Coming up in Jewish Pittsburgh

By Angela Leibowicz April 23, 2010, 5:05 pm 0 Edit

Pittsburgh Conference of Jewish Women’s Organizations is holding its annual meeting and luncheon Monday, May 3, at noon at New Light Congregation. The guest speaker is the nationally syndicated editorial cartoonist Rob Rogers. There is a charge for this event. Call Marcia Weiss at (412) 682-2169 for more information.

Temple Shalom Hadassah in Wheeling, W.Va., will host its 22nd annual Chocolate Extravaganza Thursday, May 6, at the temple’s social hall. Chocolatiers from around the Ohio Valley will be represented. Proceeds from the program benefit Hadassah. Call Temple Shalom at (304) 233-4870 for more information.
NA’AMAT USA, Pittsburgh Council will feature Ilene Winn-Lederer at their Lunch and Learn program Wednesday, April 28, at the Labor Zionist Educational Building, 6328 Forbes Ave. Winn-Lederer will talk about her book “Between Heaven and Earth: An Illuminated Torah Commentary.” Bring your own lunch. Drinks and snacks will be provided. Winn-Lederer attended the Art Institute of Chicago and the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts. Based in Pittsburgh, she has taught illustration and graphic design at the Ivy School for Professional Art and Carnegie Mellon University. For more information call the NA’AMAT office at (412) 521-5253.

The Jewish Studies Program at the University of Pittsburgh will present a public lecture, “Revolution, Diplomacy and Ethnicity: Cuba, Israel and the Jewish community from 1959 to 1973,” by Margalit Bejarano, Friday, April 30, noon, at 703 Wesley W. Posvar Hall. The lecture will analyze the political relations between Cuba and Israel and their impact on the status of the Jewish community of Cuba from the revolution until the severance of the diplomatic ties by Castro. During the early period that followed the revolution, the relations between Israel and Cuba were friendly, although both sides had to keep a low profile because of their allies in the Cold War. Bejarano is a senior researcher at the Avraham Harman Institute of Contemporary Jewry at Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Her courses focus on the history and culture of Spain, Cuba, and the Caribbean world. She is an expert on the Sephardic communities of Latin America as well as Cuban Jewry.

(Angela Leibowicz can be reached at angelal@thejewishchronicle.net.)