3,000 copies of the Trenton Downtowner are bulk distributed in Trenton 12 times a year.
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FREE UPCOMING HEALTH EDUCATION EVENTS
Register by calling 609.394.4153 or register online at capitalhealth.org/events and be sure to include your email address. In-person class size is limited. Please register early. Zoom meeting details will be provided via email 2 – 3 days before the program date. Registration ends 24 hours before the program date.
Dementia: Recognize the Signs
Thursday, November 14, 2024 | 9:30 a.m.
Location: Capital Health Medical Center – Hopewell NJ PURE Conference Center, One Capital Way, Pennington, NJ 08534
Is forgetfulness a sign of underlying dementia or just a normal part of the aging process? Join DR. AHMAD FAROOQ, a geriatric medicine doctor and medical director of Capital Health LIFE (a Program of All-Inclusive Care for the Elderly), to discuss this common question and the cognitive issues we may encounter as we age. A light breakfast will be served.
Maximizing Brain Health
Monday, November 18, 2024 | 6 p.m.
Location: Zoom Meeting
If you’re concerned that you are not as sharp as you used to be, there are steps you can take right now to reduce cognitive decline. DR. RAJIV VYAS from Capital Health – Behavioral Health Specialists will share strategies to keep your brain sharp and reduce memory loss.
the state of the CI t Y
GOTrenton! celebrates one year serving the city
GOTrenton! was born out of community need. “Several years ago, in partnership with the City of Trenton and several community partners, we recognized a problem — a lack of affordable and reliable transportation options within the city and to areas not serviced by traditional transit models. Community members reported an inability to get to jobs, access healthcare, and shop for their everyday needs. We saw this in our own work,” explained Sean Jackson, Isles CEO. Over the last decade, Isles has trained and connected more than 3,500 people to good jobs but a common challenge they reported in keeping those jobs was lack of access to consistent and affordable transportation.
New Jersey is ranked 48th in the country in access to cars in city centers. In Trenton 30 percent of households don’t own a private vehicle, and 21 percent of residents report carpooling as their main mode of transportation to work. These numbers are consistent with other NJ cities which range from 30 percent to 40 percent of families lacking access to
a vehicle.
Additionally, Trenton residents are at risk of increased rates of respiratory disease. Asthma rates for Trenton children are four times the rate for children in the rest of Mercer County, and average life expectancy for Trenton residents is 13 years less than the Princeton Junction average — just 8 miles up the road. Unfortunately, these disparities not only exist in Trenton, but remain prevalent amongst low-income communities throughout our great state.
In response to these needs, GOTrenton! was conceived through extensive collaboration with the City of Trenton, ChargeEVC, Environment New Jersey, Clean Cities Coalition, and other partners, both locally and nationally.
“The GOTrenton! initiative is truly a transformative project brought to life by Isles. Over the past year, it has not only enhanced mobility for countless Trentonians, but it has also set an example of how innovative solutions can tackle multiple community challenges,” said Mayor W. Reed Gusciora. “A few years ago, while serving as the chair of the Environment Committee at the legislature, these are the programs we envisioned. It’s great that when we receive both federal and
state funding, we can implement these visionary initiatives. In Trenton, approximately 70 percent of residents have one car or none at all; GOTrenton! is essential for providing transportation, enabling people to have access to jobs, healthcare, shopping, and navigating our diverse city. This initiative goes beyond transportation; it also aims to reduce our reliance on fossil fuels, lower emissions, and strengthen our community's resilience to environmental changes.”
A van that is part of GOTrenton’s fleet outside of city hall.
model to link with existing transportation — making seamless connections for Trentonians and other mercer county residents working within the county and beyond.
GOTrenton!’s launch was funded primarily by NJ Department of Environmental Protections (DEP) and is the basis for a model for future projects that will promote equitable transportation and the creation of new clean energy jobs in other parts of the state. The GOTrenton! project currently provides a fleet of electric cars and vans operating both demand and fixed route services in the City of Trenton and Mercer County. Initial funding limited the service to only certain parts of Trenton, and the workplace with small ridership. GOTrenton! Consistently reached daily capacity by the third month of operation. The pilot proved to be successful and that the service, in its limited capacity, was far from meeting the overwhelming need in Trenton and beyond.
This fall, funding from the first year of the Mercer County MATIP program, now known as the Mercer County Mobility Innovation Program (MCMIP) is paving the way to expand GOTrenton! mobility options to the entire City of Trenton and rollout workforce and essential services transportation for a larger part of Mercer County. This will allow our micro-transit
In the month of September, GOTrenton! provided nearly 3,000 rides for more than 4,000 passengers. It set a record for rides and passengers in each month of service — with more than 30,000 total rides to date — and these numbers are projected to more than double with upcoming expansion. The program has saved over 20 metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions from being released into the atmosphere. GOTrenton! recently won a 2024 Drive Electric Award from Plug In America, a national recognition of the important evolution of transportation happening here in our great state and the historic city of Trenton.
Trenton has seen firsthand the impact that an innovative transportation model working in tandem with traditional rail and bus services can have on a community. Demonstrating that innovative microtransit models do in fact meet community needs! GOTrenton! Is a model for how environmentally responsible rideshares can have great impact on individuals and whole communities. Upcoming funding is now projected to be statewide, allowing other communities to provide their residents with the mobility and access needed to live healthy lives.
For more information visit linktr.ee/ gotrenton
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You may have heard that New Jersey is requiring utility companies to move to 100% renewable energy by 2035. While that may sound like an eternity, PSE&G has already started the transition by allowing their customers to include renewable energy on their utility account today!
NO ROOF REQUIRED
You may have heard that New Jersey is requiring utility companies to move to 100% renewable energy by 2035. While that may sound like an eternity, PSE&G has already started the transition by allowing their customers to include renewable energy on their utility account today!
NO ROOF REQUIRED
You may have heard that New Jersey is requiring utility companies to move to 100% renewable energy by 2035. While that may sound like an eternity, PSE&G has already started the transition by allowing their customers to include renewable energy on their utility account today!
NO ROOF REQUIRED
• No expensive and intrusive rooftop solar panels required
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• No expensive and intrusive rooftop solar panels required
• No disruption to your PSE&G service
NO ROOF REQUIRED
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• No expensive and intrusive rooftop solar panels required
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To enroll, visit ModernRenewableNJ.com and use Promo Code “HamiltonSolar” to get your $75 Visa gift card! For help, call 609-455-5100 or email us at Care@ModernRenewablesNJ.com.
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With NJ’s highest ranked pediatric orthopedics and urology programs.
We are nationally ranked in pediatric orthopedics at The Bristol-Myers Squibb Children’s Hospital at Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital and in pediatric urology at The Bristol-Myers Squibb Children’s Hospital, Children’s Hospital of New Jersey at Newark Beth Israel Medical Center, Cooperman Barnabas Medical Center, and Unterberg Children’s Hospital at Monmouth Medical Center. And we’re also New Jersey’s largest provider of children’s healthcare.
From primary care to specialized treatments and therapies and in partnership with Rutgers Health, our Children’s Health network provides outstanding care, advanced research and teaching from renowned physicians and clinicians, with an emphasis on the social determinants of health that help to improve the health and well-being of every child in every community. Learn more at rwjbh.org/ChildrensHealth
t renton K Ios K
Artworks exhibit celebrates comic book artistry
Curated by Trenton Artist, Jonathan “Lank” Conner and Final Boss Comics & Games, Sequential/Variants is a two-part show. The exhibition will be displayed for the first time at Artworks Trenton through Saturday, November 23. An opening reception takes place Thursday, November 1, from 6 to 8 p.m. and features artist vendors, a pop-up comic book shop provided by Final Boss Comics in Lawrenceville, and a comicthemed DJ set by DJ ItsJustAhmad.
Part 1 is Sequential: An Art Show Celebrating Visual Storytelling presented in
the main gallery and will consist of artists selected from an open call for comic book-themed and narrative-based artwork.
Part 2 is Variants, a collection of invitation-based original artwork on blank variant comic book covers displayed in the community gallery. Attendees are invited to explore the dynamic storytelling and diverse artistic interpretations on display, connecting with the timeless tradition of visual narratives.
Pictorial Storytelling is one of humanity’s oldest artforms, and sequential art in the 21st century has reached a visual and linguistic high point in the quality of the art and narratives. Sequential is an art exhibition that celebrates the artistry and narrative power of comics and graphic novels, spotlighting original works inspired by heroes, villains, and everyday characters whose stories have leaped off the page and into our imaginations. Comics have always drawn readers with their striking covers, each designed to captivate and invite exploration. Variants takes this concept to the next level, inviting a diverse group of artists to reinterpret their favorite characters and scenes, creating unique cover art that leaps off the page. From bold reimaginings to intricate homages, these works promise to inspire and entice new readers and longtime fans alike.
Trenton Circus Squad presents ‘Get on Down: Look, Lift, Then Leap’
Alongside the exhibition, there will be various programming throughout November including a Princeton Comic Makers Meet-Up on Wednesday, November 6, from 7 to 9 p.m., a Final Boss Comics & Games Book Club on Tuesday, November 12, at 5:20 p.m., and the show ends with a Panel Discussion on Saturday, November 23, from noon to 4 p.m. Celebrate the final day with an academic look at the history and current state of comics and their impact on popular culture. Panel will include faculty from Trenton High School, Monmouth University, comic creators, and Final Boss Comics, moderated by Jonathan “Lank” Conner.
The Trenton Circus Squad fall fundraising performance, “Get On Down: Look, Lift, Then Leap,” takes place Saturday, November 2, at 7 p.m. The performance will be held at the Roebling Wire Works Factory, 675 South Clinton Avenue, showcasing the incredible talents of local youth as they demonstrate the skills they’ve learned through the Trenton Circus Squad’s circus arts program.
“Get On Down: Look, Lift, Then Leap” is not just a performance; it’s a celebration of creativity, resiliency, and community. Trenton Circus Squad Coaches and Road Squad will showcase the artistry of circus performers, featuring thrilling acrobatics, stunning aerial acts, and mesmerizing choreography. This event provides a platform for youth to inspire and give back to others before they take their big leaps in life.
“Our Coaches and Road Squad have worked tirelessly to prepare for this performance, and we can’t wait to share their hard work with the community,” said Director of Operations Regina Mundy. “Every ticket purchased will directly
benefit the Trenton Circus Squad program that not only provides circus skills but also tutoring, field trips, dinner, and other valuable life skills and experiences.”
Tickets, $25 to $40, are available for purchase online. All proceeds from ticket sales will go towards keeping the Trenton Circus Squad’s programming free for all youth, which empowers them through circus training, mentorship, and community engagement.
For more information about the event, or to learn more about the Trenton Circus Squad and its programs, visit trentoncircussquad.org.
Capital Philharmonic continues chamber concert series
To expand the opportunities for its professional musicians to play and Greater Trenton audiences to hear a broader range of classical music, Capital Philharmonic of New Jersey offers four concerts by select musicians held at local Trenton venues. Tickets are $25.
The next in the series takes place Sunday, November 17, at 3 p.m., at Turning Point United Methodist Church, 15 South Broad Street. Led by oboist Melissa Bohl, “Mixed Media: Winds & Strings” features pieces by J.C. Bach, Benjamin Britten, Mozart, and more.
Other musicians performing are Katherine McClure, flute; Chris Jones, violin; Marjorie Selden, viola; and Elina Lang, cello.
For tickets and more information: www.capitalphilharmonic.org.
Juniper village at Hamilton
Five Advantages to Moving During the Holidays
Moving to a senior living community over the holiday season may seem like a difficult decision. However, there are many benefits of a holiday transition!
1 ) Reduced Stress: The holidays can be a hectic time for everyone, but for older adults and their families, the pressure to host, prepare, and maintain can be overwhelming. Senior living communities alleviate this stress by providing staff to handle meals, housekeeping, and other daily tasks, allowing everyone to focus on enjoying the season.
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2) Enhanced Connection with Others: During the holidays, loneliness can be a significant issue for older adults, especially those living alone. Senior living communities offer opportunities
for socialization and sharing with others, which helps to foster purpose and belonging.
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3) Safety and Wellbeing:
The holiday season can pose safety risks, such as falls due to slippery surfaces or poor weather conditions. Senior living communities provide a safe and secure environment with staff readily available to assist with daily activities and emergencies.
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4) Peace of Mind for Family:
For family caregivers, the holidays can add extra strain to already demanding schedules. Senior living communities provide peace of mind
by ensuring that their loved ones have access to the services they need around the clock.
* * *
5) Access to Holiday Festivities and Events: Communities like Juniper organize an array of special holiday events, including festive meals, entertainment, and group outings. These programs provide opportunities to meet new people and celebrate the season in a joyful atmosphere.
Juniper Village at Hamilton, 1750 Yardville-Hamilton Square Road, Hamilton Square. 609-4210300. junipercommunities.com.
Juniper Village
New State Museum exhibit explores the colorful work of Robert Duran
The State Museum in Trenton presents a new exhibition and accompanying publication featuring the work of an artist who spent the latter part of his life working in New Jersey. “Robert Duran” offers visitors the opportunity to trace the arc of Duran’s evolutions and experiments in painting, drawing, and watercolor from roughly 1967 to the late 1990s. The exhibition is on view in the first floor gallery through March 16, 2025.
At statement from the museum explains the following about the artist and the exhibit:
Born in Salinas, California, to a Filipino father and Shawnee mother, Robert Duran (1938–2005) arrived in New York in the early 1960s via San Francisco, where he soon became part of the artistic milieu associated with Bykert Gallery. Originally a sculptor, Duran and his approach to painting offer an alternative to both the hard-edge geometric abstraction and minimalism that dominated much of the 1960s and ’70s in New York. Duran’s acrylic wash surfaces and “color shapes,” as critic Carter Ratcliff called them, at times resemble petroglyphs, and at others take on cartographic or even geological qualities.
Despite a critically successful career
in the New York art world, around 1980 Duran moved with his family to Hillsdale, New Jersey, where he privately continued to develop his painting style. Much of what we know about Duran is limited to exhibition history and anecdotes from friends, family, and acquaintances who can only begin to flesh out certain contours of the artist’s life, often leaving more questions than answers.
Sarah B. Vogelman, the museum’s acting curator of fine art, became aware of Robert Duran and his artwork while researching lesser known New Jersey artists. “I was immediately drawn to Duran’s unique sensibility when it comes to form and color. His experimental and playful approach to both acrylic paint and watercolor set him apart from contemporaries of his era, and still feels fresh in today’s landscape.”
Vogelman continues, “He was part of an artistic community that included some of the most important American artists of the twentieth-century, and based on the quality of the work alone, Duran deserves be to part of that art history, too.” The exhibition seeks to reintroduce this artist to the public primarily through the most significant record of his life available to us: his paintings and works on paper.
The Robert Duran exhibit space at the NJSM, above, and an untitled work from 1970, right.
New Jersey State Museum, 205 West State Street. Open Tuesday through Sunday, 9 a.m. to 4:45 p.m.; closed on all state holidays. www. statemuseum.nj.gov.
Celebrating a century, Adath Israel reflects on its Trenton roots
By Michele Alperin
Acentennial is more than a milestone; it is a testament to the adaptability and ingenuity needed to survive in a changing world.
For Lawrenceville’s Adath Israel Congregation, founded on October 15, 1923, in Trenton, N. J., its 100th anniversary year has been an opportunity to delve into the synagogue’s history, to honor its strengths, and to develop new approaches to ensure a thriving future.
Rabbi Benjamin Adler, celebrating his 10-year anniversary at Adath, used his 2022 Rosh Hashanah sermon to prepare his congregation for its hundredth anniversary, using history to shed light on present challenges and future opportunities.
The congregation laid the cornerstone for its first building, at 715 Bellevue Avenue in Trenton, designed by Louis Kaplan, the architect of the Trenton War Memorial. The building was sold on January 1, 1989.
Jews in 1920s Trenton worried about Jewish survival into the next generation, despite their thriving religious and secular Jewish community: with delis, bakeries, kosher butchers, synagogues, funeral homes.
The 1920s, Adler says in his 2022 sermon, were a time of “deep anxiety for American Jews.” The explosion of Jewish immigration to the United States in the preceding 40 years meant that “many were looking for ways to create a new life and were not interested in Judaism. … Jews wanted to be American.”
Evidence of the anxiety of Trenton Jews appears in a November 2, 1920, letter in the Adath Israel archives that proposes a meeting to discuss creation of a Conservative synagogue in Trenton.
This letter sounds like it could have been written today. Signed by 18 concerned Jews, it asks a series of questions including: Do you not feel deep concern over the fact that Judaism is declining in your community? Are you not chagrined when, on Yom Kippur, more young Jews are in the theatres than in the synagogues?
For the letter’s writers, the solution to their angst is a Conservative synagogue. Adath Israel’s founders, Adler says, “felt that the answer to the problem of Jewish apathy and rapid assimilation was a modern, contemporary synagogue that would appeal to Jews of Trenton in the 1920s.” They were looking to create “an intermediate synagogue,” between the highly observant Orthodox and the far less traditional Reform synagogues, where, for example, men and women could sit together, and prayers would be in both Hebrew and English.
Rabbi Benjamin Adler has been with Adath Israel since 2012.
Just as these 1920s Jews resolved their problems with “a new [Conservative] synagogue that would pray in a different way,” Adler suggests that the 2022 Adath needed self-renewal and increased relevance.
To do so, Adath Israel has instituted changes a number of changes over the last few years.
For the year leading up to Adath Israel’s hundredth anniversary, Friday night services based on the synagogue’s history, two decades at a time, reflected timely music and snacks as well as sermons based on material from the synagogue’s archives that “focused on the struggles and triumphs of the community for those decades; what was going on in the world and how did that affect Adath; and what we can learn because today we are going through struggles similar to theirs,” Adler says.
gogues or social clubs, Adath Israel has also created MOSAIC, a center for arts, culture, and ideas, with a twofold purpose. One, Adler says, is “to reach out to people who are not necessarily interested in membership,” including both Jews and non-Jews. The center also encompasses another role of a synagogue, beyond religious school and worship services. “It is a place to learn and grow as adults,” Adler says.
Jews in 1920s Trenton worried about Jewish survival into the next generation, despite their thriving religious and secular Jewish community: with delis, bakeries, kosher butchers, synagogues, and funeral homes.
Another change has been a monthly, more intimate service in the round featuring young musicians who are teaching the congregation new melodies and, Adler says, “working with us to build a sustainable model so that we can evolve our services ourselves even when [they are] not here.”
Because many people today are reluctant to affiliate with institutions like syna-
women would sit together during services, its first full-time rabbi, Samuel Rosenblatt (the son of the cantor who played himself in “The Jazz Singer”), did not approve of men and women sitting together during services and left after one year.
In 1951, Ruth Sugarman, whose father was the synagogue president, wanted to have a bat mitzvah. The rabbi, trained in Orthodoxy, studied the issue and could not come up with an objection. As a result, the synagogue became egalitarian, and women celebrated bat mitzvahs and were counted as members of a minyan, the quorum of Jewish adults required for certain religious obligations.
After more than 60 years at Adath’s building in Trenton, in 1986, the synagogue made the decision to move out of Trenton and purchased the Lawrenceville property. Despite the sadness of leaving its longtime home, Ruth Sugarman, now chair of the development committee, said in an article in “The Times of Trenton”: “It has to happen. The congregation has to go where the people are.”
Some new programs focus specifically on “finding multiple avenues for young families to be part of the Jewish community,” Adler says. The poster for two new biweekly educational programs this fall for children 0 to 2 and 2 to 4 ½ years olds promises: “Your children will learn to love being Jewish through music, art, cooking, puppet shows, and food.”
The synagogue is also trying to make it financially easy for young families to join, with half-cost memberships for the first two years. In addition, children of all members pay no tuition to attend religious school.
The synagogue has also changed organically over time under the influence of different rabbinical leaders and changing needs.
Although a condition of the synagogue’s formation was that men and
The synagogue suffered an antisemitic incident early on. A sign that announced its move to the Lawrenceville property with the heading, “Future Home of Adath Israel Congregation,” was defaced with Nazi graffiti. But the other Lawrenceville religious institutions quickly stepped in and added their own sign next to the original one: “The Religious Communities of Lawrence welcome our new neighbor.”
In 1988 Rabbi Daniel T. Grossman, who served for 25 years before Adler’s arrival, became Adath Israel’s rabbi, bringing with him a commitment to inclusion for special needs children and access for people with disabilities. He guided the design of the new, barrierfree synagogue building in Lawrenceville. The sanctuary of the one-story building includes a ramp to the bima (prayer platform) and special cradles that allow someone in a wheelchair to take out the Torah scroll. “Our tradition is that everyone uses the ramp, not just the people who need it,” Adler says, adding that Grossman was able to use American sign language during services.
Responding to special needs — whether learning issues, behavioral challenges, or developmental disabilities — continues to be a hallmark of the Adath religious school. “We’ve always been a place for kids who didn’t fit into other religious schools,” Adler says.
Inclusiveness at Adath also comprises welcoming of new congregants, as it did with the March 2010 merger with Ahavath Israel synagogue of Ewing. Part of the official welcoming campaign, called Beit Echad (One House), was a musical celebration where members of Ahavath
Israel walked into the Adath Israel sanctuary under a huppa, like a bride being brought to her groom.
One additional step toward increasing inclusivity has been a change in by-laws to allow non-Jews to become members. This change brought another one, still in process, where Adath has designated a part of its Fountain Lawn Cemetery section for interfaith burials — not traditionally allowed in a Jewish cemetery.
Adler grew up in a Conservative synagogue in San Antonio, Texas, but it was Camp Ramah in California that, he says, was “the transformative part of my Jewish journey.”
“I loved being in this very intense Jewish environment where we were praying every morning, saying the blessing after meals, Jewish learning, and singing — all that was really energizing for me,” Adler says.
In 1997 Adler graduated from Columbia University and started working in the programming department of B’nai Jeshurun in New York City, which describes itself as “a non-affiliated, egalitarian, inclusive synagogue community focused on the power of prayer and music, rooted in love and social justice.”
Having grown up in a synagogue where musical instruments were not part of prayer services, he says, “It was my first time with not just instruments, but a band and really beautiful music that was so different than what I was used to — the experience of being at Shabbat services where there are thousands of people and everyone is singing and dancing. And afterwards, the scene on the steps outside, hundreds of young people talking, shmoozing, and meeting people.”
He met his wife, Lisa, at B’nai Jeshurun, where she was teaching religious
Images from the archives show of the synagogue’s old sanctuary at 715 Bellevue Avenue in Trenton, above left; an April, 1946, Passover seder at the Trenton synagogue, above right; and students from the congregation’s nursery school in 1954-’55.
school and also attending services. They married in 2000 and have three children: Ronen, 21, is studying economics at the University of Michigan; Jonah, 19, started at Yeshivah University this fall. Miya, 15, is in tenth grade at Lawrence High School. Lisa, a social worker, is now chief development officer for the Center for Modern Aging in Princeton. She worked previously at the Jewish Family and Children’s Service of Greater Mercer County and for the Jewish Federation in the Heart of New Jersey.
As Adler worked at Adath Jeshurun on adult education, the weekly newsletter, and other administrative tasks, he soaked in its very contemporary approach to synagogue life.
At the same time he was contemplating becoming a rabbi. But before committing to a career as a Jewish professional, Adler investigated the “for profit” world and worked for two internet companies in New York during the dot com bubble.
“It was an interesting and exciting time to be in that industry, but it wasn’t very fulfilling for me,” he says. So he decided to pursue the rabbinate and was ordained by the Jewish Theological Seminary in 2007.
Adler’s first congregation was the White Meadow Temple in Rockaway, New Jersey, in Morris County, which he describes as an “interesting and quite beautiful community on a lake,” yet “somewhat isolated.” But after seven years he was looking for a change: “I wanted a place with a little bit more opportunity to grow my own rabbinate and
to try new things. Adath, being much more of a regional synagogue, pulling from different communities in different towns, in Pennsylvania and New Jersey, has been a wonderful place for the last 10 years.”
That also goes for Bernice Abramovich, the congregation’s first woman president. If you include her extended family, affiliation with Adath Israel covers an entire century. Her great uncle, Harry Siegel, was active at the synagogue’s founding. When her parents married, “they wanted an egalitarian synagogue where they could all sit together, so it seemed logical to come to Adath,” Abramovich says. Then she and her husband joined 45 years ago when their oldest son was starting kindergarten.
Growing up in Trenton, Abramovich remembers a tight Jewish community. “All of our friends went to the Hebrew school; we would all walk from Junior 3 to the synagogue and stop on the way at the delis on Hermitage Avenue,” she recalls. “We all lived close together. On holidays, the synagogue was an extension of our celebrations.”
For Adler, looking back on his decade
at Adath, he highlights the importance of his connection with the congregation’s children and particularly being there at their bar and bat mitzvahs. “I’ve seen them grow up from being babies to young adults. It’s special for me. I’ve taught them in religious school. I see them at the bus stop to the JCC [Jewish Community Center] camp. I see them in the rest of town. It’s fun; it’s one of the great things about being a rabbi.”
Adath Israel Congregation, 1958 Lawrenceville Road, Lawrenceville. 609896-4977 or adathisraelnj.org.
For the record: Penn & Teller & Trenton
By DAn AuBrey
Before the internationally known illusionists and humorists Penn and Teller used their actual names, they were part of the Trenton-based Asparagus Valley Cultural Society.
As the duo’s silent partner with the singular name, Teller, tells it during a recent telephone interview from his home base in Las Vegas, it was an alignment of personal circumstances, connections, and creative obsessions.
Part of the story is Teller arriving in the region to teach Latin at Lawrence High School.
Although he had spent years honing his skills to become a proficient magician and had training in theater, Teller had just graduated from Amherst College in Massachusetts and saw the opportunity for a job that also offered a deferment from service and the Vietnam War.
The location also enabled him to keep connected to a fellow Amherst graduate and friend, Wier Chrisemer, who had moved back home in nearby Pennsylvania.
“Wier and I were good friends at college. He was in the music department,” says Teller. “And I found music theory particularly fascinating. It is about communicating with an audience without words.”
‘I really have a great fondness for (New Jersey) and grew to appreciate the straightforwardness,’ Teller says. ‘New Jersey people are New York people without the pretentiousness.’
Teller also began to participate in Chrisemer’s Othmar Schoeck Memorial Society for the Preservation of Unusual and Disgusting Music.
The society was designed to highlight the music of a 20th century Swiss composer whose work Chrismer discovered in the university’s radio station library.
As Chrisemer tells writer Calvin Trillin in a 1989 New Yorker article, Schoeck music “was awful. It had no redeeming merit.”
However, as the article continues, “Chrisemer figured that the core of Schoeck’s celebration would be two or three concerts a year at Amherst sponsored by the Othmar Schoeck Memorial Society for the Preservation of Unusual and Disgusting Music.
“The concerts did not go so far as to include any works by Othmar Schoeck. The pieces performed tended to be what Chrisemer describes as ‘arrangements of standard classical chestnuts for different instruments’ — Beethoven’s Ninth for electric piano, prepared piano, saxophones, trash-can lids, recorders, electric bass guitar, nose flute, slide whistle, and chorus of four, for instance, or a Sousa march for a Baroque ensemble of recorder, harpsichord, cello continuo, and krummhorn.”
“The remarkable thing was that it was fun but musically quite great,” says Teller. “It sounded fantastic and made you laugh.”
Teller had studied theater and used his understanding of dramatic structure to help with the presentations and sometimes be part of the production.
He says another performer was a unicyclist, juggler, and Ringling Brothers Clown School graduate that Chrisemer met at a nearby Massachusetts stereo shop: Penn Jillette.
He juggled to Khachaturian’s “Sabre Dance,” says Teller.
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Eventually, Penn also found himself in the Trenton-Philadelphia region when he began a juggling act with a childhood neighbor — the MacArthur award-winning juggler Michael Moschen — and landed a job at Great Adventure. Penn also began working the streets and corners of Philadelphia.
Teller, Chrisemer, and Penn re-connected in the region and resurrected Othmar Schoeck. However, they also found a new project emerging from their interests, personalities, and the dynamics between them.
“Wier was the son of a minister and was very capable,” says Teller. “Out of the three of us, Wier was the funniest, very deadpan, professorial, or clerical somberness, while speaking deep nonsense. Weir saw things from a perspective that you wouldn’t expect.
“Penn was the rocker. My background was in theater and my magic mentor was my drama coach in high school, so you get from me a highfalutin sense.”
The result was The Asparagus Valley Cultural Society, named in recognition to
The internationally known duo of Penn (top) and Teller honed their performance skills as part of the Asparagus Valley Cultural Society, which was headquartered in part in a home in Trenton.
the name of the Amherst region where they all met.
It was formed in mid-1970s, and, according to Teller, was headquartered in their home residences in Lambertville and Trenton, “on Olden Avenue, next to a kielbasa shop.”
A publicity photo of the group has a stamp that links the AVCS to 839 Beatty Street in Trenton.
Despite the group’s wryly banal sounding name, Teller says they worked seriously to develop a show that they premiered in Princeton.
Teller says he helped with designs for a rock group presentation at Theatre Intime on the Princeton University campus and worked out an arrangement to use the theater for AVCS’s premiere.
He adds that they borrowed money from his parents, Philadelphia-based artists, and Penn’s former prison guard father supported folks. Michael Moschen “was the backstage guy.”
Teller says AVCS’s premiere “wasn’t terrible. It had a lot of funny ideas, but it had terrible transitions. The audience would sit in the dark for 90 seconds. The show had a good deal of potential.”
It was followed by something completely different and a league of its own: “The Asparagus Leap for Life.”
As Trillin reports, “In the hope of at-
tracting some press attention, Penn, who had been put in charge of publicity, concocted an appropriately grandiose stunt that was a parody of the spectacular jumps then bringing a lot of notoriety to Evel Knievel, the daredevil motorcyclist. Penn’s stunt was called Asparagus Penn’s Unicycle Jump for Life and was described as an attempt to jump over five Volkswagen Rabbits on a rocket-propelled unicycle.”
As Teller says, “After all the press, the public took it seriously and an audience came to see it. When they saw it was a joke, they started chanting, ‘Bull shit! Bull shit! Bull shit!’ It was catastrophic and everything went wrong; We were trying to find out how far we could go with deadpan humor and found out.”
Undeterred, the performers who committed themselves to making their music-magic-juggling-fire eating-theater Asparagus show a success.
And when the trio found an opportunity to bring AVCS to a Renaissance festival in Minnesota, Teller faced a choice. He could stay at Lawrence High School,
where he had job security, or he could go on the road and live the risk that was at the heart of AVCS.
The solution was a sabbatical.
After the festival the trio was back in the region working various crowds, including those in Headhouse Square in Philadelphia, to support a successful and well received run at one of the Philadelphia’s Walnut Street Theater’s studio venues.
As the notice for their 1977 opening announced:
“Mr. Teller will swallow 100 separate sewing needles, and six feet of thread, and, by series of mildly loathsome muscular contractions, will bring up all the needles threaded, a duplication of Houdini’s famous feat.
“Mr. Chrisemer will lead the ensemble in virtuoso performances of J.S. Bach, Khachaturian, and anon on nose flute, xylophone, accordion, and electric bass guitar, mercifully not all at once.
“Mr. Jillette will tell stupid jokes in a manner little short of offensive, partially redeemed by his skill in such carnival
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As Philadelphia Inquirer theater critic William Collins noted about seeing the production, “There was something extremely unsettling psychologically about the combination of people. That’s what stopped me in my tracks. It had a kind of Pinteresque subtext” — or sense of danger and human unpredictability that was beyond spectacle.
He later wrote that Penn & Teller created “entertainment unlike any other on the face of the Earth.”
AVCS also appeared on the “Mike Douglas Show,” a nationally syndicated show from Philadelphia, and the radio interview show “Fresh Air with Terry Gross,” a nationally broadcast NPR program also from Philadelphia.
Then AVCS caught the attention of a California producer who brought the act to San Francisco, where it broke attendance records at the Phoenix Theater.
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When the show wound down in 1981, Chrisemer decided to return to the East Coast and currently lives in the Trenton region (and did not respond to an invitation to be interviewed).
Penn and Teller then began experimenting with a new production, “
Thinking about his time in the Trenton-Princeton area as well as the duo’s long-term performance in Atlantic City, where they also filmed “Penn & Teller Get Killed,” Teller says, “I really have a great fondness for (New Jersey) and grew to appreciate the straightforwardness. New Jersey people are New York people without the pretentiousness.”
He also recalls something about the Trenton area: The bread pudding and tapioca at Cass’s Diner on Route 1.
Thinking over the phone, he says, “I should have asked. ‘How do you make bread pudding?’”
Perhaps it was made of magic.
An archival photo shows the trio behind the Asparagus Valley Cultural Society: Teller, above left , Penn, and Wier Chisemer.
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