HAKOL - Chanukah Special Section 2014

KISLEV/TEVET 5775DECEMBER 2014

2 DECEMBER 2014 | HAKOL LEHIGH VALLEY | HAPPY CHANUKAH

By Judy WalkerProject Hope Dinner Committee Co-Chair

Project Hope of Easton Dinner is an event that has been providing for the less fortunate families in the Lehigh Valley since 1987. In the past few years, many Jewish families and the congregation from Bnai Abraham Synagogue under the direction of Rabbi Daniel Stein have been lending their support to this effort.

The event is held at Our Lady of Maronite Church in downtown Easton, allowing for easy access for those who attend. Last year, over 400 people, including 175 children, were served a lovely turkey dinner. Each child received a new, age-appropriate wrapped gift. Families were able to choose warm clothing from the “gently used” boutique and also received a grocery bag of

staples to take home. The entire project relies on

donations and volunteers. A crew of about 75 people does the cook-ing, sets up, serves dinner, wraps presents, supervises the distribu-tion of the donations and cleans up. The City of Easton lends support through the mayor’s office with at-tendance by members of the police and fire departments.

This year, the dinner will take place on Sunday, Dec. 14. All contri-butions are appreciated, including gifts of money, new clothing, new toys, games and books, and baby items. Be assured that these dona-tions are put to immediate good use helping individuals in need right here in our community.

Further information is available at the website: www.projecthopeofeaston.com, or by calling Judy Walker, chair of the event at 610.905.9628.

Project Hope

By Joy MillerSpecial to HAKOL

Beth Tikvah Jewish Prisoner Out-reach is a nonprofit organization that this year is looking to send Chanukah cards to 300 Jews who are housed in this country’s penal system.

During the year, some of the things we do are: serve as penpals with the prisoners; provide learn-ing materials about Jewish history, holidays, Hebrew and Torah top-ics; supply prayer books, kippot, stamps and writing papera; and furnish Jewish calendars.

Sid Kleiner of Florida, president for over 30 years, does so much more. He is the brother of Bunny Nepon, a former resident of Al-lentown who moved to Florida last spring. Some of Kleiner’s functions include networking with related local and national organizations, raise the consciousness of the American mainstream Jewish com-munity about the issues for Jews serving time, and advocating for

prisoners who face abuse and anti-Semitic actions.

Congregation Keneseth Israel and Temple Shirat Shalom have supplied over 300 prayer books; 50 Jewish calendars were donated by Chabad of the Lehigh Valley and from individuals representing other places of worship in the area including Congregation Sons of Israel; learning materials were sent from Temple Beth El and KI.

The Allentown AZA Chapter of BBYO has recently decided to help collect “forever stamps,” and other youth groups and individuals join in as well in the stamp collection so that the 300 prisoners whom Beth Tikvah supports will get Chanukah cards.

Joy Miller has been involved since the fall of 2013, when Rabbi Seth Phillips, who was Kleiner’s rabbi in Florida, brought this nonprofit and the work it does to Congregation Keneseth Israel's attention. For more information, visit bt.isrv.org/?page_id=2.

Prisoner Outreach to send

HAPPY CHANUKAH | HAKOL LEHIGH VALLEY | DECEMBER 2014 3

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By Naama Miron AsherPartnership2Gether

YOAV, ISRAEL - Sitting with three generations of the Cohen Family in the yard of their home on Kibbutz Kfar Menachem, one can see the foothills of the Judean mountains that rise in the horizon toward Jerusalem. Kibbutz Kfar Menachem sits on the beautiful Judaean coastal plain near the Tzafit Tel, thought to be the village of the biblical Goliath. This Chanukah, this the oldest kibbutz in the Yoav Regional Council, is celebrating its 75th anniversary. Its history parallels the development of the State of Israel.

It is a windy, fall afternoon and it’s easy to imagine seeing the changes in the landscape and population that Avigdor Cohen,

94, describes. Born in Vienna in 1920, Cohen, was part of the illegal immigration into British-occupied Palestine after the Nazis rose to power in the late 1930s. A young Zionist in his new homeland, he joined the movement that established new Jewish settlements in Palestine; specifically, he joined the German Unit of Palmach, the elite fighting force of the Haganah that was the underground army of the Yishuv during the period of the British Mandate for Palestine, and fought in the War of Independence. Cohen settled with his young family in Kfar Menachem a couple of years later.

Over the years, Cohen worked as a goat herder, ceramicist and a children's book illustrator – his true passion. “I’m the only one remaining from the first generation

of founders of the kibbutz, and I still have a lot to do,” Cohen said in a recent interview. He is currently working on publishing an English edition to his acclaimed “When a Bear Wants to Fly,” a children's book, written and illustrated for his son, Amos, when he was 6 years old.

“It turned out that my son had dyslexia at a time when the educational system did not know how to address such a problem,” Cohen recalled. “So, I told him a story about a bear who wants to fly, and a bird who tries to fish. The moral is that you can’t be good at everything, but you can excel in certain areas.”

"The Kibbutz today is not the same as it was in its first decades," Cohen said without apparent regret: “It is different, and there is an abundance of children which gives a very nice feeling. The young generation that is building their future here may have a different ideology than we had in our youth, but it's a good progression. I’m really happy that Romi, my granddaughter, is active in the HaShomer HaTzair youth movement and that she still considers the Kibbutz as her home and chooses to remain here.”

Cohen’s son, Amos, is an electrician by profession and also very accepting of the changes. He remembers his childhood in the kibbutz fondly but also remembers how strict the Hashomer HaTzair ideology used to be. "The ideology permeated every part of your

life," he said. "It was reflected in the names that were chosen for children, in the children living in group homes and visiting our parents only in the afternoons until dinner and bedtime. It was a very strict type of communal living."

Membership in the youth movement was also taken very seriously. "But today things are very different; the communal part of the kibbutz is very limited and being in the youth movement means mainly social interaction and sometimes social activism.” Amos is very happy to see Romi, his daughter, involved in the movement. "It gives her an opportunity to be independent, meet people from all over Israel and make her mark on society," he said.

Perhaps surprisingly, it is Amos’s wife Naomi Cohen who is more critical of the changes. Naomi immigrated to Israel from Bavaria, Germany, 21 years ago, fulfilling her dream and converting to Judaism. She married Amos and gave birth to Romi when both she and her husband were over 40 years old.

Naomi, who manages the Kibbutz’s dental clinic, is a true “Kibbutznik” in her views: “I would like the privatization to stop. Currently, we have here an immensely active community with traditional kibbutz elements like a communal dining room, and we still share basic services such as education and health. Kfar Menachem is still a kibbutz, and doing well economically. We have many sons and daughters of Kibbutz

members now returning who want to build their home here. Perhaps they will invigorate this thing which is called "kibbutz" and make it a New Kibbutz. That is something I would really like to see.”

Romi agrees with her mother. A junior at Zafit High School, Kibbutz Kfar Menachem is more than a birthplace for her. “First of all, what I love in the kibbutz way of life is that everybody knows everyone and you’ll always be greeted with a smile when you are walking about. I guess you could say the Kibbutz is a sort of bubble compared with life elsewhere,” she said. “You can walk barefoot and it will be considered normal, there is a kind of a homely feeling, like being part of one big family.”

In view of changes the Kibbutz has experienced over the last decade, with many new residents arriving and privatization taking center stage, Romi notes that she is worried. “I know change is inevitable, and sometimes good, but I fear the old Kibbutz is gradually disappearing,” she said.

“I hope we remain a close-knit community. I hope that I can still combine working in the fields or working in the dairy farm with academic studies. I hope I can always say that I come from a community that cares about its people and puts them first.”

Made up of a number of kibbutzim and moshavim, the Yoav Regional Council is the Lehigh Valley’s partner community in Israel.

Kibbutz Kfar Menachem marks 75 years

4 DECEMBER 2014 | HAKOL LEHIGH VALLEY | HAPPY CHANUKAH

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Happy Chanukah!

You can always have the usual applesauce and sour cream on hand, but best-selling cookbook author Mollie Katzen suggests adding some intrigue and savory twists to latkes — in addition to sneaking in vegetables, herbs, nut and olive oil.

By JNS.org

With over 6 million books in print, MollieKatzen is listed by the New York Times as one of the best-selling cookbook authors of all time and has been named by Health Magazine as one of “The Five Women Who Changed the Way We Eat.”

Below are some of her ideas for how to freshen up your Chanukah table, without intruding on your latke loyalties. How about switching the toppings? You can always have the usual applesauce and sour cream on hand, but consider adding some intrigue and savory twists—in addition to sneaking in vegetables, herbs, nuts, and olive oil—to the options on the menu. Add some lentil soup and a green salad, and your Chanukah celebration will be colorful and compelling.

ChimichurriChimichurri is the “national sauce” of Argentina, and is also common in Honduras and other Latin American countries. It’s a complex green paste, similar to

a pesto, but containing a greater variety of herbs, and a tart taste from the presence of vinegar. Chimichurri is normally served with roasted or grilled meat or fish, but it’s also delicious on cooked potatoes and vegetables, pasta, grains and sandwiches. It’s also a terrific dab of flavor for latkes — either directly on top, or as a green dollop on the sour cream.

* This keeps for a week or two if stored in a tightly lidded container in the refrigerator. Just use as needed, as you would any condiment.

1 c (packed) minced cilantro1/4 c (packed) minced parsley1/4 c minced scallions1 T minced fresh oregano (or 1 teaspoon dried oregano)1 t minced or crushed garlicBig pinch of cayenne2 T red wine vinegar1/4 t salt6 T extra-virgin olive oil

Place the cilantro, parsley, scallions and oregano in a food processor, and mince very finely. Add the garlic, cayenne, vinegar, salt and process to a paste, with the food processor running until everything is fully incorporated. Drizzle in the oil at the very end. Transfer to a tightly lidded container and refrigerate until use.

Yield: About 2/3 cup Preparation time: 10 minutes

Chipotle CreamChipotle chilies are smoked dried jalapenos. They most commonly come in cans, packed in a vinegar preparation called adobo sauce. A little bit of canned chipotles-in-adobo goes a very long way, both in terms of its heat and its powerful smoky essence. In this sauce, sour cream and/or yogurt create a soothing, luxurious vehicle for the chipotle flavor.

* Serve this wherever it seems appropriate — on any egg dish, with beans, rice, cornmeal preparations or drizzled onto soups — or on latkes.

1 c sour cream or yogurt (or a combination)1/2 to 1 t. canned chipotle chilies, finely minced

Place the sour cream and/or yogurt in a small bowl and whisk until smooth. Whisk in 1/2 teaspoon minced chipotles, and let it sit for about 10 minutes, so the flavor can develop. Taste to see if it needs more chipotle paste, and adjust, as desired. Store in a tightly covered container in the refrigerator. Bring to room temperature before serving.

Yield: 1 cupPreparation time: 5 minutes

with new latke toppings

By Alice LevelSpecial to HAKOL

Have you ever played the game of asking friends how they met their significant other? Well, I have, and I have heard a lot of different stories. Some are boring, some are funny, some are dramatic and some are exotic even, but never until now had I heard a story as extraordinary as the story of Ilana Gitelman and Arkady Voloshin.

Ilana was born in the 1950s in the city of Kishinev, the capital city of Moldavia, a small republic belonging at the time to the Soviet Union. Consider the situation as it was when she was growing up: Both of her parents are Jewish, but because the Soviet Union forbids the practice of any religion, they do not practice at all. There is no kosher food to buy, no Hebrew school in which to learn Hebrew and the laws of the Torah, no Jewish youth groups and no Jewish summer camp. There is still one synagogue authorized, but no one, except very old people, would dare to go in and pray during Jewish holidays.

Therefore, Ilana grows up knowing that she is Jewish because it is written on her passport – having a passport with one’s “nationality” stamped upon it is mandatory for any Soviet citizen above age 16 – but she has no idea what it means. For her, being Jewish is like what for others being Russian or Moldavian is, except she has no homeland and she is treated worse than other minorities because of her Jewishness.

Also, her real name isn’t Ilana; it’s Ella and that’s how she is known. Her parents named her Ella, not because they very much liked the name, but because giving a Jewish name to a baby would be very much frowned upon or mocked by the locals.

Growing up, Ella knows that, as a student, she has to be much better than her non-Jewish classmates if she wants to have the chance to go to a university, and even being better doesn’t guarantee it. Very often, brilliant Jewish students have to go as far as Leningrad, or even Siberia to have a chance to get accepted.

No, growing up in the anti-Semitic Soviet Union wasn’t easy in the 60s, but Ella and her parents managed as best they could and on the fateful day of 1968 when she was told that she was indeed accepted at a university, her life changed forever.

Ella came home that day very excited about the great news, and couldn’t wait to share it with her parents. Nobody was home yet, though, and Ella was going to go out when someone knocked on her door. It was an older man who introduced himself as Joseph Yankelevich, a former friend of her father. He had been sent in 1941 to a Stalinist camp in Siberia. After spending 16 years there and miraculously surviving, he had been living in Riga for several years with his family, and had come to Kishinev to reconnect with some old friends.

Ella explained that her dad wasn’t home yet and, since she was so excited that day, she told him her great news.

They talked for a little while, and then Joseph gave her two books to read and told her, “Read the books, study them and sometime in the future someone will come to pick them up.”

Ella was intrigued. The first book was a dictionary of Hebrew/Russian and the second one was a book about the history of the Jews. So she started to study them and soon became hooked …

In May 1969, almost a year later, two young and handsome men knocked on her door and asked for the books. They had been sent by Joseph, they said. They were part of a large Jewish underground organization trying to teach Hebrew and Jewish history to Jews from the Soviet Union and, ultimately, to get some of them to emigrate to Israel. At the time, this was considered a crime and many “Zionists” had been sentenced to prison for this. There was no way a Jew would be allowed to leave the USSR, let alone to go to Israel.

Ella became fast friends with the two young men. One of them, Arkady, was a very active member of the Jewish underground organization. In the summer of 1969, he became indirectly involved in a crazy plot to “highjack” a plane full of Jewish passengers and have the plane land in Sweden. It never happened, though, because the KGB arrested all the suspected “terrorists” directly involved with the plot on June 15, 1970.

Arkady’s house was searched on that day, too, and he himself was arrested on August 17, 1970. A long and very difficult trial followed. While Arkady was still awaiting his trial in prison, two of the more direct protagonists were sentenced to death, and others to 15 years in prison.

The sentencing was so harsh and so overtly anti-Semitic that it became a world sensation. There were strikes and protests everywhere. Even the communist parties of France and Italy condemned the communist party of the USSR. The western world was so irate about the issue that, for the first time, the Soviet government backed up and reduced the sentencing.

Ella, who by now was Arkady’s girlfriend, went to Moscow to find him a good lawyer, but the lawyer was forbidden to go to the trial. The trial was “closed,” which means that only direct family could attend and this did not include Ella. Arkady and his family wanted as many people as possible admitted to the trial, though, because they wanted to remember as many details as possible of what went on during the trial in order to tell people, who would tell other people, who would be able to tell foreign journalists.

Toward that goal, Arkady’s mother, Ida, told Arkady to stand up during the trial and ask the judge to allow Ella to be present at the trial as his fiancée. The judge refused, which prompted Ella to tell friends who eventually told a journalist from the BBC. A radio broadcast from the BBC then gave accounts of the situation in June 1971, presenting Ella as Arkady’s fiancée.

Meanwhile, Arkady had been

sentenced to two years in prison. When he was told of the radio broadcast, he laughed and said to Ella, “Well, if the BBC said it … then you should be my fiancée!”

Incredible as this story is, it is not over. In May 1972, U.S. President Richard Nixon went on an official visit to the U.S.S.R., and because the Soviet government was afraid of possible protests or unrest from Soviet Jews, it allowed a few “troublemakers” to leave. Ella and her family were among them. They were given 10 days in May 1972 in which to leave for Israel.

Arkady, who had spent more than a year in a political camp in Moldovia, was released on August 17, 1972, exactly two years after he

was arrested. He was allowed to leave in October 1972, and was reunited with Ella in Israel. The kibbutz Gvat, which had been very involved with helping the Soviet Jews – whom they called “Prisoners of Zion” – offered to organize the wedding for them. A date was set for November 30, 1972, and even Golda Meir was going to come and attend the wedding.

It turned out that that year, Nov. 30 was the first day of Chanukah and Golda Meir couldn’t attend because of previous engagements, but she gave them as a wedding gift a beautiful hanukkiah that they still have and cherish.

Now wouldn’t you call this whole story a Chanukah miracle?

HAPPY CHANUKAH | HAKOL LEHIGH VALLEY | DECEMBER 2014 5

AFTER NARROW ESCAPE

6 DECEMBER 2014 | HAKOL LEHIGH VALLEY | HAPPY CHANUKAH

By Judy DiamondsteinJFLV Assistant Executive Director

My husband, Marc, and I re-cently traveled to Europe to visit our son who is attending a Jew-ish studies program in Prague, Czech Republic. In addition to experiencing Prague, we also journeyed to Munich, Germany, and Vienna, Austria. Each city held within it stories of Jewish past as well as the narrative of Jewish continuity.

As we walked atop the cobblestones we could almost feel the history rising up through our feet. We felt pride well up as we walked through the Jew-ish quarters of each city with familiar sights — synagogues, mezzuzot, and Hebrew, but this time all juxtaposed against the historical framework of the atrocities that had befallen our people. The Jewish community in Prague had numbered close to 300,000 before World War II and now is about the same size as the Lehigh Valley Jewish community of 8,000.

We were determined to see as much as we could, but our trip coincided with Sukkot and Sim-chat Torah which made access to the Jewish museums and other places of Jewish interest inacces-sible. And then it dawned on us that Shabbat was approaching. What better way to experience Jewish life that to participate in services at synagogue?

We set out for the “Aultnue Shul” or Old-New Synagogue, which is the oldest European synagogue still operating and among the oldest synagogues in the world. Built in the 13th cen-tury, the synagogue is of Gothic style with walls about three feet thick surrounding the sanctuary, originally the exterior wall of the building. It is an Orthodox congregation which built an an-nex several decades ago to enable women to pray. The women sit on the other side of the walls and they can partially view the interior through small horizontal openings in the walls.

We approached the entrance to the synagogue and were met by an Israeli security guard who had more questions about our identity than an El Al employee in the airport. My husband and son were asked many questions, and then it was my turn. “Do you celebrate Shabbat?” “Do you light the candles?” Then: “Say the blessing!” Wow—a blessing I’ve said since I’m a toddler and yet in that moment I had to summon the words.

We passed muster and entered the building. Marc and Noah entered the sanctuary and I went into the woman’s section with another American from California. At the conclusion of the service we met other English speakers who were also visiting from out of town. One family had traveled from England to Berlin before coming to Prague. They were in Berlin to lay a stone in the sidewalk in front of the house where the mother and grandparents had been ripped away by the Nazis.

They told of a very posi-tive and moving experience as the current family who lived in the house and many neighbors came out to participate in the ceremony. Their biggest surprise

came when they were invited in to see the home from the inside. Amidst the climate of rising anti-Semitism in Europe, the Germans that they met all wished to make amends for the sins of the past as best they could through hospital-ity and kindness.

Here we had come together by chance, united by our com-mon bond as Jews and immedi-ately bonded over their stories, which were all of our stories. At the end of the conversation we left the Aultnue Shul to head to the Spanish Synagogue to attend the Reform Shabbat service for a different experience. The sanctuary is breathtaking, with ornate Moorish architecture and stained glass. Built in 1868, the synagogue has a Sephardic feel but the design of the sanctuary is Ashkenazi with the bimah and ark set at one end of the space and pews facing the ark. Together we sat and sang and prayed through the service. In both congregations, we felt at home with familiar prayers and melodies.

While we may not have shared the same spoken language, our common bond as Jews and the connection to thousands of years of shared history united us.

JEWISH DESTINATIONS: CZECH REPUBLIC

Travel brings surprises

HAPPY CHANUKAH | HAKOL LEHIGH VALLEY | DECEMBER 2014 7

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Made in IsraelBeautiful Shema Selection

Happy Hanukkah!

By Ruth Knafo SettonSpecial to HAKOL

Ruth Knafo Setton teaches at Lehigh University and, this fall, set sail on a Semester at Sea, which took her and her students to fascinating destinations, including Gdansk, Poland …

There’s a darkness here I wish I didn’t have to acknowledge. I call it the creep factor. It lurks behind the deep yellow, rust and green painted facades of the buildings in Old Town, threads through the black veins of amber, and burns in the eyes of the damned in Gdansk’s masterpiece, Hans Memling’s “The Last Temptation.” The creep factor reaches its zenith in the Artists’ Court, a vast hall decorated with enormous paintings (more tortured souls being dragged to hell), large wooden boats suspended from high ceilings, old swords and weapons, and an armored warrior looming over us on a high landing. I imagine him glaring though it’s hard to tell, his head being a deer’s, crowned with antlers.

Staring up at the deer-soldier, I tactfully ask our guide, Kristof, “Was the deer a noble animal?”

“No,” he says, “but hunting in the forest was the most noble act of all.”

A medieval hunting lodge, that’s what this is, where apparently town leaders still welcome important people and heads of state to gather and drink.

Outside on the main street of Old Town, the sun shines, a guitarist strums a waltz, tourists bite into succulent pierogies at cafes or lick soft ice cream cones as they saunter past souvenir shops and twinkling displays of amber. The Old World charm factor does serious battle with the creep factor, and believe me, I’m more than ready to be charmed. Why shouldn’t people sweep shadows and darkness under the cobbles? Shouldn’t they be allowed to forget?

After all, this curious little town was Danzig before it became Gdansk. Bombed in 1945. Scars remain. On our walking tour, Kristof takes us through one thousand years of Polish history — being tossed between Russia and Germany, and once even being erased from the map of the world — but he never once mentions the word “Jew.” That loaded word, in itself potent enough to transform otherwise peaceful humans into antlered beast-faced monsters

“There is a concentration camp 40 kilometers from here,” says Kristof, without naming it, elaborating on who was killed there, or who did the killing.

I like Kristof, with his brush of dark hair, shy smile when we laugh at one of his jokes, and strange body tic — a swerve of his entire chest. He points out his wife’s favorite café, and the best place in town to eat pierogies: Udzika on Piwna Street, then steers us to one of the amber stores. Just doing his job.

Through the day I’ll eat pierogies (stuffed with chicken, raisins and nuts), drink Polish beer, linger at the amber stands, and gradually fall under the spell of desperately sweet confectioner’s sugar, sidewalk cafes, musicians serenading us with guitar and accordion, the piercing loveliness of the sunset over the bricks and cobbles and the full moon peeking through the Ferris Wheel near the canal. It’s an Old World elegance and charm I’ve read about and imagined, but never seen.

Still, I find myself wandering through the Old Town gates, leaving color, lights and people behind, to a darker, seedier area. I slow down before a group of tattooed, pierced, spike-haired teens smoking and laughing in front of a coffee shop, very different from the cafes in Old Town. Its scrawled window advertises “Okie Dokie.” A new kind of coffee on my endless search for great java through the world? From inside, George Michael’s voice blasts: “Freedom!” And I keep going.

This piece originally appeared on Ruth Knafo Setton’s blog, Once Upon a Time. Ruth Knafo Setton is the author of the novel, “The Road to Fez,” and the recipient of literary fellowships and awards from the National Endowment of the Arts, PA Council on the Arts and PEN. Her poetry, fiction and creative nonfiction have appeared in many journals and anthologies. She teaches courses in Jewish literature and creative writing at Lehigh University and Semester at Sea. Her website is: www.ruthknafosetton.com.

Once upon a time

Ruth Knafo Setton, on a visit to Gdansk Artists’ Court: ‘an armored warrior ... his head being a deer’s ... looms over us.’

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