Businesswoman Phyllis Shuldberg Johnson passed away on July 10, 2016, at the age of 97. A memorial service is being planned. Feldman Mortuary made the arrangements.
Mrs. Johnson was born in Minneapolis, Minn., on March 3, 1929. She had an identical twin sister, Dianne Zlotnick Kirkpatrick. In junior and senior high school, they were known to trade clothes and attend English or math classes for one another, and even went on dates with each other’s boyfriends as pranks. Mrs. Kirkpatrick passed away in 2019.
In December, 1947, Phyllis, then 18, married Dr. Arthur Shuldberg. Mr. Shuldberg died in 1972 from a car accident. Phyllis later married Robert Johnson. They divorced, then remarried. Mr. Johnson died in 2019.
Mrs. Johnson was one of the first women in Denver to obtain Small Business Administration loan. She purchased her first commercial property, a retail zoned house in which she operated the clothing store, “Sample Shack.”
Mrs. Johnson ventured into real estate and property management with her son Mike.
Mrs. Johnson spent 60 years doing business in Cherry Creek and serving on the Cherry Creek North Business Improvement District.
Survivors are daughters Susan (Robert) Benz, Stephanie (Robb) Opie and Allyson Shuldberg; and grandchildren Jennifer (Andre Anderson) Benz, Melissa (Chad Allen) Eccles, Emily (Jeff Wright) Benz, Matthew (Laura Lucena) Eccles, Kristin (Phil) Opie Simmons and Christopher (Kari) Opie.
Contributions may be made to a favorite children’s or animal charity, or to the rabbi’s discretionary fund at Temple Emanuel.
Genya Reznik
Genya Reznik died on June 17, 2026. She was 88. A service was held on June 21 at Rose Hill Cemetery. Feldman Mortuary handled the arrangements.
Born in Virtuzhany, Moldova, on November 20, 1937, Mrs. Reznik’s family relocated to Kiev, Ukraine, where she spent much of her youth.
After earning her college degree, Genya pursued a career as an engineer.
In December, 1960, she married Yefim Reznik. In 1995, they immigrated to the US and remained a couple until Mr. Reznik’s death in 2003.
“Despite this profound loss, she continued to live with grace, resilience and unwavering love for her family,” Mrs. Reznik’s family said.
“She spent the remainder of her life surrounded by those she cherished most. She will be remembered for her strength, kindness, wisdom and deep love for her family.”
Survivors are Mrs. Reznik’s daughter Marina (Senya); brother Boris; and grandchildren Inna and Alex.
The Anti-Defamation League was put on trial at the Aug. 11, 2026 Boulder Valley School District (BVSD) Board Meeting.
A meeting that was ostensibly about addressing the insufficient attention of BVSD, and particularly Southern Hills Middle School, to acts of documented anti-Semitism of a student at that middle school for more than two years, turned into a forum for person after person explaining why ADL’s anti-bias programming did not belong in the school district.
While the IHRA definition does not include mention of Israel or Zionism, its accompanying “manifestations” include “Denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination, e.g., by claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor” and “Applying double standards by requiring of it a behavior not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation.”
One woman who said she was of South African descent said that the “apartheid of Israel was more violent than that of South Africa,” calling ADL a “grotesque evil” and an “ideology that subscribes Jewish lives as more precious.”
Superintendent Rob Anderson, on the other hand, forthrightly addressed the issue at hand.
He offered a public apology to BVSD families and students at the beginning of the meeting, and explicitly to the student and family named in the ADL complaint.
He acknowledged that the actions taken by BVSD were insufficient, and that he was ultimately responsible and accountable in ensuring such incidents do not occur again.
He also shared that he had been in mediation with ADL, and in meetings with Jewish community leaders.
Anderson said that there would be system wide changes to address anti-Semitism and hate, and a new page on the BVSD website (including a business card with a link to the site).
He also spoke about the need for increased training for administrators and educators, and the establishment of a new Title VI advisory council. Future serial offenders, he said, would be removed from school.
Jewish testimony
Young students were the first speakers at open comment, including two about to start 7th grade at Southern Hills.
One said that she was “angry, hurt, and even a little scared. I shouldn’t have to be afraid to wear a Jewish star, miss school for Jewish holidays, etc.” She ended her emotional two-minute speech by asking what the district planned to do to prevent further incidents like the ones in the complaint from occurring.
Another student said that she had written a letter to the superintendent — to which she never received a response — about what it means to “take action.” She advocated for ADL’s No Place For Hate program to be brought to her school. She planned on sending her letter to the board.
A Jewish parent shared that her child was repeatedly harassed by other students saying, “Free Palestine” and calling her child a “baby killer.”
The parent called it “identity-based harassment” and said that since Oct. 7, 2023, the date of the Hamas massacre in Israel, this kind of language has been a “rallying cry for hate.”
Multiple parents — Jewish and non-Jewish — asked the board
• to continue rely on ADL’s partnership;
• to comprehensively examine and revise reporting guidelines for anti-Semitism, including clear public reporting protocol and who is accountable; and
• to consider the importance of an independent monitor.
Many parents emphasized the need for significantly more training for staff so they learn to better recognize anti-Semitism and hate.
Another parent expressed that comments like those expressed at the meeting are what their kids are experiencing, and defined it as Jew-hatred.
Multiple parents shared their concern for the safety of their children, and expressed that their children did not feel safe being “visibly Jewish” in school.
Vituperative words on Israel, ADL
Lisa Kunkel, who started a petition against ADL’s anti-bias program being featured in BVSD schools said, “ADL is not a neutral organization.” Boulder Democratic Socialists of America promoted her petition on its Instagram.
Kunkel said she does not accept the IHRA definition of anti-Semitism utilized by ADL.
While she and others condemned anti-Semitism, they used much of their time to denounce Israel. ADL contributed to “US sponsored genocide, including Israel’s indiscriminate killing of thousands of children,” she stated.
Another parent called ADL “a compromised organization that denies the genocide of Palestinians.”
Another accused ADL of shutting down free speech and called the IHRA definition inaccurate and harmful, declaring that “Israel is committing a genocide in Gaza and the West Bank.”
Another speaker, who participates in the weekly Saturday anti-Israel demonstrations in Boulder — stated that “Islamophobia is much more of a problem than anti-Semitism” and that the Jewish minority was being prioritized. Another one of the anti-Israel demonstration regulars said the ADL has a “pro-Zionist anti-Palestinian world view.” A third regular called the ADL a “phoney anti-defamation organization” and a “lobbying group for the State of Israel.”
Aaron Stone, former Boulder City Council candidate who protested the Boulder Run For Their Lives walks, also spoke out against the ADL, wearing a red T-shirt with the words “Zionism is Fascism.”
Jewish communal response
In his public comments, Rabbi Fred Greene of Har HaShem returned the focus to the students being targeted and their sense of not feeling safe.
When asked about his sense of how the meeting went, Rabbi Greene said:
“I deeply appreciate the superintendent’s sincere effort to address anti-Semitism in our schools, because Jewish students in this district are experiencing real harm — feeling unsafe, unseen and vulnerable.
“And when they are seen, they are too often tagged with anti-Jewish hate.
“I found many of tonight’s characterizations of the ADL and Israel as pro-genocide to be unfair and misleading, and I’m concerned that rhetoriclike that can obscure the actual crisis we’re trying to solve.
“There’s room for thoughtful debate about specific definitions like the IHRA framework, and those conversations should happen — but they shouldn’t distract from our urgent responsibility to protect students, many of whom are currently suffering.”
For Eldad Malka, regional director of the Israel-American Council (IAC), the anti-Israel open comment “served as a great example of how one can take a specific topic [anti-Semitic harassment of a Jewish student] and bring in a political agenda that is not related. It doesn’t matter what Israel is doing or not doing; what matters is that there is anti-Semitism in schools, and a Jewish community that is a minority in Boulder that is feeling threatened, not safe and not welcomed. That is what should be addressed.”
After the meeting, Bruce Shaffer, former co-lead of Boulder Run For Their Lives, said he wondered if “BVSD members anticipated the division they heard tonight, and the foreseeable targeting of ADL. They are elected public officials with a duty to consider all perspectives. They might have to get creative. I hope they get it right. It’s Jews who were consistently and violently targeted. Period.”
Another Jewish parent who spoke asked the Board to summon the necessary “moral clarity.”
Stefanie Clarke of Colorado Jewish Action Alliance offered the following summary of the Aug. 11 meeting:
“We were encouraged to hear Superintendent Anderson acknowledge BVSD’s failures in addressing anti-Semitism and propose concrete steps to address it.
“But the public comment that followed showed just how toxic this discourse has become. The conversation shifted away from the experiences of Jewish students and turned into attacks on the ADL, Israel and Zionism.
“For many in the Boulder Jewish community, that hostility underscores why so many Jewish students and families are afraid to speak up. This behavior has been allowed to fester for too long.
“The district now has an obligation to act. The focus must be on protecting Jewish students — not discrediting the people and organizations who brought these failures to light.”
For the ADL, the meeting and the testimony of the Jewish students “reinforces why this issue and our Title VI complaint are so important,” wrote regional director Susan Rona on X.
“BVSD must keep student safety and their experiences with antisemitism front and center and take meaningful action to protect these students, the student named in the complaint and all Jewish students. We appreciate that Superintendent Dr. Rob Anderson recognizes the need for change and look forward to continuing the work to reach a mediated settlement agreement that implements critical reforms and systemic changes for students at BVSD.”
In case you missed it, I’ve started a puzzle gemach (free loan). Thousand-piece puzzles have become one of my favorite ways to tune out the world. As one works on a puzzle, it’s nearly impossible to think about anything outside the puzzle. One’s mind is focused on color, shapes and pattern, the magic of disparate pieces emerging into a completed picture.
Like with any hobby, life lessons abound. Working on a circular image recently, I learned that sometimes you need to turn a section around to see how it fits together. It got me considering things we do because they are the status quo. How often do we turn the question on its head, looking at it from a totally different perspective?
Two problems with puzzling, however, are usage and cost. I will do puzzles a second or even third time, but I have to wait at least six months in between. For months on end, it’s just sitting there, collecting dust. And puzzles are expensive! Although I often purchase secondhand puzzles, there is always the fear of missing pieces.
A gemach, which is a free loan society, is the perfect way for my puzzles to get used. You won’t be able to glue it when you’re finished, but it also won’t clog up your cupboard or drain your wallet.
Have you seen the latest Open AI commercials? Do you also find them creepy? They feature elderly people, mostly women, using ChatGPT. The subliminal message seems to be — if the demographic furthest removed from new technology find ChatGPT fun and useful, who are you to be skeptical? There’s an exploitative vibe to the bits, a kind of reverse ageism.
A word of warning: If you’re using ChatGPT, Claude or any AI, pay for the tier that prevents it (allegedly) from retaining your data. Otherwise, you’re feeding it what it needs to eventually overtake you.
It reminds me of when in the late ’90s and early 2000s companies such as Siemens were so hungry for the Chinese market they essentially gave away their blueprints. Surprise, surprise. Fast-forward 20 years and those Chinese companies are now selling more of that knock-off Siemens product than Siemens is itself.
Speaking of AI, the gemach will not stock puzzles made using it. I still want to support artists where I can.
For 32 years, Esther Melamed has been the secular studies principal at Beth Jacob High School. That’s a lot of students she has seen and guided. Melamed estimates that over the years she has taught 800 to 900 graduates; a perfect background to bolster conversations about the 250th anniversary of the US and the future of America.
Most people spend their later years looking back. Harold Grinspoon has spent his reinventing himself. The billionaire businessman became a philanthropist. The philanthropist discovered Jewish children’s books and created PJ Library. In his late 80s, he became a sculptor after a cherry tree fell in his yard.
Now, as he turns 97, Grinspoon is reflecting on the unexpected pivots that have defined both his life and his approach to Jewish giving.
Known for PJ Library — designed to engage young Jewish families with monthly deliveries of age-appropriate children’s books and music — Grinspoon and his eponymous foundation have focused on programs that, in the spirit of the real estate business that made his fortune, build Jewish habits, institutions and relationships that he hopes will outlast him.
“I was 10 years old in 1939 when the Holocaust began. The horrific news of what was occurring to the Jews in Europe over the ensuing years made a deep impression on me,” he recalled in a recent interview.
“I have spent my life reflecting on the inhumanity of the Holocaust and what small part I could play in helping to rebuild the Jewish community.”
That help is also coming from JCamp 180, a program that now supports over 175 Jewish day and overnight camps, and Life and Legacy.
With Life and Legacy’s assistance, $350 million has been placed into organizational endowments, and over $2.2 billion has been committed for the future of Jewish communities.
Visitors to the foundation headquarters in Western Massachusetts find a philanthropy looking for answers to out-of-the-box questions in the Jewish world.
How can art be used to promote Jewish values?
What’s the best way to help local farmers?
What do lay-led congregations known as havurot need to thrive?
Many of these questions are posed by Grinspoon himself.
“Harold shows up, asks questions, listens, and follows through,” Jamie Simon, CEO of the Foundation for Jewish Camp, says.
Simon first met Grinspoon when she headed up Camp Towanga, a Jewish overnight camp near Yosemite National Park. She remembers how on a visit, he laced up his hiking boots for the steep hike down to the river, eager for an up-close look.
Adrian Dion, COO of the Harold Grinspoon Foundation says that Grinspoon likes to take his early morning work meetings during his daily 4-mile walk. Once, they encountered a flooded road.
“We took off our socks and shoes and walked through, then jumped in the back of a pickup to get back. That’s Harold. Roll with the punches but keep the work going,” she wrote about the avid outdoorsman.
In his interview, Grinspoon reflected on his turning points, philanthropy, world travels and discovering a new life as an artist.
“I always knew that if I made money, that I would give it back to the Jewish people,” Grinspoon says.
If” became “when” in 1991, when he and his wife, Diane Troderman, founded HGF. He had made his money as founder of Aspen Square Management, a property development company in Agawam, Massachusetts, near where the couple live.
In his mid-70s, Grinspoon, a cancer survivor and grandfather, was introduced to the world of Jewish children’s books by his daughter-in-law, Winnie Sandler Grindspoon. He was concerned by research showing that young Jewish families were increasingly opting out of synagogues and other legacy Jewish institutions.
Grinspoon had no idea that there were beautifully illustrated Jewish-themed books that his grandkids were eager to read. The challenge — and opportunity — was getting them into the hands of Jewish parents.
He launched PJ Library in 2005, inspired by Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library, a national literacy program he supported in his area.
Today, the HGF’s signature program is a global, multi-lingual organization with more than 670,000 subscribers in 40 countries, across five continents.
A sister program in Israel, Sifriyat Pijama, reaches 350,000 children, while Maktabat-al-Fanoos provides books in Arabic to Arab-speaking school children.
Grinspoon marvels about the endurance of PJ Library, whose name is a nod to family bedtime reading. According to Naomi Firestone-Teeter, CEO of the Jewish Book Council:
“PJ Library has helped create a strong, reliable audience for Jewish children’s books.
“We’ve seen that influence reflected in the revival of out-of-print titles and the introduction of new voices and books that speak to the diversity and richness of Jewish life.”
The year before PJ Library began, HGF established JCamp 180.
The foundation committed up to $10 million to a matching fund to help the overnight camps weather the pandemic crisis, when they had to cancel an entire summer session.
The foundation, with assets reported at just over $1 billion as of 2025, along with its philanthropic partners, has invested more than $700 million in Jewish programming and communities in Israel, the US, and around the world.
In 2012, the foundation launched Life and Legacy, aimed at strengthening management at Jewish institutions across the country.
Sandler Grinspoon is the current president of the Harold Grinspoon Foundation but will soon retire from the role and remain as a board chair.
Through a second foundation, the Harold Grinspoon Charitable Foundation, her father-in-law supports numerous non-Jewish civic causes, including awards programs for local farmers and educators.
Grinspoon’s wealth and optimism belie his early years. Born in 1929, Grinspoon was raised in a poor family in Newton, a suburb of Boston. One of five kids, he attended elementary school in Auburndale, one of the city’s neighborhoods with few Jewish residents.
Dyslexic and bullied because he was Jewish, Grinspoon attended Newton’s vocational high school, where he was one of the few Jewish students.
To earn money when he attended Marlboro College in Vermont, Grinspoon sold ice cream in the summer, so successfully that he left school to manage a fleet of ice cream trucks.
After serving in the US Navy, Grinspoon bought a two-family home in West Springfield, Mass. He renovated homes in need of repair and rented them as affordable housing.
Over the decades, his real estate enterprise expanded across the country.
A decade after launching PJ Library, the ever-ebullient Grinspoon, then approaching 90, had another “aha” moment that once again transformed his life.
When a large cherry tree fell in the yard of his home, Grinspoon didn’t feel right having it carted away. Instead, he set to work creating a large sculpture from the distressed wood.
‘FLOATING’ — one of Grinspoon’s large-scale, modern, abstract sculptures, many of which are on display in the Berkshire Mountains of Western Massachusetts.
This led him into the life of a sculptor. Working with an artistic partner for the past seven years, he’s created more than 140 large-scale, modern, abstract sculptures, many on display in the Berkshire Mountains of Western Massachusetts, where he supports a Jewish and local institutions.
He works with distressed wood and recently, with modern media, including found objects. Among his works is “Cosmic Dreidel” and “Floating,” a towering piece of 550 12-inch glass and stainless steel balls (see left).
Grinspoon acknowledges the distressing rise in anti-Semitism. “My mind flashes back to when I was a young kid and anti-Semitism was rampant. This is the second time it has happened in my lifetime,” he says.
Post Oct. 7, 2023, his foundation continues its investment in programs that connect Jews around the world with Israel.
“This is a moment in time to double down on our flagship programs — PJ Library, Life and Legacy and JCamp 180,” Adrian Dior, the foundation’s COO, wrote. “We will continue to grow and evolve as we have for the last 30 years,” and continue to look for new partners.
“I believe in helping others. Being generous. Being grateful. We try to be good citizens,” he says.
In celebration of his 95th birthday, Springfield Mayor Domenic J. Sarno presented Grinspoon with the key to the city, the largest in Western Massachusetts.
Grinspoon says one of his greatest sources of optimism is Maktabat al-Fanoos, the Arabic-language children’s literacy program his foundation supports in Israel.
It builds on family connections in service of creating civic and communal connections.
“It gives me hope,” he wrote. “I hope all Israeli citizens can be great neighbors.”
Israel has rejected a Gaza peace plan advanced with much fanfare by President Donald Trump, saying it did not really guarantee disarmament by Hamas.
Israel said it would not withdraw from any part of Gaza until Hamas is thoroughly disarmed.
Hamas has said that it needs “personal weapons” to retain its authority over the Gaza population, raising the question as to who authorized them to exercise that power over Gaza to begin with.
It last won an election in Gaza in 2007.
Israel’s rejection has thrown into public view an area of dispute between the two longtime allies, even as Hamas says it never agreed to disarm completely.
Israel’s statement came in the hours after Trump posted to his Truth Social account July 30: The US-convened Board of Peace had announced a “HISTORIC” agreement that would lead to the “COMPLETE DISARMAMENT” of Hamas.
“CONGRATULATIONS TO ALL ON THIS AMAZING DEVELOPMENT, THAT EVERYBODY SAID COULD NEVER BE ACHIEVED!” Trump posted.
Referring to the Hamas attack on Israel that initiated the Gaza war, he added, “The threat that emerged from Gaza on October 7 will NOT be allowed to rebuild!”
The Board of Peace had announced a deal several hours ahead of Trump, saying, “For the first time, Hamas officially has committed to an actionable plan for relinquishing all its weapons, which will be followed by Israeli withdrawal from Gaza.”
Hamas officials said they had accepted the plan in principle but were waiting for Israel to sign on.
Ghazi Hamad, a senior official, told Reuters on July 31 that Israel must accept the plan before Hamas would disarm.
“Certainly, it is not what our people aspire to after their epic battle on the path to liberation,” tweeted Basem Naim, a former Hamas health minister who does not live in Gaza, but in Turkey.
The Israeli rejection said the plan did not “adequately address” Israel’s demands that Hamas must be divested of its weapons, and that the weapons must be removed from Gaza, and that the Gaza Strip must be demilitarized.
It did not mention Trump or the Board of Peace, the entity Trump established last year in part to supplant the UN, a body he does not trust.
“There will be no Israeli withdrawal from the Yellow Line in the Gaza Strip until Hamas is disarmed and the strip is demilitarized,” the statement said.
The Yellow Line demarcates the areas Hamas and Israel control in Gaza; Israel still controls just over half of the strip.
Executive members of the Board of Peace inclue Tony Blair, Secretary of State Marco Rubio; Middle East peace envoy Steve Witkoff; Trump’s chief of staff Susie Wiles; and Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner.
The Israeli statement did not mention Nickolay Mladenov, the board’s High Representative for Gaza, who first posted the news about the ostensible agreement.
“Implementation and verification have to be real,” Mladenov said. “Withdrawal must move in lockstep with decommissioning.”
US officials said:
“We’re not asking Israel to do anything that isn’t in the 20-point plan that they agreed to initially, and so we’re very confident they will adhere to it,” an official told the Times of Israel, referring to the agreement that brought about the release of Israeli hostages on Oct. 10, 2025.
“If they don’t, President Trump would be very, very disappointed.”
The 20-point plan requires total disarmament by Hamas. No progress toward that goal has been made.
Netanyahu, facing elections in October, is under pressure from the Israeli right not to relinquish Gaza.
His coalition last year absented itself from the Knesset when the opposition brought up Trump’s 20-point plan for a vote of approval.
Netanyahu last year accepted the plan in an appearance with Trump, but he has not sought its ratification.
Axios also reported that Trump and Netanyahu spoke about Gaza in their meeting this week, when Netanyahu met with Trump in the US July 28. But Israel said, “The topic of Gaza did not come up at all between Prime Minister Netanyahu and President Trump.”
In his statement, Trump also singled out Turkey and Qatar for helping to broker the deal. Israel reviles both countries as enabling Hamas, and their presence on the Board of Peace initially delayed Israel’s own entrance.
Some people return to the places that shaped them simply to reminisce. Rabbi Jordan Shaner is returning to help shape the next generation.
Years after sitting in the classrooms of Temple Sinai as a child, he has come home as the congregation’s new rabbinic director of Jewish learning, bringing his journey full circle.
That journey began as grandson of well-known Jewish Denverites, the late Meyer “Timmy” and Evelyn Shaner and the late Fred and Miriam Hoffman. His parents are Mark and Hanna Shaner.
Jordan’s family started out going to Beth Joseph when they lived in Denver. His parents moved to the south suburbs and they became involved with Temple Sinai, where he attended religious school and became a Bar Mitzvah under the aegis of Rabbi Raymond Zwerin.
For early elementary school, Shaner went to Herzl Jewish Day School. After graduating Cherry Creek High School, he received a scholarship for his singing and went to DU for a BA in music. From there, he applied to Hebrew Union College to train to be a cantor.
“A little more than halfway through my training in that program, I was working at a hospital during a summer internship in clinical pastoral education, which is the way you learn to take care of people spiritually and emotionally.
“A lot of people — including Rabbi [Rick] Rheins — asked me, ‘Are you sure you don’t want to be a rabbi?’
“I talked to my wife and we decided that I’d stick around a few more years in rabbinical school and go that route.”
Shaner was ordained as a cantor in 2017 before his rabbinical ordination two years later.
He landed at another congregation called Temple Sinai in Toronto, where he served as associate rabbi under the mentorship of Rabbi Michael Dolgin, whom he admires as a “tremendous Zionist and lover of the Jewish people.”
As much as he enjoyed his work at Toronto’s Temple Sinai, he seized the opportunity to return to his hometown and work at his childhood synagogue, Denver’s Temple Sinai.
He and his wife Kate are the parents of five-year-old Meir, and they relished the idea of Meir being around his grandparents and extended family.
Meir will start kindergarten at Denver Jewish Day School in a couple of weeks, sitting on the very floor in the very classroom as his father did nearly three decades ago.
A major part of Shaner’s position as rabbinic director of Jewish learning is running Temple Sinai’s religious school of some 250 students, grades K-10. There are the administrative duties, but perhaps more important are the educational innovations Shaner is introducing.
“I think a lot of what we have been teaching kids in supplemental Jewish education is focused on getting them through their B’nai Mitzvah. Those skills are critical and important, but I really want to start to shift the focus to Hebrew instruction — seeing Hebrew as a living language.
“It’s not just a bunch of letters you need to learn to decode to read from the Torah scroll on your big day, but it’s the passport to Jewish belonging and a key to Jewish identity.”
To that end, Shaner is working with the JEWISHcolorado shinshinim —Israeli teen emissaries — and their supervisor Michelle Ruby (who was his own Hebrew school teacher) to plan Hebrew enrichment activities to give kids practice speaking.
They will also work with teachers in the school to refer to everyday objects in the classroom with Hebrew words instead of English.
“I’m developing an app with GPT as an-house version of Duolingo so the students can work on conversational Hebrew as well as the material we want them to know for the siddur, Torah and reading skills.”
Temple Sinai will be one of the first congregations piloting the B’nai Mitzvah curriculum developed by the Tell Institute, headed by Dara Horn.
Horn describes the curriculum as eight lesson plans designed for B’nai Mitzvah-age students “to learn the world-defining story about Am Yisrael — the Jewish people — a tiny countercultural minority that has always refused to bow down to tyrants or conform to dominant societies, and how people seeking domination have responded to that challenge.”
Shaner says, “It’s really focused on making sure that our kids know who we are as a people, what’s our story and how do we counter the libels that all of us have been facing over the past few years, if not more. And not in a way that’s based on a sense of victimhood or persecution, but in a way that points out that the Jewish people have something important to offer society.”
Shaner acknowledges the challenge of making religious school, Sunday school, Hebrew school — whatever it’s called — more palatable and impactful on children whose attention is divided among many other activities and interests.
“The other piece of this is there are lots of families in our community who, for whatever reason, are not able to access a full-time day school education, and this is our shot.
“We’re trying to make it a place where they’re going to be engaged, they’re going to learn and they’re going to build community with one another.
“For me, it can’t be just training for this one service that you have as a 13-year-old. They should come out with the feeling of connection that they want to continue to learn the rest of their Jewish lives.
“They don’t need to know everything, but they have to have a strong enough basis that when they go to Hillel, or when they go to summer camp or when they go to the synagogue, or when they are starting their own families, they feel that they can participate. They can make new friends and become part of the Jewish people is a real and serious way.”
Adult education is also part of Shaner’s portfolio at Temple Sinai, This, too is challenged by the competition for people’s time and attention, and he has some ideas for that as well.
“We want to continue having great lectures on Shabbat and during the week. Jewish learning can have a lot of different flavors, though. It can look like . . . learning to make shakshuka . . . sitting in on a klezmer session . . . a lot of things.”
Shaner says he wants to provide opportunities for people who might not find their way into shul for lectures and classes, to come in and find their place in the Jewish community.
“Really, the point is being together and spending time as a community and learning to love one another.
“Rabbi Dolgin in Toronto a few months ago, in one of the best sermons I ever heard him give, noted that it says in the Torah that you should love the stranger 36 times. Fine — that’s the easy part.
“The hard part is learning to love your fellow Jews.
A major fire at one of the largest kosher meat processing plants in the US is poised to increase the price of kosher meat ahead of the High Holidays, in addition to devastating the plant’s local community.
Investigators in Postville, Iowa, said July 29 that the fire that devastated Agri-Star Processing started accidentally in the facility’s laundry room.
The fire, which began on July 28, destroyed at least 75% of the plant and has put more than 600 people out of work, Fire Chief Jeff Bohr told the local TV network KCRG.
The fire has also interrupted a linchpin of kosher meat production, according to OU Kosher.
“The damaged facility means a significant portion of kosher beef and chicken slaughtered and sold in the US will not enter the kosher supply chain,” said Rabbi Moshe Elefant, the organization’s CEO. “Kosher consumers will feel the impact of the tightening supply with reduction of availability.”
Elefant said OU Kosher was working to “find solutions for ramping up production at other plants” while warning that the crisis could fuel bad actors.
“Unfortunately, when supply is limited, it creates opportunity for unscrupulous individuals who seek to make money by preying on the well-meaning Kosher observant public,” he wrote.
Jarad Bernstein, executive director of the Jewish Federation of Greater Des Moines, said the fire represented “a terrible situation.”
“The impact on the local community and the business will be large,” he said.
The fire is not the first time that a crisis at Agri-Star has sent the community into a tailspin.
In 2008, a federal immigration raid at the plant, then known as Agriprocessors, netted the arrest of hundreds of workers and led to the arrest and conviction of the company’s longtime CEO Sholom Rubashkin on 86 counts of bank fraud, mail fraud and money laundering.
It also led most of Postville’s Jewish residents to leave the town, which had developed as an unusual stronghold of Orthodox life in eastern Iowa.
Saying that many people believed Rubashkin’s 27-year prison sentence had been excessive, President Donald Trump commuted Rubashkin’s sentence in 2017. Rubashkin’s conviction stands.
Canadian Jewish billionaire Hershy Friedman purchased Agriprocessors and reopened it as Agri-Star.
He told JTA in 2016 that he had done so after being urged by Jewish leaders to ensure competition in the kosher meat processing industry.
“It wasn’t done for financial purposes; it was done to really cater to the Jewish community,” he said about the purchase. “During the time Rubashkin was closed, the price of beef roughly doubled. After we acquired it, it came right back down.”
Friedman also said he had shored up the company’s employment practices, which had run afoul of the law, and made improvements to the slaughter process that had made Agriprocessors a target of animal rights activists.
Agri-Star said July 28 that it appreciated the first responders who “worked tirelessly and selflessly to protect lives and contain the fire” and the employees who had shown “inspiring” care for each other.
It also indicated that it did not yet know the future of the plant.
“We understand there are many questions about what comes next,” Agri-Star wrote on social media. “While we are still gathering information and evaluating our short-term plans, we are committed to sharing verified updates as soon as they become available.
“We appreciate your patience as we work through this process thoughtfully and responsibly.”
A group of parents has purchased a Jewish school in Rio de Janeiro to keep it open amid declining enrollment, determined to preserve Jewish education in their region. The unusual move has led to a sudden increase in enrollment amid competition from international schools in the city.
The new Chai School in Rio de Janeiro’s Barra da Tijuca neighborhood, which runs from nursery through ninth grade, has seen enrollment increase from 163 to 210 pupils in the six months since the buyout, reversing years of decline.
The tri-lingual school, which operates in Portuguese, English and Hebrew, welcomes Jews of all denominations. It offers 60% of its students some scholarship.
About 120,000 Jews live in Brazil.
The unusual story began in 2023 when management decided to close the local branch of the largest Jewish school in Rio, Collegio A. Liessin, which had been open for eight decades.
“We were in love with this school and couldn’t understand why this place was going to shut down,” said Richard Zeiger, a prominent Brazilian venture capitalist whose oldest son was enrolled in the school.
The school is one of five Jewish schools in the city and the only one in the area.
Zeiger gathered a group of parents who negotiated with the school to keep it running the next year by getting donors.
With an eye on future enrollment, the Brazilian venture capitalist even checked in with the local mohel to see how many circumcisions he performed annually in the area.
Seeing the numbers were highly promising; the parents realized last year that to make real change and keep the school open long term, it would be necessary to own it, he said.
They raised millions of dollars and acquired the institution at the end of last year.
“Our main motivation was to preserve Jewish identity and education in the region,” said Zeiger. “If we lost the Jewish school, within 10 years the community would be assimilated.”
The nonprofit hired new educational directors for the school, while keeping its old staff, with the founding parents contributing their time voluntarily, focusing on long-term strategy, fundraising and development, including a future high school.
The school aims to reach 500 students within five years.
Dalia Tamler, one of the school’s founders and an architect, said that one of the factors behind its early success has been the renovation of its learning and recreational spaces.
“Seeing the children playing and thriving in these new spaces makes us very proud of what we are building together,” she said.
“This is a unique initiative by parents who are not educators who had a very strong and impressive will to ensure that they had a high-quality Jewish school in their area,” said Chaya Yosovich, CEO of the Jerusalem-based Yael Foundation, which awarded the new school a grant to subsidize staff.
When I read of apartment houses in Kiev bombed by Russians, it pains me.
When I learn of an Israeli soldier killed in action in southern Lebanon, it pains me.
When I am reminded of the murder of Hersh Goldberg-Polin, shot in the back, in a tunnel in Gaza, it pains me.
When I hear of a Palestinian child suffering in Gaza, it pains me.
When I hear the astonishing number of 300,000 Russian soldiers sacrificed on the imperial dream of Vladimir Putin, it pains me.
When I see the recrudescence of Hitler’s Big Lie — when I hear of “understanding” for the terror attacks against Israelis and Zionists — I cry out for Moral Clarity.
•••
When a great-grandchild is born, I have no words.
When two former hostages marry, I have no words.
When — after 12 years! — I can finally tell our identical twin granddaughters apart, I have no words.
When I awaken entirely free of pain, I have no words.
When my wife Elaine blesses the Shabbos candles, I have no words.
•••
When I see anti-Semitism, unvarnished, as in, Jews have no right to their homeland, not since 1948 and not in antiquity, it pains me.
When I learn that many died in the Venezuela earthquake due to paid-off politicians having allowed contractors to profit from using cheap construction materials, it pains me.
When I witness Colorado, my birthplace, changing before my very eyes and wonder whether I am as stupid as German Jews were in the 1930s, it pains me.
When I am told of Jews who visit France and do not wear a yarmulke there in public, it pains me.
When I read of Israel’s “genocide,” based on the rejection of self-defense, on the ignorance of Hamas-created fighting conditions in Gaza, and on the gullible acceptance of Hamas casualty figures, it pains me.
When I edit item after item of the thwarted murder of Jews around the world, I am thankful for the law enforcement and thankful for the judges, but I cry out for a Different World.
•••
When the Torah says, “Do not hate your brother in your heart,” I learn: What is inside, not articulated, not acted on, also counts.
When the Torah says: One should enter into Shabbos as if all your work is done, I learn: mental freedom is essential to Shabbos serenity.
When the Torah says: Don’t just talk, sing! I learn: The uniqueness of humankind — the power of speech — is not enough.
When the Torah says: Fast on Yom Kippur, I learn: Welcome the other fasts on the Jewish calendar, too. Fasting cleanses body and mind.
When the Torah says: As you recite Kiddush on a Yom Tov that begins on a Saturday night, the cup of Kiddush and the cup of Havdalah are one and the same.
•••
When I read that California Gov. Newsom called Israel an apartheid state, I think: This calumny began with Jimmy Carter.
When I read that JD Vance said Iran’s leaders sincerely want peace, I think: JD is culture-bound and culture-blind.
When I read that Sen. Bernie Sanders excused the Maine US Senate candidate’s Nazi tattoo, I think: With friends like this, who needs enemies?
When I read that Hasan Piker on Oct. 8, 2023 said to a caller who condemned the Oct. 7 massacre, “bloodthirsty violent pig dog,” I think: This is the United States?
When I read that Mayor Mamdani said of AIPAC that it’s “monstrous” and turns us “against one another,” I think: Who is turning against whom?
When I read that Dr. David Hasan of Chapel Hill, NC, raised funds for both Israeli and Palestinian children who were orphaned, and created schools in Gaza that promoted peace and reconciliation, I cry out: Here is the teacher for Newsom, Vance, Sanders, Piker and Mamdani.
•••
Genesis: “And Deborah, Rebeccah’s nurse, died” (35:8). Deborah’s death is recorded, Rebeccah’s is not. A harbinger of the supremely righteous, unjustly killed, absent any known grave.
Exodus: Unlike Descartes, who said, “I think, therefore I am,” G-d said, “I am, therefore I am” (3:14).
Leviticus: “And Aaron was silent” after his two sons were consumed (10:1-3). What did Aaron’s silence signify? He did not have to defend what he did not say.
Numbers: “Cattle . . . cattle” (32:1) — the only verse in Hebrew Scripture that begins and ends with the same word, cattle. The men of Reuben and Gad were obsessed with their cattle, their possessions.
Deuteronomy: “ . . . it is your wisdom and your discernment in the eyes of the peoples” (4:6) — yes, it is important how Jews impress the peoples of the world.
•••
When the Pulitzer Prize is awarded for a photo of a very thin child in Gaza, under the caption, “born healthy,” when she was actually born with cerebral palsy, I think: Wither journalism?
When Nicholas Kristoff defames dogs in the The New York Times, I ask: Where is the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals?
When the Boulder firebomber and murderer is sentenced to life plus 2,128 years, and says, “I do not accept being accused of the word hatred,” I plead: George Orwell, where are you?
When a Jewish middle school student in Boulder is called a “stupid kike” and lassoed around the neck, I marvel: How innocent my own school days back at Hill and GW.
•••
When my younger friend names his daughter after Shiri Bibas, I could cry, I could celebrate. Both.
When the human being, living in a world of woe, yet blessed under a blue sky, next to an ocean or with mountains in sight, is pained, speechless or baffled, the cup of Kiddush (santification) and the cup of Havdalah (division) are one and the same.
The late R’ Aryeh Levin of Jerusalem used to say: When a baby is born, everyone is overjoyed, but the baby is wailing. When someone dies, everyone is grieving, but the soul is singing, on its way to eternity.
