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Volume 25 Issue 10
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shalom y’all shalom y’all shalom y’all
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We should have held last month’s Page 3 for this month! After writing about the wide range of Jewish experiences in the region and cooperation across denominational lines — especially in New Orleans post-Katrina — there were so many reminders of that as we traveled this past month. For Rosh Hashanah, we attended four congregations in three Florida panhandle communities — Reform congregations in Pensacola and Fort Walton Beach, Pensacola’s Conservative congregation and Destin’s Chabad congregation. Each had its own style and flavor, but ultimately, the goal was the same at each. Thank you to all of the congregations for your hospitality! Then on Sept. 20 there were two Torahs dedicated in Alabama — one at a Reform congregation in Tuscaloosa, one at Chabad in Birmingham. The atmosphere and proceedings might have differed, but the scrolls are the same — even though the two scrolls were written 750 years apart. That remarkable story is in this issue. And as we were going to press, word came that the Birmingham Jewish Federation’s Joanie Plous Bayer Young Leadership will go to two individuals this year — an Orthodox rabbi and a Reform rabbi. In the wake of the controversy over the Iran nuclear deal, some have opined about the long-term implications of such an unprecedented divide in the Jewish community. Unprecedented? Are we talking about the same “three opinions for every two Jews” people? Sure, we differ. Sure, we bicker. But at the end of the day, we still care for each other and have to work together. May it continue to be so. Larry Brook
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October 2015 • Southern Jewish Life 3
October 2015
commentary
Southern Jewish Life
Ryan Bellerose
Stealing history, hijacking tragedies Dear Palestinians, Let’s get a few things straight. You do not get to claim a genocide when your population has exploded. As someone whose family has gone through one, I am telling you to cut that out, it’s offensive and it’s annoying. You did not “go through what Native Americans went through.” Nobody forced you to speak an alien language, worship God in an alien manner and steal your sacred places. As a matter of fact, that’s what you did — you stole sacred places, forced indigenous people to speak Arabic and worship God as Muslims. Seriously, cut that out too. You did not in fact have a civil rights struggle like black people in America. Black people in America didn’t blow up school buses or pizzerias filled with school kids in order to achieve equal rights, and they sure didn’t talk endlessly about pushing white people into the sea. You are not persecuted like gay people, for something that is beyond your control. Nobody throws you off buildings because you love someone you shouldn’t, so again, cut that out, it’s getting old — especially when some of us are well aware that your society not only hates gay people but actively persecutes them. You are the guys throwing them from buildings. You do not get to keep stealing stories. You stole the identity of Palestinian — before World War II the term meant Jews, but that’s okay, it is a colonialist term and I am sure my Jewish friends don’t want it. They prefer to be called Jews, Hebrews and Israelites or Israelis, so you can take your colonialist garbage and get lost. You think that yours is the only struggle in the world that has relevance. When anyone else has the nerve to have a tragedy you make sure to jump in immediately to prevent anyone else from ever having 5 minutes in the media without you trying to co-opt their struggle. Ferguson? Forget Ferguson, it’s Ferguson to Palestine! Black lives matter? No, you gotta hashtag Blacklivesmatter but then hashtag “palestianianlivesmatter” right after, because God forbid anything not be about you. Ethnic cleansing? So why is it there are no Jews in the Arab-controlled area of the Palestinian Authority and almost 2 million Arabs in the Jewish controlled areas? I think it’s clear who is ethnic cleansing here. Idle No More? Native rights? Nope, it needs to be Palestine stands in solidarity with Idle No More, Palestine supports Native peoples’ rights, even though you clearly don’t. Nobody offered to give us a state, and we actually are on our ancestral lands. Bring back our girls? People were upset about
Muslims kidnapping Christian girls in Nigeria and you managed to hook your wagon to that? Seriously? Come on, you had to at least chuckle at that one, you can admit it. The Native American struggle against settler colonialism? Nope, it’s always “from Turtle Island (the native name for North America) to Palestine,” even though anyone with a 3rd grade education knows that the Arabs are in fact the colonists who colonized their entire region in the 7th century, killing and force-converting indigenous people. You are not indigenous to the lands you are trying to claim. Say it with me: “Jews are from Judea, Arabs are from Arabia.” You can live there, you just don’t get to oppress people anymore. When three Jewish kids were kidnapped (murdered, actually) you celebrated, you handed out candy, and you smiled and took pictures holding up fingers celebrating an evil act, but then you had the absolute unmitigated gall to start hashtagging “bringbackourboys”? Really? Now a little boy’s body washes up on shore in Turkey, a victim of an uncaring world that has allowed the conflict in Syria and the proliferation of ISIS to cause the deaths of hundreds of thousands, all while fixating on the “plight of the Palestinians,” and you can’t even let the world see that without trying to jump on the back of that child’s death? Shame on you. If you had a conscience you would be ashamed. I could go on, because let’s be honest, every single tragedy I have seen in the world the past few decades has immediately been followed by “but have you seen what the Jews are doing to the Palestinians?” You have become tragedy tourists, you have no legit tragedy of your own, so you are forced to exaggerate and co-opt, and you have no shame. Yes, I have seen what’s happening in Gaza and the PA and it’s not even remotely the same thing as what you claim. It’s time for you to grow up, not everything is about you, not every refugee gets to be whiny and entitled for 67 years. Some of us move forward, some of us don’t steal from our own people and perpetuate the conflict to keep skimming money. You want to know the truth? This is why the Palestinians cannot have nice things. Absolutely no regards, Ryan Bellerose The author is a Metis from northern Alberta, who founded Canadians For Accountability, a Native rights advocacy group. He was a featured speaker at the Declare Your Freedom Zionist festival at Tulane in April 2015.
PUBLISHER/EDITOR Lawrence M. Brook editor@sjlmag.com ASSOCIATE PUBLISHER/ADVERTISING Lee J. Green lee@sjlmag.com NEW ORLEANS ADVERTISING Jessica Thomas jessica@sjlmag.com CREATIVE DIRECTOR Ginger Brook ginger@sjlmag.com SOCIAL/WEB Eugene Walter Katz eugene@sjlmag.com PHOTOGRAPHER-AT-LARGE Rabbi Barry C. Altmark deepsouthrabbi.com CONTRIBUTING WRITER Doug Brook brookwrite.com BIRMINGHAM OFFICE P.O. Box 130052, Birmingham, AL 35213 13 Office Park Circle #6 Birmingham, AL 35223 205/870.7889 NEW ORLEANS OFFICE 3747 West Esplanade, 3rd Floor Metairie, LA 70002 504/780.5615 TOLL-FREE 866/446.5894 FAX 866/392.7750 connect@sjlmag.com ADVERTISING Advertising inquiries to Lee Green, 205/870.7889 or lee@sjlmag.com or Jessica Thomas, jessica@sjlmag.com Media kit, rates available upon request SUBSCRIPTIONS It has always been our goal to provide a large-community quality publication to all communities of the South. To that end, our commitment includes mailing to every Jewish household in the region (AL, LA, MS, NW FL), without a subscription fee. Outside the area, subscriptions are $25/year, $40/two years. Subscribe via sjlmag.com, call 205/870.7889 or mail payment to the address above. Copyright 2015. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in whole or part without written permission from the publisher. Views expressed in SJL are those of the respective contributors and are not necessarily shared by the magazine or its staff. SJL makes no claims as to the Kashrut of its advertisers, and retains the right to refuse any advertisement. Documenting this community, a community we are members of and active within, is our passion. We love what we do, and who we do it for.
NOLA
4 Southern Jewish Life • October 2015
agenda interesting bits & can’t miss events
Members of JewCCY celebrate Rosh Hashanah at Audubon Park in New Orleans on Sept. 14.
Touro to install Rabbi Silverman as Lifelong Learning Director Touro Synagogue will install Rabbi Todd Silverman as Rabbinic Director of Lifelong Learning at its 6 p.m. service on Oct. 30. A Shabbat dinner reception will follow. He joins Rabbi Alexis Berk and Cantor David Mintz on the Touro clergy. A native of Clifton Park, N.Y., Silverman was ordained by Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in Los Angeles this year. His undergraduate work was at SUNY-Oswego, where he studied theater. Prior to attending rabbinical school, he taught at Brawerman Elementary School in West Los Angeles, and also worked as a residence counselor for Transitional Living Services of Onondaga Country in Syracuse, N.Y., a non-profit organization providing in-home services to clients with developmental disabilities and traumatic brain injuries. Silverman served as rabbinical intern at Temple Beth El of Santa Maria, Calif., and Stephen S. Wise Temple in Los Angeles, as well as acting as visiting rabbi for High Holy Day pulpits in Walla Walla, Wash., and Butte, Mont. He also spent a year as the educational intern at Temple Emanuel of Beverly Hills, helping train and supervise teachers and specialists. Throughout his years at HUC-JIR, he continued to work as an educator and administrator as various religious schools and Hebrew High programs throughout the Los Angeles area. For two summers he was involved with the URJ Kutz Camp’s Kesher program, a 10-day sleep-away camp experience for children with autism. He later spent over a decade in various capacities at the Wilshire Boulevard Temple Camps in Malibu, Calif., serving as unit head, counselor-in-training director and camp educator.
In 2003 he was selected by the Foundation for Jewish Camp as a Spielberg Fellow for Jewish Theater Arts, studying and preparing with a small group of educators from across the country. While at HUC-JIR, Silverman received the Rabbi Mordecai and Mrs. Eve Soloff Award for Excellence in Jewish Education and has preached extensively on the need for rethinking and reforming the process of Jewish education in the 21st century. He is the author of a curriculum guide entitled “I Applied My Heart to Know Wisdom: A Jewish Perspective On Personal Ideologies,” which focuses on texts from the books of Job, Ecclesiastes, and Pirkei Avot. In the next few weeks, congregants are invited to a “chat and coffee” with Silverman, to discuss the religious school curriculum, program and ideas. The 9:15 a.m. sessions are Oct. 11 for grades 3 to 6, Nov. 1 for grades 7 to 10 and Nov. 15 for Pre-k to grade 2.
NOLA
October 2015 • Southern Jewish Life 5
agenda Touro hosting Rick Recht concert A pioneer of Jewish rock music will be in concert in New Orleans on Oct. 18. Rick Recht will perform at a free family show at Touro Synagogue at noon. There will be a community lunch at 11:30 a.m. with a suggested donation of $5. Recht plays over 150 concerts a year and is the national music spokesman for PJ Library. He is also the founder and executive director of Jewish Rock Radio, which is available online and on an app. He shared the stage with acts including the Guess Who, Chris Rock, America, Supertramp and Three Dog Night. He released two acclaimed secular albums, then shifted to Jewish music in 1999. Now he is artist-in-residence at United Hebrew Congregation in St. Louis. He also founded Songleader Boot Camp, a leadership training program for clergy, Jewish educators, religious school teachers and song leaders. Recht plays at Jewish day and overnight camps from coast to coast including Ramah, URJ, BBYO, JCC and private camps garnering a feverish following among the national Jewish youth movements.
Mad Hatters to gather for Hadassah benefit New Orleans Hadassah will have a Mad Hatter Tea Party and Silent Auction on Oct. 18 at the Pavilion of Two Sisters at City Park. This year’s champagne jazz brunch will highlight all of the great works of Hadassah and honor the memory of Libbye Katz Gordon. Funds raised will help continue and improve upon Hadassah’s breakthroughs in the treatment of cancer, HIV/AIDS, cardiac disease, pediatric cardiology, ophthalmology, orthopedics, and neurological diseases. In keeping with the theme, festive hats are encouraged. The brunch will be from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Tickets are $180, or $100 for age 36 and under.
6 Southern Jewish Life • October 2015
agenda Past to Present will be at Torch of Liberty dinner This year’s A.I. Botnick Torch of Liberty Award dinner will take a step back in the event’s history while honoring two recipients. Phyllis Taylor and Gordon “Nick” Mueller will be recognized for “immense contributions to New Orleans and beyond, transforming the city.” The awards are presented by the New Orleans regional office of the Anti-Defamation League. Taylor is a leader in philanthropic engagement in New Orleans and has been an ardent supporter of education initiatives that have been transformational to the city and state’s educational landscape. Mueller is president and CEO of the National World War II Museum, which is ranked as the No. 1 attraction in New Orleans, the No. 3 museum in the United States and No. 15 world-wide. He had a 33-year career as a professor of history and administrator at the University of New Orleans prior to his work at the museum. The ADL has an ongoing relationship with the museum, which hosts the ADL’s Echoes and Reflections program, a Holocaust curriculum training for educators. “This year’s dinner will highlight the enormous contribution of both individuals, and will feature the important work of the ADL in training law enforcement and building safe, inclusive communities in schools that embrace diversity and confront bias,” said ADL Regional Director Allison Padilla-Goodman. The dinner also features Torch of Liberty honorees from a range of eras. Rev. James Carter of Loyola University, who was a 1983 recipient, will give an invocation and is the dinner chair for Taylor. Norman Francis of Xavier University, a 1977 recipient, will introduce Mueller. Taylor’s late husband, Patrick Taylor, was an honoree in 1989. Susan Hess and Carroll Suggs are also serving as dinner chairs. This year’s event will be on Dec. 1 at the Hyatt Regency in New Orleans. Tickets are $200, Next Generation tickets for those under 35 are $100. For tickets or sponsorship information, go to www. adl.org/botnicktorch.
Touro Infirmary Foundation Gala on Nov. 14 The Touro Infirmary Foundation hosts its annual Touro Infirmary Foundation Gala on Nov. 14 at the Mardi Gras World River City Ballroom. The event gathers distinguished members of the Touro community to celebrate substantial contributors to Touro. This year’s Judah Touro Society Award recipient is Jay Shames, who will be honored at the gala. The JTS Award is the hospital’s highest honor and is voted on by previous JTS award recipients. It is given annually to individuals who have made outstanding contributions to the welfare of Touro Infirmary. Shames has been on the teaching faculty of Tulane Medical School since completing his fellowship and has been a clinical professor since 1986. He is board certified in Internal Medicine and Pulmonary Diseases; has served as Chief of Staff of Touro Infirmary and has been president
of the Orleans Parish Medical Society and the Louisiana State Medical Society. The evening opens with a patron cocktail hour at 6 p.m., followed by a formal dinner and award presentation at 7 p.m. That is followed by the L’dor V’dor Post-Gala Party hosted by Touro Tomorrow. The second annual L’dor V’dor Post-Gala Party is an event created by Touro Tomorrow with a goal of raising $15,000 to support Touro and the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit. Post-Gala Party highlights include music by local band Flow Tribe, Latin-inspired food courtesy of La Cocinita, an open bar and a photo booth to capture the evening’s best shots. Tickets for the post-gala party are $50, and must be purchased in advance. Individual tickets for the Foundation Gala are $200, with patron tickets starting at $500.
Upcoming Events Saturday, Oct. 10 “Rosenwald” screening with Bill Hess, speaker. Zeitgeist. 7:15 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 11 JCRS Chanukah Gift Wrap-A-Thon. Metairie JCC. 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 13 Florence Melton School opens. Uptown JCC. Sunday, Oct. 18 Rick Recht concert. Touro Synagogue. Lunch, 11:30 a.m. Concert, noon. Hadassah Mad Hatters Tea Party. Pavilion of Two Sisters, City Park. 11 a.m. Tuesday, Oct. 20 New Office Dedication. Jewish Family Service. 5:30 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 22 “The Transcendent God of Goodness.” Roslyn Weiss, speaker. Tulane’s Rogers Memorial Chapel. 7:30 p.m. Art and Soul Gala. B’nai Israel, Baton Rouge. 6:30 p.m. Friday, Oct. 23 Jacobs Camp Shabbat. Temple Sinai. 6:15 p.m. Shir Chadash Congregational Retreat. Henry S. Jacobs Camp. Through Oct. 25 Jewish Family Service Continuing Education Workshop. Beth Israel. 8:45 a.m. Friday Night Live for Young Jewish Professionals. Chabad Uptown. 7 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 24 Northshore Jewish Congregation’s A Taste of Art and Jazz. St. Tammany Art Association, Covington. 8 p.m. Monday, Oct. 26 NOLA Bump Bash. Uptown JCC. 7 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 27 Jewish Community Relations Council program with Urban League, Archdiocese. Uptown JCC. 7 p.m. Jewish Learning Institute begins. Noon, Metairie JCC. 7:30 p.m., Chabad of Metairie. Thursday, Oct. 29 Kindergarten Readiness Forum. Uptown JCC. 7 p.m. Friday, Oct. 30 Installation of Rabbi Todd Silverman. Touro Synagogue. 6 p.m. Jewish Community Day School Babies Club, with Lauren Ungar. 1 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 1 Daylight Savings Time Ends Thursday, Nov. 5 Betty and Phillip Meyers Leadership Development Alumni Event of the Katz-Phillips Program. Home of Erin and Asher Friend. 6:30 p.m. October 2015 • Southern Jewish Life 7
agenda The New Orleans Jewish Community Relations Council program about new initiatives has been rescheduled for Oct. 27 at the Uptown Jewish Community Center. The 7 p.m. forum will be a discussion of collaborative efforts with the Urban League and the Archdiocese, and opportunities to get involved. The community is invited.
News and the Jews, discussing current events through a Jewish lens. The noon sessions are open to the community at the Mautner Learning Center. Upcoming dates are Oct. 8 and 22, Nov. 12 and 19, Dec. 3 and 17 and Jan. 7 and 21.
cians Clinic Funky Butts in the National Alliance on Mental Illness New Orleans Second Line in Audubon Park on Oct. 24. Linda Mauskopf is leading the Jieux’ effort to raise funds for the organizations, and walkers or “virtual” walkers are welcome. Half of the funds will go to NOMC to fund mental health services, and the other half will go to NAMI New Orleans, NOMC’s principal local mental health services provider. She said NAMI New Orleans “is now the leading voice on mental health in our city — thanks to its outstanding peer-led counseling program, plus its army of volunteers educating the public on mental health issues.” For more information, visit http://namiwalks.nami.org/JieuxKrewe2015. Touro Synagogue is also marching as a congregation.
Temple Sinai in New Orleans will offer Chai Mitzvah this year. The national non-denominational initiative, founded in 2008, offers a core curriculum for learning how to lead an engaged and meaningful Jewish life. The nine-session course uses Jewish texts to explore contemporary issues on a range of topics, and is accessible to all levels of Jewish background. The class meets once a month on Saturdays at 9 a.m., starting Oct. 10 and going through May. Cost is $25 for course materials.
Beth Shalom in Baton Rouge will have its Nearly New Sale on Oct. 29, Temple Sinai in New Orleans will offer Beginners Hebrew, Wednes- 30 and Nov. 1 from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. Donated items may be brought to the days at 6 p.m., Oct. 14 to Dec. 16. The course is free. congregation starting Oct. 7. There will not be any clothing sold, so any The Krewe du Jieux is a sub-team for the Team New Orleans Musi- donated clothing will be given to Here Today Gone Tomorrow.
Shir Chadash in Metairie will have a congregational family retreat at the Henry S. Jacobs Camp in Utica, Oct. 23 to 25. A bus will leave Shir Chadash at 2 p.m. on Oct. 23 and leave camp at 1 p.m. on Oct. 25.
Roslyn Weiss will present “The Transcendent God of Goodness,” a Temple Sinai in New Orleans will have Jacobs Camp Shabbat on Oct. Judeo-Christian Studies public lecture, at Tulane on Oct. 22. Weiss is the 23 at 6:15 p.m., with special musical guest Nick May. Clara H. Stewardson Professor of Philosophy at Lehigh University, where Rabbi Jordan Goldson is teaching a Taste of Judaism class at B’nai Is- she has been teaching since 1991. She is the author of books on “Plato’s rael in Baton Rouge, on Oct. 14, 21 and 28 from 6 to 8 p.m. Sponsored Crito,” “Plato’s Meno,” the “Socratic Paradox” and most recently, “Phiby the Union for Reform Judaism, the free outreach class is for Jews and losophers in the Republic: Plato’s Two Paradigms,” along with numerous non-Jews. articles and presentations on the Hebrew Bible, Maimonides, and other Rabbi Alexis Berk will have a twice-monthly lunchtime study group, medieval Jewish thinkers. The lecture will be at 7:30 p.m. at Rogers Memorial Chapel. It is open to the community.
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agenda Former Emanu-El accountant pleads guilty to fraud A former accountant at Birmingham’s Temple Emanu-El pleaded guilty to taking $41,098 from the congregation. In a July 28 plea agreement with the U.S. Attorney’s office, Charles Collins pleaded guilty to one count of wire fraud on Sept. 1. He will be sentenced on Dec. 4. Collins was accounting manager at Emanu-El from 2008 to November 2013. According to the charges, he started conducting unauthorized transactions in 2012 to obtain funds from Emanu-El’s bank account for his use, recording the transactions as payments to vendors, though the transfers actually went into bank accounts he controlled. The first one, “on or about Oct. 19, 2012,” was for just over $1,970. The court filings state that he was “the sole individual responsible for performing all accounting transactions and functions” for Emanu-El during that time. Michael Koslin, president of Emanu-El, said the fraud had not been previously disclosed to the congregation because there was an active investigation, and on the advice of attorneys. “Fortunately, our insurance covered most of our actual loss, but our Congregation did incur expenses related to deductibles and forensic accounting,” he said. Those costs have already been handled, he added. The congregation has instituted “additional safeguards” to keep this from happening again, and some of those safeguards were mentioned at last year’s town hall meetings. As part of the agreement, Collins will forfeit an amount equal to what he took. Because of the plea deal, there is a recommendation for sentencing on the “low end” of what could be a maximum prison term of 20 years.
JLI class discusses souls and afterlife The Jewish community rarely talks much about souls — but what does Judaism teach about souls, death and the afterlife? The new Rohr Jewish Learning Institute series this month explores those questions in a six-part class, “Journey of the Soul,” the mysteries surrounding the spiritual dimension of existence, and the destiny that continues even after shedding the earth-bound body suit. The first class deals with life — what is a soul, how does Judaism define life and how does one reconcile Judaism’s emphasis on this existence with the notion of an eternal soul. The second class is preparation, a discussion of aging and the best way to use Earthly time. The Transition class talks about what happens when one dies — can souls communicate with the living? What are the rituals associated with burial and how do they affect the soul’s transition? Afterlife discusses reincarnation, ghosts, spirits and whether everyone goes to heaven. Mourning discusses new spiritual levels and how to benefit a departed soul. The final class deals with “the end game” of whether death is permanent or there is resurrection and reunion with loved ones. In joint sponsorship with the Washington School of Psychiatry, participants can earn up to 7.5 CE credits from the American Psychological Association, American Council for Continuing Medical Education, California Board of Behavioral Sciences or the Association of Social Work Boards. The course will be offered in Birmingham at Bais Ariel Chabad Center for six Wednesdays at 7:30 p.m. starting on Oct. 28, or six Thursdays at 10 a.m. from Oct. 29. Registration, including the textbook, is $89. Couples taking the class together can deduct $45. In the New Orleans area, the Chabad Center in Metairie also has two schedule options for the course. Starting Oct. 27, the class will meet for six weeks every Tuesday, at noon at the Metairie Jewish Community Campus, or at 7:30 p.m. at the Metairie Chabad Center. Registration is $70.
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agenda
Tennessee Governor Bill Haslam rang the opening bell at the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange. In early September he led a business mission from Tennessee to Israel, meeting with Prime Minister Netanyahu and former President Shimon Peres. There was also a visit to Nazareth to discuss opportunities with the Arab high-tech sector. Atlanta-based Conexx arranged an exclusive reception at the residence of Dan Shapiro, U.S. Ambassador to Israel.
Minn. rabbi moves to Rosh Ha’Ayin The American Jewish World in Minneapolis reported that a rabbi in the community was making aliyah, with Rosh Ha’Ayin as his destination. Rabbi Adam Titcher, a Los Angeles native, was assistant rabbi at Adath Jeshurun Congregation, a Conservative congregation, and he hopes to work on strengthening the Masorti movement in Israel. His wife is Israeli and they have two young children. Rosh Ha’Ayin is the sister city for Birmingham and Partnership2Gether community for New Orleans. Originally a development town consisting entirely of Jews who had fled Yemen in 1949, in the last 20 years Rosh Ha’Ayin has become a diverse bedroom community to Tel Aviv and Jerusalem.
Kosher cookbook author Jamie Geller did a Rosh Hashanah kosher cooking demo at Winn Dixie in Birmingham on Sept. 1, with those in attendance sampling the dishes afterward. 10 Southern Jewish Life • October 2015
Meridian’s Threefoot Building sold Jewish landmark will become Courtyard by Marriott After years of standing vacant in downtown Meridian, a landmark of Meridian Jewish history has been sold and will be redeveloped. On Sept. 15, the 16-story Art Deco Threefoot Building at 22nd Avenue and 6th Street was sold to Ascent Hospitality Management of Georgia, which plans to turn the building into a Courtyard by Marriott hotel. The company recently opened a Fairfield Inn and Suites in Meridian, and is also working on a Marriott Autograph Collection hotel in Birmingham, in the Empire building downtown, part of what was known as the “Heaviest Corner on Earth.” Ascent President John Tampa told the Meridian City Council that the new hotel will retain its historic name and be called Courtyard by Marriott/ Threefoot. The company paid $10,000 to the city for the building, “as-is.” They agreed to begin construction within 12 months of the deal being finalized, and will lease 80 parking spaces in the city garage. The city committed to improve lighting, sidewalks and landscaping to match the nearby Mississippi State University Riley Center for Education and Performing Arts. Tampa said the renovation will take 14 to 18 months once work gets underway, and the company is committed to spending at least $14 million on the building. The Threefoot Building was immortalized by Ripley’s Believe It Or Not as “a 15-story building on a three foot lot,” playing off the name of the prominent Jewish family that developed it. Abraham Dreyfus immigrated from Germany, and his name was trans-
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12 Southern Jewish Life • October 2015
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formed into Threefoot. He made shoes for the Confederacy, then he and his brothers arrived in Meridian to sell fine saddles and harnesses, then get into the wholesale grocery business. Later, the family went into the cotton brokerage business. In 1890, Abraham’s two sons married into the Rothenberg family, combining their grocery businesses. In the 1920s, Sam Threefoot built what was Meridian’s only skyscraper, completing it in 1928 on the previous site of the Threefoot Brothers Wholesale Company. At the time, it was the tallest building in the state. The Great Depression then hit, depressing the building’s occupancy rate. The building became a drain on the family’s finances, and the family lost the building. It continued on as an office building, but suburban development in the 1960s and 1970s led to downtown’s decline and it became vacant. In 1979 the building was added to the National Register of Historic Places. In 2006 there was a proposal to develop the building into a hotel, but it fell through during a change of city leadership. In 2010, the National Trust for Historic Preservation placed it on its list of America’s 11 Most Endangered Historic Places. In 2013, a volunteer group called the Threefoot Preservation Society started meeting under the leadership of Amos Jones to try and stabilize the building in hopes it might attract a developer. They have been on-site every month doing basic restoration and preservation work, and witnessing approval of the agreement three days after their most recent workday was an emotional time for them. Jones said the deal “is all we’ve ever wanted, really. Just for someone to take it and to develop it and make it into something that brings back the glory to downtown.” Lauri Hoyt, a member of the society, said “I feel like a puppy’s foster Mom who is glad when someone adopts him but frets about whether they will care for him as you did.” She added, “it will be a wonderful outcome for the Threefoot building and Meridian!” Mayor Percy Bland has been in talks with Tampa for a year and said “We thought this deal was the best fit for our city.” Local tourism officials noted that there was no downtown hotel to serve the Riley Center, making it impossible to bid on numerous events. When the Riley Center was redone a decade ago, the master plan called for a hotel in the Threefoot Building, which is just across the street. The Riley Center also has Jewish roots, as it is in the historic Marks-Rothenberg Building and the Opera House next door. The Opera House closed in 1927 as contemporary movie theaters took over. Decades of lawsuits kept the doors closed and the interior virtually untouched, ready to be restored when the project began in 2003. With the Threefoot building’s future now more certain, the Threefoot Preservation Society will nevertheless continue, announcing on Sept. 22 that the former Meridian Police Department building will be its next project. Volunteers from the Threefoot Preservation Society work on the building
Rabbi Steve Jacobs reads from Tuscaloosa’s Holocaust Torah
Same day, centuries apart Different histories for two Torahs dedicated in Alabama Two Alabama communities dedicated Torah scrolls on Sept. 20, and it turned out to be a story of something old and something new. Tuscaloosa’s Temple Emanu-El dedicated a Holocaust Torah that is on “permanent loan” to the community and turned out to be a lot older than anyone expected, while the Bais Ariel Chabad Center in Birmingham celebrated the completion of a brand new Torah, in memory of Brian Grodner. The Tuscaloosa scroll came from the Westminster Synagogue in London, which administers the program for 1,564 Torah scrolls that had been plundered and gathered by the Nazis from synagogues in the Czech “protectorate.” After almost two decades in the disused Mishle Synagogue in Prague after the war, the scrolls arrived in London in 1964, and Westminster started a program to distribute them to congregations worldwide. Synagogues in need of a scroll to use receive priority, while congregations with numerous Torahs of their own are encouraged to accept scrolls that are not ritually usable so they can serve as memorials to the martyred communities. Hattie Kaufman, co-president of Emanu-El, said Rabbi Steve Jacobs asked the congregation in early 2014 to explore the possibility of obtaining one of the scrolls. The congregation raised $7,000 and received Scroll 501 in September 2014. Unilke most scrolls, which had meticulous documentation as to their origins, this Torah’s back story was unknown. “We do not know the community from which this Torah was stolen,” Jacobs said. We do not know the Jews who worshiped in a synagogue, who were murdered, where this scroll was housed. Even though they are unknown to us, they are still alive through us.” Paul Aharon, who holds the Loper Chair in Geology at Alabama, explained the quest to find out more about the mysterious scroll, and said his talk would hopefully bring “some good Paul Aharon explained carbonnews” after the previous night’s dating the Torah
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football game against Ole Miss. Most of the Czech scrolls date from the 18th or 19th centuries. With agreement by the Emanu-El board and consent by Westminster, he and Jacobs carefully extracted two fingernail-sized pieces of parchment for carbon dating. As he was working on a grant at the time, he convinced the lab to throw in that test as well, which is usually about $600, he said. When the test result came back, everyone was stunned to learn that the parchment dated from 1270, give or take 45 years. In 2013, it was announced that carbon dating on a scroll that had been “hiding in plain sight” at the University of Bologna in Italy was between 1155 and 1225, and it then became the oldest known full Torah scroll in the world, pre-dating Maimonides’ codification of the rules for writing Torah scrolls. “You can imagine the shock Paul and I experienced” upon receiving the report, Jacobs said. “We are in the possession of a 750-year-old Torah scroll, used by generations of our people.” Aharon said the scroll will be “treated with the utmost love and care.” This is the fourth Holocaust Torah that Jacobs has brought to the state. Since becoming a rabbi in 1974, he has served congregations in Mobile, Birmingham and Huntsville, and arranged for scrolls at each of those locations. For Jacobs, dedicating the scrolls is personal. His father escaped Germany early in the war using a forged passport and lived on the
docks in Italy “by his wits and his fists.” Out of a 150-member family, his father was one of only eight survivors. “He lived with that knowledge all his life,” Jacobs said, “and he died at age 60 of a broken heart.” When Jacobs was ordained, his father cried, something which was unusual for him. While Jacobs thought it was the emotion of his ordination, his father said it was because “the moment that you were ordained, I saw my father’s face.” As he and Daniel Siegel brought that Torah into the room, Jacobs said, “I saw my dad’s face. And I saw the faces of every other one of our people who was lost during that horrific period in our history.” The Torah’s presence in the ark at Emanu-El is a pledge by everyone in the building to never forget, he said. “That community did survive because that scroll is here.” At the ceremony, Jacobs read the first five sen-
Paul Grodner and Ken Grodner bring the new Torah into Bais Ariel Chabad Center tences of the Torah. “To our knowledge, this is the first time this scroll has been read from since the end of the Second World War,” he noted.
Finishing a New Scroll
Later that afternoon, Birmingham’s Bais Ariel Chabad Center dedicated a Torah in memory of Brian Grodner. A Birmingham native, Grodner died of cancer at age 55 in 2013. While seeking treatment in Houston, he became active with Chabad there, and a playground at Torah Day School was dedicated in his memory. A graduate of the University of Alabama, Grodner served in the military, worked as a defense contractor and later in his career started a webbased brokering business. He was known for a joyful outlook no matter the circumstances. He wrote “Cancer Is Not the Boss of Me” to guide patients through the process of diagnosis and treatment. At the Chabad in Houston, he would give talks entitled “Overcoming Challenges: The Power of Positive Thinking.” He was diagnosed with Stage IV Metastatic Melanoma of the liver, both lungs, and gall bladder in 2009, and said he was “thrown into a fight for my life with no hope of a positive outcome, very little knowledge of my disease and no idea how to fight for my life,” and was told he had five or six months to live. A second opinion was more encouraging, and the family moved to Texas for his treatment. In his book, he wrote how doctors told him that there were plenty of people with “dismal” chances of survival who nevertheless maintained a positive outlook and did survive, and others “with every medical reason to get better but lacked the optimism and belief in their ability to return to a normal lifestyle, who, to everyone’s surprise, died.” Many from Houston were at the dedication and spoke of his consistent positive outlook and attitude. Rabbi Yossi Posner said Grodner “personified devotion to purpose. As he loved and was devoted to his family, so was he devoted to Hashem, His Torah and His presence in our lives.” The festivities began on the Overton Park tennis courts, under a tent filled with tables and refreshments, as the last letters of the scroll were inked in. Toward the end, all of the children were called up for a children’s letter, then after the final letter was done, and plenty of time given for the ink to dry that humid afternoon, the scroll was lifted and dressed, then the parade began. As a truck provided celebratory music at the head of the parade, the children walked carrying plush Torahs and balloons, and dozens of celebrants took turns walking with the completed Torah under a chupah down a closed-off Overton Road while others danced down the street. Outside the Chabad Center, the two other Torahs were brought out to “welcome” the new scroll, then all three were paraded into the building, with Paul Grodner and Ken Grodner carrying the new Torah through the door.
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On Sept. 24, the U.S. House of Representatives approved legislation to honor the nation’s first Jewish Federal judge by renaming the Federal building in Helena, Ark., after him. Judge Jacob Trieber was appointed to the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Arkansas by President William McKinley on July 26, 1900. He served until his death on Sept. 17, 1927, presiding over at least 1,000 cases per year. All six of Arkansas’ Congressional representatives supported the measure, which passed the Senate in August. The bill was sent to President Barack Obama for his signature. Federal Judge Brian Miller suggested the tribute to the Helena-West Helena City Council, and it was discussed in a May meeting. During a trip to Washington, Miller met with the state’s delegation to receive their support. Trieber was born in Prussia and came to the United States with his family, settling in Helena in 1868 and clerking at his family’s store. He started studying law at night with former Arkansas Supreme Court Justice Marshall L. Stephenson, and later formed a partnership with Stephenson’s brother. He was on the Helena City Council and treasurer of Phillips County. A noted lawyer, he was a U.S. District Attorney before being appointed to the judgeship. “We owe this honor to Judge Trieber who was a well-respected leader in Phillips County,” said Sen. John Boozman. “This is a great tribute that symbolizes the important work he did for the community and in pursuit of justice as the nation’s first Jewish federal judge.” Rabbi Barry Block of B’nai Israel in Little Rock noted that Trieber was far ahead of his time when it came to civil rights. In 1903, he ruled that racial discrimination in employment was unconstitutional in the state. The ruling was overturned by the “regressive” Supreme Court in 1906 and its effects would not be achieved until the Civil Rights Act in 1964. Block added that the Warren Court reinstated Trieber’s ruling in 1968. Rep. Rick Crawford, who introduced the bill in the House, said, “Driven by his unparalleled dedication to justice and equality for all people, Judge Trieber took it upon himself to fight against all types of injustices, including institutionalized racism, which he opposed six decades before finally being vindicated by the Supreme Court and the Civil Rights act of 1964. By naming Helena’s federal building in his honor, we preserve his unparalleled judicial spirit and dedication to equal opportunities for everyone.” On Aug. 11, the Central Conference of American Rabbis issued a resolution endorsing the naming, and applauding “the efforts of Arkansas residents, most of them not Jewish, who have championed the cause of honoring this great American Jew.” The resolution noted Trieber’s opposition to racism and advocacy for women’s rights. Block said “while he is known for his important rulings on matters that ranged from migratory birds to Prohibition to railroads, which he understood to be essential to interstate commerce, it should be noted that Trieber did not leave behind memoirs to explain the motivations behind his rulings.” He quoted Carolyn Gray LeMaster, “the late doyenne of Arkansas Jewish history,” as saying Trieber’s adopted home of Arkansas “became dear to him, although the blatant racism he saw had a lifelong effect on his life and work.” LeMaster wrote that Trieber “recalled his childhood days in Prussia, remembering how the discrimination against Jews consumed the country. He said he ‘feared any country’s future that would allow such discrimination against its citizens,’ and he hoped Arkansas could steer a different course.” Helena’s Jewish community peaked at about 400 in 1927. In 2006, the last few members of the community closed the 140-year-old Temple BethEl, donating the building to the state for use as a community arts center.
Joseph Sher sings “Yidl Mitn Fidl” with a fiddler figurine
“Stay young” Approaching 100, Holocaust survivor Joseph Sher maintains cheerful outlook on life For Joseph Sher, who has made his home in New Orleans for 65 years after a lengthy ordeal in surviving the Holocaust, there are two phrases that detail his outlook on life. The first is “God Bless America.” The second one, which he continues to share with everyone as he approaches the age of 100, is “Stay young, zei gezunt.” Rabbi David Polsky of Anshe Sfard in New Orleans said it is remarkable that “someone who went through the worst thing known to man can still be among the most cheerful people you’ll ever meet.” Joseph was a tailor in New Orleans for decades, but for years before that, those skills served him well and helped him survive the Nazi regime for a long time. “So many little things had to coexist for him to survive,” said daughterin-law Karen Sher, who is married to Joseph’s son Leopold. “It helped he was a tailor, but there were a lot of other things too.” Joseph was born in Krzepice, a small town in Poland. He was the middle son of three boys and had three sisters. Well before the Holocaust, he experienced anti-Semitism in school and on the street. When the Nazis came, the family was living in Czestochowa. Every Jewish male between 15 and 80 was ordered to assemble in the market, where every 10th or 12th man was shot. Joseph and a friend tried to escape to Russia, but the Russians stopped those who were trying to flee. They returned to Czestochowa. Each family was ordered to send one man to build a highway in the east, and he went because his older brother was married and his younger brother was not old enough. Of the 1,000 from the city who were sent to build the highway, he was one of only three to survive. While he was in the labor camp for nine months, two German Jews in the town ghetto, who had contacts, managed to get Joseph freed. Upon his return, he developed typhus, an instant death sentence if the Nazis found out. His family hid him behind a wall for a month until he recovered. On Yom Kippur in 1942 there was a massive deportation, and his grandmother was killed in front of them. His older brother, Leo, had been selected to take care of the dog belonging to the chief of the Gestapo — for the childless couple, the dog was their child. “They loved Leo so much that they treated him like he
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community was their own son,” Joseph said. When the entire ghetto was being liquidated to Treblinka, the chief tipped Leo off about the plan, and told him they had confiscated a Jewish man’s porcelain factory and needed 10 workers, who he could select. Joseph, a cousin and eight others started working there for a few weeks, then another manager kicked them out, sending them back to a smaller ghetto. From May 1943 to January 1945 he and his wife, Rachel, worked in a slave labor camp making ammunition. “I was lucky: my job was to be a tailor working for the German officers. My wife’s job was to carry boxes of ammunition to the trucks.” The women who filled the shells got sick from the powder, and were killed when that happened. The German officers had confiscated all the minks and furs from the Jews and gave them to their wives. Among his many other jobs, Joseph was tasked with repairing the coats, then fitting the officers’ wives. In January 1945 the Russians approached the camp and the Germans fled. A few hours later, the Germans returned and urged the workers to escape with them, since the Russians supposedly would kill them for making the ammunition used against them. Most of them followed and boarded trains that never returned. Leo, Joseph and Rachel did not get on the trains and made their way back to town. They found the Russians and the Jews dancing in the streets of Czestochowa. Joseph met a Russian Jewish captain, Zalman Brodsky, who said they had to go back to the front but had no tailors, no underwear and torn uniforms. He went with the Russians and worked around the clock for them. One day when Brodsky was away, another Russian officer did not believe the story of who AFTER THE Joseph was and put him in a prison camp with HOLOCAUST, 5,000 German soldiers. When Brodsky returned SURVIVING he was enraged and went to the camp. A large KATRINA WAS man, he opened his coat and stuffed Joseph inside, then started to leave the camp. When the A “PIECE OF guards threatened to shoot, Brodsky said they CAKE” would have to shoot Joseph through him. After that, Brodsky personally delivered him back to Czestochowa. Rachel was the only survivor from her family, so they went back to her home. The building’s janitor still lived there and was surprised to see them; his apartment was filled with furniture from her family. Karen noted that returning Jews were routinely being killed in Poland after the war. Joseph said they did not trust the janitor so they quickly and quietly left. At the building where his family had lived, Poles who had moved into the abandoned apartments threw unwanted items into the courtyard. “It lay there in a big pile for several years,” Joseph said. Deep in the pile he found a treasured heirloom — his family pictures. After the war, Leo worked in the Polish army to uncover Nazis in hiding. He also procured a Russian truck and enabled 50 Jewish children to be smuggled across the Czech border in an illegal operation to circumvent the British blockade on Jewish immigration to Palestine. After a 1946 blood libel pogrom in Keilce where 42 Jews were killed, they fled to Czechoslovakia, then crawled over the border to a U.S. sector of Germany. They lived in DP camps until 1949, and among other things he taught sewing skills to 22 girls in an ORT class. Rachel had an aunt in New Orleans, Freda Stahl, so they arranged to be sponsored and brought over. Unlike most Jewish immigrants who came to the United States, they went directly to New Orleans, where they got off the boat in March 1949 and Joseph kissed the ground. At 6 a.m. the next day, he went to work at Harry Hyman Tailors. He worked from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m., six days a week for 40 years, taking off only for Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, Passover and Shavuot. Karen said he had “very prominent clients — he did suits for Elvis Pres18 Southern Jewish Life • October 2015
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October 2015 • Southern Jewish Life 19
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ley, Chubby Checker, Fats Domino.” Nobody wanted him to retire. Even after he did, people would still bring things to him, she said. Leopold said he was the tailor for all of the criminal court judges. Hotel doormen, who were tall, couldn’t buy off the rack so he did their custom clothing. He noted that Joseph was 5-foot-5 while the doormen were often close to 7 feet tall. “He’d have to jump up on the table to measure them.” Just after they arrived, the Times-Picayune did a story on them, where Joseph said all he wants is “to get a job, forget the past, support my wife and child… To have privacy, not to be ordered about, not to have to stand in line — that is all I ask of life.” A few days later he received a letter in the mail, but unable to read or speak English, he did not know what it said. He gave it to a cousin, who told him not to ask. The letter, which was turned over to B’nai B’rith, said “If Hitler did not get you over there we are going to get you here.” Their first son, Martin, was born in a DP camp. Leopold soon followed after the family arrived in New Orleans. Just once did Leopold see something other than a joyful demeanor from Joseph — when the film “Exodus” came out in 1961 and George Lincoln Rockwell, head of the American Nazi Party came to town with nine others to demonstrate outside the theater. “It was the angriest I’d ever seen him.” Many in the community’s leadership wanted to be low-key about the protest to not give Rockwell publicity, but the local survivor community wanted to make Rockwell feel their presence. That incident prompted local Holocaust survivors to form the New American Social Club, which instituted an annual Holocaust remembrance ceremony and became an organized voice for the survivor community. The Shers lived on Seventh Street between Baronne and Carondelet, within walking distance of Anshe Sfard. Joseph says the small congregation is “my home” and still considers it the “highest mitzvah” to make the minyan there on Shabbat. Though Joseph is now in a wheelchair and not within walking distance, he still goes to Anshe Sfard regularly. Because the 1920s-era building is not particularly accessible, every week a group carries him up and down the front steps, to the second-floor sanctuary. Leopold says he has suggested going to another congregation which is closer or more accessible, but Joseph insists on being at Anshe Sfard. At a Shabbat marking Joseph’s 99th birthday last November, Polsky said “he’s been the pillar of Anshe Sfard for over 60 years, helping to keep it going for many years when it was struggling
Rachel, Martin and Joseph Sher on Milan Street not long after arriving in New Orleans to get a minyan.” Joseph will often break out into song. Karen said if things had gone differently, “He could have been a star of the Yiddish theater.” Even now, “on occasion he’ll do a new song we’ve never heard before.” In 2005, Leopold and Karen were away when Katrina hit, and Joseph had ridden out many hurricanes before. After the storm passed, Joseph told them it wasn’t so bad. Then the levees broke. Joseph had an old hard-wired rotary phone. Just before the storm, he also got the Lifeline service. “When all communication in the city was down, somehow we are communicating with him by phone. No other phone in the city was working,” Leopold said. On Aug. 31, Joseph was sitting outside his apartment on Broadway when Juan Parke came by, wading through chest-high water. Parke told him that he could lead him and the other tenants who were trapped to dry land, but they did not want to get into the water. Parke told them he would try to find a boat — so they told him that they had seen one in a neighbor’s backyard. Parke “borrowed” it and transported Joseph and the others to safety. He later told the Times-Picayune that he told Joseph “I’d be damned if I’d let this storm do what the Nazis couldn’t.” Joseph returned to New Orleans in March of 2006. He viewed Katrina as a “piece of cake” compared to what he had been through in Europe. For a long time, he did not speak about his experiences, so as not to affect their children, but later on started telling them about it, bit by bit. In recent years he has spoken to school groups and given numerous interviews about his story. With all of Joseph’s experiences, Leopold said he is “more of a patriot than most people. If there’s ever anyone who can appreciate this country… it’s someone who can compare” it to other places in the world. “That’s freedom,” Joseph said. “Nobody is going to bother me here anymore.”
community 28th Delta Jewish Open tees off on Nov. 1 The 28th annual Jay Mosow Memorial Delta Jewish Golf Open, a fundraiser and “family reunion” for the Jewish communities in the Mississippi Delta, will be on Nov. 1 at the Greenville Country Club. Sponsored by members of the Hebrew Union Congregation in Greenville, the tournament has raised over $90,000 for the Henry S. Jacobs Camp and Institute for Southern Jewish Life. In addition, the weekend has become a time for Jews who are originally from the Delta to come back and visit with old friends. One does not need to be a golfer to enjoy the festivities. The open begins with the evening party, held at Hebrew Union Congregation on Oct. 31. A social hour begins at 6:30 p.m. with an open bar and hors d’oeuvres, while members grill steaks behind the building. During the dinner, which starts at 7:45 p.m., mulligans may be purchased and teams are announced. There are also prizes and drawings. The scramble-style tournament begins at 9 a.m. on Nov. 1. A shofar blast signals time to tee off. Lunch is available afterward, dutch treat. The winning team gets $500, with $280 going to the second-place team and $160 for third place. A hole-in-one on the 14th hole wins $10,000, while there will be other prizes for holes in one on all par-3 holes. There will also be “closest to pin” and “longest drive” prizes. Registration is $120 for an individual golfer, $135 for a golfer with a non-golfing date, and $195 for golfing couples. A non-golfing couple is $75, a non-golfing individual is $40. All
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On Sept. 9, members of JNOLA, the community’s young adults group, met at the PubliQ House in New Orleans for their annual Rosh Hashanah New Year’s Toast
October 2015 • Southern Jewish Life 21
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22 Southern Jewish Life • October 2015
community donations are welcomed. Tee box sponsorships are also available, for $100. A sign will be placed at the tee box. Registration can be sent to Barry Piltz, 1129 Oxford Place, Greenville, MS 38701. Registration deadline is Oct. 26. More information: Alan Silverblatt, (662) 887-5878, or Barry Piltz, (662) 332-3322.
Goldring receives international business leadership honor Bill Goldring, a Tulane University business graduate, board member and major benefactor, has been recognized as one of the first 100 Influential Leaders by AACSB International, the global accrediting body and membership association for business schools. The honor celebrates the AACSB’s Centennial Anniversary by recognizing alumni from AACSBaccredited schools who are making an impact in the world through their business acumen, leadership or entrepreneurial success. “Bill Goldring has played an essential role in the life of both Tulane and New Orleans,” Tulane President Mike Fitts said. “I can’t think of one area of the university that has not benefited from his support, vision or guidance.” Goldring entered Tulane University in 1961 and graduated from the business school with a bachelor of business administration in 1964. Earlier that year, on his 21st birthday, his father gave him a letter wishing him “health, happiness, and wealth,” and telling him to use his wealth intelligently and gain happiness and satisfaction by helping others. Goldring, chairman of Sazerac Co. and Crescent Crown Co., provided funding for buildings that house Tulane’s A. B. Freeman School of Business. He has provided funding for the Goldring Tennis Center at Tulane; the Jewish Community Center in Metairie; the Holocaust Memorial in New Orleans; the Goldring/Woldenberg Institute of Southern Jewish Life in Jackson, Miss.; and the restoration of Temple Sinai. Goldring was instrumental in developing Woldenberg Park, a fine open-space park along the banks of the Mississippi River in downtown New Orleans, as well as New Orleans City Park’s Great Lawn, the Contemporary Arts Center, and the Ogden Museum of Southern Art. In addition to serving on the Board of Tulane, Goldring is also a member of the Tulane University Business School Council and was named the A. B. Freeman School of Business Outstanding Alumnus in 1989. He is a past member of the President’s Council at Tulane; president of the Howard-Tilton Memorial Library Association; and a recipient of the Tulane University Paul Tulane Society Award, the A. B. Freeman School of Business Distinguished Entrepreneur of the Year Award and the Dermot McGlinchey Lifetime Achievement Award. He also helped establish The Goldring Center for Culinary Medicine at Tulane University, the nation’s first medical school teaching kitchen. “The Goldring family has been central to our identity and success as one of the country’s top business schools,” said Ira Solomon, dean of the A. B. Freeman School of Business. “Every business dean, every city wishes they knew a Bill Goldring, not only for his philanthropy but for the generosity of his time, advice and humanity.” “I’m so honored by this recognition,” Goldring said. Reflecting back on his father’s message on his 21st birthday, “He told me that was the key to happiness and he was right.”
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October 2015 • Southern Jewish Life 23
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The Northshore Jewish Congregation, in partnership with the St Tammany Art Association, is hosting “A Taste of Art and Jazz” for the entire community. The event will be on Oct. 24 from 8 to 11 p.m. at the St. Tammany Art Association Art House in downtown Covington. The evening will feature an array of desserts, coffees, teas, and liqueurs along with a silent auction showcasing a diverse selection of merchandise, services and entertainment packages. Local artists have been invited to offer their creations for sale, and an exhibit from the New Orleans Museum of Art will be on display. Tickets are $40, $45 at the door, and are available at the congregation office or website.
Amtrak announcement echoes Marks history This summer, Amtrak announced the addition of a flag stop in the Mississippi Delta town of Marks for their City of New Orleans train, which originates in Chicago. The announcement recalls what Jewish immigrant Leopold Marks had in mind for the town that bears his name. A couple of years after arriving in New York from Germany in 1868 at the age of 17 — knowing no English and having 18 cents in his pocket — Marks made his way south, first to Friars Point, then to Quitman County where he started a trading post and founded his eponymous town. A leader in the community, he was elected to the state legislature and served from 1877 to 1885. For years, Marks accumulated land at 40 cents an acre and sought a land grant, which he eventually earned. Realizing what a boon a railroad coming through the town would be to Marks, he gave the Yazoo and Mississippi Valley Railroad right of way through his plantation plus an additional 10 acres, all for free. It has been several decades since Marks had passenger train service. Besides the obvious benefit to north Delta citizens as the nearest stops are currently Memphis and Greenwood, it is hoped that travelers originating elsewhere will depart the train in Marks to take in the Blues Trail and other area cultural attractions. The new covered train station depot is expected to open late spring 2016, no doubt pleasing the town’s founder.
October 2015 • The Jewish Newsletter 25
26 The Jewish Newsletter • October 2015
From the Jewish Community Center Save the Date for Funny Business
ment for children ages 13 months to 5 years. Complete the online form at www.nojcc.org to RSVP for the Open House. Two of comedy’s hottest stars will take the stage at this year’s For those who cannot make the Open House, or would like to Center Celebration, the JCC’s annual fundraiser. Presented learn more about the program, weekly tours are offered each by The Lupin Foundation on Saturday, Nov. 7 at the Uptown Wednesday at 9:30 a.m. and do not require a reservation. JCC, Center Celebration Comedy Club will feature an open bar, a delicious dinner by Vincent’s Italian Cuisine, and performances by Johnny Lampert and Dan Naturman. Lampert Adult Learning for the Wondering Jew The Florence Melton School of Adult Jewish Learning ofis a regular at New York City’s and Los Angeles’ best comedy clubs, and Naturman recently appeared on “America’s Got fers a well-rounded and comprehensive course of study in a Talent.” It’s an evening that is not to be missed! Tickets may user-friendly format. In a relaxed setting, without homework, tests or prerequisites, this pluralistic, interactive program be purchased online and at the JCC reception desks. provides spirited dialogue and meaningful study, leading to Kindergarten Readiness Forum a deeper appreciation of Judaism — past, present and future. The JCC will present its annual Kindergarten Readiness Beginning Oct. 13, classes will be held on Tuesday evenings Forum on Thursday, Oct. 29, at 7 p.m. in the Uptown JCC’s at the Uptown JCC. The first year curriculum focuses upon Mintz Auditorium. Designed to demystify the kindergarten the ‘Rhythms of Jewish Living’ and the ‘Purposes of Jewish enrollment process, which can often be confusing and stress- Living.’ The second year curriculum explores ‘Ethics of Jewful for families, the event will be moderated by Dr. Bob Berk, ish Learning’ and ‘Crossroads of Jewish History.’ For addifounding head of school of Cypress Academy, and features tional details, visit www.nojcc.org or contact Liba Kornfeld, panelists from the public and private school realm who will Director of Jewish Family Life, at 897-0143, or liba@nojcc. talk about all areas of the kindergarten enrollment process. org. Students may register online at http://www.events.org/ Topics include the New Orleans Public School OneApp pro- MeltonNewOrleans. cess, faith-based school choices, private school admissions testing, and kindergarten readiness. After the presentation, Horim B’NOLA Jewish Enrichment panelists will be available to answer individual questions. Come learn about Jewish traditions and concepts with While the forum is designed for parents currently looking other parents in the newly formed group, Horim B’NOLA. at kindergarten options, the information will be useful to Horim, or parents, will meet once a month during the school all families of young children who have questions about the year to discuss the holidays, parenting ideas, and other Jewapplication and enrollment process. The evening is free and ish customs that can be incorporated in the home. No prior knowledge is required. Classes will meet on the following Friopen to the public. days from 9 to 10:30 a.m. at the Uptown JCC: October 16, Visit the JCC Nursery School and Pre-K November 20, December 18, January 15, February 19, March Parents are invited to come see what makes the JCC Nurs- 18, April 15 and May 20. The group is open to individuals ery School and Pre-K so special at the annual Open House of all faiths and is free and open to the community. Contact on Thursday, Nov. 12, at 9:30 a.m., at the Uptown JCC. The Liba Kornfeld, Director of Jewish Family Life, at 897-0143 or JCC offers an outstanding curriculum in a Jewish environ- liba@nojcc.org with questions and to RSVP.
NOLA Bump Bash
Enjoy a special night out with other expectant moms and dads at the JCC’s NOLA Bump Bash, held Monday, Oct. 26 from 7 to 9 p.m. at the Uptown JCC. You’ll connect with other parents and parents-to-be at this fun, informative evening where we’ll enjoy mock-tails and conversation. There will be special giveaways and experts will be on hand to share parenting tips and to discuss topics such as sleep training, breastfeeding and more! Tickets are just $5 for members and $10 for non-members. So siblings aren’t left out, babysitting is available for $5 per child and includes dinner. Pre-registration is required. Contact Liba Kornfeld, Director of Jewish Family Life, at 897-0143 or liba@nojcc.org with NOLA Bump Bash questions and for babysitting reservations.
October 2015 • The Jewish Newsletter 27
From the Jewish Community Day School Jewish Community Day School to Celebrate 20 Years at Nov. 15 Gala!
The Jewish Community Day School Gala “Homecoming 20! — Looking Back, Moving Forward” celebrates the school’s 20th anniversary of providing academic excellence, on Sunday, Nov. 15 at 5 p.m. at Temple Sinai. According to JCDS Head Sharon Pollin, in August of 1995, for the very first time, a small group of five-year-olds walked through the doors of the New Orleans Jewish Day School and it was a landmark event in the life of the New Orleans Jewish community. “Through their efforts, this group of dedicated parents had brought their school vision to reality,” Pollin said. “It was a vision of academic excellence in a nurturing environment, and of Jewish values meaningfully brought to life for today’s world, that welcomed all members of the Jewish community.” Now 20 years strong, JCDS will honor Bill Norman and Judy and David Fried. Norman is a passionate Jewish Day School advocate, current board member and founder of NOJDS, the predecessor to JCDS. Judy Fried is a teacher in the school’s innovative Pre-K, K and 1st grade Early Childhood program and a member of the school’s first faculty. David Fried was a longstanding JCDS treasurer for nearly 20 years. Their children Haley and David are JCDS alumni. Homecoming 20! Gala Honorary Chair is Joan Berenson. Co-Chairs are Lis and Hugo Kahn and Dashka Roth Lehmann and Larry Lehmann. The featured entertainer is Atlanta singer and songwriter Rabbi Micah Lapidus, who will bring his wisdom and talent to the evening’s festivities. He will also lead JCDS students in arrangements of his upbeat original compositions as well as some well-known favorites. Superb Silent Auction items have been lined up for this mile-
Shabbat Baby Sign Language Jewish Community Day School welcomes Lauren Ungar for the JCDS Jewish Babies Program on Friday, Oct. 30 from 1 to 2 p.m. in the 2nd floor Beit Midrash. Join Lauren, a mother of two, who uses sign language to promote language development with her children, for this special baby sign language play-time. Lauren will teach you and your baby basic signs and songs, and Shabbat related signing songs. This is a free program for children 1 month through three years of age. 28 The Jewish Newsletter • October 2015
stone event, including trips, including airfare and accommodations, to San Francisco and the Napa Valley Wine Country, Paris including the Chateaux and vineyards of the finest Wine Region of France, the Grand Castles and Manor Homes of Ireland, China for a Panda Adventure and an Italian getaway to Milan, Tuscany and Ferrari. A “Homecoming 20! – 2015 Gala” Memory and Advertising Booklet is being produced for this elegant milestone evening. Those interested in purchasing an ad in this special publication can contact Lauren Ungar at (225) 572-0043 or lungar@jcdsnola.org. For tickets, visit www.jcdsnola.org.
From Jewish Family Service of Greater New Orleans Friends of JFS Campaign starting soon!
Staff and Program Updates
Once a year, we ask the community to help support the work that we do for the benefit of thousands in the Greater New Orleans area. Our programs serve all ages and all faiths — from Teen Life Counts, our teen suicide-prevention program; to Homemaker, which offers light housekeeping and transportation services for older adults; to our extensive counseling services for individuals, couples and families; to Lifeline and Passover baskets, among others.
Jennifer Schneider, MSW joins the staff as the new Geriatric Specialist. She received her MSW from the University of Pittsburgh School of Social Work in 2006 and worked most recently as a Case Manager at Family Service of Greater New Orleans. Her position is funded through a generous Block Grant from Jewish Federation of Greater New Orleans and the Jewish Endowment Foundation to create a Geriatric Family Consultation Service.
By now you should have received our annual Friends of JFS appeal, which is our most important campaign of the calendar year. Because all of our services are offered on a sliding fee scale, we depend on Friends of JFS contributions to underwrite our programs for the coming year for individuals who are facing urgent, critical needs or simply seeking to improve their quality of life. Please respond as generously as possible. Please visit our website to donate today! http://www.jfsneworleans.org.
This new program, once launched in January, will help individuals and/or their family members work together to find resources and options for older adults going through transitions later in life.
New Office Consecration JFS will consecrate its new office space on Tuesday, Oct. 20, from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. The community is invited to attend. Sponsorships — including dedications for the mezuzot that will be affixed to each doorway as well as space-naming opportunities — are available. Contact us today because only a limited number are left!
Volunteer Opportunities JFS is looking for volunteers to help with several program areas, including Teen Life Counts (or TLC), which offers suicide prevention workshops at public, private and parochial schools in Orleans, Jefferson and surrounding parishes; Lifeline, a personal emergency response system, needs volunteers to call subscribers to remind them to test their equipment; and Bikur Chaverim, which pairs volunteer Visitors with Friends in order to reach out to those who are homebound or partially homebound. For more information on volunteering with JFS, please call (504) 831-8475.
From Tulane Hillel The Schmancy Gala is back at the Mintz Center and this time Tulane Hillel is bringing a little taste of New York down South. “Southern-Fried Schmancy” will take place on Nov. 19, and will bring together local leaders and members of the New Orleans community. Last year, Schmancy and its supporters raised over $75,000, making the first annual gala a great success. This year will be filled with entertainment, great food and amazing people. Tulane Hillel will be honoring Matt Schwartz with the second annual “Big Pastrami Award.” Matt is a Tulane Alumnus and a co-founder of the Domain Companies. The Domain Companies specializes in real-estate development, investments and management in large-scale community development projects. Matt has given back enormously to the two communities he calls home; New York and New Orleans. Most recently, Matt and the Domain Companies developed the South Market District in the Central Business District of New Orleans. The “Big Pastrami Award” will recognize Matt for his commitment to helping revitalize the city of New Orleans, and for
being an excellent role model to the Tulane Students. Along with Matt, Tulane Hillel will be honoring 5 to 7 other leaders in the local community with the Leading Forward Awards. The Leading Forward Awards acknowledges leaders who have made giving back a priority in their busy lives. Attendees at the event will be lucky enough to enjoy a terrific mix of Southern-style soul food and New York Deli cuisine catered by Chef Harveen Khera of HK Nola. New Orleans’ own COOT will show off their New Orleans flare with their original rock ‘n’ roll tunes, and be prepared for tons of other surprises! For more information, or to purchase tickets, visit www. tulanehillel.org
October 2015 • The Jewish Newsletter 29
From the Jewish Endowment Foundation Make Year-End Giving Easy with Appreciated Stock: Create a Donor Advised Fund It is not too early to starting thinking about year-end giving. Do you own a stock that has appreciated in value? If you are concerned about paying capital gains tax if you sell your stock and if you are interested in helping the Jewish community, a good alternative would be to donate your stock to establish a donor advised fund at the Jewish Endowment Foundation of Louisiana. This is also a good way to take advantage of your current profits.
By gifting appreciated securities: • The donor receives an immediate tax deduction for the full market value of the stock and avoids the capital gains tax they would owe by cashing in the securities • This is one of the most tax-efficient ways to give
Appreciated stock can also be used to establish a designatThe simplicity, flexibility and financial benefits of donor ed fund, with which you can direct annual distributions to a advised funds make them powerful philanthropic tools and charity or charities of your choice, or a charitable gift annuity an excellent way to begin thinking about end-of-year giving. or charitable remainder trust, which can provide guaranteed lifetime income. To set up a donor advised fund, donors contribute funds Please call Sandy Levy (sandy@jefno.org) or Patti Lengsfield — which may also include cash, mutual funds or other assets — (patti@jefno.org) at (504) 524-4559 to discuss your philanto JEF. The donor receives a tax deduction immediately, but thropic giving. the funds can be distributed to charitable organizations over time upon recommendations from the donor. JEF handles all tax and legal issues related to the fund. The benefits of a donor advised fund are numerous: • An immediate tax deduction
Goldring first-time camper grants available from JEF
For those considering sending a child to a Jewish sleepaway • Donors can recommend grants over time to camp for the first time in 2016, resources are available to help organizations that are important to them in that decision. • Family members can be involved The Goldring Jewish Summer Camp Experience Incentive
Jewish Family Service Fall Continuing Education Workshops “Left to Their Own Devices: The Prevalence of Gaming, Sex and Social Media as Behavioral Addictions” Presented by Leslie Todd, LCSW-BACS, ACSW Friday, Oct. 23, 8:45 a.m.-noon Integrating DBT Skills into Clinical Practice Presented by Marvin Clifford, Ph.D., LCSW and Helen Stavros, Ph.D., LCSW Friday, Nov. 20, 8:45 a.m.-noon Location: Congregation Beth Israel, 4004 West Esplanade Avenue (Note new address!) Each workshop has been approved for 3 General Continuing Education hours by the LCA and for 3 Diagnosis hours by the LABSWE. Pre-registration (up to 24 hours before) $60 for 1 event, $110 for 2 events Day-of Registration: $70 per event For more information or to register, email jfs@jfsneworleans.org or call (504) 831-8475
30 The Jewish Newsletter • October 2015
Grant Program, administered by the Jewish Endowment Foundation of Louisiana, offers a one-time grant of up to $1,000 per child for first-time campers.
Grants are not based on financial need. Both parents need not be Jewish. Neither Temple nor synagogue affiliation is required. Experts agree that one of the most effective ways to develop children’s commitment to living Jewish lives is to expose them to a camp experience where they will meet other Jewish boys and girls and savor the precious heritage of Jewish traditions while enjoying wholesome summer fun and sports activities. “We are grateful to the Goldring Family Foundation for their continuing generosity and their commitment to making a Jewish camping experience available to so many children,” states JEF President Richard Cahn. “This program benefits not only the individual campers, but our entire community.” To be eligible, the child must be a first-time camper at a notfor-profit Jewish sleepaway camp; in grades 1 through 9 in the 2015-16 school year; and a resident of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama or the Florida Panhandle. For more information or to request an application, contact Ellen Abrams at JEF at (504) 524-4559 or ellen@jefno.org.
October 2015 • The Jewish Newsletter 31
32 The Jewish Newsletter • October 2015
culture art • books • apps • music • television • film • theatre
Courtesy Fisk University, John Hope and Aurelia E. Franklin Library, Special Collections
Julius Rosenwald with students from a Rosenwald School. “Rosenwald” opens in Birmingham and New Orleans this month. Story, page 35
Bruno Bettleheim, 1985
HISTORY OF FILM / EXHIBIT
FILMING THE CAMPS: John Ford, Samuel Fuller, George Stevents: From Hollywood to Nuremberg It was 70 years ago when the world got its first look of film shot by the Allies in the Nazi concentration and extermination camps. Filmmakers John Ford (director of “The Grapes of Wrath”), George Stevens (famous for his Fred Astaire-Ginger Rogers movies and later “The Diary of Anne Frank”), Samuel Filler (the son of two Jewish immigrants; he went on to direct more than 25 films including “The Big Red One”) captured now-familiar footage of the war. But most know little about their confrontation with Nazi atrocities and how it affected them for the rest of their lives. Their film documentation of World War II and concentration camp liberation was utilized as evidence during the Nuremberg trials — the first time movies were used in such a fashion. They served as inspiration for Hollywood cinema as well. Artifacts include rare film footage, interviews, manuscripts, photographs, director’s notes, and additional video of WWII. The Atlanta History Center is one of only two U.S. venues hosting “Filming the Camps,” designed, created and distributed by the Mémorial de la Shoah in Paris. It will be on display through Nov. 20.
Robert Coles, 1981
Shirley Ann Grau, 1983
EXHIBIT
GEORGE RODRIGUE: Portraits of the UL Flora Levy Lecturers Beginning in 1980, George Rodrigue painted the portrait of each year’s guest lecturer at what we now call the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. The speaker series was conceived by Professor Maurice DuQuesnay and funded by the friend he made at the Lafayette synagogue, Flora Levy, an heiress and philanthropist who eventually left her fortune to the university. Rodrigue lived in Lafayette at the time, and he supported the university where he attended his first intensive art classes. That time included his studies with Professor Calvin Harlan in 1963, where Rodrigue created a design book over many months — a project that ultimately landed him at a prestigious graduate school, the Art Center College of Design in Los Angeles. In most cases the speakers posed for photographs which Rodrigue then used as a guide in painting their portrait. DuQuesnay provided a list of key elements from important works by each guest lecturer to incorporate into the portrait. These portraits became a way for Rodrigue to give back to his alma mater. The exhibition includes portraits of Flora Levy, Robert Coles, Bruno Bettelheim, Peter Gay, Walker Percy, Father Avery Dulles, Sophie Freud and others. This exhibition is a partnership between the Paul and Lulu Hilliard University Art Museum and the George Rodrigue Foundation of the Arts. The exhibit is on view at the University Art Museum in Lafayette through Jan. 2.
October 2015 • Southern Jewish Life 33
culture BOOKS
NINE ESSENTIAL THINGS I’VE LEARNED ABOUT LIFE by Harold S. Kushner
It’s been 34 years since the modern classic “When Bad Things Happen to Good People” was published, and with this new book, Kushner distills advice from a lifetime of study and leadership (as a congregational rabbi for decades, he’s surely seen it all). In fact, as a memoir, Kushner speaks about his own struggles with faith — how his son died of a rare, incurable disease — and how he finds God, and God’s goodness. When invited to speak after the levees failed, at a church in the Lower Ninth, Kushner read from the first book of Kings, chapter 19, about the “still, small voice.” God was not in the wind, the earthquake or the fire. The “still, small voice” told Elijah to go back to the land of Israel to help make things better. That’s in Kushner’s chapter three: “God Does Not Send the Problem, God Sends Us the Strength to Deal with the Problem.” Beautifully written with practical stories peppered with quotes from Rumi to Rashi and biblical and theological insights, Kushner ends the book with a love letter to the world.
THE HOUSE OF TWENTY THOUSAND BOOKS by Sasha Abramsky
Welcome… to relaxation
This is a biography of the author’s complex grandfather, Chimen Abramsky, who truly not only lived in interesting times, but lived them. Communist then critic, professor, friend of intellectuals, bookseller, publisher, manuscripts expert, a man who made carbon copies of the tens of thousands of letters he penned. Besides all that, he was prolific collector of an ensemble of thousands of books gathered not only for historical value but philosophical utility. Besides the multi-faceted Jewish and political aspects of his life, the author gives us a view of the physical makings of what informed his views, including a hallway groaning with Socialist encyclopedias, Communist Party proceedings, two-deep rows of shelves with the histories of failed European revolutions of 1848. Elsewhere in the house, Maimonides and Plato. Hebrew and Yiddish freely intermingled. A rich sentimentality bound in realism. As the author writes, “Chimen was like a character out of an Isaac Bashevis Singer story, or an antiquarian out of a Dickens novel, or an eccentric 18th-century salon host, or more accurately, a chimera of them all. It was imposssible to pigeonhole him: Too many stories flowed through his person simultaneously.”
LESSONS IN LEADERSHIP: A Weekly Reading of the Jewish Bible by Rabbi Jonathan Sacks
Rabbi Sacks finds that “the Bible itself is a product of a people who, more than three thousand years ago, struggled to generate better forms of social organization” — and those same struggles continue today. Today, people seem to mistake leadership for those with sure-fire answers, rather than seek out a source who will challenge. Sacks insists that leadership isn’t necessarily born but taught, and must be learned so that each of us will take responsibility for shared issues. In this book, each parsha is reviewed for its own insights: lessons available three thousand years ago and relevant still.
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KETZEL, THE CAT WHO COMPOSED by Leslea Newman, illustrated by Amy June Bates
Moshe Cotel was a composer who lived in a noisy building on a noisy street in a noisy city. The nice thing was that even with all the cling-clang outside, everything he heard was music to his ears! On a walk one day, he was listening and heard a new sound, the sound of a kitten — in Yiddish, ketzel — and took her home. Guess what? Music was inside Ketzel too. A sweet book inspired by a true story.
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Courtesy Special Collections Research Center, University of Chicago Library
Julius Rosenwald and Booker T. Washington, Tuskegee Institute, 1915
“Rosenwald” film details century-old partnership for rural black education Jewish philanthropist enabled construction of 5300 schools
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Twelve years ago, filmmaker Aviva Kempner went to a conference on black-Jewish relations at the Hebrew Center on Martha’s Vineyard expecting to hear about Jewish involvement in the South in the 1960s civil rights movement. Instead, she said, civil rights leader Julian Bond “started talking about Rosenwald, the schools he built and the fund, and I thought this was a film I have to make.” Her documentary, “Rosenwald,” is the story of Julius Rosenwald, who never finished high school but rose to become the president of Sears. Influenced by the writings of educator Booker T. Washington, this Jewish philanthropist joined forces with African-American communities in the Jim Crow South to build over 5,300 black schools during the early part of the 20th century. Rosenwald put up seed money to build these schools using standardized designs, as long as the local community took an active role, whether through fundraising or participating in the building process. With desegregation in the 1960s, most of the buildings fell into disuse. The film will be screened in New Orleans this month, at the Zeitgeist Theater from Oct. 9 to 15 at 7:15 p.m. each night. The Jewish Federation of Greater New Orleans will have a program at the Oct. 10 screening, featuring Rosenwald’s great-grandson, Bill Hess. “Rosenwald” also opens in Birmingham at The Edge 12 at Crestwood Festival Center on Oct. 23 for a one-week run. On Oct. 30, the film opens at the Malco Ridgeway 4 in Memphis and the Green Hills 16 in Nashville, with other Southern cities scheduled for November. The film is the third in Kempner’s trilogy of documentaries about lesser-known Jewish heroes. The previous two were “The Life and Times of Hank Greenberg” and “Yoo-Hoo, Mrs. Goldberg,” about Gertrude Berg. Growing up in Detroit, she knew about Greenberg’s experiences as a baseball player fighting anti-Semitism, and about television pioneer Berg, but she hadn’t heard of Rosenwald. The subjects of her three films are “Jewish heroes fighting the isms,” including anti-Semitism, sexism, racism and McCarthyism. Kempner’s attraction to the stories of Jewish heroes comes from her
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8:51 PM October 2015 • Southern Jewish 6/11/15 Life 35
culture family background. Her mother survived the Holocaust by passing as a Catholic at a labor camp, while her mother’s parents were murdered at Auschwitz. Her father was a U.S. soldier and her parents met in Berlin. She is regarded as the first American-Jewish child born in Berlin after the war. As a teen she “fantasized” about fighting the Nazis, and became a filmmaker to tell about those who did. Her film, “Partisans of Vilna” was released in 1986. She said Greenberg and Rosenwald “displayed great courage in performing as positive Jews in spite of the negative atmosphere swirling around them. Most of all, they were heroes to all Americans.” Rosenwald was a pioneer of the matching challenge grant, and the idea to “give while you live.” Among Jewish audiences, a common reaction to the film is wondering why this story is not widely known. Among African-American audiences, many had relatives who had been in those schools but often did not know about who Rosenwald was. The first part of the film talks about Rosenwald’s family and their Jewish immigrant experience. Rosenwald was born in Springfield, Ill., in 1862, eight years after his parents immigrated from Germany, and he was heavily influenced by the legacy of Abraham Lincoln, whose home was across the street. While there is no footage of Rosenwald from the early days, Kempner borrowed heavily from movies and television shows that depicted typical life from that period, licensing clips in everything from “Young Mr. Lincoln” to “The Frisco Kid” to illustrate the story. The film also includes dozens of interviews. In 1884, Rosenwald and his brother started a clothing business in Chicago and in 1895 bought half of Sears, Roebuck & Co. Through the innovation of a catalog, the company grew exponentially and in 1906 it became one of the first companies to be traded publicly. Soon thereafter, Rosenwald gave $25,000 toward building a YMCA that would serve blacks in Chicago. Soon he was giving $25,000 to any community that did the same, contingent on $75,000 being raised locally. About 30 such YMCAs were built based on those challenge grants. Rosenwald was heavily influenced toward philanthropy by his rabbi, Emile Hirsch. At the invitation of Washington, they traveled to Tuskegee Institute in 1911 before Rosenwald accepted an appointment to its board. For his 50th birthday, Rosenwald gave numerous gifts to favorite causes, including $25,000 to Tuskegee Institute. In September 1912, Washington had $2800 remaining from Rosenwald’s gift, so he asked Rosenwald’s permission to use that money as a pilot project in school building for rural blacks. A grant of $300 each went to help build six schools in central Alabama —
Tankersley Rosenwald School in Alabama 36 Southern Jewish Life • October 2015
SJL file
culture Notasulga and Brownsville in Macon County, Loachapoka and Chewacla in Lee County, and Big Zion and Madison Park in Montgomery County. Every Rosenwald school was built with matching funds from the local community, and black communities rallied to raise the funds needed to become part of the project. In many cases, the white community also chipped in. In 1914, Rosenwald gave an additional $30,000 for another 100 rural Alabama schools, followed by funds for 200 more schools in 1916, opening the project to other states. Rosenwald organized the Julius Rosenwald Fund in 1917 to administer the program. He was of the opinion that a foundation should have set goals and a timetable for disbursing all of its assets and go out of business, since one never knows what the long-term future needs in society would be. The second part of the film details Rosenwald’s relationship with Washington and construction of the schools, while the third part is about the Rosenwald Fund Fellowship program. Rosenwald awarded fellowship grants to a who’s who of AfricanAmerican intellectuals and artists, including Marian Anderson, James Baldwin, the father and uncle of civil rights leader Julian Bond, Ralph Bunche, W. E. B. DuBois, Katherine Dunham, Ralph Ellison, Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, Gordon Parks, Jacob Lawrence and Augusta Savage along with Woody Guthrie. By telling this story, Kempner hopes more foundations will be inspired “to bank on more artists, writers and intellectuals in today’s world.” The list of prominent alumni and educators who attended the Rosenwald Schools include the ancestors of U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch, Tony Award winning playwright George Wolfe, poet Maya Angelou, U.S. Representative John Lewis, Anita Hill and Pulitzer Prize winner Eugene Robinson. Rosenwald died in 1932, and the final school was built in 1933. The fund continued until 1948, keeping with Rosenwald’s desire that the fund should deplete its assets and close within 25 years after his death. There were 405 Rosenwald Schools in Alabama, 639 in Mississippi, 442 in Louisiana and 127 in Florida. It is estimated that today no more than 15 percent of them are still standing, many in dilapidated condition. A handful have been restored and are being used for other purposes, such as community centers. Kempner said the current effort to identify the old buildings and put them to new uses is “the real powerful story.” Rosenwald Schools were named to the National Trust for Historic Preservation’s list of America’s 11 Most Endangered Historic Places in 2002. On June 2, the film was screened in Baton Rouge two months before its official premiere in New York, courtesy of the River Road African History Museum in Donaldsonville. The first Rosenwald school in Louisiana was constructed in 1916. By 1932, and one in four rural black schools in the state was a Rosenwald. Museum Director Kathe Hambrick-Jackson learned years ago that the Central Agricultural Schoolhouse, also called the Romeville School, was slated to be torn down by the St. James Parish school board. Because it was “the cornerstone for educating African American children in St. James Parish” from the 1930s to the 1960s, she got the board to donate it to the museum in 1996. Only after moving the building to Donaldsonville did she realize that it was a Rosenwald School, one of the few remaining in Louisiana. In 2013, the museum was able to start renovations on it and held a dedication with the great-granddaughter of Booker T. Washington as guest speaker. Currently, only two other remaining Rosenwalds have been identified in Louisiana, including one in Plaisance, in St. Landry Parish. In the middle of the school building program, Rosenwald’s daughter, Edith, married Edgar Stern of New Orleans in 1921. The Sterns became
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culture major philanthropists in the New Orleans area, and their home was the landmark Longue Vue House and Gardens (see below). In Alabama, several Rosenwald schools have been renovated. The Shiloh-Rosenwald School in Macon County has been restored, and the New Hope Rosenwald School in Fredonia is still standing. In 2011, a marker was unveiled at the site of the first Rosenwald school, in Loachapoka. That school no longer stands and was on the site of Mt. Zion Missionary Baptist Church. Oak Grove School near Gallion has been restored, and nearby Emory School, also known as Tunstall School, still stands between Gallion and Greensboro. The school in Pickensville is now the Rosenwald Community Center, and the University of West Alabama partnered with it in 2013 to help with restoration efforts that had been set back by the 2011 tornado outbreak. No more than 15 Rosenwald structures are known to still exist in Mississippi. The Bynum School in Panola County is the only surviving one-classroom Rosenwald school in the state. Other buildings include Brusky Creek School in Copiah County, Sherman Line School in Amite County and the Prentiss Institute in Jefferson Davis County. The Bay Springs school is the only two-classroom plan school remaining in the state. There is also the deteriorated Rose Hill School in Sharkey County, and the Walthall County Training School near Tylertown. In Drew, the Drew Colored School burned in 1928 and was replaced by a brick structure called “Little Red,” with a Rosenwald grant assisting in the reconstruction. Renovations began in 2001 to turn it into a community center. In Pass Christian, the Randolph School was heavily damaged in 2005 by Hurricane Katrina. In the midst of the devastation that littered the town, it was decided that the building would be a priority for renovation and rebuilding in the post-Katrina recovery, and reopened as a community center in 2013. When she embarked on the film, Kempner said “I didn’t know it would take 12 years,” but she feels “honored” to have told the story. A DVD will be released soon, including two to three hours of additional footage and a study guide package for educational use. She said not everyone can give away $62 million as Rosenwald did, “but there is a Julius Rosenwald in all of us.”
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38 Southern Jewish Life • October 2015
A new book about New Orleans landmark Longue Vue will be released with a launch party at the famous estate. Published by Rizzoli, “Longue Vue House and Gardens: The Architecture, Interiors and Gardens of New Orleans’ Most Celebrated Estate” features texts by Carol McMichael Reese, Thaisa Way, Walter C. Stern and Charles Davey, and original photography by Tina Freeman. The book describes the estate and founders Edith and Edgar Stern, who were major Jewish philanthropists. Edith Stern was the daughter of Sears Roebuck & Co. President Julius Rosenwald. In 1977, the New Orleans States-Item named them the city’s leading philanthropists of the past 100 years. The book is available for preorder on the Longue Vue website, or at the book launch on Nov 4. Starting at 4 p.m. there will be a program with Freeman and Reese, followed by a book signing from 5 to 7 p.m. Refreshments will be served. The party is free and open to the community.
culture Southern Jewish play “Driving Miss Daisy” returns to Shakespeare Festival
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“Driving Miss Daisy,” winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Literature and written by Atlanta-native Jewish playwright Alfred Uhry, rolls into the Alabama Shakespeare Festival in Montgomery, Oct. 8 through Nov. 1. It will be the second time the show has been featured at the ASF, with the first time being 15 years ago. Uhry wrote “Driving Miss Daisy” in 1987 as part of his Atlanta trilogy of plays, and wrote the screenplay for the 1989 movie of the same name starring Morgan Freeman. “We are excited to bring such an entertaining and important show such as ‘Driving Miss Daisy’ back to the ASF stage,” said ASF Development Director Eve Loeb. “We feel like we will have some new audience members who did not experience the show the last time it was here or maybe have never seen the movie. It is a very relevant, personal look at history and cultural change in the Deep South.” Loeb said the show “resonates with me since I am Jewish and grew up in the South during some of the time period it focuses on. But what makes ‘Driving Miss Daisy’ so great is that at its root is a story about family, friends, relationships and growing old. These are things we all can relate to.” ASF Marketing/PR Director Katie Perkowski said the upcoming production features a “stellar” three-person cast. “They are veterans of our ASF stage and have all actually worked together before on other productions,” she said. Uhry grew up in Atlanta’s German-Jewish community and graduated from Druid Hills High School. Today, the school’s theatre is named the Uhry Theatre. He was educated at Brown University and moved to New York City after graduation to work as a lyricist with Frank Loesser. For most of his career he has been a writer of musicals including the book and lyrics for the adaptation of “The Robber Bridegroom,” “Here’s Where I Belong,” “Swing,” “America’s Sweetheart” and “Parade,” a musical based on the Leo Frank case. He has also written film screenplays for “Mystic Pizza” and “Rich in Love.” “Driving Miss Daisy” was Uhry’s first non-musical play and it grew out of his depression following a failed musical. He almost left show business altogether. Instead he wrote a “straight play” and found success. In thinking about his subject, Uhry commented, “everyone thinks Jews are all the same, but we didn’t think so in the South. People were uncomfortable with being Jewish there” when he grew up. The play takes place in Atlanta and on highways to Mobile between 1948 and 1973. The actual characters in “Driving Miss Daisy” were made up of “little bits and pieces of my childhood,” added Uhry. He said his grandmother, Lena Guthman Fox, and her four older sisters contributed to the character of Miss Daisy. Hoke is based on his grandmother’s chauffeur, Will Coleman, who was with her for 25 years from age 72, and other African-American chauffeurs he knew growing up. “And Boolie is so many pieces of so many men I know,” including himself, he supposes, “that it would be hard for me to say what exactly comes from what.” Uhry is one of very few writers to receive an Academy Award, a Tony Award and the Pulitzer Prize for Dramatic Writing. His most recent screenplay was for the film “From Swastika to Jim Crow,” a dramatization of a documentary about Jewish professors who fled Nazi Germany; found posts at historically black universities in the Southern United States after being frozen out of positions up North, and identified with their African-American students and their struggle under Jim Crow laws.
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October 2015 • Southern Jewish Life 39
culture Nashville Jewish Film Festival spreads out offerings over three weeks “Deli Man,” “Mom and Dad” and “Joachim Prinz” among highlights While many college football teams are looking to the spread offense to achieve victory, the Nashville Jewish Film Festival is looking to score by spreading its offerings out. Now in its 15th year, the festival previously showed 15 films in an 11day period. Managing Director Fran Brumlik said survey results showed that such an intense schedule was too much and “movie fatigue” was setting in. Now, the 15 films will be spread out over 26 days, from Oct. 13 to Nov. 7. There will be several special guests during the festival. Ziggy Gruber of Kenny & Ziggy’s Deli in Houston will be at a screening of “Deli Man,” which prominently features him, on Nov. 7 at the Gordon Jewish Community Center. The film starts at 8 p.m. and is preceded by a deli dinner at 6:30 p.m. Dinner reservations are $35 and required by Nov. 3. On Oct. 27 at 7 p.m., Assi Azar, host of Israel’s version of “Big Brother,” will lead a question and answer session after the screening of “Mom and Dad: I Have Something to Tell You.” Azar narrates the film, which explores the journey parents take when they learn their children are gay. In Hebrew with English subtitles, the film includes a first heart-to-heart conversation between Azar and his parents, who he told that he was gay when he was 24. The Assi Azar
40 Southern Jewish Life • October 2015
screening at Belcourt Theatre, where most of the films will be viewed, is co-sponsored by Vanderbilt Hillel. The festival’s opening night features a cocktail supper on Oct. 13 at 6 p.m. at Nashville Children’s Theatre, followed by a screening of “Dough,” the story of a widowed Jewish baker in London whose bakery is past its prime and of no interest to his sons. He hires a Muslim teen from Darfur, who sells marijuana on the side. One day some of it accidentally finds its way into the challah dough, leading to a new appreciation for the bakery. On Oct. 14, “Joachim Prinz: I Shall Not Be Silent” will include talks by Adam Meyer, Vanderbilt Jewish Studies professor, and Joachim Prinz
culture Frank Dobson, director of the Black Cultural Center at Vanderbilt. Rabbi Prinz was expelled from Germany in 1937, and upon arriving in the United States was horrified to see racism against African-Americans. He spoke at the March on Washington just before Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have A Dream” speech in 1963. The Oct. 19 screening of “Look At Us Now, Mother” is the Monday Matinee Box Lunch from Jason’s Deli at 11:30 a.m., followed by the film at 12:15 p.m. “Very Semi-Serious” on Oct. 20 chronicles The New Yorker cartoonist Bob Mankoff, and editorial cartoonist Daryl Cagle will be a guest at the screening. On Oct. 22, “The Outrageous Sophie Tucker” will be screened at the GJCC at noon, and “Felix et Meira” will be at Belcourt at 7 p.m. A double feature on Oct. 24 starts at 7 p.m. with a French film noir thriller, “The Art Dealer,” who seeks paintings stolen from her family during World War II. “Hill Start” at 9:15 p.m. is a mature dark comedy from Israel. A biographical film about Mark Chagall, “Chagall-Malevich,” will be at the Franklin Theatre on Oct. 25 at 7 p.m. Nominated for three Israeli Academy Awards, “Apples from the Desert” will be on Oct. 29 at 7 p.m. The Temple will host a screening of “Once in a Lifetime” on Nov. 1 at 9 a.m. In it, a teacher of rebellious inner city students is met with resistance over an assignment about child survivors of concentration camps, until they meet a Holocaust survivor. The real-life thriller “24 Days” will be on Nov. 2, based on the abduction of a Jewish clerk in a Paris store in 2006. “My Italian Story,” about a secret Italian resistance movement that saved Jews during the Holocaust, will be on Nov. 5. Tickets are $10, $7 for students and $8 for seniors. A festival pass is $100. More information is available at nashvillejff.net. The festival began in 2001 as a location of Jewish Cinema South, a project of the Institute of Southern Jewish Life to coordinate Jewish film festivals in the region. Nashville was one of the first venues to spin it off into its own festival. Each year, there is also a student film competition, drawing entries from around the world.
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community Art and Soul gala in Baton Rouge on Oct. 22 B’nai Israel in Baton Rouge is having an Art and Soul gala on Oct. 22 to musicians who perform during services. benefit the congregation’s musical programming. Proceeds will help pay “Music is important to everyone because it provides direct access to the for new instruments, updated sound equipment and hiring and training soul and spirit,” said Rabbi Jordan Goldson. “For B’nai Israel, music provides a way for us to transition from our hectic, busy lives to a peaceful frame of mind for worship.” Over 60 silent auction items are available, with online bidding already underway. Items include merchandise and gift certificates from some of the area’s most popular restaurants and retailers, along with artwork, luxury and box-seat tickets for select Saints, LSU football and LSU baseball games, a Les Miles-signed LSU football helmet and other sports memorabilia, and a luxury chartered fishing trip off the Louisiana coast. In addition, several vacations are available to destinations like Crested Butte, Col., and Woodstock, N.Y. The event begins at 6:30 p.m. with heavy hors d’oeuvres and the silent auction, and a performance by the Bill Grimes Quartet with vocalist Stephanie Jordan will begin at 7:30 p.m. Grimes is the E. and D. White Professor of Jazz Studies at LSU, and has done more than 100 scores. Besides regularly taking the podium as a conductor with the Huntsville Symphony, Grimes has led the Minnesota Orchestra, Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra and Baton Rouge Symphony. Jordan specializes in jazz standards from the Big Band era. Her performance was a highlight at the post-Katrina benefit concert at Lincoln Center, and she routinely performs to sold-out crowds worldwide. On Sept. 20, the Hillel at Mississippi State University held a golf Cost for the event is $50 per person, and tickets are available through tournament as a fundraiser the B’nai Israel website.
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42 Southern Jewish Life • October 2015
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Figuring Out Breast Cancer Risk Factors This October, Touro Infirmary is holding its 6th annual 31 Days of Pink breast cancer awareness campaign, educating about risk factors, prevention and support for breast cancer patients and survivors. According to the American Cancer Society, most doctors feel that early detection tests for breast cancer save thousands of lives each year. A mammogram is one of the best ways to detect breast cancer in women and it is especially important if there are risk factors present. Any woman may develop breast cancer. However, the following risk factors may increase the likelihood of developing the disease.
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Risk factors that cannot be changed: Gender. Breast cancer occurs nearly 100 times more often in women than in men. Race or ethnicity. It has been noted that white women develop breast cancer slightly more often than African-American women. However, African-American women tend to die of breast cancer more often. This may be partly due to the fact that African-American women often develop a more aggressive type of tumor, although why this happens is not known. The risk for developing breast cancer and dying from it is lower in Hispanic, Native American and Asian women. Aging. Two out of 3 women with invasive cancer are diagnosed after age 55. Personal history of breast cancer Family history and genetic factors. Having a close relative, such as a mother or sister, with breast cancer increases the risk. This includes changes in certain genes, such as BRCA1, BRCA2, and others. Dense breast tissue. Breast tissue may look dense or fatty on a mammogram. Older women with high dense breast tissue are at increased risk. Early menstrual periods. Women whose periods began early in life (before age 12) have a slightly higher risk of breast cancer. Late menopause. Women are at a slightly higher risk if they began menopause later in life (after age 55). The most frequently cited lifestyle-related risk factors: Not having children, or having your first child after age 30 Recent use (within 10 years) of oral contraceptives Physical inactivity Alcohol use (more than 1 drink per day) Long-term, postmenopausal use of combined estrogen and progestin (HRT) Weight gain and obesity, especially after menopause Don’t wait to get your mammogram. Call the Touro Imaging Center at (504) 897-8600 to make an appointment for a mammogram. Visit www.31daysofpink.com for more information.
October 2015 • Southern Jewish Life 43
health and wellness
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The miraculous healing power of the Dead Sea in Israel has come to Birmingham at Alabama’s first float spa — Elements Float Spa. Located on Cahaba River Road in Vestavia, Elements opened this past July and already has helped provide mental, physical and emotional pain relief to its clients. Kristine and Kele Sparrowhawk own Elements, which currently features two float pods and an advanced infrared sauna. Kristine Sparrowhawk said the water and magnesium salt-contained float pods allow for the mind and body to completely relax so that healing can begin in this zero gravity environment. “The saliency of the float pods is just slightly greater than that of the Dead Sea,” she said. “As soon as you get in you feel all pressure has been lifted with your body being in zero gravity.” The buoyancy makes floating on water feel like floating on air. It gives immense pain relief, euphoric relaxation and allows for better, deeper sleep. “When you are in the pod your brain waves go into a Zeta state with a goal of meditative state usually achieved,” said Kristine Sparrowhawk. “One hour of floating is equivalent to six to eight hours of REM sleep. It releases lactic acids that build up in our muscles and our pleasure sensors. That is why people feel so good and refreshed after their hour session.” The Sparrowhawks first found out about the float spa technology when Kristine’s doctor recommended it to her in 2013 as she was trying to recover from a broken neck. Kele said he also needed some help with physical pain from emotional stress and depression. They went to one in Atlanta and felt significant results after the first time. “Nothing seemed to be working for me. I wanted something natural, good for my body and effective. I became a believer right away. We did some research and saw all the positive results other people were getting. We wanted to do something that would help others as well as us,” she said. A recent pain study showed that 70 percent of participants get full pain relief during a float session. “That feeling can last for a day or several days or longer after each session,” said Kristine. “My body now tells me when it is time for another session.” She said the magnesium salt in the water, versus sodium, is something everyone’s body needs but most people don’t get enough magnesium salt. Approximately 90 percent of Americans are magnesium salt-deficient. Kele Sparrowhawk said the float spa is also very good for the skin and hair. “It puts moisture in the body instead of taking it out. You will have smoother skin and not get pruned fingers as is usual when spending an hour in water,” he said. The Sparrowhawks said the float spa has been especially effective alleviating pain for PTSD sufferers, and the Veterans Administration supports floating as a method of treatment. It also is very effective with rheumatoid arthritis sufferers and pregnant women. “Women in the third trimester of pregnancy get especially amazing results from floating. They are usually in great need of pain relief with all of the pressure on their bodies,” said Kristine. “I tell pregnant mothers this is
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health and wellness Named “Best Fertility Practice in Florida” and Top 5% Nationwide by FindTheBest.com 100 percent safe for them and the baby. They will probably get more relief than just about anyone else in the float pod.” The infrared sauna produces not the steam and regular external heat of an average sauna but has three infrared wavelengths, according to Kele Sparrowhawk. “It raises your body temperature as would happen if you are doing light exercise,” he said. “You can program the infrared sauna settings to improve one’s cardiovascular health, alleviate pain and for weight loss. It’s also great in helping to treat Lyme Disease. This is especially ideal for men 35 years old and older. It reduces the risk of heart attack.” In addition to float spa and infrared sauna treatments, the Sparrowhawks recommend on a regular basis that people make sure they hydrate enough; cut back on caffeine intake and take time during the day to stretch the body if seated for long periods of time at work. Kele Sparrowhawk said they love what they do and every day brings more gratification. “Everyone who comes to Elements leaves feeling better than when they came in. They feel good inside and out. That makes us feel good in that we are helping others to feel good,” he said.
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by Lee J. Green Fall and winter is football season, which is something people want to catch. It’s also flu season, which is something people don’t want to catch. MedCenter, a unique family physician and emergency care clinic with locations in Birmingham/Hoover, Tuscaloosa, Northport and Demopolis, provides proactive help to avoid getting sick and to provide treatment for those who do get sick. MedCenter’s Dr. Chris McGee said now is the ideal time to get a flu shot. Flu season peaks in December and January. A flu shot can normally cover someone for up to six months. “Last year’s flu shots weren’t as effective at preventing one of the strands of flu but we anticipate this year for the shots to be more effective at preventing all the strains,” said McGee. He said most flus tend to come in from other countries, most especially Asia. Those in the Deep South may get the flu strains before other regions due to the proximity of port cities New Orleans and Mobile. “Flu shots are even more important for the elderly and children, who might be more susceptible to secondary conditions such as pneumonia,” he said. “Flu spreads very quickly in the schools. It is a very contagious virus. Kids could get it from other kids at school then give it to the rest of the family” unless everyone gets flu shots and they prove to be effective in prevention. For those who get the flu, McGee advised to come in for treatment and medication. Symptoms could include coughing, nausea, pain and aches, vomiting, congestion and some GI tract effects. Also in the fall, allergens are strong outdoors in the South, more so than other regions. For any patient to be proactive, McGee advises to take vitamins, stay hydrated and focus on positive diet as well as exercise — and not smoke. “Living a healthy lifestyle is ideal for everyone. We can help with education for those who need some advice,” he said. Enhanced technology has aided in the diagnosis and treatment of the flu virus as well as other viruses and conditions, added McGee. “It has allowed us to identify more strains and provide better proactive medicine (such as shots) as well as more effective treatments,” he said. Technology has also aided the process of information sharing between physicians as well as having a well-informed patient. “Patients can access their own medical records and all of our important notes,” he said. “Now patients can play a more integral role in their own care.” MedCenter was formed in Tuscaloosa in 2002 and is one of the region’s more unique health care establishments since it combines both emergency care and family medicine in the same clinic.
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October 2015 • Southern Jewish Life 45
health and wellness New Tulane dermatology clinic spreads important education about skin cancer by Lee J. Green
Melanoma is the deadliest of all skin cancers and has the highest chance of metastasizing, or spreading to other parts of the body. Melanoma can spread to the lymph nodes and internal organs. “It can occur anywhere on the body, including in the eyes, hands and feet, or nails,” she said. Patients who have had liver transplants and are on immuno-suppressants are also at much higher risk to develop melanoma and other skin cancers, especially as one is further out from the transplant, added Murina. She said the best way to avoid skin cancer is through prevention by wearing sunscreen or sun-protective clothing regularly; avoiding prime sun from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. as much as possible and not going to tanning beds. Murina said Tulane now has a Comprehensive Melanoma Treatment Team on the Northshore and Southshore that continues to advance new technologies for earlier diagnosis as well as treatment and risk factors.
The Tulane Dermatology and Multispecialty clinic, which moved last month to Covington to better serve Northshore patients, wants to educate people on the importance of skin cancer prevention, early diagnosis and the advancements made in treatment. “Skin cancer is an extremely common cancer, but it is often overlooked with cancer statistics. The American Cancer Society does not track non-melanoma skin cancer,” said the new clinic’s Dr. Andrea Murina. “Skin cancer is very common and occurs in one out of five Americans. We tell patients everyone can be at risk, regardSKIN CANCER IS less of their family history or skin color.” Dr. Murina said the most common form of VERY COMMON skin cancer is basal cell carcinoma, especially in AND HAPPENS light-skinned people. Most of those cancers appear as spots on the head, neck and upper body. IN ONE OUT “For basal cell carcinoma the prognosis is exOF FIVE cellent if caught early enough,” she said. “If you AMERICANS have itchy, bleeding and/or crusty spots on your face, it’s best to have it checked out. The earlier they are diagnosed and treated the better.” Once the cancer gets to a certain size, it could lead to a more invasive surgery, which could lead to facial disfigurement as well as longer recovery times. “Some skin cancers can be difficult to diagnose with the naked eye but sometimes the symptoms are what alerts you there is something going on,” added Murina.
Preventing Winter Dry Skin
As temperatures drop and humidity lowers in the fall and winter, everyone’s skin becomes drier. To help prevent dry skin, Murina advises not to use extremely hot water when showering and to put on moisturizer within five minutes of getting out of the shower or tub. “Seniors usually have the highest occurrence of dry skin since our skin loses some of the fats and oils that keep it hydrated as we age,” she said. “Seniors need to become even more vigilant about a proactive skin care regimen to keep skin as moist and healthy as possible.”
No matter what the sport
KNOW what to do in case of
suspected concussion A concussion is a brain injury caused by a blow to the head or body. Even a minor fall or collision may be of concern, so be alert to symptoms such as: l l l Headaches Unsteadiness Confusion l Other types of abnormal behavior Any athlete with a suspected concussion: Should be IMMEDIATELY REMOVED FROM PLAY/ACTIVITY l Should be urgently assessed medically l Should not be left alone l Should not drive a motor vehicle l
www.ChildrensAL.org/concussion
46 Southern Jewish Life • October 2015
health and wellness Caring for our Community
There is a choice for advanced diagnostic imaging services
Just Like Family CJFS CARES Program
by Lee J. Green ImageSouth and Open Upright MRI, Birmingham’s largest outpatient imaging network, offers MRI, CT, Ultrasound, X-ray and PET along with the state of Alabama’s only open upright MRI. ImageSouth has five locations in the Birmingham area, including Alabaster, Greystone, Montclair Road, Highway 280 and the Open Upright MRI in Homewood. Open Upright MRI Operations Manager Kim Doss said that open upright MRI is ideal due to its weight-bearing attributes providing a more accurate result for certain patients. It is also for those who have issues with claustrophobia. Kayla Harding, Marketing Representative for ImageSouth PET on Montclair Road, said that she is excited about the research with new PET techniques that will aide physicians along with researchers to provide more accurate diagnosis of early onset Alzheimer’s Disease, resulting in earlier detection. ImageSouth and Open Upright MRI worked diligently to prepare for the medical code transition that took effect Oct. 1. This is a major revision of the International Classification of Diseases. ICD 9 is more than 30 years old and considered outdated, and the U.S. is one of the last industrialized nations not previously using ICD 10. “It is a huge overhaul of the health care delivery system as we know it. It will impact every specialty, hospital and non-hospital provider alike,” said Doss. “The purpose is to get and give better quantifiable data.” ImageSouth and Open Upright MRI worked with Coding Strategies to prepare for implementation. “The change will be seamless to our patients. We will work with your physician’s offices to ensure we gather all the data needed for the diagnostic exams they order,” she added. Doss and Harding advised “You do have a choice. You can come to us and we will be happy to explain the procedures recommended by your physician,” in addition “We recommend patients review their health insurance plan thoroughly to know what they are covered for. Most imaging services are covered and because we are outpatient our charges are generally lower than that of the hospital.”
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Radiology goes mobile
For those who need imaging but can’t travel to imaging centers or a hospital, VuePoint Diagnostic brings its mobile radiology services to patients. “All of our equipment is digital so we can instantly send exams to our board-certified radiologists,” said managing partner Mark Eman
October 2015 • Southern Jewish Life 47
health and wellness uelsen, who started the Birmingham-based company in 2011. VuePoint can serve all of Alabama. Emanuelsen had been working for his family’s Alabama-based clinical laboratory business and kept getting asked if the company provided mobile radiology services. Realizing there was a void in the market, he decided to start VuePoint and the company received state and Federal approval to provide the service to those in need, and sometimes, out of convenience. “We work with nursing homes, assisted-living facilities, hospice, home health-care providers and qualified home-bound patients primarily,” said Emanuelsen. “We also work with concierge physicians in the state to provide services to their patients if desired. These exams are typically not covered by insurance, but many times the cost and time savings are worth it to them.” He said VuePoint prides itself on a fast response time as well as a “patient first” mentality. Because the company is locally owned and operated, they can provide important, more specialized service than national companies. “When you order an exam, you always talk to the technologist who will be performing the exam, not just a call center in another state,” said Emanuelsen.
Helping kids with allergies, asthma
Send in your Simchas! Email photos and information to editor@sjlmag.com, or mail to P.O. Box 130052, Birmingham, AL 35213.
48 Southern Jewish Life • October 2015
Respiratory illnesses like asthma are the number one reason why patients come to Children’s of Alabama. Asthma is an inflammatory lung disease that is very common in children and adults. Having asthma causes airway muscles to tighten, inflammation to increase, swelling in the airways and mucus to build up. Airways become swollen, tight and narrow, making it hard to breathe. Common symptoms include coughing that is often worse at night, chest tightness, wheezing, coughing or difficulty breathing with exercise. There are two main types of asthma: persistent and intermittent. In persistent asthma, children have more frequent symptoms and flare-ups. This is caused by increased airway inflammation, swelling and narrowing that is present every day. Children with intermittent asthma have few symptoms because they only have rare times of airway swelling and narrowing. Janet Johnston, CRNP, is a nurse practitioner and asthma educator at Children’s of Alabama. She said even though there’s no cure for asthma, in most cases families can learn how to make sure their child’s asthma is well controlled. One of the most important ways to do that is to know the triggers of asthma. Common triggers are respiratory infection, allergies, irritants such as smoke, and exercise. Often, just avoiding the triggers can help reduce the occurrence of symptoms. The exception is exercise. “One trigger you don’t want to avoid is exercise,” she said. “If the child’s asthma is well controlled, they shouldn’t have to avoid exercise.” Johnston said another concern is making sure the child gets the full dose of medicine through an inhaler alone. She recommends always using a spacer with the inhaler. “Using a spacer ensures the proper dose of medicine is going deeply in the child’s lungs,” she said. “It’s important to get the full dose of medicine. Otherwise, it’s like pouring half of it on the floor.” Johnston encourages families to have an action plan to help keep their child’s asthma well controlled. The plan should include seeing the child’s health care provider regularly for asthma, having clear instructions about using the inhaler and any other medicine, knowing what to do when symptoms increase, knowing when to call the doctor and knowing when to seek care. Well-controlled asthma means a child is symptom-free most of the time and not needing frequent quick relief medicine, able to play and exercise like other children, sleeping through the night, not missing school or work due to frequent asthma flare-ups. More information about managing asthma is available at www.childrensal.org/asthma.
community NCJW announces NCJW Way leadership group participants The National Council of Jewish Women New Orleans Section has selected six finalists to participate in the 2015-16 NCJW WAY Leadership Program. They are Arianna Baseman, Health Care Equity Director, Aetna; Shayna Blum, Assistant Professor of Graphic Design, Xavier University of Louisiana; Fran Dinehart, Counselor, Case Manager, Jewish Family Service; Maddie Fireman, Administrator/Clerk, Express Employment Professionals; Dana Karen, Founder, Manager, Birthmark Doula Collective; and Nora Udell, Associate attorney at Kara Hadican Samuels and Associates.
JCRS prepares for Chanukah with Wrap-a-Thon
Jenny Nathan, NCJW membership chair and chair of the NCJW WAY nominating committee, said “These women represent a wide variety of interests and backgrounds, and are all thrilled to get more involved with NCJW in New Orleans.” NCJW launched NCJW WAY in 2013 to attract young female leaders new to NCJW. They participate in an intensive year-long seminar which culminates in a trip to a national NCJW meeting. Madalyn Schenk, who initiated the NCJW WAY program in 2013, said that this program has attracted national attention for its impact. “The expectation and hope is that this group
of women will form strong bonds with each other, as well as with the organization,” Schenk said. “These leaders will go on to create a service project of their own initiative as well as join the NCJW board.” The first year of NCJW WAY was a success, according to Schenk, with three of the participants joining the board and all of them remaining involved with NCJW programs. Their initiative, the NCJW WAY Wine Around of 2014, brought together more than 60 women in five homes for a night of education on topics important to NCJW: reproductive justice, criminal justice, voting rights, economic development and early childhood education.
Jewish Children’s Regional Service will hold its annual Gift Wrap-a-Thon on Oct. 11 from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the Goldring-Woldenberg Jewish Community Campus in Metairie. Volunteers are needed to wrap thousands of gifts that will be distributed to Jewish children in the region this Chanukah. Typical recipients are children and youth from families who cannot afford gifts, are socially isolated, or are dealing with individual or family challenges. All recipients receive at least eight small, wrapped age and gender appropriate gifts, one gift for each night of Hanukkah. Typical gifts range from stuffed animals, books and toys for younger children, to books, jewelry, grooming and travel supplies, sporting goods and school and art supplies for older youth. Some gifts carry Hanukkah or Jewish themes. Recently, JCRS announced the Chanukah Gift Program has been named for the late Oscar B. Tolmas, whose Trust made a significant gift to support the program. The agency accepts cash donations, but is very selective regarding what new, actual gifts it can accept as donations for distribution. Pizza and refreshments will be served at the Wrap-a-Thon, and the Saints game will be televised.
October 2015 • Southern Jewish Life 49
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community JWV to hold joint Veterans Day program with American Legion The New Orleans Jules Lazard Post 580 of the Jewish War Veterans of America continues its tradition of honoring veterans with a historic program on Nov. 11 for Veterans Day. The JWV post will have a joint meeting with American Legion Post 175 for a presentation on “Jewish Defenders of Freedom from Abraham to the Present.” Judge Sol Gothard, commander of the JWV post, will give the presentation. The 7 p.m. event at the American Legion Post on Metairie Road is free and open to the community. Gothard said that there have been Jewish and JWV speakers at Legion meetings before, and speakers from the Legion at JWV meetings, but to his knowledge, there has never actually been a joint meeting of this sort. “There has been the persistent anti-Semitic myth and stereotype that Jews were cowards who wouldn’t fight for America,” Gothard said. “The Jewish War Veterans of America was organized in 1896, by veterans from both sides of the Civil War, to absolutely refute these blatantly false assertions.” He noted that JWV is the first and oldest of the U.S. veterans organizations, with the larger VFW and American Legion coming later. His presentation starts with the Biblical patriarchs, kings and judges, goes through Colonial times and all wars to te present, showing how Jews fought for America, including Medal of Honor recipients. “In World War II, for example, there were over 500,000 Jewish men and women, including my three older brothers, who valiantly served, and thousands of whom died,” Gothard said. The local JWV also has a Memorial Day tradition of honoring departed Jewish American men and women who served in the armed forces by having a ceremony at the cemetery. This year, since Memorial Day fell on the holiday of Shavuot, the remembrance ceremony was held the next day, May 26, at the Beth Israel cemetery. The Gothards were joined by Lisa Romano, a long-time friend and employee of the late Oscar Tolmas, and Beth Israel Rabbi Gabriel Greenberg. American flags were then placed on the graves of all veterans. Gothard said that American Jewish veterans of any branch of the military, or Jewish veterans of an allied country or on active duty, are eligible for membership in the New Orleans Post, which has been recognized as the fastest growing and most diverse JWV Post in the nation. The diversity is a result of Patron members, over 35 of whom are of other faiths, including 5 African-Americans and a Kurdish Muslim from Turkey who is now an American citizen. “They joined because of the humanitarian work we do on behalf of homeless veterans, participation in the annual MLK Day parade, and more,” Gothard said. Anyone can join as a patron member; one does not have to be a veteran or Jewish.
nosh
jewish deep south: bagels, biscuits, beignets
Roasted Autumn Fruit. The Seasonal Jewish Kitchen, reviewed below.
KOSHER
MAKIN’ KOSHER GROCERIES
FOOD FESTIVAL
2015 FFFJFF AT LJCC Lots of letters, but what it all comes down to is the annual Friedman Family Foundation Jewish Food Festival returns to Birmingham’s Levite Jewish Community Center on Oct. 11, and is adding a 3-on-3 basketball tournament. The 13th annual festival will feature numerous Jewish delicacies, including brisket, smoked whitefish, stuffed cabbage rolls, falafel, Israeli salad, corned beef sandwiches, matzah ball soup, kugel and more. There will also be several local vendors and a kid’s zone, and live music. The festival will be on Levite Field from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Registration is open for the Terry Drake 3-on-3 Basketball tournament, presented by Goudy Construction.
COOKBOOK
On-demand grocery delivery services are booming. For years, people have placed orders for kosher products days or weeks in advance with the expectation of having to meet a truck or wait on UPS. But now, for people in Birmingham, New Orleans and other markets, getting kosher meat, vegetables, and pantry items is as easy as placing an order in the morning and having someone greet you with your groceries at the front door in as little as an hour or two. Birmingham startup Shipt (shipt.com) has been offering their service since late last year and already has plans to grow to 100 major cities by 2018. Besides Birmingham, they’re already in Nashville, Dallas, and as of last month, Atlanta and Charlotte. Shipt confirmed with us that they shop exclusively at Publix stores. While they don’t currently list specifically-kosher meat in their app, shoppers can add it as a special request. Shipt offers annual and monthly memberships with fee based on order value. In New Orleans, Joel Brown, owner of Kosher Cajun in Metairie, says that nearly daily he brings a delivery of sandwiches or kosher groceries to out-of-towners at a hotel, convention or business meeting. Now, there are grocery delivery services that will come to Kosher Cajun to get all or a portion of a shopper’s list. Dat Grocery (datgrocerydelivers.com), whose motto is ‘We Shop Dat and We Deliver Dat,’ advises they are happy to accomodate special requests and even combined orders wherein some items are requested from Kosher Cajun and others from, say, Rouse’s or Dorignac’s (Dat Grocery allows the customer to decide where they shop). They charge a flat fee by number of items requested and $5 for additional stops. Unlike other services which require orders placed online or by app, they will accept call-in orders from senior facilities. Also based in New Orleans, Groceries on the Go (gotgdelivery.com or GOTGDeliveryorder@gmail.com) charges by order value, will take phone requests, and also shops with local stores. And Richelle Romero of The Occasional Wife says they’re happy to go shopping from any store a client likes for a flat rate of $40 per hour. Smaller markets are being served as well. WeGoShop.com is available along the Alabama coast, GenieGrocery.com services Montgomery, and Apple Market has their own delivery service in Pensacola. Baton Rouge has ValetGrocery. com and is also serviced by IndiePlate.com, which specializes in straight-from-the-farm and artisinal products, like stone-ground grits and organic eggs. The idea at DeltaDelivered.com in Shreveport is much the same as Indie Plate. Last month, Walmart and Target (via a deal with Instacart.com) announced their own plans to roll out and expand grocery delivery options. The grocery services we spoke with encouraged customers with kashrut concerns to very clearly specify brands and hechshers they will accept. With so many of the smaller, local operations being incredibly flexible on shopper preference, the future equals less shlepping and more keyboard clicking.
THE SEASONAL JEWISH KITCHEN: A Fresh Take on Tradition by Amelia Saltsman
Not just another cookbook with recipes grouped by holiday, Amelia Saltsman’s “The Seasonal Jewish Kitchen” takes a refreshingly vibrant, modern take on Jewish food according to seasonality. The author’s passion in encouraging people to visit their local farmers market (she’s a regular guest on KCRW’s Good Eats and the author of the Santa Monica Farmers’ Market Cookbook) ties traditional dishes with what’s already naturally available. Her own background, the daughter of a Romanian mother and Iraqi father who met in the Israeli army and moved to Los Angeles, comes through with recipes such as the spicy tomato jam matboucha, braised lamb shanks with crisped artichokes and gremolata, and Iraqi funnel cakes with lemon syup. Thoughtful touches like lists of appropriate vegetarian holiday menus, and dishes that move easily from kitchen to outdoors for eating in the sukkah are top-notch. A keeper.
October 2015 • Southern Jewish Life 51
Touro Leadership group concludes program
Shop the Southern Jewish Bookshelf Find a wide range of books about the Jewish South — from current releases to hard-to-find historic works, at
www.sjlmag.com
52 Southern Jewish Life • October 2015
Touro Infirmary Foundation recently concluded the third edition of the Paul S. Rosenblum Leadership Series. Hosted by Touro Tomorrow, the interactive six-week series provided participants with the opportunity to learn about Touro Infirmary and the Louisiana Children’s Medical Center. Participants interacted with Touro Infirmary Administrators and LCMC leaders as well as staff, physicians and supporters to explore current healthcare issues and future hospital and system growth. The goal of this series is to ensure the hospital’s success for the long term by engaging the brilliant, talented minds of today in conversations and analysis of the community’s current healthcare state of affairs. The series was co-founded by Touro Tomorrow co-chairs Jonathan Brouk and Clay Smith. “The team is grateful for the generosity of Mr. Rosenblum and the Touro Infirmary Foundation that enables Touro Tomorrow to continue the Rosenblum Leadership Series. The series has evolved into a sustainable program exposing young leaders in the New Orleans community to Touro Infirmary, the Touro Foundation Board and LCMC. It is an honor to be a part of it.” said Smith. Rosenblum is a past chairman of both Touro Infirmary’s Governing and Foundation boards. Rosenblum has served in leadership roles at Touro for over 32 years. He has also been a leader at his alma mater Tulane University, The Anti-Defamation League, Southern Institute for Education and Research and The Jewish Federation of Greater New Orleans. He has received Touro Infirmary’s highest honor, the Judah Touro Society award, and he and his wife, Edie Levy Rosenblum, have been recognized by the Jewish Endowment Foundation with the Tzedakah Award for their unselfish and meaningful service to the community. “Jon and I felt strongly that this leadership series would be a great way to engage another generation with Touro Infirmary. Having completed the series myself, I definitely feel an even deeper connection to the hospital and
know that I speak for others of the series as well,” said Smith. Participants came from various backgrounds and industries including healthcare, hospitality, education, real estate development, and finance. The series focused on the Foundation’s role in supporting some of the premier service lines at Touro, including Rehabilitation, Survivorship Training and Rehab, Neonatal Intensive Care Unit and Women’s Services. In addition to exploring how the Foundation affects the clinical services at Touro, participants were also introduced to the way the Foundation supports healthy living for Touro patients beyond the four walls of the hospital. Chef Gerard Maras at the New Orleans Cooking Experience gave a demonstration on the Foundation-sponsored classes he teaches to cancer survivors about modifying their diet and incorporating healthy cooking skills to their routine. “For people without clinical or healthcare administration backgrounds, it can be difficult to really understand the impact that the Foundation has on the hospital and the people it serves, but here in New Orleans, everyone understands the importance of food. I think Chef Gerard’s session really helps connect the dots for the group and highlights Touro’s commitment to treating the ‘whole patient’,” said Brouk. Each class included a think tank problem statement segment in which participants brainstormed solutions to actual case statements. The series wrapped up with a cocktail hour at Shaya that included special guests from Touro Infirmary, LCMC, Rosenblum Leadership Series Alumni, Touro Tomorrow, and Touro Infirmary Foundation Board. The summer 2015 series included: David T. Baker, Terri Brown, Stacy Calvaruso, Lindsie Cohen, Andrika Cooper, Jodi Dyer, Sam Fritz, Grace Gartel, Caitlin Gottstine, Samantha Gould, John-Michael Johnson, Anna Labadie, Stacey Lowentritt, Kathrina McGary, Arthur M. Mora, PhD, Amy Pruim, Kristi Rhodes, Jack Rhodes, Ingrid Smith, Patrick Sutton, Mark Taliancich, Wallace Title, Hannah Tutak, Jeremy Weintraub, Marta Wootan and Patrick Young.
Continued from page 54
for not doing tricks, so they continued to receive them. In the end, only the original point of Trick or Torah — actually learning some Torah — was eliminated. Why does nobody today know about Trick or Torah? The rabbis felt that it set a bad example, one that shows future generations a path toward the frivolous trappings and away from the fundamental point of traditions and education. But the scholars behind Bava Gump were radicals in their time. They felt this was important as a cautionary tale, one that was critical to pass down through the ages. Ultimately, those who compiled the Mishnah left it out, believing that — like they felt about Bava Gump as a whole — it was better cannon fodder than canon fodder. Doug Brook is a writer in Silicon Valley who never lets a Halloween go by without playing his future hit song, “The Monster Mensch.” For past columns, other writings, and more, visit http:// brookwrite.com/. For exclusive online content, follow facebook.com/the.beholders.eye.
JCC going for laughs at its Center Celebration
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The New Orleans Jewish Community Center will become a comedy club on Nov. 7, with two comedy stars taking the stage for the JCC’s annual gala. Johnny Lampert and Dan Naturman will perform at the Center Celebration, starting at 7 p.m. Lampert is a regular at New York City’s and Los Angeles’ best comedy clubs, including Carolines on Broadway, The Comic Strip and The Improv. He has also made numerous appearances on MTV, A&E, NBC, HBO’s “Comedy Showcase” and a multitude of shows on Comedy Central. In 2014, Naturman made it to the semi-finals of “America’s Got Talent.” He also made the semi-finals of “Last Comic Standing” in 2008. Naturman has been on “The Late Show with David Letterman” four times. He has also appeared on “Late Night with Conan Johnny Lampert O’Brien,” Comedy Central’s “Premium Blend,” as well as his very own “Comedy Central Presents… Dan Naturman” special. The evening will be catered by Vincent’s Italian Cuisine. Tickets are $200, with sponsor levels starting at $500. Dan Naturman
October 2015 • Southern Jewish Life 53
rear pew mirror • doug brook
Trick or Torah It was a different time. It wasn’t a different world, but it would seem like it today. It was a different history, recounted in a different Mishnah tractate. From the shadows of Bava Metziah, Bava Batra and Bava Kamma, emerges the recently discovered tractate Bava Gump. From Bava Gump emerges a tale that could be told around campfires, under a full moon… but only before the Shema of the morning prayers. Halloween dates back over two thousand years. The ancient Celtics, just before Larry Bird started to play, celebrated their new year at the start of November – a compromise between Rosh Hashanah and the secular new year so popular today. They believed the night before was inhabited by ghosts, some of which would cause mischief. Two thousand years later, the day has (d)evolved into candy-giving, costuming and great pumpkining. But the dilemma for Jews has been a constant: What to do on this Hallow’s Eve? Especially when it coincides with Shabbat. Bava Gump relates an ancient practice. Rabbi Telfon, the Great Communicator, referred to the coincidence of Shabbat and Halloween as Shabbat Shiver — both for the ghostly nature of the day, and for the changing weather. To be clear, Shabbat Shiver entailed going out GOING DOOR on Saturday night, after Shabbat. This avoided TO DOOR, any conflict with the Shabbatic limitations of Friday night, or Erev Hallow’s Eve. LEARNING Rabbi Telfon was not interested in delving TORAH? WHAT into what Judaism says about the existence of COULD GO ghosts. He decided to establish a practice that WRONG? was a teaching moment: one with little risk of tooth decay. Trick or Torah entailed Jewish children going from abode to abode, asking the occupants for a teaching of Torah. It had to be one they hadn’t heard yet that evening, or they would perform a trick against them. Obviously, the first people visited had an easier time because they didn’t risk providing Torah teachings that others had already said. So, what began as a simple, enjoyable exercise became a point of social contention, and ultimately, legislation. Different communities followed various criteria, but most followed one of two practices. One was to have the starting point among the homes change every year, so the easier task was rotated among the community. The other approach entailed a complicated layout each year of which families would start at which houses, so that equity was maintained in terms of the overall average level of ease for everyone involved. Despite these obstacles, Trick or Torah continued each year. Children still learned, but it gradually became another required thing to do instead of a fun way to learn. Dressing up as favorite biblical characters reinvigorated the entertainment for a while. How did candy enter the picture on this night? At first, it would seem to be yet another Twentieth-Century secularization. However, it goes back much further. During Trick or Torah, some people could not provide the children with a new Torah teaching that they hadn’t already heard. To avoid a trick being pulled on them, they would bribe the children with sweet foods. Upon learning of this illicit practice, Rabbi Telfon decreed an end to Trick or Torah. However, instead of ending the illicit giving of sweets, it was all that remained. Children had grown to expect sweets in exchange continued on previous page 54 Southern Jewish Life • October 2015
The Cathy and Morris Bart
JEWISH CULTURAL ARTS MONTH A Celebration of Jewish Authors, Cinema and Music WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 11 – SUNDAY, DECEMBER 13 NEW ORLEANS JCC – 5342 ST. CHARLES AVENUE FREE AND OPEN TO THE PUBLIC
YOSSI KLEIN HALEVI WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 11, 7:00 PM Free and open to the community
American-born Israeli author and journalist, YOSSI KLEIN HALEVI discusses Like Dreamers: The Story of the Israeli Paratroopers Who Reunited Jerusalem and Divided a Nation.
SHULEM DEEN MONDAY, NOVEMBER 30, 7:00 PM Free and open to the community
SHULEM DEEN presents All Who Go Do Not Return, his memoir about growing up in and then leaving the Hasidic Jewish world.
DR. JEE-YEOUN KO’S COATS FOR KIDS CONCERT
MOVIE: FELIX AND MEIRA
TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 17, 7:00 PM
WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 2, 7:00 PM
Free and open to the community Please bring a coat for a local child in need
The JCC is pleased to host this annual benefit concert starring jazz pianist Ellis Marsalis, cellist Dr. Jee-Yeoun Ko and students from NOCCA’s Classical Instruments program.
MITCH ALBOM SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 22, 7:00 PM Tickets available at octaviabooks.com Each ticket admits 2 and will be exchanged for a copy of his book
Best-selling author MITCH ALBOM introduces his new book, The Magic Strings of Frankie Presto: A Novel.
Free and open to the community
Winner of Best Canadian Feature Film at the Toronto festival, Felix and Meira is a story of an unconventional romance between two people living vastly different lives.
COMMUNITY CHANUKAH CELEBRATION SUNDAY, DECEMBER 13, 4:00 PM Free and open to the community
Celebrate the eight night of Chanukah with dinner, a candle lighting, and performance by a cappella sensation LISTEN UP!
For more information visit www.nojcc.org
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