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Kicking off a super Sunday

Kosher caterers prepare for game day onslaught

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In football, there are usually three B’s tailgaters keep in mind: Burgers, brats, and beer.

When it comes to Super Bowl Sunday, however, when parties move indoors, menus tend to change to less barbecue-intensive fare and foods fit more for large groups gathered around a television. And while many Super Bowl parties feature heaps of beef-laden cheesy nachos, hot wings with bleu cheese dressing, and pork, kosher football fans — and kosher caterers — have adapted.

“It’s an American holiday,” said Bobby Shorr, co-owner of Harold’s Kosher Market in Paramus. “It’s a big holiday. It’s a very big catering weekend for all kinds of delis. We look forward to it.”

 
 

Kicking off a super Sunday

Wrap sessions in the a.m.

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For many, Super Bowl Sunday starts with a mitzvah lesson

It is hard to know which program will stir up the most emotion this Sunday — the Conservative movement’s World Wide Wrap, or the Giants and the Patriots going at it in the Super Bowl.

At Temple Emanu-El in Closter, youngsters will be singing original “Wrap songs” to celebrate the morning event, a global celebration of the mitzvah of t’fillin; while at the Fair Lawn Jewish Center/Congregation B’nai Israel (FLJC/CBI), the same men’s club that sponsors the Wrap early in the day will be hosting a Super Bowl party later on.

It is no coincidence that the two events fall on the same day.

 
 

Kicking off a super Sunday

New Israelis plan their own Super Bowl fetes

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In a country where “football” means soccer, you would think the Super Bowl would be a relic of the past for U.S. émigrés. However, for many of them the annual NFL championship game is cause for a party, complete with nachos and subs.

Steve Leibowitz, president of American Football in Israel, estimates that hundreds of fans will attend dozens of Super Bowl parties in Israel as the New England Patriots and New York Giants face each other on Feb. 5 — even though kickoff translates to 1:30 in the morning Israel time.

“In the old days, I used to organize Super Bowl parties at hotels because there was no way to watch at home,” said Leibowitz, a native New Yorker. “It’s kind of like wanting to celebrate Thanksgiving — it’s a part of the culture you grew up in, that you could take part in even if you were Jewish. It’s another reason for a party, but here it’s just at a very inconvenient hour. People arrange to come late to work or school the next day.”

 
 

Kicking off a super Sunday

Super macher match-up

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Big game pits teams owned by big donors

When the New York Giants and New England Patriots take the field for Sunday’s Super Bowl, most of the country will focus on the athletes wearing the jerseys. However, from a Jewish perspective, the story behind these football franchises comes from those wearing suits in the owner’s box.

The Giants are co-owned by the Tisch family, with film and television producer Steve Tisch, son of Bob, as the team’s chairman and executive vice president. Bob’s brother, Larry, was the father of Jim — former president of the UJA Federation of New York and former board chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations. Jim’s wife, Merryl, chairs the board of the Metropolitan Council on Jewish Poverty.

On the New England side, owner Robert Kraft’s wife Myra — who passed away last July — served as chair of the Boston-based Combined Jewish Philanthropies’ (CJP) board of directors and was twice co-chair of CJP’s annual fundraising campaign.

 
 

Kicking off a super Sunday

Jewish players reflect on Super Bowl

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With less than a minute to play in the biggest football game of his life, Jewish punter Josh Miller wanted a sandwich.

“I was hungry,” he said in an interview, recalling one of his many thoughts from Super Bowl XXXIX, when his New England Patriots edged the Philadelphia Eagles, 24-21.

Miller played an important role in the Patriots’ third NFL championship. With time running out, he booted the ball with enough backspin that it was downed at the Eagles’ four-yard line with 46 seconds left in the game. Before such a pressure-filled moment, Miller recalled the advice of head coach Bill Belichick, long regarded as one of the NFL’s top minds.

“He called me over and said, ‘Hey, man, just catch [the snap] and get rid of it,’” Miller said.

 
 

Haiti: Two years later

‘When all else is broken, human dignity must stand whole’

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Two years after the earthquake that devastated Haiti, medical students at Quisqueya University earlier this month took part in the island nation’s first “White Coat Ceremony,” marking the commitment of medical students there to providing compassionate, patient-based care.

This symbolic ritual for future doctors, now common at U.S. and Israeli medical schools, was introduced in 1993 by the Englewood Cliffs-based Arnold P. Gold Foundation. It has since spread to 18 countries, including Afghanistan, Japan, and now Haiti, thanks to the efforts of Tenafly resident Dr. Galit M. Sacajiu.

“Some of you may be asking yourselves, when medical school buildings and operating rooms have yet to be rebuilt and a single medical textbook is a luxury, when we have no laboratories, and so many of our brothers and sisters still live in makeshift homes, why invest in an event such as this ceremony of humanism in medicine?” asked Sacajiu, in her remarks at the Jan. 16 ceremony.

 
 

Haiti: Two years later

Israel/Jewish response made a difference

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A swift and massive Jewish response followed the 7.0-magnitude earthquake on Jan. 12, 2010, that caused more than 250,000 deaths and at least as many injuries in Haiti.

The Jewish Federations of North America partnered with the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee to funnel millions of dollars of contributions to help in the relief work. Israel was among the first of many countries to send humanitarian aid.

The 236 military, security, rescue, and medical personnel sent by Israel’s Foreign Ministry arrived at Port-Au-Prince on two Boeing 747 jets leased from El Al by Tzahal (the hebrew acronym that stands for Israel Defense Forces, or IDF). A Tzahal field hospital was set up in a soccer field near the airport just four hours after landing on Jan. 15, the first such treatment facility to be up and running after the devastating earthquake.

 
 

Love and hate in Bergen County

Communal meeting, interfaith gathering follow in Rutherford bombing’s wake

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With the Jewish communities of Bergen County on heightened alert, some 200 religious and community leaders gathered on Jan. 12 to discuss the recent string of anti-Semitic incidents in the county with law enforcement and government officials.

The meeting followed by one day the most recent, and most serious, attack — a firebombing that could have claimed the lives of eight people. The incident targeted the old Queen Anne building in Rutherford that houses Orthodox Congregation Beth El, as well as the home of its rabbi and his family. Five of the eight potential victims were children.

 
 
 
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Woodstock

The Jewish connection

This week marks the 40th anniversary of the historic Woodstock Music Festival, which attracted perhaps as many as a half-million, mostly young, concertgoers. The peaceful behavior of festival-goers gave, and still gives, Woodstock the aura of being the tangible affirmation of the “peace and love” ethos of the ’60s hippie “counterculture.” The “good vibes” were preserved for posterity by the best concert film of the ’60s.

As I recall from Hebrew school, the Torah likes the number 40 — 40 years in the desert and so on. So, I guess it is appropriate, on this anniversary, to explore Woodstock’s many Jewish connections.

Let’s put on a show

 

Kidney donor

My children should see what it means to be a Jew

Need a babysitter, a ride to Manhattan, or a kosher used barbecue grill? TeaneckShuls, a moderated listserv connecting people in the northern New Jersey area, can help you find what you need. Need a kidney? TeaneckShuls can help as well. Ruthie Levi, a moderator for the listserv, reports that “as a result of an e-mail posting on this list for someone seeking a kidney donation, Rabbi Ephraim Simon of Chabad Teaneck has … successfully donated his own kidney.”

“It’s not like I woke up one morning and wanted to donate a kidney,” said Simon, who serves as the Chabad rabbi in Teaneck. “My own children, ages 2 to 14, are my first priority.” He recounted how a woman named Chaya Lipshutz had been posting for years on TeaneckShuls about people who needed kidney donors. “I would read them, and sigh, and go on with my day. I have nine little children and it was not something I would envision doing.” However, one such posting touched him deeply. “In August 2008, [Lipshutz] had a post of a 12-year-old girl — how could I let a 12-year-old girl die? I have a daughter who is 12.”

 

Jewish groups join national debate on health-care reform

Legislators and lobbyists working to push through President Obama’s health-care reforms have sought out the faith community as a voice of moral urgency.

Indeed, the contentious debate over health-care reform facing the country appears to have united Jewish advocacy organizations. While individuals within the Jewish community may not universally accept Obama’s push for reform, the Jewish organizational world is mostly unified in support, said Steve Gutow, president of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, the umbrella group for the nation’s Jewish Community Relations Councils.

“Social justice is a Jewish imperative,” said Nancy Ratzan, president of the National Council for Jewish Women, during a telephone interview on Monday. “Access to basic health care for everyone, I think, is understood today as a fundamental social-justice issue. The Jewish community is very engaged and very inspired by this opportunity to change policy to ensure that kind of justice for everybody, so it’s not just those who can afford it.”

 

 

 
 
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