Compiled by Leon Cohen
September
Congregation Emanu-El B’ne Jeshurun held its first High Holiday services in its remodeled and expanded building.
On Sept. 23, the Milwaukee Jewish Federation board of directors approved a Brit Kehillah (Community Covenant) intended to help improve relations between the MJF and its ten constituent agencies by providing “a clear description of the responsibilities and obligations we each assume as we work toward achieving our mutual goals,” according to the document’s preamble.
The Milwaukee Jewish Federation announced that it had embarked on a process of studying how the Milwaukee Jewish Council for Community Relations could become a department of the MJF. The council had been an independent, but federation-funded agency since 1938.
The new building for the Hillel Foundation at the University of Wisconsin-Madison was dedicated on Oct. 17.
On Oct. 21, Congregation Anshai Lebowitz celebrated the more than 50 years that Rabbi Bernard Reichman had served as rabbi in Wisconsin.
Elmer Winter – co-founder of the international temporary help firm Manpower, noted Milwaukee philanthropist and activist, and founded of the Committee for the Economic Growth of Israel – died on Oct. 22.
On Oct. 25, Beth Hillel Temple in Kenosha inaugurated a series of events marking the 25th anniversary of Rabbi Dena Feingold’s service to the synagogue. Feingold was the first Wisconsin woman rabbi and the first woman rabbi to be the primary spiritual leader of a Wisconsin synagogue.
Milwaukee historian John Gurda’s book “One People, Many Paths: A History of Jewish Milwaukee” was published.
Brynwood Country Club merged with the Wisconsin Club on Nov. 1. Brynwood was founded in 1926 as a club for area Jews.
The Wisconsin Institute of Judaism, previously known as the B’nai B’rith Institute of Judaism, closed after nearly 60 years of providing Jewish learning to Jews primarily in communities outside Milwaukee and Madison.
Wisconsin Gov. Jim Doyle participated in a state trade mission to Israel Nov. 16-20. He signed an agreement with Israel’s Ministry of Industry, Trade and Labor to promote Wisconsin-Israel cooperation on research and development of water technologies, and he spoke at the International Water Technologies, Renewable Energy and Environmental Control Exhibition in Tel Aviv.
The Milwaukee Jewish Free Loan Association began given confidential, interest-free personal loans on a non-sectarian basis to residents of the Greater Milwaukee area.
The Milwaukee Jewish Council for Community Relations organized an interfaith trip to Israel that was partly funded by the Helen Bader Foundation. The trip took place Nov. 30-Dec. 9.
The Bayside village board voted on Dec. 17 to approve plans for Congregation Ahavat Yisrael — more commonly known as The Shul — to take over the building and site of the former Pandl’s In Bayside restaurant.
Congregation B’nai Israel in Oshkosh was spray-painted in an act of anti-Semitic vandalism on Dec. 24.
Nathaniel Zachary Silber was born on Jan. 1, becoming the first Jewish baby of 2010.
Arleen Peltz became the first woman to chair the Jewish Home and Care Center in that institution’s 103-year history.
On Jan. 19, the Milwaukee Jewish Federation board of directors voted to approve the merger of the Milwaukee Jewish Council for Community Relations with the MJF. As of March 1, it was renamed the Jewish Community Relations Council.
The 2009 Audit of Anti-Semitic Incidents, produced and released by the Milwaukee Jewish Council for Community Relations, reported one incident of discrimination and six accounts of anti-Semitic written or spoken expression.
Beginning on Jan. 22, the Milwaukee Public Museum opened an exhibit on “The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Bible.” A number of Jewish community events were associated with this exhibit.
Milwaukee Jewish medical professionals Gigi Pomerantz, a nurse practitioner, David Moss, M.D., and Jeffrey Taxman, M.D., were among those who traveled to Haiti to provide assistance in the aftermath of the Jan. 12 earthquake in that Caribbean island nation.
The 2009-2010 Annual School Census of Milwaukee Jewish children attending area Jewish educational institutions found a 5.3 percent decline in total enrollment — 1,968 children, compared to 2,079 the year before. The census was created by the Coalition for Jewish Learning, the education program of the Milwaukee Jewish Federation.
Controversy flared at the University of Wisconsin-Madison over a Holocaust denial ad published in the Badger Herald student newspaper on Feb. 18.
Milwaukee businessman and Jewish and general community philanthropist Joseph J. Zilber died on March 19. He was 92.
More than 55 teens from seven schools and synagogues packed and distributed free Passover food to more than 600 local families on March 21 as part of the Wisconsin Children’s Passover Project.
Robert Goodman, jeweler, brother of Irwin (who died in August 2009 at age 94), and with his brother part of a renowned philanthropic team in the Jewish and general communities in Madison, died April 1. He was 90.
On April 29 at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, members of the campus Muslim Student Association disrupted a Jewish students’ celebration of Israel Independence Day, an incident that included a violent attack on a Jewish student.
The University of Wisconsin-Madison announced that it is establishing the Mayrent Institute of Yiddish Culture, to be directed by Henry Sapoznik, an expert scholar and performer of klezmer music and an authority on Yiddish and American popular culture.
On May 11, Milwaukee’s Sacred Heart School of Theology inaugurated its Lux Center for Catholic-Jewish Studies on the occasion of the retirement of Prof. Richard Lux, who was celebrated for his years of work in local Catholic-Jewish relations.
Rabbi Tamar Crystal became the full-time rabbi at Beth El Ner Tamid Synagogue as of May 15. She is the first Conservative woman rabbi to lead a Milwaukee-area synagogue.
Jewish and general community activist R. Todd Lappin died of a heart attack on May 21. He was 70.
The Wisconsin Institute for Torah Study celebrated its 30th anniversary by dedicating a new Torah scroll on May 23.
The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee announced that it hired Joel B. Berkowitz, a scholar of the Yiddish theater, to be director of the university’s Sam and Helen Stahl Center for Jewish Studies.
Rabbi Akiva Freilich, director of the Ohr HaTorah Jewish Heritage Center, announced that the center is planning to create a Glendale Community Mikvah.
Melvin S. Zaret, executive vice president of the Milwaukee Jewish Federation from 1955 to 1984, died on May 31. He was 92.
The Milwaukee Jewish Federation board of directors on June 22 approved community allocations of $8,029,555 for the 2010-11 fiscal year, compared to $7,953,550 for 2009-2010.
A Milwaukee chapter of J Street, the self-described “political home for pro-Israel, pro-peace Americans,” began to form, beginning with an event on June 23 at which former Milwaukeean Daniel Kohl, now vice president of political affairs for the national organization, spoke.
The Wisconsin Jewish Chronicle won a Simon Rockower Award for Excellence in Jewish Journalism at the American Jewish Press Association meeting in Scottsdale, Ariz., June 14-17. Editor Elana Kahn-Oren won a second prize in the personal essay category for her Editor’s Desk column “Why choose Israel?” in the July 2009 issue.
The Harry and Rose Samson Family Jewish Community Center signed an agreement with the Bayshore Town Center to work with it for three years on a variety of collaborative projects
Wisconsin Jewish Chronicle editor Elana Kahn-Oren was hired to become director of the Jewish Community Relations Council of the Milwaukee Jewish Federation. She began work in mid-July.
The Madison Jewish Community Day School – the only Wisconsin Jewish day school outside of Milwaukee – announced that it hired Rabbi Rebecca Ben-Gideon as its head of school.
The damage to the Milwaukee area caused by intense rainfall on July 22 included flooding the site of the Jewish Community Pantry at 3033 W. Burleigh St. The operation was wrecked, and the pantry – the only kosher emergency food pantry in the Milwaukee-area – had to begin looking for a new site. Photo
Two Torah scrolls that had been stolen in April 2008 from Congregation B’nei Tzedek Chabad in Kenosha were returned during the weekend of July 24-25. The identity of the thief or thieves remains unknown, and 20 books and a laptop computer are still missing.
As of Aug. 1, Rabbi Wes Kalmar became the new spiritual leader of Anshe Sfard Kehillat Torah synagogue in Glendale.
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