Now, that’s matzah!

Imagine setting aside five cups of flour, two cups of water and one of oil. Mix these ingredients well and rapidly. Flatten the dough and separate it into several smaller sections. On a lightly oiled tray place the dough sections. Beat a couple of eggs in a bowl and brush the beaten eggs generously on the dough. For garnish, sprinkle some sesame seeds. By now, the oven has reached the 500 degrees needed for fast baking. Place the tray in the oven and wait for about five minutes until golden.

I know, it feels like cheating, but that’s the Sephardic matzah for Pesach. What a treat!

If you want more details, please ask Mahta and Mark Millerlile, who last Sunday, March 31, baked Sephardic matzah and shared their delicious charoset at their congregation, Beth Torah.

For those interested in the subject of matzah, I recommend reading Shayna Zamkenai’s “Why our ancestors never ate matzos.” (http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/why-your-ancestors-never-ate-matzos/)

Eduard de Garay

Overland Park, Kan.

Saving lives through organ donation

I wanted to thank you for the excellent article you ran on March 14 regarding Robby Berman’s recent visit to K.I. as its scholar-in-residence. Your article inspired many to attend his informative sessions, and many left committed to talking with their families during Passover about becoming organ donors. As a donor family member myself and a 20-plus year staff member at Midwest Transplant Network, it was heartwarming for me to witness the excitement and commitment that grew from his comments. I sat there wishing our entire Jewish community could hear all we heard from him throughout the weekend.

During Mr. Berman’s visit he spent time with members of the Rabbinical Association and garnered a great deal of understanding and support in acknowledging the confusion that exists regarding whether or not we as Jews support the opportunity to save lives through donation. If indeed we believe the notion that “To save one life is to save the world” we must consider organ and tissue donation the perfect opportunity to do so. Donation and transplantation do take place within our own Kansas City Jewish community, and we know it is the true to life stories that sometimes move people to take action.

Today in this country more than 117,000 people (nearly 2,500 of them live in Kansas or Missouri) await the gift of a life-saving organ from a generous donor, and roughly 1 million people will benefit this year from gifts of donated tissue. April is designated as National Donate Life Month urging all Americans to give life through organ, tissue and eye donation and would be the perfect time to say “yes” to life.

To register to be a donor go to www.mwtn.org.

Marcia Schoenfeld

Midwest Transplant Network

Westwood, Kan.

The national theme for the 2013 Days of Remembrance is “Never Again: Heeding the Warning Signs.” At the core of this problem is the covert and overt anti-Semitism that has existed throughout Jewish history. Warning signs have their foundation in patterns of human behavior. Warning signs include a focus on a group’s own rights at the expense of others’ rights, blaming vulnerable minority groups for the imagined problems of society, and decisions that are made to relieve stress rather than to solve problems.

Warning signs have cause and effect factors: stress experienced in a society results in tension among individuals and groups. When stress and tension are applied to solving problems, society functions well and meets the obligations to its citizens. Decisions are based on intellectual reasoning, real problems are addressed and constructive solutions are implemented. Leaders uphold democratic principles and are sure of the values that guarantee individual rights.

Society functions poorly when it experiences stress and tension but focuses on short term relief of the stress. It is during these periods that warning signs can be seen. Decisions are motivated by tension and reactivity. Attention is centered on imagined problems and these problems are blamed on vulnerable minority groups. An intense pressure develops for ‘group think’ that mandates full agreement. Group think occurs when a group demands its rights and takes actions to violate the rights of others. Democratic principles are misused to promote a group’s own agenda, and weak leaders acquiesce to that group’s agenda. Leaders become lax in maintaining principles and forego adherence to the values that assure individual rights. I will illustrate with a society that functioned poorly and persecuted its Jewish population. In the late 15th century, the Spanish populace was under severe stress from a prolonged war with the enemy region of Granada which depleted financial resources and manpower. At the same time, the ruling monarchs were pressured by the authorities of the Catholic Church, who were intent on persecuting the Jews along with the inquisition against the Conversos (those Jews forced to become or willingly became Christian). The monarchs acquiesced to the demand and joined forces with the Church against the Jews. The monarchs did insist on taking action only after the conquest of Granada to avoid civil unrest during wartime. Granada was conquered in the fall of 1491 and its inhabitants, the Moors, were expelled. As agreed upon, the Jews were driven out the following spring in 1492. The real problems of a war-torn country were ignored but the Jews and Conversos were identified falsely as the imagined problems.

A critical warning sign appears when a vulnerable minority group is falsely targeted and occupies what is called the scapegoat position. The scapegoat position is an object of irrational hostility. Essentially, two groups unite against the scapegoat as illustrated above when the crown and the Church attacked the Jews. Historians have concluded that Jews became a fixed target of centuries’ old hostilities during the Middle Ages. From that time on, societies have targeted the Jews in a predetermined way. Until now, no one has identified the pattern of behavior that forces Jews to be scapegoats; space does not permit me to explain it fully. However, it is important to state that the scapegoat position endures through time, despite changing participants, and changing explanations or justifications for anti-Semitism.

Warning signs can occur in any society; therefore, anti-Semitism has no geographic borders and additionally, no time limit. As a consequence, our critical obligation as citizens is to ensure that America directs attention exclusively to real problems and does not ruminate over imagined problems that put pressure on vulnerable minority groups such as Jews. We as Jews gain the most when we contribute usefully to the collective behavior of a society that functions well.

Mary Greenberg, Ph.D. is a member of the State of Kansas Holocaust Commission and Temple Beth Sholom in Topeka, Kan. A research associate at the Department of American Studies at The University of Kansas, Greenberg also holds a master’s degree in social work. Her commentary is based on “The Staying Power of Anti-Semitism and a Possible Explanation of Its Resilience,” which she gives at speaking engagements.

“The Aleppo Codex: A True Story of Obsession, Faith and the Pursuit of an Ancient Bible” by Matti Friedman. Algonquin Books, 2012, $24.95

The winner of the 2012 American Librarian Association Sophie Brody Medal for the best Jewish book is “The Aleppo Codex” by journalist Matti Friedman. Friedman’s book is a work of non-fiction that is more thrilling than many contemporary thrillers.

More than a thousand years ago in the city of Tiberius, the Codex was created by a scribe named Shlomo Ben-Buya’a under the supervision of another scholar, Aaron Ben-Asher. This book was to be the definitive text of the Hebrew Scriptures — each letter perfect, each word as it should be. It was not written as a scroll, but as a several hundred-paged parchment book, which would be consulted by scholars and scribes throughout time.

More than 100 years later, the Codex was in Jerusalem when the Crusaders sacked the city. It was ransomed and sent to the Egyptian Jewish community of Fustat, outside of Cairo. There it was studied by scholars including Maimonides, who based many of his treatises on the text. Approximately two centuries later, one of Maimonides’ heirs moved the library to Aleppo where, in time, the Aleppo Codex became known as The Crown, and became the most venerated text in the Aleppo Jewish community.

All of the Codex’s ancient history is well-documented. What Matti Friedman investigates is what happened to the Crown of Aleppo after the State of Israel was declared, and the 2,000-year-old Jewish community in Aleppo was forced to flee the wrath of the Syrian Muslims. It is known that the Grand Synagogue was burned, and the box containing the Codex was opened, scattering its pages on the ground. At this point the story becomes murky. Did the Codex burn? If it didn’t burn, who rescued it?

What is definitively known is that The Crown of Aleppo arrived in Jerusalem in 1957, having been smuggled from Aleppo by Murad Faham, a Jewish cheese merchant. It was placed in the hands of Shlomo Zalman Shragai, head of immigration under President Yitzhak Ben-Zvi. At some point It was sent to the library of the Ben-Zvi Institute. Later it was discovered that approximately half the pages of The Crown were missing.

Friedman painstakingly investigates the individuals who may have been custodians of the Codex from the time the synagogue burned until the revelation of the missing pages. Some were Mossad agents who helped refugees escape to Israel. Others were merchants, book dealers, librarians, conservators, rabbis, people on the street the day the synagogue burned and Israeli political leaders.

Rather than getting clearer, the mystery of the Codex becomes murkier as the investigation goes forward. For example, there was only one book written about the Aleppo Codex during the first 25 years it was held at the Ben-Zvi Institute. The author of the book was Amnon Shamosh, a popular Israeli novelist who had been born in Aleppo. When Friedman interviewed Shamosh, then an old man, the author indicated that much of what he had written had been censored by the Ben-Zvi Institute turning his book into a whitewashed story in which the Institute was portrayed as the savior of the book — or what was left of it.

It would be unfair to readers to give away the ins and outs of this mystery. The story of “The Aleppo Codex,” as Friedman relates it, has as much adrenaline as a well-written thriller. Aleppo has been in the news lately as a center of fighting in the Syrian uprising. In the past, it was a flourishing Jewish community and a major center of learning and commerce. Memories of the vanished community can be discovered in a cookbook, “The Aromas of Aleppo: The Legendary Cuisine of Syrian Jews” by Poopa Dweck, and also in a book of short stories by Amnon Shamosh, entitled “My Sister the Bride.”

Andrea Kempf is a retired librarian who speaks throughout the community on various topics related to books and reading.

“Yip Harburg: Legendary Lyricist and Human Rights Activist,” by Harriet Hyman Alonso. (Weslyan University Press. 286 pp. $28.95. Also available as Kindle and Nook downloads.)

When I was a child growing up in the Northeast, never imagining I would spend over half my life in Kansas, my one image of this state came from watching Judy Garland sing “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” in “The Wizard of Oz.” Of course, it was only a Hollywood sound stage, but to me that was Kansas. Now the man who wrote the words to that song, and so many others, is the subject of a new book, “Yip Harburg: Legendary Lyricist and Human Rights Activist.”

E. Y. “Yip” Harburg’s life story has been told in other books, and Alonso’s purpose is not to duplicate those works. It is rather a discussion of Harburg the creative artist, for the most part told in his own words from the various detailed interviews he gave about the thought that lay behind his work. It should be a must read for anyone interested in the art of lyric writing.

It has often been noted that virtually all of the major composers and lyricists of the classic Broadway musical — with the exception of Cole Porter — were Jewish, but perhaps no one was more deeply steeped in Jewish tradition (though not in traditional religious observance) than Harburg. His father would tell his mother that the two men were going to synagogue, but instead they would go to what Harburg called his “substitute Temple — the theater,” by which he meant the Yiddish theater. I don’t know of any other lyricist who might have said, as he did, “Yiddish has more onomatopoeic, satiric, and metaphoric nuances ready-made for comedy than any other language I know of.”

Though his fame today rests primarily on one film, one Broadway show (“Finian’s Rainbow”), and a handful of songs, such as “Brother Can You Spare a Dime?” and “Lydia the Tattooed Lady,” he earned the reputation of being a lyricists’ lyricist, praised by such writers as Stephen Sondheim and Sheldon Harnick (of “Fiddler on the Roof” fame.) Harburg himself, however, thought of his craft as a means to an end, as a way of expressing his commitment to human rights, believing that a good lyric could make radical ideas acceptable. He greatly admired FDR, and he explained that many of the lyrics in “The Wizard of Oz” expressed his optimism about the New Deal, though there was some social satire as well, as in the Wizard’s comment to the Scarecrow about needing not a brain but a diploma. “Finian’s Rainbow” (1946) was way ahead of its time not only in its satire on the capitalist system but in its confrontation of prejudice against African-Americans. A few years later Rodgers and Hammerstein confronted racism in “South Pacific,” but that show dealt with anti-Asian prejudice, a less controversial subject. It is not surprising that Harburg’s film career was cut short by the infamous blacklist, though he was able to continue working on Broadway.

The most interesting aspect of the book is Harburg’s detailed explanation of his theory of writing and the detailed thought processes behind his simplest songs. “Words make you think a thought,” he explained, “music makes you feel a feeling. But a song makes you feel a thought.” At the end of his life, he became frustrated by the changes in people’s taste: “I’m very sad that those beautiful sweet songs with architecture and structure are not being played now and that they’ve been pushed off the air by songs that are rather vituperative and convulsive.” Nevertheless, we should conclude, as the book does, on a more positive note: “I think the human species has a life force that’s got to prevail and survive and no matter how many follies, foibles, it will…. And so my theme song, the theme that keeps me going all these years, is ‘Look to the Rainbow.’ ”

Innovation, education, collaboration … three topics of interest that Rabbi Yitz Greenberg discussed when he visited Kehilath Israel Synagogue under the auspices of the Caviar Family Jewish Scholar Weekend. In collaboration with the Jewish Community Center and Jewish Federation, Rabbi Greenberg led a leadership workshop that Sunday morning for approximately 75 people to discuss pertinent needs and challenges for “a changing Jewish world.” During one part of Rabbi Greenberg’s initial comments, an aside really, he referenced the stigma and pain of someone living in an abusive relationship. Most participants missed this, but I was grateful for his public recognition of an existing problem our Jewish community began to recognize in the past decade.

Last summer when I sent letters to area clergy regarding the grant SAFEHOME received from the Flo Harris Foundation concerning outreach in the Jewish community on domestic violence, the positive response overwhelmed me. Seven rabbis contacted me immediately that they would help in any way if a Jewish client wanted rabbinic counseling, kosher food or some other service they could provide. Four congregations scheduled SAFEHOME’s involvement in some way: Kehliath Israel Synagogue, The Temple, Congregation B’nai Jehudah, Congregation Beth Shalom and Plaza Chabad’s Jewish Women’s Circle. All the congregations, in addition to the Jewish Community Campus, allowed placement of the Jewish emergency cards. SAFEHOME collaborated recently with Jewish Family Services when our agency education and prevention advocate presented a workshop to JFS’ counselors, therapists and case managers regarding assessing and identification of domestic abuse. Just like someone who considers suicide, there are words victims speak, hoping a knowledgeable, sensitive person will ask a question that gives permission to share her story, knowing the listener will believe her without judgment.

We live in a unique Jewish community that successfully and fortunately collaborates on educational and social justice issues. In order to succeed, we must recognize and face the challenges that arise. We celebrate rebirth with Tu b’Shevat, survival with Purim, and look forward to celebrating freedom at the seder on Erev Pesach. Seder means order; however for one in four women, order is not in their lives due to some form of domestic abuse: emotional, psychological, sexual, financial or physical. As you read the Haggadah this year about our ancestors leaving Egypt and gaining freedom, remember there are women among us who experience their own personal struggle in the form of an abusive significant other. SAFEHOME offers help; it’s free, confidential, empowering, and available 24/7. The number is 913-262-2868.

Chag S’meach!

Susan Lebovitz, CVM, is the volunteer manager and Jewish outreach coordinator at SAFEHOME, Johnson County’s only comprehensive provider of services to victims of domestic violence and partner abuse; the Flo Harris Foundation funds the Jewish Outreach Program.

More about Ed Koch

As a follow up to the death of New York Mayor Ed Koch that you covered in your Feb. 7 issue, we need to remind the K.C. Jewish community of his K.C. connection and of the close friendship he and own Mayor Dick Berkley enjoyed.

In the winter of 1987, there was a nationwide gathering in Washington, D.C., of supporters and activists of the Soviet Jewry movement. Over 100,000 mostly Jewish persons came by plane, auto, busses and trains and gathered on the Mall in front of the U.S. Capitol Building. I was fortunate to be on the planeload of over 100 from K.C. Upon arrival, we were met by Mayor Berkley and Kansas Congressman Dan Glickman.

Later during the lengthy program, Mayor Berkley, as chairman of the U.S. Association of Mayors, was scheduled to speak. When it was his turn, he said into the microphone for all to hear, “I’m turning my time over to my good friend, the mayor of New York City, Ed Koch,” who then delivered an impassioned speech about freedom for Soviet Jews.

Most of us in attendance thought that it was a big gesture for our honored mayor to have relinquished his time over to Mayor Koch. It was not surprising, since Dick Berkley’s 12 years as councilman and mayor were filled with numerous incidents of modesty and decency.

M.J. Rosenbloom

Prairie Village, Kan.

I am walking and thinking about my next step — passport control. I look up and from another hallway in the Tel Aviv airport, I can’t believe what I am seeing.

“Tobi?” I say, and then I see her husband, Rabbi Daniel Horwitz, former senior rabbi at Congregation Ohev Sholom who now lives in Texas. Tobi Cooper and Rabbi Danny have flown to Israel to visit their youngest who is taking a gap year.

After catching up, retrieving our luggage, and saying goodbye, I head to native Kansas Citian Marla Shalinsky Stein’s home in Jerusalem. Marla and I have been friends since birth. I spend time with her, her husband Gideon, and their three children whenever I’m in Israel. (If you ever need a tour guide, please call Marla! She’s certified with the State of Israel and she’s excellent!)

The next morning, Marla and Gideon give me directions to Yad L’Kashish, or Lifeline for the Old (literally, “hand to old”). I take the new light rail train and disembark close to Jerusalem’s old city.

At Yad L’Kashish, artists teach the older citizens how to make works of art using metal, ceramics, silk and other materials. The items are then sold in the gift shop. These older citizens receive a paycheck, hot meal, and a free bus pass to get to work and around town.

After the inspirational tour, I head to the gift shop. I look up.

“Cantor Barash?” Cantor David Barash used to be the hazzan at Beth Shalom! In the middle of the gift shop, I talk with him and his wife, and realize we have mutual friends whom we will be seeing in Israel.

Next stop: The Roswell Seminar, coordinated by native Kansas Citian Rabbi Steve Burnstein, director of the Saltz Center of the World Union for Progressive Judaism. Sixteen of us from seven countries gather for a week to learn about social justice programs in Israel. (I highly recommend this seminar or any of the programs Rabbi Steve leads!)

On one of those days, I meet my New Jersey cousin, Tammy Rubin Abramowitz, for a 90-minute break at Nachalat Binyamin, an outdoor art fair in Tel Aviv. We eat falafel and then admire the hand-made work. I realize I need to get back to the hotel for my next program, but my eye catches one of the last booths.

The artist has made wire figures in action. I have to buy one. Do I buy the girl flying a kite or the woman walking her three dogs? As I’m making a decision, Tammy says, “Sheila, there are some people behind you who want to take a look.” I turn around. I gasp. The other woman gasps. We give each other a big hug. It’s Limor Katz-Evans who used to live in Kansas City and recently moved back to her native Israel!

Limor tells me she lives about an hour from Tel Aviv. She says it’s her first day to get out after resettling the family and setting up her business (her pomegranate shirt is my favorite!).

I’ve previously experienced these small miracles. I know many people have. However, it feels as if it happens more often in Israel than anywhere else.

How is that I see Tobi, Rabbi Danny, and Cantor Barash at the same locations I happen to be without even planning it?

How is it that out of all the booths, of all the places in Israel Limor or I could be, out of all the days Limor decides to take time for herself, we see each other at this last booth on this particular side street, at a time when I only have 10 minutes to get back to my next program?

The artist says she herself played a part in this surprise reunion.

I say, “Baruch Hashem.”

Sheila Rubin Sonnenschein is a freelance writer and mother of four. She volunteers in the Jewish community and in the community-at-large. She is currently writing a book for children and adults about making challah. She bought the girl with the kite.

Answering a challenge to Jewish law on abortion

How is it that Jewish scholars have studied Exodus 21:22-23 for three-and-a-half millennia and gotten abortion wrong? According to Shmuel Wolkenfeld in your Feb. 14 issue, they’ve fundamentally misunderstood the Hebrew. Therefore, he implies, Jewish law should right itself — or Jews should disregard Jewish law — and adopt his Christian stance of opposing abortion in all cases, even when the life of the mother is at stake, even when the fetus is the result of rape. I’ll grant Mr. Wolkenfeld that language can be ambiguous. And yes, experts can get meaning wrong, sometimes with far-reaching implications. (Consider, for example, the Greek mis-translation of the Hebrew word, “almah” — young maiden — as “virgin.”) Ambiguously worded or not, what counts most is the iron-clad consensus reigning among faithful Jews that our scholars have gotten right the meaning of Exodus 21, linguistically, legally and morally.

Rabbi H. Scott White
Congregation Ohev Sholom

Words of wisdom

I was very proud to see you had chosen the prophetic words of my cousin, the late Seymour Fox, in the Feb. 21 issue of the Jewish Chronicle. (“Education that is essentially pareve — that’s neutral and doesn’t take a strong stand — has little chance of succeeding. … All effective education has at its foundation a distinct and well-considered vision.”) Seymour born in Chicago, had a strong Kansas City connection to the Lesky, Stolowy and Planzer families. He visited his cousins and kept in contact with us until his untimely death at age 67 on July 10, 2006.

Seymour had a Ph.D. in education, was an ordained rabbi and author. He was a Jewish educator and a builder of institutions. After a short term as a professor at the School of Education at Hebrew University, he remained in Israel to head the School of Education for 14 years. From 1954-1966 he took charge of the Ramah summer camps, bringing brilliant Jewish speakers and scholars to enhance the commitment to Judaism and leadership to thousands of campers. In 1960 he established the Research Institute for Innovation and the Melton Center for Jewish Education in the Diaspora.

Seymour’s prolific life as an educator and innovator is too long to print. His importance in Israeli and American Jewish education and philosophy and his influence upon the many graduates who hold positions in Jewish education throughout the world, is a tribute to his life.

Janet Price
Overland Park, Kan.

A little clarification regarding tattoos and Jews

The Feb. 21 edition included a Jewish celebrity news story about Drew Barrymore having her tattoos removed “so that she can be buried in a Jewish cemetery.” I encourage you to write an article about this topic to clarify the misconception about Judaism and tattoos.

I am not in favor of tattoos and agree with Rabbi Jeffrey Goldwasser, “What would you gain by having a permanent tattoo placed on your body? It will not make you a better person. If you imagine that it would make you feel better about yourself, you may have issues about your self-image that no tattoo will solve. It’s worth asking tough questions like these before making a choice as a young person that you will carry with you for the rest of your life.” However, I would like to correct the misinformation that was perpetuated in the Jewish Celebrity Roundup in the 2/12/13 issue of the Chronicle from a Star magazine report regarding Drew Barrymore removing her tattoos. My research from the New York Times, myjewishlearning.com, chabad.org, judaism.about.com, and thejc.com indicates that while Jewish practice rejects tattoos as idolatrous, violating the body, or reminiscent of forced tattooing of Holocaust victims, there is little basis for a tattoo preventing someone from being buried in a Jewish cemetery.

“The eight rabbinical scholars interviewed for this article, from institutions like the Jewish Theological Seminary and Yeshiva University, said it’s an urban legend, most likely started because a specific cemetery had a policy against tattoos.” (Kate Togovnick, July 17, 2008) http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/17/fashion/17SKIN.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

“But, however distasteful we may find the practice there is no basis for restricting burial to Jews who violate this prohibition or even limiting their participation in synagogue ritual.” Rabbi Alan B. Lucas is Rabbi of Temple Beth Shalom in Roslyn Heights, New York, reprinted online with permission of the Rabbinical Assembly. (http://www.myjewishlearning.com/practices/Ethics/Our_Bodies/Adorning_the_Body/Tattoos.shtml)

“The Torah1 forbids us from tattooing our bodies. Nonetheless, one who has had tattoos can still bury in a Jewish cemetery. That said, every Jewish burial society has the right to enact its own criteria for who may and may not be buried in their plot.... This practice by certain burial societies led to the common misconception that this ban was an inherent part of Jewish law.” (Chani Benjaminson, co-director of Chabad of the South Coast and member of the editorial staff of chabad.org) http://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/533444/jewish/Can-a-person-with-a-tattoo-be-buried-in-a-Jewish-cemetery.htm

“I do not know of any rabbi or Jewish cemetery that would refuse to bury a Jew because their body had a tattoo. That would be a terrible violation of the Jewish principle of Kavod Ha-Meit, giving honor to the dead.” Rabbi Jeffrey Goldwasser, http://judaism.about.com/od/conversi2/f/tatoos_burial.htm

“There were certain Jewish cemeteries which instituted their own bans, in order to discourage people from having tattoos, but there isn’t actually a halachic prohibition against burying people with tattoos.” Rabbi Yisroel Lew, Bloomsbury Chabad House in London http://www.thejc.com/news/world-news/102542/jewish-burial-hope-has-film-star-drew-barrymore-seeking-tattoo-removal.

Alice J. Capson
Overland Park, Kan.

Made-up storytelling

Letter-writer Herbert Barger deplores “lies” in “Sally of Monticello: Founding Mother,” perhaps forgetting a novel is made-up storytelling. Not invented, however, are verifiable facts forming the basis for my historical fiction, start to finish. I use the voice of slave Sally Hemings, who was three-fourths white and the look-alike half-sister of Thomas Jefferson’s late wife.

Support for my story of Thomas and Sally rises best from the Research Committee report of the Monticello-based Thomas Jefferson Foundation in 2000: “It is very unlikely that Randolph Jefferson or any Jefferson other than Thomas Jefferson was the father of her children.”

Barger’s charge that writers aim “to degrade Mr. Jefferson” suggests sensitiveness over race. Rather than diminish Jefferson, reports of his pursuit of happiness in a loyal 38-year relationship with Sally tend to dignify him. That’s also the view of historians Winthrop Jordan (“White Over Black,” 1968) and Fawn Brodie (“Thomas Jefferson: An Intimate History,” 1974), who wrote without benefit of substantiating DNA ties. Jordan credited Sally with relieving Thomas’s “high tension concerning women and Negroes.”

My Thomas/Sally love story reminds us that ours has been a mixed-race nation from its founding. Barger seems unready to accept that feature of our heritage, unlike our mutual hero, Thomas Jefferson, who showed no guilt over the affair and was, in his own words, “not afraid to follow truth wherever it may lead.”

Norm Ledgin
Stanley, Kan.

Friend a person in need

Recent articles about the musical “Almost Normal” presented by the Jewish Community Center reminded me just how important it is to help people with mental illness.

Twenty-four years ago the Johnson County Mental Health Association started a program called Compeer. A compeer is a person of equal status or rank, a comrade, companion or an associate. This was a very appropriate choice to name this program.

I chaired the Compeer program along with Angie Deberry. One of the first things I did was ask two women who were kind, warm and giving — Charlene Pollack and Elinor Friedman — to connect with two women who suffered from severe mental illness. As compeers, Charlene and Elinor would be their friends.

Charlene’s friend came from a large family. She and her brothers and sisters suffered from schizophrenia. She was an intelligent, proud lady. She had been married to an alcoholic, and on her own raised two children while battling manic-depression. She and Charlene established a warm relationship and appeared on radio and television programs discussing mental illness. Charlene visited her home and met her family. They remained close friends for nine years, until Charleen’s compeer died.

Elinor’s compeer was in and out of mental hospitals and nursing homes. She tried to earn a living by taking care of children in her home. Her own three children were ashamed of their mother’s illness and only one son kept in contact with her.

For the last 24 years, Elinor visited her compeer at nursing homes and hospitals, kept in contact with her on the telephone and purchased things she needed as well as birthday and Christmas gifts. Elinor kept in touch with her compeer’s social worker and son and made sure the woman was clothed and comfortable.

Elinor was honored as Compeer of the Month by the MHA in April 1992. Her interest in Compeer was a desire to “provide a friendship for a person in need.” Just recently Elinor called me to tell me her friend had died and she felt a great sadness and loss. Her friend’s final words to her were, “God was watching over me when he sent you to me.”

The Compeer program has been phased out. It was a wonderful program that established beautiful friendships for both the volunteers and their friends.

Janet Price
Overland Park, Kan.

An story worth hearing

On Monday, Feb. 18, I had the pleasure of hearing Shlicha Ophir Hacohen tell her family’s history. In an intimate setting, the audience heard how several generations of her family reflect the long road that culminated in the establishment and success of the State of Israel.

Among her ancestors Ophir counts pioneers who arrived to Palestine in the mid 1800s. Others were Holocaust survivors who fought in the War of Independence and the ’67 War. The roots of this Israeli woman are intricately linked with modern Israel.

Ophir Hacohen will have two more presentations from 7 to 8 p.m. on Feb. 25 and March 4 at Congregation Beth Shalom. On Feb. 25, she will explore the theme of strong Israeli women in the armed forces, culture, politics and Israeli society as a whole. On March 4, Ophir will address the current campaign to de-legitimize Israel on U.S. campuses.

To those interested I can promise two evenings rich in information and discussion.

Eduard de Garay
Overland Park, Kan.

Novel’s historical authenticity disputed

Regarding the Feb 7 article about Norm Ledgin’s book, “Sally of Monticello, Founding Mother,” Ledgin said he had done great research regarding the rumored Jefferson/Hemings relationship. He makes statements like, “it has been a known fact that Jefferson and Hemings had an ongoing relationship.” What proof does Ledgin have? The historical “novel,” written from Sally’s standpoint, states that it was “a real love affair.”

Again, what is Ledgin’s source of proof? DNA proved there was no match of Jefferson and Tom Woodson DNA, thus shooting down James Callender’s assertion that Woodson was Jefferson’s son. Where does he get information that Sally had eight children fathered by Jefferson? Professor Annette Gordon-Reed lied in her latest book and claimed that Thomas Jefferson fathered seven of Sally’s children (no proof whatsoever that Tom Woodson was a child of Sally Hemings). Ledgin relies very heavily on the statements made in the Pike County, Ohio, newspaper by an abolitionist reporter and Madison Hemings. This article is riddled with untruths such as his false claim that he was named for James Madison by Dolly Madison upon the occasion of her January 19, 1805, visit to Monticello. This visit never occurred and the Madisons never visited Virginia from Washington during winter. If this was just one of several lies, why are we to trust anything else from this article which was accepted as TRUTH by Monticello?

See, “Anatomy of a Scandal, Thomas Jefferson and the Sally Story,” regarding rumor that Sally and Martha Jefferson were half-sisters, again there is NO proof. Ledgin pretends to have the answers concerning her ability to “take care of this man, her brother” (Thomas Jefferson). Again Ledgin doesn’t do his research or he would have found that Sally did not have any qualifications to even look after Maria according to Mrs. Adams and she was so ill suited that the ship captain wanted to return her back home. To learn more about the DNA Study go to www.tjheritage.org. Thirteen top scholars report their findings in the Scholars Report listed there with NO PROOF of such a false relationship. See, “Jeffersonian Legacies (page 280) for details for all of this rush by Monticello to degrade Jefferson. I assisted Dr. E.A. Foster with the Jefferson-Hemings DNA study and can state that Foster knew that Thomas Jefferson had a younger brother, Randolph, but Foster refused to mention this information to Nature Journal.  

Herbert Barger
Founder, Thomas Jefferson Heritage Society
Jefferson Family Researcher
www.tjheritage.org
www.jeffersondnastudy.com

Abortion not permitted in Torah

I appreciate the compassionate spirit in Rabbi Arthur Nemitoff’s Torah drash in the Jan. 31 issue of The Chronicle, but I must disagree. He concludes that the Torah permits abortion. The clear sense of the Hebrew text says emphatically that it does not.

Rabbi Nemitoff quotes Exodus 21:22-23, and adds an explanatory comment — “When men fight and one of them pushes a pregnant woman and a miscarriage results, but no other misfortune follows, the one responsible shall be fined … the payment to be based on the judge’s reckoning. But if other misfortune follows (such as the death of the woman), the penalty shall be life for life...”

The issue I take is that the Hebrew does NOT say “miscarriage” but rather “her son depart.” That is, the clear sense of the passage is, “If her son or daughter is prematurely born, but no further injury takes place (to the child or  the mother) then the one responsible shall be fined… But if further injury (such as the death of the mother or child) then there is the penalty of life for life…”

First, the Hebrew there is v’yats-oo y’la-de-ha, literally, “her son exit.” Yeled always means son, child. If the Torah meant to say that there was just an accident to tissue, this word would not have been used.

• Keil and Delitzsch: Yeled only denotes a child, [written in 1866]

• http://morfix.mako.co.il/ Yeled son, boy ; child

• BDB lexicon Yeled child, son, boy, youth

Second, the word for injury is ason, rendered “tragedy, disaster” by Morfix. This means a death.

Third, the omission of lah, to her, as in a-son lah, “injury to her,” means the injury is not just to the mother.

A literal/contextual reading would be, “If men strive, and a pregnant woman is injured, and her child exit but there is no tragedy, the culprit shall be fined as the husband and judges set.  But if there is a tragedy, then you shall set life for life…”

So Torah justice is that the fatal injury, a-son to a yeled son, boy; child; be viewed as a criminal offense.

Shmuel Wolkenfeld
Overland Park, Kan.