Did you know?

Did you know that your support for the UJC Annual Campaign is helping to create new energy sources? Lately we have all been inundated and stressed over the latest news surrounding one of the worst environmental disasters in US history, the oil spill in the Gulf. This horrific and paralyzing disaster serves as yet another wake-up call that we must focus on developing alternative forms of energy. The State of Israel has jumped to the forefront in developing alternative sources of energy. The Israel Project, which educates the media and public about Israel recently posted an interesting article on its website.
Click to read the article

The United Jewish Council of Greater Toledo has played a role over the decades in contributing to Israel's achievements by funding immigration, which has resulted in a massive influx of talent and brainpower, and funding opportunities for all Israelis to better themselves educationally. This investment by our community in the people of Israel continues to pay off for all of us. Click here to read more about how Israel is making strides.

Your support for the UJC Annual Campaign causes a ripple effect for hope and prosperity. You can make a difference!

One Gift, countless benefits sustains the miracle of Jewish life.

Please make your gifts to the UJC Campaign today! (Payment options are available)

How to Donate:

• Donate online at www.jewishtoledo.org 

• Contact either Allie Berns, UJC Campaign Director at 419-724-0362 or allie@jewishtoledo.org or Wendy Goldstein, JCRC Director/Campaign Associate at 419-724-0360 or wendy@jewishtoledo.org 

• Fax your pledge cards to Barb Hager at 419-885-3207

Upcoming UJC Events

YAD gets silly! Thursday, June 24th - Meet at 6:30pm in the Lobby, Show is at 7:00pm. Funny Bone Comedy Club – 6140 Levis Commons Blvd. Perrysburg, OH. $5 – Includes Comedy Club ticket and shared appetizers. Come and hang out with YAD for a night of laughs in Perrysburg at the Funny Bone Comedy Club! RSVP’s and payment required by Tuesday, June 22 to Barb Hager at 419-724-0357 or Barb@JewishToledo.org ****NO WALK-INS WILL BE ACCEPTED****

Department of Jewish Programs Presents: Summer Films-7:00 pm – Showings will begin promptly- Darlington Hall – Leo and Vera Sekach Community Services Building, 6505 Sylvania Ave. These films will be shown free of charge, but registration is requested one week prior to each showing. Please bring non-perishable can goods for the JFS Food Bank. Light refreshments will be offered, but feel free to bring your own favorite kosher snacks.
Monday, June 28: A Matter of Size- 90 minutes. Hebrew with English subtitles. What’s a super-sized, aspiring Israeli chef who’s just been kicked out of his weight-watching support group to do about his ever-increasing girth? Pursue a career in Sumo wrestling, of course! Fed up with the society’s (his mothers!) notion of the ideal body shape, Herzl, who weighs in at 340 pounds, enlists his mysterious Japanese boss to train him and several large friends in the ancient martial art of Sumo. In this offbeat comedy about self-revelation, our shape-challenged friends learn to shed societal norms and love themselves, and each other, just as they are. Nominated for 13 Israeli Academy Awards, including Best Picture. This film is currently touring all the major film festivals including Detroit and Portland.

Kids Klub & Club 678 Summer Fun Pool Party!!! Monday, July 12th @ 7:00 – 10:00pm. UJC Campus – JCC/YMCA Pool. Free and snacks will be provided. If you are entering 4th through 8th grade this fall, then this is the right event for you! This is your first official Kids Klub or Club 678 event. Come and join us for a night of swimming, games, fun, friends, and so much more.  RSVP’s are required by Friday, July 9 to Barb Hager at 419-724-0357 or Barb@JewishToledo.org ***No Walk-ins will be accepted***

CAMP L’CHAIM, August 2 through 6
The 8th annual day camp for seniors, Camp L’chaim, begins Monday, Aug. 2, at 9:30 a.m., in the Patio at the Jewish Community Center. Seniors who are enrolled enjoy a week of fun, including entertainment, dancing, movies, games, arts and crafts, and various outings. This year, another daylong experience at Maumee Bay State Park is on the agenda. Entertainers include musicians, speakers, comedians, magicians, etc. Spa treatments are standard at camp, including massage, manicures, paraffin wax hand treatments, and quantum touch. Outings have included cruises on the Sandpiper, guided tours of the Glass Pavilion and Botanical Gardens, Mud Hens ball games, and dinners at historical restaurants such as the Park Lane Hotel. The cost for the week is $50 for seniors, thanks to the generous support of Jewish Senior Services Supporting Organization. For more information, call Mary Lou Whittaker, 419-531-2119, or e-mail Marylou@jewishtoledo.org.

Around Jewish Toledo

An Evening of Vision, Music & Inspiration featuring Speaker Elie Wiesel- Monday, June 21, 2010 at 6 p.m. Rock Financial Showplace in Novi, MI. Transportation provided by TLC Charter and Tour from the JCC at 4:30 p.m. Don’t miss this inspirational evening that includes an elegant dinner, wonderful entertainment and a keynote speech by renowned author Elie Wiesel. This event commemorates the Yahrtzeit of the Lubavitcher Rebbe of Righteous Memory. Chassidic musical performance by Chicago Blues Violinist Ruby Harris. Tickets: $36. Thanks to TLC Charter and Tour, there is a complimentary bus going from the JCC at 4:30 p.m. and leaving to return to Toledo by 9 p.m. Reserve online at www.lubavitchmi.com or call 419-843-9393. Seats are limited! Reserve soon!

The 23rd annual Interfaith Blood Drive June 26/27 @ Grace Lutheran Church, 4441 Monroe St. from 9-3. Sunday evening, June 27 @ 7 PM Celebration of Life Service @ The Unitarian Church on Glendale (near Southland)" To donate, & work @ the drive especially Sunday morning, call Devorah Friedrich @ 419-841-4652.

Congregation Etz Chayim would like to help you sweeten the Jewish New Year by sending out jars of delicious, kosher honey to your family and friends. For $12.00 per jar, the synagogue will process your order and send out the honey with a lovely enclosed a gift card to anyone in the United States. Forms are available in the Etz Chayim office or by calling 419-473-2401. Deadline for orders is July 1, 2010.

Around the Jewish World

Support Israel: If It Goes Down, We All Go Down - Jose Maria Aznar (Times-UK)
• For far too long now it has been unfashionable in Europe to speak up for Israel. In the wake of the recent incident on board a ship full of anti-Israeli activists in the Mediterranean, it is hard to think of a more unpopular cause to champion.
• In our dealings with Israel, we must blow away the red mists of anger that too often cloud our judgment. A reasonable and balanced approach should encapsulate the following realities: first, the State of Israel was created by a decision of the UN. Its legitimacy, therefore, should not be in question. Israel is a nation with deeply rooted democratic institutions. It is a dynamic and open society that has repeatedly excelled in culture, science and technology.
• Uniquely in the West, it is the only democracy whose very existence has been questioned since its inception. In the first instance, it was attacked by its neighbors using the conventional weapons of war. Then it faced terrorism culminating in wave after wave of suicide attacks. Now, at the behest of radical Islamists and their sympathizers, it faces a campaign of delegitimization through international law and diplomacy.
• For years, the focus of Western attention has understandably been on the peace process between Israelis and Palestinians. The real threats to regional stability, however, are to be found in the rise of a radical Islamism which sees Israel's destruction as the fulfillment of its religious destiny and, simultaneously in the case of Iran, as an expression of its ambitions for regional hegemony. Both phenomena are threats that affect not only Israel, but also the wider West and the world at large.
• Israel is our first line of defense in a turbulent region that is constantly at risk of descending into chaos; a region vital to our energy security owing to our overdependence on Middle Eastern oil; a region that forms the front line in the fight against extremism. If Israel goes down, we all go down. To defend Israel's right to exist in peace, within secure borders, requires a degree of moral and strategic clarity that too often seems to have disappeared in Europe. The U.S. shows worrying signs of heading in the same direction.
• What binds us, however, is our unyielding support for Israel's right to exist and to defend itself. For Western countries to side with those who question Israel's legitimacy, for them to play games in international bodies with Israel's vital security issues, for them to appease those who oppose Western values rather than robustly to stand up in defense of those values, is not only a grave moral mistake, but a strategic error of the first magnitude.
The writer was Prime Minister of Spain, 1996-2004. 

• After the Flotilla: Crisis and Opportunity - Tal Becker
As more and more facts emerge about what took place aboard the Marmara, the identity of some of its members, and their violent agenda, many Israelis and their supporters feel at once more vindicated and more outraged at the ferocity of the international criticism that was unleashed. Many Israelis felt - more palpably than in decades - that it was not only Gaza that was under a kind of siege, but Israel itself. Many were astonished not just by the hypocrisy and fury of Israel's critics, but by the estrangement from some of its erstwhile friends. Israel, it seemed, belonged to a special category of "guilty before proven guilty."
Israel has always had, and will always have, its detractors and its enemies. But the question is whether we have the imagination and the passion to develop a range of responses that prevent the advocates of delegitimization from dictating the agenda. Perhaps we will have the wisdom to see that Israel's adversaries are turning the revival of Jewish and Zionist identity from an aspiration into an imperative. Perhaps their assault on Israel's legitimacy can help renew our own dedication to Israel's calling as a vibrant Jewish and democratic state, one that is a source of pride and meaning for Jews everywhere and a source of inspiration, leadership, and moral example for the world.
Israel needs to focus on inspiring confidence in the sincerity of its intentions, the morality of its motives, and the integrity of its actions. Israel needs a reputation that gives it the benefit of the doubt. It needs for serious people to be able to testify to the country's wisdom, reason, and moral integrity and to affirm with certainty that these qualities will be brought to bear in grappling with the painful dilemmas that Israel faces. The writer, former legal advisor to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, is a Fellow of the Shalom Hartman Institute. (Shalom Hartman Institute) 

Anti-Semitism Is Socially Acceptable Again - Leon de Winter
Why do people and organizations that present themselves as progressive team up with reactionary Muslims? The Free Gaza group is just such an alliance. Gaza is already free; Israel withdrew five years ago. And there is also no need for any humanitarian aid. Well over a million tons of humanitarian supplies entered Gaza from Israel over the last 18 months, equaling nearly a ton of aid for every man, woman and child in Gaza. Life expectancy at birth in Gaza is 74 years, higher than in Turkey, Gaza's new protector.
But Gaza's population voted in democratic elections to be ruled by a party whose hatred of Jews is the cornerstone of its existence. The fact that Gaza is completely "judenrein" isn't enough for Hamas. It wants Israel to be "judenrein" too. The progressives don't care for any other group of poor or suppressed Muslims. They only cry for the "victims" of the Jews. Why is that so? (Wall Street Journal)

JCRC Tidbits

Encourage your Congressman to co-sponsor Gilad Shalit resolution HRes 1359

On June 25, 2006, in the wake of Hamas' violent take-over of the Gaza Strip, Israeli Army Corporal Gilad Shalit was kidnapped in a cross-border raid. The Palestinian militant group Hamas has been designated a terrorist organization by the United States and many of our allies. Hamas has denied the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) from visiting Shalit or providing him any humanitarian aid. Shalit was 19 years old when abducted by Hamas and has been held in violation of international custom and law continuously, without contact with his family or the outside world, for the four years since. They have used his captivity for propaganda. All international efforts to secure Shalit's return to Israel have been rejected by Hamas. Hamas has threatened that if Israel does not act soon, Shalit will suffer a similar fate to Ron Arad, the Israeli Air force Lieutenant Colonel captured by in 1986. It is unclear if Arad is still alive.
Representatives Gary Ackerman and Dan Burton have introduced H.Res. 1359, which calls for the immediate and unconditional release of Shalit. To see the full resolution, please click here.
Action Needed: Click Here
Please encourage your member of Congress to co-sponsor H. Res. 1359, which calls for the immediate and unconditional release of Israeli soldier, Gilad Shalit.