Op-Ed: Carl Strock’s Israel columns are not a ‘balanced perspective’

Posted on April 19, 2012 by Editor

Rabbi Matt Cutler

Rabbi Ted Lichtenfeld

Rabbi Moshe Mirsky

 

 

 

 

 

By RABBIS MATT CUTLER, TED LICHTENFELD, MOSHE MIRSKY
Readers of the Schenectady Daily Gazette have known its columnist Carl Strock to write controversial articles over his 30 years with the paper. Recently, Mr. Strock returned from a trip to Jerusalem and wrote a series of eight columns about his experiences. Known for cutting prose, his anti-religious stance and for being a perceived champion of the alleged underdog; his columns took to a very negative tone toward Judaism and Israel. Mr. Strock openly admits that when he went to Jerusalem, he went to meet with fringe elements in society. Rabbi Cutler encouraged Mr. Strock to keep an open mind and helped arrange visits with the support of our local Jewish Federation and other local community residents, in order to “create a balanced perspective.”

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Flax, Goldermans, Iselins to receive AJCC’s Pillars of the Community awards April 22

Posted on April 19, 2012 by Editor

Dan Flax

 

Bill and Kathy Golderman

 

Barbara and Alan Iselin

ALBANY–The Albany Jewish Community Center (AJCC) will honor Daniel Flax, Bill and Kathy Golderman, and Alan and the late Barbara Iselin, as Pillars of the Community during the 12th annual pillars celebration at 9:30 a.m., Sunday, April 22, at Beth Emeth, 100 Academy Rd. The award recognizes individuals who have provided wisdom, advice, service, and leadership to the Center and the Jewish community. Continue reading →

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For Yom HaAzmaut, Federation hosts ‘Israel Inside’ screening on April 23

Posted on April 19, 2012 by Editor

ALBANY–To celebrate Israel’s 64th anniversary, the Jewish Federation of Northeastern New York will host the regional premiere of “Israel Inside: How a Small Nation Makes a Big Difference,” at 7:30 p.m., Monday, April 23, at The College of St. Rose, Carl E. Touhey Forum, 1009 Madison Ave. Stephen M. Berk, professor of history at Union College will be the speaker. Yom HaAzmaut is Thursday, April 26. Continue reading →

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Yom HaShoah: Marking 25 years, March of the Living uniting survivors with liberators in Poland

Posted on April 19, 2012 by Editor

PARTICIPANTS IN THE TRADITIONAL MARCH OF THE LIVING start their march at the infamous gate sign “Arbeit Macht Frei” (Work Sets You Free) of the former Auschwitz Nazi Death Camp in Oswiecim, southern Poland, Monday, May 2, 2011. Thousands of people from around the world take part in the annual March of the Living paying tribute to the victims of the Holocaust at the former Nazi Death Camp Auschwitz-Birkenau.  (AP Photo/Bela Szandelszky)

By BEN SALES
NEW YORK CITY (JTA)–Bernhard Storch grew up in a Jewish family in Silesia, near Poland’s border with Germany.

Like many Polish Jews, he moved quickly from town to town as the Nazis advanced in 1939, trying to avoid capture. Before long he was caught and sent to a brutal labor camp. Continue reading →

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Dance Festival to note Israel’s 64th birthday

Posted on April 19, 2012 by Editor

TZAMAROT, the high school dance troupe,  will perform during the 38th Annual Israeli Dance Festival on Sunday. Top row from left, Emma Rugoff, Jane Katzer, Shulamit Ornstein, Madeleine Halle, and Mollie Schwartz. Bottom row from left, Hannah Itskov, director Eve Cameron, and Shaina DeGroult-Elias.

ALBANY–The Capital Region Israeli dancers will perform at the 38th Annual Israeli Dance Festival at 2 p.m., Sunday, April 22, at Temple Israel, 600 New Scotland Rd. to note Israel’s 64th birthday. Continue reading →

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Dr. Peter Zaas to present Beth El’s Sobel lecture

Posted on April 19, 2012 by Editor

Dr. Peter Zaas

GLENS FALLS–Footsteps in the Sands of Time: Why Jews and Christians Still Care About Ancient Judaism, a talk by Dr. Peter Zaas, will be presented at 1 p.m., Sunday, April 22, and again on Sunday, April 29, at Temple Beth El, 3 Marion Ave. The lecture is the second in the Rabbi Richard J. Sobel Scholar-in-Residence Lecture Series.

Zaas was educated at the Cleveland College of Jewish Studies, Oberlin College in Ohio, and the University of Chicago, where he earned his doctorate in religious studies. His expertise is in the New Testament, early Christianity, and Judaism.

His publications include research on the letters of Paul, the birth story of Jesus in the Gospel of Matthew, and other aspects of the relationship between Christianity and Judaism in the first millennium CE. He is one of 50 Jewish New Testament scholars to have contributed to the recent Jewish Annotated New Testament, published by Oxford Press, writing the chapter on the Letter to the Colossians.

Zaas is the chairman of the Kieval Institute for Jewish-Christian Studies at Siena College, where he has taught since 1982.

 

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Can religion, especially Judaism, work if you don’t believe in God?

Posted on April 19, 2012 by Editor

“OUR CONCEPT OF GOD STOPPED EVOLVING WHEN WE WERE 13,”  said Jay Michaelson, a prominent Jewish writer and thinker.  If you believe ‘the old man in the sky’ is idiotic, odds are you’re not going to continue believing in God as an educated adult. So our God concept needs to grow up like we do.”

By ERIC HERSCHTHAL
(N.Y. Jewish Week)–The latest turn in the New Atheist debates can be summed up like this: Even if you don’t believe in God, religion still has a lot to offer. Public intellectuals such as Alain de Botton and James Gray in Britain, and scientists like E.O. Wilson and Jonathan Haidt in America, all of them atheists, have made similar cases in their recent books and essays. Continue reading →

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Rozett to read from ‘When People Wrote Letters’ April 25

Posted on April 19, 2012 by Editor

ALBANY–Martha Rozett, University at Albany English professor, will read from her new nonfiction book When People Wrote Letters: A Family Chronicle (2011) at 4:15 p.m., Wednesday, April 25, in the Standish Room, Science Library, on the University at Albany uptown campus, 1400 Washington Ave. The event is sponsored by the New York State Writers Institute and is free and open to the public.

The book’s central characters are Betty and Edith Stedman, the author’s mother and great-aunt. Their lives are recounted through letters, photographs, clippings, and excerpts from an unpublished autobiography and family history. The narrative follows the two women, and other family members, from 19th and early 20th century New England, to Key West in the 1830s, to the Minnesota Territories in the 1860s, to France during World War I, to small towns in Texas and to China in the 1920s, to Spain in the 1930s, and across America during World War II. Continue reading →

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‘From Fear to Friendship’ at Nassau Synagogue April 26

Posted on April 19, 2012 by Editor

Pastor Robert Shepitka (left) and Rabbi Yaakov Kellman 

NASSAU–From Fear to Friendship: Conversations with Pastor Robert Shepitka and Rabbi Yaakov Kellman will be presented at 7 p.m., Thursday, April 26, at the Nassau Synagogue on Route 20.

Shepitka and Kellman will discuss Israel and the Middle East, Understanding Our Common Ground/Respecting Our Differences, and Our Friendship: Past, Present, and Going Forward. Continue reading →

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‘Earth Day Bouquet’ piano recital at SJCC April 22

Posted on April 19, 2012 by Editor

Maz Lifchitz

SCHENECTADY–Earth Day Bouquet, a piano recital with Max Lifchitz, the last in this season’s Schenectady Jewish Community Center’s Music at the J Concert Series, will be presented at 3 p.m., Sunday, April 22, at the Center, 2565 Balltown Rd.

Lifchitz will perform music by Jewish composers including Aaron Copland’s El Salon Mexico, George Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue, works by Louis Moreau Gottschalk, Brazilian Alexandre Levy, Chilean Leon Schidlowsky, and Israeli Ofer Ben Amots. The program will include the premiere of Pianos Silhouettes, a recent work by Lifchitz inspired by the paintings of Tampa-based artist Elisabeth Condon. The concert will be accompanied by a slide show. Continue reading →

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