The
Charlotte
Jewish
NEWS
Non-Pr>nt (>r|{ani/.atiin
lU'LK RATK
U.S. I\>stat(«' I*A1I)
('harloUo, N. ('.
IVrmil No. I20H
VOL. 2, NO. 5
Charlotte, North Carolina
MAY 1980
Update:
New Americans
Four Soviet Jewish families
arrived in Charlotte between
April 1979 and April 1980 and
one family who had relocated in
1977 returned to Charlotte.
I’he most recent arrival is the
Metelitsa family. Yakov, his
wife Galina and their seven year
old twin sons, Gary and Vadim,
are from Moscow. Yakov is a
systems analyst and Galina is a
communications engineer. Both
are presently seeking employ
ment. Gary and Vadim attend
the North Carolina Hebrew
Academy at Charlotte.
Grigory Bunich, his wife
Haisa and their sons, Boris age 9
and Alex age 8, moved to
Charlotte from Norfolk,
Virginia in December. Original
ly from Kiev, they lived in Nor
folk a year before moving to
Charlotte where Grigory is an
engineer with Duke Power Co.
Alex and Boris also attend the
Hebrew Academy.
Benjamin Balbir, his wife
Irene, their two year old twin
sons, Sasha and (^ne, and Ben-
jamin’s mother, Bella
F'ay vile vich, arrived in
Charlotte in September, “Ben-
jie” is a design engineer with
American Barmag Corp. and
Irene is employ^ by First
Citizens Bank and Trust as a
teller. Bella enjoys the Chai
group at the JCC.
Isaac Bykin, his wife Genriet
ta, and their nine year old twin
daughters, Mary and Neca,
moved to Charlotte a year ago
from Leningrad. Isaac is
employed by Ben Weinreb
Engineering and Genya by
Atlantic Design Co. Mary and
Neca are students at the Hebrew
Academ>^.
Mark Barkan, his wife Lucy
and sons, Leon age 8 and
Christopher age 2, returned to
Charlotte from Hickory in
Septeml^r. Mark is an engineer
with Duke Power Co. and Lucy
is a keypunch operator for
Transport Clearinghouse. Leon
attends the Hebrew Academy
and Chris keeps his grand
mother Yeva busy chasing him
all day.
Presently there are ten
families living in Charlotte. We
have four families from Kiev,
three from Leningrad, two from
Moscow and one from Riga. We
have fourteen children includ-
JCC Receives
JWB Award
The award for a special event
in communications was award
ed to the Charlotte Jewish Com
munity Center for its social,
cultural and sports exchange
program with the Centro Social
Deportivo Hebraica of Caracas,
Venezuela, at the JWB Biennial.
Forty-four Jewish Community
Centers and YM & YWHAs in
the U.S. and Canada, six Jewish
communal camps and two
military Jewish communities
have won a total of 64 JWB
Biennial Communications
Awards for outstanding ac
complishments in five different
aspects of communications.
The awards presented by
Harry C. Isaacs of Rye, N.Y.,
Chairman, JWB’s Committee
on Public Interpretation and
Communications, at the 1980
JWB Biennial Convention were
in Multi-Media. Presentations;
Special Events; Membership
Brochures; Program Brochures;
Photos. The Jewish Community
Centers and YM & YWHAs were
divided according to the size of
Jewish population, as follows:
CATEGORY A — 40,000 and
more Jewish jjopulation,
CATEGORY B — 20,000 to 39,-
999 Jewish population;
CATEGORY C — 5,000 to 19,999
Jewish population;
CATEGORY D — under 5,000
Jewish population;
CATEGORY E — JCC and Y
Branches.
“It is a tribute to the entrants
and their communities that we
received 150 entries from Jewish
Community Centers, camps,
and military Jewish com
munities. Certainly impressive
numbers,” Mr. Isaacs wrote in
the foreword of the Awards
Winners booklet.
ing three sets of twins and two
children bom in the U.S. Nine of
the ten elementary school age
children are receiving some
form of Jewish education. Seven
attend the Hebrew Academy
and two attend religious school
at Temple Beth El.
Those of us who have been
helping the Russian families ad
just to their new surroundings
always joke “that each one is an
engineer.” Guess Duke Power
(Continued on Page 5)
JCC Elects New Officers
Yom Hashoa
Participants involved in the simulation Holocaust learning experience during the Yom
Hashoa observance.
“If God has a plan for humani
ty, how does Hitler fit in?”
— Dr. Harry Cargas
Special Yom Hashoa services
were held Sunday, April 13 to
observe the “Day of Holocaust
Remembrance.” A public com
memorative service was held in
Holocaust Square at Morehead
Street and Dilworth Road from
12:15 to 12:45 p.m. Approximate
ly 150 people were drenched dur
ing the rainstorm as the
recitations and candlielighting
took place. Many of the soaking
wet spectators were children
from Temple Beth El’s religious
school who had come on the
WBT bus. The sisterhood and
men’s club of Temple Israel
prepared a menu of the standard
concentration camp fare and
passed it out to the crowd ...
potato peeling soup and stale
bread.
In the afternoon an ‘invita
tion only” group of people, who
met at Temple Israel, went
through a simulated Holocaust.
From the beginning of
“Gestapo: A Learning Ex
perience About the Holocaust”
the 48 participants represent
ing the leadership of 10 areas of
community life — education,
government, law, religion,
media, industry, medicine,
social services, the applied
sciences and the arts — risked
their lives and their treasures
against the Nazi regime. After
the hour-long simulation only
about half of them came out as
survivors. Moderator Dick
Pomerantz read actual events
from Hitler’s rise in power in
1933 to the end of World War II
in 1945. After their experiences
the participants were urged to
maintain a commitment to mov
ing the community to a better
future.
The group was also addressed
by Dr. Franklin Littell,
professor of Religion at Temple
University in Philadelphia and
director of the National In
stitute on the Holocaust. He is
also an adjunct professor at
Hebrew University in
Jerusalem. Dr, Littell, a Protes
tant, stated, “When you have
met and dealt with the
Holocaust face to face, nothing
is ever the same again.” Also
speaking was Dr. Harry Cargas,
a Catholic, who is chairman of
the Department of Language
and Literature at Webster
College in St, Louis and a
member of the National In
stitute on the Holocaust. In an
earlier interview he stated that
“the Christian liturgical calen
dar should include an annual
memorial for the Jewish victims
of the Holocaust,” He further
said that “Jesus should be
recognized as a link between
Jews and Christians, and the
Christian theologies of history
should be re-examined. If God
has a plan for humanity, how
does Hitler fit in?” Describing a
Christian response to the
Holocaust, Cargas suggested
that Christians publicly and of
ficially admit the wrong of their
teachers’ presentation of the
Jews, that Christians find a new
terminology for what they
designate the Old and New
Testaments and that Catholics
demand an encyclical letter
denouncing anti-Semitism.
At 7:30 p,m. an evening ser
vice of remembrance and com
mitment was held for the com
munity at Covenant Pres
byterian Church, This service
included a candlelighting
ceremony to commemorate the
eleven miUion who died during
the Holocaust — six million
Jews and five million others.
Ten of the candles were lit by
each of the representatives of
the ten areas of community life.
The eleventh candle was lit by a
child of a survivor of the
Holocaust and was to represent
the youth and hopefully our
future. Dr. Littell spoke again to
the approximately 200 who
braved the heavy rain that even
ing. He spoke about “the wick
edness of perpetrators and the
wickedness of spectators.” He
emphasized the injustice of
Christiandom from the church
to the synagogue. littell feels
that one should “speak still or
speak to save a life” and prais
ed the group “Action Reconcilia
tion” as “doing something that
is credible.” He went on to state
that “when the Christians
learn more about the
Holocaust, they will mourn
it more than the Jews.”
The day’s program was spon
sored by the University of North
Carolina at Charlotte, the
Jew’ish Cx)mmunity Centt>r, and
the National Conference of
Christians and Jews and was
made possible by a grant from
the North Carolina Humanities
Committee.
ten Jr. was installed to aerve his second con
secutive term as President of the JCC at the April meeting.
In
The
News
Candlelighting
. page 3
Hebrew Academy
.., page 7
Classified Ads
. page 8
JCC Activities
... page 6
Club News
. page 7
JCC Day Camp
... page 8
Community Calendar..
. page 8
Random Thoughts .,.
. . page 3
Dry Bones
. page 8
This ’n That
.., page 5
Eklitorials
. page 2
World Beat
... page 4