Eytan Stibbe
Eating hand-made shmurah matza in space during Passover may sound like something out of a sci-fi film, but that is what happened this year. On April 9, a week before Passover, Israeli astronaut Eytan Stibbe, 64, a former Israeli Air Force fighter pilot and philanthropist, was given a box of shmurah matza before boarding Axiom 1 bound for the International Space Station.
During a press conference earlier in the week, Stibbe said, “The seder, Passover, is all about freedom, which is a value we celebrate annually and remind ourselves about the importance of freedom, based on a 3,000-year-old story when Moses said the famous sentence, ‘Let my people go.’”
Joseph Kahn
The New York Times has named Joseph Kahn, currently the paper’s managing editor, as its next executive editor, succeeding Dean Baquet, 65, who is retiring after eight years in the position. Kahn is the fifth Jewish editor in the top spot, following A.M. Rosenthal (1977-1986), Max Frankel (1986-1994), Joseph Lelyveld (1994-2001, 2003), and Jill Abramson (2011-2014).
Kahn joined The Times in January 1998 after four years as China correspondent for The Wall Street Journal. Before The Journal, he was a reporter at The Dallas Morning News, where he was part of a team of reporters awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1994 for international reporting on violence against women around the world.
In 2006, Kahn and Jim Yardley won the Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting for The Times, covering rule of law in China.
Hedy Campeas and Graham Diamond
Shul members Hedy Campeas and Graham Diamond, co-authors of a new mystery thriller Diner of Lost Souls, have reported the book’s release on ePubs, and its trade softcover release upcoming on June 3. It is this month’s featured release on bookbub.com/.
For a fun read with “action, adventure, murder, manslaughter and terrorism,” according to an Amazon review, join sleuth Cora Drakos, proprietor of the Athena Diner, in an adventure tale from New York to Athens and back to New York.
Mazel tov to Hedy and Graham on their first literary collaboration.
Volodymyr Zelenskyy
Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Ukraine’s charismatic Jewish leader is being admired around the world for refusing to back down in the face of seemingly impossible odds — Russia’s aggression against a sovereign nation of 40 million people — and he is fighting in the streets with his people against the Russian invaders.
More than a million of Ukraine’s Jews were murdered during the Holocaust, and in 1941, 33,000 Jews were executed and left in ravines filled with bodies at Babyn Yar, outside the Ukrainian city of Kyiv. But now, a Jew has risen to the most prominent and powerful political position, and is being lauded by the world as a paragon of courage and hope. As Jeff Salkin wrote for Religion News Service, “Never before in modern history have the world’s eyes so clearly focused on a Jew, who is demonstrating a mix of character, patriotism and sheer courage.”
Ted Deutch
Rep. Ted Deutch, a Democrat from South Florida, has announced that he will not seek a seventh term in the U.S. House of Representatives, and instead will become chief executive of the American Jewish Committee. Deutch is the 31st member of his party to step aside ahead of the midterm elections.
He told The Forward that he had been preparing for his new role his whole life, crediting his formative years at Camp Ramah with teaching him to stand up for Jewish issues, and his time as a Hillel leader in college fighting for Soviet Jews. “If I think about what I did as a kid and the experiences that I had as a young adult, it probably would have been easier to anticipate a position like the one I’m going to more than the one I’ve been in.”
HIAS
HIAS, formerly known as the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, has received a $10 million donation from billionaire philanthropist MacKenzie Scott, the ex-wife of Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos. The money recognizes the work of HIAS in aiding refugees fleeing the war in Ukraine.
HIAS said the grant will go toward humanitarian relief, helping with resettlement in the countries of the European Union, including housing, education, health, language training, and mental health. Some of the money will help Jews from countries bordering Ukraine who choose to relocate to Western Europe, HIAS said.
Greta Weinfeld Ferusic
Greta Ferusic was 19 when she and her family were taken from their home in Novi Sad, in northern Serbia, to Auschwitz-Birkenau, along with thousands of other Serbian Jews. She was the only member of her family to survive the death camps. Nearly 50 years later, after a distinguished career as an architect and a professor, she refused to leave her home in Sarajevo when the siege of that city began.
“Once in my life, I had already been forced to leave my home,” she said in Greta, a 1997 documentary film about her life during two wars. “I will never again leave my home willingly.”
She died on Jan. 23 at her home in Sarajevo. She was 97. On Jan. 27, International Holocaust Remembrance Day, four days after her death, Bosnian National Television broadcast Greta in her honor.
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