This morning residents along Israel's northern boarder left the shelters after being advised by the Israel Defense Forces that the immediate danger from Hizbollah katyusha rockets had passed.

This week two more soldiers were killed in Lebanon: First Sergeant Yedidia Gefen, 20, from Jerusalem and Sergeant Amir Meir, 19, from Ra'anana. This brought the number of military casualties over the past two weeks to six. At the beginning of the week, the IDF responded with an air attack on the infrastructure in Beirut as well as on Hizbollah bases. Following the escalation of military activities in South Lebanon and the growing tension along the confrontation line, residents were forced to spend three days in shelters. Many residents were evacuated to the center of the country, and began returning home this morning.

Jewish Agency assistance to settlements along the confrontation line included the development of social and educational projects, the erection of public structures, immigrant absorption, and strengthening settlements in the region. Jewish communities in western and central United States, Canada, Great Britain, and France were also partners in this endeavor.

The WZO Executive has canceled all regional European activities scheduled to take place in Austria and has called upon world Jewry as well as all residents of the free world to refrain from visiting Austria.

The decision was taken at an emergency meeting convened by Sallai Meridor, Chairman of Jewish Agency and WZO Executive, following the inclusion of Freedom Party in the Austrian coalition.

The WZO Executive also decided to join the World Jewish Congress and other Jewish organizations in a comprehensive effort against the new government in Vienna, and called upon Jewish organizations and communities, Zionist federations, and Jewish youth movements throughout the world to initiate a publicity campaign and to lobby their governments to oppose the Austrian government. It was also decided to set up a special Internet site to disseminate information on racism, its roots and repercussions; updated information on anti-racist activities around the world will be publicized.

Zionist youth movements and Jewish student organizations all over the world organized protests this week against the inclusion of Joerg Haider's extremist right-wing in the Austrian ruling coalition. The Jewish Agency's Department of Jewish Zionist Education, which assisted in the youth protests, will run a special program on the history of Fascism and racism in Europe at its ulpanim in the former Soviet Union.

Dubi Bergman, head of the Jewish Agency delegation in Europe, reports that over the weekend, 500 members of Jewish youth movements demonstrated outside the Austrian embassy in London. In conjunction with Jewish student organizations, the youth movements began circulating a petition that calls on Tony Blair's government to impose economic sanctions against Austria. Bergman added that another demonstration is planned over the weekend at the Austrian-Italian border, noting that an international convention of B'nei Akiva was moved from Austria to Italy.

Dov Puder, head of the Jewish Agency delegation in France, notes that 1,000 Jewish youth demonstrated opposite the Austrian embassy in Paris over the weekend, and called upon the French parliament to impose economic sanctions on Austria.

The head of the Jewish Agency delegation to Latin America, Kito Hasson, reports that Jewish youth and students organizations, the Jewish Agency, the Zionist Federation, and other community organizations held a demonstration opposite the Austrian embassy in Buenos Aires.

Other protests by Jewish youth and students are being organized in Toronto, Canada and in Melbourne, Australia.

Ricardo Ilay, mayor of Trieste, this week expressed concern over future relations with the town's Jewish community, following the decision by the Israeli embassy to cancel a series of meetings that had been scheduled this week by Israel's economic attache, Elazar Cohen.

The meetings were canceled after it was learned that Joerg Haider intended to visit the San Sabba death camp in Trieste, the capital of northeastern Italy.

The mayor of Trieste noted that in the past economic ties with Israel had been good, and he expressed the hope that the cancellation of the meetings would not lead to a deterioration of the relations between Trieste and Israel and the city's Jewish community.

The Jewish Agency representative in Italy, Tamar Milo, adds that a mass demonstration by Jewish communities, in conjunction with Italian workers' organizations, is scheduled to take place today in Rome. The demonstrators will march from Barabini Square to the Austrian embassy where they will protest Haider's planned visit to the Trieste death camp and the fact that the Freedom Party has joined the Austrian government. Milo noted that there were several concentration camps in Italy, but San Sabba was the only death camp and it therefore has significant symbolic and emotional significance.

On the eve of the Second World War, Trieste was called "The Gateway to Zion," since thousands of Jews who fled from Fascism and Nazism in Italy and Austria left from there by boat to Eretz Yisrael.

A year ago, the building that housed the Jewish Agency during that period, through which the new immigrants passed, was reopened in the presence of former Jewish Agency Chairman Avraham Burg.

Jewish organizations in Latin America are preparing to bring political pressure on their governments, against the intention of Chile's government to allow neo-Nazi organizations from all over the world to hold an international convention in Santiago in two months time.

The planned convention is intended to mark Adolph Hitler's birthday.

In a press conference this week, Chile's ambassador to Argentina stated that his country maintains a "broad democracy" and therefore can not prevent the convention. This is despite the fact that following pressure from the Jewish community and Zionist organizations, the government announced that the convention would not take place.

As a result of the ambassador's remarks, concern has grown among the Jewish communities, which are preparing to increase international pressure to prevent the convention from being held.

"There is no doubt that the inclusion of Haider's party in the Austrian coalition reinforces neo-Nazi elements in South America," says Kito Hasson, head of the Jewish Agency's delegation in Latin America. "These groups are on the fringes of society, but their activities are extremist and on-going" he adds. "The Zionist movements in Latin America are monitoring the situation, in order to be able to response immediately and prevent the proliferation of such groups."

Chile' Jewish community numbers some 15,000 individuals most of them in the capital city, Santiago.

The launching of a claims process that will enable Holocaust victims and their heirs to recover unpaid Holocaust era insurance benefits is scheduled to be announced next week in Washington DC by Lawrence Eagleburger, Chairman of the International Commission on Holocaust Era Insurance Claims.

The announcement by Eagleburger, who served as US Secretary of State during the Bush administration, follows a year of negotiations between the State of Israel, the World Jewish Restitution Organization (WJRO), the Conference of Material Claims Against Germany, and Holocaust survivor organizations with various European insurance giants.

This initiative represents a major effort to locate rightful beneficiaries, said Bobby Brown, advisor to Sallai Meridor in his capacity as the as co-chairman of the WJRO. Yoram Mayorek, former chief archivist of the Zionist Archives, has been appointed head of a research effort to search archives and other records. "When the Nazis marched in to Austria, 70,000 Jews had to fill out asset forms," Brown noted, holding out three binders of records. "This is what is left of pre-war Austrian Jewry," he said.

Claimants will have a two-year period in which to submit claims.

In pre-war Europe, life insurance policies also served as pension and savings plans.

For 60 years a gentlemen's agreement existed among insurance companies not to pay out pre-war policies of Holocaust victims. When survivors or their heirs attempted to collect, various excuses were given for non-payment such as that the policy needed to be produced, or that a death certificate was necessary, or that the policy was invalid due to non-payment of premiums.

For many years the Trieste-based Assicurazioni Generali and the subsidiary of the German Allianz Company, Riunione Adriatica di Sicurta, insisted that their records of pre-war Eastern Europe had been destroyed. In fact, a six-story warehouse in Trieste housing 320,000 policies issued by Generali from that era was found. The German Allianz company now admits to having over one and a half million policies from this period!

In the US, state insurance commissions such as those headed by Debra Senn from Washington, Chuck Quackenbush from California, Bill Nelson from Florida, and others, held hearings in which Holocaust survivors gave testimony about the refusal of insurance companies to pay their claims. Many states threatened to revoke the licenses of insurers who refuse to satisfy claims from the Shoah period.

Both American and Israeli pressure was significant in this struggle that has led to the initiation of the claims process.

"There is no other country in the world which accepts you, gives you money and enables you to study -- all for free -- and asks nothing in return. It's the citizen's duty to give something to the State. The best way, in my view, is to become part of Israeli society and this can best be done in the company of combat soldiers." In these words, Sergeant-Major Maxim, a new immigrant from Russia, explained his decision to join the Nachal Paratroop Corps and serve as a combat soldier in the Israel Defense Forces.

Five years ago Maxim left his home in Russia for Israel in order to live on a kibbutz. Two years later he replaced his work clothes with an IDF uniform.

On the special Aliyah Day organized this week by the IDF and the Jewish Agency at the Raanana Absorption Center, Maxim met other soldiers who had stories similar to his own. Among themselves they spoke English, Russian, French and Amharic. Their Hebrew was heavily accented, their skin colors were different, but there was a definite sense of camaraderie.

Sergeant Solomon, who came to Israel from Ethiopia 8 years ago and now serves in the same unit as Maxim, explained that in Nachal everyone is equal: "We all eat from the same mess tin, regardless of whether we are from Tel Aviv, Addis or Moscow. We feel that we live for one another. There is a real sense of brotherhood, of caring and a shared fate." Maxim and Solomon have different backgrounds, mentalities and cultures but both believe that the IDF is Israel's real melting pot.

Aliyah Day was initiated jointly by the IDF and the Jewish Agency in an effort to make the olim aware of their special rights as well as employment and study options open to them after their military service.

Written by the Treasurer of the Jewish Agency for Israel and the World Zionist Organization and published in The Jerusalem Post, February 7, 2000.

Writing in the London Jewish News, Clive Lawton, a leading figure in the field of Jewish education in the UK, expressed concern that Jewish communities throughout the world are suffering from a brain drain as their young leaders move to Israel. Claiming that he is finally giving voice to a well-recognized but little discussed problem, Lawton states, "To suggest that people shouldn't go on aliyah is to some Jewish ears like recommending bacon for Yom Kippur breakfast. But we've got to start to say it... Across the world, Jewish communities have suicidally encouraged their own next leaders to leave. It is stupid and it should stop."

Lawton does not issue a blanket statement against Jews moving to Israel. On one level he argues that aliyah is not the only way that Jews can realize themselves as individuals and contribute to the future well being of the Jewish people. This is a legitimate argument for community activists concerned about who will accept the mantle of leadership. Yet on another, profoundly worrying, level, Lawton suggests that there is a mutually incompatible tension between Israel and the Jewish world.

The Jewish people, dispersed throughout the world, shared for two thousand years the longing of return to the Jewish homeland, the desire to recreate a Jewish state that would offer us self-determining nationhood, the passion to ensure that this state would be a refuge from anti-Semitism, a home for every Jew. It was this belief that lay behind the development of Zionism as a national movement in the last century, ensured the creation of the State of Israel in the middle of this century, and has made Israel both the physical homeland of all who choose to live here and the focus of identity for Jews throughout the world.

Israel is the common thread that links Jewish communities dispersed throughout the world to each other. How then, can there be some sort of mutual incompatibility between the center and the spokes of the Jewish wheel?

Israel does not pit itself against the Jewish world; it does not vie for Jews with communities elsewhere. The basic ideology underlying the State of Israel and expressed by the Jewish Agency's Israel-oriented activities throughout the world is clear. While we believe that the ultimate realization of Jewish identity is aliyah, we know and understand that not all Jews will resettle here - not today, and probably not tomorrow. As long as there are Jews living outside Israel, the Jewish State feels a profound responsibility to help them. This responsibility includes training educators for formal and informal educational frameworks worldwide, helping reconnect Jews to their heritage through summer camps, youth clubs and Israel Experience programs, training and supporting community activists worldwide to ensure leadership in the future, and helping the communities acquire the tools to grapple with problems of assimilation, inter-marriage and the loss of Jewish identity.

We must work as part of a united people for our collective good. Jewish life and Jewish communities around the world were born out of our common loss of statehood. In turn, out of these Jewish communities Israel was reborn. The ties that link us today are so rich, so complex, so unifying, that it is unthinkable to consider Israel without Jews around the world or to perceive of a Jewish identity without Israel.

While we welcome every Jew who chooses to build a life in our collective homeland, we respect every Jew who chooses to lead a Jewish life in another country through becoming involved in community life. We urge every Jew to make educated choices about how to live a Jewish life and we are committed to helping provide the opportunities so that these choices can be truly be made from a position of knowledge. To suggest that this cannot be a shared premise for collective action, or worse, to suggest that it is creating a rift between Israel and the Diaspora is not only painful to hear, it is a denial of our common path and a call for separate futures.

Special Jewish Agency emissary, Zeev Schwartzberg, left this week for Gondar in Ethiopia to take a close look at the next stage of bringing the Quara community to Israel. The operation to bring the Quara community, located in northern Ethiopia, began in May 1999. In June and July the Jewish Agency brought in some 1400 olim from Quara, who had been concentrated in Gondar.

According to initial Agency estimates, the remaining Jews from Quara are expected to leave their villages and reach Gondar only after the harvest and their agricultural produce has been sold. This will occur in coming months, contrary to previous estimates that the remainder of this Ethiopian community would arrive immediately after the rainy season.

MK Naomi Blumenthal, Chair of the Knesset Immigration and Absorption Committee, this week visited the Mevasseret Zion Absorption Center, where 1,100 olim from Quara have been absorbed. During her visit, some of the olim complained that the issue of nationality registered in their I.D. cards had not yet been settled. MK Blumenthal promised to discuss this matter with Interior Minister Natan Sharansky, as his ministry is responsible for this issue.

Mike Rosenberg, Director of the Jewish Agency Department of Immigration and Absorption, said that the efforts undertaken by the Jewish Agency, together with local municipalities and various government ministries to absorb the Quara olim at absorption centers, represent only the tip of the iceberg. The real challenge lies in the on-going efforts to absorb them in Israel.

The absorption center is a form of incubator, said Rosenberg, and the olim who live at the center must be prepared for finding permanent housing, in part by intensifying the study of Hebrew at ulpanim, as well as acquiring some form of professional training.

Amos Hermon, Co-chair of the Jewish Agency's Education Committee, stated that surveys have already been carried out which point to serious problems among the younger generation of this community. "If these problems are not dealt with in an appropriate manner, some of the youth may sink to depths from which they cannot be rescued. This will be at a considerable price both for them and for Israeli society", said Hermon.

Danny Azriel, head of the Mevasseret Zion municipality, said that excellent programs are available at the absorption center for absorbing the olim. However, he went on "these programs have to be budgeted for, or nothing will be done. If that happens, the olim will soon find themselves on the fringes of society."

Pini Kabalo, mayor of Bet Shean, visited key towns in Russia and Belarus at the beginning of the month in an effort to promote a Jewish Agency project to encourage aliyah and ease the absorption of olim from the FSU on their arrival in Israel.

Alla Levy, head of the Jewish Agency delegation in Russia, said that the olim who come to Bet Shean benefit from special conditions that are sponsored by the Cleveland community within the context of its Partnership 2000 program.

Prior to his visit to Russia, Mayor Kabalo reviewed the manpower situation at the various plants in and around his city. He was thus able to present the candidates with a list of required professions in Bet Shean. In addition to employment, each family who arrives in Bet Shean will receive public housing provided by Amidar.

"For us - women and Reform rabbis - this visit to Israel put a face on the issues we hear about in the United States. We believe that new channels of communication - that never existed before-will now open up." Rabbi Janet Liss of Glen Cove, New York was speaking about the first-ever mission to Israel of any women's rabbinical organization. Twenty-seven members of the Rabbinic Women's Network - all ordained rabbis from Hebrew Union College - traveled throughout Israel this week, meeting with women engaged in all spheres of endeavor: business; politics; religion; education and law.

"All of us have lived in Israel before, and been on subsequent visits to the country, but we never had a chance to really meet and network with Israeli women, find out what is of importance to them, and engage in what we hope will become an on-going dialog."

The Reform women rabbis joined the Women at the Wall in prayers on February 7th, Rosh Hodesh, the beginning of the Jewish month Adar Aleph. "We consider it an honor to have joined them," said Rabbi Liss. "From our perspective, women have a right to pray together as a group at the Western (Wailing) Wall." She noted, however, that both groups moved to another part of the Old City to read from the Torah. "This was our first meeting with Women at the Wall, and we received a briefing on their petition to Israel's High Court of Justice to gain the right to wear tallitot (prayer shawls) and read from the Torah at the Wall.

The group of women Reform rabbis also met with their counterparts - both male and female - in Israel and learned of their achievements and challe nges. Rabbi Liss said that she and the other participants on this mission will return to their communities, not only to talk about their trip, but also to encourage others to come on similar visits and see for themselves the results of an increasing awareness of the Progressive Movement in Israel.

Shlomo Gronich and the Sheva singing group, made up of Ethiopian immigrants, were very unusual, yet somehow seemed totally appropriate at the gala evening held the past Saturday evening at Hollywood's Paramount Hall. 400 major Jewish donors from the West Coast were seated around the tables at the culmination of a weekend in Hollywood organized by the United Jewish Communities prestigious "King David Club" to mark brotherhood and unity among the Jewish people.

The guests, annual donors of at least $100,000, enjoyed a full Hollywood program. The weekend was chaired by Sheri Lansing, President of Paramount Studios; Absorption Minister, Yuli Tamir, was the guest of honor.

The first two days focused on Jewish success in Hollywood. Actors and writers lectured on the Jewish contributions to American TV comedy. Participants were able to get a behind-the-scenes glimpse at such hit shows as The Dick Van Dyke Show, The Road to Bali, Blue Hawaii, Julia, All in the Family, MASH, Tootsie, and others. UJC National Campaign Chair, Carole Solomon, made a special appearance at the gala evening. Speaking of the importance of Jewish unity, Solomon spoke of the global duty to strengthen Jewish identity and continuity. "Above and beyond our organizational obligations" she said, "is the duty of those who have towards those who have not".

She related the story of an elderly Jewish woman she met in Baku, capital of Azerbaijan, while on the Voyage of Discovery two weeks ago organized in conjunction with the Jewish Agency and JDC. Based on the Jewish precept that "All Jews are responsible for one another" the woman receives a hot meal as well as help in bathing in hot water in the freezing winter.

The guests responded positively to Solomon's request for $25,000 above and beyond their annual contributions, out of a sense of moral duty towards their distant brethren and for the sake of future generations.

On the last day, Absorption Minister, Yuli Tamir, discussed the peace process, noting the historic crossroads at which the Jewish people now finds itself, having to decide upon what type of responsibility it seeks. She explained that Israel is in the throes of a difficult and complicated debate accompanying the peace process, and stated that Prime Minister Barak made a firm decision to move forward on both the Syrian and Palestinian tracks, in order to reach a comprehensive peace within a year. Prof. Steven Spiegel of the UCLA presented the peace process from an American perspective.

Jewish Agency emissary in Los Angeles, Larry Tishkoff, reported that during her visit, Yuli Tamir met with about a hundred members of the community at the home of Deanie and Auri Spigelman, who are planning to make aliyah this summer: "Aliyah from North America is aliyah by choice and we are flattered that there are those among you who choose to link your fate with ours."

At a meeting with Israelis in Los Angeles at the home of Dr. Yehuda Handelsman, Minister Tamir praised the cooperation between her ministry and the Jewish Agency under the leadership of Sallai Meridor.

In an address before members of the centennial mega-mission of the Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Chicago, Jewish Agency Chairman, Sallai Meridor called for Jewish unity, continuity, and mutual responsibility. He called upon the Jewish people to fill its moral obligation to alert the world to the danger of neo-Nazism in Western Europe.

Chaim Chesler, Treasurer of the Jewish Agency, told the mission members that Chicago is a solid example of ties between Israel and North American Jewry, and that only such cooperation made it possible to bring 830,000 new immigrants from the former Soviet Union, as well as the Ethiopian Jewish community, to Israel within the past decade.

Winding up a nine-day visit to Israel, participants in the mission, totaling 820, pledged over a million dollars in a special appeal.

During the past 100 years, the Chicago Jewish community has made its mark on the world, producing such luminaries as economist Milton Friedman, US Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis, and US Supreme Court Justice and UN Ambassador Arthur Goldberg.

Documented Jewish history in Chicago started in 1841, with the arrival of Benedict Shubart, Philip Newburgh, Isaac Ziegler, and Henry Horner -- whose grandson, Henry Horner, was twice elected as governor of Illinois (in 1932 and 1936). In 1847, the first synagogue -- Kehilath Anshe Maariv - was founded by a group of Orthodox Jews from Germany. By mid-century, organized communal life was in full swing.

The number of Chicago's Jews continued to grow, reaching 1,500 by 1860. When the Civil War broke out, a volunteer company of Jewish troops, the Concordia Guard, was quickly formed. They participated in a number of major battles.

By 1900, the Jewish population, bolstered by new arrivals from Germany and later Eastern Europe reached 75,000. The proliferation of often competitive charitable organizations to meet growing social needs prompted efforts to form a central body to raise and allocate philanthropic funds, and the Associated Jewish Charities was born. In 1911, the Federated Orthodox Jewish Charities of Chicago was organized. These institutions were supported mainly by Eastern European immigrants while the Associated beneficiaries were dominated primarily by German Jews. In 1922, the two groups merged into the Jewish Charities of Chicago. In 1949, the name was changed to the Jewish Federation.

Concern for the quality of Jewish education prompted the establishment, in the 1920s, of the Board of Jewish Education, the College of Jewish Studies (now Spertus Institute of Jewish Studies) and the Hebrew Theological College. Several years later, the Associated Talmud Torahs was established.

During World War II, some 45,000 Chicago-area Jews served in the US armed forces; nearly a thousand were killed in service. Following the war, the Jewish Welfare Fund conducted a major campaign to help rehabilitate survivors of the death camps and to provide aid for what was then Palestine.

In 1999 the Jewish United Fund/ Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Chicago raised a record $64.5 million -- the second largest campaign in the United States. Existing primarily on private contributions, the Federation has become a model for not-for-profit groups throughout the nation. It is supported by more than half of the area's 261,000 Jews who are financially able to give - the highest per capita rate for large Jewish communities in the US, and more than twice the national average! The federation supports scores of local activities ranging from care for orphans to providing meals for the homeless. Fifty percent of its income is allocated for overseas needs, primarily for programs in Israel conducted by the Jewish Agency and the JDC.

Jewish studies lecturers and researchers from Russia, Israel and the US met last week in Moscow, to discuss recent studies in teaching Bible, Hebrew and Jewish literature. This is the seventh such convention organized by the Sefer organization and supported by the JDC, to develop the teaching of Jewish studies in academic institutions in the FSU.

Participants included a delegation of researchers from the Hebrew University headed by Prof. Avi Ravitsky. Alla Levi, head of the Jewish Agency delegation in Russia discussed the problems of Jewish identity among immigrants to Israel, and presented the Jewish Agency's new program for enhancing Jewish identity among potential olim .

The Jewish Agency supports various educational programs run by Sefer, and brings dozens of students and graduate students to Israel each year for supplementary courses on Judaism.

Twenty university graduates are expected to arrive in Israel at the end of this month as part of the "Eshnav" program run jointly by the Jewish Agency, JDC and the Hebrew University. They will tour historic sites all over Israel.

A special Jewish Agency program to strengthen Jewish education in Moscow, began this week, following a successful trial run in Minsk and Belarus. More than 100 ulpan students who plan to make aliyah in the coming months participated in a series of lectures devoted to the study of Bible, Mishna, Talmud, etc.

Next Sunday, the Jewish Agency will send four teams of teachers to outlying areas all over Russia in order to organize the program in other Jewish communities.

"I asked myself whether the Jewish Agency could really develop a client-oriented expert system in order to become the most exciting address for Jewish education worldwide, " said. Alan Hoffmann, who was recently appointed Director General of the Jewish Agency's Department for Jewish Zionist Education. New to the position but not to the Agency, Hoffmann served as lay representative of UIA/Keren Hayesod on the Executive and on the Commission of the Joint Authority for Jewish Zionist Education until the Authority was fused into the current Department. At that time he was asked to co-chair the Agency's Strategic Planning Task Force on Education.

"After serving on the Joint Authority for seven years, I felt that many of the issues brought up then were coming to fruition," said Hoffman, who reacted positively to the changes in the Department that he said had been streamlined by his predecessor, Dr. Eli Ben Eliezer. The new Jewish Agency leadership, the depolarization of the Department, and the thrust of the Strategic Plan to position the Jewish Agency to serve as an educational bridge between Israel and the Jewish world convinced him to accept the appointment. "I felt I could help move the Jewish Zionist Education Department from the strategic planning stage to implemented operation, " he said.

"The unusual resources that exist in Israel in the field of Jewish education, and the urgent needs of the Jewish communities through the world position the Agency to become a center for expertise and excellence," he said.

"We at the Jewish Agency are embarking on an exciting new project to create a basic Jewish literacy in the former Soviet Union, said Hoffman. "The goal of this project is to make it possible for Jews living there to enhance their Jewish identity and orientation whether they remain in the former Soviet Union or come to Israel."

Another unique endeavor that the Jewish Agency can undertake in Israel is to help train a worldwide network of senior educational personnel, who will not only participate in intensive programs in Israel - that the Jewish Agency will create or facilitate - but who will also ensure the continuity of this network, he said.

Alan Hoffman was previously the Director of the Mandel Center for Jewish Continuity at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Since August 1993, he has been Executive Director of the Council for Initiatives in Jewish Education, an independent organization dedicated to the revitalization of Jewish education across North America through comprehensive, systematic reform. In 1980, Hoffman joined the Melton Center for Jewish Education in the Diaspora of the Hebrew University, and served as Director of the Center from 1986 to 1993.

Denise, (known throughout the world as white bream) the domesticated version of the Mediterranean "Chiporrah" is currently bred in fishponds, the result of Israeli R & D. For several years, the Denise has been served by Israeli chefs in exclusive restaurants in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Haifa, Tiberias and Eilat. Now that it has gain Israeli citizenship, it will begin to serve in the IDF, just like every other proper citizen.

Fried fish is usually served for lunch at least once a week at army bases. Carp is served on festivals in its traditional gefilte fish form, or baked. However, it appears that the soldiers now look down their noses at the carp, which the younger generation regards as old-fashion.

The commander of the IDF food center, Colonel Zion Pat, has decided to discharge the carp. Gefilte fish may still be served to the soldiers occasionally, but Denise will now be served instead of baked carp.

Recipe From an Army Chef

Ingredients

4 whole Denise fish
4 sprigs of fresh rosemary
2 sliced lemons
1 chopped red onion
2 minced garlic clove
1 chopped fennel
1/2 cup of olive oil
Juice of 2 lemons
Salt
Freshly ground black pepper

Preparation

Fold 4 large sheets of aluminum foil into the shape of elongated bowls. Spread the chopped vegetables in the center of the foil; sprinkle salt and pepper on the inside and outside of the fish, place a sprig of rosemary in each fish, and place them on the vegetables. Mix the lemon juice and olive oil and pour over the fish. Place three lemon slices on each fish. Wrap the fish in the foil and seal well. Place the baking tray in the oven and bake at 2000 for about 20 minutes.

Bon Appetit - B'Teavon!