H eadlines
Mikveh Israel to Celebrate Presidents’ Day
L OCA L
JARRAD SAFFREN | JE STAFF
CONGREGATION MIKVEH
Israel will celebrate Presidents’
Day by hosting the very first
president: George Washington.

The real Washington,
of course, died in 1799, but
the foremost impersonator
of America’s father, Upper
Moreland resident Dean
Malissa, is alive and imper-
sonating. And so it will be
Malissa, as the first president,
who headlines Mikveh Israel’s
Feb. 21 event at 1 p.m.

For the main show, the
actor will celebrate not
just Presidents’ Day but
Washington’s relationship with
the Jewish people. Malissa will
read the president’s letter to
Congregation Mikveh Israel in
1790 affirming Washington’s
support for religious freedom.

The letter is similar, though
less famous, to Washington’s
note that same year to the
Touro Synagogue in Newport,
Rhode Island.

Washington was already
serving as the nation’s first
chief executive, and his words
are known for establishing the
precedent of religious freedom
in the United States.

“It is now no more that
toleration is spoken of, as if it
was by the indulgence of one
class of people, that another
enjoyed the exercise of their
inherent natural rights,”
Washington wrote in his letter
to the Touro Synagogue. “For
happily the government of the
United States, which gives to
bigotry no sanction, to perse-
cution no assistance requires
only that they who live under
its protection should demean
themselves as good citizens, in
giving it on all occasions their
effectual support.”
Mikveh Israel’s event,
co-hosted with the Museum
of the American Revolution,
is free and open to the public.

4 FEBRUARY 17, 2022
The synagogue, which traces
its own history to colonial
times, is at 44 N. Fourth
St. in Philadelphia. Tours
showcasing the congregation’s
historical artifacts from early
Jewish life in America, which
include correspondence and
other documents, will be avail-
able from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.

Rabbi Albert Gabbai said
his synagogue has held the
event for “many years,” though
the last one was in 2019 before
the pandemic. COVID case
numbers have declined since
the peak of the omicron surge
in January.

Gabbai said it’s important
for Mikveh Israel to bring back
its Presidents’ Day celebration.

“It projects an image that
Jews were an integral part of
the citizens from the begin-
ning of us becoming a nation,”
he added.

Malissa, who is Jewish, also
believes that it’s important to
emphasize this history. He has
done this event in the past and
built up a relationship with
Gabbai. The Washington imperson-
ator is semi-retired, having
graduated to emeritus status at
Mount Vernon, the president’s
Virginia estate-turned histor-
ical attraction. But Malissa still
does events because he wants
to continue telling the story.

And the letters, in his
opinion, are a huge part of
Washington’s legacy.

“You had these people who
left Europe and a history of
pogroms and second- and
third-class citizenship,”
Malissa said of the Jews. “Now,
they’re in a new promised land
and for the chief magistrate to
welcome that, it’s profound.”
For Washington,
the Newport letter was a response
to a letter from the Touro
Synagogue expressing support
for the president. Two other
congregations at the time,
including Mikveh Israel and
one in Savannah, Georgia,
The Congregation Mikveh Israel sanctuary
wrote their own notes, too.

It’s often an untold part of
the story that the founding
father responded to all of them,
not just Touro’s; and the father
of our country echoed the same
principle of religious freedom
in each letter, according to
Gabbai. The
rabbi and
his Philadelphia congregation still
have their letter and will put it
on display for visitors who tour
the synagogue on Presidents’
Day. “We are blessed to be in
this country, where Jews are
not officially oppressed by the
government,” Gabbai said.

Malissa has read both letters,
the one to the Touro Synagogue
and the one to Mikveh Israel,
several times in the past.

Usually, regardless of which
one he recites, he sees a similar
scene play out in the audience.

There’s always a percentage
of people who are unfamiliar
with Washington’s history of
writing letters to rabbis and
congregations, according
JEWISH EXPONENT
Courtesy of Congregation Mikveh Israel
Dean Malissa, as George Washington, speaks to a crowd.

Courtesy of Dean Malissa
to Malissa. When they learn
about this history, they react
with an “aha” on their faces,
the impersonator said.

“It’s always cool to see,” he
added. Gabbai expects 50 to 60
people to attend the event. But
Mikveh Israel has room for
more if residents are interested.

He put the word out via
email to the synagogue’s 200 or
so member families.

Tickets must be bought
ahead of time at amrevmu-
seum.org on the events page.

Guests ages two and up must
wear facemasks in accordance
with Philadelphia’s health and
safety guidelines, per an event
press release. l
jsaffren@jewishexponent.com; 215-832-0740
JEWISHEXPONENT.COM



H EADLINES
Refugee Stories
from Shanghai
Ghetto Live On
L OCA L
SASHA ROGELBERG | JE STAFF
TO MANY AMERICAN
Jews, the extent of their
connection with China takes
the form of slurping lo mein
on Christmas Day, an annual
tradition paying homage to the
proximity of the Jewish and
Chinese neighborhoods on the
Lower East Side of New York in
the late 1800s and into the 20th
century. To others, the connection
extends beyond the United
States border and across the
Pacifi c Ocean to the munici-
pality of Shanghai, a temporary
home and haven for Jewish
Holocaust refugees.

Inge Booker, a Warminster
resident, spent almost nine
years of her life in a ghetto in
Shanghai from 1939 to 1948,
where her family lived in a
two-room apartment with no
gas or electricity, cooking over
a charcoal stove for meals and
sleeping on mattresses infested
with bedbugs.

“It was more or less kaput,”
Booker said.

Now 99, Booker still remem-
bers the resilient and vibrant
Jewish community in the
Hongkew Shanghai ghetto that
survived despite the chaos and
Japanese surveillance of the
area during the Sino-Japanese
war from 1937 to 1945.

Her family ate at a small
Viennese restaurant on Friday
nights, where the community
held Shabbat services. She was
married at 19 under a small
chuppah set up in her parents’
home. A rabbi and cantor
were both in attendance, but
the family could only aff ord a
maximum of a cup of coff ee
and two pastries for reception
guests. Booker’s story, though a
shock to those unfamiliar with
the Jewish Holocaust refugees
who made their home in China,
is similar to those of 23,000
Jewish refugees who lived in
the Shanghai ghetto between
1941 and 1945, according to
the Shanghai Jewish Center.

Aft er the Nuremberg Laws
and Kristallnacht cemented
Europe as an unsafe place for
Jews, China became a place
of refuge. Aft er the British
colonization of Shanghai in
the 1800s, the municipality
February 27, 2022
This Super Sunday, help the Jewish
Federation of Greater Philadelphia:
• Care for people in need
• Build and sustain Jewish life
in Greater Philadelphia
• Connect our community to our
global Jewish world
Make your Super Sunday gift today:
jewishphilly.org/give ● 215.832.0899
See Refugee, Page 21
Paul Hoff mann on a rickshaw in the Hongkew ghetto in Shanghai
Courtesy of Jean Hoff mann Lewanda
JEWISHEXPONENT.COM JEWISH EXPONENT
FEBRUARY 17, 2022
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