Metro Briefs December 29

The Kollel Jewish Learning Center’s annual Melava Malka dinner will be held Feb. 16, 2013.

This year’s honorees are Dr. Dean and Chaya Pollack, who will receive the Shaul Kagan Legacy Award honoring their devotion to Torah and the community.  Also, this year’s dinner is dedicated to the memory of Allan Goodkind for his years of service and devotion to the community.

Ad journal chairs are Dr. Jerome and Smadar Parness and Naama Lazar and dinner chairs are Dr. Harold and Ronit Weisenfeld.

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The Holocaust Center of the Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh and the August Wilson Center for African American Culture are expanding their partnership on the Nazi Olympics, Berlin 1936 exhibition to include two Holocaust-related town hall meetings.

The first, Tainted Games: The Politics of Race in the 1936 Berlin Olympics, will be Thursday, Dec. 27, 5:30 p.m., at the Jewish Community Center in Squirrel Hill and will feature guest speaker, David Clay Large, author of Nazi Games, The Olympics of 1936.  A reaction panel will feature Sala Udin, interim president of the August Wilson Center; Joy Braunstein, director of the Holocaust Center; and Jason Russo, educator at Rochester Area Senior High School and Pennsylvania’s “Master Teacher of the Holocaust.”

Tainted Games will explore important milestones in Black-Jewish relations throughout the 20th century. Large will present an informed perspective of the role that race played in the 1936 Berlin Olympics in the United States among African-Americans and among Jews.  The discussion will explore the boycott debate and examine the different perspectives and positions taken on the boycott.

The town hall meetings are part of the August Wilson Center’s Great Collaborations program, a seven-month educational cultural series that was launched with the opening of the Nazi Olympics, Berlin 1936 exhibition Oct. 15.

Great Collaborations will explore collaborative milestones between Blacks and American Jews throughout the 20th century.  In addition to the exhibition and the four-part Town Hall Meeting Series, there are cultural presentations in each of the August Wilson Center artistic disciplines:  music, theater and dance.  The goal of the Great Collaborations educational and cultural series is to explore past collaborations and use them to open dialogue that leads to collaborations in the future.

Jewish Family & Children’s Service has filled its vacant positions of Squirrel Hill Community Food Pantry director and director of communications and fundraising.

Matthew Bolton is the new director of the Food Pantry, succeeding Becky Abrams. He comes from the Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank, where he worked as manager of nutrition and food safety. A graduate of Point Park University with a bachelor’s degree in health services, Bolton will work to strengthen the services offered through the Squirrel Hill Community Food Pantry and ensure pantry clients receive nutritious food to supplement their diets.

Pat Kennedy is the new director of communications and fundraising, succeeding Laurie Gottlieb. She comes to JF&CS from Penn State-McKeesport where she was interim director of continuing education and assistant in the marketing and development offices.  Prior to her work at Penn State, she was the executive director of communications and marketing for the Pittsburgh Public Schools. In her role with JF&CS, she will focus on strategic marketing, fundraising initiatives and outreach to continue the agency’s work in the community.