STILL
MARVELOUS MAUS FLAP
Season four debuts, focusing on gritty times.

PAGE 18
FEBRUARY 17, 2022 / 16 ADAR 5782
JEWISHEXPONENT.COM — WHAT IT MEANS TO BE JEWISH IN PHILADELPHIA —
$1.00 OF NOTE
LOCAL 1790 Letter to
be Read at
Mikveh Israel
George Washington
to discuss respect,
tolerance for all.

Page 4
LOCAL Jews Recount
Escape to China
Many avoided Nazis
by heading east.

Page 5
OBITUARY Former Jewish
Federation CEO
Dies at 79
Harold Bonavita-
Goldman also led
JFCS. Page 6
Volume 134
Number 45
Published Weekly Since 1887
Organizations Prioritize
Community Building,
Interfaith Solidarity
SASHA ROGELBERG | JE STAFF
JEWISH ORGANIZATIONS ADMIT
that though the increased presence of
security through cameras, shatter-resis-
tant glass and lighting in parking lots
may be important in maintaining a secure
campus, more is required to create a safe
community. As much as community safety means
keeping intruders out, it also means
welcoming people in to foster solidarity,
leaders said.

“We can’t really have safety unless
we have solidarity,” Jewish Community
Relations Council Director Jason
Holtzman said. “Th e problems or the
threats posed to Jewish institutions, Jewish
spaces are defi nitely a major problem, and
it’s a problem that we share with other
faith groups.”
A 2020 FBI report stated that 81 hate
crimes were reported in Pennsylvania in
“Maus” author Art Spiegelman argued that the banning of “Maus” by the McMinn County
School Board was “Orwellian.”
Bertrand Langlois/AFP via Getty Images via JTA.org
Educators Argue That
‘Maus’ Still ‘Impactful’
in the Classroom
SASHA ROGELBERG | JE STAFF
ON FEB. 2, IMAGES OF a book burning
led by a pastor in Tennessee cropped up
across social media.

To Jason Lerner, a Jewish middle school
English and social studies teacher at Austin
Mehan Middle School in Philadelphia, the
images elicited a strong response.

“It’s just eerily mirroring the book
burnings that took place in Nazi Germany
in the 1930s,” Lerner said. “If the pictures
were black-and-white, you might not be
able to know the diff erence.”
Th e book burning took place in tandem
with a national conversation around book
bannings sparked by the Jan. 10 unani-
mous vote by the McMinn County Board
of Education in Tennessee to ban the
Pulitzer-prize winning graphic novel
See Community, Page 12
See Maus, Page 13
ANNIVERSARY Ann S iv A er L s E ary
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