Original Article Published On The JNS

The Abraham Accords have made a major impact on international relations in the Middle East. They are also proving an ace for Israeli tennis.

Last month, young players and coaches from the Israel Tennis & Education Centers flew to Bahrain—the nonprofit’s second trip to the island kingdom, with which Israel normalized relations in Sept. 2020.

The Abraham Accords impacted the centers (ITEC) both domestically and abroad. First, ITEC decided after the accords debuted that its vision ought to include all Israeli kids. That included Arabs in Israel, who also ought to have “the chance to be winners in life through tennis,” Erez Vider, the group’s CEO, told JNS.

ITEC enlisted Alam Ibrahem, a resident of the Druze village Sajur in northern Israel, as Arab society coordinator to launch tennis programs in Arab communities.

At first, Ibrahem was nervous about teaching tennis, but Vider assured him that other ITEC staff, including coach Ronen Morali, would handle the tennis. Ibaham’s job was to teach the ITEC leadership and staff about Arab society.

“It is win-win,” Vider told Ibrahem. “Ronen knows how to teach tennis and you know the Arab mentality.”

Working with Israeli-Arab communities builds upon ITEC’s nearly five decades of work trying to strengthen Israeli society and foster piece through the sport. The nonprofit’s approach blends tennis playing, education, mentorship and support services for more than 7,000 children each week.

The nonprofit’s programs currently reach Arab, Bedouin, Christian, Druze and Jewish kids in Arad, Haifa, Jaffa, Jerusalem, Kiryat Shmona and Tiberias. Its Abraham’s Bridge empowers the next generation of Arabs to lead in their communities.

In a period of violence and unrest in May 2021, ITEC found its bonds were deep enough to host partners from Tayibe, one of Israel’s largest Arab cities, in its Ramat Hasharon headquarters for a day of cross-cultural discussion.

Again in Ramat Hasharon, ITEC leaders and colleagues from the Bedouin city Rahat convened in June 2021 for a partnership forum.

“The goal of Abraham’s Bridge is to help build a stronger society in Israel. At the core of that strength is human connection, which starts with our children–the next generation of leadership,” Vider told JNS. “We hope that providing children with opportunities to collaborate in a diverse setting will help nurture and celebrate new bonds that will lead to a better future for all.”

After doing some research—and with a bit of luck—Ibrahem, who had his sights set overseas, secured the phone number of Khalid Yusuf Ahmed Aljalahma, Bahrain’s ambassador in Tel Aviv. Ibrahem introduced himself and asked for a meeting.

“He visited my house with his family and children, and that’s how the relationship started—on a family level and not only in the field of tennis,” Ibrahem told JNS.

Last July, the ambassador visited ITEC headquarters. “From the first moment we met, there was an indescribable, strong click,” Ibrahem said.

“He came to Ramat Hasharon and saw Arabs from Tayibe with the Israeli flag, and Israeli kids with the Bahraini flag,” Vider said. “We are ambassadors of peace. He was emotional and impressed.”

“There is no limit to the fields in which Israel and Bahrain can build common

bridges, on which to walk together,” Aljalahma said.

The kingdom’s ambassador connected Ibrahem with the chairman of the Bahrain Tennis Association, and three months later, last October, Morali, the coach, joined an ITEC delegation to Bahrain. The group met the Bahrain Tennis Association chairman.

“They asked me to come for one week to train them for a Davis Cup event taking place in November,” Morali told JNS. “It was a very intense week, and a very productive week as well.” (The International Tennis Federation’s Davis Cup is a major team event; an Israeli team pulled off a come-from-behind victory against Latvia this month in Riga.).

The Israeli-Bahraini tennis bond has continued to yield fruitful volleys that score points.

Israeli coaches and players traveled to Bahrain last month to train with nine

local coaches, native-born Bahraini players and tennis-playing immigrants to Bahrain from the Philippines, Romania, Tunisia and Yemen.

Ido Samimiyan, 17, remains in touch with some of the new Bahraini friends he made on the trip and is excited some may visit him in Israel soon.

“They were good players and nice kids. We really bonded,” he told JNS. “We played together, ate together and played Davis Cup-style tennis.” (They spoke in English, but not about politics. Samiyan was proud of winning “by a lot,” and in awe that his new friends lived in a kingdom.)

Vider hopes ITEC will be able to offer scholarships to two Bahrani players to train in Israel.

“Sport is different from politics. You bring kids on a court, and they don’t care about color or religion,” he said. “It is amazing how fast they forget who they are playing with.”

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Original article On Jewish Times

Even 35 years later, Jonathan and Lisa Pierce cannot agree on all of the details of their unusual first encounter on the campus of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore that winter day in early February 1988. As Jonathan tells it, the national AEPi fraternity’s “fix it and rebuild it” man arrived on the JHU campus and woke up Lisa at 10:30 a.m. while in pursuit of “the list” of Jewish people on campus.

According to Lisa, she never sleeps that late but had a very good reason to still be doing so on that particular day; she was up until 2:30 a.m. as part of her own sorority pledge event.

The one thing that they can agree on is that their first “date” took place at Shabbat services, and that something magical, life-changing and permanent happened during that visit to campus.

Fast-forward to 2023, and the Pierces are happily married and the parents of three children: Hannah, 28, who got married this past fall to Justin Shaw (they met while working together at the Jewish Federation in Columbus, Ohio); Dan, 26, who is engaged; and Rachel, 22, who graduated college last May. The couple is Jewishly active in their home community of Albany, N.Y., and AEPi has been a continuous thread in their marriage and family life.

After Jonathan graduated college in 1986, he worked as a consultant to the AEPi for two years. The well-known Jewish college fraternity, founded in 1913, boasts 100,000 living alumni and operates chapters on more than 150 college campuses in four countries. “I was mostly helping them start up chapters on the West Coast and some in Florida,” reports Pierce. Then, he received a call from his boss directing him to Baltimore. “He said, ‘Go to Johns Hopkins. The chapter is not doing well and wants to quit.”

Jon and Lisa’s wedding, August 1990 (Courtesy)

At the time, he was living in Ohio and remembers that he had no idea how to get to Baltimore (these were long before the days of Google maps). He was instructed to: “Fly to Newark, rent a car, turn right and go up a hill. The university will be on your left. With those directions and a Thrifty (car rental) map, I got to Baltimore on a Thursday night and stayed at a hotel in Towson.”

Pierce never lost sight of his reason for being in the city in the first place. “The first thing I needed to do to start a chapter was to get a list of Jewish male students on campus. And so I called the Jewish student union president at 10:30 a.m. … and woke her up!” he recounts. “I am on campus restarting AEPi, and I would like a list of Jewish students.”

He recalls not receiving a list of names directly; Lisa Proskin, as she was known at the time, was not permitted to disclose such information. Nevertheless, she invited Pierce to come to Shabbat dinner later that evening, and they met at the KDH (the Kosher Dining Hall).

“We started a friendship and stayed in touch,” recalls Pierce.

That initial friendship continued to grow into more than a friendship — and Jonathan needed to continue making excuses (creating reasons?) to get AEPi to send him to back to Baltimore. “I kept telling them, ‘We are almost ready to restart the chapter. You need to keep sending me there. By then, she and I were going out.”

Piece’s two-year contract with AEPi was ending in the summer of 1988, when he moved to Columbus, Ohio, for law school. “We kept dating and when Lisa graduated, she moved to Columbus for law school, too, and we got married in 1990.”

Their kids followed in their parents’ footstep: All three graduated from The Ohio State University, with their oldest getting her master’s degree from there as well.

The Pierce family at Rachel’s graduation from The Ohio State University in May 2022 (Courtesy)

A prominent role in their lives

Lisa patiently sat by Jonathon’s side as he recounted their story of meeting (done as part of a Zoom call). Then it was time for her side of the story.

“He did wake me up,” she confirms, “but we had Alpha Phi sorority rush the night before. I was sorority president, and I got to sleep at about 2:30 a.m.”

Lisa recalls meeting in person that Friday before services — at the library.

“I couldn’t give him the list,” she reports, but they found a mutually acceptable way to check the names on a list he had against her master one.

“He asked: ‘What do you do for fun around here?”

And I said: “Go to Shabbat services.”

Lisa brought him to an Orthodox service. “There was a mechitza between us,” she recalls, but this worked to Pierce’s advantage as he was trying to recruit males for the fraternity.
Following Shabbat dinner, the two went to Baltimore’s famous Louie’s Bookstore Café for dessert. They next tried to go to an on-campus party. “I wasn’t 21, and the dean of Greek Life didn’t let me in,” she says.

The cover of a publication the AEPi international magazine geared towards its 2001 convention, shortly after Jon was installed as the group’s international president (Courtesy)

Lisa recounts that the two were very creative in keeping their relationship going. “He drove a lot and used a lot of frequent-flier miles. And we used AEPi’s 800 number to talk.”

Jonathan and Lisa recall going to Harborplace at the Baltimore waterfront on their first “official” date. They both enjoyed watching the seals outside of the National Aquarium in Baltimore. They enjoyed the spot so much that Jonathan brought her back to in 1989 — to propose!

So many years later, AEPi continues to play a prominent role in their lives. Pierce is past national president; he was installed as Supreme Master in 2001. His firm does public relations for AEPi. Their son was in AEPi at Ohio State. Whenever Pierce sports his AEPi kippah — both in the United States and Israel — he attracts the attention of past and current members. He notes that the fraternity currently has more than 110 chapters in the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom, and that there are six to eight chapters in Israel.

He is also proud of AEPi’s commitment to developing future leaders and to philanthropy: “All of the money we raise goes to Jewish and Israeli causes like Sharsheret and Magen David Adom.”

This past November, Alpha Epsilon Pi International Fraternity celebrated its 109th anniversary with 110 chapters around the world virtually celebrating Shabbat together. During the event, “Shabbat Across AEPi,” chapters from the United States, Canada, Israel and the United Kingdom joined together on two Friday nights (Nov. 4 and Nov. 11) to celebrate the weekly Jewish holiday.

“Bringing so many of our Brothers together virtually to simply say the Shabbat prayers and break bread as one is especially important in our world today,” said Rob Derdiger, AEPi’s CEO. “In light of rising antisemitism on college campuses and in our individual communities, this program makes an important point about being proud of our Jewish heritage and traditions.”

In fact, he said as much in a Dec. 2 opinion piece in the Baltimore Jewish Times titled, “Fighting Back Against Antisemitism on Campus.”

As for the Pierces and their work for the Jewish community, they will never forget how and where their life together started. “I like to say that we met because I was just doing my job,” notes Jonathan. For them, Baltimore will always be Charm City.

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Original Article Published On The JNS

As the E Street Band opens a U.S. and European tour following a long absence, Jewish “Spring-Nuts” share what it’s like to be faithful to God and the Boss.

Maureen Ash, 61, arrived in Tampa from her Chicago home in time for last Wednesday night’s Bruce Springsteen show. The longtime fan—called a Spring-Nut, as a nearly 50,000-strong Facebook, Twitter and Instagram fan community puts it—who saw her first show in 1980, did not have to worry about accommodations for Shabbat nor holidays this time, given the middle-of-the-week show.

She stayed in Boynton Beach, a three-and-a-half hour drive away, for Shabbat, and plans to catch the Boss again in concert on Tuesday, at the Hard Rock Cafe in Hollywood, Fla.

Ash was one of many Jewish Spring-Nuts who descended on Tampa for the E Street Band’s tour, which opened Feb. 1. There are no official numbers on how many Jewish fans of the Boss are out there, but there are obviously a lot of them.

For previous Springsteen tours, Ash hosted Shabbat dinners for Jewish and non-Jewish fans, whom she introduced to her home-baked challah. Her one house rule must have surprised many of these guests.

“I tell them to please leave the bathroom light on,” Ash told JNS.

At one Shabbat meal, she asked an observant Jewish male friend to recite the kiddush and hamotzei blessing on the wine and challah respectively. He brought the lyrics to “Thunder Road,” which the group sang in unison. (The lines “Make crosses from your lovers” and “Waste your summer praying in vain/ For a savior to rise from these streets” must have presented quite the contrast to the Hebrew prayers.)

There has been plenty of normal superfan engagement too. Ash’s daughter–then 11–was the lucky one invited on stage to sing “Waiting’ on a Sunny Day” with the Boss, and Ash twice got his autograph, on a copy of his biography and on her denim jacket. She told him her first show of his was Oct. 9, 1980 at Cobo Hall (now Huntington Place) in Detroit. He wrote “80” alongside his name.

“I know he was really listening,” she said.

Without knowing it, Springsteen has introduced many Jews to one another. A congregant approached Ash at the kiddush after services at a N.J. synagogue. “I hear you are a Bruce fan,” he told her. “I should know you.”

At a show, she struck up a conversation with a woman wearing a skirt. The two realized they were both skipping the Friday show because they are Sabbath-observant. (Ash also will not attend Springsteen shows during the Omer period between Passover and Shavuot, which is a time of mourning.)

To other fans, hearing the Boss live is a religious experience. There is a lot of talk in the Jewish Springsteen fan community about the Passover seder of 2012.

Warren Rosen, from Massapequa Park on Long Island, worried he would never make it to a show at Madison Square Garden in Manhattan if he left after his seder at home. So Rosen, who has been to more than 200 Springsteen shows, booked a private room at Ainsworth Prime, a restaurant in the arena, and invited friends (of all faiths) via Facebook. He also invited the band.

The saxophonist Jake Clemons, nephew of the late Clarence Clemons—the E Street Band’s original sax player—read from the Haggadah, which featured Springsteen’s face on the cover. There was also a rendition of the new composition “Matzah Ball,” sung to the tune of “Wrecking Ball.”

Bruce Springsteen performs in Tampa, Fla., Feb. 1, 2023. Photo by Howard Blas.

Some Orthodox Spring-Nuts bolt out of the house the moment Shabbat or a holiday ends, bound for a show. And some, if they are Howie Chazanoff—who runs the Spring-Nuts Facebook group, where he is known as Howie Chaz, with his wife, Julie—can almost pull off the music fan equivalent of Joshua holding up the sun and moon during the bombardment of Jericho.

In September 2017, Chazanoff, 54, contacted E Street Band guitarist and “Sopranos” actor Stevie Van Zandt on Twitter, asking when exactly the show would start.

“I ask, because I have tickets for the 23rd and have to wait for [the) Jewish Holiday to end,” he wrote. The exchange has since been deleted, but according to a screenshot that Chazanoff provided, Van Zandt wrote back, “Oy vey! When does it end? Thanks for the heads up. We’ll wait for you.”

Evidently, the band did wait for Chazanoff to arrive after Rosh Hashanah ended, because the latter tweeted on Sept. 24, 2017, “I can’t thank you enough for waiting! Thanks for acknowledging me and my sign and being a ‘mench!’ Happy New Year brother!” The sign Chazanoff held in the picture thanks the band for waiting for the “Tribe.”

Chazanoff told JNS that when he and friends held up the sign, Van Zandt said, “Happy New Year” to them. (For the record, though, and Twitter being what it is, someone responded to the tweet, “Yeah, but he is playing in Boston on Yom Kippur. So much for thinking about his Jewish fans.”)

“My impetus in starting Spring-Nuts was to create a distraction not only for Springsteen fans but for myself as well from all the trials and tribulations in this crazy world,” Chazanoff said.

What began as a 500-member Facebook group grew to become acknowledged by Springsteen and the band eight years later, in large part for its charity work. The group has supported WhyHunger, Fulfill, Kristen Ann Carr Fund, Pink Fund, Light of Day, NJ Pandemic Relief Fund and Boys and Girls Clubs of Monmouth County.

“We have helped out numerous individuals, who either lost jobs, or needed help paying for hospital costs and even, unfortunately, funeral expenses,” Chazanoff said. “What was originally created as a distraction has now become a haven for Springsteen fans around the world.” (In his professional life, Chazanoff also helps people. He is director of home- and community-based services at Yedei Chesed, which supports persons with developmental disabilities and their families.)

Springsteen too is philanthropically minded.

At the Tampa show, as at each stop of the tour, he asks fans on their way out, to donate food or money to a local food bank. Last May, Springsteen surprised the Spring-Nuts with a recorded message at the Stone Pony club in Asbury Park, N.J., site of the annual Spring-Nut Seaside Serenade. That year, it raised $50,000 for WhyHunger. The rest of the band has sent video messages of support too.

David Kalb, rabbi of the Jewish Learning Center of New York, takes religious fanhood to another level. He is proud to have experienced some of Springsteen’s longest-ever shows, more than four hours, on the last tour.

Kalb references Springsteen’s lyrics often in his sermons and writing. “It was not just the length of the New Jersey concerts that made those nights utterly magical to me,” he told JNS. “It was the fantastic music and the passion of this amazing man.”

The rabbi appreciates particularly what he calls themes of redemption, introspection and transformation in Springsteen’s music. “These themes thoroughly resonate with me, as they are reminiscent of the Prophets of the Bible, who also critiqued their world for its moral ills,” Kalb said.

In 2017, Kalb penned the Huffington Post article “Getting Ready for the High Holidays with Bruce Springsteen,” as he observed those themes in shows during the Hebrew month of Elul, which leads up to Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. He even called his attendance of Springsteen concerts his own preparation for the High Holidays, which is what the month of Elul is supposed to be about.

“These concerts have given me a tremendous start to my High Holiday prep,” he said. “I am now much more focused on how I can better myself and the world, and I believe that anyone who chooses to reflect on these issues could find similar messages in Bruce’s music.”

In 2016, Kalb got to spend 20 seconds with Springsteen, when the musician signed his book and a photograph at the Barnes & Noble on Manhattan’s Union Square. Other fans trekked internationally for that privilege.

Amy Kalman, who made aliyah from Toronto in 1981, has flown from Ben-Gurion Airport to Paris, Montpellier, Zurich and other European cities to hear the Boss.

“The first time you see him live, it grabs your kishkes!” she said, using the Yiddish for “guts.”

Kalman reports a “strong” group of Israeli fans, many of whom have gone to shows in Europe and will go to this tour as well. She and her husband were “on such a high” from a 2016 Paris show that, upon returning home, they planned a 36-hour trip to Zurich, so they and their children could hear Springsteen.

If the rest of the tour goes how Chazanoff figures it did in Tampa, there will be many other converts to the Gospel of Springsteen, Jewish and non-Jewish.

“After six long years, and being in their 70s, Bruce and the band showed that age means nothing when you’re the legendary E Street Band,” he said. “They absolutely rocked Tampa as if they were in their 20s, and as if they never had a hiatus.”

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