OY! Magazine: UNSUNG HEROES

INSIDE: Cherished Judaica | Home & Style | Q&A with Israeli chef | Profiles of the 2013 Class of the Light’s

UNSUNG HEROES OY! is the quarterly magazine of the St. Louis Jewish Light | May, 2013 | Vol. 66, No. 23

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May 2013 OY! Magazine - St. Louis Jewish Light

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May 2013 OY! Magazine - St. Louis Jewish Light

from the editor Founded 1963 The Newspaper of the Jewish Community of Greater St. Louis 314-743-3600 • Fax: 314-743-3690 E-mail: msherwin@thejewishlight.com Address for payments: P.O. Box 955519 • St. Louis, Mo. 63195-5519 General Correspondence: 6 Millstone Campus Dr. Suite 3010 • St. Louis, Mo. 63146 PROFESSIONAL STAFF EXECUTIVE Larry Levin �������������������������������������������������������� Publisher/CEO Robert A. Cohn . . . . . . . . . Editor-in-Chief Emeritus Ellen Futterman ��������������������������������������������������������������Editor EDITORIAL Mike Sherwin ����������������������������������������������Managing Editor Elise Krug ��������������������������������������������������� Editorial Assistant Cheryl Barack Gouger . . . . . . . . Editorial Assistant Sarah Cohen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Editorial Assistant BUSINESS Kelly Richter �������������������������������������������Business Manager Eedie Cuminale . . . . . . . . . . . . . Business Assistant Debra Gershenson . . . . . . . Administrative Assistant Helen Neuman . . . . . . . . . Administrative Assistant SALES Julie Schack . . . . . . . . . . Director of Sales & Events Alana Shapiro . . . . . . . . . . . Senior Account Executive Elaine Wernick ������������������������������������������� Account Executive Shane Blatt ������������������������������������������������� Account Executive Shari Whay ������������������������������������������������� Account Executive Beth Feldman . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Events Coordinator PRODUCTION & TECHNOLOGY Tom Wombacher . . . . . . . . . . Director of Operations Lyubov Strauss Graphic Designer/Production Assistant BOARD OF TRUSTEES Officers Jenny Wolkowitz, President; Lew Chartock, Vice President; Diane Gallant, Vice President; Gary Kodner, Vice President; Jane Tzinberg Rubin, Treasurer; John Greenberg, Secretary; Gianna Jacobson, Immediate Past President Committee Chairs Editorial: Judy Pass; Business: Jeff Golden; Development: Kristi Meyers Gallup and Gianna Jacobson; Nominating: Gianna Jacobson.

Subcommittee Chairs Teen Page: Elizabeth Tucker, Peggy Kaplan.

Trustees Steve Gallant; Jeff Golden; Kristi Meyers Gallup; Harvey Hieken; Diana Iskiwitch; Peggy Kaplan; Ken Kraus; Ben Lipman; Myrna Meyer; Jill Mogil; Carl Moskowitz; Ed Musen; Judy Pass; Gary Ratkin; Daniel Rubenstein; Barbara Rubin; Sheri Sherman; Laura Klearman Silver; Mary Ann Srenco; Michael Staenberg; Rabbi Lane Steinger; Richard Weiss.

Advisory Committee Terry Bloomberg, Nanci Bobrow, Ph.D., Ava Ehrlich, Charles C. Eisenkramer, Richard Flom, Dodie Frey, John Greenberg, Yusef Hakimian, Philip A. Isserman, Linda Kraus, Sanford Lebman, Michael Litwack, Dr. Ken Ludmerer, Lynn Lyss, Rabbi Mordecai Miller, Donald Mitchell, Milton Movitz, Michael N. Newmark, Adinah Raskas, Marvin J. Schneider, Irving Shepard, Richard W. Stein, Barbara Langsam Shuman, Sanford Weiss, Phyllis Woolen Markus, Vivian W. Zwick.

Founder Morris Pearlmutter (1913-1993).

W

hat do three high school seniors who feed the needy, a Holocaust survivor who eventually found the strength to tell her harrowing story and a Muslim woman who has spent her adult life working to build relationships with people of other faiths have in common?

The answer: All are part of the Class of 2013 Jewish Light Unsung Heroes.

This year we add nine individuals and one group of three to a growing roster of amazing men, women and children who have made a huge difference to the local Jewish community through their selflessness, volunteerism and advocacy. The Class of 2013 heroes was selected from more than 60 nominees — the largest number since the Ellen Light began these awards four Futterman years ago. Those selected truly represent people who “fly under the radar” as they work tirelessly — and without drawing attention to themselves — to make our world a better, more humane and accepting place.

I hope you will spend time getting to know these nine heroes, and the trio of teens behind St. Louis Food Rescue, by reading their unique, inspirational stories in the pages of OY! “Unsung Heroes.” In addition to the hero profiles, the magazine’s recurring “departments” take us into the kitchen of innovative chef Ben Poremba, a native Israeli who recently opened two restaurants in south St. Louis, and introduces us to Angela McCurry, an AfricanAmerican woman whose cherished Star of David bracelet helps explain her deep attachment to Judaism. And there are even more surprises in these magazine pages, including a local gentleman whose collection of opera posters is reputed to be one of the foremost in the world.

They say imitation is the greatest form of flattery.

With that in mind, perhaps the heroes in this magazine will motivate you to take on new challenges, and even take a few risks, to help those who are in need of help. We also hope you will think about others in our community who “fly under the radar” but deserve recognition, and consider nominating them for our 2014 heroes, when we celebrate out fifth anniversary of these awards. Look in the Light after the first of the year for details.

— Ellen Futterman, Editor on the cover: St. Louis Food Rescue’s Nate Noss, Sam Pepose and Will Hopkins are among this year’s Unsung Heroes. Photo: Yana Hotter

contents Cherished Judaica

page 6 Food: Israeli chef’s new spot is talk of the town

page 8 Home & Style

page 12

2013 Unsung Heroes Rita Swiener

page 18

Josh Goldman

page 22 Jan Baron

page 24

St. Louis Food Rescue Nate Noss, Sam Pepose & Will Hopkins

page 26 Derek Cohn

page 30

Herb Eissman

page 32

Zubaida Ibrahim

page 34

Rick Rovak

page 36

Rachel Miller

page 38

Sandy Silverstein

page 41 OY! Magazine - St. Louis Jewish Light

May 2013

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ABOVE: At Central Reform Congregation, Angela McCurry displays her cherished bracelet comprising six disks with Jewish stars (opposite page). Photos: Lisa Mandel

Cherished

Judaica

BY SUSAN FADEM • SPECIAL TO THE JEWISH LIGHT

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May 2013 OY! Magazine - St. Louis Jewish Light

I

t takes just six small disks, each linked and with a Jewish star, to encircle her wrist. The meaning of the bracelet, however, could fill volumes.

St. Louisan Angela McCurry was raised Christian. Other than entertainer Sammy Davis Jr., she laughs, she had never seen a dark-skinned Jew, not until visiting Jerusalem in the late 1990s.

There, she and her Christian tour group saw people who “could have been in my family, who could have been my uncle, my husband.” An encounter with a woman she describes as “an Ethiopian Jewish priestess” would prove soul-jarring.

The woman took McCurry’s hand. “When you came back here,” she said, “all of your ancestors who left with Moses shouted out with joy because you came home.”

In the retelling, McCurry’s voice drops to a whisper. “It was so powerful,” she says.

The woman advised her to be guided by “the spirit” and trace her roots back to Moses. She called her “Kahvah, mother of all.”

Though a self-assured military kid, raised in Germany and the United States by a mom in the service, McCurry was momentarily dumbfounded.

“It was like whoa-a-a-a-a,” she admits.

Back home in St. Louis, she joined a weekly study group with other African-Americans. Most in the group identified as Hebrew Israelites. They learned about the Jewish holidays, the Hebrew lan-

guage and Bible.

One group member would become McCurry’s husband. Together, they had two children, both with Hebrew names: daughter Bracha (“blessing”) and son Yaheed (“to glorify or testify to the greatness of God”).

Periodically, Rabbi Randy Fleisher would address the group. When he offered a blessing beginning, “Baruch atah,” or “Blessed art Thou,” he endeared himself instantly to McCurry.

“Rabbi Randy is singing a song about me,” young Bracha exclaimed. “His spirit drew me,” her mother says.

Following up on one of Rabbi Fleisher’s open invitations to the study group, to attend events at his synagogue, McCurry and her two children arrived for a Sukkot celebration at Central Reform Congregation. That was four years ago.

“My children had been exposed mainly to African-Americans,” she says. “But at CRC, I saw all this diversity—different types of people all in one place, in the sukkah, under the branches.”

Here, she struggles to hold back her tears. While in the vine-covered structure meant to represent the temporary

shelters in which Jews lived as they wandered 40 years in the desert, McCurry felt something: “The ‘spirit’ said to me, ‘This is home. This is where I want you to reside.’”

Days later, she told Fleisher she wanted to convert. There are many paths to Judaism, he responded. He already considered Hebrew Israelites, a number of whom belonged to the congregation, “as connected as anyone here to Judaism.”

“In our eyes,” he said, “you are already Jewish. You come not a stranger, but already part of our family.” But McCurry wanted something more.

She enrolled her young children in CRC’s Sunday School. For 12 weeks, she took a course for those considering conversion. After attending a couple of services at CRC, Fleisher asked her to assist temple teacher Linda Cohen.

“Once I make up my mind, that’s it,” McCurry says. Soon, she was also assisting in the lower grades. “I would ask stuff like, ‘Now what is that holy day?’

They loved to help me,” she says.

With her young daughter and son, McCurry went to the Sylvia Green Memorial Mikvah, on campus at the

Jewish Community Center. As daughter Bracha likes to tell it, “Mommy, my brother and me all got in this big bathtub, ‘nekkid.’” McCurry then amplifies,

See JUDAICA, page 45

Our 2013 Unsung Heroes join those recognized as Unsung Heroes in years past 2012

2011

COAST (Chabad Ohr Atid Sunday Torah) Marshall Cohen Marion Lipsitz Samantha Lurie Steven Rosenblum Pat Simons Larry Opinsky Nancy Schmidt Joy Sterneck

Dr. Rebecca Aft Charles Baron Maris Berg Phyllis Cantor Fran Cohen Jack Cohen Merle Hartstein Jewish Prison Outreach Fritzi Lainoff David Oughton

2010 Ahavas Chesed Society Girls of Block Yeshiva Lolle Boettcher Leslie Caplan Phillip Fox Sarijane M. Freiman Margaret Gillerman Dan Glazier James M. Lemen

Elsie Levy Carl Moskowitz Dr. Harry Offenbach Judy Pearlstone Marilyn Ratkin Ken Rubin Ben Senturia Dotty Tepper

Thank you for all you’ve done and all you continue to do.

OY! Magazine - St. Louis Jewish Light

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ABOVE: Chef Ben Poremba at Olio and Elaia, his new restaurants at 1634 Tower Grove Avenue, in the Botanical Heights neighborhood.

Opposite page: Exterior and interior photos of Olio, and a dish from Elaia: Charred Octopus with a squid ink sauce, piquillo peppers, fava beans and mint.

Photos: Yana Hotter

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Double Vision

May 2013 OY! Magazine - St. Louis Jewish Light

Israeli chef Ben Poremba launches side-by-side restaurants to rave reviews

BY MARGI LENGA KAHN SPECIAL TO THE JEWISH LIGHT

Ben Poremba was born and raised in Ness Ziona, Israel, north of Rehovat and south of Rishon. He is the youngest of three children, with an older brother and sister. At the age of 17, Poremba moved to Italy to attend a master’s degree program in food culture. He traveled extensively throughout Europe, immersed in all things food. In 1996, he rejoined his family here in St. Louis, where his father’s job had taken him.

I first interviewed Poremba in the summer of 2009 just after he and partner Mark Sanfilippo began marketing their artisan-cured meats at local gourmet stores and farmer’s markets.

Shortly afterwards, the duo opened Salume Beddu on Hampton Avenue in the Lindenwood Park Neighborhood.

His dream then, Poremba said, was to eventually have a wine bar that would pair wines with artisan-cured meats.

In November, Poremba opened two restaurants—Olio and Elaia—in a converted gas station and refurbished house on Tower Grove Avenue in the Botanical Heights neighborhood. Elaia is a fine dining “middle-terranean” restaurant offering both an a la carte and tasting menu. Olio, a more casual approach to similar flavors, offers an eclectic array of sandwiches, salads, daily rotisserie selections, spreads, and cured meats. Both have impressive wine lists and extensive arrays of cocktails, spirits and beers.

This spring, Poremba added a French bakery across the street.

Partnering with Simone Faure, previously the executive pastry chef at the Ritz-Carlton, they created La Patisserie Chouquette, an elegant yet eclectic bakery.

I began this interview where the last one left off.

Have your dreams finally been fully realized?

I’m always coming up with more dreams to realize. I would like for these two restaurants and the bakery to become a destination. People can come here, park their car, and have three different dining options.

Ultimately, I would like to open more restaurants. For now, we’ll have to wait and see. I am a risk-taker; it’s in my blood.

born in Morocco, with instilling a passion in you for good food and a keen understanding for how to use spices. Explain.

I like strong flavors, clean food that maximizes the use of spices and flavors that come from different culinary traditions. Much of contemporary fine dining borders on minimalistic, relying on the sheer quality of the ingredients to speak for themselves. I believe that the flavors of the highest quality meats and vegetables can be further enhanced with careful and modest use of the freshest herbs and spices.

On the one hand, you don’t want to mess with locally sourced foods that are sustainable. However, there is the possibility to do both.

You credit your mother, who was

One of the most popular items on

your menu is the “famous” egg salad.

What makes it famous, and where does the recipe come from?

Nothing makes it famous. Calling it famous just draws attention to it.

Not many people would consider ordering egg salad in an upscale restaurant. We serve it different ways and, on special occasions, we’ll dress it up by topping it with some white truffles or caviar.

The recipe comes from my German grandmother, who was actually not a great cook. We had dinner at her house on many Friday nights. I didn’t like most of her food, dishes like her schnitzel and kugel.

But then there was her egg salad. I loved it. She caramelized lots of onions and transferred them from the pan into a meat grinder along with hard-boiled eggs. She didn’t even mix it up. It was more of a tzibella (Yiddish for onion) salad than it was egg salad.

She served it with a slice of bread and mayonnaise. I don’t remember why I put it on our menu. Perhaps I read something about what was considered the best egg salad in the world and realized that nothing could be better than my grandmother’s version!

Have you incorporated any other family recipes?

My grandmother made pickled herring, which is also on our menu. While the recipe is certainly not my grandmother’s, it pays homage to her. Our pickled herring is not overly salty like so many others. The texture is great with just a bit of a bite, and it tastes so OY! Magazine - St. Louis Jewish Light

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about ideas for dishes at the beginning of the week. From there, it evolves. I read a lot of cookbooks and do a lot of tasting, as do my chefs.

Are you committed to local farmraised ingredients?

During spring, summer, and fall, locally grown fruits, vegetables, and meats will dictate our menu. Our commitment is, first and foremost, to quality. The highest quality ingredients are often those that are raised locally. If the consequences of that commitment are that I support local farmers, then so be it. During the growing season, our menu will be more vegetable-driven. fresh. We serve it with pickled onions, potatoes, and a dollop of sour cream.

Does your style of cooking and the flavors of the dishes you offer here reflect any particular type of cuisine?

Yes. In fact, it’s in keeping with what is happening in Israel right now. Our food draws from many types of cuisines, particularly those along the Mediterranean Coast: Turkey, Greece, Italy, Spain, and North Africa. Those food traditions are inspired by olive oil, regional spices and staples such as chickpeas and locally grown vegetables.

ent preparations?

Our dishes reflect the best of what the market has to offer on any particular day, and everything else is based on necessity. If the kitchen makes a large batch of chicken confit, we will find interesting ways to incorporate that confit in different dishes. We talk

Every element of dining at both Olio and Elaia has a very artistic feelthe food, the presentation, the atmosphere. What is your dining philosophy?

With fine dining, you charge a lot of money. There needs to be a premium placed on the overall experience. The ABOVE LEFT: Pickled herring with sour cream, beets, red onion, mint, dill and tarragon from Elaia.

LEFT: Tartine Egg Salad from Olio.

Photos: Yana Hotter

At least 10 courses are included in your tasting menu, and many of the courses change daily. Where do you get the inspiration for so many differ-

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May 2013 OY! Magazine - St. Louis Jewish Light

experience should include great food that is beautifully presented in a comfortably elegant or excitingly casual atmosphere.

While many people still think about a meal at a restaurant as a single part of an evening’s entertainment, my goal is to make our restaurants the evening’s destination. Many times our servers, who are always well-dressed, will finish a dish tableside to add an element of drama to the dining experience.

And because our location is slightly off the beaten path, we need to make sure that our customers feel their trip is worth it.

We hope they will be intrigued by what they hear and read about us, and are curious enough to try us out. When they leave, we hope that their dining experience will encourage them to visit again, many times over.

Each of the courses on your tasting menu at Elaia is plated on a dazzling array of dishes. What is the evolution of these dishes, and your interest in them?

I have been collecting unusual dishes for a long time. I enjoy hunting for unique tableware at antique malls, auctions, and estate sales. I got that from my mother, who is a great hostess. She creates a beautiful set design for every dinner party she hosts or caters. Her table décor, flower arrangements, and dishes are all part of the theatrical aspect of what we do to create a memorable dining experience.

Did you ever consider opening a restaurant in Israel?

Yes, and I still do, though, perhaps not until I’m ready to retire.

Restaurants like Elaia and Olio would succeed in Israel. There’s a great food scene there; however, most of it is more casual. We offer the fine dining experience: highend food, wine pairings, and impeccable service. I think that Israelis would appreciate this commitment to overall quality and be willing to pay for this type of dining experience.

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HOME FEATURE

OPERATIC FAN-ATIC John Lesser reveals his collection of opera posters and memorabilia

John Lesser at home.

Photos: Lisa Mandel

BY SUSAN FADEM SPECIAL TO THE JEWISH LIGHT John Lesser remains that most captivating of contradictions. Sue Wohl, a fellow resident at the Gatesworth at One McKnight Place, calls him “the most literate, cultured, educated man I know.”

Irreverent, too. Recently at a restaurant, he asked the waiter: “Is liver on the menu today?” When the waiter said, “No,” Lesser retrieved from his lap a white-and-orange, camera-size bag.

“Will you give this to chef?” John asked. The bag was inscribed “Organ Transplant.” The waiter cracked up.

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May 2013 OY! Magazine - St. Louis Jewish Light

Mind you, this was not a once-inawhile occurrence. It’s quintessential, sneakers-wearing Lesser, whose favorite garb includes a sweatshirt that reads, “If You’re Waiting for a Sign, This is It.” Age 70-ish and curly haired, Lesser nurtures a multiplicity of passions. A voracious reader, he completes at least one book every two weeks, nonfiction or fiction and rarely on the New York Times best-seller list. An insatiable movie buff, he’s apt to view, maybe three or four times, any film he deems hysterical, brilliant, deftly orchestrated or otherwise noteworthy.

For example, he watched “Django

Unchained,” hailed by many as Quentin Tarentino’s incendiary, slavery-era movie masterpiece, three-anda-half times. The partial viewing? “I was running late, but didn’t want to miss the rest.”

Not only did Lesser champion Tarentino’s blacks-prevail-over whites rewrite of history, he took to heart such plot details as the movie pronunciation of Django’s name, with a silent “D.” For the benefit of some of his movie-going pals, Lesser wore a nametag, spelling his first name “Djohn.” To Tivoli Theatre employees, also among his friends, he suggested a pronunciation label, with a reminder of the silent

“D,” attached to each bottle of Dasani water.

Staffers giddily declined. But that’s Lesser, creative juices surging and also ready, at any moment he’s asked, to talk about his grandest of passions — his love of opera.

Last season, when Opera Theatre of Saint Louis marked its 1,001st performance, Lesser was simultaneously celebrated as one of Opera Theatre’s legendary patrons and its biggest fan. Since the opera company opened on May 22, 1976, Lesser has never missed a performance, whether matinee or evening, even when that means buying tickets, typically in varying rows and sections in order to broaden his perspective, and attending two multi-hour operas in one day.

To reach 1,001 performances, Lesser did not count Opera Theatre dress rehearsals, most of which he’s seen, or non-main season events, at which he’s a regular. Once, hobbled by an arthritic attack, Lesser had one of the ushers help him, after the lights dimmed, from his seat and into a side bay. There, sprawled on the stairs, he listened.

For first introducing him to opera, Lesser credits his grandmother Ruth Frank, who re-gifted him with a recording of composer Cherubini’s “Medea,” starring Maria Callas and performed in Italian at La Scala opera house in Milan.

Lacking a suitable record player, Mrs. Frank had received the recording from a decorator friend in New York. She gave it to Lesser, then a teenager at John Burroughs School, “I guess because I was the oldest of the grandchildren.”

Though familiar with “Medea,” the besieged, barbarian sorceress in Greek mythology, Lesser nonetheless knew nothing about opera, Callas or Italian, the language in which she was singing. “But you don’t look a gift record in the mouth,” he quips.

In the hours that followed, his life forever changed. Alone at home, he placed the recording on his phonograph, sat down with the included libretto and began reading along, “listening with both ears, sort of looking at the Italian so I could follow it while it was sung, then looking

over quickly to see the English translation next to it.”

On the second side of the record, a guard rushes in, saying, “There’s a strange woman outside, heavily veiled. She’s threatening.” At that moment, Lesser says, “Callas made her entrance into my living room. She said her first words, ‘Is this where the evil one is hiding and where joy smiles on betrayers?’” Lesser put down the libretto. Instinctively, he knew what she was saying.

“All of the emotion, all of the feeling was there,” he says. “She was angry. She was hurt. She was everything. I sat there mesmerized until the end of the show.” Then he played the whole record again.

The next day, “like an idiot,” he says, he told a salesman at a nearby hi-fi and component store: “I just heard this opera. Are there any more?”

At the salesman’s behest, Lesser bought recordings of “Il Trovatore,” “Tosca” and “Aida.” He went home, listened, absorbed and returned for more.

“Alas, it’s been like that ever since,” he says. “I can’t get enough.” One of his key opera mentors was Bob Kline, father of future Oscar and Tony award-winning actor Kevin Kline. An amateur opera singer and a classical-music fan, Bob owned and operated the Record Bar here, which also sold toys, for nearly 40 years.

“To say I worked for Bob is proba-

TOP AND ABOVE: Opera posters on display at Lesser’s home and the Gatesworth.

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Selections from Lesser’s extensive opera poster collection. bly too elegant a term,” John says. “But I hung out at the Record Bar.” In those days, customers could open an album and listen to it on the shop’s loud speaker. Many of the 33 ½ rpm vinyl records in Lesser’s estimated 1,000 complete-opera-recording collection came from the Record Bar. Yet listening was only half the experience. Not until his student days at Washington University, where he majored as an undergraduate and grad student in art history, did he actually see an opera staged.

For the August Opera Festival in Washington U’s quadrangle, Lesser would paint, work on sets and help in any way he could. He did so for years, watching performances nightly.

Also at the university, Lesser realized he wanted to collect something.

Architecture couldn’t be boxed.

Paintings and sculpture seemed prohibitively priced. Drawings didn’t appeal to him. But every day at the

More on Lesser Parents: Adopted by Julius Lesser and Marjorie Frank Lesser Sibling: A younger sister, also adopted, Elizabeth Tarrant, of Oregon Career: Retired after 30-plus years as a member of the Jewish Community Center’s cultural arts department, where he worked on book and film festivals, used- book sales and ran the now-shuttered art gallery.

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May 2013 OY! Magazine - St. Louis Jewish Light

university’s gallery of art, where he worked as assistant director and then, for three years as acting director at Steinberg Hall, catalogs arrived.

In one, from a French art dealer, Lesser was struck by an approximately 2-by-3-inch, black-and-white photograph of a woman. The photo was a proof, with a blank section for inserting text, of an 1896 poster for the world premiere of Duvernoy’s opera “Hellé” in Paris.

With arched brows and Elizabeth Taylor-like eyes, the photographed woman reminded John of his favorite professor at Washington U., Jean Sutherland Boggs. The proof cost $40.

“When it arrived,” John says, “I was so excited you would have thought it was a Da Vinci.” Subsequently, he wondered if others existed.

Now, with some 1,000 posters in his still-growing collection, Lesser believes he is one of the foremost collectors of vintage opera posters in

Special talents: Punster and joke teller.

Needle-pointer of many of his sofa pillows. Of late, a watercolorist who also draws; spends at least three hours weekly in a Gatesworth art class.

Also able, unlike anyone fellow resident Sue Wohl says she’s ever met, to place an opera record on a phonograph, mention a particular aria and then, know the opera so thoroughly he can put the needle precisely where that sequence begins. Both Wohl and Lesser previously taught opera appreciation at

North America. While others have gargantuan collections, he explains, many do not focus, as he does, primarily on a single subject.

Along with acquiring, Lesser has assimilated — and committed to memory — an encyclopedic knowledge of opera, enabling him to discuss, as engagingly as if chatting about dearest friends, everything from poster typography to a composer’s track record (it’s not unusual for a dropdead-gorgeous poster to promote a dismally received opera), a particular soprano’s soaring high notes, costuming choices in the 19th century, etc.

So comprehensive is Lesser’s collection that he has posters for world premieres and for one-night stands, for the same opera in the same city but with a different cast, for new operas, old operas and also such classics as, say, a dozen of Puccini’s “Madame Butterfly,” each illustrated and written in the native language of the country in which it was being produced.

Adding to the rarity and collectability of many posters he says, is that historically, they’ve been considered ephemera, tacked up for publicity and never intended to be saved. To aid Lesser, who rarely travels, in finding posters to plug what he perceives as unfilled niches in his collection, he has befriended pickers and bidders in several locales.

Based on the auction catalogs he’s forever buying, he tells these individuals what he wants and is willing to pay. They make suggestions, too.

Whenever possible, however, Lesser prefers seeing firsthand before he buys. To do so, he and local framer/ collector Cindy Neal used to periodically bring dealers to town for invitation-only events. Lesser invariably out-

Washington University’s Lifelong Learning Institute (LLI).

Preferences: Mostly shuns CDs. Owns no TV. Recently bought a computer for cataloguing his poster collection. Unwilling to e-mail.

Apartment must-haves: Some 80 linear feet of shelf space for his complete opera-record collection. Additional shelves, wide enough to accommodate a double row of books, for the volumes he’s read recently.

Temple affiliation: Lesser’s relatives have long belonged to Congregation Shaare Emeth.

bought all others.

His oldest opera memorabilia remains a broadside, or printed sheet of paper, promoting a performance of Rossini’s “The Barber of Seville” in Moscow in 1845. Another of his posters, dated 1888, is thought to be the oldest existing poster with Toscanini’s name on it. Just 21 at the time, Toscanini was then conducting an opera in Italy.

Today, nowhere is the enormity of Lesser’s obsession more visible than at the Gatesworth, his home since 2009. Previously, he lived in a more modest apartment building. There, he kept posters everywhere, propped, stacked and shelved.

Now, with the permission and blessings of the ownership at the Gatesworth, a 12-acre senior-living community that has made Lesser a “poster boy” in its print and new billboard ad campaigns, Lesser’s posters line the corridor leading to his apartment.

To walk this path with Lesser is to accompany an eminent archaeologist, rapturously making his way through Egypt’s treasure-laden Valley of the Kings. Accustomed to serving as a tour leader for residents, Lesser points out a blazing orange sun, setting rather than rising in a blackened sky, in his 1987 Swiss poster of “Madame Butterfly.” Elsewhere, a roly-poly and hedonistic Panurge, his tunic seams split, seems to burst from his namesake opera by Massenet, first performed in 1913.

Then, to finally reach Lesser’s apartment is to be whooshed head-on into eclecticism. The poster-studded space was converted from two bedrooms to one, to maximize the impact of his artwork.

Art is everywhere. A toothy Mickey Mouse-like head, sculpted by the Florida artist John Whipple, best known for pairing nostalgic icons with everyday neuroses, peers from one pedestal. Against another wall, area sculptor Jim Ibur’s towering bear stands atop a turtle. In the bear’s open belly — mini-people.

Eye-riveting, too, are Lesser’s dining table and matching chairs.

Constructed from road signs, they glow in the dark. One chair’s back reads “Park.” Lesser hopes guests take it literally.

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www.bergermemorialchapel.com Richard W. Stein MacDonald Richard W. Stein Richard • Stein Richard W. Stein Richard W. Stein Richard W. W. Stein Stein • Emily Emily Stein MacDonald Richard W. Stein • Emily Stein MacDonald OY! Magazine - St. Louis Jewish Light

May 2013

15

INTRODUCING The Jewish Light’s

2013 Unsung Heroes

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May 2013 OY! Magazine - St. Louis Jewish Light

s

Clockwise from top left: Derek Cohn, Rita Swiener, Josh Goldman, St. Louis Food Rescue (Will Hopkins, Sam Pepose & Nate Noss), Sandy Silverstein, Rick Rovak, Rachel Miller, Herb Eissman, Jan Baron and Zubaida Ibrahim.

OY! Magazine - St. Louis Jewish Light

May 2013

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Rita Swiener AGE: 71 FAMILY: One son, Larry; two grandchildren; two great-grandchildren HOME: University City OCCUPATION: Professor of psychology, adjunct faculty, St. Louis Community College and Maryville University FUN FACT: Swiener loves to take sea cruises annually.

By DAVID BAUGHER Special to the Jewish Light

Rita Swiener is one of those people who always seems to know what she wants. Even as a six-year-old growing up in the slums of Pittsburgh, she was certain of which gifts she hoped Hanukkah would bring at the orphanage where she lived.

“I said I wanted a nurse’s kit and a doll that will close its eyes,” recalled Swiener. “They said, ‘Pick one. Don’t be greedy.’ I couldn’t pick one. It was really hard.”

It’s a choice that Swiener, who now teaches psychology at St. Louis Community College and Maryville University, didn’t think other children should have to make just because they were less fortunate. That’s why she founded Santa’s Helpers, an organization that ensures kids in difficult circumstances can still enjoy the holidays just as much as those whose families are well-off.

“I think about the woman who lives in East St. Louis and takes three buses to go to a shopping mall at night to clean it. Then she comes down with breast cancer,” said Swiener, 71. “She couldn’t afford a bus and she couldn’t afford to take off work but she had to for chemo. She knew there’d be no Christmas for her and her kids. We got together, the oncology lab helped get her get a bus pass for a month and we made sure her kids had Christmas.”

It all started in 1968 when Swiener, a student at the University of Missouri-St. Louis, was asked by a 18

May 2013 OY! Magazine - St. Louis Jewish Light

Rita Swiener at the Santa’s Helpers warehouse. Photo: Yana Hotter professor to help a family who had “fallen through the cracks.” Swiener convened the Evening College Council on campus and it voted to do a sponsorship.

But the council’s interest was shortlived and the following year it didn’t continue the effort. Yet Swiener and a few council members weren’t done.

They picked up the campaign and helped the original family for the next

four years. After that, Santa’s Helpers started expanding. Today, the program, which is still run entirely by a volunteer staff, helps more than 600 families every year to provide gifts for those in need.

Swiener and three others handle shopping, often doing it just after Christmas when toys are markeddown or during the spring when coats and socks can be picked up cheaply.

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OY! Magazine - St. Louis Jewish Light

May 2013

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Swiener said many of the lessons she learned in giving came early in life, after she was adopted by a St. Louis family. She described her father as an extremely generous man who often had the kids donate to UNICEF on Halloween instead of trick or treating and helped send others in the community to day school at the Epstein Hebrew Academy.

“He’d pay for the scholarships but never told them,” recalled Swiener.

Swiener’s own experiences with giving have hit their share of bumps in the road but she’s never let anything slow her down, not even a 1996 diagnosis of breast cancer.

“All through chemo, I never missed a season,” she said. “I wore a hat sometimes. Other times I was run-

ning around bald.”

But despite all she’s done, the University City resident was most effusive in her praise for others. Some 300 volunteers help keep Santa’s Helpers going. They do everything from wrapping to typing labels to bringing five to seven gifts to each of the 2,000 or so kids who rely on them.

“You wouldn’t believe the volunteerism in this city,” she said. “Last year, we had more volunteers than we could use for the first time. People kept calling and we got to the point where we couldn’t use them all.”

Those who help out say it all comes back to the relentless drive displayed

by Swiener herself.

Sean Murphy, president of the organization’s board, said Santa’s Helpers

wouldn’t have happened without Swiener. “If you peel away the layers, what is it that Rita is doing?” he asked. “She’s telling these children that they are important, that they matter, that they are loved and have not been forgotten. That is what this organization does. It’s not just about giving toys at Christmas.”

Others agree, noting her incredible commitment.

“Rita is the kindest, most generous person that I know,” said Michael Diehl, a past president and current board member. “She really has dedicated her life to Santa’s Helpers and getting people to assist with that.

She’s a person who is very difficult to say no to just because she’s so driven and so dedicated to what she does.

The Jewish Light recognizes the following generous sponsors of our Unsung Heroes event:

Enterprise Holdings Foundation The following organizations and individuals would also like to offer warm congratulations to the 2013 Unsung Heroes.

Bob & Jan Abrams Nancy Greenberg Marilyn & Gary Ratkin Community Health Charities Roberta & Michael Gutwein Sarajoan Rezak Congregation B’nai Amoona Terry & Harvey Hieken Rabbi Carnie Rose Congregation Shaare Emeth Holocaust Museum & Learning Center Marci Rosenberg Congregation Temple Israel Gertrude Hulbert Rosenbloom, Goldenhersh, Silverstein Dan’s Fan City Jewish Family & Children Services & Zafft David Kodner, Personal Jeweler Jewish Light Publisher’s Society Marvin & Marlene Rosengarten Barry Demba Nancy Kalishman Shaving Israel Eileen Schneider Edelman Phyllis & Steve Kamenetzky Pat Simons Extra Virgin, An Olive Ovation Peggy & Lee Kaplan Jean, Jay & Teddy Sosna F.C.C.B.E.A. Diane Katzman Sandy & Gloria Spitzer Rabbi Amy Feder & Rabbi Michael Alper Jeanne & Aron Katzman St. Louis Effort for AIDS Rosalie Franklin Fritzi & Mike Lainoff Carol & Michael Staenberg Jerry & Gerry Friedman Barry Mandel & Gail Lapin Rosalie Stein Diane & Paul Gallant Jerry & Rozella Lapp Bernard & Sally Stein The Gateway to Hope Board and Staff Elaine & Ronald Lending Joy Sterneck Margaret Gillerman Harriet Lipnick Students & Families of 2013 Chet Class Leonard & Roslyn Glaser Ricki & Neil Marglous Paul Tandler Eleanor Glick Phyllis Markus Upscale Resale Boutique Oscar Goldberg National Council of Jewish Women Paul Wagman & Elsy Cardona Judy & Lester Goldman Karen, Arthur & Nate Noss Sidney & Elinore Weinhaus Judy & Jeffrey Pass

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May 2013 OY! Magazine - St. Louis Jewish Light

You know when she asks you to do something, it’s all for some good cause.”

Often that cause has a touchingly human element. Swiener remembers one girl who received a sleeping bag for Christmas.

“When she opened it, she started yelling and screaming ‘I get to sleep alone tonight,’” Swiener said. “‘I have a sleeping bag.’ She had been sharing a bed with four other kids.”

Sometimes Swiener’s legendary determination plays a role in the process. When a young boy asked for an “oooh truck,” his sister translated that he meant a “new truck,” one that wasn’t broken. Sure enough, driving home, Swiener saw a big model truck in the window of a moving and storage company. The owner told her it wasn’t for sale.

“I said, ‘I don’t want to buy it. I want you to give it to me,’” Swiener told the incredulous man. “He looked at me like I was crazy and then I told him about the ‘oooh truck.’”

She was so persistent that the customers in line began to hector him until the exasperated owner finally knew he’d met his match. “‘Lady, take the truck and get out of here,’” he said.

In another instance, Swiener worked a Christmas in July event that the group did. When she told an eightyear-old girl that Santa had gifts for her, the youngster explained she was homeless. “My name’s not on anything,” she said sadly.

“When Santa called out her name, you should have seen the look on her face,” recalled Swiener. “She was just aglow.”

Diehl said it isn’t just the kids whose faces light up when they are given gifts.

“What I have seen Rita do so many times is to step back and stand aside and watch the process of handing those gifts over and you can just see the smile on her face,” he said. “It just makes it all worthwhile. She just has this look of satisfaction when that occurs.”

Swiener isn’t ready to give that look up just yet. She chuckles at the thought of retirement.

“I tried that once,” she laughed.

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OY! Magazine - St. Louis Jewish Light

May 2013

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ly

n Project

Josh Goldman

half marme. He ors as as four

AGE: 37 FAMILY: Wife, Sarah; daughter, Lily HOME: Clayton OCCUPATION: Senior Education Project Manager, Urban Strategies FUN FACT: Goldman just ran a half marathon posting a personal best time.

He is active in other athletic endeavors as well and has played on as many as four softball teams in a week.

By DAVID BAUGHER Special to the Jewish Light

Framed by the Gateway Arch and a commanding view of the Mississippi from his 26th story window overlooking downtown St. Louis, the world can seem a small place.

Yet still, Josh Goldman knows that everything outside that window is based on a very big concept, literacy, the foundation upon which a city is built.

“If kids can’t read, they are just not going to have a shot,” said Goldman, senior education project manager for Urban Strategies, a non-profit that works to strengthen families and redevelop communities by creating partnerships with local entities. “It’s something I’ve always been passionate about. I think that reading and literacy have been an important thread throughout my entire life, in the history of my family and of my people.”

These days, Goldman, 37, has a place to let that thread play itself out. The St. Louis University and Vanderbilt alumnus is head of Succeeding with Reading, a program he founded in 2004 while doing his second master’s degree, this one in socioeconomic development at Washington University.

Originally developed while he was an intern at Urban Strategies, the initiative involves a unique approach to spreading reading abilities to others.

“We have written curriculum now that makes an approached called balanced literacy, a national best practice, more successful,” he said. “We take this national literacy model of balanced literacy and we make it better by getting ratios down to 4-to-1 in class22

May 2013 OY! Magazine - St. Louis Jewish Light

Photo: Lisa Mandel

rooms.”

That’s not all. Succeeding with Reading is becoming increasingly multilayered.

“In terms of family literacy, which is the new program we just created, we’re basically teaching adult learners strategies they can use to teach their kids to read and at the same time, they can use it with their own reading,” he said.

“It’s an example of a dual generation program and I think a lot of my work here now is about dual generation programming and services and frameworks for the whole organization.”

The desire to be a part of the educational scene has always been in Goldman’s repertoire.

“I had wanted to be a teacher because I had gone to a summer camp and then was a counselor there for 15 summers,” he said. “I always loved kids.”

Later he would teach in private schools in both Nashville and St. Louis.

Karen Sher remembers him from his time as part of the first cohort of the Millstone Fellows Program, a leadership development initiative in the Jewish community.

“He’s just a genuine, deep-thinking soul,” she said. “He is very thoughtful in his approach to community. I believe he’s a real visionary because of how he looks at community.”

Sher, a senior program associate for the Millstone Institute, described Goldman as an agent of change who

really makes a difference in the lives of others.

“He’s got this openness to learning and to not judging others,” she said.

“As much as he brings to the table, he gets so much back for his own personal growth.”

Goldman loves to feel he is making a difference by finding the sweet spot where learning fits into a larger picture of building community.

“I’ve always been interested in urban education and the problems we’re seeing in urban environments,” said Goldman, who is also policy chair of the St. Louis Regional Early Childhood Council. “I’ve always known that just tackling education isn’t enough to make changes for a population.”

Of course, tackling that hasn’t always been easy. Though it started at Urban Strategies, Goldman’s reading program has traveled further afield and he kept it going independently through fundraising for about four years.

Today, it’s back home as an important component in the overall picture the agency puts together.

In his present job, Goldman often has to ask the big questions. What’s the best strategy for dealing with the school system? What about afterschool activities? What are the educational needs of a community?

“Once that’s figured out, then I work with the team in that city to really link our families to these schools and ser-

vices in the right way and make these strategies happen,” he said.

Making things happen is something Goldman said he learned from his mother, Stephanie Riven, who was executive director of COCA. He said her example helped him to translate ideas into reality. Meanwhile, his father, Roger Goldman, a law professor at St. Louis University, played a big role as well.

“He taught me there is much to be learned from text and from study and certainly much to be enjoyed,” Josh Goldman said. “I see reading and study as a real source of possibility and I think that comes from my dad.”

His Jewish values have been a part of the picture as well. He presently serves on the Domestic Advocacy Committee on the Jewish Community Relations Council.

“I thought a lot about my values and how they play into what I do, what my work is, what I’m passionate about,” he said. “I think a lot of my value set came from my temple, Central Reform Congregation, where I’m a member and have been for 27 years.”

Today, Succeeding with Reading is seeing good results in recent evaluations having shown measurable gains in test scores. Moreover, it’s given away some 8,000 books over the past nine years, most of them donated. Now public money is being made available to help run the effort at two local schools. In addition, Urban Strategies, which has a presence in eight cities, is looking to use the program as a national model.

Meanwhile, Goldman is still trying to spread the word.

“I’ve had 11 interns from Wash U and I try to teach them a value set and way of operating so that they then can be passionate in solving challenges and innovating,” he said.

In the end, it is all a part of his overall philosophy.

“I’ve just always believed that there are vulnerable people out there and that they need the same opportunities and the same chances that I had,” he said. “That’s just something that sort of informs everything that I do. I don’t look at this work as handouts or entitlements. It’s just about creating a ladder out for people in poverty.”

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OY! Magazine - St. Louis Jewish Light

May 2013

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Jan Baron is pictured at Congregation B’nai Amoona, where she has taught Sunday school for 12 years. Photo: Lisa Mandel

By SUSAN FADEM Special to the Jewish Light

Had her dad stayed in Hollywood, once he passed his screen test, a gaping hole might have been detected, years later, in the fund-raising and religious worlds here. But since Depression-era studios had little money for beefing up raw talent, the Goldenbergs eventually made St. Louis their home.

On local turf, life-shaping lessons abounded. James “Jimmy” Goldenberg, a handsome traveling salesman with a gorgeous singing voice, albeit no knack for remembering lyrics, “made a difference in our lives,” says Jan Baron, the middle child in the Goldenberg family, sandwiched between brothers Ron and Larry.

Mom, the former Edna Hirsch, not only raised the children, but also was active in B’nai Brith, the world’s oldest Jewish service organization. From her parents, Baron says, she absorbed “a love for people and certainly a love for Judaism.”

Ambition mattered, too. Of a longtime career that encompasses –- and sometimes simultaneously serves—the nonprofit and religious spheres, Baron 24

May 2013 OY! Magazine - St. Louis Jewish Light

says: “My whole philosophy is relationships in whatever you do. Everything is based on the relationships you make, and that’s how you start getting involved.”

To date, Baron estimates she’s raised several million dollars for charity.

Described as a persuasive powerhouse, often in David vs. Goliath situations, she has spent the past five years convincing employers to allow employees to take payroll deductions for health-related agencies outside the United Way system. This, in brief, is the main part of her job in St. Louis as vice president of income development for Community Health Charities of Missouri and Kansas.

Previously, she was executive director of the Mid-America Chapter of Crohn’s & Colitis Foundation, one of the local Community Health Charities’ 30 plus member charities. Other organizations under the Community Health Charities umbrella, each with a local presence, include March of Dimes, Muscular Dystrophy Association, Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, Variety the Children’s Charity, Down Syndrome Association, St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, Ronald McDonald House Charities of Metro

Jan Baron AGE: 78 HOME: Chesterfield FAMILY: Both Jan and Richard Baron, soon to be 89 and her husband of 45 years, were widowed when they met.

Adopting each other’s children, they have two sons, Alan Baron and Ron (Gayla) Baron; two daughters Lori Baron and Teri (Michael) Rosenblum; and five “wonderful, brilliant, beautiful and handsome” grandchildren.

FUN FACT: Until age 75, Baron was a runner, usually in five-kilometer events.

The older she got, the more trophies she won, not for speed but because she was “the only one in my age category.”

St. Louis, Autism Speaks, Friends of Kids with Cancer and Susan G. Komen for the Cure.

Baron has also served as director of the Congregation B’nai Amoona’s early childhood center, executive director of both B’nai Amoona and Shaare Zedek Synagogue, executive director of the National Council of Jewish Women-St.

Louis, director of the Women’s Division of Jewish Federation of St. Louis, and coordinator and consultant for the Mid-Continent Region of the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism.

A graduate of Lindenwood University, she received her master’s in education from Webster University.

That phase of her training, however, is more convoluted than it appears, Baron says.

With time out to marry David Robinson and have two children, she started at Indiana University, came back to Washington University and then took a night class, a day class, and also courses now and then at the University of Missouri-St. Louis and what became Harris-Stowe State University.

Widowed at age 30, she subsequently met and married another widower, Richard Baron, husband of the late Geraldine Goldberg Baron and also the father of two.

Dubbing themselves the Baron Bunch, they adopted each other’s children. “Richard had the boys. I had the girls. He had the boy dog. I had the girl

dog,” she says. Both had goldfish, though neither determined the gender.

With her new husband’s encouragement, Jan Baron finished her undergraduate degree at Lindenwood. When she became the director for early childhood education at B’nai Amoona, where she is now president of the congregation, she returned for her master’s.

No matter where else she was working or on what volunteer boards she served, Baron has long taught Sunday School – 10 years at United Hebrew Congregation and a total of 12 years at B’nai Amoona, where she now instructs eighth graders in tikkun olam, or repairing the world.

Not infrequently, former students who are now grandparents approach her. When he was 7 and she was maybe 16, one man said, he had a terrible crush on her. Her response: “Well darn, don’t cha still?”

Yet beneath some of her humor, healed wounds remain. As a baby, Baron was bathed by her mother in a then-popular canvas bassinet, the kind on legs and deep enough to accommo-

date a bit of water.

Babies were strapped to the top as a hose came in from the bottom. “My older brother was probably making mischief, and my mother didn’t realize it was hot water,” Baron recalls. The resulting steam caused third-degree burns, covering her entire back.

My mother was a very loving, caring person,” Baron says. “I don’t think she ever, ever, ever forgave herself.” To hide the scars Baron has always worn highback garments.

Normally, she says she doesn’t see her back or think about it. Loved ones never seemed to care. Nonetheless, Baron believes that as a motivator, her wounds made a difference.

“I found out that we all have something, whether external or internal,” she says. “We all have some sort of challenge to overcome. Nobody’s perfect.”

As if to show that life can come full circle, Baron is a former board member of the Burns Recovery Support Group here. The non-profit charity is among those served by her current employer, Community Health Charities.

Mazel Tov to

Rachel Miller Rachel has been our Unsung Hero and Founder since 2004 of Shaving Israel, a 501c3 organization whose mission is to help supply personal items to the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) SHAVING ISRAEL

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St. Louis Food Rescue

Teens on a mission to feed the hungry

By Ellie Grossman • Special to the Jewish Light

Helping the hungry is more than a mitzvah project for teenagers Nate Noss, Will Hopkins, and Sam Pepose. It’s a mission.

With one in eight people in the greater St Louis area dependent on food pantries and homeless shelters for their daily meals, the hunger crisis is real, and these local high school seniors play a big role in solving the problem in our community.

Noss, Hopkins, and Pepose, who originally became friends when they attended Whitfield School and were in band class together, are the brains and the brawn behind St. Louis Food Rescue (STLFR).

Since its inception in 2011, this 100-percent teenage-run organization has already distributed food to about a half million people, or 300,000 local families. In the process, these “Unsung Heroes” have saved about 5,000 pounds of fresh produce and bread from being discarded each week.

Sure, these teens are young, but their souls are old. In fact, they combine their leadership and communication skills, networking abilities, and Jewish values to make a difference in the world.

“I will never forget the time when I saw a 2-year-old boy sleeping with his mother on a cardboard box or the time when I handed a man some grapes and he answered, ‘I haven’t had a grape for 20 years.’ I realized he was not joking when he explained how he was discharged from the hospital after an injury because he did not have enough money, and his injury was not life threatening,” said Noss, who, at age 11, began volunteering at the Jewish Food Pantry in 2006 as a school requirement.

By the time he was 15, Noss was seeking donations himself at area grocery stores and

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May 2013 OY! Magazine - St. Louis Jewish Light

bakeries.

“Many people in the stores did not take me seriously, and one manager even laughed at me,” Noss continued. “As I grew older, I learned that age does not matter; that evolved into one of the reasons we are 100 percent teenage-volunteer run. Many places thought that a 15-year-old could never make a large commitment, but there were multiple stores, such as Whole Foods and Costco, that eagerly donated their leftovers.

“I decided to bring this food downtown at the New Life Evangelistic Center where I knew there were hungry people. They greeted me with warm hearts.”

At age 16, Noss attended Hugh O’Brian Youth (HOBY) Leadership, a three-day seminar that “allowed me to step outside of my comfort zone while being surrounded by 150 of Missouri’s best high school leaders,” said Noss, who will graduate from Lafayette High School and travel to Israel this summer. He plans to attend the Technion Israel Institute of Technology International School of Engineering to study civil and environmental engineering.

“I went on to represent Missouri at the week-long HOBY World Leadership Congress. A few days after returning home from the conference, I founded St. Louis Food Rescue.”

In 2011, Noss was on the lookout for people he trusted to help him with his mission to end hunger in St. Louis. He wanted to join forces with peers who were smart, dedicated and had the same Jewish values as him.

That’s when he partnered with Pepose and Hopkins. From there, the nonprofit group gained momentum.

“For years now we have seen him spend

Nate Noss, Sam Pepose and Will Hopkins of St. Louis Food Rescue are pictured at Whole Foods Market, one of the locations where the teens pick up leftover fresh produce and bread, which they deliver to homeless shelters. All photos: Yana Hotter

OY! Magazine - St. Louis Jewish Light

May 2013

27

pumpkins to feed those in countless hours organizing and need. motivating volunteers, deliverPepose, vice president and ing food and still achieving so director of social media and much in school, sports, music, technology, broadens the etc.,” said Art Noss, who nomiFacebook, Twitter, YouTube, nated his son’s group for the and LinkedIn influence, while award. “Of course, no organizamanaging the website and tion is successful without a team Will Hopkins creating videos to promote effort and we are so happy that the organization. he has been able to work with “I am a software developer, great friends like Will, Sam and so that is my strength for the so many other dedicated teens in organization,” said Pepose, building this organization.” who will attend Vanderbilt Un i v e r s i t y- S c h o o l of STLFR is not only helping the Engineering in the fall.

“I also hungry, it’s also devoted to keep the organization on inspiring young people by allotrack with realistic goals. cating all leadership opportuniNate Noss Nate is the dreamer, I help to ties to teenagers and making figure out the reasonable community service a part of logistics,” adding that the their lives. STLFR operates most satisfying part of STLFR mostly on the weekends and “is helping those in our comevenings when mainstream colmunity who can’t help themlection agencies are closed, so selves.” there’s definitely a niche to be Hopkins, secretary and volfilled. unteer coordinator, is respon“The most satisfying part of Sam Pepose sible for having enough volunSTLFR is knowing that food will teers signed up for every not go to the trash, and instead, delivery, which is not always tant job to do. “Running STLFR is like will go to feeding the hungry,” said Hopkins, a Whitfield senior who running a small business. Each of us easy. “The largest challenge we’ve had to overcome is the spontaneplans to study mechanical engineer- have tasks,” said Hopkins.

Noss, founder and president, makes ous cancellations by volunteers 15 ing or computer science at the Missouri University of Science and executive decisions for the organiza- minutes before a delivery. This usualtion, speaks to youth groups, and ly meant we had to cancel our studies, Technology in Rolla in the fall.

STLFR operates so efficiently coordinates the Pumpkin Project, homework, etc. and do what needed because each of the trio has an impor- which collects thousands of donated to be done,” said Hopkins.

It is not what one says, rather what one does, that makes a difference.

- Ethics of the Fathers 1:17

THANK YOU to more than 1,300 volunteers who donated

more than 30,000 hours in the last year. It’s with your help that we can continue to make a difference in our community!

jccstl.org 28

May 2013 OY! Magazine - St. Louis Jewish Light

STLFR currently has 46 teen volunteers who deliver food. The organization also has partnerships with a local Boy Scout troop and The Principia School in Town and Country, and they plan on recruiting other schools and youth groups for more volunteers. For the most part, STLFR is a well-oiled machine, but balancing volunteer work with the demands of high school and a social life is always a challenge.

“Time management is the key.

This isn’t something teens usually learn until later in college, but it’s very important,” said Pepose.

Despite their tight schedules, they somehow manage to make things work.

“It is very difficult to balance my school work with extracurricular activities and STLFR,” Hopkins said. “To save time I have had to cut some of my extra curricular activities like BBYO and my hobby, which is flying remote control planes and helicopters. Nate usually covers my work when I participate in theatrical productions, which usually take two weeks of intense practice. More than once though, I’ve had to leave practice early to make a delivery.”

As for the future, well it looks very bright for these young men, and hopefully STLFR will continue to grow as the torch is handed over to the next leaders.

“I built St. Louis Food Rescue with my own hands. The organization is driven by my passion and the volunteers’ passions to never let a person go hungry when food is wasted,” said Noss. “While STLFR is not a religious organization, I am a Conservative Jew, and my Jewish values and morals have and will always ensure the well being of every single person. I went from a volunteer at the Harvey Kornblum Jewish Food Pantry to a motivated entrepreneur, and hundreds of thousands of people benefited from that.”

OY! Magazine - St. Louis Jewish Light

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Photo: Lisa Mandel

By DAVID BAUGHER Special to the Jewish Light

Asking how many dogs someone has is usually a simple enough question.

But not for Derek Cohn.

“Today, we have five,” said Cohn. “It’s always a changing number.”

That’s because Cohn takes in foster dogs, as part of a program through Stray Rescue that gives canines a temporary home until they can be adopted into more permanent surroundings. For many homeless creatures, it’s more than a convenience. It can save the dog’s life.

“One of the things I learned a lot about with animal welfare and animal rescue is that most of the stories don’t have a happy ending,” Cohn said. “Most of the dogs are euthanized just because there is no space in the shelter or they have a minor health issue that somebody doesn’t want to pay for or just because somebody can’t hold them for a few days until another opportunity comes open.”

For Cohn, it all started when he volunteered as a dog walker for the organization, taking pets for lunchtime strolls in Lafayette Square during his hour away from work.

30

May 2013 OY! Magazine - St. Louis Jewish Light

Derek Cohn AGE: 51 FAMILY: Wife, Sarah Zartman HOME: Clayton OCCUPATION: Project manager for software, Express Scripts FUN FACT: Cohn enjoys the unusual hobby of railroad telegraphy. He is one of only a few enthusiasts who continue to keep the old railroad code alive and he also does weekend demonstrations of Morse code at the old Ferguson rail station.

Soon however, he found himself taking in dogs instead of just exercising them. The first was, in many ways, the most inspiring. The pooch was a “hospice dog,” which had been hit by a car, had three broken legs and a wound from a BB gun.

“You try to give him an easy send off,” said Cohn. “We’ve done that for three or four dogs and that really resonated with me.”

But that initial canine proved to have incredible spirit.

“We took him home, we thought, for just a few weeks, until he passed away,”

said Cohn. “He ended up recovering from his injuries and we had him for five years. That was an amazing story.”

Since then plenty of animals have found a home in Cohn’s household.

“Over the years, we’ve taken in more and more dogs,” he said. “I caught one myself down by Crown Candy on North Broadway on the way to a Stray Rescue event. That was 10 years ago and we still have him.”

Unfortunately, it’s obvious that some dogs will simply never find another home. Those with poor temperaments or personality issues or those that simply can’t interact well with strangers are rarely adopted.

They often find a home with people like Cohn.

“We’ve had three or four returned multiple times that just aren’t going to be successful anywhere else,” he said.

The native St. Louisan doesn’t only keep dogs. He moves them as well.

Through a unique program called Paws on Wheels, Cohn volunteers as a relay driver to ferry rescued animals that need to be transported from one part of the country to another. He drives the Rolla-to-St. Louis segment three out of every four weekends.

What motivates him?

“I’ve always been an animal lover but I think a lot of people are animal lovers without getting this involved,” said the 51-year-old. “It’s two parts. One is that I can’t stand by while this is going on without trying to help. The other thing is that giving voice to those that don’t have a voice is important to me. These dogs have no way to improve their own lot. It’s not like they can find their own home. It’s not that they can change their circumstances but ordinary people like me can do that.”

Cohn said Jewish values have helped him to see that reality, particularly a visit to the Avenue of the Righteous at Israel’s Yad Vashem.

“They recognize ordinary people who could do something that made a huge difference,” he said. “While I don’t want to say my name in the same breath as those people that saved the Jews from the Holocaust, it underscored for me that one person can make a difference.

“A simple act of bringing a dog into my home for a few weeks will save his life.

Otherwise, the future is not bright for them.”

Tami Zahrndt, a volunteer with Stray Rescue, offers high praise for Cohn.

“I would definitely say he is one of the most selfless individuals that you could ever meet,” said Zahrndt. “If it needs to be done, he’s always the first to help out whether it is walking dogs or washing dishes or mopping.”

She said that she and others she spoke with about Cohn admire his generosity of spirit and his dependability.

“He just gives so much of himself to people,” she said.

Cohn’s volunteerism isn’t limited to his work with animals either. He also helps out as a Santa for Santa’s Helpers, a program founded by fellow 2013 Unsung Hero honoree Rita Swiener.

“Sometimes the housing circumstances are deplorable,” he said of the places where he delivers gifts to under-privileged children. “We started carrying flashlights because a lot of the homes don’t have power. They are sitting in the dark and huddling with coats on because it is so cold.”

Today, Cohn said he’s thrilled to be able to help others – whether two- or fourlegged.

“I’ve found something that I want to stick with a long time,” he said.

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OY! Magazine - St. Louis Jewish Light

May 2013

31

Herb Eissman is pictured at The Resale Shop, which is run by National Council for Jewish Women - St. Louis Section.

Photo: Lisa Mandel

By David Baugher Special to the Jewish Light

Some people retire to get away from work. Others seek work out after leaving their jobs.

Herb Eissman is definitely the latter.

“I just like to be helpful to people,” he said.

It’s something the 82-year-old native of Neosho, Mo. proves every weekday between 1 and 4 p.m. when he stops by the National Council of Jewish Women’s Resale Shop in Creve Coeur to assist the clerks and management in their daily duties.

The five-year-long ritual hasn’t gone unnoticed.

“He means the world to us,” said Lauren Whener, the retail outlet’s assistant manager. “He is the sweetest man I have ever personally worked with. He always wants to talk to the customers and his just being in the store makes the day go by a lot better.”

Whener called him a “fantastic” person who is consistently jovial and 32

May 2013 OY! Magazine - St. Louis Jewish Light

Herb Eissman AGE: 82 FAMILY: Wife, Flora; two sons, Mark and Jeff; one granddaughter HOME: Unincorporated St. Louis County OCCUPATION: Former human resources management FAVORITE PASTIMES: Eissman is a heavy-duty Mizzou football fan. He has a Mizzou watch, a Mizzou jacket and even a Tiger-themed mailbox in front of the house.

has a smile for everyone.

“Especially when there are little children around, he always wants to stop and have a little talk and his face just lights up,” said Whener. “The other day there was a little kid running around and he was so thrilled to be able to just stand there and talk to him.”

Eissman was modest about his con-

tributions.

“I just do whatever they ask me to do,” he said.

Eissman’s wife Flora said modesty comes naturally to her husband who doesn’t often brag on himself.

“When they called and told him he was getting this award, he said, ‘But I didn’t do anything,’” she recalled. “I said, ‘Herb, you go for hours a day and you’ve been doing it for five or six years.’”

Sales associate Pat Patterson noted that she always looks forward to Eissman’s daily visit.

“He’s just so pleasant to be around and always has a smile on his face,” she said. “He’s so personable with our customers. He’s known a lot of them since we moved from down on Olive. He enjoys being here and we enjoy having him.”

Flora Eissman said that her husband simply likes to keep active and is naturally given to volunteerism.

“I think Herb likes getting out of the house and having a routine in his schedule and helping other people,”

she said. “It’s always nice to be able to do something and have people appreciate what you do.”

Jessica Means, co-manager of the store, said that Eissman’s presence is one the customers have come to appreciate as well.

“I’ve never heard him say a negative word,” she said. “He loves visiting with people, especially on Tuesdays, which is senior day. A lot of the gentlemen who come in know Herb by name. They’ll talk Mizzou football and Cardinal baseball.”

Means said that sometimes Eissman can almost be too reliable. If bad weather strikes, they have to phone him just to ensure he stays home.

“We know we have to call Herb first because it doesn’t matter if there is 10 feet of snow, he still thinks he needs to be there,” she said. “He takes it very seriously.”

She said that others could learn something from Eissman’s example.

“It’s positive for him, it’s positive for the community and I think that in the younger generation, we get so wrapped up in everything we think we have to do every day that we forget that tiny aspect of giving back sometimes,” she said.

It’s certainly not his first volunteer gig either. The Brith Sholom Kneseth Israel congregant used to work with the Senior Olympics as well. Eissman remembered the events fondly. One year, he even competed in the walking competition.

“It’s a lot of people and they enjoyed the work that we did for them,” he recalled. “I’ve always enjoyed sports.

Some of the sporting events I would plan and help publicize.”

Eissman said he always liked to be involved, even when he was a kid.

“I was in all different organizations,” he said. “I always have been.”

His wife said that Herb’s volunteering personality is exactly the kind that keeps older folks feeling young.

“I think it makes you feel good to know that you can still do things that help other people,” she said.

It certainly makes Herb feel great to know he is helping NCJW to accomplish its mission.

“They’re really doing something good for the community,” he said.

Congratulations

Morah Jan

You are an inspiration to all of us!

From the students and families of your

2013 Chet Class

OY! Magazine - St. Louis Jewish Light

May 2013

33

Zubaida Ibrahim at the Daar ul-Islam mosque. Photo: Lisa Mandel

By Repps Hudson Special to the Jewish Light

Sometimes, Zubaida Ibrahim knows she is up against an overwhelming image problem, but that challenge only makes her double her resolve.

A Muslim woman who was born in Pakistan and has lived in the United States 42 years, Ibrahim works virtually every day to build and strengthen bridges with other faith communities, particularly the St. Louis Jewish community.

Her head loosely covered with a white hijab dotted with hearts, Ibrahim displayed her force of character in a quiet, unassuming way late last week at her comfortable brick home in Town and Country. On a wall in her dining room hangs framed pictures of her three children – two sons and one daughter, all doctors.

Ibrahim seemed eager to explain why she sees Islam as a positive force in the world, and not the destructive faith as is so frequently portrayed the 34

May 2013 OY! Magazine - St. Louis Jewish Light

Zubaida Ibrahim AGE: 65 FAMILY: Married to Mohammed Ibrahim; two sons, Ahmer and Shariq, and one daughter, Saman; three granddaughters and one grandson HOME: Town and Country OCCUPATION: Office manager for Ibrahim Engineering, her husband’s firm FAVORITE PASTIMES: Zubaida enjoys gardening and cooking.

news.

After 9/11, she resolved to become a personal ambassador for her interpretation of Islam, living and practicing the faith as she understands it and answering as many questions as she can.

“In Islam, you cannot take a life,” she said referring to suicide or martyr bombers. “God gave you life. No one can take a life.”

Rather, her way to pay tribute to her faith each day is by acts of charity, teaching and speaking out on the positive aspects of Islam.

“More people should do the same,” said Ibrahim, 65, as her husband, Mohammed Ibrahim, sat beside her.

“We need to get to know each other.

We have dialogue groups. We have learned so much. We talk about children, marriage, schooling.”

She also agreed that it can be an act of courage to stand before a group of strangers and answer questions about Islam, which is widely caricatured and misunderstood by many Americans.

In her most visible example of building relationships across the sometimes vast chasm between Muslims and Jews, Ibrahim was cochair of the Jewish-Muslim Day of Service on this past Christmas day.

That effort brought more than 600 people of both faiths together to perform various acts of charity, as both Islam and Judaism require, at more than 20 sites in the area.

Her outreach with the local Jewish community over the last several years is becoming well-known and appreciated.

She and her husband, 69, a civil engineer with his own consulting firm, have attended Passover seders.

They are comfortable discussing the similarities of the two faiths, and they find they have been warmly welcomed into homes and synagogues.

Today they are U.S. citizens; they met at the University of Karachi, which they both attended nearly 50 years ago.

“We have been to several seders,” said Ibrahim, adding that she enjoys the food and the story of the Exodus.

“We are trying to mend things with the Jews.”

Leanne Schneider, a member of Congregation Shaare Emeth, nominated Zubaida Ibrahim as an Unsung Hero. She met the Ibrahims during a trip to Israel in 2007 led by Rabbi Mark Shook of Temple Israel.

“We really became good friends on that trip,” Schneider said. “We have maintained our friendship with Zubaida and Mohammed. She is a low key and modest person.”

To this, Batya Abramson-Goldstein, executive director of the Jewish Community Relations Council, adds her own perspective.

“Zubaida is a remarkably caring and loving person,” she said. “She obviously cares deeply about her faith community and also about others.”

Don’t be fooled by Ibrahim’s small size or quiet manner, AbramsonGoldstein said.

“Beneath her soft and gentle demeanor, there’s a fierce desire to act on this approach of hers,” she said.

“We are literally brothers and sisters.

She often speaks of me as her sister. I feel that too.”

Like Schneider, AbramsonGoldstein said her relationship with Ibrahim developed after the trip to Israel, which included several Muslim, Jewish and Christian couples.

Asked if she ever discusses the Arab-Israeli conflict and Israel’s relations with Palestinians and various

See IBRAHIM, page 43

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Rick Rovak AGE: 67 FAMILY: Wife, Louise; two daughters, Erin and Anne; six grandchildren HOME: Creve Coeur OCCUPATION: Formerly sales executive in the shoe industry FAVORITE PASTIMES: Rovak is taking harmonica lessons after his wife bought him one for his birthday.

By David Baugher Special to the Jewish Light

Rick Rovak was doing well in life. His kids went to college.

His family was comfortable and his job as a high-powered sales executive in the shoe industry paid very well.

Then he found himself having dinner one night with friends at a fashionable Beverly Hills restaurant.

“I said ‘Does it trouble any of Photo: Yana Hotter you that we don’t do anything with our lives?’” recalled Rovak. “‘Sure, we write some checks the agency services committee. He to charity and that’s nice. even finds time to stay active with the Organizations need the money but Gateway Chapter of the Multiple what are we doing?’”

Sclerosis Society.

Though not judgmental of others’ And making time for Rovak is easy. choices, Rovak didn’t feel like he found His volunteerism isn’t an imposition. any satisfactory answers for himself It’s a priority. that evening – and that bothered him.

“I view all these things as opportuniHe liked the fashion industry but felt it ties so I know I’m contributing my was lacking something. time. I live by the Winston Churchill “As I tell friends, I know the day quote, ‘We make a living by what we when I said, ‘I don’t care if red is the get. We make a life by what we give,’” new black or heels are going up or he said. “These organizations offer me going down,’” he said. the opportunity to give.”

Today, heels are far from Rovak’s Lou Albert, executive director of mind. After retiring early, the 67-year- JF&CS, feels his organization is the old is a veritable repository of volun- one getting the opportunity in being teerism. He’s president of the board of able to work with someone as thoughtGateway to Hope, which arranges care ful and passionate about its mission as and helps with finances for under- or Rovak. uninsured individuals coping with “This is a guy who is very active and breast cancer. The Creve Coeur resi- engaged in the not-for-profit commudent is also a vice-president at Jewish nity. He’s been a significant resource Family & Children’s Service, chairing within the agency in terms of helping 36

May 2013 OY! Magazine - St. Louis Jewish Light

us to deliver the best and highest quality services,” said Albert.

He said that Rovak’s work in helping the agency to design a system for integrating assessment of programs with budgetary and strategic planning needs has been invaluable. “He’s been really just a treasure on the board in every way,” Albert said.

For Rovak, it’s all about the Jewish ideal that says he who heals one person heals the world.

“That’s our attitude at JF&CS,” said Rovak. “I work with a group of really passionate people.”

He also appreciates the organization’s comprehensive approach with its multilayered services.

“Through that intake, the person walks through the door expecting to go through one door and maybe there are two or three doors that open for them to help them through life,” he said. “I find that to be a spectacular approach.”

Gateway to Hope provides a similar feeling of helping. By assisting people battling cancer through the use of donated care, the organization can really make a difference in the lives of those going through difficult times. It even helps with bills like mortgage, rent or food.

“Basically, we tell our clients we just want you to get better,” he said. “We’ll take care of everything else. It’s a wonderful organization and there is nothing like it that we know about here.”

His involvement with the MS group came about in a more unusual way. He was biking with a friend in Franklin County when his companion suggested being a part of an organized charity ride. Rovak chuckled at the idea and asked why.

“He said, ‘It looks like a lot of fun,’” the native St. Louisan recalled, “I said ‘I’m having all the fun I need right now.’”

But the following week Rovak found himself perusing pamphlets for an MS ride in a bike shop and soon he was hooked. Since then his participation in charity rides has helped to raise more than $80,000 for research.

Interestingly, he has no personal connection to the disease. Actually, it is the very fact that everyone in his family is healthy that made him think it was the right cause. That’s what he wants for everyone.

“My feelings were ‘Gee, if I could do something so that someone else could enjoy that kind of a life…’” he said.

“Sure we want to get a cure to MS but what if we could make it just a chronically treatable disease so somebody can go through their day not experiencing all those terrible symptoms that MS can bring? That would be great.”

But his work with the MS group doesn’t end when he gets off the bike.

He’s on its grant review and government relations committees, sometimes advocating in Jefferson City and Washington, D.C. He even does photography, a long time hobby of his, for the organization’s events, something the Shaare Emeth congregant also does for Camp Rainbow, which helps children with cancer and blood disease.

In the end, Rovak feels helping others is a responsibility that he has to take seriously.

“I’ve always felt that we were lucky…

But there are a lot of people who need a little help,” he said. “They didn’t do anything wrong. They didn’t drop the ball. I just feel fortunate. I feel if I can do something to help people in whatever way I can, that made a lot more sense.”

His active retirement may seem unusual but it was really a part of the plan – at least a part of the plan Rovak formed when he decided to leave the business at age 62.

“I didn’t want to look back in 10 or 15 years and say, ‘Oh, man, I never went after any of my passions.’”

Six years after leaving the business world, it seems like he made the right call.

“They’ve been the best years,” he said. “It steamrolled. The more I did, the better I felt about it.”

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OY! Magazine - St. Louis Jewish Light

May 2013

37

Rachel Miller at home, in front of paintings of three of her family members lost during the Holocaust— her mother, father and sister. A German prisoner of war created the portraits, working from photographs of the family. Photos: Lisa Mandel

By Susan Fadem Special to the Jewish Light

Crossing a Paris street to go to a bakery, a young child was hit by a car driven by a Nazi. “It was like I was a piece of paper,” the French-born Rachel Goldman Miller recalls. “He never stopped.”

During the German occupation of France in World War II, her broken left ankle was scarcely a priority.

Survival was.

In medical experiments and in concentration camps, Miller would lose both parents, her two brothers and her sister, all of whom had earlier fled anti-Semitism in Poland, leaving behind the family’s large home and servants.

During the war, a total of 93 of Miller’s relatives would die. For her own life — despite guilt that she “had not suffered enough” — she credits her mother.

What turned out to be three days before the Nazis rounded up the 38

May 2013 OY! Magazine - St. Louis Jewish Light

Rachel Miller AGE: 80 HOME: Chesterfield FAMILY: Married for 47 years to the late Milt Miller, two sons: Neil (married to Marci Lifton) and the late Mark Miller, and two granddaughters FUN FACT: “Beyond Me: A Song Cycle in the Key of Survival,” an original, onewoman, multi-media composition about Rachel Miller and her late son, Mark, will return to St. Louis on Nov. 17 for a performance at the Jewish Community Center.

Goldmans in Paris, her mother sent 9-year-old Rachel, her youngest, to hide on a Catholic family’s farm.

Miller would also stay in another family’s kitchen and a convent.

In the past 10 years, Rachel Miller has shared her wartime story with hundreds of schoolchildren and other

visitors at the Holocaust Museum and Learning Center here. “Her ability to connect with students of all ages … is incredible,” says museum docent Irl Solomon.

“The students leave imbued with Elie Wiesel’s dictum: ‘To listen to a witness is to become a witness,’” he adds.

Yet for almost 50 years, Miller remained publicly silent about her experiences. “Many of us repressed our stories and just went on,” she says.

Steven Spielberg changed her mind. The director’s Academy Award-winning “Schindler’s List” (1993) chronicled the true story of Oskar Schindler, the Austrian industrialist who saved 1,100 mostly Polish Jews, employing them as workers in his factory.

While previous attempts to re-create the Holocaust on TV “didn’t look like reality,” Miller says, “Spielberg was instrumental in bringing back the Holocaust (to public view).”

Watching the film compelled her to become one of the first Holocaust survivors to tell her story to Spielberg’s Shoah Foundation.

One aspect of Miller’s tale, revealed in growing depth only in recent years, concerns a Jewish soldier. Part of the American liberation force, he brought the orphaned Rachel to New York in 1946, but not before molesting her in France. The abuse continued in New York, where he took her to live with his wife and toddler daughter. “Every morning at 9:30, he would come into my bed,” Miller says.

When his wife found out, she threw out young Rachel. Years of therapy have helped convince Miller she was not to blame for her victimization. In sharing this part of her story with students, she often senses that others, too, have been molested.

After her speech, listeners sometimes cry. They want her to hug them. She does.

As a post-war teenager in New York, Miller would live in five different foster homes, all Jewish, after leaving the soldier’s. “The problem was with me,” she says. “I was extremely disturbed.”

Salvation arrived, however, when Milt Miller, a friend of one of the home’s residents, came to visit. “Milt was very, very cute. He was darling,” she says. Though she knew instantly she would marry him, they waited until she was 17 and had graduated

from high school.

The Millers later relocated to Los Angeles, where they would raise their two sons. Both Rachel and Milt worked in retail. With her own war years an ever-more distant memory, she started a women’s auxiliary of the city’s Jewish War Veterans chapter and was elected both chapter and statewide president.

Unlike many Holocaust survivors, Miller had managed once as a child to return to her family’s two-room Paris apartment. Accompanied by an

aunt and cousin, she had intended to retrieve a favorite doll. Instead, she grabbed the family photos that have remained some of her most cherished possessions. But in Los Angeles, there was little time or reason to dwell on loss.

Then, the unthinkable happened.

Younger son Mark, an attorney for Warner Bros., died of AIDS in 1992.

He was 35. The day he passed his bar exam, he had told his parents he was gay.

After Mark’s death, Milt’s diabetes

Rachel Miller looks at a family photograph — she is the only survivor in the photo.

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May 2013

39

worsened. He lost not only his eyesight, but also his will to live, Rachel Miller says.

Yet somehow, she was able to draw on the strength that helped her as a child. “I’ve been surviving and taking care of myself since I’m nine-yearsold,” she says. The Millers’ other son, Neil, also a lawyer, had by this time moved here, where he is now assistant circuit attorney for the city of St. Louis.

The elder Millers visited regularly.

Realizing that Los Angeles would never be the same, Rachel masterminded the couple’s move to St. Louis in 1993.

Mind you, she was getting around at this point in a wheelchair and on a motorized scooter. In 1986, she had tripped over a garden hose and rebroken her ankle, the same one injured by the Nazi and left to heal on its own. This time, Miller had surgery and a cast.

Afterward, her pain increased. The foot would swell and turn cold.

Physical therapy accomplished nothing.

When doctors said she would never walk again, Milt was aghast. “Why don’t you break your ankle and start all over again?” he would say. She ignored it.

Milt passed away on Dec. 30, 1997, the same day, 56 years later, that her father had been murdered by German experimenting with various gases for later use in extermination camps.

Several years after Milt’s death, Miller accidentally re-broke her left ankle, this time when her scooter seat landed on her foot. Doctors put her ankle in a soft brace. Eight weeks later she was instructed to remove the brace for an hour, put it back in place for an hour and so on.

Her first time without the brace, she put her foot down and felt no pain. “I thought I was hallucinating,” she says. Eventually, she was walking, without a cane. On a visit to her husband’s gravesite, she confirmed the logic of his thinking.

After 11 years in a wheelchair, to walk again was “like a miracle,” she says. As if reborn, she returned to the retail business and presently works 40

May 2013 OY! Magazine - St. Louis Jewish Light

Rachel Miller is interviewed by Tim Gore of HEC-TV during a live HEC-TV broadcast at the Holocaust Museum and Learning Center in January, 2012. The interview was done in front of an audience of high school students and the program was shown in several schools around the country. Photo: Yana Hotter 15 to 20 hours weekly as a sales associate at Coldwater Creek women’s store in West County.

She also became a Holocaust Museum speaker here, finding the courage to lay bare “the still very raw wounds of her childhood,” says Marci Rosenberg, past president of the museum’s board of directors.

In addition, Miller began traveling unassisted. During a Jewish Federation mission to Israel, she learned from a St. Louis friend, Carol Hellman, who was then volunteering on an Israeli Defense Force military base, that IDF soldiers often lacked such personal necessities as toilet paper, toothpaste, soap, razors, food and transportation vouchers that would enable them, when on leave, to afford trips home to their families.

Reminded of the rationing and deprivation during her own childhood, Miller gathered several friends back in St. Louis. With them, she founded Shaving Israel in 2004. By the end of this year, Miller estimates that through fundraisers and donations, the non-profit will have raised $150,000.

Miller continues to live in a fashionable building of condos, the same

building where she and Milt resided, but presently in a unit with far more sunlight. “I am quite happy here,” she says of her art-filled surroundings.

Snapshots with Milt, their sons and other relatives likewise command attention. Whether copied, enlarged and hanging on walls, or small and tucked into an album, many are the same photos a young Miller rescued from her family’s Paris apartment.

However, for Miller the three framed portraits in her entryway seem the most drenched in emotion.

“They are my mother, my father and my sister,” she explains. Each portrait was painted on a potato sack in the mid-1940s and signed by “J. Lehmann,” a German prisoner of war then held in Langres, France.

The artist worked from snapshots that also included Miller’s two brothers, although Lehmann had time only to paint three family members. The photos were borrowed and later returned to Miller by a Jewish soldier.

Chillingly, this was the same soldier who brought Miller to New York.

The portraits were his surprise gift for her 13th birthday. Miller has bequeathed them to the Holocaust Museum here.

Sandy Silverstein AGE: 90 FAMILY: Wife, Hazel; two sons, Mitchell and Stephen Silverstein; one grandchild HOME: Olivette OCCUPATION: Retired engineer Fun Fact: Even at age 90, Silverstein swims four or five days a week. He also got his nickname,“Bozo,” as a child from his father, who wasn’t too fond of the nickname “Sandy.”

By David Baugher Special to the Jewish Light

For some, membership in the Boy Scouts is a childhood adventure that gives them memories for a lifetime.

But for those like Sandy “Bozo” Silverstein, the Boy Scouts are lifetime.

After all, he’s been involved with them for the better part of 80 years.

“My philosophy of volunteerism is to do those things which are meaningful to you,” said Silverstein, 90, “You are fortunate if any of those things that are meaningful to you happen to be of welfare to the community and useful to others.”

Silverstein encourages others to pursue those passions. The Olivette resident was first a member of the Boy Scouts and later became assistant scoutmaster and, after a period in the service during World War II, a scoutmaster in his own right, a position which, at the time, he didn’t even meet the age limit for. He was still under 21.

“That was the requirement but it was waived because they were happy to have anyone take it over,” he recalled with a chuckle.

It was a position he would hold for more than half a century heading Scout Troop 11 at Temple Israel, where he is also a congregant, a record of longevity that made him the longest-serving scoutmaster in the history of St. Louis County.

By the mid-1980s, he would also

Sandy Silverstein displays a photo of himself in his scoutmaster uniform, at his home in Olivette. Photo: Yana Hotter join the board of an Illinois Boy Scout council.

Even since his retirement in the 1990s, Silverstein has remained active as a merit badge counselor and scoutmaster emeritus, often checking in on the camp during weekend events.

He said scouting teaches good character to children when they need it

most.

“In my experience as a scout leader, I have seen so many, many instances where young men, boys really, have entered the program at a time when they have problems,” he said. “They are children becoming adults and they are unable to handle the transition.”

“I see kids that are on the verge of OY! Magazine - St. Louis Jewish Light

May 2013

41

changing and a program like scouting that I went through as a youth did so many things for me and I see so many of them experiencing the same,” Silverstein added.

He said scouting promotes good citizenship and healthy qualities in young men.

“It’s to teach them something and it is something of interest to them but it gets them involved in the practice of setting goals for themselves and working to them,” he said.

The results, he said, are noticeable in later life. Silverstein has seen his young charges become prominent attorneys, municipal leaders, judges, even a rear admiral in the navy.

“There is a great deal of satisfaction in seeing their accomplishments,” he said.

Alex Lapp, 22, of Olivette, said that he was glad to be a member of the troop during Silverstein’s tenure as scoutmaster emeritus. Lapp still sees the retired engineer having a positive influence on boys through his dedication and friendly smile.

“He still comes out, even if it is only for a few days,” he said. “He’ll still visit the camp just to say hi to everyone.”

Lapp noted that Silverstein’s length of service means he can share with today’s scouts what it was like in the old days.

“He is by far the longest-standing member of the troop,” Lapp said.

“Nobody else even comes close so what he brings to the table, nobody else can.”

Scouting may be a big part of Silverstein’s life but he doesn’t limit himself to only one area of volunteer-

A wall in Silverstein’s basement displays a plethora of the medals, awards and honors he has earned during his decades of service to the Boy Scouts and Shriners Hospital — as well as his professional achievements. Photo: Yana Hotter ism. As a Mason, he eventually decided to join the Shriners and began donating time to Shriners Hospital.

“I was really an admirer of what the hospital did,” he said. “I had visited several times so when I retired the first thing I did was I became a Shriner right away and joined the hospital committee. I didn’t want to be a clown or ride a motorcycle. I just work at the hospital.”

Sometimes he greets visitors in the lobby. Other times, young patients are treated to day trips or barbecue meals.

“So they wouldn’t get cabin fever, we’d take them to the zoo or Six Flags,” said Silverstein. “We also conduct tours and take visiting civic

groups through. It’s a unique hospital and there is a lot to show.”

He also makes sure to take an interest in his alma mater, Washington University, where he helps plan class reunions and is on the engineering school’s admissions committee.

“It’s very obvious to me that the most desirable student for Washington University…is one that has a variety of activities, one that is not introverted into one particular area,” he said.

It’s advice he shares with others.

“Scouting isn’t the only thing,” Silverstein said. “I think it is very important and always encourage people to get involved in other things.”

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May 2013 OY! Magazine - St. Louis Jewish Light

Find out what’s new @ stljewishlight.com

IBRAHIM

continued from page 35 factions, she said: “We talk about it...There has to be a fair solution.

Something has to be done. We have some give and take when we talk.”

The goal, notes AbrahamGoldstein as well as Ibrahim, is to improve understanding between Muslims and Jews, as least in the St. Louis area.

That trip to Israel was an eyeopener all round, the three women said. But it’s Ibrahim who continues to take the steps necessary to extend herself, to explain the tenets of her Islamic faith in the face of what has been a rough period for many Muslims following the terrorist attacks nearly 12 years ago.

When she speaks with people of other faiths, she says the first question that usually comes up concerns the status of women in Zubaida Ibrahim at the Daar ul-Islam mosque.

Photo: Lisa Mandel Islam.

“I am asked, ‘Are women treated like they have second-class sta- “Muslims don’t have a dress code. tus?’” she said. “Women have a right Women have to be modest. That’s all.” to speak, to vote and so on.”

For Ibrahim, the parallels between As for covering her hair, Ibrahim people of her faith and those of the said she did not always do that. When Jewish faith are obvious: prayer to she was rearing her children, she one God, being descendants of wasn’t covered.

Abraham, observance in prayer and “I did not read the Koran then. Now practice in and out of the home, charI read it more closely,” she said. ity (tzedakah in Judaism, zakat in

Islam) should be given without calling attention to oneself and, of course, the killing and preparation of animals for eating and the prohibition on eating pork.

“When I came to the United States,” said Mohammed Ibrahim, “my grandmother told to buy meat from the Jewish butcher.”

Such similarities, in addition to the wellspring of both faiths in the Middle East, give Zubaida Ibrahim hope. She wants to point out the similarities of the two faiths and therefore help to bridge the gap of misunderstanding.

She believes much progress in mutual acceptance could be accomplished if children in schools were taught about the various aspects of religion, whether Judaism, Islam, Christianity, Hinduism or Buddhism.

The problem, she noted, is that teaching religion in American public schools can be tricky and even considered against the law unless it’s taught as cultural history. But she has visited the Jewish day schools here and found a warm reception from students and teachers.

She has hope for the younger generation of Americans, regardless of their faith or upbringing.

“Sometimes the older people want to stay in their own world,” she said.

That’s not where Zubaida Ibrahim wants to be.

Congratulations Rachel You Have Been Our Unsung Hero For Years Your Friends At The Holocaust Museum and Learning Center

OY! Magazine - St. Louis Jewish Light

May 2013

43

ST. LOUIS JEWISH LIGHT TURNS 50

Back in time with the Light

With the closing of longtime Judaica store The Source recently in the news, we browsed the archives for a story about its opening, which we found in the April 4, 1979 edition (above). And since the future purchaser of the store was Chabad of Greater St. Louis, we looked back for a story about Chabad’s local director, which we found in the Nov. 19, 1980 paper, which included an adorable photo of Rabbi Yosef and Shifra Landa with their then four-month-old twins, Chana and Levi, both of whom have since become leaders in local Chabad efforts. Rabbi Levi Landa is program director for Chabad of Greater St. Louis and Chana Novack co-directs Chabad on Campus with her husband, Rabbi Hershey Novack.

In 2013, the Jewish Light celebrates its golden anniversary as an independent nonprofit offering local, national and international Jewish news. To celebrate, we’re carrying a variety of retrospective features, including a weekly look back at some of the people, trends, milestones, culture and even advertising of the Jewish Light’s past 50 years. Capping the year will be the paper’s Golden Light Gala on Oct. 6.

Save the Date!

And join the Jewish Light

October 6, 2013 at the

Ritz Carlton as we celebrate 50 Years serving the St. Louis Jewish community as an independent news source.

Look for details in future issues of your

44

May 2013 OY! Magazine - St. Louis Jewish Light

JUDAICA

continued from page 7 inserting that prayers, dunking and a ritual bath, without clothes, were part of the conversion.

Although McCurry did not pressure her older daughter, Bahtammy (“daughter of my people”), to participate, Bahtammy enrolled in CRC’s confirmation class.

Rabbi Susan Talve, the congregation’s founding rabbi, took her “under her wing,” McCurry says. “My daughter is like, ‘I’m Jewish.’”

McCurry would become a member of the temple’s board of directors. On Friday afternoons, she joined the CRC Torah study classes led by Maggie Duwe.

Occasionally, she voiced one of her concerns.

“Because I speak so excitedly about being Jewish,” McCurry said, “I guess people think I know all the traditional stuff.

They ask, ‘Do you know how to make such-and-such? Do you know all the things about Shabbat?’ When I don’t, I feel a little insecure.”

Not long after, classmate Sarijane M. Freiman (a Jewish Light “Unsung Hero” in 2010), brought McCurry a gift — a bracelet with Jewish stars. Freiman also shared her favorite interpretation of a biblical story. When Moses received the words of God, she said, not only were Jews in the Exodus there, but the soul of every Jew, then and in the future, was present, too.

For McCurry, the bracelet came to symbolize that “in your heart, you’re Jewish.

That’s what counts.”

In the past two years, McCurry has had what others might label many faith-testing challenges. Her father died. Her husband, who did not fully agree with her embracing of Judaism, fell on his head, went temporarily into a coma and was diagnosed with leukemia. He is now in hospice care. Until McCurry’s already elevated high blood pressure landed her in the hospital, she had been visiting him twice daily, every day.

Now she’s cut back to five days weekly.

Through it all, she works nights, primarily for the elderly, as a certified nursing assistant. To walk into CRC, she says, is “like a family embracing me. I hug right back. That’s part of my healing.”

On special occasions, she wears her Star of David bracelet. Like her faith, it comes with a safety latch.

Congratulations to all the 2013 Unsung Hero Award Recipients!

You make a living by what you get. You make a life by what you give. - Winston Churchill

W e a re h on o re d t o ha ve e x per i e n ce d the d e p th of R a c hel M i l l er ’ s ge n ero s i t y . O n be half of E F A’ s c l i e n t s , s ta f f , b o a rd a n d vo lu n teer s , w e tha n k yo u f o r yo u r pa s s ion a te d e d i ca t ion t o o u r m i s s ion a n d t o the f igh t a ga i n s t H I V / A I D S .

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OY! Magazine - St. Louis Jewish Light

May 2013

45

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May 2013

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DEPRESSION  DIABETES  OSTEOPOROSIS  HIGH CHOLESTEROL  BONE MINERAL LOSS  ARTHRITIS PEDIATRIC ASTHMA  HEARING LOSS  BOWEL DISEASE  HEART DISEASE  LOW BACK PAIN  CATARACT  GASTRIC REFLUX  ALZHEIMER’S  ANEURYSMS  RHEUMATOID ARTHRITIS  CEREBRAL PALSY  SKIN DISORDERS  ALLERGIES  HYPERTENSION  SKIN CANCER ANGINA  HEART FAILURE  BREAST RECONSTRUCTION  SPINAL STENOSIS  DIVERTICULITIS  HEPATITIS  DIZZINESS  EMERGENCIES  ANXIETY  SPORTS INJURY  EMPYSEMA  THYROID  SHOULDER PAIN  AUTISM  EPILEPSY  MELANOMA  GERD  INCONTINENCE  CARPAL TUNNEL SYNDROME  THROAT CANCER

When you need a specialist...

Washington University Physicians treat adults and children at St. Louis Children’s Hospital, Barnes-Jewish Hospital, Barnes-Jewish West County Hospital and 35 office locations in Greater St. Louis.

Learn more at WUPhysicians.wustl.edu or phone 866-TOP-DOCS (867-3627)

 EYELID DISEASES  CERVICAL (NECK) PAIN  APHASIA ARRHYTHMIA  HEADACHE  CUBITAL TUNNEL SYNDROME  LIVER DISEASE  CLUSTER HEADACHE  HERNIA  HIP FRACTURE  INFECTION  LUPUS  KIDNEY STONE  ROTATOR CUFF TEAR  BREAST CANCER  SLEEP DISORDER  COSMETIC  KNEE PAIN  DRY EYE  LUNG DISEASE  KIDNEY FAILURE  LYMPHOMA  MARFAN SYNDROME  BURNS  CORNEAL DISEASE  MEMORY  BRAIN TUMOR  MENOPAUSE  CEREBROVASCULAR DISEASE  COPD  SINUSITIS  MULTIPLE SCLEROSIS  NERVE PAIN  COLON CANCER  NEARSIGHTED  NUTRITION  OBESITY  ANKLE PAIN  CERVICAL CANCER  WRIST PAIN  OVARIAN CANCER  STROKE  PROSTATE CANCER  CONGESTIVE HEART FAILURE  INFERTILITY  BUNION

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May 2013 OY! Magazine - St. Louis Jewish Light