of Tidewater, in partnership with Marcia Brodie, invites you to join our monthly Dementia Café. Enjoy social engagement and stimulating entertainment Join in activities that encourage participation and immersion Build lasting relationships with peers for support Feel confident in a safe and inclusive environment Marcia Brodie is a Certified Independent Positive Approach to Care™ Trainer who helps caregivers and professionals better understand dementia, Alzheimer’s disease, and MCI while focusing on remaining abilities, communication, and creating positive experiences for caregivers and their loved ones. Connection • Support • Community
Second Monday of Every Month First Session October 12 1:00–3:00 p.m.
Simon Family JCC 5000 Corporate Woods Dr, Virginia Beach Free to attend. Registration required.
Register with Julie Kievit, jkievit@jfshamptonroads.org or 757-321-2318
With funding provided by Beth Sholom Village Foundation
26 | JEWISH NEWS | SEPTEMBER 14, 2026 | jewishnewsva.org
Their Values Are Still At Work.
JEWISH TIDEWATER
FIRST PERSON
Rabbi Levi’s newest trope sidekick is his own 13-year-old son freshly bar mitzvahed and Joel Rubin now motioning pah-zairs and Conservative Jews like me ti-veers like a pro on Saturdays. who have read from the Torah So on a recent Thursday for years either memorize the (not on a Shabbos), I had this words, vowels, and musical proud abba and his ben meet notes…or trope…or just me at Chabad for an interview, manage to get through typically demonstration and photos. a handful of sentences from an “Yes, I wanted to learn how eighth of a third of the sedrah to do the trope signals,” says or weekly portion (the triennial Shaya. “I thought it was cool.” cycle it’s called) on Shabbat In reality, it is not a sin to mornings. mess up a trope. “It’s the words But the guys on the that are most important,” says Orthodox team chant all 304,805 the learned Brashevitzky, and in words over the course of the most shuls of any denomination, year, an impressive achievement. there are minders in the pews Rabbi Levi Brashevitzky of ready to correct the reader when Chabad of Tidewater is such Rabbi Levi Brashevitzky and his son, Shaya. he blows a Hoo or a Hee. a Baal Korei. After initially “I don’t mind at all,” says the rabbi, “because the Torah is our watching him from the gallery at the Chabad “House” (a former story. Every letter, every paragraph has meaning.” As for the trope, funeral parlor) on Colley Avenue, I asked, “how do you know the 27 Google says the Masoretes, a group of 10th century scholars living tropes so well?” They are not on the parchment, but they are in the in Tiberias, Israel codified them. As to who devised the signals Chumash, which includes the entire text with translations, vowels, (www.learntrope.com/handSigns.html), “I don’t know,” says and trope. The congregants have copies of the Chumash at their Brashevitzky, “but they work.” seats, but more importantly, so does the one standing to the reader’s Brashevitzky says he did not read the Torah at his own left. “Do you see what he’s doing?” queried Brashevitzky. Bar Mitzvah and wasn’t aware of all the trope signing until his And so the next time I was at Chabad, I watched closely. wedding weekend. Now it’s his vocation. In advance of each While the Rebbe was zipping through the unadorned lines in week’s “kriat ha torah,” he relies mostly the columns, in his peripheral vision was on his own memory of the text and some his human cue card, flashing him a set minor prep each Friday afternoon. of signals. “When he sticks out his index Once he has yad in hand and a finger at an angle, that’s a re-vi-i,” says the Cohain aliyah chanter over his shoulder, 48-year-old Brooklyn-born father of three. Brashevitzky depends on his signaler “An okay gesture with two fingers is a te-lito keep pace with him (a couple words shi. A hard chop means ‘sohf pasuke,’ the ahead actually), so the presentation seems end of the sentence.” seamless to the men and women on Larry Bublick, a longtime member, either side of the mechitzah (separator). was Brashevitzky’s signal guy for years. And take it from this occasional Torah His wife’s brother is an occasional reader, no one tells the tale of the sideman. The newest one, though, is his Five Books faster, clearer and more and wife Rashi’s (nee Margolin) flesh and melodically than Rev Levi Brashevitzky. blood, their youngest, Shaya Brashevitzky, Shaya Brashevitzky signals trope.
Harry Mansbach believed opportunity carried responsibility.
Marie & Harry Mansbach, of blessed memory
When he created the Marie A. Mansbach Memorial Student Motivation Program in memory of his wife, Marie, he turned that belief into an investment in young people and their potential. More than three decades later, their family is still investing in that vision, strengthening the fund held at Tidewater Jewish Foundation and helping Harry and Marie's values continue to make a difference in the community they loved.
That is the Power of Legacy Your values can become more than something your family remembers. With thoughtful planning and the right partner, they can become something your family continues to live. START A LEGACY CONVERSATION Tidewater Jewish Foundation foundation.jewishva.org nsedek@tjfva.org 757-965-6111
jewishnewsva.org | SEPTEMBER 14, 2026 | JEWISH NEWS | 27
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IT’S A WRAP
More than a summer goodbye Blake Sisler Families gathered at the Sandler Family Campus on Friday, August 21 for United Jewish Federation of Tidewater’s and PJ Library’s annual End-of-Summer Shabbat. The celebration was originally planned as a pool party, but unexpected weather required a change of plans. Rather than allowing the weather to interrupt the evening, the festivities moved indoors – a shift that did little to dampen the evening. What could have been a disappointment quickly became an energetic and welcoming gathering. The gym was filled with the sounds of children laughing and playing, families reconnecting, and friends catching up after a busy summer. For many of the children, the evening was an extension of the relationships they built throughout the summer at Camp JCC, which is about more than the daily activities. Camp is a place where children develop friendships, gain confidence, discover new interests, and become part of a community. Seeing campers recognize one another, run to greet their friends, and immediately begin playing together was a wonderful reminder that those connections do not end when camp is over. A special highlight of the evening was welcoming Tidewater’s newest Shinshinim, Liel Aisikowitz and Evyatar Olswang, who recently arrived from Israel. As they spend the coming year engaging with children, families, and community members, they will bring their Israeli experiences, perspectives, and energy to Tidewater. Their presence creates opportunities for children to form personal connections to Israel and provides an additional way for Tidewater to experience the richness of Jewish life beyond the local community. To wrap up the evening, families gathered for Shabbat dinner. The transition from an active evening of play to a shared Shabbat meal created a moment to slow down and be present with one another. Rabbi Ari Oliszewski led the Shabbat blessings. The evening reflected the strong connections that unite Jewish Tidewater and the excitement of the coming year. To learn more about upcoming family programs, visit JewishVA.org/PJLibrary.
Pati Oliszewski lights the candles with Rabbi Ari and Rabbi Israel Zoberman.
Noah Bowers plays basketball with younger brother, Bennett Bowers.
The transition from an active evening of play to a shared Shabbat meal created a moment to slow down and be present with one another. Liel Aisikowitz and Evyatar Olswang, Tidewater’s newest Shinshinim.
End of Summer Shabbat at the Sandler Family Campus. jewishnewsva.org | SEPTEMBER 14, 2026 | JEWISH NEWS | 29
IT’S A WRAP
Mizrahi dance party.
Painting Hamsa door decorations.
Jackie Dratch leads the dancing.
Mizrahi in Motion: Connecting through art, food, and movement Haley Bartel Two dozen or so women gathered to immerse themselves in Mizrahi culture on the evening of Sunday, August 23. The event was led by Jackie Dratch, creator of the Mizrahi Dance Archive, and organized by NextGen757, a community group for young Jewish adults ages 21 - 45. “This is a women-focused event because there’s so many traditions of women doing exactly this, of gathering together, doing henna, and dancing,” Dratch says. Held at a home in Virginia Beach, the evening kicked off with a helping of Mediterranean staples — falafel, schnitzel, salad, hummus, and Za’atar fries. Then, Dratch sat everyone down for a brief presentation. She touched on the migration patterns of Mizrahi Jews, referring to them as ‘the Jews that never left the Middle East’ speaking about their spiritual, ritualistic uses of dance and henna. Dratch grew up in Queens, N.Y. with her Israeli/ Mizrahi family. She was also immersed in vibrant mixing pot of Jewish cultures from all parts of the Middle East, North Africa, and Central Asia. In her presentation, she shared tidbits from all the traditions she has witnessed, from the extravagant, lively weddings of Bukharian Jews to the upbeat dance traditions of Egyptian Jews.
As Dratch says, “there’s not one way to be Jewish, not one way to look Jewish.” In America, she says, most Jews come from Ashkenazi backgrounds. “We just don’t see this part of Judaism as much. But when you go to Israel, it’s everywhere, like in the fabric of the whole culture.” Next, participants painted wooden Hamsa door decorations while waiting to get henna done – chatting and sharing anecdotes of all kinds, from raising children to moving to new cities to their respective jobs. Though many dance and henna traditions are reserved for the bride on her wedding day, Dratch says there are also plenty of examples of rituals being held just for the fun of it. Special women’s celebrations such as Chag Habanot, or festival of daughters, a North African women’s Hanukkah celebration, or Leil Purim, a Kurdish Jewish women’s gathering the night before Purim, have the same common thread: bringing generations of Jewish women together to sing, dance, adorn themselves with henna, and celebrate womanhood. Growing up, Dratch’s best friends were three Jewish Egyptian sisters, and belly dance was a common activity. “Their mom would just take out some hip scarves and start making us dance,” she recalls. Just two weeks before this event, she performed at one of the sisters’ weddings in Philadelphia – a full-circle moment, she says,
that made it “very special to relive those memories, 30 years later.” Once everyone was properly acquainted, the group gathered outside for a Mizrahi dance party just like the childhood Dratch described. Before dancing, everyone selected traditional scarves, dresses, and hats to adorn themselves with. Dratch took the group on what she called “a little dance tour throughout the Jewish Middle East” – particularly Yemenite, Moroccan, and Bukharian dance. Participants learned two-steps, chest and hip isolations, and more as they danced to the lively music that boomed from the large speaker. Dancing freely doesn’t come easily to everyone, but doing so in such a supportive group setting made it a lot easier. The backyard was full of joy and laughter that evening as participants joked about the potential noise disruption the event was creating. Dratch believes that the physical, communal nature of the evening was the whole point. “It’s one thing to read about it or to watch a video, but to actually move your body... the whole point of it is just really to enjoy each other, to dance, to be together, to kind of let loose. That is where real connection and community is made.”
Women’s Rosh Chodesh Mizrahi Dance Thursdays, October 15 and November 12, 7 – 8 pm Simon Family JCC Free. Registration required. Women only. Mizrahi dance party. 30 | JEWISH NEWS | SEPTEMBER 14, 2026 | jewishnewsva.org
Getting hena done.
IT’S A WRAP
WHAT’S HAPPENING
Havdalah on the beach SENIOR FIRST PERSON
stop, think, and be grateful. Rabbi Ari, from Temple Emanuel, lead the group in singing and swaying and treated everyone to a beautiful blowing of the shofar. And then, there was dessert, another sweet part of the evening. Friends – new and old, young and wise (see what I did there?) – shared this special night. A family from New York, considering a move to the area, also came, knowing not a soul. But when they left, they felt connected. They were thrilled with the welcoming spirit of our community. We are a lucky bunch.
SPEAKER SERIES
FEATURES
☞☞
Stephanie Adler Calliott It was another beautiful evening at the beach on Saturday, August 29, when 68 people (but who is counting) gathered in our backyard to celebrate Havdalah together. Known for separating the Shabbat from the ordinary weekdays, Havdalah is a joyful service and a great reason to be together. There are many interpretations of the symbols used during the service: the cup of wine (grape juice) for a full cup of blessings for the coming week; sweet aromatic spices to refresh the soul; and a braided candle to blend light and darkness. All good reasons to make one
DR. LOUISE B. LUBIN
MONDAY, OCTOBER 19
11AM-12:30 PM SANDLER FAMILY CAMPUS
Stephanie Calliott, Don London, and Elisa Malkman. Larry Weinstein, Stephanie Calliott, and Rabbi Ari Oliszewski from Temple Emanuel.
David Leon, Betty Ann and Scott Levin.
Rabbi Ari Oliszewski and Larry Siegel.
Rabbi Ari blows the shofar.
Community gathering.
Join Jewish Family Service for its Senior Speaker Series featuring Dr. Louise B. Lubin, Ph.D., presenting Decades of Memories: Honoring the Loss of Our Peers and Friends. Dr. Lubin, a licensed clinical psychologist with more than 40 years of experience, will share compassionate guidance on coping with the loss of friends and peers, finding renewed purpose and connection, and supporting emotional well-being Louise B. Lubin. through the aging process. She will also offer reflections on Jewish perspectives on mourning that are welcoming to people of all backgrounds. For more information, contact Julie Kievit at 757-321- 2318 or jkievit@jfshamptonroads.org.
JoAnn Macon, Sharon Leach, Ralph Soussan, and Clay Macon.
Lauren Brand Zabazhinsky, Bonnie Brand, Judy Rosenblatt, and Cathy Eichelbaum.
Marilyn Siegel, Nate Elkin, Ken Siegel, and Joyce Elkin.
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WHAT’S HAPPENING
A new BeAR year and a new school Annual kickoff Thursday, October 8, 12 pm Sandler Family Campus Robin Ford Sharpen the pencils, stack the books, and get ready: BeAR is heading back to school. The Be A Reader (BeAR) Literacy Project’s annual kickoff of the school year is part reunion, part training, part eating, and a whole lot of fun. In addition to having lunch, catching up with old friends, welcoming the newest BeARs, everyone will leave with books and supplies for the year ahead. And this year, the BeAR family is growing. Diamond Springs Elementary in Virginia Beach is joining the program. Now comes the fun part. . . some fabulous new mentors are needed to fill those seats. Being a BeAR takes just one hour, one day a week during the school day. No teaching experience required. No pop quizzes. No homework. BeAR provides everything mentors need. Mentors are just requested to bring themselves and a willingness to show up for a second grader each week. Yes, there will be reading. But there will also be talking, laughing, silly stories, big and small victories, and probably a few conversations that have absolutely nothing to do with the book to be read. That’s part of the magic. BeAR has never been only about helping children become better readers. It’s about making sure a child knows there is someone who is genuinely excited to see them every single week. Diamond Springs needs BeARs. Want to be one? For more information, contact Robin Ford at United Jewish Federation of Tidewater at 757321-2304 or email rford@ujft.org.
JFS Dementia Cafe
Monday, October 12, 1 –3 pm Sandler Family Campus Jewish Family Service invites caregivers and individuals living with dementia to join its monthly Dementia Café. Held on the second Monday of every month, the Dementia Café provides a welcoming, supportive environment where participants can connect, socialize, and enjoy activities together. The program is guided by Marcia Brodie, a certified Independent Positive Approach to Care™ Trainer, whose expertise helps caregivers better understand Alzheimer’s disease, dementia, and mild cognitive impairment while focusing on strengths, communication, and creating positive experiences for everyone involved. To register or for more information, contact Julie Kievit at 757-321-2318 or jkievit@jfshamptonroads.org.
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WHAT’S HAPPENING
Tidewater Community Shabbaton Friday, Oct. 16 – Sunday, Oct. 18 For one weekend, the diverse Jewish Tidewater becomes one. The Community Shabbaton is a chance to step away from the busyness of everyday life and experience the joy of Shabbat alongside neighbors from across the community. Participants of all ages, backgrounds, and levels of Jewish experience are welcome. The Community Shabbaton is hosted by PJ Library in Tidewater and the Konikoff Center for Learning of the United Jewish Federation of Tidewater, in partnership with Congregation Beth El, Temple Israel, Temple Emanuel, KBH, and B’nai Israel Congregation, with generous support from the Tidewater Jewish Foundation. Register at JewishVA.org/Shabbaton.
In Their Own Words: American Jewish History Through Autobiography Begins September 22, Tuesdays, 11 am Sandler Family Campus
September 18 - October 11, 2026 BOX OFFICE: (757) 428 - 9233 | LTVB.COM 550 BARBERTON DRIVE | VIRGINIA BEACH, VA
Led by Rabbi Michael Panitz, this 10-week seminar brings to life the stories of Jewish men and women whose lives, experiences, and contributions helped shape the nation. Through their own words, participants will discover both familiar figures and largely forgotten individuals whose impact is still felt today. JewishVA.org/words.
NextGen 757 Pop-Up Shabbat There is nothing quite like sitting around a vibrant Shabbat table to remind of the power of the Jewish people. When showing up for each other at the table, the local community remains strong, connected, and thriving. Pop-Up Shabbat is supported by the Richard Glasser Family Foundation and UJFT’s NextGen 757. Register as a guest or to host at JewishVA.org/PopUpShabbat.
Conversational Hebrew with the Shinshinim October 19-May 24, Mondays, 5 pm Sandler Family Campus Join the Tidewater Shinshinim for weekly conversational Hebrew classes designed to help participants build confidence in speaking and understanding modern Hebrew. Through interactive activities, games, real-life scenarios, and cultural discussions, participants will strengthen their vocabulary, pronunciation, and everyday communication skills while gaining insight into contemporary Israeli life and culture. This engaging class is ideal for beginners and intermediate learners of all ages who want to improve their Hebrew in a fun, supportive, and welcoming environment. For more information about Conversational Hebrew classes and the Shinshinim program, visit JewishVA.org/Shinshinim or contact Nofar Trem at NTrem@UJFT.org.
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jewishnewsva.org | SEPTEMBER 14, 2026 | JEWISH NEWS | 33
S AV O R M U S I C F R O M
Iconic Legends.
Vivaldi’s Four Seasons & Philip Glass’s Lincoln Symphony Echoes & Icons
S E P T E M B E R 2 5, 2 0 2 6 N E W P O RT N E W S
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WHAT’S HAPPENING
A thriving Jewish community starts with a healthy community: JFS partners with JScreen Thursday, October 29, 6 pm, Sandler Family Campus Julie Kievitt Jewish Family Service of Tidewater is partnering with JScreen to bring important genetic testing and education to Tidewater’s Jewish community. The event is an opportunity to learn more about genetic testing, understand inherited health risks, and take a proactive step toward protecting one’s health and the health of future generations. JScreen is a national nonprofit organization dedicated to preventing genetic diseases and hereditary cancers through genetic testing and education. JScreen began through Emory University’s Department of Human Genetics, with a focus on making genetic screening more accessible to the Jewish community. While its services are now available to people of all backgrounds, JScreen provides important screening for genetic conditions that are more common among people of Ashkenazi Jewish ancestry. Because of shared ancestry, people of Ashkenazi Jewish descent have a higher likelihood of carrying certain genetic mutations than the general population. For example, one in three to one in four Ashkenazi Jews carries a gene mutation associated with serious recessive conditions such as Tay-Sachs or Canavan disease. Most carriers have no symptoms, which means testing is often the only way to know. Genetic testing is also important when it comes to hereditary cancer. Ashkenazi Jewish populations have a higher prevalence of certain BRCA gene mutations, which are associated with an increased risk for hereditary breast, ovarian, and other cancers. Since October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month, this is an especially meaningful time to learn more about hereditary cancer risks and the role genetic testing can play in early awareness and proactive health management. The event will focus on two primary types of testing. Hereditary Cancer Testing screens for BRCA1, BRCA2, and more than 60 other genes associated with inherited cancer risks. Reproductive Carrier Screening tests for Tay-Sachs disease, cystic fibrosis, and more than 260 other conditions that could potentially be passed on to children. Registration for the event is required. Those who preregister for JScreen testing kits are encouraged to arrive early, beginning at 4 pm to pick up the kit and work with JScreen representatives to complete the steps for processing samples. Preregistering for a testing kit ensures a kit will be available and gives participants priority for having their sample processed that evening. The program will include an educational presentation and
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panel discussion about genetic testing, inherited health risks, and the importance of screening at different stages of life. Those who decide they want to pursue testing after attending the program may register for a JScreen testing kit that evening. Kits will be available for participants who register on-site, either before or after the main program; however, sameevening processing cannot be guaranteed for those registering at the event. JScreen representatives will be available throughout the evening to answer questions and assist with the testing process. Testing is simple and can be completed at the event or at home. Those who prefer to complete the test at home can mail their sample using the provided prepaid mailer. The event is not only for people who are planning to start a family. Genetic testing can be valuable for many reasons throughout life. People can learn about their hereditary cancer risk, understand whether they carry a genetic condition, or simply have more information about genetic health. Knowing risks can help with informed conversations with healthcare providers and proactive decisions about one’s health and family’s future. The cost for the testing kit at this community event is $18. Laboratory processing will be billed through the participant’s insurance, depending on individual coverage. For those whose insurance does not cover the testing or who choose to self-pay, the total out-of-pocket cost will be no more than $249. Participants will receive information about their anticipated cost before moving forward with testing. JFS will also have limited financial assistance available for those who want to pursue genetic testing but may be unable to afford the expense. JFS is committed to helping ensure that cost does not prevent members of the community from accessing important healthcare screenings. The registration link will be available in the next issue of Jewish News, on the JFS website, and on the JFS Facebook page. A thriving Jewish community is one that cares for its members at every stage of life. By bringing JScreen to Tidewater, JFS is helping make important genetic health information and testing more accessible. This partnership reflects JFS’s commitment to education, prevention, and empowering individuals to make informed decisions about their health.
Because of shared ancestry, people of Ashkenazi Jewish descent have a higher likelihood of carrying certain genetic mutations than the general population.
For more information about this event, financial assistance for testing, or other JFS programs and services, contact Julie Kievit, Jewish Community Relations manager at Jewish Family Service, at jkievit@jfshamptonroads.org or 757-321-2318.
CALENDAR SEPTEMBER 14, MONDAY
SEPTEMBER 30, WEDNESDAY
Rosh Hashanah Craft and Cookie Workshop. Join Tidewater’s Shinshinim in partnership with PJ Library in Tidewater to ring in the Jewish New Year with holiday-themed cookie decorating, writing New Year letters, and making holiday crafts. Sandler Family Campus. 5 - 6 pm. Information on this workshop or the Shinshinim program: JewishVA.org/Shinshinim or contact Nofar Trem at NTrem@UJFT.org.
Pop-up Sukkah Social. UJFT’s NextGen teams up with Ohef Sholom Temple for a pop-up Sukkot celebration – an evening of great company, lively games, and music under the stars, all centered around a delicious, harvest-themed meal. Ohef Sholom Temple. 6:30 - 8:30 pm. Free: Registration required: JewishVA.org/NextGen. See page 20.
SEPTEMBER 19, SATURDAY
Sukkah Hoppin' and Craftin' UJFT’s NextGen and Congregation Beth El present two gatherings: Family & Kid-Friendly Sukkah Fun Time, 6 - 7:30 pm; NextGen Singles & Adults Gathering, 7:30 - 9 pm. Beth El. Registration required: JewishVA.org/NextGen. See page 20.
The Quest into the Promised Land. Join Tidewater’s Shinshinim for an “adventure to help the Israelites complete their journey.” After years of traveling through the wilderness, the Israelites are finally approaching the Promised Land. But before they can enter, a series of challenges stand in their way. Uncover clues, solve puzzles, crack codes, and complete the final quest before time runs out. For children and families. Sandler Family Campus. 10:30 am. Information and registration: JewishVA.org/Shinshinim or contact Nofar Trem at NTrem@UJFT.org.
SEPTEMBER 22, TUESDAY In Their Own Words: American Jewish History Through Autobiography. As the U. S. commemorates its 250th anniversary, this course highlights the lives, experiences, and contributions of Jewish men and women whose influence on American history far exceeded their recognition. Led by Rabbi Michael Panitz and hosted by UJFT’s Konikoff Center for Learning. 10-week course, Tuesdays at 11 am. (no class on Oct. 13) $60 JCC member; $72 potential member. Register: JewishVA.org/KCL. Bingocize For Fall Prevention. Learn about balance and fall prevention, stretching, and breathing techniques, and home safety modifications to promote a healthy lifestyle. 10-week course, Tuesdays and Thursdays, Sandler Family Campus. 11 am -12 pm. In partnership with Senior Services of Southeastern Virginia. Free and open to all seniors. Information and registration: Sarah Cooper at SCooper@ujft.org or 757-452-3184.
SEPTEMBER 24, THURSDAY Exhibition Opening: Elise Melnick Simon. Reception celebrating the opening of 60 Photographs by Elise Melnick Simon. This exhibition features the original prints from Simon’s 1989 solo show of the same name, which remained in storage following her unexpected death in 2002. Through photographs of everyday natural and man-made objects, Simon explored symmetry in nature and its relationship to the structures around it. Her images reveal the expressive patterns found in even the simplest surroundings, inviting viewers to see familiar subjects in a new way. Leon Family Gallery. Refreshments at 5:45 pm; remarks at 6 pm. Registration required at JewishVA.org/Gallery.
SEPTEMBER 25, FRIDAY Oktoberfest in the Sukkah. UJFT’s NextGen’s Oktoberfest-inspired Yom Tov/Shabbat dinner in the B’nai Israel Sukkah. 7:30 pm. This gathering brings a Bavarian twist to one of Judaism’s most joyful harvest holidays. $10 per person. Registration required. JewishVA.org/NextGen. See page 20.
SEPTEMBER 27, SUNDAY Under the Stars: Sukkah and a Cinema. Celebrate Sukkot with UJFT’s NextGen and Temple Israel at a cozy Pop-Up Sukkah experience for adults ages 22–45. Delicious meal in the sukkah, followed by an outdoor-style cinema screening of the acclaimed Israeli film, Ushpizin. 6 - 9 pm. Temple Israel. Free. Registration required: JewishVA.org/NextGen. See page 20.
SEPTEMBER 28, MONDAY Sukkah Happy Hour. UJFT’s NextGen and Kehillat Bet Hamidrash (KBH)’s Sukkah Happy Hour in the sukkah on the Sandler Family Campus. Mingle with the community while enjoying appetizers, drinks, and lively lawn games. 5:30 -7:30 pm. Free. Pre-registration required: JewishVA.org/NextGen.See page 21.
OCTOBER 1, THURSDAY
Baby & Me. First Thursday of every month. A welcoming gathering designed for babies up to 24 months and their caregivers. Coffee, treats, and conversation with caretakers while little ones explore, play, and begin building friendships. 9 -10 am. Free, no membership required. Sandler Family Campus. Registration required: JewishVA.org/BAM or contact Blake Sisler at BSisler@ujft.org.
OCTOBER 1 AND 15, THURSDAY Roundtable Conversation. Discussions involve current events, politics, and more. Meets every first and third Thursday of the month. 1 pm. Sandler Family Campus. Information: www.jewishva.org/Adults or Sarah Cooper at SCooper@ujft.org.
OCTOBER 10, SATURDAY Middle School Game Night. An evening filled with games, friendship, and fun. Sandler Family Campus. 5 - 7 pm. Dinner provided. Register: JewishVA.org/GameNight or contact Blake Sisler at BSisler@ujft.org. Kids Night Out. An evening packed with fun, including games, swimming with friends, and a movie. Pack child’s dinner before arrival. 5 - 9 pm. Sandler Family Campus. For JCC members ages 4–12, the cost is $25 per child and $15 per sibling, with a maximum of $55 per household. For potential JCC members, the cost is $30 per child and $20 per sibling, with a maximum of $70 per household. Register: JewishVA.org/KNO or contact Christine Carnahan at CCarnahan@ujft.org.
OCTOBER 15 - DECEMBER 9 Lee & Bernard Jaffe Family Jewish Book Festival. For more than 40 years, the Lee & Bernard Jaffe Family Jewish Book Festival has brought extraordinary voices to Tidewater. Bestselling authors, journalists, diplomats, physicians, judges, artists, historians, and thought leaders visit to share ideas, challenge assumptions, spark curiosity, and deepen understanding. The full 2026 festival lineup will be announced soon.
OCTOBER 16-18, FRIDAY THROUGH SUNDAY Tidewater Community Shabbaton. The Community Shabbaton is a chance to step away from the busyness of everyday life and experience the joy of Shabbat with neighbors from across Tidewater. $100 per person, max $400 per family. Includes lodging (in camp-style lodges), all meals, and all activities. Register at JewishVA.org/Shabbaton. Location provided upon registration. Information: Sierra Lautman at SLautman@ujft.org.
OCTOBER 19-MAY 24, MONDAYS Conversational Hebrew with the Shinshinim. Weekly classes focus on practical conversation skills, vocabulary, and pronunciation through interactive activities and real-life scenarios. Perfect for beginners and intermediate learners of all ages who want to improve their speaking and listening skills in a fun, supportive environment. 5 pm. Sandler Family Campus. Information: JewishVA.org/Shinshinim, or contact Nofar Trem at NTrem@UJFT.org.
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OBITUARIES –––––––––––––––––––––––––––
Merle S. Becker
PRINCETON, NJ – Merle Louise Skoler Becker, 91, of Princeton, died on August 20, 2026, at Princeton Medical Center following a brief illness. Merle was born on June 6, 1935, in New York City to Sam Skoler, an accountant, and Dorothy Fraiman, a homemaker. Merle’s mother Dorothy was an arts enthusiast who, despite a modest household budget, took both Merle and her younger sister Cara to a wide array of musical and theatrical performances. From a young age Merle showed an aptitude for music, giving her first piano recital at age five. She quickly became a skilled cello player as well; and one of her fondest memories was attending music camp at Interlochen Center of the Arts where she made lifelong friends. After graduating from what is now known as the LaGuardia High School of Music & Arts and Performing Arts, Merle continued her musical studies at Barnard College, earning a bachelor’s
degree. She later completed a master’s degree in music education at Smith College. While working as a music teacher in New York City, she was set up on a blind date with Dr. William Becker, a dentist from Norfolk, Va. who had also grown up in New York City. On their first date, Merle famously played a piano duet with her sister Cara in the parlor to entertain him. Merle and Bill were married in 1959 and began to raise their family in Norfolk. A diehard New Yorker, Merle steadfastly maintained her N.Y. driver’s license, holding out the slender hope that she and Bill would return to the city of their birth. Eventually, she embraced life in Norfolk, playing cello in the Virginia Symphony and participating in the local Jewish community. Every summer she drove her sons to the Catskills so they could spend several weeks with her parents and Cara’s family. While raising her boys Merle gave music lessons to neighborhood children and later became a music teacher at Norfolk Academy. Over time she transformed the
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school’s music department from a single room with a piano into an extremely popular, multidisciplinary program that included orchestra, choir, theater, and dance. In a sense, Merle brought NYC to NA. She ultimately served as chair of the Fine Arts Department for several years and mentored many students who went on to pursue careers in the arts. After retiring from teaching, Merle continued to play cello in a chamber music quartet and assisted Bill in managing his dental practice. She also spent as much time as possible in New York City seeing shows and exhibits with her cherished sister Cara, whose daughters Margot and Sabrina she dearly loved. Always a loving and attentive mother, Merle kept in constant contact with her four adult sons, supporting and encouraging them through every stage of life. When speaking with Merle on the phone, it was not unusual to hear her exclaim, “I got the beep!” when one of the other family members called at the same time. As the grandchildren arrived, Merle showered them with love, gifts, and time–including trips to the beach, pool, museums, aquarium, even the Metropolitan Opera. Cheerful, energetic, and patient, she was an amazing grandmother. When Merle and Bill began to find it challenging to live in Virginia far from their sons, they moved to Princeton. Merle accepted aging, relocation, health issues, and the loss of her husband Bill with tremendous grace and dignity. In recent years she enjoyed frequent visits from her children and grandchildren and developed new friendships with her fellow residents at 55 Witherspoon Street and other devotees of the Princeton Public Library. She never lost her passion for music and played her childhood cello until both she and the instrument became too fragile. Even in her last year she delighted in attending musical performances at the library, Hinds Plaza, the McCarter, and Richardson Auditorium. Merle was predeceased by her beloved husband Bill (2018). She is survived by her four sons: Richard (Rachel), Paul (Lori), Daniel (Madeleine), Sam (Jennifer); grandchildren Olivia, Ben, Hannah, Joshua, Sophia, Corey, Robbie, Emily, and Kate; nieces Margot, Sabrina, Dana, Jodi, and Randi; and many friends.
A funeral service was held at MatherHodge Funeral Home in Princeton. To honor Merle’s lifelong passion for the arts and education, donations may be made to the McCarter Theatre Center in Princeton, N.J. or the Princeton Public Library. –––––––––––––––––––––––––––
Edythe Colton Harrison
BOCA RATON, FLA. – Edythe Colton Harrison, a Virginia civic leader, arts advocate, legislator, and political pioneer, whose career was closely identified with Norfolk and the development of performing arts in Virginia, passed away peacefully in the presence of her devoted family and caregivers on the afternoon of September 1, 2026. Harrison came from Detroit, Michigan. She grew up in a loving home, a home filled with music. Her mother, Lottie (Sultan) Colton, trained in Paris to be a concert pianist. Her mentor was Wanda Landowska, one of the most influential keyboard musicians of the 20th century. Her father, Dr. Arthur Colton, a prosperous dentist, was a talented tenor and opera enthusiast. Harrison revered her parents, revered how they frequently sang together, how her father danced with her, his zest for life. She credited the love and trust of her parents for the fearless self-confidence with which she led her life. “They had faith in me. They never corrected me. I never, ever felt fear,” Harrison said. In 1954, Harrison met Stanley L. Harrison, a young real estate executive from Norfolk, at a fraternity social weekend. It was love at first sight. The two became inseparable. They married at the Colton home in Detroit, on December 3, 1955, and remained deeply in love until Mr. Harrison’s death on June 11, 1991. The newlyweds settled in in Norfolk in 1956. There, they raised a son, Tim, and two daughters, Jody, and Julie. Although an outsider from north of the Mason-Dixon Line, at a time when that mattered much more than it does today, Harrison loved her city as fiercely as any native, and Norfolk, in time, came to love her back. Harrison’s civic conscience became apparent during the Jim Crow era. She allied herself with the civil rights movement, campaigning door to door in her Larchmont neighborhood against
OBITUARIES Massive Resistance to Brown v. Board of Education, when Norfolk closed its public schools rather than integrate them. These were difficult years. Her advocacy required courage. She never wavered. Nor did her husband, on whose constant support, support courageous in its own right, she relied more on than many people understood. She saw what was right, and advocated with conviction for what was right, and prevailed. Thus, was established a major theme of her life, a theme that influenced everything that followed. Asked her occupation, Harrison liked to answer, “professional volunteer.” That was a characteristically modest description of one of the broadest civic careers Norfolk has ever known. She gave her energy to causes ranging from the arts and education, to day care for working mothers, to equal rights for women, to interfaith understanding, serving variously with the Women’s American ORT, the Greater Norfolk Corporation, the Norfolk Commission on the Arts and Humanities, the President’s Advisory Council of Old Dominion University, the Board of Trustees of Norfolk State University, the Regional Hospice Council of Tidewater, the Virginia Alliance for Arts Education and the National Conference of Christians and Jews, which honored her with its Brotherhood Award in 1978. Her most enduring gift to the Commonwealth began in 1974, when the daughter of a concert pianist and an opera-loving tenor organized the Virginia Opera Association and became its founding chair. That first season consisted of two productions at the Norfolk Center Theater, a largely abandoned WPA-era arena in Ghent. From that modest beginning grew one of the most important and successful cultural institutions in the Commonwealth, an institution that brought national recognition to Norfolk for the quality of its performances. In 1994, the General Assembly designated Virginia Opera the Official Opera Company of the Commonwealth of Virginia. Harrison led a campaign that raised some $10 million, an unheard-of amount at the time, to transform the Center Theater into an architecturally significant modern opera house. The facility was named the Edythe C. and Stanley L. Harrison Opera
House, in honor of her and her husband’s contributions to the cultural life of the city, and remains the home of the company she founded. In 1979, in recognition of her leadership, President Jimmy Carter appointed Harrison to the Advisory Committee on the Arts of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington. In 1979, Harrison sought and won election as a Democrat to represent Norfolk in the Virginia House of Delegates, taking office in January 1980. She served on committees concerned with the Chesapeake Bay and its tributaries, conservation, and natural resources, education, interstate cooperation, and labor and commerce. She championed the cause of women’s medical rights, fighting for legislation requiring physicians to obtain informed consent from women with cancer before performing mastectomies. Redistricting brought her House career to a close after a narrowly decided 1982 primary, but she was far from finished. In 1984, Harrison won the Democratic nomination to run for election representing Virginia in the United States Senate. She became the first woman ever to seek statewide office in the Commonwealth. In a difficult year for Democrats, she won more than a million votes, all across the state. Her campaign opened a door that to women had been forever closed, and she is remembered as a prominent member of a pioneering generation of women in Virginia statewide politics. She loved teaching what she had learned. She founded the Women’s Studies Department at Old Dominion University and became its first chair. Among the courses that she taught was one titled, Women in Leadership. Her papers, including those documenting her political life and her 1984 campaign, are preserved in the University’s Special Collections and Archives. In 2010, the Library of Virginia included her as one of Virginia’s Woman in History, recognizing her contributions to the Commonwealth in both civic life and the arts. Arts founder, volunteer, legislator, advocate for women, educator, candidate: to those who knew her, those were never separate careers. They were different expressions of a single conviction – to do
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www.altmeyerfuneralandcremation.com what was right, to advocate for what was right, to have, as she often repeated, “the courage of your convictions.” She advocated with warmth, humor and the fearless selfconfidence with which her parents had imbued her. She knew that a community is only as good as what its citizens are willing to make of it. Harrison was preceded in death by her beloved husband, Stanley. She is survived by her son Tim (Caroline), her daughters, Jody (Martin) and Julie, her grandchildren Leila, Sharla (Dan), Noah, Tim, Alice, Aliza and Josh, her great-grandchild Caroline, and her brother, Dr. Victor Robert Colton.
A graveside service took place at Forest Lawn Cemetery, followed by a memorial service Ohef Sholom Temple. The family suggests memorial gifts to Women’s American ORT and the Cleveland Clinic, Florida, or to a charity of the donor’s choosing. –––––––––––––––––––––––––––
Blanche Bowman Nusbaum
VIRGINIA BEACH – Blanche Bowman Nusbaum, 90, passed away peacefully in her home at Westminster-Canterbury on September 1, 2026. She was born in Richmond, Va. to the late Jane Myers Bowman and Louis
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OBITUARIES O. Bowman, Sr. and was preceded in death by her beloved husband, Charles G. Nusbaum, Sr. and her dear twin brother Louis O. Bowman, Jr. Mrs. Nusbaum is survived by two adored sons, Charles G. Nusbaum, Jr. and his wife Kimberly Ann (Kim) of Denver, Col. and John M. Nusbaum and his wife Alexandra Schmertz (Lexy) of Rye, N.Y. Five grandchildren include Alexander Nusbaum of Denver, Olivia Nusbaum of Boulder, Col., Oliver and Felix Nusbaum of Boston, Mass. and Jasper Nusbaum of Manhattan. Mrs. Nusbaum also leaves behind her sister-in-law Eve Bowman of Richmond, and her beloved nieces, nephews and cousins, especially Cynthia and Stuart Katz of Norfolk – they phoned each other daily. Blanche attended Mary Washington College and The Pan American Business School. For many years, Mrs. Nusbaum was active on the Auxiliary Board, and as a Pink Lady at Norfolk General Hospital.
And she was a member of the Auxiliary Board of St. Mary’s Infant Home. Blanche was a member of Ohef Sholom Temple and its Sisterhood. Always the gracious host, Blanche was instrumental in developing Westminster-Canterbury’s “buddy system,” where existing residents are matched to new residents to help them acclimate, meet others, and learn about activities. Family was everything to Blanche, and she was incredibly devoted to them and to her friends. She thrived on planning and giving parties, playing doubles tennis for many years, and she and Charles Sr. loved traveling, especially on cruises. Blanche kept an active social schedule and enjoyed playing bridge several times a week. The graveside burial was private. A memorial service officiated by Rabbi Rosalin Mandelberg was held at the Chapel at Westminster-Canterbury.
Memorial contributions to the Westminster-Canterbury Foundation Fellowship Fund, the Foodbank of Southeastern Virginia or to a charity of the donor’s choosing. ––––––––––––––––––––––––––
Myra Lipkin
BOCA RATON, FLA. – Myra Lipkin passed on August 31, 2026, at the age of 88. Born on January 31, 1938, Myra was a resident of Boca Raton, and the aunt of Marty and Ina Leiderman. –––––––––––––––––––––––––––
Joan Naomi Thompson
MARCO ISLAND, FLA. – Joan Naomi Thompson, a beloved wife, mother, grandmother, and cherished friend, passed away peacefully on August 19, 2026. She leaves behind a legacy of love, devotion, and family that will continue to live on through the generations. Joan was the cherished wife of Berton Thompson, with whom she shared 43 wonderful years of marriage. Their love
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inspired everyone who had the privilege of seeing them together. Joan and Bert created a warm and loving family and a home filled with memories that will be treasured always. Joan, a native of Norfolk, and Granby High alumna, was a loving mother to Stacie Shure (David Lerner) of Virginia Beach, Adam Shure of Virginia Beach, and Jami Quartararo (Alan) of Knoxville, Tenn. She took immense pride in each of them and found great joy in watching their lives unfold. Her greatest joy was being a grandmother. She delighted in celebrating her four adoring grandchildren, Evan and Hannah Rabinowitz of Pittsburgh, Pa. and Paige and Abigail Quartararo of Knoxville. Joan treasured every moment with them and traveled to attend their milestones, birthdays, graduations, and mitzvahs. Her grandchildren knew how deeply they were loved, and they will carry the warmth of her love with them throughout their lives. Those who knew Joan will remember her laughter, her love of music, and her love for the community she and Bert built at JCMI. But she will especially be remembered for her joy of baking – especially anything chocolate. She leaves behind not only the sadness of her absence, but also the countless memories and enduring bonds that are a testament to the life she lived. Funeral services were held at the Jewish Congregation of Marco Island with burial at Marco Island Cemetery. Memorial donations to the Alzheimer’s Support Network at https://support.network or at 1421 Pine Island Road, Suite 100, Naples, FL 34109.
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May the Source of Peace send peace to all who mourn, and comfort to all who are bereaved.
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