Volume 101, Number 20 www.kcjc.com May 20, 2021 9 Sivan 5781
jewish chronicle The KANSAS
CITY
‘He absolutely loves it’:
Member of local Jewish community thrives at ice cream shop employing people with special needs By Jerry LaMartina Contributing Writer Everybody can use an ice cream now and then. And everybody benefits from a welcoming workplace. That’s the idea — with a twist — behind The Golden Scoop, a nonprofit ice cream and coffee shop at 9540 Nall Ave. in the Nall Hills Shopping Center in Overland Park. The Golden Scoop employs people with intellectual and developmental disabilities in “an environment where our employees are mentored, inspired and equipped to succeed in their jobs and their lives,” according to the shop’s website (thegoldenscoop.org). Sisters Amber Schreiber and Lindsay Krumbholz, along with Michelle Reeves, co-founded the shop, which they opened April 14 after about three years of preparation. Hank Wolf started working at the shop shortly after it opened. He lives in Leawood and has Down Syndrome. He’s 20 years old and a graduate of Blue Valley North High School. Hank attends school every weekday at Blue Valley North’s 18-to-21 program and works at The Golden Scoop after school on Wednesdays, said his father, Paul Wolf. “I do have fun working there,” Hank said. “I love working there because I love giving back to the community, and I love ice cream.” Paul, who is Jewish, learned of The Golden Scoop on Facebook. His wife, June Wolf, emailed the shop
Hank Wolf works the cash register at The Golden Scoop with some assistance from Lindsay Krumbholz, a co-founder of the Overland Park ice cream store, which employs people with intellectual and developmental disabilities. (Paul and June Wolf)
asking about job opportunities for Hank. They said Hank would need to send a resume and interview in person. The Wolfs, both Kansas City-area natives, made a video resume of Hank and sent it to the shop. He interviewed a few days later. He took the interview without his parents in the room. He was a little nervous — who isn’t during a job interview? — “but Hank’ll talk to anybody,” his father said. “He loosened up once it got started. Hank is a workforce veteran. His first job was at a TJ Maxx store in California, hanging up clothes a couple of hours a week. When the family returned to the Kansas City area, he bagged groceries at a Price Chopper. His job at The Golden Scoop is his first in more than a year, and he’s happy to be working again. “He absolutely loves it,” his father said. “He looks forward to every Wednesday. Loves being around people. He’s a salesman. He gets people to try all the flavors. … He’ll come home and tell us what he did.” Twenty-two people with disabilities work at the shop, Krumbholz said. The shop’s founders are “a godsend for all these families, not just us,” Paul said. Having Hank work was the Wolfs’ goal since he was a child, his father said. Their thinking was “let’s get him acclimated, self-sufficient, employed and move on to adulthood a little bit.” The Wolfs have always wanted Hank to be part of See NONPROFIT, PAGE 8
‘It looks dire but I’m hopeful’:
Jewish and Arab coexistence activists respond to the violence in Israel’s streets
By Ron Kampeas JTA
Last week was not easy for Lama Abuarqoub, a Palestinian from the West Bank who has worked for years to build understanding between Israelis and Palestinians. A teacher and mother of five, Abuarqoub speaks regularly with Jews through Encounter, a group that brings Jewish Americans on tours of the West Bank to meet Palestinians. She also been active in efforts to bring Jewish and Palestinian women together to push for peaceful coexistence. Yet on May 12, she was thinking not about peace but about the current
conflict, posting on her Facebook page pictures of two Palestinian youths, one from near her village, who she said were killed this week by Israeli soldiers. It was a sign of how quickly her hopes had fallen. “My first thought was that we’ve been working years and years for building bridges between the two people, for trying to make peace,” she said, referring to her feelings after the night of May 10, the first night of Hamas rocket attacks and Israeli retaliatory bombings. “And it took us years to take, like, three steps forward, and in one night — 10 steps backward.” Those few nights were indeed grim for Abuarqoub and others who work
for a shared society in Israel, as weeks of clashes in Jerusalem have given way to a heated, lethal conflict between Israel and Hamas in Gaza that has spilled over into the streets of many Israeli cities. On May 11, Arab protesters in Lod, an Arab-Jewish city in central Israel, burned synagogues, shops and cars. There were raucous Arab protests in other cities as well. On May 12, crowds of Jewish protesters took to the streets chanting “Death to Arabs” and vandalizing Arab-owned stores. Jews and Arabs in different cities were sent to the hospital with injuries, including one Arab man beaten brutally by Jewish rioters on live TV. And on the night of May 12, the Israeli ambulance service Magen David Adom reported that one of its fleet had been attacked in Lod while providing first aid to somebody there. The unrest continued on the night of May 13 in Israel as well, as a police officer was shot in the Arab-Jewish
city of Ramle. For those who have worked to build ties between Israel’s Arabs and Jews, the scenes offered a stark contrast to others that grabbed headlines over the last year. During the pandemic, visible cooperation between Arab and Jewish first responders and medical staff helped propel within Israel the notion that shared society could work, according to Mickey Gitzin, the Israel director of the New Israel Fund, a group that helps fund a number of coexistence groups. “There was a feeling we were going forward,” Gitzin said. Instead of simply advancing broad notions of equality, NIF recently introduced programs advocating for increased Arab leadership in the public sector. The outbreak of violence, he said, exposed the fragility of the shared society enterprise. “We feel that we’re very successful,” Gitzin said. “And all of a sudden, that See HOPES, PAGE 8