SPRING/SUMMER2022
ONTHIS L A N D ASTORYOFSLAVERY INMAMARONECK MATZOBALLSOUP FORTHESOUL
BEYONDTHE TENPLAGUES MUSICNOTES
THESONGSANDSPIRITOF NESHAMACARLEBACH
THEMAGAZINEOFWESTCHESTERJEWISH CENTER
Westchester Jewish Center
EDITOR?SNOTE KOSTYAKENNEDY
Our Lilacs Spring/Summer 2022 Guest Editor KOSTYA KENNEDY Editorial Services and Design Director KATIESCHLIENTZ Production Director EVAN J. SCHAPIRO Editorial Advisor JACQUESSTEINBERG Guest Contributors JEREMYBLACHMAN JILL CASLIN RABBI CORNELIA DALTON ELIZABETH EHRLICH AMYFASTENBERG JOSELUISFONSECA DAVID GOLDSTEIN SHMULIK GOV-ARI ALISON GOTTSEGEN NEIL H. KOSLOWE GLENNA LEE AMYLEVINE-KENNEDY KIM LEWIS Senior Rabbi Assistant Rabbi
JEFFREY ARNOWITZ CORNELIA DALTON
Cantor Rabbi Emeritus
ETHAN GOLDBERG JEFFREY T. SEGELMAN
Rabbi Emeritus Ritual Director Emeritus Executive Director
DR. IRVINGKOSLOWEz??l MAX FRIEDMAN z??l DAVID GOLDSTEIN
CommunicationsAssistant Educational Director &
ALEXANDRA PAISLEY
Congregation Program Coord. Early Childhood Director Librarian
ALEZA R. KULP ANN PARDES ARLENERATZABI
Building Superintendent
JOSELUISFONSECA
Westchester Jewish Center 175Rockland Avenue, Mamaroneck, NY10543 914-698-2960 - wjcenter.org
We think of these as trying times: The heavy toll of the pandemic. Political unrest. A senseless and brutal war. The cost of climate change. Bennifer reconstituted.
Though as the story of Passover always brings home, human history is infused with times of struggle and uncertainty, our joy and happiness challenged again and again by threat and injustice. That is clear in these pages. Elizabeth Ehrlich?s stirring cover story explores the work of congregants Ruth Obernbreit-Glass and Sharon Silver in helping illuminate the lives of enslaved people who lived right here on our local streets. A book excerpt, gives a new glimpse into the Polish ghettos of World War II, and into the courage of some of the women who were there. Images and stories from the Koslowe Gallery engage our most monumental challenge, hearkening to the fragility of earth?s living waters. Yet again the month of April will breed lilacs out of the dead land. And again, in this second-ever issue of Voices, we are lifted by the winking words of Jeremy Blachman, conveying in his good humor that the manner in which our children may sit or eat (or not sit or not eat) at the Seder table, is far less important than that they are with us. There may be a recipe for how to deliver such forms of unspoken love, but as Glenna Lee shows us through her piece on Matzo Ball Soup, you don?t need one. The writers in this issue include pillars of our WJC community, among them those who composed the lively tributes to this year?s gala honorees: Jennifer Winters, Ian Winters, Linda Alpert Karell and Marc Karell? each honoree exemplary not only in the work they do but also in the spirit they bring. Rich content created by superb contributors is why Voices succeeds. It soars due to its core caretakers. Evan Schapiro, Katie Schlientz, and Jacques Steinberg are the talented and devoted executors of a venture that would not exist without its Edison, Rabbi Jeffrey Arnowitz. In a particularly beautiful vocal passage by Neshama Carlebach? who is interviewed in this issue by WJC?s very own Ali G.? she sings, May our words reflect You/May our voices climb/May the heavens hear us/May Your light shine. As Passover arrives, and we spend a little time with these stories, we might remember that now, just as millennia ago, songs of suffering are often also songs of hope.
Kostya
THISISSUE'SCONTRIBUTORS AMY LEVINE-KENNEDY has been the Curator of the Koslowe Gallery since 2011, and isindebted to her colleaguesLeslie Millman and IrisScopp. A writer and editor, Amy also enjoysfamily time, exercise, and drawing greeting cards. 2 - WJCVoices| Spring/Summer 2022
ELIZABETH EHRLICH, a member of WJCsince 1997, isan author and poet.
AMY FASTENBERG hasbeen amember of WJCsince 2001. She currently co-chairsthe Holocaust Learning Center and Teen Engagement Committees.
WHAT'SINSIDE
10 MAYIN CHAYIM: A WATERSHED Artistsinterpret the Earth'sprecious resource in the Koslowe Gallery.
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16
REMEMBERING MARLY KOSLOWE
MEET WJC'S SCHOLAR-IN-RESIDENCE
101years, 100 offspring, one golden voice.
The first woman chancellor of the Jewish Theological Seminary looksto the future of the conservative movement.
4
BY THE NUMBERS The world'slargest seder and more.
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MATZO BALL SOUP FOR THE SOUL A grandmother'slessons.
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AVOIDING THE TEN PLAGUES OF THE FAMILY SEDER Slip in some chocolate, deploy those rubber frogs.
12 MUSIC NOTES: NESHAMA CARLEBACH The songwriter (and congregant) deliversfrom the heart.
14 2022 GALA HONOREES Personal portrayalsof the four WJCpillarswho'll be feted at the Spring Gala.
19 HONORING THE NAMES WJCCongregantsare helping to shine alight on the history of enslavement in Mamaroneck, and unearthing storylinesworthy of Exodus and the Haggadah.
23 "GHETTO GIRLS" An author wasinspired by the courage of women in the Polish ghettos.
24 REWIND A WJCModel Seder, 1948.
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BYTHENUMBERSKATESCHLIENTZ
OFFICERS President Executive Vice President Financial Vice President Treasurer Assistant Treasurer Financial Secretary Assistant Financial Secretary Administration Adult Programming Children & Families Communications Development Spiritual Life Synagogue Arms Tikkun Olam Recording Secretary Assistant Recording Secretary Chair of the Board
SETH SCHAFLER LAURENCETHALER YALE ZOLAND MICHAEL LAPIDES ROBIN NAZARZADEH JEFFREYTAFFET SUSAN MILLER HAROLD TREIBER LAURA GRILL NANCYSHERMAN EVAN J. SCHAPIRO IAN WINTERS LAURENCETHALER MARKBERGER EVEEDELMAN RUSS AMYLEVINE-KENNEDY ALYNN PERL RANDYHELLER
Presidents, Brotherhood CRAIGRUBIN & STUART SELTZER President, Sisterhood GLENNA LEE Co-Chairs, Parents LAURA GRILL, MIA MANDEL, MARISA DESA President, Cemetery Association MILESFEDERMAN
488 pounds The weight of the world'slargest matzo ball.
975 Pintsof chopped liver iconic New York City grocer Eli Zabar sellsduring Passover every year.
$130
TRUSTEES Ali Abrahms Rachel Aronow Stewart Ault RebeccaBaron AlisaCohen Barney Ilene Bellovin Jonathan Berg Mark Berger Marisade Sa Elise Dowell Eve Edelman Russ Amy Fastenberg LauraGrill Randy Heller Howard Husock Lawrence Iason
Andre Kaplan Danielle Klein Michael Lapides GlennaLee Amy Levine-Kennedy JoannaLiebman MiaMandel Susan Miller Susie Miller IlanaMoskowitz Cheryl Natbony Bill Natbony Robin Nazarzadeh DinaNelson Alynn Perl Jill Rivel
Beth Rudich Seth Schafler Evan J. Schapiro Nancy Sherman Rosie Smith Andrea Stoltz Jeffrey Taffet Steve Taubenfeld Laurence Thaler Harold Treiber Rob Weisstuch Ian Winters Yale Zoland
Randy Heller Mark Jacoby Greta Koppel z?l Jeff Lavine Howard Lazarus Albert Lefkowitz z?l Jenny Levy z?l Gail Marcus Martin Marcus Richard Melchner Zabathy Meltzer Abraham Mizrahi Lenny Queen Shirley Queen z?l Josef Raboy z?l
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Spent on matzo each year in the U.S.
1,000+ guest s
HONORARY TRUSTEES Victor Badner Alan Benet Dan Berkowitz LouisBrause Ruth Brause Beverly Cannold David Cannold z?l Jill Caslin Saby Castro z?l Louise Cohen Bobby Cohen Martin Freiman z?l Stuart Gilbert JulesGorlitz Cindy Heller
million
Marilyn Reader Ronny Rosenberg z?l Elaine Stein Roberts Robert Savin z?l Sol Schargel z?l Stuart Schapiro Sarene Shanus Gerhard Spies z?l Norman Trieger z?l Edward Weinberg z?l Swain Weiner RhonaWexler Irving Yasgur z?l Gerald Zeidner
The invite list of the world'slargest Passover seder, held yearly in Kathmandu, Nepal.
FINDINGOURCENTER Mat zo Ball Soup For the Soul A recipe made from memories, not measurements BY GLENNA LEE
No, I can?t give you a recipe, my soup doesn?t come with instructions. My soup comes from memories, smells, images, nothing that could be quantified to the smallest teaspoon. You may be lucky enough to have a recipe just like that, too, in your life. Growing up, I came from a stock of working women. My mother was a doctor, trained in the 1970s. Her mother before her, my beloved Grandma Shirley, was a doctor. A daughter of poor, immigrant, Yiddish-only speaking parents, my grandma made her way through the New Jersey public school system, to NYU, where she became a Jewish. Female. Doctor. in the 1930s. We didn?t know from cooks; these were women who left the home to heal the world. But come the Jewish holidays, my grandma would always be found in our kitchen, peeling a horseradish in honor of her father, making kreplach, or my favorite:
matzo ball soup. I would stand by her side and watch her gnarled hands at work chopping at the vegetables, her fingers looking like roots themselves. I spent every holiday in the kitchen watching her and, later on, helping her. Even years afterward, the scent of dill and parsley is to me the amalgam of her. And like a witch, whenever I need to conjure up my beautiful, loving grandmother, I boil up a pot of her soup, inhale, and am no longer alone. Glenna Lee lovesbeingin the kitchen, particularly alongside her daughterswho cook much better than she does. Glenna is proud to have been raised at WJCand serve asthe President of the WJC Sisterhood alongside women she hasadmired throughout her life.
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COMMUNITYNEILH.KOSLOWE
Remembering Marly Koslowe, The Rebbet zin With an innovative spirit, agolden voice and open arms, she wasforever devoted to WJCand itsmembers. From her first days in Mamaroneck in 1943 at what was then called the Hebrew Institute of Mamaroneck, until she passed away 78 years later at the age of 101in Miami Beach, Florida, my mother, Marly Koslowe, was the rebbet zin of the Westchester Jewish Center. Nothing in my mother?s early life prepared her
to be a rebbet zin. She grew up in a poverty-stricken neighborhood on the Lower East Side, later attended public schools in the Bensonhurst section of Brooklyn and earned her wages in the Garment District. No one in her immediate family was a rabbi or had any direct connection to rabbis. Nevertheless, after my father, Rabbi Dr. Irving Koslowe, was chosen to be the Rabbi at the Hebrew Institute, my mother assumed the role of rebbetzin with gusto. To enlarge the population of the tiny synagogue, my mother joined my father in thumbing through the local telephone directory, scouring for Jewish family names and cold-calling them to invite them to become members. Convinced that a proven way to recruit Jews is through food, my mother embraced the practice of holding kiddushes at the synagogue following Sabbath services, which attracted younger local Jews. My father was focused on the importance of Jewish education. After the Hebrew Institute morphed into the Westchester Jewish Center and moved from Halstead Avenue to Rockland and Palmer Avenues, my father was determined to build a first-class Hebrew School. It was difficult to find qualified teachers. But my mother, who had no formal educational training, was a natural teacher, especially for very young children. She volunteered to teach the kindergarten at the Center?s Hebrew School and was a smash hit. My mother had a beautiful voice and knew all the Jewish holiday songs, which she enthusiastically taught her students. There are still members of the Center who remember their days in my mother?s kindergarten class. More remarkably, through the last weeks of my mother?s life, she kept tabs on those students? their careers, their spouses, their children, even their grand-children? and would regale our family with detailed stories about them.
Marly Koslowe, singing at WJC in the 1950s.
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Four generations? 100 descedants in total? of Koslowes gathered for Passover a few years ago in New Jersey. Marly is seated near the center in a patterned sweater.
( Top) The Koslowes in the late 1950s at WJC. (Bottom) Left to right, front row: Shari, Mark. Left to right, back row: Kenny, Marly, Rabbi Irving Koslowe, and Neil.
My mother used her beautiful voice in service to the Center in many ways. When she was still a teenager, my mother had been selected to compete in the nationally-syndicated Major Bowes Amateur Hour. It was a wildly popular radio show in which listeners voted for the best performer of the night, much as they do today on America?s Got Talent. My mother won first prize the night she competed, and the reward was an invitation to join a national tour group of singers headed by Frank Sinatra. As a Sabbath observer who kept kosher, she declined the invitation. Nevertheless, she
became well known in professional singing circles in New York and elsewhere. She used her contacts to persuade opera stars and other singers to perform concerts at the Center, and she herself gave recitals. She was a star soloist in the Center?s choir, which performed on the High Holidays, and. also at the Center, she accompanied my father at Passover Seders, weddings, and a variety of social events. My mother expanded her interests at the Center to work with teenagers. She assumed a major role in evaluating and hiring staff for the Center?s youth groups. I recall one night when she stunned one of the teenage groups by inviting the Chassidic song master, Reb Shlomo Carlebach? then virtually unknown? to come to the Center and perform. They were ecstatic and thrilled to be introduced to authentic Jewish music. As the Center grew by leaps and bounds, my mother was concerned about maintaining the personal touch that had
been one of the hallmarks of her role as rebbetzin. She decided that, on either the first or second day of Rosh Hashanah, the entire congregation would be invited to our home for an outdoor kiddush. Literally hundreds of Center members would make their way up the two-block walk from the Center to be greeted by the Rabbi and the rebbetzin. My mother took an avid interest in the lives of Center members. She was always there to celebrate their simchas or to console them in their moments of grief. Even after my father retired as Rabbi of the Center, and later, even after she moved to Florida, my mother kept in contact with Center members. She never retired from being the rebbetzin. Neil H. Koslowe isMarly?seldest son. Marly Koslowe passed away on November 14, 2021. Marley?schildren, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and their spouses, total 6 100 descendants. exactly wjcenter.org | Spring/Summer 2022 - 7
FAMILY JEREMYBLACHMAN
Avoiding the Ten Plagues of the Family Seder When I think back on my family?s Passover seders from my childhood, I mostly remember the excitement of the moment we stopped trying to diligently get through the Haggadah? when the adults gave up and decided we should just eat. We?d do the Four Questions, the Ten Plagues, the Thirty Seconds of Whining, and then it was time for gefilte fish.
Now, as a parent of two young kids, I don?t want that to be my family?s experience? and yet, it?s hard to avoid. In the spirit of keeping your kids engaged at the table, and actually discovering what the rest of the Haggadah looks like, here are 10 tips to avoid these 10 Seder Plagues:
to sit at the table? and we?re not giving them any food. What if you did the talking part away from the table, making it feel less like this big book is delaying the meal and more like it?s just robbing everyone of more screen time? Or how about at least putting some carrot sticks out to munch on? One of my friends told me they give the kids chocolate at her family?s seder. That seems like a winner to me.
5. Spills ??? ?? There?s no fun at all in worrying about the tablecloth. You are asking people to drip drops of red wine or grape juice. You can?t get frustrated if it spills! Okay, someone?s yelling to start the meal already; let?s speed through the rest of these:
3. Stage Fright ?? ? ???
1. Boredom ??? ?? Until adulthood I didn?t realize there was more than one Haggadah. The first time I went to my wife?s family for Passover and they didn?t have a pile of the free ones that came with the coffee, I was confused. And then intrigued. And, for the first time, actually kind of engaged. By the third or fourth year, maybe a little less engaged? but that just made me want to mix it up again and try something new. There are lots of Haggadahs, and what?s standing between you and an amazing Seder might simply be a new book. Try some out. (Maybe even let your kids pick.)
I never quite understood why the Seder needed to be run like a high school English class, where everyone needs to take turns reading aloud. Growing up with a stutter, I would sit at the Seder table counting paragraphs, hoping mine would be short, and not filled with the consonants that were going to trip me up the most. But that?s just one potential obstacle among many. Did someone forget their glasses again? Is anyone at your table shy, uncomfortable, or merely not so great at pronouncing the names of ancient rabbis, lands, or mountains? Have mercy on them. Some people love to read aloud. Let them perform. Everyone will be happier.
4. Distraction ????? 2. Hunger ??? At the Seder, we?re supposed to feel like we?re actually traveling out of Egypt. And whenever you travel with kids, don?t you bring a snack? A big part of the struggle with most Seders is that we?re asking kids 8 - WJCVoices| Spring/Summer 2022
Don?t fight it, embrace it. Another friend said that her seders involve props: showers of ping-pong balls, flying stuffed frogs. Yes, it might be chaos. But it might also keep your kids engaged and excited about the holiday instead of dreading it. Make stuff. Buy stuff. Fill the room with fake rubber frogs. You can make it fun.
6. Crumbs ??????? Have you tried to eat a piece of matzah without making a mess? It?s impossible. You?ll clean later. Or the locusts will.
7. Bedtime ???? ??? The seder doesn?t have to start at dinnertime, you know? Maybe it?s better if no one?s about to melt down, die of hunger, or fall asleep at the table. What if it was breakfast? Matzo brei is pretty tasty.
8. Food Poisoning ??? ? ???? Maybe it?s just me, but I don?t love having the food sit out for so long. How do you keep brisket at an appropriate temperature while there?s a 90-minute debate about whether mustard seeds are Kosher for Passover? How about this: let the kids eat
My Passover Memory their whole meal during the telling of the story. Keep them energized, occupied, and out of the bacterial risk zone. Save the salmonella for the adults.
Membersof the WJCfamily share morsels and reminiscencesfrom the holiday.
"A few yearsago when visiting cousinsin Israel they showed usavideo of when my mom wasachild at their family Passover Seder. she wassinging ?Who knows one??and singing ?Ooh Ah?in afunny way between each verse. So now, every year at our Sederswe love to sing the song together and yell loudly ?Ooh ah ohh ah ah?like she did in the video. Even our great grandparentssing along with us!"
9. Inappropriate Political Discussions ??? ? ? ?? ?? ?????? ?? ?????
LEELA MANDEL
You know what? I think we should embrace this one, and maybe even reward creativity for finding a way to shoehorn as many hot topics as possible into the retelling of the Passover Story. If I had to leave home in the middle of the night, I would bring? six new members of the Supreme Court. Discuss.
DANIEL DE SA
10. The Gorging of the Firstborn ?????? ? ???? Someone?s eating too much dessert? Just cover everything with horseradish. Follow these tips and your Seder will be? well, it?ll be different, and maybe that?s enough to keep everyone at the table, happy, and awake. Chag sameach!
Jeremy Blachman isthe author of two satirical novelsabout the legal profession, and a ghostwriter working with industry leaders. He and his wife, Nina, and sons, Micah (8) and Rafi (4), are membersof WJC.
ARLENE WEXLER
"In April of 2020 aswe sat down for our Passover Seder, we were unsure what to expect. Having had our worlds upended amonth prior, it wasthe first time our Passover table consisted solely of the four of us. No extended family to fill the seatsand the air with banter and laughter. It felt strange staring at the empty chairsand the Zoom home page in front of me. I pressed ?join call? and the boxeson the screen lit up one by one with loved onesalso sitting at their much-altered Seder tables. Within minutes, apalpable sense of relief and joy washed over everyone. There wasPoppa, starting back at us ready with asmile and ajoke. There wasSafta, smiling with love from her NYCapartment. It became immediately apparent how very blessed we really were. "
"Shortly after I moved to Westchester in 1984, a colleague and I started atradition of shopping for Pesach on the Lower East Side. For dessertswe went to Gertel?s, which had sort of aPesach popup on Hester Street. I especially remember the Krakovsky barsand of course the chocolate-covered macaroons. Next door wasthe fruit and nut store ?I knew the owner but never the name of the store. Around the corner, on EssexStreet, wasGuss?pickles, which typically had the longest line. We often waited an hour while the horseradish wasground in front of our eyes. The fumes from the grinding made our eyestear up, but not as much asthe man doing the grinding. The Guss' line gave usthe opportunity to schmooze, play Jewish Geography and of course trade recipes. "
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GALLERYAMYLEVINE-KENNEDY
Mayim Chaiyim: A Watershed The exhibition, exploring our living waters, will be on view through June. At the 2016 art convention Venice Biennale, the Israel Pavilion devoted itself to art that examines sustainability and regeneration. Artists and architects collaborated with scientists to explore how biological advances might create a more stable environment: a room-sized birds?nest dared the audience to consider organic methods for architecture, a Mediterranean offshore building plan expanded and contracted like breathing lungs, another work employed crystallography to map erosion on the coast of Natanya, and a fourth explored human medical treatments as means for sustaining the evaporating Dead Sea.
These exhibitions complemented and inspired artists around the world, many of whom concentrated on water. The result: an astounding body of work that has hit the museum circuit and collective art scene. Eco-minded art groups, such as Extraction Art and the Vector Artist Initiative, have connected multi-faith artists who are examining the effect of climate change on our living waters. The suffering of ocean ecosystems. The instability of coastal waterways. The drying up, or flooding, of riverbeds. The tainting of urban drinking water. Jewish artists are highly visible among the responders. Water-based ideals of renewal and repair reverberate through Jewish teachings. In our new exhibition, Mayim Chaiyim: A Watershed, we explore the connection that artists are making between climate change and the Jewish tenets of renewal and water immersion. Our show highlights the ideas and approaches of 10 artists working in painting, photography, sculpture, fiber art, collage, and mixed media. Five of the works in the show are included here. They explore Tikkun Olam, ritual renewal traditions such as mikveh and handwashing, and the story of Jonah as a prism for considering how human persepctive and behavior can change. 10 - WJCVoices| Spring/Summer 2022
Tobi Kahn offersan homage to the glaciers on the earth?s polesand their perilousstate. Hiscareer-spanning exploration of the sanctity of life waftsthrough hispeaceful color palette and rounded forms.
Tobi Kahn YPKHAR acrylic on wood
?Thisimage transmutesthe darkness of nature without denying itspower, revealing a sanctuary in astill-struggling world, tension continually released into serenity. This painting is an ode and witness to the ravishing gift of our world.? ? Tobi Kahn
The fiber artist Rachel Kanter sees these timesas acall to action in thistriptych of quilts, which considers the fragility of our lakes, mountains, and forests. ?The time isnow. Look around, look outside, and see what we have done. God?screation is in peril and it?s our job to repair the damage. We can?t look away. The time to fix it is now.? ? Rachel Kanter
Rachel Kanter Wake Up Commercial cotton, vintage prayer shawls, vintage feed sacks.
Israeli photographer Dorit Jordan Dohan showsthe undeniable resultsof the overuse of plastic and synthetics. A tire and other debrishave washed up on aHaifabeach, a reminder of man-made intrusionsto our ocean ecosystems.
Dorit Jordan Dohan A Micro-Cosmos, 2015 Photograph
?Thisaccumulating mass of degrading ocean debrishasdeadly consequencesfor seabirds, fish, and marine animals.? ? Dorit Jordan Dohan
RABBI CORNELIADALTON SPIRITUALLIVING
Setting an Intention to Have Meaningful and Joyful Encounters with Judaism Imagining Kavanah asabus that might transport us toward the destinationsof love and hope.
In his book ?Davening: A Guide to Meaningful Jewish Prayer,? Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi describes building a religious after-school program in New Haven, Conn., and then encouraging children to come, to develop a relationship with their Judaism (and with other children), and to learn.
The decision was made to call the program a yeshiva. As Rabbi Schachter-Shalomi tells it, ?some vinegary old Litvaks? at a neighborhood shul were appalled, and shared their disgust loudly. They wanted to know how they had the nerve to call it a yeshiva when most of the children there didn?t know their aleph bet. Preposterous! they said. Outrageous! They brought their complaint to one of the heads of the school that the program was attached to. He responded by telling them a story he hoped they would find instructive Said the head of school: ?I walked outside this morning and saw a bus in the street -- and on the front of the bus it said CHICAGO!? ?I said, ?Liars! Thieves!?You?re in New Haven. Why do you say Chicago?? After a moment of pause, the head of school provided the punch line: ?But the bus is going to Chicago.? (Emphasis added.) His point? Those children may not have known their aleph bet. They may not have learned tractates of Talmud or tomes of Jewish history. Slowly but surely, however, they were learning and growing, developing the muscles of faith and community, as well as their capacity to endure frustration and to grapple with their tradition with love and hope. They may not yet have reached their destination but, like that bus, they were embarking on a journey. And who knew? Maybe one day they would feel connected to? and a sense of ownership of -- their own Judaism. Maybe one day they would be talmidei chachamim. Maybe one day they
We can, intention by intention, strengthen our ability to have meaningful and joyful encounters with Judaism, to hold painful parts of our relationship with tradition with compassion, and to continue building our communities.
would teach another person something about Judaism that would spark that person?s interest and cause them to try something different, or to do a mitzvah. So too for us, today. Kavanah, Rabbi Schachter-Shalomi teaches us, is about where we?re going. ?That element of aiming, of homing the place we want to go, is the first level of kavanah,? he writes. ?Kavanah is not attained in a day. We start small and build patiently on every small success.? We might not be focused during our davening. We might feel disconnected from the spiritual heights and depths as we prepare for the holidays or an ordinary Shabbat, caught up in anxiety and pressure, distracted by real challenges facing our families. But we can, bit by bit, shift. We can, intention by intention, strengthen our ability to have meaningful and joyful encounters with Judaism, to hold painful parts of our relationship with tradition with compassion, and to continue building our communities. This spring, may we all tap into our kavanah and be nourished by what comes. Rabbi Cornelia Dalton joined WJC asthe Assistant Rabbi in 2020. A Westchester native, she received a B.A. in French and Francophone Studiesand Russian Area Studiesfrom Bryn Mawr College in 2011 and ordination from the Jewish Theological Seminary in May 2020.
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MUSICNOTES ALISONGOTTSEGEN
?The prayer is that our music gives people hope and allows for more expanded thinking. We are all one soul, in the end? A Conversation with NeshamaCarlebach. Neshama Carlebach is an award-winning singer, songwriter and educator who has performed and taught in communities around the world. She was a winner and four-time nominee in the Independent Music Awards for her tenth and most recent release, Believe, and a winner of the Global Music Awards Silver Award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Vocalist for that album. Neshama has sold more than one million records, making her one of today?s best-selling Jewish artists. Neshama her husband, Rabbi Menachem Creditor, and their five children are members of WJC. I recently reached out to Neshama on behalf of WJC Voices, and what follows are excerpts from our conversation. ALISON GOTTSEGEN: Hi Neshama, it?s wonderful to reconnect, after meeting at a Ramah Darom Women?s Retreat years ago. We discussed how celebrating Passover and the concept of freedom is different for everyone. Some of our Passover rituals have perhaps even changed over the years, as families have enhanced their Haggadot to connect with contemporary injustices of importance to them. NESHAMA CARLEBACH: Yes, that is so
true, so much shift and change has occurred. I grew up Orthodox and for so long, I felt extremely anxious about the Pesach prep. I felt it creeping in months before the chag began! Many find meaning in that cleaning and in their careful preparations, in finding the exact piece of perfect shmura matzah, and that is gorgeous! Until a certain point in time, that was me. The year I got divorced, I stopped observing in the same way. I decided not to clean my house like I had 12 - WJCVoices| Spring/Summer 2022
always done. I didn?t quite reject Pesach, but I didn?t prepare in the way that I had before. I began to think about my own mitzrayim, my own brokenness. That was the beginning of a new kind of hametz burning for me and, in a sense, my first real Pesach. I realized that I had been so caught up in all the stuff surrounding Pesach that I hadn?t stopped to look within for the spiritual message. When my deeper freedom came, when I was brave enough to just be and feel free, I found personal redemption. Everyone has epiphanies, and this huge personal shift
for me happened on Pesach, so this holiday is very special to me. It?s extraordinary to learn from your story, Neshama. You are brave and open? it means a lot.
Thank you. When you spend your life with closed eyes, seeing can be a big relief, however shocking it may also be. Nothing is as complicating as hiding. It takes a lot of energy to hide from yourself, and once you stop hiding, everything becomes simpler ? believe it or not.
MUSICNOTES
ACARLEBACHCOLLECTION Tell us about your partnership with Pastor Milton Vann of the Jefferson Temple Church of God in Christ, and the gospel choir.
My work with Pastor Vann and my gospel singers has been such a gift. We come from different worlds, but we are all praying for the same thing. They have opened my heart and become family. I didn?t know I had Baptist brothers and sisters! It?s very special and it?s also very urgent. There are too many people who don?t know that they are surrounded by brothers and sisters from different walks of life. We experience too much loneliness, too much hatred. The prayer is that our music gives people hope for those connections and allows for more expanded thinking. We are all one soul, in the end. What are your professional plans for the near future?
I did over 400 events via Zoom during the pandemic, by myself in front of an illuminated curtain, so very different from the dynamic experience of singing live with people. I believe a new freedom will come as life returns, as people gather and are able to sing together again without fear. We are booking shows for the spring, which is so exciting, and I approach my schedule with cautious optimism. Also I?ve been writing a memoir. It?s different kind of work, deeply introspective, very painful at times, triumphant at others. And always worthwhile. I?m working with editors now and very much hope that the book will be in the world at some point soon. I?m inspired and excited to share my story, hopeful that it will bring hope and strength. Your songs and teachings are beautiful and comforting. You inspire positivity, gratitude, strength, hope and community through your words and
actions. What message can you offer to help others experience Passover more meaningfully?
I often reflect on the image of the children of Israel coming out of slavery, not knowing if they should turn back, not yet seeing that they were brave enough to move forward. As they came to the edge of the sea, they thought they were going to die, that it was over. But then the sea opened. Unbelievable! In that moment of miracle, they couldn?t help but sing. They all sang in one voice: the same words, the same intention, a shared celebration. In that moment, all the barriers between them fell away. They sang their way through the sea that wasn?t supposed to be dry land, yet it was? and there they found their freedom. We all come from different places in life, and the nature of our personal slaveries, our narratives, our needs are different. Even the sea itself, the path, is different, but to find a song or just a moment where we can cross and be one community? that is very holy. In this time of complication and unrest, I pray that each of us can find our path to internal redemption. However we get there, I pray that we can take a moment to breathe and check in on what?s happening on the inside. We are all slaves to something. Pesach is about burning up that which holds us back and finding something new. Pesach usually comes at the perfect time? it is so very powerful. Chag Sameach!
Her 10-album discography begins in 1996 and includes2019's Believe which, asone reviewer said, helps "transform darknessinto light."
Believe
EveryLittle Soul Must Shine
Higher and Higher
And to you. This has been a pleasure!
Alison Gottsegen hasbeen a museum educator for 27 years at a variety of museums. She chairsWJC?sMusical Enrichment Committee and enjoysspending family time in NYC and the great outdoors.
One and One
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20 22 Gala Honor ees Celebrate the Return of the Spring Gala Sunday, May 22, 2022 at 6:00pm as we honor two extraordinary couples? Jennifer & Ian Winters and Linda Alpert & Marc Karell? who have impacted the WJC community in different ways.
IAN WINTERS
JENNIFER WINTERS
A thoughtful, open-minded advocate
A kind and talented Mitvah-maker
Have you ever been in a meeting with Ian Winters? If so, consider yourself fortunate. Ian is an incredibly dedicated lay leader who has served WJC in a variety of roles. He currently serves as an Officer, Trustee, Chair of the Endowment Committee, a member of the Spiritual Life Committee, as well as assisting with the logistics of the High Holidays Sanctuary services. I could go on, if not for space limitations! Ian brings a combination of intelligence, wit and perspective to any meeting or activity. I have learned that when Ian is debating an issue, you can count on a thoughtful and well-argued conversation. In advocating for things that he thinks will benefit WJC, Ian also demonstrates an openness and respect for the views of others. I have spent many meetings with Ian in his role as the Chair of the Endowment Committee and have no doubt that our efforts will be successful given the focus he has put into it and his strategic thinking. I have observed and I admire Ian?s ability to seamlessly live a life filled with commitment to his professional career, his volunteer roles, and his family. I also enjoy his fun-loving and playful nature. In short, Ian is the kind of person that a synagogue simply cannot function well without. That is not an exaggeration. To top it off, he is a lifelong Mets and Jets fan. Which shows you that he also has tremendous resiliency and the ability to endure endless suffering. I am proud to call him my friend and WJC is fortunate to have him as a congregant.
When I first saw Jennifer, I said to myself, ?OMG, she looks like Jennifer Aniston!? She had long, thick, beautiful hair. Then one day she came into the office and her hair was gone. ?You cut your hair!? I said, surprised. She said yes, and then said that her daughter, Abigail (who was standing there with her hair also cut short) had donated it to ?Locks for Love?an organization that makes wigs for girls in need. What a Mitzvah! I thought Jennifer was amazing from that day forward. She and her daughter have over the years also donated their hair to ?Pantene? and ?Wigs for Kids? for children with cancer. Jennifer has worn many hats since joining WJC in 2000 with her husband Ian and three children, Isaac, Abigail, and Mitchell. Jennifer has been the Kiddush Enhancement Committee Chair, Co-Chair, and Raffle Chair for several WJC Gala events, Welcoming Committee Co-Chair, B?nei Mitzvah Committee, and Sisterhood member, and a Trustee among many other roles. She is energetic and creative and she is always willing to give her time and volunteer. She is also a baker and a great cook, and the founder of MUFFINteenys (little muffins, big taste!). You sometimes find her in the WJC kitchen volunteering her culinary skills to cook something awesome for Kiddush or a Sisterhood Committee program or baking her amazing chocolate chip, red velvet, or maple glazed muffins. It?s no surprise that Jennifer put that talent to use in another Mitzvah: She led a Sisterhood and Early Childhood Center program making Hamentashen cookies to be delivered to Sarah Neuman Nursing Home.
? david gol dst ein, execut ivedirect or of wjc
? kiml ewis, administ rat iveassist ant ( and officesmil e) of wjc
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MARC KARELL
LINDA ALPERT KARELL
He?s knowledgeable, passionate? and reachable!
Spreading happiness through dance and song
Every three years or so I have the pleasure of working with new members of the WJCHouse Committee. Each member of the committee brings his or her unique set of skills and interests to our group. One of the most recent members is Marc Karell. Marc reminds me of Moses; he seems to have an answer for every question. He is very knowledgeable and extremely passionate about his contributions to our committee and to WJC. No matter if Marc?s away on business or vacationing, he is always reachable. Just like Moses was committed to God?with no pay, Marc is committed to WJC in so many ways. Marc enjoys so much of what WJC has to offer. He dances with Shmulik weekly, donates blood at the annual blood drives and runs down the court in our gym. I got to know Marc up close and personal when I would guard him at Tuesday night basketball. We enjoyed pushing each other around during the game. At least, I think we did! Today, Marc is into saving mother earth by finding energy efficient products for our building. Whether it?s investigating the benefits of solar panels or switching out all our lights for LED, Marc is always mindful of ways to conserve. Without a doubt, our beautiful facilities are greener?and better?because of Marc?s dedication.
We have a very important Jewish expression from Pirkey Avot that says "? ?? ? ???? ???? ? ??? ?? ???? ??? ? ?," ?In a place where there are no men, strive to be a man.? The meaning of this expression is as follows: "When people need help, when people need your leadership, when people need your wisdom and advice, try to be there." Linda Alpert Karell embodies this expression. Linda?s commitment to the dance community and Israel is truly beyond words. Her dedication to Israeli folk dancing is full of love and enthusiasm. Whether it's leading a dance, arranging refreshments, or just trying to make everyone happy, Linda is always ready to help. Without her leadership, we couldn?t have this amazing weekly activity for the Westchester Jewish Center and broader Westchester area. As a teacher, I can always lean on Linda for her musical talent. If I ever forget the music when I?m teaching, Linda is the first one to sing. Her beautiful voice guides our way? What a talent! What a joy! We are grateful to Linda for reminding us of everyone's birthdays, and we thank her for keeping us warm with her big talent of knitting. For so many reasons, we are grateful to have Linda in our lives. Continue to go from strength to strength, and as we say, "from dance to dancing!"
? josel uisfonseca, buil dingsuperint endent of wjc
? shmul ikgov-ari, worl d-renowned choreographer and israel i dancet eacher at wjc
Visit w jcent er.or g/gala
JOIN US & CONTRIBUTE
All members of our community are encouraged to celebrate WJC and our honorees by RSVPing and placing a message in the Gala Tribute Journal via the link above. All Tribute messages 14must be submitted by April 29. wjcenter.org | Spring/Summer 2022 - 15
MEETCHANCELLOR SHULYRUBINSCHWARTZOFTHE JEWISHTHEOLOGICALSEMINARY A Pioneering Jewish Educator, Schwartz Will Be Live? and In-Person!? at WJC on April 1st and 2nd to Discuss ?Reimagining American Judaism.? By JacquesSteinberg
On June 1, 2020, the Board of Trustees of the Jewish Theological Seminary announced the appointment of Shuly Rubin Schwartz as the institution?s eighth chancellor. In succeeding Arnold Eisen, Schwartz became the first woman to serve as chancellor in the institution?s 134-year history. A distinguished Jewish educator for more than three decades, Schwartz has also published numerous articles and books, including ?The Rabbi?s Wife,? an examination of the role of rabbis?wives in the development of American Jewish life, for which she received the National Jewish Book Award for Modern Thought. What follows are excerpts from a recent Zoom interview.
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JACQUES STEINBERG: Imagine someone who has never met the chancellor of JTS. What does the job entail? SHULY RUBIN SCHWARTZ: First and foremost JTS is an
academic institution. So the chancellor is like the president of a university. It is also a religious seminary. I am the head of this institution. An institution that is both a degree-granting academic institution and one that is a center of religious life, spiritual life, for North American Jewry, and that has a distinctive vision of Judaism. And a distinctive way of teaching and learning that it then projects out into the world. One way it does that is by minting rabbis and cantors.
Actually we have five schools at JTS. We train Jewish leaders. Rabbis and cantors, as well as Jewish educators, Jewish communal leaders and our undergraduates who are also getting a BA from Columbia University or Barnard College through List College. And while a small number do become Jewish professionals, the majority do not. And they become our lay leaders. I was just at a scholar-in-residence weekend in Atlanta. The rabbi is a List College graduate who went on to rabbinical school. The past president of the synagogue is a List College alum who is an attorney and took on a leadership role in the synagogue. For those who don?t know, what is the interaction between JTS and the Conservative movement?
The Conservative movement was started officially at JTS. United Synagogue was founded by Solomon Schechter, the second president of JTS, in 1913. On a deeper level, the kind of teaching and scholarship and our approach to Judaism -- I would say Conservative Judaism flows from it. JTSis teaching in an integrated manner, striving for scholarly excellence and also striving for religious meaning. We?re trying to get at two different kinds of nourishment: Intellectual nourishment and spiritual nourishment. So you don?t have to say, my Jewish stuff is over there and I do everything else in a different world. That kind of an integrated approach ? that?s Conservative Judaism. We want to be fully present in the world. We want to be deeply engaged with our tradition. In what ways are you making the role of chancellor your own and putting your stamp on it?
That?s a work in progress. I have been at JTSfor 30 years. In some ways I have put my stamp on JTS. My first love was the undergraduate college, where I was dean for 25 years. I really felt it was critical for JTS to not only be training professional Jewish leaders but really educating and creating an educated Jewish laity. That is one way in which I have had an impact on JTS. I am also a scholar who has taught gender studies at JTS ? widening the canon of what is Jewish Studies and what do we study at JTS. Part of that is my own teaching in women?s studies, and more broadly in gender studies. Part of
Scholar-in-Residence Calendar Register online: wjcenter.org/sir Friday, April 1: 6:00pm: Evening Service In-person in the Sanctuary/Live Stream 7:00pm: Community Dinner In-person in the Gym 8:00pm: Lecture and discussion: Conservative Judaism and the Jewish Future In-person in the Sanctuary/Live Stream Conservative Judaism provided acompelling vision for a Judaism? traditional in orientation and embracing of evolutionary change? that captured the heartsand mindsof so many twentieth century American Jews. Uncovering the keysto its successwill illuminate how Conservative Judaism is well poised to meet the religiousneedsof North American Jews in the current moment.
Saturday, April 2: 9:15am: Morning Service/Sermon: Shattering GlassCeiling: Women and the Reimagining of American Judaism In-person in the Sanctuary/Live Stream How did the twentieth-century movement for women?s equality in Judaism end up serving asacatalyst for areimagined Judaism in our own times?Together we will explore the ways in which new opportunities for American Jewish women paved the way for broader, creative changesin Jewish ritual, scholarship, and inclusion. 12:15pm: Kiddush Lunch In-person in the Gym 1:00pm: Discussion: Essential Elementsof aSuccessful Jewish Community In-person in the Sanctuary/Live Stream Together, we will look at one of the scholar?sfavorite Jewish texts, an 18th century letter written by ayoung mother in Petersburg, Virginia. Using the contentsof thisletter, we will reflect on the essential elementsof a successful Jewish community, and the steps we can take to achieve such a community for ourselves. 8:15pm: Dessert Reception and Lecture: The Pew Study and What it Meansfor American Jewsof Today and Tomorrow Dessert Reception in-person in the Gym;EveningLecture in-person in the Sanctuary/Live Stream The 2020 Pew Study on Jewish Americansoffered new dataon the many componentsof Jewish identity? even for the proverbial ?NONES?, i.e, Jewsof no religion. How can these findings guide our efforts to ensure amore robust Jewish future for all Jews?How is the Jewish Theological Seminary taking leadership in thisimportant initiative?
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it is the MA in Jewish Ethics that I introduced during my tenure as dean of the graduate school. So these are some of the ways I?ve had an imprint on the academic portfolio of JTS. And there?s plenty more to come. I have to say a good part of our efforts over the last 18 months has been keeping our community together and keeping us safe during COVID. In what ways has your selection as the first female chancellor of JTS had an impact on the institution?
I don?t know any other way to be chancellor. [laughs]. I am sure there is a difference in style, whenever a new person comes in. I?m not sure I could answer. You might need to ask the people who work at JTS. And it might be too soon to know that, particularly since we were not in person. At least in the arc of the Conservative movement, it wasn?t too long ago that as a woman you wouldn?t have been welcome on many bimahs, let alone considered for chancellor.
You are absolutely right. I am acutely aware of the symbolic importance of my appointment as the first woman. There is no question that there was a great sense of joy and elation, not only at JTS but in the broader Jewish world, when my appointment was announced. And I understand what it means, as someone who was one of the first female members of the faculty. I spent decades as the only female dean. I was at many meetings where I was the only woman at the table. I recognize that my appointment, in many ways, can lift all boats for young female professionals and for Jewish girls about what?s possible in terms of leadership. I want to shift now to the titles and themes of the presentations and discussions you?ll be leading during our Scholar-in-Residence Weekend, all of which will be available live and in-person, as well as on the WJC livestream. At the risk of spoiler alerts, I am hoping you can provide our congregants with a teaser, of what you will be talking about in each session. The first? on Friday evening, following a community dinner? is titled ?Conservative Judaism and the Jewish Future.?
I?m a historian, and I?m not a prophet. So the best way for me to try to discern our future is to look to our past. What made Conservative Judaism, by far, the most attractive form of American Judaism in mid-20th Century America? And why do I think it can do that again for the 21st Century?
texts. It?s a letter written in 1792 by a woman living in Petersburg, Virginia. The letter is from the woman to her parents back in Germany, reassuring them that she?s living a Jewish life and going to raise Jewish children. What did it take for her to be able to say that? What were the challenges, for her, of being Jewish? How was she able to live a Jewish life in Petersburg, Virginia in 1792? Can we expect you to make the point that there were ?essential elements? of the Jewish community in Petersburg, Virginia, in 1792 that are instructive to us today?
I think so! It will certainly raise good conversation. Finally, during a dessert reception on Saturday night, you will focus our attention on the 2020 study from the Pew Research Center that provided a fresh, statistical snapshot of the many components of Jewish identity ? including for Jews known as ?NONES,? who describe themselves as having no religion. Your title: ?The Pew Study and What it Means for American Jews of Today and Tomorrow.?
When we look at the Pew Study, it?s easy to see the glass of American Jewry as half empty. I see it as half full. What are the hopeful signs we can build upon to create a more robust Jewish future? What is one sign ? and it doesn?t have to be the most significant sign? that you see for optimism for Jewish American life and for Jews in America?
The tremendous hunger to maintain Jewish ties during COVID. I think that is quite remarkable. That was hardly anyone?s first priority, which were often much more practical. WJC strikes me as a good case study for that. Overnight? as led by Rabbi Arnowit z, our clergy, our lay leadership and our staff? we became a virtual shul, at least for a time. While much was lost, in terms of in-person prayer, there were also some silver linings. As you look across the nation, and hear stories like these amid the trauma, how does it shape your view of our future?
There were so many silver linings. And that?s precisely what we can build upon. We learned the blessings of virtual community, but we also learned the limitations.
Next up, during Shabbat services on Saturday morning, is a sermon with the headline: ?Shattering the Glass Ceiling: Women and the Reimagining of American Judaism.?
In that spirit: the idea that you plan to be with us in-person at WJC is something we probably would have taken for granted in years past. Not so this year.
We know how Second Wave Feminism transformed American life. Jewish Feminism, similarly, transformed American Jewish life ? infusing it with tremendous energy and creativity that enriched American Judaism as a whole.
Hopefully that sense of gratitude will remain.
After a Kiddush Lunch, we?ll move back to the sanctuary, where you will lead a discussion on the ?Essential Elements of a Successful Jewish Community.?
We?ll have a chance to look together at one of my favorite 18 - WJCVoices| Spring/Summer 2022
JacquesSteinberg, a member of WJC since 2003, isa New York TimesBest-Selling author, most recently of The College Conversation: A Practical Companion for Parents to Guide Their Children Along the Path to Higher Education, written with Eric J. Furda.
WJCCongregantsareHelpingShineaLight onLarchmont andMamaroneck?sSlave-OwningPast andUnearthingStorylinesWorthyof ExodusandtheHaggadah ByElizabethEhrlich
Jinny was stolen from her family in Africa as a small child in 1744. Billy was born a slave in 1738. Jinny and Billy married and raised nine children. After working on a farming estate in Long Island, they were brought to Westchester in 1769, eventually freed, and lived on with their former owners in the Mill House on Pryor Manor Road in Larchmont for the rest of their days. Billy and Jinny. Say their names. Billy was a skilled banjo player and fisherman. Jinny often recalled her youngest years, free of cold or want, as the daughter of a king in Africa. Billy was reputedly a ?hearty patriot? of the American Revolution, ?hand in glove? with the local whalers who ran secret expeditions on Long Island Sound. The couple helped raise four generations of the Mott family, including Anne Mott, who wrote of them: ?More genuine politeness and unremitting attention between a man and his wife are rarely to be found in city or country? .? Bet, Phelby, Candice, Telemaque, George. Say their names. Thanks to the passionate and creative efforts of Westchester Jewish Center congregants, our community can indeed say those names. We could recite them out loud at our Passover seders, as we affirm our commitment to freedom and justice. The names are a centerpiece of Slavery in Mamaroneck Township, the beautifully designed pocket guide that
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EACHOFUSHASANAME
By Zelda Each of us has a name given by God and given by our parents Each of us has a name given by our stature and our smile and given by what we wear Each of us has a name given by the mountains and given by our walls Each of us has a name given by the stars and given by our neighbors Each of us has a name given by our sins and given by our longing Each of us has a name given by our enemies and given by our love Each of us has a name given by our celebrations and given by our work Each of us has a name given by the seasons and given by our blindness Each of us has a name given by the sea and given by our death.
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accompanies every copy of the current Voices. A group of dedicated social action leaders at WJC, led by Ruth Obenbreit-Glass and Sharon Silver, conceived the guide as part of an ongoing effort to bring racial justice to the synagogue?s agenda. It is included in this magazine, to achieve the widest possible distribution, at the suggestion of Rabbi Jeffrey Arnowitz, an enthusiastic champion of the project. Funded by the UJA, and informed by a community group, REALM (Recognizing Enslaved Africans in Larchmont-Mamaroneck), the pocket guide offers vignettes of slave life, a geographical sketch of local places, and a brief historical context to a reality most in our community know little about. How did we not know? That question vexed Ruth and Sharon. Early last year, the two friends watched a virtual lecture on slavery in Mamaroneck Township by historian Ned Benton, one of the founders of REALM, and John Pritts, co-President of the Mamaroneck Historical Society. They were stunned. The slaveholders are remembered. Those who cooked their breakfasts and fixed their fences are forgotten. To them, that imbalance is injustice. As Jews who know and honor history, ?we cannot collude with that omission? Ruth believes. We have to do something, they resolved. Lewis, Dorathea. Fred, Harriet, Henry. On Heathcote Hill in Mamaroneck Village, in the DeLancey House -- now the home of the restaurant La Piccola Casa -an enslaved man named Fred served meals. Harriet, the cook?s daughter, was the chambermaid. Both women were the property of the DeLanceys. Harriet had children of her own, including a son, Henry, and a daughter called either Anne or Nancy. The record lists both names, Anne or Nancy; John Peter Delancey, who
registered the birth of the baby girl who lived in his home, and whom he owned according to the law of the time, was not sure of her exact name. Nelly, Jack, Hannibal. The slave trade was introduced into New York in 1626. Slavery spread throughout the agricultural Hudson Valley. By 1750, nearly one of every six persons in the New York colony was an enslaved African? more than 11,000 souls??working the farms and keeping the stately homes that dotted the landscape in those days. John Cox, Andrew Cole. These men escaped from slavery in Mamaroneck by enlisting with the British during the Revolutionary war. For their Loyalist service, they earned passage on a ship to Nova Scotia. Mamaroneck Township, encompassing today?s Larchmont and Mamaroneck villages and its unincorporated area, was home to 147 slaves in the years between 1698 and 1817. Their owners were among the leading citizens? DeLancey, Gedney, Ward, Mott, Palmer, Munro? whose names adorn local parks and street signs. Gilbert Budd, the Township clerk, owned the largest number of slaves. Peter Jay Munro, the nephew of John Jay, the first Chief Justice of the US Supreme Court, kept slaves at his home in the Manor House in Larchmont. Westchester Jewish Center is located on Palmer Avenue, a street named for a slaveholding family. Ruth and Sharon have long sought to engage the WJC community in a conversation about racial justice. In 2015, they attended a vigil in Port Chester for nine people killed at Mother Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, SC, by a white supremacist gunman. There they met Joan Grangenois-Thomas, a former chair of the local NAACP, and with her formed the
?I walked by these places every day and had no idea,? Rabbi Arnowit z said. New Yorkers, he points out, tend to look at slavery as a sin of the South, and so we have been taught. But complacency is unwarranted.
Read-Talk-Act book club to confront issues of racial divide. For seven years the group has met at WJC among other houses of worship, and more recently on ZOOM. Joan, a public relations executive who serves as a district director for U.S. Representative Mondaire Jones, is deeply involved in local efforts to excavate and publicize African American history, including that of enslaved people, on the Sound Shore. It is essential knowledge for everyone, she argues: ?We need to understand that these people were humans. They grieved, they had joy. There are so many ways in which black folks contributed to the richness of our lives today.? The REALM presentation offered new ways to grasp that principle. Based on the research of Larchmont resident and John Jay College historian Ned Benton, as well as on archives in the Mamaroneck and Larchmont Historical Societies, REALM?s program included both narrative material and meticulously surfaced data. Twenty years ago, when Benton set out to create an index of locally enslaved people, ?Mamaroneck had no memory of slavery at all. And the forgetting is significant.? History was hidden all around us, in the backgrounds of paintings and murals, in dusty heaps of records. Enslaved persons lived in the historic houses we know and were laid to rest in the old burial grounds. Ned combed through archives, looking for names. In 1788, New York State banned the slave trade but declared that current slaves would remain so for life. Male children born to enslaved mothers after 1799 would be freed
at age 28, or if female, 25. To know when manumission would occur, Mamaroneck Township started to register the names of newborn slaves. Pheby, Charlot, Peg, Daniel, Henry, Sally, Peter, Sarah, William, Plato, Charles, Tom, Nanny, Tamar, Eliza, George, Benjamin, Anne or Nancy? these were the children born into slavery in Mamaroneck Township between 1799 and 1814. Today, Benton?s database extends throughout Westchester County, into most of New York State and across the Northeast. For John Pritts of the Mamaroneck Historical Society, Benton?s findings were stunning. ?I knew that there were slave owners here, but I absolutely did not know the scope of it,? Pritts says. In particular, when he encountered the advertisements for runaway slaves issued by prominent local families whose names he knew so well, ?the enslaved individuals became human and real to me.? A Fugitive from Labour, A Negro boy named JIM, of about 20 yearsof age? Notice ishereby given? that any person ? that harboursor concealshim? will be prosecuted for the sum of five hundred dollars. (1775) Ruth sensed that learning this startling, unknown local history could help us examine our own attitudes and understand the role of racism in society. ?As Jews, we know and honor history. Can we use to it connect the dots? connecting prejudice and slavery to structural racism, continuing inequalities, and violence?? In 2020, WJC's Social Justice Action Committee (SOJAC) had applied for and won a $5,000 grant from UJA designed to promote racial justice programming in
synagogues. Rabbi Arnowitz, who embraced the idea of creating such a program at WJC, participated with several congregants in UJA training on racial equity issues. A seventeen-member Racial Justice Task Force was convened to discuss program options for WJC. After Ruth and Sharon described what they had learned about Mamaroneck history, Gail Marcus, Sondra Levy, Tami Arnowitz, and Monica Friedman joined them to form a subcommittee focused on slavery here. Rabbi Arnowitz, too, was shocked to confront evidence of slavery so close at hand. As he put it: ?I walked by these places every day and had no idea.? New Yorkers, he points out, tend to look at slavery as a sin of the South, and so we have been taught. But complacency is unwarranted. While the plantation system did not take hold in our part of the country, and slavery ended sooner in the North, human beings were held as property in our community. They helped build the places we live in, and not so very long ago. It is a Jewish issue, Rabbi Arnowitz feels deeply, one that resonates with the coming festival of Pesach. ?In recounting the story of Exodus, we are not told that just our story is important. Be kind to the stranger because you were strangers in Mitzraim (Egypt): everyone?s Mitzraim is worth our attention, so that we can work for the redemption of all.? Remembering, in the Jewish understanding, has an active meaning. When we ?remember?our slavery, our purpose is to enact and do, and to try to change ourselves. Likewise, Rabbi Arnowitz advocated for a program that would be
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LOCALSITESPERTAINING TOSLAVERY
SCARSDALE
PORTCHESTER
MAMARONECK
Fugitive slave burial ground
Standing slave quarters on the Bush/Lyons Homestead
Peter Munro?s Manor House on Elm Street
300 graves of African American Civil War Veterans
?more than a one-time-only event.? Rather, the effort ?would continue, and keep the issue in the forefront of our minds.? Ruth adds, ?we hope it will grow from history and self-examination and education to community-building and action.? With the UJA award in hand, the project was off and running. Last October, Benton and Pritts presented their program about slavery in Mamaroneck to more than 80 WJC members over ZOOM. In January, they offered a second look to WJC Hebrew High School students. The subcommittee made plans for a WJC bus tour of local sites related to REALM?s findings and African American history, but these were derailed by COVID. Then came the pocket guide, a small but mighty companion combining Ruth?s visual acumen, REALM?s input, and the contributions of many others. Etched with the names of slaves, it embraces our connection to them, and can be a tool helping us live a more conscious life. While it is meant to start a conversation at
DeLancey home on Boston Post Road
RYE LARCHMONT The Mill House, Pryor Manor Road
our Center, the pocket guide also is a ?fantastic? gift to the community at large, says Pritts. One thousand copies are being printed for distribution in local libraries, schools, and religious centers and to accompany REALM?s educational work. In addition, the pocket guide will play a role in fundraising for REALM?s forthcoming project: creating a significant memorial to commemorate enslaved Africans. The directors of REALM recently selected a team of artists to design and build this structure, which is planned for the grounds of the Mamaroneck Town Center. It will include the name of every enslaved individual known to have inhabited our towns, and offer a place to contemplate each infinitely valuable life passed in bondage. REALM also plans to incorporate the WJC pocket guide into a future walking tour. ?It will be continually used going forward,? Pritts says. Open it. Read the names and the sketches, hinting of lives whose consequences continue to be felt.
Read to raise your awareness, then be inspired to learn more and do more. Names, surely, are important in the Jewish perspective. Our patriarchs changed their names to Avraham and Sarah, to mark their covenantal stature. In the Jewish folk tradition, naming a baby has a mystical power. And one of the abiding images of Nazi dehumanization is the number tattooed on a prisoner?s forearm, evoking all those who died nameless. In their honor, the Israeli Chasidic poet Zelda penned a poem that, set to music and sung by Chava Alberstein, became an anthem of remembrance in Israel for the Six Million. "Titled Each of Us Has a Name," it begins: Each of ushasa name/ given by God/ and given by our parentsZelda?swordscall for equality and treating one another humanely, by remembering that each person isentitled to a name. Thisvalue appliesto the memory of the enslaved Africansof Mamaroneck, to the memory of Jewsmartyred in the Holocaust, and to all people.
For more information, check out the insert "Slavery in Mamaroneck Township" tucked inside this issue!
22 - WJCVoices| Spring/Summer 2022
AMYFASTENBERG HISTORYNOTES
The Story of the ?Ghetto Girls? A Jewish writer?sremarkable, illuminative book chronicles the bravery and ingenuity of women in Polish ghettosin World War II. Judy Batalion?s groundbreaking book, The Light of Days: The Untold Story of Women Resistance Fighters in Hitler?s Ghettos, weaves together real-life tales of brave and heroic Jewish women in Poland during the Holocaust. In it, Batalion recounts her initial discovery of an obscure Yiddish volume, Freuen in di Ghettos, published in 1946, and her subsequent years of research into the surprisingly widespread but largely forgotten acts of defiance by young Jewish women.
The women Batalion portrays in The Light of Days, many of whom were in their teens or early twenties, performed feats of unimaginable courage, stamina and ingenuity. Called ?ghetto girls? and ?courier girls?, because of the role they played in clandestinely traveling in and out of ghettos, cities and across borders, they were integral to
Jewish resistance. Often disguised as non-Jews, they transported supplies, money and weapons, delivered vital news and information, fought alongside men, forged documents, bombed train lines, outsmarted and killed Nazis, and provided food, access to hiding, means of escape and moral sustenance to countless Jews. The Light of Daysreflects a continued effort to recover hidden Holocaust history and to give voice to those who had been forgotten. The experiences of Jewish women especially have often been subsumed to a larger narrative. With Batalion?s transformative work, which has been optioned by Steven Spielberg (Batalion is writing the screenplay) the stories of these courageous women will finally, in the words of eminent Warsaw ghetto historian Emanuel Ringelblum, be ?a glorious page in the history of Jewry.?
Batalion, aformer comedian, art historian, essayist and translator is the granddaughter of Holocaust survivors. She will be speaking at WJC on Sunday morning, April 24, on Yom HaShoah, about how the storiesshe uncovered completely changed her perception of the Holocaust from? ashe hassaid? the ?myth of passivity?to arecognition of ?a constant battle of resistance and resilience.?
From the Pages of The Light of Days In the Warsaw cemetery, Reniapulled out cash that she?d stashed in her shoe. She and Inapurchased the weapons, and she strapped the gunsto her tiny body with beltsmade of sturdy fabric. The rest of the contraband? grenades, Molotov cocktails? she placed in abag that had adouble bottom, asecret compartment. The trip back from Warsaw to Bedzin, however, wasmore difficult than the way there. On the train ride south, asthey whizzed past tree after tree, they were faced with surprise searches, more and more thorough. Reniatried desperately not to tremble as one officer pawed through every single small valise. Another grabbed all the food parcels. A third looked for weapons. ?It cost an ocean of money, strength and nerves? for both couriersand those who awaited them,? Reniarecalled. ?If amessenger did not come back at the designated time, the comradeswent crazy. Who knew what had happened during the delay?? When the officersreached her, she used the same tactic as Broniaand pretended she wasafood smuggler. ?Just afew potatoes, sir.? He took afew for himself and let her go.
During the entire trip, Reniaand Inawere ready for anything to happen at any second. They were ready to be shot and, if necessary, to jump from the moving train. They had to know exactly what to do during athorough search. They had to know what to do if they were captured. They had to know how to never be caught asaJew; to never look unhappy or respond to aNazi stare with anything but asmile. They had to know that even under torture, they could not say anything, could not disclose one iotaof information. Some couriers carried cyanide powder with them in case they were taken to interrogation. If they pulled athread, the powder, wrapped in apaper bag and partly sewn into apocket of their coat lining, would be in hand. Renia, however, had no such escape. ?You had to be strong in your comportment, firm,?she explained. ?You had to have an iron will. Thisis what she repeated to herself, on the train, speeding through forests, past inspections, gunstaped to her torso, asmile pasted on her lips. A lesson she came to know well. Not quite the life of astenographer that she?d envisioned. Excerpted fromThe Light of Days: The Untold Story of Women Resistance Fightersin Hitler?s GhettosbyJudyBatalion. Copyright © 2020 byJudyBatalion. Reprinted bypermission of William22 Morrow, an imprint of HarperCollins wjcenter.org | Spring/Summer 2022 - 23
WJC Voices, the magazine of Westchester Jewish Center Mamaroneck, N.Y. 10543
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REWINDFROMTHEARCHIVES A WJC MODEL SEDER, 1948 As Westchester Jewish Center prepared to celebrate Passover in late April 1948, the United Nations Security Council, by a vote of 8-0, established a commission to oversee a truce in Palestine. Four months later, and much closer to home, WJC would purchase the land on which our center now sits. No further information about the seder depicted in this photo exists in our archives. Perhaps some readers can help us fill in those blanks. ? Jill Caslin, Archivist, and Jacques Steinberg
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