JUF News Express

Despite not having grown up around snow, 36-year-old Israeli Ami Greener held his own in the massive snowball war he helped launch in Dupont Circle on Saturday. Some 2,000 people were estimated to have attended, some equipped with trays to better gather their “ammunition” and others with trash-can lids to shield themselves from their attackers, reports The Jerusalem Post.

Like Greener, co-organizer Michael Lipin also didn’t experience much snow growing up, and he wanted to make the most of it when he heard a historic storm was brewing last week. Lipin, who now lives in Dupont Circle and works for Voice of America, started to organize Saturday’s encounter by inviting friends through his Facebook page, with 33 people signed up by last Thursday morning.

Then Greener, who moved to Washington three years ago and runs an environment consulting business, started helping his friend get the word out through blogs and social media, including sending out his very first Tweet.

“It went from 33 people Thursday morning to 1,000 by Thursday night, to 4,000 by Friday night, to more than 5,000 before the fight,” Lipin said of those who joined his Facebook group. “It was completely crazy.”

Playing on the road can be tough in the NBA -- but not for Omri Casspi, the first Israeli to play in the league, who inspires Israelis and Jewish Americans from Tel Aviv to Telluride, reports Benjamin Hochman in The Denver Post.

Six days ago, the 21-year-old Casspi played his first game at the Pepsi Center, and dozens of Jewish Denverites cheered the 3-point specialist, who finished with 14 points and four rebounds off the bench.

"It's amazing — it's a great feeling to go out there and play and see the flags and the Israeli guys cheer and the Jewish people from America," Casspi said.

Most folks in the league — besides the headstrong Casspi, of course — thought it would take months for the kid to become a legitimate player. Turned out, it took quarters. Casspi is fifth among NBA rookies in both points per game (12.1) and rebounds (4.8). He perpetually plays hard. And he surely leads the league in mitzvahs.

That's good deeds, and as an unofficial ambassador, Casspi often meets with Jewish youth in NBA cities, such as during his surprise visit last Sunday to a Denver group, which met at the East Denver Orthodox Synagogue. Adults and children alike fawned over the rock star, but according to Hagai Shoham, a Denver-based Israeli, "He asked to only meet with the youth. He wanted to inspire them to be something — and to believe in their dreams." Call him the Most Valuable Mensch.

Two weeks before the European Figure Skating Championships in Tallinn, Estonia, in mid-January, Israeli skater Tamar Katz was sick in bed and going crazy. Though she had qualified already in international competition for the 2010 Winter Olympics, the tougher standards of Israel’s Olympic Committee required that Katz finish in the top 14 in Europe to punch her ticket to the Winter Games in Vancouver. Katz said that while she felt weak before leaving for Estonia, she felt good when she took the ice. She finished 21st -- half a point away from qualifying for the finals, where her free skate routine might have propelled her into the top 14. As a result, Israel is not sending Katz to Vancouver, reports the JTA's Marcy Oster. (Read Oy!Chicago's interview with Tamar Katz.)

About a decade-and-a-half ago, Israel began applying demanding new standards to limit its Olympics delegation to athletes with a legitimate shot at a medal. Consequently, only three Israeli athletes will be competing this month in Vancouver – downhill skier Mikail Renzhin, and the brother-and-sister ice-dancing duo of Alexandra and Roman Zaretsky.

As relief efforts continue in Haiti, here in Chicago, JUF along with its Jewish Community Emergency Resiliency Team (JCERT) and Sinai Health System worked with the city, the American Red Cross, United Way and other organizations to provide crisis mental health services and medical care to Haitian evacuees, who briefly used Chicago as a transit point last weekend before continuing to other destinations in the United States.

Meanwhile, Chicago's Jewish community has kept up its generous flow of resources to devastated Haiti by contributing more than $634,000 to the Jewish Federation's Haitian Earthquake Relief Fund in about three weeks.

JUF President Steven B. Nasatir writes in an op-ed in The Chicago Sun-Times that the call to tikkun olam (to repair the world) is one "Jewish Chicagoans answer time and again for people in need, regardless of their religion."

Sinai Health System has been awarded a $1 million McCormick Foundation grant to support construction of a new ambulatory care center, cornerstone of the Sinai Tomorrow project, a multiphase plan to rebuild many of Sinai’s aging buildings.

“We are honored to be able to play a part in the Sinai Tomorrow vision,” said David Hiller, McCormick Foundation president and CEO. “Mount Sinai’s leadership in innovative community-based healthcare provides some realistic hope that we will find sustainable ways to address our country’s healthcare dilemma.”

UIC Professor Isaac Hoffman teaches all fou parts of a Hebrew language sequence that spans two years and covers reading, writing, comprehension, and speaking as well as cultural and historical topics about Israel, reports Fae Rabin for the Chicago Flame, the UIC campus newspaper.

"We have all kinds of students who take Hebrew. We have Jewish students, Israeli natives, non-Jewish students who take it because they are curious, and they want to know more. Some want the ability to read the Bible in the original language, and for some it just fits into their schedule, which is okay, too," Hoffman said.

Just one year after teaching at UIC, Professor Hoffman proposed an idea for a new class to add to the Jewish Department course offerings: "Aspects of Israeli Film," which sheds light on Israeli culture, history, and society - all via film. Since the course opened for registration, it has been filled to capacity with an accompanying waiting list.

Three Jewish-themed films and an Israeli film are in the running for Academy Awards, reports the JTA.

“Inglourious Basterds,” a Jewish revenge fantasy in which a squad of Jewish GIs wipes out the Nazi leadership, won nominations for best picture, directing and writing for Quentin Tarantino, best supporting actor for Christoph Waltz, and best cinematography for Robert Richardson.

The two other Jewish-themed pictures that received best picture nominations -- "An Education," from Britain, and "A Serious Man" -- have won high critical acclaim for their artistry, but also a few lemons for perceived gratuitous anti-Semitism. "A Serious Man" also was awarded writing and directing nominations for brothers Joel and Ethan Coen.

Meanwhile, “Ajami” became the third Israeli entry in consecutive years to be nominated as top foreign-language film. The film paints an unsparing picture of Arab-Jewish and intra-Arab tensions in a mixed quarter of Jaffa. Its co-directors are two young Israelis, Scandar Copti, a Christian Arab, and Yaron Shani, who is Jewish.