COMMUNITY NEWS
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communities’ most critical priorities locally, in Israel and
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Connie Smukler: A Real-life Hero for the Soviet Jews
WHEN ISRAELI POLITICIAN and human rights activist Natan Sharansky
published “Never Alone: Prison, Politics, and My People,” a memoir chronicling
his years of political imprisonment in Soviet Russia and life after his release, it
quickly drew global acclaim.

But his harrowing story also caught local attention when Sharansky named one
of his liberators as Philadelphia resident Connie Smukler.

Released last year, Sharansky’s “Never Alone” reads: “[Connie Smukler]
and her comrades created an international network of hospitality, hosting the
families of prisoners of Zion, who crisscrossed the world ... going from home to
home, town to town, and country to country, advocating for their loved ones’
freedom.” Sharansky praised Smukler as a pillar of strength during his incarceration.

“My experiences with Sharansky have defined me in many ways,” Smukler said.

“I look at him and see a treasure for our Jewish people. It’s thrilling to know I’ve
had a little bit to do with that. I want to be remembered as someone who made a
difference. In a way, he’s given me that legacy.”
That legacy is an impressive one. Smukler and her husband, Joe, were leaders
of a 1970s and 1980s movement to liberate thousands of Jews from an oppressive
Soviet Union. This included refuseniks, Soviet Jews, such as Sharansky, who were
stripped of their rights to emigrate.

It wasn’t until 1973, during a visit to
Israel, that Smukler realized how dire the
situation was for refuseniks. On the trip,
the Smuklers met a Soviet man who pleaded
with them to save his brother’s life. “You
have to get my brother out of Leningrad. He
is my whole life. I cannot live without him,”
the man begged.

That was the moment Smukler realized that
she needed to take action. “I had never seen
a Soviet Jew before,” she said. “But I had this
charge, and I had to do something.”
Natan Sharansky and Connie
After that interaction, Smukler helped Smukler on Glienicke Bridge
inspire a local group of housewives who in Berlin, the location where
wanted to advocate for the freedom of Soviet Sharansky famously crossed the
his freedom in 1986
Jews. Through the Soviet Jewry Council of border to gain Courtesy
of Connie Smukler
the Philadelphia Jewish Community Relations
Council, they organized protests, marches and hunger strikes, and they relentlessly
lobbied Congress to take action.

Smukler, herself, made countless trips to the former Soviet Union, secretly
meeting with Soviet Jews to hear their stories and help refuseniks
navigate the Soviet oppression they faced. After a KGB interro-
gation in 1981, Smukler was no longer permitted entry to Russia
until the fall of the Iron Curtain.

However, it was in 1975 when the Smuklers first met Sharansky
during one of their visits to the Soviet Union. The couple and the
refusenik activist immediately connected through their shared
passion to champion the rights of Jewish people. Not long after
played a major role in gaining freedom for Jewish Soviets and helping their
this initial meeting, Sharansky was arrested and sentenced to the
transition after emigration? Even today, the Jewish Federation continues to
Soviet gulag, convicted for trumped-up charges.

address the needs of people from the Former Soviet Union and Russia.

“It was terrible. I didn’t know how I would survive. We
supported other prisoners too, but he was my friend, and that
In partnership with the Joint Distribution Committee, each year:
made it even harder,” Smukler said.

The Smuklers campaigned for Sharansky’s release, and after
nine years of imprisonment, he finally gained that freedom.

Throughout that time, Smukler and her army of housewives
persisted as part of an international network of efforts to pressure
the Soviet Union to allow Jews to emigrate. By the late 1980’s,
their work paid off and Soviet Jews began to receive more rights,
including the right to emigrate.

elderly Jews in the
hours of home care
Following this great achievement, Smukler continued to be
Former Soviet Union
are provided to
an active leader in the local community. A current trustee and
receive critical assistance
elderly Jews
former vice chair of the Jewish Federation of Greater Philadelphia
and board member of the Anti-Defamation League, Smukler
remains steadfast in her belief that grassroots efforts can truly
make a difference. She recently established the Constance and
Joseph Smukler Tribute to the Global Soviet Jewry Movement: Let
My People Go exhibit at the Museum of the Jewish People at Beit
Hatfutsot in Tel Aviv, Israel.

“I grew up in a very anti-Semitic environment, always thinking
I was missing something. Little did I know I was missing my
elderly receive support
Jews participate in
Jewishness,” she said. “My husband used to say that in every Jew
for medical needs
family Shabbat retreats
there’s a pintele yid [small spark of Jewish faith]. Sharansky helped
light that spark, and it’s been on fire ever since.”
Did you know...

The Jewish Federation’s
Jewish Community Relations Council
30 87,500+
18 million +
29,250+ 4,700
FEBRUARY 25, 2021
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C ommunity
COMMUNITYBRIEFS Philadelphia Holocaust Remembrance
Foundation Names Co-Chairs
THE PHILADELPHIA HOLOCAUST Remembrance
Foundation has named Jake Reiter and Matt Pestronk
co-chairs of the organization’s board of directors.

Former chair David Adelman will remain a PHRF
board member and part of the executive committee.

Pestronk, president of Post Brothers Apartments,
and Reiter, president of Verde Capital Corp., have
each served on the executive board for five years.

The organization also named five new board
members. They are Matthew J. Meltzer, an associate
at Faegre Drinker Biddle & Reath LLP; Tony Payton,
a partner at government relations firm David Scott
Partners and a former member of the Pennsylvania
House of Representatives; David Waxman, the
co-founder and managing partner of real estate
development firm MMPartners; Justin Wineburgh,
president and CEO of creative studio Alkemy X; and
Jonathan S. Krause, the co-chair of the litigation
department at Klehr Harrison Harvey Branzburg.

The PHRF said in a news release that it will launch
new programs designed to provide enhanced Holocaust
education. It also is developing curricula and teacher
trainings about the common ground between racism
and anti-Semitism.

The flagship program of the organization, which is a
nonprofit that educates the public about the Holocaust,
was the expansion of the Horwitz-Wasserman
Holocaust Memorial Plaza in Center City.

Street as a commercial zone that was pedestrian
friendly and played a key role in renovating proper-
ties in Center City and Manayunk, among other
areas. Aside from serving on the board of the Albert M.

Greenfield Foundation, he was involved in the devel-
opment of Dilworth Park and the Arden Children’s
Theatre. Earlier in his career, he worked as an investment
banker and a corporate bond trader.

Greenfield’s grandfather was known as “Mr.

Philadelphia” for his involvement in develop-
ment, politics and civic affairs. Those included the
1944 acquisition of the financially troubled Jewish
Exponent, which he turned over to the Allied Jewish
Appeal, the precursor to the Jewish Federation of
Greater Philadelphia.

Greenfield is survived by his wife, Wendy; three
sons, Aaron, Matthew and Jason; four grandchildren;
and two sisters.

Philanthropist Shirley Shils Dies at 100
Philanthropist Shirley Shils died Feb. 1 at her Penn
Valley home. She was 100.

Shils and her late husband, Dr. Edward B. Shils,
were involved in numerous philanthropic endeavors.

Shils served on the board and executive committee
of the Madlyn and Leonard Abramson Center for
Jewish Life, as vice president of the Federation of
Jewish Agencies of Greater Philadelphia, and as
chair of the Women’s Division of Philadelphia Allied
Jewish Appeal’s Israeli Emergency Fund.

The couple endowed the Edward B. Shils and
Shirley R. Shils Term Professorship in Entrepreneurial
Management at the University of Pennsylvania in
2001. Earlier, they endowed the Edward B. and
Shirley R. Shils Term Professorship in Arbitration
and Alternative Dispute Resolution at Penn’s Carey
Law School.

Penn Dental Medicine named the school’s state of
the art clinic after Edward and Shirley Shils in 2017.

Shils is survived by children Ronnie Burak, Nancy
Shils and Edward Barry Shils, two grandchildren and
four great-grandchildren.

Nemours duPont Hospital for Children
Opens Kosher Pantry
Nemours duPont Hospital for Children in Wilmington,
Delaware, opened a new kosher pantry in January to
make meal preparation and storage convenient for
Jewish families keeping kosher.

The pantry, which is available at all times, has
a full-sized refrigerator, a microwave, cabinets for
storage and space for meal preparation and clean-up.

“By being culturally aware and recognizing the
importance of having kosher food readily available and
the space with which to prepare it, we can enhance the
patient experience while understanding we all want
the same thing, the very best for the children entrusted
to our care,” said Cindy Bo, senior vice president of University of Pennsylvania Doctor
Delaware Valley strategy and business development at Wins Israeli Dan David Prize
Nemours Children’s Health System.

University of Pennsylvania cancer cell therapy
pioneer Dr. Carl June was named a 2021 Dan David
Real Estate Developer Albert M. Greenfield III
Prize laureate.

Dies at 65
The Dan David Prize is endowed by the Dan David
Real estate developer and corporate bond trader Albert Foundation at Tel Aviv University, which annually
M. Greenfield III, whose grandfather and father were awards three $1 million prizes.

major Philadelphia-area real estate financiers, died
June is the Richard W. Vague Professor in
Feb. 7 from Alzheimer’s disease complications, The Immunotherapy in the Department of Pathology
Philadelphia Inquirer reported.

and Laboratory Medicine in the Perelman School
Greenfield acquired his grandfather’s company of Medicine at Penn and director of the Center
and renamed it Albert M. Greenfield & Company, for Cellular Immunotherapies at Penn’s Abramson
Inc. in 1990. He was known for promoting Chestnut Cancer Center.

JEWISHEXPONENT.COM JEWISH EXPONENT
He was recognized in the “future” category for his
contributions to molecular medicine, including his
work in developing chimeric antigen receptor (CAR)
T cell therapy, which in August 2017 was the first
Food and Drug Administration-approved personal-
ized cellular therapy for cancer.

June will share the $1 million prize with Dr.

Steven Rosenberg, chief of the surgery branch at the
Center for Cancer Research at the National Cancer
Institute, and Dr. Zelig Eshhar, an immunologist at
the Weizmann Institute of Science and the Tel Aviv
Sourasky Medical Center.

The Dan David Prize is endowed by the Dan David
Foundation at Tel Aviv University, which annually
awards three $1 million prizes. l
— Compiled by Andy Gotlieb
MAZELTOVS BIRTH
CARSON SHAE WEINTRAUB
Gary and Erin Weintraub of Chicago announce
the birth of their daughter, Carson Shae
Weintraub, who was born on Oct. 19, 2020.

Sharing in the family’s happiness are brother
Hunter; great-grandmother Eleanor Belson of
Bal Harbour, Florida; grandparents Susan and
Stanley Weintraub of Havertown and Rhonda
and Stuart Salins of Highland Park, Illinois; aunt
Dayna, uncle Larry Weintraub and cousins Jonah
and Noam Weintraub; uncle Louis Weintraub,
aunt Samantha Jones and cousins Matthew,
Ethan and Zoe Weintraub; aunt Lauren Salins,
uncle Alex Solomon and cousin Eve; and aunt
Nisa and uncle Jordan Salins.

Carson’s Hebrew name is Mina. She is named
for her maternal great-great-grandmother, Mina
Bromberg. Photo by Gary Weintraub
FEBRUARY 25, 2021
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