Amendolara Mayor Salvatore Antonio Ciminelli, left, standing next to JTA's Ruth Ellen Gruber, after presenting award certificates to some of the 100 schoolchildren who attended a Holocaust Memorial Day ceremony in the town hall, Jan. 27, 2012. The children received awards for art or writing projects about the Shoah. (Photo courtesy Amendolara Town Hall)

AMENDOLARA, Italy (JTA) — It was International Holocaust Memorial Day, and when I told my audience that I was a Jew, they burst into applause.

I was speaking at the City Hall in this ancient seacoast town in Calabria, deep in southern Italy on the instep of the Italian boot. My audience consisted of some 100 schoolchildren aged 10-13, along with their teachers, city officials and a few parents.

Italy marks Holocaust Memorial Day on Jan. 27 with an array of commemorative and educational initiatives, and schools all over the country organize special lessons, study units, projects and other programs on the Holocaust.

This year I was invited to Amendolara and Oriolo, another small Calabrian town perched high amid rugged hills, to speak to elementary- and middle-school students as part of municipal events.

In Amendolara and Oriolo, my presentations came at the end of a series of other speeches by local officials and educators. The mayors of both towns denounced the dangers of Holocaust denial.

“Democratic western countries must not forget that these democracies were built on the ashes of Auschwitz,” said Amendolara Mayor Antonello Ciminelli. “We must fight Holocaust denial; denying the Holocaust can lead to denying the legitimacy of the State of Israel.”

In Amendolara, the program included a film about the drawings made by children interned in the Terezin ghetto camp near Prague. In Oriolo, a young local woman who had written a novella set during the Holocaust talked to the kids about the book.

For my turn to speak, I wasn’t quite sure what to say. The kids had begun to fidget as the ceremony wore on, and I was concerned about keeping their attention.

So I decided to change gears. I wasn’t going to talk about the Holocaust per se, I told them. They had been studying that and were aware, I think, of the horror.

What they didn’t know anything about was Jews – Jews as living people, and not abstract Holocaust victims in striped pajamas or faceless components of the 6 million.

So, I told them, “I’m a Jew, living and kicking” — and that’s when they applauded.

In a manner of speaking, my message was my very presence.

We are normal people, I said. We come in all shapes and sizes; some of us are rich, some poor; some are smart, some dumb; some are religious and others, like me, are not.

I recited the Shehecheyanu blessing, telling them that I thought it appropriate since I felt so moved and privileged to be able to meet with them.

Then I showed them pictures of the impact of the Holocaust — color pictures, not black and white shots or grainy film. They were pictures that illustrated the work I have done over the years documenting the synagogues, cemeteries and other remains of prewar Jewish life and also chronicling the rebirth of Jewish life in post-Communist Eastern Europe.

There was no time to take questions after the event in Amendolara. But later, a woman told me that tears had come to her eyes when I said I was a Jew.

And a group of girls came up to talk.

“You’re the first Jew we ever met,” they told me.

What did they think of that? I wanted to know.

“You must have lived through a lot,” one said.

The kids had studied the Holocaust in class and, as part of their lessons, had created artworks and writing projects. Some of the pictures they drew were displayed on the walls: There were Stars of David and human faces penned in by barbed wire, prisoners in striped uniforms with the caption “so as not to forget,” images of death-camp barracks.

One picture, I noticed, quoted the lyrics of a famous song about Auschwitz written in the 1960s by the Italian singer-songwriter Francesco Guccini.

“I died when I was a child,” the song begins. “I died with a hundred others. Passed through a chimney, and now I’m in the wind …”

About 30,000 Jews live in Italy today, but none, as far as I can tell, lives in either Amendolara or Oriolo. Calabria was home to a flourishing Jewish community in the Middle Ages, but Jews were expelled from the region 500 years ago.

Ironically, the largest Jewish presence in the region came during World War II, when Italy’s fascist government held more than 3,800 Jews, most of them from other countries, in the Ferramonti internment camp near Cosenza. Schoolchildren often visit Ferramonti as part of Holocaust education programs.

That evening in Oriolo, the program went on longer than anticipated, but the kids were eager to stay on and ask questions afterward.

“Did you lose any family in the Holocaust?” asked a girl who looked to be about 10.

I explained that no, my mother’s parents both had been born in the United States and my father’s parents had emigrated from what is now Romania more than 100 years ago. My relatives in Romania were deported to a labor camp in Ukraine and, as far as I know, survived. I showed pictures of myself visiting the grave of my great-grandmother, who had died in Romania after the war.

Then one boy of about 11 asked a question that I couldn’t even begin to answer. It was the question underlying the entire evening and decades of history.

“What,” he asked, “did the Nazis have against Jews? What made them kill them like that?”

(Ruth Ellen Gruber’s books include “National Geographic Jewish Heritage Travel: A Guide to Eastern Europe,” and “Virtually Jewish: Reinventing Jewish Culture in Europe.” She blogs on Jewish heritage issues at http://jewish-heritage-travel.blogspot.com.)

“Confetti Clown” Susan Claassen

Clowning around
Susan Claassen, managing artistic director of the Invisible Theatre, has been a clown in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade for the past 11 years. She’s honored to have a photo of her and the other 2010 “Confetti Clowns” encircling the parade’s executive producer, Amy Kule, as part of the recently published “Macy’s Culinary Council Thanksgiving and Holiday Cookbook.”
This keepsake volume celebrates the 85-year history of the parade and provides over 80 festive recipes by the 13 top chefs on the council. Chef Michelle Bernstein shares Chanukah dinner fare, including updated classics such as butter lettuce and shaved fennel salad, French bean and pearl onion ragout, scallion potato pancakes, Mom’s brisket, and zeppole (an Italian version of sufganiyot — fried doughnuts).
On to a dozen years of clowning on the streets of New York …

Bat Mitzvah celebrant Rachel Richter

Bat Mitzvah on a boat

On land or at sea, the venue might be different but the tradition is the same.
On Monday, Dec. 19, Rachel Richter became a Bat Mitzvah aboard Royal Caribbean’s Oasis of the Seas weeklong sail from Fort Lauderdale to Nassau, St. Thomas and St. Martin and back. Thirteen (fitting number!) family members and friends were present for this significant rite of passage. Tucson attendees included Rachel’s parents Allison and Michael Richter, her brother Noah, grandparents Leah Richter and Sandra and Sid Lachter, aunt Suzanne Stadheim and cousins Abigail and Andrew, plus uncle Marty Lachter (N.Y.) and friends Jessica and Brian Nau (Seattle).
Online, using Skype, Cantor Glenn Sherman of southern Florida worked with Rachel for seven months to prepare her for this special day. Our celebrant, part of the B’nai Mitzvah class at Congregation Chaverim, led the entire service, chanted from the Torah, and gave a speech. Her parents also spoke. Following the blessings over the wine and challah, the family enjoyed lunch together on the ship.
Sherman officiated at two more B’nai Mitzvah celebrations that day and led the well-
attended shipboard Shabbat service and chanukiah lighting during the week. The cantor used a small, airplane carry-on-sized Torah, a 200-year-old scroll presumably rescued from Poland during a pogrom. He claimed that Rachel was one of the first girls to read from it.
Grandma Leah summed up this experience:  “Being the first grandchild on both sides of the family, this was a major milestone and a unique celebration.”

Tucson Birthright Israel participants (L-R) Carly Winetrobe, Brandon Hellman, Maraiah Shevchuk, Ryan Phillips, Mitchell Kessler and Melissa Kessler overlooking the Old City of Jerusalem

Winter Taglit-Birthright Israel 2012
“Grateful for the opportunity to travel …
appreciative of the philanthropists who made it possible … connected to Israel and my new group of friends formed on this life-changing journey.” These were some of the comments from 39 University of Arizona students who, from Dec. 27 through Jan. 6, partook in the winter Birthright free trip to Israel to see the land of their heritage. Sharon Glassberg, UA HillelNEXT Jewish educator and director of the Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona’s Coalition for Jewish Education, and Shani Knaani, UA Hillel Israel Fellow, accompanied the group, which included six Tucsonans — Brandon Hellman, Melissa Kessler,

Sharon Glassberg, Jean Glassberg and Adam Bukani taste wine at the Adir Winery in the Upper Galilee.Sharon Glassberg, Jean Glassberg and Adam Bukani taste wine at the Adir Winery in the Upper Galilee.

Mit­chell Kessler, Ryan Phillips, Mariah Shevchuk and Carly Wine­trobe.
The busload of Wildcats followed a hectic schedule. From north to south, Jerusalem to Tel Aviv, they visited the major historical sites and, to use their words, “rode, hiked, climbed, floated, ate, shopped and napped.”
Some of the trip highlights included visiting Shani’s home, Kibbutz Hulata, in northern Israel. The students bonded with the eight Israeli soldiers who rode on their bus for five days to have their own Birthright experience. At the Mega Event in Jerusalem, joined by thousands of other young Jews from around the world, the group heard from primary philanthropists Charles Bronfman, Michael Steinhardt and Lynn Schusterman, as well as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Earlier in the trip, they listened to Avraham Infeld, Hillel President Emeritus, who was in Tucson in early December to address the Jewish Federation Leadership Summit. Carly and Mariah received Jewish names at a ceremony beside the Dan River in Tel Dan National Park. The two also became B’not Mitzvah on Shabbat at the Rimonim Jerusalem Hotel.
Here are some impressions from this adventure:
Carly, a senior: “I didn’t do much Jewishly growing up. My Bat Mitzvah was a big step in recognition of my being Jewish, made all the more special in Israel.”
Mariah, a junior: “Israel and its people inspire me; I can’t wait to return. Hopefully, I can make aliyah and attend grad school there.”
Ryan, a junior, was impacted by the Golan Heights, noting its strategic location of history and conflict. “Following this trip, I plan to become more involved in Hillel.”
Mitchell, a senior, referred to the 10 days as “appetizers to get the taste buds wet” and left Israel wanting to return as a Jew to his homeland. It was special for him to travel with his sister Melissa, a UA sophomore.
• • • • •
At the end of Birthright, Jean Glassberg, Sharon Glassberg’s mother, flew to Israel to join Sharon and Sharon’s son Adam Bukani, who was on semester break from Aardvark, the Masa Gap Year program in Israel. The three generations toured and spent quality family time together.

Forest memorial plaque honoring Sara Ross’ mother and family

Planting for the future
In October, during Succot, Sara and Bob Ross took their fourth trip to Israel. What made this journey “very special,” says Sara, was a one-day Jewish National Fund tour. Sara and Bob were moved by the work that this nonprofit organization has accomplished since its inception in 1901. “The work that JNF does goes way beyond planting trees. It has water conservation projects, teaches youth about the environment and
ecology, and has built a bomb shelter in Sderot,” says Sara.
Sara’s maternal grandparents perished in the Holocaust; her mother was a Holocaust survivor. With funds from her mother’s estate, Sara and her family planted a JNF forest in Israel, dedicating this posthumous gift in memory of her mother’s parents. In the same forest, says Sarah, they’ll have an opportunity to honor their grandchildren on JNF’s B’nai Mitzvah Remembrance Wall. The stone wall, designed to look like a Torah scroll, is embedded with glass tiles that link a child’s name to a young Holocaust victim who was denied the opportunity to become a Bar or Bat Mitzvah. Sara and Bob intend to link their grandchildren’s names to a great aunt and great uncle who were also victims of the Holocaust.

Time to share
Keep me posted — 319-1112. L’shalom.

Aodhan Lyons volunteers at a food bank on the Navajo Nation

I went to the Navajo Nation on Young Judaea’s alternative winter break program with few expectations except that it would be a fun time. It ended up being that and more.

We did a lot of local volunteer work for the Navajo Nation, in Tuba City mostly, but also in a rural area of the reservation in northeastern Arizona. We started out with some icebreakers to get to know each other. Everyone was fantastic and I slept in a hogan with nine other high school guys. We all ended up becoming good friends. The Navajo nation is divided into areas called chapters, and on the first day, we helped prepare land for the building of a subchapter house so the people nearby could go there for information instead of walking many miles to get news. Afterward we walked to some nearby cliffs, did tefillot (prayers), and played on a large sand dune where I fell off and hit my face hard on the ground. That led me to learn a new Navajo custom: “It is important to laugh at someone when they get hurt, before you ask them if they are okay,” our guide and site director said.

The next day we split up and my group went to the Hopi senior center to help take down Christmas decorations and converse with the elders. One of them, named Ellis, showed me how to play a game called rummikub. All of the people there were women who loved the final activity we did with them, Israeli dancing. The next day, my group went to the food bank where we split up into two smaller groups. One group went to help cut down a dead tree and plant a new peach tree in its place. My group helped sort products from large cardboard units into smaller plastic boxes. We also helped put products into cardboard boxes to give to families.

On the final day, we visited some museums and a sweat lodge. The sweat lodge was fantastic, with a prayer session aloud in the middle of nowhere, inside a tiny dugout mud hut with steam constricting my breathing, and intense heat. It was “pain for the sake of others.” I imagined that it was kind of seeping the perfect wellness out of us and moving it to the people who needed it more. We went off to Phoenix to sleep in a hotel near the airport, then returned to our respective homes after doing reflections on the week, with a lot of goodbyes. I will really miss all the friends I made, and hope to see them again. I also hope to see the impact I made on the people I met. This was a great way to spend my winter break, because I made a lot of new friends, and it makes me feel good that I helped a lot of people.

Aodhan Lyons, a freshman at Tucson High Magnet School, raised $700 to participate in Young Judaea’s alternative winter break program by soliciting donations from members of the board of Hadassah Southern Arizona and others in the local Jewish community, family and friends, supplemented by a subsidy from Young Judaea. Young Judaea, a Zionist youth movement managed by Hadassah, added the Navajo Nation this year to its winter break program, which it has operated in New Orleans for several years.

Guy Gelbart

What does it mean to be a Jewish and democratic state? This question came to light with the story of Na’ama Margolis.

Na’ama, an 8-year-old modern Orthodox girl, was the victim of an offense by a small radical haredi (ultra-Orthodox) group called the Sicricim (Latin: Sicarii, the dagger man). Na’ama made aliyah from the United States to Israel with her family and lives in the city of Beit Shemesh — the house of the sun. A group of Sicricim, an anti-Zionist group considered by many to be the most extreme and violent group of Neturei Karta (a radical anti-Zionist ultra-Orthodox community), spat on Na’ama and cursed her, calling her a slut and a prostitute, because her dress code did not fit their definition of modesty. The disgraceful and disgusting attack took place in the middle of the day, several yards away from Na’ama’s school.

“They want me to dress like a haredi girl; they want me to give them my school,” Na’ama told reporters, with tears in her eyes. Na’ama’s story goes beyond the specific personal case. It raises big questions about the challenges and tensions of being a Jewish and democratic state. The attack was strongly condemned by both secular and haredi leaders, including the ultra-Orthodox Sephardic Chief Rabbi Ovadia Yosef. Yet many of Israel’s secular citizens, who make up more than 80 percent of the Jews living in Israel, feel this is not enough. “I’ve been pushed out of my neighborhood in Jerusalem by this haredi takeover,” a good friend who is an Israeli journalist told me.

The issue began in the days of David Ben-Gurion, Israel’s first prime minister, when the modern state of Israel was born. Facing the stress of the War of Independence on one hand and the challenge of absorbing approximately 850,000 Jewish refugees from Arab lands, the prime minister did whatever he could to create unity in the Jewish community in the young and fragile state. He made the historic status quo agreement with the haredi parties. Per this agreement, Shabbat would be the day of rest in Israel; kashrut would be observed in the kitchens of official institutions; family laws concerning marriage and divorce would be conducted in rabbinical courts; and there would be no civil marriage. In the area of education, full autonomy was granted to the different Jewish denominations, with minimum standards stipulated in fields such as Hebrew, Jewish history, science, etc. This agreement was followed by the Torato Omanuto (his Torah is his practice) agreement, which exempts haredi men who choose to devote their lives to Torah study from military service (which is otherwise mandatory).

In those days, the haredi population was relatively small and Ben-Gurion thought it would be appropriate for a Jewish state to allow haredi men to focus on Torah study. As time went by, the haredi group grew bigger and stronger; it is now between 5 percent and 10 percent of Israel’s population. The tension increases as the argument about what is Jewish and what are Jewish values enters real day-to-day life, when democratic, modern and liberal values of the Israeli secular majority collide with the extremely conservative shtetl-style values of the haredi sector. The conflict between the will of the majority to live according to their perspectives of Judaism and human rights, and the democratic requirement to protect the rights of minorities, as well as to maintain the unique identity of a Jewish nation, is reaching a boiling point. The future is not clear; something will have to change. The future face of the Jewish and democratic state of Israel will be defined in the coming days. Can we and should we, in the United States, have a say in designing it?

To learn more about this issue, join our free discussion program, “Faces of Israel,” on Wednesday, Jan. 25 at 6:30 p.m. at the Tucson Jewish Community Center.

Guy Gelbart is Tucson’s community shaliach (emissary from Israel) and director of the Weintraub Israel center.

Local jazz musicians Jeff Lewis (left) and Stu Mellan at the Nov. 19 concert

Jeff Lewis, past president of the Tucson Jazz Society, was responsible for bringing world-renowned Israeli jazz pianist Tamir Hendelman to Tucson on Nov. 19. The previous month, Jeff was watching a PBS airing of Barbra Streisand’s “One Night Only at the Village Vanguard” and knew he wanted Tamir, Streisand’s incredible accompanist, to perform here. This was Tamir’s first visit to the Old Pueblo. He led a master class earlier in the day for high school and university music students and other young musicians before his performance at the JW Marriott Starr Pass Resort that evening.

Hendelman and his trio teamed with vocalist and songwriter Kathy Kosins. The Heartbeat of Israel, a program of the Weintraub Israel Center, cosponsored the concert.

Among those seated cabaret-style in the Marriott ballroom were Jeff’s wife Linda, Sharon and Morris Barkan, Mike Jacobson, Carol and Dan Karsch, Nancy, Stu and Eric Mellan, Rhea and Arnie Merin, and Diane, Ron and Arlene Weintraub.

Jazz is not Jeff’s day job but it is his passion. He’s a saxophonist, and his quartet is a regular fixture at downtown clubs on Saturday nights. Also of note, Stu Mellan, president and CEO of the Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona, will be honored and star in an “All That Jazz” evening on March 31 at the Tucson Jewish Community Center.

The Blessing Project

Joan Elder in front of one of the Blessing Project exhibits

On Nov. 29, the Jewish Federation’s Northwest Division sponsored a bus trip to Phoenix for the exhibit, “A Blessing to One Another: Pope John Paul II and the Jewish People.” The exhibition drew its name from the papal appeal on the 50th anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising: “As Christians and Jews, following the example of the faith of Abraham, we are called to be a blessing to the world. … It is therefore necessary for us … to first be a blessing to one another.”

The 43 attendees were enlightened and moved by the interactive exhibit. The displays were divided into four sections. The first followed the early life of Karol Wojtyla in Wadowice, Poland, and his childhood friendship with Jerzy Kluger. The second covered the Holocaust and WWII, as Karol trained in a clandestine seminary and Jerzy and his family were sent to concentration camps. The third followed the future pope’s rise through the ranks of the church and his reunion with Jerzy after the war. The final section celebrated the papacy of John Paul II. Jerzy became the pope’s personal emissary to the State of Israel, paving the way for the recognition of Israel by the Vatican and the pope’s official visit to the Holy Land in 2000. He was the first pope to visit, pray, and insert a written prayer between the bricks at the Western Wall in Jerusalem. A replica of the Wall was erected so that exhibit-goers could write prayers that were later collected and sent to Jerusalem to be put in the Wall.

Ann and Mal Eisenberg co-chaired the Phoenix trip and Holocaust survivor Klara Swimmer was among the bus riders on this worthwhile excursion. Eliot Barron, who was there with his wife, Vida, commented: “What a wonderful event. Imagine: The venue for this exhibit, the George Washington Carver Museum, the former Phoenix Unified Colored High School, is a reminder of Arizona’s segregated past and disrespect of Black people. This contrasted with this moving display of the love and mutual respect between the late pope and his lifelong childhood friend and his family — a model for esteem and not mere tolerance of differing belief systems.”

Making a difference every day

Homer Davis Elementary School Principal Chad Miller, center, with volunteers Carol and Howard Ball, at the school

The principal at Homer Davis Elementary School has changed but the school’s needs haven’t. Chad Miller has replaced Brett Bonner in the leadership position and is grateful for the continued support of the Federation’s Jewish Community Relations Council in making a difference in the lives of his students. For the third straight year, Tucson’s Jewish community has adopted this award-winning, Title I school that serves mostly low-income at-risk youth.

Carol and Howard Ball, winter residents from Vermont, volunteer weekly as math and reading tutors. Carol is a former math teacher and Howard is professor emeritus of political science at the University of Vermont. Howard recently spoke at a Hadassah of Southern Arizona meeting on “Saving the Sarajevo Haggadah throughout History” and at a Northwest Men’s Group event on “How Bulgaria Saved Jews during WWII.”

Besides tutoring, volunteers provide daily kindergarten snacks and assemble Friday Food Packs for students to take home on the weekends. Two years ago, the JCRC provided 20 packs. Today they provide 56, given to the neediest students. Also, in cooperation with Community Gardens of Tucson, the JCRC helps involve families in growing their own food on the school grounds.

Brenda Landau, JCRC director, stresses the sustainability factor — hoping to get the local community to continue these programs and to help achieve a solution for hunger in the Homer Davis neighborhood.

Time to share

A happy, healthy secular New Year to all. Keep me posted in 2012 — 319-1112. L’shalom.

Rabbi Stephanie Aaron

The Mishebeirach prayer for healing moves us into the profound depths of what healing means in Jewish belief. When we recite this prayer, we begin by remembering: “mishebeirach avoteinu Avraham, Yitschak, v’Ya’akov, v’imoteinu Sarah, Rivkah, Rachel, v’Leah, may the One who blessed our

fathers Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and

our mothers Sarah, Rebekah, Rachel, and Leah …” First, we acknowledge G-d as the One who blessed our foremothers and forefathers, then we ask that the individual who is ill be blessed and healed; the prayer follows an order of remembering, then healing.

We pray for many things for the one who is ill: support and strength, orech ruach, a lengthening of his or her spirit that we translate as patience; omets lev, a heart of courage; refuat hanefesh, a healing of spirit; refuat haguf, a healing of body; and refuah sh’leimah, a complete healing. But first we remember who we are and from where we have come.

Martin Buber taught, “We are held and upheld by common remembrance.” The journey of our ancients, their brit, their covenant, with HaKadosh Baruch Hu, the Holy Blessed One, the ways in which they each were blessed by G-d and in turn, the ways in which they became a blessing in the world, this is our remembrance as we approach healing.

Where does that place us as we prepare for Jan. 8, 2012? We must begin with our shared memory from before Jan. 8, 2011: What are our memories of our town, our Tucson, our country, our Congress, our lives before our fellow citizens attending Congress on the Corner with Rep. Gabrielle Giffords were shot down and six of them were killed?

Do we have a shared memory of what life was like before? I would like to think that we do, that our best possible remembrances of our town go beyond the magnificence of our sunsets and the brilliance of our sunshine to the hearts of our citizens; that the people who live here are concerned that everyone has food and shelter and plenty of books to read; that anyone who is ill receives the necessary health care to return to wellness; that on a visit to our town Mariachi music commingles with Beethoven and Bach and cowboy poetry shares a shelf with Whitman and Dickinson; that the wild west means we protect what is wild and shared: the land, the air, the saguaro cacti, the birds and animals and wildflowers; and that every voice is heard from our babies to our elders. How do you remember Tucson? What does Tucson mean to you?

On Jan. 8, bring your memories of Tucson “before” and your vision of your best possible Tucson as we gather to remember and to heal our town. Write them down if you care to; let’s share them with each other. Come to Blue Sky Shabbat in Sabino Canyon on Saturday, Jan. 7 to celebrate with prayers of healing for our world and our town. Attend the “Beyond” events organized by the family of Gabe Zimmerman, of blessed memory. On Sunday, Jan. 8, bring your visions, hopes and prayers to the interfaith service at St. Augustine’s Cathedral at 1:30 p.m. At 3 p.m., attend the memorial lectures at Centennial Hall in remembrance of the six citizens of our city who were killed. We will conclude our day of remembering and healing with a candlelight vigil on the University of Arizona mall. Come hold up a candle of vision, promise and remembrance.­

This week we were rocked by another close shave with disaster: “Chasidic reggae superstar” Matisyahu got rid of his facial hair!

Full disclosure: Matis is a friend and I’m a fan. However, I always feared the label “Chassidic reggae superstar” was a heavy burden for someone who became so “frum so fast.” It seems that the beard became a symbol of that burden to Matis, and he felt he had to do something drastic to free himself from other people’s expectations and demands.

I can’t begin to imagine the pressure of being the most famous bearded Jew on the planet. People in Japan may not know who the chief rabbi of Israel is, but you’d better believe they know Matisyahu — especially if they’ve seen him live in concert.

I’ll admit that I’m taking Matisyahu’s decision to go clean shaven a bit personally. Having such a prominent Jewish celebrity embrace the beautiful dictum of letting the hair on the face grow made me look cool, too, and allowed me to relate better to my students. (At least that’s what I told myself.) But herein lies the root (pun intended) of the problem. I for one am guilty at times of using his success to encourage other young people to become more involved in their faith. My intentions were always pure, but there is always a danger that we’ll mix up the message with the messenger.

In a world where pop culture is so ubiquitous and real life can feel sometimes like a struggle, we can start to live vicariously through celebrities, making them into idols.

I received a call from a young man distraught that his musical and spiritual hero Matisyahu had shaved off his beard. The young man actually asked me if he should follow suit. I gently told him he needed to learn more Torah and then decide, adding that I’d be happy to learn along with him. Yet the truth is, anyone who grows a beard because a “Chasidic reggae superstar” has one probably wasn’t mature enough to grow one in the first place even if they were able.

We place too much of our own hopes and dreams into the hands of Jewish celebrities. Take the sporting arena: What happens when your favorite kosher-eating, kipah-wearing “Chasidic celebrity boxer’ loses a bout? Do you suddenly stop wearing a kipah and keeping Shabbat?

I’m certainly not an A-list star in the constellation of “Chasidic celebrities.” I’m probably a D-lister (on a good day). One of my best-selling books is about the Jewish influences on the creation of classic comic book superheroes. Over the years I’ve received numerous e-mails from overly enthusiastic readers eager to share their “deep” theories about the “spirituality of Superman” and such. It’s flattering, but also disconcerting. I wanted the book to inspire readers to go on to further explore Jewish philosophy, not obsess about comic books. I’ve started writing back, “I think it’s time to turn off the laptop …”

I’m grateful for celebrities who choose to observe Jewish tradition in the public eye. We can salute them and admire them, as long as we never forget that they are people, not prophets. To treat them otherwise is unfair to them and us. In the wise words of Monty Python, Matisyhau is “not the Messiah.”

It’s going to be a cold winter, especially if you don’t have a lush beard anymore to warm you. Let’s let the lights of the Chanukah candles warm our faces — bearded or not — and look up to a real hero: Matisyahu the Maccabee.

In the meantime, like facial hair on a beardless face, “we all have room to grow.”

Rabbi Simcha Weinstein is a best-selling author who recently was voted “New York’s Hippest Rabbi” by PBS-Ch. 13. His forthcoming book on demography is titled “The Case for Having Kids: Why parenthood makes you (and your world) healthy, wealthy and wise.”

Guy Gelbart

I recently came back from a four-day conference held by the Jewish Agency for Israel, with 250 of its shlichim (emissaries) posted across North America. Each year, hundreds of shlichim from Israel are sent to work with Federations, youth movements, Hillels on college campuses, Jewish community centers, people interested in making aliyah and other groups. With the additional shlichim who are sent to work at camps in the summer, the total number of shlichim reaches almost 1,500.

There are many types of shlichim, including shin shinim, which is an acronym for young people participating in a shnat sherut or year of service between high school and army service. This gap year program is an increasingly popular way to contribute to the community and achieve spiritual strengthening prior to commencing army service, an Israeli version of tikkun olam (repairing the world). There are also community senior shlichim, like me, who arrive in the United States with their entire families, creating a wide circle of effect on different age groups across the community.

The shlichim program is a flagship program of the Jewish Agency and one of the most significant ways of fulfilling the agency’s mission of fostering a strong Jewish identity with Israel at its heart. The shaliach serves as a living bridge, narrowing the gap between the American Jewish community and the Israeli one.

One fascinating meeting I had during the conference was with three young shlichim from our TIPS partnership region of Hof Ashkelon. Shaked, Jenny and Oz described how the partnership activities and TIPS young adult leadership program led them to become emissaries of their country.

Despite these relatively new partnerships, 64 years after the declaration of Israeli independence, the gaps between the United States and Israel seem to be growing larger. Differences in culture, language, faith and knowledge of Jewish history and the Hebrew bookshelf widens those gaps.

While the American Jewish community seems to be facing a huge challenge keeping young Jews engaged and involved in Jewish life and the Jewish collective, Israel faces the challenge of a strong tension between ultra-Orthodox and secular Jews, a tension that seems to be pushing young secular adults to prefer an “Israeli” identity over a Jewish one.

The Jewish Agency for Israel’s new strategic program attempts to face these challenges. The emphasis is to connect Jews to their people, heritage and land (the State of Israel) during a period of continued erosion of solidarity. The collective Jewish identity that made us who we are, helped us thrive in times of success and survive through times of challenge, seems to be in danger of disappearing in the seas of individualism and globalism. The Jewish Agency took upon itself the task of reinventing our Jewish collectiveness by introducing new tikkun olam-style activism for young Jews from America and Israel to work to repair the world together.

During the conference, deep and sometimes vocal arguments took place regarding the future of the Jewish people and of Zionism. “The Jewish world is thriving, but that thriving happens far from the traditional Jewish institutions,” claimed Barak Loozon, JAFI shaliach to the Bay Area. “There are amazing new things happening out there; we just need to find the way to reach them and connect with them,” he added.

“The big challenge comes when we come to allocate the money. What is more important — to help a Jewish person who is currently in hunger or to make sure there will still be Jewish people who care 50 years from now? How can you even start answering this question?” asked Misha Galperin, CEO and president of Jewish Agency International Development. Our natural behavior is to answer urgent basic needs, but as has been proven in the past, we must not neglect issues of meaning and identity. In the end, they might prove more critical for our Jewish continuity, explained Alan Hoffman, JAFI director general.

In summarizing the weekend conference, Hasia Israeli, Jewish Agency deputy director general for community relations in North America, said, “The Jewish Agency is the communal table of the global Jewish community, where Israel is the central experience, and you, the shlichim, are its connectors in the field, strengthening that vital link between Israel and the Diaspora.”

Guy Gelbart is Tucson’s community shaliach and director of the Weintraub Israel Center.

Hillel Kuttler's great-great grandmother, Leah Eisen, sitting, poses in her native Lodz, Poland -- but who is standing behind her? (Courtesy Helen Markowitz)

JTA’s new column, “Seeking Kin,” aims to help reunite long-lost relatives and friends.

BALTIMORE (JTA) — Thanksgiving brings together families, and this November marked the first anniversary of a personal “Seeking Kin” success. Like all genealogy searches, it yielded ever-more mysteries to crack.

I turn now to JTA’s readers to ask for help: What are the names of the three people shown standing in the photograph accompanying this column? Could one of these women have settled in Argentina?

I first saw this nearly century-old picture a year ago. Two days before Thanksgiving 2010 — just like that, as I do whenever the genealogy bug bites — I searched for a long-lost relative. My late Grandma Rozzie once wrote me a letter that mentioned her cousin Helen as someone she adored. But I’d never met Helen, nor had my mother. All I knew was that Helen’s father, Joseph Eisen, and Rozzie’s father, Moshe/Morris (for whom I’m named), were brothers and that Helen, like Rozzie, was an only child who was born in Paterson, N.J.

Helen’s married name, where she lived, whether she still lived — who knew?

I called a construction company that manages several small cemeteries in New Jersey. A woman there who two years earlier had helped me locate Rozzie’s maternal grandparents’ graves informed me that Joseph was buried at a Workmen’s Circle cemetery in Saddle Brook.

“Do your records mention a next of kin?” I asked.

“Yes, Helen Markowitz,” the woman responded.

Bingo! But she did not have Helen’s contact information. I typed Helen’s name into a search engine and immediately found a newsletter article mentioning her and providing a telephone number.

Having never heard my name, Helen was plenty surprised by the call. She sounded as thrilled as I to connect. We chatted for more than two hours. The next afternoon, my sons and I detoured to see her on our way to New York for Thanksgiving. We got a good look at each other, scarcely believing the reunion and how quickly it materialized.

And such exquisite timing! That very day was Joseph’s yahrtzeit. The cemetery was one neighborhood over, so we piled into the car, wiggled our way through Fair Lawn and hooked a right down a quiet, residential lane, stopping beside a low fence. I helped Helen out. As the fading sun fought the raw, damp air for relevance, we followed Helen to the back of the property to the graves of her parents, Joseph and Rose. We placed stones atop the markers, then returned to her home.

Helen, now 87, is a slight woman who is in good health and possesses a clear voice and sharp memories. She doesn’t get out as much as she used to because fading eyesight forced her to give up driving. Helen’s husband, Alex, died 30 years ago; the couple didn’t have children, so Helen’s few relatives include Alex’s nephew in nearby Fort Lee.

Helen and Rozzie lost touch many decades ago, but Helen didn’t know why. My mother had told me once that Morris and Joseph feuded about whether to sponsor one sister’s immigration to the United States from their hometown of Lodz, Poland. She, two other sisters, a brother and their families were killed in the Shoah.

Maybe Morris’ and Joseph’s recrimination over her fate explained the estrangement between their branches of my family.

Since 1956, Helen has resided in the same small house in Fair Lawn (one town east of Paterson), just a mile or two from where my grandparents lived until 1966 — yet, sadly, Helen never knew that Rozzie lived so close by.

Whatever the cause for the split, our branches now were reunited.

Wearing a brown polyester turtleneck and casual slacks, Helen led us upstairs to her father’s old bedroom. She pointed left to a wall on which, secured in a circular oak frame, hung a huge photographic portrait of her paternal grandmother, Leah, my great-great-grandmother. I grew up hearing that Leah was a noted midwife and a very pious woman. Helen remembers that in about 1934, Joseph received by mail a Lodz newspaper whose front page featured Leah’s black-bordered obituary.

Back in the living room, Helen handed me a gold-plated frame containing another photograph, the one appearing alongside this article. The woman sitting, she said, is Leah. The young women are Leah’s daughters, but Helen wasn’t sure whether the man is a son or a son-in-law. She didn’t know their names.

One of the two daughters survived the Shoah, immigrated to Argentina and was the one whom Joseph and Morris discussed bringing to Paterson. Helen was sure of it.

That was doubly shocking: The Eisen sister wasn’t murdered in the Shoah, after all, and Argentina had never been associated with my family.

Shortly thereafter, I worked some contacts at the U.S. headquarters of international Jewish organizations. They referred me to their Buenos Aires offices and to AMIA, Argentina’s Jewish community association. An AMIA volunteer checked her records, but nothing matched.

The key problem is that I have little to go on. Helen doesn’t know the Eisen sister’s first name, married name (if any) or when and where she settled in Argentina. Certainly this sister is long dead, but maybe children or grandchildren are alive.

A long shot, true, but I located a New Jersey Eisen last November and — perhaps with the help of JTA’s readers, for which I express advance gratitude — I am determined to find the Argentina Eisens before next Thanksgiving.

Please send a message to seekingkin@jta.org if you know what became of the Eisen sister who settled in Argentina after surviving the Shoah, or if you would like our help in searching for your own long-lost friends or family. Please include the principal facts in a brief e-mail (up to one paragraph) and your contact information.

Sukkot, Judaism’s weeklong season of rejoicing, celebrates life, community and autumn’s bounty. Originally an agricultural holiday, this festival also commemorates the 40-year trek of the Israelites through the desert to the Promised Land. One builds a sukkah (plural, sukkot) — a temporary dwelling with a roof made of branches representing the hastily constructed quarters of Jews as they crossed the desert — in which to eat and sometimes sleep.

In our community, members flocked to synagogues and the Tucson Jewish Community Center for festive Sukkot gatherings. Others built sukkahs for home use and to entertain ushpizin (guests). Two such happenings are highlighted here.

Under the stars, Mordecai Colodner, Marlene Burns and Gloria Schaffer lead the Havdallah ceremony in the Feldman sukkah.

Chavurah Chesed Northwest, led by Marlene Burns, held a Sukkot potluck dinner and Havdallah service at the home and sukkah of Judy and Sheldon Feldman in Dove Mountain.  This chavurah, with 20 permanent and six snowbird members, meets twice monthly in members’ homes for services, holiday celebrations and learning opportunities.  They also collect tzedakah for the Marana Food Bank and the Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona’s LEAF (Local Emergency Assistance Fund) campaign.

The Bregmans — Phil, Charlotte, Breanna, Emily, Lady and Dani — in their family sukkah

Six years ago, at his wife’s urging, Phil Bregman decided to build a sukkah. Rabbi Robert Eisen recommended contacting the vendor booth salesman at the Tanque Verde Swap Meet, who provided Bregman with the needed supplies. Online instructions were also a useful resource for making the sukkah “kosher,” conforming to halachah, Jewish law. Their outdoor booth has evolved over the years, withimproved ventilation, lighting and decorations. In fulfilling the mitzvah of dwelling in the sukkah, they have expanded its use to include Dani’s book club meetings, Federation Young Women’s Cabinet meetings, USY visits as part of their progressive Sukkah dinner, mah jongg games and an annual Sukkot party. This festival has become the favorite family Jewish holiday in the Bregman household.

UA senior Dan Canfield shakes the lulav and etrog, symbols of Sukkot, with Rabbi Yossi Winner near the UA Student Union.

A fun-filled Sukkot week was kicked off with a Sushi in the Sukkah event at Chabad House. Students had the weeklongopportunity to shake the lulav, enjoy services and free meals in the sukkah, and celebrate the holiday away from home. Rabbi Yossi and Naomi Winner also constructed a mini-sukkah on the UA Mall, giving hundreds of students the chance to shake the lulav and make a blessing between classes.

UA students Ethan Widdes, Jessie Schulman, Rachel Twersky, Aimee Kanter, Marissa Feiwus and Alex Tichauer at the Hillel sukkah for its B.A.S. H.

Over the course of Sukkot, students entered the Hillel sukkah to eat, study and just hang out.The two largest events held in the temporary hut were the annual Shabbat in the Sukkah and B.A.S.H. (Big Awesome Sukkot Happening).  While at Hillel, students who had not yet toured the renovations/expansion of the building were able to do so.  The dedication of Hillel’s new digs will take place on Dec. 11.

Rabbi Yitzchak and Elle Lieblich of JAC hosted students for holiday meals during the first two days of Sukkot.  They also held a class in the sukkah as part of their weekly Maimonides program.  This 10-week leadership program is designed to give Jewish students the tools to make a difference in the Jewish community.  The couple was pleased with the success of their Sukkot programming and the excellent student turnout.

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