Washington Jewish Week back issues from February 2006:
Shhh, we're in shul; Synagogues seek to be kid friendly while maintaining decorum
Feb 02, 2006; ... It was a recent Shabbat at Adat Shalom Reconstructionist Congregation, and Guila Franklin Siegel had been looking forward to the Saturday morning guest speaker. As that speaker prepared to step onto the bima at the Bethesda synagogue, though, Franklin Siegel's 6-month-old son started to ...
Educational boost; Smith family gives $15 million to JDS
Feb 02, 2006; ... The Charles E. Smith Family Foundation is on a roll. For the second time in recent weeks, the foundation has announced a major gift to a local Jewish organization. This time the donation, totaling $15 million, goes to the Charles E. Smith Jewish Day School in Rockville. It is the largest ...
Into Africa; Gesher students 'travel' far afield
Feb 02, 2006; ... Sounds of the xylophone-like mbira waft from the CD player as Sydney Astrow and Eran Brown plot their next move. The two seventh-graders are vying for victory at Senet, a board game resembling Chutes and Ladders that has roots in ancient Egypt. With many rolls of the dice still ahead ...
Her family lives through papers
Feb 02, 2006; ... It was a couple of weeks ago that Flora Singer's husband, Jack, told her that they "got something interesting in the mail." A Holocaust survivor who spent part of the war hiding in Catholic convents in Belgium, Singer looked at the big envelope from the Mechelen Museum of Deportation and ...
No negotiations, for now
Feb 02, 2006 ... Hamas' overwhelming election win last week raises numerous questions, not the least of which is: Should Israel negotiate with its leaders? For now, the answer is a firm no. And, fortunately, for once, no one is pressuring Israel to do so. Hamas swept to victory mainly ...
Will Israel again fall prey to Oslo syndrome?
Feb 02, 2006; ... Hamas's victory in the recent Palestinian elections was largely a consequence of the corruption and destruction of the local economy wrought by Yasser Arafat and his Palestinian Authority following their installation in the territories via the Oslo agreements. It is one more bitter fruit of the ...
Feminist dramatist who wrote vividly about Jews
Feb 02, 2006; ... It's rather shocking that, 11 and a half months after losing Arthur Miller, we should now lose Wendy Wasserstein. Separated by two generations and 36 years, they nevertheless both represented something similar: established Broadway playwrights who did their living in the theater; whose ...
It's all in the imagination; Interactive play 'Ten Matchboxes' teaches kids life's lessons
Feb 02, 2006; ... I am Janusz Korczak, a visitor from another time," Israeli actor Amichai Pardo says as he makes his entrance. That's how the one-person, many-children performance of Ten Matchboxes -- a play written by Korczak and one he would perform for the children in the Jewish orphanage in Poland he ...
A play for today's immigrants with grand dreams; Brilliant production, 'Awake and Sing' Depression-era story still resonates
Feb 02, 2006; ... Clifford Odets was, perhaps, America's first street poet. He didn't idealize his nation for its broad and expansively beautiful landscapes like Walt Whitman. He didn't pen rhymed couplets or sonnets of passionate love. Odets listened hard to working-class American voices and found inspiration ...
'Music From the Inside Out' a film for music lovers
Feb 02, 2006; ... When Daniel Anker finished the four-year-long task of filming and editing his latest film, Music From the Inside Out, he didn't know what to expect. "I didn't think the film would have a long theatrical run," says the filmmaker who grew up in Potomac and whose movie opens in the ...
Ella Tulin, sculptor, activist, 75
Feb 02, 2006 ... Ella Tulin of Bethesda and West Tisbury, Mass., an internationally known sculptor of human figures, died Jan. 27 as the result of a cerebral hemorrhage. She was 75. Tulin, a Washington native, studied literature, art and art history at American University, where she did studio work there ...
Celebrations
Feb 02, 2006 ... Ryan Scott Sandberg Naomi (Mirman) and Steven Sandberg of Silver Spring have announced the birth of their son, Ryan Scott, on Nov. 16, at Shady Grove Adventist Hospital in Rockville. He weighed 9 pounds, and was 20 ½ inches long. Also welcoming Ryan are his brother, Joey, ...
Do-gooders are ruining my business
Feb 02, 2006; ... I have a grocery store in a poor area, but lately I have been losing business due to a charity organization that is giving out food parcels. Is this ethical? I have received this type of question many times, but never articulated a convincing answer. I will answer by presenting the ...
CAPITAL schmoozing; The stores we've known and loved
Feb 02, 2006; ... Last year at this time, I wrote about the Christian origins of Valentine's Day. Try as I might to ignore the holiday, however, my wife sees no compelling reason for my not presenting her with a gift to mark the occasion. So, with the madness of the Christmas shopping season not yet a ...
Area rabbis back D.C. wage hike
Feb 02, 2006; ... Amy Goodman, 25, can tell you why she's been giving time to the drive to boost District wages. "Living in D.C., we see poverty every day, so I feel strongly that our tax dollars should not be used to create jobs with poverty-level wages," says Goodman, a city resident who works as a ...
Streets of elites; Walking tour captures old-time Adams Morgan
Feb 02, 2006; ... Time was that the Jewish upper crust gazed down at the world from windows near the District's Columbia Road and 18th Street, N.W. Tucked away behind these busy thoroughfares of Adams Morgan was an enclave called Lanier Heights. First a mecca for scientists and scholars, its row houses in ...
Festival of trees draws Orthodox interest
Feb 02, 2006; ... No fewer than three area Orthodox shuls are hosting sedarim to mark Tu B'Shevat this month. A minor holiday that celebrates trees and fruits of the land of Israel, the 15th of the Jewish month of Shevat (Feb. 13 this year), has, until recently, drawn more attention from the liberal ...
China ties; Bat mitzvah helps in her native land
Feb 02, 2006; ... When Meah Nisenson was in China, people spoke to her in Chinese. The Rockville resident would have found it easier if she had been addressed in Hebrew. Though adopted from China at age 2 and a student at the Rockville Chinese School, she also attends the Charles E. Smith Jewish ...
Washington Watch; Hamas win a defeat for U.S. policy
Feb 02, 2006; ... There's an old saying in the Middle East that there are three levels of dead: dead; dead and buried; and dead and buried and beyond resurrection. The peace process -- what there was of it -- and President George W. Bush's goal of spreading democracy throughout the Arab world and creating ...
It's out of Israel's hands
Feb 02, 2006; ... The Palestinian people have just elected officials with the level of consciousness of Torquemada in the 16th century who no more represented Christianity than Hamas represents real Islam. Nevertheless, when I met with Hamas members in a small group meeting with Sheikh Yassin in 1998, I ...
Adult league goes to court and scores
Feb 02, 2006; ... Offense was everywhere in the Jewish Community Center of Greater Washington's Adult Basketball league two weekends ago. The Meyers team scored a 46-36 victory over the Falasca squad. Steve Meyers led his team to the win with 10 points while Cory Gibson added eight. Steve Pipe and Bryan ...
Spiritual singing; The Nigunim Trio to perform, teach at Adat Shalom
Feb 02, 2006; ... The New York-based Klezmatics have won fame for giving Yiddish songs a contemporary edge, but when two of this band's members visit the area this weekend, they'll be leaving their words at home. Trumpeter Frank London and vocalist Lorin Sklamberg will be bringing nigunim, usually ...
'Bonhoeffer' riveting portrait of pastor who resisted the Nazis
Feb 02, 2006; ... Difficult times can test one's faith in God. But that was never an issue for German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer, even during the darkest days of the 1930s and '40s. His grievances weren't with God, but with the Nazis, the Protestant Church and his fellow pastors. The unusually ...
Physician's memoir a paean to America
Feb 02, 2006; ... As young children in Poland in the 1930s, Oscar Mann and his brother, John, were enthralled by the Adolf Hitler they saw portrayed on newsreels. "Believe it or not, our parents never fretted over our misdirected fascination," the District resident writes in his self-published memoir (A ...
Windows to our Community; Our Jewish world goes to Florida, Boston
Feb 02, 2006; ... We have just spent some time on vacation on Florida's West Coast. How was I to meet my commitment to my Chalonot readers in Washington Jewish Week. I should not have worried. Items to share with you presented themselves in several circumstances. For example, the Kobrens of Silver ...
BEYOND NIBBLES AND NOSHES; Comforting, sweet treats to see us to spring
Feb 02, 2006; ... Chanukah is past, the winter solstice is past, the secular new year is past. The days are starting to get longer, and it is nice to leave work with a bit of sunlight left (it's gray, but it's there) on the journey home. But, though hints of spring are imaginable, the nights are still ...
D'var Torah; Exodus and Covenant
Feb 02, 2006; ... In this week's Torah reading, Bo, we return to a tense place in our national history. We are about to make a break from our oppressors in Egypt and face all the insecurity and anxiety that freedom brings. Within this context, we are asked several times to jog our historical memories and ...
Building, both literally and metaphorically
Feb 02, 2006; ... I had never felt so fulfilled in my life -- tears wanting to come because I knew that the experience had to come to a close, the feeling that the work of my hands was truly needed and would have to end. I never expected the circumstances on Hillel's Katrina Relief Alternative Break to be ...
Rights at crux of marriage fight; Some Virginia Jews battle amendment; Gay equality at issue for some Maryland Jews
Feb 09, 2006; ... Michael Rankin served in the Navy reserve, but the retired captain's battles now center on ballots, not boats. The Arlington man, 69, is among Jewish activists fighting a proposed amendment to Virginia's constitution that would define marriage in the commonwealth and its subdivisions as ...
Duncan thanked for Jewish partnership
Feb 09, 2006; ... Early on in his 11-year tenure as Montgomery County executive, some Jewish leaders met with Doug Duncan to ask for funding for the community's social service agencies. After they were finished presenting their requests, remembers Andy Stern, they heard a surprising response from the ...
Shul dispute resolved; D.C.'s Ohev Sholom renamed, controls cemetery
Feb 09, 2006; ... After a 3 ½-year-long, bitter dispute that reached an appellate court, Ohev Sholom Talmud Torah of Olney and OSTT of the District have reached an accord. As part of the agreement, the 16th Street shul will change its name to Ohev Sholom-The National Synagogue. Commenting on the ...
Four score plus 20, local man celebrates
Feb 09, 2006; ... Four days a week, Frank Fishbein arises early in his Kensington home to catch the Jewish Council for the Aging bus that takes him to the Misler Adult Day Center in Rockville. His goal: a day of schmoozing with friends, sharing lunch and participating in planned activities. He's been ...
Double standards and hypocrisy
Feb 09, 2006 ... There's a difference between freedom of expression and lies. It's not surprising, though, that the graphics editor of Iran's largest newspaper doesn't understand that. The Hamshahri daily this week announced a contest seeking submission of cartoons that question the Holocaust. The ...
Voices of tradition
Feb 09, 2006; ... As battles over the definition of marriage are erupting in both Maryland and Virginia, one stream of Judaism has weighed in firmly against same-sex unions. The Orthodox Union, which counts 1,000 North American congregations as members, opposes legalizing gay and lesbian marriages. In its ...
Barney Ross, fine boxer, proud Jew
Feb 09, 2006; ... Barney Ross's life had more ups and downs than an out-of-control roller coaster. One of the greatest prizefighters of his era, Ross -- who held the lightweight and welterweight championships at the same time during the mid-1930s -- never disavowed his Jewish heritage, spoke out against ...
Novel allows veteran journalist to educate
Feb 09, 2006; ... William Beecher is an experienced Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, but finds fiction a good way, he says, to explain complex things without preaching. With his recent novel Submerged Rage: The Hidden Grievance (published by the print-on-demand PublishAmerica in 2005), the Bethesda ...
Yitzhak Kadouri, Israeli mystic
Feb 09, 2006 ... To many Jews, he was the celebrity of the century, a mystic with mystique. Rabbi Yitzhak Kadouri, who served as charismatic figurehead and sage of the Israeli religious party Shas, died of pneumonia Jan. 28. Close to a quarter-million mourners, including Israel's chief rabbis and ...
Martin Feinstein, led Kennedy Center, National Opera
Feb 09, 2006 ... A renaissance man. That's the way Bethesda resident Patty Perkins Andringa described Martin Feinstein, the former director general of the Washington National Opera, who died last Sunday. A Potomac resident, he died of pancreatic cancer. He was 84. Feinstein "could tackle a lot of ...
D'var Torah; Rooted in truth
Feb 09, 2006; ... Is the Torah to be understood literally or figuratively? It would be presumptuous of me to attempt to answer this question definitively, especially within the limited space devoted to a Torah lesson. But I would have to say that the Torah text takes itself very seriously and is never to be ...
Snuff, square yarmulkes and bar mitzvah memories
Feb 09, 2006; ... To prepare me for my bar mitzvah back in the 1930s, I had a good teacher -- my father, Moshe Aharon Rosen. In addition to being a shochet and mohel, my father established a cheder in one room of our home, teaching forthcoming bar mitzvah boys how to read Hebrew and preparing them for their ...
AIDS prevention; Judaism leads 'Survivor' winner to Grassroot Soccer
Feb 09, 2006; ... The self-described "Jewish guy who won Survivor" says his religion was a key factor in his triumph, helping him decide what he should do with his million dollar prize. Ethan Zohn, who won the third season of the CBS reality program in January 2003, used his winnings to start Grassroot ...
Publisher named for WJW
Feb 09, 2006; ... Lawrence Fishbein took the helm on Monday as the new publisher of Washington Jewish Week. The Olney resident, director of marketing and business development for the past decade with Kiplinger Washington Editors, Inc., in the District, replaces acting publisher David Neill, who had held ...
She was a contenda
Feb 09, 2006; ... Jill Apple was a little nervous about the prospect of winning the contest to be the new "voice of Metro." Her mother-in-law, she quipped, would have been so thrilled to hear her over the subway's speakers that she might never have gotten off the train. The District resident won't have to ...
Save Darfur activities stepped up
Feb 09, 2006; ... Look for lots of attention in the Jewish community to be devoted to Darfur in the next couple of months, as local Jewish activists gear up for a national rally in Washington, D.C., this spring to raise awareness of the genocide in Sudan. Sponsored by the Save Darfur Coalition of more ...
Washington Watch; Questions in gauging Hamas performance
Feb 09, 2006; ... Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni is in Washington this week to shore up the Bush administration's strong backing for Israel's campaign to isolate and pressure Hamas. She was expected to thank President George W. Bush and her old friend Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, not only for ...
Lions trounce Cougars with big second half
Feb 09, 2006; ... The Charles E. Smith Jewish Day School's boys basketball team used a big second half to pull away for a 58-29 victory over the Melvin J. Berman Hebrew Academy last week. The victory completed a sweep of the season series for the Lions, who beat the Cougars, 52-45, earlier this season ....
Ambitious artist; Painter hopes work helps viewers grasp Judaism, God
Feb 09, 2006; ... Nathan Moskowitz has lofty, even unworldly, ambitions for his complex, colorful paintings. "My art is an attempt at understanding the transcendent meaning of Judaism and the ultimate essence of the eyn sof, otherwise known as God," says Moskowitz, 48, who paints under the name of Nahum ...
Celebrations
Feb 09, 2006 ... Keira McDonald Seymour Rich of Chevy Chase has announced the birth of his great-granddaughter, Keira McDonald, to Jennifer Rich McDonald and Ryan McDonald of Plainfield, Ill., on Dec. 20. She weighed 6 pounds, 6 ounces. Also welcoming Keira are her grandparents, Ronald ...
BEYOND NIBBLES AND NOSHES; If it's Shabbat, its got to be chicken
Feb 09, 2006; ... The tradition of chicken dinner for Shabbat goes back to the early Eastern European Jews, who would make every effort to have a chicken for the Sabbath. Wives used every part of the chicken, making soup from the bones, an aspic -- called p'tcha -- from the feet, pate from the liver and gizzards, ...
Luna Diamond, activist, secretary
Feb 09, 2006 ... Luna Diamond, an activist in the Jewish community who, during a 43-year government career, worked on Capitol Hill and for the National Council on the Arts, died Jan. 28 after a long illness. She was 90. A Washington native, Diamond was a member of the first graduating class at Theodore ...
CAPITAL schmoozing; TiVo - a baby gift or Daddy gift?
Feb 09, 2006; ... Have I told you about the day our new little package arrived? Surprised by the Friday afternoon delivery, I couldn't wait for my husband to come home. After wanting and waiting for so long, I knew he'd be excited that it had finally come. Yes, we had become proud owners of a ...
Capital encounter; Virginia Jews meet new leadership team in Richmond
Feb 16, 2006; ... Church-state barriers topped the agenda as activists converged on Richmond in record numbers last week for Virginia Jewish Advocacy Day. The annual event, dubbed Date with the State, drew some 220 Jewish activists from around the commonwealth -- including 72 from its northern tier -- to ...
American University Hillel tours India
Feb 16, 2006; ... Simona Samson didn't expect to meet any relatives from her father's native India when she visited last month -- the 15-day, six-state itinerary was jam-packed. Then she found herself at a Jewish center in Bombay, talking to some college-aged Indian Jews about her relatives, family names ...
Quiet successes
Feb 16, 2006; ... With 30 programs for seniors slated for this month alone, Silver Spring's University Towers remains the strongest pillar in a local social experiment known as NORCs. Naturally Occurring Retirement Communities are found all over the country, but five properties in Montgomery County have ...
Washington Watch; An Israel foe plots a comeback
Feb 16, 2006; ... Pete McCloskey says he doesn't really want to run for Congress, but is doing it because no one else is willing to challenge the powerful incumbent in California's 11th District. McCloskey, who served eight terms between 1967 and 1983, was one of the most liberal Republicans, an outspoken ...
How to defeat Hamas - let it win elections
Feb 16, 2006; ... Following the recent elections in the Palestinian territories, some have argued that the Hamas victory portends a future in which Islamists will use the electoral process to increase their influence and power in the Arab world. While in the short term, Hamas and other Islamist movements ...
Steele apology on stem cells accepted
Feb 16, 2006; ... Maryland Jewish leaders have accepted Lt. Gov. Michael Steele's (R) apology for comments last week linking stem-cell research to Nazi scientific experimentation, and it looks as though other local Jews are ready to forgive the U.S. Senate candidate as well. "I think he truly did ...
It takes a whole year...
Feb 16, 2006; ... I love a parade! Whether I'm standing curbside, waving a little flag at a local Independence Day celebration, watching Macy's Thanksgiving balloons fly by on my TV next to the turkey I'm stuffing, or comfortably slouching on my couch on New Year's Day, admiring the flowery floats in the ...
A common bond; Generations savor summers at camps Louise and Airy
Feb 16, 2006; ... There's no doubt sleep-away summer camp is a longtime tradition for many local Jewish families. No camps in the region boast longer histories or longer family traditions than Camp Airy in Thurmont, Md., and Camp Louise in Cascade, Md. Airy has been serving Jewish boys since 1924, and Louise for ...
Tassles, diplomas and snowflakes; Charles E. Smith Jewish Day School holds graduation
Feb 16, 2006 ... Despite the foot-plus of snow that fell in some spots and event cancellations throughout Greater Washington, the show went on as Charles E. Smith Jewish Day School held its upper school graduation ceremonies last Sunday at Adas Israel Congregation in the District. In words and dance, the ...
Shay Doron and the Terps reach for the top
Feb 16, 2006; ... Shay Doron keeps helping the Maryland womens basketball team find great success this season. Doron scored 16 points to help the sixth-ranked Terrapins get their biggest win in over a decade with a 98-95 overtime triumph over No. 1 North Carolina on the road last Thursday. She played 41 ...
Teaching Jewish students about Israel; Two locals write '1001 Facts Everyone Should Know About Israel'
Feb 16, 2006; ... How did former Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Dayan lose his eye? Who are the Druze of northern Israel? How did Ariel Sharon become prime minister of Israel? How many times has Maccabi Tel Aviv won the European basketball championship? Those are some of the questions that readers can ...
Lester Frankel, statistician
Feb 16, 2006 ... Lester R. Frankel of Potomac, a statistician who was a pioneer in labor force surveys and who was active in Jewish organizational life while living in New York, died Feb. 11. He was 92. Born in New York City, Frankel graduated from Stuyvesant High School and New York University where he ...
THE JEWISH ETHICIST; With war, there must be a vision of peace
Feb 16, 2006; ... Right now there is much controversy over the ethical way to fight the many determined enemies of our way of life. What does Jewish tradition tell us about this? Our relationship to war in Judaism starts with a paradox. Judaism is the source of one of the earliest and most majestic ...
CAPITAL schmoozing; Not into Valentine's Day...but, flowers are nice
Feb 16, 2006; ... Jews are always being asked to celebrate holidays, large and small, major and minor, popular and not. But there are also a few times a year when we're asked NOT to celebrate certain holidays. One of those holidays was this week. Most people are familiar with the controversy over ...