April 11, 2012

Israeli female scientist is top young researcher

Leave a Comment / Is Featured?, Israel, News, Science & Technology, Tech / Jewish Journal

JERUSALEM — She’s young, smart and aims to help treat life-threatening diseases.

Naama Geva-Zatorsky, 34, is among a growing group of Israeli women gaining recognition for their contributions to scientific research.

The Weizmann Institute biologist was in Paris last month to accept the International UNESCO L’Oreal Prize for Women in Science. Dubbed “Europe’s top young researcher” by the prize committee, she received a two-year, $40,000 fellowship for her postdoctoral work at Harvard University.

The selection committee cited the “excellence and the originality of her work.”

Geva-Zatorsky’s research focuses on probiotics, which are commonly known as “good bacteria” and have the potential to treat a variety of diseases.

Geva-Zatorsky, who holds a master’s degree and a doctorate in systems biology, believes there is room for more research on the potential benefits of probiotics.

Her lab work has focused on the “good” microbes that live in the human intestines and protect our bodies by stimulating the immune system. Geva-Zatorsky will use her award to continue investigating what leads the bacterial molecule, known as polysaccharide A (PSA), to react this way.

“There are 10 times more bacteria than human cells in the body, and I’m learning how do we interact with them and what the impact is on our health,” she said in a phone interview from Brookline, Mass., where she has been living since September with her husband, Amnon Zatorsky, and their two sons, Yonatan, 5, and Uri, 2.

Despite the growing popularity of probiotics in an array of products — think kefir, a dairy product made of goat’s milk and fermented grains, or the trendy tea-based drink kombucha — both the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the European Food Safety Authority say that most claims made about probiotic products are unproven.

“There’s really a lot more that can be studied,” she said, noting that researchers already know that probiotics can be used to treat inflammatory bowel disease and now are investigating whether microbacteria can inoculate multiple sclerosis, a chronic autoimmune disease that affects the central nervous system.

Additionally, Geva-Zatorsky said, certain bacteria can make humans develop more fat cells. Someday, she said, researchers may be able to create a pill to help obese people lose weight.

The same bacteria affect emotions, she said, and eventually may be used to treat depression.

Once her postdoctoral work is completed, Geva-Zatorsky plans to return to Israel to set up her own research team to probe how these bacteria can treat a myriad of diseases.

Weizmann biophysics professor Zvi Kam believes Geva-Zatorsky’s determination will carry her far.

Noting that experiments are tedious and often fail, Kam said in an e-mail that the young scientist “never complained, never was let down, and never gave up. Her optimistic spirit and joy of doing science was never broken by the tough reality.”

Geva-Zatorsky’s success is unusual in Israel, given the dearth of women working in the fields of science and engineering.

Despite Israel’s emphasis on research and development, a 2008 report by the European Commission on Gender Equality pointed out Israel’s low proportion of female researchers in higher education — 25 percent — compared to the 35 percent average found among European Union member countries.

Those numbers combined with a highly publicized incident recently involving Channa Maayan, a Hebrew University professor who received an award but was told by Israel’s acting health minister, who is Charedi Orthodox, that a male would have to accept it for her. The incident outraged and re-energized women in the scientific community to speak out about their important role as researchers.

There are glimmers of light, however, for female scientific researchers. Geva-Zatorsky was among 10 women last year who received a Weizmann Institute of Science Women in Science Award. And she sees momentum at Israeli universities to increase the numbers of women in the field.

She hopes that she can pave the way for others.

“I encourage women to be brave and ask questions,” Geva-Zatorsky said.

Geva-Zatorsky also said that gender bias alone is not the only reason that women are less inclined to do scientific research.

In Israel, many believe that those who want to pursue academic careers should do research abroad, she said, where they can gain skills that will enable them to be better scientists at home.
Geva-Zatorsky said that’s more difficult for women, who are still expected to be the primary child rearers.

The women who complete their doctorates are typically older than in other countries, she said, having first completed their military service and then started families.

“This is why fellowships and awards that encourage women scientists to move are important, and also it helps if, mentally, people believe in us and that people would like us to go abroad and get new skills,” she said.

Geva-Zatorsky, who grew up in Moshav Ometz, a small cooperative village in central Israel, said her parents “nourished her curiosity and passion.”

At 22, she arrived at Tel Aviv University and decided to study chemistry and biology.

For her doctorate, she studied how cancer cells respond to drugs and therapies.

With a longtime passion for the arts — she studied ballet until she was 18 — Geva-Zatorsky also helped to organize an exhibition at Weizmann called “The Beauty of Science.”

She praises her family as well as her husband for their strong support.

“They believed in me and pushed me forward,” she said. “There have been moments of self doubt, but they give me encouragement.”

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Loss, survival — cue the music

Leave a Comment / Culture, Entertainment, News, Theater / Jewish Journal

“When I told my son I was going to write a musical about the Holocaust,” playwright and Holocaust survivor Lucy Deutsch recalled, “he raised both arms and screamed, ‘Mother, how can you do that? Those two words don’t belong together!’

“I answered, ‘Yes they do, if you look at the full circle.’ My musical takes you from the happy times before the Holocaust, through the Holocaust, and then to my life after the Holocaust. Somehow the world forgot that the Holocaust stories that are written and made into movies depict only the Holocaust. What happens to the people after the Holocaust? How did they break through that pain and everything else? This musical goes full circle and includes the beautiful songs I wrote.”

Deutsch’s musical, “No Time to Weep,” opens this weekend at the Matrix Theatre. The songs in the show are particularly appealing to Caitlin Gallogly, who plays Deutsch from ages 14 to 28, because of how they facilitate the action.

“Instead of having soliloquies the way you would have in ‘Hamlet,’ you have these beautiful, heart-wrenching numbers, some of which are very innocent and some of which are really dark and harrowing, and I just thought that was amazing. It was completely avant-garde and crazy, and I thought, ‘Yes, yes, I want to do this.’ ”

Gallogly described her character at age 14 — before Auschwitz — as a somewhat naive young girl with simple, typical teenage concerns, who is experiencing the first rush of puppy love, and whose life is filled with love and laughter.

“She hasn’t been exposed yet to the sort of trickling story coming in of what happened to Jews when they were taken away. But she was wearing the yellow star. She was aware of restrictions on her life, and, I think, importantly, those concerns, which were always in the background, until suddenly they were not, those things were informing the way that she developed as a person.”

Deutsch grew up in the Carpathian Mountains, in an area that was taken from Czechoslovakia by Hitler and given to Hungary, a German ally during World War II. She said that Miklós Horthy, Regent of the Kingdom of Hungary, was able to resist Hitler’s persecution of the Jews until 1944.

But then, one morning, Deutsch’s family was abruptly arrested by Hungarian gendarmes, taken to a ghetto and then transported to Auschwitz. Although she didn’t realize it until much later, her mother and younger siblings, who were sent “to the left” upon arrival at the camp, were immediately exterminated. Her father and older sister ultimately died as well.

“I’m not camouflaging the Holocaust,” Deutsch said, “because many things happened to me in Auschwitz which I couldn’t include in the musical; my life hung in the balance every day. I was afraid the German soldiers who came to count the prisoners would pull me out and send me to the crematorium because I was a child. I was the shortest of them all. The women always hid me behind them. Once a soldier pulled me out of the line, and I fell to his knees and begged him not to take me.”

Refusing to succumb, Lucy managed to survive. Many of the women did not.

“Some of the women gave up, and they became very weak and sick, and everybody knew they would not survive,” Deutsch said. “Those who stood up, and those who took life as it was and knew they had to fight for it to stay alive, they survived. And I learned early to do that. I couldn’t give up. I was a child. Naturally, I was beaten up also, because the German women and the kapos all had sticks as they walked about. And I always opened my mouth, telling them that they shouldn’t do that, and then I got hit.”

After liberation she met Mickey Deutsch, who is now her ex-husband. The two fled to Germany and a Displaced Persons camp, married, and, in 1948, set sail for Israel. As soon as they landed, Mickey was taken into the Israeli army. Lucy went into the Air Force and worked as a hostess in a cantina for the pilots.

Ten years later, she moved to America, where she became successful in business. She created a clutch bag for women that had artwork on it and was known as the “magazine clutch.” She subsequently manufactured leather bags, briefcases and binders that sold around the country. Then, when she broke her leg in 1987 and was confined to bed, she began to write her autobiography, “Shattered Childhood,” which ultimately inspired her musical. Since that time, writing has been a constant pursuit for her.

Deutsch stressed that by dramatizing her life, she intends to present what she considers a different perspective on the Holocaust. “This story shows how, from the Holocaust, beauty is born. It’s inspirational. Something beautiful can develop, as one can see from my last song in the play, which is about planting a seed for salvation, so we can see it grow. ‘From its cradle it will know liberty.’ I wrote that song from my heart.

“I want the audience to come out feeling that it’s OK, people can survive. People can make a good living, a good life. People can love again.”

It was this indomitable spirit that captivated Christopher Callen, who portrays Deutsch at age 65, during the height of her career as a manufacturer.

“We see many, many things about the Holocaust, and, as Lucy says, so often they just end it at the crematorium, and they don’t go further about those who did survive,” Callen said. “I think that’s a most important story to tell, because I feel we always need to be reminded, and maybe more so than ever in this day and time, that the human spirit can survive anything, even something as horrendous as the Holocaust.”

Callen feels her task is to capture Deutsch’s larger-than-life personality and her spirit.

At 82, Deutsch says she still finds daily challenges in life. “If I give up, I will feel completely empty, with nothing to live for. So, I embrace every challenge, and I’m going to follow up on each one, particularly now that I’m doing my musical, which is a big challenge, and I greet it every morning the same way. I’m still alive, still vibrant, and still going strong.”

“No Time to Weep” runs Saturday, April 14 through Sunday, June 3 (Red Carpet Premiere — April 14th). Showtimes are Thursdays, Fridays, Saturdays at 8:00 p.m. and Sunday at 2:00 p.m.
Matrix Theatre, 7657 Melrose Avenue, Los Angeles, CA 90046 (Ample Street Parking). $30.00 General Admission. Seniors and Students with proper ID use Promo Code 007 for $5 off. Reservations: (323) 960-7780

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Coed Carpool

Leave a Comment / Culture, Is Featured?, Mobile Sections, News / Elliot Steingart

My new co-worker is a perky 26 year old gal who lives in Los Feliz. She is nice looking and normal. We walked to Starbucks where I popped the question.

“Want to carpool?”

“Sure!” she said.

It’s a big commitment to carpool to work with a total stranger. You really have no idea what to expect. You just assume that because you are both adults you are mature. You also assume because you have a license you know how to drive a car.

What if that wasn’t the case? What if she starts driving and I start screaming, “Get in the left lane!!!” Go, bitch! We can’t be late!!”

And that’s just on the way to work. What if on the way home I make more demands? “Get off here. I have errands to run.”

I make her take me to Albertsons, then H & R Block. I get back in the car and say, “We gotta stop by Leroy’s house.”

She’s waiting in the car while Leroy and I go on all night bender. She is still in the car waiting for me until the following morning.

The next day it’s my turn to drive. I pick her up, and then drive us off a cliff. All you see is the car burst into flames. She agreed to carpool with me knowing this is the stuff that I think about.

I respect her for taking a chance. This is my first real adult carpool, the first time I initiated driving with someone to work everyday. Growing up you don’t have a choice with whom you carpool. It’s kind of the same idea as being friends with your neigbhors. You have no say. You live close so automatically are forced into friendship.

Your new friend is the kid digging for earth worms in the front yard. His name is Yuval. He’s not good at sports. He’s good at nature. You just want to play hide and go seek. “You hide. I’m going to seek out some new neighbors.”

Or in high school when you carpool with Maya, the girl who asks too many questions about your weekend. After she parks, you tie your shoes and rather than wait, she accelerates straight to homeroom!

Because I sought out the carpool, I’m responsible for its future. For the sake of rising gas prices I must maintain the carpool at all costs. I have made concessions. I let her choose the CD this morning. She picked Best of Talking Heads. A great selection. We talked about how she is adjusting to the job. She told me about her volunteer work. I told her how about the $4.99 deal at Albertsons.

She said, “You already told me about that.”

“Your choice of two chicken breasts or wings, and two sides?”

“Yea,” She said. “I’ve heard this from you.”

She is an adequate driver. Not the best. I have a better command of the wheel, and how far behind you should be from the car in front of you. You can’t call out her driving on the first day of the carpool. It comes gradually. The second week once you too have a few inside jokes, you find yourself becoming more vocal.

“You may not want to tail this guy,” I said.

“I swear I’m not a bad driver. You don’t think I am. Do you?”

“No, you are good.” I lied.

I understand that there is added pressure driving someone you want to impress. Driving becomes a performance. I drive with more gravitas. I speed and mouth the words to “Hunger Strike” by Temple of the Dog.

She takes alternate routes like the 5 instead of the 2. We joined the slow moving traffic at which point I said, “It’s okay. This is a teachable moment.”

I’m carpooling with the girl next door. Granted she’s the girl next door who probably didn’t pass her driver’s test on the first try, but neither did I.

What’s important is that we’ve come a long way since our first week in the carpool. That first week felt like each leg of the trip was a date. “What’s your favorite restaurant in Los Feliz?”

“Do you like Mad Men?”

It’s inappropriate to mix business with pleasure. Besides we are friends, and she will read this blog because I asked her permission to write about the carpool. If you are reading this, I have forgiven you for the time you almost rammed us into a Mazda and then said, “Wups!

Lately, we walk out of the office at the same time as Kimi and Mishi. They started carpooling from the Southbay over a year ago. They listen to KPCC’s Steve Inskeep and play on their phones. We are still in the talking to each other and making jokes phase. We both know our carpool is the best. It’s a matter of time before we challenge them to an after work drag race, and leave em in the dust and then give them the finger.

I’m glad our carpool is a source of pleasure and that I haven’t driven us off a cliff.

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From Sundance to Jerusalem

Leave a Comment / Blogs, Hollywood, Hollywood Jew, Is Featured?, News / Danielle Berrin

Alesia Weston, associate director of the Sundance Institute’s Feature Film Program, where she has worked for the past nine years, will take over as executive director of the Jerusalem Film Center, known in Israel as the Cinematheque, in June. During her tenure at Sundance, Weston worked extensively to nurture Middle East cinema, heading film labs in India, Turkey and Israel and a screenwriting program in Jordan. Raised in the United Kingdom, Switzerland, France and Israel, Weston began her film career at Ron Howard and Brian Grazer’s Imagine Entertainment. She talks about what she learned growing up in Israel, the country’s reputation on the international film scene and why Israel hasn’t won an Oscar yet.

Jewish Journal: In its mission statement, the Jerusalem Film Center declares that it is a place where Palestinians, Jews, Christians and Muslims from all backgrounds can meet and work together. Given the current political climate, aren’t those intentions a bit of a reach?

Alesia Weston: I think art allows people to come together in ways that politics doesn’t. Politicians are not always the best representatives of people and what is possible between people. Stepping into a film, you can step into very, very different shoes and feel as close to that experience as somebody who’s lived it. It doesn’t mean you’ll agree on everything or that you want the same things, but it does mean you’ll see the “other” as less dangerous. It’s one of the ways we can increase our tolerance and understanding. I am that idealistic when it comes to the arts.

JJ: Hollywood has trained American audiences to consume highly formulaic films that tend to dazzle, but lack depth. What type of film experience do you seek when viewing for leisure?

AW: I look for something I haven’t seen before. I look for an original voice that is telling a story outside of the formula I’ve become used to. I obviously love it when there’s high quality of craft, but I’m also very forgiving when that’s still being worked on; I’m very forgiving about clumsy, I’m not as forgiving about lazy. I’m looking for something that expands my understanding of the human experience. For me, I come out of the Dardenne brothers’ films, and I feel better about being in the world. There’s so much humanity in their work and so little ego.

JJ: The film center has historically included and awarded Palestinian films as part of its program, even at times of great resistance. With such splintering between cinemas, how would you characterize Israel’s national cinema?

AW: I think Israel’s national cinema reflects the diversity of the people who live there. Israel’s cinema tends to be quite realistic; it’s a very personal cinema. The nice thing about films outside of Hollywood and outside of big systems is that it’s individual voices and individual filmmakers telling their stories. Israel has a growing relationship with Hollywood, but also a very strong relationship with Europe, and I think Israeli films are much more influenced by French and European cinema.

JJ: Do you think Israel’s relationship with Hollywood will move a cinema known for its artistry more toward the commercial?

AW: I’m hoping that it doesn’t become one or the other, but that there’s everything. U.S. national cinema includes really fun big animated movies and some really good commercial fare like “Raiders of the Lost Ark” and good thrillers. I love going to those movies. I need them. I don’t think that any country is just one thing or should be represented by one film. Can you imagine if Israelis had “Raiders of the Lost Ark” that took place in Jerusalem, all in Hebrew, and was made for them, to go with their families to see themselves on screen? Not at checkpoints, and not having to read subtitles or have it dubbed.

JJ: One of the main reasons audiences and critics praised Joseph Cedar’s “Footnote” — nominated this year for the foreign language Oscar — was that it wasn’t about “the conflict.” Is that the gauge for what makes an Israeli film fresh?

AW: Filmmakers don’t want to be saddled with every film having to be about the conflict. When [Nir] Bergman’s “Broken Wings” was made, it was essentially about a dysfunctional family, and he was a given a hard time because the conflict was completely absent. [But Israelis] are going to the market and then going to take their daughter to ballet class, and then they’re going to a birthday party. That’s their day. There’s a lot of life going on.

JJ: Many think Israel’s film industry has been undergoing a renaissance — which Hollywood has recognized with a total of 10 Oscar nominations, four of those in the past five years. Why haven’t they won yet?

AW: Who knows? Oscar nominations are wonderful, but they’re not the only measure of successful films. I don’t think there’s any reason in particular that an Israeli film hasn’t won, but the fact that they’ve been nominated as much as they have shows that they get an extraordinary amount of recognition and generally what [the Academy is] saying is that there are high-quality films coming out of [Israel] on a regular basis that deserve this recognition. Then you give it up to the voting process. Sometimes, when things are very political, like with “Waltz With Bashir,” that’s complicated. I think that’s when politics comes into play.

JJ: Do Jews or Israelis have a unique gift for storytelling?

AW: I think that we have a very evolved and developed history and tradition of storytelling, so it’s part of something we grow up with and is a natural way of being. I don’t think that it’s like a God-given gift, no. But I think it’s absolutely a skill we develop. Everything about our culture — like [the Passover seder], where we sit down and retell the story every year — is part of our ritual, part of what we do. And it’s hard-wired into your system at a certain point.

JJ: Growing up, you lived in four different countries, including Israel.

AW: When I was 8 years old, I was living in Switzerland, in the Alps, with my mother. My parents had gotten divorced, and my dad lived in France, across the border, so we’d go back and forth every few weeks. My mother comes from East Flatbush in Brooklyn. My maternal grandmother lost her whole family in the Holocaust, and my mother was concerned that I was being raised without any other Jewish kids around, without it being comfortable [to be Jewish]. So it was important for my mom to create a space for me where I could be part of a community. She said to me when I was 8, ‘We’re moving, and we can either move to America or we can move to Israel.’ I had a funny thing about America — it felt very big to me; sneakers felt big, cartoons felt big, food portions felt big. I couldn’t conceive of living there.

JJ: At Sundance you did a lot of work internationally, heading screenwriting labs throughout the Middle East. Did the international film community accept Israel as part of its family or treat it as a pariah state?

AW: Israel is an incredibly huge part of the international film community and much more accepted in the film community than [in] any other realm — and not just accepted, but celebrated and respected. When I first started at Sundance, I used to help my friends with the Israel party that they would put together in Toronto — I would give out a lot of fliers — because they were trying to get people to come to their event, and it was not well attended. Now, it’s hard to get in.

JJ: But what about the infamous 2009 protests at the Toronto International Film Festival, where several high-profile artists boycotted the festival’s spotlight on films about Tel Aviv?

AW: There are always going to be people who care deeply about human rights, as many filmmakers do, and they’re right to care about that. But I don’t believe in boycotting culture.

JJ: A lot of Jews are concerned about Israel’s image and hope that film, being one of the most influential mediums in the world, can change perceptions about the country. What should Israeli cinema tell the world about itself?

AW: I think it should represent everything about itself. The film that won the Sundance World Cinema Jury Prize this year, called “The Law in These Parts” — it also won best documentary at the Jerusalem Film Festival last July — is about the difference between upholding the law and upholding justice, and that they’re not always the same thing. Wrestling with that and suggesting that the Jewish ideal and the principles upon which the state was founded are such that we should care about how well everybody lives. It’s one of the things I love most about Judaism … it’s about really appreciating that this is good for me, and it may not be good for somebody else, so I’m not going to impose what I want on everyone else, but I’m going to listen. And that’s what film allows audiences to do: go and to listen. And we don’t do enough of that.

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Opinion: Pesach dilemmas in Budapest

Leave a Comment / News, Opinion / Jewish Journal

Budapest may be the only capital in Europe where a member of Parliament could raise the blood libel accusation against Jews and essentially get away with it.

The blood libel accuses Jews of murdering Christian children to use their blood to make matzah or carry out other rituals.

And in a speech before Parliament less than 24 hours before the start of Pesach, a lawmaker from the far-right, anti-Israel, anti-Jewish and anti-Roma Jobbik Party essentially did just that.

MP Zsolt Barath cited a notorious blood libel case that took place exactly 130 years ago in the Hungarian village of Tizsaeszlar.

In April 1882, just a few days before Pesach, local Jews were accused of murdering a teenage Hungarian girl. The case touched off a wave of anti-Semitic violence and political agitation that lasted for years.

The Jews were eventually acquitted after a lengthy trial. But in his speech last week, Barath questioned the verdict, saying it had come due to “outside pressure” and that Jews were “severely implicated” in the case.

Barath’s speech and the lack of immediate response from top officials shocked and outraged Jews here.

It confirmed for many the widespread perception that anti-Semitism in Hungary is becoming not just increasingly open, but increasingly tolerated and legitimized.

“Jobbik has already made too many such statements,” said Israeli ambassador Ilan Mor. “It’s time to state clearly that “enough is enough.”

Rabbi Ferenc Raj hammered this home the next night at a communal seder organized by Bet Orim, an American-style reform congregation he helped found. Raj, who left Hungary in 1972, is rabbi emeritus of Congregation Beth El in Berkeley and divides his time between Budapest and the San Francisco Bay Area.

“Zsolt Barath must resign,” he told the dozens of guests seated at long tables in the auditorium of the modern Balint House JCC in downtown Budapest.

“Hungary’s prime minister cannot remain silent,” he said. “You can’t just sweep it under the rug.”

The degree of anti-Semitism in Hungary has been a constant subject of discussion for years, but the debate sharpened since Jobbik won nearly 17 percent of the vote in the 2010 elections that gave an overwhelming mandate to a right-wing government led by the Fidesz Party.

A report by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) released last month added fuel to the fire.

Based on a telephone survey in which callers asked 500 people in 10 countries four questions regarding anti-Semitic stereotypes, it concluded that a whopping 63 percent of Hungarians held anti-Semitic attitudes.

The survey prompted headlines in the Hungarian media, with some commentators citing it as proof of a huge rise in anti-Semitism.

But Mircea Cernov, who heads an organization called Haver that teaches schoolchildren about Jews, Roma and other minorities, called it “superficial” and “manipulative” and said it could have a negative impact on organizations like Haver that were trying to carry out serious social action and other educational work.

Sociologist Andras Kovacs, Hungary’s leading analyst of both Jewish communal development and anti-Semitic trends in Hungary, called into question its accuracy on several counts.

Kovacs has been methodically tracking anti-Semitism in Hungary for more than 15 years. He told me that according to his research, the proportion of anti-Semites in Hungary would be 20 to 25 percent.

That still might mean that Hungary is the most anti-Semitic country of the 10 surveyed by the ADL, but it is still much lower than what was shown in the ADL survey.

Kovacs faulted the ADL survey for employing a faulty methodology that favored responses from hard-core anti-Semites.

“People who were undecided or uninterested or who simply didn’t want to reply to such questions from unknown cold-callers on the phone would not have answered,” he said.

In addition, he said, the survey used questions about stereotypes that could lead to ambiguous interpretations.

“We don’t know how much the fact that someone holds a stereotype can be used to measure his or her actual hatred of Jews,” he said.

Naturally anti-Semitism was a theme that came up in conversations I had with my Jewish friends in Budapest before and during Pesach.

It was clear that most were concerned, some of them very concerned, but at the same time, they were not letting fear rule their lives.

“Many people are afraid, but in their everyday normal life they are not in danger,” Andras Heisler, a former president of the Federation of Jewish Communities in Hungary, the Hungarian Jewish umbrella organization, told me.

They are certainly not cowering behind barred doors.

At Pesach, I made a “seder crawl” that took me to the Bet Orim seder and two others on the first night and one additional seder on the second.

I had been invited to all of them, and seder hopping was how I dealt with the dilemma of having to make a choice about which to attend.

Each was a big communal affair for dozens of people, organized by one of Budapest’s plethora of different Jewish groups and congregations. They all took place in and around the city’s downtown old Jewish quarter, in venues ranging from a modern JCC auditorium to the formal dining room of a popular restaurant to a funky basement youth cafe.

“There are a lot of positive things going on in Budapest,” Cernov told me. “Jewish community life is not about anti-Semitism.”

Ruth Ellen Gruber writes frequently about Jewish life and heritage in Europe. Her books include “National Geographic Jewish Heritage Travel: A Guide to Eastern Europe” and “Virtually Jewish: Reinventing Jewish Culture in Europe.” She also blogs on Jewish heritage and travel at jewish-heritage-travel.blogspot.com.

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Opinion: We are all here

Leave a Comment / News, Opinion / Jewish Journal

“Mir zaynen do!” The Yiddish song, composed in the Vilna ghetto during World War II, is defiant. “We are here!” it thunders.

On Holocaust Remembrance Day, April 19, I recall this stirring anthem from the land of my Jewish forebears, and I remember with sorrow that very few who sang it back then survived. When the German army invaded Lithuania, Jews were massacred with a swiftness and thoroughness that was unusual even for that time. By the end of the war, only 6 percent of the Jewish population of 240,000 remained alive.

When I visited the country of my Jewish roots, I was seeking a connection to people long gone — those who are not here.

Lithuania is where my great-grandmother Asne managed a dairy farm, my great-grandfather Dovid-Mikhl studied the Torah, and my grandfather Yankl was a yeshiva student before fleeing to America to escape the draft. It is the land where my great-uncle Will was confined in a ghetto before being shoved into a boxcar bound for Dachau, and the land where my great-uncle Aaron was sentenced to Siberian exile for daring to publish a Hebrew-language newspaper.

Yet in Lithuania, to my surprise, I found not only a connection to the past but also hope for the future.

I met with educators, officials and ordinary citizens — Jews and non-Jews — who believe that if Lithuania is to grow into a mature society, Lithuanians must closely examine their past. These brave people are encouraging their fellow citizens to reach beyond age-old stereotypes, to extend the bounds of empathy, to step through doorways.

On Yom HaShoah, I remember them.

I met with two women who were employed by the Lithuanian government to design Holocaust curricula for public schools. They stressed to me that the Holocaust was not only a tragedy for the Jews but also for all Lithuanians. “Our goal,” they said, “is to transform ourselves from a society of bystanders into an active civil society.” If we are to prevent future genocides, they told me, all hands are needed in the project of understanding and repair.

I spoke with a leader of the House of Memory, an organization that mobilizes students to interview old-timers, including their own elderly relatives, about the lost Jewish world. The students comb through old newspapers. They take photographs of the bakery that was once a synagogue, the warehouse that used to be a Jewish school.

As the old Jewish world becomes vivid to them, they begin to question and to change.

I talked to a young woman who was writing a teacher’s guide for use in Lithuanian high schools. Among the searing questions she was posing were these:

Have you ever been in a situation where someone needed your help and you didn’t provide it?

If so, why did you behave like others, rather than following your conscience?

Is there a connection between your answers and the behavior of people during the war?

The way forward is not easy. The end of World War II did not bring peace to Lithuania. As the country was incorporated into the Soviet Union, there was a guerrilla struggle and tens of thousands of deportations to Siberia. By 1991, when the Soviet Union collapsed, half a century under two regimes had turned Lithuania into a cauldron seething with competing martyrdoms, hatreds and resentments.

There is no question that anti-Semitism is present in Lithuania today. I saw swastikas spray-painted on Jewish gravestones. I heard more than one person repeat the morally repugnant calculation that only 1 percent of Lithuanians had killed Jews, but another 1 percent had helped Jews, and so the score was even. There have been neo-Nazi marches in the capital city of Vilnius. The government has failed to prosecute elderly Lithuanians who were Nazi war criminals, yet has pointed the finger at several elderly Jews who fought as partisans against the Nazis. The accusation of Holocaust dismissal or distortion has been justly applied to some.

Yet in this sometimes hostile environment, some are working toward a more tolerant tomorrow. Inspired by their example, I feel myself challenged to question the black-and-white categories I grew up with, to expand my sympathies beyond the boundaries I was taught as a child.

Can we, the descendants of the victims of the Nazi era, honor the memory of the Holocaust without perpetuating the hatreds of the past? Can we forge a connection with those who now live in the places where Jewish culture was annihilated? Survivors of the most terrible times may find it difficult or impossible — or even inappropriate — to move on beyond hatred. But for people like me, members of the later generations after the Holocaust, I see a different role — an opportunity to reach beyond old divisions.

The attempt we make to open our minds and our hearts, to listen and to comprehend — this, I believe, is where hope for the future lies, for Lithuania, for Eastern Europe, for other countries struggling to emerge from conflict, for all of us.

Before I visited Lithuania, the defiant refrain of the ghetto anthem — “We are here!” — struck me as unbearably sad. Now, for me, the song embodies a new meaning. It still evokes the absence of all those who are not here. But I also hear a bid for all of us who will shape the future to stand together, as fellow beings with the capacity for moral choice.

“Mir zaynen do!” We are all here.

She will be speaking in the Los Angeles area on June 18 at the Jewish Genealogy Society of L.A. (http://jgsla.org/) and on June 19 at the Pasadena Jewish Temple and Center (http://www.pjtc.net).

Ellen Cassedy is the author of “We Are Here: Memories of the Lithuanian Holocaust” (University of Nebraska Press, 2012). She lives near Washington, D.C.

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How vegans do Passover

Leave a Comment / Holidays, Is Featured?, Judaism, News / Jewish Journal

Holidays like Passover are a difficult time for Jewish vegans and animal activists, a time of mixed emotions. As much as we love and find relevance in the meaning of the holiday, it’s difficult to be confronted by a table full of the body parts of animals that we love and fight for daily. Some vegans forgo Passover entirely, and some who celebrate with their families feel pressured to defend their ethical choices, or pressured to eat things that conflict with their values. Some are no longer invited to their family’s tables at all.

Last year, my wife and I decided to start a new Passover tradition for our friends: a “veder,” or vegan seder. All of the traditional dishes were served — matzah brie, brisket, gefilte fish, potato latkes, matzah ball soup, kugel and macaroons — in veganized versions without meat, dairy or eggs. Though not all the dishes are appropriate for Passover, the meaning of the holiday and the traditional foods serve to reconnect us to our Jewish roots.

This year was different. One of our guests, 5-year-old Felix, has been vegan her entire life. She did a great job reading the Four Questions. Yes, not exactly traditional, but the tradition that we are creating is our own.

Not only did we add some interesting new dishes like veganized deviled eggs, cashew-based artisan cheese and a couple of vanilla cakes, my wife and I added two new family members to our tribe: two beagles who were liberated from an animal testing lab in Spain. Frederick and Douglass, named after the former slave and abolitionist leader, were rescued last Thanksgiving by Beagle Freedom Project (beaglefreedomproject.org). The nonprofit organization works to find homes for former laboratory animals.

Like our ancestors whose story we retell every year about their liberation from Egypt, Frederick and Douglass were liberated from enslavement, too. Hundreds of millions of nonhuman animals suffer in private and university laboratories all over the world as test subjects whose rights and dignity are taken away from them.

Douglass finding the afikomen

Freddie and Douglass’ story is an important story to tell at our veder, because theirs is unique. Most animals in vivisection labs never make it out alive. Most are killed during testing. The ones that survive experiments are killed because they are no longer useful to labs and have no monetary value.

Our veder is really not much different than most others except that as vegans and animal rights activists, we see animals as fellow innocent victims. We decide to include and remember the 10 billion animals who are killed for food each year in the United States, the hundreds of millions in vivisection laboratories, the animals enslaved in zoos, circuses, racetracks and water parks for human entertainment, and the millions killed for fur, leather, wool and silk.

Although being vegan is still outside the mainstream, it is in no way a rejection of the values we grew up with. In fact, the very teachings of Judaism encourage us to question authority, protect those who are most vulnerable, and take action against oppression and injustice — qualities that are common, if not necessary, to vegans and animal activists.

After retelling the Passover story, much food was eaten, and much wine was drunk. As the night was winding down, we noticed Douglass running through the dining room. He found the afikomen before our friend’s daughter! Yet another new tradition at our veder is born.

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UPDATE: Shooter of Trayvon Martin arrested, charged with murder

Leave a Comment / News, United States / Jewish Journal

A Florida prosecutor filed a murder charge on Wednesday against the neighborhood watch volunteer who shot and killed unarmed, black teenager Trayvon Martin in a case that has captivated the United States and prompted civil rights demonstrations.

George Zimmerman, 28, was arrested and charged with second-degree murder in the death of 17-year-old Martin, according to Angela Corey, the special prosecutor appointed by Florida’s governor to investigate the racially charged case.

Corey said at a news conference on Wednesday that Zimmerman turned himself in to authorities, who then arrested him. He remains in police custody.

Zimmerman, who is white Hispanic, said he acted in self-defense during a confrontation in a gated community in the central Florida city of Sanford on Feb. 26. Police declined to arrest Zimmerman, citing Florida’s “Stand Your Ground” law, which allows people to use deadly force when they believe they are in danger of getting killed or suffering great bodily harm.

The shooting that took place 45 days ago received only scant local media attention at first and went unnoticed nationally until Martin’s parents and lawyers kept making public calls for Zimmerman’s arrest, eventually leading to a fire storm of media coverage, and celebrity tweets, and a comment from President Barack Obama: “If I had a son, he would look like Trayvon.”

The disputed facts of the case have been picked apart endlessly by television commentators while dominating the headlines and reigniting a national discussion about guns, self-defense laws and what it means to be black in America.

Zimmerman went into hiding shortly after the shooting.

Zimmerman’s relatives and supporters say he is not racist and has been unfairly vilified. They said he feared for his life during his altercation with Martin and was justified in using deadly force.

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This year, more Angelenos than ever get Passover aid from local agencies

Leave a Comment / California, Community, Holidays, Is Featured?, News / Ryan Torok

This year, more than 1,000 Los Angeles families in need received food from organizations that provide assistance specifically for Passover.

During the weeks leading up to the first seder, on April 6, visitors to distribution sites set up by agencies, synagogues and organizations took home essentials for the holiday — wine, grape juice, matzah, gefilte fish, horseradish, eggs and more — so that they could have seders and kosher food for the eight days of the holiday.

Low-income families received assistance from Tomchei Shabbos, Global Kindness, Valley Beth Shalom, JFS/SOVA, the Israeli Leadership Council, the Iranian American Jewish Federation (IAJF) and elsewhere. Social workers from Jewish Family Service, a nonsectarian social service agency, referred many individuals and families in need to food-giving agencies. Tomchei Shabbos, which provides donations of kosher food to Los Angeles Orthodox families weekly, served additional families for Passover.

The majority of recipients this year were people who’ve lost their jobs in the recent recession, including, said Rabbi Yona Landau, executive director of Tomchei Shabbos, “people who got sick and couldn’t work, people who were abandoned, women who were abandoned by their husbands and they have to care of the family themselves.

“There’s a lot of different cases,” Landau said. “If they didn’t get our food, they wouldn’t have any food.”

Others receiving food assistance for Passover included immigrant families of Persian, Israeli and Russian descent; seniors with disabilities; and some divorcees, all facing major financial challenges, according to Debbie Alden, a board member of Valley Beth Shalom’s Sisterhood and Nouriel Cohen, CFO of Global Kindness. Many of the recipients were formerly volunteers at these agencies and organizations — people who used to be middle-class — but are now reliant on charity.

“We had people who were donating to us a little bit, and now they are asking, which is really sad,” said Shahla Javdan, president of the IAJF.

Because of privacy concerns, no recipient families gave their names for interviews.

On the night of April 2, an elderly woman living in West Hollywood receiving a delivery from two volunteers in their 20s, told of her problems with sciatica. “Not well,” she replied to a volunteer who asked how she was doing as they brought the food into her home.

Tomchei Shabbos volunteers delivered some of the food for Passover to recipients’ homes. Some requested that the food be left at their doorsteps.

Other recipients parked at the curb at Pico Boulevard and Weatherly Drive, the site of the organization’s storefront, waited to receive the boxes filled with produce, which they loaded into the backseats of their minivans and the trunks of their sedans with the help of eager volunteers.

Tomchei boxes were marked with only families’ initials so as not to give away their identities. Valley Beth Shalom’s distributors employed a similar method for their food giveaway.

In the days leading up to Passover, people strapped for cash shopped at Pico-Robertson grocery stores Elat Market and Glatt Mart using food coupons from the IAJF. The stores cooperated with the IAJF, selling $25 and $50 coupons at a 25 percent discount to the IAJF, which then distributed the coupons to community members.

SOVA, a program of Jewish Family Service, differentiated Passover packages for Ashkenazi and Sephardic families. Ashkenazi families received gefilte fish and horseradish, while Sephardic families received rice and dates in addition to matzah ball soup mix, macaroons, eggs, walnuts and matzah.

“They will be able to do a nice seder with what they receive,” Fred Summers, director of operations at JFS/SOVA, said. “Some of the things will last longer than one night, [but] it will probably not be an eight-day supply.

The numbers of those in need might surprise some. JFS/SOVA provided for approximately 700 individuals and families for Passover, according to Summers. Tomchei Shabbos served around 600 families, estimated Landau. VBS distributed 124 boxes filled with Passover items, Global Kindness helped nearly 350 families, the Israeli Leadership Council provided assistance for more than 100 families, and the IAJF distributed between $30,000 and $50,000 in food coupons, Javdan said.

More families requested Passover food this year than in previous years, Javdan, Landau and Cohen all said, and the agencies couldn’t meet all the demand. Despite news reports that the economy is improving and new jobs are being created each month, Cohen said more people are in need this year than ever before. “Not only for Passover, but for other holidays also.”

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