YAD and CYJL Events

On the evening of October 28th, JCGC hosted the Young Adult Division (YAD) of the Jewish Federation for a quick cemetery tour and discussion of cemetery practices/halacha at the Walnut Hills location. The event was hosted by Jeff Blumental, who heads up YAD, and was attended by about 15 members of YAD. Brad Kaplan, Josh Shapiro and David Hoguet attended for JCGC. We started at 6:30 with a little social time and a brief tour of the area near the office, which includes the monuments of Rabbis Isaac M. Wise and Max Lillienthal, as well as the Veterans Memorial. The group then moved inside for a discussion of several cemetery topics, including burials for intermarried couples, cremation and the halachic differences between the Reform, Conservative and Orthodox denominations. Perhaps the most interesting insight of the evening was the fact that this group of younger people embraced the idea of owning plots in the cemeteries closer to downtown than in the suburbs. All in all, it was a great exchange of ideas. We intend to repeat this event in the coming years.

On November 10th, JCGC co-sponsored with Rockdale and Cedar Village a talk for Create Your Jewish Legacy participants by Dr. Gary Zola entitled “‘He was Like One of Us’: Abraham Lincoln and American Jewry.” Before Gary’s talk, Rabbi Coran (Rockdale), Stewart Bromberg (Cedar Village), and Larry Neuman (JCGC) each thanked their legacy donors, followed by a brief talk about CYJL by David Harris, who heads the program. Many of the donors present had made legacy gifts to more than one of the organizations co-sponsoring the event.

Gary’s talk was fascinating. He traced the many Jewish friends Lincoln had prior to his becoming President; moved on to the actions Lincoln took during his presidency that endeared him to the Jews (allowing rabbis to become military chaplains during the Civil War, overturning Grant’s order expelling Jews from recently conquered territory, and resisting efforts to Christianize the Constitution); and closed with some of the obituaries of Lincoln that inspired the title of his book: “We Called Him Rabbi Abraham: Lincoln and American Jewry.”