Metro Briefs July 30

The Zionist Organization of America — Pittsburgh District is hosting a program titled, “The Legacy of Sepharad: New and Old Encounters between Spain and the Jews,” with Michal Rose Friedman on Tuesday, Aug. 4 at 7 p.m. at 6507 Wilkins Ave. Suite 107.

Friedman received her doctorate from Columbia University. Her dissertation, “Recovering Jewish Spain: Politics, Historiography and Institutionalization of the Jewish Past in Spain (1845-1935),” is a study of initiatives to recover the Jewish past and of the emergence of Sephardic studies in Spain from 1845 to 1940.

Friedman was recently awarded a postdoctoral research fellowship at the Herbert D. Katz Center for Advanced Jewish Studies at the University of Pennsylvania, where she taught in the spring. She also teaches at Carnegie Mellon University.

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RSVPs are required and can be made at Stuart.pavilack.pghzoa@gmail.com or 412-665-4630.

The Friendship Circle Yard Sale will be held on Thursday, Aug. 6 from noon to 4 p.m., weather permitting, at its office at 5872 Northumberland St. Prices will range from $.25 to $10. Contact info@fcpgh.org for more information.

Lila Hirsch Brody’s annual show of her acrylic painting class will be held from Wednesday, Aug. 5 to Wednesday, Sept. 2 at the Fine/Perlow and Weis Gallery at the Jewish Community Center of Greater Pittsburgh in Squirrel Hill. The opening reception will be held on Thursday, Aug. 6 from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m.

Sivitz Hospice has been selected as one of only 140 hospice companies nationally, and one of only four in Pennsylvania (the only one in Western Pennsylvania), to participate in a new Medicare pilot program. The Medicare Care Choices model will allow Sivitz Hospice to provide both palliative and curative treatments at the same time. This pilot program is a paradigm shift meant to encourage increased hospice utilization by overcoming the stigma associated with hospice as “giving up” on the individual.

Sivitz has been selected to participate in this national pilot but has been randomly assigned to cohort two, which means its participation in the pilot does not start until July 2018. The program, however, will be five years in duration. 

Mary Anne Foley, Jewish Association on Aging vice president of home and community services, was the lead on the CMS application to participate in the pilot.