ARTS & LEISURE
Volume XXIII, Issue XVII | www.jvhri.org Serving Rhode Island and Southeastern Massachusetts
23 Tishri 5778 | October 13, 2017
Woonsocket congregation to meet Sunday to decide its future BY FRAN OSTENDORF Congregation B’nai Israel, in Woonsocket, like many synagogues in Rhode Island, is facing some difficult challenges. The oldest Conservative synagogue in Rhode Island, B’nai Israel once served 200 member families in northern Rhode Island and nearby Massachusetts with an array of cultural, educational and religious programming, including a thriving Hebrew School. The current synagogue building was designed by Samuel Glazer, an internationally known synagogue designer, and dedicated in 1962. The building is an architectural treasure, with many religious and symbolic art objects, 30 stained glass windows and an ark cover and curtain created by Anni Albers, a world-renowned textile artist and German Jew who trained at Bauhaus.
Now, the dwindling membership must care for an aging building that needs constant upkeep and increasingly expensive capital repairs. The Hebrew school recently closed. And while some programming and weekly worship continues, led by part-time Cantor Jeff Cornblatt, the membership stands at about 65 families, some of whom live outside the area, according to Jeremy Brenner, president of the congregation. Capital repairs are estimated to require $750,000 and ongoing operations for the synagogue require $80,000 to $90,000 annually to cover heat, maintenance, insurance, etc., not including the costs of parttime office staff and clergy. In his Yom Kippur message, Brenner told the congregants that action needs to be taken B’NAI ISRAEL | 2
PHOTO | CHARLOTTE SHEER
Foxborough Regional Charter School students select stamps to use on two HSP stamp collages, “I Am the Last Witness” and “White Rose”
School project to remember Holocaust victims surpasses goal
BY PENNY SCHWARTZ
BOSTON (JTA) – A 9-year-old school project to commemorate Holocaust victims surpassed its unlikely goal to collect 11 million stamps – representing the lives of 6 million Jews and 5 million other victims of intoler-
ance who perished. On Friday [Sept. 29], the eve of Yom Kippur, a community volunteer for the Holocaust Stamp Project at the Foxborough Regional Charter School delivered some 7,000 canceled stamps to the K-12 charter school, bring-
ing the total of stamps collected to 11,011,979, according to Jamie Droste, the school’s student life adviser, who oversees community service learning for the high school. By chance, the goal-setting STAMPS | 14
Author to discuss transformative story at Annual Campaign event on Nov. 5 BY STEPHANIE HAGUE
PHOTO | THORSTEN WULFF
Jennifer Teege
“I have entered a chamber of horrors …. Slowly I begin to grasp that the Amon Goeth in the film ‘Schindler’s List’ is not a fictional character, but a person who actually existed in flesh and blood. A man who killed people by the dozens and, what is more,
who enjoyed it. My grandfather. I am the granddaughter of a mass murderer.” This excerpt from Jennifer Teege’s book, “My Grandfather Would Have Shot Me: A Black Woman Discovers Her Family’s Nazi Past,” tells of the defi ning moment in her life, the moment
she discovered a shocking family secret: Her maternal grandfather was a notorious Nazi concentration camp commander. Susan and Michael Eides, chairs for “An Evening with Jennifer Teege,” encourage “our whole community, family and friends to join in support of the Jewish Alliance’s An-
nual Campaign, featuring this New York Times best-selling author.” Teege will share her transformative story on Sunday, Nov. 5, at 7 p.m. at the Alliance’s Dwares Jewish Community Center, in Providence. CAMPAIGN EVENT | 6
Somerset Auto Group Closer than you think…only 15 minutes from Providence
The Jagolinzer Family Quality Automobiles for 3 Generations 195 East • Exit 4, Somerset, MA somersetautogroup.com 800-495-5337 FREE pick-up and delivery available