Jewish Community Center

Speakers ranging from Dr. Ruth to a former Israeli secret agent will visit Cherry Hill as the Jewish Community Center of Southern New Jersey sponsors its first Community Festival of Arts, Books and Culture from Nov. 2 through 8. "November is traditionally Jewish book month," said Maris Kobb, director of adult services at the Jewish Community Center (JCC), and many synagogues and Jewish centers throughout the country observe the event with special book- related programs and sales.

With a little seed money and her knack for organizing, Kathy Elias is helping to found the Chester County Jewish Community Center Without Walls. "Building a community center takes millions of dollars," said Elias, who is the organization's community director. "Instead of waiting for one to be built, we chose a different beginning. " Instead of just one address, the center will use buildings all over the county: synagogues, libraries, retirement communities, businesses and schools.

What once had been the subject of rancorous debate and legal challenges came to an anti-climactic end Monday: The township's planning board approved site plans for a Jewish Community Center at Springdale and Kresson Roads and nobody showed up to complain. The nonchalance was a far cry from the days of yore, when strong community opposition prompted 450 families to donate money to keep the Jewish Federation and its $20 million complex out of their neighborhood. The neighbors went to court twice and spent more than $50,000 to stop construction of the center and a five-story senior-citizen apartment building.

Just two months after opening its doors, the new Jewish Community Center here has found its membership growing so quickly and unexpectedly that the board is scrambling to open up new categories and expand the old ones to accommodate the interest. "Everything is so beautiful, so state-of-the-art, who wouldn't want to come here?" said Lillian Sclaroff, 86, from Cherry Hill. There are about 6,000 other members who apparently agree with her. At those levels - which are close to twice what the membership used to be at the old center on Route 70 - the center on Springdale and Kresson has only 500 slots left before it will reach limits set by its leadership, said membership director David Friedman.

While a military color guard stood watch over the 1954 groundbreaking for the first Jewish Community Center here, Superior Court Judge Sidney Goldman of Trenton compared the moment to the day in 1654 when 23 Dutch Jews fleeing Brazil arrived in the American colonies. At a ceremony this morning, Mayor Susan Bass Levin's remarks will likely be invested with somewhat less gravity when she formally begins the destruction of that beige brick building and ushers in plans for a 200-unit luxury apartment and townhouse complex called - perhaps ironically - Bishop's View.

When the Festival of Arts, Books and Culture was born nine years ago, it featured 10 entertainers, and it hasn't stopped growing. This year, more than 40 prominent people will lecture, play music, tell jokes, offer advice, teach, and entertain at the annual weeklong festival, which begins next Sunday at the Betty and Milton Katz Jewish Community Center on Springdale Road. More than 10,000 people are expected to attend, said festival coordinator Harriett Kirsh Pozen. "It's just grown by leaps and bounds," Pozen said.

In the petting zoo, Sarah Turtz, 6, gives a hand to her 16-month-old sister, Hannah. The zoo was among the activities yesterday at the Jewish Community Center of Southern New Jersey's Purim Festival in Cherry Hill.

A New York-style Jewish deli in Amish country with a kitchen under the meticulous supervision of a born-again Christian? No, it's not a reality show. Welcome to Mort's New York Style Delicatessen in Lancaster. A growing number of urban Jews have been settling in bucolic Lancaster County over the last several years, lured by the wholesome charm and the proximity to Philadelphia and New York. So many, in fact, that Lancaster has three synagogues and a Jewish community center. What it didn't have, in this place where most Zimmermans and Kaufmans are not Jewish, was a place to get a decent nosh.

Louise Selleck Greenbaum, 89, of West Hartford, Conn., who was a teacher in Cherry Hill, died of complications from a heart ailment on Sunday, June 24, at the University of Connecticut Health Center in Farmington, Conn. Mrs. Greenbaum lived from 1960 to 2010 in Cherry Hill, where her husband, Maurice, was executive director of the Jewish Community Center of Camden County for a time, according to the couple's daughter, Beth Bernstein. "She did what she called 'bedside teaching,' " which meant tutoring homebound students, Bernstein said.

Beachgoers at the Jersey Shore looked to the sky and found an unpleasant sight Saturday afternoon — but it wasn't circling seagulls or dark storm clouds breaking the sun-soaked summer day. It was a swastika, flown on a plane-led banner above the beach like an ad for a bar's karaoke night or a restaurant's seafood special. "First I was like, ‘Did I just see what I thought I saw fly by?'" said Kim Silverman, 54, a Philadelphia woman who was enjoying the waves at Long Beach Island around 3 p.m. when she looked up to see the symbol, long associated with the horrors perpetuated in Nazi Germany, traveling across the blue sky above.

Theater 11th Annual Solo Flights Festival Features five solo artists & two ensemble companies. Closes 3/25. Mill Hill Playhouse, 205 E. Front St., Trenton; 609-392-0766. $20. 1812 Productions: Let's Pretend We're Famous New comedy cabaret featuring Jennifer Childs & Tony Braithwaite. Closes 3/25. Plays & Players Theatre, 1714 Delancey Pl.; Reservations required: 215-735-0630 or 1-800-595-4849. 1812productions.org. $28-$36. A Reptile Dysfunction Musical comedy.

HACKENSACK, N.J. - Authorities leveled additional charges Friday against a teenager accused in the firebombings of two North Jersey synagogues, saying he had plotted a similar attack on a Jewish community center and had conducted Internet searches for building Molotov cocktails and instructions on blowing up buildings. Bergen County Prosecutor John Molinelli said investigators found multiple Molotov cocktails last week in a wooded area near the Jewish Community Center of Paramus, and they traced the evidence to a foiled attack they said suspect Anthony Graziano had planned for Jan. 7. Graziano, 19, was charged Friday with aggravated arson, bias intimidation, and other charges for the planned attack on the Paramus center.

HACKENSACK, N.J. - Authorities leveled additional charges Friday against a teenager accused in the firebombings of two North Jersey synagogues, saying he had plotted a similar attack on a Jewish community center and had conducted Internet searches for building Molotov cocktails and instructions on blowing up buildings. Bergen County Prosecutor John Molinelli said investigators found multiple Molotov cocktails this week in a wooded area near the Jewish Community Center of Paramus, and they traced the evidence to a foiled attack they said suspect Anthony Graziano had planned for Jan. 7. Graziano, 19, was charged Friday with aggravated arson, bias intimidation, and other charges for the planned attack on the Paramus center.

NEW YORK - The developer of an Islamic cultural center that opened Wednesday evening near the site of the terrorist attacks that leveled the World Trade Center says the biggest error on the project was not involving the families of 9/11 victims from the start. People crowded into the center, where a small orchestra played traditional Middle Eastern instruments and a photo exhibit of New York children of different ethnicities lined the walls. The enthusiasm at the opening belied its troubled beginnings.

Ramon Brier Garfinkel, 85, of Rittenhouse Square, a real estate developer and community activist, died of heart failure Saturday, Nov. 13, at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital. As president of Eldon Construction Co., Mr. Garfinkel built more than 1,000 housing units in Northeast Philadelphia and in the Pennsylvania and New Jersey suburbs. His projects included the residential communities of Mullica Hill Farms and Whitemarsh Farms in New Jersey, and condo complexes in Cinnaminson and in the Art Museum area in Philadelphia.

Leon Lotstein, 90, of Voorhees, a retired Army Reserve colonel who was involved in the South Jersey Jewish community for many years, died Saturday, Nov. 13, after a stroke at the Lions Gate long-term-care facility in Voorhees. While studying at the University of Delaware in the late 1930s, Mr. Lotstein joined the ROTC. When he graduated with a bachelor's degree in education in 1941, he enlisted in the Army and was part of the 96th Antiaircraft Artillery Gun Battalion. He was an operations and training staff officer.

Stanley N. Barer, 84, of Jenkintown, a retired sales manager and leader in the Jewish community, died of kidney failure Tuesday, May 25, at the Rydal Park rehabilitation center. Mr. Barer served on numerous boards and was past president of the boards of the Mid-Atlantic Region of the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism, Jewish Education of Philadelphia, the Klein Branch of the Jewish Community Center, and the Solomon Schechter Day School of Philadelphia, now the Raymond and Ruth Perelman Jewish Day School.