as april elections loom, israeli party leaders face ...as april elections loom, israeli party...

Non-profit OrganizationU.S. POSTAGE PAIDPermit # 184Watertown, NY

PLUSOpinion .......................................................2D’var Torah ...............................................8

JANUARY 10, 2019

Candle lighting

Jewish Federation of NEPA601 Jefferson Ave.Scranton, PA 18510

Change Service Requested

INSIDE THIS ISSUEFood trends in 2019

Jewish food trends for 2019 include tahini, marijuana, faux meat and comfort food.

Story on page 4

Technion top 10A look at 10 breakthroughs researchers at the Technion in Israel made in the past year.

Story on page 9

Soviet Jews in Germany Soviet immigration is now seen as the salvation of Germany’s Jewish community.

Story on page 3

January 11 ................................... 4:35 pmJanuary 18 .................................. 4:43 pmJanaury 25 .................................. 4:52 pm

Federation on Facebook

The Jewish Federation of Northeast-ern Pennsylvania now has a page on Facebook to let community members know about upcoming events and keep connected.

The

Jewish Federation of Northeastern PennsylvaniaPublished by the

VOLUME XII, NUMBER 1

SPOTLIGHT

As April elections loom, Israeli party leaders face daunting issues

ANALYSISBY ISRAEL KASNETT

(JNS) – Politics in Israel moves fast. National elections were on December 24 and immediately, commentators on television, radio, online and in print, as well as nearly every citizen in Israel, have begun making predictions. By the time election day rolls around on April 9, a right-wing coalition will have led the country for 10 years, with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the helm. Will a right-wing government lead again after April and will Netanyahu once again serve in the top job?

These are typical questions, but the timing and circumstances are less so. Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit has just been handed a recommendation by the state prosecutor and Israel Police to indict Netanyahu for corruption in three separate cases. Mandelblit’s decision, expected possibly within the next few weeks, could directly affect the outcome of this election campaign – and everyone knows it.

So why elections now, and what will they focus on? Yohanan Plesner, president of the Israel Democracy Institute, told JNS that “especially now, when the coalition is fragile, there is an interest among the different actors to go for an early election.” All parties have an interest in going to early elections, according to Plesner, including Education Minister Naftali Ben-nett, Finance Minister Moshe Kahlon and

the ultra-Orthodox. “The most important actor is, of course, the prime minister, who has both substantive political reasons and reasons that have to do with his legal status.” Plesner admitted that Netanyahu is “ostensibly leading in the polls.”

From a legal standpoint, assuming the attorney general will indict, “the common wisdom is that it is in Netanyahu’s interest to go to early elections after the indictment, but before there is a final decision,” he said. “This is the right time for the prime minister to go for an election because it means he will enter the hearing process in a position assuming, as he hopes, [to] gain a fresh new mandate from the Israeli public. He will be able to claim, ‘Well, I’ve obtained a mandate from the Israeli people who were aware of the intention to indict me, but nevertheless have chosen to elect me for this position.’ This would make it more difficult for the attorney general to reverse a decision made by millions of Israelis.”

What is the focus of the April elections? In terms of the substance of the elections, it remains to be seen. Plesner believes that the elections will be about “competence” both in terms of security and the economy. “So far,” he said, “Netanyahu’s ratings are relatively good, but both environments might change.”

Gayil Talshir, a senior lecturer in po-litical science at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, told JNS that at this point, the gist of these elections have not yet been defined. Unlike Plesner, however,

View of the Plenary Hall during a session for the vote on a bill to dissolve parliament at the Knesset in Jerusalem on December 26. (Photo by Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

she believes t might focus on “collective identity,” and not on economics and se-curity. “It’s not clear what the right-wing is going to campaign on,” she said. “You would suspect it would be on security, and that Netanyahu is the only one who can make Israel secure.” But she specu-lated that Jewish residents of Judea and Samaria would say that Netanyahu is not tough enough on security, “therefore I am not sure the security or terror issue will be central. It’s clear the anti-Netanyahu camp is going to try to put Netanyahu on the spot, but it’s not clear it will be helpful. Usually, the right-wing in Israel gathers around the wounded, so I’m not sure it will be a good tactic.”

Talshir believes that the anti-Netanya-hu camp will campaign “both around issues that are anti-Netanyahu himself and on issues over saving Israeli democ-racy,” such as the public media, the civil service, the judiciary and all of the other

BY NOA AMOUYAL(JNS) – Imagine giving birth

in the dark. For those fortunate enough to have a charged smart-phone, the husband will use the phone as a makeshift flashlight, enabling the doctor to see what his hands are doing. Or imagine bathing, cooking and cleaning with contaminated water, and feeling sediments of dirt brush up against your skin as you at-tempt mundane everyday tasks like washing your face.

For many Africans, what is inconceivable to the developed world is their reality. In Central Africa alone, “fewer than three out of five children make it through primary school, and almost half the population has no access to clean water,” according to a December UNICEF report.

For the past decade, Innovation: Africa has taught developing nations how to improve their lives

See “Elections” on page 4

See “Africa” on page 6

Sivan Ya’ari sppoke with residents of a village in Uganda who are the beneficiaries of Israeli technology being exported to the continent. (Photo courtesy of Innovation Africa)

“We have women who go to the hos-pital at night to give birth and there’s no electricity, so they use kerosene. There

are some cases where doctors and nurses ask patients to come with their own source of light,” Lerian Moshi from Tanzania told JNS.

Moshi was one of the 24 lo-cal Innovation: Africa (or IA) employees who came to Israel in December for a two-week training course in innovation and community develop-ment. Their trip, which was coordinated in partnership with Israel’s Agency for International Development Cooperation and the Center for International Agriculture Development Cooperation, gave them “an eye-opening” look at the latest in Israeli

technology that can help turn back the tide of poverty sweeping the continent.

$623,000as of Jan. 3, 2019

For information or to make a donation call 570-961-2300 ext. 1 orsend your gift to:Jewish Federation of Northeastern Pennsylvania601 Jefferson Ave.,Scranton, PA 18510

(Please MEMO your pledge or gift 2019 UJA Campaign)

Goal:$910,000

Pay it forward & give tothe 2019 Jewish Federation

of Northeastern Pennsylvania Annual Campaign!

2019 UJA

THE REPORTER ■ JANUARY 10, 20192

A MATTER OF OPINION

“ The Reporter” (USPS #482) is published bi-weekly by the Jewish Federation of Northeastern Pennsylvania, 601 Jefferson Ave., Scranton, PA 18510.

President: Douglas FinkExecutive Director: Mark Silverberg

Executive Editor: Rabbi Rachel EssermanLayout Editor: Diana SochorAssistant Editor: Ilene PinskerProduction Coordinator: Jenn DePersisAdvertising Representative: Bonnie RozenBookkeeper: Kathy Brown

FEDERATION WEBSITE:www.jewishnepa.org

HOW TO SUBMIT ARTICLES:Mail: 601 Jefferson Ave., Scranton, PA 18510E-mail: [email protected]: (570) 346-6147Phone: (570) 961-2300

HOW TO REACH THE ADVERTISING REPRESENTATIVE: Phone: (800) 779-7896, ext. 244E-mail: [email protected]

SUBSCRIPTION INFORMATION: Phone: (570) 961-2300

OPINIONS The views expressed in editorials and opinion pieces are those of each author and not necessarily the views of the Jewish Federation of Northeastern Pennsylvania. LETTERS The Reporter welcomes letters on subjects of interest to the Jewish community. All letters must be signed and include a phone number. The editor may withhold the name upon request. ADS The Reporter does not necessarily endorse any advertised products and services. In addition, the paper is not responsible for the kashruth of any advertiser’s product or establishment.DEADLINE Regular deadline is two weeks prior to the publication date.

BY THANE ROSENBAUM(JTA) – The young nation of Israel has

witnessed in recent years a dwindling of its founding generation – from the pass-ing of statesmen like Shimon Peres to the recent death of novelist and political activist Amos Oz. Oz was 79; Israel is but 70. Oz was old enough to witness Israel’s fight for independence, and now his death turns the page on yet another chapter of its improbable resurrection – with an old language that became new again.

Oz had a lot to do with that. He imbued Hebrew with a literary style and gave it a novelistic voice, finding new ways to maneuver the aleph and bet so that a once purely liturgical language suddenly pos-sessed a richly lyrical descriptive power.

The author of 40 books, including 14 novels, and hundreds of articles and essays, many of which delved into the messy politics of the Middle East, Oz was Israel’s first great man of letters, an old-school public intellectual in a brand new nation with many jobs to fill – from the brawny to the brainy. Those patriarchs and matriarchs made the saying “next year in Jerusalem” both a reality and redundancy. With little natural background, they willed themselves to become equal parts poets, farmers and soldiers.

Oz was a living embodiment of those multiple duties. After his mother’s sui-cide, which occurred the year before his bar mitzvah, he came of age on a kibbutz and fought in two of Israel’s wars. He then published acclaimed novels such as “My Michael” and “Black Box,” as well as the literary memoir “A Tale of Love and Darkness,” that captured the finer points of domestic Israeli life, the yearnings and sexual passions, and the madness of a people who reinvented themselves so soon after nearly being annihilated en masse.

Long before Netflix’s “Fauda,” or the inexplicably sabra-accented Wonder Woman, Oz, through the 45 languages in which his novels were translated, introduced the world to Israelis in all of

Amos Oz’s fiction is forever, while reality left his politics behind

their rambunctious, high-strung, pattering essence – the kibbutz kibitzers, the brave sabra boys, the Mizrahi misfits, the lost European intellectuals trying to scrape out a life of the mind in a barren desert. Without the wizardry of Amos Oz, many around the world would have had no knowledge of Israeli society, no feel for its people, no sense that they were more real than Jews from, well, Oz.

And Israelis would not have known how they appeared in the imagination of one of their own.

The Start-up Nation had to start some-where, and Oz was not only there at the beginning, he also captured the mood, rhythms and sorrow of its people for nearly every decade of Israel’s existence.

But there was more. Israelis related to Oz not only as a storyteller, but also as unofficial statesman. He was one of the founders of Peace Now. Indeed, he was among the first, almost immediately after the euphoria of the Six-Day War, to attribute a doomsday prophesy to the capturing of Arab land. In his writings and public statements, Oz spoke of a moral corruption that could only be corrected by a two-state solution. No longer was he a mere fiction writer; he had become the conscience of a nation and a pesky activist in its political culture.

Beyond advocating for Palestinian justice, Oz blamed Israel’s government for not making Palestinian statehood a reality. For a time, many Israelis, especially those who identified with the left-wing, social democratic Labor and Meretz parties, joined Oz in promoting an idealized view of Palestinian intentions and a self-flagel-lating opinion of Israeli policy.

But now, so many years after the failed Oslo Accords, with multiple wars in Gaza and Lebanon, ISIS and Hezbollah in Syria, a nuclear Iran, and intifadas of the suicide-bombing, mortar-throwing, car-ramming, knife-stabbing and incendi-ary kite-flying variety, Israelis have largely abandoned the aspirations of Peace Now. The vision for Israel that Oz helped pio-

neer had suddenly become anachronistic, a byproduct of a bygone, hope-filled era.

The hardened reality of Palestinian rejectionism, violence and incitement left many Israelis cynical and contemptuous of Oz’s misspent idealism. Sephardic, Russian and Orthodox Israelis formed their own political movements that mowed over the humanistic kibbutzniks and Peace Now advocates like a political bulldozer.

In response, some of Oz’s later books dealt with issues of betrayal, fanaticism and zealotry – as if he was taking on his critics, Palestinians and even himself. But no one would have expected what Oz told a German interviewer in the summer of 2014 when asked about Israel’s military conduct during the Gaza War, and the killing of Palestinian civilians standing shoulder to shoulder with Hamas terrorists: “What would you do if your neighbor across the street sits down on the balcony, puts his little boy on his lap, and starts shooting machine-gun fire into your nursery? What would you do if your neighbor across the street digs a tunnel from his nursery to your nursery in order to blow up your home or in order to kidnap your family?”

The founder of Peace Now, who never gave up on the dream, gazed at Gaza not with the romanticism of a novelist, but through the eyes of a protective father. And to the surprise of many, despite the civilian dead, he acknowledged Israel’s true moral dilemma and the tragic dimen-sions of this theater of war. An insistence on peace – that it must come “Now”! – is not a sustainable political strategy when peacemakers are nowhere to be found and martyrs are aplenty.

Thane Rosenbaum, a novelist, essayist and law professor, is the author of “The Golems of Gotham,” “Second Hand Smoke,” “Elijah Visible,” “The Stranger Within Sarah Stein” and, most recently, “How Sweet It Is!”

The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of JTA or its parent company, 70 Faces Media.

BY JONATHAN S. TOBIN(JNS) – The year 2018 will go down as

one in which hyper-partisanship reached new heights in the United States. Those on one side of the partisan divide blame it all on U.S. President Donald Trump. His supporters blame it on the “resistance.” But as the secular calendar year ends and a new one begins, it’s time to think about the role many of us have played in worsening this situation.

The problem is not that Americans are divided on the issues. There’s nothing new about that. The problem is that those disagreements have escalated beyond the normal contention that is, like it or not, part and parcel of life in a democ-racy. While most venerate the notion of compromise and pay tribute to gestures of bipartisanship, there is nothing wrong with sharp and even bitter disagreements in a free society.

But as we look back on the events of the past 12 months, among the most dangerous trends in Jewish life was the growing willingness of Jews to prioritize their partisan loyalties over those of their community.

I’ve written repeatedly about how some on the left have chosen to ignore the growing and increasingly loud instances of antisemitism on that end of the ideological spectrum. The willingness of some Jewish liberals to ignore the antisemitism that exists on the left is a disgrace. By that I refer to both the BDS movement, which is steeped in Jew-hatred, as well as the willingness of some to wink or excuse the blatant antisemitism of the leaders of the Women’s March, the group that has orga-

Agenda for 2019: Defend Jewish interests, not partisanshipnized the largest protests against Trump.

The danger here is that some Jews who wouldn’t otherwise be caught dead in an alliance with open antisemites are so angered by Trump that they are willing to make common cause with anyone who shares that sentiment. So when a group like the National Council of Jewish Women isn’t prepared to stop working with the Women’s March – in spite of the fact that its most visible members are supporters of hatemonger Louis Farrakhan, head of the Nation of Islam, and have reportedly been caught spreading his lies about Jews – that should scare you no matter where you stand on Trump.

The same criticism should apply to Jewish groups willing to embrace the two newcomers to the House of Repre-sentatives who are open supporters of BDS, Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) and Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), simply because of party affiliation.

But while Jewish conservatives have rightly chided liberals about this, we’ve recently learned that some of them are capable of making the exact same kind of error and for the same unacceptable reason: partisanship. The recent decision by Trump to withdraw U.S. troops from Syria showed that he is still a welter of contradictory impulses that can sometimes lead him to do the right thing (moving the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem, withdrawing

from the 2015 Iran nuclear deal), but, as with Syria, can just as easily can impel to make a terrible mistake.

The move is good for ISIS (which has been badly beaten, but is by no means fin-ished and can easily be revived by a George W. Bush-style “mission accomplished” blunder based in Trump’s abhorrence for nation-building). It also is good for Iran (which saw the U.S. presence as an ob-stacle to its bid for regional hegemony); good for Turkey (which hopes to use this opportunity to wipe out the Kurds, who have been America’s brave allies in the fight against ISIS); and very bad for Israel, which now finds itself more isolated just at the moment when its northern front has started to look even more dangerous.

The point here is not so much that Trump is wrong, but that too many of his Jewish supporters are so deeply immersed in the partisan battle against his opponents that they are unwilling to speak out against a policy that they wouldn’t have hesitated to criticize if it was a Democrat ordering the pullout.

Many on the Jewish right have tied themselves in knots as they sought to justify the unjustifiable by claiming that Trump’s moves are good for Israel, even though the president resorting to his neo-isolationist tendencies on foreign policy is a potential disaster for the Jew-ish state.

That they have done so even after we’ve learned that the decision was preceded by a phone call with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan – pleasing him is the last thing those who support the interests of the United States or the Jewish state should want – is also discouraging.

Yet they’ve either kept silent or re-sorted to disingenuous and contradictory arguments that are as unpersuasive as they are embarrassing.

They, like their liberal co-religionists, are part of a political culture in which there is no middle ground, and in which every event or policy is evaluated solely through the prism of being pro- or anti-Trump. But just as it was wrong for some friends of Israel to oppose the president’s laudable gesture on Jerusalem and his decision on the Iran deal simply because they despise him, so, too, is it dead wrong to give Trump a pass on Syria because you may have liked other things he’s done.

This is particularly troubling because – unlike most Jewish liberals, who stick to the Democrats no matter they say or do about Israel – Jewish conservatives have shown themselves willing in the past to vote against Republicans who abandoned the Jewish state. If that is no longer true, then we have crossed a partisan Rubicon that bodes ill both for the American Jewish community and for Israel.

See “Agenda” on page 8

3 JANUARY 10, 2019 ■ THE REPORTER

Check out the Federation’s new, updated website at www.jewishnepa.org or find it on FacebookÊ

COMMUNITY NEWS

DEADLINE

DEADLINESThe following are deadlines for all articles and

photos for upcoming Reporter issues.ISSUE

Thursday, January 10 .................. January 24Thursday, January 24 .................. February 7Thursday, February 7 ................ February 21Thursday, February 21 .................... March 7

Play performance on Feb. 9Save the date for the Bais Yaakov production of a new

play on Saturday, February 9, at 8:30 pm, in the Beth Shalom Social Hall on Clay Avenue and Vine Street.

An original play written by Adina (Laury) Turoff, an alumna of Bais Yaakov, will be performed by the Bais

Bais Yaakov High School of Scranton eventsYaakov students. The original lyrics were created by Turoff, and the original dances have been choreographed by Chavy Schwartz and students Rayzel Pion and Avigayil Lopez. The entire production is directed by Leah Laury.Chanukah at the Jewish Home

The Bais Yaakov girls helped with a latke baking

activity during Chanukah at the Jewish Home. They also prepared cookie dough and baked cookies in honor of Chanukah with the residents. More than 20 residents, as well as 12 Bais Yaakov students and staff, baked and ate the latkes and cookies.

Bais Yaakov also pitched in at the Jewish Home during the holiday season with extra help during both lunch and supper, serving and assisting the residents.

Soviet immigration has become salvation of Germany’s Jews

BY CNAAN LIPHSHIZMUNICH (JTA) – Weeks after they emigrated from

Russia and moved to Germany, the Nedlin family sought to join the local Jewish community. Registering for membership in a Jewish community – a practice common in European countries – was a significant step for the Nedlins, who before emigrating in 1992 had grown up in the Soviet Union. There they were forced to hide or downplay their Jewish identity due to state antisemitism and discrimination against religion.

But the local community didn’t reciprocate the fam-ily’s desire for contact. “At first they told us we can’t join,” Anna Nedlin, who was 5 at the time, recalled in an interview with JTA. “They didn’t want anything to do with us.” But at her parents’ insistence, “they sent our documents to Frankfurt to check if we’re really Jewish.”

The experience of the Nedlins, who eventually were al-lowed to join the synagogue, was a typical account of many of the 170,000 Russian speakers who immigrated to Germany following the collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s. The newcomers faced a rift with the 30,000 “postwar” Jews whom many expected to welcome them to Germany.

The split has had what many say is a deep, lasting and polarizing effect on a community re-established by Holocaust survivors, distracting at times from the mission of revival. It flares up in local communal pol-itics, but, 30 years on, has mostly healed. More often,

See “Soviet” on page 7

the Russian-speaking immigrants and their children are credited with energizing and strengthening a minority group whose viability used to be uncertain.

When the post-Soviet immigration began, Jews in Germany suddenly found themselves struggling to ca-ter to large numbers of people with little more than the shirts on their backs. It didn’t help that the newcomers

WE CAN MAKE THE WORLD BETTER BY WORKING TOGETHERThe mission of the Jewish Federation of Northeastern Pennsylvania is to rescue theimperiled, care for the vulnerable, support Israel and world Jewry, and revitalize andperpetuate Jewish life in Northeastern Pennsylvania.

Scranton Hebrew Day School540 Monroe Ave., Scranton

Tehillim ClubAs a community service, a group of students at the

Scranton Hebrew Day School’s “Tehillim Club” will recite

Tehillim prayers (Psalms) on behalf of a loved one who is

in need of health, comfort or salvation. Please submit when

available, the Hebrew name of the one in need and their

mother’s Hebrew name to the SHDS of�ice (570) 346-1576.

Rabbi Dovid Rosenberg, Director of Development

Your a

d C

ould

be h

ere!

For inform

ation, con

tactBon

nie R

ozen at

1-800-779-7896, ext. 244 or bon

nie@

thereportergrou

p.org

no m

atter h

ow

You lo

ok a

t it

...


Elections Continued from page 1

The Jewish food trends you’ll be seeing in 2019

Challah rolls (photo by Michael Jacobs/Art in All of Us/Corbis via Getty Images)

BY SHANNON SARNAThis article originally appeared on

The Nosher.What a year — delis opened, delis

closed, we talked about rainbow bagels, and reviewed the history of pickles in America. And now it’s time to look ahead to what will be happening in Jewish food for the coming year.BREAD IS BACK

For all of you who have scooped your bagel or who decided to go gluten-free for non-medical reasons, guess what: Facebook’s research on food trends con-firms that bread is back and better than ever. Naturally-fermented breads like sourdough are considered good for your gut and overall health, especially those made with whole grains. “Food start-ups are innovating bread with processes like ‘slow carb baking,’ or slow natural fer-menting, which creates breads with lower glycemic indexes (GI). In the process, they are also creating loaves with increased bioavailability of nutrients,” their 2019 trend report says. So you can go back to eating bread every day, just like Oprah, without any guilt. Make an extra challah, or even try making your own rye bread.TAHINI TAHINI EVERYWHERE!

Yeah, we know tahini has been all over restaurant menus, infiltrating Pinterest and more widely appearing on supermarket shelves for years. But since we know ta-hini is a good fat and incredibly versatile for sweet and savory dishes, the reign of tahini is just beginning. Middle Eastern and Israeli cooking are also gaining wider and wider popularity in America, which means there is likely to be more roasted cauliflower with tahini and baked goods

made with tahini appearing on restaurant menus and showing up at dinner parties. So make sure your pantry is stocked. Here is some more info on tahini.MARIJUANA

If you haven’t yet seen CBD marketed near you at stores or cafes, get ready, because you probably will. Cannabidiol (CBD) is a non-psychoactive substance that comes from hemp plants. So just to clarify, consuming CBD isn’t the same as eating a pot brownie. CBD won’t get you high, but is said to calm anxiety and nerves and even help you sleep. And since it’s gaining greater popularity (the coffee joint downstairs from our office carries it, for example), we predict it will be showing up in a wider variety of foods and stores including Jewish foods. But it’s not just CBD that is making its way into foods and coffee shops. The Israeli ice cream com-pany Vaniglia served up cannabis-flavored ice cream this past year. And ICYMI, Joan Nathan was featured on Viceland making “weed-infused matzah balls.”FAUX MEAT

Whether it’s for health reasons, ideological reasons, or kosher reasons,

faux meat has been on the rise and is sure to gain even further visibility and popularity in 2019. In 2018, the Im-possible Burger made a splash among vegetarians and kosher keepers alike, since it is considered to taste more “like meat” than other veggie burgers and even bleeds like real meat. Several kosher restaurants began carrying it in 2018 and many more are likely to add it to menus in the coming year. Jackfruit has also gained popularity as a plant-based alternative to pulled pork or brisket. Whole Foods’ predictions for 2019 included fake meat snacks, saying, “Plant-based foods will continue to surprise and inspire – this year taking on the meat-based snacking world of jerkies and pork rinds you may associate with the corner store and road trips.” Bring on the tofu jerky, we are ready.

PIEROGIES AND OTHER COMFORT FOODS

Facebook’s research says that comfort foods are on the rise and, when the hipsters of Brooklyn embrace a cuisine, we know it’s about to get expensive and trendy. At DeKalb market in Brooklyn, the Pierogi Boys are serving up classic, hand-made pierogies, cucumber salad and borscht at their hip stall. This past fall The Gefilteria teamed up with Polish Chef Ewa Malika Szyc-Juchnowicz and the Polish Cultur-al Institute New York to host a Polish food-focused pop-up restaurant. And in the last year, fast-casual Teremok, aka the “McDonalds of Russia” opened several locations in the U.S. Teremok has since closed its NYC outpost, but I haven’t given up on the hope of pierogies making a splash in 2019. Make your own pastrami pierogies with this recipe.

democratic institutions they perceive as being under attack by Netanyahu.

As reported earlier, the White House said that the election could also affect the timing behind the rollout of its Mid-east peace plan, dubbed the “deal of the century” by the Trump administration. According to Plesner, “Netanyahu has nothing to gain, even if Trump submits a peace plan. It won’t work in Netanya-hu’s favor because it will force him to choose between the [Israeli political] far-right and the president of the United States. It’s a choice Netanyahu will not want to make. Whatever elements in the plan that will be in favor of Israel, there will also be elements that will require Israel to compromise. This will leave room for some [politicians] to position themselves on the right of Netanyahu and the Likud, and he does not want that to happen.”

Another significant development, be-sides the announcement of the elections, was that Kahlon said he will not sit in the government if Netanyahu is indicted. “I don’t see a majority after the elections that will be willing to sit with Netanyahu,” said Talshir. She also said it is possible that Netanyahu voters who do not want to vote for someone else will not go out to vote at all, resulting in a low voter turnout.

One thing to look for, she noted, are the generals who are entering the

political fray, including former Prime Minister Ehud Barak and former IDF Chiefs of Staff Moshe Ya’alon, Benny Gantz and possibly Gaby Ashkenazi. They are entering or returning to politics to counter the common misconception that Netanyahu is supposedly the only one who can maintain Israel’s security and best defense.

Another issue, according to Talshir, is the economy. The “yellow vest” protests that began in Paris have spread to other parts of the globe, including Israel. Con-sumer prices are rising in Israel, and so far a smattering of protests have taken place, but it’s possible this movement will grow in the next few weeks and thus have a significant impact on the outcome of the election.

The right-wing Likud Party currently has a clear lead on any other political party, with a projected 30 seats in the next government, according to one poll. The right-wing party Bayit Yehudi would gain three seats, while the left-wing Zionist Union would fall 15 seats from its current 24 to just nine. Clearly, at least at this point, Israel is looking at another right-wing government in the next Knesset.

While it’s still too early to tell what Mandleblit will decide and what effect that will have, Talshir was confident: “I don’t think we are going to see a Netanyahu government after the indictment.”

Jewish Federation of NEPA

Facebook ® is a registered trademark of Facebook, Inc

Are you on the Jewish Federation’s email list?We send updated announcements and special

event details weekly to those who wish to receive them.

Send Dassy Ganz an email if you would like to join the list.

[email protected]

To get Federation updates via email, register on our website www.jewishnepa.org

Pledge or Donateonline at

www.jewishnepa.org/donate

r



BY JACKSON RICHMAN(JNS) – The American Jewish Committee and United

Hatzalah have been training emergency responders in India and Sri Lanka on how to respond to situations such as terrorist attacks and natural disasters.

The training started on December 23 in Gurugram and spread to New Delhi, where the United Hatzalah team provided lessons to dozens of first responders, followed by conducting a combined drill for the participants, utilizing Israeli procedures.

“There are a range of ways we work to promote Israel,” Shira Loewenberg, director of the Asia Pacific Institute at AJC, which has a humanitarian fund, told JNS.

Loewenberg said this particular initiative is “high-lighting a strength Israel has,” which is the ability to respond to various disasters. She remarked that United Hatzalah has an “innovative and successful program” to train rescue workers.

Doing so, Loewenberg elaborated, can “create good will” between Israel and other countries. “Israel is not just about conflict,” she emphasized.

Using Israeli techniques, aid groups train first responders in India, Sri Lanka

“It is eye-opening to see how emergency-response systems work in different countries, and how much we can share with one another and learn from each other,” said Dov Maisel, vice president of operations for United Hatzalah, who is leading the mission.

“The teams in India are professional and are excellent at providing assistance,” he continued. “They even had a few fire-rescue motorcycles, which are similar to what we use in Israel to arrive at emergencies faster.

“We are adding to their already existing knowledge base,” he added, using “numerous styles of emergency triage and disaster management from a number of different angles. Our team is comprised of EMS experts, as well as some of Israel’s elite search-and-rescue professionals who have been at disasters all over the globe.”

A mass casualty incident training and preceding lecture in Gurugram, India. (Photo courtesy of United Hatzalah)

NEWS IN BRIEFFrom JNS.org

Netanyahu and Putin agree to increased cooperation in Syria

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Russian President Vladimir Putin agreed on Jan. 4 to increase cooperation between their two countries in Syria amid the announced withdrawal of U.S. troops from there. In a phone call between the two, Netanya-hu expressed Israel’s interest in preventing Iran from establishing a presence in Syria, according to the prime minister’s office. “To that end, the parties reaffirmed their mutual determination to strengthen coordination through military and diplomatic channels,” the Krem-lin said according to the state-run TASS news service. Additionally, “Netanyahu congratulated President Putin and the Russian people on the occasion of the civil new year and expressed his condolences over the disaster in Magnitogorsk,” according to the prime minister’s office. Ties between Israel and Russia have seen many ups and downs since the country entered into the Syrian civil war in 2015. While the two countries have coordinated their separate military efforts in the country in order to avoid accidental conflict, an incident last September when Syrian anti-aircraft fire downed a Russian aircraft following an Israeli strike set off tensions between the two countries. Israel has wanted Russia to do more to crackdown on Iran’s buildup in Syria as well as its ties to the Lebanese terror group Hezbollah.Bipartisan bill reintroduced to up status of U.S. special envoy on antisemitism

A bipartisan bill to elevate the status of the U.S. special envoy on antisemitism was reintroduced on Jan. 3 as the 116th Congress commenced. Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ) proposed again the Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Anti-Semitism Act that, if enacted, would upgrade the status of the special envoy to combat antisem-itism – a position the State Department has left vacant for 20 months – to an ambassadorship requiring Senate confirmation. The president would be required to fill the position within 90 days. The special-envoy position is currently vacant and has been so since the start of the Trump administration. While the bill overwhelmingly passed the House of Representatives in September, it did not get a vote in the Senate.

Bais Yaakov Productioncoming Motzei Shabbos,

Saturday evening, February 9 • 8:30pmBeth Shalom Social Hall,

Clay Ave and Vine St.An original play written by Mrs. Adina (Laury) Turo�,

alumna of the Bais Yaakov.Performed by the Bais Yaakov Students.

Original lyrics created by Mrs. Adina Turo�.Original dances created choreographed

by Mrs. Chavy Schwartz and Students Rayzel Pionand Avigayil Lopez.

The entire production is directed by Mrs. Leah Laury.

Save the Date

Elliot and Renee Schoenberg Carol and Jack NogiAmos Lodge #136 Susan and Rick Jacobson Marylyn Preven Gail and Mike GreensteinEverything Natural Carol & Jeff Leventhal Esther Friedman WegmansDavid & Gail Dickstein Rich & Cari Leventhal MahlerEileen and David Feibus Paula WasserEsther Adelman Abington Travel Barbara & Fred Levy Donald & Joyce DouglassRobert & Elaine Ufberg Villa Capri Cruisers Car ClubTim & Debbie Shane Faye & Rick BishopJerry & Lynne Fragin Norm & Arlene GevanthorSusie and Scott Herlands Judie and Larry GoldenRosalie Engelmyer Lindsay LeventhalJim and Jacquie Verano Richard & Carole FineHoward Spizer Phyllis and Michael WeinbergJames & Patricia Alperin Beverly KleinFrancis Perry Louise McNabb Toby Silverman Lisa & Sam StaarGregory Solfenelli Barb and Lou Nivert Jerald and Kerrie Gilbert Sam’s Club Cal & Doris Leventhal Robin & Jeffrey JacobsonSteve & Ellen Seitchik Scranton ToyotaMichael Mardo & Iris Liebman Nancy & Chris DresselEd & Phyllis Brandes Weis Market Clarks SummitNatalie Gelb Cheryl and Michael Friedman Ann & Ed Monsky Seth & Sheryl Gross Saul and Sharon Levy Bob & Faye Rosenberg Margi and Louis Shapiro Paula and Jim KaneAbby Smith Laurel and Alan GlassmanGifts left at JCC anonymouslyAshley Woodruff and Parents of Early Childhood

PROJECT JOYDecember

2018

With deep appreciation,

Carol Leventhal, Project Joy Chairwoman

Carol Leventhal

The following volunteer gift wrappers, delivery personnel, and JCC support staff spent hours making these gifts look especially festive for each child. A special thank you to these wonderful people:

Thank you so much for remembering Project Joy this year in such a generous way. Over 150 children received amazing gifts thanks to you keeping Project Joy as a priority during this holiday season. For many of these chil-dren, these gifts could be the only ones that will be given to them. Many local organizations received toys beautifully wrapped by our volunteers. Jewish Family Services re-ceived multiple toys and gift cards for over fifty children of all ages. The teenagers loved the gift cards. The children and their parents in the pediatric departments of our local hospitals were especially touched when we personally visited them and presented their children with holiday gifts and get well wishes. We “adopted” multiple children from Lackawanna Children and Youth. They received toys, clothing outfits, pajamas, books and stuffed animals which were requested from their own specific and personalized wish list. Many homeless families from the Catherine McCauley Center received multiple gifts which included bed sheets, comfort-ers, pots and pans and even a crockpot. These children also had huge gift bags filled with clothing, books, and toys. Families from St Joseph’s Center were ecstatic and extremely appreciative for the jumbo gift bags filled with clothing, books and toys. Children’s Advocacy was thrilled with the JCC Project Joy gifts for older children, such as games, crafts, puzzles and adult coloring books. We can’t forget the teenagers.

My heartfelt thanks to the following contributors:

THE JEWISH COMMUNITY CENTER of SCRANTON

Abby Smith Vince Kalinoski Jerry Fragin Nicole Wolff Dan (JCC Maintenance Staff)Mindy Van Fleet Phyllis Weinberg Barb and Louis NivertAnn Monsky Jacqui Verano Emily & Jane Kessler Sharon Levy Pat Buck Dave (JCC Maintenance Staff)Jeff Leventhal Ellen Seitchik Mia and Jen NovakJessica Burckhardt Denise Krafchin Dan CardonickRobin Jacobson Carol Tutka Lisa StaarGail Dickstein Debbie Shane Jean TravisElaine Shepard Faye Bishop

THE REPORTER ■ JANUARY 10, 20196 Africa Continued from page 1

For nearly 10 years, the New York-based Innovation: Africa has demonstrat-ed that a little can go a long way. With simple Israeli technology, it is teaching developing nations in the continent how to create self-sufficient infrastructure and bring access to clean water, education, refrigeration for vaccines and medicines, and food security to the region.

To date, the organization has installed Israeli solar, water and agricultural tech-nologies in more than 200 villages in 10 African countries that has impacted the lives of some 1.3 million people. But most importantly, its program teaches local community leaders, project managers and engineers how to maintain the technologies given to them so they can be self-reliant.

“We are using Israeli innovations to em-power and transform the lives of others,” said its founder and CEO, Sivan Ya’ari, at a December 18 ceremony at the Peres Center for Peace and Innovation honoring several milestones: a 10-year anniversary for IA, 60 for MASHAV and, of course, Israel’s 70th.

“President [Shimon] Peres understood that we cannot live on an island of pros-perity, and that it is our duty to share,” she said. “He understood that poverty and

ignorance enable terror, and that we can stop it if we chose to empower the other.”

It is a message that the African delega-tion has internalized during their time in Israel. “Israel believes in not letting other people suffer,” Robert Khahosi, an IA project manager from Uganda, told JNS while touring the Old City of Jerusalem. “Like Moses, who lost one sheep and had to leave his other 99 sheep to look for the missing one, Israel is going back and making sure everyone is accounted for. We are that missing sheep.”

How, then, does IA enact such radical and practical change in these communi-ties? In Khahosi’s Uganda, for example, installing solar panels, solar pumps, water tanks and taps brought clean drinking water to villages where residents had to walk some three hours for access to non-contaminated water.

IA community developer Abraham Ngobeni saw similar transformations in his native Bushbuckridge, South Africa. “Women would collect water from open sources, where they would just gather water with their hands on the river banks,” he told JNS. “Sometimes, they’d travel long distances to do this. Innovation Africa changed that. In six months, we completed

Innovation Africa founder Sivan Ya’ari danced on stage with her organization’s employees and volunteers at the Peres Center for Peace and Innovation. (Photo courtesy of Innovation Africa)

11 projects. Now women don’t have to walk long distances to collect water. IA came as a savior.”

While touring Israel’s agriculture and energy-research centers, like the Volcani and Arava institutes, the delegation learned how the technology they are already using back home can be upgraded. Mercy Tayim, for one, is particularly interested in seeing the implementation of hydroponics in her home country of Cameroon.

This relatively new Israeli technology takes urban gardening to the next level. With hydroponics, no soil is needed. In-stead, nutrients like fish excrement, duck manure or fertilizers are used in a water solvent. This is ideal for urban spaces that have little farmland or areas with limited fertile soil. “In many places [in my country], there isn’t much free land, so this is a great option,” Tayim told JNS. “In other places, there is a surplus of land, but it’s not fertile. So lots of areas suffer from famine. If we can train people to use these technologies, we can help relieve our food-scarcity problem.”

Exporting this technology could be useful far beyond the continent’s borders. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, 54 percent of the world’s population lives in urban areas and that population is expected to increase to 66 percent by 2050.

But Ya’ari is most gratified when she sees how her organization affects people on an individual level. “It is priceless to see the eyes of children looking at a bright light bulb for the first time, and to witness children and mothers tasting clean water,” said Ya’ari.

However, Ya’ari believes IA’s work has just begun. “Although we’ve helped over one million people, it is only a drop in the ocean,” she said. “There are still over 600 million people in Africa without energy, and 350 million people searching for water every single day. Now that Israel is strong, by sharing its innovation we can bless other families in the world. We can fulfil our destiny, and by sharing our innovations we can take action and stand up to our responsibility to be a blessing and realize our purpose, which is to better this world.”



had little knowledge of Judaism and atti-tudes shaped by decades of living under repressive governments.

Famously, many German Jews were shocked at how some newcomers would take away food that was set out as re-freshments for the kiddush ceremony at synagogue. The postwar community, which was largely descended from recent Eastern European immigrants, would “look upon the Soviet Jews as maybe not even being Jews and being uneducated [yet] taking over their communities,” said Esther Knochenhauer, 34, who was born in East Germany one year after her parents immigrated there from Russia.

Even before the reunification of Germa-ny in 1990, the East German leader Lothar de Maiziere began welcoming Soviet Jews. Helmut Kohl, the former chancellor, adopted the same policy after unification to make amends for and reverse the Nazis’ annihilation of a Jewish presence in Germa-ny. Following reunification, immigration requests by Jews were expedited and given equal status to those by ethnic Germans.

The Berlin Jewish Community, under its president until 1992, Heinz Galinski, hired dozens of Russian-speaking Jews to help with the absorption of others. And many Jewish communities tried to assist penniless newcomers however they could – including charity.

But these well-intended steps some-times stoked tensions. It made some “wrongly frame” communal politics as “a struggle between Russian speakers in power who do shady things and Ger-man-speaking opposition,” according to Sergey Lagodinsky, a Russia-born jurist who has run for leadership roles in the Berlin Jewish community’s elections.

And some dismissed the desire of Rus-sian-speaking Jews for contact with Jewish

At right: Children stuck white roses into a Star of David sculpture at the construction site of a new synagogue in Potsdam, Germany, on November 9, the 80th anniversary of the Nazi Kristallnacht pogrom. (Photo by Bernd Settnik/AFP/Getty Images)

Soviet Continued from page 3

life as utilitarian, he added. In the European context, joining the community allows a member access to facilities as well as free or subsidized services for weddings, circumcision and b’nai mitzvah.

That suggestion was especially insulting to families like Knochenhauer’s. Her moth-er’s family was so attached to their Jewish identity that they continued holding Passover seder dinners in communist Russia (though, out of caution, they neither read the haggadah nor told the children what the bizarre dishes and customs were all about, she said).

Yet Nedlin and Knochenhauer’s own life stories reflect their divided commu-nity’s ability to transcend the challenges of this culture clash, which ended up becoming the community’s lifeline. This year, both women married Jewish men descended from postwar families.

Anna Nedlin was married at a Cologne synagogue to Roni Lehrer, whom she met 10 years ago at the Mahane Jewish camp. The couple, both historians, are expecting their first child.

Lehrer, 30, credits the Russian-speak-ing influx with more than just continuing his own Jewish family. “We wouldn’t be around if not for their arrival,” he said. “We would’ve been doomed as a community.”

Lehrer’s mother, he said, joined the

Jewish community of Cologne in the early 1980s, when it was “a dwindling group of 1,000 people.” She did not expect Jewish life to survive in Cologne, planning to move to Israel at some point so that her children would grow up with Judaism, her son said. But a decade later, “we’re a community of 5,500 people.”

This resulted in the 2002 re-establish-ment of a Jewish school in Cologne, the Lauder Morijah School, and the opening of other Jewish institutions. Two-thirds of the 60 counselors trained annually by the community for youth work in Cologne, Lehrer said, come from Jewish homes with at least one Russian-speaking parent.

Language and food differences are some of the minor issues younger mixed couples can expect, according to Knochenhauer’s Berlin-born husband, who asked not to be identified by name in the article. (Knochen-hauer said his preference for keeping a low profile was typical of postwar Jews, and one of the things that sets them apart from Russian speakers who “won’t stay silent.”)

Her family “makes enough food for an army, which always makes me wonder just how many people they plan on hosting,” Knochenhauer’s husband said. But these minor differences are not comparable to the challenges of interfaith marriages

with partners from very different cultures, Knochenhauer said.

Still, the arrival of many thousands of Russian speakers has had a lasting and often divisive effect on communal politics, shaping the processes of some communities to this day, everyone interviewed for this article agreed. One of the first parties rep-resenting Russian speakers in the internal elections of the Berlin Jewish Community was called “Silent Majority.” Its main plat-form was the members’ identity as Russian speakers. From the mid-1990s onward, the Russian-German divide became a perma-nent issue in internal elections campaigns, according to Lagodinsky, the jurist. “There was a lot of disappointment” among Rus-sian speakers over how they were received by German-speaking Jews, he said.

Some politicians “played up” this sentiment, he said, naming the current president of the Berlin Jewish Community, Gideon Joffe. Born to Soviet immigrant Jews in Israel, he moved as a child to Germany. According to Lagodinsky, Joffe has “in Trumpian style played up the Rus-sian-speaking identity card” in elections. Lagodinsky and others accused Joffe of rigging the internal elections of 2015 and clinging to power with “tricks right out of the Soviet period,” as Lagodinsky put it. Joffe, who has denied the allegations, did not reply to multiple requests for an interview by JTA. But the fact that Joffe’s main challenger, Lagodinsky, also speaks Russian as a mother tongue “shows we’ve moved as a community passed the language divide and are focusing on the main issues,” Lagodinsky said.

To Lehrer, the historian, the internal divide “is a generational issue. ...People aged 20-40 don’t care about this anymore,” he said. And whereas some aspects of the problem are “alive, it is quite literally dying out.”

Hanukkah Story Time P�ties in the PoconosThis is the sixth year that volunteers from Congregation B’nai Harim have shared Hanukkah Story Time Parties throughout the Poconos at local libraries and community centers. In the spirit of friendship and community, volunteers from B’nai Harim partied with toddlers, senior citizens, teens, adults and individuals with special needs; and all had a wonderful time learning about the “Festival of Lights”. They played with dreidels, sang songs, ate latkes and crafted their own edible dreidels. The volunteers explained that the word Hanukkah means “rededication” as they told the story of Hanukkah and the Maccabee’s �ght for religious freedom.Once again a job well done by B’nai Harim’s Maccabee Mavens: Norma & Steve Levine, Sue & John Mayer,

Honi Gruenberg, Phyllis Miller, Irene Stolzenberg and Julia Shaykevich!

Sue Ruskin-Mayer & John Mayer make latkes

Steve Levine hands out latkes

Dr. Norma Krasne-Levine tells the story of Hanukkah

Troop 89 Boy Scouts play Dreidel


D’VAR TORAH

Partisanship distorted every debate and issue in American politics in 2018 and will probably only get worse in 2019. But it’s not too late for Jews on both sides of the political aisle to step back from the brink, and return to prioritizing the defense of Israel and op-position to antisemitism over their political affiliations. If not, the values American Jews hold most dear will be the biggest loser.

Jonathan S. Tobin is editor-in-chief of JNS – Jewish News Syndicate. Follow him on Twitter at @jonathans_tobin.

Agenda Continued from page 2

BY RABBI BARUCH BINYAMIN HAKOHEN MELMAN, TEMPLE ISRAEL OF THE POCONOS

Bo, Exodus 10:1-13:16The Talmud teaches us Rachmana liba baee, meaning

“God wants our hearts.” God wants us to have a heart connection with Him. And if we are to have a heart connection with God, how much more so are we to try to achieve such a connection with God’s creatures, our fellow creatures! It’s hard enough to love a stranger, but does that extend to our enemy, as well? Or even to hidden negative aspects of ourselves which we proj-ect onto others, people we may have turned into our enemy because they remind us too much of our own darker sides?

In Leviticus 19:18 the Torah says that we should “love our neighbor as (we love) ourselves.” The Hebrew reads ve’ahavta le’re’acha kamocha. Reah, meaning “neighbor,” also has the same spelling as ra’ah, meaning “bad” or “evil.” So it could also be understood as teaching that we should try to love our bad or evil neighbor as ourselves. This makes sense, because through the act of trying we could ignite a change and turn him around. We may fail in the end, but we need to try just the same. To give up trying is to abandon hope for a better world.

Or, as said above, we may have turned them into our enemies merely because something about them reminds us of unfinished business we need to take care of in our own souls. We are projecting our own undealt with evil onto them. They may even have come into our lives for the sole purpose of reflecting back to us what defects in our own souls need fixing. Perhaps we only were re-born into this world to fix that exact defect that is being reflected back to us.

Many people react instinctively and mimic our ac-tions or emotional states. Some people may respond to a loving gesture with love. The answer to darkness is light. The answer to hate is love. But hard core evil is oblivious to such gestures. Such evil is beyond the pale. But only through showing love can we learn to tell the difference between redeemable evil and unre-deemable hard core evil, that we must then vanquish or be vanquished in turn.

In the story of the Exodus from Egypt, the usual translation tells us that Pharaoh’s heart was “hardened.” But those who know Hebrew know the root for the word “hard” is kasheh, with the letters koof, shin and hey. But here the Torah uses the root word kaved, with a koof, a

Bo: The heavy heartvet and a dalid. This means heavy, not hard.

Parshat Bo Ex 10:1 “...bo el paro ki ani hichbadti et libo...” “...come to Pharaoh because I made his heart heavy...”

In a sense, God wants Moshe to come to Pharaoh to cheer him up, to bring him out of his melancholy and sadness. The Torah thus is teaching us that there is a spe-cial value in comforting the sad, even those who intend us harm. Perhaps the act of kindness will awaken them to do teshuvah and repent of their ways.

Can you imagine how unbelievably sad Pharaoh was to have been oppressing Israel? When you oppress others and cause them pain, you are really projecting your own sense of unworthiness onto the other. That is the reason why Pharaoh’s heart was heavy. It wasn’t “hardened,” as is often mistranslated. His heart was heavy. The pain you inflict on others always comes back to you, adding layer upon layer, weighing you down with unbearable heaviness. The more pain he inflicted on Israel, the more his own burden increased. This is a life lesson of universal truth for each of us to ponder.

The word bo reflects the intimacy of casual relations. Moshe could enter Pharaoh’s presence at will. Why? Because Pharaoh drew deep pleasure from Moshe’s presence. Anyone so connected to Hashem ultimately brings pleasure to the soul of even the wicked, so as to assuage the sense of utter abandonment from the Source of Life. No guards were necessary. Moshe could enter at will. Pharaoh saw to that!

So in a sense, the deepest sense, actually, Pharaoh enjoyed Moshe’s presence in the same pathological sense that a naughty child enjoys negative attention. Negative attention is better than no attention at all! Moshe’s pointed admonitions were actually gratifying to one who had always seen himself as the ultimate ruler, who now realizes that his evil is coming back to haunt him and that his evil may have placed him beyond the pale, placing him beyond Hashem’s mercy. Even Hashem’s harsh judgment on some level is better than being ignored!

So here the Torah is actually speaking on the deepest level about human relations. The soul craves a Divine connection, preferably a connection of mercy. But lacking that, even harsh judgment will suffice. This is a parable for all of us, and for each of us. The eschatological end times of ultimate messianic redemption will dawn among us either from a quality of delicious sweetness, or cv”s (chas veshalom – “God forbid”), a quality of harsh judgment.

Maaseh avot siman lebanim. The deeds of our fore-fathers are signposts for their children (us). Those who oppress and show cruelty to others have, in a sense, chosen Pharaoh as their father. It is said that we choose our parents before birth. We are rachmanin b’nai rach-manim, merciful ones descended from merciful ones. May our actions reflect our parentage and bring down mercy from heaven in their holy merit.

Shabbat shalom.These words of Torah are written in the merit of my

beloved parents, Israel J. Melman, obm, Yisrael Yehoshua ben Harav Ya’aqov Hakohen Melman, z”l, v’Esther bat Baruch, z”l.

Mon. pm9:30

President: Merle TuritzContact number: 570-421-8781

President: Dr. Meredith Stempel

President: Dan Marcus

For informationon advertising,please contact

Bonnie Rozen at1-800-779-7896,

ext. 244 orbonnie@

thereportergroup.org



Another year of the Technion transforming Israel and the world

BY JENNIFER FREYAs the year comes to a close, the Tech-

nion is said to have again powered trans-formational breakthroughs, milestones and innovations that are advancing Israel and changing lives throughout the world. This list of highlights from 2018, while not comprehensive, offers a glimpse of the Technion’s global impact.

1. An interdisciplinary team collaborat-ed to develop quantum metamaterials, a new scientific field, proving that man-made nano-materials can generate and control quantum light. This discovery could yield unbreakable encryptions, quantum infor-mation computer chips and more.

2. On the (very slightly) larger side of the small scale, a team of Technion chemists, mathematicians and physicists discovered a better way for nano-robots to travel in human bodies, where they can perform “seemingly impossible” tasks, like delivering drugs directly to a small area. Previous researchers had long thought nano-robots should be shaped like a helix – like bacteria – but the Technion team found that robots would be more effi-cient shaped like an arc with twisted ends.

3. Mechanical Engineering Distin-guished Professor Moshe Shoham started Mazor Robotics in 2001 with a vision: create revolutionary robots to redefine the gold standard of quality medical care. Since then, he and his team have created software that makes it easier for surgeons to accurately and precisely see individual patient’s internal anatomy before surgery, as well as advanced robots that make sur-gery less invasive. This year, Mazor was sold to Medtronic for $1.6 billion, which

will make spinal and brain surgery safer for Medtronic’s more than 46,000 patients in more than 150 countries.

4. Technion researchers have developed a new, integrated wearable medical system that is made of self-repairing materials (in case of a scratch or cut) and recharges itself from the wearer’s body movements and body heat. This new system also contains precise sensors and advanced analytical tools. This could revolutionize the use of wearables in medicine, which already are used to monitor diseases by facilitating better treatment plans and helping with epidemiological studies.

5. Intel and the Technion inaugurated the Center for Artificial Intelligence on the Technion’s Haifa campus this year, a new step in its decades-long relationship of collaboration on cutting-edge projects. As one of the top 10 universities for AI in the world, the Technion will continue to advance research in natural language processing, deep learning and hard-ware optimization – the ideas that fuel tech breakthroughs like Siri and Alexa, self-driving vehicles, and smart homes.

6. Kira Radinsky, a Technion visiting professor and alumna who is now chief sci-entist for eBay Israel, and master’s student Shahar Harel created an AI-based system to develop new drugs faster and cheaper. They found a better way to narrow down which molecules could be effective drugs: they referenced a database of molecules that are effective drugs with a computer program they created that treats organic molecules like spoken language. This means effective, lifesaving medication can be made available sooner and more safely.

7. One groundbreaking way scientists are working to reduce environmental impact is by growing beef in labs – using fewer resources and reducing pollution. One of Scientific American’s 50 leading scientists in the world, Professor Shulamit Levenberg is at the forefront of this effort as a co-founder and chief scientific officer of Aleph Farms Ltd., which pioneered a new way to grow meat on a 3D platform, while mimicking a beef steak’s complex structure and texture.

8. Technion scientists have also found new ways to generate clean energy: bacteria. Researchers discovered how to harvest energy from cyanobacteria, which are common to lakes and seas and use photosynthesis. This energy is used to make electricity and hydrogen gas – a clean gas that emits water when used, paving the way for a clean, eco-friendly future.

9. Technion Professor Marcelle Machluf was named Woman of the Year by one of Israel’s magazines, Lady Globes. One of the world’s top researchers on cancer and nan-otechnology, the Moroccan-born scientist is currently working on the “nano ghost”: a stem cell to treat metastatic melanoma and mesothelioma. Prof. Machluf is just one of

the trailblazing women of the Technion, which has five female deans, a record for academic institutions in Israel. In addition, 42 percent of Technion students are women and 20 percent are Arab.

10. Technion is considered a leader in global cybersecurity. Researchers and students have found vulnerabilities in Intel’s security feature for PCs and in-ternet servers, in Bluetooth systems and in Microsoft’s virtual assistant, showing global multi-billion dollar companies how to patch their software and protect count-less people, governments, and businesses.

With campuses in New York (Jacobs Technion-Cornell Institute), China (Guangdong Technion Israel Institute of Technology) and Haifa, researchers at the Technion believe it is positioned to make an even bigger impact in 2019 as a global leader in entrepreneurship and innovative technologies that benefit humankind.

The American Technion Society supports the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology, consistently ranked among the world’s top science and technology research universities. This is a paid post. JTA’s editorial team had no role in its production.

Each year at this time the Jewish Federation of Northeastern Pennsylvania calls upon members of our community to assist in defraying the expense of issuing our regional Jewish newspaper, The Reporter.

The newspaper is delivered twice of month (except for December and July which are single issue months) to each and every identifiable Jewish home in Northeastern Pennsylvania.

As the primary Jewish newspaper of our region, we have tried to produce a quality publication for you that offers our readership something on everything from opinions and columns on controversial issues that affect our people and our times, to publicity for the events of our affiliated agencies and organizations to life cycle events, teen columns, personality profiles, letters to the editor, the Jewish community calendar and other columns that cover everything from food to entertainment.

The Federation assumes the financial responsibility for funding the enterprise at a cost of $26,400 per year and asks only that we undertake a small letter writing mail campaign to our recipients in the hope of raising $10,000 from our readership to alleviate a share of that responsibility.

We would be grateful if you would care enough to take the time to make a donation for our efforts in bringing The Reporter to your door.

As always, your comments, opinions & suggestions are always welcome.

With best wishes,Mark Silverberg, Executive DirectorJewish Federation of NE Pennsylvania601 Jefferson AvenueScranton, PA 18510

Effective immediately, send

all articles and ads to our new E-mail address,

[email protected].

pleasenote!

Effective immediately,please send all articles & ads to

our new E-mail address, [email protected].


Feature FilmsA Tale of Love and Darkness - Academy Award-winning actress Natalie Portman directs and stars in the emotional and thought-provoking story about Fania, a young wife and mother in war-torn Jerusalem, during the early years of the State of Israel. Stifled in her relationship and weary from the tedium of her new life, Fania creates fantastical stories for Amos, her 10-year-old son, amazing him with tales of adventure and beauty— stories that would influence the boy to become a writer himself. Based on the international best-selling memoir by Amos Oz.Denial - Based on the acclaimed book Denial: Holocaust History on Trial, Denial recounts Deborah E. Lipstadt’s legal battle for historical truth against David Irving (BAFTA nominee Timothy Spall), who accused her of libel when she declared him a Holocaust denier. In the English legal system, in cases of libel, the burden of proof is on the defendant, therefore it was up to Lipstadt and her legal team, led by Richard Rampton, to prove the essential truth that the Holocaust occurred. Fanny’s Journey- In 1943, 13-year old Fanny and her younger sisters were sent from their home in France to an Italian foster home for Jewish children. When Nazis came to Italy, their caretakers organized the departure of the children to Switzerland. Based on a true story.Hidden in Silence- During the Nazi occupation of Poland,Catholic teenage Stefania Podgorska chooses the role of a savior and sneaks 13 Jewish into her attic.Loving Leah: A Hallmark Hall of Fame Classic - A handsome Washington, D.C. doctor and a young New York woman fall in love at an unusual time...after they get married. Leah Lever is married to an Orthodox rabbi, Benjamin Lever, whose brother, Jake, is a successful cardiologist and a non-practicing Jew. Jake is stunned when Benjamin dies suddenly, but not as stunned as when he is told that, under an ancient Jewish Law, he is expected to marry the childless Leah to carry on Benjamin’s name. The only alternative is to go through a ceremony where Jake must deny his brother’s existence. For Jake, that’s unthinkable, so impulsively he suggests to Leah that they get married and maintain a secretly platonic relationship. Eager to pursue her own dreams, Leah gladly accepts. Their oversimplified plan to live separate lives under the same roof proves challenging when Leah’s suspicious mother shows up unexpectedly. The harder they try to disguise their “pretend” marriage, the more their appreciation for each other’s worlds grows - and out of understanding, a real love develops. Loving Leah is a heart-warming story.Munich - Inspired by real events, Munich reveal the intense story of the secret Israeli squad assign to track down and assassinate the 121 Palestinians believed to have planned the 1972 Munich massacre of 11 Israeli athletes. ( The Jewish Film Library also owns the movie “Twenty One Hours in Munich” about the massacre at the Olympics).Music Box - In this intense, courtroom thriller, Chicago attorney Ann Talbot agrees to defend her Hungarian immigrant father Mike Laszlo against accusations of heinous war crimes committed 50 years earlier.Norman - Norman Oppenheimer (Richard Gere) lives a lonely life in the margins of New York City power and money, and strives to be everyone’s friend. His incessant networking leads him nowhere until he ends up befriending a young but charismatic politician, Micha Eshel at a low point in his life. Three years later, the politician becomes the Prime Minister of Israel. Norman uses Eshel’s name to leverage his biggest deal ever: a series of quid pro quo transactions linking the Prime Minister to Norman’s nephew ,a rabbi, a mogul, his assistant and a treasury official from the Ivory Coast. Norman’s plans soon go awry, creating the potential for an international catastrophe he must struggle to prevent. Norman: The Moderate Rise and Tragic Fall of a New York Fixer is a comedic and compassionate drama of a man whose downfall is rooted in a human frailty all too easy to forgive—a need to matter.Remember - Remember is the suspense-filled story of Zev, an Auschwitz survivor who discovers that the Nazi guard who murdered his family some seventy years ago is living in America under an assumed name.The Devil’s Arithmetic - Sixteen year old Hanna Stern was a typical American teenager who ignores her family’s heritage until a mystical Passover seder takes her back in time to German-occupied Poland on an emotional journey of life, death and survival.The Impossible Spy - The story of the life and death of Israel’s most celebrated spy, Elie Cohen.The Last Butterfly - This World War II drama stars Tom Courtenay as the famous French Mime Antoine Moreau. Ordered by the Nazis to provide ‘the greatest show of his life’ for use as propoganda showing the kinder side of the Nazis as the war draws to a close, Moreau decides to risk everything to tell the world the real truth behind this monumental lie, and although as a mime he is pledged to keep his lips sealed, his voice must be heard.The Women’s Balcony - Discover Israel’s #1 film of the year! An accident during a Bar Mitzvah celebration leads to a gender rift in a devout community in Jerusalem.The Wedding Plan - A poignant and funny romantic comedy about love, marriage and faith in life’s infinite possibilities.The Zookeeper’s Wife - In 1939 Poland, Antonina Zabinska (two-time Academy Award nominee Jessica Chastain) and her husband successfully run the Warsaw Zoo and raise their family in an idyllic existence. Their world is overturned, however, when the country is invaded by the Nazis and they are forced to report to the Reich’s newly appointed zoologist (Daniel Brühl). To fight back on their own terms, the Zabinskis risk everything by covertly working with the Resistance and using the zoo’s hidden tunnels and cages to save families from Nazi brutality.

Non-Feature FilmsAbove and Beyond - In 1948, just three years after the liberation of Nazi death camps, a group of Jewish-American pilots answered a call for help. As members of Machal- “volunteers from abroad”- this ragtag band of brothers not only turned the tide of the war; they also embarked on personal journeys of discovery and renewed Jewish pride.A Yiddish World Remembered is a PBS presentation and winner of the 2002 NY-NATAS Emmy Award. It is the story of Jewish life in Eastern Europe brought to life aain by some of the last remaining eyewitnesses. Narrated by Elliot Gould and accompanied by never-before-seen archival films, photographs and music, the documentary takes a realistic and enlightening look at this all-but-vanished way of life.Body and Soul: The State of the Jewish Nation - A powerful documentary sets the record straight eloquently and comprehensively. It not only shows the undeniable historical connection between the Jewish People and the Land of Israel, but also succeeds in debunking propaganda, myths and misinformation that have become accepted as truth by many people.Follow Me - The story of the fantastic rescue at Entebbe and the loss of Yonatan Netanyahu (brother of the Prime Minister). The Jewish Film Library also owns an Israeli film about the rescue at Entebbe entitled “Operation Thunderbolt”GI Jews: Jewish Americans in World War II, a PBS presentation, tells the story of the 550,000 Jewish men and women who served in World War II as active participants in the fight against Hitler.Hava Nagila (the Movie) - Hava Nagila is a documentary romp through the history, mystery and meaning of the great Jewish standard.I’m Still Here - Real Diaries of young people who lived during the Holocaust.Itzhak; a film by Alison Chernick looks beyond the sublime musician, to see the polio survivor whose parents emigrated from Poland to Israel ultimately bringing the prodigy violinist to New York’s Julliard. As charming and entrancing as the famous violinist himself, this documentary is a portrait of musical virtuosity enclosed in warmth, humor and above all, love.Jewish Soldiers in Blue and Gray explores this remarkable, little-known history, including the political rise of Sephardic Jew Judah Benjamin to Secretary of State of the Confederacy and General Ulysses S. Grant’s infamous “ General Order No. 11” expelling Jews from Kentucky, Tennessee and Mississippi.Jews and Baseball (narrated by Dustin Hoffman)Israel: The Royal Tour - A delightful tour headed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and travel correspondent Peter Greenberg. Nicky’s Family - The amazing story of Sir Nicholas Winton who created, on his own, a Kinder-transport in Czechoslavakia saving 669 children from the Nazi inferno.No Place on Earth - The harrowing story of Esther Stermer and her family and friends who escaped extermination by the Nazis by hiding in an underground cave is unearthed by accident when cave explorer, Chris Nicola stumbles upon remnants left behind by the cave dwellers.Rejoice with Itzhak Perlman and Cantor Yitzchak Meir Helfgot celebrates the extraordinary artistic world of Eastern European Jewish music thanks to the joined forces of legendary violinist Izhak Perlman and renowned cantor Yitzchak Meir Helfgot. These two incomparable virtuosos unite for an evening of cantorial masterpieces and much more.Rosenwald - Rosenwald tells the incredible story of Julius Rosenwald, the son of an immigrant peddler who never finished high school, who rose to become the President of Sears. Influenced by the writings of the educator Booker T. Washington, this Jewish philanthropist joined forces with African American communities during the Jim Crow South to build 5,300 schools, providing 660,000 black children with access to education in the segregated American South. The Life and Times of Hank GreenbergThe Prime Ministers: The Pioneers and Soldiers and Peacemakers - A two disc-set based on the international best-seller by Ambassador Yehuda Avner

January2019

(New films are in bold)



NEWS IN BRIEFFrom JNS.org

California middle school students form human swastikaNine California middle school students formed a human swastika before their De-

cember winter break, it was reported the week of Jan. 3. A parent delivered to school officials 112 pages of a group chat consisting of a dozen students that included photos of the human swastika, according to Ojai Unified School District superintendent Andy Cantwell. This caused the school’s administrators to release a letter to the school community on Dec. 14 about the human swastika and the group chat with “racist, sexually inappropriate and threatening commentary, including a comment about bringing knives to school. ...It brings us great pain to share with you, reprehensible student actions that have taken place over the course of the last few weeks,” stated the letter from Principal Javier Ramirez and Assistant Principal Carol Paquette. “In photos shared during the chat, there is evidence of nine students laying on the field together to form the shape of a swastika during lunch,” according to the letter. “The Matilija administration and staff are beyond saddened that this occurred.” They added that the school immediately cooperated with law enforcement “given the severity of the threats.” Police found no active threat toward anyone on campus. HSBC: Divesting from Israeli contractor does not support BDS

Amid reports the London-based international financial giant HSBC bank will divest from Israeli defense contractor Elbit, the former said that the move is not in support of BDS, rather due to a company policy not to invest in firms that produce cluster munitions. “HSBC’s decision to divest from Elbit Systems was not the result of cam-paigning by the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, and it is not indicative of support for the movement’s objectives,” Stuart Levey, HSBC’s chief legal officer and group managing director, told The Jerusalem Post. “HSBC’s decision was based on our long-standing defense policy whereby we do not invest in companies linked to the production or marketing of cluster munitions. We test our shareholdings against this policy, assisted by an external, evidence-based ratings provider,” he continued. “Following a recent acquisition by Elbit Systems, our investment in the company is no longer consistent with our defense policy with respect to cluster munitions, and Elbit Systems joins a number of other companies, including some major U.S. defense contractors, that are impacted by this policy,” he added. “This development is what prompted HSBC Asset Management to divest its shareholding in the company held in a passively managed fund. That shareholding was valued at approximately $600k and represented 0.01 percent of the total issued share capital of the company.” Levey also mentioned that HSBC’s branch in Tel Aviv will remain open.Congresswoman displays map with Israel replaced by “Palestine”

Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) displayed a map on her first day in the House of Representatives with a note posted over Israel that reads “Palestine.” Buzzfeed reporter Hannah Allam posted on Twitter on Jan. 3, “Someone has already made a slight alteration to the map that hangs in Rashida Tlaib’s new congressio-nal office.”Even before she was sworn in on Jan. 3 – the ceremony of which was

attended by Women’s March leader and anti-Israel activist Linda Sarsour, who has been criticized for not condemning her ties with antisemitic Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan – Tlaib endorsed the BDS movement. She also announced her own upcoming congressional delegation trip to the West Bank, details of which have not been publicized.IDF data sheds light on number of rockets, attacks, arrests in ‘18

The Israel Defense Forces released statistics on Dec. 30 showing that attacks by Hamas on Israel have risen dramatically in the last three years. According to the data, Israel was hit by 1,000 rockets and mortars in 2018, with 250 intercepted by Israel’s Iron Dome missile-defense system and 45 landing in populated areas. The majority of the projectiles were fired into southern Israel in late November, when nearly 500 rockets were launched at Israel in just 48 hours after a botched Israel Defense Forces’ commando raid in Khan Younis. The IDF responded to the attacks by targeting 865 terror and military positions in Gaza. In 2017, Hamas fired 35 projectiles at Israel and even less the year before that. To date, Israel has completed 27 kilometers of an underground barrier to prevent the digging of tunnels to cross from Gaza into Israel. Israel has destroyed 15 terror tunnels in the past year. According to the IDF, seven soldiers and nine civilians were killed, and 199 injured, in 87 terror attacks in 2018. Stone-throwing attacks were also down to 2,057 from 5,082 in 2017. Stabbing attacks were up to 17 from five in 2017. A total of 406 weapons were confiscated by authorities this year. The IDF said that a total of 3,173 Palestinians were arrested by security authorities in 2018.“Party is over” for convicted terrorists in Israeli prisons, says security minister

In a new bid to deter terrorism, Israel will lower prison conditions to make them as basic as possible while still conforming to international law, according to Strategic Affairs and Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan. At a press conference on Jan. 2, Erdan said security and criminal prisoners should be treated differently. He contin-ued, saying the changes would both “fulfill our moral duty to terror victims and their families,” as well as “deter would-be terrorists. ...When it comes to security prison-ers, one of the main goals of imprisonment – rehabilitation – does not exist, because prisoners are instilled with a terrorist ideology that does not regret their actions. The party is over,” declared Erdan. The move is the culmination of seven months of work by a committee established to find way to make imprisonment harder for convicted terrorists. Because terrorists have been known to leave their water faucets running in defiance – wasting five times more water than the average Israeli citizen – new regulations will also reduce water consumption for terror convicts. Additionally, Erdan said that rival Hamas and Fatah Palestinian factions will no longer be given the privilege of being housed in separate, like-minded jails, and will be intermingled. Up until now, convicted terrorists have enjoyed the right to cook their own food, but will now receive food from the same place as criminal convicts: the prison cafeteria. Canteen allotments will also be reduced. Israeli security experts have not expressed serious opposition to the new measures.


For information about Legacy Giving, please contactMark Silverberg at the Jewish Federation of Northeastern Pennsylvania

at [email protected] or call 570-961-2300 (ext. 1).

as april elections loom, israeli party leaders face ...as april elections loom, israeli party...

Documents