Winter 2008/09 - Kislev 5769 - Maimonides School

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NOTED EDUCATORS IMBUE STUDENTS WITH LESSONS OF SURVIVAL Drs. Paul and Anna Ornstein of Brookline experienced the Holocaust in all of its horror. As teenagers in Hungary, they witnessed the sudden and brutal destruction of their families and community. They endured forced labor, starvation, humiliation. Yet their ultimate message to Maimonides Upper School students on Nov. 10 was uplifting. The Ornsteins, renowned educators in the field of psychiatry, spent a couple of hours with Grades 9-12 in observance of the 70th anniversary of the Kristallnacht pogrom. They also shared another hour with students in Grade 6-9, offering remembrances and eliciting the students’ thoughts and questions. The couple’s five years as medical students in Germany immediately after World War II “helped us not to hate,” Mrs. Ornstein said. “We had to distinguish between our persecutors and people caught up in the regime.” As displaced persons in 1945, the Ornsteins found themselves stuck in Germany, so they decided to resume their studies—a central part of their families’ values and expectations. As medical students in Heidelberg, they were assigned housing, first in the residence of a former SS officer, and later with a “magnificent” Gala Honors Abelows, Bessler Continued from p. 1 of Women’s Auxiliary and president of the Parent-Teacher Association in successive years. After her youngest child became a teenager, she began a 30-year career on the Maimonides Elementary School faculty, teaching fourth grade general studies and then moving to student support services until her retirement in 2003. Morah Bessler was born in Jerusalem and taught briefly in Brooklyn before joining the Elementary School faculty in 1995. Her gentle teaching style, her knowledge and commitment have endeared her to a generation of students and their parents. Besides teaching Judaic studies and Hebrew in third grade, Morah Bessler for several years also coordinated and clergyman who saved Jewish children during the war. The Germans occupied Hungary in March 1944. Within two months, Paul Ornstein told the students, 600,000 of Hungary’s 800,000 Jews had been destroyed. Mr. Ornstein was sent to a nearby forced labor camp in June, then to the Ukraine. He and a friend, fearful of death from hunger or cold, took advantage of a Russian bombardment and escaped, making their way to partisans fighting the occupation. Mrs. Ornstein remembered her small town’s entire Jewish population, about 200, consigned to a ghetto—a single house. And on June 6, 1944, the day of the Allied invasion of France, they were transported to Auschwitz. Although Mrs. Ornstein and her mother were spared the immediate death sentence on arrival, mere survival was a constant challenge. After liberation in 1945, they were reunited in Hungary, and “were totally on our own.” But they immediately realized that “our goal was to get out of Eastern Europe and get into the West.” After they were married, the Ornsteins studied medicine in Germany, attained their degrees and immigrated to the United States. helped teach “Growing Up,” an eightsession program addressing adolescents’ biological, social and emotional issues. The Abelows and Morah Bessler will be honored in the 2009 Scholarship Adbook with messages of congratulations and gratitude. Contribution forms have been distributed by mail; questions may be addressed to info@maimonides.org. Overseeing the 2009 Campaign are co-chairs Jonathan and Judy Chiel, Marc and Beth Epstein, and Peter and Debbie Gyenes. Gala Chairs are Reva and Harvey Gertel. Counterterrorism Continued from p. 1 result would be no better than buying more time. The “long-simmering Iranian hegemonic intent over the region” is Drs. Ornstein are among the pioneers of self-psychology, one of the first psychotherapy movements to emphasize listening to patients and entering their inner world, as treatment. Professors emeriti at the University of Cincinnati, they now are lecturers on psychiatry at Harvard University and co-direct the International Center for the Study of Psychoanalytic Self-Psychology. The Nov. 10 program was underwritten by Maimonides School’s Theodore and Anna Schoenfeld Holocaust Studies Endowment Fund. Dr. Anna Ornstein converses with seniors, from left, Zehava Gale, Rachel Jaret and Jessica Kasmer-Jacobs. perceived as a threat by Arab countries as well, he noted. “We have a whole slew of problems, and we’re going to have to walk and chew gum at the same time,” he said. The situation requires “much more strategic thinking about how to implement our tactical counterterrorism so that it’s not just military,” he continued. “I don’t think ‘diplomacy’ has to be seen as a bad word… I don’t believe you necessarily look weak by offering to sit down with a state.” That doesn’t apply to terrorist units like Hamas or Al-Qaeda, he stressed. Dr. Levitt said he is less concerned with U.S. tactical measures than about strategic counterterrorism—“our ability to win the battle of ideas.”
UMass Amherst Continued from p. 3 atmosphere with them that helps the students internalize a spiritual feeling.” UMass has been conducting serious outreach to Orthodox families, most recently at an early December gathering in Newton featuring Maimonides School parent Jay Berkovitz, UMass professor of Judaic and Near Eastern studies. Shifra also participated in the session, along with Rabbi Ruderman and the admissions director. The evening, focusing on “Orthodox life and academic opportunities,” was sponsored by KHH. “We have been marketing all over New England as well as in New York and New Jersey to attract Orthodox students,” said Ellie. “KHH is a small, tightly-knit community, and one very nice aspect of it, coming from Maimonides, has been A sea of smiling, swirling students envelops Saval Campus with the jubilation of Sukkot as the school community commemorates the mitzvah of Hakheil in the courtyard. Students in Kindergarten through Grade 12 gathered on Chol HaMoed Sukkot to share the experience the gathering of the nation in the Beit HaMikdash. Principals, limudei kodesh teachers and seniors explain each component of the ancient ceremony (top), including the mass recitation of the first section of Kriat Shema (Devarim 6:4-9). The ceremonies were followed by enthusiastic dancing, highlighted by clusters of older and younger students together and embellished by a plethora of Israeli flags. (Photos by Robert Borkow) the social connections I have been able to make in such a large university.” “I look forward to the future of KHH,” Shifra declared. “There is also a growth in the amount of Orthodox students applying and getting accepted to the university. These students who decide to come to UMass are allowing themselves to join a community that is truly special and will give them friends to last a lifetime.”
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Winter 2008/09 - Kislev 5769 - Maimonides School

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