BPH Images
By Dina Kraft
TEL AVIV, Oct. 31 (JTA) — What kind of image does the average American have of Israel?
According to recent focus groups, the picture of the Jewish state is a grim one: gray and fortress-like, militarized, male-dominated, uniformly religious and generally uninviting.
“They don’t see anything of normal, everyday life,” said Boaz Mourad, CEO of Insight, a research group that conducted focus groups in the United States. “All they see is conflict and religion.”
With the help of some of the country’s top advertising brains, the Foreign Ministry is hoping to “rebrand” Israel. The idea is to remold the country’s public image — arguably the worst in years — from a bloody cauldron of conflict to a vibrant, dynamic society brimming with night life, innovative businesses and attractive and welcoming people.
At a recent conference, government officials and international experts exchanged ideas on how to make that happen.
The concept of national branding, which began about 15 years ago, was borrowed from the advertising world when people began to wonder if the tools of product branding could be translated into promoting countries. The goal was to help countries craft a highly managed, positive international identity that would boost investment, tourism and international status.
Countries like Spain, Turkey and Croatia have launched branding campaigns to improve their images, aided by experts who helped them identify their major selling points and develop core messages that could be coordinated among government, business and cultural leaders.
“We, the Israelis, lost the ability to develop that overarching message,” said Ido Aharoni, media advisor to Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni. “And when we do have a message, we don’t have the ability to do what is called ‘message discipline.’ ”
Once a brand concept is developed for Israel, part of the challenge will be keeping all the players in line, Aharoni said — from squabbling government ministers on down.
Research commissioned by the Foreign Ministry shows most people know Israel exists — there’s brand recognition, in marketing terminology — but other key factors are low, such as how well-liked Israel is and how relevant it is to people’s lives.
“Israel is not perceived as fun or normal. Our job is to say, ‘Yes, we are not normal, but we are far more normal than you think,’ ” Aharoni said.
For years Israel has worked to build political support, but government officials say that’s not enough in today’s global economy. Israel needs to be seen as a competitive place so that businesspeople and tourists see beyond the conflict when they think of Israel and see it as a place to invest and visit.
Advertising experts point to branding success stories of countries like Colombia, which has suffered a bloody drug war yet still managed to build a positive image around its coffee industry, with the image of Juan Valdez on his donkey leading the way.
Another example is Croatia, which has risen from the Balkan conflict of the 1990s to become a major tourist destination with an image of beaches and picturesque towns.
But how can Israel repaint its image as a conflict zone as the seemingly intractable and violent Israeli-Palestinian conflict continues?
Guy Toledano, vice president of business development for Bauman Ber Rivnay Saatchi and Saatchi, says it could take 10 to 15 years — but that with the right approach, Israel could significantly shift its image in the world.
“What needs to happen is for us to find a framework filled with images, symbols and words, and this is tough work. It’s what we call the essence,” he said.
He pointed out images Britain used in its “Cool Britannica” branding campaign, of an Oxford student and a bartender at a pub. The goal was to give the sense of a country that was approachable and hip.
“Rabbis, soldiers and settlers — these are all images that don’t provoke positive images,” Toledano said, referring to the current cast of characters that those abroad believe are typical Israelis.
“Brands are about stories, and the story of Israel should be revised. It was once the story of pioneers, of making the deserts bloom and the swamps disappear,” he said.
But with the aftermath of the Six-Day War in 1967 and Israeli control of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, the world’s image of Israel changed drastically for the worse, Foreign Ministry officials and others said.
Among the speakers at the conference was Larry Weinberg, executive vice president of Israel21c, which promotes stories of Israeli technological and scientific innovations that benefit Americans.
Weinberg said Israeli representatives must shift their focus from “hasbara,” a concept that means public relations or propaganda and essentially refers to how Israel explains itself to the world. Officials long have assumed that if they can convince the world that Israel is right in its conflict with the Arabs, international support and positive feelings will follow.
“Clearly it hasn’t worked,” Weinberg said. “We need a change.”
Weinberg believes his organization’s approach helps Jews and others take pride in Israel.
Michael Peters, chairman of the Identica Partnership, a London-based branding company, said Israel’s negative image is bad not just for Israel but for Diaspora Jews as well.
“This is a real emergency. We don’t have a lot of time,” he said. “Israel is a brand disaster to the outside world.”
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Boston´s Kavod House serves vegetarian food with and without kosher certification to satisfy various dietary preferences.
By Sue Fishkoff
SAN FRANCISCO, Oct. 29 (JTA) — Reform rabbis are talking about their own board of kashrut. Alternative minyans are offering vegetarian or kosher-approved vegetarian meal options. Synagogues are contracting with organic farms in the name of Jewish values.
Something is going on in the world of Jewish dietary practice. But is it kosher?
That depends on what you mean by the word. In addition to following more kosher laws, many Jews are expanding their notion of what constitutes food that is “fit to eat.”
Even as the kosher food industry continues its explosive growth — it’s now a $10 billion market, showing 15 percent growth over last year, according to Lubicom Marketing, which runs Manhattan’s annual Kosherfest — some individuals and groups are exploring creative approaches to kashrut in the name of pluralism, holiness and social justice.
Eco-kashrut, which includes notions of sustainable agriculture, fair labor practices and ethical treatment of animals in its definition of what is kosher, or fit to eat, has been a staple of Jewish Renewal since Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi began promoting the term decades ago.
As environmentalism itself entered the American mainstream, eco-kashrut gained currency in more Jewish circles.
Tu B’Shevat, which marks the new growing season, is commonly observed by such activities as tree plantings, beach or park clean-ups and recycling projects. Jewish schools and camps promote recycling in the dining hall as a Jewish value.
The “green synagogue” movement, which encourages congregations to build and maintain their shuls according to sound ecological practices, is based on the same notion, that Jews can find support for contemporary sensibilities within Jewish tradition.
Now a handful of Jewish groups are poised to take eco-kashrut to the next step, creating a symbiotic food-production chain whereby synagogues and other Jewish institutions buy their food from local organic farms.
Hazon, a New York-based nonprofit, pioneered the idea two summers ago with its Tuv Ha’aretz program. This growing season, five synagogues and Jewish community centers in New York, New Jersey, Washington and Texas contracted with local farmers for all or a significant part of their harvest, giving the farmers financial support while encouraging their own members to eat locally grown, organic produce. Five more cities will be added to the program next year.
“We want to reframe the question of kashrut, not to abandon it, but to ask what it means to keep kosher in the 21st century,” project coordinator Leah Koenig says. “Is it kosher to eat food sprayed with chemicals? Is it kosher to eat eggs from chickens kept in tiny, cramped cages?”
The project is the perhaps first Jewish entree into the world of CSA, or community-sustained agriculture. Synagogue or JCC members pay in advance for produce boxes, which they pick up at the institution on a weekly basis.
“It’s pretty radical,” Koenig says. “The synagogue becomes not just a place to pray or drop off your children, but where you pick up your organic produce. It gives people the opportunity to see the synagogue in a new way.”
Next spring, a new organic farm just outside Baltimore will begin growing produce for a conference center owned by the Baltimore Jewish federation.
The 1.5-acre Pearlstone Farm is projected as “a model for small family farms trying to stay in business,” says director Yaqir Manela, 24.
The greenhouse will go up in November and the first crops will be planted in early February, for Tu B’Shevat. Manela hopes to expand the farm to seven or eight acres, and eventually partner with different Jewish institutions.
There has been “a groundswell of energy” these past two years in the field of eco-kashrut, Manela says.
“People realize it’s a way of supporting Israel and ourselves, to not be energy-dependent. The halachah is right there: Don’t reap the corners of your field, share your harvest. In Judaism you create social justice by the way you take care of the earth. This is kashrut in a big way.”
Not everyone is buying in, however.
“The Orthodox Union has had this discussion, in terms of animal welfare and healthful foods,” but ultimately decided that its mandate is simply to provide certification of what’s kosher according to halachah, not decide what’s “healthy” or “ethical” food, says Rabbi Menachem Genack, head of the organization’s kashrut division.
Jack Wertheimer, provost of the Conservative Movement’s Jewish Theological Seminary, agrees.
“As a Jew who believes kashrut is part of the discipline of Judaism, kashrut is kashrut. Eco-kashrut is something different,” Wertheimer says. “Not that I’m opposed to eco-kashrut, but it’s something else.”
Still, America’s obsession with food and global cuisine, combined with growing pride in ethnic differences, has given rise to increased sensitivity toward people who restrict their diets for religious, ethical or health-related reasons. It’s acceptable when dining out, or in another’s home, to say, “I can’t eat meat,” “I’m vegan” or “I’m kosher.”
Jewish events have been offering a fish or vegetarian meal option for years. But as increasing numbers of young, politically active Jews, in particular, subscribe to one or more of these eating restrictions, some Jewish groups are going further: It’s not enough, they say, to offer only kosher food or only vegetarian food, because that disenfranchises people who don’t follow those dietary practices.
Several of the new alternative minyans, including Manhattan’s Kol Zimrah and Tikkun Leil Shabbat in Washington, use what they call the “two-table” system at communal meals: one for vegetarian food and one for vegetarian food with a hechsher, or kosher certification.
Margie Klein, director of Moishe House Boston: Kavod Jewish Social Justice House, a subsidized house for young, social justice-minded Jews, explains they’re careful not to call one table “kosher” and the other “nonkosher,” because that may put a value judgement on the food choices guests make.
Some Jews, for example, consider anything vegetarian to be kosher, or “kosher enough.”
“Different people have different methods of deciding what’s kosher, and we respect people’s choices at both tables,” she says.
“I’ve been to events that automatically go to the frummest common denominator,” she says, using the Yiddish word for religiously observant.
And while serving only kosher food permits kosher-observant Jews to eat, it makes those guests who do not have kosher homes unable to contribute to meals that are, in these younger circles, usually potluck.
“Kashrut has kept our community together” through the years of dispersal, Klein points out. “How ironic it would be if it becomes a divisive force that makes people feel unwelcome or unworthy.”
Among the first to use the two-table system was the Van Ness Minyan in 1999. The minyan was made up of mostly single Jews in their 20s and 30s who met in Washington’s Van Ness neighborhood.
Eric Gurevitz, who has since emigrated to Israel, says he and Jonathan Levine brought the system to the minyan “after we realized that we were excluding some members of the community from either eating with us or cooking for our potlucks.”
Like Kavod House, he says, “we chose the vegetarian label as it was positive, rather than something like ‘not kosher.’ It was not our goal to redefine kashrut or to imply that vegetarian food/cooking is kosher.”
A new generation of rabbis is easing its way into this “separate but equal” eating world. At Hebrew College, a transdenominational rabbinical seminary in Boston, the cafeteria serves only kosher-certified food, the study hall permits only vegetarian food, the staff lounge has kosher and nonkosher microwaves and all foods are permitted in the student lounge.
“We are a kosher institution, but we don’t require that our students and staff maintain a particular level of kashrut,” says Susan Megerman, assistant to the college’s president.
Maintaining eco-kosher standards, a two-table system, or any other way of preparing or serving food that respects more than one approach to kashrut takes a lot of work.
Kavod House maintains three separate sets of dishes and cooking utensils — one strictly vegetarian, one hechshered vegetarian and one for people who eat nonkosher meat.
It’s not easy, Klein admits, but it’s the only way Jews with different dietary practices can coexist. And that, she says, should take precedence.
“When we own the idea that bringing people together is a priority, it becomes obvious that it’s worth it to have a complicated kashrut system.”
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By Jacob Berkman
NEW YORK (JTA) — The North American federation system has shifted the focus of its annual gathering to a decidedly Israel-centric platform.
When the convention, slated for Nov. 12-15 in Los Angeles, was originally being planned, the United Jewish Communities intended to play off its Hollywood setting with the theme, “Be With the Stars,” highlighting major federation contributors and exceptional professionals, according to the UJC’s treasurer and the incoming chairwoman of its executive committee, Kathy Manning.
But after Israel’s war with Hezbollah started in July and the federation system raised some $320 million to help build Israel’s northern region, the UJC decided to put Israel at the forefront and changed the theme of the General Assembly to “One People, One Destiny.”
The UJC uses plenary meetings and smaller breakout sessions at the gathering, which draws between 3,000 and 5,000 professionals and lay leaders to a different location each year, to pump up issues that it feels the federations should pursue during the following year.
The convention, known as the G.A., will be heavily dotted with appearances by top Israeli officials, including Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. Israel’s prime minister is annually invited to address the General Assembly, but none has done so in person in the United States since Ehud Barak came in 2000.
Olmert’s presence this year is “extremely important” in demonstrating UJC and the federation system’s practical and metaphoric closeness with Israel, the UJC’s president and chief executive officer, Howard Rieger, said.
Israel’s foreign minister, Tzipi Livni, and the Likud opposition leader, Benjamin Netanyahu, are also scheduled to address the delegates.
After the revamping, which started in August, all but one of the plenary sessions will focus on Israel. And even the one non-Israel plenary, a panel discussion about the future of Judaism with the heads of the main seminaries of the Reform, Conservative and modern Orthodox movements, will still involve some questions about Israel, according to Michael Kotzin, the executive vice president of the Jewish United Fund/Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Chicago.
Kotzin, who was brought in by UJC to oversee the overhaul, said that about half of the breakout sessions will also deal with Israel, with topics ranging from postwar Israel to the federation system and Israeli Arabs to the rise of radical Islam to “Fighting the Hezbollah Terror Army.”
“The G.A. is about being together and fostering a sense of community, and the major events of recent months center around what happened in Israel,” said Doron Krakow, the UJC’s senior vice president for Israel and overseas.
“We are raising consciousness on an intellectual level, and fostering the delegates’ sense of being in touch with what we see as our defining work. This will also serve as the context for the remainder of our work.”
Though the General Assembly is not typically a fund-raising event, the group is considering including a fund-raising component this time around.
“You can certainly say that there has been conversation about ways to appropriately include fund raising, but that is not on the schedule yet,” Kotzin said.
The Israel Emergency Campaign most likely saw its biggest spike during the war, Krakow said, adding that he does not anticipate another spike after the G.A., as most local federations start their annual general campaigns. Though the emergency campaign has no official dollar goal, officials have said that it could take about $500 million of American money to meet the requests of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, the Jewish Agency for Israel and Israel’s government.
But UJC officials say they see this G.A. as a way to seize on the central issue facing the Jewish people now. Though the war happened in Israel, its ramifications extend well beyond the boundaries of the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, extending to concerns about the Jews’ global security and the continuity of the Jewish people, Rieger told JTA.
The content switch did spark some debate within the UJC’s lay world, because “there were people who felt that where we were headed was going to be great,” but in the end the switch was deemed necessary, Rieger said.
Seizing a central issue is something that Rieger admits that some of the gatherings in the recent past, which some say fell flat, have been unable to do.
Rieger said the UJC will focus on its success in mobilizing and raising money for Israel through its Israel Emergency Campaign in recent months and on trying to figure out how to take that model and replicate it for dealing with other issues.
The change in agenda was publicly supported by those involved with the social welfare, social action and Jewish renewal arms of the federation system with whom JTA spoke, such as the Jewish Council for Public Affairs and JESNA, the educational group, even if it might steal some thunder from their projects. The Jewish Council has been heavily involved in the Save Darfur movement and JESNA focuses on the continuing challenges in Jewish education. Those topics are still on the docket, as are sessions about emerging philanthropy, developing leadership and Ethiopian Jewry.
“The fact is that UJC and the federation system need to be responsive to the way the world looks, and to have an agenda written a year ago would have been less interesting and relevant,” said William Daroff, the director of the UJC’s Washington office, which deals with advocacy and policy issues.
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Prague Jewish Museum
Curator Michaela Hajkova, foreground, in the virtual world of Michael Bielicky´s ´This Year in Jerusalem,´ at the Prague Jewish Museum.
By Dinah A. Spritzer
PRAGUE (JTA) — Michaela Hajkova can’t stop thinking about how to “wake people up, wake them from the illusion that Jewish means past tense.”
In her mid-30s with huge blue eyes, long black hair and a model-like physique, the Czech curator’s outer beauty complements a steely determination to attract Jewish artists to Prague. In 2002, she founded the Prague Jewish Museum’s series, Jewish Presence in Contemporary Art.
“People were used to something different from the museum, something traditional. But why shouldn’t we also let the Jewish present and all the questioning that goes with it have a voice in Prague?” she said.
The projects Hajkova has promoted over the years — like Czech artist Michael Bielicky’s virtual portal allowing computer-generated interaction with museum-goers in Jerusalem — are a far cry from the traditional Judaica of the museum’s core collection.
Andy Markowitz, an American living in Prague, finds such projects refreshing.
He was particularly inspired by “Layered Histories,” created by Cynthia Beth-Rubin and Robert Gluck, which tells the story of a 13th-century illuminated Torah through mood music and shifting images. Viewers control the images and sound through touch.
“I’m generally not the type to get excited by the phrase ‘interactive multi-media installation,’ but the Marseilles Bible piece moved me in ways I absolutely did not expect,” said Markowitz, who works for an online golf magazine. “It was like being immersed, sound and vision, in a forgotten byway of the Jewish narrative; this is using contemporary media to illuminate the past in the best possible way.”
Travis Jeppesen, a Prague-based art critic, has attended every exhibition curated by Hajkova over the last three years. “She is light years ahead of everyone else in the Czech art scene,” he said. “Her thinking is rooted in an international rather than a local approach, which is extremely important for the Jewish Museum if it” does not want “to be a relic of a supposedly dead European culture,” he said.
Hajkova is not afraid to choose artists who will cause a little trouble.
A show by Mel Alexenberg, “Cyberangels — Aesthetic Peace Plan for the Middle East,” made the point that Arabs view Israel as an “alien presence that they have continually tried to eliminate through war, terrorism and political action,” according to the show catalog.
This message drew an angry response from at least one audience member at a discussion with Alexenberg.
“I think she was maybe an activist and she kept asking about equality for the Palestinians,” Hajkova said.
Nonetheless, his respectful use of Islamic art patterns and quotations lend Alexenberg’s digital images a complex layer of beauty and provocation.
Hajkova is a do-it-yourself curator who works weekends and nights on installations. In her spare time, Hajkova’s reading can run from the urban humor of Heeb to the feminist observations of Lilith. Her perfect English confuses Czechs, who sometimes think she is American.
Most of the contemporary art Hajkova brings to Prague is displayed in the museum’s Robert Guttman Gallery, entered from a tiny street behind the main building. In contrast to the museum’s traditional visitors, who are in the large part foreign, the gallery draws a hip Czech crowd with an interest in Jewish themes, modern art or both.
The gallery contrasts to the ancient synagogues and twisting gravestones that have long been the museum’s selling point.
“The museum is now a hundred years old and has to move on with the times,” said Petr Brod, a veteran Czech broadcaster, historian and Jewish culture buff.
A Czech man in his early 30s examining the spectacle of the art seems to agree. “We really need more quality modern art here, not just kitsch for tourists” he told his friend as they watched the names of Czech Holocaust victims fly across the ballast. “I don’t really know anything about Jewish stuff, but this is pretty cool.”
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Office of Burt Neuborne
Burt Neuborne
By Ben Harris
NEW YORK (JTA) — The success of a landmark $1.25 billion settlement for Holocaust victims risks devolving into a bitter public spat over the fee an attorney is charging on the case.
A ruling is expected any day on whether Burt Neuborne, the New York University law professor who served as lead settlement counsel for survivors in the Swiss bank case, should be paid $4.76 million for his efforts.
Neuborne worked pro bono in winning the original settlement, but he’s seeking payment for seven subsequent years of work representing hundreds of thousands of claimants during the complex process of disbursing the funds.
Holocaust survivors involved in the case say Neuborne never disclosed his intention to seek remuneration and were shocked to learn he was asking for a multimillion dollar fee.
“It is, to me, an outrageous thing,” said Roman Kent, chairman of the American Gathering of Jewish Holocaust survivors and a member of the committee that negotiated a similar settlement with German corporations and government in the 1990s. “I can only tell you that as far as I’m concerned, he never told me that he’s going to get paid for the work. He told me on numerous occasions that he is working pro bono.”
Survivors were further outraged last week when the Anti-Defamation League gave Neuborne its American Heritage Award in recognition of his work promoting human rights and democratic ideals.
“There was a time when we all thought of the ADL as a paragon of justice and honor,” a group of survivors wrote to the ADL’s national director, Abraham Foxman. “Most of us and many other survivors have supported ADL financially and with our work in the community. Your disrespect for us and our martyred loved ones will tarnish this organization forever.”
Foxman responded by acknowledging the complaint “from the heart and as a Holocaust survivor” but stood his ground, saying the controversy “does not detract from our honoring Burt Neuborne.”
In a written statement provided to JTA, Neuborne says he always intended to seek compensation. “I disclosed my post-settlement fee arrangement to the German Holocaust Foundation, the U.S. Supreme Court and the parties in open court,” he wrote.
Several lawyers who worked on the case support that position, saying it was well understood that Neuborne’s post-settlement work was not free.
Michael Hausfeld, a lawyer who worked on behalf of survivors on the case, says there was no “technical disclosure” but that Neuborne’s intentions were well understood.
“Burt never said in any public filing, ‘From here on in, I’m going to be calculating a fee,’ ” Hausfeld said. “But everybody understood who remained involved in the case that Burt’s work would have to be compensated.”
Apparently not. Several survivors, lawyers and community professionals connected to the case told JTA that Neuborne had every opportunity to inform them he was seeking payment for post-settlement work, but did not do so.
In a number of court papers, Neuborne refers to the fact that he worked on the case without fees; Neuborne says those statements are being misconstrued.
Thane Rosenbaum, a Fordham University law professor and author of a book on the moral basis of restitution claims, says such ambuguity is precisely the problem.
“This isn’t some mom-and-pop local magistrate in upstate New York. This is federal court in Brooklyn,” Rosenbaum said. “This is a lawsuit with international implications, precedent-making. There’s going to be books and articles written about it. How can there not be technical disclosure?”
The question of attorney fees is not the first controversy to hit the case, in which Swiss banks were accused of hiding Holocaust-era bank accounts belonging to Jews.
A group of American survivors filed an appeal to block a plan to send a large percentage of the settlement funds, earmarked for needy survivors, to survivors in Europe and the former Soviet Union. The presiding judge, Edward Korman, rejected that appeal, a decision Neuborne supported.
“I feel he betrayed us,” said David Mermelstein, 77, a survivor from Miami who participated in the appeal. “He was supposed to have been our representative and it turned out he betrayed us.”
Neuborne calls that charge “so incredibly unfair,” arguing that survivors in the former Soviet Union had as much claim on his services as those in the United States. He says he turned his life “upside down” working on the case, even persuading Congress to make the settlement money tax-free, which saved more than enough to cover his fee.
He notes that his fee, if spread across the several hundred thousand survivors who received compensation, amounts to only about $10 a head. And, he says, he successfully defended every legal challenge to the settlement.
“Everybody forgets that for 10 years I worked unremittingly,” Neuborne said. “There wouldn’t be any money if it weren’t for me.”
Kent says that’s nonsense.
“When the lawyers say, ‘We did everything,’ yes, they were helpful. But it was a moral and ethical issue that would have been settled with or without the lawyers,” he said.
For some, the disclosure issue only partly explains the reaction. The fact that Neuborne calculated his fee at $700 an hour — a rate that corporate attorneys might charge for work on behalf of major companies — after having already earned more than $4 million for work on the German claims case appeared to them to be the height of greed.
“Putting aside the legalities involved, Professor Neuborne wants to walk away from his involvement with Holocaust-related cases on behalf of survivors as a very rich man,” said Menachem Rosensaft, a lawyer and founding chairman of the International Network of Children of Jewish Holocaust Survivors. “He wants to have enriched himself to the tune of more than $9 million for his work. That, to me, is not just unseemly, it is obscene.”
The controversy over Neuborne’s compensation has built since he filed his fee application in U.S. District Court in Brooklyn in December. In June, the New York Times editorial board slammed Neuborne, calling his bill “troubling” and “unseemly.”
Neuborne says he has no quarrel with those who question the size of his fee, but is stung by accusations that he’s profiteering from the suffering of Holocaust survivors, tarnishing what he calls “the proudest achievement of my career.”
“It’s painful to think that Holocaust survivors who I wanted to help, at the end of this process, have a negative view of me,” Neuborne says. “I just hate that idea.”
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Seven New Orleans Jewish youth groups are planning two city-wide programs open to all area Jewish high school students on Oct. 21 and 22.
B’nai Brith Youth Organization, Gates of Prayer Temple Youth, Sinai Federation of Temple Youth, Touro Synagogue Temple Youth, United Synagogue Youth and Young Judea representatives came together to devise a strategy to unite New Orleans Jewish youth. Northshore Temple Youth will also be included in the program.
“All our groups have diminished in size significantly since Hurricane Katrina, which has adversely affected our programs,” meeting organizer Lynn Loewy, GoPTY adviser, said. “Sally Bronston, GoPTY Programming VP, returned from the summer national NFTY leadership camp with the idea of starting off the year with a city-wide program. When I contacted all the other youth group advisers, they were enthusiastic and eager to meet and get the program off the ground.”
A strictly social event will kick off the program on Oct. 21 from 6 p.m. to midnight at the Metairie Jewish Community Center. The program will begin with Havdallah, followed by mixers, dinner, scavenger hunt and inflatables. There is no cost for the program.
Social action will be the goal on Oct. 22 at 12:30 p.m. when all Jewish high school students are invited to Woldenberg Village, the Jewish home for the elderly, to participate in activities with the residents. “We will play games like UNO, Bingo and Mah Jongg,” city-wide program chair and SNFTY President Mike Bronfin said. “It’s important that we take time out to give back to the Jewish community.”
All Jewish 9th to 12th graders are welcome to attend either or both of the events. No synagogue or youth group affiliation is required.
More information: Mike Bronfin at:
MEB11389 {AT} cox [dot] net -- or (504) 228-6880.
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Between now and January, Jewish Cinema South plays in Jackson, Montgomery, Mobile, and Baton Rouge, while New Orleans celebrates its ninth annual New Orleans Jewish Film Festival beginning October 19, and Shreveport begins its festival November 4.
Six communities in the area are planning Jewish film festivals for the coming months.
The ninth annual New Orleans Jewish Film Festival is being presented by the Jewish Community Center of New Orleans and Shir Chadash, in association with Loyola University Interfaith and Black Studies Ministries. All presentations are being held on the campus of Loyola University.
The Goldring/Woldenberg Institute of Southern Jewish Life begins its four festivals in Jackson on Oct. 21, then adds Montgomery on Oct. 28, Mobile on Oct. 29, and the inaugural Baton Rouge Jewish Film Festival on Jan. 25. Many of the screenings include discussions with filmmakers, historians and other special guests.
Shreveport, which got its start with Jewish Cinema South, is producing its own festival, beginning on Nov. 4.
“The Ritchie Boys” begins the New Orleans festival on Oct. 19 at 7 p.m., at Nunemaker Auditorium. “Live and Become” will be screened on Oct. 21 at 7 p.m., and the festival concludes with “Everything is Illuminated” at 2 p.m. on Oct. 22, followed by an additional screening of “The Ritchie Boys” at 4 p.m., in Roussel Auditorium.
Tickets are $10, $8 for seniors. A festival pass is $25, or $21 for seniors. Student admission is $5 for those under 17, or with a Tulane or Loyola student ID.
The Jackson festival kicks off on Oct. 21 with “Live and Become.” On Oct. 22, there will be an afternoon of short films, including “The Tribe,” “Skylab,” “America,” “Backseat Bingo” and “West Bank Story.”
On Oct. 23, “The Tollbooth” will be screened, and “Walk on Water” will finish the festival on Oct. 24.
All Jackson screenings will be at Millsaps College Recital Hall. Tickets are $10 each, $5 for students. Festival passes are $35 for adults and $20 for students. A patron pass for $125 includes all films and a sponsor reception. Tickets are available at Beth Israel in Jackson, or at the door 30 minutes prior to screening.
The Montgomery festival, held at the Capri Theatre, starts on Oct. 28 with “The First Time I Was Twenty,” following a patron’s reception. “Live and Become” will be the afternoon show on Oct. 29. On Oct. 30, there will be a screening of “Rene and I” for school groups in the morning, with filmmaker Gina Angelone giving a presentation. That evening, “Ushpizin” will be screened.
Tickets for the festival, which is co-sponsored by the Jewish Federation of Central Alabama, are $7, or $5 for students. A series pass is $18, and a patron’s pass is $100.
In Mobile, “Live and Become” will start the festival on Oct. 29 at the Hollywood Theaters. Sirak Sabahat, who stars in the film, will speak. On Oct. 30, “Sister Rose’s Passion” will be at Spring Hill College’s Byrne Hall. Father John T. Pawlikowski, director of the Catholic-Jewish Studies Program at the Catholic Theological Union, will be the guest speaker.
The festival returns to the Hollywood Theaters on Nov. 1 with “Sophie Scholl: The Final Days,” then has a school screening of “Nicholas Winton, the Power of Good” on Nov. 2. The finale will be “Wondrous Oblivion” that evening.
Ticket prices will be $7 for adults, $5 for students, and will be available from the Mobile Area Jewish Federation.
Shreveport’s festival begins with “Amen” on Nov. 4 at 7 p.m., followed by a discussion and reception, hosted by the Robinson Film Center. A double-header of “Sleeping With the Enemy” and “Behind Enemy Lines” will be screened on Nov. 5 at 2 p.m., with a discussion between the films. “James’ Journey to Jerusalem” closes the festival on Nov. 6 at 7 p.m.
Screenings will be at the Performing Arts Center in Shreveport. A $5 donation is requested.
The Baton Rouge festival kicks off on Jan. 25 with two school screenings of “Paper Clips,” at 8:30 and 11:30 a.m. Coach David Smith, assistant principal of Whitwell Middle School, will discuss the film and the project that drew international attention. That evening, “Sophie Scholl: The Final Days” will be screened.
The next two evenings are double-features. On Jan. 27, “All I’ve Got” will be paired with “West Bank Story,” and on Jan. 28, “Strange Fruit” will be screened with “The House I Live In” at 3 p.m. and 7 p.m. Filmmaker Joel Katz will speak.
Baton Rouge screenings will be at the Manship Theatre. Reserved seating is $8.50. Tickets will be available in advance from the theater box office. There will be a patron’s reception prior to the Jan. 27 screenings. Patron levels are set from $100 to $2,000, and can be arranged through the Jewish Federation of Greater Baton Rouge.
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Bill Hinchberger
The grave of Rabbi Shalom Emmanuel Muyal in the Sao Joao Batista Municipal Cemetery in Manaus, a city in the Brazilian Amazon.
By Bill Hinchberger
MANAUS, Brazil (JTA) — The details of Rabbi Shalom Emmanuel Muyal’s mission and death in the Amazon remain obscure, but that’s nothing compared to the mystery surrounding his afterlife.
Local Catholics have named him the Santo Judeu Milagreiro de Manaus, or the Holy Jewish Miracle Worker of Manaus. His tomb receives regular visits from Christians who attribute magic to his spirit.
The rabbi’s draw is so strong that local Jewish leaders felt compelled to refuse a request from his nephew, a member of Israel’s Knesset, to have his remains removed for reburial in the Jewish state.
Nobody can say for sure why Muyal set off from Morocco to the Brazilian Amazon in 1908. The most likely story seems to be that he was sent by Morocco’s chief rabbi to touch base with the rain forest faithful.
Moroccan Jews, mostly descendants of refugees forced from the Iberian Peninsula by the Inquisition, began immigrating to the Amazon in the early 19th century. A second wave followed with the rubber boom around the turn of the century.
Numbers are difficult to pin down, but about 1,000 Moroccan Jewish families probably scattered about the Amazon during the 19th and early 20th centuries, according to journalist and historian Reginaldo Jonas Heller, author of a study about the phenomenon.
Like all travelers back then, Muyal began his Amazon expedition near the mouth of the river in the city of Belém, and worked his way upriver. By 1910, he had traversed the nearly 1,000 miles to Manaus.
Then a city of 50,000, Manaus had been developing at an “almost North American” pace during the preceding decades of the rubber boom, according to German anthropologist Theodor Koch-Grünberg, who passed through town a few years before the rabbi.
In his book “Two Years Among the Indians,” Koch-Grünberg warned of a “dangerous ‘Manaus fever,’ that nearly every year kills a quantity of foreigners.” Muyal caught something, probably yellow fever, and died on March 10, 1910.
Manaus didn’t have a Jewish cemetery until the 1920s, so Muyal was buried with the gentiles in the São João Batista Municipal Cemetery. In keeping with tradition, members of the Jewish community built a small wall around the tomb. The headstone featured inscriptions in Hebrew and Portuguese.
Death by yellow fever is a gruesome affair. It’s characterized by jaundice, which causes the whites of the eyes and the skin to turn yellow, and black vomit, the dark coloring due to blood.
By all accounts, nobody really wanted to hang out at the rabbi’s deathbed — nobody except a woman named Cota Israel, who faithfully attended to Muyal until he passed away.
After the rabbi’s death, Israel developed a knack for helping people iron out kinks — muscle pulls, twisted ankles and knees, fractures and back problems.
“Just a common woman, she began to treat people as would a physical therapist today,” said Isaac Dahan, a doctor who also serves as the Jewish community’s prayer leader in Manaus. When asked how she did it, Israel said she had been blessed by Muyal.
There’s no record of when Muyal himself was first credited with miracles, but members of Manaus’ Jewish community born in the 1930s remember hearing stories about him when they were children.
Dozens of beneficiaries have attached plaques to the rabbi’s tomb. Most simply announce a “graça alcançada,” or miracle performed, without specifying the details. Most are not dated, but the oldest with a date is from July 18, 1975.
A few years later, around 1980, a member of Israel’s Parliament named Eliahu Moyal learned from a friend of the late miracle-performing rabbi in Brazil. Muyal determined that the man had been his long-lost uncle.
He sent a letter to the Amazonas Israelite Committee in Manaus asking whether the remains could be sent to Israel for reburial. After some soul searching, community leaders regretfully denied Moyal’s request.
“How could we? He’d become a saint,” Dahan said. “We can’t even move him to our cemetery nearby.”
Christians continued their pilgrimages to the tomb, lighting candles and leaving offerings. When a crack appeared in the tombstone, community leaders replaced it with an identical copy and enclosed the tomb with a fence. They also set out a small table where pilgrims could leave their candles, though many still reach inside the fence to leave their candles as close as possible to the tomb.
Many members of the 200-family Manaus community find the phenomenon a bit curious, but they don’t begrudge the Catholics their Holy Rabbi.
“Nobody can disrespect the beliefs of the city where we live,” Dahan said.
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National foundation raised $400,000 to subsidize camp for students in hurricane-stricken areas
Over 500 Jewish youth received camp scholarship aid during the summer 2006 through the Jewish Children’s Regional Service.
The New Orleans-based agency saw its camp assistance numbers double over the past year, with 216 Jewish youth from the Gulf Coast hurricane zone receiving assistance. Another 287 lived elsewhere in the seven-state region served by JCRS.
Much of the increase was made possible by a large grant from Foundation for Jewish Camping. The Foundation’s Habayita program raised over $400,000 for those affected by hurricanes Katrina and Rita.
The foundation is an advocacy group for over 130 overnight Jewish summer camps in North America.
Union for Reform Judaism Henry S. Jacobs Camp, located in Utica, hosted more than 100 campers through Habayita funds. Jacobs Camp Director Jonathan “J.C.” Cohen remarked “For each and every one of them, the chance to be at camp was a tremendous gift — a break from the chaos and disorder to spend time in a place that was structured and safe, organized and familiar, and, most importantly, completely built around and for them.”
The youth from hurricane areas attended 19 camps this summer — JCC Barney, B’nai B’rith Beber Camp, URJ Coleman, Darom, URJ Eiser Camp/Crane Lake, Emunah, Gan Israel, URJ Greene, Habonim Dror Camp Tavor, URJ Harlem, Henry Horner, URJ Henry S. Jacobs, Young Judaea-Texas, URJ Kutz, NJ-Y Camp Nah-Jee-Wah, Ramah Darom, NY-J Camp Round Lake, Tel Yehudah, and Yeshivas Hakayitz.
The recipients ranged in age from 8 to 17. Although the majority live in the greater New Orleans area, campers who received funding hailed from across the Gulf Coast region, including Mississippi and Texas.
Many of those who benefited from Habayita suffered traumatic experiences during Hurricane Katrina; one child waited for five days before being airlifted with her family off their roof. Her home was completely destroyed. Another child’s home was only a few hundred yards from the levee that broke in New Orleans; he was fortunately unhurt but his home was completely destroyed. A girl whose Bat Mitzvah was scheduled for a few days after Katrina struck celebrated her Bat Mitzvah in another city, away from the town she lived in and loved.
When FJC launched this initiative in the fall of 2005, individuals and organizations from across the United States contributed to this emergency camp scholarship fund. A lead gift from the UJA-Federation, New York encouraged support as did a matching grant from the Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Foundation. Most remarkable were the gifts from current campers moved by the idea that other children might not be able to attend summer camp. Several children dedicated their own time to raising money for Habayita.
“With hundreds of Jewish families affected by Hurricane Katrina and Rita, this scholarship fund has enabled Jewish youth to rejoin the warmth and comfort of their peer group community at camp; something they desperately needed after living through such difficult circumstances” explained Jerry Silverman, President of the Foundation for Jewish Camping. “For so many kids, Jewish overnight summer camps are considered second homes. We felt that those children needed their camps this summer more than ever.”
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Four Israeli doctors were detained over alleged human experimentation. (JTA)
The doctors, who hold senior positions in Kaplan Hospital in Rehovot and Hartzfeld Geriatric Hospital in Gedera, were arrested Monday on suspicion of illegally experimenting on humans. Dr. Shmuel Levi and Dr. Nadia Kagenski were remanded for three days by Tel Aviv Magistrate’s Court.
Dr. Alona Smirnov was released to house arrest for five days, and the fourth suspect was released.
According to an investigation by the Health Ministry and exposed by Ha’aretz, the hospitals conducted illegal and unethical testing on thousands of elderly patients between 2000-2003, resulting in at least one death.
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Israel joined the global condemnation over North Korea’s nuclear weapons test. (JTA)
After Pyongyang stunned the world Monday by announcing it had conducted its first controlled atomic blast, Israel’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement that the move was “irresponsible and provocative” and “could pose a serious threat to the stability of Northeast Asia and to global and international security.”
Israeli officials noted that a nuclear-armed North Korea was likely to help Iran attain its own atomic arsenal.
Army Radio quoted a senior Israeli diplomat as calling for tough Western action against North Korea, including, if necessary, resorting to military force.
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Qatar´s efforts to broker a Palestinian Authority coalition government failed. (JTA)
Qatari Foreign Minister Sheik Hamad bin Jassim bin Jabr al-Thani left the Gaza Strip on Tuesday after inconclusive talks aimed at bridging differences between Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh.
According to Palestinian Authority officials, Sheik Hamad had tried to secure agreement from Haniyeh´s Hamas for de facto recognition of past peace deals with Israel, but was rebuffed by the radical Islamist group.
Abbas´s formerly dominant Fatah wants to enter a "unity" government with a more moderate Hamas in hope of lifting a Western aid embargo on the Palestinian Authority and reviving negotiations with Israel.
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Syria´s president said his country was bracing for a possible attack by Israel. (JTA)
Bashar Assad told a Kuwaiti newspaper over the weekend that, in the wake of the Lebanon war, he believed Israel had no intent of pursuing peace talks with Syria.
"Syria expects Israeli aggression at any time," he told Al-Anba. "Naturally, in the absence of peace, war can happen. Therefore we have begun making preparations within the framework of our capabilities."
Jerusalem officials, in response, reiterated Israel´s stance that it sought no confrontation with Syria. In Israel, Assad is regarded as having been frustrated by Syria´s inability to win back the entire Golan Heights through diplomacy. Israel rules out such preconditions for talks, and has called on Damascus to stop supporting Hezbollah and Palestinian terrorist groups if it is sincere about peace.
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An international ad campaign will target anti-Semitism. (JTA)
The ads, produced by Russell Simmons, a hip-hop mogul who is co-leader of The Foundation for Ethnic Understanding, feature Simmons and rapper Jay-Z encouraging young people to fight anti-Semitism in their communities.
The ads will run in English, German, French, Spanish and Russian.
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An Israeli hospital unveiled a maternity ward designed for fervently Orthodox Jews. (JTA)
The five new delivery rooms at Jerusalem’s Bikur Cholim Hospital feature a special partition which allows the birthing mother to see her husband sitting beside her, but not for him to see her, Ma’ariv reported Monday.
This provision satisfies Orthodox requirements of modesty.
The rooms also have the options of stands for women’s wigs and piped-in Chasidic music.
According to the newspaper, the renovations cost Bikur Cholim some $1.3 million, most of it donated.
“The delivery rooms are the hospital’s flagship,” said hospital director Barry Bar-Tziyon.
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A record number of Jews turned out for Sukkot services at Jerusalem’s Western Wall. (JTA)
An estimated 65,000 worshipers attended Monday’s prayers at Judaism’s most important site, which included the traditional blessing of the Cohanim, or high priests.
Rabbi Shmuel Rabinowitz, director of the Western Wall and Holy Places authority, described it as the largest turnout in a quarter-century.
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Eskinder Debebe/UN
Pak Gil Yon, North Korea’s U.N. representative, addresses the Security Council on July 15.
By Dan Baron
JERUSALEM, Oct. 9 (JTA) — In Israel, many see North Korea’s nuclear brinkmanship and the West’s response to it as a dress rehearsal for a threat far closer to home.
Pyongyang’s announcement Monday that it had conducted its first controlled atomic blast stirred worldwide concern. This was especially felt in a Jewish state fearing similar moves by arch-foe Iran in coming years.
“This is a worrying and troubling development,” a senior Israeli diplomat said on condition of anonymity. “Now that North Korea has proven nuclear capabilities, it is liable to collaborate with Iran and accelerate the Iranian nuclear program.”
That’s hardly a groundless concern: North Korea is believed to have sold Iran ballistic missile technology for years. Once Pyongyang learns how to produce nuclear warheads, it could provide those to its Persian client as well.
“The North Korean regime remains one of the world’s leading proliferators of missile technology, including transfers to Iran and Syria,” President Bush said. “The transfer of nuclear weapons or material by North Korea to states or non-state entities would be considered a grave threat to the United States, and we would hold North Korea fully accountable of the consequences of such action.”
Israel’s Foreign Ministry issued a statement echoing international condemnation of the nuclear test.
“The test is an irresponsible and provocative act that could pose a serious threat to the regional stability of Northeast Asia and to global and international security,” it said.
U.N. observers in New York worried that North Korea’s test could embolden Iran, making Tehran less likely to comply with international efforts to curb its nuclear ambitions.
“Iran has obviously watched and learned some lessons here,” said David Harris, executive director of the American Jewish Committee. “The ripple effects here are really profound.”
Among the lessons is that a policy of obfuscation and delay may buy enough time for Tehran to cross the nuclear threshold. Once that happens, Harris said, the strategic equation changes fundamentally.
“The underground testing is in many ways a threshold event, and its implications will be with us for years and decades,” Harris said. “It’s not one of those things that will come and go.”
The Korean test might affect the calculations of other states as well, Hebrew University political scientist Gabriel Sheffer said.
“It might increase the Egyptian tendency to move” in the direction of developing a bomb, Sheffer said. “The Egyptians are already nervous about the situation in Iran and Israel, they want Israel to sign the nuclear proliferation treaty, and the Saudis and the Egyptians are nervous about the Iranian situation.”
The Israeli government largely has been reticent about the need to curb Iran’s nuclear ambitions, apparently out of reluctance to risk distracting from the U.S.-led effort to apply diplomatic pressure. But some Israeli politicians were more outspoken.
“Perhaps the case of North Korea will teach the international community a lesson in the case of Iran,” Ephraim Sneh, a senior Labor Party lawmaker and retired army general, told Israel Radio. “We, the Israeli PR and policy apparatus, must take advantage of what happened to explain, and to persuade the international community to do something before it’s too late.”
The senior Israeli diplomat said he would urge the West to impose tough sanctions on already impoverished North Korea, including, possibly, a sea embargo. Failing that, the diplomat said, the West should consider resorting to military force that would topple Kim Jong-II’s regime and neutralize its nuclear threat.
Yet with the U.S.-led military coalition already heavily committed in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the Bush administration deeply at odds with the European Union over the proper use of force, the Israeli diplomat’s vision looked hard to realize.
For the time being, Western power brokers have been at pains to draw distinctions between the challenges posed by North Korea and Iran.
“Iran is a democracy, however odious parts of the regime may be. North Korea is a dictatorship led by a man who people don’t know very much about,” a British government source told Reuters.
Sneh suggested that the North Korean crisis could be a chance for the West to hone a get-tough approach that could then be applied to Iran.
“The European states eschew conflict, even political and diplomatic confrontations or an economic clash. They balk at clashing with Iran, and this is evident,” he said. “And this is the time to show the world: Look what happens when you neglect your job.”
JTA Staff Writer Ben Harris in New York and JTA Washington Bureau Chief Ron Kampeas contributed to this story.
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Have you ever done stand-up comedy, or sit-down comedy around the dining room table? If so, the Krewe Du Mishigas is looking for you.
The Jewish marching Mardi Gras Krewe in New Orleans is holding a “Funniest Jew in the Deep South” competition, to be held Nov. 18 at Touro Synagogue. Comedienne Ellen Steigman, who has performed nationally, will be the Master of Ceremonies.
According to Steigman and fellow co-chair John Valentino, “our comedy night last year was a great success, so we’ve decided to expand.”
The grand prize will include a cash prize, “bragging rights, membership and a featured marching spot in Krewe du Mishigas. And OY! Will your family kvell!”
The Krewe marches each year as part of the Krewe du Vieux parade, the only one which marches through the French Quarter.
Hopefuls seeking the title need to send a 5-8 minute sample doing stand-up as an audition. Audio tape, videotape, CD and DVD are acceptable. All tapes must include telephone or e-mail contact information, and be submitted by Oct. 10. There is an $18 entrance fee, and the audition tapes will not be returned.
A Krewe committee will review the tapes, and notify finalists by Oct. 18.
Tapes should be sent to the Funniest Jew in the Deep South Competition, 171 Woodside Drive, Mandeville, LA 70448.
For competitors from outside the area, a limited number of spaces will be available for home hospitality with Krewe members.
The co-chairs added, “Yes, life does go in New Orleans… and we are dealing with it in traditional Jewish fashion — by laughing.”
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By Karen Weinrib,Deep South Jewish Voice
As a young woman, Toby Klein never would have dreamed that one day she would be preparing for the Artexpo New York 2005 at the Jacob K. Javitz Center. Although in high school she made pen and ink drawings, painted watercolors, and took classes, Klein never formally studied art until she began taking watercolor classes in the early 1990s. In 1992, a friend encouraged her to enter her first art show, that of the Mountain Brook Art Association. Klein has immersed herself in art ever since.
Describing herself as an “experimental artist [who] sees something new and has to try it,” Klein currently specializes in mixed media and collages. At one time or another, she has used watercolors, inks, acrylics, hand-dyed papers, and found objects like copper, brass, wire, aluminum flat sheets, and clock, watch, and computer parts; she particularly is interested in glass at the moment.
As Klein explains, “I find art in almost everything I see.” She constantly looks at magazines, objects in the street, items at hardware stores, and images from everyday life as inspiration for her work, although some of it “just pops in my head,” she says. In the future, she would like to go to garage sales to find future artistic materials and ideas.
Klein’s art is very contemporary and colorful. “My art is mainly nonobjective and abstract,” she explains, but “it does have some realism in it. I may leave something in a very abstract state [or] may work it into realism, whatever I see in the piece.”
One example of this type of work is her current Puzzle series. For one of these pieces, Klein creates a painting using layers of acrylic, watercolor, and ink, then “works in the negative” with watercolors and water-soluble crayons; upon this work, she draws puzzle pieces, cuts out selected ones, and places them at different heights and angles to create a collage.
As evidenced by the Puzzle collection, Klein enjoys working on a series. Her collages of four-ply painted rag board strips that her husband jokingly refers to as her “stick series” are very popular, as are her Judaica. She particularly likes working on her Wall series, which are inspired by the Western Wall in Jerusalem.
Klein’s object with her artwork is to be different “and to draw the viewer into the work… to look at the intricate parts. I try to make where it’s so interesting that people, if they come in and look, are mesmerized by the different things in each piece.” She uses detailed subject matter, intricacies, and technique to pull people into her art. Collaging is not just “cutting a piece of paper,” she explains. “It’s a lot of thought process how I lay things out.”
Klein is very active in the local arts community, as the current president of the Watercolor Society of Alabama and a current or past member of the Mountain Brook and Vestavia art associations, among others. She has exhibited her work at several Birmingham area shows such as those as Bluff Park and Linn Park; furthermore, she has had booths at shows throughout Georgia and the Florida Panhandle and in Chattanooga, Covington, La., Mobile, Huntsville, and Fairhope.
Klein is very fond of going to shows in the Southeast because she can see all the artists she has seen for years. However, she currently is shifting her focus toward fewer shows and more galleries; she now has pieces at galleries in Memphis and in Florida.
Klein’s awards are too numerous to list in their entirety, a sign of critical acclaim by her fellow artists. Amongst her juried awards are the 2000 Medal of Honor Award from the National Association of Women Artists in New York, both the 2003 Past Presidents Award and four Experimental Artist of Alabama Awards from the Watercolor Society of Alabama, and numerous 1st Place, 2nd place, and other awards from the Experimental Artist of Alabama exhibition. Her works have also been shown in national publications such as “Watercolor.” Additionally, her works are in private collections throughout Europe and the United States, and in many permanent collections such as those at Alabama Power, Compass Bank, and Children’s Hospital of Alabama.
Klein takes delight in having developed her own style of mixed media, considering that she has only been involved in the art world for about 15 years. She has always been attracted to the unusual and wanted her work to be unique. Her favorite compliment occurs “when somebody comes up [at an art show] and says your work is really different than anything we’ve seen here.”
More information: www.tobykleinart.com
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Israel File :: Bringing Home Baby - Spurred by Bible and Demographics, Israel Leads in IVF
10.03.2006
Puah Institute
An Israeli baby born as the result of fertility treatments.
By Dina Kraft
TEL AVIV (JTA) — The waiting room at the IVF clinic at Ichilov Hospital fills up as the morning stretches on. Women and men fill out stacks of forms and nervously eye the nurses as they call their names for examinations. Some say silent prayers.
Behind the walls of the clinic’s labs and treatment rooms, the science fiction of in-vitro fertilization unfolds: A woman’s eggs are extracted through a long syringe, then mixed with sperm in a glass dish in the hopes an embryo will be created that can be implanted in the uterus.
For the lucky, pregnancy and, ultimately, a baby will follow.
Israel is a world leader when it comes to fertility treatments. As the only country that pays for infertile couples to have two babies, it has the highest number of IVF procedures per capita in the world, and its doctors are behind several cutting edge procedures.
But the race to conceive, driven by demographic concerns and a family-focused culture, has its downsides.
Some public health advocates and doctors argue that fertility treatments are pushed too aggressively even when it might be medically unwise. There are concerns that repeated exposure to fertility drugs could increase the risk of certain types of cancer.
“It’s a two-edged sword. We have the technology, but the question is how to use it wisely,” said Julie Cwikel, a professor of social work and director and founder of the Center for Women’s Health, Research and Promotion at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev.
The subsidized cost of IVF treatment in Israel, even for those who are treated privately, is about $3,000 per procedure, compared to $12,000 to $15,000 in the United States. The lower cost and Israeli doctors’ vast experience with IVF has attracted so-called “fertility tourists” to the country.
For Y., 33, who tried for nearly two years to conceive, IVF was the best hope for getting pregnant. She was not deterred by the potential drawbacks of hormone shots and the emotional and physical upheaval that can follow treatment.
“You need to feel like you are doing something, and IVF lets you feel like you’re doing something proactive,” said Y., who is now eight months pregnant. “It’s a daunting task, but then suddenly you get pregnant and you think, ‘Yes, it was worth every second.’ ”
On average, about 20,000 IVF procedures are done annually in Israel, compared to about 100,000 per year in the United States, which has a population nearly 50 times the size of Israel’s.
According to some estimates, as many as 5 percent of Israeli kindergarteners today were born through IVF.
“Be fruitful and multiply,” God proclaimed to Adam and Eve in Genesis. Later in the Bible, the issue of infertility was dealt with at length: Three of the four biblical matriarchs were infertile until God decided to “open” their wombs.
Israel has taken the biblical injunction to reproduce seriously. Covering fertility treatments costs the government-subsidized HMOs about $57 million a year, much of which goes toward IVF procedures.
Having IVF treatments paid for by one’s HMO makes it available for all Israelis, regardless of financial status. In the United States, by contrast, the treatment is the prerogative of those with financial means.
“If our society can help these situations by bringing a child into the world, what could be better than that?” Health Minister Yacov Ben Yizri told JTA.
Beyond the traditional importance Judaism places on family life, the cold calculus of demography perhaps best explains the policy of funding fertility treatments. Israeli Jews fear for their majority status in the country, concerned they could eventually be overwhelmed by the Arab sector’s higher fertility rate.
Figures released in September by the Central Bureau of Statistics show that the relative number of Jews in Israel has been dropping, while the percentage of Arabs is on the rise. About 76 percent of the population is Jewish, and 20 percent is Arab, according to current figures.
“If you are in Israel surrounded by Arabs whose mean family number is four or five children, and you still want Israel to have a majority of Jews, then there’s no other way” but to fund fertility, said Dr. Alex Simon, director of IVF at Jerusalem’s Hadassah hospitals.
The focus on fertility also is colored by the memory of the Holocaust and Israel’s precarious political situation.
“There’s more pressure here to have families than anywhere else, and it comes from the post-Holocaust mentality that everyone needs to populate the country and that we’re under a sort of siege mentality,” Cwikel said.
State encouragement for families to have children is not a new phenomenon in Israel.
In 1949, a year after statehood was declared, Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion instituted a reward of 10 lirot — a handsome sum at the time — to women who bore 10 children. The reward was canceled when it became clear that more Arab women than Jewish women were eligible for it.
Still, Ben-Gurion continued to speak of the importance of what he called “internal immigration” as a way to combat Arab demography.
In Israel, a society that is highly divided on most topics, the issue of state-funded fertility treatment elicits little public debate.
“No one is against it,” said Dr. Frida Simonstein, a medical ethicist at Jezreel Valley College. “It’s incredible, there’s no division of opinion whatsoever.”
Simonstein fears that part of the reason there’s no debate is that women don’t take into account the potential health risks of treatment.
For many, access to virtually free IVF treatments is viewed as a godsend. Patients, not doctors, are the ones clamoring for as many treatments as it might take to conceive, doctors claim.
“I’m very grateful to my HMO. I cost them so much money,” says Hava Yael Schreiber, only half joking. A gynecologist and fertility expert, Schreiber had 11 IVF procedures before giving birth to a child.
It’s not unheard of in Israel for a woman to go through as many as 20 IVF procedures before either conceiving or giving up.
IVF usually is among the final steps in fertility treatment after other methods have failed, including fertility drugs, surgery and artificial insemination.
Egg donation, a technique pioneered by Israeli doctors, can only be done abroad, however: Israeli law does not permit women to donate eggs for money in the way that men may sell sperm, so Israeli women who need egg donation usually travel to Eastern Europe for treatment.
Some public health experts suggest doctors might be pushing IVF on their patients too quickly, without giving adequate time for other methods to work.
“Doctors love a high-tech solution,” said Cwikel, who has done research on the link between stress and depression during fertility treatments. She argues that women need to be more aggressive about getting the information they need before deciding to undergo IVF, which requires repeated rounds of hormone treatments that can be physically and emotionally debilitating.
Studies are inconclusive, but there are concerns that repeated exposure to fertility drugs could increase the likelihood of breast and uterine cancer. Furthermore, multiple births, often a byproduct of IVF — where more than one embryo usually is implanted in the uterus — can endanger the health of both mother and fetus.
But Simon said the push toward IVF often is patient-driven: “They say, ‘I don’t care about my body. I want a pregnancy here and now.’ ”
Shahar Kol of Elisha Hospital in Haifa, who sees Israeli and foreign patients in his clinic, agrees.
“I don’t see patients in Israel or from anywhere else that don’t want IVF because of some increased risk,” he said.
Simon views IVF as the best tool to bring about conception and predicts that in the next few years the other, less effective methods, such as artificial insemination, will fall by the wayside.
Cwikel, on the other hand, fears IVF will be seen as a cure-all and that women in Israel, who know they don’t have to pay for the procedure, will delay childbearing.
Age, she notes, is the most important factor in predicting fertility. And just as the odds of natural conception drop off as women age, so does the chance of IVF working for them.
“We don’t talk about it, and act as if it doesn’t happen,” she said. “This is what feeds the IVF machine.”
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